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For the bulk of Nicola Morris’ formidable 20-year career, she’s been the only woman in the room. That’s largely because she’s worked primarily in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, where women account for just 22% of the workforce and leave in large numbers each year. Nicola now serves as WEX Inc.’s chief corporate development officer and president of emerging markets, but before that she spent many years in the internet and telecommunications industry.
In a recent interview, Nicola recalled that she would go months without attending a meeting where another woman was present. And she used to think nothing of it because it was so common. She also wasn’t uncomfortable working in those male dominated environments. She attributes this in part to her days as an undergraduate at Wellesley, the private women’s college that Hillary Clinton famously attended. “The misunderstanding is that the women who come out of single-sex schools don’t know how to work in a male-dominated world,” says Nicola. “Actually, the opposite is true. I graduated not noticing that it’s a male-dominated world. It never occurred to me that I shouldn’t speak up in a room full of men or shouldn’t have a seat at the table because I’d been speaking up and had an equal seat for four years.”
Today, she is surprised that these male dominated fields haven’t actually changed more. At a recent industry conference, she noted that there were only three women present in an auditorium full of more than 100 men—a reality that Nicola now not only recognizes, but internalizes. “It can feel pretty lonely pretty quickly,” she says.
For Nicola, it took coming to WEX to fully appreciate the importance of attracting and retaining women to tech-intensive industries. The rapidly growing payments technology company employs roughly 50/50 men and women and is run by a female CEO, Melissa Smith, and an executive team that’s comprised of several women. Now an advocate for improving the workplace for women in STEM fields, Nicola shared how other companies can continue to increase female representation within them:
It’s no surprise that women are underrepresented in Nicola’s sector since few American women are graduating from college with STEM degrees. Just 35% of bachelor’s degrees in STEM are held by women, and for women of color, the percentage is even more miniscule (less than 5% of black women, Latinas and Asian women graduate with a bachelor’s in a STEM field). Nicola says that’s because the educational bias starts early, lowering girls’ aspirations for science and engineering careers.
A personal experience recently drove this home for her. Recognizing her high-school-age daughter’s aptitude in math and science, Nicola encouraged her to apply for a summer engineering program at the University of Maine. Her daughter quickly protested that she wasn’t interested in engineering.
That is, until Nicola pulled up the program’s website and said, “Really? You wouldn’t like to do this and this and this?” Her daughter ultimately agreed that the program sounded cool, attended it and has had her eyes opened to the world of engineering. “As many advantages as she’s had and as much opportunity as she’s been exposed to, she still had no idea what engineering was and how much it aligned with her talents,” says Nicola. “So when I think about people who are less advantaged and who don’t have someone exposing them to the opportunities, it’s easy to see how so many girls come to assume they wouldn’t be interested in fields like engineering. It made me realize how much more intentional we need to be.”
At Nicola’s company, a program called CodeX brings children of both sexes from the local Boys & Girls Club to the company’s headquarters in Portland, Maine to teach coding skills to kids ages 8 to 13. She emphasizes that corporate and community programs like these can help girls overcome the stereotype that they’re not as good at math and science as boys.
At WEX, there is an active mentoring program for both men and women. In addition, female employees are encouraged to build their network through the Women at WEX group, which meets quarterly to discuss career pathing, leadership, work/life balance and other pertinent topics. At the last meeting, a panel of successful women from outside the company spoke about what it’s taken them to thrive in male-dominated industries.
What else can be done to keep women from dropping out of STEM in droves? Include them in the informal “buddy networks” that men fall into more easily, says Nicola. She explains that women are less likely to get invited to play a weekend round of golf, for instance, or to be included in after work drinks or dinner. And it’s not just about being invited but also about recognizing the constraints that women often face and often wouldn’t even be able to attend if included. While Nicola doesn’t have any answers on how to solve this dynamic she thinks that both men and women in a STEM organization need to be educated on why this type of inclusion matters and on how to create a structure and community that empowers women to succeed in, and stick around in, their field. It’s especially critical to cultivate this awareness among managers and supervisors.
Nicola shares that it’s also important to equip women with mentors (male or female), something that WEX does through its formal mentorship program. After all, when asked why they’re leaving STEM, women say it’s because they feel isolated in hostile male-dominated work environments, receive poor executive feedback and have a lack of effective mentors.
Full article may be found on Forbes.