Cisco System’s CTO, Padmasree Warrior, is responsible for around two-thirds of Cisco’s revenues, which makes her one of the most powerful women in Silicon Valley. However, the tech industry was not her first choice and she was turned off by how male-oriented the field was. This all changed when she took a job with Motorola and worked her way up to become the CTO in 2003.
Warrior said in Women In Tech that she only had a handful of female colleagues at Motorola and she used to feel overwhelmed. However, she used that skewed ratio to her advantage. “I always tell women that the fact that you’re different and that you’re noticed, because there are few of us in the tech industry, is something you can leverage as an advantage,” she said.
Click here to read the rest of Warrior’s take on how the tech industry has changed for women and how women in tech can handle power.