I’d like to share my journey as a retired English teacher currently serving as the CIO and Chief security and privacy officer for Family Health Care in Northwest Michigan. How I got here is a fascinating story, though far too long to condense into one article. Suffice it to say that if an English teacher can become an IT leader, so can you.
I attended my first CDW conference in October 2022. I hadn’t attended a conference in a very long time. I generally find IT conferences to be above my head; I’m not trained in IT and don’t have my hands in IT. I’m a user and a pusher, but not a fixer. That’s also the case for healthcare conferences, since I’m not a medical professional nor do I provide direct patient care.
However, when I attended CDW’s Executive SummIT, I was blown away by the content and walked away energized and ready to move forward on a strategic path that felt fresh. (Since that first conference, I’ve attended twice more and felt the same energy each time.) But, as much as CDW has embraced a diverse workforce, it was alarming to see that so few attendees were women.
I’ve been working in technology since 1997. It’s long been a man’s world. I thought things would have changed by 2022, but I was wrong.
I approached my CDW healthcare account representative, Ben Gentry, with this concern and suggested a story about my own transformation from English teacher to IT chief.
According to some research, women may be shortchanging themselves when it comes job searching, chiefly by not applying for roles unless they feel 100 percent qualified. In contrast, men often apply for jobs they are not fully qualified for, knowing that they can learn. Because of this, I’m certain that there are many capable women who have not advanced into positions of IT leadership because they feel that the men on their team are more knowledgeable.
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