PARK: Women leaders leaving tech industry is important wake-up call
Column: The Queue
First, Sheryl Sandberg left Meta in 2022. Her choice was guided by wanting to dedicate more time to her philanthropic work and her family. Next, Marne Levine, Meta's chief business officer, decided to leave in order to "recharge and prioritize some quality time with family."
Now, Susan Wojcicki, YouTube CEO, announced she is leaving the company to "start a new chapter focused on my family, health and personal projects I'm passionate about."
A common theme with each of these scenarios is that each left their leadership role to prioritize family and themselves. As women and mothers, they climbed to the top of the tech industry and stayed there. After more than a decade in each of their careers, they are now deciding to put their own lives first.
Another common theme: Each leader was replaced by men. Javier Olivan, Justin Osofsky and Neal Mohan have or will be taking over the roles of the women named above.
Women are leaving their workplaces at the highest rate ever, and this is a trend that can negatively impact both their companies and the people looking in from the outside.
This trend is widening the gap between the number of men and women in senior positions. With these high-profile women in executive positions in tech departing and more men coming into their former positions, the number of role models left to the younger generation of aspiring women leaders is diminishing quickly.
The companies themselves are also losing indispensable diverse perspectives that women can bring. Both during and after the pandemic, more women left their corporate jobs.
This is not to say that women like Sandberg, Levine and Wojcicki should not be praised. They have established and led their companies to greatness. For example, Sandberg joined Facebook when it was just a start-up in 2008 and became the second-in-command for Meta years later. Her choice to leave is a massive loss for the tech industry, and I cannot help but wonder if something specific led up to both her exit and the exit of other women leaders.
Executive positions come with high-stress environments and extreme bias. Women, especially women of color, are an anomaly in the workforce, as 88.8 percent of CEOs, CFOs and COOs are white, and 88.1 percent of them are men.
We need women in those top offices.
But in the C-suite (rephrase?), women constantly face microaggressions in school and work. They work twice as hard to gain the same respect as their male coworkers. They are called too aggressive or bossy and are incredibly underestimated in their work. In reality, women bring a vital aspect of diversity, inclusion and mentoring initiatives to their companies and stand as successful examples for younger women.
McKinsey & Company found that women report higher rates of burnout and stress in comparison to men. As a student at Rutgers Business School, I am surrounded by plenty of hard-working women with big plans to work in the finance and tech industries. These are notoriously busy industries that encourage "hustle" and "grind" mentalities.
It is something I got used to while taking business classes and searching for internships and professional opportunities. Now, at the college level, I feel myself getting burnt out with my classes, sports and extracurriculars. One can only imagine what it is like working at Meta or Google while raising a family.
My hope is that with the announcement of these women executives exiting, people do not just see this as an example of people leaving to take risks, but as a sign of a larger problem.
It is not good to be complacent. The sad fact is that the pay gap and gender inequality in the workforce are significant issues and will continue to be so.
Losing women in tech who have climbed up the corporate ladder leaves the sector with a lack of representation in such a male-dominated field.
What is next? Women should not be discouraged. We should continue to see Susan Wojcicki as an example of a success story, but we must continue to investigate why high-profile women leaders are taking a step back. The world risks losing a generation of female leaders if we do not.
We see the ones who work their way to the top leave for other opportunities because they have been overworked and simply because their work there is done.
We are losing our current women executives and leaders. Let us not lose the future ones too.
Annabel Park is a sophomore at Rutgers Business School majoring in marketing and minoring in health administration. Her column, "The Queue," runs on alternate Tuesdays.
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