Break Through Tech’s Post

Removing barriers for women in the workplace isn’t just about fairness—it’s about creating systemic change that benefits everyone. 🌟 This insightful interview with the amazing Renee Kuriyan Wittemyer from Pivotal, featured by The Economist Impact, highlights key strategies for addressing workplace inequities. Key takeaways from the interview: 🔹 Caregiving responsibilities are a key barrier: A 16% increase since 2019 in women citing caregiving as a factor holding them back underscores the need for workplace flexibility and support. 🔹 The "broken rung" effect: Women face a significant drop-off in promotions to management roles, with caregiving and inflexible job structures driving the disparity. 🔹 Toxic workplaces persist: Harassment, violence, and bias disproportionately impact women, especially those in vulnerable or lower-income brackets. 🔹 Pivotal’s approach: Investments focus on scalable innovations, policy changes, and fostering women’s participation in AI and tech innovation. 🔹 A call to action for leaders: Policymakers and business leaders must prioritize removing barriers for women, ensuring their advancement is foundational to the strength of our economy. Break Through Tech is proud to partner with Pivotal to tackle these challenges by equipping undergraduate women with the skills, experiential opportunities, and supportive community they need to succeed in tech. As a beneficiary of Pivotal’s recently announced $150M commitment to remove barriers for women in the workplace, we’re energized by this investment to advancing systemic change. Together, we’re showing that change is not only necessary—it’s within reach. Pivotal Ventures #RemovingBarriers #WomeninTech #WomeninAI #BreakThroughTech https://lnkd.in/gUBq6hMU

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Michelle Burdette

Senior Project Manager | MSCTL Graduate UW School of Engineering | Relationship Building | Commodity Management | Lean - Continuous Improvement | Critical Thinking | Systems Integration

2w

This is an important societal issue especially regarding the toxic workplace and "broken rung" effect where we may assume that the reason women face drop-off in promotions to management roles is driven by males when in fact there could be a deeper issue at play. In some cases, other women seeking the validation of men, can sometimes sabotage other women in the workplace, a phenomenon often referred to as "Queen Bee Syndrome," where women in leadership positions undermine or hinder the progress of other female colleagues, stemming from insecurities and competition due to perceived limited opportunities at work. The root cause may be driven by lack of available opportunities taken by male collogues...not enough to go around, tying in the toxic workplace. We need to change the reward system in corporate culture from competitive to collaborative and inclusive. These issues are critical to solve in root cause analysis and create new social norms in the workplace.

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Hi Renee, whats a good email contact for you? Mine is monicagandok@hotmail.com Can we connect?

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Olivia Rutman, CTP

Leader | Innovator | Speaker | VC Backed Founder | Childcare Expert | Top 40 Under 40 | 3x Boy Mom | CEO at Kids Care Finder | Seasoned Sales Enablement and Training Professional

2w

How can companies apply to receive some of this funding if we are innovating in this space?

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Judith Spitz, Ph.D.

Breaking down barriers so that women can break through in tech | Founder, Break Through Tech | Former CIO at Verizon

2w

What a strategic mind Renee Kuriyan Wittemyer has and what an honor it is for those of us at Break Through Tech to be able to work with her!

Anshul Sonak

Head and Global Director - Intel Digital Readiness Programs I Education Technology Leader I AI Skilling | WEF Education Alliance 4.0 | Government Affairs | Oxford I IRMA | MIT SOLVE Judge-Mentor

2w

Awesome

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Allison Goldberg

President, Merck Foundation; Executive Director, Global Impact Giving, Social Business Innovation at Merck

2w

Awesome to see, Renee!

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