Enterprise Podcast Network Transcript
Welcome to Enterprise Radio, the signature show of the Enterprise podcast Network featuring some of the most prominent business Professionals in the world today and now your host Eric Dy
Eric Dy
This is Eric Dy and once again welcome to Enterprise radio a part of EPN the Enterprise podcast. Now visiting with us here today is Kim Jones, the CEO and founder of Kim Jones Alliance, which aids women to advance their careers and achieve as much as possible in their chosen field. Kim, thanks for joining us here today on Enterprise radio.
Kim Jones
It’s a pleasure to be here, thank you for having me.
Eric Dy
And the pleasure certainly is all ours, we thank you for taking a moment to be with us here today. So to kick things off – what benefits does Kim Jones Alliance provide to women Executives?
Kim Jones
My business is built on the foundation that when we elevate women in the workplace to achieve their highest professional potential, there are tremendous benefits to our work environments, to workers and to society overall, because we know companies that have more balanced leadership yield better results, are more customer focused and create more engaged and inspired employees.
I have a 25-year corporate career. I navigated my way up to divisional Chief Information Officer for a major Fortune 250 insurance company, and along the way I learned the challenges firsthand that women face in navigating systems that are largely not set up for them and especially male dominant industries like technology and leadership.
As I was navigating my own journey through that process I became particularly interested in what workplaces could look like if they provided more parity and equal opportunities for women so that they could achieve their highest professional potential.
I left my career as divisional Chief Information Officer about seven years ago to build my own company with the foundation being helping women achieve their highest professional potential in the workplace. The work that I do in this area consists of coaching, consulting and education and it combines my 25 year personal and professional experiences as both a woman, a leader and someone who succeeded in male dominant industries as well as my education as an MBA and cultural Anthropologist, that helps put into context the environments that many of the clients that I work with are in, so that they can choose effective strategies to help elevate their own careers.
It’s centered on coaching and consulting. I work with my clients to help them build brands and authentic leadership styles that allow them to not only be successful but to enjoy themselves and have good fulfillment in the process.
Eric Dy
Well, you certainly do have an impressive background and we appreciate all the details to get things here underway and especially talking about the benefits that Kim Jones Alliance provides to women Executives. Now, how do you elevate women in business more significantly than the usual business coach or trainer?
Kim Jones
I do it a little bit differently because of the fact that I have taken on an anthropological perspective. I am a trained anthropologist and what we do in the field is look at how culture impacts behaviors norms and the ways that people generally function in a broader group context. And as part of that I have been spending a lot of time thinking and learning about how the systems of power in organizations impact the trajectories of those of us who are in underrepresented groups.
In addition to having my lived experiences as a woman executive in leadership and in technology I also apply the training that I’ve had on how systems operate within organizations so that my clients understand the playing field that they’re on, that they’re navigating, which is often set up in ways where they have additional challenges, but if they understand what those challenges look like and where bias may exist, they are actually more empowered to choose strategies and tactics that allow them to navigate that more effectively.
So in other words, not taking some of those dynamic personally, they understand how these systems work and what strategies might be helpful to help them navigate through that and then in that process they’re able to create the the skills and the confidence in the strategies to allow them to work within those systems and achieve the goals that they’ve set out to achieve.
That’s a little bit different than how many coaches approach their clients. A lot of coaches and consultant that I know will teach general leadership principles and general behaviors that are effective, but we know from data and from a lot of research that’s out there, that principles alone are not enough to help women operate within environments that look different based on things like gender and other categories that place people in groups where they experience more bias, stereotyping and things that can hold them back or make the climb a bit steeper, so those are areas we focus on in the work that I do with my clients.
Eric Dy
If you would, Kim, tell us about your Academy for women leaders, the stbridge leadership academy, give us some details on that.
Kim Jones
I’m really excited about this! I have been teaching on 21st century leadership skills and navigating work environments in male dominant fields for some time now, I teach a course over at UCLA extension as part of their technology management program on how to build engaging inclusive work cultures and to build the systems for personal success including developing professional branding, creating very strong networks of support, building confidence and executive presence, developing leadership vision and strategies for accomplishing big bold things.
Those are things that I already teach, what I’m looking at launching is an academy that will take that content that I’m teaching as part of other programs, and work that I do, and applying it specifically for women in tech positions who are aspiring to advance in their leadership roles and coupling that with the teaching aspect of it, with group coaching and developing a cohort of strong support that the participants can use to really help them figure out their own desires and goals for their career navigation and support each other in doing so.
Also through the content, the coaching and some work we do around assessments, vision and goal setting. That will be rolling out this summer and I’m really excited to start working with women as they are looking to advance their leadership position, specifically in the field of technology.
Eric Dy
That sounds like a tremendous opportunity to take advantage of and a lot of exciting things coming up this summer. In those regards, we’re speaking with Kim Jones, the CEO and founder of Kim Jones Alliance, which aids women to advance their careers and achieve as much as possible in their chosen fields and she’s joined us here today on Enterprise radio as part of EPN the Enterprise podcast. Now, Kim, also do you think that women are making strides and achieving and being recognized in the workplace? Has anything changed over the last several years ?
Kim Jones
If you look at the statistics, it’s maybe not as encouraging, what we see happening anecdotally, and what I’m specifically talking about is a Global Gender Gap report that came out in 2023 by the World Economic Forum, which indicates that we are still making up for loss ground that happened during Covid, when women were largely exiting the workforce because of caregiving needs or because they, quite honestly, got a little bit frustrated with what they were able to accomplish in the workplace and wanted to make a different decision about their careers.
We saw an unprecedented number of women leaving the workforce and currently we are still making up for that gap.
There is some good news here that women are starting to gain traction here and are being hired at at higher levels than men now, so we’re making up some lost ground, but what we’re really seeing is that we’re not really closing the gap on many of the issues that we know women experience and face in the workplace so that’s the bad news.
The good news is that there are a lot more conversations that are happening around what’s going on that’s creating these dynamics. There’s awareness and companies are starting to focus on this more, we have yet to see their efforts in these areas of diversity, equity and inclusion. We have yet to see those really bear fruit in any kind of a meaningful way by way of closing the gap on pay, leadership representation, women’s promotional and advancement opportunities.
We’re still seeing gaps there, but the leading indicators around the fact that companies are focusing on this and are investing in this, we’re seeing some good signs there, so the real question is – can we start to put what we know into action in a way that generates meaningful change and positive outcomes?
Eric Dy
Yeah, thanks for your feedback on that! That is most helpful and appreciated as well. Now here’s a question for you, I’m sure listeners would like to hear your thoughts here. Why do women in tech Industries have more challenges climbing the ladder than other Industries?
Kim Jones
Two things come to mind. The first is that we unfortunately have a lot of biases that are unconscious about what effective and competent tech workers look like. They are typically younger men, often white or asian and women don’t come to mind.
We’re not the people that are thought of when we ask what good tech leadership looks like or tech workers look like, tech competence, and so what that means is that women who are in these environments are unconsciously thought of as being less competent, less skilled, less capable in these areas.
So when people are in those environments and they’re interacting in their workplaces they’re getting those constant signals that they’re not as competent and the behaviors bear it out they’re less likely to be promoted.
They’re more likely to be discounted for their innovation and other ideas, they’re less likely to be included in the networks that can help support them in their professional growth and all of this results in that by the midpoint of their careers fully 46% of women are leaving tech and the top one or two reasons cited by 66% of them is unfair treatment in the workplace.
So the fact of the matter is that these environments are set up to be inhospitable and unwelcoming to women because they’re not seen in the same light in terms of competence and skill level, so that’s one of the reasons why women aren’t getting as far ahead in tech.
The second reason is because there’s still significant underrepresentation of women in tech across the board. Between 25 and 35% of roles are occupied by women, that is a significantly lower number and I would argue it is quite alarming because tech is arguably the most important industry of the 21st century and women are significantly under underrepresented in all roles and in most companies in the industry, which means that their voices, their contributions are not being fully borne out in the tech space.
So for us to really get behind this issue we need to start to think differently about what women bring to the table in their roles in tech, and challenge our unconscious biases about whether women can do these jobs effectively. All of this to bring in and realize and get a return on investment on the tremendous capital and value that women bring in these tech roles.
Eric Dy
Yes I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and opinions there, that is definitely appreciated, as well for your expertise as we conclude any closing thoughts. A final word, a tip or anything else you’d like to make mention of as we conclude today?
Kim Jones
Some closing thoughts on this one for those of your listeners, who are in corporate environments in tech roles, would be to continue the process of learning how to create a more inclusive environment.
I talk a lot about gender parity, but the reality of it is, if we look at it from a broader issue of how to build and engage in inclusive work environments that benefit all workers, there’s a tremendous return on that investment that companies achieve when they do that.
So for those who are thinking about how to look at this issue beyond the moral aspects of “it’s the right thing to do”… if you really look at the business return on making investments in these areas, they’re irrefutable and indisputable and so for those who are listening, who are questioning about whether this is important or not, I would invite them to think about how to build those environments where everyone can thrive and then be able to reap the resulting business benefits from doing so.
Eric Dy
Once again, Kim, we want to thank you for sharing your thoughts here especially in conclusion and for joining us here today on behalf of Kim Jones Alliance. Where can listeners get further details online on Kim Jones Alliance?
Kim Jones
You can find me on my website at KimJonesAlliance.com and on LinkedIn. My handle is Kim Jones.
Eric Dy
And of course, listeners, draw your attention to the show notes where you can find these links as well. Kim, all the best and thanks so much for joining us here today on EPN.
Kim Jones
It was a pleasure, thank you Eric so much for having me.
Eric Dy
Anytime! Again, we’ve been speaking with Kim Jones the CEO and founder of Kim Jones Alliance which aids women to advance their careers and achieve as much as possible in their chosen fields, and once again, for all the details, visit KimJonesAlliance.com. This is Eric Dy and you’ve been listening to Enterprise radio, a part of EPN the Enterprise podcast Network. Tune in to our live location as we are streaming live 24/7 around the world at EP podcast network.com, you can also find our live stream on iTunes radio and TuneIn radio as well as the TuneIn Radio app for your listening convenience and as always, we thank you for your support and for tuning in, thanks for listening to Enterprise radio. To subscribe to more of our programming visit epodcastnetwork.com. This is the E podcast Network.