Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab

Thrilled to take part in the Gender Equity Summit hosted by California First Partner, Jennifer Siebel Newsom and the California Partners Project. It's important to convene, share ideas and support each other's commitment to a more equitable California and world. Thank you for your leadership! We celebrate our long-standing partnerships and collaborations. We are thrilled that the board playbooks we co-created are as relevant and important as they were at launch! https://lnkd.in/gvDr9C98 Onward!

Tech roles can offer high monetary rewards and impact, yet women’s representation has declined since its high of 30% in 1990. To understand the declining representation of women Professor Sharla Alegria attended Tech conferences and interviewed technical workers to understand structural barriers and limiting narratives. In her conversation with the Lab, Alegria shared her findings of a separate yet unequal career path that offered advancement to some technical women yet did not address organizational issues. Instead of a career ladder, this “step stool” moved technical women into project manager roles, with the promise of monetary reward, inclusive teams, better working conditions and a chance to help the team of engineers by leveraging people skills. Yet as Alegria identified, this move is a smaller lift because it does not necessarily lead to the same level of leadership as found in technical roles. Further, it can be a self-fulfilling myth of the dearth of technical women in leadership; as they lean into project management, women often see their technical acumen wane. To find out more, read the article that covers: 💡 Three ways technical women can be moved out of technical roles at various points in their career, from entry level to more senior levels 💡 The gendered and racialized nature of the step stool, as women of color are not offered the same opportunities 💡 The impact on organizations and Tech cultures, which can result in issues going unaddressed As Alegria concludes, when we focus on solving problems for individuals, such as moving technical White women into project manager roles and into more inclusive cultures, the organizational problems don’t get fixed. Instead we can create new problems such as separate, and not equal, career pathways. These short-term solutions may be seen as progress, but as Alegria uncovers, they may instead mask broader problems that require more inclusive organizational solutions. #Tech #CareerPathways #Inclusion #OrganizationalDesign Article written by Hannah Yanow, Ed.D.

Congrats Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow for this recognition of their forthcoming book, "HOW EQUALITY WINS: A New Vision for an Inclusive America."  Yoshino was the inaugural speaker when we launched our corporate work, and we're thrilled to see his ongoing impact and scholarship. https://lnkd.in/g8sTbP7R

Congrats Prof. Ellen Ernst Kossek! Kossek, who is the VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab Fellow at CASBS at Stanford this year, was included in the "World's top 2% of scientists" list! Article published by Purdue University Daniels School of Business: https://lnkd.in/gtKgWCV7

Brava! California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom launches a new California Women's Wealth Advisory Council to help close the gender wealth gap. Low levels of wealth can impact the financial stability, economic resilience, well-being, and access to opportunity, especially for women supporting families. Barriers to wealth creation can impact generations of families. Grateful for this initiative, building on the good work the California Partners Project has led to create a California where women and families thrive. We are honored that the Board playbooks we co-created with CPP, along with support from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, continue to provide free online resources to help boards be more diverse, inclusive and effective. 💡 💡 Board playbooks: ✔️ Board recruiting and diversity playbook: https://lnkd.in/gaD4_mFg ✔️ Board culture playbook: https://lnkd.in/gnaYb__C Advisory Council Announcement: https://lnkd.in/gfDudHRa

Important topic on the AI front: How can we collaborate across sectors on strategies for creating equitable career advancement and professional development pathways within our communities? A few of our Lab folks joined the conversation hosted by Dr. Caroline Simard, Dean of Northeastern University's Silicon Valley Campus and featuring The Honorable Dave Cortese, California State Senator for District 15, Dr. Mehrdad Aliasgari, Dawn Carter, and Dr. Mary Murphy. Importantly, investing in equitable career development and creating cultures of growth will help us forge a bright future where all can thrive. #AI #CareerDevelopment #GrowthMindset #HigherEd

Social networks are the webs of connections between people at work. Many of the connections seem to form organically, without intention. Yet have you ever wondered if the relationships formed within those webs have a larger impact on career outcomes? This is the question posed by Professor Christianne Corbett: How do social networks impact equity at work? The answers are outlined in the article “From Hindering to Helping: How social networks impact equity at work.” Here are some highlights: Social science breaks networks into two categories: ✔️ Strong ties: close, stable, and binding, with high levels of trust and typically including family and friends  ✔️ Weak ties: more superficial links, lacking in emotional investment but understood to generally be beneficial for their value as sources of new information and ideas  After analyzing decades of social science research, Corbett identifies that while strong ties tend to benefit all, weak ties do not. Why? One important factor is homophily, or the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others. Because networks tend to be gender and racially segregated, interactions at work do not spread insights and resources equitably throughout the organization. The bottom line is: Social networks typically lead to better outcomes for White men than for others. Thus, while leveraging social networks is important, how we leverage them makes a difference in terms of whether they help or hinder equity at work. Corbett includes several strategies to promote equity at work, including: 💡 Add structure to social gatherings: Build in intentional introductions and activities to ease the discomfort of free-form socializing. 💡 Intentionally increase proximity: Carefully consider how you are placing employees’ physical workspaces as closeness of workspaces encourage friendship formation and collaboration. 💡 Spearhead efforts from leadership level: Organizational transformation efforts stand the greatest chance of success if top leadership champions the goal and the work. Top leaders tend to be White men. It turns out that White men are the best people to champion diversity efforts because when women or racial / ethnic minority men do it, people tend to judge them negatively. Together, and with intention, we can help social networks truly benefit organizations and the people in them. For more insights like these, sign up for our newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gym-79rV #socialnetworks #equity #connections

Welcome, Professor Ellen Kossek! We are thrilled to welcome Prof. Ellen Ernst Kossek as the 2025-26 VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study int Behavioral Sciences (CASBS at Stanford). Prof. Kossek's longtime commitment to researching work-life, work-family and gender equality make her a distinguished and valuable member of our community. Among her many projects during her fellowship is a book tentatively titled "Democratizing Flexibility" (with Brenda Lautsch) that seeks to foster new insights on how to reboot work-life flexibility policies to improve the quality of working life in the 21st century.  We look forward to your continued research and writing! Read more about Ellen here: https://lnkd.in/gP8Jf-wE

There is no doubt that Artificial intelligence has the potential to impact many aspects of our lives. Yet the question for many of us is whether the impact will result in a more equitable world. This report by the California Partners Project, illumyn Impact and Crunchbase documents the state of AI board diversity. What did they find? More than 40% of these private boards don’t have any women directors. Especially now, in this evolving stage, leadership can strengthen decision making by bringing in diverse perspectives and views. Here’s what the report tells us about AI companies in California: 💡 15% of private company board members are women; 💡 43% of private company boards don’t include any women directors; 💡 Women who serve on private company boards are most likely to hold an independent director seat; 💡 26% of private company boards don’t include any independent directors; and 💡 Publicly traded companies typically have more gender-diverse boards than private companies, but still average only two women per eight-person board. For boards seeking strategies to diversity recruiting and creating inclusive cultures, we partnered with the California Partners Project to create this free online resource: https://lnkd.in/gzQzT6-k Grounded in research and leveraging interviews with dozens of directors, the two playbooks offer doable steps to support boards in doing the work: 🌟 Board Diversity Playbook: Four Critical Steps to Build Transformative Boards: https://lnkd.in/gaD4_mFg 🌟 Board Culture Playbook: Five Strategies to Build Leading Board Cultures https://lnkd.in/gnaYb__C These playbooks can help AI boards improve decision making and perhaps, help us more towards a more equitable society. Report on AI board leadership in CA: https://lnkd.in/dPKBNCjq #AI #boardleadership #boardofdirectors