Girls Who Code CEO: 'We have to treat talent the way that we treat football teams'

Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, joins Yahoo Finance's Alexis Christoforous and Julie Hyman to discuss advancing women in the tech industry.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: You know, in a year especially hard on working women, the corporate world can hail one major milestone-- a record 41 female CEOs are slated to soon be running Fortune 500 companies. That's a great number, but clearly there is still a long way to go. And the numbers show that gender parity is simply good business.

According to Catalyst, Fortune 500 companies with at least three female directors have a 66% higher return on invested capital, a 42% higher return on sales, and a 53% higher return on equity. Pretty impressive numbers there. And while 50% of our workforce is made up of women, they occupy less than a third of the jobs in technology.

Joining us now to talk about that is Reshma Saujani. She is founder and CEO of Girls Who Code. Reshma, good to see you again, and thanks for being with us. I just ran through a whole bunch of numbers there. Why do you think there is such a wide gender gap when it comes to digital jobs?

RESHMA SAUJANI: Well, I used to think it was a pipeline problem. 10 years ago, when I started Girls Who Code, I heard from tech CEOs what I want to hire women. I want to hire people of color. I just can't find them. And so, 10 years later, we've taught over 300,000 girls to computer program, reached millions across the world. If you look at computer science classes, across the country, you're now seeing almost 35% to 40% of the graduates are women. So it's no longer a pipeline problem.

Yet, women are still not getting hired, nor when they are, they're not getting supported. Almost 50% of women in tech under the age of 30-- I mean almost-- I should say, 50% of women in tech under the age of 35 will leave within the first couple of years. So there's a huge attrition problem that we have to solve, and that's a culture problem. Women are not supported. People of color are not supported. All nerds are not welcome in Silicon Valley. And so, that's the work that we have to focus on now.

JULIE HYMAN: Reshma, it's Julie here. So it seems like really, if you're talking about a cultural change, it has to come from the top down. And as we know, even though, as Alexis pointed out, the number of Fortune 500 CEOs are increasingly women, in tech, it's much lower numbers, right? And so if the change is coming from the top, what are the leaders who are in place need to do to change the tone of the conversation, to change the policies at their companies to make this overall change that we're talking about?

RESHMA SAUJANI: Listen, I mean, Google knows what I had for breakfast this morning. So you're telling me that these companies can't get to gender parity if they really wanted to? You know, we have to treat talent the way that we treat football teams, which is, we have to go out there and look for it, find it, and have real numbers for success.

What I want to have tech CEOs is have real goals. We will get to gender parity by X year by doing Y things. And we, as a society, need to hold them accountable for it. Too much is at stake. We're never going to solve cancer, climate, or even COVID, if we don't have women and people of color sitting around the table. It matters too much.

If we're really going to do innovation well, if we're going to do it fairly and justly, we need to know that people are sitting around the table who look like you and me. And that's not happening right now. And it's not happening because the talent is not there. There's just not a commitment to bringing that talent on.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I know that you have a pretty big goal at Girls Who Code. You're on track, you say, to achieve gender parity in computer science by the year 2030. So I got news for you. The clock is ticking, right? We're in 2021. How do you plan to do that, and how could those in corporate leadership positions sort of use what you are doing as a blueprint?

RESHMA SAUJANI: So, like I said, we don't have a pipeline problem anymore. There are millions of young girls across the country now that are learning to code, and that want to be hired by these tech companies. Now the onus is on these tech companies to change their culture. And the work where we're focused on at Girls Who Code is that workforce, is putting that pressure on, making sure that women, when they do get hired, are supported, and that CEOs really have real goals and are rooting out that bias.

And so I think we have to constantly have these conversations. And we can't allow them to talk about it like it's a pipeline problem anymore, because it's not. The other thing that's really important-- and I've been doing this personally-- is, like, you know, I've had to realize that maybe these companies can't change. Maybe when cultures are built without women, without people of color, that they'll never become equitable.

And so now we have to fund the next generation of talent who are going to build the future Facebook's and Google's and Uber's out there, and we have to invest in women and people of color to make sure that they will. Because I have no doubt that they do create companies that are equitable and that are fair, where all nerds are welcome. And maybe that's where we need to focus our work.

JULIE HYMAN: And, Reshma, I know you also think we need to focus our work on government and on policy and on changing things at that level as well. Certainly we're looking at an administration that is quite diverse, both in gender and people of color. And you've called for what you call a Marshall Plan for moms. Now, as part of this latest aid package, it looks like there is going to be an increase in the child tax credit, but structured so that people will get monthly payments if they are parents. How far does that go towards what you're looking for and what more do we need?

RESHMA SAUJANI: Listen, we're excited. We really tapped into that populist mom's movement, and we activated women and men across the nation to say enough is enough. We won't be treated like America's social safety net. And so, we got that child care tax credit done. And I see it very much as a down payment on the Marshall Plan. It is one step in the right direction of acknowledging our unvalued labor and doing something about it so that women can get back to work if they so choose.

So it's a step in the right direction. But we still have so much more to do. We've lost 30 years of progress of women's labor market participation in nine months. Think about that. That should terrify us. And here's what. You know, schools are still not open five days a week. We still don't have an affordable child care structure where you can get child care if you need it. We still haven't passed paid leave, right? We still have far too many women that found themselves in jobs that weren't pandemic proof.

And we have to do more to retrain them and to put them back into the workforce. I worry that when companies open back up, their motherhood penalty is going to be even more severe. So it is so important, again, for us to collectively keep our eyes on this demand that we shorten the economic recovery for women and for mothers, so we, again, can continue to march towards the innovation that we were-- that was happening in this country before COVID-19 happened.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Reshma, when you look at the tech industry and there's a lot that goes under that umbrella, what is the one thing, the one change, the one crucial thing that needs to happen today to start closing the gender gap.

RESHMA SAUJANI: I would like to see real quotas, you know, real, like, commitments. Like, I want Google to say just like I've said. By 2030, I'm going to close the gender gap in computer science and tech. Hold me accountable. I want Google to say 50% of our engineering workforce is going to be female in the next five years, and then go do it. Go hire talent all across the world to get there. I want people to lay down some bold claims and to make some change. This incremental change, adding a half a percentage point every year, it's not good enough. In fact, it's shameful.

And I think, given, again, what has happened in this economic recovery to women and to people of color, we can no longer wait. I'm excited to see some of the activism that's happening in big tech. The fact that people are asking real questions about culture, about who's being supported, about whose voices are being silenced, many of those countries or companies are simply broken. And it's time for us to make real change. And I, as an activist, am going to hold them accountable.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: You certainly are. Reshma Saujani of Girls Who Code, thanks so much for being with us today. We appreciate your time.

RESHMA SAUJANI: Thank you.