Defining leadership through mentorship and a strong network

Andrea Schulze understands the importance of mentorship when it comes to fostering more gender diversity in the tech industry, especially up to the leadership level. After 18 years at Toshiba, Schulze has climbed the tech ladder to VP and CIO, now overseeing and managing a diverse global team of around 80 employees.

As a transformative and supportive leader, Schulze strives to maintain a fair approach in equality and transparency, fostering trust within the team, and attributes mentorship as a major contributing factor in developing her IT leadership career.

Having achieved her positioning in the industry, Schulze prides herself on building high-performing and efficient teams, and maintaining a focus on working together cohesively to achieve results.

“I invest a lot of time in identifying team members’ strengths, even if they’re sometimes still insecure about that strength,” she says, noting she encourages her employees to embrace mentorship and to stretch their abilities through new opportunities.

Identifying mentors and seeking advice

Schulze recognizes that representation of women in tech is still lacking, and there still aren’t enough women in the field, especially at the leadership level. To remedy this, she believes the industry needs to continue to focus on building stronger, diverse leadership panels, and maintaining continuous mentorship and sponsorship programs.

While she feels fortunate to have had strong female leadership at Toshiba, Schulze knows that isn’t the case for many women in tech. During her career, she says she was lucky to have strong representation of women leaders, and both male and female mentors who helped guide her career path.

“I think that’s why I enjoy mentoring others so much as well, because of the things that shaped me and what I have learned,” she says. “If there’s anything I can carry forward to the next person, then that feels really fulfilling and rewarding.”

She also highlights the importance of indirect mentors she looked up to and had ongoing dialogues with, identifying ways to build her own leadership style. She went directly up to one, for example, to ask how she could one day be in the same seat. This leader took the time to talk to Schulze about her goals and how she had found a path to leadership herself. For Schulze, this was invaluable, and had a significant impact on her future career development.

Leading and building diverse global teams

One unique challenge Schulze faces as CIO of a large global team is finding ways to build performance, even with members across nearly every time zone. Once a month, she organizes an all-hands for the IT department, including contractors, where they cover technical topics as well as introductions to get to know each other better.

While it’s a challenge to schedule a time each month that works for everyone, she says, there’s a lot of value in them to build strong team camaraderie. It’s also helped everyone better understand diverse backgrounds, what everyone’s contributing, and how the team can lean into those strengths and overcome challenges.

While finding ways to coordinate meetings and team building with a wide-spread team, Schulze also sees her diverse department as an advantage, with a focus on equity. It can work at close to 24/7 —  a valuable asset in an IT environment where a crisis can strike at any time.

During a conversation with another female CIO at a recent Gartner CIO forum, Schulze and she noticed a decline in résumés from women candidates. While there are different reasons for this drop off, they knew the candidates were out there; they just weren’t making it through a filter somewhere along the hiring process.

To remedy this, the other CIO started requesting that HR send résumés that have candidates of every gender, ensuring there’s an equal pool to pull from. It doesn’t change the way they ultimately hire, however, but it ensures there’s a more level playing field for candidates. This inspired Schulze to do the same.

Confidence to take risks

Schulze says it’s vital for women in the tech industry to build confidence and take chances on yourself, even when it feels like a risk. For example, early in Schulze’s career, she saw an opportunity open after her IT director moved onto another company. Rather than wait for someone to tap her for the role, she directly reached out to the CIO and put herself forward as a potential candidate.

“I took the initiative to write what I would call a value proposition email to my then CIO to position myself and showcase the value I’d bring as an IT director,” she says. She also shared her views on different critical strategic matters the department was currently working on navigating, to demonstrate she had the aptitude for the job.

While she wasn’t sure how it would land, it grabbed the attention of the CIO, who had never seen this approach before, and opened the dialogue for Schulze to be a candidate. She decided to push past any insecurities or fears, and go for a position she didn’t necessarily feel totally qualified for, but ended up landing the job.

Schulze knows not everyone feels comfortable stepping out of their comfort zone, but as a leader, she wants to set that example for her employees. She identifies opportunities for growth and advancement, regardless of background or experience, and helps them tap into their potential.

She understands it’s difficult for women to break through the boys club mentality that can exist in tech, and the challenge to fight stereotypes around women in IT and STEM careers. In her own career, Schulze had to apply herself extra hard to prove her worth and value, even when she had the same answers as her male counterparts. But she never got discouraged or deterred from tech, focusing instead on positive role models and mentors to help guide her.

“Sometimes we don’t put ourselves out there because of the fear of rejection and negative feedback, and that’s why it’s important to build a strong professional network,” she says. Along with that, Schulze distills her advise for women in tech to seek mentorship, be confident, believe in your abilities, and don’t be afraid to take on new challenges.