The Female Lead Read online

  As the daughter of immigrants, I didn’t know people who went to Ivy League schools and I didn’t have any information. Young girls need knowledge and mentoring. Often it is better to have a mentor who is just one step above you rather than ten – someone who can help with basic questions, such as, ‘I want to go to college and major in computer science. Where should I go?’ or ‘I met someone at an event and I want to intern for them. What should my covering letter say and how many times should I bug them?’

  I am a hustler. I am unabashed in my passion for Girls Who Code. I will ask anyone to do anything and will not give up until they say yes. I wanted the CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, to speak to our girls. I emailed him until I got a response. He met with the girls and we are hoping to build a partnership together.

  Coding is like reading and writing. It’s the way in which we communicate and for many jobs, you need this skill set. We want to create gender parity in the computer-science field among graduates, and teach as many girls as we can how to programme. We are well on our way – we’ve taught about 10,000 girls in over 36 states in less than four years. Girls Who Code helped start the conversation about the shortage of women in tech, and now it’s become the conversation that many are having, not just in the tech industry, but in government, across the country and the world.

  We want to create gender parity in the computer-science field among graduates, and teach as many girls as we can how to programme.

  The most important message that I try to impart to girls is about failure and rejection. We live in a society where boys are taught from a young age to play hard and get comfortable with rejection and failure, and girls are not. And so, as we get older, we don’t take leaps in our careers, we don’t negotiate our raises, we don’t start businesses because we’re worried that we’ll take someone’s money and it won’t work out. We don’t run for office – what if nobody votes for us? We’re stifled by our own fear of rejection and failure. I’ve taught myself to get comfortable with it by visualising the worst-case scenario. When I was 33 I ran for Congress against a Democratic incumbent, a woman who’d been there for 18 years. It was a tough race and I got my butt kicked. But to go through that type of public failure was transformative, because I didn’t die – I was still breathing, eating, sleeping, happy and functioning, so it made me stronger.

  The most important message that I try to impart to girls is about failure and rejection. We live in a society where boys are taught from a young age to play hard and get comfortable with rejection and failure, and girls are not.

  It was Hillary Clinton’s concessional speech in 2008 that motivated me to run. I love Hillary, and one of the things that I respect about her is that she gets beat up every day, ten times a day, and fights on because she’s passionate about her convictions. When she gave her speech in a hall in DC, there was a huge crowd and everyone was devastated. She said, ‘Just because I failed doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try, too.’ I was a lawyer working in finance in the private sector. I thought, ‘I hate my job, I am not making a difference, I’m not achieving the ideals I set out when I was young. I have fiscal health, so I can take a more dramatic step – it’s time.’

  I think my toughest fight so far has been to have my son. After my third miscarriage, I was broken. The doctors chalked it up to old age but I started researching and my sister, who is a doctor, dug into my medical records and spotted this antibody in my blood. It turned out that I have a condition called APS. I was getting pregnant easily but, when I got to the eight-week mark, my body attacked the foetus. It was empowering to figure it out and take my health into my own hands. I had to give myself a shot in the stomach every night, which was intense, but I had Shaan and I love being a mom.

  Reshma’s Object

  An A5 notebook. For me, journaling is really important both for my personal and professional life. I have kept a diary since I was a little girl. I write in black and I always have an A5 notebook with me. I even keep one by my bed. Writing helps me to think things out. I write when I am in pain or trying to put ideas together, when I want to remember something or when I am stuck and needing to go to the next place. After I lost my congressional race I was broke, I was humiliated, I was thinking, ‘What do I do with my life?’ I started writing as therapy and that journal was the basis of my book, Women Who Don’t Wait in Line.

  RESHMA SAUJANI

  Founder and CEO, Girls Who Code

  KAT KAELIN

  Kat Kaelin joined the US military as a teenager and was deployed to Iraq before volunteering to join a new initiative that sent women to the front line in Afghanistan between 2011 and 2014. Female Cultural Support Teams (CSTs) operated alongside Ranger strike forces on night raids seeking out insurgents and terrorists. The task of these small groups of women soldiers was to engage with Afghan women, something considered culturally inappropriate for men by the Afghan population, and gather intelligence. At the time, the US military did not allow women to operate in combat roles, but the CSTs, who were attached to different military teams, were working alongside US Army Rangers, were armed and came under fire. In 2013, the then Defense Secretary in the US announced the lifting of the ban on female service members taking combat roles, a policy driven in part by the success of the CST programme. The first female combat soldiers graduated from Army Ranger School in 2015. US Defense Department figures show that 152 US female troops were killed in the Iraq and Afghan wars. Among them were two CST members.

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  I’m originally from a small town in rural Nevada and I joined the National Guard when I was 17 because it would pay college tuition fees, although in fact I was awarded a track-and-field athletics scholarship eventually. My training in the local unit in Nevada was in transportation. I knew I was going to be deployed and I thought I’d get it over with, so I volunteered to go to Iraq. I left on 4 January 2007, my 19th birthday, and got back in the September. My experience there was really bad. The men called the women’s quarters the ‘red-light district’ and we were given a rape whistle to carry everywhere we went. When I got back I slipped into a deep depression, but I did get myself back on track.

  The men called the women’s quarters the ‘red-light district’ and we were given a rape whistle to carry everywhere we went.

  I needed to move on in my life, and a friend sent me a flyer about the Cultural Support Team. I was selected to go on the CST course, and the women I encountered there were all very fit, very determined, very hungry. Meeting these incredible women – to this day I’m still friends with many of them – gave me a huge boost of confidence.

  The selection process included psychological tests, academic tests, debates, foot marches, runs – lots of different elements. Many of the women were from the military police or military intelligence. I thought, ‘I’m a truck driver, I really don’t fit,’ but the sergeant major said your existing job didn’t matter. They were looking for leadership skills and poise. It was nice to hear it wasn’t your job they were interested in – it was you. It was drummed into us that the men saw women as a liability, not fit or intelligent enough to serve effectively. But when we started training with the Rangers to get us set up for active deployment, they were great. Our instructor wanted us to go out and do great things.

  Our regiment missions were direct action, aiming to kill or capture the enemy. A platoon loads onto a helicopter or into vehicles, but at the other end you have to hump all your gear, sometimes miles, to the mission location. So being able to carry your own weight is extremely important – if you can’t do this, it can tear the whole mission down.

  The male soldiers would bring the women and children out as they were clearing the compounds. This is at night, I’m wearing the same gear as male soldiers, and I’m five ten, so I look like a man in my soldier’s gear – just like the soldiers who have come to their home and taken their men away. I had to show I was a woman, and explain I was there to protect them, and just to ask some questions. I would have to take my helmet off, let them
touch my hair and my face, calming everyone down before going through the sensitivities of searching them for weapons – and often the husbands would have given them cellphones or notes to hide.

  Whichever job you choose, you have to educate yourself and continue to learn.

  I found multiple things that were mission-essential. The Afghan women knew way more than anyone thought, and we were finding terrorists more rapidly from the information the CSTs got from women and children. The children are so sweet, you feel so bad for them. A child, no matter what country they come from, is innocent. A big piece of me was left there with the women and children. Their circumstances are so terrible. A lot of the people are farmers who just want to live their lives.

  I wouldn’t say I was afraid, exactly, on my first mission. You don’t want to fail, of course, but it was more that we were venturing into the unknown. There were no baby steps. They threw us in – ‘Here are your night-vision goggles, follow the person in front of you.’ My first fire fight, my legs went to jelly, but then your training comes out and you know exactly what to do. After one of my close friends died on a mission, having to go on that next mission was the hardest. It showed you death is real. It happened to one of your sisters. But fear for me is when my child gets sick.

  For all of us, working in CST was personal. Going into this mission meant working among people who were competent and intelligent, who treated you as an equal because you did your job and did it well. People say that women don’t go into combat but I got off the same helicopter as the men and was shot at by the same guns. We are officially in support roles but we’re out there. Our successful group of women has helped to open things up so that now women graduate from Ranger School, and there are more possibilities in the future.

  I have three daughters and I’ve always thought about what I’d say if they wanted to join the military. I’d tell them to expect the unexpected. Be as fit as possible, because it can put you above the rest and help your reputation. Your peers will know you aren’t a weak link. Whichever job you choose, you have to educate yourself and continue to learn. The military will never be a nine-to-five and you have to adjust rapidly. The main thing in any job is to surround yourself with positive, intelligent people, and there are lots of those in the military. I’m excited for future generations now that doors are opening for younger women. The main reason I left the army after ten years was that I didn’t think I’d be able to feel as fulfilled again as I was by the CST mission. It was a good ending point.

  Kat’s Object

  My flag and unit patch. On all military uniforms you have the American flag on a patch on your shoulder. As well as your flag patch, you have your unit patch Velcroed onto your shoulder, just underneath the flag, so when you’re looking for someone with night-vision goggles, you can find them – of course you can see it in daylight too, but we worked at night. Our call sign was simply the letters CST. The number of women in the military is small, and the number in CST was even smaller, and no one else can wear that patch. Being able to see both my country’s flag and my partners’ call signs was very important. I’m very proud of my country. Being an American has given me the opportunity to do what I did – to be groundbreaking.

  KAT KAELIN

  US Army veteran

  BARONESS GAIL REBUCK DBE

  Gail Rebuck is chair of the publishers Penguin Random House UK and sits on their Global Board of Representatives and the Group Management Committee of Bertelsmann Media Group. She was chair and CEO of Random House in 1991–2013 and a non-executive director of BSkyB in 2002–12. Gail is currently a non-executive director of Koovs Plc, Belmond Ltd. and the Guardian Media Group.Gail chairs the Council of the Royal College of Art, the Cheltenham Literature Festival and the Quick Reads charity which she founded, alongside World Book Day, on behalf of the publishing industry. Gail was voted Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year in 2009; was awarded a CBE in 2000 and a DBE in 2009; in May 2015 she received the Women in Publishing Pandora Award for significant and sustained contribution to the publishing industry and in 2016 was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the London Book Fair. She was appointed a Labour Peer to the House of Lords in 2014.

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  Both my parents left school at 13 and my grandfather, who was a refugee, was illiterate – this wasn’t a bookish family. Thanks to my mother, however, visiting the library was the highlight of my week. Books were there as a constant in my head, taking me to imagined places outside of the here and now. When a teacher said something about ‘when you go to university’ my first thought was, ‘What’s university?’ My parents were quite puzzled – hadn’t I had enough of books?

  At that time, the only way into work for a woman was as a secretary, so after I graduated I did a six-week secretarial course. My first job was as a production assistant in children’s books. I was determined I wanted to be an editor, so I went to the editors in the company and said, ‘I’ll work at weekends, I’ll edit for free, if in return you just tell me what I’m doing wrong.’ After nine months I got a job as an editor in a guide-book company. After three years the CEO was headhunted by the Hamlyn group and he asked me to go with him to launch a paperback division. I was determined to get an editorial job and give it 110 per cent – which is what I did – but I took a risk and also had someone who noticed that I could do more and gave me a paperback list to edit. I went on to be a co-founder of Century Publishing in 1982, a new publishing house which was eventually acquired by Random House.

  As CEO at Random House I used to meet new joiners and I would be so interested in their paths into publishing – and I was often struck that people would want to become commissioning editors, but were waiting for someone to give them permission. My position was always if you’ve got an idea, follow it through and submit it. Just because it’s not your job doesn’t mean you shouldn’t suggest it! My early career was always about breaking down barriers – not waiting for someone to offer me something, but, in an entrepreneurial sense, starting things and being prepared to make mistakes and move on. If you have an idea, follow it through. The worst that can happen is someone says no, and you’ll at least be noticed. Don’t feel stultified by a large organisation that’s inevitably quite siloed and strict.

  This digital, connected age offers young people an explosion of creativity, a fantastic way to express themselves and their vision. Never have the tools been more available. The digital industry is a great democratiser. Young people have finely honed digital and social media skills and are often much better in this field than seasoned professionals who haven’t grown up as digital natives. A number of young women I mentor have risen with electrifying speed in their organisations because they embody the skills that businesses are desperate for.

  The older generation had a mind-set that you go into a job, start at the bottom and diligently work your way up. That’s not how young people see their lives. They are much more flexible, much more entrepreneurial. They come to the workplace with a set of digital skills that are highly prized. When they marry those skills with the millennial sense of self-worth, confidence and passion, they are valued within corporations. And who better than millennials to understand what millennials want to be and consume and how to market to them?

  I think there is a big issue around women owning their leadership power. The act of leadership often comes naturally, but considering yourself a leader does not.

  Leader is a tag that’s attached to me. I think there is a big issue around women owning their leadership power. The act of leadership often comes naturally, but considering yourself a leader does not. Leadership is quite paradoxical – you need a passion for what you do, strategic insight and the ability to inspire and encourage; but at the same time, over the years that I’ve led organisations, my leadership style has had to modify itself. In times of transformation, you have to be directional, at other times more subtle and relational. You need to know when to lead from the front, when to be more visible, and when to follow from behind. An
d you need to know what you can’t do. The worst leaders are those who don’t hire or promote able, challenging people around them. It’s teamwork, ultimately, that drives the organisation – but it’s also quite lonely being a leader. You work with and depend on your team, but the buck stops with you.

  I talk a lot in schools and my advice is don’t give up; follow your instincts; never look back, always look forward; follow your passion and lead a purposeful life. When you find what you want to do, keep focused, and be prepared to fail. And when you do fail, fail fast and move on. Don’t agonise.

  There’s a big difference between my generation and those that followed. We didn’t have a chart ahead. All we had were the unfulfilled dreams of our mothers to drive us on. Our mothers growing up in the 40s and 50s never had the chance to be the people they could have become, for various reasons – social mores, economics, lack of education. We had few role models. What lay ahead was uncharted territory. We just got on with it. Young women today worry a lot more than I remember worrying. Today we have piles of press about failure and how hard it is to be a good mother, to be this perfect executive, and all these examples – false in many cases – of ‘perfection’ and ‘having it all’. Women today are understandably the angst generation. I say ‘good enough’ is excellent as far as I’m concerned. Just do your best. You do have to juggle. It is hard work. But you muddle through – it all works out in the end.