Global Women’s Journey – a series on female business leaders around the world
Sponsored by Adobe Systems Inc
The second event in the series featured foreign-born young women entrepreneurs who are sparking innovation, launching companies and carving space in the Silicon Valley & around the world!
When: Thu, Aug 25, 6:00pm-9:00pm
Location: Adobe corporate headquarters at 345 Park Avenue, San Jose, CA 95110-2704
Free parking at Adobe visitor’s garage. Entrance at Park Ave. West Tower
Pre-registration & details: https://gwj.eventbrite.com
Moderator: Laura Sydell, NPR
Speakers include:
Aihui Ong, CEO, CTO & Founder of Love With Food
Beatrice Tarka, CEO & Co-Founder of Mobissimo
Michelle Zatlyn, Co-founder, Head of User Experience of CloudFlare, Inc
Poormina Vijayashanker, CEO & Founder of BizeeBee
Yin L. Yin, Intl. Bus Dev. Manager at Silver Spring Networks
Across the world, highly educated and ambitious women are pouring into the labor market.In the next ten years, more than one billion women are expected to enter the workforce or start their own businesses.
Analysts predict that Gen Y women will outnumber men in the professional workforce. In emerging markets, women are expected to be the dominant force taking on increased leadership and expanding their roles in upper management. According to the Center for Women’s Business Research, 10.1 million firms in the U.S. are owned by women and one in five firms with revenue of $1 million or more is woman-owned.
Despite this progress, women share a familiar feeling: it’s lonely for fellow female leaders at the top across all industries.
- How women are shaping the world’s new workforce?
- What will be the leadership models in a workplace dominated by women?
- Who are the women promoting growth & development in the U.S. and around the world?
- What are the current challenges and opportunities facing women regardless of race and ethnicity?
A recent UC-Davis study found that in California women hold only 9.5 percent of board seats and the highest-paid executive positions at the 400 largest publicly held corporations.
This reality gets more complex when race is taken into account.
In the diverse Silicon Valley though, women are playing an increasingly important role in promoting economic growth. Many corporations have been making efforts to accelerate women’s advancement and some women have reached prominent positions both in public and private sectors. Among them, foreign-born professional women who are rising to the top as entrepreneurs, middle or upper level managers.
Read the Patch.com’s article: “Foreign-Born Women CEOs Find Common Ground in the Valley” https://patch.com/A-l24d.
Moderator Bio
Laura Sydell is the Digital Culture Correspondent for the NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. Laura traveled India and China to look at the impact of technology on developing nations.
Before joining NPR in 2003, Laura served as a senior technology reporter for American Public Media’s Marketplace, where she looked at the human impact of new technologies and the personalities behind the Silicon Valley boom and bust. Before coming to San Francisco, Laura worked as a reporter for NPR Member Station in New York.
Her reporting on race relations, city politics, and arts was honored with numerous awards from organizations such as The Newswomen’s Club of New York, The New York Press Club, and The Society of Professional Journalists.
Speakers Bios
Aihui Ong is the founder, CEO/CTO of Love With Food, the easiest way to find tasty deals and free samples, curated by foodies for foodies. She began her love of technology at the National University of Singapore as a CS student. After being offered 7 jobs in the U.S., without hesitation, she began her new journey on the American shores.
Beatrice Tarka is CEO and co-founder of Mobissimo, the travel search engine that helps travelers to find the best travel options across the Web.
A serial entrepreneur, Beatrice brings a blend of Internet, leisure travel industry and consumer products experience to Mobissimo.
Prior to Mobissimo, Beatrice was co-founder and CEO of Axall Media and co-founded France Portage, a press distribution database provider acquired by France Telecom. Beatrice was born in Poland, and is part Italian. She studied in France, has French nationality and makes her home in San Francisco.
Michelle Zatlyn Co-founder, Head of User Experience of CloudFlare
Growing up in Canada, she earned a degree in Chemistry and now applies the scientific method to improving businesses as the Head of User Experience of CloudFlare.
Prior to CloudFlare, she worked at Google and Toshiba, and launched two successful startups. Michelle holds her MBA from Harvard Business School and was awarded the Dubliner Prize for Entrepreneurship.
Poornima Vijayashanker was born in India and moved to the U.S. as a child. She graduated from Duke University with a double degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science. She worked for Synopsys as an R&D Engineer. In 2006 she joined Mint.com as the third employee. In 2010 she left Mint.com to start BizeeBee.com, where she serve as CEO. Aside from being a coder, entrepreneur, speaker, and mentor to junior engineers, Poornima blogs on Femgineer.com, is an avid traveler and foodie.
Yin L. Yin was born in Beijing, raised in Germany, US-educated Canadian citizen
She is Asia Business Development Manager at Silver Spring Networks and is instrumental in the firm’s expansion into new markets.
Prior to her switch into cleantech, she was a Project Leader at The Boston Consulting Group, based in Berlin and Beijing. While at BCG, Yin founded the Greater China Social Impact team, which organizes local community service events that include a mentorship program.
Yin is an alumna of Penn/Wharton’s MBA Program – and co-founded PennYo, the first collegiate Chinese a cappella group, which has released three albums and completed two international tours.
