entrepreneur - Sharing Tribe

Be Like… our Founder

maja.schreiner — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 20:26:13 +0000

FIRST PUBLISHED ON 18 AUGUST 2020 BY BRIGITTE HULLIGER and Be like Grace

Dear Maja, tell us about you. Who are you and where are you from?

Maja: I was born and grew up in Serbia, where I also completed my studies in information systems and technologies at the University of Belgrade. Since my early years I was interested in computers and programming and to this day the interest and passion have not waned, on the contrary.

I have been living and working in Switzerland for almost 20 years and I can now call myself a 99% Swiss.

Professionally, I worked for Swisscom as an agile tester and testing lead before I decided to go my own way and start my own business.

In my private life I am the mother of 2 wonderful girls and I am very committed to all women and especially women in IT.

Quite the journey! What valuable advice did you get from your parents?

Maja: Determination (GRIT in EN), courage, and integrity.

Valuable advice indeed. How and when did you get interested in Innovation and Tech? What fascinates you about it?

Maja: The Commodore 64 was the biggest for me as a child. From an early age, I was interested in computers and to this day the interest and passion have not waned, on the contrary. While my brother and friends mostly played computer games, I was more interested in programming and media in general.

I’ve always been interested in technology. Later I wanted to study something with a future and decided on information systems and technology. In my home country Serbia it is quite normal for women to choose technical professions. When I came to Switzerland after completing my studies, I quickly realized that it wasn’t the case here. It bothered me a lot.

That was also my motivation to initiate a Swisscom internal community – Women in Tech & Lead. We are around 100 women in technical professions, network, exchange ideas and increase our visibility at Swisscom. I looked after the community in my spare time for 3.5 years. People are very important to me.

Congratulations on how well you handled that fact. And to have built a community with a 100 tech-women is amazing. What would you say drives you at work?

Maja: For me, solving the right problems for our customers is the most important thing to me.

Of course, following lean and agile principles is also very close to me and if you can quickly see and check the early and first results, my motivation is even greater.

What aspects of your life are you most proud of?

Maja: I am particularly proud of the fact that I came to Switzerland myself after I found a job in a start-up in Lausanne in 2000 (!) And also managed to stay in Switzerland and find the next job, despite the strict rules and quotas for third countries.

Definitely something to be proud of. And what would you say was or is your biggest challenge at work?

Maja: I, unfortunately, have to repeat what so many other women have said already: The biggest challenge so far was actually a few clichéd moments in which I had to assert myself as a woman and as a mother in the technical world until I stopped doing it and learned to profit out of the situation. By the way: I will speak about these learnings and experiences at the Digitaltag in November.

Oh yes, we will talk about that. Can you give a sneak peak: What advice would you give young women in tech and innovation?

Maja: To always stay committed. Get yourself a mentor and a coach and join different networks to keep in touch with others.

At work, always show your results and be brave and persistent.

Thank you very much Maja. Let’s hope young women out there follow your advice. We think it is a very good advice.

Now for the next part, we would like to know, what first comes to mind with the following terms.

Diversity

Maja: Multi-Cultural

Future

Maja: Young generation

Women in Tech

Maja: YES

Algorithms

Maja: YES

Internet of Things

Maja: Cool

Job-Sharing

Maja: My Business. Sharing Tribe.

Health Roboters

Maja: Looking forward to them

Nice. We can see, you definitely are a techie Now, let’s put that to the test with some either…or questions (Majas choice is Highlighted)

Online or Face to Face?

Artificial Intelligence or Human Brain?

Digital or Analogous?

Ballot Box or e-Voting?

Cocktail or Beer?

Career, Family or Both?

That was it! Thank you so much Maja for this interview. You really are a role model for women in tech and innovation. We wish you all the best, especially with your new business Sharing Tribe. Let’s keep in touch and we will see each other in November!

We hope you enjoyed reading about our founder’s experience. If you are intrigued to learn more about the advantages of the job-sharing model then please join our community, post a free job ad on our platform or contact us to make an appointment.

The post Be Like… our Founder first appeared on Sharing Tribe.

The power of mentorship

Spela Hafner — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 14:43:04 +0000

How to help women in underrepresented groups to achieve their goals? What is your inner voice and how to find it? How important is coaching and mentoring towards shaping diversity&inclusion space in the companies and society?

Our special guest, Claudia Bruce-Quartey, who is Account Executive for MuleSoft, Strategic Networker and Motivational Coach, shared with us her experiences and knowledge on importance of mentoring and coaching to become better you as a person and as a leader.

Claudia graduated with a Master’s degree in Public Administration and Project Management from Universite Aix-Marseille-Université and earned her Bachelor’s in Political Science BA at the Leibniz University Hannover.

As a youth mentor and motivational coach, it has always been her aspiration to help people find their inner voice and light despite their current situation. Claudia believes in mentoring and her greatest reward is seeing the person in front of you as a much better version and taking honest steps towards their goals.

During our webinar we heard some great insights from Claudia on mentorship & coaching and how to become a great leader:

Q: How to find your inner voice?
A: Our inner voice presents our skills & powers: how can a person be more and do more to achieve goals. And this voice needs to be nurtured and mentored. Good mentor is able to help one find herself/himself as a person and find herself/himself as a leader. Be aware of what you are bringing to the table and nurture it.

Q: What is the difference between coaching and mentorship?
A: Coach can help you understand what your strenghts are and who you are. Mentorship can go beyond that: mentor can help you build a big picture about yourself and make you work harder for yourself. She/he shapes you and helps you understand what kind of player are you becoming on the field.

The responsibilities of outcome lies on mentee. Think about what you want out of the situation and go into it with the end goal in mind. Acknowledge where you stand in your life and match your mentor towards your goals.

Q: How can one see herself/himself as a leader?
A: When you impact the people and you change people’s lives, you are leading. If you want to become a good leader, you should ask yourself when leaving the room: what do I leave the audience with.
Leadership is a fluid journey: you have to nurture your skills and your emotions. If a situation makes you too emotional, take these steps: keep quiet, retreat, come back to get the power back over the situation.

For the conclusion Claudia gave great advice: The power belongs to you. If you cannot apply the power at one place, find another to apply it.

The post The power of mentorship first appeared on Sharing Tribe.

Mentorship initiatives support Diversity & Inclusion

Spela Hafner — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 18:53:52 +0000

You can read everywhere about the importance of Diversity in organizations of all sizes. And when companies invest in Diversity & Inclusion to drive talent retention as much as to drive business outcomes, they are likely to be better performing, to be more agile and to be more successful.

It is difficult however to link Diversity & Inclusion initiatives to business outcomes and to measure their impact on revenues and profits. Though when employees believe in the commitment of their employer to diversity and feel included, according to Deloitte Research report^(*), innovation increases significantly.

So, how does Mentoring programs or Mentorship play and contribute to the Diversity & Inclusion initiatives and to the success of an organization?

Mentorship does foster a sense of belonging hence of inclusion: you are part of a broader program or initiative and you have a more neutral ally to help you move in the organization or develop your strengths.
Mentorship does help to expand one’s network: you reach out to new business areas, new department, you benefit from a more senior mentor who can help you get connections you might not find easy to make.
Mentorship does help to get the reassurance and the confidence that female workers more often seek: again here, you are not alone facing your questions or business problems to solve and you can discuss in a neutral and safe way.

In the past years, I have seen how important and essential a Diversity initiated Mentorship program was perceived and received, equally by our HR teams and by our employees. Not that business-driven Mentorship program would be less important, but clearly we realized that our open mentoring program cross business and geographies created for women with any type of experience and of all ages and regions did help them break the barriers of (1) networking, (2) career evolution and (3) reaching out of their comfort zone in a safe way and solving problems by providing informal relationships with a structured framework.

So, my recommendation is clearly to go for it, always and whenever you have a chance to join such a program! And never forget that you can always be a mentee and/or a mentor in a mentorship program. There is so much to learn from being either or!

Author: Marie-Amelie Masnou

Marie-Amelie has been leading the EMEA Women Impact Network (WIN) as well as the Germany WIN for many years while at HP. A flagship initiative of the Women Network supported by HP Global Diversity & Inclusion has been its Open Mentoring Program reaching out to hundreds of participants across businesses and spanning across many countries in EMEA for many years in a row.

^(*) Deloitte Research report

The post Mentorship initiatives support Diversity & Inclusion first appeared on Sharing Tribe.

Entrepreneurial DNA

Spela Hafner — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 20:48:42 +0000

What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? Why are women less likely to believe they have what it takes to be entrepreneur?

Our guest speaker, Ingeborg Gasser-Kriss, who is a Senior Innovation Advisor, Board member @ SV Group and Alver World and Co-Director at Founder Institute Zurich, shared with us interesting insights into characteristics that correspond positively entrepreneurial success.

These are the main traits:

1. Professional Experience = be a master of your domain.
2. High Fluid Intelligence = be agile and quick to change; don’t be attached to what you think – mental agility.
3. High Openness = seek experiences, knowledge, change; be open to new things and to feedback.
4. Moderate Agreeableness = be able to balance collaboration with conflicts.

We also learned main reasons, why do startups fail:

1. The founder gives up.
2. Team that doesn’t work together.
3. Company not growing fast enough OR growing too fast.

The post Entrepreneurial DNA first appeared on Sharing Tribe.

Sharing Tribe is launched

Sharing Tribe — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 10:06:04 +0000

My name is Maja and I am a part-time working mom in tech.

I draw my inspiration from 20 years of hands-on experience in IT and a proven track record in software development, agile leadership, and product development. I’m an energetic, enthusiastic and optimistic person who seeks pragmatic solutions even in difficult situations.
Through the active engagement with diverse women in tech networks, I gathered lots of practical insights that I want to channel into a purposeful and meaningful future of the flexible workforce.

A month ago I’ve embarked on a journey to fulfill my long-lasting wish to become an entrepreneur. By joining the Founder’s Institute world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator program, I know and feel I’m at the right place where I will learn, strive, grow, and ultimately succeed.

With my startup, I want to enable businesses and candidates in a job-sharing model.

My vision is in the building of a vibrant, supportive and learning community and fully digitizing the recruitment process for the part-time and job-sharing positions. Businesses get access to an untapped and flexible talent pool and start generating higher revenue thanks to increased innovation potential.

Candidates get access to job sharing positions, learn from each other and find a job-sharing partner for their dream position so they can build an efficient and long-lasting workforce.

I am currently focusing on customer development.
The research shows that by not experiencing a balanced gender diversity 20 % of qualified women in tech leave their jobs which leads to a dry labor market and women not exploiting their potential to the fullest.

Also, many tech companies can’t find enough qualified data scientists and they are usually searching for a “one size fits all” type of candidate that is very hard to find. They simply don’t know where and how to solve this problem.

Furthermore:

Unemployed qualified women in tech, e.g. data analytics, engineering, and data science, are not sure how and where to search for a part-time job.
Lots of tech companies plan to increase the current low percentage (often less than 10 or even less than 4 %) of female and gender diverse workforce in technical positions.

After I’ve validated the customer problems and assumptions and prioritized my work towards solving the most acute problem, I will start working on the first MVP (minimum viable product).

Thank you for your time,
Maja

The post Sharing Tribe is launched first appeared on Sharing Tribe.