WIT Blog

New Executive Sponsor Randy Roumillat Stops in for a Surprise Visit

On Thursday, May 17, WIT hosted a speed mentoring event with Tammi Kroll, VP of Production Operations and Olga Braylovskiy, VP of Corporate Applications. While Tammi and Olga rotated through two groups of participants, questions and themes were similar; discussions tended to center on effective means of finding a mentor, the meaning of work-life balance, and how fear tends to be the thing that keeps many women from achieving their ultimate career potential. The new executive WIT sponsor, Yahoo!’s CIO Randy Roumillat also made a guest appearance.

On the subject of mentorship, both Tammi and Olga spoke to how they feel formal mentoring programs tend not to be the best approach for finding mentors. For Tammi, finding mentors is more about observation and adopting styles and traits of people who you find inspiring or are doing things the way you would like to do them. Olga pointed out that “formal mentors” tend to fail because relationships tend to feel forced. Instead she advocates for

Denise Rabius teaches "Visibility with Influence"

Women in Tech partnered with Learning & Development to host a fun and engaging “Let’s Do Lunch – Executive Presence for Women.” The event was led by Denise Rabius, Executive Coach, Leadership consultant, and instructor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Denise teaches “Interpersonal Dynamics” at Stanford, which is an elective course but 90% of students choose to take it. It’s been ranked among alumni as one of the most valuable courses they took. We were honored and thrilled to have Denise join us at Yahoo! for this special Let’s Do Lunch.

After grabbing their lunches, approximately 40 women settled in and mingled while Denise kicked off the event. Her message focused on a few key points to help women increase their ability to promote themselves as leaders in the workplace. Being smart is not enough – it’s important that people perceive us as likeable and most importantly, authentic.

• Visibility
  • Be present – we’re all busy and have a lot on our minds, but make an effort to be

Elissa Murphy speaks to the audience at WIT's kickoff event
Women in Tech was thrilled to have Kristen Robinson, SVP of Human Resources, as the keynote speaker at our 2013 kickoff event. We were also excited to hear from our executive sponsor Elissa Murphy, VP of Engineering Cloud Engineering Group, who joined forces with Kristen for a fun, informal Q&A session that attendees found very engaging.

The event began with over 50 women settling in with delicious catered snacks and getting to know those sharing the tables with them. Co-presidents Kim Capps-Tanaka and Tabitha Paturi kicked things off by giving a brief overview of Women in Tech, took a look back at WIT’S 2012 successes, and looked forward at what WIT has in store for 2013. Events to look forward to include more Let’s Do Lunch‘s, speed mentoring, a wine and chocolate social, and the annual Grace Hopper Conference.

Next we heard from our executive sponsor Elissa Murphy. She’s been an enthusiastic, always present supporter and we are always thrilled to have her attend events. She started

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Kim Capps-Tanaka introduces the panelists

On Wednesday, Women in Tech hosted an information session about the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the world's largest technical conference for women in computing. As a non-engineer, I confess that I expected to just sit in the back and take notes as your humble reporter, but I was really swept into the excitement, and I left with an appreciation for just how inspiring and important this conference is.

The conference itself is a ways out -- it will be held in Minneapolis from October 2-5 -- but this meeting raised awareness for the March 15th deadline for submitting proposals for papers, panels, and posters. We want to be sure to have Yahoo!'s talented women well represented at the conference, and to that end, we heard from past conference attendees, Yahoo! executives, and even the director of the conference itself. Our panelists included:

• Elissa Murphy, VP of Engineering at Yahoo!
• Kristen Robinson, SVP of Human Resources at

If you're still working on your annual self-review, you're in good company. I'm still putting the finishing touches on mine, and I have list of requests for coworker feedback that I'm also chiseling down on. With deadline looming, I thought I would share some advice from Yahoo! leaders about the process.

Last week, Women in Tech gathered a panel to talk about the process, offer tips about how to write an effective self-review, and share what the review process really accomplishes. We were grateful to host the following esteemed speakers:

• John Matheny – SVP, Media & Commerce Engineering
• Rusty Berg – VP, Service Engineering - Platform & Data Services
• Alison Hu – Talent & Organization Development

Here are some highlights from the meeting, for inspiration. You can also keep them in mind in our next round of self-reviews, in Q1. Enjoy!

How much time should you spend on your self-review?

Our panelists agreed that no matter what else you might have on your plate, your self-review is

By Alexandra McClelland

On September 27, Women In Tech's Burbank chapter enlisted the help of five leaders for a discussion on work/life balance:

• The panelists: Julie Hsu, Stacy Desilets, Michelle Leong, Charity Rieck
• The moderator: Melanie Larsen
• Event Organizers: Jenna Maskell and Sarah Rosas

The event had an energetic start. After our panelists introduced themselves, the questions and answers began. We jumped right in to the first question: Is work/life balance possible?

The panelists dug right into this difficult topic! Stacy pointed out that at Yahoo!, we are encouraged to "work smarter, not harder". This certainly helps in achieving a work/life balance. Julie gave us two words to remember: organization and prioritization. She also emphasized that you must communicate often and make your needs known to others. Charity spoke on the importance of strategizing, and Michelle suggested a system of planning out your time with a "what can I get out of the way first?" philosophy, so that

Vivek Sharma chats with participants

Vivek Sharma chats with participants in one 5-minute mentoring session

“Speed mentoring” is an evocative name for an event. Is there anyone who hears it and doesn’t think of the venerable institution of speed dating, and possibly an awkward two-minute conversation with someone entirely incompatible with you? The big difference between speed dating and speed mentoring is that in the latter, you can completely control for the quality of the people on the other side of the table – and in its popular annual event this week, Women in Tech did just that. The WIT committee enlisted the participation of ten exceptional executives for a hour and a half devoted to short, small-group mentoring sessions:

• Rusty Berg, VP, Service Engineering, Platform & Data
• Olga Braylovskiy, VP, Corporate Applications
• Dean Chabrier, VP, Talent & Development
• David Diangson, Director, Business Development, Yahoo! Mobile
• Kevin Doerr, VP, Mobile Products
• Suresh Hosakoppal, VP, Chief of Staff, Technology & Operations