Latest / SisterSmart Leadership / 37: Rising Up & Creating More Gender Balance in Male-Dominated Industries with Sumi Singh of Microsoft

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37: Rising Up & Creating More Gender Balance in Male-Dominated Industries with Sumi Singh of Microsoft · SisterSmart Leadership

0:00
Jill: How can we change the gender balance in traditionally male dominated fields?
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The tech industry is one that's been known to be male dominated.
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I have a lot of clients in the tech industry, and some of them feel
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very daunted by this problem, often wondering if they'll ever get a chance
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to get the recognition they deserve.
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So I'm so excited to have this conversation with a leader in tech that's
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been a change agent in this way, and to learn more about what's happened.
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to help her be more successful in her career.
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Jill Avey: I'm Jill Avey, a career success coach, and this is Sister
0:29
Smart Leadership, the show that explores how women can rise from
0:33
director to vice president and beyond by fully leaning into their feminine
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energy as their biggest advantage.
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Let's get you one step closer to the recognition and promotion you deserve.
0:44
Jill: Sumi Singh is the Corporate Vice President of
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Engineering for Microsoft Teams.
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She's had an amazing career with Microsoft for 26 years, originally
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starting at Windows and then moving to the office business.
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And now she's been with the Teams unit for two years.
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I met Sumi through one of our Sisters in Leadership members, and she
1:02
had worked for Sumi several years ago and recommended that we talk.
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My client had been with Microsoft for 14 years at the time that she started
1:10
working with Sumi, and up to that point, she'd been the only woman on the team.
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And when Sumi left, she had women three levels above her and still does today.
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And that means a lot to her because it's really changed her environment.
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As well, there's a much better gender balance on the teams themselves.
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She noticed this all started to change when Sumi became their leader.
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As you can imagine, I was excited to talk to her and hear about how
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she brought this kind of change and how we can learn from her experience
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to advocate for and create better gender balance in our organizations.
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So, Suvi, I would love to hear from you how you did this.
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How did you change the gender balance under your leadership?
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I know it happened a little bit organically, but there was also
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some intention that you had
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Sumi: Yeah.
1:53
Well, first and foremost Jill, thank you very much for having me here.
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And thanks to our common friend and your client who recommended that I come here.
2:03
The question that you asked It is,
2:05
the tech industry is definitely a very male dominated industry.
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I think back to when I first joined Microsoft and I joined Windows and there
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were just very few women and in some ways you almost got you got numb to
2:17
that fact, like I never really noticed.
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I stopped noticing how few women there were.
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But when I was the leader in Office and when I became what in those days was
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the development manager and then the group engineering manager I used the
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opportunity whenever we had openings, especially for my directs, my leadership
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team, I was extremely intentional about the kind of candidate that I would
2:41
bring in because They would set the tone and culture in the team and it,
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it sometimes took longer but you again have to be very intentional and patient.
2:54
First and foremost, I want to acknowledge that by myself being a woman in tech, it's
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easier for me to naturally attract other women, or at least get them to be curious.
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But then I also cast a very wide net I was patient, and I heavily leveraged
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my senior women's network, as well as there are distribution groups in
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Microsoft for women I advertised my job postings there talked to a lot of my,
3:20
other women leaders across the company for referrals and I think showcasing my
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team's success and supportive culture.
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That's like, it's not just me going and seeking out good candidates,
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but even the candidates coming in and asking, why should I come here?
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And for them, it was important to see that the team I was
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in or the way I ran the team.
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There was a very supportive culture and, we led with inclusion.
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And so that was, I think that was one of the reasons I was able to
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attract a broad range of candidates.
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And I want to say it's not just women, I almost think the number of
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women is a proxy metric for how open, collaborative, you know, So it's not
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just, attracting the right women, but attracting, honestly, the right kind of
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candidates that I wanted for the role.
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And once you have one, it's always hard to get that first woman
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direct to that first leader.
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But once you have them, it creates this virtuous cycle, right?
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As more women joined the team, it naturally attracted even
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more talented women and that flywheel just sort of continued.
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And, very proud to say at that point under my leadership, we achieved a 50
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50 gender representation in my direct leadership team, which is almost
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unheard of, at that time, at least.
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Jill: And I love that you were It wasn't just, didn't turn into all
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women, we're not trying to, take over that you were really looking for
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balance and really including everybody.
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And then that worked really well for you.
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And I think another point that I wanted to highlight here is you're
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advertising how the team was doing.
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And, so the, you know, you're going to perform well here and it's going
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to be a great culture to work in.
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And so then that can help attract people more.
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What are some of the skills that you saw women bringing to these
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roles that you were looking for?
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Sumi: So while these skills are not unique to women the women do have many
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of these, especially collaborative skills, interpersonal awareness, all of
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the things that I think leads to a very strong team dynamic and team environment,
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which, Honestly the stronger and more diversity there is in the team, the better
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products we build right at the end of the day, it makes complete business sense.
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And I definitely saw that with women.
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The other thing
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I like to talk about is, the power of the collective.
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That's really important to me.
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There is no singular person that has all the best ideas or all the best.
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And I feel that women.
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Excel at bringing together people with these diverse perspectives
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and harnessing them in a good way.
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It's not just consensus oriented, you know, be, I don't want to fall into
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the stereotype of women are consensus seekers, but it's about how they
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harness these diverse perspectives.
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And I think what I've seen work, right, Women are, again, anybody
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who has these, who is able to build up these collaborative teams, they
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have really good listening skills, and active listening skills.
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And the commitment to continuous learning, growth mindset, making sure
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we are always learning, evolving, and that really enhances our decision
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making and overall innovation.
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So, It's, and I've seen this work in practice, right?
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And while these are, again, as I said, these are all soft skills that
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are naturally attributed to women, I would also, remind it's not just these
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soft skills, the other thing that At least I look for, and which many of my
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women directs are amazing at, is, the ability to dig in deep where needed,
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get their hands dirty in core and all the technical decisions that leading
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from the front, being part of it, it's not just you're delegating or giving
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orders, you are working with the team.
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I think those are some, and engineers very much value that, when you
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speak their language, when you're in it, in the details with them.
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So, I think those are some of the skills that I think really help.
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Jill: Yes.
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I've seen all those strengths in women too.
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And there's a study that showed that women have, that actually women outperform
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men and 17 out of 19 leadership skills.
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And the two that are at the bottom are strategic thinking and technical skills.
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And I actually want to challenge that because I think women are very
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strategic, can be very great at technical skills, but it's just maybe
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not always what we're talking about.
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Have you ever seen that?
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Yeah,
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Sumi: I mean it's a known fact like that's why I made it a point to call out
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the fact that women are technical, they are down in the details there because
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there's usually a perception of women are just great at the soft skills.
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Women are great collaborators.
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They drive decisions.
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There have been studies done, right, externally, and I've
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seen this internally also.
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Even when you write about someone's promotion, the way you write about
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the kind of impact that you write about for a woman and what you write
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for a male, it's a little different and it's unconscious biases there.
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Like, you'll see terms like collaborator, brought people together,
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drove this across York for women.
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And then for males, you said like, delivered single handedly
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architected and all of those things.
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And this came across even recently that there was someone who actually was took
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a look at, and, especially using now that we have large language models and
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everything, took a look at a vast swath of promotion justifications and pointed
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this out and, you know, across the team we intentionally looked at those and
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made sure that we were not falling into that trap and not falling prey to that.
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Jill: of research and really looking at that because these little things can make
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Sumi: Yeah.
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Jill: in someone's career.
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Sumi: Exactly.
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So, yeah, changing the narrative a bit.
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I don't think it's that women are only one or the other.
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Nobody is women or men.
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Right.
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But it's, it's making sure that all sides get the visibility and all the skills
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get the visibility rather than honing on just this, like, women, of course,
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are really great at collaboration, but that's not the only thing that they do.
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Jill: yeah, right.
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I also love that you were mentioning that the men that you hired as
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your leads also had these skills.
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And so we're highlighting that men can do this too.
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It's not just women and, and really valuing these skills,
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as a whole and saying, this is something that we're looking for.
9:16
Yes.
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Women are great at it, but you know,
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Sumi: Yes!
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Jill: can be as well.
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Sumi: Yes.
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Now, in fact the males on my team, they specifically, like, I attracted
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them from other places and they specifically spoke about this aspect,
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which is, this is a, it's not like men don't like that kind of environment.
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They were seeking that out and it was just great to see that.
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And that's why I say, when you look at DNI efforts, usually like the
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metrics you'll have is you'll count.
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Okay.
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How many women are on your team?
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Like how many other, across other ethnicities and things like that.
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And those are great, but again, like it's important to see, like, those
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are, as I said, proxy metric for what makes a good collaborative environment.
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It's, that is not the only goal, right.
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That just feeds into having a better team.
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Jill: Yes, I love that.
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And you also mentioned using your network for finding people.
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I would love to hear a little bit about what your network is and how
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you've developed part of what we're talking about this season is is
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our network and our support system.
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And so I'd love to hear a little bit about that from you as well.
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Sumi: Yeah, so I would like to say it's happened very organically for me
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for the most part especially in the early days whether it was my managers,
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whether it was some peers that I was very influenced by some other senior
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women leaders who looked out for me.
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or made sure I got the visibility that I needed.
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It all happened very organically.
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But it wasn't until I grew, went up the leadership chain that I realized that I
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needed to do this much more intentionally.
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It was also around this time, the great thing is, especially in the
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last five to seven years, or even more than that This has become a topic
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we talk about quite often, right?
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And we don't just talk about it for the sake of talking about it.
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We actually, there's a difference, and I attribute a lot of this
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to when Satya came on board at least Microsoft, the way I saw it.
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And I think there's there's a great Articulating what diversity inclusion
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and then belonging means, right?
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Articulating what is needed for it.
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And that is sort of where the support sponsorship and allyship.
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Those are the three things that become really important.
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And that is where I started first, me internalizing that vocabulary,
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which I know existed, but you know, we never explicitly spoke about it.
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And then intentionally trying to see where I was leveraging, whether for
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myself or providing it to someone else.
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So, we have across the org, not just my team, but across the org, our leadership
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actually puts different mentoring circles, leadership circles, specifically for,
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bringing together women from across the company, women from across our
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org, and those were some of the places where I formed the best connections,
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actually getting to talk to women who were maybe sometimes face the same
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struggle as me or who you know, like minded people who wouldn't be them.
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I also have to say, like, I'm not someone who is very intentional
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and who like plans out everything or who's had a lot of problems.
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Like, I'll just be very honest.
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I like to say my career happened to me rather than the other way around.
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But it was just great to connect with other women of that kind and share
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our learnings, share our frustrations sometimes, and just form this allyship
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for how we help each other and get along.
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So
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Jill: not every company has, the breadth people that Microsoft does.
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So it's it's something that people can plug into, like what you have.
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So that's really fantastic.
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as you've moved up through your career, what are some ways that you've
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had to push yourself or where have you had to grow through your career?
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Sumi: Yeah, that's an interesting one.
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As I said Initially, at least till I became a dev manager, group
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engineering manager, opportunities sort of kept opening up.
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I did not have to go and ask for roles or ask for the next promotion,
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I did great work and I was rewarded and when opportunities opened up.
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I got them and that all worked great until I became a partner at Microsoft and I had
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been enrolled for a while and there was this itch of like, what's next for me?
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What should I do?
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And I realized that was the first time where there wasn't
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something just falling in my lap,
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as you keep growing, the funnel narrows in terms of the number of roles and
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opportunities that are available.
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And I realized that I needed to be more forthcoming or to let my manager
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and my skip level know what I wanted.
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And I'm not naturally a person who goes and asks for this.
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So the first time was hard mustering up the courage to do that.
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But I'm just so glad I did it because at that time I went and
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spoke to my skip level manager.
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About what was happening across this org and what were the kind of positions that
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were available and what he thought of me for those positions and it was interesting
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because I realized that He did not know that I was seeking something bigger or
13:55
something more or something where I wanted to grow in my span of control or, take on
14:02
more organizational leadership challenges.
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He thought I just wanted to go deep technically and continue in there and so
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that, to me, that was like an aha moment.
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I'm like, If I don't speak for myself I'm saying no to myself because
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how are they to know what I want?
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And so that was turning point for me.
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So I definitely started becoming more intentional of making people aware of
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what I'm looking for You know, and so as it so happened, two months after I spoke
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to him, there was a position that opened up, which was reporting directly to him.
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It was a director role, and I was the first person he
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called, I took on that role.
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And then similarly, I was doing a back end, growth infrastructure
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role, fundamentals role out there, and I was having a lot of fun.
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But then that looking ahead, right, I was completing four years, and we have our,
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call connects, which is our twice a year.
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Where we do.
14:51
Feedback and perspective and reviews with our managers.
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And I was doing that with him and I thought a little and I'd put down
14:57
like, I'm having fun, but next year I will be coming up on my five year mark
15:01
and maybe I want something different.
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I, maybe I want to go back to, doing more products that are user facing.
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This has been exciting, but, and I put it out there and That was great because
15:13
again, those things get discussed at, our executive vice president level.
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And when this new team's role opened up, again they called me.
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That was the first person they called me.
15:23
So, the thing that I've taken away from this is Be very open
15:26
with what you're looking for.
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Be planful not like completely orchestrating every little thing
15:31
because things fall in place when they fall in place, but at least making
15:34
sure that people are aware of what you want and where you want to go.
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So that's a lesson that I've taken.
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And that's a lesson I give a lot of my mentees.
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Jill: that there's a way to do that without saying I'm unhappy
15:45
where I'm at and I've, I'm leaving, it's just like, you're thinking
15:48
about your next steps and here's a direction that you'd like to head.
15:51
Sumi: absolutely.
15:52
Absolutely.
15:53
Yeah.
15:53
I was like, especially with my last role, I was very happy
15:56
and I was still growing, right?
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it's not to say, but then thinking ahead, because I had realized how hard
16:01
the, the more you go up the ladder, The funnel just keeps narrowing so much.
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So that is why you have to start thinking a little further.
16:08
When you're in the middle management layer, there's many more.
16:10
Maybe you don't need to think so far ahead.
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But then I realized, like, as I grew, that I needed to be more the foresight of
16:18
thinking much further ahead had to expand.
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Jill: Yes.
16:21
And what are some of the things that you've had to grow and change with as
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you've gotten into senior leadership?
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Sumi: Oh, I'm still growing and changing senior leadership, more so than ever.
16:32
My biggest role for the team is setting the right firstly, creating
16:38
clarity, we have leadership principles, creating clarity generating
16:42
energy and delivering success.
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And really creating clarity is all about making sure that the org is aware of
16:49
what our prioritization framework is.
16:51
What we are doing?
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Why we are doing it and how we will do it and you know the ways that we have
16:56
to measure success towards it So that really is first and foremost my primary
17:01
thing that I drive and I've learned to I don't have to be in the details for
17:05
that But I have to do such a good job of communicating this is where communication
17:12
your voice showing up in different places just becomes very important and
17:16
you can't do this in one on ones, right?
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Like I have a 1500 person org, there's no way I'm talking to everybody.
17:22
So again, what is that rhythm of business?
17:24
What are all my touch points and places where I'm able to reach a
17:27
broader section of the organization?
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And the other thing I've learned is it's not enough to just say that once
17:34
you have to keep saying it and keep reminding and keep coming back to it.
17:37
So, it's almost a constant cycle, right?
17:41
And then the second thing, the generating energy is, I go back to, if you have
17:46
the right place, the right team dynamic, people have to feel like they belong and
17:51
they have to have fun while doing it.
17:53
And so, we do intentional things, and this is not me, this
17:56
is all, thanks to Microsoft.
17:59
We do things like this.
18:00
Fix hack learns, like we have weeks where everyone just stops what the normal usual
18:04
scheduled work is and they take one week just to do out of box thinking, right?
18:08
If you wanted to go do anything, you wanted to go fix this gnarly thing that
18:11
never rises up to the top, but it's been bothering you go do that hack,
18:15
come up with hack projects, learn.
18:18
You want to learn about the latest large language models?
18:20
Great, this is the week.
18:21
So giving that, that open and empty space, I think that is something
18:25
that really fosters a healthy team, a healthy and thriving team.
18:29
And then the delivering success.
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And when I say delivering success, the thing that I work very hard to
18:35
ensure at that scale is delivering success is not just delivering
18:38
features or shipping features.
18:40
It is actually making sure those things work with the customers.
18:43
And if they don't work, not shipping them.
18:45
We actually try to celebrate not shipping something because we've not put something
18:49
bad out there for our customers.
18:51
And so all of this is very, you know, there's this culture there's process and
18:55
there's like, how do we work efficiently and how do we make it a fun place to work?
18:59
So those are the things that I've had to scale up to, obviously,
19:04
technical decision making while I'm not in the details of everything.
19:07
Features stepping out, you have to have sound technical judgment when you're
19:11
making big architecture decisions.
19:13
So being having the right touch points for those and being involved in those
19:16
is super duper important and critical.
19:18
Jill: How do you make sure that you're keeping an eye on all the things going
19:21
the directions they should be going?
19:25
Sumi: So this is where having those touch points as well.
19:28
It's very structured, ROB as we call it, Rhythm of Business
19:30
Meetings is super duper important.
19:32
We do planning in six month cycles.
19:35
We have our OKRs, outcomes, key results that have been defined.
19:39
And then at these regular meetings that we have, we are
19:42
tracking progress towards that.
19:44
And, most of the time things are going fine.
19:46
But many a time they don't, and it's because of various reasons.
19:49
Things change around.
19:50
So there's always a point of, okay, do we need to pivot?
19:53
Do we need to reassign people to this?
19:56
Do we need to maybe pause it?
19:58
Those are the kinds of decisions.
20:00
But having, I would say, at my scale, having that very well defined
20:05
rhythm is extremely important so that we don't let things slip through.
20:09
We, of course, have a bunch of metrics and monitors and alerts to make sure, product
20:14
quality and everything is up to the bar.
20:17
But having these meetings is a great forcing function to ensure
20:20
we're all on the same page.
20:21
The other thing is what these also do is bringing together
20:25
people from across the org, right?
20:27
It's not just the work that I do, it's not just my work, but sometimes
20:31
it requires partnership with many different orgs across the company.
20:34
And many times, Getting people together for these meetings are a forcing
20:38
function for the people who work on it to talk before the meeting and
20:42
make sure everything is, so sometimes the power of the meeting is not what
20:45
happens at the meeting, but everything else that happens prior to it.
20:49
So that by the time we come to the meeting, it's all nicely figured out.
20:53
Jill: Yes.
20:54
Yeah.
20:54
And I love that cadence piece because so often, especially in smaller
20:59
organizations that don't have that same structure that you would have then
21:03
things tend to either drop off or get done ad hoc and you start to lose all
21:07
of the collaboration that you could get.
21:09
And yeah, there is, a lot of people like to rail against meetings, there's
21:13
definitely a lot of good that comes out of them when they're done well,
21:15
Sumi: Yes.
21:16
Yes.
21:16
No, a lot of meetings is definitely one of the things that, it's a fine balance.
21:21
You can't have too many.
21:22
You can't have too little.
21:23
What's that right balance?
21:24
And it is also the kinds of meetings that are also constantly changing
21:28
depending on your priorities.
21:29
I like to say, once something is on cruise control, I don't need to
21:33
be in all of those meetings, right?
21:34
That's not where I'm adding value.
21:36
Jill: Are you diving into the details on certain things though?
21:40
Sumi: Yeah.
21:41
So I this is something I can't take credit for.
21:43
It was my manager who actually said this and I tried to really follow that.
21:48
I like to dive into things that are either broken or new.
21:50
Right?
21:51
Broken not broken because first slide.
21:53
Getting a good understanding and also they might require my
21:58
presence and my help in driving to resolution either within the team.
22:02
Sometimes it's about getting different parts of the team
22:04
together to see things the same way.
22:06
Sometimes it is about reaching across the aisle to other orgs which on
22:09
which we might have dependencies.
22:10
So that is one.
22:11
And new because new is like that is my role, right?
22:15
It is not just in the today, but it is Making sure that we are set
22:20
up for the future, that we have the right product architecture that
22:23
sets us up well for the future.
22:25
So with a lot of the new AI stuff that's coming in here, I'm
22:28
heavily involved in those things.
22:30
Jill: Fantastic.
22:30
Well, thanks so much for sharing all this with us.
22:33
It's great to be able to talk with a senior leader like yourself and give
22:36
the women in my community a look forward of what they can be shooting
22:40
for as they rise up in their career.
22:42
I really appreciate what you've shared with us today.
22:45
Is there anything else that you'd like to add?
22:48
Sumi: No, thank you.
22:49
Thank you so much for giving the opportunity to come and share these
22:52
things and, really like wonderful questions that you asked me.
22:56
It caused me to also think and then I'm like, yes, this is what we do
22:59
in the natural rhythm of things.
23:00
But honestly, the thing that I would tell my biggest learning and takeaway
23:04
is be strong, don't be strong.
23:08
Don't be fearless.
23:08
Don't be scared of asking for what you want, but doing it, as you
23:11
said in a good way and just bring your authentic self all the time.
23:16
I think that is something that has worked really well for me.
23:19
Jill: Yes, I think it's tempting to want to be somebody else and be like the people
23:24
that we see are, successful that are different from us rather than just really
23:29
reaching deep in and saying, here's what I have to offer and understand myself.
23:34
And I know that this is what I have that's valuable and here's how I can
23:39
help and that can be so much better.
23:41
Yeah.
23:42
Sumi: Oh, absolutely.
23:43
Yeah.
23:44
Thank you so much, Jill.
23:44
No,
23:47
Jill: love to hear what you found most helpful from this conversation.
23:51
Let us know in the comments, if you're watching on YouTube,
23:53
would you like to take your career to the next level?
23:56
I invite you to check out my Seven Step Passport to Promotion private
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