Bethany Mayer, HP’s senior vice-president and general manager of Network Functions Virtualisation Business, and host of the Women’s Innovation Council in the US, talks about her work of empowering women in the tech industry.
Mayer is SVP and GM of Hewlett-Packard’s Network Functions Virtualisation Business. Mayer is also in charge of HP’s US$2.5bn a year networking division, which, under her leadership, has grown through 17 consecutive quarters and holds the No 2 market share position. In this role, she leads a global team of more than 6,000 employees that helps companies improve their performance through innovative networking technologies.
Mayer was in Dublin on Monday to attend the Open Tech conference on software-defined networking (SDN) and she later gave an address at the 100 Top Women in STEM celebration in Dublin.
In recent weeks we spoke to Mayer about how she believed the culture of leadership in the technology industry is changing and the proportion of female leaders in senior positions in the multi-billion-dollar sector will be transformed in the next 10 to 15 years.
Mayer volunteers as a fundraiser for the Canary Foundation, which is focused on early cancer detection. She also sits on the board of Teen Challenge, which is focused on reducing teen drug and alcohol addiction, and is on the board of Professional BusinessWomen of California (PBWC).
In February 2013, Mayer hosted a dynamic two-day Women’s Technology Leadership Forum (now known as Women’s Innovation Council) for 30 of the US’ most prominent women CIOs. Focusing on ‘Innovation with Purpose’, participants explored issues, including the crisis in STEM education for girls, climate change, poverty and healthcare, and explored ways to innovate collaboratively in addressing them.
Making their mark
Interview with HP SVP and GM Bethany Mayer at the 100 Top Women in STEM celebration in Dublin
Mayer has also sponsored various other leadership summits for future technology leaders. She has recently been named a Watermark Women Who Have Made Their Mark Award winner. Business Insider also recently recognised her as one of the 50 Most Powerful People in Enterprise Tech.
In 2012, Mayer won the Gold Stevie award for Female Executive of the Year in the 2012 Stevie Awards for Women in Business. In 2008, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal recognised her as one of the Top Women of Influence in Silicon Valley.
Prior to addressing the Top 100 Women in STEM celebration she told Silicon Republic that she believes a major change is underway whereby more women will achieve senior tech roles in the booming tech industry.
“I think that my daughter’s generation – she’s in her 20s – are going to see a much different workplace environment than maybe I did when I started in my 20s.
“So I do think it is changing. But for women coming up through the ranks now that change needs to grow more rapidly and really evolve quickly.
“I think that pipeline needs to continue to get stronger and women as they emerge through that pipeline we will see more women at a senior level.”
- Check back over the coming days to hear Mayer’s views on network functions virtualisation and software-defined networks
Women Invent Tomorrow is Silicon Republic’s campaign to champion the role of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. It has been running since March 2013, and is kindly supported by Accenture Ireland, Intel, the Irish Research Council, ESB, Twitter, CoderDojo and Science Foundation Ireland.
