Empowering Women in the Public Sector

Leadership & Inclusion: Empowering Women in the Public Sector

A new book by e.Republic and Microsoft aims to inspire the next generation of female leaders by sharing the real-life experiences of six public sector women who have made a difference in their organizations and for the constituents they serve.

The book features interviews with Senior Executive Directors, Chief Information Officers and Chief Technology Officers who divulge lessons learned around topics like achieving work-life balance; leading during a crisis; being a mentor; driving diversity, equity and inclusion; and succeeding in traditionally male-dominated fields like STEM. These are themes that need urgent addressing with recent research highlighting the fact that more than 1.1 million women left the workforce during the last two years (National Women’s Law Center).

“Women are critical to government and education achieving their missions. We need all women in the public sector to lend their voice and make sure services are accessible, personalized, and relevant to everyone.”

Julia Glidden, CVP, Microsoft WorldWide Public Sector

An example of the women featured is Anushree Bag, from the Indiana Office of Technology who used her own experiences of being a rare female executive director to help others. Bag founded Government Women in Technology (GWIT) to support other women with their technology careers. She talks about her surprise that so many women in the field like to remain in the background and how the workplace needs to evolve to better allow women to thrive and be kind people and tough leaders.

“…we need to remove bias from job listings and hiring. Many job descriptions have masculine-coded words like “fearless” or “aggressive.” Women see those words and think those jobs aren’t for them.”

Anushree Bag, Executive Director, Indiana Office of Technology

The book also includes an interview with Deborah Snyder, former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for New York State. Snyder discusses the importance of bringing new voices to cybersecurity and describes how she has done so in her role as a technology leader.

“Diversity is more than just meeting a quota. It’s an important business differentiator and is essential to solving innovation and productivity issues.”

Deborah Synder, Former CISO, New York

Whether you are a leader of a small team, large department or organization Microsoft hopes the women in this guide inspire you and that their experiences and advice serve as a catalyst for the impact you want to have on the world.

“I hope the women in this guide serve as proof that we are all better when diverse individuals are empowered to share their voices.”

Cathilea Robinett, CEO e.Republic

The full list of women featured are:

• Lydia Payne-Johnson, Director of IT Security, Identity Management and Risk, George Washington University
• Ann Durkin, Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Energy
• Amanda Crawford, CIO, State of Texas and Executive Director, Department of Information Resources (DIR)
• Anushree Bag, Executive Director, Enterprise GRC and Resiliency Services, Indiana Office of Technology and Founder, Government Women in Technology (GWIT)
• Lindsey Parker, Assistant City Administrator and Chief Technology Officer, Washington, D.C.
• Deborah Snyder, Senior Fellow, Center for Digital Government and Former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), New York State