Padmasree Warrior says tech must move beyond inclusion to belonging for women 

By Ritu Jha-

More women are excelling in tech industry leadership roles but too many still must conform to time-honored standards for white male executives. 

That was the message from Padmasree Warrior, keynote speaker at the recent IIT Bay Area conference hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology Bay Area Alumni (IITBAA) California. As founder, president and CEO of Fable, an app-based platform for social reading and book clubs, Warrior is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship and global business. 

Warrior spoke to indica about the industry, its future, and the disruptive influence of artificial intelligence. Though concerned about the low number of women in the top posts of the tech industry, she is heartened by the increasing presence.

“The number of women in the industry is actually better now,” Warrior told indica. “There are many more women. Recently McKinsey released a report. The report shows data that in the last 10 years, more women have occupied top posts. Though it’s not 50% yet, it’s a lot better than it was.”

Warrior also is a tireless advocate for women in technology.

“I think the challenges still tend to be about accepting women for who they are,” she said. “I think I always talk about going beyond inclusion to talk about belonging. If you say, okay, you’re a woman executive, you can be successful, but then you expect that woman executive to act like a man or dress like a man, then you’re putting them in an uncomfortable spot. And I think those kinds of things need to change and we say, you’re a woman from India, you can truly be who you are. Wear a bindi to work if you want to, and you can still be CEO of a big American company. We haven’t come to that stage yet. The expectations are still that women, black people, or Latinx will act like white male majority leaders. And I think that needs to change. That will only change if we move the conversation from inclusion to belonging.”

Warrior recalled that when she became a top executive, people told her to wear black and gray, but that was not the culture she grew up with in India. She changed her hair color and wore black, brown and bright colors. 

“You have to find the inner courage to be who you are, you have to be authentic and self-confident. Self-confidence comes with success. The more successful you are, the more confident you become in yourself. It’s hard to do when you’re starting your career, but knowing that you are capable and finding that inner center that drives you is significant.”

She may have scaled the ladder of success and is considered an icon of women leaders, but she is far from done. 

“I want to have a big impact on humans and how we connect with each other. That is either through Fable or other ways.”

Belonging over inclusion

In her keynote address to the conference, Warrior said that a sense of humility is important when working in a tech industry because things are constantly changing. She said the most important thing she learned has been the power of belonging in a community. At IIT, only five of 250 students were women. 

“Now there are many, which is a great testament to a wonderful education system. What I learned was that it is really important to belong and support each other. The five of us in engineering were in different disciplines, but we stuck together and supported each other. I think the reason I’m here today is to belong to a network and a community where we help and advise each other, which is so important. That’s stayed through my whole life, it’s a great memory. I met my husband in IIT as well. We’ve been married for four decades; I feel very fortunate.”

Warrior said technological changes are coming fast but if they don’t make a positive human impact on society, they are faulty.

“Because at the end of the day, that’s where the game changes happen. It’s how we shape technological advances with insight, how we understand it, and apply it to our humanity, is very important.”

Warrior feels that all leaders should continue learning throughout their careers. 

“I think we know in tech, there is no crystal ball. The only thing that we know is technology changes constantly, and it changes everything. It’s important to be a very curious learner and continue to learn. Sometimes we don’t anticipate the negative outcomes of what technology can do, and maybe we realize it too late.”

Warrior said social networks are a great example of that. 

“It started with the intent of connecting us as humans, and it’s now become something quite different. Our job is to try to look around the corner, thinking about what will be the first to change. When you’re looking at a trend, it’s almost too big. A trend means something already happening. I always look at what are the precursors, and some aspects that are signals to things that are about to change in a big way. Sometimes when you see a signal, there’s a lot of hype around that. I think AI is in that phase where progress has been in the last five to six years. It’s not new as a field, academics have been working in this area for years and years.”

The future of AI

Warrior says as AI has become more accessible, the excitement around it has grown. With that excitement has come a lot of hype, requiring the need to separate the hype from real possibilities.

“The biggest job is to ascertain which facets of AI are exaggerated in the types of applications you will see, and where we will see some real impact,” she said. “Chasing hypes might lead us to take the wrong call.”

Of course, the biggest impact many people fear is that AI will displace humans in creating the arts. She says she doesn’t believe it.

“I think human beings are great creators of stories and what we say to each other, and how we create a great piece of art is unique,” she said. “Why is Shakespeare still read after so many years? Why do we still like literature? Because it’s so powerful and writing comes from our experiences and emotions. I think it’s not the role of AI, we shouldn’t think it will replace humans. Our responsibility is to figure out how it will make us better and how it can help reduce inefficiency. I think that is the power of the technology. And it is crucial for us to anticipate the precursors or changes, and think about what are the possibilities with the technology.

“I always felt that machine learning, data, and AI could be useful more directly to help us as human beings. I felt like there’s a possibility of using AI and ML to make hyper-personalized recommendations, like helping you find a book, a TV show or a movie that you’re going to really like. How do we help you find the exact idea in your life? This is a problem AI can really help us solve, not replacing the writers or writing those books, but helping you find the great writers that you would like. So that’s how I separated the possibility from the hype,” Warrior added.