7 Powerful women in IT, Telecommunications and Energy & Engineering

In honour of International Women’s Day ( 8th March) here are 7 powerful women who have forged successful careers in the IT, Telecommunications and Energy & Engineering industries. All three of these industries are traditionally male-dominated but these women have bucked the trends to prove that women are just as capable of success and are inspiring more women to enter these industries.

 

1. Sheryl Sandberg

Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, until August 2022, was the first woman to serve on Facebook’s board of directors, previously Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google and author of bestseller Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead that looks at the barriers preventing women from taking leadership roles in the workplace.

2. Angela Ahrendts

Previously CEO of Burberry, and former Vice President of Apple, the sole female executive at the company and earned a salary that far exceeds those of her male counterparts.

3. Marissa Mayer

Former President and CEO of Yahoo! until 2017, previously Vice President at Google after working her way up from being one of their engineers. She has a Bachelors degree in symbolic engineering and a Masters in computer science. Mayer describes herself as a “proud geek” and was the first female engineer at Google, playing a key role in their homepage.

4. Safra Catz

CEO of Oracle Corporation since 2014 and a board member since 2001, she is credited for many of Oracle’s acquisitions including the $10.3 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft. In 2013, Catz rejected her $717,000 bonus due to Oracle’s tepid financial performance that year.

5. Dominique Leroy

CEO of Belgacom since 2014, she is the first woman to head the $8.6 billion Belgian state-owned telecoms business. She is also the first executive to be paid under a new law that caps the annual pay of state-owned enterprises. She was previously Managing Director at Unilever Benelux.

6. Ginni Rometty

CEO of IBM until April 2020, Rometty was the first woman to head up the company. She has been named in Fortune Magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business for eight years in a row. In her time at IBM she has led the successful acquisition of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, the largest in professional services history.

7. Ursula Burns

CEO of Xerox until 2016, she joined the company in 1980 as a summer intern and has worked her way up. During her time as CEO, Burns has managed to turn Xerox into a viable and profitable company.