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Earlier this month, we celebrated International Women’s Day and the inspiring women who are accelerating their careers and making a tremendous impact on our business here at Alteryx. As Libby mentioned in her blog post, we have seen increasing numbers of women paving the way in our global economy, especially when it comes to representation in senior leadership in the C-suite. Although this progress is promising, I strongly believe that all companies need to further embrace diversity in their leadership teams—including both the C-suite and Board of Directors. This is crucial in creating dynamic collaboration and informed decision making on behalf of any business in any sector.
Alteryx is a global company with customers in every industry, market and vertical you could think of. We have customers in agriculture, consumer packaged goods, healthcare, hospitality, retail, and the list goes on. We have offices across the world to build our business and ensure our users are getting the best support possible. What good is it if we all have the same or similar backgrounds and perspectives, especially when our customer base is so diverse? To be successful, we need a diverse leadership team that will help us make the right choices – for our customers, partners, associates, business and beyond.
I am grateful to work alongside talented women on both our C-suite team and board of directors who are spearheading monumental initiatives, driving value for our business and supporting our people each day. Additionally, I am excited to announce that we were recently recognized as a winning company by 2020 Women on Boards, which awards companies with at least 20% women on their board of directors. Diversity and inclusion is at the core of our culture at Alteryx, and having these values represented at the leadership level is key in ensuring they are reflected throughout the entire organization.
After speaking with women on our leadership team about their journeys, challenges, successes and perspectives on diversity and inclusion, I am even more proud to have them on the Alteryx team. Keep reading to learn more about them.
Name: Libby Duane Adams
Title: Chief Customer Officer and Founder
Q: What is the best advice you've received from other leaders on pursuing your career passions and goals? What advice do you have for women who are just beginning their careers in technology or data science and analytics?
A: My best advice is to embrace teamwork. The ability to work as a successful team is most rewarding. Collaboration enables the best solutions and is fun along the way. My advice for others is 1) follow you passion; 2) never take “no” for an answer and 3) believe that you can do anything you set your mind to.
Name: Kimberly Alexy
Position: Board of Directors, Nominating & Governance Committee
Q: What are some of the challenges you've faced in your career and how did you overcome those? What are some of the things you are most proud of?
A: I’ve been rejected countless times in my life. I tried for years to get on Wall Street and failed. I interviewed for many board roles and was passed over. I’ve saved stacks of rejection letters to remind myself of the power of perseverance. Persistence pays off. Don’t be afraid to fail. Aim high and pursue your dreams.
Name: Amy Heidersbach
Title: Chief Marketing Officer
Q: In your opinion, how does diversity and inclusion contribute to a collaborative, dynamic and productive work environment?
A: The answer is pretty straightforward for me. We do our best work when our work environment mirrors who we are in the world, including who our customers and who our communities are. That’s the diversity part. Inclusion is the harder part, in my experience, because it means being truly open to others’ opinions, perspectives and ways of getting things done. Those of us who are “Type A” (and there are a lot of us in business and a lot of us in technology) may think that it’s easier to get things done “our way.” But experience has taught me that being inclusive is the best way to fuel innovation and growth. The key is that companies must be brave enough to build and sustain a listening culture – and that the people running them must possess enough humility and openness to allow for all voices to be truly heard.
Name: Ashley Kramer
Title: SVP of Product Management
Q: What inspired you to pursue a career in the technology and data science and analytics industries?
A: From a young age, I was always interested in technology – all the way from playing Oregon Trail on one of the very first Apple computers ever released that I’m pretty sure my mom put in my room just to get it out of the way. Fast forward to my senior year of high school, and I was one of four students (and the only girl) to take the very first advanced placement computer science class that the school offered. To give you context on how “early days” it was, this was taught by our physical education teacher. It was several years into my career when I was working on the Amazon Kindle that I realized the value of data and analytics. Everything Amazon did – even back then – started with the data. Working for Tableau and then Alteryx as a next step was natural for me as the value self-service analytics platforms provide to companies is immeasurable and can have an impact on every company in the world.
Name: Sharmila Mulligan
Title: Chief Strategy Officer
Q: What are some of the challenges you've faced in your career and how did you overcome those? What are some of the things you are most proud of?
A: My career track has been very fulfilling, and I don’t approach things as a challenge or a hurdle that I can’t overcome. The thing I’m most proud of is being one of the few women entrepreneurs in “enterprise software,” as well as probably the only woman to found and run a company in the data analytics space. Finally, I am also very proud to be one of the few women to seek out great entrepreneurs who have a passion to solve data challenges and then fund them to go make their ideas happen.
Name: Eileen Schloss
Title: Board of Directors, Compensation and Nominating & Government Committees
Q: What advice do you have for women who are just beginning their careers in technology or data science and analytics?
A: Continue your education, whether it is pursing an undergraduate or graduate degree, attending conferences and trade shows or following blogs. It is important to stay abreast of what is happening in the field – technology is changing even more rapidly today than it was when I was early in my career. As a board member, I make sure to attend the regional and national conferences on technology – particularly AI and Blockchain – to better understand how it is impacting the business so I can ask more informed questions during our meetings.
Each of these women are setting extraordinary examples for others not only in our organization, but also in the broader data science, analytics and technology spaces. I can’t wait to to see what each of you accomplish – and who you continue to inspire – throughout your personal and professional journeys.
