Tech's Not Just for the Boys

She wants to attract more women to the industry and she's not sitting around waiting for it to happen, she tells Kimberly Spykerman

- Kimberly Spykerman

Jessie Xia doesn’t consider herself a techie. In fact, she trained as an accountant and later worked as a human resource (HR) manager. So how did the 40-year-old end up becoming managing director of the Singapore arm of Thoughtworks, a global software business that’s been named the top company for women in tech?

You could put that down to good old-fashioned hard work. Jessie first joined Thoughtworks China as its HR director but soon switched to a technology-related role as a business analyst.

“There were so many things to learn from scratch. Even if you don’t have to do coding, you have to understand the language, the platforms, methodologies and tools. That’s because you need to work together to analyse the software you need to build,” she says. That meant a few months of research and guidance from her colleagues before she could execute her role independently.

Who says tech’s just for the boys?

Jessie’s story echoes the Thoughtworks philosophy – that as long as you have the right attitude, you can pick up the skills you need to get the job done.

It might explain why the company, which has its headquarters in Chicago, was last year named the top company for women in tech at the Grace Hopper Celebration, the largest conference in the world for women technologists.