People don’t easily forget Padmasree Warrior. She has a memorable name and job as technology giant Cisco’s chief technology and strategy officer. She also has the knack of making technology understandable and, in lively, visionary talks, connecting with individuals and audiences.
All that makes Indian-born Warrior, who has nearly 1.5 million followers on Twitter, one of the most highly visible women in a male-dominated industry.
Being a very visible woman in the technology industry has placed Warrior on some recent lists of eligible and capable female technologists for Twitter’s board, during the ongoing brouhaha about Twitter’s failure to have a single woman director as it goes for its initial public offering.
"I generally feel the more diverse the board is, the more effective it tends to be," she says, noting that she does not wish to comment on any specific situation at other companies. "Cisco is very diverse. We have three women on the board and each brings a different perspective."
Warrior sits on numerous boards herself, most recently, as a newly-appointed director at clothing retailer Gap. But the issue is broader than simply board positions, she says.
“I think, firstly, there needs to be more women in technology, in general. If you look at the numbers in actual technology roles, it’s very limited.”
Therefore, she feels that for her, given her role, it’s important to be visible. “Women need visible role models.”
To that end, she mentors other women and regularly speaks at other technology companies and events.
While there is a wide range of skills and roles available in the tech sector, she says that having a business and technology background remains very helpful to succeeding in technology companies.
For women working in such companies, “the more contact with technology, the less alienated they feel”.
Traditionally, technology fields were seen as “very isolating” to women, probably due to a lack of direct training in engineering, she thinks.
For women, fitting in can be more complicated. “We were taught that to be an engineer, we had to be like a man,” she recalls. “That’s changing. And the new areas of technology [such as internet and social media companies] – it’s making it much more human.
“Also, what’s changing is that technology is becoming a much more multidisciplinary domain.”
Knowing how to code makes a huge difference, she says. “Yes, the more professionally trained [in technology] you are, the more comfortable you will be. You have a foundation for working with your team.”
Warrior has spoken recently on another conflict for women in work: the idea of trying to “have it all”. She thinks having it all should be more nuanced. “Having it all doesn’t mean doing it all, and it doesn’t mean doing it all perfectly.”
She doesn’t like that tired phrase, work-life balance, either. “I don’t like ‘balance’. I prefer ‘integration’,” she says.
That means realistic compromise. “It is unrealistic to say, every day I need to leave work at five and be home for dinner.” Sometimes that works out, and given daily schedules and obligations, sometimes it doesn’t, she says.
Initially she tried to take work home when her now 20-year-old son was a baby, and combine exercise, work and mothering all at once, but she says it was exhausting and eventually, impossible. She found separating her work life and her home life made things more sane.
“Women especially have to get comfortable with feeling they’re doing the best with their own situation,” she says.
“You have to make the decisions you feel are the best and make time for what you want to do. But it’s very individual. Sometimes we try to make things black and white, but they aren’t. And it’s not just work and family – often we neglect ourselves.”
When a full-on working life in technology means a never-ending focus on ‘bits’, Warrior is an advocate of taking some technological downtime.
“Being with atoms is as important as being with bits,” she says with a smile.
“So Saturday is my day to paint and write poetry. I also really like photography.
“More and more, I think we have to combine our analytic strengths with our creative strengths. Just stepping away and doing something, and coming back” is a good way to refresh one’s mind and energy.
To that end, she is looking forward to some time off in Europe with her husband, after she wraps up a week in Ireland, where she spoke at the Web Summit.
At the Summit, she spoke about what she sees as the next big wave of innovation, which Cisco calls the “internet of everything”, to describe the way in which so many things are increasingly connected to the internet including phones, sensors, cars, electronics, machinery, tools and toys.
This internet of everything is the fourth wave of the internet, she says. The first wave was basic digital connectivity; the second wave, the rise of digital transactions; and the third, the digitisation of interactions, as for example, the rise of social media.
Many areas are being transformed by the ongoing innovation produced by the growing internet of everything but, as of yet, not always in a clearly joined-up way.
“For example, today a lot of shopping is done online, but how do you take that strength and connect it back in a more integrated way, to the retail industry?”
Or education. Clearly, the online availability of courses and materials will transform education, but it isn’t clear how the education sector will adapt and change. “I think we’re on the threshold of a big change – but it will be gradual, not sudden,” she says.
But a world of widespread connectivity and data streams in which people, including employees, carry multiple devices and share personal and work information across apps, in the cloud and across networks, presents some big issues.
“Security will be a big challenge – and opportunity – in this new world. And the way security works will also have to change. How does the network enable security from the network down to the user?”
The way people’s personal data is collected and shared by apps and other programs also poses a new challenge. Users need to have awareness and control over how data is shared. “But how do we give users that choice, that granularity?” she says. “It’s going to get more complicated.”
Warrior feels Cisco is well placed to have a significant role in the transition to the internet of everything. “The internet is about people, processes, data and things – and the network [Cisco’s focus] is really at the centre of that.”
