Women in Tech Festival: Keynote speaker, Rupal Patel, on addressing the visibility gap

For ex-intelligence analyst, Rupal Patel, the visibility gap for women in tech is as much a systemic issue as it is an individual one

For Rupal Patel, a 2x CEO, entrepreneur, and former intelligence officer, flexibility and curiosity are some of the most important skills for a modern professional - be that in business or otherwise. Her unconventional path embodies that spirit.

"I began my professional career at the CIA and was drawn to the intelligence community for a combination of reasons. One of the biggest being,that sense of participating in and contributing to something bigger than myself, that sense of mission…" Patel told CRN ahead of the Women in Tech Festival, where she will lead a session on closing the visibility for women in the workplace.

Her own career journey, Patel says, has been one of developing resilience and the ability to pivot.

"There has always been this high-performance aspect to my personality which made the CIA the perfect place for me. I was hired as an analyst and I was lucky in that I had a lot of leeway to shape a career out in the field and not just behind a desk.

"Being at the CIA was incredibly formative. The environment instils in you a sense of resilience, of anything being possible. Some of that was just the culture of the organisation.

"But also there was this atmosphere of being comfortable with uncertainty and leaning into change. As an intelligence organisation, yes, we traded in information and in having the best possible picture.

"But, ironically, what came with that was a really keen awareness that there's a limit to how much information you can have, and that sometimes you have to make decisions based on incomplete data. You can never have all of the information, so you just have to keep going as best as you can."

Patel believes that the twin skills of resilience and the ability to identify opportunities can benefit women whenever they face challenges throughout their careers.

"As high performers, there's this idea that we can make things happen. But, we often have limited control over the outcome of our efforts. So, all we can do is keep trying, and finding ways around, above, under, over the challenges we face. We have to focus on WHAT we want, and be open to HOW and WHEN we get there. "

After her career at the CIA, Patel moved to London to attend business school, and founded a property investment and development business , which she still heads Leveraging the leadership and business acumen she developed at the CIA and through becoming a CEO, she now advises Fortune 500 companies, delivers leadership and talent development programs (including for the White House), and guest lectures at top-tier business schools around the world.

A constant throughout her career has been her pro bono coaching and mentoring, and she now works with VC incubators TechStars and Virgin StartUp to support rising stars in the tech space.

Visibility - a structural issue

Patel is vocal about the need for women to become more professionally visible and for businesses, organizations, media outlets, and events to normalize women's successes and contributions by talking about them in a mainstream way, and not just in separate women's sections.. "Too often, women's successes and achievements don't get any air time or are side-lined, and our contributions remain invisible. We need to change that."

"Addressing the visibility gap will require structural and personal changes. Some of it will be leaders being proactive about highlighting and pushing their female talent into the spotlight, to be in more visible roles, to go out and speak at a conference, or contribute an article to a trade magazine. Some of it will need to be that women advocate for themselves and put themselves forward.

"We need to short-circuit the idea that men are the default achievers, because - obviously! - women are doing impressive things too. And by closing the Visibility Gap, we can start to chip away at the confidence gap and pay gap women still too often confront."

Rupal Patel will speak at the Women in Tech Festival, hosted by CRN and sister brand, Computing, on 31 October at 133 Houndsditch in London. Click here to attend.