Women in tech: Marne Martin, president and chief strategy officer at IFS

How would you summarise the year 2022 for yourself, IFS and the local and global tech industry?

The year 2022 was great as I was able to do what I love; travel more around the world which we weren’t able to do in the past few years. Since the pandemic, companies are now recognising the importance of technology leadership and the need for a diverse workforce for better business outcomes. These helped IFS grow as the company brought fresh talent, expanded our customer base and found newer prospects.

What are your expectations for 2023?

For IFS, 2022 was a year full of opportunities and we expect to continue bringing in more value to our customers and employees in 2023. Our goal is to resonate with organisations as an agent of change and the transformation around the products that we sell, by focusing on service projects and asset centric industries.

IFS fosters a diverse workforce culture with many women working in management and as employees, and that makes me super proud. This year, IFS will continue to grow by focusing on our go-to market strategy globally, including the Middle East and keep bringing more talent to tech.

As a woman leader, what are the challenges you faced in reaching to the top and how did you overcome them?

Being in a male dominated industry is a challenge by itself. I grew up in agriculture in Wyoming which was also very male dominated, played sports, took part in competitions against the boys, so these things have had strong influences in my upbringing.

The ability to handle conflict, that competitive spark, and mental discipline have been very useful in helping me overcome challenges in the field.

In the male dominated tech industry, what steps should be taken to attract more women into tech?

It’s important to make sure that women are comfortable in the industry and have the opportunity to gain and enhance their tech skills with no barriers. I was good at Math and Science, so it wasn’t a stretch for me to be comfortable in technology.

There are a lot of women that are good at tech, but don’t necessarily have the support to further those skills from a young age. We need to make technology more accessible, and we also need to recognise that in general we are a digital economy. The more we can cultivate digital skills in our labour forces, regardless of gender, the earlier we can ensure women are confident in their skills.

What are the key tips or advice, you will offer aspiring women leaders/ entrepreneurs to help them progress in our industry?

There are still impediments for women in some countries to get hired, promoted and the support towards female-founded companies is still low.

But the advice I give to people is, you need to be thinking about what your goal is and understand that there are going to be bumps in the road. In general, if you are an entrepreneur or somebody that works to get promoted or do new things, you are going to have both success and failure rates.

One of the biggest problems most entrepreneurs face is that a lot of startups fail to get access to capital and cannot get past the first year of their business. What is important here is finding access to capital, and finding people who will give you room to grow and support.

Read: Women in tech: Tatiana Rahal, managing director at talabat UAE

Also read: Women in tech: Odette Malkoun, area manager – Levant and North Africa at Milestone Systems