In this podcast we speak to Jackie Mattox, Founder of WE (Women in Electronics), to find out more about the organisation, its goals, and activities within the industry.
Women in Electronics is a community of progressive women leaders who are dedicated to the professional and personal leadership development of women in the fast-paced electronics industry.
Electronic Specifier Hello and welcome to the latest podcast from electronic specify insights. Today we're welcoming Jackie Mattox, president and founder of women in electronics, which to community founded in 2017, of progressive women leaders who are dedicated to the professional and personal leadership development of women in the fast paced electronics industry. So welcome, Jackie.
Thank you. Thank
you for having me. Nice to have you. To kick off perhaps for any of our listeners that don't know, can you give us a bit of background on women in electronics? How the organisation came into being and why
Yes, I'm always very happy to. So basically, I was in the electronic component industry right out of college. Actually, before I even graduated college and was in the industry as a rep for a very long time, I had a very good run love, the people I work with have a lot of amazing mentors who, by the way, were all men, and stepped out of the industry for a while to raise my children came back in and was very surprised when I started going to the executive conferences, again, to see that I was still one of the only women all those years later, and I was still the youngest one. So it had more to do with Wow, we're all the women, not so much that there was an issue with the men. It was like, wow, where are the ladies like, what's going on? All the ladies I would meet were amazing. And so I was thinking, why are they not in these positions? So that is what the premise was for women and electronics is just rounding up some women to say, hey, how do we come together to form our community and support each other and open the door for opportunity for women in the industry?
Sure. So what's the actual value proposition of women electronics? What is actual function? What does it do? And plus you talk a little bit about the fundamental goals of the organisation and how it goes about achieving them.
Okay, so that's a big question. I will start with the goals first. So we have four main goals, empower, develop, advocate and celebrate women in the electronic component industry. So we do this through all different ways, we have a value proposition, and the industry is, in essence to develop the talent of the women. So what we do this through our leadership, training and development, we have an industry wide mentorship programme. That's very amazing. And we have chapters across the US and actually in Europe now. So our goals are implemented through these initiatives, the training, the mentorship and the chapters.
Sure. So how many current members do you have Jackie,
we have just over a few 100 members, but we actually are adding quite a bit through the end of the year, well, I think we'll probably be up to about 500. This year, but really, it's a small number, we're wanting to be in the 1000s. We're a big industry, there's a lot of women, we want to reach women in all levels, not just an executive level. So I think that maybe is one of the misconceptions that this is an executive group, it actually was a lot of executives who got on board just started to say, Hey, this is a need, but we want to do is reach down into companies, you know, go at the customer service level, the inside sales level, you know, product managers all the way up the chain, because we have to start reaching down earlier to give the education of the leadership development. That's so critical. So a lot of times people are not having access to this type of training until they're progressing in their career, but we need them to have the education sooner on so they progress sooner.
Indeed. Sure. So as I mentioned in the in the intro there women in electronics has been going since 2017. So has anything existed, similar similar to women electronics previously, and if so, how does women in electronics differ as to what's gone before?
Okay, so there was an organisation and I would love to meet the person who started this, there was a Wi Fi, we are Wi Fi, women electronics, just Wi Fi. There was another group, it wasn't an official nonprofit, but it was Wi Fi. And I hear that it was more like a networking group. It was a group of women coming together to form a community and this was going back years in the electronics industry. But I still hear about this group, and I would love to meet the person who started it. I hear it was successful. I don't know why they stopped. Would love to talk to those people that were involved. But here we are as w e and is no affiliation with the other group whatsoever.
Okay. Okay. Sure. And you mentioned a little bit there about the training. Could you perhaps go into a little bit more detail about the training offered by women in electronics and also about the mentorship programme that the organisation runs? Okay.
So the leadership training is is pretty much the biggest one of the biggest nuggets of what we do. It's one of the biggest aspects because leadership training is when you look at companies, they do sales training, they do all kinds of training, product training, but who's really doing leadership training except for At those higher levels, so we're providing access to everyone. So you don't have to go through your company to be a member of women and electronics as an individual, you can sign up for our programme. And you can get access to all these leadership development trainings, you can be collaborating, having conversations with other women in all positions in the industry. So we want to put that out there, that this leadership training is available. We offer it at an extremely discounted price. We're a nonprofit 501 c three in the US, which means we can take in funds from companies to help subsidise these memberships. So in essence, our programme, it costs about 15 $100 per person to run, but we only charge 297 per person, if they're with a non sponsored company, we give an extra discount to our sponsor companies of $250 per person. So I wanted to put it out there that this is pretty critical for women, they don't have to ask permission, yes, if you want to have your boss, you know, you want to ask if it can be covered. That's one thing. But what we really would like the message to women is this is your own personal empowerment. This is 297 for an entire year, it's like giving up your Starbucks once a month, you know, it's like, you know, once a week or something like that, you know, it's a very critical, important part of the development. So we focus on professional and personal development because we believe that if you're not personally developed, you cannot possibly be the professional leader you need to be. So we focus on both aspects. We go over emotional intelligence, unconscious bias, a lot of aspects of leadership development. And a lot of it is we don't recognise some of our own personal barriers that prohibit us in the workplace and also impact the companies we work for. So we focus a lot on personal and professional. Also, you mentioned the mentorship programme. To me this is one of the most exciting things for not only us, but for the industry as a whole. Because we went out and we really searched for another programme we can model of a mentorship programme. We could not find an industry wide mentorship programme across any industry we searched, we tried, we didn't find it if it's out there would love to talk to somebody who has done this. But we put our own together and it is proving to be highly effective. So the thing about the mentorship programme that I would love for people to understand is men typically like a more casual type of programming when it comes to mentorship men typically like hey, you want to go grab a beer, I wanted to talk to you about this or that women typically have a very hard time approaching somebody a level or two above them to say, hey, can Can I grab you for a few minutes, it's she typically needs a formalised programme to make that connection. So that's what we're finding is is is definitely a difference in doing so. Men typically do get mentored up way more than women do as a result. A men don't have as much of an issue a lot of time crossing those barriers. And ultimately, in our industry. It is a male dominated industry and it's easier for a man to go to another man and say, hey, let's go grab a beer let's do this or that is just easier. So for women, we have lacked that mentorship. So this formalised programme connects people. We have mentors that are men and women in the industry, and all of our mentees are women and electronics members. So this is extremely exciting for us to be able to connect the industry on this level.
Right? Sure. What kind of companies are part of that mentorship programme? Jackie?
No. We have several right now. We are involved with a lot of companies in the industry, but our sponsor companies that are behind us the companies that have invested in women electronics companies like amphenol, arrow avnet Cornell Dubilier, we have Digi key Kemet, AV x, we just have a lot going on with our sponsors that enable us to be able to bring this programme to the industry.
Sure. And as you mentioned that the electronic sex sector is one of many industries where where women are still underrepresented. In the in the UK specifically, I think the statistics say only 11% of the engineering workforce as a whole in the UK are women. So from your point of view, what what are the major challenges faced by women in electronics in terms of trying to redress that balance?
Oh my goodness. So we're a very data driven organisation and the facts that you just stated are very accurate. So we're finding not only with engineering, but also which is women in decision making positions, you know, those are definitely in the 15% range. Typically, in the industry, so although we have made some progress, we have far more way to go. I think part of the challenge is perception. You hear now, when something's happening with a with a woman that you know, a celebrating a win, and that's great, but it gives us the perception that things have progressed farther than they have. And that's why initiatives like this are very important because we need to keep working towards gender parity. So one of the most critical data points that I could give you is that a company's profits with all the studies that have been done 19% increase in profit when you have gender parity at the table. So that's men and women in decision making positions. That is a huge number. And it's a number I'd like a lot of companies to pay attention to, because this area is an area with gender parity that many companies just don't look at, as putting money and time into. So it's really important to address this issue and to know so companies, we're going into a time where now we're having to look at things different. We're having to spend time and money and resources into diversity, inclusion, gender parity. What we do at women and electronics is we our wheelhouse is gender parity. The diversity and inclusion topic is such a big topic. There's all areas there's age, ethnic, there's all areas of diversity, where we focus is that gender parity, and within that gender parity, of course, women of colour, women of different ages, you know all the diversity and inclusion within the gender parody. So that's our wheelhouse, and that's where we stay is in that gender parody zone.
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Very good question. We're finding the issues of the same. We have a team in Europe, we've been building that and talking in and putting this together for a couple years now. We have an amazing team in Europe, Ruth grey is our kind of lead person there and Europe who has a team of people she's working with to expand Europe. The beauty is people keep saying to me, Well, what Well, part of your big, the nice thing is that our programme is virtual when the whole COVID situation hit, we launched our programme, virtually, and I believe we're going to stay that way. As far as our chapter meetings where we connect people. The beauty of that is people can connect, who normally would not have connected once things go back to normal, quote unquote, normal. But once we're able to meet in person, we will add some networking kind of opportunities where we we can put that together. But as far as our Roundtable, tabling, discussing issues are chapter meetings, as they call them, division meetings in Europe, those will be virtual. So yes, it is all of Europe. As of now, we just had a conversation about that this morning, as we start to get grow in our meetings and get a certain number of people on each of those meetings will start dividing out. But right now we're just trying to grow as a group and see where the need is, and we will divide and conquer from there.
And as I say, date and day, and perhaps looking a bit further down the road. Other parts of the world, perhaps more so than in Europe, in the US, perhaps culturally are more inherent patriarchy. So do you guys have any have any plans to it to expand the organisation to to other other parts of the world course.
We have a programme that we want to be global. So the plan is to launch Europe, we want to go into Mexico, Canada, and then of course, Asia. And if you know and a lot of people listening, no, that's not going to be easy, especially penetrating Asia. There's a lot of cultural differences. There's a lot of mindsets, but it doesn't mean the need is not there. I do hear from people all the time. The way we approach women and electronics is uniting with our male counterparts. We are never here to divide. We're always here to unite and talk through issues. together. So I would say our success will be continuing to develop our programme, establish our credibility where we go. And then utilising those resources to then access the other areas is going to be a slow progression in some areas, but it doesn't mean that it's impossible and that we are here as an organisation to support women across the globe.
Great. Sure. I see you guys recently held your annual conference, what are the main topics up for discussion there? And what were the main findings? And were you guys able to hold a successful event from it from a virtual standpoint?
Well, that is another great question. So this was our first virtual event, I will have to say, this was a tremendous undertaking, we only had a couple of months by which to take it virtual It was either get it going or just kind of rescheduled for the next year. And my whole philosophy with COVID was we are not cancelling anything, we'll do it different. But we're not cancelling anything. So we had some little hiccups. But in general, the content was great. I think the virtual platform is really, really well received. And it's good moving forward, I think what we need to do is make tweaks as we go along. And I think the one thing this time has taught me and a lot of people, you have to give up the perfectionism, you know, the important thing is to go is to is to do the things you need to do is to implement the things you need to do. We don't always we don't have all the knowledge anymore, and the prior experience how to do all of this, but you have to do it and hope that you're going to be the get the grace, for the little things that come up, and you put your best foot forward. And that's all you can do right in this time we're in is we all just need to put our best foot forward. And I think we all are. And even when you do that, you have little failures, right? But you have to keep doing that and you learn and you grow. So that was one of our main speakers, you asked like, what did we accomplish during the conference, I would say the content was amazing. We had an unconscious bias workshop during the conference with men and women. That was one of our glitches, that zoom link, you know, didn't allow everybody on the call that was so unfortunate. So we have a lot of learning lessons. But we did have that unconscious bias workshop, which was really great. And we had some industry experts, we had, say Michael Knight from TTI, who gave an industry overview and perspective of the size and the just what we do in our industry. It was pretty amazing presentation if anybody hasn't seen that I would highly recommend. It's so much history of our industry. We had our advisory council members, we have an amazing Council of people who we meet with quarterly to advise women electronics. So we have Phil Gallagher and Alan Byrd. And people like Kimberly Appleton and Lynn terell. Linda Johnson, Michael Knights on there as well. And we have a couple of out of industry experts as well take a page from a channel consultant company. And we also have linen Clark from JPMorgan. She's a director. So we have this council that literally talks us through our growth process and women electronics, and has been highly effective for us. So we had a council session as well, where we got to talk to them and why they're doing this and why this is important. So we have some really great sessions. And then we had our final closer was john Maxwell, who is one of the the world's leading leadership trainers. He's written 283 books. He's an amazing man. And somehow some way just he agreed to be our closing speaker. And that was phenomenal that session. And we had some breakout sessions too. We had our main trainer Cecilia Gorman, she was teaching about change and dynamics of change. And we had Gina feely who's on our we board and she was talking about moving beyond zoom in in your virtual presentations. We had another gentleman from Electric's talk about digital marketing, and how do you move forward in this day and age with digital marketing. So this was really a great conference. I thought all of the sessions were really great. I think people got a lot from it. And we're looking forward to next year. We already have our contract for the Hyatt in San Diego in September. All that information is on our website. So we'll have a virtual slash in person model in 2021.
And day to day, let's hope it will be in person and you mentioned there are some prominent male speakers at the conference. So leading on from that. What role do you see men playing in within the women electronics organisation and what has been the general response to the organisation since its launch from from men within the industry?
Amazing. I would have to say we wouldn't definitely we would not be here without the support of our male colleagues. I mean, you look at people like Michael Knight, I mean, he brought so much credibility, and he came behind our mission and what we were trying to accomplish at an early time. There's a lot of people who the men that I mentioned that are on our council, we wouldn't be here without them. And in essence, our sponsor companies, we just wouldn't be here without the men. I'm finding, which was a pleasant surprise, I've always had a great relationship with my male colleagues and mentors, really overwhelming response to tell you the truth of men trying to open doors and learn and grow. It's been amazing. What we weren't expecting is that our biggest barrier seems to be women. There's a good old boy network, but there's a good old girl network as well. So we were not expecting that the majority of our resistance would come from the women. And we're learning about that we're learning why we're learning about competition, we're learning about why women equalised with other women instead of letting them you know, go forward. So we're learning together. And that's part of our mission. And women Electronics is to grow and learn together. And when people learn what they're doing, they correct themselves. Some of it is biases, some of it is inherent. And we just learned better and we do better, right? So it's not, I'm not saying it's all women, but the percentage of the small percentage of the women that have tend to bend the blockers are tend to be the ones in positions that can can create the damage. And the other thing is, I think our one of our biggest obstacles is this notion that women and electronics is a, you know, male bashing or against the men or having secret meetings against the men that couldn't be farther from the truth. So we actually have it in our membership bylaws that we will never talk about anybody negatively. In fact, if they did, we would personally invite them out of the group. It is not who we are. We we operate on very high values of honour, Authenticity, courage and commitment. And we honour our male colleagues, we unite with them, and we want to keep it that way moving forward, and we're very conscious of protecting those relationships.
Sure, sure. It's certainly very interesting there about majority of the blockers are coming from from women themselves. So what are some of the motivations for those, you know, for those blockers to be put in place from from the women?
Well, and again, it's a smaller percentage, I'm not saying it's all women, it's, you know, probably a smaller percentage, less than 20%, probably. But there's a lot of reasons for it. And it's very complicated. But there's a lot of women who maybe made their way on their own, and they had a tough through. So their attitude is, oh, everybody else has to do what I did, they just have to tuck through. There's another perception that if you say, think of the name, women in electronics, if you are a part of women and electronics, you are acknowledging that women have separate issues, sometimes people find some kind of a weakness in this instead of an empowerment and a strength. It is not a weakness, to collaborate with a group of people that you can find your sense of community and your tribe. It's very normal. It's very healthy. But not everybody sees it like that. They see it as I don't want to separate myself from the men, I don't want to be seen as different. So what we are as women electronics, I'm very proud to be a woman. I love what I bring to the table as a woman, I acknowledge there's differences between men and women. And it's that gender parity, that's the magic. So we're not saying as women we want to take over or we could do it all ourselves. We need the parody of the female mentality, the male mentality at that table to come together in a way that creates the magic.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And children are working together does women electronics work with any other organisations within the electronics industry such as the CIA?
Well, we have a very friendly relationship with a CIA and era and again, it's it's their support that it has helped us to get to this point. So as part of our board, we have an era person and an ECA person that are sit on our board, because we want to collaborate with the industry. We want to stay in our zone, we respect what they do, and we just intersect where it makes sense and how we can help each other. So they provide a lot of resources for the industry. We do what we do. But we also acknowledge collectively, that we do have a problem with industry recruitment and retention of young talent coming into the country. industry, that's one of the areas women Electronics is very dedicated and wants to make an impact on the industry is approaching that topic and seeing what we can move what we can do to move forward as an industry. So we're going to be looking at a college effort on an industry wide basis to now approach the colleges on a totally different level. That is, at the very beginning stages, we had all been in meetings talking about this COVID hit. We all had to take our programmes virtually do a lot of adjusting take our conferences, virtually, I know era is in the process of there's now. So now we're going to be coming back together after the first of the year to reconvene with our conversations. But as an industry, we are addressing recruitment and retention on a bigger level.
Sure, sure. And perhaps just as a final question, to wrap up to talk about something topical Jackie, how, how is the organisation managed during the covid 19 crisis and as it's still been able to carry out is its function and its role?
Well, it's interesting, because the organisation is more important now than ever, we're finding there's a lot of isolation, there's a lot of people who used to travel, and that starts to catch up with you when when you're actually home day after day after day. At first, it seems kind of nice to be home with a family. But there's a lot of issues for men and women that COVID has posed. So people who are working home, they have the distractions of other people home, they have children, there's homeschooling, there's so many issues, we're finding with all the data that not just in our industry, but just in general what COVID has done in the US, one in four women are either leaving the workplace or taking a reduced role. And that's because typically, the woman has the majority of responsibilities at home. And it's overwhelming. We're starting to see a lot of women, regardless of position, that are like the wheels are kind of falling off. So we're finding that women are maxed at home, but they're maxed at work. So this is a scary topic, but we need to address it. And we need to acknowledge it. So women and electronics, is bringing all these tough conversations to the table. We're talking to the companies. We're talking to the industry. We talked about this at our conference, and we're going to have a follow up discussion to say how do we move forward from here? How do we prevent people from leaving? What can we do to help resolve this current crisis? So again, men have this issue too. There's, there's some men that have maybe stayed home as well, the percentages are much smaller for men. But we do have to address the overall issue that COVID has posed. So a virtual programme like this, where women can connect, they can talk about it, they can validate it, they can have not it's not a complaining session, it's more like a problem solving. Okay, we see the issue, what are some best practices? What are some things that have worked? What can we do to move forward in a healthy and productive way? So I would say more now than ever, women need a community. And there are men that are starting to join women and electronics, which I'm so excited about because they want to participate in our trainings. They want to hear what's going on. So any man out there, I know we're women in electronics, but we welcome you to join us as well. Because we would love for you to hear some of the issues in the topics that we talked about.
Fantastic. Well, thank you, Jackie. That's just about all we've got got time for today. But it's a fascinating topic, talk about it all day and, you know, fascinating organisation as well. And it's been exciting to see that you. You guys now have a presence in Europe and it will be equally exciting to see how that progresses over, over the months and years ahead. But for now, thank you very much for joining us, Jeff.
I appreciate you having me. Have a blessed day.
electronic specifier