Theory+Practice CEO Rogayeh TabriziSUPPLIED
Balanced teams creating a more collaborative company culture
Sometimes, when she sits down with potential partners to explore collaborations designed to advance the data and AI capabilities of their firms, gender bias creeps into the discussion, says Rogayeh Tabrizi, co-founder and CEO of the data science startup Theory+Practice.
“In one meeting, a senior leader actually told me that his team had been betting on whether I would know the technical details,” she recalls. “I decided to keep it light and told him jokingly that this was baby stuff compared to my work on the ATLAS detector at CERN.”
While the comment made the man chuckle, Dr. Tabrizi’s reference to her work at CERN was no joke – she has a degree in particle physics as well as a PhD in economics. The preconception about women in tech – and women in corporate leadership positions in general – “is a numbers game,” she says. “And visibility can change things.”
This motivates Dr. Tabrizi, a member of the Forbes Technology Council, to speak out about women in tech as well as take an active role in organizations like the International Women’s Forum. Both male and female champions have to increase their efforts to “lift women up,” she believes.
At Theory+Practice, almost half the team is made up of women, she says. “While we are hiring on ability and fit for the team rather than gender, I sometimes wonder whether we are attracting such strong women applicants because of our company culture.”
At the same time, the balanced team is highly effective. “Women tend to do things differently, especially in areas like communication, team-building and multi-tasking,” says Dr. Tabrizi. “I believe our female team members help to create a more collaborative environment. And I certainly see a lot of respect.”
Dr. Tabrizi recently received the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award for “ones to watch,” and has big plans for growing the self-funded private company she started in 2018. Reading an article about the small number of female founders who have led their startups to an IPO sparked her ambition to follow in the footsteps of these role models.
“The article named the 22 women founders of companies listed in the New York Stock Exchange. It just hit me, because I’d never heard of any of them, even though some are leading companies worth billions,” she says. “It’s inspiring to learn what these women have achieved, but I also know that 22 are not enough.”
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