Season 1 of the new podcast “The Other Half” has recently launched, aiming to inspire women in tech.
Speakers include founders, VCs, senior tech leaders and subject matter experts. Season 1 episodes include a wide range of topics such as fundraising advice for startups, navigating pregnancy as a founder, lessons on being an engineering leader, and how to build confidence.
Here, we spoke with Josephine Conneely, Co-Host of The Other Half, to find out more about this amazing initiative!
What is the inspiration for the podcast?
We found that over the years we worked in tech, we were spending countless hours messaging each other about the big and small challenges we faced as ambitious women in the workplace. We realised that the things we were talking about with each other were being experienced by many women around us. Women who felt like they couldn’t get ahead and were thinking of leaving tech all together. This was supported with stats such as:
- 50% of women are abandoning careers in tech by the age of 35 (Source: Accenture & Girls Who Code)
- only 32% of women working in tech currently vs 35% in 1984. (Source: Accenture & Girls Who Code)
- Women-led startups received just 2% of venture capital in 2022. (Source: PitchBook – US stats & Europe stats)
- Less than 15% of VC partners in Europe are women. (Source: European Women in VC Report, Sifted)
This made us mad. So we decided to do something about it and create a positive impact in this space. Our mission is to inspire and empower the next wave of female founders, VCs and business leaders by giving women practical advice on how to navigate their careers.
What have you learned that surprised you?
The similarity of the steps to success regardless of which role/path our guests decided to take – founder, VC, senior management, coach. Unprompted, most of our guests spoke about the importance of knowing your “why”/personal mission and how fundamental that has been in guiding their decision making and career journeys. So many of our guests also spoke about their decision to leave roles that weren’t fulfilling and how they took a risk and bet on themselves to step-up into the next phase of their careers.
What are your favourite tech podcasts?
- In-Depth: It provides great tactical advice for hands-on operators in tech companies. I also like that their interviewees span from startups still early in their journey to companies that have scaled to massive success, so that you can learn from various stages of growth.
- Lenny’s Podcast: Similar to the reason above but also includes thought-provoking episodes on career-related topics. “The Ultimate Guide to SEO” (helpful for any type of business) and “How to Make Better Decisions and Build a Joyful Career” are among my favourite episodes.
- Product Ops Podcast: I’m somewhat biased here as this is Gerisha, my co-host’s other podcast! Again, it provides practical advice in a nascent but fast-growing function within startups. Her recent episode with Teresa Torres was particularly inspiring with great advice on how to act with agency within even the most slow-moving organisations.
