She's the boss

Women IT business owners declare independence, set goals and define success.

By Loretta W. Prencipe
Network World, 7/27/98

Receiving accolades from President Clinton and heading a multimillion-dollar business would be sufficient achievement for most people. But Mary Ann Mitchell doesn't want to quit until her IT company is worth billions. Once she has a goal, there's no stopping her.

"My style is no different from Bill Gates'. I believe it if I say I'm going to make $10 million by Dec. 31," Mitchell says.

She owns Computer Consulting Operations Specialists, Inc., a network and telecommunications service company in Culver City, Calif., that has more than 170 employees.

Mitchell founded her company in 1985 to profit from the experience she gained installing eight computer centers for Hughes Aircraft Co. "It dawned on me that developing these types of technology environments was a progressive field," she says. "So why not do this for myself?"

Keeping her job at Hughes as a safety net, Mitchell worked nights to develop a client base for her new business, hiring others to do the work she lined up. Years later, she finally left Hughes.

In 1996, Clinton honored Mitchell for her efforts on behalf of small business development by appointing her as a delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business and a member of the Small Business Regulatory Fairness Board.

Mitchell is one of a growing number of women who've traded the security of a regular paycheck for success - or failure - on their own terms. This leap into the great unknown could be the best way for women to play with the big boys in corporate America.

While women are moving up in IT management ranks, they're not reaching the upper echelons as fast as they are in other industries. Only 29% of 500 female executives surveyed by the Women in Technology International business group in Sherman Oaks, Calif., believe they have the same chance as their male colleagues of becoming CEOs for their present employers.

Statistics support those perceptions. A late 1997 report from Woburn, Mass., publisher CorpTech shows that of 1,686 leading technology companies, only 5.6% had women at the helm.

Rebecca Spitler, co-president of VisionLink, Inc., a systems and software distributor in Norcross, Ga., abandoned the slow creep to the top by forging her own path. When Spitler began installing networks for a small systems house in the mid-'80s, she found it difficult to be taken seriously.

"There was kind of a mental block about women being technical. I always had to prove myself," Spitler says. After she left the firm to become an independent consultant, she encountered fewer incidents of gender discrimination. "The companies had a vested interest in me being successful," she says.

But the reports of rampant gender discrimination in the IT industry aren't wholly accepted. "Yes, it's happened to me, but it's atypical," says Galina Datskovsky, owner of MDY Advanced Technologies, Inc., a network service provider and records management firm in Fair Lawn, N.J.

One U.S. Department of Labor report confirms Datskovsky's experiences, indicating that incidents of gender discrimination are less prevalent among those who hold advanced degrees, are in business for themselves or are higher on the corporate ladder. "Ninety-nine percent of the time, I'm treated on an equal footing," she says.

Roma Malkani, president of Information Systems and Networks Corp. (ISN) in Bethesda, Md., theorizes that women IT business owners do encounter discrimination - but of a different kind. "The discrimination could be against small businesses, and the women are perceiving it against them personally," she says.

Malkani has faced another issue that many women seem to encounter - the oft-cited struggle for balance between work and family. Shortly after her daughter was born in 1980, Malkani left a government position and started ISN, hoping to leave behind the eight-hour days. That she did.

"It's ironic. From Day One, instead of eight hours, it was 20 hours a day," she says. But Malkani's drive for autonomy kept her going. "I just didn't think I could work for anyone else. I wanted independence more than fewer hours," she says.

But women can achieve a balance of work and family through commitment, planning and the right employees. Melanie Shanks, owner of network/systems service provider Parker-Boyd, Inc. in Highland Park, Ill., usually works three days per week. She finds the clients, works with them for a while and then brings in other employees to do the on-site technical work. "My philosophy is to work to live, not live to work. I want to make the company successful on my own terms, on reasonable hours," Shanks says.

Success may be a life away from the company for one entrepreneur or a certain sales level for another. Each woman interviewed said networking with your colleagues is key to success. "Find a mentor, and build your network," says Valerie Perlowitz, president of Reliable Systems Integration, Inc. in Dun Loring, Va. Perlowitz sits on the board of the influential Northern Virginia Technology Council; founded Women in Technology, a women's business group in Fairfax, Va.; and is involved with many other educational and networking associations. But that wasn't always the case. When she was younger, Perlowitz says she let valuable learning opportunities pass her by.

Perlowitz sees a difference in the young professional women she meets at Women in Technology meetings these days. They understand the importance of networking. But Perlowitz worries about the women on their own entrepreneurial paths who are left to fend for themselves.

"We need to mentor the young women coming out to the field . . . to show these young women the path, how to get up the ladder and build their own network," Perlowitz says. Maybe one day those women will be leading billion-dollar companies of their own.

Prencipe is a freelance writer and attorney in Springfield, Va. She can be reached at LWPrencipe@mailexcite.com.