It’s no secret that women are dramatically underrepresented in the tech sector. In fact, the five largest tech companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft) report that only 32.9% of their workforce are women. While Procore sits above that industry standard with 38% of our global employees identifying as female, as a company, we recognize that there is still more work to be done to attract, retain and promote women.
March was a time to remember and celebrate the contributions women have made to history, culture and society through Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. As a co-lead of our Women’s Impact Network (WIN) Employee Resource Group (ERG), I was able to help coordinate events to shine a spotlight on the impact and importance of women at Procore and beyond. Here’s a quick look at some of the events we hosted.
In late February, several Procore leaders met in Sydney, Australia, for a fireside chat on empowering women and allyship with Rakhi Voria, our VP of global sales development, moderated by Tom Karemacher, our vice president of Asia-Pacific. Recruiting coordinator Robin shared a LinkedIn post expressing her impressions from the chat. “I was left so inspired after hearing Rakhi talk about her own lived experience in tech sales and her passion for attracting, retaining and enabling women to succeed. She has shown a massive commitment to the women at Procore, and I can't wait to see what she does as the new global executive sponsor of Procore's Women's Impact Network.”
On March 8, offices around the globe honored the women on our teams with celebratory lunches, conversations and shout-outs, which focused on the theme of #EmbraceEquity.
Our WIN and ProBLAC ERGs partnered to bring Dr. Gina Loring in to host a poetry reading and voice liberation writing workshop. This powerful and uplifting reading was a multisensory experience. As Dr. Loring shared her work, her rhythmic words painted strong imagery and spoke to the heart, especially her poem about motherhood, which felt personal to me as the mom of a 14-month-old son. She helped the group break down this art form through a series of prompts that helped us activate our voice and understand why it’s important. We finished with an open mic session that left me feeling so inspired after hearing several Procorians share their work!
Women’s History Month may be over, but our work continues to help move the needle forward. Procore consistently puts forth the effort to help nurture our employees so that we can grow and develop to be our best. From that work, we have targeted initiatives that focus on different groups to help promote diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging. Here are a few ongoing internal initiatives that I am excited to see at our organization:
- Lean In Circles for women and allies. This is something that we had in the past on a small scale, but in March, our WIN ERG worked together to relaunch this program on a global scale. Nicole, our senior manager of global sourcing, is leading our Northeast region. “Being part of a Lean In Circle gives me the opportunity to connect with other women and allies in the organization outside of my day-to-day to learn from and share ideas within an open and supportive environment. Procore's support of these circles shows the commitment to our growth and the continued focus to create an inclusive environment.”
- Gender-diversity targeted initiatives from our recruiting and talent brand teams. This includes partnerships with platforms such as InHerSight, beginning balanced-gender slating for some roles, and commitment to ensuring a diverse interviewing panel.
- Internal mentoring and shadowing programs, such as our Women in Tech and Women in Sales mentorship programs. My WIN co-lead, Kristen Ramirez, has been involved in this for some time, and we look forward to expanding these opportunities more broadly at Procore.
This month also marks my seven-year anniversary with Procore Technologies. As an early employee with our install base sales team, there were few female account executives when I joined the company. Although we started as a small group, our collective desire to make an impact was strong and led to the launch of our Women in Sales affinity group in 2019 with the support of revenue leadership and has evolved into our larger WIN ERG today. This fostered my passion for advancing women in sales and establishing programs to better support and retain female talent at Procore.
As I reflect on my Procore journey, one of the things I'm most proud of is helping to shape the progression of our parental leave policy to support parents who are in quota-carrying roles. This is close to my heart, especially since I experienced this first-hand with my own motherhood journey in 2022.
I’m grateful that my time at Procore has been marked by the support and encouragement of other women and allies in the organization and hope WIN will continue to equip women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence needed to build their careers.
Jen McBride
Director of Sales, Install Base, Owners
Santa Barbara, CA, USA
- Diversity & Inclusion
- Women at Procore
