ENTERPRISING WOMEN

Leveraging leadership to get women to the top of Baltimore's tech community

Aug 7, 2015, 6:00am EDT

JACLYN BOROWSKI

When Zuly Gonzalez, a former program manager for the National Security Agency, answers the phone at the cyber security firm she helped found, the caller often asks to speak with her business partner, assuming she is his secretary.

It’s demeaning and wrong, but at this point, it’s also such a stereotypical story of women in a male-dominated field that Gonzalez can’t help but laugh as she tells it.

“I try not to let that kind of thing affect me,” said Gonzalez, who is CEO of Light Point Security in Catonsville.

“We as women do a disservice by focusing so much on the gender issue,” she said. “If our goal is to be treated equally, we should just be out there with the men.”

Gonzalez and every other woman in technology knows that’s the attitude they have to have if they want to succeed. But chin up, buck up can be a tough attitude to maintain for an entire career.

The dearth of women in technology and women in leadership positions is a well-documented, national problem. Women comprise about a quarter of the computer and math workforce and lead about 7 percent of venture-backed startup companies.

Read more at http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/print-edition/2015/08/07/leveraging-leadership-to-get-women-to-the-top-of.html