Technology-based organizations need, more than ever, women’s talents, skills, abilities, and their valuable contribution. Women in tech play an important role in achieving success for technology oriented organizations.
CIO Look recognizes valuable women contributing largely to female empowerment in the technology sector. One such impeccable leader is Elizabeth Scott.
Below is her story,
Elizabeth is the Global Head of Content for YI Technology, which is headquartered in Shanghai, China. She is based in San Francisco and works in the Silicon Valley office. She previously worked at UploadVR as Director of Social Media and at Google as a Social Media Strategist. While working, she also co-founded and successfully exited an e-commerce start-up, called Startup Drugz, a satirical lifestyle brand for entrepreneurs. In her spare time, she has also dabbled in investing in startups and venture capital.
Elizabeth thrives in collaborative, creative and challenging atmospheres. She has over six years of experience in content strategy and development, marketing campaign execution, as well as corporate messaging and positioning. She has managed teams of up to 12 full-time employees, in addition to creative agencies, videographers and independent contractors. Needless to say, multitasking is one of her specialties.
Elizabeth is an outspoken advocate for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. She has been interviewed by CNN and featured in The New York Times, TechCrunch, BuzzFeed, BBC, and many others on the topic of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. She served as the President of the Alliance for Sexual Assault Prevention (ASAP) and was a founding member of Sexual Assault Peer Advocates (SAPA). She has also been the PACE mentor when she was in college.
YI Technology’s first product was the 1st Generation YI Action Camera. It was extremely well-received because of its excellent image quality, sturdy/solid form and high quality for an affordable price. It was nick-named the “Go Pro Killer”.
Since launching the initial action camera, YI has widened its product offering from professional VR Cameras, such as the YI Halo (made in partnership with Google VR), to home security cameras (Best Sellers on Amazon), Dash Cameras, 4K Action Cameras and even Mirrorless Digital Cameras.
In November 2018, YI Technology launched its new, premium brand for the North American Market and its first product, the Kami Indoor Camera. Its full product line will be releasing this April 2019 and will allow consumers to have a fully integrated security system for their homes or businesses that they can access with the tap of a button on their smartphone. Its partnership with Microsoft Azure ensures that its customers’ privacy and footage is secure on the Kami Cloud.
Elizabeth Scott considers that business women should possess essential traits such as individuality, openness, and courage. She believes that women should build up other women in the workplace instead of tearing each other down. She strongly believes in being a champion of women.
Elizabeth says that working with and for corporations has given her an awareness of the need for continued focus and attention on inclusion, diversity, championship and opportunities for women in the workplace. She describes that typecasting, conscious and unconscious biases, discrimination, especially sexual, are only a few of the challenges that she and other women routinely face.
She states, “It would be easy to describe a myriad of offenses that I’ve personally experienced and that occur all too often against women in the workplace. But let’s suffice to say that as women, we must continue to demand respect and inclusion, foster the conversation to drive understanding and draw awareness to what must be done to close the gender pay gap and disparity in opportunity. The only way to eradicate these things is to first admit that there is a problem; then progress can be made to change the way women are treated in the workforce.”
Elizabeth has made it a priority to surround herself with a strong network of champions and friends, male advocates, female peers and leaders—people who take her outside of her comfort zone. Personally, she sometimes has to remind herself that she belongs in the conversation, in the boardroom, in the lead. As long as she overcomes her own fears and finds her inner strength and courage, remembering the challenges that she has faced, she finds the energy and strength to continue to put in the work that will go towards closing the gap.
Elizabeth says that meritocracy is an ideal one should continue to strive for. She states that the difference in today’s world is that we have an opportunity to become more self-aware of unconscious biases that interfere with meritocracy from succeeding – particularly in the workplace.
At the end of the day, the greatest professional experiences become possible when we are surrounded by phenomenal colleagues, who not only have an implicit understanding of excellence in execution, but also bring of diversity of thought and experience to the table and feel empowered to express those ideas. The barrier to leverage technology to build tools and gain education or “knowledge” is being lowered every day. Those with less access or privilege are now able to bring ideas to the market that would have previously been rejected by historic gatekeepers. Elizabeth Scott is excited for the next generation of young people who will be entering the workforce and the women who will lead us into the future of tech.