Pratima Rao Gluckman knew as a child that she wanted to become an engineer and leader after taking her first programming class and routinely organizing her neighborhood’s cricket games. She didn’t, however, know she would want to write a book. But it was the topic that made her passionate. Gluckman wrote and published Nevertheless, She Persisted: True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech because she noticed that at women conferences, the audiences were eager to know the journeys of female executives, etc., in technology. She interviewed over twenty women who are directors, senior directors, vice presidents, senior vice presidents, and CEO’s.
While Gluckman’s book is meant to empower women, she assured So Booking Cool that it is not about alienating the men. “It’s not to tell the men ‘it’s our turn.’ It’s not to tell the men ‘we’re taking over the world’ and they need to move to the side. I am saying innovation is good for businesses; and there are studies that show when you have equality of men and women at the top, companies are 21% more successful. What’s good is to have diversity, and we need to have diversity at the top.”
Listen to full interview to learn more about the other brilliant women profiled in Nevertheless, She Persisted, the publishing process of Gluckman’s book, including some of the challenges she faced, how she planned her book launch, whether she will self-publish or traditionally publish her next book, what she thinks can be done to make more girls interested in engineering, and more! For more information, visit her official website.