After nine months of pregnancy – including some rather gruelling moments during some of the hottest days ever recorded in August 2022 – it was time to start a new chapter as a mother .

The experience is different for every woman . I observed friends take to motherhood like they had been born for the role while , for me , the world looked like an entirely different place and I could no longer reconcile the pre-mother version of myself with who I now was .

Fast forward to 12 months later – after an intense , magical and humbling year spent with my newborn – and it was time to re-enter the world of work . It was a world where I ’ d previously thought nothing of working well into the evenings , replied to ‘ a couple of important ’ messages while on honeymoon and had been able to dedicate most of my energy and resources into my professional role .

But things were different now . I not only had a hard start and finish but also the added complications of managing childcare drop-offs and pick-ups , recurring illnesses ( anyone who ’ s sent a baby to nursery for the first time knows this is relentless ) and it felt like I was on a constant tight rope trying desperately to keep a sense of balance . That ’ s on top of reduced sleep and ‘ baby brain ’ ( which really is a thing , by the way ).

It was a transition that I hadn ’ t anticipated would be quite so difficult and which has been greatly eased by the supportive , flexible environment of my own workplace and being employed by a company which not only supports working mothers but champions them too .

Unfortunately , this is not a common scenario .

According to Mariana Missakian , an established business leader , best-selling author , TEDx speaker , and doctoral student researching mothers in leadership , the numbers of women in leadership in the tech sector are quite startling .

Speaking on Lynchpin Media ’ s At C-level podcast , she told me : “ The good news is that globally , across all industries , the representation of women is at 48 % which is the highest it ’ s been for the past decade . Now we look at that in the context of the technology industry and it falls to 20 %.

“ Interestingly , 75 % of all new recruits in tech are women . But we ’ ve already seen that the industry average is 20 %. So , something didn ’ t add up .”

Mariana discovered that around 65 % of those new recruits drop out at the mid-level of their career – around the time of becoming mothers .

Across top management and leadership – for all industries – the number of women drops to 20 % and lower still to 12 % for CXO level .

The question she asks CEOs is – ‘ now that you ’ ve hired these women , how are you planning to keep them ? How are you planning to retain them , promote them and get them to the C-level ?’.

Mariana ’ s mission to champion mothers in technology is personal . After moving to Dubai from Lebanon at the age of 18 , she spent 15 years excelling in highly competitive , fast-paced and booming industries . She achieved significant success at IBM , Intel and McKinsey , where she developed market , customer and product strategies and drove organisational change . By age 28 , she was leading the change management communications strategy for a US $ 240 million M & A and was managing the corporate communications for a US $ 34 billion IPO .

However , becoming a mother proved to be her biggest challenge yet because she was suddenly asked to justify why she deserved the role she had been doing , and doing so well , for the past 15 years .

Mariana Missakian

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