We Need Female Leaders in Technology Fields

For many reasons, diverse leaders and teams are key to modern success

As seen in Inc. Magazine

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The power of women in leadership has been particularly high on my mind as of late. The president of Chang Robotics, Kate McAfoose, P.E., is a powerful woman leader. Kate recently won two Gold Stevie Awards in New York City for Most Innovative Woman of the Year and Technology Innovation.

Kate has been quick to position these awards as achievements by us all. She is possibly being modest, but in a very real way, she is right. When a woman at the helm of a company receives a major innovation award, it’s a signal of several things:

• The organization’s internal culture is healthy enough to elevate talent wherever it lives.

• Its leadership is successfully aligned toward outcomes over ego.  

• The future of the business (and of industry itself) is shifting toward more inclusive and effective ways of accomplishing growth.

This is leading me to reflect more deeply on how the robotics industry—and all technology sectors—advance most effectively when they maximize the strengths of their women leaders. Here are three reasons why.

1. Women leaders improve the way teams execute.

Research from McKinsey and others shows that companies with gender-diverse leadership teams outperform financially, innovate faster, and retain talent more effectively. Studies show that organizations with at least 30 percent women in leadership are 12 times more likelyto rank in the top 20 percent for financial performance. In our own company and across our industry, this is increasingly evident.

2. Diverse teams improve the quality of innovation.

Innovation requires much more than novel ideas. Innovation also requires empathy, user understanding, diverse ways of thinking, and the ability to anticipate impacts. Organizations that are diverse (as well as female-forward) exhibit greater “cognitive diversity,” according to research. In robotics, particularly healthcare robotics, which is Kate’s largest focus, this rich, deep thinking and human-centered analysis are mission-critical. Teams that understand how humans interact with technology build safer, more intuitive systems, and diverse teams do this best.

3. Women excel in distributed leadership roles.

Modern organizations are prioritizing distributed leadership over traditional hierarchy as they scale. Leadership experts indicate that women leaders excel in these collaborative settings focused on coaching, development, long-term decisions, and creating psychologically safe spaces where the best ideas emerge.

All of this is good news, but there’s a call to action here, too. According to data from LinkedIn’s Economic Graph Research, at the end of 2024, women held 30.6 percent of leadership positions globally, while their share of all roles was 43.4 percent. The report shows that progress from 2015-2022 was steady, but since 2022, gains have slowed to only +0.2 percentage points in two years. 

Likewise, McKinsey & Company’s Women in the Workplace 2025 report shows that women make up 29 percent of C-suite positions in large U.S. companies, up from 17 percent in 2015, but growth has slowed, and entry- and manager-level roles are barely budging. 

Closing thoughts

The evidence is clear—diverse organizations excel, and the companies that perform best are led by (or prominently include) women. Innovative and growth-stage companies will require strong leaders. These are the arenas where women leaders excel.

The way forward isn’t complicated. If tech companies want to innovate faster, perform better, and stay competitive, they need to promote more women into leadership. Progress has slowed, but it doesn’t have to stop. By focusing on inclusion, development, and opportunity, we can create organizations where leadership reflects talent, not tradition—and where women leaders help guide technology into its most impactful decade yet.

As seen in Inc. Magazine