Women in Project Leadership

Ahead of International Women’s Day, ProjectifiedTM hosted a roundtable with three women to discuss their experiences leading projects and programs and their hopes for the next generation of women in the profession.

Varsha Advani, PMP, senior technical program manager at Akamai Technologies in Bengaluru, India, talks about the importance of mentorship and how company-structured programs can help build a culture of learning. She also hopes to see more women in management roles moving forward.

Selenne Berthely, PMP, project manager, Banco de México, Mexico City, Mexico, discusses how leaders need both technical and people skills and shares her advice to other women in the profession—remain true to yourself and focus on your team.

Asya Watkins, PMP, manager of pharmaceutical implementations at EnvisionRxOptions and founder of Women Of Project Management in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, discusses how mentorship helped her career and the lessons she learned from being the only woman on some of her teams. She also shares ways men can advocate and support women on project teams.

Anna Tavis, PhD, academic director of human capital management, New York University, New York, New York, USA, shares how organizations can use data-driven metrics and better measurements of collaboration to help gender equity.

Key themes

[01:25] Creativity, empathy and freedom make projects challenging and fulfilling

[03:33] What leaders need: People skills, relationship building, communication

[06:23] Sharing experiences and learning through mentorship

[13:58] Advocating for women through partnership on projects, speaking up

[17:07] Hopes for the future: More women in management roles

[20:49] Measuring performance and impact of an individual on a team