Why a LinkedIn executive can't 'snap her fingers' and fix gender diversity in tech

Gender diversity is an urgent problem in the tech industry, but it's not one that is likely to be totally solved anytime soon.

That's according to Sarah Clatterbuck, director of engineering at LinkedIn and lead for the company's Women in Tech program.

"I am thinking about this as a very long-time horizon investment," Clatterbuck said on Mashable's Biz Please podcast. "This is a success that I look forward to towards the end of my career — having the entire industry reflect the population around us. That's the metric of success."

Women make up about one-third of the tech workforce at nine of the biggest Silicon Valley companies, according to research by Fortune.

Clatterbuck worked at Apple, Yahoo and several startups before joining LinkedIn. Early in her career, she said she had many women bosses at tech companies.

"I later found that was really unusual," she said.

Clatterbuck joined Biz Please to talk about LinkedIn's work on gender diversity as well as what companies need to do to encourage diversity — gender and otherwise — across the tech industry.

Listen to more of our conversation below, and read more about LinkedIn's women in tech program here.

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