How the leader of Change.org is shifting power with 4 million users - Women's Agenda

How the leader of Change.org is shifting power with 4 million users

Change.org’s Karen Skinner on life as a woman in tech

Karen Skinner admits she was “technically challenged” before joining Change.org as Australian country director four years ago.

Now overseeing four million users via an online petition platform that’s had a number of significant wins across the country, she says she’s learnt everything she needs to know on the job – the best possible way.

She wants to celebrate the rise of women in tech, including some of the great women who’re leading major organsiations here in Australia, and to also see more women get past any self-limiting ideas that they can’t have a career in tech.

“Guys often don’t know what they are doing either, they’re just better at faking it,” she says “Imposter syndrome can affect us all – I’m just very honest and self-deprecating about mine, and I hope that authenticity persuades my team to trust me more and speak up honestly about their own strengths that can help me, and weaknesses where I can help them.”

We asked Skinner about her career so far, including her major wins and how she juggles her day. She’s the latest to feature in our #womenintech series, showcasing the diversity of roles available across the sector. 

Has your tech career been planned or did it just happen?  

I have a social change background. I saw the way that technology was reshaping our lives in so many ways – and I wanted to see what was possible when it came to social change and shifting power.  I came across to Change.org just over four years ago to roll it out in Australia. It was a pretty  big leap for me – I’d go as far to say that I was technically challenged…  The first day of the job I managed to lock my computer and spent half the afternoon talking to Apple trying to reset my password! But now technology is such an essential part of social change, that I’ve taught myself to be in the very centre of that, even if that meant overcoming my Luddite beginnings.

What qualifications (if any) do you have that support you in this role?

I have learnt everything on the job – there’s no better qualification than that in my opinion.

Do you know any coding languages, is this relevant to your career?

No.  I don’t directly code, I work with our product and engineering leads on the strategic direction of the platform.

What’s your proudest achievement so far in tech? 

We’ve just hit 4 million users, over half of whom have been part of a winning campaign. I am proud to hit this milestone. That’s 1 in 6 Australians using Change.org, with a petition winning tangible change, both local and national, every 24 hours. We’ve come such a long way since when we started 4 years ago: nobody had heard of us and people were initially skeptical about the concept of the online petition before they’d seen the powerful impact they can have. It shows that technology can be used to shift power, and by keeping the tool very simple to use, it opens up technology and power to the many, rather than the few.

Why is diversity so important in the tech sector?

Diversity is important in every sector. Technology is reshaping our lives every single day. Without diversity, a minority will be shaping our future. We’ve already seen how that worked out. Injecting diversity into power is exciting. I’m really optimistic about the future – when you wrestle power away from those who have traditionally held it, and hand it back to those who’ve historically been voiceless, you see some spine tingling changes accelerate: domestic violence prevention lessons in schools; the decriminalisation of medicinal cannabis; pro-rape pick up artists banned from the country. All changes won by everyday Australian women using their petitions. It’s like a digital sisterhood juggernaut, and the technology sector is giving a voice to those who were previously marginalised.

It’s bringing diversity to power holders.

What do you want all girls and young women to know about careers in tech?  

You have as much right to be here, ask questions and be heard as any bloke. Guys often don’t know what they are doing either, they’re just better at faking it. Imposter syndrome can affect us all – I’m just very honest and self-deprecating about mine, and I hope that authenticity persuades my team to trust me more and speak up honestly about their own strengths that can help me, and weaknesses where I can help them.    

How do you personally raise your profile as a woman in tech? 

I’ve written op eds for Fairfax and News Corp, quite widely across all titles. An op ed editor once told me how hard it was to find a gender balance of writers and he thought it was because women get trolled more. He said men are likely to know 60% about a subject and write an op ed about it. Women will know 90% of the same subject but decline to write a piece because they think they lack the necessary expertise. So I think it’s our duty to speak up, to represent, to be opinionated, to be on those op ed pages and on those panels at events, which I love doing and won’t apologise for loving doing. It’s the same issue ABC’s Q&A commissioning editor was transparent about this year – the difficulty of persuading female panelists to put themselves forward.

When I went on Lateline earlier this year to discuss whether Parliament was representative of the people it serves (obviously saying it isn’t – look how few women there are now), I did so on a panel with two men. One tried to claim that Alan Jones was actually responsible for one of our female petition starter’s wins. I very quickly corrected him. She was responsible for it herself. Alan Jones merely reported on her achievement.

How can we get more women speaking at technology-related events?

We need to make sure men refuse to talk on panels with only other men. If that happened, events could only run if women were included. It’s something male staff at Change.org practice as a matter of course.

What does your ‘daily juggle’ look like?

My job is to feed into strategic decisions of the company and input into the product roadmap – while also ensuring we drive user engagement and brand understanding in Australia.  And of course ensuring we make enough money to pay the bills!

I work part time as I have a 14 month old son, so life is a juggle between work, looking after him and some rare moments of time to myself!

As a global organisation I juggle managing the team in Australia, and connecting with colleagues around the world. My day starts juggling getting Caleb ready and getting myself ready.  If I need to connect with the US it will often be first thing in the morning so I might jump on a video conference call before heading into the office. In the office I work with our comms and campaigns staff.  At least once a week I will be online in the evenings for a few hours to connect with Europe. 

What more would you like to see the tech industry doing to better support women in the field?

I think women already do a fantastic job and we should focus on celebrating how fantastic we are rather than always focusing on what we’re not doing right or what the tech sector here isn’t doing right.

Men slap themselves on the backs enough so now I’m going to do it for women: Pip Marlow as Country Manager Microsoft Maile Carnegie as former MD for Australia and New Zealand, and Kate Burleigh as General Manager of Australia and New Zealand for Intel, Karen Stocks as MD for Twitter. That’s a roll call of honour for women in leadership positions in tech companies, all leaning in. Australia is a global leader, beating Silicone Valley in terms of representation of women at the top in the tech sector. Well done us!

Of course, the sector’s initiatives to encourage more women to imagine a career in tech for themselves, and the initiatives to encourage more girls to study STEM subjects at school are very welcome. But I’m here to say: you don’t have to be a coding expert to be a woman in tech. There are way more jobs in the technology sector than in the product team. But women coders rock and we need more of them to help inform people’s experience of the internet.

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