WITGBG Portraits: Ellinor Otter
The women in tech - Gothenburg community - is a hub for remarkable women of diverse backgrounds and experiences. In our Women in Tech Portrait series, we take an intimate look into fabulous and talented individuals, inviting them to answer a few questions.
Our second interview is with
Ellinor Otter. She is a Communication Hacker, who currently works as a CRM Analyst at a tech company in Stockholm, but will soon join We Exist, an exciting recruitment company, as a Co-founder! Her two passions in life are equality and music. When she’s not busy fighting for gender equality, you will most likely find her at a hip-hop concert.
How would you describe yourself and how do your friends/colleagues describe you?
I would describe myself as a social introvert. If you meet me, either in person or digitally, and hear me talk about my work or my passions in life you’d see me all fired up, cracking jokes and super confident. But the truth is I love being alone and I really enjoy the silence. I love people and being social, yet I always need to recharge after a big meeting or a social event. I charge my batteries by spending time alone - chilling, watching Harry Potter and ordering-in food. I think my friends and colleagues would describe me as a doer with a big heart and no filter.
Tell us about your journey into tech? What is fascinating about working in tech?
I started off as a sales person at a tech company. But I quickly realised that the company didn’t have a CRM system, which made my OCD brain freak out. I couldn’t stand all the messy excel sheets and that there was no global system to track our customer information and journey. After a while I naturally started to work really closely with the CRM team at the tech department which implemented Salesforce and it was so much fun! The CRM manager asked me why I worked with sales and not at the tech department with their CRM team and I couldn’t think of a good answer, so I transferred to his team. I love working in tech because I get to play God. If I want something in our product to improve or change I can easily fix it myself. With just a few clicks and with an awesome team of developers, I can create new fields, looks, processes and flows to improve the user experience, it’s awesome.
What is the best and the most challenging part of your job?
The best part of my job is that I learn new things every single day. The most challenging thing right now is working remotely,which makes it harder to communicate and be aligned with everyone when you’re not at the office.
Do you have any advice for other women starting out in the field?
Don’t change who you are just to try to fit in. Being a woman in a male dominated industry can be challenging and sometimes you might feel like you have to be “one of the boys” just to fit in but that’s not right. Stay true to yourself and just be you (it’s cheesy but true!). Try to see yourself as a unique bad ass sparkling unicorn that has a lot to bring to the table. Speak your mind and share your feelings and if you don’t feel appreciated, respected or welcomed - don’t be afraid to address that! Just don’t let anyone dim your light, ever.
What is the biggest dream for yourself and the industry?
All I want is an equal industry, society & world. In a dream world, I don’t want to have to be a part of female communities & networks with other women to learn how to survive in a male dominated industry, learn what techniques to use to make sure you get the same salary as your male coworkers, how to navigate in a room full of men and learn rhetorical tips & tricks on what to say and how to act just to get a seat at the table.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a part of a lot of communities like these and I think they are awesome. They really have helped me to get support and inspiration from other women & I have made a lot of new friends and female mentors through them. Unfortunately, I think this just creates a bigger gap between the sexes. It’s kind of a “man vs woman” feeling now out there and I don’t want that, at all. It’s not “us” against “them”. I wish we could all just be “people in tech”. And for everyone to co-exist with the same rights, opportunities, respect and salary regardless of if you identify as a woman, man, neither or something in between.
What’s the next chapter in your career?
I am joining We Exist as a Co-founder! We Exist is a Sweden-based recruitment company that helps companies attract, recruit & keep women at their tech & IT departments. We strive for gender equality and are passionate about improving the lives of women and changing their work situation. During several years of experience in the industry, my Co-founder and I have many times been told that it is “impossible to employ women in tech & It because there are none”. So now we are here to show: We are here. We exist! Surveys show that companies that actively and successfully work with being inclusive and equal are more profitable; therefore, we want to help companies to become both more profitable and equal by recruiting women to their teams. Not only will we work with recruitment, we will also have inclusive leadership training, workshops, lectures, help companies write discrimination policies & create job ads that attract more women. I can’t wait to start that exciting chapter!