Ilana Golan, Owner of Ilana Golan #CareerLeap is an entrepreneur turned tech investor and Forbes Business contributor who loves to help individuals and companies grow. Selected top 40 women to watch in 2016 and Business Insider Silicon Valley Women of influence in 2017, Ilana is a Board Director and General Partner at Homrun, the first of its kind network-based venture, accelerating the growth of Israeli companies in North America.
Deck 7: What is the most important quality a leader must have in order to be successful?
ILANA GOLAN: Emotional Intelligence and understanding the dynamics of a team, how to motivate the individuals and make sure they are the best version of themselves in my mind is number one. A leader will only be as good as the team he or she is leading and therefore being able to get the most out of your team is key.
D7: Do you feel that women in technology careers face barriers not faced by their male counterparts? In your opinion, what are the initiatives to make it better?
IG: I believe the main barrier women face is the ‘first impression syndrome’. No woman or men will look at me at first impression and say ‘Oh she must be a really smart engineer and business leader’. That just doesn’t happen. So first impression is tougher for women and we need to somehow break this barrier. Once we do, we build great relationships and rapport, but this first impression hurts us in many roles including raising investments funds and more.
The more women we will see at key roles, the more we will realize that its possible and the first impression issue will go away. So first of all we need to have many more successes and make sure the world (both men and women) know about it. In the shorter term women will need to work a bit harder to build their reputation so it helps them with the first impression – more public speaking, more media coverage, etc. This is what I’ve been doing at #CareerLeap helping individuals and professionals shine and leap in their career breaking those barriers!
ABOUT CAREER LEAP
Ilana Golan CareerLeap Program helps professionals who want to reinvent themselves in 60 days, leap to leadership, land a dream-job or start a business, gaining the reputation, pay, impact and balance they want and deserve. This is a unique program which takes years of insights from building and growing companies, into what’s needed to grow individuals to become the best version of themselves – motivated and super passionate about who they are, what they are doing and working on.
Ilana is the inventor of the MASTER technique which has been impacting thousands of lives and careers.