Each month, the Anita Borg Institute profiles Senior Technical Women. We have selected 7 questions and asked each of these amazing women to share their answers. This month, SAP Executive Vice President Marge Breya discusses her lessons learned for success.
Geoff Kerr: So we’re here today with Marge Breya, [and we] thought it would be a great opportunity to get to know you a little bit better on the personal side. So I have a few questions to talk to you about your career and your success, and some information that I’m sure our colleagues across the world would be interested in knowing about you.
So first of all, how did you decide to pursue a career in technology? Why technology?
Marge Breya: I guess, probably a couple of things. I was always good at math and science when I was a kid. I grew up in a lower-middle class family. In all honesty, there was a pragmatism associated with it. I was trying to figure out what would make the most money. Being good at math and science, I looked into engineering and it seemed like a great career. I did a lot of – if you will – analysis, before I made the passionate decision to go into electrical engineering.
But, on a more personal note, my grandfather was a real inspiration for me as I was growing up; he was a self-taught engineer who worked for AT&T. He had been given a project with the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. He and a couple of guys were asked to take up this bag of parts and build something. They built a picture phone, the first picture phone that was in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Geoff Kerr: Your grandfather?
Marge Breya: My grandpa, yeah. He used to show me all of his equipment that he had in the basement; his radio, his operational equipment. I grew up being involved with somebody who was passionate about technology, and I never thought that it was something that A) a woman wouldn’t be interested in, or B) wouldn’t make a great career for anyone.
Geoff Kerr: Based on your experience, what skills and characteristics do you think are most important for technical women today to succeed?
Marge Breya: I don’t think they’re any different for a technical man, quite frankly. The skills that are necessary are – first of all – passion for your discipline; subject matter excellence is something that you just need to really cherish, because your career, however humble; and your domain, however humble, is something that is really important. In some cases it defines you and defines the contribution you make in an organization. So domain; subject matter expertise, is always something that you have to have and it’s just great and kind of the changing fortunes of life.
Second thing though, I think more and more, is the ability to be able to communicate what the impact of technology is. Whether it’s on an individual’s life, or whether it’s the contribution of that technology within an overall solution or program or whatever. Being able to add context and meaning to technology makes it so that others can understand its value, and frankly so that we can tear down the fears that some people have about technology. There are so many folks that are phobic about technology and I think blending communications with that subject matter expertise really makes for more approachable technology, which is something that I am super passionate about.
Geoff Kerr: Tell us about some of the greatest challenges that you’ve overcome in your career.
Marge Breya: Oh… some of the greatest challenges. How many minutes do we have, Geoff? . I think there are always the challenges of – for example – that anyone faces as they progress in their career. There’s this great book – which I’m obviously a fan of if I call it a great book – it’s called “The Leadership Pipeline.” “The Leadership Pipeline” is a book that was written by Ram Charon and Jim Noel and a couple of other folks, all with really strong executive coaching backgrounds. Ram was Jack Welch’s coach. These guys actually taught a course over at Sun Microsystems for us. This is all about how you go from managing self, to managing others, to managing managers, all the way to being, if you will, CEO or Chairman of the Board.
What are the leadership passages that you need to make as you turn into that next level of manager or a contributor to the business? The challenges change, frankly, in each one of these areas. In the early parts of the career it was really around getting that domain expertise – how to really understand what part of the domain I could really, I guess, master. Whether it was business acumen, or whether it was process engineering, and trying to really get good at that. Then, as my career progressed, the challenges changed a little bit. They changed towards how do you build relationships with employees, and with peers, and manage the peer network? So many folks forget that, yes, their team is important, meaning the people who report to them, but frankly, the first team has to be the people who you are peers with because those are the folks you need to help be successful and make successful by contributing your business expertise, or your peer coaching capabilities. I’ve worked a lot over the years and god knows I’m not perfect at it, for sure, but worked a lot over the middle decade of my career on how to work with peers and form a network. I think, most lately, my development plan has been around really exercising leadership capability and understanding how to effect change by creating shared vision and helping to shape business strategies through others and through hundreds of people as opposed to just writing it down and communicating it to small groups. I think those are the big things.
From a personal standpoint, honestly the biggest thing has always been to achieve balance. My husband and I have an eighteen-year-old. Just trying to feel successful and be successful as a mom, a wife, a professional has probably been the biggest challenge. And a daughter – all of that –a sister.
Geoff Kerr: Do you have any advice on work-life balance?
Marge Breya: Yeah. Yeah, maybe. It’s funny, somebody I was on a panel with – a group of women – and we were asked about balance. There were three or four of the women who said absolutely, you can have balance, we can have it all. And they got to me and I just laughed. You know, what is balance, right? It’s where – I don’t know – where you can have the best and most quality of time and impact on a situation. But I learned something a couple [of] years ago, actually now it’s probably ten years ago. Alex was very small – that’s our son, who is now eighteen, of course, six whatever feet high. He and I were going to be on our own for three weeks because my father-in-law was dying and my husband needed to go back and take care of him. I was really struggling to figure out how I was going to make this work. You know, Alex was probably like eight years old, and I had him up on the counter, and maybe he was six, honestly, this could have been twelve years ago. Had him up on the counter and he looked at me and I said, “Hey, are you excited bud, we’re going to be together.” He looked at me and he said, “Frankly, mom, I’m worried.” He said, “I’m really worried.” He’s like, excuse me but you are not the person who picks me up from school, and dad’s the one who makes sure that I’ve got dinner on time, or this or that, and he said “I don’t know if you can do it.”
Geoff Kerr: Wow.
Marge Breya: I have to tell you that it scared the bejeesus out of me and really shook me up. It got me thinking about priorities, and after that, I can tell you that I never missed a baseball game, and managed to find a way that could manage the business while remembering and being there with my family for the things that are really important.
Geoff Kerr: Very good advice.
Marge Breya: I don’t know, but…
Geoff Kerr: It’s the quality of the time and the focus. What advice would you give women in high tech who want to advance but on an individual contributor level, and just that track specifically?
Marge Breya: Yeah, I think there are a couple things. First of all, really, really be a master of that subject matter. Do your best to sort out where your passion is, and really go for it. I think on that individual contributor side, too, I would look for areas in companies and teams where you can make a unique contribution. I always think about, what is the special thing that I could add uniquely to a team or to a finding or an innovation? I really, really try to think about that and try to cultivate that specialness so that you can stand out and you can be uniquely recognized and, I guess, provide some sort of special value to the organization.
Geoff Kerr: How do you stay current in your job? You’re very busy, you’ve got a lot of information you’ve got to stay up on. You obviously do it, what’s your trick?
Marge Breya: I have really good teams. Honestly, I’m very curious, I don’t have a ton of time and this most folks know, especially during the week. Everything from when I’m getting ready in the morning I have CNBC going. It’s fed into, if you can imagine, my bathroom. So if I’m exercising or putting on my makeup, I’m trying to get up to speed on the news and what’s happening in the world. I have RSS feeds on news and information that I watch. And I hang out with really, really interesting people who challenge me by talking about the books they’re reading or the articles they’ve seen. These days I have mostly business magazines that are coming to the house or online. I’m really looking forward to the iPad because I think that’s actually the format that can make me even smarter going forward. I don’t know that I’m really perfect in that area, but I do my best.
Geoff Kerr: In your opinion, what, if any, are the remaining barriers faced by women in technology today?
Marge Breya: You know I’d love to say that there are no barriers; I think I’d be wrong. I think some of the barriers, first of all, are getting that first interest because we don’t have a pipeline of young women that’s strong enough to actually feed the system, if you will. When I look at the folks who are friends with my son, and the number of women that are young women who are thinking about [becoming] engineers, it’s very small. I mean, most folks are going into the arts going into business or English or language. I can only think of one young woman that I know of that is actually going into engineering. I think that early interest, that early excitement, that kind of experience that I had with my grandfather, is probably something that we need to do much more of. I know we’re trying to do it in the high schools. I have a feeling it really needs to start closer to early in grade school. Get that interest and that imagination and that can-do attitude and passion, start it early. So, we have a pipeline problem first of all.
And then, I think there are still some barriers associated with culture. Not all cultures are friendly to women. As much as we want to say things have changed, all the time, they haven’t, not all the way, and, I think at times we need to be brave enough to point out when a culture is not being accommodating to other kinds of folks, and really insist on having a great environment that encourages diversity. Finally, I think the barrier is that not many people have done the business case on why diversity is not a nice-to-have but a must-have in an organization. No company can win by only being able to go after half of the population of skilled talent, or skilled individuals period. We’re foolish to think that that’s the case. We need to really develop the business case for why diversity is actually something that must be cultivated as a competitive advantage.
Marge Breya Biography
Marge Breya is Executive Vice President and General Manager of Solutions at SAP AG. Breya oversees full product line responsibility for business intelligence (BI) and enterprise information management (EIM) solutions, as well the portfolio of SAP BusinessObjects OnDemand offerings, reporting to John Schwarz, member of the Executive Board of SAP AG responsible for SAP BusinessObjects, the Global Ecosystem & Partner Group, and Corporate Development. In addition, Breya is responsible for the portfolio and solution management of SAP NetWeaver within the Technology Group at SAP, and also reports to Jim Hagemann Snabe, member of the SAP Executive Board leading the Business Solutions and Technology (BST) organization. Breya brings over 25 years of technology management experience to SAP. Previously, Breya was at Business Objects SA, where she was general manager for the company’s primary product line businesses: enterprise information management (EIM), core business intelligence (BI), and midmarket solutions. She also served as Business Objects’ chief marketing officer (CMO) where she was responsible for developing the company’s vision and strategy, establishing its brand value proposition, and running all marketing and communications functions worldwide. Prior to joining SAP via the Business Objeacts acquisition, Breya served in a number of executive roles at technology giants such as BEA Systems, where she was senior vice president (SVP), CMO, and chief strategy officer (CSO); and Sun Microsystems, where she served in various executive management roles. A change agent and visionary leader, Breya thrives on turnaround situations that require strong leadership, strategic prowess, and flawless execution. Breya has served on the board of both the BEA and Business Objects Foundations, helping to form the mission for these foundations and overseeing the distribution of funds. In addition, Breya also sat on the public board of Document Sciences Corporation (NASD: DOCX), acquired by EMC in 2008. Breya holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois (Urbana/Champaign) and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Oregon.