When I first got into the data space, it was a complete accident.

I had been working on a large regulatory compliance effort at a bank, but from the lens of an auditor. My background was primarily IT Audit, and I had spent about 10 years chasing data through systems, evaluating control design and operating effectiveness, and testing application configurations across platforms primarily at financial institutions. I had finally come to the conclusion that it was time to start thinking about doing something different, but hadn’t figured out what that thing was.

And then I got the call.

One of my stakeholders asked if I would be interested in leading from the inside — leading the compliance effort as a true data management professional, “instead of just writing us up.”

I couldn’t believe it. I laughed out loud.

I thought for sure she had called the wrong person. She went on to explain how my previous 10 years of experience — mapping data through systems, evaluating quality controls, ensuring the data was complete and accurate for financial reporting purposes — would translate into data management for risk reporting.

The reason I share this story, which I reflect upon as the pivot point in my career into progressive data leadership roles, is because we need to be doing more to get women into data. Now, nearly 10 years from that moment described above, with rare exception, there isn’t a room I walk into, full of data professionals, that I am not in the minority. What can we do differently? Here are my top 10 suggestions:

1. Widen your aperture. We have to stop thinking about “10+ years of data experience” as a prerequisite for a CDO position. The CDO role is only 20 years old. What other experience matters? Think bigger and wider.

2. Mentor. We must be bringing more people into the profession. It’s not just a privilege, it’s our responsibility.

3. Bring someone with you. Going to an event? Share the invite. Suggest it to 5 people. Or 10. Or your whole network. More is more.

4. Pay fairly. If you are managing data professionals, look at the gender pay gap. It hasn’t moved in15 years. Be the change.

5. Check your own bias. Take a bias assessment. Do you have gender bias? It’s okay to admit you do, it’s not okay to pretend it does not exist or to do nothing to change it. Self-assess, and do the work to do better.

6. Promote. Ensure you are assessing the criteria and the candidates fairly. Establish criteria up front to remove as much bias from the process as possible.

7. Develop the talent pipeline. Assess the demographics of talent you have at each level. Where are the gaps? Why? What drove those gaps? What can you do to change them? Build a plan to address it.

8. Look at the data. See #7. Assess the data, look for trending over time. Are you promoting women or men at faster rates? Why? Are women less qualified or not meeting your expectations to promote? Why or why not? What can you do to qualify them, instead of waiting for them to become qualified.

9. Always be improving. Once you’ve gone through these steps, start again. We can always be improving.

10. Give grace. To yourself and to each other. When we work together to change the dynamic, it’s imperfect progress. And that is ok. No progress is not.

Lean forward, together.