[YS TV] "Women need to be comfortable being uncomfortable," Silicon Valley Veteran Nora Denzel

Nora Denzel has held high technical management posts in some of the world’s largest software companies. Most recently, she was a SVP at Intuit and has worked on the concept of Big Data from its inception. Now retired, Nora serves on the board of many public software firms as well as startups such as FirstRain that looks to develop the capabilities of providing real time analytics of large amounts of data.

We had a chance to speak with her at the Grace Hopper Celebration. At the event, her talk was centered around essential attitudes for a woman to succeed in this male dominated industry and 3 crucial mental blocks that a woman needs to get rid off. Here, we have Nora speaking about a range of topics, including some excerpts from her talk, Big Data, her learnings, Silicon Valley and the prospect of Bangalore being the world’s next startup hub -

“One of the things that I tell women is that they have to be comfortable, being uncomfortable. I have managed people for the last 15 years, and it’s really funny that somehow men don’t feel uncomfortable in a new area and have a lot of confidence that they can do something that they’ve never done. Somehow, women, despite being very competent, get easily bogged down by worry when they feel uncomfortable. I talk a lot about feeling comfortable, being uncomfortable and acting confident. Because if women show underconfidence, people won’t invest in them. So you must be confident and the way you to it is act confident and feel comfortable being uncomfortable.”

Stay tuned as we bring you more inspiring women in technology, only on YS TV