Carolyn Leighton

Chairwoman and founder, Women in Technology International

When Carolyn Leighton launched her third company, Criterion Research, the business world was familiar. Leighton learned about business from her mother, who was a businesswoman and a “great role model.”

Through her work with Criterion, Leighton began meeting women who worked at her technology and aerospace client companies. As these women got to know Leighton, they confided in her how miserable they were about the treatment they received in their companies.

“I was frankly stunned, as I was so unconscious,” Leighton says. “It’s not that anyone has the intention to make someone miserable. People don’t think about the consequences of their actions on someone who’s not like them.”

But it wasn’t until Leighton was in a coffee shop that she finally understood why her women business contacts were so distraught. Leighton picked up a magazine that had a cover story on why women weren’t getting to the top. “I opened up the magazine and what really jumped at me was that the number of women in middle management had only increased 2 percent in 10 years,” she says. “But the number of the women in the workforce was disproportionately higher.”

Leighton wondered, “What is working for me that isn’t working for these women? How could I create something for these women that would really make a difference?” That was the genesis of Women in Technology International (WITI).

Her approach was considerably different from the modus operandi of women activists in the mid-1980s. “When I started WITI, the most visible woman on TV was someone from the National Organization of Women screaming into a microphone,” Leighton says. “I thought, ‘How does that approach help women get what they want?’ Now I understand why they were angry.” But Leighton also knows that, “we have total control over how we are and how we see things. We can spend our time being angry and finding all kinds of legitimate reasons for why we are angry or we can use the wonderful brains we’ve been given to figure out the most creative solutions.”

She firmly believes that, “today our biggest obstacles to having women as CEOs is how women view themselves.” That needs to change and, in her own way, Leighton is trying to encourage it.

One aspect is altering women’s relationships to success and generating wealth. Leighton likes to use Oprah Winfrey’s success as an example. “She was one of the first women who demonstrated firsthand that if you want to have power and influence and change the world, you have to have wealth. If Oprah were running a nonprofit corporation, would everyone be asking her opinion? Certainly not.”

Ever the pragmatist, Leighton observes that, “being wealthy doesn’t mean you’re bad. If you’re truly committed to your ideals, you have a chance to make things better.” In addition to her role at WITI, Leighton has developed her sixth small business, Love Dogs Camp (lovedogscamp.com), in Arroyo Grande, Calif.

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