April/May 2026 | maconmagazine.com 41
"I had a mentor tell me once, if you have an
idea, share it with a colleague that's a male.
Let them voice it, because guess what?
It carries more weight, and you get more
buy-in. I actually tried that at one meeting,
and he was exactly right. I said it. It's quiet,
nothing. A colleague said it: 'Oh yeah, I think
we can do that. We can go with that.'"
I always tell my young ladies, if
it's not a chair at the table, you
carry on with you.
Q
What's an assumption
about tech leadership that
you've had to unlearn?
CHARLOTTE: That there are
right answers. Although we
talked about frameworks, for the
most part, every decision we
make requires some new
thinking, and there's always
transition. While we sit at this
table with the same top 10