Just how stupid does WiseTech Global chair Richard Dammery and his board think we are?
Their response to a series of revelations and allegations about CEO and founder Richard White’s bullying and sexual harassment is that White will resign as CEO and director, “take a short period of leave” and then return as “founder and founding CEO” with a full-time consulting role reporting directly to the chair and board, for his current salary of $1 million per year.
So, literally nothing will change about White’s role in the company except his title and the fact that some poor fool will be employed as fig-leaf CEO and get to take the corporate heat instead of the LinkedIn Lecher. It’s all about as subtle as White handing a bunch of flowers to one of his LinkedIn targets with a sex toy perched in the middle.
Then again, is it any surprise that a tech firm is happy to keep on board a man who used his access to possible venture capital and his status as a tech industry guru as the hook to look for sexual partners among female entrepreneurs? Men, especially powerful men, using discussions about venture capital or professional and tech industry matters as a pretext for invitations for sex seems to be a typical female experience.
In 2016, Crikey ran a series on women in the tech industry and the factors that had led to women making up just 23% of the industry workforce: a lack of girls studying STEM subjects, long hours and an emphasis on hours worked rather than outcomes achieved, the exclusion and ignoring of female contributions in tech workplaces, the lack of female mentors and role models, widespread sexual harassment, drink-spiking and rape at industry events, and boozy bro cultures where strip clubs were seen as good places for work functions.
What’s changed in the eight years since then? Certainly, the proportion of women in the tech industry has increased from 23%: according to Australian Bureau of Statistics industry employment data, over the last twelve months, it has averaged… 26%. In other words, employment in the industry has grown by around 150,000 in that period, but just 40,000 of those jobs were taken by women.
The ongoing dearth of women in tech is part of a persistent failure to open up all STEM industries to women. A government-commissioned review, Pathway to Diversity in STEM, by Sally-Ann Williams, Mikaela Jade and Dr Parwinder Kaur pointed out earlier this year:
In 2021, only 36% of STEM university students identified as female. Among other underrepresented cohorts, around 5% of people studying university STEM subjects in 2021 were living with a disability. In the same year, less than 1% of First Nations people held a university STEM qualification … women still only represent 15% of the STEM workforce despite participation increasing by 68% since 2012. One in five female scientists have indicated they plan to leave their profession … women make up 47% of Year 12 STEM enrolments, but these are notably lower in engineering (23%) and technology (24%).
The report recommended “a whole-of-government, long-term strategy to increase diversity and inclusion in STEM” and the establishment of “a dedicated advisory council with representation from different sectors and diversity cohorts to advise the government on implementing the strategy”. The panel recommended that this diversity council replace a Turnbull government initiative, the Women in STEM ambassador. Ambassador Lisa Harvey-Smith’s job was duly abolished earlier this year.
Harvey-Smith’s Women in STEM team conducted a sweeping literature review in 2023 that found “56.7% of respondents to the 2021 Women in the STEM Professions Survey reporting gender-based discrimination, 32.6% reporting sexual harassment, 14.8% pregnancy-based discrimination, and 7.7% disability-related discrimination during STEM employment”. Harvey-Smith and her team pointed out examples of effective anti-harassment policies: “a statement of zero tolerance; clearly defined consequences of breaching the policy; the responsibilities of employees, managers, and Human Resources; details on resolution procedures, including timeframes; and a commitment to monitoring and review”.
The review panel argued government should incentivise better anti-harassment policies by requiring grant recipient companies to report on “bullying, harassment and discrimination within the teams relevant to the funding”, require independent audits of bullying, harassment and discrimination, and threaten recipients with the withdrawal of funding for non-disclosure or mismanagement of bullying, harassment or discrimination.
If adopted, this might create a spur to improve workplaces for women, Indigenous peoples and people with disabilities in small and medium STEM companies, which often receive industry assistance grants. For the biggest companies, however, it’s unlikely to do much. Judging by the lack of response to the LinkedIn Lecher’s behaviour at WiseTech, things haven’t changed at all at the top end of tech town.
