March is widely celebrated as a month to honor the contributions of women worldwide in and out of their careers. Channel Insider caught up with the current leaders and founders of two organizations who have committed themselves to supporting women to join and remain in tech and channel roles.
ACW and Cloud Girls leaders reflect on success and chart the path forward
The Alliance of Channel Women (ACW) was founded in 2010 to bring together women across channel businesses. The group sponsors a variety of events and panels at leading conferences in addition to providing several ways for women to learn from and support one another virtually and in-person.
Cloud Girls is also a nonprofit organization focused on empowering women at all stages in their tech journeys. The organization leverages partnerships to provide networking and professional development opportunities to everyone from young girls to seasoned professionals.
Both groups have watched countless examples of progress and pain unfold over the past decade. GrantThornton’s research shows men still far outpace women in leadership across technology, and women still make up only about a quarter of the total technology workforce according to recent reports.
Still, the recent research is an improvement over the makeup of the workforce a decade ago, when Cloud Girls and ACW began their work to address equity and support issues.
“I think we have made progress over time, and that’s a good thing,” said Jo Peterson, the founder of Cloud Girls and VP of cloud, security, and AI solutions at Clarify360. “There are certainly more women in the channel now, especially in roles touching sales and marketing.”
Even with that growth, though, women often find themselves still fighting for an equal chance at the respect and attention that men have received by default for decades.
“We are often the only women in the rooms we are in,” current Cloud Girls President Rachel Turkus said. “It’s exhausting, sometimes, to be a woman in tech.”
In addition to serving as the leader of the organization, Turkus is also the director of marketing at Packet Fusion.
Current ACW President Mayka Rosales-Peterson is one of very few women of color across the channel and particularly in leadership. She balances the ACW presidency and her advocacy work with her role as VP of marketing for LAVA Technology Services.
“Coming into this space, I have found my voice in speaking up and supporting other women and diverse groups of people generally speaking. It has improved over time, but there’s a lot of work left to do,” Rosales-Peterson said.
ACW hits 15-year anniversary, sets sights on the work ahead
The ACW celebrates its 15-year anniversary in 2025, a testament to the power of its founding leadership and also to the desire for women across the channel to come together in supporting gender equity and career growth.
“There were many times when our group was outpacing the world around us,” said Nancy Ridge, the co-founder and former president of ACW. Ridge also runs her own consulting firm and spent years in channel sales leadership positions.
Rosales-Peterson began her term as president in 2024 and continued the work she had supported as a board member of the organization. She sees ACW as an opportunity for women to be their full, authentic selves in a space still dominated by men and often lacking equity.
“All the things that the guys always seem to talk about on the golf course, we were and still are talking about in conference rooms and meetings,” Rosales-Peterson said. “I’m really, really passionate about supporting women in the channel.”
For Rosales-Peterson, part of that role also includes being an example and role model for other women of color, and young girls of color, to see themselves represented in tech and channel leadership.
“I feel like I have to take that responsibility on myself so the women behind me can look up to me and see success. I don’t know that there’s ever been a Black women channel chief, and there aren’t many of us for me to look to, but I want to be that for others,” Rosales-Peterson said.
Ridge said she hopes to see the organization continue to grow as the next 15 years unfolds, with a vision for regional chapters anchoring communities through in-person events not necessarily tied to large conferences everyone must travel to. Plus, the organization will continue to provide workshops, open forums, and other programming to further drive the channel towards equity across all roles.
Ridge outlines the founding principles of the organization in three pillars, including:
- Encourage collaboration to grow businesses
- Provide ways for women to support one another in all avenues of professional and personal life
- Build mentorship opportunities for women at every level of their career
“I hope the organization maintains its commitment to those values over time, and in another 15 years whoever is in leadership is just as passionate about this as we were in the beginning,” Ridge said.
“I hope that 15 years from now we are in a much better spot as women in the channel. I hope the challenges we face today are not what women see fifteen years from now in their experiences,” Rosales-Peterson said.
Cloud Girls keeps focus on encouraging young girls and women to stick with STEM
The mission of Cloud Girls is twofold, according to Turkus: foster community and opportunity for women in tech careers, and build interest in tech careers within young girls to build a pipeline of the next generation of tech experts.
The organization has partnered with leading technology companies like Microsoft and IBM to bring technical certification courses in Azure and AI to members. Turkus, who participated in the Azure program, says it is crucial for women already in tech careers to continue to build their expertise and skill.
“It is hard to keep up with technology as a leader, but it’s so important for us to all remain ahead on,” Turkus said.
This rings especially true for Peterson, who founded the organization in part because as she began her career in highly technical roles, there were very few, if any, women around her. Today, a majority of women working in the channel are in positions spanning various functions, but largely in sales, marketing, and partnership departments.
“It’s great to be represented anywhere, but we have some room to grow in technical talent,” Peterson said. “We’re not necessarily impacting the product as much, perhaps.”
Ridge calls on other women, and everyone in tech, to support the women already doing the work and bringing products to market. She says she often goes out of her way to find and follow the female founders and CEOs in our space to support those companies where and when she can.
“They’re bringing tech to the table and working hard, and when the tech is good, that’s what I’m going to recommend to others and that is who I’m going to support,” Ridge said. “We still rely on men to provide the money in a lot of cases, because men are still in a majority of the seats in equity and leadership, but where I can make connections and help women succeed, I will.”
How women and men can work together towards equity
Turkus also said she wants to encourage women to see one another as partners, not as competition, when vying for roles and seats at the table. Highlighting the “self-preservation” some might feel as diversity initiatives are rolled back at some companies, Turkus hopes organizations like hers are able to foster a sense of community, not of competition, as women in all levels strive for a more equitable environment moving forward.
“I hope we don’t take what we have for granted right now,” Peterson said, noting that the progress that has been made was fought for and hard won by women in the not so distant past.
“More than ever, I think women to need to lean on each other,” Rosales-Peterson said.
This sentiment is also echoed in all four leaders’ acknowledgement that even just within women in technology, there are inequities related to race, ethnicity, and other factors.
“We’ve seen a small shift in the pay gap, but it hasn’t been tremendous, and that gap is worse for women of color,” Ridge said. “We haven’t achieved parity amongst women.”
For Rosales-Peterson, this also extends to the micro-aggressions women of color in the channel still face in comments about their appearance, capability, and overall respect from their peers.
“I still feel like I have to conform to the norms a lot of the time, and still have to answer to questions when I wear my hair in braids or people are surprised I’m so ‘articulate’ when I speak. We just need to be better as a channel, still,” Rosales-Peterson said.
The women all stress the importance of pushing through discomfort or awkwardness to demand attention. Finding mentors who have years of experience in asking for what they want and speaking up for what they need is a helpful step for those who want to get started in tech or step into the next opportunity.
“I always say we want to work upstream and downstream,” said Ridge. “ACW has always connected mentors with mentees at every stage, not just early career. Everyone can use support and mentorship getting further in their career.”
“It’s scary to put yourself out there and say something, but that’s really what you have to do,” Peterson said. “Your difference ultimately is your secret sauce. When I started speaking out more on LinkedIn and things, I saw people following me not because I was saying anything smarter or better but because I was different.”
Peterson, Turkus, and Ridge also stress the importance of understanding that “women’s empowerment” is not about raising women above their male counterparts, and in many cases, it is male leaders and mentors who provide avenues for all tech workers to succeed.
“Some of the best bosses and the best mentors I have had throughout my career have been men,” Peterson said. “We sometimes might seem like we paint this picture where it’s ‘us against them,’ and it just is not.”
Rosales-Peterson, too, remains optimistic about how much progress can still be made when organizations and individuals come together in pursuit of change.
Still, with the data showing a breadth of opportunity to bridge divides in hiring and pay equity, organizations like Cloud Girls and ACW provide the support many women still need to receive the opportunities they earn.
Women are still underrepresented in leadership, but there are plenty of female channel executives to learn from. Revisit security and solutions lessons from services provider CEO Karen Greer’s chat with Katie Bavoso on Channel Insider: Partner POV.