Monday, March 10, 2008

Women to Watch

Heather Healy: At the top of the tech game

By Christopher Calnan

After two decades and five companies in the technology industry, Heather Healy has plenty of reasons to be proud. But one thing the senior director of strategic planning for EMC Corp. isn't satisfied with is a continued lag when it comes to the numbers of women working in the tech sector.

Healy, who competes in triathlons, readily acknowledges that the race to encourage young women to pursue careers in technology has yet to be won.

"I would be proud to be an example that it's working," she said. "But if you look at enrollment of women in engineering, it looks like it's on the decline. There are certainly more role models for women considering technology careers, but organizations still need to strengthen their diversity efforts."

In addition to mentoring young women, both outside and within EMC, Healy was part of group that initiated a program for university interns at EMC's facility in Cork, Ireland, to exchange places with Northeastern University interns to give the interns global experience, she said.

For Healy, 40, a burning interest in technology started in high school and has withstood untold changes to the industry.

Meanwhile, her own interest shifted from software programming to product management, a job that itself has changed drastically in recent years.

A surge in "connectivity," or the ease in which information is exchanged, combined with the rise in general access to data has affected the way products are designed and developed, Healy said.

The process is more collaborative -- and more complicated -- than years ago. Technology is developed with input from many different perspectives (researchers, universities and partners) and then vetting ideas with customers, she said.

"It certainly makes it much more exciting," Healy said. "The individuals you might be working with ... the talent you can pull into looking at a problem area really expands. You need to be at the top of your game to participate in these conditions."

Healy, a Chelmsford native, has competed as a runner in several local road races and completed the Danskin Sprint Triathlon in 2006 in Webster.

The Hopkinton-based EMC is Healy's fifth technology company. After she studied management of information systems at University of Massachusetts Lowell, she spent six years at Digital Equipment Corp. in Nashua, N.H.

Later at Oracle Corp., Healy shifted gears from development to product management and quality assurance.

"I was more drawn to the business reasons why we're doing something," she said.

After three years in the late 1990s as product management director for Gensym Corp., a Texas software company, Healy spent three years at EMC. She returned to EMC in 2003 after a one-year stint at Acopia Networks Inc., a Lowell-based software company.