October 9, 2000

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Women In Technology
Shaula Alexander Yemini, System Management Arts Inc.

By George V. Hulme

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t's been nearly a decade since Shaula Alexander Yemini, co-founder and president of System Management Arts Inc., had to make the tough decision that ultimately changed her life. Yemini, whose company provides real-time analysis software for improving network performance, had reached her goal of moving from a position at IBM researching distributed systems software to one that could have an impact on what was happening in the market. In 1982, Yemini took a staff position with IBM Research focusing on software for distributed systems. During the bulk of her time at IBM, she worked in academic research, where she went to industry conferences, gave presentations at universities, and published research papers.

"I was happy," she says, "but as I also grew older, I decided that I really wanted to be able to have some kind of impact on what was happening out on the market."

Her assignment: Build consensus among disparate business group managers to produce new distributed systems products. "It was a great time," Yemini says. "There were different operating systems and programming languages and protocols, and these distributed systems required all of these things interoperate."

Her biggest project, which she started in the late 1980s, involved pitching an architecture that would enable interoperability between IBM's various proprietary systems and other platforms. She did it, only to have the corporate powers within IBM at the time shun the advice.

"The people who understood the technology accepted the plan for interoperability. But in corporate, those who were not technology people didn't have an understanding that portability and interoperability were different animals," she says. "That portability would cause people to port off their platforms, away from IBM products--but that interoperability would also cause people to maintain their [existing] platforms and actually leverage them in new applications."

By then it was 1992, and Yemini began to think she couldn't afford to wait for IBM to come around to her way of thinking. "I thought, 'If I stay at IBM, maybe in 10 years the corporation will change.' But I wasn't getting any younger." So when the decision was made by top IBM executives not to execute her plans, Yemini decided it was time to examine her career options.

"I had actually gotten buy-in from every division in IBM except corporate headquarters. That's when I started looking around. I asked my brother what I should do, and his answer surprised me," she says. "He suggested I start my own company. Do something about managing distributed systems. I was really surprised and--to be very honest--I was scared. I was really scared."

Nevertheless, she took the plunge, founding System Management Arts--known as Smarts--in 1993. After years of development, in early 1997 Smarts finally had a product: the first out-of-the-box application able to pinpoint connectivity failures in IP networks.

Founding Smarts wasn't the first time Yemini faced a difficult, life-changing decision. She grew up in Israel, where students in their first year of high school must make some tough choices about the academic paths they'll follow: either humanities, social sciences, biological sciences, or hard sciences (math and physics).

Yemini, who speaks three languages and loves literature, always enjoyed math and physics. While it wasn't the typical choice for teenage girls at the time, she decided to pursue the math and physics curricula, a course she would continue through her college years in Jerusalem. But even at Hebrew University, she stood out in the classroom--out of 200 people in her freshman class, only seven were women and most of them didn't make it through the first year.

Yemini, as determined to make her company successful as she had been to get through her university courses, signed up some important customers from the beginning for the Smarts InCharge network-management and performance line. Bell Canada was one of Smarts' first clients. "For some reason, they didn't question who we were, and they didn't know how small a company we were," Yemini says. "They bought some of our software. It worked, and they started buying more. They continued to buy more every month. This was the moment I felt that we had a real business opportunity."

That's not to say there weren't scary days--the usual fretting over whether more companies would buy her product and if the business would succeed. But soon after Bell Canada's purchases helped verify the validity of Yemini and her team's software vision, Smarts signed a series of customer wins, including an original equipment manufacturer agreement with Tivoli Systems Inc., and a slew of other big-name accounts, including AT&T, BMW, Capital One, EDS, Federal Express, Goldman Sachs, and WorldCom.

But there's one thing Yemini has noticed as Smarts has grown more successful--there aren't enough women in IT. "The supply is so small," she says. "When I go to visit clients, rarely do I meet a woman. When we're working with some major vendor, rarely is there a woman in the room. When applicants come to interview, we see very few women."

Yet women possess a multitude of skills that can make them successful in technology management, she says. "Women have the nurturing quality that helps people feel valued. I know I'm generalizing, but in that sense, women don't typically have huge egos and therefore they're able to build teams that work together," Yemini says. "This is a very good fit for managing people in high technology. With intelligence comes a certain level of sensitivity."

Of course, high-level executives need to be more than nurturing--they also need to be tough, and Yemini handles that part of the job very well, says Shmuel Kliger, Smarts' VP of research and development. He's worked with Yemini since her days at IBM Research, where she was his manager. Kliger, who became Smarts' second employee, says that Yemini is a good listener, but also a very determined person. "She will listen to all ideas, consider them carefully, and try to make the best judgment for Smarts," he says. "I have days when I fight with her--she has the ability to be tough when she needs to be--but it's a good fight. The company is better off for it."

There are a large number of women in top managerial and technical positions at Smarts. Among the company's five engineering directors, two are women. About 20% of its other engineers are women, Yemini estimates.

She doesn't blame the industry for shutting women out of the top jobs at technology companies, though. "I was at IBM for 10 years and I never felt that being a woman was going to be a handicap careerwise. Never once," she says. Rather, the problem--social pressure to conform to a particular model--starts earlier, she says. "It's kind of silly, but I always used to wear a dress when I went to classes in high school."

The social attitudes that lead to that behavior are changing, but not enough for Yemini's tastes. She says there's still a dearth of women entering the engineering field, and she finds that disappointing. Still, she's very sensitive to the fact that women as well as men have to follow the career paths that call them; Yemini's 21-year-old daughter, struggling with the same career issues as her mother so many years ago, has decided to become, of all things, an English major.

FactFile

Title: President and co-founder, System Management Arts Years at System Management Arts: Seven Previous positions at other companies: : Built and managed IBM Researchıs distributed systems software technology department; professor at New York University Education: B.S. in math and physics and M.S. in applied mathematics, both from Hebrew University in Jerusalem; Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Los Angeles Personal status: Divorced, two children Hobbies: Cooking, reading, theater, travel Future goals: Continuing to make System Management Arts a success No. of high-level female execs at System Management Arts: Two

But there's one thing Yemini has noticed as Smarts has grown more successful--there aren't enough women in IT. "The supply is so small," she says. "When I go to visit clients, rarely do I meet a woman. When we're working with some major vendor, rarely is there a woman in the room. When applicants come to interview, we see very few women."

Yet women possess a multitude of skills that can make them successful in technology management, she says. "Women have the nurturing quality that helps people feel valued. I know I'm generalizing, but in that sense, women don't typically have huge egos and therefore they're able to build teams that work together," Yemini says. "This is a very good fit for managing people in high technology. With intelligence comes a certain level of sensitivity."

Of course, high-level executives need to be more than nurturing--they also need to be tough, and Yemini handles that part of the job very well, says Shmuel Kliger, Smarts' VP of research and development. He's worked with Yemini since her days at IBM Research, where she was his manager. Kliger, who became Smarts' second employee, says that Yemini is a good listener, but also a very determined person. "She will listen to all ideas, consider them carefully, and try to make the best judgment for Smarts," he says. "I have days when I fight with her--she has the ability to be tough when she needs to be--but it's a good fight. The company is better off for it."

There are a large number of women in top managerial and technical positions at Smarts. Among the company's five engineering directors, two are women. About 20% of its other engineers are women, Yemini estimates.

She doesn't blame the industry for shutting women out of the top jobs at technology companies, though. "I was at IBM for 10 years and I never felt that being a woman was going to be a handicap careerwise. Never once," she says. Rather, the problem--social pressure to conform to a particular model--starts earlier, she says. "It's kind of silly, but I always used to wear a dress when I went to classes in high school."

The social attitudes that lead to that behavior are changing, but not enough for Yemini's tastes. She says there's still a dearth of women entering the engineering field, and she finds that disappointing. Still, she's very sensitive to the fact that women as well as men have to follow the career paths that call them; Yemini's 21-year-old daughter, struggling with the same career issues as her mother so many years ago, has decided to become, of all things, an English major.

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Photo by Tracey Kroll

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