Background

Jill Ross is Director, Workforce Alliance and Pacesetters Program for the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) www.ncwit.org. NCWIT is a growing coalition of over 300 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and nonprofits working to increase women’s participation in information technology (IT). Jill is Director of NCWIT’s Workforce Alliance made up of individuals representing 50 major corporations from a variety of industries who use research-based strategies within their own organizations to recruit, retain, and advance technical women and participate together in national campaigns and programs as a voice for change Workforce Alliance.

Jill also leads NCWIT Pacesetters, a fast-track program in which senior executives from universities and corporations commit to increasing their numbers of technical women NCWIT Pacesetters Program. Pacesetters organizations work to recruit previously untapped talent pools of technical women and retain women who are at risk of leaving, resulting in "net new" women for their organizations. Together, Pacesetters sought to add 1,000 net new women to the national technical pipeline in just 24 months – and the final result was over 1,600 net new women. Pacesetters helped conceive a new national advocacy campaign to raise visibility for technical women's contributions and Jill is also Campaign Director for Sit With Me, which will launch later this year Sit With Me.

Together with WGBH and ACM, Jill is a strategic advisor and Secretariat for an NSF Broadening Participation in Computing initiative called a “New Image for Computing.” This national effort with its “Dot Diva” campaign is aimed at improving the image of computing for American girls, ages 13-17 with messages about the opportunities for them in computing fields and careers Dot Diva.

Prior to NCWIT, Jill traveled the world speaking about emerging technologies and their impact on society. She spent 10 years at Bell Laboratories in a variety of R&D roles in systems architecture and developing strategic partnerships. As Director of Technical Marketing, Jill was responsible for Avaya’s global competitive assessment and demonstration labs. Most recently, she served as Director of Executive Relationships supporting the CEO and his executive staff, producing customer councils made up of Fortune 100 global CIOs and Senior VPs. Jill has a B.A. in Management Information Systems and a minor in Computer Science from Washington State University. She lives in Golden, CO with her partner Stephan Reckie and three children, Ashley, Garrett and Stephanie Ross.