“I remember early in my career that sometimes I would have a thought in my head, but I lacked the confidence to be able to get that thought out,” says Nicola Mendelsohn.
“Then I would hear, usually a man, say the point that I had in my head, and I’d kick myself.”
Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice-president for Europe, the Middle-East and Africa, has been described as the most powerful British woman in the tech industry.
She leads a team of hundreds and says she is “open, concise and clear” when speaking. However, she says women still face a significant communication problem in the workplace.
“Women get interrupted a lot, or people talk over them. I think there is an element that happens in the workplace where we actually condition women not to speak,” she tells the BBC’s The Why Factor.
Her anecdotal evidence is backed up by linguistic research. Despite the popular belief that women talk more than men, studies consistently suggest it’s actually men who hog most of the airtime.