International Women’s Day – A Chance to Celebrate Women at Niteco

This year, the organizers of International Women’s Day, are urging people across the globe to #pressforprogress. Celebrated every year on March 8^th, International Women’s Day shines a light on women’s rights and the strides societies have made in regards to gender equality since International Women’s Day was first established back in 1909.

As a Swedish-owned business, gender parity is something we at Niteco strongly believe in. And despite the male-dominated sector that Niteco operates in, we’re pleased to count a plethora of professional women among our numbers. In fact, 20 percent of our current workforce are women, an unusual trend in our industry. Occupying positions in management and as developers, testers and administrators, women continue to be the backbone of Niteco.

Offering opportunities that lead to professional growth and international exposure while encouraging a healthy work-life balance is proving to be the secret of our success. But we know there’s even more we can do.

For example, right now in Sweden, there are a wide range of free casual meet-ups, workshops and lectures aimed to educate women about coding, IT and board opportunities. Their aim is to increase knowledge about gender equality in the industry and to achieve 50% women and 50% men in all IT and Telecoms positions. One example of women thriving in Tech can be seen with the Swedish start-up Pink Programming. Their initiative is to encourage and support women interested in programming. They have now hosted over 250 female coders, with no prerequisites required.

At Niteco, we endeavor to follow this philosophy through initiatives such as our Niteco Young Talent program and our internal HackDay events which require teams to be gender inclusive in order to participate. In addition, we make sure our women employees love to come to work everyday.

In Her Words

Melissa Jaspers, Sales and Marketing Coordinator at Niteco Vietnam

Melissa is originally from The Netherlands and has been with us for the past 2 and a half years, working in our Hanoi office as a Sales and Marketing Coordinator and Personal Assistant to Pelle, our Founder and CEO. She works closely with the Marketing, Communications and Design team and helps with the backend part of Sales.

“It was a bit of a surprise for me, settling here in Hanoi. I heard through the grapevine about the role at Niteco, so I sent through my Resume. Throughout my time here, my job has been very varied, which is great. I love that it’s a diverse, young company – it means there are a lot of opportunities and I have a lot of freedom. I have never encountered any issue of inequality at work; I have always felt comfortable amongst my colleagues.”

Vu Thi Phuong, Chief Accountant at Niteco

Phuong has been with us for over six years, seeing the company grow exponentially. She joined as a general accountant, but was promoted two months later.

“I have a good work-life balance; my time is flexible – I get my work done either here or at home. If I need to do overtime then I do it. Either way, my tasks are completed, but I am able to work flexibly and in my own way. This is one of the reasons I enjoy working for this company. Another is that I have a great boss, Pelle (our CEO and Founder). He is very kind and he understands the process of running a business successfully. I make sure things run smoothly and over the past six years there have been many challenges that I have handled. Now I have a small team who I recruited and trained myself. Right now, life is good.”

Luong Thuy Hau, Team Lead and Coordinator of Niteco’s charity initiative, NICEF

Hau works in our Hanoi office too and has been with Niteco for just over five years. She’s worked in many teams but has lead a team for the past two years. Hau also helps out with the company’s charity initiatives – organizing the construction of new school buildings, raising funds for heart operations and coordinating IT training for street kids across the city.

“I work across different projects and each has different challenges. I started at Niteco as a tester, and over the years I have worked my way up to become the Team Lead for one of our projects. Niteco has been a good place to start for anyone interested in Technology as there are plenty of opportunities!”

Find out more about Niteco’s charity initiatives here.