Cincinnati woman helping women find footing in male-dominated workspace

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - A Cincinnati woman has been leading the way in the way the tech industry and now wants to bring other women with her.

Browsing through the internet has become effortless for many of us as we buy our favorite things or connect with others online.

You can now even attend a church service from your living room at Crossroads, thanks in part to the work of Ample CEO Becky Blank.

“We do a lot of design and web development, as well as content strategy for any variety of customers looking for you know, website help and digital support, particularly in digital marketing,” Blank says of the work Ample does.

The company serves a variety of clients, from Sibcy Cline to Do Good Chicken.

“My favorite part of this job is building and leaning into inclusive teams, like making sure I just meet people where they are and making sure that they feel seen and heard,” says Blank.

A commitment she says she holds herself to after not “feeling” included in the tech industry for many years, especially being a woman working in a male-dominated space.

“I think it’s getting better,” says Blank. “I do feel like it’s getting better. For the first half of my career, most of the technology teams I was on, I was the only woman, and it was. At times, it was a really dark experience for me. Like sexual harassment, yeah, that happens. I felt there was resistance or sort of negative attitudes about me.”

Blank didn’t let that hold her back.

She continued to advance her career in the tech industry while also paving the way for other females and people of color in the industry. She thought them to code and other technical skills while running the Cincinnati Chapter of the nonprofit Girl Develop It for five years.

“That organization was specifically for teaching adult women how to code,” explains Blank. “So, even if you’re not interested in being a developer, having those technical skills, even a fundamental understanding of those technical skills, is really helpful in many jobs today.”

Blank says her work with the nonprofit helped women in ways she never imagined.

”It took me a couple of years and hundreds of women going through that program for me to finally start recognizing that student that I had in that program would come up to me later and say that I got in tech or a tech-related adjacent industry or space because I learned this and I didn’t feel like I was moving the needle until I could take a step back and look at it and I was like, ‘oh, people were impacted by this.’ And it makes me motivated to do more,” says Blank.

The Miami University graduate says she always imagined herself in the tech space and thought she would be a developer but is proud that she is now running an agency as CEO.

Blank says in the future, she would like to continue to do more nonprofit work to bring more women into the tech industry.

Breaking Through Series

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