Women for Leaders

In 2014, Jeanna Rutherhill left Google to become CEO of the digital innovation agency Ziggy Creative Colony. Around the same time, she met leadership consultant, recruitment expert, and therapist Eva Ekedahl, who had just launched the podcast “Karriärpodden”, where she interviews inspiring women in leadership positions within the business world.

Jeanna and Eva shared the realization that there was a knowledge gap in the recruitment market, which particularly affected women.

“I often applied for CEO positions, but felt that there was widespread ignorance in how to assess skills and personal development. The glass ceiling was still present, and we felt the need to do something about it,” says Jeanna Rutherhill.

Together, they founded Women for Leaders in 2016 and developed leadership programs for female leaders. The idea was to build an ecosystem that could present strong candidates to executive recruiters.

“We followed the network created through Eva’s podcast and decided to establish our own recruitment firm. We started EQ Executive Search as a sister company where we work with both men and women. We believe that the emotional intelligence (EQ) aspect has been underutilized in many of these processes.”

The profits from EQ Executive Search have helped to strengthen the work with Women for Leaders, and by 2023, they took the next step in promoting women’s career growth. The service was named Signe.

“We saw that mentorship was crucial for success, but many struggled to find the right match. So, it felt natural to build a digital platform specifically for this,” says Jeanna Rutherhill.

Learning Along the Way

This is where Prototyp came into the picture. Linda Almqvist took on the role of tech lead for the project.

“It was clear that WfL wanted to move more towards digital solutions to scale up, increase accessibility, and become more international. The first step was to create an efficient and smooth matching process while also building a solid learning journey for both mentor and mentee. Additionally, a knowledge bank was needed on how to be a great mentor.”

This became the brief that Linda Almqvist and her colleagues soon began working on. The challenge was to design the system to deliver the most accurate matches possible, thereby offering real business value.

The team started by scoring different interests, backgrounds, and preferences − does the mentee want to meet someone with experience from the public sector, private companies, or large publicly listed corporations? Is the need within leadership, tech, or marketing?

“Our first journey towards an MVP was fairly straightforward,” Linda Almqvist says. “We would build a digital platform where you could be matched with the most relevant mentors and send a request. If both parties feel it’s a match, the next step is to book a time for the first mentor session.”

Security was also important. No one should be able to book meetings by pretending to be someone else. Therefore, BankID was chosen as the authentication method.

“We chose a framework called RedwoodJS, which is built to easily develop and scale a web app. The framework is made up of ReactJS for the frontend, Node for the backend with a GraphQL API, and Prisma to handle the database. It was a good stack that made it easy to get started,” says Linda Almqvist.

Long-Awaited Digitalization of the Network

For Jeanna Rutherhill, the app was not just a mentorship service, but an excellent opportunity to finally connect the growing network digitally.

“We see Signe as a platform for leadership and personal development − perhaps eventually also for job matching and investments within the network. It should be like a mini version of LinkedIn, but with an extra layer of security.”

Mentees first log in for free to test the service, but need to sign up for a membership to access their first match. Mentors work pro bono and gain access to leadership development resources through the program.

“Everyone helps each other and shares experiences,” Jeanna Rutherhill says.

“The mentors love contributing to an equal business environment. They truly want to be part of this.”

User-Friendliness at the Forefront

For Linda Almqvist and her team, there were many questions to answer in the project’s initial phase. Although it often involved using ready-made solutions, these needed to be compared, evaluated, and implemented. After choosing a third-party provider for BankID and testing various calendar systems to schedule meetings, it was time to start building the infrastructure.

“We were four developers working for three months on Signe. Since WfL has such close communication with its users, we were able to get very quick feedback − even from end users − on what we delivered. This allowed us to prioritize correctly and make new decisions quickly to reach the goal.”

User tests and interviews were conducted continuously throughout the period. Since her time at Google, Jeanna Rutherhill had been used to asking questions and analyzing, rather than guessing.

“We were very keen on ensuring that it was user-friendly with good UX design. We wanted to create a service that was simple, fast, scalable, and secure,” she says.

Jeanna Rutherhill had already worked with Prototyp on various projects at Ziggy Creative Colony, and she had gained a good impression of the company.

“Collaborating with Prototyp was a different experience from other tech partners I’ve worked with over the years. There were more female developers, and everyone seemed genuinely excited about our project. They understood us right away, and we felt that there was a great team spirit, with a positive culture and healthy values.”

Linda Almqvist agrees with the positive atmosphere that characterized the Signe project from the start.

“We were involved in every decision made. I think having half of our team made up of women also helped, as it made it easier to identify with the end user. This also resulted in a very encouraging tone within the app.”

An Excellent Start

Signe was launched in the spring of 2023, during an economic downturn, with a few angel investors. In a short time, the platform had attracted around a thousand users, with virtually no marketing. At the same time, WfL conducted a study together with the inclusive research company Perspetivo, which showed that 75 percent of women in their careers are seeking a mentor.

“The results made us even more convinced that Signe is needed, especially since there are no other similar services exclusively targeting women. It has been incredibly fun to further strengthen the community we’ve built through Signe. Now we feel we have an excellent base that we can develop further with other features to strengthen our network,” concludes Jeanna Rutherhill.

CHRISTIAN VON ESSEN