Analytics is a great career path for women - including moms returning from (or during) maternity leave
I studied economics and spent many years working as a project manager in an agency. But coordinating other people’s work wasn’t enough for me — I wanted to truly master something myself. I’ve always enjoyed math, so I gradually, almost naturally, shifted into analytics. I started around 2014 as a self-taught analyst, later began working with Vašek Jelen, and in 2020 we founded MeasureDesign together. I quickly realized this field was exactly what I’d been looking for — it satisfies my curiosity, my need to dig into details, and my desire to bring a bit of “ordnung” into things. In the whirlwind of running a household, taking care of kids, and navigating global chaos, data feels oddly calming. At the same time, it lets me use my creativity when I play detective and hunt down measurement issues like a modern-day Miss Marple. I genuinely believe analytics is a great career for women in general. And yet, there still aren’t many of us in the field.
MeasureCamp is an analytics community that, among other things, meets at a major analytics conference held every September, alternating between Prague and Brno. This year was my third time attending — and the first time I decided to actually give a talk.
And even though I genuinely enjoy speaking and teaching, I suddenly felt really nervous. What if I don’t measure up in front of industry pros? What if someone throws a question at me that I can’t answer? What if everything I’m planning to say is something they already know?
My session went well, the feedback was positive, and that inspired my colleagues and me to spontaneously host a “Therapy Session: Women in Analytics.” We grabbed a presentation room inside the kids’ corner (a place where I’ve genuinely worked more than once — which made it even funnier — plus it was the smallest room available). In the end, it was completely full, and about 75% of all the women at the conference showed up.
We didn’t go in with a set list of topics, but one theme kept coming up: we work in a technical world where senior managers dealing with analytics, developers, engineers… are almost always men. And many of us women often feel like men “just understand technical things better,” so we keep trying to prove — to others, but mostly to ourselves — that we belong here too. We’re afraid someone will expose us for not knowing everything, that we don’t truly fit into this field.
One story that still sticks with me is about a man who needs to meet only 20% of a job’s requirements to tell himself, “Yeah, I can do that.”
And we women? Even 80% doesn’t feel like enough. Sometimes I get myself up to 60%, but 20%? Wow. I want that superpower too! :)
If you’re a woman in analytics, you’ll often be the only one in a room full of men — men who feel confident even when they meet only 20–40% of the requirements. Meanwhile, many of us women feel like we don’t know enough, won’t measure up, and need to know more (and know it better) before we dare to speak up.
Most of our team are women. And this message is for all current and future “data sisters” — if analytics interests you, or if you’re already in the field but sometimes doubt yourself, I want you to hear this: women, you’re amazing! You have an eye for detail, you can connect tiny pieces of information into a coherent story, you can spot the one mistake hiding in an entire dataset, and you genuinely appreciate order. On top of that, you can communicate insights to clients with empathy and clarity. You work incredibly hard — and it shows — because you want to prove, above all to yourselves, that you’ve got what it takes. Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know yet. Approach it with more courage and confidence — the same way many men do, trusting that meeting 20% of the requirements is enough to start (and you’ll learn the rest along the way :).
