At Fortune, Gladys Kong writes that her science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education helped her become "the leader and businesswoman I am today."
Kong, the CEO of UberMedia and former CTO and CEO of Idealab, earned degrees in engineering and computer science from Caltech and the University of California, Los Angeles. She writes that she pursued scientific studies because, as an immigrant from Hong Kong, she was less confident in speaking English and that skill mattered less in science class.
The skills she picked up in her STEM training have even helped her as CEO. Kong writes that, like others, she'd thought that being a CEO was something that a liberal arts or business school student would be best trained for. However, she says her background has served her well.
"The combination of my in-depth knowledge of our products from being CTO and my analytical skills from my engineering background created my own DNA as CEO," she writes. "I'm just as comfortable meeting with my product and engineering team as I am with my sales team, which is critical given that technology is the backbone of our company."