SXSW Pitch Finalist: Syndio
The Forrest Four-Cast: February 23, 2020
Seattle-based Syndio has a bold ambition: to eradicate unlawful pay disparities in the workplace.
This SaaS company, one of 50 finalists for SXSW Pitch 2020, enables global organizations to analyze and resolve pay gaps due to gender or race and stay in compliance over time. Syndio has over 60 enterprise customers including Nordstrom, Match Group, Target, Adobe and PagerDuty and already more than 1.3 million employees on the platform.
Maria Colacurcio, CEO of Syndio, says that although many people continue to believe that the gender pay gap is bogus, irrefutable evidence proves that it is real, persistent, and unfair. “The only way to know for sure whether it exists within your organization is to commit to thorough and regular analyses of the compensation data of men and women,” she says.
She is responsible for the company’s vision and strategy for delivering innovative solutions, building an organization of the industry’s most talented people, and developing organizational excellence to deliver the highest levels of business value to its customers. She is passionate about issues surrounding equal pay, employee wellness, and equity at work.
Prior to joining Syndio, Colacurcio co-founded Smartsheet.com, a work collaboration tool for companies of all sizes. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience in technology and communications at companies including Microsoft, Starbucks, and technology start-ups you’ve never heard of, she has a proven track record of building successful companies with strong core values that are dedicated to its people and customers.
Last October, Colacurcio won season two of GeekWire’s Elevator Pitch (literally given in the 32-second elevator ride of Seattle’s Smith Tower); her pitch also won the Geek’s Choice award after live voting by the audience in the Summit app.
See the Syndio pitch at SXSW in the category of Enterprise & Smart Data Technology, 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm Saturday, March 14, before a live audience and a panel of expert judges.
Winners in each of the 10 categories will be announced at the Pitch Awards Ceremony, at 6:30 pm Sunday, March 15. SXSW attendees are also invited to Meet the Finalists from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Monday, March 16. All SXSW Pitch events take place at the Hilton Austin Downtown.
Colacurcio talked about why she’s excited about transparency in tech companties, how being a mother of six helped develop her superpower, and why she’d never move to Mars.
What is your top goal for Syndio for 2020?
To help companies resolve pay equity and the pay gap. We also aim to educate the market that these are two different problems. The pay gap speaks to the distribution of women and minorities in a company. Pay equity addresses equal pay for equal work.
Tell us your favorite things about being based in Seattle.
Coffee, tech, mountains, and saltwater. Pretty much in that order.
With the exception of your own product, what tech trend is your team most excited about?
We are excited about the trend toward transparency, and technology companies are leading the way. Match Group, Adobe, Salesforce and others have proactively come forward with pay parity commitments and results. Millennials now outnumber any other generation in the workforce, and they are demanding transparency around pay. They share their pay with each other. And they have high expectations of their employers when it comes to ensuring that gender and race are not impacting company compensation practices.
What has the startup experience taught you about life?
The toughest part of being a female entrepreneur in the startup world is the number of people telling me that women face more obstacles than men in almost every professional setting. In the boardroom, data show that women are judged more harshly on past performance and receive less credit for their vision and creative strategy. For now, men still control the VC checkbooks. My experience is that when we engage men in the conversation and we make it personal for them — they respond well, and that helps everyone.
What’s your actual superpower?
I convert ideas into action and can prioritize like no other. These are critical skills when you have six kids, and they translate well at work.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten — or given?
I will let you fail; I will not let you be a failure.
If you were offered the opportunity to colonize Mars (but with no guarantee that you would ever return to Earth), would you go?
Heck no. There’s no coffee. Or frozen yogurt.
Look for more interviews with other finalists in this space between now and the start of SXSW Pitch on Saturday, March 14. Visit this page to see all previous interviews in this series as well as a list of all finalists.
If you are an entrepreneur, check out the SXSW 2020 Startups Track, which runs March 13–17. This track brings together founders and funders and showcases exciting new companies, products, services, and business models across different verticals and industries.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
