Elissa Shevinsky

Elissa Shevinsky is an American technology executive, entrepreneur, cybersecurity expert, public speaker, and author. She was instrumental in the movement to advocate for women in tech, through her book Lean Out, in 2015, and was known for saying that women have always played a role in significant computer and internet advances.

Education Shevinsky attended Benjamin Cardozo High School, before studying for a Political Theory major at Williams College, where she also took classes in Computer Science, graduating in 2001.

Career

Shevinsky has been a cofounder of multiple start up companies, including Menagerie Networks and MakeOut Labs, before cofounding Glimpse. In 2010, Shevinsky defended her company against The New York Times, as co-owner of Neighborhoodies, over the use of the "New York Herald Tribune" logo on T-shirts. Shevinsky argued that the trademark had been abandoned. In 2012, she founded two NYC-focused dating sites, MakeOut Labs and JoinJspot. Shevinsky co-founded Glimpse, an encrypted photo and video-sharing app, with Pax Dickinson in 2013. In 2015 Shevinsky was funded by MACH37 for JeKuDo Privacy Company, co-organized information security conference SecretCon, and edited Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-up Culture. As of 2019 Shevinsky was the CEO at Faster Than Light, a cybersecurity company.

Shevinsky is also known for her actions supporting civility and professionalism in the tech industry. In a 2015 post on harassment and trolling in Silicon Valley, Shevinsky wrote: "I'd like to see less harassment. That's my position. Less harassment, for everyone. I do hope this isn't a controversial statement." As a Press Lead for the 2018 HOPE conference in NYC, Shevinsky called for stronger enforcement of the Code of Conduct, after conference organizers ignored complaints by speaker Matt Blaze about harassment at the event, and speaker Chelsea Manning was rushed on stage by an attendee.

Honors Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-up Culture was listed by Inc. Magazine as one of the 100 best business books of 2015.

In 2018, Shevinsky was named "Woman of the Decade" by her alma mater Williams College in a speech where she announced she wanted to lead the way for the development and protection of privacy for the following decade.

Selected publications

Film Shevinsky appears in the documentaries CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap and Silenced.