Microsoft's annual Tech Ed gathering, held last month, is the country's biggest IT event, attracting some 2000 software developers and IT industry professionals.

A central part of Tech Ed is the annual Tech Girls dinner, at which this year's keynote speaker was Julia Raue, chief information officer at Air New Zealand and a well-known role model for women in IT.

Sandra Pickering, general manager of IT at Vodafone, and Donna Wright, chief information officer at Coca-Cola Amatil, are other leading figures. Yet the number of women in the IT industry is still low: figures from Mercer show 24 per cent of IT professionals are women.

Companies such as Microsoft are actively encouraging women to enter the industry, which is misunderstood by women executives who assume they must have a passion for the latest technology to be taken seriously.

Sally Doherty, HR director at Microsoft NZ, says the New Zealand business is not about developing new technology - the bulk of that is done overseas. It is, at heart, a sales and marketing organisation.

Maintaining business relationships, understanding complex issues and being a good listener are all necessary skills.

And women are very adept at those things.

At Microsoft, women tend to thrive as project managers, team leaders and programme leaders, she says. In a bid to break down the misconceptions about the IT industry, Microsoft brings groups of schoolgirls into the company to show them what they can achieve there.

There are three women on the senior executive team: director of customer and partner experience Jan Ferguson, OEM director Nicola Ferguson, and Doherty. And the company has had a woman chief executive, Helen Robinson.

One of the attractions for women - technically minded or not - is that the IT industry has been into flexible working for years. "From Microsoft's perspective, we have 100 per cent commitment towards flexible working," says Doherty. "People can work from home so easily."

Senior team director Jan Ferguson did not come from a technical background. "People say you've got to be passionate about technology. I wasn't," she says. "I started as a secretary, then went overseas and ran pubs for four years, then I was a sales rep at Fisher & Paykel." She has also worked at Drake and Sky TV.

"I have never found such an industry that swivels on a pin," she says. "It's fast moving, nothing's the same every day - it's great for people who like that."

Working in IT, you need excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to persuade and sow ideas across the team, says Ferguson. The hierarchical structure is disappearing and you work a lot in virtual teams. Part of her role is translation. "You have got to take the gobbledygook and think, 'What does that really mean to the partner?'