The Wall Falls, A Woman Rises, A Memoir:How a U.S. Tech Entrepreneur Broke the Glass Ceiling and Helped Modernize Latvia (OakTreeBear Publishing, March 18, 2025; Hardcover; ISBN: 979-8-9904890-0-4) is the story of Dagnija “Daggie” Lacis, who shares her insights and strategic thinking as she recounts her journey of breaking through the glass ceiling in the male-dominated IT industry. She tells how she introduced the most advanced IT systems to her newly liberated homeland, Latvia, enabling the country to engage in business with the West.
Lacis’ unwavering ambition and contributions to women in technology reflect the spirit of Women’s History Month. In an interview, she will discuss:
- Her career as the first female programmer at Burroughs Corporation, the second-largest IT company in the world during that time, where in 1984, she became the first female line vice president at Unisys.
- How she shattered the glass ceiling by challenging the stereotypes many people held about homemakers in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Defying convention, she continued to work during both pregnancies despite the absence of paid maternity leave or paid time off.
- How, for 20 years, she held her own with the “boys” as one of the only females at the company before becoming VP.
- Her poignant story of leaving Latvia as a young child after World War II.
- In 1990, during a luncheon in Washington, D.C., Lacis was introduced to the prime minister and foreign minister of newly independent Latvia. This introduction led to Lacis modernizing Latvia’s IT systems and business practices to facilitate trade with Western countries. She achieved this by:
- Introducing SWIFT enabled Western companies to conduct business with Latvian firms.
- Implementing the Global Transport and Trade System (GTTS).
- Modernizing Latvian shipping.
- The introduction in D.C. also led to Lacis launching her own IT Company, the Baltic Technology Group (BTG). BTG was the first woman-owned company in Europe to develop a Western retail banking system.
