Her Career Ladder

Hello, everybody, I am so glad you could join us tonight. This is Michele Heyward Women's History Month back with system. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're in for a fantabulous opportunity to meet Monique who's one of the founding members of system, which is si, si, T m is women of color in the water industry. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, um, you have drinking water, you have flushing water, you want to know which one to do and where, who Monique as part of women, engineers and professionals in the industry, that make sure we get the drinking water we need. During the month of March, Women's History Month, I've partnered with system and they are bringing on different fabulous women of color who are doing fabulous things, outstanding things, and really not getting the spotlight into recognition they should in the water industry. So we have the opportunity to partner together and really show it introduced to each of you what is going on. So I'm going to turn it over to Monique and she's going to and I'm going to bring up our special guests and I will see y'all in about I don't know when it's done. When they say I can come back. I'm gonna come back. So, Monique, over to you.

Thank you, Michelle. Hi, everyone. I'm Monique. Epi Tropo formerly Phillips. I am a water resources engineer and project manager currently on like an extended maternity leave about to start a new job at Jacobs, which I'm really excited about. And I want I'm thrilled to introduce you all to Ashley Matthews, who I've been able to work with for at least like the last four or five years. I think she's an engineering supervisor at the Philadelphia water department. So welcome Ashley, is there anything you want to introduce about yourself before we dive into our interview? Sure,

um, like Monique said, I'm an engineering supervisor with the Philadelphia water department. I am in the design support group. We do various work at the programmatic level of our group specifically focused on GSI, combating CSOs in the Philadelphia area, so I'll keep it brief.

Just like for the audience, what are those acronyms? Oh,

CSOs. Me, Philadelphia water department and CSOs is combined stormwater over, there's a question. I combined stormwater overflow, essentially, when we have large storm events. We have overflows that happen from our sewer system, because our rainwater and our drinking water, our toilet water, everything goes into the same system. And those massive storms over override the system and it's just too much and that they looted sewage goes into our rivers, streams and waterways. So to combat that and prevent that from happening. We're putting in small green stormwater infrastructure GSI systems throughout the city to prevent that hold the water, infiltrate it down into like our normal water water cycle. And yeah, that is essentially the initiative of the Green City Clean Waters program.

Nice. Nice. You said that better than I would. You also covered the other acronym G GSI. So green stormwater infrastructure. And so while we're on this topic, how did you get into this field? How did you start your career? And just tell us about your your current role? Sure.
So I started right out of college, I went to Drexel University. I was a dual major in architectural and civil engineering with a construction management minor. At applied with the city of Philadelphia, I was actually aiming to work for the Streets Department and bridge design. But when you apply for the city, they actually have a list of civil engineers, you take an exam, you get put on the list based on your ranking, and any department within the city can pull engineers from that list. So the water department pulled me before the Streets Department did an interview with several different groups within the water department and the Green City Clean Waters program. It's still in my heart. I was like, first of all, this is a massive and initiative no other city is, is doing this type of work. And I want to be involved with it. So that's kind of how I ended up there. A little more background, I started in program support what it was at the beginning, I was there for about three years. Then I moved to GSI design, and I was a program, a project manager. And I managed projects for a couple of years, I became a supervisor in that group, and I managed a team of three engineers. And this was all while COVID started. So I was managing a team remotely, and I was pregnant with my first child, I went on maternity leave for three months, I came back, I was there for about another nine months before I actually left the water department, I became a stay at home mom for about 11 months. And then eventually I came back to the water department. I've been here for about 10 months. So now my role is back in program support. But I run the design support group that is inside of that. And I manage once again, a team of three.

I mean, and this is why we wanted to talk to you for this life theme about work life balance, because I knew you just been all over the place, you know, being at the water department, getting this promotion, and then taking a break to start a family. And then diving right back in like, I'm like she's gonna have a lot to say on this.

Definitely. And I guess Yeah, with that in mind, how did having a daughter impact your career.

So in a lot of ways, like I mentioned, I've kind of been back and forth, I did two leaves one for three months for FMLA during maternity leave, and then again, when I left for a longer stay, and then I came back, I think the biggest impact is that you're stepping out of your role. For a period of time, you're missing opportunities. There's no way around that. Because as you're getting ready to leave, even though it's temporary, there's things that are like, well, we can't involve her in that, because she's about to leave. And while you're gone, things are still happening around you. I know one initiative that was starting up before I left was implementation of dynamic design in our program. And I was really excited about that. But I was about to leave. So I couldn't be as involved as I would have liked. Additionally, just your your how you approach your work your your work ethic, and your style has to change. Because when you come back, you're not the same person. And trying to hold yourself to those same standards is not not reasonable. I nursed my daughter for two years, so are nearly two years. So like that has a great impact on what you're doing every day when you have a newborn, you are nursing them every two hours. So that has a great impact on what you got.

So literally what I'm doing right now. Is this normal two hours.
Exactly. Yeah. So there's sacrifices on both ends, especially once you come back. When you're working, there's things that you're not doing in your family life. And when you're with your family, you're you're doing things that you may not have normally done because you may have stayed a little bit later at work. So definitely has an impact. But it's it's, it can be overcome.
And I'm like I'm going off script a little bit like how was that decision to, you know, stay home a little bit longer. And then the decision to then go back to work? Like how did that all play out for you? And you know, I'm selfishly asking because the weeks my baby's five months, how old is Sadie?

Oh, so CD is two and a half now. So she's almost three. So our decision was interesting, because, um, which I didn't mention, I started a business while I was a stay at home mom. And our focus was like building that business. And, but then we thought, Wait, like, we're gonna be in the city longer. We had planned on buying a house, the housing market was ridiculous. You know, life changes everything. And you kind of have to roll with the punches. So that's what we did. And we were like, well, we're still in the city. Let's go back and see if they'll have a see if they'll take us back. So I came back to the city and I came back I had, you know, I never left because I didn't love it. Like I love what I do. I love who I work with. So it was an easy choice to make to go back. However, at that point, I was home because even when I was off of maternity leave, I was still home. Like I literally had my baby right next to me while I was in meetings and doing different things. So when I had to actually go into the office that that was very difficult. But yeah, it was more like you know, financial planning for our future like this will be a boost for our our income and our finances. So it made sense to do at the time.


Yeah, it's, it's like it's so personal for everybody. There's so many different opinions and you know, it's all about your comfort level is sad and like daycare now that you're like going in and yeah, so she's, she's in a Montessori school, five days a week, and we have like, aftercare some days, and, you know, sending her to school for the first time, it was terrifying. I was like, This is my child. But I really liked the school. They even had like an onboarding section where they would meet with the teacher one on one before, like, class started and all these kids were there, they would have an indoor session to introduce them to the different activities and an outdoor session so they could see their campus. So I really, like my mama heart was happy to see her like, interacting with the teacher and her first day she went to the teacher because that was like a someone she knew.

Oh, that's so nice. And like what's I guess? What's a rundown of your typical busy day? And don't forget to tell us about your your side business. Oh, I heard that. So now we gotta hear all about that, too. 

So I guess first about the business. I started plant based vegan baked goods, baked good online business called Mama's morsels. I'm vegan, I've been vegan for I don't know, eight. I've been like meat free for eight years or something like that. I don't remember I don't count anymore. I started this business because I felt like there was a gap in really good, like vegan desserts. So I was like, let me just let me just do this. And it's a passion of mine. I really enjoy building a business, all of the different parts of it. And I think I'd probably will continue to make businesses because I really enjoy it. So I know, but my my busiest day is actually today. So I actually took I left work early so that I could be here and do this because usually I would be on the train right now and I don't think being on the train would be would work. But i i On average, I wake up at 4am I typically the range is like 2am to 5am in the morning. from four to five I do my business work emails, social media content creation and planning orders. from five to 6am. I do my morning like workout I tried to do 30 minutes 15 minutes stretching an extra 15 minutes for those times that I'm just moving really slow and I don't feel like doing it. Six to 7am It's like shower, get dressed breakfast and then I open up my like pwd work laptop. I started to plan out my day. I'm very like, I like to write things down. So I have like my personal planner, I have my PW planner. I have my business planner and calendars and everything. Seven to eight in the morning. It's like getting my daughter up getting her dressed, getting her breakfast, getting her out the door by eight. Then it's taking her school eight to nine because her school is not close. It's like 20 minutes away. So like 40 minutes round trip. I come back home at nine and around 910 I catch a train to go downtown into center city into the office. I get to the office about for 940. And then my day is till about 540 I catch a six o'clock train home. And then the 630s dinner, seven to eight is more business stuff, increase new items. I do a lot of events. So it's like event planning, inventory tracking, things like that. And then eight to nine is me winding down for the day. I'm making my lunch for the next day snacks, things like that. And then nine o'clock is bed. Usually I go to sleep between eight o'clock and 11pm. And I've learned that I need at least five hours of sleep. So however that works out for that day.

Wow. Starting from the end, I can agree with you on needing five hours of sleep. Because that's what I learned recently. So I need at least that much as well. But you know, with a newborn waking up is a little bit different. Your day is extremely full. And when you said you started at four, I was like, where's this going? What does she need to do and more than more, but it's your it's so it's a it's your your person? It's because you're trying to fit in your personal business time before your, your work day. And then before that, you still have to drop your daughter off at school. It's a lot. It is, do you feel like it's it's it's worth it to have all of these things go in? And do you ever get overwhelmed with that? Like, how do you how are you feeling from day to day with this schedule?

So I definitely get overwhelmed. For sure. All the time. I think that's anticipated. I think, is it worth it to fit all these things in? Yes, and because everything is important to me to do, and a lot of things I strategically plan so that way I'm hitting, I'm hitting things that fulfill the needs that I have. So when I do get overwhelmed, and kind of like and I don't know what's happening right now, I try to change my perspective on it. Usually, I'm overwhelmed, because I'm thinking about all of the little things that I have to do in one like perspective, and I have to realize I can only do one thing at a time, I'm only one person. So breaking it down into a schedule, where it's like this time block, this is what I'm doing, I'm not thinking about anything else, I'm only doing this task, then I can be very focused, dedicated. And when I'm done that task, I put it to the side, and I'm not thinking about it anymore. So it helps to like clear my mind of like that thing is done. Or even if it's not done, it's like I've worked on that today. So I feel accomplished that I put the time that I plan to do on it, even though it's not done. And I can move on from there. And also just prioritizing all of those little things that I like or float floating around in my head. And then building in meantime is really important so that I don't feel overwhelmed. So like to getting my exercise and like moving my body in some way, shape or form. Every day is really important for me, because most of what I'm doing is sedentary, I'm not moving. And like getting that stretch and just really is a is the best way for me to start my day. And to feel like okay, I did something, I checked it off like it's done. And, yeah, same thing with like, winding down at the end of the day, it's reading a book, it's listening to music, doing a puzzle, I like to draw on sketch. So just filling that time with something that's like, just for me. Really helps to to not, it doesn't help the overwhelm, but it helps me to fill the blocks that I need to feel like okay, my day is done. And I've taken care of all the aspects that are me.

Yeah. And do you like, I guess what's the priority when you can't fit all of these things in like, which is the first activity that kind of goes out the window? And what do you make sure that you can get in if you can, um,

goes out the window. So if I'm like really grinding with okay, like I need to cut something. I personally I struggle with like, I cut myself out. I know I shouldn't do that. But your meantime at the end of the day, yeah. It's like, okay, especially if it's at the end of the day and I'm exhausted and I it's like, I don't I can't stay up and draw like I need to just crash right now because I feel like I'm too exhausted from everything. It also depends on what are the things that like I have to do, and and balancing that. Obviously, it's like, you know, I have to do my job. They're paying To me, that is my livelihood. So like, that is very important. I schedule in like time with my daughter. So like, this is a day where, like, I'm taking her to school in the morning, but then her father's picking her up at night. So that's why you don't like there's nothing in the schedule with like me, like dealing with her. But if it wasn't like where I had her from the time that I pick her up, like it's all her until she goes to bed at eight o'clock. So there's like it's doing dinner, it's doing play activities, like bath books bed, like that's our routine. So then you can see, it's like, well, eight o'clock, either I'm going to sleep or I'm staying up and I'm doing stuff.

Right? And like, how did you actually sorry, let me break. Michelle, did you? Were you going to hop in and say anything to the audience about questions? Or I can, if anybody has questions, just go ahead and post them. And I'm hoping Michelle can type send us what those questions are. Because I could not get access to the LinkedIn stream to multitask that good. So we have like, about 10 more minutes. If anybody has questions for Ashley, please, please send them through. And otherwise, I'll just keep going with my questions. But just how did you work your way up to this, this this routine that you have today? Like didn't have to start slowly? Like you added in like the business sounds like a really big deal. You know, did you work your way up to that over? Like, how much time and yeah, just have How do you go about achieving this? Because I guess as normal people, maybe not quite there yet. Would like to get there.

So I guess I will say that I've I'm really big on planning. I love organization. I've had a planner like since since they gave you the planners in elementary school, I was always so excited. And then when I went to college, and they didn't give me a planner, I was like, What is this nonsense. And then I realized, okay, I can go buy my own, I
am over that era of getting planners. That's true that was. So

I love that I love planning organization. At one point, I thought like maybe I can be a professional signer, or like, I don't, I don't know what the title is. It's a lot of trial and error. So what I used to do would be I would stay up at night until I think the my cutoff was like 2am. And then I would go to sleep and I would wake up later. What I realized with that is you start to sleep it like you oversleep. And you can't get that time back. I was more efficient if I just went to bed early and got to start fresh because I'm a morning person. So trying to force myself to be a night person and stay up late was very difficult. I would just be like falling asleep trying to get stuff done. I was like, this is a waste of time, I might as well be sleeping. So it definitely didn't start with the schedule that I have now. And over the life of my business, it started in 2021. But it really didn't get going until like may 2022. So in the beginning, it was just kind of like figuring out logistics and like how do I get my my business license and all these things. But it ramped up in the in the last quarter of 22. So I kind of was forced to figure something out because I got myself burnt out doing way too many events because it's the last quarter and everybody's everybody wants to buy stuff. So I kind of had to take a break, pause myself and be like, Okay, what am I doing here? Because this is not sustainable. And I think that's applicable in in anyone's life when you do get overwhelmed. pause and reflect and really assess and prioritize like what are the things that are important to you right now? And put yourself first I'm saying this to myself to put yourself first and make sure that you're good before you try to do anything else have have you built a support system? Most definitely. My my family and my my closest friends have been an amazing support system to me. Actually, I was I was like messaging them like I'm gonna doing this interview and they're like, you're great. And I was like thanks guys. I'm so yeah, I can With a degree a support system is so important to to help you when you're when you don't feel like you're that great. And when you don't know what to do when you don't know how to prioritize things, having someone that's a sounding board. Something I also like to do and like my wine downtime is journaling. That's really helpful to get your thoughts out on paper. I'm definitely an advocate for therapy, talk to somebody. Yeah.

So I guess back to the business that you have, like, how does that blend in with like, your engineering mind and like switching off from like, vegan treats to like, you know, CSOs and phones and everybody, um,
I think just the aspect of building a business from scratch, it's literally nothing and it doesn't move without you. So just I really enjoy like the recipe testing portion in the very beginning of my business, figuring out flavors and experimenting with different things. That to me was very much the like experimental engineering side of like, Oh, can I put this together this weird? So that experimentation as well as just you when you're a single business owner, you do everything? Your marketing, your social media, your you know, your accountant, every aspect of who is an animal? I can't believe he did that.

Night. Yeah, so it's just an extension of me. It's things that I love just putting them together. Yeah.
Well, you make it look easy. And I think it's really admirable, like, I have extracurricular activities and hobbies and things I like to do. But it would just take like, I think, a lot of courage to actually turn that into a business on top of, you know, your day job and your daughter and personal time. I think it's, it's really admirable what you're doing. And I guess what are your closing thoughts on just this topic of like, creating work life balance before we wrap up? 

So I think with work life balance, it's forever a moving target. It's never going to be perfect. But that's okay. You have to understand that your your life, your responsibilities, the things that you're aiming for, will change over time. And like I said, pause, reflect, understand what your goals are now, and then adjust accordingly. I think getting overwhelmed and getting bogged down does not mean failure. It's a lesson that we can use to learn and grow and build better routines that help us do it better, like life doesn't stop. So we have to kind of just keep pushing forward. And yeah,

yeah, no, I love that like it's not you know, it's not a failure, just turn it into another you know, learning stepping stone. Most definitely, until you're able to wake wake up at four in the morning. Sorry, I can't get off of that. But yeah, it's amazing. Michelle, does you want to
Well, we can't hear you Michelle.

if I unmute that really does help if it makes a world of difference. I want to thank both of you for joining us. Ashley. I can't imagine having a child and doing the the nine to five and what we call it a five to nine or or the parallel printer. I've done it not with the with the infant so I'm the night owl. I'm the one that was going to work late. Late like I was at 1am Personal like what is the spirit job at 730 I'll get so out of out of cell phone at a company truck they needed me somewhere I drive through some cornfield so but I say thank you so much. Money. Thank you for coming on with system and bringing on this fantastic topic and discussion for tonight. For Women's History Month. Everybody be sure you join us a again next week, we have another fantastic guest is coming on and moderator front from system. If you are looking for a community of women of color in the water industry, you want to be sure to connect with Monique as one of the founding members that system. So you can find other women of color in this industry to connect with. We will be back next week discussing forging new career paths. What does that look like? And we really have a dynamic guests coming on next week. 

We she actually it took I don't know if you can call it a sabbatical. But the work has one job. And now she's at the US Environmental Protection Agency as a senior advisor, but she can go back to our other job when she done there. So I can't wait to hear this story because like I could have done that. Tell me how to do it. So everybody, come join us next week, Wednesday, March 22 at 6pm. Eastern time. We look forward to having you and everybody have a fantastic week. We'll see you then. Bye,
everyone. Thank you Michelle.

What is going on everybody? This is Michele Heyward. Hey, everybody, it is actually snap national STEM Day. So science, technology, engineering and math. It is nationally celebrated here in the US to promote science, technology, engineering and math to the masses, mostly children. But I thought I would get on and talk about it with maybe some grownups. Yes. So, for those of you who are new to me, my name is Michele Heyward, I'm a woman color in STEM, I have a civil engineering degree did that was a civil engineer for many years, worked in heavy construction, actually building the power grid, here in the United States of America. So when you turn on your lights, they give me make of me. So literally, I worked construction, on a job site, usually in work trailer, a dirty white pickup truck. But I did not spend my time in a traditional office. So when it comes to national STEM Day, days like this, I highly, highly encourage women and people of color to step forward into the spotlight to to encourage others, Hey, Chris, to do something they may not see others around them do explain to them what they do in their career. So I have an older brother, who's actually an electrical engineer. And it's funny because he works. In utilities, he works nice for a utility company. Actually, it's a second utility company he's working for. 

And I build the power grid, but I don't work for the utility company, utility companies use usually my client, that I'm helping to manage the construction of their project. And he's on the other side, once it's built, he operates it, hey, thanks for joining. So make sure it's maintained, it's functioning properly. So it's really interesting how we both unintentionally ended up working in energy at the same time for a few years, his employers have never been my client. But it was he's an electrical engineer, but I was out still as a civil engineer, building a power grid. So if you have young children, or maybe you're a parent, and you're really trying to see what this stem mean, and I can do more of the E in STEM, which is engineering, because a lot of things really around you are engineered, including this container, a packaging engineer will help determine the type of plastic you will use, the thickness of the plastic and the dimensions of it for for what will go in here, sometimes you'll see a mechanical engineer, chemical engineer do that as well. But it really, really varies. So then, so you'd have containers, then the actual plastic itself, you probably have a materials engineer, or maybe a chemical engineer, that will help develop it. So sometimes even a chemist, depending what it is, these are more vitamins. So a chemist may be involved in this. So everywhere around you. You see engineers play a different part, a different role in the world around you. A lot of times with civil people like Oh, so you build bridges and roads. And that's it, not me. But there are definitely civil engineers who do stuff.

 But a lot of what you see even from the water that you drink, they are engineers, environmental engineers, wastewater engineer engineers who deal with the water systems in in the US. So there's very little areas, very few areas in the world, or things in the world, I should say, where engineers and or scientists and technologists, even mathematicians are not involved. How many of you have car insurance, or life insurance? You probably do not know a mathematician. Or actually they call actuaries, which work and do calculations to determine and collect data and really determine like payouts and doing different tables when it comes to insurance. And people like really, really, it takes a lot of math and there are some people who actually do that. Sometimes it's finance people. And then other times there are people strictly with just straight math degrees, they end up in that industry. So we do we can fall into different little places. Hospitals, and it's very like oh you build a gas but you can actually have engineers who industrial engineers who may look at the flow of a hospital, like from emergency rooms, how wide the hallways need to be, where do you put the sensors for the doors automatically open when they're doing moving patients around in beds, we do a lot of a lot of different things. Manufacturing, of course, how high the, the conveyors can be, how equipment is set up, and we don't just think of hey, and thanks for doing it, we don't just think of it off the top of our heads. And when you to join, we actually a lot of times in manufacturing, or just in general, we have as engineers talk to a lot of people. For those of us that have worked, I've worked in manufacturing as well, for a short period of time, we talk to the people who actually do the work, because we aren't using the equipment, we aren't on the manufacturing floor working. So for us to design it when we're sitting at a desk most of time, there's no benefit. Because we're actually doing work for other people. 

So we're constantly talking to people. And we might be pissing employees, the other workers off. But it's really for their benefit for us to tell them, they're always slumping over or is too high. So they're reaching up and they're extending, which is bad for them and their health and their their body over time for doing that for 1015 30 years, right? So we go through and we do different studies, and y'all are like, Why are they sitting there just staring at me. And it's really to figure out what's the best way to help you. So a lot of what we do as engineers is really to help people I know we're not a hell out of y'all. And unfortunately, we ask You really weird questions. We say really weird stuff. But truly, we are trying to understand how to improve something that will help you overall. So when it comes to STEM Day, I'm really really excited. Because I am always online and looking at videos of different toys and games kids are playing with. And sometimes you don't even have to give kids anything elaborate to put together right, so we give them Legos and different things to put together. But sometimes if you give them nothing, or very little, and you just give them a picture of something and said make this. So one of the best games I love to play waves to teach engineering is called an egg drop. Any like Michelle that's that does not find sound good. So you literally give kids raw eggs. And you can give them something like tape, Styrofoam, peanuts, cotton balls, and just other materials and say, hey, you need to protect this egg from cracking from dropping 10 feet, 12 feet, whatever, and to the ground. And they have to figure out with the materials they have, how to do that. And you're like really intense come up with very, very creative ways of doing that. Exactly. And it's one of the most fun exercises or activities I used to do when I used to do a lot of outreach stuff through society, women engineers, and outside of Black Engineers.


I didn't like the circuit breadboard thing with a light light I lied and understand that breadboard, but giving kids just different materials. So they had to think outside of the box on how to how to how to get it to work or how to get the egg not to break really helps them understand teamwork. Start asking questions and inspecting the materials around them. Plus you're given them a time limit to get it done right. Some sometimes we will even do a game by beforehand. And so what happens is with the game, we'll hand them out Penny so like for every question they get right, they can get a penny. Well, for each penny they get they get to purchase different materials. Like you can give them the basic for for all the groups, but every time they win something, they can win a penny which means they can buy some more materials or resources to help them with their project. And you're like that sounds kind of crazy, right? But in actuality, when you look at the way projects are put together, you look at competitors in the marketplace. Some of them have better materials than others and sometimes those with better materials because they had a larger budget still perform as the ones with the smaller budget and less material meals. And you know what happens, the one that had the smaller budget and less materials, if they're selling their product or service about the same price, one is making more money. So sometimes getting more resources doesn't mean you're going to end up making more money. It just ends up, you spent it on other stuff you thought you need it to succeed. So it's really, really fun to play that with with young people in that aspect, so they understand the finances of being an employee and a manager and having a budget and understanding what you actually need to succeed when it comes to a project. So Natalie, what do you know about engineering it Chris leave? Yeah, he did. Okay. Hey, April. So what do I know Natalie, like Michelle, you did not ask me this. 

So we can do anything environmental engineering, environmental scientists, who may deal with air and soil conservation, different things like that. We can talk about by all biologists, I don't know what they do. After they get a biology degree and don't go to college or and they don't teach. I don't know. I don't know what they do after that. No, there was another Chris. His name was Chris nella. I didn't say you laughed. There was another Chris that said, Hey, we see Natalie badly cracking up at me. So it's, it's really interesting. I remember my youngest nephew. A few years ago, he hated. He used to hate me because I was the only Auntie that were punishment. Punish him. He was the youngest, and he's so cute and adorable. And, and he used to get away with stuff, but I will punish him. Ow. No, all these dang friends of mine are, are freaking nerds. Yes. See, you got some of the best friends. Natalie, nothing breaks down. They come they see all your other friends. Like girl is broken. I got some duct tape. We show it with tools. We got a plan, right? Or we say you need to call somebody and get that fix. We don't we don't have time. So it really really. So my youngest nephew. So when he started really liking me, and I say this a few years ago because he used to hate me. He started crying when I would leave. And then the SpiderMan movie came out where Jamie Foxx was electrical engineer. And when that and he loved this movie. And so when that movie came out, I said, Well, you know what, Jamie Foxx doesn't a movie. He said, Huh? I said Jamie Foxx is electrical engineer and he works on a power grid.
Yes, we do share it with blueprints and drawings, because we try and understand. 


We try to make sure we don't break ish. Okay. I'll make it worse. How about that? And I said, Well, I build a power grid that Jamie Foxx works on. And he goes, Oh, and so it then made sense for him because he could never, I could never explain to him what I did. And we'd be driving down the road. I said, You see those poles were over there with a powerline zone. He's like, Yeah, I said, I help make sure those get built and he will go Oh. But when he looked at a Spider Man movie, I had Jamie Foxx in there. And he could identify with Jamie Foxx is African American and African American little boy. And then, um, Maya and Jamie foster working on a power grid. And he really liked the movie, it kind of clicked for him but not but it made a little bit more sense to him and explain to him what I did. So sometimes movies help. But it's even better when you can really take them somewhere and show them what you do. So blueprints help a lot. Excuse me. So although kids can't necessarily read the blueprints or the drawings that I read, just how we read how to put together assemble, assemble toys for Christmas are a great way to really teach somebody about civil engineering, mechanical engineering, how we put different things together and assemble them so but it's always fun. So if you chemistry I got a great great tip. 

If you're trying to teach somebody, a child about chemistry, and even how to work with fractions, Baking, baking and doing like pancakes and stuff are really really great ways to do stuff. Because they have to do like two thirds of a cup of flour. One A a cup and a half of water, right. So it helps them understand the measurements. And then you have wet ingredients and dry ingredients. So you have to use different measuring tools. So those are really, really great ways to learn fractions. And people thought I was crazy. But I use that because one of my nieces loves to cook. And so I will show us I will go get the, you need the measuring cup that is two thirds cup. And she's like, What is two thirds cup and so I showed her what the 1/3 Cup was to 2/3 cups were in the one cup. And of course I saw you the I hit f5 minute. So it was is really it's a great way to teach fractions. So that 1/3 Cup was to third cosy 1/3. But what also happens when you're doing cooking anything, you're doing a change of state. So that is always good, too. So you're boiling water. So it goes from water from liquid to gas. And then when you're baking something, you can't reverse it, right is completely gone like. So putting together ingredients and baking a cake or brownies is really really a great way to understand chemistry. So chemistry I did okay, chemistry, I like physics better. So like I can bake a cake. But my cookies turn out like bricks. So I don't do that. I've tried several times. And my family and I have agreed that I should not do cookies. And that works for me because I really am not big on cookies, or pies. But I do cakes and peach cobbler. And that is it. So take different things there are really really very minut things, very specific things that engineers do. And they're all around you in your home, from the carpet to the paint to your furniture, the electricity coming in. Even of course the internet. You know what, Chris?


I forgot she was on here. I was about to say something. I'm not gonna say this. And I do not need this bot to help me. But
is the season of faithfulness. So I'm thankful for that in button. All my broadcasts, that's what I'd be thankful for. But engineering or STEM is always around us. If you're if you like NASA, NASA has a great channel here to follow on Periscope. They show so many different people they do they show some of their technology they developed. And, um, so many engineers live, so And of course you can catch the replay. So definitely, definitely follow NASA here on Periscope. They have a really, really cool channel. I want to say GE has a good channel on here. I haven't watched I haven't seen them broadcast in a while. And also and you think that's funny? And also um Oh good. Is it seen that? Maybe it's not seeing that on here? I forget who who has it. It may be over on Instagram. But yeah, they will do live streams and Insta Stories and posts short videos. So you can still see technology coming from large companies now on social and it's really, really cool and be able sometimes to engage with their people. Sometimes a lot of times you're not they're not able to answer questions. They're doing more of a of a videotape and not in engaging live stream. I would love for them to do more engaged in live streams. So we can ask more questions, especially when it comes to SNAM. So any questions for me about engineering construction? Chris, you get to ask me no questions because you got jokes. That's okay. One day, the joke will be on you all right, no questions. I am Michele Heyward woman of color sim civil engineer, and tech, founder of the company positive hire everybody. Have a great night and Happy National STEM Day. Bye, everybody.

What is up Periscope? Yes. Okay, I'm coming on earlier than usual because well, I want to do other things in my nighttime. Hey misbehaving. So I want to talk about creating community and relationships, because oftentimes we just have them. But we don't talk about what they really are, how to create them, how to leverage them, how to maintain them. So I wanted to just talk about some things that I've learned, I've seen that have worked for me, hey, Squirrel Girl, what's going on? And thought we could truly, truly figure out and really have some dialogue about it. So first, let's talk about creating community. So in creating community, hey. And creating community is one reason why I liked Periscope so much is because of the community is because people show up, they do support you. And it can be complete strangers. And the dialogue and community that builds on Periscope doesn't necessarily just stem the the broadcast, or like I'm doing right now brings people in, but the people within that broadcast are communicating, right? They're exchanging dialogue, and they're laughing, having a good time. And I remember being in a broadcast a year or so ago, in the Bronx, and myself and another person watching, right, we were watching, we're having a dialogue, we just were having jokes in the person who was broadcast and got to add it to it. I was like, I don't appreciate y'all coming in here having jokes. It's a very serious broadcast. So you don't want people to have community within your broadcast, it's truly we may bring you together, we may initiate bringing building community, but the people are what make it last. Let me just say, after that person went off on myself and another viewer, and he was like, Ooh, marry me, I was like, how much money you have, we were doing a dot dialogue like that. And the broadcaster got very upset. So guess what happened? I unfollowed her and never went back into another one for broadcasts, ever, ever. Because if you understand community, you understand that people will not always pay attention to what you're talking about. within that community, people are building relationships among each other. And it may stem from you, right, you can be the hub, right? And then you have different spokes going around that hub, be the hub and shut the hell up. So or be the connector, a lot of times that hub is the connector, and you're connecting people to each other. And understanding that role doesn't mean you always have to be the center of attention. What it means is, understand that building community can come from you. But it does not focus on you 100% of the time. Let me just say that, okay, let's get that out of the way. But when it does come to community, it is absolutely a beautiful thing. And I say this, because people whom you just dialogue with every now and again can truly start sharing your content, sharing your message, having given feedback and suggestions to you, really being a support system, virtually, and in real life that you never anticipated. Because you show up. You add value, and you're connecting and building genuine relationships with people. And and it's truly truly in important to do that. All right. So if you are like so many others, you are like, You know what, I cannot go out and talk to these people. I have to stay in the house. And I prefer social media or it's wintertime and you're in the Northeast or the Midwest or the Northwest. It's just cold. And you're like I'm not going out. That is quiet. Okay. You can still build community and relationships being online. Hey, Natalie. So Natalie is my troll. She's my friendly neighborhood troll, which is why she's a moderator in my live streams. But what happens is we built community, I guess in 2015 I met Natalie online, probably 2015. And that's how we met and continued to build community. And what is so interesting is when you tell people what you do, and you're adding value, you're supporting them as well as others in the community. You are seen in a different way. So what what often happens on Periscope is people go, Hey, my, hey, my, um, they got an engineer. I know, everybody calls me the engineer. Because that's what I tell people I do. Hello on top. Yeah, it's been it's been a few years. It's coming up on four. I think no, I think we just hit three. We just hit three. And we met three years ago. We met in 2016. In San Francisco. Yes, it was Periscope Summit then. And now it's switched to Summit Live and does some other stuff. But yeah, we met in 2016 in person in San Francisco. But we initially met here. And so that's part of building community, sometimes even online, people want to meet you in person. So I have an online community. We're in I flown into the bay, some of oh, I'll just pick you up from the airport. I'll just pick you up from the airport. They picked me up from the airport took me to lunch, we looked at what planes doing or special whatever air maneuvers or whatever, we looked at that. And then they dropped me off my Airbnb. Yes, that is rebuilding relationship, genuine relationship. And this person and I we truly would be in our Facebook, DMS, we jump on zooms, brainstorming and helping each other build our businesses and just really having a good time. Right and cracking up on different things, whether it's here on Periscope or on Facebook, we just built a genuine relationship. So when I flew to tell them, Oh, no, I'll pick you up. I was like, Are you sure? Like yeah, no problem. So you can truly truly have that when it comes to building relationships, even on social. But what happens is now that relationship is like, two, three years old, like myself, and that young lady Natalie down there. And guess what, I spent over three hours yesterday with this person brainstorming and really pushing through some things I needed to work through in my business. And she did the same with her business. And I told her something that she hadn't thought of before. She hadn't thought of before. Um, as far as what her true strengths and gifts are. And I said, No, this is what you do. And she was like, can you explain it to me? And I explained it to her. She said, Oh my gosh, that's exactly what I do. She's like, how many people can do that? I said, not a lot of people. So what I told her her gift was she understands end to end processes. And yeah, I don't Yeah, like Michelle was the end to end process. You'll want to know, because what you got until you do sales, you do marketing, you do business development, you do design, right, this person can see what you need from beginning of your business or application to the end, like after, even after you've made the selling and have the customers the things you need to continue to do. Most people can't see that. And she understands and and processes. So now she's at a point where she has to figure out what does that mean for her next business. So I'm so excited because we spent over three hours on the phone to get to a point where she has to think about that. So that was so much fun. Then tonight, I'm at a happy hour local to my area is the tech Happy Hour people who either had tech startups working tech startups work in the tech field for a corporation or local company. We all meet up once a month. What was two guys standing there one was like, I want to sell this one business and another guy like you know, I should sell my other business. But how do we sell it? And who do we sell it to? Why isn't there a platform to sell this on? This is and so we're literally going back and forth the bills I'm just listing because I'm tired at this point. Literally going back and forth helping each other how to figure out how to sell one of their businesses. And one of them goes wow things I had thought about this time I wanted to do it but I didn't know how to do it. Right. So now he has a strategy or some tools to go out and actually do it and guess what that happens? That happens?

Welcome, welcome everybody. It is a another session of mentor Mondays. Today, as usual, I will be giving you and sharing with you different tips and tricks when it comes to your career. But I also have a special announcement. Yes. So let's first get started. And today we are talking about creating your career team, who is on that team? Who do you need, that really can help you push forward in your career? Now, you're probably thinking, oh my gosh, I don't know, I haven't thought about this. Right. So I am going to start where we generally start with is our community, our friends, our classmates, our family, right? Our social media community, people we know personally, we share great labs, we share information, even job opportunities. That is where you start when it comes to the what I call the five parts of your career community. And yes, it is truly truly important that you know what they are, and because they all play an important yet different part of you creating and helping you bill, a career you desire and deserve. So first starts your community, in your community, they oftentimes believing they, they can see you doing great things with your career. But they may not be able to answer your questions, provide guidance, provide information they need. And this often happens when it comes to people of color, not just women of color. Oftentimes, we may not be first generation college graduates, right. But we may be first generation to go into corporate America. So the barriers that we encounter, or this or certain things that we encounter with in corporate America, I parents haven't encountered, because they were educators, they work as civil servants. But you're seeing it differently and experience it differently in corporate America, but they are still part of your community, and they truly, truly support you in everything you do. The next one is really common and highly, highly recommended. I know I recommend it, I know I have been a mentor to many people, as well, as well as being a mentee. So your mentor is really you could have more than one I know I have more than one. And I've had them at different phases in my life. So whether it was before college, during college, and even in my professional career, I've always had a mentor someone I can go ask questions to someone who could guide me in the right direction, someone who kept an open dialogue with me, and guess what they always wanted to see me when, and most of the times I develop a personal relationship with this person. So don't think that your mentor has to be someone you you can't build a personal relationship with, they're only going to be there on the professional side. And that is not true. Your your mentors are someone you want to have within your life long term. And not short term. Some of them will be short term. Other times they will be there for the long run. So don't, don't give up. Don't be afraid. All right. Next, we have an ally. And you're like Michelle, what do you mean an ally. So in the workplace, you become friends with several people. Some of those people support you in different ways than others in your workplace. One of those ways is they give you inside information. They encourage you a different way. They really want you to succeed. But this ally Julie doesn't have power or a lot of power, or persuasiveness to get you to where you want to be. They make it inside scoop of something. They may understand some small things, or some very important information you're not privy to, but they generally aren't in closed door meetings, right? So let's say you want to get in a new department work or working on a new project. They may say, Hey, I know they're looking for somebody. I will see exactly what they're looking for who they're talking to you in your group in your department in your division, right, so they'll do some snooping for you some investigative work, but they can't directly impact or highly influence you getting that row, but they're out for your best interest. Next up, is really important. And they are harder sometimes to identify, they can be harder sometimes, because you generally don't pick your sponsor, your sponsor is the person who can advocate for you behind closed doors, they're invited to meetings, you're not invited to, they have the inside track, they know when it comes to the names on a list who is above the line and who's below the line. And what I mean by above the line, when it comes to promotion raises some of the best opportunities within a corporation, you want to be above the line. Those are the prime candidates for opportunity within our organization. Those below the line well, usually there is no line. If you're not above the line, you generally don't matter. You just kind of filter in Oh, we got a role here. This person is available. What uh, yeah, that's another body. Yeah, look at look at their salary, they won't eat that much of the budget, right? The below the on people really aren't paid that much attention to, but they may still make the list. So you want to stay above the line. And a sponsor is that person, they're taking your name into very important meetings, they are there, they're bringing you up when it comes to very important decisions within an organization. Lastly, is a counselor and you like Michelle, what do you mean a counselor, you mean a psychiatrist, a psychologist know what I mean by counselor, not necessarily those but you may need a life coach, a career coach someone to help you look into direction that you want to go and really push you into that direction, really help you accelerate, take some actions and steps you may not have thought about you hadn't developed a strategy to get there and you're just completely stuck or maybe not completely stuck. But you know, it's where you want to go. Oftentimes those people are only there for a short period of time could be 90 days could be a year, but they are there to push you along. And they are usually the ones that you invest time and money with to help you accelerate to where you want to go. Yes. So you do make that investment in yourself. Now you're like, Michelle, that sounds kind of interesting. And you may have more questions, and you definitely definitely should hit me up if you have questions. Because what is happening this Saturday is career strategy Saturday. Yes. On career strategy Saturday, myself and Aaron brada will be answering your questions when it comes to your career and crew and creating a career that you want. So if you have questions, if you want to push ahead in your career, simply comment below. And guess what? You will get the registration information for this live event. It is career strategy Saturday, November 10. At 2pm Eastern Time, 11am Pacific time. So Erin is out in LA. So to give her some time to kind of sleep in but not too much. She is going to join us. If you have questions, you can submit them early. If you can't join us live. Be sure to register so you can get the replay the what the replay. Yes, we would love to have you. I hope to see you on Saturday. And guess what? We will be permitted three ladies to get on. Live with us. Yes, you can join us be in the hot seat. We can answer your questions live. You can submit your questions beforehand, as well as submit them while you are there with us. So don't worry, we give you plenty of opportunity to engage in apps as some of your career questions that you haven't been able to get an answer for everybody. I'm Michele Heyward, founder of the tech company positive hire helping women of color STEM professionals find inclusive workplaces, in management, inclusive workplaces and management roles I should say in corporate America. I will see you next week for another mentor Monday. Bye everybody.

Welcome, welcome everybody to day two of the women of color in STEM virtual Summit. I'm Michele Heyward, the founder of positive hire. And tonight, we have Courtney Stoner, executive of a fortune 50 company, who's our guest tonight. But first, I want to have a few announcements. Um, we had a great time yesterday. We had Tamra Macklemore on y'all went bananas. And then we had an even better session, right after that at the roundtable, really empowering each other, supporting one another, giving strategies, tactics, tips and making connections, because oftentimes, we are the only one in our workplaces. And when we have questions, and we need support, we don't have anybody to turn to, which is why I added the round table to the summit. We did it by accident, last set last summit, because the speaker didn't show up. So I knew it was definitely needed. For every summit moving on, and I'm actually going to add it as a monthly activity to the community for women of color, where you can come on, we can hang out, we can ask questions, we can talk about Empire, but it's your opportunity really to get to know one another. Now, for those of you who actually went to the website, and share it with us, your career wins. I'm going to be sharing. I'm not going to say your name. But I am going to share every night starting tonight. Some career wins. So first one up, she received promotion to director from being a manager in one year. Yeah, yeah. Good to hear for you. I think to your follow up these ladies. She helped design an API to snooze alerts, doing maintenance, and release windows. Yay. She made it to Senior Software Engineer within three years. What's up? That's what I'm talking about. Yay. All right. She has a successful turnaround of failing projects, not just projects. Failing projects. That's sort of the best skill right there. I loving it. Um, how are you liking these wins? How are you liking these with, the more detail you share about your wins? Bid, I'm more than likely I'm going to share it. Now. This one I really love to negotiate a $7,000 Raise. What can you do with $7,000? It might go towards your student loans, your car note or your mortgage. So you had to get a little bit earlier. That's what I'm talking about. So everybody, if this is your first night, welcome, welcome. If this is your first summit, welcome, welcome. I am Michele Heyward. I'm actually going to now turn it over to Courtney Stoner. Courtney has a civil engineer civil engineering degree from Clemson University. She was actually one of my mentees many years ago, at Clemson and she was one of the best mentees. I like Courtney needed to think she said nope, and I still got paid. Those are my types of bets. So I'm gonna turn it over to her so she can share with you her experience. And be sure to add in your questions. And we're going to do q&a At the very end.
All right. Thanks, Michelle. Thanks for everyone for attending this event tonight. Sean, thank Michelle for opportunity to share my journey thus far and to congratulate you Michelle on the one for for doing with the positive hire. So I'm going to share my screen here. And I thought I'd start out by sharing a little bit about myself. And then taking you through a couple of highlights of my career with lessons learned. You know, I graduated from Clemson with a degree in civil engineering and I joined General Electric. Right after that I joined one of their leadership programs. And I stayed, I joined our initial program in the GE transportation business, and spent that time learning supply chain operations and how those operations impacted financials. Then I spent a couple years in audit and advisory and so at General Electric traveling or across various businesses, looking at their financial health as well as revenue recognition. And then I came back to the business unit in a specific functional role. Working in risk management for GE power and Atlanta, Georgia, stayed in that role for a couple of years, went to a commercial still with GE power and service operations, then I had the unique opportunity to join an acquisition. GE purchased Austin a couple of years ago, and I joined that integration team doing the due diligence work for for merging those two businesses together. And then most recently moved to Zurich, Switzerland and Howard piano for General Electric. So I thought, what I would do today is kind of walk you through those key roles that I had, and talk through the tests that I had to overcome on my road to for mobility, the relationships along the way, and some of the sacrifices that I had to make, or I had to decide if I wanted to make, so I'm calling is the road less traveled. And the way that I've laid this slide out, you know, visually, is for is to display that as I took each role, I was deliberate in ensuring that my scope of influence and my scope of responsibility was increasing over time. And when I say scope of influence, I'm talking about things like horizontal moving from vertical management to horizontal management, responsibility, in that I gained extra responsibilities and financial metrics, organizational size, or complexity of scope. So as I mentioned earlier, you know, I started building my foundation in a leadership program. And, you know, my first opportunity to move from an individual contributor to an actual people leader was when I was doing audit and advisory. And at this point in time, you know, I had communicated that I wanted to be a people leader. And I had had advocated for myself to be a people leader. And what I learned was that, you know, it was a very competitive field that year. But one of the things that differentiated me from others was my ability to help in training new team members. And the company felt that there was potential that I could execute through other people, because I displayed in my own work, a willingness to share information, to help my teammates, and to communicate the effects of my work to other other people in my group. So then, you know, as I'm moved into that leadership role for for the, for the company, but one of the first tests that I had was more of an internal test. And it was me trying to determine, you know, what type of leader I want it to be, and how I wanted my teams to walk away from the interactions with me. And during this time, is when I started to realize that, you know, my teams would function more effectively when I recognize them as individuals. And so I had made a conscious decision during this time that I would learn the individuals that worked with me, I would defend them. And I would instill a level of accountability with fairness. And I would help them reach their personal goals, in addition to us reaching the corporate goals. And then lastly, you know, always having fun. As I was preparing for this presentation, I kind of self reflected on, you know, that moment in time, and I realized that, that was probably smarter than I realized for me to do that. Because as I loved audit and advisory, and I transitioned to my next role, which was a little bit bigger, and it was a high, high, visible functional role in the business unit. I didn't necessarily have the business expertise, but I had the functional expertise. And I was being tested on if I could lead in an area that I had to learn. And this was probably the first time the first memory vivid memory that I have where I experience, I don't know you, I don't trust you, you know, I was an outsider being hired into a business unit. And I traveled a different path to be a lead in this functional area. And during this time, is when I realized the importance of having a personal strategy that was separate from the organizational strategy. And, you know, I think when I say personal strategy, I'm talking about things like you know, what's my personal learning plan? To understand the business to understand the key processes so that I can be effective. So I can overcome, you know, skepticism about my ability to leave this area. You know, seeking out one on one connection so that I can understand, you know, who are the key players, who are the cross functional allies that I need. And who also had a diverse journey to, you know, leadership, that I could, you know, discuss some of the challenges that I was going through with the, with the environment in the office. You know, in this moment, it, we're in moments like this, where you're late and transitioning to an area that you have to also gain expertise, you still have to meet, you know, the business objectives. And so this is where, you know, the skills that I've learned as a leader kind of kicked in, and I was able to demonstrate with operating rhythms and, you know, team building events that aren't my team could still execute per the expectation, and nothing was lost, if you will, while I was transitioning into into a new area to new expertise. With any leadership transition, you always deal with people moving in and out the door, especially if you're in a situation where someone who was there was hoping to get promoted up. And, you know, I just really took that as an opportunity to demonstrate, you know, my ability to career plan, and really put my mark, if you will, on the function, and use it to shape use that opportunity of open roles to shape how I wanted to recruit, hire and plan for diverse talent and doing things such as finding new sources to recruit. You know, I always had a diverse interview panel. And I was very much an advocate of having different thinkers, different functions, different backgrounds, in play, so that the team operated as a team of experts. Another thing that I did during this time that I found really useful was I use my sponsors that I had to learn the office politics, and to help me be ready for public settings or public report out so that I could start to demonstrate that I was learning and picking up things as well as I was adding value. You know, another thing that I learned during this time was, you know, as my expertise was recognized, you know, I started to get invited to meetings that necessarily were in my area of next or needed for my area, but they might have overlapped or there might have been some interdependency. And while I valued that, I mistook what that meant for me as a as a leader. And so I would attend these meetings, and I would listen to learn. But I failed to realize that this was an error, this was an evaluation, and the evaluation was on if I could contribute in a larger setting in a larger area. And so I had to deal with the fact that my ignorance at that time of the moment resulted in me being you know, tagged as reserved, quiet, and, you know, potentially lacking self confidence and larger settings where their leaders were, or have bigger scope than I did. And if I really could interact with other executive leaders in the business.

And so, you know, this is all this is, was a moment where I also realized that, you know, everyone was always watching. And it was really important that I understood how to change certain behaviors, when I was invited to meetings on strategy or cross functional relationships, such that I appeared, and I demonstrated that I could operate fluidly through any function at any functional meeting, and up and down the leadership chain. You know, I worked on this for several years. And I got to the point where I felt I kind of accomplished, you know, what was being asked to be in this functional role. And I had, you know, decided it was time for me to move on, and I want it to move on to something with broader scope, something with more responsibility. And I communicated that to, you know, leaders that I felt were sponsors to me, had an interest in my career. And around this time, I was also pretty vocal that I wanted to move up into the executive ranks, and I'd say, you know, this is where I started to learn about executive toolkits and being evaluated on my diversity of skills, cross functionally versus my, my skill sets functionally. And, you know, I received another test you You know, I was challenged on if I could use my expertise and grow commercially, and help the business receive top line growth, then that kind of led to my next role where I was being tasked, if you will, when you're coming up with new commercial offerings so that we could achieve more growth, find more customers, and he and a gas turbine service operations. And as I look back on this opportunity, and this, this role in the progression up into the right, it really was a question of how diverse was on AI? How fluidly could I move to another function, and was I deep to have the depth to use my skill set and grow broadly and solve customer facing problems? You know, this is actually the first time I thought I could actually fail, you know, I had yet to sit in front of a customer, I had yet to close a deal. But I also thought the feedback was somewhat valid. And I did have a desire to be diverse. And I also had a desire to have, you know, staying power and be able to have opportunities inside my function outside my function. And so I, I took this opportunity, and I said, you know, let's, let's see what's possible. And a wonderful thing happened to be here, where I just so happened to help a sales leader, close a deal, he needed someone to review the terms and conditions of the deal. And when I moved into this commercial, where I told him, I said, you know, I'm in this role, the company's asking me to help them come up with new offerings so that we can grow. I don't have any customer on my speed dial, I don't have any, I'm not interacting with any of the sales, operational planning. And I say, can you introduce me to your network? And can you help me with the commercial language? And then can you get me in front of a customer? And this turned into just a wonderful partnership, where, you know, we did some customer roadshows, we learned what their problem statement was, we presented that to engineering with data, we came up with an offering, and we generated, you know, millions of dollars of sales. Because we were able to solve a market need with with, with the product. And I actually gained more confidence as time went on, because I realized that even though this role was outside of my comfort zone, I was collecting information along the way that helped me be successful in an area that I had some level of expertise. I learned a lot about plays in this role, I learned a lot about presence. I learned a lot about managing other Ed peers, and learning how to communicate that my problem was their problem. And collectively, you know, how can we solve it also, truly learn the value of relationships and building relationships, not only with inside my function, but also across functions, to solve complex and cross functional problems. So we were, you know, enjoying the ride, in generating a lot of business because of this. And as great as I felt during this time, you know, I still had to deal with that self self confidence problem. Again, I continue to get feedback that I appeared reserved, I appeared quiet, and I wasn't engaging in the meetings that they felt that I should be engaging in. And, you know, I had to really spend some time and kind of dig deep into that. And what I learned was, you know, my approach to q&a was to, you know, listen to the question and, you know, respond in a manner that was appropriate. And I learned that my hesitation in answering questions was perceived as, you know, someone that didn't know what was going on, or, you know, a lack of a lack lack of confidence in the answer that they were going to provide. And I experienced a little bit of frustration as well, you know, during this period, but I also learned the value of pregame prep. And I changed the way I prepared for presentations. I started to look at who was attending, what role they played in organization, what was their level of authority? And what questions would they be asking based on their function and their level of authority? And my preparation turned into anticipation. You know, if I present this perspective, you know, how is I'm the engineering leader going to respond, or how is the global supply chain, we're going to respond. And that was probably the most powerful lesson I've learned in that role, because that's something that Trent tries to transfer with me everywhere the role after that. You know, so as I continue to work on number one, my commercial expertise, and then number two, my presence as an executive and my interactions, in meetings with senior executives, and sometimes even the CEO of the company, I started to feel pretty good. And I started to feel that I was solving the, the perceived deficiency I had, and being a diverse leader who could lead at the executive level. And so I started to go down the path of, you know, getting this saint you honored, you know, you know, I was told, if you saw, if I saw for this, then I would be positioned for brought more opportunities and position for larger roles. And, you know, at this part of my career is when I learned who the real decision makers were, when it came to, you know, executive level promotions, I learned about, you know, having supporters and having true sponsors. And I learned about who's really in the room when decisions are being made for executive level positions, and who's who, who's advocating for you. And so this was kind of like a, obviously a turning point for me personally, because, you know, I was trying to deal with the fact that I was putting in work to evolve as a person, but I still was challenged with not knowing about all of the office politics. But you know, what, thankfully, I had, you know, resources and, you know, leaders in the business that, you know, were supportive of me, and they were helping me navigate a pretty complex hiring process, if you will. And so one of the, the best advice I can give people is, you know, truly understand the office politics, but also truly understand the promotion process. And, you know, if your manager is advocating for you do they truly have the authority to promote you to the next band, or next level of leadership, if that's what your aspirations are, you know, this was my, actually, the year that I did get, when I had this commercial was a year I did get promoted into executive leadership. And, you know, GE had decided, as I said, in my bio, to acquire another company. And so, another role popped up, it was to do m&a For this deal, it was one of the largest industrial acquisitions to date. And you as I was turning along in the commercial role, you know, I was asked to, you know, take this m&a role. And, you know, at first I was not really interested in taking the role, because in my mind, I had the thought process of, I need to address my commercial skill set. And I was so focused on that, that I didn't stop and think on if I truly wanted to be a long term commercial leader, or if I really just needed to take this opportunity to build an expertise and move back to my first love, which was operations.
And so as I kind of went through that thought process, I realized that, you know, my first love really was operations. And while I do appreciate, and I gained a lot of insight and Intel, from the commercial role, like I really wanted to get back to where my heart was, and where I operated seamlessly, which was operations. So I moved into this, this role, it was a due diligence acquisition role to evaluate services business of Austin, because General Electric was interested in purchasing Austin. And, you know, this role was ambiguous. The scope was very much increased, and it covered every function in the business. And, you know, the test at this point in time was, could I truly handle scale? You know, one of the reasons why I was hesitant with taking the role was because it kind of mirrored the regional functional risk role that I had and stuff, it was global. But then I had to kind of think through long term and realize in the, you know, everything's building on the prior role. And so, you know, in this particular situation, I was being asked, you know, can you use your experience and can you scale what you know, and essentially merge two businesses together, merged? Two organizations together while meeting financial obligations. And at this point, in my career, I was completely removed from execution. I was still in Excel, but I wasn't really in Excel. And what I learned in this career job was the power of questioning. And being able to use questions to understand the teams on track, to understand that the team has depth to arrive at meaningful meeting outcomes, and then to make sure that we're going to hit our deadlines. No, this is also where I learned about dealing with age, and dealing with questions on why I was where I was at the age and I was managing people who are leading people who, you know, potentially how yours on me, and learning how to do that materially. You know, this is also where I learned about valuing the mission of the company, and really being able to connect to it so that you could empower the teams and motivate the teams. And the last thing I learned here that, you know, really helped me out was just learning how to decide not learning how to decipher between bad decisions, good decisions, and the right decision. And sifting through complex information to figure out, you know, what's right for right now, for the corporation. You know, this chart also shows that as I moved up into the right, you know, I was able to go from regional to go roles. And then, you know, my last role, as I mentioned, you know, with international one leading out of Zurich, you know, being responsible for a business unit financials. And, you know, at this point in my career, I really evaluated risk differently, you know, what I thought about international moves and leading business units are really evaluated from the perspective of personal time, and, you know, making sure that I was making smart decisions that helped my career, but also that I felt were meaningful based on the time I was willing to invest in the initiatives. And during this time, you know, some some lessons that I learned or, you know, connected with my EB peers, and learning how to foster those relationships, learning about dealing with conflict, in dealing with often office politics, when you're managing, you know, large budgets, I also had to deal with, you know, being quite frankly, the only female and, you know, navigating an environment where there really is just all men in here, they're alone. And dealing with that, and using that to my advantage. And so, you know, I invested early on, you know, a lot of time performance and expertise. But one of the things that I tried to do along the way was take each test, as it came, learned from it and use that to build upon those experiences, ultimately, to to navigate bands and to navigate broader roles. So I thought what I do after this is kind of walk you through a couple of reflections that I've had, and then keep moving through resources. I listed a couple here that were reporting to me as that self reflected, but if I could just pick a couple that truly stand out to me, is really sacrifice, you know, understanding what your level is, and when to say no, I always find that when people are invested in the job that they have, or they feel like they're working on meaningful things, a sacrifice makes sense. So just understanding what that boundary is for you. I think it's really important to stay relevant and to reinvent yourself. I think, media, we work for companies that we want to see them reinvent. And I think it's important for the talent to do that as well. I think it's really important to be balance. I could always tell, you know, when I was enjoying work when I had invested time, both in social and fitness activities. And I also think it's important to understand office politics, which is completely different than office gossip. But I think it can, it can really aid in your navigation if you listen and observe to what's going on around you. And then lastly, for those of you who are already leading teams, just remember to hire Well, you know, it really matters to have a strong team around you and As you you know, navigate your career journey. I'm also want to list a few resources that have been helpful to me throughout my journey. On the left hand side, I have books and on the right hand side, I have professional services. I've read a lot of books, but the ones that I keep going back to are listed on the right, you know, the first one here, the One Minute Manager, you know, this book really helped me deal with people who dump on you, or working with people who dump on you, they stopped you, they dump your problem, and they delegate the solution to you. And so I really use this book to kind of remind myself on you know, leading is empowering other people to execute in their area. And while I do believe in crowdsourcing ideas and workouts, you know, they're also the everyone has a role to play in this, this book really helped me understand the role that I played versus the role of those that were in execution. I do think it's easy for engineers who are finance, in the lemonade stand book is a great book for anyone that's trying to whip up on their financial skills, it just really breaks down the balance sheet. And the income statement. Well, in hopes you can enjoy it too, that the first time I had conflict with a manager, I was trying to figure out why we weren't getting along, I read this book, because this was got to the world of work. And it just really breaks down how to navigate challenging relationships, and challenging organizations and how to fine tune your communication. So people always listen, I just got to the bottom here, activate the brain. As I moved up in the organization, I asked more questions and did less work. And activate your brain is a great book on how to stay fresh mentally, when you still have hours to go. And so I really recommend that. And then on the right, I have professional services, you know, I am a product of all the people who support me in the past. I definitely like if she specific groups, whether it's, you know, engineering, affiliation, energy affiliations, or journalism, or the tech group affiliations that are out there. I do like structure mentoring and coaching for business leaders. I think if you see someone who has a profile that you like, or they have a skill set that you're trying to master, I think those are great ways to meet people potentially meet sponsors, as well as growing your skill sets. I'm also a big advocate for shadowing, I think sometimes when we're thrust into a new opportunity, especially if it's bigger in scope, we may not know the mechanics, if you will, those meetings. And so I do think shadowing can be helpful so that you can get your bearings before it's time for you to actively engage. And then lastly, you know, I, this year, I've decided to take apart professional coaching. And I'm using a wonderful expert in gala Jackson. And I just want to highlight that because sometimes in my experience, corporate coaching may be different than personal coaching. And I was really, you know, kind of hungry to do something that tapped into my personal values.
And so with that, you know, thanks for the time. It just a quick snapshot into my career and some lessons that I learned. And I think we're ready for q&a now. Michelle?
Okay, great. So we have four questions so far. So if you have any more, be sure to go to q&a. And I have like eight of my own. Couple of you already answered. But we'll go ahead and get started. The first question and just so you know, I'm not saying names and obviously zoom knows that so many of you are coming in with the name in a in a so welcome all of you that are in a in a in those transitions of leadership roles. Did you have a different sponsor for each stage? And if so, how did you initiate or determine who that would be?
Yes, I did have different sponsors for each stage, because at each stage, my sponsor had a different level of authority. And so when I was aiming to move from individual contributor to first time people leader, my manager who became my sponsor had that authority. But when it was time for me to leave, you know the audit advisory and go into a business unit If I had a different sponsor, who was a senior executive because he had the ability to place, and he had the ability to attend multiple sessions for career planning, and he could get my name out there and open doors for me to have the conversation. And so when I moved from the functional risk role to the commercial role, I actually had, that didn't have clarity on who my sponsor was more, because remember, I said, I wanted that role to be my executive role. And so that's where I learned. Maybe I have advocates for the work. But I don't know if I have sponsors for executive. And so my current my manager at the time, had the authority to sponsor me to executive because he was in the, the inner crowd where that conversation took place. And he could ask for executives, and I mean, a little bit of its timing and luck, but as I deliver it for him, you know, he was able to deliver for me.
Great. The next question is, Hi, Courtney, thanks so much for this. What are thought? What are thoughts on how to maintain the mental toughness of navigating the corporate space? As a person of color? That's the first question. The second question to this is what ways did you find to replenish to stay mentally sharp? Are the intangible hoops to navigate to navigate? And, or hurdle?
Yeah. You know, I remember going into meetings and watching people present, and watching them talk about their career journey. And I was curious as to how they got there. And then I was brave enough to go try. And I definitely got tired, because I felt like the company was trying to change me. And because there was a lot of diverse people, I didn't have a lot of examples of what a good response that feedback I was getting, looked like. So a lot of my mental stress was my psyche. On, you know, am I doing? Is this the Is this what it looks like? And how is it supposed to look like? And I think I ended up, you know, tapping into some of the affinity work that GE had, you know, they had affinity groups where they would foster an environment for people of color tattoos and for conversations. And I would ask for examples of how to navigate situations and environments where it appeared, I was doing what everybody else was doing. So if, you know, if my response looks like the room, then why does my feedback cool, so personal? And that, that was in again, my psyche? You know, no one was telling me that that was my psyche, but being able to offload that kind of freed me up mentally to kind of focus on the task at hand, which was how do I keep navigating? You know, the, the office environment office politics? You know, I, I will say that I did get tired. And I have been tired on multiple occasions. And I definitely, you know, thought thought about over those roles, like maybe I should go someplace else. But then I always came back to, you know, what, why couldn't it be me? Right? You know, why? Why couldn't I do it? If I'm already executing at that level? I will say that when I kept when I managed my calendar appropriately, I was able to manage the mental fatigue of it. But when I let loose on boundaries, was when I became more exhausted. And I mean, my Work calendar, you know, I went through a period of time where I was available to anybody, even on Saturday, and being too loose on boundaries made me want to give up. Because I felt like I was giving too much to the company when no one really asked me to be available for it. On a Saturday, I was having a call and I picked up. And so once I became more confident in setting boundaries and sticking to them, and live in them and tell people hey, look, I can't do that I'm out of the office. That's when I became a bit more at ease with my time and I had the mental clarity to kind of navigate things throughout the week because I was recharging if do on the weekend or on holidays and things like that. And the last thing I'll say is, I really think it's important to find someone that you trust that you can just really meant to, not necessarily on people, the environment, but sometimes you're gonna have a bad day, sometimes you might not get the job. And I do think networks outside the company are truly helpful, because it helped me remember that it's just a bad day, or it's just that one event and remind you that there is more, whether it's at a company or whether it's, you know, another project that have come up, but just really giving you that perspective on a well balanced living.
Thank you. Can you provide an example of some of your meaningful questions expecially to decipher if a team will make the deadline?
I think a great question is Can I see your project plan? Because if you don't have a project plan, I just don't understand how you know what the finish line is? And I think having? So that's number one. Question number two is, you could have projects that are cross functional, you could have projects that are vertical. But if you have a cross functional project, and the only person presenting is the person your function, I think a great question is where are the other key players that are responsible for delivering this project? And when can I get an update from them? I think the third great question is when you ask, Are we on track to also ask, can I see how you spent your budget? And can you reconcile that with me so that I know we have enough money to complete the project? And you'd be surprised? I mean, it's I'm not saying that people can't do that. But I think people get so attached to get to the finish line that they might forget some of the fundamentals of project management. I think another great question to ask is for, especially for something that you have to implement globally, is one of the pilot. And who's the pilot audience? Who are the regional reps? Did their bosses agree that their regional reps, when are we all meeting?
Okay, great. Yeah, people do forget, and I love milestones and projects, like you're not hitting, but your budgets way, way out of control,
or you're not spending so how are you going to finish?
I've had that contract anywhere to make an engineering design. Okay, I'm at leadership levels, delegation can be an interesting concept. Can you walk us through your relationship with delegating extra leadership responsibilities for?
So I think there's two pass with delegation. I think, in my experience, I had people hungry for it, because they also have personal aspirations to grow their career. So they were wanting to demonstrate that they could do portions of my role. And so they wouldn't, they would ask for the delegation. And then there's a delegation that comes with, you know, we have a task coming up, and I need to make sure that we have all hands on deck. So we get to the finish line. And one of the one thing that I really like to do is just really asked everybody, do we all know what the problem is? And what do we what do we all take away from the meeting? Because delegation without a common understanding is can potentially be fruitless? And so I'm an advocate of those post mortems. And then I would say, Okay, what's the problem that we need to solve? And then what's the potential solution? And then from there, in my experience, delegation makes sense. And it's not personal. Because if that's your functional area, or if that's your responsible area, then naturally that work goes to you. I think I've had more personality problems when I needed to delegate something that didn't fit nicely, I needed someone to do something extra. And, you know, in those scenarios, I would just try to say, or try to share, hey, look, this is the business need, and this is what we need to accomplish. And you have the best skill set to do that, you know, I need you to take this on. And you know, sometimes responses will be well, some people will just say yes, but sometimes you may get responses to say hey, look already, I'm already Lee and five high intense areas. If I take this one more, I'm going to fail. And that's where I have to go in and just talk through okay, what are you working on? And let's reprioritize because you know, this particular thing may be on the priority list, and I have found and I've done it that way, but in the beginning of being a people leader, I wasn't that mature, but what I just described, I found to mostly result in the outcome that you want. When I was earlier in my career, I would just kind of give, give it out. And that that didn't work well, at all. People felt like objects. And so I think my prior example, make people feel like they're a part of the team and part of the problem. And then when the work was done, I let the team pitch their work. So they have the credit.
Ready, ready, thank you made that switch from explaining to people you know, treating people on your team, like an object to saying, Hey, you have too much on your plate, let's sit down and figure out how to work this out. Was that through understanding how to communicate? Was that understanding personalities? Like where did you pick up that skill set to know how to how to delegate better?
I probably picked that up. In the functional risk management role, we said, do these evaluations on managers, and it would be a word report, they would tell you if you were Sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, or thunderstorms. And I got a thunderstorm report. And the I was floored. And the team shared with me that they felt I was too transactional. And they didn't understand why they were doing things. And I didn't know them. And I wasn't invested, they felt that I wasn't invested because I didn't spend time talking through problems, solutions and how they're adding value. And I continued to get that thunderstorm report for most of that year. And then I was able to kind of really work at that communication. But I did a lot of role playing as well with my manager on how to overcome that.
Okay, thank you. How hard was it transitioning from engineering to executive leadership? are the goals rewards, more or less tangible?
Ask me that again.
How hard was it transitioning from engineering to executive leadership? Are their goals slash rewards, more or less tangible?
Well, yes, and no. You know, there, I was saying, number one, that transition was challenging because you have to execute throughout our people. And it the executive level, you're, you're not necessarily over small projects, you're over functions. And that means you're over processes. And so therefore, it was really challenging for me to to communicate effectively across my EB peers and what we needed to do so that my function could be successful. But the rewards I thought were greater because it wasn't just my work that was being recognized. It was like organizing my organization, and seeing people complete these projects or seeing people hit their financial numbers and being rewarded for that, you know, seeing people who work for me get promoted and hit some of their personal goals. You know, I found it to be more rewarding. I think what I wasn't prepared for was the amount of time that I needed to spend on relationship building and overcoming that. Like my peers
if you were giving advice to high school girls who are just entering college, what skills or activities would you advise them to engage in so they would begin so that they can begin their leadership career?
So freshmen in college? Yes. Um, I think they should join Toastmasters. You know, I think we ended up effective communicator, whether you decide to be an executive or not, is a fantastic skill.
You know, I, I enjoyed sports. And I played sports for several years in college, not for college, but intramural, but I think, you know, competitive scores, whether it's chess or basketball or some activity is helpful, because workplace is competitive. Being able to learn how to win and build self confidence in activities, I think helps self confidence. And the last thing I would suggest them to do is have fun.
Yeah, like the fun part. Yeah. And I love Toastmasters. How do you think race influence your leadership experience?
I mean, I've definitely had to play with several styles, you know, I am, I'm well aware of, you know, the angry black woman stigma. And then I'm well aware of being quiet and being reserved. And I used to have this saying all the time, or I would say you want to be a diva or doormat, you know, it's like, there's no one between here. And so I definitely struggled with that. And then I struggled with, you know, being too nice. So I think what I decided to do was not necessarily look at black women, or black men, and how they led, I just look for people who I thought were effective. And, you know, looked how people responded to them in meetings and looked how their information was, you know, being absorbed, looked at how they were promoted, and tried to see what attributes that they have that were being, what actions that they had to make them successful. And then did I have those attributes? And I think once I kind of settled on that, it helped me get out of my own psyche of, you know, if I do this behavior trade, am I going to be considered an angry black woman or reserve timid woman? I just said, Okay, this attribute is what's desirable. Let me work on having that.
Okay. How have you navigated situations where leaders challenge your management style, though, you are accomplishing the goals.
I mean, this has happened to me a lot. And it's going to happen again. And one of the unwritten rules of office politics that I was not prepared for was the challenge, and being challenged by my peers, especially in big meetings in front of the CEO, so they could exert power. And I just come back to being prepared. I mean, it. Maybe it might happen more, because I'm a female, I don't know. But I do know that being prepared, transcends genders, and being able to punch back with data, with sound strategy, being able to articulate why you're doing what you're doing, and showing the wins and then coming back and showing that you have hypothesis and you deliver. Nobody sees gender when you when you do that.
I love that punch bag with data. I don't know why. But that's, that's my favorite quote, for tonight. Okay. Um, hi, Courtney, great to see you. How do you maximize the value of informal leadership roles in an effort to secure a formal leadership role? I'm tied up here. And I have no formal leadership experience. But I have a plethora of in formal experience internally and externally.
That is frustrated. Does the are the people who are giving you this feedback able to hire you into a formal role? If not, maybe that's a path you can go down is that, you know, if your vows if your skill sets are valued enough to give you these informal and I'm hoping meaningful projects, then what's the path to a formal role? And you know, just letting to know, well, maybe, maybe I can do maybe I need to stop doing some of these informal things. I'm available to do formal roles. I think it's completely okay to have transparent conversations, challenging feedback like that in a respectful way. You know, so for example, thanks for the feedback. I heard so and so maybe moving out of their role. I'd love to be positioned for that. Since I'm lacking formal experience, will you help me do that? And just kind of put put, now there's a put people on the spot that give me feedback, but give them homework, if they're giving you feedback to help you get what you need, and the company can potentially benefit as well. Oh, that helps. I've been there. And it is extremely frustrating. So the more I think you can force formal opportunities that you can compete for putting the individuals to work to help you get there because it sounds like you're getting feedback, which means in my opinion, they value you So how can they help you get to that formal opportunity?
Yeah, buddy put in a circular path, right? Okay, in the beginning of your leadership path, would you consider yourself more reserved or introverted?
I'm probably a little bit of both. I prefer small meet small team meetings, I prefer small groups. I like small functional teams. And you know, I work in a company that large cross functional highly matrix. So meetings would be 4050 people, and there's a lot of energy in a room. And so I had to get used to that. And so I wasn't necessarily reserved, because I was introverted. I was reserved, because I was trying to get the lay of the land. And I failed to realize how I could use those meetings to make connections. I was managing my introvert nature by learning how to channel my energy in these high energy sessions. And just staying focused and not getting a drain suck because there's like 50 people in the room. At some point, everyone would be talking at the same time. And how do I stay on on top of my game and silly environment that I kind of, I don't mind but don't necessarily love.
Gotcha. Code Switching for executives of color is an is an open secret. How has this affected you as you navigate your career called seeking code switching?
What does that mean?
So you know how you hang out with your family and friends. Hey, y'all, how you doing? Hello, good morning. How are you today? Yes, this is Courtney Stoner.
Oh, I see. Look.
I think number one, though, this allows us to answer this number one, you know, is it the same personality, I think I think is like your personality in various settings. And so whether I'm at home, or I'm at work, it's the same personality, it's the same humor, it's the same interaction. But the topics could be different. But I will say, as I increased my level of influence, and moved up the chain, my personal and professional did mix. And so for example, when I went to Tesco, Switzerland, I had to talk to my boss about where I was gonna get my hair done. And he was just like, you know, we want you to move to Switzerland, like why I can't move there, there's no one that can do my hair. And then, you know, go go work. And then he, he's bald. And so he's like, I don't have hair. And so I had to walk him through my Saturday process of getting ready for Monday. So I look like I, you know, have some sense. And I'm more put together, and trying to figure out what that looked like for me if I moved to Switzerland, and how I was going to manage that. And so I'd have another example of where personal merged with professional when I started traveling with these other EB peers, mostly male on road trips, and they want to go out and party, then what am I gonna do? Am I going to stay home? Or am I gonna go out, you know, to the club with them if we're chatting over the weekend. And so, so one weekend, we went to a hip hop club, and I was like, you know, I'm tired of going to country western bars, you know, we're gonna go to a club club since you guys you know, say you love rap. And so I definitely opened myself up a little bit in terms of interjecting my personality and my, my personal interest into my work life, when my work life overlap with my personal time, like my weekends, or, you know, moves and things like that. I don't I know, there's a lot of talk about this and being being real or being or not, I just think it's about do you know, where you are, you know, if you're at work, is that really a work? Conversation? Is that really a work inappropriate term or appropriate demeanor at work? And I think once you if you're, if you know, it's appropriate, and you're interacting in an appropriate manner, I feel like that's what Metro leaders do.
All right. Now I have my own set of questions, so I can't type them in. So y'all can y'all can continue to add questions. But these questions actually came from when I posted that you were coming to talk. So you had four women on that post who had these questions. I would ask a female executive what she feels her role is in regarding to helping other women advance. I found that we garlis of industry, many women, women have told me that they feel they don't get as much help from senior level women. This could be because there are a few. So how have you helped other women rise or advance in their careers?
Yeah, that's a good question. You know, one of the, one of the things that I really like to do is have a diverse slate for interviewing. And so if, you know, my process was, you know, I would always try to ask, you know, who was performing well, in the company, who was up for promotion, who was receiving positive feedback, and they were ready for more. And if I had an open opportunity, you know, I would ask them to, to apply, like, you know, consider joining my team. You know, this is an area that you're interested in, and you'll, let's, let's, let's say, this is a great fit for you. I've also had opportunity had situations where some people weren't performing well, they were in the wrong role, maybe working in a team that didn't gel, and I couldn't necessarily hire them, but I tried to help them network out of that situation, into an area that, you know, they could thrive in. One of the moments of self reflection I do have is, I did wonder if I was doing enough, in terms of, not necessarily hard people will play some people, you know, once you have a certain level of authority over your order, you know, you can you can place people. And so I definitely did go through a period of where I was trying to figure out, you know, was I really doing enough to help people and wasn't really doing enough to place people? And, you know, I don't I don't know, I don't know if I did, but I try, you know, I tried to keep tabs on the talent, I tried to push them to apply for roles and my door. I tried to promote them in and you know, help promote them out. And, yeah, I'm still working on it. But you know, those are things I tried to do.
Great. Thank you. Next question, What can White women do or stop doing to help make space for women of color?
You know, I just really think there's room for all of us.
I think that we can't be so competitive that you don't want your sister friend to not succeed. And we can't look at someone else and think their competition, because the reality is, there's less jobs at the top, and everyone's competition, and everyone wants your seat. And so, you know, if you're in an environment and you don't feel like you have the female komak camaraderie that you deserve, then my my best advice is to do that in your own interactions. You know, if you're not seeing the type of support that other people should be given you, just make sure you're given that to the other ladies that are on the same journey as you trying to grow their career. And maybe by seeing, you know, some positivity, you know, some of the the hurt that you're seeing from these other women, they'll it'll make them self reflect, and they'll realize they're not doing enough.
Currently has shown a lot of vertical promotions during her career, how does she feel about horizontal career moves?
I think they're great, especially if you're tired. And so if you're someone and you're moving, you need it, you don't know if you're ready to move up again. Or you don't know if you're happy where you are, but you see a job to the right or to the love, and you think it'd be great for you to pick up that skill set or it looks fun, or you're interested. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that you know, if you're gaining skills, it's, you know, sounds fantastic. You know, my one piece of advice is, you know, as you stay on that level, make sure you continue to differentiate yourself. Because when you're ready, if you decide you're ready to make a move up, you want to show the growth and that you're you grew even though you say to the same level.
You mentioned that you have an executive coach, which answer that question. But did you go through an executive training program while you were advancing in your career? Did you spend a week? Or was it a external program that you were enrolled in, where you were coached and provided communication skills, executive presence, how to read a profit and loss statement, those things that really helped you advance in your career
did receive some corporate training I received on the job training, if you will, on how to do the financial analysis. But I, you know, earlier several years ago, you know, the company was pretty well budgeted for training. And so I did have the opportunity to go to training on communication. I would do training on leading large teams, and I did some webinar training on change management. But things like Toastmasters, you know, I paid for a lot of the mentoring that I received, it was, you know, people giving me their time. But I will say that training is also if your company offers training, it's also another avenue of office politics. So my one advice there is, you know, what's the process to get into a training class? And do you know what it is? And how can you get your name into that? Because that also can be a political process in a corporation?
I won't disagree with you on that at all, even if it's just for the budget, to get if you find your own class. Um, how did you get comfortable speaking to the CEO, or in meetings with the CEO?
Yeah, I still get nervous. Because I don't know like, where he's coming from, or what meeting he just had. And if I'm getting a good deal, if it's a good day, it's tough day. But I will say that I believe in the pregame prep. And you know, when I talked about earlier that the anticipation I was more afraid I couldn't answer questions. And I just really believe in that, you know, get it in a room for 30 minutes and just let people kind of tear apart your material to make sure that you can answer their questions. Because if you can answer the question of your peers, then you got the CEO because he really, he's not at your level, he doesn't have the time to get into your details. So if you can handle the challenges from your, from your manager, even your peer group, people on staff, then you're completely ready for the CEO.
Okay, the next question is a whole narrative. So just go with the flow. It it starts off clears through and begins to type. Okay, I'm going to bite the bullet. The number of hours worked at leadership levels can be daunting, it can sometimes leave little room for developing romantic possibilities. This flavor, Courtney, I'm not absolutely not asking you about your romantic history. Can you shed light on your thoughts on navigating the dating world at this level? What does the landscape look like? tiptoes back into the shadows in heights?
That question needs to be a social media man.
I mean, you know, there are some years where I worked a lot. And I put in a lot of time. And, you know, I give my girlfriend's a lot of credit, because they were like, you gotta, you gotta put some boundaries down, this isn't working. And then when I put those boundaries down, nothing fell apart. When they you know, you kind of chug along. And then there were a couple of years and there were Yeah, it was working a lot. And friends came in and says, This is ridiculous. You got to put some boundaries down. So that's one thing number two, you're right. It is a lot of hours. And it is a lot of time. And I don't think it's impossible. But I do think the quality of your staff and how well you manage your calendar are two things that can make or break you that make or break and get to dinner that night, make or break if you get to the gym the next morning. So if you know if you haven't invested well and you haven't had the opportunity, invest well in a team or be able to really manage your calendar aggressively, then it'd be a shallow on time on the dating case, or men and all that other stuff. What I will tell you is that it is true that there is a perception that working It results in being single. But in my opinion, the man I want to attract respects what I've done and values what I've accomplished, and they are not concerned about me having talent for them. Because if he just talks to me, I'm gonna talk to him, they become the priority, and then you manage your calendar appropriately.
Okay, it makes it tell him, Courtney, let them know. Okay. And Courtney, thank you for your honesty and sharing your story. Michelle, thank you for organizing the event. Sorry. Okay, so it says, was your executive coaching something you found and paid for on your own?
So I chose to pay for it on my own. But I will say that I do know of companies being willing to reimburse if you find a coach in an area that they agree is an opportunity for you to grow, and they see value in it as well. And so I've had people ask me, as a leader, you know, you pay for this coaching is really going to help me in this area, and I've done it. So I would consider pursuing that if you're interested in having your own coach.
Okay. One more question. How can we rise to the level of sponsorship? Whose responsibility is that, in order for us to have sponsors?
You know, I did seek out sponsors. And I've decided to seek out sponsors, when the company told me that I was good. So when they had communicated that they were pleased with the output of the work, and that they were pleased with my approach to things. Then I started to have the discussion around getting sponsored for for bigger roles. And I also believe I had sponsors and I didn't know about, you know, hallway sponsors or advocating for me. But I decided to make the topic a conversation topic. After I was told that and I was concerned about getting an equitable return on the value that I was bringing.
One more question about executive coaching. Do you have executive coaching companies you recommend?
I do. I'm using gala Johnson right now. I'm really pleased with the process. She's on LinkedIn. And she offers a suite of offerings. And she was referred to me recommended to me by a friend and yeah, it's gone. Well.
Okay, somebody says, Oh, gay, like used her. She is awesome. A couple other comments. I've been a Toastmaster for years president of my corporate club years ago, it is still very much relevant. Yes. Community. Yes. Yeah, Communication is paramount. No matter no matter what, and I wish I'd done it. Around 2,004th 2005. When I got my first job out of college, I didn't join Toastmasters until 2016. And it was tremendous change. And what I do want to know coordinates the way you present stuff. It's very serious thing is not a lot of side slides is to the point. Um, so it's okay like Jackson. Okay. Sorry, Gail, I put it
around. Oh, maybe I said John said I'm sorry, Kayla Jackson.
So, um, so and I love that it's very succinct. And to the point is not a lot of extra stuff. And I think we sometimes get stuck, or we have to have all of this information ahead of time. Okay. Any last questions? We have a few seconds left. I think I really enjoyed the session. Okay. Well, we're out of time. So it's 815. So everybody, thank you so much for joining us, Cory. I'm glad you could come through. We will continue with the summit this week. Tomorrow. Guess what we got to talk about communication in in hostile environments, or not hostile but um, what was it Was it was a word a situation, high stress environments. So this is a great lineup of how we're going to roll through this. And then on when and that's going to be tomorrow we have it with Lynne hurdle. And then on Wednesday, we will have Lisa Anderson who will go through the unspoken truth about how women of color gets into executive leadership roles. And executive presence is one of those things. So Courtney is in a very particular order for a very particular reason. And we added Tamra at the very last minute so but it's all gonna work out. It's all gonna play together. You're gonna love it. I'm sure. I'm sure. So Courtney again, thank you so much.
Thanks, Michelle. So proud of you. I can't wait for tomorrow.
I know. Right. All right, everybody. We will see you tomorrow. Have a great night and I'll see you there. Bye. Bye.

Tysha Tolbert is one of the Virtual Summit Speakers And what I love about her background is computer science, worked in corporate and is now running her own businesses. Not business. But this this says. So, so Ty, can you share a little bit with the audience, just something I don't know, something unique or different about you, but also just a little bit of what they can probably Google and find out on their own?

Welcome, welcome everybody. This is Michele Heyward with the oh my gosh, fifth day of the women of color in STEM virtual summit, where we're redefining fail. We're filming its foundation to advance impact in LEED. Today, our presenter is me. So I'm going to be sharing with you tips and ways to engage with executives. And I know this was a huge struggle for me early in my career. And I had a different outlook in a very short period of time. So I'm going to show you some tools that were available to available to me back in early 2000. Some of you like some of my girl yeah, remember before then, if somebody like I was very, you know, I wasn't in college yet, but it is still very, very useful. Welcome. So first up, this is the fourth summit. I started the summit. Coincidentally, the same year that Hidden Figures came out so it was a great hit. And ever since then I've done it at least once a year 2017 was the only year I've done it twice. We will have a roundtable again tomorrow night at 10pm East Coast time. We did it an hour later than on Sunday to allow for more West Coast ladies to join us. So we look forward to having you hopefully you'll be home you can you know rest at dinner, maybe you're just walking in the door. But we wanted to get an opportunity for you to be able to join us we will do it on the webinar portion. Where in I can still bring all of you on. I can bring you on when you have questions when you want to provide feedback, solutions, suggestions, connections, so we will do it here. It was a lot of confusion on Sunday. You live in learn I just have to figure out going for how to do it. Um, the replays will be available usually I'm just gonna say 11pm they're usually up at it by 11 I'm just working with slow net sometimes and slow people because I want to go have dinner okay? If you are a stem cell professional meaning your scientists engineer a tech work in technology medicine, you are welcome to join our Facebook group. I am very very particular about who joins the group. You must answer all three questions. Some of y'all like Michelle i didn't i that's because I knew who you were I'm not the only one who admits people to the group. So be sure you're answering those questions if you know you don't qualify you like what she said I'ma see a you know you have nothing to do. The community is built and created for those women while the issues we discuss are paramount across different industries. I specifically We're in serve that community in a niche. So the whole world has this issue I can only help this this man is still it's hundreds of thousands millions. So just keep that in mind. Um we have two giveaways and I will be letting y'all know probably on Monday, there was an issue and so I'm happy to go through and put everybody who registered and attended or probably just attended in for Courtney Courtney's sellers, she's given away gift certificates three, and land hurdle price is given away three of her books. So if you if I contact you, I already have Lin's book just and you still want it. Let me know you still receive it. But I will need you to turn over or provide like mailing or email address. So just be conscientious of that that I will need some personal information and you will have I'm going to ask you forward So we'll go ahead and sit in that now I need you to type it in, so that I have proof that you typed it in, and they can just copy and paste and that Michele Heyward said, Oh, we use this, because that's, that's part of your privacy. Um, then one last thing. So we part of the questions that I asked in the summit, and I will tell y'all real short story, my sister is the giveaway for positive higher attendees or the base is for summit attendees. It's for it's only for summit attendees, not for the Facebook group.

I'm sorry, I mixed that up. But then giveaways are only for people who have attended not just registered because then that that about 250 may register for a session and then 25 show up and that way it has increased your chances of winning okay. So what will we ask the questions in registration? They are Truly for a reason and a purpose number one, I asked what your wins are. And I'm going to read some shortly because we do not have the ability to do that. And every place I will be going to a couple places next month, one for International Women's Day, another I'm a vendor, and I literally will be sharing your wins. I won't be saying your names. So if you were very, very detail in your win and you said more than I graduated or I got a promotion, it helps show what are women who are Latina, black and indigenous in STEM are doing in their wins and I can do that for you. And that's really why I asked it. Number two and you're going to see it on social too on Instagram and we're going to share those out continuously through 2020. But also what those questions help us do is create programming so bring on speakers provide information to trainings that I don't do in areas I'm not proficient in or comfortable in doing. Plus, I believe there is enough room in this world for other people to help other people. So I'm not the only career coach, I'm not the only social media, LinkedIn person, right? There are other people and I will gladly see you and help you find the person that's the best fit for you. So I love sharing my platform with other people. So with that we want to get started. And that is tomorrow, we will have crystal Eva she will be going over harassment in the workplace. I know it is a Friday. I know you're probably coming home from work, but try to join that because it's all about the tactics you need when you encounter those issues in the workplace. So let me go to the screen share and lonely shell and count my tabs. I will talk about you How about that. All right, and my tabs aren't my workflow.

Alright, so here we go. We're gonna get this started. I got a question. I thought I was bad without my tabs we have maybe, um, you know what? You know, nevermind, I'm illegal alone. Okay, so um, and get started with this and I will answer questions. Okay, see, see people got me. Hey, all right. 

So, here we go. five tips engage with executives, some of what I'm going to share with you at the end. Actually for interviewing process, gotten a job offer using this tactic back in the early 2000s. I still use I use some of this as well in corporate, and some of it I also use in my startup today. Okay, well come on in. Okay, so a little about me. I'm sitting in the great state of South Carolina, actually in Columbia, South Carolina, where I was born and raised. I'm actually the college here at Clemson, where I joined my first National Society of Black Engineers chapter. And while it clumps in national engineer's week is a big deal. And we did something every single day through identity chapter for national engineers week, which is why I generally hold this February summit on engineer sweet. I love social media. And this is when I was all over Snapchat, you won't find me on snapchat these days. But this is back probably 2016 2017 and I was just having fun. With filters, so I do love social. So if you messaged me, DM me, tweet me read. I, it really is me responding back on LinkedIn, if you send me a message, I'm the one responding back not my assistant, I still do a lot of high touch. Um, I work in construction, my degree in civil engineering, I ended up bulk of my career in construction building habits or transmission lines out in a lot of places you would not want to go. But I found my true passion. And I also built a skill set that I use in my startup. So we got to talk about really focusing on your skill set as well. And then while I was there, I came up with a business idea, but it transition into what is now positive hire and this is this is where I am and I want to find kids. So which is unusual in this day and age, but quite normal when I was growing up. So the agenda tonight, what I'm going to talk about when it comes to engaging with executives is remember, it's their human to human. I want you to use your stopper skills. Yes ladies and you get the stock somebody and it's okay, do your homework. And then we're going to talk about jab, jab, and then in with right hook, and what does that mean? So any of you that know anything about social media marketing, you may be familiar with Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook from Gary Vaynerchuk. And it's very, very similar to what he teaches. So what I mean human to human, when we often think about people in high ranking places, we see them as Oh my god, I can't make a mistake. Oh, I want to get this right. Oftentimes, people are asking these people in high level places For help, or they want them to invest in something, but they, they see them as an opportunity, not as a person, not as somebody who gets up and goes to the bathroom when they work wake up first thing in the morning, not somebody who has a good day or a bad day, not somebody who has a family or pets. So when you truly look at that white man who's an executive, first, no, they're human, and it's going to be a human to human interaction. And learning more about them really, really can help you. Okay, so what is that soccer skills are? So one thing I didn't have in early 2000s and I used use something then that was called Ask the typer. So Clemson Tigers and we had a network, we'd go look up on

alumni who worked at certain employers, you're looking at getting a job. So I would use that was kind of like the only type of stalker skills I could use. I'll ask like, what's the management like? And what are the benefits, but I couldn't dig in as deep as we can today with social media. So when you're looking at people on social, you can go and look at what are their community activities. You may be able to find out like what their goals are, maybe they run marathons, they can try at the lines. Maybe they do the walk for cancer, because of a loved one. You may find out that they come from very humble beginnings and maybe they don't, maybe they were military for 20 years before going corporate. You also want to look internally as to which initiatives they run, right? What business division, they're over a business unit. What part of the budget, they are responsible for a lot of times you can get this internal if you have like Yammer, you have other internal or intranet, similar to Facebook, sometimes you can pull this data from their profile, even family information. Sometimes they share it and maybe a Hey, my son graduated from Michigan State. My daughter is majoring in chemical engineering at Alabama has anybody you know, graduated from May I know we have a few graduates and you're just trying to tie into the community. So use what you have internal to your organization that can be newsletters that go out about organization and if they've been with the organization for a while, there's usually an archive, and you can probably find out something about them even some time that they announced new hires. So definitely definitely delve into what they do business wise internally, what their family and their background is and sometimes the furthest you can go with their back If they're if you can't dig deep in the net, it's really what college they graduated from, and what their major was. And sometimes that's all you need to know. And I'm going to show you somebody that I pulled up. All right, so I'm gonna pause here, because we're going to actually go look at someone on LinkedIn, a LinkedIn profile. So I picked Salesforce just to pick Salesforce is no strategy or anything. Actually, I just search for annual reports. And somehow Salesforce. I got led to Salesforce looks like that that'll work. So I went to pick Salesforce at the company's annual report we're going to look at and I tell you why we're gonna look at this annual report. So let's pretend that you work for sales. scores. Your BP for your business unit is this guy named Todd lessor. Todd is actually a second level connection to me. And he's in Falls Church, Virginia. Maybe I'm not in the same office as he is. But he's the solution engineering at Salesforce public sector. And let me tell you, I picked this dude by random and his profile is gold. Like, Tamra Thank you. Tamra. You're gonna love his profile girl. I don't know if he paid somebody but I'm thinking he did but he is pro his. Check this out. Okay. So you see what he says he does. He's VP solution engineering at Salesforce public sector. I noticed VP solution engineer I'm not sure what that is he sells for and he deals something with the public sector. Okay, cool. We're gonna go to this about section. So if you were in Tamra Macklemore, Sunday session,

Java was in his about, he says experienced, proven and passionate pre sales executive, highly recognized for developing, communicating and executed on highly effective and compelling solution presentations, demonstrations, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, okay. This is why I want to get to is the public sector market that he serves? Why? Because when you go to the annual report, you're going to look to see what is in the sales force annual report, when it comes to US and Canadian government. Got me and you're going to, you're going to search for Canada or right. You're going to search for US federal government contracts, you want to search for different terms, you may just search for public sector because of that. What he says as keywords in his in his profile? Are y'all with me put up a one if you're with me. And what this helps you do when you're pulling these keywords out of his profile because his profile was dope, I'm not gonna lie to you I really lucked up. I don't think many of you are going to get us lucky is this. His profile is dope. So if y'all are looking like for a profile to kind of figure out how to build yours, look at this man's and you can tell he does sales or pre sales, um, areas of expertise. I need y'all to own your areas of expertise. Don't put software, just say I'm an engineer. You can do project management you can do how we design for interstates, whatever it is, own it shit, for real and if you're trying to figure out What Oh, go look and see what your boss has and just copy and paste and stuff. Yes. And it will reformat it to that. I'm director of solutions engineer, we design and sell third party warehouse designs. See. Now, I'm only using a public set up a publicly traded company. If you have when you work for a private entity, it the smaller it is, the harder it is sometimes to find this information, but sometimes when it's smaller, you can build those relationships a little bit better. When you're looking at a company like Salesforce, I came from a company about 90,000 employees globally. It originally was one company with 25,000. Globally, we got bought, we went to 50,000. We got bought again, and then went to 90,000. So let's just say the larger it gets, the more difficult it can be to engage with VPS I was fortunate because The I was a, I was in a cost, I was in a revenue generating position, meaning I was in the field. They were the client had paid extra because I was on site. And so the VPS in the directors flew out, because we made money on top of money for the company. And when you notice, let me tell you how they invite you to dinner like okay, so how's it going? Michelle? So it was a different ballgame. And this is how that comfortable really talking to VPS because they showed up at my desk in a in a in a in a shed next to the Allegheny River outside of Pittsburgh. So I didn't have a choice really. But I had to research them to understand who, who they were, what they're responsible for, and how my role as a cost analyst to tied into this $350 million construction project for this utility company. And I'll get into that a little bit. Okay. So we look we're looking at this so let's just copy and paste public sector. You can just google annual report for the company you work for. You probably can find it internally. This is all I did. This is what Salesforce is. Looks like. This is the actual report PDF. I didn't download it. I don't need it. For right now. They're not one of my target customers yet, but um Oh, come on,

man. Okay, there we go. So I want to do the public sector. So this is page 16. I'm trying to see which section we're in. So first thing I should have done, which is taking you out to the table of contents. And I'm a backup actually let me not take out the table of contents. Let me take out to two resources that pull it up. First one is Learning how to read or what to read in an annual report. So because they can be this 140 pages, it's not that bad. I bought this one resource. This is that standard calm if if anybody else has a better resource to break out, I can't find my old notes. This gives you 10 important things to analyze in the annual report. And it really depends on what's important to you. Everybody wants to know if you're profitable or not, if you're generating revenue, and profit if you're profitable. So this report gives you the sections to check out it says whether or not it thinks value of information is media. It really depends on what you're looking for. In the report. Directors report, management discussion and analysis. One thing you do want to look at is the SWOT analysis for the competition. strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. We're seeing technology take over a lot of different industries. And it's very, very important that you look and see what the threats are. And then what the opportunities are. And what I mean by threats. Is it us is the market shrinking for a product or a business unit you're in is now there is an opportunity where you can take your skillset to a different business unit, a different team, and how to position yourself on LinkedIn, even in your office and start communicating and connecting with people in that that business unit has the best opportunity if you want to stay with that employer or if it's a new employer. So This to me is one of the key areas you always want to look for us that the SWOT analysis of the company, all right. So this will give you some ideas. Also, of course, it should have with the PDF here you also go to Wikipedia. And it it'll break out as well. I didn't look for any YouTube videos. A couple people generally do great breakdowns but on other stuff I had didn't find one that did it on financial on annual reports, but there probably is my I don't know Courtney see if Courtney, if you have any recommendations. Financial statements, I highly agree that you do need to learn those Courtney stoner gave a recommendation for a book. And I can't remember the name of it, but I'll definitely share it out. We sent out the follow up email next week with different resources that are mentioned, to pick up that book and understand your financial statements. Because as you grow your career you will be responsible for not only teams but also budgets. And it's important to understand what the corporate budget is. Your profit and loss statements, your income statement. So balance sheets, so you understand So let's cash flow. So that is, this will give you the breakdown for that now include the link for that. So we're going to go back to the actual annual report from Salesforce. And this is assess the index, my call it I call the table of contents, but it tells you to break down everything won't be worded exactly as what's in the resource I gave you, which is why I did a keyword search. Um, and so I'm gonna go ahead and it does public sector comes in once industry, specific regulation and other requirements, incentives problems. So you have to play around in here to look in see where you where certain things come. So I'm going to go to revenue, revenue comes out 372 times. So revenue is not a good word. To search for, but what they do in this report is they do highlight and they share with you what the revenue it was for 2019. Um, they talked about the cash flow when they tell you whether it's up or down, so it's 20% 26% year over year growth and you're seeing is up 24% for the cash flow. Cash Flow is truly important without cash.

Unless you're leveraging credit, you want as much cash as possible. And Salesforce after a 20 year old company is 36,000 employees. That's huge. That's a lot of growth in 20 years. So just take into account that you're seeing a growth in your your cash flow has increase, but also your revenues increase. The other thing is you want to see what your debts are. In your financials, but we won't look at that tonight. Okay, so we know dude was in government. So that's government comes up 32 times and our growth strategy. So this is your growth strategy. If you know he think government and we're in a growth strategy. He is probably tasked with some of the things that come up under growth strategy when it comes to government and targeting verticals targeting vertical industries to meet our needs of our customers in certain industries. We provide solutions specifically built for certain vertical industries such as financial services, healthcare and government. These three industries specifically are highly regulated. You have to All and I know Tamra gnosis, eyes and eyes dotted T's cross, having expertise or experience in government would help you. And if most of your team and employee, co workers in your division are not familiar with government documentation, processes procedures, let's just say that something you can leverage. And that's one way you can go in and address it. Okay. So you can go through and kind of play around with the keywords to figure this out. Is this somewhat helpful? Or is this more confusing than it needs to be? Just let me know what questions you have. Because we do have some time we'll go through q&a, but go ahead and get submit your questions. I can come back to this. I don't want us to get too bogged down. One other thing you can use industry resources such as engineer news or records, what were they right your employer, and this helps you understand how best how to look at it. Were you one, were you at the top, maybe you write one into for six years and then y'all drop completely off the board for rankings. So this is engineering news record, this is what we use in civil. And it really if we weren't in a top 10 in certain areas, I was concerned because if we weren't taught in, in power, if or energy if we weren't top 10 in like mining, if we weren't top 10 in in certain divisions of the company, I was worried because it indicated to me either we lost staff or we lost contracts and we lost contracts there were definitely going to be a reduction in staff. This is very helpful because you can see Where a company is going to how your skill? Yes, exactly. And as engineers, we don't look at this and we aren't taught how to read this. I'm the guy who actually taught did this nasty thing. His name is Carrie. I actually pull him up. And he was actually military. And he came in he did his workshop and Nancy like how to read an annual report and what to read. I literally remember up until like, three, probably three, four years ago, what he taught and I went and sent him a message. They literally said, Hey, I mentioned as he taught me how to do this, I love to connect with you. And, and he was at the time he was at UBS. He was a he became a Senior Vice President at UBS. Financial, he was there for 10 years and he just left a couple years ago to go out on his own. So there are people like us, they come to organizations like that once or twice to really teach us something that's There's nothing new.

Okay, so that is, so you can do your annual report, you can use industry. So if you're trying to figure out what what your industry thing is, again, utilize LinkedIn groups on Google, if you're also you're, you're engineering organizations. So if you're in manufacturing, they may have a standard. He literally, if your company rakes in anything they are going to send an email out isn't going to be on the website. We are number two in XYZ, right? And it'll just say number two listed but they won't say they may not even say what industry it is, or what this issue, but use that information to go find and see where they were three years ago, and just check this stuff at least once a year. I used to be really, really good about it. And In 2014, my former employer was purchase and when the keywords so yes, you got a keyword search an annual report and, and everybody's keyword is going to be different. So you want to have to test it to really figure out what that keyword is. Um, but once you figure out your keywords and once you figure it out, it'll be good. When we were purchased. One of the guys and I had been following the annual report because it was good for me. I had a job it was the great recession. And one of the guys like, we got bought, like, yeah, that other CFO, he quit, because he bought this oil and gas company, it was a tanker, and it it almost bankrupt the company. And I'm like, Oh shit. So I literally go Google the article to find out about the company. I bought it. The company that bought my former employer paid $6 billion for definitely that's a lot of money. 4 billion was in debt. And I said, Oh shit, I need to be making exit strategy. And that was 2014 because I knew it was coming, I knew was gonna be a lot of changes for them to recoup $4 billion as soon as possible, because the CEO of the new company had an accounting background, you should care how we did engineer, he knew how to count, he knew how to make money. So, um, okay, we got a question. If I can get it open, okay. And I cannot even share it open for me. So I'll come back to it to your question. Okay. So let's get back to the deck. So that is how does Transformers activate like you literally take that into action? Now, do your homework, the homework part of this you may think well Michelle, that was the homework that was in the homework. Now that you know what your bps are Or that director, whoever that executive you're trying to connect with that VP, executive VP, maybe it's a CTO, the CIO. You know what their initiatives are now once they go back know your roles impact, how does your role impact or influence the company? What is its significance to the company? How does it impact your employer by Team department division and globally? Oftentimes, we think what we do is small and insignificant. It can be if that's what we believe. But if you like mediocre man, and you say, Oh, I'm gonna shit and what I do this company I live and die by, you have a different viewpoint. So let's say you are a software engineering manager and the software that you create is to take transactions at point of sale at airport. You like what we do Make sure there are no fraudulent transactions but what if your software also identifies when there could be an another attack via airlines? What if it can identify and red flag when there are people that have been kidnapped or transporting children or women?

So you may think on a very granular level the impact of what your role does, but it could be much larger now know your MS your roles and impact but know your impact outside of your education, your jobs, how what is your skill set? This different differentiate differentiates you from others in your industry, organization and team? Now I know she's on here so Karen Yeah, no, no Karen Karen down the street. She just died 26 and she literally share it with us and I forgot to read these again. She shared about how she tore apart with a database and rebuilt it and nobody on her team was willing to take that risk. And the ability to do that the ability to take that risk and be like, Oh my god, how did you do that? Look at what that skill set takes. What is the is that skill set pre planning? Is it organization? Is it identify the tools? Is it identifying the team and build out when it comes to intricate steps and processes? Right. So what is that skill set? You also half maybe it's how to plan out a new product line from beginning to end meeting supply chain sourcing, designing, laying out the equipment, testing the equipment to manufacturing and you can do it in six to eight months as opposed to 16 to 18 months. What is that skill set that you have Want you to focus on that and if you can't figure that out, this is the one of the books that showed I can't think of the name of it right now. But this is one of the exercises in it. Email people and ask them what you do well, people that you know will be honest with you, they make you don't have to like them. They don't have to like you. But you know, they will honest, provide honest feedback on what you do well, because too often times our gifts are wrapped up in our innate to us and we don't understand what we're really good at. Alright. Then thirdly, know how to talk the language. So if you join Courtney, Courtney, Courtney stoner was using some language and I was like, What is that ebp is all executive vice presidents. Okay? And she that m&a is Oh, mergers and acquisition. So what's the language that they talk at that level but You also have a language that you talk internal to your, your company. And I remember working for a company way back when they actually had a booklet like the little mini Bibles, right? That you stick in your pocket. Of all the vernacular that you use in that, in that, in that organization. My first career coach had me do the pier exercise go, yeah. When people when you ask people what you do well, like really document do like, no, that's why we always come to you. If you're really afraid to do that exercise, go back through emails, and see what people are consistently asking you to do. Now, like order the lunch, really asking you to do, hey, we want to be in this meeting with such and such Can you come they want you to accomplish stuff after and you're going to sit there and you can figure out how to wrap it up. And you know who's to to pull it together. Other people don't know how to do that. Maybe it's actually convincing people to do the work. It is a skill set that you have so you can negotiate well with people that truly, truly ask people, okay, so speaking the language is truly important as well. Alright, so what is Jab, Jab, Jab, it is not hitting somebody. It's about giving before you ask. How many of you get asked, Hey, can you get me a job? Can you give me a hook up where you work? Hey, can you can you do X, Y and Z for me? If you're getting hit of extra level, what do you think Executive Vice President and higher up are getting asked to do, right? Is this they don't know who you are, except for maybe the Latina. I didn't know you as an engineer over there. Right? What you literally can do is taking that information where you understand the value of your role, you understand your skill set, and you're literally just sending them a monthly or weekly update that says

it could be an article on how a company in Europe is dealing with GDPR. And for those of you who take the time to collect data GDPR that privacy new privacy policy in Europe, maybe you're talking about the new financial, FinTech startups, and how do we as a 50 year old company, compared to them, and how do we keep on market share and still gain young new customers, right? So you could literally just be sharing content but pulling out one or two items, because these particular executives get hundreds of emails. They don't have time to read a lot of stuff. They want the high points. Right. And so if you can provide that value in a very short email, that they will find value Because it is part of their initiatives, their goals and tied to their bonus for the year, they don't listen to you. So, you also, by doing this, you also have proved that you are smart, and you can execute. So if something that you've done similar that you can show and prove like, Hey, this is what we did on this team. This is the data before we did it, this is the outcome after we did it. And this is how long it took us now is it five bullet points and keep it moving four numbers. Um, and you can put an app you'd like to discuss, let's schedule the time. I'm a 15 1015 minute meeting and put together three four slides and keep it moving on how to execute and do a small test in your organization on it. Right. Um, so you want to be sure you're providing data Phil reports and I say it reports is not a report. It's gonna be a very succinct and short email. Like, it should be a short, it should have no more onwards been on than what's on this slide. That is it. And I mean on the white part of the slide, so I'm given can mean sweat equity as well. So you're willing to do the testing for something you're willing to do to research, you're willing to do the work. I do want to put in one caveat, you may not get a reward yet, so they may take the ideas there's, but I want you to position it as though you're a thought leader and you can execute on this they may pull out one of their friends to leave this okay. Just let them do the work like no no nothing and try to figure out how to work that culture. So it really comes back to understanding your culture and your organization. Okay. Now, what is the right hook? That is your ask? Jab Jab, Jab is the gift The right hook is to ask, ask them to sponsor you. Ask them for promotion. You can ask them to help you get transferred to address workplace issues and connect you with someone in their net work. So the right hook is always asked. And it may jab is three jabs. But it may take something more than you sending them three emails, it may take 13 emails, but you want to be consistent in adding value. And there are different ways to do that. But this is one way to connect with them. And by having this information ahead of time, where you meet them in meetings, you know a bit about their background, you know a bit about their family, you know about their goals and you know about their initiatives for the company and you're able to find you oftentimes are able to find something to connect with with them on. And so it makes it a little bit easier because you're seeing them as a human. And that's, and that's important. Okay. So let me stop the share because I can't get to the questions. Okay. So I'm a federal employee currently with the Department of State as a passport educator. I just graduated from web development who can wonder what titles in tech I can easily transition into. So are you looking for federal jobs? Or are you looking for? Are you looking for federal jobs? Are you looking to go to public sector Are you looking to go and start up or even education? So it really depends on what your background is where you're trying to go? also.

So you're looking into private if you Looking into private, what skill set you have from the passport? So I don't know what that passport educator does. So, what does that job entail? Are you do you have a clearance of government clearance to do that? So then there are some certain companies that look for people with government security levels. Um, if so, what what level are you that may be attracted to them? Or I have plans we have to be accurate and fast. Okay. You could in in Do you want to code? Do you want to do product development? product product management, I'm sorry. Which part? I know you say web development, you could still do some other things. So it really depends on what you want to do. So do you go to his profile to get So so for job titles is going to it could be just to get your foot in the door, you could look for hiring manager roles that could be senior software. Okay, you like front end. So you you're looking for a UX. So you probably and Karen's on here, Karen, what are your thoughts? This is some of her her area of expertise. I'm Brian and you're still going to be looking at a software engineering manager. To me more than because they're they're going to be the hiring manager. listed first level connections

So maybe a project manager. Can you repeat? Yes. So she is looking to get into web development. And once the front in and with the creative background, she just finished web development boot camp and has experience working at the Department of State as a passport educator. So she's trying to figure out on LinkedIn, what job titles to search for, to find the right hiring manager. I would say trouble quantifying my impact. I built a data warehouse and ended up providing horses. Oh, yeah, I love that question. Okay. So Karen, I'm thinking software engineering. Manager. Um, it could depending if it's a larger company, sometimes CTO lead developer. Yeah, cio Chief Information Officer. Chief CIO, meaning Chief Information Officer, CTO, Chief Technology Officer, lead developer, software engineering manager. I tell you, I tell you the trick, start at the top. Because you know what happens at the top, they don't send it down. If you start at the bottom, it don't go anyplace. The hardest part with LinkedIn, though, if you're trying to connect with people at CIO, CTO, and any of the C suites, they are very, very difficult to reach on LinkedIn. They usually aren't on social, they just have somebody managing their profile. So sometimes I go Personally, I go for the VP level. Any still will filter down or they'll be the right person for you to work for. So just looking at a set, I can tell you on a sales perspective, we generally will go for the CIO CTO. And but because they filter it down, but they often are not on LinkedIn, so I generally target the VP level and that that's been more beneficial for me. Okay. I hope that helps. Yes, you can find a recruiter at that company too, as well, and they'll love you. They'll love it, actually. So just position yourself so that you don't come in as entry level because you already have experience. It may be experienced in in front end development, but to bring in other skills to bet you need to highlight on your resume to So that you get paid appropriately. Okay. Next question. So do you go on his profile to get keywords? Yes. So I went let me just make let me just make an exception. Like I pulled this dude up yesterday and I really got lucky like he was a tall I just go ahead and it says VP, you can go to his profile on LinkedIn and pull keywords. You also want to look him up in your global outlook. If you have global outlook or however you do communications, you want to use your internal languages as well. So your internal your intranet, internal and internal documents or reports that you share, to figure out what they're responsible for to get those keywords so you probably won't find it. We got lucky with this guy. You probably won't find it on LinkedIn, you're gonna have to use internal resources. and utilize those to find your keywords to search by. So be patient is going to take some time, pull out like 10 keywords that you think won't pull up more than 30 bit probably 50 results. Mom it once you get something like 2025, you know you're in there, you're probably going to find that a little bit quicker. All right, next question. I have, I have always had trouble quantify my impact. I built a data warehouse that ended up providing reports to the CEO that could not get consolidated before any tips looked, any tips to look to where to get the answer? Okay. What was the previous process? And how many people were involved in that previous process? What were their titles, job titles, and how long did it take them to create the report that could get to the CEO.

So then what you're going to do once you know the amount of time they can, so it took me like four hours, okay, four hours a week or four hours every time you had to do, is it a weekly report or monthly report. And some people work slower than others. So maybe it took them 40 hours in a month, they make $20 an hour or 40 hours, maybe took them four hours a week, whatever that number is, look at what the hourly rate is, you may or may not have access to that. So you can use like salary comm to get an S get an on average rate for that area they work in for their annual salary rate, multiply it out and just look at what's the annual cost savings, then go back and look at the productivity. It improved their productivity by a certain amount as well and calculate that. Then on top of that was The benefit to the CEO is the CEO able to make better financial decisions is more productive is less stress. And that can be harder to get and harder to quantify. Let me know let me know if you have questions still have questions on how to go about doing it. It's not going to be an exact science, but it'll get you started thinking about that. You mentioned sending an email to the higher level execs, tips, books, etc, or emails and presentation for people at C suite level. You know what? I do not, um, I really format it mine by what other people were doing. Like somebody asked me, Hey, I'm gonna be out on vacation. I need you to send this out for me. So I literally did nothing want more than five bullet points? I'm having a number and key internal words were important. So I knew our key internal wars were safety. Um, cash flow.


man hours burned? Where were the three major ones I reported on especially where we are all in its schedule. Yes. Um, so think about what language and keywords they focus on. One other way to kind of find out this information is how good a relationship do you have with the people other people don't see in office, and that's going to be your administrative staff. That is also going to be your janitors. That's also going to be your maintenance people. And people think I'm crazy for this Have you ever had a pet or a toddler go through your trash and pull out stuff my Oh shoot, I don't mean to throw that away when you have people that nobody pays attention to not necessarily disrespect them, but they don't pay attention to them directly disrespect them, they see things and they will share things with you if you have a relationship with them any respect you

Tamra got all sorts of stories. Um, so it's really, really important that how you cultivate relationships, in organizations, especially with other people who are not Because they are privy to information that other people don't think they know what the hell to do with. And I'm not saying use people, but I have I learned very early when I made this comment to my mother. I said, Well, you're just a janitor. Y'all. I almost didn't make it. Y'all would have never have met me. She said, nobody's a just a nothing. Nobody has to clean up after you. Girl is not a place I have not worked. I didn't know the janitors name. I had a co worker who wanted to know why I do the janitors name and I didn't I didn't work in our facilities. This is when a client's facility Her name is Maria. She saw she saw a my the two main reasons Got one nickname nickname is Snoop kid he had the ponytails like some I can't remember the other guy's name. It's gonna come to me in the clients facility in downtown Tulsa Oklahoma. I was like I'm cold so we'll get you a heater. I came in he was at my desk at Yeah, they also see it here. Exactly so be cacci inches because let me tell you that the first ones to know when a layoff comment we think I'm lying. Usually first of all I know it's coming because the enemy report only come out once a year. I agree in my purse, roll senior staff but let me hit banks to people to get he was. So build those relationships literally from the bottom to the top of the pyramid, and it was organizations to leverage some of this data to get the information. Okay. Another question. When you're doing your own projects to impress higher ups, do you have to inform your manager supervisor about how you're using your time?


Okay, let me do. Let me I meant to make this caveat a little bit earlier. Michele Heyward, a little bit different. I was the one that had a manager talk trash to me in my 20s. And I said, Look, I keep boxes at my desk, and I get tired of this face, I'll pack up and leave. And he was like, No, no, I'm just playing. I'm just playing and he was the one that got me to Raiders in one year. So let me let me make a caveat. I also worked in what I called the gray and my friends and so many people that know that went to college for me know this. So what's in the gray visa written rules? So you do this is the correct way you do this system wrong. Right? This is the white display. I work right yeah, mash them together. We call it don't ask for permission ask for forgiveness. I call it working in the gray and figure out how to do those projects that align number one to your performance plan. So if you are doing projects oh well we were going to do this like Okay, that sounds great. is part of your performance plan. So some things that you want to do right now in January go ahead and plan it out piece by piece. Because october november whenever September when you have to put together your performance plan and you want to go through your performance review. Put that in there because you already got plans. You already Is your research on this executive may not take the day? It literally could take three, four months, because life happens stuff stuff goes on. And so I make it seem like it's simple like you can pull the trigger point. You're like, Oh my god, I'm so frustrated, I got a headache. Why did I listen to her, and then you looking at other people getting promotional like you know, I'm going to hell in this because this June, and come January next year, I cannot be in the same place. So it's going to take you a little while. So write it up in your performance plan. If you can't get it into your performance plan. Go to other teams and departments, some organizations actually like for their employees to do projects. If you're working on something, let's say it's for a volunteer organization that your company partners with, and they actually cover your work hours to go work on stuff. I use it if you get accepted The interns like y'all treat the interns he'll have interns work on. Just look over the work just God mentor is is so many different ways to leverage this. Um, I love eager engineers. And I tell you why I will teach. I would I would teach a couple of my engineers so well, big job before I did, I was trying to leave and he was like, I thought she was gonna be mad like, Nah, I'm jealous. Like, literally I would be looking at their LinkedIn like, yo, Thomas. You know, this, this change to this, we're at this, this this dollar amount because you know, $1.3 billion construction project, he said, but it's an asset they don't know. It just put $1.3 billion transmission distribution distribution project. Bam when you go in, if you didn't tell you, you managed help manage $250 million of it. They all need to know it today. And if you don't notice structural engineer work your transmission distribution for a year and a half, two years, he would not stay with the company. He was commute like an hour from Philly to New Jersey City, New Jersey. He asked to get trained on Transmission distribution. He's a structural engineer, he, that's what he did. They were bringing in training into the New Jersey office, or one transmission distribution. He asked to be included in a training his boss told him now. He was the only structural engineer on his team in that group that was on a transmission and distribution project. And they refuse to train him. So needless to say, when he got off he told he said he told us about a unique sound to make when I asked you for training you said now deuces.


And then the young lady I trade after him who was a geotechnical engineer, she got a job to like, what am I doing wrong? Maybe I would do it right I was transform out. So just just keep, just share. So just keep working it and get other people to help you with it. And it'll, it'll get done. So it's meant to be a process. This is not a one day thing unless you've been with the organization for a long time and it's not government. Um, let's see the custodian step. Also know all the office staff already know who cheating and I don't mean within the Office outside office, who had the extra company cell phone that they belong to the whoever the extra company vehicle that espouses driving, they do an expense report, like they don't know how to read an expense report. Anyway. I was the shadow by working through college at night as a janitor. That's how I learned about several of my past jobs because they were posted by and also from the generation But my grandparents were the janitors and we were taught to respect your own people from the jet Yes, I might be from that I if I wasn't I am now. Tell you tell my 72 year old mom or dad. Okay, so What other questions do you have about being able to figure out what that gift is and who you're trying to connect with? When you are looking for this particular executive to work with? Look at their personal brand, meaning what are people saying about them behind their back? Or this like oh my god, I really love working with such law shit. your FICO Oh, hi, how are you? If they're doing it, that's probably not you want to go work with. So understand what this executives brand is, um, on a smaller scale, you may find out personal things about them I had an executive outline. He was on it. He's an introvert. And what this man like how he met his wife, he has a twin sister, y'all. This is the stuff. twin sister went to school for nursing, he went to school for engineering, she will bring a different one of her classmates home for him to meet one on one and si met his wife. So then you know not to have 20 people around him at one time unless we're in a meeting setting, right? So it's the little bit and I found out not to buy him a birthday cake because he was a chubby kid and he never wants to be chubby again. So do not buy him a cake. I almost ordered that cake. Um, but I also found that he was a Yankees fan. So there are certain things that you find out about people that you can then leverage in into as far as a birthday card. A trinket just small stuff and you personally drop it off to the When you see them in a hallway, getting coffee, water, whatever the parking garage, you can say, if you're not a sports person, don't fake it. But you know, they're a pet person because you see them covered in cat hair, right? Make those genuine connections. And it's like here. Here's a wet brush. I see you probably going to me You're like, thank you, man. I keep forgetting to get my admin ordered me one, right? Those things add up over time because you are making a personal connection. And you are not asking them for anything. And guess what happens? They hope so what do you do here? literally minutes that? Oh, I'm an engineer that does whatever. Really? So how long have you been here? Eight years. Anyway, gosh, I haven't shaved you But you knew that this for right? No. Okay. But you're usually busy and in conversation when you pass me. And so doing little stuff and having those small conversations, especially if you're an introvert really goes a long way. So that's really how to start leveraging being the only one or one of you, women of color in your workplace. start having those small conversations. Um, and you don't have to necessarily do gifts like if you think this is too much is those small conversations where you build rapport after you've stopped them to find out what their pets and kids are? They may even have a daughter and sell Girl Scout cookies this time of year go order cookies. And be like, Hey, I bought vanilla ice cream. Do you do you do to vanilla ice cream, the Thin Mint cookies.


I know I haven't tried to like hey, it's in the freezer. I might have some at lunch at 12 minutes, some other people so if you want to be sure you get your scoop. Be there. Whatever time If you can make it so those are the little ways to really like that's that's how I'm if you smoke when one of my former co workers that's how he met when an executive VP is the only one that was black in the building, do smoke, they both smoke and that's how they met each other and he's like, Oh no, he really cool. Like, he's executive VP. There's like smokey out there hanging out with us all the time. He does the literally those small connections, okay? So don't go into overwhelm. Remember the are human. Remember, you can doodle small connections with them, if you're looking for them to stop so you make sure they understand what your role is in the company, what value you bring to the company and the impact you have to the company. And you have to be able to convey that in the company language that they understand. Okay, any last questions? If not, I hope this was helpful. Um, oh, one last thing I want. I want to tell you. I know some of you are looking for jobs seems like private, it's more extroverted. I don't know. I thought it probably was more introverted, because I just talked to him anywhere. Um, but if you're looking for a job like literally this I got a job offer like 15 more than 15 years ago, I knew this company's mission and vision statement. And when I say the look for real, they went and reached over by the door on a table like, Oh my god, this is this. I had a job offer the next week. I didn't take it on with my former employer cuz that seller was not getting it it really really by knowing the vision and the mission statement of the company and how I aligned to It was huge. Where do you Want us to send our accomplishments? You can just email it to info at positive tire Co. How do you find out hourly rates for consultants? So it's going to vary by industry. I'm going to tell you, probably the industry, the industry you're in or the industry, you want to go and be a consultant. Do you have any friends that do work with consultants, they're not a consultant that will disclose their rates. I would start there, and I wouldn't price lower our price at or above. If that isn't helpful I was thinking There isn't. Isn't there a government site? Didn't somebody share with me a website? I think it was crystal. Um, send me an email about the hourly rates for consultants because I need to know industry and some other stuff. I think there's a website or government site and that's the bare minimum. Okay, two more. A couple more questions. Okay, I'm at a crossroads. I want to find someone to be a mentor. I've been the mentor to others like you who have moved on before me. I think I'm asking the wrong questions to executives, that I think will be a mentor for me what types of questions do you ask to know if this is the right person? Um, I don't generally ask them questions when I unless until I'm sure I want him to be a mentor. Generally what I do with them, I'm having a lot of discussions or talks with them and you're not long They can be three minutes, five minutes. And I'm really getting a sense of whether or not they're an asshole. Whether they're giving a lot to the company, I'm trying to get less. I'm trying to figure out their boundaries, like what? What is your goal? What is your personality? And what type of person would you learn and grow from? Because it's truly important that you understand what type of person you can work with. And then look at is this person, a good mentor in the mentor your selector has been? Is or has been, where you're trying to go?

Maybe they have the connections to get you to where you want to be, what is it about that person, so that you know how to how to navigate the conversation. Does that make sense? So I don't have a set of questions that I asked them or you get some things you can ask is issues that you may have maybe on a project managing multiple personalities or generations any tools or resources they have, right? Um, and just get a sense of number one do they work to get to the where, where the hell they are? Because sometimes you look for somebody to mentor you who was given something and so he can't even show you how to get there because it was given to them. And at the local you, are you I would probably say, Are you looking for a sponsor or mentor? I'm getting a feeling you need a sponsor. I like mentors. I've been a mentor. I'm being mentor met my local mentor here. roomful of black people, three, the three that had a million dollar generating revenue businesses or 300. Like what? What's the difference between a smart sort of mentor, a mentor can will hear you out will provide advice to you can connect you to resources, a sponsor or whatnot, the fuck out of barriers to get you to where you say you want to be and where they believe you should be. So, your sponsor may talk to you briefly in the hallway and ask you things go into meetings that your mentor can't get in and said, Oh, no, such and such is want to be on this project. This is who is going to lead this initiative. And so you can you can, there's definitely a need for both. But if you're trying if you have barriers and you're trying to get to places, that sponsors the one that generally can get you there, more than a mentor, and I follow this mentor rhetoric, probably till about 25 In 2011, when I got a sponsor, and I had that I knew up, I had sponsors before. So it was a great recession. And they were laying off left and right. I didn't get laid off. For seven years, it was 2017. And I got laid off. That was because the sponsor made sure I stayed the sponsors may thought I would be better. I was stepping out of position. He was like, hey, I want you to take this role. The manager that I reported to for the role, they want me to have it the spot and said she got it. The smoke let me let me explain to you what this Matsu did. The sponsors literally came to me and said, Hey, write the job description so that it fits you and nobody else can apply. This is what happened. I apply for the job right? I wrote it up. I applied for the job. If HR calls me This is doing a great recession said nobody else apply for this job except you. Now I'm already working on The project right? But nobody internal to a 45 50,000 employee company apply for this job. I want you to think about that. You want a mentor that has told you that has happened to them or you want a sponsor that can do that. So it depends on what you're looking for whether you need a sponsor, or if you need a mentor, and you may need both. But know what what you're looking to achieve. Is it risky to move eight to make a lateral move to start up? Whoo, how do I put this? How many of y'all felt secure in your job? In 2008, nine and 10 and got laid off
You're very well. You're very, very welcome. So, what, when it comes to startups? How early Are you so like, I don't have but one employee right now. I'm looking at bringing on a marketing person at least part time. So it depends on you the first five or 10 hires, what if you are adverse to risk and you know, your finances cannot sustain itself? Yes, startup as a culture is always risky. But I worked in construction, it was a risk every damn day. So you really kind of need to know yourself what I would say if you're looking at startup. See if you can do a part time for them, whatever they're asking you for. There are several startups that were part of Time does founders work they don't part time for six to eight years. They are not billion dollar companies. One of them is called MailChimp. If you received an email from me yesterday, with the right login to get on here to zoom, that email marketing system that email came from is called MailChimp, one of the co founders from that way. He's from Augusta, Georgia. It's a 20 year old tech company, they did not work full time in it for six, eight years. His co founders, it is a billion dollar company now. Only 10% of startups succeed. And as passed the five year mark, is the start if you're looking at going to pass that mark, um, are they still? Are they generating revenue and profitable? Are they even if they're funded, even if they have funding from venture capital, the meaning of succeed, that just means that they got runway, maybe They have enough money to go this way to last so many months. Do they have? Um, do you like the founders? Like literally do you like the founders, the culture is a culture meaning you will work you can literally work 80 to 100 hours. Um, then you have others that are funded and they have unlimited PTO, and they make you take a week, every single quarter you have you are forced to take a week off. So you really have to know what that startup offers as far as benefits and how risk averse you are. So I can't tell you yes or no, it really depends on you. I bootstrap my thus far I've been approached by investors I've been approached by friends who want to and I haven't taken any yet and I'm trying to see if if and when I will So yeah, you in because you're not publicly traded, which you do is go to crunchbase.com and search specifically for that startups name. Is it a tech startup? It'll be on crunchbase I don't know if it's tech or not. Um, if even if it's not today it may be on there. But um, and see if they've gotten funding When was the last round of funding they went through, um, some people get funded to build out their tech other people get funded to scale their company. I believe in scaling part. It a five year mark about 100 employees clinic.


Healthcare can be difficult. Um, I would say just keep your connections. If you decide to do this, keep your connections and your LinkedIn open for new opportunities. My dream is to create companies in African countries to help develop countries. There's a ton of Yeah, there's a ton of opportunity. There are a lot of Americans, black Americans going over to Africa. Yeah, it's not a one and done thing if Melissa, just just shoot me an email at info at positive hire.co. I'm not gonna tell you know, the opportunity if they're giving you equity. I would say go in and also ask for equity. If you want to do it. That's another thing. You may have a lower salary you may not, but definitely still go in and ask for equity, negotiate equity, if you do do it. Okay. What was the bps name you search on LinkedIn? Let's go see

Good, Todd lessor here I copy his profile and put it in messenger for you 
All right. Okay, sounds like I need a sponsor an accountability partner. Okay. I think that is all the questions for tonight. Can Melissa and I connect? Hey, you sit back to Hill you sent me just at a panelist. Share that to panelists and attendees so she can see it. If Melissa is here, you You have a message coming from Phil. So one last thing before y'all get off of here. I should have had y'all do it early. I'm in a wrap up with this. Be sure to drop in your LinkedIn profiles, links, and I am going to celebrate and go out with your accomplishments for tonight. So, being publicly, one lady has written in being publicly recognized for a win on a project that came in under budget and resulted in a big bonus for me MIT. Let's write I'm talking about that money, honey. Make that money, honey. Okay. Another one advancement to current position based on past successes. Yes. Hello. Okay. I've been very successful with bringing on our employees. brand to new level since joining. Yes. Don't keep killing it. I'm becoming a senior engineer. That's what y'all y'all are doing this. I interned at Google last summer after my first year in college. What? Again, I'll tell people this. I'm like, What? Okay, but I'm gonna let the world know. I'm becoming a published author on a paper. We're going to be talking about white papers and y'all publishing white papers for your industry. Yes, I'm loving this. Yeah. I don't know how much fun I'm having right now. A year ago. I didn't think I'd apply to security. Privacy roles not interviewing for them. Yes. Yeah. Well, oh, energy savings of over 2 million dollars at Boone County School District over three years. saving taxpayers some money. We appreciate you my sister. Yes. Save us some dollars. Hello. Okay. received a proclamation from the mayor of Columbia, South Carolina as well as the governor, Governor of the state of South Carolina. Yes, my people that's hometown. See later who that is. Because I'm not looking at email addresses. I'm only looking at the accomplishments because we all went in doing a workshop at the Grace Hopper conference. Okay, I'm really okay. I'm know I'm extra excited, but those are some of the winds. I'm gonna give y'all a couple more minutes to copy and paste or click on all the links so you have as many tabs as I do in your browser, to start connecting with other ladies. As Tamra said, be sure to include that message when you go to connect with them. So they know we're working on revamping, they just asked to teach a workshop for proposal writing. Yes. That's what I'm thomassie snaps are all you guess they do rock. Right? And so this is why I asked you and let me tell you, my sister would not even register for my summit, y'all. She'd like us asking too many questions. I said I only asked three questions she said you asked for, but it's time I'm gonna answer all of them. The webinar was going to be over I look at her Yeah. So it's another reason to ask was quite a barrier to entry. People who really want to be here, at least putting in a if not now. You'll put in NA. But we do ask those questions for a reason because we really, really want to be able to help you. And there are a lot of people supporting this. And let me tell y'all if y'all don't customized your LinkedIn profile I am going to talk about y'all.


So everybody, thank you so much for joining. I hope these tips hurt helped or will help you to engage with executives in your organization. Tomorrow we will have crystal Ada who will be talking about workplace harassment so definitely come get the tactics and tools you can use in the workplace when it comes to harassment. See you then

Welcome, welcome, everybody. It is absolutely fantastic to be here with you today. I am Michele Heyward, founder of positive hire. And if you are attending the stem Success Summit, thank you so much for joining us here at the positive hire booth. Now, if you're like, I don't know what you mean, by stem Success Summit, I got you covered. I'm going to share with you a very special event that started on us November 17, and runs until November 20. It is called the stem Success Summit, hosted by stem media, which was founded by Dr. Nehemiah Marbury, who is a civil engineer. He's a licensed structural engineer. He's also an instructor at NC, a Northland State University. So definitely, definitely go and register for this job success summit. You're like, okay, great. Some engineer created us. Let me tell you why the stem Success Summit is absolutely fantastic opportunity for you. If you are young, STEM professional, they're going to help you even students, launch a successful and meaningful career is what this summit is all about. For you. What they're looking at helping you do is really hone in on your STEM career strategy, and certifications, having you look at technology and innovation, all his career opportunities, looking at securing finance, funding and financial management opportunities, as well as personal finance, personal branding, networking and resume building are going on at the summit to even talk about graduate school and research careers. But I'm in the entrepreneurship and startup side of it. But I'm having a booth here so definitely definitely can talk about startups. We can talk about what that looks like if you are a STEM professional or if you're STEM students so science, technology, engineering and math. That's what Ste M stands for STEM. They're going to have a healthcare and medicine as well as sustainability and environmental advocacy. But more importantly, it is usually last but it's absolutely the most important part of who you are is your mental health and personal well be we're going to cover all of that during this virtual summit that is completely free which blows my mind I got to talk to you Nehemiah you might need to be charging for this. You can also do job hunting in STEM. So today, I am here not only sharing with you the stem Success Summit, but what you can get from it and to engage with those of you that are attending the summit. So I'm really really happy to have you join us today. Now. I am going to be talking about something that is near and dear to my heart which is why Black Latinx and indigenous women are the best thing that happening to stem like truly truly what's up what's going on, is on and poppin they are truly the next generation. They are going to take stem by storm and it they're truly the future of STEM so science technology, engineering and math. Before I get started if you can in the chat share with us where you're tuning in from I'm in rural South Carolina, my home state Clemson University graduate maybe your student put in what university you rapid we want to know here at the stem Success Summit. We want to get to know you we definitely definitely want to see what's going on with each of you right now. Okay, if you have questions, definitely drop those in as well. And we will get to those as we go through the short time we have together but we want to make it as powerful as possible, as interactive and engaging as possible as well. So let's let's not get upset but let's make it the best that it can possibly be. All right. Now what I do want to do is let's get started with why Black Latinx of Indigenous women women are the future of STEM to me. I don't know you may have a different view. Definitely definitely let me know I want to know your your viewpoint on this as well. I want to know your thoughts I saw this as well. So definitely be sharing that, as we have this time together. And even if you're watching the replay, I still want to know. So the first reason why I truly believe black Latinx and indigenous women are the future of STEM is number one. They're solving community or societal problems. What Yes, they are literally just solving us a very niche problem. But usually that solution is impacting those people or people on a large scale. So oftentimes we talk about skin, I don't know how many of you remember, if you're my age, or tell nginx or older, we're in, you go by makeup, and we'll make you look ashy. Or there were medical devices that do not work for us. Even if you're looking at BMI, where they're looking at your weight, your body mass index, BMI, it is not based on African body bill, which is definitely different than what it's based on. And so we're coming in solving maternal health, because there's a high maternal health. There's a high maternal health, death rate for black women, for Hispanic women, for Asian women, how do we change that, and so they're really looking at solutions that have often been overlooked. But for the vast majority of the world, they will be, they will be solving that problem. So that is one thing that I'm really, really excited about. The next thing that I would say, as to why Black Latinx and indigenous women are, are the future of STEM their leaders. They are leaders in their communities. And when they go out, and they are doing work for the community, the community listens, the community response. And we see this often in politics. We see this often in fundraising, where they're able to really bring people together to solve a problem to to create movement, and really bring about change. And that is another reason why I see these women in these communities really being the future of STEM, because they as leaders, they, they they're listening to their community, and they're responding. And they're solving these problems in a very technical way, but in a very caring way, which is another The next reason why I think they will be the future of STEM, they will be the future of STEM, because they're nurturers, you cannot solve a problem in society, with our research without caring about people. Without talking to people without being able to relate to people, you will not be able to solve a problem. And if you're not able to solve a problem for people, if you're not able to do that, who are you solving the problem for? Maybe it's yourself, maybe it is you're in when you're looking at solutions, you have to be able to talk to people engage with people understand at a at a emotional level, what they need, and being able to connect with them for some of us right to create these solutions. Women have oftentimes a women have a great gift at this, and and being nurtured it. So it's really, really important to understand how to leverage that part of women, the nurturing part to bring about solutions that require science, technology, engineering, and a lot of math, high levels of math. And that oftentimes is oh, you're a nurturer. You shouldn't be doing this difficult stuff. No, they should be doing the difficult things because they have to be humanized, you have to bring in that nurturing side of what is going on. It's developing and changing what is what is in STEM. And one of the reasons I like civil engineering was a lot of people want it to
want it to change and build stuff, right. But one of the things I learned in civil was how you we were responsible as civil engineers for the public. Okay, you design it, but if it failed, the structure fail, what impact does it have on lives? If it isn't able to do X, Y and Z? What impact does it have on the owner? If it can't do 123? How does it impact the public? And so in su Will was always pushed upon me and others in my program that impacted the work we did a civil engineers on the public. And oftentimes that is removed, right? Having a sense of responsibility, or who's going to engage with your code, who's gonna engage with this process you're developing inside a facility to maybe produce the next level of I don't know, widgets or something, medical devices, hair products, vaccines, whatever that is. But nobody's really focus on it as much when you're talking about science, technology, engineering and math, like, Oh, that's a social science. We don't do you have to bring in the nurturing when you're talking about these solutions, okay. Next, the next reason, I think that women who are black Latinx, and indigenous, in STEM are driving the future is because they're underestimated. It's like, wait, what they're underestimated. They're tired of being gas lit. They're tired of being overlooked, they're tired. They see the opportunity to go into entrepreneurship, they see the opportunity to found their own startups, they see the opportunity to become consultants to go and solve these problems, they still see the opportunity, but it is no longer inside somebody else's walls. It is inside their own business. And so they're now then going out. And this is never that they're under estimating. So they're pissed off, and they're leaving. If you don't know, black women not only are graduating with more degrees, not as many in STEM as we'd like, but they're eating a lot of businesses, as well as Hispanic women. at enormous rates, like 270% a year, being able then to help them get funding and grow those businesses and generate is the next step generate, you know, six and seven figure businesses that are science technology, engineering base is the next step. And so I see people in the space now solving that problem, getting these women funding, helping them structure their businesses and helping them generate that wealth. That is why I see this as the next opportunity for the future of STEM with black black mixing digital. I said it, I said what I said, I meant what I said, I'm gonna go what I said, Okay, that's, that's that's how it is. That's how it's going down today. Okay. Um, the next thing. So I said they're starting to CES at record levels. But you know, what else they do? They get culture, right. They're creating these businesses and they're getting their culture right. Organizations right now we're talking about the great resignation. And employees are quitting, let me tell you something. Women of color in STEM have been leaving organizations have been leaving their STEM careers at high rates, like one in every three, we will have small population of a professionals one in three. There are out of all engineers in the US 3.94% combined, are black, Hispanic, and Native women come back. All 100% of engineers, when you get down to it 3.94% are black, Hispanic, and Native women with engineering degrees. I'm part of that 3.94%. I'm also part of that. Women of Color one out of three that leaves their STEM career as well. But I wanted to start off creating an inclusive culture. Because when you create that culture, they stay. And so organization like, Oh, it's a pipeline problem. It is a culture problem. You're seeing a high level of resignations of people leaving because you refuse to change the culture. And so this has not been all of a sudden the signs and signals have been there. What organizations did they ignored them why? Because it was black women quit. They she don't matter. There were Latinas quit. Oh, she don't matter. There were indigenous women quit sheet no matter what you know what happened? The white women were looking LGBTQ community employees. Were looking In the white men who no longer wanted to be there and be somewhere else, when they knew more people gonna be respected, were looking and watching. And you didn't change anything. And then what happens? A pandemic, where all of these people were continuously dying. And you were focused more on, where you're going to still be able to be productive, and generate revenue, because we still owe things to our stakeholders, you owe things to your employees first, and your employees are speaking. But because the vast majority of those employees who look like the C suite are now leaving, we're having an issue. But you still don't want to change sort of future of STEM is black Latinx Indigenous women, because they're creating inclusive workplaces where people are no longer overlooked. Their voices are heard, the ideas are not stolen while they're sitting at the same table as people who don't look like them. That is why Black Latinx and indigenous women are the future of STEM, highly educated, highly motivated, creating solutions for societal problems at scale. And the people they are worried about a people that are working in their businesses, don't get me wrong, they owe something to their stakeholders and their customers, but they're taking care of their employees first. And they're getting that right, because organizations refuse to make those changes. And organizations had decades to do this, but they want to grow profits. I remember I did a summit last year, in April, like right at the onset of the pandemic. And I said the best performing companies will be those that aren't inclusive. The other panelists had said other things, they looked at me I said because the people will stay, they will bring in new ideas, they will get the support they need. And they will get to this those comfortable iterate into markets and develop products they never thought about because they had not listened to the voices of black Latinx and indigenous women. Trust me on this. If you don't bet on anything, you're gonna bet on black. Okay. All right. Now, what is the next reason that black Latin X and indigenous women are the future stem different perspectives lead to different solutions, different perspective lead to different solutions, okay. I don't know if let's play this game. Make some of us may have been home school, some of us went to school on a bus, some of us may be dropped off by parents or carpool. So you're in a minivan or a car, somebody dropped you off your experience in travel all different, right? Some of us know to prepare for rainy days, because we took the school bus. So we always kept the umbrella on us. Those of us that may have been in a passenger car or private vehicle, you know, parents or carpool may not because the car usually came closer to us. And so our solutions and and how we view the world and how we anticipate things so differently, and our solutions. And I remember being somewhere. And we were having an issue with I don't I don't even remember exactly what the issue was. But the solution was literally was taking a piece of aluminum fall. And in some wood because we couldn't find any I was like looking for something that would flatten out but still be stiff. So why don't you just use a piece of aluminum foil, and he looked at me. But if you ever had this level anything or shimmy something paper only lasts so long.
And I know what we want something to form fit. So paper would end up being moved around. But if you could form something at the bottom of this leg on this table, the aluminum foil was going to form around it and stay longer and not be shifted and move like piece of cardboard or paper or wood. And people like I never would have thought of aluminum foil. But by having different experiences always trying to level out stuff. You come up with different solutions. So different perspectives, different experiences. You see different solutions. And oftentimes, we should diversify teams, women, you know, they always think in medical devices that are too large or women. They're always making these things for men. When you look at vehicle designs, these are all we design these vehicles for women. Yet when you look at studies, certain heights, which are usually the height that most women fall into, have to have the highest death rates and injury rates because the vehicle was designed for women, but the seatbelt, the steering column, the seat were not to help us help us live through a crash or are not getting severely injured. Right. It was just marketed to women. It was not designed for men, women in mind. They kept the same exact measurements that they've been using. But the woman that comes out with the Ciesla I'm gonna call it is Ciesla because y'all love Tesla's it's a Ciesla, the chef's law that was actually designed for women five, foot five and shorter maybe to 14 or nine, right? Who are sometimes pregnant. Right, who need to be closer to the steering wheel who need to have their seats raise whoever creates the Ciesla and gets it right will be a woman because nobody's developing those yet. They haven't listened. They don't have that experience of what it's like to be choked by a seatbelt, and having to figure out how to work around. They don't know what it's like to always try to keep two or three kids to sit down. And women are coming up with these solutions because they're living it every single day. So why is the future of STEM black Latinx and indigenous women? I run it back on my running back for it, I'm gonna run it back. Because we solve community or societal problems, right? We're in the culture, we're up the culture, and we're solving and bringing solutions for the culture. That's what we do. That's what we do. Right? Women are natural leaders. I said it not mean girls, but leaders. Women activate in their communities in the culture and they are change agents. Why? Because number three, they're nurturers, they're going to nurture people. And so when they come up with solutions, when they're solving problems, they're thinking about people in mind not profits. That's, that's a tool that's a double edged sword and business, right? You're solving a solution for people. If the people like the solution, then go back and ask them how much they'll pay for it. So it can be profitable. But if you're solving something and you're not nurturing, you're not being human with that solution. Nobody's gonna pay for it. They don't want it. Black Latin X and indigenous women, especially in STEM are underestimated, overlooked and just damn tired. They're not going to leave their their expertise, their education, their knowledge, when they leave their STEM career. They're just going to go to number five, and start their own businesses, whether it's a 10 tech startup, whether it's a small business, whether it's consulting firm, and you're going to take that with them. And you're going to leverage that to build a number six, an inclusive workplace, because organizations have not listened. They tried to fix black Latin X and indigenous communities, people and say you need to fit in here to how we do. You need to be more inclusive. So those organizations have not done work. So they're seeing not just black Latinx and indigenous women in STEM quitting. They're seeing everybody resigning and high numbers because you showed you did not care about people. It was profits over people. And those people have said you know what, time's up. I'm done. I'm going someplace else, because it is not here. And lastly, why Black Latin X Indigenous women are the future of STEM. They bring in different perspectives that lead to different solutions. Too often they aren't listened to an organization's and guess what? They are now leaving and taking those ideas and executing them outside of those organizations. they're still gonna solve the problem, they still won't get it done. Sudden, that's what they're going to do. So it's really, really important to understand. For organizations like, Oh, we're going to, we're going to make the change, you got to go saying that Michael Jackson song, but you're gonna have to go do some work. If you want to have black Latinx Indigenous women in STEM in your organization, to drive the future, you have to change our culture. And that is not what's happening. So hey, Dr. Nehemiah, I'm glad you could drop by. Thank you, Haley for joining me. Yes. Do you believe let's ask this question, do you believe black Latin X and indigenous women are the future of STEM? I want to know, I want to know your thoughts. Do you believe they are the future of STEM? I do, obviously, because I wouldn't be talking about it. But I want to know your thoughts on that I truly, truly do. All right. If you're just joining us, I want to let you know that we have our next event coming up this month, next week, Tuesday, where I'll be talking about how to level up your length in live. Not live just on LinkedIn. Okay. And you can join me [email protected] I'm at I'm gonna add this, I forgot to add this. But you can join me at this. This webinar. It is it is literally a webinar, it is going to go on for 75 minutes, about 40 minutes of 40 minutes of teaching you some tips and things you didn't know about getting seen and heard on LinkedIn. And then you can also ask some questions that we that I may about what you're doing on LinkedIn. And we can definitely, definitely talk about that. And then we can also just hang out, I don't know. We can also just hang out. I like hanging out with y'all. Well, the people in my community, I won't say all y'all, but some of y'all I do enjoy hanging out with. So you can go to bi T dot L Y You thought I'd like to say another word. I was not for slash up leveling on LinkedIn. That's up leveling, all lowercase. It is case sensitive. So up leveling on LinkedIn, all lowercase. And join me there. It goes down at 7pm. East Coast time on Tuesday, November 13. I'm going to be talking about up leveling on LinkedIn. So if you have not done that I want to share with you is is some really easy things you can do is not always I didn't know it worked like that. Yes, it really, really does work like that. And it's not anything you have to stress about. But definitely some some monumentous things you can do on your profile to get saved by recruiters and hiring managers even build out your network. So we're going to talk about that on the next webinar at positive hire. So I don't know I'm excited about it. I would love to have you all there. So come by up leveling on LinkedIn on November 23. If it's after November 23, you're going to have to come over two positive hire.co forward slash blog. And we'll have the replay posted there but you want to join live so you can ask your questions. Because I'm not taking questions before the event but I am taking questions during the event. Alright everybody, thank you so much.
If you have not registered yet, if you have not registered yet, you want to go join the stem Success Summit at 21 dot stem success summit.com I'm not 21 2021 dot stem success summit.com It goes on until November 20. So you got a little bit of time. They come in join the fun and really connect with others in STEM, young professionals in STEM as well as those in college learning and learning their craft and getting started. So everybody have a great time at the summit and I will catch you later. Bye

Find out how Brianne's curiosity about science and math and finally fell in love with engineering.

What is going on everybody? This is Michele Heyward. I am so happy you are joining me. Yes, no, really I am. So for those of you don't know me, I'm a civil engineer, founder tech company positive hire. And I'm all about retaining as many Latina black and indigenous women in their STEM professions. So that's what I work on every single day, for as long as I can, which will be the rest of my life. So today, I want to talk about just really focusing on three things, three things you can do to exit to exit your job, like, how do you prep to exit a job? Like, you know what? I'm done? So long? Does this this did not work? Like what do you need to be doing? How do you do it? Where do you do it? Or what do you do? Right? So first thing I want you to do, is really take inventory of every thing you do. And I don't mean like, oh, I plan this. Oh, I am, of course I get on, and I get a text because I gotta go pick somebody up. Oh, I do this. I managed, you know, I want you to go with the things that you manage that you lead that you create, your you've created, right. So if you create it processes, you manage teams, you manage processes, you help increase budgets, you increase revenue, you you improve productivity, those are huge things that you need to be collecting data on what systems and software's, do you know, do you have mastered and tell you the true Hell, if you know how to turn them on, sign up, get in and kind of work your way around? That's good enough. Cuz a lot of people don't even know how to do that. Right? So take inventory of all the things you do. And you know, from that current employer, as well as previous employers, maybe even your background, your education, maybe you learn how to do something with statistics, right? That you still somewhat handle, maybe you are absolutely a master at Excel key, keep that down, because it does matter. And it is very important. So now that you take an inventory, all this stuff, right, and you're trying to figure out like, Okay, what do I do next? What do I do next? Okay. Don't worry about what your job title is. Because for a lot of women of color, you are doing work outside of that job title. Because you have to prove yourself, right? Well, you know, you don't have the same experience, whatever, whatever excuses you're given. So they give you all have this stretch assignment work. Now, what you want to do is take that information, that inventory of stuff that you do, you go on, go over to someplace like LinkedIn like Glassdoor and look for someone or software she worked with, look for the level of excellence that the stuff that the daily responsibilities that you have, that things that you manage, the things that you have put you lead the things that you've created, and looking see what job titles pop up, you probably would will be surprised. Hey, I am Cambridge, you will probably be very surprised to find out you're doing work one, two levels above what you're currently getting paid. So what does that mean you need to do? Now you know where to start looking for jobs. Hey, Daria, were to really go to start looking for jobs to really go and say, hey, hey, this is what I do. This is what I'm worth. And you're like, Michelle, when they go to check to see if I work at this employer. They're going to find out my job title is x, y, z, Hey, your job title doesn't matter. Your ability to perform matters. So you want to take that inventory list that you had, right? We took inventory, and you go do to search in that inventory list I left off also include your kudos, where people say oh my god, I couldn't have done this part of the project without you Oh my God, without you, we would not have made this date. Right? What did you do for those people? Because that leads to how good you really are. So now you have the inventory of what you do. You found out that the job titles you really need to be looked checking for when you go to apply for things. So what do you do next, when you read, girl, you won't get your resume professionally done, based off of the key words or phrases that you're seeing in the resumes. And you're like what Michelle? Is a lot of okay, let me tell you how one easy way to figure out a way to kind of figure out what keywords to use. And you you shouldn't be tailoring your resume to each job. But let's say you're going to the National Black MBA conference. And they're going to be various employers there. All right, so it's like 10 employers 10 jobs.

I'm laughing at my mentee, because I met her place, she left to go to this event. And when she left, she told me to lock the door. She didn't leave me to key and she's like, well, you can come pick me up. Now. She realized that she goes home with her house, he when I come pick her up, I can't lock her apartment door. But no, I'm not telling you where she live. Okay. All right. So that's gonna be that's why I'm over here laughing because I'm reading her text messages. Okay. So now you you're going to use some keywords. So you can do a keyword search, just copying and pasting the words, copy and pasted a job post and put it into a Google Doc, right? And maybe do a keyword search and see how many of a certain type of software certain type of system a come up. Maybe they're saying lead supervisor, and Minister, whatever that is, pops up. When you copy and paste all of those job descriptions. Well, let me tell you a whole other trick. So you just want to take a certain portion of those job descriptions, like the most half from let's say, it's five job descriptions must haves from five job descriptions, copy and paste them you want to go do what's called a word cloud, a word where you can go I think is word cloud.com. And you've probably seen word clouds before, let me see if I can pull up one I just did a couple of weeks ago. Oh, hold on. Let me turn this off. Just a little bit. We're okay cuz I can't it hope I don't turn off my laptop at the same time. Course I don't see word cloud come up. But you want to do something. It's called a word cloud. And you've seen them before. And they'll be shaped like a heart or just be a circle. And it has all these words in hand, the bigger the words are, the more time it has occurred in wherever they're pulling this data from. So you can literally take the information from the job description, put it into a word cloud, not only will it make that designed for you, but it tells you how many of certain of words were repeated. Yes, so it gives you a list. Oh, this is repeated 15 times this is eight times this is twice. So the key words you need to be using, probably are those that I mentioned multiple times, and all across most of those job descriptions. It's not 100%. Remember, it's software, and truly some of the software's crap. Because even if you write down exactly what the job description says, on your resume, you still not getting hired, and you don't get to interview data, analysts doing nothing. So it's really important to at least try to beat the algorithm by being that specific. So those are some of the things you can do when it comes to really preparing to leave like get your resume together. And from that resume, like your LinkedIn shouldn't be just your resume. So here's a bonus update your rep update your LinkedIn. With those metrics, like how many people you manage the size of the budget, you manage improvement and productivity. Put some numbers in there because people resonate with numbers, but also put in your bio, who you help how you help them. Right write who you help, and how do you help them and what I mean? I improve out of motivation factories productivity so that they increase their revenue. So if you're a manufacturing engineer, you could say, I improve productivity for automotive manufacturers by improving productivity of their line workers in the paint shop. Right? Maybe it's on hanging doors. Hey, Becca, whatever it is be very, very specific. Hey, thanks. Hey, bubbly frown. So be very, very specific. When you do your headline on your LinkedIn who you help and how you help them and also what results you get them. But when it's time to go, it's time to go. Alright everybody, I'm gonna get out of here I gotta go pick up my mentee and leave her do a lot because this way my laptop in here she needed to catch a live back. She she gonna have a capital. I guess I could take my laptop. Oh, thank you. I know who that is. Hey, Pear girl CV I know who that is. All right, I gotta run. No, I'm not this is like a peach. Mango orange juice. It just looked really good. No sugar in here. The liquid liquid sugar. So I'm key I know you left him to like wait, I'm gonna leave my laptop in here. She can leave her pen on it. Alright, these young these young children. These young children I don't know how to do it. Alright, everybody have a happy Thanksgiving. I may be back on I'm really on a hiatus. But two nights in a row. Oh, yeah, it is good though. It is good. Brandon. I'm getting out. I'm doing like you do me Brandon when I come onto your scopes. I'm sure you can catch the replay. I'm leaving ba that's what Brandon do to me. Like really? You're not gonna hang up the two more minutes to go on with no brand like nope, gotta go. Like body and brand and be like that brand. So, but anyway, everybody, I really am going to get out of here. I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving. If you don't celebrate it, I hope you get the chance to spend it with family and friends. Just because if nothing else. I love it because I get to see family. I don't always get to see every single day or month. It's like that one time a year. You need a full 30 minute recap with great training is called the replay. Hello and it's only going to be 30 minutes long and I saved you 17 minutes call me Geico. Hello. Alright everybody, have a good one. Bye.