So we are going to learn how these four women at kicks, all of which have computer science and engineering degrees have found stimulating careers but in different functional paths. And I think many of you listening are wondering this too. Hey, I have a certain technical background.

What can I do with that and stay really passionate about my career. So really excited. In fact, I should clarify here. We have a moderator and we have four panelists. So we got a huge group of people here to speak with you about this topic and to moderate this panel. I'm going to bring to the stage, Martha Galley. Hi, Martha, welcome. Hello, look at your colors and background that you have here tonight. Everyone. Martha is an executive VP of customer engagement and services at Klis. She's also an advisor at AST a a community of experts helping women leaders to accelerate their companies. And I'm going to let Martha introduce the rest of this amazing panel we have today, speaking about all of their different career paths. So Martha,

thank you so much, Margo. Thank you so much for that generous introduction. We do have some very distinguished members of the Klis team with us today. I will go through really quick introductions and then we'll hear about their journeys and their careers. First, we have Ashwini B Chandra who is a solutions engineer at Kli. She enjoys working with broadband service providers to design fiber optic access networks and provide solutions to meet their business needs. She has first hand experience building operating and maintaining software driven fiber optic networks from her previous role, working as a senior network engineer in a start up company. She graduated with a and MS in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas. Next up, we've got Jenna Baker who leads the engineering operations team at Klix focused on proactively identifying and conquering challenges. Klis products teams have been facing the rapidly scaling and transforming the R and D process while maintaining high quality products for our customers.

She has over 25 years of experience in the telecommunications space with a BS in electrical engineering from Oh from Iowa State University. Next up, Teresa mcgaughey who has 20 years of experience in telecommunications and has been in the software development, product management, sales and marketing.

During her career, she holds a patent in router on a chip technology and has extensive knowledge on what it takes to make networks work and a global perspective on them. She holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida and last certainly not least is Kylie Harriman who leads the customer success, digital engagement and education team at Klis. Although she did not start her career in technology, she spent the last 12 years building a career working for some of the most innovative technology companies in customer success community and marketing. So that's our panel today and we're going to actually ask them all a couple of questions.

First, I'd like each of you to share with us. Um A little bit about how your career began. Quick overview of some of the roles you took and how learning helped you both lean in and succeed in those various career positions. So, Ashwini, why don't we start with you?

Of course, uh In the past nine years, uh I've held several different roles with multiple organizations. I started off as a hardware test engineer. I transitioned from that into a software programmer. Uh Moving from that, I uh joined as a senior network engineer and now I'm with Kli as a solution engineer. Uh While I was transitioning from uh between different roles in different fields of engineering, I focused on three different things. Um I prioritized um learning. Uh I invested some time in myself um And uh so that I can focus on um next career path. So, uh so what I did was I paid attention to online um classes. I also joined some higher education classes as well. And the second thing that I paid attention to was um as soon as an opportunity came my way. Um I worked hard towards the opportunity and I made sure that um I was successful in that journey. And the third thing that I uh focused on uh while pursuing, uh you know, while changing my career paths was uh the fact that um I would, you know, I would follow my passions and I would uh find meaning in what I was doing on a daily basis. Um to put some of this in perspective, I'm gonna uh share a small story here while I was working as a network engineer.

Uh in my previous role uh with a start up company, um I saw the huge impact um the service provider made uh in the room towns by bringing high speed internet. Um And I also helped uh different, you know, different people in the town um to understand uh technology and also reduce the digital digital divide. Uh While um when I, when I saw the huge impact that the organization was making um by helping kids uh do online schooling um as well as help other people uh work remotely and, you know, new businesses opened their doors so that as they had access to high internet, high speed internet services um that brought in revenue, which also brought in more jobs in the small rural town.

Um At the same while I was performing these services for the BS P um opportunity came my way uh which in the form of a new role with Kli as a solution engineer. And I decided to take that opportunity because over here, I not only help just a single service provider but I help multiple service providers to basically bring in high speed internet in multiple towns, helping reduce the digital divide back to you, Mata.

Cool. Thank you, Ashwani. Some very interesting observations. Helped guide your career, Jenna. How about you? What's your story?

Well, you know, I graduated in hardware or excuse me, electrical engineering. Uh but I knew when I was getting my diploma that uh probably spending time in a lab uh directly designing, being hands on uh to that type of level was not really what was going to make me happy. So I took a job as an application engineer working for a communication service provider and really enjoy interacting with the company customers, understanding how uh back at the beginning of my career, uh what helped businesses needed communication services and connectivity.

I did that for a number of years and really, like I said, I enjoyed working with the customers, but I became really enamored with the network equipment and uh had an opportunity to uh you know, move from the midwest of the United States to the west coast to Silicon Valley and really start working with telecommunications equipment again as an application engineer.

But now working with the uh communication service providers on how that equipment can help them grow and be successful. Uh in, in their businesses and, and in their uh endeavors. I did that for a while again, really, really uh found I enjoyed and was drawn to innovation. How are our products? You know, what is the ideation, how our products created again to satisfy those customers needs? So that led me to looking to uh uh obtain a position in, in product management. Uh I did that in my company and, and, and again, it was just the right opportunities were open, found the job opening applied for it and found during that time as a product manager that process development process working with engineers connecting kind of what the engineering teams are doing to what what the customer wants in more of a day to day level really was something that inspired me.

So I moved into program management, got my uh project management and program management professional accreditations uh because I enjoyed that so much and, and uh at that time, looking to expand my career opportunity in a company down the street called Kli was just starting up and looking for their first program manager.

Uh So I applied and was invited to join the team. And I've enjoyed a quite a um quite a great journey here at Klis for 17 years now. Uh where I started as the only program manager and was able to build uh through my passion for, for that career, was able to build a technical program management office. Uh it really uh helped enhance the company's product development life cycle as in connecting the the making sure the right products got to our our communication service providers at the right time and, and enjoyed the company's growth. Uh I learned through working with teams and through that program management experience that really it's people, people that make companies great. And I felt the calling to become more of a people leader. I built a program management office but you know, wanted to use those leadership skills in different ways. So uh calls at that time was undergoing a great transformation to become an agile organization. And and I was asked to step in a role to help lead that organizational transformation.

Uh And that was quite a professional journey for me. Uh I learned through being able to network with some great folks in the Silicon Valley area um of, of California to really help Klis along that journey um and really work with the people. So that's as we went through that organizational transformation, my heart stayed in engineering. That's kind of led me to my current role as leading engineering operations where I'm not only looking to help Kelli grow, but help our engineers be, find better ways to help their day in the life be a lot more productive, effi efficient and their uh daily work be really um exciting to them.

But that all comes through uh you know, innovations in terms of how they do their work. Uh and in tools, these things that go with the the product development life cycle as well as other business processes. So uh all with an electrical engineering degree from Iowa State University never spent the day in the lab.

So we um uh architecture and engineering um centers of excellence, innovation. All those things are very powerful motivators for defining a career. How about you, Teresa? What's your story?

So my story is, you know, I did not start out even thinking I was gonna go into computer science until a friend of mine said, hey, come join me in this elective and the whole Hello world. And on a radio shack TRS 80 started a whole trend. But um so like the person that was talking before Shamina, she said it's kind of who, you know, so my career has taken a path through three industries and multiple opportunities even within one company uh started out in computer science, went in the uh defense industry and ultimately in the downturn a while ago of the defense industry decided it was time to make a move.

Uh went to the automotive in both of these cases, what I enjoyed about that was the ability to create something new. Um So it was exciting. We were doing new things, new cars in the, in the automotive industry, tons of fun. I really enjoyed that. Um But then an opportunity to move into telecom came about uh once I got into the telecom industry. Uh I was already, I was still in computer science. I was still programming. I started in telecom programming. Uh spent a lot of time learning. So got the opportunity to take a class from anybody that's on here that knows Radia Perlman, who's one of the founders of some of routing. Uh I took a class from her on ring, which was pretty nice, um, pretty interesting and I really appreciated it. Uh but also found that it is a bit of who, you know. So I was in programming for quite a while, got into some management of leadership of teams in uh in the uh um company I was at, at the time and ultimately, somebody came and said, you know what, I'm leaving the company to go to another opportunity, but I'm gonna recommend you for my role and that was a role in product management.

And I was like, you know, I had actually been thinking it was time for a change. So it was let's go take that opportunity. And so I jumped into that uh via the recommendation was able to make that transition, stayed in product management for quite a bit of time, many years. Actually, in all of that time, it was always about creating new things. It was always about um the ability to, you know, it was designed product management is all about what is the next new product that we need to be creating, what is it that the world the market needs? So that was always kind of a passion along the way. Um But again, new opportunities ultimately got me to Cali via, again, who, you know, and once I got into Cali, uh it was really interesting because Cali has always enabled the opportunity to move between disciplines even so, while I was in product management for quite some time, uh ultimately, it was like, you know, I'd like to try and learn more of the business and somebody that um used to be at our company, I had talked to her, she had always done that and I really admired her drive in the sense of I wanna understand every part of the business because I wanna run my own business.

And so I thought, you know, that's a really interesting way of thinking about it. And with that, I decided to take into sales, which is completely different from product management, but it was a humongous learning experience, really appreciated the opportunity to do that. And the fact that the company um would trust me to do that coming in green and then had another opportunity to jump into marketing, which is where I'm still at. Um I've been in marketing since uh 2012, 2014, excuse me? And um have really learned a lot, a lot of it's on the job, but a lot of it's in training with looking at what is going on in the industry, looking for trends and trying to, um, figure out what's the next best thing that will make you, you know, stand out, whether it's the company you work for the, the, the, um, uh, various activities that you're in, uh, just really looking for that next learning opportunity in each case.

Cool. Wow. Quite a diverse career you've had over the last period of time and now for something completely different. Kylie, why don't you share with the audience how you got to where you are now?

I would be very happy to do that, Martha. And yeah, I've been feeling a little bit like which one of these things and not like the other here. Um So I actually started out my career in marketing. So my undergraduate degree and my postgrad are both in marketing and communications and started out the first half of my career, really working for agency and getting into growing and developing and leading client service teams and operations in an agency environment. And again, similar to what Theresa and Jane are both said a lot of it's about relationships and people you get to know and one of the partners I was working with in that agency left to become the CMO of a small tech start up that then got acquired by a rather large technology business.

And he brought me over to start working in this customer success function, which was quite new and interesting and gave me the opportunity to really learn and to grow. But to take sort of that client side um experience that I had that I loved helping clients be successful and also growing teams and people and bring that into a technology environment. So that was a big shift for me and um and a lot of learning associated with that, particularly when the acquisition took place. And we moved into this really large organization by comparison and then spent the next 10 years there growing and developing sort of myself my career um learning a lot about what I wanted to do in that space, which was a lot about learning the technology, understanding it and also um growing and developing teams in a global environment.

But again, it was about the people and the relationships and the people that I learned from and wanted to continue to learn from that brought me to Cali. And uh one of them is moderating our panel here. So that was a big part of the reason I moved over to, to join the Cali team here 18 months ago, with the opportunity again to, to work with an amazing group of people, to grow a team and to really help build an environment and programs where we were going to help our customers be successful.

Thank you, Kylie for both your the comments and for participation in the panel. Um You know, all of you have had substantial careers. Although Ashwini, you're still probably a little bit closer to the beginning of yours. And one of the most important things that anybody can do in a career trajectory is to understand perhaps what you would do differently. So, very traditional question, if you could give your younger self some advice, what would you have done differently? And let's go in reverse order. Kylie.

What do you think?

Oh, wow. I would love to have lots of time with my younger self. And I think probably the thing that I've learned the most, although as I said before, and I truly believe this, the relationships that you develop and build along the way in your career are so very important. Take the time to nurture them. You know, never think that you're a burden to anybody else. The relationships are usually and always mutual in terms of development. And that's where a lot of that growth and learning comes from. But I was fortunate enough in my career that through um change and through those relationships, my career had a path that was really, um it was, it was so it's been so rewarding, but I could have been more intentional and more directional about the decisions that I was making and really taking more of AAA front uh front of stage approach to my own career.

And that's something that I probably could have done better along the way. And also, you know, not be afraid to ask for things when you see opportunities come that um you're interested in, um you know, you need to put yourself front and center for that and to ask for the opportunity to and not to be shy about doing that is probably one of the biggest learnings that I've had.

Super.

Well. Your younger self would be highly educated based on that advice, Teresa. How about you? What would you do differently? What would you tell your younger

self? Well, so Kylie, I would take everything Kylie said and add one more thing to it. So, one of the things that happened to me over the career is there were a few opportunities that came up and sometimes you don't say yes to those because they seem like, oh my gosh, they're too risky. They're too, you know, what would, you know, at that moment, it didn't seem like the right thing to do. And then in hindsight, you look back on him, you go, gosh, I wish I'd done that or, you know, there's an opportunity to have uh expanded your growth in some way. Um So I would say, you know, what, if an opportunity comes up, it seems like it's a really good opportunity, really think it over and, and take that risk, be willing to take the risk because sometimes it can actually make a major difference.

You know, it brings to mind before we go to Jenna and Ashwini, the famous American poet, Robert Frost said, two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by and that's made all the difference. So it sounds to me like both of you would have advised your younger selves to seize opportunities even if the path wasn't completely clear at that point time. I think that's great advice. Gemma, what would you tell your younger self?

Um Actually, I would tell my younger self something that I discovered quite about midway through my career that I've already implemented, that has uh come back uh to help me in, in Spades. And that is make the time to engage and connect with your direct leader at least once a week, if not every other week because he or she, you know, you, you build that relationship, which is really important for your career to get that, that timely feedback on um you know, how you're performing or even where you want to grow.

Um Also you're building trust uh with your leader who that person can go out and be a sponsor for you and, or ally for you as you grow in the organization. Uh And uh you know, even if it's someone who is your current leader that you may have difficulty connecting with, then it's even more important for you to spend that time. And the reason why I say that is about midway through my career, I had one of those leaders who he intimidated me a little bit. Uh He was very, very hard to get time with and, and I up until that point in my career and even working for him, I never made the effort to make sure I connected with my, my leader um on that frequent basis. So then it came performance review time and I did not have to have a very good performance review. And I was quite surprised and disappointed and angry because of that. And lo and behold, and I really reflected on that. It was because we hadn't sat down and talked for six months. So, you know, we didn't even have a same set of understanding of what I needed to be doing and, and where I was going.

So I immediately took that and put that into action and every leader I've had since then, I have made the point to do that. And I will tell you that has been one of the biggest reasons why my career has moved in the way it has moved since then. And also how I felt like I'm in a little bit more control of my destiny being doing. Exactly. You know what I want to be doing in my career?

Great, super. So Ashwini, why don't you round us out? Um While you may be the youngest member of our panel, I'm sure there are things that you would do differently. What, what are those things?

Uh I, one of the key things that I can think of that, I wish I did uh over the last couple of years is reading more books, not just the books related to technology and engineering because I read a lot of books around that and news uh and tech blogs around that. But um these days, um what I'm realizing it and I'm trying to cultivate the habit uh uh habit of reading books uh from different domains like autobiographies or biographies of uh a great leaders um and pro books around um even, you know, audio books or podcast around uh learning about uh people management skills or product management skills and um and more, more or less.

Um I'm also because I'm in a combination of role today, both with engineering and a little bit of sales. It's important for me to learn a little bit more on sports. So I've started learning a bit more on about sports. That way I have something to talk about when I'm with a group of people, especially, you know, being around a group of men in general, it always comes up and I have no idea about sports and coming from a different part of the country, right? It's different here. So that's, those are some of the things that I'm um I wish I had done. But I'm trying often learn today. I

used to mentor young engineering women that if they commuted by car, spend 15 minutes listening to a recap of the sports news and then just start off with that at the beginning of a conversation because your colleagues will just take it from there and you don't have to fill in all of those gaps.

So, smart strategies about connecting with people, building relationships, communicating, taking a risk. Um I think all of those are really great uh messages to deliver and, and to live by today. So um especially change um taking a risk pivoting your career. If you and the audience are looking to make a change, we're hiring, please visit the callus booth during the conference to speak to one of our talent folks. We've got lots and lots of openings and we would enjoy having strong intelligent uh women as part of the Klis uh as part of the Klis family. So with that, I want to thank you all um Ashwini, Jenna, Teresa and Kylie for sharing your stories and your advice. Um And now I'll turn it back to Margo.

Wow. Thank you so much. All of you for being here. I like that. We started saying this is a powerhouse panel and we truly got that with all of your different experiences and live stories. So thank you all for being here. And Martha, I'll tell you too in the chat. We're seeing a few people saying, asking some questions of, hey, Ash, we please recommend um we're post a link. So a lot of people um saying, I think for your career, call out Kli um that, that you have some interest here from the audience, that one that was here today and enjoy the rest of your conference. Thank you everyone.