Motivation to Speak at the Conference
Are you excited to speak at the Women in Tech Global Conference and what motivated you to join our community of 100,000 women in tech, minorities, and allies?
I am extremely excited to be bringing the lessons I've learned over the last few years to a broader audience outside of the small team of military women I was honored to walk alongside on this journey of learning to be the leader of my own life. I wanted to join this particular community to share this message with this diverse audience who I know are pulled in too many directions and have to juggle competing priorities, and who work in a fast-paced world of tech and may often find themselves moving full steam ahead on initiatives before they gave it enough thought to identify whether or not it is what they truly want for themselves.
Background and Inspiration
Share with us about your background, your journey in tech, and what inspired you to develop your career in this direction?
My journey in tech started out right out of college, when I entered the Air Force and was assigned to work in the IT career field. For 20 years I led teams of people through a multitude of assignments and roles, from network management, to coordinating and establishing bare base networks (satellites, radios, unclassified and classified networks, phones, civil engineering, power, HVAC, etc) for combat troops in the middle of nowhere, to defensive and offensive cyber operations combining cyber plus intellligence plus information warfare operations. This journey has largely not been by my own design, until I decided to make a move to the corporate sector and took on a role at JP Morgan Chase, where I provide security-related support to product development teams to ensure risk to the firm is mitigated to the maximum extent possible. I've seen evidence over the years that when sharing your story, it will land with those who need to hear it, and it might surprise you who all need to hear it and how helpful it can be to be transparent, from a professional and personal perspective.
Why is the topic “Lead Your Life: 3 Steps to Implement Today to Start Leading Your Most Satisfying Life” important to you?
This topic has influenced me personally and professionally in several ways. It has helped me refine my own idea for my life and craft a vision of future opportunities I'd like to explore and also learn to say 'no' to things that are not in alignment with my values, to help me live a life I find most fulfilling.
Who would you advise to attend the Women in Tech Global Conference and why?
Anyone who is pulled in a dozen different directions every day or who has been continually putting themselves on the back-burner to care for others. This would also be applicable for anyone who has been floating along in life and/or their career as a bystander, accepting circumstances and/or opportunities as they were presented to them, with no real clear vision for what it is they truly want for themselves.