Nicole Scheffler has been a Tech Diva for almost 20 years professionally and considers herself a technologist committed to sparking success for women in tech by leading and serving. By day, she is Director at Palo Alto Networks. At night, she puts on her cape to help spark success for superwomen in technology careers.
Nicole founded the Tech Diva Success podcast designed to offer more diverse perspectives that all help ignite a real excitement for a career in tech. She speaks often on this topic as a certified Success coach and offers goal-setting courses.
Especially for the WomenTech Network, Nicole agreed to give an interview and share her story.
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Congratulations on winning a WomenTech Network Speaker the Year Award! How did it feel when you found out you had won?
I have really enjoyed the programming of Women Tech Net events and community as an attendee, speaker, and even an Emcee. Over the past few years, it has been great to meet so many amazing humans! It was an honor to be nominated in two categories, but I am grateful to have been selected for my speaking. I made a huge goal to step into the global speaker stage to promote my mission to spark tech diva success. When I realized I won, I felt so happy to have accomplished my goal to speak up for women in tech, but most of all to speak to them and inspire them to be their best selves!
Tell us about your background, journey in tech, and what inspired you to develop your career in this direction.
I have about a 20-year career in tech, encouraged from my early years as a vinyl DJ. I started as a programmer working in both startups and corporate America, move to spend most of my career in network infrastructure and security, and now both of those are coming together as the connectivity and technology have come so far. My journey has been focused on learning and serving mixed with moving to roles I was passionate about. It is important to find people, companies, and projects that bring you joy. I have also loved my time serving the community and teaching at the college level. I love helping people learn as much as I love learning. I embraced more security-related topics for teaching and still stand by that being a high-demand field in technology to pursue a career. My career journey is a build upon what I have learned, mastered, and where I see the digital world headed. It is fun to follow the hype cycle of technologies and my hope is that in some small way we can make the world a better place with it.
Any advice you would like to give to girls in STEM on pursuing their dreams?
Dream big! Write down your goals, share them with someone, and check in on your progress. Even one small step towards big goals on a daily basis can change your life. This type of work and your mindset can help accelerate your own success and bring you more career joy.
