And welcome ladies. I will give it another minute or so. Uh So we can have some more attendees join us this evening. Counting down another 30 seconds before I get started. Looks like we're getting a little bit of a quorum here. I'll give it another couple of seconds.All righty getting started here. Hello, everyone. My name is Stephanie Khan. I am currently the Director of Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics at Ups United Parcel Services. Um Grateful to be here with you this evening. I realize that may be a little later in the day for some of you are well into the night. So thank you so much for taking the time to join us all at the women in tech conference here. The last couple of weeks, I've been pondering, what message can I convey? That's really gonna leave an impact in all of you as female leaders and potential leaders in the room, virtual room today. And you know, to be honest and reflecting on what I can share. It's really not about my wins and my personal successes that have crafted me into the leader that I am today, but it's more so the challenges and those rough times and those barriers that I've had to jump over, that's taught me to be a better leader. So instead of telling my story, I'm gonna talk you through some of the challenges that I faced throughout my career.

The key points of almost inflection points throughout my life that forced me to go above and beyond um my comfort level and really think about how to overcome them as well as the lessons I learned retrospectively and in hopes that really I can make an impact to at least one of you today in, in sharing those challenges and those barriers and, and thank you, I'm, I'm seeing the quorum grow over time.

Um So hopefully, uh we get some more participants in. But if you missed anything, please, you can uh revisit the women tech conference site uh and watch the, the recorded sessions after the fact as well. All righty. So I wanna start off talking about knowing your worth, knowing what you deserve, demanding it and asking for it. Uh really early on in my career, I'm gonna take you back quite a few years. Um I was fresh out of school. I had just graduated with my MB A at 22 years old. So very fresh, very eager, very hungry to work, hard to be dedicated to be loyal um to uh to a company that I was working for and I started out in health care. Um spent a couple of years, 67 years in, in the health care field. And I was giving it my all, I was so fresh and so new and it's important for me to put the best foot forward. Um Now as the years passed, I was working weekends, I was working late hours. I was really transforming the way that that organization um was not only consuming data but was also was also um thinking about how we modernized that that viewpoint for the leaders, for the board members um as well as the experience layering in things like automation and such, there wasn't so much manual dependencies.

I spent a number of years, maybe four years going on five years working weekends, I extra long hours delivering um on projects far beyond any expectations. In fact, the the the big boss at the time would refer to me as her golden child. So I thought I was doing all the right things now, four years, five years had gone by and I hadn't gotten a promotion. And I, I thought that I would keep working hard and eventually that promotion would come one day, a male counterpart was promoted. And I remember thinking about all of the different feelings, of course, and thoughts assessing the fact that he didn't have the credentials that I had, he didn't have the background or experience that I had. And as you can imagine, I was betrayed, I felt disappointed, sad anger, the whole nine yards of emotion. Um And I remember going home that day, I, I didn't say anything to anyone kinda going home in my own feelings. Um, and trying to think about how am I gonna digest this and, uh went to bed that night feeling relatively sad. Um The very next day, however, woke up with sort of a flare or what I would call a fire under me that I was going to approach the vice president and, and really, you know, pose my case, tell her how I felt about this promotion of, of the male colleague in comparison to myself.

And I sure enough got to work bright and early, went right to her office. I, I remember this, this moment as if it was yesterday, knocked on her office door and asked her if she had a couple of minutes to chat and uh I walked in, closed the door behind me. I remember my palms being so sweaty because I was so nervous. And uh at that very moment, I felt very empowered because I felt like I had done all the right things to deserve that promotion. I wasn't given it. And I wanted to understand what the justification for that was. So I laid my case out. I, I conveyed exactly how I felt and uh the fact that I had worked as hard as I had and was as dedicated as I was. And we were both silent for a moment, it, it may have been a mere maybe 8 to 10 seconds, but it felt like five minutes going by waiting for her to respond. And to my dismay, her response was you absolutely deserve a promotion. And I was shocked, shocked. And within a week I received not only a substantial pay raise but also a promotion.

And uh while I was happy in the moment, it was one of the biggest lessons that I learned for myself so many years ago that I, in order for us as women, as the minority, especially in the tech industry, it's important for us to not only stand up for what we deserve, but demand it.

And the fact that there was no hesitation to awarding me what I deserved. Uh In retrospect, made me feel like, wow, they could have given me that without me getting to that moment where I said I'm done, I'm not doing this anymore unless you give me what I deserve. And it shouldn't have taken that right. But these are the kinds of things that we as women go through that for me was one of the things that truly empowered me to stand up for myself and demand what I deserved. And I wasn't standing uh I wasn't standing back for it because I knew that at that time, I was under appreciated. They knew the professional value that I was giving. Uh having been coined uh This individual's golden child is what she would refer to me as I could have justly um showed their appreciation and the fact that I was valued at that organization. So, one of my biggest lessons to learn that I really, really to share. And hopefully, uh you know, can really speak to some of you when it, when you think about those feelings that you have or may have towards barriers or challenges or not getting that promotion, for example, that, you know, you deserve standing up for yourself and, and really, um putting your name where it should be moving right along.

I, I another scenario that I want to share, um was when I was told that I was unapproachable and, you know, I was raised in a way to always put my best foot forward, always look my best, always dress for the job that I wanted. Um And often to this day, I'm told that I'm overdressed. I'm told that I'm overly assertive that I'm opinionated that I'm direct and, and so in some ways can be translated as unapproachable. Now, a couple of months into my first job as a manager, I was working for a very large retail company at the time. Um I remember getting my very first uh review annual review and I knew that I was knocking it out of the ballpark because our revenues were going up. Our ro I was finally traceable. There was a lot level of marketing automation that was bringing to the team. So I knew that I was doing exactly what I need to do and the feedback that I got was positive. But that end note that the my boss at the time gave me was that I was unapproachable. And I thought about what did that mean? Right. Like a point of self reflection, self observation of demeanor, thinking about communication style. And uh yes, I can be a very assertive that is who I am and who I've always been uh both in a professional as well as a personal capacity.

And sometimes it takes down um takes at levels for people to get used to me, for me to get comfortable, for them to really see the the side of me that is far more approachable. And this was one of the scenarios where I didn't quite like the feedback. But upon self reflection, I knew it was something that I had to course correct. I started to really paying attention to my body language. I started paying attention to my communication style. And I realized in order to drive change and transformation innovation, all the things that I've, I've built my entire career on. I have to be direct and I have to be assertive. However, the, the challenge that we have as women uh uh uh in comparison to our counterparts is that the men in the room who are just as direct, just as assertive, if not more than us are never told that they're approachable. In fact, that's what's expected of them and oops, my office lights just went out. Um But going back to my earlier point here, the men in the room just as direct, just as a sort of, if not more so than I am. We're not being asked to be more approachable. So I thought about it for a second and I, and I decided at that point to take this as constructive feedback. And I si attempted to tweak my approach and to be honest, it's worked.

It's been almost 10 years since that conversation uh with that boss at that time. And it's worked, I've learned to be a little warmer. I've learned to tweak my approach ever so slightly, still be or direct, still be assertive but be more relatable as well as learning to no, but say no with a smile, build friendships, build relationships, build connections with people outside of your obedient purview, with leaders, with peers.

Um So they not only value my perspective and see the value that I have and why I may have such a strong stance, but they'll understand the why behind it. And the lesson learned here in that particular scenario was that I bring something unique to the table. And so do all of you. We are still the the minority um in the room. And I've, I've been in my career now going on 17 years and we are still the minority in the room and, and while more recent statistics say that one in every four tech leaders are women and often treated as a positive thing. Um It's not, we have a long way to go in order to really, really uh make our footprint in the world, especially within the tech field. Um And that leads me to my last point being a woman in a male dominated industry, it's been like I mentioned an ongoing challenge. Um But you know, like I mentioned, we all bring something very unique to the table. I am a millennial. I'm Asian. I'm a woman. I check a lot of those diversity but buckets uh especially on those job applications. I check quite a few of those on top of that, I have a very large personality and fashion forward. I'm outspoken, also bubbly, also charismatic.

Um and there's a level of diversity that certainly makes me stand out above the rest. Now, what I have learned however is that you have to put that into your own individual advantage. And I tell a lot of individuals, especially young women, this exact thing figure out what makes you unique. What do you bring to the table that is unique and make that work for you. Sometimes it is an uphill battle. I can attest to that. And oftentimes I'm out, I'm outnumbered in leadership meetings and stakeholder meetings and board meetings, not only in head count but also in opinion and perspective. And yes, it can be intimidating, but you will build your confidence over time as you learn to stand up for yourself, as you learn to do that self reflection and be able to take in pro uh hopefully productive feedback or, or constructive feedback um and be able to continue to iterate on yourself until you get to a point where you know exactly who you are, you know exactly what you stand for and you can make a difference where it won't be intimidating.

Lessons learned for me is really using my unique edge to stand out. Yes, I'm diverse. I have a diverse background. I have a tremendous amount of diverse experience. I have had the honor of working in a number of different industries. Gave me quite a bit of perspective. I've worked in traditional it roles. I've sat on the business side. I've had exposure to marketing, to finance. The list goes on and on and on. But what that has done is created diversity in my way of thought in my way of execution. In my approach to transformation. I'm able to bring something to the table, not only um from a per perspective standpoint, but also from a personality standpoint. And like I mentioned before, my advice to you is to use what makes you unique to your advantage challenge the status quo. This is something that I tell my teams all the time just because we've been doing something for the last 10 years. And just because it works, doesn't mean there isn't a better way, there is always opportunity to become more efficient, to become more optimized to introduce new new technology. And especially in the world of tech, as we all know, the world changes and evolves every single day, the minute that you become comfortable with a new technology, something new comes out and you gotta learn and start all over again.

We're all seeing that through the lens of A I right now. Um especially tech leaders right now, how do we use, protect our world against A I? But also use and optimize it to our advantage. This is something that we have to continue to transform ourselves. Not only from an experience standpoint, not only from a background standpoint, but also involve ourselves as a whole. And while we continue to be outnumbered by our male counterparts, don't, don't use that um as a barrier, don't think about it as a glass ceiling, pretend that glass ceiling doesn't exist a couple of years ago when I first started doing these talks, I coined the term be the pink in a sea of gray.

And that that term was literally born as I was speaking to some middle school students actually in, in Raleigh, North Carolina. And what that means to me and what I want that to mean to you is don't be afraid to stand out just because everyone else may look exactly the same may sound exactly the same. They all have that same perspective. If you know, based on your experience, based on your perspective that there is a better way. Don't be afraid to stand out, be the pink in a sea of gray and have that unique edge. Now, I'm, I'm seeing the timer here. I've got a couple of minutes, so I wanted to get some key messaging across to you as I leave you today. Um There's a number of really great sessions. So I hope that you're all enjoying it. Last message I wanna leave with you is don't take your bad experiences as failure. There's so many times throughout my career that I could have come to a halt where I could have bowed out or bowed down or um not try to continue to progress. Instead, my suggestion is take all of these as opportunities to learn to grow, to make yourself better. It's only through these experiences, whether good, whether bad, whether fantastic that you can learn and make yourself better. Don't be afraid to fall, don't be afraid to fail.

It's all about how quickly you'll recover, how quickly you'll be able to regain your balance to continue that step in that progression for yourself and lastly stand up for yourself, know your worth, but be yourself. Don't try to be something that you're not. I challenge each and every one of you. When you go home today, look yourself in the mirror and see all of you, the good, the bad, the different, the unique embrace it. I encourage you to accept it, love it and use it towards your advantage and also extend the appreciation to each other. Us as women, we have to uphold our own people. There is so much value in having diversified females across the board. Let's continue to uphold each other. Um And dare to dream, challenge yourself, challenge each other. Bring other women along for the ride with you, even if your ride is a bumpy one, like mine has been continue to tell our story. So that way the people that are growing, especially the youngsters in today's in today's world um that are exposed to so much, they'll understand the story, the struggle and they'll be, they'll be motivated by all of it. So thank you so much for the time. Just be yourself. Thank you so much.