Um Up next, we have Shamina Abj. Shamina has a passion and purpose to help women transform their careers and emerge as leaders at work. And I know so many of us joining the conference today are here for the career Summit for this exact kind of reason.So Shamina, welcome to the stage.

I am so thrilled to be here, Margo. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I want to thank Anna and her entire team for putting together this conference. I I tell you, it's so important for us women to come together like this and create a rising tide that will lift all of us. So I begin with my thank yous to the organizers and to you, I then go thank you to everyone that is participating today. You are showing me that you want to invest in yourself and that you want to scale new heights. And for me, that means more than anything. My goal and mission in life is to create gender equality in leadership roles at all levels. And to see that you're interested in scaling new heights, you're investing time in yourself means everything to me. So thank you for joining me and I know you're here so you can learn something that you can start applying to your careers right away. You see, I went to many conferences. I grew up in technology and oftentimes I went, I had a great time but then when I came back, nose to the grind, doing the hard work and I didn't really change anything and when you don't change anything, nothing changes. So what I urge you to do is take one or two intentional strategies that I'm going to share with you today.

And

Shamina, I'm gonna, I'm gonna mention this too because you're, you're gonna tell us all these great strategies and I want to make sure that you have a chance to kind of share with the audience that this tidbit too, which is that Shamina actually has uh she's the author of a book that has these strategies in it too so we can have her drop it in the chat or share that later as well, but show your worth.

It's eight intentional strategies for women to emerge as leaders at work. And so, I mean, I also want to add that you have a really interesting story because you came from a small town in Tanzania that didn't even have education past 10th grade and you're here with us now. And I think that's part of your story that from your bio, you know, if people looked you up in advance or, or just so that they know because I think that would really resonate with so many people that you've really lifted yourself from this place into now a board member, a former IBMVP, an angel investor and a distinguished alumni.

And so just to set the stage for these tips that we're getting from you because I think that's so strong.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you Margo. And I wanted to spend less time talking about me and more time providing value to the audience. But it's really important, it's really important that women understand where I come from, right? As you said, small town, no education past 10th grade, no one in my family had a college degree. We had no money. So that's where I started. And obviously, as you heard, I ended as an author of a book that's being released by mcgraw Hill on June 21st. And it's gonna give you all the details of every intent, intentional strategy that I'm gonna talk about today. But I want to provide value in this talk. Obviously, you can go buy the book, apply those tactics. But today, if you listen to me and you take down some notes and you start changing the way you show up to work every day, it will start changing your career. It will start putting you on a fast track to achieve leadership roles because you know, we as women, especially women of color, we face unique obstacles and challenges in our workplace, everything from not seeing other women that look like us, from not seeing anyone in the leadership ranks that looks like us from navigating the negative stereotypes, the gender biases, whether they're conscious or unconscious, all this exists in our workplace.

And this is why the number of women in leadership roles today is not very high and together, especially, I'm very excited about this partnership because women tech is inspiring a a million women to enter the fields of technology and other related fields. And I am aspiring to create women leaders so we can have gender equality in leadership roles. So this partnership is truly made in heaven if there is such a thing in conferences. So, so let me let me share some intentional practices. And the reason I, I wrote this book is because when I started my career, I felt underrepresented, I felt under educated, I felt under experienced. And as Margot said, I first went to India to obtain a degree in mathematics. My desire was to lift myself and my family out of poverty. But after getting a degree in mathematics, I realized that was not going to cut it. So I came to the United States, I, I got a degree in computer science, but here's the thing. I was in a one year student work visa. And so when I graduated on dean's list, it was granted it was a small university, but I was on Dean's list. I had worked 35 to 40 hours a week while carrying a full computer science workload. And yet I couldn't get anyone to even interview me because I didn't have the right visa status.

I went to AC M which all of you are probably familiar with a conference where I handed out over 300 resumes and no one was willing to even spend five minutes with me. There was just one company eta systems that was a technology start up company. They interviewed me and they offered me a job. I was ecstatic. The $27,000 that they paid me a year was more money than my parents could make in 10 years. So I thought this was it. We are out of poverty. I am going to work hard and I am going to prove my worth. But when I went into work, I worked really hard on my project. But I started looking around and there was no one that looked like me. I looked in the leadership ranks. There was no one that looked like me. There was no one that spoke like me. There was no one that dressed like me. And they all had degrees from better ranked universities. They were all more experienced than I was, they were all more fluent and more articulate in English than I was. And I started telling myself what would I know that they don't already know what value was I going to contribute? My in my head, I started undermining my own capabilities and I started thinking, there's nothing I know that they don't already know my ideas don't really matter. And so what happened as a result of that, I was afraid to speak up in meetings.

So I would do a really good job on my project. I was a programmer. I did great work programming. But whenever we were in meetings or even in conversations, I never spoke up. Even when I had an idea, I just assumed that everyone knows everything I know. But here was the twist. If I couldn't contribute unique value and not just any value that anyone else could contribute. If I couldn't contribute unique value, then the company that had hi hired me on a, on a one year visa. Really by law, they were required to hire someone with the right status, the right visa and they would not extend my visa. My dream of lifting myself and my family out of poverty would be very short lived because going back to Tanzania in those days with a degree in computer science, there were no jobs. So here I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I was afraid to speak up. But if I didn't speak up and if I didn't contribute unique value, then that would end my dream. So I had to learn to overcome my fear and that's not the topic of today. But I have done a Ted X talk for anyone that is afraid to speak up in meetings because that's really the minimum requirement to face your fear, to overcome that fear of speaking up, to find your voice, to articulate ideas in a way that you are heard is minimum requirement for you to show your worth and scale new heights in your career.

So I was contributing at my maximum capacity. I went to work every single day after I overcame the fear. Of course, I leaned into my uniqueness and I contributed unique value every single day. I would be intentional about contributing unique value. Whether I was in a one on one conversation group, conversation meetings, executives. This was really hard, but I had to figure it out. And so do you. So that's the first intentional strategy is to contribute value, unique value at your maximum capacity every single day. When you show up to work, when you show up in a meeting, an important meeting with senior executives in any meetings. Actually, your voice must be a force in the room. When you speak up, learn to speak up in a way that there will be pindrop silence. And I teach all this in my book where people will listen to what you have to say, why? Because when you speak up, you are contributing value to advance the success of your entire team and your organization. OK. So that's the first intentional strategy. And I was doing really well with that, they extended my visa. That's why I'm here. But 3.5 years later, that company shut down, they ran out of money. And that's when I joined IBM, I did the same thing I showed up to work every single day, contributing unique value.

And when I moved from being a programmer to a systems engineer, that role of working with clients was more aligned with my innate strengths, my in innate strengths, building, relationships, solving problems, complex problems, et cetera. And that because of that, I won an award called the Rookie Systems Engineer of the year. And this was the second year that I was at IBM. As a result of that award, I was invited to a round table, a women's round table with our general manager of our midwestern region. Her name is Susan Whitney and I sat there in awe of all these high achievers, Susan, her dazzling diamond earrings and her purple dress and her grace and the way she just handled herself, I was in complete awe at the end of that women's roundtable. My boss's boss had asked me to walk Susan back to his office and that three minute walk changed my career trajectory. Susan first congratulated me. She said, congratulations Shamina for winning such a prestigious award. And I'm thinking, wow, this general manager actually knows my name.

I was just so happy and then just as casually as someone asks you about your restaurant preference. She says, where do you want to be in the next five years? And I looked at her and I said, I don't know. I had this glazed look in my eye and I said, Susan, I get so busy doing the best possible job that I can do in my current role that I don't think about where I wanna be in five years. And her response, listen to this carefully. This is an entire I've written about this in my book. Her response, she said it's really important that you do the best possible job in your current role. But it is equally important that you think about what you want to do next and next, where do you want to be in five years? This way, you're always working towards something bigger. So if you just apply the intentional strategy of contributing value, you do a great job, by the way, you will contribute more value than you ever thought was possible. You will get ranked very high on your team. You will get great performance reviews, but it doesn't guarantee moving up the career ladder. It doesn't guarantee scaling your career ladder. What does guarantee is the next strategy in that is called intentional growth.

I have an entire chapter in my book that talks about how do you intentionally grow, not just by stepping outside your comfort zone, which is an absolute must because if you don't step outside your comfort zone, you will never know what your capabilities are. You will never know what you are capable of until you step outside your comfort zone. And women remember when you step outside your comfort zone, there is no such thing as failure. I want you to from today, reframe the definition of failure. It's not about attaining a short term outcome, which is how we look at it. It is about growing your competence so you can contribute more value in the future your worth to your organization increases as you increase your competence. And the only way to grow your competence is to step outside your comfort zone. But it is also it is also to go into work every single day with the intention of growth. When you are having a conversation, it's a two way street. What you contribute and what you learn, what you contribute is your value, what you learn is your growth. So intentionally be looking for opportunities to grow every single day. I would observe how people talked. I would observe the language they used that was being heard by other people.

I would observe what character characteristics they had that made them such a great leader. And I would learn to become that person. I would grow my competence, not just my skills, but also my personal attributes every single day. And that's the second strategy. If you grow your confidence, your confidence in the way, you grow your confidence, by the way is when you grow your competence, you need to stop and reflect upon the growth you have achieved. You need to be sure of what your competence are. And then you also need to reflect the new competence that you learned. When you look back at who you were and who you have become. When you recognize your ability to learn new competence, it gives you the confidence to step further outside your comfort zone because you know, you will figure it out. You will ask for help if needed. But you must do that in order to build that confidence. Is that self trust of, I can figure this out, just put me wherever I need to go or I will put myself wherever I need to learn new competence. And I will figure it out. The last two strategies I'm gonna share with you. Frankly, I didn't know about this until after I became a first line manager. As soon as I became a first line manager, I learned the gravity of what people say about you. When you are not in the room, that is your personal brand, that is your reputation.

Every impression you leave behind in all your interactions is forming your personal brand. So you become very intentional about how you want to be known about how you want to show up about what you want people to say about you when you are not in the room. Now, listen, this is not about agonizing what people are gonna think this is about becoming the person. You want them to know you as this is authentic. This is real. This has to be you. You can't pretend to be someone you're not, that's exhausting and it won't work. But you can build yourself up to become someone. The person that you want to be known as in that room, your salary, increase your stock options, your rewards, whether you get the plum assignment or the next promotion. Every single thing depends on what people say about you when you are not in the room. So become very intentional about creating and sustaining a personal brand that serves you to scale new height, new heights. And what I recommend is start building a leadership brand. Look at the leadership attributes that you respect that you admire and learn to become that person. No one is is born a leader. People say, oh, you know, leaders are born. No, no. If you met me when I started my career, you would have never guessed that I was gonna become the leader. I became, I would have never guessed that I was gonna become the leader. I became.

So all of us have the capacity to become the we want to become. It's gonna be hard work, it takes time, it takes effort. But it is possible. And if we all do that, we will scale new heights in our careers, we will rise up to the top of our corporations, we will together create gender equality in leadership roles. The last strategy I want to share with you is who knows you. So the last one was how you're known. The next one is who knows you. And uh Debbie talked about relationships and that is what it's about. So when you are being discussed in the room, especially at a higher level, every executive role, because the stakes are very high as an executive, you are responsible for a large chunk of your corporation's business. And so they want to make sure that they hire the right person.

It almost always starts with maybe 10 people shortlists down to three people. Every single one of them can do the job. Every single one of them has a great leadership brand, but only one person gets the job and that person is whoever has a sponsor or more sponsors in that room, who in that room is going to put their credibility on the line for you. And why should they do this? The only way they will do it is because they have watched you, they have had experience with you, they have witnessed your leadership branding. They have witnessed the unique value you create, they have witnessed that you go outside your comfort zone that you take risks. You see opportunities when you do all this, then they know that they can bet on you then and only then will they put their credibility on the line for you. So you can get that role because you see when they sponsor you and you do well, that's a feather in their cap when they sponsor you and you don't do well, that impacts their credibility. So you have to give them a reason to sponsor you.

You have to earn their sponsorship by applying the other strategies that I already discussed. This creates an upward spiral for success. Your unique value contribution, combined with intentional growth, combined with your leadership branding, combined with your relationships.

All this helps you to get bigger and bigger roles with higher impact with higher influence. So you keep scaling the corporate letter and the more you rise, the more competence you will learn, the more relationships you will build, the more leadership brand you will create. And that is what creates an upward spiral. So with that, I'm gonna stop and we're almost out of time. But I will take a question or two. If there is time. Margot, I get excited about this. I can't hear you Margo, I think you're on mute.

Uh Yes, of course, we are. It had to happen one time in the three days that we were here, right? Perfect. Um Well, Gmina, thank you so much for being here and sharing that with us. You're right. We are like right at time, of course, as always happens when we have so many great insights to share in a short period of time. I will say though, while you were speaking there, you you delivered on what you said, which was clear points of things that we could take away and do. And I already was looping in my mind, how can I contribute more value? But also make sure I'm working towards something bigger in the future. Um And you know, you know, really quickly, one thing I was wondering for you because you gave this great advice of really knowing like, what do people say about you when you're not in the room? And what is that personal brand? Do you have a quick tip on? How do we find that out? If we're not sure what are the right people to ask to find out what it is that people are saying about us when we're not in the room.

You know, I've actually talked to my leaders as well as my trusted advisors to say, I'm, I'm working on building my personal brand. And when you think about me, what comes to your mind and they will share that with you and then you also become very transparent. You tell people, listen, I'm working on this leadership skill. If I mess up, can you please point that out? And they all understand because listen, Margo, no one was born with all the leadership skills and all the attributes we all have to work towards it. They will be happy to be your advisor, your council and say, yeah, you want to do this, you wanna speak effectively, but you were rambling in that meeting. So you might want to think about that,

right? That is a great tip to end us on here, Shamina. Thank you so much for all of your advice and insights today um and enjoy the rest of the conference.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.