 Hey, everyone, welcome to the AWS Women of the Cloud spotlighting Dow Jensen in honor of AAPI Heritage Month. Dow, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for joining me today. Great to see you again, Lisa. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So talk to us a little bit about you and your company. You and I go way back, but give the audience an overview a little bit about you and your current role. Sure. So I'm actually a Vietnamese refugee from a child of the Vietnam War who was raised in Minnesota by entrepreneurial parents. My parents owned and managed several restaurants, then saved a lot of money after working in a factory at night for their seven children. I've always been inspired to achieve great things, and I became the first Asian female to be voted as the youth governor of the state of Minnesota when I was 17. But later in the life, I actually became a teenage pregnant statistic with my first child at the age of 19. After launching Oak Racket, I had it, well, before launching Oak Racket, I had a successful career in sales at large organizations and corporations internationally. Today, I'm a single mother of four and a passionate community advocate. In 2013, I founded Oak Racket, formerly known as Kaizen Technology Partners, as the first West Coast female minority-owned corporation in the cloud for AWS. Of the 9,000 partners out there, my understanding is there's only six female-owned companies out there in the US for AWS. Some of our current and past marquee clients include Jackson Hewitt, Gainsight, Solar City, Jimbrie, and NASDAQ. Excellent customer names. I can't believe there's only six out of all those thousands, but you clearly have entrepreneurship in your DNA. Talk to us a little bit about, for others, maybe peers of yours or those might be a little bit behind you, tactical recommendations that you have for those that are looking to really grow their careers in tech. Yeah, I think it's really important to have strong relationships. And when I mean that, I mean, you need to have champions, advocates, sponsors. They're all three different things. And maybe several of them. And stay up-to-date on industry trends and cross-disciplinary overlaps. I think it's important when you're in cloud, you're not just learning about cloud, but you understand data than a world. You understand the software world and you understand how they all interact together. And also network with professionals by attending industry events to be able to keep up, maybe not every year, but at least every other year about what's going on. I also think it's important to invest in your career development, not just by learning sales or training on just technology, but finding mentors who you admire, continuously learning at prestigious organizations and learning facilities that help your niche or can augment your business skillset. For example, I just finished my four years at Harvard for an executive program with an alumni status with a bunch of CEOs from around the world with 51 countries represented. Things that I did not expect to get out of that scene, that global view from others those and how they think was very helpful in how I talk to people today about business. And then I think, you know, establish yourself as a thought leader by focusing on building a strong personal brand. I think it's very important with social media and other online platforms to showcase your expertise. You don't need to say things once, you need to say them five to 10 times before people remember you. Great recommendations. Speaking of successes, like you talked about some of the successes that you've had, give us some specific examples of success stories where you've really helped solve problems related to cloud computing for your customers. Yeah, so there are some we can't name obviously because of NDAs and large corporations, but for example, MetalPay, which is a crypto company, we helped them expand their AWS services and regions to reach larger crypto audience in the EU. They utilized automation and micro services to create a secure and agile platform that meets the needs of the dynamic market. GainCite, which is actually the number one workplace to work in the Bay Area, work with OathRocket to collaborate to implement a successful cloud cost optimization program resulting in consistent savings that we're investing into additional services, such as RDS. OakRocket expertly negotiated with them for twice in a row, EDPs for non-traditional clients and ensuring their growth and expectations are met while keeping their AWS percentage comfortable and manageable. Nice, it must be fun to have a deep pocket full of success stories and you got to pick and choose which ones you want to talk about. Let's kind of change the subject now a little bit. You give us a great overview of your background and some of the challenges that your family faced, that you faced as well, but also a lot of the successes. When we look at diversity, inclusion, equity in tech today, what are some of the challenges that you see that are still there? A lot of people have been talking about DNI and I think the largest biggest initial in DNI that's important is inclusion, right? Being a YPO member with the largest CEO network in the world as well, we have found that just because you bring in the only black person, CEO or female, if they don't feel included, they're not gonna stay. They're not gonna perform at that highest level. So in the tech industry, I think we have a significant lack of representation for women, especially in particular positions like the executive suite. We might find them in HR, we might find them in customer service, but it results in a lot of lack of diversity of ideas and perspectives, as well as the inclusion for them of feeling like they're not the only ones. Ultimately, that hinders the innovation and global economic distribution of the world because women are the ones who take care of their families and the next generation in many cases. And we need to, however, be able to implement these initiatives by mentorship programs, executive succession. You do not know the number of times I've gone out there to men who say they're DEI, and I ask them how many of you are prepping a woman to replace your role? Very few, right? And yes, they still have to be able to get there, but I think there's very few people like Kerry Siggings out there who's running a multi-billion dollar company with ESOP that has been told they are going to be in the stage of having a succession plan and five years later, become CEO. It's crucial for us to get equality and have this industry thrive is to allow equity to occur, and not just diversity and a number of quote-account. Absolutely. I love that you talked about a succession plan. That's definitely something that is interesting and something that needs to have focus on that. Chypnikers, again, let's talk about all the things that you've seen in cloud over the last years. How do you see your role evolving at Oak Rocket in the industry overall? Yeah, I think the industry is going through a significant transformation in embracing hybrid and multi-cloud environments, serverless computing and edge computing. I think as a woman CEO, I'm committed to leading with innovation and the inclusivity as we talked about, not just diversity and equity and a clear vision for the future of our company and the industry. I think that when we give examples of a clear vision and we help women raise up and train themselves into the market, especially in third world countries, there's going to be some big announcements coming up in the next 12 to 24 months that Amazon and us and some of our partners will be doing to help train those in a very low-income third-party world that need to get training into tech because it's one of the few only industries that allow you to be successful and sustainable without having to marry into money. I love the focus that you guys have on really digging deep and helping women and underrepresented minorities. We're definitely going to keep our eyes on Oak Rock and see what you guys have there coming up. Let's, we look at some of the last few years have been very challenging, like lots of changes. What are some of, if we look at the last five years, what are some of the biggest changes in the tech workforce and in innovation that you've observed? Yeah, so look at it. Artificial intelligence is not something new. Like chat GT doesn't, isn't something new. We've been working on AI and ML for quite a long time, but I think what's innovating is happening is these technologies are becoming available to the common day-to-day person who doesn't necessarily have tech available to them or think about tech in their day-to-day, right? AI is now a word because everyone can see it on their phone and use it in a day-to-day perspective. So these technologies are revolutionizing the world and they're now becoming integral in our day-to-day life. And I think that's what's been different in terms of innovation, in terms of Uber and other things that are out there. I think furthermore, remote work and collaborative tools have become increasingly prevalent and offering a lot more flexibility and efficiency in the workforce. Yeah, some positive changes that we've seen the last few years for sure. You talked about some of the things that you're focused on, that Oak Rocket is focused on in terms of efforts to really reach out to third world countries and give underrepresented groups access to technology. But are there other efforts that you observe that you think are really prime to bring more women and underrepresented groups into tech? I think hugely the most important is education and championing scholarship that people... If I was born in Vietnam still and not left, I don't think I would be where I am today. I think the world is so small and can be so small in so many ways that someone from Nigeria I can have a Harvard education from Nigeria and be able to learn it as long as they have internet, right? And they have the time that helps them be able to learn and participate. So I think workshops that focus on getting to third world country and be able to teach people technology in a way that they can evolve and not just have to do engineering and math, right? And not everyone is that. I'm a person by heart with finance and I'm considered a tech person. I didn't even know what Java was when I first started in Sun Microsystems or who Sun was. So I think just education and broadening people's minds is the biggest thing we can do to help underrepresented groups and give them opportunities to slowly grow into the tech world and give them a competitive advantage even if it means selling with technology, crafts of their own work in South Africa but they can get to the world by selling those technology, their products. Talk about some of the impacts that you've seen with higher education programs and networks like YPO on really opening doors to new opportunities in tech. Yeah, you know, you and I have known each other for over 10 years now and even in the last five, it's changed so much. Just me looking and understanding that your network is really your network. The people you know, it's not about who knows you. You know, it's not about who you know, I'm sorry. It's about who knows you. They know you to call you and invite you to be on the board. They call you and invite you to have an opportunity to apply for an RFP. The Harvard CEO program and YPO are two highly regarded organizations that have amazing executives who want to help others out in a good way and be able to help that their network succeed across the board and not just look at their own tunnel vision of their own success. I think making valuable connections and influences such as Will I Am and the Black Eyed Peas with his new tech startup called FYI, Mike Tyson, Basim Yusef, and others who knew I would be in the entertainment industry before Harvard. So YPO is a really digital network with members from over 140 countries who run companies employing 22 million people generating over $9 trillion in GDP. Those are the type of things that as you slowly climb up people need to achieve and try to be part of. I love how you said your network is your net worth. I don't think that's outstanding and that's something that everybody, regardless of group you're in, age, needs to really recognize the value in that. And I think fostering that, you mentioned relationships earlier, that's just invaluable advice. I'd love to finish with a question to you. What would you say to Yang Dao way back in the day you talked about your history, your heritage, but what advice would you give Yang Dao today? You know, sometimes ignorance is good. The Yang Dao, we had no idea her mother and father did not want her to run for youth governor and tried to get her to quit by going where her house represents. The Yang Dao actually did not apply to Harvard and wanted to when she was 17 and felt that she wasn't worthy enough even though she sat on the board of the YMCA, was youth governor and had straight A's. So nothing, things happened for a reason in particular and I think that we are our worst enemies from our opinion and our belief of what we can and do and can't do. Sure, I went back to Harvard in my 40s and it probably was even more valuable than going to Harvard in my 20s meeting people that are actually already successful. But the Yang Dao should have just really said, I'm gonna go for it all. I'm not letting myself be in my way. I need people around me that are gonna champion me and push me even today. I wouldn't have started this company without a bunch of great men who believe that I could own and run a business 12 years ago. So having the people around you, like I said, the network, your worth itself even, people say, your median net worth from a financial perspective is being around people who are financially savvy and you're the average of those seven people around you. So don't let yourself get in the way, live a life you love powerfully in a one you love, don't mind going against the mainstream and inspire others to live the same way. I love that, inspiring others. Wouldn't it be great if way back in the day we actually had the foresight, if only. Dao, thank you so much for joining us on this great program, AWS Women of the Cloud, talking about your background, what Oak Rocket is doing. We're definitely gonna be keeping our eyes on that space to see how you guys are making an impact. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Lisa. We wanna thank you for watching. This is AWS Women of the Cloud. We've been spotlighting Dao Jensen in honor of AAPI Heritage Month. Thanks for watching.