 Welcome to theCUBE's coverage of Women in Tech, International Women's Day 2022. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Karla Wong joins me next, country sales leader for the commercial sector in Peru at AWS. Karla, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you so much, Lisa, and thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you today. I'm looking forward to chatting with you. You've been in the tech industry for more than 20 years. You've been a leader in tech and sales and customer service, partners, organizations. Talk to me a little bit about your background. I am a system engineer. I have some studies from enterprise direction with a university in Las Havana, Colombia. And I have a certified digital transformation certified with MIT in Boston. Fantastic. Were you always interested in technology or STEM or was it something that you pivoted into somewhere during your career? Yes, you know, since I was a little, I was just fascinated with the technology and all the time I was just trying to figure out how to do things and how to build that things. And I remember once I was just, of course, many time ago, I was with this VHS, right? Equipment and I tried to do and tried to understand how it works and just figure out, I was with many parts of that equipment and then I didn't realize how to join that part. But it was really funny because all the time I was trying to understand what is behind that kind of equipment, how this works. And all the time I was asking and my dad said, I was just feeling so curiosity about that and asking many questions. And I have uncles that they are engineers. So I was just all the time asking about that. And they said, you know what, you're good at math. Maybe you can just decide for an engineering career. They were encouraged me for doing that. So I guess that was my first clue that I'm interested in technology. Well, you sounds like you have a natural curiosity that you had great role models in your parents and probably others along your educational route and your career route that kind of encouraged that curiosity. And being curious is one of the things that's important to being at AWS, am I right? Yes, it's really important because we promote, you know, our one of the main leadership principles you read is learn and be curious. And they promote that one, right? They are encouraging you to innovate, to learn more, to try to understand more about our solutions, our customers, how to make the things better. And you have the space to propose new things, to do the things better. So they encourage you, they empower you to do that. And you feel like your curiosity that you have very natural, here's improved. And they just promote that you continue to do that. That curiosity is so important. I mean, when we think about women in technology and we think about bringing in more thought diversity and DEI, it's important to be curious, to be able to bring different thoughts in so that the organization can be more well-rounded, it can learn. You also not only do you lead the sales organization, but you are someone that's very actively active and volunteering. Tell me a little bit about that. And how do you balance leading a sales organization and volunteering at the same time? You know, when you talk about it, this is more like work-life balance, right? And when you talk about that, you can feel like you need it, right? You need to work on that. It's more like, it's extremely important to think about mental health for everyone, because that of course have impact in your physical health. And when you talk about this, it's not only matter in terms of attitude, it's action and disciplines as well. And you have to keep in mind that. The first thing I believe and all the time I do it, give the right value for this balance. Because it's something that a lot of people want more than anything. And I have more than some professional decision thinking about this precisely. And I have to think in a way as a person, my family, how to help the community. And you cannot imagine the impact when you decide to go for a volunteering activities, how can benefit you? In not only the personal way, in your professional way, even though you didn't start volunteering, trying to figure out how this helped you in your professional life, you receive a lot of benefits from the volunteering activities. And it's amazing how that one's impacting your professional life also. When you are a volunteer, you'll receive new and meaningful experiences. Volunteering can be an excellent getaway to find unique and valuable experiences that you are very difficult to find in a daily basis, right? And do develop your real life skills, openness to circumstances, responsibility, humility, commitment, service, attitude, many things that you keep proactively, including your job with your team and you can join with them in teamwork and try to figure out how to engage with them in your activities. This is another way to motivate your team, to build your team, right? Talking with these very valuable experiences. And also, I find out that that improves your health and moves. We talk a few, I'm sorry. It's another complimentary, the volunteer work with leading the sales organization that there's so much value that you're bringing into your sales leadership role from the volunteering that you do. I'm just curious, can you describe some of the volunteer organizations that you work with? I think it's pretty impressive. Yes, I started my volunteer 14 years ago, I guess, but I was in the volunteer activities from the school and my dad was a really strong influence for that because I joined, I remember joining with him and go to do some volunteering activities that he led. And I started 14 years ago with Operation Smile in Peru. And then in the last two or three years, I started with Project of Love. We are focused on kids with cancer and try to help them to build the last wishes they have because they passed away. And at the end of these two years ago, I started with local activity that we do for patients with rare diseases. And we just try to join two great passions that I have. One is the dance that we have here. The name of our national dance is Marina Nortena. And we are just doing this with a group that they are passionate at the same time with this volunteering activities and the dance. And we just trying to be the ambassador for and the boys for these patients, try to share with the community the hard path journey they have trying to obtain a fair treatment, a fair diagnostic because they are rare disease. And here is very difficult that they investigate about that. So that's why we are just doing this using dance as a way to broadcast our boys and just share happiness and hope and health. Happiness and hope, those are two great things. So as the female leader in the tech industry, what are some of the main challenges that you have found regarding cultural aspects, regarding geographical aspects and Leitam? Talk to me about some of those challenges. Let me share with you my personal journey. My challenges started with the moment I decided to study engineering, a career that is traditional considered for men only. Although this changes over the time, you will realize that the stereotype remains in many people's minds, right? It happens not only in Peru, I can see it in Latin America. Someone once asked me if I wouldn't like to study something easier for a woman, right? And I just, when I received that question, that helped me to reaffirm that it wasn't taking the right decision. And I have the fortune to work with companies that believe in female leadership and the importance of our contribution and empower me to do things differently. Although I must confess that this was not always like this. I experienced the situation when I have to show that I'm so much more capable and prepared than a man to take a major challenge. So despite the fact in the recent years, you have the great advances in integration of women in the field of science and technology, the gap in equality in the sector still continues. And many times the attitude towards women is discriminatory. Considering that we don't have enough knowledge and we don't have enough strength to overcome challenge without the ability to give the extra mile that is often required or simply because of a gender issue. In general speaking, opportunities that they're not equal. Neither in salaries, several studies have revealed that in the same position, since at position level within company, men's salary or benefits are higher than the woman. In addition, sometimes the position for a woman is not necessarily for merit. It's just to fulfill gender quota. And when it's fulfilled, there's no more opportunities. So it's still a long way to go. We are working in that. We are trying to inspire more women to be part of this world. This is an amazing world. And this world needs our leadership, judgment and vision as a woman. So that's why we try to inspire and try to be a role model for some young ladies that they are thinking about this career and technology. Right, you bring up a great point though about one of the things in terms of hiring for quotas. And as we think about this International Women's Day, this year's theme is breaking the bias. Where do you think we are with that? I think we have a long, long way to go. Today we don't see that we have, we have more women in some leadership roles and technology. We see more young ladies studying engineering. But you know what, when you talk about stereotypes, we need to understand or the bias. The bias is not only what the society is giving you, it's also your own bias. Because we need to understand that technology careers is not only for men, it's also for a woman. And we need to understand and change the perspective that we see the challenges that we have in our life. Because sometimes that could be a really stopper in your professional life. And for me, we really need to understand that it's important we cannot stop believing in ourselves. And we can achieve whatever we want. So we never stop pursuing our goals and achieve what you really need to achieve. And as I said all the time, get inspired by women with great achievement who have changed this world of technology. We have many examples of that for many years. We have Eva Maria Keisler, the Co-Inventor of Wi-Fi, Radia Joe Perlman, know that the mother of the internet and Ada Lovelace, who became the first female computer programmer. So we have many examples in the story to understand that the limit is on you. So the bias we need to break the first one in the bias that you have of yourself. That's a good point. That's a really good point there. Well, I'm curious, what would your recommendation be? You obviously had that natural curiosity that we talked about. You also seems like you had great parents who were very encouraging of all of the different things that you were interested in. What do you recommend for women maybe starting out in the STEM area or in tech in particular? How do they get that courage to just try? You know what? The main thing, I guess, as I mentioned before is to put aside the stereotypes, right? And get out of your head, the standard career like science, technology, and engineering is only for men. All the time I have this list for me that is lesson learned. And my lesson learned is, please, don't think that you cannot do it. Try it. If you go and the thing is not well, try it again. And try it again. So don't feel stopped because you've faced your first challenge. In the challenge, it's very difficult because we have the courage to do that. You know what? It is very interesting to understand that women has resilience. We have the courage to do anything. We're multitasking all the time they said. Women can do many things at the same time. And we have this particular way to communicate. We are very inclusive. We made empathy. We're just leading with a cohesion concept of a team. So we need to explore more about our strength and try to encourage from them. And one of the main things for me is don't feel afraid and transform. You know, when you feel like that, transfer that as your power, your courage to continue. So we need to transform our fears. In our, I always said, our gasoline to continue and then your motive to be successful. So transform your fears. I love that. That's my main concern. That's great advice there is. And I always say, no, don't be afraid to raise your hand and ask a question because I guarantee you many people in the room, whether it's a physical room these days or it's a virtual video conferencing room, probably have the same question. Be the one to raise your hand and ask. But I love how you're saying transform that fear because it's there. Don't be afraid to feel. But also we need to have those female role models, mentors and sponsors that we can see that can help us kind of in that transformation process. That mentorship is really critical to help guide that along. Yes, yes, that's correct. And I will, I was really fortunate because I have really role models in my life, not only as I mentioned my dad and also one of the things that I recognize in this companies that I work for that empower leadership from women and I identify some role models I want to follow. And I asked her in each particular company to be my coach and to be my mentor because of course you are starting in a technology side and you need more from others that they can share with you her wisdom, right? And try to give you advice how to work on that. And I always said, and I will always repeat because I sometimes I have the opportunity to mentor young ladies that they are very curious about the technology side and I share with her, with them my experience, my lesson learned so they can build their own story, to do this. And I share all the time, don't compete in a male environment in a gray suit. You have your own personality, you have your own strength. You're a woman and you have your strength as a woman. Show that, be you know that the black point in the middle of the white environment because you're different, your leadership is different. You have to understand that, value that and explore more about that. So you can inspire others and you can inspire yourself. And it's fair to say, please identify your achievements and value them because you deserve that. You fight for them and you have to be celebrate for that. Right. So that's the main idea when I share with these ladies but it is right. It's fair to be recognized for that. It's your effort, it's your way to do the things differently and it's very appreciated. Very appreciated and very inspiring. Thank you so much, Carla, for sharing your story, how you are balancing work, life, volunteerism, how it's complimentary. I found this conversation very inspiring. So thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. No, thank you so much, Liz. I was really a pleasure for me to be with you today. Excellent. Likewise, for Carla Wong, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of Women in Tech International Women's Day 2022.