 Welcome to capacity Middle East extra powered by JSA. I'm Dean Perine of JSA, and we are coming to you live That's right Judy. We are absolutely live right now from the beautiful Grand Hyatt, Dubai for capacity Middle East And I'm here with my new best friend of his Judy and guru. Did I get that right? Yes? You did. Yes, you did Excellent Judy is the senior vice president of strategic development at Raxio data centers Judy welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Dean. It's great to be here Really excited about being part of the conference and yeah and talking about diversity and inclusion and of course More about data center companies in Africa. Yeah. Yeah, so before we get into some of the DNI stuff Why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about Raxio? So yes, Raxio is a data center company We are a head office is here in Dubai We have seven markets in Africa First facility is operational in Uganda. We have another facility that is probably gonna be commissioned by Q3 to this year in Ethiopia In Addis Ababa, and we have three other markets that are coming up at the same time Which is Mozambique in Maputo DRC in Kinshasa and Abhijan in Kodiwa And then finally last year we announced Tanzania and we are hoping that that will also be ready sometime mid 2024 and Lastly Luanda in Angola. So yeah, wow, so you got a little bit of stuff going on right now Yes, yes, yes, we do. We are a carrier neutral tier 3 facility. We're usually the first to market We then usually know other facilities of our kind of our scale in this market And that's why we proceed to venture and grow into data centers all over Africa I love it and congratulations on all of the expansion that you have going on But let's get right down to it because Judy, I think it's safe to say that I have not met anyone like you And maybe and maybe that's a problem and and that's what I want to talk about So the diversity and inclusion so why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about I mean as an executive within the the greater Technology industry what it has been like well number one What maybe talk a little bit about what brought you to the data center and technology industry And what it has been like for you kind of growing as a female within the industry Yeah, so my background kind of started in fiber infrastructure, you know So I started working on a project. It was in the US under the Obama administration We're putting together an application to build Metro fiber in the city of Philadelphia. That was kind of like the taste of technology for me fast forward I moved back to Africa. I came back to Kenya and Started a project at home again centered around technology didn't pan out But then ended up moving to Uganda and then while I was in Uganda I found out about project link which was a fiber infrastructure project that was being run by Google and joined the company and Worked with them from when it was still a project when it became an independent business called C squared That's when I really learned about the infrastructure space in Africa and the fact that it's a huge gap You know, especially on middle my last mile Additionally that we need about 700 data centers across the market that came when I joined Roxy oh now as an executive sitting in You know in that space what I came to realize is that in the top leadership. There's still a huge gap in terms of representation from women You know, I was lucky when I was at working at C squared project link I had women leaders, you know, we had our general manager Susan Keterico was running the project I learned a lot from her, you know, she was kind of my inspiration us to you know, you can break this glass ceiling You can be a leader you can You know drive the direction of a company and of course so that made me ambitious enough to pursue those kind of roles And I encourage other women to do so, you know, don't limit yourself. I think women tend to be over thinkers When we check the scale here if you see a job description for a senior executive, we want to make sure we meet 100% they say men tend to only look at 40% and if they can meet 40% they will apply for the role So I encourage women to you know break the boundaries get out of their comfort zone and pursue these roles because they are there and I I feel what even when I'm hiring I find that I don't get as many female applicants as I would like Even from a strategic partnership role market analysts role. I don't get that So I would like to see more of that. So let's talk a little bit about why you know I mean you did you did mention, you know women feel like generally speaking They they feel like they have to they have to meet 100% of all of the expectation or all of the qualifications, right? So what what do we do? What do we do now? How do we how do we? Encourage women like yourself to to take that chance to take that leap of faith if you will and and apply for those jobs Yeah, I think one of the things you should is change your mindset, you know I and I know it sounds easy to say and hard to do but it's a step forward If you meet 60 or 70% and you feel you're lacking on the 30% or 40% Tell yourself how you can achieve that while you're in the role, you know use that as a beginning power to get Hired in those jobs that are being advertised, you know Talk to the employer show what you can contribute because what happened women can overcompensate, you know We can we will put more out than is required of us, you know and use that and sell yourself You know you the only person who can market you is you, you know, no one else can do it for you So you really need to kind of get out of that shell And just take a leap of faith and have confidence in yourself that you can deliver and they the employer is willing to listen They're always willing to listen and they and they'll be wowed by what you have to offer Amazing. So you and I had the luxury of actually speaking for probably 30 45 minutes prior to this to this interview Which is great. Honestly, we could have probably talked about two or more hours But you've had a lot of of strong Inspiring women in your life. What would you say to someone who is you from let's say a decade maybe two decades ago, what would you say to that person who might be watching right now, I Think what I would tell them one is trust your instincts, you know, they'll never fail you and Also encourage each other so one I think sometimes we tend to not talk about this with women But we're a competitive species. All right, and so we always want to kind of try and see how we can outperform each other But there's there's beauty in collectivism. So if we help and each other grow, you know, we will achieve more so what I would tell them are you are me 20 years ago is Lean on your network create a strong network around yourself because that's what's gonna propel you to a greater future You know, those are the people who will when they're thinking about You know, I'm a Role at a board, you know, and they've seen how you work. They know how you perform Your name is what there's gonna ring in their heads and you're the person who's gonna get recommended for those kind of roles, right? So and you do that by creating that network of people you do that by communicating by exposing yourself you will not get identified if you're Sitting at home or if you're sitting at the office or behind the desk just doing your day-to-day. I Honestly encourage bravery. I will we tend to be a shy species We tend to be more reserved, but you know, we have a voice We have to speak up and I think that's what we're seeing more and more in As time goes by we're seeing more women step up come up and encourage other women You know capacity and me has this platform today the JSA to talk about women issues gender issues, you know And that's great. That's how it starts when you just to keep going can't stop now If you are not inspired by those words, then you probably don't have a heartbeat right now Judy Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us. I really really appreciate it Thank you very much for having me you bet and thank you viewers for watching JSA at capacity Middle East extra in Dubai We'll see you soon