 Hey everyone, welcome to theCUBE's special program series, Women of the Cloud brought to you by AWS. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Very pleased to welcome Angie Perez-Thomas, the area sales leader from AWS as my next guest. Angie, welcome to theCUBE. It's great to have you here. I'm super excited. Thank you so much, Lisa. Of course. Talk to me a little bit about you, a little bit about your role in sales at AWS. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a 10-year Amazonian. So I've been with AWS for about 10 years here. And as you mentioned, I'm the area sales leader. And so my team supports new enterprise customers and executives who are just starting their journey into the cloud. Talk a little bit about some of your career paths. Did you have a linear path? You said 10-year Amazonian, linear path maybe more zigzaggy. Because I'd love to get some of your recommendations for those who may be early in their tech careers, looking to grow their careers. What are some of the experiences that you've had that you think have shaped your career? Yeah, absolutely. So mine, I've gone back and forth through different roles, both in leadership and as an IC. And I'd probably say I've got three recommendations for those looking to grow their career in technology. So the first one is prioritize your time to actually think about what career experiences you want in your fullness of your career. And so this actually may look like sitting down, reserving time to actually deep think about what are those experiences you're looking to gain, but also doing research on other careers of those who may inspire you and kind of collecting those ideas. My second recommendation is around documenting, writing down those career aspirations and actually putting it within and memorializing it within a document. So I've applied Amazon's working backwards methodology myself and applied that on my career and writing my own career press release. And so it's dated in 2029. It's got a headline and it's a physical document of my own career aspirations. And third, I recommend sharing this documentation with others. I really enjoy receiving and reading what others are wanting to do with their career aspirations and helping provide feedback and guidance. And so what we find is people genuinely wanna help others. I agree, I love your recommendations for really being mindful, being thoughtful about what it is that you wanna do doing that research and then actually documenting it. I think it's so wonderful that you're taking Amazon's working backward approach from the press release going, this is where I wanna be in five years or in 10 years. And then putting that on paper, I still connect a lot with things like you that you put down on paper that you wanna accomplish or something about writing it down that actually helps you bring it to fruition. And then to your point, it's great about sharing it with others that can be mentors, that can be sponsors. I'm sure you've had some great mentors and sponsors along your career path that have probably helped to be pretty successful. Yeah, absolutely. It's been really an effective tool for communicating with those who have helped me navigate as well. Talk a little bit about some of the successes now. We'll switch gears, but we'll continue on the success train. Some of the successes that you've had helping organizations really navigate, migrate to the cloud and become successful businesses as a result. Yeah, no, absolutely. So across my tenure at AWS, I truly enjoyed working with our customer executives and helping them deliver on their business outcomes. And so just recently I met with the COO of a real estate firm here in the Pacific Northwest. And the COO has an initiative to identify and modify home titles and deeds with decades old discriminatory language and restrictions. So although not accessible due to the Fair Housing Act of 1968, racial covenants are just, they're still present and millions of home titles across the United States today. And so partnering with AWS and using our cloud technology, our teams together were able to build an application that was able to, or homeowners are able to look at their titles, analyze it for discriminatory language and be able to submit it for modification. And so today it can be done manually, but partnering with AWS, our teams were able to address modifying titles and deeds at scale. And so it's truly incredible what cloud computing has enabled just all of us to accomplish together. And so I kind of think of it like this, a catalyst for change is our customers and AWS and our partners is the how to accelerate that change. So it's really this partnership. I love that. Accelerating change is so important across so many aspects of life, but the example that you gave is so, it's such an interesting use case. I wouldn't think that there is discriminatory language and deeds for houses, but the fact that it's probably a pervasive problem globally and the ability to help organizations to be able to change that for the better with cloud, with automation at scale is huge. I can imagine that that's a use case that can be replicated surely across the States and more. Yeah, it's definitely gained interest across with different real estate forms across the United States. So we're really excited to be partnering and having impact on this change. And it's also an example of tech for good. I mean, we talk about that all the time, but the fact that there's discriminatory language and housing needs is still kind of blows my mind, but and we've seen so much in tech in terms of diversity and equity and inclusion, but from a diversity perspective, there's still a lot more to do. I'd love to get your opinion on what you think some of the present day challenges are with respect to diversity in tech and maybe some of the things you think can be changed for the better. Yeah, so there's been a huge focus on hiring for diverse talent in the tech industry for a number of years. And where I think we as an industry have an opportunity is to improve in investing and developing in this diverse talent. And try to really think about how are we building up the skill sets to build today's and tomorrow's leaders? And so when I think about this, it requires senior leaders to be really intentional about building a diverse ecosystem of talent and investing in this diverse talent. And let me clarify a little bit. When I talk about investing in diverse talent, this expands outside of just mentoring. This includes sponsoring, coaching, really providing opportunities where this talent has the ability to have a seat at the table, getting into the room where it all happens. And so by doing so, we're helping this talent build their skill sets to learn what questions are being asked within the room, how are others communicating with each other so that they can build the skill set so not only have a seat at the table but can be really leading with that seat at the table. And I would say at last, we as companies, we tend to, or we in the industry, we tend to just focus on developing those within our companies. And where I see a need is to really challenge the industry to reach outside of our own companies in diverse talent. And so developing just that ecosystem, because not just thinking about the roles that are open today, but really building the skill sets for the roles and senior level positions that are gonna be open tomorrow, then making sure we're developing this talent to raise their hand and be the leading candidate for those opportunities. I love how you said kind of really a couple things that with all the women in this program that I've spoken to is a common theme in terms of diversity. And it's really about senior leaders making investments. And another thing that you said that's spot on is doing it with intention. There's so much to be gained by having an intention with diversity, thought diversity to your point, going outside, it sounds to me like kind of, let's go outside of our comfort zones to bring in different thoughts, different perspectives, be able to grow them in their career because of course, technologies and products and solutions can only get better the more diversity of thought we have. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's really being intentional. We as senior leaders, we have a law on our plate. And so, yes, this is an additional thing to be thinking about, but it really has impact and change in driving the right things both for our customers and for the industry as well. And so it's an investment that's worth making. And speaking of that investment worth making, I liked how you said, you know, let's have some forethought about what are some of the roles that are going to be there in the future? How are some of the roles today going to be evolving? How do you see your role evolving in the next few years? How do you see cloud evolving? And what excites you about that? Yeah, well, you know, that has really been helping our customers move faster and adapt to just the ever-changing landscape. I mean, it's over the last couple of years that's been very real for all of us to see. And so my role has moved from just being an advisor to a CIO to actually being an advisor to both the CEO and board of directors. And when they come speak to us, you know, cloud is not just about cost savings. It truly is about helping a CEO to deliver on their business outcomes. So I'll give an example. We're working with a growing community bank and their executive team has embarked on a transformation to becoming a digital first bank. And so when we think about the economic factors that they're working with them to come to mind, the first, they're moved towards online banking. It's accelerated with the pandemic, really creating that customer experience of which when you think about local banks, you know, you think about community, you know, where everybody knows your name over in the brick and mortar down the road, well, they have to bridge that community and trust into the digital world. And second, they needed to improve on operational efficiencies. And so they have to strategically think about what investments they're gonna make to balance inflation while driving growth. And so where I've been finding both myself and my teams is having a seat at the table with these executives, helping them make these strategic business decisions. And we know we're successful when our customers are able to deliver on those business outcomes. They meet those objectives, they exceed those objectives. And then we know we've just exceeded customer expectation when our partnership actually shows up in their next earnings call. You know, it's really special. Oh, I bet it is. I mean, being able to be that influential in terms of an organization's success. I love how you talked about, you know, kind of a career evolution that your career has evolved from. Now you're really with the board of directors having a seat at the table there. My last question for you is kind of on that front, Angie, and it's what are some of the changes and in the tech workforce that you've seen the last few years? And what are some of the things that you're excited about that are down the road? Yeah, so a couple of things where I've really seen change and evolution has been in the leadership level. You know, we're needing to lead with empathy and really think about inclusion as a cornerstone skill set. So for our customers, our partners, our employees, we've really moved into this hybrid environment where both leaders and team norms, you know, were challenged to change. We have to adapt. And so, you know, really having inclusion as that foundational skill set is a requirement for both today and tomorrow's leaders. What I'm really excited about is on the innovation front, you know, anyone can innovate now. You don't need to be a part of the R&D division of a company, you know, we're seeing that cloud, you know, is providing tools all the way down to the elementary student level. So when you think about that, you know, just think the imagination of our youth, you know, brought to life with cloud technology. I mean, the future really is bright. It is that horizon is endless. And I'm going to take some of your advice, Angie. I loved that you talked about, from your own perspective and your recommendations for the audience, write that down, write your own press release in terms of what you want to see down the road. I'm going to take your advice. I'm going to do that. I thank you so much for joining me on the program. You've been so inspiring. Your career path has been impressive. What you're seeing in terms of innovation and cloud coming next is incredibly exciting. Thank you so much for your time, Angie. Thank you, Lisa. For Angie Perez-Thomas, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching this CUBE's special program series, Women of the Cloud, brought to you by AWS. We'll see you soon.