 Welcome to the AWS Partner Showcase. I'm Lisa Martin, your host. This is season one, episode three, and this is a great episode that focuses on women in tech. I'm pleased to be joined by Danielle Grashok, the ISV PSA Director at AWS, and a sponsor of this fantastic program. Danielle, it's great to see you and talk about such an important topic. Yes, and I will tell you, all of these interviews have just been a blast for me to do. And I feel like there has been a lot of gold that we can glean from all of the stories that we heard on these interviews and good advice that I myself would not have necessarily thought of, so. I agree, and we're going to get to that because advice is one of the main things that our audience is going to be here. We have Hilary Ashton, you'll see from Terry Data. Vera Reynolds joins us from Honeycomb, Stephanie Curry from NetApp, and Sue Periscetti from Jefferson Frank. And the topics that we dig into are first and foremost, diversity, equity, and inclusion. That is a topic that is incredibly important to every organization. And some of the things Danielle that our audiences shared were really interesting to me. One of the things that I saw from a thematic perspective over and over was that like Vera Reynolds was talking about the importance of companies and hiring managers and how they need to be intentional with DE and I initiatives. And that intention was a common thing that we heard. I'm curious what your thoughts are about that, that we heard about being intentional, working intentionally to deliver a more holistic pool of candidates where DE and I is concerned. What are your, what were some of the things that stuck out to you? Absolutely, I think each one of us is working inside of organizations where in the last five to 10 years there's been a strong push in this direction, mostly because we've really seen first and foremost by being intentional that you can change the way your organization looks, but also just that without being intentional there was just a lot of outcomes and situations that maybe weren't great for a healthy and productive environment, working environment. And so a lot of these companies have made big investments and put forth big initiatives that I think all of us are involved in. And so we're really excited to get out here and talk about it and talk about, especially as these are all partnerships that we have, how these align with our values. So. Yeah, that value alignment that you bring up is another thing that will be heard consistently with each of the partners. There's a cultural alignment, there's a customer obsession alignment that they have with AWS. There's a DE and I alignment that they have. And I think everybody also kind of agreed, Stephanie Curry talked about, it's really important for diversity on impacting performance, highly performant teams are teams that are more diverse. I think we heard that kind of echoed throughout the women that we talked to. Absolutely and I definitely even feel that with there are studies out there that tell you that you make better products if you have all of the right input and you're getting many different perspectives, but not just that, but I can personally see it in the performing teams, not just my team, but also the teams that I work alongside. Arguably some of the other business folks have done a really great job of bringing more women into their organization, bringing more underrepresented minorities. Tech is a little bit behind, but we're trying really hard to bring that forward as well in technical roles. But you can just see the difference in the outcomes, at least I personally can, just in the adjacent teams of mine. That's awesome. We talked also quite a bit during this episode about attracting women and underrepresented groups and retaining them, that retention piece is really key. What were some of the things that stuck out to you that some of the guests talked about in terms of retention? Yeah, I think especially speaking with Hillary and hearing how Teradata is thinking about different ways to make hybrid work, work for everybody. I think that is definitely, when I talk to women interested in joining AWS, oftentimes that might be one of the first concerns that they have. Am I going to be able to go pick my kid up at four o'clock at the bus? Or am I going to be able to be at my kid's conference, or even just have enough work-life balance that I can do the things that I wanna do outside of work beyond children and family. So these are all very important and questions that especially women come and ask, but also it kind of is a bell-leather for is this gonna be a company that allows me to bring my whole self to work and then I'm also gonna be able to have that balance that I need. So I think that was something that is changing a lot and many people are thinking about work a lot differently. Absolutely, the pandemic not only changed how we think about work. You know, initially it was, do I work from home or do I live at work? And that was legitimately a challenge that all of us faced for a long time period, but we're seeing the hybrid model, we're seeing more companies be open to embracing that and allowing people to have more of that balance, which at the end of the day, it's so much better for product development, for the customers as you talked about those, it's a win-win. Absolutely, and you know, definitely the first few months of it was very hard to find that separation to be able to put up boundaries. But I think at least I personally have been able to find the way to do it. And I hope that everyone is getting that space to be able to put those boundaries up to effectively have a harmonious work life where you can still be at home most of the time, but also, you know, have that cutoff point of the day or at least have that separate space that you can feel that you're able to separate the two. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of that from a work-life balance perspective leads into one of the next topics that we covered in detail and that's mentors and sponsors, the differences between them, recommendations from the women on the panel about how to combat imposter syndrome, but also how to leverage mentors and sponsors throughout your career. One of the things that Hilary said that I thought was fantastic advice where mentors and sponsors are concerned is be selective in picking your bosses. We often see people, especially young, not necessarily young people, I shouldn't say that, that are attracted to a company, it's brand maybe, and think more about that than they do the boss or bosses that can help guide them along the way, but I thought that was really poignant advice that Hilary provided, something that I'm gonna take into consideration myself. Yeah, and I honestly hadn't thought about that, but as I reflect through my own career, I can see how I've had particular managers who have had a major impact on helping me with my career, but you know, if you don't have the ability to do that or maybe that's not a luxury that you have, I think even if you're able to find a mentor for a period of time or just enable for you to be able to get from say a point A to point B, just for a temporary period, just so you can grow into your next role, have a particular outcome that you wanna drive, have a particular goal in mind, find that person who's been there and done that and they can really help you get through if you don't have the luxury of picking your manager, at least be able to pick a mentor who can help you get to the next step. Exactly, I thought that advice was brilliant and something that I hadn't really considered either. We also talked with several other women about imposter syndrome. You know, that's something that everybody, I think regardless of gender, of your background, everybody feels that at some point. So I think one of the nice things that we do in this episode is sort of identify, yes, imposter syndrome is real. This is how it happened to me. This is how I navigated around or got over it. I think there's some great advice there for the audience to glean as well about how to dial down the imposter syndrome that they might be feeling. Absolutely, and I think the key there is just acknowledging it, but also just hearing all the different techniques on how folks have dealt with it because everybody does. You know, even some of the smartest, most confident men I've met in industry still talk to me about how they have it. And I'm shocked by it oftentimes, but it is very common and hopefully we talk about some good techniques to deal with that. I think we do. You know, one of the things that when we were asking our guests about advice, what would they tell their younger selves? What would they tell young women or underrepresented groups in terms of becoming interested in STEM and in tech? And everybody sort of agreed on me, don't be afraid to raise your hand and ask questions. Show vulnerabilities. Not just as the employee, but even from a leadership perspective, show that as a leader, I don't have all the answers. There are questions that I have. I think that goes a long way to reducing the imposter syndrome that most of us have faced at some point in our lives. And that's just, don't be afraid to ask questions. You never know how many people have the same question sitting in the room. Well, and also, you know, for folks who have been in industry for 20, 25 years, I think we can just say that, you know, it's a marathon, it's not a sprint, and you're always going to have new things to learn. And you can spend, you know, back to we talked about the zicking and zagging through careers where, you know, we'll have different experiences. All of that kind of comes through just, you know, being curious and wanting to continue to learn. So yes, asking questions and being vulnerable and being able to say, I don't know all the answers, but I want to learn is a key thing, especially culturally at AWS, but I'm sure with all of these companies as well. Definitely, I think it sounded like it was really ingrained in their culture. And another thing too that we also talked about is, the word no doesn't always mean a dead end. It can often mean not right now, or maybe this isn't the right opportunity at this time. I think that's another important thing that the audience is going to learn is that, you know, failure is not necessarily a bad F word if you turn it into opportunity. No isn't necessarily the end of the road. It can be an opener to a different door. And I thought that was a really positive message that our guests had to share with the audience. Yeah, totally. I can say I had a mentor of mine, a very strong woman who told me, you know, your career is going to have lots of ebbs and flows and that's natural. And, you know, that when you say that not right now, that's a perfect example of maybe there's an eb where it might not be the right time for you. Now, but something to consider in the future. But also don't be afraid to say yes when you can. Exactly. Danielle, it's been a pleasure filming this episode with you and the great female leaders that we have on. I'm excited for the audience to be able to learn from Hilary Vera, Stephanie Sue, and you, so much valuable content in here. We hope you enjoy this partner showcase, season one, episode three. Danielle, thanks so much for helping us with this. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a blast. I really appreciate it. All right. Audience, we want to thank you. Enjoy this, enjoy the episode.