 and welcome to another edition of this special program series from theCUBE highlighting the brilliant women of the cloud. I am absolutely thrilled to be joined today by a transformative visionary accelerating the routes market for many of North Americans top businesses. Please welcome Tia Wiggins of AWS. Tia, thank you so much for being here. Hello, hello everyone. Thank you for having me. I know there's a lot that we're going to talk about tech animation and the very exciting parts of your world, both at AWS as well as on the philanthropy side, excuse me. But before we get there, I want to know how you got to where you're sitting right now. Yes, yes. Well, I'm proud to say my entire family is STEM born and bred. I think I have a more traditional American upbringing of parents that did not have college degrees but they've always had us in programs. So, you know, like I say proud today, I have two sisters who are doctors and I was on the path to be a pharmacist. And, you know, I had got sponsored by a leader that took me on through the business journey and allowed me to connect the STEM side of my life to helping businesses grow. I'm also, I'm proud to share that I'm a philanthropist. I do believe in building communities and removing barriers to help people grow also, you know, as a child of two military parents, you know, my mother leaned on programs, right? I went through local hospital programs that taught me about medicine, that taught me about math, school, that taught me about physics, right? That were free and funded that allowed me to, you know, explore and get exposure. So with that, you know, I've always had a knack to figure out how do I in my own capacity, not being a billionaire, not being, you know, a trust fund child, but how do I create resourcing to help others come along in this pathway, leveraging and bridging the two of STEM and community together? So yeah, that's a little bit about my background. Yeah, I mean, it seems like it's a lifelong commitment, not just a career long commitment to the industry and you're very clearly a curious person. You mentioned the role that resources and community have played in your journey. How would you recommend others who may be interested in a similar career path or exploring technology and business, take actionable steps to do some of the similar things to you've done? Absolutely. So as I believe that I have everyone watching this from early career before actually in college. So I would tell for the entry level, for you to focus on first finding programs, the AWS, we have programs that help you come into the cloud computing. We will help you get your cloud certification. We have great internship programs, but then also too, there's diverse programs like National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Women Engineers, Society of Hispanic Engineers. There's so many programs, right? That can help you gain those actual training, actually will actually provide you a job and exposure so they can help you actually figure out what the path you wanna take when it comes to STEM. What I would share for mid-level, something that I do personally for myself is after you're in the industry, is to write a vision. So my superpowers is transformation and a vision and every year I start off with like a love letter to myself and it includes something related to my career, a bold move. And as I get crisp on saying something dangerous that I wanna go do, I share that with my sponsors, I share that with my network where I call my tribe and those individuals help me gain the experiences that actually make the moves to get there, right? And it might not be exact, right? I might not actually hit that move that year, but if I look backwards, I actually looked, I actually took some of the steps that were needed and essential for me to thrive when I actually get there. So definitely I would say, you know, one in terms of exposure with programs, two for if you're actually in your career, write your vision, right? Get real crisp on what you wanna go do about it and then share it with your team. And then the last point that I think is essential that we don't really talk about a lot is feedback, right? It sounds, it's easy, but feedback is communication. And how you perceive yourself is not how others always perceive you, right? And I do believe in having pride, I do believe you need a certain level of ego for yourself, right, to thrive. However, there is nuggets in there that can help you accelerate on your journey, right? So I take time and I actually go on listening circles and I ask about, what are my blind spots? Like just be honest, right? Something about the EW's culture I love is that we use this principle of being vocally self-critical, right? That creates a level of transparency and honesty for others to be honest with us about something that we might not see, right? Or we might have failed, right? Or we might need to improve. So I will say again, programs, write your vision, right? You know, I call it a love letter to make it more personalized. And then three, get your feedback. It's essential. I like that. There's almost like an id and ego and an external to that as well as a qualitative and a quantitative component to that, which I think is really interesting. You know, I went to five different classes or I looked at six different YouTube videos to learn about these skills versus I took the time to think about what that would actually mean to me and to myself. And I think a lot of folks at any stage in their career journey don't necessarily give themselves the time to have that type of reflection. So it's wonderful to see someone who's been as successful as you talk about both your process as well as that level of transparency and communication. Taking feedback is a skill set that you'll have to use in many aspects of your life. Moving forward. It's just communication. That's all it is. Just communication. Yes. And working on that is certainly a lifelong journey. You've had a lot of success in your 15 years of being in the cloud. Can you give us some examples of your favorite moments? Yeah. I'm proud. Like I took some, I took very, it got along with that vision, right? I took some very critical steps to ensure that I was taking roles and created mobility, right? Going back to starting at VAE systems, working with an aerospace and defense contractor where I had to move different states and get exposure to different platforms and lines of business, IT manufacturing, down to actually stepping into an international nonprofit firm where I worked a redesign of that company, right? Understanding different levels of contracts. How do we go to route and market with other foreign countries, right? And then coming back into my previous journey. Not simple problems there. Not simple at all. Pretty amazing. The TV was shout out on complexity, yeah. Complexity, right? And it constantly moving. And also a side note to everyone, obtaining my additional degrees. So if you look at my background, you'll see a lot of HR formal rules. But if you look at the components of those jobs, it was business building, project management, agile management, change management, right? So when I will say two of my major success moves, well, one would be I was chair of Northrop Grumman. It actually allowed me to crack my teeth when it comes to new business acquisition, business proposals, right? So take all that idea of programs but actually being a part of a team to go after some of our most sacred nation contracts and programs that protects our country, right? Building, coming up with a solution and strategy, using technology, using data modernization, pulling together cloud components and then actually going out there and actually identifying the talent across the world that will be aligned to this and making that and being a part of that team and actually signing off and saying, all right, this is what we believe is the best program for our solutions, for our employees, for our world, for our nation, right? It has several multiple, multi-billion dollar contracts that I worked on that we actually won with the Northrop Grumman that really also from a side note helped me build my confidence that say, hey, I can do more. Like, hey, I don't have 50 years in this industry but you know what I know is I have exposure, I have experience, I have, hey, I have an idea, right? And I know about technology and tools and how this links together into a story to say, hey, how does this bring value? So I would say we had several, again, national security programs that I was a part of and then here at Amazon to speak more for our partners, right? Our partner experience. Just this year, coming into my role within two quarters we actually delivered, we actually confirmed that we actually identified Amazon opportunities for our partners, right? We believe Amazon opportunities helping our partners route to market helps them actually identify better partner opportunities so we can actually help them attach them to an actual customer. With that, within two quarters, we were able to deliver over. Just to insert number for scale for folks listening, you have over a hundred thousand partners. That's right. So echoing on the complexity, it's not just like you're matchmaking two different people from two different sides of the fence here. The matrix is massive in the flywheel. Yeah, absolutely. So with that, we took a subset to start with a subset of partners to say, hey, how do we just pilot an experiment, right? If we did an exercise where we actually do use tools to identify opportunities that are better online to partners and how do we deliver that to them, right? Versus us, we actually just waiting for them to provide something to us. What are the biggest challenges for you there? Oh gosh, complexity, right? Yeah. Complexity, partner types. We deal with system integrators. We deal with independent software vendors, resellers. Everyone has their own additional needs. They have their own complexity. They have their own in terms of their makeup, right? In terms of resourcing. So we have to on top of that, we have to work with the partner to make sure they're actually ready and equipped to actually receive opportunities from us. And then also, how do we help work with them to build a sales plan to go after those opportunities? So it's all of the, if you think about the flywheel, yeah, we could throw something over the line, but we also have to work with them as one team to say, okay, how do we help make this, help you launch this opportunity with a customer with us? Yeah. Yeah. And so what do you hope to see coming in the next five years? Where do you hope your role takes you? Oh gosh. You know, I don't actually go off five years because if I look back at the last 15, I didn't imagine all those different opportunities by the way, right? Love that. So true. So yeah, so I don't, again, it goes back to like, I hate putting boxes over myself, but it's vision wise, you know, just to say thank you to my mentors, to my sponsors. You know, I am, I see myself C-suite, right? I see myself over an organization helping again, connecting the dots with business growth and opportunities. Now, is it Amazon, I hope? We wonderful, right? But if it's another large Fortune 500 company, absolutely. But in terms of the cloud computing industry, I mean, we're the unimaginable, right? You already, you talk about, you know, AI, we've talked about in the past, we talk about this meta, you know, this digital transformative world where we're living virtually, that scares me, right? By the way, just be honest, everyone, but I do believe that as a company, we are gonna be moving to be more digital, you know? I do believe our customers will be more digital. I do think a more virtual engagement, right? And I see myself building those programs to help ensure that our workforce is there, that our sellers are there, that we can actually continue to drive growth and that they're actually equipped to actually align to those opportunities to help our customers grow their business. Yeah, the acceleration and evolution of the modern workforce is a challenge that so many businesses are facing right now. I'm sure tens of thousands, if not all, of the Six Figure Plus partners in your program are experiencing a dynamic range of challenges as a result, and they are all very lucky to have you there to support them. Hopefully everyone at AWS is listening to that nice plug and opportunity to promote you to the C-suite where I'm sure you belong. As time goes on, switching from digital to diversity just a little bit, it's clear that you have had people in your community who've mentored you and taught and been a part of the education side of your journey. And I'm curious to see, or curious to ask you rather, what are the challenges that you still see in diversity in general today? Yeah, well, you know, unfortunately it's still here. We still have unconscious bias, right? And senior level career advancement. That I think that's embedded in our culture and that's something that we constantly have to combat. You know, I was also trained other than mindset and had this belief that say, hey, let your work speak for yourself. In reality, it's not about your work. It's also about who knows you and who actually wants to know about you, right? And that equals unconscious bias, right? Someone that actually, you know, for people to see who you are and see what you actually contribute versus they just liking you. So, you know, and also too, you know, we've run into the issue of being taught in our culture to lean in, right? For a moment there, I believed that. But at some point when you used to look around and you're like, oh gosh, you know, I worked all last year, but my pay was only this or hey, that person got promoted and they only worked on this one thing. And then it pinches like, oh, it's still there, right? So I just believe as leaders and I include myself as my commitment is like any organization on my part is like, how do I advocate for others? How do I create opportunities? How do I address it? I'm very blessed to have a leader that also sees what's possible than me and creates those opportunities and, you know, removes those roadblocks and those barriers. But you know, I can't lie is that, you know, I've also personally been through that. But then again, I look around my family and my community and I have, you know, family that's also civil servants, public servants. This is nothing new, right? And you know, and I go around them and I get empowered to say, hey, you know, you can actually do this and this side you can overcome this. But then also with your commitment as a leader, my commitment is how do I create those pathways for others and remove those barriers? And when I see that, how do I address it? Mm-hmm. And how to really be, what you're touching on there so much is allyship. And I think there's, it takes, being an ally takes many forms across workplaces and functions and genders and demographics and anything quite frankly. And not everyone can advocate for themselves as loudly as someone else can. And that's particularly if whatever that demographic is sees itself a lot on the leadership side of things. But it's really easy to compliment a friend or a teammate. And I think it's actually pretty easy to say nice things about them in the room when they're not in there. And that's one of the easiest ways to be an ally. And I love that you just brought that up. I think that, yeah, we just, we forget that someone else is still fighting to be noticed. And when I was looking at your, you'll let the work speak for itself. One of the lines that I've always referenced is be so good, they can't ignore you. Which kind of combines exactly what you just mentioned is the being noticed piece. And I think it's all of our jobs to help other people and the right people and projects get noticed. So I really love the final question. So I just took another quick line about that. And also, and this is another reality about this is knowing when to walk away, right? Cause some people get chewed. And I do believe in closed doors are a blessing. When you face rejection, it's redirection to where you need to go. But I also do believe, like I was at this conference years ago and this woman made this analogy. She said, there's a million men out there. If it doesn't work for you, go get another one. And that's the idea is that your one company is not your only company. There's other companies that might be better aligned to you. Believe in yourself that you're worth it to go find another opportunity that's better aligned where people can actually celebrate you versus where they say this concept of tolerate you. So I just put that out there is that bold belief that you have to know that about yourself to know that, hey, you're worth it. And there is another company that you can thrive and you're going to be okay. And when you do it, you'll be happy that you actually took that leap of faith. And that's something that I've taken in when I know that, hey, my time's up. If I sense that, if I see that, then I just will move on and I'm okay. I've been back here behind the curtain just snapping as you've been talking. I couldn't agree more the only brand you're ever going to represent your whole life is you. And I think you just nailed it. I was going to ask you for some closing inspiration, but I think you just nailed it with that statement to be quite honest. So I don't want to poison the well. Tia Williams, thank you so much for joining us. It is very clear why you are a go-to-market leader and AWS is very lucky to have you. And thank you to our audience for joining us for this special program series here on theCUBE where we are featuring women of the cloud. My name is Savannah Peterson and may the skies be clear and blue and with beautiful clouds in your universe today.