(upbeat music) >> Hey everyone. Welcome to the AWS partner showcase. This is season one, episode three. And I'm your host, Lisa Martin. I've got two great guests here with me to talk about Women in Tech. Hillary Ashton joins us, the chief product officer at Teradata, and Danielle Greshock is back with us, the ISV PSA director at AWS Ladies. It's great to have you on the program talking through such an important topic. Hillary, let's go ahead and start with you. Give us a little bit of an intro into you, your background and a little bit about Teradata. >> Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Hillary Ashton. I head up the products organization. So that's our engineering, product management, officer of the CTO team at Teradata. I've been with Teradata for just about three years and really have spent the last several decades, if I can say that in the data and analytics space. I spent time really focused on the value of analytics at scale, and I'm super excited to be here at Teradata. I'm also a mom of two teenage boys. And so as we talk about women in tech, I think there's lots of different dimensions and angles of that. At Teradata we are partnered very deeply with AWS and happy to talk a little bit more about that throughout this discussion as well. >> Excellent. A busy mom of two teen boys. My goodness. I don't know how you do it. Let's now look at Teradata's views of diversity, equity and inclusion. It's a topic that's important to everyone but give us a snapshot into some of the initiatives that Teradata has there. >> Yeah, I have to say, I am super proud to be working at Teradata. We have gone through a series of transformations but I think it starts with culture and we are deeply committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. It's really more than just a statement here. It's just how we live our lives. And we use data to back that up. In fact, we were named one of the world's most ethical companies for the 13th year in a row. And all of our executive leadership team has taken an oath around DE&I, that's available on LinkedIn as well. So in fact, our leadership team reporting into the CEO is just about 50/50 men and women which is the first time I've worked in a company where that has been the case. And I think as individuals, we can probably appreciate what a huge difference that makes in terms of not just being a representative, but truly being on a diverse and equitable team. And I think it really improves the behaviors that we can bring to our office. >> There's so much value in that. It's I impressive to see about a 50/50 at the leadership level. That's not something that we see very often. Tell me how you, Hillary, how did you get into tech? Were you an engineering person by computer science or did you have more of a zigzaggy path to where you are now? >> I'm going to pick door number two and say more zigzaggy. I started off thinking that, I started off as a political science major or a government major and I was probably destined to go into the law field but actually took a summer course at Harvard, I did not go to Harvard, but I took a summer course there and learned a lot about multimedia and some programming. And that really set me on a trajectory of how data and analytics can truly provide value and outcomes to our customers. And I have been living that life ever since I graduated from college. So I was very excited and privileged in my early career to work in a company where I found after my first year that I was managing kids, people who had graduated from Harvard Business School and from MIT Sloan School. And that was super crazy 'cause I did not go to either of those schools but I sort of have always had a natural knack for how do you take technology and the really cool things that technology can do, but because I'm not a programmer by training, I'm really focused on the value that I'm able to help organizations really extract value from the technology that we can create, which I think is fantastic. >> I think there's so much value in having a zigzag path into tech. You bring... Danielle, you and I have talked about this many times, you bring such breadth and such a wide perspective that really is such a value add to teams. Danielle, talk to us from AWS's perspective about what can be done to encourage more young women to get, and underrepresented groups as well to get into STEM and stay. >> Yeah, and this is definitely a challenge as we're trying to grow our organization and kind of shift the numbers. And the reality is, especially with the more senior folks in our organization, unless you bring folks with a zigzag path, the likelihood is you won't be able to change the numbers that you have. But for me, it's really been about looking at that, the folks who are just graduating college, maybe in other roles where they are adjacent to technology and to try to spark their interest and show that, yes, they can do it because oftentimes it's really about believing in themselves and realizing that we need folks with all sorts of different perspectives to kind of come in to be able to help really provide both products and services and solutions for all types of people inside of technology which requires all sorts of perspectives. >> Yeah, the diverse perspectives. There's so much value and there's a lot of data that demonstrates how much value, revenue impact organizations can make by having diversity especially at the leadership level. Hillary, let's go back to you. We talked about your career path. You talked about some of the importance of the focus on DE&I at Teradata, but what do you think can be done to encourage, sorry, to recruit more young women and under represented groups into tech, any carrots there that you think are really important that we need to be dangling more of? >> Yeah, absolutely. And I'll build on what Danielle just said. I think the bringing in diverse understandings of customer outcomes, I mean, we've really moved from technology for technology's sake. And I know AWS and Entirety have had a lot of conversations on how do we drive customer outcomes that are differentiated in the market and really being customer-centric. And technology is wonderful. You can do wonderful things with it. You can do not so wonderful things with it as well but unless you're really focused on the outcomes and what customers are seeking technology is not hugely valuable. And so I think bringing in people who understand voice of customer, who understand those outcomes and those are not necessarily the folks who are PhD in mathematics or statistics, those can be people who understand a day in the life of a data scientist or a day in the life of a citizen data scientist. And so really working to bridge the high impact technology with the practical kind of usability, usefulness of data and analytics in our cases, I think is something that we need more of in tech and sort of demystifying tech and freeing technology so that everybody can use it and having a really wide range of people who understand not just the bits and bites and and how to program, but also the value and outcomes that technology through data and analytics can drive. >> Yeah. You know, we often talk about the hard skills but the soft skills are equally, if not more important that even just being curious, being willing to ask questions being not afraid to be vulnerable, being able to show those sides of your personality. I think those are important for young women and underrepresented groups to understand that those are just as important as some of the harder technical skills that can be taught. >> That's right. >> What do you think about from a bias perspective, Hillary, what have you seen in the tech industry and how do you think we can leverage culture as you talked about to help dial down some of the biases that are going on? >> Yeah. I mean, I think first of all, and there's some interesting data out there that says that 90% of the population, which includes a lot of women have some inherent bias in their day to day behaviors when it comes to women in particular. But I'm sure that that is true across all kinds of of diverse and underrepresented folks in the world. And so I think acknowledging that we have bias and actually really learning what that can look like, how that can show up, we might be sitting here and thinking, oh, of course I don't have any bias. And then you realize that as you learn more about different types of bias that actually you do need to kind of account for that and change behaviors. And so I think learning is sort of a fundamental grounding for all of us to really know what bias looks like, know how it shows up in each of us, if we're leaders, know how it shows up in our teams and make sure that we are constantly getting better. We're not going to be perfect anytime soon, but I think being on a path to improvement to overcoming bias is really critical. And part of that is really starting the dialogue, having the conversations, holding ourselves and each other accountable when things aren't going in a copesthetic way, and being able to talk openly about that felt like maybe there was some bias in that interaction and how do we make good on that? How do we change our behavior fundamentally. Of course, data and analytics can have some bias in it as well. And so I think as we look at the technology aspect of bias, looking at at ethical AI I think is a really important additional area. And I'm sure we could spend another 20 minutes talking about that, but I would be remiss if I didn't talk more about sort of the bias and the opportunity to overcome bias in data and analytics as well. >> Yeah. The opportunity to overcome it is definitely there, you bring up a couple of really good points, Hillary. It starts with awareness. We need to be aware that there are inherent biases in data in thought. And also to your other point, hold people accountable, ourselves, our teammates that's critical to being able to dial that back down. Danielle, I want to get your perspective on your view of women in leadership roles. Do you think that we have good representation or we still have work to do in there? >> I definitely think in both technical and product roles we definitely have some work to do. And when I think about our partnership with Teradata, part of the reason why it's so important is, Teradata solution is really the brains of a lot of companies, what they differentiate on, how they figure out insights into their business. And it's all about the product itself and the data, and the same is true at AWS. And we really could do some work to have some more women in these technical roles as well as in the product, shaping the products, just for all the reasons that we just kind of talked about over the last 10 minutes in order to move bias out of our solutions and also to just build better products and have better outcomes for customers. So I think there's a bit of work to do still. >> I agree. There's definitely a bit of work to do and it's all about delivering those better outcomes for customers at the end of the day. We need to figure out what the right ways are of doing that and working together in a community. We've had obviously a lot had changed in the last couple of years. Hillary, what have you seen in terms of the impact that the pandemic has had on this status of women in tech? Has it been a pro, is silver lining, the opposite? What are you seeing? >> Yeah, I mean, certainly there's data out there that tells us factually that it has been very difficult for women during COVID-19. Women have dropped out of the workforce for a wide range of reasons. And that I think is going to set us back all of us, the Royal us or the Royal we back years and years. And it's very unfortunate because I think we're at a time when we're making great progress and now to see COVID setting us back in such a powerful way I think there's work to be done to understand how do we bring people back into the workforce? How do we do that understanding work life balance better, understanding virtual and remote working better. I think in the technology sector we've really embraced hybrid virtual work and are empowering people to bring their whole selves to work. And I think if anything, these Zoom calls have, both for the men and the women on my team. In fact, I would say much more so for the men on my team, we're seeing more kids in the background, more kind of split childcare duties, more ability to start talking about other responsibilities that maybe they had, especially in the early days of COVID where maybe day cares were shut down and maybe a parent was sick. And so we saw quite a lot of people bringing their whole selves to the office which I think was really wonderful. Even our CEO saw some of that. And I think that that really changes the dialogue. It changes it to maybe scheduling meetings at a time when people can do it after daycare drop off and really allowing that both for men and for women, makes it better for women overall. So I would like to think that this hybrid working environment and that this whole view into somebody's life that COVID has really provided for, probably for white collar workers, if I'm being honest for people who are at a better point of privilege, they don't necessarily have to go into the office every day. I would like to think that tech can lead the way in coming out of the old COVID, I don't know if we have a new COVID coming, but the old COVID and really leading the way for women and for people to transform how we do work, leveraging data and analytics but also overcoming some of the disparities that exist for women in particular in the workforce. >> Yeah, I think there's, like we say, there's a lot of opportunity there and I like your point of hopefully tech can be that guiding light that shows us this can be done. We're all humans at the end of the day. And ultimately, if we're able to have some sort of work life balance, everything benefits. Our work, we're more productive, higher performing teams impacts customers. There's so much value that can be gleaned from that hybrid model and embracing for humans. We need to be able to work when we can. We've learned that you don't have to be in an office 24/7 commuting crazy hours, flying all around the world. We can get a lot of things done in ways that fit people's lives rather than taking command over it. I want to get your advice, Hillary, if you were to talk to your younger self, what would be some of the key pieces of advice you would say? And Danielle and I have talked about this before, and sometimes we would both agree on like, ask more questions, don't be afraid to raise your hand, but what advice would you give your younger self and that younger generation in terms of being inspired to get into tech? >> Oh, inspired in being in tech. I think looking at technology as, in some ways I feel like we do a disservice to inclusion when we talk about STEM, 'cause I think stem can be kind of daunting, it can be a little scary for people, for younger people. When I go and talk to folks at schools, I think STEM is like, oh, all the super smart kids are over there. They're all, like maybe they're all men. And so it's a little intimidating. And STEM is actually, especially for people joining the workforce today, it's actually how you've been living your life since you were born. I mean, you know STEM inside and out because you walk around with a phone and you know how to get your internet working and like that is technology fundamentally. And so demystifying STEM as something that is around how we actually make our our lives useful and how we can change outcomes through technology, I think is maybe a different lens to put on it. And there's absolutely, for hard scientists, there's absolutely a great place in the world for folks who want to pursue that, and men and women can do that. So I don't want to be setting the wrong expectations but I think STEM is very holistic in the change that's happening globally for us today across economies, across global warming, across all kinds of impactful issues. And so I think everybody who's interested in some of that world change can participate in STEM. It just may be through a different lens than how we classically talk about STEM. So I think there's great opportunity to demystify STEM. I think also what I would tell my younger self is choose your bosses wisely. And that sounds really funny. That sounds like inside out almost but I think choose the person that you're going to work for in your first five to seven years. And it might be more than one person, but be selective. Maybe be a little less selective about the exact company or the exact title. I think picking somebody that, we talk about mentors and we talk about sponsors and those are important, but the person you're going to spend in your early career, a lot of your day with, who's going to influence a lot of the outcomes for you. That is the person that you, I think want to be more selective about because that person can set you up for success and give you opportunities and set you on course to be a standout or that person can hold you back and that person can put you in the corner and not invite you to the meetings and not give you those opportunities. And so we're in an economy today where you actually can be a little bit picky about who you go and work for. And I would encourage my younger self, I just lucked out actually, but I think that my first boss really set me up for success, gave me a lot of feedback and coaching. And some of it was really hard to hear but it really set me up for the path that I've been on ever since. So that would be my advice. >> I love that advice. It's brilliant. And I think it, choose your bosses wisely, isn't something that we primarily think about. I think a lot of people think about the big name companies that they want to go after and put on a resume, but you bring up a great point. And Danielle and I have talked about this with other guests about mentors and sponsors. I think that is brilliant advice, and also more work to do to demystify STEM. But luckily we have great female leaders like the two of you helping us to do that. Ladies, I want to thank you so much for joining me on the program today and talking through what you're seeing in DE&I, what your companies are doing and the opportunities that we have to move the needle. Appreciate your time. >> Thank you so much. Great to see you, Danielle. Thank you, Lisa. >> Nice to see you. >> My pleasure. For my guests, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the AWS partner showcase season one, episode three. (upbeat music)