(upbeat music) >> Hey everyone! Welcome to the AWS Partner Showcase. This is season one, episode three with a focus on women in tech. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. I've got two guests here with me, Sue Persichetti, the EVP of Global AWS Strategic Alliances at Jefferson Frank. A Tenth Revolution Group company. And Danielle Greshock, one of our own CUBE alumni, joins us, ISV PSA director. Ladies, it's great to have you on the program talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart, women in tech. >> Thank you, Lisa! >> Great to be here! >> So let's go ahead and start with you. Give the audience an understanding of Jefferson Frank, what does the company do, and about the partnership with AWS. >> Sure, so let's just start, Jefferson Frank is a Tenth Revolution Group company. And if you look at it, it's really talent as a service. So Jefferson Frank provides talent solutions all over the world for AWS clients, partners, and users, et cetera. And we have a sister company called Revolent, which is a talent creation company within the AWS ecosystem. So we create talent and put it out in the ecosystem. Usually underrepresented groups, over half of them are women. And then we also have a company called Rebura, which is a delivery model around AWS technology. So all three companies fall under the Tenth Revolution Group organization. >> Got it, Danielle, talk to me a little bit about from AWS' perspective and the focus on hiring more women in technology and about the partnership. >> Yes, this has definitely been a focus ever since I joined eight years ago, but also just especially in the last few years of we've grown exponentially and our customer base has changed. We want to have an organization interacting with them that reflects our customers, right? And we know that we need to keep pace with that even with our growth. And so we've very much focused on early career talent, bringing more women and underrepresented minorities into the organization, sponsoring those folks, promoting them, giving them paths to grow inside of the organization. I'm an example of that, of course, I've benefited from it. But also, I try to bring that into my organization as well and it's super important. >> Tell me a little bit about how you benefited from that, Danielle. >> I just think that I've been able to get, a seat at the table. I think that. I feel as though I have folks supporting me very deeply and want to see me succeed. And also they put me forth as a representative to bring more women into the organization as well. They give me a platform in order to do that, like this, but also many other spots as well. And I'm happy to do it because I feel that... you always want to feel that you're making a difference in your job. And that is definitely a place where I get that time and space in order to be that representative. To bring more women into benefiting from having careers in technology, which there's a lot of value there. >> Lot of value. Absolutely. So back over to you, what are some of the trends that you are seeing from a gendered diversity perspective in tech? We know the numbers of women in technical positions. >> Right. There's so much data out there that shows when girls start dropping out, but what are some of the trends that you're seeing? >> So that's a really interesting question. And Lisa, I had a whole bunch of data points that I wanted to share with you but just two weeks ago, I was in San Francisco with AWS at The Summit. And we were talking about this, we were talking about how we can collectively together attract more women, not only to AWS, not only to technology, but to the AWS ecosystem in particular. And it was fascinating because I was talking about the challenges that women have, and how hard to believe but about 5% of women who were in the ecosystem have left in the past few years. Which was really, really something that shocked everyone when we were talking about it, because all of the things that we've been asking for, for instance working from home, better pay, more flexibility, better maternity leave. Seems like those things are happening. So we're getting what we want, but people are leaving. And it seemed like the feedback that we got was that a lot of women still felt very underrepresented. The number one thing was that they couldn't be... you can't be what you can't see. So because they... we feel, collectively women, people who identify as women, just don't see enough women in leadership, they don't see enough mentors. I think I've had great mentors, but just not enough. I'm lucky enough to have the president of our company, Zoe Morris is a woman and she does lead by example. So I'm very lucky for that. And Jefferson Frank really quickly we put out a hiring, a salary, and hiring guide. Career and hiring guide every year. And the data points, and that's about 65 pages long, no one else does it. It gives an abundance of information around everything about the AWS ecosystem that a hiring manager might need to know. What I thought was really unbelievable was that only 7% of the people that responded to it were women. So my goal, being that we have such a very big global platform, is to get more women to respond to that survey. So we can get as much information and take action. So... >> Absolutely only 7%. So a long way to go there. Danielle, talk to me about AWS' focus on women in tech. I was watching, Sue, I saw that you shared on LinkedIn the TED Talk that the CEO and founder of Girls Who Code did. And one of the things that she said was that there was a survey that HP did some years back that showed that 60%... that men will apply for jobs if they only meet 60% of the list of requirements. Whereas with females, it's far, far less. We've all been in that imposter syndrome conundrum before. But Danielle, talk to us about AWS' specific focus here to get these numbers up. >> Well, I think it speaks to what Susan was talking about how I think we're approaching it top and bottom, right? We're looking out at who are the women who are currently in technical positions and how can we make AWS an attractive place for them to work? And that's a lot of the changes that we've had around maternity leave and those types of things. But then also, a more flexible working arrangements. But then also early... how can we actually impact early career women and actually women who are still in school. And our training and certification team is doing amazing things to get more girls exposed to AWS, to technology, and make it a less intimidating place. And have them look at employees from AWS and say like, "Oh, I can see myself in those people". And kind of actually growing the viable pool of candidates. I think we're limited with the viable pool of candidates when you're talking about mid-to-late career. But how can we help retrain women who are coming back into the workplace after having a child, and how can we help with military women who want to... or underrepresented minorities who want to move into AWS? We have a great military program but then also just that early high school career getting them in that trajectory. >> Sue, is that something that Jefferson Frank is also able to help with is getting those younger girls before they start to feel... >> Right. "There's something wrong with me, I don't get this." >> Right. >> Talk to us about how Jefferson Frank can help really drive up that in those younger girls. >> Let me tell you one other thing to refer back to that Summit that we did we had breakout sessions and that was one of the topics. Cause that's the goal, right? To make sure that there are ways to attract them. That's the goal. So some of the things that we talked about was mentoring programs from a very young age, some people said high school. But then we said, even earlier, goes back to you can't be what you can't see. So getting mentoring programs established. We also talked about some of the great ideas was being careful of how we speak to women using the right language to attract them. And so there was a teachable moment for me there actually. It was really wonderful because an African American woman said to me, "Sue". And I was talking about how you can't be what you can't see. And what she said was, "Sue, it's really different for me as an African American woman" Or she identified as non-binary but she was relating to African American women. She said, "You're a white woman. Your journey was very different than my journey". And I thought, "This is how we're going to learn". I wasn't offended by her calling me out at all. It was a teachable moment. And I thought I understood that but those are the things that we need to educate people on. Those moments where we think we're saying and doing the right thing, but we really need to get that bias out there. So here at Jefferson Frank we're trying really hard to get that careers and hiring guide out there. It's on our website to get more women to talk to it, but to make suggestions in partnership with AWS around how we can do this. Mentoring. We have a mentor me program. We go around the country and do things like this. We try to get the education out there in partnership with AWS. We have a women's group, a women's leadership group. So much that we do and we try to do it in partnership with AWS. >> Danielle, can you comment on the impact that AWS has made so far regarding some of the trends and and gender diversity that Sue was talking about? What's the impact that's been made so far with this partnership? >> Well, I think just being able to get more of the data and have awareness of leaders on how... it used to be a couple years back, I would feel like sometimes the solving to bring more women into the organization was kind of something that folks thought, "Oh, this is... Danielle is going to solve this." And I think a lot of folks now realize, "Oh, this is something that we all need to solve for." And a lot of my colleagues, who maybe a couple years ago didn't have any awareness or didn't even have the tools to do what they needed to do in order to improve the statistics on their or in their organizations, now actually have those tools and are able to kind of work with companies like Susan's work with Jefferson Frank in order to actually get the data, and actually make good decisions, and feel as though they often... these are not lived experiences for these folks. So they don't know what they don't know. And by providing data, and providing awareness, and providing tooling, and then setting goals, I think all of those things have really turned things around in a very positive way. >> And so you bring up a great point about from a diversity perspective. What is Jefferson Frank doing to get those data points up to get more women of all, well, really underrepresented minorities to be able to provide that feedback so that you can have the data and gleamy insights from it to help companies like AWS on their strategic objectives? >> Right, so when I go back to that careers and hiring guide, that is my focus today really, because the more data that we have and the data takes... we need people to participate in order to accurately get ahold of that data. So that's why we're asking. We're taking the initiative to really expand our focus. We are a global organization with a very, very massive database all over the world. But if people don't take action then we can't get the right... the data will not be as accurate as we'd like it to be, therefore take better action. So what we're doing is we're asking people all over the world to participate on our website jeffersonfrank.com In the survey so we can learn as much as we can. 7% is such a... Danielle and I we've got to partner on this just to sort of get that message out there, get more data so we can execute. Some of the other things that we're doing, we're partnering, as I mentioned, more of these events. We're doing around the Summits, we're going to be having more EDNI events, and collecting more information from women. Like I said, internally, we do practice what we preach and we have our own programs that are out there, that are within our own company where the women who are talking to candidates and clients every single day are trying to get that message out there. So if I'm speaking to a client or one of our internal people are speaking to a client or a candidate, they're telling them, "Listen, we really are trying to get these numbers up. We want to attract as many people as we can. Would you mind going to this hiring guide and offering your own information?" So we've got to get that 7% up. We've got to keep talking. We've got to keep getting programs out there. One other thing I wanted to Danielle's point, she mentioned women in leadership, the number that we gathered was only 9% of women in leadership within the AWS ecosystem. We've got to get that number up as well, because I know for me, when I see people like Danielle or her peers it inspires me. And I feel like I just want to give back. Make sure I send the elevator back to the first floor and bring more women in to this amazing ecosystem. >> Absolutely, we need- >> Love that metaphor. >> I do too! But to your point to get those numbers up not just at AWS, but everywhere else we need It's a help me help you situation. >> Exactly. >> So ladies, underrepresented minorities, if you're watching go to the Jefferson Frank website, take the survey. Help provide the data so that the women here that are doing this amazing work, have it to help make decisions and have more of females in leadership roles or underrepresented minorities. So we can be what we can see. >> Exactly. >> Ladies, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing what you guys are doing together to partner on this important cause. >> Thank you for having me, Lisa! >> Thank you! Thank you! >> My pleasure! For my guests, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBES coverage of the AWS partner showcase. Thanks for your time. (gentle xylophone music)

>>Hey everyone. Welcome to the AWS partner showcase. This is season one, episode three, with a focus on women in tech. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. I've got two guests here with me, Sue Peretti, the EVP of global AWS strategic alliances at Jefferson Frank, a 10th revolution group company, and Danielle GShock. One of our alumni joins us ISV PSA director, ladies. It's great to have you on the program talking about a, a topic that is near and dear to my heart at women in tech. >>Thank you, Lisa. >>So let's go ahead and start with you. Give the audience an understanding of Jefferson Frank, what does the company do and about the partnership with AWS? >>Sure. Um, so let's just start, uh, Jefferson Frank is a 10th revolution group company. And if you look at it, it's really talent as a service. So Jefferson Frank provides talent solutions all over the world for AWS clients, partners and users, et cetera. And we have a sister company called revelent, which is a talent creation company within the AWS ecosystem. So we create talent and put it out in the ecosystem. Usually underrepresented groups over half of them are women. And then we also have, uh, a company called Ruba, which is a delivery model around AWS technology. So all three companies fall under the 10th revolution group organization. >>Got it. Danielle, talk to me a little bit about from AWS's perspective and the focus on hiring more women in technology and about the partnership. >>Yes. I mean, this has definitely been a focus ever since I joined eight years ago, but also just especially in the last few years of we've grown exponentially and our customer base has changed. You know, we wanna have, uh, an organization interacting with them that reflects our customers, right. And, uh, we know that we need to keep pace with that even with our growth. And so we've very much focused on early career talent, uh, bringing more women and underrepresented minorities into the organization, sponsoring those folks, promoting them, uh, giving them paths to grow, to grow inside of the organization. I'm an example of that. Of course I've benefit benefited from it, but also I try to bring that into my organization as well. And it's super important. >>Tell me a little bit about how you be benefited from that, Danielle. >>Um, I just think that, um, you know, I I've been able to get, you know, a seat at the table. I think that, um, I feel as though I have folks supporting me, uh, very deeply and wanna see me succeed. And also they put me forth as, um, you know, a, represent a representative, uh, to bring more women into the organization as well. And I think, um, they give me a platform, uh, in order to do that, um, like this, um, but also many other, uh, spots as well. Um, and I'm happy to do it because I feel that, you know, you always wanna feel that you're making a difference in your job. And that is definitely a place where I get that time and space in order to be that representative to, um, bring more, more women into benefiting from having careers and technology, which there's a lot of value there. >>Lot of value. Absolutely. So back over to you, what are some of the trends that you are seeing from a gender diversity perspective in tech? We know the, the numbers of women in technical positions. Uh, there's so much data out there that shows when girls start dropping up, but what are some of the trends that you are seeing? >>So it's, that's a really interesting question. And, and Lisa, I had a whole bunch of data points that I wanted to share with you, but just two weeks ago, uh, I was in San Francisco with AWS at the, at the summit. And we were talking about this. We were talking about how we can collectively together attract more women, not only to, uh, AWS, not only to technology, but to the AWS ecosystem in particular. And it was fascinating because I was talking about, uh, the challenges that women have and how hard to believe, but about 5% of women who were in the ecosystem have left in the past few years, which was really, really, uh, something that shocked everyone when we, when we were talking about it, because all of the things that we've been asking for, for instance, uh, working from home, um, better pay, uh, more flexibility, uh, better maternity leave. >>It seems like those things are happening. So we're getting what we want, but people are leaving. And it seemed like the feedback that we got was that a lot of women still felt very underrepresented. The number one thing was that they, they couldn't be, you can't be what you can't see. So because they, we feel collectively women, uh, people who identify as women just don't see enough women in leadership, they don't see enough mentors. Um, I think I've had great mentors, but, but just not enough. I'm lucky enough to have a pres a president of our company, the president of our company, Zoe Morris is a woman and she does lead by example. So I'm very lucky for that. And Jefferson, Frank really quickly, we put out a hiring a salary and hiring guide a career and hiring guide every year and the data points. And that's about 65 pages long. No one else does it. Uh, it gives an abundance of information around, uh, everything about the AWS ecosystem that a hiring manager might need to know. But there is what, what I thought was really unbelievable was that only 7% of the people that responded to it were women. So my goal, uh, being that we have such a very big global platform is to get more women to respond to that survey so we can get as much information and take action. So >>Absolutely only 7%. So a long way to go there. Danielle, talk to me about AWS's focus on women in tech. I was watching, um, Sue, I saw that you shared on LinkedIn, the Ted talk that the CEO and founder of girls and co did. And one of the things that she said was that there was a, a survey that HP did some years back that showed that, um, 60%, that, that men will apply for jobs if they only meet 60% of the list of requirements. Whereas with females, it's far, far less, we've all been in that imposter syndrome, um, conundrum before. But Danielle, talk to us about AWS, a specific focus here to get these numbers up. >>Well, I think it speaks to what Susan was talking about, how, you know, I think we're approaching it top and bottom, right? We're looking out at what are the, who are the women who are currently in technical positions and how can we make AWS and attractive place for them to work? And that's all a lot of the changes that we've had around maternity leave and, and those types of things, but then also a more flexible working, uh, can, you know, uh, arrangements, but then also, um, early, how can we actually impact early, um, career women and actually women who are still in school. Um, and our training and certification team is doing amazing things to get, um, more girls exposed to AWS, to technology, um, and make it a less intimidating place and have them look at employees from AWS and say like, oh, I can see myself in those people. >>Um, and kind of actually growing the viable pool of candidates. I think, you know, we're, we're limited with the viable pool of candidates, um, when you're talking about mid to late career. Um, but how can we, you know, help retrain women who are coming back into the workplace after, you know, having a child and how can we help with military women who want to, uh, or underrepresented minorities who wanna move into AWS, we have a great military program, but then also just that early high school, uh, career, you know, getting them in, in that trajectory. >>Sue, is that something that Jefferson Frank is also able to help with is, you know, getting those younger girls before they start to feel there's something wrong with me. I don't get this. Talk to us about how Jefferson Frank can help really drive up that when those younger girls, >>Uh, let me tell you one other thing to refer back to that summit that we did, uh, we had breakout sessions and that was one of the topics. What can cuz that's the goal, right? To make sure that, that there are ways to attract them. That's the goal? So some of the things that we talked about was mentoring programs, uh, from a very young age, some people said high school, but then we said even earlier, goes back to you. Can't be what you can't see. So, uh, getting mentoring programs, uh, established, uh, we also talked about some of the great ideas was being careful of how we speak to women using the right language to attract them. And some, there was a teachable moment for, for me there actually, it was really wonderful because, um, an African American woman said to me, Sue and I, I was talking about how you can't be what you can't see. >>And what she said was Sue, it's really different. Um, for me as an African American woman, uh, or she identified, uh, as nonbinary, but she was relating to African American women. She said, you're a white woman. Your journey was very different than my journey. And I thought, this is how we're going to learn. I wasn't offended by her calling me out at all. It was a teachable moment. And I thought I understood that, but those are the things that we need to educate people on those, those moments where we think we're, we're saying and doing the right thing, but we really need to get that bias out there. So here at Jefferson, Frank, we're, we're trying really hard to get that careers and hiring guide out there. It's on our website to get more women, uh, to talk to it, but to make suggestions in partnership with AWS around how we can do this mentoring, we have a mentor me program. We go around the country and do things like this. We, we try to get the education out there in partnership with AWS. Uh, we have a, a women's group, a women's leadership group, uh, so much that, that we do, and we try to do it in partnership with AWS. >>Danielle, can you comment on the impact that AWS has made so far, um, regarding some of the trends and, and gender diversity that Sue was talking about? What's the impact that's been made so far with this partnership? >>Well, I mean, I think just being able to get more of the data and have awareness of leaders, uh, on how, you know, it used to be a, a couple years back, I would feel like sometimes the, um, solving to bring more women into the organization was kind of something that folks thought, oh, this is Danielle is gonna solve this. You know? And I think a lot of folks now realize, oh, this is something that we all need to solve for. And a lot of my colleagues who maybe a couple years ago, didn't have any awareness or didn't even have the tools to do what they needed to do in order to improve the statistics on their, or in their organizations. Now actually have those tools and are able to kind of work with, um, work with companies like Susan's work with Jefferson Frank in order to actually get the data and actually make good decisions and feel as though, you know, they, they often, these are not lived experiences for these folks. So they don't know what they don't know. And by providing data and providing awareness and providing tooling and then setting goals, I think all of those things have really turned, uh, things around in a very positive way. >>And so you bring up a great point about from a diversity perspective, what is Jefferson Frank doing to, to get those data points up, to get more women of, of all well, really underrepresented minorities to, to be able to provide that feedback so that you can, can have the data and glean the insights from it to help companies like AWS on their strategic objectives. >>Right? So as I, when I go back to that higher that, uh, careers in hiring guide, that is my focus today, really because the more data that we have, I mean, the, and the data takes, uh, you know, we need people to participate in order to, to accurately, uh, get ahold of that data. So that's why we're asking, uh, we're taking the initiative to really expand our focus. We are a global organization with a very, very massive database all over the world, but if people don't take action, then we can't get the right. The, the data will not be as accurate as we'd like it to be. Therefore take better action. So what we're doing is we're asking people all over the, all over the world to participate on our website, Jefferson frank.com, the se the high, uh, in the survey. So we can learn as much as we can. >>7% is such a, you know, Danielle and I we're, we've got to partner on this just to sort of get that message out there, get more data so we can execute, uh, some of the other things that we're doing. We're, we're partnering in. As I mentioned, more of these events, uh, we're, we're doing around the summits, we're gonna be having more ed and I events and collecting more information from women. Um, like I said, internally, we do practice what we preach and we have our own programs that are, that are out there that are within our own company where the women who are talking to candidates and clients every single day are trying to get that message out there. So if I'm speaking to a client or one of our internal people are speaking to a client or a candidate, they're telling them, listen, you know, we really are trying to get these numbers up. >>We wanna attract as many people as we can. Would you mind going to this, uh, hiring guide and offering your own information? So we've gotta get that 7% up. We've gotta keep talking. We've gotta keep, uh, getting programs out there. One other thing I wanted to Danielle's point, she mentioned, uh, women in leadership, the number that we gathered was only 9% of women in leadership within the AWS ecosystem. We've gotta get that number up, uh, as well because, um, you know, I know for me, when I see people like Danielle or, or her peers, it inspires me. And I feel like, you know, I just wanna give back, make sure I send the elevator back to the first floor and bring more women in to this amazing E ecosystem. >>Absolutely. That's that metaphor I do too. But we, but to your point to get that those numbers up, not just at AWS, but everywhere else we need, it's a help me help use situation. So ladies underrepresented minorities, if you're watching go to the Jefferson Frank website, take the survey, help provide the data so that the women here that are doing this amazing work, have it to help make decisions and have more of females in leadership roles or underrepresented minorities. So we can be what we can see. Ladies, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing what you guys are doing together to partner on this important. Cause >>Thank you for having me, Lisa, >>Thank you. My pleasure for my guests. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the cubes coverage of the AWS partner showcase. Thanks for your time.

(bright music) >> 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 Greshock, 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. >> I agree, and we're going to get to (indistinct) 'cause advice is one of the the main things that our audience is going to hear. We have Hillary Ashton, you'll see from Teradata. Vera Reynolds joins us from Honeycomb. Stephanie Curry from NetApp. And Sue Persichetti 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&I initiatives and that intention was a common theme 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&I is concerned. 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. >> Yeah, that value alignment that you bring up is another theme that we 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&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 in this episode. >> Absolutely, and I definitely even feel that 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, 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. Like, 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 want to do outside of work, beyond children and family. So these are all very important questions that especially women come and ask, but also it kind of is a bellwether for, is this going to be a company that allows me to bring my whole self to work and then I'm also going to 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, it's a win-win. >> Absolutely, and 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 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, bleeds 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 Hillary 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 younger folks, not necessarily younger folks, 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 Hillary provided, something that I'm going to 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 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 want to 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 it's something that I hadn't really considered either. We also talked with several of the 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. 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 the, 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, for folks who've been in industry for 20, 25 years, I think we can just say that it's a marathon, it's not a sprint, and you're always going to have new things to learn and you can spend, back to we talked about the zigging and zagging through careers where we'll have different experiences, all of that kind of comes through just 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 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, your career is going to have lots of ebbs and flows and that's natural and that when you say that, not right now, that's a perfect example of maybe there's an ebb 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 Hillary, Vera, Stephanie, Sue, and you. So much valuable content in here. We hope you enjoy this Partner Showcase. Season one episode three. Danielle, thank you so much for helping us. >> Thank you. Thank you, it's been a blast. I really appreciate it. >> All right, audience, we want to thank you. Enjoy the episode. (upbeat music)

(bright music) >> Everyone, it's nice to see you. 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 Greshock, the ISV PSA Director at AWS, and the 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. 'Cause advice is one of the main things that our audience is going to hear. We have Hillary Ashton, you'll see from Teradata, Vera Reynolds joins us from Honeycomb, Stephanie Curry from NetApp and Sue Persichetti 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&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&I is concerned. What were some of the things that stuck out to you? >> Absolutely, I think each one of us is working in the 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 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. >> Yeah, that value alignment that you bring up is another thing that we 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&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 performing teams are teams that are more diverse. I think we heard that kind of echoed throughout the women that we talked to in this episode. >> Absolutely, and I definitely even feel that 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. Like, 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 kids' conference, or even just have enough work-life balance that I can do the things that I want to do outside of work beyond children and family. So these are all very important questions that especially women come and ask, but also it kind of is a bellwether for, is this going to be a company that allows me to bring my whole self to work? And then I'm also going to 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. 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, it's a win-win. >> Absolutely. And 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 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 Hillary 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 younger folks, not necessarily younger folks, I shouldn't say that, that are attracted to a company, its 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 Hillary provided, something that I'm going to 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 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 want to 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. 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 it 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. 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. 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 the 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 for folks who've been in industry for 20, 25 years, I think we can just say that it's a marathon, it's not a sprint, and you're always going to have new things to learn. And you can spend... Back to we talked about the zigging and zagging through careers where we'll have different experiences. All of that kind of comes through just 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 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, "Your career is going to have lots of ebbs and flows, and that's natural." And that when you say that, not right now, that's a perfect example of maybe there's an ebb 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 Hillary, 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 the episode. (gentle music)