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>> Hey, everyone.
Welcome to theCUBE's coverage
of the International Women's Showcase for 2022.
I'm your host, Lisa Martin.
I'm pleased to welcome Nancy Wong, the general manager
of Data Protection and Governance at AWS to the program.
Nancy, it's great to have you.
>> Thanks so much for having me Lisa, and you know,
I really hope that this is hopefully the last year
that we'll be celebrating International Women's Day
all virtually.
>> I agree. I agree.
Well, we're going in that right direction globally.
So let's cross our fingers.
Talk to me a little bit about your role
at AWS and what you do there.
>> Sure. So as a GM of AWS Data Protection and Governance,
a lot of, we tackle quite a few problems
that our biggest customers face, right?
When they think about,
"How do I manage my data?" Right.
Especially in this digital world.
And speaking of the pandemic,
how much data has been generated by consumers,
by devices, by systems, by servers?
How do you protect all of that data? Right.
Especially we hear about cyber crime, cyber attacks. Right.
Data breaches.
It's really important to make sure
that all of our customers have a coherent strategy
around not just management, right, but also protection
and really how you govern your data. Right.
And there's just so many awesome conversations
that my team and I have had lately with CSOs
or chief technology officers on this topic, as it evolves.
>> Data protection is so critical.
It's one of my favorite topics to talk about,
cybersecurity as well.
Talk to me about what it means though
if we keep this at a bit of a different level
to be an operator within the the big ecosystem that is AWS.
>> Yeah. And that's actually one of the the favorite aspects
of my role. Right.
Which is, you know,
I get to innovate every day on behalf of my customers.
For example, I love having one-on-one dialogues.
I love having architecture conversations
where we brainstorm. Right.
And so those type of conversations help inform
how we deliver and develop products.
And so in an operator role, right,
for the the women in the audience today,
is it really gives you that perspective into
not just how,
what type of products do you want to build
that delight your customers
but also from an engineering. Right.
And a bottom line perspective of,
well how do you make this happen? Right.
How do you fund this?
And how do you plan out your development milestones?
>> What are, tell me a little bit about your background
and then what makes women in technology
such an important initiative for you to stand behind?
>> Absolutely.
So I'm so proud today to see that the number
of women or the percentage of women enrolled
at engineering curriculums just continue to rise. Right.
And especially as someone who went through
an engineering degree in her undergraduate studies,
that was not always the case. Right.
So oftentimes, you know,
I would look around the classroom
and be the only woman on the lab bench
or only woman in a CS classroom.
And so when you have roles in tech, specifically,
that require an undergraduate degree in computer science
or a degree in engineering,
that helps to,
or that only serves to
really reduce the population of eligible candidates. Right.
Who then, if you look at that pool of eligible candidates
who then you can invest and accelerate
through the career ladder to become leaders in tech,
well that's where you may end up
with a representation issue. Right.
And that's why we have, for example,
so few women leaders in tech
that we can look up to as role models.
And that's really the problem or the gap
that I'm very passionate about solving.
And also, Lisa, I'm really excited to tell you
a little bit more about advancing women in tech,
which is a 501c3 nonprofit organization
that I started to tackle this exact problem.
>> Talk to me about that,
cause it's one of the things that you bring up is, you know,
we always say when we're having conversations like this,
we can't be what we can't see.
We need to be able to see those female leaders.
To your point, there aren't a ton
in comparison to the male leaders.
So talk to me about advancing women in technology,
why you founded this,
and what you guys are accomplishing.
>> Absolutely. So it's been such a personal journey as well.
Just starting this organization
called Advancing Women In Tech
because I started it in 2017. Right.
So when I really was, you know,
just starting out as a product manager,
I was at another big tech company at the time.
And what I really realized, right, is looking around
you know, I had so many, for example,
bosses, managers, peer leaders,
who were really invested in growing me as a product manager
and growing my tech and career.
And this is right after I'd made the transition
from the federal government into big tech.
What that said though, looking around,
there weren't that many women tech leaders
that I could look up to, or get coffee,
or just have a mentoring conversation.
And quickly I realized,
well, it's not so much that women can't do it. Right.
It's the fact that we're not advancing enough women
into leadership roles.
And so really we have to look at why that is. Right.
And we, you know, from a personal perspective,
one contribution towards that angle is upskilling. Right.
So if you think about what skills
one needs as one climbs a career ladder,
whether that's your first people management role,
or your first manager manager's role,
or obviously for bigger leaders
when they start managing thousands,
tens of thousands of individuals,
well all of that requires different skills.
And so learning those skills about how to manage people,
how to motivate your teams effectively,
super, super important.
And of course on the other side,
and one that I'm, you know, near to dear to me
is that of mentorship and executive sponsorship
because you can have all the skills in the world, right.
And especially with digital learning
and AWIT is very involved with Coursera and AWS
in producing and making those resources
readily available and accessible.
Well, if you don't have those opportunities,
if you don't have mentors and sponsors
who are well to push you or give you a step ladder
to those roles,
well you're still not going to get there. Right.
And so, that's why actually,
if you look at the AWIT mission,
it's really those two pillars working very closely together
to help advance women into leadership roles.
>> The idea of mentorship and sponsorship is so critical.
And I think a lot of people don't understand the difference
between a mentor and a sponsor.
How do you define that difference
and how do you bring them into the organization
so that they can be mentors and sponsors?
>> Yeah, absolutely.
And there's, you know,
these two terms are often used today so interchangeably
that I do get a lot of questions around,
well, what is the difference? Right.
And how does, let's say a mentor become a sponsor?
So, maybe just taking a few steps back, right.
When you have let's say questions around compensation
or, "Hey I have some job offers, which ones do I consider?"
And you ask someone a question or advice,
well that person's likely your mentor. Right?
And typically a mentor is someone
who you can ask those questions on a repeated basis.
Who's very accessible to you.
Well, a sponsor takes that a few steps forward
in the sense that they are sponsoring you into a role
or into a project or initiative
that you on your own may not be able to achieve.
And by doing so, I think what really differentiates
a sponsor from a mentor
is that the sponsor will actually
put their own reputation on the line. Right.
They're using their own political capital
in order to make sure
that you get into that role, you get into that room. Right.
And that's why it's so key, for example,
especially if you have that relationship already
with a person who's your mentor,
you're able to ask questions or advice from,
to convert them into a sponsor
so that you can accelerate your career.
>> Great definition, description, and great recommendations
for converting mentors to sponsors.
You know, I only learned the difference
about a mentor and a sponsor a few years ago
at another women in tech event that I was hosting.
And I thought, "It's brilliant. It makes perfect sense."
We need more people to understand the difference,
the synergies, and how to promote mentors to sponsors.
Talk to me now about advancing women in tech
plus the power of AWS.
How are they helping this nonprofit to really accelerate?
>> Sure. So from an organization perspective, right,
there's many women, for example,
across the the tech companies
who are part of Advancing Women In Tech,
obviously Amazon of course as an employee
has a very large community within who's part of AWIT.
But we also have members across the tech industry
from startups to VC firms to of course,
Google, Microsoft, and Netflix. You name it.
With that said, you know,
what AWS has done with AWIT is actually very special
in the sense that if you go to the Coursera platform,
coursera.org/awit
you can see our two Coursera specializations.
Four courses each that go through
the real world product management fundamentals.
Or the business side, the technical skills,
and even interviewing
for mid-career product management roles.
And the second specialization,
which I'm super excited to share today,
is actually geared towards getting folks ramped up
and prepared to successfully pass
the Cloud Practitioner's Exam,
which is one of the industry recognized standards
about understanding the AWS Cloud
and being functional in the AWS Cloud.
This summer, of course, and I'm sharing kind of a sneak peek
announcement that I'll be making tomorrow
with the University of Pennsylvania,
is that we're kicking off a program
for the masters of CIS program,
or the Computer Information Systems Master students,
to actually go through this Coursera specialization,
which is produced by AWIT, sponsored by AWS,
and AWS Training and Certifications
has so generously donated exam vouchers
for these students so that they can then go on
and be certified in the AWS Cloud.
So that's one just really cool collaboration
that we are doing between AWS and AWIT
to get more qualified folks in the door in tech jobs,
and hopefully at jobs in AWS.
>> That's a great collaboration.
What are some of the goals in terms of metrics,
the number of women that you want to get into the program
and complete the program?
What are some of those on your radar?
>> Absolutely. So one of the reasons, of course,
that the Master's of CIS Program,
the University of Pennsylvania caught my eye,
not withstanding, I graduated from there,
but also that just the statistics of women enrolled. Right.
So what's really notable about this program
is it's entirely online,
which as a university
creating a Master's degree fully online,
well, it takes a ton of resources from the university,
from the faculty.
And what's really special about these students
is that they're already full-time adult professionals,
which means that they're working a full-time job,
they might be taking care of family obligations,
and they're still finding time to advance themselves,
to acquire a Master's degree in CS.
And best of all, 42% of these students are women. Right.
And so that's a number that is multiples
of what we're finding in engineering curriculums today.
And so my theory is,
well if you go to a student population that is over 40%,
42 to be exact percent women,
and enable these women to be certified in AWS Cloud,
to have direct interview prep and mentorship
from AWS software development leaders,
well, that greatly increases their chances
of getting a full-time role, right, at AWS. Right.
At which then we can help them advance their careers
to further and further roles in software development.
>> So is this curriculum also open
to women who aren't currently in tech
to be able to open the door for them
to get into tech and STEM fields?
>> Absolutely.
And so
in my bad and remiss in mentioning,
which is students of this Master's in CS Program
are actually students not from tech already.
So they're not in a tech field.
And they did not have a degree in CS or even engineering
as part of their undergraduate studies.
So it's truly folks who are outside of tech,
that are 42% women,
that we're getting into the tech industry
with this collaboration
between AWS, AWIT, and the University of Pennsylvania.
>> That's outstanding to get them in
from completely different fields into tech.
>> Absolutely.
>> How do you help women have the confidence to say,
"I want to try this."
Cause if we think about every company today
is a tech company.
It's a data company.
It has to be to be competitive.
You know, the pandemic taught us that everything we're able
to do online and digitally, for example,
but how do you help women get the confidence to say,
"Okay, I'm going to go from a completely different field
into tech."
>> Absolutely. So if we, you know, define tech of course
as big tech or, you know, now the main companies, right,
I myself made that transition,
which is why it is a topic near and dear to me
because I can personally speak to my journey
because I didn't start my career out in tech. Right.
Yes. I studied engineering.
But with that said, my first full-time job out of college
was with the federal government
because I wanted to go and build healthdata.gov, right,
which gave folks a lot of access to the healthcare data,
roles, right, that existed within the U.S. government
and the CMS, NIH, you know, CDC, so on and so forth.
But that was quite a big change
from then taking a product management job at Google. Right.
And so how did I make that change?
Well, a lot of it came from, you know,
the mentors that I had. Right.
What I call my personal board of directors
who gave me that confidence.
And sure, I mean even today,
I still have imposter syndrome where, you know,
I think, "Am I good enough." Right.
"Should I be leading this organization," right,
"of data protection and governance."
But I think what it boils down to is, you know,
inner confidence. Right.
And goes back to those two pillars
of having the right skills
and also the right mentors and sponsors
who are willing to help sponsor you
into those opportunities
and help sponsor you to success.
>> Absolutely. Great advice and recommendations.
Thanks for sharing your background, Nancy,
it's outstanding to see where you started
to where you are now and also to what you're enabling
for so many other females to get into tech
with the AWIT program combined with AWS and UPenn.
Exciting stuff. Can't wait to talk to you next year
to see where you guys go from here.
>> Absolutely Lisa.
And what I'm really looking forward to sharing
with you next year
is the personal testimonials of other women
who have gone through the AWIT, the AWS, the UPenn Program
and have gotten their tech jobs and also promotions.
>> That sounds like a great thing to look forward to.
I'm looking forward to that.
Nancy, thanks so much for your time
and the insight that you shared.
>> Thanks so much for having me, Lisa.
>> My pleasure.
For Nancy Wong, I'm Lisa Martin.
You're watching theCUBE's coverage
of the International Women's Showcase 2022.
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