Black in Tech

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining. My name is Alina. I am the BDR here at Cloudflare.

So again, thank you for your time. Thank you for everyone who's watching and wherever you're watching from.

This event was created by our global leader, Trudy Bala-Atulian.

And I can speak for everyone here, if I may, that we thank you for your candor, your support and everything that you have done here for Cloudflare.

Yes, thank you so much, Trudy. I also want to thank Cloudflare as well for, you know, trying so far and also accomplishing making the Internet a better place.

So thank you for this space as well. So with that being said, I want to introduce our panelists and go over our agenda.

So we have our panelists here. We have Geneva, we have Tobi, Delia and Quentin.

They're going to go more in depth of what they have done and do in their position as well.

And then we have a spotlight session later to highlight Geneva and her many accomplishments.

So thank you, guys. One thing that I want to also say is that for all these Black women here today, we want to discuss how their experience has been thus far in their space, as well as bring more visibility and equality to the Black employees in the tech sphere.

So this event, naming Black in Tech, showcases the lack of representation or the lack thereof of Black individuals in the tech industry and sometimes underrepresented in their teams, departments, and men who find themselves to be the sole presence in their individual spaces.

And we want to just highlight that and say that we're all here to support you in any way, which way is possible and discuss that.

So following that, I want to start with one question for everybody, just to get into the bigger things.

What is your current go-to karaoke song?

We'll go with you, Quentin. Let's go with you first. It takes a second.

Can you hear me? Yes. I'm coming off guard with that one. I think for me, it's probably like a Jay-Z song.

Okay. Maybe Takeover or something like that.

Yeah. Girls, Girls, Girls, something like that. Okay, okay, okay. So I'm going to turn it around.

Sorry, I was going to turn it around. Delia? My go-to karaoke song is, and has been for a very long time, Whitney Houston, I Want to Dance with Somebody.

Tony? My go-to song? What song would you lip-sync perfectly, if you could?

That would be Q-Pop. Oh, okay. There's a lot of songs there, too. There's some part of my love, so yeah.

Okay, okay. And Geneva? I don't karaoke. No. If you used to lip-sync, lip-sync battle, you know, last one.

Oh, wow. Okay, I was not expecting that.

As a child. Well, thank you guys so much. We're going to just go back around.

And again, what department are you from? And I know that some of us know that we're all from Cloudflare.

Clinton, I believe you're from Meta as well.

So if you can just discuss, like, a little bit of your position and what you do in your position, so everyone can understand.

So, my name is Geneva Othato, and I help with strategic force.

I'm the head of strategic force here at Cloudflare.

So my responsibilities are doing contract negotiations on behalf of Cloudflare for SaaS, IT, professional services, IT, and any space, and then I mentor to others on the team.

Okay, thank you. And Toby? So, I'm on the support team, where we help maintain, help the customer to integrate with the community.

Whenever they have a problem, we are there to help.

So, pretty much, we help customers achieve what they want.

Thank you. And Julia? I lead our corporate security function, so that includes all of our office security, employee health and safety, executive protection, traveler risk and safety, all of those kinds of items.

And Quintin? So, I work at Meta as an account manager, and I support B2B tech companies in consulting them on how to spend their ad dollars efficiently on the platform.

Okay, well, again, thank you guys for joining us and explaining that as well.

And hopefully we can dive deeper into that and, of course, your experience, other than just in Cloudflare and Meta, but overall experience in the tech industry.

So, Quintin, if I can, going back to you, we're going to keep going back around and around.

For your position there and being in this space, what made you join this panel?

I know somebody had reached out and asked you, but if someone hadn't, would you still have joined this panel and why?

Yeah, I definitely would have joined the panel if no one had reached out or invited me.

And I want to give thanks to Brad out there for inviting me to this panel.

But I joined this panel just to be able to provide my perspective of being black in tech, but also to shed insight on what it's like to be the only person on your team or be one of few in a large organization that impacts a lot of people.

So, it's a unique perspective that a lot of people can't always identify with.

And just being in a community and within a space where I can be open about my experiences is always comforting.

Okay. And Delia, if you don't mind answering that as well, and then we'll change subjects and get a little bit deeper.

Thank you. I joined the panel because I think it's important to share your experience, to help others validate their own experience so that they feel like they're not alone.

And just so that we can learn from each other.

I think it's really important to build a community with whatever you're doing so that you can bounce ideas off of each other, reach out to people when you're struggling or need support.

So, hoping that if I share my experience that we can continue to build on that community.

Well, thank you guys for sharing that.

Another question that I have for Toby and Geneva is, what strategies or support systems have been instrumental to your professional growth and continued success in your roles?

Whoever would like to start first. I was hoping I wasn't first on this one.

What strategies? I think it's so important to recognize when someone's good at it, no matter what company they are at the job, right?

So, what their background is, what they do. So, I'll go grab a mentor for myself no matter where they are in the company.

I seek out leadership. I seek out opportunities to learn and be better at what I do.

So, it has really nothing to do with color for me.

It has to do with, do you know something? I don't know, right? What can you teach me?

I'm the first in my family to go to college. I'm the first in my family to have done a lot of things.

So, I think it will be important for me to come into an industry I know nothing about and just reach out for feelers and try to find my way in the system.

And then, what can I do? What can I improve on? Is there a better way for me to go about this?

For me, it's important for me to learn. So, my best message to anybody or any company is to kind of put feelers out and kind of learn what the industry is about, what people are doing.

Okay, that's a great answer.

I can say it one more time, too, if you're still thinking about it. Thank you.

That was very well noted. Yes. I think one of the very important aspects of my success so far is crowdsourcing.

Mentorship is great. I will always be thankful to all the mentors that are giving the time to coach me on things that I don't know.

But most importantly, whenever there is a problem, I always believe that several hands is better than one.

And I don't put color in perspective at that point in time.

I believe that anybody that has the answer to a question should be allowed to help people.

And again, inclusiveness is very important. You want to make sure that everybody is heard.

Because a lot of times, we think we know, we know.

But in reality, we just have to hear from someone else. Okay, I like that answer.

And piggybacking off of that, what do you think a mentor or a sponsor is like to have in this tech space?

So I know that there's a difference between having a mentor and a sponsor, where someone just advocates for you and brooms when you're not in there.

And a mentor is to help guide you in growth. So how has that been in your journey, in your careers?

And whoever wants to go first. So I can go first on this one.

So I think there's a huge difference between mentorship and sponsorship.

When it comes to mentorship, the way I see it is you need to really be involved.

In order for you to mentor someone, you need to be willing to know them.

Because you can mentor someone you don't know. You can solve a problem that you don't know is a problem.

So I think sponsorship is slightly different in the sense that you believe in something bigger, you know, together.

Like the togetherness of everyone here, you know, we in the black community, that is sponsorship.

I don't really need to know everybody here, but we share some things in common.

If I have to mentor you, I need to know you personally. I need to be able to invest my time and also to, you know, know where to invest my time, if that makes sense.

Okay. And for these sponsorships, have you had any relationships with your sponsorships in the front?

And the fact that you started here, you started somewhere prior to your current job, that really helped you to get to where you're at?

If anyone could speak on that experience. Okay, I have an example.

I had a leader who believed in me more than I believed in myself. That's always great.

And I was an expert in like this narrow space of what I could do. And he was like, he sat me down, he was like, would you mind taking over this other space?

This person is not working out. They could use someone like you in that space.

I was like, but I don't know how to do this. I'm going to fail. And he was like, you're really good.

I don't think you're going to fail. You're driven. And he believed in me and kind of mentored me through being willing to learn, being a leader.

And so, again, this executive, not only I ended up being like the top performer for the whole company after this person believed in me and spoke, I don't know, spoke life into me.

And I was not afraid to go into executive level conversations.

I wasn't afraid because this person believed in me first. So I think sponsorship is really important to have someone to kind of sometimes tell you when you're afraid and you're not willing to do something for them to give you the go ahead and kind of show you the road.

So I think that's important. And then I was able to follow that person to another company, right, which opened doors to my career to start to get into spaces I never imagined myself going into.

So, again, this person opened the door and sponsored me to the company and would speak well of me before I ever got into the room.

Oh, I heard about you. Someone tell me. So that's sponsorship.

When you open the doors for others and speak whatever, you know, colors don't matter.

Female, male doesn't matter. None of that stuff matters when they're willing to open the door to diversity and inclusion.

Yeah, of course. This is an open discussion.

I agree with everything that you have said. What I have found being Black in non-Black spaces is that it's very difficult to find a sponsor.

And it happens very organically for non-Black people. You know, oh, we went to the same college.

Oh, we did that, you know, and they immediately latch on and they all of a sudden want to sponsor somebody.

And I feel like for us, we have to work and prove to them that we're worthy of sponsorship.

And it's almost self-serving because it makes them look good, too.

Right. Because we have already proven that we're good enough, that we're very smart, we're very talented in what we do.

And so then they're like, oh, I want to sponsor that person because it's going to look good that I'm associated with them and I can help them come.

And it's not as organic and natural, I have found, as some other colleagues might experience.

Okay. And with that, as far as your experiences with sponsorship, mentorship and any other field, how would you go ahead and let's say you had somebody else also joining within your space, you're assigned to them to teach them exactly what you know.

How would you go ahead and help them in that sense?

And what advice would you give them if you were to be their sponsor and or mentor?

We didn't hear from you, Quinn, you can go ahead.

Oftentimes when a junior member of a team joins, I try to just be honest with them and try to help them understand that imposter syndrome is something that will come throughout your career, especially as you grow and evolve.

But you have someone that was in your shoes before.

So the most important thing that I try to provide, at least from a mentorship standpoint, is just being open and honest with that person, but also being there as a soundboard when they're going through any challenges, but also kind of guiding them and in some aspects being a sponsor for them as well.

And opening opportunities that I didn't know about, but over time, I can see it can help progress their career.

So sometimes I can feel the role of a sponsor and mentor.

Okay. So with that, we're going to continue. How can organizations better support and empower Black employees to succeed in the tech field?

So I know that you said that you would support them, be a mentor. And other than just us being that advocate, what about everybody else who doesn't look like us?

How could they help to support and better and empower their Black employees? We can go with you, Toby.

You're right there. So I think that it's a very good question.

Every time we have events, I always try to call people that are friends to know more about Black events.

Because I think the biggest problem that we have is that people can claim that they don't know.

Either it's a claim or it's a fact. So by exposing them to our culture, what we believe in, we're also bringing them to that inclusiveness.

Okay. Delia, would you like to add? Yeah, I think exposure is a good one.

I think also kind of politely calling them out on their blind spots.

Being honest, I'm just a very honest and open person. So they're going to hear it from me politely.

I see the policy, you know? But call them out and just be like, you know, one-on -one.

You don't need to embarrass them. But, you know, just, hey, I noticed this.

This is the impact of that. Either action or words or whatever it was, this is the impact of what that had on me.

And a lot of the time, they just have no clue, right?

So you have to be willing to put yourself out there, though, but call them out.

Metrics. Metrics and standards for including us.

We're a certain number of the United States, right? There's a certain number of us everywhere.

Why does it not look the same within our community? So if we're 15% or 11% of the United States, why is the company, why are we not represented exactly the same way at the company?

So metrics. Why do we only have a 2%, right?

If out there, there's qualified people of color that can do all the jobs here at Kloster, why are we not attracting that talent?

Why don't we have people? What are we doing to keep the talent, right?

So, again, calling them out on metrics and numbers.

What are you doing to attract us? What events are you going to? What colleges are you recruiting from?

What events are you going to? What are you doing to bring the talent in, right?

Knowing that we are diverse and we are different, they have to come out and seek us.

They have to go out and grab us. And then what are you doing to keep us?

We can't be the only one. We can't join a company and look around the room and be the only one in the room where our voices are not heard, our backgrounds are not heard, and there is no community.

So you have to do things to gain us, to keep us, to have us be safe, where we have a seat at the table and what we say is valued and heard.

So you have to do more than just bring Black people into the company.

You have to have metrics to show how you're keeping us, supporting us, and doing so much more.

But metrics and numbers count. So you can't talk the talk without showing the numbers.

And I completely agree, yes. Yes, we can snap along to that.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Spoken word. Spoken word.

So, yes, I really appreciate those answers. And the other thing I want to say is we've all had unique answers.

We've all had our amazing backgrounds and experiences.

So what makes Black people or just Black individuals, people in other spaces, what are their attributes that contribute to their professional positions and things like that?

So if you brought some more, had the metrics, what can that do for that department, that company, and so on and so forth around people who aren't like us?

Not quoting Kendrick, but, you know. I don't have an exact figure, but I do know that from studies that the more diverse a company is, the more profitable that they are.

And I think that when you have that diversity of thought, of backgrounds, of skills, it helps to drive more inclusivity.

And you can connect with your external partners, customers in many different ways other than just one perspective.

So I think just having diversity throughout a company, throughout a team or organization, you will see better performance and you'll see more engagement from those team members as well.

When they feel that they're in a space where they're comfortable, where they can be honest about how they feel about whether it's a new product that's being launched or an initiative that's being driven, where they have that space to really speak their minds without any retribution or anything like that.

I mean, similar thoughts.

It allows a company to perform better because it brings a different perspective to any problem.

So if you view life this way and other people view life a different way, you're going to have a different solution, right?

And a company can grow faster and it can grow stronger if it's embracing different ways of thinking and different creative solutions to a problem.

It helps the bottom line.

It helps people feel included. Going to your point about retention and how you're going to keep us.

You're not going to keep us if we're the only ones in the room, you know.

So it's going to help you retain your top talent as well.

I like all these answers. Toby, I feel like you were pondering right there. So I think a lot of times when you find yourself in a mental place and you look around you and you see different people, different people of colors, at that point in time you feel that ease of contributing.

If you look around you and all you see is every other person that none of them looks like you.

Now they tell a joke and you can't laugh because it's not a joke.

It changes everything. So I think in a company it helps when people are involved and they are not the only ones.

And we have great ideas. We have a lot of intelligent people that a lot of times they will stay quiet because they feel like they're not being cool.

And that is a very important aspect of SQLs.

We need them because there's people who don't feel like they're allowed to talk in a setting where every other person around them looks very different.

Did you want to add anything? Okay. I'll actually say an experience that I had talking with a client as a BDR.

We're the first people to respond to clients.

So one of the clients that I had, they also did boats. Side note, I do boat charters from time to time with my family.

So because of that knowledge that I had and because of how they looked as well, because I looked them up on LinkedIn, you know how to do our research.

So I looked them up and their position was they owned a boat company as well.

They wanted to include Internet security when they're speaking with other boats.

And because of that knowledge and because of that experience when I was talking with the AE and we had our one-on -ones going in depth and trying to find the support, the AE had no idea about the boat situation and then also how we were speaking.

So they wanted to continue to speak with me because they're like, oh, she knows exactly what I'm talking about.

She knows my scenario and things like that.

So I will say that, yes, in certain spaces and certain attributes and things like that.

If we have those experiences, we don't have the code switch in a sense because that is a huge thing in the tech space as well where or in corporate America.

We just have a different saying from here because we understand certain spaces, certain things and how we think, how we talk.

So it ended up being a really good sale, by the way. Because of that, we had great rapport.

So that is one of the things that I believe that anybody can bring just from their experiences being Afro-Latina as well.

Sometimes you also, oh, you're Latin, you're Hispanic, you're African-American, you're this, you're that.

Having those diversities definitely helps to broaden the spectrum of getting those clientele.

Moving on. You had mentioned imposter syndrome in the beginning, and I was going to touch back on that.

We're in these spaces that sometimes we don't feel included.

And, you know, for some people just joining the tech industry or some people just joining anywhere, how do you combat that in that sense other than mentorship, sponsorship?

It's your first time. I know you said that you were in a space and you had that sponsor.

So how did it feel to overcome that?

And what advice do you have, additional advice for someone overcoming that imposter syndrome?

Like, yes, you do belong here because you're able-bodied, but can you elaborate on that?

I think spaces like this where you can talk to other people that have similar experiences, because a lot of times imposter syndrome stems from you think that you're the only one that has gone through that issue or you're the only one that has dealt with that problem.

But oftentimes other people are also going through that same challenge.

And so community, I think, is the biggest solution because you can talk to people and understand that, oh, well, we both dealt with a client that has a similar issue and we both feel the same way.

And I think just being able to connect with people and just having that understanding is the most important thing that can help overcome imposter syndrome.

Toby, and then we'll go to Delia. Yeah. And also, if you find yourself in a new space, figure out how you contribute to that space.

Because there is one thing that is unique about you is what you bring to the table.

So a lot of times it might take me a little while to get used to the environment, but then I'm trying to learn from other people to try to understand what is still lacking, what I can bring to that table.

Because if you bring something unique to the table, your color no longer matters.

It doesn't matter where you are at that point in time because you are bringing something to the table.

You are the meal. Soneva?

Toby? I have an interesting story. One of my first tech jobs straight out of networking school was at Dell.

Not only was I one of the only females there, I was one of two black people, and then there was like three females on the whole team.

So I had imposter syndrome, like a mofo, there because it was all dominated.

The tech field was all male.

So oftentimes I would go into these rooms with all these CIOs and these high-level leaders, and I'm the only female, and they thought I was there to take notes.

But I was the solutions engineer to tell them about the solution, what was going.

And oftentimes they would say, can you take notes and can you write that down?

And I would look around and be like, I'm the one giving the presentation.

I'm not taking notes. But imposter syndrome is real. Sometimes we're in spaces that we've never had an opportunity to be in before.

So you have to believe in yourself and what you can do.

I listened to Condoleezza Rice talk one time, and she had said oftentimes black people have to be two to three times more qualified than other people in the room just to get into the rooms and to get into the spaces.

And in realizing that, sometimes we're overqualified in the room. And we know what we're talking about, but the others don't.

So we're bringing up solutions and things, and they're looking kind of like whatever.

So you can get imposter syndrome just from that, that you're bringing up a solution that no one has fully thought of yet.

But you're so far ahead in your way of thinking that you were like, wow, I'm bringing it up, and they don't realize it yet.

So that's happened to me a couple of times, and I had to get over myself.

You have to be willing to speak up when you know something is right and know your worth and know your value always, right?

But it's a hard thing. Imposter syndrome, I think, follows us throughout life and in different spaces.

And do they tend to forget about you?

I would say write down what you know your strengths to be, whether it's stuff that's been given to you as feedback or your own personal thoughts on your strength.

Write it down.

So when you go into that meeting with people and you're feeling like, oh, I don't know, what can I contribute?

You have your little list, and you're like, no, I actually know more about this than this.

So have that armed with you so you're not thinking about it.

But also sit down and just observe. Observe the team. Observe the meeting.

I like to just see where everybody's at because it helps you understand what your purpose is and what you are contributing.

They hired you for a reason.

There's something you can contribute to that team that somebody else doesn't have that skill set, right?

So just listen, observe, and then be like, OK, I know why they hired me.

I got this figured out now. I'm going to just have an example that's not my example.

It's one from my mom. She's a black woman. She worked for Verizon for many, many years, and she was one of maybe three women at the time when she first started.

And she was the one who went up on the telephone poles and actually fixed all the telephones in New Jersey, New York.

And one of the things that people would say to her was like, oh, so you do poles.

Yeah, and everyone kept thinking it was the other type of poles.

And I was like, no, I don't do that.

Well, you're a woman. Why don't you do that? You're in shape and everything.

And she's like, no, I'm part of the tech industry. I'm part of this. I'm part of that.

Why would you think that? Well, that's not what women do. That's not what black women do.

And she's heard that so many times. So seeing my mom prevail in that sense, always wanted to be different, always wanted to stand out.

She was actually one of the top people to be on the telephone poles.

She had the top sales.

She had the top installs and ended up being the manager of a whole district in New Jersey.

So definitely understand that. I want to shout her out as well. But it was a great example.

As far as those types of examples, what have you guys experienced in your past role before you got to this role that led you to like, you know what?

I'm going to keep striving to get there. Geneva, you want to start? I've been in the tech industry 25 years.

You kind of become a shmi, right? So you are a subject matter expert in what you do.

And I realized that. So there's no ceiling for me, y'all.

It just doesn't exist. It's all to that. There's no ceiling.

There is no ceiling. When people say, well, women don't do this. I've been in IT for over 20 years.

I've done things. I was racking and stacking servers. Servers were as big as me.

I used to be in the army. It was like females camp. The rucksacks used to weigh half my body weight.

And just to prove something, I'd be like, no, I got this ruck.

People would say, you need me to carry your ruck? No, I got it.

I got it. It's half my body weight, but I got this. You have to kind of start to believe in yourself and your worth and what you can do.

So again, the ceiling is the limit.

There is none that can do it. Toby, and thank you for that, by the way.

Thank you for your service. Beautiful, by the way. So in my previous role, I got to a position where I was limited.

It's like you lose the vehicle on your career, except if you meet certain requirements.

You have to either be a citizenship of a country, or you need to have a PhD to move forward.

At that point in time, you tend to ask yourself, is this the limit?

You can be a co-consultant and stay there, or you can decide to move forward.

And I decided to move forward. But then after moving forward, I ended up going back to my previous role.

So I think sometimes that stopping gap, when you think on that thing that tells you that you moved the pinnacle of what you should be doing, it's just a motivation.

It could drive you to move forward, or it could make you take a step backwards.

Delia? I think there are kind of seasons to life, and there are seasons where you want to learn and grow and push, and there are seasons where you want or need to rest.

And so it's not always about advancing.

She's laughing because I am a big proponent of rest.

Burnout. It's not worth it. There's no company it's worth it for. So recognize where you are in your life and in your journey.

If this is a season to rest, find that job where you can coast.

I can do this in my sleep, and I'm just going to just ride this and collect paycheck and pass go.

There are seasons where that is okay, and then there are seasons where, okay, I need to challenge myself.

I need to grow more. I'm ready for that next chapter. Can I find that here where I am, or do I need to leave and search for that somewhere else?

And all of that is personal to your journey.

Quentin? I guess for me, I've only been in tech for about four years.

I actually pivoted into tech from healthcare. What I've learned is a lot of people aren't as smart as you think in tech.

A lot of people are. Both in claps.

We will have this now. A lot of people, they can speak with confidence, and they can be very wrong, even CEOs.

What I've learned the most is just to be confident in who I am and what my personal goals are for myself.

Because you can get engulfed in tech, and there are a lot of avenues and skills that you can gain from tech that you can take elsewhere.

So I just use this as a way to learn about different industries, about different roles, about even different people that I would like to build within my network, and then navigate from there.

So this is definitely not the end, but honestly, this is more of a starting point for me.

Okay, well, shout out to everybody.

Thank you so much for all those questions, or answers. As far as for in this space and time, what are you most grateful for in this, being a Black person in this position right now?

I think number one, community. I think Afroflare, specifically at this company, is on point.

It is a proper community. We can all lean on each other.

We all have leaned on each other. It makes the job so much easier, because that community really is built in for us.

But what I appreciate, honestly, is being able to show people that you can't.

You can get to the director level.

There's very few of us, but you can get there. And if you need help, reach out.

I can tell you what I did. It may not work for you, but you know.

Just being one of those faces that they can look to and say, we do have Black people at this level.

Toby? I think I'm always white, being Black, I think.

Because a lot of times it makes you shy.

It makes you that big werewolf in a small pond. So being Black lets people know that you're there.

They may like you, they may not, but either ways, they're being still.

So I think I will always take that 15 minutes of fame, because it goes a long way.

Clinton? I think for me, it's just the representation within this industry and just coming from a different background.

Oftentimes in tech, we think that people who come from an Ivy League school or they were an engineer and things like that, you don't necessarily have to have that background.

And I think that representation is important to show in spaces like this.

And for you? Community, like Bailey said.

First and foremost, always having someone who has your back, someone you can go to.

For me, the second one is my family. My kids think I'm a superhero.

You are a superhero. I don't deny it. So there's days where I'm sitting down and I'm like, oh my gosh.

And I have, my youngest is 10, right? And so she's always seen me in this space being very powerful.

And I don't know, it just means so much to me to see her believe in me all the time.

Mom, you can do it. What do they want you to do?

That sounds hard, but Mom, you can do it. You can do a little thing. So community at work, community at home.

I had another one here. I forgot it. It doesn't matter.

Well, that's perfectly okay. Thank you guys for this session. And piggybacking off of that, we want to spotlight you.

And for one, thank you. We want to give you your flowers, of course.

All this time being a leader, I know it's been, you said 25 years.

Okay, I thought it was 20, 25 years. It goes away in a blink of an eye.

You have this experience in the information technology, also advocating, empowering women in the tech industry.

You've also helped with their development.

And that is all inspiring to everybody. So we want to highlight you in any way.

I know that you've also been in the military as well, U.S. Army. So thank you for your service.

You were active duty, correct? Which is not easy. If you know anybody in the military, shout out to them too.

You have also been spearheading the strategic sourcing team, right?

Okay, I want to make sure I say that right.

I want to give you those kudos. And also prioritizing mentorship.

So I really want to highlight that as well to see that sponsorship, mentorship is a huge part of our community as well.

And you've definitely advocated for not only people like us, women, everybody.

So thank you for that.

And before joining Cloudflare, you were a part of Dell. Like you mentioned before, you also are part of, I believe it was Applied Materials and also Cisco, which is huge.

Just name me a few. You also have your bachelor's. Because I'm sure there's many more.

Leading 20, 25 years in space. You have your bachelor's in science, correct?

Technical management. Of technical management, okay. Technical management.

Okay. And all while raising four children. Yes. Like how? You are a superhero.

So I want you to get appreciated and showcase. Yes, a round of applause.

Another round of applause for everybody. Yes, thank you. So is there anything else that you'd like to say and highlight that I have missed?

Because I'm sure I have missed some.

You have an amazing life and just want to honor that.

No, I was a statistic. I was there a teenage mom. I was 16 and pregnant with my son.

So I have a 30-year-old son. But I was determined not to be a statistic.

Everybody told me I wouldn't make it, right? Everybody said we're a good-sounding kid.

And I was like, oh, I got to do better, right? So I think I did it for my kids.

Everything that I've accomplished in life, I did it to show. So again, I'm the first to have went to college.

My son graduated college. Shout out to him.

Yes, educated family. Let's go. So I'm pretty proud of them. So in closing, what I would like to say is just be mentors.

Look around at our community. Sometimes we don't have people that believe in us.

Sometimes there's young, shy people all around who have grown up differently.

I often hire the people that look different than me, that have a different voice, that say something different, and then try to mentor them through things.

It's not always advantageous to hire the rock star in the interview, right?

The one person who interviews well might not be the person that you need for the team.

You might need that quiet person who sits back and looks at things differently.

So again, to me, mentorship and friendships are important to me, reaching out into my community and reaching out to others and uplifting those who I see struggling throughout the company or saying, hey, do you mind me talking to you?

Can I give you advice? Can I tell you a better way to present that?

Do you need help with this? So I think it's just important for us to reach out and bring others up with us.

There shouldn't be a leader with me, me, me going to the top.

You should be bringing a whole team of people with you.

You should be coming up, bringing people with you to empower, because that's going to be your community going up.

So again, I just think it's important for us to look around and bring in those people and interview those people.

Challenge the company to say, hey, I noticed everybody looked alike on the interview.

What did you do to go out and get diverse candidates and what did you do?

And then just giving a little empathy and leeway, as maybe those people might struggle doing an interview because they might have not made it that far, right?

We speak different.

We talk different. We are different and to having empathy and that. I love being black.

I don't mind when I have these high-level negotiations showing up in a room and speaking the way that I speak.

I grew up in New York City, right? So if I'm negotiating, I was like, I don't even know how you try to pass with this deal.

And then it's okay to bring you to the table, right? It's okay to be you. It's safe.

So again, that's all I wanted to close with, is to look out for others, to be inclusive.

We're not about closing doors. We're about opening them and figuring out a way in.

And again, sometimes a closed door is just an opportunity going through another way, right?

Climbing through the window. Because we need to come in in different ways.

That's all I had to say. And again, my first time meeting you, but I have a lot of friends throughout the company who have supported me through everything I've done.

And I wouldn't be where I am without having a strong community at Cloudflare in the Afro space.

And then throughout my other companies, the same thing.

So thank you. And I want to just finish up by saying thank you to everybody.

Again, Quintin, Delia, Toby, Geneva, thank you so much.

I want to give a shout out to everybody else. And I'm going to make sure I don't miss anybody.

So let's give another round of applause for the panelists here, if we can.

Also our Afroflare executive advocate, Dane, who spoke earlier.

I don't know where he's at, but thank you, Dane.

Joshua as well, who was also starting this discussion.

Where are you at, Joshua? Okay. Shout out to Joshua. He is also Afroflare's event lead.

So he is the one who organized a lot of this, and a lot of our Afroflare leaders have also been part of this.

So thank you guys as well.

We have Ash from branding, who's probably watching as well. So I want to shout out to her to also help with the background.

We also have Megan, Camille, Reagan from our Places team.

So thank you to them. Thank you to some people in our IT team.

We have Ray over here. So shout out to Ray. We have Melissa as well. So shout out to Melissa.

She was here earlier, and her kid just graduated. So shout out to her kid too.

Gabriela, Jason, Alex, and the whole Cloudflare TV team, we want to thank you for recording this too.

So you guys are on TV, by the way. So thank you guys.

Hopefully you guys have a great rest of your evening.