Sandy, can you give us a brief background on yourself and your current role with Amazon Web Services? >> Sure, and thank you for having me Nancy. I'm so excited to be here. So currently I run our WWPS [Worldwide Public Sector] partners and global programs, so an international role, around our partner community, which is really pretty awesome because not only does this role look at a lot of the stuff we do for businesses and to help them grow, we do a lot of things around social good as well. So I get to combine both the purpose and the profit together. Before this role, I was a startup CEO out of Silicon Valley and I loved that because we were working on a project, kind of like a Myers Briggs on companies and match those companies to certain innovation tactics. We used machine learning and artificial intelligence which was the company I was at before, which is IBM and I managed a lot of the work that we had done with Watson ecosystem, I worked with IoT, and the work with cloud. So I really been in high tech with machine learning, IoT, cloud, and as well now I'm not just focused on partners overall for, business but also partners for good. >> That's amazing, Sandy and a lot of our students will be just very impressed as well as curious about your career journey. And one of the things that we get asked a lot from Advancing Women In Product is around gender disparity and especially for the women in other minorities who might be outnumbered frankly, in their engineering classes. Would maybe find some inspiration from your history as well, so I'd like to know what was it like studying math and computer science as an undergrad at Duke University? >> Well, I have to say I was one of only a very few women which probably in college I liked it a little bit, but now I don't like so much because we didn't have enough role models at that time. In fact, I always tell my daughters when I went to school it was about 20 to 25% of the people in my classes were women and I was hoping when my daughters went to school that those numbers would be so much greater and alas they're really not. They're kind of the same. I started my college career wanting to do medicine. My dream was to be a doctor. Turns out Nancy that when I smell all the anesthesia from a doctor's office, I actually pass out, so that's not a great doctor. My advisor happened to be an amazing gentleman who was part time in the medical field and part time in computer science, and so he really mentored or sponsored me to think about other careers outside of just medicine. I love solving problems. I love doing good and so he put me on a project using computer science to try to test different forms of drug testing on a computer versus animals and it just got me hooked. Taking that math to a whole other level and adding in computer science. I really ended up in the field with a male sponsor who really encouraged me to take advantage of my talent to look beyond just the number of male professors I had. My whole time I had no female professor in my computer science classes, nor my math classes unfortunately. I even was volunteered or nominated I should say to do a provost's class on math and 100% of the class were actually males as well. So she really continued to encourage me and it really reemphasizes for me that while you need to see it to be it, male sponsors are also really vital as you're growing up in a career like this. >> Absolutely, in fact that nicely segues us into our next topic. What role do you think that sponsors play in someone's moving up the career ladder and how should our students who are watching this think about finding a sponsor? >> Yeah, I don't consider it a ladder as much as the lattice because sometimes you go horizontal to learn things and to do something that you're really passionate about, sometimes you go up that lattice to really gain a new perspective or a new leadership position. I believe that sponsors and mentors play incredible roles. My philosophy has always been to have a board of directors if you would. Not just one mentor or one sponsor, but to really have people who can teach me different things at different moments. Sometimes it really helps when you're asking a senior leader to Perhaps take two hours or an hour a couple of times to teach you a new skill that you're looking for. Like maybe sales if you're an engineer or something around finance, if you've never done finance before, and I think sponsors are really crucial. I know in my career having people who would consider me a great bet and would be willing to stick their neck out to say Sandy would be great for that role, have been invaluable. So I think as you go up your career lattice that you need both mentors as well as sponsors. >> Absolutely. And thinking about one's career like a career lattice right, you mentioned you've been a startup CEO. Now you're a vice president, leading a very large org within Amazon Web Services. And prior to that you were also in leadership roles and senior leadership roles at IBM. What do you look for these days when you are interviewing senior leadership? >> I look for skills, right? You have to have that skill fit. But more things that I look for today are things that you really can't teach people, so I look for things like that customer obsession. I know that's a superpower that Amazon has, but I really believe any leadership role you have to be obsessed about your customer, about your partner. I look for people who can stay cool and calm during any tough situation. Nancy, if you think about COVID-19, there wasn't a blueprint. People were looking for guidance, they were looking for leadership. And people respond to how a leader responds. So if a leader is panicked and not staying calm and providing that direction and that vision, then the team kind of wanders aimlessly or they get discouraged. And so I really do look for leaders who can stay cool and calm in any situation. And then finally I always look for leaders who want to learn and be curious. You never know what that next thing is going to be right. When I started I did AI and machine learning. Now our partners are asking us about quantum and IoT. So you've constantly got to figure out how can I learn more about different technologies, different techniques, or figure out a new blueprint when one doesn't exist. To me, those are the most important things about a leader. I believe you can teach certain things like product management. I know is so important and you have to hone those skills, but I think those are things you can teach. Staying cool and calm under pressure, really having that DNA that customer obsession is there for you. And learning and being curious. Sometimes those things can't be taught. They have to be innate inside of you. So I really hone in and look on those things. >> That's awesome. And I'd love for all the students who are watching this to hone those skills that Sandy just mentioned when they're looking for their next leadership role.
