In this episode host Tyra Peirce speaks with Win Chang, Director Cloud Engineering, Susan Poser, NACI Director of Partner Engagement, and Susan Miller, Sr. Director, Global Product Security about working as a women in tech and how women can find their voice. --------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;09;02 - 00;00;34;25 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies, and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce. 00;00;34;27 - 00;01;01;00 I'm your host, Tyra Peirce. In this episode, I speak with Win Chang, director, cloud engineering, Susan Poser, director of partner engagement. And Susan Miller, senior director, Global Product Security, about working as a woman in tech and how women can find their voice. A little bit about my guests. Susan Miller graduated at Santa Clara University with a bachelor's in computer science and started her career as a software engineer. 00;01;01;02 - 00;01;26;26 She quickly obtained a master's in computer science and artificial intelligence and an MBA. She then moved into technical program management, overseeing program managers, release engineers, doc writers labs, and then security was added on. Now Susan is in a corporate oversight role for security assurance for products and services across all Oracle. Susan Poser has held a variety of roles during her 40-year career. 00;01;26;29 - 00;01;55;14 Susan has two Bachelors of Science, one in business and another in journalism, and then earned her MBA and finance from San Diego State University. She has held roles in finance, accounting, marketing, business operations, solution engineering, culture and employee engagement and now partner ecosystem, all for high tech companies Unisys, Teradata and Oracle. Outside of Oracle, Susan is the board chair for Athena, a global women's advisory organization. 00;01;55;17 - 00;02;25;09 When Chang majored in computer science with a minor in business at University of Houston, she started her career in software development and has held numerous roles, including technical support, education marketing, pre-sales manager, Cloud Acceleration Director and VP of Customer Experience. She is currently the Solution Engineering Director for Higher Education. She is the founder of Oracle Professional Asian Leadership and Employee Resource Group focused on raising culture awareness and providing leadership development. 00;02;25;11 - 00;02;46;07 She is also on the board for Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, an organization committed to protect the historic site and celebrate immigrant contribution that define the strength of the United States. Thank you, Susan, Susan and Win, for joining me today. So, my first question to all of you, can you give me a bit about your background and your role at Oracle? 00;02;46;11 - 00;03;20;13 Susan Miller, do you want to go ahead and start? Yeah, sure. Thank you, chair, and thanks for having us today. I'm a senior director of global product security. I get the chance to work with all the security leaders across all our Oracle divisions, and I get to ensure that teams are adhering to the security assurance standards. So, one of my strengths then is to the ability to share best practices from other divisions and allow all at Oracle to learn from the best of the best, and then that eases their adoption and the flow of information across all the divisions. 00;03;20;15 - 00;03;45;09 Winner Susan Poser, do either of you want to jump in? Sure, I can jump in. This is Susan Poser, and I pretty much worked on the sales side of my whole career at Oracle, starting in pre-sales and then value selling to employee programs for resellers. So, when my last position was eliminated, the leader of the partner organization and the sales team asked me to join his team to help transform our culture to be more partner friendly, partner forward. 00;03;45;11 - 00;04;12;23 So now I work very closely with our sales and operations teams, as well as our sales leaders, to embed partner content, and processes into our business as usual so that our sellers will embrace and leverage our partners more as we move forward in this cloud world. And finally, when what about you as a cloud engineering director, I managed to be a cloud architect and support our sales team for higher education. 00;04;12;25 - 00;04;48;14 We cover the entire territory of the United States. Our role is to provide technical assistance to the field sales team. And a typical day for me would be participating on, calls with my direct reports, delivering presentations at a conference or, participating in customer meetings and also assisting our, customers. One of the best parts of this job, this is to be able to talk to our customers and share how or our Oracle solutions can provide and solve their most important problems. 00;04;48;16 - 00;05;08;27 I love all the diverse background that all of you wonderful women come from, and all of the different, paths you took to get to where you're at. So, leading on to my next question. Can you share a proud moment or a major accomplishment from your career so far? And this time? Susan Poser, I'd like to start with you. 00;05;08;29 - 00;05;25;20 I've had a few, but one that had the biggest impact to Oracle as well as, I think to our customers, is with my role and our value selling team, which was called Oracle Insight. A matter of fact, that's how I met win was we had done, an engagement with our customer and that she had worked with. 00;05;25;22 - 00;05;46;24 But when you think of, our value selling team or Oracle Insight, it's, you think about, like, management consultants. We hired a lot of excuse Allen McKinsey types of folks, and we would go in and work with our customers to understand how, understand what their priorities were and how technology could help enable some of their, you know, 3-to-5-year goals. 00;05;46;27 - 00;06;17;19 I was responsible for the systems and the processes and the internal and external communications, as well as the marketing. We were the longest running sales program at Oracle, and we scaled from nine people when we started the program to over 500, impacting billions of dollars in revenue. And, you know, one of the key things that enabled us to do that was because of the knowledge management, the processes and the systems that I had put together that allowed us to scale and make this impact for both Oracle and our global customers. 00;06;17;21 - 00;06;55;09 And then Susan Miller, what about you? Well, with the onset of the and quick adoption of I machine learning, that's the reason to be able to participate in many executive forums representing security and besides ensuring regulatory and privacy coverage, we're also making sure that security assurance is paramount. So, I've been able to gain adoption now of new process flows, new guidelines, practices, and I've now expanded our interactions with data scientists and other security architects and of course, others corporate oversight groups as well. 00;06;55;11 - 00;07;16;02 It's been successful, and I'm very proud of it. I can't even imagine with how AI is coming to the forefront, especially within Oracle and in the tech industry. I think that is so amazing. And then when finally, over to you again. So, when I was the key account director for a large health care company, we grew our Oracle footprint by over 1,500%. 00;07;16;05 - 00;07;45;23 And that was done by a combination of team collaboration and developing this deep, trusted customer relationship. We earned the Presidential Award for Account Management three years in a row, and it was a defining, time for me, to see how our customers, succeeded with Oracle products and solution. And then secondly, I just wanted to add that being the founder of the Oracle Professional Asian Leadership, has been a real highlight for me. 00;07;45;23 - 00;08;14;11 Today. We have over 700, members globally, and that is been something that I'm very proud about. Well, and you should be. That was the second time Win, and I engaged was with Opal and it was one of the fastest growing employee resource groups in Oracle. So, she should be very proud of that. Absolutely. I think when you and I met back when you covered that healthcare company years ago with, Java one for kids, I think that that's when we first came into contact all those many years ago. 00;08;14;14 - 00;08;34;14 You're right. So next question. How were you able to find your voice and to advocate for yourself as a woman in tech? And when this time I'm actually going to start with you. That's a great question. And I have to say that earlier in my career, I really struggled with trying to find my voice. I didn't have a mentor. 00;08;34;15 - 00;09;02;27 Matter of fact, I probably didn't even know what a mentor was. And, once I found my advocates, that made a big difference. I have to say that my I created this personal board of directors that actually two of my personal board of directors were on this call. Susan. So, they are just amazing. And, I'd say that to this personal board of directors is kind of like a baseball team where you have all different types of coaches. 00;09;03;00 - 00;09;28;18 You know, like a first base coach or a third base coach. So, I'm assembled my own board of directors, and they've been a game changer. I leverage these resources, but I have difficult tasks or proactively ask them for advice, what I needed. And I think that, really helps me to keep my head. You know, I used to think that if I just kept my head down and did hard work and everybody would know what I'm doing. 00;09;28;18 - 00;09;52;12 But the truth is that, only you know what you do best. So, it's really important that you learn to advocate for yourself. I think that that is so important, advocating for yourself. And I love how you call it your personal board of directors. So, Susan Poser, over to you. I would agree it was challenging giving, given how male dominated the organization. 00;09;52;12 - 00;10;11;16 So, I've been a part of have been. I'm sure both Susan and Win would say the same. But I've had some great male advocates and mentors, as well as some strong female leaders that provided me guidance and were really good role models. I found that if you don't know your value and don't advocate for yourself, no one else will. 00;10;11;18 - 00;10;29;08 And I learned this the hard way. Early on I thought like when said right, that my good work would speak for itself, and I missed an opportunity to be promoted because I didn't advocate and understand my value. So now I kind of keep a folder of kudos, you know, emails that I get from people, you know, thanking me or, or, you know, recognition that I received. 00;10;29;13 - 00;10;52;26 So, when I'm up for a promotion or when I'm requesting a raise or when I'm requesting, you know, a level change, I review all these to remind me that I'm not a closer right. And I use this to keep firm on my request to get promoted. You know, and so that's actually helped me get promoted to VP when I was actually getting pushback that, you know, it was a new role that nobody had done it before. 00;10;53;01 - 00;11;21;04 And I had to prove it out first. And I just stand firm because I knew the value that I was going to bring to the table. So don't shortchange yourself. Know your value and stick firm on your, what you believe in. Honestly, I think that's great advice that I'm going to use for the next promotion. Like, I love that you started keeping track of your kudos and all of the mentions that you got because I and all the emails, I think that is such wonderful advice that I'm honestly going to use for myself next time. 00;11;21;11 - 00;11;35;23 It gives you confidence, right? Like when you read all that and you think, wow, look what I did, right? It builds your confidence. And I think as we're going back through a year, we don't realize everything we accomplished in a year or two years or three years. We just know what we're doing in that last month or that last six weeks. 00;11;35;25 - 00;11;52;28 We don't realize some of these longer-term projects or where you started and now where you ended up are in such different places. And I think that is valuable advice that I'm going to take for myself next time. So, and Susan Miller, finally over to you. Just like a win and Susan were saying, it's so important to advocate for yourself. 00;11;52;28 - 00;12;11;19 And I came across a five-part process that I'll let you know about. So first of all, tell your story. How did you get to where you are today? It's in be. Maybe there was some kind of diversity that happened, some kind of problem, you know, that you overcame. And the challenge that drove you to in a particular career direction. 00;12;11;20 - 00;12;31;18 So be able to tell that story. Secondly is, you know, what do you want to be known for? What topics align with your skills and your strengths as well as the role that you want? So, create a statement that sets you apart from others. And the third part of the process is maybe identifying a few key words. 00;12;31;18 - 00;12;59;25 You know, come up with 3 to 4 words that describe you. For instance, I feel like I'm driven, supportive. Challenging myself and upbeat. And you use these words to basically create your brand. So, use them, when you're talking to others until it sticks. And then fourth is to craft your pitch. You know, be ready with 3 to 4 sentences and have in your back pocket which describe you. 00;12;59;28 - 00;13;25;19 So instead of saying, oh, you know, I'm really, really busy, maybe you can just explain what you've just accomplished or what you're working towards next. And fifth and finally be able to showcase your capabilities and skills. You know, get creative, insert yourself and specialize. Be visible. Perhaps there's an article for a newsletter you'd like to write or presentation that you want to submit for a conference. 00;13;25;22 - 00;13;55;01 So, or engage with a volunteer group or an employee resource group. Maybe you'd like to learn from another. Have coffee or lunch outside your organization. So, learn by growing and getting it out there and presenting yourself in a positive way. I love that as to and I especially love what you said about identifying your keywords. I always talk about the one superpower I have, which is I may not know the answer to the question, but I always know or can find somebody who has the answer to the question. 00;13;55;01 - 00;14;17;20 So, I really, I really identify with identifying your keywords because I use that as myself. Susan Posner, I'm gonna have you start with this one. Two throughout your career, I'm sure some things have not gone according to plan. How have you learned from your failures and why is failure important? Well, I think failure is a great way to remember and learn. 00;14;17;23 - 00;14;36;22 I mean, I don't know about you guys, but when I fail at something, I seem to remember it better than when I succeed. I have a few failures, and hopefully I've learned a few things, but I'll just share one. I was presenting to a very senior executive and she could make grown men cry, I'm sure. When knows who I'm talking about. 00;14;36;24 - 00;15;01;03 I relied on some information from a colleague on what she thought I should present, and when I did, it totally backfired on me. I didn't call up my colleague, and. And he didn't defend me. He was sitting there in the room and saw this whole thing blow up on me. Right? But I did learn that I need to trust my gut and do my own research and push back when I don't agree, rather than thinking that others know better than me. 00;15;01;03 - 00;15;24;03 So, I have learned that, and I have not forgotten that. That is honestly quite the story. I don't know if I've got wind quite like that, but I have a couple in my in my back pocket too, and I just can't even imagine going through that. So, win over to you. I've got a failure story. I mean, bloody hell. 00;15;24;03 - 00;15;46;18 Who doesn't have a failure? But I remember once when I was supporting this health care company, they ran into a software bug, and it caused their system not to generate a specific report. The owner of the, this particular job at the health and health care company built that, because this job did not run, he was really worried that his job was in jeopardy. 00;15;46;20 - 00;16;06;17 And he came to me very upset and wanted an explanation on what happened. And at first, I brought the, you know, issue up to an internal team. I brought them all together to analyze the problem. Eventually, we discovered that a trigger that should have been labeled failure didn't get labeled a failure, just said a warning. 00;16;06;22 - 00;16;37;21 And so, I got the team actually to come together and not just take a, you know, take a look at this problem, but review all the triggers to ensure that moving forward that they're all labeled correctly. And so I went back to the customer, a humble pie and, and explained to him what had happened. And because of this failure and how I addressed it directly with the customer, the customer and our relationship actually became better because they saw that. 00;16;37;21 - 00;17;07;05 We took his feedback, we took care, remedied the problem, and what was a horrible situation actually ended up coming, you know, back in. And it really changed his view of Oracle as a company because we took care of the problem and didn't just brush it under the, you know, brushes under the carpet. So even though it started out very ugly and not a lot of fun, we were able to make, lemons into lemonade. 00;17;07;08 - 00;17;28;02 I love that, one of my biggest failures, one of my most monumental failures, led to one of my biggest successes and led me on to greater projects. And so, I totally understand exactly what that was like. Like, you've got to eat your humble pie, you've got to go in. And as I say, take your lumps and you learn from it. 00;17;28;02 - 00;17;47;16 I, I, I really think that there's this huge wisdom in learning from failures. And, and I think that's how we grow is as women, as managers, as leaders, as we always we know we're not going to be perfect, and we're willing to change from and use our failures as lessons. Okay. Susan Miller, over to you. Oh, yeah. 00;17;47;16 - 00;18;09;20 So yeah, just like when and Susan, you know, failure is become an important learning opportunity for me. And just recently I was able to make a change that I was so excited about. It was an efficiency change, important step in our security approval process. And I gained support with those in my meeting, and I was able to convince the sister team to make the change. 00;18;09;20 - 00;18;31;16 I was so excited about it. And then I eagerly sent it out to the team and sent it out to the executives. But there were some on my distribution list that didn't participate in the meetings, but they were stakeholders, nonetheless. And so, when it got escalated, they pushed back on it after I thought I gained approval on it. 00;18;31;19 - 00;18;57;18 And so, I had to have several side meetings to get those inform, and they just grasped on to it and didn't fully understand. So, I learned that, you know, it was considered a failure. But I learned to ensure alignment with everyone, even those that aren't participating or might be quiet on a call and get their approval before making an official announcement. 00;18;57;20 - 00;19;17;06 But live and learn, right? Honestly, I think that's such great advice. I think that, as we go through, we get approvals for things as we like, talk about things. I think building consensus, that is something that I've had to learn throughout my career. And if I haven't built, built consensus on something, it's led him to some failures, too. 00;19;17;06 - 00;19;41;03 And so, I think that that is also amazing advice. So, the next question, and I'm sure we've all experienced this, I know I've experienced it myself. Have you ever experienced imposter syndrome? If so, how were you able to navigate your way through it? And Susan Miller, I'm going to actually stick with you on this one now, sir. Oh, yes. 00;19;41;06 - 00;20;02;28 Probably every time I initially take on a role, I have imposter syndrome. You know, just start, you know, you need to go back and reflect on the key strengths that you have in order to get you to that position. And then, you know, if you don't know enough or you feel that you need to learn in some areas, then you go out and get some training in that area. 00;20;02;28 - 00;20;29;28 Don't just feel helpless. Like, for instance, in my role with global product security, I did have some security background, but I went forward and gained several additional security certifications to back me up and make me feel a little bit more, aware so that I could work with all those across Oracle. I love that, I love talking about lifelong learning and being able to kind of advocate for yourself and to say, hey, I'm not going to get stuck. 00;20;30;00 - 00;20;52;25 I'm going to go in and learn more to get where I need to be. I think that is such, such valuable advice. Okay. Susan Poser, over to you. Well, definitely, most of the roles I've had, other than finance and marketing, were roles that didn't exist before. I think that's why, you know, so my story that I was talking about earlier, that I trust my colleague versus my instinct and presenting to the senior executive was because I had imposter syndrome. 00;20;52;25 - 00;21;11;23 Right. And I didn't really feel like this was something I was really confident in. You know, so when I was a VP for customer and employee experience, you know, I created that role based on some projects I worked on before and, you know, where I thought the organization could benefit, but I didn't really have any experience in this area. 00;21;11;26 - 00;21;27;21 So, here's where that kudo piles that I talked about, you know, that helps build up your confidence. But in addition, you got to do like what Susan said. I did a lot of reading and listening to podcasts and talking to others to try to figure out what to do and when. I didn't know something, you know, I would just acknowledge it, and I figure it out. 00;21;27;22 - 00;21;46;22 That was one of the things I was known for. You know, when Susan talked about, know what you're you know, know what you're known for, you know, or its really getting stuff done. So, no matter what it was, I always found a way to figure out how to get it done. I love that both of you have talked about being self-starters and figuring out how to get it done, and I think that is something that helps us get through imposter syndrome. 00;21;46;22 - 00;22;08;16 Just kind of feeling your way through it and learning how to do it and just kind of taking that initiative. So, when finally, over to you. Sure. So early in my career, I was, working for this, company called Concilium. They were a, a shopfloor control, system company and, primarily in the semiconductor business. 00;22;08;16 - 00;22;35;14 And I was asked to teach the next administration class. And to be honest with you, I did not feel prepared to take this on, but I said yes to it. Anyway, I was familiar with this topic, but I never dreamt of, teaching the class. And the class was, it was actually located in Singapore. And so, I spent my time studying, getting ready for it. 00;22;35;16 - 00;23;02;28 However, I still felt woefully unprepared. And the worst-case scenario happened when I traveled out to Singapore. They lost my suitcase. And all back in those days, we didn't have PowerPoint. We had what they called boils. They're like this plastic. They're paper that you can print on the. And you put it on an overhead projector. 00;23;03;00 - 00;23;25;00 I'm pretty sure a lot of these students have no idea what I'm talking about, but they were in this binder with all of each one-off what would be like a slide. And that was in my suitcase that did not arrive. So, I pretty much had to wing it. And as it turned out, all the prep work that I had done did make me feel more confident. 00;23;25;03 - 00;23;48;12 And the class actually had a combination of people from Japan, from China and Korea. Most of them spoke very limited, English. And so, I do speak a little bit of Chinese, but not enough to converse. But we were able to get through the class. And the great thing is that I got extremely high ratings in the class. 00;23;48;14 - 00;24;09;07 And now, as I think back about it, I think often we judge ourselves too harshly and that if you do all the prep work, you are ready, so you need to believe in yourself. I think that's also really great advice. Do the prep work and believe in yourself. So, I've got two more questions. My first one is what does mentorship? 00;24;09;07 - 00;24;40;07 And I'm sure all of you lovely women are great mentors. But I want to ask you, what does mentorship, what does mentorship mean to you and how? And what has it looked like in your career? Suzanne Miller, I actually want to start with you this time. I really haven't had too many designated mentors per se. However, you know, there have been several successful women and men who then the time they take the time to be there and guide me in the right direction, perhaps having some words of wisdom at the time that I needed the support. 00;24;40;10 - 00;25;07;13 And I think it's just listening and caring about the other person and really just providing what they need. For instance, I have a mentorship with, women that are wanting to get on boards of companies, and I share my wisdom with them, thinking that they might not actually use it, or it might not be that much, but several of them have thanked me and have gotten positions afterwards. 00;25;07;18 - 00;25;30;28 So, I think taking the time and caring a little bit really means a lot to people. I think that's super. I think that's super valuable to talk about how it's not necessarily formalized, but just to be able to take the time and to listen to people. Okay. When over to you. Well, two of my mentors are right here, Susan Poser and Susan Miller, and they are both just incredible. 00;25;31;00 - 00;25;54;29 But earlier in my career, I think I'd mentioned I didn't even know that I should be looking for a mentor. But as I explained earlier, I've now created that board of directors who are truly my mentors. And I also think that it's important to find a sponsor and a sponsor is, you know, that they use their power of influence and advocate for a person's career and advancement. 00;25;55;01 - 00;26;25;10 Sponsors can introduce the person to their network, speak about them when they're not around, and recommend them for promotions. And so I wanted to mention that because this is really important, and I'd say that back in 2008, when I had, Oracle had actually acquired the company I was working for, and I told the program manager that instead of assigning me to a brand new account, I wanted just to take care of our existing logical lapsed customers through this transition. 00;26;25;10 - 00;26;54;09 So, for the next six months, I was, working with just our existing customers to make sure that they were successful transitioning over to Oracle. And when I was ready to take on a new role, the program executive was so appreciative of my customer centricity that she recommends me to take care of one of Oracle's top accounts, and I would have never been considered for that role had that not had the sponsor not made the recommendation on my behalf. 00;26;54;09 - 00;27;12;11 So, it's so important to find yourself a sponsor, but it's not something that you can say, hey, I'm going to tap you on the shoulder and said, do you think you can sponsor me? It's actually something because they see the work that you do and value what you brought to the table, that they want to do it for you. 00;27;12;13 - 00;27;34;03 I think the kind of what I'm hearing is this thread is going through and is developing relationship chips and the importance of having good relationships with the people you work with and creating a network and not necessarily going out and like tapping someone on the shoulder and say, hey, I need you to mentor me. But just like looking for the opportunities where they're at, where you're located and things along those lines. 00;27;34;03 - 00;27;53;24 So, Susan Poser, finally over to you. Well, I think it's just like you said, it is all about relationships because I haven't really had any formal mentors either. Kind of like when and Susan, although I've mentioned a lot of people at Oracle as well as San Diego State over the years. For me, just like Win's board of directors, I have what I call a panel of advisors. 00;27;53;24 - 00;28;14;14 So, depending on, you know, what I'm struggling with, you know, if it's a career decision I might call a lot of on or Laura, it's around a specific business issue. I might call Win or Gaylene if it's around board work or women in Stem, I might call Susan Miller. It really depends on the issue and who I think might be most helpful in helping me at that time. 00;28;14;16 - 00;28;41;18 But yes, I think you're right. It is all around building relationships and, you know, not necessarily creating a formal mentorship program, but just having people that, but yeah, you can call on, you know, and I feel like I'm really blessed and lucky to have such a wide variety of, of very smart women and a handful of men that, have been on my panel advisors for years. 00;28;41;20 - 00;28;59;26 I love that. I love how talking about knowing who to go to for a particular question. I think that is so important because like you talked about earlier, getting advice from the person that may not have been the best person to give you advice. So, looking, for your presentation. So now looking for the best people to talk to you for the for the situation. 00;28;59;27 - 00;29;24;28 And I think that is such valuable advice as well that I'm also going to really start taking the next question I have is how has the tech industry changed since you started your career, especially in terms of gender inclusivity? And Susan Posner, I actually want to start with you this time. Well, it's really funny because, you know, I, I mentioned I only work in tech companies. 00;29;24;29 - 00;29;43;00 I started my career at Unisys, and I went to Teradata and then at Oracle. And my very first job out of college was in finance at Unisys. And the managers for both finance and accounting were females. And our admin or our office manager was an ex-Marine male. And I thought, wow, this is so progressive. But that was the last of that. 00;29;43;02 - 00;29;59;29 And as I moved around, I found that, women actually were not as dominating as it was in that first role when I first started working on the value selling team, which was the insight team, I was actually the only female. And then as the organization grew, there were three women. But I was the only one in leadership. 00;30;00;01 - 00;30;30;18 I do think it's a lot harder for women to get promoted and be recognized, because we tend not to do a lot of the shameless self-promotion, early in my career. You know, I think I mentioned I was overlooked for the role, that I thought I was way more qualified than the man that they put into the role, only because the hiring manager didn't know I had experience in marketing, and only after he hired the other person did I find out, and I told him that I have a degree in marketing and have run marketing several times in my career, and he just had no idea because I wasn't out there talking about it. 00;30;30;20 - 00;30;50;24 So, well, you know, I think we've made great strides in having more women, as well as people of color in leadership positions. I think there's an opportunity for more, you know, but I do think that inclusiveness is really big. And I do think there's a lot of focus on that, as well as acceptance of different backgrounds and cultures now more than ever. 00;30;50;26 - 00;31;15;13 I think that is so interesting. I actually, when I first started my very first job out of college, was very, very male dominated. And I would say it's only been the last like 4 or 5 years that I've been over into a role that has had more females and female leadership, since I came out of product development, which has a very it has a very male dominated, gender and different roles. 00;31;15;13 - 00;31;34;22 And I think that as we are starting to see more parity, not complete paired, because when you see that as well. Susan Miller, over to you. Yeah, sure. So just like Susan Poser said, you know, with a 40-year career and lengthy time in tech, and initially when I first got my job as a software engineer, I didn't really feel any gender gap. 00;31;34;25 - 00;31;55;27 There was a lot of women that were hired in as well as men. And I feel like somewhere along the line, you know, with this influx of some tech movies, they depicted men as hackers, and it was basically shown as more of a geeky career, if you will, and not necessarily feminine. And so, it became more and more male dominated over the years. 00;31;55;27 - 00;32;18;17 But now I think, just like Susan Poser was saying, I think we've changed back to embracing diversity and bringing a whole wide range of thoughts and ideas to the table. And so again, I think now we're seeing more inclusiveness and acceptance of all these different backgrounds and everybody coming together, bringing their point of view. I think it's well respected these days. 00;32;18;19 - 00;32;42;00 I agree, I always think of the I ran a panel at a conference many years ago and they're talking they're talking about design thinking and how having more voices at the table improves the design of software or any product that you're looking at. And I, I think that that's exactly right. What you just said about having that, bringing more voices to table to having more, more people represented has been very helpful as well. 00;32;42;01 - 00;33;04;17 Okay. Win over to you. So, I've been in this industry for a really long time too, and I've certainly seen a lot of changes. Matter of fact, I remember my very first interview with the recruiter and at the end of the conversation this man says, wow, you really mastered the English language. And I'm just thinking, well, I came to the United States when I was three. 00;33;04;17 - 00;33;25;24 But of course, they did say that it and, however, you know, what he sees is this Chinese looking woman. I think he expected me to have a Chinese accent. And I kind of feel like we've come a long way. And in my career, I've never I've never really felt discriminated. But I've definitely felt like it's a man's world. 00;33;26;01 - 00;33;51;15 And in most of the meetings, I would be the one, you know, the one minority Chinese woman with a table filled with men and even the team that I lead to, the team that I lead today, I've got one other woman that's on my team. So, you know, with today's, today. Sorry, I have to say that again today. 00;33;51;15 - 00;34;16;10 However, the diversity is so much more apparent. Part of the reason why I started the Oracle Professional Asian Leadership and volunteer as a leader for the Oracle women's leadership is because I wanted to see women and Asians create a more diversified, inclusive environment and to be able to support them and their leadership development skills. And I really wanted to be part of the team to make a difference. 00;34;16;10 - 00;34;41;16 So, I think that I think that there's, you know, in terms of the gender inclusivity, I'm certainly seeing it more now. I agree, I'm seeing it more now as well as we have more and more of these students go into their careers. We're starting I'm starting to see more of it on our team and other teams that I work with, or even as students are majoring in, in Stem careers like computer science or in information systems and places. 00;34;41;16 - 00;35;04;24 We didn't see it before. So, I have one last question, and I'm going to ask it. And then I think when I'm going to start with you this time, if you could give one piece of advice to faculty or students, what would it be? My advice would be to be bold and share those brilliant ideas. It's just waiting to be heard. 00;35;05;01 - 00;35;26;19 Lastly, I really wanted to say is don't be afraid to fail. We never get that. You know it. Let me say it again. Lastly, don't be afraid to fail. We never get it perfect the first time. And in Chinese, there's the word crisis, which is actually made up of two words. The first is danger, and the other is opportunity. 00;35;26;22 - 00;35;45;26 So, make your impact, be bold, and take that opportunity to share your brilliance. I love that, I love, sharing what the word crisis means, that it's danger and opportunity. I kind of look at it in that way as well, is when we fail. Yeah, there's a danger, but there's also an opportunity. So, Susan Miller, over to you. 00;35;46;02 - 00;36;14;02 Well, when I came out of college and started my career, you know, I felt that if you worked really hard, just like you did in school, you know, then you'd be rewarded for your contributions. And you get compensation. You get promotions for all those efforts. And that did work for a while. But what I didn't realize is that how much networking and knowing others across the division would actually help you more as you move up the ladder. 00;36;14;04 - 00;36;46;12 So, who you know and keeping, you know, top of mind, starts becoming even more valuable, for additional opportunities. So, my advice would be then to just look up and see what else you can do to interact with your company. Now, maybe you can, you know, join a volunteer group or, you know, women's leadership group or, just meet for coffee or lunch with some others and get to learn from them in other groups, other divisions, and grow in that way. 00;36;46;14 - 00;37;04;12 I'm telling my daughters about that now. It's something I think we all should learn more. Networking. I, I wholeheartedly agree, and I think that's why I love my roles. I get to interact with people all across Oracle, and I think that that is sometimes it's really hard because you don't know what to say or how to say to people. 00;37;04;12 - 00;37;24;23 But I do think that that is so, so, so important. Okay. Susan Poser, finally over to you. Well, and I couldn't agree with both you and Susan more in terms of, you know, your network is your net worth, right? I mean, it really couldn't be truer. So, I would say cast your net wide, by participating in ERGs! 00;37;24;25 - 00;37;42;24 I say that only because early on I didn't. I made my whole network revolve around the insight team. The value selling group that I was a part of. We were all very close, very close-knit group, you know, worked together for ten years or more. And when that whole, you know what? We were a force to be reckoned with. 00;37;42;27 - 00;38;02;11 It didn't help when that group got dissolved. And so I was really lucky that when tapped me on the shoulder that, you know, as she was starting Opal to get engaged and, and Susan Miller, you know, I worked with her on the owl here in San Diego and it was great to kind of get more involved in the employee resource groups and really get to broaden my network. 00;38;02;11 - 00;38;20;17 So don't be afraid to take chances. And I would also say volunteer, raise your hand for things that you may not have a lot of experience in. And those are the opportunities to really grow and build those skills. I raised my hand a lot to do a lot of special projects that I had no idea. What they were about. 00;38;20;17 - 00;38;48;19 And I learned a lot. So, I would say passionate wide get involved and raise your hand. I love all of that advice. It's very validating that we as women need to take risks and it's okay to do it. It's okay to fail and just to kind of be yourself and be able to take risks. I think that is so important and just learn and look for support with others in your in your community and in your, in your network. 00;38;48;21 - 00;39;08;23 So, I'd like to thank all of my guests for Susan Posner, Susan Miller, and Win Chang for speaking with me today about their careers in tech. It was very insightful. Please visit academy.oracle.com to learn more about Oracle Academy and the resources we offer to faculty and students and subscribe to our podcast. Thanks for listening. That wraps up this episode. 00;39;08;28 - 00;39;13;28 Thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next Oracle Academy Tech Chat podcast.…
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