This week my name appeared on the INvolve HERoes list, and I have been sitting with the feeling ever since. Seeing my photo and story on the website felt exciting and a little surreal, because a few short paragraphs somehow held years of mentoring, advocating, building community, serving on boards, and trying to create the kind of opportunities I once needed myself.
You can read the profile here
I am proud of this, and I want to let myself feel it. I have also been thinking about what it means to be recognized when so much of my work centers on helping other people be seen; for me, those two things have always been connected.
An award carries one name, yet the story behind it belongs to many people. Mine includes mentors who gave me honest feedback before I was ready to hear it, sponsors who spoke up for me in rooms I had no access to, and colleagues who trusted me to lead. It also includes every woman who has shared her career story with me: the one doing leadership-level work without the title, the first-generation professional learning rules nobody explained, the woman of color who has learned to make herself smaller, and the brilliant technologist who still wonders whether she belongs in the room. Their stories are the reason I started 5xMinority, and they are the reason I keep showing up.
I know what it feels like to believe excellent work should be enough on its own. I also know what happens when nobody helps translate your work into visibility and opportunity. Good work needs a voice, and the voice usually belongs to someone else in the room who is willing to name the contribution and connect the person behind it to what they have earned. When someone sees a person who looks like them leading a technology team, sitting on a board, or appearing on a list like this one, their sense of what is possible stretches a little further; paired with advocacy and sponsorship, that shift changes careers.
So I want to use this moment well, and I believe the best use of any spotlight is to turn some of its light toward others. This recognition has me asking myself whose work I am noticing, whose name I am saying when opportunities come up, and who has the talent but has not yet been given the access. Sometimes the answer means recommending someone for a visible assignment or correcting the record when her contribution gets overlooked. Other times it means making an introduction, sharing salary information, explaining an unwritten rule, or simply saying out loud, “She is ready.” These gestures often feel small to the person offering them, while for the person receiving them, they sometimes redirect an entire career.
I am deeply grateful to INvolve for this honor and for creating a platform celebrating people who work to advance women in business. I am grateful to Women in Measurement, CUNY Tech Prep, the 5xMinority community, my colleagues, and everyone who has trusted me to be part of their journey. I see this recognition as a reminder to keep widening the path, because there are still so many capable people whose work goes unseen and so many rooms where decisions get made without them.
Recognition is meaningful; what we do with it matters more. If you hold influence in one of those rooms, I hope you will use it this week. Think of one person whose work deserves more visibility, and say her name where it counts.
Who is one person you want to champion this week? I would love to hear about her in the comments.
Much Love!
