Meet the Speaker — Angel Henry
Angel Henry is the Sr. Director of Professional Services and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Chief of Staff at Genesys. She is discussing mentoring, sponsoring and supporting other women in the session How do I Get Adopted? at the WITS Fall 2021 Virtual Summit.
- Why is speaking at WITS important to you?
“I’m speaking at Women in Tech Summit!” I’ve longed to say that since I started speaking professionally a few years ago. I began holding technical project management trainings and workshops with project managers, business analysts and technologist but I now get to speak to my home team- women in tech! Oftentimes we find ourselves the only woman or among very few women on our teams and the numbers get smaller the higher we climb in our tech careers. I’m passionate about increasing diversity in tech and thrilled to share specific and actionable lessons learned on what we as women need to not only survive but thrive.
- What or who inspires you?
I’m inspired by Rosalind Brewer and Thasunda Brown Duckett who have made history as being CEOs of Fortunate 500 Companies (Walgreens and TIAA respectively) for the first time as TWO African American women lead major organizations at the same time! I am also excited to see a ground swell of “girls can code” and an intentional focus of under-represented populations being made aware of tech careers. When I was a kid I just wanted to work with “computers.” But I quickly realized I couldn’t code (was terrible at it actually), so I panicked! Was that the end of my tech career? Of course, “no!” it wasn’t but it would have been awesome to know how many career paths were available to me.
- Most useful article you’ve read in the last month
The State of Black Women in Corporate America has been the most useful article I have read recently. Essentially, a report on the impacts of Covid, the death of George Floyd, working moms trying to work full-time AND virtual homeschool, has given me a sense of not being alone. It has been the catalyst for me to explore how workplaces can be more inclusive for women.
- Tell us something about your session
My session, titled: “How Do I Get Adopted?” is about the essential, most impactful concept for women’s career progression: Sponsorship! We must understand the criticality of sponsors and not confuse their role with mentor or advisor. I will also fill my presentation with findings from the research that I did to write Dents in the Ceiling: Tools Women and Allies Need to Breakthrough.
- What other sessions or speakers are you most excited to see?
As an agilest, I’m very excited to attend “Failure is the New Success” to learn how organizations embrace failure, “Women in Virtual Reality: Using VR to Tell Untold Stories” since my niece just started film school, and “Inclusive Design: A Design Thinking and Digital Prototyping Workshop” since I am leveraging design thinking workshops with my agile strategy team.
