Meet the Speaker — Cynthia Tee
Cynthia Tee is the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Smartsheet. She and Ronit Bohrer Hillel will be discussing “The Cloud Architecture and Inclusive Organizations Tango” at WITS Fall Virtual Summit.
- Why is speaking at WITS important to you?
It is important for women in our position of leadership to be visible and talk about our work. While I am sometimes uncomfortable speaking in public, I do so for other women to see themselves in senior impactful roles and hopefully feel more encouraged to go for their dream job and role.
- What or who inspires you?
I am inspired by folks who have exhibited a huge amount of grit and energy to persist. This isn’t only my peer leaders in tech, but many who have entered this field despite all its challenges and biases. The alumni of Ada Developers Academy are a great example of inspiring individuals who have overcome many challenges and obstacles to access and be successful in our tech industry.
- Most useful article you’ve read in the last month
I have been reading several articles on remote work and the impact on our workforce mentally and emotionally. While learnings are still coming in all the time, I use these to reflect on how we can build better work environments, support systems, and self-care mechanisms. I firmly believe we need to evolve the way we view and measure success when there is so much upheaval, so I constantly seek to understand the challenges faced by people who are not like me.
- When you were a kid what was your dream job?
As a kid, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be. My Dad encouraged me to be a computer scientist by giving me a computer. I went along with it and never looked back. I am ever grateful for his strong belief that I could be successful in this industry, during a time when it was rare to have people like me choose this career.
- Tell us something about your session
In our session, Ronit and I will take all through a voyage in time that will help them understand the transformation to the cloud. We will not just help our audience to learn the steps and challenges along the way of moving from on-prem data centers to the public cloud, we will also share how all of that creates opportunity for a diverse workforce.
- What other sessions or speakers are you most excited to see?
It’s so hard to choose, but I am most excited about Women in Virtual Reality: Using VR to Tell Untold Stories. I’m excited to hear about how VR powers increased empathy for those who are marginalized. We need this in our society and this is a great example of technology being used to instill more humanity.
