Mandy

Tell us about your journey into tech?

I have always had a gravitational pool towards tech and this started to be reflected in how my interests developed over the years. A few years after university, I ventured into my very first startup and was winging it as I went along and I found myself having an almost natural instinct when it came to tech. I started to understand the technical application of tech and how to communicate it in a way that it humanized it. As I grew my startup, I started to seamlessly maneuver between the technical and the business side of it in a way that it made sense to the everyday person. I started to feel most alive and I knew that this is the space I wanted to occupy

How do you feel you have made a difference in what you do?

I have always approached tech from the perspective of it being the most progressive tool out there and saw it as a way to move the human race forward. So I knew that if tech wasn’t solving real problems, then it wasn’t going to be meaningful. Every tech idea I pursued and every tech company I worked for was always approached from this perspective. Also having built globally distributed tech teams, I was always intentional about making sure they understood not only the technical aspect but also how attaching tech to a bigger mission was the cornerstone of its relevance in the real world.

What would you say is your biggest achievement?

Some of the biggest risks I took in my life were in my tech career so if I was to narrow it down to just one, my biggest achievement, I’d say is one of my startups that was focused on using tech as a multiplier in the economy and building new value chains for the creation of new industries. It was a big audacious goal and I had fun ideating it and organizing all the manpower to make it happen. I learnt the most about myself during that time and I wouldn’t change that experience for anything in the world.

How do you think people can go about making a difference, in regards to spreading awareness of Black Women in tech?

I think we need to start with black women exhibiting a spirit of excellence in delivering superior solutions to the world that solve meaningful problems and ensuring that this is documented in different environments. This will allow us to demonstrate our relevance in delivering value to the marketplace. There is equity in this and will enable us to not only be invited to the table but also develop our negotiating power.

What do you believe are the most effective ways to engage other ethnicities and genders to embrace diversity?

The best way is to be comfortable about engaging in multi-cultural markets, building multi-cultural teams and pursuing diverse missions that appeal to wide and varied audiences. It will eventually become the status quo.

What is the best advice you ever received?

Simplicity scales, complexity fails.