The Technology, The People, and The Ideas
 

Welcome to the 🎃 October 🎃 REFRESH monthly update, where I’m sharing provocative ideas from discussions focused on the human relationship with technology .

My September Favorites

Here are some things that I have really enjoyed over the past month, that have brought me 🔥 ENERGY.

Finally, how do you give others energy?

A friend of our family, Vince Lawrence, passed away from an advanced lung disease he incurred while serving our country. He was a great father, and had a memorable laugh, smile, and sense of drive that still energizes me. He fought LONG & HARD, I picked this up for his ICU bed.

It gives me energy, and I hope it does the same for others that are fighting difficult battles. Thank You for Serving, Rest in Peace, Vince 🙏🏽

Do something nice for someone that needs it, it will give them ENERGY!

Recent Episodes

We really RAISED THE ANTE this last month, and elevated the discussion to some seriously provocative discussions with strong women leaders - a theme you will see much more of coming from our discussions. Our conversations continue to focus very specifically on the HUMAN component of technology. You can’t develop good tech without diverse & inclusive teams, and you can’t build teams in business or launch new offerings in industry if they don’t represent the world 🌍 we live in, or, seek to protect it.

 

#49. Kendra Crook | Advancing the Careers of Diverse Leaders - Management Leadership for Tomorrow

What I learned

Being an Alumni of the Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT) MBA prep fellowship, brought me very close to its mission, and why it is so incredibly important for early Latinx, African American, and Native American professionals, to get their MBA’s. It’s a big bet, but a bet that will change their lives and personal/professional trajectories all up.

MLT is a non-profit organization specifically focused on changing the face of leadership in the private and social sectors, by driving break through results for individuals and institutions from underrepresented communities.

Kendra has spent the last 13 years coaching high performing professionals to press “submit” on the applications of their dream business schools - but the road is long and hard. There is so much adversity to overcome from people in these communities, but it’s not just economic. There are cultural stigmas and generalizations, mindsets, and attitudes, about education and career paths, that can be very difficult to overcome for the fellows of these types of programs. Capturing the “whole” person, is a critical step in gauging the leadership qualities of talent, and both schools and employers, have a lot of work to do to query against the experiences of the diverse talent they seek to acquire, develop, and retain. It’s so much for than GPA’s, years of experience, or test scores. What challenges have been overcome, and how has that cultivated the DNA of a leader?

We need to change this.

17% of Black or African Americans scored 600 or higher on the GMAT exam in test year 2018 - smaller proportion compared with non-underrepresented US examinees (46%)

There is a stark racial disparity when it comes to leadership in American - 33% of the U.S. is Black, Latino, or Native American - only 5% of senior executives at self-reporting fortune 500 companies belong to these groups.

Highlights

✴️ What the real problem is that MLT is seeking to solve, and how this particular classic problem is evolving through MLT and it's partner schools and partner organizations.

 

✴️ What MBA Prep fellows really struggle with, and the importance of community, confidence, and why overcoming adversity is a story that schools and employers must learn how to listen

 

✴️ How school and employers should be better approaching the deficit of diverse talent in high trajectory career and academic pipelines, and why "just doing it", is something culturally significant  to how these organizations build a future of more diverse leaders.

Connect with Kendra Crook

Learn more
 

Simply Tech LIVE is a live video production co-hosted by Ali Mazaheri and I, featuring discussions with technologists, business practitioners, and academics about the evolving landscape of tech in the Microsoft ecosystem and beyond.

Leadership, Sustainability, & Solutions for Transformation in Manufacturing

What I learned

What comes to mind when you hear the word “manufacturing”? Before joining Microsoft’s Manufacturing industry vertical, I thought of manufacturing as businesses making products in factories, I thought of the Detroit automakers and heavy artifacts produced around the US rust belt, I also thought about the rising economic power of China. But manufacturers do so much more than make these types of products, they are also huge sales, marketing, CPG, retail, and customer service organizations. They have complex global supply chains that are increasing in complexity as globalization ebbs and flows through different political and health related climates.

Manufacturing is hard.

Tracy Galloway is the US Vice President of Manufacturing at Microsoft, and she joined this discussion with our guest co-host for this episode, Greg Vigil, Industry Director of Manufacturing at Microsoft.

Tracy is an amazing people leader, and you get that from her passion and energy as she talks through “why” a tech company like Microsoft would even concentrate on Manufacturing. Tracy hit’s (4) big themes for what is going on in the Manufacturing industry today:

✅ Significant skills gap in workforce: 2M unfilled manufacturing jobs by 2025

✅ Manufactures need to focus on customer adaptation - most customer plans are more than 20 years old, they need modernization for how customers buy and want to buy today

✅ Connecting the factor floor for deeper data rich capabilities will enhance labor and system efficiencies

✅ The more digital these businesses become, the more resilient they will be to face uncertain times

Tracy also talks deeply about sustainability and why that is important to her - every year the world produced 11B tons of waste - she cares deeply about how this impacts our customers, and how Microsoft has become a global leader in sustainability. Microsoft has is building new infrastructure that will re-purpose servers and data center hardware, reducing waste by 90% by 2025.

What would happen if every large business in the fortune 500, had similar sustainability goals? What kind of world would that create for all of us, and our children?

“The world’s fresh water is not equally distributed or accessible and is found disproportionately in places where people do not live. And as human civilization has expanded, we have reached the point globally where humanity depletes the available freshwater supply at a rate of 4.3 trillion cubic meters every year – the majority of which goes to agricultural and industrial uses.” - Brad Smith, Microsoft President

Highlights


✴️ What the Microsoft industry vertical for manufacturing is, why was it created, and why now? The market forces that drive additional specialization in industry, and the solutions that Microsoft is bringing to global organizations looking for business acceleration

✴️ Women in technology leadership, and the importance of continued female leadership in manufacturing today, and looking forward

 

✴️ How Microsoft is focusing on sustainability, and emerging frameworks for community based skilling and accelerations for customers interested in cloud and AI technology

Contact Tracy Galloway

Learn more
 

Upcoming Collaborations

Co- authors of The Talent War

**Join the LIVE Discussion on October 7th, 1030am PST - Event Link**
 

Gina Loften | Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, US at Microsoft | 🎬 LIVE 🎬 on Simply Tech LIVE | October 29th, 12-130pm PST
 

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