I’m so glad to be here thank you so much
so I’m going to talk a few minutes about
this crazy thing called my career and
why it’s so crazy and why it’s been so
incredible and hopefully from this you
can appreciate why my tagline is against
all odds so first of all I am a woman
okay so do notice and I am someone who
at a very very early age knew that I
would probably be a leader some people
thought I was bossy
some people thought I might have been
brutal and a little selfish my parents
would say I probably boss them around
for most of my young days now why would
I bring that up and think that that is
something so important for all of you to
know because as a result of being a girl
and as a result of having that kind of
interest in other people and trying to
influence and shape and execute that was
not considered something that was of
high value it was considered something
that I needed to sort of repress and
push down a little bit it may be nicely
file but not one to bring out in the
open
I am a a my parents were
first-generation Americans they were
entrepreneurs my mother was lucky enough
to not have to work after my father and
his brothers took their company public
and then took it private and it was an
entrepreneur immigrant total feeling of
wondrousness for the family that we had
and what we were able to do but
simultaneously I was this girl who was
really interested in business and really
interested in all these things and I was
told it’s not for you it’s not for you
you need to find another pathway well
fast forward in high school right in my
senior year in high school I dove great
high school I have friends from New York
that’s where I’m from originally that
absolutely are still a part of my life
and in a strong piece of my fabric well
fast forward senior year the guidance
counselor then looked at my parents and
said you know what don’t waste time on
her going to college she’s smart she
doesn’t work hard she doesn’t come to
classes all the time she lives a highly
social another word for partying life I
was well-read I was a great writer I
didn’t do that well in school and they
told my parents don’t send her to
college there’s no need she can learn
some sort of occasional skill now I was
outraged I thought how dare you label me
how dare you think I wouldn’t do
anything other than amazing things high
school was just a different point in my
time in my life it was a time to read
amazing books hang out with lots of
people learn a lot about music and party
didn’t do things that probably I’m not
that proud of and that my daughter who
is a Shadyside alum was probably would
not be proud of but you know what
happened I went to college I graduated
in college in three years I had five
internships I really thought I wanted to
go into social services every single
internship I have someone offered me a
job and I kept thinking the world must
be so desperate how is it after every
internship someone is offering me a job
but I started to realize that I was
starting to take responsibility I was
starting to understand what it was like
to have an impact and for the first time
in my life I started to put the pieces
together and said no one else is going
to judge me as a result of this linear
procession that I’ve had up to this
point of going to high school and then
going to college I’m going to make a
difference and by the time I was 22 I
actually was overseeing 115 people
working in a facility for people who had
mental disabilities and physical
disabilities that were erroneously
placed in hospitals and they were
undergoing a class-action suit and it
just so happened at one of my
internships I worked on a piece of
public policy and the governor at the
time of where I was living
said you know here’s a young person that
might be able to help in here I walked
in I will never forget I had 115 people
I had nurses I had adjunct doctors I had
staffing staff it was a union and I
walked in the first day and one of the
supervisors who I was going to be her
boss looked at me and said is your mommy
know you’re out do you have any
supervision does your mommy know that
you’re here and that began my
progression into trying to understand
what it was like to have an impact and
to drive change my own parents didn’t
even believe that I really had that job
they came instead to visit me at the job
location just to peek around to see if
what I was telling them was real so you
know over those next 10 years I went to
grad I went to graduate school I sort of
changed the way I started thinking about
the world and realizing there’s probably
not much that I couldn’t do and for the
first time I felt this flame inside of
me saying you could really almost do
anything now I know you think that might
be such a huge broad brush of an of an
expression but when you have an
opportunity at such a young age
like I did to lead people to make a
difference to fail over and over again
with rapid succession
it builds confidence it builds the
amount of confidence that I wish most
people would have today and it’s one of
the things that you don’t learn while
you are really in school you only learn
that day in and day out I remember once
I must have been in my 20s and my right
hand
at my job to the master’s degree and
very well-educated killed himself a few
days after that in the same environment
that I was at a woman was murdered
through domestic violence through one of
through her partner on the job someone
came to our site and killed her and I
said oh my gosh I can’t do anything how
could this be I cannot do anything here
I was confident feeling like I I really
understood the Mojo of my work and I
walked away from that and said you know
what I probably need to think about what
it means to be a leader and to influence
people it was a I had to go one time I
had someone who came who came after my
staff and me and I went into hiding
right around the time that my daughter
was born and you might say how could you
have this many troubled people in one
workplace Audrey maybe it’s you right
maybe it’s you that’s attracting this
kind of thing but from those experiences
as a leader and as a woman and as
someone who now Leapfrog with me started
to get into technology and started to
see that not only was it really against
all odds and the world was moving so
fast and I was working in data centers
and working with you know advanced
application developers and I started
cognition about what that kind of work
was in a period of time that was
starting to move so incredibly fast I
was the only woman there were really no
women there were no women that were
coming up through computer science there
were no women that were what we’re
working and willing to grab the ball and
become leaders and so what I learned is
that it’s really not the work per se
it’s the relationships that we have with
other people it’s just it’s taken me
through this whole
trajectory of learning to build my own
self-esteem to understand against all
odds and to begin to figure out that
it’s all back in a continuous circle
it’s really about people it’s about your
ability to bring people up and bring
people ahead of you and surround
yourself with incredibly smart people
because you know what as great as my
confidence has been over these years I
can’t do it alone I can never do any of
this alone so I go from social services
to get into strategic consulting I get
into finance I get into technology I get
into working at a company here in
Pittsburgh that that was created out of
Carnegie Mellon 25 years ago Maya design
I work with a multinational company
called Alcoa where i have teams all over
the world and then I get a call as I’m
sitting on Southside works and someone
said you know they’re doing a
recruitment for the Pittsburgh
Technology Council and like oh my god
what is that I don’t know anything about
that and then as I say so just come just
interview it’s a really amazing time in
Pittsburgh and the world is going to pay
attention to Pittsburgh we believe that
that was ten years ago and as I started
to get connected into Pittsburgh and
started seeing the possibilities and the
opportunities I assumed this job as the
first woman the only woman that is
running the Pittsburgh Technology
Council that was started 34 years ago by
a bunch of guys who said they weren’t
going to let this region go to hell in a
handbasket so my life is gone in people
come to me and they say how did you go
from this to this to this I thought you
were trained to go this way
why is there no flow path that takes you
into a nice linear trajectory because it
doesn’t because if you want to grab on
to things that matter to you and want to
have an impact it can never be
because if you pair that with the rapid
rate of change that we are going through
right now that is so fast and so
lightning fast your technical skills
quickly evaporate and so the most
important thing is that you build skills
that continuously develop your
capability to learn and if you continue
to do that you will far exceed where I
have landed you will far exceed any
possibilities because there is no more
one job there is no job that when you
think you’re 22 you’re going to be out
when you’re 30 but if you have skills
and you have it paired with confidence
and you have an opportunity to fail fail
fail and pick yourself up as quickly as
you fail and demonstrate that through
relationships we win so for me this is I
don’t get an opportunity very often to
sort of talk about what I’ve gone
through in my life
many people say Audrey your career has
been in so many different directions and
I say it’s incredible it’s been amazing
and I gift that to all of you as you who
are here as parents and as you who are
here as kids who are headed into the
next iteration of the coming decade
these are great times ahead we are
living in an amazing amazing time but
just remember it really is about be
against all odds because nothing ever
comes that simply and who would have
thought that the companies that are on
the NASDAQ today or those companies
didn’t even exist sometimes six to seven
years ago and I can tell you what’s
going to be on the Nasdaq in the next
five years our companies that you and I
have not even heard of and that are
going to be changing the world
so change the world make a difference in
your own life remember if you are a
woman if you are a young girl you are
you are at least half of what the future
is and be a part of it
I am very grateful for the time this
morning I thank you all and I know
you’re going to have a rockin day thanks for listening to my story