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Elevating Women in Tech: Why Mentoring Matters

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Women's representation in tech is low, and has surprisingly declined since the '90s. In fact, women in tech are leaving at mid-career at twice the rate of men. Yet demand for these roles continues to grow.

In partnership with Everwise, this webinar features a panel of mentors that will discuss how mentoring is an effective way to support women in tech, and particularly, the crucial role men can play.

You'll learn: 

  • How mentoring helps early- and mid-career women in tech get to the next level

  • The less-discussed angle of how mentors benefit from a mentoring partnership

  • The importance of program structure and accountability

Our panelists are all WEST mentors and have had incredible things to say about why they mentor and what they’ve gotten from the experience.

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Kesha Williams, Software Engineering Manager, Chick-fil-A Corporate

Kesha Williams is an award-winning software engineering manager with over 20 years’ experience specializing in full-stack web development. She's passionate about emerging technologies, speaking, teaching, and mentoring. She's trained thousands of software engineers in the US, Europe, and Asia while teaching at the university level. She routinely leads innovation teams in proving out emerging technologies and shares her learnings at technical conferences around the globe. She recently won the Ada Lovelace Award in Computer Engineering from Look Far and the Think Different Innovation Award from Chick-fil-A for her work with Artificial Intelligence (AI). She was recently featured in Amazon's "Alexa Women of Voice" campaign and named an "Alexa Champion". In her spare time, she leads the Georgia chapter of Technovation, writes news for InfoQ, authors video courses, mentors women in tech, and conducts free coding workshops for children at her local library.

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Sumathi Swaminathan, VP Engineering, Stride

Sumathi has 16+ years of experience building software and leading engineering organizations. Her passion for technology is coupled with a love for coaching engineers and leaders and helping them grow and reach their potential. This is what she does best and loves most. 

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Tim Krajcar, Director of Engineering, New Relic

Tim Krajcar is Director of Engineering at New Relic, where he leads 7 teams developing data collection agents and high-throughput data services. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and is the proud co-founder of two growth-stage daughters.

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Demetrius Comes, VP of Software, GoDaddy

Demetrius Comes brings 22 years of technology experience, most recently as VP of Engineering for GoDaddy, prior to that General Manager and Studio Technical Director at E-Line Media, Executive Director of Engineering for Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment. Current responsible for moving GoDaddy’s software development practices to a cloud native approach, while previously ge has worked on titles such as Command and Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, Command and Conquer: Renegade, Golden Tee Golf Live, Earth and Beyond, Lord of the Rings OnLine, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Warner Brother's most recent hit Infinite Crisis.

Earlier Event: May 30
Climbing the Technical Ladder
Later Event: February 27
Career Planning: Map or Compass?