Allison Stanford

I've been in the tech industry for 16 years now, and what originally drew me here was the changing landscape and fast-paced environment. I don't get bored, and I love how innovative it is. Before focusing on tech, I worked in digital multimeters and thermal imaging, which was more industrial tools and B2C. Then I moved into cybersecurity, disk and hard drive archive, tape and disk backup. For the last 8 years of my career, I've been working in SaaS and cloud-based computing and open-source technology. Today, I run our national programs at scale for field marketing. My biggest goal is to take a program and make sure it's repeatable, scalable, and has the same objectives and aesthetic look and feel. It's kind of programmed in a box, rinse and repeatable, but something that looks uniform across all of our different regions. Right now, I'm working on the Data Streaming World Tour, a 28-stop global program that my team and I put the framework together for, from the branding to the speaker, the agenda, all the components, who we target, our goals. It's all repeatable and scalable across all different theaters. What I love most is that I have the autonomy to make my programs what they need to be. I'm given the green light, here's your budget, you go and run and make it. I provide the science and the art behind what I do, make it very creative, and I'm very passionate about it. As a people manager, I really take high responsibility in being a coachable mentor to my team and making sure they have a career path. When they get promoted, that's a win for me. I live for that. I'm also passionate about embracing AI. One of the biggest objections I get from people is, are you afraid of AI replacing your job? I always tell them no. In fact, AI is like my partner in crime, it's like my co-pilot. That's how I work smarter and not harder. We are encouraged to embrace and use AI. My role right now at Confluent, we went through a big IPO when I first started, and I'm kind of looking for the next IPO where I can grow something really, really good. I love the drive of a young company that's really trying to be cutting edge and grow and make themselves a public company. I really like that startup mentality.