Ellen Ma

Two things: relentless curiosity and the people around me. I've never been the person who stays in one lane. I went from being a sell-side analyst at hedge fund to product manager for tech to running AI programs in regulated environments and every leap required learning something new from scratch. But I also wouldn't be here without the mentors who pushed me, the teams that trusted me, and honestly the experience of being underestimated. Growing up as a second-generation immigrant, you learn early that nobody's going to hand you anything. That drives a certain kind of work ethic, but it also drives empathy. I want to build teams and workplaces where people don't have to fight that hard just to be heard. I have young children in my family, particularly my nieces and I want them to feel and know that women can break into these roles that are male dominated. Starting out as the 1% on the trade floor to working with mostly male engineers, I remember telling myself this is what I want to be. Not just for me, but to break these types of ceilings for other women and show young ladies it is possible.

When I was earlier in my career, there was a leader at Moody's who had a reputation for being tough. Most people were intimidated by him, and honestly, so was I. But he took the time to tell me something that changed my trajectory: don't be timid, don't wait for someone to give you permission, and always raise your hand for the messy, ambiguous work because that's where real growth happens. He told me to only keep people close who challenge me, and that no one ever succeeds alone. It's a group exercise for the rest of your life. I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but his words have stayed with me through every role and every tough decision since.

You can't just scroll Instagram and LinkedIn and think you understand what it takes. You really need to sit down with people who do this day in and day out and ask them, specifically, what did you actually work on? What was the project? If they can't break down exactly what they did, not the title, not the buzzwords, but the actual work, keep looking. Be your own investigator. Keep meeting people, keep asking questions, stay so curious that you're buying books just to figure out what one word meant. And think outside the box, because the biggest challenge right now isn't your skills, it's how do you present yourself beyond a resume and a LinkedIn page. That comes down to relationships. Network as much as you can and when you're talking to someone, make sure you're asking about the real work, not just collecting general advice.

Right now the biggest challenge is trust. Everyone is excited about AI, but in regulated industries like financial services, there's a real tension between moving quickly and making sure what you're building is compliant, ethical, and actually useful. We're dealing with sensitive client data, so the stakes are high. The opportunity is in the unglamorous work: building the governance frameworks, the model monitoring, the data quality pipelines that let you deploy AI responsibly and at scale. That's not the flashy part but it is what separates a demo from a product. I also think there's a huge opportunity in unstructured data. Companies are sitting on massive amounts of text, conversations, documents, recommendations, and most of it has never been analyzed in a structured way. Unlocking that is going to change how businesses understand their customers and make decisions.

Something I feel strongly about is authenticity. You can't fake genuine care for people. If your heart isn't in it, if you're just going through the motions, people will see through it eventually. I've always made it a point to look out for the quiet person in the room the one who reminds me of myself early in my career. I was timid, I was unsure and the people who pulled me aside and invested in me changed my trajectory. I want to be that person for someone else, I think that matters more than ever right now. Technology is evolving at an incredible pace and the people who lead with empathy and integrity are the ones who will keep workplaces human through all of it.