Her Story
About Faiza
Faiza Khan serves as a Cloud Solutions Architect at Microsoft, where she has worked for over seven years. She began her career in the data space with technologies such as Power BI and Microsoft Fabric, helping customers with cloud and digital transformation, before transitioning to AI technologies focused on M365 Copilot, Agents, and Agentic AI. With more than 10 years in the IT industry, Khan earned a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from the University of Houston in May 2016. Her professional path included internships at New DESIC (AmeriShore) as an associate consultant from 2014 to 2015 and at Consergo as a quality assurance analyst, followed by her first corporate role as a systems engineer at Infosys from 2017 to 2019, where she supported Toyota North America. Notable achievements include winning two Microsoft hackathon projects and developing agents for an airline industry CFO that drove 16 percent month-over-month Azure AI revenue growth. Khan actively mentors through her memberships in Muslim Professionals and MISO at the University of Houston. She participates in the Microsoft Give program and advocates for providing charity and medical supplies to children in Gaza while supporting orphans. Khan attributes her success to fate, Almighty God, resilience, and patience. She values integrity, kindness, empathy, and personal growth, and advises young women to gain confidence, ask questions without hesitation, and run toward challenges to foster growth.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Faiza
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would just say mainly I always kind of lean on to fate. Whatever kind of I've achieved, I definitely give all the credit to Almighty God. And outside of that, I would say resilience and patience. I've always had, when I'm dealing with anything pretty much in my personal life.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Best career advice I would say that would be at Microsoft. My managers they've pretty much onboarded me with kind of this advising. You should fail fast and recover faster. And always be kind of a learn-it-all person versus know-it-all person. And that's kind of the advice that I've been following ever since.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
One advice would be kind of I guess gain confidence and don't be shy don't shy away from questions. Sometimes we think the questions we might be asking are stupid or irrelevant or you know whatever the thoughts may come. I would say kind of to be confident in asking questions putting yourself out there and just kind of overcoming your fear. I think that's one thing that I've done in my life is anything that has feared me or anything that has made me uncomfortable I kind of run towards it because I know that is the actual place where I will kind of grow.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Biggest challenge I would say because I'm in the IT industry and because I'm kind of working with cutting-edge technology especially with AI these technologies change so fast. The biggest challenge is to kind of stay up to date on these technologies. Another challenge is kind of understanding customer objectives and handling kind of customers' needs right? A lot of people kind of go to customers with the kind of the selling mindset that we have to sell our products we have to sell Microsoft or Azure but typically we don't think that maybe the customer instead of selling products we need to sell them kind of end-to-end solutions.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Values I would say definitely kind of integrity is one of them. Kindness right and empathy. In my personal life and professional life I try to lead with that. And personal growth I would say.
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