Her Story
About KELSEY
I studied plant biology, comparative religion, and French in college because I'm just a lover of learning. I fell in love with traveling, so I backpacked and traveled and started bartending while traveling in my 20s. I continued doing that throughout my 20s until I was mentally bored, essentially. I knew that the tech industry is always evolving, there's always something to learn, and so I just kept applying until I was given a chance to show myself in a software field, and we've been going strong ever since. I wanted something that I could work in, grow a career in, and continue learning throughout my career every day. It also provided opportunities to work remote and continue traveling while learning as well. My strongest suit is definitely client relations and operations - organizing project workflows, finding more efficiencies in how we can conduct our implementations, and how we can create stronger relationships with our clients throughout our implementation processes. I also mentor and bring on new people onto our team. I do a lot of migrating data for clients around the world, have 5 or 6 meetings a day spanning 5 to 8 hours, work on increasing my SQL skills, and work on gathering and understanding more information about the manufacturing process from start to finish, always working on improving workflows for our projects.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with KELSEY
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
My mentor used to say, you know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Just keep it pushing. That advice has really stuck with me - the idea that you tackle big challenges one step at a time and you don't let yourself get overwhelmed by the enormity of what's in front of you.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would just say, you know, keep your head down, don't get defeated by imposter syndrome, and understand that we all have a lot to learn every day, and no one knows everything. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time - just keep it pushing. I'm not a tech person. I didn't study tech growing up. I would just like to be inspiring to others who want to take that big leap and make a big change in their life that almost doesn't make any sense, but you can be successful in anything that you choose to truly put your mind to. I think women are the best, and I love seeing women grow and become confident and proud of themselves, and so I would hope that I could let others have that feeling of joy and push themselves forward for what they can do.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say that AI is becoming more relevant in everything we do every day. And it can be stressful to think about a future that you're building that could potentially be taken over by not yourself - by the very thing that we're creating. That's definitely something that weighs on my mind as I think about the long-term trajectory of this field.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I believe in leading with kindness at all times. I believe in always hearing people out. I always believe the best in people. We're always all going through something, and we might act out certain ways or not be at our highest performance level one day. So for me, the most important thing is to always lead with kindness and humility. I try to find more joy in every moment, find peace and stillness in this crazy world, and just try to focus on the good things that exist by keeping my mind sharp and my body strong.
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