Her Story
About Megan
I've been in learning and development for about 10 years now, and my passion is helping organizations build out leadership and management learning and development programs. In my current role, I curate content that comes into the Open Sesame Marketplace, meet with customers and advise them on how to build their learning development programs for their leaders, conduct webinars on leadership and management and how to build leadership capability, and build assets for organizations to use when they can't reach me directly. One of my most notable professional achievements was early in my learning development career when I was working for the City of Corpus Christi. As a public sector employee, I was able to build up learning and development programs for over 3,000 employees. What made this so meaningful was having employees who never thought that education was an option for them go through these learning and development programs at their job and feel like they had more worth and more value because they had some sort of training under their belt. While it wasn't traditional post-secondary education, the City of Corpus Christi was able to offer, through our programs, something very specialized and very unique to the culture at the time. That experience was one of the biggest impacts to my career and really set me on a path to where I am today. Right now, I'm working with organizations on some of the biggest challenges in our field, including learning how to incorporate AI into the workforce and helping leaders guide their teams through the process of partnering with AI rather than fearing it will take their jobs. I'm also focused on how to groom the next generation of leaders in this new workforce that's changing all the time.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Megan
01What do you attribute your success to?
Honestly, if I had to say truly and honestly, my upbringing and my parents. Watching them work as hard as they've worked, and coming from a background where there was a lot of struggle, but despite the struggle, I watched them work really, really hard to give us the best life that they could give us. Growing up, I just knew that I was going to be responsible for paving the way for those behind me, and that was my little sister. I think there's a saying that you can only go as high as you've ever seen someone in your surroundings go, as high as the people you hang out with, or you can only go as high as what your family has ever shown you. And so I knew that if we were going to raise the bar, it was going to have to be me that goes first in order to show the people coming behind me, my family members, my little sister, and everyone else coming behind me, that it is possible.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I remember one of our city managers, or assistant city managers, when I was working at the City of Corpus Christi, giving me a quote. I can't remember exactly how she said it, and I'd have to go back and look because I remember posting it on Facebook, but it was essentially along the lines of, if you're facing adversity, it usually means you're doing the right thing or on the right path.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think I would say that the only thing getting in the way of your success is yourself.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Some of the biggest challenges in my field right now, in the field of learning development, is learning how to utilize and incorporate AI into the workforce. A lot of the conversations that I'm having right now with organizations are along the lines of, we have a lot of leaders that are interested in using AI within their team, within the organization, but our employees are just not in a place yet where they feel comfortable with using AI, where they're excited about using AI. Everyone has skepticism, everyone is worried that it can take their jobs. So right now, together with these organizations and with OpenSesame, we are really trying to promote AI plus human capability, trying to lead leaders through the process of leading their teams to start feeling comfortable with the thought of partnering with AI. Secondary to that, the conversation is usually about how to groom the next generation of leaders that are upcoming, especially in this new workforce that we're in. It's changing all the time.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Definitely, first and foremost, my faith plays a huge part in how I operate. And then I definitely would say I feel like having a servant leadership, a service orientation, not just towards the business itself, but towards people in general, is something that I really hold true to.
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