Her Story
About Ana Milena Granados
I have been working in IT for more than 15 years, with 4 years here in the U.S. I am originally from Bogota, Colombia, and my native language is Spanish. Currently, I serve as IT manager in a healthcare organization where I hold two roles. First, I supervise the help desk, providing IT support for all employees and all patients who contact us through the patient portal. Second, I work as a program manager for different IT projects, handling new implementations and initiatives to provide better service for patients and improve workflows. My typical day involves solving IT issues ranging from helping someone whose computer is not working to supporting executives with application problems, while also tracking the projects we have in play, monitoring, checking budgets, resources, scope, and identifying ETAs for those projects. I have a lot of meetings. As a woman and an immigrant in this field, I face unique challenges. For example, I am the manager and my supervisors are all men, so it has been challenging to provide instruction for them. The language barrier has also been difficult, but I always try to share my input or provide the information I want using simple words to make sure people understand what I want to say. These were the highest challenges for me in my career, but I have worked hard to overcome them.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Ana Milena Granados
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think a few things have helped me become successful. The first one is knowing myself as a person, with my background and my professional life. I don't think about my gender, and I also don't focus on where I come from. Sometimes for Hispanic people, it's really challenging. When you complete forms and they ask about your race or ethnicity, whether you're Hispanic or Latino, I think, why is it important? What is the issue? What's the difference? You don't need to know my ethnicity or my race, and you don't need to know if I am woman or man. You need to know my skills, and whether I can achieve the work or the job that you need. If I'm qualified, then that's what matters. I can do it.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was: if you feel scared, don't worry, just do it. Feel the fear and do it anyway. It's really hard for me, it's really hard, but it's the way to move forward. It's the way to move outside of the comfort zone.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
All people are different, but all of us have different skills to achieve the things that we want. We don't have the same skills, but with those skills, you can achieve the goals that you want.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
For me, it's really important to have loyalty and honesty. I think these values are important in both fields, in my personal life and also in my work life.
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