Her Story
About Shanna
I have a background in civil engineering from the University of Virginia, though I bounced around engineering degrees a few times before landing on civil. That led to a career in construction management, but I felt the field had narrowed down to either project manager or superintendent roles. I wanted to work on more projects of varying sizes, and my skill set in understanding how a project worked from start to finish, from conception all the way through closeout, enabled me to speak both C-suite and boots-on-the-ground languages. This has enabled me to transition from construction management to consulting to healthcare risk management, and now to program management for a tech company. It's been a bit of a winding journey, but a lot of it is just enabling myself to establish a thorough skill set and learn the languages of different industries so that I can continuously pivot and continuously learn about something new. I've been in the corporate space for almost a decade now, and I've been in my current role as a program manager for Amazon for nearly 4 years, where I support talent acquisition teams on a global scale through process optimization and engineering.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Shanna
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think in the corporate space, it's really easy to be intimidated by it still being a very male-dominated field, depending on what industry you're in. In construction, especially, that's something that's very male-dominated, but there are always going to be female role models and people that you can reach out to. Even if it's someone who's not in your immediate reporting line, like your manager or your manager's manager, finding people externally on LinkedIn is a great way to constantly seek out mentorship. I think a lot of people limit themselves to only looking at the people that are around them versus trying to broaden their network by reaching out to strangers. They would be surprised at the number of people who are willing to jump on a quick phone call from LinkedIn if they just cold reach out with a message saying what it is that they're looking for, what mentorship they're seeking, and understanding something about someone's LinkedIn profile and asking direct questions about how they made a pivot or what their experience has been at a company. The best piece of advice that I have for a woman coming into the field is continuously network, continuously reach out to other people, and don't be afraid to knock on some doors.
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