Her Story
About shereen
I work as a Product Owner at PepsiCo in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods industry, where I've been for the past 3 years. My expertise lies at the intersection of tech and business - I'm always between the business folks and the tech folks. I gather business requirements, understand them, and then execute on projects by working with developers and AI engineers. As a product owner, I'm responsible for executing projects on budget and on time. The projects I work on range from building Power BI dashboards to creating GenAI chatbots and web applications - really different tech solutions across the board. I hold a Master's in Management Technology from NYU, which I completed in May 2023, and I've earned Microsoft AI certifications including AI Fundamentals. I also participated in data science bootcamps during my time at NYU. What I'm most passionate about is helping other women transition into technology. I serve as a Women in Tech Ambassador, an organization that was part of Google and recently transitioned to Technovation. It's a very selective program where I had to apply to get in, and to keep my status active, I need to have at least one event or article submitted every 3 months - it's really focused on community work and increasing women's presence in technology. Through this role, I've spoken at several events, including a workshop with Mentor Me Collective where I taught users how to build chatbots using Google tools. I come from a finance and accounting background myself, so I understand the journey of transitioning into tech, and I actively enjoy speaking and motivating other women to make that same transition.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with shereen
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to several things. Definitely God, and my family, and my friends. I think my family gives me a lot of patience and gave me a lot of support and motivation, same as my brother as well. They always tried to challenge me and always believe in me. And also, I would attribute my success to my mentors that I've met through my whole life. I was blessed to have amazing mentors who were always challenging me, or challenged my thinking, and supported me in my hardest moments.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I received two pieces of career advice that really stand out to me. One is the importance of being agile and adaptable. You need to be very agile, especially with AI right now in the market. If you don't accept change, it's hard to go forward. You have to be open and agile and adapt, so adaptability and agility is very huge right now. You need to make sure that you adapt for the new changes and not be stuck with the old way. Always have an open mind to try new things and see the impossible. The other advice I got is that your network is your net worth. Everyone talks about that, but I really feel it. The people you surround yourself with will make you or break you. When you're surrounded with a lot of people who are intelligent and share ideas, you get motivated. You surround yourself in this type of environment, you always get motivated to do more. So always be in environments that challenge you. And if you are in an environment that you don't feel challenged, then it's not the right environment for you. You need to get out of it.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Never fear change, and it's never too late. If you want to do something, then go try it out. Never wait for the perfect opportunity. I think with AI right now, everyone can try new things.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest opportunities is for people to learn how to use AI to simplify their work, or automate some of their work processes, to make their lives simpler - how they can apply AI in their day-to-day. Or even if it's not AI, how they can automate processes within their day-to-day work. The other opportunity is AI adoption in general. There's a lot of AI tools out there in the market, but some people still don't know how to apply it, so I think there's an opportunity in terms of expanding the awareness of AI and how to use it. People can utilize not only taking certifications, they can just go on YouTube and search about anything, or even go to ChatGPT and say, 'I'm always doing this manual process in my day-to-day, how can I automate this?' This is how they can cover some of those opportunities in their day-to-day.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Being trustworthy is one of the values I really hold really tight to my heart. Someone that you can trust - I think trust is one of my highest values.
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