Her Story
About Tamika
I spent over 18 years in leadership at an EdTech company, where I had the opportunity to create strategies, pathways, and alignments that allowed me to do a lot of international work across 140 countries. I brought educational practices and best structures from the United States to multiple countries abroad, developing team members along the way. When I started 20 years ago, there was no cloud, so I was part of transition teams taking products, services, and educational resources from client server to the cloud, doing it efficiently and in ways that did not impact educational practices or affect students because they didn't have accessibility components. I retired from that organization last year and am now in the early parts of retirement, doing some consulting still in the field. Since retiring, I went to Harvard and got a certification in AI Essentials for Leaders, and I'm now helping organizations transition to incorporating and using AI into what they do and how they do it. One of my most notable achievements was being one of the first females to do contractual alignment with the ministries of the United Arab Emirates and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, because there's not a large area or component structure that allows women to be able to do that.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tamika
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to consistency and being a fair and quality individual. I believe that maintaining consistency in how I approach my work and treating people fairly with integrity has been fundamental to achieving what I have throughout my career.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received is that the plan that you create is the plan that you should follow. It's not saying two things can't be true at the same time - their way can be true as well as yours. However, if you have a plan that you know operates off of structure and the timelines and guidelines and structure that you want to see unfold, then align with that versus multiple small conversations that others bring to the table. When you start doing something and then start looking for everyone else, it doesn't work out.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
The advice I would give is to step outside of who you are to listen to what is being shared, and then operate from there. What I mean by that is, like having a conversation, it's not just listening to only what someone is saying, but thinking about if it's not only impacting you, how does what you do impact others, and then make a decision from there. Because sometimes the big, bright, shiny thing is not always the best thing. However, you aligning it with you having an impact and purpose does resonate and allow it to align.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges I see are people accepting AI for what it really is, and not some elevated version of Google. The other challenge is being open to moving forward with it, because there's so many unknowns from who knows what to how it's done. The popular kid is the kid that's getting the opportunities, however, they are not the one that has the greatest amount of knowledge to do the right thing. What interests me about the opportunities is being realistic about what is coming in the world today - the quantum movement and reality-based learning, and a higher power really having governance over the structure that we now call the Internet and the Global Alliance.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
From a value proposition place, I would say honesty and integrity. I think dealing with people that are honest and have a lot of integrity in what they say and what they do is very important to me in both my work and personal life.
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