This year has been a rollercoaster for the tech industry, from the rise in Black VCs investing in Black & brown tech founders to the unexpected tech layoffs that shook the industry. As we subtly adjust to the “new normal,” it is safe to say that this year has been a drastic year of change for everybody. No matter how good or bad your year has been, here are some of our favorite interviews with Black game changers in the tech space that have reshaped our definition of success. So
Originally published on Medium by Glenesha Grant as part of her “5 Coffees, 5 Days w/ Black Product Managers” series. Our fifth and last feature is with Sefunmi Osinaike, Co-founder of Co.lab and author of “How to Product.” Sefunmi Osinaike is currently working on the Co.Lab program that gives people the experience they need to land jobs in the tech industry. Specifically around Product Management, Product Design, and Software Development. His first PM role was at Microsoft. Before he got into product management, he was building a product to help students better manage
Originally published on Medium by Glenesha Grant as part of her “5 Coffees, 5 Days w/ Black Product Managers” series. Our fourth feature is with Brittany Bankston, Product Lead @ MainStreet and CEO & Co-founder for Black Product Manager Network. Brittany Bankston is currently a Product Manager Lead at MainStreet, a Series A fintech start-up targeting small businesses. She got her first Product role after grad school, in Intuit’s Product Manager rotational program. Prior to Product Management, she studied Biomechanical Engineering and went into Medical Device Design. I started by asking questions to learn more
Originally published on Medium by Glenesha Grant as part of her “5 Coffees, 5 Days w/ Black Product Managers” series. Our third feature is with Sayo Hassan, Product Manager @ Neo Financial. Sayo Hassan is a part of the Product team at Neo Financial (currently on maternity leave) as a Product Manager. Before she went on maternity leave, she worked on the Accounts team (i.e. Credit + Savings account). I started by asking questions to learn more about Sayo’s story and her journey into the product management field as a Black professional.
Originally published on Medium by Glenesha Grant as part of her “5 Coffees, 5 Days w/ Black Product Managers” series. Our second feature is with Quadri Oshibotu, Senior Product Manager @ Alcumus — North America and Founder of Product Hall. Quadri is an experienced Product Manager with multiple years of experience building world-class products. He is passionate about building products that have a positive impact on people’s lives and helping people grow through teaching, training, and mentorship. I started by asking questions to learn more about Quadri’s story and his journey into
Ubisoft is hiring on pocitjobs.com Currently a Creative Director at Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest gaming developers, Richard Arroyo has spent almost a quarter of a century sharpening his professional tool kit. His experience ranges from computer animation design to business strategy and on-set direction, yet the US-born Montrealer insists he’s “still not done learning.” In this interview, Richard sheds light on his decades-long career, the ethos that got him where he is now, and advice he would give those looking to follow in his footsteps. What did your
Originally published on Medium by Glenesha Grant as part of her “5 Coffees, 5 Days w/ Black Product Managers” series. Our first feature is with Monica Ugwi, a Product Director @ Shopify. Monica is a product leader with over a decade of experience building meaningful products for millions of users. She has deep technical expertise and leads with empathy for users and her teams. She is obsessed with using technology to make lives better. Monica has built products at Shopify, Google, Facebook, as well as in startup settings. She holds a degree
Intuit is hiring on pocitjobs.com As VP, Chief of AI & Data Operations, Sharon Hutchins leads business operations and program management for Intuit’s AI+Data organization. The company, which specializes in financial software, was recently in the spotlight after announcing an important goal: to increase female representation in the company’s technology roles from 30% to 37% by 2024. It’s a mission that Sharon 100% backs as she believes there’s room for everyone at the top. Before landing her senior leadership position, Sharon’s journey has been one of taking risks and not allowing
“Try not to use the word minority, say underprivileged or underserved; otherwise, if you say minority, investors will make certain assumptions.” “What assumptions?” “Oh, you know…” That was an interaction between a first-time Black founder and a white venture capital (VC) investor who was supposed to be advising her. Speaking to POCIT, she said she felt several investors she had spoken to had an unconscious bias towards her as a founder and the audience she was targeting. While she understood POC markets were ‘small’ in her native country – on
Honeycomb is hiring on pocitjobs.com Alayshia Knighten is a seasoned DevOps Engineer with a love of infrastructure and a focus on breaking down technical learning barriers for customers. She recently spoke to POCIT about navigating life in the tech sector as a woman of color and her role at Honeycomb, an observability tool that lets developers quickly make sense of the billions of rows of data needed to fully represent the user experience in your complex and unpredictable systems. Since joining Honeycomb as a Senior Implementation Engineer in October 2020,
