When I finished Crushing the IT Gender Bias, I thought I’d sit down and write the next book soon after. I had the stories, but they just didn’t feel good, no matter how much I had the drive. I was able to end the book describing a little bit about the peace I’d discovered at the beginning of my time at Microsoft, but now, eight years later, I’m ready to write the next book. A lot has happened in over eight years. My time at Microsoft taught me more than I expected about scale, about influence, and about where I…
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So to finish up my look back in 2025, I’ll dig into what I did outside of speaking and writing as my role as Advocate at Redgate. Advocacy, Mentorship, and Community Engagement While speaking and writing, 2025 reaffirmed the importance of advocacy and mentorship. I continued to support professionals navigating career transitions, offered guidance on neurodiversity and sustainability in tech, and contributed to inclusive, community-led events and initiatives reflected in my broader online presence and speaking engagements. I’m still co-organizer for the Data Platform DEI User Group in the Microsoft Community and am ramping up the PDX WIT Meetup in Portland, all while maintaining…
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It’s been a crazy 2025 where I focused on depth over noise, sharing insights on long-term experience and real-world problems. After digging into the post, I ended up breaking this up into two posts to give proper credit to all that happened in 2025. You’re also going to find that rather than chasing shiny AI trends, my work this year centered on helping technologists navigate AI complexity with clarity, especially when data protection was concerned. I did keynotes, technical conferences, published writing, and performed community engagement and all the while the central thread was focused on practical impact: work that…