September 8, 2013

INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY

My Experience at the Commemoration of MLK’s I Have a Dream Speech

3 min read

It is with much excitement that I write this blog post – a first for me – on the Cisco Inclusion and Diversity blog.  On August 27th I traveled from San Jose, CA to Washington D.C. to attend the 50th anniversary and commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic I Have a Dream speech held […]

Sheryl Sandberg’s Japan Visit

1 min read

Cisco SVP of HQ Sales – Japan, Yasufumi Hirai, and I had the privilege to meet Sheryl Sandberg earlier this month at a private luncheon reception sponsored by Nikkei Weekly News. We were so inspired by her. She gave me a hug when I mentioned I was from Cisco. She says “John Chambers has been […]

Cisco Empowered Women’s Network Launch at CiscoLive!

1 min read

https://youtu.be/1JT3C9XoGQU  On June 22, the first Cisco Empowered Women’s Network (CEWN) session was held at the CiscoLive! conference in Orlando, Florida. It was an opportunity for Cisco’s...

A solo trip to Russia

2 min read

When you hear about Russia, what images come to your mind? Grand Palaces, matryoshka dolls, vodka? Since studying Russian history at school and in my endeavour to visit as many countries as possible during my lifetime (I’ve currently visited 42), I’ve always wanted to visit the largest country in the world and to see the […]

How Women Lead In the Workplace

1 min read

Long after she made it cool to be a woman in high tech, Sheryl Sandberg is now making it popular to talk about...

JUMP up and be counted

2 min read

It was no great surprise to hear the 2012 McKinsey report Women Matter1 say that women are still under-represented at board and leadership levels. This slow-but-steady progress isn’t for want of trying. In fact, the report notes there are more learning and development initiatives aimed specifically at women than ever before. This increased investment is […]

Apparently, women will hug anything

2 min read

Earlier this month Shane Snow, Tech journalist and co-founder of @Contently, opened up a can of worms with his article “Hug vs. Handshake”. When he, a “married dude”, runs into a male acquaintance both in and outside the workplace, a handshake is an acceptable and preferable greeting for both men. But “with females, I feel […]

Love is All You Need?

2 min read

Imagine a world where homosexuality is both natural and normal and heterosexuality is perceived and treated as a sinful aberration. The award winning short film Love Is All You Need? powerfully depicts this world where “gay” is “straight” and “straight” is “gay” and a sexual relationship between a man and a woman is a cultural, […]

Raise Your Hand

2 min read

“Raise your hand!” It’s what we all have to do in order to grow our careers, gain new opportunities, and take on different experiences. Sometimes opportunities come to us without us doing anything, but most of the time, opportunities come across our plate because in someway or another, we raised our hands. We may have […]