From User to Director: How Pluralsight’s Abena Saulka Taught Herself to Lead
Abena Saulka is obsessed with obscure apocalyptic movies. Especially ones that feature a zombie apocalypse.
"I wonder how I would survive in the world in an apocalyptic state. Would I survive? Do I have what it takes?" asks Abena.
She thinks about her career similarly. Abena wants to be a CTO or CIO one day. When asked where that goal comes from, she responds, "It was the highest, most impossible goal I could set, and like with apocalyptic movies, I want to know what my limit is," she says.
When it comes to her career goals, Abena is putting herself through the paces, one practical professional move at a time. She's taught herself everything from JavaScript to how to lead with empathy along the way, and now her career has come full circle: she's the Director of Software Engineering at Pluralsight, the technology skills platform she herself used earlier in her career.
"I don't think I have found [my limits] yet. I have to keep pushing," she says, smiling.
We sat down with Abena to hear more about where her drive to test herself comes from, how she found her way to Pluralsight, and what she's looking forward to next.
Finding the Right Environments for Success
Abena grew up in Kumasi, Ghana, where she experienced the British education system.
"You don't question the teachers, you just listen to what the teachers have to say," she says.
It was that experience that made Abena interested in going to the United States for college.
"The US has a very good advertising campaign outside of the US about its educational system. I felt that in an American liberal arts education, you get to have an argument and conversation with the teacher. You get to have your opinion," she says.
Once at Goshen College in the U.S., she studied business, with an eventual goal of being an entrepreneur, inspired by her restaurateur mom. But after an early ecommerce venture went belly-up, Abena realized that she needed to understand how the web worked if she wanted to run a business.
"I had to understand web development to understand what had happened, what we did wrong," she says. "The person we'd hired, I couldn't make sense of whether [what they said] was the truth or not. I was lost, and I decided I had to learn it."
So she headed to Barnes and Noble to buy a copy of HTML for Dummies—"At the time, there was no online place you could go to learn!" she says—and started teaching herself, a few hours a day.
Her self-taught approach worked, and Abena was hired as a webmaster at an insurance company. "I was just very thrilled that I had learned something on my own and I got a job on that," she says. "And once I started working as a software engineer, it incorporated all the elements of business I liked. It had entrepreneurship, you could be a self-starter, you could be a director, and you could take ownership of the work you were doing."
But while that was true for the first decade or so of her career, Abena hit a ceiling.
She'd been continuously training herself through the Pluralsight subscription that her company offered. She'd take a new concept, like C#, and study for a certain amount of time each day, developing her own private projects to test her understanding of the concepts.
She had also been networking with her fellow software engineers. But when Abena wanted to try her hand at applying all her hard-won experience in a leadership role that went beyond having three direct reports, she couldn't get her managers to give her a shot.
"I hit a ceiling. I wanted to be able to drive the business decisions, but no one thought my opinion would matter. I was always told what to do, and that became stifling for me," explains Abena.
Driving Forward, With Belief
Abena decided to supplement her self-directed education with a Master of Science in Technology Management from Columbia University. When even those credentials didn't sway her managers' opinions, she decided to leave, and to find a company that would trust her to take on a leadership role.
It took three years.
Three long years of interviews, research, and more self-studying. In early interviews, Abena realized she wasn't showing enough of the soft skills a leader would need, from empathetic communication to managing at the right level. She read books, practiced, and cemented a new approach: instead of talking about everything she didn't have or hadn't done, she would focus on what the company needed, and talk about how she could meet those needs.
"When I did that, people overlooked the Ghanaian accent, the nervousness. They think, 'This person can actually contribute something to my company,'" she says.
She finally got the job she was looking for, and Abena chalks that success up to her never-wavering belief in herself. Despite the anxiety, the imposter syndrome, and the doubt, she kept coming back to her one belief: keep knocking.
"You have to be an advocate for yourself, and believe that it can happen. I'm an example that if you keep knocking on the door, somebody will open it. Somebody will see you," she says.
Three months into her new job, Abena's boss called her in.
"I said, 'Oh my god, I'm in trouble,'" she says. But her boss wasn't there to reprimand, but rather to commend: he'd heard reports from her team that they felt empowered, supported, and cared for.
The approach inspired by her liberal arts education—one that focused on helping her team help themselves, equipping them with critical thinking skills and always being an accessible sounding board—was succeeding.
Then Pluralsight came calling.
Coming Full Circle
It was actually a PowerToFly email that reached Abena, letting her know that her favorite training tool was looking to hire someone just like her.
"I had such a high respect for Pluralsight that initially I thought, 'I don't think they would want me,'" she says, remembering. A follow-up email from PowerToFly a week later made her feel the need to be brave: "I decided to go through the interview process as a test to defeat that self-doubt."
It ended up being another test that Abena crushed. When she got the job offer, she didn't quite believe it. "I was thinking in my head it was surreal. It was a much bigger role, with more people to manage and more responsibilities, and they thought I could do it. It didn't even cross my mind to turn them down."
She accepted, and now as Director of Software Engineering, Abena's role is to advocate for her developers and to help set and execute the company's future roadmap. It's giving her a chance to apply all of the leadership skills she learned at Columbia.
She's currently working on a project to integrate a new acquisition. "This is the kind of work I wanted to do. I get to see my ideas, and influence the decision-making; it's what I've been striving to do from day one," she says.
"Now I'm part of the company on the inside. I know what it feels like to be a Pluralsight customer. I'm here to advocate for the customer," she says. "Learning is revolutionary. It's such a barrier to so many things."
"To be part of a company that values that, sees that, is very inspiring. It's the difference between being at a company that's just giving you a paycheck and being at a company that really is doing something substantial," says Abena. "It's really satisfying."
If you're interested in making an impact at Pluralsight, check out their open roles here.
Nicole Dickerson: Knocking Down Stereotypes and Silos
Meet Nicole, A Branch Manager at Morgan Stanley
Below is an article originally written by PowerToFly Partner Morgan Stanley. Go to Morgan Stanley's Page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn more.
As a young, black woman Nicole Dickerson knows she doesn't fit the typical image of a branch manager. Through her leadership at Morgan Stanley, Nicole shares how she's breaking stereotypes with her success.
Nicole Dickerson, selected by Morgan Stanley as a MAKERs in 2018, knows that she doesn't fit the typical image of a branch manager, and she's good with that. As a young, black woman heading up a fast-growing branch in one of Morgan Stanley's major markets, she sees herself as the reflection of a shifting corporate culture, both within the firm and throughout the financial services industry.
She is one of 17 outstanding professional women nominated by her peers and selected by Morgan Stanley executives to participate in MAKERS, a national program that identifies and celebrates accomplished professionals from a variety of fields and companies.
"Morgan Stanley is trying to broaden the face of leadership," says Nicole, Branch Manager of the Beverly Hills office. "There's so much predisposition in what we think a leader should look like that it's important to show the world that success can come in a multitude of shades and genders."
Nicole is a case in point. In 2007, she decided to change careers and was considering getting her MBA in finance. She went to a few university open houses to get a feel for their programs and heard a presentation on wealth management that sparked her interest.
At the time, Nicole had two friends working in the industry. One ran a hedge fund, and the other was an advisor with a large wealth management firm. The hedge fund manager told her he made big money by taking big risks. The wealth manager told her that he built his business by working with amazing clients who are now friends. "What I got was 'slow and steady wins the race,'" she says. "And that resonated with me."
So instead of going back to school to pursue her MBA, she took a massive cut in pay and responsibility to become an assistant at a financial services firm. That was in March of 2008, at the depths of the financial crisis. "I took one step backward so that I could take a thousand steps forward," she says.
Leading from the Front
When she became Branch Manager of the Beverly Hills office in 2016, Nicole faced two key challenges. The first was suddenly finding herself responsible for managing her former coworkers. The second was breaking down the silos that many of the branch's top Financial Advisors had built around their businesses.
The key to both was creating a culture of inclusivity and teamwork. "A consistent message of mine is that we are all in this together," she says. "Whatever decision we make, we are all going to have to stand behind it and believe in it."
Under that philosophy, no person or position is more important than any other, and everyone in the office shares responsibility for the branch's success. "With 54 Financial Advisors in this branch, I have realized that true success happens when Financial Advisors view all of their decisions through the lens of a shareholder," she notes.
Nicole has the added complexity of managing Financial Advisors who have been in the business longer than she's been alive. They also had been successfully running their practices on their own and weren't particularly interested in changing how they did things. "People who have been in this business for so long can develop a fixed mindset that their system is the best for themselves and their teams," she says.
With those blinders on, though, even well-entrenched Financial Advisors can miss the opportunities being created in a fast-changing world. So Nicole started chipping away at those silos by rolling up her sleeves to work as hard as they did to meet client needs. "This is one team, one dream," she says. "I'm only going to be as successful as my Financial Advisors are, and because I'm their intermediary within the firm, they are only going to be as successful as I am."
So when a Financial Advisor comes to her with something that requires an assist from corporate, they work together to make it happen. "We approach it with the understanding that we need to own this together," she says. "We craft the message together and then figure out how to get other people in the boat with us."
"It's an easier way to do business, and that's part of the cultural change that I'm trying to create here," she adds.
Built for Growth
The results speak for themselves. The Beverly Hills branch is on track to post strong organic growth this year. "We changed the focus on how to help Financial Advisors be successful," she says. "Our Financial Advisors know that I'm advocating for them and will be shoulder to shoulder with them in terms of closing business and getting things done."
Looking ahead, she wants the rest of the Los Angeles marketplace place to know that the Beverly Hills office of Morgan Stanley is the best place for any Financial Advisor who wants to grow his or her business. She points to the strong support that she and her team have received from management and the deep resources available to help make Financial Advisors successful.
"I want to make sure my Financial Advisors know that when they bring in a prospect they can say, without a doubt, that this is the best firm in Beverly Hills," she says.
A pioneer for female leaders
A Look Back On Those Who Paved The Way For Women At Wells Fargo
Below is an article originally written by Alyssa Bentz, Wells Fargo Historian, and published on March 2, 2018. Go to the Wells Fargo Page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn more.
From the 1870s to the 1910s, Wells Fargo hired more than 350 women to manage its express offices in towns across the U.S., from California to New York. As the company began opening its bank branches in the early 20th century, though, only men were appointed managers. That all changed in 1967, when Shirley Nelson made history by becoming the bank's first female branch manager. Nelson earned her promotion through years of hard work. By 1967, she had worked in the banking industry for 17 years. She started out in entry-level positions, including as a customer attendant in the Safe Deposit department. Over time, she pursued new opportunities, gaining experience as a loan officer, operations supervisor, and assistant cashier. She lobbied her manager to give her more responsibilities and eventually worked her way up to assistant manager of a busy branch in Stonestown, a suburb of San Francisco, in 1964.
Wells Fargo rapidly expanded its branch network in the 1960s, growing from just one California branch in 1919 to more than 230 branches in the state by 1967. When the bank had plans to open a new branch in Pacifica, California, Nelson's manager thought of Nelson's energy and ambition and recommended her for the post.
Shirley Nelson being interviewed after becoming the first female bank manager in Wells Fargo's history in 1967.Wells Fargo Corporate Archives
'Now I don't see any stops'
Nelson's appointment was the first of a large shift at Wells Fargo. Women continued to gain new positions that had previously been off-limits to them.
In 1975, the Wells Fargo Banker publication featured Nelson and other women working at Wells Fargo, highlighting how the bank had rapidly changed over a few years, and how qualified women were filling more and more jobs previously dominated by men. At the time, women held 36 percent of the management positions in the company.
Janet Wright, vice president for personnel and data processing, was one of the women featured in the article. "I joined the Bank in 1937 as a bookkeeper in the Trust Division," Wright said. "At that time, women only held bookkeeping and secretarial positions. During the war (World War II) I became a dividend clerk, a senior clerical post which previously had been held only by men. … It was very exciting when that first woman was named trust officer. We just accepted the notion that women were not officers and had only certain jobs. We never really felt discriminated against. Looking back, it seems it took a long time to reach that level. Now, qualified women can go into any line of work. … It's a different world."
The article also featured Nancy King, a training officer who talked about an interview she had in the past for a different position. "I was turned down because the manager ― a man ― didn't think I could lift coin," King said in the article. "Now it's hard to find managers who don't want women as their co-workers. Women have shown they can handle the work and perform well. They have proved themselves valuable in the branches."
Shirley Nelson, with Chloe Flowers of Wells Fargo Escrow Services, inside the vault at the downtown San Francisco branch. The two found a solution for a customer looking to keep Cabbage Patch dolls safe for a radio giveaway in 1984. Wells Fargo Corporate Archives
By this time, Nelson had left Pacifica to lead the Stonestown branch — a branch that did over five times the business — as its new manager. "Opportunities for women definitely changed in recent years," Nelson said in the publication. "More women are officers, and there are more openings for women. Now I don't see any stops."
In later years, Nelson managed one of the bank's busiest branches in downtown San Francisco. When she retired, it was with the knowledge that women at Wells Fargo would continue to grow and gain more opportunity than ever before.
Propelify Tech Talks 2018
Women Tech Leaders From Audible Featured at Propelify Tech Talk
Below is an article originally written by Jane Li, Garima Agarwal, Nancy Huang, Alex Usova, and Neha Koul of PowerToFly Partner Audible, and published on June 11, 2018. Go to Audible's page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn more.
Despite a dreary morning sky, the boxed coffee and bustling energy kept all the volunteers in warm spirits. The outdoor Propelify conference on Hoboken's waterfront had been set up like a farmer's market—booth after booth showcasing cool tech ideas and enthusiastic young startups.
Audible's tent was fashioned into a swanky living room, with couches and a huge fuzzy carpet, a perfect invitation for attendees to come listen to five software developers from Audible's Consumer Domains, the full-stack engineering teams behind Audible's website.
Second, was an enlightening talk on Web App Security by Garima. The talk highlighted the importance of serving sites over https for several trust and security reasons. There was emphasis on https becoming a requirement for leveraging http/2 and future PWA (Progressive Web App) technologies. The talk demonstrated two security vulnerabilities on sites today—XSS and Clickjacking. This was followed by leveraging http security headers to tighten up the security of web apps, typically just by adding a few lines of code. Garima called out several other security headers used by Audible today and encouraged the audience to research and use them.
Alex followed with a speech about a resource hint called Preconnect. The preconnect link relation type is used to indicate an origin that will be used to fetch required resources. Initiating an early connection, which includes the DNS lookup, TCP handshake, and optional TLS negotiation, allows the user agent to mask the high latency costs of establishing a connection. Alex provided examples of pages with and without preconnect and compared their loading time, demonstrating that usage of preconnect gives performance improvement, as well as giving a convincing argument for why every millisecond counts in the web world. She also demonstrated how preconnect is used in Audible.
The talks concluded with time for questions from the audience. After thanking everyone for a hugely successful round of Tech Talks, the tent once again turned into a mingling of inquisitive conference attendees, Audible employees, and the chilly morning air.