My husband and I are the parents of two daughters and one amazing Havanese. We will be empty nesters a year from now.  My mother is a first-generation Armenian American and my dad came from an Irish American family. My parents raised my sisters and me with a healthy love, loyalty, respect, and admiration for my country, retired and active service members, being Armenian, and the importance of family. They also raised me to believe that I could do and achieve anything I wanted. As a woman in tech and the primary breadwinner, it certainly has not been easy; it has been full of important lessons and amazing friends I have met along the way. I count my blessings every day for all I have experienced in my life – because it’s those times that things seem to follow along a natural course of positive energy and those hard lessons-learned and the resulting impact that I can now share with the next generation of leaders.  May my glass ceiling be their cement floor.

My life seems to follow the path of two philosophies. The first is that I believe that status quos that no longer solve the world because they are inefficient, ineffective, and inequitable must be disrupted and transformed into something that requires few resources, achieves the desired positive impacts, and creates a better experience for all people, not just some.  The second is that I believe that all people- regardless of gender, ethnicity, differently-abled, and who they love –  have the right to thrive and live on their terms without fear of what others will do to stop them.

This is why I use my platform to inspire and enable women to recognize and appreciate their own power and channel it to disrupt limiting status quos that no longer serve them. Women reinvest what they earn and learn back into the communities around them. Investing in disrupting the status quos that hold women back is critical, not just for women, but for the world. Wherever I go, this is my north star.