Continuing to Create Community – From SharePoint to Power Platform, a New Role and Chapter

This week I start a new chapter in my career, returning to Microsoft officially as a full-time employee. I am working for Sangya Singh, Chief Experience Officer, on the Power Platform team as a Principal PM Manager, focused on building our community. I could not be more excited to join this team at this moment - to do the work and grow as a human in tech.   

Special thank-you’s to Sangya and Dona Sarkar, who invited me to #dothething with them; I plan to do many. And to Karuana Gatimu, with whom I have had the pleasure of sharing the stage many times and who brought me in to work with the Microsoft Teams Engineering team on virtual events. To Michelle Choate for having me work on Diversity and Inclusion for the Microsoft Events team, and to Nancy McSharry Jensen who gave me my first job on her SharePoint Marketing team way back when.  

I started with Microsoft in 2001 when SharePoint was a glimmer in the eyes of many. This UW School of Drama theatre major (#GoHuskies) was thrilled to have the opportunity to write case studies for the team. I then said yes to every new project and was given many different roles and assignments. As a result, I have built two businesses, been a full-time Microsoft employee, contractor, partner, customer, community builder, and a two-time Microsoft MVP in Office Apps and Services.  

Working with Microsoft for 19 years has been an honor. Together with peers, friends, and collaborators, I produced experiences, strategies, events, products, words, and moments. I am thankful and humbled by all the people in my life who have brought me along, taught me, told me what’s what, challenged me, and supported how I choose to show up in the world. This list of people is vast, and I have sincere gratitude for everyone on it - my family, friends, community, and colleagues. 

My career has taken many twists and turns, some wonderful, some not so. I believe everything is a lesson and an opportunity, and that some lessons you learn over and over until they stick. We are all on a roller-coaster ride, and sharing those ups and downs while listening to others is essential. Mentoring women and students, helping businesses and individuals tell their stories, and speaking with and learning from our global tech community have all led me back to working for Microsoft. I am inspired by their ongoing commitment to Diversity and Inclusion and thrilled to apply these same skills and actions from my years in the SharePoint and Office 365 communities to the #PowerPlatform Community.  

Spreading joy and connecting people is my personal why. Thoughts like “it begins with me” and “always learning” are ingrained in my everyday consciousness. I am actively widening my lens on these phrases in the context of privilege and accountability as an individual, a family member, a friend, as well as within my communities, organizations I belong to, and my industry.  

Forging new paths, working together, and changing ways of thinking and doing are never easy, but they are worth the work. Our humanity depends on it. Now is a time of needed change - in how we think, how we treat each other, and how we understand and acknowledge our history. With an eye on updating our social contracts and constructs, and breaking down systems of racial inequity and injustice, I am committed as an individual on working to do better. To stand up, to support, to share space, and to raise awareness as an ally as we make long-overdue changes in our country and our world; to repair, reform, and renew.  

You will find me in all the usual places (and some new ones) as I take on this new role as Principal PM Manager on the Power Platform team and community, while I continue to write, share, podcast, and assist humans in telling their stories. Thank you to all of you who have been my support and guideposts. 

Without people in our lives to share our celebrations, to give feedback, and to join with to improve this world, we are nothing. We can do anything when we do it from a place of unity, love, hope, change, reform, and kindness. Empathy makes us human. Action makes us warriors.