HerSuccess Episode 3: Empowering Latinas in Tech
A vision for change, plus balancing motherhood and career
Join us in our latest podcast episode as we chat with the incredible Natalie Marino, a trailblazing Latina tech talent advocate. Not only is Natalie a highly accomplished professional in the tech world, but she's also a dedicated mom, juggling the demands of parenthood while making a significant impact in her field.
In this empowering episode, Natalie shares her inspiring journey from humble beginnings to becoming a driving force in the tech community. Through her platform, she provides invaluable resources, mentorship, and a safe space for female Latina professionals to thrive and excel in their careers.
Topics covered include:
- Natalie’s career journey
- Balancing career and motherhood
- Connecting communities
- Diversity
- Forging a career in tech
About Natalie Marino
Natalie Marino is a mom, entrepreneur and tech leader. She is founder and CEO of The Latina Techie and Director of IT Solutions at G&A Partners. The Latina Techie is a community with a mission to empower Latinas to find their voices in STEM, through mentorship, consulting and collaboration.
Natalie began her career in tech working in Professional Employer Organizations (PEO), and later found her true passion in Human Resource Information Systems. She specializes in driving growth, maximizing operational excellence, and delivering innovative technology solutions.
www.thelatinatechie.com | Instagram
About Engtal
HerSuccess is brought to you by Engtal. Engtal is a US-based staffing agency specializing in engineering and technology, with a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Part of our mission is to balance the diversity scales in our industry.
We are so tied to this mission that we donate a thousand dollars from every underrepresented placement made to our nonprofit, Diversify the Future. We then use that money to fund scholarships for underrepresented groups to help them obtain a STEM degree. If you're an engineer or a tech professional looking for a new position, or you're hiring for talent in this space and want a recruitment partner, please get in touch.
engtal.com | LinkedIn | Instagram | Youtube
Episode 3 Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, and thank you for listening to the HerSuccess podcast. We are a podcast dedicated to interviewing highly successful females within engineering and technology, with hope of inspiring the next generation of leaders in this space. The podcast is brought to you by Engtal. We are a US recruitment company that specializes in the engineering and technology world.
Here at Engtal, we are incredibly passionate about diversity in these industries. So much so that we own our own nonprofit, to which we donate a portion of all our recruitment fees for every diverse placement that we make. We then use that money to fund scholarships for underrepresented groups to obtain a STEM degree.
If you are an engineering or technology professional looking for a new position, or you are hiring for people in this space and you would like a recruitment partner who truly values diversity, please get in touch. In this episode, we interview Natalie Marino. Natalie is the founder and [00:01:00] CEO of the Latina techie and awesome community of Latinas who work within the tech space.
In this episode, we talked to Natalie about how she balances her passion project of the Latin techie with her full-time job as a director of IT solutions, as well as being a wife and a mother. We explore how coming from humble beginnings can make it difficult to see what opportunities are available to you early in your career.
And Natalie gives advice to anyone facing a similar situation. It's a great episode. I really hope you guys enjoy.
Chris: I'm incredibly excited today to be joined by Natalie Marino. Natalie is the director of IT Solutions at G&A Partners. They're an HR services company. She's also the founder and CEO of The Latina Techie, a community dedicated to helping, Latina females in finding their voice, in STEM. So Natalie, thank you so much for agreeing to, to chat with us today and, and welcome to the show.
Natalie: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate your time. Of course. Thank you.
Chris: Love it. [00:02:00] So, getting right in, I mean, I'd love to learn just a little bit more about your journey and your background. So maybe you could start us there and give us just a bit of an overview of your journey.
Natalie: So to, to start, I'm Natalie Marino. Hello. Thank you for having me. And I'm, I'm a mother of two, a wife, , a sister, a daughter. I've held so many different hats and titles and, you know, back in, in 2020, I had the opportunity to kind of have some time, right? Like all of us did, have some time to understand who I am when I'm uninterrupted.
I had been working, in the corporate rat race since I was 20 years old. I've had a job since I was 15. You know, I don't come from a huge privileged background or anything like that.
We've all, my parents worked very, very hard. I found myself. At 20 years old, starting in the HR space, so specifically benefit administration and even more specifically niche, in the professional employer organization space. I've been there my entire career in the PEO industry. And I found my, myself rising up in the ranks be, you know, [00:03:00] like I said, being a corporate woman, and, being a mother of two, I found myself right at the beginning of the pandemic, with a job offer to work for a huge corporation, ADP. To become a senior product owner. And I, you know, of course I grasp it. I take, the opportunity of a lifetime 'cause now I'm gonna be able to go into a more technical role, if you will, and actually learn how to build technology for my industry. But of course that all kind of came to a halt because of the pandemic. This all happened like right, right at the start of 2020, March of 2020 to be exact. Of course I was able to, still remain employed. A d p was fantastic. But I found myself with two little kids at home learning a brand new career, a brand new role. ADP had hired me with the contingency of, well, you don't have product owner background, but you certainly have industry knowledge.
So, you know, we'll teach the two. It didn't end up working out that way. So I had to learn, you know, the job by myself. I had a lot of, Trials, tribulations, a lot of wins, a lot of losses in that, in that timeframe. And that's really [00:04:00] kind of when I had that, like a lot of light bulbs go off.
I was also going through some personal things as well where I was like, there has to be more than just what I'm doing. And then at the, in the same breath, I was also realizing I'm the only woman in the room, the only Latina in the room. And it was like I had this calling to kind of figure out what's going on in this space?
Right. And that's essentially where the Latina techie was born. She was kind of born out of necessity of I'm not really seeing anybody create content, anybody raise awareness that there's positions in these spaces. There's so much money to be made in this, in a lot of our techno technological roles.
And you don't necessarily have to be a developer or a software engineer to thrive here. So because, you know, we had a lot of time on our hands. I started going to a lot of networking events. I started working with a business coach and start, started working just to build the brand and, it really started with creating content of what I think I, me and, a lot of my peers [00:05:00] needed to hear in terms of being able to start transitioning into these spaces. And essentially it was born out of, out of gratitude and out of me wanting to, show other girls that look like me, how to enter some of these spaces, and to work out a pathway of their own.
And with that, I have had, you know, as every entrepreneurial journey right goes, you start off thinking you're gonna go one way and you end up going, there's so many different avenues you didn't even think existed. So yeah, that's really how the Latina Techie, that's my origin story, if you will.
Chris: Awesome. That's super exciting and thank you for, giving us the overview there. Talk to me a bit about the Latina Techie. So you talked to me there about where it came from. What does it look like today and what do you hope to achieve over.
Natalie: So in terms of today, so I run a community of my techies, if you will, came up with all of our, monikers and stuff like that.
You know, as our journey progressed, I go live every two weeks. I host engaging Instagram live. Talks, you know, that I give to my community. I provide tons of [00:06:00] resources. I create content with a lot of tips, tricks, from like a mentoring lens, if you will.
I have, launched mentoring one-on-ones. I'm about to launch a mentoring program. That'll allow people to be with me in a more group. Coaching setting, for like a three to six month period. I've hosted in-person events, I've collaborated with people, with other brands as well.
And it's just, kind of taken off where I've become , this techy hub of resources for my community where I'm able to not only embrace our Latinidad and our diversity, right, and continue to amplify our voice in certain spaces, but also be a bridge. Between networks, right?
I'm Latina, but I'm also a woman. I'm also a mother. I'm also, you know, nurturer, I'm a community member, churchgoer. So there's so many different facets and I kind of started off, with, I wear so many different hats and, one of my superpowers is connecting those people and connecting those brands, connecting people with certain initiatives and certain skill sets to be able to, continue to [00:07:00] create magic and be able to help entrepreneurs alike.
Chris: Oh, I love it. It's interesting. I listened to a podcast, a few weeks ago, and they talked about all of the different communities and stuff that you are part of. I think people assume, you know, this person is an entrepreneur, this person's a mom, this person's a, diverse candidate, whatever the case may be.
But when you really get on the granular level, you realize how many different communities people typically share. And whilst you may. On the face of it, you know, things may not look like you are connected with certain people. Actually, the communities that we're part of, there are so many different, communities.
What are some of the unique challenges, that you think the, female Latina community face, and how could we work together to try and address some of those?
Natalie: In terms of challenges, I think one of the biggest ones is that we simply just don't know. , it's really that simple. We, we are not aware of certain opportunities that are, that are out there.
We're not aware, for example, when I was going to school, 10 year, 10, 12 years ago,[00:08:00] going to college, I had absolutely no idea some of these careers existed. Some of these positions existed. Nobody talks about them, right? They're not like as sexy, they're not as fun to discuss.
Everybody thinks it's like you walk into an IT room or , you walk into an IT department and everybody. Has this, you know, notion that it's like, these quiet, studious people. And as a matter of fact, the more diverse, your talent pool is the, the better technology you can actually produce, right?
Because you're listening to your users and things of that nature. I'm always a back to basics. And it really boils down to we simply don't know. And we simply don't even understand how to get into some of the spaces that, some of our male peers or some of our peers of other races, are aware of.
And just to give a little bit of statistics from a Latina lens, out of all the people in technology, we have about 20 to 30%, women. Out of those 20 to 30%, there's. Less than 2% of those are Latina. It kind of boils down to I don't necessarily wanna bring imposter syndrome into it, but it, [00:09:00] it simply is just lack of awareness, if you will.
Chris: Yeah, no, that, that's interesting. And then you and I were kind of talking about this before we, we jumped on the recording, just about coming from, you know, a relatively humble beginnings and Yeah, I think back to my own journey, it's exactly that. If someone had told me, if you do this and you do this, and you do this, You could make this kind of money, you could do this kind of job.
I would've been like, wow. You know, that sounds amazing. Yeah. But that's not the part that my parents took. I think, the only career advice I got from my dad was you, maybe you should go into the army. 'Cause we live near an army base.
Natalie: And it's secure.
Chris: Yeah, exactly.
But that, visibility where, I think sometimes people just aren't, Aware that that lack of visibility exists to certain communities. You know, if you grow up in certain community, you have no awareness, that that path could be an option for you. and hopefully forums like this, you know, to anyone is listening is, is a good, way of, of stressing that they are, potentially available to you.
But when you think back to your career, whether it's your more corporate career, or the work you've done, with the Latina techie, what would you say is the most. Inspiring or [00:10:00] transformative moment that you've had during that time.
Natalie: Like in my career. 'Cause I know we talked about this before recording, you know, kind of living both lives.
Mm-hmm.
So with my career especially, or for Latina techie, you mean,
Chris: I think either to, to be honest, either a time in your career that, whether it was a, an individual that you worked with, you know, a, new job that you were doing or something that has, sort of inspired you and, and pushed you.
Natalie: I think I had two kind of defining moments. Well, three, I guess we'll roll this out. I would say the birth of my two children. The birth of my daughter, being my oldest and then my son afterwards. I would say that the birth of my kids kind of give you a great, what's the word?
Paradigm shift, if you will.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Natalie: In terms of what your priorities are and where you wanna be in your career. I think that the act of me having children inspired a fuel in me that I never knew that I had. So I think that defining moment really allowed for me to, for me to just simply asked for more, go after more, want [00:11:00] more.
So I'll say I correlate, you know, my promotional going up the ladder in corporate with the birth of my children. And then after I would say it, the beginning of 2020, January, 2020, how I even landed at ADP. I was, I was doing a, huge sales pitch, conducting a technology demo for a huge recruiting firm out in Austin, Texas.
And I walk in and it's very, it's very hipster, if you will, very millennial, gen Z at the time. I was in a boardroom thinking that very professionally dressed and you know, we had, they looked like kids strolling in with hoodies and flip flops and this and that. And we, you know, we won half the pitch if you half the deal
and I remember walking in there and thinking to myself like, man, what am I doing? With myself, I had just had my second child at the time. Mm-hmm. So I correlate the two and I was just like, man, the, I need to be working at a, company like this that's fostering innovation at people, asking questions that like I never even thought to ask, just being in these [00:12:00] innovative spaces.
About two weeks after that trip in January, I had a Facebook notification. At the time I was certainly not checking Facebook. Social media was not a thing for me at the time. I had a Facebook message from an old friend of mine offering me a position at ADP and that was an oh wow. Defining moment as well.
And is what really kind of set me on my path. And then, we could say the pandemic, you know, the great awakening of 2020. But that really was kind of what started me ask, you know, having my children, just to kind of recap, but like having my children really started me on the quest of asking for more and seeking more, and that kind of like led me on the path that got me to where I am today.
Chris: Awesome. Love that. Yeah, that was something I was just gonna pick up on what you said. It's interesting. I feel sometimes there's this terrible misconception that, when people have children that's career over, you know, and I'm lucky enough to be married to an amazing wife.
She's a partner at a law firm, very successful career driven individual. And, that's always been, something that's, you know what we've, , tried to. We've talked about that your, you know, [00:13:00] your career doesn't end, , when you have children.
I think sometimes, people, think it does. Can you expand on that a little bit? What was it about that kind of like shifting mentality? Or the change in your own personal situation. Once you had kids, you were able to, you said kind of ask for more. It sounds like there was almost a little bit of a, a mentality shift for you at that point?
Natalie: Yeah, absolutely.
I'll tell you, like having, having children really kind of puts a lot of priorities in perspective as to what's important and what's not important in your life, including the people you surround yourself with. And the time that you keep, time is money. And you start to understand that time is is not infinite, there's a finite amount of time, a finite amount of money of, finite amount of resources. And when you have children, one of the biggest things that you wanna do is spend time with them and have resources or, excuse me, have the freedom to do whatever it is that you wanna do. And that really is what kind of pushed me into high gear of like having my priorities in line, understanding where I wanted to be career wise.
And of course financially I'm never one to beat around the bush. Like, not to say it's [00:14:00] all about the money, cuz it's not. It's about, you gotta be in alignment with both. But a lot of it is money allows you to be free to be able to do whatever it is that you wanna do and do the things that fulfill you.
So having children, and I always talk to, you know, my sisters in my community and the ones that are mother curious or about to embark on having children. And it's like, your life is not over. You can still travel, you can still go out, you can still have a life.
You can still, take care of yourself. The proverbial you can have it all, however. Mm-hmm. You just can't have it all at the same time. So you have to prioritize yourself, and really kind of understand not to curse but you have to cut the bullshit outta your life.
Mm-hmm.
You have to really understand what's important to you.
Chris: Awesome. That's amazing. I mean, I, that literally answered my, next question was gonna be what advice would you have to someone that, maybe they are very happy in their career right now when they're thinking, I don't wanna rock the apple cart, but I know I want kids.
I don't wanna have to give up what, what I, what I have right now. It sounds like, I mean, [00:15:00] that, that's exactly what, what you just answered. I think that's, a great answer to, probably a challenge that I think a lot of, young female, professionals are, are facing at a certain time in their career.
I agree.
Natalie: I think that where society really kind of pushes and, I don't even necessarily think it's genderized, right? Because for women it's the push of like, you're either career woman or you're, you're gonna be a mom and this and that and for many mm-hmm. You be the provider, the this and that.
I think what, what happens is you have to really just focus and realize, this is what I kind of guide my mentees too, , What do you want? Right? Like what kind of job? You know, when people say oh, I want a job in technology. Okay, well what industry do you wanna be in? , I'll ask that question, that'll be the first question I'll ask.
Okay, well have we thought about certain industries? And I'll get like a blank look. And all right, well let's start there. Cuz what if you land a job at a construction firm and you're, you're like, oh my God, I hate building this type of technology. I hate these use case scenarios. I hate these personas. I hate dealing with the developers. The logic behind some of this stuff. What if you wanna work with beauty technology? What do you wanna work with AI? What if you wanna work with virtual reality? So there's [00:16:00] so many different avenues and so many different industries. So I think it really boils down to like getting very granular and, and getting confident in, and actually writing down what is it that you want.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Excellent. No I could, could not agree more.
We interrupt this podcast for a quick 30 second introduction to Engtal the host of her success Engtal is a US-based staffing agency specializing in engineering and technology. We have an insatiable passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and part of our mission is to balance the diversity scales in our industry.
We are so tied to this mission that we donate a thousand dollars from every diverse placement made to our very own nonprofit Diversify the Future. We then use that money to fund scholarships for underrepresented groups of people to help them obtain a STEM degree. If you're an engineer or a tech professional looking for a new position, or maybe you're hiring for talent in this space and want a recruitment partner, please get in touch.
Chris: It's [00:17:00] interesting on the, the sort of the point earlier about the having kids. I do, I often think that, covid as challenging as it was and you, it was almost a blessing in disguise to a certain extent. You know, the opening the world's eyes to remote work and how effective it can be, for both genders. One of our best friends have two kids under, under the age of two, the dad is able to work fully remote as is the mom. And, you know, we were with them last week and they said, I just, I do not know how people were able to cope if one parent had to go into the office eight hours a day and then add on another hour and a half worth of commuting.
Whereas now, I think, being able to, you know, maintain your career and have a family is probably a bit more doable given some of the, kind of remote, working than a lot of companies are being a bit more amenable to these days.
Natalie: I definitely agree. I feel like I can't echo that enough.
In the beginning, I, I would, funny, I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday about just this topic, I used to consider myself the daycare mom. Mm-hmm. I've always had very high , very high impact career in terms of like being, you know, either [00:18:00] being on the road, traveling, you know, late hours, that type of thing.
Then when the pandemic happened, my, husband has a job out outside, you know, a essential worker, and I was home with the kids. I had a three and a seven month old at the time with a brand new job. I didn't necessarily get to experience a whole homeschooling piece of things that. My peers were dealing with that had older kids, so there were a few different parental scenarios.
Mm-hmm. But I had a baby and then a three-year-old who didn't necessarily understand like, why is mommy on zooms? And I'm like, learning and this and that. And it, in the beginnings it was very rough because I had to shift being from a daycare mom to like actually being a hands-on mom and learning how to re mom again.
And then now it's like my standard , of working is jobs have to be remote. I have to be super flexible because I am very intentional and very present, right? Going back to reprioritizing life. So yeah, it's definitely doable. But the dawn of the remote work and the future of what [00:19:00] work could look like, has become very, I think, freedom focused .
Chris: Yeah. Yeah, no, 100%. You talked about some of the challenges that the general female Latina community, face just not knowing the opportunities and the paths that, that are available to them. When you think back over your career, maybe particularly from a de and I perspective, what do you think the biggest challenge challenges that you've personally faced?
Natalie: So besides not knowing certain, , Not, not certain opportunities were available to me. I would say lack of voice, mm-hmm. Being a woman in the workforce is very daunting, especially very younger. I don't personally, I don't come from a well schooled background. I was, barely able to, you know, graduate with my four year degree.
Sometimes when you find yourself in certain positions to when you do rise yourself in the ranks, you find yourself in rooms with people that you may not necessarily think you're qualified for because everybody else has these fancy degrees and all these things. So one of those biggest challenges for me was overcoming [00:20:00] some of those things and realizing that, yeah, I am the woman for the job and yeah, I am damn good at what I do.
And being able to kind of get creative with some of the things that I felt that I lacked, when I was much younger. It boils down to not having a voice for myself and I've been passed over for promotion for, or, or new role because I simply just didn't speak up.
Lack of mentoring, not knowing how to find a mentor, not knowing how to find somebody who looked like me, who could relate to some of my issues. So I think that those were some very kind of fundamental challenges that I found myself with at a very early age. I was always a very good worker, so I was lucky that my work did speak for itself.
Even if I didn't speak up enough. And I was able to kind of have people who were able to see me, even if I didn't, like I said, you know, raise my voice or raise my hand, but those were some of my challenges in the beginnings of my career.
Chris: If you were to go back and either give yourself advice or give someone advice that is facing similar issues today, [00:21:00] you know, maybe a 21 year old Latina female that is struggling to hear their own voice or speak up and, sort of facing some of the hurdles that, that you were facing, well, what advice do you think you would give them?
Natalie: I think about this quite often and with my mentees, you know, the advice I give them is, is don't be afraid. Don't be afraid and don't ever think you're unqualified, because I, you'll be astounded to even believe you know, your peers next to you, no matter how well school they are or not. How much you are more, more probably, more than qualified for a position.
You may not necessarily have technical skills. But you know, we have a lot of life experience as well, a lot of us that come from underrepresented backgrounds and, coming from, more humbler beginnings, a lot of us, our stories are rooted in survival. Right? So how better than to not use, the mind of a Latina to work out some of our project management issues? And when you actually get down to building technology, whether you're actually building it, troubleshooting it, organizing it, putting it [00:22:00] on a roadmap, a lot of us have actually done some of these jobs in real life, whether we're project managing and making medical appointments for our parents, paying bills, translating for our, you know, our elders.
Being immigrant children, a lot of the time we've done some of these jobs, we've just never done it with these titles. So the advice I give is don't be afraid to go after what you want. Because nine times outta 10, you're probably extremely qualified, if not more for that one.
Chris: Yeah. No, absolutely.
I absolutely love that. I've interviewed, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people and hire various people in my career and I think one of the most underrated, skills is that ability to, well, the, the experience of dealing with adversity. You know, whether it's coming from humble beginnings or, whether it's dealing with, a challenging time in your life.
You know, it's not to say that, People that haven't done that, are not able to perform well, of course they are, but, mm-hmm. Almost all of the most successful people that I've seen in my career, at some point in their early lives or [00:23:00] early careers were faced with a level of adversity that they had to, to push through.
That to me is, one of the most, the most underrated skills, when it comes to, you know, to hiring people. On the flip side to that, What advice would you give, to management, or companies to help foster this, this type of, you know, kind of this type of culture?
I run my own business, I'm a white male. You know, I'm really passionate about diversity, but I haven't lived the life of, some of the people that, I'm trying to, kind of hire into, more organization to make sure that it is a diverse and equitable place, to work.
What advice would you give to yeah, either a business owner or a management team that is trying to create a diverse and equitable culture that maybe doesn't either know where to start or doesn't know exactly the right path to make that happen.
Natalie: So, because you own a tech, a tech technology firm, and you recruit for various technology positions.
An analogy that I would use is how I would, I would tackle it the way that we would tackle, [00:24:00] you know, a product problem or building product, right? Or an enhancement. You, you start by asking questions, right? Like understanding where your pulse is as an organization from a diverse perspective.
Start pulling data. Look at who you have hired right now, like who's in who, who are in positions of leadership, who are in positions of people that actually make decisions for you that you trust, right? Are you surrounding yourself with diverse talent as it is? What does your ecosystem look like today?
And then start asking those same players like how some, and very, very intentional questions about diversity, how they feel about, you know, being represented. Do they feel represented? Do they feel that the work that they do is valuable? And how, different types of backgrounds can, mitigate into the type of work and craftsmanship that you do at your firm.
I think that that's really, I said this earlier, I'm a fundamentals gal, so I always go back to basics of this simple act of asking a question makes people feel seen, makes them feel heard, makes them feel that you actually care. There's like a human and [00:25:00] a lot of, and not to segue, but a lot of DEI work is very humanized work.
Mm-hmm. Right. It's very subjective in certain aspects. Not that race is subjective, that is what it is. However, way that we talk about things, just like HR, I'm from the HR world, so mm-hmm. We talk about this quite often and because there's a lot of areas of gray you have to take the extra step to.
To have that level of care for your employees to understand where are you as an organization today to even start crafting a plan to get you to where you wanna be. And then also understand where do you wanna be? What type of organization and what type of faces do you want in your leadership?
Do you want in people who are in positions of power to represent your firm?
Chris: Cause I think it's, it's also obviously a relatively sensitive topic and I do think some people are almost scared to talk about it because they don't wanna come across as insensitive and they're kind of of a little bit out their depth.
But one of the guests that we had on our podcast, lady called Ginnette she runs a, DEI consulting firm, and [00:26:00] she goes into companies that are looking to do just that. You know, they understand their current, balance is well, is very imbalanced, and they're looking to improve, the diversity within their organization.
And she said exactly the same thing. So the first thing is, is gotta talk about it, right? We've gotta understand where we're at today, even if that's really, really over here. We've gotta understand and accept where we're at. We're gonna look at where we want to get to, and as you said, we've gotta formulate a plan of right, how are we actually gonna get that position?
But it all starts with that initial asking the questions, having the conversations. And if you can get there, then that that will be a first. Great first step to getting to, to where you wanna get to.
Natalie: That's absolutely correct. And of course you can enlist, experts and things like that, from a company perspective, that's absolutely where I think, mm-hmm.
Somebody should head towards. But like, everything starts with starting to even ask the questions and understand like how the ecosystem is, acting today.
Chris: Yeah, a hundred percent. Cool. But we're almost run outta time, which I'm surprised. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Natalie: I know, right.
Chris: Super quickly
Natalie: time flew
Chris: yeah. Last [00:27:00] question that I had for you. Well, what do you have kind upcoming, like what upcoming projects or initiatives do you have on the horizon over the next few months that you are particularly excited about?
Oh my God. I feel like I have so much happening in my camp. I'm in the middle of planning my second, in-person event called A Seat At Her Table.
I hosted this last year, what, what was supposed to be a Lunch and Learn turned into a huge full fledged event of 120 women. We had a woman empowerment event where we had vendors and panel speakers and keynotes alike which was incredibly fantastic, great energy. So I'm in the process of planning my next one.
So it'll be September 7th and 8th of 2023 here in Fort Lauderdale at the Dalmar Hotel. So that is one thing, one part that I'm very, very excited to bring. My, my tribe of techies and my huge communities we're combining a few different communities with sponsorships and other partnerships and stuff like that.
So we're very excited. And then I am in the process of launching my three and six month mentorship program. So my mentees and techies can be with me for a little bit longer, and more of a group kind of [00:28:00] masterminding scenario, I think it's time. my community is maturing enough where I wanna start my, my communities from learning from each other and things of that nature.
So we're about to embark on that kind of techie hub and, and all, you know, being able to launch all those resources. And I know, I didn't mention this, earlier, this is a little bit more. In, in its infancy. However, I also own a technology firm where I've been able to build web applications, for entrepreneurs.
So I am able to utilize my product management skills and I have a few deals in the pipeline as well. So that is something that I'm very, very excited about, that I'm able to, you know, have resources and things of that nature development, resources of that nature, and be able to actually make impact with certain entrepreneurs, passion projects.
So it's been really interesting.
Natalie, do you sleep? You seem like you've got
Natalie: I have.
I have people who I have, so I have people who help me, like I have tribe. That is the only way a mom, a wife, all the, all the hats that I wear. That's the only way I'm able to sustain myself. I have an incredible, [00:29:00] you know, in-law my, my mother, my in-laws, I should say, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my parents are, are great.
My friends are amazing. So I have a team. I have teams of people who help me do all of these amazing things, so I'm absolutely not alone.
Chris: Wow. Well, that's amazing and, and I'm sure very, inspirational to people listening and if anyone that is listening, is gonna be in Fort Lauderdale in September, obviously Natalie's communication details and everything will be sent out, with this communication.
So, hopefully people can come by and, you can continue to grow the, the tribe. But again, I, I think that's everything we have time for today. Natalie, thank you so much. I thought we covered some really, really great topics. And yeah, I really, really appreciate your time.
Natalie: Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for listening to today's Her Success podcast, brought to you by Engtal we hope you found this episode, instructive, educational and inspiring. Don't forget to tune in next week.