Whitney Way Stewart’s Post

Had a great time on the Career Panel for African Leadership University (ALU) during their on-site student visit to Microsoft's Silicon Valley Campus   The Students had great questions as myself and fellow panelists Allen Reitter Jr., @Anna Serwa Essuman, and Thomas Wilson covered topics of product management, SWE and cloud career paths, Gen AI skillsets to develop, and how to identify and navigate culture in the workplace. Specifically:   ✔ How to determine a career path across so many tracks in technology 🎓 🛣   ✔ What are considerations for inclusive product development to open and support emerging markets & global users 🛠 🌍   ✔ Why culture always eats strategy in corporate and how to assess for best fit and get set up for success as you enter the workforce 📈 🤝   Thanks to Leslie Gordon and Remy Ntshaykolo for hosting this event and asking me to be apart of it. I hope to see each of these students at Microsoft!!

Last week the West Coast Azure Infrastructure Specialist Team gathered in Microsoft HQ (Redmond) for our mid-year Offsite. It was great to connect with my teammates, share learnings, and gain perspective and guidance from our Subject Experts and Leadership.   What are Infrastructure Specialists? We partner with customers to understand their requirements and advise appropriate cloud infrastructure to get the most out of their current and future Azure services with performance, cost and security at the center. 📈 💲 🔐 Had a great time leading our Infrastructure for AI session where we covered best practices on infrastructure readiness and enablement for Gen AI. Some key takeaways included:   ▪ Scalability and Compute Resources: Ensure org's cloud infrastructure can scale to meet the computational demands of generative AI models, with sufficient GPU instances for training and inference tasks 🖥 ▪ Security and Integration: Implement security measures and access compatibility for integration with existing systems and workflows, ensuring data protection and regulatory compliance 🔐 ▪ When considering open source, ensure container security for model data retrieval and consider plans for vector storage 🔢 💾   ▪ Collaboration is crucial for successful adoption and maximized value of Gen AI. Consolidating systems and platforms requires cross org cooperation 🤝 Shout out to the Infrastructure for AI Team Rasid Moin Richard Spitz Josefina Van Thienen Vrushali Soni, MBA  @Sean Stark and our amazing contributors  Foad Khoshouei Neel Patel Vinod Pagadala Jeremy Carrell Collin Greichunos John G. Abhishek Dhanuka Nills Franssens Lauren Hutchinson Darrick "DJ" Johnson MBA Pradeep Kondamuri PhD., CISSP. And our Leadership for challenging us to dig deeper and find answers to questions that didn't exist a year ago  Ken Miller Dmitriy Bromberg Lulu Chen Arthur Ching

Had a great time speaking to my MBA Alma Mater - Texas A&M University-Commerce Business School students on choosing careers, navigating large enterprises and startup, and how to succeed in corporate and the technology industry. I shared some lessons over my 12 year career journey across aviation startup, technology consulting, and F50 technology companies:     Pay Attention when Time Dilation occurs ⏳ : As you develop acumen and mastery in skillsets, pay attention to the tasks, engagements, and environments that seem to make time pass quickly. It's an indicator of not only capability strength, but enjoyment. You can use this to decide which functions, roles and environments you should target that will optimize your productivity.   Find Your People 🤝 :️️️ Th️e African Proverb "If you want to go fast, go alone -if you want to go far, go together" summarizes this point well. Hard work will only get you so far, working well with and getting to know your teammates not only makes work more enjoyable, but enables better and more impactful results when you can tap into and combine the strengths, knowledge and ideas of a team rather than an individual. Mentors and Sponsors are critical -as well as being a Developer to others.   Don’t be afraid to share your Ideas 💡 : Everyone has unique experiences & perspectives, which impact how expertise is developed and expressed. Business problems evolve, shift and re-emerge with new strains - as such we need new and diverse perspectives to tackle today and tomorrow's new challenges (did anyone say Gen AI implementation and long term user implications? 😄 ) Speak up, share your perspectives, and be open to learning from others'.   I appreciate the opportunity from my former MBA Professor Asli Ogunc to come speak to her class on some tips that have helped me in my career -and appreciate everything I learned, and everyone I learned from during my time in business school.

First year at Microsoft: DONE! I've really appreciated the opportunity to work with some of the most high tech customers in the world and push the boundaries of what's possible with Azure. Most of all, I'm grateful for the chance to work with some truly fun, supportive, and brilliant teammates who are committed to bringing our customers' cloud ambitions to life.   I'm looking forward to building on the wins and learnings from year one, connecting with a new set of customers, and enabling their Generative AI infrastructure and goals. Onward to year two! And, of course, a special shout out to some of the leaders, mentors and teammates who supported my development, connections, and impact: Bayo Oresegun Neel Patel John-Eric Dyer Danny Lowenthal Safiya Jihan Miller Greg Calfin Michelle Johnston Holthaus RoseMary Schooler Tiffany Miller Darrick "DJ" Johnson MBA Lulu Chen Collin Greichunos John G.Lauren Hutchinson Callan Burrell Pankaj Kulkarni Dave Cho Nathan Aspinall Jeremy Carrell Kevin Constantine and Richard Spitz. Thank you!