E46 Mia Reyes: Jumping Into Opportunity

In today's episode we sat down with Mia Reyes, the Global Director of Government and Industry Marketing for Microsoft. She comes with a unique perspective as an industry outsider who was recruited into the world of tech.

Mia would advise a company that cannot find diverse talent to think about how, what and where they are recruiting. She began working in the tech space when someone identified her talents and realized the benefits she could bring to the company. Many things that employers list as core competencies in tech are actually things that can be taught. Look for the individual qualities you need in an employee and teach the rest. Currently, the barriers to get into tech can feel insurmountable for industry outsiders. In Mia’s opinion, removing that requirement for a degree for certain software engineering roles would help companies find more diverse talent. In regards to apprenticeship programs she finds there's more value in doing real work over a longer period of time than there is in short term stints. Instead of dipping your toes into the water, an apprenticeship is like jumping right into an opportunity. In regards to employee retention, Mia believes it's all about trust. Employees can tell when a company is genuinely investing in diversity and inclusion programs and when they are just paying lip service. For inclusion programs to be successful they have to be driven, promoted, and incentivized from the highest levels of the company. 

Mia Reyes leads Microsoft's global/worldwide industry marketing and go-to-market business planning and strategy for government. Formerly she was a Policy Director who specialized in digital and financial services policies, representing U.S. technology companies (Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Airbnb and more) and the U.S. private sector in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). She is an accomplished speaker who hosts Microsoft's podcast series Gov Pod, a podcast that discusses how governments are adopting Intelligent technologies. Mia holds a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.

• Mia Reyes: www.linkedin.com/in/miareyes
• Gov Pod: https://aka.ms/govpod
• Microsoft Global Diversity and Inclusion: www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/default.aspx
• More episodes of the SnackWalls Podcast: http://podcast.snackwalls.com

SnackWalls is powered by San Diego Code School: https://sdcs.io

Please share like and subscribe for more reach 🙌🏾