Greg mentioned a lot of this. I'm gonna cover who is Relativity? What is Relativity? What do we do? How I got here in my position today?I think it's an an important, story for me to share that I've really only recently, you know, learned to embrace, and how lateral growth is still growth. And then also leveraging and building your network and this is also how our community resource groups at Relativity really fit into my career growth opportunities, and, integrating those personal passions in the workplace because I do believe firmly that there is room for both.

So first, who's Relativity? Relativity is a global legal, technology company that makes software to help users organize data, discover the truth, and act on it. It's an AI cloud, excuse me, AI powered cloud platform. RelativityOne manages large volumes of data and quickly identifies key issues during litigation, investigations, regulatory requests, and data breach responses. It's trusted by law firms, corporations, the public sector, and legal service providers worldwide. RelativityOne empowers user users to tackle legal data challenges of any type on any scale. And we have global offices as well as remote colleagues like myself around the world, and our customers and partner ecosystem extend even more broadly around the world, which is a really cool part of what we do. But we're founded in 02/2001. We're headquartered in Chicago, where I'm sitting today, and we continue to grow our global footprint. Now knowing that Relativity was a tech company and my home metro of Chicago was a selling point to me as an employee.

And as I started to intentionally look, to grow my career in tech. And knowing that their software has a moral compass for good, repelled my interest to join here and also to stay here. But I'm going to take a step back and talk about my nontraditional path to the tech space, and this is a question I'm starting to get often. How did I get here? So I think it's, my duty as a mid level, late thirties, career woman in tech to share that I did not have a clear path forward after college or even when I was in college. I had a non traditional route to where I am today, and it all started by being thrown into the real world in 02/2009, in The US, where I graduated from a very traditional, very strict art school with a bachelor's in fine art.

So, yes, I sit in technology today with a bachelor's in fine art where I focus on illustration. So, by the way, 2009 was the height of the recession in The US, and there was almost no job market. I was lucky, very lucky to get a job in graphic design when I started, but it really took me being really focused and taking on two unpaid internships to get some experience first. And at the time, I had really no network, no one to lean on, just grit and hope. And I knew I needed to get started somewhere. So I took a lot of twists and turns from my job in graphic design to becoming an executive assistant, to getting an amazing opportunity to step into a brand new field at the time, which was social media management, as a business tactic. And I was a pioneer back then, so really trying to figure it out.

And I spent a fair amount of my career in social media roles, was was recruited a few times and those opportunities gave me a variety of b to b, b to c, and direct sales experience. I saw a lot, I learned a lot, and I met a lot of great people along the way, which really helped me get to where I am today. One of the key learnings, and I actually am stealing this from, one of my colleagues is that careers are jungle gyms. They're not bladders. They're not that picture perfect linear, approach that we we hear about or used to hear about, when we were learning about business. And you can't expect to go straight up. You have to be nimble and take sideways and even backward steps along the way. Now going back to my career history for a moment, it was in 2017 when things really started to shift for me. I wasn't so junior anymore.

I was making a name for myself in social media management, and I started to learn about myself as a professional. Where my strengths were, where I enjoyed digging in, where I didn't. And it turns out, I really liked meeting new people, making new connections, and starting to grow as a leader with intention. I'm gonna say that word a lot, intention and intentionality. So I finally started to gain some longevity at my, recent, past workplaces. Another place I was recruited for and actually all three of these workplaces including Relativity, I was either recruited or referred to. And I I decided to stick around for a while. But I was getting burned out on social media.

I grew my team again and I learned that really, I liked being a mentor and a leader. By the way, being a leader doesn't mean you have to be a manager and that was something I learned as well. Any of these, roles that you see here with an asterisk, those were when I were, when I was a people leader. So I was a people leader multiple times. I'm currently not. But I love helping people find something in themselves that they didn't know existed and there are a variety of ways that you can do this. We'll go into that in a little bit. But I need to get out of social media. So here's here's where things got interesting. I was intentional about sharing where I wanted to grow, leadership trainings, connecting others, and that's when an enablement role opened up that was the right fit for me.

It was because I expressed this to my then manager that when she moved into a new role on our sales organization, she found a way to fit me in. So I was able to grow my team again, but my world and the world changed. As we all know in 2020, there there was a lot happening, but that was actually, when I went back to work after, my maternity leave. So I went back to work for about one week, and I was abruptly sent home with my newborn and a puppy because why not for the unforeseeable future when COVID started. Because I worked for an organization that had massive reliance on supply chain for hard goods, it got really tough really fast. I was completely burned out. I didn't know it at the time, but, you know, looking back, I'm like, wow. How did I survive? I was a new mom.

I was an extrovert that, found myself in solitude. And I remember working ungodly hours laying on my belly on the living room floor with my baby and trying to fix supply chain issues, handle customer issues, enable our sellers to provide good customer service while they were getting yelled at. And frankly, I was done. I I I reached my breaking point. At the times, I was in talks for promotions finally getting me out of this manager to associate manager to manager role. It was like this this really subtle wave I was riding for a number of years as you can see here. But I took pause, I assessed my current situation, my history, and most importantly, my future, which also shifted because I was a new mom.

I wanted a future role that helped people connect us, was full of, productive and meaningful challenges needed to be solved, and that was in technology. I knew I needed to get my foot in the door somehow to grow a career in tech. I won't bore you with all the details about this crazy experience I had looking for my next role, that included nine interviews at one organization. Yes. Nine. It's a very well known tech company and, what I what I will tell you though is that experience helped me understand my worth, know what I needed in my next employer and to be a more and to be more purposeful with the role in the organization I chose. Spoiler, I didn't get that job, but in retrospect, I'm really glad I didn't. So this is how I ended up at Relativity. I happen to have a former manager who was employed at Relativity who kept up with my career growth.

And she thought of me when an enablement role opened up on her team that she was building. I actually didn't even apply to the role for months because I was hoping that that first company would work out, but then I needed a break from interviewing. And I sat on it more, and I finally reached back to my manager to see if the role was still open, and then we started having serious conversations at that point. I shared what I needed, absolutely needed without holding back. I needed flexibility. I needed purpose, and I needed to not be a people manager for a little bit, and all of those things were met. This was one of the first moments where I was very forthright with what I needed and I, and also where I pursued something on my own that wasn't just handed not handed to me, but where I was thought of first.

So from there, I moved into a variety of roles over the past, almost three and a half years here at Relativity as a business shifted. I started as a partner enablement manager as an individual contributor, then I had a teammate, and then I moved into a global partner marketing manager role as an IC again, getting me back into my marketing roots. And currently, I sit in a product marketing role as an IC again, which was also a purposeful move for me to get back in touch with my content development, research, and analytical marketing skills. So all all Fort Lee's roles at Relativity have been lateral. At first, frankly, I wasn't too happy about this. To really to be honest, I I really had to sit with this feeling for a while. But now that I'm in a role that I sought after, thanks to Relativity's emphasis on career ownership and, internal mobility, I'm more than happy, thrilled to be where I am today and to reset my mindset on my growth potential for myself and for my career.

And because lateral growth is still growth, I know I have a lot of growing to do in this new role. Okay. So how does this relate to my passions and how it makes an impact at work? I mentioned that I'm like, I'm an extrovert. I really like connecting people. I love leaning into leaner leadership opportunities and helping others find areas of growth and opportunity within themselves. And I was able to take these passions and funding the funnel them into something, into a meaningful community, multiple communities and channels through Relativity. So research will show that an engaged employee is a more productive employee and is less likely to churn. CRDs or community resource groups like REL Wow, and involvement in these is a great way to be engaged and find your purpose at your workplace if your workplace offer these or if you're where you're looking next to offer some or maybe you can start your own.

And how lucky am I that Relativity has a variety of community resource groups that support our diverse colleagues. I immediately joined RELOW, which is Women in the Workplace, knowing that I could jump in and help raise up other women, especially in tech where we still need more women represented in technology. I started as a community member of RELOW, and then about a year in, I applied and joined as a board member. And I now sit as a co chair on the board connecting with not only REL Wow, but my other CRG peers and senior leadership advisors regularly. For me, REL Wow was also where I really connected with my new manager and knew she was someone I wanted to work with and learn from for myself. So, another great just personal connection I found for my career.

By the way, I was a lifelong Girl Scout, so this was a natural fit for me to be amongst women and, it really ties back to my my Girl Scout roots. So I know that I'm not the usual suspect here, that putting yourself out there isn't easy for everyone and I acknowledge that and respect that. But for me, I find that I also try to get involved in as many ways that makes sense for me as professional and as an individual. Also getting out of my comfort zone. I also like to give back as much as I take from these experiences. So I think it's important to frame frame, these in a as a two way road. So we are really rich in ways to connect and grow at Relativity. And some of the ways I got connected were through our mentorship programs as both a mentee and a mentor, through different leadership programs that I was fortunate enough to be elected into, but I did advocate for myself for those as well.

And through other opportunities to help Relativians and our broader communities learn who we are, what we offer, and why someone would want to get involved with us as either an employee, a customer, or a partner because we still have business to do. Now, not every opportunity is the right fit and I really try to not overextend myself, because my core focus will be on my day to day job. But every one of these opportunities has helped me learn about our company, our industry, our solutions, our customers. It's also unlocked panel moderation and speaking opportunities like this one which aligns with professional growth goals in mind and then some. Plus, I need people that I otherwise would have crossed paths with and grow my network and and you can't replace that. I found that having an internal network is just as important as having an external network, especially at the the career level that I'm in today and knowing where I want to go.

And honestly, I have a variety of networks and they all serve a purpose from my peers, my industry, my specialty, my friends, my neighbors, my mom friends, and and a lot more. Networks are meant to be built and to be utilized. More than 80% of executive women at the manager level and above said that their networks help them advance their careers, and you can count me into that 80%. As I've demonstrated, I would not be here today without my network and the work I put into growing and maintaining it. Many of the roles I was referred to or recruited for can be attributed to my network, to someone thinking about me, staying my name in a room that I wasn't in, and sticking their neck out for me frankly. I don't take that lightly, which is why, not only do they say you need to grow your network, but you need to maintain it, and that is so important.

So what are some ways that you can grow and maintain your network? Honestly, there's a lot of ways. I'm sure you're all doing many of these, but being intentional about it will help you no matter how or where you approach it. Some of the ways that I really, like to get connected with my my network is through, coffee chats especially. This is something I I learned about at Relativity and, we had a formal program, now it's informal. But these can be, actual coffee chat. They can be virtual or just a term to get some time on a calendar. They're intimate and the topics are endless, but I do recommend coming prepared with a few talking points if you initiated a coffee chat.

I was, just at an industry conference last week actually where, my peer who's also on Raoul Wow, leadership was a in a panel discussion. And she said that there was a time when she reached out to someone new every day for something like a hundred days. I thought that was really inspiring and bold possibilities, and I'm frankly in awe that she has that kind of dedication. Hundred days might be a bit too much for me, but I think I can do, like, one a week or so. But think outside of your industry, think outside of your company. Are there people you can connect with and align with your growth goals? Do, do some reflection, make some notes, and find ways to engage with those people, and be honest with yourself and be honest with the ask.

You'd be surprised how many people would be just flattered to be asked to chat and to connect, like strangers, to share how they got to where they are in their career, to be asked questions about themselves in order to help you. I have done this multiple times and I I mean, with dozens of people and I can count on one hand how many times somebody said no and it's mostly because I just didn't have the time right then and it's on me to follow-up. So I'm gonna leave, you with some action items here. Reflect on your own career journey and potential future options with a new lens. You know, again, careers do are they're they don't have to be lateral. They can go zigzag, go up, down, all over. Is there an opportunity that you've been thinking about, but maybe you you just weren't too keen on the title? Honestly, titles are just titles to me at this point. So reflect on this and and where you wanna go and align those to your growth goals.

And then explore opportunities to get involved in passion project or an organization that supports your professional goals. This may mean you need to get a little bit uncomfortable. Growth does not come when you're comfortable. You need to get a little uncomfortable. And and this might mean that you need to reach out to a new contact to grow your network and find these opportunities. So I really encourage you to find at least one new contact to grow your network this week. LinkedIn is just an incredible resource. You can do, you know, cold outreaches to someone who has, like, the career potential that you're looking for for yourself or somebody, even within your organization or somebody at this conference. So I encourage you to take action on all three of these, if not all call, you know, one one of them or all three, but do something for yourself and for your future growth.