Career Growth Advice from Nitasha Chopra, Tech Leader | Career Tips for Women in Tech

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 58
Featuring Nitasha Chopra

Episode Title: #58 Career Podcast Featuring Nitasha Chopra, a leading technologist, IOT organization leader, speaker, and an active advocate

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Nitasha Chopra



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you, encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Thanks for tuning in. Today's guest is a technologist, organization leader, speaker, and an active advocate for inclusion. Nitasha Chopra is the chief of staff and director of edge execution office for the Internet of Things portfolio engineering team at Intel. She is responsible for a 600 plus strong global technical organization, delivering a growing 4 billion plus product portfolio with an annual product operating budget of 250 million. In addition, as director of the Edge Execution office, she is focused on operationalizing product execution and responsible for incubating new engineering business opportunities by identifying emerging trends within IoT and network edge business at Intel. Nitasha influences global senior functional, technical, and business leaders and is the strategic advisor for the executives on organizational transformation, product execution, and technology incubation. She is a fierce champion of inclusion and sponsors the award-winning diversity and inclusion initiative for her global organization.

Since joining Intel as a software engineer in 2005, Nitasha has held various leadership positions in the company, driving high-touch technical engagements on cloud, enterprise, and big data with Microsoft and top tier vertical independent software vendors in financial, telco, and healthcare vertical segments. She brings more than 16 plus years of software and product expertise where she has led cross-functional teams across multiple geos to build next generation innovative end-to-end solutions that drive business growth within customers. Before joining her current role in 2019, she drove an Intel wide initiative on accelerating software shift left. In this role, she led and managed all aspects of the initiative, focused on improving software readiness, software validation, software development to improve the time to market and predictability. She is an expert at building relationships and understanding how the C-suite builds and views technology as a strategic asset to their business. In her role as the VMware account manager, she was responsible for creating, maintaining, and scaling the partnership and defining growth strategies.

Nitasha has earned her bachelor's degree in electrical and computer engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and is currently working toward her alternative executive MBA program, PLD, from Harvard Business School. As an industry evangelist for Intel, she has shared Intel and customer joint successes, and leadership talks on inclusion at over 50 plus global industry events and internal conferences. She serves on the Chandler City of Commerce's Inclusion Committee and is an avid volunteer in her community. Nitasha is passionate about creating collaborative cultures to build and drive high performing teams that meet and exceed customer expectations, serving her communities and is a fierce champion for women and underrepresented minorities in technology. She is the proud mom of two young boys and loves showing them the world. Nitasha is an avid reader and a self-described adventure junkie. She loves to run races, hiking, mountain biking, and skiing. Nitasha, thank you for being here. I'm so excited for our talk.

Nitasha Chopra (Guest): It's so great to be on. Given all the podcasts I've listened to, I'm so excited.

Mary Killelea: Let's start with going back a bit in your career and software engineering is kind of where you started. What was it that appealed to you about software engineering and got you down the track where you are today?

Nitasha Chopra: It's actually a great, great story and it's not what you would expect as, you know, as technologists today. You would think that I've always built Legos and coded my entire life, but it's exactly the opposite. I had all dreams throughout my high school to be a physician and at some point I was chugging down the path and right after I graduated from high school, my personal story, my dad got sick and when he went through this, a person that's always been like just my role model, my strongest ally, when I saw him going through that, something inside of me said, I don't know if I can afford to spend, emotionally and mentally and financially the next 15 years in med school. So in like a very strange turn of events, I had to just decided that I was going to pursue an alternate that would allow me to be independent, on my feet stronger and faster so I can sort of be a support system for my dad who was absolutely my rock in this time. And then I went through this, I laughed because I think about it and it's kind of funny. I was like, well, what is it that I don't know?

And I realized that I didn't know much about technology and it would be a great challenge. It would be something that I would learn a lot about. It would be a very solid investment of a solid college degree and an investment of my time. I did not quite think about the risk, like what if I really don't make it out of this, given my general math skills. And I chose computer and software engineering because I thought, hey, this is it, it's super challenging. I can do this. And the fun thing about this is that that attitude when you're like 17, 18, you're making those decisions about your life and they're significant and impact. You don't think much about how they are shaping who you are and your mindset. What I have realized today as I look back over the last 17, 18 years of my life, 20 years from college, is that that is just who I am. And that was just a first step towards it, which means I love going towards things that are not defined, that I'm not sure about, that I'm very uncomfortable with. They'll give me an opportunity to learn. They'll challenge me. There's a high probability of failure. And it just became my M.O. And my entire career is full of them. But at that time, I did not realize that that's the person I am. I thought I was a very calculated, well-defined young adult pursuing the path to being a doctor one day. And then took a right turn and here I am.

Mary Killelea: I love this self-awareness because I do think that's so critical. As we get older, we start to identify things that we weren't aware of along the way. And I think you articulated it beautifully how you've always been one of those persons who embraces challenges. And so that's fantastic. So over the year, obviously, over the years, you've had transitions. What type of criteria when you're shifting throughout your career, have you taken into consideration from your career strategy? Like, were there elements of growth? Did you have a clear objective of where you saw yourself going? Or was there different, you tried this and it didn't really settle well with you. So then you said, I'll take this new challenge and I'll go somewhere else and then try this other skill within the tech.

Nitasha Chopra: That's a great question. Because if you look at my career journey, you'll realize it's been quite a journey and it's not looking at I'm a software engineer and I'm going to just focus on a segment and become the AI expert and go deep. It's awesome when people can find that calling and that spirit and they go deep. I mean, we have amazing role models everywhere in the universe on this today. I just happen to be one of those people that don't have that calling and it can be a blessing and a curse. I think it's more you can think of it either way based on what you're outlook it, but it's a more risk outlook. If you follow a path today and you know, you'll teach you in college and early on in your career, pick one, stick with it, get deeper into it and go build. I just found myself that as much as that excited me, I would get to a place where I'll build on Apricot skillset, get deeper into it. And then I would want to challenge myself. I would want to shake things up. I get very uncomfortable when I'm in a good place. Like a weird thing to say, right? Out loud.

Mary Killelea: I can relate to that.

Nitasha Chopra: I'm like double checking myself, but I do. It gets comfortable and I know, hey, I know this and I know it well enough. Like I can really hold this position and you know, the opportunities that come with it. But at that point, my usual natural instinct as in, as an individual or as a leader is to shake it up. And when I shake it up, I look for adjacencies, what is an adjacent environment in which my skills, my capability, my personality, my desire to grow, my desire to learn will capitalize in a way that I'm not going to lose a lot of what I have, but I can build and I can grow on it. So I have that breadth mindset in general. I mean, that is just the approach I take. And I think you asked an interesting question around you know, different phases in your life for women who listen to, to your inspiring podcasts, everyone's in a different stage. When you get out of college, I strongly recommend you jump around because you have it figured out, but you don't. And you should just give yourself the permission to take risks and fail. Worst case you thought artificial intelligence is your thing because it's everyone else's thing and you get in there and you're like, no, this is not what I thought my life was going to be about. And then you realize you have an extreme passion towards solutions and customers. So go do that. That early phase of your career, like the first five, up to five to seven years, you have so much flexibility to jump around. And at the same time, you can build expertise, you can explore, you can find out who you are. And there's that middle part of your career where you have the opportunity to say, actually, there's some things that are starting to resonate with me. I think I can get deeper in here. Or you can be like me and say, I got this and I'm going to go do something different. But don't be that there's so many role models whose hats sound like they knew it all from the beginning. Let me tell you, I still don't know it. And I've come a long way. I've taken lots of risks. I have jumped in adjacencies. And I think I continue to do that. I continue to challenge myself to learn more, to grow more, and just get in the uncomfortable. So think of that as a path that I think everyone has the opportunity to follow or the opportunity to grow in. If that's you, if you want to go deep, you should just go deep and hit a home run.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, that's fabulous advice, especially at the different stages. You're an expert at building relationships and understanding how the C-suite builds and views technology. Tell me how you build those relationships and why is that so key to the success of your role?

Nitasha Chopra: I mean, I've run like some big accounts for Intel. And I think in any situation you're put in, I think relationships in general to me are all about finding common ground. There has to be certain tenants that apply in relationships you have in your personal life. And the same tenants translate to relationships you have incorporate, whether it's within your team, whether it's with your management, or it's whether with executives and teams on the other side of the fence. And these are usually partnerships that are based on mutual respect, joint empathy of challenges, and a firm belief that you can add value where one plus one isn't just two, but one plus one is 22. And once you get that belief in you and you know your why, like most things, you've really got to know solid, why am I getting into this? And if you know the why of your partnership and you can communicate that why with some integrity, with a solid integrity and bring your partners on board, you'll realize that finding common ground, finding ways to get things done, finding ways to remove roadblocks and accelerate and move fast is so easy because now you've convinced everyone on the team that one plus one is 22 or 200 versus two. It's like a very calculated one plus one is two, then I think you're holding yourself back and your partners don't have that trust.

So as I drove a lot of these relationships and build these partnerships, I realized that no matter what the competitive environment was, no matter what our challenges were, no matter what our history was, sometimes there's a positive history, sometimes it's a negative one, that we could move forward because there was joint business opportunity, there was joint value add, and there was this joint belief that we respected what we both brought to the table as a trusted ally, as a trusted partner. And what I find it fascinating is that most execs I've worked with, they really have this firm belief that they want to change the world. It's not just purely like a financial motivation or their personal growth, they really most of them carry this firm belief that I can really change the world and this is what I need to get done. And when they realize they have a partner in you, that you can bridge that gap, that you have, especially technical expertise, I mean, you have some clout in technology and your skills are at a place where you can connect the dots at a system level, you can start connecting dots about business. So that flexibility from knowing an ecosystem, knowing a market, knowing the technology within it, knowing the competition, and then knowing the revenue implications, it's like a beautiful mix that you can really bring value to any organization and any partnership.

Mary Killelea: How have you continued to develop your tech acumen over the years?

Nitasha Chopra: I would say the best thing that I mean, I certainly preach the whole lifelong learner thing, I'm constantly learning and evolving. The first solid 10 years of my career, I would call myself the person who rides the wave. So I would ride it, I was working on a solution stack when solution stacks weren't a thing. And I started working on private clouds and public cloud immersion started happening with software as a service when it wasn't a thing. I started working on cloud when it definitely wasn't a thing. I remember working on the first instance of baby Azure for Microsoft, as I would call it. And all these things were riding the wave. And what it allowed me to do is take my existing skill set and just keep adding the new skills of the current major trends in the technology ecosystem. So, it was very much by hands on practice and development and rolling up your sleeves and writing code and building stacks. So that was like a great way to stay on top of it. And I think as my career sort of got into that phase was I was playing more of an influencer role. I certainly relied on academia, conference partners, friends. I have no shame in taking a notebook. I'm still a notebook and a pencil kind of gal.

Mary Killelea: So am I.

Nitasha Chopra: And walking into a room and taking notes and listening and educating myself, there's massive network trends, 5G is going through a transformation. And yes, it's very critical for, you know, my organization today. And we focus on the edge and Internet of Things. And the best way to do it is just to pick up the pen, you know, learn and then practice it. Because if you don't practice it, it just gets old and you lose it. So, you just have to force yourself to practice things that you want to learn about.

Mary Killelea: Let's talk about your current role. Tell us exactly kind of how you would define it. And if there is such a thing as a typical day.

Nitasha Chopra: Oh, it's a great one. I've run, in my current role, I wear a lot of hats and I will just save everyone the hassle of all my different hats. I would just say in so many ways, I'm an organization leader because I run the organization. I would say I'm an influencer. A majority part of my day is spending influencing people, even though I have direct teams and direct responsibility. That influencer role never goes away. I influence my VPs. I influence my peers, influence my teams. I influence my partners, partners in planning, partners in execution, partners in finance. So, an average day for me is full of influencer roles that span across engineering, execution, planning, operations, finance, and hopefully very little HR. And as, as that influencer, it's also the second thing I think I spend a majority of my days and problem solving. And I do love that aspect. No matter what job and role and responsible your scope, I look for problems. I like opportunities and roles that are not well defined. So they don't put me in a box. That means I get to redefine my circle of influence. And it's usually looks like an amoeba floating around in space versus a black box. As a matter of fact, like sometimes people will reach out to me and say like, Hey, you'd be a great fit for this, you know, particular role. Do you want to consider it? And if it's really well defined, I would just warn them. That's probably not the right, I'm not the right fit for the role. It's chaos and it's overwhelming and it's, you know, 45 things at the same time. It's juggling multifunctional teams, different product lines. One time you're talking about AI and all of a sudden you're like deep into memory. Next thing you're talking about systems, you're looking at like, you know, issues with customers. That is my happy place. I am genuinely super excited at waking up at 5 a.m. And my day usually doesn't until 11 or so at night. I'll take a break in the middle, but the rest of it is problem solving, influencing.

And the thing that I love the absolute most is the people I work with. I've become that person who values people and relationships more than I value anything else. Maybe early on in my career, you're still learning and evolving and it's what is the biggest opportunity? What will get me the next promotion? And today it's very much my people. These people mean the world to me. I want to continue supporting them, continue growing them, creating opportunities for them. As I solve these problems, they're always my why. People I work for, people I work with, they just continue to inspire me. And they're the reasons why I wake up at 5 a.m. and go to bed at some undisclosed hour.

Mary Killelea: What about IoT excites you and what unique skills do you think someone who is interested in kind of that emerging space? And you might not think it's emerging because I look at it from the outside where autonomous driving is starting to happen. I'm not driving one yet, but my neighbor got one. So, it's not like as widespread or even like exciting.

Nitasha Chopra: So, yes, so exciting. It's like anything that the data is just getting transformed. It's just transforming the way we work, who we are. Earlier, it was this like little shifts that happen in technology that changed the way we live. If you go back into the 2000s, this evolution happened that caused, you know, the cloud to emerge as a winner. And next thing you know, everything was on the cloud. And we were all talking about the cloud and everyone next door was talking about cloud. And I think like it's the impact of that to society is just massive because it's simplification, it's bringing people closer, it's protection of data, it's evaluation. And the last 10 years, I think it's all about artificial intelligence and leveraging all that data we've built. So now as we're building that data and analyzing it to solve healthcare problems, to solve problems at a massive scale on intelligence, we're able to like really make a difference in lives that we have today. And things is, I call it things, but anything that's happening on the edge is how do you make something smarter? And these are industries like smart cities, these are industries like you said, autonomous driving, these are industries like industrial, fascinating, but industrial is going through this massive, it's called Industrial 4.0 shift, where now factories are just getting so savvy and smart. And we build special products that we can work with our partners to deploy in these industries that are considered slow moving, federal and government. So there's a lot of segments in which the world of things is impacting and influencing what we do, how we do it.

So if you are somebody who likes riding that wave, I would certainly say you've got to consider what segment you work on. You can work on servers, you can work on clients, you can work on the cloud, or you can work on things. And when you think about things, is this convergence of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, it's a convergence of 5G, and the cloudification of everything. So all the data now is accessible at the edge. And you can actually just do compute at the edge instead of sending data back to the cloud, which means there's more amazing use cases that come through, and just solving real problems for customers just becomes so much faster and accessible. So I would strongly encourage anyone considering, call me.

Mary Killelea: I'm sure your phone will be ringing off the hook. Don't you think that COVID and us all working remotely has exponentially prepared us as consumers to the idea of Internet of Things?

Nitasha Chopra: It has in a way that it's allowed us to see the value. And I think that actually COVID has changed so many aspects of everything we do, the way we work, how we communicate, the value of information, the utilization of that information. And I hope we are in the post-COVID era. I genuinely have all my fingers that I can possibly cross, cross there, because I think the next evolution that happens in the technology ecosystem is going to be supported by the fact, like the cryptocurrencies, the evolution of the next generation of things and how do we evolve in new and emerging markets and healthcare? There's so much opportunity. And that opportunity is very much stemming from the fact that COVID taught us how we can work, collaborate, accelerate remotely.

Mary Killelea: So, you're super busy with everything you've got going on at Intel, as well as being a full-time mom. And you're pursuing a program at Harvard Business School, which is an alternative to an executive MBA called PLD. What drove this decision to go back to school and do this, you know, intense study? And what value did you think it would bring you?

Nitasha Chopra: It's an interesting. I'll share the story as a lot of women, a lot of people consider an MBA, especially when you get into technology after a while, you get that five to seven year experience, you wonder what value it would add. And I have wondered that value add at a very significant, like five-year mark consistently. Every five years, I would tell myself, I think now is the time, like I'm ready, I'm driving this massive strategic, like, initiatives for Microsoft. I've got this, let's go get an MBA. And then I would walk myself off the ledge coming up with all sorts of reasons why I shouldn't. And I did that at so many points where it didn't make sense. And I'm glad I didn't do it in the timeframe that I wanted to do. And I was very particular about why I wanted to get an MBA and where I wanted to get it from and what's the value add in today. Given my scope and my role, that MBA is just going to make me a better leader. It makes me a better, more responsible, well-rounded leader who is not just dealing with numbers on a spreadsheet in a meeting or with the finance team or operations teams, but has the background and the understanding of the economic factors behind it, has looked at enough balance sheets to make my head spin. And I want to be able to bring that back to my team and be a better leader. So when I went into it, I was very much the aspiration of, I wanted to go to Harvard Business School and I knew why I wanted to go to school. And a lot of times people think of these as opportunities to pivot and they absolutely are. So if you are considering an MBA, it should follow some sort of a logic of why. If it's really you think you'll make more money out of it, I think that's probably not true anymore. A lot of engineers go spend a, you know, significant two-year programs to get MBAs and then they realize that it did not change the bottom line for them. It's a significant investment for you to make. Instead, take a pause and say, does my current role and scope have expansion into areas in which getting that acumen that an MBA will provide on strategy, on business, on the economy, on economics, accounting, and finance, where I will add value to this team or to any other team that I would work for. So that's one thing to consider.

The other thing to consider is, do you want to fly solo? Are you dreaming of running that startup and it's holding you back? I would say it's like a great investment of your time to go make that decision and say, I'm ready to do this. The third potential opportunity to consider that you've got significant experience as a technical leader and you would like to pivot. You want to make a pivot into an parallel business development role that requires a lot of technical expertise, for example, or you're in engineering and you want to run, be a part of a business that's run or vice versa. And I think once you figure out either of these three, it's an easier decision to make. The only thing I would say, it's all about really knowing your why, because this is a significant, very significant commitment. There are moments where you just pause and wonder why you're doing this to yourself. And just the knowledge you gain from it. I graduate in July and I am just absolutely humbled by the experience at HBS. The faculty are just, they just resonate with me so well, the way they teach, the way I've been able to grasp concepts and apply them to my work and my peers. I mean, I've had the opportunity to meet some of the most brilliant minds at HBS and being in this infectious company of like-minded individuals, you learn so much from them as much as you will learn for the class. So considering that MBA, considering where you want to go to the MBA, just remember that class is important. There's a lot of very interesting things you'll come out of. You'll be savvier and smarter, but the people, your professors, the teams that have built the operations and your peers are going to be fabulous ads to your life.

Mary Killelea: I saw the picture of you on LinkedIn with your son's art photo. I just thought that was the sweetest thing ever. It is.

Nitasha Chopra: That's a great one. I took it because I was leaving for school and I was packing my bags. I live in Arizona and I was going to HBS in Cambridge and my son left this page on my desk and says, pack this. And he's seven and it has this beautiful flower that said number one mom inside of it. And I said, I promise I'm going to pack it. And then came back the second time, told me you're going to forget this. You've really got to put it in your laptop bag. So, I put it in there. And when I got to HBS, I pulled it out and there it was. So, my whole cohort was going to take a picture and I carried it with me. And it is definitely one of those that I think I will print and sneak it into his dorm room at some point, because it says, you know, look, your number one mom made it to HBS. And I hope in 10 years you do. So, no pressure guys, but I just setting the bar a little high here.

Mary Killelea: I love that. Okay. So you're also, you know, very active speaker in leadership on inclusion. What drives you in this space and what is, if any, the main message you hope to convey?

Nitasha Chopra: I really think that the reason why I'm here and the reason why most of us get anywhere is because of all the people who support us. And a lot of them are women, women that we know, women that have raised us, women that have helped us when we were having difficult moments and times. And this point of like supporting each other through difficult times, supporting each other through good times, supporting each other through crisis is something that just motivates me. I've just had the, the absolute privilege of knowing some of just amazing women. And I just believe that Mary, to be honest, that every, every story, each and every one of them, when you take the time to listen to them, to get to know them, they're just all, all inspiring. It just completely change your universe. You walk away with nuggets of, I can do this. Or you walk away with this feeling that, oh gosh, why wasn’t I thinking about this? Or you walk away with this, like this moment, like there's so many things you'll walk away with, but I promise you they're positive. And they're inspiring. And they leave you just thinking, I got this. And that is the reason why I put myself out there because I will get a lot of the, which I think a lot of women in leadership get, can you share your story? And I'm happy to share it. It's nothing fabulous about it, but I'm happy to share it because it, I came through a non-technical world and I take risks. You take a lot of big risks and I've managed to hold onto motherhood and thoroughly cherish it. And I've never thought of giving up on my career, not for a single millisecond, ever. I want to like put a point on that.

And I hope that as my children get older, they will just have this strong sense of pride in the choices I made in my life to inspire them and the choices I made as a mother to continue to balance my life. And I hope that when people listen to the message of leadership and what it means to be a leader, my whole thing about leadership is everyone's a leader. If you don't believe it, really, like no one's gonna, there's not a time ever where somebody comes and says, I dub the leader. You just have to pull the seat, pull a chair on a table, make room for yourself, add your value. Don't second guess yourself, just add value and know that you're there, you've earned it and use that to inspire others, open the door for others, pull seats on the table that you're on for others. That is like, that's what leadership is, is building and growing other leaders, is not growing yourself. I mean, at some point it gets lonely. So you gotta bring, you gotta bring people along.

Mary Killelea: You know, that's a common thing that I've heard over the years in interviews or even just outside talking to other women is some women find it challenging within organizations to gain visibility for their work. Do you have any tips or suggestions? I mean, I think you stating know your value is like the number one thing, but how, because many of us don't like to brag about ourselves or feel, oh, I don't want the light to shine on me. Yet you don't want to sit by and watch someone else take credit for your work.

Nitasha Chopra: I would say that we need to let go of that mindset that we don't want to brag. Really, you're not bragging, you're communicating your impact. You're taking accountability for your value add in an effort, in a project, in a program. So if you don't take control of it, I mean, no one else is going to. I've spent 17 years in tech and rarely are there moments where someone comes and says, oh, bravo. So it's harder and I think it's different personalities. You can say like, hey, I'm just somebody who doesn't, I'm just not good at it. And it's like the most common thing I get, oh, Natasha, I'm just not good at it. To which I say, yeah, that's fine. Fake it. Tthe real value is not always taking things you're good at, and accelerating them. They're also looking at things, just knowing this is not my strong suit, but I have to focus on it and I have to build on it. And once you are aware, to be very honest, I have seen people who are not the, I can't brag types, really finding their voice and raising their message because all of a sudden they started acknowledging, hey, I just don't do this well. And I need to do it well. And I usually say this to people that every time you choose to share your value add, you are speaking for all of humankind. Think about it. You're giving permission to everyone on the call in a room with you to also share their value add. You are giving permission to men in the room to acknowledge your value add. So, if you're having a hard time bragging for yourself, just think if the universe is asking you to brag because it's good for all. It's good for all of us that people stop saying, oh, this person is bragging. They just start saying, well, she was very clearly articulated the value that she brought. So, find a way to be visible. And visibility opportunities are everywhere. You just have to be willing to step up and capitalize on them. And slowly it'll become second nature on what capitalizing on an opportunity to be visible looks like. But take a step, what's the worst that would happen? Somebody will say you bragged and then they'll move on.

Mary Killelea: Great advice. If you were starting off in tech today, is there anything that you would do differently?

Nitasha Chopra: I would take more risks. I would take more risks. And that's saying something because I do take a lot of risk.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, I was going to say.

Nitasha Chopra: No, I would certainly do an expat assignment, you know, go work for a company in Asia. I mean, I have a career that has just been thoroughly blessed with opportunities of working for global teams, driving global teams. I've worked in different continents, go live somewhere, experience the culture, experience what the customer problems are, how companies are run, how do they solve them? What do partnerships look like? What does it mean to be on grounds with people you're selling your product to? We're a global economy. We will continue to be a force as a global economy. And the more you look at it, everything is so tightly intertwined. So perhaps one recommendation I have would be don't worry about too many. How does this add to my career ladder? But think of experiences that will shape who you are.

Mary Killelea: When you reflect on your career, what are you most proud of?

Nitasha Chopra: There was a time that nobody believed in me. And I was perfectly fine with that. I'm very proud of the fact that the list of people who believed was like, I don't know if she's going to be okay with this or good at this or succeed at it. And I don't think I had the slightest doubt in the fact that I got this. And it very much stemmed from the fact that I just believed if somebody can do it, I can do it. I mean, I don't need a lot. I just need one solid data point. As a computer scientist, as a technologist, just one, I can replicate this mantra. So, as I was younger in my career, there was doubt. People had doubts on my actual abilities and faith in me. And I never had doubt or, you know, I just thought I can do this. And I always told myself that failing is an option, but not trying is certainly not. So I tried and I gave it my very best. I worked the hardest I possibly could. And when failure happened, I would just accept it as a fantastic learning. Gotta go move on, take the next step forward. So I would say that that's the thing I'm most proud of is that if I find myself in a place where I don't think I have the support, I always know that I can count on myself because I believe in myself. And you have to believe in yourself before everyone else around you will believe in you. And I'm very grateful today. I'm surrounded by some wonderful people, sponsors, mentors, and guides and friends like you that believe me or I lean on bad days. We're not just listen to a podcast because I need to get through like a horrible, horrible evening. But it's a great place and you'll get there. In the meantime, just, you know, look for the helping hands and believe in yourself. Never let go of that.

Mary Killelea: What are some of the best resources or books that you might recommend on leadership?

Nitasha Chopra: There's two I would recommend. And they're very personal to me for two reasons. One is it's called How Will You Measure Your Life? When I started working for one of my VPs, that was the first book he recommended I read on day one. And I thought it was how will you measure your life? That's like a serious topic for his book. I was expecting like technology, innovations of the 21st century. But I knew once I started reading the book, The Value, it's by Kristen Clayton. He's a Harvard professor, just a fantastic book. Anyone, no matter where you are in your career, you must read that book. If you've got something on your list, pause it and read it, because it really gets to your why. It helps you take an internal look because sometimes we don't want to look inside. And it forces you to look inside and ask yourself the very obvious question of how will you measure your life?

Mary Killelea: And what is the second one?

Nitasha Chopra: The second one is called an all time favorite. I think I probably read the book when I was much younger. It's called The Alchemist.

Mary Killelea: I have that.

Nitasha Chopra: Yeah, that's a great one.

Mary Killelea: It's a great one.

Nitasha Chopra: It is the number. It's my first book for my boys. We're very big readers in the house. And I have the book. I've like written a little for them and I've packed it up as they're, you know, you're 16 now and here's my present. So I hope that they realize that, you know, the universe will conspire because it does. It does.

Mary Killelea: What does To Be Bolder mean to you?

Nitasha Chopra: Oh, I love listening to it. I think the fact that you take the time to find leaders who are inspiring, to find women whose stories will resonate with the next generation, the fact that, you know, you've made it your own personal mission to invest so much time, and effort shows up in the podcast. And I listen to it in moments of passing where I need to be inspired. And it's like my go-to. Who's the cool one I need to look at today? And I'll just go browse around and I'll pick one. It's always been like a great snippet of inspiration and those nuggets that you want from leaders and different stories that they bring together. I think it's my go-to to look at. So I hope you keep doing this for a very long time.

Mary Killelea: Thank you. You're making me cry. Today has just been such a joy speaking with you. And I was so tickled when you said yes to joining me and sharing your story. So, thank you very much.

Nitasha Chopra: Oh, thank you so much. You're going to make me cry. This is so wonderful. I'm so glad we had a chance to talk. And please continue inspiring the next generation. It's these stories that make a difference. So thank you.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guests. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number 2, little b, bolder.com.