At Twilio, we strive to build equity, equality, and belonging into the overall strategy of the company to build products that will reflect the global population and make communication more inclusive for all. With that in mind, we developed 2023 aspirational diversity goals, including reaching 50% women in our global employee population. However, we know that women face a number of challenges at work including unequal pay, discrimination in the recruitment and hiring process, and a lack of upward mobility. Additionally these discrepancies widen for women of color.
To shed light on the gender gap in tech, Twilio is proud to host a panel of women from our England, Estonia, India, and United States offices to share stories about how they have overcome barriers to advance their career.
As a former Pilates teacher and professional horse-rider, Layla Porter changed careers and became a self-taught .NET developer. Microsoft technologies and the support of people using it became her new passion.
Layla is a Microsoft MVP and in 2020 was elected to the .NET Foundation Board of Directors. She organises the .NET user group in Milton Keynes and helps developers all over the world as a Twilio developer evangelist.
Shobhita is a Principal Engineer at Twilio. She has over 8 years of strong professional experience architecting and building distributed systems and high scale services. Prior to joining Twilio, she was Founder and CTO of a travel-tech startup in India.
She has also worked with Amazon and Samsung Research in the past across a wide range of domains including Ads, platforms, storage services, analytics, networks protocols and security, and enterprise applications. She also spends time in advising young startups on product and tech growth. In her personal time, she likes to read and play boardgames.
Nele is a Software Engineering Manager who works with software engineers to deliver business features. She believes in empowering and inspiring people to achieve the best results.
She has 5 years of experience working in IT in different companies and positions including Head of Engineering at Bigbank where she has worked on hiring software engineers, working on their career and personal development, and leading cross-team collaboration efforts.
Michelle brings over 20 years of technical experience to her role as CIO of Twilio. Overseeing IT as well as several engineering groups and teams, Michelle is responsible for up-leveling the company’s technology systems and processes as it prepares for its next stage of growth. Most recently, Michelle was Senior Vice President of Software Development at SAP Concur, where she led a 300+ global team of mobile and platform engineers focused on TripIt and the Concur mobile app.
Michelle sits on the Advisory Board of Techtonica, a nonprofit that helps guide women and non-binary individuals into the technology industry. In her spare time, Michelle volunteers at several organizations that focus on women and girls interested in S.T.E.M., and spends time with her 14-year-old son and two very spoiled dogs.
Madeline McQueen is an outstanding Executive Coach, Soft Skills Trainer, Speaker and Host who positively impacts her clients with her ability to empower and encourage her clients to be their very best. Madeline draws on her experience, skillset, breakthroughs, and successes from her journey to help others to gain clarity on their professional direction, build confidence and value from within, and to be empowered to step up into their personal power.
Madeline brings energy to any engagement. She has worked with Prezi, Salesforce, Mars, Investec, M&C Saatchi, UCL, Adobe, Grey London, Havas, PHD Global, WeAreDevelopers, Saatchi & Saatchi, ASOS, Sainsburys and Sopra Steria to name a few.
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