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What if your brain made you feel like you never quite fit the one that wore five hats when the job description listed one the brain that got bored the moment something stopped being challenging, the brain that saw the whole system when everyone else wanted you to stay in your lane. What if that brain turned out to be exactly what the AI era needs? That’s not hypothetical. That’s Noe Ramos. NOE is vice president of AI operations at angeloff, where she leads the kind of AI transformation that actually works, not the kind that chases efficiency and calls it innovation, but the kind that asks what humans need to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by these tools. She spent 23 years being, in her own words, excellent at jobs that were never quite designed for her brain, and it wasn’t until she found the right environment, understood her neurodivergence and stopped filtering out the parts of herself that made her different that everything clicked in this conversation today, I’m going to go deep on what the journey actually looked like, and what it taught her about leadership, authenticity, and what AI can do for people whose brains work differently from the norm. We talk about the systems thinking, what it really means, why women are often actively discouraged from doing it, and how to keep doing it anyway. We get into neurodivergence as a superpower in the AI space, why no way feels genuinely at home with these tools in a way she never felt in a traditional corporate environment, and what that tells us about who AI might actually be designed for. We talk about the difference between visibility and indispensability, and why being essential at the wrong level is one of the most damaging career traps women fall into, and we get into agile approach to human first, AI transformation what it means to upskill people, not just technically but existentially, to help them understand their function, their value and their place in a world that is genuinely changing.

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This is one that I keep coming back to. Noe believes AI is a mirror. It amplifies who you already are. The question isn’t what is a going to do for me, it’s who I’m bringing to this tool.

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If you’ve ever felt like the smartest person in the room who somehow still couldn’t get traction, this episode is for you. If you’re neurodivergent and wondering whether that’s a liability or a gift in the age of AI, this episode is absolutely for you. And if you lead a team through change and want to understand what human first transformation actually looks like in practice, do not skip this episode. Let’s dive in.

Unknown Speaker  2:35  

Welcome to the leading women in tech podcast, the show that celebrates women in technology leadership. I’m your host, Tony Collis, and this podcast is the result of my passion for building better tech by diversifying the leadership of the technology sector. Join me on this journey as I discuss all things leadership, what it takes to be innovative, breaking through the glass ceiling be a great leader, and how to navigate the unique experiences we face as women in tech. So sit back, grab your headphones and get ready to be inspired to become a better leader.

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Welcome to the show. No way. It’s so good to have you here. It’s wonderful to be here. Thank you. Well, I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time. So let’s give the audience a little bit of insight as to why I might be excited tell us a little bit about yourself, your career, how you’ve ended up as a VP at agiloft. Just walk us through who you are, what you do, and why I’m excited about this conversation. That’s great. Thank you, and thank you so much again for having me. I’m so honored to have this combo with you to sum me up, I would say I’ve spent 23 years being excellent at jobs that were never quite designed for my brain,

Unknown Speaker  3:52  

and I didn’t have the words for why until I did so. Right now, I lead AI transformation, which ironically has given me more cognitive freedom. And the journey there was really interesting. My background, I have several degrees in of course, tech and international business, but my side D is in forensic psych, and I did that really almost as a hobby, as a deep interest area for myself to deeply understand the human mind, and I pivoted really deeply in tech and brought that in because as a

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neurodivergent sort of little nerd, maybe people expected me to go into tech, but I went into tech leadership because I’m a systems thinker, and led me through several positions over the years where I kept doing five jobs under one title, not because I was exploited. I was compelled. I couldn’t stop seeing what was broken and fixing it. I.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  

Uh, that’s the neurodivergent gift and trap simultaneously. And I made my journey. I worked in startups, in large tech companies, for for big names, for small names, in retail tech and agile. Loft is the first place that I’ve landed, where I’ve now been for six and a half years where the role didn’t exist, but I was allowed to co create it. I had the right environment, the right culture, the right executive support, and so I became the vice president of AI operations in October of 2025

Unknown Speaker  5:38  

it is my fifth role at agile opt in the last six and a half years. So I got to serve at the VP level, and it Cyber Security Operations, and now I’m solely focused on AI operations, and that different matters enormously. There is so much to dig into here, so in the little nuggets you’ve already dropped in. So let’s start with systems thinker. You mentioned there that you’re a systems thinker, and that’s why you felt that you were good fit for tech leadership. Why? Well, actually, maybe start with in your mind, what is a systems thinker? Because I hear that phrase a lot, and I’m not sure everybody uses it in the same way. That’s absolutely true for me. A systems thinker is someone who thinks of a system, not in technology way, but as a whole, not necessarily in a workflow, but from the end to end and the end to end. Impact. You can be a really effective leader, and a really effective leader in technology if you you cover your silo, you deeply understand the technology and you understand the impacts of said solution. But a systems thinker is really thinking about the intricacies from end to end, the far upstream and far downstream impacts. I call it a little bit of umbrella thinking. And you don’t just generally think you deeply understand, and you think of things as the holistic system. And when you’re able to do that and do it, well, you really can impact your change and transformation. So whatever area you’re in, I think that’s really viable. And I found that Systems Thinking is really critical to being more than average, to really showing that impact, and impact, for me personally, is what I get the most value from in my career, is the impact I’m having. I mean, I would say that that that bigger picture, as you say, far upstream, far downstream, impacts. I mean, that’s something I I’m always working with people on, because I think most of us don’t look big enough. I think some of the people I work with are very capable of it. I think some of them were that way inclined. And then early careers, I think I see work, a lot of IC work, not all of it. I think if you become a senior, IC, I think it becomes different. But a lot of junior IC work, almost irrespective of the title of responsibilities, is removing pushing us to stop being a systems level thinker. And so you’ve got a 1015, 20 year career of being told not to and then suddenly you’re in a role where you’ve been promoted because of your IC capabilities, you’re promoted into a role where suddenly you’re valued for systems thinking, which you’ve been told not to do for 20 years. Would you agree with that? Or no, if you had different experience? Yeah, I do. And I think especially as a woman, you’re taught to stay in your lane, stay where you’re oh gosh, yeah, yeah. Don’t expand. Regardless of the agenda or circumstance. It’s just you focus on that. You focus on you. It may be the five hats that you’re wearing. Focus on those five hats, but stay, stay there. Don’t worry about what’s not in your purview. I think the opportunity for women who, especially who are naturally systems thinkers, because we all have our gifts. We all have our strengths. Not all of us think of things from end to end or system thinkers. I think the note is that during your career, it’s almost like subtly advocating for change and placing your systems thinking agenda, if you will. It’s not nefarious, but subtly placing that through the work that you’re producing, where you’re showing, yes, I’m focused here, where you’re comfortable with me focusing, but I’m also continually thinking of the underlying because what I learned in my career is, if you choose to follow the guidance that you’ve been given, which is, Stay there, don’t worry about this other stuff, you’re actually missing the opportunity to demonstrate you are a systems thinker and that right leader sees that that’s when you’re elevated. That’s when.

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You’re brought to where you belong. It’s that staying in your lane thing. I mean, I’ve heard that. I’ve been told I acted above my competence, which was the phrase was being used quite deliberately, because competence was defined by the job description in that organization. It wasn’t my capabilities. It was acting above my authority, and they phrase it as competence. And it was definitely get back in your lane, worry about the things that you’re paid to worry about. And one of the things that that did do, I was very lucky, is that it the stubbornness in me realized, well, I don’t want to be in this role. Then I realized very early on that I needed to be higher up in an organization, because I did see people actually outside my organization. I didn’t have any role models within my organization of the right kind who were thinking systems level, who were thinking organizational business outcomes, the things I cared about. I didn’t care about the technology, like the hands on keyboard, which is what I was paid to do at that point. I cared about the systems level. I cared about the business impact. I cared about how I was going to change the world, but the products I was creating, right? And I realized very quickly that I needed to get up there, which is why I was able to land an executive position. So executive position so early on. And what I now tell women who are like, well, you know, I’ve got to make I’ve got to take 10 years to get there. I know you don’t if you’re meant to be there. Let’s get you there. I think the neurodivergence plays in here as well, right? I’d love to hear has that is that what happened with you? You talked about like, having all the different roles and being in a box that kind of stuff, like, have you had that experience of realizing that I’m supposed to be here? How can I get there quickly? I think, as a neurodivergent person, just someone who feels a bit different, I never felt like I was supposed to be anywhere. I felt like I just I don’t know that I necessarily felt I should do more or be more at the time, but I knew that I was doing the work at the level of people far above

Unknown Speaker  11:52  

or producing that work, and it was just being, you know, elevated up through kind of the chain of command, if you will. I think that the realization for me and when things really came together in my career, was a couple of different things at once. It was learning about my neurodivergence and learning how to use that as a tool.

Unknown Speaker  12:16  

It was the right environment, finally, finding the right culture. It was embracing authenticity, which I had battled my whole career. Fit the professional box, do the professional thing, be the professional woman in the room. And of course, we’re supposed to be professional. But I never found a home in being authentically myself and professional. I think when those things finally came together, it just became clear to the people that I worked with that, oh, she’s capable of this work. She should do this work. I didn’t necessarily huge fan of manifestation, but I didn’t necessarily feel that I needed to create that and visualize that for myself, so much as really learn to be my authentic self and allow my work to speak for itself. That doesn’t work in all environments as we know. You have to find the right the right environment, which is key, but if you’re really, truly putting forth the work that is allowing you to show those business outcomes. I heard you use that phrase to tie business outcomes to everything you’re doing, because that ultimately matters. It was the perfect storm for me. It was the perfect storm for me at this company, and it allowed me to excel greatly in my career and finally, have titles that match the work that I had long been doing. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned finding the right environment, and I do think that is absolutely key. How did you find the right environment? Was it accidental, or was there some kind of like, oh, I can’t I figured out what I’m looking for and how to diagnose it. I get asked all the time when I help job hunters, like, how do I find the right kind of company? And I was company? And I was like, Well, that’s an interesting question, and there’s certain things you can do, but like, how did you find it? I first really examined what do I need for my career? For some of us, it’s the money we earn. For some of it’s the title. Some of us find our value in our career, some of us need our work to be respected. We all have different things that we care about. I got to mine is impact. I wanted to have impact. No matter what I was doing. I wanted to have impact. I then looked at, okay, well, how do I be impactful? Obviously, I tap into where my experiences and then what really mattered to me in culture. I had just come from a company that just was not a culture fit for me, and it had been very difficult

Unknown Speaker  14:53  

when I left, I wasn’t sure I was ever going back to corporate America. And.

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And making no mistake, I needed a job.

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It wasn’t a luxurious choice. It was a feeling so disconnected with my purpose, not feeling understood, feeling almost taken advantage of, not, not necessarily maliciously, but taken advantage of my whole career, and really just having this existential conversation of, what am I doing, what am I doing? How am I going to earn a living? So I actually looked at what kind of environment is needed for me to thrive authentically,

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then the size of the company, right? The the real culture there, not the culture you hear about or you see on a wall, but the real culture. Were people happy there? Did they feel respected? Was it an environment that felt like an equal playing field? And then part of it, as you asked, was luck one of my former colleagues, I happened to reach out to wish him a happy birthday, and he mentioned that I met this great company. I really think you’d like it. It’s just this wonderful collective of nerds, and we’re doing amazing work, and I really think you would enjoy it. And I said, maybe. And I very hesitantly, stepped into an interview process, and I drug it out for months because I just wasn’t sure I didn’t have the trust. Long track record of getting excited thinking I found the right place for me, and maybe it was the leader, and then the leader moved on, and I realized this isn’t the right place.

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Took a little bit of time for me to really accept that, no, this was my home for now. This was the Thrive. But I think if you know what you get value from, you can then align it to the type of company that you should be looking for, because there’s no blanket fit for everyone. Yeah, yeah. Is it since you’ve been at agilop, that you’ve realized that your neurodivergence is an asset, or was it before that that you just needed to find the right place to land, or is it only since you’ve been at agiloft, I think I always quietly viewed it as a superpower, because

Unknown Speaker  17:17  

right it allowed me to

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take on so much juggle, so much to to push and have the grit to to move through, to see things differently, but I looked at it as a deficit for a long time. I didn’t fully understand it, and I knew it was what made me different, and I didn’t view different as a great thing at the time, because I viewed others who maybe fit in a little better as getting the promotions, getting the

Unknown Speaker  17:52  

acknowledgement, getting the opportunities. And I was highly valued at most companies I worked at, and therefore I was critical, and I couldn’t leave what I was doing. There was no way I was going to elevate so I think that I didn’t see it as a superpower until I really stepped into authenticity and felt embraced by my company to be my authentic self, because the value that they saw in me is only in the work I deliver, not in who I am, what I look like, where I’ve been, how I speak in it. It’s what are you delivering? Is your work amazing? Great. We appreciate it, and you’re amazing. What does it mean to you to show up as your authentic self? Okay, a lot of people don’t really get what that means. They there’s I have a lot of debates with people about, what does it mean to be authentic for you? What does it mean to be authentic every day at work? I think as a neurodivergent person, you wear a lot of masks every day, socially, in dealing with others, and they can be the people closest to you. It’s not fakeness. It’s filtering. What felt authentic for me was there’s being professional. Of course, there’s topics we might not discuss at work, or there’s things we may not share,

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we may not share humor in the same way, or things like that, but it was, how do I feel in my skin? Do I feel like I’m being artificial, or am I really being myself? I found vulnerability in openly talking about my neurodivergence and openly sharing struggles personal learnings. I think for me, authenticity meant showing up the way that I truly am. There’s a there’s a filtering for professionalism. That does not mean you go to work and pretend to be someone you’re not. Yes, right? You’re still filtering for that professionalism, I would say, like being authentic is showing up as your.

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Best self, absolutely right? It’s, it’s not, you know, having, having basically the equivalent of an adult tantrum because you’re having a bad day. I don’t think that’s authentic. I think that’s unprofessional. I think it’s, it’s demonstrating, hey, I’m having a tough day. This stuff’s going on at home. Just give me a bit of space today, please. Doing it professionally. It’s explaining that your neurodivergence needs certain things for you to provide your best work, but you’ll meet them part way, because you get that they also need stuff, right? It’s having those conversations. I think so many people really struggle with it. Have you just found it? Or, like, through playing with it, like figuring out what works? Did anybody ever teach you? Like, how to learn to be authentic in a healthy way. Like, how have you come to this? You know, I’ve spent many years growing in therapy, growing through the practice of mindfulness and gratitude. I’ve been heavily working on that for 16 years now of my adult life. So part of it became, how do I one deeply learn and know myself. And then two, how do I represent that in the world? So part of it was through guidance, you know, with my therapist of I can’t say that, or I can’t do that. And I thought, Yes, I can. I wasn’t afraid. I will say that I do have that little superpower where I’m not afraid to be judged. I care about how someone feels about their interaction with me, because I think that’s what they remember most about you. I don’t fear if they think, Oh, she she shouldn’t have, you know, shared that or done that. That’s not professional, because everyone is operating through the professional lens of what they think professional is there is that? Yes, yeah, I chose to March. I marched to my own drum. So I, of course, with trepidation, started being more and more transparent. And what I realized and what really sold me on it and allowed me to just step into it with force, step into it boldly was what it did for me as a leader, what showing vulnerability did for my team, what me being

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did for the people around me. And there was this huge ripple effect of humanity of me. You’ll my team will hear me say all the time, I’m a very flawed person. You guys, I’m best here, but please bear with me. You know they’ll hear me talk about an idea or hop around and assure them I’ve taken my Adderall today. They’ll hear me transparently say, I’m just a human being, and I think manatee of it

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created these this, this amazing environment for my teams to just thrive. Where did they feel human? Where they could talk about their struggle or their neurodivergence that day? It didn’t have to be neuro divergence, their whatever they felt made them different when people feel safety at work, when they feel they say, I’m not having a great mental health day, there should be no stigma around that. They feel it and accept it, how show up, how they work you, what your team can accomplish. All of that’s just even added benefit. And once I saw those results, I dove in. It’s how psychological safety you give to others by having this level of authenticity. And I think this is where the transparency thing, I think, is again, misunderstood, because I don’t think people really understand the relationship between transparency and authenticity. And a lot of the time it’s like, well, authentic, I’m just going to be transparent about everything. That’s not quite what we’re talking about. But the transparency is also not be transparent. I would say to people, there are things that you should not share at work. There are like you’ll be told stuff that your team should not know. It’s not good for them to know. The classic is, you get hint of there may be layoffs there may not. We’re going to try and make sure we don’t do that. That’s make sure we do everything. If your team then finds out there might be layoffs, it’s almost going to guarantee layoffs, because everybody panics and doesn’t do as good work at the moment where you most need the best work out of your team, is actually a disservice to the team. But equally, I find that when I’m transparent, you and I were talking before we hit record about when is it time to share difficult things? And my view is definitely like, I’m I’m very I want to be transparent. I really do want to be transparent about what’s going on. I think it helps my clients, the people around me, thrive and flourish if they realize they’re not alone. But I also realized if I’m going to share stuff, I need to be psychologically safe enough to do it. But the thing I’ve realized is that sometimes the actual sharing makes me psychologically safe because I do it in a way that says, hey, I’m human. We all are we’re okay in a way that elevates.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  

And I don’t think people really appreciate that, but what you’re hinting at to me is that’s part of what’s going on. Is that, is that true? Absolutely. So that’s psychological safety to your point, you are creating it for yourself by sharing. Yeah, because I did, hey, I’m gonna put this boundary here instead of here. You’re still operating within boundaries. You know, as you mentioned, transparency doesn’t mean I’m just gonna let everything fly out of my mouth, so everything I have that’s just silly. We don’t do that scenario. We don’t even do that with our best, best best friends or our this closest circle. However, there’s a humanity to leadership that I think is, is is a bit lost when we’re we’re all trying, you know, to do well in our careers. We have our motivations. It may be to support our families. It may be for our our personal, you know, validation, if you will, our life’s purpose. It may be for whatever reason that you get up and go to work every day that the humanity aspect is often cast aside. It doesn’t belong. You don’t see it often when you’re on LinkedIn, you know, we’ll we’ll be vulnerable about a lesson they learned. If it is a professional topic, again, always filtering through the lens of what we’ve learned as professional, as individuals. I think that when you boldly lead with humanity, the business impact, the outcomes, the team performance, Is it best for the comp all the arguments that you could make, I think that leading with humanity is the best way to get there, and that’s that’s a beautiful way to pivot into the other topic I really want to talk about, and I know we’ve talked about leadership in your divergence and almost but I want to talk about your role in AI transformation. Obviously, this is a topic everybody’s talking about. I’m having so many people come on and talk about AI because I think we’re all struggling with it, but you’re the first person that’s come on who’s openly neurodivergent and responsible for this, and I know you’re also passionate about how AI transformation should be, about upskilling people, upskilling the humans that are going to use the AI. Are you aware

Unknown Speaker  27:16  

of your neurodivergence, giving you a different lens? Maybe that’s where we start with this, because I suspect it does. Are you aware of your neurodevelopment? Just giving you a different lens, here I am because of how at home I feel an AI. Yeah, the AI can be as as verbose and gentle with you as you instruct it to. It can also be as blatantly literal with you. Many of my context files in my projects say I always think of myself in the third person in my instruction. Noee does not want your validation. No. We does not want confirmation. No, we wants you to say this as bluntly as possible.

Unknown Speaker  27:57  

It is easier for me to deal with a technology that I’m not going to offend because being kind is very important to me, and yet it

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is a conscious effort. When you’re divergent, has nothing to do with intent or what lives inside of you, but you can come across as unkind or inconsiderate without without intending to at all. So I think that the barrier for me, not just as a technologist, was lower because I enjoy speaking to AI. It eliminates some of that cognitive load that comes from thinking about others feelings. I think that was definitely part of it. And then the other part was it had a very interesting impact on I get bored, really, yes,

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my to juggle things around. Need a lot of change. I need to shake things up.

Unknown Speaker  29:03  

It takes a lot to entertain what’s going on up here. It is such a vast, rapidly changing space that I can what I call autism out, neurodivergent out, nerd out, when I spin down into a topic and really just absorb it like a sponge. I that on so many different nuances of AI, it became this fresh, amazing thing that I could deeply get into and learn. And everyone was learning, everyone

Unknown Speaker  29:43  

is absorbing, everyone’s experimenting at their own pace. So I did realize that it’s not only it was a bit easier for me to start I maybe didn’t have as much trepidation.

Unknown Speaker  30:00  

And in stepping into it, but then also, what an incredible tool it’s been for me as well personally. Yeah, I mean that tool, I think. I mean I work with a lot of neurodivergent leaders, and I’m neurodivergent myself. I’ve just never been formally diagnosed, just in case, anybody who’s new around here hasn’t heard me say that before. And I definitely think there is this element of whatever flavor of neurodivergence you have. So many of us are finding the ability to use AI to like, deal with the things that we struggle with. A lot of it’s communication focused, right? A lot of us struggled with the communication piece because we overthink it. I think a lot of the time actually, turns out I was quite a good communicator. It’s why I’m actually a good executive coach. I can help people reframe things. But when it was my was my communication, oh my gosh, the amount of overthinking I was doing because of that fear of upsetting somebody, it was immense. You sit in that state of like deer in headlights when it’s somebody else’s no problem, but it’s my own. I’ve got a lot better over the years, but AI is taking that to another level, and I really hope that any of the ladies listening who perhaps haven’t figured out that they’re neurodivergent, I’ve come to it very late in my life, but they’re listening to no way and hearing that, you know, she liked wearing five different hats. She gets bored easily. The the people skills maybe were a little bit different. I think I’ve got good people skills, but I definitely approach it differently from definitely from majority of people out there. Maybe there’s an explanation. You don’t have to take the label, but maybe be kinder to yourself if you’re listening to this. But let’s just talk one more thing you mentioned, the AI transformation and upskilling humanity. What is agile off doing that? Do you think is different. Our people at agile loft have always been our special sauce before. Ai, the humanity at agile loft is not just lip service. It’s why we have high retention. It’s why our customers love us. It’s it’s what we have is just special. When you then look at AI, and I feel as a human component is often overlooked for let’s get the technology out, let’s get efficiency, let’s downsize, let’s whatever fill in the blank is the initiative. I think that the human element is actually the most critical for the longevity and success of AI, and it aligns completely with our company values of being people first. And we really had to determine, what does that actually mean? Because not just, Oh, we’re going to give extra training, it’s, how do you teach people how they’re going to fit in a new world.

Unknown Speaker  32:42  

It will be a new world, whether you’re a reluctant adopter or a

Unknown Speaker  32:48  

experimenter right now, it will be a world and upskilling people and reskilling people gives them safety because they’re not threatened then by the parts of their job, they’re changing or going away. They’re seeing their even deeper human value, because there are components to AI that perhaps someday it will get there, but it’s not that’s not been there are human components that are critical to AI, more than just human in a loop, and our brains are there to check something human in the loop, on the loop and out of the loop are all very important, but finding your new home in your career, when you really as a successful organization, you go from role based thinking to function Based Thinking, and when you go to function based thinking, people no longer value themselves by the role that is described in their job description. They understand the function that they’re a part of and how they show up and contribute to that, then can flex and change. Because I think all you know, in general, people aren’t fans of change, right? We, our bodies are trained to get comfortable, our minds are trained to get comfortable. But when you see I have a I have a place, I have a value, it lowers the threat. It lowers fear. And for us, that’s how you get true ROI from Ai. That’s how material value from AI is when you care enough to lower the fear, it may you may not be able to bring everyone along. You may have a few holdouts who just it’s not for them. They’re they’re not ready, and that’s okay. But like statistically, we want the majority, if not all, of our employees, to say, Okay, I feel safe doing this because I’m still valued. I’m just valued bigger way I look at it as clear.

Unknown Speaker  35:00  

Of the way for more strategic thinking, the way your mind is truly supposed to work. You know that we have filled our day to day with at work to get the work done is actually almost an insult to how remarkable our brains are. There’s an opportunity to expand that and for people to see themselves in the future of work that’s just as important as the technical training around how do you use it? That there’s so much goodness in there. And I actually, as an AI optimist most of the time, watch too much news to get fully optimistic. But if it is the human race can really embrace this, it should do amazing things for us. And I think one of the key things that I am constantly telling people is exactly what you said. This should be about doing more strategic work. The problem is, we’ve just spent a decade losing our strategic thinking as a species because of social media and other things, right? And now, actually, the future is the human piece. Is the strategic piece. The execution is AI robotics, whatever’s coming, but actually the strategic piece. I mean, AI will help us with strategic thinking, but it doesn’t replace us. It doesn’t think complex enough, at least not at the moment. And I just there’s real optimism in me when I speak to somebody like you, that we can do amazing things here. But sadly, not everybody is there. So I hope listeners are hearing this and going, hey, there is an optimistic side to to AI. And there are real companies out there, just like agloft, who are going, how can we use AI to level up our humans rather than replace our humans? And there are a lot of companies out there. I speak to them all the time, but I also hear there’s so many of us who have fear that’s not living, that’s not given to the fear. When we give into the fear, we will be replaced. So I could talk about this all day, but no wait, let’s move on to the quick fire round. If you’re right with that, I’m ready. Yes, let’s do it. I love good quick fire, right? Well, first question, what is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given? Just be more strategic and less in the weeds, and that was from someone who needed me to be in the weeds to keep the lights on. Oh, that’s interesting, because I was like, Wait, hold on. Is that not the best piece of advice I see somebody who didn’t know what they needed, is that, is that? Do you think narrowing

Unknown Speaker  37:15  

the stay in your lane that we talked they don’t worry about that. Just stay up there and don’t know, don’t worry about down here. They they needed me to be in the weeds to keep the lights on. They said, just be more strategic. It wasn’t congruent with the need. To your point. They didn’t understand the need, and I was taking it from a directive, right? Like, just do this. Okay, yeah, I wasn’t. I wasn’t then to to double, double click. I wasn’t. Then coming back with, let me explain why I’m in the weeds. This is needed. The lights on. This is how dress that if you want me to be

Unknown Speaker  38:03  

and so it really wasn’t a great piece of advice, and it was said to me in an advice way of like, this is how you solve your day to day. Just get out of that. I mean, I’m a big believer in telling people to get out of the weeds, but it’s got to be with the right context. You’ve got to have somebody taking care of the weeds, right, correct. Can’t Ignore the weeds. That’s not real. That’s not real. How a company thrives. I really love that you shared that, because most of the time, when I get these, you know, worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given, and I asked every every guest, it’s an obvious kind of like, oh my God, that’s a slap in the face to a woman, to a leader, to somebody progressing their career. It’s like one of those, and that’s why I ask it. Ask it. But this one, there’s some so much subtlety to it. In particular is like, well, in this moment, that’s not what was even you should have trusted your instinct to step out of your lane. And I so thank you. Well. And on that note, what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? I would say

Unknown Speaker  39:01  

I I was told stop making yourself essential to the wrong level. And I learned from that that visibility and indispensability are not the same thing.

Unknown Speaker  39:13  

I think as women, we’re often taught to be indispensable, because that’s how you value. The more you do, the bigger ways you show the more you raise your hand, the more you take on, which is such a disservice both to ourselves and to our companies. It’s not a scalable solution. It’s not good for the company. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for your career. Visibility are not, in fact, the same thing 100% I have to admit, I was half expecting you to say best piece of advice is to be more strategic. The irony anyway, be more strategic, please.

Unknown Speaker  39:51  

This has been fabulous. And as I said, when we first met, like you and I like we could chat all day long. So where can people listening to this? Who.

Unknown Speaker  40:00  

Like, no way. It’s my kind of lady. Where can we find you? Online? Where we can we connect with you? Where do we find out more about agileloft as well? Yeah, LinkedIn is, course the best place. I always respond to messages, and I’m always happy to connect, especially with other women. But any kind of leader, or anyone who shares in the way that I like to lead, because I love to learn from others. So LinkedIn is definitely the best place for agile loft, our website, agile off.com has a lot of insight into like our company, our inner workings about us, as well as our amazing product and the company work. And I think that’s really a really great place to start. We have an amazing company, so I’m always happy to brag about it.

Unknown Speaker  40:43  

Well, go and check out the show notes to get those links and connect with. No way. I would highly, highly recommend you connect with no way. At least give her a follow as well.

Unknown Speaker  40:52  

No way. What would you like to leave our audience with today? Final thoughts you’d like to share? I would say

Unknown Speaker  40:59  

AI is a mirror. It amplifies who you already are.

Unknown Speaker  41:05  

And the question isn’t what is AI going to do to me?

Unknown Speaker  41:09  

It’s, who am I bringing to this tool? And I think in speaking to women who are finding their place in their career, no matter where they are in that journey, AI, is going to be a very big part of that conversation. And I think that being a person who regardless of your comfortability or where you are yet

Unknown Speaker  41:34  

understanding that you don’t need to be threatened, now is the time for us to learn, and those who learn and come forward accelerate their value. And I think that’s something as women that we should always be looking at. How do we accelerate our value in ways that are healthy and truly valuable, and supporting our boundaries and supporting our recognition and what we’re worth? And so I would just encourage people, and I do every day in other conversations too, outside of our company, is not what will ai do to you, but what are you bringing to the tool, and how can it amplify you? That is the biggest thing to focus on when you’re looking at AI as a way to support your career as well. Thank you so much. Noe for your words of wisdom. I really just want everybody to take a moment reflect on this conversation and ask yourself, what, what can you learn about you, your team, your organization, your AI, adoption. There’s so many things here, whether you are neurodivergent, and asking yourself, How can I thrive? Because I’m I love the phrase that no way used. I’m excellent the jobs, but they were never quite designed for my brain. I think that is so true with so many neurodivergent leaders I’ve worked with. There’s a difference between zone of excellence and zone of genius. Genius is where you thrive, as well as being excellent at it, and we do our best work in our zone of genius. So if that’s the piece you take away from this, if it’s the you know you’re going to show up a little bit different at work in terms of being authentic and transparent in a way that works, or maybe that it’s you’re going to look at AI transformation differently, because all of us need to be responsible for AI transformation, not just the VPs, like no way he was responsible for delivering it. Every single one of us needs to be take ownership of this, because otherwise we will become irrelevant. But and the final thing here is maybe realize that there is real optimism that is possible in a world that doesn’t feel very optimistic right now. There is optimism if you can turn your team into the kind of team that no way has got a team that is embracing the chain, that is moving forward is with psychological safety, with ideas, with using AI as a mirror and bringing the right kind of humanity to that mirror. As I said, there’s so much you can learn from this conversation. So if in doubt, go back and have another listen. I will have some high notes in the show notes. If you’re like, I’ve listened to the listeners so much, go and have a quick look at the show notes. And if you’re on YouTube, you’ll see the chapters there. If you want a quick recap of anything. There’s so much to do with this. So I just ask you, pick one thing and go and do something positive with it today. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next week. Bye for now, you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai