Why did you decide to become a mentor?
As I grew in my career, I found the support of my formal and at times informal mentors to be very valuable. They not only provided me with the perspective I needed to see a bigger picture but also helped me navigate unique challenges at work be it ramping up as a manager or growing leaders around me. I realized the value of learning from the experiences of others. Being a mentor is an opportunity for me to share from my own experiences and give back to the community. I try to make mentorship accessible to whoever needs it and I am often amazed at how others find value in it. I find it deeply rewarding to help someone navigate challenges, build confidence, and discover their strengths that they otherwise don’t realize.
How did you get your career start?
I started my career as a software engineer right after finishing my undergraduate studies. I worked at McAfee and Juniper Networks, where I worked on security and networking systems. These early roles gave me hands-on experience in building reliable, high-performance products and sparked my interest in privacy and security at scale. From there, I pursued a Master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon in Information and Systems Security, which opened doors to Adobe and later Google. Earlier in my career, my mentors found me - someone who was a well wisher offered their time and advice. Someone noticed I was spinning my wheels and provided insights that helped me move forward. One of my mentors even created an exciting job opportunity for me. While seeking out complex, ambiguous challenges shaped my career, it was people and mentorship that made it all real.
What do mentees usually come to you for?
I have had mentees sign up to seek one-off career situation guidance, ongoing growth mentorship, manager challenges, career change guidance. My approach is to keep the structure to the specific needs of the mentee. The common foundation I use is to listen well, ask questions to understand their challenge or goal, share approaches from my own experience and help them find actionable next steps. One thing that always works is to help them see their strength and how their current situation doesn’t define them or their long term career.
What's been your favourite mentorship success story so far?
Earlier this year, while on a work trip to New York, I received a mentoring request about an urgent situation that needed quick decision-making. It was the middle of the night for me, still adjusting to Eastern Time, and I almost declined. But I paused and suggested we connect a couple of hours later. In that conversation, I helped my mentee reframe a tough work challenge, and they walked away feeling more confident and ready to act. Their feedback reinforced that the session was valuable, and it reminded me that my top goal as a mentor is to enable meaningful progress.
What are you getting out of being a mentor?
Being a mentor has given me a different kind of learning opportunity as I give back. It has helped me to reflect on my own career journey, and use the lessons from my decades of experience in ways that can help others. It helped me reflect back on the richness of my experience and the similarity of those with others. What stood out to me is that mentorship isn’t about having all the answers, it is also not about knowing everything about the person’s world, it’s about showing up, listening, asking, sharing perspective, guiding and most importantly reframing and helping someone see their situation from an angle they might not have seen before. As a leader, I’ve come to see how even a short conversation can shift someone’s mindset and help them move forward. Sometimes that’s all it takes to get unstuck. All in all being a Mentor has been a deeply fulfilling part of being a leader. That sense of impact and connection is what keeps me committed to mentoring.
