Spotlight Series: Ashley Allen

Ashley Allen was born and raised in Southern California, USA. They’re an entrepreneur, mother of 3, a non-binary lesbian and Salesforce consultant.

Shortly out of college, having just relocated to Buffalo, NY with their now ex-husband, Ashley found out they were pregnant with their second daughter. Broke and desperate for a job, they wanted to find work at home so that they could keep working after the baby was born. Ashley couldn’t afford to take time off due to being on partial government assistance at the time, and skipping work meant there wouldn’t be any food on the table.

After a month of applying to any job that would accept applications, Ashley was finally hired by someone who was willing to train the right candidate. In 2011 they started their first job out of college doing Salesforce – working from home. Ashley never looked back – since then they grew their Salesforce career and in 2017 they founded their own Salesforce consulting company, ITequality.

As a business owner, I am passionate about diversity in all its forms. I promote LGBT visibility and inclusion, women in technology, and diversity inclusion efforts.

Tell us how you heard about Ladies Be Architects?

“Someone on the Trailblazer community tagged me in a post, and the Ladies Be Architects group looked interesting. I have always wanted to be a Certified Technical Architect (CTA) but its always been more of a pipe dream, not a reality I could achieve. As a firm supporter of diversity in tech, I believe it is critical to have more women architects to be role models for the next generation.”

What feelings did Ladies Be Architects inspire within you?

“At the Dreamforce 2017 gathering, I was really happy to see other women interested in becoming a Technical Architect. I am really excited and passionate about being a part of a group of incredible women.”

Tell us why the CTA journey is important to you...

“As a mom of 3 girls, becoming a CTA will be a way to show them even if today there are only a few women who have achieved a particular goal, that is not a reflection of how capable you are. I want to see a day where women are equally represented in technology, and I know that it’s not going to happen unless I am willing stand up and do something about it myself.”

That’s really inspiring! What’s the next step for you on your Journey to CTA?

“The biggest setback I have is with prioritizing studying and taking certification exams. I have serious anxiety that needs to be managed by not overcommitting myself to too many things at a time. If I were to make time for the CTA path, I would need to cut back on something else. For me, its a matter of ROI. The return on my time investment is personal satisfaction and accomplishment. There would be no financial gain for me, in fact the cost of the exam is something that is holding me back.”

Do you have any concerns or doubts about the architect credentials? What help do you need?

“If I could find a sponsor to pay for the 5k exam that would be wonderful. I would also love to see a list of tangible benefits after earning the CTA certification.”

Thank you for taking part, Ashley! We wish you all the very best for your architect journey.

Spotlight Series: Niki Vankerk

Niki is one of our study group leaders; she’s been facilitating a weekly integration study group with Nadina, Susannah and Edith and it’s been a great resource. We are very pleased to feature her story.

Niki started out on Salesforce with an Admin bootcamp way back in 2002, then began her own consulting business in 2004 – working exclusively on Salesforce. She’s never looked back. When she’s not working, Niki loves to play board games and be on the water in any type of vessel.

Niki lives with her wife and 5yr old son in small village north of Whistler, British Columbia, with about 1,500 people and almost as many dogs. Whilst the family has no dogs, Niki’s partner runs their family farm, which has 2 cows, 12 chickens, 5 ducks, 2 dogs and 4 hives of bees, along with the occasional bear dropping by to visit.

A little known fact is that Niki tried to make the 2000 Sydney Olympics in rowing. She managed a 6th place finish in Canada in a Single! Whilst it wasn’t quite enough to wear the maple leaf, it was a significant achievement and, in her own words, enough for Niki to be happy with her attempt, run out of money and go get a job.

Tell us how you heard about Ladies Be Architects?

“I wanted to get serious about working towards the CTA end of last year and needed to find / build a gang. I started working on a new community with a questionnaire to get to know women that wanted to join and the day before I was ready to launch I saw Ladies be Architects in the Partner Community. Great minds think alike so I jumped on board.”

What feelings did Ladies Be Architects inspire within you?

“It is wonderful to have a community of people working towards the same goal, and to see so many women take steps along with me is inspiring.”

Tell us why the CTA journey is important to you...

“I have worked on my own to gain my 15 years of experience with Salesforce and feel like its time to quantify my hard work, to meet others that also want to find the best solution for our customers and have the motivation to keep learning as the product continues to grow.

“Already, getting the Platform Dev 2 and working on the Systems Architect certs has paid off with better quality development and more well rounded solutions.”

What’s the next step for you on your Journey to CTA?

“I’m working on my last certification of the ‘triangle’, Integration, and then will look to continue practicing the technical aspects while I hone my presentation and draw-diagrams-under-pressure skills.”

What doubts do you have about the architect credentials – and how can we help you?

“Looking to keep motivated while I carry a full client load and also find others to practice mock scenarios and get honest feedback.”

You’ve definitely come to the right place and we’re here to support every step of the way. Keep an eye out for some more mock review boards as we continue our journeys!

Spotlight Series: Priscila Renwick

Let’s spend a few moments with the lovely Priscila Renwick, Business Analyst and adrenaline junkie at Wandera! She lives in Highgate, North London with her husband, calls herself quite the geek and is always reading something, except now some of her reading includes Salesforce! Priscila has a pretty unusual hobby – flying trapeze – like that one you see in the circus where someone throws some somersaults and someone else catches you on the other side (!).

You can see some videos on Priscila’s Instagram if you’re curious.

Tell us about yourself

“I was a Brazilian lawyer and I really didn’t enjoy my job in corporate law. I worked with a good team, but I found the job boring and didn’t suit my personality. By that time I was in a long distance relationship for almost 4 years and my now husband, who is British, proposed to me. We had some back and forth about where we would live and ultimately I was happy to move here [to the UK] and start a new career. I had no idea what I wanted to do as I had never done anything outside Law.

“I was applying to all sorts of jobs, basically to just get me going. One day I received a message on LinkedIn from a recruiter inviting me for a phone interview for this new super exciting start-up. That went really well and I moved on to do a face-to-face with the CEO, President and VP of Finance next. I absolutely loved them, the work environment, the idea of the company. They said I would start as the Executive Assistant to the CEO and President, but I would have spare time to explore different departments of the company and see what I liked the most and that they would support my career development from there.

“This was almost 5 years ago, I’m still at Wandera and still loving it. I did play with different departments and Salesforce administration kind of fell into my lap as there was no else to do it at first, but I really got into it.”

Confession time

“I think the main reason I started to want to really learn about the system was that I one day I did a bulk upload on opportunities and the day and month was swapped in the Close Date, messing up all of our numbers, booked and forecast! Eeek! I realised I had very little idea of what I was doing and if this was going to be my responsibility, I needed to learn a lot more about it and learn it quickly! Which I did.

“We went on to implement all sorts of integrations, with our own product portal, with reseller systems, we have Customer and Partner Communities, Service Cloud, FinancialForce, 3rd parties like Adobe Sign, Conga, Marketo and so on. We even already migrated to Lightning. I’m so proud of our org and it works like a well oiled machine, it’s a thing of beauty. And I’m the person responsible for it – but now I’m a Business Analyst and more than happy to take all the credit or blame for it.”

How did you hear about us?

“I heard about it when I first met Gemma at the London Admin User Group. I saw her husband Chris’ presentation about the Architect route and that spiked my interest, I thought that maybe I could do it. I have been an admin for so long and have a really good understanding of the declarative features of the platform, but had never done any of the exams. And then I met Gemma and she said she was starting this group that would inspire and empower women to go all the way to be Architects, so I think I was one of the really early joiners.”

What feelings did Ladies Be Architects inspire within you?

“I joined the group just thinking that maybe I should do this. And then I saw other women going for it and decided that I would go for it. Baby steps. No rush. And see where I get to. I have done the admin, platform builder and platform developer 1. I have booked advanced admin and sales consultant for the end of May. And then I’ll do the other two for Certified Application Architect (CAA), aiming to complete that by the end of the year. Those still scare me, mainly because it feels like there isn’t a ton of resources out there. But I now know I have the support of the group and so many ladies willing to help and that gives me confidence to for it. Only good things can come out of it, right?”

Tell us why the CTA journey is important to you...

“I work hard and I enjoy studying. I’m good at what I do and I want to be even better. I’m not at CTA level yet, but I want to push to get there.”

What’s the next step for you on your Journey to CTA?

“I’m halfway to CAA, but I haven’t done any of the actual Architect exams yet. My company already said they will sponsor me, so I’m committed to do Data Architecture and Sharing and Visibility by the end of this year.

What are the biggest challenges you’re facing on your Journey to CTA?

“I do have concerns due to the lack of study materials out there, but maybe that is just a misconception because I haven’t started preparing for the Architect exams yet. The study group sessions help a lot with that, makes me feel like I do know what I need to know on a subject, or where I need to dive deeper. Hearing from others who did it is also helpful as it breaks that idea that it’s too hard and inspire me to go for it too.”