Some of the words that have been used to describe me are aloof and frosty. I’ve been accused of being disengaged and lazy. I’ve been misunderstood as being uncaring. And the one that really hurts, I’ve been called weird.

I’m an introvert and what I found during my 33 year corporate career was that it’s not easy being an introvert. It’s especially tricky being an introvert when you have ambitions for yourself in life and particularly at work, where the corporate culture is largely geared up for promoting extroverts.

I’m not great at small talk so those chats around the coffee machine and during lunch breaks, I just found them really awkward. Despite having strong opinions and great ideas I just wasn’t confident sharing these in meetings and especially on conference calls. I was constantly being told that networking is really important if I want to progress my career. That I should be more visible and put myself out there more.

And although my CV was great, I was always overlooked for promotion because the hiring managers just didn’t know that much about me.

I really felt like I didn’t fit and I would doubt myself. I had doubts about my career, my abilities and my value.

But I’ve never been one to give up and my desire to succeed was stronger than the bias I experienced.

I began to think differently about my skill set. I began to look at my perceived weaknesses as gifts and figured out a way to leverage them in my chosen career. My introverted traits became gifts and I used those as super powers to elevate my career.

I know you’re consistently being overlooked because you're the quiet one. I know people avoid you because, you don’t behave in the way they do and so they’re not quite sure how to handle that. I know you’ve been told you’re too quiet and you should speak up more. I know that people speak over you in meetings and assume you have nothing of value to say. And I know you’ve been passed over for promotion because you haven’t done enough work on raising your profile.

I now work with female introverts in tech to help them be seen so they can advance to senior leadership.

Some of the words that have been used to describe me are aloof and frosty. I’ve been accused of being disengaged and lazy. I’ve been misunderstood as being uncaring. And the one that really hurts, I’ve been called weird.

I’m an introvert and what I found during my 33 year corporate career was that it’s not easy being an introvert. It’s especially tricky being an introvert when you have ambitions for yourself in life and particularly at work, where the corporate culture is largely geared up for promoting extroverts.

I’m not great at small talk so those chats around the coffee machine and during lunch breaks, I just found them really awkward. Despite having strong opinions and great ideas I just wasn’t confident sharing these in meetings and especially on conference calls. I was constantly being told that networking is really important if I want to progress my career. That I should be more visible and put myself out there more.

And although my CV was great, I was always overlooked for promotion because the hiring managers just didn’t know that much about me.

I really felt like I didn’t fit and I would doubt myself. I had doubts about my career, my abilities and my value.

But I’ve never been one to give up and my desire to succeed was stronger than the bias I experienced.

I began to think differently about my skill set. I began to look at my perceived weaknesses as gifts and figured out a way to leverage them in my chosen career. My introverted traits became gifts and I used those as super powers to elevate my career.

I know you’re consistently being overlooked because you're the quiet one. I know people avoid you because, you don’t behave in the way they do and so they’re not quite sure how to handle that. I know you’ve been told you’re too quiet and you should speak up more. I know that people speak over you in meetings and assume you have nothing of value to say. And I know you’ve been passed over for promotion because you haven’t done enough work on raising your profile.

I now work with female introverts in tech to help them be seen so they can advance to senior leadership.