This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 061 / Celebrate Diversity with Elaine Montilla

Episode Date: June 30, 2021

I am joined today by Elaine Montilla - Founder of 5xminority.com, a TEDx Speaker, Forbes Technology Council Member and Assistant Vice President at the Graduate Center in New York City. Elaine shares with us the biases and obstacles she faced early on in her career and the skills she developed to help her stand up for herself and achieve professional success, all while staying true to her authentic self. With June being pride month I wanted to take the occasion to clearly say this, I unhesitatingly and wholeheartedly support my lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer friends, their rights, their marriages, their pursuit of happiness and their breath...this is also true July thru May. “It is not our responsibility to only advocate for the issues that affect us directly.” - Elaine Montilla This is Woman’s Work. To learn more about Elaine Montilla please visit: 5xminority.com To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

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is in your own growth and development. So join us now because the space is limited and I cannot wait to see you there. I am Nicole Khalil, and I'm recovering from my first cold since 2019, so excuse my not-so-sexy phlegm voice. And welcome to another episode of This Is Woman's Work, where together we're redefining what it is to be doing woman's work. And it's important that I'm clear that I'm not trying to define it for anyone. My goal is to have dialogue, to look outside of the expectations that society has for us, to listen to the stories and to a variety of different women with different experiences and different interpretations. And I've mostly emphasized redefining the work part of woman's work. It wasn't that long ago that the domain of women was believed to be exclusively the unpaid

work that a wife or mother would perform within a family or a household. And for the record, I still believe that working inside the home is a valid choice. I just don't believe it's the only choice. But what about the woman part of women's work? What does it mean to be a woman? And what are the expectations associated with our behavior, lifestyle, physical appearance, who we love, how we love, how we identify? I believe that it's important that I'm clear here too, and that when I say woman's work, I include anyone who identifies as a woman, period, end of sentence. So let's explore woman's work from both places, where gender identity and expression and sexual orientation and choice and the ability to define for ourselves are both

celebrated and honored, and not just in June during Pride Month, but every damn day. I am joined today by Elaine Montia, founder of 5xMinority.com, a company and social media brand dedicated to women and minorities with a mission to demonstrate how businesses can be powerful platforms for social change. A TEDx speaker, Forbes Technology Council member, and Assistant Vice President at the Graduate Center in New York City, Elaine highlights the need for diversity

in the field of technology and works to expand STEM learning opportunities to both women and underrepresented minorities. Elaine, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited about this conversation. Thank you for having me, Nicole, and thank you for creating this space for us to come here and fully be ourselves. That is my primary goal and hope that we can all show up as our authentic selves and feel worthy and valued and appreciated and celebrated for who we are and our unique differences and abilities and God given talents and all of the things, all the things that make us,

us. Yeah. I'm so happy that you continue to repeat the word celebrated because, you know, and I wrote something about this a few weeks ago. I think sometimes people are tolerating us, us meaning members of the LGBTQ plus community, us meaning Latinas, us meaning women, and we deserve to be celebrated, not tolerated. So I'm happy to hear you repeat that a few times for your audience, because I believe it 100%. Oh, I'm so glad we agree on that. So Elaine, your company is called 5X Minority. And I know that that stems from you being a 5X plus minority yourself. Can you share a little bit about what that means? And is that where the passion for your work stem from? Yes, yes. That's a good question. Thank you. You know,

I started, I meditate a lot. It's one of the things that I try to do daily. I'm not perfect at it, but I try to do it. And some of the things that I would ponder was all of the boxes that society created for me. And I would usually envision myself in a box that says, you're Latina. And so automatically people have all of these assumptions when they see me before I even open my mouth. And after thinking about it for a few days, I was like, wow, I have a lot of boxes I need to come out of. Not only did I struggle to come out of the closet, like people say, but I have all these other boxes that make people make assumptions of me. And so the idea came up of creating the top five. And so the first one is female. The second

one is I'm Latina. I am lesbian. I have no children. And I am a very spiritual person beyond just religion and the things that I was taught when I was growing up back in the Dominican Republic. And so ever since I created 5X Minority, I think a few more have been added to my title. And so that's where everything started. And it started as a blog because I needed to find ways to share my experience with other women, especially and show them what's possible. Yeah. It's interesting. One question comes to mind. I've, I've learned this in working with women early on. Do you, do you identify more as a woman or more as a Latina? And I know that question sounds strange, but I find a lot of times I'll work with women.

They'll say, I want to work with other, you know, Latina and Latinos. They'll say, I want to work with Black people or Asian communities. And it's interesting to note that in some cases, it's the woman part of their work that is actually more challenging or potentially problematic. women of any race or ethnicity or, you know, Latino men will be doing exceptionally well in a certain industry, but women are still struggling. So long-winded way of asking, what did you identify mostly with first and how does that stand today? Yes. The title of female affects me more than the title of Latina or Latinx. So I think that's where you're getting at. Just the fact that I'm a female gives me a huge disadvantage, even before you know, if I am Latina, right?

Because I think that, well, unconscious bias comes to mind. It's one of the things that we all carry. And I say we because I also have it. We need to acknowledge that we all do. And so even when you look at a resume, just to give you a concrete example, even when you look at a resume, just the fact that you see a female name, regardless of it being Montilla or Perez or Lopez, makes people sometimes move towards a male name on top of that female, just because they're female. So I think I get

what you're saying. And yes, female is the biggest challenge for me. And then after that, well, on top of that, not only am I female, and my voice is not heard at times, but I am also Latina and I have an accent. And so it's even worse for me because people notice my accent and feel or think that I'm not smart or that I know less than. So let's dig into that a little bit more. What are some of the biases that you've experienced? What do people think of you or think about you that maybe a white male counterpart just wouldn't experience? Yes, I have a few of those. And I've struggled with this my whole life, actually.

It started in college. I was one of maybe three girls who was attending C++ programming course, for example. And so early on, I acknowledged that this was going to be my path, that I was going to be one of only a few. And so when I entered the workplace, that's when the real wake up call came to me, because I noticed that at meetings, I was not really taken seriously. One of the reasons I know, and I think a lot of people have shared this in the past, is the fact that I had a very strong accent early on. And so it made me so uncomfortable. Even when I knew the answers to a question, I would be silent instead.

I noticed that people would stare at my lips when I would speak because they wanted to make sure they understood the words that were coming out of my mouth. And so that really damaged me for a few years. It made me feel, well, imposter syndrome is one of the things that I was feeling from that. But the fact that people sometimes make you feel, even if it's unintentional, that you have less value than others. I had times where people will cut me off in the middle of a sentence, maybe because I had to translate in my mind from Spanish to English and people don't understand that I

needed to speak slower because I was thinking and translating into languages, which I now see it as a superpower. But I struggled with that for many years. You know, people would not let me finish a sentence and I didn't have the skills that I needed to defend myself or to speak up. And so that took a lot of years. Another example was not being selected for some projects where I knew I had the skills to complete the project, but other people, maybe because they were more vocal, because they were male, and because they didn't have an accent, were selected before me. I mean, it's a whole range of things that we all go through. That's only a few examples, but you know, it's hard for us. And, and those are some of the reasons that is keeping us from making it to the C-suite because

sometimes we don't believe in ourselves because of the feedback that we get from other people. You said something that really resonated with me, skills to stand up for yourself. Let's talk about that a little bit. What are some of the skills that you've developed that help you stand up for yourself or speak out or say what you feel needs to be said in a certain situation versus avoiding or going internal or not knowing what to say? What are some of those skills that you've developed? Yeah. So the, one of the first things that I noticed is that women who were labeled as aggressive were not taken seriously. And I know that, uh, beautiful black women go through this a lot. And I, I wrote an article about it, I think a year ago. And so I learned that I had to control my emotions. And believe it or not, my spiritual side is what helped me with this.

Meditating and journaling and mindfulness helped in that part. But I learned that I needed to observe people. So emotional intelligence, I actually took a few training sessions on it, I recommend it, I think it's mandatory for everyone to just understand the power of emotional intelligence, walking into a room looking around, and knowing when is the right time to say something. And so it was challenging, because it's very scary. When you start the first time you want to speak up, you feel it. I felt it in my chest, in my stomach, and it takes a lot of practice and believing in yourself. And so through journaling

and affirmations in my spiritual practice, I learned that I already had within me everything that I ever needed. And I learned that I was looking for those things outside. I was people pleasing. I wanted to make sure everyone liked me. And I learned that that was not taking me anywhere because if I didn't believe in myself and my skills, I couldn't make someone else believe in it. One and two, you could never control how other people feel or what other people think. And so it's that letting go. It's actually a process of unlearning instead of all the things that society, your family, church, schools put in your brain as you were growing up. And, you know, the first time I was able to have the courage and speak up, I felt myself shaking inside. And I said, you know what, I did it. And it happened. And so I'm

going to try it again. And I'm going to try it the next time. And so it was through repetition. That's the only way to get over it is to repetition, you just got to do it and see that nothing happens on the other side, because we're afraid of what's going to happen on the other end. And I think people pleasing is the biggest problem, especially for women, because we don't want other people to be upset or mad at us or not like us. And so it takes a lot of confidence to know that I am full, I am okay, the way I am. And if you don't like me, there is nothing I could do about it, because that's on the other end. You know, there was this book I read a few years ago, I can't remember the name, but it says that you control all the way up to the tip of your fingers. If you stand your arm out, anything after that, you don't control. And so it's better to let it go. So I really think my spiritual practices helped me grow so much as a human and helped me be a better leader today and, you know, meet my team where they are instead of where I am. Yeah. Elaine,

you said so many powerful things in there. I think first is, is really that connecting back to our internal confidence and our internal knowing. I say this a lot, but I think a lot of times people think confidence is achieved through external things like validation, promotions, achievements. It's like, if X happens, then I'll feel confident. And it's, it's the exact opposite. If you build your confidence, then all the other things are more likely to happen. So whether it's journaling or meditating or praying or whatever, it's, you said a lot of things that go back to the building your confidence or building that knowing inside you. And then the second thing is getting into action and practicing, right? The first time you do anything, you're like sweating. And I related, like when you

were talking about the feeling, it's like, it is a feeling that overtakes your body, but how do you get better at anything you practice? Right. And the only thing that I can say from having those moments is they don't always go so well. And I almost always have a, Ooh, I wish I would have said that, or I wish I would have done it like this after the fact. But what it does do is it increases our sense of pride in ourselves, right? I would rather walk away going, oh, gosh, I wish I would have said that, or I wish I would have done it this way, but feel proud of myself, then walk away and have said nothing

at all. And then I kind of am disgusted with myself a little bit. You know, something else that I wanted to mention, especially for women working in tech, there is one thing to be confident and to practice and to listen. I talk to myself in the mirror all the time and I high five myself. And so that's all good. But you also need to be good at what you're doing. Just being confident is not going to get you the next project or the next promotion or

the next job. And so while I'm sharing everything that I just mentioned, I was studying my behind off. I was getting my associate degree while I was working full time. I got a technical degree. I got a bachelor's degree. I went for my master's degree. I did certification. So I don't want people to think, okay, you know, this is magical thinking. I know

I'm perfect. And so I'm going to do it. Well, you need to back that up with facts, right? And so another reason a lot of women stay behind is because of the actual skills that we need to do the job. I love knowledge and education. Maybe that's why I work in education. But we also need to prepare ourselves technically for women in tech. I know how to take on projects that maybe we're overlooked for because we haven't demonstrated that we have the technical skills needed to complete the project.

So it's half and half focus on the confidence, but also focus on educating yourself and demonstrating your worth. Yeah. It's the, it's the power of confidence combined with competence, right? So you want to be both. I will say in my research that we, as women sometimes tend to overemphasize competence. Like we feel like we must have all the degrees, must have all the knowledge, must have before we can feel confidence. And I really want to emphasize that it is both. You said it it's, you know, 50, 50. And I think our male counterparts are getting away with leveraging confidence over competence a little too much. So I think we have the opportunity to learn from each other. And that is women, you know, we have the opportunity to choose

confidence on the road to competence. And I think our, our male counterparts have the opportunity to be confident, but make sure they're backing it up. I want to talk a little bit about being authentic, being authentically you and standing for social issues in business and or on social media. I think it can be a really challenging balance. And I'm curious your perspective about showing up as authentically yourself on social media or in business and championing the social causes or issues that are important to you and being professional and being mindful about growing a business or representing a company? How does that seems like a very thin line sometimes? What is your advice or thoughts on navigating through that? Yeah. Oh, that is such an interesting question. You know,

Nicole, I spent so many years hiding myself. I spent so many years trying to show people what they wanted to see. And so if I met you years ago, I would observe you and see what you like, and then give you that. And I wasted so much energy and so much time and so much sleep worrying about others and what they thought. And so my biggest challenge was really coming out to my family and telling my mom, hey, you know, I'm gay. And that was difficult, right? And so after that experience, I learned how much I need to value myself over everyone else, including my mom. I love my mom. I love my sister. I love everyone, but I love me first. It's just like that analogy in the plane that as a mom, you need to put the mask yourself first before you help anyone else. And so I am no longer interested in pleasing other people or doing what makes them happy,

because in the end, it doesn't help me in any way. And so I am transparent everywhere I go. When I go into the workplace, I'm the same Elaine that I am right now talking to you, because it is so tiring to be different people in different places. And I was one Elaine before the, before I entered the workplace and that I converted myself into another person because growing up, I thought that, uh, for example, straight hair was more beautiful. And so I would train my hair whenever I could. Now I have it curly or straight when depending on my feeling and how I wake up that morning, I would change the way I speak,

because I wanted to make sure that I sound more professional. And so now I sound professional all the time, because that's me. In social media, I am very passionate about the issues that are affecting women, that are affecting the LGBTQ community, that are affecting Black people, everyone. I mean, it's just how I feel. No one else can's okay to unfollow me. I am not begging or asking anyone to follow me. I am not on social media because I'm waiting for people to like me or because I want to pass a thousand followers or a hundred thousand followers. I do not care about that. I am there because I know I have a voice out of my, for example, Latina girlfriend don't have a voice. And so it's my responsibility now to speak on their behalf. And that's another reason why I write articles, because I feel a responsibility to share all the issues that we are going through. And the fact that at times, many times, corporate America is not doing anything about it, right? And so we need to make them responsible.

They need to take responsibility for keeping women and underrepresented groups outside of the workforce. They need to take responsibility for their hiring practices that are outdated. And I feel very comfortable doing that now. I'm going to say now because it was a process. It took me years because I know what my goal is and I move with intention. I wake up with intention every day. And so I know where I'm going. And I know that the people that love me and care for me will always be there. And the people who don't, thank you. I love you.

And you can move on. No, I think, I think that's great. And if you even just think about it, like logically for a second, if you're going to not show up as yourself on social media or in business, like how long you have to maintain that because who you are, eventually you're going to, it's going to come out or you're going to want it to. So, you know, why put yourself in a position where you have to work so hard for so long to show up as something other than yourself. Though I did that for a lot of my professional life too. So I can relate, but it's exhausting. Yeah. That's the word that I was looking for.

I did that for a few years. It is exhausting. It is exhausting. Now, something that I want to mention is that I want to recognize that I have a lot of privilege also, right? And so as a lesbian woman, I look very feminine. I know you cannot see me, but I have a huge advantage because I look so feminine that a lot of my girlfriends don't have. And so we need to change that. And I feel their pain and I'll do whatever I can to help them because I know I'm not going through some of the struggles that they're going through. And I think if the pandemic thought of anything is how interconnected we all are and how we all need to depend on each other. So I'm really hoping that we don't go back to whatever normal was before and we can move

forward with more intention, knowing that, you know, we need each other. Yeah. And you brought this up. I was going to ask this question, how we almost all of us, if not all of us have the opportunity to accept our privilege. You know, so for example, I am half Mexican, but most people would see me and think I'm a white woman and, you know, strong socioeconomic status. So I have privilege and I'm still a woman. So I still have challenges and obstacles and biases that I have to deal with. And I still have the opportunity to be an ally as well. So my question is, how do we navigate being part of an underserved community or a minority or somebody who's facing biases, racism, sexism, whatever it might be, and also do our part as an ally. You mentioned Black women. You're not a Black woman,

but you have an opportunity to be an ally there, as do I. So I guess I'm curious, how are you navigating these variety of different roles that we get to play? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I am what people call an empath. And so I naturally feel a lot of the things that other people feel, which sometimes is good, and sometimes it's really tiring. And, you know, I, I moved through life with only one title, and that is title of, you know, being a human being. And so I could feel what other people are feeling. And I don't see it as a responsibility to only care about the issues that affect me. I also want to help everyone who's affected by issues that don't directly affect me. And I just posted something related to this on LinkedIn. Two of my intentions when this new year started was one, to educate other people on the issues that affect me directly. And number two, to educate myself on the issues that may not affect me directly. Because in the end, they all affect me because

they affect my staff, right? And so I want to make sure that I understand where they're coming from when I have a conversation with any of them in the hallway. I have a lot of diversity around me. I have friends from everywhere. I have friends from Lebanon, from Bangladesh, from China. And so I am a curious individual and I'm always looking to learn something new. And so when I hear news about what Black women go through in the workplace, I immediately want to read about it because I want to know what's happening. And I want to know what can I do? Because like I said earlier, when it affects one, it affects all of us. We just don't see it right away, but it comes around in the end because it's affecting my staff, because it's affecting my friends.

And so it comes back to me or even family members. And so I think that you need to have some balance, because it could be overwhelming at times, you know, I have my intentions, and I know what I'm doing. But I also know when people need my help. And if, let me tell you, if I have 1000 people that are listening to me, and one of my friends has five, then yeah, I'm gonna make an attempt to say something. Always being respectful, you know, that's the one thing that I would share. I talk about the issues that I'm passionate about always in a respectful manner, and always knowing that I don't know everything. And what I see happening in corporate media is that people are so afraid to say the wrong thing that they end up saying nothing.

I would rather say something wrong and have you, Nicole, say, you know what? You are not white and you were not born here. So let me school you. Let me tell you how it works. Thank you for sharing that with me. I am a better person now because I am growing and I'm not afraid to make mistakes.

And so that's, that's one message that I want to send to every CIO, every CEO, every head of company. It's okay to make mistakes. That's what makes us humans. And that's the only way to grow when we are better people on the other side. And so I will say what comes from my heart. If I make a mistake, someone will correct me. And if they do, I will learn from, you know, what's the lesson come in my way and then move on. But I'm not, I'm not afraid to say the wrong thing because I'm not perfect. And I don't know at all. I love that you said from my heart. And I think that's an important note for maybe any allies or CEOs or who are listening. Cause I know that feeling I've experienced that

feeling of not wanting to say the wrong thing. And then I'm always disappointed with myself that I didn't say anything at all, but I think people are very forgiving and very kind, even when they school you, or even when they tell you that you said something wrong or hurtful, if they're clear about where you're coming from, if you're coming from a place of authentically listening, caring, wanting to grow, loving another human, I think we will still make mistakes, but they're much more easily forgiven. And it's much easier to educate from that place as well. What do you think? Yeah, you know, people know when you're not authentic. It just shows it shows through you. If you if you notice in the past

year, there's been this huge movement towards, you know, diversity, equity and inclusion, and everybody's hiring a diversity officer. And, you know, all these messages are put out there, you can tell when someone wrote something for you and you're reading it from a prompter, you're reading it from a piece of paper. When you speak from the heart, because you know what it is, and even when you don't know what it feels, but you can understand where they're coming from, people can see that. And so I think that's the change. I think we need to lead from the heart more than from the head. Yeah, I think, unfortunately, I'm a huge advocate and champion for the diversity, equity,

inclusion work that's being done. I think it can very quickly shift to being extremely frustrated when I see companies where it's just a check the box work. It's like, I can check that box. We have the diversity officer. We did the diversity training and it's like, yeah, but you didn't grow at all and nothing is different. And that is almost more frustrating than not doing it at all or saying, you know what, that's not important to us. Anyways, a little bit, mini rants there. Okay. One last question for you, Elaine. And that's around specifically the industry of technology. Working in tech, I know, you know, my background is financial services,

still a very male dominated field, but we hear a lot about advocating to get more women in STEM and that, you know, the technology industry is still very male dominated. What are some of the issues from your observation, from your experience that are keeping women out of the C-suite in tech and keeping women out of STEM in general? Yeah. So this is, it's a, it's a long answer because it has so many points connected to it. You know, the first one is society and the home place where we have been raising girls, telling them to be nice, to be quiet, to play with dolls, to not touch cars.

And so I think that's where it starts. You know, it starts at home. Like we need to stop all of that where we're telling kids what they should or should not like. But you know, when you go into the workplace, the first issue for me is the job description, honestly. If you look at any job description today, and I don't think this is only for tech, it's like sometimes two and three pages long. And I mean, it's like a wish list. Who can find someone that knows everything that these companies are listing online? So we need to be mindful and

make sure that we list the skills that are needed instead of the wish list of everything we're hoping to find in one person. The second issue that's keeping us out, and I mentioned this earlier, is the names on the resume because unconscious bias kicks in. And there's a lot of research that shows that we give preference to some names over others. So if we can remove the names from the resumes, that will be amazing. That will be helpful. Flexibility is what is affecting women the most today. You know, a lot of women are caregivers, they care for their children or elderly parents. And the fact that they don't have flexibility

to work different hours a few times a week or work from home, which I'm hoping it will change after COVID, is keeping a lot of women out of the workplace. And the last one I want to mention, you know, it's connected to support. 40% of women leave tech after 10 years because of the lack of support and mentorship.

And so, like you mentioned earlier, we're putting so much focus on, you know, sometimes checking a box that we forget after they're hired that they need our support. And so it's important to at least pair every new employee with a senior staff members for at least for two weeks so that they can understand the culture and they can become used to how things get done. We also need to have mentors, you know, I think a lot of us, especially me, you know, I never saw myself as a CIO because I didn't see any female CIOs that were Latina and gay doing the work that I wanted to do. And so I am hoping that we can take this more seriously and have more mentoring opportunities for women in tech. Yeah, I often say it's hard to be what

you can't see. Thank you, Elaine. If you want to learn more about Elaine and her work, you can visit her website at five, the number five x minority.com or follow her on Instagram at five x minority or find her on LinkedIn, Elaine Montia. So E L A I N E last name M O N T I L L A. Elaine, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing your amazing perspective and story. I'm so appreciative of getting the opportunity to learn from you. Thank you so much, Nicole. And thanks for having me and for this insightful conversation. I had a lot of fun. Me too. All right. I'm going to close us out with somebody else's words, but so often I find other people say things in a way that it's

like, I wish I had those words. So here they are. With June being Pride Month, I wanted to take the occasion to clearly say this. I unhesitatingly and wholeheartedly support my lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer friends, their rights, their marriages, their pursuit of happiness, and their breath. This is also true July through May. It is not our responsibility to only advocate for the issues that affect us directly in the great words of our guest today, Elaine. So you want to know how to do woman's work? It's really pretty

simple. Step number one, identify as a woman. Step number two, get to work. And this is woman's work.