A Champion of Tech Diversity

Andrea Atkins works as a marketing manager at Google Cloud, focusing on higher education offerings for faculty and students. She is also a champion for tech diversity and creates educational programs for underrepresented communities who have historically been excluded from stem coursework and lucrative technical roles.

Cloud skills are in demand, with a 66.74% increase over the past year in job listings. While the number of cloud computing jobs increases quickly, a shrinking pool of qualified candidates is also available to fill these roles. These roles are challenging to staff at the entry level, especially for candidates belonging to communities of color.

A recent study from Deutsche Bank shows that the current racial tech gap, if left unaddressed, could get Black+ and Latinx workers disqualified or unprepared for 86% of U.S. jobs by the year 2045. Andrea supports several EDU teams at Google to create programs to change this industry trend and help meet the demand for qualified cloud computing job seekers.

“At Google we aspire to design tools for everyone. Our education teams provide a portfolio of free training, labs, and classroom credits, and curriculum designed to empower learners to upskill and pursue new careers,” she explains. “Years ago I was the one woman and only person of color struggling through my computer science degree despite bullying and microaggressions from my classmates and instructor, and now I’m fortunate to work on programs like Career Jumpstart, Google Cloud’s first virtual learning journey for underrepresented communities. Leveling the playing field by providing new pathways into technical fields for minorities gives me purpose and fulfillment in my work.”

For Andrea, her mother has been her role, constantly influencing her to become a steadfast leader. “My mother, who hailed from rural Mississippi and faced harsh discrimination on her journey to becoming a university professor has taught me everything. She never forgot these struggles and continued to serve students at historically black colleges through her entire career. This is the value I impart to everyone.”

According to Andrea, “marketing is an amazing field because it encompasses so many different jobs and activities. One minute you’re working on a study to collect biometric feedback to visual stimuli and the next day you may be writing a white paper for enterprise customers or planning a large conference in a different country.” She adds, “within the company marketing is the glue between sales, product development, and customer service so we get a complete view of how well we’re meeting customer needs that most other teams aren’t privy to.” Modern marketing is much more data-driven now, and many of us have picked up data science skills to keep up with new marketing channels and technologies. Marketing is always evolving alongside technology, and this is undoubtedly an exciting time to be a marketer.

Effective marketing strategy must connect the right user with the right product at the right time and the correct cost. “I still see diaper ads on social media and my twin daughters are seniors in high school! With the marketing data we have available today this lack of proper targeting is unnecessary, wastes marketing dollars, and creates a poor brand experience for users.” Return on investment is critical for effective campaigns along with a solid testing strategy. “If your marketing campaigns convert to sales, but don’t generate more revenue than your campaign spend you’ll lose money very quickly! Build experimentation into your strategy to identify messaging and channels that optimize your returns,” she explains.

According to Andrea, “as marketers we want to create the best experience we can build, and that includes ensuring our campaigns are as inclusive as possible. Being inclusive shouldn’t be an afterthought, it should be a fundamental part of our approach. From choosing wheelchair accessible venues to using gender-neutral language in collateral, to using diverse groups in our imagery, we can all do our part to promote diversity and inclusion in our daily work.” IEWL