Guest post by Ana Stojanovic, Cultural Mentor
Ana was the Cultural Mentor to Emerging Leader Berverly Nyakutsikwa from Zimbabwe. Below is an excerpt of her experience mentoring in the 2014 program, originally published in neoanimas.
Changing the World
TechWomen Welcome Orientation at Juniper Networks
I feel fortunate to have been selected as a TechWomen Cultural Mentor this year. I learned about TechWomen, an exchange program by the U.S. Department of State, through Andria, my colleague at Symantec, who had been a mentor last year. The experiences she shared with me were fascinating, from mentoring an engineer from Kenya to visiting the White House, to volunteering in Rwanda.
This sounded like an initiative with a strong, positive impact, and I decided I had to apply. It combined my passion for education and attaining equal rights for women, the need to give back and my love for cross-cultural experiences.
Berverly
A few weeks before the Emerging Leaders were to arrive in California and the program to start, just as I was shutting down for the week on a Friday afternoon and getting ready for my long run, I received an acceptance letter. I was the last accepted Cultural Mentor and I was paired with Berverly (pronounced Beverly) Nyakutsikwa, a civil engineer from Zimbabwe. I was beyond excited. I ran so fast that day, I felt like I needed to fly to express the magnitude of my excitement. I noticed that passers-by were looking at me, when I realized I had a big smile on my face while running.
Zimbabwean Emerging Leaders
I thought about three goals that I would like to achieve during this program. They were: 1. LEARN: I want to get to know Berverly and Zimbabwe really well. I want to learn and grow through this experience; 2. GIVE: I want to go all-in, and pay it forward for all the mentors who have helped me for many years while I was living away from home. I wanted to ensure that Berverly had a good experience in the U.S. I also wanted to introduce Berverly to the U.S. diversity and my home country, Serbia; 3. CREATE: I want to learn about the program and help expand it in the future.
Visit neoanimas to continue reading about Ana’s experience as a Cultural Mentor.
Ana Stojanovic works as the Global Program Manager of the Office of Ethics and Compliance at Symantec Corporation in Mountain View, California. Ana serves as the Chair of In Her Shoes, an initiative of Symantec Women’s Action Network (SWAN). Ana holds Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Business Administration from the American University in Bulgaria and Masters in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.
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