Compton to the C-suite.
I grew up in Compton, California. My father came from Nigeria. My mother was first-generation American, with family from Sierra Leone, Ghana, and the Congo. Colin Powell is the reason I joined ROTC. Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise is the poem I go back to when things get hard. Between the two of them I learned discipline, and I learned that nobody gets to tell your story but you.
I also sing. Classically trained, and I still perform when I can. And I play USTA tennis, competitively enough to care about my rating. People are surprised by that combination. I’m not. Both are about the practice you put in when nobody’s watching.
I don’t tell the Compton story because of how far it is from a corner office. I tell it because there are kids there right now who should know the distance is shorter than it looks.
