Jan Shelly Brown

Tech moves at a fast clip. I’ve seen this firsthand in my career, the last eight years of which I’ve spent at McKinsey & Company helping businesses use tech more efficiently, by developing cloud and security transformations. The systems and technology may evolve, but one thing has remained largely the same: I’m often the only Black woman in a room full of technologists. We might speak the same technical language, but our experiences couldn’t differ more. I’ve tried to embrace everyone’s differences, relating to people in other ways. Because this has been my journey, this topic was incredibly important to me as it is so to so many others. Closing the Black tech talent gap — which persists despite diversity efforts from the world’s leading businesses — is now more important than ever. Black people make up 12 percent of the U.S. workforce but only 8% of employees in tech jobs, and an even smaller 3% of technology executives in the Fortune 500, no surprise to many of us who are...