Stephanie Cummings Carr is a partner development manager for applications, infrastructure, AI, and cybersecurity at Google in Washington, D.C. She facilitates C-level relationships with partners, showcases Google’s technology solutions, guides partners in developing their service offerings, and works closely with the Google Cloud solution sales and engineering team.
Carr has been in the IT Software Sales industry for more than 25 years. She took time out of her busy schedule to converse with rolling out publisher Munson Steed.
Munson Steed: Hey, everybody! This is Munson Steed and welcome to Tech Today. I have the pleasure of having a phenomenal individual who will give us insight into where we can all begin our transformation, which is a constant in the entrepreneurial vision of both ourselves, our community and empower the transformation of generations. I give you the one, the only, the Google Executive Stephanie Cummings Carr. How are you?
Stephanie Cummings Carr: I’m well, Munson. Thank you. It’s good to be here.
Munson Steed: Well, you know why? And to have you, as one of the most phenomenal sisters with superpowers to ever enter the space of tech sales. Why’d you take that step?
Stephanie Cummings Carr: Well, so are we talking just generative AI, or we talking IT sales altogether?
Munson Steed: IT, just sales period, like, why, where’d you get the courage? Why did you decide to walk that plank?
Stephanie Cummings Carr: Yeah. But I certainly didn’t start in this industry for certain. I started in IT operations programming way back when, and just sitting behind a computer and coding just wasn’t something that I found interesting. As a matter of fact, I was quite bored with it, and I knew that with my, you know, extrovert personality I like interacting with people on a regular basis. I had to find my niche. So I did, consulting for a number of years which was great because you’re working on new projects when those projects come to an end. You then, transition onto another project as a consultant. But, I kind of wandered into the sales space working for a company called Computer Associates years ago, where I was in an organization called the Client Relations Organization. That is where I was like a junior salesman, if you will, working with very successful salesmen in a mostly male-dominated field and I was more like their support gopher. I did everything from, scheduling and coordinating conferences to taking notes at meetings.
But one of the gifts that I learned is, I went everywhere they went. I sat in all their meetings, and I learned their gift and their craft of negotiating and developing and establishing relationships and I stayed in that role for about four or five years before I took the plunge and took my first real bag sales position at IBM Corporation. I worked there for a variety of years, and then I transferred to Oracle Corporation, where I was selling databases, data integration tools, middleware and software. I worked for Oracle for 10 years, and I loved it. I really learned a lot working at Oracle. That’s where I was able to expand and grow and build the confidence to really become quite successful in that industry.
Munson Steed: One extra question when you say that, that individual who’s literally working and trying to figure out. You know, I’m here in sales. I’m learning. What should they know about building your confidence and the fact that there’s always a sales cycle? There’s gonna be that training and before a person says “yes,” there’s a sales cycle. How do you move through that? And how do you get those sales chops?
Stephanie Cummings Carr: Yeah. So first and foremost I would say, learn products, get your certifications, you know, being in this industry 25 years now. I transitioned from, you know, hardware to, you know, computer storage, middleware, mainframe, UNIX, you know, coding all that kind of stuff. And you know from there you get into, and for every company that I work for you know, at IBM you are required to learn and get certified on their technology. At Oracle, you’re required to come up to speed and get certified on their technology. I left Oracle, did the same thing at AWS. I landed there for four years. You had to get certified on their products. So, you really want to stay current in the technology because it’s moving all the time. Right?
Munson Steed: Let me ask you another question. We talked about certification. You said it about three times everywhere you’ve gone. You are truly one of the speakers at RIDE Con, Rolling Out’s Innovation Digital Entertainment Conference, and you are going to mention the opportunities and the vast information that individuals can transform themselves, transform their family members, transform everybody. Given the access that you, now at Google, have to get us to understand, what it is to be a Google partner? What is the role of certification? And why is it important now?
Stephanie Cummings Carr: Well, so let me back up a little bit, just to give you a perfect example. Currently, at this time we have over 700,000 unfilled cybersecurity positions in this country. Unfilled. So that means we are not graduating or producing enough computer scientists, computer programmers, engineers, data scientists. We’re just not. So, the industry recognizes that, so they’ve kind of pivoted a bit where there are many companies that said, “We’ll take you. You don’t have to have a four-year degree, but if you come with a cyber security certification or a cloud certification or software engineering certification, that’ll put you in the door.” That’s where industry is right now. And that’s exciting, right? Because many young people opt not to go to college. College is not for everyone. We encourage them to go, but in the event that it’s not for them, if they still want to, you know, take a stab and get into this field, certifications are a really good golden nugget to have to get your entryway into this space.
Now sales, again, I’ll go back to that. You’ll still want to learn the product but there are other junior-level sales positions that most companies will offer that you can, you know, look into when you get in there, and it’s a lot easier to do like, I said, with that certification. That’ll kind of get you down the path of learning to be a good salesman. That’s the starting point.
Munson Steed: Well, back to RIDE. You are a true presenter. There’s tons for us to understand. But what are the three things that you want people to come and hear both your presentation and be involved in professional development conferences like a RIDE Con?
Stephanie Cummings Carr: Well, first of all, I’m just committed to helping get more brown and black people, like myself, into this field. This is still a large field, but there are very few Blacks [and] minorities in this space for a myriad of different reasons. One is, that maybe they’re just not being given the opportunities. Two, maybe they just are, you know, apprehensive because they don’t think they have the skill set, or they don’t have the experience. Or three, they maybe just don’t have an interest or they don’t maybe see enough people that look like me, right? So, why not expose myself and just share what this industry means to me, how it has impacted my career and my life, where I am now, and the success that I’ve been able to establish and be able to share that with other people to get more interest to come into this field of STEM.
Munson Steed: STEM, technology, AI. How and why should we lean into AI? And why is it important to come get that information right now?
Stephanie Cummings Carr: So, as I’ve said, this is the latest industry disruptor, artificial intelligence. It’s all the rage right? And I’ve noticed that oftentimes when these new technologies come along. Many people in our community are always the last ones to the gate. By the time we arrive, the train has already left the station. This is a huge, huge opportunity to explore artificial intelligence. There are so many misnomers about it, but there’s a lot of positive things that are coming and this is the time to get incentivized.
Learn as much as you can about it, because this is where we are now. This is where we’re going, and it’s moving very, very rapidly. So, the sooner you can get in and get engaged and get certified. The world will be your oyster with artificial intelligence. And here at Google, which is where our great employer that I’m with now, we are on the cutting edge of this technology. We’re doing super duper things, and we have a few incentives that we’re doing, targeting the Black and Brown community that I’ll be excited to share about at the RIDE Conference. So you don’t want to miss some of the opportunities that Google has that they’re rolling out just for people in our community.
Munson Steed: When you look at the proposition and being a Google partner, what’s key about being a Google partner and what are you going to talk about this at RIDE Con.
Stephanie Cummings Carr: So Google has been very instrumental and serious about DE&I. They put their money where their mouth is. There are a lot of companies out here that pride themselves, that they have a really strong DE&I organization. But they really mean that here at Google, and so much so that they’re constantly rolling out DE&I initiatives for communities and AIML is one of them. I’m just excited to be able to spread the word and explore, expose as many people as we can in our community so that they can take advantage [and] be in the game. You’ve got to know about it, right? You wanna have the flyer in your hand before anyone else knows about it and this is the time for us to be able to do that. So I’m excited that Google is serious about it. They just don’t talk about it. They enact it and I’m one of the people that’s out here, you know, putting the word out that we have these opportunities that are available, and we want to get them in the hands of as many people as we can.
Munson Steed: Well, I want to thank you. I don’t want to preempt your presentation. You’re a phenomenal leader and speaker in the field. All of you who are [reading] this interview, know that hopefully, we’re encouraging you to grab the courage to be as big as Stephanie Cummings Carr has been, and will be on Feb. 23 and 24. Last words for those who want to know more information. Where can they follow you and how can they get more information from you?
Stephanie Cummings Carr: So, I’m on all social media. I’m on a Linkedin. I would start there first. Stephanie Cummings Carr is my name. I’m with Google. I’m on Facebook. And I’m on Instagram. So you’ll find me. I look forward to seeing everyone later on this month.
Munson Steed: Yeah, at RIDE Con. I’m Munson Steed. This has been a quick, of course, Tech Today. We wanna thank you for all you continue to do and look forward to seeing this huge presentation at RIDECON. Thank you.
