Black Magic by Chad Sanders

Author:Chad Sanders
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

LATEESHA THOMAS

“I never assumed I would be able to just climb a normal corporate ladder and get the things I want. So, I’ve always had to take a step back to figure out how things are working. What are the complex interconnected relationships between both people and teams? How can I play that to my benefit to get the things I want within an organization?”

LaTeesha is the CEO and cofounder of Onramp, an Oakland-based tech startup that aims to solve the technical workforce hiring crisis by helping tech giants like Google and Pandora train and hire technical talent from diverse backgrounds. LaTeesha is also a technologist, conference organizer, speaker, and advocate for diversity and inclusion in tech. Formerly she managed partnerships for Google’s Women Techmakers initiative. Before that she was director of business development at Dev Bootcamp, which was sold to Kaplan during her time there. I met LaTeesha at Dev Bootcamp. She was a colleague who became a true friend.

LaTeesha is one of very few Black women to have raised venture capital millions to run her tech startup. Less than 15 percent of venture capital funding in the US goes to women, and less than 1 percent goes to African-American and Latinx founders. LaTeesha has beaten the odds, all the while being labeled “aggressive” and “unpleasant” by micro-aggressing colleagues. In that way, her journey reminded me of Jewel’s, but Lateesha’s magic is all her own: in our conversation, she pointed to her ability to learn and master systems as the characteristic that allows her to beat the odds as an entrepreneur. And she learned how to master systems at a small, predominantly white college where she had to design her own experience to thrive.

I admire LaTeesha’s unsparing point of view on her industry. She explained that at some point her approach to dealing with a tech industry largely run by white and Asian men hardened. She won’t wait for them to change anymore, she says. She’ll work the system to take what’s theirs.

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