Workplace Ninjas US - December 2025
3x sessions
Speaker/ Presenter at Third-party Event
Microsoft Purview
Was beyond grateful to deliver three sessions at Workplace Ninjas US in Dallas.
Massive thank you to Jon Towles for the invitation and for pulling off such an incredible conference. You absolutely outdid yourself and made it a fantastic experience for both speakers and attendees. And just when I thought you couldn’t be any more wonderful, you surprised me with a custom Welka’s World T-shirt with “MVP” on it because you knew how much the MVP programme meant to me. Honestly - heart melted.
It was an absolute honour to join the Women in IT panel with the fabulous Mona Ghadiri , Lavanya Lakshman and Esther Barthel , brilliantly moderated by Megan Gremmell. I also loved attending the neurodiversity session where Lindsay Shelton, Peter van Roosmalen and Cat Schneider and shared their stories - so insightful and powerful.
I went to so many brilliant sessions and met so many of my heroes - people I genuinely look up to. I had to pinch myself more than once because I couldn’t quite believe I got to be there too.
A big shoutout to Danny Stutz for co-speaking with me, we make a pretty great team! The feedback from our sessions was amazing, and I really hope our attendees walked away with some solid takeaways.
Meeting the scholarship cohort was another highlight. What an inspiring group of ambitious, driven people: Jackie Wilson , Maral Talebbeidokhti, Ashley H., Athina T., Elijah S.; I’ve no doubt you’ll all go on to do incredible things.
There were so many great chats, great food, great drinks and great people that I can’t possibly list everyone, but some standouts for me were Merill Fernando, Nathan McNulty, Fabian Bader , Christopher Brumm , Frank Lesniak, Mona Ghadiri, Lindsay Shelton, Megan Gremmell, Eric Woodruff, CIDPRO, Travis Roberts, Chris Cavazos, John "Jay" Leask III, Nicole Mulkern, Dean Ellerby, and my birthday twin Lior Bela!
A special shoutout to Sucheta Gawade - what an amazing woman. It was a pleasure meeting you in person; you are genuinely one of the most selfless people I’ve ever come across.
And thank you to everyone who came up to me, shared insights, offered feedback or simply said “I know who you are” or “I follow you and love your content”. It was surreal but so heartwarming - and it’s exactly the kind of encouragement that keeps me going.