Fear stays silent but passion speaks

Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology Officer, Cisco, delivered an inspiring and heartfelt keynote titled “Fear stays silent but passion speaks” at last night's 2009 Women of Vision Awards. Prior to joining Cisco, Warrior was CTO at Motorola, where she led a team of 26,000 engineers.

Her five key points were:

1. Every transition brings with it a growth opportunity
-Look at transitions as an opportunity to gain skills.

2. You can gain speed in the turn
-Focus, and prioritize. We have to look at it as an opportunity.

3. Leaders blur boundaries
-It is important to have the ability to work across boundaries in the company, across company boundaries, and country boundaries.

4. The best way to gain recognition is to give it away.
-People are afraid credit will be taken away. Give recognition away. Give credit openly and freely.

5. Opportunity is a mold waiting to be expanded -There's no such thing as a perfect fit for a job. It is up to each of us to break out of a mold and create opportunity. If you are passionate about something you'll find the courage, and opportunities will come to you.

Honored as Women of Vision award recipients were:

• Innovation award: Yuqing Gao, Senior Manager, IBM Research, IBM
• Social Impact award: Jan Cuny, Program Director, National Science Foundation
• Leadership award: Mitchell Baker, Chairperson, Mozilla
  

UPDATE: Videos about the three winners are posted on the ABIWT channel on YouTube.