5 Googlers Worth Following

I still consider myself a "Noogler" at Google, even eight months into joining the company. This shouldn't be surprising when you think about the breadth of products at Google, the size of our organization, our global footprint, etc. That said, one thing stands out to me when I reflect on the past few months: the sheer talent of the people who work here. I'm inspired to bring my "A Game" every single day, to think 10x about how I engage with our clients and teams; and I love every minute of this.

There are so many people at Google doing incredible work and knowing I'm part of this team is jet fuel for my own personal creativity. I'm someone who loves getting to know people, to expanding my network, to actively seek out and follow interesting folks who love to give back to their tribes, to their communities. So with that in mind, here's five Google rockstars worth following here on LinkedIn and Twitter.

1) Kelsey Hightower, Principal Developer Advocate, Google Cloud. (@kelseyhightower)

Kelsey and I actually worked together for a brief period at TSYS in Atlanta back in the day. We didn't know each other then, even though we worked in the same building. I wish we would have as Kelsey is a highly sought after speaker, natural storyteller, and advocate for open source and Kubernetes. He is also one of the nicest people you'll come across in the tech space and is famous for giving back to the engineering community. His background is gonna make a great movie one day. Protocol has a great profile of Kelsey here. And he knows how to pose for one bad-ass pic.

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2) Yolande Piazza, VP Financial Services, Google Cloud & Board Member at H&R Block.

Yo, as she is known to her friends, is the reason I'm at Google. She's a legend in the Financial Services Industry who began her career with Citi in 1988, culminating in the role as CEO of Citi FinTech (a 33 year career at one bank - who does that?!?) before joining the team at Google Cloud. Yo has seen it all when it comes to financial services and technology, and isn't afraid to bluntly cut right to the chase with respect to the challenges and opportunities facing this industry. Her recent American Banker interview titled "Rip the Band-Aid" is a great example of this.

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3) Parisa Tabriz, Head of Product, Engineering, & UX, Chrome (@laparisa)

Parisa's Twitter profile says it all: "Browser Boss @googlechrome; Security Princess?@google". She joined Google as a "hired hacker" back in 2007 and has been a force of nature in the security space ever since. She's been interviewed and written about by the media so many times I've lost count. One of my favorites is the 2019 "Like a Boss" profile by The New York Times.

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4) Nigel Walsh, Managing Director Insurance at Google Cloud (@nigelwalsh).

When I first joined Google, I asked Yolande Piazza what could I do to help make a dent in the universe for the Google Cloud Team. Yo replied "I need industry rockstars" and I immediately introduced her to my good friend Nigel. If there was a competition for "Mr. Insurance" Nigel would win hands down. His life long goal is to "make insurance lovable" (seriously). He is also a Peloton fanatic and avid Watford Football Club supporter. And is hands down the most energetic person I've ever had the pleasure to work with.

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5) Stephanie Wong, Senior Developer Advocate at Google Cloud (@stephr_wong)

I love hosting podcasts (check out Google's That Digital Show) and am also an avid podcast consumer. This is how I came across Stephanie as she is one of the hosts of the GCP Podcast, a weekly series focused on everything cloud here at Google. Stephanie's a natural storyteller and speaker, something we need so much more of in this space. C2C has a great interview with Stephanie where she discusses a broad range of topics including imposter syndrome, something I've faced over and over again in my own career. You can learn more about Stephanie here.