The Linux Foundation Projects
Skip to main content
Blog | Mainframe Connect | Mainframe Coven | Podcast

Mainframe Coven: Meredith Stowell

By | September 25, 2025

In this episode of Mainframe Coven, Jessielaine Punongbayan (Product Manager, Dynatrace) and Richelle Anne Craw (Software Engineer, Beta Systems Software) chat with Meredith Stowell, Vice President of IBM Z & LinuxONE Ecosystem, a visionary leader helping more people find their way into tech. Meredith shares how her career shaped her leadership philosophy, her advocacy for non-traditional pathways that create a sustainable workforce, and her vision for building diverse, inclusive global ecosystems.

Watch the Full Episode here: 


Transcript:

[Intro Voice]: This is the Mainframe Connect podcast brought to you by the Linux Foundation’s Open Mainframe Project, sponsored by Phoenix Software International and Vicom Infinity, a Converge Company. Mainframe Connect includes the “I am a Mainframer” series, the riveting “Mainframe Voices” series, and other content exploring relevant topics with mainframe professionals and offering insights into the industry and technology. Today’s episode is from the 10-part “Mainframe Coven” mini-series honoring the past, present, and future women of IT.

Jessielaine (Jelly): Hello and welcome to Mainframe Coven, a podcast about real stories from the essential yet often unseen minds behind the machines. We are your hosts. My name is Jessielaine Punongbayan and I’m a Product Manager for Dynatrace.

Richelle: My name is Richelle Anne Craw and I’m a Software Engineer for Beta Systems Software. Welcome to our new episode!

I’m so excited! Joining us today is Meredith Stowell, Vice President of IBM Z and LinuxOne Ecosystem. She has led incredible work building global communities, scaling apprenticeship programs, and creating non-traditional pathways for hidden tech talent to thrive.

Jelly: Thank you so much, Meredith, for joining us today and welcome officially to the Coven.

Richelle: Yeah, welcome!

Meredith Stowell: I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for asking me.

Jelly: Of course, it’s our pleasure. You had such an inspiring career journey in tech and you’ve been a leader at IBM for quite some time. Can you share a bit about how you first got into technology and what drew you to this field?

Meredith: Oh, absolutely. Okay, so it definitely wasn’t college. I actually graduated with a B.S.F.S, Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service with a focus on International Economics, Finance, and Commerce and International Business Diplomacy. Now I will say the International Business Diplomacy, I use every day in this job. Because when you’re creating a community, when you’re working with an ecosystem, and you’re bringing everybody together, it truly is bringing together that diplomacy and leveraging those communication skills to find that win-win-win solution, right?

I actually started as a financial analyst and an operations analyst. And then when I was in my, I think, it was my second job, they said, “Hey Meredith, we need you since you do a lot of the operations. We need you to go and implement this piece of our new ERP system that we’re implementing.” And that just so happened to be Cognos, the business intelligence tools, and I fell in love.

I fell in love with technology. I fell in love with how technology could make my job as an analyst so much easier. It was able to enable me. Instead of focusing on all of the different data joins and pulling the data together, I could actually do the analytics and actually add that additional value. And so I loved it. And I loved it so much that I wanted to help others start to implement this. And that’s when I started working for Cognos as an implementation consultant. 

And so working with clients, you know, all within the US at that time to say, “Hey, how can you leverage technology to get more out of your data and, more importantly, make more use of your time to add that value?” As that from an analytics perspective and from an analysis and then actually make those higher level business decisions that are data based

And so that’s how I got into technology. From there, we were acquired by IBM. 

I again really loved how technology was able to help people to do their jobs better. But then, what I really found was when I came into kind of management and leadership, I loved how you can help individuals become the best that they can be.

Richelle: It sounds like there’s some user focus that you are drawn into in your career. But I want to know: was there a pivotal moment or turning point in your career where you realized that you were ready to be a leader or step into a leadership role?

Meredith: Okay, yes. Let’s see. Oh, there are so many, right? There are so many moments. But I’ll tell you the biggest moment for me. The one where I kind of put myself out there and said, “Okay, I’m gonna risk this because I’m gonna see if it works. And either I am going to completely fall on my face, or I’m gonna be a success and there’s nothing in between. 

I was within our business analytics group leading enablement and working with sales and sales methodology. And kind of leading more theoretical of: here’s how you know, from a sales perspective, the sales progression and and all of this. And a position opened up in a totally different group and what they were looking for was a transformational leader. And I knew that, “Hey, if I really want to go someplace with an IBM, or any organization, being able to truly transform a team from underperforming to a high performing team is a skill that I can use anywhere.” And I said, you know,  I’ve been teaching this sales methodology and I’ve been teaching the theory. Can I really go put it into practice and make it change? And so I said, “Okay, I’m gonna go try this thing out. It was in a totally different group within IBM. I didn’t know anybody there. It’s like going to a whole new company except just the systems are the same. And like I said, either I’m gonna completely fall on my face and we’re not gonna be able to transform this team or we’re just gonna we’re gonna fail or we’re gonna take this team to whole new heights and that’s what I did.

Richelle: It’s so cool that you took a risk and the risk paid off and the community benefited as well.

Meredith: Yeah

Jelly: It’s a great story. So I was reading one of your interviews and one of your articles and you mentioned something about non traditional pathways. And I know that you’re an advocate for non traditional pathways in tech. Would you say that you’ve used that kind of pathway to have that successful integration with your team or can you elaborate more on what you meant by that?

Meredith: So it’s interesting. When I started my work with universities and started doing some of that, the work on the degrees, I really got a behind the scenes look, right, at the education system and also looking at understanding how it works. And how it’s great for some but not necessarily for everyone, right? And when I came into the role, where we were trying to really help to build the skills and the talent pipeline for Z. And I still see this today. The default reaction to: how do we build skills for Z for the mainframe? The default is always, “What are we doing in universities? What are we doing in universities? What are we doing in universities?” 

And what I found is that, yes, you need that. You absolutely need those traditional paths. But there is an entire untapped opportunity and potential in individuals who may not have gone through the traditional path. They maybe did go through university, but they did something, maybe they did music or some other degree that was nothing technical, like mine, right? Or what about individuals that are coming back into the workforce? They’ve taken a break and they wanna come back into the workforce. What about individuals who are career changers? They wanna do something completely different. What about individuals who, like I said, maybe they didn’t go through university at all, but they have always wanted to get into IT. But there was never a path. 

It could also be veterans. In fact, that’s where this started. I was at dinner with some folks and we were talking about the skills and how we need to build new pathways for skills for the mainframe. And they said, “Meredith, how can we get more veterans involved in this? How can we bring these programs to veterans?” And that’s what kind of sparked the: “Wow, what can we do?” I was a civilian working for the military at one point in my career. That’s where I started. And I’m like, “You know what, there are all types of transition assistance programs and things like that for the military. Why can’t we put mainframe in front of them? To be: you can go into this path.” 

That’s about the time when apprenticeships within the US had just started kind of taking hold from an IT perspective, versus just your traditional trades. Also, I have had the opportunity to see this in action in the UK. I absolutely love the UK’s program of what they call degree apprenticeships. The way that the degree apprenticeship program works is you go to school one day a week and then you spend the other four days actually working. And then at the end of two years the end of four years you get your degree. But it’s a practical degree and I was like, “That is great!” And then of course there are other other countries that have other types of what they call vocational type of learning and paths. And I’m like, “Why can’t we do this with the mainframe?”

The mainframe has specialized skills, right? There are specialized skills that are needed, but you can learn those. Yes, you need to have the aptitude and you need to have the affinity towards the technology. But we can take a look at that and figure this out. How can we create an easy button? My team will always be like, “Oh my gosh, Meredith and her easy buttons.” But it really is. It’s gotta be as easy as possible, because otherwise nobody’s gonna adopt it. And you’re not gonna get easy until you start to iterate and figure out where the different blockers are and then how do you remove those blockers. 

So it doesn’t happen overnight, right? But it’s being able to open up the pathway for individuals who previously didn’t think that they had even a chance because, one, companies, many companies have always required a university degree. So first you gotta change that, right? Secondly, when you look at entry level positions today, so many of them require experience. It’s an entry level position. How in the world are you gonna be able to get into an entry level position if it requires experience? So there are all these barriers in place. You know the industry says we have a skills problem. There are people that want to go into it, but there’s no pathway into it. 

So that’s where we began working on this apprenticeship program and creating a competency framework for the highest needed skills. It’s the sys-admin, sys-operator, system engineer, whatever you want to call it, SRE and the application development. And really providing: here are the competencies that need to be gained, here’s the training that will help you to achieve those competencies. But you can’t achieve those competencies without experience. 

And that’s the concept of an apprenticeship, right? It’s not just about learning. It’s not about, “Hey, go to a boot camp and we’re gonna firehose you with information.” No, it’s: here’s information, now go apply it. Here’s more, go apply more.

Richelle: Hands-on experience.

Meredith: It’s the experience, right? And so, yeah, being able to just open those pathways for individuals.

Then we worked with a lot of different clients to implement this and it has been so successful.

Jelly: That’s awesome and I agree with you. I mean you really learn faster when you’re doing some work, not just sitting in a school like writing. But when you’re doing it and you’re learning while studying, it helps. And me as a mentor as well, I can learn from my mentees, you know, ‘cause they have questions. They have a point of view that’s different from mine. Yeah, that’s really effective, honestly.

Meredith: Oh I was just gonna say, I mean examples of the non traditional, kind of going back to your question. We’ve seen truck drivers who may have been, you know, they were disabled and now, they’re sys-admins. 

I was just talking earlier today about veterans. We were able to get this program into the transition assistance programs. And we’ve had a husband and wife, who have gotten together. One of them was coming out of the service, the other was like, “Hey, I want to do something.” They both found the apprenticeship program and now they’re both sys-admins, right?

You’ve got individuals who were previously in the service from a restaurant perspective, right? And in 2020 and with Covid, they may have lost their job and they were looking for something different. Now they’re happy sys-admins.

I mean, it’s incredible. Oh, one of my favorite ones was, there is one individual and, again, these are with our clients, not necessarily all with IBM. But we had one individual. She was a country singer on a cruise ship and lost her job right when the pandemic hit. And she had always wanted to go into IT but there was never an opening. She did not want to go to university. That wasn’t her jam. She found this program. And so many people will say, “I found this program and I didn’t think it was real. I thought it was and so I applied for it and look at where I am today.” 

This thing is amazing. And when they graduate from the program, I love it. That’s one of my favorite things to do, is to go to the graduations and hear the stories and see the success. And every single person always states, “Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you so much for the opportunity.”

And it is, that’s what was needed. They just needed the door to be opened so that they could walk through it. And they took the risk, right, and walked through it and now they’re thriving.

Richelle: Yeah, even if they don’t have the traditional IT degrees, technical degrees, they can see that this is a pathway for them.

Meredith: Yeah, that’s right.

Richelle: And I think it’s also future proofing the technology itself, right?

Meredith: Yes, absolutely. It’s turning over that hidden talent and knowing where can you go for this talent. Because it’s not just Z that has a talent pipeline need. It’s so many different areas within IT, right? I mean you look at whether it’s the skills needed for AI now. You’re looking at how the data centers are booming. The skills that are needed for these data centers now, you’re looking at security and the issues with security and all of this. Now we need security skills and quite frankly we need all of that and more just for this platform. Because we do all of that, the 360 degrees of IT. And so being able to have different ways to attract the talent and really uncover talent I think is fantastic.

Jelly: Yeah, I agree. It’s so nice because it feels like you know for groups that are let’s say under-represented or for people who don’t even know that they could do this, they have this way to break into the field, you know. And they have a way to start it.

Meredith: You know that’s right. Yeah but you know what, you’ve got to be intentional, right, as an employer. And this is one of the things that we’ve worked with a number of employers. And one of the things that this program that we’ve done allows is: those employers have to be very intentional and say, “Yes, we want this.” So for example, working with one of the banks. They’re a community bank and the community bank it’s M&T and they really want to do more for their local community. And one of the ways of doing that is, how can we provide workforce opportunities for these underserved communities? And so the program specifically targeted and looked for ways of how can we really help this community? And it was very intentional. It’s not happenstance, right, that it occurred. But really, one, making the effort of, “Hey, you’ve got to get your HR policies changed to ensure that you can hire individuals that don’t necessarily have the degree programs.” So it’s working with the HR, it’s working with the hiring managers. 

I’ve even had this within my own team of having to shift the mindset of hiring managers to give individuals a chance to shine, because the immediate knee jerk reaction when you need skills is, “Well, I need somebody who’s experienced. I need someone who’s got at least 5+ years of experience.” But if we as an entire industry always say that, how in the world are you ever going to get anyone with 5 years experience? We had an individual who had two years of experience and couldn’t find a job because everything that he was looking at was all 5+ years experience. So we as an industry and as employers need to recognize that, “Hey, these folks are fantastic. This talent is incredible and you can learn this technology. It’s relatively straightforward to learn it. We’ve got all kinds of programs and the right training to do that.”  They just need to be given a chance.

Richelle: I like what you said about the hiring managers and the mindset shift that has to happen there. Because in one of our previous episodes, we talked about a systemic gatekeeping of what a software engineer looks like. And we said that, “if the gatekeeping was designed, then it could be redesigned.” And so you think that these types of programs help re-frame that narrative that these are the people who should belong in this industry?

Meredith: Yes, I do. And I think that just like with anything that’s new. Okay, when you guys go to buy something, right? You know what, let’s say you’re gonna go on vacation, right? ‘Cause we all wanna go on vacation and you’re gonna go to someplace new, right? What is the first thing that you do? When you go and start searching about what are you gonna do and where are you gonna go? 

Jelly: You look it up.

Meredith: You look it up, right. I don’t know about you. I always look at blogs that have been written. I look at, when I go to book the hotel or the Airbnb or whatever I’m gonna use, I always look at the reviews 

Richelle: Yes, exactly and the photos.

Meredith: And the photos, right.

Jelly: Or look up YouTube.

Meredith: Totally. And so that’s kind of like this. It’s a, “Hey, I may not necessarily wanna try something until I see somebody else that’s done it. And I wanna see proof and I wanna see experience with this. So it’s really important ’cause a hiring manager is gonna go, “No way. There’s no way I can get somebody new who’s gonna be able to do this.”

But then, if they see maybe another manager talking about, “Hey, we were able to have this success and it was really great.” and “Oh, hey, look at that person talking about how they’ve joined and what they’re doing today.” and “Whoa, are you kidding me? That person knows that much about MQ and they’ve only been working with it for 2 years, 3 years? What?”

So we need to get more, I call it showcase, right? Put more success stories out there and then the more success stories that you have, that’s gonna create that flywheel effect. And then hiring managers are gonna have a little bit more of a comfort to say, “Okay, I’m willing to do this.”

Jelly: I’ve been reading one of your interviews and you mentioned that in one of your presentations, there was a female junior high student that asked you, “Do they make fun of you for being a girl in IT?” So with all of these mentorship and apprenticeships that you’re doing, do you believe that or do you think that she could move past those doubts and see herself that she has a place to belong here in our industry?

Meredith: I am so glad you brought that up. That was a heart wrenching one, right? Because you think as a female in this industry, you’ve seen progress and you see the success that other females have had, right? And the goal is that that next generation or whoever it is, says, “Oh yeah, I can do anything. I can go and I can  do whatever I want.” And it’s not necessarily that there’s not this gender thing. And so yeah, I was at my son’s class, right? And I went in and I think it was, they were in eighth grade or ninth. They were in eighth grade. And I was talking about mainframe, you know, just introducing it and everything to the class, what happens behind the apps and how the cloud works and it’s just somebody else’s computer, right?

And she did. She came up to me afterwards and she asked me that. She said, “Do they make fun of you as a girl in IT?” And I was like, “Oh my gosh, how can this still be in this generation after all of the progress?” But it’s still there. Yeah, it’s still a challenge. 

I will tell you, I’ve also been at hackathons where we’ve had a Women in IT, you know, like a little meet up. And they brought up some heart wrenching challenges that they had gone through. Just even at that hackathon and having been harassed, right? And that bothers me. And again it’s gonna take awareness. It’s going to take intention. I’ve seen it happen even as, you know, last year an incident was raised, right? So we as a community need to be, one, just very inclusive, right? We need to recognize and I say this again it’s about intention. We have got to be intentional. We have got to be welcoming to all. And if we see something, do something. 

Don’t let it pass. Be the ally. Be the person there that says, “Hey, this behavior is not okay.” And we’ve got to stand together because it’s still there, and it doesn’t matter, it could be anything, right? It could be gender, it could be background, it could be experience, it could be whatever it is where there is something that’s perceived as different, this could come up. 

We all play a role here and it’s through this what I’ll call diversity of thought, diversity of backgrounds, diversity and geographies, right? That brings innovation. And that is to me the secret sauce, right? Because one of the key things is: it’s community. And, yes, we have amazing technology. In fact, there was a speaker from Broadcom at SHARE and they said, “You know, this technology is truly great and amazing. But you know who actually makes this run, it’s the people.”  It’s the people behind the technology that make this technology so great. And we want to be as inclusive a community as possible. So don’t put your blinders on, right? Be intentionally inclusive to all and help. Be there to raise everyone up. And that goes back I guess to that to that comment I made earlier, which is, I love ensuring that people can be the best that they can be. No matter what and no matter where they come from. And that’s what we as a community need to be. We need to be there together to raise everybody up. Because as we raise people up, we as a whole community become better.

And I also know that when I talk with a lot of new to Z folks and ask them, “Why are you interested in this and what keeps you involved?” They say it’s the community. The community is so welcoming. And so we truly do overall have an incredibly welcoming community. But we just need to be cognizant that sometimes these things pop up and let’s do something about it. Be the ally. Be there to help.

So that’s why, when I spoke with this young lady. I said, “You know, the reality is, sometimes, it’s hard. No matter what career you go into, if you’re the only one of you, it’s hard. Doesn’t matter what, when the only one of you is you. And so it requires a lot of self awareness. It requires confidence.”

And this is you know what, it’s this other topic of imposter syndrome. That hits. It doesn’t matter if it’s imposter syndrome because of my gender or imposter syndrome because I am in this room with a bunch of really smart people and I don’t think that I belong there. You belong there, you absolutely belong there. 

And the best thing to do is to get a buddy, right, and have that, once again, that community of support that is there for you. Because everyone no matter where they are at, somehow, they have that imposter syndrome. So you’re not alone.

But once again, recognize.I think the first thing is, recognizing that, “Hey, there is that and so how can we help?”

Richelle: I like what you mentioned about that diversity, it’s not just about gender, but it’s about your background, your geography, your experience, how you think. And I’ve read somewhere that you called that radical collaboration. Would you like to elaborate on what that means?

Meredith: Yes, this is that concept. And it’s so funny, ‘cause I just went through some leadership training last week, which, by the way, I highly highly recommend. Sometimes, we all get kind of stuck in our day to day jobs and we don’t take the time to necessarily step back and go, “Wait, how can I continue to grow, not just grow my technical skills, but just grow the ‘me’, right?” And sometimes you’ll read through things and you’re like, “Oh yeah, I know that that’s common sense, but sometimes we need a little push to say that’s common sense but I really should be doing that.” And then giving us tools to be able to do that.

And for me this concept of radical collaboration, it is so necessary and essential in today’s world. Everything is moving so fast. It is so fast: the rate and pace of technology, the geopolitical situations that are moving fast, the need for innovation in order to capture that market share. And then there are just so many uncertainties that are out there constantly. It’s not that, “Oh hey, it’s just uncertain right now.” No, this is the new norm. It’s just a state of uncertainty. And how can we thrive in that? You can’t do it alone. I can’t do it alone. You know I’m an ecosystem person and so it’s all about community and collaboration between companies as well. Because when you bring especially an open source and the ability to innovate faster from an open source perspective. So for example with the OMP, you know once again, you might have a single thought, and you might think it’s right. But just imagine if somebody else came in and said, “Oh, but what about this? Oh you’re right, but what about this? But what about this?” You never ever would have gotten there had you not had what I like to call as your thinking partner. 

Now imagine if you had that thinking partner but as an entire community. That’s the power of open source. That’s the power of community. It’s this power of radical collaboration, because there are some things we all have a common problem that we all need to solve, right? Let’s come together and figure out how do we solve it. That’s why we’ve got the Mainframe Skills Council, right? We know this is a complicated complex issue and there are many different ways of solving it, but we all have it. So let’s all get together and get this brain trust together to come up with new ideas and new ways of thinking. Because when you come up with an idea and someone else then builds on that and you build on that and you build on that, that’s true innovation.

Jelly: I agree with what you said with radical collaboration. ‘Cause when you have that kind of buddy and you basically brainstorm ideas, you actually uncover hidden tech talents or untapped talent pools and it just grows and grows.

Meredith: I think that is a spot on key point. Because you think you might know somebody and know their background. But until you start having this type of radical collaboration, you’re like, “No way, you do that? Oh gosh, you know what, I could use your help over here. I had no idea you used to be a nuclear physicist.” It might be like, “Wow, oh that’s cool, good to know” 

But you can’t have that without this openness and the candor. But candor with respect. Because underlying every interaction has to be: respect.

Richelle: There’s lots of transferable skills as well. So if we need to brainstorm on a problem, we need all of the different backgrounds and all of the different technologies that you know.

Meredith: Yeah, you got it. And that’s why I think it’s so important from this collaboration perspective: to truly be a radical collaborator, you, to some extent, have to be vulnerable. And you have to be humble and you have to say, “I don’t know”. And that comes back to: it’s hard in this imposter syndrome. And sometimes when you’ve got this imposter syndrome, you don’t think it’s okay to say, “I don’t know.” Or you don’t think it’s okay to say, “I could use some help here.” But I think that anyone that comes to the table, that says, “Hey, I need help in this area. Here’s my idea.” So it shows, “Hey, I did look into this. And here’s some ideas that I had or here’s what I was thinking, but I could probably use some help. What do you guys think? Any feedback? Any ideas?”

Jelly: I totally agree with you and I could resonate with what you said. You know, ‘cause I recently moved to a PM position. So it’s more of like a product manager position, and it’s a leadership position. And one of the things that scares me the most is admitting that I don’t know anything. And so my question to you is: have you ever like observed some of the shifts in women that are represented in a leadership role over the years? And if ever, what advice could you give these women, including me, who are hesitating on taking on leadership roles simply because of that fear of, “Oh, I need to to prove myself over and over again,” or “I don’t know a lot of things and they might judge me for that.”

Meredith: I think there’s a study out there, where it said something like, when there’s a job description, and if a male looks at that job description and they can do about 30%, they’re gonna go for it. If a female looks at it and they can only do 75%, they may not necessarily go for it. It’s hard because you are taking that risk and you are putting yourself out there, right?

And I think knowing that, quite frankly, others are in the same boat, is helpful. And like I said, it helps having kind of that trusted thinking partner that you can say, “OK, hey, I wanna bounce this idea off you. What do you think?” And then they’ll be like, “Of course, that’s a great idea! Go, say it, say it.” And I’ve had that throughout my whole career of I’m like, “Oh, I don’t know should I go for this job.” “Meredith, of course, you should go for that job. You need to go talk to this person right now. You need to go do this.” “Okay, okay I can do it, I can do it.” You need that. You need that person. You need your person with you, whoever that person might be. 

And it might be somebody that’s different. That’s why also when we talk about hiring best practices. From a hiring perspective, we always say hire in pairs – at least in pairs. So that that person has somebody. They have that peer, they have that support. And so if you’re feeling this way, No. 1 is, and you don’t feel like you wanna speak up or you’re like, “Oh, I’m not comfortable.” Find a buddy. Build that relationship. It could be somebody that you already know, it could be your mentor, it could be a sponsor, right? 

Just having that, it’s just like when you exercise. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not always great at it. But it always works when I have somebody else. It’s like, “Come on, let’s go walking.” I’m like, “Okay, I’ll go.” And then the next time they don’t wanna do it, and you’re like, “No, come on. We’re gonna do this.”  When you have that support, it makes it easier to be more vulnerable. 

And the other thing is in how you say it, right? Perhaps sometimes you don’t want to just go out there and go, “Okay, here’s what I really think we ought to do. We ought to do this, this, and this.” And then if somebody says, “No, that’s a crazy idea.” One, it’s totally okay. But if you’re not comfortable doing that, maybe it’s, “You know I was thinking that maybe we could do this. Here’s an idea that I had.” So then you kind of couch it with, “I was just thinking, but here’s an idea that I had.” And then it opens the door for that radical collaboration. And then you’ll have that you build on it and build on it. And it also kind of gives you that more comfort and in the way that you shared it.

Jelly: Well, Meredith, thank you so much for today. Thank you for all of your answers. I am super happy that we have you as an ally and as a cheerleader as well. Especially for me or people who are like me that want to go into leadership. And thank you for providing those apprenticeships and mentorships and non-traditional pathways so that every woman, every underrepresented group has their own way to start. So thank you for that.

Richelle: Thank you for sharing your story. It’s really inspiring. And that mindset shift of being intentional in what you do and how you advocate for yourself, it’s really inspiring. So thank you.

Meredith: Great! Thank you for having me on. It’s been fun. yeah

Jelly: And thank you so much for joining us in this episode.

Richelle: Join us again next time. You will find links and resources from today’s episode in the show notes. 

Jelly: Follow, rate, and subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Outro Voice]: Thank you for tuning in to the Mainframe Connect Podcast. This episode is part of the Mainframe Coven 10-part miniseries, sponsored by Phoenix Software International and Vicom Infinity, a Converge Company. Like what you heard? Subscribe to get every episode or watch us online at openmainframeproject.org. Until next time, this is the Mainframe Connect Podcast.

Links and Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

Share