If you were to seek inspiration to travel the road not taken, meet Hannah White. The brilliant Head of Product & Design at Leverege, Hannah White, is one of those courageous women who chose to break free of the stereotypes.
White didn’t settle for the predefined pathways that lead to business, law or medicine. Instead, she chose the path less travelled by women and found her passion for product management to leadership in tech.
The journey, however, wasn’t a cakewalk for her, neither was she always aware of what she wanted. It took her a while and a trip through about 12 majors to finally recognize her passion.
Again, was she happy? Yes! Did she settle? Nope!
Why do you ask? Well, how can one settle unless they have tapped into their highest potential! And so was the plight with Hannah when she joined Venture for America after college. Hannah says, “I joined Venture for America after college which led me into tech initially as a product designer which I loved but felt limited in the ways I could contribute to the overall strategy and direction of a product. I made the jump to product management then Head of Product at Leverege, where I am now.”
Seldom do we all know how to reach where we want to reach or even the latter for that matter. Hannah was not blessed with that either. She isn’t assertive that a particular idea transformed her life; rather, she thinks it was an opportunity that made all the difference for her. White was associated with a small startup and had the opportunity to explore all avenues of the business and different roles available. Besides product designing, these roles included marketing, sales, engineering and product management.
It was an exhilarating experience for her when she found a home in product leadership. However, her rich experience in the different domains continues to help her better relate to and understand the different stakeholders and needs of an organization.
Her fascination for operating systems and how one designs and builds an interface, shot up when she was in college. As an outcome of her amalgamated passion and dedication for her work, her current role is defining and building the ideal operating system for IoT (Internet of Things) for large enterprise companies.
Hannah claims, “I feel lucky that I’ve found the career I want with a company I love working for. I’ve been able to not only succeed in my own career but open doors for other women and people trying to get into tech. We have multiple apprenticeship programs at Leverege now for different types of roles like product design and project management. I spearheaded the first apprenticeship program in 2018 and have trained 6 product designers with the program since. 4 still work at Leverege, 1 co-founded her own company, and 1 is a senior designer at Microsoft.”
No wonder why she feels her job is rewarding enough to not only make a difference for the company but also for the people she works with.
Hannah further elaborates on how she was the only female employee for more than a year at Leverege. As a matter of fact, Leverege is one of the very few companies in the world where engineering leaders are not prominent. The company greatly values product and design disciples. Its mission is to enable and accelerate the digital transformation of all organizations. Leverege provides low-cost indoor & outdoor asset tracking with AMOS (Asset Management Operating System). The company believes that data optimizes decision making and they’re passionate about maximizing the value of IoT technologies for their partners and customers. Their customers include conglomerates like Google, Cox, Discount Tire and Comcast.
When reflecting back on her career, Hannah realizes that the biggest thing that stands out to her was never chasing success or ambition. It was always chasing the work that she found challenging, engaging and stimulating.
Besides a satisfying career, Hannah now finds solace in rock climbing, building mugs at a pottery studio and working on conceptual augmented reality projects. After all, exploring is the key to finding things you love!