March Feature: Jon Exume

Our March Feature is on Jonathan Exume. Below, you will find a transcript of the interview and where you can find more information to follow up with him to learn more and ask questions.

Arnae: Let's start at the beginning. Would you like to tell our readers about you? For example, what do you do? How did you get there?

Jon: Excellent. So hello everyone. My name is Jon Exume. By day I am a lead senior business analyst for a healthcare IT company called Stryker and my other job is the President and Executive Director of Technology of Color. It is a nonprofit workforce development group and we curate events and experiences that are tech-focused. We work with different Fortune 500 companies helping them find black talent. We also have an amazing Co-working space which is which caters to African Americans called the Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurship or RICE.

More about how I got here. I've always wanted to be in tech. My tech journey began when I was 8 years old when I had my first computer. I won't name that computer because that computer will date me. But I was into gaming and my aunt got me a computer. She gave me a book to code the application, so you could play the game. My love for tech started there.

Since then, I've worked for different companies throughout my life. I worked at Apple. Believe it or not, for about 10 years. I worked at Apple Stores before they were the popular place to be. I helped open a couple of Apple Stores, in New York City, Augusta, and some other places that I helped open. Then my career took me into working in healthcare IT. I've managed and built programs, and databases. This leads me to my current role as a lead BA for our striker, which is a medical technology company. It's a lot of experience.

Arnae:

Yes, it does sound like you've been on quite the journey. What's like your favorite part of the journey?

Jon:

My favorite part of my tech journey was about 14 years ago. I was working at a company. I'm just going through the motions. This gentleman who worked there said to me, "Jon, you know. Your potential here is endless. You can do almost anything that you want to do." I took what he said to heart and started asking myself," What is it that I want out of this career?" So I started focusing on a couple of pieces of what I wanted to do. I wanted to manage and be a leader in tech. So I worked towards becoming a leader at the company.

To understand how life-changing this was to me, you have to understand my backstory. I grew up in Newark, NJ. So for those who know about Newark, Newark was well known for drugs and car theft. Right. And a lot of my friends that I was close to sold drugs and stole cars. I remember one of my good friends told me, "You know John, don't do this. You know you. Have a future." I ended up moving down South to pursue this future in tech. I was in tech at a young age, but I didn't know where I wanted to be in tech. Once I found my footing, I began to excel. It took me a while and I jumped from career to career in the space until I found what I really, truly loved. And I've been doing that ever since.

Arnae:

Would you like to go into more detail about what you're passionate about and how your career aligns with your passion currently?

Jon:

My passion is seeing more black and brown people in the tech space and being that I'm in a role at my company where I have influence, that is one of the things that I am focused on doing.

There's this talk about [black people] are going to have a value of 0 by 2050. We don't have anything. I feel that technology is rewarding work and then secondly, of course, the finances. Technology has allowed me to visit 13 countries. I've been to 42 of the 50 states. I've been able to provide for both my family as well as my mom and dad, my brothers and their families.

In Atlanta, we're seeing a lot of gentrification. I fear that in 20 years, Atlanta won't be black anymore. If we work hard and find rewarding technology careers, all those areas that they gentrify, we could be in. I always tell folks instead of complaining about the gentrification, let them gentrify. Work in a work in a field that affords you the ability to buy the homes. So what drives me is seeing more of us, not only in the tech space but also in leadership making decisions for companies because I feel that very diverse companies will excel companies that are not diverse over time will fail.

Arnae:

I agree 1000% with your statement. I am all for elevating black people. I remember the last interview that I did was with Shania, and that was something that she touched on too. Black people need to be there to make these decisions because we're probably going to be the most affected by it, so we need to be there when these decisions are made.

Jon:

Speaking of that, there is one thing I wanted to touch on: artificial intelligence. I don't see enough of us in the field. When I go to the conferences, I don't see a lot of us there. I fear that if we're not at the table when these folks are building models, we're going to be the data set that gets deleted. the AI field is huge. And I would like to see more of us involved.

For starters, learn as much as we can about it and also build using what's available out there. The one thing that I want everyone to get out of this conversation is not only to find a nice paying job but also if you have a nice idea if you have a great idea, get together with a couple of your classmates or friends and build something.

I don't want us to only focus on being the workers. I want us to focus on building companies. If we analyze how wealth is passed down, Wealth has passed down from family to family, right? We, when you look at the. Jewish community. The white community. Usually, it's someone in the family who may you know who made [a lot of money] and left something for the next generation and they grow it and pass it down generations.

Let's use an analogy. When you look at sports, most NFL teams are owned by a family. Granddad owns the team. He passed it down to his son. Son had the team. He passed it down to his son or his daughter and they just keep passing it down. They have a lineage of wealth. That goes down from generation to generation to generation. The question I always ask us is what legacy are we leaving? If we can build, you pass it down to your kids, and now your kids are born into it. When they have children, they're born into it. We can do that. We can create the same thing using technology. It's just learning the tools of the trade. Finding a problem that affects a large group of people and creating a solution that solves that problem. You could set up generational wealth.

Arnae

But yes, so kind of shifting a little bit of focus. I want to talk about the hardships because you know we all face them, but I want to know, how did you overcome them to become the person that you are today, the wonderful person that you are? How? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

Jon:

There was a point in my career where I was the smartest person in the company, but I wasn't paid as that person. I found out about this from a leaked e-mail with the salaries of everybody on my team. Even though I was the most senior person on the team, I was paid the least.

I was heartbroken. I'm not gonna lie, I rarely cry. I cried that day. I was like how could these people do this to me? Everyone came to me to give them answers, but yet I was the least paid among everybody. It taught me it was it taught me to know my worth. Most black technologists are afraid to ask for what we're worth. It's the company's job to pay you the least possible. They don't want to pay you the most. It's important to understand your worth and understand that they need you more than you need them.

Going back to the example that I just shared with you, when it was time for my review, I thought about quitting. Something told me to ask for what I was worth, so I went to my review with my manager. And I told my manager, "I am the most valuable employee at this company. I know the software better than anybody in this company. It has been brought to my attention that I'm the least paid. I'm leaving it up to you to correct it. If you don't correct it, I will be taking my services somewhere else."

Sometimes, we have to show them that we're serious. So I drafted a resignation letter and sent it to her. When she saw that I was not joking, she went and found the money. Once I did that, I told myself I was in control. Another lesson I took from this was to do your research and ask for the most money for the particular role. If the role pays 85,000 and we're coming in saying 65, you're leaving 20,000 on the table. Now you're playing catch-up for your entire career because you didn't do you know your research.

Another example of hardship that I want to share is from early in my career when I first became an assistant manager having imposter syndrome. We'll work somewhere and we know the product so well and then someone in the meeting who doesn't look like us will say I don't think that'll work. We just shut down. No! speak up. You've done the research and the analysis. It will work. You can trust me. We have to have that confidence, especially when you know what you're doing.

I always tell folks when you work at a company to document everything. Every success you had. Jot down the date, what it was, and what you learned from it. When it comes to your review, you have your notebook with all these dates you could point to. Case and point, 1 year at a company, I got a 2% raise of around $1.25 more per hour per paycheck. I was so upset. I was like, man, I did all this stuff for this company. But I didn't write it down. When I went into my review and I was talking about myself, I didn't give the manager examples of what I did. So the following year. I said, you know what? I'm going to document everything. Man, I rated myself all fives and I think was like all fives. One thing was a four and then I think one thing I gave myself a three. So the manager was like Why do you feel? So I gave them examples and they sat there and were like I forgot about that. Oh, I didn't know that was you. The second year I was there I got a 26% raise. All because I documented my successes. We gotta learn to play chess, not play checkers when it comes to. You know, advancing your career.

Arnae:

Before we finish up, I do want to allow you to talk about the event that we're going to be partnering with you guys for next week. The AI event. So would you like to tell us a little bit more about that?

Jon:

Sure. Yes. Sure. So. So we are partnering with McClinton Scholars on an amazing event covering generative AI. Bring your laptops. We're gonna give everyone a taste of what Generative AI is and we're gonna do a hands-on workshop. The goal is after this session, we want you to say I learned something about generative AI, figured out how could I be ahead of the game at my company, and bring something valuable to the company you work for. We're gonna have a good time. It's gonna be a lot of great networking.

Before this event, think of a project or a problem that this could solve. Afterward, get with a couple of people and build something, or if you already have a job and you're working in tech, I want you to take a look at things that you do at work and see how generative AI can help improve those systems. Do a small project or ask your manager for some resources. Let them know, "I learned some stuff about generative AI. I think it will help us here. Could I get some time to work on it with a couple of people here? It might save the company some money." People love hearing it might save us some money. Think about that, you get paid to work on something that you're interested. This is how you get to work for a company and have them pay you for something that you want to build. Who knows, you might build a solution for the company and because you built it for the company, that gets you a promotion that makes you twice as valuable.

That's how we sort of job-proof ourselves by coming up with a brand-new idea that is valuable to the company that you work for and asking them to give you time, don't do it in your free time. Ask them to give you time to allow you to build it. If you lead with, it's gonna save us money. They'll let you do it. Because if it saves the money. They're all in, right? Make a nice little PowerPoint and show them. Hey, I think it'll help us over here. We got to be a lot smarter, so that's what we're gonna do.

We're going to be at the Russell Center. It's gonna be on May 27th, 2024 at 6:00 PM here in Atlanta at the Russell Innovation Center. Parking is free. 504 Fair Street right off the north side drive if you know where Pascal's restaurant is is right across you from Pascal's restaurant. Pull up in the parking lot. Come on in. You get to network with some people. You know, we'll have some food. We'll have some beverages for you to drink. We'll have some good vibes. It's gonna be a great time. You're gonna learn something and you'll be fed. So come on out and have a good. Time with us. Click here to register.

Arnae:

It sounds like a great time. So the last question that I have for you is what advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?

Jon:

The advice that I would give my 18-year-old self is you got this right. You are confident you are intelligent. You'll be OK, I think for the longest time in my career. I was afraid to ask. I was afraid to put myself out there and it hindered me the first couple of years in my career. Once I realized that I could do this. My career skyrocketing. I never thought that I would ever make it in my career. So being confident in my ability and knowing that. I can do this, I got this would be the best advice that I would give myself.

Arnae:

Well, I will say I'm definitely about to start playing chess out here. I need to stop playing checkers. If I don't take anything else from this entire experience, I'm going to go get me a notebook, start documenting, and start playing chess. Thank you. I appreciate all your advice today. Want to let them know where they can find you?

Jon:

If you want to follow? Me. You can follow me on LinkedIn at Jonathan Exume. You can follow me on the gram. My name is @Iamjon77. I am really big on LinkedIn so definitely connect with me on LinkedIn. I enjoyed sharing some words of wisdom and advice with you all so thank you.

Arnae:

Ready to leverage your career using Generative AI? Click here to register for our upcoming partner event with Technologist of Color.