Facilitating the continuous development of Nitronauts is a core component of Nitro’s vision and mission, and our leadership team is passionate about providing us with opportunities to grow both personally and professionally.
Whether it’s a companywide product training session, a lunch-n-learn on our 401k program, or even the support to enroll in a new training course, Nitro’s leaders work hard to enable us all to be better.
Our Learning and Development department is a key driver of this and continues to add growth opportunities to the Nitronaut curriculum—one of which is the new “Be Bold” speaker series, which kicked off earlier this month.
Kate Mason, Head of Learning and Development at Nitro, leads the Be Bold initiative. Here, she explains a bit more about the origins, purpose, and promise of the program.
Q: What is the Be Bold speaker series?
The ‘Be Bold’ speaker series is for all Nitro employees. The goal of the program is to invite thought leaders, innovators, breakthrough thinkers, and achievers from a variety of backgrounds/experiences to speak at Nitro to inspire employees—to spark innovation, encourage employees to stretch the limits of what they think is possible, and approach their work and their life in new, innovative ways!
Q: How did the idea for the series come about?
When I was at Google, Sheryl Sandberg was responsible for implementing a series that invited thought leaders and innovators in to speak to employees. This was one of the perks I valued the most and I thought, why not do something similar at Nitro to help inspire our employees to achieve greatness? We could leverage the connections that our leadership team has here in SF and in the Valley, and it would also be a great opportunity to continue to build awareness of Nitro as an innovative employer.
Q: What speakers can we look forward to hearing from?
Our first speaker was Janine Shepherd—she gave a incredibly inspirational talk about how she was able to overcome great obstacles in her life by focusing on resilience. It was a fantastic way to kick off the series!
I’m also in conversation with Teuila Hanson, Group VP of HR for the Federal Reserve Bank, and Belsasar Lepe, Founder and SVP of Products and Services for Ooyala. We’re still working on firming up the exact dates and topics for their talks, but the experience and breadth of knowledge both of these thought leaders bring to the table will make for some super interesting content. Our leadership team and I are continuing to work on building out a full calendar of speakers through the end of the year as well—all very exciting.
Q: What do you hope Nitronauts gain from listening to these speakers?
I hope that the speaker series will inspire our Nitronauts to be bold and push beyond the boundaries of what they thought was possible to achieve great things personally and professionally. A central philosophy here at Nitro is to “Always be learning” and “Always be evolving.” This speaker series represents one of many opportunities I’m working to put in place to foster a learning culture—one where our employees are always growing to be better.
The excitement and conversation after the first session (thanks, Janine!!) was a great sign that Kate’s hope for the series will come to fruition. We look forward to hearing more from these innovative thought leaders, and to continue being inspired to be bold!
