In this months spotlight series, KERV is celebrating Women’s History Month by focusing its attention on innovating women business owners, content creators, entrepreneurs and more.
This week we’re excited to spotlight KERV’s own Deleyla Glass. Deleyla is the Manager of Digital Strategy, and plays a huge role in moving our business forward, taking care of our clients, and ensuring that our data tells a great story for our clients through enhanced performance.
How did you get to this point?
In my first year of teaching second grade, I attended a workshop on how to provide data-driven interventions to students who were struggling in math and reading. I learned how to use excel for the first time and I was hooked. There in those spreadsheets I could monitor each of my students’ progression towards their goals, optimize tactics and execute interventions that would help their performance increase over time.
I fell in love with the data, and the process worked. Students who were coming to me in second grade, reading on a kindergarten level, were leaving second grade reading on and above grade-level material. At the time, many of my friends worked for startups here in Austin and I became enamored with what they were doing with data and technology. I started looking for opportunities, picking up pro-bono marketing gigs, anything that could build my portfolio.
Finally, I found a job posting for a Junior Media Buyer on Austin Digital Jobs. I applied, went through the interview process, and was offered the job where I met KERV’s COO, Marika Roque, and our Director of Digital Strategy, Ryan Schoenfeld. The two of them saw something greater in me than I honestly saw in myself at the time.
Over the years, they have mentored me, challenged me, and above all, believed in me. With their support, I was able to take that same data-driven mindset that I once used as a teacher and apply it to strategically optimize campaigns that perform so beautifully with KERV’s technology. I like to think that I made it to this point with a little bit of tenacity and a whole lot of faith in myself, the people I work with, and our product.
What matters most to you?
Sometimes, especially within the startup space, we can get on the grind for so long that we forget to stop, take a breath, and remember what matters. I try to stay mindful of that and do what I can to show up and hold space for others. One way that I have been able to do this at KERV is by creating and facilitating a women’s book club.
Each week, over the past year, women from all levels of leadership and departments in our company get together and create a space where we show up, reflect on what we’re reading, share what’s going on in our lives and support one another. We celebrate successes, provide guidance, nurture each other’s interests and ultimately work together to empower one another. I’ve felt so honored to witness the fierceness, strength and courage that each of these women possess. Having the opportunity to lead this group has been a catalyst for growth within myself and it’s reminded me how crucial it is to have my community of women.
We are a testament that when women support other women, even the darkest of times are no match for us. What matters most to me is that I elevate those around me, because their success is my success too and when we work together, we can conquer anything.
