My chapter
Community Is a Verb: Finding Family, Belonging, and Purpose Beyond Blood.
A short excerpt
If you're looking for permission to embrace every part of your story, to stop apologizing for who you are, and to believe that there are people in this world who will love, support, and accept you exactly as you are, then bienvenidas. You're in the right place.
My name is Kat Lopez Shelby. I'm the founder and CEO of Shelby Technology Solution LLC, I am also known as your techie chica. When I'm not helping businesses make sense of technology, you'll probably find me behind a microphone hosting the Tech + Tequila Podcast. Today I say those titles confidently, but that confidence wasn't always there.
There was a time when introducing myself as the founder and CEO felt uncomfortable, almost like I hadn't earned the right to say those words out loud. I believed I needed more success, more experience, more money in the bank, something that proved I had earned the right to call myself a CEO. It took me four years of building my business before I finally believed I had earned those words.
Looking back, I realize I was chasing the wrong thing. I thought confidence came first. What I didn't know then was that confidence doesn't create belonging. Belonging creates confidence. To understand why, we have to go back to the beginning.
Meet your techie chica
I’m Kat Lopez Shelby, Latina tech founder, CEO of Shelby Technology Solutions, host of the Tech + Tequila podcast, and founder of It’s Just Tech, a community built to help women founders own their tech instead of letting it own them.
Spanglish, bold, and backed by 20+ years in tech, I’m here to make technology less intimidating, challenge the way this industry has always done things, and remind women that we belong in every room where decisions are being made.
Tech made simple. Strategy before software. Siempre con corazón.