Once Microsoft opened up certification for free, Vanessa Sorenson wanted to make it even more accessible. Photo / Michael Craig
High-flying Auckland executive Vanessa Sorenson hoped for a long time that no one would find out she had once been "trailer trash".
They are her words but the ones she feared would be used to judge her if they found out she had spent a lot of her childhood living in caravan parks, starting with Tui Glen in Henderson.
Now the managing director of Microsoft NZ, Sorenson is not ashamed of her past. And she wouldn't change it because it has made her who she is and how she approaches the job.
As a business leader, she is passionate about diversity in the workplace.
That means a willingness to open the doors of a tech career to all-comers, especially women, Māori, Pasifika and people like her younger self who would not associate themselves with that type of job.
As well as promoting programmes to broaden the appeal of a career in tech, she invited Corrections to pilot a certification course for first-time offenders.
"I've been there. I know what it feels like to not have access to the opportunities that others may have," she tells the Herald.
"I fell into technology. I am passionate about this because if we made the pathway easier, then more and more would consider jumping into a tech career where jobs start at $60,000 and $70,000 - why wouldn't we?
"That is how we are going to digitalise this country. That is how we are going to solve the skills shortage and that's why I am so passionate about it."
Sorenson was at Microsoft HQ in Redmond, near Seattle, two weeks ago, accompanying Fonterra there. She was back in Auckland last week to speak at the US Business Summit about working from anywhere and diversity, before heading back to Redmond this week for a leadership course.
It is not the life she could ever have imagined while growing up.
She arrived at Tui Glen at the age of 7 or 8, after her parents had split up and she and her brother went with her mother.
"Then we went to Australia and moved and moved and moved and moved and moved and moved," she said.
She went to eight different schools and spent a whole year absent from school because they were homeless and in real poverty.
They ended up in Cairns, at Woree caravan park, where she spent four years living, including helping to look after her mother's new baby.
"I knew from the age of 12 or 13 that I was going to get out. I was going to build a better life for myself. I was setting goals, writing them down."
She left at 17 to fly back to New Zealand and arrived on her father's doorstep.
His next-door neighbour was setting up an IT company and needed a receptionist.
"I found myself on the phone selling. I'd found my home. I loved it. It really was the start of such a revolution in terms of tech and to be part of that.
"It's been hard. I won't lie. I'm a very, very driven person and sometimes it nearly got me in terms of the stress and I have dealt with my own mental health demons.
"But I'm so blessed. It has created a life that I only ever dreamed of."
She had never worked on a computer and university was not an option.
After the receptionist job, she joined Wang, which became Gen-i. It was bought by Telecom which became Spark. Sorenson was with Spark for more than 20 years.
She joined Microsoft in 2017 and in 2020 was promoted from enterprise director to the top job.
She said she felt lucky to be a blonde Pākehā woman. Many people assumed she had been educated.
"Throughout my career, I thought 'imagine if they find out.' I've always felt 'if only they knew I was 'trailer trash.'"
Sorenson said she empathised with people who did not confidently put themselves forward for job interviews or promotions.
"That has been me my whole career. I would honestly be offered a role and I'd say 'are you sure? I'm sure there's someone better'.
"Luckily other leaders saw something in me that I didn't."
She says she has really only been comfortable telling her story in the past few years, since she has been at Microsoft.
And while overseeing the development of hyperscale data centres north of Auckland, she is also in a position to put her goals about diversity into action.
The Covid-19 pandemic was an impetus for the company globally to open up its certification courses for free.
At the local level, Microsoft also partnered with Tupu Toa, a group which aims to upskill Māori and Pasifika, to co-design a free programme for digital training and skills, Hikohiko te Uira.
It allowed people to get certified from home and then go for that next job.
Sorenson cited two Māori women who were displaced through Covid, a flight attendant and a woman who owned a travel business. They got their certification through PWC and turned their $40,000 jobs into $100,000 jobs.
"University isn't accessible for everybody," said Sorenson.
"My best friends at the caravan park I first lived in were Māori kids and [I've been] just watching the divide getting bigger in terms of the stats."
Only four per cent of the IT workforce is Māori and 2.8 per cent are Pasifika, according to the Digital Skills Aotearoa 2021 report.
"But I look at them as our creatives, and our kapa haka people and our leaders.
"Once Microsoft opened up our certifications I said 'let's make this easier. How do we make this accessible?'"
The Hiko programme is the same course which Corrections piloted this year for a small group of first offenders. Sorenson said it was highly successful and all participants gained certification.
"It just opened their eyes to another potential opportunity to consider a role in tech," she said.
"A lot of our younger youth don't think it is a career for them. They think it is about the engineer or the techy coder. Well, I am proof that it is not."
As well as the Hiko programme, Microsoft has had paid interns and encourages its partners to take interns. It has also launched a programme called 10K Wahine aimed at getting women into tech or to upskill.
About 4000 women have so far participated in free training workshops and another 2000 are signed up for courses such as Digi-Wahine, which teaches young women to code.
So what's in it for Microsoft, apart from a bigger potential workforce?
"We are better leaders and humans for it because if we all look the same, we get the same output," said Sorenson.
"I have felt that by bringing in a different lens and conversation, we are culturally a better organisation."
She said staff at Microsoft had gone through cultural competency training and it partnered with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.
"In fact, we did our big offsite before Covid at their marae because we have to get closer to the land and the roots and the traditions to make that change.
"My husband and I send our kids to St Joseph's in Ōrākei, which is an 80 per cent Māori school, for them to understand that life is not as amazing [despite] the house and things that they have."
Sorenson says in a small country like New Zealand, every child should have Wi-Fi access.
"We need to be thinking bolder, bigger and to do that we have to create the opportunity, pathways and jobs."
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