Shayna Whitley: Building the Skills to Bring Change

Four years out of East Bay, Shayna Whitley is a Manager of Performance Reporting and Analysis at PG&E. She shared with the Women in Leadership class the story of her career and the skills she relies on to take each new step.

Her career started before East Bay with an undergraduate degree in Biology. After getting her Bachelor’s, Ms. Whitley worked at a nonprofit called Girls, Inc. “From there I started a STEM program for girls who look like me, who didn’t have the opportunity to really understand and explore science.”

She soon realized, however: “Uh-oh! ‘Nonprofit’ really does mean non profit! And, um… I like crab legs and lobster!”

She realized she had a learning gap when it came to handling money, which led her to Cal State East Bay, and from there, she sought a better-paid career at PG&E. She joined a program that started her at the bottom of the corporate ladder and allowed her to climb. “I’ve been at PG&E for less than five years and I’ve had five positions, and they all kinda just stack on top of each other.”

Her experience at Girls, Inc. was invaluable, giving her the skills to lead peers her own age. The basics: “Learning how to communicate with people effectively, and making sure you communicate a common goal.”

It’s been an amazing chance to move through five positions in quick succession, but Ms. Whitley noted that she’s careful when choosing her next opportunity. “In some places, people will just offer you positions, and you probably don’t even know if you’d be good at it, but you say yes and you fail miserably.”

After a few experiences like that, Ms. Whitley learned to really think about whether her skillsets fit the role. “Where can I make a difference? Can I leave it better than I found it? If I couldn’t do that, I just kinda was like ‘Oh, no thanks!’”

To connect with the best opportunities, you need to find mentors, but in that there’s no silver bullet. “It’s really uncomfortable,” Ms. Whitley said. “Like when you first meet somebody and you’re like ‘hey… let’s network… you wanna be my mentor?’ You sit in that space and you’re like ‘I don’t know what to say to this person!’

“It really took pushing through that and stepping outside of my comfort zone to start closing those gaps and make it not a discomfort zone.”

Some qualities of Ms. Whitley’s that always stand out? “My charisma. And my desire to always do the right thing. Like I’m comfortable standing up and saying, ‘I don’t know if I agree with this.’ There’s a lot of people in the workforce that will sit silent.”

Ms. Whitley is a communicator, and it takes a certain skillset to make oneself heard in the workplace. She explained, “I think I’m heard the most because in most spaces, I’m quiet unless I have something that’s meaningful to say, that adds value to the conversation. So when I do say something, everyone’s like ‘Oh, that makes a lot of sense!’

“I think a lot of people go into spaces and they just start talking because they feel like ‘Oh, if I talk, people think I’m valuable!’ That’s not what I do.

“I also tend to listen a lot,” she said. “Because I find that we’re having conversations because we’re trying to solve a problem, and 99% of the time, people haven’t realized that there’s a problem.

“I don’t mind silence,” she added. “Some people do, I don’t.”

Going forward, Ms. Whitley is scouting out a thoroughly new chapter of her career.

“A couple years ago, my favorite rapper was murdered, Nipsey Hussle. It sparked something in me to really wanna be the change that I wanna see.” She started plans to “create an inclusive environment for young men of color”, and to that end, is studying for the LSAT. “Starting anything, you have to have a foundational understanding of how policy and governance works,” Ms. Whitley said.

She hopes this project will let her tie together the two halves of her career. “I understand exactly how to stand up plans and make sure that if we set a goal we actually have a plan to achieve it. I’d like to carry those same skillsets over into something that really resonates with me.

“While also still working — I like working where I work. But I also want to make sure I’m leaving this world better than I found it.”

For more information on the program, please visit Women in Leadership Program, CBE.