The Stories that Shape Us: Celebrating Women’s History Month

This year’s theme for Women’s History Month (WHM) is “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” and is focused on honoring women in every community who have devoted their lives and talents to producing art, pursuing truth, and reflecting the human condition decade after decade. In other words, let’s reflect and champion the powerful, courageous and inspiring women in our lives who keep our stories alive.

At Oracle, we have so many women across the organization who contribute to the power of storytelling through their everyday actions. A great example is the Oracle Women’s Leadership (OWL) Employee Resource Group. Formed as a grass roots effort in 2006, it has more than 200+ community leaders across 113 locations globally, hosting 263 events that reach over 20,000 employees. Their mission is to develop, engage, and empower current and future generations of Oracle women leaders to foster an inclusive and innovative workforce, and one of the ways they do so is through sharing stories that help inspire, motivate, and support their members and their careers.

Story telling can come in many forms; books, podcasts, speeches, videos, paintings, and more. In turn, the women who tell our stories are as diverse as the mediums and stories themselves. Some of those storytellers have influenced millions as acclaimed authors, economists, historians, playwrights and the like. Others are closer to home, like moms, grandmothers, sisters and aunts. In many ways, that’s the beauty of storytellers – as long as we are open to listening, you can never underestimate when, where or who will deliver a story that will impact your life.

In the spirit of this year’s theme, we asked the OWL community to tell us about women who have made a difference in their lives through the stories they’ve told.

Desiree Terrell, Senior Principal Technical Support Engineer
My mom. She returned to college, graduating in Computer Science and inspired me to do the same. Throughout high school I was passionate about math until my mom took me to her computer lab, where I learned firsthand about punch card machines, which were used to write and submit code. My mom allowed me to load the punch card machine, type code lines, rubber band cards and take them to be generated. These experiences struck my curiosity about computer programing and has led me to my career at Oracle.

Susan Poser, Vice President, Culture & Engagement
My Taiwanese mom married my Navy father and raised me and my two siblings through eight relocations over fifteen years. Through her stories and how she lived her life, I learned key lessons that prepared me to be adaptable no matter the situation, to build strong and authentic connections and to always be supportive. Today, my siblings and I continue the rich legacy she created in the stories we share with our children.

Sharon Kolarac Hein, Managed Cloud Services Delivery Director
My grandmother always opened up her home for people who needed a place to stay. A central part of her storytelling was her incredibly warm and welcoming spirit. When you were with her you couldn’t help but feel comfortable and find yourself sharing stories. Her energy, enthusiasm, and generosity extended into every part of her life, including the stories I proudly share to this day.

As we near the end of WHM, take the opportunity to honor and celebrate the women who inspire you and tell our stories all year round. There are also still opportunities to participate in… 

Upcoming Events: 
•    March 30, 2023 @ 10:00AM (your local time): Celebrating Women’s History Month with Senreve Founder and CEO, Coral Chung.  Register here.