Alex Ivanov

When I started my career as a software engineer, I avoided picking up my telephone because I was unsure of what to say. I kept my head down and didn’t speak up because I didn’t want to do or say the wrong thing, asking a question in class, forget about it. In fact, if someone had asked me to get up on stage and share my work, I would have been terrified. But over the past 20 years, I’m happy to say I’ve gone through a huge personal transformation. I feel as though I can talk to anyone, anywhere and am bursting with confidence. How did it all happen, well here is a little glimpse into what helped: Read over 300 books (all non-fiction) Took two Dale Carnegie training classes on effective communication and high impact presentations Attended over 75 industry conferences Spoken at over 30 industry conferences I have been to over 100 business networking events spanning at least 6 different cities, in the process I grew my network from 300 to over 3000 people: Los Angeles Boston Dallas Tampa Chicago Calgary I’ve split my career between software and system engineering roles when you look on paper, unofficially though I’ve been a: Software developer Technical lead Chief architect Product owner (my favorite) Test lead Change agent