Shellye Archambeau recounts how she overcame the challenges she faced as a young black woman, wife, and mother, managing her personal and professional responsibilities while climbing the ranks at IBM and subsequently in her roles as CEO. Through the busts and booms of Silicon Valley in the early 2000s, this bold and inspiring book details the risks she took and the strategies she engaged to steer her family, her career, and her company MetricStream toward success.
Through her journey, Shellye discovered that ambition alone is not enough to achieve success. Here, she shares the practical strategies, tools, and approaches readers can employ right now, including concrete steps to most effectively:
- Dismantle impostor syndrome
- Capitalize on the power of planning
- Take risks
- Developing financial literacy
- Build your network
- Establish your reputation
- Take charge of your career
- Integrate work, marriage, parenthood, and self-care
Each chapter lays out key takeaways and actions to increase the odds of achieving your personal and professional goals. With relatable personal stories that ground her advice in the real world and a foreword by leading venture capitalist and New York Times bestselling author Ben Horowitz, Unapologetically Ambitious invites readers to move beyond the solely supportive roles others expect them to fill, to learn how to carefully tread the thin line between assertive and aggressive, and to give themselves permission to strive for the top. Make no apologies for the height of your ambitions. Shellye Archambeau will show you how.
Author
One of high tech's first female African American executives, Shellye Archambeau is an experienced CEO and Board Director with a track record of accomplishments building brands, high performance teams, and organizations. Ms. Archambeau currently serves on the boards of Verizon [NYSE:VZ], Nordstrom [NYSE: JWN], Roper Technologies [NYSE: ROP], and Okta [NASDAQ: OKTA]. She is also a strategic advisor to the Royal Bank of Canada, Capital Markets Group.
She is the former CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley-based, governance, risk, and compliance software company that enables corporations to improve their business operations through better risk management across the enterprise. Ms. Archambeau built the company into a global market leader with over 1200 employees serving customers around the world. Under her leadership, MetricStream was recognized for growth and innovation over the years and was named in the top 10 of the "Deloitte Technology Fast 50" and named a global leader in GRC by leading independent analyst firms for 9 consecutive years.
Ms. Archambeau has over 30 years of experience in technology leading organizations focused on business-to-business, as well as business-to-consumer. She is a recognized expert in marketing and co-authored "Marketing That Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Profits to Any Sized Company." She has held EVP of Sales and Chief Marketing Officer roles for two public companies and as President of Blockbuster.com, launched the entertainment retailer's first online presence.
She was named the second most influential African American in IT by Business Insider in 2013. In 2015, she was ranked one of the "100 Most Influential Business Leaders in America" by Newsmax and that same year received the NCWIT Symons Innovator Award from The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT).
She is the author of "Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers and Create Success on Your Own Terms" (Published by HBG Grand Central 10/2020), a book that will help professionals achieve their aspirations and create the life they want and which has received endorsements from luminaries including John Thompson (chairman of Microsoft), Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn), Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook), Thasunda Brown Duckett (CEO of Chase Consumer Banking) and more.
Shellye is also a sought-after speaker on governance, risk and compliance as well as marketing and entrepreneurship. She has guest lectured at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and The Wharton School of Business. She has been featured or referenced in major publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes and the Financial Times.
In her spare time Shellye enjoys exercising, the performing arts, entertaining and cooking.