I’m most proud of the evolution of my career. Over the last 11 years, I’ve gone from answering phones at the front desk to managing critical integration projects that make GDIT more successful as a business. I’ve really been able to build a career here.
An 11-year career at GDIT has shown Mahsa a world of opportunity. What started as a temporary administrative job during college turned into full-time roles in procurement, program management, and eventually IT. As a Project Manager in the Office of the CIO, Mahsa manages internal IT projects that provide tools to help GDIT employees do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
Helping deliver missions behind the scenes. My team owns it.
One of the first things our new CIO did was establish a project management office (PMO). She chose four of us from the IT organization and tasked us with building out the PMO.
In our first team meeting, our CIO told us to build her the PMO on the wall. So we white-boarded it and outlined the phases of the project, the gate reviews we’d need to accomplish, and when we’d need to escalate to leadership. It was really exciting being a part of that from the ground up.
Having a formal PMO has helped our business units realize the value that IT brings to the table in terms of sustaining our business and helping our employees support their customers better. It’s allowed us to build partnerships and provide tools to ultimately help us deliver our missions to our end customers.
Applying coursework in the real world.
GDIT has helped me grow professionally in many ways, but one thing that has stood out was the support they’ve given me for my master’s degree. I wanted to take the next step in my career so my leaders helped me come up with coursework that would blend business with technology. Along with that, they provided tuition reimbursement to cover the cost of the program.
My degree was in business with a focus on project management. Throughout the program, I was able to take the concepts I learned at school and directly apply them in the office. Sometimes it was technical, but other times it was things like practicing my presentation skills. I was given the opportunity to present to 250 program managers and executives, asking for business support for one of our projects. My master’s program really gave me the fundamentals I needed to be successful in these real world situations.
A feature story.
I was also featured in the Minority Women Engineer magazine because of GDIT. The magazine wanted to do an article about an up-and-coming professional in the organization and our CIO recommended me. I was interviewed about the work I was doing on a digital transformation project. The magazine wrote a feature on me and I thought it was really cool to see a photo and article written about me in a magazine that other professional women are reading. It was really exciting to be asked to participate in that.