Black in Tech: What I’ve Learned Along the Way

Whitney Watts

Whitney Watts is Director of Global Campaign Marketing at Zendesk, a company that builds software designed to improve customer relationships. Whitney is a seasoned marketer with over 15 years of experience and specializes in leading teams to build marketing strategy and programs. Whitney also serves as the global lead for Mosaic, Zendesk’s employee resource group for people of color and allies. Whitney completed her undergraduate degree in International Affairs at Georgia Institute of Technology and earned a masters degree in Sociology of Education from the University of Georgia. After graduate school, Whitney worked in education and women’s health non-profits then moved to San Francisco to pursue work in the technology sector. Whitney is a recent transplant to NYC and currently resides in Brooklyn where she enjoys volunteering, meeting new people, and exploring the city.

David Horton

David Horton is an experienced sales professional with almost a decade in the industry. He has been able to work with some great companies such as Yelp, Uber, and now Zendesk. His goal is to always be himself and to coach other minorities how to see themselves fully in all spaces. With a passion for changing the ethos of how we see equality both in personal and professional environments, he is somewhat of a modern day freedom fighter. He brings passion to everything he does whether it’s as an actor, a model, a producer, a writer, or as a life coach. With the belief we are all one race, he works tirelessly towards showing that in the spaces he occupies.

Julius Ponder

Julius Ponder is a Sr. Sales Manager at Zendesk. He’s spent over a decade growing and developing sales teams ensuring to not only create the next generation of Sales Professionals while crushing quotas, but aid in their career development & exceed their goals. Self-publishing two books and selling over 100k books globally, adds to Julius’s storytelling style when coaching and closing top-tier accounts. After taking 3 years off from public speaking Julius looks forward to the years ahead to make a big splash back in the public speaking arena and continue to develop and coach business and sales professionals he encounters!

Racquel Hill

Racquel Hill is a strategist, transformative coach and dynamic leader. With over a decade of professional experience as an educator, sales engineer, and public speaker, Racquel thrives at the intersection of education and technology. She speaks from first-hand experience about the isolating journey of being Black in tech, while actively and intentionally working to build community, increase representation in spaces and transform tech and education communities across the globe. At Zendesk, Racquel partners as a strategic consultant with account executives to bring company visions to life. By considering a customer’s pain points and performance objectives, she establishes trust with customers and creates innovative presentations that demonstrate how to use software to accomplish their business goals. In 2022, only her second year in the role, she led initiatives to train new colleagues and influenced over $2MM in annual revenue.

Prior to Zendesk, Racquel served as a clinical engineer for innovative medical device development where she programmed implantable devices for pain management and heart failure. More recently she served as a Founding Director at a college and career access organization in Atlanta where she worked across multiple schools and districts. She has served on the school governance board for a local high school as they attained STEM certification and expanded their offered coursework. Given all her experiences working with high schools and in the post-secondary landscape, Racquel strives to transform the college admissions process so that students can thrive beyond their K-12 experience. As the CEO and founder of A City on The Hill, Racquel provides intentional and personalized student coaching and has created college access curriculum, led workshops, and coached students to earn over 500 admission offers and over $40MM in scholarships and aid. To partner, you can connect with Racquel via her website www.acityonthehill.com.