Leadership, Growth, and Success Without a Degree A Conversation with Noelle Jones Ranzy

Welcome to the experience dialogue. In these interactions, we pick a hot topic that doesn't really have a straightforward answer. We then bring in speakers who've been there, seen this, but have approached this in very different ways.


This is a space for healthy disagreements and discussions, but in a very respectful way. Just by the nature of how we have conceived this, you will see passionate voices of opinions, having a dialogue, and thereby even interrupting each other or finishing each other's sentences. At the end of the dialogue, I just want to make sure our audience leave with valuable insights and approaches that you can take it to your workplace.


And of course, continue the discourse in social media channels. What I wanted to have is there is so many other events and stuff that we will be having, and we will be actually putting that down in the comments section so that you can be engaged in. And welcome to our guest, Noelle.


Noelle, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Noelle, a brief introduction of yourself would be awesome, both from a professional standpoint and a personal standpoint.


Well, my name is Noelle Jones-Ramsey, and I am currently living in the East Bay Area by way of Arizona. I spent 20 years in Arizona. Before that, I spent 20 years in Utah.


I like the sunshine. So the relationship brought me to California, which I love very much. And I have been in the corporate leadership space for probably 20 years now.


I guess it's 2025, so about 20 years. And I am so excited to be able to just meet people like yourself that have the experience and the connections and the insights of the industry that I'm a part of and actually aspire to have the curiosity and aspire to be a part of. So I'm really looking forward to our discussion today.


Yeah. Noelle, what's your job role right now? I currently work for a SaaS company as a director of customer support. Excellent.


So you're always talking to customers. And I noticed that you pulled in, you know, in one of the previous interviews, you talked about hiring people and what kind of leader you want to be. And you mentioned, you know, you would like to just take the ball, hire people who like to take the ball and just run with it and come up with an entrepreneurial spirit, right? So what does it mean by entrepreneurial? You know, there are so many different backgrounds and levels of experience that I get to talk to when I'm hiring for a role, specifically leadership roles, just because of the position that I'm in.


And I really look for people who talk about, you know, I like to ask things about ambiguity and how, how you, how scrappy are you when you don't have the resources or the support that you need to be successful? And when I hear things like, well, I just go to my leader and I tell them that I need help, which is fine. That's what your leader is for. But also how creative are you in those roles? What, what in your entrepreneurial mind comes up to say, if this was my business, this is how I would solve this problem.


And those are really things that I, that I look for. I never stayed in my lane, which is why I think I've gotten to the role that I've gotten. And I love it when people just say, hey, I have an idea and it's, it's, it's somewhere completely different from support.


Do you mind if I float this by, by you? And I get so excited about people like that. Yeah. And in a way, support itself is such a very creative role because you are never going to face the same situation because of the human element you are dealing with.


So every time you're trying to be creative to address different things for the different personalities, even if it is the same kind of technical issue. So I totally get that. And what you're also talking about is that creative thinking that people have to have and critical thinking, I should say, critical thinking that people have to have.


So I love that. And another thing that was very interesting for you to have as a guest here is normally in the Bay Area, especially I see people constantly, the Stanford, Google crowd, et cetera. But here you are, you have actually been a very successful executive after getting a GED.


And right now you have enrolled in college and you are making honor rolls while you are preparing to weddings. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about, you know, how did you get here with the GED and then now your journey? I think it's two different questions, but yeah.


Yeah. You know, thank you for the acknowledgement and the reminder that I should be going gray and a little nervous right now. You know, I got my GED in 2016 and I was already in a leadership role.


I was a manager, a site manager for a contact center. And I wanted to go to Grainger, which is a Fortune 500 company, been around for almost a hundred years. And they have this great reputation and they headhunted me.


But I needed some kind of, you know, at least a high school diploma. So as an adult, I was like, oh man, I haven't been in school for so long. And I did, I just, I went, I studied, I got my GED within 30 days and I got hired on at Grainger.


And that's when I really thought, you know, I, if people are seeking me out, I could probably go really, really far in my career if I actually had, you know, classical education. But I kept being promoted and I remained successful. And I thought, I don't even, I don't need a degree.


And I had these amazing mentors along the way in different places, the VPs and SVPs and one CEO that has amazing TED talk that I watch probably once a month on YouTube. And I remember them saying, you really don't need that degree, but I'll be 50 this year. And it's something, thank you.


I appreciate that. It's something that I said to myself, you know what, this is just something that I want to do for me. I've made it to my direct role.


You know, hopefully the next stop is, is senior director and VP, and maybe the sky's the limit. But I would feel more accomplished and I would feel better if I got a degree. And my

intention is to go all the way, hey, I would love to have a PhD, even if I'm 60 by the time I get it.


But in April of 2026, I will have my bachelor's in industrial organizational psychology. So I'm pretty excited about that. Yay, that's wonderful.


So just so you know, I have a very good friend. I hope she's watching this, vice president of a very large tech company. She quit her job and went to do pre-med credentials when she was 56.


So and then she wants to do medicine. And she has been like me in the tech career for over 30 years. So, you know, anything is possible.


It's just a number. So when you're proving that, so that's really awesome. It's a little tough question, but one of the things that you mentioned in terms of your career and differences across the various industries that you have played in, you mentioned that tech has its nuances, right? And because you're here, you are as a person who says, I don't have to be the best person in the room and always bring in the tech person who can talk about tech while you are taking care of that executive presence.


But tech always prefers people showing that expertise, number one. Number two, tech also prefers one being technical. So the question is, what did you mean by nuances? That's one.


Second is, are you, you know, is that insecurity? Is that imposter syndrome? What is it that makes you think that you're not technical enough? Reality. So I'll say this. I have had, I have felt as a woman of color specifically, you know, living in primarily very conservative states, Utah and Arizona, navigating the corporate world, which is predominantly run by, you know, white men, right? So I have had to become very savvy and have a quiet confidence about myself.


Now, obviously, I'm not your conventional suit. You know, you see that I have tattoos and I'm very, very authentically myself when I show up in these spaces. So I have had to learn whether the industry, you know, I've been in water, supply chain, healthcare, whatever industry it is, I have to build relationships.


And that is what, that is my superpower. And that's what makes me a good leader is my ability to build relationships. Therefore, I have mentors.


I have people that take an interest in me because they decide what they're, there's, there's something there. And I've been fortunate enough to have those people around me to say, I'm going to give you this opportunity. In tech, they do ask you to have, you know, SQL, Agile, you know, have this certificate, have that certificate.


And I just wandered my happy self into tech and just thought, I'm just going to show you guys how to do this stuff. And I have, you know, my technical ability is have you turn it off and turn it back on again, right? And that's why, you know, like you mentioned, I had mentioned before, I hire, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I do hire people.


So while I have battled with imposter syndrome in the past, the fact is I just do not feel that I am technically enough. I'm just technically enough to be dangerous or to carry on a conversation or to be customer facing and inspire confidence and, you know, create that space for, hey, you tell me what you need, tell me what you want, and I'll be able to make it happen for you. But I'm not going to do it.


So the way I've navigated the tech space is just by being a very, very strong leader. And I can lead, you know, I've led individual contributors. I now have been a leader of leaders for the past 10 years.


And if I can inspire them to do things that I need them to do and hire appropriately, I remain successful. And that's how I've been able to grow in my career. Yeah, so one of the first advices that I got as a manager, this was in the early 2000s, is find somebody else who can do your job better.


So you will always find something better to do. That is the best advice that I've gotten. So what you're saying totally resonates with me.


But I'm still wondering, how did you navigate that tech career? And is there any advice that you would give for others? When there's so much expectation on tech? Yeah, so I remain curious, as curious as I possibly can be. I dig into cases. I do a lot of, you know, observations.


I look at the workflows. I want to see what my people are doing so that I can better understand. And that's what gains me a little credibility, right? So as a leader, if you're a strong leader, you can go into any space.


But you might have that respect. But do you have the credibility of, well, does she really know what she's talking about? So coming in green into a tech space, first, my focus was the people. And then once I jumped in with both feet, it really was, let me just tag along.


Let me just shadow. Let me just ask questions. And I went to sales.


And I went to engineers. And I went to all of my account managers and my customer success teams. And I just observed.


And it's a really kind of crude or rudimentary way to be introduced to the tech space. But that is really what gave me a leg up. And right now, our company is providing certifications.


And I'm raising my hand. Put me in coach. Because I think with kind of the hands-on and the observation and now the technical testing and assessment piece, I think I'll be in a much better state.


You should actually write a blog. I would love to see you write a blog about, here are the things that I learned when I moved to the tech industry. And the lingos and the acronyms and everything that we try and that no other industry thrives in.


So yeah. The last question. There are so many mentors who came for you when you talked about them and how they kind of came in at the right step during your career and enable you to rise up or learn or be your sponsor or whatever, right? So what would you do back for the community to be a mentor? Oh, you know, it's something that I do now.