Alexis Gosik's first job was lead store accountant at Giant Foods. Ten years, all through high school and college. She learned exactly one thing from it: she never wanted to do numbers again.

So she went back to school for social work, then spent the next several years in drug and alcohol treatment and criminal justice work in the nonprofit sector, before moving to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, helping people rebuild their lives after incarceration. She was there seven and a half years, until a detached-duty assignment landed her in the Bureau of Information Technology, and something clicked that a social worker with an accounting background never expected.

Somewhere in there, she also managed a scuba shop. That's actually where she and Marie met. Marie walked in as a total beginner, and Alexis was the one who knew what to do.

Every one of those moves, Alexis says, followed the same pattern. She was underqualified on paper. The youngest person in the room. Often the only woman. In corrections and in tech, both male-dominated fields, she carried the same question into every interview: will they believe I belong here?

Her answer wasn't to get more credentials. It was to stop hiding behind other people's success and own that the skill in the room was hers.

Today, Alexis is President & CEO of the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania.

If you've ever sat in a meeting wondering if you're the only one who doesn't quite fit, this episode is proof that not fitting yet doesn't mean you don't belong.

Connect with Alexis: Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania, President & CEO 🌐 Website: https://www.tccp.org 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-gosik/ 📧 Email: alexis@tccp.org