Game Changer's Collective

Take Up Space: Oracle VP Kay Malcolm's Playbook for AI, Career Growth, and Authentic Leadership

• Cassi Manner • Season 1 • Episode 12

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In this episode of Game Changer's Collective, host Cassi Manner sits down with Kay Malcolm, VP of Product Management at Oracle. Kay opens up about her path from electrical engineering to the Oracle C-suite, the story behind Oracle Live Labs (now at 45 million views), and how she's using her platform, AI Work Bestie, to make AI approachable for everyday people. 

This episode is a masterclass in resilience, strategic thinking, and building a personal brand that stays true to who you are. 

Kay discusses: 

  • Her winding path from electrical engineering and a Department of Defense programming job to VP of Product Management at Oracle
  • How she built Oracle Live Labs from a personal workaround into a platform with over 45 million views 
  • Why the industry is shifting from “AI for everything” back to human judgment, with data as the real differentiator 
  • Her approach to demystifying AI for everyday people through her AI Work Bestie platform 
  • Building an authentic personal brand and online presence without losing yourself in the process 

“AI is a really high-powered guessing machine,” Kay says. “Check your outputs and use your judgment. It's not a replacement for human judgment.”

From a harrowing exit out of a failing startup to building one of Oracle's most-viewed platforms, Kay Malcolm's story is proof that resilience and authenticity compound over time. She talks candidly about balancing corporate leadership with hip-hop instruction, raising two sons, and growing a following of thousands online, all while staying unmistakably herself.

“When I decided to take up space and be my full authentic self, that's when things started to change for me,” Kay says. “When I became unapologetically Kay.”

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Oracle Live Labs - https://livelabs.oracle.com/ords/r/dbpm/livelabs/home

Official Website - https://kaymalcolm.com/

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@iamkaymalcolm

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/iamkaymalcolm/ 

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaymalcolm/

Introduction to Kay Malcolm and her role at Oracle

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Game Changers Collective Podcast. I'm your host, Cassie Vander. My guest today is Kay Malcolm, VP at Oracle, LinkedIn top voice for AI, and creator of the newsletter AI for you. She spent 20 years inside the rooms where enterprise AI gets built, and now she's known as the AI Work Bestie, helping corporate women figure out exactly what this AI moment means for their careers. Please welcome to Game Changers Collective, Kay Malcolm. Welcome to today's episode of Game Changers Collective. I'm your host, Cassie Manner, and I'm joined by Kay Malcolm. She is a VP at Oracle and your new work bestie. Let's get into the episode. Kay, I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you for having me. So give us a quick intro. Who are you and what do you do at Oracle?

SPEAKER_02

Who am I? So I am your work bestie, your AI work bestie. I'm a VP of product management at Oracle. Now, a lot of people are like, what is that? Oh, you're like a project manager? Not exactly. I'm a product manager. So I'm in the development organization. I've been at Oracle more years than I uh care to admit. I started as a DBA and sort of work my way up through sales engineering and then into the development org. So I run a team of global outbound product managers. Our job is to take what the developers are creating, translate that into English so that our customers can use it to solve business problems and flourish with it.

How Kay earned the "Work Bestie" nickname

SPEAKER_00

Incredible. So you mentioned your work bestie. How did you land the your work bestie nickname?

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so funny story. And I know that my actual work bestie, Jeff Smith, is going to be watching this. I did a thing for LinkedIn that was like everybody needs to have a work bestie. So when we pivoted at COVID to more of this sort of remote work, got a little lonely. And, you know, I found myself wanting connection that was past these little squares. But, you know, you couldn't like go to the coffee room and run into people, right? So I had to be a little bit more intentional about reaching out. So that's one thing. And so Jeff Smith was my work bestie and when I was trying to figure out like what my persona was, the thing that I wanted was to be the person that I needed when I was just starting out in corporate that I couldn't find because I'm equally left and right brain. So I'm super duper technical, but I'm also a retired hip-hop instructor. So I love fashion. I love shopping. And I wanted to figure out how to be this technology corporate person, but there wasn't anybody who was like me. And I had a few call them challenges that had me not wanting to continue in corporate. And I needed someone. So I promised myself if I ever got into a position of leadership that I was going to use my influence to help those who were coming behind me. And so hence work bestie was born.

SPEAKER_00

Beautiful. I

From electrical engineering to VP of Product Management at Oracle

SPEAKER_00

love it. So I want to get into your career here because you're just, to be honest, so impressive. And so walk us through your path from electrical engineering to VP of product management for the Oracle AI database.

SPEAKER_02

My goodness. Okay. All right. So I started out at uh Department of Defense when I was 16 as a programmer. Um, I'm pretty sure I was one of the youngest because I graduated from uh high school really early. And I worked there for a few years, and then I started my own website design firm called New Images and New Images, not here anymore. Um and I found out that I really liked computers, passed sort of the electrical engineering soldering chips to a board. So I started my own business and I had two people who were working for me, and Accenture was on campus at University of Maryland. Go turps, looking for people. So there were like 500 of us that interviewed, and I think they picked maybe five. Three of the people that they picked were um the two who were in the company with me. And so we interviewed, and actually, all three of us ended up getting um the offer and the position. Moved to Chicago, met my husband that you see on my uh Instagram and TikTok, and he's my cameraman as well. And then I um I sort of hit the skids, if I'm honest. College and high school had been really great for me. I got two full scholarships, like it was just life was going great, and then it wasn't. My job at Accenture was great, but I was traveling 100% of the time and getting married, so I wanted to come off the road. Okay, now I'm gonna date myself. So it was right in 2000, like the 99 2000s. Um, so there were no jobs, and uh, I took jobs at startups, etc. I was sitting at my desk and I got a call that said, the police are on their way. You need to run. What? Why what does that mean? And basically, the startup that I was at, the president uh was a gambler and he had gambled all of our money away, and he was going to pin that on me and have everyone he was like, Oh, they'll they'll all believe it. I'll just say that she's an angry black woman, it'll be fine. Because they hadn't paid us for six weeks, because there was no money.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so that's how I that's really how I started.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. So it it so happened that I was I was taking care of the Oracle database, but I wasn't a good DBA because I had never changed the password. That's what he told everyone, I had changed the password. So I didn't know, I I knew enough to take an extract of the database. I wrote it to a I had a backup, and so I wrote it to a CD ROM drive. Um and I ran out the back door, and I was as I was turning, I could see that the police had blocked my car in and he was pointing, and they were going into the to the office to arrest me. Yeah, that's how I started my career. So I ran to a gas station. Obviously, I couldn't get to my car, called my husband, asked him to come pick me up, and then went home and cried for six weeks while I tried to figure out what I was going to do. So that's how I started my Oracle career because I went to the bookstore and all the books were like Oracle books. And I was like, well, since that was kind of the way that things went south for me, maybe I should actually learn Oracle for real. And I did. My first job was at Southern Company. When I was at Southern Company, I told the DBAs, and I was a brand new DBA, I'm gonna work at Oracle one day. Oracle was in maybe two, three years later, and they were looking for a sales engineer. Sales engineer is a person who does the translation of the technical into plain English, and I might have a skill at that. So I got the job, and I've been at Oracle ever since.

SPEAKER_00

Love that Jeff was your getaway driver. No questions asked. He's like, I got you, babe. Let's let's go, babe. Go, babe, go! Yeah. It's like jump in the car. Yeah. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02

Wow, that's quite the story. Well, you know, and the funny thing, Kathy, is like now when things go badly, and when I'm, you know, telling people, right, be your full self, fail fast and pivot, all those things. I literally like nothing can be that bad for me, right? That was like the bottom of the bottom. So when things aren't going well, Mike, it just means that uh, you know, I need to either fail fast or pivot or ask a question in a different way, because it can never be that bad. That was really bad. It was, you know, back then we didn't talk about trauma and self-care and all that, but that was traumatic.

SPEAKER_00

100%. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing. And just to see where you are today is just so incredible. I think I I might have like crawled into a cave and hid forever.

SPEAKER_02

Literally, right? So the thing about life is when things like that happen, you literally, you've got two options. You can crawl into that cave and hide, or you can, you know, uh my my mom was the the kind of mom who was like, just put your lipstick on and fix up your hair and it'll be fine, right? Go ahead, cry if you have to, but then tomorrow's another day. And literally, I was like, okay, that's what she said. I fixed my hair, put my lipstick on, and I just took the next step, right? I didn't have, I didn't, I had no idea that this was gonna be my journey. I had no idea that that happening was literally the best thing that could have happened to me because it allowed me never to, let's see, the grass doesn't ever grow underneath my feet. I'm always pivoting, I'm always reinventing myself, I'm always looking at the landscape and seeing what could I do? What could I do better? And so that's what my Instagram channel, my TikTok channel, that's what it's about, right? That's the kind of inspiration that I want to be for the people who are who are watching me.

SPEAKER_00

Incredible. And you've

Building Oracle Live Labs and reaching 45 million views

SPEAKER_00

created so much in your career. And so you created Oracle Live Labs, which is told in over 33 million views.

SPEAKER_02

What sparked 45 million now.

SPEAKER_00

45 million now? Oh my goodness, these stats are out of date. Agents.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. No, it literally just happened. Like we added a JSON LD and a robots.txt file so that the agent, so that AI could look at and read live labs. That's in literally like the last three months.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_02

I know I don't even think I've updated my LinkedIn with it.

SPEAKER_00

So what sparked that and why do you think it took off the way that it did?

SPEAKER_02

So I am a problem solver. I do my job, but then in my mind, right, and I and I share this on my channel frequently. My job is also to look at the landscape and solve the problems that exist. So I was in Beijing. One of my jobs at Oracle when I was in alliances and channels was a global job, and I covered um EMIA, our our Europe, Middle Eastern, Africa market, and Asia. And so I was in Beijing doing a training class on Oracle Exadata, which is one of the products that we sell and I specialize in. And while I was there doing the class, they were like, oh, we want to show you something, Kay. And I was like, okay. And they were like, we're creating these workshops on uh the converged database. Great. Well, I had a parallel effort that was happening in London, and they were creating the same workshop. And then I came back home, and then one of the, he's now a VP of very, very close, Brian Hangin, said, Hey, we're creating a converged database workshop too. I was like, okay, same company. We're all doing the same work to get from A to G, but then Oracle's just left it G. What about the rest of the alphabet? Because if one person went from A to G, then that next person could take it from G to M, and then the next person take it from M to Z. So I'm always talking about are we moving the needle? Are, you know, does this make sense? What value is this actually doing? Are we just doing work for to be busy? So I was just like, we need a way so that people inside of Oracle know what each other are working on. So that was like the problem. That was in December of 2020 when I was in Beijing for that trip. So then I needed to be Singapore and Sydney within a day of each other. Now, COVID hasn't, it's it's happening, but we don't know what's happening at the at the time because this is this was like the three months before like the borders closed down and all that. And I needed to be able to provision the accounts on the Oracle Cloud while I was in the air. Well, I couldn't do that, so I wrote an app. That app was a predecessor to Live Labs. And our president, when the borders closed down and we were trying to figure out how do we pivot to remote work, was in a meeting. I wasn't at the meeting. And she said, we need a way to get to our customers digitally to help them develop on the Oracle Cloud. A guy named Neil Mendelssohn said, K Malcolm has built something. And now I'm paraphrasing, I don't know what she said, but I'm sure she was like, Well, who's that? And she's like, Well, have her present it to me. Literally, Live Labs was born. We did a million views in the first year. Myself and two other people built it by hand that first year, 18 hours a day, seven days a week. It was COVID, so I had nothing else to do. And fast forward, I have a team of 22 now working for me. Um, I got promoted twice, and uh, one of those promotions was to VP of product management and 45 million views. And it's the platform for our AI world big conference. And uh we provision over 200,000 cloud environments for our customers to try Oracle technology and build solutions for free.

unknown

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

It's my best work. It's my life's work. Yes, great job.

SPEAKER_00

So, what does your

A day in the life leading outbound AI and data strategy

SPEAKER_00

role look like day to day leading outbound PM for AI and data strategy?

SPEAKER_02

It literally changes. Well, I travel, I travel a lot. So I do a lot of presenting and working with CIOs, CEOs, chief AI officers of some of the largest accounts in the world. Uh yesterday, actually, I just came back from Chicago and I was with one of the uh largest banks uh in North America. And last week I was presenting to the largest uh hotel. I can't say the names, obviously, in the world. But Oracle, well, 65%, I think is some some astronomical figure of the world's data. Like your phone, iPhone, runs on Oracle Exadata Machines. So I'm in charge of the AI database outbound, and I run a program called Customer Outreach, where we literally do outreach to the customers. So that's one portion of what I do. My team still runs and operates Oracle Live Labs day-to-day. So that's another portion. And then the other part of my job is I'm also in charge of enablement for our technical sellers, our sales engineers. So that's another part. And then whatever my amazing boss Jenny uh assigns. So I use my left brain, I use my right brain, we do a lot of go-to-market. And then if it's uh AI world, I'm the correspondent for our Oracle TV, because I might like to do a little bit in front of the camera as well. Beautiful.

The biggest shift in how people approach AI

SPEAKER_00

I love the case. And you're good at it, of course. So yeah. So what is the biggest shift you've seen in how people approach AI over the last year or two? Because obviously it's been expanding like exponentially. And just I would love to hear it straight from you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So I even made the shift to AI work bestie. So that's my name for now, and I can name myself whatever I want. Um and why? Because I think AI fluency is and has been a huge problem. AI fear is a problem. Oh, AI is gonna get rid of my job. And the thing that I like to say is, no, no, AI is not going to replace you, but people who know AI absolutely will. So the shift that I've seen, the big shift that we're in the midst of right now, and I was saying this uh in the meeting yesterday, is before it was like, oh, AI, you know, uh token max and use AI for everything. Agents are gonna do everything. I think we underestimated the human area in the loop and the fact that humans are at the center of innovation. So here is what is happening now. If everybody has access to the same tools, those tools are trained on the same data, right? The internet or just all of the public data that is out there. So then if company A, B, and C are solving problems using a tool and they're all using the same tool that's trained on the same public data, what's happening is everything is starting to sound the same. So now we are at a place where we're looking for innovation again. The only thing that differentiates now is the data. So I say, you know, if you go to my um Instagram and on my TikTok, it says AI and data leader because data is having a moment again. The way for company A, let's take company A, for example, to differentiate themselves is through their data. So AI kind of shifted us all the way here, kind of like big data did and the um internet did uh before that. And now we're starting to come back to the center and reality and what is gonna be, I think, more of the truth. We need humans for innovation. We need the data. And then we've got to give our data a defense mechanism because agents, whether we like it or not, are here. I've got seven agents on my uh agent platform myself.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love what you said. The AI is not gonna replace you, but the the humans who know how to utilize it, take advantage of it, like that's who might become it for your job. So you need to evolve at the times and not get left behind.

SPEAKER_01

100%.

SPEAKER_00

Love it.

From corporate culture content to AI education

SPEAKER_00

So your content didn't start with AI. You began by posting about corporate culture and career advice, things like that. So, what made you pivot to AI and how did that lead to where you are now? A LinkedIn presence, a LinkedIn learning instructor, and a top voice.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh, like the top voice was so exciting. Yes.

SPEAKER_02

I, you know, Cassie, I think there's a difference between a leader and a manager. A manager tells their team, this is what you should do. And then um, I, you know, I always think it's like behind them, like, come on, let's go, right? And lead from the front. Because AI has been around since 1952, right? This is nothing new. It's been in the Oracle database uh for over 20 years. Gen AI is the thing that is new. So about four years ago, I was one of the first to sign up for uh open AI. I think it was like ChatGPT 2.0. I don't even think they called it ChatGPT. So I dove in, but I didn't, my content didn't reflect that because it was still so very new and hadn't really hit the enterprise. Well, when it hit the enterprise and Oracle started doing so much with AI, my whole posting about corporate culture, it started to shift because this was changing the corporate culture. So I I just I decided I was like, I can't ignore it. I'm working on it day to day. I'm immersed in it. And matter of fact, right, I've got this laptop that because what's today? We we've got a few more days until Fable goes away. So so I started to sort of feel the pain of folks because they were asking me questions. What do I do with AI? I'm afraid of it. I don't even know where to start. What should I use? Should I use ChatGPT? Should I use Claude? So I literally started sharing my journey. So my journey from starting as an early adopter to having this my AI staff where I've built this, and I'm gonna use a whole bunch of words that you're like multi-agent orchestration using the Oracle AI database and agent memory so my agents get smarter, right? I built this whole thing from scratch. And then as I was building, I was looking at the problems we were trying to solve at Oracle from a different lens because now I have all of this AI literacy that I can use to attack it. So it just kind of worked.

SPEAKER_00

Beautiful.

Demystifying AI for everyday people

SPEAKER_00

And so what made you start creating content that demystifies AI for everyday people?

SPEAKER_02

It's that whole leading from the front. If it demystified AI for me as an executive leader, trying to figure out how do I lead a team of 22 in the AI era because it's so different from before. So this is my lived experience.

SPEAKER_00

So

Inside the AI For You series

SPEAKER_00

tell us about the AI for you series. Who's it for, and what gap are you trying to fill?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Okay, so remember I mentioned that I wanted to be the person that I needed at 22. Well, AI for you is designed to help people leverage AI in their day-to-day life without like the screaming of the AI bros. No disrespect to the AI bros. But like, you know, you go on social media or on LinkedIn and you're like, I'm behind. I don't understand LLMs, I don't understand RAC, I don't understand vector search, right? I'm not building agents. But a lot of it is sort of what's the word? It's kind of like, oh, let me make everybody scared so. They'll look at my content. I don't agree. Right? I I don't. I I got to speak at Carnegie Hall like a few months ago, a few weeks ago, and I shared my mega prompt. And it basically was like, if you want to know how to talk to Claude and get the best response, ask it.

SPEAKER_01

And then people were like, I never thought of that.

SPEAKER_02

I don't want to sell anybody anything. I literally want you to live your best life. Like any best friend would, right? Your bestie isn't trying to get you to sign up for this or sign up for that. They just want you to thrive and be well, right? And at the end of the day, I just want people to thrive, be well, and pursue joy and live their best life.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I think that's so true. Whenever you see those videos, they're like, and then comment to get my guide on how to do this. And it's like the average person doesn't need to do all those things that they're doing. They just need to use it in the ways that fit them. And so, yes, just like you said, asking it how to do that is the best way. Yes. Love it. So you also teach AI on LinkedIn learning. What's one thing people get wrong about AI that you find yourself correcting a lot?

What people get wrong about AI

SPEAKER_02

Ooh, that they get wrong and I find myself correcting. Hmm. I think, oh, well, this one. So thinking that AI is a magic black box, it's not. I think people start without really understanding how AI works, that at the end of the day, it is a really high-powered guessing machine, right? And and what that means is uh I'm gonna say a I'm gonna say a word and then you tell me what comes next. Okay, let's play a game. All right. Okay. The cow jumped over the fence. Now, you your brain, your neurons, guessed fence, right? That's what I was thinking. That is what I was thinking. It could be, it could have been box. It could be moon popped in there too. Moon like the cow jumped over the moon. Right. It could be dog, right? And so what AI does is it's like after the training, this is likely what you want to say, right? So when you're working with AI, there's a word that we use to describe it. It's non-deterministic. And what that means is because of that, sometimes AI may get it right, sometimes it might not, right? It just depends on what the words were before, what the model was, all those things. So thinking that AI, for instance, is going to replace humans, no, because of that, that non-deterministic nature, if you want deterministic, you've got to put a human in the loop to check it. Right. So check your outputs, read what it said. If you're writing an email and it uses the words actually or M-dashes, or you're sending an email that could have been two lines, well, AI is gonna guess, oh, I want to say eight. Why? When you could say two. So the biggest thing that I see that people do, even um, you know, in my team, is I'm like, you better read it and you better use your judgment to determine whether it's right or wrong. So it's not a replacement for human judgment.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I know you mentioned the dashes as well. I think we've talked about this before. Like when you see the dashes, like you don't even want to read it because you're like, oh, this isn't trade by a person.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Totally, totally. I can look at anything, any any uh piece of writing, especially from like a novice AI user, and I'm like, I I don't I don't want to read it, even if it's a video. I'm like, you generated that in AI. You're it's not your lived experience, right? I was looking at this video um that Instagram made where they were gonna like have a human stamp. And and and I mean that's a thing, right? Now our humanity is the thing that people are after, not necessarily something that seems vanilla because I'm like, I don't want to hear from the AI, I want to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

How client attitudes toward AI have shifted

SPEAKER_00

It's been so interesting over the past couple of years because when AI was getting super popular, I would get on, you know, discovery sales calls with clients, and they're like, oh, like you use AI, right? You use AI, right? They were like, you want they want us to use AI. They were like, you're using it, right? And we were kind of like, it doesn't do that good of a job. Like you in our minds, we're like, we still want to be doing it because we know that we're gonna the creative ones are what's gonna make it really cool. But I'm like, yes, we use it for you know research and things like that. Now when I get on calls, they're like, you don't use AI, right? Like you're not using it to so it's so funny because there was like a three-month period where everybody wanted to make sure we were using it. Yep. And then now it's swung over where they're like, no, like we want that human, we could do the AI ourselves. We want, and I'm like, yes, that's what we've done the whole time. It's just how people's reactions to it has changed.

SPEAKER_02

It's a tool. And I'll always tell people, like, I remember when we went from typewriters, gosh, typewriters to like word processors in computers. And okay, like this is a great tool, but the computer's not gonna write it for you. It's a tool to help you. So is AI valuable? 1000%. But the thing that people forget is it is a tool. Like the laptop is a tool, right? So whenever these new innovations and human human experience come, we always have to figure out where's the balance in it. And I think that when we look back on 2026, we will say that this was the year where we looked for balance with AI. Yep.

SPEAKER_00

I agree

Advice for AI beginners

SPEAKER_00

completely. And so if someone's intimidated by AI, maybe they've been using it to write emails, but again, like it's that really like novice level interactions with it and they don't know where to start. What's your advice?

SPEAKER_01

Go and follow me.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Like, what, right? Because I have I have this um newsletter that I wrote called Start Here, Claude. The thing that I figured out is are there AI degrees? It's have it's changing so fast, it's hard to really create a degree from something where the technology is literally changing by the day. So these AI influencers, I guess I'm one now myself, who are sharing, okay, if you're gonna start, this is what you should do first, right? And then when you've done that and you feel comfortable, here's what you do next. So I would say pick a few people that you feel like you can trust, follow them, and go along the journey.

SPEAKER_00

Amazing.

Evolving her online presence and finding her voice

SPEAKER_00

And so speaking to social media content, so looking back at your early corporate culture posts versus your AI content now, what's changed most in how you show up online?

SPEAKER_02

I think now I show up more authentically me. When I first started, I was I was trying to find my voice and I was trying to like please everyone, right? To try to reach everyone. What I figured out is I'm not for everyone. And I would look and I'd be like, well, why are they unfollowing me? And what did I do? It's not about me, right? That's their their issue. So now I'm just like, if you like my content, keep watching it. If you don't, you can scroll. Because I do the same thing, right, as a user. There are people that I make an emotional connection to, and I want to keep, you know, I don't want to be invested in their content. And I I realize that I can't be everything for everybody. So I've I've started like, I don't know, having more fun with my content and you know, letting my hair down a little bit. You know, I was like, oh, I don't know if I, you know, I don't want to share, I want to keep, you know, I want to keep my private life private. And I made one uh that was like what my claw computer says. And I was talking to to my husband, I was like, I think when I was videoing, I think I actually did fall asleep. And I did, and I and so then when I was going through the video, I was like, I put it in the thing because I was literally sitting there waiting for it to do something that I right that you know that's that's me. That that that's who I am. But the thing that I found is I bet you'll never forget me because you haven't met a VP of a Fortune 100 who's like me. So I just go with that.

Balancing technical depth with approachability

SPEAKER_00

And so you write code yourself. How do you balance that technical depth with making AI approachable for non-technical people?

SPEAKER_02

Been told that I have a way of making really complex technical topics easy to digest by the average person. So I spent seven years in our enablement organization. And one of the things that they taught us was how do people learn, right? How do you teach adults? So I've taken a lot of those learnings to my job and even to my social media. So where I can talk about cosine similarity and vector search, I think about the person on the other side who's reaching me. And so instead of saying that, I might say, AI needs to be able to ask a question in natural language, like you ask a question of me. I literally said the same thing, but in instead now I'm vested in the people who are on the other side of me feeling successful instead of me being vested in you thinking I'm smart. I don't care if you think I'm smart or not.

SPEAKER_00

Love it. And so is

A surprising, authentic side of Kay

SPEAKER_00

there a topic or a take of yours that tends to surprise people? A take, huh?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. I think the whole back to sort of work bestie, the thing I think that surprises people, they're like, okay, you're really like this in real life. Like when I'm like, I'm a hip-hop instructor, then I'm like, I'm gonna start dancing right on stage because I don't have a problem with that.

SPEAKER_01

Then they see me and they're like, you actually act like this.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Because at this point, I am too old and I can't hardly remember when what I walked into a room to get. So I'm just me. And I'm I'm the same me. I'm the same me that you see. I'm the same me on Instagram. And then when I'm in front of the CIO of the third and fourth largest employer of the United States, I'm still that same me. And I think that it I think it takes people by surprise, but then you're actually like, like, she's a regular, real person. I can trust her, right? She's not going to kind of give me a whole bunch of BS.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, 100%. And I think that's why you've built such a strong social following is because people can feel that authenticity and they know that throughout your journey, like you're still you. And that's what people really want to see that relatability. I love it. So, last thing about AI, any predictions on where it's headed that you're excited or maybe a little nervous about.

SPEAKER_02

I

Predictions for where AI is headed

SPEAKER_02

think what I'm excited about is us going from pivoting all the way left to coming back to balance. I was telling the team yesterday that token maxing is so 2025, right? Now we're headed to this place where it's responsible AI. Can I guess what's gonna happen? No, I have no idea. I don't think any of us do because this is the first time in human history that we have seen innovation that's like at this crazy ridiculous clip. So I'm just excited to see what that looks like. And then I just I hope that there are more voices like me that are wanting to figure out how we live well with AI. Right? That's that's the thing that I, you know, that I want to see. I want us to live well with this and make decisions where the human experience flourishes.

SPEAKER_00

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing all of that. It was so, so interesting. And I just know that everyone's gonna love to hear about it because we hear about AI every day, but talking with you is really like that peak behind the curtain. So yeah, amazing. I want to circle back to the hip hop for instructor though, because hip-hop instructor is so, so cool. So tell us about your love for hip-hop and how it fits into your life alongside work.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, I love to dance. I I don't even I don't know what. So, like 10 years ago, I walk walked into my first Zumba class. Was it 10 years? Maybe it was like 14 years, a long time. And I was terrible at it. And I was in the back, and I remember looking at the girls in the front, and they seemed so sure of themselves, and they were so good. Hey, I'm a Leo, so I'm super duper competitive. And I was like, one day I'm gonna be in the front. But I just I was I was not sure of myself. So then I had a big milestone birthday, and I won't say which one that is, and they said they were looking for instructors. I'm an electrical engineer from five for ten, like I'm not dancer-ish, but I just I love music. I always have. So I signed up because one of the things that in my life I've always done is try things that make me a little nervous, right? Make my heart beat a little bit faster. And so just like AI, just like becoming a product manager, like all the things that I'm like, you know, I'm gonna try that working at Oracle. I was like, let's try it. And if it doesn't work, I'll fail fast and pivot. Well, fast forward, I got hired. I ended up at the Y in Atlanta. I had like 48, 50 people coming to my class, and it was really like a precursor to this because I was born with a huge speech impediment. My mom didn't think I would ever like speak. That's why I became an engineer because I was like, oh, I don't want to actually talk, talk to anyone. So I was on stage dancing and teaching for 48 people every Saturday for like five years. Uh and then COVID hit and I got tired and I kind of retired. But I'm, you know, I still dance with Diva Dance in in Sandy Springs here in Georgia. And it's my it's my happy place because one of the things that I I do is I literally pursue joy like it's a full-time job. So all of the sitting and the working doesn't make a complete K. Dancing and doing things that bring joy to me in my soft life era.

SPEAKER_00

That. And so

Balancing marriage, motherhood, and career

SPEAKER_00

you're married with two boys. So how do you juggle all of this? We heard one of your boys maybe following in his mom's footsteps at Oracle. So what does that look like from being, you know, the daddy that you are day to day at work, hip-hop, mom, wife, all the things. What's your secret?

SPEAKER_02

Okay, well, there is no secret because that question, like, how do you balance? You don't. And and and especially like for women, it's so unfair, right? For women to be like, oh, I just my children don't live with me anymore. They are adults, they are out of the house. It's literally just me, my husband, and the dog. So when my children were small and I was home, I was home and I was present, right? Because I always say this you can only do three things well, right? And so when they were small, I had a job, so I had to do that. I was a mother and I was a wife. That was all I had time for, right? And then, and now um, they're not at home. And so, you know, with my husband and I, we go out to eat probably a lot more than we should. And when the boys do come home um from college, one is in Austin, works at Oracle. When when they do come home, they're like, Where's the food? There's no food. That was that was old mommy.

SPEAKER_00

This mommy, we don't live like that anymore.

SPEAKER_02

No, the food is at the restaurants or on Doordash. If you want to get it, that that that that's how you get it. So the thing that I tell, especially women who are beating themselves up, oh, I can't do this and I can't do that. There's a time and a place, right? So you choose the things that you want to focus on and you focus on those. And then the other ones, you get to them when you can get to them. I worked at Oracle when my children were small, but I didn't work at Oracle like I work at Oracle now, right? You know, I kind of hit the gas on my career when they got older and when they could take care of themselves a little bit better. And it was great working at Oracle because they worked with me and they were understanding and allowed me to do both. So yeah, I don't balance. I just now just don't have a lot of other things in in my life. But like you, you heard me, I let go of teaching dance because it was too much. And I was like, I don't want to teach it, I still want to dance. So I found a dance group and I let somebody else teach it. So I just I don't put myself through too much. And and you know, if you're listening to this podcast and you're like, Yeah, she talks a lot. I do talk a lot. I'm sorry. But we have to give ourselves grace and allow whatever stage we are in in life, meet that stage and know that there'll be other stages in life where we can do some of the things that we want to do. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, you can only do three things well. Like, I love that. I think that's really good. Or three things at a time. What was your quote on that?

SPEAKER_02

You can only do three things well at the same time. At the same time. At the same time. That's key. So if you feel yourself tired, you wake up with your eyes burning, you're getting heart palpitations, and you don't in panic attacks and all that, it probably means you're trying to do like four or five well. You need to pull back, take a look at what you're doing, ask for help, or do the hard thing and let something go.

SPEAKER_00

So good. And so

Carnegie Hall, AI Engineer, and big career moments

SPEAKER_00

you've had a lot of big moments recently, like performing at Carnegie Hall and presenting at AI Engineer. What was that like and what's coming up for you the rest of this year?

SPEAKER_02

So Carnegie Hall, I had a lot of stuff going on at the same time. Oracle's fiscal year ends May 31st. Carnegie Hall, I think it was like June 18th. So, and then I I run sales engineering enablement. So, like the beginning of June is like Christmas for us, right? It's the most active time. So the day before I was going to Carnegie Hall, there was a tornado in Atlanta. And we were in the Atlanta airport for 13 hours. My flight was canceled. Well, what that meant was I could not prep. I wanted to prep, but I was so upset. I literally was crying because I was like, I'm not gonna get there. And I was like, I give up. I'm not, I don't, it doesn't matter anymore. None of this matters. And thankfully my husband was like, no, no. And so we went home because our flight was canceled. We took the first flight out, and I and I went on stage that day. I didn't prep. And I was just K. And people received it really well. And so I was just like, you know what? I'm gonna stop putting myself through changes. I'm smart, I know a lot. I'm just gonna tell my lived experience. And so when it was time for the AI engineers keynote, again, right? Like I'm like, I'm gonna be in front of all of these AI engineers in literally an hour and a half before I go up to the third floor where the conference was being held in Muscone, and I'm like, where's room 3004? I saw, I see room 3001, that's room 3002, and then there's a big black curtain with the big stage. Like, where's my room? Because I'm really not good with details. And so I didn't realize it was on the main, like the keynote stage. So the person looked at me like I was insane and was like, it's behind that curtain. Wait, I'm I'm I have to present there.

SPEAKER_01

And I was like, oh no. So I literally was like, I don't think my presentation because the screen was 20 feet tall. Right? I I sat and watched, and I was like, okay, we're doing this.

SPEAKER_02

So I just walked on stage and I was gay. And I think I did do some dancing. My husband just turned uh 50, so we have a choreographed dance, and so I did a little bit of that. I told a few jokes and and I shared what I've been building, what my team has been building, and our lived experience, right, as AI database product managers and what Oracle has to offer. And it turned out great. So amazing. Yeah for sure. Oh, and then your oh, your other question was what do I have? Oh, I don't want to share, but it's really cool.

SPEAKER_01

It it might be like on TV. So we'll see. Oh my goodness. I'm so excited. Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm looking at it. I'm looking forward to it. We're still working out. Yeah, we're working out details, but um, I've got a bunch of keynotes coming up, but then this other thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So

Kay's game-changing advice: take up space

SPEAKER_00

exciting. Well, it has been such an absolute pleasure. Before we wrap things up today, last thing I always love to ask: what is one piece of game-changing advice? Now, this could be career-based, this could be personal, faith, anything. Just a piece of game-changing advice that you heard and just really changed the game for you. And you you think about it, you know, in your day-to-day, it just kind of keeps you going.

SPEAKER_02

Take up space. I literally have a little uh sticky that reminds me to take up space. And the reason is there's a tendency to want to kind of shrink, especially in corporate, especially as women, right? I'm just gonna keep my head down and I'm just gonna do my work.

SPEAKER_01

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02

When I go into a room, I purposely, right, I'm like, I am going to come in. I'm not going to sort of hunch my shoulders or hi, I have a question. Hi, I have a question. My name is Kay Malcolm, right? And that one change, you know, and I said I've worked at Oracle for 20 years. My career didn't start to really flourish for the first 14 years. I think I got maybe one or two promotions, and my salary actually went down, not up. When I decided to take up space and be my full authentic self, that is when things started to change for me.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much for today. This was an absolute pleasure. If people want to learn more about you, what you do, speaking opportunities, anything like that, what should they do? Where should they go?

SPEAKER_02

Three places. One, KMalcolcam.com, Instagram, LinkedIn. Between those three places, you'll get a really great sense of who I am as a person. And then on my website, if you want to book time with me or book speaking, you can.

SPEAKER_00

Beautiful. Thank you so much. As always, it was an absolute pleasure, and I'm so excited to see what we have coming up on TV. We've got our fingers crossed.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for having me. This was wonderful.