Janiece Evans-Page

About Janiece

• From a very young age, she knew that she wanted to make a difference in the world.
• In second grade, she was placed into a “gifted” program; as a woman of color, she quickly realized that she didn’t look like the other kids in her class.
• As a result, she was embarrassed to tell her friends that she was in gifted classes; looking back, she wishes she’d owned up to her intelligence and encouraged her peers to do the same.
• Went to the University of California, Berkeley; after graduating, she lived in Silicon Valley and worked for Hewlett Packard.
• Spent her first few years at HP “burning the midnight oil,” sometimes working until 10:00 p.m. at night.
• Eventually a mentor pulled her aside and told her she needed to focus less on work and more on work-life integration; she learned to balance her job and her passion for helping others.
• Says that even though her day job was marketing, her real purpose was to influence her community in a positive way; started spending her evenings mentoring young people.
• Her biggest advice to young people is to recognize that there is a “village” out there that will support them—they just need to reach out to potential mentors for help and guidance.