Frame Shift Consulting provides training and advice to increase diversity and inclusion in technology-oriented organizations. FSC was founded in 2015 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Valerie co-founded and served as executive director of the Ada Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to supporting women in open technology and culture. In this role, she led the creation and adoption of an example conference code of conduct now in use by hundreds of conferences, created and taught the Ally Skills Workshop to men who want to support women in their workplaces and communities, and co-organized seven AdaCamp unconferences on three continents for women in open technology and culture. She has advised or helped create training programs for dozens of technology companies, ranging from large multi-national software companies with tens of thousands of employees to ten-person startups. She has also advised dozens of conference organizers on the design and implementation of codes of conduct, including how to handle harassment reports.
Prior to the Ada Initiative, Valerie worked as an open source software engineer for over ten years, specializing in the Linux kernel and file systems. She co-founded or was on the founding team of several technical conferences, including the Linux Storage Filesystems and Memory Management Summit and the Linux Plumbers Conference. Valerie was one of the recipients of the 2013 O’Reilly Open Source Award for her work advocating for women in open source and her technical contributions to Linux file systems.
Valerie is an engaging and entertaining public speaker, with hundreds of hours of speaking experience. She specializes in highly interactive formats such as fireside chats, round-table discussion, and audience question and answer sessions.
