I started my career as a newly single mother who simply needed a paycheck. I was 21 and had only worked retail and service jobs.
During my 11 years at that first company, I went from secretary to proposal coordinator to CRM admin—a role I developed and proposed myself. I wrote proposals, attended bootcamps, and left my husband and young kids for week-long training trips to level up my abilities.
But I stayed too long. I was underpaid and under appreciated. I went from a bad boss to a worse one—men who failed upward, with far more experience in engineering than in leadership.
Then in 2018, I received my dream job offer: fully remote CRM work with a 40 percent increase in pay. I was so excited that I quit and jumped. A week after I started, I realized the job was nothing like what had been described. I had been scammed. After that week, she sent me $900, and I was unemployed for the first time since 2007.
It broke me.
After working nonstop for 11 years, I had to stop. I remember how low that moment was and how I vowed never to be stuck under a bad manager again. I refused to go backward.
I found interim work with an amazing boss who helped me believe in myself again. I decided to attend a coding bootcamp at the University of Utah. I was one of the oldest and one of the few women in the cohort. During group projects, I became the coach, the leader, the support. I realized I enjoyed leading more than the coding itself.
I joined Leavitt Group right as COVID-19 shut down the country. Working fully remote, I felt sequestered—doing good work but with little visibility. I assumed I would continue to labor in solitude.
Then I began working with Peggy.
Peggy was the kind of mentor I had always needed. For the first time, I felt truly seen. She asked me to help with projects that aligned with my strengths. She championed me.
I was thriving, but our team leadership was struggling. The director’s leadership style was high control with low expectations. While he held the title, Peggy was my manager, and that made all the difference.
In early 2024, the director was let go suddenly. Our department had no leader. I assumed Peggy would step into the role.
Later that day, she called me and said, “I want you to run it.”
She told me it was an easy choice and that I was the right fit. I had spent so long taking direction that it had never occurred to me I might be asked to lead.
Lead? Me?
My first reaction was imposter syndrome. Shock, then excitement. But also worry: What if I wasn’t as capable as they thought? What if I would be overwhelmed and flame out?
But I immediately said yes. The hesitation was only in my head. I knew this was what I’d been wanting. I’d suffered under bad leadership for years—a lot of mediocre men who failed upward. I knew that if I could be in charge, I could do a better job. I’d said that for a decade.
And now I was being given the choice to take our department from one of those bad managers and prove I could do better.
So I did. I did do better.
I turned our team around in six months. Now we’re the “star pupil” of our department. When I was promoted to Director, I wrote in my journal that my ethos would be to become the manager I always wanted. To be the kind of leader I needed during those early years. The kind of leader I found in remarkable women along the way.
In the two years since Peggy tapped me for leadership, I have grown in countless ways. The biggest change is that I now see my own potential and ability. I am a good leader, and I enjoy it. Nothing feels more fulfilling than guiding, supporting, or championing someone on my team. I work with incredible women, and watching them grow and bloom is the best part of my job.
My journey has been meandering, but every lesson along the way—the difficult managers, the frustrating policies, the great friends, the struggles—has stacked together to make me the leader I am today.
— Toni Galata, Sego Leading · 2025
Sometimes the most important tapped moment is the one where you finally realize your own name has been called.