Ada’s Story: Shaping a Career in Tech

by StreetWise Partners
March 12, 2024

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing stories about the power of mentorship to close the opportunity gap and create a more equitable future.

Ada Ng was born and raised in New York City. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from China, raising Ada and her three sisters on the Lower East Side and running a family restaurant.

For Ada, personal finance has always represented independence.

“I knew I needed to build financial discipline,” she says. “It gives you the safety net that you don’t have coming from an immigrant household without financial stability.”

This has been a driving force in her life, from college, to StreetWise Partners, to a career in tech.

The networking gap

After graduating high school, Ada attended Baruch College. She went to school full time, studying towards a major in Economics and a double minor in Philosophy and English.

Like many Baruch students, she also worked several part-time jobs while finishing her degree. The last thing she wanted was debt.

Ada was committed to doing well at school and work. In hindsight, though, she realized that she didn’t spend enough time making connections with people on campus to help her professionally and support a future career path.

“I lacked a built-in community, mentorship, or network,” says Ada. “I needed to plug that gap.”

StreetWise Bridge: Making connections

In 2010, Ada signed up for the StreetWise Bridge mentorship program with the intention to make meaningful professional connections – and that’s what she got.

“StreetWise gave me exactly what I was looking for,” says Ada. “Everyone is working towards the same goal and I was able to make connections in a very focused amount of time.”

In addition to working with her mentor to get feedback on her resume and hone her interviewing and network skills, Ada had the opportunity to meet other mentees and volunteers through StreeWise events.

StreetWise also helped create a sense of belonging for Ada. She recalls one of the first meetings, which was on an upper floor of an investment bank’s HQ building in New York City.

“In the start of your career, you may not have access to those rooms,” says Ada. “I like to joke that the feeling of “belonging” is about how you pick up the bagel or how you pour yourself a cup of coffee at a morning conference. These could be foreign depending on how you grew up or where you came from.”

StreetWise helps mentees get comfortable in these professional settings.

As Ada explains it, “Experiencing that atmosphere is so beneficial because it starts to feel familiar. The first time you enter a new space, you’re acclimating. The next time, you know where you’re going.”

The bridge to a career in tech

One of the most impactful connections Ada made through StreetWise was with a fellow mentee, Thomas. After they completed the program, Thomas forwarded Ada a job opening at a technology company. It looked like a good opportunity, so she applied and landed a job as an E-commerce merchandising associate.

“When you look back on your life, there are decisive moments like this,” says Ada. “Meeting Thomas and him forwarding the job set me off on this trajectory of working in tech. StreetWise, and the connections I made, was a contributing factor to my past decade of success.”

Ada continued to move up the ladder, from an Account Manager to Senior Program Manager, then on to Business Development and Strategic Sales Partnerships.

Today, 12 years later, she manages a team of three as Senior Manager of Partner Sales. And now she’s in a position of mentorship, helping her team deliver what’s needed while also helping them grow and develop in their own careers.

Ada’s advice

In addition to taking on a leadership role at work, Ada is also a mom to two young children and loves doing standup comedy. In the spirit of Women’s History Month, here’s some advice from Ada to other professionals who may be charting a similar path.

1. Don’t back away from teams or roles where minorities are not well-represented (yet). Even if you don’t see yourself there at first, you can create a path, stand out, and have a successful and lucrative career.

2. Learn the rules of corporate life. Find ways to get access to corporate settings and make connections (like I did through StreetWise) — because you have to be exposed to the environment to learn it.

3. Seek out mentors who are not like you. Value a perspective that is completely different from what you know and how you see and experience the world.

Interested in being a mentor? StreetWise is recruiting mentors in New York City and Washington, D.C.