Biography

Aileen Mitchell was born on July 2nd, 1969 in Cutchogue, New York. She is the youngest of six children and grew up on the beaches on Long Island and played several varsity sports throughout high school and college. She attended Roanoke University majored in International Affairs and, upon graduation, started work at the White House Office of Visitors. After her time at the White House, she transitioned to Empower America where she worked as a Development Associate, facilitating donor relations. While in this position she married Jason Mitchell. Shortly after, she began working at the American Red Cross as Senior Development Associate. She soon made the decision in 1999 to leave and raise her first children, twin boys. After having a third child in 2001, Aileen was a stay at home mother until 2007. She then, with her husband, became business owners in the Batteries Plus Corporation, eventually selling their stores in 2015. Two years later she began work as an HR Specialist in her current company, Amazon Web Services. Currently, she is working full time and the mother to three college-age children.

Transcript

Ivy Mitchell 0:02  

Thank you for sitting down and talking with me. So could you please state your name just for the record?

Aileen Mitchell 0:08  

Hi, I’m Aileen Mitchell. 

IM  0:10  

And where do you currently work?

AM  0:12  

 I currently work for Amazon Web Services in the Division of the worldwide public sector, professional services. 

IM  0:20  

So what would you say you do, day to day?

AM  0:24  

Day to day, I am in charge of our directors’ calendar meetings. And I would say all of our global leadership team meetings and agenda.

IM  0:37  

Okay, so that’s what you’re doing now but when you were in school, what did you imagine yourself doing upon graduation.

AM  0:46  

Well, I actually went to school for international relations. When foreign politics, so I imagined that I would be working for the State Department.

IM  0:56  

And could you describe your career path starting with when you graduated college and leading up until now, I guess? 

AM  1:04  

Sure. I was kind of fortunate that when I was in college I got an internship at the White House. And I was able to then the following summer when I graduated, get a job working for the visitors’ office, which handles all of the tours and visitors to the White House. So that, let me have a really interesting first job out of college, I worked for George W Bush Senior. And I did everything from state arrival ceremonies to when a sports team when something and they come to the White House to meet the president. The Olympic team to Easter egg rolls Christmas for years. All kinds of celebrations, so it was a lot of event coordination. And when his administration came to an end. I then went into political fundraising. So, I did that for a number of years, and I worked for a couple of small political organizations, and then I wind up working for the Red Cross in their development office which is I think it’s not called advancement but it’s basically fundraising, so I was in charge of major gifts for the fortune 100. And then I was fortunate to take some time off when I stayed home to have children.

IM  2:41  

And what did you do after children? How did you re-enter the workforce?

AM  2:49  

It was kind of unusual. I didn’t stay at home for a number of years. I stayed home until my children were probably about eight or so. And then, my husband and I bought a franchise. So we bought a franchise called Batteries Plus, we started off with one store and originally the plan was that it was primarily going to be something my husband ran, and I was just going to help out. But as the business grew and we opened more locations and had more employees, I got very much involved with the HR side of the business. And I was responsible for all interviewing, hiring and firing. Lots of training and, and personal management in between.  That kind of led me to where I am now in a roundabout way.

 

When we sold our business, I took some time off, and we had had that business for seven years. Then I decided that I wanted to continue working, and it was actually again my husband who suggested that I look into HR positions, because that’s what I had enjoyed and kind of on a whim, I applied for an HR position with Amazon, not thinking that they would actually hire me because I don’t have a formal HR background. But they did. I went through kind of grueling interview process Amazon has a notoriously long interviewing process went through that and then I started working for the global specialty fulfillment division, which did all of the kind of new things when we first started doing prime now, that was what we did and then we did the Amazon Fresh which was groceries. I did that for a little over a year. And then I got promoted and I went to open a new quote-unquote traditional fulfillment center out in Winchester which was over a million square feet and over 6000 employees, did that, and decided that while I liked HR and I liked the fulfillment side, which a lot of…you don’t really have any work-life balance there. I, as you know, missed most of your senior year of high school because I was at work. So, then, I had actually met a woman who was an executive assistant. When I had been out in Seattle at corporate headquarters for training, and just had met her randomly in the, I guess she would say like the employee lounge or like one of the areas. And we got to talking and about my background and special events and she suggested that if I ever wanted to change I would look into being an executive assistant. So I basically sent her a message one day, and about 45 days later I had a job offer for an internal transfer over to web services, which is where I’ve been since last December.

IM  6:06  

So you have been in a variety of different workplaces throughout your entire career. Going back to those earlier workplaces in the public sector in the White House and the American Red Cross just in general. Can you describe what it was like to be a woman in those organizations? Was there an even gender ratio or?

AM  6:30  

I would say, Yes, actually it’s kind of ironic if I reflect back on it, but in almost all of my roles there definitely has been a gender bias. Even in this day and age on Amazon, which I consider to be a very gender-neutral workplace. If you just look around when you look in HR and you look at as executive assistants we primarily are made up of women. That was certainly the case when I was in the White House, the visitors’ office was entirely staffed by women. At the Red Cross, in the fundraising. It was a little bit different. I was there with Elizabeth Dole so she went out of her way to have women in senior leadership positions. So I think other nonprofits at that time when I think about the time that I worked with. There’s a professional organization for fundraising executives and I was involved in that. And I would say there were a lot of men, and other nonprofits and fundraising. But at the Red Cross and certainly at the leadership level. Thanks to the flu there were a lot of women, more we were kind of different than a lot of our other peers, but there were certainly men in other departments there as well. 

IM  7:57  

You talked a little bit about Elizabeth Dole and how she went out of her way to put women in leadership positions. Can you recall a specific woman who professionally-inspired you to strive harder? Just in your work or in your personal life?

It’s okay if you need to think of a minute. 

AM  8:19  

Well, I will say that I think Elizabeth Dole was a very inspiring leader because she… she did things differently. She was not afraid of trying to do things differently and she didn’t have that background, so to speak, learned on the job. I think that she sought diverse opinions and actually again it’s kind of interesting because the vice president who’s in charge of my division currently at Amazon Web Services is also a woman. Teresa Carlson, she’s been named one of the most influential tech leaders, but she doesn’t have a tech education background, which I think is very, very important. My background is not in what I want to wound up doing. And I think that if I gave one lesson to people out there is that you need to seek opportunities wherever they come and don’t turn away something that might be an opportunity. Teresa Carlson got a degree in speech pathology, and she now runs one of the most successful tech businesses for the public sector.

IM  9:36  

It’s funny where life can lead you. Could you describe one of the most rewarding aspects of your workplace pre-motherhood?                                                                     

AM  9:48  

In what way do you mean rewarding? 

IM  9:50  

Just something that you found rewarding about what you were doing. Maybe in your work, maybe there was some passion that was driving you. What got you up in the morning got you to work and told you this is important work that I’m doing.

AM  10:05  

You know, at the White House, it’s gonna sound really, I don’t know… hokey, but one of my favorite things to do is, would be to go out and greet visitors who are coming to the White House. The White House still to this day is the only place in the world where the leader of a country works out of lives, and the public can actually come in and tour. So, to be there and seeing the wider diverse groups of people that were coming in, and the history there, it was rewarding for me, it was rewarding to know that I was walking in footsteps of people that have been there before and, you know, looking back on history and saying you know I was there, you know when this happened, I was there I’ve met, world leaders that I would have never thought that I would ever have been in the room with before. 

IM  11:06  

So it’s really evident that work was very important to you in this period of your life and still is. Could you describe the reasons that you made the decision to leave work after having your first two children? 

AM  11:21  

Well, it was economic because you know it’s sad to say I would like to think that we as women or fall would not be fighting the fight to get paid equally. But at the time. My husband and I looked at what it was going to cost for daycare because my first two were twins, and what it was going to cop, what it was going to cost to pay for childcare for them, versus what I was making. And we wound up paying more for childcare than I was breaking in, it just wasn’t, it didn’t make sense to do that. 

IM  12:06  

So how was the transition from working full time to working as a, as a mom and being a stay at home mother and did you feel like you had a community there?

AM  12:18  

It was very isolating when the boys were infants because, well, first of all, I had twins so there just was not a lot of sleep. There wasn’t a lot of time to do anything and it was, it was difficult. I tried to stay in contact with my work colleagues, but it just didn’t really connect with that. I found a new community through, where we lived, we were blessed with moving into a small community and then I think like most stay at home moms, I found community through my children and playgroups, and mommy groups and then once they were older starting preschool.

IM  13:06  

So, how did you make the decision to go back to the workforce when you and your husband bought your first business, your franchise together?

AM  13:16  

Well, it really wasn’t a conscious choice, as, as I was saying, the idea had been that this was going to be something that my husband was doing primarily and I was really just going to help out where needed. And it became very clear. You know, I think it’s not uncommon that a lot of franchise ORS downplay the importance of HR and having someone focused on HR skills, especially when you’re running a business that is consumer-focused, you have to have the right people in place, and I think my, my husband’s brilliant in a lot of ways, but he certainly doesn’t have, I think the temperament to deal with some of the more mundane HR issues and like many small business owners, we might have ignored them until they came to an area where we were going to have to either hire someone or not. It became an issue and it just made logical sense for me to take that on. 

IM  14:20  

Hmm. Did you have any concerns about going back to work and how it might change your life?

AM 14:28

Yeah, definitely. I felt under-qualified. I did a lot of learning on the job because it wasn’t something that I was prepared for. I made a lot of mistakes. And I, you know, learn from those mistakes, hopefully, and take those experiences with me. I was certainly concerned about balancing my time at work with making sure that you guys and your brothers were taken care of and had what you need to do and I’m sure there were times where you know there were something going on at school, where I should have been there and I was at work because that was what was more important. There were also times where it was odd because my community had been my fellow moms, and suddenly I come back to school the next year and I’m not a full time stay at home mom, working on. So I become a slightly different category for that group of mothers. 

IM 15:30

So you started off work in the public sector and then you had your children, and you are now working like you said in a completely different field than you intended had it ever crossed your mind to return to work in your original profession?

AM  15:44  

It did actually, I had been contacted by colleagues that I made friends with at the right Prof. And at some of the other local organizations I worked for. But honestly, political fundraising, really kind of turned my stomach. The idea of going back there and doing that work and when I was staying at home full time I did do some community fundraising. I helped. As you know, Mrs. Robertson and I are the ones who renovated the, the playground in the town and that took some substantial work. I also helped out with the therapeutic riding program and helped them with fundraising so I kind of got involved in that and then even when I was working, I was, I joined the board of the athletic boosters at your high school and your dollar boosters as well. So there were plenty of times where I was still kind of involved in that but local fundraising has changed so much. I really don’t have the stomach to do that again.

IM  16:53  

So, what you’ve been through becoming a mom, entering the political fundraising -that’s a cutthroat field. All of the experience you have in your life What advice would you give to a young woman who is at that point in her career when she’s forced to decide, am I going to be a working mom? Am I going to put my career first or am I going to put my children first? I know it’s a complicated question but maybe, maybe rather what advice would you have for your younger self when you were at that point?

AM  17:27  

 I think, at least I hope that things have changed to the point now that I think that if I had the same choice again, I would try to stay involved in a outside community more. I think that the ability to work at home to be involved in a broader community, that wasn’t necessarily there when I first became a stay at home mom would give people opportunities and I would encourage people to continue doing that because I think that there are so many new areas to work in and things to do that. Keeping your profile out there is really I think important because you don’t know what is going to be in front of you. But I also would remind people to not guilt each other with the feeling you know if it amazes me today to see even in our current neighborhood the difference between the stay at home mom from the working moms, they are all moms, you’re all women. Stop picking on each other. 

IM  18:36  

Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy career and mom life.

AM  18:44  

Thank you. You’re welcome.

 

Research

Traditionally, women have been restricted from workplace participation by motherhood. Even though contemporary women have been able to re-enter the workforce, the so-called “mother penalty” has emerged. In other words, wages for working mothers are typically lower than that of a working father in the same position. In the interview, it became evident that this penalty goes more than one day. As much as a woman can feel punished for being a mother while working, they can also feel that work causing them to miss out on crucial aspects of motherhood.

Perhaps this is the result of a lack of female leadership in the workforce. In the context prior to the late nineteenth-century workplace, women were often regarded as incapable of professional work. However, recent findings suggest that women are actually more capable than men of the same experience level. The author attributes the discrepancy in leadership positions between men and women directly to gender prejudice rather than capability. My mother discussed the impacts of strong and inspirational working women throughout her career. In order to truly normalize motherhood in the workplace, society needs not only the working woman but the working mother.

Abendroth, Anja-Kristin, et al. “The Parity Penalty in Life Course Perspective: Motherhood and Occupational Status in 13 European Countries.” American Sociological Review, vol. 79, no. 5, 2014, pp. 993–1014. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43187575. Accessed 19 Feb. 2020.

Neuse, Steven M. “Professionalism and Authority: Women in Public Service.” Public Administration Review, vol. 38, no. 5, 1978, pp. 436–441. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/975502. Accessed 19 Feb. 2020.