Sharon Chen This is Me

Education

 View all 7 references Web References

1. 1. Staff and Board of Directors — Washington Toxics Coalition

   www.watoxics.org/about/staff-a - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/10/2007   Last Visited: 5/4/2008

   Not pictured: Eddy Cates, Sharon Chen, Gylan Green, Chris Luboff, and Wood Turner.
   ...
   Sharon Chen, Vice President, was a group program manager in the Financial Product Group of the Microsoft Corporation, and is currently focusing on raising her two beautiful kids. A graduate of the United Way's Project Lead program, she has been active in the Seattle non-profit community since 1998. Prior to that she served as the chairman of Hoppers, a Microsoft group dedicated to retention and promotion of women in technology. Sharon holds a B.S.E in Computer Engineering from Princeton University. She joined the board in 2003, chairs our Personnel Committee, and serves on our Finance Committee.

2. 2. Asians in the technical workforce

   www.diversitycareers.com/artic - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 4/26/2004

   Sharon Chen Microsoft's Sharon Chen identifies resources for the MSN Money website.
   ...
   Sharon Chen
   ...
   Sharon Chen.
   
   Sharon Chen works on the Microsoft Money website Sharon Chen's family is from China, but she was born in New Jersey. She acknowledges that she's always been drawn to puzzles and brain teasers. Building on that interest, she earned a BS in engineering and CS from Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) in 1994.
   
   She went to work right after graduation as a program manager at Microsoft (Redmond, WA). She was on the Access team, working on "wizards," the interfaces that can guide a user step by step through the Access program.
   
   In 1995, Microsoft began to focus more on Internet technologies, and Chen's team shifted its work to Visual Interdev, a new Web development tool. She started with an end-user focus and over a few years migrated to developer tools and Microsoft's Visual Studio product team. "I was an evangelist for Visual Studio at the Microsoft Tech-Ed developer conferences," she says.
   
   In 1998 Chen decided to apply what her evangelist role had taught her about building enterprise level Web applications. She joined the team working on Transpoint, a joint venture between Microsoft and First Data Corp for electronic billing and payment. Next, she spent some time as group program manager of the Microsoft Passport product team.
   
   In 2000, Chen got management agreement to work on a concept tied to the MSN Wallet. "As with most start-ups, it didn't come out quite as expected," says Chen. "But it certainly showed me how business decisions are made. "I gained experience in killing my own project," she reveals, a little ruefully. "But it was fascinating to see how far I could pursue a proposal."
   
   In 2002 Chen took a six-month leave to spend time in New Jersey with her father. When she returned she joined the Microsoft Money team and focused on the reliability, maintainability and availability of the MSN Money website. The job drew on her experience designing and running back-end services and also gave her a chance to exercise her skills in a new context. "I have a talent for identifying resources," she says.
   
   What will her next step be? "I've always been fascinated by the international side," she confides. "Although my work so far has been primarily in the U.S., Microsoft does a lot of business overseas."
   
   Chen says that in her youth, her personal horizons expanded as she spent time with Asians of many different personality types. "I came to realize that being Asian didn't define what my interests were, what I would be good at, and in general what kind of person I would be." She believes that it is important for young people to meet many role models they can identify with, "in order to see what is possible."

3. 3. Asians in the technical workforce

   www.diversitycareers.com/artic - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 3/23/2006

   Sharon Chen Microsoft's Sharon Chen identifies resources for the MSN Money website.
   ...
   Sharon Chen
   ...
   Sharon Chen.
   
   Sharon Chen works on the Microsoft Money website Sharon Chen's family is from China, but she was born in New Jersey. She acknowledges that she's always been drawn to puzzles and brain teasers. Building on that interest, she earned a BS in engineering and CS from Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) in 1994.
   
   She went to work right after graduation as a program manager at Microsoft (Redmond, WA). She was on the Access team, working on "wizards," the interfaces that can guide a user step by step through the Access program.
   
   In 1995, Microsoft began to focus more on Internet technologies, and Chen's team shifted its work to Visual Interdev, a new Web development tool. She started with an end-user focus and over a few years migrated to developer tools and Microsoft's Visual Studio product team. "I was an evangelist for Visual Studio at the Microsoft Tech-Ed developer conferences," she says.
   
   In 1998 Chen decided to apply what her evangelist role had taught her about building enterprise level Web applications. She joined the team working on Transpoint, a joint venture between Microsoft and First Data Corp for electronic billing and payment. Next, she spent some time as group program manager of the Microsoft Passport product team.
   
   In 2000, Chen got management agreement to work on a concept tied to the MSN Wallet. "As with most start-ups, it didn't come out quite as expected," says Chen. "But it certainly showed me how business decisions are made. "I gained experience in killing my own project," she reveals, a little ruefully. "But it was fascinating to see how far I could pursue a proposal."
   
   In 2002 Chen took a six-month leave to spend time in New Jersey with her father. When she returned she joined the Microsoft Money team and focused on the reliability, maintainability and availability of the MSN Money website. The job drew on her experience designing and running back-end services and also gave her a chance to exercise her skills in a new context. "I have a talent for identifying resources," she says.
   
   What will her next step be? "I've always been fascinated by the international side," she confides. "Although my work so far has been primarily in the U.S., Microsoft does a lot of business overseas."
   
   Chen says that in her youth, her personal horizons expanded as she spent time with Asians of many different personality types. "I came to realize that being Asian didn't define what my interests were, what I would be good at, and in general what kind of person I would be." She believes that it is important for young people to meet many role models they can identify with, "in order to see what is possible."