Shana Simmons
Corporate Counsel at Google
Shana is a corporate counsel at Google Inc., where she manages a team that supports Google’s growing Cloud business and also brings her commitment to diversity and inclusion to the work place. Before Google, she was an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Stein and Hamilton LLP in its New York and London offices.
Shana received a law degree from University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) where she served as the Diversity Editor of the California Law Review; Development Editor of the Berkeley Journal of African American Law & Policy and Co-President of the Law Students of African Descent. Shana was born and raised in poverty in the Bronx, New York so is very active in finding ways to help disenfranchised folks. While in law school, Shana interned at the East Bay Community Law Center where she focused on projects that would empower low-income communities of color to build long-term solutions to poverty through the advancement of community-owned cooperative businesses and affordable housing.
Before law school, Shana taught for three years, one year in Washington DC at a public charter high school geared towards disadvantaged Black youth and the next two years at the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, CA where her seventh grade students received the highest scores in Alameda County on the standardized state math tests. Shana was recognized in 2009 for her work with Oakland youth with a Proclamation from then-current Mayor of Oakland.
Shana has served on the boards of the YMCA of the East Bay and HARLEM WEEK, Inc., and currently sits on the board of Lawyers for One America and is a proud trustee of her alma-mater, Wesleyan University.
1. What’s a challenge you’ve faced, and how did you get through it?
I don’t think of anything as a challenge. I think of everything as a growth opportunity. My biggest growth opportunity was probably attending boarding school for high school. Education was my proverbial ticket to a better life; it was a full scholarship to The Taft School that led me to an idyllic New England town and to a world of opportunities I could have never imagined from my one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx; however, with those opportunities came plenty of challenges and general angst as it was the first time I was not the smartest in my class, and I was surrounded by a wealth that I didn’t even know existed.
I got through it by the cliche advice given to all younger generations of Black folk: working harder than everyone else. I was also positive, optimistic, and open to where these experiences would take me! I ended up spending my junior year of high school in Barcelona, Spain. Not bad for the poor girl from the Bronx. ;)
2. What’s something you’ve done that you’re really proud of?
Before going to law school, I was a public school teacher in Washington DC and Oakland, CA. I used my position as an educator as a tool to bring knowledge and power to the disenfranchised. I did my best to inform my students about the best schools in the nation, and I helped them apply to these schools. Through empowering my students with knowledge about quality educational opportunities in the Bay Area and beyond, one of my students matriculated at The College Preparatory School, another at Cate School, and one at my alma mater, The Taft School.
That said, it was as an educator, striving to make life better for my students in Oakland, that I was able to see a small change in certain kids lives, who are now graduates from Stanford, UC Berkeley and Wesleyan. I am really proud of the impact I had! As a manager in the legal department, I hope to help my reports thrive and be content in their long legal careers.
3. What’s something that’s been on your mind this Black History Month?
We often celebrate the most successful, but I think it’s time that we celebrate all the Black folks amongst us — not just those that achieved success in the way most of us think of success. The working single Black mother who feeds her kids every day, works and manages to help her kids with their homework is just as inspiring to me. We need more spotlight on those folks! We have had a long horrid history — just to see someone still smiling and grinding is enough to motivate me.
