The Honeydew Hustle: Raiza Abubakar

Raiza is solving the global information problem as a product manager at NewsON. When she’s not at work she’s mentoring women with small businesses to enter the digital space and spending time with her two girls. In her slivers of free time, she plans her wedding.

• career: product manager for NewsON, a local news app
• free time: spend time with my two girls, “Participating in their life is amazing. My childhood was so dominated by my parents — they dictated what my life was, so with my girls, I ask them what they want to do and let them lead the way.”
• wedding planning tidbit: “I want to have a wedding that corresponds with how I feel about this person. But…it’s also super important to me that I reduce the amount of time I spend planning.”

What do you for a living, and why?

I’m a product manager for NewsON, which is a local news app. I didn’t set out to become a product manager, but I worked very closely with customers ever since my college job at an Apple retail store. After I graduated I joined a startup in Seattle —as a chief customer advocate, I quickly realized I wanted to contribute even more to the product and processes…and that’s when I realized that being a PM would allow me to do that.

The reason I work at NewsOn specifically is because I feel like nationally and internationally there’s a global information problem — think fake news, echo chambers, etc. That problem is worth solving, since it shapes society and policy so heavily.

What are your career goals?

Aside from expanding the latitude of my product work, I also love mentoring others. Right now, I help women in small businesses get into the digital space. For example there’s this women with an eyelash extension business who is popular only through word of mouth. The work I’ve done is to help her make a website, social. In terms of career goals, I want to merge the two. I want to help women become more comfortable with technology.

What are you passionate about outside of work?

I spend time with my little girls! I didn’t grow up in the states, but they are. Participating in their life is amazing. My childhood was so dominated by my parents — they dictated what my life was, so with my girls, I ask them what they want to do and let them lead the way.

My childhood was so dominated by my parents — they dictated what my life was, so with my girls, I ask them what they want to do and let them lead the way.

Oh, I love food and drinking also!

What do you think of wedding planning?

I want to have a wedding that corresponds with how I feel about this person.

It’s time consuming. Every concept we have is so different from each other. It’s not as easy as “outdoor wedding that is rustic” — we could have a wine cellar wedding OR a shellfish farm wedding. I’ve called and emailed SO many different venues, and sometimes I’ve called the same one twice because it’s tedious to track them all.

It’s super important to me that I reduce the amount of time I spend planning. I can’t call venues after they close, so I have to take calls during lunch breaks and have random reminders on my calendar to “call Lavender farms”.

It’s super important to me that I reduce the amount of time I spend planning. I can’t call venues after they close, so I have to take calls during lunch breaks and have random reminders on my calendar to “call Lavender farms”.

Tell us about your engagement story!

It was my fiance’s birthday, and I suggested a fun weekend in SF. He totally bogarted my trip that I had planned. Typically when we travel all we do is eat and drink. So, we landed in SF. He suggested going to a park to walk around, which was weird because we’ve literally never done that when visiting a city. I thought to myself — all this time have I been holding him back from going to parks!! We walked for quite a while, and I got kind of nervous because we were going in circles. I was looking at something in the distance, he said my name, and when I turned around he was on his knees. He was in the middle of saying romantic things, but I got so excited and said “thank you!” and took the ring.

Btw, Raiza has extended an open invitation to anyone who wants mentoring / coaching if they’re interested in getting into tech. She’s trying to increase her reach around supporting other women to find a solid career in STEM!

We’re featuring stories of amazing women in business, education, medicine, and tech for whom wedding planning is just one of many priorities in their life. Why? We don’t see enough stories highlighting the fact that women have lives and goals before they get engaged and continue to pursue these goals in parallel to wedding planning.

Check out Honeydew if this sounds like you!