How an Immigrant Girl Who Ate Lunch Alone Became AWS Chief of Staff

About this Podcast

Aleka Dancel spent her middle school years eating lunch in a bathroom stall. Not by choice, but because speaking with an accent in a new country made her an easy target for bullies. When she finally worked up the courage to tell her father she didn't want to go back to school, his response changed the trajectory of her entire life: "What are you going to do about it?" That question, delivered without comfort or rescue, forced a young Venezuelan girl to decide who she would become. Today, she serves as Chief of Staff at Amazon Web Services, leading teams in one of the most competitive technology spaces while raising three children and competing in bodybuilding.

In this episode of the Legacy and Longevity Podcast, host Zach Dancel sits down with his wife Aleka to explore the path from immigration struggle to tech leadership. Her story challenges the narrative that success requires a linear journey or that you can only excel in one area of life at a time. Instead, she offers a framework built on brutal honesty, strategic prioritization, and what her mother called the "guerrera" mentality—the warrior mindset that believes nothing is impossible if you're willing to fight for it with integrity. This conversation goes beyond career advice to examine what it takes to build a legacy through marriage, motherhood, and breaking barriers in spaces where you're often the only person who looks like you.

 When Tough Love Builds Warriors   

According to the Migration Policy Institute, approximately 18 million children in the United States live with at least one immigrant parent, representing about one in four children nationwide. These children often navigate two worlds simultaneously—the culture of their parents' homeland and the American culture surrounding them at school. For Aleka, this navigation began at age nine when her family made the decision to leave Venezuela due to increasing violence and political instability. The transition from Caracas to Hollywood, Florida brought safety but introduced a different kind of challenge: complete isolation created by a language barrier.

The bullying started immediately. Every attempt to speak English was met with mockery. Her accent became ammunition for classmates who could sense vulnerability. Rather than pushing through or seeking help from teachers, Aleka found refuge in the one place where words didn't matter—a bathroom stall where she could eat lunch alone. This went on for months until she finally broke down and begged her father to let her stay home. His response contained no sympathy, no promises to fix the situation, and no assurances that everything would be okay. Instead, he asked a question that would define the rest of her life: "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

At first, the question felt like abandonment. How could her father not protect her from this pain? But his refusal to rescue her wasn't cruelty—it was preparation. He pointed out that she had access to YouTube, movies in both Spanish and English, and the ability to force conversations even when they felt uncomfortable. The message was clear: she possessed everything needed to solve her own problem. According to research from the American Psychological Association, children who develop problem-solving skills through supported autonomy rather than constant rescue demonstrate higher levels of resilience and self-efficacy later in life. Her father was teaching her that the world wouldn't pause for her discomfort, and waiting for someone else to fix her situation meant surrendering control of her future. So she made a choice. She started watching Disney movies with subtitles, practicing pronunciation in mirrors, and forcing herself into conversations where mistakes were guaranteed. The transformation wasn't instant or comfortable, but it was hers.

 The Numbers Behind the Barriers   

The technology industry has a well-documented diversity problem. According to Zippia's analysis of tech industry demographics, women hold only 26.7% of technology jobs despite making up nearly half of the total workforce. The numbers become even more stark at leadership levels, where women occupy just 25% of senior-level tech roles. For Hispanic women specifically, the challenges compound. The National Center for Women & Information Technology reports that Hispanic women represent only 2% of the computing workforce, making Aleka's position as Chief of Staff at AWS statistically rare.

She didn't plan on a tech career. After graduating from the University of Maryland with a criminology degree in just two and a half years—driven by the same intensity that made her wake up at different hours to practice English—she expected to pursue work with the FBI. Instead, life took unexpected turns. She joined Nava Health in a customer service role, then pivoted during the COVID-19 pandemic when her sister suggested she explore cybersecurity. The suggestion seemed absurd at first. She knew nothing about coding and assumed tech required technical skills she didn't possess. But her sister challenged that assumption, pointing out that strategic thinking, customer obsession, and complex problem-solving mattered just as much as technical knowledge in many tech roles.

The transition required learning an entirely new industry while simultaneously pursuing a master's degree at Johns Hopkins University and caring for a one-year-old daughter during a global pandemic. But the pattern established in that middle school bathroom stall remained consistent: when faced with a challenge, she asked herself what she was going to do about it rather than waiting for circumstances to change. She progressed quickly through a cybersecurity startup, then joined a global cybersecurity services company before a mutual friend connected her with Amazon. What started as a phone screen with a recruiter named Judy Charles turned into a conversation that felt less transactional and more like discovering where she belonged. Nearly four years later, she leads teams supporting fintech startups and North America sales for one of the world's largest technology companies. Research from the Harvard Business Review shows that diverse leadership teams make better decisions and drive better financial performance, yet the path to those roles remains disproportionately difficult for women of color who must navigate imposter syndrome while proving themselves in spaces that weren't designed with them in mind.

 Work-Life Integration Without the Myth   

The question of how working mothers manage it all carries an assumption that Aleka flatly rejects: the idea that balance is achievable or even desirable. According to Deloitte's research on workplace burnout, 77% of workers have experienced burnout at their current job, with working parents facing particularly acute pressure. The cultural expectation that mothers should excel equally in all domains simultaneously sets up an impossible standard that generates guilt rather than excellence. Aleka's approach challenges this narrative through what she calls brutal honesty about priorities and permission to excel in one lane at a time.

Some days she shows up as an executive who never misses a deadline, who leads strategic initiatives and pushes her teams toward breakthrough results. Other days she shows up as the mom who taught physical fitness to ten four-year-olds at daycare, who made it to practice on time, who was fully present for dinner without glancing at her phone. The key shift isn't about doing less—it's about refusing to measure one type of day against the other. She protects her calendar religiously, understanding that what gets scheduled gets protected. If her daughter's school event lands on the calendar, it becomes as non-negotiable as a board meeting. This doesn't mean she achieves perfect balance every day. It means she gives herself permission to be excellent in different ways depending on what the moment requires.

The second critical element of her framework involves a linguistic shift from "I have to" to "I get to" when describing daily obligations. This isn't about toxic positivity or pretending that waking up at 5 AM to work out before three kids need breakfast is inherently joyful. It's about recognizing that obligations represent privileges. She gets to work out because her body is capable. She gets to take her kids to school because she has children. She gets to meet demanding work deadlines because she has a career that challenges her. Research from the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center demonstrates that gratitude practices, including reframing language around daily activities, correlate with improved mental health and increased resilience. The reframe doesn't make the days less demanding, but it transforms how she experiences those demands.

 Key principles from Aleka's approach to sustainable high performance: 

• Protect your calendar with the same intensity you protect your values—what gets scheduled gets respected

• Give yourself permission to be excellent in one lane at a time rather than mediocre across all lanes

• Re-frame obligations as privileges by shifting language from "I have to" to "I get to"

• Surround yourself with people smarter than you and treat every day as a learning opportunity

• Master your craft and let others tell your story rather than promoting yourself constantly

 Legacy Through Marriage and Parenthood   

Marriage statistics in America paint a sobering picture. According to the American Psychological Association, between 40 and 50 percent of married couples in the United States divorce, with subsequent marriages showing even higher failure rates. Yet Zach and Aleka have built something that defies those odds—not because their path has been easy, but because they established non-negotiables from the beginning. For Aleka, that non-negotiable is respect. Not the surface-level respect of polite words, but the deeper respect that allows your partner to evolve into whoever they're becoming without trying to control or limit that transformation.

She didn't grow up watching a successful marriage. Her parents divorced, which meant she had to study successful marriages around her and have difficult conversations with Zach about what they wanted to build together. They talked about how divorce affected her and how his parents' strong marriage affected him. They discussed what type of parents they wanted to be before they ever had children. These conversations created alignment around values that would later be tested by the reality of three kids, demanding careers, and the thousand daily decisions that either strengthen or erode partnership. For Zach, the non-negotiable is commitment—the understanding that his spouse is the only person who chooses to love him simply because of who he is, not because of biological connection or obligation.

The concept of Team Dancel emerged as a tool for teaching their children about family loyalty and identity. When siblings fight or when individual desires conflict with family needs, the question becomes: "Whose team are you on?" The answer is always Team Dancel. What started as a parenting strategy became something deeper when Aleka walked into her children's bedroom one day to investigate suspicious silence. She found all three kids locked in a closet, dressed in matching clothes, hugging each other and chanting "Team Dancel." They had absorbed the value without being told. Research from Child Development indicates that family rituals and shared identity markers correlate with stronger emotional bonds and better outcomes for children across various metrics. But the real lesson goes beyond parenting techniques: values aren't taught through lectures but caught through consistent modeling of what matters when nobody is watching.

The legacy Aleka wants to leave isn't measured in job titles or LinkedIn endorsements. It's measured in whether her daughter Kai grows up believing she can carve her own path in spaces where nobody looks like her. It's measured in whether her sons understand that strength and tenderness aren't opposites but complementary forces that make better men and leaders. It's measured in whether all three children remember their parents showing up with energy and presence rather than just providing material comfort while being emotionally absent. According to research from the Family Process journal, parental presence and emotional availability predict children's long-term wellbeing more accurately than socioeconomic status or academic achievement. The days feel long, especially when managing a demanding tech career, three young children, and bodybuilding training. But the years move faster than anyone warns you about, and the example being set today becomes the foundation those children build their own lives upon.

 The Guerrera Mentality Lives On   

Aleka's mother used to call her daughters "guerreras"—warriors. Not because they were aggressive or combative, but because they believed nothing was impossible if they were willing to fight for it with integrity, humility, and strategic thinking. That mentality carried a young girl through bathroom stalls and language barriers. It carried her through building a tech career in an industry that has systematically excluded people who look like her. It carries her through days when the calendar shows impossible demands and the only option is to decide which lane gets her excellence today.

The lessons from her journey apply whether you're navigating immigration, breaking into a new industry, raising children while building a career, or simply trying to show up as your best self when motivation runs dry. The question her father asked decades ago in a Florida living room remains relevant: "What are you going to do about it?" Not what you wish would happen. Not what someone else should fix. But what you, with the resources and capabilities you already possess, are going to do about the challenge in front of you right now.

Subscribe to the Legacy and Longevity Podcast and discover how everyday people make extraordinary decisions that compound into lives of impact and meaning. Because legacy isn't built in the moments when everything aligns perfectly. It's built in the bathroom stalls and locked closets and 5 AM wake-up calls when nobody is watching except the person staring back at you in the mirror. That person decides whether today advances the legacy or just passes time. Team Dancel chose advancement. What will your choice be?