Welcome back to “Meet the Titans,” an ongoing series here at Bits & Bytes where we dive deeper with members of our Culture Titans squad. Last time, we caught up with Finance Project Manager Aleks Basisty. Now it’s time to meet BitTitan Paralegal Sharena Akers!

Hi Sharena, thanks for joining us. How long have you been at BitTitan and what does your typical day look like?

I’ve been at BitTitan a little over a year and a half. There are no typical days on the legal team, but the first step is always to caffeinate. Most days I can expect to have a variety of contracts to review; tickets to solve; and projects relating to compliance, data privacy, and lately, GDPR.

What’s your favorite thing to do in your spare time?

I’m in grad school part-time in the evening, so I’m short on spare time these days. I try to maximize the bits of free time I do have with friends and family. I have been known to demolish some novels and a good TV series while I’m on break, though.

(Editor’s note: Novels aren’t the only thing Sharena is demolishing – she sells herself far too short with respect to this grad program. She’s working towards an MLS from Seattle University focused on innovation and technology law. How does she balance both? With superpowers, of course.)

If you have one superpower, what would it be? Explain.

Teleportation! I hate traffic and inefficiency – this would save me tons of time on my commute AND eliminate the tolls I pay on 520. (Editor’s note: Me too. Ever since I saw Jumper, the best non-Marvel/DC superhero movie in my humble opinion. Great for your next movie night).

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What was your favorite childhood book, CD, and TV show?

Book: Harry Potter (the whole series)

CD: Backstreet Boys – Millennium

TV Show: Boy Meets World

Where’s the next place you’d like to travel? What draws you there?

I will be traveling to Peru in a couple weeks! Travel is a way to broaden and deepen your knowledge of the world. It is invaluable to be able to experience a place that you’ve only ever heard about and to understand the way other people live and the commonalities that bind all of us. (Shout out to BT for unlimited PTO!)

Which BT Core Value do you feel you exemplify the most? Why?

I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that it’s constant learning. “We learn and share knowledge, we acknowledge mistakes and aren’t afraid to take risks.” The most successful people continue to learn no matter where they are at in their career (Barack Obama, Bill Gates, etc.) because knowledge is power. For me personally, if I don’t have the answer to something, I’m going to hunt it down and add try to commit it to memory. There was a recent study at Google that their top performers are people who, among other things, have a good critical thinking and problem-solving skills and can make connections across complex ideas – what better way to be a top performer than to learn as much as possible?

What’s it mean to be a Culture Titan?

Being a Culture Titan means that I can make an impact on someone’s experience at BitTitan even before day one by being a part of their interview and demonstrating that BitTitan not only cares about what we do, but who is doing it and how it gets done (in a collaborative and friendly environment). It also means that I can help to impact the culture for my current coworkers and to participate in building the future of BitTitan.