I recently had the privilege of meeting with Marques Stewart, Vice President of Technology for Achievement First and Community Catalyst, to talk about his career in Technology, the implementation of Okta’s Identity platform, and the value of connecting with peers and sharing knowledge in the Okta Community. Read on to learn more about Marques and his journey with Okta and the Community. 

What attracted you to a career in Technology, and what does your typical day look like?

I was attracted to the field of technology starting in middle school. I was home one summer, and my mom bought me a "Computers for Dummy" book to learn a little bit about computers over the summer. From that hobby was born a career that has spanned multiple decades, cities, and countries.

As Vice President of Technology, I’m responsible for the day-to-day operations of technology for the Achievement First Charter School Network. This means that I’m responsible for the 17,500 end-user endpoints (Chromebooks and laptops) and the network and cloud infrastructure that support those endpoint devices. 

A typical day for me usually involves catching up on emails and dealing with any fires/issues that have arisen overnight. Once that’s all taken care of, I usually review my personal and teamwork streams to see if anything requires my unique incident to move forward. My favorite part of the day is when I have check-ins with my team members, as that provides me with on-the-ground information I might otherwise miss and gives me a good opportunity to brainstorm ideas or issues with them. 

Can you tell us about your journey with Okta? What organizational challenges were you trying to solve with Okta’s products and solutions?  

My journey with Okta began with a common issue that all organizations face at some point - you have multiple platforms that people need to log in with multiple passwords. I didn’t even know what Okta was - my boss just gave me the project of getting our Okta instance set up and deployed. So I just jumped into it and tried to figure out the best way to roll this platform out within our environment. 

It's important to have a consistent and secure process for people to log in to their various cloud applications. Okta’s Identity solutions have given us a reliable means to know that a person is who they say they are when trying to access their internet-based applications. We are also able to implement the necessary roadblocks to prevent malicious actors from accessing important and confidential company information. 

To dive deeper, a modern identity platform like Okta allowed us to streamline access to our cloud-based products. Having a centralized product management identity platform means our environment is more consistent and reliable than ever before. Because our key systems are protected by Okta, we’ve enhanced security due to 2FA and Log activity monitoring. As a result of the security layer that Okta provided, we are able to better troubleshoot AND prevent issues from occurring. Finally, It's extremely easy setting up new products with Okta. With Okta in place, we can typically have a new platform working from an identity perspective within 24-48 hours, depending on the vendor we are working with. 

Here’s my favorite part. Let’s talk about the Okta Community. What do you enjoy most about it, and how has being able to connect with peers helped you?

I’ve been part of the Okta Community for eight years and first learned about it from my onboarding representative. I’d say I really began to immerse myself in the Okta Community about five years ago, and I think the Community is an important method of knowledge sharing. I enjoy being able to connect and learn from others who are operating in a different space from me. It has really helped push my thinking in terms of what Okta is capable of by engaging with the Okta Community 

I love how you are helping lead the way by offering a hand to others. Can you tell us what the most important lessons you’ve learned in the Okta Community are?

Nothing helps foster Community more than paying it forward and helping others. It’s a source of satisfaction to help my peers in need resolve challenges simply by lending a hand and sharing my knowledge. A good example is when I was trying to get Okta working with the new Google Workspace SAML functionality - there was little documentation that made things clear. So, I took the initiative to write up a better explanation of how the process would work, and someone who saw the article (in a different business/industry) reached out to me to thank me for my contribution. It was humbling, to say the least. It really pays off to share your knowledge because you never know who you will help. 

Paying it forward. A simple, yet powerful gesture. I love how you inspire your community peers with your knowledge and leadership. What best practices could you share to help other IT admins use Okta products and solutions? What’s one pro tip you could give someone who’s a new Okta admin?

Subscribe to the Okta Youtube channel to stay up to date on the latest product updates to ensure you’re always getting the most value out of your investment. Another pro tip is to join Discussion Groups in the Okta Community or other Okta Community forums as they provide a great opportunity to talk to and learn from others who are at different points in the Okta journey. 

Love this. Making connections helps us grow and acquire new skills. What good advice have you received recently, either in the Okta Community or another forum? 

Technology is an investment in the future of your organization. And while it may appear expensive in the short term, it could pay itself back 10 fold in terms of hours returned to you in the long term. 

Thank you for sharing your professional journey with us and for helping Okta make better products and solutions. I would love to end by learning a bit about your personal life. Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing? 

I served in the Peace Corps (Western Samoa) for 2 years, and some of the things I learned in that endeavor in terms of technology still apply to this day. Outside of work, I enjoy playing video games and fantasy football.

Visit Community Catalyst, Marques Stewart’s Okta Community Profile.

Learn about our Community Catalyst program here. 

If you’d like to share your story, get in touch with Community@okta.com

Visit the Okta Community today!