Women Who Reign: Maya Frai

“Do it with passion or not at all!”

Tell us about yourself along with a fun fact!
I was born in Miami, raised by an Israeli father and a Brazilian mother. While in high school, I started Killer Ivy Swimwear, a company that encouraged women to wear our swimwear like second skin. This experience opened my eyes to entrepreneurship and I learned an incredible amount of what it’s like to run a business. Before coming to Cornell, I knew I wanted to concentrate not only in economics and business, but also learn skills to design and build technologies. I chose Information Science as my major which allows me to blend my interests in computer science, human-computer interaction, economics, and design. On campus, I am one of the vice presidents of Women in Computing at Cornell, an organization that works to advocate for 900+ women who aspire to pursue a career in tech. I also serve as design director of Medium Design Collective that promotes interdisciplinary collaboration through design-thinking.

What # would define your life journey?
#wingit — When in doubt, wing it. To me, winging it means stepping out of your comfort zone and trying something new.

Favorite website / app:
I’m a huge fan of Bloomberg Technology and Emily Chang’s daily briefings (goes best with my morning coffee) as well as Medium.com, Product Hunt, Dribbble, and of course Facebook, Instagram, and well you get the idea!

Someone who inspires you and knowledge they have imparted:
Jess Lee, the former CEO of Polyvore and now a Partner at Sequoia Capital, is someone I wholeheartedly look up to not only due to her success, but because of how she got to where she is. She is not your typical CEO–she actually landed her job at Polyvore after she cold-emailed Pasha Sadri, the previous CEO at the company. She sent him extensive feedback about the site and what the company could do better. After she sent it, she was brought onto the team as a product manager and was later asked to run the company as CEO. She got the job because she not only had the skills and experience, but also the passion and honesty to…