Molly Mae Potter (A’03) grew up on a llama and alpaca ranch in Pilot Mountain, North Carolina, about 30 minutes north of Salem Academy’s campus. Molly said her parents—both of whom were nurses—always put education first and worked incredibly hard to send Molly and her brother to the best schools they could afford.

“Since they instilled the importance of education in me from an early age, I was very academically inclined my whole life,” Molly said. Salem Academy was the best school in the area, so it made the decision very easy for me and my family that Salem Academy was the right choice for us.”

Molly is a strong believer in empowering women for leadership positions at a young age and that the importance of intellectual curiosity in those leadership positions is what creates a safe space for young women to find their voices, their foundation, and their inner empowerment to drive change.

“It’s something that can’t just be thought. It has to be fostered, nourished, and practiced,” she said. I got that from my time at Salem Academy, and it has been the foundation of my personal and professional successes.”

Molly also is a believer in Salem Academy’s STEAM focus.

“The most needed and demanding jobs currently in STEAM didn’t exist when I was going through Salem Academy. But what Salem did was set me up for success to be intellectually curious and to know that I could do hard things, Molly said. Being successful in STEAM didn’t mean good grades, it meant experimenting to figure out the right solutions.”

“We don’t know where the world is going to be with STEAM careers 20 years from now,” she added. But Salem is setting the future thought leaders of this world to be bold and agile enough to take on the new challenges and problems the world needs us to solve.”

Molly also has a message to share with young women who are considering studying at Salem Academy but are not quite sure if it is the right place for them.

“You get great diversity of backgrounds that come together at a time in young women’s lives when they are trying to figure out what they want to be as a person when they grow up. There are no expectations of who you need to be by the time you graduate–it’s more about what you are going to represent and what you are going to be committed to from a mindset perspective in this world: honor, teamwork, kindness, a commitment to lifelong learning, and respect,” she said. So, the choice you are making when going to Salem Academy isn’t about who you think you need to be growing up but more about what you are going to stand for.”

Like many others who attended Salem Academy, Molly has fond memories of her favorite place on campus. She also has great memories of life outside the classroom.

“The May Dell is a magical place,” she said. I don’t really know if anything can top the more than 200 years of traditions that have cascaded down those stairs and the giants that have spoken eloquent words of wisdom to new graduates. It’s hallowed ground.

“I think my favorite memory was the ‘kiss the llama’ and ‘name the llama’ fundraiser that we did with my class,” Molly said. I brought in one of my llamas, and we placed money on different teachers who would have to kiss the llama if they raised the most money. I remember for ‘name the llama’ the Spanish teacher won, and we named the llama after her favorite Saint.”

Today, Molly is vice president of Greenlake Security, Compliance, and SRE Operations at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Before recently joining Hewlett Packard, she worked at Dell Technologies for almost a decade. Earlier, Molly was in the United States Air Force where she served as a Flight Test Engineer.

“I think the key theme in all of this is that I’ve grown my career by never shying away from doing hard things and trying new things. I loved working at Dell Technologies, but when opportunity knocked, I was standing at the door ready to take on a new challenge,” Molly said.

“The same things happened with my career in the Air Force and at Dell. Going back to the foundation of feeling empowered to go be a leader in the unknown and knowing that I can do hard things all started at Salem Academy.”