A Mentorship Built on Trust, Faith, and Determination
Quanteer Williams, a Sales Technical Leader at Amazon, knows the weight of resilience. Before her mother joined the military, her family in South Carolina lived in a home without running water, pumping daily from a well. Those early experiences shaped her understanding of opportunity and the power of having someone believe in you. When she saw Lentine Akai Mgalo’s “sweet face” in a photo during an International Women’s Month mentor matching event at Microsoft, US, the connection was instant. “Yep, that’s the one I want,” Quanteer recalls.
Lentine was a student at Starehe Girls’ Centre with a clear but daunting dream: Cybersecurity. Their relationship began with the slow, deliberate pace of handwritten letters and emails. Quanteer often addressed her affectionately as “my sweet girl.” As Lentine grew into a young woman, Quanteer found herself trying to phase out the nickname, but admits to the occasional slip of the tongue, a reflection of a bond that feels more like family than a formal arrangement.
The relationship took a significant turn years later during their first video call on WhatsApp while Lentine was on campus. For Quanteer, seeing Lentine’s smile in real-time made the years of letters feel even more tangible. However, university was stretching Lentine to her limits. Like many young women entering the male-dominated tech space, she faced intense imposter syndrome. When some of the units felt complex and overwhelming, she began to second-guess herself. “I had doubts about whether I truly belonged in that space,” Lentine shares and adds, “Quanteer never ignored those fears, but she also never let me settle into them. She kept reminding me why I started, helped me think through challenges, and encouraged me to keep moving forward.”
Quanteer didn’t claim to have the technical answers to cybersecurity, but she provided the framework for Lentine to find them herself. She would ask: What did your professor say? Have you asked for advice from your instructor? What are your options? It was about walking through uncertainty together. When financial difficulties threatened to interrupt Lentine’s studies, the mentorship became a lifeline. Quanteer sponsored her education, an act Lentine says “changed my life” and allowed her to cross the graduation stage in 2025 seamlessly.
The challenges, however, followed her into the job market. As rejections piled up, the silence from employers was deafening. “I kept applying, but no job offers were coming forth,” Lentine explains. It was a period of deep doubt where she nearly abandoned the field. Together, they leaned on their shared foundation of faith, navigating the difficult months with prayer and a refined strategy. Quanteer pushed her to adjust her job-hunting approach and, most importantly, to keep showing up.
Today, Lentine works as a cybersecurity trainer at a college in Nairobi. She also serves as an Ambassador for Hack The Box, an online platform where she organizes sessions on networking and hands-on labs supporting young Kenyans building practical tech solutions. In her classroom, Lentine has learned to adapt the patience Quanteer showed her; she is naturally fast-paced, but deliberately slows down to support students who struggle with foundational concepts.
“What Quanteer gave me was guidance and belief,” Lentine reflects. “What I gained was the confidence to keep going, and now I pass that forward to others who, just like me, are finding their way in the world of tech.”
For Quanteer, the eight-year journey has been equally transformative. It required her to listen without assumption and adapt her guidance to a different cultural and educational context. She has watched Lentine transform from a shy student with a dream into a professional leader. Lentine and Quanteer’s story is a powerful testament to the impact that ripples out, securing not just Lentine’s future but the future of the tech ecosystem.