Aïcha Ly, head of consumer insights for the mobile analytics company Opensignal, really felt like she was thriving in Philadelphia when she moved to Cheltenham after living in South Philadelphia, writes Holly Quinn for Technical.ly.

Ly is one of five Black professionals in Philadelphia that Technical.ly spoke to for its yearlong series, Thriving. This part of the series focused on what economic security looks like for different groups.

She said in Cheltenham she found a strong sense of community. She was again surrounded by people who looked like her, had similar socioeconomic backgrounds and had worked their way to financial stability like she had.

“When the world is your mirror, it’s easier to see yourself more clearly,” she said.

Ly and her family had immigrated to the U.S. from Senegal, West Africa when she was a child, and she said it was a challenging adjustment on many levels.

“I was just me in Africa,” she said. “Everybody looked like me — doctors looked like me, lawyers looked like me. So I never felt out of place in any way, shape or form. And moving to America was a big culture shift for me linguistically, because I didn’t speak English; culturally; and then racially, being a minority for the first time in my life. And the reason I share that background is because all of those experiences shape how you move through the world.”

Ly, now 33, initially lived in Rhode Island with her family and then moved to Philadelphia to earn her MBA at Drexel University.

Since graduation, she has worked for Independence Blue Cross, Comcast NBCUniversal and Comcast Business, and now Opensignal.

She is also the founder of SITB or Start In The Beginning, a public speaking coaching platform.

Read more about Aïcha Ly in Technical.ly.

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