Louise Stone

Louise graduated with a degree in psychology from Occidental College in 2016. She overcame the unemployment statistics that the autistic community faces by immediately starting a full-time sales job at a household name tech company in San Francisco. After a year success fueled by excitement and hyper-focus, burnout started to set in, and it was clear that an open sales floor and a job on the phone all day was not the autism-friendly job for her. She tried out two different roles within the same company before ultimately being let go after officially disclosing her autism. Not wanting to repeat that experience, she moved into the start-up and small business world where she could more easily manage her environment and schedule without disclosing and used this time to test our different careers. Every 6 months she found herself switching jobs and, despite landing roles in marketing, operations, and project management, she was consistently underemployed. Finally, she found the world of autism-friendly employment and was hired at Auticon, a global technology consulting firm that exclusively hires autistic people for careers in technology. She started there in January of 2020 as an Executive Assistant and now leads Recruitment and Community Partnerships. As a part of Autistic Women’s Alliance, Louise wants to use her experience of underemployment and job instability, along with her knowledge of neurodiversity recruitment to educate and assist other autistic folks on finding and thriving in their career.