Tech in the Right Direction

Is Empathy an Important Aspect of Building a Successful Career?

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Jennifer Didier sits down with Director of client Services as Clear Digital, Annie Raygoza.  Listen to their conversation as they go deeper into Annie's career path and the importance of being empathetic to the team around you. 
About Annie Raygoza 
Annie serves as the Director of Client Services at Clear Digital, a digital agency specializing in marketing and advertising for B2B brands. She dedicates her time to building client relationships, and as a result of that, her team has garnered a 90% client retention rate.
Active in the community, Annie sits on the board of the Silicon Valley chapter of the American Advertising Federation and works with other tech professionals working toward advancing leadership opportunities for women. 
As a woman in marketing, advertising, and technology, she understands the importance of representation and advocating for women in the field, and she consistently supports women of all career levels to find their confidence to reach their full potential.

Building Confidence by Leveraging Your Skills and Reframing Them.

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Jennifer Didier interviews Samantha Bufton on how she has leveraged her skills to assist her in building her career.  Her journey will take us from her arts and English literature start to COO of Poppulo. 
A little more information about Samantha Bufton:
Highly-accomplished business, product, and innovation leader adept at growing global business lines via sophisticated B2C/B2B, product, and technology strategies. Over 20 years of success driving transformational growth for organizations of all sizes.
Career Update:
Samantha Bufton is not Operating Executive at Silver Lake.
Be sure to connect with her on LinkedIN.

Tips That Help Bolster Professional Confidence

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Join Jennifer Didier and Beth Attwood as they share great tips and insight on how to build confidence.  Todays Technical Industry needs confident people to take the lead with bold moves to ask the hard questions and negotiate the best contracts. 
Bio:
Beth Attwood is Vice President, Growth Marketing for Nitro Inc, the document productivity company, specializing in market-leading PDF, eSign and Digital Identity solutions.With over 20 years’ experience in technology marketing, Beth’s had the privilege of working for leading brands such as Ingram Micro, Brocade, Veeam, Snow and Nitro Software. She believes in leading with authenticity, challenging the status quo and developing long-lasting connections with employees, partners and customers alike.Beth is passionate about mentoring and supporting young women navigating their way through the tech industry. Her hope is that through sharing inspiration, with a sense of humour borne of experience, she can make a positive difference to the new generation of female leaders.
Career Update for Beth Attwood:
Beth Attwood is VP of Marketing at Adroq. 

MENtors that Make a Difference: Featuring Tom Foster

 
Our next guest on MENtors that Make a Difference is Tom Foster, the Director of Sales at The Receptionist, the company behind your swift check-in experiences. Started in 2013, The Receptionist paved the way as the first-ever visitor management company. They are now in over 4k+ locations and 36 countries worldwide.
 
Today we talk about Tom's career journey and how business culture helped guide him to where he is today. We also talk about the significant impact women have had on The Receptionist and how they have impacted the tech industry as a whole. Finally, to further explore this impact, we discuss the qualities male allies can attain to help their female counterparts grow their careers. 
 
You can learn more about The Receptionist here: https://thereceptionist.com/
 
Thank you for listening; we hope Tom's story helps inspire others to seek or grow their tech career. 

Meet Danica Bunnett COO of Bluon

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Join Jennifer Didier and Danica Bunnett as they discuss the operations of Bluon.  Danica will share how her childhood experiences have helped to find her passion and use it to build Bluon to it's current status in the marketplace. 
Danica Bunnett Bio:
As Bluon’s Chief Operating Officer, Danica manages the day-to-day operations of Bluon, a rapidly growing technology company in the HVAC space that has grown from 30 people to 130 in just over a year. As is typical in a company of Bluon’s size, Danica directly oversees several critical teams while working hand in glove with managers on several others.  Danica is a true hands-on manager and player coach, who utilizes her unique skill set to manage a diverse group of technicians, professionals and software engineers with equal skill, grace and authority. Danica has been with Bluon from the virtual beginning and has been instrumental in its growth as well as its one-of-a-kind culture. In many ways, Bluon is a direct reflection of Danica and her unworldly work ethic, unmatched enthusiasm, seemingly always positive attitude and direct style of communication. She is a graduate of Stanford University with a Bachelors in Product Design Mechanical Engineering. She was also the co-president of Stanford Women in Design (SWID) and believes in bridging Silicon Valley's high-tech innovation with the HVAC world.
Career Update:
Danica pulls from her background in human-centered design and engineering to help grow and scale Bluon. She brings a fresh perspective and unmatched enthusiasm to improve the execution and operational capabilities across the business. Danica is a graduate of Stanford University with a Bachelor’s in Product Design. As a Lake Tahoe native with deep connection to the outdoors, Danica has always had a strong interest in sustainable technologies and improving the world through innovation.
Danica has recently join Chief Member.  You can connect with her on LinkedIN.

MENtors that Make A Difference

Jennifer Didier sits down with co-founder of Kumospace Brett Martin.  Listen to their conversation about the changes that are available in the digital workspace. (Virtual Office)
Brett Martin Bio:
I am an entrepreneur, angel investor, pragmatist, and optimist. Having spent most of my career in the startup trenches, I now focus on supporting other entrepreneurs as Managing Partner of a small seed-stage venture fund: Charge Ventures. Charge is a NYC-based pre-seed/seed stage venture fund. We invest 200-500k at the earliest stages of company formation and then help founders take things from 0 to 1.When not working directly with startups, I spread the startup gospel as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. My teaching focuses on product strategy and entrepreneurial finance but also have a few war stories to tell, having co-founded Switch, a mobile job discovery application, and Sonar, a location-based social network. I began my career on Wall Street as an equity research associate.In my spare time, I've been fortunate enough to write for Harvard Business review, launch a little website called Vice, found a rock band, and sail thousands of miles on a 30ft sailboat.
Brett’s Profile
linkedin.com/in/brettlucasmartin
Twitter
brett1211

Good Roots Created A Determined Spirit

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Join Jennifer Didier and she speaks to Nimia Amaya. They will discuss the importance of education and the need to have confidence, even it it takes you in a different direction than you thought.
Bio for Nimia Amaya:
Nimia Amaya is the Demand Generation Director at Younium. A digital mediaand marketing professional with expertise in the North American and LatinAmerican markets. She holds a BA in Broadcast Media from theUniversity of North Texas and has worked with brands such as UnivisionCommunications, Verizon, Levi’s, Macy’s, and Cedar Fair Entertainment. Sheresides in Dallas, TX with her 9-year-old daughter.
Update on Nimia Amaya:
As an award-winning bilingual marketing and demand generation leader with over 10 years of experience in B2B SaaS, I’ve led marketing efforts for global tech companies based in Sweden, France, and the U.S., specializing in demand generation across the North American and Latin American markets. In my roles, I’ve developed strategies from the ground up, driven revenue growth, and managed multi-million dollar budgets. I’ve also led cross-functional teams with staff in the U.S., Mexico, France, and Sweden, giving me a deep understanding of how to execute high-impact campaigns across geographies. My experience in high-growth startups allows me to adapt quickly, and my data-driven, customer-centric approach ensures that the strategies I implement deliver results aligned with both business and market needs.
She currently works at Triple Whale as a Lifecycle Marketing Manager.

Seeing Opportunity in Small Beginnings

Today Jennifer Didier is joined by Shannon Reedy from TeraKeet.  Shannon shares her journey from school up the ladder to help put in better practices for TeraKeet employees. These practices have helped TeraKeet to embrace Women in Technology and assist in bringing them work-life balance. 
 
More on Shannon Reedy:
Shannon Reedy
Chief Revenue Officer
Shannon Reedy is the Chief Revenue Officer at Terakeet, the Fortune 500's preferred owned asset optimization (OAO) partner for strengthening brand and consumer connections online. With a demonstrated history of leadership, data analysis, and results-driven business development, Shannon has helped Terakeet, as well as its global customers, achieve breakthrough performances. As CRO, Shannon guides Terakeet’s company growth and revenue-generating processes, including sales, marketing, and client success strategies, which have collectively driven 66% more revenue under her leadership.