Tech in the Right Direction

How We Can Put Bias Aside to Create a Better Future

This week's guest is Veronica Place, an Account Manager at GenCare, a division of General Networks - an organization that delivers technology consulting and managed services for customers who need to collect and process business-critical information. Veronica is passionate about bringing individuals together and whose key strength is coaching people to their potential.
In today's episode, we talk about Veronica's career journey and how it led her to her current position within GenCare. We also discuss Veronica's involvement with non-profits and her passion for creating a more diverse, equal, and inclusive world. Finally, we take the conversation further into how we can put our biases aside to create a better future for the generations to come.
You can learn more about GenCare here: https://gencarenow.com/
We hope Veronica's story helps inspire others to grow their tech career.

How-to Spark Your Career and Grow as an Individual

This week's guest is Binna Kim, the President and Co-Founder of Vested - Communications Agency. She is an experienced financial services communications consultant, working with large and small financial brands on strategy and execution. Leveraging creativity and pragmatism, she worked with firms to craft a compelling strategy with impactful results. As an integrated communicator, she thinks holistically about how brands can leverage the communications mix to deliver ROI.
Today we talk about how certain people and experiences help spark career inspirations. We also talk about how different industries have evolved to make room for women, but more work remains. 
Thank you for listening; we hope Binna help inspire others to grow their tech career.

Enhancing the Human Experience with Technology

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This week's guest is Sarah Haggard, the Founder and CEO of Tribute− a peer-to-peer mentorship platform available in Slack and Teams that enhances team collaboration, learning, and productivity by creating real-time access to knowledge sharing via micro-mentorship. Sarah is an innovative people and business leader who has led multiple start-up initiatives within her decade-long career in Product Marketing at Microsoft, raising $40M to scale her last business. She is an expert in P&L management, enterprise software, and GTM strategy. Her tenacity and drive for results led to her being widely recognized as a turnaround expert and new business incubator.
Today we talk about Sarah's non-traditional route that started in social work and how this evolved into a career in technology. Sarah also shares how technology is helping shape entrepreneurship and how it can help individuals find the mentoring they need.
Thank you for listening; we hope Sarah's story helps inspire others to seek or grow their tech career.

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.