Tech in the Right Direction

How Experienced Leaders Can Make Real Change in Today’s World

This week's guest is Gavriella Schuster, the founding sponsor of Women in Cloud and the Women in Technology Network. She currently sits on the board of both, along with being a board member of ChinaSoft International, IAMCP, and the University of Washington Bothell. Last year she gave a TEDx speech on "Gender Equity," where she launched her "Become Framework." As an Athena International Global Leadership Award winner and a former Corporate VP at Microsoft, Gavriella knows what it takes to make significant changes for women in tech.
Today we talk about Gavriella's career journey and how she rose through the ranks at Microsoft as a woman in tech. Being at Microsoft for 25+ years, she reached an executive-level position by continuing to build on her knowledge and experiences to stand out from the rest. We also talk about her passion for growing women's presence in the industry and how she's turning that passion into real-world change through the various projects she helps manage. Finally, we talk about exposing the problems facing diversity, equity, and inclusion within the tech industry and how we can all help solve them.
Learn more about Gavriella and the organizations she's involved with by following her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavriella-schuster/
Thank you for listening; we hope Gavriella's story helps inspire others to grow their tech career.

Enhancing the Human Experience with Technology

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.

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.

Networking, Learning and Growing in the Tech Industry

Join Jennifer Didier and Elise Carmichael and they track their roads to success in the tech industry.  They will share about networking, the importance of learning, and growing inside the industry itself.
More About Elise Carmichael:
As Lakeside’s Chief Technology Officer, Elise is responsible for building and delivering the next generation of Digital Employee Experience solutions. She has over 20 years of experience working with enterprise organizations on high-tech, big data, and machine learning-based products. Before joining Lakeside, Elise held senior technology and product leadership roles at Functionize, Tricentis, QASymphony, and Mobiquity throughout the last ten years.
Elise founded a nonprofit in Florida to encourage more women and minorities to enter and stay employed in high-technology fields. She studied Computer Science and Music at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 
The best way to Reach Elise,  is to find her on LinkedIn and engage her about things that are not sales related.  :)

Technology in the Trucking Industry

Jennifer Didier speaks with Rachel Meranus about how the products we all love get from one place to the next.  She shares about the industry itself and how women have been making an impact. 
More about Rachel Meranus:
Rachel Meranus, CRMO, Transfix
Rachel Meranus is the Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer of Transfix. Rachel has spent the last two decades leading marketing and communications across a variety of venture-backed B2B SaaS companies in the CommsTech, MarTech, and AdTech sectors. Rachel’s expertise lies in building high-performance marketing teams; establishing go-to-market strategies, processes, and infrastructure to create long-term scalable growth; developing cross-departmental alignment to drive opportunity and accountability across sales, customer success, product, and marketing; understanding the market and the customer through primary research; building differentiated, empathetic, and trusted brands; and managing multi-million dollar marketing budgets. 
 
She has built and led marketing teams most recently as CMO at Botify, an enterprise SEO technology company, CMO at Olapic (now Olapic by Social Native), a leader in visual marketing technology, CMO at MediaMath, a leader in AdTech, and SVP at PR Newswire/Cision. Rachel is a native New Yorker hailing from the Upper West Side who now lives in Montclair, NJ with her husband, two children, and a 15 lb cockapoo. When she is not marketing high-growth brands or acting as an Uber driver for her two teenagers, Rachel can be found swinging kettlebells or doing yoga.

How We Can Invest in Women to Shape a Better Future

This week's guest is Momei Qu, the Senior Vice President of PSP Growth - the growth equity arm of PSP Partners. They focus on leveraging their multi-faceted experience and expertise across vital economic segments, including business & technology services, housing, and industrials. Their approach is centered on investing in innovative high-growth software and tech-enabled services companies that drive efficiency and disrupt the status quo.
Today we talk about how Momei's passion for technology started and how her tech career grew into a senior-level position with PSP. We also discuss the importance of investing in women and how that investment can pay dividends down the line.
Thank you for listening; we hope Momei's story helps inspire others to seek or 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.

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.