Tech in the Right Direction

Developing Your Skills to Stand Out from the Field

This week's guest is Evelyn Sheahan, Director of Business Programs for Azure Cloud and AI at Microsoft. She has a background in technology, business management, and marketing. Evelyn has a wide range of corporate and field experience and has worked in sales-enablement programs developed to drive multi-million-dollar sales with increased efficiencies.
Today we talk about Evelyn's beginnings and how it eventually grew into a role at Microsoft. We also talk about the challenge’s women face within tech and how important it is to develop your skills to stand out. We also talk about how important it is to find a mentor who can guide you in the right direction.
Thank you for listening; we hope Evelyn's story helps inspire others to grow their tech career.

MENtors that Make a Difference Premiere Episode Featuring Vince Menzione

Today's guest on MENtors that Make a Difference is Vince Menzione, an award-winning business leader who has delivered and advanced four successful business transformations by embracing disruptive technology and building successful partnerships to transform organizations. 
Today we talk about Vince's career journey and how it can be summed up into four business transformations that have culminated into the start of his very own podcast. We also talk about the changes happening in tech with regard to women's influence in the industry and how male allies can help support their female counterparts.
Vince also hosts the successful Ultimate Guide to Partnering Podcast, where he spotlights leadership and partnership principles to help technology organizations thrive and survive during this age of rapid transformation. 
You can listen to and learn more about the Ultimate Guide to Partnering Podcast here: https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/
Thank you for listening; we hope Vince's story helps inspire others to seek or grow their tech career. Follow him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincemenzione/

A Woman’s Journey: 30 Years Through Tech.

This week we get a different view of technology from 30-year tech vet and Vice President of Sales, Sharan Hildebrand. Sharan fell in love with tech her Junior year of college when she took a coding class and saw the amazing output that could come from writing code. She shares her experiences over three decades of working with technology and dives into the tech job roles that are often overlooked. She also shares what it’s like to be a woman in tech, how to gain and maintain confidence, and the challenges she’s overcome.

Understanding Education Technology

Jennifer Didier and Shannon Meadows talk details on education technology.  How it came to be a necessary service for our daily lives. 
Some additional information about Shannon:
Shannon was previously VP of Sales & Operations for Blackboard Inc. where she worked on $182M in Acquisition between NTI Group & Blackboard Connect. As Chief Revenue Officer, Shannon leads the Sales and Customer Success organizations at BibliU. She is an industry expert in Ed Tech and Digital Publishing sales and go-to-market strategies. She has led companies in C-level roles in Sales, Marketing and Business Development, building several start-up businesses resulting in successful company equity events.
About BibliU
BibliU is a learning enablement platform that empowers higher education institutions to streamline their textbook and courseware workflows to achieve greater student outcomes, affordability and social mobility. With BibliU, colleges and universities can finally deliver on the promise of digitalization, guaranteeing all students have first-day access to the learning content they need.
 

Understanding the basics of Web 3 and Blockchain

As Jennifer asks questions, Liya helps us explore and gain understanding of web 3 and blockchain.  This is a detailed conversation of where we are now and where this technology may take us. 
Liya Safina Bio:
Liya is a digital design director and web3 strategist living in Honolulu, Hawaii. Through her work in blockchain innovation, Liya is building with a mission to help people get educated, connected, and empowered in web3.She has established creative for Fortune 500 companies and startups alike: Nike, Google, Alibaba, Sotheby’s, StreetEasy, Brandless and Coinbase to name a few. Liya has experienced a variety of leadership scenarios, from bootstrapping a startup to designing for future citizens of a city built by Toyota in Japan. Recognition closely followed: she was selected as a fellow at Estee Lauder's Vital Voices Leadership program and awarded as Innovator of the Year by Falling Walls Conference in Berlin.
 
Liya’s vision is to build a future where technology serves human needs, instead of humans serving revenue models.

Understanding Blockchain

Join Jennifer Didier and Shruthi Rao, as they discuss how the data blockchain can resolve communication problems for companies and offer better customer and data interactions.
Shruthi Rao Bio:
Shruthi Rao is the Co-Founder & CBO at Vendia, a serverless, multi-cloud platform inspired by the tenets of blockchains, that enables IT firms to manage distributed data and code. Rao has spent most of her professional life scaling businesses, investing, and as an advisor for projects in technology and crypto. Before Vendia, she led the business development for AWS, as well as high-profile deals for enterprises such as Bank of America and AT&T.
 

Bringing Stem into the Food Space with Corporate Cooking Experiences

Join us on this episode as Jennifer speaks with Kimberly Fox. Kimberly will share with us how she used the pandemic to start a food blog and turn it into a variety of corporate cooking experiences. 
A little about Kimberly:
Kimberly Fox leads virtual corporate cooking classes and is a recipe developer and writer for her food blog, From Market to Table. Kimberly developed her signature corporate cooking experiences after spending 10+ years working in STEM and experiencing the gender inequities and micro-cultures in corporate cultures. Now, she leverages her understanding of STEM culture and well-tested recipes to help leaders build inclusive teams and close the gender gap.
"Learn more about Kimberly's Cooking Classes here: https://frommarkettotable.com"
 

Jumping Back Into Technology after an Extended Break

Jennifer interviews Sunnie Weber about her accomplishments professionally as well as family.
Sunnie Weber Bio:
Director of IoT Ecosystem Partner Strategy and Scale
Sunnie has been in the world of IoT for the last 8 + years now having worked in Sales and Partner Enablement, Sales Operations, and Channel Scale Design at Cisco and Intel before focusing on setting up partner programs for our edge partners, the OT SI. Just recently she moved into a broader role in IoT as the Ecosystem Partner Strategy Lead and is excited to be able to take everything she’s learned to help build a bridge across the ecosystem, helping our partners cross over from get to go to market with a goal of getting everyone faster time to market and more services opportunities. Connecting our ecosystems through solutions and solution selling is her greatest passion at Intel.