The 10 Most Impactful Women in Technology 2020

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Editorial

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ech has consistently been an overwhelmingly male industry, with notable male business pioneers, for example, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg gaining a widespread reputation for their contributions to the sector. Nonetheless, women are having a tremendous influence as well and an ever-increasing number of women are entering both standard and high-level positions in tech, with big worldwide firms, for example, Apple, Google, Facebook, and so forth. These organizations are employing women 238% quicker than men.

The overall number of women in top business jobs is still horrendously low – just 5% of CEOs of significant organizations in the US are women. However, since 2015 the number of women in senior leadership has increased, especially in the C-suite where the representation of women has expanded from 17% to 21%. Today, 44% of organizations have at least three ladies in their C-suite, up from 29% of organizations in 2015. Corporate America scores a lot lower than France or Norway, where organizations average over 40% female representation on a governing body.

20% of all tech start-ups over the world were established by women. Chicago, Boston and Silicon Valley have the most tech start-ups established by women. The number of women working for Facebook increased to 84% in 2015, contrasted with a 16% expansion of men. 83% more women joined Microsoft in 2015, contrasted with 17% of men.

Companies need to guarantee there are adequate rungs on the ladder to assist women with moving into the management positions. We should be liberal enough to acquire female leaders from different businesses, who don’t have a tech foundation. We need to work intimately with schools and colleges to win the contention that tech isn’t only a male career path. Innovation likewise has roles and responsibilities to play in advancing diversity in the working place, given its capability to change

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working relationships, connecting people around the globe, and encouraging transparency. In a time of constant flux, companies that organize a different and comprehensive culture will be better positioned to take care of the issues of the future.

Harvard Business Review presents a McKinsey study, which shows that organizations in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more bound to have returns over the business mean and Credit Suisse has noticed that companies with at least one female board member generated higher yield on equity and higher net income growth than those that didn’t have any women on the board. Other studies show that nonhomogenous teams are basically more intelligent.

As an industry, we frequently guarantee that we will provide innovation that can support this societal transformation. In many areas, digital advancements can assist us with utilizing assets smartly. The numerous young ladies wanting to do their part for the technology can assist with improving the gender balance in the tech industry. With humankind’s biggest difficulties at the table, obviously we need as many good women developers and broad perspectives as we can get.

Women can lead the tech sector forward as well. Since innovation is all-unavoidable, the conventional area lines have gotten obscured. Brands that stick to the old structures will wind up surpassed and left behind. This is the point at which women’s capacity to empathize and look for compromise turns into a ground-breaking asset. If innovation should support the whole of humankind, the critical choices should be taken from a balanced perspective.

Priya Dialani Senior Editor

Credits

December 2020

ASHISH SUKHADEVE Editor-in-chief

PRIYA DIALANI Senior Editor

VIVEK KUMAR Content Lead

PREETIPADMA K Content Analyst

ASTHA ORIEL Content Analyst

ADILIN BEATRICE Content Analyst

PUJA DAS Content Analyst

NIKITA DAS Marketing Manager

MANASA MUTHYALA Research Analyst

DHARMENDAR PASSI Sales Manager

ANUSHA POLNENI Marketing Analyst

PRAVALLIKA THAMMANA Web Development

RITESH RAJ Art & Design Director

SUKHADA RAJ Creative Head

SACHIN WASNIK Marketing Executive

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Anna Schlegel

NetApp

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Photography by: Jay Tsai

08 COVER STORY

C O N T E N T S

C O V E R

S T O R Y

Elevating Cloud Experience by Imparting an Adaptive Culture of Leadership

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NetApp is a global cloud-led, data-centric software company that empowers organizations to lead with data in the age of accelerated digital transformation. The company provides systems, software and cloud services that enable them to run their applications optimally from data center to cloud, whether they are developing in the cloud, moving to the cloud, or creating their own cloudlike experiences on premises. With solutions that perform across diverse environments, NetApp helps organizations build their own data fabric and securely deliver the right data, services and applications to the right people—anytime, anywhere.

As a cloud-led, data-centric software company, only NetApp can help build your unique data fabric, simplify and connect your cloud, and securely deliver the right data, services and applications to the right people—anytime, anywhere.

Mission to leverage Insights Gained with Maturity Anna N Schlegel, Vice President of the Global Portfolio to Market Lifecycle at NetApp, was born in Catalunya, right next to the French border, where she learned to speak several languages from childhood. She arrived in the US in 1992 and started her first company in California at age 23.

Since successfully selling her startup, Anna has lent her expertise to some of the top technology companies in Silicon Valley, including Cisco, VMware, Xerox, and VeriSign.

She is known for her skills in guiding large companies move into international markets,

enabling them to successfully deliver and scale their products to customers all over the world.

Today, as VP of NetApp, Anna manages three Centers of Excellence within the company, including Globalization Strategy, Information Engineering, and Product Portfolio Solutions.

In her spare time, Anna has founded three global non-profits, all focused on providing upward mobility for kids and women worldwide. Anna is also the Executive Global Sponsor for Women in Technology at NetApp. She is the author of “Truly Global”, a bestselling book on internal markets.

Photography by: Jay Tsai

Anna Schlegel Vice President of the Global Portfolio-to-Market Lifecycle NetApp

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Anna tirelessly works to improve women’s visibility across the company – constantly supporting training programs, development opportunities, and professional conferences, amongst other initiatives.

She has a contagious energy, is passionate, a role model, and an inspiration to everyone who meets her!

Kathy Tyra VP of Workplace Resources and Real Estate at NetApp and Global Chairperson of NetApp Women in Technology (WIT)

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Tenets of an Uplifting Leadership Anna’s time in Silicon Valley has provided her with a wealth of experience to draw from, having been involved with product teams, marketing organizations, strategy offices,

transformation offices, and engineering teams. This unique combination has helped her develop a distinctive leadership style that revolves around five central ideas:

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Put People First

Maintain Core Values

Creating an environment where a team can innovate safely and push boundaries while maintaining a work-life balance is vital, and it needs to be intentionally managed. Family and teamwork have always been huge components of Anna’s life, from her childhood in Catalonia to training with the national volleyball team for the 1992 Olympics. She advises that in everything one does, you must put your team and her people first. A strongly aligned team drives the “edge” in “cutting edge”.

Anna always starts new teams by working together to spell out the workgroup’s values. That is a must. During the valuemaking process you work to define the environment you wish to create and work in. You note down what is acceptable, how to work together, what is important to that team, what happens if there is a disagreement, etc.

The core values are then used as basis for alignment and to reach shared goals. Simply writing down a list of values isn’t enough. Those values have to be lived, revisited, and practiced regularly, as they are the foundation of work.

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Innovate

This is key! For the past ten years, Anna’s entire organization has been invited to participate in a monthly Innovation Lab run by her Chief of Staff, Bridget O’Brien. In this environment, the team is encouraged to constantly innovate in the fields of globalization, product management workflows, content strategies, and portfolio management.

Their innovations are then incorporated into NetApp’s workflows, which consistently saves the company time, money, and headaches. Anna’s teams are regularly asked to speak at forums, and have received a number of awards for their innovative solutions.

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Be Data-Driven

NetApp is known for empowering customers to do more with their data, enabling them to manage it proactively in order to gain key insights. The same is true among Anna’s team.

Decisions are made on patterns, metrics, OKRs, and customer behaviours. Her team uses data to review business regularly in order to deliver for their stakeholders. The data is used to tell a story, enabling the team to address pain points and ensure that NetApp’s customers have a great experience while interacting with the company. By leveraging careful business tracking, the team can understand the quarter’s primary goals, identify any red flags, and strategize for success.

Communicate

Anna works weekly with Caitlin Phillips, her Communications Manager, to ensure that all of her communications efforts are data driven, goal focused, and in brand alignment. Anna heads a highly global team, with employees spread across

countless time zones, languages, and cultural backgrounds.

Therefore, communicating effectively with the team is crucial to maintaining a healthy alignment.

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Diffusing the Challenges of Sexism When Anna arrived in the United States, she was a determined 23-year-old, but an immigrant with no local work experience. However, she had a solid education, strong family values, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a passion for working in a global environment.

One of the first challenges she faced was that when she would say her maiden name, “Anna Navarro”, the first question was: “when did you cross the border?”. Anna, a native of Europe who had just finished her master’s degree in Germany, had never encountered this before. That experience was her first reality check here in the States. Her last name

became a topic of constant discussion rather than her qualifications or experience.

Over the years, she faced a variety of situations, including: » Societal pressure to focus on being a mom while delivering on work expectations » Criticism for her accent: “It’s so cute” » Perpetual mansplaining and the occasional harassment Unfortunately, these challenges are not uncommon. Anna has endured them all and worked hard to become the leader she is today. Over the years she has come to view these comments and fears as a reflection of the other person.

Talisman of a Great Mentor Anna is passionate about the power of mentoring, meeting with her mentees weekly, and often daily. Her agenda is packed with requests for guidance, to brainstorm and to receive emotional support. Anna sees mentoring as a way to understand the issues that younger generations are facing today.

There are 5 golden rules that Anna encourages her mentees

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to practice: » Envision what you want in the next 1-2 years and write it down » Map your values. What are they? What is important to you? » Talk through this with your mentor or sponsor » If you want to make progress, stick to the plan. » Take care of your health: Sleep and fitness keep you level.

Leading with Innovation Anna’s teams are focused on innovation and have even received several awards for their work. In fact, they are currently in the final stages of filing Anna’s first patent, which she has developed in collaboration with team members Saurabh Kavathekar and Sourabh Suri.

Anna believes in the innovation-in-a-box and the BAIN models to help her team do this. Everyone in her team is well-trained in such methodologies and are empowered to innovate.

She suggests that part of the innovation process is to spend time thinking from the perspective of one’s target audience.

Therefore, companies must consider why their concept will be appealing, what it will solve, and how it will introduce the disruption. Innovation relies on the power of collaborative thinking and constructive debate.

Anna is proud to lead a team of innovators and disruptors.

They are constantly urged to participate in forums, lead panels, and apply for patents. She says, “We thrive on innovation. It’s contagious, and we love it, celebrate it, award it, and push for it.”

Technology as Catalyst of Innovation Anna says that disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have been coming for a long time for early adopters like her. As a result, innovation is critical.

Back in 1997, when she was invited to be one of the initials testers for IBM’s new TM2 Machine Translation engine, Anna spent hours training the engine to correctly translate the name of her then CEO at Cisco, “John Chambers.”

However, the machine kept translating it as “Juan Recamara” or “John Room”!

According to Anna, this was the first time anyone had the brainwave to train the engines on people’s names!

Many people were afraid of the technology and even blamed her team for replacing traditional jobs. Anna had to spend countless hours reassuring people, telling them that anyone whose job had been replaced was welcome to join her Machine Learning teams. She still asserts that it was the best

solution. She is confident that when used for global good, AI can drastically improve people’s lives by automating unnecessary workflows. This frees up people’s time to think creatively about new solutions for a better world.

Even today, Anna continues to push these concepts with her teams. By leveraging these technologies, NetApp is continuously disrupting how globalization works. Earlier, where translations used to take weeks, they now take just seconds; where internationalization code revisions required special dispensation and countless hours of work, NetApp can now do it overnight without anyone realizing it.

Anna recognized this potential back in 1997, but she is more confident of it now than ever. She is sure that disruptive technologies are the future, and that the best leaders are actively searching for ways to embrace them.

Moving towards a Productive Future With remote collaboration becoming the norm, reliance on cloud technologies to support business operations and applications has grown dramatically. It has enabled industries accelerate their digital transformation plans from years to months. NetApp, much like the industry, is leading – by shifting heavily to the cloud. Looking forward, Anna is determined

to help the customers navigate this process and remove the complexity and cost inefficiencies to unlock the cloud’s best.

She is aware that unlike its previous status as the storage vendor of years gone by, NetApp is now a cloud-led, datacentric software company.

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Words of Wisdom Anna feels that no one should give a person a job simply because she is a woman. One must be well prepared by training oneself to be the best, identifying one’s value and talent. Anna encourages people to ask themselves what their elevator pitch is and what their superpowers are. They should then work to hone these skills, using them to achieve their goals.

In a world where women are often expected to be able to juggle everything (kids, households, partners, careers, etc.) Anna suggests that women should delegate, make conscious decisions on their priorities, and choose their partner carefully.

When you combine Anna’s leadership and advocacy work on behalf of women in technology with her passion, perseverance, and singular focus on delivering a global customer experience – she can’t be beaten. In the highly competitive environment where NetApp operates, it’s critical to have leaders like Anna.

What separates Anna from most executives is she is already running towards the fire. She is absolutely fearless in taking on new challenges, particularly those gnarly ones that cut across organizations. In today’s business environment, where change and transformation are the constants, it is comforting to have a leader that doesn’t wait to lead.

Biren Fondekar

Brad Anderson

Chief Transformation Officer, NetApp

SVP and GM, Cloud Infrastructure, NetApp

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AI, Big Data, The IoT, immersive technologies— the solutions that each of these applications add to existing industry infrastructure are so impactful that in 10 years, no industry will exist without them.

Amy Hedrick

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steep mountain with unpredictable weather patterns and no camping gear. Leaders are completely dependent on their own ability to figure things out as they proceed, and make quick decisions that could determine their journey’s success. At the same time, they are wholly reliant on the capabilities of the team they have built and this inter-relationship is what makes or breaks a budding company.

Amy mentions that the decision to take an idea, research market potential and develop a business strategy takes a lot of self-education, trial and error. Leaders must surround themselves with people who bring specific and complementary expertise while also understanding when to listen to their instinct. She highlights that finding this balance is critical.

Amy says that it is not easy to raise money for a product that is just an idea. But she would argue that it’s an even harder challenge to sustain the energy required to keep a vision alive over time while leaders build a product, then a viable business and finally a functioning company. It’s a gamble that requires leaders to remain sharp, flexible and constantly learn, and be willing to take big risks.

Understanding the Power of an Effective Leader Amy points out that to be an effective leader one must quickly identify when they are wrong, and make immediate and effective pivots. Another equally important thing is to understand when they are right and staying firm on that.

Leaders must also choose smart and adaptable people, who know how to work in a start-up environment as they build their team. Amy adds that leaders should also accept that people who are with them in the beginning are not necessarily the ones who will get them across the finish line.

Innovation Comes from Experience For two years, Amy travelled around the world attending events, speaking on panels and keynotes, visiting small and large businesses, and testing ideas that she felt might be market disruptors. Amy thinks that this research phase was critical to her understanding of what the immediate opportunities were for her business while developing a strategy for product innovation, such as identifying functionality improvements that could open up new markets, and plan an achievable timeline, while also creating ‘stretch’ goals.

From day one, Amy’s goal for Cleanbox was to become the ‘Kleenex’ brand of smart tech hygiene—a brand name everyone knows and trusts. This would require quick market saturation, recognizable design and brand confidence. Starting with immersive tech and participating in almost every major

associated event in the US and Europe helped Cleanbox accomplish the first step of being very well known in the XR space.

An Exemplary Perspective towards Disruptive Technologies Amy believes that Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Internet of Things and immersive technologies including Virtual and Augmented Reality, have already revolutionized industries, and that in 10 years, no industry will exist without them.

Thriving and Winning through the Pandemic Cleanbox existed before the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Hence, the company was able to successfully expedite the growth of multiple product lines and drastically expand its market reach in a few months. Cleanbox’s engineering had already been developed, lab validated and markettested by the time the global interest highlighted the need to eliminate contagions. With the world being hyper-aware of the importance of hygiene, and businesses understanding the critical role of hygiene and safety protocol to play in the re-opening and bringing back customers, Cleanbox’s products solve real-world problems.

Cleanbox got its start in the immersive technology space.

Cleanbox was the first in that market to offer a unique and effective solution for HMD decontamination. The company started with one product that was durable, lightweight and easy to use.

In twelve months, the company grew from one product line with clients in ten countries to three product lines in over 36 countries, and 41 states in the US. Cleanbox’s products not only provide 99.999% decontamination in a minute but also give businesses the ability to track the hygiene history of any object through RFID tagging. In 2021, the company will be introducing a home version of its OmniClean. Cleanbox will also expand its manufacturing and fulfilment centers, and continue to add products that address different market needs.

Multi-tasking and Prioritizing as a Precursor to Leadership Roles Amy believes that women are fantastic leaders because they are generally effective at multi-tasking, prioritizing and categorizing. Women can show empathy and objectivity in tandem. She adds that an empowered woman can bring greatness to the team around her. Amy advises emerging female leaders to embrace the fact that they are a woman, and then move past that and lean into the skills they have honed.

She concludes saying that it will make them a good leader who can build a successful business.

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jelvix.com

Alexandra Abrosimova COO

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Jelvix

The future of AI promises a new era of productivity, where companies scale AI across the organization to stay competitive in business. Key market leaders are always the first to AI technology adoption with a clear vision of companies’ future and a systematic adoption strategy of innovations.

Alexandra Abrosimova

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skilled and less experienced, which held Alexandra back from her career progressions and opportunities.

Alexandra advises women to believe in themselves and to not suffer from imposter syndrome. “Find a mentor within your company that can help you go through this challenge.”

She often shares her story of learnings and failures to help others achieve their goals faster.

Winning Employees’ Trust Alexandra believes in inclusive leadership, collaboration, and coaching. In her opinion, a transformational leader should primarily share and understand the entire organization’s collective consciousness. Motivated and passionate employees can make anything possible as they trust in the leader’s decision-making abilities.

Managers are given a lot of freedom to manage their teams while also getting the support and feedback they need to grow and make a real impact. Alexandra says that transformation can rarely be achieved if the leader is not open or receptive to new ideas. Watching people grow gives her great motivation, but more importantly, it creates enduring organizational capability and capacity.

Understanding Pain Points to Develop Solutions Jelvix focuses on requirements rather than features. By fully understanding its target audience’s problems, the company can identify their pain points and how its services can help them. Asking both existing and potential customers for their feedback, the company acquires invaluable information and demonstrates that it appreciates their opinions. Jelvix realizes this tactic through marketing activities to ensure the most incredible reach. Eventually, “The more information you collect, the better your marketing strategies will perform,” Alexandra elaborates.

Improving Leadership Qualities by Leveraging Innovation Alexandra believes that artificial intelligence dramatically transforms the way people live and work. The impact of these technologies covers both the production and the characteristics of products and services. It also has the potential to change the innovation process itself.

Alexandra cites that AI has become an integral part of daily life. One of the most common examples is search engines.

Products, ideas, articles, just background information - everything is at arm’s length. Search engines take into account gender, age, location, and other information that can be extracted from the “electronic footprint.”

Another significant example is social media; the platforms everybody spends so much time on now also use filters against inappropriate content, bots, spam, and sales of banned substances.

People use Google maps every day hoping to get the fastest route based on traffic congestion, with a generated voice assisting us without even thinking about this system’s complexity.

When it comes to the leader’s role, it would be essential to consider that businesses were operating in a relatively stable world twenty years ago, where the change occurred at a much slower pace. Alexandra emphasizes that significant changes in today’s leader’s role have happened due to increased innovation speed. Today, the world is driven by commercial and technological disruption. New ways of working have opened the doors to innovation and creativity, crucial for organizations willing to obtain a competitive advantage.

Educating People About Intelligent Technologies Jelvix will shortly release several products and declare itself as a fully-fledged product company. Another step Alexandra sees is opening several foreign top-tier development centers.

Its employees will continue to be one of the crucial areas of Jelvix’s investments. The company plans to move along the path of creating new business values by teaching people the skills necessary for work with intelligent technologies.

She envisions that the IT industry will have a very different future - software development companies will have to transform into innovation hubs. Eventually, only the innovation-driven approach and the new innovation-as-service model will thrive, while others will be struggling to survive.

Identifying and Reinforcing Expertise “It is essential to find inspiring mentors early in your career.

Choose the people you admire and who can discover your talents and guide you on using them to reach your full potential,” Alexandra advises.

She believes that every mistake should be a new lesson. Modern leaders often have to take risks. So, learning how to deal with and succeed with some failing approaches is essential. Failures lead to success if one learns from them.

She also suggests to identify strengths and focus on them.

Skills that one is naturally good at will bring the best results if one makes enough effort. It’s not only about executing daily tasks and taking care of responsibilities. It’s a lot about selfdevelopment and growth. “Make sure it’s not your weaknesses you focus on, but the other way around”, adds Alexandra.

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A R T I C L E

Why it is the Time to Rethink About Women Leadership in Technology?

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any researches show that mixed leadership is one of the important growth factors of a company. It is a transformational leadership style where men and women leaders share the same vision, mission and thoughts, and work collaboratively to drive business change.

Unfortunately, this leadership style has a long way to go to become a reality. In the technology world, gender equality persists as a major concern as women remain significantly underrepresented in tech leadership. According to IDC, only 24% of women hold senior leadership positions in technology.

The IT sector undoubtedly is one of the

fastest-growing and fascinating industries in the world. It plays a crucial role in a country’s technical innovation and economic growth.

While the sector has always been dominated by men workforce, now is the time to close the gender-based employee gap by hiring more women in tech scenarios.

It is being said that having women in senior leadership positions can positively impact female employee engagement and retention.

In organizations where more senior leadership positions are held by women, they are more likely to get equal pay. In addition to this, female employees feel higher job satisfaction and can stay with the company longer than a year.

How to Get More Women in Technology?

Robust mentoring programs can help women to get into technology, especially aspiring leaders. This is imperative because most technical women want to advance their careers, but they don’t have access to development opportunities.

Making gender diversity core to recruiting processes can also ensure the chance of hiring more women. Empowering women in the workplace through flexible work policies, generous maternity coverage, women’s employee resource groups and mentoring programs will substantially contribute to a female employee’s long-term engagement with her job.

Organizations must embrace an approach that fosters sense of belonging, helping entice more women employees while retaining the existing ones. Accenture, for instance, capitalizes on this strategy and gets the most out of it. The company looks to increase the number of female employees by up to 50% by 2025.

Providing women the opportunity to progress and recognizing them to succeed in senior roles can be an effective way to lure women into the tech workplace. Businesses can encourage female employees by promoting more women to senior roles that will also inspire new entrants and future candidates to apply to the company. Besides, transformational women leaders are good role models for young businesswomen that can influence women in technology.

Moreover, to expedite inclusive women’s participation in the

information technology space, there is a need for collaborative action from the industry, academia and governments. This is can be achieved by providing girls access to training and educational opportunities in STEM and IT at the early ages that will contribute to closing the gender technology gap. For example, the Global Fund for Women grantee partner Feminist Approach to Technology in India trains tech-savvy young women and engages girls aged 12-18. They offer skills-building courses alongside computer classes and training.

Many private companies these days are also coming up with innovative programs to create a diverse workplace. For instance, Accenture has created numerous programs in order to support women. The company has mentoring programs and a women’s network to connect women working at Accenture to help them define their own vision of success. Tech giant Microsoft is also driving global diversity and inclusion through one of the largest employee resource groups. Its aim is to develop and support female employees at Microsoft with opportunities such as global conferences, networking events and mentoring. Girls Who Code, a non-profit organization, is another example that supports to increase the number of women in computer science and tech-related careers.

Closing the gender gap in technology is not a one-time campaign, it requires continuous work that needs to be developed, maintained and cultivated.

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smdi.com

Ana Hirsbrunner President & Principal Owner

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Synectics

Imagine waking up today with only the technology that was available in January 2000. In 2040, no one will recognize the world of 2020. Synectics is embracing technologies that will transform the world in ways that we cannot yet perceive.

Ana Hirsbrunner

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Setting a Way And Walking Through It Without Distraction For many years, Ana worked under her father’s leadership who founded the company and learned how to run the business from an early age. She always knew the kind of leader she wanted to be: confident, empathic and innovative.

Some people questioned Ana’s ability to lead, based on her young age and gender. Despite that, Ana evolved her style to be fair and firm to set the right tone.

Ana’s first action when she stepped into the role was to surround herself with a strong team that shared the same values and is good at collaboration. Ana was also engaged in making tough decisions like who would not be a part of the team. She welcomed different perspectives on how to run the company, but wanted people to work together and not against each other. As a busy leader of a small, growing company, Ana wasn’t familiar with everything, so she trusted her leadership team and chose them with that intention. They strive for extraordinary results, and constructively challenged Ana, often with a out of the box approaches. She also focused on training to develop subordinate leaders. Ana believes that successful organizations need a bench of leaders.

As the steward of her father’s legacy, a business he built from the ground up, no one could match Ana’s level of passion and determination to take Synectics into its next-generation.

Along with her passion, the company’s leadership team has made changes in the right place that led Synectics to its current successful position. Ana is confident that Synectics can accomplish her future goals.

Resilience - The One Mandatory Characteristic For Transformational Leaders Ana insists that transformational leaders should have resilience. She says that good leaders will experience failure before they taste success; as the saying goes, ‘The only way to lose is to give up.’ Ana advices leaders that they will hear many ‘why not’s?’ and some days will feel longer than others.

She believes that in order to succeed, leaders need to recover, move fast and be steady in their purpose.

Ana presumes that as a leader in technology, transformational leaders will have more than one sleepless night and advises leaders to trust themselves. Ana mentions that the leader’s brain is always running at a 100-miles-ahour, and even with the best team behind them, they still have a constant concern that the engine will stop running.

She questions if leaders do not dare to keep working despite the upsets, then who will? No matter what, leaders must get

back up and keep striving to get to “yes” and build wins. Ana alerts that leaders will have people around them who can quickly tell that certain tasks are impossible. She suggests transformational leaders not to be one who accepts others’ opinion on giving-up. Ana asserts that leaders should keep themselves engaged and motivated to make their team follow them.

The Three Pillar Strategy For Innovation Synectics processes rest on several pillars. First, the company seeks to develop an understanding of its customer’s current and future needs. Their future needs are often based on the application of emerging or even revolutionary technologies.

What Synectics learns from this informs the company’s second pillar: Synectics looks into the future through the lens of emerging technology. The Synectics team studies these emerging technologies and asks themselves, ‘What if?’ Synectics answers the question in its third pillar: The company’s innovation lab called ‘SiLab.’ In SiLab, the Synectics team studies and tests emerging technologies and applies them to openly available data sets to see how they might be used to provide more efficient approaches for the company’s current and future customers.

Overcoming the Challenge of Earning Team Members’ Trust and Confidence Although Ana’s succession into the President’s role had been public knowledge and planned for several years, her promotion happened during wide-ranging changes in the organization. After 12 years with Synectics, Ana’s colleagues respected her as a contributor. Yet, Ana knew there were (understandable) uncertainty and doubts. Many team members were more tenured and experienced, and Ana was the untested leader, asking them to trust her and the revised strategic vision for the company.

In her experience, people fear changes regardless of whether it is good or bad. It was no different back then. During Ana’s first year, she worked harder than anyone else to prove that she was the right person for the role. Ana knew that she had to earn employees’ respect as a leader. What helped her the most during those months was her good listening skills.

Understanding the employee’s concern and considering their recommendations and comments, while balancing the new vision and corporate interests were Ana’s strategies. She still embraces an open communication style with her team and makes decisions together. Collaboration is vital to Synectics culture. The team’s core competency at Synectics is harnessing

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quality data to make more effective decisions. It is what employees at Synectics do for themselves and the clients.

The Path Ahead Synectics is always looking into its crystal ball about what the future will bring, and the company has a disciplined process to do so. Synectics VP of BD manages the company’s strategic planning process to help employees carry their capabilities into the future and to new customers.

Synectics COO is trained in scenario planning and applies techniques he learned in past experiences to predict what future business environments will look like and the emerging threats and opportunities for business. This helps Synectics to see opportunities and risks early.

For example, the company identified the risk of COVID-19 and entered it into the corporate risk log on January 23, 2020, about the same day that the US intelligence community reportedly briefed the President on the threat.

This gave Synectics several extra weeks to prepare and test all of the company’s systems in the event that telework became a requirement.

As a result, Synectics was fully prepared for the company’s customer transition to telework and have had no employees become ill, have lost zero billable hours as a result, and were able to begin to look for ways that the company could support its employees, customers, and nation during this tragic period. Synectics customers took note of the situation as well.

Words of Wisdom for Budding Women Leaders Ana advises emerging women leaders to be clear on what their vision is as a leader. She remarks that it will guide the leaders in their actions.

Ana guides leaders to hire people who are smarter than them and asks leaders to be willing to listen to them. To be an effective leader one must develop exceptional listening skills to hear what their team says and what is unsaid. Ana discloses that she was impatient, so she learned to pause and give her team undivided attention. In the end, it made her job easier and got Synectics closer to achieving the company’s goals. Ana instructs leaders to trust their instincts and follow the gut. In a nutshell, she tells leaders to hire smart talented people, listen to their input, have a clear vision, and trust their instincts. Invariably this will lead to success.

Ana informs that something that is palpable as a woman-leader is being a parent. Personally, she has a sense of guilt that comes from balancing the time demands of growing a business and simultaneously being a good parent to her two young boys. She briefs that those demands are real; women play many roles, and at the end of the day, everything may not get done. Ana directs women leaders to give themselves a break once in a while and know that it’s okay to say ‘no’ to those people or things that are keeping them from attaining the balance leaders need. She concludes by asking women leaders to stay healthy and successful.

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epsoftinc.com

Jamileh Elias President Global Markets

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EPSoft

Optimizing Client Experience and Powering Digital Transformation with Intelligent Automation

E

PSoft Technologies is a global software development company that creates end-to-end business process automation tools. Since 2015, the company has helped organizations drive critical insights for better decision-making and deliver optimal performance and productivity through the EPSoft Intelligent Automation Platform.

Built substantially for business users, the EPSoft Intelligent Automation Platform is a single, easy-to-use suite of software with end-to-end business process automation tools. By integrating BPM, Process Intelligence, RPA, and AI, the platform drives critical insights for better decisionmaking and absolute visibility into all aspects of a business, ultimately delivering optimal performance and productivity.

EPSoft Technologies is based in Dallas, Texas, with additional footprints in Canada and India.

A Strategic Leader Guiding Business Growth Jamileh Elias, President Global Markets at EPSoft Technologies, is an experienced sales leader who has established a solid reputation as a trusted advisor to customers and teams within some of the world’s most leading multinationals.

Thanks to her sharp negotiation skills and natural ability

to build trusted and lasting relationships, Jamileh has won countless acclaims and success stories over the years.

Known for her contagious enthusiasm, integrity, creative problem-solving skills, and humanistic approach to sales and talent management, Jamileh is a proven leader who achieves results through strategic thinking, driving growth and profitability while optimizing the client experience through digital disruption and innovation.

At EPSoft, Jamileh plays an integral role in the EPSoft growth plan and development of new avenues of business in US, Canada and across the globe. Her role is to predominantly build an ecosystem of win-win partners and clients that meet the fundamental elements of success which in her view are, but not limited to, alignment on business goals, complimentery strengths, industry expertise, vision and support, go-to-market strategies. She is continuously developing and deploying plans for delivering strategic growth objectives for her partners and sales teams in alignment with EPSoft’s revenue growth targets. She provides continuous strategic guidance on customer segmentation, coverage models, sales methodologies, and process. Through her expertise in building international networks of contacts,

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Technology is, and will continue to be, the catalyst for change in all industries. In the coming days, automation will no longer be a good-tohave plan. It will be the baseline for businesses of all sizes and the determining factor of their continuity.

Jamileh Elias

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she also supports client needs from different perspectives, including practical advice on market opportunities, market potential assessment, development of international business contacts and key partnerships, and helps through negotiations of agreements and contracts.

» Share wisdom and experiences and the road to success while embracing failures along the way » Continuosly inspiring and motivating people to love what they do and to always aim to be part of the company’s success stories.

An Integrated Approach to Drive Innovation Jamileh believes that sustaining a company’s performance and strengthening its competitiveness requires a firm to proactively define and align their innovation strategies as an imperative element of their business plans. Nevertheless, it should not be a reactive approach where they play catch-up with the evolving market or benchmarking with competitors.

She enunciates that successful innovation is a well-articulated, quantified, planned and aligned scalable strategy.

Managing a Healthy Work-Life Balance Jamileh’s family responsibilities from a young age helped shape her resiliency, determination, and persistence towards reaching any goal she aspired to. Nothing was handed to her on a silver platter. Whether at school or work, Jamileh has always been invested entirely in her career, working diligently to deepen her knowledge, gain experience, and move forward.

As a girl, growing up in the family, Jamileh had responsibilities at home and had to help and contribute. Although she always prioritized her schoolwork, she found it challenging to juggle her chores, work, and social life. Fast forward many years later, Jamileh is still juggling work, raising kids, supporting family members, and running a household. “It is often said that women are better at multitasking than men. I don’t know if this is true, but I can say without a doubt that in my case, I am a born multitasker, after all my work and acreer are my second family” says Jamileh.

Improving Business Outcomes Using Technology Speaking on the impact of technology, Jamileh explains that disruptive technologies are at the heart of innovation. They are impacting every industry by bolstering efficiency and a faster return on investment.

In this scenario, leaders need to have an innovative mindset as part of their ongoing upskilling plan to be able to translate a client’s desired business outcome into a solution adopting disruptive technologies.

By applying AI to process automation, leaders can do more with their data and expedite digital transformation. This philosophy of smart elevation also lends its name to the EPSoft Intelligent Automation Platform, a cohesive solution designed to improve every aspect of the workflow. It provides a suite of smart tools for everything from BPM and process mining to service orchestration, AI, and beyond.

Unmatched Leadership Attributes Jamileh opines that a transformational leader is one that will aim to be distinctively memorable, genuine and authentic, with a high Emotional Intelligence EQ versus IQ and a leadership approach that has an impact bigger than him or her as an individual. Their main objective is to leave a legacy through the ability to establish a compelling vision, and to continuously evolve the people and organizations through: » Influencing individuals to be motivitaed to be part of the bigger picture and vision. » Building great teams and culture with consideration of individual differences through identifying the resource’s strengths and aspirations while optimizing their strengths. » Stimulating innovation, creativity and forward thinking.

Remarkable Achievements Throughout the Career According to Jamileh, she has been blessed throughout her career to have had the opportunity to work at some of the top multinational companies, ‘the big schools’ and learn from great leaders that have inspired and elevated her. However, she accentuates that life’s lessons are often derived from challenges that people face, rather than positive opportunities. Humans’ abilities to turn challenges into opportunities determine the level of someone’s success.

One of the triumphs Jamileh is most proud of is the most difficult challenges she has had to face, which makes it all the more rewarding. A few years ago, she spent countless months defying and challenging the inner workings of the company she was working for in trying to bring a creative and innovative solution to a customer that would help exponentially grow their company. Jamileh contemplates that it may not sound like much but trying to instill change and innovation within a giant company with pre-established (and often out-dated) processes is not as easy as it sounds.

But, she eventually managed to showcase the business case to the team from a different perspective, and her company was able to provide a custom and cutting-edge solution to its customer. This resulted in a great feat and numerous industry

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accolades. This experience was proof of turning challenges into opportunities and is so rewarding for Jamileh. It taught her new ways to challenge the status quo and, most importantly, to get people to see her vision.

Insights into the Future Jamileh sees that as recessions in previous years brought a wave of new technologies, the 2020 pandemic will drive the world to witness creativity and innovation at its best across technologies and work methodologies. Today, there is a significant shift in the market towards reviewing the ecosystem of technology vendors and suppliers. There is a crucial need for innovative and creative technology providers, regardless of their size, that could help companies to fast-track their digital transformation journey with a measurable return on investment and optimize efficiency within the workforce without replacing it. With automation at the heart of any digital transformation, maximizing its value is all about building a healthy hybrid workforce well-equipped with digital tools to perform their tasks better and optimize their work.

By leveraging the right solution, businesses can strike that balance within their reach.

EPSoft’s Intelligent Automation Platform is exclusively designed to help people (hence the company’s tagline – Elevate Human Potential). In many cases, the platform triggers growth from newfound efficiencies and effective processes. EPSoft is continuously looking to enhance the platform to further solve more business challenges. Assessing and exploring new business opportunities will significantly lead the company to build a first of its kind solution in the industry. Besides, focussing on providing every possible aspect of its solution as a service that allows for seamless integration and co-existence with other market products is a key to EPSoft’s future growth.

Elevating Aspiring Women Business Leaders Jamileh believes education and knowledge are power. Leaders must learn to delegate, whether in their personal life or at work, be persistent, and don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Being consistent is a key that powers leaders’ efforts, strong work ethics, creativity, continuous education, and reinvents them. She further highlights that women leaders should not engage in negative energy. They must learn how to observe it, acknowledge it, and refocus their positive energy on their goals. There is no goal that a woman cannot reach if she is determined and focused.

Be an authentic and humble leader that knows how to pave the way and inspire people to bring out their best. Women also need to strive for a female leader that makes a positive impact along her journey and one that never forgets the meaning of giving back. From Jamileh’s point of view there is a strong power in women lifting each other up. Let that be a best practice for every successful woman leader to be part of that women-in-leadership transformation.

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peerlesspartners.net

Janel Wellborn Founder and Managing Partner

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Peerless Partners

Committing to Empower Enterprises with Small but Impactful Changes

P

eerless Partners is a boutique consulting firm working to enable its clients maximize both the return and the investment of their digital capital investment portfolio by doing more, better, and faster.

Peerless Partners’ focus remains on extending the ‘R’ in ROI by helping organizations build the muscles to prioritize problems to solve and define desired outcomes to drive. The company is a specialist in thinking creatively on how to iteratively deliver thin slices of value sooner. Peerless Partners is also working to enable putting the customer at the center, making datadriven decisions, and clearly defining (measuring) success for each investment their clients make.

To minimize the ‘I’ in ROI, Peerless Partners helps translate the idea of being an agile organization into tangible practices and behaviors that teams use on a daily basis, such as allowing clients to eliminate waste, empower teams to move with speed, and improve the engagement models and ways of working across their business.

Peerless Partners help teams and individuals to do their best work. Across all shapes and sizes of companies, individuals spend an average of 47 hours per week at work. Each team member likely spends more time at work than with family or friends, or on their hobbies and passions. One of the things that get Peerless Partners up in the morning is enabling highly productive, engaged teams that are invested, not just in the output, but also in the outcomes they are producing. Helping to create the space to drive those outcomes so that they are excited to show up every day.

Learning Life Lessons through Experience Janel Wellborn is the Founder and Managing Partner of Peerless Partners. She embeds herself within her clients’ organizations to transform their culture by shifting mindsets at all levels. Janel helps her clients make many small changes in their way of working, which can have a huge impact on their ability to meet their customer needs and deliver measurable business value. She started out as a big five consultant and later went to work for one of her clients.

Janel again switched her work to consulting but later went on to work with one more client. Finally, she landed back in consulting when she decided to build her own boutique firm to maximize her impact. As the Founder and Managing Partner of Peerless Partners, Janel applies her critical thinking, naturally curious and straight-shooting style to many different organizations that face many of the same challenges.

Janel’s approach with her clients is to ‘teach them how to fish’, so that rather than calling her in the future for the same challenge, they call her for a different one. She has always invested a copious amount of energy in training and incontext coaching to shift mindsets and make small changes within an organization to increase the likeliness that the changes stick over time, even without Peerless Partners’ help.

In her early career days, she felt a lot of pressure to always have an answer for questions from her clients, team, boss, etc. The company she worked for was billing employees out at a high rate and expected their consultants to be experts. But one day Janel realized that injecting a bit of humility into the

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Seamless experiences can be a reality for our customers. Thanks to the give and take relationship of big data & AI. But with great power comes great responsibility. If done right, this can be wondrous; if done wrong, it can be really creepy.

Janel Wellborn

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game could go a long way. Soon, she became comfortable enough to say, “I actually don’t know! But I’ll go find out.” Janel then followed up to close the loop and do just that.

“Shouldn’t the environment employees work in allow harnessing their best work and ideas and solve the organizational/culture challenges that may be holding them back from adding even more value?”, adds Janel.

Breaking the Routine of Outshining Janel has always admired women executives who acknowledge that they are only as strong as the team they build and the relationships they forge. She recognizes a leader as someone who has no need to outshine everyone and compete. She invests energy in hiring people who compliment her strengths (rather than duplicating them), focusing her time on coaching rather than managing, modeling the behavior of taking risks, and learning from failures.

As a consultant in the first ten years, Janel traveled and worked crazy long hours, blurring the lines between work and life. However, over the past fifteen years, she has not just been a woman in tech but also a mom in tech. Janel worked to set clear boundaries to create a real work-life balance. When Janel is at work, she is at work. She does not check personal emails nor makes dinner reservations. She is laser-focused and incredibly productive at that time. But when Janel is not working (during afternoon carpool, while cooking or enjoying dinner with her family, at a soccer game, a hike with a friend, or a vacation out of the country), she is not working. Janel is present, engaged, and modeling good behavior for her daughters, team, and peers at work. She thinks that this energizes her on both the important sides of her life!

Transformational Leaders Must Learn Tactics and Real Emotions.

Janel opines that to drive transformation; she feels that a leader has to be willing to transform themselves and learn about the tactics and genuine emotions that come along with changes, failures and risks. She presumes that it is critical to learn and experiment with new tactics continually. According to Janel, leaders should use the scars on their back to help see around corners and avoid pitfalls. However, they should not let those scars hold them back or give permission to chicken out! She insists that this helps with innovating on the services Peerless Partners provides the transformations the company drives with its clients. The firm is framing hypotheses with a clear problem to solve, an approach to tackle the problem, and a measurable outcome that the company expects to drive.

Innovating to Tackle the Problems Janel says that one of her favorite mantras is ‘have a strong point of view, weakly held.’ For Janel, this has been critical to her ability to help her clients, team, and herself. Janel emphasizes that by doing the due diligence, leveraging quantitative and qualitative data, and applying critical thinking, logic, and experience, all helps Peerless Partners form and defend a point of view. Henceforth, the company can tackle any problem.

But Janel thinks that it is just as important to consider and incorporate perspective, the realities of her clients’ strategic objectives and political landscape, being humble enough and open to shifting that point of view, searching for the right answer, not just being right.

Implementing Disruptive Technology is in Leader’s Hand According to Janel, disruptive technologies are just reinforcing what people have known for a while. She mentions that ‘change is the only constant!’ Janel affirms that the more leaders empower teams, rallying them around (measurable) outcomes and give them the necessary runway, the better. To do this, leaders today have to invest more in mindsets, culture, and shared missions rather than processes and structures and policies. She adds that only then people can harness their collective creativity and get the space to experiment, learn, iterative, and deliver value as quickly as possible.

Envisioning the Future Ahead Janel remarks that the future excites her a lot. She foresees an opportunity for Peerless Partners to join its clients to keep shifting mindsets and making small changes in the ways of working, which can have big impacts on both their customers and employees.

Guidance to the Emerging Women Leaders Janel asks women leaders to imagine the characteristics of the career they want and how they’ll show up in it. Not a specific job but a whole career. She advises that few of the women leaders should anticipate where they’ll end up. Janel insists that leaders should be open to organic ebb and flow, learning opportunities, accepting evolution and embracing revolution in their industry, and have the discipline to dig in and work hard. She concludes by mentioning the phrase, “She believed she could, and so she did.”

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A R T I C L E 46 46

Women in Tech Workforce: Expanding Women’s Role in Tech Today

T

here is no question that technology can help create a brighter future for everyone. And for tech applications and discipline to be beneficial for every person around the globe, we need an inclusive team who can help guide and identify areas and develop innovative solutions that can further this cause. However, in reality, with regards to gender differences and effects on behavior, the tech landscape is still evolving and trying to bridge the gap. There are two primary reasons that provoke this temperament: potential physiological differences among genders, especially men and women, and social norms and pressures forming different behaviors.

Many research reports and surveys have shown that businesses profit from diverse perspectives that bring innovation and company competitiveness. Therefore, instead of hiring people at the top of the talent pyramid, companies can recruit and involve different groups, particularly women from the middle of the talent pyramid. This is because while top institutes aim for higher placement and provide career guidance, there is a dearth of similar opportunities and encouragement for women in the middle of the talent pyramid.

So, while the tech industry offers plenty of opportunities, the reality remains that building a career in technology has proven more

difficult for women than it has for men.

As mentioned earlier, it stems from the notion that men are innately more rational than women. Even today, this perception remains deeply embedded in society’s collective consciousness, leading weight to the stereotype that women are just not as cut out to work in tech as men. It is true that many initiatives are taken to encourage participation while women are being urged to break the shackles of systemic racism and misogynist culture. But, in a practical world, we cannot expect only women to fix the gender problem.

The privileged male allies should also advocate for and work to create more inclusive environments or technical cultures that will ultimately benefit everyone. Meanwhile, it is important that these approaches do not come off as fixing the marginalized instead of addressing the root problems; else, even the early steps may seem patronizing and end up discouraging others.

The tech sector needs to innovate to expand its technical workforce faster. As the demands for tech roles grow over the next few years, women will realize that they are no longer alone in the room once companies start hiring more of them.

This will help minimize the imposter syndrome that women felt due to isolation in the work domain, which often led some women to quit the field. Today, a woman can be successful in pursuing her career in tech, along with having a family.

One can also ask her employer for a different working model if it will help professional and personal life improve by a

significant margin. In current times, even men are granted paid leaves, which can also help in lending a hand to support the family.

Meanwhile, if things are not favorable for a career growth or if one doesn’t feel comfortable with the work dynamics at her current workplace, there is always an option to switch companies and start afresh. Women must not hesitate to prefer things that will nurture their career trajectory and opt to do things that make them happy. This means one can keep hustling sideways and backward if it helps to reach the long term goals. Further, it pays to have a curious mind and be willing to ask for help, as these show eagerness to learn.

Next, instead of focusing on philanthropic aid, current tech leaders can brainstorm concerted and creative solutions that help dismantle the prevailing barriers for women who want to make it big in tech. They can hire on the basis of merit and skills rather than qualifications. Moreover, to ease entry to the upper echelons of tech companies, they can network and also encourage others to network with promising women leaders in tech. It is also high time that board members and CXOs, ensure that those working flexibly are championed as their office counterparts.

Though the knowledge economy, the feminist movement, equal opportunities legislation contributed to change the status quo of mismatch in representation in tech, a lot needs to be done, and not one organization can do it alone, nor at once. The efforts have to be constant, collective, and organic.

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j o b s f o r h e r. c o m

Neha Bagaria Founder & CEO

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JobsForHer

The only way to solve the problems of half a billion women is by leveraging deep technology for good.

We need to remove bias from AI systems to ensure they meet the unique demands of women’s career journey.

Neha Bagaria

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she started working with Kemwell, a biopharmaceutical manufacturing company. Neha worked in the fields of HR, Finance and Marketing strategy in the company.

Neha took a three-and-a-half-year break in her career when she had her children. During her personal journey, she became aware of the various difficulties women face in order to re-enter the workforce. Neha then became committed to the cause of enabling women to accelerate their careers and launched JobsForHer.com on International Women’s Day in 2015.

Today, Neha has broken many glass ceilings – she has been listed in Forbes India’s WPower Trailblazers list of 25 groundbreaking women achievers as a game-changer and innovator, who is shattering stereotypes. She was also featured in Deccan Herald’s list of ‘19 Changemakers to Watch Out For in 2019’.

A Future with Increased Diversity in Workforce Neha thinks that the increase in workforce diversity will directly impact the bottom lines with research showing an increased ROI for companies that benefit from the diverse perspectives and capabilities that women bring. A spike in women’s participation in the workforce will also have a huge impact on society and families in bringing more gender balance and equity, with women truly being empowered to make their own decisions and carve their own paths.

Neha is confident that JobsForHer will continue working with companies across India to unlock more and more opportunities for women by creating strong women-friendly brand identities and engaging with high-potential women through mentorship and events and find ways to reskill and recruit them using online and offline channels.

searchable by recruiters and headhunters. AI-powered recruiting tools can play a positive role in reducing human bias. She believes that it can help make the hiring process fairer for women professionals by opting for gender-blinding CVs to remove recruiter bias and eliminates gender biases.

Neha insists that using big data can extract all the information from a candidate’s profile, analyze the data, understand, interpret and match algorithms to match the job with the right candidate. She implies that recruitment automation can automate the entire recruitment process such as sourcing, screening, interviewing and onboarding, which can help increase recruiter productivity and improve the overall talent profile of the organisation.

Why Fit in When You’re Born to Stand Out Neha’s advise to emerging women leaders is to e their unique leadership skills to their advantage. Time management, crisis management, critical thinking, problem-solving, negotiation skills, empathy, compassion, and appreciation are the skills that women can use to bring out their leadership qualities.

“The only way to solve the problems of half a billion women is by leveraging deep technology for good. We need to remove bias from AI systems to ensure they meet the unique demands of women’s career journey.”

Embracing Virtual Assistants for Recruitment Process Neha opines that the traditional recruitment process has always been a complex activity. But thanks to the digital world, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have enabled organisations to get rid of this manual process by bringing in virtual assistants to do the job more efficiently.

Neha mentions that around 70% of the workforce is not actively searching for jobs but would be willing to accept an offer if the job was a good fit. Henceforth, recruiters need to find these candidates and connect with them to discuss the position further. She adds that AI helps to source these hidden talents to scan online resumes and profiles to send valuable leads to recruiters.

Neha affirms that if they talk about jobseekers, ML and AI systems can help them optimize their profiles to be more

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nylatechnologysolutions.com

Shana Cosgrove Founder & CEO

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Nyla Technology Solutions

The companies that provide true customer individualization and connectedness are the only ones that will grow in an extremely crowded marketplace, since the barriers to entry continue to fall. The future of tech demands creative, empathetic, and responsible engineers.

Shana Cosgrove

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unit; overseeing the operational roll-out of DoD PKI for DISA; implementing the architecture of DCGS-AF for both the Navy and Army, and as an SOA architect in the process. She served as the technical lead for both IMINT and SIGINT satellite ground software systems, the lead operational analyst for the largest collection system to date. Further, she was a product strategist overseeing the development of 12 mission management tools with a specific focus on instrumentation and monitoring of cloud-based systems.

Building a Strong Business Strategy through Experiences According to Shana, working as an employee at various small businesses gave her sufficient knowledge about what worked well for the business strategy and culture, and what needed to improve. She says that she built a reputation as a technical leader by working hard as an engineer for over 15 years before understanding how to grow a business. Her experience as an engineer led her to understand the right talent for leading the specific market and technical segments. She states that the unwelcoming and unsupportive work environment most of her engineering career helped her grow the fortitude for sticking it out and gaining the self-belief to develop a successful business.

Thriving through Challenges Shana says that funding and financing was an issue to get the business started. She faced the challenge of delay in payment from the clients while ensuring timely payments to the engineers working for her. Shana funded herself and received almost no income initially as getting a loan wasn’t easy, and many banks did not understand government contracting.

Another major challenge she faced was in figuring out how to get the business started. Shana interviewed many business and start-up owners to take the next steps. Over a period of time, she built a network of friends and mentors for advice.

Imbibing Innovative Solutions through Creative Work Culture Shana states that the company focuses on two things: the root cause of current problems and what insights data gives.

She views that digging deep into the root cause leads to the solution. She believes that companies must keep track of the operational performance indicators, which tell what the users (or systems) are doing versus what they say they’re doing.

“You must have a company culture that allows for creativity and freedom to talk about problems without fear of retribution. A company where people feel comfortable

spitballing ideas and working together”, adds Shana.

Delivering Better Outcomes with Strong Strategy Shana observes that the barrier in innovation has been removed with cloud-based (AWS, Azure), Infrastructure-as-aService (IaaS) architectures, and AI services, such as language translation, face recognition, and chat bots. She states that the minimum requirement to create innovative models today allows greater meritocracy of good ideas and minimum viable products. Shana points out that the challenge will be in bringing, gaining and retaining a foothold of the solution in the marketplace. She notes that the leaders today must be strong on strategy and flexible in implementation.

“They have to understand how to swift through unending piles of information and good ideas, and make decisions clearly and quickly.” The leader must continue to focus on having the right talent and setting up the structures for them not just to succeed but thrive.

Shana asserts that the transformational leader must be a visionary, patient, great storyteller who inspires others and must have an extremely high degree of persistence.

Esteemed Awards and Recognition Shana received Small Business Administration’s 2019 Maryland Woman Owned Small Business of the Year for leadership and community contribution. In March 2019, she was included in the BBJ Tech 10 professionals in the technology list for making noteworthy contributions to Baltimore’s tech community.

In April 2019, Nyla received the award for Inc 5000 FastestGrowing Private Companies for 2019-2020. In 2019, the company was listed amongst Baltimore Sun Best Places to Work and HUBZone Small Business of the Year Urban America.

Towards the Future Shana shares that the company is focused on the future of computing, i.e., cloud architectures, machine learning/ artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. She expects Nyla to grow significantly to meet the market demands for these types of services.

Striving Hard to Achieve the Goals Shana advises emerging leaders to go after what one really wants, despite the challenges they face throughout the path.

She says, “ It may take longer than you’d like (don’t give up!), but you will get there and it is worth it. “

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