Ep 38: Julie Christ: Digital Disrupter Building Life-Long Client Relationships

Diva Tech Talk interviewed veteran tech professional, Julie Christ, Founder and CEO of TechSmart Solutions.  Julie originally thought she would be an Emergency Room doctor, but was challenged by chemistry in high school.  One of eight siblings, she was, then encouraged by an older brother-in-law to consider a technology career because “it was new and cool.”   So, Julie graduated from the University of Michigan, with a computer science degree, and a business minor, then a relatively new degree program.

“It was pretty leading edge,” said Julie.  “Throughout my career, I would be the only female in a room of 40-50 people.  It was a differentiator for me.  It never inhibited me; it never bothered me. I just knew that I would be remembered!”   As a woman with a long career in tech, Julie said it saddens her that the percentage of women graduating in computer science curricula has significantly dropped since she was at her university. “I definitely look out for opportunities to bring females forward,” Julie said. “Because it’s really about empowerment.  It gives you that opportunity to earn an income that gives you a very nice lifestyle.  I think it’s important to coach and mentor women to pursue tech.”

Julie’s first job was as a business analyst at Compuware (www.compuware.com) in the 1980’s.  In that role, she said “You were working with your customer to understand what their needs are from a tech perspective.”   Julie’s first customer was behemoth General Motors (www.gm.com).  “We built training for a corporate graphics system. It was one of those defining experiences.  I embraced it.” Julie soon had other automotive companies, like Ford Tractor, and Ford Marketing (www.ford.com).  “That work was ‘bleeding edge’ for the time.  We created a marketing solution, and sent out disks, back in the day, to direct consumers.   That has become my niche, working closely with advertising and marketing teams. Those groups have funding, and more often than not, they are doing leading, ‘bleeding edge’ work, which is my passion!”

Julie then had the opportunity to move overseas, and lived in London, U.K. for a year working for Little Caesar’s.  When she returned to the U.S., she continued with Little Caesar’s (www.littlecaesars.com) in their corporate headquarters as a technical project manager. She also assumed complete responsibility for that private company’s gamut of financial systems.  “It was really an honor to be able to do that for them,” she said.  “They’re very successful and very loyal to their people.  So, it was a great experience to be part of their organization.”  

Julie left Little Caesar’s to seek futuristic tech challenges, and commenced the consulting segment of her career, working for EDS (www.eds.com), where she underwent rigorous leadership training.  “I had a team of 45 working for me, and that was really, really fun.  That aligned with Y2K work; everyone was so worried that the world was going to crash, and, of course, it turned out to be nothing.”  Then Julie moved, for the next 5 years, to $9 billion automotive supplier, Meritor, where she is proud to have had a career of “firsts”, and was part of “some amazing projects!”  As one example, “we were the first organization, that I know of, creating applications for mobile phones.

On a Blackberry, we could provide inventory numbers to the V.P.’s, of Operations, so they could walk into a plant and say ‘Hey. This number is too high; or we need to ensure that we have enough coverage for this product line.’”  A director at Meritor, Julie was responsible for web infrastructure and development, with a direct-reporting 20-person team; and she also created an offshore resource center, in Bangalore, India. “At that time, we were one of the first organizations to be doing that.”

Julie thinks of herself as a “generalist.”  She said “I like building things or fixing things. The apps we created at Arvin Meritor, for example, saved the company millions of dollars.   At that time, many suppliers were filing for bankruptcy; we did not.   We were able to move through that time, partially because of the savings our team was able to create for the organization.”  Continuing her love for the automotive industry, Julie went, subsequently, to Volkswagen, under the aegis of Compuware, to launch VW.com (“which was a significant project, re-launched in a very tight timeframe, in multiple time zones and multiple countries, with no issues.”).   

Then, she migrated to R.L. Polk (www.rlpolk.com), a supplier of market research and data for the automotive industry.  “I purposely took the role as a Director of Sales Operations,” she said, “because I wanted to learn how to get more integrated into a sales solution.”  Her team was over 150 people, and the role comprised “a lot of travel, and the opportunity to coach and mentor.”   

Leaving R.L. Polk, Julie became an entrepreneur, founding TechSmart in 2008, with a fundamental mission of providing overall company solutions (“whether that’s a technical solution, or a business solution”).  Her client base includes organizations in hospitality, municipal government area, food services, banking as well as several core automotive customers. “When I spend time with clients, they ask me back, because they see the value that I bring.  And I treat people with respect and regard, which I think is ‘where it’s all at’ in life, right?”

Throughout her career, Julie has always enjoyed the mentoring role. “My gifts are being able to build relationships, and help people through whatever situation they are in.”   To Julie, her consulting practice doesn’t just cover the analysis of infrastructure and business processes. “It’s also at the individual level.  If you can help an individual become more high-performing, the business wins.”

Julie’s key leadership strengths include her energy/drive, her adeptness at mentoring, her skill as a business diagnostician, and her ability to form “life-long relationships with my clients.”   She exclaimed “I have had people tell me life-long secrets that they’ve told no one else. And I feel very honored that someone would trust me.”  She foresees her ongoing life’s mission as being involved with leading edge technology, which helps her “keep my brain sharp and interesting” and helps her serve TechSmart’s growing client base “when there’s a gap or a situation we need to solve”, by looking at “the bigger picture” and figuring out “what other technologies can we use going down the path.”  Julie sees artificial intelligence and machine-based learning as being two of the most promising emerging technologies today.

In terms of overcoming challenges, Julie views the latest U.S. recession, layoffs in which she has had to participate, and managing the survivors of layoffs as some of her most educational periods.   Her leadership lessons for other women/girls in tech include:

• Deploy kindness – “treat people the way you want to be treated.”

• Recognize diversity – “to me it’s about the fact that each one of us has gifts; if you can figure out the gifts that a person has, the individual wins, the team wins, and the organization wins.”

• Be humane and human.   But DON’T over-apologize, because that will lead people to question your credibility.  In terms of women professionals, Julie said “It’s our own ‘glass ceiling’….”

• Make sure you have mentors.  “Look for people who have alignments to what you think makes up a good leader.”

To achieve balance in her life, Julie has a philosophy that “life is like an isosceles triangle.”   She emphasizes personal health and self-care, but she acknowledges that “life is not always an equal triangle.”  

Julie’s only daughter is currently working for a Massachusetts-based start-up.  And as a single mother, Julie mentioned that it is “about finding the joy in everything you do.  Just enjoy the moment where you are at.”

On an ongoing basis, Julie is involved in a CIO online “chat” devoted to emerging technologies and she can be followed on Twitter at @DigitalDisruptr.  She can also be reached via email at juliechrist@techsmartsolutions.co.

Great additional read on
10 Ways to Improve The Customer Journey 
https://instrktiv.com/en/blog/usability/customer-journey/

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Ep 37: Jennifer Pfaff: Running with her Career in Focus

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Jennifer Pfaff, a woman with a rich history of technology leadership accomplishments.  Jennifer is now the Director of Store IT Services for Domino’s (www.dominos.com), a company averaging $2.3 billion in annual revenue, ranking as the 2nd largest franchisor of pizza retail outlets in the world.

Jennifer did not originally intend to pursue information technology as a career.  She initially envisioned her future as an electrical engineer designing cochlear implants to improve the hearing of those with damaged inner ears, since she suffered an auditory loss at a young age. (“Listening and really hearing someone is very, very important” is one of the key lessons that Jennifer learned from her disability). But while at the University of Arizona, she interviewed engineers at a research facility in Los Angeles, and quickly came to the decision that electrical engineering was not her life’s mission. She changed to a double major in Business, with a concentration in  MIS and Operations Managmement; and took her first job in Battle Creek, Mi. at the headquarters for Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) in the information technology department, subsequently moving into sales there “to learn how we really did our business.” She then managed a Kellogg sales territory that encompassed Montana, Washington State, and Idaho, before returning to Michigan to the automotive industry as a consultant with Ernst & Young.  From that sales stint, she learned “You have to understand your customer.  You have to put yourself in their shoes.  You have to gain trust of the people you are talking to.  It’s about understanding what he or she needs to learn from you.  It’s not all about the technology.”

Coming back to Michigan, “I worked for all three of the Big 3 U.S. automotive companies either directly or through consulting,” Jennifer said. “Early on, I discovered that my passion was in the project side of IT.”  One of her favorite early projects, a breakthrough personalized car owner website for Ford, is very characteristic of the rest of her career.  Jennifer and her team began the project with few requirements or resources, but a very aggressive development timeline. “We had to come together as a group. We didn’t know what the site was going to look like.  We didn’t know how we were going to deliver it. We didn’t know what the technology was going to be to deliver it.  All we knew was that we had a deadline, and a very eager customer.”  In Jennifer’s view the amorphous nature of the project and the quick timeline “drove creativity.”  Crediting her “fantastic team,” this shaped a crucial career philosophy for Jennifer: “If you have the opportunity to try something new, out of your comfort zone, with high visibility” do it!

Jennifer’s next challenge came when she went to another Fortune 500 company, Jacobs Engineering (www.jacobs.com), an international technical and engineering professional services firm, with over 80,000 employees, and 127 offices all over the globe.  Jacobs is one of the top 100 contractors to the U.S. Federal Government, and Jennifer led their global technology project office, managing a worldwide team on several continents. There, through several projects -- including one that was the creation of a structured representation of the $10 billion company’s total enterprise architecture, globally -- she and her team “learned to take a leap,” and move swiftly and fearlessly toward large project goals.

From Jacobs, Jennifer migrated to her current technology role at Domino’s. Among other things, her team is working on strengthening and securing the online, ordering and transaction system that allows consumers to place orders.  She has also just joined Domino’s product strategy group, where she will be helping to roll out new digital innovations for Domino’s franchisees and consumers.  “We’re a technology company who just happens to make pizza,” she exclaimed! Among other exciting developments she described Domino’s web-based “Pizza Tracker” that allows consumers to track orders, in real time online, and coupled that with other innovative solutions that save consumer ordering preferences, to speed up transactions and service.   

Jennifer is clearly strongly enjoying her new role at Domino’s and is looking forward to going to “Pizza Class” very soon, so that she experiences the business from the ground up.  At work, Jennifer also stresses developing an unofficial learning culture in the corporation.  “I look for opportunities for taking team members in my group to meetings.  I offer intern spots on my team.  I make sure I provide coaching and mentoring too.”  Her advice to our audience is that, through observation and questions, leaders ensure that everyone have the chance to speak up and “have a voice.”   According to Jennifer, the culture of Domino’s is “if you work hard, good things happen.”

In assessing her own personal strengths, Jennifer said “I think I can apply ‘big picture’ vision, and take it right down to execution.”  Comparing it to running (a sport she avidly pursues), Jennifer said “focusing, driving forward, getting to the end goal” are characteristic of what she loves to do.  “And I think having a passion for learning and listening to customers or team members” also contributes to Jennifer’s success.   She is very grateful that “I have had the opportunity to model leadership skills from some of the top leaders in the IT world,” through her community involvement in The Michigan Council of Women in Technology (www.mcwt.org).  “I could practice my management and senior leadership skills” by doing extensive volunteer work, over 13 years, at that nonprofit.

Speaking of work/life balance, Jennifer says “You can have it all, but maybe not at the same time.  Don’t compare yourself to everyone else. Keep in mind what’s important for you; and do whatever works for you.”  One of the things that helps keep her balanced and focused is daily running. She has run 6 marathons and carries the lessons from the running experience into real life.  From the creativity perspective, Jennifer also mentions she is a “crazy knitter.”  She also said: “You can find leadership lessons in places where you least expect them, if you are really open and looking around, in whatever industry you are in” citing unexpected advice and counseling she received from customers along the way, and an unofficial mentor she was fortunate enough to meet through her community involvement.

Jennifer’s 3 pieces of cogent advice for aspiring women leaders and girls in tech is:

1. “As you are building your brand, focus on what you do best, make sure that you give some thought to what else it is that you think you want to do, in the future.”  (And try those other things!)

2. For all students, “take as much math as you possibly can. It teaches you to think.”

3. And “If you think broadly, give things a go and you are willing to try things, good things will happen.  Be ready; be flexible.”

Domino’s is hiring in the technology arena, in strategic planning, and in general, and Jennifer urges anyone interested to contact their Human Resources Department. Jennifer Pfaff can be reached via email at jen.pfaff@dominos.com, and on Twitter at @jenpfaff1.

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Ep 36: Cindy Warner: Transforming the World Through Democratization of Data

Diva Tech Talk was delighted to interview the fascinating Cindy Warner, whose rich, multi-level career and mission story is inspiring.  Cindy began as a pre-med undergraduate aiming to become an orthopedic surgeon, at the University of California in San Diego. Unfortunately, in her second year, to her dismay, she frequently fainted at the sight of blood, which reoriented her career. So after obtaining her degree in business administration, with a minor in computer science from Grand Valley State University in Michigan, she began an internship at IBM, selling typewriters.  “I always say to people that the litmus test for how far we’ve gone in technology is to realize we had four type fonts, then.” After a typewriter-focused year, IBM moved Cindy into System 23’s, the company’s first all-in-one minicomputer and then to selling System 36’s, manufacturing-centric midrange computer systems.

There “I learned about this small, innovative company called FedEx,” (www.fedex.com), Cindy said. “The intriguing thing about FedEx was the speed with which they wanted to move packages, through technology. They also wanted people to be able to accurately plan their lives around a time-sensitive service.”  However, “If you wanted to be in technology at FedEx, you needed to be in operations, first.” So Cindy’s initial job there was as a courier where “I could learn the business of delivering packages.”   She became a FedEx Operations Manager, where she ran a number of western Michigan operations station, and then the company transferred Cindy back to southern California where she led a FedEx station “right in the middle of Los Angeles.”  In L.A., she had the unique opportunity to lead a large operation situated in the midst of the 1992 riots (“a good day was when our station wasn’t shot at”), and even personally delivered packages to Hollywood celebrities. Cindy soon also took on additional responsibilities on FedEx’s technology team working as a liaison conveying real-life field experience to developers creating the first PowerShip, a mailroom device to accelerate shipment of packages.  “What I learned, there, was that business analyst functions in technology were absolutely invaluable.  I found that was my calling: finding how and what would make a business run better with technology.”  She moved from Southern California to New Hampshire, where she ran several stations in FedEx’s Eastern Region.  “But I didn’t want my career to be only about transportation.  I wanted to broaden my horizon.”

To do that, Cindy moved back to Southern California where she worked on a large Oracle systems implementation for a Fortune 1000 dental equipment manufacturer. “I loved doing the consulting part, which led me to Ernst and Young.” She spent 9 years at E&Y/Cap Gemini, first implementing back office Oracle deployments, and subsequently moving into front office consulting in the area of customer relationship management. Working on that, she found “there is a distinct correlation between back office functions, and customer satisfaction.”  Cindy worked for two years on The Warner Brothers lot, where she had lots of fun and the unique experience of brushing elbows with film/TV luminaries (“working out next to George Clooney at the gym!”). Then moving back to the Midwest, to be close to family, she became a partner at Cap Gemini, after Ernst and Young divested its consulting practice. The downsizing of CG’s worldwide consulting operations brought her to next opportunity: building an SAP  CRM (customer relationship management) practice, for Accenture.   “The exciting thing about that time was that Salesforce.com was taking the market by storm,” Cindy said. “It was a really interesting period.  They were going after SAP, Siebel, and a lot of the big guys.”   Coming from a developer’s perspective, “we looked at ‘clicks not code’,” Cindy exclaimed. The simplification of functions that cloud-based Salesforce.com CRM brought to its customers was astounding to her.  “This isn’t months, it is minutes. The speed of business that Salesforce enabled was pretty amazing!”   No surprise, she was offered the chance to build out Salesforce.com’s (www.salesforce.com) professional services practice, and create an “enterprise presence” at the company ---- an assignment she fulfilled for two and a half years, commuting frequently from Michigan to California and other parts of the globe.

In courageous fashion, leaving Salesforce.com at the beginning of the 2008 recession/depression, Cindy decided to “spend more time on entrepreneurial ventures.” She already owned a 1938’s-style diner, and unique specialty market in Northern Michigan, and decided to replicate it in downtown Detroit.  “That lasted about a year until the economic crash in September 2008, at which point we saw the traffic volumes waning, as the auto industry suffered, and decided to close the store.” Closing the business was very hard. “We loved being a business in Detroit. We employed all Detroiters, and they were some of the best employees I have ever employed.  It was a great experience, but a hard one.”  Cindy moved over to Alix Partners, a company solely focused on helping large corporations restructure so they could turn around their operating models and be sustainable.  “It was deploying a life lesson. It was a cleansing of my soul.  I understood their pain,” she said. “In some cases, I was emotionally vested in helping those companies sustain.”  From there she migrated to becoming a managing director at PWC Consulting for several years where she helped build out their cloud computing and Salesforce.com practices.  She then made the move to computer industry behemoth, IBM, to direct its worldwide cloud computing strategy, and also build their Salesforce practice, but the entrepreneurial “itch” returned.

Years before, over lunch with Marc Benioff, founder and CEO for Salesforce.com, Cindy posited the opinion that CRM, at some point in the future, would have to become consumer-centric (vs.  being an exclusive tool for enterprises to have all the information they needed about their customers at their fingertips).  And that germ of an idea has blossomed into her new startup:  360ofme (www.360ofme.com) which she founded in May, 2016. Now employing a staff of less than 10, with ambitious plans to dynamically expand over the next 3 years, she is very excited about the future.   “The data of YOU is proliferating wildly,” she said.  “And it is in silos of data.”  A consumer’s healthcare information, purchase decisions, ownership decisions, financial records are all held by the organizations with whom the consumer does business. “None of that is in a single place.  None of that has context.” So 360ofme has a strong and focused mission. “We want to give consumers the ability to control their own data, have it with them, share it, and gain insights that will allow them to live better, more predictable lives.”   360ofme demonstrated their first prototype at Dreamforce 2016 (Salesforce.com’s annual convention) and its first beta version will be available in November, 2016, with a full platform launch in January, 2017.  The first three vertical markets will be finance, healthcare, and automotive ---- highly regulated industries with crucial consumer data. “Consumers can intentionally interact with companies in those markets,” Cindy said. As the leader of 360ofme, Cindy focuses on market presence (being the “face to the market”), being the “face to the client” and also is the company’s in-house researcher, doing market research and competitive analysis.  

Cindy catalogued her top three leadership strengths as enthusiastic passion for what she does, a belief that everyone should have fun, and a tendency to be highly collaborative.   When speaking about women in leadership roles, she noted that she has always felt the need to prove herself because of that, “I’ve almost felt that I have nothing to lose!”   She also shares her main leadership lessons:

1. Humiliation is not a leadership trait.  

2. Helping people find their voices is essential.

3. Never take “no” for an answer.  “Don’t let people tell you that you can’t!”

4. Don’t take yourself too seriously!  Have fun along the way.

In her philanthropic life, Cindy’s favorite organizations include The Special Olympics, veteran-oriented nonprofits, women in technology causes, and reform of the U.S. justice system as it relates to inmates with mental health issues.

Cindy Warner can be reached via email at cindylwarner1@gmail.com; and her exciting new startup company, and a full-fledged demonstration of their products/services, can be found at www.360ofme.com.

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Ep 35: Visionary Dr. Barbara Ciaramitaro: Be Strategic About Your Future

Diva Tech Talk was thrilled to interview the versatile, and experienced Dr. Barbara Ciaramitaro, Chair of the Decision Science Department, and Director of the newly-expanded Cyber Security Center at Walsh College, in Michigan.  Walsh is a leading non-profit higher education institution offering fifteen business and technology degree programs, on both an undergraduate and Master’s level, as well as three business certificate programs (for credit) and 3 certification prep courses business and technology certifications. Walsh is the third largest graduate business school in Michigan based on total enrollment. Walsh is the first, in 2003, to have received the NSA’s (National Security Administration’s) official designation as an academic center of excellence in information assurance.  The college has also recently received an additional NSA designation as a center of academic excellence in cyber defense.  “A lot of folks are not aware that Walsh has a very long leadership position in the area of cyber defense,” Barbara says.

Fascinated by science as a child, Barbara was born too soon to have computers as part of her early academic experience. “They were not even on the horizon,” she says.   After graduating with her undergraduate degree from Wayne State University, she was thoroughly exposed to the rapidly changing technology landscape, in her early 20’s. She had taken her first job at law firm Dickinson Wright PLLC, and was tapped to be part of the firm’s team to evaluate and introduce new systems.  She remembers her “ah ha” moment.  “I can picture myself walking around downtown, and in my head I said: technology!  This is the world I want to be a part of.”  She moved to another law firm, Plunkett Cooney, after a decade, and while working there, obtained her Master’s Degree in software engineering from Central Michigan University.   At Plunkett, she became Chief Technology Officer, and led the firm in selecting and successfully implementing their first state-of-the-art litigation support and database systems.  From there, she moved to another large firm, Miller Canfield, to help introduce their newest systems too.

“Then General Motors found me,” Barbara laughs. She became the GM executive aligned with the internal legal department, tasked with overseeing the development of a unique legal technology system, eventually awarded three patents and worth approximately $60 million.  She oversaw all the activities undertaken by IS&S (Information Systems and Support) to support this, and was responsible for managing and selecting the external IT vendors.  “It was a very demanding time,” Barbara says.  “But I am so glad I went through it.”

Never idle, Barbara was also teaching part-time, while she worked at GM, to test her aptitude for an educational career.  She decided to go back and get her PhD at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida, as part of her evolving career plan.  “I tell my students that you have to be strategic about your future,” Barbara says. “There are so many opportunities.  You need to prepare yourself for the next one, even if you don’t know what it is right now.”  From her own experience, Barbara counsels everyone to follow their passions, and “the opportunities will open up for you.”

Following her own advice, Barbara move to full-time academia after leaving GM. She says “I was at in 2007; and in 2009, Ferris State University asked me to come and develop courses in information security.  In 20014, Walsh asked me to come back, to redesign both the undergrad and graduate program, and really create some world class programs in technology and cybersecurity.  And I am pretty proud to say that we have some remarkable programs there.”  The greatest majority of Walsh students are working adults. On both an undergraduate and graduate level, the college has three separate courses in cyber security. In the winter of 2016, the college also released a new cyber security concentration for its graduate degree; is also a standalone technology certificate program; and is integrated in all technology courses offered. Walsh is also “the only educational institution that made it a point,” Barbara says, “of mapping our courses to the NSA guidelines, and also to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security requirements.”  Barb is very proud that Walsh has alumni at every Fortune 500 company based in Michigan.

Along the way, Barbara has learned many lessons:

• Speak the language of business, and directly to your business audience.  “This is something that my technology students struggle with.”

• Have patience.  “GM taught me patience. Sometimes it took me six months to a year to get us where we wanted to go.”   Through that, she learned to build rapport with her collaborators to drive progress.

• Stay on top of things when it comes to technology innovation, and new developments.  It is essential to your career.

• As a woman, she also counsels that you need to realize that you may have been brought up under “different rules.”  In your career, “you may have to learn new and different ways in terms of thinking about the environment and it may not come naturally for you.  So to achieve leadership you have to spend a lot of time learning from and examining others.”

Throughout her challenging career, Barbara has come to realize some of her own personal strengths:  persistence, the ability to continuously learn and be open to change, giving her own ego a “back seat” and allowing others the chance to shine.  All of these have enabled her to grow as a leader.  “When you are leading people to adopt something new,” she says as an example, “you need to give them time to grieve the loss.  That was something I had never thought about, before.”

As woman in the tech field, Barbara says “I was always aware that I was one of the few there, leading the charge. I grew up with the mantra that I had to be better than the men around me in order to be accepted. Know more, learn more, speak better, be better. I think that’s a horrible burden, but that’s what I felt I needed to do.”  Feeling that along the way, she says that bringing more women into the world of technology is one of her passions “because we need that.”  Her advice to emerging women leaders includes some simple but profound admonitions. “Remain curious,” she says.  “Always look for new answers, new ways of doing things, new technologies.  Be courageous since it’s not easy being a woman in the field of technology.  And be true to yourself. Your personal integrity is the only thing you are going to carry with you through your entire life.”

Barb is feeling very fulfilled these days.  “I really love to see people succeed. When I left GM, it was about service.  And it is very satisfying to work with students and see them achieve their dreams.”

Dr. Barbara Ciaramitaro can be reached via email at ciara2@walshcollege.edu.

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Ep 34: Rhonda St. John Hamborsky: Beating the "Urgency Addiction"

Diva Tech Talk was excited to interview Rhonda St. John Hamborsky, Director of Strategy and Innovation at multinational AT&T Inc.  AT&T is the second largest provider of mobile telephones and the largest provider of affixed telephones in the United States; also offers broadband subscription television services; and was named by Fortune Magazine as the most admired worldwide telecomm company in 2015. 

Rhonda’s role is to guide select large global AT&T enterprise customers in terms of technical strategy development. Some of the projects she works on cover complete technology transformation including hybrid WAN with internet offload, security stack development, and unified communications architectures. She also focuses on emerging/evolving technologies such as SDN, IoT, LTE, Cloud Interconnect and Big Data, helping enterprises move from boxes and wires to software and intelligence on a transformational path.

The complexity of Rhonda’s current role was not predictable, as a girl/teenager, since she did not originally see her future in technology.  “I came into it, accidentally,” Rhonda said.  “I remember having some struggles mathematically.  I attribute it to the teaching styles of the time; we were not able to work in groups or collaborate.  So I am so excited for girls, today. I feel like their experience is vastly different, and there is a great opportunity to keep them engaged in math and sciences.”

Growing up in the Midwest, Rhonda moved to Silicon Valley as she was entering her early 20’s.  There she got her first job as an accounting clerk in a large fleet leasing organization.  From that role she migrated to become a general manager in a recruiting firm, where she got her initial exposure to sales/marketing placement in high technology companies.  She developed a great relationship with startup Sytek, where the Vice President of Sales and Marketing recruited her for their operation since they observed: “You don’t appear to be afraid to try anything!”  

After Sytek, Rhonda went to work as a marketing specialist for Ungermann Bass, a well known data networking company located in Santa Clara, California, where she also learned to code (“before it was cool!”).  It was at Ungermann Bass that she found her first mentor, who encouraged her to go back and complete her undergraduate degree.  “I ended up being one of the first two women in outside sales,” Rhonda said, reminiscing about Ungermann.  She moved from the San Francisco Bay area to Los Angeles, and took on a very large quota.  “The first year I was properly humbled,” she laughed. “It was a very difficult job.  I did not make my quota, but it was the only year in my selling career that I did not.  I was determined never to let that happen again!”  The experience also taught Rhonda the strong importance of relationships — both with clients, and inside her own organizations.

Ungermann Bass moved Rhonda to Michigan, after a five year career in California, since she wanted to get closer to her family. She became a District Manager for them, successfully taking over an office that needed to be turned around.  After that success, she took an unpaid year off (having been recently married) to care for her first child. When returning from her leave, she decided to join a company called General Datacomm, focused on the wide area network market segment.  “I stayed there (22 months) until I got pregnant with my second child,” Rhonda laughed. 

Rhonda took another unpaid 8 month leave, and when she returned to the workforce, she said “I was kind of hungry for the challenge of a startup.  I must have been out of my mind! But I liked the challenge.”  Rhonda went to Cascade Communications, pre-IPO (“which is always a lot of fun – to be in on the ground floor of something like that”). She was then recruited away by another pre-IPO startup, a Silicon Valley-based consulting firm called International Network Services (INS) where she worked for five years. “I opened up their Michigan office for them.  It was complete spade work.  No one was here. Open an office.  Go find some customers.  Sell some consulting.”  Rhonda recruited a team, and they were successful.  She moved from sales to engineering.  “My leadership style was what was needed.  After that, I was promoted three times, three years in a row! And I ended up being the Managing Director for the Midwest, covering 12 offices and 270 people on the team.”

INS was then bought by Lucent.  Rhonda looked at the market and decided she did not want to compete with Cisco (who had been an INS partner); so she moved to tech consulting firm, Calisma, as it was starting up.  She joined Calisma as the Director of Strategic Alliances and Professional Development. “In a startup, you have the opportunity to wear a lot of hats,” Rhonda said. “I built the engineering training program and the leadership program for our consultants; and then I started working on strategic alliances.”  One of her most important alliances was SBC, who acquired Calisma; and subsequently SBC and AT&T merged — which is what led Rhonda to her current career at AT&T.

Of her 12 years at AT&T, Rhonda said “I am so fortunate.  I have one of the best jobs in the company. I have to build consensus and collaboration because I represent AT&T to some of the biggest companies headquartered in Michigan, including two of the automotives, a large appliance manufacturer, an electric company, a professional services company, and a regional bank.  At a C-suite level, I talk with them about where technology is going; how to ‘future-proof’ their network, infrastructure, environment.  I stay trained on the horizon…trained on what’s ahead. ”

Rhonda intends to spend at least 5 to 7 more years at AT&T but is also planning a worthwhile “encore” career, after her AT&T tenure. She is enrolled in a graduate program focused on gerontology, the study of aging. “It’s vastly different from what I do at AT&T,” she said. “But there are some interesting intersect points when you look at things like gerontechnology ---  how technology will enable aging in place, and keep us safer.”  Rhonda’s interest was sparked by the fact that she is part of the care-giving system for both her widowed father and widowed stepfather.  “I am not going to be sitting in the rocker on the porch,” Rhonda laughed. “That’s just not who I am!  I want to be busy.  I want to be doing something.”

Rhonda characterized herself as a “good planner” but acknowledged that this came with maturity.  Being at several startups caused what she called “the urgency addiction,” earlier in her career. “What that does is it burns you out,” she admitted. “At the end of the day, you say ‘I know I did a lot today.  But did I accomplish anything that’s sustainable?’”  Dr. Stephen Covey’s book:  THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE was a profound influence on Rhonda. “He talks about doing what’s important before you do what is urgent, and about sharpening your saw.”

Rhonda’s top four lessons for women aspiring to become technology leaders are:

• Be an active listener.  “Listen carefully.  The nature of our work, today, and the technology we have at our disposal means that we’re multitasking way too much.  If I set up a conference call with someone, they have my attention — undivided.”

• Be willing to have your argument debated, and be willing to change your mind. “When I work with colleagues, around the globe, who are from a different culture, I need to understand where they’re coming from, and how their perspective on the challenge differs from my own. They may come up with a better solution.”

• Keep learning.  “Study, study, study. And do it on your own time. My perspective as a manager was ‘I’m willing to pay for the schooling; but I want to see your investment in it as well,’ and that’s your time.”

• Take a step back, and remember to remain humble.  “The person you are interacting with is a person – isn’t just a user id on your company’s mailing list.  Keep that in mind, always.”

In her community life, Rhonda is no slouch.  She  is on the Advisory Board for the Michigan Council of Women In Technology and  mentors approximately two young people in any given time period.   Rhonda is also a hospice companion (“you are working with someone who is actively dying; they know it, and you know it. There is so much you can take from that.”). She recounted a particularly satisfying interaction where she was a companion to a “Rosie the Riveter”-like role model from several generations older than Rhonda, who was the essence of persistence!

Since she is a life-long learner, Rhonda recommended a number of books including: The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey, Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, and Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Dr. Atul Gawande. 

In discussing how being a woman has affected her career, Rhonda commented: “I’ve learned to listen carefully, but not to hold back from speaking. Be sure and get your voice heard.  You just have to be persistent, I think. Be confident.”

Rhonda’s comforting final words of encouragement to women and girls exploring a technology path were“Don’t let the challenges get you down.  We’re all going to encounter speed bumps along the way.  As women, I think we sometimes tend to internalize those more than our male counterparts.  Shake it off.  Take a lesson learned from it, and get back in the ring!”

Rhonda St. John Hamborsky can be reached through Twitter at @rstjohn and also on LinkedIn (search for Rhonda St. John Hamborsky.)   

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