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On this episode of Women Talk Tech, we speak to AlexAnndra Ontra who is the Co-Founder and President of Shufflrr, a presentation management technology company that makes presentations easier for everyone across an enterprise. Like many guests we have on the show, AlexAnndra wasn’t thinking about tech in high school. AlexAnndra loved the arts and communications field and began her career in New York for a media agency. She quickly realized the applicability of tech in any industry and how to marry your own personal skill set to the tech industry.

AlexAnndra seized an opportunity created by two unfortunate convergences in the early 2000’s; the dot.com financial melt down and 9/11 which changed the business landscape in New York. Her brother was working for a company that did multimedia laptop presentations and investors had pulled out of the business, so the brother and sister duo took over the company and for the next 10 years, built a practice doing high-end presentations for brand name clients.

AlexAnndra and her brother decided that providing services was one thing, but it was the technology they could create to support this business, that would be the future. After quickly realizing that in the presentation game, you can’t compete with Power Point or Microsoft, they set out to build their own software understanding three things customers wanted: A consistent message, an easy way to make presentations and tracking and reporting. They started Shufflrr by shutting down their consulting practice to build a product. Taking everything they’d learned throughout the years, they applied this to technology and built what is today Shufflrr.

“You can’t afford not to be in technology today, it’s everywhere. If you prefer to write or draw or do services or even run a restaurant – technology is behind everything. It’s not a matter of women in tech – if you want to survive, that’s what you got to do. You have to know it, understand it and embrace it.”

Tune in to listen to AlexAnndra talk about her journey with Shufflrr including the struggles, lessons learned, and what it takes to be an entrepreneur in the tech sector.

Available on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play Music.

ABOUT ALEXXANDRA ONTRA

AlexAnndra Ontra is the Co-Founder and President of Shufflrr, presentation management technology that makes presentations easier for everyone across the enterprise. AlexAnndra has taught hundreds of Fortune-level clients and helped transform basic PowerPoint and other files into vital communications assets. After spending the last 20 years helping clients get the most out of their presentations, Alex was inspired to write the book Presentation Management: The New Strategy for Enterprise Content which helps large businesses leverage and reuse their digital files, so everyone in the company can make a perfect pitch, anywhere, anytime.
Before founding Shufflrr, AlexAnndra created high profile presentations for diverse clients such as Epcot Center, The NBA, and Mercedes-Benz where she developed her creative, hands-on approach to helping clients drive their business. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, in her free time, AlexAnndra enjoys ballet, skiing and sailing. You can find Shufflrr on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook 

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This is a special episode of the Women Talk Tech podcast because our guest is Luc Villeneuve who becomes the first male guest on the show. Luc is currently the President of Benchmark Corp, a Canadian IT solutions provider that delivers leading-edge expertise and custom solutions to commercial and enterprise customers.

Luc is a champion for driving change and helping to advance women in the tech sector and believes that men have to be part of the solution to helping women enter the sector and stay in the sector.

According to Catalyst Canada, men represent more than 95 percent of the CEO positions in Canada’s 100 largest publicly traded companies. Stepping forward to become an advocate for gender diversity is uncharted territory for many men. Luc believes that we need to help male leaders carve out the role that’s right for them to help close the gender gap in tech.

Male leaders need to define their role in championing gender diversity. It’s all about collaborating with your team and educating yourself on where your strengths are needed.

Luc has proven that he is doing more than just talking about the issue. His tenure at Red Hat is a testament to proving out a model for closing the gender gap. In 2014, women represented 5% of his Red Hat sales team and now they account for 30%.

Luc invested the time curating his LinkedIn network as his main channel to attract, engage and deepen relationships by requesting meetings with potential female hires. In 2017, Luc launched a Women + Leadership evening to bring together Red Hat Canada’s network of women to discuss leadership issues. In 2018, Luc launched an exclusive Women in Leadership program at Red Hat to support emerging leaders who have the potential to contribute on a higher level to their performance. This is an exclusive program for only 12 women. It has been a long road of continuous investment but one he believes more tech companies should embark on and is well worth the effort.

Luc believes in building a community for young women – a place to connect, network, share best practices and ideas helping to increase the pipeline of young female talent. Luc continues to gather people in the tech sector to give women an opportunity. He has been surrounded by powerful women his whole life and believes we need to more women in the sector for it to thrive and prosper. He held many executive roles during his career and replaced himself or sponsored many female leaders who have excelled in the industry. Today, his biggest inspiration is his daughter Stefania, a phenomenal young woman who’s forging her own path in tech. Luc wants his legacy to be using his influence to help break down the barriers for millennial’s — to create opportunities for Stefania and women who want to reach their full potential in tech

In August of this year, Luc and his new company Benchmark Corp hosted an event with CompTIA celebrating Millennial female leaders. We had the pleasure to meet and record three empowering women at this event including Mpumi Nobiva, Vanessa Vakharia and Chioma Ifeanyi-Okoro.

Available on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play Music.

ABOUT LUC VILLENEUVE

As president of Benchmark Corp, Luc Villeneuve leads a customer first, value-added Canadian reseller offering fully integrated multi-vendor software solutions – with a strong focus on open source — to the most respected brands in Canada. Benchmark specializes in transforming their client’s infrastructure with innovative multi-cloud solutions and managed services that reduce the cost of acquisition and integration. This unique offering leverages a single point of accountability across multi-vendors that cannot be matched by any partner in the marketplace today. With over 25 years of executive sales and management experience, Luc has built a reputation for turning businesses around by creating winning teams and collaborating with the partner ecosystem to solve the critical business challenges blocking success. Before joining Benchmark, Luc served in executive roles at Red Hat Canada (where his team was honoured as the North America Region of the Year in 2018), McAfee, NCR, Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment, GE Capital and CNC Global. Fully bilingual in both official languages, Luc supports his community by lending his expertise to the national boards of the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), the C4 Canadian Channel Chiefs Council and Ryerson’s Information Technology Management Program Advisory Council (PAC). He is passionate about gender diversity and inclusion and regularly shares his insight in the traditional media, discusses issues with his over 6000 connections on LinkedIn and hosts an annual Women + Leadership event for female IT executives. Luc holds a business administration degree from Ottawa’s Algonquin College (where he was nominated for the college Premier’s Award in business in 2011). When he’s not working, he’s refining his golf handicap or doting on his granddaughter Adeline, who was born on September 2018. You can follow and connect with Luc on LinkedIn.

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Available on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play Music.

Mpumi Nobiva is a force to be reckoned with. Currently, she is a Leader in Residence at NationBuilder. But her story is so much more than that and something she so eloquently shares with audiences around the world. NationBuilder offers everyone the technology and community infrastructure to lead people to greatness. As NationBuilder’s first Leader in Residence, Mpumi is developing the digital infrastructure for Share Your Story Africa, an initiative inspired by her advocacy work uniting youth against HIV/AIDS and domestic violence in South Africa. The power of Mpumi’s storytelling has spurred action worldwide and proves that when we share, we learn and grow. (The whole point of the WTT podcast.)

Throughout the podcast, Marie and Mpumi talk about rising to the top and supporting other young women with the power of our stories. Mpumi’s mission is to continue to inspire courage so that many who are marginalized and oppressed can come to realize that they are more than their circumstances.

I believe our journeys are all connected. I believe in the power of our stories and their ability to transform us.

Her story has literally carried her across the world, lifting her out of poverty and allowing her to pursue the deepest desires of her heart. She is living proof that there is power in sharing your story, and YOURS awaits you! She wants to inspire other young women, whether they are in tech or other sectors.

See Mpumi’s message about sharing stories here.

My story is that AIDS took my mother, not my spirit. What will yours be?

ABOUT MPUMI NOBIVA

Mpumi Nobiva is an International Speaker and Communication Strategist and she has spoken at the White House, congressional fundraisers, corporate functions and nonprofit initiatives in several countries. Mpumi grew up in South Africa, and, at age nine, lost her mother to HIV/Aids, leaving her orphaned like millions of other children in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Reared in material poverty but spiritual wealth by her grandmother, she excelled in the first class of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa before coming to the United States to study. She currently holds a master’s degree in Strategic Communications from High Point University and serves as the first alumnus on the Board of Directors of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls in South Africa. You can connect with Mpumi on LinkedIn and follow her YouTube channel.

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On this week’s Women Talk Tech podcast, we talk to Luxy Thuraisingam who is the VP of Growth Marketing at Cisco Canada. Like lots of other women we have spoken with on the podcast, Luxy didn’t begin her career in technology – in fact, combining her science degree with a marketing certification, she began in the health science and pharma industry.

Shortly into her career, Luxy found herself wanting to make an impact within an industry that was disruptive, fast moving and innovating on new ways to connect with customers. Naturally, that lead her to tech.

Luxy currently works for Cisco, a 36-year-old global leader in technology. Cisco builds solutions that help people and businesses connect, communicate and collaborate. Throughout the podcast, Luxy speaks about her marketing journey into and within the technology industry, and what Cisco is doing to raise the bar around the issues of diversity and women in the space.

Luxy provides listeners with a very important piece of advice on how to drive change in management roles and as leaders:

“We are all leaders of change and we need to show how diversity has an impact from a business perspective. There are many studies that show diversity actually has a better return on business performance. Women need to champion that and vocalize these statistics.”

I think that’s what we all need to keep doing. Show up and tell our stories – and I hope this motivates other leaders in organizations to follow.

Marie Wiese recently launched the “Future Poof Workshop” to solve challenges that the tech industry is currently experiencing in attracting women to the industry. This workshop includes sessions on best-recruiting practices, pay equity benchmarks and how to create a mentorship and sponsorship initiative within their own company. To sign up or learn more, click here.

Available on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play Music.

ABOUT LUXY THURAISINGHAM

For over 15 years, Luxy has helped organizations and teams re-frame conventional thinking, leading as a strategic change agent to help evolve and increase the value of the marketing function. Her passion is in performance-based marketing rooted in digital, analytics and customer insights. Outside of the office, she finds ways to give back to the community by teaching, being an active member of the Canadian Marketing Council and involving herself in various boards as an advisor. When she’s not working, Luxy enjoys spending time with her husband and twins, traveling near and far. You can follow Luxy on Linkedin and Twitter.

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Available on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play Music.

On this week’s podcast, we speak with Marieke McCloskey a data science and UX researcher. Marieke currently leads UX Research at Humu, a behavioral change company that helps organizations and individuals become better people, leaders, managers, and teammates.

Throughout the episode, Marieke speaks about what user research and experience is, and the importance of having a solid support network. Marieke is part of a working moms group of eight people originally started as a LeanIn group six years ago. Marieke meets with this group every month to share what’s going at work, ask advice for handling challenging situations, share wins, and lean on each other when it’s all just a bit too much. Marieke emphasizes how much this group has helped her and provides listeners with ideas on how to build their own support network.

Another important topic Marieke speaks about is the importance of mentorship and sponsorship. She has met some incredible women who have pushed her to be her best throughout her career. Marie and Marieke acknowledge that mentorship and sponsorship is lacking in the tech sector and organizations can do things such as have internal mentorship programs, but also train leaders to do these things correctly.

ABOUT MARIEKE MCCLOSKEY

Marieke has spent over 10 years helping companies grow through human-centered design. Marieke was formerly a consultant at Nielsen Norman Group where she’s trained thousands of professionals on the value of gaining a deep customer understanding. She is currently at Humu, which combines behavioral psychology and machine learning in its mission to make work better for everyone, everywhere.

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On this week’s Women Talk Tech podcast, we talk to Didem Un Ates, who was formerly a Senior Director in charge of Microsoft’s Customer and Partner Engagement for early-stage AI solutions within their Cloud & AI team. She is now Managing Director, Data & AI, Europe at Accenture. Her passion is to scale meaningful, disruptive technologies so people can live better. She is also committed to helping and inspiring more girls and women to join the technology and artificial intelligence sector.

There are three key learnings we took away from this podcast:

1. We are in a fascinating period with artificial intelligence taking off and creating incredible opportunities in terms of new career paths and jobs in almost every field imaginable.
2. The current level of diversity and trends in computer science and AI pose threats, especially for women and underrepresented groups.
3. There is a lot we can do to reverse these trends, embrace the technology, and make the most of it for our own advantage – both as an individual and as a society.

Available on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play Music.

ABOUT DIDEM UN ATES

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Available on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play Music.

On this week’s Women Talk Tech podcast, we talk to Jane Watson, Founder of the Aperta Project and Toronto-based HR professional. Jane has heard a ton of stories about sexual harassment in the workplace over the years and this lead her to want to do more research on the topic so Jane began to write and connect with people who understood the importance of taking a different approach to this topic. She has spoken to hundreds of people in the last two years and believes the time has come to dive deeper into solutions with respect to recording and handling sexual harassment, especially in the tech sector.

To address the issue of sexual harassment in a new way, Jane started the Aperta Project and is now collaborating with the Cynefin Centre to collect first-person experiences with sexual harassment in Toronto Tech.

In both Canada and the US, about 70 percent of workplace sexual harassment goes unreported. Toronto boasts a fast-growing tech sector and an incredibly diverse population. Since research shows that sexual harassment disproportionately impacts women and we need and want more females in Toronto tech, we must find ways to make the industry and our organizations safer for everyone.

Tech companies in general move quickly and things are far less “in place” than other industries. There’s definitely a challenge when solutions to these issues are about altering recruiting practices, developing mentorship and sponsorship programs and creating cultures that are inclusive. These things take time and patience, something tech companies often don’t have. When tech companies are just trying to survive and get to the next step, best practices can go out the window. Jane believes the tech sector as a whole, needs to be more proactive about addressing these topics and specifically work to eradicate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Despite the media attention that workplace sexual harassment has received in the last two years, organizations haven’t figured out how to address this issue. Sexual harassment continues to be a pervasive and under-reported problem, despite the proliferation of policies, training, and women-focused workplace initiatives. I think this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem we claim we want to solve.

The Aperta project needs our help.

In order to bring as much awareness to this issue as possible, Jane is asking our audience to consider being part of the research study. If you or someone you know has had an experience with sexual harassment in the workplace, please reach out to Jane and share the experience anonymously as part of this study.

• Complete the study yourself if you have a story to share: https://www.theapertaproject.com/study
• Share the link to complete the Toronto Tech Study via email with your friends, colleagues, and industry contacts in Toronto tech: http://bit.ly/TOTechStudy
• Share the Toronto Tech Study on Twitter or LinkedIn and encourage your followers or connections to participate
• Follow @ApertaProject on Twitter and retweet our calls to action. We’re also sharing FAQs.
• Have an idea to help spread the word or an introduction you think would be helpful? Get in touch with Jane via email at: janewatsonCHRP@gmail.com

The study closes August 31, 2019. The Toronto tech sector has a unique opportunity to build a more inclusive and competitive tech sector that reflects and capitalizes on the diversity in Toronto.

ABOUT JANE AND THE APERTA PROJECT

Jane has spent 15 years supporting leaders and employees in start-ups, non-profit, and private companies. Jane has been writing about people, organizations, culture, and the future of work on her blog Talent Vanguard since 2012. In 2018, she founded The Aperta Project, an initiative aimed at helping organizations rethink sexual harassment. She’s currently collaborating with the Cynefin Centre on a study of sexual harassment in the Toronto tech sector. The data and stories collected will be brought to a convened working group of diverse tech ecosystem stakeholders to understand how sexual harassment is experienced by those in Toronto tech, and to then co-design more effective strategies to address it. Do you have an experience to share, or know someone that does? Contribute to this project today. You can follow Jane on LinkedIn and Twitter and you can stay up to date with The Aperta Project on Twitter.

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On this episode of the Common Sense Marketer, we spoke to Thomas Leahy who is the Managing Director of Synepta Group, a business acceleration company that invests in healthcare IT companies. In this podcast, Thomas talks about Synepta Group and shares some of the biggest challenges tech startups face heading out into this new modern world.

Thomas describes two major struggles young entrepreneurs have these days:

• Products are getting easier and easier to develop every day with new technologies but entrepreneurs need to spend time understanding their competition, how their product is going to be positioned and their unique value. Capturing attention is getting harder and just having a good product is not enough.
• Entrepreneurs need properly test and validate models in order to constantly iterate. Attracting early clients is extremely important because they are the ones that help you understand your product from a customer view point in order to truly understand the problem you solve and gap you fill in the market.

But just having the above two thing nailed does also not guarantee success. In this world of infinite choice where the buyer is in control of the buying process, credibility, trust and access to a defined channel are other issues tech companies have to tactical quickly.

We went out to partners that we knew were having challenges and wanted to bring something into the market to satisfy that. They were established. They had good reputations. But they didn’t have the offer. And, in the matter of literally a month, we went from 40 to 500 clients

Not only do tech start ups have constant competition, but the path to monetization is often not a direct line. The sales and marketing strategies for these companies to acquire customers need to be unique and the same old approaches just don’t work.

Listen to the full interview now…

About Thomas Leahy

Thomas Leahy has been in the health care industry for close to 30 years and is the Managing Director of Synepta Group. Synepta group helps early-stage health care companies and IT companies accelerate their growth in this dynamic and growing sector.

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Available on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play Music.

On this week’s Women Talk Tech podcast, we talk to Joyce Durst who is the CEO and co-Founder of Growth Acceleration Partners, a nearshore software development company based in Austin, Texas. She co-founded the company in 2007 after a 20+ career in the software industry. Bootstrapped from the beginning, Growth Acceleration Partners (GAP) has since grown into a thriving and profitable business with other 300 employees and offices in Colombia and Costa Rica.

Joyce is an engineer by education but has been successful in the tech industry because she expanded her roles and did not stick to just one trade. Joyce sought positions in sales and marketing to learn the business model of successful companies and this ultimately contributed to her success as a CEO and business owner.

GAP supports women in tech through all cultures and operates its software development centers in Costa Rica and Colombia. With focused efforts in both the U.S. and Latin America, half of GAP’s executive team is comprised of women leading the way in finance, software delivery, and human resources. Roughly 70 percent of the company’s directors are women who oversee large teams delivering complex software solutions to major clients throughout the U.S. Joyce says herself and her team weren’t afraid to say “yes” to qualified women seeking leadership positions.

The very first thing you have to do, according to Joyce, when trying to encourage more women to enter and stay in the tech sector is to listen in a different way. Women think they have to have 125% of the skills for a particular job before they’ll raise their hand and even then, they still won’t raise their hand. You need to listen to determine if they are interested because in most cases, they are qualified but often need that nudge to move great talent further.

Joyce’s company sets the gold standard for how to attract and support women in tech because she practices what she preaches. The four main issues that Joyce says are the key to advancing women in tech are the same four main issues the Women Talk Tech Podcast addresses. If companies can address these issues, it isn’t that hard to encourage more women to come work in the technology sector and keep them there.

• Recruitment Practices
• Mentorship and Sponsorship
• Workplace Environment
• Pay Equity

At all levels of the company, we actively recruit more women and so all of my recruiting teams understand I want more women in engineering. Every time we open up an engineering position, I want them to go find female candidates and I want to interview all the candidates, even if they think they don’t have the skills for the position in question.

Marie Wiese recently launched the “Future Poof Workshop” to solve challenges that the tech industry is currently experiencing in attracting women to the industry. This workshop includes sessions on best-recruiting practices, pay equity benchmarks and how to create a mentorship and sponsorship initiative within their own company. To sign up or learn more, click here.

ABOUT JOYCE DURST

Joyce leverages 30 years of software industry experience to lead double-digit growth and profitability at Growth Acceleration Partners (GAP), a nearshore development company based in Austin, Texas. Prior to co-founding GAP in 2007, she was CEO of venture-backed startup Pinion Software, where Joyce raised $21 million to fund the launch of several pioneering products in the security space. She also spent 12 years at BMC Software, a publicly-traded software solutions company, where she held numerous roles spanning marketing, sales and product development. She quickly rose to vice president and general manager of the products division, overseeing more than $200 million in sales.

Joyce’s biggest passion is investing in others, committed to mentoring women CEOs and first-time entrepreneurs. A sought-after speaker on leadership and women in business, Joyce is active with the Women Presidents’ Organization and Special Olympics, and has been awarded for her leadership by the Greater Austin Chamber. She earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Texas A&M University, where she serves on the development council for the Mays Business School. Connect with Joyce on LinkedIn and follow Growth Acceleration Partners on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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The Common Sense Marketer is back!

On this episode of the Common Sense Marketer, we spoke to Brian Neuwirth, the President of UNEX, an industrial equipment manufacturer that specializes in manufacturing conveyors. Brian’s grandfather founded UNEX in the 1960s, making Brian a third generation CEO of UNEX.

In this podcast, Brian talks three important issues facing all business today:

1. The digital transformation of business due to drastic changes in technology.
2. How the buyer journey has changed the expectations all customers in both B2B and B2C businesses.
3. The challenges caused by buyer behavior patterns and how organizations have adapted (or not).

Of the many interesting things we took away from this interview, was Brian’s comments about the “Amazon Effect”. The biggest changes happening in the manufacturing sector is the new expectation of delivery times. Amazon has changed buying behaviors drastically which has an impact on the entire supply chain. Customers now expect products to instantly get delivered to them where and when they want but on the manufacturing side, the product still needs to be made when inventory doesn’t exist. Change in consumer expectations have pushed companies into a state of continuous transformation. Darwin’s survival of the fittest, is now upon the manufacturing sector in the most dramatic of ways.

On this podcast and our blog, we often talk about the importance of your online presence. If you don’t have one, you run the risk of not being around in 5 years, but if you are like 90% of successful companies worldwide, you are actively managing your online presence. The most important thing to remember online is that customer expectations and buyer behavior are continually changing and it is how you manage these changes that will keep your company above water in the coming years.

Here are some questions Brian encourages you to ask about your own strategy:

• Do you have documented buyer personas?
• Do you have an active testing protocol for your digital strategy?
• Are you making your web presence a priority?
• Are your marketing and sales teams aligned on this priority?
• Do you have the right tools in place to manage this strategy?

If the answer to any of these questions are a no, there is a good chance the “Amazon effect” will slowly creep up on you. It’s time to address the digital strategy within your company.

Contact us at info@marketingcopilot.com to discuss how a Competitive Analysis can create custom recommendations and strategies to help your business combat the “Amazon effect”. 

ABOUT BRIAN

Brian C. Neuwirth is President of UNEX Manufacturing, Inc., a leading provider of material handling and carton flow solutions for distribution centers and warehouses. Previously, Brian was VP of Sales and Marketing at UNEX and held several other positions in the family-owned business. He graduated from Susquehanna University with a BA in Corporate Communications. He received a Mini-MBA in Digital Marketing from Rutgers University. Brian is a member of MHEDA. UNEX is a Marketing CoPilot client and HubSpot and Dynamics 365 CRM user, committed to the digital transformation of their sales and marketing function.