Jenna Lange: Your Story can Change Lives

Much of the “join” movement is about who you know. 

My female friends are the center of my world. I trust they have my best interests at heart. My initial inspiration to join Women in Cloud was Carrie Francey. If Carrie says “do this,” I do it. And that is how I operate with many of my female friends. 

This is a community of women I am passionate about. They are blazing the trail—both in helping companies reach the cloud and helping women reach their potential. 

I have spent over 20 years helping leaders increase their impact in high stakes communication moments. I am passionate about empowering women to find and deliver stories they can use to drive impact. Whether their “impact” is in their corporations or communities, storytelling is an incredibly powerful tool for persuasion and influence. 

Presence, Persuasion, Perseverance and Planning are all part of success in high-stakes moments. But storytelling is an essential component that often goes unnoticed. Finding stories that drive impact is difficult, as is delivering these stories in a way that connects and compels. It requires practice and confidence. So this has become my mission: to help women confidently deliver stories that can change lives in their organizations and beyond.

At Women in Cloud Summit 2020, I will specifically address: 

  • Practical tips for finding and delivering stories with impact
  • Communicating with confidence and clarity
  • Quickly creating a story that is relevant to your audience

As a speaker, I will focus on ensuring women are given an opportunity to tell their story and tell it right. I look forward to meeting everybody who is interested in advancing their mission through clear and compelling communication. 

Stories have always had the power to influence mindsets and change the course of history. Women in Cloud is one such story that needs to be given attention, to ensure women of tomorrow will not go through discriminations made in today’s society. This calls us to pool our resources together to take collective action. 

Women in Cloud’s mission is very aligned to my mission of helping drive impact by finding and telling stories that can change lives. 

We have to ask ourselves, “How can we step into uncomfortable moments to drive change?” Do we acknowledge and take advantage of the opportunities we are given? Do we reach out to ensure everyone has a voice? For me, this means looking in the places where we don’t typically look for opportunities. 

This summit gives me hope for the next generation of women who we can inspire with the stories we tell today. Purchase tickets today and be a part of a story bigger than yourself. 

To get more information visit the summit website, and don’t forget to apply the 20% discount code: JOINME@WIC

See you there! Take action by joining our online network to get engaged today!

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Sherlaender “Lani” Phillips: Women In Cloud Summit – Technology, Leadership And Transforming Businesses

Throughout my career, I have purposefully focused on technology, as I see it as a vehicle to make a real difference in the world. I am excited to be among so many female “tech” entrepreneurs who are using their love for technology to solve key business and world challenges. Women in Cloud represents my community of trailblazers who are committed to creating economic opportunities for all.

As a member of the Women in Cloud community, I am passionate about expanding my network with like-minded individuals. I want to be a student and learn from others’ experiences and gain access to some of the most innovative solutions and services available. I also want to give back and be of service to the other women who are dedicating themselves to Women In Cloud and what it stands for. My involvement with Women in Cloud enables me to exercise my passion for technology, leadership and transforming businesses.

This year at Women in Cloud Summit 2020, my session is “How the Best Leaders Create Inclusive Cultures.” This will be an interactive session, exploring key concepts such as practicing Awareness, exercising Curiosity and demonstrating Courage. We will discuss best practices for inclusion, and you will have time to reflect on how you show up today across Awareness, Curiosity and Courage. Practical tips will be shared with the goal of creating a community of like-minded individuals who will partner with you on your journey to be a more inclusive leader.

An inclusive environment is necessary for collective action. Economic inclusion means providing fair and equitable opportunities for all businesses in a diverse and inclusive way. This enables us to close the “opportunity” gap, chip away at the unconscious and conscious biases towards these different communities and enable small, diverse businesses to compete.

I am excited to connect with everyone at the Summit. The session topics are timely, and the speaker lineup is powerful. I personally am prepared to learn as much as I can, to establish my own action plan, and to network with and be of service to as many people as possible. This event should not be missed. Purchase tickets today to join us in Seattle on January 25 to learn, understand, contribute, and grow during and after the Summit.For more information visit the Summit website, and don’t forget to apply the 20% discount code: JOINME@WIC

See you there! Take action by joining our online network to get engaged today!

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Gillian Muessig: The Capitalization Stack – How to Fund your Startup Without Losing your Company

Women continue to receive low single digit percentages of venture capital nationwide and worldwide. Yet, women startup leaders consistently return ~35% higher ROI to their funds. While just 0.06% of all companies will ever receive venture capital funding, these companies are the cream of the crop. Yet 80% of every venture capital funded company fails within five years. Clearly, venture capital funding is not the right match for many high potential startups.

I joined the Women in Cloud to help women better understand the broader funding options available to them so they build brilliant companies, hold onto the optimal percentage of their equity, and thrive. I believe there is a huge economic push women will contribute to, if shown the direction and given an opportunity. I am extremely passionate about equity and parity in access to the opportunities of business entrepreneurship. 

Money is power. We may not like that equation, but we had better deal with it! Until women have the advantages of their male colleagues in entrepreneurship, we have not achieved our goals. 

On January 25, at the Women in Cloud Summit 2020, I will be speaking on a business track panel at 11:45am, as well as meeting attendees at the Meet the Speaker Table and possibly a roundtable (look for it and sign up!) to investors about the powerful data behind the financial advantages of investing in women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs about how to capitalize early stage startups beyond conventional equity investment models. 

We do not use one piece of software; we use an IT stack. Likewise, do not think, “I must exchange equity for cash.” Think instead about your complete capitalization stack. Understanding the full suite of options available to you as a founder will increase your chances of surviving and thriving in business.

Purchase tickets here and join us on January 25th. Our collective forces and resources can increase access to technology careers and entrepreneurship for women; indeed. We ‘vote’ with our dollars. Where and how we invest our own capital makes the difference between putting up with the status quo and actually making change happen.

To get more information visit the summit website, and apply this 20% discount code: JOINME@WIC

See you there! Take action by joining our online network today!

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Dawn-Marie Elder: What I Learned About Digital Transformation Biking Through Laos and Cambodia

As corporate citizens ‘Digital Transformation’ is part of our daily lexicon. But what does it mean? Who does it benefit and how? A recent sabbatical to Southeast Asia made me question the approach I, and many others, take to tackling large scale digital transformation projects. I biked, hiked and kayaked my way around Laos and Cambodia with my PC locked away in the hotel safe. Ironically rather than lifting the veil of technology dependence, my digital detox plunged me into the world of digital innovation. Innovation enabled by technology but born out of necessity. It was the purest and most successful digital transformation I’d witnessed.

At the Women in Cloud Summit 2020 I’d like to share with others the insights and best practice I learned from that trip. I left Asia understanding that large digital transformation projects often miss a key component in their planning – understanding individual-level motivation. I’ll use my time at the Summit to open a dialogue about:

  • The power of human motivation to achieve successful Digital Transformations
  • How to harness digital transformation to improve lives

I would like attendees of my session to leave with the understanding that Digital Transformation is simply the continued evolution of life. It’s our job as leaders to make sure that the digital transformation projects we initiate are used to understand and empower. Whether that is end-user empowerment, employee empowerment, female empowerment or economic empowerment, is for the individual to decide. As the current leaders in the ongoing technology evolution, history will not judge us kindly if we forget the human. Not only is human buy-in essential to make any digital transformations work, but we have a moral obligation as innovators to use tech for good. 

Collective action is the first step to ensuring empowerment in any form. It means harnessing the power of a group of like-minded individuals to benefit the majority; creating opportunities for the individuals within that group to benefit the collective. Most importantly it means understanding the base motivation of individuals to create greater opportunity and success for all by ensuring root level buy-in.

This January, I’m looking forward to connecting with powerful leaders and entrepreneurs who recognize the change is an evolution – not an event or demand – which drives technology innovation, adoption and sales. I’m looking forward to meeting innovators who are challenging the status quo, and delegates and speakers who challenge my own thinking.

Purchase tickets for the summit and experience the best of technology through a community that is changing the idea of women empowerment. 

To get more information visit the summit website, and don’t forget to apply the 20% discount code: JOINME@WIC

See you there! Take action by joining our online network to get engaged today!

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Cindy Gross: Anti-bullying Cultures are the Foundation for Tech Success

Women in Cloud leads the way towards tech success stories with collaboration, relationship building, and healthy working environments. We build better technology when we lead with human needs and infuse those needs throughout our work cultures and the products we produce. At the Women in Cloud Summit 2020, I am excited to engage our  community in a discussion about how to ‘Reclaim Your Voice: Heal + Thrive after facing bullies or harassers.’

Bullies try to steal our voices, our power, our passion. If you’ve been bullied or harassed, start by knowing: this is trauma but we can forge and nurture paths to reclaim our lives, our work, our passion, and our voice. We can learn to talk about our experiences in ways that feel safe and lead to new opportunities at work and beyond. We can understand how the trauma may affect our thoughts and decisions then redirect that in a healthier way. We thrive and reclaim our voices when we invest in community, self-compassion, and belonging cultures. Together we can lead technology companies to create anti-bullying workplaces as the foundation for success. I call this Befriending Dragons – taking the scary challenges in life and making them approachable, friendly, and do-able.

This summit brings together so many different people across technology and related industries. It is the hub for ideas to manifest and grow into realities with expert guidance. This year I look forward to meeting folks already invested in the idea that Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion is great for businesses, people who are ready to plan next steps that work for their company. 

As leaders in the technology industry, we must recognize and act with the understanding that economic and business policies must lead with intersectional equity – the idea that problems manifest differently for different people and we must build varied ways forward with more resources expended for those most disadvantaged now.

The summit excites me because it gives me an opportunity to share my thoughts and also learn from other leaders’ experiences. Women in Cloud is a community which has a place for everybody who dreams about changing our industry and our society for the better, and I think that is a collective action we should all be a part of. 

Purchase tickets today and join us this January to celebrate ideas, community and women of the future. I’ll see you there!

To get more information visit the summit website, and don’t forget to apply the 20% discount code: JOINME@WIC

See you there! Take action by joining our online network to get engaged today!

You can learn more about Cindy Gross and her company Befriending Dragons on her site: http://BefriendingDragons.com/About

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