In a world where we frequently feel like we are always being barraged by networking events, it can be easy to forget the importance of building strong, trusted relationships. However, these relationships are what make up an influential network, so it is worth taking the time to cultivate habits to build them.

Chaitra Vedullapalli, President of Women In Cloud, has always been driven to leave a positive impression everywhere she goes. She is an outstanding advocate for opening new economic opportunities for people everywhere, especially women. This blog includes tips for developing a trustworthy relationship drawn from her experiences.

The strength of trust is the foundation of all the best relationships in our life. The correct degree of faith enables us to share our most sensitive tales, connect on a deeper level, and build stronger relationships, bringing the confidence to be fully seen, heard, and understood without bias or concern about rejection. Therefore, when we consider trust, especially in personal and professional relationships, it is essential to help make important decisions, accelerate your progress, and provide you with the best possibilities to become purpose-driven leaders.

The most challenging aspect of building trust is in these three areas: 

  1. Understanding how to go about earning someone’s trust. Most of us are unable to create lasting bonds with others. 
  2. Ability to measure strong relationships. You might discuss it, but you have no idea what it looks like or how to quantify it. 
  3. Let someone know when they have betrayed your confidence. Often, it is important to speak up.

Here are some pointers for developing a powerful network through trusted relationships:

  1. Seek out opportunities to connect with others. Whether this means attending industry events or simply striking up conversations with people you meet in your everyday life, leverage on every scenario to connect with others.  
  2. Get involved in your community. Participating in community activities is a terrific way to make new friends and build relationships of trust. Not only will you be able to help make a difference, but you will also get to know people from all levels of society.
  3. Be a reliable resource. People will come to you with questions and problems when you become known as a reliable resource. In turn, this will help build trust and strengthen your relationships. 
  4. Offer your assistance. Help someone if you see they are having trouble. It might be anything, such as offering to assist with a project or lending an ear when someone needs to talk.
  5. Stay connected. Once you have made a connection, do not let it fall by the wayside – stay connected! Whether sending a quick email or connecting on social media, staying in touch will help keep your relationships stronger. By following these tips, you will be well on your way to building an influential network.  

As with the tips mentioned earlier, Chaitra adheres to a trust framework that she believes helped her build strong connections, given to her by coach when she worked Oracle and it is called ‘the ROCC of trust. In ROCC framework, R stands for Reliability, O for Open-Honesty, and Cs for Competence and Compassion.

Even in a business relationship, trust is an essential factor. Without trust, how can we ever feel safe and secure working with others, or be sure that the association meets our professional needs? The tactics listed above are ways to develop a network of reliable connections. Even though they are binary options that exist or do not, they can help you build a robust network that can support your goals.

Here is a video of some fantastic insights shared by Chaitra –

On Thursday, July 14, the Women in Cloud community engaged in #WICxINSPIRE, presented by Kyndryl. Where we reimagined the use of hyperscaler cloud marketplaces to drive digital transformation and a new route to market.

Emcee Sonia Dara, Chief of Staff at Microsoft, created a warm welcome at the stage. Chaitra Vedullapalli, Co-Founder & President, Women in Cloud and CMO, Meylah and Sheetal Rishi, Senior Partner, Cloud Engineering & Development at Kyndryl brought important information and contagious excitement of strategic partnership with Women In Cloud within the Opening Remarks.

Then our Keynote, Jacqueline Woods, EVP & CMO at Teradata, brought us Leading Strategic Partnerships with Hyperscalers with audience Q&A led by Michelle Pruitt, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft & Women In Cloud Board of Advisor. 

The CXO Panel: Mastering Co-Sell GTM with Hyperscalers with Gail Mercer-Mckay, Vince Menzione, Amy Bray, and Annemarie Dev, moderated by Sharan Hildebrand. This panel showed you how to make sure that you have all the right factors in place before launching any new products or opening any new channels.

Then we went to Bootcamp! #CloudFounders Bootcamp began with Christine Puccio, VP, Global Cloud Alliances & GTM Programs, JFrog and Chaitra Vedullapalli led us through a Fireside Chat on “Leading Co-Sell Product Launch Strategies with Hyperscalers.” Then Chaitra Vedullapalli, led the workshop “How to Secure Funding For Eligible GTM Strategies from Hyperscalers” with proven tactics for your GTM strategy.

Next we celebrated the finalists and winners for the #empowHERaccess 2022 awards, Emceed by Amy Protexter, Senior Vice President, North America Marketing at Insight. We had wonderful award presenters from our sponsors: Camille Geiger from Boeing for the Cloud Advisor of the Year Award Presenter; Regina Manfredi from Teradata for the Supplier of Year Award Presenter; Andrea Perkins from Insight for the Digital Transformation Project of the Year; Dikasse Zalla from Avanade for the Investor of the Year Award; Katie Franzen from Accenture Women in Technology Outstanding Leadership Award.

Congratulations to the winners: Gena Goh, Beth White, Neal Dempsey, Ashley Miller, Elif Tutuk!

 

Then we joined our masterclass of advisors for intimate roundtable discussions on: Tech Leadership Roles, Executive Leadership and Presence, Tech Platforms, Business Partnerships, and Business Conversations. Thank you to our advisors: Nehal Mehta, Sreelakshmy G, Colleen O’Brien, Dhaval Shah, Sandhya Parameswara, Shirelle Francis, Anamarie Franc, Sahiti Bayana, Keri Smith, Geetha Gandhi, Ebony Burroughs, Amina Sartaj, Laura Sewell, Natasha Eichman, and Emily Colby.

Keep an eye for WIC’s next exciting initiatives:

Announcing the first WIC 100 Influencer NFTS! 

  • Get your WIC Influencer Limited 2022 Edition NFT: Pre-Order Now! 

The Exclusive Gold Edition NFT Includes Access to:

  • Annual Access Pass
  • WICxIcons Celebration Dinner
  • #WICxSummit2023 Speaker Opportunity

 

Do you remember a time when you were so excited about something that you didn’t know how to share all the details to get others excited?

Well, here at Women In Cloud we are going through that same type of excitement, and we completely forgot to share all the details to get our community just as excited!

Last week, we launched our marquee Cosell GTM and content development campaign called the #WICxTop100. The entire campaign is designed to help women tech founders build, plug, and play GTM content during the busiest season of the year, all while making it easy to participate in the upcoming 4 month campaign.

The intention behind this campaign is recognizing that building cloud cosell GTM is very expensive (usually costs over 20K or more), labor intensive (usually one to two resources), and many founders do not have the digital marketing experience needed. After having many conversations, the community came together to pull an integrated hybrid campaign that focused on the following benefits:

  1. Brand Development and Awareness : provide assets to easily build brand within the tech industry
  2. Customer Demand Generation : invitations to events and experiences to meet people
  3. Build Partnerships with Hyperscalers and Channel Partners : connect to hyperscaler programs to establish partnerships
  4. Generate Lead via Marketplaces : showcase SAAS solution and offers to attract customers
  5. Increase knowledge to become world class entrepreneurs

Now the question is how does it work?

  1. To take advantage of the #WICxTop100, our plug and play GTM engine you need to take ACTION. This means you need to signup to be invited to engage in the Cosell activities. Signup here.
  2. Once you signup, you will be invited to participate in the many GTM activities.
  3. You will also be given a dedicated template to create your content so we can jointly promote to create access to customers, partners and future employees.

What can you create through this campaign?

Here is a list of assets you can develop. It is up to you and your company to decide what outcomes you want to accomplish.

  • Joint Press Release
  • Blog Post – Sharing Insights
  • eBook or High Value Asset
  • Customer Offer on marketplaces
  • Solution Spotlight and Demos
  • Webinar Content
  • Customer List
  • Partner List
  • Press Kit – You and/or company
  • Email Nurture Campaign
  • Formulate a Perfect Solution Narrative
  • Cosell Messaging Framework
  • Philanthropic Story and more

What will you receive when you participate in the #WICxTop100 Founder Campaign?

  • Get educated: 4 hour bootcamp on Building Cosell Partnership with Cloud Hyperscalers
  • Meet Influential Executives at the #WICxIcons 2022: Executive Dinner at Seattle, WA
  • Get seen by Fortune 1000 companies – Top100 Enterprise Ready Cloud Solutions List
  • Get featured on Industry stages and community stages
  • Create unique content for your business
  • Get invited to participate in Microsoft #Buildfor2030 Hackathon and opportunities
  • Monthly roundtables to meet fellow women tech founders and explore joint partnerships to scale
  • Connect with Boeing, Accenture, Insight, Microsoft, Avanade, Teradata, Google and more
  • Get invited to participate in Cloud Accelerator 8.0

What is the roadmap for me and my company to participate?

Every experience that is design is to help you achieve goals within your GTM plan.

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Wondering? If you are ready or not?

Take a free Cloud Cosell Marketing Assessment.

It takes 15 minutes but you will know the reality of how much you need.

If you see lot many reds and oranges, then you are 100% ready to participate.

Actually, the reality is that you need it more than anyone else. It is an indication that you must invest in GTM activities.

What are the qualification criteria for selection?

  • Companies with at least one woman in the C-level role with decision making power in the company
  • Based anywhere across the globe
  • Solution Built on Cloud Hyperscaler platform such as Microsoft Cloud, AWS, Google Cloud, Salesforce, IBM Cloud and/or AliCloud.
  • Those targeting enterprise opportunities in any industry sector with a potential to scale
  • Must be in business for one year with one pilot customer and developed a cloud solution
  • One or more of the business’ solutions directly impact one or more of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
  • Looking to Cosell their solutions through Microsoft, Google, AWS, IBM, Salesforce and their distribution channels

What will it cost?

  • $129 plus 3.49% processing fee to get access.
  • Deadline to apply : Oct3rd, 2022

Where can I signup?

Learn more here: https://womenincloud.com/wicxtop100/

Apply Here: https://womenincloud.submittable.com/submit/231817/wicxtop100

On April 22, the Women in Cloud community joined together as we hosted a special edition of #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn. Salesforce Ventures features “A Guide to Corporate Venture Investing: Learn the Ins and Outs from Salesforce Ventures.” 

salesforce lunch and learn

To begin the event, Erin Northern, Partnership Lead for Women in Cloud (WIC) set the stage to introduce WIC and Salesforce Ventures. Erin greeted the audience and encouraged an active chat within the attendees. Attendees came from 5+ countries around the globe, all with a goal to learn and be inspired by the event today. 

Watch the introduction here:

 

Next, Salesforce Ventures brought Enki Toto, Investor for Salesforce Impact Venture Fund to the stage for the Keynote: A Guide to Corporate Venture Investing. Enki gave an in-depth presentation on the basics of investing and how corporate venture capital is different. With insightful questions from the chat, Enki delivered a well rounded approach to the topic, breaking down ideas and methods to teach and engage the audience.

Enki focused on the following topics: 

  • Deal structures
  • How to prepare for your pitch
  • Due diligence, risks, and closing the deal
  • The return on investment

Enki is currently an investor on the Salesforce Ventures Impact Fund, Salesforce’s corporate venture capital fund that invests in cloud technology solutions with a demonstrable impact in Education and Workforce Development, Sustainability, DE&I, and the Social Sector. She’s been involved in the company’s investments in BlocPower, Circulor, Crehana, Ellevest. and Propel.

 

Watch Enki Toto here: https://youtu.be/0bpqONyLC54

With this special edition of the #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn featuring Salesforce Ventures, WIC captured a niche audience and brought important information to the stage. 

Useful Resources: 

  • If you missed this session, you can find the recordings here
  • Register for #WICxInspire on July 14 for an interactive virtual event 
  • Do you want infinite access to more career and professional development opportunities? You can get $1000 of value for just $249 with the Women In Cloud’s Annual Access Pass. Learn and connect with the tech industry’s top leaders through Signature Events and Warm Introductions, develop your leadership skills, reach your full potential, and more! 
  • Learn more about EmpowHERaccess Awards
  • WICxLEAD: Next-generation Corporate ESG Women’s Leadership Accelerator, designed to empower corporate women and entrepreneurs to ignite economic access. Learn more and apply to qualify.
  • Want to request a warm introduction with Cloud Leaders from the session? Click here to request warm introductions today.
  • Join the #WiCDigitalNetwork to connect with community members and stay up to date with latest news, opportunities, and initiatives 

 

On May 6, the Women in Cloud community joined together as we hosted a premier #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn with Microsoft. This series is a networking experience designed to open the doors for leading fortune companies and brands to connect with technology business builders. This intimate learning series offers a space to learn about how to do business with Microsoft, understand their company culture, and get access to decision makers & procurement officers. 

Fortune L&L Session Microsoft

To begin the event, Chaitra Vedullapalli, Co-Founder and President of Women in Cloud (WIC) set the stage delving into the impact of the partnership between Microsoft and WIC, focusing on important topics such as:

  • Driving an Inclusive Digital Economy by accelerating representation of 50% of population (women) that were left out in the $7 Trillion cloud opportunity
  • Cloud Skilling – Providing 1,500 cloud scholarship and First Cloud Center of Excellence
  • Inspire fortune brands and other companies to partner strategically to accelerate Corporate ESG efforts
  • Digital Co-Selling with Microsoft & access to Community PDM
  • Cloud Marketplace – Diversity Lens on The Marketplace
  • Voices for Innovation – Policy Advocacy

Watch Empowering Women in Tech keynote with Charlotte Yarkoni here:

Following Chaitra Vedullapalli’s Opening Remarks, an inspirational Keynote: Empowering Women in Tech was led by Charlotte Yarkoni, President, Commerce + Ecosystems at Microsoft.She shared the impactful statistics that less than 2% of software startups in the USA feature a woman founder, and the Covid-19 pandemic will increase the time it will take to close the digital gender gap by 36 years. As a strong advocate for girls, young women, and women to be in STEM, Charlotte explained how diverse companies generate more innovation and better financial results than non/less diverse organizations.

The attendee chat feed was filling fast as the community quickly resonated with Charlotte. 

These alarming statistics call for change, showing how important workplaces and allies are to creating economic access and opportunities for all. Charlotte showed us how Microsoft values creating a healthy ecosystem for employees, partners, and customers to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft is committed to creating a culture where diverse perspectives are invited, where inclusive behavior and authenticity are the norm, and everyone is empowered to bring their true self to work. Microsoft has implemented multiple programs to create access for women, such as a program supporting women founders in their end-to-end start-up journey, and a mentoring program to pair women employees at Microsoft with women founders. Through collective action, we can foster women’s talent in tech, which is a critical component to growing women’s presence in technology.

Watch the Inclusive Economic Opportunity Panel here:

Next, we excitedly introduced the Inclusive Economic Opportunity Panel: Talent, Business Development, and Supplier Diversity with moderator Diego Rejtman – GM, Developer Relations at Microsoft, Mazhar Mohammed – CVP, Partner & Seller Experience at Microsoft, Jaci Santos Shibao – Tech and Sales Strategy, GPS Sr Director; WAM ERG Co-Chair at Microsoft, and Shara Holliday – Sr Director, Procurement at Microsoft. 

 

The attendees were heavily engaged in the conversation via the chat, making this panel highly interactive for the audience. The panelists provided numerous words of wisdom to the audience regarding the Microsoft workforce, partnerships, customers, and resources for entrepreneurs to be positioned for supplier diversity opportunities —  giving the attendees a realistic look at how Microsoft values and celebrates a diverse ecosystem. 

A unique component of the #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn Series is the Cloud Solution Showcase, where we feature two entrepreneurs and their solutions for the marketplace. This month, Lucy Flores – Elyon International, and Natasha Tetruyeva – eKidz.eu were brought to the stage to bring awareness and education to their companies. 

Watch Elyon International Inc here: 

 

Watch eKidz.eu here: 

Closing out the session, but definitely a community favorite, was the Roundtable Advisor Experience where leaders in Microsoft met face to face (virtually) with attendees and discussed important topics: Leadership & careers, Changemaking for inclusive growth, Women thriving at work, Skilling opportunities, Supplier diversity, Marketplace engagement, and Hiring & culture.

Featuring Microsoft Roundtable Advisors: 

  • Diego Rejtman – GM, Developer Relations
  • Gena Goh – Channel Inclusion and Impact Strategy Lead, Global Partner Solutions
  • Jaci Santos Shibao – Tech and Sales Strategy, Sr Director, Global Partner Solutions; Women at Microsoft ERG Co-Chair, Microsoft
  • Debbie Uttecht – Partner Marketing Lead, Worldwide Learning
  • Joel Gillespie – Program Manager, Supplier Diversity
  • Madiha Khan – Engagement Lead, Commercial Marketplace Services
  • Michelle Shafer – Sr Talent Acquisition Manager, Talent Acquisition 

Watch the Introduction to the Roundtables and the event Closing Remarks to catch a glimpse of this experience.

As the highest registered and attended #WICxFortune100 Lunch and Learn in the series, this event impacted greatly the Women in Cloud community. With outstanding engagement on social media (Tracie Cobian) and in the event chat (Stacy Tatem), WIC encouraged this behavior with gift cards giveaways. 

Useful Resources: