#empowHER50 – Jennifer Zarate

In a world increasingly driven by data and speed, Jennifer Zarate chose to lead with something more timeless: story.

Jennifer first discovered journalism in high school and spent more than a decade reporting in front of and behind the camera. In newsrooms and field reports, she sharpened her instincts not just as a storyteller, but as a listener. A witness to complexity. A believer in connection.

That belief eventually led her to Microsoft, where she helped reshape how stories of innovation, access, and equity were told. As a Senior Communications Manager, she wasn’t just producing content; she was building platforms. Together with her team, she launched the Microsoft Partner Innovation (MPI) Vodcast, a video podcast that became a global stage to celebrate stories of progress with purpose.

Through it, she amplified bold initiatives: the Black Partner Growth Initiative, Microsoft Build for 2030, and women-led ventures using technology to tackle global challenges. The work expanded access, gave visibility to voices too often left out of the spotlight, and transformed storytelling into a force for inclusion.

On LinkedIn, the MPI Vodcast drew more than 163,000 views, 300,000 impressions, and thousands of engagements. These numbers reflected more than reach—they represented trust, impact, and the collective effort to create thoughtful, engaging content. Jennifer understood that reach means little without resonance. Her work didn’t just perform; it connected.

Her time at Microsoft was a turning point. She evolved from a “one-woman band” to a cross-functional collaborator, learning to scale impact through teams, tools, and strategy. That growth set the stage for what came next.

As Founder and CEO of Growth Mindset Media, Jennifer now partners with mission-driven leaders to craft stories that build credibility and spark influence, while helping them show up with clarity, confidence, and connection. Her mission remains steady: to amplify diverse voices and ensure every community feels seen, heard, and valued.

“When every community is reflected in the stories we tell, possibility becomes power, and that is the story I strive to share.” – Jennifer Zarate

And for a generation still waiting to see themselves reflected in the world they help shape, that kind of story might be the most powerful one yet.

About #empowHER50 campaign: This campaign celebrates women leaders at Microsoft, past and present, who have been instrumental in democratizing access to technology, opportunity, and growth. By honoring their contributions over the last half-century, this campaign highlights stories of resilience, innovation, and inclusivity. Through digital spotlights, a commemorative coffee table book, live recognition events, and more, the campaign inspires collective action toward achieving equitable societal goals. To learn more about empowHER50, please visit https://womenincloud.com/empowHER50

/by

#empowHER50 – Kim Smith

In the early 2000s, long before “cloud-first” became a corporate mantra, Kim Smith stood at the intersection of code and conviction. At a time when software still arrived in shrink-wrapped boxes, she dared to ask: What if work didn’t have to live on a hard drive? What if productivity could travel as fluidly as ideas? 

As the first female leader on Microsoft’s Business Division Strategy team, Smith didn’t just imagine the future; she quietly engineered it. Tucked behind the scenes of what would become Office Online, and later, Office 365, she helped architect the company’s earliest foray into cloud-based productivity, transforming not just how we work, but where. 

“Suspend disbelief just long enough to let the art of the possible break through and unlock extraordinary outcomes” is a mantra that guided her as she built monetization models and user experience algorithms for the tech giant’s then-experimental online suite. 

But Smith’s story isn’t just about systems. It’s about the scale of both vision and impact. 

Tasked with leading the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), she brought a human lens to data. Her algorithms parsed anonymized usage patterns across applications like Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, revealing something profound: it wasn’t just engineers or executives shaping how tools were adopted, it was often administrators, operations managers, and project leads who were influencing the process and ways to unlock business value. Many were women. Many were overlooked. 

Smith saw an opportunity to reframe the narrative by empowering those most likely to teach and champion adoption.  The result? Office 365 launched in 2011 and grew into the world’s most widely adopted enterprise SaaS suite, with over 400 million paid seats and counting. Microsoft’s identity evolved from a product company to a cloud platform, and Smith helped light that path. 

But for her, the impact was always more than technical. 

Office Online democratized access by offering lightweight, browser-based tools for free. More importantly, it unlocked economic opportunity, especially for users who historically lacked enterprise IT infrastructure. It wasn’t just software in the cloud; it was a ladder. 

Her top strategies were deceptively simple: listen with curiosity, design with empathy, and never underestimate the power of small features that spark joy. She brought this ethos to every decision, bridging data with design, and strategy with soul. 

Today, as Chief Revenue Officer in Clinical AI, Smith continues to infuse analytics with impact, this time with a targeted industry lens: Healthcare and Life Sciences . But her legacy at Microsoft is unmistakable. She didn’t just enable the move from software to the cloud. She helped thousands of people, especially women, move forward with it. And in doing so, she proved that true innovation is not just technical. It’s personal and when personal courage meets collective possibility, the future of innovation becomes limitless. 

About #empowHER50 campaign: This campaign celebrates women leaders at Microsoft, past and present, who have been instrumental in democratizing access to technology, opportunity, and growth. By honoring their contributions over the last half-century, this campaign highlights stories of resilience, innovation, and inclusivity. Through digital spotlights, a commemorative coffee table book, live recognition events, and more, the campaign inspires collective action toward achieving equitable societal goals. To learn more about empowHER50, please visit https://womenincloud.com/empowHER50 

/by

#empowHER50 – Vatika Gupta

For Vatika Gupta, access to technology isn’t just a feature, it’s a foundational right. With nearly two decades of relentless innovation, she’s made it her mission to transform tech from a privilege into a platform for possibility. 

At Microsoft, Vatika leads global cloud infrastructure efforts, focusing on emerging and underserved markets. Her work streamlining provisioning and deployment strategies has enabled faster, more efficient data center rollouts, bringing affordable, scalable cloud services to communities that need them most. Whether it’s powering educational platforms, telehealth networks, or local small businesses, her engineering vision reaches far beyond code. 

Before Microsoft, at Intel, Vatika helped re-architect cloud insight software into a modular, microservices-based platform, making AI-driven edge computing accessible to industries like manufacturing and logistics, even in environments with limited connectivity. 

At the heart of all of this lies a simple, powerful philosophy: 
“Build what lifts, share what grows—make tech a path that freely flows.” 

It’s a mindset that shapes every decision Vatika makes, whether simplifying complex systems, expanding infrastructure into hard-to-reach regions, or mentoring those just starting their tech journeys. 

Her designs turned once-complex systems into tools that enabled real-time insights across the globe. But for Vatika, the work doesn’t stop at systems, it starts with people. She’s built diverse, high-performing teams from the ground up, mentored rising technologists from nontraditional paths, and championed inclusion not as a checkbox, but as a cornerstone of innovation. 

Her journey, uninterrupted for 19 years, hasn’t always been easy. It’s taken resilience, sacrifice, and bold leadership to carve space in the tech world while balancing personal responsibilities. But through it all, her conviction remains: Technology is only powerful when it’s universally accessible.  

About #empowHER50 campaign: This campaign celebrates women leaders at Microsoft, past and present, who have been instrumental in democratizing access to technology, opportunity, and growth. By honoring their contributions over the last half-century, this campaign highlights stories of resilience, innovation, and inclusivity. Through digital spotlights, a commemorative coffee table book, live recognition events, and more, the campaign inspires collective action toward achieving equitable societal goals. To learn more about empowHER50, please visit https://womenincloud.com/empowHER50 

/by

#empowHER50 – Nindy Hunter

Nindy Hunter has spent her career turning good intentions into tangible outcomes, especially for communities too often overlooked by traditional tech solutions.

From early work with Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential Group, where she helped design products for developing markets, to leading transformative customer feedback programs today, Nindy’s approach has remained consistent: listen deeply, remove friction, and build with equity in mind. 

Her impact spans product, strategy, and people. Through feedback-driven initiatives in underserved regions, she helped resolve over 75 product and support blockers, improving customer satisfaction by 15 points and influencing more equitable investments. With the Accelerate program, she enabled customers to modernize their tech stack, cutting deployment time by up to 40% and delivering real cost savings. 

Nindy also helped bring sustainability to the forefront of infrastructure planning, translating renewable energy goals into differentiators that resonate with customers. Her work made sustainability not just a checkbox, but a business advantage. 

Beyond technical strategy, Nindy is a passionate mentor and community advocate. As a Leadership Circle sponsor and active member of Employee Resource Groups, she’s mentored over 60 professionals, many of whom have stepped into broader leadership roles. 

Her philosophy is rooted in action: access isn’t just about what’s available, it’s about what’s possible when systems are designed with intention, inclusion, and impact. 

 
About #empowHER50 campaign: This campaign celebrates women leaders at Microsoft, past and present, who have been instrumental in democratizing access to technology, opportunity, and growth. By honoring their contributions over the last half-century, this campaign highlights stories of resilience, innovation, and inclusivity. Through digital spotlights, a commemorative coffee table book, live recognition events, and more, the campaign inspires collective action toward achieving equitable societal goals. To learn more about empowHER50, please visit https://womenincloud.com/empowHER50 

To learn about Microsoft 50th celebrations: https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-50/  

/by

#empowHER50 – Aparna Gupta

From running Engineering & Product Management for a startup to now leading Microsoft Industry Solutions Delivery’s Global Delivery Center, Aparna Gupta has followed a bold, curiosity-fueled path. One that brings innovation and inclusion together to shape a better future through technology. 

In her current role, Aparna is driving an AI-first consulting transformation aimed at positioning her team as Microsoft’s AI Center for Customer Innovation & Delivery Excellence. Under her leadership, the center is accelerating commercial cloud growth, powered by top-tier engineering talent and a thriving partner ecosystem. 

But Aparna’s vision goes far beyond tech delivery, it’s about democratizing access to opportunity. As Microsoft India’s sponsor for AI Careers for Women, she helped launch a government-partnered program to equip 20,000 women across six states with AI skills. She also spearheaded AI Odyssey, a national initiative that engaged and upskilled over 300,000 developers. 

Her passion for ecosystem-building is evident through initiatives like engaging 300,000+ developers nationwide through AI Odyssey, hackathons that foster breakthrough thinking, and Copilot adoption pilots designed to lead by example. Aparna also sponsors the Early in Profession community, nurturing future tech leaders from day one. 

Aparna’s impact goes beyond Microsoft through CSR initiatives that have supported digital literacy for women micropreneurs, STEM access for visually impaired students, and learning support for children with disabilities, reaching more than 65,000 lives to date. 

A frequent speaker at major forums including NASSCOM, Microsoft’s 50th, Microsoft Access for All, Grace Hopper Conference, and more, Aparna brings authenticity, clarity, and purpose to every stage she steps on. 

 
About #empowHER50 campaign: This campaign celebrates women leaders at Microsoft, past and present, who have been instrumental in democratizing access to technology, opportunity, and growth. By honoring their contributions over the last half-century, this campaign highlights stories of resilience, innovation, and inclusivity. Through digital spotlights, a commemorative coffee table book, live recognition events, and more, the campaign inspires collective action toward achieving equitable societal goals. To learn more about empowHER50, please visit https://womenincloud.com/empowHER50 

To learn about Microsoft’s 50th celebrations: https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-50/  

/by