What do you get when you take over 100 women and allies from around the world, put them in a room for three weeks, and ask them to change the world?

You get Women in Cloud (WIC), hosting their fifth annual Women in Cloud Summit beginning January 26, 2023. 

The three-week hybrid experience will combine unique virtual programming with in-person events and exclusive opportunities that promise to be memorable, empowering and inspiring. The 2023 Annual Summit ignites the power of “Collective Responsibility” through purpose, innovation and excellence to accelerate ESG leadership and solutions to drive responsible businesses.

The summit will explore the increasing pace of Cloud & AI technology, create a global hub for sustainable tech solutions, accelerate ESG + T innovations and provide the platform to transform our collective community into resilient leaders and responsible global enterprises. 

 Across the hybrid programming, attendees will hear from inspirational speakers, connect and communicate with industry leaders and experts, and network with each other, both virtually and in-person.

The summit also offers a unique opportunity to participate in a virtual World Record attempt, as WIC community is ready to set the record for most vision boards uploaded in 24-hours. 

Since its inception, Women in Cloud’s Annual Summit has become one of the world’s most influential community events for women in technology, led by top industry women leaders, CEOs, Executives and allies focused on global, sustainable impact.

Attended by an international audience from more than 25 countries, the Annual Summit is driving the economic access narrative on a global scale. 

To learn more or get your tickets to Women in Cloud’s Annual Summit visit: https://womenincloud.com/wicxannualsummit-2023/

So don’t miss out on this opportunity—register today!

 

Impact of 2022 Annual Summit: 

The Women in Cloud Summit 2021 will build on the success of last year’s event. Themed Collective Influence, the 2022 Summit brought together 1000+ participants and speakers from 28 countries, including the UN of cloud brands, entrepreneurs, technologists, policy makers and global leaders. The event programming was specifically designed to drive curated and organic connections for driving economic development to create $1 billion in economic access for women tech entrepreneurs. 

 

What Our Community Is Saying:

  • “It has been awesome. I’m so impressed with the lineup! I’ve written down quite a few gems
  • to meme-ify to keep me inspired!” – Sarah C.
  • “Thank you WIC! For me there is a bit of silver lining for having the Summit online. It would have been hard for me to participate in person. I am grateful for every minute spent with you amazing ladies” – Zana P.
  • “So refreshing to discuss these topics with other women technologists!!!” – Bailey M.
  • “So moving and vulnerable! Thank you so much for showing us it’s all possible.” – Maria
  • “Amazing panel!! Love how it felt actionable!” – Nicole C.
  • “Marketplace strategy, invest in customer demand, build and expand .. Whoa! I am learning big time! Thanks to the whole team!” – Carolina
  • “Thank you WIC for all the support so far!” – Bhavya A.
  • “Thank you panelists! Lots of helpful takeaways to digest. Thank you Patti for the brilliant visual to support and inspire!” – Sara B. 
  • “Great insights and inspiration today from the founders. #CollectiveInfluence in action!” – Gena G.

 

To learn more or get your tickets to Women in Cloud’s Annual Summit visit: https://womenincloud.com/wicxannualsummit-2023/

So don’t miss out on this opportunity—read the press release to get involved.

We got chance to read the research KPMG 2022 CEO Outlook, which asked more than 1,300 CEOs at the world’s largest businesses about their strategies and outlook, reveals that 58 percent of leaders expect a recession to be mild and short. Fourteen percent of senior executives identify a recession among the most pressing concerns today — up slightly from early 2022 (9 percent), while pandemic fatigue tops the list (15 percent).

This is a fantastic news!!

Global CEOs see a ‘mild and short’ recession, yet optimistic about global economy over 3-year horizon

Few Insights

  • Hiring freezes and headcount reductions under heavy consideration for CEOs
  • Uncertainty fueling long-term digital transformation : While current uncertainty is driving CEOs to continue to prioritize digital transformation, 40 percent of businesses have paused their digital transformation strategies and another 37 percent plan to take such steps in the next 6 months.
  • Evolving focus toward reputational and technological risks : Emerging and disruptive technology has landed as the top risk to business growth over the next 3 years. In addition, CEOs have identified several other areas as top risks to growth: reputation, regulatory and operational issues, and climate change.
  • Cyber security no longer corporations’ biggest threat, with more companies prepared for attacks. Cyber security has dropped from the top 5 risks to growth over the past year, with only 6 percent of CEOs naming it as their top risk (17 percent in February 2022).
  • Stakeholder pressure increasing accountability in ESG : More than one-third (38 percent) of CEOs say their organizations struggle to articulate a compelling ESG story. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (72 percent) also believe that stakeholder scrutiny of ESG issues — gender equality, climate impacts etc. — will continue to accelerate.
  • Economic pressure slowing ESG ambitions : Global CEOs recognize the importance of ESG initiatives to their businesses, especially when it comes to improving financial performance and driving growth. In fact, 69 percent of senior executives noted greater demand from stakeholders for increased reporting and transparency on ESG — 58 percent in 2021.

Download the report

If you are looking for answers I would like to invite you to join us on October 13th for our #WICxUNGA 2022 Signature Summit event presented by KPMG!

The 2nd annual #WICxUNGA 2022 Summit is bringing together business, tech and community leaders for enriching and inspiring discussions about the future of ESG+T and UN 2030 Goals.

The agenda includes keynotes, in-depth fireside chats, interactive panels plus power talks with some of the top names in tech and leading experts including Kim Folsom – CEO & Founder of Founders First Capital Partners, Erika Murdock Balbuena – Head of ESG at Robinhood, Colleen O’Brien – CMO at Armoire, Andrea Perkins – Vice President at Insight Enterprise, Tegan Keele – IMPACT Climate Data & Technology Leader at KPMG, Gena Goh – Channel Inclusion & Impact Senior Strategy Lead at Microsoft and many more.

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What can you expect at #WICxUNGA virtual event?

  • Keynote on ESG plus T Mega Trends
  • CLevel ESG Fireside Chat: Exploring Your Career: An Executive’s Journey Leading ESG Narratives
  • CXO Panel: ESG plus T: Tech as ESG Issue, Risk and Value Influencer
  • Power Talk: Differentiate and Grow your Business Microsoft #BuildFor2030 Hackathon 2022
  • Own Your Narrative Bootcamp: ESG=T Focused Personal Brand Building
  • ESG+T Advisory Roundtable Discussions

 Signup: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wicxunga-building-a-sustainable-tech-industry-tickets-403527289987

KPMG and Meylah has total of 30 virtual scholarship tickets and available at no cost with the code “WICxESG”.  Please feel free to share this special invite and promo code with your colleagues, or community network.

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

ESG – Three simple letters that will continue to have a tremendous impact on the way we do business today. 

Understanding our environmental footprint, advances in social infrastructure and progress in governance and policy-making are the critical backbone for the way we tackle some of the world’s great challenges.  This is the new gold standard for global business.  Whether you are the CEO or executive for a Fortune 100 company, large enterprise or even a small to mid-sized business, ESG is changing the landscape for all of us to build a more inclusive, sustainable and ethical economy that benefits everyone, including generations to come.

5 Reasons Why Every CEO Needs to Know Corporate ESG 

According to Dell, Deloitte, Microsoft and other industry thought leaders, here are the top reasons why every CEO and future leader need to know ESG:

  1. Builds trust and stakeholder value – A company people can build and stand for trust and believe in is a company clients, customers and stakeholders will support. ESG practices and operating models empower businesses to develop strong partnerships across their communities and value chain, and help ensure all stakeholders are considered as a key part of any solution. Harvard Business Review reported that workers at companies where trust is high report 106% greater energy in the office, 74% lower stress levels, 76% greater engagement, and 50% more productivity than their peers at low-trust businesses.
  2. Manages effective compliance, policy and regulatory practices – All businesses are affected by some or other forms of regulations depending upon the markets they operate. The business with strong ESG measures, especially on Governance, invite less scrutiny from the regulators and have greater operational freedom. They also face less pressure from climate change from activists, employee unions etc. The consumers also prefer such brands too. For example, Starbucks introduced “Starbucks China Parent Care Program” in 2017 which provided health coverage to over 10,000 parents of Starbucks’ employees in China. It was seen as a strategic move as Starbucks planned to expand in China amid the growing trade dispute between USA & China.
  3. Reduces cost, mitigates risk and increases productivity – Companies which choose to use more sustainable methods of production and manufacturing tend to be more efficient and reduce their costs. One such example is Nestlé, which announced that it will invest up to USD 2.1 billion by 2025 to shift from virgin plastic packaging to food-grade recycled plastics and the development of other sustainable packaging solutions. This will not only help it cut its carbon footprint but also save it from non-compliance costs among different geographies where it operates and have stricter laws related to the use of plastic packaging.
  4. Attracts and retains top talent – With 50% of the world’s population under 25 and the pandemic changing the face of the marketplace in all industries, attracting the right talent has become a job unto itself. However, ESG is creating new opportunities to transform that process. Strong companies with good ESG scores attract better talent and have longer retention. Having a clear sustainability, social and diverse mission and vision generates an internal sense of pride among employees. The younger generation prefers to work for companies with stronger commitments towards society. As per a study by Cone Communications on Millennial Employee Engagement in 2016, 64% of Millennials consider a company’s social and environmental commitments when deciding where to work.  And this is just the beginning.  CEOs must think about succession planning and how to accommodate the dynamically changing workforce mindset.
  5. Creates meaningful global impact through innovation – In a post-pandemic world, innovation that creates impact has become a cornerstone for successful brands to thrive.  The great news? The opportunities for ESG are endless. Prior to COVID, only one third of companies reported that social impact was a core pillar of their business.  Now, that number has shifted greatly as more and more leaders see the value in ESG impact-related initiatives that are adding to global recovery. In essence, companies that are adopting ESG operating models can improve people’s lives through healthcare, education, sustainability and digital inclusion, among a host of other topics, enabling companies to double-down on core values and act boldly to create real change for the success of their business and society.

In response to the growing awareness of ESG, Women in Cloud (WIC), a community-led economic development organization, launched their WICxLEAD program, designed to empower corporate women and entrepreneurs to ignite economic access. 

Over a six-week, 25 purpose-driven women scholars will learn how to be among the first to lead and influence digital transformation projects through cloud and AI technology, teaching them how to grow their executive presence, personal brand identity, public speaking impact, global access creation and community development strategies giving them a powerful platform to accelerate as industry ESG influencers and purpose-driven leaders.

The uniquely created accelerator program will help corporate women find and define their leadership purpose and create impactful ESG strategies, operating models and reporting mechanisms that support women tech entrepreneurs in the supplier ecosystem. Scholars will also gain access to a global network while learning from industry experts to accelerate their influence and market impact.

This leadership program is open to women-led companies and corporations looking to develop their women leaders. Applications are open until Jul15, 30, 2022. To learn more about the WICxLEAD program and secure your spot visit: https://womenincloud.com/wicxlead/.

NASDAQ said it very well in a recent article. Environmental, social and governance issues should be a top concern of corporate management and boards. There was a time when a public stance on ESG issues was a public relations tactic. However, in today’s rapidly changing business climate, attention to ESG issues is becoming critical to long-term competitive success. Welcome to the next generation of global business standards. 

This is the power of how three simple letters are architecting the future of economic success for top brands who want to create the greatest impact possible.