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Shari Burk: Inclusive Diversity Is A Wise Business Strategy For The Courageous

One of our company’s core values is ‘belonging’, because it fosters exceptional organizations and individuals. Our collective purpose is to help every tribe know their battle cry. This means knowing what makes your organization unique, how you’re making the world a better place, where you’re going, and what your strategy will be to effectively get you there. Women in Cloud has created a fabulous opportunity to express both. It is a natural fit for us.

Statistics show that women-led companies tend to outperform male-dominated ones, promoting women as a rational choice for a stronger economy. I’m passionate about creating a stronger economy, which is why I’m partnering with more women in technology and the men who support them through Women in Cloud.

This January, at the Women in Cloud Summit 2020, I have been invited as a speaker to talk about ‘How to Support Female Founders.’ I am excited and thrilled to make this presentation. I wanted to share some of the key takeaways the audience can expect from my talk, which are:

  • We must master your own biases.
  • The lack of inclusive diversity has been a strong undercurrent for many centuries, rooting it out is not for the faint of heart.
  • We must be courageous and honest with ourselves about our own shortcomings. If we pretend they’re not there — if we hide our biases from ourselves — if they go unexposed and are simply covered over, those shortcomings will continue to cloud our judgment and accidentally spill into behavior. We will unknowingly deny someone access or underestimate them.

I believe women are one of the crucial elements that will ensure a functional and sustainable economy in the future. Economic inclusion means that anyone who’s willing to work hard enough can better their lives and the lives of others. Ideally, no one will be held back by the spoken or unspoken biases of those who control access and opportunity. Collective action can be powerful. I challenge the courageous to master personal bias first, which will continue to evolve the culture in significant ways.

All this means my organization has a shot at making the world a better place even though it was founded by a woman, which traditionally would mean lack of access to male-dominated decision-makers. Our breakthrough software makes strategic planning and execution simple, rapid, and without ambiguity that cause frustration and waste. Imagine if the world lost this solution. It would mean we would all continue to lose billions of dollars and hours to traditional strategic planning methods.

The opportunity given to me by WIC is what I intend to help other women achieve. Purchase tickets today, come join me and the Women in Cloud in this journey and unlock your chance to make the best out of an opportunity of a lifetime. 

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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Eileen Scully: Let’s Create Together A Workplace That Works For Everyone

If there are women who feel left behind in their careers, women who cannot see a future that includes them, women who want more and want to work for managers and companies that value them and invest in them – those are the women I want to talk with while at Women in Cloud Summit 2020. We are truly stronger when we all take responsibility for ensuring the success of everyone around us. This applies to workplaces and the greater world in which we all want to co-exist. No one is going to create that for you – we need everyone to participate and move forward together. Women in Cloud as a community ensures this and helps everybody involved reach their success.

Having spent the first 20+ years of my career in technology, I know all too well the challenges women face in that space, and I want to use my current position and platform to accelerate their success. It’s simple. By working together to amplify the work of the women around us, by sharing our power with each other and lifting each other along the way, we will all benefit. So often, we leave it to someone else to move us forward. I believe Women in Cloud is a community designed to do exactly that. I want to challenge all women to take that upon ourselves and contribute in whatever way we can to helping every other woman around us succeed. And it’s very possible!

My consulting work and my book are wholly focused on the ways women can work within their organizations and industries to clear a path for others to more easily achieve success. This summit, I will focus on exactly that as a speaker. I want every woman who hears my talk or meet me at the summit to leave with new perspectives and tactical ideas on how they can start to create a workplace that works for everyone.

I am extremely thrilled to witness the coming together of professionals from all over the world for the Women in Cloud Summit 2020. Events like this, which bring together different people and help create access and connect is the key to new age learning and business. Come meet me at the summit. Purchase ticketstoday!

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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Rebecca Jones: Better Together – Partnering for Growth

I am excited to announce that I will be facilitating an executive roundtable at this year’s Women in Cloud Summit 2020, the third annual summit hosted by the Women in Cloud community. 

In my session, we’ll delve into how to forge successful partner relationships, and how individuals can use their leadership and networking chops to build a successful cloud business. 

In today’s business ecosystem, market-leading cloud solutions are most often the result of two, three, four, or even more partners coming together to fill a customer need that any single organization would find difficult to fulfill on their own. 

I’ve had the opportunity to help organizations of many sizes define their joint solutions, land their message and value prop, and develop and execute a joint plan that drives market traction and growth. My goal is for participants to take away practical strategies and gain a better understanding of what to look for in a right-fit GTM partner so their cloud partnerships—and in turn, their organizations—can thrive and grow.

Women in Cloud is dedicated to creating more opportunities for women in the tech space, which aligns with my support for greater diversity in our industry overall. Throughout the course of my career, I have learned that the art of possibility is well within reach. It’s a perspective that I carry more deeply today than ever before. I’m passionate about using my experience to support women in leadership and women entrepreneurs at whatever stage they are at in their journey.

At this year’s summit, I look forward to talking with other entrepreneurs and business leaders who are using the cloud to bring their visions to life. Growth in the tech industry is a collective effort, and Women in Cloud focuses on ensuring equal opportunities to everybody who is a part of this effort. Together we can build partnerships that ensure more women are given an opportunity to ideate, experiment, and excel. 

Purchase tickets and join me this January in Redmond. 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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Ronit Bohrer Hillel: The impact of organization on their Cloud Architecture

I am fortunate to have had a career in tech for the last 20 years. When I graduated from Computer Science, roughly 30 percent of my class were women. As my career progressed to software engineering leadership, those numbers declined to a point I was one among few women in my position. It was through this growth that I realized that the power is in our hands. We drive our career and it is in our inner strength that allows us to be successful. I also acknowledged that the journey is hard, and as such, it is all of our duty to help others along the way. Women in Cloud’s mission is just about that.  It is “to inspire, empower and accelerate the growth of women-led technology companies.” I want to join these amazing women to fulfil that mission.

I am passionate about helping women find that inner strength and accelerate in their journey. I was fortunate to have gained diverse experience from both startups and enterprises, engineering, management, and family life. Taking part in the Women in Cloud Summit 2020 will allow me to leverage that experience for the good of others. My personal journey is still in the making. Through this summit, I wish to be inspired by other women leaders and see how we all can connect to drive change together.

At the summit, I will take part in a tech panel about consideration of Building and Architecting in the cloud. By doing so I hope to serve as an example and inspire women to stay and grow their career in tech and in software engineering.

I am  humbled to meet women entrepreneurs and startup founders, learning their paths and seeing how they set goals to enable their companies to be successful. I am fascinated to see the courage needed to make this leap and invest all in a dream. I am also interested to connect to executive women leaders to learn how they made a difference to diversity and inclusion within their organizations. 

Economic inclusion ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate and contribute to the economy. However we are not there yet! It is true that in some areas we are closer, as years of fighting and changing laws and behaviors helped make that difference. Yet, there is a long way ahead. The change starts  at our homes, our offices, and then is taken out to society. Come join us change society today, purchase tickets today to the summit and be a part of the inclusive community of tomorrow.

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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Lindsay Lashell: Empowering Women Through Purpose-Driven Marketing

I first learned about Women in Cloud at the B Corp Champions’ Retreat, and I am so excited to find this community of women who are aligned in purpose. I chose to leave the Bay Area startup scene because of my frustration with the privilege, entitlement, and discrimination that are so pervasive in the companies I worked for. My path in digital entrepreneurship and marketing has led to my strong belief that job creation is one of the most beneficial things a human can do. Take that belief, add to it my passionate inclusive feminism and my broad experience with the internet and you’ve got a perfect match with Women in Cloud. 

One of the reasons I’m so excited about this community is my strong belief that every time we open our wallets, we are choosing a side. Personally, I do as much as I can to choose the side of women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ and other underestimated entrepreneurs. It is not just about how we spend our money, though. If we who identify as “underestimated” all boldly identify ourselves in our brands and our businesses, then it empowers others to choose us intentionally. This doesn’t just increase our opportunity among like-minded audience members, but will also increase awareness and opportunity for others like us. If we can get more people to be more conscious of the tremendous power that all participants in our economy hold, we can make things better for everyone.

So for me, my hope in joining the WIC community is that I’ll be able to both teach and learn:

  1. I want to support women entrepreneurs so that they have super efficient early stage marketing, resulting in quicker growth and less investment to scale, so that you own bigger chunks of your own success.
  2. I want to learn more about what is needed from folks like me. What questions do you have that you can’t find answers to? What are the best channels for me to share resources? Entrepreneurship is lonely, and I want everyone in the community to feel seen and supported.

I’m so excited that I’ll get to start working on that first goal with the content of my talk at the upcoming Summit! I know that launch marketing is tough–most entrepreneurs are still evolving your brand, your personas, and probably even your product. You do not have a lot of time or a ton of money to pay consultants, but communities like Women in Cloud exist to support and guide you through such tricky positions businesses and entrepreneurs often find themselves in. 

My presentation will give you the tools (with links to make them your own!) to define a shockingly practical and strategic marketing plan for your business. Instead of feeling guilty for not doing enough, I’ll teach you how to make your to do list shorter by getting more impact from your efforts.

We will talk through the MVPs of your essential marketing assets to get started and how to use them to create something you can start implementing on the Monday after the summit. The result is a part-time marketer’s dream: an actionable, strategically-informed content plan, so that you are empowered to build your audience and your opportunity.

My deepest joy is to empower women in their entrepreneurship. Absolutely anything I can do to advise, validate, or otherwise support, count me in! Purchase tickets today and experience a community like no other. I will be thrilled to talk to anyone who has questions about marketing, messaging, social media, audience growth, team growth, conscious leadership, efficiency in business practices, or knitting!

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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