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Diva Tech Talk Podcast

Easy to consume Interviews with women in technology to share insights into leadership, innovation and breaking down the big issues women face in a tech-savvy world. We interview women leaders all around the world from CIOs and Founders, to creators and nonprofit executives, covering generations of innovation. Everyone with whom we've crossed paths has a story of success. Don’t get tangled along the way in your journey; listen in and learn from dynamic divas who share everything from balancing life duties, to negotiating, forging their way in their fast-changing industry, to (most of all) finding themselves. Follow along with us here at www.divatechtalk.com. Divas (Co-Founders/Hosts): Nicole Johnson Scheffler (@tech_nicole), Kathleen Norton-Schock (@katensch), and Amanda Lewan (@Amanda_Jenn)
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Now displaying: April, 2018
Apr 24, 2018

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Chris Rydzewski, tech veteran, serving as Executive Director for the Michigan Council of Women in
Technology (www.mcwt.org). Chris did not originally plan a path in technology: “Ironically, I stumbled into it,” she said.

Matriculating at the University of Michigan (http://umich.edu/ ), “I loved math and stats,” she said, “but I wound up with a
degree in marketing.”
Having lived in Texas for a while, Chris returned to Michigan and joined IT powerhouse Compuware (www.compuware.com) in
the early 1990’s . “They had 5 lines of business, and were really big, at that time.” For eight years, Chris sold Compuware
solutions, supporting the Rocky Mountain states and then the entire Midwest. Then she became an international product line
sales director responsible for coaching direct and channel sales teams in South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Chris then
moved to BMC (www.bmc.com) focusing, for 5 years, on sales to large Michigan-based corporations. She subsequently moved
back to Compuware as a strategic sales manager for key “named accounts” regionally. The move allowed her to explore other
products including product portfolio management and change management offerings. In 2013, Chris moved over to
Compuware’s application performance management division, a growth segment for the company. Within a year, private equity
investment firm, Thoma Bravo LLC purchased Compuware for $2.4 billion. Under the agreement, Thoma Bravo split Compuware into
two separate companies: the mainframe software business (under the Compuware name) and Dynatrace (www.dynatrace.com),
real-time software management and maintenance. Chris stayed with Dynatrace, selling for them for the next four years. “It was
always about solving problems. And that’s what I love about technology.”
In the summer of 2017, changes at Dynatrace spurred Chris to leave the company. She asked herself questions like “what is my
gift?” and “what is it that I should be doing, moving forward?” She was “tapped on the shoulder” to consider the opportunity
with the Michigan Council of Women in Technology. “For the previous 12 years, I had always been a volunteer,” Chris said, but
now assumed the role of Executive Director. In her new role, Chris is responsible for full MCWT P&L management with
oversight over the organization’s fiscal health, budget, fundraising, staff, and more. She is laser-focused on “operational
improvements and efficiency.”
With a mission to “grow and inspire girls and women in the field of technology in Michigan,” MCWT consumes most of Chris’s
energies. “This is the ‘give-back’ time for me.” MCWT runs 35+ large and small events each year; has given over $1 million in
scholarships to college-bound and post-college women pursuing technology careers; will run 10 summer tech camps for 5 th
through 8 th graders this year; has 13 after-school girls’ middle school and high school tech programs; hosts an annual Website
design contest for middle school and high school girls; a mentorship program for mid-career women, and more. While still
small, compared to other nonprofits, MCWT “has a lot of programs and stakeholders,” Chris said. And she is now responsible
to work closely with the Mission Officers, Infrastructure Leads, Staff, Volunteers, and the Boards to help drive success for all
the programs and events!
Chris has been grateful to observe “many great leaders over the last 12 years” of her volunteerism at MCWT, teaching her key
leadership lessons:
● “Be passionate” about whatever you choose to do.
● “Be open to new opportunities.”
● “Believe in yourself. “
● “Be relevant.”
Chris commented: “You are not really going to know what you are good at, until you try different things, and see what bubbles
up to the top.”
“I think women have different characteristics” than men, Chris said. “ I think we listen better and communicate better.” Some
of her former colleagues “would be amazed at how I could pull out information” when she was making joint sales calls with
them. She emphasized that “you have to make yourself heard” particularly when you are in the minority in the workplace.
A self-admitted “workaholic,” Chris admits to occasionally have a problem balancing family, and work. She has deployed a few
practical tactics to address this. “My husband and I have ‘date nights,’” she said and the time between dinner and when her
teenage daughter goes to sleep is the time when everyone focuses on family. Driving her daughter anywhere, she turns herphone off. As a family, they also plan big trips that all of them can take, together. “You should not always have your work drive
you. Your family is super-important; there is so much more,” said Chris.
“Technology makes everything relevant” according to Chris. She can be reached through the new and improved MCWT
website (www.mcwt.org).

For the full blog write up, make sure to check us out on online at www.divatechtalk.com, on Twitter @divatechtalks, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/divatechtalk. Follow our show and tell us what you like with an online review.

Apr 10, 2018

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Jennifer Charters, Chief Information Officer of Corporate Technology for Ally Bank (www.ally.com), one of the very first online-only financial institutions in the United States.  Jennifer’s technology fascination began in middle school. “My family purchased a VIC 20,” she said. “It basically looked like a keyboard, that you connect into your television.”  At first, Jennifer played with inbuilt pre-programmed applications but then began to create her own programs. In high school, she moved on to use Apple IIe (www.apple.com) computers and recognized “I had a knack for the logical nature of coding. It came easy for me.”  She matriculated to Michigan State University (www.msu.org) as one of “less than a handful of women” in the computer science program and also minored in psychology and business because “technology, just for technology’s sake, doesn’t necessarily make sense.  When you apply technology to a problem,” it does.

In college, Jennifer was fortunate to obtain internships at IBM (www.ibm.com) with her first summer in North Carolina, second in Rochester, Minn. and third in Chicago, Illinois. “I got experience trying all these different companies.” Also, as a member of the Society of Women Engineers, she was fortunate to have numerous recruiters swarming. “One of the companies was Accenture (www.accenture.com),” Jennifer said. “That idea of being a jet-setter and traveling all over the world and getting that opportunity to explore different areas really appealed to me. I started off as a programmer,” she said. “It evolved into project and program management; and gave me a lot of exposure to a lot of different companies, and roles within companies.” She began in the telecommunications vertical market, then specialized in the field of Internet service providers. “That gave me the chance to work globally,” with stints at Deutsche Telekom (https://www.telekom.com/en) in Germany and Grupo Telecom (http://www.telecomitalia.com/tit/en.html) in Italy.  Jennifer then focused on other startups including Focal Communications --- later acquired by Broadwing, which was then acquired by Level 3 Communications (http://www.level3.com/en/), in an acquisition flurry.  She then moved to a project at AT&T, in New Jersey, right after the World Trade Center was decimated by the events of 9/11; worked on that for two years; then decided to move back from Chicago to Michigan. “Ultimately, I got pregnant,” and both she and her husband landed jobs in Michigan. Jennifer switched to an insurance industry project Accenture  with The Automotive Club Group (www.aaa.org).  “What I was most interested in was staying local, then” said Jennifer.  This assignment became her entrée into the fascinating world of fintech. “Then I got pregnant with my daughter,” and had an epiphany. Her emphasis shifted to achieving a work/life balance. “I began to look for other opportunities” outside of Accenture.

Jennifer obtained a project manager position at GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors (www.gm.com). “It was an interesting change of pace,” she said.  She had her second child after having joined GMAC, and when she returned from maternity leave, GM had sold the financing arm to Cerberus, (http://www.cerberuscapital.com/),  a private equity company. “Fast forward another year and a half, and the worldwide financial crisis hit. I felt like I was in the crosshairs of it all. It was a financial company linked to the automotive industry, and those were the industries most affected. We were in real trouble, on the verge of bankruptcy.” The U.S. government bailed out GMAC reinventing the entity as a bank holding company.  “It meant we had more regulations, but it also gave us the opportunity to start a bank --- an online bank: Ally Financial.” The key lesson for Jennifer? “In crisis, transformation happens.” Jennifer was promoted to program manager and then a director. Eventually, she took her current promotion to Chief Information Officer, Corporate Technology, with responsibility for seven direct reports, and a large organization numbering over 180 colleagues.  “Banks had not always been very friendly.” With pride, Jennifer feels that Ally fundamentally has changed that. “We care about our customers. Our motto is ‘do it right’. Customers are really responding.”

“When I try to hire people,” Jennifer said, “one of the things I look for is learning agility: somebody who has curiosity, is continually ‘sharpening the saw,’ and looking for opportunities to stay fresh. In technology, it’s constant change.”  In her volunteer life, she is on the Advisory Board for the Michigan Council of Women in Technology (www.mcwt.org). She also coaches her daughter’s 12-week “GIRLS ON THE RUN” program, where she meets weekly with groups of girls “teaching them to be leaders, to be collaborative with each other, to be kind.  At the same time, they also learn to run.” At the end of the period, they run a 5K race. Jennifer, herself, has recently pushed herself to complete two Iron Man Triathlon Races.

Key lessons that Jennifer has learned through her career:

  1. “Relationships are key.” Take time to develop them and maintain them. “Having people, you can talk to” is essential.
  2. “Understand what your priorities are. Take time for them.”
  3. It’s ok to take a step back. (“You actually learn quite a bit,” from taking the occasional break.)
  4. “Managing people is a whole different skill-set and experience. You use influence. It requires trust; and that you have a good team around you.”
  5. “Recognize that your career is your own, it is what you make of it. Follow your dreams.”

For the full blog write up, make sure to check us out on online at www.divatechtalk.com, on Twitter @divatechtalks, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/divatechtalk. Follow our show and tell us what you like with an online review.

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