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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: 2021
Feb 10, 2021

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Catherine Tabor, CEO and Founder of  Sparkfly, a cloud-based offer management solutions company maximizing customer acquisition by connecting real-time behavior with online and in-store sales. Catherine’s father was a physics professor, and she visited his university classes as a child. “I was mesmerized as he used math to solve real problems. I am a believer in technology solving problems, not just ‘tech for the sake of tech’.” 

That was demonstrated when, as a Georgia State University undergraduate, Catherine was recruited by The Coca-Cola Company to manage their employee discount program.  “I grew it to manage 1 million employees, nationally, with companies like Delta Airlines, Suntrust Bank. It was a bulletin board, where companies would list offers.”  Employees would visit, use coupon codes, and make purchases.  But the system did not allow for customers to redeem personalized offers at physical locations nor enable merchants to get accurate data.  The resulting challenge was “how could we layer technology on top of antiquated POS systems, and make them do innovative things.”   Catherine began by convincing POS providers “that there was a gap.”  Her first integration success was with Radiant Systems, in Atlanta, (eventually acquired by the venerable NCR). Radiant “embraced my concept; agreed to integrate my platform; and then got acquired by NCR. By the nature of ‘being included in the fold’, it enabled build out, and networking.” After competing with larger, better-funded companies, “in 2017, we signed a contract with Chipotle.” Adoption of the SparkFly platform became the basis of Chipotle’s core digitalization transformation. 

The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted SparkFly, as it has many businesses. Fortunately, SparkFly’s platform pushes greater levels of digital participation/presence leading to stabilization. Catherine instituted a weekly “all-hands” phone call so that her team continuously feels close. “I tell them all the time: I cannot promise you good news, but I promise that I will always tell you the truth.”

Key leadership nuggets from Catherine Tabor include:

  • “The driving force for me is having passion around the objective.” In the face of setbacks, it is Catherine’s core belief in what she is achieving that keeps her going. “Know your own value.”
  • “There’s no reason not to take a chance. You just have to go for it.” Catherine looks at any potential failure and asks, “what is the worst that can happen?” Facing that answer realistically allows her to shed fear.
  • “If you truly believe in what you’re doing, you never give up. I believe that ‘grit’ is the most important character trait leading to success.” 
  • In juxtaposition, “I have had to learn to realize quickly when I’ve gone down the wrong path.” This has guided Catherine’s decisions about system nuances, doing business with the “right” customers, acquiring appropriate investors and advisors, and hiring/retaining employees. “Surround yourself with people who support what you want to do, and what you want to be.”
Jan 12, 2021

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Michelle Accardi, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Star2Star Communications, a global VoIP telecommunications vendor. Headquartered in Sarasota, Florida,  Star2Star offers proprietary, hybrid unified voice and data communications solutions, in “the cloud.”

A well-known aphorism is: “Life is what happens, after we make other plans.” Michelle’s original aspiration was to be a Broadway star.  Discovering that Manhattan was an exorbitant place to live, she took her first job in sales and “wound up, really liking it!”  In karmic fashion, the CFO of a small technology company was at the front desk when a young Michelle cold-called with her resume. Infresco Corporation, (a joint venture with CA Technologies/Computer Associates), was “willing to take a risk” on her. “When I got there, I was so intrigued.” The company was creating “interesting technology” to convert “green screen” mainframe applications and databases and “make them look like really beautiful Websites.”  Very soon, “I was doing things I had never done, before,” like creating Access databases.  Her boss counseled her to reconsider becoming an attorney. “You have a natural aptitude for technology and people.” She took his advice and “never looked back.” 

Within one year, CA Technologies merged Infresco into the larger corporation. Michelle began her upward CA trajectory. “They were starting a reference program at CA and needed someone who knew all the (Infresco) customers. I was recommended.” CA offered Michelle a $25,000 bonus to make the customers referenceable.  She misunderstood CA’s timeline for this, and beat it by a dramatic 11 months, enabling 200 customers to become referenceable in slightly more than a month vs. the year CA had forecasted. Within 6 months, she was managing a customer reference team in North America and, in a year, managing that globally. This was followed by stints in field marketing, product marketing, and sales enablement. All catapulted her into successively more important roles. 

Along the way, Michelle gained valuable insights.  In field marketing, she noted how much was learned by “getting close to the customer.” In sales enablement she implemented “fun projects to motivate people.” She eventually became Vice President for digital transformation, “the biggest ‘leap’ because this was  when digital marketing was starting, and I was asked to take on a technology team, lead web design, architecture, and IT team. I learned a lot about ‘agile’ as a methodology.” 

 “Technology is always going to change,” said Michelle. Her mantra is “drop in with both feet.” Moving to Star2Star is a full circle story.  The company was co-founded by Norm Worthington, who was the co-founder of Infresco.   “It was Kismet,” she said. She started as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. “Actually, I was marketing employee #2.  My job was to build a team and strategy. We built every piece of content, and the Website; and recruited a great team.” She became Chief Operating Officer, mandated to drive operational systems’ excellence, and then President and Chief Revenue Officer.  “It has been really challenging to learn different aspects of running a technology company, driving it to the next level.”  She describes the broad offerings of Star2Star. “We offer so much: collaboration, contact center, text messaging, workflow integration of communications into every business process you can think of, mobile applications, text-based alerting, desktop communications as a service, and more.”  Michelle noted “we also have the only desktop solutions certified to work in a Citrix environment. We help you with your entire network.” Star2Star offers an optimized SD-WAN service to ensure call quality, essential when people are working from home. “We have proprietary technology that allows us to do things that our competitors can’t.” Industry analysts have noticed.  Gartner, has recognized Star2Star for six years as a Magic Quadrant leader in unified communications. Michelle, herself, has been named a channel leader for the last six years by CRN.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated Star2Star growth. In response to the crisis, Michelle is justifiably proud of the company’s stellar customer-focused philosophy.  All company employees moved into a work-from-home environment, using Star2Star’s own technology.  “Then we went to our base of customers.” Star2Star helped each customer deploy effective remote working scenarios and created innovative payment programs to support customers. “Communication is the lifeblood of any business. We didn’t want to be the bill that put any of our smaller companies over the edge.” Star2Star has also used this period to diversify even further. “We moved into digital transformation projects for customers in the restaurant and retail spaces, who needed curbside pickup applications.” Star2Star provided those. “Doctors’ offices needed testing.” Star2Star provided that.  Many customers needed enhanced employee alerting systems.  Star2Star provided them. For a nonprofit customer, and other health facilities, Star2Star provided text alert services.

Michelle acknowledges that being a woman has only minimally affected her career. She and her husband juggle a large family of 6 children. Her husband serves as the “stay-at-home” parent, and “I see a lot of ‘reverse sexism’,” which is a challenge,” she says.  But she exults that “women are built to adapt” and feels capable of taking on many increasing responsibilities. If Michelle has a regret it is that “I should have gone into entrepreneurship” at her career advent. “I think balance is a fallacy,” opines Michelle. “Do things that you love, with people you like. And just have perseverance. Nothing is going to be perfect, anywhere.” Michelle’s essential advice is succinct. “Feel the fear and do it, anyway.” Seize opportunities; make the most of them. “You really have nothing to lose.”

Make sure to check us out on online at www.divatechtalk.com, on Twitter @divatechtalks, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/divatechtalk. And please listen to us on SoundCloud, Stitcher, or your favorite podcasting channel and provide an online review.

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