Diva Tech Talk Podcast

Diva Tech Talk hosted Mamatha Chamarthi, SVP, and Chief Digital Officer for ZF Group Inc. (www.zf.com) a worldwide automotive leader, employing 137,000 people in 40 countries, with annual revenue of $43 billion.  Mamatha drives ZF’s digitalization strategy and emergent technologies to transform business models.  Her robust career spans more than two decades beginning in India, where she received her degree in Psychology, Sociology and English, and a masters’ degree in English. “I got married to my childhood best friend,” she said, moving to Bangalore, where she taught English to undergraduate Indian students.   She needed “a more dynamic mission,” and entered Sri Venkateswara University for a second master’s in marketing, with a minor in information systems. Mamatha moved to Michigan where her husband landed his “dream job” at Ford Motor Company (www.ford.com). “I enrolled at Wayne State University for a master’s in computer science” and accepted a job as a consultant at Chrysler, now Fiat Chrysler (www.fcagr

In our last podcast of 2017, Diva Tech Talk co-founders and hosts (Kathleen Norton-Schock and Nicole Scheffler) provided an interesting discussion of: Why Diva Tech exists, and the demographics of women in tech, now and in the future What, as technology leaders and tech industry veterans, they see as key tech trends in 2018 Which divas interviewed in 2017 might be most influential and expert in terms of those trends and Assorted other topics including major vertical markets to be affected by tech, giving back, and entrepreneurship. The key tech trends that Diva Tech Talks foresees as being most important in the coming year include: Artificial intelligence and machine learning Intelligent analytics and data science in general Cloud-based applications, and general cloud-propelled infrastructure Adaptive risk and enhanced security Event driven/event detection technology Virtual reality and even full immersion “Code-free” application development And the vertical markets that the divas ha

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Elena Lipson, Founder of Mosaic Growth Partners (http://www.mosaicgrowth.com/).  Elena is also the host of THE BOOST Podcast, a podcast highlighting accomplished entrepreneurs, athletes and healthcare professionals.  Elena has experimented with multiple paths in the creation of her mission. “I started off in a corporate job in HR and marketing,” after her college graduation. “But I realized, quickly, that I wanted to do work that was more mission-focused. So, I went back to school to get my master’s in public policy.”   Elena moved into the world of public sector consulting working at BearingPoint, a small firm and then t Deloitte Consulting for 7 years ( https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en.html). “There, I really fell into the health tech space.” Elena said “I was really not that technical person. I was more interested in how technology could help enable better healthcare.” She worked in consulting for 8 years, but “I got to the point where I felt that being a partner in a big consult

Diva Tech Talk interviewed multifaceted, tenacious Janette Phillips. In her childhood, Janette was “studious” and “took all the science classes I could,” including Accelerated Chemistry, Physics and Science Seminar (an independent science-oriented curriculum) in high school.  Her intellectual interests took a turn in college, when she matriculated to the business school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (https://www.umich.edu/). Post-college, Janette felt lucky to land a job at Michigan Bell Telephone, which later morphed into Ameritech and then to AT&T (https://www.att.com/).  “I was hired as a market administrator,” she said, “which is the implementation portion of networks, and phone systems.” Janette was convinced that Michigan Bell had put her in the wrong role. On the first day of training, she thought: “I am in the wrong room.  I should be over there with the account executives.” But she said. “It took me about three years to switch to sales. I had to prove to them that I was good.  Within t

Diva Tech Talk hosted engineer, tech expert, author and leadership coach, Farnoosh Brock, who shared lessons in personal development and career pivots. Having completed her master’s degree in electrical engineering at Clemson University (www.clemson.edu) , Farnoosh first worked as a design engineer at Atmel Corporation (http://www.atmel.com/), before joining Cisco (www.cisco.com), where she worked for 11 years. In addition to engineering, “I had the opportunity to move around, in other roles, such as sales operations, project management, program management. I got a lot of experience and am really grateful for that.” Eight years into building her Cisco career, Farnoosh began to feel restless.  “I stumbled on my passion for writing,” she said.  That led to blogging and to podcasting. The light bulb went off when she attended a blogging conference in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2010.  “That changed everything.”  Coming home, she decided “to take my hobby seriously, and turn it into a ‘side hustle’ with no impact to my

Diva Tech Talk interviewed former investment banker and social entrepreneur, Laura Bilazarian, CEO and Founder of Teamable (https://teamable.com), accelerating any company’s ability to hire top talent by “smarter recruiting through social networks.”  A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business (https://www.wharton.upenn.edu/ ), with a degree in economics, Laura wanted to work at Google. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have the guts to go there without affirmation from my classmates.”  Instead, her first job was at Miller Buckfire  (http://www.millerbuckfire.com) an internationally recognized investment bank. “I traveled the world, and ended up doing private equity in Vietnam,” she said. In the early throes of her career, Laura also played professional rugby, on the #1 award-winning national U.S. women’s team, strengthening her ability to work in teams, problem-solve, and stay calm under pressure. She observed that “What stops you from coming in first is your own mental state.”  She quic

Diva Tech Talk interviewed musician-turned-technologist, Theresa Ancick, Manager, Enterprise Business Intelligence at Beaumont Health Systems (https://www.beaumont.org), the largest health system in Michigan.  Theresa’s predilection for technology is genetic. Her father was a second-level executive at Michigan Bell (later acquired by AT&T: www.att.com) in the troubleshooting department. After high school, Theresa sang in a band, and traveled around the Midwest. “I had a lot of fun.  But my friends were graduating from colleges and getting married.  I went ‘oh my gosh, I think I might be a loser’ and decided to get off the couch and try and get a life of some sort.”  That new career life began with a brief stint as a waitress, “while I tried to figure things out.”  Then Theresa selected a job “specifically in computers” at Electronic Laser Forms, in Fraser, Michigan, who focused on producing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage forms “because I felt it was going to get me farther in life, ultimately.” Next,

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Dr. Rita Barrios, Chair for the Department of CyberSecurity and Information Systems, and Associate Professor, at the University of Detroit, Mercy (http://www.udmercy.edu/) graduating approximately 150 trained technology professionals each year. Rita said: “My Dad was always my biggest supporter.” The 7th child of 8 siblings in her “very strict” family, Rita admitted that she was “a little on the geeky side” in her high school years.  She entered the Detroit College of Business, specializing in accounting, but dropped it in favor of a technology major. She got married, and gave birth to a daughter during her senior year of college.   Rita’s several internships during that senior year (when her daughter was 6 months old) were at the Grand Trunk Western Railroad (gtw.railfan.net/), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway (https://www.cn.ca/).  After graduation, she became a full-time employee as a junior programmer.   Grand Trunk’s IT department was eventually bought

Diva Tech Talk hosted creative entrepreneur, Natalia Petraszczuk, founder/CEO of new venture, VizBe (www.vizbe.com).  Natalia calls herself “a product of the Ukrainian community” in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. Her undergraduate degree, from Michigan State University, was in International Relations.  Along the way, she worked with lobbying groups, on behalf of nonprofit organizations. Then “the political arena shifted a lot for me. I became less and less interested in that line of work,”  Natalia said.  In college, she took some basic computer skills courses, “because I wanted to stay competent” but “in a million years did not foresee myself in technology.”   Natalia fed her own entrepreneurial urge through observation: “As I got older, I began to see more and more examples of people taking the plunge,” she said. “My father always said: ‘When it comes to capitalism, you have to find a need and fill it’.  So, I kept my eyes open for opportunities.”    From her mid-twenties to mid-thirties, Natalia realized

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Meredith Harper, Chief Privacy and Security Officer for Henry Ford Health Systems (www.hfhs.org) With strong science and math aptitudes, Meredith began her tech journey in 2nd/3rd grades and then “I ended up being bussed, with kids all over the city of Detroit, to a middle school for gifted children.”  Meredith graduated high school in the top 3% of the Detroit Public School System, and started college at Hampton University, in Virginia. At the end of her freshman year, she lost her father. “So, I moved back home to Michigan,” where she was awarded a scholarship to attend the University of Detroit, Mercy (https://www.udmercy.edu/). In junior year, she switched from architecture to a computer science program. Meredith’s first industry job was on the Help Desk for Budco (https://www.dialog-direct.com ) supporting Ford Motor Co. (www.ford.com) dealerships. She then moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan as a data analyst for The Medstat Group (www.medstatonline.com), and “even in the early ‘90’s

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Microsoft (www.microsoft.com)’s Senior Director, Industry Product Marketing, Cloud & Enterprise, Kirsten Edmondson Wolfe. Passionate about politics, Kirsten graduated from the University of California, Davis in International Relations and Asian History, and then moved to D.C to work for an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) “whose job it was to help build democratic institutions in newly non-communist, countries.”  Kirsten’s watershed moment was in 1997. She was “standing at the rooftop bar of the Hotel Aryaduta in Jakarta, Indonesia while the Suharto government fell.”  She “watched students use technologies to film what was going on in the streets. These students brought down a totalitarian government, using cell phones.”  She said to herself: “Wow, I need to get into technology because if I’m going to truly change the world, it’s going to be through tech, not through politics.”   Kirsten resigned her job; went back to Thunderbird International Business School, obtaining an MB

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Linda Daichendt, CEO and Founder of the Mobile Technology Association of Michigan (MTAM) (http://gomobilemichigan.org ), CEO of Strategic Growth Concepts Inc., executive producer for  Michigan  Mobile Musings audio cast, and Board Member for the Michigan STEM Partnership.  Linda was not an early technologist.   “I loved technology as a child but I was discouraged from going into it.” She started out as a marketing leader in the retail industry.  “I ran marketing departments for shopping malls and retail corporations for the most part” in her early career. In 2002, she became CEO of Strategic Growth Concepts Inc.  (http://strategicgrowthconcepts.com), a Marketing and Operations consulting firm providing services such as: marketing and business plan development, and implementation as well as employee recruitment to a variety of clients.  Along the way, Linda found herself falling in love with mobile technology, which was dramatically changing the face of the U.S. economy in the early

Diva Tech Talk interviewed start-up founder Nicol Pasuit, CEO of TechStak (www.techstak.com), a company bringing needed technology assistance to small and medium-sized U.S. businesses.   The only girl in a family of 8 children raised on a farm, Nicol embraced a strong work ethic early in life.   She graduated from Michigan State University, in audiology and speech sciences, and took an entry-level position working in “outcomes assurance” and referral management at Concentra Medical Centers (https://www.concentra.com/) while simultaneously pursuing her MPA (Masters in Public Administration) at Oakland University. Promoted in 4 months, Nicol managed a 24 x 7 Concentra healthcare clinic. Then Concentra offered her an expanded challenge, managing the company’s specialist services program throughout the Midwest, and eventually nationwide. Nicol grew as a strong leader, “building a high functioning, productive team” --- a majority of whom were women.  She also led the buildout, development and project management of

Diva Tech Talk was inspired by Dusty Welsh, co-founder of Cause Activators (http://causeactivators.com), a Web-based company that connects corporations/businesses with nonprofit opportunities, making it easier for those organizations to support their local communities, and empower their team members to do good. As a girl, Dusty followed the example of her grandparents, active in nonprofits like Meals on Wheels (https://seniormealsonwheels.com). Later she worked with large nonprofits like Leader Dogs for the Blind (http://www.leaderdog.org), and found her passion in life.  She moved to Colorado, for 8 years, where she worked for a nationwide wildlife center and sat on its Board of Directors. After moving back to Michigan, Dusty co-founded Cause Activators with her stepmother, human resources expert Dr. Mary Welsh.  Dusty never intended to be a technology leader, but “I realized that nonprofit organizations and business donors were coming together in a very antiquated way. Technology could bridge the gap and br

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Jenny Coupe, Senior Director, Americas Marketing at Akamai Technologies (www.akamai.com).  Jenny began life as an “Army brat,” and moved 22 times in 18 years, forcing quick adaptation to new people, circumstances and venues. Jenny’s father, an Army judge, encouraged her to “be who I wanted to be, irrespective of gender.” Jenny moved to Silicon Valley and graduated from The University of the Pacific, then began an entry-level position at Silicon Graphics Inc. (www.silicongraphics.com) in a “gender-blind culture.”  She credits her “fantastic boss” during her first 6 years for her swift career development. At SGI, she moved into marketing, followed her boss to WebMD (www.webmd.com) as employee #10 and became Director, Worldwide Corporate Marketing --- on the team that took WebMD to IPO status.  After WebMD, Jenny had eight different senior level marketing executive roles with companies ranging from giants like IBM to startups like Tegile.  Eventually, she migrated to Vice President of

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Rebecca Bray, Chief Sales Officer for recruiting/staffing company: Epitec (www.epitec.com). Rebecca did not start out intending to pursue a tech mission. “I just fell into it,” she said. She graduated Central Michigan University with a marketing degree, but it was a college internship at Epitec that inspired her 19-year current career. After graduation, “I figured it would be a good way to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up,” she said.  She has remained with the company because “I love what I do. The opportunities have always kept me engaged, challenged and learning every day.”  In her current role, with responsibility for a team of 50, Rebecca is thrilled to concentrate on challenging, inspiring and “growing our team.”   Focused on daily staff enrichment, Epitec celebrates each staff member’s personal, as well as career, accomplishments every year.  “Training and developing people takes a lot of understanding,” Rebecca said. Giving people the leeway to fail, she believes

Diva Tech Talk interviewed the mother/daughter data-driven duo of Amy O’Connor, Big Data Evangelist at Cloudera (www.cloudera.com), and Danielle Dean, Data Scientist Lead at Microsoft (www.microsoft.com.) Amy hails from the era where punch cards reigned supreme. Danielle experienced the dichotomy of more complex and paradoxically easier data. Both share a common fascination with how data helps humans make better decisions, in business and beyond “When I first entered technology, I was much more focused on writing software that was used to run mainframe computers,” Amy explained. When she started, it was well before computers became ubiquitous. She obtained dual undergraduate degrees in computer science and electrical engineering, and then her MBA, “so that I could really figure out how to apply technology to business opportunities.” Amy migrated from software development to IT program management to engineering leadership to business strategy roles and marketing, and finally “landed” in the field of big data.

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Susan Emerick, Global Marketing Executive at IBM (www.ibm.com), educator and author.  Susan’s expertise highlights how far the technology industry has come in empowering clients to transform their businesses and develop competitive advantage using advanced analytics and cognitive computing.  Her book:  THE MOST POWERFUL BRAND ON EARTH guides marketing professionals, navigating digital and social media.   Susan credits her bucolic Midwestern upbringing, as one of five children, in a “country” environment for starting her interest in tech. “Science was actually something that inspired me, concepts of nature and patterns and how you apply those patterns to life.” Her first technology immersion was during two Michigan State University internships at General Motors (www.gm.com), in Flint, Michigan.  Then after graduation, with a marketing/advertising degree, she migrated to Syracuse, New York where she worked on large brands including megabrand Snapple (www.snapple.com ).  She then moved

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Loretta Yakima, currently a senior project manager under contract at ZF TRW (www.zf.com ). Loretta credits her parents for all facets of her success. “They grounded me so much,” she said. Her love for technology dated from her Michigan public high school’s career preparation center where she enrolled in a data processing class. “It was new and exciting.”  She learned how to code in both RPG and Cobol, “two of the toughest languages” to master. With her programming proficiency, Loretta applied advanced credits to her college degree, and was offered a scholarship to a nearby business school.  She matriculated to Oakland University, in Rochester, MI,  with a major in Economics and a minor in Information Systems.  She also worked full time first for a small consulting company, implementing “Y2K” code changes; and then in information technology for Tier One automotive supplier, Lear Corporation (www.lear.com). Later, Loretta would go on to get her MBA from Walsh College in 2009.  After g

Diva Tech Talk interviewed Kimberly Kaminski, Vice President of Global Marketing for rapidly-growing TMaxSoft, a 20-year old worldwide software innovator focused on infrastructure and data modernization to support digital business.  Kim’s rich technology marketing career spans both Fortune 500 companies and emergent technology innovators. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, TMaxSoft (www.tmaxsoft.com) offers enterprise solutions to empower and modernize IT infrastructures, and dynamically drive competitive advantage.   Kim graduated Northern Illinois University in journalism with an emphasis on advertising. She began her journey, as a writer/producer for a post-operative medical products manufacturer. “The job was perfect for me because it allowed me to pursue my love of science, while also perfecting the craft of writing and learning marketing.” Having “cut her teeth” in marketing, Kim then moved into advertising for several years including a stint in the tech practice for J. Walter Thompson (https://www.jwt