Women In Technology Spotlight

Jackie has degrees in technical computer science from the TU Wien, in science and technology studies from the Univ. of Vienna, and in IT security from the FH Technikum Wien. Besides her current work as a software engineer and her former engagements in IT operations, her main interest is bringing people and technologies together to create safer, more participatory, and sustainable spaces for the ad...

Sónia Santos is a Senior Solutions Engineer working for VMWare in the SD-WAN Telco Pre-sales team. She's passionate about learning how the magic behind the technology works behind and always wants to understand all the features of the product she works with. Being a woman in IT starting way back in 1998 has been quite a ride, but one she would not exchange for any other.’

Meet Emily Andrews, Senior Cloud Sales Specialist at VMware. Emily has always wanted to sell things, not necessarily in tech, but she knew from a very early age that her heart was in sales. She describes herself as a motivated and driven saleswoman. At VMware, she sells VMware Cloud to enterprise customers in areas such as critical national infrastructure, insurance, finance, retail and transporta...

This week, I had the opportunity to talk to the amazing Priyanka Phalod Client Solution Manager @LinkedIn. Priyanka deviated from the beaten path that would have had her married and a mother a soon as she finished school. With the help of her mother, she overcame the traditional female role and societal bias and is now a role model to other young women who are looking to forge their own path in th...

Lara is first and foremost a Sales Specialist within VMware working on the joint Azure VMware Solution with Microsoft- previous to this she was at Cisco working as an Account Manager. However, she is also a qualified RYA Yacht skipper and is currently training to row solo 3000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean next year for charity. Starting in La Gomera in the Canary Islands and finishing in Englis...

In this episode, I speak with the amazing Karen Egan. Karen is the Senior Vice President of Global Support for VMware. She's based in Cork, Ireland where she lives with her family and has been with VMware since 2009 when she started out as a Senior Support Manager. Karen assumed her current role as SVP of Global Support in February 2021. Prior to this, she served as VP of Advanced Customer Engagem...

Shirley Werchota is an advisor for digital transformations and data-driven enterprise topics for BlueSoft. Her multi-cultural upbringing plays a big role in Shirley's ability to draw new parallels and understand the complexity of how tech is changing businesses around the world in the age of digital transformations. She focuses strongly on customer centricity and placing the human with their needs...

Cathy is a Senior Director at VMware, with responsibility for the Global Critical Account Program. Cathy and her team focus on engaging and supporting customers, who encounter challenging situations with their technology solutions. Cathy's team uses a structured methodical approach, to ensure customers can resume their technology journey with confidence. Thus enabling them to continue in their Clo...

In this episode, I have the honor of speaking with @Carlotta (Johnson) Berry, Ph. D. Dr. Carlotta A. Berry is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. She is also recently been named the Lawrence J. Giacoletto Endowed Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering for 2021-2024. She has a special passion for diversifying the enginee...

Elena is a Senior Cloud Solution Architect, with a specialist focus on VMware Cloud on AWS. She joined VMware in early 2019 and now works with customers across the UK. In her role, she helps them solve complex business problems and understand and adopt VMware Cloud services. Elena is passionate about mentoring and people development, she's started mentoring early-career women. When not working, El...

In this episode, you'll meet Stephanie Jakoubi, Stephanie is co-founder of the sec4dev, a security conference for software developers. She's been working at SBA Research for 10 years, where she started as a software developer and is now team-lead of the strategic partnership management team. Being passionate about security, security awareness, and women in IT, she is a board member of the CSA Cybe...

In this episode of the Women in Technology Spotlight we meet Sarah Mestiri Sarah Mestiri is a Data Scientist @ Remerge GmbH in Berlin. After her experience as a software engineer, she decided to follow her passion and switched to Machine Learning and Data Science, with a particular interest in Recommender Systems. Sarah believes that it's by sharing that growth comes. She loves sharing her learnin...

My guest on this week's episode of the Women in Technology Spotlight is Katherine Lightner, Director, Cloud Solutions Architecture, EMEA at VMware. My guest on this week's episode of the Women in Technology Spotlight is Katherine Lightner, Director, Cloud Solutions Architecture, EMEA at VMware. Katherine, who is originally from the US, moved to the UK 13 years ago. Like many of us, she's a career...

Christel, is a Senior Marketing Analyst, Consultant, and Blogger. In the interview, she talks about the importance of female empowerment and diversity in IT. She holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Business Consulting, is specialized in Marketing and Sales. Christel is used to working in an international environment, throughout her university degrees at the University of Applied Sciences, Wi...

Rashina is a United Nations Consultant and the Founder of Amplify Studio, a creative studio that brings brands into the 22nd century through positioning, storytelling, and buzz-making campaigns. Led by colorful women of Asian heritage, Amplify’s mission is to help brands become agents of change, through challenging the status quo and leading initiatives that resonate powerfully with today’s vibran...

In this episode, we meet Tina Mentschik - Senior Regional Channel Manager at Dell Technologies in Austria. Tina brings many years of IT and management experience to her position. After completing her studies at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, the Carinthian-born Tina began her career as a Technical Account Manager at Microsoft. T his was followed by management posit...

Celine is a Security and Compliance Technical Specialist at Microsoft for UK Local and Regional Government and a public speaker. Celine is finishing part-time her Bachelor of Science with honours in Computer Science from the University of Derby, having entered tech midway through her degree thanks to internships and teaching herself cybersecurity skills. This was part of a career switch after havi...

Jillian Augustine, is a British-Grenadian data scientist living in Vienna, Austria. She was born and grew up in West Yorkshire in the north of England whilst also (thankfully) spending many school summer vacations on Carriacou, Grenada. Jillian received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Leeds, in the UK during which she also spent time at McGill University, Canada. In 2018 she received a...

Noor is 35, married, and the mother of a 33-month-old boy. Her top priorities are Mindfulness, Self-care, learning, transparency, and family. Like me, she is keen on empowering women and has a great interest in increasing inclusion and diversity in the IT industry. Noor has an amazing track record in the IT field. Prior to joining VMware, Noor worked for more than 10+ at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise...

Today we have a special episode for our German Speaking audience. With me, I have Adela Habul who works as a Channel Partner Manager at VMware. Adela has a very interesting background story. She is originally from Serbia and migrated to Vienna with her family when she was 11. She had to learn the language and adapt to a new culture. Adela was interested in fashion and decided to attend fashion sch...

When Timea moved from Transylvania to Vienna about 11 years ago to complete her studies at the TU Wien. She was shocked by the low percentage of female students. She had been accustomed to a 50:50 split at home. She quickly realized she wanted to invest her time into changing the situation. BELONGin.work is s a social startup that helps companies improving the number of females in STEM. The startu...

Karina is originally from Russia, where she studied Information Technology and Economics. She has now been living in Hamburg, Germany, for 6 years. Before that, she founded a start-up in Singapore with some friends from university and lived in Portugal, where she worked on a project collating geospatial data. Karina's career or projects have always revolved around collecting large amounts of data...

This week I speak with Anvi Patel who works as a Solutions Engineer at VMware in the UK. Anvi got to know Vmware as an intern and the great experiences she made reinforced her decision to finish her Computer Science studies. She had been close to dropping out due to the fact that she didn't enjoy certain aspects of the curriculum, for example, programming. Anvi is also one of the creators of Paper...

Paula overcame many odds to finally become the woman in IT she now is. In Paula's family, there were no role models, neither male nor female. At the onset of her journey, she wasn't confident that she had what it takes to go to university and study electrical engineering. She instead settled on doing a dual study in project engineering at Bosch. There she quickly realized that the electrical engin...

In this episode, I had the opportunity to speak with Zana Pekmek Head of Customer Intelligence Analytics Products Raiffeisen Bank International AG, and responsible for interoperability of the services with other data Tribes. Zana is originally from Bosnia. After the war, she went to High School in the USA on a scholarship and finished College there. When she was younger Zana was more inclined towa...