8 Women Making an Impact in the Cloud Computing Industry

SADA Says | Cloud Computing Blog

By Kristina Maury

When it comes to diversity & inclusion in the tech space, it’s no secret that the industry is lacking. Gender disparity is wide with only 26% of computing jobs being held by women. In addition, the turnover rate is more than twice as high for women than it is for men in tech industry jobs — 41% versus 17%1. SADA is committed to closing the gap by implementing strategies and practices that support an inclusive, diverse, and supportive environment. For example, SADA has implemented the RecruitHER tool to analyze our own microaggressions and tackle unconscious biases in job descriptions. Other efforts include:

  • Paid maternity leave
  • Promoting from within through professional development and mentoring 
  • Sponsoring booths at Women Impact Tech and the Society of Women Engineers Conference to network with hundreds of female engineers
  • Partnering with alternative coding schools to help non-traditional engineering students become successful cloud engineers

In honor of International Women’s Day and to celebrate women in tech, we’ve rounded up eight of SADA’s Cloud N Clear podcasts that feature interviews with women who are making an impact in the cloud computing industry. The Cloud N Clear podcast explores how organizations are transforming the way their people work, and the way their industry goes to market in the context of Google Cloud. It features experts from SADA, partners, and customers discussing and debating what digital transformation means in the real world. Check out the following podcasts to hear eight inspiring female leaders speak on topics like workforce transformation, market trends, engineering culture, diversity & inclusion, digital marketing, and more.

1. Narine Galstian

SADA’s CMO, Speaks on Marketing’s Role & Impact on Brand & Sales in the Cloud Era

Marketing plays a huge role not only in increasing brand awareness but also in driving lead generation and sales. Sit down with SADA CMO, Narine Galstian, as she discusses how SADA positions itself in the Google Cloud ecosystem to align with executives’ vision for the cloud. Walk through how marketing works with branding, demand generation, and sales tactics, and digital efforts in an integrated marketing approach aligned with Google Marketing teams and solutions selling. In the digital era, marketing is no longer a one-touch approach and Narine explains how SADA’s GTM strategy with Google is not only a top-down approach but also bottom-up.Listen Now

SADA’s Head of Change Management, Speaks on Workforce Transformation and How People Define Success, Not Tech

Making the journey to G Suite is far more about culture change than it is about technology. There is a reason Thomas Kurian calls this part of Google Cloud “Workforce Transformation”. Jessica Sanders leads the team at SADA that focuses entirely on Training, Adoption, Change Management, and Transformation as a competency – from being involved in pre-sales to actual project execution. Hear about her 8-year journey at SADA and everything we’ve learned about this aspect of G Suite.

Enterprise Head of Sales at Google Cloud, Speaks on Google Cloud’s Enterprise Strategy and Building Communities

Google Cloud’s Enterprise Head of Sales, Meg Tucker, reveals the merits of the super local market approach by gaining traction and credibility with large customers. She also discusses her role in building credibility through building community in the SoCal/Los Angeles markets. Now working alongside other powerful women at Google Cloud such as Jen Chason, Kirsten Kliphouse and Janet Kennedy, Meg is a huge advocate for Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace and explains how promoting these values gives Google a competitive advantage.

SADA’s Head of People Operations, Speaks on Creating a Diverse, Inclusive, and Award-Winning Culture From the Ground Up

How do you build a company culture that has been rated the Best Place to Work year after year? Head of People Operations, Orkideh Shahidi, has dedicated the past seven years of her career to making SADA a diverse and inclusive culture that hundreds of employees have joined. Orkideh believes while there are lots of moving parts, this all starts with living SADA’s core values: Be Data Driven, Do the Right Thing, Be a Change Agent, Make Them Rave, and Be One Step Ahead. Hear what she has to say about the importance of listening to your people and how collecting feedback plays a vital role in moving forward with the company’s initiatives. What does it mean to truly be the best place to work? Tune in to find out!

Lisa Gluckstern & Bradley Fisher Speak on the Role of Google Cloud’s Partner Sales Managers (PSMs) and their Impact on Go To Market

Lisa Gluckstern is the Partner Sales Manager (PSM) for Google Cloud’s corporate segment in North and South Central Markets, and Bradley Fisher, is the PSM for South Central Enterprise. Learn about their roles, how they engage with both partners, as well as Google Cloud’s field sales organization, to ensure that every customer has the right partner engaged. How do these co-selling motions produce the optimal customer experience, and what do they expect from partners, exactly? Tune in to find out.

Director of Google Cloud Enterprise West, Talks About Google Cloud & Market Trends

Jen Chason heads Enterprise Sales for Google Cloud for all of west (outside of Northern California). Being relatively new to the role, she has some unique perspectives on making the transition to Google Cloud after so many years. She also covers a massive geographic territory. With that type of responsibility, how does she create the best customer experiences in how they engage with Google, and with partners? Why is Google Cloud so transformational for customers? And what does the future hold?

Head of G Suite Engineering at SADA, Discusses Growth, Client Projects, & Engineering Culture

Kelly Harlan now runs the Engineering team for SADA’s Work Transformation (G Suite,  Chrome) practice – but she didn’t start there. Here with us over 6.5 years, Kelly started on the helpdesk as part of our Enterprise Support organization in her first role— taking 100% of the G Suite calls! That experience landed her in the delivery organization, and then Colgate really put both her AND SADA on the map in a major way. She talks about the growth she’s seen with customers, how projects have changed, and also how she maintains engineering culture in her now very distributed team all over the US and Canada.

Global Partner Program Manager, Google Cloud PSO, Discusses the Talent Pool in the High-Tech Industry, Partner Strategy for 2020, and More

SADA Alumni, Kyla Hunts, leads PSO Partner Programs at Google Cloud and is based out of 
the Spruce Goose office in Los Angeles. In this episode, we discuss the importance of expanding the talent pool in high tech, growing up in Silicon Valley, how to break into the industry, and Google Cloud PSO’s partner strategy for 2020. With the new program launch of Partner Success Services, Google gears up for a partner-centric strategy in delivering services. We also discuss what to look forward to in 2020 as Google Cloud hones in on developing industry solutions and reports the size of its cloud business in the latest earnings call.

1 https://www.dreamhost.com/blog/state-of-women-in-tech/

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