| | | Digital Conference & Expo | August 3 - 6 |
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Be Bold: Words to Live by for Women in Communications
Five women IT leaders share how they help keep their companies on task during COVID-19, as always.
To “thrive in the next normal,” McKinsey & Company advises that companies “make bold moves.” That advice caught my eye, because I had just heard the same words from one of the participants, Gauri Bhalerao, senior manager of collaboration, networking strategy, and engineering at Yum! Brands, during the Women in Communications roundtable discussion I moderated this morning at Enterprise Connect Digital Conference & Expo.
“Be bold” is one of Blalerao’s guiding principles, as I had learned in earlier conversations with her, and during the roundtable, she shared an example of how that has become especially important since COVID-19. The pandemic and subsequent work-from-home decision hit at the tail end of Yum’s Microsoft Teams implementation, and Bhalerao and her team found themselves needing to ramp up training and adoption of the collaboration platform.
Still when the CEO needed a platform to do a global broadcast, Bhalerao said she had to make the bold — and risky — decision to do that via Teams. “At that time, we had tested Microsoft Teams live events just once or twice internally in IT, but we had not done a major event. In this case, with one day’s notice, we had to do a broadcast for our CEO and leadership teams,” she explained. To say she and her team were nervous hosting a meeting of such a broad scale for the CEO on a largely untested platform is an understatement, Bhalerao said. “It was such a huge undertaking,” she added.
Bhalerao was not alone among roundtable participants in sharing bold moves they’ve made throughout their careers and, most recently, during this time of crisis. For example: At Capital One, Kim Corazzini, senior director of CX transformation, had overseen a massive contact center transition to the Amazon Connect cloud platform — a decision that has served the company well in what her team has dubbed the “miracle migration” to working from home (WFH); Capital One moved 40,000 people to WFH in less than two weeks, Corazzini said. At MedStar Health, a sprawling health care organization, UC director Kristina Russell has worked diligently not only to support telehealth for physicians and patients during this crisis, but also to set up the communications systems at a 250-bed COVID-19 response hospital in Washington, D.C., and to build out call center capacity for various needs that have arisen during the pandemic. At Pembina Pipeline, Josee Duchesne, supervisor for networks and telephony, is taking advantage of everybody being at home and has fast-tracked onsite conversion of 130 meeting rooms to Teams. And at Cigna, in her role as architecture director for voice infrastructure and contact center engineering at Cigna, Jennifer Berry has navigated through the financial side of the crisis — stopping investments in some projects to shift resources to COVID-19 response. “If you were a project manager, one day you were doing a software deployment, the next day you were troubleshooting people trying to work at home,” Berry said. “Everybody had to collaborate and jump in just to get everybody moved over as fast as possible.” These women are on the technology frontlines at their companies, navigating through strategic decisions and challenges that arise with the additional onus of being women operating in the man’s world of IT. They exemplify the strength and leadership of women in technology, and for that, we recognized them as recipients of our first-annual Spotlight Award for Women in Communications. (A sixth Spotlight Award recipient, Melanie Parker, senior manager of telecommunications at Centene, was not able to join the roundtable.)
In our 45-minute roundtable, we could only scratch the surface of what these women have accomplished during their careers and what they’ve learned over the years, but I’d encourage you to tune in to hear their stories and advice, including top tips for getting your voice heard. You can stil tune in on demand, just register today for your FREE Standard Access pass.
And for more great advice from a woman in communications, tune in on demand to our “Developing a Diverse and Inclusive Workforce for Today & Tomorrow” session with Kari Mattek, senior director of digital product management, UC & content services, with Northwestern Mutual. Mattek, who serves as an officer of her company’s LGBTQ employee resource group, shared her perspective on a range of topics, including the state of diversity and inclusivity today, hiring best practices, and the benefit that a diverse workforce brings to the bottom line.
Other session highlights from today include: Reconsidering Your Cloud Strategy in the Wake of Pandemic, with Melissa Swartz of Swartz Consulting How to Help Employees Get the Most from WFH, with Jim Kelly of Recon Research 5G – Promises Unbroken?, with Michael Finneran of dBrn Associates Raising the Bar on the Enterprise WAN, with Zeus Kerravala of ZK Research And, don’t forget to check out all of our sponsored sessions, and visit our exhibit hall.
Beth Schultz Program Co-Chair, Enterprise Connect Editor, No Jitter & WorkSpace Connect | | | Register for Our Virtual Event Today
Our Digital Conference & Expo is live and we encourage you to Register Today to join us with a FREE Standard Access pass.
This is a rare opportunity to experience Enterprise Connect’s in-depth, objective content for FREE! | | | Fun Activites During the Event
We have some fun things for you to do when you aren't catching up with peers, getting amazing education, and/or meeting with vendors, including: |
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The Five9 Yappy Hour
Spend time with Five9 at Enterprise Connect. Join us in our virtual booth to learn about our latest contact center innovations and participate in our session, Going Digital First: Boosting your Omnichannel Strategy to Meet Your Customers Wherever They Are. Our technical experts will be standing by live to answer your questions. While you're learning at this digital event, take a moment to virtually pet your stress away with some lovable puppies at the Five9 sponsored Yappy Hour. |
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Free Digital Caricaturist
Get a free digital caricature portrait to share with friends and family at the EC/No Jitter space. Pre-book your time by scheduling a meeting during these available hours (all ET): Wednesday, August 5 | 10:00 - 11:00 AM and 12:30 - 2:30 PM Thursday, August 6 | 10:00 - 11:00 AM and 12:30 - 2:30 PM |
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