Discover the trailblazing women shaping the business landscape in "The 10 Most Influential Businesswomen Making a Difference, 2022." Gain insights into the remarkable achievements, innovative strategies, and impactful contributions of these extraordinary leaders. Explore their inspiring journeys, empowering leadership styles, and the transformative impact they have had on their industries. Join us in celebrating the influential women driving change and setting new standards of success in the business world.

1. www.theincmagazine.com
Margaret Graziano
KeenAlignment | CEO & FOUNDER
April 2022
BusinessWomen
Most
Influential
Making a Difference
2022

4. Sharing the Baton of Leadership
Editors
Note
H
ave you ever watched a film named ‘Mulan’? If not, then let me answer it for you. Mulan is an animated
American movie, where a girl fights for her identity. This movie shows how strong, determined, courageous,
and smart women are, and there are no such feet that are unachievable for them. According to research,
women leaders are better than their male counterparts at providing better emotional support to their
employees. They are also better at helping employees navigate through work and life balance. Women also
spend more time contributing, to diversity, inclusion efforts, and equity.
However, even a decade ago, women were massively undercounted whenever it came to
entrepreneurship or leading an organization from the front. However, now starting from business to
education, administration to technology, women gradually made their mark in almost every
industry be it at the national or regional level. By walking a few extra miles, they have been at
the top of each field.
When it comes to the world of business, women have bought massive changes in the
corporate ecosystem by converting their creative and innovative ideas into various
successful business models. By combining their creative and passionate mind,
women are making a big difference by taking their businesses to the next level.
People like Gina Rinehart, the chairman of Hancock Prospecting Group,
Denise Coates, the founder of Bet365, Cher Wang, the Co-founder of
HTC, and many more are on the list.
While these big, well-known names are continuing to set an
example for others, there are also a few Businesswomen who
are making quite a bit of difference with their innovative
products and solutions. With an intent to acknowledge
the contributions of these women leaders, we have
carefully curated a list of “10 Most Influential
Business Women Making a Difference 2022”.
So, what are you waiting for? Jump
right into the inspiring stories and
lessons from the businesswomen
featured in this issue and get
motivated.
Sonal K
Editor

5. www.theincmagazine.com
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Marketing Manager Chirs Philip
Business Development Executive Maria, Wilson, Martina, Alex, Kelvin
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6. Margaret Graziano
Helping to Change Workplace
Culture
Wild Code School is
reinforcing Women Tech Posi�ons on
the Market
08
14

7. Solving Client’s
Real-Estate Worries
Mission-Driven and
elping Customers to
Reduce Cost

Revolu�onizing the
AI Space in India
 
Helping Companies to
Manage their People
and Assets
14
20
32
24

8. Cover Story
KeenAlignment | FOUNDER, CEO
MARGARET GRAZIANO

9. The 10 Most Influential Business Women Making a Difference, 2022
09 April 2022
Helping to Change Workplace
Culture
M
eet Margaret Graziano, CEO, and
founder of KeenAlignment which works
to transform organizational culture as a
reset for companies that have been around a long
time, or with start-ups that are looking to grow to
the next level. Margaret has been in the human
relations/talent optimization industry for more
than 25 years. She began her career as a recruiter
and moved her career forward to executive search,
then organizational development, then executive
coaching, and all of that along with 20-year volun-
teerism in the human potential industry. She
integrates human potential, organizational devel-
opment, change management, and talent optimiza-
tion to inspire and catalyze organizational culture.
Margaret spends over 250 hours on her profession-
al development each year. She works diligently to
have clean relationships and communicate what
needs to be communicated. Margaret is completely
committed to delivering outstanding results for the
clients her company serves, and actively practices
and lives the ‘work’.
Transforming Organizational Cultures
At KeenAlignment, Margaret and her team are
transforming organizational culture as a reset for
companies that have been around a long time, or
with start-ups that are looking to grow to the next
level. There's typically some inflection point in the
organization where they need to break through the
ceiling of what's possible, and they realize that the
way to do it is through creating a high-perfor-
mance, healthy, and intentional organizational
culture. That’s what KeenAlignment does. Marga-
ret and her organization’s vision is to forever
liberate the human spirit at work, and its mission is
to shape a high-performance, healthy and inten-
tional organizational culture. Margaret and her
team do that by working hand-in-hand with the
executive team to integrate the espoused culture, what
they want, and what they're committed to with how
people work, communicate and accomplish goals.
The company provides a carefully curated and strate-
gically sequenced Culture Blueprint, a road map to its
clients and they guarantee breakthrough results.
Ideal / Actual Culture Diagnostic: It gives sound
and current data on which to make balanced deci-
sions for intentional and healthy organizational
change
Organizational Culture Alignment: It creates the
conditions for proactive, inspiring and collective
change to occur from the inside out.
Leadership Development: It creates outstanding
leaders, who can move strategy forward with passion
and alignment.
Talent Optimization: It shapes a healthy, empowered
human system where people put their highest and
best use of self to work.
I am the master of
my fate. I am the
captain of my soul.
“
Liberating the Human Spirit at Work
As a Leader in Talent Acquisition for more than 20
years, Margaret witnessed first hand why people leave
companies. 70% of the time, they were the wrong
Helping to Change Workplace
Culture

10. 10 April 2022
person for the job. The other 30% of the time it’s
because there’s no vision or structure for how
people are led. So, people are frustrated, feel
unappreciated, or feel undervalued. Over and over
again, with more than 10,000 people, she got to
see how dysfunctional the “human system” in
most organizations is. Then, as she got into the
human potential movement, volunteering in a
myriad of different organizations, and participating
in large group empowerment workshops, she saw
how misaligned people are with the work they
chose to do. Most are working for a paycheck with
little to no self awareness about what work life
fulfillment means to them. Somewhere along the
line they lost themselves and forgot who they
really are and what's really important. Then, after
realizing that life is fleeting and 70% of their
waking hours are spent working, one day they
wake up and they realize they are unhappy. It is
the first instinct to point to the job because most
people think their happiness comes from the
outside. Sometimes it really is the job, or the
leader, and most of the time it is a case of missing
purpose and passion from the inside out. It's never
solely about the job or people they're working
with. People just recreate the same situation at
companies, because inside they're missing some-
thing. They're missing a touchpoint with their
highest and best self about where they should be
spending their time, and what they should be
doing. So, they're looking for a job to fulfill a need
that the job can never fulfill. If they're unhappy it
is easy to point outside yet the answer is always
within.
Both of those experiences encouraged Margaret to
become part of the workplace empowerment
movement. She spends the majority of her time
teaching, writing, designing programs and working
with Executive teams. Her work keeps her busy
and utilizes her passions, strengths and interests.
She is grateful for her humble roots in recruiting,
she often refers to those days as the MBA school
of hard knocks.
Satisfied Clientele Margaret says, “Our clients
are small to mid-sized organizations who want to
do good in the world or who are already doing
good in the world.” These clients are entirely
to creating a high-performance, healthy and inten-
tional organization that can do good in the world
with more peace, freedom, and ease. Typically, they
have between 50 and 650 employees, or they have a
plan to get there in the next few years.
They may be a company that is growing exponen-
tially and starting to see that their unintentional
culture, the culture that was created based on behav-
iors of the most influential people, is not working
for them. So, they want to realign and set the stage
for fast growth, with a high-performance, healthy
and intentional culture. Or, they’re an organization
that's been around a long time and handed from one
generation to the next. The new generation sees that
the way things were done and how culture has
morphed over time is not effective for where they
need to go, and who they need to be now.
In another scenario there might be companies that
are doing good and new leadership comes in and
that new leadership’s values are not being reflected
throughout the organization. Instead, what gets
espoused is entangled behavior of wills, that is
causing stress, breakdowns, confusion, and volatili-
ty. The new leader then says this cannot be, this is
not a healthy way to run a company. So, they say
they need to hit refresh as Satya Nadella did at
Microsoft.
Those are the 3 situations where a company would
work with KeenAlignment. It delivers more than
promised and makes sure not to take on any clients
who don't want to do the work from the inside out.
KeenAlignment only focuses on what it can deliver
outstandingly, and if they want the company to do
things that it doesn’t have expertise in, it says no to
projects that are distractions.
Picture of the Future
Margaret is most excited about his new book that's
coming out, which is about cultural transformation
from the inside out. One of her goals for the
company is to create a certification program for
practitioners, where they can learn how to do the
cultural transformation from KeenAlignment’s
blueprint. She is also excited about new people

11. 11 April 2022
joining the organization who are aligned with the mission, vision, and values. Margaret and her team are excited
about transforming the world of work and creating a world of work that works for everyone where people don't
have to feel like they have to get the hell out of work every day just to be happy, but they can go to work and be
happy.
Margaret Magi Graziano, Peak-Performance Culture and Leadership Coach
Proven success transforming organizational culture with more than 25,000 lives impacted
Over 25 years of experience in unlocking the wealth of talent, human spirit and capacity in organizations
Methods that increase employee performance, ignite passion in teams and deliver up to 10x return on program
nvestment
Recognized as one of Silicon Valley’s Top 100 Women Leaders, Magi’s groundbreaking work is driven by her
power to uncover and catalyze human potential. Pioneering the leading edge of Leadership Training,
Organizational Culture and Strategic People Operations, she brings:
 

14. 14 April 2022

15. www.tardidtech.com
ccording to research, 59% of all the fortune
500 companies experience a minimum
downtime of 1.6 hours per week, which
costs millions of dollars yearly. So, enters,
Tardid Technologies Pvt Ltd, which helps enterprises
to understand their assets’ health condition by using
Machine Learning and Cognitive technology thus
reducing unplanned downtime. The organization’s
clients include heavy industries, defense, operators,
and RD. Tardid has entered into a technology joint
venture with Blockchain for strategic go-to-market and
technology development to address autonomous waste
management.
Under the leadership of Ms. Aastha Verma, COO,
Tardid has built Brainbox®, as the first step towards
AI-based Enterprise Asset Management for monitor-
ing asset performance, prescribing health, and provid-
ing remaining life. With modular design, Brainbox
modules and solutions can be customized to suit even
the smallest of the small requirements. It brings a
full-featured prescriptive maintenance program and
applies its benefits to structural components, engines,
motors, alternators, pumps, compressors, fans, valves,
gearboxes, energy synchronization, and optimization
or to any other equipment deemed critical to operation-
al excellence. Brainbox® Prime Brainbox® Xander
help the organization to achieve this. The Brainbox®
Stormbreaker helps provide critical answers to the
end-users with its cause and impact analysis.
Tardid has another product, Brainbox® Knowhere, a
threat intelligence product only for government
agencies.
The organization has developed the world’s first AI
hardware named SPICA, which is mainly for
autonomous inspection and rejection stations for the
Zone1 environment.
Currently, SPICA is being used to detect, leaks, strains,
and fatigue of LPG cylinders.
Exceeding Clients’ Expectations
The clients of Tardid Technologies Pvt Ltd are from
multiple sectors including, Defense, Shipping, Oil
Gas, and manufacturing.
The organization has multiple projects from the Indian
Navy, Aditya Birla, and Bharat Petroleum among
others. According to Aastha, the company has earned
faith by exceeding its clients’expectations and deliver-
ing the first of its kind of solutions to them.
COO of the company Aastha thinks the primary chal-
lenges have always remained on how to keep the team
together at times of challenges when it needs to rein-
vent and regroup, to keep the team motivated, and to
ensure that funds never went low, to have enough
orders in the pipeline without compromising on
Tardid’s core values. The organization often gets
tempted to follow the market and deliver what many
other companies were already doing. However,
remaining undeterred from the path was one of the
biggest challenges for the company.
A
Revolutionizing the AI Space in India
Aastha Verma
Tardid Technologies Pvt Ltd | COO
15 April 2022

16. Tardid had to fight very hard to get the right valuation,
which was necessary. The leaders never had another
company from which the investors could take refer-
ence, and it worked both ways. In its early days, Tardid
had the option of being bought over. However, Aastha
and the team knew to have freedom of continuous
innovation, the control was needed to be with the
founders. Eventually, the team worked tirelessly and
ensured the company a stable income. And this income
helped them focus on research without getting any
outside pressure.
Persistence and Perseverance is the Key
Aastha believes persistence and perseverance have got
her where she is today. Many people have supported
her during her journey. Aastha also can’t thank enough
her business partner who had more confidence in her
than what she had in herself while starting Tardid.
Aastha’s parents inspired her to continue her fight and
to give her best, no matter what was the situation. Her
children and personal struggle always kept her focused
and didn’t let her lose sight of the finish line no matter
how hard it got. Creating something which would be a
unique technology product from an Indian Company
was a constant driving force for Aastha.
“The challenges have and shall keep coming but as we
say when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”-
She added.
Tips for Budding Female Entrepreneurs
When it comes to suggestions for upcoming entrepre-
neurs, Aastha suggests not forgetting the reason for
starting the entrepreneurial journey. She says, “Always
attach it with one of your emotional quotients and you
will never stop pursuing your dream till you achieve it.
Often when we relate our success to materialistic
happiness, it fades as soon as it comes.”
Additionally, Aastha advises staying focused on the
emotional goal, which will never let anyone deter from
her path. As a woman, she has an inherent quality to
multitask and also keep everyone’s needs addressed.
She thinks, if a female entrepreneur can bring her
home managing skills into her business or workplace,
then handling things becomes much easier.
Picture of the Future
AI was a buzzword even a few years ago but, it is now
seeing a massive adoption in every industry meaning
there’s so much to do in this space. This high adoption
rate of Artificial Intelligence eventually makes the
future of Tardid bright and challenging. Currently,
there’s a demand for Brainbox® and it is finding its
place in this ever-increasing requirement of the indus-
try.
16 April 2022

17. “At Tardid, we are ready to
take up the challenge and
very excited about taking
Brainbox® to the world.”
- added Aastha.
“World will always have an
opinion, it's up to us to prove
them right or wrong, either
way, whatever we do, should
be what we feel clear in our
conscious, the rest will find
its place automatically.”
17 April 2022

20. MARNE MARTIN
IFS Service Management Business Unit | President
B
orn in 1983, IFS develops and delivers
enterprise software for clients across the
globe who manufacture and distribute
goods, maintain assets, and manage service-focused
operations. Marne Martin, President of IFS Service
Management Business Unit, leads the charge
enabling digital transformation, the delivery of
business value, and great Moments of Service.
Before joining IFS, Marne was already quite
accomplished in this sector. While serving as the
CEO, she led the executive leadership team of a
publicly traded FSM software company. Innovation
led, Marne was responsible for the transformation
of, their go-to-market strategy, shifting focus to
SaaS, which reaped rewards year on year. This is
part of a successful track record that also includes
time spent leading and taking public a defense and
telecom consulting firm. Marne's initiatives took
the company from dominance in the Middle East
out into the US, Europe, and the Asia Pacific.
Earlier, in her career, Marne was part of the team
acquiring licenses and launching the first GSM cell
phone companies in the Americas as well as
privatizing a life science company and doing a
variety of interesting technology startups.
Marne feels blessed to have a fascinating and
interesting life that continues to bring opportunities
to do progressive and cutting edge things. In the
past, she has written about her childhood and career
moving from an background growing up on cattle
ranches to launching an international career on her
own merits, which makes her very proud to be an
example of how women can build a successful
20 April 2022

21. Helping Companies to Manage
their People and Assets
career. She takes pride in being an example and
still being accessible to other women and young
people who are growing their careers. In addition
to being open to engaging with young people
generally, she prioritizes meeting new hires and
advancing young professional and leadership
programs so that individuals see first hand that
Marne cares about their success. While Marne
can’t manufacture enough time to be everywhere
for everyone, she wants to make sure that she is
not the type of person or executive that is no
longer in touch with those on the ground and the
front-line and inspires others to be the same.
You can’t go back and change the
beginning, but you can start where
you are and change the
ending.
“
“
Tackling Primary Challenges
IFS serves some of the most well-recognized
companies on the planet. The clientele covers
industries like telco, manufacturing, utilities, and
others with asset, customer and people centric
businesses. It is exciting to be partnering with
businesses that might be digitizing for the first time,
others that are leveraging more advanced
capabilities to launch new business models, and of
course some global companies that have
components of both depending on which country or
business unit.
Marne believes in this competitive market, finding
and retaining talent, and keeping sufficient focus on
customer
business value
realization has to be always top
of mind with continued outreach and
innovation needed. In general, how IFS in the
software industry can be better buyer coach for companies
seeking more value from their technology investments, greater
change management skills, or advice how to launch new business models
from their technology investments stays on Marne's mind every interaction with a
prospect or customer. This is needed not only in the buying cycles across repeat and
occasional technology buyers, as well as business value realization, which is still not where it could
be. A surprisingly high number of technology buyers may know that they need a type of technology, but
they are not sure how success is defined in measurable key performance indicators. And of course to deliver on
this mission, IFS needs talent that is capable and also coachable with career paths that meld well with the
Company's vision and strategy alongside customers to be the kind of technology partner they can rely on.
People Behind the Success
Hard work, quick thinking, good people skills, and
resiliency are all personal traits that Marne has
benefitted from and cultivated. There are too many
people to name who advised Marne, pushed her to
21 April 2022

22. be better, or even exposed her to the opportunities,
which have helped Marne to grow and learn. The
learning journey never stops, and Marne continues
to be courageous and entrepreneurial even as she
has now passed her 25+ year work anniversary.
Staying creative and energetic now with decades of
experience is certainly an advantage for her.
An Avid Reader Creating a Balanced
Industry
Marne suggests embracing and cultivating the
openness to ideas and different views, and encour-
aging those who bring solutions to problems is key
to businesses not stagnating. She often says, while
we can’t eliminate all bias we can make sure we
support ideas and those who find solutions to
problems and promote or encourage those people
regardless of their backgrounds, ethnicities, gender
or beliefs.”
She is an avid reader, and there are so many amaz-
ing books she has read, classics, business books, and
leisure books. Marne often likes to go back, and
read classics, and timely books about history, War
and Peace is certainly top of mind in these current
times, but more related to work, a book that doesn’t
show up typically on a list of best business books,
but one she thinks everyone should read is Start
with Why by Simon Sinek. Marne loves to be
inspired and inspire people, and that is why this
book resonated with her as while inspirational
people always have the power to cultivate change,
change becomes more ingrained and easier to drive
adoption when people understand the why. And
pragmatically, if one can’t articulate the why of an
action or initiative, regardless of inspiration, it is a
red flag.
Preparing for a Better Future
IFS is on a great path of growth focusing on how it
meets the evolving needs in the software industry
and its focus verticals to deliver value for customers
and value for their customers. Personally, Marne is
proud of all that she has accomplished. However,
every day, she thinks of how to drive greater and
faster scaleability in go to market across the 60 or
so countries IFS focus on, improving how she
alongside her team serve customers, solve industry
and digital transformation problems, all which
keeps her motivated and the work exciting.
During her long career, Marne has received many
awards and accolades. Now she is very excited as
IFS has earned a billion USD in revenue, her role
in developing and growing software unicorns, how
she can’t wait to see the future, and how both IFS
and its customers evolve in this world of outcomes
and experiences.
22 April 2022

24. Koheli Puri
STUDIO XP Management Consultants Pvt. Ltd
Managing Director
24 April 2022

25. Solving Client’s Real-Estate Worries
M
eet Koheli Puri the Managing Director
of StudioXP Management Consultants
Pvt Ltd. Koheli always had a dream to
become an entrepreneur. She completed her
Bachelor’s degree in architecture and M.Tech.
from IIT Delhi in building engineering and
construction management. Soo, she started
working with one of the top multinational
companies in her industry, where she worked for 7
years. Later she joined an eminent development
group and gained over a decade of experience in
the construction and real estate industry. However,
in 2011 Koheli launched her own company, her
dream brand StudioXP. Currently, the organization
has completed more than 10 years of working with
the best of the clients and growing with them.
As an organization, StudioXP Management
Consultants Pvt Ltd., is a renowned Real Estate
Development Management firm, with
multi-disciplinary specialist skills and experience
in Architecture, Interiors Construction of
Corporate Campuses/offices, Commercial Projects,
I.T. Parks, International Schools, Hotels,
Healthcare, Industrial Data Center Projects.
StudioXP is an ISO-9001 certified company
accredited for Quality Management in providing
exquisite Services, the organization is currently
providing comprehensive Services to several
Fortune 500 companies, National Multi-national
Corporate Clients, Developers, IPCs, Private
Equities in Delhi NCR, Jaipur, Mumbai, Pune,
Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore region and in
Dubai. StudioXP provides end-to-end hassle-free
real estate solutions to its clients.
Solving Real-Estate Needs
Under the leadership of Koheli, StudioXP is
providing development management/ Design
Built/ end to end real estate solutions to several
Fortune 500 companies, National Multi-national
Corporate Clients, Developers, IPCs, Private
Equities in Delhi NCR, Jaipur, Mumbai, Pune,
Chennai, Hyderabad Bangalore region and
Dubai.
StudioXP’s esteemed clients are Ultimate Kronos
Group, Lumens technology, Ericsson, Brookfield,
Black Stone, DLF, Nucleus office space, Jaipur
Development Authority, Trinity Life sciences,
Religare, Ienergiser, HCL, RMS, AXA XL, Oyo,
Three Pillars Global, JFL Group, Pine labs,
Centrum, Bank of America. Koheli says, “The
reason for having such a strong repetitive
clientele is our Accountability, Delivery
commitment, Innovative Design approach, Quality
Construction, Transparency and always taking an
extra mile to provide clients well-informed quality
real estate decisions.”
Tackling Primary Challenges
Koheli feels navigating amongst challenges and
hurdles builds resilience. Learning from these lays a
solid foundation for growth success as one
advances during his/her career.
Koheli selected a stream that was not too easy and
had several established competitors, but her reasons
for success were her educational background,
ethical policy, experience in working in previous
reputed companies at a leadership level,
commitments, professionalism, accountability
never say never attitude which not many people
had, so she managed to win clients trust to take her
company to a different level.
All Power is
with in you,
you can do anything
and everything
- Koheli Puri
“
“
25 April 2022

26. Guiding Lights
“As said if parents are with you, you can reach new heights. Same with me, my
parents always motivated me along the way.”- Says Koheli. She also knew her
goals from the very beginning. After starting her professional career she always
had mentors who guided her towards the right directions. Koheli says, “My heart
goes out in deepest gratitude to all who taught me professional lessons, who
taught me to be a better person, who taught me to be a great leader, who taught
me to be a good team player, and who taught me to be a dreamer to achieve
bigger goals and to my most supportive family whos always motivating me to
perform better.”
Making the Industry Balanced and Equal
Koheli believes, for a balanced and equal industry we need a drastic mindset
change, which can be achieved through mutual support and demonstrations. A
balanced and equal industry should be a Business Imperative leading to
profitability rather than initiatives, so lead this by example. She also thinks that
company culture needs to be inclusive including salary, safety level, language
used, leaves considerations. Even encouraging Developments at all levels with
more Women in leadership roles is a trendsetter in today’s companies.
Suggestions for Upcoming Entrepreneurs
Koheli has the same business acumen with inbuilt multitasking capabilities.
Koheli believes Entrepreneurship is beyond gender.
Future Roadmap
Koheli is most excited to be the most repetitive organization for clients to always
feel comfortable in interaction. Currently, StudioXP provides the best in class
services for complete Development Management including Architectural design
Construction and adds real value to developers, funds, financial institutions,
and Corporate /Commercial Occupiers to help them in taking well-informed
quality real estate decisions.
When it comes to the future, StudioXP is expecting to be the customer’s best and first
choice company, in India to cater to large-scale development projects for corporates, IT,
ITES, Commercial Projects in the next 5 years. The organization is also planning to
create sustainable buildings and technologically advanced campuses, which are not only
aesthetically pleasing but also create value for the occupiers and investors. Its vision is
not only restricted to IT and Commercial Developments but encompasses institutional,
hospitality, industrial, and healthcare projects.
My advice to
budding Female
entrepreneurs
would be –
Dream Big to
Achieve Big.
Please plan
properly, think
strategically,
and implement
smarty.
Dedication,
patience,
perseverance
inbuilt
managerial
capabilities will
take you there.
-Koheli Puri
“
“
26 April 2022

28. Shannon
Hulbert
Sha
nno
n
Hul
ber
t
28 April 2022

29. Starting in 1996, as an IT department for a creative agency Opus Interactive
is the leading provider of hybrid and multi-cloud solutions. The organization
is currently led by its CEO, Shannon Hulbert. She is passionate about
building the information super-highway and digital inclusion, women in tech,
STEM, and sustainable IT. She has been in the cloud and data center industr-
y for the past 11 years. Before that, she was in the energy sector- on the
demand side management side working with utility energy-efficiency
programs throughout the United States. As a Native American Shannon was
raised on a portion of Yurok Indian Reservation called the End of the Road.
Super rural- 20 miles from the nearest store. No power, then solar power,
and no phones or connectivity. In the village where she grew up, her Gram’s
house just got electricity about 5 years ago, and the internet last year. Her
journey has been from the end of the road to the information superhighway-
complete with a climate positive cloud footprint hosted in Northern Virginia,
the most connected place on the planet.
You never know when
someone’s unique
skillset or back-
ground is the missing
piece to the next suc-
cessful product or
process.
“
Shannon’s background also includes project management and building
processes by working for the vinyl shop that delivered all the in-store
signage to Hollywood Video when they were opening 1 store every other
day. Navigation and incident command skills were learned by, working
under pressure as a wildland firefighter. She was an engine crew navigator
before GPS was available and often worked in hazardous conditions requir-
ing strenuous exertion in smoke, high temperatures and steep terrain And
production at scale by working at McDonald's and serving as production line
lead at a door manufacturer. It’s why, as an organization, Shannon and her
team strive to be as inclusive as possible.
Helping Clients’ Cost Reduction
Opus Interactive launched its first cloud back in 2005. While cloud adoption has been a long time coming – the
pandemic accelerated adoption by about 10 years, because for a moment the only way many people could see a doctor
was telehealth, and food and groceries were ordered online and delivered to limit exposure and people worked from
home, learned from home and watched a lot of cat videos.
29 April 2022

30. Needless to say, everything is cloud-based now. And,
what many IT departments are finding is that it’s not a
simple transformation – there are many options, many
requirements, and many components. And every enter-
prise is different – as is every workload used in the
enterprise.
Opus always works to help customers reduce costs and
optimize resources by building tailored hybrid and
multi-cloud solutions that meet performance, compli-
ance, security, and budget needs. The organization’s
mission is to build trusted solutions that pave the way
for sustainable IT and the next generation of technology
builders. It works with customers to tailor and deliver
the best mix of on-prem, colocation, private cloud,
public cloud, dedicated IaaS, backup, long-term cloud
object storage, network connectivity, and ecosystem
Greatly Satisfied Clients
Shannon says, “We’ve been around for more than 26
years so have a customer in pretty much every vertical.
But 75% fall into technology, telecom, healthcare, and
finance. It’s because the workloads for those industries
have more compliance or simply can’t go down – that’s
where tailored solutions are key to ensuring you get
service and performance that are exactly what you
need.”
“
How the organization ensures unbreakable faith- listen
to the customers and give them what they need. This
means being vendor agnostic. It’s not uncommon for the
company to refer customers to services outside of its
own, and also why it has established partnerships,
including its most recent launch of VMC on AWS. The
organization’s goal is to get the customer workloads
where they need, when they need, how they need. So
that’s a reliable team, high-performance services,
strategic partnerships, compliance and security, and
super-fast networks at every level.
Tackling Bad Days
When asked about the primary challenges Shannon says,
“Oh wow! In the past two years? Let me think…global
pandemic, work from home, supply chain, industry
growth, workforce shortages, winter storms, summer
fires…and I think everyone in the world knew someone
who was directly impacted by loss of family or jobless-
ness – I’m thankful every day to be surrounded by
amazing customers, partners, and a team of geniuses. We
all supported each other and came through it, stronger
together.”
A Piece of Advice
Fate whispers to the warrior, “You cannot
withstand the storm.” The warrior whispers
back, “I am the storm.”
Future Roadmap
Shannon believes, the only thing she and her team can
depend on is constant change – and change is exciting. As
an organization, Opus will continue to listen and allow
the needs of its customers lead innovation in its service
portfolio. It’s how Opus evolved from IT department to
ISP to cloud to today. And how they’ll change to meet
customer needs of the future.
When it comes to advising young entrepreneurs Shannon
says, “as an organization, your team is your greatest
strength. They are the face of the company, the ideas that
drive innovation, and the perseverance to implement
successfully. Inclusivity makes all the difference. The best
solutions are built by a representative workforce that
understands use cases, opportunities, and obstacles. We’re
all part of a global community. The collaborative output
that combines differences in backgrounds, perspectives,
culture, and experiences make solutions, your organization,
and our global community stronger.”
30 April 2022

32. STÉPANOFF
Wild Cold School | Founder
www.wildcodeschool.com
32 April 2022

33. 3%, that is the percentage of women among
Wild Code School’s students in 2022, and this
number is about to grow even more.
CEO Anna Stépanoff co-founded Wild Code School
in 2013, with the idea of creating a new environment
of education – where the students could benefit from
a personalized training support, but also from a
project-based teaching approach thanks to ‘learn-
ing-by-doing’. The school promotes gender diversity
among its students, to empower women in tech
positions!
Today, Wild Code School is a leading European tech
school offering lifelong learning programs at 20+
campuses, remotely or at company’s offices, and has
trained 5,000 alumni in the most in-demand digital
skills: web development, data, product management,
cybersecurity and no code.
Behind Wild Code School’s Creation: Who
is Anna Stépanoff?
It all started in Belarus, where Anna is originally
from, and where her dream of being a teacher was
born. When she benefited from scholarships to go
further in her studies, she left her home country at the
age 19 to fulfill her ambition.
Bachelor of Arts at Harvard University in Social
Sciences, PhD on the History of museums at La
Sorbonne, Consultant at McKinsey and now CEO at
Wild Code School, she went through a lot of learning
and working environments before starting an educa-
tion business.
Her strong belief in education and technology chang-
ing lives made her realize three things: there was -
and still is - a huge lack of tech talents in the market,
women are underrepresented in this field and the
straitjacket of education is not adapted to this fast
evolving industry. Then came the idea of creating an
alternative teaching approach, coupled to technology
and aligned with the current businesses’ needs.
Followed the birth of Wild Code School’s first
campus in 2013, in La Loupe, France
More Women in Tech Positions
Tech jobs have never been that valued among young
girls, even though our own vocations emerge at a very
young age. No surprise that only 17% of women are
working in tech, and that there are still a lot of barri-
ers for women to work in the IT world. Paradoxically,
tech companies increasingly seek women candidates
and are starting to value gender diversity among
teams.
The goal of Anna Stépanoff is to create an educational
environment that empowers people, especially
women. The school is progressively moving towards
gender parity within IT fields by taking actions to
facilitate women's access to its training courses.
In 2017, the initiative Women are Programming
aimed to boost women’s tech education by providing
scholarships to acquire the hard and soft skills to
make it as a tech professional. This was available on
Wild Code School’s European campuses, such as:
● Coding Bootcamp Lisbon
● Coding Bootcamp Berlin
Another action is the promotion of women partners’
and Wilders’ careers and role models through events,
interviews, articles, videos... Anna Stépanoff is one of
them: mother of 3 children, and yet CEO of a leading
tech school, Entrepreneur, and Regional advisor of
the French Centre-Val de Loire Region, she made a
successful career:
“Organize your life balance, work and family - with
kids specially, they take time and the company takes
time. I have 3 kids and that is my everyday challenge,
we need to share responsibilities with our partner and
father of our kids and be supported. I personally
recommend women to be brave, to think that it is
possible - I see a lot of women limiting themselves.
Just go for it and try things and if it doesn’t work, it is
ok!”
3
33 April 2022

34. Technology talents are all around us, that is why the
school is encouraging its students to change careers or
upskill to fulfill their dreams, and helping companies
find their next tech talent. Today, the rate of return to
employment for women (86%) is even higher than
Wild Code School’s overall rate (82%). Regardless of
their initial level or age, female candidates are highly
sought after.
Wild Code School’s students and partners
prove it everyday:
“Go for it! You’re capable, courageous, and just as
justified as men. Do it for yourself—but also for
future generations. Your choices today will make the
difference tomorrow. And if you falter at first, do it
again!” - Anne, Talent Acquisition Specialist at
Ubisoft Ivory Tower
“No more clichés of the pimply-faced geek developer
with glasses locked in the dark. Web development is
within the reach of anyone who is motivated and
invested! As women, we can bring something different
to the profession. [...] We sometimes have a sharper
eye for the practicality of certain features. We can be
an asset to a team and we shouldn't be afraid to take
the plunge.” - Sophie, Toulouse alumni in web
development
“I was planning to go into the data analysis field and
it turned out that Wild Code School was looking for
future students with my profile - and they were ward-
ing scholarships for the training. [...] It was a gift of
destiny for me. It was exactly what I wanted to do and
it came at the right time” - Doriane, a Paris alumni
in data analysis
“I worked for a few years in a consulting company
and wanted to switch to coding. At that time, I discov-
ered the initiative Women are Programming on
Facebook and decided to apply for the scholarship. I
passed the tests and joined Wild Code School for a
5-month web developer training and I am now
specializing in front-end development. [...] Wild Code
School not only allowed me to discover powerful tech
tools and languages, but also gave me all the skills I
needed to have a global vision and practical experi-
ence in web development and be multi-skilled and
totally resourceful in finding a job afterwards.” -
Audrey, Brussels alumni in web development
“Never hesitate to get started! This is a fast-growing
sector and there is a great demand for new recruits.
Moreover, you should not be afraid of this environ-
ment, which is still predominantly male, otherwise it
will remain so and that would be a pity!” - Servanne,
a Remote alumni in cybersecurity
34 April 2022

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