Top 10 most successful women in cloud entrepreneurs(1) compressed

10
MOST SUCCESSFUL
WOMEN IN CLOUD ENTREPRENEURS
www.insightssuccess.in
2021 | Volume-06 | Issue-05

Together We
are Stronger
he rise in the number of women entrepreneurs in
Tthe last decade has been enormous, and almost
every business sector has been continually
experiencing the multiple waves of entrepreneurial tides.
Striking out the issues that come with conventional
methodologies, these women entrepreneurs believe in
taking charge in their hands to succeed. Women are known
for their natural traits such as compassion, nurturance,
eloquence, supportiveness, and much more. They
implement these traits to bring a new approach to the table,
cultivating a work culture that is diverse and inclusive, and
assistive to the team. Culminating with such qualities that
are proven to boost the business acumen, an initiative of
Women in Cloud came into fruition.
Women in Cloud is a community-led economic
development organization aiming to generate $1B in net
global economic access for women entrepreneurs by 2030
through partnerships with corporations, community leaders,
and policymakers. Women in Cloud is creating access to
partnership opportunities and programs that accelerate
business growth in the cloud and strategic alliances that
advance the success of women in technology. Since its
beginning, Women in Cloud has impacted various aspects
of the communities, accelerating women entrepreneurs'
growth. The initiative has proven to be an absolute boon for
women leaders to empower each other to address various
challenges while expanding their network.
As I previously mentioned, women are excellent in their
innovative approach, and Women in Cloud entirely justiﬁes
that trait. These leaders not only came together but also
have opened doors for aspiring women to contribute in a
Editor’s Desk

way that gives them an incredible head start. In a
world that is more demanding, women leaders are
pushing their boundaries and rising above
expectation, securing professional facets by
surrounding themselves with people that support
them to shine. Women reciprocate these behaviors by
inspiring people around while encouraging the urge
to deliver effective results that are unmatched in
every way possible. These women entrepreneurs are
flying high by staying down-to-earth, disrupting their
niche, and are setting examples to be remembered for
centuries.
To shed light on the tales of women entrepreneurs
who have achieved a great feat in their field,
outgrowing their fear of leading with a global
mindset. Insights Success celebrates the journey of
these leaders in its latest edition, "Top 10 Most
Successful Women in Cloud Entrepreneurs".
We invite you to go through the featured profiles that
distinctively cover several life aspects of these
women entrepreneurs. Also, take a glance at the
article that gives in-depth details about the Women in
Cloud initiative penned down by the in-house
editorial team.
Enjoy the Read!
sourabh@insightssuccess.com
Sourabh More

C O N T E N T S
Articles
Stepping Out
Why We Need Women
in Leadership?
28 Supporting
Entrepreneurs
Leading Diligently by Being
Empowered with WIC Program
44
Allie Knull
Taking the Recruitment
Process to New Heights
10
Cathy Light
Driven to Help Companies Be Better
for a Brighter World
14

Kiyeon Nam
Preventing Kids from Going Missing and Keeping
Them Safe Through Smart Wear IoT Solution
36
Geneviève Desautels
Harnessing Innovations to Create Immersive
and Unique Learning Experiences
32
Gail Mercer-MacKay
Serving Clients with Integrity
24
Donna Conroy
Innovating Clinical Data Analytics to
Accelerate Drug Development
18

Sarah Haggard
Leading from Front by
Walking the Talk
56
Nehal Mehta
Securing Digital World in an
Unconventional Way
52
Martha Montoya
Improving Proﬁtability of Farmers and
Buyers through Actionable Market Data
48
Kristen Miller
Revolutionizing the Omni-Channel
Shopping Experience
40

sales@insightssuccess.com
June, 2021
Editor-in-Chief
Senior Sales Manager Business Development Manager
Marketing Manager
Technical Head
Technical Specialist Digital Marketing Manager
Research Analyst
Database Management Technology Consultant
Hitesh Dhamani
Managing Editor
Anish Miller
Executive Editor
Sourabh More
Assistant Editors
Jenny Fernandes
Visualizer
David King
Art & Design Director
Priyanka Rajage
Associate Designer
Kartik Balapurkar
Kshitij S Peter Collins
John Matthew
Sales Executives
David, Martin, Irfan
Business Development Executives
Steve, Joe, Saurabh
Jacob Smile
Aditya Marry D'Souza
SME-SMO Executive
Amol Wadekar Frank Adams
Circulation Manager
Robert Brown Stella Andrew David Stokes
Shubham Dali
Co-designer
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Brief
Company Name
Stylyze
stylyze.com
Kristen Miller
CEO and Co-Founder
Stylyze is a cloud-based SaaS platform.
ResumeFree
resumefree.ca
Allie Knull
Founder and CEO
Resume Free is a job-matching site that connects candidates
with employers, without using a resume.
Kiyeon Nam
Inventor, Founder,
and CEO
B’ZT LLC
smartbzt.com
B’ZT Smart Clothing is the most comfortable tracking device
for children and the most convenient assistive technology for
parents and caregivers in the world.
Gail Mercer-MacKay
Founder and CEO
Mercer-MacKay
Digital Storytelling
mercermackay.com
Mercer-MacKay Digital Solutions is digital storytelling
company.
Rainbow Secure
rainbowsecure.com
Nehal Mehta
President and
Co-Founder
Rainbow Secure Provides Password, Zero-trust login,
Identities, Smart MFA ,Office Solutions.
Martha Montoya
CEO
Agtools Inc.
ag.tools
AgTools is a worldwide SaaS platform.
Cathy Light
Founder and CEO
Lideranca Group
liderancagroup.com
Lideranca Group, Inc. is a business and workforce acceleration
firm.
Donna Conroy
Founder and CEO
SciMar ONE
LLC
SciMar ONE operationalizes clinical data with AI to improve
healthcare.
Sarah Haggard
Founder and CEO
Tribute
tributementorship.com
Tribute is a workplace mentorship app that radically redefines
and improves mentorship for your company and your
employees.
Geneviève Desautels
CEO
illuxi supports experts and organizations to host, market and
design online trainings, remote professional services, virtual
events, live videos and podcasts.
illuxi
illuxi.com
Featured Person

Allie Knull
Founder and CEO
ResumeFree
10 | June 2021 www.insightssuccess.com

Allie Knull
Taking the Recruitment Process to New Heights
Attracting and retaining the best talent is a challenging
task for all businesses. In an organization, having the
right person for the job is necessary for the business.
However, recruiting the right person could be a challenge
even when conditions are ideal. Identifying the competent
candidates from the sea of applications is work of preciseness
andneedstobedonerightfromthebeginningoftheprocess.
Allie Knull is an inspiring entrepreneur and recruitment
professional with 20 years of extensive experience, working
to advance the recruiting process and to ensure that recruiters
don’t end up losing vital organizational resources.Allie is the
Founder and CEO of ResumeFree, an innovative
technology which helps employers and candidates find the
right fit, all without resumes.The idea was to align technology
in a way that provides secure, job specific predictive analytics
which simplify the recruiting process, taking the guesswork
outofwhetheror notthecandidateandemployer“fit”.
EveryChallengeBringsNew Learning
Before starting ResumeFree, Allie was running a consulting
firm.After she saw the possibilities with aligning technology
and businesses together, she thought “What if we could do
things a little bit better? What if we could hire without using
resumes? What if we could have a tool that could do that?”
This integration of technology and recruitment process led to
theinceptionofResumeFree.
Being a non-tech tech founder, Allie had faced a lot of
challenges to transform her vision into reality. From merging
with the people that created the tool and licensing it, seeking
global approval from all of the partners, to developing the
tool as economically as possible,Allie had to overcome a lot
of hurdles. She believes that there was a big learning curve
on how much work needs to go in behind the scenes, and how
tomakeatoolreally,trulyaccessiblefor peopleas well.
AComprehensiveScreeningTool
According to Allie, in today’s recruitment process the
resume only shows the candidate’s achievements, academia,
and previous work experience. There could be
marginalization from people in specific areas; those who
couldn't get into elite colleges, those who didn't have an
internship, or people who chose to do all of their schooling
rather than work. These types of people could be turned
down for roles because of their lack of experience, education
credentials,or ofvoluntaryroles.
At ResumeFree™, we understand that it is challenging to
assign values to “intangible” characteristics on a resume, such
as honesty or approachability. We screen candidates based on
175 behavioural qualities. The questions we ask reveal a
candidate’s interpersonal and soft skills – all of the things that
are impossible to measure in a resume. This data takes the
guesswork out of hiring and gives employers more clarity and
oversightthroughouttherecruitmentprocess.
Empowering OthersWhileLeading
Being a leader very early on in her career, Allie has been
managing people for 20 plus years now. Through her journey
she has experienced different personalities and different styles
of management all the way through. In her opinion, impactful
leadership is all about empowering people to make decisions.
At ResumeFree™,Allie has a very small team of five people.
Even with this size of team, she allows her team to make their
own decisions without feeling like they aren't allowed to fail.
She believes that as a leader it is essential to make sure that
peopleareempowered.
AContinual inGrowth
After graduating from the Women in Cloud Microsoft
Accelerator program, ResumeFree™ has since gone from one
or two sales every month to growing monthly recurring
revenue including returning clients that see it as being part of
their recruitment process. Year over year thus far is 400%
growth, and the company still has five months to go. Allie
states “We’ve increased our client base five times what it was
last year. We’re now listed on Microsoft Appsource and
Women in Cloud Marketplace. We’ve gone from servicing one
countrytofour and soon tobesix.”
11
|
June 2021
www.insightssuccess.com
Top 10 Most Successful Women in Cloud Entrepreneurs

For Allie, the biggest hurdle was to navigate how to sell her
product well as there are many different markets she can
service. Women In Cloud Accelerator helped her in refining
the message and more importantly change it to what resonates
withthebuyers/clients.
Allie mentions that 2020 was an impactful year, and for her
team to share that it can reduce human bias in the screening
process to zero was the key for the organization to gaining
new contracts.
Allie asserts “As a female founder faced with a wildly
unknown year, the support and encouragement of my cohort
was absolutely phenomenal. We celebrate each other’s
successes and support eachother’s businesses.”
Opportunities forWomen Entrepreneurs
Allie opines that Fortune 1000 companies will provide
opportunities and connections for female founded vendors to
have their solutions enter the enterprise marketplace with
greater success and traction than before. These companies are
striving for the UN Sustainable Development Goals and are
We use proven factors
to screen for fit first,
remove bias, saving
time & money. Finally, a
formula for hiring
success!
‘‘
‘‘
actively putting into practice processes and programs to
ensure equitable procurement for all vendors. These
companies also have the unique ability to help companies do
proof of concept and help define early-stage technology to not
only advance their digital transformation within their
organization, but also provide the access for these founders
who may not have the funding to wholly build out their tech
on theirown.
EnlighteningEmergingEntrepreneurs
In her advice to budding women entrepreneurs, Allie says, “I
think there are so many fear-based decisions because we are
used to being in our comfort and safety zone. But, I feel you
should take that leap of faith and not be afraid to step into
something that's new or foreign or something that you didn't
think that you'd be doing. There are lots of resources out there,
justseekand find your community.”
She further adds, “Don't be afraid that somebody is going to
steal that idea. It's your idea. You bring it to fruition, and then
youwillgetalltheaccoladesforit.”

Cathy Light
Driven to Help Companies Be Better for a Brighter World
Being a successful entrepreneuris not a destination;it’s
a journey of risk-taking and learning experiences
comprised of facing and overcoming challenges.
Being an entrepreneur is often nerve-racking and scary. Still, a
consistent eﬀort, talent, and a strong desire to contribute
meaningfully to the world will ultimately lead to success and
satisfaction. Cathy Light is a serial entrepreneur. Her journey
through corporate America garnered her a great deal of
experience and shaped her entrepreneurial spirit. Cathy is the
Founder and CEO of Liderança Group, the parent of four
strategic brands: Assessment Leaders, Leadership Balance®,
BeWellPerformWell,andDiversity,Equity&Inclusion.
Cathy has long recognized that it is an organization’s people
that are responsible for its success. That’s why all four of
Liderança Group’s brands are people-focused and thrive by
helping clients worldwide exceed their goals by transforming
theirworkplaceculture.
Driving Meaningful and Substantive DEI in the
Workplace
Cathy is a distinguished thought leader and a dynamic speaker
with an engaging personality, who is widely known for the
passion and rigor she brings to her work. She has built a team
of people committed to helping organizations reach their full
potential. The multi-faceted Liderança Group helps corporate
leaders develop and manage internal teams dedicated to
achieving exceptional results. Her company recently
introduced a unique, metrics-driven program for driving
meaningful and substantive diversity, equity, and inclusion
(DEI) in the workplace. It does so by helping leaders identify
opportunities for improvement, elevate conversations around
diversity,andinspirechange.
In 2017, Liderança Group was engaged with several top
Fortune clients who asked if she had a way to measure
diversity and inclusion. They didn’t, but that became the
inciting event for their newest project. Cathy’s team found
that nothing existed that would measure what matters in the
DEI-Belonging space. Knowing that in a data-driven world,
what gets measured gets done, Cathy and her team created
DEInamics®.
DEInamics is a software platform that measures an
organization's DEI health in seven key dimensions and
provides ongoing data collection and benchmark reporting.
By identifying people, process, power, and belonging gaps,
DEInamics’ colorful charts and graphs, along with emotion-
gauging images, help to prioritize action plans to create more
equitable and inclusive workplaces. For its advancement of
the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal of Gender
Equality, DEInamics was named as part of Microsoft’s
#BuildFor2030Campaign
HelpingClientsNavigateOrganizationalTransformation
Change brings incredible opportunity. Stagnation in business
is not an option for future-facing companies and individuals
with a growth mindset. Liderança Group’s business model
focuses on helping transform the disrupters of today into the
thought leaders of tomorrow. LiderançaGroup’s expertiselies
in identifying areas of sustainable growth and providing
actionable strategies that ignite change. Its key objective is to
build long-term, successful relationships with its clients to
helpthemnavigateorganizationaltransformation.
DeliveringSubstantialValuetoClients
Liderança Group is committed to improving behaviors,
developing people, and changing workplaces to help
organizations reach the next level of growth and performance.
Liderança Group is built on the values of balance, generosity,
innovation,learning,communication,andtrust.
Cathy believes in connecting with all levels of people to create
market-driven change, empowering innovation, and

Cathy Light
Founder/CEO
Lideranca Group
15
|
June 2021

transforming leadership. To do that, Liderança Group invests
time in understanding clients’ cultures, processes and people
toensureitcandelivervalue.
Ensuring Organizations Remain Competitive in an Ever-
Changing Landscape
Liderança Group delivers faster, better, and more cost-
effective solutions that have a profound company-wide
impact. She states that her vision is “to do the right things to
make our world a brighter and fairer place to live and work.”
Liderança Group is a proud disrupter of business, ensuring
today’s organizations can compete in the ever-changing
landscape. Highly experienced and having helped guide
transformations in Fortune companies worldwide, Liderança
Group offers consultative services that identify areas for
sustainable growth with actionable strategies that ignite
change.
Liderança Group is
a proud disrupter
of business,
ensuring today’s
organizations can
compete in the
ever-changing
landscape.
‘‘
‘‘
Appreciation for the Lessons Learned from the WIC
Program
Since Cathy began as an entrepreneur in 2003, she has always
made it a point to surround herself with people who augment
her skillset. She states that the brilliant people she’s met
through the Women in Cloud (WIC) Microsoft Accelerator
Program, through Microsoft, and through the International
Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) have
taught her so much. Theresa Linson, VP of Innovation at
Crayon, and her team, in collaboration with our product
management technology team, are doing incredible
developmentwork.
Whenever Cathy and her team would stumble, someone in
this vast ecosystem of support filled with talented resources
would lend them a hand. Many doors opened to Cathy from
the Microsoft community; supporters who want to see a
woman-owned technology company succeed (especially for
this much-needed data analytics tool). This fantastic group of
people, especially Cathy notes, Chaitra Vedullapalli and
Karen Fassio, are selfless and committed to creating
economic access for women. Currently, less than 2% of
funding goes to women-led companies – a statistic that needs
tochange.
MakingPersonalSacrificestoGetProduct toMarket
Since graduating from the Women in Cloud Microsoft Cloud
Accelerator on January 23, 2020, Cathy tested the product in

beta and entered into a Development Partnership with
Crayon.com – Microsoft's 2019 #1 Global AI Partner. The
goal with Crayon.com is to advance DEInamics from a
Minimal Viable Product (MVP) to a Minimal Loveable
Product(MLP).
The development and marketing of DEInamics have been
self-funded by Cathy. She alludes that while it hasn't been
easy to make the personal sacriﬁces to get this much-needed
product into the marketplace, it is worth it as Liderança Group
is now ready to scale. “I believe in the power of this product,”
says Cathy. “It can be used as a force for good and help
companies make informed decisions that will have a profound
impact." Thus far, Cathy has not applied for any grants but
willbepursuinggrowthoptions.
Support forWomentoPursueTechnologyIdeas
Cathy believes that creating economic access for women
should be a priority as there is a long way to go toward gender
parity and equity in technology. Research shows that COVID
set women back with many more women than men leaving the
workforce to care for children and elders and support remote
learning. Cathy would like to see VCs and PEs fund women-
owned ventures by committing to a collective dollar amount,
so women can go from the current 2% in funding to 10% by
theendof2021andkeepfocusedongrowingthatpercentage.
Cathy states that it is essential to help more women pursue
their technology ideas to close the industry equality gap. With
theAccelerator Program, Microsoft and WIC have created an
amazing opportunity to accelerate and reﬁne ideas and make
them viable for the marketplace. Cathy believes that
women need more success stories to inspire other women
to pursue their dreams. She says, “It’s easy to let fear of
failure or lack of tech knowledge hold you back. But don’t.
Seek out what you need. There are support networks to guide
you along the way: Women in Cloud, The WIT Network,
IAMCP,andofcourse,Microsoft.”
Cathy’s advice to upcoming women entrepreneurs, "A good
idea is not enough. You need to have an external go-to-market
strategy and internal plans to support those strategies where
you align people skills with processes that drive to an
execution plan. The ability to consistently generate
repeatable revenue is key. Compose an Advisory Board where
industry leaders can contribute their expertise and help you to
avoid pitfalls. Finally, timing and a little luck will play a role.
While it may seem daunting, know that you and your team can
makeithappen!”
17
|
June 2021

Donna Conroy
Founder/CEO
SciMar ONE, LLC

DONNA CONROY
Innovating Clinical Data Analytics to Accelerate Drug Development
Our common global enemy is disease, so we built a
system for pharma that uses data to accelerate
development of drugs to fight emerging diseases,”
says Donna Conroy.
Donna Conroy, M.S. is CEO and Founder of SciMar ONE,
LLC, a clinical data analytics technology company.
Throughout her career, Donna has focused on two passions:
translating complicated science to evolve drug development
and building work environments that support women -
especiallyworking mothers,amissionclosetoherheart.
Donna oversees SciMar’s day-to-day business and uses her
extensive scientific background to support the clinical team.
Through her leadership at SciMar, Donna was named one of
New Jersey’s Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and was
accepted into the prestigious Women in Cloud Microsoft
Cloud Accelerator, 2020. Donna credits participation in
Microsoft’s Women In Cloud Accelerator for stimulating key
ideas and providing access to opportunities to catapult SciMar
towhereitistoday.
The Problemwith ClinicalData
As the COVID-19 pandemic revealed, there is a global
challenge in managing tremendous volumes of clinical data to
effectively treat disease. To combat this “avalanche” of
information, the pharmaceutical industry needs a powerful
solution to identify, process and align scientifically validated
datatodrug developmentworkflow.
There has always been a wealth of clinical data, but rapid
advancements in technology allow for huge volumes of both
good and non-validated data dissemination. Add a volume
issue to an existing myriad of clinical data interoperability
challenges and pharma is left with a problem that both
expediatesandslows drug development.
Seeing this inefficiency within the drug development process,
Donna identified the whitespace that informed SciMar’s
missiontobuildasolutionthatexpeditesdrugdevelopment.
Today, Donna’s work centers around SciMar’s proprietary
™
technology solution called The Scientific Data Engine
(SDE). The SDE is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered
drug development platform that accelerates cross-functional
drug development. SciMar was recently accepted into
Microsoft for Startups, a global program to help build and
scale the SDE.
Translating Science with Evolving Technology
Donna began SciMar as a consultancy in 2003 when she left a
successful, fast-track career in pharma to have a family. As a
consultant, she helped pharmaceutical clients translate
complicated science into meaningful market needs. She
developed, executed, and implemented drug development
plans with strategies that delivered results, all while raising
four children.
In 2014, as technology advanced, Donna transitioned SciMar
from a consultancy to a small business. With a new vision, she
led the company in building early-version technology
solutions to identify useful data from mounds of clinical
information. In 2015, SciMar offered a basic version of the
SDE to solve a small portion of clinical data management
challenges. These early solutions were customized for
Fortune-500pharmaceuticalcompanies.
Although building and selling sole-proprietor solutions was
beneficial, it was rate limiting, allowing SciMar to only work
with one pharma company at a time in a specific disease.
When drugs failed the drug development process, or divisions
were sold, the SDE was no longer needed. More concerning
was the loss of significant data insights/analytics that could
continueadvancingpatientcare.
Seeing an opportunity to better meet the needs of multiple
clients and progress healthcare globally, Donna made a
strategic decision in early 2020. She would pivot SciMar’s
business and re-imagine the SDE as a SaaS solution. This
innovative and more comprehensive SDE would offer three
distinctadvantages:
1) SPEED to compile and sort mounds of validated clinical
data instantly 2) FLEXIBILITY with disease-specific data
models that quickly and easily adapt to any disease, and 3)
UNDERSTANDING with deeper analytical capabilities that
provide clients the exact information needed to develop data-
driven,innovativedrugs.
The incorporation of advanced technology was required to
adopt this vision. The SDE was enhanced with AI powered
“
19
|
June 2021

technology including Natural Language Processing (NLP)
and Machine Learning (ML). The goal of reimagining the
SDE to accelerate innovative drug development was
underway.
Today the SDE system solves significant challenges within
pharmaceutical drug development and gets life-saving
therapiestomarket2-3yearsfaster.
The most significant advancement is the shift of clinical data
analytics from humans to technology. This shift streamlines
drug development workflow and translates to significant
savings of more than $34M for every drug in development.
Currently, there are 204 drug development teams working on
just the top 6 emerging diseases which equates to a $7 billion
dollarsavings tothepharmaceuticalindustry.
GlobalImpactAwards and Recognition
The decision to pivot the business and focus on progressing
global healthcare resulted in recognition of the SDE’s
alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG 3: Good Heatlh and Well-
Being.
In the fall of 2020, the SDE was honored as a top 10 idea
solving the United Nations SDGs in the AI Solutions 2030
design contest sponsored by Ideagen® and Women in Cloud.
In February 2021, the SDE solution was chosen by Microsoft
for its #BuildFor2030 campaign which supports Microsoft
partners aligned to the UN SDGs and making a difference by
enabling an inclusive economy, creating opportunities, and
positivebusiness outcomes.
Micosoft’sWomen inCloud MicrosoftAccelerator
Navigating the Women in Cloud opportunity during a global
pandemic created several interesting challenges and
successes for Donna. Participating in the accelerator program,
she learned the value of flexibility, resetting the course and
challenginghercurrentknowledgebase.
The Women in Cloud program helped Donna gain the skills
required to overcome many business hurdles of reimaging the
SDE. Specifically, she revamped the business model and re-
evaluated the SDE’s value propositions. SciMar’s partnership
with Microsoft’s Women in Cloud helped secure industry-
leading technology advisors and advance the SDE technology
with global expertise. In addition, the COVID-19 SDE
became available to prospective pharma clients through both
the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace and the Women In
Cloud Commercial Marketplace to quickly expand the
customerbase.
Expanding Opportunities forWomen
Throughout her career, Donna has maintained a passion for
creating work environments that support women – especially
working mothers. She developed SciMar’s work-from-home
model years before it was an accepted practice, to
accommodate her own need for work-life balance with four
children. This need evolved into a strong belief of attracting
talent over physical presence. “What I learned is there were so
many smart, talented women who wanted it all, but were
struggling,” said Donna. “Yet there is an inherent efficiency in
these women that translates to strong work born out of the
desiretoaccommodatebothfamilyandacareer.”
Over the years, this need transcended beyond women and
therefore, SciMar is committed to building programs that hire
talented people who would otherwise leave their careers
because of life events. Donna has established a program
providing flexible roles that allow people to build and
maintain their careers and skills while balancing life. This
flexibility not only attracts high talent, but fosters growth of
SciMar’s employees, so they continue building a career at
theirown non-traditionalpace.
Donna is eager to expand and create new opportunities for
women at the executive level as she grows her company.
Goals include women representing more than 50% of the
Board of Directors, executive management, and advisory
boards.
In addition, SciMar proactively partners with women-owned
companies, and is establishing internship and mentoring
programswithatleast50%enrollmentfor womeninSTEM.
Our common global
enemy is disease, so we
built a system for pharma
that uses data to
accelerate development
of drugs to fight emerging
diseases.
“
“

Gail Mercer-MacKay
Serving Clients with Integrity
assion plus experience equals great results. An avid
Pmarketer, Gail Mercer-MacKay combined a passion
for storytelling with years of sales & marketing
experience gained at technology ﬁrms to found Mercer-
MacKaySolutions.
As a business owner and innovator, Gail understands the
challenges of the corporate world and believes strongly in
mentorship as a path to produce results. She has inspired
many to forge their own IT journey. Along with her
enthusiasm for story-telling, Gail is a problem-solver
committed to helping people build valuable business and
personalconnections.
During her years working in the world of IT sales, Gail
learned the kind of messaging that customers want to hear
from technology companies, but it was when she left the role
of VP of Sales & Marketing for a Microsoft ISV that her
entrepreneurial journey really began. She started a small
agency helping Microsoft partners tell their stories, market
themselves and connect with customers. Over time, she built a
successful agency that cracked and then exceeded the million-
dollar revenue ceiling, something that few female
entrepreneursareabletodo.
RecognizeOpportunities
Gail prides herself on being a risk-taker but believes in
making calculated bets. Along her journey, she carefully
assessed available opportunities before investing, ultimately
building an agile, resilient, scalable business that oﬀers value
toabroadcommunityofclients.
Throughout her career, she witnessed start-ups being built –
some were successful while others failed – and took those
lessons forward when she established Mercer-MacKay. She
set out to create something unique, fostering a culture where
everyone at the company could both contribute to its growth
andshareinitssuccess.
AStrongAdvocate forWomen inCloud
Today, Mercer-MacKay is a Microsoft supplier and partner.
Chaitra Vedullapalli – Founder of Women in Cloud –
introduced Gail to the Women in Cloud (WIC) Microsoft
CloudAccelerator. During her six-month accelerator journey,
Gail built her own application on Microsoft Dynamics in the
Azurecloud.
Gail says, “The WICAccelerator opened my eyes to the power
of the Microsoft Dynamics platform. It's a great technology to

Gail Mercer-MacKay, Founder and CEO,
Mercer-MacKay Digital Storytelling
25
|
June 2021

build on and it's fantastic for women entrepreneurs who want
to build in the cloud because you can get into the market really
quickly using ‘citizen developers’ for no-code/low-code
programming.”
As a Microsoft Dynamics partner, Mercer-MacKay was able
to build MVP (Minimum Value Product) for under $100,000,
going from paper to product in 8 weeks. Gail credits her
participation in the WIC Accelerator for helping Mercer-
MacKay receive software development funding, allowing the
teamtothendeveloparevenue-generatingversion.
Mercer MacKay launched its first software module one year
ago and immediately had 300 registrants generating over
$200,000 in sales. The company’s annual sales revenue went
from $3M to $6M and it was selected by Forrester[1] as one of
the world’s top marketing firms for providing channel
marketingsolutionstotechnologycompanies.
Expanding DiversityinCanada
Mercer-MacKay’s plan to build on Microsoft Dynamics as
well as Gail’s participation in the WICAccelerator attracted a
lot of attention, including that of the Canadian government.
The NRC IRAP program provided funding to help with
expansion and the company grew 79% in the past year. In
2020 Mercer-MacKay was ranked number 7 in the top 100
companies certified as a Great Place to Work in Canada,
highlightingtheirfocus onwomenandinclusivity.
ABigBelieverinGivingBack
Gail sees Mercer-MacKay as part of an ecosystem; she
believes in nurturing all parties, including employees,
partners, customers, and suppliers. To that end, the company
holds daily meditation breaks, and offers both healthcare and
mental health benefits. At the outbreak of the pandemic, they
put extra support in place to ensure everyone was cared for,
including offering special tutors for parents homeschooling
theirchildrenas wellasadditional‘pandemic-days’off.
In her life and her work, Gail is guided by the Zig Ziglar quote
that says: "You will have everything you want in life if you
helpenoughotherpeoplegeteverythingtheywant."
I believe that when we
serve others and help them
become the best version of
themselves – whether
personally or professionally
– there are no limits to
what we can achieve.
“
“

Why We Need
Women in
Leadership?
Stepping Out

The more we learn about the dynamics of the
business world, the more we realize that female
leadership in the business world is crucial. Various
surveys across the globe prove that organizations with
adequate representation of female leaders can outperform
organizations that lack female leadership. Organizations
with gender diversity and sufficient females in leadership
positions are more profitable than those with issues like
gender discrimination, gender inequality, and differences in
the pay gaps between men and women. The organizations
that treat both men and women fairly and avoid prejudiced
mentality against females can thrive more than the
organizations having issues with female leadership.
Having female leaders in any organization create a positive
and non-discriminatory environment all-around. The
potential and capabilities of women leaders should not be
underestimated. They have the tremendous potential and
abilities to deliver more than expected or more than needed.
Female leadership is a boon because their soft and cognitive
skills help them become the most empathetic and efficient
business leaders. Both male and female leadership are
complementary to each other. Both can do justice to their
roles and responsibilities more judiciously; therefore,
avoiding all forms of gender discrimination is a win-win for
everyone in the business world.
Female leaders add incredible value to organizations with
their skills, abilities, talents, and resourcefulness. Their
composure, calmness, and serenity help them make the
right decisions in the interests of business growth and
profitability. Women leaders have a fantastic blend of
courage and consideration; courage in them allows
them to make bold decisions, and consideration
within women leaders helps them guide others
empathetically to bring out the best in them.
The qualities of fine speech, sharp memory,
cognitive intelligence, patience,
thoughtfulness, and fortitude help them
deal with almost any situation bravely
and respond with intelligence. They are
good negotiators; therefore, female
leaders can make good business deals
and ensure the profitability of the
businesses.
Underrepresentation of females
in leadership positions in all
fields worldwide is certainly not beneficial for the all-round
growth and development of all sectors. Celebrating and
upholding the spirit of gender diversity is crucial in all
industries. Better financial outcomes are pretty quickly
possible for businesses with gender diversity.
Equitable and fair representation of both genders in all
leadership positions is the way to make the world a better
place. It is generally said that variety is the mother of
enjoyment, and it is true. The teams with gender diversity
perform better because the viewpoints and ideas from both
genders help organizations be more innovative and more
creative, and innovativeness leads to more positive
outcomes for businesses.
No organizations can sustain their competency in the
business market without female leaders on the board and
overall equitable and fair representation of women in their
organizations. The world is evolving rapidly with evolution
in technology, and no organization can afford
discrimination and prejudice mentality against women
leaders. Women leaders bring their unique skills, different
viewpoints, structural and cultural differences, which help
drive effective and evolved solutions to the existing
problems in the business world. The female leaders have
proven themselves that they can lead from the front and
inspire fellow team members to bring out their best for the
cause of the organization. Women leaders are good at
leading by example. They set exemplary standards in front
of others and lead by promoting the spirit of contribution in
the team members.
Having more women in leadership positions can help close
the gender pay gap, which will be a more positive step in all
sectors. Women leaders can negotiate well in high-stakes
situations, and they are also capable of making high-value
decisions. The approach of complacency is negligible in
women leaders; therefore, this approach helps them lead
with responsibility and judiciously, which helps drive more
profitability for organizations. With all the benefits that
female leaders can deliver, organizations should encourage
and empower females to be in significant leadership
positions for their sustainable success.
29
|
June 2021

Geneviève
Desautels
CEO, illuxi

GENEVIÈVE
DESAUTELS
Harnessing Innovations to Create Immersive
and Unique Learning Experiences
o sustain in the competitive world with cut-throat
Tcompetition one needs to keep learning continuously
to avail the advantage over others. Traditional
methods of skills development no longer meet the needs of the
ever-changing work environment. This leads to the learning
decline in the workplace. Recognizing this, Geneviève
Desautels decided to find a technological solution to this
learning decline in the workplace. That's where illuxi, an
interactive e-learning platform, came in. As a CEO,
Genevièveissteeringtheship ofilluxi.
Geneviève worked in human resources for over 15 years
before starting her professional coaching company. Through
her journey coaching executives and managers in 300+
companies, she noticed that companies had less money and
less time for learning and development efforts. An urge to
bridgethisgapledhertoinceptilluxi.
PromotingLifelongLearningOpportunitiesforAll
At illuxi, its team members focus on promoting lifelong
learning opportunities for all, as they noticed a learning
decline in the workplace, mainly because organizations do not
see the direct benefits of investing in their workforce
development. illuxi’s AI-based learning solution will change
that, by providing the data needed for organizations to further
investintheirworkforceeducation.
The main reason Geneviève went about building a tech
business is to offer inclusive and equitable quality education
and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, as stated
in the United Nations 2030 agenda. She believes that
technology can give power back to the people through
education.
On top of that, there’s a little part of Geneviève that fights to
instigate change and allow daughters to grow up in an
entrepreneurial ecosystem focused on equality that includes
femaleentrepreneursintechnology.
CompetingWithMajorPlayersine-Learning
Geneviève joined Women in Cloud in 2020 because the
opportunity for community appealed to her personal goals.
She wanted to meet and learn new things from fellow women
entrepreneurs. Joining the Women in Cloud community
helped her come up with creative ideas to improve illuxi's
business model and lead illuxitosuccess.
33
|
June 2021

Accelerator, illuxi has been able to more effectively target
large companies with many employees to train. To offer
training programs to companies with 1000 employees or
more, one needs to have as many optimization processes
already in place as possible, which Women in Cloud helped
her to achieve. Women in Cloud allowed illuxi to compete
with major players in e- learning, especially with the opening
of anew officeinEuropeinSeptember2020.
In addition, Women in Cloud allowed illuxi to stand out
among the official Microsoft partners in the United States and
solidify its partnership with Microsoft by obtaining the "co-
sell" badge, which means that Microsoft invests directly in the
saleseffortsof illuxi'stechnologysolution.
Moreover, illuxi gained more than 10,000 new users and
increased its sales by 50% in Quebec. In addition, it made its
very first major sales in Europe (Luxembourg) in early 2021.
It is targeting three $100,000 projects in Europe by the end of
the year.To this end, illuxiis alreadyin discussions with major
partners in Europe (including the global giant Decathlon) who
areinterestedinitsCloudtechnology.
“illuxi supports
experts and
organizations to host,
market and design
online trainings,
remote professional
services, virtual
events, live videos
and podcasts on its
platform developed
in Montreal.”

TacklingStrategicandTacticalChallenges
Women in Cloud made it possible for Geneviève, as a CEO, to
reflect within a group and tackle strategic and tactical
challengesthatdirectlyaffecther companyand, morebroadly,
female entrepreneurs in technology throughout the world. It
was the desire to meet people (men and women alike) who
understand her reality as a female entrepreneur in technology
that brought her to Women in Cloud—and that’s exactly what
ledilluxiintobecominganinternationalcompany.
Reaching Out toWomen Entrepreneurs
One of Geneviève’s main goals with Women in Cloud was to
reach out to women entrepreneurs from around the world to
share and learn about industry challenges and about the
positive role women can have in enabling women’s economic
inclusion. Geneviève wants to contribute to increasing the
participation of women in the tech sector because she believes
that including more women in tech is proven to boost the
economywithcreativityandnew ways of doingbusiness.
PromotingWomen’s EconomicandTechInclusion
As the CEO of illuxi, Geneviève feels that Fortune 1000
companies play a major role in creating networks and
determining the conditions for access to capital. They come
up with potential solutions for women in technology to grow
their companies while contributing their diverse talent to the
globaltechcommunity.
Keeping a company up and running and profitable is a huge
task, especially for women in the tech sector. In the context of
economic inclusion, Geneviève believes that Fortune 1000
companies can create fluidity and quality of communication,
allowing everyone to learn from each other. Collective power
is the ability to combine talents, ideas, and forces to solve
complex challenges or crises and to fulfil new goals. Women
entrepreneurs can make it possible to reach economic
inclusion by collaborating with each other, and Fortune 1000
can make this happen quickly. The collective power of people
to create change, even as a virtual community, has never felt
moremeaningfulandnecessarythantoday.
Geneviève is of the opinion that women entrepreneurs should
be able to fulfil the desire of female CEOs at Fortune 1000
companies to meet female entrepreneurs who are both
mothers and entrepreneurs in technology and are aged 45
years or older. Fortune 1000 companies have to share the
thoughts and experiences of women who were able to find
investors and acquirers for women entrepreneurs to
understand how they were able to keep the bigger part of their
companies’shares.
35
|
June 2021

Kiyeon Nam
Preventing Kids from Going Missing and Keeping Them
Safe Through Smart Wear IoT Solution
Growing a small company into a universal brand is like
climbing a mountain; the journey has many
obstacles. For a leader, a positive attitude inspires
him/her to keep moving forward. One such innovative leader
is Kiyeon Nam, the Inventor, Founder, and CEO of B'ZT®
(BeaconZoneTechnology).
Kiyeon’s passion and dedication to create something new are
unmatched. Her experience as a fashion designer and business
merchandiser brings a special kind of creativity and
affordability to fashion technology. In addition, her desire to
improve herself and everyone around her makes her a great
leader.
Compassionate fortheVulnerable
The global issue of missing children is staggering.According
to FBI statistics, one child in America goes missing every
minute. Young children, especially with autism and similar
conditions, are prone to wandering off. Researchers have
found that almost half of autistic children attempt to wander
away,usuallyintodangeroussituations.
The tracking device industry is full of gadgets that are
uncomfortable to wear, easy to lose, or require monthly fees.
They offer unique but expensive products that don't gear
towards safety. The devices also lose functionality after
washings.
Nevertheless, there is an old saying that states amid chaos,
there is opportunity. Using her expertise in fashion design,
Kiyeon created B'ZT after temporarily losing her 3-year-old
daughter at a shopping mall because she couldn’t find a
location-based tracking device that was suitable or
comfortablefor herchild.
Kiyeon created B'ZT to keep parents and children safe and
connected, both here in NorthAmerica and around the world.
B'ZT is an award-winning personal safety solution,
combining fashion and geo-fence tracking technology to
prevent missing children and adults. She came up with a
comfortable and cost-effective solution for tracking children
and vulnerable individuals using Smart Clothing and
smartphoneapps.
AbilitytoThink Outside the Box
Many Internet of Things developers build their solutions first
to target big enterprise customers. Kiyeon took a different
path. She wanted to solve an everyday problem that parents
and caregivers experience with children and vulnerable
seniors. B'ZT products and apps were developed for parents
like herself, and they were soon evolved to be the safety
solution for teachers, institutional caregivers and enterprise
customers. The Women In Cloud Microsoft Cloud
Accelerator inspired her to think out of the box and see the
global potential of utilizing IoT technology to take B'ZT to
anotherlevel.
An Inspiring Business Savvy
Before B'ZT, Kiyeon worked as a professional in the fashion
industry for more than 20 years. Naturally, her vision of
B'ZT’s potential was limited to a Direct-to-Consumer model,

Kiyeon Nam
Inventor/Founder
and CEO
B’ZT, LLC.
37
|
June 2021

similar to other fashion brands. She didn’t embrace the
concept of the IoT and the lucrative data yielded by software
customization and cloud computing. Women in Cloud
revolutionized her thinking by giving a visionary mindset of
whatB'ZTcouldactuallybe.
Women in Cloud showed Kiyeon that B'ZT is not merely a
consumersafetysolutionbut an IoTSmartWearSolutionwith
enormous scalability. She can customize the company's
patented hardware and software so that fashion brands,
retailers, and hyper-scalers can license its solution. Kiyeon
believes that Women in Cloud is truly a great platform for
female entrepreneurs to network, collaborate, and succeed
together.
Advancing Human Connection
After the Women in Cloud accelerator program, Kiyeon
received an email from Dr. Pereira-Smith at Medical
University of South Carolina saying that B'ZT had finally
been approved by the institution's Institutional Review Board
(IRB). She still remembers the pediatrician’s first call last
summer during the pandemic, "I recommend your products to
the families [with autistic children] I work with.” Through the
MUSC, Kiyeon has fulfilled the bulk shipment of the smart
chipsetsto100 familieswithchildrenwithautism.
Afew days after the enterprise order, CCS DisabilityAction in
New Zealand called Kiyeon to tell that B'ZT was a lifesaver.
One of the families that was using a B'ZT T-shirt for their 5-
year old autistic child was able to stop her right before she
walkedtowardahighway. CCS isconsideringare-order.
B'ZT is not a gadget that you sometimes use and sometimes
don’t. Kids' safety is serious. That is why Kiyeon had to try
and fail 11 times to come up with the latest version of the B’ZT
machine washable smart chipset. She says B’ZT has a
different purpose in the IoT world. Its mission is saving lives
inthesafestway possible.
KeepMovingForward!
Here are a few ideas that Kiyeon would like to see
implementedoverthenext5 years:
Ÿ Companies could offer semi-annual investment grants to
12 female-led businesses that operate within the same
sector. These entrepreneurs can utilize the grants to grow
theirenterprisesas theyseefit.
Ÿ Companies can partner with female-focused associations
or small business programs to sponsor mentorships of
selectfemale-foundedcompaniesfor 1year.
Ÿ Stipends and scholarships can be created by companies for
promising female entrepreneurs who need to further their
educationthatwould benefittheirenterprise.
Ÿ Companies can take an active role in bringing younger
women into the STEM field by offering both internships
and scholarships.The number of female entrepreneurs has
been increasing over the years, but so much more can be
done.
The ideas that Kiyeon has put forth are merely a foundation in
which female entrepreneurs can get a bigger seat at the table
withthehelpoftheFortune1000.
For the most
vulnerable people in
your life, we are
committed to offer
the most
comfortable Smart
Apparel.
“
“

Kristen Miller
Revolutionizing the Omni-Channel Shopping Experience
eaningful innovation is what transforms an
Mentrepreneur into a successful business leader.
Connecting dots, building bridges to fill the gaps,
and bringing a different approach is what drives innovation.
All of these distinct traits can be easily pointed out in Kristen
Miller’s leadership approach. Kristen is a seasoned entrepre-
neur who has founded four successful companies in the Home
Improvement and Retail industry and is currently the CEO
andCo-Founder ofStylyze.
At Stylyze, Kristen’s mission is to provide a platform for
retailers that revolutionize the omnichannel shopping
experience. Stylyze’s platform synthesizes the elements of
the in-store experience previously missing from the virtual
and digital space, refining and advancing the online customer
journey of the future. Leveraging cloud technology, Stylyze is
partnering with some of the largest retailers in the US to
transformtheircustomerexperiences.
Kristen is an inspirationalleaderand advisor for theWomenin
Cloud community, and she also presides as a board member
for The Beyond Project. She is an in-demand speaker on retail
innovation and entrepreneurship for Techstars Startup Week
Seattle.
How itAllStarted?
Prior to founding Stylyze, Kristen had another business in the
home decor space, where she worked with clients and helped
them to find and coordinate products for their homes. The
work demanded hands-on effort day in and day out, trying to
coordinate products and styles for the clients. “We would start
our search online as the entire inventory was online, but there
was no way to really narrow down the search based on what
Take a step
and be
persistent
“
“

Kristen Miller
CEO & Co-Founder
Stylyze
41
|
June 2021

the client’s style or aesthetic was,” says Kristen. She further
adds that after finding a product, it was very challenging to
find other products that would coordinate with it to create a
specificdesignaesthetic.
Kristen’s co-founder, Lisa Perrone Cirelli, was an interior
designer by trade and had experienced something similar.
They connected and saw the opportunity to transform the
home and fashion industries through cloud technology.
Before starting Stylyze, they spoke with 80 different home
decor and apparel retailers and brands to understand the gaps
in the space and realized that they were all trying to figure out
how to replicate the in-store experience online. Today, the
company partners with leading home and fashion retailers to
transform their customer experiences. Their Merchandising-
as-a-Service Platform combines the latest in Artificial
Intelligence and Machine Learning with seasoned designers
and stylists to equip retailers with the data and content that
theyneedtobesuccessfulinanomnichannelenvironment.
AChange was Required
Thanks to COVID, the retail industry has experienced a rapid
transformation and continues to change. One significant
change the retail industry is experiencing is accelerating
digital transformation and the urgency to offer all of their in-
storeservicesdigitally.
According to Kristen, one of the challenges she has faced as
an entrepreneur while serving the enterprise space is that large
enterprises often lack the structure or a set of programs to
work effectively with start-ups. Given the rapid rate of
transformation taking place in the retail industry, and many
other industries, she believes that this is a critical moment for
enterprises and start-ups to learn how to better work together
to keep up with the accelerated pace of change required to be
successfulintoday’s world.
Kristen herself is very passionate about supporting other
entrepreneurs who are on the journey. As an advisor to
Women in Cloud, she asserts “I'm on a few boards and I would
like to continue to support the ecosystem by continuing that
work, speaking, writing, providing mentorship and angel
investing. This is both an exciting and challenging time to be
an entrepreneur and I want to help other entrepreneurs learn
from my victoriesand my mistakes.”
TaketheFirstStep
In her advice to emerging women leaders, Kristen asserts
“Get started and just take a step in the direction you want to
go.” She believes that so many individuals who are consider-
ing the entrepreneurial journey get stuck in analysis paralysis.
They want to wait until the stars align perfectly, until either
they have all the aspects in their life lined up or until they have

the perfect team or the perfect investors. “Entrepreneurs who
are successful are the ones who take the first step and then
continue moving forward with a great group of advisors to
support the process so that they can continue moving in the
rightdirection,”says Kristen.
Stepping toNewAchievementsEveryday
Accelerator, Stylyze has grown revenue by 44% year over
year and had the opportunity to position its business and
management team as thought leaders in retail transformation
and women in technology. Stylyze has been featured in
several publications including the Puget Sound Business
Journal, WWD, Women Of Wearables, Retail Innovation
Hub, Authority Magazine, Silicon UK, Forbes, Retail
Gazette, Thrive Global, The Next Web, and Tech Round.
Additionally, Stylyze closed a $2.8M Series Seed Round and
successfully expanded its product offering into new retail
verticals.
The Women in Cloud Accelerator provided Kristen and her
team with a go-to-market framework that accelerated their
time to close enterprise deals and also increased their closing
rate. Additionally, Kristen and her team previously had
limited PR and exposure. As part of the Women in Cloud
Accelerator, Kristen was given the opportunity to share her
story and the Stylyze platform with the broader community.
This exposure was critical to jumpstarting Stylyze's PR
initiatives which ultimately generated over ten pieces of
coverage in the last 6 months alone. The network provided by
the Women in Cloud Accelerator has also opened doors with
key customers and resources in addition to being a wonderful
support system throughout the ups and downs of the entrepre-
neurialjourney.
Women Entrepreneurs inNext FiveYears
Kristen believes that organizations such as Women in Cloud
are helping to not only educate Fortune 1000 companies about
the benefits of creating economic access for women, they are
also creating the ecosystem of women entrepreneurs and
Fortune1000 executivestofacilitatetrustedintroductions.
Additionally, Women in Cloud is helping to prepare women
entrepreneurs for those opportunities so that when the
introductions are made they understand how to successfully
navigate the enterprise landscape and position their product
andserviceappropriately.
It is the combination of Fortune 1000 companies adopting
inclusive procurement practices, providing the connection
between Fortune 1000 executives and women entrepreneurs,
and equipping women entrepreneurs to successfully navigate
those opportunities that will move the needle in creating
economicaccessfor women.
43
|
June 2021

omen in Cloud (WIC) is a community-led
Weconomic development initiative to support
female entrepreneurs in technology. The
initiative within the WIC community is an immersive 6-
month program, the Microsoft Cloud Accelerator program,
which is designed to help female entrepreneurs start and
build their businesses through Microsoft and the cloud
distribution channels of Microsoft. The Ignite WA leader-
ship team leads the Women in Cloud initiative in collabora-
tion with Industry Partners, Microsoft Corporation, Hewlett
Packard Enterprise (HPE), and Meylah.
Women In Cloud program celebrates the female entrepre-
neurs in the technology world. It is a source of inspiration
and support that connects and empowers women in
Washington and beyond. This program helps female
entrepreneurs to realize their potential and reach new
growth through leading cloud industry, community, and
government partners. The coaching, mentorship, and
support of people through this program benefits women
leaders in their journey immensely. WIC program is
beneficial to female entrepreneurs in a variety of ways. It is
a platform that offers women in technology the opportunity
to accelerate their ideas and help them refine those ideas for
marketplace viability.
WIC’s mission is to inspire, empower and accelerate the
growth of women-led technology companies. This program
focuses on the digital transformation to provide digital
access, digital capabilities, and connections to customers
through leading cloud industry, community, and govern-
ment partners. Suppose female entrepreneurs already have a
working prototype or any good business idea. In that case,
they can apply for the WIC program as this program
accelerates and turns good ideas into great businesses. This
program empowers female entrepreneurs in technology to
tackle tactical and strategical challenges.
WIC program is built to drive the growth of companies
through cloud solutions and services. Whenever women
leaders stumble, unlimited talent resources from the WIC
program can help these female entrepreneurs by lending
them a helping hand. This program empowers them with
relevant skills, abilities, talents, resourcefulness. This opens
many doors for female entrepreneurs. The amazing group of
selfless people in the WIC program are committed to
empowering, encouraging, and inspiring female entrepre-
neurs to make exceptional contributions to their businesses
and the industry.
Training from the WIC program allows female entrepre-
neurs to compete and drive their businesses to great heights.
This program help women to stand out from the rest of
others and enable them to thrive even in tough competition.
Women need more success stories to inspire other women
to pursue their dreams and not limit opportunities due to
fear of failure or lack of knowledge. This program gives
wings to the female entrepreneurs; they radiate with
confidence, courage, and competence to thrive in the world
of business. It helps them increase the revenue of their
businesses and successfully expand the growth of their
businesses.
The skills developed from the WIC program help female
entrepreneurs lead their teams more effectively to achieve
specific goals. With their enhanced skills, female entrepre-
neurs can lead from the front and set the right standards for
others by being most exemplary.
WIC program gives female entrepreneurs a rich network of
business leaders, entrepreneurs, advisors, and investors.
They get the opportunity to develop friendships with like-
minded women and learn from them. This association
allows female entrepreneurs to expand their skillsets,
knowledge, and competency. The Connectivity with this
network of talented people helps female entrepreneurs with
unique business insights to make informed decisions that
are beneficial for the growth of the businesses.
Having a mentor is a great advantage in life. Mentors have
amazing experiences, and their experiences help future
generations be saved from committing unnecessary
mistakes. This saves precious time for business leaders, and
they get the idea to do what is required to attain success.
The WIC program staff teaches and mentors other women
in the cloud field. The mentorship experiences that female
entrepreneurs get at the WIC program enriches them.
Through this mentorship, they can remove their doubts,
fears, insecurities. This mentorship helps female entrepre-
neurs to have great suggestions and guidance from the
experienced staff at the program. This way, female
entrepreneurs can be more educated, knowledgeable,
skilled, and competent to lead their businesses.
Supporting Entrepreneurs

Those female entrepreneurs who have graduated from the
WIC program appreciate the tremendous learning, friend-
ships, mentors, empowerment, encouragement, inspiration,
skills, talents, abilities, resourcefulness, and all-important
capabilities they get from this value-driven WIC Microsoft
Cloud Accelerator Program. They express their heartfelt
gratitude to the facilitators of this program, and they feel
deeply grateful for all the empowerment they get from this
course. The female entrepreneurs after this program, with
their enhanced skills, knowledge, and capabilities, can lead
their businesses to maximum heights. They can make a
diﬀerence in the industry and become the guiding light for
future generations. Many WIC graduated female entrepre-
neurs recommend this WIC Microsoft Cloud Accelerator
Program to aspiring entrepreneurs who have any good ideas
and want to turn them into great business results.
Leading DILIGENTLY
by Being EMPOWERED
with WIC PROGRAM
45
|
June 2021

Martha Montoya
CEO, Agtools Inc

Martha Montoya
Improving Profitability of Farmers and
Buyers through Actionable Market Data
aking sense of business-critical market data is a
Mcostly, time-intensive process, which begins with
finding the data – internal and external. The
challenge continues with the identification of the variables
that matter, measuring them correctly, and acting. As the
Agriculture and Food Supply Chain is fragmented with many
contributors and a large geographic reach, industry
participants need a better comprehensive solution to the
challenge of measuring what matters. Supply chain
optimizationisvitalfor multipleindustriesandfarmers.
Farmers are on the losing end of the supply chain and Martha
Montoya hasseenitfirsthand across theworld.
Martha started her career in the agricultural industry while
sourcing ingredients from the Americas to New Zealand,
Australia, and Thailand, which provided her with the
knowledgeoftheproductfromsourcetodelivery.
Currently, Martha is steering the ship of Agtools as a CEO.
Agtools provides business-critical access to accurate,
objective, and frequently updated real-time market data along
with the performance applications and monitoring systems to
provide management with the tools to develop, implement
and monitor business initiatives and results. Agtools
improves profitability through Actionable Market Data. The
clients ofAgtools benefit from data points for each link in the
supply chaintoimprovetheircategoryandtheperformanceof
eachfunctioninsidetheorganization.
ExperienceinAgricultureand Food Supply Chain
Martha has been in the agriculture and food supply chain
industry for the last 27 years. She has been boots on the
ground by doing the crops and working with the farmers.
Furthermore, she brought in her two brothers, who helped her
inthetechnicalaspectsof theidea.
Agtools is a market business intelligence product. The
company basically delivers market data which helps farmers
and buyers to make decisions. It takes data from government
entities across the world. Most of its programs are in Pascal
and Cobol programming languages. Agtools reprogram the
data into a simpler form. As the company understands the
industry, it is able to put the data in context. Farmers and
Buyers look for market data to act on that data and make
macrodecisions.
In simpler terms, as a worldwide SaaS platform, Agtools
gathers real-time government and institutional data of over
500 specialty crop commodities, scraping it, including
algorithms and M/L for farmers, buyers, and everyone on the
supply chain to see and decide how to manage their
forecastingandpurchaseorders.
An Entrepreneurofthe Future
According to Martha, as a businesswoman, one needs to
learn how to read financials. She says the world moves with
money, profit and losses, cash flows, and projections. Martha
was not much aware of financials initially until she heard
49
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June 2021

from a woman who runs 25 businesses, "If you don't know
your costperunit,you'redoomed inthebusiness.”
Martha mentions that the Women in Cloud Microsoft Cloud
Accelerator helped her shape her professional and personal
journey. The community of leaders and mentors helped her
grasp entrepreneurship better. She says Women in Cloud
knows best in building frameworks and programs for
entrepreneurs like her to empower them. After her
accelerator journey, her company fundraised over 1.45
million on seed round, acquired yearly contracts with the
largest foodservice, the largest fruit/vegetable companies in
the world, and more. It also acquired cybersecurity
certification and hired five more rural engineers in the US.
Agtools is now fundraising 10 million and is very confident
because of the enterprise growth path Martha was taught in
Women in Cloud. Martha says that the community resulted
in new friendships, connections, and interactions that will
staywithherfor therestof thetime.
Envisioning to Expand theScopeofServices
Agtools has a lot of work with around 600 million farmers in
the world. Martha wants to focus on the United States market
for the next five to ten years after which she wants to launch
global operations to help farmers all around the world. She
believes that she and her team have to understand how the
world moves, so they can help the farmers farm better in the
countriesworldwide.
Agtools goes
beyond providing
a data solution
for the food sup-
ply chain and per-
ishable industry.
“
“

Nehal Mehta
Securing Digital World in an Unconventional Way
Innovation is not an option anymore; it has become a
necessity. Today, every complex problem needs a novel
approach. Nehal Mehta has exemplified this notion
through her venture Rainbow Secure. She has addressed the
growing concern of cybercrime in an unconventional way.
She is removing the security stress of users and making the
humanfactor,apowerfactor.
Nehal is a mathematician, a statistician, an astute software
engineer, and now an accomplished entrepreneur. She was a
victim of cybercrime and was struggling to manage many
onlineaccountsandpasswords.
One day her son was doodling his name in different colors and
that gave her an idea, what if her passwords were like the
doodles; a creative word that can be used every day and is easy
tohandle.
About HerInnovation
Rainbow Secure is a future-ready suite of solutions aimed at
reducing cyber-attacks, cyber frauds, data breaches, business
risks, and technology liabilities of a business and keeping
business. It is adding millions of colors and 100+ styles, so
that password, Zero-trust Login, Multi-factor, Single Sign
On, Identity Security can become powerful and eradicate the
current challenges of cyber-crimes. This idea was the
foundationofRainbowSecure.
What started as a research entity that focused on innovation
for a secure digital world, has grown into a potent force for
smart and secure digital solutions for individuals, businesses,
andbigenterprises.
Today, Nehal and her company are serving enterprise
customers, a certified Microsoft ISV partner, listed on Azure
App Gallery and Microsoft Marketplace, on a way to secure
federal and defense solutions, services, and data with
importantcertificationstohandletheirsensitivedata.
How Exactly It Secures Enterprises?
Rainbowsecurestops cyber-attackpainproblemslike:
Ÿ Brute Force - By giving 36 quadrillion options for making
justonecharacterofthepassword
Ÿ Password Reuse - No problem as the password has color,
style,andpositionfactor
Ÿ Keylogger, Malware - No problem as the password has
formattingoptionsthatarenotcapturedinthekeylogger.
Ÿ Credential Stuffing - Interactive Human-friendly
password entryprocess,slows down anddefeatsit
Ÿ Automated Attacks, DDOS - Bots trying to DDOS the
service are defeated by smart methods and environment
insights
Ÿ Device Cloning - No impact on rainbow secure powered
logins
Ÿ Phishing - No links to click in rainbow secure login
process + business can opt for the anti-phishing module
forahigherlevelofphishingprotection
Ÿ Unlocked Device Problem - Users walk away from
unlocked devices but save passwords in the browser or
password manager, now not hurting the security of the
system as the user still has formatting knowledge with
him.

Nehal Mehta
President and Co-Founder
Rainbow Secure
53
|
June 2021

SolvingUserPain
Ÿ Users nomorehavetocreatelongcomplexpasswords.
Ÿ Multi-layer Security means no more frequent password
changes.
Ÿ Flexible Balanced Security model that adjusts security
friction based on use case.
Delivering Next-Generation Multi-layer Multi-factor
LoginSecurity
Rainbow Secure solutions provide next-generation multi-
layer multi factor login security with graphical elements. It's
the only solution that provides improvised password as a ﬁrst
factor that gives enterprises game-changing security, scalable
for masses, reduces your business risk, improves business
continuity, productivity, wins customer trust, and lowers
supportcosts.
Youcansecureoldandnewapps,onanyplatform.
Besides, Rainbow Secure also provides secure oﬃce
solutions like Single Sign On, Workforce and Customer
Identity, Access Control Gateway, Password & Data Vault,
andahighlypotentEncryptiontool.
We bring out Simple,
Reliable and Easy to use
solutions and security
technology APIs that can
be welcomed by end users
with minimal training
and integrated by
developers with no fuss.
‘‘
‘‘

Solutions are protected by AI monitoring, Risk analytics and
threatalerting.
ASourceofBusiness Growth
Nehal’s success in enabling security for individuals and
companies in their digital transformation journey has a
drivingforce;WomeninCloudMicrosoftCloudAccelerator.
After graduating fromWomen in CloudAccelerator, Rainbow
Secure won pilot with healthcare startup, customers reaching
11K+ end users with 500% market growth, got nominated for
Cyber Security Women Ally of the year, runners up for
Founders Live and invited for talks on Women's International
Day, WIPP, won coveted co-sell ready ISV Partner status, and
have integrated with Office 365, Sharepoint, MS Dynamics,
Google Workspace, IBM Cloud, Salesforce, Slack,
Freshdesk, Oracle Cloud, Netsuite and many other Enterprise
Apps and Cloud Services, enabling secure single sign on
cloudandonpremises.
Women in Cloud community gave her the opportunity to fine-
tune and clarify her business offerings, talk, brainstorm with
business advisors and get their feedback on her technology
solutions, get guidance that she was missing, and meet
enterprise executives and learn first-hand their expectations,
environment,andneedsforcybersecurity.
ProvidingEssentialResourcestoWomenEntrepreneurs
According to Nehal, in the next 5 years, Fortune 1000
companies will begin to incorporate unique solutions largely
offered by startups that can help them, promote innovation
andallowwomen-ledstartupstopilotwiththeirtechnology.
Reflecting on her own journey, Nehal has one piece of advice
for emerging entrepreneurs; believe in your idea and validate
it. In the long run, Nehal wants to be a part of the FinTech
world. With her robust platform and cutting-edge solutions,
she wants to help FinTech solution providers, government
institutions, and Fortune 500 companies win the race against
cyber-attacks. In a nutshell, she aspires to be a cybersecurity
leaderinfutureapplicationssecurity.
55
|
June 2021

Sarah Haggard
Founder & CEO
Tribute

SARAH HAGGARD
Leading from Front by Walking the Talk
entorship plays a huge role in all our lives. A good
Mmentor shapes our professional and personal
journey. Sarah Haggard is an engaging speaker,
writer, and mentor who loves to tell stories, and share her most
rewarding (and challenging) moments as an Anthropologist
turnedProductMarketerandnow pioneeringentrepreneur.
Sarah went to school for anthropology and sociology with the
hopes of being a humanitarian. At 24, she ended up at
Microsoft by fate. She realized pretty early on in doing some
of the social work that she wanted to make an impact on
people's lives in a way that helped them have economic access
and opportunities to rise above some of the challenges that
theywouldhave.
Today, Sarah is the Founder and CEO of Tribute. She
founded Tribute after 10 years working at Microsoft and
struggling to ﬁnd a mentor. The Tribute came to life because
Sarah is passionate about the power of human connection, and
using storytelling as a means to ﬁnd that connection. She
states that when we feel connected, we feel empowered,
supported, and most importantly capable of achieving our
most aspirational goals. Sarah holds a Master’s degree in
Business Administration from Seattle University and a
Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Business
AdministrationfromAugustanaCollegeinRockIsland,IL.
Sarah is a proven business leader who has led multiple start-
up initiatives within her decade-long career in product
marketing at Microsoft, raising $40M to scale her last
business. She is an expert in P&L management, enterprise
software, and GTM strategy. Sarah’s tenacity and drive for
results led to her being widely recognized as a turnaround
expert and new business incubator. Her leadership style is
engaging and authentic. Impactful leadership to Sarah means
being in service. She believes in leading from the front, being
transparent, over-communicating, and walking the talk. She
personally prefers being a servant leader. Her superpower is
her ability to spot patterns, create high-performing teams and
activatetherightpeopleattherighttimetodeliverresults.
Upholding CultureofGrowth, Inclusivity, and Belonging
Tribute is a mobile and desktop app, available on both the
Slack and Teams marketplaces. It is perfectly positioned for a
post-pandemic world to build and nourish virtual
relationships by sharing stories, lived experiences, and
wisdom. Tribute is not an average mentorship app. It is built
by curious creators looking to disrupt traditional mentorship
programs. They lead with social psychology, beautiful UI,
and simple UX to facilitate the art (and science) of better
connections.
Tribute believes in bringing one’s authentic self to work and
that sharing stories and experiences is key to creating a trusted
and diverse culture centered around growth, inclusivity, and
belonging. What's great about Tribute is once you sign up, it's
a 30-day commitment. It's a very short, time-bound
engagement that each party can get into without having to
57
|
June 2021

make these lifelong commitments, thus, it allows you to go in
and have multiple different types of mentors for shorter
engagementsoverTeams.
Creatingan Empowering Mentorship Experience
Tribute believes stories inspire action and everyone’s story
matters. It is a platform that goes beyond traditional, top-
down structures of most mentorship programs, amplifying the
stories of everyone and thus making mentorship more
accessible. By combining modern technology with the
ancient art of storytelling, Tribute creates an empowering
mentorship experience that breaks down the barriers between
individuals, bridging differences and building better
connections. It builds technology that supports autonomous
choice with a mentorship platform that works seamlessly
across one’s company.
BuildingNext GenerationLearningExperiencePlatform
Tribute is not afraid to be the leader. The future of work will
look radically different than today. It is redefining mentorship
for a future based on distributed team effectiveness, inclusion,
and belonging. Tribute has a team of business leaders,
strategists, marketers, designers, and more. What brings its
team together is its shared mission and vision for improving
mentorship experience for both employers and employees
using the transformative power of personal stories and Shared
Life Experiences™ to create next-gen learning experience
platforms.
BefittingWomen inCloudAcceleratorProgram
Sarah narrates that the Women in Cloud Microsoft Cloud
Accelerator has helped her personally to communicate in a
way that is compelling. Since graduating from the Women in
Cloud Accelerator, Tribute went on to win the Seattle Angel
Conference XVII pitch competition, tripled its revenue,
successfully raised its first investment, expanded its team,
been featured in Geekwire and King5 as well as added
customers like Zillow and the University of Washington to its
growing list.And Sarahsays theyarejustgettingstarted!
The Women in Cloud Accelerator elevated Tribute's brand
awareness on a national level, and connected it with a rich
network of business leaders, entrepreneurs, advisors, and
investors. In addition, at the conclusion of the program,
Tribute launched a 2020 mentoring initiative together that had
over 300 participants and 45 mentoring pairs connected.After
her journey, Sarah advises female entrepreneurs to trust
themselves and advises them to apply for theWomen in Cloud
Accelerator if they already have a working prototype. She
says that it is a great first step as Women in Cloud turns ideas
intogreatbusinesses.
BridgingMoreConnectionsAcrossWorld
Sarah hopes to have several more Tributes in — to keep on
being an entrepreneur. She hopes to build more startups post-
Tribute around the core theme, belonging. She is interested
in building products and services that help human beings feel
a greater sense of belonging and connection with their other
fellow human beings, and not necessarily people that just
look like you or live in your neighborhood. Thus, bridging
connections across the world is something that Sarah really
is passionate about and wants to continue to build technology
around.
Sarah sees 2021 as a great growth year for Tribute. With its
Teams and Slack apps, Tribute aims to be the de facto
mentoringappfor Fortune500companies.Thatis itsvision.
“
Tribute is a
workplace
mentorship app that
radically redenes
and improves
mentorship for one’s
company—and one’s
employees.

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