Positioning ESA as a modern regulator requires a first-class IT department. Kelley Irwin, Chief Information Officer of Electrical Safety Authority, introduced the goal of “digital humanism” to deliver business value at high velocity. The cornerstone of this approach is to listen to the people who use the system and what their needs are, and then to create outcomes not previously possible. People, not technology, are the focus. Her goal is for users not to spend time thinking about the system because it just works. She cites strong partnerships with peer executives across ESA as instrumental in moving quickly, from idea to decision and then implementing new services.

Kelley managed teams in Canada, the US, India, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and China and felt fortunate for each of these experiences. “I recognized as I managed people across multiple countries the need to spend time to understand each other. We can learn so much from other people and other cultures if we listen – and take chances,” she says. “You never know when you will have a life-changing conversation, or hear a nugget of the next exceptional idea to pursue. It can only happen if we continue to interact, to learn, and to give back to others.” Kelley participates in international CIO forums, speaks at events for university students, and often forms ideas for great innovation by connecting the dots from these seemingly disparate conversations. “My parents taught me the importance of having personal convictions and how to time the pitch of my ideas, as well as the importance of collaborating well, and to pause just long enough to be certain before making a commitment.” With these principles, Kelley is leading the company to great heights.

The Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) is a regulator and advocate for electrical safety mandated by the Government of Ontario. ESA strives to protect the people of Ontario and reduce the amount of electrical-related harm across the province by engaging in primary activities, including identifying and targeting leading causes of electrical safety risk; ensuring compliance with regulations; promoting awareness, education, and training; and working with stakeholders to gain insight and continuously improve to ensure Ontario remains safe from electrical harm. ESA’s annual workload includes 500,000 on-site inspections, answering 600,000 calls, and interactions with 15,000 master electricians.

Their technology strategy focuses on the users, combining business value, burden reduction, and reducing red tape. The IT team includes an internal team of skilled technologists and strong vendor partnerships. “We have implemented digital capabilities to deliver our critical services, and to provide no-touch solutions for increased safety during the Pandemic,” adds Kelley. “These new services include an online portal for electrical contractors to submit electrical plan documents that are vital to sustaining construction projects, virtual exam offerings to replace in-person exams to obtain a master electrician license, and a route-planning tool for our inspectors to optimize the schedule and route for the day and communicate effectively with customers.” Kelley and her team also provided new IT services to the employees, including digital signatures, digital payments, and video and chat capabilities to enable a remote workforce virtually overnight.

“The ESA committed in 2019 to expand and invest in IT, hiring me into the first CIO role for the organization. They entrusted me with structuring the department and creating an innovative, forward-thinking, and comprehensive digital strategy,” explains Kelley. “The ESA introduced the capability for photo inspections during the Pandemic in response to keeping essential electrical work moving forward while taking into account the health and safety of our stakeholders and our workforce. This has highlighted the opportunity to assess where and how one can leverage this capability in the future, augmented by the appropriate risk-based model. We have plans to launch additional online transactions through our portal, and expand the safety information provided on our website powered by our data platform,” she adds. “We are delivering the digital strategy on a strong foundation of architectural principles including alignment to business strategy at the core, with sustainability, scalability and security as key components.”

Kelley recently co-authored a book titled “Please Stay” profiling 21 women in technology and celebrating her personal career journey in tech. IE

Having a mother who was a mechanical engineer in the ’70s-’80s when that was completely unheard of, has strongly influenced Stephanie Simmons, Managing Partner of Profitability Works’. “She taught me how to have thick skin, how people treat you is more about how they are feeling about themselves than any judgment on myself. That has helped me move forward in some challenging situations over my career in construction,” says Stephanie. “Today I model myself in how I can lift others to help them to their goals with my actions.”

Construction is still a heavily male-dominated industry. Women usually enter the industry through office-based positions, such as project management, sales, finance, and marketing. “As more construction companies see the value in having a diverse workforce and leadership teams, we are seeing women in pivotal times of their careers – first-time front-line management,” says Stephanie. “Effective leadership isn’t one’s ability to do their employees’ job, but to have effective communication, build trust and rapport, and influence their employees’ to use behaviors that lead to the success of the team/business unit.”

Many women Stephanie encounters seem to discount these so-called “soft skills” when they are more important to their performance than having experience doing fieldwork. “When I encounter these women in these roles in our leadership workshops or coaching, I spend time with them reinforcing that the company needs their perspective that will be different than their counterparts because they have different backgrounds and experiences,” explains Stephanie. “Being different isn’t a disadvantage it is an advantage. Each person needs to focus on how their unique strengths can improve the organization. When that happens, women are more confident, they speak up more, and contribute.”

The company partners with the construction industry across North America to improve labor productivity, create business and sales strategies, improve front-line leader effectiveness, and create a culture of project management excellence. According to Stephanie, 11.2 million people work in the construction industry in the U.S. That’s many jobs and families on the line when those construction companies fail. “Often they are mid-sized companies $25 million $250 million in annual revenue, and when they are financially struggling they tend to do one of two things, they cut costs (people typically) or they try to sell more. Both of those things may move the bottom line by 1-2% in the short term, but these companies are proceeding with less support per project/customer/etc,” explains Stephanie. “Long term that doesn’t spell success, it spells burn-out, safety instances, cutting corners, missed deadlines, etc. If they don’t address the root cause that is preventing their people from becoming more productive consistently, they will continue to struggle.” Stephanie wants those 11.2 million construction employees to have steady employment and higher wages.

Everything DiSC® is an assessment the company uses with clients to create self-awareness and learn how to adjust their communication style to get a better outcome out of the interaction. In a workplace or group setting, it provides some common language that helps different styles to communicate better without judgment. There are several specific assessments, and they recommend which ones to implement based on the audience they are working with or the problem being solved:

– Workplace Catalyst: General for all levels of an organization

– DiSC Sales: Customer service/sales

– DiSC Management: People managers

– Work of Leaders: Executive/Senior Leadership

– Productive Conflict: Get productive outcomes from conflict in the workplace

– DiSC 363: Unique approach to 360 reviews for maximum individual development

Profitability Works specializes in mid-sized construction companies that recently reorganized, acquired a business, or recently merged. They are launching an online learning platform that provides an interactive experience for the learner, with their sessions customized based on the client’s needed outcomes. “It allows learners to keep notes/information on an online platform where they can refer back to their work and content,” says Stephanie. “We will be utilizing this tool to provide reporting on completion, measuring knowledge gain, and tracking ongoing interaction with the learner during the engagement.” IEWL

Profitability Works Inc

Management

Stephanie Simmons
Managing Partner of Profitability Works Inc

Description

Profitability Works Inc is a management consulting firm specializing in helping construction companies align culture and improve business performance after recent acquisitions, mergers, reorganizations, or explosive growth. Our team has decades of successful experience in these situations. We understand what makes these transitions produce consistent and profitable results. We use thorough analysis, provide recommendations backed by data, and build clear implementation strategies with your teams to re-align culture, re-engineer execution, and improve results.

Nimia Amaya, Senior Marketing Director, Americas of Yooz, has demonstrated admirable leadership across various roles within the software industry. She’s dedicated to inclusivity and diversity in the workplace, is an advocate for women in tech, and pushes herself to serve as a role model pursuing bold new agendas. She strives to develop even higher performing teams to exceed expectations while helping each team member grow professionally and make use of their strengths. Originally hired to spearhead the Latin America Go to Market strategy for Yooz, the opportunity to lead the North America team arose, and it was something she couldn’t pass up. She is now the head of marketing for the Americas at Yooz. She built a marketing team from the ground up and transformed outdated processes with her ability to foster innovation and growth. Her experience in strategy, marketing, and global business development has contributed to her success at Yooz.

As a single working mother, a Latina, and a woman, Nimia hopes to inspire and empower other women to dream big! Always a dreamer, she wants to not only inspire but to mentor other women who, like her, come from humble beginnings and want to change their lives and achieve great things. Within her team, she trusts everyone’s expertise; she never claims to know it all and is always open to suggestions and collaboration. She listens to her team, which only by chance is made up of mostly women, and takes their suggestions into account when making strategic decisions.

Born and raised in Mexico, Nimia moved to the United States at the age of 9 and started the 4th grade in the American school system, fast forward to graduating from high school with top honors as Salutatorian and moving on to the University of Texas at Dallas where she studied Arts & Performance, attended UT Dallas for one year, and graduated from the University of North Texas. “My father is my biggest role model. He is the hardest working man I know. An immigrant and a farmer by profession. He emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico so that I could have all the opportunities he didn’t have,” she says. “I’m grateful to him for showing me the power of hard work throughout his life but also because he taught me to always be humble and be kind to everyone I meet regardless of social status. I’m a farmer’s daughter and I will never forget that.”

While working on her career, she spent some years working with at-risk high school students in the Dallas ISD system and undocumented/DACA students for local community colleges, and she resides in Dallas, TX, where she is raising her only daughter. As a first-generation college student, immigrant, and single working mom, she hopes to inspire other women with similar upbringings to pursue careers in Technology and aspire to high-rank positions. “I grew up knowing that I wanted to make my father proud, and he is my motivation for everything that I do. Inspiring leaders should be that, inspiring. I strive every day to inspire others to find their why, their reason to be, their motivation to keep moving forward when life doesn’t go our way,” adds Nimia, who leads Yooz with similar principles.

Yooz provides the smartest, most powerful and easiest-to-use cloud-based Purchase-to-Pay (P2P) automation solution. It delivers unmatched savings, speed, and security with affordable zero-risk subscriptions to more than 4,000 customers and 200,000 users worldwide. Yooz leverages A.I. and the latest technologies to deliver an amazing level of automation with extreme simplicity and end-to-end customizable features, exceeding any other solution on the market.

“At Yooz, se habla Español! Yooz Latin America is in the works as we speak and I’m happy to be leading this project. Electronic invoicing is already the norm in Latin American countries, and they face similar pain points as we do in North America,” explains Nimia. “Our product is designed to address those pain points and more. We also just released our groundbreaking new UX, Yooz Rising, which only shows that Yooz continues to stay at the vanguard of technology and the industry and prove that Yooz is the future of AP Automation.” IE

Yooz USA

Management

Nimia Amaya
Senior Marketing Director

Description

Yooz is a fast-growing, multiple award-winning SaaS company that solves for today’s finance professionals’ top invoice processing challenges by providing innovative, cloud-based AP automation. Yooz offers an intuitive, simple, secure, end-to-end invoice processing solution that integrates seamlessly with more than 250 ERP platforms – more than any other on the market. It leverages and optimizes powerful features and emerging intelligent technologies that unleash the creative and innovative power of finance teams.

An accomplished charity executive, a loving mother, and a natural leader, Jennifer Joseph contributes to her community in countless, significant ways. Passionate about helping children realize their potential, Jennifer began her career in early childhood education, enriching students’ lives as a Certified Ontario College Teacher for many years. In 2010, seeking new ways to empower youth, Jennifer began volunteering for Jake’s House and instantly connected with the cause. Driven by both her compassion and ambition, Jennifer started to identify opportunities to help the charity do more while also supporting Co-founders David & Irene Bodanis with private asset management for high net-worth individuals.

After years of committed service, in 2015, Jennifer was appointed Executive Director at Jake’s House, and in 2018, was promoted to CEO. Jennifer quickly made an impressive impact by applying her strong business acumen, relationship-building abilities, and empathetic, nurturing nature. In 2017, inspiring support from the Province of Ontario and developing key community partnerships, she spearheaded the creation and launch of the Legends Mentoring Program. In 2019, Jennifer developed and implemented Jake’s House Employment Mentoring, a federally-funded, innovative program that supports the integration of young adults with autism into the workforce. Jennifer is now focused on expanding these programs across the country while also committing to finding and delivering solutions to address Canada’s growing housing gap for the aging autism community.

In addition to driving the strategy and execution of Jake’s House programs and events. A true mentor invested in both the charity’s and her employees’ success, Jennifer has personally guided each new member to discover how to thrive within the Jake’s House culture and uniquely support the team’s shared goals.

Jennifer is always advocating for women leaders and ensuring their success through mentorship, coaching, and guidance. She does this by encouraging women hires in leadership roles and making herself available to provide mentoring opportunities. She leads by example through her compassion, confidence, and ability to foster a creative and inclusive working environment.

Without question, Jennifer brings the best of both of her parent’s strengths to both her personal and professional lives while consistently applying her Mother and Father’s morals and work ethic. Jennifer’s father, Peter, always calm in demeanor, imparted into her a stoic approach of commitment and dedication through example throughout his 40-year work career – all to the service and benefit of a single-family business. Jennifer’s mother, Mena, had an equal commitment and passion towards her trade but applied it slightly more entrepreneurially. The combination of influences from both of her parents has allowed Jennifer to be far greater than the sum of her collective parts. Jennifer lives by a simple creed – Family first, then business and charity.

Given that Jennifer is very close in age to their children, it comes as no surprise that Jennifer has been heard over time to refer to the Jake’s House Co-Founders as her “work parents.” Jennifer has been supporting both their personal and professional lived experiences for over a decade. Jennifer has drawn lines of similarities to that of her parents concerning their morals and ethics, witnessing them firsthand over the years – noting that in particular with Co-Founder Irene Bodanis and the raising of her three sons over 30 years, that Irene always put their needs before her own. It is not surprising that the same values and sentiments have found their way into the charity – a lesson that Jennifer has taken to heart. Through her unique life experiences, Jennifer has developed insight and wisdom rarely seen in today’s world of instant judgment and comparison. Jennifer evidences a timeless approach towards family values, traditional or otherwise, that have assisted her in leading Jake’s House to new heights.

Jake’s House has been fortunate with support from all levels of the community. Having said all of that, this charity’s essential lifeline stems from all of the young people that make up its volunteer base. The organization spent 20 years growing a family network that now includes leaders from all levels of government. There are countless dozens from leading corporate entities that are now embracing and supporting Jake’s House. Community leaders that number too many to count now support the cause. IEWL

Jake’s House

Management

Jennifer Joseph
Chief Executive Officer of Jake’s House

Description

Our mission is to provide meaningful support to children and families living with autism across Canada. As a community that personally understands and cares, we provide practical help and lasting hope to families living with autism. We mobilize support across Canada and make social impact through three main initiatives.

Christine Hall, Vice President – Revenue Cycle Management at American Oncology Network, LLC, has brought a different perspective to the AON Revenue Cycle Operations team by having the ability to understand where healthcare used to be to what it is today and the various aspects of what is needed to help improve the landscape today not only for the customers but for the cancer patients. Christine has pushed the various teams, whether it is within her department or others, to think outside the box and stimulate the intellect to ask questions differently or think of new ideas that may have been foreign in the oncology space a few years ago, but in today’s world, may be relevant to help provide high-quality care at lower costs to patients in the community oncology setting.

Christine truly believes in supporting other women leaders to help them grow and develop. Although, she would have to say that the one thing that she continues to see, is female leaders or organizations speaking about helping support one another, but not taking action. “We know that we are the hardest critic of ourselves both personally and professionally, and many times, we are also the hardest critics of other female leaders,” says Christine. “My advice would be two key things: Do not just speak about supporting and helping other women that want to grow and develop but show action.

Help provide constructive feedback, mentor, and potentially find opportunities that you feel they would fit based on what you heard them say they would like to do as a future leader but also be honest about what skills they may need to sharpen to help them get there.” Today in AON, approximately 50% of females are sitting in leadership positions, making it a great organization to work for as they do not just speak about diversity in the workforce but also showcase that by finding the best person for the position along with continuing to push for leaders to develop others.

The community oncology landscape has evolved rapidly over the last few years, driven by political, economic, and administrative pressures that resulted in an unmet need in the marketplace. AON emerged from this void as the fastest-growing oncology network in the nation, providing a comprehensive platform of services to independent practices. AON’s mission is to partner with practices to help them navigate the complex healthcare landscape, improve quality of care and elevate community oncology.

AON serves its expanding network of partner practices by providing over 35 years of proven practice management expertise, dedicated end-to-end administrative support, and access to an extensive array of centralized ancillary support services challenging to maintain independently yet so critical to delivering true value-based cancer care. As a result, AON can aggregate patient volume and attain economies of scale as we guide our member physicians and practices through the transition to value-based reimbursement models that improve the patient experience and help to reduce the per-capita cost of cancer care.

Through access to centralized services such as patient financial counseling, revenue cycle management, drug purchasing, payer contracting, IT, and enhanced services such as pathology and an oral-oncolytic pharmacy, AON practices have realized significant results in increased productivity and improved operations while providing high-quality patient care. Delivered through its local market, physician-led model, AON empowers community-based practices with the necessary tools, support, and capital to effectively navigate today’s increasingly dynamic healthcare landscape, improve quality of care and elevate community oncology services delivered to patients.

AON will continue investing in state-of-the-art information technology platforms and resources dedicated to providing services and support to its national footprint of 60 plus clinics for the days to come. “We will be increasing the organizations capacity to strategically grow our national practice and preserve our position as one of the fastest growing oncology networks in the United States,” says Christine. IE

American Oncology Network LLC

Management

Christine Hall
Vice President – Revenue Cycle Management at American Oncology Network LLC

Description

AON is an alliance of physicians and veteran healthcare leaders dedicated to ensuring the long-term success and viability of oncology diagnosis and treatment in community-based settings. We are the fastest growing network of community oncology practices delivering local access to exceptional cancer care. We partner with physicians and their practices to help them navigate the complex healthcare landscape, improve quality of care and elevate community oncology.

As a Group CGO, what Germaine Chua, Group CGO, Real Pet Food (RPF) Company, values most is her team. That they are passionate about what they do and want to make a difference. She recognizes the importance of building a team through passion and its impact on the business. “To build a strong team, I would often remind myself to ensure everyone has an equal chance to present their ideas regardless of how senior or junior they are,” she says. “My role is to create the safe environment, to encourage creativity and allow the team to challenge the status quo for better results. This results in our ability as an organization to continuously create new news beyond just products and push the boundaries to deliver growth that can come from any part of our business.”

“As Group CGO for the Real Pet Food Company, my key role is to drive global portfolio expansion to achieve our goal of becoming a top 10 pet food company, worldwide by 2023.”

Today, Germaine sees one of the main challenges for both retailers and consumers is trying to navigate through a complex market. Due to the ever-expanding pet industry, the market is over-saturated with different products and different ideologies on pet feeding. The key focus of RPF is to empower the consumer to make the right decision and enable them to feed their pet the way that they want to. “We are a global leader in fresher food. Ultimately, offering the best that we can to our pets which is also packed with required nutrition. We are also constantly trying to innovate ourselves by finding various ways to make the pets happy,” adds Germaine.

RPF’s passion as a team leads them to develop products with purpose. They pride themselves in being thorough and paying attention to details, from conceptualization down to the actual product. Hence, this considers the nutritional benefit, palatability and texture, and the look and feel of all the products, ensuring that the quality of the products meets the standards universally.

The goal for RPF is to transform the lives of pets everywhere. “We see ourselves as the ones who enable our consumers to feed their pets the way they desire with a plethora of choices that are easily accessible,” says Germaine. “The reason we are leaders in this space is because we are offering fresh products that can be found in chilled, fresh or frozen dishes. Witnessing the positive impact and the change our products have on our consumers’ life act as a driving force for us to innovate and create better constantly.”

For Germaine, having a vision of the group of people led by her is very important since it allows her to support, provide coaching and help them to unleash their potential to create. “Often, this includes leading with empathy and the willingness to listen and adapt. I can provide an example of when I first became the CMO, I have a team that has not come from consumer marketing background. However, it has not stopped us to create new brands, bring new products to market and engage our consumers successfully as a team,” she explains. “This all started from a vision of who they can be regardless of their previous experience and background. I would like to inspire all the female leaders to have a vision of who you can be and believe in that and be yourself.”

Advising the future entrepreneur, she says, “do not limit your imagination on who you can be. Have a vision of your team and how you can support them to get there. Ultimately, our role in the business world is to be the one who has the consumer at the heart.” For the days to come, RPF will be focused on meeting the needs of their consumers by providing fresher nutrition, with a wide food choice for their pets. Throughout the years, RPF has been innovating in many ways to bring new news to its consumers. “What we are hoping to bring out next is beyond products but to build positive impact on the world as well. This includes caring about different communities in need as well as the environment via our CSR program known as RPF Cares,” says Germaine. IE

Colette Hamilton founded Genesyze Ltd, in 2005. At the time, she worked across Europe for a Johnson and Johnson medical device company, opening doors to women’s health technologies and leading change in clinical practice to transform women’s healthcare. Her results attracted the attention of other companies within the group, exposing a major gap in the need for someone to simplify routes to market for medical technology companies and translate conflicting stakeholder interests into common values.

Often new technologies are perceived as expensive and, therefore, part of the problem, not the solution. In addition, healthcare systems do not always have the adaptive agility required to leverage the full potential of new technologies. These result in a long-time lag in adoption and increase the cost of doing business. Colette realized that, for new technologies to close the huge and persistent gaps in unmet patient needs, MedTech innovators and healthcare providers would need help redesigning their business relationships and delivery practices.

As a founder, Colette’s vision and leadership have been critical to the evolution and resilience of Genesyze. Her delivery teams characterize her as charismatic, authentic, empowering, and motivating. She is intuitive, forward-thinking, and solution-driven. Feedback from a client coworker underlines her pragmatic but challenging approach, “I love how you often take a complex problem and show people up for all the faff they can create, when the solution is really quite straightforward.”

Colette believes that results speak louder than words and has dedicated herself to inspiring and empowering women through her actions, results, and coaching and mentorship. Of course, women entrepreneurs face a particular set of challenges simply because of their gender, based on socially constructed, self-limiting beliefs. “Women still take the highest burden of responsibility for the home and childcare, whilst women leaders make more than their fair share of profit in business,” she says. “However, simply by succeeding against the odds, women are resetting those self-limiting beliefs in men and women. I strongly suggest to stay focused on delivering results and the rest will follow.”

Genesyze was fortunate to have a first-mover advantage. For the first fifteen years, a steady stream of business came by word of mouth, client referral, and repeat business. However, the health industry ecosystem has changed, and many big multinational companies, including communications companies and data analytics companies, have diversified into what they see as a lucrative space. Regulatory pressure for major companies like Medtronic and Smith & Nephew favor contracts with big brands versus practical experts. However, in Europe, 95% of MedTech business revenue is with SME’s and digital health technologies are expected to take an increasing chunk of that space. The pandemic has increased the scale and pace of change, creating incredible opportunities for agile businesses. Genesyze is responding by redesigning its marketing road map and taking a more targeted approach to its position in the market. Genesyze’s business and healthcare transformation specialists are comfortable with complexity, close to the ground, and excel at execution. The relationship between their actions and sales growth is delineated. This gives them a strong USP.

“One company asked us to look at their capital sales performance and act on that. Our evaluation revealed that the field sales staff lacked the customer insights and rigorous processes needed to achieve first rate results,” says Colette. “We characterised the customer capital planning process for them, and the underlying financial and behavioural drivers and barriers. These insights were used to translate their value proposition into customer value drivers, build an evidence-based customer centric account planning process and increase the flexibility of their commercial model. This resulted in over 100pc growth in the first year.”

For the days to come, Colette and her team are developing a system that will allow specialist doctors from all over the world to fast track the collection of data on ‘last resort’ treatments for rare and chronic diseases, such as Crohn’s Disease, then network to build insight on how repurposed treatments could be adopted into a new standard of care. IE

Genesyze

Management

Colette Hamilton
CEO of Genesyze

Description

A global, technology enabled, market access hub with a contract translational research division, delivering turnkey solutions to disruptive life science companies. Focusing on patient access to life saving; life changing and game changing new technologies.

Susan Mitchell is a dynamic achiever who inspires people to take risks, push forward on relevant business practices, and set goals that distinguish the organization from the competition. With an entrepreneurial approach, she builds concepts from ideas into strategic initiatives. Her impact on the organization and the financial services (credit union) industry is transformative.

Susan founded MyDAS Marketing, Inc in 1985 to build a value proposition that included marketing, education, and mystery shopping for the financial services industry. The power of the internet and online learning was just the beginning. Susan had a vision that MyDAS would create a multi-media online educational platform that she named Credit Union University or CUU.com. It was an innovative concept that expanded to Credit Union Educational Sites for Technology and online consumer education. With over 5,000 credit unions and 25,000 + users, CUU.com was translated into Spanish and ultimately provided leadership and regulatory modules before online education became mainstream. Once the education was provided, MyDAS created the marketing materials for consumers to understand credit union services better and then evaluated the service levels through more than 750 mystery shoppers nationwide. With the prominence of MyDAS within the financial service sector, Susan was approached to sell the assets in 2005, and Harland became the ultimate new owner. Susan and her partner, Michael Stankovic, refreshed the model and expanded their consulting practice as Mitchell, Stankovic, and Associates. The company’s mission statement is “Anticipate. Assimilate. Innovate.” If you add motivate, that will summarize Susan’s approach to leadership.

Her award-winning marketing and educational initiatives utilize visual, auditory, and kinesthetic techniques to maximize the learning experience during speaking engagements with large audiences, online virtual sessions, and video webinars. She is an avid reader, combining her insightful observations with strategic execution, helping others do more, and learn how to achieve success.

Susan is a thought leader, turning ideas into action for more than 30 years. The Underground Network, the most recent initiative, reaches thousands of consumers and leaders, challenging them to adapt to market conditions and social issues focusing on financial democracy. Credit unions are cooperatives, not-for-profit, and their charter is to serve people with a common bond collectively. Many are over 100 years old, and Total assets have risen to just under two trillion dollars. The Underground catalyzes credit unions to return to their roots, bridge the gaps and ensure everyone has access to financial services. Susan serves on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Collective Board for the credit union industry and as an officer on the Worldwide Foundation, Doing Global Good.

As a thought leader, Susan utilizes her emotional intelligence expertise to reach people, advise the Board of Directors and motivate all levels of management from the front line to C-Suite to get results, maximize ROI and care about their impact. Credit unions are all about the cooperative spirit of people helping people, so the social mission is intertwined into Susan’s core belief system. This makes her an authentic leader who understands the power of her voice to make a difference in the organization, the industry, and around the world. She STANDS UP for things in life that matter most to her.

To better understand Susan’s mission to empower and inspire women entrepreneurs, we start with a note about the industry she selected as her niche for Mitchell, Stankovic, and Associates, financial cooperatives. Credit unions are made up of people from all industries and employer groups, from NASA to NGOs, Fortune 500 companies, to small communities. There are more than 291 million members and a billion people impacted by credit unions worldwide, and they are representative of society in every region. In 2020, the United Nations estimated that in 2021 there would be 435 million women living on less than $1.90 per day, and nearly one of every three women in the world will be excluded from the formal financial system. She is often quoted as saying, “This is not just an issue of feminism or gender for me; it’s a human issue. Women are central figures in the lives of children and communities. My social mission is to promote sustainable initiatives that give equal access and equal opportunities to help people help themselves.”IEWL

Mary Kotch, EVP CIO, Core Specialty Insurance Holdings, excels at building relationships within the organization. This includes the technology and business partners. She uses the latest advancements in technology, such as Data Visualization and Design Thinking, Multi-Cloud Infrastructure (AWS, Azure, etc.), Advanced Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Engineering, Software Development, and Data Governance. This approach helps organizations become innovative and modern while leaning into technology as a competitive advantage. At Core Specialty, she modernizes all aspects of the business with five strategic partners, Duck Creek, Workday, Genpact, and Microsoft.

Mary first fell in love with technology as an undergraduate at Penn State University, taught Fortran coding. She used to collect stipends for creating databases. “I fell in love with aggregating data, looking at it, and doing statistics with data for professors. It landed me a fellowship into Temple Law, and I continue to do that work,” she explains. From there, Mary continued to teach while landing her first job with Fortune 500 company MetLife. She eventually worked as the CTO for insurance giant AIG. Being a former CTO helped Kotch excel as CIO for Validus before bringing her experience and talent to Core Specialty. She enjoys transforming and modernizing outdated insurance systems.

Many companies are in this predicament because of legacy portfolios like VSAM and COBOL developers. Baby boomers are retiring, and the younger insurance startups cannot find the skill set to modernize these systems. At Core Specialty, Mary is engineering the office of the future. She implements new business solutions for all the technologies and securities at the forefront, including a new security-operations team. She’s got some of the best vendors in the industry, Workday, Microsoft, Duck Creek, Dark Trace, Qumodity, Access Point, Focus Consulting, FTTS, partnering to deliver this transformational approach.

Mary is one of the best, most loving, giving, and caring people you will ever meet. Not only is she a total badass in the technology field, but she is also a mom, wife, educator, STEM robotics teacher. She is gifted with the knowledge of technology and cybersecurity as well as the drive and determination needed to excel in a “men’s world.” She has been featured on multiple media outlets on women in technology and always pushes other women to their success and builds them up. She is consistently conducting workshops to help women embrace themselves as a person and align with their goals. She has mentored hundreds of women since the start of her career.

Mary’s mom and Madeleine Albright have a very important role in her life. “If you have never heard Secretary Albright speak before, you may assume that her speeches are academic or only policy based. But the former secretary often opens her speech with humorous anecdotes,” says Mary. On the other hand, Mary’s mom was a nurse and an innate educator, and both women intertwined humor with life lessons. Both women broke barriers in their careers but always put family first. Both women were educated and accomplished women who spoke their minds and worked to better the world. Albright proved that education and hard work could allow one to accomplish great things. They inspired Mary to become the leader she has culminated into today, leading the company to great heights.

Core Specialty Insurance Holdings, Inc. (“Core Specialty” or the “Company”) announced today that it had completed the recapitalization of StarStone U.S. Holdings, Inc. (“StarStone U.S.”). The recapitalization was led by SkyKnight Capital, L.P. (“SkyKnight”), Dragoneer Investment Group (“Dragoneer”), and Aquiline Capital Partners LLC (“Aquiline,” and together with SkyKnight and Dragoneer, the “Investors”). Enstar Group Limited (NASDAQ: ESGR) (“Enstar”) has received a combination of cash consideration and shares in Core Specialty as part of the recapitalization. Core Specialty is embarking on a brand-new technology platform and replacing 100% of all business processes and solutions. Starstone had over 1800 + business solutions, and we are moving to four next-generation platforms in less than two years. All their business solutions will be retired at Enstar for an agile, modern approach. IEWL

When Sian Morgan, CEO, Hafan Cymru joined the business in 2016, she found that limited changes had occurred in the business model, and the business had hardly moved with the changing landscape. Somewhere along the way, something broke, and there was a disconnect between the leadership’s concept and what staff did with that concept. Complacency had set in, processes and procedures were not followed, a blame culture had evolved, and bullying was evident! It was clear to her that between the reality of the marketplace and the business’s ability to act within that reality, something fractured until it was nearly too late to fix. Using her leadership abilities to listen and inspire, they managed to turn the business around, initially experiencing many barriers and blockages from the then leadership team, which Sian overcame with resilience, clear communication, and being transparent.

Armed with such ideology, Sian has been an inspiration to numerous women. She always advises them to believe in themselves and not be afraid to fail as it is a learning experience and part of establishing success. “Ask questions as you won’t always know all the answers, be clear of your goals and keep them in sight always be focused, finally network the more people you know and establish credibility with the better!” Sian has been taking the company to new heights with her unique attitude and fearless skills.

Hafan Cymru was formed in 1989 as a Registered Social landlord. The business grew out of an initiative of the Women’s Aid movement in Wales when the refuge was the only accommodation or support for women living with domestic abuse. The business was and is one of the key leading providers of housing and support services across Wales for women, men, and children experiencing violence against women and domestic abuse, and their mission was to work to prevent abuse and homelessness and to promote the independence of those they supported through a range of individually tailored support interventions. Over the past 30+ years, the business has developed and expanded from its original intent to respond to legislation and service needs changes. This has seen the business grow in terms of employees and contracts across the whole of Wales, delivering 60+ contracts across Wales, providing support services to men and women and children, providing refuge, safe houses, temporary supporting houses, and floating and outreach support. “We have also diversified the skill set and are able to deliver employability support to help people prepare themselves for the world of work, this also helps our clients who are ready to move on in life and live independently and we have been building a range of skills in other areas such as mental health, and specialist domestic abuse support,” says Sian.

The company has successfully delivered a ‘Whole School Approach to tackling Domestic Abuse by educating schools in Wales about Healthy Relationships via the Spectrum Project. The project is an all-Wales program funded by the Welsh Government and delivered by experienced teachers in primary and secondary schools. The project provides free, bilingual workshops closely linked to the curriculum in Wales and promotes the importance of healthy relationships while raising the awareness of children, young people, and adults about domestic abuse, sexual violence, and violence against women. The engaging activities are designed to be thought-provoking and promote peer discussion but are not intended to be so passionate as to cause distress. The conclusion of every session provides information for young people on where they can access help and support both inside and outside of school. Spectrum also delivers school staff and governors training about understanding the impact of domestic abuse on a child and raises awareness by looking at a whole-school approach to tackling domestic abuse.

“We are currently engaging colleagues in North Wales on the creation of a strategy to build our influence and presence in the North,” says Sian. “This is the first time we have implemented this approach to strategy, which colleagues are embracing, successfully.” IEWL

Hafan Cymru

Management

Sian Morgan
CEO of Hafan Cymru

Description

Hafan Cymru is a charitable organisation operating across Wales, providing housing and support services to vulnerable women, men and their children, particularly those escaping Domestic Abuse.