Kerry Bowden, Global Content & Analytics Recruitment Director,

Adaptive Business Group

Commissions and bonuses aren’t the only way sales people earn serious money in the software industry – with so many new market entrants launching in the SaaS space, many companies offer some form of equity as a way to attract top talent.

But how do you calculate the value of equity in a compensation plan, and should it outweigh job opportunities offering more in guaranteed earnings when choosing a new role?

The allure of equity isn’t hard to understand.

When a software company is acquired for head-spinning sums or makes the headlines with a jaw-dropping IPO, the shareholders pocket life-changing amounts of money from the proceeds.

Who wouldn’t want to be along for a ride like that?

It’s the reason equity has such a magnetic appeal as part of any compensation package, and many ambitious SaaS sales professionals will be faced with a difficult choice more than once in their careers:

-take the ‘safe route’, and go with a job that offers a high salary and a proven track record of creating successful sales reps

share some risk with an up-and-coming employer who sweetens their lower pay package with an enticing equity piece

Going for the equity could be your ticket to fortune, but it could also leave you kicking yourself for not taking the ‘bird in the hand’ if things don’t work out how you’d hoped.

So what to do?

When it comes to equity, there are no crystal balls that can show the future.

But there are some basic steps to follow to gauge of how much faith you should place in your opportunity to participate as a shareholder, not just an employee.

For anyone trying to get a clearer understanding of how to qualify equity offerings, read on.

Grants vs Options

First things first, what are you even being offered? A grant means you are being given shares in the company. An option means what it says – you are being the option to buy shares, under a specific set of conditions.

Share options are the most common type of equity offered to employees joining start-ups.

They give you the right to purchase company shares at a predetermined price, and often within a fixed time window. The price is known as the strike price or exercise price, and when you choose to purchase some or all of your allocated shares, this is known as exercising the option.

The concept is simple – early employees get a chance to buy shares at a low price, below the value on the open market. They can then either sell these shares privately, or wait until the company is acquired or goes public to reap the rewards of the difference between the strike price and the eventual sale price.

For both grants and options, the details on what you can and can’t do with your shares (such as selling them to someone else, what happens after you leave the company etc.) is usually detailed in a separate agreement.

Shareholders agreements are of critical importance and should be weighed in the balance along with more obvious factors such as how many shares you have the chance to own.

Vesting

Most options will include a vesting period or vesting schedule. This means that although you have a contractual right to your equity, you can’t have it all at once.

Vesting schedules typically mean that you have to ‘unlock’ access to your allocated shares either through employment tenure or performance.

It’s common for vesting schedules to include a ‘cliff’, often one year in duration. This means that your shares don’t vest when you start work, but only once you are a year into the job. If you leave before this, you’ll leave empty handed.

Vesting isn’t only based on time. Some employers will offer you the chance to accelerate your vesting schedule by hitting performance goals, or the vesting for those participating in equity plans might be linked to the performance of the company as a whole – say hitting a certain revenue threshold.

Calculating ownership

It’s important to know not only the number of shares you are being offered, but the total shares outstanding. The relationship between these two determines how much of the company you own.

Most companies will have a fixed employee equity pool of 10-20% of total shares outstanding.

It’s also important to be aware of share dilution, which is what happens when a company issues more shares. When new shares are issued, there are now more available and the percentage owned by existing shareholders therefore decreases.

Other factors

While it’s an obvious point, it’s surprising how often employees fail to investigate a company’s exit strategy and time-frame.

Although the board is unlikely to share its full strategic secrets with a new hire, it’s reasonable to expect some frame of reference to help put the value of your equity in better context, especially if you’re being offered equity to compensate for a below-market guaranteed pay package.

It’s also possible to get a read on a company’s valuation, often based on previous investment. Ultimately, share price market value is where the magic happens in equity programs, and if you’re able to see a rising trend in valuation through sequential fundraising rounds then you may be onto a winner.

After all, owing 0.01% of a booming software business is better than owing 50% of a sinking ship.

According to Televerde CEO Morag Lucey, Televerde CFO Jill Barnard is a great business partner, a solid financial leader who can read the entire chessboard optimizing financial resources, and a sales partner who allows for flexible pricing models to get the deal done while maintaining strong profitability margins. This operational mindset allows for partnership in funding tools necessary to get the job done. What’s more, as a female leader, Jill has had to face significant barriers in her career. “I consistently have earned 20% less than my male counterparts. Women are more likely to be seen as ‘transactional accountants’ rather than strategic CFOs. This is the reason men are paid more…women were the uneducated bookkeepers back in the day. Very good at keeping records, knowing everything about a company, but rarely had a seat at the strategic table. I’ve had to overcome this over and over in my career.”

Jill is inspiring and empowering women entrepreneurs across industries to become the great leaders of tomorrow. She has championed women across many industries during her long career. Facing that uphill battle herself, Jill always makes efforts to ensure women have a seat at the strategic table. “Upper-level finance has traditionally been male dominated, so I take every opportunity to teach women to think about being a business partner in every position and not just a good accountant. The days of the stodgy old accountants only reporting on the past are gone!” she adds. “For women working for me, or as a peer in leadership groups (AzBL & FEI), I take any and all opportunities to teach. Once an anomaly, the younger up-and-coming finance professionals are realizing the landscape has changed. You must be serving the business looking forward and proactively to steer the company rather than just reporting on what already happened. New generations of women in finance will have a seat at the strategic table and an opportunity to earn equal pay by learning to be the best business partners regardless of how it used to be.”

As a single parent and a CFO, Jill had zero grace to be a mom. She was the first at daycare and the last to pick up. “Too many Saturday mornings were cartoons in my office while I worked. I ran at a stress level that aged me beyond my years. I was the best CFO. Businesses thrived while my daughter took the backseat more than she should have.” But all these hardships and struggles taught Jill to be a great leader. “You cannot want more for others than they want for themselves. As women, we tend to be nurturing. I love to teach, empower, and really develop talent into fantastic strategic thinkers. But sometimes people just want to be exactly where they are. I had to learn that was OK and not be frustrated with ‘you could be so much more’.”

Televerde is a global B2B sales and marketing solutions company specializing in generating revenue as a service and providing a full suite of sales and marketing services, including inbound customer care. Televerde was born in purpose, launching in 1994 as a way to help women incarcerated inside the Arizona Women’s Correctional Facility learn business acumen and marketable business skills so they could reclaim their independence and join the workforce after release. Since Televerde’s inception, more than 3,500 women have graduated from the program, moving on to launch careers in every area of business. Televerde has continued to grow and evolve, staffing a 650+ global workforce.

Televerde’s mission is to provide 10,000 life-changing opportunities to disempowered communities over the next decade. This unique business model has delivered $65B and counting in pipeline for its customers.

Jill’s immediate focus moving forward is to maximize the company’s digital transformation. “With the implementation phase complete, we can spend all of our time maximizing the benefits. Putting the bones in place was a heavy lift, but now adoption, streamlining, and tweaking will maximize our efficiency,” she says. “This will increase our margins, profitability, and top-line revenue while delivering stronger ROI for our clients.” IEWL

Televerde

Management

Jill Barnard
Chief Financial Officer / COO of Televerde

Description

Televerde is the preferred global revenue creation partner driving marketing, sales and customer success excellence for B2B businesses around the world. Powered by a cutting-edge customer journey platform and the delivery of a highly personalized experience, we deliver full end to end life-cycle revenue generation from Marketing, through Sales to Customer Success with scalability, repeatability and predictability. From audience identification to advocacy, we drive bottom line results. Our uniquely evolved approach, business model, and best practices have enabled us to deliver over $65B in pipeline and to close over $12B+ in revenue for our customers. Working across industries and with leaders across sectors, we are powered by a mission to transform 10,000 lives.

Chloé Meredith, PhD,
People Analytics Consultant, iNostix

People Analytics Consultant at iNostix

In the 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends*, it was stated that the application of organisational network analysis (ONA) would increase exponentially. Even 48% of the respondents indicated that they were experimenting with ONA tools. However, only 9% understands how their internal organisational networks work. The number of articles and tools that focus on ONA is multiplying, along with the questions that rise among practitioners and clients. I noticed that the questions raised are often times strikingly similar at their core. This article lists the 5 most frequently asked questions and outlines my view on each of these.

Why should I apply ONA in my project or organisation?

ONA provides a structured way to visualise and analyse the relationships (or ties) between employees (or nodes). This analytical technique makes the invisible web of interactions among employees visible and provides insight in the connectivity, collaboration and flow of important resources, such as information, knowledge, expertise, etc. within the organisation.

By providing a bird’s eye view on the organisation, ONA is able to deliver actionable insights that can accelerate strategy execution, business performance and transformation success.

The basic idea is that the connectedness and exchange of resources plays a crucial role in the performance of employees, teams and the entire organisation. By visualizing and analyzing these, otherwise invisible, processes, a wide variety of issues and questions can be addressed, for instance:

• How can we optimise our organisation and workplace design to facilitate and enhance knowledge exchange and collaboration?

• Who are the brokers within our organisation who connect disparate locations, specialties, and silos?

• How can we leverage the power of networks to transform in a smarter way?

• How can we accelerate post-merger or acquisition integration among different units?

• Who are the employees at risk for burnout or attrition and how can we prevent them from leaving (brain drain)?

• Who are our star performers and how can we further enhance their performance and development?

By providing a bird’s eye view on the organisation, ONA is able to deliver actionable insights that can accelerate strategy execution, business performance and transformation success.

How can you collect data on organisational networks?

There are different types of data that can be used for ONA, namely active and passive data. Passive data imply the monitoring of behavior through IT metadata (e.g., e-mail traffic, calendar data, participation on collaboration platforms, etc.), while active data require participation from participants, most of the time filling out a survey. Also the combination of passive and active data can further enhance insights and capture different types of interactions. Finally, wearable devices and badges can identify spatial proximity and interactions.

Is it (only) about identifying key influencers?

While identifying key influencers is clearly one of the key value drivers behind ONA, there are many more relevant insights to be gained.

When people ask me questions about ONA, they often refer to the possibility to identify key influencers. Indeed, ONA makes it possible to pinpoint employees that have a large number of (important) connections and therefore, have a large influence on the organisation. As evidence suggests that the top 3% of key influencers can reach 85% of the organisation, these insights are useful in transformation or change processes. While this is clearly one of the key value drivers behind ONA, there are many more relevant insights to be gained. ONA can assist in identifying silos or bottlenecks in the organisation, for instance when it comes to information or knowledge exchange. You can assess how agile organisations actually are, map collaboration within and between teams or units and identify knowledge hubs that are crucial in the daily functioning of the organisation.

What about privacy and anonymity?

This is one of the most frequently asked and crucial questions, especially in the light of GDPR. As with other data, employees have to know in advance what will happen with their data, where the data will be stored, how reporting will look like, etc. In other words, transparency, clear communication and informed consent are key. Inform participants about the why and how, but also illustrate what is in it for them and why it is important to participate.

What are 3 key learnings from previous projects?

1. One of my main learnings is the importance of scoping and contextualising network data in a correct way. It is crucial to assess which type of interactions you are looking at and how you should interpret these within the context of the organisation.

2. Second, when it comes to ONA, response rates are crucial, as incomplete data can result in completely biased network visualisations. In order to achieve high response rates, clear communication and showing what’s in it for them is crucial.

3. Finally, while ONA visualisations make networks visible and tangible, my experience is that the combination with descriptive measures (e.g., centrality metrics, density, etc.) and more advanced analytics (e.g., social selection or influence models) makes insights even stronger and more actionable. Moreover, in my opinion, only then correct inferences are made that can lead to valuable insights and next steps.

Wrap-up: Can I start with Organisational Network Analysis today?

It is just a matter of finding the right ONA-expert that guides you along the way and enables you to collect, analyse and report in an efficient and pragmatic way.

ONA is an extremely valuable approach that has great potential for the current business landscape and its (digital) transformations. And while most people think ONA is complex and requires a lot of effort, you can start your ONA project as of today. It is just a matter of finding the right ONA-expert that guides you along the way and enables you to collect, analyse and report in an efficient and pragmatic way.

Marcy Navarro is known for never stopping and constantly striving to be better. Since this is what has made and continues to make her successful as the owner of MRX Logistics. There are other people that never stop, but Marcy has worked day and night since she began working in this profession to learn everything there is to know about the industry. Marcy has done and continues to do the work in every position alongside her employees as the owner of MRX Logistics, and it is, quite frankly, Marcy’s distinctive characteristic.

“Beyond logistics, the woman with a powerful mind who makes anything possible, makes the world go round, and revolutionizes business.”

Marcy Navarro says, “Before MRX Logistics, I was already self-employed as an Independent contractor/truck driver. At the age of 19, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do with my life, but one thing I always knew, was that I didn’t want to work for someone else for the rest of my life. At the time, I owned one semi-truck with the help of my father. Although some may not consider it as a business, it was the very beginning of the idea of being my own boss and handling all the duties that came with the business. As some of you may know, truck drivers have a lot of downtimes while getting loaded/unloaded at shipping/receiving warehouses. Being a determined person that is always hungry for more, was my biggest motivation. I used that downtime wisely and decided to go to college. Majoring in business made a lot of sense to me since I understood the handling of one semi-truck, but I wanted more trucks because I didn’t see myself behind the wheel of a truck for the rest of my life. My main inspiration is to always do something to better my yesterday’s self.”

MRX is a trucking company that drays shipping containers from Long Beach and Los Angeles Ports. MRX delivers shipping containers to warehouses so the goods can be sold and/or distributed to their final destination for the consumers. MRX’s mission is to provide the highest level of services to its customers with safe and timely deliveries. MRX’s core value is conducting business honestly and with integrity. MRX In one way or another, always stay informed. MRX collaborates with and researches its competitors. It collaborates with software firms. For the growth of MRX, networking is tremendously beneficial.

Marcy Navarro says, “Although at a young age and not knowing where my life was heading, I knew I needed a job that paid me well enough to live comfortably while I figured out where I was going in the long run. I was in my early 20s making about double the average salary in the US today. By age 24, I had traveled the globe and had more than I ever imagined. Even after having felt like I was on top of the world, I asked myself, what’s next? As great as my life was, it began to feel dull and repetitive. That was my turning point. I wanted more and I definitely knew there was more out there for me. I needed a challenge, and what better than to set and act on progressive goals. It was then that I decided to go back to school and major in business. I wanted to use every second wisely, so I made sure to invest my money in preparing all the legal work for my future business before I even finished school. Finally, when the time came I had everything set up and perfectly aligned. After that, it was more hard work and dedication than ever before “While everyone sleeps, I work”. I sacrificed that wonderful life I was having to make sure my future was brighter, and here we are today.” Marcy Navarro’s commitment to achieve something unique and her ability to understand clients’ needs and competition in order to give distinctive solutions has made her a successful revolutionary entrepreneur.IEWL

MRX LOGISTICS

Management

Marcy Navarro
Founder & Owner of MRX LOGISTICS

Description

MRX is a trucking company that drays shipping containers from Long Beach and Los Angeles Ports. MRX delivers shipping containers to warehouses so the goods can be sold and/or distributed to their final destination for the consumers.

Cathy Peng is the CEO of ROCS Global, a global consulting and executive recruiting company, located in Silicon Valley. She started as an engineer and has had a long career journey: she has worked in supply chain management, global branding and marketing, sales and business development, general management executive positions with fortune 100 companies and startups, and she has become a CEO. Cathy has conducted business in over 40 countries, having lived and worked in Asia, Europe, and the United States. As an Asian female, she has climbed corporate ladders, and has won awards such as “top 50 Global most diverse leaders”, and “global woman of the year for IOT”. Cathy lives by her motto, “Impossible = I’m possible”. She has coached and mentored many professionals across the globe to advance their career, as well as on being happier and healthier. She is keen on community service and devoted herself in addressing issues of minorities and women, is a frequent presenter in conferences, and has represented Asian business leaders multiple times at the White House in Washington, DC. As a cofounder of the MyT.coach platform, a global coaching platform where professionals and executives find their own board of directors, Cathy continues to inspire many professionals around the world with her energetic style, global growth mindset and loving heart. Sharing her secrets of turning “Impossible into I’m possible” has helped her students to engage obstacles and challenges in ways that drive results and be happy. “I am very proud of what we have been able to provide through MyT.coach, where executive coaches combine to become a personal board of directors for each member to address challenges and optimize opportunities through our insights, guidance and mentoring,” as Cathy explains, “The people we coach have overcome significant challenges with difficult situations, become more assertive, enhanced their career advancement and be more effective. “Cathy’s vision of an online platform where career-minded individuals and their companies find enabling combinations of coaching, career content and professional development events that drive success for each individual career and life goals and needs. The diversity in coaches, content and services allows members to establish career plans, build new strengths, increase confidence, address gaps in capabilities and build strong network. Cathy’s platform uses methods such as training programs, group coaching and individual coaching, hands-on practice, and individualized feedback for continuous growth in awareness, skills, and abilities. Cathy also has a persisting commitment to contribute to the well-being of others. All throughout the pandemic, she developed the Fun Fitness Dance program using Zoom and YouTube. Despite the disruption of the pandemic, the needs of her own family and the challenges of maintaining her business, Cathy has conducted daily fitness interspersed with words of encouragement and inspiration to thousands of people. So far, there have been over 180,000 entries from around the world to join the fitness program, with over 80 volunteers joining in to help and support the efforts to bring joy, love and health to audiences. On March 28 of 2022 “Cathy’s Fun Fitness Dance” celebrated its 2-year consecutive streamed daily session. For some, dance is getting them into great shape, for others stretching and weight training is improving flexibility and strength, and for all the compelling stories and encouragement bring connectiveness and belonging to inspire or deal with loneliness or depression. “My goal is to make this non-profit organization can continue to be a viable, self-sustaining entity that continues to reach and benefit new audiences, while continuing to serve our existing community. Despite the significant daily commitment, I feel good about what we are doing through Cathy’s Fun Fitness and balanced in my focus of being a balanced person that can lead a company, be a parent in a happy family while making some meaningful impact to the lives of others.” WL

Cathy Peng is the co-founder of MyT.coach, which she brought to life as a platform that provides each professionals, executive and entrepreneur with their hand picked “personal board of directors” from a diverse gallery of career coaches, trainers and mentors that delivers the specific support, success and transformation unique to each individual career journey.

Cathy Peng

CEO,ROCS Global Inc

Co-Founder,MyT Coach

Founder, Cathy’s Fun Fitness

ROCS Global Inc

Management

Cathy PengCEO

ROCS Global Inc

Description

ROCS “Results Oriented Consulting Services”, based in Silicon Valley, has the network of diverse industry experts, consultants and executive coaches, trainers to support clients to recruit and develop top talents globally since 2013.

Peggie Koon,
CEO/Founder, Leading Change, LLC

In case you haven’t noticed, “Reality” is BIG business. There are “Reality” shows about everything and everyone on every type of media – from FB, Pinterest, YouTube and other SM platforms to television. Reality is all the rage.

But media is not the only “industry” capitalizing on “Reality”. In his article, at CIO.com entitled, “Google Glass Takes Flight at Boeing”, Al Saaco says that “Reality” is aBillion Dollar market in the US alone!

“ AR applications and systems are expected to represent a $105 billion market for U.S. enterprises within the next 15 years, according to Index AR Solutions, a company that builds custom enterprise AR apps. That number includes $49 billion in hardware, $45 billion in related services and $11 billion in software. In other words, AR and related wearables represent a major opportunity for businesses”.

Saaco’s article focuses on the use of AR in aviation, specifically Boeing. But VR, AR, and MR are not just being used in aviation. Reality applications are widely used in academia, automotive, the food industry, government, healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries.

Do you know the difference between AR, VR, and MR? Have you begun to think about how the use of “Reality” might affect your business – your operations, products & services, IT infrastructure, and your people?

Here’s an excerpt on Reality from the book, Leading Change, A Practical Guide for Change Agents to get you started.

Augmented, Virtual & Mixed Reality What Is Augmented Reality?

According to Techtarget:

augmented reality or AR is: the integration of digital information with the user’s environment in real time. Unlike virtual reality, which creates a totally artificial environment, augmented reality uses the existing environment and overlays new information on top of it.

Coined in 1990 by Boeing researcher Thomas Caudell, the term augmented reality was used “to describe how the head-mounted displays that electricians used when assembling complicated wiring harnesses worked”.

One of the first commercial applications of AR technology was the yellow “first down” line that began appearing in televised football games sometime in 1998.

Today, Google glass and heads-up displays in car windshields are perhaps the most well-known consumer AR products, but the technology is used in many industries including healthcare, public safety, gas and oil, tourism and marketing.

What Is Virtual Reality?

Techtarget gives this definition of virtual reality:

“an artificial environment that is created with software and presented to the user in such a way that the user suspends belief and accepts it as a real environment. On a computer, virtual reality is primarily experienced through two of the five senses: sight and sound.”

“A 3-D image that can be explored interactively at a personal computer is said to be the simplest form of virtual reality.”

What Is Mixed Reality?

Mixed Reality (MR) is just that: a combination of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). According to Wikipedia,

“Mixed reality takes place not only in the physical world or the virtual world, but is a mix of reality and virtual reality, encompassing both augmented reality and augmented virtuality via immersive technology “

AR, VR, and MR in the Real World

Did you ever watch Star Trek? I love the scenes where Bones pulls up a hologram to view the injuries of his starship mates, treats them immediately, then sends them on their way. Similarly, R2D2 pulls up a hologram of the Death Star on the fly to show Luke and Hans Solo how to navigate during their air strikes. The Star Wars and Star Trek movies are extremely high on my list of “next gen” films! I know, I know…they’re really not all that next gen because much of the technology in these films is being used right now.

Seriously, I watch my grandkids put on a “VR” headset to “fight” with a holograph of Darth Vader. And I have worn 3D glasses at the movie theater to experience the scenes in the movie virtually – as if I am right there on the set.

And let’s not forget all the frenzy around Pokémon GO™, a game that uses AR+, built on Apple’s ARKit™. All fun and games – and it’s all good, right? Not really. You see augmented, virtual, and mixed reality are not just being used by video gamers and movie goers. And Apple™ is not the only Tech company in the game!

VR, AR, and MR are being used in aviation, automotive, the food industry, government, healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries. Uses of these technologies include: architectural & premises safety, branded experiences, culture & travel & history, distribution & logistics, remote facilities management, location monitoring, medical diagnosis & treatment, & care, military & emergency services, troubleshooting & maintenance, training, remote product support, virtual retail stores, and more.”

Boeing’s AR Juggernaut

Worshipping at the Tomb of Connectivity?

“ Airplane wiring diagrams are complex. And when technicians are wiring a plane there is zero room for error. That’s why Boeing is testing augmented reality technology to give technicians real-time, hands-free, interactive 3D wiring diagrams – right before their eyes.”

“The cross-functional team working on this technology has made a step-change break-through in our quality and productivity by following their passion to pursue a great idea.”

“We don’t often see 40% improvements in productivity, and I’m convinced that it was a culture of innovation and leaders who are willing to say ‘yes’ that enabled this idea to come to life.”

“Using augmented reality smart glasses, technicians can see where the electrical wiring goes in the aircraft fuselage. AR also allows them to roam around the airplane, while seeing wiring renderings in full depth within their surroundings; they can also access instructions hands-free.”

VR at Barts’ Medical

Doctors at the famous Barts Hospital in the UK use VR to stream life-saving operations to students worldwide while surgeons use AR to make sure surgical procedures are performed accurately. With AR and VR more accurate remote diagnosis, self-diagnosis, training, and in-home post-operative care are all possible.[iv]

VR at Case Western Reserve & Cleveland Clinic

According to Sue Workman, CIO at Case Western Reserve, medical students at the Cleveland Clinic will be studying virtual bodies using Microsoft HoloLens™.According to Workman:

“We’re building a health education campus with Cleveland Clinic — a 485,000-square-foot building scheduled to open in 2019. It will house our schools of medicine, nursing and dental medicine, including Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner College of Medicine. Microsoft’s HoloLens™ MR technology will allow the students to be taught anatomy without cadavers and cadaver labs. The VR technology projects 3D anatomic holograms into the class room, where students can see them from all angles and interact with them.”

Key Thoughts & Questions

Manufacturers are using AR, VR, and MR technologies to display holograms of the wiring systems, instrumentation, components, the plant floor, etc., allowing technicians to see and quickly produce, troubleshoot and/or repair failed components.

These reality systems not only replace the use of old manuals, but allow a hologram of the device, location, electronics, wiring, information, media assets, and more to be visible in real time resulting in increased productivity, better quality, and reduced costs.

According to Chad Holmes, principal and cyber CTO at professional services organization EY, many companies don’t have the back-office capabilities required to support AR, MR and VR:

“The technology is there, but a lot of improvements need to be made to old legacy systems to make sure that these types of technologies can function how they’re supposed to. For most, it’s a big investment”.

Holmes and others cite the security issues raised by the addition of new remote devices with wireless data sharing as another big concern:

“So much is new and untested when it comes to AR and VR. We don’t yet know all the ways in which these solutions can be vulnerable. You’ve got to think about what they’re going to be used for — what they’re actually transmitting and looking at.”

Jake Widman also advises IT enterprises to get ready for these new technologies by recruiting staff with the right expertise, getting help from the experts, and starting a pilot. In his Computerworld.com article, “How IT can prepare for VR, AR, and MR in the enterprise”, Widman says that the time for IT to get started on “Reality” is now:

“Whether you line up partners, start talking to integrators, set up a skunkworks, recruit staff with the right expertise — or all of the above — it’s not too late to get started. Remember, it was only about three to five years ago that BYOD was regarded as a new trend. For IT departments, reality in any form comes at you fast.”

Are you ready for “Reality”? Do you understand how the Reality market might affect your business?

Are there opportunities to use VR, AR, or MR in your organization?

Has your company invested in the infrastructure required to capitalize on the opportunity associated with these new technologies?

How will your organization’s human capital management (HCM) strategy change? How will you provide workforce development to empower/enable your workforce to capitalize on the use of VR, AR, and/or MR?

Elise Buckle, Co-President, Climate & Sustainability, is highly committed to making this world a better place for people and nature. She has been working in the sustainability and climate action field for over 20 years.

Elise is a smart, hard-working, passionate person with a rare level of intelligence. After graduating from Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics with Distinctions and receiving several awards and special scholarships, she chose to actively contribute to making the world a better place. Indeed, Elise is always aiming for the best for others; supporting them, coaching them and giving them the self-confidence they need to succeed. In her various projects and initiatives, she leads with empathy and compassion and sometimes forgets about herself when trying to help her team to make collective success possible for everyone.

Élise was born in France, married to Matthew (Canada) and is the proud mother of Lucas and Leïla (Switzerland). She is also passionate about mountain trail running and skiing.

Elise has initiated and developed several global alliances and campaigns to deliver positive impact for People and the Planet by working with a wide range of stakeholders, including the UN, governments, civil society, global trade unions, and the private sector. She has the rare quality of being able to quickly see through the various stakeholders’ lens, facilitate the emergence of alignment, and focus on unlocking the potential of collective action. This has led to being highly sought after. Indeed, she has advised several top-level UN diplomats, including Ambassador Khan and Dr. David Nabarro. More recently, she has specialized in systemic thinking and leadership, partnership building, and radical collaboration to address the planetary emergency.

In December 2019, after witnessing the massive bush fires with her family in Australia, she set up Climate & Sustainability as a collaboration platform for change-makers to facilitate partnership-building and accelerate climate action. The organization’s DNA is the spirit of “radical collaboration” and the imperative to go beyond egos, logos, and institutional boundaries, working as one on One Team for One Planet to address the triple crisis of climate, people, and nature. With a team of highly dedicated individuals, she works as a catalyst to allow the emergence of a systemic transformation of society.

Most recently, she coordinated the Planetary Emergency Partnership, which grew from 30 to 300+ partners and strongly influenced the G20, the EU Commission, and various Summits organized by the Secretary-General. Some of the positive outcomes included the adoption of the Leaders Pledge for Nature by nearly 100 Heads of States and Governments, and the massive sign-on (more than 1 million citizens) to the online petition for a green economic recovery. She worked with the EU Commission on the EU Green Deal as well.

Currently, she is working with the COP27 Egyptian Presidency to make the next climate COP a more inclusive process that values diversity and equity. According to Marie-Claire Graf – Swiss Youth Negotiators and Sustainability Week for Business, “Elise is a smart and eloquent strategic thinker and practical doer. She connects international high level political conversations with local actions and excites people with her radical collaboration approach. She is fully committed to solving the climate and biodiversity crises and has countless solutions at hand. Through her experience in different roles and positions, she gained so many insights; hence I see her as an incredible source of inspiration and wisdom. I adore her compassion and dedication.”

The raves don’t stop there. Owen Gibbons, UK Cabinet Office, states, “Elise is not only very professional, but an easy person to work with and a great team player. In working together, we were able to align communications and policy goals smoothly.” Yanli Hou, the WWF China Program Director, adds, “I worked with Elise for the G20 Summit in France. Elise was the team leader. I was very impressed throughout the entire time I worked with Elise by her intelligence, hard work ethic, commitment, professionalism, and passion. She led by example, working the longest hours, chipping in to do whatever tasks had to be done, and encouraged and brought the best out of others. I certainly benefited from her experience and willingness to coach.”

For 2022, Elise and her team are supporting many women leaders worldwide through the She Changes Climate; which is being hosted and developed by Climate & Sustainability, together with Bianca Pitt and Antoinette Vermilye, co-founders of the initiative with Elise. They will convene a Women Leaders Climate Summit on November 4th, during COP27. This event will allow many women to shine and share their vision for the most sustainable future by 2030. “We will connect women in power, with other women championing climate solutions on the ground who don’t always get the recognition for their work, or not yet. We will out them on stage, under the spotlight, to empower them, and connect them with key influencers and funders,” elucidates Elise. WL

Huna is Canada’s leading innovative, science-based, organic, and plant-based Skincare and Cosmetics company. It is a multi-award-winning venture founded by Botanist, Herbalist & Natural Cosmetic Formulator Heather Urquhart. Born out of a passion for herbal medicine and plant-based healing, Heather created Huna to merge the worlds of herbalism, botanical science, and luxury beauty to create a line of products that harnesses the healing power of plants.

“Huna is a unique multi-award winning science-based sustainable Skin Health company. Founded by Botanist, Herbalist and Certified Natural Cosmetic Formulator Heather Urquhart in 2014, Huna creatively combines the principles of Botanical Science, Herbal Medicine, and Luxury Beauty into an innovative and advanced line of high-performance products.”

Huna is unique in the international beauty industry. Huna grows nearly 100 different organic botanicals on their family acreage in beautiful Monte Creek, British Columbia, Canada. Each plant is carefully hand-harvested at the peak of optimal ripeness, capturing the plant’s potent phytoactive and bionutrients at the perfect time. Huna then processes the freshly harvested botanicals and develops Huna’s highly-prized exclusive Proprietary Active Botanical Complexes. This is what makes Huna products so fresh, so innovative, so incredibly effective, and so very special.

Heather’s qualities go beyond her expertise and passion for botanical ingredients and skin health. Heather has successfully built a vertically integrated and uniquely differentiated beauty brand that stands for sustainable, ethical, inclusive, and high-integrity values in a very overcrowded and overwhelming global beauty industry. Heather is building a different kind of beauty industry from the inside out.

Heather inspires and empowers women to be comfortable, accepting, and loving themselves, to feel good and confident in their skin. She is passionate about teaching women about their skin health and body health and how plants can help them achieve optimal health and vitality inside and out. Heather loves to hire entrepreneurial-minded women at Huna who are inspired, motivated, and driven to change the world through passion, plants, and empowering other women. It is all about cooperation, support, and encouragement at Huna. “It feels really good to help other women achieve their dreams and live a more independent lifestyle. It’s a really cool process to watch a women come into her own as a leader, and women absolutely bring a different set of skills and unique approaches to business as entrepreneurs. Women are adaptable, flexible, persistent, and resilient- they make outstanding entrepreneurs.”

Heather is a strong believer in charity and giving back to the community. She says, “We always share the wonderful charity fundraising and community work we do at Huna, and I’ve seen that really inspire people to get involved and be excited about helping others. Whenever I see someone do something selfless, it makes me feel good and inspires me to contribute in some way to make the world or my local community a better place. And we want to inspire our Huna Tribe to do the same. Helping people and the planet has a domino effect- the more positive we see in the world, the more positive change we want to create.”

Heather came up with the concept of Huna Skin while developing her formulations to address personal skin issues related to an autoimmune disease. Being a Botanist and Herbalist, Heather wanted organic, plant-based, and high-performance skincare with specific botanicals that she was aware of that addressed the autoimmune skin symptoms, such as premature aging and acne, and inflammatory skin rashes. Unable to find the right products, she got to work researching, formulating, and developing her own custom botanical-based skincare products, and she was able to resolve her skin issues quickly and dramatically improve her skin health.

With these custom formulations, Heather’s skin health saw visible and dramatic improvements- so much so that friends and family took notice. Heather began sharing her organic skin formulations with friends and family, and they loved and raved about how good their skin looked and felt after using them. With encouragement from her family, Heather decided to build a website on her own to share the products with fellow Canadians suffering from similar skin issues, and the rest is history. Huna has been growing steadily and strong year over year since it launched in November 2014 and now sells in Spas, Retail Boutiques, and Clinics across Canada and the USA. IE

Huna Skin

Management

Heather Urquhart,
Founder, CEO & Master Formulator of Huna Skin

Description

Huna formulates, manufactures and distributes High-Performance Organic and Natural Botanical-based ‘Skin Nutrition’​ skincare and cosmetics. We proudly grow our organic botanical actives on our family acreage in Manitoba, Canada. We are a savvy team of Scientists, Botanical Experts, World-class High Performance Cosmetic Formulators, and Clean Beauty Innovators. Skin Nutrition: Scientifically proven, Organically grown.

Tina Wellman, CEO of BrightDrive HCS, has some unique leadership qualities that have transformed the organization. Those include integrity, stamina, endurance, fairness, knowledge of the industry, strength, and ability as an entrepreneur to see through the uncertainty that comes with starting a new business. These attributes are what have led BrightDrive HCS to become an industry leader.

BrightDrive HCS brings its 30-plus years of healthcare experience to take the guesswork out of tracking clients’ financial performance. BrightDrive HCS is more than just a medical billing company – they look at their partner’s entire ecosystem and support them at several touchpoints with their strong consulting arm. BrightDrive HCS is changing how healthcare thinks of third-party revenue cycle partnerships one customer at a time.

“Genetics and molecular testing in general are an ever-expanding field. Technology is growing quickly, and our job is to assist our clients in staying up to date with the payers ever changing landscape both with new ideas that will help the patients ultimately get the personalized care they need and our fiduciary responsibilities to our clients,” explains Tina.

The steadfast leader’s approach is to be a true partner to her clients and look at their entire ecosystem to ensure that they are benefiting from every opportunity they can while helping them grow within the guidelines of the regulatory bodies. “This sometimes includes telling them things they don’t want to hear because it is the right thing to do,” says Tina.

At BrightDrive HCS, they pride themselves on treating a client’s business as if it was their own. The BrightDrive HCS team looks at each client and their surrounding ecosystem to help them make the best decisions for their business, whether it is clinical or financial compliance at the center. They strive to provide services and advice that will benefit the client and the patient.

BrightDrive HCS’s corporate culture is based on Bright and Driven professionals emphasizing patient-centric passion to the physician and laboratory partners. The company shares the same goal as its clients: compliant practices, responsive reporting, and accurate reimbursement to ensure their patient’s healthcare needs are met, and they have a successful business at the same time.

“I think running a business in health care technology and service, which is male dominated is inspiring. I also am raising two young men independently,” says Tina, who recently beat breast cancer while doing all of this. Professional development of the female team, even apprentices, is a big priority for her, and so is supporting their entire beings, not just them as staff members. “In my community I am the person that listens and counsel’s women friends and colleagues in all aspects of their lives, not just professional,” adds Tina. “I volunteer for the American Legion being a Veteran of the US Army. In my volunteering I coach many students that include some brilliant young ladies in public speaking. I also mentor all of my female employees both domestic and abroad, they are also promoted both equally.”

For the pioneering leader, success has a broader meaning. “I think if you set small goals that are ladders to much larger ones you will find success all along the way,” she elucidates. “I was a successful student, soldier, college student, respiratory therapist, writer, sales and marketing professional and this all lead to me being the CEO, it doesn’t happen overnight and most importantly I am a successful mother.” “This will be the most important legacy I leave behind.”, stated Tina WL