Cool Person of the Day

There are very few boardrooms in the tech sector that can boast about gender diversity.  One of the notable exceptions to the disappointing trend that has women kept from managing or directing many of the top companies in the world is Google.  Google has three women who serve on its ten-person Board of Directors and with 30% female direction, Google represents one of the most gender-integrated Boards in the tech sector!  Ann Mather was one of the earliest members of the Google Board of Directors and far more than a diversity hire, Mather represents one of the most active presences in the business world today! Read more »

The path of innovation in the tech sector is becoming a much broader one.  For most companies, gone are the days of scientists and engineers working in their laboratory doing pure research and development while corporate bean counters manage the finances of such projects in a distant office.  Many companies in the tech sector have begun to rely upon the engineers and scientists themselves to manage the funds for their projects and as a matter of corporate advancement, those companies tend to promote the best and brightest to leadership roles within their research and development department.  Of course, in many cases, that means that the scientist must return to school for additional education, focused more on business than engineering.  That is what happened with David Mosley. Read more »

There is no doubt about it; alternative energy is a hot industry right now.  Between the environmental, economic, and national security arguments, dependence upon fossil fuels is hardly a viable long-term strategy for any nation on Earth.  So, innovative companies have been formed to develop the energy sources that might replace oil.  One company, Solazyme, has found real success in manufacturing fuel oil from plant sugars.  As you may imagine, such a development has the potential for explosive growth and Solazyme has been experiencing incredible growth as a result of their new process.  That growth is exactly why the company needs Jane Marvin. Read more »

The telecommunications industry, like most of the tech sector, continues to change much more rapidly than most people within the industry expected ten or twenty years ago.  As a result, many of the cutting-edge companies within the telecommunications industry utilize a wide array of computer-based products and services, like voice recognition software and Cloud-based storage.  Those are some of the many tools utilized by the voice message and Short Message Service, ShoutPoint.  To continue to keep the company growing, ShoutPoint needed an expert sales manager and that is why they hired Rob Guastucci! Read more »

Companies in the tech sector most frequently rise using a single service or main product line.  With success comes emulation – or imitation – and many times, the pioneers in a field find themselves surpassed by new companies that offer a newer or better version of what the pioneering company originally innovated.  Companies that want to remain viable in the tech sector have to adapt and usually diversify in order to grow and survive.  Yahoo! has been having a rough couple of years in the shadow of Google’s ascendency.  But Mickie Rosen is working hard to turn Yahoo’s fortunes around. Read more »

The role of Chief Information Officer at a tech company is often one that straddles the responsibilities assigned to a Chief Strategy Officer and a Chief Marketing Officer.  The position usually requires someone who has both incredible product knowledge and a strong sense of where the market for the product is headed.  That type of rare strategic mind can help guide a company’s technological and systems development decisions.  For Visioneer, Walter Thinfen has repeatedly proven that he had that type of strategic outlook! Read more »

Despite the current recession, the tech sector continues to have a strong need for professionals.  Start-ups, especially, need highly-skilled, technical minded employees in order to translate the Founders’ vision into an actual product.  However, the process of hiring good people can be a time consuming one and it falls outside the skill set of many people who are focused on hardware, software, coding, and other non-people-related tasks.  As a result, one of the smartest early hires in a start-up can be to hire a brilliant recruiter.  Raquel Atkinson is one such recruiter in the tech sector. Read more »

The development within the tech sector of the all-in-one printer/scanner/fax machine/photocopier has all but killed the standalone photocopier market.  In fact, the companies that clung to their corporate strategy of denial of the trend that all-in-ones would take off rapidly contributed to the demise of those companies.  Xerox, one of the world’s largest photocopier companies, however, made many early strategic decisions that bought it the time needed to refocus, restructure, and rebound both in the marketplace and the stock market.  Xerox has had a rough few years and now, they are counting in part on Luca Maestri to turn the business around. Read more »

Talent finds a way of finding its niche; people who are extraordinary seldom remain in positions that could be filled by virtually anyone with similar training.  As a result, it is largely unsurprising when a talented person leaves a good-paying, even prestigious, position to strike out on their own with a vision that is unique.  That is exactly what Carly Bellis did when she co-founded Impaktu. Read more »

Google has become known throughout the tech sector as one of the biggest companies from which engineers with good ideas may launch a business of their own.  Perhaps that perception developed because as Google defined itself in the early days of its company, its leadership did not want to be distracted by side projects.  Google did not start out as a company that was trying to be everything to everyone.  As such, the creative engineers that Google hired to build its revolutionary search engine often had ideas that they could only act upon when no longer with Google.  Sean Knapp was one of those engineers with a vision that did not quite fit Google’s plans. Read more »