Celebrating Kantata’s Women in Technology: Advisory Services and Solution Engineering
Each month we are sharing a collection of candid interviews with the women at Kantata from a variety of roles and different teams. Each overview highlights their impressive achievements and unique experiences in the technology industry and will focus on some of the most inspiring and impactful moments from the interviews.
In this post, we’re looking at some of the women on Kantata’s Advisory Services and Solution Engineering teams. Read and watch their answers below to hear their insights on questions relating to their achievements and experiences, or use these links to jump to one person in particular: Banoo Behboodi, Vice President, Advisory Services; Linda Francis, Principal Consultant, Advisory Services; Lauren Leonard, Vice President, Solution Engineering; Stephanie Quick, Solution Engineer.
Q: Do you have a message or advice for other women working in tech?
Stay focused and intentional about your career and how to position yourself for success. Look for mentors that you can connect with and get coached by effectively. Trust in yourself and your abilities and skills, be intentional about your network, and establish a broad network. Know when to say no! Balance self-care with all else that you take on in both professional and personal life.
Q: What challenges have there been for women entering the tech industry?
Q: Where did you get your start? What shaped you to become who you are today?
When I first entered the tech industry as a Solutions Engineer, a senior leader told me, “Your career will move fast if you want it to. It’s not as long a path as you think.” At the time, I half-smiled, but in my head, I exclaimed, “Yeah, right!”
I was fresh out of my MBA program and leaving behind work I cared about but didn’t see a growth path in. I was and am a self-assured person, but I knew nothing about sales much less SaaS and found myself steeped in imposter syndrome. Did they mess up when they hired me? When will they spot all the holes in my knowledge and experience? Moreover, it was not lost on me that as a bi-racial woman in my late twenties, I was very much a minority amongst my peers. Fortunately, my stubbornness outplayed my self-doubt, and I set my mind to making a name for myself literally one demo at a time.
Flash-forward 9 years of wins (and ok, some losses), some dabbling in other roles, a marriage, a baby, and a still-active (albeit more tired) drive to succeed, and I’ve found myself in senior leadership at Kantata, spear-heading a global team of talented solution engineers. It’s my dream job. At my dream company. So I guess the “yeah-right” guidance was correct.
I hope that there’s some wisdom that seeps through from my story for anyone who experiences self-doubt. Even in the re-telling, I find myself feeling reassured because truth be told, I continue to battle the inner voice that says, “The others know what they are doing, and you don’t.” But my fortunate trajectory thus far, which undoubtedly included a lot of hard work and some luck too, was really founded in my own sense that in spite of the obstacles that lay before me, I wouldn’t be stopped. It was not an option. And it’s still not an option.
When my two-year-old son throws a fit over doing something he doesn’t want to do (about 5 times a day), I calmly repeat to him the phrase that I think I just figured out is my personal catch-phrase: “You can do hard things. You can do hard things.
Q: Do you have any female role models or inspirations?
Learn More
The interviews featured above highlight some of the many ways that women at Kantata are driving results both within their organization and within the technology industry. To hear more stories from the women at Kantata, browse the entire series here or check out our most recent post featuring our customer success team. Keep an eye out for the next installments in the series, as we’ll be featuring a number of interviews with women from a variety of teams at Kantata over the coming months. To learn more about career opportunities at Kantata, visit this page.