Power Women in Tech: Part II
Our next group of Power Women in Tech prove that a career in IT can take lots of different twists and turns.
Anne Balduzzi, SameGrain founder and CMO
Anne started at the first consumer online service in North America, then launched Apple’s first online service—evangelizing early concepts like online shopping, banking, dating, and education. Before Apple, she was hired by Steve Case in her mid 20s to join Quantum Computer Services (later known as AOL). In 2011, she founded Baltimore-based SameGrain, a social discovery app so people could privately discover what they have in common with others. Growing up in Miami, she watched Star Trek and Star Wars, visited the local planetarium, and followed NASA. Best lesson: The combination of innovation, planning, perseverance, and passion provides strength to tackle most hurdles and the inspiration to take on big ideas.
Carol Politi, TRX Systems founder
Carol’s company provides location and mapping where GPS doesn't work. (To us, that means anywhere a braggadocio male has told his spouse "We're fine—we have GPS.") Its biggest customers are the US Army and public safety officials in event security and urban training. Her interest in tech started early with her research chemist father urging her to build things and explore. While in high school, she worked on software code for Aberdeen Proving Ground and then as a NASA intern during college on the space shuttle program. After college, Carol worked in systems engineering for Booz Allen and then Hughes Network Systems. TRX Systems is her fourth young company in the DC area. Best lesson: Be open to taking risks and failing.
Donna Harris, 1776 co-founder
Donna runs 1776, a startup campus in DC of over 200 companies focused on education, health, energy, and smart cities. She’s set up several resources there, including a program to incubate startups through the process of finding a product-market fit and a Ventures program to help young companies scale. And to think her tech career started with an innocent mix-up. As a finance major in college, she thought she was interviewing for her first job as a financial analyst at EDS. But her college recruiting office put her on the list to interview as a systems engineer. She spent five years programming and designing major enterprise-wide systems. Best lesson: Listen to your instincts and be confident in your ideas.
Kristin Muhlner, newBrandAnalytics CEO
Kristin started her career at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), working with different businesses and functional areas, but realized she really liked the technology. She eventually worked in programming and enjoyed seeing a piece of code she created turn into something functional. She eventually left her programming behind to run companies or divisions, including product development at webMethods and serving as CEO of RollStream. She’s been running DC-based newBrandAnalytics, which helps businesses make changes based on social media communication, since 2012. Best lesson: Everyone is replaceable, and don’t take anything personally, good or bad.
Tammy Wincup, EverFi COO
As COO of a fast-growing ed tech startup in DC, Tammy has her hand in just about everything: From product and engineering to customers and implementation, as well as business development and fundraising. The DC company has grown to 150 employees, certifying high school and college students in critical skills like finances and health. Tammy started her tech career in San Francisco in the late '90s, working for an early stage ASP. The Northern Virginia native has worked in investment banking, consulting, and international development but knew great tech solutions could reach more people, especially in education. Best lesson: Be fearless. People need to know you are going to go hard. If you don’t, why should they?
This series leads up to our Bisnow Power Women in Tech event on Feb. 21 at the Willard. We're very excited about it and hope you can join us. Men and women welcome! Bonus: Kristin and Tammy are on the panel. Sign up!
