Navigating Tech Careers: Charting Your Path in Today's Digital Landscape

Event Overview:

Join us for an inspiring afternoon dedicated to exploring the landscape of technology careers for women and nonbinary individuals. This event aims to empower and inform students about the diverse opportunities available in the tech industry, and to provide insight into overcoming challenges and succeeding in a dynamic field. We'll feature a variety of speakers and panelists who are making strides in tech and who can share their experiences, advice, and strategies for building a fulfilling career. We will be in-person at Lewis and Clark College.

Speaker Bios:

Hanako Imber is SVP of Client Technology & Data Enablement at R1 RCM, a healthcare technology company focused on revenue intelligence. Her work experience spans data analysis, product management, software implementations, project management, and technical leadership. She is passionate about solving interesting problems, building diverse and inclusive teams, and mentoring rising leaders - particularly women in technology.

Ellie Burns has over 30 years of experience in the chip design and the EDA industries in various roles of engineering, applications engineering, technical marketing and product management. She is currently retired from full-time EDA work, traveling and consulting part-time.   Prior to retirement, she was Director of Marketing for the Digital Design and Implementation Solutions Division at Siemens EDA responsible for driving business growth and strategic marketing for their front-end digital design tools. Prior to Siemens EDA, Ms. Burns held engineering and marketing positions at Mentor, CoWare, Cadence, Synopsys, Viewlogic, Computervision and Intel. She holds a BSCpE from Oregon State University.

Natalie Ruiz serves as the CEO of AnswerConnect, a leader in providing innovative human-powered customer experience solutions for small and mid-sized businesses. She has helped drive the company's growth and expansion through strategic initiatives and a focus on customer-centric services. Under her leadership, AnswerConnect has flourished, setting new standards in the industry for service excellence and technological advancement. Natalie is known for her dynamic leadership style and commitment to empowering teams to achieve peak performance. She is an award-winning executive recognized as Female Executive of the Year and for Women Helping Women by the Stevie Award Association, a Woman of Influence by the Portland Business Journal, one of the 100 Women to Know in America, and one of the 2024 Most Influential Women of the Mid-Market.

Miki Demeter's career has encompassed everything from firmware to application space. Her last nine years have had Security focus as a Security Researcher for Intel, working on Secure Development Lifecycle and as a Product Security Expert for Open Source Software. She is a writer and an award-winning Public Speaker for technical subjects, Diversity & Inclusion, and other social topics. Miki served as a Board member of Portland Women in Tech (PDXWIT), Staff of Women Who Code PDX, and as a Board and Staff member for Diana Initiative. Miki is also civic-minded; she serves as an elected Director for the local Fire District and is a former Trevor Chat crisis counselor. In her spare time, she raises and shows Irish Wolfhounds in the Coast Range of Oregon.

Deana Solis is the youngest daughter of Filipino immigrants and the mom of a biracial son. Long before her work in cloud engineering, she led consumer electronics sales teams, navigated system services roles in healthcare IT, and migrated data center workloads.  An introvert and lifelong learner, she has often been invisible as she advanced in her career, but has learned when she must use her voice. She earned her MBA at Portland State University in 2008 and attended public universities in Washington and California to earn her humanities degree.

Raihana Ali-Aggarwal is a trained Life and Career Coach with over 12 years of experience. Through her company RAA Coaching and Consulting, Raihana coaches women to help them get the promotion they deserve and show up more confident in life by overcoming self-doubt and low self-worth. Through consulting, Raihana helps women show up confident in their interviews and helps them land jobs they deserve. Over the years, Raihana has helped women negotiate more than 500K+ USD in compensation. Raihana is also a podcast host of RAA Talks, empowering women to inspire others through story-sharing about their struggles and triumphs.
Prior to this, Raihana served as a Global Product Marketing Manager and Customer Advocacy Project Manager at HP. When not empowering a client, you can find Raihana spending time with family or learning a new language (she already speaks six!).

Maureen Nonnenmann is a technically adept transformative program and product leader with 20+ years of success enabling innovation, efficiency and performance for market leaders including Disney + and GoPro. Maureen's background as an Agile Transformation coach across all disciplines and with a reputation for fostering creativity and collaboration across cross functional teams brings her here today. She's been part of multiple Agile Transformations and she brings people together across complex organizations to create transparent solution based cultures. In my career, I have a track record of empowering technical teams to create innovative products using Agile methodologies to guide product innovation. I've been part of multi-cultural, global environments where we have experimented with products that have turned into solutions customers and clients are still using today.

Stephanie Haycock has 20+ years experience in Technology for the Media and Entertainment Industry, a 18 year veteran of Disney Media and Entertainment Technology. My passion is leading teams and delivering product solutions that bridge business strategy with customer needs. I have global experience with leading high performing product teams and impactful product lifecycle strategy at scale that advances customer value.

 This event is free for All Members!