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Railinc CIO Shares Success Tips for Aspiring Female Leaders

Railinc CIO Shares Success Tips for Aspiring Female Leaders

Joan Smemoe brings a fresh approach to breaking the barriers for women’s success in the fields of technology, rail, software development, and computer science engineering. Smemoe started her career with Railinc in 2006 as a senior software engineer, polishing her skills in leadership as she spearheaded application engineering as Railinc director of the department. In June 2018, Smemoe was appointed the company’s Chief Information Officer as well as the Vice President of Information Technology. She attributes her success to an environment that supports diversity – regardless of gender, in addition to a strong team of mentors that helped guide her career success.

“The big takeaway is having a reliable and robust succession planning. This is vital to minimize disruption and impact to an organization, and of course made my life very easy,” Smemoe explained. “Railinc leadership is really big about succession planning. I was put on the successor path for 3 plus years and I had the CEO as a very close mentor. When I was preparing for my new role as CIO, my predecessor also provided robust mentorship, so I was learning closely with senior leadership and preparing myself. Additionally, I gained a lot of trust and support along the way from my peers because they all knew that at the end of my boss’s retirement, I would be the designated CIO.”

When leading her team, Smemoe focuses on the bigger picture, including both short-term and long-term goals in strategies, especially when integrating automation and technology solutions into operations.  She doesn’t believe in a “one size fits all” strategy when it comes to solutions development and advocates for all technology leaders to evaluate customer and company needs and how current and future employees can provide the best form of support.

“It really requires people to be more flexible, meaning that as developers they may have the core competency in software development while they’re also wearing the hat of understanding business process, customer needs, as well as IT infrastructure,” Smemoe explained. “When looking for talent, the candidates have to be willing to go outside their core skill set and pick up some other competencies. That’s the key to make sure your automation integration is successful.”

Smemoe’s advice to her female peers and women in the industry is to never give up and break through the glass ceiling mentality.

“Sometimes I feel like it’s a little bit of a self-imposed limitation for women. I think it’s very important to continue telling success stories and building that confidence. As long as you continue to show your ability to execute , have good ideas, and demonstrate technical compentency, your result and talents will be recognized.”

 

 

 

 

 

Marketo Opens New Australia Data Center

San Mateo, CA – Marketo Inc., a provider of marketing software, announced the opening of its data center in Sydney, Australia.

The data center, the company said, “is key to Marketo’s international growth strategy and is part of the company’s overall investment in expanding its presence and operations in Australia and New Zealand.”

The new data center “will also mitigate risk for Marketo customers concerned about offshore data storage, enable customers to comply with their own data sovereignty mandates and to better conform to Australia’s new privacy laws,” it added.

Marketo’s last data center was opened in London in 2009 to assist its clients in complying with the European Union privacy regulations.

Earlier this year, the company unveiled a partnership with partnering with the Orfalea College of Business at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo to develop curricula to prepare students there for careers in marketing.

The program, Marketo said, “serves as the cornerstone of Marketo’s broader strategy to create training programs focused on next generation marketing technology and strategies for students throughout the US.”

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, with offices in Europe, Australia and Japan, Marketo “is a strategic marketing partner to more than 3,000 large enterprises and fast-growing small companies across a wide variety of industries.”

09/03/2014

ITRenew To Open New Canadian Tech Center

Silicon Valley, CA –ITRenew Inc.’s new operations center in Toronto, Canada, is scheduled to open for business on August 1.

According to the California-based asset disposition software developer, the new Toronto facility, ITRenew will provide a full range of ITAD services including data sanitization and asset refurbishing.

As at all other ITRenew locations, a key focus when processing data center and IT enterprise systems “is to remanufacture and remarket as much equipment as possible,” according to a company statement.

Only when equipment is too old or not healthy enough for reuse will it be recycled in accordance with the facilities’ R2 (Responsible Recycling) certification and ITRenew’s zero-landfill policy. The new facility is also ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 certified with plans to obtain Ontario Electronic Stewardship (OES) certification.

“Canada is an ideal marketplace for ITRenew,” said Namki Yi, General Manager at ITRenew. “As a global company with 15 facilities in 12 countries spanning 4 continents, the expanded Canadian operation will service a market that is currently in need of comprehensive ITAD services.”

ITRenew is a Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher (MAR) and will remarket the remanufactured systems with licensed copies of the Microsoft operating system.

“We are experiencing tremendous growth, both domestically and internationally,” said Yi. “In order to continue the high level of service our customers have become accustomed to, it is now necessary to expand our operations in various locations.”

ITRenew develops solution processes for IT asset disposition, secure data sanitization, IT asset recycling, and IT lifecycle management.

The company serves clients in a variety of business sectors including enterprise IT and data center operations; original equipment manufacturing; internet service and content; finance; media and entertainment; and healthcare.

07/24/2014

 

Texas-based SoftServe Acquires German Software Developer

Austin, TX – Global software application developer SoftServe Inc. has acquired UGE UkrGermanEnterprise GmbH, a German company specializing in high quality individual software development, business software solutions, and IT consulting.

The acquisition represents SoftServe’s continuing commitment to serve the growing needs of the European market with best-in-class technology solutions and applications.

UGE UkrGermanEnterprise GmbH offers a comprehensive suite of nearshore outsourcing services from developing complex solutions to individual tailored software needs.

Additionally, UGE GmbH “provides highly skilled development teams and IT consulting on site or remotely,” SioftServe said in a statement.

Based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, UGE UkrGermanEnterprise GmbH provides high quality software solutions to their customers in banking, insurance, industry and public services industry sectors.

The company’s services range from the design of webpages via the development of web based applications up to the implementation of big and complex software solutions  The company’s list of clients includes Panasonic, Sanyo, Commerzbank, and GFT.

07/03/2014