Linda Lian
“The pandemic demonstrated the importance of community and our ability to adapt from face-to-face to digital and social involvement.” The digital community accelerates the educational flywheel, allows for quick information sharing, crowdsources knowledge, and can highlight and surface personal and real tales at scale. Leaders in the technology industry cannot afford to ignore the importance of community engagement. “This change will empower the next generation of great enterprises to serve as economic platforms of opportunity rather than just sellers.” —Common Room, a customer journey platform, founder.
Samantha Ettus
“As consumer purchasing habits have changed, so have expectations for the checkout and payment process. ‘That is how things have always been done,’ I was informed repeatedly when I initially started in the payment processing industry. That sounded wonderful to me. I rapidly learned that retailers were adrift in a sea of payment jargon. As a result, we concentrated on developing a customer service infrastructure that enables us to provide personalised, proactive care while also simplifying the complex payment environment.” —Park Place Payments, a payment processor that helps women return to the workforce, founder and CEO.
Krystle Mobayeni
“During the pandemic, technology that had before been considered a nice-to-have became a need. We learnt how technology may bridge the gap and enrich real-life experiences rather than simply being a substitute during that transition. Moving forward, it is our obligation as leaders to ensure that technology enhances rather than detracts from meaningful experiences. We must ensure that our products combine the in-person experiences that customers desire with the digital personalisation and convenience that they have grown to anticipate. Technology should not be a hindrance. It should be enough to break them.” — BentoBox, a restaurant internet platform, co-founder and CEO.
Natalie Gordon
“COVID-19 accelerated our reliance on technology to stay in touch with family and friends. Building solutions that foster deeper connections and strengthen communities is the biggest opportunity for IT leaders. We used technology at Babylist to bridge the gap between the real world and the virtual world. We were the pioneers of virtual baby showers. To replace in-store shopping, we enhanced video programming and digital product discovery. In the future, digital businesses will need to develop simple products and services that allow people to interact meaningfully across generations and continents.” — Babylist, a baby-gift registry and parenting platform, founder and CEO.
Stephany Kirkpatrick
“I believe that technology will continue to evolve to enable a world that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The pandemic threw our sense of time and many of our daily routines into disarray. Orum has had considerable success with a distributed workforce operating on async schedules across the country and beyond. We believe that people’s financial lives should not be limited to the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays when banks are open. To address this, Orum is constructing the infrastructure for smart, real-time money transfer.” — Orum, a seamless financial-infrastructure platform, founder and CEO.
Heather Mirjahangir Fernandez
“Just as the financial crisis ushered in a tsunami of fintech innovation, we’re witnessing the same thing with healthcare right now.” Patients and providers depended on telemedicine, online check-in, smartphone registration, and other technologies as the pandemic pushed tech adoption in the healthcare business. We will surely continue to leverage these digital forms of healthcare to drive operational efficiencies. The epidemic changed people’s perceptions of what was feasible in ordinary healthcare, and consumers appreciate the increased accessibility.” — Solv, a same-day, next-day healthcare platform, co-founder and CEO.
Jennifer Tejada
“Consumers are adamant about keeping the newfound conveniences they’ve discovered. Businesses are under increasing pressure to create a flawless digital experience every time. One-third of shoppers say they’d abandon a favourite brand after just one bad experience. The teams of tech executives are more dispersed and under more strain than ever before. Today’s leader is adaptable, relying on artificial intelligence and data analytics. However, with all of this technology and convenience comes the requirement for compassionate, inclusive leadership, a defined mission, and verifiable social responsibility.” PagerDuty, a digital operations management firm, has a CEO and a chairwoman.
Jen Wong
“In the last 18 months, online communities have shown themselves in a new way. They are fast to respond to people’s needs in times of uncertainty and provide vital information as well as positive emotional support. Furthermore, it’s becoming increasingly evident that online communities’ power extends beyond the confines of the internet. They are propelling real-world impact and action. Online communities are potent drivers of action and a vital component of the consumer purchasing path, whether they’re uniting a gang of underdogs to challenge Wall Street or endorsing the latest skin-care product. This is only going to get worse.” —COO of Reddit, an online community network.
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Source: Entrepreneur
