Balance for Better – International Women’s Day 2019

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day, on March 8this going to be “#BalanceforBetter”, encouraging a more gender-balanced world. Anyone who has ever employed anybody or built teams will know the importance of balance, and the value of diversity.

I’ve work in some amazing teams and would just like to shout out to some of the amazing women I’ve worked with recently as well as some of the awesome women I spoke to at our last SCOOPstudio at APEX 2019.

So, I am throwing a handful of names of some of my female hero’s out there. Obviously, a big shout out to my mum June, who continues to inspire me at 80 years young, my amazing daughter Phoebe (so proud!), and to my fabulous wife Vanessa, the most important part of 'team Spagnoli Stoten'.

In my working life, I raise a glass to: Hailey McKeefry, editor of EBN, a first-class journalist and a warm wonderful person; Joanne Moretti, founder of JCurve Digital, former CMO of Jabil, a charismatic, thoughtful, inspirational and intuitive marketer and strategist, and a good friend; MB ‘Marybeth’ Allen, Manager at KIC, super smart engineer with fantastic people skills, an infectious smile, and a generous personality; and Karen Moore-Watts, Marketing Genius and one of my best friends in the industry ever! There are dozens more, so rather than go on and on, just know I am a big fan!

It was great to talk to some wonderful women in technology at APEX 2019 earlier this year both on and off camera. Check out these interviews with Haley Fu, Ph.D., Managing Director of Asia Pacific, iNEMI, Grace O'Malley, Vice President, Technical Project Operations, iNEMI, Lee Jane Nagel, Business Development Manager, Vision Engineeringand Brook Sandy-Smith, Technical Education Program Manager of IPC

Also, on our panels at APEX, we had Davina McDonnell, Product Marketing Manager at Cogiscan, discussing Data and the Supply Chain, MB Allen, Product Manager at KIC and Kim Flanagan, Technical Support Engineer at Indium, discussing Avoiding Voids, Clinic Outcomes, Anh Nguyen, CTO of Creative Electron Inc., talking about AI in Manufacturing, and Collette Buscemi, Senior Director is Education Programs at IPC sharing her insights into STEM & The SMT Workforce of the Future.

Let's make sure we do better and get more balance in the next SCOOPstudio...! For simplicity, I created a playlist with videos of some of these wonderful women, or you can click on the links in the text above.

Check out the  International Women’s Day website and use the hashtags #BalanceforBetter and #IWD2019 whenever you can.