 Hey everyone and welcome to theCUBE's special program series, Women of the Cloud, brought to you by AWS. I'm your host, Lisa Martin. Very pleased to welcome Ashley Gary to the program, Global Extended Executive Board Member and President North America at Software One. Ashley, welcome, it's great to have you here. Hi, Lisa, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Talk to us a little bit about you, about Software One, about your role. Give us that context. So Software One is a global services provider for end-to-end software cloud management. We operate in over 90 countries, we're headquarters globally or in Zurich, Switzerland. Our North American headquarters are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and I run the North American region with scales from the US, Canada, with parts in Costa Rica and Mexico. And our primary purpose and to serve our clients is to help them really understand the restraints in cloud management, everything from the licensing use rights to financial operations, to workload migrations, to help them drive better outcomes for their business. It's all about outcomes for the business. Every conversation we have always goes back to outcomes. But I wanna learn a little bit more actually about you. Talk a little bit about your career path and then give us some recommendations that you would have for others who are looking to really kind of step the ladder in their tech careers. Yeah, so I've been very fortunate and blessed to be able to be at Software One for 15 years. So I came up through inside sales. I had no idea how the tech world operated. Didn't even know what a server was. And I learned on the job. And this was before even cloud was really, really relevant. And I think for me, I get asked a lot, how did you work your way up, so to speak? And it's really about understanding where your strengths sit and investing in those strengths, building a brand of yourself and what your identity is like within the workplace. What do you want people to know of you? Do they want to, oh, I gotta get Ashley on this project because she accelerates and executes cleanly, right? Or I need Ashley to do this because she can collaborate with peers and bring people along. So really understanding where you wanna sit, what your skills are and your strengths. And then asking for mentorship, getting career advice, raising your hand to take on more. And don't ever be afraid to ask questions and admit stuff when you don't know. That humble is part of our core value within software one and it's really, really helped me grow in my own career. Ashley, I love that you talked about creating your own personal brand. Another thing that I hear often from women in this situation is creating your own personal board of directors of mentors and sponsors who can help guide you along that path. You also talk about investing in you. And I think that is such pertinent advice for those to be able to create success stories within their career. I would love to then know about some of the successes that you've had where you've helped solve problems relating to cloud computing for organizations, internal, external. Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. That's why we're here, right? Women of the cloud. Yeah, software one in particular took the approach early on that we're gonna go cloud first in our services portfolio offering, right? We saw the writing on the wall. There was no reason to invest backwards and build columns and data center consulting practices. So for us, everything we built from the ground up has been cloud native. And so some of the amazing client stories that we've had are really, I think, I know it's a silver lining coming out of the pandemic when you had industries hit so hard but hit so differently and technology was at the core on how they address those problems. So you had the healthcare space that had to get protection and be able to meet with their patients face to face but virtual at the same time. So they had to be able to take the data and still governance with HIPAA laws, keep it secure but then move it to the cloud and shift it fast, right? And then you had manufacturing who had employees who had to stay on site, right? To keep the supply chain running but at the same time you had office workers that had to move home and completely be 100% remote. And so what we've been able to do really with AWS and our certifications in that practice is AWS differentiates itself with its agility, its framework and allows for true development in the PAS space. It provides a really, really secure, robust end-to-end solution for our clients. And when you have to be able to be nimble that quickly it's created this new expectation in the industry that it could happen again. So are you set up for the next recession? Are you set up for the next pandemic? God willing, there isn't one, but you never know. And so investing in the right infrastructure there and the cloud is critical and then having the framework to manage it and govern it is second in line and importance. Being able to be just aware of the situations that can happen in hindsight, that's a silver lining coming at a covered cheer point. Being able to prepare for disasters of different types or the need to establish business continuity. I mean, we saw so many, well, every almost, that survived. Every surviving organization pivot to cloud during the last couple of years that had no choice, to one, survive and two, to be able to be competitive in our organization. And so we've seen so many great stories of successes and it sounds like software one has really been at the forefront of enabling a lot of businesses I would imagine can the industry be successful in that migration and that pivot, that quick pivot to being competitive advantage, competitively competitive. Yeah, yeah. And I think our differentiator, which comes from our core strength of this, this licensing and asset financial management piece. So with COVID, right? When you had this great acceleration to the cloud, whether it was remote workplace or it was IaaS, you then had no choice but to pay what you had to pay. Right? It was all about keeping the lights on and running the business and thriving as much as you could. And so cost wasn't a concern. And then you had the impact in certain industries where it became a concern pretty quick. And so now we're seeing this over pendulum, and this pendulum swing back where it's like, okay, we're in the cloud. Now we got to go back in time to kind of fix the processes and the financial piece and the components and the compliance that we didn't really address or have time to sit and think because we were in survival mode. And that's where software one really comes in with this end to end view on everything from what should you move to the cloud? How does it impact your budget? Your bottom line, should you capitalize it? Can you capitalize it? And so the CFO and the CEO and that CIO suite have to be working end to end on how to do this effectively so that they can continue to thrive in the business and not just run in survival mode anymore. Absolutely. We're past that point of running in survival mode. We've got to be able to thrive, to be able to be agile and nimble and flexible to develop new products, new services to get them to market faster than our competition. So much has changed in the last couple of years. I'm wondering what your perspective is on diversity. We've talked about it a lot in technology. We talk about DEI often. A lot's gone on in the last couple of years. There's so much value in thought diversity alone. But talk to me about some of the things that you're seeing through the diversity lens and what are some of the challenges that are still there that organizations need help to eradicate. Yeah. Topic I'm very passionate about. So there's a couple of big bullets that are big rocks that we have to move. There's a gender gap. We know this. There's a wage gap. We know this. Statistic state, essentially, that women make 82 cents for every $1 a man makes. Man holds 75% of the US tech jobs and working mothers, for example, 34% of them do not return to the workforce. It's mind blowing. Fun facts in software one is we actually have 100% return. Working mothers come back and stay for at least a year. Yeah. And it requires really intentional investment in making sure that they have an environment that they can be successful as they transition back, making diligent choices on the benefits that you provide those women so that they don't feel that they have to make some of the tough choices that they feel pressured to do. And then you have this talent shortage, right? So on top of gender, on top of pay, then you have this all up shortage of underrepresented groups, right? And you also have in the tech space, there's just a lack of talent all up. And I think looking back, hindsight's always 2020, but as a community and as a vertical in the tech space, the organizations didn't do enough good job of reaching into high schools, understanding early on in elementary and middle school to provide equal opportunity to make the computer coding classes a requirement and not an elective to give everybody exposure to how tech works in the real world, right? As opposed to offering it as an elective, it should be a requirement. I mean, it's like financial management. It's how the world runs today is on tech. So something that software one has done and really addressed that is we built this academy. It's only two years and it's infancy, so it's young, but we go intentionally to schools and we hand select and we create a program to get them exposed to the industries that they're interested in. Personally though, I think we need to start way earlier on and I think that's something that we all can work better at and is exposing the next generation to setting an expectation that tech is going to be in your life. And so let's learn about it and not be afraid of it and turn it into a career, right? Absolutely, every company these days has to be a data company. They have to be a tech company, whether it's your grocery store, a retailer, a manufacturer, a car dealer. So that kind of choice isn't really their aim or that that's just the direction that these companies have to go in. You mentioned something that I love because I've been hearing it a lot from women in this series and that is with respect to diversity, organizations need to be intentional. It has to be intentional really from the get go and it sounds like supper one has done a great job with intention about creating the program and looking at how can we go after and solve some of the challenges that we have today but really go after some of these younger groups who might not understand the impact and the influence that tech is having in their lives. And the only way to be intentional with the right outcome is to ensure that you have diversity of thought and the leadership teams that make those decisions, right? So you can put your best foot forward in being intentional with trying to keep women in the workforce but if you don't have women on your leadership team where are you getting that feedback from, right? And so it starts by just getting the talent into the company at the very bottom level from an inclusion standpoint, keeping them but also intentionally selecting the right diversity of thought at the leadership levels where they make decisions because that's where the magic happens, right? Where I have the privilege to be able to choose and work with my HR partner on what benefits we provide and you have to have a team that's all inclusive and understanding the needs of all the groups, right? Otherwise you end up intentionally with the best intent of heart creating benefits that don't really help women, right? Or so I think it takes a lot of work and time but it's something that's very important. Very, very important. The fact that you mentioned thought diversity, the amount of value that can come from thought diversity alone is huge. I've seen so many different data points that talk about when there are females or people of color in the executive positions at organizations, they are X% say 20% more profitable. So the data is there to demonstrate the power and the business value that can come from thought diversity alone. Yep, exactly. Yep. So moving on and we've got a couple of minutes left. I want to understand what you are seeing in your crystal ball or maybe it's a magic April about what's next in cloud, how do you see your role evolving in the industry? So well, I think what's next in cloud, both from an industry and a software one standpoint is expanding outside of this infrastructure as a service mindset where cloud was there to run your business. And the beauty of it now is that cloud is there to also drive your business and create new products and capabilities. And so one of the biggest trends we're seeing is all organizations at some form or at some point in time will become a service provider or have an application that they host that they provide to their clients, right? And so they're a tech company. And so it's not just using tech to run, it's using tech to build and innovate and be able to create a profit center to be able to drive back those to meet your clients needs. And in order for you to make the appropriate decisions on the financial strategy and budget management, you have to know the cost to go into building the product, right? And if you don't know the cost to go into the building the product, then you don't know the profit margins to set and you don't have strategy to go sell it, right? At market value. And so it really becomes this lynch pin in all of the areas of the business where you're not only running but you're also developing and building. So you have to have a very good strong investment in the financial operations component of cloud. And I think that's where Phenops is coming in. You'll hear that phrase a lot, right? And so the end-to-end ability to financially manage cloud will secure but also with visibility is this next generation. And it's going to include SaaS, right? Because they're going to be plugging in. It's going to include governance because it's not just the CIO making decisions anymore. It's business line leaders. And so how do you have this cloud center of excellence to be able to provide the data to the decision makers so that they can drive the business? And that's what it's all about is data being able to be used, extracting insights from it in a fast real-time manner to create those business decisions that help organizations to be successful, to pivot when needed and to be able to meet consumer demand. Last question for you, Ashley, is if you think about some of the, in the last, say, five years, what are some of the biggest changes in terms of the tech workforce and innovation that you've seen? And what excites you about the direction that we're going in? Well, I think the biggest change over the last five years is the criticality of the space. It used to be like a, we're not so mature in cloud. We'll eventually get there. We'll double in it. We'll dip our toes in it. Eventually we'll move everything and it's like, we're there. So if you're not in it, you're behind, right? And I think what is really important for people who want to get into this space is it doesn't mean you have to be super techie, right? The number of times people are like, can you help me with my computer? And I'm like, no, I don't even know how, like, no, I do not help you with a computer. I consult and I help drive, you know, business decisions with clients. And so there's all these peripheral roles that people can get involved in, whether it's marketing or it's sales or it's product design, right? It's not just engineering anymore. And I think that's what's really exciting about what's to come in this space. The horizon is infinite. Ashley, thank you so much for joining me on the program, talking about your role, what you're doing at software one, some of the great successes that you've had in the cloud and some of your recommendations for organizations and people to grow their careers and really increase diversity in tech. We so appreciate your time. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks for having me. My pleasure for Ashley Gary. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the CUBE special program series, Women of the Cloud, brought to you by AWS. Thanks so much for watching.