IGNITE is honored to have Charlotte Yarkoni, CVP of Azure Growth + Ecosystems in the Cloud and Enterprise Division at Microsoft, as our featured keynote speaker at the 2018 Spring Gala. We recently heard Charlotte’s personal insights on working at Microsoft and promoting opportunities for women in technology.
Charlotte spoke about the tremendous global impact of which Microsoft is capable. Social responsibility, support for career growth and development, and diversity-including providing leadership opportunities for women-are all key aspects of Microsoft’s culture that stand out for Charlotte.
When it comes to girls and women becoming engaged in STEM, Charlotte thinks the most important (and hardest) thing is simply getting started. She advises finding something you’re passionate about, immersing yourself, connecting with a mentor, and continuously educating yourself.
Charlotte has been in technology for the entirety of her career, and is happy there are more women in tech than when she started. She noted that women offer a way of thinking that is helpful to every process, and we need more women in tech and engineering to foster innovation. We all need to be vigilant about understanding our talent and their needs, and being flexible to meet those needs, particularly when it comes to promoting work/life balance.
Charlotte is constantly on the move while balancing life with her husband, two daughters, three horses, and one dog. In her role at Microsoft, Charlotte is responsible for driving accelerated Azure cloud adoption and customer success for developers, enterprises, ISVs, partners, startups, and students. This includes fostering a vibrant online community leveraging assets such as developer.microsoft.com, docs.microsoft.com, Channel 9, and Microsoft Accelerators around the world, along with sponsoring Microsoft’s flagship events including Build and the annual student competition, Imagine Cup.
Be sure to follow Charlotte on Twitter and LinkedIn and join us at the gala to hear more!