As Women’s History Month draws to a close, we are taking one last chance to spotlight the remarkable women leaders at Teikametrics who are propelling innovation and growth within our organization.
From the People Team to the frontlines of Customer Success, women are leaving an indelible mark at Teikametrics, reshaping the way we conduct business. Join us as we hear directly from these extraordinary women about the significance of Women’s History Month, their strategies for success, and their visionary outlook for the future. Through their stories, we aim to celebrate the importance of female leadership while inspiring the next generation of women in the tech realm.
Devanshi Majmudar, Team Manager
Hi, I am Devanshi Majmudar, a Team Manager – Multichannel business at Teikametrics. My team closely works with sellers across Amazon & Walmart and help them grow their brands with their optimization expertise & powerful AI tools. I have been at Teikametrics for 2 years now, and this has been the most incredible experience of my entire career in terms of learning and development opportunities.
How has the meaning of Women’s History Month evolved for you throughout your career? Are there any new traditions or celebrations have you adopted to honor it?
It’s evolved for me in a lot of ways throughout my career – From understanding the importance of the celebration, to actually witnessing great contributions from many strong women around me, to building a strong ecosystem / workplace. For me it’s more about honoring the women that have done amazing things and shattered the glass ceiling in the past that has enabled huge opportunities for the present day women.
As a leader, I do follow a practice of acknowledging and honoring every single impactful contribution from the strong women out there!
Who has been the biggest female role model or mentor in your career so far and why?
A role model is someone who has a positive influence in one’s life and someone who you look up to in any situation. To me that’s my mother. I truly admire the way she constantly strives to keep herself updated with the times to be able to support me and guide me in every aspect. Her management skills and ability to multitask are incredible. Her positive approach towards life teaches me to navigate through any tough situations with my head held high. Her never giving up attitude gives me a lot of self confidence. I truly believe she plays the major role in whatever I am able to achieve in my career / life. I aspire to be like her in the future – a role model to my daughter!
What unique strengths do you feel women bring to leadership roles?
- Diverse perspectives and Better decision making: Women often bring a different perspective to problem solving, which can help to avoid groupthink and bring fresh ideas to the table. With more women in leadership positions, diverse perspectives are brought to the table, which can lead to better decision making.
- Improved organizational performance: Organizations with more women in leadership and management positions tend to perform better financially and have higher employee engagement and job satisfaction levels historically.
- Positive impact on society: Having more female leaders can have a positive impact on society as a whole. They can serve as role models and inspire other women to pursue leadership roles themselves.
What advice would you give to young women, just starting their careers, who aspire to be leaders someday?
Keep your head high and know your worth, embrace challenges and changes, and have passion and compassion. Most importantly, support the other women: because when women support each other, incredible things happen!
As technology rapidly changes the landscape of the workplace, what do you think leaders should do now to ensure young women have equal opportunities to become leaders in emerging technology fields?
- Encouraging Tech education: By promoting and providing access to relevant resources and mentorship programs, we can inspire more women to pursue careers in tech fields.
- Encouraging girls and women to pursue their passion for tech without fear of judgment will contribute to more inclusive opportunities and will be a strong step towards breaking stereotypes.
- Establishing robust networks and communities that empower women in tech can provide mentorship opportunities, facilitate knowledge sharing, and create a pool of opportunities.
- Implementing fair and unbiased hiring practices is crucial to ensure equal opportunities across the fields.
Ellie Mirman, VP of Marketing
I am the VP Marketing at Teikametrics, leading our marketing team across demand generation, product marketing, content, and brand. I’ve spent my career in marketing leadership roles at fast-growing startups and scale-ups and am thrilled to have recently joined the Teika team at this stage of accelerated growth.
How has the meaning of Women’s History Month evolved for you throughout your career? Are there any new traditions or celebrations have you adopted to honor it?
Women’s History Month has been a wonderful reminder to step back and reflect on the amazing women in my life and how they have inspired me and supported me, both personally and professionally. I love to support women-led/women-owned businesses, including those owned by friends and former coworkers!
Who has been the biggest female role model or mentor in your career so far and why?
I’ve been lucky to have many female mentors and role models during my career, including former managers, peers, and family members. I’ve been especially appreciative of those who really owned their leadership position without apologizing for being “bossy”. They encouraged me to speak up more and take leadership opportunities, both through their own actions and through their amazing cheerleading and support.
What unique strengths do you feel women bring to leadership roles?
It’s hard for me to generalize, so I’ll speak to the amazing female leaders I’ve known. They have brought incredible empathy and thoughtfulness to their positions, both in managing teams and in solving problems. That empathy is so helpful in terms of getting to know their team in a way that helps people grow and develop, and in terms of understanding how best to collaborate with other groups (departments, partners, etc.) by aligning with their goals. These leaders have also been incredibly thoughtful in terms of solving problems – digging into data, considering various options, and still being decisive.
What advice would you give to young women, just starting their careers, who aspire to be leaders someday?
To borrow a line from Dr. Seuss, “The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” In other words, focus on learning. This is especially important early in your career, but I still love this motto for myself now! You can optimize your career path for many different things – title, compensation, responsibility, etc. And there may be different priorities at different times in your life. But a constant for me, which I believe has fueled the rest of my goals, has been a desire to learn. I’m a strong believer that the experience you get and the things you learn along the way are what set you up best for that next promotion and the next step in your career. So look for opportunities that help you grow your experience and learn something new (skill, industry, etc.).
As technology rapidly changes the landscape of the workplace, what do you think leaders should do now to ensure young women have equal opportunities to become leaders in emerging technology fields?
I think a lot of young professionals in underrepresented groups need champions. People to advocate for them at higher levels and also provide encouragement on a one-to-one basis. For example, encouraging potential leaders to apply for roles that might seem just beyond their skillset, or volunteering to lead a project that would put them in the spotlight. They may not have the confidence to raise their hand for those opportunities on their own, and surfacing those opportunities and encouraging them to jump in can make a difference.
Girija Hegde, Senior Manager
My name is Girija Hegde and I am one of the Senior Managers of the Walmart-Standard Services Team at Teikametrics. I work cross-functionally between Services & Product teams to define feature requests, testing them before the release and driving training & adoption within the team. I also support the Standard services team on escalation handling.
How has the meaning of Women’s History Month evolved for you throughout your career? Are there any new traditions or celebrations have you adopted to honor it?
Women’s history month reminds us to celebrate and recognize women who have achieved great things in their respective fields.
This month, I tend to consume media posts, articles, blogs about women all that come my way. It’s a good time to reflect on myself and identify opportunities around me to become better.
Who has been the biggest female role model or mentor in your career so far and why?
I feel fortunate enough to have had many female leaders and managers throughout my career. They have mentored me on how to inculcate leadership principles and nurture people to drive business objectives.
I admire Dr. Sudha Murthy (Author and Chairperson of Infosys Foundations), for her simplicity, humbleness and motivational talks/writings. I respect her social movements on education-for-all, equality and many more.
What unique strengths do you feel women bring to leadership roles?
I feel every individual comes with one or more unique strengths irrespective of gender. When diverse people work together complementary to each other, a strong team can be built.
What advice would you give to young women, just starting their careers, who aspire to be leaders someday?
I believe that consistency, commitment and a customer centricity approach bring a strong and long term impact on any business and our career. My advice to young women leaders is the same:
- Be consistent: learn and explore new things continuously.
- Be passionate: commitment comes when you are passionate about your work.
- Know who your customers are, define customer-first vision & objectives.
As technology rapidly changes the landscape of the workplace, what do you think leaders should do now to ensure young women have equal opportunities to become leaders in emerging technology fields?
Foster a culture where women are empowered to grow in their careers. Create opportunities and training on the new technologies.
Michelle Goodwin, Chief People Officer
I am the Chief People Officer and lead The People Team in IN and the US. I started in October of 2022. I report directly to our CEO and I am part of the Executive Leadership Team for the company.
How has the meaning of Women’s History Month evolved for you throughout your career? Are there any new traditions or celebrations have you adopted to honor it?
When I started my career in the 90s, there wasn’t much mention of Women’s History Month. I love seeing the emphasis on it today, which wasn’t done before. From reading or hearing about all the important women in history or spotlighting Women Owned businesses, it’s all so good. A lot has changed for the better!
Who has been the biggest female role model or mentor in your career so far and why?
Probably my first boss in HR. She wasn’t my first female boss but I learned so much about HR from her and she set an example of the kind of leader I wanted to be. She was fairly junior in her career too but she impressed me with how respected she was across the organization. She encouraged me to learn and take on more, and to also have a voice.
What unique strengths do you feel women bring to leadership roles?
I sometimes joke and say I bring the voice of reason to the table, but sometimes it’s true. Men and women think very differently. I have often shared my opinion on a subject and the men I work with are genuinely surprised by what I say because it’s as if they never knew there was a different way to look at something. It’s not good or bad, but it’s different.
What advice would you give to young women, just starting their careers, who aspire to be leaders someday?
Don’t be afraid that you might not know everything. You will continue to learn and grow, and someday you will be the most knowledgeable one, but it takes time to get there. If you don’t know something, say you don’t know but that you will get the answer. And go get the answer!
As technology rapidly changes the landscape of the workplace, what do you think leaders should do now to ensure young women have equal opportunities to become leaders in emerging technology fields? (I.e. AI, Robotics, MedTech, etc)
I think it’s very important to encourage women to continue to study in the math and science fields. When I was in high school, I took advanced classes and landed in a Calculus class. I was super confused. I always went for extra help after class and the professor told me that I shouldn’t worry about it because math probably wasn’t for me. He gave me a passing grade and I basically gave up. I don’t think I was ever going to be a Mathematician, but I wonder what might have happened if he didn’t discourage me from trying harder to learn what was confusing me.
As a leader, we should always make sure there are female candidates considered for technology roles. We also need to make sure when we are promoting employees that we are considering a good mix of male and female candidates. Tech is typically very male dominated but if you make a concerted effort to seek out qualified female candidates, we can change that. Women want to work with other women so the more women you have in technology roles, the easier it will be to bring on additional women in those roles.
Paula Bevilacqua, Corporate Controller
I joined Teikametrics as the Corporate Controller in April 2023. The primary areas I oversee are global financial reporting, audit/financial and tax compliance, billing/collections (Order to Cash), and vendor accounts payable. I joined Teikametrics at an exciting time as the company is in rapid growth mode – an environment I find invigorating! Along with my team, our guiding vision is to create a best-in-class accounting organization as we build an infrastructure for scale.
How has the meaning of Women’s History Month evolved for you throughout your career? Are there any new traditions or celebrations have you adopted to honor it?
I ALWAYS remain grateful to the woman who came before me as so much has changed since I began my career. As crazy as it sounds, my first CPA firm job had a very conservative dress code in which women were not allowed to wear pants (only dresses and skirts!). Also, the wage gap between men and women was significant and not something that could be comfortably discussed and addressed in the early days of my career.
When my daughter comes home from college next week, we plan to have a fun movie night celebrating strong, empowered women. The movies we have picked (to re-watch) are “A League of their Own” and “Legally Blonde” and “Erin Brockovich.” These vastly different films showcase women overcoming gender biases (and their own insecurities) while also embracing their inner-strength and femininity.
Who has been the biggest female role model or mentor in your career so far and why?
My sisters serve as two significant female role models because they exemplify admirable traits to have in leadership roles and everyday life. One sister is a school principal of a highly distinguished school, and the other is a successful entrepreneur/business owner. Both exude integrity, maintain open-mindedness and excel in cultivating positive and productive work environments. Their leadership is characterized by a genuine passion for their field and pursuits. While our career paths are entirely different, the common thread I have with them is trying to emulate their same values.
What unique strengths do you feel women bring to leadership roles?
The best female leaders I can think of bring unique strengths and approaches to their leadership roles, including empathy, emotional intelligence, critical thinking and a collaborative leadership style which fosters teamwork. While these strengths are not exclusive to women, embracing the diversity of leadership styles (and thought diversity) can pave the way for more creative and effective outcomes.
What advice would you give to young women, just starting their careers, who aspire to be leaders someday?
To aspiring young women (and future leaders) stepping into their careers, I would say to work hard, be a sponge (to learn as much as you can), be coachable, maintain a positive attitude and ask questions. As your career progresses, seek out someone you admire in the workplace who can mentor you. Gain confidence in your technical abilities and demonstrate that you are accountable, responsible and take ownership for your work. These are traits that will get you noticed and will likely lead you to your first promotion. As you progress in your career, always have an overall vision, set of objectives and lead with compassion, and fairness. Value your team, earn their respect and never stop learning. You will emerge as an influential leader with integrity, resilience and a commitment to perpetual growth.
As technology rapidly changes the landscape of the workplace, what do you think leaders should do now to ensure young women have equal opportunities to become leaders in emerging technology fields? (I.e. AI, Robotics, MedTech, etc)
I am deferring this question to my niece who will be graduating in May with a B.S. in electrical and computer engineering from USC and soon will be working at one of the largest medical device companies in the world. For context, her middle school and high school robotics’ teams were primarily made up of boys, so the gender disparity in this traditionally male-dominated field of interest remains. My niece believes that leaders in emerging technology fields need to “not only make room at the table for the physical presence of women, but also must make space to ensure their voices are heard.” As she pointed out, just because women are in the room doesn’t mean they are being heard. As my niece enters the workforce, she hopes to see leaders who seek everyone’s opinions (and remain mindful to continue to make this happen).
Thank you to all of the talented women at Teikametrics who consistently demonstrate innovation, leadership, and an unrelenting drive. Through collaborative efforts, and a culture of mutual support, we firmly believe our collective potential to achieve audacious goals and create positive change is amplified. We are looking forward to seeing the future successes and accomplishments of this exceptional group!
