Women in Analytics - What the???

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Hello! Microsoft loves to help women succeed in the technology workplace!

Personally, I have four daughters, and I want them to succeed and have opportunities in life!

But make no mistake, there are no easy solutions to making this happen! In fact, to make this happen, we need a lot of cogs in wheels, all working together to help encourage and guide our ladies down the path to a fun and rewarding career in technology!

  

And that brings us here. One of those important cogs is having a group of legendary women. Women who can encourage our young ladies in high school, guide and inspire our ladies in college to follow in their footsteps (or even learn from those accomplished ladies about how to improve on their footsteps), and in some ways, simply encourage them to continue their career in technology, and to provide them with some tips along the way!

In other words, role models (or mentors). Sure, some mentors should be personal. But sometimes mentors are merely gurus you learn from. You hear them speak. You read their books and blogs. You learn from them. They're role models, championing an industry!

And that's an important cog we need in our wheel for the ladies!

   

But technology is too grand of a topic. And there is certainly the Women in Technology group to continue championing it!

What we went for is a very specific topic in technology...

  

Women in Analytics!

 

Whether that's Excel, Azure Machine Learning, Power BI, SQL Server Analysis Services, Reporting Services, SSIS, and so on. There is an endless supply of tools, but the expertise and skills remain the same, regardless of the tools!

And so we gathered our lady legends together in one place! They are Microsoft MVPs, experts, and the engineers making the analytics software! (Actually, every role at Microsoft in making analytics software is being represented.)

   

I'm going to start with the first round of blog posts, so you can actually see what I mean when I say/write that we're building a group of role models:

 

You can start to see there that our Women in Analytics will have a wide range of topics and methods to their posts and other engagements!

Now, I'm going to show you who those role models are...

 

Microsoft:

Browyn McNutt - Senior Design Researcher on Power BI (she runs research projects to ensure quality designs and to point us in the right direction for usability and meeting customer needs)

Carla Sabotta - Senior Content Developer on Power BI and Microsoft Analytics (she writes the Help content as part of a team, and the content extends to all sorts... videos, tutorials, posters, and a lot more)

Christie Pitts - Senior IT Program Manager (she helps make sure various groups use Power BI and Analytics and have a great experience)

Crystal Ju - Program Manager on Power View and Power BI visualizations (she leads the vision and delivery of key features)

Deniz Duncan - International Project Manager on Power BI and other technologies (she makes sure the written language and messaging lands well in the UI and all supporting materials... all around the world) 

Irina Gorbach

Jen Underwood

Julie Zhu

Maggie Sparkman

Maria Balsamo

Meital Taran –Gutman

Sandy Rivas

Theresa Palmer

 

Community:

Barbara Raney

Belinda Allen

Brandy Craig

Cindy Gross

Gina Meronek

Jen Stirrup

Jill Brown

Julie Koesmarno

Lynn Langit

Melissa Coates

Stacia Misner

     

I only got through a few descriptions of our members. But have no fear! I'll be back with more descriptions and more energy in the future! =^)

   - Ninja Ed