Cloud Girls is honored to have amazingly accomplished, professional women in tech as our members. We take every opportunity to showcase their expertise and accomplishments – promotions, speaking engagements, publications and more. Now, we are excited to shine a spotlight on one of our members each month.
August’s Cloud Expert of the Month is Raj Varma
Varma has more than 20 years of software industry experience with 10 years at Microsoft in different roles as a developer, lead, Senior technical program manager to an Architect Evangelist. She brings expertise such as strong leadership, team building, strategic alliances, business development, analyzing, developing and maintaining standards, project and software methodologies, and processes.
Varma is a serial entrepreneur of multiple technology companies and has strategically grown the companies to make them profitable. She has established a consistent track record in solving many customer business problems in application development, advising on cloud readiness, partnership and strategic alliances and enterprise mobile solutions to achieve the growth on short-term as well as long-term successes.
When did you join Cloud Girls and why?
Board Member Khali Henderson introduced me to Cloud Girls in 2015. It was very interesting to learn how Cloud Girls platform is so helpful to nurture smart and dedicated women in cloud.
What do you value about being a Cloud Girl?
It is a great small group of very talented women who like to share their experiences and current trend topics on the technology in the monthly meeting. It’s a great learning and sharing platform.
The member retreat is very hands-on experience to meet, mingle, learn and share experiences to help each other to enrich career and personal life.
How did you find a career in tech? Did you choose it or did you end up here and how?
I am an Electrical and Computer Engineer by discipline from India. I landed in USA in 1999 with $100 in my pocket with two dreams — work for Microsoft and later start my own business. I worked 10 years at Microsoft and started Arth Systems as software consulting in mid 2008, which has transitioned into a cloud system integrator business. Technology is my passion to solve real business issues.
How do women inspire you and why?
Women play the leadership roles more empathetically compared to men. I think that sets them apart as a very strong leader.
How are you be a role model for young women and men about what it means to be a leader in tech?
I am an official industry mentor for Ada Developer’s Academy for nearly two years. This August, I am getting a third set of young mentees who are proud to call themselves “Adies.” As an industry mentor, I am very focused on guiding them on what is expected in the current technology world and providing them with the right tools, connections, technical and career advice to be successful. There are very smart, passionate and hardworking Adies, and some of them landed in cloud teams at Google and Nordstrom, etc. My biggest advice is that don’t be afraid to follow your dreams!