Liz Stuart, Global Alliances Director for Perficient, was recognized by Cloud Girls, in collaboration with the Alliance of Channel Women, as a Rising Star in the eighth annual Cloud Girls Rising “Women to Watch” awards announced in May of 2023.
The Cloud Girl Rising awards were created to honor women in the telecom and IT channel who have shown leadership and innovation in the emerging cloud space as well as to inspire more women to step forward and follow their example.
Liz was honored as a Rising Star, a female up-and-comer in the cloud community who has shown initiative in advancing cloud and next-generation technology solutions for her organization, customers and the industry.
Cloud Girls is pleased to share more about Liz in this edited excerpt from her award application.
What examples demonstrate your success at implementing or promoting cloud and next-gen technology, management principles or process?*
One of the initiatives I led and continue to lead is to drive awareness, enablement, and increase business with our cloud partners, globally. This initiative has two pillars to it. The first is identifying where we build solutions for our customers landing on a public cloud. The second is to enable everyone at Perficient with information about our cloud capabilities, competencies, specializations, and programs to help our customers accelerate and optimize their migrations, modernizations, and business transformation. We do this through roadshows, weekly enablement, and leveraging our partner management system. The results are increasing field sales alignment and identification of new opportunities to help our customers transform their businesses by leveraging cloud tools, services, and programs while accelerating their time to value.How have you led by example? What have you done to inspire team members around cloud and next-gen technologies?
I have led by example by helping build programs that help our partners scale around cloud and next-gen technologies. I co-chair our Diversity and Inclusion Partner Program (that is the first partner program at a TSD level in the channel) that is dedicated to teaching and growing our BIPOC sales partners in learning about new solutions and technologies and providing the resources they need such as additional marketing development funds, internal resources, one-to-one time with leadership and many other incentives dedicated to this group to foster growth. This innovative program is bold, and it has inspired many team members to want to learn more about how to help these sales partners grow in our channel and be educated around technology solutions and technologies to help them scale for the future.How have you mentored other women in the channel – above, below and at your level?
Yes. I started getting interested in mentoring and helping women grow their careers about ten years ago when I realized that I had yet to ever invest in identifying a formal mentor for myself. I started Women in tech ERG at my company at the time, which provided learning opportunities, guest speakers, and time to spend with other women in tech across Colorado. I am an active member of my current company’s Women in Tech ERG, where I am part of our career growth committee. Our WiT career growth committee developed a mentorship program for all women and allies at Perficient. We also lead career growth panels where anyone at Perficient can learn about the paths people take to grow their careers. It is often not a linear path, and our goal is to show what is possible and achievable. Additionally, I actively mentor women 1:1 and, more broadly, lead my team and give them the space to thrive and grow their careers. I was involved in formally developing a new role on our partnership team that increased the career growth paths on our partner team.Congrats, Liz!!