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.
July’s Cloud Expert of the Month is Louise Bowman
Louise Bowman is a customer-focused enterprise sales executive that has been in the IT industry for almost 20 years. Her career began at Rackspace, a Global Managed Hosting & Cloud provider, where she built the insides sales team – both in San Antonio and London. In 2007, she returned to her hometown of Denver, and began working for ViaWest, now Flexential, a National Colocation, Managed Hosting and Cloud provider. There she was a Major Account Executive managing top ten named accounts, and later was asked to build ViaWest’s inside sales team. Her next adventure, NIMBL, a national system integrator based in Denver, gave her the opportunity to move up the IT stack where she began working within the SAP ecosystem selling software, consulting, staffing and managed application services to clients primarily in the Pacific Northwest.
Bowman is intrinsically motivated by responsibility, positivity, winning others over, learning, complex deals, and dynamic and thriving organizations. She is currently a member of Cloud Girls and is the SAP ASUG Pacific Northwest Chair Lead.Outside of work, she enjoys great food and wine (cooking or eating out), traveling, skiing, hiking, working out, murder mystery movies andbooks, and spending time with her husband & fur baby, Edie! Louise has a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she was member of Phi Beta Phi and Captain of the Women’s Lacrosse team.
When did you join Cloud Girls and why?
Manon Buettner, Cloud Girls’ co-founder, and I had met earlier in 2014, and through many discussions she invited me to I join Cloud Girls in 2015. I was able to attend my first retreat in Park City – that weekend really gave my insight into what an amazing organization Cloud Girls is, especially all the women involved.
What do you value about being a Cloud Girl?
First, the annual retreat because this is the time I have been able to learn about each “girl” in the group, dig into key issues and how others see/handle situations, let our hair down, laugh, play and leave with a feeling of belonging. This event always reminds me what a dynamic, eclectic, accomplished and vocal group I am a part of – I am proud to be a Cloud Girl. Second, the ongoing education, strong network and our community involvement.
What is the best career advice you’ve ever received?
“Feel, Think, Do”
What is the best professional/business book you’ve read and why?
Gallup Poll’s “StrengthFinder” by Tom Rath. This book is the only personality test that has ever really resonated and gave me great insight into myself and others. I highly recommend to this to everyone, no matter your profession.
How can you be a role model for young women and young men about what it means to be a leader in tech?
I am not sure it is about being a leader in tech or any particular industry. I think it is about seeing the other side, listening, being respectful, standing up for your ideas, being personable, managing to the individual and taking feedback. Overall, a leader should learn from their team, trust them, be a guide, not a micromanager. Men and women can, should, and do work well together if we put our fears and ego aside.