Join a growing movement of empowered women in tech at Women in Tech Texas coming to The Hyatt Regency, Houston on May 30 - 31, 2023. As we move from embedding resilience in the face of adversity, it’s time to charge full speed ahead to embrace The New Frontier.
Over two days, you'll discover the most essential technologies in today's quickly changing world and learn new forward-thinking concepts in business and the workforce that will radically change our future. Join over 1,000 leading women in technology and diversity champions driving the innovation revolution to pioneer the future of technology and business.
Insight
Discover all the latest tech insight and trends through dedicated deep-dive sessions, masterclasses and keynotes.
Futureproof Your Career
Gain the skills you need to future proof your career as you learn from industry experts.
Network
Connect with the community and make connections that will make a real difference to your career!
Be Inspired
Our unrivalled speakers line-up will be sharing their experience, challenges and advice to inspire you on your journey.
President & COO @ SpaceX
Chief Information Security Officer @ iHeartMedia
US Chief Diversity Officer @ Santander Consumer USA
Senior Vice President, Global Head, Business Technology Platform @ SAP Success Delivery Center
Senior Vice President of Engineering @ Bill
Senior Vice President for Retail Consumer Technology @ Citibank
Vice President, Sector CTO & Delivery @ PepsiCo
Vice President, Head of Commercial Architecture and Technology Solutions @ HP
Vice President of Software Engineering @ Hilton
Head of Information, Data & Analytics @ Shell Information and Digital Technology
As President and COO of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is responsible for day-to-day operations and managing all customer and strategic relations to support company growth. She joined SpaceX in 2002 as Vice President of Business Development and built the Falcon vehicle family manifest to approximately 170 launches, representing more than $20 billion in business. Shotwell is a member of the SpaceX Board of Directors.
Prior to joining SpaceX, Shotwell spent more than 10 years at the Aerospace Corporation, holding positions in Space Systems Engineering, Technology and Project Management. She was promoted to the role of Chief Engineer of an MLV-class satellite program, managed a landmark study for the Federal Aviation Administration on commercial space transportation, and completed an extensive analysis of space policy for NASA's future investment in space transportation.
In addition to being included on Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020, Shotwell was awarded the 2020 Von Karmen Wings award. In 2018 Shotwell was named the Satellite Executive of the Year and she was awarded the AIAA Goddard Astronautics Awards as well as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Ralph Coats Roe Medal. Fortune Magazine placed Shotwell at #42 on their list of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders in 2018 and Forbes named her #55 on their list of Power Women in 2019. Gwynne was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2020 and in 2019 was appointed to the National Space Council Users' Advisory Group. In 2014, Shotwell was appointed to the United States Export Import Bank's Advisory Committee and the Federal Aviation Administration's Management Advisory Council. Shotwell was elected to the honorable grade of Fellow with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Through leadership in both corporate and external science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs, Shotwell has helped raise over $1.8 million for STEM programs reaching thousands of students nationwide.
Shotwell received, with honors, her bachelor's and master's degrees from Northwestern University in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, and serves on their Board. She has authored dozens of papers on a variety of space related subjects.
Janet Heins is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at iHeartMedia. As CISO, she is responsible for the strategic direction of the Information Security Program. She maintains a forward-looking strategy to include innovations in the security industry while implementing tools that protect our technology, building a team of security professionals and educating iHeartMedia employees on how they can help protect the Company from security risks.
Janet has been in the CISO role for over 10 years, most recently at Royal Caribbean and prior to that, at W. L. Gore & Assoc. and Biogen. Her tenure in IT spans industries and includes IT leadership roles in development, operations, support, communications, training and user experience.
Join Janet's session 'Quantum Computing: Prepare To Be Prepared' on May 30.
Dr. Virnitia Dixon is the Chief Diversity Officer and Head of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office at Santander US. Before joining Santander, Dr. Dixon was an executive coach and consultant working with Fortune 500 senior executives to transform corporate culture through leadership development, organizational effectiveness, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her background is primarily in financial services, where she previously held roles as a Corporate VP of Strategy for New York Life and VP of Operations for Travelers Property Casualty. Dr. Dixon is an Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (IPEC) certified professional coach and holds a Doctorate of Management in Organizational Leadership from the University of Phoenix, a Masters of Business Administration in Management, and a Bachelor of Science in Legal Studies, both from the University of Hartford.
Dr. Dixon currently serves on several community boards, including Tampa Bay's Wheels of Success, the PASCO County Economic Development Council as Chairperson of the Strategic Planning Task Force, and the Santander Consumer Foundation as Director of the Economic Mobility Pillar. She has recently been recognized with a number of awards, including DEI Executive of the Year Large Market: Leaders of Distinction (2022) by HRO Today. As well as being the featured guest speaker on The Impostor Syndrome Files, a weekly podcast hosted by popular TEDx Talk Speaker and Executive Coach Kim Meninger.
Dr. Dixon's life mission is "to be a blessing to the lives of many, one person at a time." This mindset is evident in how she shapes corporate culture and facilitates human connection. By being a spiritually driven innovator, she inspires people to be their authentic selves, and helps transform organizations to put human connection at the core of everything they do.
Alicia brings her tremendous passion for people and technology together in driving the adoption of SAP Solutions. Throughout her 25 year career at SAP, she has taken on various Services and Sales roles, in a variety of Industries, across multiple regions. Since 2015, she has leveraged that diverse experience leading global teams with a focus on business transformation resulting in year-over-year growth, talent retention and high customer satisfaction. Alicia currently leads the Business Technology Platform Hub in SAP Cloud Success Services focused on bringing our Business Technology Platform and AI solutions to SAP customers around the globe.
Join Alicia's session 'Using Automation To Relieve Your Engineers' on May 31.
Manasa Murthy works at Bill as Senior Vice President of Engineering, leading teams that build powerful and delightful products. At Bill, Manasa has built automated end-to-end systems powered by AI and Machine learning that provides small business customers with tools and insights to help them improve their businesses. With over 15 years of experience, she has a track record of building high performing organizations, growing business and building scalable and intelligent platforms.
In her past lives, she worked as SVP of Engineering at Voicebase (acquired by LivePerson), an AI startup with a leading speech recognition and voice analytics engine that empowered organizations with conversational intelligence. Earlier, she held many leadership roles at Intuit building products for the Quickbooks ecosystem including QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll. She began her career at Microsoft building Visual Studio.
As the Senior Vice President for Retail Consumer Technology at Citibank, I'm responsible for overseeing the implementation and delivery of crucial products that enable the bank to achieve maximum value while adhering to regulatory, risk, performance, and vulnerability standards, and utilizing cutting-edge management techniques. I take pride in achieving an 80% growth in CRS domain for every product launch. With two decades of experience in designing, architecting, and building products for the telecom, financial, and defense industries, I have a passion for building diverse teams and optimizing technology for greater efficiency. Additionally, I'm deeply committed to advocating for women in technology and women's leadership.
As a technology leader, I excel in finding solutions out of ambiguity and orchestrating large, complex business projects and resources to achieve organizational objectives. I lead collaborative development and operations teams to deliver industry-leading business solutions, identify strategic project opportunities, develop cases to identify problems, recommend solutions, and articulate risks. I prioritize end-user demands by analyzing business needs and weighing user requirements versus time and resources to build campaigns across the environment to highlight competitive differentiation, elevate market reputation, and generate leads. I facilitate communication on project scope, deliverables, and milestones with development teams, end-users, and stakeholders, make data-informed decisions using key metrics to measure progress and implement cloud infrastructure strategies.
I am an industry-recognized speaker on Global Consumer Technology Platform and Panelist for the GCT Women's Conference, TPM Friday Virtual Learning Series, TPM Community of Practice and New Hire Orientation Programs, and TPM Hiring Events. I have accomplished several notable achievements, including delivering NGA architecture to migrate 33 partners of Citi Retail Services serving 78M customers, enabling the Wayfair adoption to Citi during Covid, delivering the end-to-end solution on time and creating $5M in sales during the holiday season, December 2020, and integrating the Equifax Identity solution for oil partners, Shell and Exxon, for credit applications, to save ~2 mins per application and provide overall growth of 35% on ROI.
Fun Fact: I enjoy the thrill of driving a stick shift (manual gear), and while my husband and son are completely revamping the BMW E39 M5 in our home garage, I am a helping hand with the project. In addition to my love for cars, I'm also a proud dance mom to my 11-year-old daughter who is part of a prestigious ballet company.
Join Erum's session 'Generative AI: A Technical Deep Dive' on May 30.
An accomplished executive and business leader, Fern is passionate about driving positive change, creating collaborative and inclusive work environments, and building highly effective, high-performance teams. As an IT executive within PepsiCo, Fern serves as CTO Vice President – Sector CTO and Delivery since Jan 2021. Here Fern is leading a large organization to ensure high quality delivery and availability of global IT infrastructure, while delivering exceptional end user experiences. Prior to this role Fern led a global program to extend and build cybersecurity capability across PepsiCo's supply chain (350 manufacturing plants; 2,500 distribution centers/ warehouses). She has broad technical and functional expertise with global program management best practices and delivery, collaborative senior management partnerships, a drive for increased productivity and strong organizational leadership.
In addition to her work within the IT organization, Fern has been an active participant and champion of PepsiCo's Diversity, Inclusion and Engagement initiatives. Her efforts in this area have led to best practices and programs in Diversity which have effected positive change, helped to advance the careers of hundreds of employees, and vastly improved the organization. She has led and worked with affinity groups to enhance awareness through educational and community-based events, activities, programs, and projects encompassing all dimensions of diversity. She has been recognized for her contributions with three Harvey C. Russell Chairman’s Awards for Diversity.
Fern has Bachelor of Arts degree from Pace University in Pleasantville, NY. She sits on several boards and advisory councils - IT Senior Management Forum, North Texas Business Council for the Arts, DFW Alliance of Technology and Women and is a board of trustee for the Dallas Museum of Arts. Fern is quite the world traveler and foodie! She enjoys entertaining her family and friends in her home in Frisco, TX.
Join Fern's session 'How To Shape and Lead Multi-Generational Workforces' on May 31.
Leng graduated with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and has worked her way from mechanical engineer to being the head of HP's Commercial Notebook Architecture & Technology Solutions. Her experience has ranged from networking equipment design at Motorola, product design at Apple to early work in a Silicon Valley start-up. Acute decision-making, in-depth technical acumen and passion for talent made her one of HP's most influential technology leaders.
Join Leng's session 'Sustainable Product Design' on May 30.
As Hilton's Vice President of Software Engineering, Dorothy Lopez leads the global technology teams responsible for creating the hospitality experience of the future. From smartphone capabilities like Digital Key to connected smart hotel rooms that allow for integrated entertainment, her teams are at the forefront of innovation in hospitality technologies.
With more than 20 years' experience in travel focused industries, Dorothy is accustomed to leading large-scale teams and advancing technologies that improve the overall travel experience. Previously, at Southwest Airlines, she led in many different capacities, most notably leading the efforts to expand internationally, enhancing the commercial technology capabilities, and driving the overall strategy and plans for the technology organization.
Dorothy is a proud alumna of Texas A&M where she earned her BBA in Management Information Systems. She currently resides in Dallas with her husband and young son where she enjoys traveling, cooking, and chasing her son around the house.
Join Dorothy's session 'Migrating to Cloud-Based Microservices Architecture' on May 30.
Anu Krishnan is the Head of Information, Data & Analytics in Shell IT. In this role, Anu manages a 1800+ global team of Information, Data & Analytics professionals who are instrumental in helping Shell achieve its Digital Ambitions. Her team builds end to end Data & Analytics solutions including Machine Learning and AI using structured and unstructured data across Shell.
Anu's Shell career has spanned 25 years, across many roles -from IT Operations, Innovation, Strategy & Planning and being a Chief Data Officer. Prior to Shell, Anu worked in the Pharmaceutical industry.
Anu is passionate about Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and has led many DE&I initiatives specifically focused on developing women & minorities and being a visible LGBTQ Ally. She enjoys coaching and mentoring and developing people to their fullest potential.
Sponsor this event to attract and retain talent, position your brand as a diversity and inclusion champion and demonstrate your products and thought leadership
FIND OUT MORELive Keynotes and Presentations
Hear from a curated lineup of innovative and influential women in technology who will be sharing their journey on tech adoption and strategies to adapt to the challenges of modern business. Ask your own burning questions and quiz our speakers to get direct advice from them on how to overcome on your own challenges
Interactive Workshops
Specially designed hands-on workshops will provide you with the opportunity to learn and implement in a practical environment. In this truly interactive format, you'll have the opportunity to dive deep and apply new skills to elevate your career to the next level.
Career Advice Clinic
Connect with our speakers at the Career Advice Clinic where you’ll be able to gain advice that’s personal to you and your specific professional challenges.
Soapbox Corner
Take the stand and share your own unique perspective and forward-thinking concepts to your peers using prompted themes and discussion ideas. You'll be provided with the opportunity to speak openly for five minutes where you can encourage debate and collaboration. Attendees who deliver a popular speech will have the opportunity to join our speaker list for 2024!
Networking Reception
Connect with attendees at our Networking Reception where you'll be able to share some of your biggest takeaways of the day and build new relationships in a relaxed and informal setting.
I was thankful for the opportunity to listen to inspiring women talk about their passions and how to grow in both career and life
A diverse gathering of tech professionals aspiring to elevate their careers, technical expertise, presence and leadership skills through attending talks from various women industry leaders
A good conference for learning tips and tricks from other women in technical industries and hear other points of view.
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