Austin Tech Connect: The Podcast For The Austin Technology Ecosystem, Business Leaders, and Tech Entrepreneurs!

The Austin Technology Council June event featured a full house of 60+ people at Calavista Software for a presentation on "presentation skills" for business. The session was lead by the CEO at ATC, Thom Singer. Thom has experience as a professional speaker and has coached hundreds of executives on how to give a better speech. Regardless of if you are speaking inside your company or at an industry conference, having great skills as a speaker can be your secret weapon for success. In this hour-long session. Thom covered the "5 Tips For Business Speaking" and had an engaging and interactive session. After the program some in the room asked if it had been recorded, as they wanted to share it with their teams at the office. Also in the next two days several people who were not at the event asked for a link to the recording. Thus for this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom has recreated the presentation with the tips you need to be more effective when you present. Check out this episode and share it with your team. About Austin Technology Council Austin Tech Connect is the official podcast of the Austin Technology Council. ATC was founded in 1992 to help promote the growth of Austin technology companies and to help create more community in the growth tech ecosystem. Today the organization is a leading organization and a major voice for the continued growth of tech in Central Texas.

"Austin is better because St Edward's is here". This episode is a great conversation with the President of St Edward's University, Dr. Montse Fuentes. She is a mathematician and a problem solver who has spent her career helping people through education to help elevate the next generation. In this conversation we hear about her career and how she came to Austin to lead this 138 year old institution. She believes in community and bringing people together, and she is passionate about workforce development. About Dr. Montse Fuentes Dr. Montserrat "Montse" Fuentes began her tenure as the 24th President of St. Edward's University on July 1, 2021, serving as the first Hispanic and second female president. Dr. Fuentes also holds an appointment as Professor of Mathematics. Before this appointment, she served as executive vice president and provost and professor of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Iowa. President Fuentes has a rich history of academic and administrative leadership in higher education. She is a first-generation college student and received a dual bachelor's degree in mathematics and music (piano performance) from the University of Valladolid in Spain and a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Chicago. Dr. Fuentes has authored more than 100 scientific publications and served as principal or coprincipal investigator on more than 20 research grants, with total funding of more than $28 million. President Fuentes is actively involved in the greater Austin community, serving as a member of the Austin Community Foundation Board of Governors, Austin Area Research Organization (AARO), Austin Diocesan School Advisory Board, Ballet Austin Board of Directors, Austin Symphony Advisory Council, Frost Bank Board of Directors, the Austin Catholic Cemeteries Board of Directors, and the Ascension Seton Board of Trustees. About St. Edward's University St. Edward's University is a private university in the Catholic, Holy Cross tradition with approximately 3,600 students. Located in Austin, Texas, it is one of the top universities in the state and offers more than 55 undergraduate and 8 graduate programs. St. Edward's delivers a premier, highly personalized education that provides students distinctive academics and extensive internships, research and service learning opportunities on a vibrant and inclusive hilltop campus in a world-class city. St. Edward's has been recognized for 20 consecutive years as one of "America's Best Colleges" by U.S. News & World Report. In the 2022-2023 Best Colleges rankings, St. Edward's remains in the list of top 10 Best Regional Universities in the West for the 4th consecutive year. About Austin Technology Council Austin Tech Connect is the official podcast of the Austin Technology Council. ATC was founded in 1992 to help promote the growth of Austin technology companies and to help create more community in the growth tech ecosystem. Today the organization is a leading organization and a major voice for the continued growth of tech in Central Texas.

In this episdoe of "Austin Tech Connect", Thom Singer sits down with Ronnie Sheth from Senen Group. Ronnie was into "Data" before data was the hot topic it is today. She is passionalte about how data applies to all businesses, large and small. Founded in 2010 in Toronto, Canada, SENEN was established to provide strategic advisory services to high-tech startups. With a complete understanding of how technology ecosystems operate, they provided critical insights to technical founders and teams around navigating the B2B sales and marketing space. As they added larger enterprises to their client base, Senen Group realized that organizations both large and small struggle to address three key challenges: Senen group is a one-of-a-kind marketing firm that combines strategy, creativity and agile execution to achieve maximum total customer lifetime value. Instead of solely focusing on traditional top-of-the-funnel activities, they adopted a holistic, life-cycle marketing approach across the funnel to fuel rapid growth. Ronnie Sheth helps Tech, Retail, CPG & Energy enterprises optimize revenue & drive above-average growth using a combination of data-centered strategic consulting and agile execution of recommended strategies. Select Clients: Nike (Retail), Pepsico (CPG), IBM (Technology), Emera Technologies (Energy), Iconixx (VC-backed scale-up). *** Recognized as one of the Top 300 Innovators & Innovation Enablers in Austin***

In this episode we talk to Hugh Forrest, the Co-President and Chief Programming Officer at SXSW. Hugh joined SXSW in 1989 (you gotta hear his story of how he got there and the early years of the organization). SXSW has clearly had an impact on the growth on Austin's global tech footprint, and this interview we talk about our past, present, and future. About Hugh Forrest Hugh Forrest serves as Co-President and Chief Programming Officer for South by Southwest (SXSW). For his role of Chief Programming Officer, he oversees content for the SXSW Conference, as well as the SXSW Music Festival, the SXSW Film Festival, the SXSW Comedy Festival and SXSW EDU. Forrest was named "Austinite of the Year" in 2012 by the Austin Chamber of Commerce (along with fellow SXSW Directors Roland Swenson, Louis Black and Nick Barbaro). In 2014, Forrest and these other SXSW Directors were named Austin Entrepreneurs of the Year by Ernst & Young. He was awarded a Key to the City in January 2023 by Austin Mayor Steve Adler. He received an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 2018 from Kenyon College, his alma matter. In 2021, he was awarded Diversity Champion of the Year by the Austin Black Business Journal. In addition to his work at SXSW, he has previously served on of the National Advisory Board for the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. He has also served on the Board of Directors for Austin Habitat for Humanity. He currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Austin-based accessibility company Knowbility. Via his decades of work with the Austin Reggae Festival, he has helped to raise more than $1 million in funding for the Central Texas Food Bank. Before joining the SXSW team in the dark ages of 1989, he founded a small monthly alternative publication called The Austin Challenger. He also wrote for several other newspapers and publications, including the Austin Chronicle, the Texas Sports Chronicle, the West Austin News, Willamette Week and the Seattle Weekly. For 2024, SXSW is scheduled March 8-16. About Austin Technology Council Austin Tech Connect is the official podcast of the Austin Technology Council. ATC was founded in 1992 to help promote the growth of Austin technology companies and to help create more community in the growth tech ecosystem. Today the organization is a leading organization and a major voice for the continued growth of tech in Central Texas.

This week we are hosting a special "Crossover Episode" with the "Austin Next Podcast". Do you remember the excitement when two of your favorite TV Shows had a "Crossover" (when characters from one appeared on the other show and vice versa). Depending you age you might recall the 6 Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman.... or When the cast of Mad About You walked into Central Perk on Friends, or when Hanna Montana was on the Suite Life with Zach and Cody? This episode involves the hosts of both shows, Thom Singer from Austin Tech Connect, and Michael and Jason Scharf from Austin Next conducting one interview. In this crossover episode of Austin Next and Austin Tech Connect, we welcome Lou Senko, the Chief Availability Officer at Q2 Software. Lou, an industry veteran with over two decades of experience in spearheading enterprise-wide solutions, enlightens us about Q2's mission-driven approach. We explore Q2's dynamic role in innovation, its extensive engagement with the vibrant Austin community, and its strategic focus on fostering a sustainable future for digital banking. Check out this episode and be sure to learn more about Austin Next if this is your first exposure to the show. About Austin Technology Council Austin Tech Connect is the official podcast of the Austin Technology Council. ATC was founded in 1992 to help promote the growth of Austin technology companies and to help create more community in the growth tech ecosystem. Today the organization is a leading organization and a major voice for the continued growth of tech in Central Texas.

Collaboration for the success of Austin means all the different non-profits working together for the common good of the community. The team at Austin Women in Technology has been a great friend to the Austin Technology Council, and we work together to help promote both organizations. In this week's episode, Thom Singer sits down with Heather Trumpfheller and Emily Gupton from AWT to hear about all they do to serve the Austin community. AWT: Austin Women in Technology (awtaustin.org) is a 501c3 non-profit organization that empowers women in the technology industry in Austin. AWT was founded in 1992 with the goal of helping women in tech advance their careers, build professional networks, and develop leadership skills. AWT hosts regular events and workshops, as well as a mentorship program, to connect women in the technology industry with resources and opportunities to help them succeed in their careers. Additionally, AWT promotes diversity and inclusion in the tech industry and works to increase the representation of women in leadership positions. Heather: Heather Trumpfheller, President of Austin Women in Technology, is connector and advocate of women. In her day job, she works as a Delivery Manager at TEKsystems, a tech consulting company, where she supports the growth of TEKsystems' state government work. https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathertrumpfheller/ Emily: Emily Gupton, Community Partnerships Director of Austin Women in Technology, is passionate about driving collaboration and connection in the Austin community. In her day job, she works as COO of a local tech startup, FOLIO, where she manages day-to-day operations, product, development, and customer experience. https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-gupton/ About Austin Technology Council Austin Tech Connect is the official podcast of the Austin Technology Council. ATC was founded in 1992 to help promote the growth of Austin technology companies and to help create more community in the growth tech ecosystem. Today the organization is a leading organization and a major voice for the continued growth of tech in Central Texas.

James Beecham is a Founder and the Chief Executive Officer at ALTR, an innovator of automated data access control and security solutions. He has over a decade of experience leading technology and engineering teams in computer architecture design, database and operating system drivers, database security and data governance and privacy system design. James holds multiple software patents and a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. About ALTR ALTR is the only automated data access control and security solution that allows organizations to easily govern and protect sensitive data wherever it lives – to get more data to more users more securely in less time. Hundreds of companies and thousands of users leverage ALTR's SaaS platform to gain unparalleled visibility into data usage, automate data access controls and policy enforcement, and secure data with patented rate-limiting, real-time alerting and tokenization-as-a-service, all in minutes instead of months. ALTR's data ecosystem integrations with leading databases, data catalogs, ETL/ELTS and more enable scalable on-premises-to-cloud data governance and security for a single source of data access truth. To learn more, visit http://ALTR.com. To get the ALTR Free plan for Snowflake, https://get.altr.com/free. About Austin Technology Council Austin Tech Connect is the official podcast of the Austin Technology Council. ATC was founded in 1992 to help promote the growth of Austin technology companies and to help create more community in the growth tech ecosystem. Today the organization is a leading organization and a major voice for the continued growth of tech in Central Texas.

Mike Staples has over 15 years of experience in operations, stemming from his time in the Army as a Blackhawk pilot. Prior to Cruise, he brought two early stage tech startups to market, launched a non-sortable facility for Amazon, and launched remote markets for Uber. Mike is passionate about empowering people through tech and super pumped to scale the future of transportation, starting in Austin. Mike has a BS in Systems Engineering from West Point and an MBA from Duke (Fuqua). About Cruise Founded in 2013 in San Francisco, CA, and in partnership with General Motors and Honda, Cruise is building the world's most advanced self-driving vehicles to safely connect people with the places, things, and experiences they care about.

Suzi Sosa is the co-founder and CEO of Verb, a social enterprise dedicated to unlocking human potential. Verb's breakthrough platform supports employees in their journey of human-centered leadership development through online practice-based learning. The capabilities employees develop on Verb include self-awareness, empathy, supporting others, collaboration, inclusive leadership, having difficult conversations and building trust. Suzi is a serial social entrepreneur and loves to build businesses with the goal of creating positive social impact. She is the recipient of the 2014 Ernst & Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award and the co-author of Social Impact: Adventures in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Prior to Verb she built the social entrepreneurship program at the University of Texas at Austin. Suzi has a Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a B.A. in the Plan II Honors Program from UT Austin. About Verb Verb is a people development platform that empowers L&D teams to quickly design, launch and track their soft skills training programs. Through expertly built, ready-to-go programs and flexibility to adapt and customize, it's easy for customers to address the various learning needs across their company. With the support of Verb's customer success team, customers also get L&D expertise throughout program strategy, design, and implementation. Verb measures the results that matter, giving a deeper understanding of learners' behavioral data and personalized recommendations to ensure they are giving the best learning possible to their learners. Austin Tech Connect is the official podcast of the Austin Technology Council. ATC was founded in 1992 to help promote the growth of Austin technology companies and to help create more community in the growth tech ecosystem. Today the organization is a leading organization and a major voice for the continued growth of tech in Central Texas.

Razat Gaurav is chief executive officer of Planview, joining the company in 2021. Razat has over 20 years of experience in the enterprise software space, with a proven track record of driving innovation-based growth and scaling up technology businesses. He is a trusted advisor to leading executives, boards and investors on topics related to digital transformation initiatives. Prior to joining Planview, Razat was the CEO of LLamasoft, the leader in AI-based supply chain design and decisioning software. At LLamasoft, he drove an expanded product vision combined with a purpose-driven culture enabling the company to more than double its revenue in three years and resulted in a successful $1.5 billion acquisition by Coupa in November 2020. Prior to LLamasoft, Razat held leadership positions at Blue Yonder, i2 Technologies and Ernst & Young's management consulting practice. He also served on the Board of Directors of Sparta Systems and LLamasoft. Razat was recognized by Goldman Sachs as one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2020. About Planview Planview helps leading enterprises transform strategy to delivery with market-leading portfolio and work management solutions for connected work.