Lisa Wood, chief marketing officer at VirtualZ Computing, fell into technology when her financial services employer told her that the entire management training program and staff would need to learn how to use new software and a computer. “The box landed on my desk, and my boss said, ‘Looks like we need to learn how to use these things,’” she recalls. “There was no IT department, training class, tech support, or YouTube videos. I taught myself everything I could about the software and computer; I took it apart and put it back together with tools I brought to work.” Wood adds, “That experience kicked off a career-long love affair with IT.”
With encouragement from her parents, Wood took a leap and left her career in financial services. “During my exit interview at the finance company, they asked what my new position was and why I was leaving. When I explained the industry and my responsibilities, the human resources person flatly stated I would be back to finance in no time as IT was full of either failed start-ups or boring, old technology, and most certainly it was littered with lost dreams,” she says.
Read more on Lisa Wood and embarking on her journey within IT