Who are the rising stars in tech? MassTLC names five executives who are on the rise with extraordinary operational leadership and achievement in bottom-line business results.
Meet the top emerging tech leaders of 2017 and learn who will be named the #1 Emerging Tech Leader for 2017 – at the Mass Technology Leadership Awards Gala on Thursday, September 14, 2017, in the World Trade Center Boston.
The rising stars of 2017, each a finalist for Emerging Tech Leader of the Year, include:
Elizabeth Barno, Community Director, Greentown Labs
Promoted to Community Director at Greentown Labs, Liz is the curator, creator, and driver of the amazing Greentown Labs community that more than 50 cleantech startups call home. While the culture at Greentown Labs has naturally evolved with new startups and entrepreneurs, Liz is the person who ensures the community culture stays consistent throughout Greentown Labs’ exciting phases of growth.
Lindsey Bleimes, Associate Director of Engineering, Wayfair
Lindsey has accomplished an incredible amount during her five years at Wayfair. Since joining the company, she has quickly risen from an engineer to one of Wayfair’s most valued managers, overseeing a team of nearly 40 people. As one of the most senior women in Wayfair engineering, Lindsey has managed projects as diverse as launching a new warehousing service, and ensuring the search functionality at Wayfair.com is the best in the industry – to spearheading and ramping up the engineering team in Germany ahead of Wayfair’s expansion into Europe. Lindsey also helped found the Women in Technology group at Wayfair – working with other companies such as HubSpot, TripAdvisor, AthenaHealth, Akamai and Cimpress to promote and support women and diversity in the industry.
Katie Burke, Chief People Office, HubSpot
Over the past year, Katie has taken on a huge number of initiatives to improve HubSpot for its employees, ranging from workplace flexibility to diversity and inclusion. Last summer, Katie led the charge on introducing HubSpot’s Rooney Rule, meaning that for every director-level or above opening at HubSpot, at least one diverse or female candidate must be considered. As the head of HubSpot’s Culture Team, Katie has also overseen the development of our Woman@HubSpot program, HubSpot’s LGBTQ Alliance, and the newly formed People of Color at HubSpot (PoCAH) group.
Sasha Hoffman, COO, Piaggio Fast Forward
At Piaggio Fast Forward, Sasha was brought on as employee number two to manage HR, marketing, finance, legal, design and pretty much all operations other than engineering. To that end, the company’s first product went from concept to prototype in eight short months. Sasha has grown the company to 35 people and prepared for a major launch of Piaggio Fast Forward’s first product, Gita, which was introduced in February of 2017 to much acclaim in the media.
Mike Volpe, CMO, Cybereason
Mike undertook a global analysis of employee morale and published our first ever employee engagement survey. He’s enabled innovative employment branding campaigns which yielded a surge in applications and interest. He’s acted as an executive sponsor for new hire orientation and learning programs, streamlined our internal communication and goal setting process, and serves as a key advisor to our CEO, bringing his experience in building a SaaS company to Cybereason.
In its 20th year, the Annual Mass Technology Leadership Awards are known as the Academy Awards for Tech in Massachusetts. The 2017 Awards Gala will be held on September 14 at the Seaport World Trade Center Boston. At the Gala, MassTLC will present special awards to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Melissa James and the MIT App Inventor team, as well as naming winners in 14 additional award categories including: CEO of the Year, CTO of the Year, Emerging Executive of the Year, Company of the Year, Emerging Company of the Year, Building a Better Workforce, Cutting Edge Technology of the Year, Technology for a Better Tomorrow, and Innovative Technology of the Year awards for Consumer Tech, Financial Tech, IoT, Robotics, Security, and Sales & Marketing. See all our Award Finalists.
Reserve your table/seat at the Awards Gala on Thursday, September 14, 2017, at the World Trade Center Boston. Details and registration.
