WOMEN IN THE NEWS NEW ROLES, AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
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Jean Chu took on a new role in 2013. She is the leader for cloud and smarter infrastructure for the IBM Software Group. She is responsible for account management of 12 top Tivoli Channel partners in North America, a group that includes value-added resellers and distributors, system integrators, and solution providers. In this role, she provides pre-sales technical enablement and product positioning, solution construction, implementation, and system integration within the technology, industry, or business specialty. During the past year, Chu was recognized by her firm with the Plateau Award, which honors employees reaching a plateau of invention activity. Chu has received six patents— three in 2013. She has participated in several Leadership for Asian Pacifics events. In 2013, she also contributed to Asian Americans Committed to Excellence newsletter. Chu has received several awards for managing client relationships; an IBM Software Group Tivoli award for demonstrating her ability to hold customer value foremost; a Tivoli VP award for leading business partners from growth mode to triple-A accredited status. She is also ranked as a top performer in exceeding Tivoli’s quota in North America. Christell Williams is senior IT specialist on the IT Techline on the IBM System x and Networking team. Williams provides technical expertise to IBM sales specialists, client managers, business partners and IBM sale centers. In 2013, Williams was nominated as a Women of Color Technology Rising Star. In the nomination letter from IBM, Williams was hailed for repeatedly demonstrating her “ability to develop world class server solutions based on complex business requirements.” She was cited as a leader “developing expert design knowledge in server architectures across node, chassis, rack, and networking components. Christell has done a superior job of applying these product specific skills to solve complex client issues around iDataPlex, Cluster, Analytics, and Cloud.” Williams has worked predominantly for IBM since 1986 with a three-year break in the 1990s when she was an open systems consultant for Unisys. “I provide solution design, consultation, product information, system configuration, pricing, ordering, sizing, solutions assurance and competitive assistance for clients,” states Williams in her resume.
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Williams holds a bachelor degree in computer science from Alabama A&M University. Apparently Jenny Li doesn’t believe in keeping a good thing to herself. The senior certified IT architect and master inventor at IBM has coached 16 new inventors in 2013—10 of them have submitted filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A prolific inventor, Li knows more than a little about patents. She has had six patents issued and seven patents filed for in 2013 and currently holds 40 granted patents. She also has more than 50 pending patents including areas of contextual collaboration, RFID, wireless network, virtual universe, green data center, pervasive computing, social network security, cloud computing, etc. Li is also organizing a patent boot camp to coach new Asian-American inventors. In March 2013, Li joined IBM System Technology Group (STG) New Routes as a solution architect. Her responsibility is to help partners to differentiate their solutions in the marketplace by leveraging IBM’s technology. Li held various technical positions in STG and has a diverse technical background. Her expertise includes application architecture, enterprise architecture and strategy, and enterprise solution research. Through STG, she has worked closely with partners on their solution business proposals. She identifies technical “pain points” and gaps. Li also creates technical enablement plans that help partners optimize their solutions by leveraging IBM’s hardware and software technologies. Previously, she designed various industry solutions while she was a solution architect at the STG Advanced Client Technology Center. Li has a master of science degree in industrial and applied mathematics from Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, and a bachelor of science degree in computing science from University of Alberta, Canada. She is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in computer science at Pace University, focusing on social network security. She has created a solution framework for her research at Pace University to use behavioral biometric to enhance social network security. Li plans to publish her work this year. by Gale Horton Gay, ghorton@ccgmag.com
WOMENOFCOLOR | SPRING 2014
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