CX Leaders and Heads

Jessica Gutierrez, Support Lead

Jessica studied IT in the evening whilst she had a job in banking. Her class was dominated by men with only 2-3 females in the group. Her drive to continue with IT was not affected by the gender imbalance and it pushed her to keep going and do something unexpected.

“I would say to other women that tech is a great industry that’s continuously changing and you’ll be forever learning.”

Jessica believes that the young women of today do not feel as limited as previous generations as to what they wish to study. She encourages all women interested in STEM to “go for it!”.

Today Jessica sees a few more women working in tech roles, however, she points out there is still a lack of females in IT senior management roles and executive roles.

“The thing female leaders that inspire me have in common is that they have successful and rewarding careers whilst also having a family that supports them.”

Her experience at Resonate has been positive, citing the warm and welcoming culture she says is contributed to by the number of women at the company. She says Resonate is a diverse and inclusive team and she is inspired by our female CEO, Mita Bedi.

Asmita Pandey, Product Tester

Asmita finished a Diploma in IT at an IT campus in Nepal. Her campus was all male and she was the only woman. Through her hard work, she was awarded the campus student of the year award 2016.

“I strongly recommend girls that want to study technology to go ahead and grab every opportunity and to empower themselves.”

Asmita has seen a lot of changes in her area where many women studying IT are participating in various programs and working in a range of tech companies after their graduation.

Asmita finds Resonate very welcoming and helps her develop her skills as a developer. She says she feels proud to work at Resonate. She likes how she can reach out to anyone in the office to ask for help.

During her time in the dev team, Asmita has looked up to her two female tech leads.

Ali Thompson, Account Executive

Ali is a ‘people connector & networker’ passionate about customer experience. Her ambitious nature and creative curiosity deep dives into corporate strategies driving growth by creative learning experiences, and constructive knowledge observation.

“I feel there is a movement for accelerating the path towards equality — empowering women to choose their destiny.”

At, Leicester Mercury Newspaper as a Field Sales Representative/Advertising Sales, Ali was in a male-dominated world. Her dedication and hard work allowed her to shine through and fast-track her role to key accounts.

Ali believes whether a woman wants to become a CEO, start a company, be promoted, make more money or simply have the support to be the best they can be; they need the confidence, skills and community to help her make it happen. She feels women need to support each other, have a voice and help close the gender pay gap.

Kylie Diep, Application Support

Kylie completed a Bachelor’s degree in computer science in Vietnam and a Master degree in Data Science in South Australia. During her Bachelor and Master’s degrees, there were only 3 females in a batch of 200 students. The result she says is having more male than female friends. Kylie recounts others often being really surprised when they found out her major is IT because she says, no matter the location, the field she studied is a male-dominated environment.

“More opportunities, support and benefits have been offered to encourage women to enter the tech industry. However, the statistics show there is a huge gender gap for women in the industry that needs to be closed.”

In her first job, Kylie work as an IT Automation Engineer at Intel. Kylie says at the technical management level, the number of female and male managers was approximately equal, which proved that Intel provided great support, opportunity and environment for women working and developing in the tech sector. Kylie believes being in an environment promoting equal opportunities made her feel different, standout and appreciated.

As an Application Support Engineer at Resonate, Kylie was pleasantly surprised to find more women in the DevOps team. She says the company is like a family where all genders and cultural backgrounds are treated equally. Everyone is friendly and supportive.

Pallavi Jankiraman, Customer Success

Pallavi grew up in India and, although she says her family is progressive, she was surrounded by a traditionally patriarchal society. A few of her classmates had to fight for a chance to go to college and get their Bachelors degree. Some were married soon after and never got a chance to use that degree. Pallavi counts herself fortunate for the opportunities she’s received.

Close to 50% of Pallavi’s MBA program were female candidates, yet as professionals 10 years later, she finds that the numbers of women reaching the top of their organisations are a lot fewer than their male contemporaries. We just seem to disappear into the woodwork.

“While general consciousness is on the rise globally, it is still much harder for women to meet their traditional social obligations and still give their career the focus it needs to reach the top.”

I love working at Resonate as it is a positive corporate example of inclusiveness. Not only do we have a lady at the helm, but over 60% of our leadership team are also working-mums. This speaks volumes about how good work culture can help provide opportunities for women to meet the challenges of home and office.

Kersti Muras, Customer Data Analyst

Kersti studied a Master of Data Science and Innovation at UTS. Despite the under-representation of women in the industry, she was happy to be surrounded by students both men and women from very diverse backgrounds. Having a female Course Director and being a part of groups such as Women in Data Science where women support other women, were important to Kersti.

“Tech is always changing, develop a growth mindset and get comfortable admitting that you don’t know something”

Starting as an apprentice chef in a restaurant kitchen, Kersti was in a very male-dominated environment. However, she believes attitudes and culture are changing. Kersti thinks the hospitality industry could benefit from more female leadership to create a more balanced and human centric-environment.

“Women need to see past the “nerdy” and “geeky” devoid of creativity stereotypes and understand how they can combine tech with their other passions, whether it be areas like sales, marketing, design, HR, law or psychology.”

Today in her position at Resonate, Kersti values having a female CEO and seeing women represented in senior leadership positions. She likes how at Resonate there’s a strong focus on people development and opportunities to learn about the business beyond your role. Kersti takes inspiration from female leaders like Brene Brown and Jacinda Ardern.

Madhuri Alse, Head of Client Services

Madhuri studied for a Bachelor of Computer Science in India. In her first job out of campus, she vividly remembers the interview process. Despite being the one female selected in a group of 10 candidates and most of the people in her team being men, Madhuri did not see this as a barrier to career progression. She saw her situation as almost an advantage in certain situations as she could see things from a different lens and perspective – “a woman’s touch”.

“Don’t let any perceptions or negative thoughts deter you – The industry needs women and will be better off with more passionate women joining it.”

During her time at Resonate, Madhuri has felt having a female CEO, Mita Bedi has been a big advantage. Madhuri says Mita understands first hand what it is like for working women and ensures the workplace caters to our needs.

Madhuri draws a lot of her inspiration from her single mother, who did not let situations, people or time stand in her way of accomplishing what she wanted to do. She also admires Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg who has been a great role model of resilience.

Camila Lima, QA Engineer

Studying a Bachelor of IT in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Camila would often have people come up to her surprised that a woman was studying IT. They would ask why she was studying it and assumed she must be one of the only women in her class.

Camila’s advice to other women is if you want to study a STEM subject do not listen too much to what others say, just go forward and you don’t feel underestimated for being a woman.

“I say to other women — if you want to study a STEM subject do not listen too much to what others say, just go forward and you don’t feel underestimated for being a woman.”

Since her first job at a bank in Brazil, Camila feels it is great more women are working in the tech industry. She believes the paradigm that just men work in IT is gradually changing. In her current position at Resonate, Camila feels encouraged by the women in leadership positions. The determination and attitude women have at Resonate is something Camila draws inspiration from.

Danielle Gosper, Tech Team Lead

Danielle strongly encourages all women to “go for it” when considering a career in technology. Her advice to other woman is to pursue whatever you are interested in and to not let other’s tell you what you are capable of.

Like other women at Resonate who entered into STEM at university, Danielle was a part of a handful of female students in her Bachelor of IT Games Design and Development. She believes things are changing and that the education of STEM in schools has improved over the years which leads to more women studying STEM courses at university. She says in the future we need to make sure there is no pay gap between women and men in larger companies within the tech industry.

“At Resonate it doesn’t matter where you come from or your gender, everyone is treated with the same level of respect.”

Her first job was as a Software Engineer intern at Resonate. One of the main things Danielle likes about Resonate is the even gender representation of the company, including in the technology team. She considers Resonate’s general acceptance of different people and cultures to be something that sets it apart from other companies.

Danielle sees the representation of women in media as an important area. She believes this will lead to the greater acceptance of woman in leadership and roles previously consider as non-typical.

Luna Wen, Tech Team Lead

Luna started in a female-dominated journalism and communications course at a high performing university in China. She transitioned into studying a Master of IT at Monash University, a predominantly male course. Despite this career change, Luna still enjoys writing and maintaining a blog, occasionally talking about women’s issues.

Luna defied expectations in becoming one of the top students in her Master of IT course. At the time she was new to Australia and was also raising a young family.

“Don’t second guess yourself and trust in your abilities.”

The relaxed and casual environment of technology is something that has made Luna particularly comfortable in her line of work. At Resonate she likes how everyone has equal opportunities and that the gender representation is balanced. She says Resonate is a family-friendly place.

Luna finds role models in everyday life and has quite a few at Resonate. She says that these role models open up her mind to the possibilities for what she can achieve. Over the years, Luna believes the technology industry has become more welcoming to women.

Mita Bedi, CEO

Mita started out studying a Bachelor of Engineering — Software Design at UNSW. This was almost accidental as there was little talk about STEM or Engineering coming from an all-girls high school. At university, she was one of a few women taking coding and software engineering in a male-dominated area. Her first job as a software developer in a large international technology company saw her as the only female developer in the Australian team. Later, working in technology teams of banks in Australia and the UK, she often found herself being the only female in a group comprised of 30+ males.

In present times, Mita sees the talk around women in STEM as being front of mind for many. The involvement of women in technology is being actively talked about, measured and targeted as a key area to improve. She says starting the discussion is the first big step, something that barely existed when she was growing up.

“The gender diversity at Resonate like all other diversity is one of our greatest strengths. We eliminated bias and hire the best people regardless of gender.”

Mita believes the flexibility of the technology industry is well suited to women. Her inspiration is drawn from all-female leaders whether they are leading a bank, country or organisation. When she sees these leaders it shakes up her internal voices and ingrained beliefs. To see someone else do it makes it doable, achievable and possible — that is 90% of it.

As a message to all women considering entering the technology industry, Mita says — go for it!

“You may be scared or intimidated when you are sitting with a bunch of boys in the engineering team who are talking code or technology, but what I learnt over the years is that they are probably more scared of you.”

Margarita, Admin Assistant

Margarita started studying for a Bachelor of Game Design where there were only 20 women out of 500 students. As a student, she would occasionally get a surprised reaction from others that a woman was studying game design. Margarita feels attitudes toward women in tech have changed substantially in the past decade and continue to improve.

“If you have a passion for a particular industry don’t let being a woman stop you from going for it.”

Today Margarita works in tech at Resonate Solutions and loves the welcoming culture that embraces all genders equally. She says she loves how the company is like a family and that there is no judgment because of your gender or cultural background.

Her advice to women interested in tech is to just do it and never underestimate your abilities because of stereotypes.