The Occasions Calendar’s Head of Product & Design on serving to others, the significance of ladies in tech, and being motivated by intricate issues.
Initially from japanese Virginia, Susan Jantzen grew up going to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for summer season holidays. “My household loved spending time on the seaside, boating, and fishing. My grandparents had a ardour for journey,” she says, “and I used to be all the time excited after I might tag alongside on their adventures.” Jantzen has all the time been a Carolina lady at coronary heart, and finally moved there for work and faculty.
With over 20 years of expertise within the tech area, Jantzen discovered her calling whereas working with AT&T Wi-fi within the Operations Division of a big customer support name heart. “Our group was liable for productiveness, forecasting, scheduling, monitoring, and reporting,” she says. “I gravitated towards being a liaison between the enterprise people I labored with and IT, and appeared for tactics to streamline processes and enhance knowledge administration.” Ultimately, her function advanced right into a Programs Analyst, and in parallel, Jantzen targeted her faculty programs round database design, programming, and enterprise administration.
Whereas at AT&T, Jantzen was honored with a Circle of Excellence peer recognition award, which included an onsite celebration in Maui, Hawaii. It was a serendipitous journey—Jantzen and her then-fiancé determined to increase their keep and get married.
After a number of years, Jantzen transitioned to internet utility improvement and grew her product administration, mission administration, and management abilities.
At Liquid Net, Jantzen is the Head of Product & Design with The Occasions Calendar, the chief of calendar options within the WordPress ecosystem with over 800,000 energetic installs. “I lead a group of a few of the most artistic downside solvers I’ve ever labored with. They’re devoted to creating life simpler for individuals who handle occasions,” she says.
Jantzen has had the chance to work on quite a few initiatives, merchandise, and web site launches, from startups to enterprise telecommunication, healthcare, actual property, banking, and better schooling. “My proudest moments are all the time a mix of group accomplishments and camaraderie in seeing a mission by from idea to launch,” she says. “The worth it brings to the companies we’re working with, in addition to their prospects, is extraordinarily rewarding.”
Working in tech has given Jantzen an appreciation for the ingenuity it takes to maintain up with the ever-shifting panorama of the sphere. “One among my favourite issues about expertise is that it’s all the time evolving and enhancing,” says Jantzen. “After all, this additionally brings new complexities and challenges. Present code, methods, processes, and advertising approaches turn into outdated rapidly as prospects’ wants and expectations change.” Although it’s typically a problem to expertise steady change throughout services and products, Jantzen enjoys serving to groups navigate these challenges, embrace versatile methods of working, and ship customer-forward options.
Intricate issues requiring thought, iteration, and collaboration are nice motivators for Jantzen, who actually enjoys serving to others. She appears ahead to hopping on calls with colleagues to strategize options or simply being there to pay attention. “Put individuals first, and the remainder will sometimes fall into place,” she says. When not at work, she enjoys spending time with household, cooking and making an attempt new recipes, and being open air—whether or not a quick stroll, gardening, or a day on the seaside.
All through her profession, Jantzen has discovered help in her household. “My mother all the time pushed me to do my finest and to be unbiased,” she says. “And my husband supported me going again to highschool and ending my diploma. He has all the time supported my profession and helped me stability and reside properly every day. He makes positive I take outing to recharge.”
Jantzen feels there’s nonetheless a lot work to take away boundaries that discourage ladies from pursuing research and careers in STEM fields. “Know-how will proceed to create jobs in AI, knowledge analytics, robotics, and engineering,” she says. “There’s a lot alternative to form methods and knowledge that can have an growing impression on our day by day lives, starting from unbiased advice methods to sustainable power and organic knowledge. These are main challenges humanity faces that require numerous enter and considering to drive enterprise selections. Having extra ladies in tech is essential for their very own alternatives, in addition to society as an entire.”
She encourages ladies occupied with tech to hunt out inspiring function fashions and mentors who can present help and steerage. “By no means promote your self brief,” Jantzen says. “You convey immense worth. Be vocal, advocate for your self, and ask questions. The imaginative and prescient and perspective ladies present is essential to creating and implementing options for the way forward for humanity.”