Deborah Overdeput

I attribute my success to my drive and insatiable curiosity. I have a constant desire to learn and I am not the kind of person who just sits still where I am sitting. I continually push forward, always asking questions and thinking about how to fix things and make them better. This has been both a blessing and sometimes a challenge, because constantly pushing forward and asking questions can rile people in some companies, but it can come across as really driven in others. But that is just who I tend to be - I do not stop, I keep moving forward, learning, and looking for ways to improve.

The best career advice I have ever received is to always ask and not assume that people would say no. A lot of people get impeded by the fact that they are afraid to push forward and push ahead because they think the answer to the question they are going to ask is going to be no, whether that is asking for a promotion, asking for a raise, or asking for more responsibility. But there is no harm in asking, because they do not know unless you ask. You cannot just assume that things are going to happen - that is probably not the right thing to do. You have to manage your career and manage it with the idea that it is going where you want it to go. And if it is not going in the right way, then that should make you think differently about whether it is the right place for you or the right time for you in that particular company.

Build your network. Build a collaboration of people, a contingent of people that you can call on to help you, get advice from, be mentored by, or talk to when you are bumping into a particular career problem. The more you build your network, the more people you have surrounding you to mentor you and support you. By building that network, when it is time for change or when change comes that you need to embrace, you have the right dynamics and the ability to tap into that network to figure out how to navigate it. I built my network over a period of 25 plus years, and I never thought I was really building a network - I just like people and I kind of collected people along my journey. Now, at this point in my career, that has become extremely valuable and invaluable to me in different ways, whether it is opportunities, asking for advice, or learning from other people things that I may not know. It has just been extremely helpful. And just so you know, I do not think women do a good job at this. I do not think they take networking as seriously as they need to, and I think it is a very important thing.

I think artificial intelligence is playing a big part in the technology world right now. Whether you are a supplier of software, a buyer of software, or someone in between, AI is really coming into play. It is a global phenomenon that is sitting in a lot of people's decisions on how they think about buying or selling software. There is a lot of hesitation in the market to buy when there are thoughts about how artificial intelligence could evolve and what that means. People are wondering, should they buy now or wait and see later? It is a very interesting time around that. I would also say that politics and the geopolitical scenario right now are having an impact on some things in the business world, though that is more pocketed and not as generic as AI, which is really affecting everyone globally.

Trust, openness, and collaboration are the three values that I really hold dear. Mutual respect is obviously part of the whole trust equation. I feel that when you have trust and mutual respect for each other, you get a lot more done than if you are constantly worried about somebody's perspective of you, or how they react to you, or whatever else. That value is extremely important to me.