Shortly thereafter, she moved to Yahoo to run Yahoo Mail, and after a year, she said, “I thought I would try my hand at a startup.” Yecies moved to Metalincs, which was acquired by Seagate and then Checkpoint. “I don’t have a technical background, but it was a phenomenal experience. Yecies was promoted to run the company’s browser division, leading 240 employees – mostly engineers. Then when one of her clients, Netscape, offered her a position in international marketing, right after its IPO, and she accepted. “So I decided to consult to have more flexibility.” “At this point I had four children,” she said. She left Informix to lead business development for Latin America and Asia at Gupta, until the company began to downsize. It was a great opportunity as far as learning Portuguese, and learning how business is done there.” By that time I had two children, and they came with me. She continued, “We started our operation in Mexico, and saw a huge opportunity in Brazil. I was the only member of the sales team who spoke Spanish.” “The CEO had seen my work and gave me an opportunity on the sales team. Yecies’ first job was at Informix as a marketing manager, and after four years the company announced it was starting its Latin American sales division. So I went to Harvard Business School.” When she finished up at Harvard, Yecies moved to California with her husband, who had planned to go to Berkeley. She continued, “But I found that I didn’t want to work for the government – I wanted to focus on marketing. “I always had an interest in foreign cultures and languages.” She studied International Relations at Dartmouth and then went to Georgetown for her master’s degree. Yecies’ path into tech started with her interest in other cultures. It was really consciousness-raising.” Beginning a Career in Technology I was blown away.” Not only was Yecies the only woman at the meeting, but she was the investors’ first and only female CEO. “There was not one other woman at the meeting. Yecies said the turning point was when she attended a conference held by her company’s investors. She continued, “Then I became a female CEO.” I had this idea that there were plenty of female CEOs – maybe not 50/50, but that there was a good amount.” “Gender issues were not something I focused on. “This was not a hot topic for me until three years ago,” said Laura Yecies, CEO of SugarSync.
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