Mother-Daughter Duo
It’s safe to say that the Grothjan family is no stranger to the indirect side of the house. Aruba Networks’ Channel Chief Donna Grothjan (left) and her daughter, Katie Grothjan (right), digital marketing manager for solution provider giant Ingram Micro, make a dynamic pair. Donna spent her first 15 years in the workforce at Ingram, too, and decided to be a channel “lifer.” It stands to reason that after listening to stories about emerging technology and the rapidly changing IT world, Katie also decided to start her career in the channel.
Being from two different generations — “Gen X” for Donna and “Gen Z” for Katie, the women are having very different experiences in IT and that’s a good thing. While a women of the channel outing would have been a small group, or a “ladies night” for Donna when she started out, Katie is seeing an IT world that values equality and she certainly doesn’t feel like the only woman at the table.
Donna and Katie at The Channel Company’s Women of the Channel West Leadership Summit shared their experiences and vantage points as women of two generations in IT, their biggest barriers, and what they’d like to see change for an audience of women executives from vendor and solution provider organizations.
Here’s what this mother-daughter team had to say. 1 23… 6NextRELATED TOPICS: