Nov 12, 2019 | 3 min read

How Optimizing Technology Can Help Businesses Scale with Karen Fedyszyn

By: Patrick Emmons

How Optimizing Technology Can Help Businesses Scale with Karen Fedyszyn

Gone are the days when a company’s IT teams just babysat servers. Today, individual services and outside vendors dominate the industry. With this fast pace of recent technological leaps brings new opportunities to harness technology that can help businesses find creative ways to scale.

Karen Fedyszyn, an award-winning Information Technology Executive, sat down with Pat and Shelli for a wide-ranging conversation about her experiences managing teams for brands such as Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants, Ace Hardware, and HSBC. Karen shares why she believes shadow IT should be treated as an innovation pipeline, the challenges of moving from problem focused to solution focused IT, and her tips for creating productive IT teams that allow members to both learn and work on things they are passionate about.

Tune in for practical advice from an IT industry pro.

  • [00:25] – Introducing Karen Fedyszyn, IT Executive
  • [01:05] – Embracing being a mid-sized company at Cooper’s Hawk
  • [04:57] – Keeping your employees current
  • [09:18] – Karen’s ORBIE 2019 finalist award
  • [13:44] – Problem solving from within
  • [17:08] – How going global changes the game
  • [19:36] – Wartime CEO mentality
  • [23:45] – Practicing meditation
  • [27:41] – Having a personal mission statement
  • [29:49] – How an evolving industry creates new problems
  • [35:31] – Keeping your employees interested
  • [38:09] – Proliferation of software as a service

Karen Fedyszyn is an accomplished information technology executive, CIO Advisor, consultant, and Non-Executive Director board member. She is sought after for her work in information and technology, establishing vision, devising strategy, as well as executing digital transformation, acquisition integration, program execution, cyber security and innovation supporting both local and global companies. She has worked with brands including Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants, Ace Hardware, and HSBC.

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This podcast episode was produced by Dante32.

About Patrick Emmons

If you can’t appreciate a good sports analogy, movie quote, or military reference, you may not want to work with him, but if you value honesty, integrity, and commitment to improvement, Patrick can certainly help take your business or your career to the next level. “Good enough,” is simply not in his vernacular. Pat’s passion is for relentlessly pushing himself and others to achieve full potential. Patrick Emmons is a graduate of St. Norbert College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Mathematics. Patrick co-founded Adage Technologies in 2001 and in 2015, founded DragonSpears as a spin-off dedicated to developing custom applications that improve speed, compliance and scalability of clients’ internal and customer-facing workflow processes. When he is not learning about new technology, running a better business, or becoming a stronger leader, he can be found coaching his kids’ (FIVE of them) baseball and lacrosse teams and praising his ever-so-patient wife for all her support.

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We interview leaders from early-stage start-ups to billion-dollar enterprises who distill their lessons from their victories and their failures. Learn how these high-performing leaders organize their teams, establish a growth-minded culture, and leverage new technologies such as DevOps and Cloud.