Diva Tech Talk interviewed veteran tech professional, Julie Christ, Founder and CEO of TechSmart Solutions.  Julie graduated from the University of Michigan, with a computer science degree, and a business minor, then a relatively new degree program.  “It was pretty leading edge,” said Julie.  “Throughout my career, I would be only female in a room of 40-50 people.  It was a differentiator for me.  It never inhibited me; it never bothered me. I just knew that I would be remembered.” Julie’s first job was as a business analyst at Compuware (www.compuware.com) where she was working to understand customer needs from a tech perspective. Her first Compuware customer was General Motors (www.gm.com).

Julie moved overseas, and lived in London, U.K. for a year working for Little Caesar’s.  When she returned to the U.S., she continued with Little Caesar’s (www.littlecaesars.com) in their corporate headquarters as a technical project manager and assumed complete responsibility for that private company’s gamut of financial systems.     Julie began the consulting segment of her career, working for EDS (www.eds.com), where she underwent rigorous leadership training.  Then she moved, for the next 5 years, to $9 billion automotive supplier, Arvin Meritor, where she is proud to have had a career of “firsts”, and was part of “some amazing projects!”  She moved subsequently, to Volkswagen, under the aegis of Compuware, to launch VW.com (“which was a significant project, re-launched in a very tight timeframe, in multiple time zones and multiple countries, with no issues.”).   Then she migrated to R.L. Polk(www.rlpolk.com), a supplier of market research and data for the automotive industry.     In 2008, Julie founded TechSmart with a fundamental mission of providing overall company solutions (“whether that’s a technical solution, or a business solution”). Her client base includes organizations in hospitality, municipal government area, food services, banking as well as several core automotive customers.   Julie’s leadership lessons for other women/girls in tech include: deploy kindness, recognize and use every person’s gifts, be humane, but DON’T over-apologize, and ensure you have mentors.  “Look for people who have alignments to what you think makes up a good leader.”

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