— technical, management, start-ups, teaching, consulting …

Speaker: Cinda Voegtli, founder of Project Connections (past President of IEEE EMS)
Meeting Date: Thursday, November 3, 2016
Time: 6.00 pm Networking; 6:30 pm Management Forum/Guided Networking; 7:00 pm sandwich dinner; 7:30 pm Presentation
Cost: $10 TEMS members to $15 non-members (through Nov. 2), then $3 more (through 3:00 pm Nov.3), and $20 at door
Location: AMD Commons Building / AMD Campus, Sunnyvale (click map at right)
Reservations: tems1611.eventbrite.com
Summary:

Management Forum / Guided Networking: Bring Your Management Challenge; Arrive by 6:30 PM to join this exciting Management Forum. Following informal networking is a guided discussion typically related to the topic of the evening’s after dinner talk, or of general Technology Management interest.
Light Dinner: This month we’re continuing with our light dinner format — typically sandwiches, salad, drinks, and cookie or similar light dinner.
Presentation – Career Crossroads: Cinda Voegtli graduated as an electrical engineer with only a vague idea of her 30+ year career path.
She started in digital design with an open mind. Her open mind has allowed her to continue to be technical, get into technical project management, move up the management chain, get into a start-up, start a business, teach, and consult. Career insights Cinda will share include:
— How just 4 initial contacts and 1 volunteer role produced $1 million+ of consulting and contracting work, and $1M+ in funding. There are implications for career longevity and career prosperity for us all.
— How it’s possible to get hired without a scrutinized resume.
— There are different ways to make money from consulting/contracting. It is important to outsource the disagreeable parts through creative partnering.
— The pros and cons of technical, management, consulting, and contracting roles in differently sized companies.
— The biggest rewards of starting and growing a business. The hard part of understanding what you are bad at.
— You can be “the preferred hire” if you are willing to flexibly apply what you know to solving someone’s specific current pain.
— A leadership mindset is critical at the personal level.
Come hear this frank, story-rich, tip-filled, humorous and heartfelt sharing of lessons learned from Cinda’s wild, crazy, rewarding, and ongoing career in tech.

Bio: Cinda Voegtli is founder of Project Connections, an online resources and support service for over 350,000 managers and team members worldwide. She has 20+ years of technical development and management experience in companies of different sizes, cultures, and radically different project environments, with years of line experience before and after falling into project management along the way.
Over time Cinda has worked on different types of projects to develop products, processes, services, and systems, for areas including communications, marketing, medical devices, IT, factory automation, computer games, construction, and biotech. Her passions are achieving “just enough” project management that makes sense and gets used especially in technology companies; building business-savvy cross-functional teams; and helping PMs bring together the skills and attitudes that make them truly great project leaders.
Cinda is also Director of Program Management at Grabit, Inc., a robotics start-up with leading-edge technology being applied in the factory automation space. She has held director and VP-level positions, managing budgets of up to $50 million across large portfolios of projects in technology development companies. She has provided senior management consulting to clients such as Hewlett Packard, Lam Research, Pacific Bell, Dow Chemical, NASA, FAA, Nellcor, Aviron/MedImmune, and Mobil Corporation.
Cinda is a Past President of the IEEE Engineering Management Society (EMS), a worldwide speaker on engineering and project management, an author, co-author of a Fortune 500-targeted book on rapid product development, and tweets on project management. She created a project management and leadership program for IEEE volunteers and members worldwide.