August 2009 Program

Taking Ownership of Your Career

Are you satisfied with how you are progressing in your current job? Do you wake up every morning eager to start your day, excited about new possibilities waiting to be explored? If you cannot answer a resounding YES to the above questions, I invite you to discover how taking ownership of your own career will bring you greater satisfaction than you thought possible. Waiting for things to happen to you does not bring fulfillment in your career - making things happen for yourself does!

Stephanie Zizzo

Stefanie is a professional career coach, life coach, speaker and workshop facilitator who helps individuals and groups from all over the country to discover, rejuvenate and/or transition their lives and careers.  Her passion is working with people ready to stretch beyond their comfort zone to reach for their potential and find their "best fit".  She is the author of The Journey From Comfort to Possibility: A Workbook of Self Discovery and Personal Transformation and offers one-on-one career and life coaching, small group coaching, seminars and workshops.

Stefanie holds her Professional Certified Coach (PCC) designation through the International Coach Federation, is a graduate of Institute for Life Coach Training, holds a Masters degree in Counseling and a Bachelors degree in Psychology.  She also serves as an affiliated coach with Think Work Play.com, and serves as Vice Chair of  Chix in Business, Inc., a Triangle-area non-profit organization of women business owners who support and educate each other.  You can learn more at her website: www.stefaniezizzo.com and blog:  http://stefaniezizzo.wordpress.com/

Take Your Leadership Skills to Enterprise Level:  Influencing the Executives

As experienced IT Professionals, many of us have mastered project management and program management, including project/program management methodologies, processes, tools and techniques. We lead and manage our teams very effectively as we deliver successful projects and programs.

We know that executive management support improves the probability of project success. In some cases, executive management commitment can "make or break" the project. However, many projects/programs compete for senior/executive management's attention, involvement and support.  In this presentation, we will discuss why executive management support is important for project success and explore ways to sell our project to senior management.

In this presentation, we will also discuss leadership at an enterprise level, influencing C-level executives in making portfolio strategy decisions and keeping them on the right track as projects/programs are utilized to implement the organization's strategy. This is more than a selling job.  It's a real test of your leadership skills.

Victoria S. Kumar, PMP

Victoria S Kumar, PMP, has over 20 years of information technology (IT) project management experience, including over 10 years at IBM, 7 years in IT consulting and 3 years in the public sector. She holds two master's degrees: one in Pure Mathematics, and another in Computer Science, from the University of Waterloo (Canada). She also has PhD credits in management science from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and has earned a master's certificate in IT Project Management from George Washington University (USA).

Victoria currently serves as a project manager for the State of North Carolina, Office of the State Controller.

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