Schaefer: Women business leaders succeed, despite Big Screen narratives

When a woman enters tech culture, she is often bullied, sexually harassed and undervalued.

Hollywood has come out recently with three miniseries about tech companies that became nightmares for women including: “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” “WeCrashed” about WeWork and the chaotic relationship between its male founder and his wife, and “The Dropout” about Theranos, a biotech vaporware company.

I’ve identified three Arizona-based woman-led tech companies that deserve a show series not for their disasters, but for their successes, especially while navigating a male-dominated field.

Founded in 2003, GlobalTranz is a $1.9 billion logistics company that builds advanced technology and provides shippers of all sizes with quick, reliable transportation services across all major modes of freight. Renee Krug was the CFO from 2014 to 2018 then CEO until 2020.

Company culture is important to Krug. GlobalTranz is a close-knit community of logistics and technology experts who collaborate to solve supply chain challenges. Krug developed high performing teams by recruiting top talent and motivating teams to perform their best.

In 2020, GlobalTranz was named Food Logistics 100+ Top Software and Technology Provider. Transport Topics named GlobalTranz ninth on their list of largest freight brokerage firms in the US. Inbound Logistics ranked GlobalTranz as fourth on their list of top third-party logistics providers.

A local certified women-owned small business that deserves a TV series is Image Conversions and Management. ICM is a complete document management services vendor founded as a self-funded startup scanning firm converting business records, technical manuals, engineering drawings, and other client business-critical information into a digital environment. It has since evolved into a full blown, one-stop shop document management solutions provider.

Michelle Harrington was the vice president of administration from 2016 to 2019 then became the current CEO. Harrington’s mother, Carol, has been the owner since ICM’s founding in 1988. As the second-generation leader of ICM, Michelle has been involved in the company since childhood; her first role was receptionist. The third generation is already preparing to continue the business; both of Harrington’s children work at ICM full time.

One thing you will notice about ICM’s leadership team that is unfortunately still rare at most companies these days: women! ICM’s leadership team, with the exception of Harrington’s son, is comprised entirely of women. ICM prides itself on its diversity; 60% of employees are minorities, 51% are women.

A local woman-founded tech startup that would be the basis for an interesting TV series is WebPT. Heidi Jannenga was a physical therapist for more than 15 years. While director of a physical therapy clinic, she realized that documentation management was a major cost to her practice.

Jannenga came up with a software-based solution specific to physical therapists’ business needs. Her solution automates billing, scheduling, insurance verification, and patient data management. That solution became WebPT, a complete software platform for running a physical therapy practice.

Jannenga bootstrapped WebPT in its early years and launched the software platform in 2008. She recruited part-time freelancers who believed in mission until there was enough revenue to hire employees full time. Part-time sales people who wanted to be a part of the fledgling company worked for commission.

By 2013, WebPT was ranked as one of the Inc. 500 fastest growing companies. Since then, WebPT has received millions in venture capital and has acquired several related companies. Today WebPT is used by over 90,000 physical therapists and 20,000 clinics. WebPT employs over 500 people and earns over $100 million in revenue per year.

Women in business leadership is still not mainstream, especially at tech companies. We need to prominently feature more stories about these women in popular culture so female leaders have representation — not only for girls to be able to see themselves as capable women, but for the people around them to accept their leadership rather than harassing women who dare to stand out and take risks.

Editor’s note: Lisa Schaefer is the founder of ThinQ TV edutainment and teaches software engineering courses. She wrote this for Women’s Watch.