Stevie-winner Output is a global leader in music creation, inspiring people at all levels—from newcomers to professionals. Output develops innovative software and gear for musicians, composers, producers, and sound designers across all genres.

Launched in 2013, Output’s software is used by hitmakers such as Kendrick Lamar, Bjork, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, and Drake, to name a few. It has also been used to create musical scores for films and shows such as Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and more.

The Output Customer Support team lives and breathes music. They describe themselves as a group of professional musicians who decided that they wanted to work with and help other musicians be creative. The Support team originally started in 2016 with a two-person team taking requests via email. Slowly that evolved into using a traditional support ticketing system.

Shifts in the Global Music Industry
By 2020 during the height of the pandemic, their flagship product Arcade hit an all-time high for users. In addition to Arcade, they were having record sales in plugins/instruments and for their studio hardware line of products.

The team needed to scale even more, as they saw upwards of 50k support tickets per year. With long wait times and inefficient procedures, making a change was necessary. At the end of 2021, they brought on a seasoned Customer Service Manager. With fresh leadership onboard, they then made immediate changes to daily operations, such as internal meeting management and incorporating SMS and social media channels for users.

The past three years brought on massive changes to the world and the music industry. Musicians started creating their own home studios, and recording at home was more popular than ever. Companies like Output had to scale and quickly. When they assessed their Customer Support, they determined the need to find better strategies, looking to achieve faster response times and improve their knowledge base and overall customer satisfaction.

Working on three areas essentially had a domino effect. By improving the customer knowledge base, users are able to easily find the troubleshooting steps they need without even contacting support. But if they need to contact support, getting back to them as quickly as possible is extremely important—if they are waiting for a solution that means they are not working or creating. By improving their first-response time from 30+ hours to 5 hours, users were able to get back to work quicker and increased the overall satisfaction rate.

They also enhanced processes for their internal team by creating career paths for each support team member. Many reps are able to split their time between Support and other teams (e.g., QA, Edu, Product) eventually leading to a promotion and/or more responsibilities. In the past two years, five members of the support team have been promoted to Senior Support Rep or are leading a project outside of support.

Since earning their Stevie^® Award, Output has continued to improve on their user promise of "keeping you in session," by improving first-response times, adding new options to contact Support, and overall improvements in products. They are now exploring ways to add more self-service options for users and are incorporating AI into workflows.

Output won a Silver Stevie Award for Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year - Technology Industries - Software in the 2023 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

Interested in entering the 2024 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service? 

 

As a principal dancer, Stevie-winner Sara Ordway captivated audiences across the nation, but her true passion has always been art education. In 2018, she founded the Ordway Conservatory of Classical Ballet, and it immediately became a place where students could feel seen, heard, and respected. 

Sara understands how to get children out of their shells and help them recognize the amazing things they are capable of as dancers and as people. Her students have been recognized in the dance world at international competitions and in the local community. 

One of Sara's greatest skills is creating entertaining performances. The greatest example is her show, “An Interactive Nutcracker”—a Nutcracker performance unlike any other where audience children get a chance to go on stage, see the production up close, and feel what it's like to be onstage. 

Sara's life was changed by dance, and she is passionate about giving that to as many children and adults as possible. She teaches her students and staff that the way you treat others matters—that is the magic, not perfect technique.

Ballet During a Global Pandemic
During the beginning of the pandemic, when Ordway Conservatory had to close its doors, students continued to thrive through Sara's leadership. Not a day of classes was missed in the transition to virtual learning.

Sara provided virtual events for the community like Teach Your Family to Dance Night, trivia night, craft night, a fashion show, virtual prom, and more. The overwhelming feedback at that time was that dance was what the kids looked forward to more than anything else—that it made them happy and gave them a sense of normalcy. 

When doors could reopen, Sara worked with a local park to move all performances to an amphitheater. Throughout the 2020-2021 school year, Sara worked to help students excel in and out of the studio. She started creating affirmations for her students and having them journal at the start and end of each class. This taught them about goal setting and gave them an opportunity to check in with themselves after being in quarantine for so long.

During the 2021-2022 school year, Sara's business skills began to shine. She created new programs including a mommy-and-me class and an adult ballet program. She also created new revenue streams through events such as a studio-wide movie night and parent's night off. 

At a time when performances around the world were being canceled, even by top-tier companies with endless resources, Ordway Conservatory continued to perform. Many dance studios did not survive the pandemic, but Ordway Conservatory thrived and continued to grow while entertaining the local community.

Expanding Programs for the Community
Sara is currently creating a preschool program with the hope that she can touch more lives with the many benefits of dance such as increased confidence, health and leadership skills, and improved brain function.

Most dance studios are satisfied with only providing a great dance education. Sara wants more for her students and her business. She continues to add classes that fill up, create events that increase revenue, and start new programs that will reach more of the community and change their lives for the better through dance. All while increasing revenue to be able to support the growth her business is seeing.

Sara continues to educate herself by attending classes and workshops on business, childhood development, and dance. She consistently goes above and beyond to enhance the customer journey in her business and to improve the workplace for her employees.

Artistic Director and Founder of Ordway Conservatory of Classical Ballet, Sara Ordway won a Bronze Stevie^®Award for Best Female Entrepreneur in the 2022 Stevie Awards for Women in Business. 

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie Awards for Women in Business? 

 

An esteemed financial planner and the Founder and CEO of Australia-based Endurance Financial, Stevie-winner Amanda Thompson excels at delivering strategic and tailored advice to businesses and individuals, drawing upon almost two decades of experience. 

She isn’t afraid to share that she is also a survivor of sexual assault, a heart attack, and melanoma. She says that “while I do not let these experiences define me, they have taught me invaluable life lessons that I apply to the way I run my own business as well as my mentorship of other women in business. The challenges I have faced have gifted me grit, determination, and passion.” She attributes these gifted lessons as enabling her to qualify three times for the Ironman World Championships.

As a keynote speaker at events around the country, she is committed to sharing her experiences with others. She is particularly driven to help women overcome the gender biases that stand in the way of personal achievement. Through the lessons she learned thriving in typically male-dominated environments, her goal is to mentor others to find the power of resilience, determination, and dedication.

Leveraging Lessons Learned to Educate Others
In Australia, more than one in three business owners are women. Despite this, the odds are stacked against them. Institutional and market failures create more financial barriers for women in business and limit access to resources, skills, credit, and/ or capital to enable their businesses to grow. According to the Australian Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, less than half of women business owners actually pay themselves a wage. 

She recognized that she couldn’t help the hundreds of thousands of her fellow Australian women business owners struggling to achieve financial freedom on a one-on-one basis; in part, because so many of them simply don’t have the means to access one-on-one consulting. Thus, she set out to innovate and develop a scalable, comprehensive, accessible, and low-cost product. 

Launched in February 2022, Financially Fit Women provides education, mentoring, and coaching for women business owners who:

• know they need to understand the numbers but don’t know where to start;
• are working really hard but don’t seem to be making a profit;
• wish they had a full-time finance department; and
• are feeling alone and potentially vulnerable – and would love to connect with a network of similar-minded women who are all looking to grow.

The 12-week online course includes six self-paced digital modules, six group sessions connecting participants with their peers, and three one-on-one mentoring sessions with Amanda. The course was born from extensive research and consultation, including market research, situation analysis, and consultation with clients and prospects to assess knowledge gaps.

The course content was developed from Amanda’s expertise in business and finance in addition to collaborating with experts in other fields such as legal, marketing, and mortgage brokering to provide a holistic financial education offering.

Financially Fit Women is the first-ever financial education course developed specifically for women business owners in the Australian market.

To make the course accessible to those who can benefit most, they offer a fully sponsored position in each course to a woman who is not able to pay. This position is filled based on nominations from the business community. An ongoing membership community is available to participants who would like continued coaching and support, and all membership revenue is donated to organizations working to support victims of domestic violence.

Above all, the Financially Fit Women program is grounded in a desire to create long-lasting social impact by contributing to: 

• Women business owners paying themselves a proper wage, leading to financial freedom and independence 
• Women-led businesses being afforded opportunities to secure capital and resources, enabling them to grow
• Women-led businesses experiencing more growth, creating more jobs and having a positive economic impact 
• Improved workforce participation with less women dropping out of self-employment 

It is Amanda’s aim that Financially Fit Women will turn women business owners and entrepreneurs into astute CFOs with focus, direction, and a tailored game plan. 

Recently, to complement the course, Amanda’s team developed and launched a Financial Bootcamp aimed at all females to be able to access a base of information with ease and affordability, slowly but very surely closing the gaps within all aspects of finance for women.

Amanda also launched a new book titled Financially Fit Women, which helps women understand what truly matters when looking at their numbers, giving them the confidence, knowledge, and power to be financially fit.

Endurance Financial Founder & CEO Amanda Thompson won a Gold Stevie Award for Women Helping Women - Business in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie Awards for Women in Business? 

Die Anmeldung für die 6. jährliche Women|Future Conference, die vom 1. bis 2. August online stattfindet, ist ab sofort möglich. Die Teilnahme an der Konferenz 2023 ist kostenlos, Teilnehmerinnen müssen sich aber im Voraus anmelden, um Zugang zur virtuellen Plattform und den Sitzungen zu erhalten.

Die Women|Future-Konferenz ist eine Veranstaltung zur beruflichen Weiterentwicklung, zum Lernen und zum Knüpfen von Kontakten, die Unternehmerinnen, Führungskräfte und Frauen, die an einer Unternehmensgründung interessiert sind, zusammenbringt.

Die Women Future Conference wurde im Jahr 2018, in Verbindung mit dem äußerst erfolgreichen Stevie® Awards for Women in Business-Programm ins Leben gerufen, um hochrangigen weiblichen Fachkräften, Vordenkerinnen und Unternehmerinnen einen Ort zu bieten, an dem sie zusammenkommen, Ideen austauschen und sich vernetzen können.

Seitdem wurde dieses Ziel übertroffen und die Konferenz auf viele ehrgeizige, zukunftsorientierte Fachleute aus verschiedenen Branchen und Karrierestufen ausgeweitet. Die Teilnehmerinnen sind eine Mischung aus CEOs, Gründerinnen, Unternehmerinnen, Führungskräften, Direktorinnen und Managerinnen sowie Frauen, die sich zwischen zwei Jobs oder in einer Übergangsphase befinden und ein Mentoring suchen.

Renommierte Stevie Award-Gewinner geben Tipps für die Einreichung von Bewerbungen
Das Programm der Konferenz 2023 umfasst zwei Tage mit Podiumsdiskussionen, Workshops und Breakout-Sitzungen, die von über 30 hochkarätigen Rednerinnen, darunter CEOs, Gründerinnen, Unternehmerinnen, Vordenkerinnen und Beraterinnen für kleine Unternehmen, gehalten werden.

Neu im Programms ist im Jahr 2023 ein Workshop zum Thema "How to Write a Winning Stevie Awards Nomination" unter der Leitung von Denise O'Leary, MBE. Denise O'Leary ist 21-fache Stevie-Awards-Gewinnerin und wird ihre Erfahrungen bei der Erstellung einer erfolgreichen Stevie-Awards-Nominierung weitergeben. Denise wird Einblicke aus ihrer jahrelangen Erfahrung mit Stevies-Bewerbungen und Hinweise darauf geben, was die Jury wirklich sehen will.

Viele Rednerinnen des Jahres 2023 sind ehemalige und aktuelle Stevie Award-Gewinnerinnen, die in einem (oder mehreren) unserer acht Stevie Award-Programme ausgezeichnet wurden. Zu den diesjährigen Rednerinnen, die ehemalige Gewinnerinnen der Stevie Awards for Women in Business sind, gehören:

• Viola Palescandolo, Founder & CEO, Black Platinum Gold B.V.
• Marnie LeFevre, Founder & CEO, Fempire
• Etosha Thurman, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer, SAP
• Mez Gallifuoco, Founder & CEO, The Mad Ones
• Kathleen Mitford, Corporate Vice President of Global Industry - Marketing, Microsoft
• Jennifer Harris-Kroll, Director of Growth, Anthill
• Bridgett McGowen, Speaker/Author/Publisher, Press 49, a part of BMH Companies
• Valeria Jennings, CEO, Jennings Social Media & MarTech 
• Jennifer Cloer, Founder & CEO, Story Changes Culture
• Lauren Clemett, Managing Director, The Audacious Agency
• Annette Densham, Creative Director, Audacious Agency

Zu den Rednerinnen, die einen Stevie Award in einem unserer anderen sieben Awardsprogramme gewonnen haben, gehören:

• Safiya Johnson, Leadership Strategist & CEO, Safiya Group
• Ciara Ungar, Founder & CEO, The Why Group, Inc.
• Alycia Huston, Founder & CEO, The Culture Cru
• Brenda Jimenez, CEO, MENTOR New York
• Christina Helena, Public Speaking & Communications Coach, Mental Health Speaker, My Scar is Sexy

Frauen aus den Vereinigten Staaten, Kanada, Australien, Asien und Europa nehmen Jahr für Jahr an der Konferenz teil, um sich inspirieren zu lassen, ihre Widerstandsfähigkeit zu stärken und sich über Veränderungen auszutauschen, die sich auf ihre Branche, ihre Karriere und ihr Leben auswirken.

Im Folgenden finden Sie einige der Veranstaltungen der Women|Future Conference 2023:

• From Wages to Wealth: Making the Shift from Employee to Entrepreneur
• Taking the Leap: How to Transfer Your Skills from One Role to the Next
• Funding Female Futures: Navigating the Investment Landscape and Bootstrapping Success
• Unveiling the Unspoken: Candid Conversation on Workplace Inclusivity Issues for Women in Business
• From Idea to Empire - Lessons in Branding
• The Must-Have Money-Marketing Marketing Tool…That Few Businesses Have but that Every Single One of Them Needs

Um mehr über die  Women|Future Conference und deren Sprecherinnen zu erfahren, sowie das vollstänndige Programm einzusehen, besuchen Sie uns unter: www.womenfutureconference.com. 

Kostenlose Registrierung
Um an der Konferenz teilzunehmen und Zugang zur virtuellen Veranstaltungsplattform zu erhalten, müssen sich alle Teilnehmer im Voraus anmelden. 

Für Partnerschafts-, Presse- und Medienanfragen wenden Sie sich bitte - in englischer Sprache - an Nina@stevieawards.com.

Mahe Zehra Husain, aka “MZ,” is a trained mathematician, data scientist, serial entrepreneur, and artist. At the age of 31, MZ became Pakistan’s youngest woman tech CEO, leading an award-winning software house, FiveRivers Technologies (FRT) in Pakistan, dominating a heavily male-dominated space and rewriting history.

Since then she has led the company to catapult to the eight-figure mark with 400% growth in a short span of five years. From a small services firm, with a handful of employees, they now stand at 170 employees, encouraging diversity and inclusion and promoting women technologists. Very few tech firms have woman-friendly policies in Pakistan, but MZ made sure FRT didn’t follow suit. She has mentored over 124 women technologists and grew her female workforce by 50%.

FRT has become one of the top software firms in Pakistan, winning several national and international awards. They provide data science analytics, develop e-learning software, and have now ventured into virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.

Her work gained international recognition when two of their mobile applications for Blackberry ranked number one globally. Their principled work ethics and unmatched creative work caught the interest of big names like Samsung, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, First Detect, Dell, and Wateen, who became clients.

FRT’s Recent Projects
MZ launched an innovative new software product SmartWindows (patent pending), which is a desktop software utility to make Windows 10 smarter by increasing the productivity of remote workers. It has over 6,000 downloads and 145,000+ impressions on Google.

MZ’s latest startup, which has piqued the interest of the national media and local entrepreneurs alike, is PakistanCreates (PKC; PakistanCreates.com) launched in January 2022. PKC is a venture that serves to drive positive, sustainable change through technological inclusion and women empowerment. Through this startup, MZ wants to support small women-owned businesses and give back to society. She commented:

“Pakistan has an amazing and inspiring talent, and I have always wanted to highlight our local products globally. There are thousands of young creative entrepreneurs and micro-business owners, especially women, who need a platform to represent their creativity. PakistanCreates is a small way for us to contribute to this massive local industry with huge potential. Anyone can open their free e-shop on PakistanCreates. We want ideas to become potential successful businesses. To encourage maximum participation, we have kept the registration quite simple with no fees, no subscriptions, no commission, and no hidden charges.” 

Since Winning a Stevie Award
MZ is working on developing a hands-on learning book and workbook combo to teach young women entrepreneurship skills, how to manage finances, budgeting, ways to promote and market their products, how to develop their own brand, etc. It includes all of the important aspects related to business to get a better standing in the supply chain based on MZ’s personal experience and successes.

This will be the first-of-its-kind guidebook in Pakistan. MZ also plans to translate this book into the national language Urdu and the regional language Punjabi to maximize the benefit and reach.

MZ is on the Board of Alif Laila Book Bus Society (ALBBS), a nonprofit working toward literacy for young girls. She mentors these girls and has given them access to maker-space technical training, which helps them consider a career path in electronics, computers, arts, crafts, and photography.

Recently (July 2022), FRT in collaboration with ALBBS conducted relief work in Sindh and Balochistan, Pakistan, where thousands of families lost their homes and livestock to catastrophic floods. They provided dry food items to over 400 families in 16 communities. 

FiveRivers Technologies CEO Mahe Zehra Husain won a Silver Stevie Award for Best Female Entrepreneur in Business Services among organizations with 11 to 2,500 Employees in the 2022 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie Awards for Women in Business?