We are the Women in Cloud. We solve problems, see possibilities, and create impact. We are making a difference, from the first day of school to the corner office, and from the farmer’s field to the factory floor. This could be you.
Christine Cederberg has a unique vantage point from which to lead her clients into the cloud-enabled future: She’s not only their consultant, she’s also a customer.
As a Canadian in Ottawa working with the country’s governmental and public-sector organisations, she likely knows what better public services should look like and deploys that end-user’s insight to help her clients leverage the cloud for more efficient, responsive and customer-friendly outputs.
It’s all about bringing the same strategic vision and capabilities that power business success into the heart of public bureaucracies—and it’s a task she relishes.
“I believe that the biggest advantage to cloud and to the digital transformation of the government is in providing more integrated, more accessible solutions and services to Canadians”, says Christine, adding: “Cloud isn't just about the technology—cloud is about the problems it solves for and the business value it affords.”
From her childhood taking the family’s electronic gizmos apart just to see how they work and into her university days studying electrical engineering, Christine was always driven by a passion for technology. But there’s limited pre-requisite for new entrants to cloud services (including women) to have a similar career path, she says.
“Some of the most successful women that I have recruited into cloud have come from non-technology backgrounds—women that perhaps studied Commerce or HR and decided that ‘I'm interested in the possibilities that cloud enables for people and for clients, but I’m wondering, am I capable of working in this industry without having without having a traditional technology background?’ And the answer is yes, because if you want to learn and you're interested, cloud can be for everyone.”
Christine, whose husband is Swedish, spent 20 years in Stockholm, first working in telecom doing radio system design—“really nerdy” stuff. She had not considered consulting, thinking it full of “people way smarter than I was and that I would not fit in at all.” But she did eventually make the move into the industry. She recently landed at Deloitte and loves it: “Consultants are like the perfect marriage of salespeople, technologists and client relationship people, so I can't believe it took me this long to find my home, and I’m really happy.”
And Christine wants the next generation of women to join her. “Being a woman in technology, I love fostering and mentoring the next generation of leaders, and specifically of women leaders, I'm pretty passionate about that. It’s important for me that other women who are who are entering into their careers see that there are many other women at Deloitte in leadership now —and that they see the art of what is possible.”