Meet Some of the Talented Women in Ediscovery at Nextpoint
Elizabeth Guthrie
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Meet Some of the Talented Women in Ediscovery at Nextpoint https://www.nextpoint.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Sonali-Annie.png 2750 1614 Elizabeth Guthrie Elizabeth Guthrie https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ac8ae9c5e7533bbb2b8cb6440229d792?s=96&d=mm&r=g March 7, 2022 December 1, 2022
International Women's Day is on March 8th, so we're celebrating the women in ediscovery who lead Nextpoint to success.
Nextpoint is full of smart, talented, and dedicated women who shape the direction of our company. Their influence spans across every team, from operations to software development to branding and marketing. For International Women's Day, we asked the women in leadership at Nextpoint to share their stories as women in ediscovery.
Tricia Boguslawski
Education: Northern Illinois University – BS in Marketing, Minor in Communications
What is your professional background and how did you end up at Nextpoint?
I've spent most of my career in the litigation consulting field. I started out supporting law firms by creating informational graphics to present on their case. As my career progressed, I moved into many different management roles over the years in client services, recruiting, training and overall operations management. I love working at companies where everyone acts like an entrepreneur – taking their job seriously to support the business while having some fun at the same time. When I left the company where I spent 14 years of my career, I never thought I would find another company like it. Now, here I am at Nextpoint almost 10 years later doing what I love and running operations for a company that has incredibly smart people who are not only colleagues, but my friends.
How has being a woman impacted your career path and experiences?
I have always felt supported when I wanted to take on new responsibilities throughout my career. My mentors, both men and women, provided me with guidance to help me grow and pushed me to take on new challenges. At Nextpoint, I feel like I am always supported and I hope my colleagues all feel that I support them. The best way to do this is by giving and receiving feedback to support each other in our professional and personal growth.
What advice would you give to young women pursuing careers in the legal/tech fields?
I would say find a woman mentor – it could be someone in your personal life or at work. My mentor was my first woman boss and still one of my close friends. She always gave me the candid feedback that I needed and I learned so much from her over the years. Another piece of advice: don't be afraid to try something new. There is so much to learn in the legal tech field and I think taking on new adventures is what makes work so fun!
Sirisha Surisetty
Tech Lead, Application Development
Education: University of Texas–Pan American – MS in Electrical Engineering | Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University – BS in Electrical and Electronics Engineering | KES Polytechnic for Women – Diploma in ECE
Professionally, I am a software engineer and architect. We moved to Madison in 2016 for my husband's job and I continued my then job working remotely. After 2 years I started looking for jobs in Madison and came across Nextpoint's Tech Lead position on LinkedIn and applied.
Being a woman, especially in the software industry, is not a walk in the park. You have to juggle work with family expectations. But being a woman means you are already a creator and leader who gives birth to new life and nurtures it. I seek help from my greatest mentor – my mom – and that has helped me balance both worlds and progress in my career. Nextpoint has an amazing culture when it comes to embracing female leadership. I have found it easy to take up a leadership role and prove what women are naturally built for here at Nextpoint.
Don't hold yourself back and don't let anyone intimidate you. You are a natural mutlitasker and leader. YOU GOT THIS!!!
Lauren Kushner
Education: DePaul University – Bachelors of Business Administration, Finance
After a few years of working in the personal financial planning industry, I was ready for something more fast-paced and innovative. Nextpoint allowed me the opportunity to apply my experience to a business setting and expand my knowledge for a new career path.
Finance is known for being a male dominated industry, and early in my career it was challenging to navigate the field as a young woman. There was a lack of other women I could turn to for mentorship and guidance. When I started at Nextpoint, it was exciting to have more diversity in the office and specifically to see women in leadership. I'm grateful to have worked closely with several inspiring women at Nextpoint. They've built a strong culture of trust, teamwork and transformation – making Nextpoint the great place it is to work and grow your career!
What is one piece of advice you would give to young women pursuing careers in the legal/tech fields?
Take advantage of opportunities to stand out and don't be afraid to showcase your abilities!
Annie Pizzato
Education: Transylvania University – BA in Marketing and Studio Art
When I look back on my story as to how I ended up at Nextpoint, I'm amazed at how much can happen in 10 years. When I graduated college in 2009, the job market was tough. I was lucky enough to be introduced to a local law firm that was in need of a new administrative assistant. I spent my first year or two there learning the ropes and better understanding legal processes, and I was eventually offered a Litigation Paralegal role with the firm. For the next three years, I worked in many different practice areas, and eventually, a case with a large volume of electronic data came in the door (at the time, that was 30k documents!).
Enter Nextpoint. We brought Nextpoint into the firm to help support our needs in that first ediscovery case, and we were hooked. Over time, I mastered my way through the platform managing our growing ediscovery efforts, and I loved it. One day, I received a call from Nextpoint, asking me if I would be interested in an interview. Three weeks later, I was moving from Kentucky to Chicago, and have now been with Nextpoint over seven years. I started as a project manager, then segued into Client Success and Community Engagement roles, and now Product Management.
I'm very fortunate to be able to say that I don't feel I have been significantly limited in my career path because I am a woman. I think there are a lot of contributing factors to this: My strong and independent mother who raised me to hold my own and chase my passions no matter what and treated me equally to my two brothers; my circle of friends who are brilliant, ambitious, and kind humans who encourage each other to reach beyond our perceived limits; and the places where my career path have taken me, like Nextpoint.
Spending the majority of my career so far at Nextpoint, I am grateful for a company that supports an individual's personal goals, passions, and strengths regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and other diverse backgrounds. I truly feel as though I have been offered the same opportunities to grow in my career as my male counterparts. I know that this sentiment is not shared by every woman in her career, but I can only hope we continue to make progress toward complete equality across the board.
You can do hard things. Have confidence in what you know, ask when you don't, keep a learning mentality, and stand up for yourself and what you know is right.
Megan O'Leary
Engagement, Senior Director
Education: Iowa State University – BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering
I initially got into the Litigation Consulting industry working at a company that specialized in creating graphics and animations for trial presentations (where I met Tricia Boguslawski). After 9 years, I made a career change and joined an international marketing agency (the inspiration for Mad Men!) and worked in social media analytics.
I enjoyed learning all about Big Data (and developed my extreme affinity for pivot tables), but I missed working on the meaningful projects that I was exposed to in the litigation world. After 2.5 years, I once again joined the legal industry working in trial services. All the while, I kept in touch with Tricia (who had since joined Nextpoint) and was curious to learn more about the earlier aspect of the litigation continuum: ediscovery. In 2019, I took the leap to join Nextpoint to oversee our engagement team and haven't looked back since.
Coming from a background in engineering, I've grown comfortable being in the minority (out of the 96 Mechanical Engineering graduates my last semester at ISU, only 3 of us were women).
That being said, it has been very refreshing to see so many women in positions of leadership at a technology company like Nextpoint. While I have no problem being the only woman in the room and leading some of the tough and/or technical conversations, it's nice to also have peers surrounding me and helping as a mentor, cheerleader, and at the base, a friend.
Don't be intimidated to ask for clarification. If something isn't clear, it doesn't mean that you aren't bright enough to "get it." More often, it's because the other person doesn't understand it themselves. "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." – Albert Einstein
Sonali Hanson
Education: University of Wisconsin-Madison – BS in Mechanical Engineering | John Marshall Law School – JD
I worked as a mechanical engineer for a few years after college and specialized in designing custom solutions for biochemical buildings across the country. After that, I went to law school to use my engineering background as a patent attorney. I worked as an IP attorney for a few years before finding Nextpoint on Built In Chicago. I ended up leaving my then job as in house counsel at JP Morgan Chase. When I came to Nextpoint, I knew nothing about the ediscovery/legal tech industry, but I was intrigued, and I've never been happier with the jump!
Nextpoint is one of the first companies I've worked at that is not male dominant. Mechanical engineering and patent law are both fields inherently skewed by a fairly high male to female ratio, which I experienced in school as well as the workplace. When I came to Nextpoint, it was refreshing to see this was not the case. Not only is there a high female population, but many of those women are in management positions. I've never felt any hardships in the ability to grow my career; in fact, it's been fostered by my time here.
Advocate for yourself. If you're at the right company, this will go a long way, and you can truly make the most of your career in the exact way you want.
Elyse Ellman
Senior Account Director
Education: University of Michigan – BA in Sociology with a Concentration in Economics
Nextpoint is my professional background! I started working at Nextpoint as soon as I graduated from college.
For a long time I was one of the only women who worked at Nextpoint who was actually in the office since most of the team was constantly on trial sites. It's been great to add so many wonderful women to the team as Nextpoint has grown. I greatly appreciate the guidance Tricia has given me as she was the first woman leader I worked with in my career.
Through working with more women, I have developed deeper relationships with my co-workers, especially as I navigate being a working mom. We spend so much time at work, and it's great to be surrounded by women you can call friends and count on for more than work needs. We all come from different backgrounds, and it's been great getting to know so many of them on a personal level and learning from their experiences and expertise. Overall, the women at Nextpoint continue to help shape the company and make the software better. I love watching the women at Nextpoint succeed, and I look forward to continuing to mentor and learn from all of them.
Find a woman mentor.
Karen Mann-Anand
Head of Client Success
Education: San Francisco State University – Philosophy with an Emphasis in Law | University of San Diego – ABA Approved Paralegal Studies
I worked as a senior paralegal for various large law firms, then transitioned to a role as a Litigation Support and Ediscovery Specialist. Next, I shifted to Client Success and worked with a few different ediscovery software companies before moving to Nextpoint.
Fortunately, being a woman has impacted my career in a positive way. I was able to connect with many women in ediscovery and the legal field early on in my career. This network of women opened many doors and opportunities for me and has always been a strong support system. At Nextpoint I continue to add on to this network of amazing women in ediscovery who share the same work ethic and values as me.
Find a company that aligns with you and invests in their employees.
Katy Herforth
Director of People Operations
Education: Siena College – BA in History
I began my career in higher education, traveling all over the country to recruit undergraduate students to attend Seton Hall University. I enjoyed the recruiting aspect of my job and decided to give it a go on the corporate side. From there, I realized I loved being connected to the people of the organization I worked for and became passionate about creating a positive employee experience. Nextpoint offered me the opportunity to become their first leader in People Operations and I jumped at the chance!
Interestingly enough, HR/People is a female-dominated career. At Nextpoint, I'm happy to have the opportunity to work closely with female leaders across our organization.
Who runs the world? Girls.
Thank you to our inspiring women in ediscovery for sharing their stories with us. From mechanical engineering to patent law to paralegal roles, these leaders had diverse career paths before joining the Nextpoint team.
But we noticed a common theme throughout their varied experiences: At Nextpoint, they found a culture where women can thrive and form bonds with fellow women, as both friends and mentors. We're proud to foster this environment, and we're thankful for the value each woman on our team brings to Nextpoint.
Nextpoint is always growing. If you're interested in the supportive, uplifting culture these women in ediscovery described, check out the links below to learn more about the roles we're looking for.
Nextpoint Careers Info >
Nextpoint Open Positions >
Nextpoint Reviews on Glassdoor >
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