Washingtonian Magazine recently posted a list of Washington’s most powerful women. This list features women across many different sectors – arts, philanthropy, education, law, and religion, just to name a few. However, one sector that appears to be missing is tech.
While tech was not a specific category for 2015, out of the 100 women who made the list, several have a history or intersection with DC tech, and I would like to take the opportunity to highlight them here. There are no fledgling startup founders or run-of-the-mill venture capitalists in this women in tech list (not that they aren’t vital members of the DC Tech community), rather these are corporate executives, heads of government agencies, and a few with some serious political ties who also make up DC’s unique tech ecosystem.
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Jean Case: CEO of the Case foundation and former senior AOL executive. She and her husband Steve do a lot of tech-related philanthropy. She is also passionate about teaching entrepreneurs to be fearless and take risks.
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Anne Altman: Altman has been with IBM for three decades and is currently the general manager for IBM US Federal and Government Industries. She is considered a thought leader in the industry and speaks on behalf of IBM on topics including national security, healthcare and education, technology in the military and intelligence communities.
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Meredith Attwell Baker: Baker is President and CEO of CTIA – The Wireless Association. She has extensive knowledge in wireless policy and was previously the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Comcast NBCUniversal.
Image via NVTC.org
Teresa Carlson: Carlson is the VP of World Wide Public Sector where she is responsible for strategy, operations, sales and business development for Amazon’s Web Services and Cloud Computing business. Through her 20 years in business, she contributed prominently to the growth of the Washington, DC tech market.
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Amber Cottle: Cottle is a former lobbyist for Apple and now Dropbox’s head of global public policy and government affairs. Dropbox asked her to join their team when they decided to open an office in DC over the summer.
Bobbie Greene Kilberg: Kilberg has been the President and CEO of the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) since 1998. NVTC is the largest technology council in the nation with about 1,000 member companies. Kilberg has been a powerful voice in DC Tech.
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Melissa Maxfield: Maxfield is the Senior Vice President of Federal Government Affairs for the Comcast Corporation. She also has a long history as a Senate staffer, which makes her a perfect fit for her current gig.
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Carol Melton: Melton used to be the advisor the FCC chairman until she left for the private sector. Since 2005, she has been Time Warner’s Executive Vice President for Global Public Policy. She is responsible for overseeing the Company’s policy offices in Washington, D.C., London, Brussels, Hong Kong and Buenos Aires.
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Susan Molinari: Molinari is a former congresswoman who since 2012 has been lobbying for Google on the Hill as Google’s policy advocacy in Washington and throughout North and South America.
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Crystal Patterson: Patterson is the Government & Politics Outreach Manager for Facebook. She has more than a decade of experience in digital strategy and communication as well as experience working on Capitol Hill.
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Arati Prabhakar: Prabhakar is the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). She was the founding director of DARPA’s Microelectronics Technology Office and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology under President Bill Clinton.
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Megan Smith: Smith is the current White House CTO. She came to D.C. from Google where she was the VP of New Business Development.