Carol Vercellino
Interview Posted By: Ashley Smith
1. Can you tell us a little about your background? i.e. Where you grew up, what education do you have, a summary of your resume, did you always want to do what you are doing now, when did you start to become interested in STEM, what internships/ volunteering
I grew up in Spartanburg, SC and attended college at USC - Upstate, an extension of the University of South Carolina system. While in high school I had a class that covered the financial markets and investing for a brief period of time, I became intrigued with business and was determined to run my own company at some point. I received a BS in Business Administration hoping to be a CEO one day. I did take an extra statistics course in Statistical Process Control because I thought the professor was awesome and wanted to learn more about Edward Deming. During college, I took up a part-time internship at Palmetto Farm Credit in the accounting department filing invoices and light accounting work on a mainframe system. The company was transitioning from mainframe to Microsoft Exchange and Citrix. At the same time I became frustrated with how manual some processes were and started to learn Visual Basic. I bought a few books and taught myself to automate spreadsheets and some databases. From there I moved into an IT specific role that I continued upon graduation. I then moved to Raleigh, NC and started work as an IT Systems Administrator at Peopleclick, a Software as a Service company in the HR space. I moved into the engineering team after a year and half and became a Systems Engineer focused on servers and storage. I was introduced to Linux by a couple of the engineers and quickly moved away from Microsoft server administration. I became very attached to technology focused companies and began looking for opportunities at other growing SaaS firms. After a datacenter move and managing the company’s search engine, I went to ChannelAdvisor, another SaaS company. ChannelAdvisor had a more heterogenous environment in terms of operating systems and hardware, some as a result of acquisitions. While at ChannelAdvisor I pursued a personal goal of obtaining an MBA from NC State in the part-time program. I chose the Technology and Entrepreneurship Commercialization concentration because it focused on start-ups and high growth technology. During that time I had the opportunity to work at iContact, another well-known technology company in the Raleigh-Durham area. I had read Ryan Allis’ book and wanted to work there and was presented with the opportunity from a former manager at ChannelAdvisor. At iContact I was the Manager of Systems Engineering, managing a team focused on the infrastructure needs of the company (servers, storage, datacenter). After iContact I eventually landed at a small company that built mobile apps for news broadcasters and small colleges. I was the manager of DevOps which managed systems, release engineering and QA. I was promoted to Director of Engineering at one point. It was there that I met my cofounders for Oak City Labs. We started the company in August of 2014. We build native Android and iOS solutions for growing technology companies.
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
My job is the CEO of Oak City Labs. Even though we provide services, we’re still a start-up when it comes to growing a business. I handle sales, marketing and anything else, as well as infrastructure consulting for growing technology companies. The consulting has ranged from helping with AWS cloud implementations to iPsec VPNs. I also help with product management and research which is probably my favorite thing about technology.
3. How does STEM relate to your job?How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
Technology is the category most related to my job since we’re a tech company. Both my degrees are in business, though both have had statistical or technology oriented course loads.
4. Have you faced any discrimination/ challenges being a woman in a stem field? If so, how did you deal with it? Do you have any advice for up and coming women in STEM?
When I was a systems engineer I was truly fortunate to work with engineers that seemed to view me as an engineer. I had several that mentored me along the way and were incredibly supportive. I wasn’t aware of any discrimination, except for salary, until I became a manager or joined the leadership ranks. At that level I was told often I was too aggressive, too emotional or found that my direct managers seemed to awkwardly handle the situation. In no way does it compare to what some women are dealing with in the field today. As far as dealing with it, there’s not a ton of control in those situations, particularly when it’s your own manager. And sometimes you’re viewed as weak if you do talk about it and there’s a general mistrust with HR in some companies. The only way to deal with it was to suck it up or leave. It was disappointing, I saw a fellow female manager step down from her position and I often wonder what could have happened under different leadership. Again, not the worst situation but certainly left an impression. I do generally have to “prove” my technical expertise and I’ve been in conversations where male counterparts almost ignore my existence. I try not to focus on it and am somewhat accustomed to that’s how people are. My advice is to set your own goals and work really hard on being self aware. You will get tons of feedback and not all of it is good or right which is difficult to distinguish when you have a boss that might not have your best interest in mind subconsciously. Filter appropriately.
5. What is the best and worst part of your job? What do you look forward to in your job on a day to day basis? What do you wish you could change?
Best part of my job - working with an amazing team, meeting new people and hearing their ideas. Helping other teams move forward and seeing all the cool stuff happening in the technology space. I look forward to building the business everyday because it means we’ll have an impact on someone or their company.
I wish I could change how service businesses are viewed, it’s still a business that’s generating some impact on the local economy and has the potential to provide work for others. Yet most attention is on companies going after venture capital. I’d like to see the ecosystem focus on creating sustainable businesses.
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
Balance is unique to each person. I have two very young girls and they are the reason I do what I do everyday. The only thing I know is to prioritize and know you’ll make tradeoffs. Determine what’s most important and use that to drive your decisions.
7. What do you define success as?
Success is very individual, it’s different for each person on this planet. Success is finding your unique talent and contributing that to the world.
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
Adaptability.
9. Who was a mentor to you throughout your career? (can be more than one!) What did they teach you? How did they impact your life?
I’ve had several and have learned from just about everyone I’ve come into contact with. At Palmetto Farm Credit the CFO was a working mom, she kept me in line despite my young ignorance but also saw the technical talent that just needed a little push. When I moved to IT there, my direct manager was also a female - truth be told - I never knew that females weren’t supposed to be in technology until I moved to Raleigh. The whole engineering team at Peopleclick took me in and taught me to be a systems engineer. They taught me to think about the whole system and introduced me to Linux. My boss at ChannelAdvisor - Bill Bates - he was the most technical manager I’ve ever had and I never stopped learning from him and he continued to challenge me at iContact. At iContact the people I hired to be on the team, I would consider them mentors, I learned so much from them. I reflect on that experience often, how I could have been a better leader for that team. There are mentors in the traditional sense but I’m not sure I’ve ever had one person mentor me except for maybe the CFO at Farm Credit, that’s probably the closest I’ve gotten to a traditional mentor. Otherwise I read books and listen to podcasts as much as possible.
10. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received ? What advice would you give your younger self if you had the chance? What’s one piece of advice you can pass on to us?
Best advice - I’m sure there’s been many - but “there will never be a right time” is probably the most fitting.
Advice for my younger self - Focus on your strengths not your weaknesses and all that junk food and lack of sleep is just bad - get healthy and stay healthy, get back into running during college not after.
One piece of advice - Run your own race. There’s contradictory advice for everything, you’ll always find the opposite argument. Pay really close attention to those times when you’re in your zone and what works for you. Tune out all the noise around you and focus on being you
I grew up in Spartanburg, SC and attended college at USC - Upstate, an extension of the University of South Carolina system. While in high school I had a class that covered the financial markets and investing for a brief period of time, I became intrigued with business and was determined to run my own company at some point. I received a BS in Business Administration hoping to be a CEO one day. I did take an extra statistics course in Statistical Process Control because I thought the professor was awesome and wanted to learn more about Edward Deming. During college, I took up a part-time internship at Palmetto Farm Credit in the accounting department filing invoices and light accounting work on a mainframe system. The company was transitioning from mainframe to Microsoft Exchange and Citrix. At the same time I became frustrated with how manual some processes were and started to learn Visual Basic. I bought a few books and taught myself to automate spreadsheets and some databases. From there I moved into an IT specific role that I continued upon graduation. I then moved to Raleigh, NC and started work as an IT Systems Administrator at Peopleclick, a Software as a Service company in the HR space. I moved into the engineering team after a year and half and became a Systems Engineer focused on servers and storage. I was introduced to Linux by a couple of the engineers and quickly moved away from Microsoft server administration. I became very attached to technology focused companies and began looking for opportunities at other growing SaaS firms. After a datacenter move and managing the company’s search engine, I went to ChannelAdvisor, another SaaS company. ChannelAdvisor had a more heterogenous environment in terms of operating systems and hardware, some as a result of acquisitions. While at ChannelAdvisor I pursued a personal goal of obtaining an MBA from NC State in the part-time program. I chose the Technology and Entrepreneurship Commercialization concentration because it focused on start-ups and high growth technology. During that time I had the opportunity to work at iContact, another well-known technology company in the Raleigh-Durham area. I had read Ryan Allis’ book and wanted to work there and was presented with the opportunity from a former manager at ChannelAdvisor. At iContact I was the Manager of Systems Engineering, managing a team focused on the infrastructure needs of the company (servers, storage, datacenter). After iContact I eventually landed at a small company that built mobile apps for news broadcasters and small colleges. I was the manager of DevOps which managed systems, release engineering and QA. I was promoted to Director of Engineering at one point. It was there that I met my cofounders for Oak City Labs. We started the company in August of 2014. We build native Android and iOS solutions for growing technology companies.
2. What exactly IS your job? What do you do on a day to day basis?
My job is the CEO of Oak City Labs. Even though we provide services, we’re still a start-up when it comes to growing a business. I handle sales, marketing and anything else, as well as infrastructure consulting for growing technology companies. The consulting has ranged from helping with AWS cloud implementations to iPsec VPNs. I also help with product management and research which is probably my favorite thing about technology.
3. How does STEM relate to your job?How do you use the information you learned from your degree in your job?
Technology is the category most related to my job since we’re a tech company. Both my degrees are in business, though both have had statistical or technology oriented course loads.
4. Have you faced any discrimination/ challenges being a woman in a stem field? If so, how did you deal with it? Do you have any advice for up and coming women in STEM?
When I was a systems engineer I was truly fortunate to work with engineers that seemed to view me as an engineer. I had several that mentored me along the way and were incredibly supportive. I wasn’t aware of any discrimination, except for salary, until I became a manager or joined the leadership ranks. At that level I was told often I was too aggressive, too emotional or found that my direct managers seemed to awkwardly handle the situation. In no way does it compare to what some women are dealing with in the field today. As far as dealing with it, there’s not a ton of control in those situations, particularly when it’s your own manager. And sometimes you’re viewed as weak if you do talk about it and there’s a general mistrust with HR in some companies. The only way to deal with it was to suck it up or leave. It was disappointing, I saw a fellow female manager step down from her position and I often wonder what could have happened under different leadership. Again, not the worst situation but certainly left an impression. I do generally have to “prove” my technical expertise and I’ve been in conversations where male counterparts almost ignore my existence. I try not to focus on it and am somewhat accustomed to that’s how people are. My advice is to set your own goals and work really hard on being self aware. You will get tons of feedback and not all of it is good or right which is difficult to distinguish when you have a boss that might not have your best interest in mind subconsciously. Filter appropriately.
5. What is the best and worst part of your job? What do you look forward to in your job on a day to day basis? What do you wish you could change?
Best part of my job - working with an amazing team, meeting new people and hearing their ideas. Helping other teams move forward and seeing all the cool stuff happening in the technology space. I look forward to building the business everyday because it means we’ll have an impact on someone or their company.
I wish I could change how service businesses are viewed, it’s still a business that’s generating some impact on the local economy and has the potential to provide work for others. Yet most attention is on companies going after venture capital. I’d like to see the ecosystem focus on creating sustainable businesses.
6. How do you balance your work and personal life? Any secrets or advice you’d like to share?
Balance is unique to each person. I have two very young girls and they are the reason I do what I do everyday. The only thing I know is to prioritize and know you’ll make tradeoffs. Determine what’s most important and use that to drive your decisions.
7. What do you define success as?
Success is very individual, it’s different for each person on this planet. Success is finding your unique talent and contributing that to the world.
8. What is one personality trait that you think is universally important for a successful career?
Adaptability.
9. Who was a mentor to you throughout your career? (can be more than one!) What did they teach you? How did they impact your life?
I’ve had several and have learned from just about everyone I’ve come into contact with. At Palmetto Farm Credit the CFO was a working mom, she kept me in line despite my young ignorance but also saw the technical talent that just needed a little push. When I moved to IT there, my direct manager was also a female - truth be told - I never knew that females weren’t supposed to be in technology until I moved to Raleigh. The whole engineering team at Peopleclick took me in and taught me to be a systems engineer. They taught me to think about the whole system and introduced me to Linux. My boss at ChannelAdvisor - Bill Bates - he was the most technical manager I’ve ever had and I never stopped learning from him and he continued to challenge me at iContact. At iContact the people I hired to be on the team, I would consider them mentors, I learned so much from them. I reflect on that experience often, how I could have been a better leader for that team. There are mentors in the traditional sense but I’m not sure I’ve ever had one person mentor me except for maybe the CFO at Farm Credit, that’s probably the closest I’ve gotten to a traditional mentor. Otherwise I read books and listen to podcasts as much as possible.
10. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received ? What advice would you give your younger self if you had the chance? What’s one piece of advice you can pass on to us?
Best advice - I’m sure there’s been many - but “there will never be a right time” is probably the most fitting.
Advice for my younger self - Focus on your strengths not your weaknesses and all that junk food and lack of sleep is just bad - get healthy and stay healthy, get back into running during college not after.
One piece of advice - Run your own race. There’s contradictory advice for everything, you’ll always find the opposite argument. Pay really close attention to those times when you’re in your zone and what works for you. Tune out all the noise around you and focus on being you