Anjali Chawla ’93, ’95 MBA is not only developing cutting-edge software products, she is inventing them. Chawla, of Foster City, Calif., is director of program strategy right tools for George P. Johnson (GPJ), a global, integrated event marketing agency specializing in interactive designs for computer and Web platforms. She recently created a prototype for Portfolio Analyzer™, a software application that allows GPJ strategists to securely access and track data to make event-specific recommendations for clients. Chawla is listed as one of three co-inventors on the patent, and Cisco Systems Inc. is a test client.

Chawla first realized she had a “passion for product management” when she was working for MOMENTIX Inc., an early-stage application service provider that delivered Web-based enterprise software for the events industry in the “dot com” era. With an undergraduate degree in hospitality and an MBA, she had no formal training in the area at the time, but has learned on the job.

Her passion was rekindled when GPJ gave her sole responsibility for commercializing her prototype. Strategizing face-to-face with both clients and in-house product development, “helps keep me on top of market needs and trends,” she says. The combination of roles “ensures that our products remain cutting edge and market driven.” The results are clear. In 2009 Special Events magazine named GPJ the number one agency among its 50 Top Event Companies in the US.
email > chawla04@hotmail.com

Demolishing Career Barriers
Victoria Kearns ’89, ’91 MS is one of only two women in Rhode Island who own companies that specialize in hazardous waste removal and interior demolition. Unlike electrical, carpentry, masonry and similar trades which draw slightly more numbers because of the formal training provided by unions, women are scarce in Kearns’ field. But the landscape is changing and she’s doing her part to sell the next generation on its career potential.

Kearn’s own career path took a big twist after managing restaurants and nightclubs, when she was offered a job with an asbestos removal company. “I didn’t even know what asbestos was, ” she says. That was in 1995. In 2001 she opened her own company, General Environmental Services, in Warwick, RI.

This was the third year she spoke and demonstrated her company’s work to teenage girls at the annual Girls Non- Traditional Trades Event sponsored by the Rhode Island Commission of Women, in Cranston, RI, in March. The first year saw 40 girls attend; the second and third years had to be capped at 100.

“More and more women are getting into the trades,” Kearns says. “When they see business owners or women carpenters or electricians, they … say ‘I won’t be the only one, or I won’t be the first.’” Though Kearns has had female employees, she usually has a workforce of about 15 men. “I’ve been really fortunate … I get along really good with the guys.” For the time being, it’s a necessary talent.
email > vfkearns@gmail.com

Image above: Victoria Kearns ’89, ’91 MS, far left, and her crew worked on the future home of The Institute for the Study of Nonviolence in Providence, RI. The project was funded with stimulus money from the federal government.