Leading with Her Can-do Optimism

With more than 20 years in High-Tech, Christina Wood has learned that her ingenuity and vision are the tools that have helped her develop strategies that have increased sales and earned customer trust and valuable market share. When the Information Management & Governance (IM&G) division was in a year-over-year decline, she saw the potential, presented her vision, and worked hard to achieve her goal. Most of the efforts were made by resurrecting long-forgotten products with many valuable and effective capabilities specific to a particular customer base. Her work soon turned the division into a rising star with a 20% year-over-year growth rate. While naturally yielding revenue, the products rose to the top of the leaderboard for the first time in IM&G's history.

Once Christina understands what she is working with—at times, something seemingly impossible to revamp—she combines her imagination, intuition, and can-do optimism to create something striking and captivating. She seeks out the right team members when collaboration is necessary and completes the task.

Because she leads by example, Christina is not the type to give orders and leave the team to their own devices. She inspires her team by working alongside them. During one-on-one meetings for project and task status, she listens to determine each member’s strengths and discovers what excites them in the workplace. Ideation and individualization are essential techniques that help the team members discover what they are good at and enjoy. She uses those techniques to help encourage them into roles where they can grow or assist them as they consider a position that suits their talents and aspirations. Day by day, she strives to ensure that her team members enjoy what they do and helps them thrive in their careers.

Her belief in leadership is that one must genuinely lead to help build future leaders. She leverages concepts from books such as Strength-Based Leadership, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Above the Line, and Grit to lead her team. She uses her previous experience as a mentor, author, team member, team leader, and executive to challenge and inspire those around her. "As female leaders, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. We must know and understand that we must first believe in ourselves and our abilities because the road ahead will get bumpy,” explains Christina. “In addition, when those bumps in the road come, we will have to decide which path is best, and that the results are up to us. I always advice everyone to find trusted advisors—both men and women—you can turn to in moments of doubt or uncertainty. Those mentors will be people who will support you in private so that you can rise stronger in public and do the job you were called to do."

With this brilliant mindset, Christina is taking the company to new heights. The mission of Micro Focus is to help solve the IT dilemma by balancing today's needs with tomorrow's digital transformation opportunities. “I strive to work towards this mission by clearly articulating to our existing and potential customers how our product's value proposition and innovation can help solve their day-to-day challenges, our products allow them to quickly adapt to meet regulatory demands and provide them with a clear path on their digital transformation journey,” elucidates Christina. “Micro Focus has the amazing ability to stand the test of time and continuously reinvent and innovate its products to meet market demands, and yet, to be responsive enough to pivot during uncertain times as evidenced by the pandemic."

Christina is presently working on applying tried and true methods and strategies to increase efficiency, reduce unnecessary processes and needless bottlenecks, and be strategically aligned within her team and across all cross-functional teams. In addition to the core goal of continued growth within all key performance indicators, she hopes to use analytics to monitor the company and the team’s progress this year. "I am very excited and optimistic for the future of Micro Focus. The company’s leadership has provided its teams with the opportunity to make improvements for growth and cohesion and continues to offer its customers the most innovative solutions and the unique expertise within this high-tech industry,” states Christina. “As one of the members of the Senior Leadership Team within Micro Focus IM&G, I am excited and proud to be a part of this journey. I have been trusted with/given autonomy to rebuild this division’s marketing teams and to refocus and fine-tune their connection to their customers in a way no one thought possible, all within eighteen months."