Girls in Know-how: Christine Clauder

Nexcess’ Discipline Advertising Supervisor on the liberty of concepts in tech, how she defines success, and bringing the weirdness.

Of all of the folks she’s identified, Christine Clauder credit her mom as being probably the most influential in her profession journey. “She wouldn’t let me have any cool tech rising up,” Clauder says, “so as soon as I grew up and moved out, I invested all my time and power into studying tech to spite her. Simply kidding, sort of.”

Born in Guam and raised in Japan for a bit, Clauder primarily grew up in Houston, Texas, earlier than shifting to Kansas Metropolis for twenty years. “That’s the place I put my roots down,” she says. “So though I moved again to Houston about ten years in the past, I nonetheless contemplate myself a Kansas Citian.”

Clauder says her mom’s depth produced a forceful daughter, as nicely—if not in the way in which her mom hoped. “My mom is a tiny and scary Japanese woman. She tried to lift me with the Japanese mindset of at all times caring for ‘the person of the home.’ Nonetheless, a lot to her chagrin, she by chance raised me to be a robust unbiased girl who doesn’t give a sh… anyway, my mother is wonderful, however I’m her polar reverse.”

She’d at all times been taken with computer systems, so when her father gifted her a PC—a Gateway—Clauder started devoting all of her time and power to studying the whole lot she may about computer systems. “I by no means stopped,” she says.

Clauder started her profession at an automotive dealership in Kansas Metropolis. “At first, I used to be doing chilly calls and gross sales calls whereas making an attempt to persuade the dealership that Fb was the most recent and biggest strategy to market to clients—and subsequently getting written up for being on Fb an excessive amount of,” she says. “Twenty years later, I used to be employed because the I.T. and Advertising Director of a big dealership in Houston managing their pc methods, web site, Fb, and Twitter accounts, amongst different issues.”

However she says she has her canine, #HankTheHellion, to thank for her job at Nexcess. “Lengthy story brief, I constructed a web site about Hank, which acquired picked up by main information networks, and my earlier host couldn’t deal with the sudden surge in site visitors. My good friend, Samantha Mueller, works for Nexcess, so when she heard about my points, she requested Nexcess to save lots of my bacon and migrate my site, which they did in lower than 12 minutes. I used to be supplied a job quickly after,” she says. “Personally, I believe Nexcess simply appreciated all of the F-bombs on the web site.”

Now, Clauder serves because the Discipline Advertising Supervisor at Nexcess. “My job is ever-evolving primarily based on firm wants, so it’s troublesome to elucidate the whole lot I do,” she says. “I’m the enjoyable voice on the Nexcess Twitter. I’m a glorified get together planner. I’m a proud member of the Tradition Committee, the place I don’t know what I really do. Truly, let’s simply say I carry The Weirdness™️ to each group that I’ve the dignity of becoming a member of.”

What she loves most a couple of tech profession is the liberty of concepts. “I get encouragement once I give you distinctive ideas,” she says, “which is simply so vastly totally different from my expertise with the non-tech firms I’ve labored for previously.”

For Clauder, her proudest profession accomplishments boil right down to boldness and persistence. “The whole lot I’ve realized has been by sheer willpower and curiosity; I’m proud I used to be capable of finding a distinct segment within the tech world simply by being myself.”

Merely being herself is one thing she goals to carry to her work. “Everyone thinks that I’m ‘the humorous one,’ however that’s simply my manner of making an attempt to carry happiness into someone’s world,” she says. “I’m not a chef, can’t develop vegetation or greens, and have zero arts & crafts abilities, so I do what I can to carry a bit of little bit of pleasure into folks’s lives. Typically meaning a real praise, generally meaning being there to take heed to them, and generally it means joking round to raise that individual’s spirits. Humor is my love language. Simply ask my husband, who stopped being humorous about ten years in the past.”

Success, for Clauder, appears to be like like her household. “My daughter is a form, clever, well-rounded grownup and a gifted rollerblader with an enormous following on social media,” she says. “My husband is a catch that I can’t throw again. My dad and mom nonetheless cherish me regardless of all my flaws, and I signed papers to amass my husband’s dad and mom in our inevitable divorce as nicely. My household is my success.”

And an excellent day in her books appears to be like like staying curled up in mattress with a unending pot of espresso and studying horrible YA novels or binging 90s TV reveals. “If I didn’t dwell within the steamy, mosquito-laden tropics of Houston, I’d be discovered on the golf course each weekend, although,” she says.

Clauder is happy concerning the management potentialities for ladies in tech. “I believe the inequality that almost all girls have skilled, myself included, have made us stronger, extra empathetic, wiser, and extra succesful,” she says. “Our experiences have primed us to turn into wonderful leaders, which I’ve personally witnessed inside Nexcess. I’m proud to be part of such a uniquely inspiring, women-led surroundings.”

She encourages younger girls to look to their passions and contemplate how these would possibly exist throughout the area of tech. “Know-how isn’t simply knowledge science or taking aside computer systems,” she says. “Know-how connects the world and encompasses the whole lot from advertising to coding to customer support and assist. Don’t be afraid of the phrase ‘know-how’ simply due to some outdated definition. From emails and textual content messages to social media, writing papers, and studying information on-line, you already embrace know-how in your on a regular basis life. Conceptualize how your hobbies and pursuits can merge with tech.”

Her recommendation for ladies simply beginning within the area is to go for it. “You probably have one iota of curiosity within the tech trade, discover your area of interest however don’t simply persist with the job description,” she says. “Discover the place your skills will profit each your self and the corporate. Your organization will discover worth in you if you first worth your self. Additionally, undertake a shelter animal. It in all probability gained’t assist, nevertheless it undoubtedly gained’t damage, and your life might be enriched.”

You could find Clauder in Houston along with her household and Harley Davidson, the place she runs on espresso and crab legs.