In countries and societies where women have had less chances to enter the workforce, remote work is helping bridge the divide that unfortunately occurs all too often. Flexible working conditions are helping women who may not be able to so easily come to an office work and earn an income for them and their families. Whether they need to stay at home to look after family, or are even discriminated against when applying for jobs, remote allows for a number of flexible conditions that can fit around their circumstances.
We’re proud at Remote-how to champion the cause of improving female inclusion in the workforce. That’s why we make sure to support, empower, and give a voice to female workers all over the world who want to see how remote conditions can work for them.
With our Certified in Distributed Management program, we’ve gathered together a number of experienced remote female leaders who are sharing their knowledge and helping hundreds of people become better remote managers. In this article, we would like to applaud them for all their hard work and simply recognize their expertise in managing distributed teams.
We’re very proud to work with all of you and hope that together we can empower more women to successfully work remotely.
McKendree Hickory
McKendree has had a passion for leadership ever since working as a wilderness guide in Colorado. From her experiences in motivating and inspiring people in difficult situations, she realised this was a skill that she wanted to take further. After gaining a doctoral degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology, McKendree became a founding member of LifeLabs Learnings West Coast team. There she worked with managers and leaders from some of the most innovative tech companies in the world, gaining key experience and skills for her own projects. This included developing LifeLab’s diversity and inclusion offerings as well as workshops.
McKendree had always had dreams of working remotely from the mountains where her passion for leadership all began. She accepted a role in leading leadership development at InVision, the world’s largest fully remote company. There she focused on developing the skills that managers need to effectively lead in the remote environment. By working remotely, McKendree has been able to combine all her passions in one place while still inspiring people to lead and manage teams, as well as realise their full potential.
Darcy Peters
Darcy Peters currently works as Customer Advocacy lead at Buffer, after developing and discovering her leadership skills in the US Marine Corps. Her team at Buffer is responsible for experimenting with new plans, onboarding, and social media strategising with SMEs. This includes training teams on how they can use Buffer to their benefit and collaborate with the Buffer product team.
Darcy’s 12 years of experience in leadership has developed into a strong passion for creating innovative approaches to growing, supporting, and managing teams. Her experiences in the Marine Corp provided a solid leadership base after project managing construction projects in Afghanistan, and subsequently opening her own business after her time in the army. When she’s not working at Buffer or on other projects, Darcy likes nothing more than watching movies with her kids, getting stuck into fitness, or having the occasional karaoke break.
Radina Nedyalkova
Radina began her HR career in 2010 after graduating from Sofia University with a BA in psychology. After joining the Austrian executive search firm HILL international, she was promoted to a full-cycle HR consultant.
After moving to Ireland in 2013, Radina began to work remotely for Hill before joining LinkedIn as a Talent partner. In her 4 years at the company, she hired numerous experts for all their lines of business, which gave her a real cross-section of business acumen and exposure to LinkedIn’s business activities. In 2017, Radina took a leap of faith and moved to Singapore to realise her goals of experiencing the culture and hiring processes in Asia Pacific with a small boutique firm. Subsequently, she worked as a Global Recruiter for Airbnb which provided even more international experience in HR.
Radina now has her own company, Vox Advisory, dedicated to repairing and maintaining the bridge between candidates and organisations when it comes to standards and practices. She works with start-ups who are building up their strategies and looking for professionals to relocate to Ireland, or work remotely. Outside of her work, Radina loves to travel, is a former swimmer, and is also a bit of a board games enthusiast.
Cristiana Dutca
Cristiana Dutca is the Director of Operations for several tech companies, responsible mainly for attracting and engaging with new talent. She is firmly of the belief that a company’s most valuable asset is their people. Cristiana also believes that the vision and culture of a company are the core of building a motivated team. She currently leads operations at SelfKey.org, a digital identity management system, as well as KYC-chain.com and FlagTheory.com. These companies all aim to give more freedom to remote entrepreneurs and global citizens by giving them easier and simplified access to financial services, identity management, and international business structuring.
Cristiana can trace her motivation back to a personal goal she set over 10 years ago at the start of her remote career. She had always wanted to create for herself a lifestyle that was locational independent and with unlimited possibilities. She is also helping others do the same by adapting traditional workplaces processes for the remote environment. Cristiana volunteers with numerous nonprofits that support the career development of women in the tech sector, and also mentors a number young individuals. When she isn’t busy advocating for remote work, you can usually find her outdoors engaged in hiking, biking, skiing, or playing with her two cats.
Angelique Slob
After finding that corporate structures make it difficult for people to become the best version of themselves, Angelique decided to explore new horizons after a 15-year career in executive HR and project management. She went back to university, studied Organisational Sociology and came to the realisation that innovative professionals need autonomy. This is usually not something to be found in most companies.
Angelique soon became an expert in her field of the future of work, helping companies apply new ways of working such as being location independent. She supported startups in their culture development and built organisational strategies suited to specific teams. In 2018, Angelique founded Hello Monday, a consulting service that supports future-minded leadership teams of startups and established companies. It operates as a remote first company, with a small team of consultants that helps an international client base whatever the scope of the project.
Sylke Raymakers
Sylke is a self-employed entrepreneur that supports organizations that face challenges in the areas of leadership, talent, and change management. This has included running initiatives for Schweppes, Myers-Briggs Company and start-ups too. She thrives when organizations allow her to make full use of her critical thinking, ask questions and observe. This helps to reveal the deeper needs of an organization, team, and at an individual level if needed.
Sylke also worked as Global Director Leadership Development at Arcadis, helping to enhance leadership capabilities for key leaders through worldwide programs. This included designing and building the Global Shapers program for young professionals, helping to build up leadership from the grassroots up. Sylke is also co-author of the book ‘Building Powerful Networks’ inspired by her work with the Global Shapers program.
Nicole Cahill
Nicole soon discovered her passion for travelling after joining travel company EF Education First in 2013. When working as an account manager in their domestic division, she soon found that the job would change her professional and personal life forever. She developed her own position as dual Sales Executive and Account manager, supervising and managing customers’ trips and making sure that they went without a single hitch.
After learning from her experiences and gaining new skills, Nicole wanted to share her discoveries and expertise with others. She joined Remote Year, a startup that offered work and travel programs for individuals looking to work remotely. Here Nicole was introduced to the world of management and remote working by building out the company’s sales team. Her world was once again changed forever, as she experienced the benefits and advantages that remote work can bring. From building training sessions on the beaches of Mozambique to running team building exercises in Colombia, she loved being able to explore and work at the same time. Nicole was then working for another startup, Skillshare, building out their account management and customer success engine. At the moment, she’s working at LinkedIn as a Senior Customer Success Manager.
When she’s not enjoying jet setting around the world, Nicole loves to explore her new home, New York City. She’s ready for any new adventure that awaits her!
Steph Smith
Steph originally was living the corporate dream after graduating university with a degree in Chemical Engineering. She launched herself into a management consulting career, but decided to leave her position and the two hour commute that came with her. She wanted to redesign her life, so spent the next two years at Toptal on the growth team. Here she began to develop her digital skills, before joining the senior leadership team. As Head of Publications, she manages a few dozen individuals all whilst working remotely. This has given Steph the opportunity to work across 6 continents, over 50 countries, and just about every time zone there is.
Steph also is a self-taught developer, maker, and writer, who also runs her own blog focussed on remote work, continuous improvement, and women in tech. She speaks across the globe at events and is invited to contribute to numerous podcasts on leadership and remote work. Since learning to code, Steph has launched 4 self-built projects that have gone on to win awards and gain recognition. She is passionate about supporting women and their career development in the technology sector, and gives talks about the psychology behind inclusion. This has been realised through building resources like FeMake, and by participating as a judge for the Toptal Women’s Scholarship. She’s now working Senior analyst at the Hustle.
Thanks to the contribution of these amazing women, we are able to run a Certified in Distributed Management program that can help you develop your skills as a remote team manager. Our guest lecturers come from a huge range of established companies that are really championing remote work and all that comes with it.
You can find out more information by heading to our site.
