Industry Mentors

Sunita Arora

Owner
Rare Reflektions 

Sunita is a distinguished Learning & Development professional and certified coach with over 20 years of experience partnering with Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley startups. Holding senior leadership roles in L&D at organizations like GE Digital, her expertise has earned her recognition as one of the top 50 L&D leaders in the Americas by Corinium Global Intelligence. Sunita's top services include executive coaching, leadership development, L&D strategy and learning technology marketing. With a master’s degree from Harvard University and certification as a Neuroscience brain-based coach, she has guided MIT and Harvard alumni through career mobility, transitions, and cultural immersions. Dedicated to driving growth and success, Sunita's talent for inspiring others makes her a respected leader in the L&D community.

Gabrielle Capolupo

Engineering Office of the CTO 
Juniper Networks

Gabrielle has been with Juniper Networks since February 2007. She currently works for the Engineering CTO office and is responsible for providing program management for the Junos Architecture Council and a network service provisioning application project. She also started and manages the Juniper Women in Engineering (JWIE) employee resource group.  Previously, she provided program management for the Juniper Distinguished Engineering (DE) and Principal Engineering (PE) communities. This included managing the Juniper DE PE Council - responsible for approving DE PE promotions and new hires, as well as the annual DE Summit. Previously in this team, she was responsible for project managing several DEs working on major OS library re-architecture. Prior to her work in the CTO office, she was Sr. Director of Junos Governance, responsible for policy, process, criteria and schedule for all Junos OS software releases.

Prior to Juniper Networks, in her more than 11 years with Cisco Systems, she was Sr. Engineering Manager for the IOS Packet Engineering Group, responsible for large-scale corporate level software infrastructure planning and implementation. In addition, previous roles included remotely managing the Edge Services software team in Bangalore India, the collective hardware and software engineering teams for the leading Broadband Aggregation platform, and the IOS Source Code team, responsible for all major source code integration.  Prior to her employment with Cisco Systems, Ms. Capolupo spent over seven years at various positions at Novell, Inc.

Gabrielle has served as a lead judge for the International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition since 1995, after participating as a graduate student for San Jose State University (SJSU). She has made a number of industry panel presentations including sessions for Women in Technology International (WITI), Women in International Trade (WIT), Women Unlimited, the Project Management Institute of Silicon Valley and the SJSU Women in Leadership League. She was the Commencement Speaker for the 2023 Class of the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business at SJSU. Beginning in 2022, Gabrielle is a professional mentor for the TechWomen program, which is sponsored by the US Department of State. Gabrielle received her Master of Business Administration from San Jose State University and her Bachelor of Arts, Cum Laude, from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she was a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta National Honor Society and the Men’s Varsity Crew.

Alicia Cerri

Sr. Service Delivery Manager 
Juniper Networks 

Alicia is an accomplished professional with extensive experience in program, account, and content management, primarily within cross-functional organizational environments. With a strong track record in service delivery management, Alicia excels in leading teams to ensure customer satisfaction and business outcomes. Alicia's background includes roles at Juniper Networks, and Cisco Systems, where she managed service delivery for strategic accounts and led cross-functional teams with customer success. She holds certifications in Cisco Sales Expertise, PMP and ITIL, along with dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Geography and History from California State University, Stanislaus.

Annie Chen

Sr. Director of Consumer Business
Trend Micro Inc.

Annie is a senior-level business professional with 20 years of software industry experience, ranging from product marketing, online marketing, e-commerce operation, to business management. She currently serves as Sr. Director at Trend Micro, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, and is in charge of the consumer business in North American and European markets. Annie has a track record of driving business results through strategic planning and solid execution, and she is known for her ability to build and lead talented and motivated global teams. Annie cares deeply about diversity and inclusion and is part of Trend Micro’s Trending Women’s initiative, which is designed to help women enter and grow in the world of cybersecurity. She holds a B.S. in International Business from Taiwan University and an MBA degree from the University of Washington.

Jacqueline Craig 

Director Business Development
CriticalRiver

Jacqueline has been a seasoned leader and accomplished Director of Business Development at CriticalRiver, Inc. since 2021, with over 25 years of experience driving business growth and fostering strategic partnerships with IBM, SAP, Oracle, Adobe, and Salesforce. Her extensive expertise and visionary leadership have consistently propelled companies to achieve substantial annual revenue growth across diverse industries. She effectively manages, motivates, and mentors diverse professionals, inspiring them to achieve their highest potential and surpass organizational goals. Her hands-on approach and unwavering commitment to excellence have earned her a reputation for delivering exceptional results and driving sustainable business growth. She attended Northwestern University and holds a prestigious Business Degree, giving her a robust foundation in business principles and strategies.

Meghan Donohoe

Security Software Engineer
Cisco

Meghan joined Cisco full time in 2020 after completing 3 internships during her summers while obtaining her Bachelor of Science in computer science at the University of Colorado. She has a strong passion for cyber security and found a niche spot at Cisco getting to be a developer for their computer security incident response team. Outside of her role as a developer, Meghan likes to volunteer her time with various groups at Cisco. She is the Community Outreach Pillar Co-Lead for Women of Cisco San Jose, and she donates her time to help build workshops teaching malware analysis with a cyber resiliency team. Meghan believes heavily in the importance of creating and maintaining diverse teams within the security sphere. The industry is still very skewed toward one demographic, and she works to encourage everyone to explore security and find their strengths within technology.

Lindsay Fox

Director, Software Engineering
MuleSoft

Lindsay is a Director of Software Engineering at MuleSoft based in Seattle, WA. Prior to managing MuleSoft's CI/CD pipeline and K8s infrastructure organization, she worked at Oracle in their Cloud Infrastructure division supporting CI/CD and internal tooling. An advocate for empathetic and authentic leadership, she is passionate about mentorship, diversity, and empowering women in tech. 

Richa Gupta

CHRO
Globalization Partners

Richa has been in the Professional world for over two decades helping companies unlock their business growth, build strong global firms with a purpose and high-performing teams, build cultures for talent to thrive and develop wisely compassionate leadership muscle. With a master’s degree in organizational psychology from India and an MBA from Wright State University, Ohio, she continues her journey in being a mission-driven, people-first, pragmatic, inclusive, strategic and kind business leader. She has experience leading HR functions in Public and Private/pre-IPO start-ups, mature and high-growth companies, transformations as well as business turnaround situations in global complex SaaS companies in Payments, Financial services, Technology, Healthcare Tech domains. Her super-powers include strong business acumen, strategic partnership skills, compassionate and boundaryless HR, ability to lead brilliant teams and innovative HR products, coaching leaders, influencing across organizational and global boundaries to shape Talent practices and Business results. Her other equally important and fun mission in life is to raise her two sons (15 and 18) to be grateful, growth-oriented, kind and happy grown-ups. Most recently, she served in HR leadership roles at GE and PayPal and CHRO roles for Castlight Health (a Public company) and currently at Globalization-Partners.

Lisa Hall

Chief Information Security Officer / Venture Advisor / Advisory Board Member
SafeBase 

With over 17 years experience in the information security field, Lisa focuses on building holistic security strategy and comprehensive information security management programs- ensuring products and business systems are developed with security in mind. Lisa believes security should make it easy to do the right thing.  Lisa has experience building and growing teams, leading companies through IPO, acquisitions & mergers, and leading Application/Product Security, Infrastructure Security, and Compliance programs (SOX, SOC2, ISO 27001, FISMA, FedRAMP, & HITRUST). Lisa is a Venture Advisor at YL Ventures, an Advisory Board Member for Day of Shecurity, and sits on the Executive Advisory Board for San Jose State University’s School of Information Systems & Technology’s Center for Organizational Resilience. She is also a co-author in "Reinventing Cybersecurity"- A JupiterOne book authored by female and non-binary security practitioners. Lisa has held Information Security leadership roles at PagerDuty, Color Health, Twilio, and EY.

Sarah Halper

Director, Strategic Executive Communications
Cisco 

Sarah Halper is the director of strategic executive communications for Cisco Networking. Her team develops and executes on a coordinated internal and external communications strategy, message, and plan aligned to Cisco corporate business goals, outcomes, and priorities. With more than fifteen years in corporate, internal, and executive communications, Sarah is passionate about using the power of storytelling to cut through the noise and connect with people and audiences. She sees communications as a key differentiator for every leader and organization. A Chicago native and San Jose transplant, Sarah joined Cisco as an intern in 2000 and went on to hold executive and internal communications roles in Engineering, Sales, and CX (interspersed with stints at NetApp and Google). Prior to joining Cisco Networking in 2023, Sarah led global communications for Cisco CX Centers for six years. In that capacity, she increased the impact of communications by experimenting with different tools and channels to reach 15,000+ employees around the world. Sarah holds a BBA from University of Wisconsin - Madison and an MBA from Santa Clara University. Outside of work, she enjoys theater, reading, and time with her niece and nephew.

Myra Haubrich

Seasoned Engineering Leader
Salesforce/Mulesoft

Myra has a Computer Science Masters's degree specializing in Computer Algorithms. She enjoys exploring new technologies and applying innovation to improve efficiency and resiliency in any project she involves. Myra worked at startups and large enterprises and spoke at different conferences. She is passionate about technology and a strong advocate for everyone’s equal opportunity to learn and develop careers in technology.

Sirisha Kaipa

Co-Founder and CTO 
dabbL

Sirisha has over 20+ years of experience in building complex, best-of-breed enterprise grade software and architecting next-gen products at LinkedIn, Dell EMC, & VERITAS. She is a veteran inventor, with several patents and a passion for innovation and technology. Sirisha is also an advocate for education, and has volunteered as a repeat board member in the public school PTAs.

Carin Kaltschmidt

Digital Consulting Leader | Adjunct Professor | Actor | Podcaster | Organizational Changemaker | Agile Design Thinker

Carin has excelled in a 20-year career journey as a partner at EY and KPMG Consulting, specializing in leading global business and technology transformation initiatives. Her expertise lies in collaborating with global businesses to innovate operations, integrate state-of-the-art technology, and transform their workforce dynamics. She has consulted at high-tech, Media and Entertainment, and Healthcare companies, including Cisco, Disney, eBay, HP, Kaiser, Logitech, Oracle, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, and United Healthcare. Her passion is unlocking the full potential of others through education, mentorship, and advisory services. 

She holds an MBA from Hult International Business School and a BS in Computer Information Science from Cal Poly Humboldt. She was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2020 at Cal Poly Humboldt. She serves as a board member for the Cal Poly Humboldt Foundation. Carin's dedication extends to her volunteer work in the PMI non-profit organization, where she contributes as a Board member and leader in Finance and the Next Generation Leaders and Mentorship programs. She guides others to discover their unique talents and flourish professionally. Carin enjoys acting on stage, graphic design, digital marketing, international travel, teaching, mentoring, water sports, and hiking. Leveraging her vast experience in digital transformation and leadership, Carin is passionate about preparing the next generation of leaders for success. At SJSU, Carin has been a three-year judge for the Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge (SVIC), engaged with SJSU entrepreneurial student teams. 

Joy Kenny

Human Resources Manager
Thermo Fisher Scientific

Joy is a HR Professional with 12+ years of experience across the Department of Defense, Healthcare, Tech and BioTech industries. Her interests focus on Leadership Development, Change Management, Employee Engagement and Data Analytics. Joy earned her BA degree in Psychology from San Diego State University and MS in HR Management from Claremont Graduate University.

Natalie McClure, PhD

Senior Regulatory Affairs and Product Development Consultant

Natalie is a regulatory affairs consultant with extensive experience in drug development, regulatory affairs and quality assurance.  She obtained a BS in Chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1974 followed by a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University in 1979.  She started her career at Syntex Research, working in the process development laboratories on new synthetic approaches to prostaglandin and large-scale peptide synthesis and then changed career direction to drug regulatory affairs.   Over the past 40 years, she has worked at several different companies, big and small, as an individual contributor and executive, and helped get over 6 drugs approved for marketing.  Natalie is also an instructor at the UC Berkeley Extension program offering several courses in drug development and regulatory affairs.  Natalie is also very active in the American Chemical Society serving as chair and councilor of the Silicon Valley local section.  

Alvina Nishimoto

Scrum Master
Jack Henry & Associates

Alvina spent 34 years at HP in R&D and Marketing developing the HP Materials Management product, database and interoperability solutions, and various new business solutions. She spent 2 years at Symantec Corporation where she was the Engineering Enrichment Leader and then 3 years as the Agile Coach at the City of San Jose.  Alvina currently is a Scrum Master at Jack Henry & Associates, a leading provider of banking software.  She has a B.S. and an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering with a specialization in computer utilization from Stanford University.  

Natalie Quan

CFO
California Society of Certified Public Accountants / CalCPA Education Foundation

Natalie is the Chief Financial Officer of the California Society of CPA's and CalCPA Education Foundation, the nation's largest state CPA society. Prior to CalCPA she was the Controller of the San Francisco Ballet Association and a non-profit audit manager in a regional CPA firm. Natalie holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from San José State University, is a Certified Public Accountant, graduate of the Stanford University's Emerging CFO Financial Leadership Program and graduate of the CFO Leadership Council CFO Accelerating Growth Through Leadership Executive Program at MIT. In her spare time, Natalie sits on the Board of the Better Business Bureau of Northern California, is the Treasurer of Circus Center and teaches circus arts. 

Amanda Sandoval

Executive Communications Manager
Cisco

Eager communicator with 8+ years of experience in marketing and communications. I enable senior level executives to deliver compelling and strategic messages to their intended audiences. I have a passion for people, community, and empowerment. I am constantly looking for ways to bring people together through compelling content and storytelling!

Olivia Shen Green

Olivia brings 20+ years of experience in leading fast-paced, inclusive change across human resources, engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, and acquisition integration internationally. She has held executive leadership positions including Vice President, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at a Fortune 200 technology company and is currently an independent consultant. She has led teams in spaces from enterprise software and video collaboration to consumer-facing music, gaming, streaming, podcasting and sports. Olivia holds a master’s in management science & engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Her pronouns are she/her. Her love language is tech gadgets and tiny tea sandwiches. Talk to her about Broadway musicals and sports photography! 

Neelam Vijay

Software Engineering Manager
Juniper Networks

Neelam is a seasoned engineering leader with 20+ years of experience in several engineering positions. Currently she leads a team as Software Engineering Manager at Juniper Networks. Her Prior roles include - Customer Support, Solutions Test Engineering and Automation Lead. She is a Core member of the Juniper Foundation Committee. Neelam is a Professional Mentor for the Tech Women Program – sponsored by the US Department of State. Neelam is an active member of Juniper/Bay Area Toastmaster club(s), as well as a Board Advisor for RIET  (Rajasthan Institute of Engineering and Technology), and an International speaker/member of IITM (Institute of Innovation in Technology & Management), in Delhi, India. Neelam is also a student counselor and speaker at RTU (Rajasthan Technical University). In her spare time, Neelam enjoys dancing, music and hiking.

Suja Viswesan

Vice President Security Software Development
IBM

Suja is a compassionate, authentic, radically candid Technology Executive. She has held various leadership roles at IBM, LinkedIn and Warner Bros Discovery in her 20+ years of technology career journey. She is currently VP of Software Development heading IBM’s Security Software Development. Her portfolio includes products in Threat Intelligence, Data Security, Identity and Access Management, Fraud protection and Device protection. Some of the suite of products include: QRadar, Guardium, Verify, Trusteer and MaaS360. Suja is a public speaker who has spoken at various universities and at conferences/Events including Grace Hopper conference, Strata Data, Women in big data forums, and girl geek forums. Outside of work, Suja is very passionate about education and women in technology. She is an advocate for Women in Tech. She is a board member and President of the SF Bay Area chapter of Pratham, an educational charity organization that focuses on innovative interventions to address gaps in the education system. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Madhu Vohra

CEO/cofounder
Dabbl Corp

Madhu is the CEO/cofounder/co-founder of dabbl, a personalized and AI-powered career development co-pilot for high school students. With over two decades of experience in the tech industry, she has led large teams and delivered enterprise-grade products. Outside of work, Madhu enjoys spending time with her kids (25 and 19), exploring the outdoors, and indulging in a good book and afternoon naps.

Micaela Whalen 

Business Development Manager
Intel

Micaela is a native to the Monterey Bay and Los Angeles areas, and is a proud alum of San José State University -- graduating with a B.S. in Corporate Finance in 2016. Her involvement in organizations on campus provided opportunities to create long-lasting connections inside and outside the university -- connections which were key to her obtaining internships throughout college and receiving a full-time job offer at Xilinx. Continuing her career in the tech industry, she now works at Intel Corporation as a Business Development Manager. What keeps her fulfilled outside of work and family is providing mentorship to current and recently-graduated SJSU students -- and she's excited to be back on campus in hopes of helping current college students be confident, own their personal brand, and pursue a fulfilling career.

David Wilde

Dave retired last year after enjoying a 38-year career with Hewlett-Packard and related spin-offs, where he held and enjoyed a wide breadth of roles including software development, business leadership, marketing, product management, strategy/planning, and operations. Dave has taught classes in leadership and innovation in the SJSU Lucas College of Business since 2018. During his career, Dave was active in the community, supporting local schools and youth sports in various ways. As Dave begins his retirement journey, he plans to pursue interests at the intersection of the environment, human rights and environmental justice. 

Sandy Yu

Growth Executive
Revenue Retention Advisors, LLC

Sandy is the founder and the growth executive with Revenue Retention Advisors, LLC.  She focuses on helping companies drive growth from their customer base by increasing revenue retention, product adoption and customer lifetime value. Sandy has over 20+ years of experience, leading teams and initiatives in sales, product and customer success, for global enterprises including Oracle, Cisco, PricewaterhouseCoopers and WebEx. Outside of work, Sandy is an avid mentor and volunteers with San Francisco Chambers’ Job Forum and Recast Success.  She loves to travel, listen to podcasts, and play both tennis and pickleball.  She’s also mom to teen twins and one very cute dog.