E8 - Stephanie Inzalaco at ePlus

Today our Infrastructure & Cloud Consultant Francesca Denoon was joined by Stephanie Inzalaco, the Director of Global on Demand Services at ePlus. Stephanie talks to us about her journey into the space and what lead her into the position she’s in today. We learn some of the challenges she’s faced along the way and how she overcame those.

Stephanie is the Director of the Global Support Services team, part of the global organisation that is ePlus. She’s been there for 8-9 years now and what a journey it’s been! She started off in the entertainment industry while studying Business, Marketing & Accounting at university. She loved the events industry, but it wasn’t rewarding, and she was doing some crazy hours. She was hired by ePlus in 2013 shortly after graduating and ended up there opportunistically. Her current boss and her father were in touch and after they got talking, Matt asked if she wanted to come in for an interview and the rest was history.

In 2016, 2 and a half years into her time at ePlus, she was promoted to a supervisor role which was her first step into management. In 2018, she was promoted to manager and then over the last year, she was given the director role. She now has 17 people working under her, so she’s had quite the journey since first joining back in 2013!

Making the jump into management isn’t always easy. People rely on you and it’s a huge responsibility to drive your team in the right direction. Stephanie didn’t have any struggles when it came to being a woman in the industry it was more of an age thing. The people she was hiring were significantly older and more seasoned in the industry than her. With a challenge comes a great reward though! She became more confident in what she was doing and had a great support system along the way.

Her studies in Marketing have given her the transferable skills necessary for ePlus to thrive. Building out the Global Support Services team has meant they have added service offerings along the way. there’s always that customer service side to what she and her team are doing. She’s helped make sure that what they are putting out there is both understandable and technical enough.

Tips?…

Coming from Stephanie, who is both a woman and someone a lot younger in this industry, she says to make sure you are asking a lot of questions. If you have questions, write them down and ask the necessary people and that’s ultimately how you will learn. Knowledge is power…

Some of the concerns she’s having as a hiring manager is finding the right people. The conversations she’s having with candidates have changed, they want a lot more flexible working etc.

When it comes to hiring, the technical stuff can be taught. When Stephanie hires and what she looks for is soft skills. You can’t teach someone to be super organised, detail orientated and multi-task at a high level. The industry and work are very fast-paced and the people she has seen become successful naturally have those skills.

“You don’t have to know it all, you just have to know what tools are in your toolbox, who to go to when things come up or when things happen”.

Stephanie talks through some of the things ePlus are doing to encourage more women in the space… Don’t miss it!