On the third day of Community Summit North America 2025, held in Orlando, FL, both women and men gathered in Osceola CD for the Women in Tech luncheon, an annual celebration of the voices shaping the future of technology. This year’s theme, “She Builds,” brought forward the many ways women are driving innovation and leading with purpose across the Microsoft ecosystem. The program featured six dynamic speakers from the community, introduced by Dynamic Communities VP Pam Misialek, who gave short TED Talk–style presentations. These were followed by small group discussions and networking opportunities, creating space for connection and reflection.
Speakers:
- Sam Bush, B2B Marketer, AMBUSH on Air
- Qachauna Gipson, Administrative Professional
- Jennifer Harris, CEO and Founder TMC
- Kim Congleton, VP of Strategy, TMC
- Elif Item, Founder and CEO, Item by Item
- Mary Lanham, COO, Lanham Associates
- Michelle Serna, Director of Ideation Strategy, Trunorth Dynamics
‘Stop Overthinking It, You’ve Got It’
Bush came on to the stage apologizing for a hoarse voice. Her voice didn’t stop her from energetically recounting an inspiring story of landing a position as director of marketing after marching into her mentor and CEO’s office and asking if she could be given a trial in the position, part of which would include her meeting certain metrics. The CEO agreed and gave her the promotion before the trial period ended.
Her talk focused on “Building the Bridge,” as she did with her mentor and CEO, and she encouraged Summit attendees to lean into any discomfort and get out there and network. (Many heads nodded when she shared this nugget about networking: that it’s not about numbers but about the quality of relationships.) Bush also urged attendees to say yes “even when it scares you.” Real growth, she reminded the room, comes from the small, brave moments that connect us.
The Career Bike Ride Builds Resilience
Gipson, an administrative professional, talked about the career journey as a bike ride that builds resilience. The extended metaphor offered a new perspective on the ups and downs of professional life.
- Hills as hardship: Every uphill climb became a symbol for challenge — the burning legs and doubt mirrored the strain of career and life transitions that ultimately build strength.
- Rest as strategy: “Rest is a part of high performance,” Gipson said. Pausing to catch your breath parallels knowing when to slow down professionally. She reframed rest as wisdom, not weakness.
- The peloton as community: Drafting behind others captured how mentors, peers, and allies help us go farther with less resistance.
- Charting your own route: When the road disappears, you trust your instincts. Resilience includes daring to make your own path.
- Learning to ride: Like learning to ride a bike, resilience begins with the courage to push off and keep pedaling, even when the road is rough or unmarked. You may not feel steady at first, but each turn of the wheel builds balance, and one day, looking back, you’ll see just how far the ride has taken you.
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Building the Table
Harris and Congleton centered their talk on what women build when they sit down together. Harris appeared by video, joking that she couldn’t be there because her daughter was getting married and that no one should test a bride’s patience the week of her wedding. She told the story of starting TMC at her kitchen table, which doubled as her office, boardroom, and occasional cry room. Women, she asserted, aren’t just having it all, we’re doing it all. And sometimes leadership means knowing when to pause and “trust that what we’ve built will keep standing.”
Congleton picked up the thread, describing kitchen-table weekends in her career past — coffee cups, spreadsheets, tequila — and how they grew into a company. Then she made her way to the tables of TMC, led by women who “collaborate instead of compete.” She said she’s built and sat at many tables since, each one proof that real leadership comes from inclusion and intention. Her closing challenge was simple but sharp: Who sits at your table, and whose table do you sit at?
The Importance of Belief
Elif Item spoke about what it means to raise confident daughters in a tech world that still feels built for sons. She said confidence doesn’t come from being flawless, it comes from showing up. “It’s presence, not perfection,” she told the room.
Item urged everyone to stop defining girls too early, to give them space to explore, fail, and find their own direction. “Confidence is built in doing hard things,” she said, a line that echoed through the audience as a call to action for parents, mentors, and anyone trying to build space for the next generation to rise.
But beneath her story ran something deeper about belief. She said “She Builds” isn’t just about systems or code, it’s about “building belief, building space, and building courage.” Belief, she implied, is the architecture of every woman’s story: first we believe in ourselves, then we create the conditions where others can. She showed that the real legacy of women in tech isn’t technology, it’s permission.
Starting Your Own Business
Mary Lanham’s talk was the most hands-on of the day, a practical field guide for women thinking about building their own businesses. She traced her entrepreneurial streak back to childhood, when she ran a neighborhood play school at age eleven, and connected those early instincts to her later success as co-founder of Lanham Associates.
- Start focused and build credibility: Mary urged women to resist the temptation to do everything at once. Choose a narrow, repeatable niche — something you love and can deliver exceptionally well — and build from there. Then make sure people know about it. Visibility isn’t vanity; it’s strategy. Join communities, publish insights, and let your name become linked with your area of expertise.
- Prepare like a realist, not a dreamer: Starting a business means wearing every hat — operator, marketer, accountant — and it always takes longer than planned. Mary stressed having a financial cushion, a contingency plan, and a willingness to adapt your model until it works. A strong plan protects your creativity instead of constraining it.
- Handling setbacks: Lanham quoted “Shark Tank” investor Barbara Corcoran for how to deal with rejection: “Successful entrepreneurs have in common the ability to take rejection and get up and do it again.”
Build Your Next Role
Michelle Serna closed the program with a story that captured the essence of “She Builds” — the courage to act before being invited. She began as an assistant, saw inefficiencies no one else was addressing, and quietly built systems that saved her company millions. Each time she identified a gap, she filled it, eventually creating new roles for herself.
Serna urged women to act where they see need, to track their impact, and to present ideas as business solutions, not personal ambitions. Confidence, she suggested, comes from clarity and follow-through, not titles. The work defines the leader, not the other way around. As she put it, “Leadership isn’t about climbing a ladder that someone else built. It’s about walking into that room, looking around, and saying, there’s something missing here, and I can build it.”
Final Thoughts
When taken all together, the speakers offered several perspectives on what it means to be a woman in tech. The “She Builds” theme kept the talks centered and focused on action. Women in tech face many challenges: not being taken seriously, juggling family responsibilities, or being faced with their own fears, but whether it was through Bush’s advice about how saying yes or Lanham’s to ask customers what they need, a through-line of the event was women learning to own their power and surmount these challenges, one push of the pedal at a time.
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