Leisa: This is The BusinessMakers Show, heard on the radio and seen online at http://www.TheBusinessMakers.com, I'm Leisa Holland-Nelson, and it's guest time on our show. Our featured guest today is Jennifer Heard, vice president of central region for Microsoft. You might be familiar with Jennifer. She's been on the show before, and I've also interviewed her for Women Mean Business. Jennifer has a great, big position here at Microsoft. Tell us about it.

Jennifer: Yeah, I would say it's a big business and a big opportunity for me in my profession, but to me, it's really about the people and the customers I get to meet every day. It doesn't feel big when I'm meeting one-to-one and it's just an opportunity to really understand what our customers need every day to run their businesses. So my role really is about working with people that interact with our customers and partners across 18 states here in the central US.

Leisa: Wow, I think that sounds like a lot. How did you get to this position with Microsoft?

Jennifer: Well, I've been with the company for 16 years, and over the 16 years, I've been in various roles. I started as a systems engineer. Prior to that, I was in IT. I ran IT for organizations. So I only know technology. I always say I started when I was ten, even though it's kind of a joke. But I have always been in technology. In the last 16 years, I've gone from an individual contributor as a systems engineer to a vice president of a billion dollar sales organization.

Leisa: Have you ever worked anywhere else?

Jennifer: I have. I was nine years in IT. I ran IT for a company people may know of, Security Pacific, who are now B of A. And then I was five years at Chinon Industries, which was a high-tech organization. I was their actual CIO for their Europe and US business.

Leisa: Hearing about Jennifer's career is exciting, but the real reason we're here is that she's just gotten a very big promotion, and we're going to let her tell us about it because it's really exciting, and especially exciting for a woman, and really exciting for me being a woman from Houston, Texas, to have you get this big opportunity.

Jennifer: Thank you, Lisa, for the recognition, and I'm very, very excited about the position and the opportunity Microsoft presented itself. The thing that I've had aspirations around and my goal - and my personal goal and my professional goal is to find a way to continue to broaden my knowledge and experience and impact, whether I can make a difference with the people I work with or the customers I work with. And the fact that Microsoft gave me the opportunity to take my experiences here in the US and take that to Europe, Middle East, and Africa and take some of the learning, but also learn from them as well and broaden the scope. So I'm moving from 18 state business to a 37-country business, and it's going to be from about a billion-dollar business to an $8 billion business. So it's quite a different structure of an organization, but also the same type of business. Still working with people, working with customers and partners to realize their potential with our software. And so the opportunity that it's given me personally is also the international exposure that I wanted for my husband and my daughter.

Leisa: So this is a big move not just for you, but for your family as well. How are you doing it? What's in the works?

Jennifer: Well, it's a lot of patience because when you're dealing with an international assignment such as an expat, many people that have experienced it have told me you just have to have patience. You need to understand that it takes time, that there's a lot of red tape and paperwork, and my family has excitement and anxiety all at the same time. And so we're just - we have to be very organized in our planning. We're doing it as an adventure, and we're looking forward to seeing what else is out there for us to experience what's outside of the United States.

Leisa: You told me this was a temporary assignment. Do you know how long it's going to last?

Jennifer: We have a two-year commitment, so Microsoft offered me to live in France, Paris, France for two years, and I will travel to those 37 countries. Somehow, we'll hit as many of those as I possibly can over the next two years. But more importantly, the seven major regions. You know, hitting the South Africa, the UK, Russia, the Middle East going to Istanbul. So I'll be traveling to some of the major subsidiaries and working with those employees and the customers and partners in those segments.

Leisa: Now will you be focused on a certain size business?

Jennifer: It's going to be the similar size that I've been working with here, which are the customers in our corporate account and small and medium business, but it also will be focused on our public sector business, so the government side of the organization, which I haven't spent as much time with here in the US.

Leisa: What do you think will be your biggest challenge?

Jennifer: I think the adapting to the culture. Understanding the rights and the wrongs, and what are the things that are expected from Microsoft as a partner to these customers and partners? What are the things that are meaningful to them as I align our business priorities and business opportunities to what's important to these cultures? Because I only understand the US culture, and so I will be looking to learn more and more about what it is that's important to them.

Leisa: Is this a new position for Microsoft? Is it something they created just for you, or are you replacing someone?

Jennifer: It's not a new position. I'm replacing someone that's today living in Munich, and he has taken on a new assignment, running the Central Europe market, so I will be replacing him. And really, when I look at the worldwide organization, we have three positions like mine. We have the AMiA, we have an APAC, which is the Asian Pacific countries. We have LATAM as the international, and then of course, everything else is based in the US, North America. And so those are - so there's really only two other positions that are like mine running the international business.

Leisa: Congratulations.

Jennifer: Thank you.

Leisa: This is very, very exciting. I'm looking forward to hearing more from you. I hope you'll come home and let us chat with you again when you're on vacation.

Jennifer: Absolutely.

Leisa: We want to keep up-to-date. And you can, if you want, just let us know, and we'll let our watchers and listeners know how you're doing.

Jennifer: I certainly will, and you know, Houston is my home. This is where my family is. This is where my heart is. This is where I will always call Houston home, and I'm sure I'll be back often to check in and see how things are going.

Leisa: Thank you, Jennifer, for bringing us up-to-date on your exciting career. That's Jennifer Heard, now vice president of AMiA for Microsoft. This is The BusinessMakers, heard on the radio and seen online at http://www.TheBusinessMakers.com.