Women’s History Month: Meet Lynne Reynolds
In honor of Women’s History Month, we’d like to introduce you to some of our exceptional women leaders.
Meet Lynne Reynolds, Business Process Consultant, Milestone
What is your role at Milestone?
As a Business Process Consultant, I work with a multitude of companies – particularly in the early stages – to investigate, analyze and baseline their existing operations and provide recommendations for improvement. I support Service Management vendor and tool selections and capture specific process and system configuration requirements to support ServiceNow implementations.
A woman who inspires me is ……
Many women have inspired me, but in particular Gloria Steinem, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Helen Gurley Brown. I attended an interview of Gloria Steinem (moderated by Cheryl Strayed) during which Ms. Steinem stated (paraphrasing) that you can tell a lot about a country’s values by the way it treats its women.
What is the greatest lesson you have learned in business?
Be fearless. Learn your craft and don’t be afraid to speak up if you have something to contribute. Throw your hat in the ring for new projects, roles and challenges. Step up, lean in and learn everything.
If you could give young women one piece of advice, what would it be?
I have had a number of women starting out in tech careers “shadow” me, and I always tell them to be fearless. In general, men tend to apply for jobs when they can do 50% or more of the role. Women tend to apply for jobs when they can do 80-90% of the role. Women need to parlay their experience while they’re being interviewed and speak to what they CAN do and not just to what they have DONE. I also encourage women to actively network with women in their field and do lots of field research on the companies they are interested in to explore not just the what the company does, but also the culture and how the company treats or advances women.
Biggest challenge?
I am probably one of the few members of our practice who doesn’t code. I have written two lines of code in my life and only one has worked. As an English major, coding defies syntax rules that my brain understands, although I can look at code and figure out what it’s doing. My goal was never to be a “turbo nerd”. I like digging into the business or operational issues that a company may be having and figuring out how to translate that into technical solutions. I’m fascinated by companies and the various unique challenges they are trying to solve and that’s what drives me every day.
Greatest accomplishment?
I graduated as valedictorian of my high school class. I was a senior class officer and in the National Honor Society. I won a Curator’s Scholarship to university and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from the Honors College. My goal at 18 years old was to write and teach. Today, I have the opportunity to write and teach every day (only it’s not about Shakespeare!)
Favorite inspirational quote:
My favorite line from the movie Harold and Maude: “I like people, they’re my species.” Quote from a former director: “You don’t get what you don’t ask for.”
