Meet Janet C. Wylie
2006 Chairman of North Carolina Technology Association
CEO and President, Engineous Software
by Coretta Poole

It takes a trailblazer to lead effectively in the fast-changing worlds of technology and business. Focused and energetic, Janet C. Wylie is just the trailblazer to fill the bill in her dual leadership roles in North Carolina’s technology community. Wylie is CEO and President of Engineous Software. She is also the 2006 Chairman of the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA).

As CEO and President of Engineous Software, Wylie leads a company that develops software that helps other companies make their products better. Whether these products are aircraft engines, automobile power trains, or any of a multitude of products manufactured in the automobile, aerospace, and heavy equipment industries, Wylie is in her element discussing her firm’s flagship products—iSIGHT™ and FIPER™—which integrate the hundreds, often thousands, of software programs that design engineers use to create an array of complex, heavy duty products that are expected to perform consistently and reliably for many years. Headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, Engineous Software is recognized as the market leader in the process integration and design optimization market. The company gains its strength primarily from its position as a market innovator of two workhorse products whose success stories for its Fortune 500 customers are legion.

Finding a market for Engineous’ products has not always been easy. “We have tended to be very visionary,” reflects Wylie. “With our first product, our iSIGHT product, we didn’t have any competition for several years. That was good news and bad news. The good news was that we had no competition; the bad news was that we had to spend much of our time doing missionary work.” Engineous’ missionary work has not only included teaching customers what the products do and how they work, but also training the market on process optimization. Having successfully established 50–75% dominance of its market and with an impressive customer portfolio of more than 300 clients, Wylie expects to lead the company to an initial public offering within the next five years.

Wylie’s life as a trailblazer mirrors her success as a business leader. “Being the only woman in your math class, physics class, and chemistry class, and studying where there were very few women in college, you learn to count on your abilities as an individual,” Wylie says, recalling her high school and college experiences. “Your performance is judged based on your skills and your abilities. Then you learn to network. You learn to meet people. You learn to work as part of a team.”

Her career in technology has been a match of natural talent, ability, and opportunity. “Math and science really came naturally for me. I had an intuitive ability for it and I loved it.” The self-described “math jock” graduated in the top two of her class with a degree in civil engineering from Georgia Tech in the late seventies when the male-to-female ratio there was 11-to-1. Her strong academic performance landed her a prized but challenging first job—working as the only woman on an Exxon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

A woman who has faced daunting challenges and triumphed, Wylie has made a habit of achieving goals and excelling in situations where few before her have dared venture. It is those experiences, she says, that have served to develop her into an effective leader. A brilliant strategist, she understands the importance of leveraging strengths to achieve goals.

As if leading an international technology firm would not keep her busy enough, Wylie is also the 2006 Chairman of the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA). An information technology trade association, NCTA represents the information technology industry in North Carolina and is dedicated to growing and strengthening the state’s IT industry by increasing public awareness and influencing key public policy issues. The association’s 2006 agenda focuses primarily on legislative, education, and business leadership training and networking initiatives.

As part of its legislative agenda, Wylie has been front and center in crafting NCTA’s strategy to position North Carolina’s technology community as a power player in the defense industry. As the nation marks the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, NCTA’s work since that tragic date has leveraged the strengths of North Carolina’s businesses, universities, and incubators as a hub for the research and development activities that will aid the United States with national security and terrorism. NCTA’s work has included promoting the capabilities of North Carolina’s technology industry to the federal government so that the state can attract its share of federal spending on homeland security and create more jobs within the state.

An important outcome of NCTA’s work in this area has been the North Carolina Defense and Security Technology Accelerator (DSTA) headquartered in Fayetteville, NC. DSTA is a business incubator that accelerates the formation and growth of early-stage defense and security technology companies and increases their chances for success. “North Carolina ranked very high compared to other states in terms of what we contribute to the military in terms of the number of bases, active military personnel, and the citizens that are associated with running those bases, but North Carolina ranked very low in the amount of money that we receive for military initiatives. That represented a huge disparity and part of our strategy was to raise the level of awareness of what was given versus what we get,” Wylie says. After NCTA secured the funding for the incubator, she helped move the statewide innovation asset forward to reality.

Recognizing that developing the ability to understand technology begins at an early age, NCTA has been very active in getting computers into the state’s elementary schools, particularly those located in rural communities where youth typically lack access to computers at home. Spearheading such technology insertion projects has positioned NCTA’s member companies as true stakeholders in the success of the state’s education system. “Businesses want to be able to hire educated people and to accomplish this we’ve got to start early. As business leaders, we have to look past this year’s financials. We must look to the future and ask, ‘How do we grow tomorrow’s workforce?’” Based on the feedback from teachers, these projects have been wildly successful.

Throughout the year, NCTA’s business leadership training and networking initiatives create an environment where technology business leaders can share best practices, meet with high-ranking officials, and develop essential networks for business and professional development. “We bring in economists, leadership speakers, and we sponsor a number of events where information that is relevant to CEOs and business leaders is presented. When I attend our events, I always come away with two or three nuggets of information that I know I will use to make improvements. As CEOs, we can’t keep doing the same thing. If we do, we won’t grow and our companies will not grow. NCTA has actually brought in the CIO of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Commerce, military generals, and GSA officials. These activities have led to a number of North Carolina companies securing contracts for defense work.”

One of NCTA’s networking groups, Women in Information Sciences and Engineering (WISE), focuses its efforts on the education and growth of women in technology. Wylie remarks, “In this country, we start with little girls and we really give subliminal messages that discourage them from pursuing math, science, and technology careers. When Jill Barad was CEO of Mattel in the nineties, Mattel sold a Barbie doll that said, ‘Math class is hard!’ The Ken doll never said that.”

And as recently as the year 2000 at a well-funded magnet high school for science and technology, the female students reported that they were not only lacking encouragement to attend college but were routinely ignored in class and were instructed to look over the boys’ shoulders when there were not enough computers to go around. This situation existed despite the fact that all the students were academically gifted and the girls were at least as qualified as the boys, since everyone who attended the school took the same test. “Women who work in technology have essentially gone through life being bombarded with negative messages,” observes Wylie. This situation underscores the need for WISE and similar organizations.

Yet having attained success in the technology industry herself, Wylie speaks from experience when she notes, “Technology is a great place for women to be. Because it is very quantitative—very measurable—you can be judged on the merits of your work. And North Carolina is a great place for women to be. That’s why I am so excited about my work with NCTA, doing what I can do, promoting work that is favorable for women and promoting a state with an environment that is friendly for business.”

The 2006 Annual NCTA 21 Awards will be held at the Embassy Suites in Cary on November 9, 2006. Nominations will be accepted through September 22, 2006.