The importance of understanding and helping each other-- my insights from my career #1

Margaret Hoagland, VP of Global Sales and Marketing at SIOS Technology Corp.

Margaret Hoagland, vice president of global sales and marketing for the U.S. operating company SIOS
Technology Corp. We asked her about her career to date and what she values in her work.

Solving complex and sophisticated customer challenges with the bestsolutions- Please tell us about SIOS Technology Corp.
Margaret: STC is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and has its flagship product, HA Cluster
Software LifeKeeper. STC's strength is its in-depth knowledge of data protection and its ability toprovide one-stop solutions that are optimized for customers' systems.
- Please tell us about Margaret's role.
Margaret: Our biggest role is to raise awareness of the need for High Availability for critical application
systems across companies and to let them know that STC can provide the best solution. To do this, I
work closely with our sales team and sales partners.

Work that uses creativity to help others- Margaret, can you tell us about your background?
Margaret: I was born and raised in a small town near Boston on the East Coast of North America. I
played a lot of team sports from an early age because my parents encouraged me to do so, and I thinkthey wanted to instill in me the importance of being responsible and contributing to the team.
My father's words, "It's not so much the result as how seriously you work on it," have also helped me inmy thinking about my career.
I also loved writing and creating, and wanted to have a job where I could make use of such things, but I
did not have a concrete vision for my future. What I strongly felt, however, was that I wanted to do workthat would benefit someone else.

- What has your career been like?
Margaret: My first job was with an organization that supports patients with heart disease, raising funds
for research and other needs. It was a tough job with a lot of responsibility, such as organizing
fundraising rallies and presentations, but I learned a lot about how marketing works in the real world,which was a good experience for me in my work. After that, I worked for an environmental engineering
company that handled air pollution control and water treatment systems for cities and towns, a software
reseller, and a company that handled application protection products.
- How did you meet STC?
Margaret: A former colleague of mine at a company that handles application protection products worked
at STC and said, "We're looking for a marketing person at STC, would you like to come?" I was justreevaluating my career and joined STC as Marketing Director. I joined STC as Marketing Director
because it was the right time for me to reevaluate my career. After joining STC, I continued to develop
my career and deepen my knowledge in the marketing and sales fields, but I also left STC for a time
because I always wanted to try new things. I had an opportunity to work as a product marketing
manager, something I had never done before, and after gaining some experience in this area, I returned
to STC. In fact, the job as a product manager was very challenging and I gained a lot from it. I am still
making use of that experience in my current job.
- Did you have any decisions you had to make when considering your career, or was thereanything that was important to you?
Margaret: I have always had the desire to do work that gives back to society in more ways than justselling products, and to do work that is creative and helpful to others. This is still true today.
I also value the desire to learn about new things. The world is constantly changing. One of the things I
do is to look for new solutions to problems. I am careful not to fix my thinking patterns. (continued in #2)