Consulting® APRIL 2020 27
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For more than 25 years, Nora Pykkonen has been a major mover and shaker in the tech world. She is the founder ofbusiness transformation specialistSlalom Consulting, and Haave.io,a company specializing in naturallanguage processing, AI and deepmachine learning.
She began consulting in 1993 byfounding Slalom Consulting with$10,000 in capital, which quicklygrew into one of the largest privately held technology consulting firmsin the world with $1.5 billion inrevenue and over 7,000 employees.She sold her 51 percent interest inthe company in 2012 and purchasedEcho Mountain, a small ski area onthe front range of Colorado.
“Financially, my greatest
achievement would be founding
Slalom Consulting, however, suc-
cess to me is not monetary,” she
says. “Periods of financial hard-
ship have forced me to revalu-
ate and build from the ground up,
yet I don’t view these instances as
evidence of failure. Rather, I view
such periods as evidence that I have
stuck to my values and always put
my family first, no matter the cost.”
She sold the ski area in 2016 and
moved on to other pursuits. For the
next three years, she was involved
in Smart City Initiatives in which
she developed an NLP Search tool
that has human-level understand-
ing and a vocabulary of over a mil-
lion words. This tool was used last
year by one of the largest law firms
in the U.S. to find key documents
needed to reverse the decision of
a previously lost lawsuit, leading
to a $250 million settlement. She
joined Myrtle Consulting Group in
2019 and takes on the challenge ofleading and coordinating Myrtle’sdigital efforts and having technology adopted in the OperationsConsulting world.
“Today, technology provides somany ways to improve people’slives, regardless of the demographic or situation,” she says. “I believetechnology will improve equalityand diversity throughout the world.I love being a part of this process.”Technology presents a perpetually expanding range of opportunities,she says. “I’m excited to utilize newadvancements and optimize currentoperations for our clients. Furthermore, amid a global pandemic, wewill have to adjust to the alteredeconomic climate,” Pykkonen says.
“While this is daunting, it also pro-
vides time to prioritize innovation
and work together to move towards
a brighter future.”
As far as being recognized as
one of the Women Leaders in Tech-
nology, she says she is honored to
receive this award, however, it is
not the impact on an individual
scale that excites her; it is the op-
portunity to inspire others.
“Throughout my career, I haveencountered so many people thattold me my vision was impossibleor unlikely,” Pykkonen says. “Ilearned to tune out the noise, follow my heart, and employ creativity to maximize my unique potential. In time, I proved them wrong.Everyone has something valuableto offer and I hope that they willuse their voice. It is time for thosein power to listen.”
NORAPYKKONEN
MYRTLECONSULTING GROUPEXCELLENCE ININNOVATION
Have you experienced challenges being a woman consultant in the technology field?
PYKKONEN: “In my personal experience, I have never felt that gender has played
a significant role in my professional life. The decisions I made were never in-
fluenced by this factor, they simply came from the heart. However, I have con-
sidered that this may have been because I was an employer rather than an
employee. So, when I wanted to breastfeed my girls and interview candidates
at the same time, I literally did, and no one ever said you cannot. I hope that
this will soon be the same for all working women, regardless of their position.”
Q&A
