{"id":21615,"date":"2016-11-30T05:52:39","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T13:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=21615"},"modified":"2016-12-02T13:27:28","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T21:27:28","slug":"difference-maker-spotlight-greatamericas-tawnya-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/the-week-in-imaging-twii\/editors-blog\/2016\/11\/difference-maker-spotlight-greatamericas-tawnya-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"Difference Maker Spotlight: GreatAmerica\u2019s Tawnya Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tawnya

Tawnya Stone of GreatAmerica<\/p><\/div>\n

How a company leverages technology has a huge impact on how well it performs. The challenge is that not many people have the business and tech savvy necessary to get both in sync toward reaching a goal. That\u2019s part of what makes Tawnya Stone exceptional and this week\u2019s Difference Maker.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in IT, however, across multiple industries,\u201d said Stone, VP of strategic partner technology at GreatAmerica Financial Services. She held positions at Philips Electronics and Verizon Communications prior to spending six years at GreatAmerica as an IT project manager. \u201cThat role gave me exposure to our internal programs and supporting systems. After working on a few projects, I started to learn our customers\u2019 side of the business. When an opportunity arose to work more on the business side, I jumped and haven\u2019t looked back. I still interface very closely with IT designing solutions, but get to work with the people who use the technology and see the tremendous benefit it provides.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, working with people–both at GreatAmerica and its customers–is a big part of Stone\u2019s job. Whether she is in the office or traveling, Stone is focused on learning from her customers and partners and then working with her internal IT group to improve their processes. \u201cI love the fact that my job is a combination of developing relationships with people to understand their world and what they need, and partnering with other industry leaders to serve a common customer–all while getting to design cool technology solutions to make life easier or more accurate for our dealers,\u201d said Stone.<\/p>\n

Stone said she felt honored to be recognized by her peers. \u201cI feel like this industry is one big family and I am so happy to be included! There are some people that have relationships that go back 20-plus years, so I am lucky to know and learn from them and be able to be a part of such a rich history,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Among the people Stone credits for helping her find success is her mom. \u201cShe always believed I could do absolutely anything I set my mind to and gave me the confidence to believe it myself.\u201d Another person who helped Stone didn\u2019t at first seem to be on her side. \u201cOne of my early managers was exceptionally hard on me\u2026with seemingly impossible expectations,\u201d she said. \u201cI initially thought he disliked me, but he confided that he wanted to instill a level of excellence because he saw such a bright future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stone also credits GreatAmerica\u2019s COO David Pohlman as a positive influence. \u201cHe is my role model–someone who sees the big picture, understands the details, loves the utilization of technology and is always looking at our world through the customer\u2019s eyes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

What makes Stone most proud is the number of customer tools and integrations GreatAmerica offers to its customers, and the commitment GreatAmerica has made to help dealers improve their businesses. \u201cIt takes more than just determining the specific functionality that should exist. Since IT is always a finite resource and our dealers have their own priorities, it requires deep partnerships and a willingness to help our common customer to accomplish meaningful integrations,\u201d said Stone. She also counts being honored as a 2016 ENX Difference Maker as \u201ca top highlight of my year!\u201d<\/p>\n

The best piece of advice about leadership that Stone ever got was to act like she had the job before she actually did. \u201cI can’t even believe how true that has been–being willing to learn more than you need, do more than you should, and help where you aren’t expected has created so many more opportunities than I could have ever consciously planned,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Stone is optimistic about the future of the industry. \u201cThere is so much opportunity for a dealer at this point, but the key for them is to be able to adapt in order to take advantage of it,\u201d she said. She cautions against doing the same things today as have been done in the past and encourages dealers to \u201cembrace new technologies and services, acknowledge new competitors, and seek new partnerships in order to keep our businesses from becoming stagnant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How a company leverages technology has a huge impact on how well it performs. The challenge is that not many people have the business and tech savvy necessary to get both in sync toward reaching a goal. That\u2019s part of what makes Tawnya Stone exceptional and this week\u2019s Difference Maker. \u201cI grew up in IT, however, across multiple industries,\u201d said Stone, VP of strategic partner technology at GreatAmerica Financial Services. She held positions at Philips Electronics and Verizon Communications prior to spending six years at GreatAmerica as an IT project manager. \u201cThat role gave me exposure to our internal programs and supporting systems. After working on a few projects, I started to learn our customers\u2019 side of the business. When an opportunity arose to work more on the business side, I jumped and haven\u2019t looked back. I still interface very closely with IT designing solutions, but get to work with the people who use the technology and see the tremendous benefit it provides.\u201d In fact, working with people–both at GreatAmerica and its customers–is a big part of Stone\u2019s job. Whether she is in the office or traveling, Stone is focused on learning from her customers and partners and then working with her internal IT group to improve their processes. \u201cI love the fact that my job is a combination of developing relationships with people to understand their world and what they need, and partnering with other industry leaders to serve a common customer–all while getting to design cool technology solutions to make life easier or more accurate for our dealers,\u201d said Stone. Stone said she felt honored to be recognized by her peers. \u201cI feel like this industry is one big family and I am so happy to be included! There are some people that have relationships that go back 20-plus years, so I am lucky to know and learn from them and be able to be a part of such a rich history,\u201d she said. Among the people Stone credits for helping her find success is her mom. \u201cShe always believed I could do absolutely anything I set my mind to and gave me the confidence to believe it myself.\u201d Another person who helped Stone didn\u2019t at first seem to be on her side. \u201cOne of my early managers was exceptionally hard on me\u2026with seemingly impossible expectations,\u201d she said. \u201cI initially thought he disliked me, but he confided that he wanted to instill a level of excellence because he saw such a bright future.\u201d Stone also credits GreatAmerica\u2019s COO David Pohlman as a positive influence. \u201cHe is my role model–someone who sees the big picture, understands the details, loves the utilization of technology and is always looking at our world through the customer\u2019s eyes,\u201d she said. What makes Stone most proud is the number of customer tools and integrations GreatAmerica offers to its customers, and the commitment GreatAmerica has made to help dealers improve their businesses. \u201cIt takes more than just determining the specific functionality that should exist. Since IT is always a finite resource and our dealers have their own priorities, it requires deep partnerships and a willingness to help our common customer to accomplish meaningful integrations,\u201d said Stone. She also counts being honored as a 2016 ENX Difference Maker as \u201ca top highlight of my year!\u201d The best piece of advice about leadership that Stone ever got was to act like she had the job before she actually did. \u201cI can’t even believe how true that has been–being willing to learn more than you need, do more than you should, and help where you aren’t expected has created so many more opportunities than I could have ever consciously planned,\u201d she said. Stone is optimistic about the future of the industry. \u201cThere is so much opportunity for a dealer at this point, but the key for them is to be able to adapt in order to take advantage of it,\u201d she said. She cautions against doing the same things today as have been done in the past and encourages dealers to \u201cembrace new technologies and services, acknowledge new competitors, and seek new partnerships in order to keep our businesses from becoming stagnant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":12951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[80,1650,1638],"tags":[494],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21615"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21615"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21700,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21615\/revisions\/21700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}