WITI Women | Bren Norris
Bren Norris
Founder & President, Bren Norris Associates
After the 1987 stock market crash, Bren Norris had an opportunity to leave her position as a stockbroker with Paine Webber to pursue her lifelong passion of starting her own business. On the East Coast she had worked in the information systems industry with corporations such as Xerox and Pitney Bowes. Understanding the contract consulting industry and believing in the potential of technology, Norris decided to open an agency for technical professionals.
She named her company Bren Norris Associates. BNA provides a leaseback program where they payroll employees of major corporations and lease their services back to them. Her achievements in this industry took her into the international market arena providing support to her U.S. clients in their overseas offices. Norris provides these services from her virtual office where she is connected using the latest technologies which allow her to run her business 24 hours a day in many different countries around the globe.
On the personal side, Norris writes children's books and has a deep love for music. Her grand piano provides a balance in her daily schedule. She is also an accomplished public speaker. In 1995 she was an elected delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business and worked on issues and recommendations to congress related to intellectual property law.
Norris spoke most recently at the Governor's Conference for Women and at the 7th Annual Business Conference for the Asian Business Association. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Bren Norris answers these questions:
1. What was your first job in technology?
2. Who has been your most significant mentor? Why?
3. What has been your greatest challenge and what strategies
did you use to overcome obstacles?
4. Who has been the most influential person in your life?
Why?
5. What lessons have you learned that would be valuable to
women beginning their careers in technology?
6. What strategies do you use to maintain balance in your
life?
7. What new technology do you believe will have the most positive
impact on the world in the next 20 years? The most negative impact?
On the lighter side:
1. If you could have dinner with any 2 people (living or not),
who would they be?
2. If you could only subscribe to 3 magazines, what would
they be?
3. What was the last book you read?
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