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If you do home banking, chances are you're using one of Maria Azua's inventions, or an IT infrastructure designed by her. It's just one of many technology advances for which Azua is responsible.
In the newly created post of VP of technology and innovation for IBM's CIO office in Somers, NY, Azua is using her skills, knowledge and charismatic personality to improve the climate for innovation at IBM. She's been in this job a little more than a year, but with the company since 1989.
Foremost an inventor
Azua holds forty-five patents and has another forty-four pending. They cover a wide spectrum of technology, including telecom, Web servers, transcoder technology, Java implementation and enhancements and data manipulation.
"I've been developing things for many years in other areas of the company," she says. "But I'm really enjoying this new VP job because it's a different perspective.
"Before, I was doing the technology to create solutions for other customers. Now I am the customer, looking at the infrastructure IBM needs to do business. I'm constructing a community of innovators within IBM today."
Running TAP
Azua is running a "technology adoption program" (TAP). If an employee has an idea like a new feature or an extension for an IBM product, TAP provides the support for it. "The process is like a contest," Azua says. "Put it out there and see if there's a demand!
"If you want to test your program, we'll arrange for people to download it, use it and give you feedback," she explains. "If they like it they can continue to use it. If a demand for it develops we provide resources to take it to the next level."
Azua's TAP team is made up of some fifty direct reports, but about 65,000 of IBM's 350,000 employees are actively engaged in the program, she says.
Half technology, half people
"Half my job is technology, and the other 50 percent includes the people, the logistics, the lawyers and the customers," Azua says. It's her responsibility to maintain the CIO's relationship with research, so all such work comes through her team.
She also responds to requests to deploy new technologies. For example, a current project involves synchronizing calendars with mail in MP3 players. Azua has to work with legal advisors on patents and licenses for that one.
Her first order of business when she gets up in the morning is to check her BlackBerry for messages from her teams in China, India, Russia and Vietnam. "I figure out answers to the hot issues that require my attention immediately. If everything is under control I drive to work."
Sometimes her day begins at 5 AM and doesn't slow down until 10 PM when she finally sits down to dinner with her husband, an IBM chip designer. "I cook everything on the weekend, and during the week we just pull it out of the fridge and sit down and talk," she says.
Physics and math
Azua was born in Cuba, but her lawyer father moved the family to Puerto Rico to escape the Castro regime. Her family's biggest concern was that she "get married right," she says, but instead she got a degree with honors in physics and math at the University of Puerto Rico. She started working on an MS in astrophysics at the Arecibo Radio Telescope Observatory in Puerto Rico.
But she discovered that she preferred writing computer programs used to analyze the vast quantity of data generated by the radio telescope. "I enjoyed Fortran, which was hot back then. I liked the fast pace of computer science."
She became an expert on operating systems. "I knew everything about Unix when Oracle was not even public yet, and I was doing database work on multiple database systems."
On to the mainland
Her protective parents let her leave the island for the mainland to attend the University of Miami (Miami, FL) only because her aunt lived nearby. She completed an MSCS in 1984 and took a job at Gould Electronics CSD (Fort Lauderdale, FL) as a software engineer II.
In 1988 she moved to Data General (Research Triangle Park, NC) as a senior software engineer. She got into Oracle there, but the next year she joined an IBM facility in Boca Raton, FL.
Starting at IBM
Her first job with IBM was as a staff programmer. By 1991 she was lead architect of ImagePlus system manager storage, supervising a dozen software engineers. She also trained marketing and pre-sales people on the new product line.
She went on to four years as an advisory architect and planner, expanding her knowledge of operating systems. One project involved architecture, design and development and implementation assistance on the OS/2 boot sequence, and she was lead architect for micro-kernels and led marketing research for an IBM PDA. She supervised four architects and managed a $15 million budget.
She did other work, too. She was lead architect for the DOS shell design and implementation, planner for the DOS operating system, and architect for point of sale support for the likes of Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Sears.
In 1993 she finished an MBA at Florida Atlantic University.
Moving to financials
The Boca Raton site was closed in 1995 and Azua moved to Austin, TX to work with IBM's sales and distribution financial sector. She was lead architect for the company's interactive financial services solution, used by many large U.S. banks, and designed a home banking solution for NationsBank and BankOne.
In 1998 she was promoted to the prestigious job of senior tech staff manager. She has twice received "master inventor" commendations, for work done for the financial sector and, later, the IBM software group.
Think tank and other honors
In 2002 Azua became the first Latina elected to the IBM Academy of Technology, a think tank of IBM's top techies that studies and recommends solutions to critical technical problems in the computer industry. "It takes a lot of years to be recognized at that level. Actually I'm much younger than most of them," Azua points out with a smile.
She spent 2004 in the temporary post of IBM distinguished engineer, then director of corporate technology evaluation. She moved to her current VP job in 2005.
Mentoring
Azua is leader of Region 7 of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE). She's responsible for all SHPE's university chapters and professional groups in the region. She's also a member of IBM's Hispanic technical leaders forum, which is committed to developing Hispanic talent at the company. The group mentors likely techies, and is responsible for a big increase in patent submission activity.
Azua has mentored other technical folks at IBM and participated in IT architect certification boards and project management mentoring programs. She has also contributed to mentoring for Women in Technology, IT Architects, eMentoring and La Red Familiar, an IBM network of high-potential Hispanic women.
In the community she's involved in National Engineering Week and La Familia technology week, which promote engineering to young students.
Bright future
Throughout her career, Azua has found IBM sensitive to her need to be near family. "The company is very flexible, and understands that in the Hispanic culture we're very close to our parents."
Azua believes that the future is bright at IBM for innovators like herself who seek the opportunity to excel with their ideas. "More and more I see people interested in getting into the world economy and people who want to get onto my team. We have a very diverse team and groups everywhere, and we want the best they can offer."
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