Cara Antoine has joined IG&H as Managing Director Digital Transformation in January. Her purpose: to change, improve, and save people’s lives and the planet. You can find her at the intersection of technology and humanity. Cara was previously employed at Microsoft, The Netherlands, where she was responsible to lead the organization to digitally transform businesses through innovations in AI and the Cloud and enable people and organizations to achieve more. Cara also volunteers and serves on the Executive Advisory Board and as President of the Netherlands Chapter for Global Women in Tech, the Board of the Corneal Patients Association and as Chairwoman of the Awards Committee, the Quality Council at the BIT Coding Academy, Supervisory Board of the Wortell Group, and as Co-Founder and Advisory member of the Global Shell Alumni Network.
What are you most passionate about & why is that?
I fell in love with technology at a young age. My passion lies in keeping technology and humanity in balance by enabling diverse representation to improve the benefits in all tech settings. What I am most proud of is that I enjoy what I do, I wake up every day and am excited about the possibilities and what we can achieve when working together as one team! I am eager to find the right ways to take people along in the transformation journey by focusing on inclusion, empowerment, and empathy, and in creating and enabling access and accessibility. It’s not only my passion, but even more so what I stand for and who I am as a person.
Why did you choose IG&H?
In this new role, I will be working with several international enterprise executive customers and clients in the Health and Retail sectors. I see similarities in IG&H’s purpose and my own. What is important to me is that my work – our work – positively influences our society, the economy, and the world we live in. Ultimately, it’s the convergence of multiple tech innovations enabled by connectivity – and the organizational change through the use of these integrated technologies and business models – that will improve performance, delight companies, and exceed customers’ expectations through transformation in the digital economy. I am often reminded by nature’s illustration of the meaning of transformation: a snake can change by renewing its skin, but it remains a snake; a snail may grow and move into a new shell, but is still a snail. It is the caterpillar that turns into a butterfly, that’s transformation! It’s not about creating faster caterpillars.
What excites you the most about the future?
Our digital economy introduces new vision through business models, innovations, thought-leadership, growth, and competitiveness, guided by a data-driven strategy. No company or industry is immune from the need to disrupt and transform in the digital era, yet surprisingly, only 70% of leaders (according to CXO Transform) recognize this need to adapt to a digital environment. Of that population, only 55% at the board level see “digital” as a concern, 25% have plans to tackle it, but only 2% of companies in the European economy are actually doing something and taking action. There is a huge opportunity in front of us, in terms of how we can empower and enable people and organizations to take full advantage of digital transformation. I am excited to get to team up with the experts in my field and across industries, to co-create with them and elevate one another as we look beyond the constraints of the past to build our new future together.