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Lina Ramos-Holm
represents a unique kind
of executive in the
technology sector. Her
role is to step into an
early stage company and
work side by side with
the founders to bring a
product to market or
leverage the product to
other companies
interested in
partnerships. It
requires intense,
short-term strategic
development of companies
geared toward producing
immediate results that
will generate revenue
with new clients or
investors. Based in San
Diego, Calif., Emerging
Growth Enterprises
consists of four
partners working as an
executive/entrepreneurial
team that supports the
strategic planning,
implementation and
financing of early
growth stage companies.
Ramos-Holm is currently
focused on companies
that can support the
increasing technology
needs of the Department
of Defense and the
Department of Homeland
Security.
A native of northern
California, Ramos-Holm
is one of 10 children,
all raised with key
values that still have
meant a great deal to
her career. “We were
raised to believe that
education, family and
faith are central to a
good life,” she says.
“If you could master
these three values, then
you could be a person
that could contribute
back to your community.” |
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Lina Ramos-Holm
President,
Emerging Growth
Enterprise, LLC
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Ramos-Holm started her company
in 2000 and has already
leveraged her experience with
five early stage companies — all
technology companies that
required her management and
marketing savvy. “My colleagues
consider me a verb, and they
often think of what I do as is
having been ‘Lina-ed’” she says.
Her energy and focus are
obvious. A graduate of Stanford
School of Business’s MBA program
in 1992, Ramos-Holm has already
held senior positions in Fortune
500 companies like Monsanto and
Procter and Gamble. At a young
age, Ramos-Holm was sent to
Spain to run a Nutrition and
Consumer Division for Monsanto’s
Life Sciences Business Team
building a market for
bio-engineered functional foods.
“I was young, energetic, and I
didn’t know what I didn’t know.
But I had confidence and belief
that I could do anything I
wanted because I came in the
door with fundamental
competencies gained through my
education,” Ramos-Holm says. “On
the one hand there is what the
outside world expected of me,
and then there’s what I expected
of myself. Everyone in my family
went to college and graduate
school, and so my internal voice
said I was equal to everyone
around me. I think that gave me
an advantage.”
It also helps that Ramos-Holm
entered the technology field
just as the boom was beginning
and that she was at the center
of it at Stanford. Ramos-Holm
recalls a specific event that
resonates even today, when Steve
Jobs, the CEO of Apple and
Pixar, addressed her and her
Stanford classmates and
participated in an
entrepreneurial scavenger hunt.
“During his speech he reminded
all of us in the program that we
would become people who create
value for companies in unique,
disruptive ways. This really
shaped my appreciation for
technology as a driving force
for any company, and I still
think of how much his words ring
true,” says Ramos-Holm. “Look at
Amazon and [how] the way we buy
books will never be the same
again, or look at Yahoo and how
different advertising is today.
The people who developed these
companies are creating new
value, not just putting a new
name on an old product.”
For young Latinas seeking
careers in technology,
Ramos-Holm suggests success in
the industry is grounded in two
things: “First, you have to work
hard, and second, you have to be
bold and take risks.”
She sees Latinas as especially
capable of handling the demands
of technology careers. “We work
in a zone that allows 150%
output. Culturally we know how
to give just as much energy to
our work as we do to the
wellness of our family. It may
be exhausting, but it is also
empowering because that which
does not hurt us enables us to
be strong. We are performing at
very high levels, and our ethics
tell us to perform extremely
well. This is exactly what
companies today need.”
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