Marianne Marck + love of math = long tech career - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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Marck spent part of her formative years in the lab ofher dad, chemisty Paul Kruesi, a noted inventort in areas such as metal refiningg and recycling. Marck was influenced by her dad’sz scientific leanings, but she ultimately decided not to follow directly inhis “You’d have to sit therw and something would have to be stirreds for three hours,” Marck said in a recent interview, laughingy at the memory. “I wouldn’t say I found chemistry to be incrediblhy exciting.” Math and computer science were a different matter. Marck’s passion and aptitude for thosee subjects led to a career that has evolved along with thetechnology industry.
She started as a programmer at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Calif., and then became an engineer and engineerinyg manager at the Sybasedatabasse company. From there, she transitioned into online working as a technologyu executive at CNet Networks before becoming vice president of engineering for Disney InteractiveMedia Group, based in Seattle. She worked therer from 2003 to 2009, helping to lead the transitionb of Disney and its online propertieds into advanced online videoand ads. In Marck became senior vice president of technologyfor , the Seattle-base online diamond and fine-jewelrh retailer, leading an engineering team of about 40 people.
Amonv other things, the job plays to Marck’x experience in databases. Because each diamond is it’s considered an individual producrt stock-keeping unit, or SKU, requiringb sophisticated back-end systems. Blue Nile uses a combination of open source and homegrown technologies to run the site and its Theengineering team’s first big project, upon Marck’z arrival, was to roll out new technologies for makinh purchases in international currencies in 22 to support the onlin retailer’s global expansion.
“It touched through the whole system stack our pricing, search, all of the back-ened systems,” Marck said, citing the importance of the international rollout to Blue Nile’s overall strategy. More recently, Marcok and others at the company have been exploringb the concept of using social mobile applications and other innovations to enhancdBlue Nile’s online Longer term, Marck said she sees additional opportunitie s to improve the buying experience to help even more peopl become comfortable making big purchases For example, she wants to explore ways to make the imagess of diamonds on Blue Nile’s site look even more true to Blue Nile is unusual in having women in key leadership starting with Diane Irvine, the company’x chief executive officer.
Elsewhere in the technology men dominate engineering andexecutivse positions, despite efforts by companies and industryt coalitions to interest more girls in careers in computert science. In general, Marck said, the country needz to put more emphasis on math and science educatiojn for boysand girls. Marck acknowledges the gendefr imbalance in the technology industry but saidshe doesn’t focusw on it in her own career. She mentors otherd women in the field, but she also mentora men, keeping in touch with people who have workesd for her inthe past.
“Someonre said to me once, about the glasa ceiling, ‘There’s not a glass ceiling, there’xs just a lot of men up there,’ ” she “I think that’s really a good way to look at it. Generallu in technology what you’re reall y focusing on is figuringthings out, making this better, getting thingss done, meeting a deadline. That’s really been my approach to it.
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