Women who believe in their power and possibilities can change the world into a better place. At Synergy International Systems is, such women are get the chance to develop, grow and take leadership positions and successfully fulfill their mission.

In December 2019, Synergy International Systems, Inc. officially joined the United Nation’s Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), thus pledging to put into practice a WEPs action plan. By endorsing the WEPs, Synergy has joined over 2000 businesses from around the globe in taking decisive action for further advancing women’s empowerment. As a tech company where 49% of tech roles and 39% of leadership roles are occupied by women, Synergy recognizes the value of women professionals in ensuring the growth and sustainability of the business.

In this article Mediamax tells a story about women working at Synergy Armenia, who have occupied leadership roles in the sphere of information technologies for years.

A recipe for success 

After years of being successful in the company and taking a key leadership position, Director of Synergy Armenia Anna Stepanyan looks back and realizes where she stands. She says she didn’t do anything special to get the position.

“I have succeeded thanks to my hard work and dedication. Your career may seem secondary as you focus on moving forward and only then you realize what you have achieved. Even today, I'm still learning and constantly working on myself. ” 

Anna Stepanyan

Photo: Mediamax

There are some qualities, Anna Stepanyan says, which are very important for women in leadership positions.

“You must have well-developed emotional intelligence, as well as be able to control your emotions as much as possible, especially when you are the boss. You are in the center of attention and everyone follows your decisions and steps. Being fair is also important, especially when people believe you and know that you will make a fair decision. I am always trying to work on it. What is also important is to have compassion for people, for work and for results.”

Family and the right for private life

Anna Stepanyan says that gender has never played a role at Synergy in terms of decision-making, and from the very beginning they have been guided by the employees’ values, qualifications, performance and dedication.

“Only then did we realize that women played a pretty serious and vital role in the company. But it was not a targeted strategy or approach. Later we tried to coordinate and document this situation, because it is an important achievement I think, and if in various countries and companies it is presented as an adopted strategy, in our company it happens spontaneously. Later through different approaches and classifications we tried to understand where we stood and what else we could do to position ourselves as a company not discriminating against women but encouraging them.”

Anna Stepanyan

Photo: Mediamax

Anna Stepanyan says Synergy is a “parent friendly” and “family friendly” company, and besides legislative requirements, the company provides additional benefits, for example, to employees who are on a maternity leave, allowing them to work from home for some time or to have extra free days depending on how many children they have, and so on.

Opportunities for continuous education and growth

From time to time, Synergy undertakes initiatives aimed at the continuous education and improvement of professional qualities of all the employees, and specifically for women and girls they host interesting lectures not just on business, but more personal topics such as welfare, work and life balance, health, parenting skills, etc.

“These are auxiliary initiatives through which we try to emphasize their importance not only at work, but in personal life as well,” says Anna Stepanyan.

Women and the role of a leader

At Synergy, women can become leaders through healthy collaboration. They grow and develop by focusing on business, sharing the same system of values and company’s approaches with other colleagues.

Anna Stepanyan

Photo: Mediamax

“Women’s role in IT sector keeps growing these days. We are guided by our example, have success stories, successful female bosses who negotiate big projects with our important customers and make deals. We have empiric examples, which make our stance even more convincing. The trust gained over the years can easily break the stereotypes that the IT sector is not suited for women and they cannot be IT leaders,” says Anna Stepanyan.

From junior programmer to  future boss

Hasmik Martirosyan is another “walking example” of a successful woman at Synergy. She started her career in the company as a junior programmer.

Choosing a profession was easy for Hasmik Martirosyan, since there were mathematicians in the family, and she decided to follow their path and applied to the Department of Mathematics and Informatics of Yerevan State University. Working while studying turned out to be just as easy. Hasmik has been at Synergy since she was 19 years old. She was one of the participants of company’s first summer school back in 2005, and as with all successful participants, they offered her to continue her career with the company.

“By accepting that offer I made the biggest step in my career and found myself in a company where I was given the opportunity to invest my knowledge and skills, grow, develop and contribute to the development of the company. I started as a junior programmer and Synergy gave me wings. Our summer school coaches often bring my example, which shows that Synergy is a place of endless opportunities. You can start as a summer school graduate, a beginner programmer and build a very interesting career path in the company,” says Hasmik Martirosyan, noting that the Synergy team has also helped her a lot.

Hasmik Martirosyan

Photo: Mediamax

Hasmik Martirosyan has been working as Chief Operating Officer for 4 years now, after being a Project Manager for some time, and today she is involved in dozens of projects at Synergy, overseeing their progress.

“In our big family of 250 people I am trying to create all the professional conditions for the smooth implementation of projects and for the creative work of colleagues in a healthy atmosphere. I am a link between our various departments, working with everyone and playing a multifunctional role. This sphere is very interesting to me. It is very important that the job you’ve chosen match your interests and desires. You will immediately know if you are in the right place, and in that case your job will not be a duty, but the favorite part of your life,” says Hasmik Martirosyan.

Conditions for development

Hasmik Martirosyan says that Synergy provides opportunities for all its employees based on professional and human qualities, and, at the same time, they try to ensure right gender balance in different teams. 

Hasmik Martirosyan

Photo: Mediamax

“All the employees have the opportunity to take on broader responsibilities in the future regardless of their gender, age, family status, etc. Synergy is a human-oriented company, and we encourage maintaining balance between work and personal life. By my personal example, I can say that over the many years of working at Synergy, there have been big changes in my life: I got married, had two children, and my job has never stopped me from spending time with my family and children. Even returning to work after maternity leave was easy, because I have been working from home for some time when my children were still very young. I am very busy at work of course, and my family also encourages and supports me.

The female face of IT

When Hasmik Martirosyan was starting off her career in IT, gender equality was disrupted, and there were more men who occupied decision-making positions.

“Over the course of time women proved that they were also capable and competent to work in high positions. I assure all the women that nowadays women’s success in IT mostly depends on their efforts, knowledge and qualities. You should be a professional at your job, but besides professional skills and knowledge, I think, it is very important to be reasonable and fair; being biased can always be an obstacle in making right decisions. You should be able to communicate with people in the right way, understand their daily difficulties, be capable and open to discuss problems and find solutions,” says Hasmik Martirosyan.

Hasmik Martirosyan

She believes that team work is very important on the way to success. “You need a good team of people who share your views and vision. It is important that each member of the team is given the right role, authority and opportunities to make decisions in their professional areas. If you try to take upon yourself the whole responsibility for decision-making and perceive other team members only as executors of your decisions, you will never go too far. Every decision and change, be it redistribution of responsibilities, a structural change or anything else related to “change management”, should be well thought through, otherwise the wrong decision may have serious consequences.”

Marie Tarian 

Photos: Emin Aristakesyan