Dana Florea: The Tech Leader Who Believes in Empathy and Adaptability

Dana Florea is one of the powerful women in tech as she is successfully operating as the COO of Accesa. Part of the Ratiodata Group, Accesa is a leading IT Services and Technology company headquartered in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The company has offices in Oradea and Munich. It is an established employer of choice for IT professionals and a trusted partner for major brands in Retail, Financial Services Manufacturing, and Automotive. With more than 700 passionate IT professionals and 20+ competence areas, Accesa has a distinctive people-first culture the company's problem-solving approach through technology enables each one to thrive, their clients to evolve, and end-users to succeed.

The Journey of a Successful Strategist

Dana joined Accesa three years ago as an  Improvement Manager and was offered the COO role at the beginning of 2020. She is responsible for providing short and long-term operational strategies that support effective business management, nurturing people growth, and alignment with the company's strategy. Her career revolves around creating teams and environments where technical intelligence and emotional intelligence meet, and she likes to promote it amongst other leaders. She believes that if one can be fully oneself and can put their whole self into the work, they will have the best chance of thriving and being successful.

Facing the Challenging Phases

The decision to accept the COO position at Accesa has been a pivotal moment in Dana's career. After only three weeks in the role, the entire world faced an atypical and unique situation resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pace of the new times accelerated Dana's journey of self-discovery, building self-trust, courage, and gratitude. The rare situations of this time have placed her in a position to balance caring for her colleagues and their critical work while continuing to care for her clients' needs. Dana believes that the intensity of actions has taught her more about herself as a leader than her entire 15-year career.

The Making of a Transformational Leader

According to Dana, any transformational leader needs to be empathic. She makes time to know the people at an individual level. She believes that any leader needs to understand how people respond to change, the attitude to feedback, or what motivates people to be part of an organization. According to her, charisma and true presence in every situation allow no space for negativity, which helps leaders create and sustain a creative and connected environment. Leaders who inspire have at the center of all their actions and decisions the organization's greater good. They generate a level of trust and accountability, which allows those being led to feel safe and secure when choosing to follow.

Ascending the Stairs of Customer Satisfaction

Innovation comes in many shapes and forms for Accesa. Its clients are set on their digital transformation path to bring in new technologies. Therefore, every project the company delivers directly contributes to the innovative environments of its clients. At Accesa, the company has an internal audience avid to innovate and continuously optimize how they work. The company's operations Tooling Team supports and constantly interacts with the internal audience. They aim to solve real problems and address real needs. Therefore, the Accesa key that unlocks customer satisfaction success is active listening, paramount for both the clients and the colleagues.

Acing Innovation in Disruptive Technologies

Disruptive technologies are already changing society. They help build the future, drive productivity, increase sustainability and help people live longer. The leaders of today have to combine an understanding of the meaning of technology and the people who either use or are impacted by technology.

Humility and a willingness to seek diverse inputs are essential. A directive leadership style that lacks humbleness is not resonating with the people anymore, especially in the IT Services industry.

Adaptability and vision are both critical for different reasons.  For any leader, having a clear vision and articulating it well, is a core competency. The sheer unpredictability of the business environments today means traditional analytical approaches fail to provide the definitive insights into long-term strategies that leaders have relied on in the past. Adaptability without vision can lead to rudderless change. Dana finds fearless engagement with partners to be critical. Combining people insights and data insights will make the difference between engaged and connected leaders and the others who tag along.

The Future that Lies Ahead

Dana feels that the company's IT Services are part of a meaningful chain of interactions: the purpose of their services is to help clients design, build or maintain technologies, which in turn help their clients and employees be better at the work they do, get better results, interact easier, understand the information in new ways, or enhance the value for their customers and overall, contribute to the betterment of life. This path is here to stay. For the future generation of women leaders, Dana has the advice to build up the courage to remove the "veil of invisibility". She firmly believes that women have natural superpowers like an innate ability for empathy, nurturing, and passion.