Valerie Perlowitz: Driving Enterprise Growth and Performance with Strategic Management Solutions

International Holding Company LLC (IHC) is a management consulting business focused on assisting businesses to achieve breakthrough growth using repeatable and measurable methods. IHC performs this through the use of their "4 Quadrant Methodology". The Methodology focuses on the tactical activities, key performance indicators, and metrics which support the businesses' three to five-year strategic goals and objectives. IHC works with companies at all stages of the business life cycle focusing on the intersection of operations, technology, and culture.   

An Experienced Leader 

Valerie Perlowitz is the CEO and Founding Partner of IHC. As a management consulting business leader, she oversees staff providing start-up management, strategic planning, tactical planning, turnaround management, team creation/development, metrics development, day-to-day management/operations, sales and marketing, M&A, integration/culture building, technical oversight, fundraising, cybersecurity, and risk management services.   

Prior to IHC, Valerie was Director and SVP having the responsibilities for Corporate Development, Operational Redesign, Integration, Operations, Sales and Marketing (including Branding), and Cybersecurity at ATSC, a US$500 million public, private equity-backed software development, systems integration, and business process firm outsourcing to Government and Commercial customers.   

Before the sale of her own company to ATSC, Valerie was the Founder, President, and CEO of Reliable Integration Services, Inc. (Reliable), an information technology company focusing on the design and deployment of classified and unclassified hardware and software systems and outsourcing to Government and Commercial customers. Using her Electrical and Computer Engineering background, she leveraged technical skills to create a managed service offering which was recognized by Forbes/Outsourcing Center as a unique solution of Platform as a Service, Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, Security as a Service, and Everything as a Service.   

As President and CEO of her first company there came a point where Valerie could no longer be the technical and management heads of the organization, so she went back to school and obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School, allowing her to manage the company from continued growth to sale. Valerie also holds a Masters of Engineering in Cybersecurity, Policy and Compliance to support organizations' evaluation of overall cybersecurity position, risk identification and management, and response plan testing.   

Before founding Reliable, she was a consultant to numerous Fortune 500 companies, including IBM and AT&T. Valerie was a real-time simulation engineer for United Technologies' Sikorsky Aircraft, and was a system engineer, security engineer, and software developer for the MITRE Corporation.  

Leading by Example  

Valerie is known for her ability to speak at all levels of the organization, which she attributes to her "lead by example" management style. It is this core approach that carried her from technical beginnings into business management and thought leader. Valerie states that the founding of her first private company and the founding of Women in Technology, which quickly grew to 1,000 members, were pivotal points for her. Her business thought leadership encompasses operational excellence, corporate culture, metrics, and strategic visioning.   

Starting as a technical thought leader in systems, Valerie describes herself as a frequent speaker on managed services, data analytics, and cybersecurity. Recognized by McGraw-Hill in the "Top 100 Women in Computing" inaugural edition, the Washington Business Journal's inaugural "Women Who Mean Business", and others, she has influenced trade organizations, non-profits, governments, as well as public and private organizations by bringing disparate people together to solve complex problems.   

Leveraging Technology to Stay Relevant 

Valerie mentions that IHC's product and service offerings focus on people, processes, and technology. She views that the current environment has forced people to work in a decentralized model. Valerie says, " Processes to support this distribution of people require changes in communication and collaboration across distributed teams taking differences within inter-cultural, inter-generational, and international norms and preferences into account." 

Further, she states that technology moves at a rapid pace. Valerie believes that companies benefit from guidance on which technologies to adopt and the most efficient and effective ways to effect change and threat management. She explains that IHC's Methodology wades through the mountains of gathered data so businesses can understand which data are important and which are not key to their successful growth. 

Decision Making through Firm Beliefs 

At the start of her career, Valerie encountered major roadblocks as a woman in a technical field. She recounts that this taught her the need to understand other's viewpoints and more widely to understand stakeholder values. As her career expanded, Valerie bumped against differences between public and private organizations and the management of each. With the continuation of her career, she was confronted with decisions which required tests of her ethical and moral beliefs. Comfortable with her views on each, Valerie knew that standing behind her beliefs was always the path to take, no matter the setbacks this may cause. 

Harnessing Data Analytics to Understand Customer 

Valerie observes that as disruptive technologies continue to rise, and the role of the leader is now more of communicator. She says, "A decentralized company, especially in light of COVID, means a leader needs to find ways to ensure all stakeholders in an organization have the data they need to perform their jobs. " 

Valerie opines that leaders must be able to coherently communicate the roles and responsibilities of the individual and how it contributes to the success of oneself, the company, and society. She calculates that cloud computing has made it easier for a company to share data cheaply and continuously. Valerie states that data analytics allow companies to understand more of their customers and products. "With all technology, especially new innovations, cybersecurity is a threat no organization can avoid, but as we get better at securing our systems, we see new threats embedded in the supply chain emerging," she adds. 

Leading with Moral and Ethical Foundation 

Humility is a trait found in all great leaders and is one that Valerie finds as a core to her success. She says, "One cannot know everything, especially in today's rapidly evolving world." 

She observes that to be successful, teams need to work together and a leader by example with an unwavering moral and ethical foundation gets the best out of individual performers and transforms them into a team.  

Observing Trends through Technological Change 

IHC continues to stay on top of market trends, technology changes, and how they influence the vision and mission of its clients. Valerie believes that cloud computing allows for sharing of data while data analytics supports the company's methodology in its ability to look at trends and how they can be leveraged into tactical plans supporting strategic plans. She feels that increasing technologic change, decentralization, and demographics will drive mergers and acquisition activity for the foreseeable future. Valerie states that these trends are being addressed by IHC with an emphasis on the cybersecurity impacts of each. She tells, "IHC's proven methodology, strong thought leadership, and industry-recognized experts will continue to increase the need for our services."  

Advice to Budding Leaders 

To emerging leaders Valerie advices, "Say true to yourself. Do not ask someone to do anything you wouldn't do yourself; maintain your ethics." 

She asks them to keep on learning, not to think that any person knows everything, delegate to those who do, and trust co-workers; an organization will flounder if there is no trust. Valerie asserts, " Remember, you cannot be a leader if no one will follow."