Jennifer Blatnik, vice president of marketing at Juniper Networks, is responsible for overseeing enterprise deployments of security, routing, switching and SDN products, as well as cloud solutions. Her current success is built on more than 20 years’ experience helping enterprises solve network security challenges. Additionally, Blatnik’s innovation and creativity have earned her patents for Dynamically Troubleshooting Voice Quality and Dynamically Provisioning Digital Voice Trunks.
Her leadership style combines strategic thinking and goal setting, with a strong emphasis on operational excellence and an awareness of the impact of what she’s driving. Blatnik maintains high standards for herself and her team, and is a true coach and mentor for those she works with. Never satisfied with the status quo, she is constantly challenging herself, her team and her peers to think differently and to ensure that every activity augments the success of the business.
Although her professional life would be expected to keep anyone busy, Blatnik still finds time to invest in her community and her family. She is an active member of several women’s leadership organizations, including Watermark and Grace Hopper. She is also an active volunteer for her church and the Girl Scouts.
Blatnik believes that diversity is important for any business concern, and she cites the IMF’s Diversity Annual Report as evidence that she is right. The Report, she explains, shows statistically that companies that are more diverse are also more financially successful. “This is not a mere correlation, because academic studies have shown that companies that embrace diversity have higher performing teams,” she explains. “So, distilled into a simple equation, greater diversity equates to higher performing teams and higher performing teams lead to more financial success.”
Her advice to women in the pipeline? “I would recommend to women moving up the pipeline to have patience and to look for mentors and coaches that will speak truth to you,” she offers. “Having mentors and coaches who helped triangulate my values and goals against my actions and capabilities has been an invaluable way for me to continue to improve as a person and a professional.”
