2025 Ones to Watch - Rising Stars: Jenny Romano, AKAM

“This nominee is a rising star because she has consistently demonstrated exceptional initiative, adaptability, and leadership in an area beyond her initial role and prior experience. Coming from a background in corporate retail analytics and planning, Jenny stepped into a property management environment and took on the significant challenge of building a company-wide data centralization system from the ground up – a system that AKAM had never had before. The result of her and her team’s efforts will make employees’ work easier and more efficient.” - Matthew Pirozzi, Chief Financial Officer, AKAM.

What recent professional milestone or project are you most proud of, and why? One milestone that I’m proud of is leading the development of a data centralization system for AKAM. Data across the company was sequestered into silos, making it harder to access and limiting the efficiency of employees. For the past two years, I’ve led my team to build a centralized data system that integrates all information company-wide. Now, we’re on the verge of rolling the system out. I took an idea from inception to execution, growing through it, and making a real impact on how AKAM functions.

What is your top advice for someone just starting out in your field? One of the top pieces of advice that I’ve learned is to stay open to learning, listening and trying things in new and unfamiliar ways. When you first start out in your career, it can be easy to get stuck on doing things “the right way” or sticking closely to how you were taught. The reality is that success in data analytics comes from being flexible, curious, and willing to experiment. You have to be comfortable sitting with numbers, asking questions, and making sense of info. Let your curiosity guide you, and don’t be afraid to try, fail, and try again. The confidence and skill will follow.

What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in your career so far, and what did it teach you? My background in retail analytics had prepared me for analyzing data and reporting results, but I had never built a data system from the ground up. This was my first time applying what I have learned throughout my career to something I had no previous experience in. I had to learn on the spot, to trust my instincts but know when to seek out answers or ask for help. I spent countless hours researching, testing tools, and discussing possible solutions with both my team and colleagues in other departments.

Who has been pivotal in your professional development, and how have they influenced you? The support of my team as well as the CEO and CFO made the task of completing the data centralization program not only doable, but enjoyable. Both the CEO and CFO recognized the need for the system and entrusted me with building it, even though I had no formal background in this area. That trust pushed me to research deeply, ask questions, and guide the project through to this critical point.