Meet Our Team

President

Karen Jung

Karen’s diverse background, business acumen and philanthropic passion make her an ideal leader for Nextech. As president, Karen connects the dots—and people—to fulfill Nextech’s vision of transforming K-12 students from technology consumers into next gen tech pioneers.

Karen developed a successful career as a product expert for several leading technology companies, most recently ExactTarget. She held management roles in product and marketing management before transitioning to corporate philanthropy. As Executive Director of the ExactTarget Foundation, Karen developed innovative new programs that engaged people, technology and resources to address childhood hunger, education and entrepreneurship. She also spent 15 months working in Haiti for the Visitation Hospital Foundation.

Karen has put her expertise and education—a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and master’s degree from the Krannert Graduate School of Management at Purdue University—to work professionally and as a community volunteer. She currently serves on the board of Building Tomorrow.

Karen firmly believes in the transformational power of computer science education to prepare students for success in the classroom and in life.

Chairman of the Board

Scott Dorsey

Scott Dorsey is a successful entrepreneur who co-founded ExactTarget and led the company from start-up to global marketing software leader. ExactTarget went public on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2012 and sold to Salesforce.com in July 2013 for $2.7 billion.

Scott is an acclaimed technology executive who has earned numerous accolades for his leadership, including Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, American Business Awards Executive of the Year, TechPoint Trailblazer in Technology, and BtoB Magazine‘s Who’s Who List, to name just a few.

Scott serves on a number of nonprofit boards in the community, including Chairman of the Indiana Sports Corp., Board and Executive Committee member of TechPoint, Chairman of the Tinderbox Board, Dean’s Advisory Board at Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing, Global Advisory Board at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and Emeritus Board member at Central Indiana Corporate Partnership.

Scott is a business school graduate of Indiana University and earned an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Facilitator

Beth Kimball

Indiana School for the Deaf

K-5 Facilitator

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Anne Leftwich

Indiana University

K-5 Facilitator

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Sara Roberts

Triton Central Middle School

6-12 Facilitator

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Julie Alano

Hamilton Southeastern High School

9-12 Facilitator

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Rashad Welch

Avon High School

9-12 Facilitator

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Dana Calfee

Greensburg Jr High

6-12 Facilitator

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Scott Dooley

Christel House Academy South

6-12 Facilitator

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Nick Fishel

Hamilton Southeastern High School

9-12 Facilitator

Digital Marketing Intern

Julie Gallutia

Julie comes to us as a former teacher who has had a passion for technology since high school – WAY before technology was cool! After graduating from Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky with an Early Childhood Education degree, Julie taught 1st and 2nd grade for a few years before transitioning into a Computer Lab Teacher role where she taught computer skills to K-5 students. She also coordinated her elementary school’s Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP)- an amazing program for students in Kentucky – teaching and supervising students as they tackled many projects including the production of “Wake Up, Deep Springs!” – the school’s daily live morning show, providing tech support, designing and creating the school’s yearbook, and making business cards and mouse pads for school employees, just to name a few.

The last 9 years of Julie’s teaching career were spent as the Technology Resource Teacher at a middle school in Lexington, Kentucky, where she used her technology expertise to not only provide both tech support to students and staff, but to also assist teachers with the integration of technology into their daily lessons.

Since the completion of her teaching career, and her subsequent move from Kentucky to Indianapolis, Julie has been teaching herself, through a variety of methods, web design and development. It’s truly her newfound passion. She looks forward to supporting and promoting Nextech’s mission by helping to create an engaging online presence.

Director, Educator Success

Jenna Garcia

Having worked in the industry, the classroom and at non-profits, Jenna has a unique understanding of Nextech’s mission as well as how to best tailor opportunities for Indiana’s educators looking to bring computer science to their students and schools. She is excited to help educators learn and grow in their computer science journeys.

Facilitator

Brandy Hicks

Milan Community Schools

K-5 Facilitator

Board Member

Mary Kay Huse

Mary Kay Huse is currently the COO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, based in Indianapolis where she recently returned after spending time in both London and San Francisco. Mary Kay came to Salesforce via the ExactTarget acquisition, where she started in account management in 2004. During her ExactTarget/Salesforce tenure, she has pioneered many strategic initiatives across multiple functions/clouds, including opening international offices for ExactTarget, transforming Marketing Cloud global services, leading adoption and support for all Salesforce clouds, launching the Accelerator program, and most recently leading product management for Marketing Cloud products across DMP and Social. She is passionate about community involvement and has been recognized for her leadership as one of Indy’s Best and Brightest in Technology. She previously served on the Girls Inc of Alameda County (San Francisco) board and is currently serving on the board of Nextech, TechPoint, and Girls Inc of Indianapolis.

Facilitator

Angela Jones

George Washington High School

9-12 Facilitator

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Jacob Lepper

Carmel Middle School

K-5 Facilitator

Operations Manager

Joni Markle

Joni joins Nextech with a 20+ career in the legal profession and operations. Joni is excited to use her operations skills to advance Nextech’s mission to prepare the next generation of technology professionals.

Board Member

José Martínez

José V. Martínez is the senior vice president and chief information officer (CIO) for OneAmerica. In this role, he is accountable for all IT planning, program and support functions. He has over 20 years’ experience in the IT sector and extensive experience in strategic sourcing, vendor management, relationship management, project management, and IT engineering design and support. Prior to this appointment, he served at OneAmerica as vice president, IT infrastructure and application support, and vice president, business relationship management and enterprise architecture.

Since joining OneAmerica in 2014, José has led multiple strategic initiatives to transform the IT support model. In 2014, he led the OneAmerica contract negotiations and transition of services from the prior infrastructure outsource service provider to the current provider. In 2016, he was part of an executive team that led an end-to-end reorganization effort within IT to shift to a Plan-Build-Run delivery model, creating new IT functions such as business relationship and service management. In 2020, he implemented DevOps and Agile modern frameworks into the IT operating model.

Prior to joining OneAmerica, José served as vice president, communications as a service for Interactive Intelligence, managing all datacenters worldwide for the company’s cloud product. In addition, he served as a senior global delivery executive at IBM, accountable for the delivery of a broad range of IT outsourced services for corporate clients.

José holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also completed an advanced management executive program from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Board Member

Jen Oleksiw

Jennifer Oleksiw is currently the Vice President and Information Officer for Lilly Bio-Medicines & Business Unit IT Shared Services. In this position, Jennifer provides strategic partnership to Lilly USA, Europe and Japan, the established markets that comprise Lilly Bio-Medicines, to ensure delivery of business value through technology solutions.

Jennifer joined Lilly in 2000 from Ernst & Young. She has held various leadership positions in Global Services IT, Manufacturing IT and Lilly’s Research & Development IT organizations. In her most recent assignment in Manufacturing IT, she was responsible for developing and executing the IT strategy for the Dry Product, Parenteral, Device, and Distribution sites. In this role, she also had responsibilities for the Data Integration and Document Management teams as well as the Manufacturing Execution System implementations. Prior to that, Jennifer’s responsibilities included the development and launch of IT solutions for Integrative Informatics, Combined Specimen Banking, Drug Metabolizing Enzymes and Transporters (DMET) and gene assay management. Jennifer has also served in various Application Engineer and Leader roles across multiple releases of Lilly’s global SAP implementation.

Jennifer received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Indiana University and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Director, Student Experiences

Jill Van Oostenburg

Jill is a technologist by mistake. After graduating from Purdue University with a degree in Organizational Communication, and obtaining her educators license at IUPUI, Jill spent the formative years of her career in the halls of Lawrence Central high school helping educators implement technology in their classrooms. She also worked as an Education Instructional Specialist for IBM, combining both education and technology.

From there, Jill spent over 12 years at ExactTarget, Salesforce and Octiv with the majority of her career spent onboarding new employees, creating curriculum and training clients and partners on how to use the ExactTarget/Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Octiv platforms.

Jill was looking for a way to blend her years in education and technology. She landed at Nextech and is charged with creating experiences for high school students to better connect them to Central Indiana’s thriving tech scene. Jill considers this to be her dream job and a means to fulfill her mission to serve the youth of Indianapolis.

Marketing Associate

Sarah Pelko

After graduating from Butler University with a bachelor’s degree in Strategic Communications and Critical Communication Media Studies, Sarah knew that she had a passion for non-profits. She spent her first two years after graduation in program management for a workforce development organization. From there, Sarah knew that she wanted to grow in her marketing career while continuing to see youth find their niche. With her enthusiasm for storytelling and social media impact, Sarah brings a unique skillset as Nextech’s Marketing Associate.

Sarah is diligent to showcase what Nextech has to offer to the surrounding communities and further the brand identity that makes Nextech so unique. Belief in mission, vision and impact makes testimonials easy to share.

Board Member

Leroy Robinson

As Director of Major Gifts for the Central Indiana Community Foundation, Leroy Robinson builds relationships with individuals, families and organizations throughout Central Indiana to leverage support and grow assets for CICF’s new strategic plan and community leadership initiatives in Marion County.

Robinson has over 20 years of community and civic engagement experience. He previously served as the director of family and community engagement for the Indiana Department of Education and is a former public school teacher and administrator. He regularly conducts staff training and community forums on public policy, public safety, education, leadership and economic development. Robinson represents District 1 on the Indianapolis-Marion County City-County Council.

Facilitator

Maria Sellers

South Vermillion Middle School

K-5 Facilitator

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Kerry Sensenbrenner

Evansville Vanderburg CSC

6-12 Facilitator

Board Member

Bill Soards

Bill Soards was named President of AT&T Indiana in October 2013. Bill is responsible for external affairs for AT&T Indiana including; state and local government relations, community affairs, regulatory and legislative activities, and initiatives before the Indiana General Assembly and the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC).

Before joining AT&T 17 years ago, Bill began his career in public policy as a partner in an Indianapolis based association management and government relations firm. In 2000, he joined AT&T (then Ameritech) as Director of Government Relations. In 2006, Bill helped lead the effort to de-regulate the telecommunications industry and establish a statewide system for cable video competition. That legislation, the Indiana Telecom Reform Act was signed in March 2006 by former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and continues to attract jobs and investments across the State.

In 2007, Bill worked in Chicago, Illinois, and was named Assistant Vice President of Public Affairs for AT&T’s Midwest region. Coordinating policy campaigns, managing research, messaging, third parties, and foundation activities in five Midwestern states were among his chief responsibilities. In April 2009, Bill was named President of AT&T Colorado, a position he held until he returned to the Hoosier state in 2013.

In addition to his passion for technology, public service has always been a part of Bill’s life. His father, the late Bill Soards Sr., served 20 years in the Indiana General Assembly before retiring in 1994. The younger Soards was elected and served 9 years in local government as a member of the Indianapolis City-County Council and the Boone County Council.

Bill holds a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in Telecommunications from Butler University in Indianapolis. In 2004, the University honored Bill with both the 50 Under 50 Top Alumni Award and the Hilton U. Brown Alumni Achievement Award. Bill studied abroad at The University of Westminster in London, England, focusing on political science and playing on the school’s basketball team.

Bill and his wife Ann reside in Zionsville with their two daughters, Katelyn and Allison.

Facilitator

Raegan Towne

Perry Meridian High School

6-12 Facilitator

Board Member

Ashley Vukovits

Ashley Vukovits utilized her expertise in finance and operations for nearly 14 years at Interactive Intelligence, running the Finance function for the majority of that time and then serving as Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President of Administration, Secretary and Treasurer. During her tenure as CFO, she co-lead a successful sale of the company in a $1.4 billion transaction to take the company private.

Prior to that, Ashley held senior finance positions with Union Acceptance Corporation, a public auto finance company, and spent three years as an audit professional at KPMG LLP. Ashley is a 2016 Leading Light Leadership Award nominee and a 2015 Women of Influence Honoree.
Ashley is passionate about at-risk youth. She helped found the Interactive Intelligence Foundation, whose mission is to serve at-risk youth around the world, and served as their Treasurer for seven years. Ashley is on the advisory council for Informatics: Diversity-Enhanced Workforce (iDEW), which offers computer sciences classes for three inter-city high schools.
Ashley holds a bachelor’s degree with majors in accounting and finance from Miami University and she is a Certified Public Accountant.

Facilitator

Nick Weyer

Tell City Jr Sr High School

9-12 Facilitator

Vice President, Programs

Stephanie Zircher

Stephanie is the rockstar and go-to person to get things done—and done right! As senior director of operations, Stephanie makes sure Nextech stays on course and remains on mission—in the most efficient manner.

Stephanie has spent much of her career in training and talent development and is well-versed in learning theory and design. She earned a degree from Purdue University in tourism and hospitality management to learn how to run a business, not just learn business practice theories.

Over the 10 years she worked at ExactTarget and Salesforce, Stephanie saw firsthand what computer science skills can do for individuals and businesses. She realized people of all backgrounds—not just coders—can be successful in technology roles.

Stephanie’s passion to keep tech talent in Indy permeates everything she does.

Facilitator

Holly Swartz

Kennedy Academy

K-5 Facilitator