Finding opportunities in change fueled her career

FORWARD THINKING: With a background at companies such as State Street, Mari Anne Snow, CEO and founder of SophiaThink Consulting, says technology has always been a part of everything she does. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
FORWARD THINKING: With a background at companies such as State Street, Mari Anne Snow, CEO and founder of SophiaThink Consulting, says technology has always been a part of everything she does. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

For Mari Anne Snow, knowing when to leave a company or abandon an idea that isn’t workable is as important as succeeding in an enterprise.
In a sense, she says, it’s almost a prerequisite.
“My passion,” she said, “is problem-solving and navigating change.”
Change came five years ago at State Street Bank, an international financial-services and investment firm, after Snow, originally from Racine, Wis., had worked there in two capacities – as vice president first of Learning and Development and then of the bank’s CSO Program Services Group. The company was downsizing, and Snow’s job was about to be redefined.
Instead, she left to face a new world – not of unemployment, but rather, of self-employment.
“Change has been a big theme in my career,” Snow said. “All of the companies I’ve worked with were undergoing massive change. I saw that as a career opportunity and that’s often how I advanced my career. In contrast to many people who have anxiety about change, I view it as something that is an opportunity, and interesting.”
Leaving corporate America for the world of startups in February 2009 led Snow, now 55, to found SophiaThink Consulting LLC, a digital-strategy consulting firm that is flourishing today. In fact, SophiaThink spawned Sophaya, a firm co-founded with partner Layne Mayer that helps companies develop and manage employees who work remotely.
Having learned not only how to manage people but technology at State Street, Snow – who earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire in English and education in 1981 – found her niche in digital strategy.
“For me, it’s always been about the big picture,” she said. “Technology has always been a part of everything I do. As I started working in larger and larger organizations, communicating with people in a global environment had to be technology-enabled.” At SophiaThink, Snow has helped large corporations like Novartis, the pharmaceutical firm, with communications, and Pollo Campero, a Guatemalan restaurant company, which sought her help while expanding in the U.S., with online marketing and communications. She also has clients as small as the local dentist. And helping Novartis manage post-doctoral students remotely in virtual lab teams led to the formation of Sophaya, she said.
“Part of the challenge when you’re building a career in a new area that didn’t really exist before is you have to see possibilities,” Snow explained. “So, I always look for possibilities.”
Snow moved to Providence 13 years ago and now lives in Pawtucket, working from a home office. She’s also worked for such corporate chains as 99 Restaurants from 1993 to 1998 and Bertucci’s from 1998 to 2000, and has taught social media, digital marketing and e-commerce at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., and Suffolk University in Boston between 2010 and 2014.
Between September 2013 and this past May she founded and led a small group of partners in TigerMoth, a firm founded around the idea of developing a wearable device that would make it easier to hear in crowded rooms or in the midst of loud noise. This was the project that failed.
While it was never intended to be the kind of device that needed federal approvals the way a hearing aid does, the technology seemed to be feasible, but the partners and an investor couldn’t get it to work, she said.
“It was clear we weren’t going to be able to produce the technology the way we had envisioned it,” Snow recalled. “Sometimes, when you’re doing startups, you’ve got to know when to pull the plug.”
That experience nonetheless taught her how resilient she is – and needs to be – in a world where women face challenges that men don’t. “When you think of entrepreneurs in today’s environment, what do you think about: young, white boys in Silicon Valley right?” she asked. “And here I am, female, older and [someone who] hasn’t been an entrepreneur in years. And I’m having to pitch for money, and I don’t look like anybody in the room. That was uncomfortable. I found kindness, but I will tell you it’s definitely a male-dominated space.”
Taking risks does have its advantages, though, she said.
“In my corporate life, I didn’t try and avoid failure but you risk differently. And when you’re in startups, it’s a very personal risk because I was out there as the public face. What it taught me was you can survive failure, have good humor about it and take the lessons without it being deadly for your soul. It proved to me I can have courage at any age, and my only barrier is me.”
Today, Snow, who is married to Charles Zechel, the executive director of the nonprofit Community Boating Inc. of Boston, is teaching again. Her four certificate programs at Bryant University include: virtual teamwork; a program about leading virtual teams; a digital-strategy program and a program called “Leadership in the 21st Century.”
As she moves ahead in the career she has forged, she still leans on two mentors, John Grady, a former president of the 99 Restaurants, and Kathleen Federico, head of human resources for Bertucci’s. Grady taught her to be fearless; Federico taught her to be graceful.
“He was an experimenter and a problem-solver, but he also was incredibly generous because he taught me it doesn’t have to be my way as long you get to the end result. And often, giving people the freedom to do that gives you an amazing solution. If you’re working with smart, creative people, get out of their way.” •

No posts to display