Women entrepreneurs should not hide their talents in the name of modesty and grace. They can lead with an awesome combination of courage and grace. It is essential for women entrepreneurs to be bold, be confident, and not back down even in a male-dominated field. Those women who have blazed their path till now have made their path by being bold, courageous, and proving that it is not just a man’s world but a woman’s world, too. Amy Hedrick is one such female leader who states that one can be bold, confident, skilled, and that combination inspires admiration, respect and confidence from men and women alike. Amy loves that women benefit from the efforts of other women. She considers it is important to remember what women are bringing to the table and should be admired for that.
Amy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cleanbox Technology Inc. Amy’s background as a content creator and thought leader in the application of new technologies as industry disruptors provided the building blocks for Cleanbox as a business. Over the past decade, she has led multiple teams from project inception and funding, to planning and execution. Cleanbox Technology is focused on providing the tools businesses need to operate safely and give customers peace of mind. Its biggest motivation is to provide products that actually work, as public safety and business health is always top of mind.
Providing Opportunities for Women
One thing that brings Amy great fulfillment is that Cleanbox has in its mission statement, a goal to provide opportunities to women. Amy believes that women are both great leaders and great strategists, and generally have unique skill sets. Cleanbox works hard to keep women front and center from its executive team to its regional staff.
Valuing Positive Work Culture
Amy considers it is critically important to have a positive work culture. The average worker spends the majority of their life working for someone else. Cultivating, building, and maintaining a positive work environment and sustainable culture is critical for individual fulfillment, which in turn has a butterfly effect on the entire business model. While this is more apparent in smaller companies that cannot absorb “negative” influences that may be inevitable in a larger work force, Amy believes that a company’s culture plays strongly into their overall brand trust and value.
Integrating Technology with Business Goals
Amy loves cutting edge technology, and those on the inside know the value of the tech they are introducing to marketplaces. She says that business decision makers must first create a balance of understanding the range of what the tech can offer, while thinking about it in ways its integration will bring value to a company. Amy states that successful execution of new tech means that a business has not just added “Tech for tech value”, but has first spent the energy to determine all the ways the new technology will benefit their business, and has a plan on how to implement it broadly across the company.
Meeting Real Business Needs Across Industries
The people at Cleanbox Technology are innovators at heart. The company anticipates tomorrow’s needs while they plan for today. The company seeks to understand real business pain points and solve them in a meaningful, complete way. Amy sees Cleanbox Technology continuing to grow as it integrates its proprietary technology into multiple form factors to meet real business needs across a plethora of industries. And it will take that same technology to the home market.
Being Conscious of Value Added Products
Amy in her role as a CEO considers that it’s important that she understands broadly the opportunities of global markets and how those opportunities are impacted by daily local and global events. Concurrently, she thinks that she must also be deeply ingrained in the collective “value add” her company, team and products can bring both right now, in a year, and in five years. Daily immersion in business, technology and global news events allows her have insights into future opportunities that will reform and drive her vision. The same vision will determine the strategies she builds to execute on the opportunities. The understanding of collective value addition of the company to the world will form goals, benchmarks, and timeline to meet those strategies; and Amy’s success will be determined by how capable she and her executive team are at providing Cleanbox Technology’s staff a clear path to those goals.
Serving the Underprivileged
When it comes to the community, Cleanbox has made a point to set aside certain products that can be made available to non-profit organizations and underserved communities. For example, the company worked with the St. Francis Dental Clinic, a non-profit driven to improve dental healthcare across their state and tribal land, which offers services for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe as well as other local South Dakotans. Cleanbox is proud to have donated a CleanDefense to help them continue their important mission safely.
Expanding Market on a Global Scale
2020 introduced Cleanbox Technology to new markets and industries by escalating the timeline of certain products it already had in development, so that it could meet the immediate needs of businesses. In 2020, Cleanbox grew from one product line with clients in 10 countries to 3 product lines in over 36 countries and 41 states in the US. Cleanbox also expanded its domestic and international sales team and offers products to any size business across healthcare, education, government, entertainment, and enterprise.
