New MPSA President Tawnya Stone Brings Proven Ability to Build Bridges to Better Serve Companies and Customers
Last November, the Managed Print Services Association (MPSA) announced the appointment of Tawnya Stone as the organization’s first female president. Stone currently serves as vice president of strategic partner technology at GreatAmerica Financial Services in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
In a nod to the vital importance of understanding technology in the ever-evolving digital age of the imaging industry, Stone relies on her foundation in IT, rather than a traditional background in business. Beginning her professional career in the mid-1990s, Stone had worked for a small Des Moines-based company developing video CDs, the precursor to DVDs, as a project manager. Philips Electronics scooped up the firm, but it quickly became clear to Stone this technology was no longer cutting edge. Over the span of two years, her 200-person division was soon weaned down to six people, including Stone.
As the layoffs progressed, fewer employees translated to a greater range of responsibilities for Stone. With little direction or training, she continued to step up and fill in any gaps within her department to keep it afloat.
“This experience shaped me,” said Stone. “It gave me the confidence that it didn’t matter if I didn’t know what I was doing, I just had to do it. I was doing things that I never would have been hired to do. It gave a big breadth of experience.”
Knowing her time at Philips would be short-lived, she also invested in herself by taking classes and receiving a Master of Business Administration from Marymount University.
For Stone, success bred more success, and she ultimately moved on from Philips Electronics. She went on to work for several other companies, including Verizon Communications and two companies involved in custom homebuilding, all while serving as the link between these companies and their customers or employees. By tapping into her experience in business process consulting, application development, and small business operations, Stone helped improve customer satisfaction while saving money for these businesses. In 2011, Stone joined the GreatAmerica team as an IT project manager on the billing and integration side.
“I’ve always said, if you can understand how something gets on bill, you have to know everything that has happened to get to that point,” said Stone.
As Stone had done throughout her career, she consistently looked to bridge any gaps in knowledge and capabilities within GreatAmerica. In her role as an IT project manager, she had the opportunity to step up to take on more business-related responsibilities when a position was vacated, giving her a higher vantage point to observe processes and the flow of information within GreatAmerica.
“It was a matter of identifying a need GreatAmerica had, seeing an opportunity or a skillset that I had or wanted to have, and making the case for me to fill that role,” said Stone. “Staying in my own lane isn’t something I’m good at if there’s something I want to do and there’s a gap.”
For example, one of her roles involved supporting a single business unit, but Stone recognized the things her team was learning could be applied to several other GreatAmerica groups. She identified the opportunity to establish herself as the point person to reach across all the company’s various business units to improve communication and share best practices.
“Now, we’ve got the ability to take the investment we’ve made over here and it’s going to pay off in spades because now we can leverage it in many more places,” said Stone. “It just makes sense to take the investment you’ve made and get a better return on it.”
In her current role, Stone works closely with GreatAmerica’s customers to understand what their processes are, and better understand the technology providers in the various industries the company serves. She melds what she learns in working with these groups to determine the best customer-facing solutions that make it easier for GreatAmerica’s customers to interact with the company and gain efficiencies.
Broadening the Scope
As a founding member of the MPSA, GreatAmerica has been an active member of the Association since 2009. Two years ago, Stone reached out through the company to learn more about the MPSA, as well as learn from the members who have a deep expertise and knowledge in the managed print arena. She is excited and honored to be serving as the organization’s president since November 1, 2018.
“The MPSA has a long history of wanting to provide value to our members, both dealer and vendor members” said Stone. “We have a refocused energy to make sure the value to the members is shifting to meet the needs of the members.”
Building on the MPSA’s history of providing education, benchmarks, and best practices, Stone is closely examining and evaluating new gaps to fill within the industry. For example, the MPSA committees are focusing on merger and acquisition activity to develop content and resources for dealers looking to buy or sell, as well as how dealers can prepare for these types of strategic moves. Looking closer at dealerships looking to diversify their business mixes with complementary or ancillary services, Stone says the MPSA is digging deeper to see how it can be of service to its members here as well.
“Given the knowledge and experience that exists in the MPSA, we are looking to determine how we can best help our members,” said Stone.
Most importantly, Stone is committed to serve the needs of all members, both vendors and dealers of all sizes, from various geographies, offering varied services.
“We’re looking to make sure we create content that is relevant and easily consumable,” said Stone.
This year, MPSA members can look forward to a new website, podcasts through Podbean, webinars, and white papers. Additionally, the upcoming June Business Technology Association (BTA) Mid-America “Gateway to Success” event host the MPSA Awards, which recognizes the best-of-the-best in the industry across several categories, including dealers, vendors, and software providers.
“The MPSA is a close-knit community, so we want to extend that community feeling beyond those who are involved in the day-to-day,” said Stone. “We want to engage people more often so people really do see the organization as a resource they can go to for education, for answers to questions.”
With Stone’s proven track record of reaching across organizations to improve relationships between companies and customers, the MPSA is poised to continue being relevant for dealers and vendors alike.
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