Celebrating Women at Progress: Meet Koyin, Rossitza and Lilia

To celebrate Women’s Month, we asked our employees to nominate female-identifying Progressers who inspire and empower them every day, and we would love to share the stories of these awe-inspiring women with you! We shared part one earlier, and in part two we highlight three more amazing Progressers.

Koyin Shih, Director, Business Services

Nominated for: Her leadership skills and commitment to the growth and development of her team

Koyin is dedicated to helping her female direct reports grow in their careers by providing countless learning opportunities, getting them out of their comfort zones, and ultimately placing women in more leadership positions. Koyin says, “there is a quote about how growth and comfort do not co-exist… so, creating these opportunities for growth is a passion of mine. Challenging team members to think about ways to improve their work processes or unlock productivity is important. “

Koyin finds and creates opportunities for women to learn and gain new experiences because she believes “these new experiences may generate some discomfort, but they are great growth opportunities.” For example, she will assign someone to lead a new project outside of her comfort zone which may require her to present updates to C-staff members. She also supports any woman who wants to attend a conference and identifies speaking opportunities for her direct reports.

Always cheering the wins makes Koyin a great leader and mentor at Progress.

Rossitza Fakalieva, Director, Software Engineering

Nominated for: Her work ethic, management skills and participation with organizations focused on presenting coding opportunities to women and children

Rossitza has been working on our Progress Telerik tools since 2006 and leads a team of software engineers, developing components and tools such as Telerik UI for Xamarin, UWP, WinForms, WPF and Telerik JustMock. Successfully leading a team of 60, Rossitza is recognized for her management skills and dedication to the tech community.

Along with her work at Progress, Rossi is dedicated to different tech initiatives. For example, she is part of the leadership team of Women Who Code, Bulgaria, a non-profit global organization whose mission is to help women in technology excel in their careers. Her focus is to spread out various .NET and Microsoft technologies to women in the industry by organizing the .NET chapter of this initiative at Progress office in Sofia.

Rossitza also participates in CoderDojo, an initiative that helps children take their first steps in programming. She has organized dojo classes at the Sofia Progress office hoping to spark and encourage children’s interest in technology, especially girls.  Rossitza says, “Curious girls are the source of successful women and I am happy that we have a lot of them in our group.”

Learn more about Rossitza in this blog post.

Lilia Messechkova, Senior Director, Software Engineering

Nominated for: Empowering her team while leading with commitment and passion

Lilia has been described as “a role model for all Progressers.” Leading a large engineering organization, she is recognized for her utmost professionalism, positive manner in the workplace and the attention she devotes to each direct report she manages.

Lilia enjoys being a mentor to those on her team and applies a different approach for each member to help him/her overcome their own set of challenges and barriers. Lilia states, “being a woman has helped me understand the struggles of female team members and work with everyone to create an environment where these [struggles] are resolved… and where male managers mentor the talented people in their teams no matter female or male.”

Not only is Lilia influential within Progress, but she also speaks at various industry events. From speaking about leading an IT team, to providing tips and lessons learned to women in the industry, she is dedicated to sharing her knowledge. Lilia was also involved in hosting an event at the Progress Sofia office for 3rd grade students where they learned what it’s like to be a software specialist.

We are #ProgressProud to honor Koyin, Lilia and Rossitza for all they have done for us at Progress and beyond. Stay tuned for the next installment of this series!