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Secrets to Success for Female Founders

secret of a successful female founder
secret of a successful female founder
Author : Ashley Mehta

Secrets to Success for Female Founders

Care About What You Do

I founded Nolij Consulting, (pronounced “knowledge”), a certified Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB), in 2013. I started the company with the mission of providing excellent federal health information technology services at competitive rates. With this mission in mind, the company quickly grew within federal healthcare to become a strong information technology WOSB. By remaining committed to my mission to support and improve federal healthcare, and focused specialization in software and system testing, electronic health record modernization, and enterprise solutions, I have had the privilege to support projects aligned with my passion.

I am very proud that today Nolij is playing a pivotal role in The Department of Defense (DoD)’s mission to complete the largest health record modernization effort in the history of the military health system. This is a multi-million dollar contract where we conduct the Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) testing of MHS Genesis, made up of Cerner and Dentrix, and all the applications that touch MHS Genesis, to make sure all health records for our military heroes and their families travel with them seamlessly throughout their career and into military retirement. We also work with private hospitals to make sure they can access the DoD healthcare records. This has been a huge improvement to the healthcare of our nation, and we are so proud and honored to be a part of it.  It has been great to continuously be recognized by our clients for the excellent work we do. Nolij received the Award for Excellence from the Program  Executive Office (PEO) Defense Healthcare Management Systems (DHMS) organization for its MHS Genesis testing efforts.

Hire the Right Talent

You have to be passionate about the work you are doing, but you cannot achieve success without the right team. I have surrounded myself with people who have the right attitude, aptitude, and energy and the right mindset to roll up one’s sleeves and do what it takes to win work and keep the business running. For a small business to be successful, you need to hire employees, that appreciate the uniqueness of working for a small organization  and value the risk and rewards that go along with it. We are fortunate to have built an outstanding company with employees that appreciate this.

Continue to Build Capabilities

It is important to constantly be looking for ways to innovate. Being a women-owned small business (WOSB) in the federal space can be challenging, as you compete for opportunities against large businesses and other set-asides like HUBZone, 8as, Native American, and Hawaiian Owned. We have learned to partner with these companies focusing on building our business around emerging technologies supporting our expertise such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Cyber Security, and DevSec Ops and now focusing on the commercial market more than ever. We feel our electronic healthcare records information technology expertise can be a big benefit to the commercial market. We hope to continue building software partnerships like AWS, UiPath, and MicroFocus, and EHR software vendors. We take pride in announcing that we have signed a joint venture with an 8a company, Advanced, Innovative IT Solutions, LLC, with expertise in cybersecurity and commercial healthcare. I have wanted to branch out into the cyber and commercial health space and with this partnership, we will have the expertise to do just that.

Support Other Women

Nolij Consulting is a woman-centric company and I feel that women leaders need to support other women. I am so gratified that our success has allowed us to support our women veteran’s through an organization called Women’s Veteran Interactive (WVI) which was started by Ginger Miller, a veteran herself, who saw hardship after her military career and wanted to help other women veterans in need. Nolij has a lot of respect for Ginger and would like to once again “Thank her for her service and dedication to Women Veterans”.

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