VCWoman Achieve 2025 Mentor Spotlight – Lisa Neal-Graves

Posted on January 30, 2025
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Name: Lisa Neal-Graves | Business/Profession: Digital and Tech Consultant

Please share a little about your background, personally and/or professionally.

I have more than 30 years of strategic planning, organizational development, and technology executive leadership with the bulk of my experience focused on digital transformation solutions supporting SaaS/IaaS/PaaS business models and cybersecurity solutions. I managed city and state government projects, large corporate teams, half-billion-dollar P&Ls, and billion-dollar procurement budgets. I have broad technical expertise, having developed telecommunications, computer telephony, and data science-driven artificial intelligence solutions. I was an early architect of SaaS/IaaS/PaaS standards and solutions and business models that leverage these standards. I have extensive global P&L expertise, European and APAC international operations, and R&D expertise delivering services and solutions across multiple industries including technology, healthcare, financial services, and federal, state, and local government agencies.

As the former Chief Innovation Officer for the Colorado Attorney General, I was responsible for creating a culture of innovation; leveraging data analytics to determine how to manage the workload most efficiently in the office. I also led the integration of multiple corporate acquisitions; leveraging the best of each acquisition to build, grow, and retain a cloud-enabled and highly available networked storage business as the leader of Zayo Group’s Cloud business unit. With world-class architecture and service delivery, my team and I won the HP Service Provider Award and the IBM New Service Provider Award while stabilizing and expanding the Cloud business.

I spearheaded Intel Corporation’s advanced technology strategic long-range planning (TSLRP). TSLRP educated senior leadership and problem-solved complex strategic needs across Intel’s business units. Under my leadership, TSLRP secured over $150M in funding for new research projects to drive future product decisions, including future data protection solutions and cybersecurity architecture; enabling competitive approaches to new product innovation.

I have been married to the love of my life, Anthony, for nearly 32 years and recently moved to Roland, Arkansas after his retirement earlier this year.

Please share more about your current position and place of work. How have you grown professionally/personally in this role?

I’ve recently moved to Arkansas and I am continuing my current Board work (Coherent (NYSE: COHR) and CIVHC (Colorado APCD) as I seek additional opportunities to contribute to my new home state.

What drew you to being a mentor for an entrepreneurial group curated for non-men? How has being a woman or non-binary individual impacted your professional journey?

I want to be a mentor for women as they pursue their professional journey. As a Black woman in tech, I was often the only one (or one of very few) non-male leaders. While I found ways to succeed, I longed for the sisterhood analog like the brotherhood that I witnessed.

What are three things you enjoy doing outside of work?

I enjoy spending time with my family and friends (attending church and other social events), I also enjoy reading (writing and arithmetic too 🙂 ), and I am a cordwiner and I love designing and making shoes.

What is your go-to piece of advice for professionals, entrepreneurs, or anyone looking to you for guidance?

I’m a straight shooter—tough but fair—with a heart to help people. I want to see people succeed, and I want that success to be rooted in the knowledge that they can repeat their success and continue to inspire others to do the same.

What is a professional achievement that you are most proud of, and why are you proud of it?

I led a team to build the world’s first web-enabled customer care center, leading to global data-driven online care centers. This work resulted in traveling the globe, implementing solutions, and speaking with business leaders about the value of our innovative approach to customer service. I am proud of this accomplishment because the project started with customer-driven ideation and was built by an all-female project team. This project was included in our corporate annual report, received several internal achievement awards, and won several call center awards. As a result of our efforts, I also served on standards-making bodies, where our processes were baked into industry standards.