From Jersey girl and former nanny to entrepreneur and CEO, Markerly’s co-founder Sarah Ware talks about life as a 26-year old technology startup executive.

In the land of IT startups, 20-something males sitting at the helm of technology companies are a dime a dozen. Open any techie magazine or read any tech-focused blog, and you’ll come across countless startup companies being led by guys under 30.

In the same land of IT startups, however, CEO seats being held by women under 30 are not as common. So when you run across an up-and-coming, 26-year old by the name of Sarah Ware, who spearheads a startup tech company named Markerly (markerly.com), you have to pause for a moment to realize just what a rare treat that is.

These days, any woman – no matter her age – who holds a senior executive position is surely surrounded by some level of conversation stemming from the recently published book, Lean In, written by Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. Ware – who is presently participating in a technology mentoring program in California – says everyone is talking about the whole “balancing a fulfilling professional career and family” subject that Sandberg’s book brings to the forefront.

“I don’t have a family yet, but I will one day,” shares Ware, who aspires to be a wife and mother in the future. “Right now, I spend my days glued to a computer. I’m extremely focused on my company’s progress, and Markerly’s product development has me too busy to think about being in a relationship. My schedule is long and hectic, so my social life is non-existent. This fast-pace style of working is an inherent part of startups, but I know it won’t always be this crazy. At some point, I do want to eventually get married and have children.”

Ware admits one of the primary reasons she chose an entrepreneurial career path over the traditional 9-5 work schedule is because she wants to create a flexible working environment for the day she does have her own family. “Early on, I used to be a nanny,” Ware fondly recounts as she speaks about the loving, Northern Virginia-based family she was paired with. “I had moved to the DC area and had signed up at Care.com. A married couple in Vienna hired me to help take care of their children, and I worked with them for about 18 months before moving on to work at Living Social. The husband and wife were in the IT field, and they had their own business. It was under their wing that I saw how owning their own company allowed them to make their own schedules. This couple inspired me to seek out my dreams. They showed me how well you can juggle career and family when you own your own business.”

At Living Social, Ware was part of the traveling sales team. “I got in early and got to do a lot of traveling. I helped to launch new initiatives and lead teams. Before long, however, the traveling position ended and, upon returning to headquarters, Ware felt the initial entrepreneurial environment – which had once been so prevalent at Living Social – had changed. “I thought about leaving. I shared my intentions with my supervisor, who was very supportive. Ultimately, I had to cut the umbilical cord. That was scary, but I did it.”

Luckily, Ware also had ample support from her previous employer: the beloved Vienna-based family. “They encouraged and supported me all the way.” Before long, Ware incorporated a company and connected with investors by way of an incubator program. “The investors assigned various milestones I had to meet,” explains Ware. “They wanted to make sure I achieved all their recommendations.”

In time, Ware was paired with two engineers. After much collaboration, time and effort, the team launched their first product which was intended to be “a Pinterest for text” (instead of images).

Not long after being incubated at 500 Startups in Silicon Valley, Ware and her engineer counterparts – who coincidentally each came from a household where at least one family member was working in the publishing industry – opted to take their product and company vision down an entirely different path.

As Ware shared with Huffington Post’s Michael B. Fishbein, the shift from “a Pinterest for text” to “a tool for publishers” business model was a total pivot for Markerly. “We met with Hiten Shah of Kissmetrics. He shed a lot of insight into the direction of our business. He proposed an idea that, at the time, seemed crazy. He said, ‘Why not just scrap what you’re doing, take it down, and become a tool for publishers?’ Of course, anytime someone tells you to scrap an idea that you are proud of and into which you’ve put your entire being, you’re a little taken aback. It was hard, real advice.” Ware and her team proceeded to heed it. “We just went for it,” says Ware. “Within a week we had a whole new product.”

Now marketed as a user management platform for publishers and brands, Markerly aims to help web publishers increase their traffic from social media sites and understand why certain pieces of content are taking off. “Markerly makes light of the dark web,” Ware told TechCrunch reporter Anthony Ha. “Articles get shared on social media, but publishers never know the driving force behind the share. Publishers also don’t know what their readers are engaging in the most – what names they are copying to paste into Google and search more of, or what companies they want to read more about.”

Markerly’s current service is free for publishers, and Ware says she plans to keep it that way while adding paid analytics services in the coming year.

Clearly, Ware has come a long way from her nanny and Living Social days. When asked what advice she’d impart to others who are thinking of launching a product of their own, Ware says without any hesitation, “Don’t be scared, and just do it. And don’t be discouraged if you don’t have a technical background. I didn’t have a technical background when I started, but you just pick things up naturally along the way.”

Sarah Ware can be found on Twitter at @WareSarah.

Leesburg-based artist, Deborah Morbeto, on life, creativity and the pursuit of “art-ness”

Deborah Morbeto, a fine artist living in Leesburg, VA and art instructor at ArtSquare (formerly known as the Loudoun Academy of the Arts) began her career in art as a little girl. “I started making art when I was very young,” explains Morbeto.

By high school, Morbeto knew that pursuing art after graduation was in her blood. “I was positive I wanted to pursue art school, and I spent my time putting my portfolio together. I was accepted into Boston University and spent about a year there, but it wasn’t long after that I ended up at Mass Art. The environment there was much more art-focused and centered on celebrating creativity. It was just a better fit. Mass Art met my high creative need for expression.”

There, Morbeto admits, she pursued every art major under the sun. “I tried everything,” shares Morbeto. “I was a printmaking major, a fashion major; and in the end, I graduated with a degree in art history.”

After graduating, Morbeto studied art therapy, and it was during this time she developed the habit of producing art every day. This ritual became a constant in her life, even after relocating to Virginia where she worked in graphic design and marketing. “My job satisfied me creatively but only up to a point. I would still come home, have dinner and then retreat to my home-based art studio. I just got hooked on my art-filled evenings and found so much pleasure in unleashing my creativity night after night.”

Morbeto eventually met the man of her dreams, married and settled into motherhood. “I had full intentions of being a stay-at-home mom. So I quit my job to stay home and raise my son,” recounts Morbeto with pride and reflection. “When my son turned one, I returned to my nightly routine of making art.” Morbeto would tell her husband to treat her evening art interludes as if she were leaving home to go to work. “I really had become attached to working with my art in the evenings.”

Shortly thereafter, Ebay came out with a new online category: Self-Representing Artists. “This was a very small category then. It was great to cut out the middle man (usually a gallery) and sell art directly to buyers,” states Morbeto. “Selling my artwork online became a great fit for someone like me. In a two-to three-year period, I sold more than 200 paintings all over the world.”

But all good things come to an end. “The Self- Representing Artists category became oversaturated with what I call copycat art,” Morbeto says. It was at this juncture she felt she had had enough of selling through Ebay. “I made a very purposeful decision to focus on selling my work at a local level,” she explains. “I put my name on a waiting list in what was then Gallery 222 on South King Street (now known as ArtSquare in Leesburg, VA) and waited…and waited.” Two and a half years later the call came. “They had only a small number of studios available – and more than 200 artists in the area – so the wait was long but worth it.”

“They said, ‘Deb, you’re up! There’s a studio open at Gallery 222,’’’ and I was ecstatic. But a month after getting my studio space, I learned Gallery 222 was rebranding and moving to an industrial park off Cardinal Park near Route 7. I remember feeling so disappointed. I really just wasn’t sure what I would do then – if I would stay with the then renamed ArtSquare or move on.”

ArtSquare won Morbeto over. “You should have seen how they transformed their new space!” Morbeto had become a believer and total convert. “I admit I was dubious at first, but I felt very encouraged by their vision, which was to grow the space into something larger and more modern, and their long-term plan was to be associated with the Wegman’s complex.” Once convinced, Morbeto carved out her 10×10 studio space with masking tape. When they finally opened, Morbeto admits her socks were blown off. “The space is perfect for art. I set up my studio as a display area, and I sell my work there.”

Morbeto has taught mixed media collage classes at ArtSquare and, this past October, Morbeto hosted her own art showing. “It was just me and my artwork,” Morbeto shares. “I had a great turnout. Art is a hard sell. I didn’t go into art to make money. I’m in it more for the passion, so it’s very gratifying when you do sell a piece or two at a showing.”

Morbeto, who is also a member of the Loudoun Arts Council, is still a creature of habit and continues her nightly retreats to her home studio. “For the past 14 years, I have spent many a night in my basement studio. On those nights where I may miss my evening art interludes, I’m not a happy camper about it,” Morbeto confesses with laughter. “I have friends who tease me about turning into a pumpkin by 6:00 p.m. Actually, that’s not too far from the truth!

Does such an evening ritual require a loving, supportive husband? “Yes!” a grateful Morbeto admits. “I am an endlessly lucky woman. I have a loving, wonderful husband who supports me 100 percent. He encourages me and so does my son.”

One has to wonder about the thousands of pieces of art Morbeto has created from home. Morbeto agrees that space does often become an issue, but not as much since she’s become more involved in producing digital art.

A self-described amateur photography buff, she does a lot of work on her iPad. “There’s been a transition into this new era where everything is electronic. As an art history major, I can’t help but ask myself what the future of art will be. Is painting dead? Is work on paper and canvas going to be viable 50 to 100 years from now? This is a very transitional time, and it will be very interesting to see where art goes.”

Morbeto runs into many folks who say that painting on canvas and paper is dead. “Of course, the purists disagree,” she states. She and her fellow artists are all in agreement about not knowing what art will be like in the next century. “What we once knew as art may not be viable. What will be appealing in the next 100 years? It’s very exciting to be part of this gradual but inevitable transition period.”

Morbeto says there are well over 100 apps and filters which allow you to paint digitally. “It’s very cutting edge right now,” she says. “There are countless online sites featuring ‘i-wwArt.’ The future holds a lot of computer-style art. It inspires me to incorporate digital art into a future gallery showing. I’m still working on refining that vision. And who knows? I may very well pull it off one day!”

Since its start in 2003, Olive Juice has been a go-to for kids’ clothing. Maryellen Kane, the children’s apparel company founder and designer, first began Olive Juice after spending more than 10 years working alongside elite designers for numerous high end fashion retailers including Ralph Lauren®, JCrew® and Abercrombie & Fitch®.

After many years designing for large, well-known retailers, Kane decided to break out on her own to launch her unique vision for a children’s garment line not long after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. “After 9/11, I— like many other Americans—found myself re-evaluating what was most important insofar as my own life, goals and values. I thought back to how many years I had already spent running the rat race, living life in a big fast city while working for others. I knew then it was time to leave The Big Apple and seek out or create new experiences and goals for myself both professionally and personally.”

Kane didn’t waste any time transitioning from New York City to the Philadelphia suburbs where she had family. “I took a little fashion-related job near my grandmother’s home but didn’t last long there,” Kane admits. “I just couldn’t shake free from the entrepreneurial bug. I knew I had to break out on my own and give myself the time and chance to create what I foresaw as an entirely new, upscale line in children’s fashion.”

Kane then spent about a year holed up at home doing extensive research and developing her line, which she affectionately named Olive Juice, from scratch. Kane found inspiration in the timeless, classic lines of yesteryear and gave them her own, unique modern twist. “It just kind of took off from there,” she recollects. “The line quickly grew from zero to three million annual revenue in just a few short years.”

Because the line was originally launched in Philadelphia, Kane established her business headquarters in Pennsylvania. As recently as a few months ago, however, Kane decided to close Olive Juice’s Philadelphia doors and completely relocate near the Northern Virginia area to re-energize not only the Olive Juice brand but her entire marketing and fulfillment operations.

“As with most businesses large and small, the challenging economy has forced us to re-evaluate every aspect of how we run our business,” shares Kane, a self-proclaimed “ruralist” who has fled urban city life for country living in Rixeyville, Virginia—an area located in Culpepper County and just 30-minutes southwest outside of Warrenton. “Moving our entire operation to these country parts has been a purposeful and strategic decision,” explains Kane. “The Philadelphia commercial leases were not cheap. We had to ask ourselves do we continue leasing commercial space year-to-year or do we purchase our own lot and build?”

The answer: Kane and her husband, Keith Butler—who is also the clothing line’s lead photographer as well as Kane’s business partner—purchased more than six acres of land in the heart of Rixeyville where they are presently constructing what will eventually be the new Olive Juice offices. “Right now the property we’re in is just a small structure in need of a complete gut and total overhaul. It’s rather cramped quarters but it’s completely temporary. By this time next year, the space will be fully transformed into an official commercial office space with meeting rooms and much, much more space for my many fabrics, textiles, patterns and model forms.”

Across from the small building is a recently-installed gravel walkway leading to a warehouse. Upon entering the building and seeing rack upon rack of children’s clothing, it becomes clear the space inside houses Olive Juice’s entire fulfillment center. Countless deep shelves store the season’s inventory along with past seasonal merchandise. “In Philadelphia, our inventory was spread out across numerous buildings,” explains Butler. “Not here. We learned from our Philadelphia experience the importance of centralizing as much of the fulfillment and inventory as possible. Here, in this one building, we house not only all our inventory, but we also manage fulfillment and customer returns right on the grounds.”

As I toured the warehouse facility in tandem with Kane and Butler, I couldn’t help but wonder, of all the places to relocate, why Rixeyville? “Before purchasing the lot and property, we had done extensive research and due diligence. We learned Rixeyville is one of the very few areas not requiring special zoning or specific permits or licenses to establish a business. So, unlike all the restrictions we had in Philadelphia or that most would face in any urban city, here we can literally do just about any- thing we want. The only limits to what we can achieve and construct on this lot are budget and our own imagination,” said Kane.

Kane, whose exquisite designs combine her love of quiet beauty and understated elegance, is using this new Rixeyville chapter in Olive Juice’s operations to also re-address her company’s entire marketing approach. “As an independent fashion line, we’ve always had our core base of repeat and loyal customers, but the economy has changed consumer buying behavior and patterns. I want to use this exciting transition in our business to revisit how we market our brand and how we can introduce Olive Juice garments, styles and ensembles to entirely new audiences and demographics.”

As part of the marketing overhaul, Kane acknowledges she and the Olive Juice team weren’t quick to jump on the social media bandwagon. “We saw many fellow retailers immersing deeply into social but we opted to hold back. At the time, we felt we didn’t need social and really kind of just kept doing what we had always done since 2003,” explains Kane, who has realized this caused some missed opportunities. “We started noticing the shift in how customers were behaving online around 2008. By 2010, we still hadn’t yet immersed heavily into digital and social beyond email. We now recognize we need to do better with our marketing and engagement. We have a great brand and we have a strong follower base, but we certainly could make improvements all across the entire marketing board.”

To that end, Olive Juice has recently retained a local, Northern Virginia based digital agency specializing not just in social and digital communications but in overall marketing strategy and integration. “We are excited to work with our new marketing team and open to new ways of getting the word out about our brand and our company.”

Another aspect of Olive Juice operations receiving renewed attention: retail partnerships. “While we’ve been great at being responsive to wholesale orders for our 30+ retail partner locations, we haven’t been as strategic with these existing relationships as we’d like,” shares Kane, who not only seeks to grow her network of retail partners in the USA, but further expand into Japan. “Olive Juice clothes seem to be really well received in Japan,” states Kane. “We need to improve our efforts to expand our line in that market.” And Europe? “There are countless of opportunities for Olive Juice in Europe. We have one retail partner in England, but we have received many inquiries from other locations in England as well as France and beyond. And we haven’t even touched Canada yet, but we are looking at all possibilities as we move into 2013.”

As the list for what could be done better and smarter seems to grow for the Olive Juice family, one thing is clear: the sky’s the limit for this long-beloved children’s apparel brand. “We are turning a new leaf here in Virginia,” says Kane. “While it sometimes seems like we’re starting over, it’s really more like we’re starting a new chapter of a really good book we’ve been reading for some time. Many more new and undiscovered adventures await us. We’ll just have to take each step one page at a time.”

It’s another busy week and Maryam Banikarim, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of media giant Gannett Co., Inc. (Gannett) finds herself once again traveling to Washington, D.C. from New York. As the mother of two, she admits she “compartmentalizes” her family and children as she boards the plane and begins her focus on work. “I’m really good at compartmentalizing,” shares Maryam, who travels often visiting many different Gannett sites and locations. “In fact, I’m great at it until my daughter calls me all weepy before the flight takes off . During those moments, compartmentalizing is not as easy.”

Already in her CMO role with Gannett for about a year now, Maryam takes some time to fondly recount the many adventures, experiences and challenges that brought her to where she is today: spearheading the organizationwide marketing and communications vision for a media conglomerate with more than 100 media properties throughout the U.S.

One look at her LinkedIn profile and it’s no surprise Maryam was the ideal candidate and is the perfect hire for such a role. However, it’s the granular, read-between-the-lines details leading up to each position she’s held that are truly telling of her professional marketing success.

“My career in marketing began more than 20 years ago quite by accident,” shares Maryam, who admits she really struggled not knowing what path of study she would or should take as an undergrad at Columbia University. “Going to college was like a candy store for me; there were just so many diff erent classes to choose from. I had a hard time choosing what I would study because I am and have always been inherently curious. Therefore, I was naturally curious about many, many diverse topics and courses. In the end, I chose Political Science as my major, which was an interesting choice given I grew up thinking I would be an investigative reporter,” Maryam recalls as she thinks back to her mom’s ideas about such a career path. “My mom was obsessed with Oriana Fallaci and always thought that’s what I would do. And I think that’s how I ended up at Columbia—mom thought of it as a journalism school even though there was no correlation.”

So how does a Political Science major go from a world focused on international aff airs and endless political theories to working as a Publisher at Macmillan Publishing; an SVP of Strategic Marketing at Univision and an SVP of Integrated Sales Marketing over at NBC Universal? Blame it on Drexler, Maryam might say. And that would be Mr. Millard “Mickey” S. Drexler to you and me…you know—the current Chief Executive Offi cer and Chairman ofw the Board of J. Crew Group, Inc. and past CEO of Gap, Inc. “Mickey came to speak at a retailing class on campus and I was told he was very nice and approachable. At the time, I had spent various years developing an ‘Insiders City Guide’ book project focused on publishing very localized information. I had incorporated the Gap’s Individual of Style campaign with my guide and had even approached various Gap stores with the idea of having them distribute the guide at their point of sales. There had been some light interest but nothing ever really materialized.” Through her friend’s encouragement, Maryam decided to send a mock up of the guide directly to Mickey. “I signed up for a product development class and convinced my group to actually test the travel guide with specifi c focus groups. I packaged all the focus group fi ndings and mock ups with a personalized letter and mailed it to Mickey’s office and thought nothing would come of it.Wrong!

Two weeks later, Mickey called Maryam with a job off er. “We talked on the phone and it was just such a crazy, perplexing experience. We had a very funny conversation. Many, many years later, we are still friends and stay in touch.”

While Maryam did not accept the Gap job offer, she was introduced to various high visibility contacts in the fashion industry. “I was looking for a summer internship and somehow, in all the conversations and interviews I had with people including American fashion designer Donna Karan, oft en folks would say ‘Oh really? Well, this is a marketing idea.’” And there you have it: a marketer was born. “Th at’s what got me thinking I should go into marketing,” Maryam fondly shares, adding Mickey really should get all the credit for her career choice. “Even now, I remind Mickey he got me started in marketing and he didn’t even know it.”

And what a start it was. It wasn’t long before Maryam found herself climbing the corporate marketing ladder and rising quickly in various marketing-centric leadership roles within the broadcast media space. She was even offered a number of jobs when she wasn’t on the job market. So to what does she attribute the high demand for her talents? “When I made the decision to follow a marketing path, I realized it was a perfect fi t for me. It’s the kind of career which demands equal talent from both your left and right brain. You have to have a good sense of numbers and metrics and all the while keep coming up with new, creative ideas.

There aren’t a lot of jobs, in my view, that bring these two qualities successfully together and I really have always liked the combination. I also learned quickly that the agency business is an idea business…and ideas are one thing I’ve never had a shortage of,” explains Maryam who also worked various diverse stints abroad before her marketing path took off , including as a Paris-based intern at Paris Fashion and a would-be reporter for the Buenos Aires Herald in Argentina. Th e latter would have possibly materialized had she not been hired by the Highlander 2 movie crew fi lming in Buenos Aires during that time. “I went snooping on the set to get a story for the Herald and the movie folks hired me on the movie set. You just never know how life is going to turn out.”

Fast forwarding many years towards the present day, Maryam’s collective experiences traveling—while growing up, during her college years and now as an adult—have fueled her curiosity which she strongly believes is a mandatory ingredient for professional success and especially more so in marketing. “What I tell young college graduates who are bright and really seek success beyond their campus years is to be curious and go the extra mile. I was always curious and wanted to do more things and that takes you places you may not expect.”

Excellent advice she applies not just to college graduates but towards her organizational team members as well. And despite the bright spotlight on her many accomplishments and accolades at such a relatively young age, Maryam acknowledges that many a team member along the way has attributed in large part of her success. “It’s important to recognize you don’t have to have all the answers,” she says. “You can work as a team and you don’t have to be the sole person who gets credit. I tell people to do what they think is the right thing and if you have to have 12 people share the credit, then that’s what you have to do.”

As our time with Maryam comes to a close, it’s hard not to wonder about how Gannett has already benefi tted from almost a year’s time of all the creative, new ideas she brings to bear since her hiring last March. “I think Gannett has been very open to all kinds of new ideas, not just my own. There has been an incredible willingness on behalf of the organization to accept and be open to ideas that may come from anywhere within the company. There is no set road map and anyone who pretends there is a distinct road map, is not actually being very truthful. The world is changing at such a rapid pace and you have to be willing to try lots of different things. I think Gannett has been incredibly open and supportive for us to try new different things and we have already done a good bit of that already.”

Keep up with Maryam’s continued professional endeavors and to stay abreast of this self-described “Pop Culture Junkie, Trend Watcher & Nomad,” please follow her on Twitter at @ maryamb.