New Role Dedicated to Employer Engagement

As NSS continues to grow, we realize the importance of investing in the growth of our career development efforts and expansion of the career development team. Today we are excited to announce some changes to our Career Development and Employer Engagement teams.

Please join us in welcoming Marla Lamont as our new Director of Career Development. Marla leads our Career Development team and will work directly with students and seekers to support their career development preparation and job search. You may recognize Marla if you’ve been to an event with Women in Technology Tennessee (WiTT). She was the President of WiTT from 2017 - 2019, and is still very engaged there. Additionally, she brings a wealth of experience as a talent acquisition leader for HCA Healthcare and Tractor Supply Company. Marla, who joins as a member of the Senior Team and reports to Amy Henderson (COO), began on October 12th and is busy getting up to speed with the team. 

We also want to welcome Julie Heckler as a Career Development Specialist. She brings over 12 years of professional recruiter experience in both agency and employer roles, and most recently was with Ingram Content Group where she worked with NSS graduates as she recruited for technical job openings. Julie began on Monday and will report to Marla.

Ashley Canino will continue to support students and seekers and was promoted to Senior Career Development Specialist. She will report to Marla. 

We are also happy to announce that Kristin McKinney will be transitioning to focus on our employer engagement efforts in her new role as Employer Engagement Director. In this role, she will be busy building new relationships and strengthening current ones with local employers, which directly impacts engagement with career development events and the hiring of our graduates. Kristin remains a member of the Senior Team and will continue to report to Amy. While she won't be working with students and seekers directly day to day, she will work closely with the Career Development team on helping our graduates find their first job in tech.

Adding these two new staff members in order to expand our Career Development bandwidth focused on job preparation and job search and creating a new Employer Engagement role focused on our relationships with local employers will allow us to improve our support for seekers during a time when placements are taking a little longer. The two teams will be working closely together to continue to create a great experience for all of our students as they go through the program and beyond!