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Community IT Voices: Johanny Torrico, President and Chief Operating Officer
Join us for our series featuring interviews with Community IT employees. In this series, we talk about nonprofit technology career paths, career resources, skills, and certifications. We also touch on mentoring opportunities as you start out on your career and ways to give back if you are further along.
Today Carolyn talks with Johanny Torrico about her recent promotion to an executive position that the Community IT Board created for her: President and Chief Operations Officer.
Building on our past “Voices” series interview, this conversation provided an opportunity to delve into Johanny’s strategic vision for the company’s future. We explored how the new position was created to recognize her role guiding the company through a period of significant growth and innovation in the past few years, ensuring that we continue to provide the highest level of service and support to the nonprofit community.
We also touched on the challenges and successes of our expansion at Community IT, doubling both staff and clients served in the years following the pandemic. From scaling our services to meet increasing demand to fostering a cohesive culture as our team grows, Johanny shared valuable insights into the dedication and strategic planning that was required to navigate this dynamic landscape.
A key theme is the importance of talent and culture in a rapidly changing environment. Our President and COO shared personal reflections on her extensive career in IT and operations, highlighting pivotal moments of challenge and the principles that have led to her success. This led to insights on what it takes to recognize and nurture talent within an organization, offering practical advice for HR professionals, managers, and job seekers alike.
We also explored the unique benefits of being a 100% employee-owned company. This model is a cornerstone of our internal culture, fostering a deep sense of ownership and commitment among our staff. Ultimately, this shared purpose and dedication not only helps us attract and retain top talent but also directly translates into the exceptional service and long-term partnerships we provide to our nonprofit clients.
Johanny has a lot to say on the benefits of a culture that encourages staff to be happy and capable, and the focus at Community IT on customer service – the face to face interactions of people with people.
“As an employee owned company, we all have a stake in the success of our company. For sure, that is something that has contributed to the culture that we have. A culture of work-life balance. A culture of team building, of learning together. I think that part of staff development, that part of working together for the better good, supporting nonprofit organizations, is definitely what makes Community IT unique in the sector.”
– Johanny Torrico, COO
Speakers:
Johanny Torrico brings over thirty years of experience managing teams and operations to her role as President and Chief Operating Officer at Community IT, where she leads the largest internal team providing services to clients. A calm and organized leader, Johanny is responsible for the service and technical operations for all the teams at Community IT. She also leads staff development and internal business processes, with a focus on staff retention and career mentoring.
As Chief Operating Officer Johanny played a critical role in leading the dramatic expansion of our service operations. She established new teams, expanded company management and led the successful adoption of a wide range of new technologies. Johanny has a special ability to promote standardization of our services in ways that add value for our clients. Johanny brings decades of experience, professional maturity and tremendous skillsets as a business leader.
During her twenty year tenure at Community IT, Johanny has mastered every role she has taken on including network administrator, network engineer, and service manager. She still enjoys providing technical support to our clients, participating in our professional services team, and implementing technical solutions. She draws on her long experience interacting with nonprofit clients in various roles to understand how best to partner with our community.
Prior to joining Community IT, Johanny served as Director of Technology for The National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA) for nearly four years. Previously, she worked for 11 years at Whole Foods Market, where she was the Facility Leader for their food plant in Landover. Through these management experiences Johanny gained extensive leadership, planning, management, and customer service skills.
Johanny holds a B.S. in Computer Information Systems. She is a VMWare Certified Professional and a Microsoft Certified IT Professional for Office 365.
To learn more about Johanny’s career path, view her interview, part of the Community IT Voices series.
Carolyn Woodard has served many roles at Community IT Innovators, from client to project manager to marketing. With over twenty years of experience in the nonprofit world and marketing, including as a nonprofit technology project manager and Director of IT, Carolyn knows the frustrations and delights of working with technology professionals, accidental techies, executives, and staff to deliver your organization’s mission and keep your IT infrastructure operating.
Carolyn is excited to help manage Marketing at Community IT Innovators and is always looking for new ways to tell stories and reach people. She has a master’s degree in Nonprofit Management from Johns Hopkins University and received her undergraduate degree in English Literature from Williams College. She thinks the best thing about being with Community IT Innovators is the people.
Transcript coming soon
We hope you enjoyed this Community IT Voices interview with Johanny Torrico. Community IT is the right place for you if you find fulfillment in helping others succeed and love mastering new technologies.
Our employees stay and grow with us, and over half of our staff have been with us for over a decade. Community IT is an employee-owned company with a positive, sustainable workplace that promotes professional development and a healthy work/life balance. We have been 100% employee-owned since 2012. Check out careers with us here.