Speaker Spotlight
She Entered Technology Without Knowing How to Use Email. Twenty Years Later, She Leads Enterprise Server Operations.
Simoriah Stogner · TEDx Speaker · 20-Year Technology Executive · Founder, Simulating Mindsets · Springfield, Missouri
When Simoriah Stogner walked into her first technology job, she did not know how to use email. She had survived childhood homelessness, become a mother at seventeen and arrived without a four-year degree.
Twenty years later she leads enterprise systems engineering and server operations, and the Springfield Technology Council has named her its IT Person of the Year.
On paper, most hiring filters would have screened her out. That gap between what the filter sees and what a person can actually do is the subject of her TEDx talk, and the question she puts to every room she speaks to.
The Résumé That Wouldn’t Have Made the Cut
Simoriah’s starting line is the kind most organizations never see, because the people standing on it rarely get through the first screen. No degree. No connections. A teenage parent building a future after years without a stable home.
What she had instead was capacity, and somebody willing to notice it. From there she spent two decades building a career across enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, AI, operational transformation and people leadership, with work spanning enterprise modernization, remediation strategy and governance in complex environments.
Her results are the kind executives understand immediately. She led automation that cut server delivery from roughly 33 days to under 24 hours. She helped build women’s employee communities that now serve more than 4,000 participants. In 2023 the Springfield Technology Council named her IT Person of the Year, and she serves on boards focused on technology, women and rural innovation.
What If the Talent Shortage Is a Vision Problem?
That is the question at the heart of her TEDx talk, One Size Does Not Fit All. Organizations say they cannot find people. Simoriah argues that many of them are filtering out the people they need, using inherited screens that confuse pedigree with potential.
She does not stop at the story. She gives leaders a working framework, See. Build. Rise., for recognizing evidence of capacity outside traditional credentials and turning that recognition into real development opportunities. It is the rare talent keynote delivered by someone who has been on both sides of the filter: the candidate it would have rejected, and the executive now responsible for building teams.
Alex Jarett, Technology Executives Club
What Planners Can Expect
Simoriah works from three signature keynotes. One Size Does Not Fit All challenges hiring filters and shows leaders how to build pathways for overlooked talent, a natural fit for HR and talent leaders, workforce events and corporate conferences. The Unlikely Executive traces her path from childhood homelessness and teen motherhood to enterprise leadership, and asks audiences to reframe adversity as information rather than identity and to lead before the title confirms they are ready. Technology Made Human moves people from AI anxiety to useful action, with practical use cases, better questions and a clear line on where human judgment has to stay.
Audiences respond. In verified post-event feedback from 71 attendees, 100% said the talk was valuable, 100% said they would see her again and 96% rated her inspiring. She has spoken at TEDx Missouri S&T, the Biz 417 Think Summit, SheLeadsTech, the Springfield Technology Council, Missouri State University’s College of Business, the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce and Central Bank.
Simoriah is based in Springfield, Missouri, travels across the U.S. for in-person events and delivers virtual keynotes for U.S.-based audiences. Full keynote descriptions and audience feedback are on her speaker profile.
More on talent, AI and leading without permission: Erica Dhawan on why teams are agreeing with AI instead of using it and Jen Borrero on leadership without permission.
Book Simoriah Stogner
Available for keynotes on recognizing talent beyond credentials, unlikely leadership, resilience and practical AI, for corporate, association, technology, education and workforce audiences.