Mentor of the Year 2018
Aptima, Inc., the leading human-centered engineering company that applies expertise in the disciplines of how humans think, learn, and behave to solve challenges faced by the U.S. Department of Defense, announced today its Mentor of the Year award winners Margaret J. “Meg” Clancy and Dr. Krista Ratwani. The Mentor of the Year Award recognizes Aptima employees who pro-actively develop and are genuinely committed to employees’ growth, development, and cultural integration into the organization.
Margaret J. “Meg” Clancy
Executive Vice President Meg Clancy co-founded Aptima with Daniel Serfaty in 1995. Since that date, she has held a number of titles, including Chief Financial Officer, and most recently oversaw Aptima’s Human Resources and Talent Management Department. As a Mentor of the Year, Aptima staff recognized Meg’s outstanding leadership and mentoring with nominations that included some of the following comments:
- “…has always provided guidance and feedback to employees across the company… [and] insists on high levels of performance because our livelihoods depend on it.”
- “…is quite humble about her accomplishments, but it isn’t a stretch to say that none of us would be working at such a successful company if she hadn’t worked so closely with Daniel to make the business work and support the staff’s innovations.”
- “…has treated the downs as learning experiences… does not catastrophize… and has treated the ups as opportunities to grow. [She] doesn’t hide our challenges…, but uses them to instruct and improve.”
- “…has spent hundreds of hours with staff over the years. The result is an Admin organization that is polished and professional and a technical staff that is business savvy.”
Dr. Krista Ratwani
Dr. Krista Ratwani joined Aptima in 2007 and is currently the Director of the company’s Learning & Training Systems Division. In her nomination for Mentor of the Year, staff comments included:
- “…has learned to understand me and how to best support and challenge me, and has adapted [her] mentorship in a way that has benefited my growth greatly.”
- “… has also been an understanding and safe person to lean on when life happens. No matter what I have faced in my personal life…, [she] has always made it known that [she] will work with me to provide me with the support I need to deal with what I need to deal with.”
- “…truly listens to and cares about [staff], and strives to create a positive and collaborative work culture.”
- “I’ve never worked with anyone who had more integrity, patience, work ethic, and poise.”
- “She’s been instrumental to my career and I think she has one of the most honest and open minds to making Aptimists and our products the best we can make them. She’s piloted some great projects and has made huge efforts in learning how to run Jira boards and to improve our project management process.”
The Awards were distributed on December 14, 2018, during the 2018 Aptima Annual Achievement Awards Ceremony. Any employee at Aptima is eligible for the Mentor of the Year Award, may be nominated by anyone in the company, and must meet the following criteria:
- Willingness to help develop another employee through guidance, feedback, and occasionally, an insistence on a particular level of performance or appropriate direction.
- Initiates new ideas and fosters the employee’s willingness and ability to make changes in his or her performance based on the constant change occurring in their work environment.
- Would be rated as “highly successful” in both job performance and in navigating the organization’s culture by coworkers and managers.
- Demonstrates success in establishing and maintaining professional networks and relationships.
- Willingness to communicate failures as well as successes to the mentored employee.
- Has spent an appropriate amount of time with the mentored employee to establish trust.