Sharon Lynch’s Journey to Tech Leadership

What does it take to be a tech CEO and what path leads a person there?

Sharon Lynch is CEO of Modus Create, a global consulting company that helps organizations modernize legacy systems, build digital products, and deploy AI‑driven solutions.

Sharon graduated from Washington State University’s management information systems program in the Carson College of Business, one of the first alums with an MIS degree. Sharon was also in the WSU Honors College and a university-wide sorority leader. 

Washington State Magazine editor Larry Clark talks with Sharon about how her experiences at WSU led her to the tech industry. 

She also discusses what it means to be a woman in a tech leadership role, giving back to WSU and students, and the importance of critical thinking in this time of rapid change with AI.

Transcript

Ep 46 Sharon Lynch’s Journey to Tech Leadership

[music]

Larry Clark:

What does it take to be a tech CEO and what path leads a person there? 

Sharon Lynch is CEO of Modus Create, a global consulting company that helps organizations modernize legacy systems, build digital products, and deploy AI driven solutions. Sharon graduated from Washington State University's Management Information Systems program, one of the first alums with an MIS degree. Sharon was also in the WSU Honors College and a campus leader. 

Welcome to the Washington State Magazine podcast, bringing you stories of WSU alumni research and Coug life. I'm Larry Clark, editor of the magazine. 

In this episode, I talk with Sharon about how her experiences at WSU led to a successful career. She also discusses what it means to be a woman in a tech leadership role, giving back to WSU and students, and the importance of critical thinking in this time of rapid change with AI. 

[brief music]

Hi, Sharon. How are you today? 

Sharon Lynch: 

Hi, Larry. I'm great. 

LC:

Great. Well, thanks for joining me. I'm excited to talk to you a little bit about your work, you know, as a CEO of Modus Create and being involved with tech. And then a little bit about WSU and your experiences there and how it brought you to this place. 

SL:

I'm excited. It was a journey. 

LC:

Well, speaking of journeys, can you tell me a little bit about your path to becoming a tech CEO and to Modus Create? 

SL:

Sure. Post-WSU, I was lucky and got recruited by Accenture straight out of college. And at that point in time, Accenture and probably some big consulting firms were recruiting out of WSU. So, super fun. Everyone would come and they would recruit and you went through everything. So that was really cool. I was an MIS graduate. So, and actually I was one of the first, my class was the first to get that degree out of WSU. They opened it up my junior year. So I might be dating myself a little bit. So we were the first out. 

And so I was really lucky and got hired by Accenture and honestly didn't know what consulting was, but moved to Seattle, big city. And that really started the journey and most of the work that was done at that point was really technology work. And I went and got my first project and I was coding. And I was actually coding in COBOL and never had seen the language, never had seen a green screen, had no idea what I was doing. And you learn fast and at Accenture, usually they hire people that are critical thinkers and can learn on their feet. And that's what I did. And so I was on that client for almost two years and it ended up I actually loved coding in COBOL. I learned it really fast. I thought it was fascinating. Printing out the code and figuring it out. And I learned a lot on that project. 

And from then on I was actually there for eight years and learned so much from everyone I worked with about technology and about business and about strategy. I probably worked at, I don't know, a dozen different clients, all the giants here in Seattle. I worked in California, I worked everywhere. I even got to go to Japan once for one of our clients. So I just started this journey of learning and being in technology. 

Then I got the opportunity to go work for a startup that was actually based in London. At this time, I'd gotten married, someone at work because basically that's all you do at that point, is you're working. So I met my husband at work and we got married and he had got this opportunity at the startup. So I ended up doing that as well because we were working internationally. So that was a different experience of going through a massive company into a very small company. And at that point, I really learned to really stand on my own two feet. There was no delivery methodology and there was no timesheet experience. And we had to stand up everything. We wanted to be a global company at the time. So that's where I spent the next eight years helping build that company. And that's where I learned to really sell to clients and build statements of work and price out projects and build teams and hire folks and learned really this like client service and account leadership skill, as well as knowing that methodology. 

Delivery methodology was really my passion. I love bringing teams together. That's where I learned that. And then in that time frame, my husband and I had two children and we traveled and lived in three different countries. And I was like, we have to go home. We need to go back to Seattle. So we came back to Seattle and I got, I was hired by a local consulting company. And in that company, we had started a product engineering department. And that's where I spent ten and a half years building a scaled product engineering team with just a fantastic group of folks. When I got there, it was about fifty people. And by the time I left, I was the leader of that unit and we were about thirteen hundred people. 

I learned a lot there more about methodology, but really a lot about leadership and growing teams and motivating them, and serving clients and even bigger and better ways transformational. And then I got this opportunity to go and be the CEO at Modus Create. And I looked at all those experiences. I can do that. I've learned a lot. So I'm here now and I'm part of transforming the company with mission and vision and getting us focused in the right direction. It's a global company with people in over fifty countries, and it's an incredible team, and I've been hiring all the right people and getting us pointed. And now it's about growth and getting us in a really good position. And I have big dreams for the company, which I'm not going to say right now, but I have big dreams. And it's about getting those done. 

LC:

Well, you got your MIS degree and then you went through this journey, along this path through tech. So what really excites you about tech as an industry and your role within it? 

SL:

I still think it's magic. I really think the technology is magic. And even from that day and those days in coding in COBOL, when you code something, you compile it and you run it and something comes out the other end. I'm like, this is magical. And so I still have this joy. I don't do that anymore but when I can bring a team together and watch them do it… So I know it's not magic, but as languages have changed and new technology has evolved, and we're able to create so many different things to meet business needs. 

I believe that consulting is a gift. And when we get to go into a client's environment where they ask us to come in, whether they can't do something, they don't have the time to do something, they don't have the skills to do it, but generally they need us to do something for them, it's a gift. And I teach my teams, respect that gift and so help them understand what they need because we build custom software. So you have to shape it and understand it and understand the business outcomes of that. And then a team needs to go develop that and make sure it works. And it works in production and it produces the thing that they need. And these things are expensive. They're usually millions of dollars. And so when you're creating that and you're creating a team to respect that whole process and to create something that runs and is really helping their business, whether it's internal or external or customer facing, it brings joy for me to see that and then joy to watch the team to produce that. And then you watch the customer when they feel that joy to see it produced. And they're like, it helps their team or their customers experience something new. So I guess, Larry, I’m still like a child sometimes in this career, because of the joy I feel and what I see in my teams when they are get like job well done. The worst thing you can get in consulting is, “That wasn't what I wanted.” 

LC:

It seems to me, you know, just reading from an outsider's perspective about tech and its rapid development—of course, it's always rapidly developing and has been for quite a while, but even more so I would say, since, say, twenty twenty two, twenty three—with the advent of AI, it seems to be accelerating even more. How does that affect your role, the work of your company and your work? Does it make it harder? Does it increase new methods that you have to learn? Tell me a little bit about the rapid change you're facing. 

SL:

The answer is one hundred percent and it's good. It's really good. I've been doing this for a while. I don't say how long anymore, but I've been doing this a while. And without change, you just get stagnant. You just get really stagnant. So all the teams that I build and the people I hire, I hire people that want to learn and want to change and get excited about those. Like curiosity is probably the number one skill that I hire for, like willingness to learn and be creative. And curiosity is the things I look for in people because in this career, it's always changing. There's always a new language. And there's always a new way of doing things. 

And in consulting in particular, you're always going into a new client in a new industry. So you always have to learn something. Oh, that's how you do that business. If you're going from health care to manufacturing to anything. So you have to learn all the time. 

So now I'll answer your question. I always felt it was too, too slow. It always irritated me, how slow you go. Even when I started, it was years. The first project I was on, it was going to be five years before we got to a result. Now, it was a very complicated problem, but wow. Like to get to a result it was going to take five years. And then over the last ten, same thing. Like it would take nine months, two years to get to a product. The industry changes. That's too long to get to something.

I feel like for the first time in my career, that's not the answer anymore. For the first time, software engineering, the coding, the actual coding and the testing, is not the pinch point. It's not the long pull. Something else is: it's ideas. It's actually picking what you want to do and figuring out the requirements and actually the environment around it. So we develop software, people making decisions. If you don't do that, I hold you up. And then your environment where you're putting the software, the production environment, those things can slow you down. So now we have to optimize those because coding is not the problem. Now you can do that so much faster and using, whether it's agentic or using any AI-assisted methodology. 

And my team and the people I'm talking to, a little bit of fear in the beginning, honestly, but now it's like, no, no, no, I can be so much better. Especially if you're experienced, I can use these tools. I can go back and forth. I can test myself. They feel like they're producing better code. 

I talk a lot about modernization because so many companies are stuck behind old tech, like tech debt in the world, and they can't even modernize. They can't use AI because they're stuck. So I want to see how we can help them move those applications into the modern world, move them to the cloud, do things in a better way so that they can actually be modern companies and it doesn't need to take a year or two. It can take six months to nine months to really do good technology, even in a secure and reliant way. It's not vibe coding. You actually have to produce good software that can go into production. So you have to think through everything that they need to think through. And when people talk about vibe coding and you're in insurance or financial services, you have to still do all of the checks and do really good testing. So that's why they need to come to people like us, that knows how to put software into production, but we should be able to do it so much faster now. So I think it's the most exciting time I've ever had in my career. 

LC:

That's exciting to hear. You know, it's not, I think, necessarily what you hear all the time. You know, people like you said, there's a bit of fear there. And yet it's groundbreaking technology that can make things faster and potentially better, but requires experts, like you were saying. I think from an outsider's perspective, at least that's I find that extremely exciting, to think that there are people like the folks in your company and you who are thinking about using it in a positive way. 

SL:

I mean, there are dangers. Of course, things need guardrails, Larry. Like that's just, we have to know them and use them. And people are nervous about things, but we have to show them that it's okay and put those guardrails in place and things need to be secure. But this tech is here to stay. So working with trusted partners is really, really important. So it's just kind of reframing how you can use these new tools to think about it. It's also my mindset. So there's other people with different mindsets. My mindset is, this is awesome. Let's go figure out how to use it. And you know, there's just different mindsets out there. 

LC:

Speaking of mindsets, and this is maybe a little bit of a shift, but something I've spoken to other alumni about in the tech space: as a woman in tech leadership, what are some of the challenges? What's the current landscape? Do you see it improving? And how can, how can it get even better? 

SL:

It's a hard question. It's a really hard question. Change is slow. And I wish change was faster. And if I look back over time, I know things have improved. I know the environment is better than it was forty years ago. I know that, but I know it could also be better. 

There's not that many of us women CEOs. I don't know if I've encountered one since I've been in this job. In my previous job as the leader of a tech organization, I don't know if I even encountered that many in that role as well. And so I think it's continuing to be in conversations like this. I think it's continuing to show women and men that it's possible. And it's a path of success, not just for me, but that someone can lead a company successfully and do something successfully. Well, whatever their gender, not being diverse isn't an option. It's just not part, it's not part of what we do. We have really bad answers if we're not a diverse team. 

It is a very male dominated field. I never really noticed it until I got into senior leadership, to be honest. It's been so male dominated that I didn't ever think about it, really. It's partly my personality, partly as you've already seen, I just keep going. I've always been very driven, and very like just driven. And so I have an idea and I want to go. And I just always wanted to be very good at my job, so I just wasn't gonna let anything get in my way. So. Okay, cool. This is, this is where I work and this is what I do. 

I asked someone the other day, like, why do you think I've been successful in being a woman in this field? And she said, you know, and she's known me forever, and she said, “Well, you're approachable, you're not divisive, you're not the B word, you're not flirty. People like to be around you. Like I never thought of myself that way. But men like to be around you. You're not threatening all the wives like you. Like you have this really interesting lane. You're just really approachable, like everyone, no matter what, just wants to be around you.” And it's this interesting lane that I've. It's just me. I've never even tried to be this lane. And so part of it, Larry, is I just it's just who I am. It's my DNA. 

I never thought about it until I got into senior leadership. And then there were some roadblocks put up. And frankly, it wasn't really men. I've had the best mentors ever that were men. 

LC:

That's interesting. I was going to ask you about your mentors and and if there were some people in particular that kind of guided you into leadership positions.

SL:

I've been, so I'm not going to say lucky, just blessed. I've had people just take me under their wing. I had one person say, actually it was this woman. She said, you're really high maintenance, but you're worth it, you know? You know, so it's just things like that of just worth their time. And they, I also think I'm really open to feedback. It's really, and I've noticed this late in my career as well. If you're open to feedback, I will spend all the time with you. I will give up time. I will do so. I was always open to feedback. Give me the hard stuff. Don't give me the easy stuff. Give me the hard stuff. Give me that feedback. So I have this community of people who have been with me for so long that give me all the hard stuff. And honestly, Larry, some of them are like, I want my daughter to see you. Like you are the shining light for my daughter. Um, which is, I'm sorry to cry. I don't have daughters, which has been incredible. Like they are trusting their daughter with me. It's amazing to see. So that's been fun. 

LC:

That's wonderful. Kind of looking back over all the things that you've done. Are there one or two moments that just really jump out at you as a favorite time or greatest sense of accomplishment? 

SL:

When I think about it, I'm a small-town girl. I grew up in a tiny town in northern Idaho. I graduated valedictorian; there were actually four of us. We competed the whole way and I had a full ride to U of I and everyone was, I chose Washington State and they're like, what are you thinking, paying out-of-state tuition and, you know, all that kind of stuff. It was the first adult decision I made on my own. I didn't have any financial support to go to school, and I just knew that was the right decision for me. Like, I just knew that that that's what I needed to keep going. My brother went there too. My brother and sister-in-law. And that was also, I kind of always knew I wanted to go to Washington State. But one of the things though, that was a confidence booster and WSU was a huge confidence booster. I was in a sorority. Some of the best friends that I ever had, being, you know, I was in Panhellenic. That was huge. Oh, everyone voted me in. This is oh my gosh, me, you know, so those type of things and then getting hired by Accenture. 

But there was when I was at Accenture and again, just doing my job, just, just doing the best I could do. There was a moment where people were like, oh, you're no, you're like the best, whatever, best analyst. Like what? What do you mean? They're like, no, you're the best. You're like the number one person. I'm like, what? And so there's this, that was a big confidence boost. And I wasn't like, oh, I'm amazing. I was like, oh, I'm good at this. I can have a career here. So just a confidence boost that led to and I was promoted early to manager. So I just think about that was a confidence because I'm good at this. I can do this career because, back to the small-town girl, like no one I knew was really in a professional job outside teachers and police officers. So that was, oh, I can survive in Seattle in this big business world. So that was one kind of really core thing to me

And then it was the job I had before this, like building a business of people that have not only the business side of it, which was incredible, was a very successful business producing money. It's very profitable and all that, which is very important, like knowing the business financials and always making sure that that is solid so that you have the ability to do anything else. That was one core fundamental, very important. But having a group of people that are very passionate about the mission that you're creating, loyal to that mission, and having that feeling of teamwork and focus. And being able to mentor and coach and having that trust. That was a very important milestone in my life of having that creation and that feeling and confidence. It wasn't just me. It was a team. 

LC:

So you mentioned a little bit about WSU looking back on your experience. As you know, when you first became a Coug and started studying MIS, what at WSU really helped you succeed? What really built up who you were that eventually leads up to the person you are now?

SL:

Um, well, I'll say, I'll start with everything and then I'll be specific. Because it is everything. It's Pullman alone. Like being in a college town is to me really important. Rushing and joining a sorority, I wasn't going to do that. And my sister-in-law, she's like, you should just rush. I was like, no, it's not me. I don't know. And she's like, no, just if you don't like anyone, just don't do it. And again, one of the best decisions I ever made, I was rushed Alpha Phi and can't imagine who I would be with without my sisters, because we're still really close today. And it was being in in the house. It was being in the Greek system, but it was also, again, the confidence booster of like, they're like, you should run for treasurer. You're so good at that stuff. Me? Okay. You know, and then doing this and doing that and like, you should run for Panhellenic. Me? You know, because they were all like, of course you can. You'd be awesome at it. So just those continuous moments. 

And then when I was on Panhellenic, you know, I met one of my best friends; she was the president. And still today my kids call her aunt, you know. So it's just continuing that mission of the friend group, the community of people that just support you. 

And then on top of it, the schooling, right? I started off as an engineering student because everyone was like, you're good at math and science. You should be an engineer. I'm like, oh, okay. So I started, I'm like, oh, this is not for me. So, you know, I went to business and then I kind of like, oh, I'll do accounting or whatever. And then they started with MIS and I fell in love. My first coding class, I was like, this is it for me. This is all I want to do. But WSU supported me through that. No one was like, you need to pick and what are you doing? And you're being a dummy. I felt really supported through all of that change. 

And then when I picked MIS and again, we were the first class and kind of going through that experience with WSU. And I think everyone was really excited about that mix of computer science and business. And our group was really small. There weren't that many of us. So we ended up kind of being juniors and seniors together and all in the same class. So that was another community of people. 

And actually my mom dropped off—it's actually sitting over here—a bunch of my stuff from college the other weekend, and I was going through and one of my best friends. He was actually in my wedding. I pulled out this paper and it was two of us got ninety-four percent. I took a picture. I was like, hey, look at us. It was like a partner project. But you know, just again, all those communities and you learned, I learned how to build myself within all those communities because you're a little bit different, right? In my sorority being my pure self. Right? And then you're in Panhellenic and you have to be a little bit different. You're a leader of the entire Greek system and you aren't, you're yourself, but you're a different position. And then in classes with that community, obviously you're doing your different schoolwork, you're doing all these different things. So I learned all of those lessons, which I don't know if WSU meant to teach me, but I learned there's different sides of me in all of that and the other ones. 

And this is a shout out for the Honors program, which I know is even stronger now. I had no idea how good it was. Critical thinking skills are so important. And that's what it taught me. It was the first time I was really challenged on critical thinking in writing, understanding what I was reading in a way that I know that enabled me in consulting in a different way. And it was gentle but challenging. And I still remember my classes  because of that skill set. So I think the honors program is incredible. And what I learned, I remember going, oh, man, this is gonna be hard. And it was, but it was so good. 

And I think of this generation of students, because of AI, and I know what I need to hire. They need to know critical thinking skills and problem-solving skills. That's what they need, right? And programs like the Honors program are the way that they're going to learn that you cannot. You can get by with using AI, which is unfortunate. And you need to learn critical thinking and problem-solving. 

Obviously, a lot of my friends are from WSU and they're surrounded. They're our family. We don't have any family in Seattle, and weirdly, none of them do either. So their children are my children's cousins, that type of thing. We're that close. And I didn't realize, I mean, we talk about Pullman a lot. We talk about the good times. So they've heard all the stories. And you know, we didn't go there a ton, but we went to football games and basketball games and all that kind of stuff. 

And when my son went, my oldest went to go pick schools, like he didn't even want to go anywhere else besides WSU. And we went just to go look. And he got back into, we got back into the car afterwards and actually one of my sisters was in the car with us and she's like, “How was it?” And he goes, “This is home.” And he said, he's like, this is home. Like, I can't even imagine being anywhere else. And I can't wait to come here. I was like, oh, that's how I felt, like it's home. And then my youngest threatened to go to UW and threatened to go everywhere else. I'm like, fine, I'm not gonna force you. But he went touring everywhere, right? He's like, I'm not going to go to WSU. And partly it was, I think, to make me panic, but I was like, okay, fine, we'll go and do whatever you want. And then one day he's like, I don't know why I'm doing this to you. I just want to go to WSU because it's home. It's home. So anyway, and they're both there.

LC:

I think that pretty much nails it. You know it is. It's home. And so many of us feel that way, when we went to WSU and when we go back. 

SL:

So how do you give back? I've thought about that for a long time. I don't think I've given, besides my children, I don't think I've given much back to WSU. There's always a money angle, obviously, but I don't think that's my contribution necessarily. That's never what I felt. And so I've thought about that for a while. When I was at Accenture, actually, I used to come back and recruit a lot and I would actually go to the MIS Club. Um, so I did that a while. 

So I've always thought about, how do I bring my experience back to WSU in some way? And I would broadly say that beyond this, how do we in this real world experience bring that back to students that they can resonate with it? 

So anyway, that's something I think about a lot. How do we, how does the business community engage with WSU? Because you're out in Pullman, it's harder there. I have a bunch of friends who went to UW and they go and they teach all the time. They go, do a semester course and they do lots of things. And I, I think that's something to explore. There's a lot of people that are successful now that are graduates at WSU and how do we give back? How do we help students track to the real world? Because I graduated not knowing anything about a career. That's not WSU fault. That was more, I didn't have a lot of good examples about professional careers. And I bet you there's students at WSU who are like me that were raised in small towns who don't understand what there is. So anyway, that's why I think about it a lot. There could be some partnership there that would be how I'd like to give back to the WSU community. 

LC:

Well, hey, thanks so much for talking with me today. I think this is a lot of fun and I've learned a lot. So really appreciate it. And as always, Go Cougs. 

SL:

Go Cougs! 

LC:

If you'd like to find more WSU stories, visit magazine dot wsu dot edu. You can follow the Washington State Magazine podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen. Please leave us a good rating. Tell your friends about the show and send us your podcast ideas. This episode was produced by me, Larry Clark. Our music is by WSU emeritus music professor, composer and musician Greg Yasinitsky.

[music]