Sandra (Sandy) C. Hofmann 

Triumph over Tragedy – A Leadership and Personal Success Story

Intelligent, inspirational, inclusive, insightful, and instantly impactful – those are only a few of the words that describe Sandy Hofmann – the woman and the leader.   She is a phenomenal example of a leader who is the living who she really is everyday.   Her philosophy: you can't lead effectively if your heart and your head aren't in the game.   

Barely five feet tall, this diminutive figure is a giant in terms of her business accomplishments.   Currently she is a senior executive with MAPICS, a manufacturing solutions company headquartered in the greater Atlanta area.   Sandy's responsibilities include enterprise information technology services, corporate human resources, as well as enterprise business systems, facilities, and corporate marketing communications.   She has over 25 years of manufacturing-focused ERP and CRM experience, including 14 years with IBM, and has held senior management positions in software development, quality assurance, technical and professional services, client management and customer support operations.  

Rewards and recognition

2003 was a very big year for Sandy.   She was recognized as the Georgia CIO of the Year in the regional category and was a finalist for the Georgia Woman of the Year in Technology (repeated in 2004). Due in no small part to Sandy's leadership, MAPICS won the “Best Employer in Georgia Award for Work/Life Balance” and was acknowledged by the Society for Human Resource Managers (SHRM) with the 2003 Grand Prize for HR Excellence.   These company honors were largely the result of Sandy's successful implementation of the virtual office (teleworking and telecommuting) concept which has become an integral component of MAPICS operational strategy.  

When she's not figuring out ways to improve IT operations, the bottom-line and employee satisfaction, Sandy may be found writing articles, being interviewed or delivering keynote speeches on topics like customer relationships, organizational behavior, leadership, teleworking, strategic IT, and knowledge management.   She is also a member of numerous professional and industry organizations and serves as vice-chairman on the Southeast Council Executive Board of the AeA, the nation's largest high-tech trade association.   In 2004, Sandy was invited to join the Information Technology Advisory Board for the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, an organization she has long supported with her personal, financial and volunteer resources.   She is also on the Board of Directors for TechBridge, a non-profit organization helping non-profits use technology to better serve the community.   Sandy is engaged in both professional and personal impact through her extensive involvement in the community.

Early influences in the making of a leader

Growing up in the South – Alabama and Georgia - Sandy is clearly proud of her roots and her family.   Sandy is especially appreciative of the way her father made decisions that were in the best interest of his family and at the same time, had a successful career with IBM.   Sandy is equally respectful of her mother who, deferring to her 5 brothers the opportunity for a college degree, made her own decision to be a full-time wife and mother.   With four children at home, her mother had a full-time job and Sandy points out that her mother never once left the impression that she had “given up” anything to stay home.   Anecdotal evidence suggests that Sandy's parents did a pretty impressive job developing values, character, as well as independent minds among Sandy and her siblings, including two sisters and a brother.

“Interestingly, I'm the last one of the four of us who would have been expected to pursue a career in technology or corporate America,” Sandy said.   “Instead, my family thought I'd probably be either an attorney because of my love of knowledge and the underdog or a revolutionary due to my intensity!   If you ask me, however, I'd say I could have been an artist in the French quarter.   In fact that still may be my long-term goal!”

“From my earliest memories, I have had a voracious appetite for knowledge and for reading.   As a kid, after lights out, I would pull the covers over my head and continue to read by flashlight.   My parents leveraged books and reading time as an incentive to get me to do my chores.   With a personal library of almost 3000 books, reading and learning still play a big part in my professional and personal life.”

“In addition to developing a love for reading, my parents also helped me develop the characteristics that have helped me achieve goals.   For example, as a fourth grader, I was small and shy and wore glasses, so you can probably imagine that I was often teased, called “four-eyes,” etc - very distressing to a young girl. My father told me to just say “thank you” to the next person who called me a name and promised that they would stop after that.   Was I ever shocked when I tried it and it worked!   The person was thrown completely off-guard and had nothing else to say to me.   What a lesson in standing up for yourself and not being intimidated.   I've certainly used that lesson a few times in the business world.”

Dealing with life's toughest challenges

Graduating in 1969 from high school in Savannah,   Sandy emerged into a world where a whole new generation was marching for peace and where revolutionary thinking was celebrated.   Intrigued by how people were coming together around the world for a common cause, Sandy decided to seek a degree in the nascent area of communications technology – Marshall McLuhan's “Global Village” and “The Medium is the Massage”.   But her school was cut short when a vicious rape resulted in a pregnancy.   Sandy recalls that she never questioned her right to make choices about her own body and was shocked to learn that she could only obtain a legal abortion after being examined by a state appointed board of physicians.   With her family's support, Sandy made it through that gauntlet and never looked back.

After moving to Atlanta with her family in 1972, working full time and carrying a full course load, Sandy graduated from Georgia State University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education . She received special permission to complete her student teaching practicum at a private school for children with learning disabilities (now Mill Springs Academy in Alpharetta) and quickly took that experience to Leesville, Louisiana where she started the first public school program in the parish for children with learning disabilities   From there, Sandy moved to California, where she taught junior high math and worked for California Polytechnical University as a technical specialist in the media and design center.   She returned to Atlanta where she taught first grade and children with learning disabilities.

Eager to enter an environment where performance rather than tenure mattered,   Sandy entered the corporate world at IBM.   Her career track included a variety of positions within IBM over 14 years and numerous executive positions at several other companies before she joined MAPICS in July, 2000 as their vice president and general manager for a product business unit in Boston.   Sandy is currently the Chief Information Officer and Chief People Officer for MAPICS.

Along the way, Sandy would experience the thrill of victory in finding her life partner and husband while working at IBM.   Theirs was an instant match of spirit as evidenced by their engagement after only 30 days. Sandy said, “I knew after one date that he was the one.”

After fourteen years of what Sandy would characterize as a wonderfully synchronous relationship, she experienced the absolute agony of defeat.   Her husband committed suicide. Less than two years after he retired, he was gone and Sandy was left to cope with the trauma.   Would she ever find the will to go on without him?   Would she ever want to?

These are the kinds of questions that challenge the human spirit and often do not have positive answers.   In Sandy's case, however, that certainly isn't true.   She was down, but she wasn't out.   “In tragedies like this,” she said, “only faith and the strength of character can carry you though.”   Fortunately, Sandy has both.  

Life lessons – new goals

Even with this terrible event in her life, Sandy continues to find meaning in her life and is always willing to share her insight, experience, and leadership with others.   She credits her heritage with making her not only the kind of leader she is but the kind of person as well.   And, the two are the same.   There's no “Sandy at the office” versus “Sandy in real life.”   At work and at play, in the business world and in the community at large, Sandy's goal is to make a difference. “My father would add to that,” Sandy said, “you've got to take care of yourself and give to others.”  

“I also like to think that when I work with someone or have a relationship of any kind, it's like ripples in a pond.   You don't know where those ripples may end up and in what way you may touch the lives of other people.”  

“Perhaps my best advice around leadership is not to take yourself too seriously.   Humor is a great equalizer.   Self-mastery and emotional mastery are also important.”

In a recent presentation to a group of high potential women in a Women in Leadership seminar, Sandy shared the following philosophy about what leaders need to do: (1) Inspire a shared vision.   (2) Challenge the process and take risks.   (3) Encourage and enable others. (4) Model the way. (5) Encourage the heart.    Giving credit to Kouzes and Posner, who wrote books about these principles, Sandy has clearly found her own way of living these principles as a leader.   Sandy believes that she must always choose to make a difference and, in Martin Luther King's words, believes that “life's most pressing question is what are you doing for others”.   She has never lost sight of her own vision or legacy, she has clearly faced challenges head on, she works tirelessly to enable others, she is a model for those around her, and her successes encourage the heart of all around here.

By Susan B. Hitchcock for the SHEroes Project

August. 2004