When Ann Raider, CEO of Instream Media, spoke at the AlwaysOn Venture East summit at Harvard Business School her leadership qualities were clearly on display - intelligence, compassion, eloquence, wit. She is a fighter notched in glowing accomplishments and accolades. She has worked in the corporate arena with major companies like The Gillette Company, HP Hood, Bank One and Accenture. She also co-founded Consumer Card Marketing, Inc, an international loyalty-marketing firm and pioneer in database marketing and CRM which sold to News Corp. She served as Chief Strategy Officer for Vertis Corporation where she led North American sales, marketing, acquisitions and long term planning, prior to which she had served as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at News America Marketing.

So what motivated Ann to move back into the start-up arena? A desire to create something dynamic again, by serving and inspiring people. And it was clear, even after speaking with her for just a few minutes, Ann plays a very inspiring role. She is big on listening to people, always learning.

“I hire smart people and let them do their job,” Ann said.

She makes it sound easy. It’s not.

Instream Media is a marketing services company providing targeted advertising and promotions to consumers at the point of sale. Under Ann’s leadership the company is almost at $1million in revenue, poised to leverage a huge market opportunity.

When Ann started in corporate America, a lot of women did not hold senior positions and many who were in those top positions were harsh because they had to claw to get there. They had to fight hard to get respect. Sadly, statistics still show that women executives still earn $2 million less than men over the course of their careers.

Ann was one of the few MBAs in her graduate school and one of the first women in product management at Gillette. She said gender barriers, still in existence today, were very tangible when she started her first company and was one of the reasons she did not take the role of CEO - her clout would have been significantly undermined.  It’s now been documented that women CEOs are more diligent and have better performance.

Ann is clearly both as well as a savvy negotiator, a brilliant communicator and a pragmatist with an outstanding overt career. A mother of two, Ann swiftly juggles a lot motivated by the lessons learned and consequent ability to make things work, get to a billion dollar company and the financial success for her children.

She notes that there a more women out there now, driven, with less fears, collaborating, innovating and making things happen.

She says, “It’s exciting to see them take flight.”