Winter Tech Watch 2023: 13 Companies to Know

Giddy anticipation for the holidays, renewed optimism for the new year and the invigorating bite of cold weather — there’s a certain magic in the winter air.  

Cities across the country are covering trees and buildings with twinkling lights and cozy coffee shops and cafes are filling up with gathering friends reminiscing about the past year and talking excitedly about holiday plans. Speaking of plans, the 13 noteworthy companies featured here are gearing up for a flurry of growth, and each one has its eyes on a stellar 2024.

Along with the big business goals, these companies are also focused on enhancing the employee experience, whether that’s through living their core values, offering relevant and impactful benefits or letting teams work with the latest tech.

Before you fully switch to holiday mode, grab a toasty mug of apple cider and learn more about what these companies have to offer.

 

 

What ZS does: ZS is a management consulting and technology firm specializing in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and life science industries. The company is headquartered in Evanston, Illinois, and has more than 13,000 employees working in 35 offices around the world.
 

 

Addition by acquisition: In February, ZS announced its acquisition of Trials.ai, which uses natural language processing and machine learning to streamline the research and planning process of medical trials. Mike Martin, who leads ZS’ clinical development practice, spoke about the significance of the acquisition in a press release announcing it.

“Clinical studies too often struggle to find participants and encounter delays, but life sciences companies will now be able to use the ZS | Trials.ai solution to identify risks and opportunities, model operational trade-offs in real time and better see how study decisions will affect participants, sites and sponsors,” said Martin.”
 

 

What TransUnion does: In addition to its consumer credit reporting services, TransUnion also offers solutions for marketing, fraud prevention, risk management and more. The company has made two major acquisitions in the past two years, purchasing Neustar in 2021 for $3.1 billion and Verisk Financial Services in 2022 for $515 million.

 

 

Beyond Pride Month: This year, TransUnion celebrated Pride Month by hosting a wide variety of events, including a trivia night and a fundraiser. That said, its support of the LGBTQIA+ community extends beyond June, as David Nguyen, director of solutions consulting and a board member of the Pride@TU employee resource group, told Built In during an interview this summer.

“We participate in professional LGBTQIA+ organizations, like Lesbians Who Tech, to recruit talent and ensure a diverse and inclusive workplace,” said Nguyen. “We also work closely with LGBTQIA+ owned and operated businesses to support their growth and success.”

 

 

 

What Takeda does: Takeda is a pharmaceutical company whose focus areas include rare diseases, neuroscience and vaccines. The company was founded in 1781 in Japan and maintains its U.S. headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

 

 

Across the metaverse: Takeda took its first steps into the metaverse this past year with the help of Ernst & Young. In an EY case study published in June, the consulting firm detailed its project to help the pharmaceutical company facilitate training and onboarding in the metaverse, which took the design of its Tokyo and Boston headquarters. According to EY, employee performance and knowledge retention during training and onboarding, both increased in the metaverse, and the company reportedly plans to explore further use cases for the technology.

 

 

What Northwestern Mutual does: Northwestern Mutual is a financial services company offering financial planning, life insurance and investment services. The company also operates a venture capital firm, Cream City Venture Capital, as well as an accelerator program for Black founders in partnership with gener8tor.

 

 

Build your skill set: In a September interview with Built In, Northwestern Mutual CTO Dave Gordon spoke about the professional development opportunities available to members of the tech team.

“The training includes current topics such as cloud services, security, various development languages and much more,” said Gordon. “From a leadership standpoint, we offer a variety of coaching services, access to conferences and mentoring opportunities.”
 

 

What Nexthink does: Companies use Nexthink’s digital workplace observability and automation platform to monitor device and software performance and fix issues. Those companies include Western Union, Liberty Mutual Insurance and 3M.
 

 

Racing to zero: Nexthink has signed the commitment letter of the Science Based Targets initiative and has set a goal of reducing its emissions by 90 percent by 2050. In the press release announcing the commitment, the company said its interim goal is to reduce emissions by 42 percent by 2030, which includes reducing the carbon impact per hour of its cloud servers by 50 percent.

 

 

What EnterpriseDB does: EDB provides software and services to enable businesses and governments to use Postgres as an enterprise database solution. EDB prides itself on its contributions to the open-source project and says it has more Postgres contributors than any other company.

 

 

Climb the ladder: EDB takes the professional growth of its team seriously and provides customized development tracks, access to online education platforms and support for attending job training and conferences. These ample opportunities for growth have played a large role in Kanchan Mohitey, senior director of managed support services, building a more than 16-year career at the company.

“The open work culture and excellent career growth opportunities available at EDB helped me to rise through the ranks over the years,” said Mohitey. “EDB backed me up with trust, transparency and flexibility, which contributed to my personal and professional growth.”
 

 

 

What Mirakl does: Retailers use Mirakl’s cloud-based software to manage their third-party marketplaces and dropshipping businesses. Its technology is designed to be used by both B2B and B2C companies, and its customers include Macy’s, Best Buy and Toyota.

 

 

Living its values: Mirakl’s values aren’t just words on a wall or webpage, at least not according to Gina Guarracino. The company’s director of people for the Americas region said her team seeks out candidates who embody a specific core value when recruiting during an April interview with Built In.

“When looking at traits that stand out internally or during the hiring process, I constantly turn to ‘work hard together’ for its emphasis on collaboration,” said Guarracino. “Whether you are an individual contributor or executive, working effectively with others is necessary for individual and organizational success.”

 

 

What Nayya does: Companies use Nayya’s benefits experience platform to help their employees better understand and utilize their benefits. The company recently entered into a partnership with MetLife that sees the latter offering the former’s capabilities to companies with more than 1,000 U.S. employees.

 

 

Establishing psychological safety: Creating an environment where engineers can share and debate opinions and ideas without judgment is incredibly important to Andrew Lin, Nayya’s director of engineering. Lin recently spoke with Built In about how he establishes psychological safety on his team.

“Blameless postmortems are a critical tool for maintaining a psychologically safe culture even when things go awry,” said Lin. “Additionally, robust feedback loops ensure that issues surface early. In one-on-ones and retrospectives, we empower engineers to share perspectives constructively. Feedback focuses on behaviors and outcomes, rather than the person.”

 

 

What Sovrn does: Content companies use Sovrn’s advertising, affiliate marketing and data products to grow their revenue. More than 60,000 sites use its technology, including The Daily Beast, Newseek and Vox.
 

 

A new leader: In April, Sovrn announced the hiring of Chris George as president, a role that entails leading the company’s commercial team. George joined the company from Vox Media where he previously served as COO. Sovrn CEO Walter Knapp praised his new president’s expertise in online publishing in the press release announcing his arrival.

“His deep understanding of the pain points publishers face today will bring a sharp focus onto our goal of continuing to deliver solutions that help our customers grow and thrive in a very challenging environment.”

 

 

What NuvoAir does: NuvoAir is a digital health company focused on heart and lung conditions. The company helps patients monitor and manage their conditions via a combination of monitoring devices and on-demand telehealth appointments.

 

 

Vibe check: Collaborative, hard-working and motivated: This is how Val Anselmi, people operations specialist, described her team at NuvoAir to Built In. Anselmi also noted that the company places a major emphasis on work-life balance and enabling people to be themselves at work.

“We have flexible hours and a ‘trust first’ mentality,” said Anselmi. “We have an unlimited PTO policy and are encouraged to take as much time as we need to recharge. I have never worked for a company where people felt so comfortable bringing their authentic selves!”

 

 

 

What Scaled Agile does: Scaled Agile is the company behind the Scaled Agile Framework, or SAFe. SAFe is used by enterprise companies, including Chevron, American Express and FedEx, to implement Agile practices.

 

 

New product alert: Scaled Agile recently announced the acquisition of piplanning.io, an industry-leading enterprise application solution SAFe teams use to facilitate PI Planning that features real-time synchronized boards, clear visualization of cross-ART dependencies and intuitive filters to ensure team engagement and focus. Leading global enterprises such as Renault, AT&T and Farmers Insurance use piplanning.io as their one solution for all of the PI planning and execution needs.

 

 

What Allwyn North America does:  Allwyn North America operates the Illinois Lottery. In addition to Illinois, Allwyn also operates lotteries in Italy, Austria and the United Kingdom, among other countries.

 

 

Going Allwyn: In April, Allwyn acquired Camelot Lotteries Solutions, the parent company of Camelot Illinois, the previous operator of the Illinois lottery. In October, Allwyn announced the rebranding of Camelot Illinois to Allwyn North America. In a press release, Allwyn said the move is designed to build awareness for its brand, which plans to further expand into the North American lottery market.

 

 

What New Era ADR does: New Era ADR is a virtual mediation and arbitration platform that enables businesses and individuals to save money and time settling legal disputes. According to New Era ADR, its platform can resolve disputes in under 100 days as compared to the 17.6 months it takes using traditional legal means.

 

 

New year, new benefits: When it comes to meeting the needs of its employees, New Era ADR continually evolves its perks and benefits package to ensure its relevance. Rebekah Lear, program manager for operations and recruiting, recently spoke with Built In about the benefits the company has doubled up on in 2023.

“We’ve added more company holidays — 22 to be exact — and made sure employees are taking advantage of their flexible PTO,” said Lear. “We’ve expanded our mental health benefits and resources, which includes access to on-demand counseling services, mental health apps and additional support for managing stress and well-being.”