Stacie Osako’s title appears familiar, but at Informatics, Inc., “CEO” stands for chief experience officer, the “experience” meaning both employees’ and customers’.
“I’m really responsible for the ‘people experience’ with anyone who interacts with our business,” Ms. Osako said.
Ms. Osako took on the role in January 2020 as she and husband John Osako took over Informatics management from his parents Frank and Maureen Osako. John Osako gets credit for her title.
“But he is the traditional CEO,” she said. “We looked at what our skills and interests are. I really enjoy the people aspect of the business.”
“It’s the core of who she is,” said Patti Seda, a Cedar Rapids human resources consultant, coach and author. “She has this really creative, logical people focus. I see it in every interaction I have with her.”
The elder Osakos launched the web design and digital marketing company in 1989, “back when it was cutting-edge to have a website,” Ms. Osako noted.
Informatics’ 28 employees today develop websites, apps, and digital marketing campaigns for customers ranging from small startups to large regional companies such as Blain’s Farm & Fleet.
“We have just about any size customer,” Ms. Osako said. “We have clients that are independent self-employed enterprises. It really has broadened. We really consider ourselves problem-solvers for any size of business. It includes a big spread, which really makes us better business partners. We’re able to apply different solutions to different situations.”
While much of that problem-solving goes on at the company’s downtown Cedar Rapids offices, Ms. Osako helped manage the sudden transition to work-from-home as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the nation just two months after she became CEO. She then oversaw the company’s further shift to its current home-and-office hybrid.
“We definitely have landed comfortably,” she said. “My purpose has always been just to do whatever possible to create great workplaces, because everybody wins. To do that, you have to have really great relationships. And we have such an advantage being a tech-based-and-faced business – we have the tools for that.”
Managing pandemic disruption and the subsequent return to a new normal drew on Ms. Osako’s previous human resources experience at AEGON and Van Meter Industrial. She’s also worked as an independent consultant in the field.
“That’s what I went to school for” at the University of Iowa after graduating from Cedar Rapids Washington High School in 1995, Ms. Osako said. “I still wear that hat, and I probably always will. In the entrepreneurial business-owner space, you wear different hats.”
Ms. Osako is working on her MBA in business administration and management. She’d completed about a year of the program in 2004 before starting her family.
“It is a lot of work, but it’s one of those things that hangs over you,” she said. “My oldest is graduating high school, and teenagers don’t want to hang out with you as much.”
Ms. Osako has served terms on the boards of such local non-profits as Women Lead Change and the Catherine McAuley Center.
“Everything I’ve learned and experienced through those folks I’ve brought back to my business,” she said. “A lot of those organizations don’t have the budget to have any sort of human resources on staff, and that’s what I bring to them.”
Ms. Osako “unequivocally” credits much of her career to women she’s worked for and with at earlier jobs.
“I definitely attribute a lot of my development and my willingness to take risks to a lot of the women,” she said. “There’s real data that shows women don’t jump into things until you’ve got all the boxes checked. You’ve got to have those people behind you saying ‘you can do this.’”
Encouraged by the progress she’s seen over her career, Ms. Osako nonetheless is ready to support a new generation.
“I definitely identify as a Gen X-er and I employ a lot of young people, because we’re in the social marketing and tech space and these people grew up with it,” she said. “There’s so much more acceptance that leaders need to have and businesses need to have. That often comes down to being flexible, and that has a broad definition: how do you make an environment where people can be their best, and have lives outside of work?”
This profile was originally published in the CBJ’s 2023 Women of Influence publication. The 2023 Women of Influence are an inspiring group of community leaders who have each overcome adversity, taken chances and challenged themselves to make a positive impact in their community, despite demanding schedules in their personal and professional lives.
The CBJ will host the 2023 Women of Influence banquet from 5-8:30 p.m. Thursday, May 4, at the Hotel at Kirkwood in Cedar Rapids. Tickets are still available to this event, which includes networking, dinner and remarks from the winners. To learn more and purchase tickets, visit https://corridorbusiness.com/event/women-of-influence/
