Company: Axis Teknologies, Atlanta, GA, USA
Company Description: Axis Teknologies was established in 2003 with the mission to help transition existing infrastructure to the advanced technologies and capacity needed to meet consumer demand. Axis provides staffing and engineering solutions that connect the world. Axis is a unique telecom entity – a certified woman-owned enterprise that is TL 9000 certified, demonstrating the company’s commitment to quality.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Services –11 to 2,500 Employees

Nomination Title: Jennifer Schoenhofer, Founder & CEO

Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated entrepreneur since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words):

Over the last year, Jennifer heavily invested in the development of several innovative machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies and the advancement of innovative M2M services that improve business processes, efficiency of government services, and the quality of life.

Jennifer believes that M2M technology and solutions could have as much an impact on the world of the future as the Internet has had on the world of today.

She searched for advanced technologies that offer innovative solutions to conditions that negatively impacted citizens, business or government. She looked for those that were stuck in a think tank or had never been properly commercialized for use. She found them in both Europe and the United States. She put a team in place to take the necessary steps to make these innovations available to the American market.

Axis Teknologies, Jennifer’s company, is now in the last stages of development and first stages commercialization of M2M technologies that:

•Reduce traffic congestion, increases parking efficiency and will even alert drivers to feed the meter before they receive a ticket for parking violations

•Provide building, bridge and tunnel shift data that can alert analysts of potentially dangerous structural integrity problems

•Create small cell networks with embedded artificial intelligence that can adapt to environmental conditions without human intervention

•Provide heterogeneous network interoperability solutions that enable the deployment of a broad range of M2M technologies in several verticals, such as smart grid/meters, security, public safety, and network performance/standards testing

While the M2M initiatives moved forward at a rapid pace, it has been a year of reinvention for Axis in other ways, as well. Although Axis has a strong, solid base of staff augmentation business, Jennifer knew the company needed to take it to next level to stay competitive and grow. The challenge was to evolve the company into a full service provider, adding greater service diversity and depth.

The company has accomplished tremendous strides in this reinvention over the last year. A company can’t just put out a new services list and announce, “Look at what we now sell.” It takes market research to determine what those services should be and how to package them correctly. It takes manning up operations with the right skill sets to maintain top quality delivery. It takes putting together the right management team and company processes so it all comes together.

Jennifer developed a strategy with her team, worked the strategy and has been making it happen. Axis is now able to offer a full range of service solutions while staying true to the core values of excellence in customer relations and delivery. This has been a tremendous achievement.

At the same time, Axis Teknologies was certified as TL 9000. This was a massive undertaking to establish measurable and repeatable processes for delivery and customer service quality that passed a third-party audit under the QuEST Forum standards.

Axis also achieved the rare honor of making the Inc. 500/5000 list of Fastest Growing Privately-Owned USA Companies for the third year in a row.

Provide a brief biography of the nominated entrepreneur (up to 100 words):

Jennifer Schoenhofer is an entrepreneur with a passion for building an expanding company with a great work environment that contributes to the greater community. Prior to founding Axis Teknologies, Jennifer was CEO of Wireless Solutions International (WSI). In two short years, Jennifer grew WSI revenue from $500,000 to $5 million. When WSI disbanded in 2003, Jennifer took ownership of the project management/engineering division that evolved into the company that Axis Teknologies is today. For the last nine year, Jennifer has expanded Axis to one of the fastest growing private USA companies. Jennifer holds an MBA degree from Kennesaw State University.