Kelly Manthey

Kelly Manthey is the Chief Executive Officer for Solstice, a global digital innovation firm delivering digital strategy, experience design and product development services for the Fortune 500.

Kelly received her bachelor’s in information systems from Kent State University and began her career at Accenture. Throughout her career, Kelly has always been a driver of change. At Accenture, Kelly helped Fortune 500 companies embrace the internet era, the emerging technology of the 90’s. She built web technology and the first eCommerce sites for some of the leading brands. Her experience with designing and building emerging technology in the context of legacy enterprise technology environments helped her in the 2000s as internet technology became mainstream and companies were now faced with modernizing both their internal and external facing business applications.

Kelly’s foundation in software engineering gave her valuable perspective as she moved into leadership roles. Kelly’s ability to effectively bridge communication between engineering and business organizations while driving innovation pushed her into more strategic roles. She is a driver,  versed at wearing many hats, coloring outside of the lines, and uses the diversity of her experience to go ‘all-in’ on any initiative she is part of. As a leader, she practices mindfulness and empathy to keep herself grounded and compassionate to the needs of others in a high performance environment.

Kelly’s proudest professional accomplishment is her role in the growth of Solstice.  Kelly joined Solstice in 2006 as the first full-time employee. On the ground floor of a high growth tech company she dug into every aspect of the business. Solstice has experienced +30% YOY growth over the course of the last 5yrs. Kelly became adept at managing both client work with the work of running and growing a business. She scaled her own strategic competency into a formalized strategy practice for the firm to offer clients management consulting in the areas of emerging technology.  The strategy practice continues to be one of the most high value and highly sought after capabilities that the firm offers. Her scope of responsibility has now grown to apply her entrepreneurial and growth mindset and ability to execute to: establishing four new emerging technology service lines [Internet of Things (IoT), Conversational UX, Robotics, Cloud and Digital Transformation], the channel partner strategy, the marketing and brand strategy, and working with the Solstice executive team to drive and define the corporate strategy.

Kelly’s passion projects include the formation of the Women In Tech group at Solstice.  Through this group she is working with men and women at Solstice to break the stereotypes around careers in technology and to make Solstice the best place for everyone thrive.  Most recently she began involvement with the the STEM program at her son’s school with the goal of educating and exciting young minds about the possibilities that a career in technology holds.  While her work keeps her curious mind energized, her favorite and proudest roles have been being mom to Jack (10) and PJ (7) and wife of 11 years to Paul. Kelly is a runner with 3 full marathons under belt and enjoys wine, reading, and cooking.  Kelly and her family live in the southwest suburbs of Chicago.