Utah Business proudly presents this year’s cohort of our Leaders of the Year award. These 12 honorees represent the greatest accomplishments of Utah’s business community in 2024 and were selected by the Utah Business editorial team.
Amy Osmond Cook
Co-Founder & CMO | Fullcast
In January, Fullcast, a SaaS company revolutionizing revenue operations, ran a $34 million seed round buoyed by female investors. Co-founder and CMO Amy Osmond Cook helped make it happen.
Despite this rousing success, Cook didn’t initially want to be an entrepreneur. Actually, she never planned on working at all — “I wanted to get married, have kids and never look back,” she says.
But after a divorce left her alone with small children, Cook realized she needed to pivot: “I had to feed my kids, honestly. I went to work out of necessity.”
Cook took advantage of a series of opportunities: admission into school, writing jobs, a job in marketing, and, eventually, a job at Simplus. The work molded her, and along with her partners at Simplus, she founded Fullcast.
“I had never considered startups,” she says. “And now, I have the startup bug — the flexibility, creativity, energy and brilliance of those I work with. I just love it. I’m giving it everything I have.”
Cook says that success is thanks to a mix of luck and hard work. In her position now, she’s able to create those same opportunities for anyone willing to roll up their sleeves.
“I don’t want women to be afraid of going back to work if they want to,” she says. “All the things that are necessary in a technology startup environment are also in a family: multitasking, project management, driving to deadline, managing chaos, pivoting quickly? These are all things that I remind women who have raised kids that they know very, very well.”
However, Cook emphasized that she’s not on a mission to tokenize women — or anyone.
“I don’t ever want to be chosen for something because I’m a woman,” she says. “I want to be chosen because I’m good, and I just so happen to be a woman. When we lower barriers, when we make access to the industry easier, the right people will come.”
That’s what made a female-led seed round possible, she says.
“We were deliberate,” she says. “We were looking for anyone with talent, expertise, relationships.”
Cook says she didn’t sweat pitching Fullcast to these investors.
“We did not need to convince them,” she says. “They were grateful for the opportunity, and they came right on board.”
That kind of investor — and team — comes from being willing to search outside what Cook calls “the technology ecosystem proper.”
“There are many, many talented people already involved in Utah’s business community, and you should absolutely look there,” she says. “But challenge yourself and your teams to also look in non-traditional places that may not be as obvious — like these stay-at-home moms who are so well suited for our industry.”
Cook urges other businesses to remember that a rising tide lifts all boats.
“Look for talent, look at their potential,” she says. “A diverse, successful team will often come naturally. I hope people see what we’ve done here, and how amazing our teams are, and decide to follow suit.”