She lit up the tech and music industry. Now, she's the GM behind Indy Ignite's explosion

INDIANAPOLIS — Mary Kay Huse was a 24-year-old rising star in the tech world when she sat across the table from Scott Dorsey and said the words he hasn't forgotten more than 20 years later, words that sum up everything anyone needs to know about Huse and her drive and determination. It was 2004, and Dorsey was interviewing Huse for a job at his startup digital marketing company ExactTarget when he asked her that standard interview question. What are your career ambitions?

"And sincerely, I vividly remember. I can picture exactly where we were sitting, and she looked me right in the eye and said, 'I want to be CEO of a software company,'" said Dorsey, now a managing partner at High Alpha after ExactTarget was sold to Salesforce for $2. 5 billion in 2013.

"And I was like, 'Whoa. That level of boldness and ambition doesn't usually come so early in a career. ' It really stood out to me.

" The rest, as they say, is history. Dorsey hired Huse, and she spent the next 16 years with ExactTarget and Salesforce as "an absolute rock star," he says, before venturing out as CEO of music startup Mandolin, a live streaming concert platform launched during COVID. And then in 2023, Huse made a phone call to Dorsey.