She fought for us, when there was an issue she cared and sought to understand, she understood that family comes first before work (and lived the example), she protected us from the politics of the large organization, and she did whatever she could to obtain the resources we needed to do the job (a nearly impossible task at that company.) She had a 100-200 people on her staff yet she always made time to meet with whoever wanted to meet with her, and proactively scheduled quarterly skip levels with each person.

When the company's executives forced her to fire 95% of her staff, I can only imagine the turmoil she went through. She fought like hell to keep it from happening and then they overruled her and made her do the dirty work. She was also tasked with making sure we trained our replacements - IBM consultants in India. In doing so she gave us everything we needed (ie time to go on job interviews or take online courses) and was very clear that she was on our side, likely in defiance of company brass.

As a result, before the layoffs, we were good - easily the most advanced, innovative, and best performing group in the company. We really pushed the envelope despite strong forces outside our group pushing the other way. We were strapped for resources but we always made things work. She refused to take credit for it - "It's because of you guys; I'm really lucky to have an amazing team" but we knew better. We were really lucky to have an amazing boss.

I was always appreciative of her but after that experience of being laid off which was in early 2016 I feel such a strong sense of loyalty to her that if she got a job running a trash dump I would not hesitate to quit my current job (which is great) and go work for her picking through shit for minimum wage, just to be on her team again.