Women Leaders in Business: Breaking the Glass Ceiling

Thank you so much, Miral, and thank you all for coming here this evening. We're excited again. We had a huge, overwhelming response to this event, and we have about 200 people on the waiting list. I was being hounded today by people saying, can we come? So the credit goes to Google and to all our amazing panelists. I think people are very excited to hear these incredible women speak about how they broke the glass ceiling. Before I move further about a little more information about the expat woman, I do want to acknowledge Google Launchpad and Shiri Sivan, who is also, I believe, an expat woman, and our contact here at Google Launchpad. So I want to thank her for hosting us. I want to invite her to come and speak, and I want all of you to give her a huge round of applause. Hi, everyone. Well, first of all, it's really a pleasure to see so many women here in the audience. It's really inspiring to me to see so many people coming together on this really amazing topic. So thank you, the expat women community. It's really great. So my name is Shiri. I'm the program manager here at Launchpad Space. And I just wanted to give you some context about what it is that we do here and what is this space. But first I want to know who's here for the first time. Raise your hand. Wow. Okay. Great. Amazing. Well, welcome. I'm so happy to have you as a part of our community now. The Launchpad Space is Google's space to interact with startups and developers by offering free educational events, because we really believe that we want to give access to knowledge and experts to anyone who has an interest and strives to kind of learn and grow in the business world and create their own startup and company. And we're also the which is Google's global startup program that helps startups through different methodologies, anything from a six-month accelerator program for emerging ecosystems to customizing mentoring sessions to different startups. And we actually just recently announced that we opened an AI studio. So that would be a program for AI startups to join as well. I really encourage you to come back here again. We host anything from conference to conference. We have a lot of events. We have code labs, hackathons, meetups, and a lot of types of events. You're going to get them if you sign up to our newsletter. If you have any questions about the space, please feel free to reach out to me or Brett, who is my colleague, who is around as well. And yeah, have a wonderful evening. I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sheree. I really appreciate it. We'd love to see, get a show of hands from you. Sheree Duggan, CEO, Xpats, have moved here from another country. Awesome. Anyone moved here in the last few months? Anyone new? Oh, quite a few. So why don't you put your hands up? Because I know when I moved here, it was really hard to make friends. So it'd be great for people, if you're looking to connect, work, or make friends, and you let people see who you are so people can connect. And you know, it's, that's why I started the Xpat Woman. I moved here 12 years ago and I realized how hard it was to build my network, especially professionally. Things are different in each country, finding a job, resumes, you know, even personally, you know, how you dress. It's very different. And it's not just the U.S. You can move anywhere in the world, but if you're new, it's hard initially. So it has, of course, pivoted from just Xpats to American women as well, and men. It's always great to have men in the audience. We need more of them. So thank you for coming here today. I don't see any other gentlemen in the audience. You're the only brave guy, so kudos to you. Oh, there is? Oh, he's hiding. Okay, good to see you. Okay, so I just want to go through the agenda. We're going to be starting the panel discussion shortly. It's going to be 45 minutes followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. I'm very excited to hear all these amazing women speak, and we will come to them in a few minutes. We do have a couple of events coming up. We do a female founder pitch, female funders' campaign, and this event is at Hustle. On Monday, we have, I believe, six or eight entrepreneurs pitching to six women investors. Actually, Renata, who's going to be on our panel tonight, she has been on several of our pitch investor panels. So even if you're not interested in starting a business, I encourage you to come to support all these women. Many of them are early-stage startups. Many of them are international entrepreneurs and need all the support and encouragement to go out there in this world. Thank you. And start their business and grow it. We have a women in engineering panel at Sunrun on August 31st. How many of you here work in engineering or are engineers? Wow, there's just two or three. So even if you're not, we have an amazing panel of engineers working at some of the biggest tech companies on this panel. So I'd love for you to come to this as well. Thank you. We have... We had a women leaders in tech panel last month, and we had such an overwhelming response. And we had, like, I think we had about 400 people on the wait list. So, you know, we decided to do another one. And this is going to be at StubHub. Again, an amazing group of panelists. And this is our second hackathon. This year, we do a hackathon two times a month. This hackathon is going to be focused on different career challenges. Even if you have no coding best design or best concept. And, you know, I've been really empowered. So don't be afraid by the word hackathon. And because, no offense to the men, but because it's an all-women hackathon, the women seem to be really supportive of each other. And I've seen women who have never spoken in public before come up and pitch ideas and pitch their projects at the end of the day. So, yeah, I'm really excited about this. of the evening. So, another exciting event. We have our first career summit. We've been doing these evening events, but, you know, we decided to go ahead and do a whole day event. So we're doing a career summit, which will include a conference, a hackathon, and a career fair. I'm hoping I can play this. We have a very short promo video, which I just wanted to share with you. I'm also a filmmaker. So this, the images and video here are from various events. Maybe some of you might recognize yourself. But I'm hoping I can play this. So, I'm hoping I can play this. So, I'm hoping I can play this. So, I'm hoping I can play this. So, I'm hoping I can play this. So, I'm hoping I can play this. So, I'm hoping I can play this. So, I'm hoping I can play this. So, I'm hoping I can play this. So, I'm hoping I can play this. So, the time to speak and Moira, at the last event, I think you inspired so many women and again, you're one of the very few women, I think, who's risen to the top of the engineering field. So thank you for coming back again in such a short time. I appreciate that. I think Renata and Kimberly and Shannon have also participated in our panels before, so thank you for coming back and I'm excited to have Jennifer and Shazia join us for the first time. So have a good evening and handing it over to Mira. She is really the sweetest person. If you have not already spoken with her, I suggest you all say hello. That's gonna be a lot of conversations, but you should. So without further ado, I'm so excited to introduce Sonia, who's going to be moderating this evening's panel. So she is currently the head of marketing at an early stage startup in San Francisco and in addition to that, what Nina touched on, she's currently the president of Maytree, which is a nonprofit that is working to empower South Asian survivors of domestic violence in the South Bay. She's won numerous leadership awards. She's a phenomenal person to be moderating this panel, so I'm gonna pass it over. Big round of applause. Thank you so much and thank you, Nina. I think this is an amazing endeavor that you've embarked on and I just see the results of it. It's very heartening and it's amazing to be in this crowd of women. Today's panel consists of some amazingly distinguished women and what my goal for this moderation would be is that for all of us to get inspired by their personal journeys, their successes, learn from their stories. We hope, I hope that they will share some war stories of things that went well but also didn't go well. And last of all, I thought that given the current climate and this whole kerfuffle of, you know, gender inequality, VCs resigning due to sexual harassment, people saying women maybe not have the best biological strength to be competitive, et cetera, et cetera, I thought we'd ask no better than them to tell us what is their take on this. So we have a very exciting evening planned and I will introduce the panelists very briefly and I will summarize your bios. It was so much of, when I looked at their accomplishments, I thought, oh my goodness, I better stop sleeping at night. So it is my pleasure, my honor to welcome this panel. First of all, we have Myra Benjamin. She is the Director of Engineering at Pandora where she manages multiple teams of engineers who deliver algorithms for listener playlists as well as tools to manage the Music Genome Project, which sounds absolutely fascinating. She's also software developer, author, poet, certified scrum master, lyricist, pianist, novelist, and angel investor. She is currently studying machine learning and data science. Please join us, Myra. I have Renata George, who's an entrepreneur turned angel investor, turned VC, and a frequent speaker and author on VC and angel funding. She is the recipient of several Leadership of Honors and Awards. Please join us. This is going to be a very fun evening if you haven't figured that out as yet. Shannon Ice is the VP of Corporate Communications at Yelp and has been an on-air contributor for play and technology segments on the Late Show with David Letterman. I am so impressed. Shannon is also the recipient of several Leadership and Women of the Year awards. Please welcome Shannon. Thank you. Thank you. We have Shazia Makhloumi, who oversees global business development for educational apps and games on Google Play. She has spent over 20 years in the tech industry as an industry analyst, operator, investor, and entrepreneur. Welcome, Shazia. Jennifer Brown is the director of procurement at Salesforce, responsible for global procurement operations, process, and programs, which includes supply, biodiversity, sustainability, risk, and compliance. Previously, Jennifer worked in public procurement and retail strategy in international business development. And last but not least, Kimberly is a VP and integrated marketing manager for Wells Fargo Wholesale Banking Group. She leads the team of integrated marketing campaign managers for business banking group, foreign exchange, government, and institutional banking, and Wells Fargo Securities. She has served on the national board for Upwardly Global, a nonprofit providing job search training to low-income refugee and immigrant professionals. Please join me in welcoming the panel. What I would love is if a few people from the audience now stood up and just simply said your name, title, and the company you work at so we could have an idea of the diversity of people we have here today. Yes, please. My name is Hannah. I work at Glow, which is a fertility tracking app, and I am the . Very nice. Anyone else? Yes, please. Hi, my name is . I'm an analyst at a . Welcome. Hello, my name is Erica Kleinman. I work over at BlackRock, and I'm a portfolio manager. Welcome. Yes. My name is Yumi. I'm a CEO and co-founder of a startup using AI to empower women and diversity for companies. Welcome. Thank you so much, everyone. And so we will leap into the questions now. So I thought that since we have such amazingly accomplished women here today, we would get inspired by listening to their stories. And also have them share some of the challenges they've faced on this journey to where they are right now. So what I'd love to know, I know the panel is titled Breaking the Glass Ceiling. But what I would really like to know from any one of you is do you believe you've broken the glass ceiling? And how did you do it? And if you haven't, what do you think remains to be broken? I'll start because I have the mic. That would be good. I don't think I've broken the glass ceiling at all. For me, the glass ceiling will be broken when I become a VP of engineering or a CTO. And that's one of my goals. But in the meantime, I've broken a few ceilings coming here. And that's where I stand at this point. Use my mic? Yes. So one of the things, Myra, I want you to know is that I'm not a CEO. I'm not representing my company in a firm, I'm a science programmer, and I learned how to program at every one of my jobs. So one of the things that I really like to do is solve problems and automate the way that I solve that problem. And I took the opportunity at every job to learn programming languages as I went. I didn't ask for permission. I just went ahead and did that. The master's in liberal studies, it was something that I felt I needed because I have a dichotomy in that I love art, I love history, I love all of those things that aren't tech. And I wanted to take a moment to do a master's in liberal studies, which actually has benefited me more than anything else I could have done. Thank you. Shannon? I don't think I've broken the glass ceiling for sure, but I'm in communications, which is more of a field that has a lot of females represented at the top. In the Valley, there are still a lot of senior roles filled by men in communications, but we have folks like Shannon Stubo at LinkedIn. We have what Rachel did both at Google and at Uber, really trying to lead the communication strategy there and a big seat at the table for those leadership teams. So I have a goal. I have, and I've seen women be successful at it, but I personally have broken my own glass ceiling. The limits I had set for myself, I've shattered those, and I think that's as equally as important as trying to get others to make way for what I can do next. Renata, I actually have a specific question for you. Oh, my gosh. You're an angel investor. Actually, I'm a venture capitalist now. Oh, a venture capitalist, yes. Sorry, venture capitalist. I don't think there's a lot of women venture capitalists. I mean, more than 300 only in the United States. Trust me, that's enough. So you can meet one woman we see a day, and you'll be fine. So how did you get to this trajectory, and do you feel you've broken the glass ceiling where venture capitalists are concerned? I would never recommend to anyone to broke glass. It's dangerous. And I have never had any glass ceilings, frankly. So there's no direct response to your question. I think that actually Shannon said it right, put it right. She said that you shredded your limits. So I would call it, in any other words, but the ceiling. Because we all know that if we set a goal, we need to achieve it, we need to visualize it, right? We need to visualize our success. And instead of this, we actually visualize this. And I have, on my way to Google Launchpad, I've literally recorded a video, and you can find it on my LinkedIn. And I said, you know what? So actually, the term glass ceiling, it was coined 40 years ago, literally, 40 years ago, 1978. And if we haven't broken it since then, probably it's not glass, it's concrete. So let's just, you know, stop wasting our energy on that. Forget about it. Forget that it exists at all. Let's pretend that it doesn't. And maybe we will never feel that bump while climbing up. So that would be my advice. Answering your question, I'm sorry. So again, there is no direct answer because I was an employee in my early age. And then I started my own business. And then I sold it successfully. And then I gave birth to a son. And then somehow it was an epiphany for me. I felt that I... At that point, I didn't need to prove anything to anyone anymore. And that was probably it. So I haven't had any problems after that moment. I moved to the United States. And absolutely unexpectedly, in one year after I moved here, we raised our own funds. So I was a general partner right away again. So I just have never had it. Excellent trajectory, I guess. Shan. Ashazia, sorry. So I think I also similar to what Renata and Shannon said. If you look at it as a glass ceiling, then you're looking at what someone else imposes on you as a, you know, this is where you can go. This is what success looks like. I actually like to turn it around and figure out what's important is figure out your own metric for success. And it can be whatever it is. And it also might change over a different period of time, right? I remember my mom said when... When I was born, she was very career minded, but I'm the eldest. And the minute she saw me, she wanted to be the best mom. And so I think it's... The most important thing to me is figure out what you want, figure out how to get it. And then if you're not, whatever the boulders in your path are, how do you go over, around, under them? And then if you're doing everything you can and there's still a problem, then yes, I acknowledge. I wouldn't necessarily call it a glass ceiling. But then if there's a systemic something against it, like either your race or your gender, whatever, then yes, you figure out what that is. Fortunately, I haven't had to experience that yet. But I always look at what's my metric for success and what I'm doing. Thank you. Jim. I feel like there are no more glass ceilings for us to break, really. Somebody has always come before us and done that work. And I think a bit more in terms of the next biggest glass ceiling there is for women to break is 50%. Because if you think about the number of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, we're at 6% right now. And that's actually up a couple of percentage points from last year, which is progress and it's headed in the right direction. But it's still just 6%. So for me, it's not that, and by the way, I don't think I've broken the glass ceiling. But for me, it's more about the next biggest, most important glass ceiling for women. Is to have equal seating at the table. And I think that it's a good glass ceiling to break because there's plenty of room for everybody. Very well put. So I work in marketing in a financial institution. So I think that even though there are a lot of women in marketing, there is still a huge gap in terms of leadership for women in banking in the financial institution space. So just this past month, Wells Fargo, actually, that's where I work. It actually just elected its first chairwoman. And Betsy Duke is now the first chairwoman of any major financial institution in the U.S. So I think the fact that it's taken until 2017 to reach that, to break that glass ceiling and to reach that achievement shows that there is still a lot of movement and space and really work to be done in equality for women in the space. But at the same time, too, I'm also very excited and proud to work for a company that we have that leadership. And we're able to show that a woman. It's going to steer this company and steer and shape the future of our organization. I think Renata has a piece to something to add to this. Thank you. I would like to follow up. Also, I would like to point out from the very beginning of our evening tonight. So there's a misconception that glass ceiling is somehow linked to males, right? That men actually set up limits on us. But this is a misconception because women on top are even more competitive than males on top. So talking about glass ceiling, we need to understand that we're not talking specifically about, you know, sexism coming from males, right? So it's also from females. Yes. Yes. That's important. You know, just counterintuitive. We don't talk about that often because it's somehow, you know, radical. And also just, you know, when we say we want to achieve like 50-50, right? The ratio. Don't stop there. Why 50? My point is. My point is that, you know, let's say some jobs like where actually people have to carry heavy stuff. We don't want to achieve 50-50 ratio there for some reason, right? So there is no established ratio for any profession. So we need to understand that our numbers, if we aim for some specific numbers, they should be, you know, somehow justified by something. So we just limit ourselves with 50-50. We can as well just aim for 80-20. Well. Especially. Okay. I'll take 80-20. Thank you. Let's everyone aspire. I think we have a goal set here. Everyone work out towards this goal. So this question is directed to anyone on the panel who's had a mentor. How critical is it to have a mentor? Does it matter if it's a man or a woman? And I have a couple of follow-up questions after. Yes, please. Go ahead. So I have been incredibly lucky. Okay. I've had mentors out of most of my prior bosses. And I never really went into the relationship thinking that that's what would happen. But during the time that I've worked for them and then in all of the years after I've worked with each of them, having that great working relationship and being able to, I mean, not every prior boss of mine has turned into a mentor. But the ones who really enjoyed working with me and really felt like they were a part of my life, and really felt like they got a lot of personal value out of having me on the team, are the ones who showed consistent and relevant interest in furthering my career well after I worked with them. And both men and women equally, I would say. And my advice and my thought process around choosing a mentor is, you know, obviously you want it to be somebody whose opinion you respect and, you know, not just in the moment, but the opinion you're going to respect in ten years when you have a very different job, and so do they. But you also need to make sure that it's an enduring relationship. Otherwise, they're never really going to be able to counsel you in the different phases of your career unless they've known you for a while. So pick people who feel really lucky to have you on their team or really love working with you, because those will be the people who will be interested in that relationship for the long term. And, you know, I've always cultivated my mentor. You know, I kind of reach back into my prior experiences and bring up the people who've, to whatever degree, been the happiest to work with me because they were the ones who really saw the value. I have a follow-up question for you. So I mentor a lot of younger women who are starting out in their career or they've been working for a couple of years. One of the things they always tell me is, do you ask somebody to be your mentor? How has that relationship started? I understand that. And I think that's the piece that you have a good working relationship. How do you formalize? Do you formalize it? Or when you reach out, what is the conversation you have? If you could give us a couple of tips. Yeah, I've never – I've been in both situations, both where people have asked me to be their mentor before we really developed a relationship. And I've always found that difficult because then you feel a great sense of responsibility and you might not even really know somebody that well, right? So I, as a mentor, have always had a little bit tougher of a time. I've always had a little bit tougher of a time with that versus the organic relationship, which I've never called a mentor relationship. It would be interesting to know the perspective of the people I consider to be mentors as to whether or not they're actually my mentor or my friend. Shannon, you were nodding your head at a couple of points, I think, that Jen was making. Yeah. At Yelp, we have this process. Everybody who goes through new manager training, whether they're a first-time people manager or just new to managing people at Yelp. And we have this process called your board of directors. And we coach everybody on how to start to build their network or transform people in their network to their personal board of directors. And one of the things we tell them is that there's probably not one single person who's going to have the right perspective and counsel for all parts of your career. I worked in television for 13 years. And the feedback I took from my producer for 13 years is not the person I would go seek to move my career path forward in Silicon Valley. But there are certain aspects of my career and my personal success. And there are certain aspects of my personal self that I would trust that person's guidance on. So what we train people to do is find three or four people to start, honest people who will always be honest with you but in a useful, like, really purposeful way. And think about your personal board of directors. I see this as an extension of my network. I very much, like Jen, almost all of them I used to work for. I'm super lucky for that. And then I think the same thing. I recently have been approached by a lot of different people who I don't know well and I don't know their goals. I don't know their skills. I'm asked to be their mentor. And I'm in the process of trying to give that counsel to them. I don't think I may be a right fit. But here's what you should go look for and look at your network and find that. But I do counsel people on a personal board of directors. People are going to keep it super real with you if you've ever had the opportunity to be in a board meeting. It's a super real environment. And, you know, you've got to find people who are going to be very real but really focused on helping you grow. Thank you. Did you want to add something? Yeah. Okay. Actually, I did go to one of the first ventures. I went to the venture capital in Silicon Valley and asked him to be my mentor. That was Pete Johnson. And, yeah, so he was my first mentor, still is. And that was accidentally. I'm actually publishing an Amazon book manual for finding a perfect mentor for an entrepreneur. So if you go on my LinkedIn profile, you can subscribe and receive your free copy. Excellent. Thank you so much. One of the things I wanted to touch on after the mentor piece is, I think when I mentor people, younger people in particular, in less than five years of their career, I find that I'm giving them a lot of tips on soft skills. Because they come out of school, they don't understand perhaps, you know, how to be in a meeting, speak up in a meeting. And I know this is a trivial example, but it's kind of torturous to some people, right? And I see Shazia smiling. So, Shazia, you're going to be it on this question. Okay. So, what are the top three soft skills, in your opinion, and how do you go about getting those? That's a really good question. And I just remember I graduated from business school. And, you know, I remember a professor telling us, we all think, you know, finance or accounting or whatever, all those skills are important. He's like, your organizational behavior and your communication classes are going to be the most important. And you're like, yeah, yeah, you know, and sort of rolling your eyes. And it is so true. And invariably. I found out I was at a lot of different startups, including my own, before I came to Google. And Google is a very large company, the largest company I had worked for. And that was six years ago. And now it's grown 3X even since then. And I learned, you know, at a startup, you're like, well, you just focus on doing, getting something done, getting it done fast, being efficient. And, you know, I thought all that stuff is valued. And I'm in a, quote, unquote, startup within Google and you're supposed to be scrappy. And one thing I learned very quickly and, you know, through an experience that could have been better, the most important thing, especially in a large organization with multiple stakeholders, is communication. It is very, very important to communicate what you're doing, even more important than actually doing it. And I don't think it's just a function of small companies. It's if you have a great idea, if you're not able to express it, as you come to Renata with a pitch, if you can't express it, and you can't make it work, then you're not going to be successful. If you can't express it and you can't make your case, then it doesn't matter. So I would say communication, being able to succinctly put your point of view forward, maybe removing emotion from it and adding data. This comes from my engineering part, but I think of it that way. And then the other skill I would say is listening. And not just being quiet while the other person speaks and then speaking, but actually listening to what they're saying. You know, I tell my husband, it's like, if you listen to me, you know what you know. And then if I speak, you'll know what I know, too. So it's like that. And it's better if you, you know, by listening, you already know what you know. You'll actually get to know more and you can formulate a more comprehensive point of view. I think Kimberly had something to add to that. Sure. I would love to add to this because our company at Wells Fargo is the majority is millennials. And also that just in my experience, I've had to manage and I mentored many in terms of a program I came through myself in the leadership pipeline program. I now give back as an alumni. And I've hired out of college women. And I have mentored them formally and also just also managed other millennials as well. So I just wanted to share a couple items, which is that one, that there is also especially maybe companies where there's a wide range of, you know, a wide range of generations. A lot of times there is the perception of other generations. And there are a lot of negative views towards millennials. And I think it's important to make sure that you are aware of those as you interact with other people from different generations. And show you have that strong work ethic. Show that you're proactive. Asking for those stretch assignments so people understand that you're really there and that you're interested to succeed and just grow in your career. And I also want to add specifically for women that, you know, I talked about this with some of my colleagues. And they said make sure you bring up self-promotion because I think it's very common for women, especially younger women, to, you know, just be in the background or contribute, work really hard. And really be out there and really voicing your contributions to the team. And, you know, the tip I got also early in my career is that they said, hey, you know, our executive leaders only stop by our desk once in a while. Make sure you have that sound bite of knowing how you contribute to the team. Some accomplishment or some idea that you brought up and have really put into, you know, fruition. So I think it's just important to make sure that, to your point, that people know what you're doing. Because a lot of times people assume I'll just work hard, put my head down. But people actually do need to know that. And you need to increase your visibility at the company. Moira, you were nodding your head. And I wanted to get your perspective in engineering in particular when you manage large engineering teams. What are the skills that you need besides being a technical scrum master or an engineer or, you know, a kick-ass engineer in your team? Well, definitely the communication piece is the one that's very, very important. It's very important. It's much more important than most engineers realize. And the further you take your career, the more important it becomes. Because you're going to be more removed from the technical grind of your job. And you have to describe to other people that aren't part of your team what you're doing. And if you can't do that, they can't see what it is that you're building or envisioning. But what I wanted to add, and all of these points were great, I wanted to add a couple things. I think it's important to know how to negotiate. Negotiation is actually done at every point in your career. And even outside of your career. And just learning that one skill can actually help you in many other parts of your career. And then the last thing is pick your battles. I see so many engineers just kind of scrapping around for some little thing that doesn't really matter. And then they just keep doing that. And it just doesn't help your career or your image to other people on your team if you keep battling stuff. So pick the battle that you care about. And that's also applicable to everything else in your career as well. So I wanted to address two things that you said was self-promotion and negotiation. But they don't teach that in college. Right? They don't teach that in college. When you go to your first job or your second job, nobody tells you these secrets. Sometimes you're lucky you get into a company where they're trying to mentor you, take you forward. What is the line between self-promotion and becoming somebody who's really difficult to work with? How does one find out this line? And particularly, I think, when you are in an environment perhaps where, Shannon, in your situation, maybe you're one woman VP or director, and there's a whole bunch of different other men with you. So how do you sort of start negotiating through this minefield? That would be lovely to hear from you. I have to tell you, we talked about this earlier. I'm a New Yorker. That's why I'm wearing heels. And you will bury me in heels. I think we all need to wave arms. Do you guys ever get stuck in a conference room and all the lights go out? I do this on video all the time. I obviously haven't moved enough today. But coming to Silicon Valley, what I realized is women's ability to negotiate, whether that's about compensation, whether it's about representing their work, trying to put their hand up in the air to be a part of a project in which their skills might not be as obvious, part of the team, it's very different here. So me, as a manager, as a VP to a large team, I experienced a different type of negotiation skill. Some people were really advanced, and I actually felt like they were coming at me. And others were so passive that I had to remind them they hadn't even asked about their own compensation in two years. So for me, it's trying to find a bit of a middle road and help each of them understand that. So what I implemented, and I was talking to Sonia about this, is we have quarterly conversations at Yelp. We only have annual salary and compensation reviews. But every quarter, we talk about goals. What do you need? And it's a chance for you to talk about the work you're doing or the work you want to be doing. What I've now built in every quarter is I make everybody on my team practice asking me for money. And so they have to do – it's super fun. And so one of the girls on our team who's senior, she spent that entire conversation staring at the ceiling. And I finally said, hey, that ceiling's not going to give you money. It's not going to rain dollars on your head. I need you to make eye contact with me. And so – but more importantly, what we as women need to do is get very comfortable, A, hearing the truth, B, hearing us talk about our contributions, represent them as an I, represent them as a we, do all forms of that, but use both of those words, and also how to talk about and get prepared for a conversation about your salary. And that is do your market research. Look at your salary levels in your market with your years of experience. Know how you can talk about the scale of work that you're doing and where you think you're going next. But get used to hearing the sound of asking for money, also known as, representing your value, to your peers, to your – practice it with your colleagues. Practice it in a mirror. In my case, I make them practice it with their boss. And on a couple of occasions, they so floored me I had to go find them money. And that's my job, right? Like, if I'm going to train them, I have to be prepared for the outcome of that. So I feel very strongly about that ability to negotiate. I will tell you sitting here, I did not negotiate well when I came into Yelp. And I took the deal that they offered and moved across the country, moved my family across the country. And I don't regret it. And since then, I've gotten better at this conversation myself and I've been able to make some progress. But I remember feeling like, oh, I didn't get what I should have got there. And that's not okay. But it's a little bit of a thing for when you're too much and too pushy and you risk getting the job. And so I feel like it's my job every day to try and teach my team, both men and women, on how to get really comfortable with that. And I find the people who don't do it well, who are a little bombastic about it, it's because they didn't practice hearing themselves say it. But that's just my personal take. So this is going to take us right into the next topic that I have, which is really clarifying these gender differences, the gender inequalities. And what I wanted you all to do was to address it from two perspectives. One perspective is your perspective as a community, the company that you're in. The other is the official part of the company. And I think each of you or all of you, each of you can take a turn, is talk about a gender inequality situation you faced, either personally or in your team or the company, and how you dealt with it and what you actually did. So we can learn if we have a similar circumstance. We can learn something from it and figure out how to do it. Because I've had personal failures. This is not my job to share my stories. But if I shared a couple of my stories, earlier ones, I think to myself, what was I thinking? Why didn't I speak up? And I would love that people sitting here would not experience that that I did 20 years ago. I can start quickly. I worked at the NFL. I'm a huge football fan. I'm a little crazy, just so we're clear. But I worked at the NFL. You won't see it on my LinkedIn profile. And the reason was I was only there four months, and I described that as the four most hellacious months of my life. And I'm a cancer survivor. And that's still worse. And so the reason is because I had a situation there that I allowed because I was young. I was 24. And I worked with the owners of the teams at the NFL. And these are all very, very wealthy men. And I had to travel with them and organize their owner meetings and the draft. And so you're around a certain contingency who are used to kind of getting what they want. And as a young woman maintaining my position, which was not in their service, I actually had an important role with the events team at the NFL. I didn't manage it well. I didn't report it. When I first started there, I didn't have a great relationship with the HR partner. I had no network. I had no board of directors to even bounce it off of. And I took four months of comments, suggestions, corners and hallways. And to this day, you know, I have great friends that work at the NFL now. And it has changed a little bit. But we all know the NFL went through a bit of a thing. And so I sat on the sidelines going, good, you all deserve that punch in the face. And all the women working at that building, 230 Park Avenue, you know, I'm wishing them well. But it was a hard environment for me about 15 years ago very, very early in my career. And I didn't do anything right. I left. I literally ran from the building. And then I had no career to go to after that. And it took me a couple months to rebuild and figure out what was next. So I have no good advice for you other than don't do what I did. Have a great relationship with your HR partner, whoever hires you in. Build strong networks of people you can get counsel from, even if they're outside your company. And make sure you document, preferably document internally. I'm the head of comms, so please don't document on medium first. But I do recognize that documentation is important. And if the company doesn't respond the way you want, you do need public action. You do need a public outcry to get you there. Hopefully it doesn't all get that way. But if you do get that way, that will just help make your case stronger and get you the right support. Anyone else want to share a personal experience and some lessons learned? I think, well, the generic advice would be to develop your emotional quotient. Because it covers pretty much all listening and communicating. And I would also call it to be open, openness, right? So you need to understand that everyone, literally everyone, has its own universe and understanding of the world. And it will never be the same as it was. So once you understand that, and once you understand that nobody, literally nobody, owes you nothing, literally nothing, it makes your life much easier. But I find it also important to have the courage to speak up. And it's one thing when you actually expect men like the NFL owners to do some ugly stuff or just to behave some, you know, disrespectful. And the other thing when you actually don't expect that. So for example, one of my mentors I had a conversation with. One of my mentors was also like a very important person, wealthy and stuff. And everything was fine. And then at some point he was probably upset with something else. And he for some reason decided that I kind of work for him. And I was literally responsible for scheduling a meeting. And he let his dogs out on me. And I was like, well, hang on a second. I'm just not going to, you know, skip it. And I'm going to speak up. And I just reminded him. And that was very, you know, delicate. And he was like, well, first of all, I'm not sure that I work for you. So I was not obliged to do so. Second of all, these people, they don't work for me either. So not like I can, you know, just force them to do that. And he apologized, you know, immediately. So my point is that reasonable people, if you bring that up, the problem, they will admit it, accept it. They will apologize if they were wrong. Unreasonable people, you probably don't want to deal with them anyway. So. Anyone else have any war stories to share? So not necessarily myself, but first job I remember throughout college, it was, it actually was a friend of mine who, and, you know, who came to me for advice. And I think also I grew up in Pakistan. I came to the U.S. for college. So I didn't know sort of, you know, corporate culture here. So probably was the wrong person to come for advice. But what I did see happen is, you know, the very senior person who was her manager. And who was sort of, you know, to the extent when she was not responding to, you know, non-work overtures, I saw her getting shunted to a role that was not, you know, in the direction her career wanted to go. And eventually being, you know, sort of managed out. And I think that was a big eye opener for me. Wow, this happens. I didn't even think it was a thing. And again, that's why I talked about where my background was. I didn't know this existed. And I made up my mind then. I'd educate myself on what this is and what's the right thing to do. And I've always felt bad. I didn't have good advice. I guess I was there more as a friend. But I didn't know what to say. Because I didn't know how to deal with it. But it was awful to see that, yes, someone in power can, you know, derail your career through no fault of your own. What do you do? So I would, you know, encourage you, as these guys have said, have people around you who you can talk to who are, you know, probably know more about it or know more about the industry. And, you know, can even if it's a group of, you know, friends to talk to, you know, HR, your company, whatever, document it, be dispassionate about it. But, you know, educate yourself on what it is to recognize it. Jen, I think you had something to add to that. So throughout my career, before I entered the realm of managing other people, it was hard for me to tell whether or not what I was seeing was had nothing at all to do with what I was seeing. It had nothing at all to do with my gender and just had to do with the situation I was in or who I was working with or who I was working for. And it wasn't really until I started managing people that I started to see maybe not some of the major injustices that happen but the small ones that create a lack of pay parity that lasts for a career. How that can happen. How people can tend to think it's no big deal. Because maybe it's just a five or a tenth of a million. Maybe it's a $1,000 difference in salary. And when I started having teams of people who were comprised of both men and women and I would have conversations about salary with my boss, this was one very specific case, where, you know, they really were the same experience level, same role, really. One of them came in at a higher salary. I bring the other one in not too long after. She in her prior role had access to everybody's salaries. So she knew exactly what she was doing. She knew exactly what her now peer was making. I get the benefits package from HR, give it to her, congratulations, you have the job. And she's like, hey, wait a minute. That's actually less for the same role, same experience. And I was like, well, you're right. So I went to my boss and started to have a conversation with him about it. And he was absolutely blank. He's like, what's the big deal? It's $7,000. The big deal is that she knows about it. And it's not right. And it's the same job. And they have the same experience level. And this is the kind of thing that we'll carry with them unless it gets remedied early on. Sorry, I'm getting a bit cold. So it got to a point. And I still hadn't really seen the issue until I was told no. And it got to a point where I said, fine, take the $7,000 out of myself. I'm not going to have these people working for me, making different amounts of money, doing the same job with the same experience level. And it was only at that moment where he got really pissed at me, but did it, that I saw how these things come to be. And it's, you know, the kind of death of a thousand cuts, right? Like you don't end up making 25% less in the long run than your male counterparts because they're not going to be able to do it. And I think that's a big part because there's some, like, massive conspiracy, right? It happens a little bit at a time. Either because women aren't willing to negotiate or because they are in fact and indeed perceived as pushy when they do and as she was when she did. And because even when you do negotiate, there's a very strong chance that people will not respond to that. So, you know, my big learning in this space was later in my career when I was managing people to realize that you have to do right, even if it's in small increments, by the people who work for you. Otherwise, you can't move the needle in an upward direction, and you can't move the needle backward either. So this is a really important discussion because my CMO once shared a story with me that said that if you don't negotiate your first job out of college, it actually counts to your entire working life. It makes about a million-dollar difference. You will earn a million dollars less than people who negotiated their salary. And I believe 90% of women, when they graduate from college, don't negotiate their first salaries right off. And we were discussing this while we were catching a bite to eat, where one of the things that I've been really grappling with is that you mentioned two reasons why this happens, but is this really a system? Is this a systematic thing when you find out that flat-bearing companies are finding out that they are systematically paying women less than men? A really big company did a research study with an outside team of lawyers and found out that it was 90% of the women were paid less for the same job, same experience, and only 20% of the men got paid less. So I really want to know how this happens, and I know you've mentioned this, Shannon, and you've mentioned it, Jen. What are the other opinions on the panel? How does this happen? How does a company end up where, across the board, there is such disparity? How is it possible every cutting-edge company seems to have this issue? Myra, you want to start? Okay. I would love to hear your thoughts. Sorry, I have a lot to say about this. I have a counterexample, just out of curiosity, just to help you understand what's going on here. In my career, I have seen, and I was a manager, the weird circumstances that a male on my team was making less than some of the females on my team, which really twists you in a minute. You're thinking, whoa, that shouldn't happen. But as has been mentioned before, as a manager, you can correct this. So I took a stand to correct this for this individual, but I saw what was going on. And what was going on with him, in particular, was that he was being paid a lot less from a previous company that he had come through. And what happens with a lot of managers, and I believe that it's not malicious or anything, but they'll give you a raise based on what you've made before. And if it's, let's say, 10 percent, across the board, if you were making $50,000 and somebody else is making $70,000, you all get 10 percent, you're still going to be making less. So to your point, women coming out of college or just starting their careers sometimes don't have this information about their salaries. And I find it fascinating, especially in tech and in engineering, I have interns, and I want to convert them into full-time engineers. The guys will always negotiate. They always negotiate. And I even, one of my female interns came to me, and I looked at her and I said, this is the part where you're supposed to tell me you want more money. I actually pushed them, because I don't want to have a team of people where I'm, you know, going to be paying them not the same or not, you know, on par for their experience. But I had to push. Every year this happens. And I'm waiting for the year when a woman is going to come up to me and say, WTF, why are you paying me this much? You know? It's just, I know this isn't what I'm worth. I'm worth more. So you have to, you kind of have to take the reins as a woman at the beginning of your career, and even all the way through, to make sure that you are getting paid what you're worth. But I always get this situation every year, and I push. I actually push my female interns to ask me for more money. So I'm going to reiterate what Shannon said. Everyone's homework is to practice in front of the mirror, asking for a raise and negotiation, and then practicing it with your friends, and then going to your boss. And I just want to say, what's the worst that's going to happen? They'll say no. So you're back at the same point, right? And you can't be shattered, right? You can't be shattered if somebody says no. You try again. Yeah, just keep trying. And one day they're going to get tired of you, and it'll happen. I think Ruzana has something to add. This is a very sound example that we very often create an enemy where there is none. Speaking about disparity in payments, in salaries, right? It's not necessarily that your bosses hate women. I was an owner, and I didn't really care about the gender. I mean, I didn't have that problem, frankly. But if I just remember myself right, I didn't care about the gender. And if a person asks for less, I would just pay less because it's economically fair for my business. That's all. It's not like your CEO or your manager on the upper level hates you. So you must not create an enemy where there is none. That's very important. And I also wanted to say that there is an absolutely amazing course on Coursera on negotiation ending August 28th. So you still have a couple of days to sign up and get the materials. It's absolutely amazing. Thank you so much. So this segues us into the last segment where I wanted to talk about addressing the challenges of sexual harassment and harassment in general at work. And the reason why I put this topic on the panel was because this is the topic that I wanted to touch on. was. In the recent months, there's been a lot of news about the broke culture. There's people putting out pseudoscience about the capabilities of women. There's been VCs who have resigned. What, in your opinion, is going on? Is this something, a few bad apples, or is this a systemic problem that the light is being shown on and now it's all out there for us to see? Who'd like to take a start? I'd like to hear everyone's opinions on this, please. I have a lot to say on this one. I don't want to play solo here, though. Let me just touch all the topics. First and foremost, I'm really begging you ladies, unless you have evidences, please do not blame men for something they have never done. I will explain why. They have families. They have children. They have children. They have children. They have children. You can easily ruin their families. Before you go public, make sure that you have an evidence. Make sure that you are not ruining someone else's life. Please. It's important. Then, another point I just also keep repeating. It's absolutely wrong to flirt or just behave disrespectfully for men in a business setting, but once a woman is leaving an office and going to a bar and having five drinks... Then, she is unhappy that she wasn't sent flowers or something. Sorry for this example, but still. Well, there needs to be a line. If you're not sure that you can handle a bar situation, just don't go. Just don't go. If you go to a bar, you just must be prepared to handle it right. I'm not saying that you should agree. Of course not, but you just don't be outraged because that's what's most likely happening. If you're going to a bar and having five drinks, this is going to happen. Nine out of ten, probably. Just handle it right. That's important. Is it systematic? I think in every community, again, men, women, there will always be people who behave wrong. In that regard, it's systematic, but I know plenty of men in venture capital and whatever who are super supportive of women, and they are very supportive. They are very big friends for all of us. Again, don't create enemies where there is none. That's also important. I think Shazia first, and then you, Kimberly. Sorry, I'm going to react to something that you said, the five drinks at a bar thing. I'm just thinking, imagine a guy going having five drinks at a bar. Is he going to worry about getting flowers the next day? If he doesn't have to think about it, why do women? It becomes this... You were asking for it because you wore those clothes kind of stereotype. I see, I think a larger point of I agree with ... Yes, know how to handle situations because there are some guys, or some people. I shouldn't even say guys. They're going to be jerks or use worse words. I think that it should be equally appropriate or inappropriate for men or women to go have five drinks at a bar. Women are not asking for it if they're asking. they're going to have five. So go ahead and have those bloody five drinks. I think Kimberly had something to add to that. So I also want to react to what Renata said because actually I have a differing opinion of that. So I do feel that, and I've worked in very male-dominated situations. I've also worked in foreign exchange sales. I've worked on trading floors. So I haven't always been in a female-empowered environment. But we've had many situations where we've had offsides or you're traveling with colleagues, whatever. I also feel that regardless, those are your colleagues. You have to act as a professional. It doesn't matter if you're in the office or if you're at a bar or you're at a restaurant. It's not an invitation. You're never inviting a male colleague to sexually harass you. I just want to make that point 100% clear because I don't think it's right to ever blame women for being in the situation. And I think that's the type of thinking that makes women so afraid to come forward. So I do want to just bring up something that was shared with me early on in my career, which I really appreciated. And before my first business trip, I was right out of college. This was a couple months out. I was taking a trip with a very senior leader from our company as well. And actually, my group head, who is our executive vice president for my group, who's a woman, actually requested a meeting with me and asked to take me to lunch. And I thought, oh, what an honor. I don't really know what the content of the meeting is. But she actually wanted to just prepare me and say, look, I want you to know that if it's in the office, if it's on a business trip, I want you to know that if someone ever makes an advance on you that's unwanted and unprofessional and makes you feel uncomfortable, that you should feel empowered to report that and know that you're going to be believed and know that it doesn't matter your age. It doesn't matter. And of course, like we were saying, that you do definitely want to, you know, act professionally yourself and not try to put yourself in a difficult, bad situation. But also, I think it's just that it's something I took away from the manager now that I really just remember that moment thinking, wow, you know, she was an executive. She did not, you know, I was right out of school. She did not have to take that time to spend that time with me and have that message and that talk. But I really appreciated that she did. And it made me more empowered when those things, you know, did come up in the future. And I try to do the same thing with my team now. What about you, Myra? You have some thoughts? Or Shannon? Oh, yeah. So generally speaking, I've had lots of situations. I've been in tech for a long time. And I started out when there were more women in tech than there are right now. So that's a sad fact. But what I do, you know, just to counter the whole situation, is I drink tequila. I have one shot and a lot of people have a glass of water and I double fist it. And no one can compete with that. But, you know, I'm not saying you should learn how to drink tequila like that or anything. But, you know, I just think that if you overthink the whole thing, stuff starts to happen. And I start not, I don't overthink the whole thing. I've been in a team with all men. I've been on, trips with all men. And that's always been my life. I'm the only female engineering director. It's just, that's my life. I had two brothers. Men are a fact in my life. But I do want to say that if you encounter a situation, my rule of thumb is, if you're uncomfortable, leave. Just leave. There's no way you need a permission from anyone to leave. You need to leave. So just use your spidey senses. And if things are not going right or they feel weird, exit stage left. Best thing you can ever do. And also, surround yourself with people that support you at all points. And that pretty much takes care of all of my situations, all the weird stuff that I've ever encountered. But I feel, I feel for my female engineers, I, I serve myself as an example to them. And I tell them, they need to feel powerful all the time. Otherwise, if you give your power away, it's not a good look. So, double fist. I want to just answer this systemic question. I'm fairly new to the Valley. I've been here two years. Come from a completely different world, otherwise known as Manhattan. And I don't know if it's just my exposure to exposure at Yelp or some of the other companies have had the chance to spend some time in based on different boards and committees I'm on. I'm actually super impressed with the Valley. We are having very painful, very public conversations, no matter how they start. And as a comms person, they can have very painful starts. But, you know, if someone's going to sling a flaming bag of poop, you can either dodge it and pretend like, or you can let it hit you and you can clean up and figure out how to move forward. And so, I am actually, while it's painful and it's painful to watch some of my colleagues go through some of what they're going through very publicly, and you have to wonder were there internal channels that could have prevented this from getting here and also diagnose and fix the problem faster. Yelp has been through some of these as well. Not around the gender issues, but around pay issues. And when it happens publicly, guess what happens? Change. Change happens. And I don't know I don't love how we get at that, but I feel like we are having honest conversations and it's going to cause change. So, you could look at it and say it's toxic and it's terrible and move your kids to the Midwest and work at Best Buy and feel really great about that. Or you could say we're going to be in the middle of something in five years from now it's going to look different. A big study came out the other day showed the gender gap in earning and compensation and it's going to take 29 years for the state of California to pay women equal to what men earn for the same job. 29 years. I'm from Florida and shockingly I'm proud to say in this case, Florida is closer to closing that gap. So, in 21 years we can all move to Florida and make the same amount of money that men make. But it's 29 years in California. So, this is not going to be glacially slow progress and these moments that feel painful where we're watching some of our colleagues and our peers and other companies just get absolutely thrashed. Some of that thrashing is deserved. Some of it's not for sure. But I choose to think of all of it as unfortunate but necessary. Progress. And so, that's how I drown close to the surface every day of not feeling like I'm part of a machine that I can't fix. I'm part of the solution and the fix. So, a question which is related to this and all of us, you know, work in kind of gender disparate backgrounds. Some of us work with more men. Some of us work more in a women's environment. How do we make men our allies? What are your tips? What have you, have you done anything actively? To make men your allies? Or do you think it's even relevant anymore? I want Shazia to answer this question because she is smiling and what's the secret? I always say, you know, people at work, you spend more time with them sometimes in your family. So they are in a way your family, their friends. In fact, the first time I was ever someone introduced me as a colleague, I was really hurt. I'm like, what's a colleague? Aren't I your friend? We hang out outside of work. But that's where, you know, I believe in this whole work hard, play hard. So you work together, you play together, you have those drinks, five drinks together. But, and I double fist all the time because I can't decide. So I do both. But because that happens, and then again, those are colleagues I trust to, you know, tell me if I'm having too much or put me in a taxi to go home. But because you hang out with people, right, and especially if you're working in a profession where there's tons of men, you get to know people as people. That actually helps you do your job with them because you, you know, if someone attributes good motives, which happens when they know you, the person, they'll actually want to work with you and want to make you successful. And so hanging out after work, and I have two kids and it's hard because a lot of my colleagues, you know, don't have kids, but I always make sure that I do whatever the extracurriculars, go out of town or whatever, last mom standing on the dance floor. But you do whatever it takes to connect with people and then they become your, you know, because they get to know you, the person outside of your work persona, they get to know the total person you, they want to invest in your success. And I found that helps. I think we have something from Jen. So I agree with that completely. And I think that in my experience, just speaking up for what I believe in and talking about what I, once you get to know people, once you develop close relationships with your colleagues, not keeping it too close to the vest that you recognize inequality, that is something that you care about and that you're passionate about, creates kind of a safe environment for those natural allies to reveal themselves to you. And they will, you know, all of the men that I work with who are staunch feminists and are just as outraged by inequality as, as anyone else's have all come to me and told me that just because they know that it's something that I care about. Not because, you know, we talk about it ad nauseum or at length to any degree, but because they know that, because they know it matters to me, they kind of self-select to come reveal themselves to you as allies. And then, you know, you know who cares about it. You know who you keep close to the vest. And I regularly organize kind of mentoring, training, speaking sessions for young students. And at this point, it's probably half men who participate in the panels and it's wonderful. But I would never have known that if I wasn't vocal and comfortable enough to say to my male colleagues who are also friends that it's something that bugs me, and it's something that I care about. Thank you so much. Oh, would you like to wrap up quickly? Because I want to open the floor to the questions. Yeah, and I agree exactly with what you said about having, you know, male colleagues that you know personally who know you and what you're passionate about and can open themselves up to you. I mean, at our company, we always talk about who's your work BFF, right? Who's your best friend at work? And I think it's interesting where, you know, this is the first time that in my new role that my work best friend is an actual, it's a man, versus, you know, a man versus a woman. And I've noticed it's just, you know, we have each other's back. And I think that, you know, we're at the same peer level. If we spot something or someone's saying something about the other person, we stand up for them. So I think it's important, you know, to have that relationship. And I would also say that it's also great to have men be our allies because that's how we're going to make a difference in the workplace. And I love that our head of wholesale, Perry Palos, made a specific point, and this wasn't just to women. It was like a company-wide, you know, now, I mean, just challenge saying, you know, men typically will look at a job offering or a posting and say, oh, I have one of these required skills. I'm going to apply because I'm qualified, right? And women are typically going to say, oh, I don't have six of the six. Maybe I'm not ready. I don't want to be embarrassed, so I'm not going to apply. And you automatically take yourself out of the equation. And that's more kind of where maybe those disparities happen later, kind of in career growth or pay. So, yes, I do think that it's important to also have men be allies because I think the message is almost, I mean, to me, it's even stronger if I hear a white male senior leader say, you should do this as a woman, and I want to personally challenge you, and I want to see you apply for this role. Excellent. Thank you so much. So I wanted to open it to questions because I know there are many people just really keen with questions. So can we please limit it to one question, be direct, and address it to a panelist so that we can get as many questions in as possible? This question is for Shannon. Hi, I'm Alex. I'm the brand-new copywriter at Weebly. I know you talked about negotiations earlier and how you train your team to practice asking for more money and to speak up for themselves. I know that for everyone that's a really big issue. I recently just did that for myself. So I wondered how did you advise them on, like, to research, like, what is the best way to do it? And to say, okay, well, I know that here's about the average for the people that get paid in this position with this much experience, and here's how much I think I'm worth. Like, how would you advise them to handle that? Sure. I actually started with my HR partner and said, how do we divide, how do we decide what salary range is? Because I know we don't decide it by gender. So what we're bringing to you isn't because you're a woman. We use something called a Radford model, which is a system that companies pay into. So but there are publicly available versions that are, you know, publicly, you don't have to pay into it to understand what your model is. It's based on your market, your years of experience, and then the years of in the role. So there's different levels of a PR manager, for instance, or your first year, your fourth year PR manager. So I coached them on that. I went to my HR team, said, how do you guys build these models? What's the publicly available equivalent of what you guys pay for as an HR team? And then I counseled everybody, hey, next quarterly conversation at the end, you're going to practice asking me for money. I want you to come with an understanding of your role in the market. What are the adjunct contributions? I need you to represent a few things that you did and contributed. As a team, a few things that you did to make the team more successful. So show me the I, show me the we. And then I want you to practice looking in the eyes and communicating that. And those are the struggles women have. Not doing the um, the like, the sorta, the kinda, not saying we too much, which I know is a bit of an infliction lately is like I need to be we all the time. And we were not saying I enough. And that's a delicate balance, too, that you have to practice. So I actually give them a bit of a blueprint. And then I let them go through the exercise and never stop them midstream. I let them go through the exercise. Sometimes I make them do it all over again and look at me instead of the ceiling. And this is fine. And and so we go through that sometimes. Some folks on my team, I'm in the third round of this. Some folks are in the first round. Some are out of college. Some are just new to Yelp. But it's really getting, and some of them are getting really good at it. Like I'm sure they're gonna come to me and ask for my job. And so, but I'm, I'm really proud of that progress. But it, it is, it's something you have to get used to the hearing the sounds come out of your head. And I have to tell you, when I do this, before I go on television or before I have this conversation with my boss, I practice in front of a mirror. And or, you know, with my partner. And so he'll, he'll give me honest feedback as well. And he is now taking it, taking it to his company where he's a leader to make sure that his teams are also doing this. So for me, it's just something I think we could get better at. And it started from a place of I was terrible at it. Hello. My name is Michelle and I'm with a company called One Taste. We are a lifestyle and wellness company. And we teach a body-based partnered consciousness practice that is essentially like bringing the feminine further out into the world. So I don't have a question for one person directly, but maybe one person could take it. What are some practices that you have personally so that you actually feel good make, making sure you're showing up for work, feeling awesome and empowered. Whether it's yoga or meditation or what are, what are your practices to stay empowered and confident in the workplace? I would love to take this question because on the side of my job, I'm also a fitness ambassador. So I love to work out. I love doing yoga. I'm always pretending to be a fitness model on my Instagram. So I'm enjoying different free shoots and things like that. So yeah, I think this is so important. I think it's so important to come to work when you feeling great. And I think that when you're feeling positive, when your body feels great, when you feel energized, you're going to do your best work. And that's what other people are going to recognize and see that in you. So you know, I always think it's strange when people are dragging themselves to work when they're sick, like really sick and thinking, okay, that's not helping your brand because people are going to see you dying at work and you know, and being afraid of catching something from you. You should actually just, you know, my manager had told me one time, it's better for you to just come back refreshed and be able to really hit the road running. I mean hit the pavement. And anyway, so I also think I just wanted to make a comment because I, my other colleagues, are in the room too. We recently have a wellness, we have a wellness program at our company at Wells Fargo. And I think I was hesitant to go in the beginning because I felt like, oh, I don't want to be that person leaving the office to go meditate for an hour, you know, with this instructor, even though it's free and I would have to pay all this money outside of work to get this trainer. But I started going because our group had actually said everyone's going to go and if you like it, please keep going, block it off in your calendar. And it's made the world of difference for me. Even once a week in the middle of the day, you know, getting to do a meditation class, doing Tai Chi. After work I pretty much go to yoga or do different things and I love healthy eating and I'm big vegan. So anyways, thank you for the question. I just think it's important to make sure you're always having that balance and making sure you feel best positioned to do your best work. Hi ladies. Thank you for sharing your voices tonight. Oh, I'm so sorry. Just wanted to add one more thing. I think your smile is your best accessory. I mean seriously. You just, if I come into the work and if I'm smiling, the rest of the day just goes really well. The minute I start frowning, everything goes downhill. So it sounds cheesy, but smiles actually change the way you think and look at the world. And so I would just say if you can't exercise and you're feeling crappy, just smile. Really. It works. Hi again. As someone who's new to San Francisco and having been out of the country for a very long time, what would you suggest as a way to meet people and network effectively here in San Francisco? Meetups are good. Meetups are, there are public. There's a website, meetups.com. And you actually can decide where you want to, what you want to meet up for. That's a way to network. This is excellent. Afterwards, you should go ahead and talk to people. I actually talked to people on BART. I know that's weird. I met my husband on BART. So that's a story. But you know, again, this is the thing. It's, it's, I, I learned so much from meeting so many people regardless of what they do. They bring something to me. So I strongly suggest just go out there, talk, say, Hey, my name, so on and so forth. And yeah. So I'm the moderator and I want to tell you a tip that I give all my interns and my new employees is that when they go to an event like this, they need to talk to five people. And get their cards. And my, one of my social media managers said, five, that's torture. I said, don't say that. I'll say seven then. And really it's true. You have to break the ice. And once, you know, not every person will be somebody you will become friends with. But if you give yourself a goal of five here, and then you go to the next one and five and five and five, and eventually you'll come up with three good people. Hi, my name's Paris. My question is about job searching. So I recently left my job like six weeks ago. So I'm in the middle. And I feel like there's so many amazing candidates out there. I'm sure you've all hired people. So I know it can be challenging. There's so many qualified people. What's kind of the make or break? If you have two people, they're both amazing, qualified, background, what's the real difference that you see when you've been hiring people? It can be to anyone. I work in an organization that really values company culture. And we get a lot of candidates for – I run an operations and program-focused department. So we get a lot of candidates who have very similar backgrounds, and everybody kind of has the box checked. And to certain degrees, there are candidates who are very similar to each other. Right now, we just had a conversation today about which candidate to go with in an interview process. And basically, we're picking the one that knows the most about the company, right? So doing your homework and really understanding what's important from a company mission and value perspective. And without sort of putting it on or faking it, the person who's most aligned with that, who's really most passionate about being a part of that organization. And then, all things being equal, we will generally look for somebody who has kind of an innovative spirit and vision and who we think, you know, they're just as passionate about the company as the next guy. They have the same experience as the next gal. Who's really going to be able to take this company forward? Because no matter what level we're hiring at, we see everybody as kind of a future leader of the company. So we want to make sure that we're setting ourselves and the rest of the company up for success as these folks grow up in the ranks. Anyone else? Hi, my name's Alexi. I'm a staffing manager at Robert Half. So for the ladies asking about job searching, I'm more than willing to help you guys out. I'm not in recruiting. I do B2B sales, but I'd be more than happy to connect with you. For the panelists, thank you all for some of your feedback on these questions. It's actually really helpful. My question is, I've in the past experienced more so on the men's side people saying, Don't worry about it. It's just your job. And on my side, I've been in management, so I know that it's not always the case. There has to be a balance between work and play. So at what point does that actually become true that, yes, it is your job? Because in my experience, the reason why I had that comment made was because I was talking about how I was unhappy with some of the management at work. So at what point does that actually become true? That. Yes. It is just a job, so stop worrying. I am of two minds on this. I'm a mom of two children, and any place I go every day, I'm making the choice to leave them, and that place has to be worth it. And so that's my barometer, and that's been my barometer for 13 years. So that's my hat, my personal hat. I also have the hindsight of having been sick and having worked for a company who I had to go in and say, I'm sick. I don't know. I don't know what the roadmap looks like, but I know the next year is not going to be very productive for you guys if you're dependent on me. But having been in a situation where I had a great employer who got me through that and was a great partner, my bar for what a great place to work at is pretty high. And it's hard to figure those things out in the interview process. But, you know, being a culture fit, I will tell you honestly, I interviewed at Salesforce the entire time I was interviewing at Yelp, and for multiple jobs and a great HR team that kept bringing me back in and bringing me back in. And at the end, they're like, you have great skills, great instinct. We know there's a great role for you here. We just can't figure out if you're a culture fit. And at the time, my feelings were super hurt. I'm like, I'm fun. I'm so fun. Salesforce doesn't know how fun I am. But then I found my role at Yelp, which is my home, and it is my work heart home. And I have a lot of friends that work at Salesforce now who love their jobs there, and I get it. So one advice I would tell you is do not be disheartened. If someone says, and hopefully they would tell you honestly, if they're trying to tell you why they went with another candidate and not you, and they say the word culture fit, that's not an insult. That's doing you a favor, that you're not going to be put in a position to succeed, kind of like Jen said, because we're trying to put people inside the culture that are really going to move with the culture. So that was a big thing I had to learn about as well. But in terms of, you know, is it just your job? I work in PR, and I have a big thing over my desk that says this is PR, not ER. We are not saving lives today. So there is a moment where you need to realize it's not always DEF CON 5. It feels like DEF CON 5. It is okay to sometimes say this is just a job. And I will tell you, on those really bad days, it's always an engineer who comes over and plops down a bottle of bourbon and says, engineering thinks you guys need this today. And you're like, okay, you feel us. And sometimes you just need that lifeline. But it is okay to say, like, this has not been a great day. But it's important to take a measure, not every day, but every month. Like, is that a consistent goal? Because then maybe it's not the right role. But taking a measure of your job on every single day is probably not going to be healthy for your mental state or for the people in your life who have to absorb that from you every day, which I've also learned over my career. So I know this has been an amazing panel, but we have only time for one more question. And, yes, please. And let's keep it brief. Okay. So my thing is, I, this is for Shannon and for Myra. I'm in you guys' realm. This is the realm of things. So my question has to do with direction, education, and career choices so that you don't, like, make a mistake. So, for me, my company is Lady Day ArtForms. So my idea is I'm a singer. I'm an actress, dancer. I write songs. But I am fascinated with the idea of hologram technology and having my own app. But I know that I am still in education. I'm still in school. But I want to be an entrepreneur. I know I have to tenure under someone and mentor before I handle that. What is your advice when it comes down to education and choosing a career after? Because I am 24. I am in that place where I am looking for direction. And I don't want to end up like 40, 50, 60, whatever, and saying I made a mistake. That's costly. Always follow your passion. That's the bottom line. I followed my passion for my entire career. And I can tell you that there were some moments where I'm thinking, okay, what am I doing here? I'm not getting paid or this isn't the right thing. But it was my passion that kept me going. And if I was always like at Pandora, I love music. I'm a pianist. I've written some lyrics. I even have a crazy band. But knowing that I'm coming into a company where my passion, is such an integral part of that company's mission, makes me insanely happy. And it doesn't matter if the company is making any profit or whatever it's doing, going up and down, whatever. The people, the work, the technology, everything is what drives me. So if something's driving you, you have to find a way to get there. There's no other answer. There's nothing. You can't allow that to deter your direction at this point. And I know this sounds like very floaty and, you know, how do you do this? I'm a believer of there is a will, there is a way. And you can't have someone tell you, oh, no, that's not even possible. There's so many things that are possible right now. It's insane. So just find something, someone that can get you there. I'll be very brief. And if direction changes, it's okay. I have at least two people here. I don't know about the rest, but at least two. I am a medical doctor by my first degree. It changes. And you should just learn every day something new, and then you'll be fine. So I know everyone has a lot of questions, but I want to say how honored and impressed I am by the panel. I would ask everyone to give a standing ovation to the panel today. Thank you. Thank you.