Name: The Sales-to-CEO Playbook: Lessons in Leadership, Growth, and Resilience
Uploaded: 2025-04-24T17:18:02.861Z
Duration: 57 min 24 s
Description: The Sales-to-CEO Playbook: Lessons in Leadership, Growth, and Resilience

Transcript for "The Sales-to-CEO Playbook: Lessons in Leadership, Growth, and Resilience": Hi, everyone. Welcome. I am Jen Spencer. I'm thrilled to be here with all of you, especially our #GirlsClub. Proteges, mentors, and all of our invited guests. You're in for a real treat today. So this conversation is part of our emerging manager certification experience, and you're getting a front row seat to the kind of real talk and actionable leadership wisdom that we serve up across our five month program. So whether you're here as part of the program or you're just sneaking a peek, welcome. You belong in this room. I wanna offer a huge thanks to Goldcast for powering today's event and to our presenting sponsor, Southeastern, for supporting the next generation of confident and inclusive leaders. So now let's get to it. Our guest today is someone that I've personally admired for years. She's not just the CEO of one of the most beloved SaaS brands in the world, HubSpot. She's also a bold, thoughtful, and a deeply intentional leader. Please help me welcome Yamini Rangan. Hey, Jen. Good morning. Good afternoon. Such a pleasure to be here, and I am so excited for this conversation with you. I I am too, and I'm I'm just thrilled you're you know, I've been very open with you about your your, a leader I've I've looked up to, and I continue to look up to the HubSpot brand. And it's a great week to be talking to you, especially with all of the buzz about inbound and inbound being in San Francisco this year. I'm sure you are really busy. So we're so glad that you were able to carve out some time to talk with us. Of course. You know, when you said that you were doing all this work with the #GirlsClub, and I said, what is this? And I was, like, more inspired than anything else. So why would I not be here? This is just such a great space. What you're doing with the organization is exciting, and I am super excited to get questions directly from your proteges and, like, help in any way possible. So it's a delight to be here. Wonderful. I'm just fix fixing my camera. Well, let's let's dive in. And I, you know, you've had a pretty incredible journey across sales and marketing and strategy, and and now you're you're in the CEO seat. And, just curious, like, was there a specific moment when you realized you were ready or maybe not ready for for that kind of a role? It's a it's a great question. I don't think I was ever ready, and I don't think in you said that I was an intentional leader. I never intended to become a CEO. And, you know, I I think that, from a, you know, very early stage, I wanted to be the best at what I was doing. And that was the the pursuit of, like, learning and being curious and looking around me and seeing who was amazing at the craft and being good at the craft. That's what I cared about. And, Jen, I I remember So I as you know, I joined HubSpot in January 2020. Yep. Crazy time. But the when I joined, I joined as the chief customer officer leading marketing sales, customer success, and operations. And I remember meeting you, talking to you in the first year that I was at HubSpot. Someone I was in a podcast and someone in in that year said, what do you wanna be? Do you ever wanna be a CEO? And I still remember that year saying, no. I don't ever wanna be a CEO. And, so I don't think, you know, intentionally, I set out to be a CEO, but, intentionally, I set out to be the best at my craft. And so, many of the, you know, attendees in this may know the story, but I'll do a very short version of the story. So I joined HubSpot in twenty twenty January leading go to market. And then, you know, 2021, unfortunately, our cofounder and then CEO, Brian Halligan, met with a snowmobile accident. And, he's great now. He's fully recovered and thriving, so everything is fine. But, in March 2021, he made a call to me and he said, I need you to step up, and I need you to run the company because I'm going to need time for recovery. And, my thought at that point was, okay. I will do everything possible to give you the time to recover and, you know, our leadership team stepped up. I will say I didn't step up. The leadership team stepped up. We wanted to make sure that we were leading HubSpot through a very critical point, you know, in the company, but also give Brian the space to kind of recover. And when when we did that, I actually thought, okay. Well, he's gonna come back and then, you know, I'm gonna go back to my role. So I had a when Brian comes back kind of doc, and I've put in things about, like, all the things that he needs to fix when when he came back. And, you know, he came back and he was we were having this conversation, and I go, I have a very long list for you to do. And he said, well, I have something for you to do. How about you run the company and fix all of those things? And so I think, like, sometimes, intentionally, you get to where you are. Sometimes, you might have a bigger goal. For me, the bigger goal was being good at my craft. And I think it's a bigger goal than getting to be in the c suite or getting to a CEO role. It was a bigger goal and it still continues to be, you know, the bigger goal for me is how can I learn? How can I be curious? How can I be best at whatever I do, through that kind of, like, growth mindset? I I I appreciate that so much because we get a lot of questions from our proteges, from emerging leaders. They're trying to figure out, do I have to have this path all kind of documented out, or is it best just to kind of put my head down and and do my best work? And, you know, what I what I'm hearing is it's it's a little bit of both. Right? Both. Yeah. And so many of our of the women in our program, come up through sales and sales role Yes. And individual contributor roles. And they're in this program and they're trying to figure out, do I wanna get into sales leadership? Do I wanna stay an individual contributor? What you know, where do I wanna go? I'm curious, like, how does your sales mindset serve you as a CEO today Yeah. In this role that you weren't necessarily looking for? Yeah. So I'll tell you, being in the sales organization was probably one of the best decisions I made in my career. And so, again, a little bit of context. I grew up in India, and I started my career as an engineer. I came to this country, you know, wanting a better education, a better life, the typical American dream. And I came here to do a master's in computer engineering and then, you know, proceeded to work as an engineer. So I spent, like, the first decade, you know, of my educational and work career as an engineer. And then I went to business school, and coming out of business school, I was not sure what I wanted to do, but I still wanted to be in tech. So I said, oh, I'm gonna do product marketing or, you know, product marketing seemed like a good kind of, like, transferable skills from engineering but still being in a go to market role. And it was a middle of a recession. This was 02/2002, '2 thousand '3 after nine eleven had happened. And the first day that I joined my job, which was the original CRM company, Seeball, they said, well, we don't have the job. They laid off half the incoming class, unfortunately, and they said, well, we don't have your product marketing job, but you can be in sales. And here's a sales role that we are kind of, like, creating. It was a value based sales role. And at that time, Jen, I thought I was gonna fail in my first year, and I was like, I'm an engineer. I have no idea how to be in front of customers. And I had some mentors back then, and one of the things they said to me was, if you plan to be in the tech industry, you either need to learn how to build product or how to sell product. And that stuck with me, and I said, oh, okay. I decided that I'm not gonna be building product, so now I need to know how to sell product. And so I stuck it out, and, I would say that sales and having just kind of the mindset of being in front of customers, being able to communicate the value of what technology can do. And even having this goal and results orientation, you know, comes from sales for me, and that has paved the path for a lot of growth in my career. And I would I would say to all of those, you know, great, women that are thinking about sales career, it's fantastic. One, you know, the the skill set that you get talking to customers every day, but also being able to connect the conversations across multiple customers and understand how people buy and how that actually shapes their careers. Because for me, the moment in sales was when I recognized that if I can make someone else successful in their career, then I get repeat business for multiple years to come. So it was not about one sale and getting to my number. It was seeing that when I did the right sale, it actually impacted my champion's career. And that has been just so fulfilling and motivating, and that's number one. How can you make your customer successful in their careers? That's number one. Second is you have such a great breadth of experience when you're in sales about how people are thinking, what's happening in the macro, is tariff going to have an impact on when people buy, what do you need from a product for it to sell. Like, you get such a wide, you know, breadth of experiences that is valuable in your career at any time. And then third is results orientation and accountability. There is no role in any business where like sales, where every month, you kinda know where you stand. And because Yeah. Because it is something that you take, you're accountable for where you stand. And that level of accountability in your career is just going to pay so much dividends as you go forward. So, you know, highly encouraged sales, and it's probably one of the reasons why I am here where I am. Yeah. I I love that. So, you know, a lot of times you'll hear people talk about, well, sales it's sales is good to have, under your belt because you need to know what it feels like to carry a bag, right, to have a quota, to have that number. And I think that's as you said, like, that is a component of it too. But I love how you you've identified that when you're in a sales role, you are up close and personal with the customer. You are understanding their pain. You are understanding what hearing what's happening in the market. And that that openness and awareness of how you support that customer is something that's so valuable to a CEO. And I I can see how, as the go to market landscape has has shift, as buyer behaviors have changed, people on the customer success side of of organizations are also seeing this path, a a stronger path to to that CEO role because of that proximity to customer decisions. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Patterns. Yes. Yes. Well, let's, I wanna talk about some, like, more like career pivot, personal growth because, you know, you you you sort of lay this out almost like the story, like, this is what happened to you, but we know that you have choices, right, along the the way too. Right? And and so when you faced big decisions, like answering Brian's question. Right? You know? Or deciding, okay. Yeah. I'm not gonna do product marketing anymore. I guess I'm gonna try sales. Right? Have you leaned more on your gut? Have you leaned on data, mentors, like, all three? What what has helped you make those big decisions? That's a fantastic question. And I'd say it's a it's it's it's a combination. I am definitely a data oriented leader. You know, everybody who's worked with me knows that I start with data. And, but I do think that big career decisions are, you know, a little bit of gut, a little bit of data, and a little bit of, like, taking a leap of faith. And for me, I've asked you know, in in making decisions, I've asked myself four questions. First is, you know, where does the company play and do they have a big runway? And if you take HubSpot, you know, of course, we started with marketing, but I know, like, we have a huge market in terms of marketing, sales, service, content, operations. Like, the the market is really huge. So I think you do need to pick companies where there is a large market and a right to win. That's number one. I think the second is, people. And I will tell you, like, it seems very trite. Right? Of course, anybody you talk to, you'll be like, oh, of course, you need to have people. But I'll be very specific about the kind of people. Who do you want to learn from? Who will you get, like, energized everyday working with? And it's your individual choice. For me, I like curious people. I like people who learn every single day. I like people who wanna solve, you know, tough problems. And even if they fail, they'll kind of, like, brush it off and get back up and, you know, keep going again. Those are the kinds of people that I like to work with. And so when, you know, I was talking to HubSpot and we had, like, amazing conversations, every single person had so many questions for me. How did you do this? What metric did you have? And so I think people, but really pick what you wanna learn from people and see if that is reflected there within within kind of the organization. The third question I ask myself is what's my role? And, you know, you have to have a role that you're passionate about. You know, something you feel like, you know, I was in sales for a very long time and then I moved into broader roles and customer, you know, oriented organizations. But I'm super passionate about talking to customers. Even today, you know, my week is not successful if I don't talk to three or four customers. And so I'm passionate now about, like, talking to customers. So what's my role, you know, and am I going to just get up feeling energized doing my role? That's the third question. And then the fourth one, I'll tell this for all the women but also the men on the call that, does this role fit what I wanna do in life? And that's an important one for me because, you know, I've I've gone through so many phases now. I went through the, you know, just getting married and being, you know, being present with my partner phase. And then having two kids, you know, under five, like, I have two boys. Navigating, like, sales, quotas, operations, all of that when I had, like, two kids under five was exceptionally tricky. And Yeah. When I did that, I actually went from quota carrying role to strategy and operations role within Workday, and that was a very intentional choice that fit within the time that I had in my life. And then, you know, can can then, of course, my kids are now 18 and 16. They really don't want me. They don't they don't wanna avoid time with me. So now I have a lot more time to do things. And so I think the question you should be asking is, like, does it fit with your life? And we have so many choices, and we can write the story, but it's the, you know, does the company have the right to win? Do you like the people that you're working with? Is your role going to, you know, energize you every single day? And then does it fit with whatever you're trying to accomplish in life that, you wanna make intentional choices about? I think you're just if I can say, like, you're that decision that you said, okay. I'm I I have these younger children. This is when I wanna I wanna spend time with them. They need me. And I'm going to shift from doing one kind of work to another that's just as fulfilling. You know? Yeah. That that moves you moves your career forward. But just the the the the way that it is the way that it's structured is a better fit for your life. If if if I think if if our proteges get nothing out of this entire conversation, which I know they will get much more, I I think that is such a powerful lesson. You know? Yes. Because there's pressure to just keep kind of staying in a lane or growing up in one in kind of one area or thinking if I shift from this discipline to this discipline, it's seen as being, you know, it's it's taking a step back or our side. And and I think especially women, we are very focused on what other people are thinking of us and the decisions we're making. Yes. And I think we let, you know, everybody else kind of, like, pressure us into making the decisions one way or the other. Here's what I'll tell you. Like, of course, you go and look at the LinkedIn and it says, oh, this person has gone from one role to another. It feels like everybody's life is up and to the right. And I'm here to tell you that life is not up and to the right. What you cannot find in, you know, LinkedIn and any of the life stories is that you gotta take a lot of lateral moves. You gotta make moves that you know, I've made lateral moves because I had decided to have kids and I wanted to spend time with them. I made lateral moves because I felt like I could learn so much from a person, a boss that I felt like, you know, I wanted to stay and learn from that person. I've made lateral moves because I've got I wanted to shift, you know, from enterprise sales, which is what I was mostly used to at, you know, SAP Siebel and Workday. And I wanted to move into SMB sales at Dropbox, and that was a lateral move. And so I think that you have to be super intentional and don't let pressure of, how it looks, you know, and how it looks on social media or how it looks on LinkedIn get to you. Make the decisions that are right for you, and you have a very long career. And in your career, the reputation, the brand, the work ethic that you bring through matters more than the titles, the job roles that you take. And, it it will pay off. Yeah. I I I appreciate that sentiment so much. I have all these other questions, but it will take us way off track. So I might have to follow-up with you, later on. But, I wanna switch to talking a little bit about self advocacy and visibility. And you're you're kind of getting into this a little bit. We have women in our program who and there there's there's I'm sure there's men a lot of people listening who, they might be performing really well, but they're just not being seen as as an executive. Yeah. Just wondering, what what advice do you have for someone like that who feels kind of stuck in someone else's perception? That is a really tough one. Yeah. It's a it's a very tough one. If you're doing really well in your role and you're really crushing it, but others don't perceive that you have the ability to learn and grow? Why is that the case? You gotta, like, ask yourself and be super curious about why that perception exists. And this goes to all feedback that I have received. I think, you know, early in my career, when there was a perception gap to what I thought was my reality, I always thought about it as that person's problem. It'd be like, Jen Spencer's problem is that she doesn't perceive me in the way I need to be perceived. It's her problem. It's like, you know, I'm great. Right? I'm you know, I don't need to do anything. Later on, I realized that perception gap is my problem. I don't need to agree with that perception gap. I don't need to, like, prove that, you know, they're wrong and I am right in and therefore, the perception needs to change. But I got curious about perception gaps. So if you're really doing well in your career, but you're not perceived ready for the next role, ask and be curious about it. You know? Not as, like, how do I get my next promotion? Go to people that you consider mentors. Go to people that you, respect within your company. Go to people that are, you know, in the next level and say, hey. I'm just curious. What what do you think that I can be doing, learning, growing where I can be ready for the next? And when did you get there? And so curiosity and genuinely not being defensive about how people perceive you, but being genuinely curious about what that gap looks like will help you figure it out. Is it your ability to communicate? Great. Easy fix. Go take some communication classes. Is it your ability to collaborate? Great. Go figure out how to get cross functional work done. Is it your ability to connect the dots? You see? I I had, like, three c's there. Yeah. But but, you know, you gotta you gotta, like, figure out whether it's communication, it's, like, collaboration, it's ability to connect the dots. What is it? Then you can go and fix it. But don't be defensive because your ability to take feedback and grow in your career is directly proportional to where you get to in your career. And I'll repeat that. Your ability to take feedback and grow is directly proportional to where you get to in your career. So don't be defensive. Yeah. I it's fantastic advice. And I think it's it also I wanna acknowledge it takes a lot of bravery, for someone to say, hey. Give me this like, to be open to it and and ask for that feedback. Out of curiosity, have you had a lot of people ask you this? Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now I will tell you, I I get a lot of, like, hey. Can you be my mentor? I'm like, great. What do you wanna be menteed, you know, as? And they'll say, well, I'm I'm trying to get to my next promotion. And I'll tell them, sorry. I can't help you with your next promotion. If there is a skill, if there is a competency, if there is something that you're working on yourself and you're trying to get a breakthrough result. And if I happen to be reasonably good at that, then I have something to offer. But I can't help you get your next promotion. I think you have to help yourself get the next promotion. And so I I will say that, I I mentor a lot of women because I have been on the receiving end of a lot of mentorship in my life, and I valued it. But I always mentor people who are wanting to learn a skill or a competency versus wanting to get a pay raise and a promotion. I it it makes I think a lot of our mentors in in the Girls Club program will will agree. It it literally just gives them something to work with that's very tangible, and shows that that self awareness. So I think that that makes a lot of sense. Speaking of kind of the work that you do and thinking about HubSpot, because you're you know, HubSpot's a powerhouse SaaS platform. You employ a lot of people. I'm sure there's a lot of people who are on our call today who are would love to work for HubSpot one day. Right? What They would love for you to work for HubSpot too. So perfect. And so what qualities are you looking for is HubSpot looking for in emerging leaders when you think about your organization? I I think I think this is a fantastic, you know, question. What qualities do you look for in leaders? So I think the number one quality is growth mindset, and it means something very, very specific. You know, there's a fantastic book by Carol White called Mindset, and it distinguishes, you know, fixed mindset and growth mindset. Fixed mindset is you believe, you know, who you are is who you are. And you have everything that you need and who you are cannot change. Growth mindset is you believe every day you can learn, grow, and evolve as a person, as a professional. And I think I look for people's ability to learn, grow, stay curious, stay humble, and evolve into something else. And so that's probably number one. It's the growth mindset. The second thing is, really, you know, folks that, have the resilience and grit. I'm seeing in chat, like, grit comes up a lot. Your ability to work through challenges, your ability to dust things off, and your ability to pick yourself because life is not up and to the right. And when you do that, then you can get through and navigate almost everything. So I look for people that have resilience and grit and the ability to kind of, like, work through, you know, challenges because that's the most important thing for a leader. And then the the third thing is really, can you help the company win? Can you really focus on company wins over team wins over individual wins? And at HubSpot, we call it customer over company over team over self. And we I have always looked for, you know, that type of orientation. A lot of times, you know and and sometimes this happens in sales, and you should all be watchful of this in sales, is in the early stages of of your career, it's all about individual quota attainment, and it's about individual success. And so, you know, sales as a function and a career helps you kind of really think about accountability, but you gotta make sure that you do connect the dots with everything else. And if you begin to orient yourself too much on your success or just your team success without thinking about customer success and company success, then you can't become a leader. So I I find a lot of individual contributors that try to become leaders that fail at becoming leaders because they are so oriented on themselves and their, you know, teams and not on the company and the customer. So I look for growth mindset, resilience, grit, and company orientation or mission orientation in leaders. And is there I I I think that's a a great call out. I know there are questions in chat about the book, mindsets. Can you repeat, Yamini, the the author again? It's it's this author named Carol Dweck, and she is a Stanford professor. She did this in incredible work, and it's actually, you know, a parenting book. So for those of you that are interested and are, you know, raising kids and you wanna raise them with resilience, with growth orientation, it's a great book. It's also happens to be a fantastic, you know, professional book. So it's called Mindset, m I n d s s e s e t, and look for it on Amazon. It's a fantastic book. You know, there are there are couple of books that I read almost every year, and Mindset is my repeat book. You know, I come back to it once a year because I get something from it that is just right and, you know, how I'm raising my teams or how I'm managing kind of, you know, my teams, at at HubSpot. So I come back to it. I I love that. I love that. And I also I think it's it's so it's so I wanna validate that for me, you know, I I have twin boys. My my my boys are 21 years old now. But I feel like everything that I've learned about being a better parent has made me a better leader, and everything I've learned about being a better leader has made me a better parent. Right. And, and so I I see that connection. So I will definitely be grabbing that book for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Let's get, like, a little bit a little bit more like a we're getting into personal questions. Right? So talking about your your your your kids and and, and and parenting, and a little bit more kind of behind the scenes about who you are as a person. And, is there, like, a mindset or a ritual that you use to keep you grounded? Because you you have a lot going on. Like, I mean, just, like, watching where you're with HubSpot's growth and you're constantly flying here or there, you know, speaking. I just it's it's a lot. What do you do? I I think I think you do a lot. We all do a lot. I think, you know, there's just always a lot to kind of, like, multitask and grow. But I think it's a good question. What are the rituals? What are the things that you do to keep it grounded? I would say two things. The first one is that I do yoga and I do meditation. This is a practice that I started many, many years ago, and part of that has been literally to ground you. Like, yoga is literally on the ground and you're on the ground, you're practicing something, but it also reminds you that it's not perfection, it's practice. And so for me, you know, doing, like, even a twenty minute yoga and a ten minute meditation, if I don't have time for anything else, just taking thirty minutes out of my day is is deeply grounding, and it's also cumulative. Like, over a period of time, you know that there is a point in your day where you will be on the ground. You'll actually have a moment to kind of, like, not think about anything. And for me, that is a grounding way. The other thing I will say is that gotta give breaks for yourself. So one of the things as we all shifted to, hybrid and working from home and remote kind of, like, mode, for me, what I found is that I missed that commute. I I have always you know, I've lived in the Bay Area forever, and I've always, like, had a forty five minute to an hour commute, and that time was very decompressing. I would wind down from my work brain and pick up on my, you know, home brain so that when I got home, if my kids asked me something, I had the ability to stay present with them. And one of the things I recognized in 2020 and 2021 as we were dealing with it and it was, like, going from, you know, our living room to, like, the dining room with the, you know, two step process, and you had no discontinuity in terms of your thoughts, and it's just not present. And so I think one of the rituals is I do take, like, an hour. I do, you know, get, like, 05:30 to 06:30 in my evening if I'm not traveling. I actually use it to wind down from work brain to kind of, like, wind up into the home brain so that when I do show up, you know, for dinner, I'm not, like, yelling at them. I'm actually being present, and I can deal with what they have going on. And that's an important part of, my quality time spent with them, and I wanna make sure that I have a level of presence. So those two things have helped me to have and it can be anything. Like, you can you can do, you know, mountain climbing. You can do, like, you know, running. You can listen to music. You can play music. But have a little bit of time that gets you to a broader perspective of what is important in your day to day life. I, I I love you've been talking about kind of, like, being present. Right? And a lot of people ask me a lot, you know, how do you find balance? How do you find balance between this role, this role, that role? It it's I'm I'm hearing it sounds like you're you're you balance through presence is what I'm picking up on. I mean, balance is too hard. We we do this to ourselves. You know, as human beings, we're like, we're gonna balance it all. We're gonna balance being, you know, a professional, a mom, a friend, a partner, a daughter. Like, we're gonna balance it all. It feels to me like tight rope walk walking. And you take one step, you fall, like, 20 feet. Like, that is you know, it's intimidating to think about how you're gonna balance all of these things. And then, you know, I it it also, we put it on ourselves. Like, you know, I once had, this woman who was like, you know, I'm very worried about balancing, and I don't know how to balance. And, you know, I said, okay. What are you trying to balance? And she was not married. She didn't have a kid, but she was worried about getting married, having kids, and balancing. And I was like, you're not there. Why are you worried about something that you're not even there? She, you know, she was like she didn't even have, you know, someone she was dating, and she was, like, worried about having kids and balancing everything. I'm like, we intimidate the heck out of ourselves with that word balance. So for me, you know, it's been avoid guilt and be present. And, you know, I I when I'm at the dinner table with my kids, no you know, we do a phone tower. We put our phones on the table. We put a tower there, and we talk. Now it's hard with my team voice to make them do that, but my husband and I do the phone tower and we are, like, encouraging them to do the same thing. We try to be present. When I am at work, I'm % in. But most importantly, I don't feel guilty. I don't feel guilty when I am this this evening, I'm going to see my son play tennis. I have no guilt about it. I have zero guilt about it. And then tomorrow, I'm gonna be, like, full day, you know, in the office doing what I'm doing. I have no guilt about it. I think it's just on us. And if we can, you know, be much more present and intentional about where we spend time and feel as guilty about the choices that we make, then we get lot more fulfillment in our journey as both, you know, humans as well as professionals. That guilt that guilt is so hard. Right? It's like how many times I've been in my yoga class or Pilates class, and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, I should be answering these emails, or I should be I might be getting a bazillion Slack messages. You know, that that that feeling of you're not kind of you're not in the right place. You're not doing what you what you should do. And I think for me, I've had to really, like, reframe it for myself, give myself permission to say, your job right now is to do this. Exactly. This is what you need to do, to to to to to this is what being successful looks like today and to, like, really spell it out. For those of us who are who, you know, we're overachievers and we get stressed out about, you know, giving up giving time to ourselves, I think it could be it's it's one of those things I think that's just so easier said than done. Absolutely. It it really takes, like, you know, practice to not be guilty. I see, like, a lot of folks, you know, who are like, oh, I'm consumed. I was I have been consumed in my early in my career. You know, I would be, like, consumed by guilt. Am I doing enough? Am I being there for my kids? Am I being there for work? And it's all about how you feel and that drives you nuts. Ask yourself this. You know, making yourself feel guilty, does is that fulfilling? You know? And do you accomplish more by feeling guilty? If the answer is no, you don't feel fulfilled, no, you know, you've not accomplished more by being guilty, then stop doing it. Stop doing it and be present and pick the set of things that you wanna, and then say no to a whole bunch of things that you don't want to. And, you know, like, I I will say that as a mom, I decided early where I was going to spend time with them. I was going to spend quality time with them at home. I really cared about what they were studying, their education, and what their summer kind of, like, you know, activities were. But I didn't quite, you know, care about, unfortunately, like, parent teacher meetings and, like, being in school for every event. And I was like, I'm not gonna do that. And I don't feel guilty about making choices like that, where I will spend time and where I will not spend time. And those are mine. I'm not saying that that's the only way you should prioritize your life, but pick things. Pick where you intentionally will do and where you will not and that and and just, you know, say no to guilt. And this is why I called you an intentional leader. And I so you everyone, you heard it. So Yamini is giving you permission. Do not feel guilty. Right? Make choices that are that are that are best for you. I I know it, you know, it seems like it's just common sense. Right? But for someone like you, who's been so successful, and has exhibited so much strength, and resilience to be able to kinda say that and give this group permission, it it is it is such a gift. So thank you. Thank you for that. I it's about time. We're gonna, we're gonna switch into some questions from the group. And before we dive in, I just wanna give a quick note for our audience. So if you missed the big very beginning of the webinar, this session is part of the #GirlsClub Emerging Manager Certification. It's a five month program that's designed to build confident and inclusive leaders across sales, marketing, and customer success. And today, this Fireside Chat with Yamini is one of just two public facing sessions that we have in the full program. So we open this up very intentionally to share Yamini's leadership story with the wider community and to give you a glimpse of, like, what our proteges and mentors experience behind the scenes, in in a less produced, environment. So we're gonna prioritize questions from our proteges. This is a key confidence building opportunity for the women in the program, and and giving them a chance to kind of ask questions and engage, in a way with an executive at at the highest level. So if you're here from outside the program, welcome. You're getting a front row seat to the next generation of leadership in action. We've got our questions. If you put questions in the chat, we appreciate them, but we're not going to be able to address them on the call. We're prioritizing our proteges. So with that gigantic disclaimer, let's let's dive in. So, Yamini, this first question comes from Mary. She's been thinking a lot about how to lead through change. And her question is, as AI transforms the way we work, how do you help your teams embrace rather than fear these changes? Ah, I love it. Mary, I hope you're doing great. Thank you for the question, and thank you for an AI question. I think that if you are in tech or if you're considering a career in tech, the one thing you have to know is that, change is the only constant. And so part of your job is to, you know, navigate all of the changes and lead your teams and lead yourself through all of the change. Now with AI in particular, there's just a lot of fear. What happens to my job? What happens to my role or my function? What happens to my career that I had planned? And the one thing to recognize is that that is no different than what happened, you know, when we were transitioning from, the on premise world to the cloud world. For folks like me and Jen who have gone through that, at that time, it was like, oh my god. What is going to happen to my job? I'm in IT. I'm a technology professional. You're no longer going to have these applications in data centers, so my job is going to go away. I still remember titles which said, you know, CIOs and any tech jobs that you have is just going to decline. And what did we see over the last two decades? It actually went up because our ability to do more, our ability to add value went up. And, you know, you take almost any big shift in, you know, the past century. You you start with printing press. Like, people thought that there were there were gonna be, like, no jobs left in, like, you know, creating volumes of books anymore. There were more jobs. Industrialization, same thing. Like, every major technology shift actually creates opportunities, and it actually puts humans in a place of driving even more value. So I think, like, taking a broader perspective of how how this shapes is one thing. And then the second thing is that you gotta learn and you gotta be able to adapt. Like, a lot of the things that we've been talking about today is curiosity, ability to learn, ability to evolve, and that's what you need to do specifically with AI. Now if you are in a function like support, yeah, you're not gonna be answering tier one support tickets. But do you really wanna be answering tier one support tickets? No. You wanna be able to get better at what you do. You wanna have, like, much better skill sets and you wanna be able to improve. Same thing in sales. Yeah. Maybe you'd you know, the BDR jobs get, like, much more augmented and you can do a much better job as a BDR researching companies, but that means your ability to become a sales rep, you know, actually speeds up. And if you embrace AI, there's more opportunities, not the other way around. And so take a broader perspective and use, every shift as an opportunity to learn, grow, and evolve. Excellent. Excellent advice. We've got another question. This is from an anonymous protege. It's someone who's clearly reflecting on how to lead with openness even when the stakes are are very high. So the question is, how do you encourage dissent and candor in the rooms where you're the most senior person? Yep. By encouraging dissent and candor. How do you encourage it? By encouraging dissent and candor. I think that, one, you know, when you create a team environment, you can set intentions for that team environment. And you can actually go to your team and say that I want to have more dialogue. I want to have more debates, and I wanna drive much more, you know, different and opposing views within this team environment. When you say that and when you intentionally state that that is what you want to accomplish, then you open the room for it. So that's number one. The second is, actually having people in your team that have opposing views and and encouraging those views. So I'll say that in almost every team that I've had, I've I've actually hired for it. I've hired when people debate with me, when they disagree with me, And, you know, there's always one or two people in in the team. Their job is to have a very opposing viewpoint and giving them the time and the space, knowing that they're gonna oppose you and giving them the time and the space to be able to talk. And then the third is in a team environment, let's say nobody wants to take it and, you know, you actually give permission. You say, Jen, you know, I know you are very much for this particular initiative. I want you to take the alternate viewpoint. Can you argue and tell me why we shouldn't be doing this? And kind of, like, encouraging that, you know, conversation and appointing someone in a in a meeting where you wanna have opposing views, appointing someone and saying, I want you to take the opposing view and argue against, you know, John or argue against me on why this is not the case. So kind of stating the intention, finding people that have the ability to, you know, voice their opposing views, and if not, actually nominating and delegating that task for a particular meeting to that person. When you do that consistently, then you you build trust within the team. I also will say that you need time to do it. You know? What I found is even if my intention is to have opposing views, if there is a jam packed agenda and we have, like, Monday morning meetings in sixty minutes and you have, like, 20 decisions to make, then you just don't have the time. And so making sure that your agenda has room for descent and giving yourself if you wanna, get to five decisions, take two meetings. Don't try to jam everything in one meeting. I think that also helps. That's I think that's really good advice. Also, you know, just, like, encouraging that kind of descent because I think there are a lot of leaders who they they they want they see themselves as being someone who wants, you know, to have diverse opinions. They see someone they want to have candid conversations, but they may not be they may not be encouraging, those kinds of conversations, and they may not be aware of it. Right? But you're what you're talking about is very intentionally seeking it out. So I I love that. Yeah. Yeah. We have a so just jumping just I've got more questions. I'm just gonna keep keep moving forward here while we have you. Let's go. So Jax Jax is one of our proteges. She brought this up, and I think it's honestly something that we all wrestle with. She wanted to know how do you set boundaries that protect your energy and your effectiveness as a leader? Yeah. I think this is super important. You know, you gotta set boundaries. And, you know, for for me, one, recognizing when you need to set a boundary is important because you've got kinda go from one task to another task to one quarter to another quarter, and sometimes you don't recognize that you need boundaries. I I have to say that going from working in office to being hybrid remote, you know, we I've needed to recognize where I need boundaries. I talked to you earlier about 05:30 to 06:30 for me is, like, an hour of reset. I use that as a way to, you know, kind of, like, you know, reset my time. The other boundary I've set for myself is, like, Friday evening to Sunday morning, I literally do not read emails, do not read Slacks, do not read any articles associated with, like, work technology. I do, like, basic things. I have a garden. I go and, like, take weeds out of the garden and plant, you know, things for spring. I do, like, really basic things that are disconnected from everything else. And, you know, or I I do, you know, walking in nature, like, super basic things. And I've actually tell told, you know, everybody in the team that between, you know, this time, like, Friday and Monday, you are not going to hear from me. Now Mhmm. I actually work on Sunday, but I consider that as, like, a fulfilling part of my work. I read, you know, I write. I like writing memos. So, you know, Sundays are my kind of, like, putting thoughts on a, you know, doc and kind of, like, writing, but that's my time. But I've tell told my team that between Friday and Monday, unless it's, like, an absolute urgency, they're not gonna hear from me. And that's a boundary gift for them, but it's also a boundary gift for me because now I don't get, like, emails between Sunday and Monday and that, you know, or or Friday and Monday. And therefore, that allows me to reset. And so I think, like, you gotta be able to figure out when you need it and you gotta be able to, like, communicate to people around you and then they begin to respect, you know, the fact that when you come back on Monday, you're full of ideas. You know, you don't want a tired coworker on Monday. You want, like, a fresh energized, you know, coworker on Monday. And so that's what you're setting yourself up to be. I think that that that's a that's a really great piece of advice also. We had another question from from Bree, one of our proteges who's been thinking about her own journey to c suite and kind of the stories we tell ourself along the way. And, you know, she you you you had addressed this question in in one in one part, but I I'm gonna evolve it a little bit. So she wanted to know, do you did you always know you were on a path to the CEO role, which we talked, you know, we talked through. That wasn't your intention. But, but she also wanted to know, were there any misconceptions that you had to overcome as you grew? And I think that that's still an interesting question, to think of, that I wanted to to to ask. Yeah. I I think it's a it's a very interesting question. Look, I didn't, you know, think about, like, a particular role. But, because I didn't think about the particular role, I was like, you know, am I even ready? And I I do think the moment that Brian asked me to step into the CEO role, it's it's the same, like, imposter syndrome. Like, people have fancy terms for it, but it's really you doubt your ability to get the job done. Right? It's, you know, you you kinda like, oh, am I ready? Do I know how do I have the right skill sets? Am I gonna fail people around me? Those are the questions. Those are you you can give fancy names to it, but you just doubt your ability to get the job done. And when you do, what you do next is very important. If you let the those doubts and questions consume you, then you're just not going to take the right actions to be able to get there. But at that moment of doubt, I actually go and talk to people that will tell me the truth. I have a set of, you know, I'd call mentors, but also people that will tell me the truth. And, they have told me the truth. And these are the ones that will be like, yeah. Don't do that. That's that's disaster. Or do it because I think you're capable of doing it. And you need to over like, people talk about have a board of directors and mentors. No. Have people around you that will speak the truth. And for me, my mother speaks the truth. You know, for me, there are a couple of friends that I worked with over the last twenty years that, you know, one woman that I've worked with at Workday, now I've known her for a long time, she speaks the truth. And then there are a couple of folks that that speak the truth, and I went to them. And I was like, this is the thing that I'm thinking about. Do you think I can, you know, step up to be the CEO? And, my mom was like, yes. You can. Now moms tend to be all the supportive, but my mom also will tell the truth, you know, and she has said, no. You shouldn't be doing that. And so I think, like, you know and the same thing with the three other women that I asked, and they were like, yes. We can. You can do it. Here's why you can do it. And because, you know, sometimes your perception of you lags the reality of who you have the capacity to become. And you need to know how to fill that gap. You know, the perception that you have of yourself is different than who you have the capacity to become. And when that is the case, you will doubt yourself. And when that is the case, you need to go and talk to people who will speak the truth and then make a decision. And so, of course, there are considerations in every role. Of course, you will, you know, have these voices of doubt emerge. And even now, I've been in in this role for almost four years and, you know, I have a voice that will be like, you know, can I do this? Am I falling behind? Am I doing all the right things? And then you gotta, like, you know, find data or find, you know, truth to be able to answer that. And then when you do, then move forward. Don't get paralyzed, you you know, sitting in that place thinking about your your doubts. Yeah. Yeah. I we have one more, like, kind of, like, shifting over from from that to, like, a last kind of thoughtful question, from Jessica, one of our proteges. And I just I what I love about, like, what you were just talking about, is the the community, like, what we do with #GirlsClub in creating these cohorts, creating these communities, what we do with our legacy executive club to create these safe spaces where you can trust people to be that kind of personal board. That resonates so deeply with with with us. And and it it ties into her question about kind of continued education and and how do you we've heard it. I've heard it through, like, the books you're reading, things you do, but how do you continue to challenge yourself, to grow even after you reach the c suite? Like, is it it it feels very intentional. Yeah. Yeah. I I I first of all, I just love what you all are doing with #GirlsClub and creating a community. And, you know, the the the conversations that you have here, the ability to go and, you know, talk to Jen, who's super inspiring. I get inspired talking to Jen. The ability to go and, you know, have a conversation with Yamini who's doing a lot of the work here. This is important. This is how we grow. Learning from others, talking to others, and having people kinda guide the path. That is number one. I think, you know, in terms of, I feel like on my journey as a leader, it is a mountain without a top. Mhmm. And, you know, I have fully embraced that I am on a mountain without a top. And therefore, every day is a learning opportunity. Every day is an opportunity for me to ask what could I have done better and where can I continue to evolve? And when I get, like, performance reviews, I spend a lot of time on the performance reviews. I don't like I don't say they were wrong. They don't understand what I'm trying to do. None of that. I just sit with it and be like, okay. There has to be truth in in this. Even if it is a perception gap, there is a truth that there is a perception gap. And so I use that and I I, like, write daily reminders. And now I have a daily reminder. I have, like, a task board and literally I'll I'll pull it up. That my task board for daily reminder says, stay grounded, slow down to go far, get better at asking questions, and create more room for constructive dialogue. That those are my four daily reminders, and those four reminders are directly from performance feedback that I got in the last year from three sixty feedback. So I do take it seriously. I have a daily reminder. When I get to work, my task board is the first thing that is open, and I look at it and I'm like, I don't do everything every single day, but my intention is to, you know, improve and evolve and get better at it. And so that's that's how I learn and continue to evolve and be on this journey. Thank you. And, Yamini, thank you so much. I mean, thank you for your candor, your insight, your generosity. This was absolutely incredible. For everyone watching, if this conversation sparked something in you, let that be your sign. If you want more conversations like this, more mentorship, more confidence to take that next step, I want you to check out our emerging manager certification program at We Are Girls Club. And if you are someone who wants to help sponsor and usher in the next generation of inclusive leaders, we are here for that conversation too. In fact, you might be a really great fit for our Legacy Executive Club, which is specifically for accomplished leaders who've achieved great success and are working on, like, what's next for them, and that includes giving back and supporting others. We will send this replay out very soon. If you got value from this, please do not keep it to yourself. Share your takeaways on LinkedIn. Tag Yamini. Tag #GirlsClub. Tag me, Jen Spencer. Thanks again to Southeastern and to Goldcast, and most of all, thank you to all of you for being here. Have a wonderful day. Thank you so much, Jen, and thank you everybody.