>> From San Francisco, it's The Cube. Covering Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. Brought to you by Girls in Tech. >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with The Cube. We're in downtown San Francisco at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference 2018. It's a great event, we've been here before. About 700 attendees really listening in. It's a single track conference for a couple days of women leaders telling their stories. How they got to where they are. Some of the challenges they had to overcome. There's a ton of women, some men, I think they just brought in a busload of students, so it's a really good event, and we're excited to be here again. 'cause Arianna just does a terrific job with Girls in Tech. And we're excited, our next guest, she's Laura Messerschmitt, VP Global Customer Experience for GoDaddy, Laura, good to see you. >> Nice to meet you. >> So we've had a ton of GoDaddy guests on, at Grace Hopper, so we're very familiar with the company. So it's great to meet you but it's funny. When we first met with August at Grace Hopper, I'm like August, what are you doing here? You guys have like the most sexist print ad at least back in the day of anybody. They are going to run you out of the building. But you guys changed the culture and you're a big part of that, and that was your presentation. >> Yeah, I started with GoDaddy through an acquisition. And when I came in, the only thing I knew was those Superbowl commercials. And I was, I came in very skeptical, like what is this place? Is this the right place for me? It doesn't stand for my values. But what I found was this amazing company that actually did promote women in tech, and that had this big presence. And so we went to go and change it and try to make it even better for women in tech, and change the brand. And so that's what we've been doing over the last five years is working on making that change to be a premier leader for women in tech. >> So how hard is that when literally your forward facing brand to the outside world are these super racy commercials that you can't even see the end of it, you have to jump onto the internet to finish them. So how did that get started? How does it get implemented? What are some of the lessons learned in going through that process? And I assume it's still an ongoing exercise. >> It is, I think at the beginning, the hard part was that we new we wanted to make a change, and we new that 60% of our customer base was women. And so we had to make a change. It was a business imperative. But we didn't know where we were going at first. And so we sort of circled for a little while, where we were trying to think how do we make this happen. What do we do? And we started to set the vision, that we were actually going to change not just our own selves, but the industry, to make it better for women. That then set us on a course for where we would go, and then things moved pretty quickly. For example, we moved our hiring of tech women from 14% one year, to 40% the next year. >> In one year. >> In one year, yeah. >> So what did you do to do that? That is not a statement, that's a lot of steps and processes. So what are some of the things that you guys did? >> So what we found is that the small things really do matter. And so we changed all of our job descriptions. So we got rid of words like code ninja, that women wouldn't relate to and made them gender neutral. And that brought in more women. And then what we did is we required each hiring manager to have at least one diverse candidate when they interviewed. And what we found is that when the hiring managers would go out to find diverse candidates, they would go searching and they'd find not one, but they'd find five. And so suddenly you'd have this huge pipeline of incoming women. And we also did things like go to the Grace Hopper conference to find more woman that could come in and recruit. And that actually what made that major change from the 14% to the 40 in one year. >> Wow, and again, kind of that top down vision. I'm curious, who woke up one day and said wait, 60% of our customers are women, maybe we should do something a little bit different. >> I think it was a lot of people. The one I would mention in particular is Blake Irving. He was our CEO that came in right around when we were making this change. And he had a personal story with his sister, where she had unfortunately passed away, but prior to her passing, she had promoted women and he had promised her that he would also promote women in the industry that he ended up in. And so once he became CEO, he was bound and determined that we were not only going to change GoDaddy, but we were also going to make an impact in the industry. Because he'd made that promise. >> That's great. You know on the hiring manager story, we can't help it. Everybody has a bias whether they know it or not, or admit to it. And we're also like birds of a feather, right. It's comfortable to be around and be with people that look like us and sound like us, and that's kind of the natural state. So unless you force someone to look beyond that they're just not going to do it, as a natural course. It's interesting that you said, once they, once you forced them to look, not only did they find, but they found a whole bunch of great opportunity. >> Another piece of in was not putting a quota on it. So it wasn't a quota on the hiring, it was just a quota on you have to have at least one in your interview pool. And so that, that meant that people were okay with it. People did feel like they had to pick, they wanted to pick the best candidate, and so we were just making sure that the best candidates we actually showing up. And when they did show up, a lot of times, the women were the ones getting hired because they were the best candidate. >> So I'm curious in terms of the cultural change. How did it affect in a more general level as you were successful in making this transformation which was a top down prerogative from the CEO? >> Well for me, being a woman, that seeing a lot more people like me in the company, and sort of at all aspects of the company. So previous to this change, a lot of the technical people were all men, and sort of marketing and other functions were women. And I started to see women being hired into these other functions, and it opened up sort of, a world of possibility. And I also think the company's better off because of it. Our financial results have been great, and I think that's partially due to this huge change that we've made. And I think it does impact the finances because we had more diversity in our thinking and they way we made decisions. >> Well, I think it's been proven time and time again, that diversity's only the right thing to do, but it does lead to better outcomes, which goes right to the bottom line, so it's certainly a huge contributor, because you just get different points of view that you wouldn't have ever thought of. A little bit about Girls in Tech here. Why you here? What is this event and this organization about for you personally as well as GoDaddy? >> So I would say, GoDaddy has been working with Women in Tech, oh sorry, Girls in Tech for about five years now. And I think we believe in there mission, right because their mission aligns very much with ours, which is to help women in tech. But over the past five years, we've seen them transition, and they've started focusing also on women founders. And given that our customers are small businesses, we care a lot about that, and so it's been very lock step for the last five years. And just being here at the conference is great to get to talk to other women that are trying to do similar things in their companies, and to share notes. >> Right, so I guess we'll see you at pitch night, later this year. All right Laura, well thanks for taking a few minutes and sharing your story. It's funny, when we were at Grace Hopper, you know most of the girls there, are just fresh out of school, didn't know the old GoDaddy. So, we don't necessarily want to talk about it, but it's actually a really great story to be able to make that transition at such an extreme from one side to the other. So the best to you guys. >> Thank, work to do, but we're keep going. >> Well thanks again for stopping by. >> Thank you so much. >> She's Laura, I'm Jeff, you're watching The Cube. We're Girls in Tech Catalyst 2018 in downtown San Francisco. Thanks for watching. (techno music)

>> From San Francisco, it's The Cube. Covering Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. Brought to you by Girls in Tech. >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with The Cube. We're in downtown San Francisco at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference 2018. It's a great event, we've been here before. About 700 attendees really listening in. It's a single track conference for a couple days of women leaders telling their stories. How they got to where they are. Some of the challenges they had to overcome. There's a ton of women, some men, I think they just brought in a busload of students, so it's a really good event, and we're excited to be here again. 'cause Arianna just does a terrific job with Girls in Tech. And we're excited, our next guest, she's Laura Messerschmitt, VP Global Customer Experience for GoDaddy, Laura, good to see you. >> Nice to meet you. >> So we've had a ton of GoDaddy guests on, at Grace Hopper, so we're very familiar with the company. So it's great to meet you but it's funny. When we first met with August at Grace Hopper, I'm like August, what are you doing here? You guys have like the most sexist print ad at least back in the day of anybody. They are going to run you out of the building. But you guys changed the culture and you're a big part of that, and that was your presentation. >> Yeah, I started with GoDaddy through an acquisition. And when I came in, the only thing I knew was those Superbowl commercials. And I was, I came in very skeptical, like what is this place? Is this the right place for me? It doesn't stand for my values. But what I found was this amazing company that actually did promote women in tech, and that had this big presence. And so we went to go and change it and try to make it even better for women in tech, and change the brand. And so that's what we've been doing over the last five years is working on making that change to be a premier leader for women in tech. >> So how hard is that when literally your forward facing brand to the outside world are these super racy commercials that you can't even see the end of it, you have to jump onto the internet to finish them. So how did that get started? How does it get implemented? What are some of the lessons learned in going through that process? And I assume it's still an ongoing exercise. >> It is, I think at the beginning, the hard part was that we new we wanted to make a change, and we new that 60% of our customer base was women. And so we had to make a change. It was a business imperative. But we didn't know where we were going at first. And so we sort of circled for a little while, where we were trying to think how do we make this happen. What do we do? And we started to set the vision, that we were actually going to change not just our own selves, but the industry, to make it better for women. That then set us on a course for where we would go, and then things moved pretty quickly. For example, we moved our hiring of tech women from 14% one year, to 40% the next year. >> In one year. >> In one year, yeah. >> So what did you do to do that? That is not a statement, that's a lot of steps and processes. So what are some of the things that you guys did? >> So what we found is that the small things really do matter. And so we changed all of our job descriptions. So we got rid of words like code ninja, that women wouldn't relate to and made them gender neutral. And that brought in more women. And then what we did is we required each hiring manager to have at least one diverse candidate when they interviewed. And what we found is that when the hiring managers would go out to find diverse candidates, they would go searching and they'd find not one, but they'd find five. And so suddenly you'd have this huge pipeline of incoming women. And we also did things like go to the Grace Hopper conference to find more woman that could come in and recruit. And that actually what made that major change from the 14% to the 40 in one year. >> Wow, and again, kind of that top down vision. I'm curious, who woke up one day and said wait, 60% of our customers are women, maybe we should do something a little bit different. >> I think it was a lot of people. The one I would mention in particular is Blake Irving. He was our CEO that came in right around when we were making this change. And he had a personal story with his sister, where she had unfortunately passed away, but prior to her passing, she had promoted women and he had promised her that he would also promote women in the industry that he ended up in. And so once he became CEO, he was bound and determined that we were not only going to change GoDaddy, but we were also going to make an impact in the industry. Because he'd made that promise. >> That's great. You know on the hiring manager story, we can't help it. Everybody has a bias whether they know it or not, or admit to it. And we're also like birds of a feather, right. It's comfortable to be around and be with people that look like us and sound like us, and that's kind of the natural state. So unless you force someone to look beyond that they're just not going to do it, as a natural course. It's interesting that you said, once they, once you forced them to look, not only did they find, but they found a whole bunch of great opportunity. >> Another piece of in was not putting a quota on it. So it wasn't a quota on the hiring, it was just a quota on you have to have at least one in your interview pool. And so that, that meant that people were okay with it. People did feel like they had to pick, they wanted to pick the best candidate, and so we were just making sure that the best candidates we actually showing up. And when they did show up, a lot of times, the women were the ones getting hired because they were the best candidate. >> So I'm curious in terms of the cultural change. How did it affect in a more general level as you were successful in making this transformation which was a top down prerogative from the CEO? >> Well for me, being a woman, that seeing a lot more people like me in the company, and sort of at all aspects of the company. So previous to this change, a lot of the technical people were all men, and sort of marketing and other functions were women. And I started to see women being hired into these other functions, and it opened up sort of, a world of possibility. And I also think the company's better off because of it. Our financial results have been great, and I think that's partially due to this huge change that we've made. And I think it does impact the finances because we had more diversity in our thinking and they way we made decisions. >> Well, I think it's been proven time and time again, that diversity's only the right thing to do, but it does lead to better outcomes, which goes right to the bottom line, so it's certainly a huge contributor, because you just get different points of view that you wouldn't have ever thought of. A little bit about Girls in Tech here. Why you here? What is this event and this organization about for you personally as well as GoDaddy? >> So I would say, GoDaddy has been working with Women in Tech, oh sorry, Girls in Tech for about five years now. And I think we believe in there mission, right because their mission aligns very much with ours, which is to help women in tech. But over the past five years, we've seen them transition, and they've started focusing also on women founders. And given that our customers are small businesses, we care a lot about that, and so it's been very lock step for the last five years. And just being here at the conference is great to get to talk to other women that are trying to do similar things in their companies, and to share notes. >> Right, so I guess we'll see you at pitch night, later this year. All right Laura, well thanks for taking a few minutes and sharing your story. It's funny, when we were at Grace Hopper, you know most of the girls there, are just fresh out of school, didn't know the old GoDaddy. So, we don't necessarily want to talk about it, but it's actually a really great story to be able to make that transition at such an extreme from one side to the other. So the best to you guys. >> Thank, work to do, but we're keep going. >> Well thanks again for stopping by. >> Thank you so much. >> She's Laura, I'm Jeff, you're watching The Cube. We're Girls in Tech Catalyst 2018 in downtown San Francisco. Thanks for watching. (techno music)