>>from Menlo Park, California In the heart of Silicon Valley, it's the Cube covering cloud now. Awards 2020 Brought to you by Silicon Angle Media. Now here's Sonia category. >>Hi, and welcome to the Cube. I'm your host Sonia category, and we're on the ground at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California covering Cloud now's top women entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. >>Joining us today is Melon Yen, founder and partner of operator Collective Madeleine, Welcome to the Cube. Thank you so much. So tell us a little bit about your background. >>So Operator Collective is actually my fourth organization that been apart of starting, and all of them have had an aspect of it that had a strong community to it. And so that was one of the reasons why, um, as you hear about in a second, I could put together this kind of crazy idea for a fund that looks like no other. >>Um, So what inspired you to start this company? And how did you navigate getting funding? >>Sure. So? So, because that operator collective is my fourth company. The 1st 1 was actually a nonprofit. The 2nd 1 was a venture backed company that we took from 0 to 100 million in public in less than three years, and the 3rd 1 was something called Faster, which is the world's largest B two b B two b community for SAS Softwares of service, the company that was a venture backed startup that we took from 0 to 100 million in public in less than three years. Even though I helped launch it, I didn't actually officially joined as an employee until about 18 months in, and by that time it's employees 65 I noticed a number of things, which is there were largely homogenous group of people who were there before me, all really great people. But you tend to know people like you and the hyper growth stages of startups. You tend to turn around and say, Who can I get? And so you and you turn to the people that you know, And so you end up with companies that look like yourself and so spent a lot of time looking at what was going on in the venture world, which is that in the area that I focus on, which is enterprise and software enterprise software. It is over 90% male in terms of veces as well as founders and the world revolves around in the venture world revolves around veces and founders. And so I looked around and said, Well, where the operators, the people who build and grow and scale up these companies, they're largely not. They're not efficiently and effectively part of this ecosystem and then second, where the women and people of color And so but as I started to dig in more and talk to people, what I realized was that the VCs and founders actually wanted to bring in the operators. They wanted to bring in the people with different backgrounds, but the network's didn't naturally overlap. And so I thought, there's got to be a way to bring them in, because I know the operators and the operators also want to participate. But the system isn't optimized to make it efficient or friendly are comfortable for them to be able to participate. So that's why I decided to put operator collective together. >>Wow, So you are key noting today for cloud. Now, um, what has this experience been like? And what is the main message you want to give to the award winners and to the cloud now community. >>So it's incredibly inspiring to be with all of the women who are being honored tonight as well as, frankly, the organizers. The organization itself Cloud now is incredibly impactful. And so one of the reasons I was so excited to be asked is a number of the women who were being honored. I either know or have heard of. And the recognition is something that is very important because we need to tell the stories and recognize these people who are not. Maybe the usual suspects, the ones who maybe not our everyday names. And so I was super excited to be here. >>So you were talking about how it's about 90% male in the VC and founder community, Um, in one of your articles, which are amazing, by the way you said, Don't let the excuse of cultural fit be a vehicle for perpetuating sameness, and I thought that was so profound. So, um, are you still seeing this notion of cultural fit being a huge issue and if so, what can be done? Teoh mitigate it? Yeah, I think there's >>more awareness now of the fact that if you hire for cultural fit, you'll end up with 65 people who are exactly like you. And that's not optimizing for a successful company because right there studies that show that diverse teams outperform out innovate, homogeneous teams. But what's also interesting is the same study says that, but homogeneous teams are more certain that they've gotten to the right answer, even if they've got into the answer less less often than the diverse teams. And so when you have people who are just like you, then everyone agrees with each other than you don't realize that. Maybe there's another way of looking at something and so cultural fit is is a warning sign. I think to say that. Okay, well, there just like me, I'm very comfortable sometimes. Being uncomfortable is good. >>That's a great message. I think it's really hard to to say like, Oh, I'm okay with being comfortable. Um, so in, in in in one of your other articles, you bring up this idea of, um, don't check all the boxes, but rather fill in the gaps. So can you explain more about that? >>Yeah. So the idea behind that is, if you look for only the typical candidates. The ones who maybe think of a startup founder went to Stanford. Where's the hoodie? Right? Did computer science then that's fine. There are plenty of those people who have been successful, but you're ignoring all the people who didn't. And so, in fact, I'm the beneficiary of people who were willing to not just check all the boxes because I >>didn't >>check any of the boxes. If you look at, if you look at my background, I should not have been able to raise. Is the first time fund and a first time fund manager to be able to raise a $50 million fund because I'm a um Ah, let's see, I'm a solo GP, right? So, General partner who hasn't been a VC before with the first time fund, I don't have the traditional venture background. My previous background was I was an intellectual property attorney. Um, then help start a company as a result of that and then and then also when you check the boxes, 40% of the seas went to Stanford or Harvard, and when you look at the numbers, I didn't check all the boxes, but precisely because I didn't check all the boxes, I was able to actually look at this differently and say, Hey, that's not the model that that I want to build. And frankly, if I tried to build the same model that everyone else did, my background so doesn't look like anything. I wouldn't have been successful. And by taking it and saying, Look, I'm gonna build a model that's totally different from the ground up that allowed me to build a platform in a community that looked like no one else is as a result of that was able to raise money from institutional investors, for instance, which very rarely back first time funds. And so, by not checking all the boxes, um, I was able to build a model, but by other people also saying, Look, she doesn't check any of our typical boxes. But we >>would like this >>idea because it's so different than everyone else is. We will. We are now, you know, part of the fund >>and sometimes different is good, and it's what's what's needed? Absolutely. Um, so speaking of that, um, in terms of operator collective, what workplace environment are you trying to strive for. >>So what we say is we seek to back founders from all backgrounds who believe you share are believed that culture, diversity and operational excellence are a key part of building truly great companies. So we strive to be inclusive way. We strive to have a variety of backgrounds. We use a lot of the tools that of the companies, because we focus only on enterprise and B two B software and technology and infrastructure. And so we also try to use a lot of those tools. So we are mostly women team and we are distributed team. We largely work out of our homes and we work a lot on Zoom and we all a lot of us have kids too, and so what we do is we adjust the schedule so we can do drop off in the morning. We work like crazy, right? We work long hours, but we also do it so that people can can take their kids to doctor's appointments or pick up their kids at the end of the day. But we what was important to me was that we created environment that worked with our busy lives, and it wasn't that we were trying to take, take take these incredibly talented women and make it fit into just the corporate norm. Because you can have an incredibly successful work relationship. I mean, you can have an incredibly successful, um career if you don't have to sacrifice everything else in your life for it, >>right? Right. And that balance is so important. Um, so what advice would you give to aspiring female entrepreneurs who maybe have, ah, not so technical background or who are struggling to navigate in this male dominated industry. >>So one of the things >>I talked about in my keynote today was was that you never get this right. You're never going to raise a fund. If if you do this, you're never gonna raise a fund. And so when you're starting a company, you will go when you talk to a lot of people as you should, because you will get lots of great information. Ah, lot of people are going to say, Well, you're never gonna have a You're never going to start a company if you don't have a technical co founder never going to start a company. If you're gonna try to do X and So while you some might say, Well, you should just ignore those people actually say, Don't ignore those people because they are saying that other people are going to think that too. But think of a way to counter that. And that actually help make the operator collective business model stronger. Because we said Okay, we know that's gonna be the mindset. Let's turn it around and actually make this a strength. And so, for female founders or any founders, what I would say is listen to a lot of people talk to a lot of people here what they have to say. Ultimately, trust your instinct. Trust your gut. And because you know what's best for the company that you're trying to build. >>Great words of advice. Melon. Thank you so much for being on the Cube. Thank you >>so much for having me. Absolutely. >>I'm Sonita Gari. Thanks for watching the Cube. Stay tuned for more. >>Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>>Trump and low park California in the heart of Silicon Valley. It's the cube covering cloud now. Awards 2020 brought to you by Silicon angle media. Now here's Sonya to garden. >>Hi and welcome to the cube. I'm your host Sonia to Gary. And we're on the ground at Facebook headquarters in Menlo park, California covering cloud now's top women entrepreneurs in cloud innovation awards. Joining us today is modest to get day, the cofounder of branch motto. Welcome to the cube. Thank you so much for having me. So you're receiving an award today for being a top female entrepreneur in cloud innovation. How does that feel? >>It feels awesome. I'm humbled to be in such amazing company with some great ladies that have started really great companies, so pretty excited to be here. >>Great. So just give us a brief overview of your background. >>Sure. Uh, my background, well, I probably don't have the regular Silicon Valley background. I was born and raised in communist Romania, uh, in a pretty small town called Barco, uh, in the Rijo Romania called Moldavia. I was very good at math. Um, and my parents, uh, pushed me to explore applying to schools in the United States, which I did. Um, and I applied to 23 colleges and the DOB, uh, getting a full scholarship from Cornell where I studied computer engineering. Um, I dreamt of working for big companies, which I did for a while, uh, until one day when I remember I was doing a master's to Stanford and one professor told me I was, I told him, I was like, I don't think I could ever start a company. And he was like, what if you don't? Like, who do you think? Well, so I was like, Oh, I never thought about it that way. Um, and that's when I think my entrepreneurial dream started. And a few years later I started, um, phone co-founders and started a few different companies that eventually ended up being branch. That's a long answer to your question. >>No, that's perfect. So what inspired you to start branch and how did you navigate getting funding? >>Um, it's a, it's an interesting story. I think we came together, my cofounders and I were in business school, Stanford, we all want to start a company and we did what all business school students do. We just started something that sounded cool but maybe it didn't have such a big market. Um, and uh, then pivoted and ended up building an app. So we worked on an app or the mobile photo printing app called kindred. We worked on the Apple for quite some time. It was, um, over a year we sold over 10,000 photo books. I've seen a lot of images of babies and pets and we reviewed manually every single book and we had a really hard time growing. So if you think about the mobile ecosystem today, and if you compare it to the web on the web, the web is a pretty democratic system. >>You, um, you have the HTTP protocol and you are able to put together a website and make sure that the website gets found through social media to research to all this other platforms. Apps are much harder to discover. Um, the app ecosystem is owned by the platforms. And we had a really hard time applying. I was coming from the web world and all the things I had done to market websites just in the work with the apps. And it was hard. Uh, you know, you could only Mark at the top and how out all the content inside the app. That's a lot more interesting than the app itself. So we, we felt that we were like really, really struggling and we would need it to kind of shut the company down. And then we realized that one of the things that we were trying to build for us to a disability to allow people to share and get to content within the app, which is in our case was photo books was actually something that everyone in the ecosystem needed. >>So we, we asked a lot of people and it seemed like this was a much bigger need. Uh, then, you know, the photo books. And, uh, we had started to already build it to solve our own problem. So we started building a linking and attribution platform, um, to help other app. And mobile companies grow and understand their user journey and help build like interesting connections for the user. So, you know, our mission is to, um, to help people discover content within apps, uh, through links that always work. Uh, and it's been a wonderful, like an F pretty exciting journey ever since. That's really inspiring and, and solving a real world problem, a real world problem. >> So it's interesting when you ask about fundraising. Uh, it was so hard to raise money for the photo book app. And we raised actually from, uh, uh, pay our ventures and they actually, even now I remember, uh, the guy patch man sat us down in a very Silicon Valley fashion at the rosewoods and was a very hot day and there was like Persian tea being served and he gave us money and he said, you know, I just want to do something. >>I am not investing in the idea. I'm investing in you as a team. Uh, and if you pivot away from photo books, you know, uh, which we did and I think we pivoted the way because we ended up finding a much, much bigger problem. And we felt that, you know, we could actually make a, an actual change into the mobile cloud ecosystem. And that's how, that's how it all started. Uh, and it wasn't actually was easier to raise money after we had a really big problem. We had a good team that had been working together for almost two years. We had product market fit. >> So, uh, so yeah. So what are some things that have influenced you in your journey to become an entrepreneur? Um, some things interesting. Um, well I would say the Stanford design school. Um, I think I came from working for Siemens, which is a giant company. >>And I started doing this project and I remember one of the projects was we built, um, an, uh, a toolbar we were supposed to where we're doing a project for, um, Firefox, which, you know, Mozilla was utilize browser, uh, which was in some ways the precursor to Chrome. And we're trying to help it grow. And we didn't know. And one of the ideas was we, we built this toolbar for eBay and eBay hadn't had a toolbar for Firefox. And we, you know, we were some students for two weeks. We build this toolbar bar and then someone bought the car to our toolbar. And I was like, wow. Like how incredible is it that you can just kind of put your thoughts on something and just get something done and make an actual impact someone's life. And I think that's when the spark of the entrepreneurial spark, it was during that time that, um, Michael Dearing course, a professor and one of my D school courses also told me the thing that if I don't do it, who will? >>And I think that's when, that's when it all started. I think the things that have helped me along the way, I mean, my cofounders, I think I've been incredibly lucky to find cofounders that are incredibly eager to be good at what they do and also very different from me. So I think if you think about why many companies implode, it's usually because of the founding team. We've been together for almost seven years now. Uh, and it's been an interesting way to find balance through so many failed companies. So many stages of growth branches over 400 people now. So you know, our roles have shifted over time and it's been like, uh, an interesting journey and I think recently more in the past few years, I think one of the things that has helped me find balance has been having a group of female founder friends. Um, it's really interesting to have a peer group that you can talk about things with and be vulnerable with. >>And I didn't have that in the first few years and I wish I did. My cofounders are amazing, but I think in some ways we are also coworkers. So having an external group has been incredibly helpful in helping me find balance in my life. So I think a lot of women feel that way. They feel that it's really difficult to navigate in this male dominated workspace. So what advice would you give to female entrepreneurs in this space? Yeah, I mean it is really hard and I think confidence is something that I've noticed with myself, my peers, the women that I've invested in. I do investing on the side. Uh, I would say believe that you can do it. Uh, believe that the only, the sky's the limit believe that, um, you can do more than you think you can do. I think sometimes, uh, you know, our, our background and the society around us, um, doesn't necessarily believe that we can do the things that we can do as women. >>So I think believing in ourselves is incredibly important. I think the second part is making sure that we build networks around us. They can tell us that they believe in us. They can push us beyond what we think is possible. And I think those networks can be peers. Like my funeral founder group, we call each other for ministers or, uh, I think investors. Um, I think it can be mentors. And I've had, I've been lucky enough to have amazing women investors, uh, women mentors. Um, and I, it's been a really incredible to see how much they helped me grow. So I think the interesting thing is when I was just getting started, I didn't look for those communities. I didn't look for a guy. I just kinda felt, Oh, I can do it. But I didn't actually realize that being part of a community, being vulnerable, asking questions can actually go help me go so much further. Um, so the advice would be to start early and find a small group of people that you can actually rely on, and that can be your advocates and your champions. So, yeah. Well, thank you so much for those words of wisdom. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being on the cube. I'm your host, Sonia to Gary. Thanks for watching the cube. Stay tuned for more.

>>From and low park California in the heart of Silicon Valley. It's the cube covering cloud now. Awards 2020 brought to you by Silicon angle media. Now here's Sonya to garden. >>Hi and welcome to the cube. I'm your host Sonia to Gary. And we're on the ground at Facebook headquarters in Menlo park, California covering cloud now's top women entrepreneurs in cloud innovation awards. Joining us today is Shamila Bandler who is the director of production engineering at Facebook. to the cube. Thank you Sonya. So can you tell us a little bit about your background? Absolutely. >> Um, I grew up in India and it was in 2001 I moved to United States. I joined a company in financial sector fidelity investment. That was my first job in the U S it was a very important team I was working on, which was responsible for mission critical applications and trading floor. So if you know a little bit about stocks, you can think about the sense of urgency. That's where I learned early on in my career while I was working there. I also did my part time masters at Howard university. >>Um, that time was very crucial in my growth because it taught me resilience doing two things at the same time. 2005 was a life changing event where for personal reasons, I relocated to a Bay area from East coast and I joined a startup going from a big company to a small company. Again, put me in a situation which I was never used to. The startup taught me again being very resilient moving fast, which got acquired by Dell. That's when I switched to management. I sat on the decision for three months when my director asked me, you should be in management. And it wasn't, I wasn't afraid. I was too naive to like step away from individual contribution to the Tech's role to step into management. They were persistent and I took on the management role and there was never turning back because what I was giving back to the company, to the team and also seeing more women join my team. >>That was something I was truly enjoying. Then I did a couple of small companies transforming their business from a on-prem business to cloud. Um, that was again, growing the team from ground up and building a team in like two years was very, very motivating. And it was about a year and a half ago when I joined Facebook where a opportunity came knocking. I really wanted to work at this keel. And six months into the role I was supporting Facebook's monitoring ecosystem. And then last year my role changed. I started supporting Facebook's revenue generating platforms, which is ads, marketplace, commerce, and payments. And I'm absolutely loving it. >> That's very inspiring. Thank you. See you were a past winner of cloud now and now you're on the cloud now, advisory board. Tell us a little bit about that journey and what's the experience been like? >> Absolutely. I still remember, it was about four years ago. >>I'm the founder of cloud. No, Jocelyn had reached out to me that you should absolutely put the nomination. I had self-doubts, but then I thought, okay, I have done three transformations, let me give it a shot. And I attended that event on Google, Google campus. And the most important thing I took away from that evening was the amazing inspiring speakers. And the other pure winners from that, there was never looking back. It's just not being the award recipient. I think it boosted my confidence that what I have done and then also put more responsibility on me that how can I see more women leaders grow and get more women in the tech. Then last year of when I pitched to my management team that we should host cloud now event on Facebook campus. I got immense support from them. We did it. And this is when I felt that giving back to the community. >>This is what it means. At the same time after the event, Jocelyn said, I think you should be on the advisory board because we can get more of them and join this mission and we can accelerate the missions. A goal which is getting more and more women in tech. We have a lot of work still to do. >> Um, and so today you hosted the welcome and the scholarship, um, presentation. So how has that experience and tell us a little bit more about cloud now is um, STEM scholarship fund opportunity. It was a great experience. I think whole Borton school and Shanti Bhavan. I mean, when I look at the backgrounds of some of the scholars, it's just amazing. I mean, we all are privileged. I feel I'm privileged. Um, whether it's education or from the families. I think our parents took really good care of ourselves. >>But when I look at some of the fascinating stories of the scholars, some of them like absolute poverty, homelessness, there was one story which was like a person was homeless and the social economic statuses they come from, you wouldn't even think like, how can they even like done into like great software engineers at some amazing top companies. When I look back, the whole philanthrophy mission of, um, you know, cloud now is on this international STEM scholarship. It is making sure these underprivileged scholars have a fair chance because they didn't start at the same place where I feel I have started, you know, being a kid, you know, going to a school and it's amazing that we are able to contribute to this mission. Well that's great. And you're giving them an opportunity to share their skills with the world. Absolutely. Um, so what impact do you hope cloud now will have in the future? >>I think we still have a long way to go. I mean if I just look at, um, around me, uh, it's amazing that Facebook is very much into seeing more and more diversity and inclusion. And I know the numbers are changing even in other companies, but they're not changing at the rate where we want. Cloud now has gotten into a place in eight years very well connected with the winners. All of them, all the winners I look at past eight years are in very prominent positions. We have a privilege. At the same time, we also have a huge responsibility if in whatever field, whatever domain, whatever rules V. V, R. N if we can influence and change the equation very, we are making it a fair ground. I think we can see more and more women in tech. And what advice would you give to women who want to be in tech but maybe feel a little intimidated by the male dominated industry? >>I think sometimes we are owed our own enemies. Um, it's easier said than done. Um, I think believing in yourself. So when I was put in drawers, absolutely there were moments I was not comfortable at all and I started doing things not worrying about the outcome. Whatever I felt was right at that time I never thought, uh, this problem is some other team's problem and I'll wait for it. I just went ahead and whatever I could do in my capacity. And that was seen and I think women are really, really good in collaboration and soft skills. I would say use your strengths and use it well because that's what the companies need today. And are you personally seeing a rise in women in tech? Like um, in your team or at Facebook? Are you seeing that there are more women? Absolutely. When I joined the production engineering monetization team last year we had 13 women. >>We have 26 women in the team now. So that's my team is about hundred plus. So about 26% is great. I had no women managers in the team. I can proudly say I have two women managers in the T team. As I say, we still have a long way to go. My hope is in the organization, Ironman. If we can see more women in production engineering, then I would say like, yes, it's, it's getting there. And last question. Um, uh, there are a lot of shifts in the tech industry and new companies, new emerging tech. What's the opportunity now for women? I think AI is, um, you know, machine learning and AI is on the top because it's not just associated with one domain. AI can be applied anywhere. I feel women lik whether it's healthcare, whether it's in technology, it's, it's going to be applied, you know, everywhere. The other is cloud computing. Again, with the public and private clouds on the rise, more and more companies moving into hybrid cloud model. A, I feel for women, you know, going into these fields will like, just open up more opportunities for them. Shana, thank you so much. This is really inspiring and thank you for being part of cloud now. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm Sonya. Thanks for watching the cube. Um, stay tuned for more.

>>from Menlo Park, California In the heart of Silicon Valley, it's the Cube covering cloud now. Awards 2020 Brought to you by Silicon Angle Media. Now here's Sonia category. >>Hi and welcome to the Cube. I'm your host Sonia category, and we're on the ground at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California covering Cloud now's top women entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. Joining us today is Tao Johnson, who's the CEO and founder of Kaizen Technology Partners. Now welcome to the Cube. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So give us a brief overview of your background. >>Sure, I actually have a finance degree and have no idea what technology was. I started as a finance analyst at Sun Microsystems and had no idea who they were or what job awas but having the interest to be a CFO one day, our CEO in another company, I figured I'd go into sales and really understand what drives a company growth and revenue. So I was actually trained by Scott McNealy's best of the best program and was in sales class with him and his with his sister in law. And, um, I never left sales after them, >>so um So you mentioned that you have a finance background? How do you think that background has helped you to become a successful CEO versus, say, a technical background? >>And I think having the finance background is very important because your cash flow management is one of the biggest reasons companies fail. You know, before they can get their next round of funding, they run out of their overhead costs, their monthly overhead costs. The other thing is really to understand how to sell in our ally and total cost of ownership to the decision powers that be at the CFO level and CEO CIO. >>Okay, Um, so you're on the cloud now advisory board to tell us, How did you join And how was that experience? Like, I think >>it grew organically having been a participant to a few of the events with Jocelyn and then helping her. Where can I help? How can I get speakers for you or winners? And over time, just like just came to me and said, You know, you have such a network, Why don't you join our board and help us where we can? Hence we have mailing today, um, as our keynote because of our network. >>And speaking of entrepreneurs, you, um, I just want to mention that you are at this program for Harvard, for entrepreneurs. Can you talk more about that? >>Sure, it's an amazing program. I wish that there were more women who applied and were able to invest the money and time into the program. It's, ah, owners and entrepreneurs who have companies around the world. There's 41 countries represented. Unfortunately, only about 17% of women of 151 participants in class. We meet three times once a year, and we go through three weeks of intensive training to discuss marketing finance how to scale operations. But the best thing you get out of it is 1 30% of it is learning this case studies method and Harvard, the other 30% is really the network and the different industry's. You get to meet. We have film. As you know, we've talked about retail and other industries there that you can self reflect on. How does that involve with technology? Um, and then the other 30 self reflection time. A lot of entrepreneurs, especially CEOs, don't have the time to get away from their business, and it really forces you to not be the operator. Walk away and be able to self reflect on Where do you want to take the business >>today >>and speaking about networking? What's your advice on networking within the industry? What are some tips and tricks >>in my belief? You know, we have social media, but the best way to meet people is through other people. So going to events like this and really having an idea of your goals at the event when you're going there, who's going to help you get to that person? Um, and having a focus, not. I want to meet 100 80 people, and I don't know who they're going to be really being able to say, Who do I want to meet at that event who can help me get there and preparing plan as much triple the time that you're gonna be even at the event? >>Yes, the networking can be really difficult. So as an entrepreneur, what do you think makes a great entrepreneur? >>You know, entrepreneurship is very hard because you really have to touch all facets of a company and find the right people to trust to do certain areas, but then be able to understand all the different parts of the company, right, from supply chain to partnerships to sales and finance. So what, you really have to be diverse and ambidextrous, and that makes it very difficult for some people who are only analytical or only sales e to be able to run a company in scale. >>And what advice do you have for female technologists who maybe feel that so it's really difficult to navigate in this male dominated industry? I would >>say to them they're stand out, make your different standout, right? Why make it a negative? The positive is you are female and you stand out so less men get called on by you and you might have a chance to get in the door. But you better have your ideas in line and your resource is and you better be >>kick ass. But use it to your >>advantage that you are different and that they're not used to hearing from women. >>So you've been with carved out for many years now. Where do you hope to see cloud now in the future, I >>would love to see cloud now be more, uh, geographically worldwide as we're doing more work in my non profit for women Rwanda, in Afghanistan as entrepreneurs, Um and I think, you know, we've upped and stepped up so much more with Facebook bringing in investments to us to compared to what we've done before, Um, I think just the awareness and may be doing this on a, um, twice a year basis instead of only once a year to be ableto celebrate these wonderful women. >>Don, thank you so much for being on the Cube. This has been really knowledgeable. Thank you for having me. I'm Sonia Tagaris. Thank you for watching the Cube stay tuned for more. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

From a little park, California in the heart of Silicon Valley. It's the cube covering cloud now. Awards 2020 brought to you by Silicon angle media. Here's Sonya to garden. Hi and welcome to the cube. I'm your host Sonia to Gary. And we're on the ground at Facebook headquarters in Menlo park, California covering cloud nows, top women entrepreneurs in cloud innovation awards. Joining us today is Christine Heckart, CEO of scaler. Christine, welcome to the cube. Thank you. So you're receiving an award today for being one of the top women in cloud. Um, how do you feel about that? >>Oh, it's always terrible to get an award. I mean, it's awesome. I'm very honored to be here. >>Awesome. Um, so give us a little brief overview of your background. >>Oh, 30 years in tech. Um, let's same now. I'm CEO of scaler. So we're a log analytics company. We scale to over a hundred terabytes a day in the cloud at ridiculously affordable prices. And we serve some of the best tech companies in the world. We sell into engineers and developers. >>And so you've been CEO for over a year now. What's that experience been like? What challenges have you faced along the way? >>Uh, exhilarating experience if you've never been at a startup? Um, it's a great place to be. It's a phenomenal team. Challenges are all about how you grow and how you serve customers well on a limited set of resource with unlimited choice sets and opportunities. And that's hard thing to do. >>So you've been an executive for quite a while now. What's the best part about being a CEO? >>The people are the best part. Um, both the employees. We have some incredible employees, very energized about the mission, very dedicated, uh, and then absolutely amazing customers that we serve. These, you know, we serve engineers whereby accompanied by engineers for engineers and engineers innovate to change the world. And our job is to help them innovate with more confidence so they can change the world more quickly. And so you're feeding into all these incredible missions around the world with these incredible people and you're helping them do their job better. And it's just every day is different and every day is fun. >>So what are the, some of the things that have influenced you along the way or some of the people who have influenced you? >>Jeez. Um, you know, I guess I'm influenced mostly by the people who I worked with and who have worked for me. Um, even more so maybe than the people I've worked for, although they've also been fabulous. Um, I just think you learn from, you learn from all the talent around you in the way people think differently about problems and, and how that synergy, um, often creates just magical outcomes. >>So as a CEO, um, what kind of workplace culture are striving to achieve? >>Uh, we have picked just one value and there are other companies that I think are doing the same and the value and we picked us care. And so we really strive to have a culture that encourages people to care about each other and care about the company's mission, uh, care about serving customers well and, and building a very high quality product with great experience, but also care about the environment and care about the community and care about people's lives outside of the day to day work job. Um, so we try to take a really holistic view, but on one key attribute, which is care. >>Well that's, that's awesome. I think everyone wants to go to work and, and just feel like, you know, that they're not bogged down by long hours or that >>we still have long hours. There's no doubt about that, but it's carrying long hours right there. Appreciate it. Yeah. Um, so what advice would you give to women who are considering a career in tech? I love tech. I've been 30 years in tech. I go out of my way to get people into the industry. Um, I do believe in all of its facets. It's the greatest industry in the history of history. I really do believe that it's also a hard place to work. It's a demanding place to work. Um, it's still hard place to work for women. Um, and any, I think kind of minority, uh, it's not as welcoming yet as it could be, but relative to 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, we've made enormous progress. I still believe we are making enormous progress and there's work to go, but it's very encouraging. >>That's great. Um, so, um, after being in the industry for a while, have you figured out a work life balance? Is there a secret? Is it a myth? >>Um, I am not the person to ask about work life balance for sure. Uh, most people would probably say I don't have it. Um, I don't look at it as balanced so much as, um, maybe juggling, like you just prioritize what's important in the moment. Um, I do believe in that. One of the great things about tech is usually you can do your job anytime from anywhere. Um, and you know, that has good and bad. So I tend to do my job all times everywhere. But you can do your job all times, everywhere and, and sometimes that's from home. And sometimes that's from other places, you know, anywhere around the world. >>And I'm sure especially as like, you know, moms and stuff like it's, it's great to have that flexibility. Um, and um, so, okay. So as a CEO, what do you think makes you a great leader? >>Um, I think any great leader is a leader who cares about their mission and their employees, uh, as people and not just as workers, um, and their customers as people and their, their holistic careers in their lives, not just as a source of revenue. So that's one of the reasons why we picked that value care is that, you know, it's super important for any leader at any level. What do you think leaders can do to, to make that, make it more welcoming for women in tech to be part of this industry? Um, it's not, this is not a question about women or any, anybody in particular, what people value is being appreciated and being included and being heard. That's it. Like, if you, if, if you can create an environment that is inclusive, where people can be heard and can be valued for what they contribute and their ideas, then I think, you know, it's a great place to work and, and, and that's a hard thing to do. It's white. It's easy to say. It's very hard to do culturally. Um, but I, I really think it's that simple. Well, thank you so much, Christine, for being on the. It's always great to have you here. Thank you for having me again. I'm sending it to Gary. Thanks for watching the cube. Stay tuned for more.

>>from Menlo Park, California In the heart of Silicon Valley, it's the Cube covering cloud now. Awards 2020 Brought to you by Silicon Angle Media. Now here's Sonia category. >>Hi, and welcome to the Cube. I'm your host Sonia category, and we're on the ground at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California covering Cloud now's top women entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. >>Joining us today is Get the Schmidt CEO of Human. Get that. Welcome to the Cube. >>Thank you. Thanks for having me. >>So just give us a brief overview of your background and more about Humira. All right, A brief >>overview. Let's see. Um, I'll start off that I've been in the industry for some time now. Um, since ah, 97 which I used to actually work at this campus that we're here today at when it used to be Sun Microsystems. So I started out in technology in product management and marketing. Mainly, um, when java was coming out so early days and really learned a lot about what it takes to take a product or a concept out to market very exciting in those early days and sort of, you know, move towards looking at Industries and Sister focused on financial services into the lot around financial services marketing. Also it son. >>And then I moved >>to Denmark, which is sort of a surprise, But I'm married to a day and we decided we would try something different. So I moved to Denmark, working at a consulting company software consulting company based in Denmark, fairly small and Ah, and was part of sort of building out of the conference and business development business they had over there. And ah, and that was a way for us, for me to understand a completely other side of the business consulting aspects where you really build software for a customer and really understand, you know, sort of the customer solution needs that are required versus when you're working at a large enterprise company kind of are separated away from the customers. And that was there where I met the two founding team members of Humi Oh, Christian and Trust in at Tri Fork into you. Essentially, we've been working together for 10 years, and, uh, we sort of all felt like we could really come out with the world's best logging solution and, ah, this was out of some of the pain we were running into by running other solutions in the market. And so we took a leap into building our own product business. And so we did that in 2016. And so that's really what brought me here into the CEO role. So we have a three person leisure leadership or executive team, our founding team, which is to verily technical folks. So the guys that really built the product and and, uh, and keep it running and take it to the next level every single day. But what was missing was really that commercial kind of leader that was ready to take that role, and that's where I came in. So they were very supportive and and bringing me on board. So that was into 2016 where I started that >>that's awesome. So how do you think having like a business and marketing background versus a technical background has helped you become a successful CEO? Um, I >>think it's really, really hard if you don't have different profiles on your founding team to be able to run a successful tech business. So there's technology that you could have the world's greatest technology like an example would be my you know, my co founders were building an amazing product, but until they came into the room, they hadn't thought about going out and trying to get a customer to use it. And essentially, that is one of the issues there is that you can sit and build something and build the best product out there. But if you're not getting feedback really, really early in the design and the concepts of product development, then customers our search of it's not built in. And so a lot of the thought process around him. EOS We like to say customers are in our DNA. We build >>our product >>for people to use 6 to 8 hours a day, and they're in it every day. And so it keeps this feeling of a customer feedback loop. And even if you're technical, it's really exciting. You know that you build something that somebody uses every day. It looks at every day, and so that's the kind of energy that we've tried to, you know, instill. Or maybe I've tried to instill in Humi Oh, that you know, our customers really matter, and I think that's one of the ways that we've been able to move, Let's say really, really fast in building the right features the right functionality, um, and the right things for people are using it on the on the on, the on the other and essentially >>so okay. And, um so you're here to receive an award for being one of the top female entrepreneurs in cloud innovation. So congratulations and And how does it feel to win this award? Super >>exciting. I mean, I'm glad that there are organizations like Cloud now that are doing amazing things for women and and also, you know, making examples of folks that are doing interesting roles in our industry, especially around B two B software. I think that's a real area where there's not many CIOs or leaders in our space where there should be. And, uh, and I think part of it is actually kind of highlighting that. But, you know, the other side is sort of an event like this today is bringing together a lot of other profiles that are women or diverse profiles together to sort of, you know, talk about this problem and acknowledge and also take, let's say, more of an active stance around, you know, making this place not so scary. I mean, I think I remember one of my early events and I was raising our series A when I walked into a VC event where there were no other female CIOs out there. There's 100 CIOs and I was the only one. And I think one of the hard parts is I walked in there and, you know, it felt a bit uncomfortable, But there were some. There were two amazing VC partners at the company that I first started talking to, and that just really used the sort of like, you know, I guess. Uncomfortable, itty. So I think the main focus at things like today or, you know, the people that are here today. So I think we can help each other. And I think that's something that you know. That's something that I'd like to see more of, that we actively sort of create environments and communities for that to happen, and cloud now is one of them. >>So I think a lot of women have had that experience where they're the only woman in the room, you know, and it's just really hard to like. Figure out your path from there. So as the company as Julio, how do you What's your strategy for inclusion? >>Um, so, like I like to call it active inclusion. I think part of this is like having a diverse workforce, which is, you know, obviously including women and different backgrounds. Other things. But >>one of >>the big things we think about at Hume Eo is we really like to, let's say, celebrate people's differences so like that you're able to be yourself and almost eccentric is a good thing. And be able to feel safe in that environment to feel safe, that you can express your opinions, feel comfortable and safe when you're, you know, coming with a opposite viewpoint. Because the diversity of thought is really what we're trying to include in our company. So it means bringing together folks that don't look like each other where exactly, the same clothes and do the exact same hobbies and come from the same countries like we have. Ah, very, you know, global workforce. So we have folks, you know in Denmark of an office in Denmark. We have an office in the UK, and we have folks all over the U. S. We have a lot of backgrounds that have come from different cultures, and I think there's a beauty to that. There's a beauty to actually combining a lot of ways to solve problems. Everyone from a different culture has different ways of solving those. And so I think part of this is all around making that. Okay, right. So, you know, active inclusion is a way to to sort of put it into terms. So So we're definitely looking for people, Actively, that would like to join something like >>this. So I love that. Um, So if you were personally, if you were to have your own board of directors, like, who would they be? Um, it's not really >>the who. It's almost like the profiles or the people. I mean, we already have a personal board like I call it. I mean, it's something that I actively started doing. Um, once I once I started with a company board, I realized, you know, I probably need my own personal board, my own sort of support infrastructure That includes folks like my family, my sisters and my mom. It also includes you know, some younger junior folks that are actually much younger >>than me. >>But I learned so much from so um, to one of my good friend Cindy, who's who is brilliant at describing technology concepts. And and I think just some of the conversations I've had with her just opened my eyes to something that I hadn't seen before. And I think that's the area where I like to say the personal board isn't exactly you know people. It's it's profile. So along the way, as you grow, you're looking for new types of profiles. Let's say you want to learn about a new concept or a new technology or, you know, get better at running or something. So it's part of bringing those profiles in tow, learn about it and then back to this board concept. It's It's not as though it's a linked in network or it's actually sort of a group of people that you sort of rely on. And then it's a It's a two way street. So essentially, you know, there could be things that the other person could gain from knowing me, and ideally, that those were the best relationships in a personal board. So so I encourage alive women to do this because it builds a support infrastructure that is not related to your job. It's not your manager. It's not your co worker. You kind of feel some level of freedom having those discussions because those people aren't looking at your company. They're looking at helping you. So So that's That's sort of the concepts around >>the personal board idea and anything as women like having a sport system is so necessary, especially in this, like male dominated industry. Well, I think it's back >>to that whole feeling like you're the one person in the room, right? Right, so you're not the one person in the room, and I think we need to change that. And I think that's like some you know, all of our kind of roles that for all the women intact. I mean, it's sort of like something that we could help each other with right, and and if we don't do it actively, I mean, you know the numbers and we know you know the percentages of these things. If we want to change that, it does require some active interest on on our part to make that happen. And I think those are the areas where I see, like, the support infrastructures, the events like this really kind of engaging, um, us to be aware and doing something about the >>problem. Thank you so much for being on the key of love having you here. Thanks for >>having me. I really appreciate it. >>I'm Sonia to Garry. Thanks for watching the Cube. Stay tuned for more. >>Yeah, yeah.

(electronic music) >> From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE! Covering, CloudNOW's 7th Annual Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. >> Hi, Lisa Martin with theCUBE, on the ground at Facebook headquarters. We're here for the 7th Annual CloudNOW Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. Our third time covering this event, and we're excited to welcome to theCube, one of tonight's winners, Masha Sedova, the co-founder of Elevate Security. Masha, welcome to theCUBE! >> Lisa, thank you so much for having me, it's really great to be here. >> And congratulations on the award. >> Thank you, thank you. >> So you are a security expert, you studied, you were a STEM kid back in school, but you had this really interesting experience when you were at Salesforce a few years ago, related to security, where you went, I think I see one of the things people have been missing where cyber security is concerned. Tell us about that aha moment. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, having grown up in the security field, there's this saying that, the human is the weakest link. And I personally never believed that, and I was like, there's got to be a way of turning this around and so, I stepped back and said, What it would look like if people wanted to do security instead of had to? What it would look like if people were champions for security, and not because we made them do it, but because each of us were invested in it? And so, I took a step back from my Computer science and computer security background, and dove into the field of behavioral science, positive psychology, and game design. And started exploring how people think, and how we make decisions, to see if I can start applying that to security. And, would you know it, there's some really amazing findings that I came across in that space. >> So you were saying, before we went on that, a pretty significant percentage of breaches are, unfortunately, caused by us humans. >> Yeah, something like 95% have a human error related to it. And if you think about cyber attacks, it's a human being attacking another human being with a bunch of technology in the middle. And if we keep solving it with just technology we're going to keep ending up making the same mistakes we have been making for decades. But if we look at the human element, and why we make mistakes, and how we let ourselves learn from them and make better mistakes and also better choices, we can actually move the needle in a really significant way. >> So, Elevate Security co-founded just a couple of years ago. Really impressive with your board. Tell us about your leadership team and the board before we get into the significance of the name. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, it's co-founded by myself and my co-founder Robert Fly. So, we have a diverse founding team. And from the very beginning we believed that embracing our diversity, in our hires would be of significant differentiator and not just the way we hire, but also the way we build our product. Because we're building products for employees of a whole bunch of companies all over the world and so it was really important to us. And so, to date we're 50% women including our engineering team and we have an all outside female board, board of directors which is a fact I'm really excited to announce today. >> Excited and proud. So when you had this idea, (clears throat) excuse me, and clearly all of the data show that, like you said if we keep throwing technology at the problem with security we're not going to solve it. >> Yeah >> What were the conversations like as a female co-founder, going in and trying to get funding for this idea in something as, hot of a topic and sensitive as cyber security? >> Yeah, you know, it was challenging. Fundraising, I think if you ask any founder you'd say, it would be challenging. I would recommend anybody going into this know your stuff, and stand up behind it, know that you have experience and an idea or a brand, that brings you to the table, brings something to the table and that you have that behind you. So, just because several VCs might say no it doesn't mean that your idea's not worth fighting for or coming to life. And so, it took us a while but we found a fantastic set of venture partners to back us who had very similar philosophies in the way they both raise money and supported entrepreneurship and it's really exciting, exciting time to be have partnered with them. >> So, one of the things you mentioned before went on was the card that your mom gave you. >> Yeah. >> I think that's so inspiring and share that with our audience for those who might have a great idea like you did but say, I keep being told no. >> Yeah, just 'cause it's hard, doesn't mean it's not worth doing. If I, were to have gotten to the end of my life and I didn't try starting a company, I knew that I was always regret it. And, that is something I definitely couldn't live with. And, the card that my mom sent me, it was in late in 2016 it said, "A ship is safe in the harbor "but that is not what ships are built for." And I realized, I had to do this. I absolutely had to start this company, I had to see where it goes and I have a unique perspective and a unique set of experiences in the world. And ideas about how this really hard problem can be solved and I want to see it come to life. And I have had the opportunity to gather an amazing team around me to help me make that vision come to life and I'm really excited to see where it goes. >> So in terms of where it's going, humans are sensitive people. >> (chuckles) Yeah. >> When you're talking with companies, >> Yeah. >> Whether they're born in the cloud companies or legacy enterprise companies and you're saying, Hey, guys it's your people, we're all human. >> Yeah. >> From a cultural response. >> Yeah. >> What's that conversation like do they understand it? And how do you help them go from those really, like we were talking about boring-- >> Yeah. >> Videos and training tutorials to actually, impacting behavior? >> Mm hmm Yeah, so there's two schools of thought in security field. It's the people who believe that human element can't be solved, that humans will always make mistakes, so we need to throw as much technology at it as possible. We've been doing that for three decades and it hasn't worked. And honestly I'm waiting for that generation to move on until we get a new set of ideas in. And what I'm seeing is the up and coming, set of security leadership coming in saying, You know what? Let's try something new, let's try something different. And, you know, I have invested in technology and it hasn't solved it. What if we try a different approach? And, the thing is, security people aren't known for our human expertise. We're good at a lot of other things, but not human expertise, and so bringing in things like behavioral science which is known for understanding how and why we make decisions is a perfect combination to solve this problem that, to date has been unsolvable. Because we really haven't been bringing in expertise outside of our field which on the topic of diversity, is exactly what we need. >> Exactly. So what are you looking forward to as we are just about in the finishing the first month of 2019? >> Oh yeah so, we'll be at RSA at the end of February, early March speaking about our brand new product Snapshot. But I'm also really excited to continue hiring out our team. We are hiring tons of engineers, so if anyone is looking please-- >> Where can they go? >> Elevatesecurity.com. >> Elevatesecurity.com. >> Mm Hmm, yeah, and so continuing to build out our team in San Francisco and in Montreal. >> Well Masha, congratulations on the award, on this really innovative idea bringing in, behavior to security. We appreciate your time and look forward to seeing more of what you guys are about to do. >> Thank you so much. >> Congratulations. We want to thank you for watching theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Facebook. See you next time. (electronic music)

>> Woman: From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE; covering CloudNOW's Seventh Annual Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. (dramatic music) >> Hi, Lisa Martin with theCUBE on the ground at Facebook Headquarters. We're here for the Seventh Annual CloudNOW Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation event. Welcoming, one of the award-winners tonight, to the program, we've got Sce Pike, the founder and CEO of IOTAS. Sce, it's so great to have you here, and congratulations on your award. >> Thank you so much, Lisa. >> So IOTAS's cool software. >> Mm hmm. >> Tell us about that. This is for the Smart Apartments. These days we're so used to being able to talk to any device and have it control things. Smart cities are our big thing, smart everything. Tell us about IOTAS. What do you guys do when the impetus for the technology. >> Sure, I really believe that the future of smart home is actually something that is not just four walls and a roof, but actually something that is aware of you. So, aware of you and knows your preferences and settings, and actually knows everything about you and wants to actually be an ally to you, and actually can differentiate between you, and your family and friends, and potentially an intruder. And so, the only way you're going to get there is to actually work with early adopters of technology. This is when we start identifying the real estate industry with multi-family where all the early adopters were living, right, because only 30 percent of Millennials own homes. And so, we thought about this and said, "Okay, well, how are we going to actually get to those millennials?" And then a real estate developer actually approached us, saying, "Hey, I want technology differentiation for my building that I'm creating, 200 units in Portland Oregon," which is where I'm from, and said, "I want to have something different." And that's when I was like, "Oh, this is the opportunity to actually work with the real estate industry to put it into the fabric of the buildings." And that's when I got really excited when we can actually make a true smart home that has all the lights, all the outlets, all the locks, voice as you mentioned, and everything that is an experience versus just on, off. >> That's so interesting. I looked at your Web site and saw the journal and how it's talking about something that you mentioned, this awareness and learning the individuals and being able to have the intelligence to distinguish. >> Is it called stories on the website? >> Those are stories, those are the automations, so that you can have a good night story, good morning, welcome home; so everything just works for people who are moving into our apartments. They download the app within 30 seconds. They can see everything that they can control, but they can see also, all the pre-programmed automation as well. But the other notion of what we are creating is something called a living profile. And this is really relevant from a CloudNOW perspective, is that the living profile travels with you from place to place to place. So we are not only doing smart apartments but we're also working in student housing, military housing, senior living, and starting to go into single family home as well. So for us, the notion is that these smart homes, all your settings preferences, your routines, your habits, travel with you from place to place to place, eventually to hotels, to cars, working spaces, hotels, short term vacation rentals and such. >> Wow! That's phenomenal. So this is an interesting kind of collaboration between the real estate industry and some technologists. >> Exactly. Exactly. >> I love that you were approached by a real estate developer who said, "I want to have a differentiation for my business." >> Exactly. Was that sort of a surprise to you thinking, you understand tech, you have a really cool background in anthropology as well as electronic arts, but there must have been sort of an interesting opportunity going, "Well, there's a huge opportunity in the market here >> Yeah. >> that we can help tech really kick the doors wide open on real estate. >> Yes. Exactly. My previous company, Citizen, which I sold to Ernst and Young, is known for connected technology. So we were developing connected technologies in cars, in healthcare and fintech, and we were looking at smart homes for single family home. And so, for us, when that real estate developer approached us, looked at the market, saw that the market is huge. It's $500 billion to a trillion dollars, just for multi-family home alone, it's an absolutely a large market, and then realized that this was truly an opportunity to scale smart home and IoT devices in a meaningful way because you're not just selling one device, one home, not even one building, but you're selling entire portfolios of companies like Prudential or JP Morgan. All the funds that you hear about, they're all real estate funds, right? And they're changing hands 40% of the ... A 40% of the fund is changing hands every year. That means they are buying and selling, and as they're buying and selling, they're adding technology into these buildings. >> Wow! That's so interesting. So, I want to kind of pivot a little bit into your background. I mentioned anthropology degree and electronic arts. And you have, I was asking you before we went live, I love stories like that where there's a ... I hear it wasn't a STEM kit, but you have some really cool influences that your anthropology background has delivered to, not just your career but also the technology that you guys are delivering. Tell us a little bit about that. Sure. So, anthropology is a study in human behavior, right? There's physical anthropology and cultural anthropology. Physical anthropology is now considered almost like evolutionary psychology. And so that actually allowed me because I've always been curious about human; human nature, why people do things, and that actually led my career into this interesting path of user experience design. And electronic arts actually taught me how to code as well as design on the computer. And when I graduated from college in the late '90s and moved to Silicon Valley, everybody's like, "I need somebody who could code and design all these Internet sites." So I ended up actually designing the first GM e-commerce site, the first HP's e-commerce sites, and that actually was not a direct path. I never thought I'd be making websites or working in an Internet, but it was an interesting path to get there. So you're right, it doesn't have to be this straight and like you got to be in computer science. There's so many different avenues to think about how technology needs a different point of view, right, from an art background or an anthropology background, and I think that's where there's an opportunity to bring in women or girls in a different way that still goes into STEM. So steam is a huge portion of what I support. >> Yes. And you talked about, it's just different points of view, it's thought diversity, even. >> Yes. >> Tell us a little bit about the culture that you're building at IOTAS and where, maybe even some of the softer skills >> Sure. >> are key to enabling you guys to do market expansion and accomplish some pretty big goals? >> Yeah. I mean, culturally, I love my team. I think one of the things that we always strive for, though, is the ability to always give back to the community as well. So we have like, events, as well as like, once a month, everyone has like, a give-back Wednesday, right? So they can go and volunteer and do other things that is outside of just their work life, right? And so that's just one of the things that we do and that allows them to just step away from their daily activity of being driven by just the startup mentality or the startup life and just go build something, and we do this a lot, Habitats for Humanities, right? We go build homes, real homes, and we always think we should offer these homes as smart home technology. But those are the things that I think really impact who we are. The other thought I had was I travel a lot. And I had this moment where I was getting on a plane. I was looking at the pilot, I was going, "Oh gosh! So much of my life is dependent on white men, and, unfortunately, like, my investors, my board members, all my executive staff, my husband, and I was thinking, "I need to change something. I'll keep the husband." (Lisa laughs) But we (chuckles) recently added a female board member who has a cybersecurity background. I'm recruiting for a female CFO and COO as well, and I'm trying to change up my executive staff, change up my investors, change up my board 'cause this is not something that you think about, coming from my generation which is a little bit older. You just need to do what you need to do to get it done, you don't think about yourself as a female entrepreneur. I thought of myself as an entrepreneur. I think of myself as a CEO. I don't have this like, "I'm a female entrepreneur." And so you sometimes forget to support other diversity in this environment, and that's kind of this moment of realization as I was getting on the plane, "I got to change something." Right? And so, our staff is more than 40% female. I'm trying to change that a little bit more. That's one of the key things that I think is a strength of having just representation. >> And maybe one of these days, you said your point: It won't matter, you will just be able to be a CEO, an entrepreneur. >> exactly. >> One more thing, since you're recruiting, where can people to go to find out more information about the opportunities? >> Sure, they can come to our site, reach out or contact at iotashome.com. That would be the best way to reach us. >> Excellent. Well, Sce, congratulations on the award. >> Thank you. >> And for what you're doing to help revolutionize the real estate tech industry. It's such interesting technology to make it aware and personal. Thanks for your time. >> Cool. >> Thank you so much, Lisa. We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin, at Facebook Headquarters. Thanks for watching. (dramatic music)

>> Announcer: From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Covering Cloud-Now's Seventh Annual Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. (upbeat music) >> Hi, Lisa Martin with theCUBE, on the ground, at Facebook headquarters. We're here for the seventh annual Cloud-Now Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. Excited to welcome, from the AtScale team, to theCUBE for the first time, Sarah Gerwck co-founder and chief architect and award winner. Sarah it's so great to have you on the program. >> Thanks so much, it's great to be here. >> So I mention you join a number of your peers at AtScale who have been on theCUBE, so we're glad to have you on. So co-founder of a tech company, we're here celebrating women who have not only founded companies, technical entrepreneurs, venture bad companies, really hard things to achieve. Give us a little bit of the backstory about the co-founding opportunity that you and your co-founders had about what, 5 or so years ago at AtScale. >> Yeah so a number of the founding team came out of Yahoo where in the analytics group, we were seeing that the scale of data that companies were operating with was changing. And the operational environment was changing with both public and private clouds. And even at Yahoo as a technology company, we found we were struggling both internally to develop the tools that we needed and also to find tools on the market that served the needs of our business users, and our executives, and our accounts and sales people. So we realized that this was just a sort of pivotal moment in the change of the way business was being done in the Valley. That there was this great opportunity to really help companies connect to their data wherever that data might be and whatever types of data they might have. So about 5 years so ago from your perspective, you are a STEM kid. You've got background in what is it, math and physics. >> That's right. >> So you knew from the time you were a kid, I love this, this is what I want to do. What were some of the things the inspired you as being... And many industries are challenging, but tech is as well. That inspired you to not only continue doing what you love, but to actually step out of, maybe you'd say a comfort zone of a large company like a Yahoo with your co-founders and start something brand new? >> Sure, I think it's the... The key thing to me is you have to sort of just believe in yourself and be your own champion because really everybody out there who accomplishes these things takes these steps and says this is going to be my moment, this is going to be my thing. And I think whether you're a woman, or a minority, or a man, or anybody, you just have to be confident in yourself. Look for the things that you really enjoy. For me that was math and science and technology. And just sort of find, here's my niche, here's something I can be really good at. And become an expert in that area. And that's sort of something you walk into over time, and sort of develop that confidence to sort of strike out and do some amazing things in your life. >> How do you find that for those next generation, or even those that are in tech now, to go I don't feel confident enough, or they might feel some pressure. What's your recommendation on lending themselves with a mentor, whether it be male, female whatever to help them just kind of take stock of what's really important to them? >> Yeah, I think finding people who have been through it and talking to them, whether it could be a boss or a coworker whose done interesting things in their lives, or an old teacher, or a present teacher, I think finding somebody who can sort of give you that story of like here's how I felt because you have to have confidence in yourself but really nobody feels confident all the time. Everybody gets anxious or fearful before doing something new. That's part of it and sort of learning to look back and say well, I've been successful in the past, and I've overcome these obstacles and I'm ready for another one. >> I always think something that's so interesting is the concept of imposter syndrome. And how many people suffer from it, and I didn't even know it existed until a few years ago. And it level set, Okay, I'm not the only one. And so I think that's something that some people are kind of born with that like regardless, you love math and physics and you're going to keep going. But for those, I think even sometimes acknowledging, oh, this is something that a lot of people that have confidence now didn't have back in the day. I can overcome this as well. >> Right, I think everybody has a little bit of imposter syndrome at times. I just think that the world can seem like such a big and challenging place, but really it's all made of people and they all have the same sort of interests and desires. Not necessarily all the same skills, but deep down we're all people. >> Exactly, so tonight though, in the last minute or so, you have the opportunity to present in front of one of the most influential females of our time in technology, Sheryl Sandberg. Can you think back to yourself in college, and if you'd known this opportunity was going to happen, would have just said, yeah, that's about right? >> I would've been a surprise. I think with work and sort of following your passion, I think anything's possible. >> I love that. Well, Sarah, congratulations on the award and for all of your success at AtScale. We congratulate you, and we thank you for stopping by theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> Have a great night as well. >> Thanks. >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I am Lisa Martin on the ground at Facebook headquarters. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Announcer: From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE covering CloudNOW's 7th annual Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. (lively music) >> Hi, Lisa Martin with theCUBE on the ground at Facebook Headquarters. We're here with the CloudNOW Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards, their seventh annual. We're here with one of the award winners, Katherine Kostereva, the founder and CEO of bpm'online. Katherine, it's great to have you here. >> It's honor to be here. Thank you very much, Lisa. >> Congratulations on the CloudNOW award, but also you are no stranger to awards. Even in 2018, you were named one of the Top 50 SaaS CEOs for 2018. Not just female CEOs, CEOs. That's a pretty big honor as well. >> Katherine: Thank you. >> So bpm'online I want folks to understand not just your career path, but also that you're pretty persistent and bold. Bpm'online is a very successful and well-known business in Europe. >> Katherine: Right. >> Founded in 2002 with five people. >> 16 years ago. >> 16 years ago. >> Bootstrapped. >> Bootstrapped by yourself, and here you are recently moved to the US and you're basically kind of start-up in the US. >> Exactly. >> Tell us a little bit about that story. What you grew as a female leader in Europe, and the impetus to say we can do more and bring the business to the United States. >> Absolutely, would love to tell you this story. So 16 years ago we built this company. Bootstrapped it, no investors, no friends and family money. Just from zero, from scratch, and have successfully grown the business until we started to hear from our customers who were large, global organizations using our software in Europe. We started to hear, "Hey guys, "why we don't know you in the United States? "Why our headquarters doesn't know your name?" And then we started to talk to Gartner and Forrester, and they said exactly the same. Your technology is so amazing, and, right now, we are included in five Gartner Magic Quadrants and five Forrester Waves. And technology is amazing, but why you are not here in the United States? So, eventually, I moved to the United States with some of my peers, and we started to build our office in Boston. It happened three years ago. So right now we feel ourselves like a start-up here in Boston. While back like several years ago in Europe, and right now actually in Europe, this is a strong, mature company with 500 people in the company, working in the company in six offices. >> And business process automation, CRM, well-known in Europe, tell us about why did you select Boston and not come out here to Silicon Valley when you decided to move out here? >> (laughs) That's a great question, and I have a very easy answer to this question. As we have so many customers, partners and actually team members in Europe, we just wanted to find something with a shortest time-zone like time difference, right. So the difference between Europe and Boston is five to seven hours while here's it's additional plus three hours. So my day usually starts with Europe, so, when I start working around 7 a.m. in the morning, I work work with Europe, then I work with the United States, and then in the evening I start working with APAC with Asia, with Australia because we have our office in Australia as well. So we have our customers and people working in Australia, so this is my evening hours. >> Oh my goodness, so here you are being recognized tonight as a female entrepreneur. Tell us about your inspiration, and what has kept you persistent. Being a female in technology is challenging, and we all know that and, for many reasons. Hopefully one day it won't matter, gender, but it does. What are some of your recommendations for not only founding a company, and really kind of harnessing that persistence but also growing a culture that supports diversity. That understands and embraces change. >> This is a great question. Honestly, for me those are my customers, and that what I would recommend all women and female and male entrepreneurs to talk more to their customers because when you and your customers have the same vision about how to develop the company, how to develop the product, it inspires you. You just, you move on. You want to develop. You want to develop more, and just to give you an example both our customers and our team we believe that organization just can't have excellent customer relations without very holistic business processes beneath. So we believe that organization, if we're talking about mid-sized and large organization, they need to have holistic processes first, and then, based on this process, they going to have great customer relations. So this is kind of our vision and our mission, and that's what our customers share with us and that what has inspires me to move on and on and develop new products for our customers. >> Well, Katherine congratulations on the CloudNOW Award win. >> Thank you. >> Thanks so much for joining us on the program, and we hope you have a great night. >> Thank you so much for your time. Honor to be here. Thank you >> Our pleasure. We want to thank you for watching. I'm Lisa Martin for theCUBE at Facebook Headquarters. We'll see you next time. (lively, airy music)

>> Narrator: From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCube. Covering CloudNOW's seventh annual top women entrepreneurs in cloud innovation awards. >> Hi, Lisa Martin with theCube on the ground at Facebook headquarters. We are here for the 7th annual Cloud Now top women in cloud innovation awards. Excited to be welcoming to theCube for the first time, one of tonight's winners, Catherine Krow, the founder and CEO of Digitory Legal. Catherine, welcome. >> Thank you so much, it's a pleasure to be here. >> So one of the things I love about your story, Catherine, is you were a practicing attorney for 17 years. >> Yes. >> You're one of the assistant DA's in San Francisco. And you are now the founder of a SAS based software company. >> I am, and I was a partner at major law firm named Orrick for many many years before doing that. >> So, I can imagine, back in school when you were in law school, didn't envision you would actually be a female entrepreneur in technology. >> Oh heavens no. When I graduated from law school 20 years ago, this was probably dead last on the things that I thought I would be doing. But, when I was practicing, it became clear that there was an enormous change in the market, and a huge need for better and more powerful tools, particularly around the area of cost management and cost prediction. >> So tell us a little bit about Digitory Legal, and exactly what the software enables legal departments and companies to do. >> Well, the short answer is, we are bringing data driven cost prediction to law. And we're doing it to really help law firms and corporate legal departments succeed in a changing legal market. Now, for most of the time that I was practicing law, when clients would ask that "how much" question, the answer, which was perfectly acceptable, was, it depends. And that is no longer acceptable. So, in order for legal departments to do their job and for law firms to really succeed, we have to, as an industry, dig into our data and do better. And that's what we do. >> So when you had the idea, tell us about the process and the phases that you went through to carry it forward and get the angel funding that you're currently receiving. >> Well, the starting point was a lot of market research. Because I knew as a lawyer what my pain point was. I knew how hard it was to answer that "how much "question in complicated cases, and communicate with clients when things would change. But I didn't know if everybody else was feeling that pain, and I didn't know if there were markets out there, software tools out there that I just didn't know about. So I dug in and I dug in deep on what was out there, what were the pain points, and it took several months to realize that the problem really is a data problem, and it's been an industry wide problem for a long time. So to solve cost prediction, we needed to tackle the data problem, and then it was about pulling on my networking, finding the best Silicon Valley talent to help me do that. >> And speaking of network, here we are at CloudNOW, which is the network of women. And your background, and actually digging in there and being an attorney, looking at, these are the challenges I'm having, how much of an advantage has that been in the networking conversations that you've had, demonstrating to potential funders and those that are funding you, this is a huge gap in the market that isn't solvable, we have an idea, help us actually start this so we can start enabling organizations to leverage that data as you're saying, it's really the only option now. >> The industry expertise, the deep experience and my background, has really helped because I walked away from a big law firm partnership to solve this problem, it was so pressing. And there are very clear trigger points if you understand the industry very well, that are, make it easy to explain why now, and why us, and the market has changed and the whole approach of corporate law has changed, and we can explain that because I've lived it and breathed it. >> So a big part of this is digital transformation, which is a theme we hear at every tech event that we go to, but it's not just transforming a tech company. I was talking this morning to a ski resort company that digitized their entire process from paper to electronic, so everybody understands we are digital, we are mobile, we need to have that. I'm curious, do your conversations with maybe traditional law firms, maybe such as the ones that you've worked at, how easy is it to get them on board with being data driven, is the only way for you as a law form to continue to succeed and to compete with the next generation that understands data has to drive the business, revenue opportunities, etc. >> There's fortunately there's been enough publicity and enough of a market shift, and requirements on the client side that law is starting to understand that data driven decision making is the way of the future, and if they are not early, they are late. So in order to compete in what has become an incredibly difficult market for law firms, they must be able to help their clients make data driven decisions, and be different than the rest of the pack. So fortunately, the market has shifted, and that shift is very very clear to even the most traditional law firms. >> So even in customer conversations, they're getting it. >> They're getting it, and they know that I experience their pain. So it's working. >> Excellent. Well kind of to wrap things up, and to bring us back to the event that we're at tonight, you have the opportunity not only to present to about 300 attendees today, this event was sold out not even advertised, it was selling like hotcakes with just networking and word of mouth, but there's also some pretty big notable keynotes that are here tonight. Sheryl Sandberg being one of them, and kind of one of the beacons that us females in technology look to. You have the opportunity as a lawyer turned technology entrepreneur to present in front of someone who's pretty well known and inspirational. Thoughts on that? >> It's an honor. It's an honor and a privilege. I really can't thank CloudNOW enough for putting together this event and giving female entrepreneurs like myself the opportunity to stand up and say what we do to an audience like this. >> Lisa: It's pretty exciting. >> Yeah. >> Last question there, about your company, are you guys hiring, what types of rock stars are you looking for? Are you looking for people with legal background? With tech background? >> Um AI, because the core of what we do is artificial intelligence, natural language processing, so rock stars in artificial intelligence, send me your resume, I would love to talk to you. >> Excellent. Catherine, congratulations on the award. Thank you so much for stopping by. Lawyer turned tech entrepreneur. I love that, it's a great headline. >> Thank you so much, I really appreciate the time. >> Our pleasure. We want to thank you for watching theCube. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Facebook headquarters. We'll see you next time. (Techno music)

>> Announcer: From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Covering CloudNOW's seventh annual Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. (upbeat music) >> Hi, Lisa Martin with theCUBE, on the ground at Facebook Headquarters. We're here for the seventh annual CloudNOW Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. Welcoming one of the award winners and a CUBE alumni to the program, we have Tongtong Gong. You are co-founder and COO of Amberdata, Tongtong. Welcome back to theCUBE, and congrats on the award. >> Thank you, thanks for having me Lisa. >> Our pleasure. So, you've been on theCUBE before. We'll talk about Amberdata in a second. And I love the name, so I want you to tell us a little bit about that. Health and intelligence for blockchain, but one of the really interesting things about you is you are a technical female co-founder of a venture-funded company. A lot of words there, huge accomplishment. >> Tongtong: Thank you. >> Tell us about the inspiration. What was the opportunity? Was it your idea? Was it your co-founder's idea? How did this opportunity for the technology come to fruition? Then how did you, as a female, go and lead and get funding for this technology? >> Wow, how much time do I have? I can talk all day on this subject. So, it all started last 2017, summer. I was just very intrigued with blockchain technology and the potential of how blockchain can change our life and take our identity, assets, have full control, remove intermediaries. I had a full-time job at that time, leading engineering for a startup company, and I just don't have enough time in the day to learn about this new technology and what's the better way to do it, and then jump right in, start own company, and start from blockchain data. So, my background is in data analytics and computing, and when I start learning blockchain, I realized blockchain data, it's stored, it's immutable, but it's really hard to access. It's really hard to analyze. It's really hard to process without all the tools that we all know and comfortable with. So, me and my co-founder at that point were going back and forth with this new technology and the opportunities. I think it's his idea. Let's do something with the data that's stored on blockchain. Amberdata, the company's name, it's because Nick Szabo did a podcast with Tim Ferriss and Naval about blockchain is a fly trapped in amber. Upon layers and layers of amber solidified and the bubbles and the fly, you can still see it but it's immutable. You can't change it anymore. So, we're like, what brilliant name is that, right? >> Lisa: Absolutely. >> Amberdata. Without a tool, a platform like us, you can't possibly count all the bubbles in the amber. We help you extract the bubbles from the amber, the flies from the amber, and analyzing it. And that's what we do. >> Wow, that's a great analogy, a great name. Health and intelligence for blockchain. Blockchain is a very hot technology topic. Every company out there, whether they're a startup born in the cloud or legacy enterprise, wants to be doing something in blockchain. As a female co-founder, was that an advantage for you when you went in to venture capitalists looking to get funding? What do you think some of those advantages were? >> Honestly, I always consider being female is an attribute of me. It's not the definition of me. My gender doesn't define me. It doesn't constrain me. It's just who I am and I'm also engineer. I'm also incredibly curious all the time. I'm also bubbly. I'm also a wife. I'm also a daughter. So, there's just many attributes of me. When we start a company, we went into lots of friends and VCs and Meetups and we'd talk to anyone about our idea. Looking for advice, looking for validation. That's really what led us to get the funding. >> I love that. One day I hope we'll be to a place where gender doesn't define us but we know the numbers in females in technical roles. But it sounds like one of the things that you leveraged, maybe, were some of those softer skills. You're very personable. You had a great idea. You clearly have passion for it. Building your own groundswell with Meetups and a network seems like one of the key initiators of your success. >> Now you put it that way, I think so. I never thought about it that way. Yeah, 'cause in the beginning, you really try to define and refine the idea and the product. Are you solving a problem? What is the problem that you are solving? You really can't get answers unless you talk to lots of people and I think, perhaps, being a female, it really helps me just to talk to people all day long. >> It's good that you can do that. Genetically, I think we both have that in common. Tonight, as we wrap up here, you're presenting in front of Sheryl Sandberg, who is probably one of the beacons that women have globally. Not just in technology, she's obviously written some incredibly inspiring books about a number of different life situations. You must be pretty excited to have the opportunity to not only be a co-founder but to be recognized by this award and have somebody as prestigious and inspirational as Sheryl in the audience. >> Absolutely. I have both her books, Lean In and Option B. I actually bough both books in Chinese version for my mom, as well. So, I have four copies. I'm a huge fan of Sheryl. I think she's very inspirational about leaning in and take a seat at the table. One of my friend, Jamie Moy, once said, "Girl, let's forget about taking a seat. Let's create a table. Let's create a seat for other people." >> "Girl, let's create a seat." I love that. Tongtong, thank you so much for stopping by. Congratulations again on the award. >> Thank you. >> And we look forward to having you back on theCUBE again, talking more about what you're doing with Amberdata. >> Thank you for having me. >> We want to thank you. You're watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin from Facebook headquarters. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: From the heart of Silicon Valley, its theCUBE. Covering CloudNOW 7th Annual Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. (upbeat music) >> Hi, Lisa Martin with theCube, on the ground at Facebook Headquarters. We're here for the seventh annual CloudNOW Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud innovation. Welcoming back to theCube, Idit Levine, who was a winner of one of the awards tonight. Idit, welcome back to theCube. >> Thank you so much, it's great to be here. >> You are the co-founder and CEO of solo.io. >> Idit Levine: Right. >> So, Solo, I think Han Solo, StarWars, I know there's a different impetus for the name there. >> Idit Levine: Yeah. >> I want to talk about, you've been on theCube before talking about the technology, but I'd love for our audience tonight, you are here receiving an award for one, of being one of the innovators, top women in Cloud. Tell us a little bit about the founding of the company, what was the inspiration from a technology perspective, but also as a female technologist, not easy to get funding, tell us a little bit about your backstory. >> Yeah, so I work in the start up most of my life. So I was in Foundry, in a companies, not, I wasn't founding them. And so, you know, working in one company who got acquired, then I moved to another one who got acquired, then I was the CTO of Cloud Management Division in EMC. Much easier to be in a big company, but what drive me to actually start Solo was, because I really saw the need. And did end up actually solving a real problem in the industry. But as you said, it's not easy. So at the beginning I was very naive, I thought, well I already did a lot of open source project, already have a really good kind of like, you know a bitrun of doing and innovative, and so on, I should just get the money, right. So yeah right, no. (laughs) It's not working like this. It's harder to get the money. And also working, I'm specifically in the East coast, which make it even harder. And I'm the only founder. Which mean that it even make it much, much harder. (laughs) So when I started actually, I raised money in the beginning. You know there was a lot of question, like for instance, why don't you have a partner? And so on, I was insisting on not taking one because I felt that I can enter the product myself, right now. And there's nothing to say yet, so there's no point of bringing the business, and I'm a smart dude, I will learn. And that worked really, really well. So, I took the money eventually from, actually in the West coast, actually from a true venture and an amazind pundit, which is amazing, amazing investors, which was just like clear to me that that was the guy who need to go with me. And, we started a company a year and a half ago. But, part of the reason that I call the company Solo is kind of like in a way to explain that I can do it, right? We can do it, even that I'm a woman, and even that I'm tech, I can do these things by myself, so that's part of it. >> I hope you have stickers and pens for when people walk into your offices that says, I can do it, we can do it. That's a great name, and I love the history behind that. But you've fought some pretty big up hill battles, but in a short period of time, getting funding. What's your advice to your peers, either in this generation now or women in the next five years who have a great idea, they have the technical expertise like you do to move forward and just absorb that friction that's going to come your way, how did you do that? >> So actually my motto is really simple, just be the best. So like, I had a great mentor before, we said it right. People will try to stress you in your way and try to explain why you're not doing a good job and try to explain why they're doing a better job. But in the end of the day, people cannot, at least for me I'm a big data driven person, data is the most important thing, so what I did is just, instead of talking, I just was doing. And you know, it was hard in a point of conflict, ignore that, because we're doing really well. Our idea is really good. And again, and again. And persistently, we're doing well. That eventually it was just, you can ignore that. So it wasn't an easy way though. >> No definitely not. You make it sound easy, but your persistence and your determination clearly are essential. Tell us about the culture that you want to, as your company as solo.io continues to grow, what are some of the parts of wisdom that you're going to insist that your leadership team has, like someone that maybe has software skills that are eseential, not just the technical expertise, in order for this fast culture of, we can do this, to flourish? >> Yeah, so I mean, I have an amazing team. And I have to say, what I'm trying to do, my motive is that, I know what I'm good at, but there's stuff that I'm less good at. And my job is to basically surround myself with an amazing A plus team and just let them go. So that's exactly what we're doing. I mean, I'm in charge, I'm the CEO. And I overlook of all the company, doing a lot of the work of with the, managing the engineering, but I have amazing leaders who is going out to this job. I have, I'm doing a lot of the product but I did want a strong, strong people next to me. So if its my VP of Sales, and my field CTO, so I think that the most important thing in the company right now, and this is what we're working on, is the openness. You know, we're not making any decision, we're just sharing it with the amazing energy, and I think this is the key. It wasn't simple, I mean there were people who didn't fit and there was people that we needed to let them go, because, I'm very precise about that, we should be the best. And in order to be the best, you need to have the best people. >> And you want more of the best, because you're hiring. Where can people go to find more information? The website? >> Yeah they can totally go to the website, and just we're everywhere, like Twitter and LinkedIn, so you can just find us. And yeah just come and work for, it's really cool. It's going really well. >> Well, Idit you have such a great energy, thank you so much for joining us on the program. And also congratulations on the award that you won tonight. >> Thank you so much. >> I want to thank you for watching theCube, Lisa Martin for theCube on the ground at Facebook headquarters. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's the Cube Covering CloudNow 7th Annual Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. >> Lisa Martin on the ground with the Cube at Facebook Headquarters. We are here for the 7th Annual CloudNow Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. Welcoming to the Cube for the first time, one of tonight's winners, we have Charu Sharma, the Founder and CEO of Nextplay.ai. Charu, it's great to have you on the Cube. >> Thanks Lisa, I'm really excited to be talking to you. >> And congratulations on your award. Your pedigree, when I looked you up on LinkedIn, I thought wow, where do I even start, the things you've accomplished in such a short time period are pretty impressive. I want to share a few with our guests. You've built, in college, in your spare time, two award-winning start-up companies out of your dorm room before you got napped up by LinkedIn to grow their talent solutions revenue. You've won awards by Grace Hopper. We mention tonight you're here with CloudNow, one of the top women entrepreneurs in cloud innovation. Tell us about, I'd love to get your story of what inspired you to go off and found Nextplay.ai, the inspiration, also the chutzpah to say, "You know what I want to do this, "and I need to go get funding" which is really challenging for women in technical roles to do. Tell us about that. >> Yeah, so tonight I'll be giving a talk next to Sheryl Sandberg and that's nothing short of a miracle for me because I grew up in a family in India where women were not allowed to work, and so growing up it was important for me to have access to economic opportunities and that's how I came to the US for a scholarship, and I'm here today because a lot of mentors serendipitously came in my life and opened doors for me. So, to pay it forward, when I worked at LinkedIn before, I built a mentoring program for women at LinkedIn specifically cuz I think in the workplace especially women, minorities, and introverts suffer in finding a sponsor in helping open doors for you and mentors at your company can specially help you navigate the political landscape and help you grow your career at the company which helps the companies with retention as well. Exactly two years ago I started Nextplay.ai to be able to do this at scale, so today we work with companies from Coca Cola to Lyft to Splunk, and we not only connect their employees internally for mentorship, we also have robust analytics to show the ROI on retention. >> I was looking at some of your stats, I was telling you before we went live, I geek out on stats, that really show that your technology can make significant business impact for, you mention Coca Cola, Lyft, Splunk, etcetera but you obviously saw a gap a few years ago when you got into tech yourself saying not only do we know the numbers and the stats of women in technical roles as being quite low, but one of the things that you saw is one of the things we need to do to help increase those numbers is start internally and mentoring these women. To your point, of not just helping them establish confidence to stay but navigate that political landscape. I think that's a really unique opportunity, when you pitched this idea to these Cs, what was their response? >> Yeah, so mentorship is not an established product category, and on top of that, I inserted gender, race, accent, age, etcetera, and so frankly I got mixed opinions, but I chose to focus on the people who saw the big vision and who cared about the story and the impact something like this could have, so LinkedIn's executives, 500 Start-ups, TechCrunch's former CEO, who's a woman, they're some of the earliest investors who put their bets on us. Today we have shown success stories at every scale, so after six months of working with us employees are 25% more likely to recommend working at their company which actually when you do the math, it's huge. It saves millions of dollars for companies. There was a woman at a company who became the first woman at her company to get promoted while away on mat leave, that's huge. >> Wow, that is huge. >> A new product manager was able to, because of us, connect with somebody who they otherwise wouldn't know, and they were able to help identify a multi-million dollar market opportunity for the company, so there are definitely these case studies which is now creating a movement and now we have over 300 companies who want to work with us. They're on a waiting list. >> A waiting list? >> Mmhhm So we're definitely creating this momentum. >> And we talk about groundswell and momentum, especially at an event like tonight where there's over 300 attendees, 1o winners, one of them being yourself, and there was no advertising to buy tickets because the groundswell is growing so much. The trajectory that Nextplay.ai is on, in two years is pretty steep, you got some exciting things coming up in March, tell us about that. >> Yes, thank you, so when ai play and we sell to enterprise companies to do their mentoring and sponsorship programs internally for talent retention, that said, we started the company to help level the playing field so now that we're relatively stable and are a strong robust team with decent traction, this March we want to give a give back, so we're launching a social impact campaign where around the world we're going to help 100,000 women get mentored. So, if you want to host events at your company, if you want to get involved as a mentor or a mentee, please e-mail me at charu@nextplay.ai. >> And people can also go to the website to find out more information about that? >> Not about that campaign specifically yet, but they'll find my contact information, so it's nextplay.ai. >> And even at your Twitter handle which is probably in the lower third here. >> Yes >> Excellent, so congratulations on the award. The amount of work that you have done in such a short period of time is incredible. I can see it in your attitude and your smile and your energy, congratulations on getting to present to Sheryl Sandberg tonight and for seeing this opportunity in the market to help with that retention from within. What a great opportunity and thanks again. >> Thank you Lisa. >> We want to thank you for watching the Cube. I am Lisa Martin on the ground at Facebook headquarters, thanks for watching. (light electronic music)

>> From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's the Cube, covering CloudNOW's seventh annual Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. (upbeat music) >> Lisa Martin on the ground with the Cube at Facebook headquarters. We are at the seventh annual CloudNOW Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovations Awards event. Joined by one of the 2016 winners welcoming you back to the Cube Syamala Bandla you are now at Facebook, a Director of Production Engineering. Welcome back to the Cube. >> Thank you Lisa. >> So we are at Facebook Headquarters, and we were talking with Jocelyn DeGance Graham a little bit ago who is the founder of CloudNOW. Their 7th annual event, first time at Facebook, and you a past winner are largely responsible for getting Facebook to say yes. Tell us a little bit about how you are paying it forward as a winner and enabling this years awards to have such a boost up. >> So I attended the CloudNOW event at the Google campus in 2016, and when I walked out of the event just not being the award recipient, but just meeting the other award winners, as well as the speakers, I was completely pumped up and charged. When I joined Facebook last year I saw how much deeply Facebook actually cares about diversity and inclusion. And I know that cloud computing and conversion technologies as an area where women are under represented. So when I pitched to my leadership team that when we care so much about, we should be hosting this years event and they jumped on board immediately. >> So it was an easy sell, but something also that's pretty remarkable that you should know about is that this year one of the keynote speakers is the COO of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg, and again Syamala you were instrumental in securing Sheryl who has a crazy busy schedule. That's huge for everybody here, and the ground swell of women in technology. Tell us a little bit about that coup. >> So when we decided finally to host it and as we were planning and all the line up of, great line up of speakers and the winners. We couldn't have thought about anybody else to do the opening remarks than Sheryl Sandberg. I know we had, she had, a very very tough schedule but my leadership team and I, we were persistent, and it's an honor to have her here to do the opening remarks. >> Absolutely yes. So talk to us a little bit about your tenure here at Facebook, you mentioned joining about eight or nine months or so ago and being a culture that fosters diversity, gender diversity, thought diversity. Tell us a little bit about your team in production engineering and how that culture, how are you helping to grow that? >> That's a great question. So definitely I'll be very honest, we have a lot more to do. Production engineering predominately in the industry is male-dominated. But just this year, just in the teams around me, we have hired quite a bit of female managers as well as individual contributors. And the support we get from our peers, the open thoughts, the collaboration, it's just great to be in an environment where we can foster that culture. >> And one of the things too, tell me about your background. Is your education background in a STEM field? Your engineering background? >> Yes. >> Yes, so talk to us about one of the things that's also challenging that we're all very familiar with, with women in technical roles, is the under representation, but it's also being able to retain women. You are establishing a great tech career yourself, what's your advice for inspiring your generation, and then the younger generation that you're helping to hire here at Facebook, to stay in technology. >> So cloud computing or technology, I mean we all have to pay it forward. I think we as women who are in influential positions and can make an impact on the younger generation I think need to absolutely do a lot more to pay it forward. It is not only with awareness but also wherever, whenever you get opportunities try to mentor students. Early on in their career encourage them to believe in themselves, to reach out for mentors and sponsors, do networking, which I think in general girls and women they shy away from it. I would say networking, meeting with people in the industry, they would be learning a lot more early on in their career. >> Great advice. One of the things that's also fantastic, and a first for this 7th annual CloudNOW event, is its, not only is it sold out, they're expecting over 300 attendees here tonight, both men and women, but also there was no advertising for the selling of tickets, so this was all word of mouth from the sponsors, Facebook, Google, Intel, past winners like yourself. So Jocelyn talked about that ground swell, that momentum that we're all feeling, what are your expectations for the event tonight? >> First of all we are super thrilled and excited. Like when I look at the list of the guest list, when I look at the speakers, when I look at the winners. I mean it was just the word of mouth as we started telling who will be the speakers and we will have a VC panel, and the winners. I think the word of mouth really paid it forward and we're super thrilled to have about close to 300 people attending the evening tonight. >> And there's a really nice diverse set of winners you mentioned. I was chatting with Jocelyn earlier and this is the first year that they've been able to recognize female, technical founders who are venture backed. And there's a variety of technologies, we're going to be speaking with all the winners tonight from the smart homes, the smart apartments technology, to blockchain, intelligence on blockchain, so the diversity there, and also not just the technologies but also the background of some of these entrepreneurs who, one of them is a lawyer who was a practicing attorney for 17 years founding Digitory Legal. Just really interesting backgrounds, what are your thoughts on that? >> So I think when we looked we had more than 100 nominees. It was very very hard, and I was also part of the committee as we were going through the winner, choosing the winners. It was very hard. But one of the things we really wanted to make sure was that we had a diverse set of winners. Not only from their backgrounds, but also the technology domain they were representing, which is very very important. And as we were going through the planning deck, and looking at the presentations, I can't wait to hear what they have to present. It is so thrilling to see the accomplishments and what they have achieved in their respective fields. >> And we're excited as well. Syamala thanks for taking time to stop by and join us on the program tonight, and it was good to see you again. >> Thank you so much Lisa, it's been a pleasure being here. Thank You >> Excellent. We want to thank you for watching Lisa Martin on the ground at Facebook for the Cube. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

[Narrator] From the heart of Silicon Valley, it's the Cube. Covering Cloud Now seventh annual Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. (techno music) >> Hi, Lisa Martin on the ground with the Cube at Facebook headquarters at the seventh annual Cloud Now Top Women in Cloud Innovation Awards. We are here for our third time with the founder of Cloud Now, Jocelyn Degance Graham. Jocelyn, it is great to have you back. Great to be back here for your seventh annual Cloud Now. >> We are just so delighted to be here with you Lisa and the Cube and all of the support and wonderful help that you've given us through the years for this event. >> So you have a lot of firsts that I wanted to cover and I know we've just got a few minutes of your time. Seventh annual, as I mentioned. >> Jocelyn: That's right. >> Your Cloud Now community now boasts over 1500 members. There's over 300 attendees here tonight. >> Jocelyn: That's right. >> And tell us what was really unique about how easy it was to attract this audience. >> Well this, we've never had such a great response for this event Lisa. And some of that could just be the timing. It is finally an idea who's time has come, right? And so there just seems to be such a groundswell of understanding the importance of inclusion and diversity. And beyond that actually creating belonging, right? So more and more, I feel like there's such an actual enthusiasm that we hadn't seen before. So this year, we didn't actually publish tickets or let people know that tickets were available. Everything was essentially sold through word of mouth. And so, we never even published any tickets. And we sold out of the event. And that was definitely a first for us. >> Another first is being here. >> Yeah. >> Not only being here at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park California, but also having Sheryl Sandberg as one of the keynote speakers this evening. >> It is such an honor. You know she is one of the women who has just been so important in terms of the Seminole movement of women in tech. Like many women, I read her book, Lean In, years ago. And the fact that she's here with us tonight at the event, after having inspired an entire movement, is really significant and we're just thrilled. >> Another thing that's really interesting and a unique first for Cloud Now this year is you're recognizing 10 female tech entrepreneurs who are technical founders. >> Jocelyn: Technical founder, venture backed. >> Of venture backed businesses. >> Jocelyn: That's absolutely right. >> Tell us about how you've been able to achieve that because their backgrounds are diverse and the technologies that they're designing and driving are really incredible. >> This is one of the most, I think, exciting firsts about the event this year is in past events, we were recognizing women that had made major contributions in a technical field. And we were recognizing women regardless of the level or role or responsibility in the organization. Now we had largely done that because there were so few female founders of venture funded startups. This year was an absolute breakthrough year for many different reasons. There are organizations now like Allraise.org that are supported by women VC's. And there just seems to be an entire groundswell of female founders and we were able to, this year for the first time, align the criteria around female technical founders. And I'm really hoping that moving forward we'll be able to continue with that as more and more women realize that they should be starting businesses and they can get venture backing. >> And we're excited to talk to those winners tonight and ask how did you go about doing that? What were your inspirations and how do you kind of combat those fears and just the history of the challenge of getting funding there? Another thing that I noticed on the Cloud Now website is one of your taglines is together we can make a difference. In, you know, just the last minute or so give me some examples of how you're helping to make a difference that really resonate with you and that give you inspiration for your 2019 goals. >> That's such a great question. So for me, really one of the most heartening things about the organization is that the work we're doing together and through our scholarship program. So we're identifying the next generation of both female and minority leaders in tech and we're investing in them through our stem scholarship fund. This year, we have funders. Our funders include Google, Intel and Facebook. And we're really hoping to be able to expand that scope next year, Lisa, to increase the number of students we're helping. This year we're also, in addition to women, we are helping minority students as well. And for next year, we're wanting to expand those categories even further and being able to support people with disabilities. So we're really hoping that to create this kind of very strong fabric of the community coming together and really giving each other support. >> Jocelyn, thank you so much for having the Cube back for the third year in a row and congratulations on the groundswell that you're capitalizing on and that you're helping to create. We congratulate you and we appreciate your time. >> Lisa, it's always a pleasure. I love speaking with you. Thanks so much for coming. >> Likewise, we want to thank you for watching the Cube. Lisa Martin on the ground at Facebook headquarters at the Cloud Now Top Women Entrepreneurs in Cloud Innovation Awards. Thanks for watching. (techno music)

(clicking) >> I am Lisa Martin with theCUBE on the ground at Google for the sixth annual Top Women in Cloud Awards event with CloudNOW. Very excited to be joined by next guest, Ajit George, the Managing Director of the Shanti Bhavan Children's Project. Welcome to the cube. >> Hi Lisa, it's great to be here. >> So, I was so excited to have a chat with you. The Shanti Bhavan Children's Project is incredible. Tell us about it, 20 years now, tell us about what that is, how your family is involved, and what it's helping to do for these young children in Bangelore, India? >> Sure, Shanti Bhavan was founded by my father, Dr. Abraham George, 20 years ago, and its goal is to educate children, but also to eliminate poverty and change entire systems of communities and governments. It, the way we achieve this goal is by taking children from the poorest communities in India, giving them a high-quality, boarding school education, from the age of four until they graduate from 12th grade, and we cover everything during that period. So, their healthcare, their clothing, their boarding, food, all of that is taken care of, as well as training in soft skills. So, debate, interpersonal and interview skills, leadership skills, and the whole nine yards. While we educate them in the highest curriculum, the toughest standards in India, and then we pay for their entire college degree afterwards. So, that is 17 years of a high-quality intervention per child from the very first day they start school to the very first day of work. >> That's incredible and you have a very high college graduation rate, isn't that correct? Yeah, that is correct. If they pass out of high school, their high school graduation rate is about 77%, University graduation rate is 98% and so- >> Wow, 98%. >> It's been pretty exciting and they go on from those, from college to multinational companies, like Mercedes-Benz or Amazon, or Goldman Sachs. So, our kids who come from urban slums or rural villages with huts with no running water or electricity are making more in their first five years, than their parents make in a lifetime. So, it's a quantum leap, it is a genuine breaking the cycle of poverty, and the ability to become both, either the primary or the sole breadwinner for their entire family. So, four or five other people are dependent on them at the age of 21. >> And that's incredible, I was watching, there is a Daughters of Destiny, Netflix Original Docuseries. I saw the trailer of it today, incredibly profound. One of the things that, a couple things that really stuck out to me was, this is taking children from poverty to possibility. And also, one of the young girls that was in that trailer had said, "I've got a lot to lose, it's now or never for me." These children seem to really understand the gravity of their situation, and genuinely recognize the opportunity that they've been given. >> Yeah, sure, every single Shanti Bhavan child understands, it's almost like they've won the lottery, they've had an opportunity that no one in their families have ever had, but no one from their communities have had either. They're the first person in their family for generations to get any kind of education, and so that's a powerful opportunity, but it's also an important obligation or duty to give back to the family and to make an impact for the community because they are given this golden ticket, and they want to do something important with it. If they don't succeed, nobody gives them a second chance. Kids from that kind of community, and from that kind of circumstance, don't really have a second chance if they aren't able to make the most of it. So when you hear those stories they're talking about, "hey, I really need to seize this moment." "I need to seize this opportunity," maybe, "my mother's back at home and she needs my help," maybe, "my father's bedridden." A lot of these kids have generational debt, so they owe money to, like a money lender, which is an illegal lender and that's a couple generations back. Maybe their grandparents have taken out this debt, so they have all these debts piled up on them, and they have healthcare bills piled up on them, and they've got housing and all of these other problems. Then they have to educate their younger brothers and sisters and pay for dowries for their family members. It's the enormous responsibilities on one child is huge, but they're able to step up because they're given this powerful education, this great opportunity, so there's a lot of pressure, but there's also this great knowledge that they have a horizon out there that no one in their family has ever had before. >> That's incredible and so in the last couple minutes here, CloudNOW, where we are at the awards event tonight, they've teamed up with Intel, Apcera, and CB Technologies, to launch the Daughters of Destiny STEM scholarship. So exciting, what's that going to mean for current students, at Shanti Bhavan or the future students? >> Right, I think I'm really, really thankful, first of all to CB Technologies, Intel, and Apcera, as well as the CloudNOW. This scholarship is the first of its kind within our program and it allows these three young ladies, who are the first recipients of the scholarship, and hopefully there'll be many more recipients, but these young ladies to get a high-quality college education in the STEM fields, which is their passion. So, it opens doors for them for their education, potentially for internships and maybe job opportunities after college. So, I think this is a gateway to something bright and beautiful. >> Oh, I love that and how you described it for these children as a quantum leap, is as profound as what's been shown in the Netflix series. So, Ajit, thank you so much for joining. I wish we had more time, this is such an incredible project that you're working on, but we thank you for stopping by theCUBE and sharing it with us. >> Thank you so much, Lisa, it's great to be here. >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Google for the CloudNOW, Top Women in Technology Awards. Bye for now. (closing music)

(computer mouse clicking) >> Hi, Lisa Martin on the ground with The Cube at Google for the sixth annual CloudNOW Top Women in Cloud Awards and we're very excited to be joined by one of the award winners, Beth Cohen. You are with Verizon, congratulations on the award, Welcome to The Cube. >> Thank you, yes. >> So tell me what you do for Verizon. >> So what I do for Verizon is I come up with new products, and we've been focusing over the last few years on software defined networking, which is a brand new, cutting edge area that not only Verizon is new to but also the entire world is new to. So what we're doing is we're taking cloud concepts and applying them to network services and I'm actually involved, in addition to that, in a new initiative called edge computing. So there's going to be white paper coming out shortly on that and that all came out of my work at Verizon on the products, the software defined networking products I've been working on. >> Wow, so you are a pioneer. We'll get to more of that a little bit later but what are some of the things that excite you about being on the leading edge of software defined networking and edge computing? >> Well, what's really exciting to me is working with the customers and getting them excited about this new technology and how it's really changing the world. And they're all excited about it because they understand that the future is here and that they need to embrace it. >> So one of the things that I found was really interesting when I was doing some research on you is you've worked with several technology companies to help them change their product strategy direction, taking advantage of the cloud. So I mentioned the work pioneer earlier but you're clearly influential. How have you been able to work with companies of presumably diverse cultures to help them change direction? >> So that's an interesting question. The company has to be ready for it and some companies are not, actually. But the companies, fortunately I've had the opportunity to work with some companies that were ready for either whether they recognized, in one case, their market was disappearing, literally, as their customers were leaving and they didn't have any new customers and they recognized that they needed to take a new direction to survive. And what they did is they had some really unique, interesting technology around high availability and survivability, which is something that companies really need but theirs was a hardware based solution and what I helped them do is to really come up with a new way of looking at it that was a software based solution that they could apply to classrooms. >> Wow, so tell me about the influence there. What's that process like to show them, like you were saying, some of them, customers are drying up, obviously this is an impetus for change, what were some of the obstacles that you helped them identify and overcome to identify, "This is why we have to shift direction, "this is going to be much more beneficial?" >> So, they obviously were in great pain, as their balance sheet was drifting down but they had to realize that their skill sets, that they had some people that had some great skill sets but they had to really think differently about what they were doing. So one of the things I did is help them understand the new technologies that they were going to be adopting. So I did some training, worked out some training with them and gave them a two day training session on a cloud technology and what it was about and how it could apply to them. I also had to understand what they were doing and their secret sauce so that I could really extend that and say, "Okay, your job's not going to go away "but you really need to add some additional skills "to be successful in this new direction." >> What are some of the fears, technology fears, that you've heard as, not just an influencer helping companies to make the right directional changes, but also even at your current career at Verizon? What are some of the things that people are afraid of regarding technology that you can help them see, "Ah, it's not so bad?" (laughing) >> So, you know, Verizon's a telecom and telecom's, what I like to say to people is, "What we're selling is reliability, right, "so every time you make that cell phone call, "it goes through, right?" And Verizon prides itself on that and every time you have that connection, it works every time. Well, there's a lot of technology and a lot of operations and a lot of support services that go on behind the scenes to make that actually happen. And the general public's probably just not aware of that. But the people inside the company are very afraid to get away from, "Well, we've always done this and we have to continue doing "this because we do have that five nines reliability that we "have to deliver," and so it's very difficult to say, "Oh, well we'll do it differently now." So, there has to be a lot of education around, and gaining the trust that yes, this new technology can be used and can deliver those five nine reliability statistics and SLA's that you're used to delivering. >> Do you think it's more of a fear of maybe cultural change than it is actual technology? >> I'd say it's probably a combination of both. Verizon's a technology company so obviously we embrace technology and we have a lot of really smart people working for the company who love technology. But we also, we want to service our customers and we don't want to get that angry phone call about, "The network's down." So, there's kind of a combination to make sure that we deliver to our customers what they expect. >> Exactly. So I mentioned the word pioneer earlier, you have a really interesting career path that I think is very inspirational. In the last couple minutes that we have here, share with us about, how did you get from what you studied in school to being a leader in software defined networking at Verizon? >> Wow, so I studied architecture, as in building architecture, I went to Rhode Island School of Design, which is completely, totally opposite. Although, I do tell people, I learned a whole lot about creativity and critical thinking, which is very valuable skills to apply to being a pioneer because when you're in cutting edge, what I spend most of my time doing is connecting the dots and saying, "Oh, this technology can be applied here," or, "These two technologies can work together, "have you ever thought of that?" "Oh wow, never." (laughing) So that's why I end up spending my career being on the cutting edge of things. >> I love that. You bring up a great point that is, in a lot of fields, no matter what you study, there are great lessons to be learned from, for example, applying the creativity and technology, there's a great value there and so I think that's very inspiring to others who might be interested in different things and know that there's a lot of cross pollination. Last question-- >> I have one more comment about that. >> Oh, please go for it. >> There's no such thing as wasted time, everything I've done over the years has always ended up being a learning experience for me. I spent two years being a cook at a fancy French restaurant in Phillidelphia and that was a learning experience too. (laughing) >> And I love that and you're absolutely right, all these experiences build one on the other on the other and I agree with you that, and I hope a lot of people feel the same, that there isn't a waste of time, it's not a wrong step, it's something that you can learn from and they'll be a better person, a better worker, a better boss for it. >> And a mean cook. >> Exactly, I got to get some recipes from you. So last question, the CloudNOW Top Women in Cloud award, really quickly, how did you find out about that and what does this award mean to you? >> I'm very excited about it. I have to admit, it was a big surprise for me. Somebody nominated me and they sent me a note on LinkedIn and I had completely forgotten about it and then I get this email and so I was like just stunned so I'm very excited about it. >> And it seems, like I've said, I've used the word pioneer a number of times, and you're very inspiring and I'm sure that the people that bestowed the award are very thrilled to have you in the class as this is the sixth year. >> Yes. >> Well Beth, thank you so much for joining us on theCUBE and sharing your story and again, congratulations on the award. >> Thank you again. >> I'm Lisa Martin on the ground with The Cube at Google, thanks so much for watching. Bye for now. (upbeat music)

(click) >> Hey, Lisa Martin on the ground with theCUBE at Google for the Sixth Annual CloudNOW Top Women in Cloud Awards Event, our second year covering this, very excited to be joined by tonight's emcee, Becky Wanta, the founder of RSW1C. Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you. >> It's great to have you here. So tell us a little bit about what you do and your background as a technology leader. >> So, I've been in technology for close to 40 years. I started out as a software. >> Sorry, I don't even, what? (laughing) >> Ha, ha, ha, it's a long time ago, yeah. So I started out as a developer back in the Department of Defense. So it wasn't rocket science in the early days when I began because it was back when computers took up whole rooms and I realized I had an affinity for that. So, I leveraged that, but then I got into, at that time, and I'm from northern California, if you remember right, the Department of Defense was drawing down. And so I decided I was going to leverage my experience in IT to get into either integrative financial services or healthcare, right. So I took over running all of tech for the Money Store at the time which you would have no idea who that is. And then that got acquired by Wells Fargo First Union, so I took over as their Global CTO for Wells Fargo. And what you'll see is, so let me just tell you about RSW1C because what it is is it's a technology consulting firm that's me. And the reason I have it is because tech changes so much that it's easy to stay current. And when I get brought into companies, and you'll look at me, so I've been the executive officer for tiny little companies like PepsiCo, Wells Fargo, Southwest Airlines. >> The small ones. >> Yeah, tiny, not really, MGM Resorts International, the largest worker's comp company in California, a company that, unborn midsize SMB in southern California that just wrapped up last year. And when I get brought into these companies, I get brought in to transform them. It's at a time in the maturation of these companies, these tiny little brands we've mentioned, where they're ready to jettison IT. So I take that very seriously because I know technology is that gateway to keep that competitive advantage. And the beauty is of that the companies I've mentioned, they're all number one in their markets. And when you're number one, there's only one direction to go, so they take that very seriously. >> How do you come in there and help an MGM Grand Resorts transform? >> So what happened in MGM's case and probably in the last five CIO positions that I've taken, they've met me as a consultant, again, from RSW1C. And then when I look into what needs to happen and I have the conversation, because everybody thinks they want to do digital transformation, and it's not an easy journey and if you don't have the executive sponsorship, don't even try it at home, right? And so, in MGM's case, they had been talking. MGM's the largest taxpayer in Nevada. People think about it as MGM Grand. It's 19 brands on The Strip. >> Is that right? >> It's Bellagio, MGM, so it's the largest taxpayer in Nevada. So it owns 44,860 rooms on The Strip. So if I just counted now, you have Circa Circa, Slots of Fun, Mirage, Bellagio, Monte Carlo, New York, New York, um, MGM Grand Las Vegas, MGM Grand Detroit. They're in the countries and so forth. So it's huge. And that includes Mandalay, ARIA, and all those, so it's huge, right? And so in MGM's case, they knew they wanted to do M life, so M life game changes their industry. And I put that in. This will be our nine year anniversary coming up on Valentine's Day. Thirty years they talked about it, and I put in with a great team And that was part of the transformation into a new way of running their business. >> Wow, we have a couple of minutes left. I'd love to get your perspective on being a female leader in tech. Who were your mentors back in the day? And who are your mentors now? >> So, I don't have any mentors. I never did. Because when I started in the industry, there wasn't a lot of women. And obviously, technology was fairly new which is why one of my passions is around helping the next generation be hugely successful. And one of the things that's important is in the space of tech, I like this mantra, this mantra that says, "How about brains "and beauty that gets you in the door? "How about having the confidence in yourself?" So I want to help a lot of the next generation be hugely successful. And that's what Jocelyn has built with CloudNow, her and Susan. And I'm a big proponent of this because I think it's a chance for us to give back and help the next generation of leaders in a non-traditional way be hugely successful in brands, in companies that are going to unleash their passion and show them how to do that. Because, the good news is that I'm a total bum, Lisa. I've never had a job. I love what I do, and I do it around the clock, so. >> Oh, if only more people could say that. That's so cool. But what we've seen with CloudNow, this is our second year covering it, I love talking to the winners and even the folks that are keynoting or helping to sponsor scholarships. There's so much opportunity. >> There really is. >> And it's so exciting when you can see someone whose life is changing as a result of finding a mentor or having enough conviction to say, "You know what? "I am interested in a STEM field. "I'm going to pursue that." >> Right. >> So, we thank you so much Becky for stopping by theCUBE. And your career is amazing. >> Thanks. >> And I'm sure you probably are mentors to countless, countless men and women out there. >> Absolutely. >> Well, thanks again for stopping by. >> Thank you, Lisa. >> Thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Google with the CloudNow Sixth Annual Top Women in Cloud Awards Event. Stick around, we'll be right back.