>> 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)

>> 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)