>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE, with digital coverage of Women Transforming Technology, (bright upbeat music) brought to you by VMware. >> Hi, this is Lisa Martin, covering the Fifth Annual, Women Transforming Technology, VMware's wonderful event. First year though, that WT2 is digital. So I'm coming to you remotely. Not from Palo Alto, but from my home in San Jose. I'm very please to welcome the VP of Diversity and Inclusion from VMware, Shanis Windland. Shanis, welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you, it's great to be here. >> WT2 is one of my favorite events. I have had the opportunity to go live and cover it for theCUBE the last couple of years, and it is truly one of those events where you walk in and it's sort of that beautiful quiet outdoors in the Palo Alto campus. >> Mm-hmm. >> But you feel this very large sense of community and it's so positive, but it's overwhelming in how genuine it is. >> Mm-hmm. >> I can't imagine how challenging it was to have to make the decision, not too long ago to have to convert that to digital. But I can also imagine that that community that VMware has built with WT2 was a big facilitator of getting women everywhere to go, "Absolutely. "No matter where I am, I want to be here." Tell me a little bit about that quick pivot and what some of the things were that pleasantly surprised you about the event the other day. >> Yeah, so I think we were watching obviously the news and we decided probably a little bit earlier than other conferences did make the move to virtual so that we could really spend the time to really plan it and make it special. So I'm so pleased with how the event turned out. As you know, it's usually a smaller event of 500, 550 women in-person. And this year, we were able to have over 5,000 attendees, which is fantastic. And I still felt this amazing energy from the conference. You know, the chat was going and people were super positive and cheering each other on, and giving each other advice, and talking about what the speakers were talking about and it was an incredible experience. I was so surprised and energized by my experience at the conference. So happy I was able to attend. >> 5,000 is remarkable. I'm sure that blew your expectations. >> Yeah. >> Totally. >> But it's also, you know, we're living in this very different time where everything is disrupted, and it's hard to engage. The number of your speakers that I have spoken to about this event have all talked about how interactive every session was with hundreds of women >> Mm-hmm. >> who logged in to each session. And that is... I think that speaks to the community and the reputation that WT2 has built over the last five years. But tell me a little bit about how this pivot happened. So the theme, We Rise, very poignant and so important in this very uncertain climate that we're in. Talk to me about the importance and the development of that theme which really helped create some energy from everybody being all over the world. >> Yeah, I mean, we talked about the theme a long time ago and developed it, you know, with a collection of companies, the consortium that we worked on in planning the conference. And it is so relevant to what's happening right now, the experience of, not only women, but people everywhere feeling isolated and the need for connection and the need to feel like you can still succeed and win at work. And it was just so amazing. And one of my favorite pieces was when Laura Dern was actually quoting the Maya Angelou poem about rising. It was so incredibly powerful and just really wrapped up the day in an amazing way with that theme. And I know, I personally walked away feeling energized and feeling like, "Yes, we can do this, "we can continue to rise regardless of the situation." >> So tell me, you are the VP of Diversity and Inclusion. What are some of the changes that you're... Or the evolution of that role, even in the last two months of this pandemic, knowing that every single person from Pat Gelsinger, all the way down, and everybody across the globe, is really emotionally challenged right now, as well as potentially, you know, impacted financially. >> Yeah, I think it's just been super important to talk about empathy and leadership and supporting our employees. And I think it's truly given leaders and managers and employees a totally different perspective on what that means right now, and at VMware where I've felt so much empathy from our leadership and so much empathy from our managers, and just in terms of understanding employee experience, this isn't normal working-with-from-home for anybody. This is working from home, not having help, dealing with homeschooling, still trying to succeed at work, and a variety of other things that people have. Sick family members, worried about the world and work. And I think it's just really, really important for leaders to continue to check in and connect with their employees. >> Empathy is so important, and I'm glad that you mentioned that, because when we talked to the C-suite or executives, I was talking to some of the other speakers earlier this morning who helped develop women to be in leadership positions. And instead of asking, you know, "What are some of the characteristics that you can identify "if this person is on the C-suite path?" I always want to understand what are the hard and soft skills. And I never liked the word, soft. I really should >> Mm-hmm. >> (mumbles) that up because empathy is one of those. But it's something now that I think is not only is important, it's also contagious. So if you see that from a leader, I think that the impact to productivity can be huge. >> Mm-hmm, no, that's so true. And I think that employees, regardless of their working environment still really want to succeed at work. They still want to feel like they can have a career and move forward, and they still want to support their companies in succeeding. And it's so important that they feel like regardless of their personal situation, they can do that and can contribute. >> So one of the things that I saw Laura Dern mention in her closing keynote was about, you know, you don't have to stay in your swim lane. And when I was looking at your background, I thought you're a CFO and a financial exec. Tell me about your pivot or evolution into diversity and inclusion. >> Yeah, it was a surprising turn for me as well. You know, I spent my entire career doing finance, but coming to VMware, it was really, for me, an opportunity to participate in building the company where I wanted to continue to work. And I really took my business background in building companies and building cultures and applying it to this role. I think diversity and inclusion succeeds when it's really felt by every single employee every single day. And in a global company like VMware, the only way that works is if each and every employee and manager embrace that. So they look around and they see people like them succeeding and they feel like they can have the best career possible at VMware. And when I approach this role, that's how I think about applying it to VMware. >> Tell me about the culture at VMware before this hit. And how has it evolved in just the last eight weeks, knowing, well, knowing there's a lot of uncertainty and probably assuming, "We're going to be working "from home for a while"? What is that overall spirit of the company? >> Yeah, so VMware was already having, you know, quite a number of distributed employees but still kind of an office-centric culture. And we were working on an initiative to move that faster, and our executives are calling it, Faster in to The Future, where we're really embracing this distributed working model moving forward. It's been this huge impetus to grab onto this as an opportunity to build the future of the company, to tap into new talent pools and to really embrace how and where our employees want to work and give them the choice on how and where they want to work. >> And one of the things too, I work from home a lot when I'm not traveling. So there's a balance. And I thought, "Well, I know how to work from home, "but this is a very different situation." A lot of folks I'm talking to are all acknowledging the same emotional concerns or waking up one day going, "I don't feel very motivated today." But also some of the things that I'm hearing resoundingly are everybody's in that same storm. And acknowledging that is really critical because that's also an authentic way of communicating. I'd like to know though, your thoughts about the fact that we're all, you know, using Zoom, and we have, thankfully the technologies. VMware has a lot of technology to enable remote workforce. The connection and thought, diversity of thought. What are some of your recommendations for maybe folks who aren't used to working from home? How can they express or feel the confidence to express their thoughts and their concerns or maybe ideas that they have that this pandemic is bringing up? >> Well, I'm thinking that, first of all, they have to feel like the company is actually supporting that. So you know, to your point about feeling burnt out or just not feeling like they're able to engage. VMware announced pandemic leaves for all of their employees to allow exactly that. If you need to take a break, take a break. No questions asked. And everyone's dealing with a lot of different things. So I think that's important. And then I think that managers and leaders and employees can just create the connection across the company. We've seen so many things at VMware, virtual coffees, parties. We did a sort of variety show as an all-hands and had 20,000 employees calling in to it. Just amazing ways for people to feel like they can still connect with the company and feel part of the community. But I think we also have to be empathetic to Zoom fatigue, which is great technology. But trying to be on video all the time and on can be difficult for people. And so really just staying in touch with people and being honest about where we are, I think is really important for everybody. >> So WT2 number five, first time virtual, but huge success, massive amounts of people, 5,000 or so. As you look forward, you know, we know VM world, huge event. theCUBE has been there for many years, is going to be digital this year. So we're also kind of anticipating, we're not going to have these in-person events for, who knows, maybe it's a year or more. Are you already looking out to WT2, the sixth annual knowing confidently, "We can do this virtually"? But what are your thoughts, kind of looking forward next year based on the community sense that you saw and felt the other day? >> Yeah, so I think there was so much special about the in-person event. You mentioned this at the beginning. This smaller group of women able to connect and really build that in-person community made the event so special, yet it was so incredibly successful, you know, as a virtual event. As an example, sitting and just watching Laura Dern and Kathryn Finney one-to-one essentially, was an amazing experience for me. It felt like I was there with them just having a conversation, which was so cool. And so I think we're really considering how we can continue to have that virtual community but offer that in-person experience. And you know, we haven't entirely figured that out, but it's definitely something top of mind for us. That participation, that broad community, continuing to build, that is going to be so important. >> The inclusion piece of, just struck me when you were talking about, you know, everybody. And I saw lots of comments on Twitter, everybody loved Kathryn Finney and Laura Dern. But one of the things that I find comforting in this time is doing this job from my home office in San Jose. But even watching the local newscasters or you know, the national newscasters at home, everyone is in the same storm. There is a sense of, I would say inclusion in that, that seeing, you know, a recent Oscar-winner, Laura Dern at her home just sort of, I don't want to say, levels the playing field, but it's a connection point that you probably wouldn't have had with her had things been like they were last year. >> Totally, you know? And just the opportunity to chat with her virtually and feel like, yeah, it's very, very connected because we're just right next to each other even though we really weren't. It is truly special and does make you feel and remember that everyone is in the same boat. >> So and one thing that I'm thinking about with your background being a finance expert, is that helpful to you in your role? Again, 'cause there's so much financial uncertainty right now, right? We hear all of that on the news, it's always so negative. Does that give you kind of a different basis by which to help evolve the Diversity and Inclusion program at VMware, understanding that employees have concerns about finances, they're in tough concerns about finances? Tell me a little bit about that experience that you have in this new role and how maybe in this current situation they're dovetailing together. >> Yeah, I think it's really around being metrics-driven and ensuring that we're using data to inform decisions about programs we build and how we talk to leaders and teams. But my finance background and really understanding data and numbers has helped me in this role tremendously. And I think you're right. You know, people are struggling with finances. Maybe their spouses have lost their job or their parents have lost their job. And again, it really just comes back to empathy and understanding what people are experiencing and ensuring that we open the door for them to be able to talk about it and bring that to work and be okay with it. >> And even the governor of California, Gavin Newsom has been talking for weeks about making data-driven decisions. And the tech-nerd in me just lights up right away. I'm like, "I know what that is." but it's important. But a lot of... There are folks that, if you're not in tech, don't understand that, right, because of the economic impacts and some of the toll. But having that, I guess, pragmatic side that I would say, in conjunction with that empathy, that's a pretty good winning combination. >> Yes, exactly. I am very pragmatic (laughs). >> Well, Shanis, it's been a pleasure having you on the program. Thank you so much. I'm so pleased to hear how successful the event was. I'm not at all surprised. But it's great to hear that the sense of community and the energy was there in spades in a digital environment. >> Yes, I'm so glad you were able to be there with us. Thank you so much. >> My pleasure. For Shanis, I'm Lisa Martin. And you've been watching theCUBE's coverage of the digital Women Transforming Technology event. We thank you for your time, we'll see you soon. (uplifting music)

>> Narrator: From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of Women Transforming Technology. Brought to you by VMware. >> Welcome to theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin covering the fifth annual Women Transforming Technology. The first year that this event has gone completely digital. We're very pleased to welcome back to theCUBE one of our favorite alumni, the Chief People Officer of VMware, Betsy Sutter. Betsy, welcome back! >> Oh, thank you, Lisa. It's great to see you and it's great to be back. Love this time of year. >> Likewise, me too. And you know, I've had the great opportunity and pleasure of covering WT2 for theCUBE the last few years so I know walking into that courtyard area in Palo Alto, VMware's headquarters, you feel the energy and the excitement, and it's really genuine. And so, knowing that you had to pivot a couple you know, eight weeks or so ago or more, to convert what is such an engaging in-person experience to digital, hard decision, the right decision, but huge in terms of the number of attendees. Tell us a little bit about that process of taking We Rise digital. >> Yeah, you know, it was a pretty quick decision. At VMWare, we were starting to virtualize some other events, and so in realtime, we said, "let's go ahead "and virtualize Women Transforming Technology 2020." And so, when we immediate, flipped to that mode, things started to really open up. The possibilities became pretty interesting. And so honestly, we did not imagine you know, the people attending would grow from roughly thousands to over 5,000. And that's what digitalizing the event, virtualizing the event did. And it was super fun to use technology to make it so much more inclusive and accessible for people around the world. I'm sure you've heard that we had over 5,000 people from over 500 companies represented from 30 different countries. So that was amazing in its own right. >> One of the things that I think was a great advantage knowing that this was the fifth one, but that you had the opportunity to build the community, and such a strong, tight-knight community over the last few years, I think was probably a great facilitator of the event being so much bigger digitally. But when I spoke with a number of your speakers, everybody said, and I saw the Twitter stream, that the engagement, it wasn't like they were watching a video. It was really interactive, and that is hard to achieve with digital. >> Yeah, you know, what I love about the technology was that there were chat rooms, and there were Q&A rooms. And so, there was a lot of back and forth in realtime, even while the speakers were talking. You could sort of multitask, and the speakers were really, really fun to interact with that way as well. And it's super fun to see people in their home environments. You know, it's a just a little bit more information about them, and they seem a little bit more relaxed too, so it was tremendous. Watching Laura Dern, who is an activist and an obviously a very famous actress, in her own home talking to us about the issues she's faced as a woman in her industry, and then moving to another woman named Kathryn Finney, who is the CEO of digitalundivided, in her home with all the activity, she had a four-year old sort of in the background, was super fun and really landed their conversations with us even more solidly. It was a great day. >> I heard that throughout Twitter that people really felt that there was a personal connection. Lot of people talking about, I'm sitting here zooming with Laura Dern, what are you doing today? And some of the things that she said about, you know, you don't have to stay in your own swimlane. That resonated with me and I think with your community very well. >> You know,the diversity, the eclecticness of the women that were able to join from around the world and from many different industries, but you know, technical women, women in tech, was, it just up-leveled everything and it fit into the theme of the conference which was "We Rise", because you know, you're trying to rise as an individual, but there we were rising as a collective for a full day, and the workshops were super fun. I mean I participated in a number of 'em, and I literally went through a workshop with I don't know how many women, but you know, I was drawing on paper then engaging on the screen, then chatting, using the Q&A feature. It was a really dynamic day. I'm wondering now if we'll ever go back, honestly. >> Right, well I was already thinking, "Wow, you can take WT to global and do original events." And there's so much opportunity right now. Tremendous amount of challenge but on the same time, there is a lot of opportunity. In fact, when I was speaking with Sharmain (mumbles) yesterday, it was amazing that she was talking about, you know, right now, like the percentage increase, in people actually reading email because they have more time to, the commute time is gone. And so her advice to be really vivid, in making yourself visual, in terms of how you communicate, and evaluate your role and how you can add new value during this challenging time and I thought that was such a powerful message because we do need to look at what opportunities are we going to be able to uncover? There will be certain things that will go away, to your point, maybe we do digital because we can engage, we can interact and we can reach a bigger audience and learn from more people. >> Yeah, I think that's spot on. I couldn't have said that better. And you could really feel it that day and then the response from both the attendees, but even the keynote speakers, both Laura and Kathryn reaching back to us and talking about the experience they had. It was a pretty uplifting day, I'm still flying pretty high from it. And it was Cinco de Mayo so there had to have been at least margaritas, skinny margaritas, maybe, you know, virgin margaritas. But something there to celebrate an accomplishment of doing something in a short period of undertaking that community and being able to push the energy through the screen is awesome. I'd love to understand, you've been the Chief People Officer at the VMware for a while, the COVID crisis is so challenging in every aspect of life. We often talk about disruption, you know, in technology, a technology disruptor, you know, video streaming was a technology disruptor and Uber was a disruptor to transportation and the taxi service, but now the disruption is an unseen, scary thing and so the emotional impact, people are talking and a number of your folks I spoke to as well said it's hard to be motivated but it's important to acknowledge that I don't feel so motivated today for managers to be able to have that check-in with our employees and our teams. Tell me a little bit about the culture of VMware and how maybe the "We Rise" theme is really kind of, pervasive across VMware right now. >> Yeah, you know, one of the things that I believe and that I've seen in the people business is that more and more people join communities, they join companies but they join communities and communities come together based on you know, their actions, their ideas, their behaviors and what I've seen in terms of VMware's response to COVID-19 has been pretty remarkable. I think at first, you know, we were in crisis mode, sort of going in triage mode about what we do to keep our people feeling safe and healthy. But now we're sort of in a mode of "okay, there's a lot of opportunity that this presents." Now, we are very very fortunate, very blessed to be in the industry that we're in, and a lot of what we do and build and provide for our customers and partners fits into this new business model of working distributedly, so there's been some highs and some lows as we've navigated. First and foremost, we've just put our employees first and their health and safety, making sure that they're comfortable is just been top of mind for us. We just did a small sentiment survey, six questions. Because about two weeks ago, I realized, "I wonder if we really know how people are feeling about this?" And one of the things that came through, I'll say this, out of 32,000 people within 24 hours, over 10,000 people responded to this six question survey, they wanted to tell us how they were doing. But over 70% said they felt, if not the same amount of connection but more connection with each other working in a distributed fashion. And I think COVID-19's brought that alive. That we're going to work in a new way, it's a new business model and so we're doing it at VMware and then we're really pleased that we can offer that to our customers and partners around the globe. >> You know, I'm glad that you talked about the employee experience because obviously, with any business, customers are critical to the life, blood of that business. But equally important, if not sometimes more impactful to the revenue of an organization is the employee experience and being productive day in and day out. And that, if the employee experience is, I think, I don't know, you can't have a good customer experience without a good employee experience. And to (mumbles) that focus is key. So it must have been really nice for the VMware employees to go, "they're wanting to know how I feel right now." That's huge for people to know, the executive team genuinely cares. >> Yeah, you know, Lisa, we have really amped up our communications. We have done more town halls, whether it's to our management community our leadership and executive community or to the whole company. Yesterday alone, I think I did six town halls and two ask-me-anythings just to make sure we know it's on top of people's minds, what's important to them and that's kind of the new normal. And it's so much easier, right? I'm not trying to get to places, I'm just kind of clicking on a button and I'm all of a sudden talking to the employees in India. And you know, when I talk to my colleagues in other industries, like, Beth Axelrod or Tracey Ballow, that are in the you know, the Marriott and the Air BnB industries, their challaneges are so different. And what they're facing in this short-term, in the medium term. VMware is in a position where we can really help these businesses and at the core of that is really, how well our employees are doing and so that's been our focus. >> One of the things that I also talked about yesterday with Jo Miller, the CEO of Be Leaderly, was the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. And I had never even understood that they were two different things until WT2. And so, I thought, you know, we all know about mentors, we talk about that all the time. But I, she was really, I think it's an important message for your audience and ours to understand the difference and she said, "people are often over-mentored and under-sponsored." And so I thought, well, "I want to understand VMware's culture of sponsorship." Tell me what's going on in that respect. >> Yeah, we're, well, I agree with everything that you said on the mentorship side and so what we've instituted on the mentorship side at VMware's reverse mentorship. So every executive at VMware has a reverse mentor, so that they can learn something that they might not be thinking about. And whether it's a reverse mentor who happens to be, if you're a man, who happens to be a woman, or if you want to engage with the under-represented minority, or if you just want to learn about the different aspect of the business, we're big on reverse mentoring. On the sponsorship side, we do do that. And that's a really important aspect to any company's culture if you're trying to cultivate talent. And sponsorship is really championship, right? And I know I champion a lot of people, a lot of the talent around the company and it's very different than maybe coaching, advicing, and interacting in that venue. It's more about, what's the right opportunity for this person? When I'm in the board room, or when I'm in the executive staff meeting, actually advocating for that person, and I'm fierce about that. Especially for women right now at VMware, and it's just important. And a lot of people are starting to adopt that mindset because there's a lot more power and influence in having sponsorship behind you than having mentorship. >> I completely agree. Are you saying that, you know, we often talk about the hard skills and then the soft skills. And I always think soft is the wrong word but I keep forgetting to look it up on the thesaurus to get a better word. Because right now, I think, more important than ever, looking at someone who might have all of the hard skills to be on this the track to the c-suite,  but the importance of authenticity and empathy, I think now are under a microscope. We talked a lot about that too with some of your guests, tell me little bit about those kinds of conversations, that came up during the interactive sessions with WT2. >> Yeah, well, you know, this is one of the blessings that's come out of COVID-19, and this pandemic is that people are starting to see, because everyone's impacted by this and not just in one way, but in multiple ways. So, there's really this once in a lifetime opportunity, at least as far as what I've seen in my lifetime, to seize this heightened level of compassion and empathy for all the people around you in terms of what we're doing. At WT2, I saw it a lot in terms of the quality of the conversations that were happening virtually and sometimes with the key notes and the guest speakers, with the audience, there was always a lead-in with compassion and empathy in terms of all of us. All of us, no matter where you are in the world, or no matter what you're doing, adjusting to what we're calling this new normal. And there's a new business normal but the new normal on the personal side I think is going to take a little bit longer, right? In terms of what people are managing. But in the business world, I think you know, people are starting to re-bound and rebuild, they're honing those skills, and they're going to be wiser and better because of it. But at the heart of it all is, as you said, a lot more compassion and empathy 'cause never before, have we all kind of gone through something quite so traumatic as COVID-19. >> Traumatic and surreal. And you know, we are all in this same storm and I think there's a level of comfort there, that I know I feel with knowing, okay, everyone is going to be feeling this rollercoaster at some point. Some days you're here, some days you're here. But we're all in this, whether you're, you know, in your role, or Pat Gelsinger or an individual contributor role, we're all in the same sea. Betsy, congratulations on a successful fifth WT2, first digital. I'm so glad the theCUBE and myself was able to participate digitally. It's always one of my favorite events every year and I look forward to seeing you again soon, which I soon will be digitally, but I look forward to it. >> Lisa, thank you so much and thanks for all of your sponsorship and mentorship with WT2 over the years too. Thank you. >> All right, you too. That was Betsy Sutter, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of Women Transforming Technology 2. Thanks for watching, see you next time. (soft music)