>> Narrator: From theCube studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is theCube Conversation. >> Hey, welcome back, everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCube. We're still on our Palo Alto studios, we're still getting through COVID and we're still doing all of our remotes, all of our interviews via remote and I'm really excited to have a guest we had around a long time ago. I looked it up is 2016, April 2016. She's Coco Brown, the founder and CEO of the Athena Alliance. Coco, it's great to see you. >> It's great to see you as well. We actually formally started in April of 2016. >> I know, I saw, I noticed that on LinkedIn. So we were at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference in Phoenix, I remembers was a really cool conference, met a ton of people, a lot of them have turned out that are on your board. So yeah, and you formally on LinkedIn, it says you started in May. So that was right at the very, very beginning. >> Yeah, that's right. >> So for people that aren't familiar with the at the Athena Alliance give them the quick overview. >> Okay. Well, it's a little different that it was four years ago. So Athena first and foremost is a digital platform. So you literally log in to Athena. And we're a combination of community access to opportunity and learning. And so you can kind of envision it a little bit like a walled garden around the LinkedIn, meets Khan Academy for senior executives, meets Hollywood agency for women trying to get into the boardroom and senior level roles in the c-suite as advisors, et cetera. And then the way that we operate is you can have a self-service experience of Athena, you can have a concierge experience with Athena with real humans in the loop making key connections for you and you can add accelerators where we build brand packages and BIOS and give you executive coaching. So... >> Wow. >> Kind of a... >> You've built out your services portfolio over the last several years. But still the focus >> yes, we have. is boards, right? Still the focus is getting women on public boards, or is that no longer still the focus? >> No, that's a big piece of it for sure. I mean, one of the things that we discovered, that was the very first mission of Athena, was to bring more women into the boardroom. And as we were doing that we discovered that once you get into a senior realm of leadership in general, there's more things that you want to do than just get into the boardroom. Some of it may be wanting to be an investor or an LP in a fund or become a CEO, or certainly join outside boards but also be relevant to your own inside board. And so we started to look at Athena as a more holistic experience for senior leaders who are attempting to make sure that they are the best they can be in this very senior realm of overarching stewardship of business. >> Awesome. and have you seen, so obviously your your focus shifted 'cause you needed to add more services based on the demand from the customers. But have you seen the receptiveness to women board members change over the last four years? How have you seen kind of the marketplace change? >> Yeah, it's changed a lot, I would say. First of all I think laws like the California law and Goldman Sachs coming out saying they won't take companies public unless they have diverse board data. The statements by big entities that people are paying attention to made the boardroom dynamics a conversation around the dinner table in general. So it became more of a common conversation and common interest as opposed to just the interest of a few people who are trying to get in there. And so that's created a lot of momentum as well as sort of thoughtfulness from leaders and from employees and from larger stakeholders to say the diversity at the top business has to mimic the demographics of society as a whole. And that's become a little bit more accepted as opposed to grudgingly sort of taken in. >> Right. So one of the big problems always it's like the VC problem, right? Is the whole matchmaking problem. How do you, how do qualified people find qualified opportunities? And I wonder if you can speak a little bit as to how that process has evolved, how are you really helping because there's always people that are looking for quality candidates, and there's great quality candidates out there that just don't know where to go. How are you helping bridge kind of that kind of basic matchmaking function? >> Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of different ways to go about it. One is certainly to understand and have real connections into the parts of the leadership ecosystem that influences or makes the decision as to who sits around that table. So that would be communities of CEOs, it's communities of existing board directors, it's venture capital firms, its private equity firms, and as you get really entrenched in those organizations and those ecosystems, you become part of that ecosystem and you become what they turn to to say, "Hey, do you know somebody?" Because it still is a "who do yo know" approach at the senior most levels. So that's one way. The other mechanism is really for individuals who are looking for board seats who want to be on boards to actually be thinking about how they proactively navigate their way to the kinds of boards that they would fit to. I like in a very much to the way our children go after the schools that they might want to when it's time for university. You'll figure out who your safeties, your matches, your reaches are, and figure out how you're going to take six degrees of separation and turn them into one through connections. So those are that's another way to go about it. >> You know, it's interesting, I talked to Beth Stewart from True Star, they also help place women on boards. And one of the issues is just the turnover. And I asked that just straight up, are there formal mechanisms to make sure that people who've been doing business from way before there were things like email and the internet eventually get swapped out. And she said, that's actually a big part of the problem is there isn't really a formal way to keep things fresh and to kind of rotate the incumbents out to enable somebody who's new and maybe has a different point of view to come in. So I'm curious when someone is targeting their A-list and B-list and C-lists, how do they factor in kind of the age of the board composition of the existing board, to really look for where there's these opportunities where a spot opens up, 'cause if there's not a spot open up clearly, there's really not much opportunity there. >> Yeah, I mean, you have to look at the whole ecosystem, right? I mean, there's anything from let's say series A, venture backed private companies all the way up to the mega cap companies, right? And there's this continuum. And it's not, there's not one universal answer to what you're talking about. So for example, if you're talking about smaller private companies, you're competing against, not somebody giving up their seat, but whether or not the company feels real motivation to fill that particular independent director seat. So the biggest competition is often that that seat goes unfilled. When you're talking about public companies, the biggest competition is really the fact that as my friend Adam Epstein of the small cap Institute will tell you, that 80% of public companies are actually small cap companies. And they don't have the same kinds of pressures that large caps do to have turnover. But yeah, it takes a big piece of the challenge is really boards having the disposition collectively to see the board as a competitive advantage for the business as a very necessary and productive piece of the business and when they see that then they take more proactive measures to make sure they have a evolving and strong board that does turnover as it needs to. >> Right. So I'm curious when you're talking to the high power women, right, who are in operational roles probably most of the time, how do you help coach them, how should they be thinking, what do they have to do different when they want to kind of add board seats to their portfolio? Very different kind of a role than an operational role, very different kind of concerns and day to day tasks. So, and clearly, you've added a whole bunch of extra things to your portfolio. So how do you help people, what do you tell women who say, "Okay, I've been successful, "I'm like successful executive, "but now I want to do this other thing, "I want to take this next step in my career"? What usually the gaps and what are the things that they need to do to prepare for that? >> Well, I'm going to circle in then land a little bit. Autodesk was actually a really great partner to us back when you and I first met. They had a couple of women at the top of the organization that were part of Athena, specifically because they wanted to join boards. They are on boards now, Lisa Campbell, Amy Bunszel, Debbie Clifford. And what they told us is they were experiencing everything that we were offering in terms of developing them, helping them to position themselves, understand themselves, navigate their way, was that they simply became better leaders as a result of focusing on themselves as that next level up, irrespective of the fact that it took them two to three years to land that seat. They became stronger in their executive role in general and better able to communicate and engage with their own boards. So I think, now I'm landing, the thing that I would say about that is don't wait until you're thinking oh, I want to join a board, to do the work to get yourself into that ecosystem, into that atmosphere and into that mindset, because the sooner you do that as an executive, the better you will be in that atmosphere, the more prepared you will be. And you also have to recognize that it will take time. >> Right. And the how has COVID impacted it, I mean, on one hand, meeting somebody for coffee and having a face to face is a really important part of getting to know someone and a big part of I'm sure, what was the recruitment process, and do you know someone, yeah, let's go meet for a cup of coffee or dinner or whatever. Can't do that anymore, but we can all meet this way, we can all get on virtually and so in some ways, it's probably an enabler, which before you could grab an hour or you didn't have to fly cross-country or somebody didn't have to fly cross-country. So I'm kind of curious in this new reality, which is going to continue for some time. How has that impacted kind of people's ability to discover and get to know and build trust for these very very senior positions. >> HBR just came out with a really great article about the virtual board meeting. I don't know if you saw it but I can send you a link. I think that what I'm learning from board directors in general and leaders in general is that yes, there's things that make it difficult to engage remotely, but there's also a lot of benefit to being able to get comfortable with the virtual world. So it's certainly, particularly with COVID, with racial equity issues, with the uncertain economy, boards are having to meet more often and they're having, some are having weekly stand ups and those are facilitated by getting more and more comfortable with being virtual. And I think they're realizing that you don't have to press flesh, as they say, to actually build intimacy and real connection. And that's been a hold up, but I think as the top leadership gets to understand that and feel that for themselves, it becomes easier for them to adopt it throughout the organization that the virtual world is one we can really embrace, not just for a period of time. >> It's funny we had John Chambers on early on in this whole process, really talking about leadership and leading through transition. And he used the example, I think had been that day or maybe a couple days off from our interview where they had a board meeting, I think they were talking about some hamburger restaurant, and so they just delivered hamburgers to everybody's office and they had the board meeting. But that's really progressive for a board to actually be doing weekly stand ups. That really shows a pretty transformative way to manage the business and kind of what we think is the stodgy old traditional get together now and then, fly and then get some minutes and fly out, that's super progressive. >> Yeah. I mean, I was on three different board meetings this week with a company I'm on the board of in Minnesota. And we haven't seen each other in person in, I guess since January. (woman laughs) >> So final tips for women that want to make this this move, who, they've got some breathing space, they're not homeschooling the kids all day while they're trying to get their job done and trying to save their own business, but have some cycles and the capabilities. What do you tell them, where should they begin, how should they start thinking about, kind of taking on this additional responsibility and really professional growth in their life? >> Well, I mean, I think something very important for all of us to think about with regard to board service and in general as we get into a very senior level point in our careers at a managing and impact portfolio. People get into a senior point and they don't just want to be an executive for one company, they want to have a variety of ways that they're delivering impact, whether it's as an investor or as a board member or as other things as well as being an operator. And I think the misnomer is that people believe that you have to add them up and they, one plus one plus one equals three, and it's just not true. The truth is that when you add a board seat, when you add that other thing that you're doing it makes you better as a leader in general. Every board meeting I have with [Indistinct] gives me more than I bring back to Athena as an example. And so I think we tend to think of not being able to take on one more thing and I say that we all have a little more space than we think we have to take on the things we want to do. >> Right? That's a good message to me. It is often said if you want to get something done, give it to the busiest person in the room. It's more likely to get it done 'cause you got to be efficient and you just have that kind of get it done attitude. >> That's right. >> All right, Coco. Well, thank you for sharing your thoughts. >> Congratulations, so I guess it's your four year anniversary, five year anniversary [Indistinct] about right? >> Yes, four. >> That's terrific. And we look forward to continuing to watch the growth and hopefully checking in face to face at some point in the not too distant future. >> I would like that. >> All right. Thanks a lot Coco. >> Great talking to you. >> Already. >> She's Coco, I'm Jeff. You're watching theCube. Thanks for watching, we'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> From Phoenix, Arizona, theCUBE. At Catalyst Conference, here's your host Jeff Frick. (soft music) >> Hey Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. About 400 people. The fourth year of the conference. Really getting together, talking about women in tech issues. Something in the water, here in Phoenix. We were here two years ago at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing, also just down the road. So we're happy to be here and really get a feel. And bring to you some of the leaders here, that are making things happen. We're really excited by our next guest, Coco Brown, the founder and CEO of the Alena Alliance, or Athena Alliance, excuse me, welcome. >> Thank you. >> So the Athena Alliance, what's it all about? >> Well so the Athena Alliance is an organization of executive women who've achieved great success in their careers. And they have vision collectively of women operating at their highest level of impact. And within the context of a business leadership realm, that highest level really is the boardroom. And so our mission is to help women obtain board seats and be successful in the role. >> So there's a lot of conversations about board. It seems to be kind of the new hot button topic about inequality. There's certainly ton of conversations about inequality and pay highlighted recently by the women's national soccer team, which got a lot of buzz. And I think everyone knows that conversation that's been going on for a while. But the boardroom conversation is kind of new. It's kind of bubbling up. Or at least that's my sense of it, that barely have cracked the surface in terms of historical numbers in getting women representation on boards. >> Yeah. >> Why does that continue to be a problem? Is it a pipeline issue? Is it a match making issue? Is it a networking issue? Is it just, I just don't know? What is the issue? >> It's not a pipeline issue. And so what's happened in this discussion is there were some, sort of, pretty notable examples of situations where women raised their hands and said, hey where are the women on these boards. And the response was, well where are the women? Which kind of created this energy around the topic a lot more strongly more recently. Which is to say, there are a lot of qualified women out there who would be great board directors. And yet the positions of board director are gate kept by largely men. This is just the circumstance. Men are the ones who back companies. They're their VCs, they're the founders, they're the CEOs. And within their networks, they don't have a lot of women. Executive women. Likewise, executive women tend to seek each other out too. So we're not in each other's realms. So a lot of the conversation has been around raising awareness to the issue. There's been great tracking of exactly where is the issue. And how are we making progress. And then there's been a lot of great organizations that have been helping women get ready for board positions, training them. And thirdly, there's a lot of great organizations out there who are, essentially, identifying qualified women, and cataloging them, putting them in data bases and saying, hey no excuses, here they are. But the key missing element and my feeling as to why the problem continues to persist, part of it is just time. It's just going to take time. But part of it is also, really networking, what you said. It is about networking. It is that the women who want these positions and who are qualified for these positions need to know the men who are looking for board directors. And when you actually connect, make those two connections happen, you get incredible success. And we're seeing it already. >> Or as the age old advice, it's not who you know, but who knows you. >> Yes! >> It used to always be the other way around. But it's really who knows you. And we live in such a time of personal branding and external communication via LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, medium, however you choose to externalize your professional position. And it kind of gets intermingled with your personal position. There really is not much excuse, at least, to make the attempt, to get yourself out there. >> Exactly, it's why. So there's 16 of the speakers here at this conference, are Athena Alliance women. And part of the reason we're here, we're here because this is such a noble and important and fantastic event for us to participate in. The other reason we're here is because this is apart of our way of getting known too, right. Of becoming more visible. Of making our brand, personal brand known. So this is one of those key things about who knows you that we should and need to be doing. >> So how many Athena foundation women are in executive boards now? >> So Athena Alliance is relatively new. So we're just getting started. About 50% of, 47% of the women associated with Athena Alliance are already on boards. >> That's pretty good, 47%. >> Yes, largely those are non-profit boards. >> Okay. >> They also are on a fair number of advisory boards. And they're now looking for the private boards and corporate boards and they're looking for public boards as well. >> And do you see that as kind of a logical stepping stone between an advisory board, a non-profit board, potentially a private company board, a VC company and then to a larger public entity. Is that kind of? >> Yeah I see it two ways. On the one hand, it's stepping stones and on the other, we have a variety of careers. So let's take me for example. I ran and was an owner of a privately held company. We reached about 50 million dollars in revenue before I sold my ownership, moved on. I'm qualified for a certain kind of a board. I'm qualified for a private board of a certain type of growth, sort of trajectory or stage. Others like Yvonne, who you spoke with, she's qualified for public boards of a different size. So some of it is what we're qualified for and what we can really contribute to and some of it is stepping stones. So for example, advisory boards are a great stepping stone. You get absolutely zero board credit for being on an advisory board, 'cause it doesn't have fiduciary responsibilities. >> No fiduciary responsibility. >> Right. But it's incredible network experience. It's a great way to get to know CEOs, to get to know VCs, to make yourself known as a candidate for other aspects of that company. >> Where do you see the natural networking opportunities? 'Cause clearly there's networks that exist around where you went to school. There's networks around, increasingly alumni groups, within companies, especially a big company like an Intel or an HP, where you got these huge alumni groups, 'cause they've been around for so long. Where are some of the other natural alumni groups that then cross over that are going to allow rubbing of shoulders with the old school guy board members with some of these women that are trying to break through? >> Yeah it's interesting. I think that is a really good opportunity space because I do see that mostly, the networking pods, if you will, are within school alumni groups, or corporate alumni groups, or organizations that women belong to. But that are largely then just women organizations. Or maybe some industry organizations. And industry boards are a great way to make that connection point. But I don't think that women do have opportunities of overlap with men in those organizations and those networking communities. So the way it has to happen is, I think we have to make it happen. So it's almost like, creating mixers. We need some mixers, right? Male VCs mixed with Athena Alliance women. Let's get together. We actually have an event coming up like that. Where you can have some men and women in the same room. They get to get a sense of each other. Those you do start seeing more of that going on and it's kind of essential. >> 'Cause you really need that right? I mean, they are networks. And everything going on today is all about networks, whether it's IOT or social media or whatever. It's networks and they're all naturally bound by something but how do you get that overlap from one network to the other when there's not enough overlap to really make the activity that you're seeking. Of course, there's always CUBE alumni, which is a terrific network. So we'll use that as a founding point. >> Absolutely. Well and Dan Scholnick, who is a general partner with Trinity, he's on a number of boards. He's speaking at an event for the Athena Alliance on a panel coming up. And he's got board openings in the variety of boards that he's on. Those are the kinds of connections. Make opportunities for Dan to be in the same room as a number of these great women. I think we just have to create it. >> It's interesting, interesting. 'Cause it is all about the connection, right. You got to know people and you got to put the word out. Nobody ever got a board seat sending out a resume. I don't know. How many come from executive head hunters? I never got a job from executive head hunters. It's really more about who you know. >> And executive recruiters only actually fill about one to two percent of board seats. It's only the top companies with the deepest pockets or the greatest pressure that can do that. >> Okay so what are your priorities for the next six months, nine months, what are your top things your guys are working on at the Alliance? >> So we're relatively new, so big, big priority for us is funding. We're also scaling. So scaling is one of the important things. In other words, scaling our relationships with those VCs, with CEOs, and starting to create great linkages through these networking events. >> All right, well Coco, thank you for taking a few minutes. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely and good luck with the Alliance. It sounds like you guys are on your way. We see increasingly, we did a show at SAP in conjunction with MAKERS and they got a great movie about some of the women who just broke down barriers in advertising, fashion, finance, tech, et cetera. Meg Whitman, among many women highlighted there. And it's tough to break down that door. When the first one gets through, hopefully they leave a little space for somebody else to scooch in behind them. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Absolutely. All right, Jeff Frick here with Coco Brown. We are the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, Phoenix, Arizona. You're watching theCUBE. See you next time. (soft music)

>> Live from San Francisco. It's the Cube covering artists. A conference twenty nineteen Brought to You by Four Scout >> Welcome back, everybody, Geoffrey. Here with the cue, we're in North America and the newly refinished Mosconi Center Downtown San Francisco in the force Cow boo. Happy to be here first time and we have our next guest. She's Charlotte Wiley, chief of staff from Symantec. Great to meet you. >> Nice to meet you, teacher. Thanks for having >> absolutely so impressions of the show. This is a crazy show. Forty dollars, people. Aren't many shows like this >> it issue just a little overwhelming. It's my second year here, and it's no less overwhelming. Second year here. It's, uh it's just prolific. Everything that say the session, the keynotes all day, all the networking, the basis. Amazing. >> So I'm curious how your perception has changed. I >> was looking at your background, Your hearing a financial institution before your own kind of the purchaser side of the house. >> Now you're over on >> this side of the house. How's that kind of change your perception when you walk this crazy floor, I imagine before you're like, Yeah, how am I going to digest all this? >> Well, no one wants to be my friend anymore, which is interesting. So, um, you know, working on the vendor side of the defense is the dark side. It's It's a very different experience. When I came here a couple years go to bank. Everyone wants to talk to you. Or is this time? Is this a healthy, competitive nature going on between all the vendors, which is great. You want to see that? Yeah. It sze got the same enthusiasm. Same vase on the floor, which is wonderful. >> So semantics. Been a leader in the space for a very, very long time. One of the original, you know, kind of original security companies back in the day when we're just trying to protect that. You know, I guess our Web browser right from from some malicious activity. Wow. The world has changed. And one of the big new components now is his internet of things. In this tie of it with ot operations technology. You know something you've spent some time on a wonderful get your take on how that's increasing the threat surface, you know, increasing the complexity. And yet there's still a lot of value there if you can bring those systems together. >> Yeah, absolutely. So I think that Kate thing is this. You know, this simplicity here is, uh What? What you don't know, You can see. And what you can't see you can't monitor on DH. That's the key thing to remember when you think about t n OT so with Coyote specifically, if you, uh you've definitely got a nice routine, you network somewhere everyone has. But if you can't see that thing, it is incredibly vulnerable Throat vector for any organization. So really, it's it's a point of egress for any doubt of ex filtration. And if you've got someone compromised in the network already on your way, see it as being a very opportune ingress point to getting a lateral move. Right. So they are incredibly, inherently vulnerable. Right? These things are they're usually hard coded, authenticated. They are. They have massive under. Police often remain unpatched. When you cannot see, you don't know, Right? So some of the dirty side of the fence, right? The same problem exists. They typically were not built to connect to the Internet. Right. So this is something very new that we're trying to tackle right. And one of the key things I think about is that it's probably a little bit few tile to make these OT and I and I. A device is inherently secure. You think about in twenty twenty. We're going to see like twenty five billion devices proliferating our globe, which is incredible. So how do we how do we make it more school? Let's back off from becoming inherently secure. Let's up on the visibility. If you visualize you, Khun Segment, and you can enforce. And then you can take control of what has access to your network, right? A >> lot of interesting conversations about this today, obviously or in the force cow boo. But I think one of the people earlier said they had fifty percent more devices on the network than they anticipated. And it turns out his remote offices and people are plugging things in. Another little factoid is that maybe that hit no s on that device is actually windows in tea. Is it a tea? A little box. And nobody even knew because you knew that's an embedded in team. But then on the other side, we had a lease on, and she was talking about great example on security cameras and just that a lot of these newer devices that you can connect have a plethora of services packaged in on the assumption that you might use them. So rather than have not too many, they put them all in. But you don't necessarily need to turn all those things on. So again, you're just opening up this huge kind of exposure. >> Huge explosion. That's it. I think it's a really good conversation to have with your stakeholders about talking about the target breach. So when people start to understand that that really originated from a hate tax system, right compromise haystack system. So when you're talking about T initialization, that's a really good years case to say. Look, this is a huge bridge that was compromised from because we didn't They didn't have visibility over the anxiety. >> It's funny if you each Max keep coming up, over and over and over there. Obviously the biggest threat that way have I'm jacket to see if I could see like a movie with me. Nasty HBC think come until that munching up the company. But it's funny. Different topic. Shifting gears completely, really, about kind of diversity, diversity of opinion, diversity of perspective, diversity of thought and how that's a really important and effective tool use in trying to accomplish missions. In this really crazy, complex task, you can't abs single point of view, single point of reference, kind of a single pain that you think about. I know that's something that you've been in a lot of time on, >> so my role it's semantic because Chief of staff, I own the diversity agenda for the global security office. And it's bean aerial laser focus on me for the past twelve months, which is our industry has a systemic problem around attracting and retaining talent from diverse backgrounds. Right? We're gonna tackle it head on on We don't really successfully in semantics. Oh, wait. Give this fabulous mandate through to our leadership who got on board with laser focus around, making sure that we get a diverse slate of candidates when we bring in new people and that that translated incredibly well. So we saw a rise of interview to conversion. Foreign ft for females in six months off forty percent >> fourteen or forty four zero for zero. >> So just by making it part of the interviewing experience. Having a diverse slate of candidates, making sure that we're really giving a foreign opportunities coming right really has changed playing Plainfield. >> And then the other thing, of course, is the retention, which is a big problem for attention that we're, you know, women dropping out and not coming back. >> That's and this every organization has to step up to make sure that they're waiting, but their making a workforce that is flexible, that accommodates so some of that. Some of the mental load that women have, whether it's through a child, care whether it's to do with older parents. But also when we talk about diversity, it's nothing. You know just about the gender piece, right? We're going to accommodate for other people as well underrepresented minorities. Early Korea, Different people have different socio economic backgrounds, maybe haven't come from a typical university training course, right, Something that we've focused on heavily. We've been working with a large enough profits to bring in early career guys who have not had a university background who may have had a really rough time coming out of school, getting them in, training them up through internships, bringing them up to speed over six months and converting them into FDA, which I feel is really a way tio to build a diverse workforce and get people an opportunity that didn't have it >> now was someone spearheading that before you came on border was there Was there an effort that really kind of put a dedicated resource on it when you when you took it over? >> So I took over about a year ago and I double down on the effort. We were working with Europe before that. Had a fantastic colleague was doing a lot of work with Europe on. We're just seeing fabulous results with converted nearly thirty three percent of our internships into FT. >> Thirty three and you're not in those thirty three or not coming from, you know, kind of a classic. They're not coming pig population. >> Absolutely these air IGA passionate, enthusiastic young people who have a tenacity to just pick things up because they're so grateful to be there right there, so happy to be given the opportunity. And it's some It's an untapped resource that I think a lot of people who are looking to have solved aside the security talent shortages should be looking into great that we get programs in place for a Girl Scout middle school. But let's think about alternative ways of getting new talent in. And I think that they're not for profit right way after >> such a big problem. And like you say, it's a big problem, you know, from from little girls. And, you know, all the way up to mid mid career women that air dropping out and not coming back before you even get into the boardroom. We work with a ton of organization like Athena Alliance with towards that the boardroom level all the way down to Grace Hopper. You know, this working more kind of college graduate level girls intact? I mean, there's a lot of luckily, a lot of people are trying to focus on the problem, but unfortunately, the numbers or not turning in the correct direction, they're actually turning in the wrong direction. Yeah, >> so really, that's it for me. It's about laser focus. You really got it. If you make your party your agenda making party returned right? Don't give it. The nursery had not. Don't say that you will do the things actually commit to it and get it done right. I'm not a huge fan of talk. It's Qatargas work on. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of opportunity. The people they don't step up to the great doing enough >> to to your earlier first line, right? If you're not measuring it, you know, and tracking against it, how do you know if you're being silly and what it's under served? You have to give it a little juice, right? You can't just have to expect the status quo to suddenly change, right? >> Absolutely metrics. Incredibly employed. And start with you metrics. Dashboard record where your tracking, in terms of your representation of females, underrepresented minorities. Your bets. You're early Korea. Really? What you want to see is a huge influx or the interviewing stage into the into the FT conversion. You want to see an influx in your leadership. You want more women in your leadership team because that's the way to drive a better female pipeline, right? Same goes on because I'm are minority. Same guys. Early career. >> Yeah, so important that they look up and see somebody that looks like one hundred percent C. C an opportunity to be that person, something alright. Charlotte. Well, thanks for, uh, for taking a few minutes of your day. And great Teo learned about all your What you working on? That's >> great. Thanks. Having >> alright? She Charlotte? I'm Jeff. You're watching the Cube? Where are, say twenty nineteen in the force Cow booth. Thanks for watching. >> We'LL see you next time.

(click) >> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in downtown San Francisco at Moscone West at the Professional BusinessWomen of California Conference. 6,000 women, this thing's been going on for 28 years. It's a pretty amazing show. We see a lot of big women in tech conferences, but this is certainly one of the biggest and it's all about diversity, not just women. And of course, if there's a women in tech event, who are we going to see? Sandy Carter. >> Woo hoo! (laughs) >> Sandy, so great to see you. CEO of Silicon Blitz and been involved with PBWC for a while. >> I had suggested to Congresswoman Jackie when I saw her about three or four years ago about doing something special for the senior women. I proposed this leadership summit, and you know what they always say, if you suggest something, be prepared to execute it. She said, "Would you help us get this going?" Three years ago, I started the Senior Leaders Forum here, and yesterday we had that forum. We had 75 amazing women from all the great companies of California Chevron, Clorox, IBM, Microsoft Intel, Amazon, you name it all the great companies here in the Bay. Oh, Salesforce, Airbnb, all goes on. >> That was like a little conference in the conference? >> It was for C-Suite only and it was about 75 women. We do three TED Talks. We pick out talks that are hot but that are very actionable for companies. So yesterday, Jeff, we talked about millennials how to have inclusion of millennials in your workforce. 50% of the workforce by 2020 will be millennials. >> Is that a harder challenge than just straight-up diversity? >> This is really important. (laughs) It may be. But I had Allison Erwiener and Erby Foster from Clorox come and speak and they did a TED talk. Then we actually do little workshops to action. What would a millennial program look like? Our second topic was around innovation. How do you link diversity to innovation? There are so many studies, Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley, Harvard, DeLoy that shows there is a linkage but how do you get the linkage? For all these amazing diverse- >> The linkage between better business outcomes, correct? >> That's right. >> Better outcomes. >> That's right. In fact, the latest study from Harvard came out at the end of 2016 that showed not only with diverse teams do you get more innovation but more profitable innovation which is everybody's bailiwick today. We had Jeremiah Owyang of Crowd Companies who's a innovation expert come and really do that session for us. Then last but not least we talked about diversity and inclusion, primarily inclusion in the next century. What is that going to look like? We saw some facts about what's going on in changes in population, changes in diversity and then how we as companies should manage programs in order to tap into those changes. It was an awesome, awesome session. Then of course we had Pat Waters from Linkedin. She is chief talent officer there. She came and closed it out with her definition of inclusion. It was powerful. >> You won an award. >> I won an award, yes. >> Congratulations, what did you win? >> Game Changer for PBWC, and I'm really proud of it because last year we had Serena Williams speak and she was the first recipient so I guess you'd say I'm in great company because it's now Serena and I with this great award. >> Absolutely. Before we went on air we were talking about some of this next-gen diversity and thinking about getting that into programming languages and you brought up, there was some conversation around bots and obviously chat bots are all the rage and AI and ML is driving a lot of this but ultimately someone's got to write the software to teach these things how to behave so you're going to run into the same types of issues if you don't have a diversity of the thinking of the way the rules and those bots work as you have in any other situation where you have singular thinking. >> I think Jeff, you're right on. In fact, I think it's really going to accelerate the desire for diverse teams. If you think about artificial intelligence machine learning, and bots you have to train the computer. The computer's not naturally smart. There is a team that actually uses a corpus of knowledge and trains the bot. If the data that goes in my dad always said, "Garbage in, garbage out." If the data that goes in is biased then the output is biased and we're seeing that now. For instance, I was just looking at some VR headsets and people are now looking at virtual reality. You know you get a little nauseous. They've been tweaking it with artificial intelligence so that you don't get as nauseous but it was done by all men. As a result, it greatly improved the nauseousness of men but not women. That's just one example. You want your product to go for 100% of the world. >> That's weird, you'd think that would be pretty biological and not so much gender-specific. >> You would, but there are apparently differences. We talked to a doctor yesterday. There's apparently differences in motion-sickness between the two and if you only have one set of data you don't have the other. >> But then there's this other kind of interesting danger with machine learning and I think we see it a lot in what's going on in the news and causing a lot of diversion within the country in that the algorithms are going to keep feeding you more of that which you already have demonstrated an affinity to. It's almost like you have to purposefully break the things or specifically tell it, either through active action or programming that no, please send me stuff that I'm not necessarily seeing all the time. Please give me stuff that's going to give me a diversity of points of view and opinion and sources because it feels like with your basic recommendation engine it's going to keep sending you more of the same and rat hole you down one little track. >> That is true, and that's why today we have a panel and we're going to be talking about especially for AI and bots you must have diverse teams. From the session this morning I really loved one of the speakers, Kim Rivera, from HP and she said, "It's hard, but we just said 'Look, we've got to have 50% women on the board. We've got to do this.'" I think the same thing's going to be true for AI or bots Jeff, if you don't have a diverse team, you will not get the right answer from a bot. Bots are so powerful, and I was just with a group of nine year old girls and we had a coding camp and I asked them, "What do you want to do?" All of them wanted to do bots. >> Really. >> They had all played with- >> What kind of bots- >> The Zootopia- >> Did they want to do? >> They all had played with a Zootopia bot from Disney. I don't know, did you see Zootopia? >> I did not see it. I heard it was a great movie. >> It's a great movie, animated movie of the year. >> Bunnies, bunnies, bunnies as cops, right? >> That's right. In fact, the bunny is what they made into a chat bot. 10 million kids use that chat bot to get a little badge. Now all the kids are into bots. They used bots to remind them to brush their teeth to do their homework. In fact, there was a chat bot written by a 14 year old boy in Canada that's a homework reminder. It's actually really quite good. >> Also I'm thinking of is the Microsoft little kid that didn't, I guess timing is everything. >> Timing is everything, that's right. >> That one didn't work so well. >> But I guess what I would just leave with people is that when you're looking at this great, great new technology for AI and bots in particular, you must have a diverse team. You must look at your data. Your data's got to be unbiased. Like you said, if you just keep doing the same old thing you're going to get the same old answer. You've got to do something different. >> You're doing all kinds of stuff. You're working with Girls in Tech on the board there. I think you're doing some stuff with the Athena Alliance who's driving to get more women on >> Boards. >> Boards. You're really putting your toes in all kinds of puddles to really help move this thing because it also came up in the keynote. It's not a strategy problem. It's an execution problem. >> That's right, and because I'm so passionate about tech I love tech and I see this linkage today that is been never really been there that strong before but now it's almost like if you don't have diversity your AI and bots are going to fail. Forester just said that AI and bots is the future so companies have to pay attention to this now. I really think it's the moment of time. >> We're running out of time. I'm going to give you the last word. What are one or two concrete things that you've seen in your experience that leaders can do, like came up today in the keynote tomorrow to really help move the ball down the field? >> I think one is to make sure you have a diverse team and make sure that it represents diversity of thought and that could be age, it could be gender it could be sexual orientation, race you got to look at that diversity of team, that's one. Secondly, just by having a diverse team doesn't mean you're going to get great output. You've got to be inclusive. You've got to give these folks great projects. Like millennials, give them a passion project. Let them go and do something that can really make a difference. Then third, I think you have to test and make sure what you're delivering out there represents that cognitive diversity of thought so make sure that you're not just putting stuff out there just to get it out there but really double-checking it. I think those are three actionable things that you can do tomorrow. >> That's great, Sandy. Thank you very much. >> Thanks, Jeff. >> Thanks for stopping by. We just checked Sandy's calendar and there we know where to take theCUBE because she's all over the place. She's Sandy Carter, I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE from the Professional BusinessWomen of California conference in San Francisco. Thanks for watching. (synth music)

(upbeat music) >> From Phoenix, Arizona, the CUBE, at Catalyst Conference. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. >> Hey welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with the CUBE. We're in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. There's a lot of catalyst conference, but there's only one Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. It's their fourth year, about 400 people they're going to be back in San Francisco next year. Wanted to come down and see what's going on. And we're really excited with our next guest. Actually part of my prep, I went and watched our last interview and we knocked it out of the park, I have to say. Jennifer Tejada, former President and the CEO of Keynote. Welcome back. >> Thank you, thanks so much for having me. It's great to see you again. >> Absolutely, so just to set the record straight, 'cause there's little bits on the internet, you're no longer the CEO of Keynote. >> I am no longer the CEO of Keynote. Keynote was acquired by a company called Compuware. It was merged with a business within Compuware called Dynatrace. Following that integration last year, I stepped out of the business and have been spending my time making some investments, pursuing the growth arena in Tech, and also spending a lot of time on boards and helping other women establish themselves in the community of boards and the technology industry. >> Okay, so if they weren't ringing off the hook already, now your phones will begin to ring off the hook. >> (laughs) >> You couldn't get a better CEO than Jennifer. >> Oh, thank you. >> But let's jump in. So you've been spending your time too, helping at conferences like this. So you had a session here. >> Yeah, I'm speaking today about operations. >> That's right, coming up. >> My presentation's called "Ops Chops". It's a subject that's very dear to my heart because of the pragmatism of operations, and how underrepresented I think it is at conferences like this. You know, we've seen many inspiring speakers in the last two days, talking about their paths to success, and to leadership, and giving the women in the room a lot of great advice on how to manage everything, from your career development, to work-life balance, to conflict, to challenges, how to really navigate the tech industry. Which, you know if someone could send me the book on that, that would be great. But no-one's really talking about, I think, where the rubber meets the road, which is operations. I believe operations is the bridge between strategy and the execution of great results. And there's a lot of math in operations. In the tech industry right now, we're hearing a lot of storytelling, and narratives about great new companies, new products, and the vision for how we're going to change the world, et cetera. But at the end of the day, if you want to be successful, you have to set goals that are helpfully aspirational, but realistic, and then you've got to nail your delivery. Because if you miss a beat, you don't have a lot of time to make up for that miss. And you've got investors, you've got shareholders, you have employees that expect you to deliver. And so operations I think is a great mix between art and science. The math of really measuring your business, the rigor of measuring your progress, really understanding the underlying financial drivers in your business, and then orienting your culture, and your people around the best possible execution that gives your strategy the most potential to be successful >> Right, and ops kind of gets a bad rap all the time. Everyone's talking about strategy and strategy, and we're all about strategy. At the end of the day, strategy with no execution, it's just a nice PowerPoint slide, right? But it's not like you on this. >> Exactly, exactly. And I think, you know I've been around for a little while. I've seen the market cycles in the technology industry. And we're certainly seeing a connection now. And a lot of businesses that marked themselves and measured themselves on how much money they've raised, or how much money they've spent, are now trying to figure out how to generate cash flow, and how to survive over a longer period of time if the market does soften. So I have a lot of respect for people who know how to generate cash flow, and deliver results, and deliver revenue, and measure their business on the basis of growth. Customers that vote with their dollars, right? >> Right. >> And so, yeah, I think operations, it's the unsung hero. When it comes to business outcomes. And so we're going to spend some time today talking about what I think is the quiet achiever in leadership. >> The other thing that's kind of interesting, cause we've got all these big data shows, right? Big data, cloud, probably two of the biggest topics right now, internet of things, of course being right there. But this kind of nirvana picture that gets painted, where there's going to be all this automation, and I'm just going to throw it in a big Hadoop cluster, and voila, everything happens. >> Boom, I'll have the answer. >> It doesn't really work that way. >> Not yet. I do think that machine learning, and artificial intelligence is progressing rapidly. And I think we're moving away from the automation of process to the automation of getting to the answer. I think analytics without action, though, leaves you kind of empty-handed. >> Right >> Like, so great, I have a lot of information, I have all this big data. I need the small data. I need data in the context of problems that I'm trying to solve. Whether, I'm thinking about it from consumer perspective, or a business perspective. So I see a real convergence between analytics and applications coming. You know, I think LifeLock has a funny commercial where they talk about alerting. And you know, don't just point to the fire. Like help me put the fire out. Help me figure out how the thing caught fire. And I think that's where machine learning and artificial intelligence can be super helpful. I also think that we're a long way away from really being able to leverage the true power of all this data. If you think about digital health, for example, and all the proprietary data stacks, that are being built through your FitBit, or your iPhone. You know, the way we're sensoring our personal health and fitness. But where's all that data going? Is it really contributing to research to solve, you know, health epidemics, right? No, because those stacks are all proprietary. No one wants to share them. >> Right >> So we need to get to a universal language, or a universal technology platform, that enables the researchers of the world to get a hold of that data, and do something super meaningful with it. So I think with progress, you'll also create open-ended questions. >> Absolutely >> And I think it's all positive. But I think we still have a long way to go, to see that big data environment really deliver great results. >> Right. So let's shift gears a little bit to leadership. >> Yeah. >> Another kind of softer topic. Not a big data topic. And when we talked last time, you came from Procter & Gamble When I graduated from undergrad, one of the great training programs was the Macy training program. May Company had one. So there were kind of these established things. IBM was always famous for their kind of training. It's a process where you went into a program, and it was kind of like extended school, just in a business context. You don't see that as much any more. Those programs aren't as plentiful. And so many people with the startup bug, so you see like in Iberia, they jump right in. I think you're mentioning off-air, one of the companies you're involved with, the guy's never had another job. So how do you see that kind of playing out? Kind of the lack of these kind of formal leadership opportunities, and what's that going to look like down the road. As the people who haven't had the benefit of this kind of training, or maybe it wasn't a benefit, get into these more senior positions. >> For sure. Look, leadership development is a topic that is of real interest to me. I was so fortunate and am so grateful for the opportunity that I had at Proctor & Gamble. I spent nearly six years there. And a big chunk of my time was spent in a leadership rotation program. Where you got to participate in a number of different projects and jobs, but you had mentorship, structured training and education, around what it takes to be, not just a good manager, but an effective leader. How you build a culture. How you engender people's commitments and dedication. How you really make the best of the resources that you have. How you manage your management. Whether that's board, or that's a CEO, or that's your shareholders. How you think about those things. And really tactically, what works and what doesn't. And being surrounded by people who are experts in their field. That was a long time ago, Jeff. And I don't see as many companies in the tech industry investing in that kind of leadership. And for kids coming out of college today, they're not rolling into structured leadership training programs. And so if you fast forward 20 years, what does that mean for the boards of the future? What does that mean for the Global 1000, and how those businesses are run? The good news is there's technology, there are plenty of amazing, inspirational founders out there, that have figured out how to build businesses on their own. And there's plenty of people like me, who actually want to mentor and help to build out the skill sets of these founders and these executives. But I do think that like many other areas of training and education which have been democratized in the industry, there's an opportunity to democratize leadership development and leadership training. And so that's something I'm spending a little bit of time on now. >> Good. And one of the great points you talked about. Again, go back and look at the other interview. Just Google Jennifer Tejada the Cube. Was really about as a leader, how you worked with exchanging value with your employees, right? And to quote you, you know, they're doing things that, they're not doing things that they might rather be doing. Spending time with their family on vacation, et cetera. And how you manage that as a leader of the company, to make them happy that they're there working, and to give them a meaningful place to be. And to spend that time that they're not spending on things that they might like more. >> I think culture is so important to the success of a business. You know, there are some investors that think culture is like an afterthought. It's one of those soft topics that they really don't need to care about. But for employees today, culture is everything. If you are going to spend a disproportionate amount of your waking hours with a group of people, it better be on a mission that's meaningful to you. And you'd better be working alongside of people that you think you can learn from, that inspire you, that stretch you to do more than you thought you could do. And so for me, it's about creating a culture of innovation, of performance, of collaboration. A real orientation around goals that everybody in the organization understands. In a way that is meaningful to them, within their role in the business. And that it's fun. Like, I won't do anything if it's not fun. I don't want to work with people who aren't fun. I was really excited. Two of the women who were on my leadership team at Keynote Flew here just to join me today, and support me as I'm giving a talk. But also to go out and have a drink. Because that's what we used to do after a long day at work. >> Right, right. >> And I think you have to be able to create a fire in someone by making sure that they, that they are being stretched. That they're learning and developing in that process. That they're part of something bigger than them. And that they can look back after a week, after a month, after a year in that business with you, and realize that they made an impact. That they made a difference. But that they also gained something from it, too. And I don't think we can ever underestimate the value of recognition, right? Not just money, but are you really recognizing someone for their commitment. For their emotional commitment to the business. For the time that they're spending and for what they've delivered for you, for the business, for your shareholder, for your customers. >> Jennifer, I could go with you all day long. >> (laughs) >> I'm going to get to one more before I let you go. Cause we're out of time, unfortunately. But you're now on some boards. There's a lot of talk. It feels like kind of the last plateau. Not that we've conquered the other ones. Because the last plateau is to get more women on boards. And we hear it's a matching problem, it's not so much of a pipeline problem. From your perspective, what can you advise? How can you help either people looking for qualified women, such as yourself, to be on boards. For qualified women who want to get on boards, to find them? >> That's a great question. I am very fortunate that there are people within my network that have spent time working with me, and can identify pieces of my experience that they think could be useful within their investment portfolio or within their companies. I'm part of a board called Puppet. It's an infrastructure software company based out of Portland. Super talented founder and team. Fast growing business in a really important space, software automation. Great board. I mean, I joined that board because every single person on the board, to a fault, is an amazing, accomplished executive, in and of themselves. Whether they're an investor, or a career CFO, or a career sales leader from the big technology side of the industry. So for me, it's such a great opportunity to collaborate with those people, and also take my experience, and lend what I know, and the pattern recognition that I have from running businesses, to loop the founder into his team. But I tell you, I wish that, and I hope that, the market starts to really think about diversity at the board level from a longer-term perspective. It's not just about how you find the women now. And by the way, there aren't that many female CEOs. But those of us who have sort of ticked that box and had that experience, we are available. And there are places where it's easy to find us. The Boardlist, for instance, is one of them. The Athena Alliance. Coco, the founder of that business is here. Women in Tech. I mean, it's out there. It's not that hard to find us. The challenge, I think, is the depth, the bench strength. Like who are the next female leaders that are coming up? That have functional expertise. You may need someone who's a marketing expert. You may need someone who's a product expert. You may need somebody who functionally knows consumer software, right? And it's really being willing, as a recruiter, as a recruiting executive, as a board member on the governance and nomination committee to say to your recruiters, to say to your investors, we want women on the short list. Or we want diversity on the short list. Like gender diversity, age diversity, racial diversity. A diverse board makes better decisions, full stop. Delivers better results. And I think we have to be demanding about that effort. We have to, the recruiting industry needs to hear that over and over again. And then on the flip side, we've got to develop these women. Help them build the skills. I mean, when I talk to women who want to be on boards, I say tell everybody, you want to be on a board. Be specific about the help that you need, right? Find the people that are connected in that network. Because once you're on one board, you meet board members there, they're on other boards. It does snowball. And in fact then you have to really choose the board wisely. Because it's not a two year commitment. You're in it for the long haul. So when you make that decision to choose a board, make sure it's a business that you have a real affinity to. That these are people that you want to spend time with over several years, right? And that you're willing to see that business through thick and thin. You don't get to leave the board if things go badly. That's when they need you the most. >> Right. >> So my hope is that we become much more open minded and demanding about diversity at the board level. And equally that we invest in developing women, men, people of different ages and bringing them to the board level. You don't have to be a CEO to be an effective board member, either. If you have functional, visional, regional expertise, that is a fit to that business, then you're going to be a very effective board member. >> All right, Jennifer, we have to let you go unfortunately. Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing your insight. No longer keynote, so now we can just use all our tags. Great Cube alumni, and tech athlete. So again, thanks for stopping by. >> Awesome, thank you so much for having me. >> Absolutely. Jennifer Tejada, I'm Jeff Frick. We are in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. Thanks for watching, we'll be right back. (upbeat music)

(energetic electronic music) >> From Phoenix, Arizona, the Cube, at Catalyst Conference. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. >> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here, with the Cube. We are on the ground in Phoenix Arizona at the Girls In Tech Catalyst Conference. We're really excited to return to Phoenix, ironically, it was two years ago, about this same time, we went to our first Grace Hopper conference that was here in Phoenix, and I don't know what it is with Phoenix, but it seems to be a great place for women in tech conferences. So, we're back, and we wanted to come down and talk to some of the people here that are giving keynotes, presentations, give you a flavor for what's going on, so if you got an opportunity to go next year, it'll be back in the Bay Area. You certainly want to sign up for that. So we're really excited, our first guest Yvonne Wassenaar, the CIO of New Relic, welcome. >> Thank you so much, it's great to be here, I love the Cube. >> Oh, thank you very much, that's right, you were at VMworld, or VMware, I always say world not ware, for years. And we've been doing, I think, the VMworld show for something like six years, or seven years. >> Yeah, super long time, and I watch you guys at reinvents, and a lot of other places. >> Oh great, well thank you for watching. So now you're at New Relic, so for the people that aren't familiar with New Relic, why don't you give them the quick 411. >> Yeah, so New Relic is is a software analytics company, and in the simplest terms, you don't bank in your retail branch, you bank on your phone. What matters is how your software's performing. Both from an application perspective, and a business perspective. So we help you understand what's going on. We're the best, first place to look to understand your digital business. >> It's really interesting, because we've got a premise that we're, at Wikibon, that it's all about, really, your digital engagement model. And you think about banking, how many times do you go into the bank, and actually interact with a teller? It's really moved to this electronic interface, in terms of your relationship. >> Exactly, it's not how warm the coffee is, or how long the teller line is, it's how performant is your application, and do you have the right feature functionality? >> Okay, so you're here, you had a keynote earlier in the week. >> This is the third day of the conference. So first of all, give us kind of what's the vibe been here for the last three days? >> It's phenomenal, and what I love about the Girl In Tech Conference, is that it brings together women of all types. I was speaking yesterday to a student at Stanford, who's here, who has her own non-profit, who's getting her degree to go out and change the world as an enterpreneur, to very, very seasoned executives who sit on boards. And everybody's here to understand what's the change going on, and how do I drive relevancy. And it's just phenomenal. >> Excellent, so your keynote was on how to stay relevant, and how to avoid extinction. >> Yeah. >> So why don't you give us some of the, I'm sure that was a well received one. >> Yeah, well, what's interesting is, change is the new constant. And it's actually riskier to not do something, than do something, today, but what do you do? And everybody says, "Oh, go out and be bold." and being bold's great, but fundamentally, it's hard. And it's easy to say, it's hard to do in practice. And so what my talk was really on, is, how do you address the unconscious fears? How do you say "Yeah, those bad things could happen, but you know what, if nothing bad happened, here's how I could change the world." And then just go after that vision. Free yourself from those kind of unconscious constraints, and really go after it wholeheartedly. >> And so is it more of a willingness to fail? Is it more of a willingness to, you know, look silly, if you feel? I mean, what are some of these unconscious fears, that if you consciously just address them, that will help you kind of overcome them, and be more proactive in your experimentation? >> Yeah, so for me it was very personal. It was some challenges that I had in my childhood, that really made me risk-averse, in ways that I didn't understand. And it's one of the things that they say, "Hey, women should lean in more." And I actually believe the reason that women don't lean in, is that they're trying to aim for a level of perfection, and don't realize it's a numbers game. Failure is not a reflection on you personally, failure is step towards your future successes. And so really it's a mindset change. >> Right, right, and I fundamentally feel too, as we try to innovate on the Cube, and do things different, if we're not failing sometimes, we're not really pushing the envelope enough, right? Everything shouldn't be successful. It's like the old economics newsboy model, right? If you come home with no newspapers, that means you could have sold a couple more probably, so it's not about perfection, it's about trying, and not being afraid to, "Mm, that didn't work out." >> You're spot on, and I led a workshop yesterday as well, on increasing your return on investment. And I literally told the women, I said, "If you are not failing, if everybody on your team's performing perfectly, you're a failed leader. You have to stumble, it's like skiing, if you don't fall, when you're skiing, you're not pushing yourself hard enough, you're not really doing it, so you need to let your team members fall, you have to fall yourself, and that's how you you're pushing the boundaries. >> So how is the reception then, of that message that you're trying to convey? Is it "You know, I know it, I just can't do it", is it, just, "Oh, there's just so many hurdles in the way"? How do you get over the, you know, here's this unconscious thing that you need to be thinking about, okay, now it's conscious, but to actually start to change behavior? What are some of the little behavioral changes and tips and tricks you give people? Because at the end of the day, a lot of times, it's do the behavior, not think about it too much. >> Exactly, I'd say it's a couple things, first off, you need role models, that can help prove to you and your subconcious, that, "My gosh, if those five amazingly successful people did this, and they're telling me, very specifically, the failures they had, and they're still that successful, maybe they're not lying."(laughs) The other thing is, I try to give really specific tips, so one of my favorites is, I'm an ex-consultant, so two by two, what's the business impact? What's your unique value? Throw all the things you're working on in there, you should have one to two that are high impact that you're uniquely skilled to do, hit those balls out of the park. You can get 20 guys to third base, doesn't matter. You got to get one person home. >> Got to get him home, that's great. I'm just curious, because you spent a long time at Accenture, before you jumped into the tech company world, so you probably saw a lot of different companies. What's your perspective at a macro view, of how this environment has changed over the years? I mean, do you see positive change? I know we have a long way to go, but what's your perspective from some of those early Accenture days? >> You know, it's never been a more exciting time. I mean, in some regards, I wish I was that Stanford student, just starting my career, because technology is changing how we do everything, in absolutely amazing ways. But, we need to bring the right level of social consciousness to how we apply it. And we need to figure out new engagement models. And I think those engagement models actually play to the strength of a lot of women we have in the room. You have to figure out how to fuse across different industries. So, the Apple Watch, it's designer, it's technology, like how do you bring those competencies together? You get better stuff done with partners than all internally. VCs are the new R&D innovation engines, so I think the change is really exciting. But you have to be open to new operating models, and new engagement styles, to take advantage of it. >> Right, okay I want to shift gears a little bit, because our audience might not know, but you're actually a very rare breed. >> (laughs) >> You're a woman on boards, and we hear over and over, I'm teasing you, because we hear over and over, there's just not near enough representation of women on corporate boards. You're on a couple of boards. So I'd like to get your perspective on, how did you get on the boards, how do we get more women on the boards? There's always a conversation, is it a pipeline problem? Are there just not enough, are they dropping out mid-career? What are some of the things you can see from your seat on a couple of boards? >> Yeah, so I'm on three boards, I'm on the board of Harvey Mudd, I'm on the board of Idiom, which is the series B start-up, and I'm on the board of the Athena Alliance. And the Athena Alliance is actually an organization, a non-profit focused on getting more women on boards, because I fundamentally believe it is not a pipeline problem, and I say that because there's many senior executive level women like myself, who just are waiting to check off the ten things on the list they think they need to be on a board. And it's studied time and time again, women set really high bars for themselves. So I don't think enough women are putting themselves forward. and I don't think that they're known well enough. We're not unicorns, we're really not. Like there are valleys where we all congregate, (laughs) and so what we need to do, is really help the men, who I think have amazing intention, and want to have greater diversity on their boards, understand how to make the connections, and find the right women with the right profiles to round out the organizations. >> So you think it's really more of a matching issue, the desire is there, but really just making the match when the timing is right, and it's a good fit. >> Yeah, exactly. >> All right, so I'm going to shift gears on you one more time, and talk about education, and specifically Harvey Mudd, because as I'd mentioned, two years ago, we were here interviewing Maria Klawe, still one of my all-time favorite interviews. She's got such phenomenal energy, she's the President at Harvey Mudd College, who are the Athenas, I don't know if you knew the Harvey Mudd gals' teams are the Athenas, boys are the Stags, but talk about education, and what Maria has done, I mean her thing in our interview, is she wants the intro CS, to be the best class you've ever taken. >> Yeah. >> Bar none, not the best computer science class, not the best science class, the best class ever, and I can tell you, my son's at Claremont, it's a really hard class to get into. Your perspective on education, and what somebody like Maria, with her kind of energy, point of view, enthusiasm, does to expanding computer science breadth in women specifically. >> Oh, it's phenomenal, I actually had the opportunity to sit in the intro CS class. And there's a couple really key things they've done. First off, is they've expanded and energized the CS team with new amazing talent, many women, but not just women, other diversity, to just round out perspective, so keeping it fresh. The second thing they've done, is they've realized that CS theory is interesting to some, but not to all, and a lot of women tend to be more purpose driven, so they've created classes like CS biology. Same core concepts, but now solving the problems in a field where they have questions. So they learn the same thing, but in a way that's more interesting. And the final thing is, they've restructured how they run the class. So they don't say, "Hey, here's a question," everybody goes, "Oh, I'll get that!" They say, "Here's a question I want you to think about. And talk to your partner, scribble some notes, and in a minute, let's discuss what you've come up with." and that allows people of all types to be more thoughtful and to get better, well-rounded answers coming out. So they've changed it on all dimensions, and it's just, it's an amazing place to go and be, and see the energy, and really see transformation in work in our education system, because that's where it all starts. >> That's really interesting, the way you say it, to phrase the question so people are forced to think a minute, because I have two daughters, they went to all-girls middle schools, and that's one of the classic plugs for going to all-girls, because the boys, they don't wait, right? >> (laughs) "Okay if I have the right answer, I'm going to get picked! >> "Pick me, I love the teacher, pick me, pick me!" >> You picked me, I win!" >> Right, "and then I'll figure it out," versus people that want to think about it a little bit, and contemplate, and noodle, and maybe try to get the right answer before they raise their hand, so great strategy. So before we let you go, unfortunately we're out of time, how do people get involved with the Athena Foundation, what are you up to, in terms of priorities for the next six months? >> Yeah, so it's the Athenaalliance.org, we're on the web, we're just starting, DLA Piper is one of our sponsors, getting our 501c3 status, there's information there in terms of membership, who we're working to connect with. If any of you listening have board seats and you want women, come to us. If you're a qualified woman, and you're looking to get on a board, reach out, we'd love to hear you, we know you're there, and we know that men want to put you on boards, so let's make it happen. >> What a great service really, doing that matching game, because it's always about the matching game. Well, Yvonne, thanks for taking a few minutes out of your busy day, and we look forward to seeing you again sometime in the Bay Area. >> Great, thank you so much, great stuff. >> Jeff Frick here at the Girls In Tech Catalyst Conference in Phoenix Arizona, we'll be back after this short break. Thanks for watching. (energetic electronic music)