>> 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)

>>from around the globe. It's the queue with digital coverage of women transforming technology brought to you by VM Ware. >>Hi, Lisa Martin covering the fifth annual Women Transforming Technology event the first time it has been running in. So we're not coming to you from Palo Alto today coming to you from San Jose that I'm really excited to be talking with one of the event speakers, the founder of Happier Inc. Natalie Kogan. Natalie, Welcome to the Cube. Thanks so much for having me great to join you, even virtually. Exactly. And we're so fortunate that this I guess, if you can, if you can put a positive spin on it that this event happened when we have technology to still be able to enable as much interaction into a conversations or multiple way conversations as possible. And I know that you just did a session and a couple of days ago at the Digital Women transforming Allergy then But before we get into that, I saw your Ted talk was awesome and it's it's such a and the timeliness happier as a subject, couldn't be more, um, really pivotal. Tell me a little bit about what happier is what the inspiration Waas for your company? >>Definitely. So as many entrepreneurs. The inspiration was my personal journey. So I grew up in the former study on when I was 13 years old, my parents and I left everything and everyone behind and on a journey deep fried becomes refugees did the United States, and we had, as you can imagine, this is a really difficult experience with several months and refugee settlements in Europe before getting permission to come to the U. S. As refugees. And we started our journey and the projects that have destroyed, you know, on welfare and food stamps, very grateful to have an opportunity, but really, really tough. And I was really overwhelmed. That was a teenager. I spoke almost no English, and it was all overwhelming for me. And I kind of decided for myself that if I could just work really hard, achieve a lot of things become successful, then I would feel happy. And then I would just feel like honor this American dream. And for the next 20 years, I did work very, very hard. I did become very successful. I reached the price of four for success. I worked at Mackenzie, you know, the very well known consulting firm. By the age of 25 I was a managing director. We're a venture capital firm in New York. There's fewer than 6% women in venture capital. I started for different companies. I was part of Microsoft in the tech companies, and on the outside I was a feeding incredible stuff. And while I still am still proud of every single thing I achieved, whenever I would've David, I feel happy. And then it was just like the bubble just off, and I didn't feel happy anymore. And so I pushed myself harder and harder because I equated happiness for the achievement. Until, after two decades of doing this, I just couldn't do it anymore. I completely burnt out. Um, it was a really, really dark time in my life, and I knew I had to find a different way to live so that I could do work that's meaningful to me, but that I could also honor myself as a human and find joy in the present. And that led me to doing a lot of research in psychiatry and psychology and neuroscience and learning all of these incredible skills and practices that changed my life, starting with gratitude, which is how you cultivate join the present moment and really inspired me to leave. My career is a technology exact behind you found happier. We have the same mission since we've been founded and that is to help millions of people. Dr. In working in life by practicing science, back skills to cultivate there will be what are >>some of the scientific skills behind it and anything that that, you see that is even more pivotal in week eight of this work from home shelter in place? >>Yes. You know it It sounds really weird to say, but I feel like I've been preparing my full life. Do you help people right now? Because the skills that I have learned and I share are so essential. And >>the two that I >>would mention that I've been you know, we've been doing all these virtual sessions for teams and companies, and this is the ones I talk about. The first is the skill of gratitude. You know, gratitude is just very simply zooming in on something in your life that is good. That is positive. That is meaningful. and honoring it with your full appreciation. And you know, we're all right now going for so many challenges and we all have with all the negativity bias. And that means we're much more sensitive humans, anything that's negative and anything that positive and when we're going through a challenge, that negativity biases even more sensitive. So I know many folks right now are feeling really overwhelmed with their own feelings, but their own sense of loss and fear and with all the negative news and so practicing gratitude is essential because when you pause and you focus on the things >>in your life as it is, >>um, it's the challenge that you do appreciate. You remind your brain that the the challenge is not everything, that there is more to your life than what is going wrong. And that actually helps you to feel a little bit less stressed and anxious. And the other piece of science that I love to share is another skill that I talked about, which does Ah, and acceptance. Really. It simply means that we learn, look at how things are and how we feel with clarity instead of judgment, right and shorthand for judgment is should shouldn't feel like this. It shouldn't be this way, and that's having clarity. Allowing yourself to actually feel the difficult feelings helps us to move through them with a little bit more easy. I think it's one of the most, um, powerful mindset. A mindset shift that I learned on my journey is that happiness does not mean that you feel positive all the time. Happiness and emotional being means that we embrace all of our different feelings, including the difficult one, and we learned how to move through them with compassion. What are >>some of the things that when you're talking to the C suite executives that certain companies, whether it's bm ware or others, how our executive teams managers, where does the emotional health come in to the play? Knowing that these folks are managing teams, there are, we're seeing, as you point out, you know, the negativity vice. We're seeing the numbers of unemployment go up and up and up. Where is emotional health in terms of priority at the executive level? So this is >>one of the it, so it sounds really weird to say, but all of a sudden its like in this huge wave it already started, right? Some companies and we work with many of them already understood. The executives already understood that employee well, being an emotional health, it's not an extra. It is not optional. It is non negotiable. If you want your people to be at their best, there are literally mountains of research that show that when you cultivate, employees will be people are more productive, more resilient. More so, Cecil, they still better problems. But happened in this crisis is that the companies that were in a place where oh, this isn't really important or this is nice to have They are now recognizing that this is actually the most important thing that they could invest in for the success and longevity and survival of their businesses. And so I'm actually incredibly grateful for that. I don't like that off that we have to pay for it. But I am incredibly grateful that in this challenging time, more and more leaders there understanding that their own well being and the emotional health of their employees is non negotiable, not just for survival of their businesses, but if they want to be at their best and actually figure out how to thrive in whatever the future holds. >>And I'm glad to hear that, because the massive amount of uncertainty that we're all facing is unprecedented. You know, you can't pick up the phone and call your Brian mother and say, What did you guys do back in the day? And honestly, even if there had been something similar, 1918 hasn't been that long ago. People have nowadays are used to getting everything that you want on demand and also being able to get connected. Um, have good WiFi and be able to deliver what your clients what your what your bosses expect. The uncertainty factor that really weighs heavily on emotion is a huge inhibitor to productivity negotiation. Being worry >>if I can jump in uncertainty is the hardest thing for a brain to deal with. Our brains would rather know that something very bad will definitely happen. Then the B and uncertainty and I've actually been talking so much the companies and leaders about this, that this is literally the most stressed that we can experience because our brains number one job and I'm the founder of a company called Happier. But I always say that your brain number one job is not to keep you happy. It >>is to help you surmise. And so >>you're bring this constantly Evaluating your environment is the state of fruit or is a dangerous right fighter. But we know that was fun. What's happening right now is that the brain and I've come up with an answer. It doesn't know. Is it safe? Is it not safe? And I don't just mean in a macro way, um, macroeconomic way with the virus. I mean day to day. Things change day to day. We're juggling kids and family, and our businesses are changing so the brain doesn't give up. It's still tries really hard to figure out how to keep your state and that hard that working overtime the way it does that is by releasing stress hormones. So on top of just the very real challenges that so many folks have with worrying about loved ones juggling, working from home and family, there's also this chronic level of stress the world feeling because of uncertainty. >>Tell me a little bit about the interactive session that you held at WT through the other day. What were some of the common concerns or questions that you heard from the >>audience. Yeah, it's really interesting. It was such a great session, and we we had a lot of questions. We could not answer all the questions. Um, and I think that it means a lot to make it really thought about what they wanted to ask. There's a couple of things that emerged as common thread. The first was, How do I help someone in my life a colleague that I manage a loved one? How do I help them during this time if they're really overwhelmed or stressed? They're feeling sad, and we talked about the seal of acceptance, and we talked about how it might be our instincts to immediately cheer up the first thing. But actually, the bigger gift we can give them is to let them know that it's okay to not be okay and to honor their feelings with our effectiveness, and that actually helped them get through. So that was one of the themes that came up a lot. Another one was, with all of this uncertainty and the stress, like people would ask, I have trouble getting motivated like I love my job I love what I do, but I have so much trouble getting motivated, and that is very real. And the first thing that if anyone listening, feels this way, um, there's nothing wrong with you. Think about the amount of energy you're brain is using on all the stress. So no wonder you feel more fired and not as motivated. And so we talked about practicing self compassion, Um, in our expectations of ourselves and recognizing that we're undergoing something unprecedented and so difficult and then get motivated connecting the past on your to do list. Do How do they help someone else? Because that is where we connect first since the purpose, right, So that projects you're working on with your team or that presentation that you just can't get motivated to do. Ask yourself who does this help and actually answer the question? And in that moment, you connect yourself the purpose, which helps us be more resilient and more motivated. >>Get a notification or lack thereof is a huge problem, and I you know, you can't think it's not just may, not just you. It's got to be all the way up to the tops of companies that are really struggling because, as you say, the brain is so focused right now and busy and trying to assess things. And there are no concrete answers. But one of the things that you said I read your article in The Washington Post that you just did in the last week or so with your daughter and with my daughter. Yeah, with your daughter Mia. And the validation was Start on. And it it's so simple. But it's one of those things that I think often we think, Well, let me explain something and try to help you in that way without maybe stepping back and going well, actually help me. But what helps you? Are you seeing that that the executive leaders are also kind of stepping back and asking their teams? How are the ways that you want me to communicate with you? Or is that something that's happened? You know, I think that >>we are in an era of, um, human embracing leadership of, and I am so welcoming the era of leaders who are leading with their humanity first and are embracing the humanity of their people first. You know, I have this, um, actually working on my next book right now with this for leaders. And I have this concept, um, because I was a leader for so many years, and I always thought that I keep my emotions hidden, that emotions really didn't have anything to do with work. So I have this part that for leaders, they imagine you're holding a white board, and this is your emotional whiteboard on it are written your feeling. Whether you want to admit them or not, that team feels them, and it's the same for everyone on the team. So when you walk into a meeting, whether the virtual meeting or in person what is written on your emotional whiteboard, what are you feeling? And how are you approaching others? What do you want to be written on your emotional whiteboard, right? I think, as leaders, we would say, Well, I want to stay there, hear about you as my employees, that I want to hear how you're feeling. But think about are the actions you're taking aligning with with on your emotional whiteboard, right? And so listening and hearing, you know, I have this, um, came up with shorthand. Really? For me as a leader during a challenging time, and it's at C D. The first is acknowledge. Acknowledge your own challenges. Acknowledge your teams challenges, right. Validation. This point we're talking about, he is prepare genuinely care, right? So don't just do it as a check mark. But bring your humanity and compassionate actually care about people. There's so much research that when employees know that their leader cares about them, that on its own is hopeful for them. So there will be in their productivity. And he acts. So a c c es teach by example. So do the things that you want, your employees, the follow. And, um, I do see leaders stepping up more and more in their passion and their acceptance. And again, I think this is, ah, difficult but unique moment in time Do elevate our human embracing leadership. >>Do you advise women and men? Teoh. When we talked about gratitude a few minutes ago, right down, maybe. Right. Maybe it helps with your visual learner or someone that learns by storytelling to write things down, Maybe write down each day a few things. Maybe they seem so simple that you're grateful for, Or maybe even I like the idea of the emotional White Board. I can see that as something that would be helpful to write down. Do you recommend that to folks and maybe write down what your actual emotional thing is and what you want it to be? So a couple >>things on that. So the short answer is yes, you know, when it comes to gratitude, Um, it doesn't really matter how you practice like people say to me like I'm not a journalist, that's fine. That as long as you're specific and your gratitude So instead of I'm grateful for my family, how about I'm really grateful that I could give my daughter hug before I started interview? Right? So the more specific, the better. And actually the smaller the better. You talked about small things. Research shows that it's the frequency of small, positive experiences that contribute thoroughly. Satisfaction more than anything, grants so the smaller the better and capturing does health, so you can write in a journal. You can write it on a sticky notes. Maybe it's a text that you send to a friend to encourage them to practice practice as a leader. Maybe it's an email that you send to your teams. The factoring in some way really does help. And when it comes to the emotional white board, the practice that I share with, um, everyone is a check in. Check in with yourself, right? It's so incredible. You know, we have this group for women executives elevating women leaders. Is that all Vertical group, the year long program. It was worked well before this. So we have a group that goes with us every year, and one of the practice that we do is in the morning and in the afternoon, you check in with yourself on just day all my feeling, and you would not believe the impact that that has on their ability to solve problems on their ability to show up as their best just by pausing and checking in, like, How am I feeling what is in my emotional whiteboard? Acknowledging that without Dutchman being compassionate towards yourself and then saying, What is one thing I can shift if I would like you feel differently? >>The acknowledgement piece is critical, I think because it's it's the vulnerability to step up and go. I don't feel great about this and let me let me say that out loud. Maybe it helps me become accountable to that or expect it to a boss or a colleague that put it out there. That's a hard thing for people to do. Especially I think there is this dichotomy of people being concerned about John Safety when we're seeing what's going on in the news. Did any of that have come up during your WT two session about? I'm afraid to admit that I'm not motivated because our company's experiencing layoff. >>Yeah, it's definitely come up in the session and other sessions of kind of finding that balance. And look, you have to be realistic because we all have different filters in our teams. You have to be realistic about your leadership. But what I find over and over is that authenticity wins today, right? So, um, you have to you have to make all right how much you share. But even if it's just a little bit of Acknowledgments, it is helpful because it helps you not resist it so much and more likely than not. There's somebody on your team who feel similarly so that, by the way, there's comfort in knowing we're not alone. there's actually neurological comfort in knowing we're not alone like we need that sense of safety, but also you made them be able to move through that and brainstorm together and help each other get motivated. So you know, you have to judge by the culture of your team. But authenticity and you acknowledging your humanity to whatever degree you feel comfortable is usually an incredibly hopeful practice to help you be at your best, whatever that means. That >>day, I couldn't agree with you more. I always The authenticity is contagious. Natalie. It's been so great having you on the program. I wish we could keep chatting, but it is time to go. Thank you so much so folks can go toe happier, dot com or help your fellow happier and more. How about your home? Lots >>of lots of tons of free block posts and videos on all of the different practices I shared more about anything we do. So yes, come visit us that happier dot com and thank you so much for such thoughtful questions. I'm always incredibly grateful for thoughtful questions at interviews, but I really appreciate that. Well, >>good. Now it's been a pleasure having you. And I want to thank you for watching on behalf of Natalee code. And I'm Lisa Martin covering women transforming technology. The virtual version 2025. For now. >>Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

>> 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)

From around the globe, it's theCUBE. With digital coverage of women transforming technology, brought to you by VMWare >> Hi, this is Lisa Martin covering the 5th annual women transforming technology event. But the first time this event has been completely digital. Coming to you from my home in San Jose, and I'm very pleased to welcome one of the event's speakers, the CEO of Be Leaderly, Jo Miller. Jo, welcome to theCUBE. >> Hi Lisa, a pleasure speaking with you today. >> Likewise. So I was looking up some information on you Jo you are quite impressive and I wanted to share that with our viewers. You have dedicated two decades to really helping women advance in their careers, into positions of influence. You've spoken with 100,000 plus women in that time and you've developed a roadmap that you published in 2019, a book. Tell us about that book and some of the really interesting things you've learned along the way. >> Thanks for asking! Well look the book was really born out of a conversation I had about 15 years ago with a woman, a software engineer, who told me that she felt like she was the best kept secret in her organization and of course, you know, being indispensable in your current role won't move your career forward and she had become indispensable for doing the type of work that was downplaying her potential and it started me on this journey of understanding how is it that we as women can end up being the best kept secrets in the organization, that invisible employee, so to speak. But also, speaking to hundreds of very successful, very seasoned women leaders to understand how did they advance in to the positions of influence that they're in today and so, uh, you've got the opportunity through a publisher to formalize those more than ten years of you know, speaking, and workshops, and all of the interviews that I've accumulated over time, all of that, expertise that I have learned from and put it together into my book with the nine steps that women can take to really thrive in advancing their careers and leave a leadership legacy. >> And what are, give me the first like three steps in the book is women of influence: nine steps to build your brand, establish your legacy, and thrive. Give me like the first three steps that we need to be able to do. >> Well, I think one of the most important ones is to realize that we are all already leaders whether we're in that high level executive leadership position or not, and so, a first step is just to understand all of the ways in which you're already a leader and to identify your own leadership strengths which you can do at any career phase quite frankly. From there, it's about understanding what do you bring to the table that could be a unique value proposition to your organization and matching your strengths to work that you are passionate about or care deeply about, in delivering something that your company or industry or customer base really needs and values and I call that your leadership superpower. So, from your strengths, identifying that niche or superpower and then up leveling that, so taking your personal brand and everything you have learned about your strengths and your value and turning that personal brand into a leadership brand so that people around you start to sit up and pay attention and notice the leader in you, but even more so I think so that you can see the leader in yourself. >> That's great advice, especially now with the COVID-19 crisis that is, regardless of what industry you are in, if you were someone that has worked from home before, it's completely different now, the uncertainty in everything whether it's job security or can I get Clorox wipes? It's a huge challenge. Do you find that those nine steps are still the same if not even more important in today's climate? >> I'll leverage what you said and say they're the same but possibly even more important, you know, if you think about how you were perceived say two months ago, and the value that people around you see in you, well that may have shifted dramatically now that our world has changed and frankly there's never been a time where there has been a greater need for people to step up and bring leadership to the table. And so I really encourage people right now, if you have the time in that busy work life and home life, that have become so mushed together, see if you can take a moment or two to step back and think about how has my world changed and what other really big problems that are emerging or what are the leadership gaps that I could be uniquely built to fill and start to just kind of reinvent and reimagine how you want to be perceived as a leader, like what's that you value proposition that you have to offer in this changed world that's going to continue changing. >> I like that. Reimagine and rethink because even though there is a lot of crisis and challenge going on right now, there are opportunities. So I like your advice of encouraging women and men to really reevaluate what it is that you can bring uniquely positioned, to help however your company is pivoting in this time because there is going to be a lot of change that is probably permanent as a result of this. So how, one of things that I love is talking about the difference between a mentor and a sponsor and you did a session at WT2 the other day, 90 minute interactive session digitally that's a challenge. So I am very impressed and excited to hear about that but you were talking to women about attracting the advocacy of influential sponsors. So, first off describe for our audience the difference between a mentor and a sponsor because I'll be honest with you, I didn't even really know there was a difference until a couple of years ago. >> I love this topic too Lisa and an article that really piqued my passion and interest in sponsorship is one that appeared in Harvard business review, again about a decade ago, and by the way the article was titled 'Why men still get more promotions than women.' and so that truly piqued my interest because I'm so fascinated by anything that can help women advance in their careers. But the article was some authors of a study saying that they'd found that high potential women were over mentored and under sponsored relative to their male peers and that that was one of the reasons that they weren't advancing as much in their organizations. And so I think that the key distinction between mentors and sponsors can be understood first by knowing that a sponsor is, like a mentor, someone that believes in you but they might see that potential that's unformed or untapped potential you might not even see in yourself and they're willing to place a bet on your talent and put their reputation on the line to advocate for you and put your name forward and publicly support you. And so, they're really putting themselves and their own political and social capital on the line. So compared to a mentor they do go beyond giving the feedback and the advice in order to bring their accumulated political and social and career capital to move your career forward within an organization. And so, look you know, whereas a mentor might help you skill up, a sponsor will help you move up and mentors will certainly talk to you but a sponsor is someone who will talk about you so if you can imagine, you know a mentor gives you advice on climbing the ropes, on uh on um, sorry a mentor will give you advice um, on uh, sorry just lost my train of thought there! >> Your advice on what, climbing the ladder. >> Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah, I meant what shows you the ropes, there found it! A mentor shows you the ropes, whereas a sponsor is the one who helps you climb those ropes and so really what I meant, or what a sponsor is like is that rocket fuel for your career but in a good way. They can really alter your career trajectory and move you forward with new momentum. >> Can a sponsor be someone that you're currently working for? >> Yeah, absolutely. And of course not every manager or leader in your management chain will be a sponsor if you're lucky you'll have one but it might be a leader in a completely different area of the organization but I think one of the practical suggestions that I gave to the participants in my session was start to notice who the sponsors are in the organization around you like learn to spot the leaders who have the qualities that make a good sponsor. >> So if I'm out there doing that and I'm maybe going to write down, all right, who have been my mentors over the last few years, who do I think maybe from that category could become a sponsor, looking for sponsors what do we need to know about what a sponsor is going to expect of us. >> Well you know one of the really important distinctions to know about is that when you can go and ask someone to be your mentor, you really can't ask someone to be a sponsor in fact that might backfire, it might have the opposite effect and so sponsorships not something that you would you probably go and directly request, it's something that you earn instead. So, some of the things that sponsors will look to in you would be are you able to be committed and loyal to their goals and the goals of the organization and are you delivering outstanding performance that goes beyond what's being asked of you in your job description and role. But they're also looking for you to bring something truly unique and special to the table and that goes back to our earlier comments, our conversation about understanding what your strengths are, your technical and your leadership strengths and how you can apply them to bring something truly unique to the organization that differentiates you. So that's one of the things that we can do to start to attract sponsors which is to do that self-inventory of what can I bring to the table, what problems can I solve, what leadership gaps can I fill. >> So Jo let's talk about your 90 minute interactive session that you digitally for WT2 the other day. Given the gravity of the situation that COVID-19 is delivering tell me about some of the comments and the questions that you had, a woman going 'All right, in today's climate when we're not sure about even job certainty how do I up my chances of finding a sponsor?' >> Mhm, you know and I think it speaks to the timeliness of the topic. I think we had more than 300 people join the session and so one of the things that I love to do is to make it as interactive as I can by having some panelists join who spoke about examples of the sponsorship that they've gained in their career. But we also heard a lot from participants who are sending their comments in via the chat giving examples of the times when they had been sponsored, how it began, what the sponsors were able to do to help them move forward in their careers and then as we went further along in the session we spoke about the concept of micro sponsorship and how one of the most important ways to understand how sponsorship works is to sponsor someone else and so we saw just a wealth of examples and comments coming from participants about all the ways that they were declaring they were going to take action by sponsoring someone else in their organization. >> So a micro sponsorship that is an interesting concept, tell me a little bit more about that is that say, I'm a sponsor and I'm going to sponsor someone else or is it I have a sponsor and I'm going to get another sponsorship from that? >> Hmm, good question, so there's a couple of myths around sponsorship. One is that you do need to be a high level executive who's able to promote someone or create the perfect role for them or give them that high exposure assignment. And that's certainly one way that sponsorship can take place, the big gestures. But one of the executives I interviewed, Millette Granville said look you don't necessarily need to be an executive to be a sponsor but you do need to have influence and I think we all have influence, we just might not completely leverage it to the greatest extent we can. So we're leaving our influence on the table so if you can't sponsor someone in big ways think about looking for micro sponsorship moments in which you notice a colleague perhaps who's talent is going unseen or under leveraged and recommend that person, put them forward for an ideal opportunity or it might be something as simple as when you see someone share a great idea and no one notices, amplify that idea, attach the person's name to it, or when someone is being spoken over the top of, say 'let her finish' and so we can sponsor in large and in small ways. That's what I mean by micro sponsorship so notice the scope of your influence and use whatever influence you have to be speaking up and advocating for others. >> I love that. Thank you for that clarification. Were there concerns right now with all of the uncertainty, the volumes of people that have applied for unemployment. Were there any concerns from the audience in your session about if somebody else has a great idea will it just highlight that I don't? And will I be in you know a bright light a is she really delivering value if were having to cost cut, were there any concerns that the women brought up? >> Um, not that I noticed but by the way there were 300 people in the session so the chat log was going through so fast and if I was lucky I was able to pluck a few comments to read back to the audience. But I think you're right on target with that concern, I can only assume that a number of people have had that concern for themselves so one of the things that I talked about is the importance of making your value visible and how you don't want to speak up and amplify and promote every single thing that you do but be really strategic about amplifying the accomplishments that align with your aspirations. So, you know speak up and showcase and reveal and make known those high profile results that you are delivering that align with where you want to go in your career and of course that frees you up to be amplifying and promoting and making visible the achievements of others in the organization. In fact, I think if we care about having diverse and equitable workspaces we really need to be lifting others up. >> I love that. Focus on the visible. Last question, in the last few seconds that we have here, how does a company go about building a culture of sponsorship and how do you see that? >> Mhm, that's interesting because you know a lot of companies have a really fully-formed culture of mentorship and they have formalized mentorship programs. On the other hand there tends not to be so many companies that are having sponsorship initiatives but those that do typically will attach them to an existing talent or high potential or diversity initiative and so if you're in a position of influence and leadership and one thing of course to do is be open and transparent about what it would take for you to sponsor someone. But if you're already doing that take it a step further and champion having an open and diverse and equitable culture of sponsorship in the organization, talk to other leaders about what that looks like and get involved in those existing talent and diversity and high potential initiatives and champion the idea of adding a sponsorship component where participants are matched to leaders and the leaders have accountability to help produce results in that participant's career advancement. >> I love that, accountability. This is definitely a topic Jo that I love talking about mentors vs sponsors and it sounds like it's one that just needs more and more and more air cover so people really understand that there is tremendous value there. I wish we had more time, but it has been such a pleasure talking with you Jo I really appreciate that. We thank you for joining us on theCUBE and we appreciate the fact that you have been able to do this, remotely from Iowa, I am in San Jose, so for Jo, I am Lisa Martin and you are watching theCUBE's coverage of women transforming technology, the digital version, 2020. Thanks for watching. (outro music)

>>from around the globe. It's the queue with digital coverage of women transforming technology brought to you by VM Ware. >>Hi, this is Lisa Martin covering fifth Annual Women Transforming Technology WT two from my home in San Jose, California Because this is the first year than WT two has gone digital. Very excited to welcome next one of the speakers from the executive track. We have Charmaine Macquarie, president of Macquarie Group, but also offer C Suite Advisor. You know, Speaker Charmaine. Nice to start with you. >>An absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. >>So you have an incredible background. You have been for two decades working with leaders and I read 27 industries, five continents and from some pretty big, well known brands Coca Cola, Johnson and Johnson, my particular favorite Starbucks. Tell me a little bit about your background in your career and how you came to be working with potential leaders >>early on in my career, I was working in politics, actually helping politicians understand their constituency and then how to communicate effectively with them and then went on into marketing. And really, what I say is that what I do is a conglomeration of all of my life experience working with leaders either in politics, in marketing and sales on a variety of industries, including gas and oil, and coming together and helping them understand how to communicate their message effectively. How have executive presence and ensuring that they're seeing, heard and remembered >>what? One of the things. One of the things that talking about being remembered especially now during a crisis that nobody has ever experienced before, when there are so much, so much concern and so much uncertainty. Um, I e. Read that you said effective communication is more than just words and phrases, especially in today's climate. What is effective communication? >>Effective communication is making sure that people hear your value, your value proposition, and that is really essential today. One of the things you want to do is that you want to elevate your visibility and when elevate the value that you bring to your organization. There are a number of competing priorities, and what you want organization to understand is what is it that you see that others don't see, and that is a part of your value proposition. How are you going to help the organization innovate through this time, and wanting to do that is really speaking about what is the value. What is it that it's gonna make the difference for the organization today with this crises and that will also take it further into the future. >>Tell me a little bit about this session that you did at women transforming technology the other day. 35 minutes. Interactive session. Since everything for this year's event was digital, I love the name of your session. Speak up, Stand out. We heard talking a little bit about when you first learned maybe last month, that this event was going digital. Did you change anything? Were there certain elements of your expertise and your recommendations that are now more even more important? Respect to visibility and value? >>Yes, So what? I changed it. What I changed and Waas. I really wanted to make it as a conversational as possible, because in this isolation it's easy to not feel seen or heard, and I want people to be able to elevate again their visibility and their ability to add value. So a couple of things that people can do is they can actually rewrite their narrative if they need to meaning if you believe that if you do not define yourself, others well, and their definition will inevitably be inadequate. So if you know that you are seen as a very quiet person and a person that is in the background and you want to have greater visibility, this is a great opportunity for you to rewrite that narrative and make yourself more visible. Meaning, I think, the expertise that you have again the insight that you have, making sure that you bring that to the table. You can do it in a number of formats. You could do it not only on a zoom call with your colleagues, but you can. Also, your email is heightened if you're using language and the language of leadership language that really hurts. People's here, and that creates a visual. So now you want to do to really make sure that using language that is very vivid and allows a person to touch, taste and feel what it is that you're saying, so that's one of the things that you can do. The other is say, Is that what I want to make sure that my clients are not well kept secrets. I want to make sure that in this time of isolation that they're finding opportunities to reach out. So most everyone is at home sheltering in place so people have more time on their hands in terms of reading your emails. When researchers found that there is a 26% increase and say your newsletters being read your emails being written, so now is the time that you could actually heighten that kind of communication. >>That's fascinating. Look that you said about making what you're communicating in an email. Maybe it's even texture over something like slack, vivid. Say, somebody has a great idea, I think. All right, so terms have changed. My job function is difference, or it's challenging to complete certain Give me some words that you think. So now you're saying people are actually focusing more on reading what you're saying, What are some vivid words that I could use if I had an interesting finance project or a marketing project that I wanted to raise the visibility of and gets them to really feel what I'm looking at? >>So when you speak about up in a finance project, one of the things you want to do is think about what is a story that could articulate those numbers that can tell the story with those numbers. So if you were saying, um, let's just make it as simple as possible. Two plus two equals four. Well, what you want to think about is what is it that is going to be different when you finished this project, or what is it that's gonna be? It's gonna shift in the marketplace. And so you want to create that visual? What does the future look like? And using examples of things that are very basic to our life today, as opposed to using really complicated language. Now is the time to have your language simple, having very clear and having very vivid. So you >>run it, Go ahead. Sorry. >>No, please go. Right. Yet >>I'm glad that you brought up simplicity because so often I think people think maybe I'm managing a project or I'm creating a methodology, and I think, really, it's just it's the simple. But we often second guess ourselves because I think I included in this. A lot of folks think it can't be that simple. It's got to be more complex I need to show, you know, like an episode of I'm picturing an Apple sort of the Big Bang theory, and Sheldon's talking about strength there. You need to make it complex to show your value. And but sometimes it's the simplest methodology. The simplest way of communicating that is the most effective. Do you find out that sometimes spokes, regardless of their level of executive nous, are challenged to really step back and look at the simple way to communicate with the simple answer? >>Absolutely. And simplicity is best, whether it's during this time period or even beyond this pandemic, but particularly now. So I don't know if anybody's ever seen the show. The marvelous is, um, I think it's amazing. Yeah, single and one of the things that she asked her husband, She goes, Well, honey, what do you do? And so I think, in the first episode, and he says, You know, I signed papers, I do this, I do that and he says, I really don't know what the hell I do. And I remember an incident with one of my clients, and I asked her, What does she do? She gave me her job title and I said, Okay, how many people work in your company? And she said, 49,000 people work here. I said, How many people do you think have the same title issue? If she goes well, you know, I'm sure at least a couple 1000. I said yes. So what distinguishes you? And so she wanted to talk about the title, which is like talking about acronyms at a company. And I said So, Really, What do you do? What we realized is that what she does is that she was responsible the fastest growing market segment in her company that articulates your value proposition that made a very visit vivid and very brought it to life. So people are able to understand when someone asked me, What do I do? I don't say that I'm an executive coach because you may have read an article last week that says all executive coach us up, that defines May. I wanted to find myself. My value is, I hope smart people get promoted when they get promoted, they communicate the big picture. So I help smart people get promote and communicate the big picture. I provide executive coaching senior level executives. I articulated my value. You know who I work with their smart people, that they're not smart. They're not working with me when they work with me and get promoted. Why? Because it communicate the big picture. Really? Simple one sent it. So what is the value? That is what really heightens your visibility and heightens your and levels. Level up your ability to be seen and heard in organizations. >>And, you know, I was looking at your website. You've been 98% success rate of folks that have worked with you that have been promoted within the following 18 months. What are some of the both hard and soft skills that you're looking for? So when you work, when you select clients to work with that, that demonstrate they are ready to be in the six weeks >>Well, there's a couple of things. One is that person has to be open and willing and not being volunteered by the organization, meaning saying you need to do you have to do this. If it is mandatory that someone work with an executive coach, that's not a winning proposition. The winning propositions That person is open and open to change and ready to make change. As I say to my clients, if you want everything to remain the same, I am not the coach for you because you're going to see change and you're going to see significant change. So that's one the other is preparing your organization for the kind of change is going to take place so that your organization begins with C and hear what you're doing different. So, for example, I would say to a client, if you're prepared to really step up and make the commitment to making the shift, you want to let people know what kind of shift that you're taking you're making so that they can begin to look for people like to look for success. They like to be able to reward you when you're successful, but you've got to let them know that you're there >>for that shift. >>So that's one of the things that's really important is that people be open to it and they'd be ready to take their spotlight. If you want to do it and remain behind the curtain, that's wonderful. This is not the work for you. >>It requires a little bit of vulnerability that, or maybe a lot of vulnerability to be able to do that, not easy, unless you're bringing a brown fan like I am talk to me about, especially in this time with covered 19 The uncertainty in every aspect of our lives. Every single aspect is it's dense and it's an emotional challenge. So do you find that it's harder for some folks, whether they're men or women, to do what your title says? You know? Speak up, let them know I'm coming. I'm on my way. How are you advising folks from a psychological perspective, to be able to do this? >>Well, I think there's a couple of things. One is that with the three questions I ask every client and those three questions are one. How do you see yourself? How do other people see you? And the third is, How do you want to be seen? So when you're able to answer, become introspective and answer those questions from the heart from your heart, then you can get really clear about what you want the world to know about you and how you want to show up. And it does require vulnerability. It requires you to look inward first for you to make that decision on how you want the world to see you. And then once you're able to make that, get that clarity and so it's process make getting that clarity. Then you can speak about that to the world. My thing is, is again. If you don't define yourself, others will, and their definition is inadequate. So when you define yourself, you know who you are and what you stand for. You can then shout that at the top of your lungs. But you don't really have to, because your actions will speak very clearly about what it is and who you say you are and how you want the world to see you. And you're always asking, am I can grow it? >>I love that about defining yourself so that others don't do it incorrectly. Talk to me about how somebody can develop their own communication style. How what are some of the steps that they need to recognize that, for example, if you see someone, anything there too bold or there to brush, or maybe dial it back a bit, especially because messages are getting read more now, which that process internally that I would need to take to develop and effective communication style. What is it >>that you need to do to to develop that effective communication style one? As I said, being able to define what that looks like for you and what that is may not be appropriate for every organization and every corporate culture. So you need to find immediate. Make sure either evaluate whether not you're in the right corporate culture so that you can be successful and or find a new one so that you could be successful once you have that, really, um, helping the people in your organization to make it easy for them to come to you. So by extending by extending yourself first, that is one of the things that I would say it would be really important in terms of stepping up during this time frame is saying, I feel really this is really let's say, someone has been felt really shaken by this really shaken by this. But I am determined so leverage this as an opportunity to really show up as my best self and show my greatest humanity. And I think that when we let people know what did it, where we're going and where we're headed, This far more easy for people to support you and provide you with the venues in which to exhibit who you are. This is a great time for you to volunteer A so much as possible to have that visibility. Because I think one of the questions you asked me earlier is how do you get hadn't become comfortable with this? You get comfortable with it by practising, Lady Gaga says. We're born that way, but we are. The only way that it happens with people that are really successful is because they practice >>something that is so interesting. Is during this time in particular, is getting is accountability, right? It's so easy right now more than ever to lose accountability. And I like that. You said that That's what I'm hearing when you say, you know, let people know that direction that you're going in. I think for the person you set that okay, I publicly said this, I need to be held that I need to hold myself accountable so that I deliver. I think there's a lot of power in that >>there is, and when you step up and articulate to the world. Well, you're about what it is that you're going to deliver your level of excellence. You hold yourself accountable because the person who is most important for you to be accountable to is yourself. Others come second, actually, sort of like being on the airplane in the mask. You've got to do it for you first. Because if you let yourself down, that's the that is the most horrific. And so stepping up to that is so much. There's so much power. And I believe that people provide you with a lot of grace when you do that and people know they can count on you. >>And that's so important knowing demonstrating your dependability in any situation. Sherman, I wish we had more time. It's been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for sharing your insight. I'm gonna be visible show value and the vetted and communication and accountable. Thank you so much for joining me. >>Have a wonderful day. You >>as well. And for Charmaine McCleery. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the Cube's coverage of the digital version of women transforming technology 2020 for now. >>Yeah, >>Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

>> From Palo Alto, California it's theCUBE, covering VMware Women Transforming Technology 2019. Brought to you by VMware. >> Hi Lisa Martin on the ground with theCUBE at VMware Palo Alto California at the 4th annual Women Transforming Technology event wt². And pleased to welcome to theCUBE for the first time Rashim Mogha, the Head of Product at Automation Anywhere. Rashim it's great to have you on theCUBE. >> Thank you so much Lisa very excited to be here >> And good to see you again you and I were, moderating the together woman achieve event a few months ago that Dell sponsors back in I want to say November 2018 >> Yeah. >> where you one of the exciting things in that swag bag was one of your five books, Fast-Track Your Leadership Career. Tell me about the book what inspired it what can readers learn in that book. >> Absolutely so I come from a project management background and for me everything has to be in the form of a template and that's how it works, right? So when I was new to my leadership career, I would read all these leadership books but they would just focus on one area so you had to read like so many books and skim through all those books to extract what worked for you. Now for me it was important to kind of templatize that and when I templatized it, I actually started talking about it at various events, one of them was Women Transforming Technology last year and as I gave that after I finished that session and we started I started walking out, one of the attendees came to me and said, this was such great information do you have a book? and I said no I don't but I'll have one soon and then I met with my publisher whom I met through one of the speakers at WT2 and we started working on it and in September we had a book. >> September 2018 and then, probably surprisingly to you 11 hours later, this book was on the Amazon number-one bestseller list. >> Yes it was >> that must have been like whiplash what? >> It was a very emotional day it was a roller coaster so we had thought about my publishers had more belief than I did in terms of the book having the potential to be an Amazon bestseller. And number one bestseller to be precise and I was like okay let's give it a try. So I was supposed to go to Grace Hopper Conference last year at that time, and I decided to stay back because the book launch was planned on that day. So we launched we started telling everybody that the book is on Amazon, at about ten o'clock in the morning and by seven o'clock I got an got a text message from my publisher with the screenshot, saying it was number one. >> So yeah very exciting it it took me a few days to realize what it really meant to be an Amazon bestseller. >> I bet that feels amazing. So tell me a little bit before we dig into the book and what you're doing here at wt² today, tell me a little bit about your career path in technology so we can understand some of the recommendations that you're giving the current and subsequent generations about how to fast-track it. Where did you start was it I was a stem interested kid to college. >> Yeah so I was actually studying to be a doctor because I come from India so in India they're just three careers, you're either a doctor or an engineer or you're nobody right so and this was when I was growing up so I actually unfortunately fell sick and could not take my medical exam and missed it actually took the exam, missed it by a few points and and did not know what to do because all my life I had thought about becoming a doctor and it just so happened that there was a computer science program that was out there and my mom saw, saw in a scholarship opportunity over there and she said well just give it a try if you get the scholarship then we'll talk about it and then fortunately for me I got 75% scholarship in that. So I was like okay I'll give it a try so I botany majored and did computer science and that's where my journey started into into the technology field. And got an opportunity to be absorbed within that group the same company absorbed me as as a developer. And within six months I get an opportunity to write a book and that was amazing because I never thought that I could be a teacher or be in front of anybody because I am so impatient as a person right? So so then we started when I started writing the book I realized , this is a great way to empower people and you know and it's a it's a great way to use my technical skills but also my writing abilities. And then you know six months down the line, I got an opportunity to be a project manager I took that so in my life if you see if my career path I've kind of bounced around a little bit, taken risks early on in my career and I continue to take risks in my career because if you don't give it a try you would never know. >> Exactly. >> So and that's what I tell women today like when you come out of college or even if you are in somewhere in your mid-career. You know don't don't tie yourself to a particular job role, or to a particular area try out different things and if there's an opportunity that's given to you, grab it with both your hands and then figure out how you're going to do the job well. >> I like that I always think if you have a goal that doesn't give you butterflies, it's not worth having. >> Yeah >> So in in just giving our viewers a little bit of a snapshot what are some of the things that they can learn and take away from Fast-Track Your Leadership Career book. >> Yeah so first and foremost is understanding your superpower right? How are you different from other people what do you bring to the table that others do not. Because in today's day and age, almost everybody does a great job right? What sets you apart for the next role is what you should always know. Building your personal brand most often we introduce ourselves as what job title we have and the company that we work for. It's important to know and have your identity beyond the company. The third piece is understanding the difference between sponsors and mentors. And that is the place where I think women really need to invest some time because we normally seek mentors. We very rarely go out and look at people and say you know what this person is going to be my sponsor and she or he is actually going to be my cheerleader when I'm not there in the room and and recommend me for that next job. >> So that's the difference between a sponsor I like that a sponsor and a mentors. Mentor is giving you advice and guidance, a sponsor is actually out there championing, >> Absolutely >> why you should hire a Rashim bring her into your team, these are all the great things that she does. >> Absolutely and then then there are other topics that we cover we cover navigating work politics. Most of us tend to stay away from politics but actually how to get into that you know understanding that I would call it work force intelligence if you will and leveraging it to further your projects in a good way. And then also building your support system now typically when we women talk about support system, we think about just two aspects. Emotional support system and the logistic support system but but there is also financial support system and intellectual support system and that's what you need to start building, to be able to further your career. >> I got to get a copy of this book. You probably have some, I'm guessing (mumbles). So you have a couple of sessions here at WT wt², building voice experiences through Alexa skills but one that I want to dig into in the last few minutes that we have. Project you a DevOps approach to a leadership career. Tell me about that pan and that breakout. >> Yeah so if you if you really look at the concept of DevOps it's or CI/CD model its development and then pushing it into operations and then moving into development again and then operations. So when you actually start preparing for your leadership career, that's the way you go. You you rinse and repeat the cycle what works for you in this role, will not work for you in your next role. So how are you continuously preparing yourself and using that DevOps approach, to kind of move to the next level, is what we'll cover in that session. >> That's fantastic. So one thing I also want to mention is that so we talked about becoming a number one Amazon bestseller, the book Fast-Track Your Leadership Career, just about six months ago in fall of 2018. It also inspired you to found, an initiative called eWOW, empowered Women of the World. Tell me a little bit about eWOW and why this book book number five being so instantly successful was so inspirational for eWOW. >> Yeah so I come from a training and enablement background so for me it was and and you know when you when you look at my personal brand, it's all about enabling and empowering people. So I wanted to basically find avenues, to be able to empower other woman. And essentially you know at eWOW, we believe that every woman, has the capability or is a leader in her own, you know her own right. And all that she needs is an intellectual platform and a framework and that's where eWOW came into being. We started off with just podcast, doing weekly podcast picking up topics around leadership and technical topics, we have audience in about 20 countries right now and then as an extension to that, we also launched five Alexa skills and that's going to be the topic that I'm going to be speaking about later today and it was all about you know different ways of enabling and empowering people. >> I love that. Well Rashim it's been such a pleasure, to have you on theCUBE. We thank you for giving us some of your time and we look forward to talking with you again about, maybe book number six? >> Well you never know. Last time I walked out of this conference, I had a book in ring so you never know what's up. >> You never know. But thank you so much. Your story is very inspiring and and i can't wait to, get my hands on a copy of that book. >> Thank you so much. >> My pleasure, Lisa Martin with theCUBE on the ground at wt² from VMware. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> From Palo Alto, California, it's theCUBE. Covering VMware, Women Transforming Technology 2019. Brought to you by VMware. >> Hi, Lisa Martin, on the ground with theCUBE, at Vmware in Palo Alto, California at the fourth annual Women Transforming Technology event, WT-squared. Love this event. So excited to welcome back to theCUBE Betsy Sutter, VMware's Chief People Officer. Betsy, this event is incredible, year after year. >> Yeah. >> How do you do it? >> I don't do it. A team of people do it. But I love it and I love it that you're here. You're as passionate about this as I am. Our fourth! And this one is bigger and better than ever. I love it. And, you know, it's really all about just connecting women so we can continue to innovate and shape the future. So, super fun! >> It is super fun. One of the things that I love is that as soon as you walk onto the campus in the morning, ahead of the event, even walking up to registration, you can feel positivity, sharing, collaboration, experiences being shared. This community movement-- you literally can feel it. And then we walked in, your opening keynote this morning. >> Yeah, wasn't she amazing? Joy Buolamwini >> Wow. Amazing. What she was sharing. Breakthrough data of all the biases that are being built into just facial recognition software alone. >> Yeah. >> Her passion for highlighting the bias and then identifying it and then mitigating it, that passion was not only coming from her, but the entire audience. In person, I can imagine the livestream, just got it. >> Yeah. You know, she is amazing. I mean, she's an innovator. I mean, she's a brainiac. She's funny, she's artsy. But she's an innovator. But what's interesting about her is she's an inclusive innovator. Right? It's all about inclusion and I love her approach to this. I just spent an hour with her in a Fireside Chat where a number of us got to have a conversation with her and she's about as interesting as anybody I've ever met in terms of where she's taking this research so that she can create, just a better world. >> And she's doing that. One of the things that was, the word inclusivity kind of popped up, and intersectionality, a number of times, where she was showing data, AI data, from Microsoft, IBM, Face++, and just showing the massive differences in those data sets alone, so the whole inclusivity theme was very paralleled, in my opinion, but she's actually getting these companies to start evaluating their data sets to change that so that Oprah Winfrey, for example, face recognition doesn't come up as a male. >> That's right. Yeah, she has done some interesting, interesting work, and she's not approaching it as if it's a race issue in particular, right. She's taking a completely different, very positive approach, to highlighting a real problem. I mean, we knew that inclusion is a challenge in technology, but inclusion in artificial intelligence is by far worse, and I love it that she's unpacking that. >> I also love that, as a marketer, I loved how she formed the Algorithmic Justice League. >> Right. >> I couldn't think of a better name, myself. But that she's seeing three tenets of that. One is highlight the bias. >> That's right. >> And I thought, that's awareness. There needs to be more awareness of that because my mind was blown seeing these models today, and then she brings in Amazon and shows them, look at your data sets. >> Right. >> And so there needs to be more awareness, consistent awareness, it's kind of classic marketing of, there are a lot of challenges, but AI is so pervasive, I can imagine a lot of baby boomers probably have iPhones with facial recognition and don't understand, wow, even that, unlocking my phone, is a problem. How deep does this go across emerging technologies that are being developed today? >> That's right. And then she just talks about, in such broad terms, I mean she has a global mind around the social impact that this is having, whether it's in artwork, whether it's in self-driving car technologies, whatever it is. I mean, it's huge. And she's able to kind of look out and think about it in that light. And given the work that we're doing at VMware around inclusion and diversity, it's kind of a fresh new angle to really unpacking the layers of complexity that face these issues. >> Yeah, you're right. That was a thing that also caught my attention was there were so many layers of bias. >> Yeah, yeah. >> We can think of, you know, the numbers of women, or lack thereof, in technology. One of the things that Joy said, kind of along the parallels of layers was, the under-represented majority, as she says, it's women and people of color. >> That's right. >> It's layer upon layer upon layer. >> It is. >> Wow. Just cracking the surface. >> She's just scratching things, but the way she's doing her approach, I think, just brings a whole new light to this. I'm very grateful that she was able to speak to all of us, right. It's really about bringing women together to have these kinds of conversations so we can start to think about how we want to innovate and shape the future. She also touches on just this aspect of communities, which I love. And, you know, I've long said that people join communities, not companies, per se, and one of the things that we've done at VMware is tried to think about how do you create an inclusive culture, if you will, that embraces all sorts of communities. And Joy just started talking about a whole new dimension to how we think about that, which was fun. >> So you have been at the helm of people at VMware for a long time. >> I have. >> Lots of transformation. >> Yeah. >> I'm curious to get your, if you look back at the last four years now of WT-squared, how have you learned from even just speakers like Joy and helped to transform not just WT-squared but VMware, its diversity and inclusion efforts in and of themself? >> Yeah, you know, one of the things that I love about VMware and I love about WT-squared is that it's really a consortium or a collective of companies coming together, so this is not a VMware branded event, or a VMware event just by itself. It's just a collective. And then we try and broaden that circle so we can have more and more conversation. And I think that's what I'm most pleased with, I mean, we work hard at making sure that this collective is involved from the get-go in terms of, what do we want to talk about, so we can have the real and relevant conversations about inclusion and diversity, especially as women in tech, which, in some regards, is getting better, but in many, it's just not, and so how do you double down on that in an authentic way and really get business results. >> Exactly. It's all about getting business results. >> It is. >> One of the things that surprises me, in some cases, is when you see, whether it's from McKenzie or whatnot, different studies that show how much more profitable businesses are with women at the executive levels, and it just, that seems like a no-brainer, yet there's so many, the lack of women in technology, but also the attrition rates. >> Yeah. >> Really staggering, if you look at it, compared to any other industries. >> That's right. And, you know, we have a longstanding relationship with Stanford. >> Yes. >> The Clayman Institute. VMware helped found the VMware Stanford Women's Leadership Innovation Lab, which I'm exceedingly proud of. But, yeah, research shows this over and over. But one of the things that I love about my work is bridging that into how corporations operate and how people just work at work, and so that keeps me intellectually engaged, I'll say that, for sure. But, yeah, that is the big challenge. >> I'm also, what I love, just observing the attendees at the event, is you see all age levels. >> Yeah, I love that, too. >> And you have the tracks, the Emerging Leaders track for those who are younger, earlier in their career, The Executive track, the Technical track, and you've got a track about of sharing best practices, which I also love, or just hearing stories of, "How did you face this obstacle, maybe it wasn't, that didn't cause you to turn, or to leave the industry?" I think those are so important to help share. "Oh my God, I'm going through the same thing," for example. But might just help the next, or not just the next generation, but even those of us who might be middle-career from not leaving and going, "Okay, maybe it's the situation, I need to get into a different department, a different company, but I love technology and I'm going to stay no matter what." >> Yeah. Keeping those conversations elevated is one aspect of this, but then to your point, the cross-pollination of all these different kinds of women and what they've experienced in tech, the panel today was amazing, right. We had Ray, we had Lisa, and we had Susan. All different perspectives, different generations, but talking about sort of their challenges as they've navigated this, and where they all want to see it go. So I do think there's a bit of a common vision for where we want this to go, which is wonderful, but bringing all these different perspectives is the differential. And that's what we do here. We try and replicate that. And what will happen all through the day as I go to those different tracks, I'll hear from these different women and the questions are always just a blast to hear, right, because I learn so much from what's top-of-mind, what's keeping people up at night as they venture into tech and continue into tech. >> Anything in particular that surprises you? >> You know, one young woman asked me about my concern around communication and interaction because of how technology's affected how people do that-- rarely face-to-face like you and I are right now. And there're so many other visual and sensory cues that go into having a conversation with another human being, so we had a great conversation about what's good about it from a technology standpoint, and what's bad about it, and I think that's actually what Joy was talking about in her talk today, as well. But I was pleased that a very young person asked me that question. I know people of my generation, we talk about it, but it was fun to hear, kind of inspiring to hear a younger person say, "Is this all good?" >> Well and you're right, it probably was a nice, pleasant, refreshing surprise because we think of younger generations as, kind of, you say, cloud-native or born of the cloud, born on the phone, who are so used to communicating through different social media platforms. To hear that generation saying, you know, or even bringing it to our attention, like, "Shouldn't we be actually talking in person or by using technology like video conferencing and zoom things for engaging?" Think of how many people wouldn't fall asleep in meetings if video conferencing was required? >> That's right. That's exactly right. And another woman, a little further along in her career, what was weighing on her was how she stayed being a responsible and ethical person when she doesn't really know all the ingredients of what she's helping to create. And that's just a mindset that I haven't heard before. I thought that was wonderful. >> That is. Because we often talk about responsibility and accountability with respect to data science or AI, for example. It's interesting to hear an individual contributor talking about, "Where do I fall in that accountability/responsibility spectrum?" Is not a common question. >> No, and you know, we think we're creating a world of more transparency but, really, when you're coding you're not really sure what might happen with that code. And I thought Susan Fowler did a lovely job talking about that today on the panel, as well. That there's a huge responsibility in terms of what you're doing. So connecting those dots, understanding all the ingredients, I think corporations like VMware, and VMware does this in large part today, it gets harder, it's more complex, but we're going to have to answer those questions about what kind of pie or cake are we really baking with this, right? >> Exactly. Exactly. Could you have, if you looked back to when you first joined VMware, envisioned all of the transformation and the strength in community and numbers that you're helping to achieve with women transforming technology? >> I really couldn't. I mean, the industry is amazing, you know, I was at the right place at the right time and got to ride this tech wave. It's been great. No, I couldn't have imagined it, and now things are moving at an unprecedented place, things are much more complex. I have to call my adult children to get input onto this, that, and the other. >> (laughs) >> But no, it is a dream come true. It's been an absolute honor and privilege for me to be a part of this. I love it. >> When you talk with VMware partners or customers, are they looking to-- Betsy, how have you been able to build this groundswell and maintain it? >> Yeah, you know, my focus is primarily on the culture and the environment of the company, and I'm a really good listener. So that's the key. >> It is key. You just listen and pay attention to what people are saying, what matters to them, what's bothering them, and you continue to hold on to, sort of, those, you know, those North Stars of what you're trying to build and I always knew that I wanted to build the sustainable cultures, something that would last the test of time. So we're at 21 years. I've done 19 of them, so it's been great. You know, but you want to make sure you keep that rebar in the ground as you continue to build up. This community is solid. They're doin' it. Yeah, it's great. >> And it must be receptive. We talked about companies or leaders or businesses being receptive to change. I think I talked about that with Caroline and Shannon, who were part of that panel, and said, you know, oftentimes, we're talking with leaders, again, business units, companies, who aren't receptive to that change. Cultural change is really difficult, but it's essential. I was talking with Michael Dell a few months ago at Boomi World and said, "How have you managed as Dell has grown so massively to change the culture in a way that, you know, enables that growth?" It's a really hard thing to do. But for companies to do digital transformation and IT transformation, the culture, the people have to be receptive. I think, to one of your strengths, they have to be willing to listen. >> Yeah. And you never really arrive, right. So you constantly are in beta mode in the world, and so if you never assume that you've arrived, then you can pause, or that you just constantly want to beta things, then you have an edge, and I think Michael Dell's clearly got vision around that, right. I know Pat Gelsinger does, too. And so I like just partnering with those great minds, those great business and strategic minds, and then just building on the people component or the cultural component. But I, too, I'm constantly trying to produce new products and pay attention to what the customer wants. >> When you see things in the news like some of the harassment issues, say, for example, that Uber has experienced, I imagine you're watching the news or reading it and you're thinking, if I could just say three things to those people. When you see things like that, what are the top three things you would recommend that, not in reaction, though, but how can that culture change to deliver the customer experience, ultimately, that they need to, but what are some of the things that you think, these are easy fixes? >> Yeah, I think in watching a lot of my companies in the industry and how they've responded, for me, my advice would be, you should elevate that conversation. That conversation's not going to go away. And so you need to elevate it, give it a lot of sunlight and oxygen, really understand it, don't try and move away from it, don't push it down. And that's something we do at VMware, we're constantly elevating the conversation. One of the things I love about this culture, it's made me a lot better at what I do, is I can always answer the question, "Why are we doing that?" And so that's, why are we doing that? And if I can't answer why, we have a problem. And a why just sort of symbolizes intellectual curiosity, right, so that's what we're trying to keep alive and that's what I tell my other colleagues in the industry is just keep that conversation going: there's no quick fix to this, people are complex, don't pretend you really know. So elevate it and let's get to really know each other a lot better. >> And there's so much good that can come from any sort of blight or negativity, there really is, but you're right. Especially in this day and age, with everything being on camera, you can't hide. >> And, you know, it's okay to admit that you made a mistake. >> I agree. >> It's really okay. And so there's something about that that we've got to get back. >> I think it's one of the most admirable things of any human trait or corporation is just admitting, ah, this was the wrong turn, >> Right. >> I said the wrong thing. >> You know what, we made a mistake. We've course-corrected. >> I'm human. >> Yes. >> Exactly. >> Exactly. >> So we talked about Joy opening things off today and Ashley Judd-- >> I know, I can't wait. >> I bet you can't wait. She is the closing keynote. What are the things that inspire you about Ashley's work? >> I just think that she's wicked-smart. And I think she's using her platform in a really powerful way. And for her to want to come here and speak to us just reflects her passion, and the juxtaposition of Joy with Ashley is fabulous, right. Really gives you a lot to think about, so I can't wait to see Ashley. >> And just even juxtaposing those two, like you said, you can just see massive diversity there, in thought, in background, and experience, in life experiences, but both coming from different perspectives and different angles that can be so inspirational >> Yeah. To all of us in the audience. >> Yeah, and positive. You know, they're taking this positive approach to this movement and, yeah, very different women, but both really, really smart, very passionate. Resilient, clearly. And persistent. They're going to keep movin' it forward. >> Persistence is the key. So, great event so far. It's not even over, but what are your dreams for next year's event? >> Oh, we just have to keep going. I'd love to see more companies join the consortium. We've learned a couple things about, we just are going to start the conversation earlier about what we want the event to be. We love hosting people on the campus, obviously, and luckily we have terrific weather today, but I would just like to see companies come together and have the conversation, and that was really the impetus for this, is that we wanted to make sure we got a lot of diverse perspectives that were dealing with these real issues, and let's talk about what women in technology at all levels, as you pointed out, what's top-of-mind for them? And what do they need to have the conversation about? Let's bring 'em together, let's let 'em connect and start to innovate and create the future. >> Well I'm already looking forward to next year, Betsy. >> Yeah, me too. >> It's been such a pleasure to talk to you again. >> Thank you, Lisa. >> Thank you so much for spending time with me on theCUBE today. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate your time. >> Super fun. >> Good. You're watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Women Transforming Technology, the fourth annual. Thanks for watching. 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>> from Palo Alto, California It's the Cube covering the em where women transforming technology twenty nineteen Brought to You by V. M. >> Where >> Hi, Lisa Martin on the ground of'Em were in Palo Alto, California, at the fourth Annual Women Transforming Technology Event, or W T. Squared one of my absolute favorite events to cover. And I'm pleased to welcome from one of the sponsors, Jennifer Cohen, the vice president of operations at Toyota Research Institute. Welcome to the Cube. >> Thank you, is that I'm really excited to be here to >> This is such a great event. It's It's morning time. You and I both have a lot of energy coming from even before you walk into the keynote here. Collaboration. The positive spirit, the energy, all of these women talking about and menas well past experiences. It's you walk in, and the energy of Deputy squared is palpable. This is your fourth year. So you being here now at all four >> have, and that's why I keep coming back because the energy here is so good because every year I walk away with tips I can use at work and in my personal life, championing diversity >> and diversity inclusion one of the tracks here, as well as trucks like helping emerging leadership the younger generation, which is key because the attrition rates in technology are so, so high. Tell me a little bit about Tech Toyota Research Institute, Terra What you guys doing? And what made it important for tea Right to sponsor W T Square this year. So Toyota Research >> Institute is a subsidiary of China. We're working on a really exciting things like autonomous driving robotics to help elders, agent place and material sciences. So it's really exciting next level stuff. And it's thrilling to kind of coming to work every day on things that we've been hearing about in the world. And now they're real world things, not just the Jetsons, you know? Yes. >> And so you were here as I mentioned the last three years. But last year, uh, when you were here, you were saying a minute ago. You leave this event every year with really useful kind of we'LL put it into tech terms act personal insights, absolutely clueless about your conversations at Tier I that where they said yes, this is an important event for us to >> sponsor, absolutely so that when I When I came back last year, I had brought a couple of folks from T. Ry to attend the event because I've been attending since the beginning. And as I said, every year I find something that I can bring back to the teams, if not multiple things. Andi weaken our chief diversity officer, Our senior chief of staff is also our diversity inclusion Head. She was very passionate about also supportive event. We're involved with Grace Hopper. We have a women's employee resource group. We're really putting our efforts our time here. They were glad to sponsor. And what was so exciting to walk into that room full of energy today and to see t rise logo up there? It was amazing. >> And I'm sure that for that you mentioned that there's about twelve of your your folks that are here that probably feel it's great that you're not just it's not just a logo. Now, this isn't just branding. This is actual. We're here, You're here. It's a focused, concerted effort. That tiara has an in fact when you join Tiara on the last couple of years, one of the things that inspired you was there's a Chena female leadership here, which is not >> common. No, it's definitely not definite, not common in my career. So one of the reasons I started at here I was because of my manager. Who's her name is Kelly K. She's our EVP and CFO, and she's an amazing leader and so on having the opportunity to go to another company. I wanted to go to one that makes a difference. Like tea, right? Look working to improve the quality of human life. And I wanted to work for somebody that I really respect. It could learn from on. It's been pretty rare in my career tohave women, female leaders to report to. So it's been amazing. And that, I think shows in the role that I have the role, that our chief of staff has Kelly's role and the fact that we're here today. It all flows through. >> So talking. Let's talk about more about flow as VP of operations tell me, like, for example, last year's W T squared what were some of the learnings that you brought back and used in your team, whether it's your management style or even hiring the next generation, >> so a few things that I've learned and not all of them are from last year. I'LL be honest. I'm not. All of them are ones I've just up like at you write. But some of them are things about management. Patty Vargas was here a couple years ago, talking about winds and challenges and really highlighting wins and every team meeting that something that it took back. And it well, it's not necessarily diversity. It's been transformational for me as a leader and really helpful to my team's. Then something. Other things I learned were about on, especially in a few years ago, about saying tohr, I'm not accepting any candidates until you have a diverse candidate pool. That's made a really big difference. And it's hard to say it's hard to stick with because it is hard to find women in technology. However, sticking with that has really helped in my career, hiring folks to have a more diverse team, >> so sticking with it, you've been in a technology for a long time. Tell me a little bit about your career path where you stem from the time you were a kid knowing I love computer science, or was it more zigzag ee >> Ah, little's exactly I was actually history, major say, But I always love technology. Back when we had trs eighties, I love technology. And so I actually started doing that to put myself through school, and I loved it so much. It's what I've stopped what's happened in technology for twenty five years, starting as health desk and systems administrator and moving my way up in my career over time, and every so often they still let me touch something technology and a firewall or some of my best. I keep a little bit of that skill set, but it is quarter who I am, and it's quarter Why I made it. Twenty five years sets >> a milestone. Congratulations, by >> the way, twenty five years in any industry that techno technology industry. I was reading some reports the other day upwards of forty five percent contrition, which is higher than any other industry. What have been some of the secrets to your Obviously I'm imagining persistence, but twenty five years is a long time to stick with anything, but you clearly have a passion for this, but I'm sure it hasn't been easy. Give us a little bit of an understanding and maybe some of those more challenging times you encountered. And how did you just kind of with that internal rules also know I'm I like technology. This is what I wanted. >> So, you know, it's always tough being the only woman in a room that's happened the bulk of my career, although thankfully, not a tear I but it has happened across and actually was the only woman at one company, and I thought it was gonna be a great opportunity. And I love the technology that we were doing. And I was excited Teo to infrastructure in operations and support it. And it was really a bad experience. And it wasn't imagine purposeful, but it was not great. And I was there a very short period time when I realized it wasn't gonna work and I had to take a real hard look. Don't want to keep doing this for a living. I do. I don't want to give up technology. So the right thing was to give up that company, right? And the right thing was t make sure that I stayed and what I loved, but not in the wrong spot. So I think being stubborn and persistent. Not being willing to give up the stuff that I love because the environment wasn't right was a huge part of why I have made it this far. And my daughter is a computer science major, and so I really want for her not to have to go through those things apart. The reason I come here today, what I'm excited about W T two is I want to make sure she has a far easier time of it than I had growing up. >> So was your daughter always >> an interested Or did she? Is she kind of following in Mom's footsteps? She >> wasn't the beginning. Actually, she don't want anything to do with it. And my mom's a c P A. And I don't want to do anything to find >> a way. >> So maybe a cool and her uncle, but never the parent, >> exactly. But as she took coding classes, she actually did Girls who code the seven week immersion camp she found like me that she loves it. So I think she'd like to not compare it to Mom. She doesn't want to hear Mom wars, but she absolutely has that same passion. She she loves to code and see the output and see the changes it can make in her life and potentially others. >> So she'd underground. Currently she is. You should give you anything back on the diversity in her. Yes, is she >> does. And I wish I could give you something inspiring. But unfortunately, she it's for four girls to forty guys. >> Okay, so maybe she has that. Maybe it's a DNA thing where she has that some people might say Stubbornness bad. However, I think you're a great example of how that can be, you know, sort of flipped that coin and look at it is persistence. What keeps her saying, I don't care that I'm for forty? >> I'm not sure. I think e think it's similarly the same thing that it's she's passing around and also she's had everybody's in lovely to her. She's had no mistreatment, so she's definitely loving it, but does notice that she's one of, you know, four out of forty. So but would you >> would you advise? And I, I know not like to say the next generation like your daughter's generation, but it's It's the generation of US women who are in technology now with the attrition rates. If they're in a situation, how would you advise him to recognize the experience that you shared with us? That this is situational? This is an industry wide. I'm not going to make a generalization. What would your advice be to them in terms of making that decision to not not leave? >> So I would say, actually, a mentor of mine told me when I was years ago at a company says, Do you like the work or do you do not like the work? Do you like the people do not like the people. If you don't like the people, you need to go somewhere else. But if you like the war, if you don't like the work here in the wrong industry and I like the work and I always have So I would say if you'd like the work, find the right opportunity and see what change you, Khun, doing the company that you're at. If you're at a company and things aren't right, have you to talk to a man in your manager HR there's ways tto see if you could fix it and if you can't, it's okay. Go somewhere else and do what you love. >> I love that it is. Okay, So one of the things that I'd loved digging on as well as you had gone to Terry's a HR and said, I'm not going to be looking at any candidates until you actually did >> a previous companies. But that is my stance since then, >> you know, >> it's without a diverse school, >> okay? And so what is diverse mean to you? What do you say to them? I know you can find us. >> Yes, Well, I diverse. I don't I don't want to dictate it. I just don't wanna have to, you know, the team's all be the same person. I think Joy is talking up the keynote right now about how important it is that we be careful of bias and that we look at those things and that we are having the people who build the technology be well rounded because this technology that's built here in the Valley goes all over the world has to serve everyone, not just the folks who build it. So I think it's having that same mindset going into it, goingto hiring >> one of and that's so important. And there's also debated. Is it a pipeline problem? I just read Emily changed Look proto Pia and where she kind of documents where that pipeline problem was created? Yes, many, many, many decades ago. And a lot of people would say it's a pipeline problem. But the majorities, the underrepresented, which isn't just women and people of absolutely well who say it's not a piper and problem this. And even if we look at a I, there's so many exciting possibilities. All the autonomous vehicle weren't that tear eyes doing, for example, that will impact everybody and jurors facial recognition? You know, there's probably people in the baby boomer, a generation that have iPhones with facial recognition. But the things that joy wish areas about the bias Easter thes malls being trained on, really, it gives me goose bumps. Didn't mind blowing more. People need to understand. We need better data and more diverse data, not just that to train the models to recognize more agree, but there needs to be lots of different, uh, data sets. So this inclusiveness and I think of diversity, inclusion. One of the things that I thought of when Joy was talking about inclusivity is its inclusivity of different data sets and different technologies, so that ultimately going forward, we can start reducing these biases and this technology that is all for good. >> And I think one of things that we've done is, you know, for our company, we actually had on all hands doing unconscious bias training like we are absolutely committed to making sure that we're thinking about those things on the idea if it's pipeline or if it's or or if it's not, I think it's a combination because the fact is, my daughter is in a class with four girls in forty men, and that's not necessarily, you know, there's no judgment there, but that's the reality. So there's pipeline. But I also think we can demand is hiring managers to have a diverse pool come to us? University isn't just I speak to women because that's what you know. That's my story. But there's not. There's, You know, we had those other kinds of diversity inclusion, you know, we have our G d l G B T. Q plus energy starts a lot of letters to get out at once. We have our women than allies. Yogi Employee resource Scripts were supporting that. It's here, I But I think, you know, we see people out there in the world all trying toe push forward on this. I think if we come out of these conferences and take those actions, that's how overtime it's going to get better. So that's my personal thought. >> I love that last question. What are you looking forward to? Taking away from Debbie U T squared for inclusive innovators as the >> well being of a company doing innovation? I'm really curious to see what's presented today, and I know that we've heard studies that talk about women, run companies and with women on board that profitability and innovation go up. So I think that the more inclusive we are, the better. All of our technology that comes out of the Valley is going to be so I'm looking forward to the whatever thought leadership is here today. That's different from each year that there's something different here that I learned it's not the same thing was Pipelines four years ago, right? Like the last year. It was a lot about women's leadership, so I'm really excited to see what comes out today. >> Well, Jennifer, I thank you so much for sharing some of your time on the kid with me today. And I think a lot of people are going to be able to learn a lot from us. Well, we appreciate your time. Thank you. My pleasure. Lisa Martin on the ground with the Cube. Thanks. For what?

>> from Palo Alto, California It's the Cube covering the EM Where women transforming technology twenty nineteen. Brought to you by V. M. Where. >> Hi Lisa Martin with the Cube on the ground at the end. Where. Palo Alto, California For the fourth Annual Women Transforming Technology Even W squared. Excited to welcome back to the Cube. Kathy Chou, VP of R and D. Operations and central services at work. Cappy. It's a pleasure to have you back. It's one of you will be back. So you and I saw each other this morning. Big hug. This is one of my favorite events to be at, and I'm proud to be here with the cute because this this authentic community of women is unlike anything that I've really seen or felt in a long time. Fourth annual. I know it's grown over the last year. What do you What are some of your thoughts, even just walking in the doors this morning? Well, it's funny. It is the fourth annual and I I've been toe all four. The very first time I came, I was not a B M or employee, and I fell in love with the company. The campus because it was the very first time. And every single time I come to one of these events, I either meet someone or multiple people better fantastics or learn multiple things that will help me do what I need to do and I will tell you, and I'm not just saying cause you're here. But last year when I met you, I just felt like there was an instant spark. And like you say at these conferences, don't you feel it's safe? You can. You could be authentic. You could be who you want to be. You could be vulnerable, right? And as we can learn with each other, we can share what we need to work on. You move on and we can also Peter chests a little bit right for stuff that we've done well that sharing is so critical. Eye all the women that I've spoken to today we look at even our own career. Trajectories are looking at a lot of the statistics of the loan numbers that women technology where where is the attrition happening? What's happening in and grade school in middle school when girls, you know between seven and twelve years old, way have to help each other build up cos it's just and I think there's no better >> way than sharing stories and cheer point that means being vulnerable. I think vulnerability is one of the best price you can exhibit, period. But it used truly conceit and feel the impact Hearing. >> As you've said, you've seen that over the last four years that this is really an authentic community in every >> sense of the word. Absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned quite a few things that I'd like to talk about. So first, is these >> young. Let's start first with diversity. Okay, I know a lot of people do talk aboutthe. They think of gender diversity or ethnic diversity. Diversity of the capital. >> Dia's much broader, right? It's okay. Diversity of experience, education, you know, geography, seniority, right. There's all different types of diversity. But if we do hope, focus in a little bit on young girls. Right? Because you think about that. I was just in the I wish conference in Cork, Ireland. Stop back. Yeah. And what was amazing about that was so this is all of Court County. They had all of the what they called secondary school girls every single one of them for two days at this conference. But they got to listen to speakers from all over the world to give them that confidence to stay in, because statistics are when they're in primary school or middle school. Right? Girls say I want to be a computer scientist. I wantto do this techie thing. I'm gonna do Sam with them when they go to high school there, given all these messages like, you can't do it and you don't look like a computer scientist, right? And then all of a sudden it gets It becomes because in her head and it really does affect our confidence. And then, sad to say, years and years ago, when I graduated from college, there was only nine percent of the women were mechanical engineers. Sad to say today, that number is not challenged much. Do something just conferences like these that give us the courage to be better mentors and sponsors of those that will come after us. >> I agree. I think that it's and in some cases it seems like it's so simple where we make I don't think we're making this so hard, but I think that having the opportunity of a community to just have okay like minded people in terms of experiences that they shared well, how did you get through this barrier of, for example, you know, really kind of dissecting to your point diversity with a capital B. There's so many layers to that. What does that mean? How do we achieve it? I mean, if you look at a lot of the statistics companies that have you say females, uh, on the executive staff are like twenty seven percent more profitable. Yes, the amount of oven of reinvesting of income that women do back into the community. Their family's one of the things, Joy said this morning in her keynote joyful Fulham. We need him saying that, >> right? So is it looking at women and people of color as the underrepresented majority that that was absolutely spot on? I absolutely >> thought it was spot on this well, and you know, if you think about it, think about these experiences. You know again about diversity. There's a new dawn. It's a new phrase. But intersectionality is the word, which means, you know Okay, you're a woman. I'm a woman. I'm an Asian woman, But I'm also a woman that lived on the East Coast. I went to these sorts of schools. I had these types of experiences. So what it means is everyone bring something to the table. So if you really think about diversity now, we'LL hear this talk about inclusion. That's kind of the big word. And I've I've actually witnessed this myself on my own team because if you look at my direct staff on paper, when you look at them, they look very diverse. But actually diversity. That's like the tip of the iceberg. What you see is only the little piece when you bring down, get to those deeper layers. You realize, >> really how diverse team Miss Wright of spiritual >> diversity, experiential all of that and by including and created a inclusive environment were able to get the most out of diversity. And I think that's how you do it, because I thought about this. When you single out groups, you're not being inclusive, right? That's a good point. So I think the goal is to get what we can call the model. What we think is the majority, which is the minority to embrace the underrepresented majority and >> your perspective? How do you think V m? Where is doing on that? I was talking with Betsy said earlier, and some other folks and learned that the eggs I don't know how far down this goes, but at least execs are actually their bonuses are related to our tied to diversity and inclusion. That's a huge kind of bold statement that a company like the Mars making, not just to the tech industry, but every industry. Where do you think the emperor is on this journey of really identifying diversity and inclusion and actually starting to realise the positive impact? >> Yes. So first of all, I think you said something earlier. This is a It's an epidemic situation. OK, in that I do tell me, almost in every industry, there isthe right entertainment manufacturing, high tech, legal, professional, whatever way, there's an issue with diversity, and you're absolutely right. The peace and above our bonuses air tied to diversity, inclusion the awareness of the, um, where is second of them. The interesting thing is, there's no silver bullet. If it were that easy, we would've solved it. So what? It iss. It's one of those things where I say it takes a village and it's little things like talk about inclusion earlier, right? Hey, when you have a meeting, make sure everyone's voices voices are heard. Doesn't matter who it is. I don't care if it's a woman and under represent minority or white male. It doesn't matter. You shouldn't it? It shouldn't right. Everyone should be heard. And I was just giving a breakout talk about when you increase. Inclusion will drive more innovation. And that's my job as a leader of six hundred folks in an RD organization is to create that culture that allows people to have confidence, to take risks, to be vulnerable, authentic and to innovate right and to do new things. And if I can create that culture of inclusion, it will drive those business results. >> I couldn't agree more Tell me about like since we spoke last year. I love that driving inclusion to drive innovation. What are some of the things that you've actually seen as outcomes? Maybe just for your team as well as your own expertise as a manager? >> Yes. So I've been with him where for two and a half years, and when I first came Basically my team was a compilation of three separate teams, so each of them traditional silo new themselves in their own style but did not understand the power of the team across. So at that time, no one team was greater than one hundred people. Okay, let's say now imagine a mighty force of six hundred strong marching in the same direction, trying to do things together. One of the things that we're trying to do is start to build platforms across our organization. And what are the commonalities? That that's the difference is what commonalities across our teams so that we can drive that innovation much more effectively and efficiently. And so those are some of the things that we're doing have another fun story to tell me. Everything that I do to try to create an inclusive environment, just have opportunities for team members to meet each other. It's a simple assed. Hey, I don't know. Lisa. Lisa, what do you do? Oh, my gosh. I have a project that might need your help. I don't know how many times when we were working in the silos would enter calling someone outside our team to get the expert advice when it was on her own. And so we had one event when we had two people that sat next to each other. They didn't know each other at all. One needed some machine learning expertise. The other one was in machine learning enthusiast Fast. They came together. They have now built a patent pending piece of micro service called instead ML. That's so, uh, that's what happens when people when you're included >> and you think, Why is it so difficult? In some cases, technology is sort of sort of fuels that right because we get so used to being I could do everything from here >> on the phone from an airplane from the hotel from home, from or ever so we get more >> used to being less communicative. Absolutely right, Tio. Let's actually let's let's go back to the olden days where there were, You know, there was no device and phoniness and actually have a conversation because to your point, suddenly are uncovering. Oh my gosh. All of these skill sets are here. What if we did nothing for years? >> You're speaking my language. Eso You're absolutely right. But there's this. They used to be this rule that's a new one you wanted to communicate to someone. You have to tell them something seven times, >> right, because they're busy doing other times on the age of social media, they say. Now it's eleven times. Oh, great. And how I got exactly. So how often have you seen people who are sitting like this and they're >> communicating with each other? Be attacks and they're sitting right here. Why, it's >> important to go back old school. By the way, I think I'm old school. >> Whenever I want to pick up the phone, talk to my kids. It's on the phone. I don't care if they're, uh, ready for me to talk >> to her, and I just called them. It's because when you're innovating, it's not just the mind, it's the heart. >> And when you catch those human relationships, right is what makes the innovation stick. It makes you want to do more. It makes you want to achieve greater heights. Then you would have cause you're invested. You see, when it's an academic exercise, it's like check the box. But when you're invested in your hearts and you I feel like I can't let Lisa down, believe me, you're going to get more in depth and more advanced innovation. >> So with that and kind of the empathy approach in love to get your perspectives on a I, we talk about it all the time at every event that we go to on the Cube globally. And there's different schools of thought. Aye, aye is fantastic. It's phenomenal. It's it's becoming new standard, even a baby boomers known to some degree what it is. Yes, then there's the It's taking jobs away yet, But he's going to create new jobs. Yes, and there's the whole ethics behind this morning. Joy really kind of showed us a lot of the models and facial recognition at big companies that are better being built with bias. But one of the things I think that I hear resoundingly at events is it's going to be a combination of humans and machines. Yes, because machines can learn a lot. But it's that heart that you just mentioned in that empathy that comes from the human. So do you see those two as essential forces coming together is a. I continues to grow and take over the world. >> It's essential. Like you say. Technology is very How do we sit? Neutral. Okay, If you put it in front of a bad actor, it becomes bad. If you put it in front of a good actor, it becomes good. Okay, so technology is neutral, right? So now the goal is how do >> we ensure that we Khun tamp down the bad actors, people who want to use it for bad? And >> by the way, I am a fundamental believer that there are some jobs that should be automated. >> I mean, come on, some of the And by the way, things >> in the health industry. When you have big data and you've got a lot of things, you have to process a lot of information so we could be more accurate on things. Um, there other examples of if it's not in check, it can go right, right. Where will Over reliance on machines. Unfortunately, the seven. Thirty seven max eight is an example of it being too smart, right, and that >> you needed the human to actually adjust. So now I think also kind of combining a lot of the topics that we talked about. We need to train our children to understand that this technology is here to stay and with each and every one of them, how can they take that wonderful technology and use it for good? And I think that's the whole that's peace around inclusion. That's the peace around, building confidence in these young people and being examples. And so we need more people like joy out there so that she can. She has now raised this flag up saying, Hey, did you realize this >> happen? We need more young people. By the way, she's very young person. I'm >> totally impressed with what she's been able to do in here great for years, very, very inspiring. But if we all did a >> little bit of what joy did, we could change the world. >> Absolutely. The accountability factor and the social responsibility is so important. I was impressed with her on many levels, but one of them was the impact that she's already making with with Microsoft, IBM, uh, and actually starting to impact facial recognition a. I based on the research that she's done and show them Hey, you've got some problems here. So she's She's kind of at that intersection of your point neutral technology, good actors, bad actors. Maybe it's not good or bad. It's just Well, this is the data that we have. And it's training the models to do this. Oh, the but the accountability in the responsibility that it appears that a Microsoft and IBM face plus plus and even Amazon that she said, Hey, guys, look at how far off your models are. It sounds like these companies are actually starting to take some accountability. Civility for >> that? Yes, well, I think she proved it in our talk because last year, right, the numbers were in the eighty eighty percent tiles, and now they're up to ninety five. So you know, she's saying, by kind >> of being that lightning rod on this issue, one person could make this amount of change. Imagine if all was just a fraction of what she did, right? I mean, I think, and again, I feel very because I'm older and I have my own children just inspiring this generation, too. We could build up more joys in this world. >> So you have four boys. Yes. How are you inspiring them to finally become good humans, but also to look at the technology, the opportunities that it creates to be inclusive why it's important that some of the lessons that even parted on your boys >> Yes, first of all, I've one thing that's really >> important to me is I want them to accept whoever their partner will be for whatever they want to do. So if their partner wants to stay home and then you support them, if they want to work and go, do you support them? But just be supportive, be that partner, whatever that is, that's really important. >> The other thing is, I think just >> my husband and I are excellent examples of how that isthe, because he's an orthodontist and I've got a busy high tech job. I'm traveling a lot. My husband does more than his fair share of the household duties, and we split things pretty evenly. So I hope they've seen witness. It's not just talk, it's action and that this can actually work. And fortunately, I'm >> boys are a little older now because if you begin in the beginning, I thought, Oh, working. I don't >> know how these boys are going to turn out right, but three of them are college age and older, and they really turned into some fantastic children. The youngest is on his path as well as a junior in high school. And, you know, and I also see the type of friends that they make and how they treat women and other people that are different from them, and it just makes me very proud. >> Think the world needs more? Kathy Chow's I really dio Are you going off to see Ashley Judd? Her? What? Some of the things that you're looking >> forward to hearing her talking. Well, it's funny. I just came from a VP session. She is I again. You see someone right on the screen and you see him as an actor and you heard about Time's up and her speech and that sort of thing. But way had, but how were we just answered? Questions. She is so thoughtful, so connected, so well spoken communicates in a way that really touches you. She's another one of those lightning rides. I think w t, too, didn't excellent job of getting English speakers this year. Uh, and it's very different from joy. It's much more from a from her view, in her mind went in arts, and Joyce was much more from a technical aspect. But messages are the same, right? It's to be inclusive, understanding, embrace diversity and be authentic. You >> inclusive animators. Kathy is so great to have you back on the Cube. And Charlie, I know we could keep chatting, but we thank you so much of your time. We can't wait for next year. Wait. Excellent. Thank you for the Cuban Lisa Martin. You're >> watching the show from women Transforming Technology, fourth annual somewhere. Thanks for watching.

>> from Palo Alto, California It's the Cube covering the EM Where women transforming technology twenty nineteen. Brought to you by V. M. Where. >> Lisa Martin on the ground at the end. Where in Palo Alto, California for the fourth annual Women Transforming Technology event. W. Squared one of my favorite events, and I'm pleased to welcome back to the Cube, one of the leader female leaders at being where Lily Chang, the VP of of the strategic transformation office. Lily, it's so great to have you on the program again. >> Thank you. It's my pleasure and honor to be here. >> So this event, one of my favorites, as I mentioned, even just walking up to registration this morning. The energy, the excitement, the supports >> is in the air. >> Yes, And then you walk into the keynote, and it was kicked off this morning with such an incredible presentation, and number was actually mentioned earlier. That was about fifteen hundred people just in person today, not even mentioning the live stream. So the momentum in just four years that you guys are creating is huge. >> Yes, Well, where is a great place for diversity and inclusion that is one of our companies. Strategic Motif Way believed that in order to basically create the best technology in the world, today was the evolution and the advancement >> off. All these technology working together, we're servicing all genders origin globally. So that means the creation of this. We >> need to bring all these culture aspect to bring into our design thinking. So when we saw the problem, we are not solving in in a mo no fashion way actually can look at multiple facets. So having this event is part of our passion is really part of our DNA. Now >> I think that's fantastic. That's inspirational for other companies to really look it. It's not just an event that Veum were put on. This is really changing the anywhere from within as well. >> Yes, this a change process has started quite a while ago. I would say inherently Arjun Attic nature off of'em were is that we actually >> do believe in all genders are original founder and CEO was a woman, right? And so we pioneered a virtual ization and we believe in woman leadership. We believe in all levels off woman innovation, together with man and all the origin globally in the >> world That's fantastic. So I wanted last year we talked with you, which was fantastic. We're happy to have you back. I want to talk about something that you guys recently launching aboutthe last year helping women return to work. Tell us about Tara and just >> helping women how they are able to get back into technology. >> Yes, so this is one of my favorite topic. Basically, we talked about glasses, ceilings for decades, about woman in terms of how you break two classes ceiling, how you identified, how you work around it and all the things. There is a huge transparent glasses ceiling being view worldwide for a long time, and that is basically woman care about the society. Women care about the family, so, so, so so all the genders as well. However, there's a lot of the woman were forced. They may be technically very achieving in terms with their career or academic side. They have to basically take care ofthe parenthood, take care of family for various personal reasons. After a couple of years, their passion for the technology still exist. They want to join the war force to propel the world, and basically especially now, was the technology is put to a lot of technology for good, to help sustainability, to help medical field, to help disabled people. All these >> things right, but they're having a little bit of >> difficulty to read. Enter the work face and that's a glass is silly because their technology knowledge may be a little bit dated because just away how in the past ten years how you were in all >> the other Giants has propelled technology so quickly changes so quickly like three months >> is almost like a decade nowadays, right is moving in that quantum speed. So what >> we have done is basically we decided to create a Tara project. Is a woman returned to work initiative and we're basically >> launching specifically, focus on India region, right? And basically we are funding fifteen thousand woman, and we are training them and brought him up to speed about technology. Especially, was our software different data center in virtual ization? Networking storage? Right. So we are giving them a certification program, and that is something in some part of the world. That certificate moves a lot. It's like a pedigree indicate that you not only believe you actually know all this you've got evidence that you really know it and they're people. I certify you so with that, that enable them to be able to jump back into the workforce was full qualification and was a virtual ization being dominant in the world, right? Basically, it's like something that it's really hot and really relevant and were also helping them to basically connect with our customers in India so that they actually could be interview for future positions as well. How so, basically, is a into end strategy transformation to break the huge glasses ceiling >> here. Thick glass ceilings. So you fifteen thousand women this >> has just >> launched last year. How long is the certification program that they >> go through? We want to be able to achieve that. Go in the next couple years, starting this year >> starting this year, fifteen thousand women in the next couple of years. >> In the next couple years >> way, I should have >> got a few thousands already. So in the beginning for the first quarter, two were making very decent progress and Wei have a community partner. Happens to be a woman who co because they have a worldwide organization and they're sending the community message out to promote this. We also working really closely with the Indian government to push for this, to get their recognition for this as well, because we believe that will be beneficial for these woman we brought back to the war force. There's multiple aspect is not just touching the hearts in the soul ofthe many, many family, but is also basically injecting quality, highly qualified, incompetent technical talent back into the India community and industry, so that actually can proliferate and elevate the entire India technology level. >> Two shaves >> Transformative. I feel like that word isn't even strong enough, Lulu. That's remarkable. The potential that has on you mentioned the involvement of women who could have been on the board there for quite a while >> for more than three years now. >> And I was looking at >> some numbers with growth of that community alone is incredible. Over one hundred eighty thousand members in twenty countries So far you've done over eight thousand training's workshops. Hackathons conferences over two point five million dollars has been awarded in developer school in conference scholarships. >> Wow, the momentum moment is very high. It is very hard, you >> said you're even launching another country this year. >> We So we're not sitting on saying OK, we're satisfied. We're never satisfied because the world goes on right? So does the word expand. Thus the technology excel itself. We want to basically leap ahead with all this. So we're not stopping. So this year will Mexico and being where we're launching Costa Rica za So we believe we actually opened a lot of the region of the world and unlock the energy and the innovation and the community's oh gender to work together in India, China, Sofia. And we worked really closely with a lot of the industry technical giants and woman Wilco propelling this tech woman community in us and also in Europe. Now we will leave Costa Rica. It's a very strategic side for bm where >> tell us a >> little bit more about why is it sister team is a >> strategic for a couple reasons we are doing also world we are working together was a global community and the global clock. So Costa Rica is tine zone wise very nicely either bridge in between the other time zone with us and also it's overlapping very well with us times. Oh, so they actually could do a lot of the key business execution, including operation and IT and customer support. Technical support. So we do have technical people over there, but not enough technical woman Momenta way also believe the country can really use some help from us. So we're working with a woman who co and this is a decision will be assessing for awhile. But we believe that ranch in Costa Rico Ashley make it a blossom in that region off the world, not just Costarica. We're kind of looking that we hope it becomes a hub >> That's incredible, just but also not just what you're doing with Tara and with expanding women who code to Costa Rica. It's also the opportunity for actual economic benefits to these countries. But what I also I'm hearing is that, for example, with Tara, you're No, it's not just it's a the end where myopic. We want more women to come back to the workforce the way we want them too injured to be introduced to our customer base so that they can network, >> and it tends to establish report >> other opportunities for employment. >> That's right, even though they do not get a particular position when they are connected to a customer that is a relationship, and that is something that will stay with that woman in that talent for walk. And that is something that we feel is very important to connect all these critical stakeholders together. So Tara has that faucet ahs well, >> and you mentioned that there's already been about a thousand or a couple of thousand >> of thousands already gone morning. >> Twenty five hundred, I believe, >> any favorite success stories that come to mind. >> Yes, my favorites is says Story is >> the very first Tara Certify Woman is a woman who co member, so we're very, very proud of that because that shows the partnership actually works. That means a lot of the technical curriculum and a monthly meet up and all these technical conference. That woman who was trying to do the scholarship they try to handle all those are kind of a cumulatively paying off. Was Tara being the major critical push to push them over that glass ceiling limit? Right? >> I just think that's fantastic. I was looking at the woman who could website just the other day, and I saw that your event it was sold out >> you connect >> twenty nineteen? >> That's right. >> But just the moment on the excitement, the support in this community that is growing, as we mentioned earlier, one hundred eighty thousand plus tell us about the connect event >> Connected is a technical conference. We do talk a little bit about. The leadership in this office is skilled, but it has motive. All technology track. In fact, this year what we want to do is we want to start basically elevating into technology domain track because we now have a very successful who created leadership role like a city director. City Italy. They incubated from Weston ten thousand member in the past three and a half years. Two hundred eighty thousand member. A lot of the kudos and credit go to them, but as a result, we have wealth, body off woman talent that are highly technical and highly versatile in many, many fields. Right, because we believe today, for a poor talent to be successful in technology field, you cannot just specialize in one. If you look at Coyote, you look at a blockchain, all these emerging stuff. It's not just about a Iot machine. Learning is also about virtual ization about how well you can do the logic and the analytics and the data mining and the algorithms. Right? So basically we want to have multiple technology track, and that would include things like cloud like Blough Chan. And then that gives also a possibility for one who quote to create a individual contributor volunteer track, like we want to basically launched a notion off a cloud architect, right? So give basically people away to aspire to growth and so they can actually measure the growth, which is very good in the sense off that you know where you stand, you know, you can't plan for the next step. And so this isn't something that we want to be able to do, and we're basically launching that as well. Um connect also via were hosted open the Global Connect in India. This year we had a breakthrough. We actually have more than a thousand attendees. Wow, so that's like more than twice to jump from last year. Last year was about maybe three hundred. Niche, right? So this is a tremendous growth, and basically it's wonderful to see that there's a lot of technology track and the woman coming in sharing very openly about what they know and the sharing and the learning. And the coaching is part of the whole overall energy as well. >> So if we look at impact so far, the various impact that you talked about with both Tara, which is quite really in its history women who code w. T squared and we look at, say, even in the US alone, fifty percent of the population is female. It's a tremendous amount of women who are just women in general who are technologically savvy but are passed over for these positions. Then he kind of factor in into that fifty percent. How many of them are women who have had to leave the workforce for various reasons that we talked about earlier? There's a tremendous amount of of women out there with skills who aren't being looked at. Where is women who code? And Tara, where are you on changing those numbers from fifty percent too, you know, forty seven percent of forty five percent. Do you have any sort of strategic goals in your office? Numbers wise? Well, for me personally >> and the forewoman who co we wanted basically be able to change the world way. Want to offer all the technical woman in the world a choice for their career letter? So Tara is a >> way to do it to break one particular glasses. Silly, right? And there's also a lot of these scholarships. And olders is to help women to be able to do career, transform native patient change change, for example, Woman Ochoa's part of comeback. We actually handle five awards to recognize five outstanding woman leaders, in our opinion, one of them, she started with a woman who co was a individual member. She was just a junior engineer. But in less than two years periods, she is actually now a VP. Let's fast track. It's very fast track. So we believe in human power and potential way, especially believe in a woman that basically is under representative in a lot of the technology sectors. Our job is to unlock these potential and their barriers and roadblocks in various forms, right big and small. So the job is really to unlock all this way. Want to be able to move the needle up to towards the right direction with all these things that we're doing >> last thing here, let's finish with how you yourself have broken through many, many levels of glass ceilings to get where you are tonight. Share with us a little bit about your career journey. >> Micro Journey is recently about two and a half years ago, I moved from our indie world to strategy transformation office. It's a it's a one of these moments, I would say, is a glass a cliff, Right? You're standing at the edge of this glasses ceiling house and you're just about to plunge it in. That was the feeling I got two and a half years ago. But you know what? I am so loving it. It is basically the best occur decision I've ever made because there was a dimension that I could never have the experience and seeing before because I spent that case in R and D. A beautiful. A lot of these no hot and competency, and I just work with the business world. But in the transformation office, we do nto way actually bridged to world together. So basically, for me it was a fantastic learning journey, and it's just empowerment and the trust I got from the awards executives and all Michael workers, I feel like that is probably >> the most a transformative decision I ever made. It's not just your shifting technology field with the technical world. I literally shift >> into a buy one hundred eighty degree to a difference by truck. But my job is to connect Tonto and stretch together, which is something that I feel has profound impact for the company. And I just love every minute of it. Oh, >> and I love that. That's that's a great story. And it sounds like what you're doing. You're just at the beginning of all of what? Your transformation. So I can't wait. You know you next year. Thank you. Every great thing that happened to the rest of twenty nineteen. Really? Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. Thanks. >> I'm Lisa Martin here, watching the Cube coming to you from women Transforming technology. Fourth annual BMO. Thanks for watching

>> From Palo Alto, California, it's theCUBE. Covering VMware Women Transforming Technology 2019. Brought to you by VMware. >> Hi, Lisa Martin on the ground with theCUBE at the fourth annual Women Transforming Technology event VMware, WT squared, one of my favorite events and I'm joined by two PhDs, both from, I'm going to say this one time, the Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab, we've got Shannon Gilmartin, senior research scholar. Hi, Shannon. >> Hi, great to be here. >> And we've got, great to have you, we've got Caroline Simard, managing director of the lab. Ladies, thank you so much for joining. >> Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. >> So this event, we were talking about before we started, that you, walk into the keynote, opening keynote which in and of itself was electric but the energy that comes into the room with, VMware was telling me a little while ago, about 1500 live attendees. >> Incredible. >> Not even including those that were watching the livestream. The energy comes into the room and then, of course, this morning with Joy, I'm going to try to say her name, Buolamwini. The poet of code, the MIT researcher who started really, sharing with us the significant biases in AI. The energy, if it could even be down that more, I can't even imagine it, so. I can imagine the panel that you guys were on this morning was quite charged. The panel title was, I found interesting, Inclusive Innovators Designing For Change. So Caroline, talk to us about designing for change. You look through a design lens, what does that mean? >> Yeah, so I think what, to frame the morning, and then Shannon was the moderator, so I want, she picked the topic of design. But I think what Joy really showed is the power that is possible to realize when women and women of color and people from different dimensions of identity are included in creating technology and how much better technology will be for society, right? If all voices are included, and I would also say that some of her comments also make it clear that it is fundamentally irresponsible not to have diversity at the table in designing the technology of tomorrow. The consequences on different kinds of people and different populations are significant. And so this is why Shannon really picked this idea of, as engineers and designers and creators of this technology, how do you keep in mind the responsibility that you have? >> So yeah, talk to us more about the design and why that is so critical. >> And the way we positioned it for our panelists, it was titled Inclusive Innovators Designing For Change, and we were going to explore how meaningful change towards greater diversity and equity is realized in engineering cultures. And in the very technology that's being created. More specifically though, how do individuals and communities of people design for change in their technical environments? Even when this environment may not be initially very receptive to new ways of interacting. To new ways of thinking, to new ways of achieving. And so the whole panel was premised on this idea of people are designers of change in their environments. How does that happen? How do people interface with barriers to those design processes? And what is advice for the younger generation as they look ahead to their pathways as designers for change? >> Yeah, 'cause change in any context of life is hard. >> Yep. >> Yes. >> Right, it's an uphill battle. But designing for that change, I'm curious what some of the commentary was from the panelists about, when you're encountering, whether it's a company or a leadership group within a company that, to your point, isn't receptive, what were some of the comments or stories of how that was changed over time to become receptive and understand, the massive potential that that change can have? I mean we look at numbers like, companies with women on the leadership communities are far more profitable, so what were some of those, from, I don't get it, to, oh my gosh, why aren't we doing sooner? >> And we have this amazing range of perspectives represented on the panel, so we had a VMware CTO, chief technology officer Ray O'Farrell. And he was really talking about from a leader perspective, a key idea here when there are barriers and blocks and inertia, is to open things up and really start listening. And this is a skill and a talent and a group practice that is so little done, so infrequently done. So poorly done, sometimes. But really key in the face of those barriers is to actually say, instead of shutting down, open up and start listening to what's happening. Another one of our panelists, Susan Fowler who is the Time Magazine Person of the Year as one of the silence breakers in 2017, she was really talking about how, expect the steps, you're going to need to go through a lot of steps to make your voice heard. And ultimately, for Susan, she made the decision to go public with what she had encountered and was facing and grappling with and struggling, as were many of her colleagues. But she was really talking about the step by step process that's involved in a large organization, when you're hitting blocks, you just got to keep on fighting that good fight, and you also need to be doing your very best work at the same time, it's a high pressure situation. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> So. >> Absolutely, we also heard from Lisa Gelobter who is the CEO of tEQuitable, an organization that's creating a safe place for change agents to share their stories when they're encountering these blocks and this kind of unfair treatment. And she talked about, also, the need to do your best work but also the critical importance of community in being more resilient as you're trying drive change in your environment, right? And this is the kind of community that is being built today with this event, right? It's really paying attention especially for her, as a black woman engineer, being the only one constantly at the table fighting for change has been something that she has realized she needs to pay a lot of attention to so that she can be much more resilient as a leader for longterm change. Another topic that I think, in terms of generating change, that really came through both in the panel and during this morning's keynote, and that we pay a lot of attention to at the lab, is to really highlight bias. Is to really diagnose what is really happening in organizations? Or in AI, as we heard from Joy this morning. So a lot of people genuinely aspire to treat others fairly, right? But they don't realize that their workplaces are so far from being a meritocracy, that there's these structural inequalities that are really embedded in all of the ways that people are working. And so when you're able to show people exactly how it shows up in their company, right? The promotion rates for women of color for example, being lower than for other people, the exact points of data that they need to see, that they're not treating people the same way and creating the same kind of pathways for impact for different kinds of people, then that has a lot of power to drive change because a lot of people, then, will be very motivated to say, okay, I see this is happening in my org every day. Now I can design a different approach, right? How do I redesign the way I'm working today? In my units. >> And take action. >> And take action. >> 'Cause you actually have the data, it's such a dichotomy at times, that we have, we're surrounded by data especially in Silicon Valley. But one of the things that shocked me, what Joy showed this morning is, when she put on blast, IBM, Microsoft, and what was it, Face++, about looking at all of the built in biases to facial recognition. But, one of the things that really also, I thought, was interesting, was that, she went and showed this to these companies, who responded, and those numbers are actually improving. And then when she said, hey Amazon, so, the fact that even that one person is able to show, look at some of the massive problems that you're training these models to have, they need to be able to see that. So the highlight, I think, the highlight the bias, and the communicate, communicate, communicate and listen, are three critical elements to any place being successful. >> Exactly. >> Exactly. One additional part of both Joy's presentation and Lisa's comments too, really spoke to action needing to take an intersectional approach. So Joy's data breaks it down by race and gender and all of a sudden, you see completely different trends. Lisa spoke to that as well in her comments. Key to this designing for change process is really wearing the hat of someone who is looking through the world with an intersectional lens. And understanding how different axes operate together uniquely for different groups. And that's when you see these biases being highlighted really in full force, in full relief. So both of these points and these presentations really brought that up. >> Yeah and the intersectionality that Joy talked about was even evident and you could parallel it to, why it was important to look at all these different sources of facial recognition data, how disparate some of them were. >> Right, right. >> I know. >> Without that lens you couldn't see all of that variation even across the different providers. >> Exactly. >> Yeah, and she talked, too, about how everything is classified in a binary way, right? In terms of gender identity, and then where data doesn't even see people who are Non-Binary. >> Exactly. >> So it's like, >> That's still a huge omission >> again, exactly. That we have a lot more work to do to have data that truly captures all the dimensions we're interested in. >> It does, it does. Long way to go, but the fact that it's being highlighted and opportunities like, not just what VMware does but the lab as well. So let's talk a little bit about the lab. It kind of got its start in 2013 when then Stanford president Doctor John Hennessy, provided some funding. I had the opportunity to interview him last week, lovely man. Last year VMware did a big endowment of about 15 million. What's going on, Caroline, we'll start with you, what's going on at the lab? What are you guys studying now? What are some of the breakthroughs that have been uncovered in the last 12 months? >> Yeah, so a big part of our lab's work and since we began this work, has been to really bridge the gap between research and practice, right? And so a lot of why there's little progress being made is because you have a lot of research happening in the academy, in the ivory tower, if you will. And then you have a lot of innovative practices being tested but without necessarily the research foundation and the research frameworks to truly evaluate it. And so, our work has been to really bridge those two things together. And explore those boundaries so we can have more innovative research but also more evidence based practices come in, right? And since the VMware endowment we've been able to, really grow in our aspirations in the kind of data, in the kind of research questions that we can really ask. One of them is this focus on the more intersectional, longterm study of really documenting the experience of women of color. And really understanding the nature of their career pathways across racial dimensions, right? And really highlighting a lot more of, qualitative deep insight, generate their stories, right? And really centering their experience. The other one is, investing in large scale datasets that capture gender, race, age, and other identity dimensions and look at their longterm career trajectories. This is actually work that Shannon is leading. So we have an exciting dataset where we have people through five years and we see what happens to them, who gets promoted? Who doesn't? Who gets top talent designation, who gets a salary increase? Who, and then we're excitingly, looking at social network data, so who's meeting with who? And then what kind of connections do you need to be able to advance in your career? And are there some systematic inequalities there, right? And a big part of our work then is to design these interventions where we work with companies to test what we call a small wins approach. It always starts with diagnosis, here's what's going on in your very specific workplace and your culture. And then we co-design with leaders and managers. It doesn't work for us or HR or anybody to say, go do this, or you should do this. It's really about really engaging managers who want to do better in coming up with the design fix, if you will, that they can come up with. Informed by our research, so it's a co-design process. And then we roll it out and we test the outcomes pre and post, so. We're doing a lot more work now to disseminate what we're learning through these interventions so that other organizations can implement this very similar approach. >> First I love that it's called an intervention. 'Cause I think that's incredibly appropriate. (Shannon and Caroline laughing) Second, are you seeing an uptick in the last year of companies, obviously VMware and Dell being two great companies that are very focused on, not just women in technology, but I loved how Joy said today, it's women and people of color are the underrepresented majority. Are you seeing an uptick in companies willing to, accept the intervention and collaborate with you to really design from within for that change? >> Yes absolutely. And I would say that in this industry people are comfortable with piloting things and doing a little R and D experiment, right? So it's also a culturally appropriate way of thinking, okay, what if we try this, and see what happens? And so I see a lot of energy from organizations and based on what you were talking about, it's also, I think companies are aware that it's, the overlapping dimensions of identity increasingly aware, are within their own walls, but then, in their consumer base, right? So how is their product affecting different kinds of people? Are their customers experiencing bias from the very platforms that they build? And so I think that's also a very powerful, entryway into this intersectional conversation because, the product is, so foundational to the business of the company. >> It is, and especially event after event that we cover on theCUBE, customer experience in any industry, is critical because as consumers of whatever it is, we have so much choice. Shannon last question for you. One of the things that always interests me is the attrition rate being so high in technology. I'm curious what you guys are finding in the lab with, mentioning following women on maybe their first five years. Are you seeing any glaringly obvious, challenges that are driving that attrition? Is it, it's got to be more than the motherhood penalty. >> Right, right. We're looking at a range of, what we call pathway outcomes really for young people just starting out in their very first, second jobs, where they are several years later, we're looking at odds of promotion, odds of leaving the company, odds of moving and making a lateral move into some other kind of line of business, maybe taking them out of, let's say, a technical role and moving them into a non technical role. Each and every one of those critical moments is worthy of deeper study for us. And what we're doing, really, is taking this intersectional lens and understanding how do those different moments vary for different groups of women? It's not enough just to say, all women have some x percentage of an attrition rate. We're trying to understand how attrition really varies by sub-groups of women. And how that varies over time with what interactions that precede it and then follow. One of the themes that we've really been looking at in, for instance, attrition stories, is the assignment. Which projects, what kinds of assignments are people getting in their first few years on the job? How are some of those make or break? With what net consequence for women, men, from different racial ethnic backgrounds, different ages, different countries? And understanding, really, the role of those assignments in someone's longer term career pathway, just how important they are. And what kinds of interventions we can hand design to really elevate access to the best assignments for everyone, basically. >> Gosh, you guys, this is so fascinating and so inspiring what you're doing at the lab I wish we had more time, but you'll have to come back next year! >> Exactly. >> Absolutely we will thank you so much for having us. >> Thank you so much, Lisa. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. For theCUBE I'm Lisa Martin, on the ground at WT squared, thanks for watching. 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>> from Palo Alto, California It's the Cube covering the EM Where women Transforming technology twenty nineteen. Brought to You by VM Wear >> Hi Lisa Martin with the Cube on the ground at the end. Where in Palo Alto, California, for the fourth annual Women Transforming Technology, even W. T. Squared on event that is near and dear to my heart. Excited to welcome back to the Cube pretty much. Rog Lachman, engineering leader, blocked in at the end where pretty much It's so great to have you back on the Cube. Thank you, Lisa. It's amazing to be here, and I can't believe it's been a year, a year. And so last year, when Protein was here, she launched her book. Nevertheless, she persistent love the title You just Did a session, which we'LL get to in a second, but I'd love to get your your experiences in the last year about the book launch. What's the feedback? Ben? What are some of the things that have made me feel great and surprised you at the same time? It's been fantastic. I wasn't expecting that when I started to write this book. It was more like I want to impact one woman's life. But what was interesting is I delivered around twenty twenty five talks last year. My calendar's booked for this year, but every time I go give a talk, my Lincoln goes crazy and I'm connecting with all these women and men. And it's just fantastic because they're basically resonating with everything I talk about in the book. I spoke at the Federal Reserve. Wow, I was like, This is a book on tech and they were like, No, this impacts all of us And I spoke to a group of lawyers and actually, law firms have fifty fifty when they get into law, right when they get into whenever I mean live, I'm not that familiar with it. But getting to partner is where they don't have equality or diversity, and it's resonated. So now I'm like, maybe I should just take the word check out What? You It's been impactful. And so last year was all about companies, so I did. You know, I spoke at uber I spoken Veum, where spoken nutanix it's looking a lot of these companies last year. This year is all about schools, fantastic schools of all different type, so I you know, I've done a talk at San Jose State. I went to CMU. They invited me over Carnegie Mellon. I supported the robotics team, which is all girls team. Nice. And it was fantastic because these girls high school kids were designing robots. They were driving these robots. They were coding and programming these robots and was an all girls team. And I asked them, I said, But you're excluding the men and the boys and they said no. When it's a combined boy girls team, the women end up the girls and organizing the men of the boys are actually writing the code. They're doing the drilling there, doing all that. And so the girls don't get to do any of that. And I was looking at just the competition and as watching these teams, the boy girl steams and those were all organizing. And I thought, this is exactly what happens in the workforce. You're right. Yeah. We come into the workforce, were busy organizing, coordinating and all that, and the men are driving the charge. And that's why these kids where this is at high school, Yeah, thirteen to seventeen, where this is becoming part of their cultural upbringing. Exactly. Pretty. In great. Yes, yes. And a very young age. So that was fascinating. I think that surprised me. You know, you were asking me what surprised you that surprised me. And what also surprised me was the confidence. Though these girls were doing all these things. I've never built a robot. I would love to. I haven't built a robot, and they were doing all these amazing things, and I thought, Oh, my God, >> they're like, >> confident women. But they were not. And it was because they felt that there was too much to lose. They don't want to take risks, they don't want to fail. And it was that impostor syndrome coming back so that conditioning happens way more impossible syndrome is something that I didn't even know what it wass until maybe the last five or six years suddenly even just seeing that a very terse description of anyone Oh, my goodness, it's not just me. And that's really a challenge that I think the more the more it's brought to light, the more people like yourself share stories. But also what your book is doing is it's not just like you were surprised to find out It's not just a tech. This is every industry, Yes, but his pulse syndrome is something that maybe people consider it a mental health issue and which is so taboo to talk about. But I just think it's so important to go. You're not alone. Yeah, vast majority men, women, whatever culture probably have that. Let's talk about that. Let's share stories. So that your point saying why I was surprised that these young girls had no confidence. Maybe we can help. Yes, like opening up. You know, I'm sharing it being authentic. Yeah. So I'm looking at my second book, which basically says what the *** happens in middle school? Because what happens is somewhere in middle school, girls drop out, so I don't know what it is. I think it's Instagram or Facebook or boys or sex. I don't know what it is, but something happens there. And so this year of my focus is girls and you know, young girls in schools and colleges. And I'm trying to get as much research as I can in that space to see what is going on there, because that totally surprised me. So are you kind of casting a wide net and terms like as you're. Nevertheless, she persisted. Feedback has shown you it's obviously this is a pervasive, yes issue cross industry. This is a global pandemic, yes, but it's your seeing how it's starting really early. Tell me a little bit about some of the things that we can look forward to in that book. So one thing that's important is bravery, Which reshma So Johnny, who's the CEO off girls code? She has this beautiful quote, she says. We raise our voice to be brave, and we'd raise our girls to be perfect, pretty telling. And so we want to be perfect. We won't have the perfect hair, the perfect bodies. We want a perfect partner. That never happens. But we want all that and because we want to be perfect, we don't want to take risks, and we're afraid to fail. So I want to focus on that. I want to talk to parents. I want to talk to the kids. I want to talk to teachers, even professors, and find out what exactly it is like. What is that conditioning that happens, like, why do we raise our girls to be perfect because that impacts us at every step of our lives. Not even careers. It's our lives. Exactly. It impacts us because we just can't take that risk. That's so fascinating. So you had a session here about persistent and inclusive leadership at W T squared forth and you will tell me a little bit about that session today. What were some of the things that came up that you just said? Yes, we're on the right track here. So I started off with a very depressing note, which is twenty eighty five. That's how long it's gonna take for us to see equality. But I talked about what we can do to get to twenty twenty five because I'm impatient. I don't want to wait twenty eighty five I'LL be dead by them. We know you're persistent book title. You know, my daughter will be in the seventies. I just don't want that for her. So, through my research, what I found is we need not only women to lean in. You know, we've have cheryl sound. We're talking about how women need to lean in, and it's all about the women. And the onus is on the woman the burdens on the woman. But we actually need society. Selena. We need organizations to lean in, and we need to hold them accountable. And that's where we're going to start seeing that changes doing that. So if you take the m r. I. You know, I've been with him for ten years, and I always ask myself, Why am I still here? One of the things we're trying to do is trying to take the Cirrus early this morning rail Farrell talked about like on the panel. He said, We are now Our bonuses are tied to, you know, domestic confusion, like we're way have to hire, you know, not just gender, right, Like underrepresented communities as well. We need to hire from there, and they're taking this seriously. So they're actually making this kind of mandatory in some sense, which, you know, it kind of sucks in some ways that it has to be about the story that weighing they're putting a stake in the ground and tying it to executive compensation. Yes, it's pretty bold. Yes. So organizations are leaning in, and we need more of that to happen. Yeah. So what are some of the things that you think could, based on the first *** thing you talked about the second one that you think could help some of the women that are intact that are leaving at an alarming rate for various reasons, whether it's family obligations or they just find this is not an environment that's good for me mentally. What are some of the things that you would advise of women in that particular situation? First thing is that it's to be equal partnership at home. A lot of women leave because they don't have that. They don't have that support on having that conversation or picking the right partner. And if you do pick the wrong partner, it's having that conversation. So if you have equal partnership at home, then it's both a careers that's important. So you find that a lot of women leave tech or leave any industry because they go have babies, and that happens. But it's just not even that, like once they get past that, they come backto work. It's not satisfying because they don't get exciting projects to work on that you don't get strategic projects, they don't have sponsors, which is so important toward the success, and they they're you know, people don't take a risk on them, and they don't take a risk. And so these are some of those things that I would really advice women. And, you know, my talk actually talked about that. Talked about how to get mail allies, how to get sponsors. Like what? You need to actually get people to sponsor you. Don't talk to me a little bit more about that. We talk about mentors a lot. But I did talk this morning with one of our guests about the difference between a sponsor and a mentor. I'd love you to give Sarah some of your advice on how women can find those sponsors. And actually, we activate that relationship. So mentors, uh, talk to you and sponsors talk about okay. And the way to get a sponsor is a is. You do great work. You do excellent work. Whatever you do, do it well. And the second thing is B is brag about it. Talk about it. Humble bragging, Yeah. Humble bragging talkabout it showcases demo it and do it with people who matter in organizations, people who can notice your work building that brand exactly. And you find that women are all the men toward and under sponsored. Interesting, Yes. How do you advise that they change that? There was a Harvard study on this. They found that men tend to find mentors are also sponsors. So what they do is, you know, I like you to stick pad girl singer, he says. Andy Grove was his mentor, but Andy Grove was also his sponsor in many ways, in for his career at Intel, he was a sponsor and a mental. What women tend to do is we find out like even me, like I have female spot him. Mentors were not in my organization, and they do not have the authority to advocate for me. They don't They're not sitting in an important meeting and saying, Oh, patina needs that project for team needs to get promoted. And so I'm not finding the right mentors who can also be my sponsors, or I'm not finding this one says right, and that's happens to us all the time. And so the way we have to switch this is, you know, mentors, a great let's have mentors. But let's laser focus on sponsors, and I've always said this all of last year. I'm like the key to your cell. Success is sponsorship, and I see that now. I am in an organization when my boss is my sponsor, which is amazing, because every time I go into a meeting with him, he says, This is about pretty much grew up. This is a pretty mers group. It's not me asking him. He's basically saying It's pretty nose grow, which is amazing to hear because I know he's my mentor in sponsor as well. And it's funny when I gave him a copy of my book and I signed it and I said, And he's been my sponsor to be more for like ten years I said, Thank you for being my sponsor and he looked at me. He said, Oh, I never realized it was your sponsor So that's another thing is men themselves don't know they're in this powerful position to have an impact, and they don't know that they are sponsors as well. And so we need. We need women to Fox and sponsors. I always say find sponsors. Mentorship is great, but focus of sponsors Look, I think it's an important message to get across and something I imagine we might be reading about in your next book to come. I know. Yeah, well, we'LL see. Artie, thank you so much for stopping by the Cube. It's great to talk to you and to hear some of the really interesting things that you've learned from nevertheless you persistent and excited to hear about book number two and that comes out. You got a combined studio. I'd love to thank you and thank you. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching the queue from BM Where? At the fourth Annual Women Transforming Technology event. Thanks for watching.

>> from Palo Alto, California It's the Cube covering the EM Where women Transforming technology twenty nineteen. Brought to You by V. M. Where. >> Lisa Martin on the ground with the queue at VM. Where fourth annual women transforming technology that W. Scored one of my favorite events. Excited to welcome to the Cube, the CEO and founder of Mother coders, Tina lied, Tina, it's great to have you on the program. Nice to be invited. Thankyou. So this event one of my favorites, because when you literally walk in up, I would say we're the registrations. You just feel it's very natural, authentic, a sense of community of women wanting Tio engage with each other share stories. And, of course, this morning's keynote kicked off with a bang with joy Bowling. We need talking and sharing about this massive bias and facial recognition technology, like bothers a lot of technology for good, but there's some really issues we've got eye identifying, fix. Tell me about your involvement and w T. Squid. What makes it worthy of your >> time? Well, any time I can come and hang out with like minded women who want to create change, I am all about it. And having that space to be together physically I think, is really important. Because to build authentic relationships, to build, trust, to create, you know, a space where I could tell you stories I normally don't bring up at work right requires us tohave a dedicated time and space to be together to do that. So I I'm just so honored to be a part of this conference >> today to tell me a little bit about your career journey on DH. The impetus for mother coders. >> Yeah. So I started mother coders after my second child was born, and I have started my career as a management consultant at Accenture. I went on to become a technical recruiter and then went back to grad school and God Master's degree and learning design and technology from Stanford School of Education. So I was ready, Tio, find a way to use technology to change the world. So teach, you know, people how to engage politically and civically. And then once my second daughter was born, it just became increasingly difficult to keep up with my technical skills. I had been going to the meetings. I had been going to the hackathons I have been going to these evening workshops, but after the second child came awhile, I waas a mom with a two year old infant. So the only thing left to me was online learning. And it works for some people, Not for me, not for many people. And what I was lacking Waas a community that was there to support me and just be there with me, struggling through this someone, you know, people who would understand what I was going through. And I did not find that in most cases I was trying to get these technical skills from. So I thought, Why don't we have our own lead up for moms? You know? And my grandmother had raised me, so I had envisioned. Moms were here with the laptops, Grandma's over here with the kids, and it would just be this fun community building experience. I put up a Google form, and within less than a week I had nearly one hundred women saying, I want to come to the hotel. Some were even located in the San Francisco Bay area, so I knew I had tapped into something, and to this day I still get emails tweets dms from women all over the world, saying when it's one of mother coders coming to our community. So I started another coders, Really, As away Teo, help Mom's women who have become moms, um, gained technical skills so that they can get jobs that would enable them to contribute to shaping our future. And they also make a living that would enable them to take care of their families. >> One of the things that I was looking at when I was doing some research on you is some of this stuff, So let's talk numbers for a second. Why this is so imperative and critical to betting on Mom's is smart. Ninety percent women reinvest ninety percent of their income back into their families and communities. Um, women drive eighty five percent of business and consumer purchasing, with two point one trillion dollars of spending attributable to mom's alone. So you think of the Amazons of the World or online or brick and mortar retailers. This is an important community that needs to be involved in the design of technologies and products and services because it's going to have the impact is probably not even quantifiable this point So it seems like a This is so obvious. Yet to your point, you're saying I found myself in a situation where he didn't have mother. I didn't have what I confinement is looking for, said to create it. And then suddenly there's this groundswell and that suddenly almost instantaneously of Wow, this is really there's a really in need here. Talk to me about getting women back in the workers because I mentioned, as you were saying, Oh my gosh, Suddenly I have two kids under two. We don't have the time Technology changes so quickly. How are you able to help women re enter the workforce? >> Well, you know what's really astonishing is even women who had been technical before becoming Long's have a tremendous amount of trepidation about going back in. It's like you really learned it used to be a software engineer. It shouldn't be that hard getting back in. But I think motherhood has a way of just wearing down your confidence. And because the workplace is not friendly towards mother's right, the mother penalty marks us someone who's less committed to your career and less competent when that's the furthest from the truth. Because you have all these motivations to go in there, least of which is taking care of your family, right? So what we do is a lot of it is just confidence building and giving these moms a space to be with each other and reassuring each other and knowing that they're not alone right, the technical skills will come. It's just time and effort, but the friendships are forged. The sons of community of belonging that these moms create with each other is what sustains them. And when they get hit with those rejections, because there's a gap in your resume or because you know someone spoke to you disrespectfully because you were mom, it's You have someone to go back to and talk about what happened with so that you know you're not alone. So that component is actually really, really important. Well, just don't do technical skills. We bring in women from the field to teach a specific topic So our moms get context around. Why data science? Why I suddenly hot What are the issues right? And then the community part, all those three things come together. And at the end of our nine week program, the mom's walk away with a greater sense of purpose and more clarity about their career path. But then they also leave, knowing they have a crew behind them that they can access any time because they had spent a fair amount of time and effort developing these relationships. Where are you going to be strengthened over time >> and just say strength and numbers that we can say that to imply to anything in life? But this is so true? Finding your tribe, if you will of this isn't just me. This is a This is a pandemic. And sharing those stories and helping Bill confidence, I think is so critical you lead a workshop here and a beauty square today. Talk to me about some of the stories that were shared along the lines of kind of helping some woman maybe refined that confidence that used to be there. What were some of the things that came up today? >> Well, you know, the workplace hasn't really evolved and, you know, even Melinda Gates is talking about this. It was built for an era that was at that has gone right. The reality is that now more than half of families comprise of dual income earners who are leading these families, and they need income. Tio Tio lead these families into a place of economic security, right? So you talk about the workplace and what women indoor naturally, because our society isn't set up to support them. All this pain and suffering is going to come out, and in spite of the setting that we have here, we don't know each other. We're just a bunch of strangers who came to talk to each other. They were very generous in revealing their pain in revealing stories. So something that consistently came up with a lot of the participants is that there's this unspoken understanding that you don't talk about your kids, that if you're a mom and you talk about your kids, you kind of shoot yourself in the foot. In fact, sometimes it's not even tested. Its explicit someone talked about how her manager would say, Say things like, Don't talk about your kids because you steer stressing out the rest of the team because they don't understand and it doesn't matter. It's not relevant here. When that is such a huge part of your identity, everyone comes back to work on Monday morning to tell me what they did for humans. Yeah. Yeah. And if you are possibly in a position where you have to perform and hide yourself, you can just imagine how that would impact the way your creativity would come out or ideas you would share or how you show up for your costly credibly. ***, yes, yes. And we are just not enabling all this innovation and source of power that are locked up in Mom's both in and outside of the work for us, because we're not letting them back in. One say, get kicked out and coming back is so hard, Right? So ah, lot of the stories that were shared has to do with these every day, not even like earth shattering events. It's just normal, everyday interactions at like the water cooler or Monday morning chatter that already makes moms feel even more isolated than there. So what >> are some of the things that that you're going to take away from the workshop that will help influence the direction of mother coders throughout the rest of twenty nineteen into twenty twenty? >> Well, you know, one of the, uh, stats that I always keep in my head is that eighty six percent of women become mothers in the US and for the watch part, they're not doing by themselves. Right? So when we talk about most true, we're talking about the *** right. And I have this hunch that men don't want to be at work all the time, either. Right? They don't want to be this bread winning person who you know, has to do all these things to appear masculine, and so it's damaging for everyone. And if we were to create some ways to release some pressure off of caregivers in general, right? Not just mothers, fathers, people carrying for elderly, even pet owners. Everyone will feel better. Everyone would benefit. So my main takeaway leaving this conference is that the pain that the moms air feeling at work, the ones are employed are very similar to the ones that are trying to get back in right pain. The bias is it runs across or culture to be honest. And when you're trying a hat culture, it's all about storytelling. It's all about figuring out How do I make this resonate to people? How do I turn their stories into actionable steps that can be taken. And that was what their last question arises. What is the next step that you're going to take when you leave this room? And not surprisingly, everyone had inaction. Step. >> I love that Will. Tina, Thank you so much for sharing your story and excited to hear about great things that >> come, >> uh, from Mother coders. Thanks for spending some time with me on the Cube today. Thank you. My pleasure. We want to thank you for watching the cave. Lisa Martin at Women Transforming Technology, Fourth annual. Thanks >> for watching.

you know and I always say that there's something I call the sweet spot it's where your passion meets your talent and if you're in a place like that you're in a very special place because that means it's a strength of yours but you also love and if you do that it doesn't matter who else is around you and so to me one of the most important things that we need to be doing is bridging the gap between academic scholarship which tells us a lot about the barriers women's leadership with the kind of activities that organizations are doing the diversity of issues they're putting in place if we can join forces then I think we could better accelerate a based work is sort of at the heart and soul of who we are right and so this is just more of that it's gonna be great to take progressive research groundbreaking research and put it into practice founder of Grace Hopper I asked her about impostor syndrome and this is what she told me she said I feel like I'm not good enough and that actually gave me goose bumps I remember I was sitting in front of greatness and this is what she was telling me and then I asked her how do you overcome it and she said I just show up the next day [Music]

from the VMware campus in Palo Alto California it's the Cuban covering women transforming technologies hi I'm Lisa Martin on the ground with the cube at VMware in Palo Alto at the third annual women transforming Technology event and we're here with a cube alumni Betsy Sutter SVP & chief people officer at V and we're so great to have you back on the cube thank you it's great to be here this is a very exciting day yes I love these types of events because you walk in and you just feel the sense of community and empowerment and and that's one of the great things that WT squared is in in and of itself its acronym of organizations that's right industry academia and nonprofits to help women connect learn from each other and support each other not just here in Silicon Valley but beyond and this is 30 annual this was sold out like within hours yes amazing amazing momentum that you guys have brought now to the third year great yeah we're really excited we're really excited and it's a new approach right it's creating as you said a consortium of companies to come together and just have real-time conversations about what's going on around gender equality and so yeah I'm really proud of this conference mostly because it just brings such a diverse set of people together men and women we have more men attending this year than ever before and so the conversations are just elevated they're fun yeah so you started at VMware when I was a startup with about a hundred people and here you were now managing this organization that of 20,000 people yeah big undertaking yeah talk to me about kind of the cultural change in shifts that you've seen and probably been able to drive from you know the last 15 years or so yeah you know the culture has been a pretty deliberate strategy from day one and I give the first CEO and founder Diane Greene a tremendous amount of credit for being really clear about what she wanted to build and she really wanted to build a sustainable company and a culture and she knew culture was the differentiator and even the current CEO today Pat Gallagher and I know that this is the single biggest differentiator that we can continue to strengthen in the company and then all the diversity inclusion and conversations are just part of that at this point in time but it was a deliberate regi plain and simple always keeping an eye on that and the values are at the core of that right and then the culture and the behavior reflect the values and so it's just been steadfast and stalwart on who we want to be over the past 20 years it's our 20th anniversary as a company and yeah I've been here for 17 of those but that's the work that I've really focused on it's been terrific that being deliberate is really key there yep so this third event inclusion in action is the theme yep how do you see that Bing how do you how do you live that and infiltrate that at VMware yeah well you know we are a company that has wanted to disrupt the tech space and so in order to do that we've had to stay focused on innovation innovation innovation and we really innovate in everything not just in our technology and our products but how we bring them to market how we support them but it also affects a lot of the work that I do in my space and in order to innovate you have to be inclusive of just a lot of different viewpoints and I like to say that we started out sort of in as an industrial research kind of company we were born out of Stanford a lot of computer science you know graduate students creating what we've now become and that's just been kind of the path is just collaboration even though we're 22,000 people now we still kind of take that approach to everything we do and speaking of Stanford big news out yes morning yeah gratulations thank you is investing 15 million dollars in a new women's leadership Innovation Lab that's right Danford that's amazing yeah we're thrilled we are so excited and Shelly Carell professor of sociology at Stanford we our partnership has been with Stanford since 2013 I think they've really helped us navigate everything that we've done in the inclusion and diversity space and so this is a new chapter and it's around women's leadership and it's around women's leadership and innovation and this lab I think is gonna reap some great results research based work is sort of at the heart and soul who we are right and so this is just more of that it's gonna be great to take progressive research groundbreaking research and put it into practice and so Shelley and I couldn't be more excited about what's next awesome well one of the interesting things is I was reading in the press release this morning that came out that according to McKinsey companies with diversity at the executive level 21 percent write more profitable that's right why aren't more companies even paying attention you know that that is a great question because most companies are about making money and wanting to be profitable yeah so it's it's perplexing that people aren't really honing in on what research is showing but you know suddenly it comes down to power and influence it's all about who has the power and who has the influence and so part of what we're doing with Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab is figuring out how to get women into more leadership positions and get them into more powerful and influential positions and that will be the thing that equalizes you know gender inequality so in the last six months we have had big movements me too yeah time's up yep growtopia there I'm Emily Chang published recently right how when you when you when that first came out with all the Harvey Weinstein stuff teachers say good we need to be able to get to leverage this moment and was that do you see that as being pulled into the tech industry and and helping to accelerate making this diversity change i I think things are getting accelerated and amplified because I think voices are being used and heard and I think there's a movement and I think women are coming together as a consortium around their gender and understanding that the real issues are around power and influence and tackling it head-on and the quality of the conversations around all of these movements is it's inspiring to me after spending 30 odd years in tech so I think things are really starting to change because women are using their voices yeah speaking of women using their voices you had Laila Ali as a keynote yeah that was so fantastic strong confident woman yeah who the daughter of Muhammad Ali who tried to talk her out of becoming a fighter right tried to - I love how she said he tried to actually kind of get me I think it was my idea to not go into it right so obviously a woman probably born with a lot of natural confidence but I loved how she kind of talked to all of us and said he sometimes that light goes out or its dimmed and I need to remind myself with you our best yeah so you probably see a good amount of females that have that sort of innate confidence that love engineering and I'm gonna do this how do you encourage those women to may be mentor some of the of the either younger or not other females who want to do something but are intimidated by you know maybe don't have that natural confidence how do you kind of facility at that empowerment yeah well I do think Leila's story is amazing and you know most importantly she's an entrepreneur and a businesswoman right I mean what she's done with her career with her foundation but what she's done with her career is most impressive and I love that digging deep and find that warrior from within yeah but I think for women today I think the difference is that we're able to have the conversation with each other and even with the opposite sex and I think companies are starting to understand that if you don't have diversity you're not going to have innovation and you're not going to win and most companies that I've worked for and VMware in particular we want to win we want to lead we want to disrupt and we want to impact the world and we want and need to make money as well but I think for women now the conversation is allowed I know that people are listening on both sides of the fence and we do a lot of VMware just to make sure that conversation is alive one of the things I'm really proud of it VMware and that I really believe is it's been the quality of the conversations since day one that have put us where we are in the world and in the industry and as a company and so the conversation shifting a little bit right we're talking more about this and it's those quality conversations that just keep it going and and that's sort of core to who we are so we'll just continue that trend and it's great being able to talk to the cube because you're allowing us to amplify the quality of the conversation so I'm grateful and we're happy to be a part of that so just just the about the event there are a number of tracks right also that was something that I was mentioned to you before we we started filming was I loved that when I walked in there was a jot yeah I love that and as well as a LinkedIn profile right resume clinic all of these you think minor things those can be really impact that's right if a woman has a great head challenge wow this is fantastic or somebody guiding her on what or what not to put on a LinkedIn profile just even providing some of these things that are foundational yep that's really huge it is really huge and it's also just a new platform for these conversations to continue whether it's just a visual because you're looking at my LinkedIn headshot or my Twitter feed or whatever it is but these are all really small things but matter really small things really matter yes and so building those up into people's psyches and their abilities is sort of what we're trying to do as part of the conference so in context of the third annual event the sold-out events and this great announcement of what VMware and Stanford are doing yeah what are some of those quick wins or exciting ones that you're looking forward to seeing the rest of 2018 yeah I think I love that question I think the key is continuing to join forces to continue to lock arms and continue the conversations and so a lot of what I love to do professionally and personally is create those platforms for people to do those kinds of things and that's what women transforming technology is about this year and has been about the last two years and I think we'll just continue to do that and people will tell us what we need to know and where we need to go awesome if you look back at your career would you have forecast your success being you know the chief people officer is c-level or would you yeah you know what was that yeah I met such that's it I'm just starting at this point in my career to really reflect on that no I never imagined having this amount of responsibility and privilege never in my wildest dreams it wasn't an aspirational goal I knew that I wanted as much influence as I could have to achieve results I'm a professional problem solver this is a pretty meaty problem that we're tackling but no I I didn't a dream it now I feel a huge amount of responsibility to start to talk about it I'm a I think I mentioned you I'm a behind-the-scenes kind of person I like to work back there understanding the problem diagnosing it coming up with a solution and then helping implement it but now it's time to kind of talk about what's happened and where we are and set course for the future with so many wonderful women last question for you yep because the attrition rate is so high for females in technology yeah what advice would you give to a woman who's on the cusp of leaving not to sort of family but just going I'm not sure I feel supported here what advice would you give her yeah I would give that person and I do give this advice on the right to go out and have lots of conversations and just start those conversations you just don't know what you don't know and I've had women come to me and at the end of 45 minutes to an hour tell me they're thinking about doing something else and it saddens me especially if they're at vmware because i don't want them to leave but go out and have those conversations and explore what's next don't be afraid of the conversation and sharing what's happening to you with you at your work and events like women transforming technology are only going to help continue to get more eyes and ears on every side of whatever gap we've got aware of this and help all of us become part of the solution that's right to accelerate diversity because as the data show companies could be far more profitable if they've got that thought diversity that's exactly right and it's just that simple but it's just that difficult exactly yeah it was that simple well Betsy thank you so much but a pleasure joining us and allowing us to be part of the voice and getting this away it's out there for women transforming technology as well as helping to hopefully empower and inspire all of the current and future generations yeah attack no I really appreciate you being here - thank you our pleasure yeah we want to thank you for watching the cube I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at women transforming Technology thanks for watching [Music]