>>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 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 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]

>> Announcer: From the VMware campus in Palo Alto, California, it's the Cube, covering Women Transforming Technology. >> Hi, Lisa Martin with the Cube, on the ground at VMware in Palo Alto, at the third annual Women Transforming Technology event, we're excited to welcome to the Cube, Caroline Hubbard, an Analyst at LinkedIn, and the founder of ThreadBred, Caroline, nice to have you here. >> Thank you for having me. >> So you, as young as you are, you're a speaker at this event, you spoke in >> Caroline: I am. >> The Emerging Leaders Track, tell me the name of your session, and what >> Caroline: Yeah. >> Some of the key messages were that you delivered today. >> Definitely, my session was called, "Stand up, Stand Out, "How to Become and Advocate for Change in the Workplace," and my session detailed my experiences thus far, navigating corporate America, not only as a woman, but as a person of color, and some of the really eye opening experiences I've had, in terms of the toxic cultures that are rampant in our organizations across America, and through this experience, I learned really valuable lessons. And two of those lessons are that performance and how you're perceived can only take you so far in an organization; ultimately, if you're not in a place that values your identity, or values you for your differences, not just in spite of your differences, then your chances of success are going to be limited, and if you allow toxic cultures to eat away at your own perception of self, then you're going to be in even more dangerous positions. So I sort of talked about how I learned those lessons, and provided a framework for which we can all go back to our companies and bring awareness to issues that are affecting underrepresented people. >> How did you hear about Women Transforming Technology? >> Yeah, so since I've moved here, 10 months ago, I've just been taking the city by storm, networking, joining lots of women's groups, to just try to find women with similar experiences as me; I'm from the east coast, so I don't really have that many friends or a network out here, and that's what I wanted to build, so through one of the women's groups I'm associated with, I was speaking with a friend, who was like, "Well, you should check out this conference," so I did that; I went online, and I connected with one of the program leads here, and we were able to talk a little bit about my experience, and I was invited to speak. >> Fantastic. >> Yeah. >> And now you can say you've spoken at an event where Laila Ali spoke this morning >> Caroline: I know >> That's an honor (laughing) >> She was so inspiring, because you know, you look at a woman like Laila, who's >> Right. >> Who you think is just born with confidence, and courage, and she talked about how a lot of that is true, very innate, but there was times where she kind of has to recheck >> Caroline: Yeah. >> Kind of do a gut check, and say, "Alright, I feel like "I'm kind of nocked back a bit," >> Caroline: Mm-hmm. >> I loved her recommendations for you know, like the Boy Scouts, what, always be prepared, >> Caroline: Yeah. >> But the preparation is really key; have you found that to be something that helps you kind of harness your inner mojo, your inner confidence? >> Absolutely. >> Whether you're speaking at Watermark, or you're here. >> Yeah, absolutely, and I come from a performing arts background, and I spent a lot of time on stage, and I just found that throughout my life, being on stage energizes me, and being able to connect with people and be fully transparent is something that's really refreshing, but with that, comes a lot of preparation, and I've spent hours, actually, last month when I did a similar talk, my mother and I were up until five A.M. the night before a big speech, just working and making sure it was perfect, and deliver the right message. So I definitely agree, preparation is always key; it helps you feel confident, but like she said, there are times when preparation isn't enough, and you just feel a little bit unprepared or un-confident, and that's okay >> Yeah. >> What really matters is how you bounce back from those instances in which you don't feel as confident. >> I agree, I felt very validated with Laila Ali >> Caroline: Yes. >> Saying sometimes I don't always feel my best, so tell me a little bit, before we get into ThreadBred, I want to talk to you about a little bit about this program that you're in at LinkedIn, where you get to in finance, you get to work in different parts of the business >> Caroline: Right. >> Yeah, it's a really unique program, it's a two year long program, for people directly out of college, that gives you a lot of exposure across the company, so it's technically under the business operations organization, so your first year is split between rotations in sales operations and business operations, and then the second year, you can have more of an elective choice, where you can sort of dabble in product marketing or corporate developments, so it's a really unique experience in that it allows you to see multiple parts of the business, and currently, I'm on the consumer product growth team, which is responsible for getting people to use our app, and I also focus a little bit on our SEO strategy, so it's really opened me up to the world of tech, and how large scale enterprise companies work, which has been exhilarating. >> What have been your experiences, in terms of the diversity not just at LinkedIn >> Caroline: Right, right. >> But as you say, you've been in the valley now, for about 10 months. >> Yeah. >> What are some of the observations that you have made? >> Yeah, I think that a lot of the workforces, actual workforces are reflective of the actual diversity that's in the city, and if you look at the city, first of all, it's not very diverse, so it's kind of impossible for the organizations to have that same diversity, so it's been a challenge; I think that LinkedIn has done an incredible job, given the fact that there are not equal amounts of multiple different demographics, and I think LinkedIn is very conscious of the problem, and we're actively working to solve it, so I feel good about that, but I have noticed that in terms of gender, in terms of race, not everyone is represented on equal levels, and representation is so important, because for other people who are coming in future generations, you can't be what you can't see, so if there aren't people that look like you, you're going to be discouraged from pursuing an opportunity there, when that opportunity might be perfect for you. So I'm really empowered and passionate about trying to increase representation for all people in these organizations. >> It's refreshing to be at a conference like WT squared, because the accountability is so key, and what they announced this morning, with VMware investing $15 million into an innovation lab for women's leadership; the fact that they're together, expanding this stand in VMware >> Caroline: Mm-hmm. >> Relationship it's been over the last five years, but actively going to be looking at what are these barriers; the diversity barriers that women are facing, how do they identify optimal ways to eradicate those barriers? >> Mm-hmm. >> Because VMware knows, and the McKinsey report that was actually cited in the press release >> Caroline: Yeah. >> That they came out with this morning, companies that have more diversity at the executive level, are 21% more profitable. >> Caroline: Yeah. >> So they're understanding this is going to not just be benefiting our culture and diversity or our chief people officer HR function >> Absolutely. >> This is actually something that will benefit the entire company. >> Yeah. >> And what does this company deliver? Technology that other businesses and people use, to better our lives, so they get that, and that's saying refreshing is >> Yeah. >> Kind of an understatement. >> That is, yeah. >> But it really is nice to see companies that are willing to go, "Hey, we want to know exactly what these problems "are, so that we can then be strategic "in how we can solve them." >> Exactly, it is refreshing, and I think that more and more companies are realizing that diversity is not a luxury or just sort of a platitude, it's something that is intrinsic to the business, and to the health of the business, and the retention of employees, and as more and more people begin to realize that, I think that we will get better at increasing representation down the line. >> You know, I talked with a lot of women today and wanted to get their thoughts on the MeToo movement, Time's Up; in the last six months, that erupted on the scenes >> Caroline: Yeah. >> Unlikely alliance with Hollywood, and the resounding opinions have been, actually, that's momentum that we can take advantage of; we should be leveraging this, because when you have a platform that's that big, and that global, >> Mm-hmm. >> For an issue that affects every industry, including us in technology >> Mm-hmm. >> That they actually saw that as kind of an elevation of the platform >> Caroline: Yeah. >> I'm curious what your thoughts are about that. >> Yeah, I actually spoke about MeToo, and a couple of other social movements in my talk earlier, and one of the reasons I started my blog, ThreadBred, is because I started to realize this really unique cultural moment, in which I've emerged into the workplace, which has been characterized by these social movements, and a lot of these social movements have been galvanized through social media; social media's been able to bring so much attention to important issues, and shift public perceptions, so with MeToo, a movement that was founded by an African-American woman in 2006, and then it sort of gained more momentum in 2017 when Alyssa Milano tweeted it out, and then to have, a month later, Jackie Speier, congresswoman of California, introduce the MeToo Congress Act, you know, changes happening at such a rapid pace. More so than it ever has in the past, so I'm really excited to be a part of that, and I'm really excited that we are seeing this much progress on this rate. >> We need to keep that going. >> We need to keep it going, absolutely. >> Tell me a little bit more about ThreadBred. >> Yeah, so ThreadBred started in 2014, just as a fun, personal blog; my friends and I were getting our first internships, the summer after our Freshman year of college, and we were all in different industries, and couldn't really, or didn't know where to go in terms of where to get advice about what to wear, and of course, we wanted to make a good impression, so I just started creating outfits, dressing my friends up, telling them, this is what you should wear when you go here or there, and it sort of turned into this personal branding, as a young professional blog, and I started writing more about what are some of the experiences that young people have, directly out of college? What are some of the things they wish they knew before they started their jobs? And then I restarted it when I entered the work world now, and because of what's happening in society, I wanted to shift the attention to focus on these important social issues, such as women's empowerment, the representation of underrepresented minorities, and I've been able to have a lot of great dialogs with people that I know, and people that I have just met, who might have opinions that are different from me, and I think those are the most interesting ones, because they're the learning opportunities, and it sort of transformed into this story space, where we can consolidate information and learn from each other. >> I love that; one of the things that I thought was really cool, when I walked into the event today, was there's a headshot area >> Caroline: Yeah. >> And there's a resume writing clinic and a LinkedIn profile clinic, as well, and you kind of think, those are really foundational pieces to help someone have a professional looking photo, that doesn't have like somebody's arm that you need cropped out. >> Caroline: Absolutely, yeah. >> Or you know, a strong LinkedIn profile, especially if you're young, maybe just finishing with school and don't have a ton of experience; those are really important foundational elements, and it sounds like what you've done with ThreadBred, >> Caroline: Yeah. >> To advise young people on how should you look professional; that's a really cool thing that you've done, there. >> Caroline: Thank you. >> It's an area where you might think it's a small thing, but I think that can be very impactful. >> Yeah, it's kind of like the things that nobody tells you once you go in, it's just we're trying to capture all of that knowledge in one place, and share it with as many people as possible. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So if you look down, finishing in the next what, year or so, >> Caroline: Yeah >> Your two year program at LinkedIn. >> Caroline: Yeah. >> What direction do you think you'd want to go in? >> Well, I love LinkedIn, and when I interviewed, I actually said that I was like the physical manifestation of LinkedIn; I am a networking person, I love connecting people with opportunity, and I love LinkedIn's message of trying to create economic opportunity for the global workforce, and I think that it's really rare that you find a company that's for profit, that also has this really social impact admission, and I want to stay in this space as long as possible, but years down the line, I could envision myself being an entrepreneur, and starting my own company to focus specifically on problems affecting people of color and underrepresented people around the world. I think that that's what I've identified I'm passionate about, and that's what I want to pursue. >> I can feel that from you, so I think definitely entrepreneurial. >> Caroline: Thank you. >> Kind of in summary, what are some of the things that you're going to be taking away from this third annual Women Transforming Technology event? >> Yeah, absolutely, well, from the keynote earlier this morning, it's about listening to the inner voice inside of you, always finding that inner warrior as Leila Ali mentioned, because I think that's so important; I think life is about just having good days, and then having days where you're encountering adversity, and it doesn't matter how much adversity happens to you, it matters how you respond to that, so always leaning into that inner voice and then using your voice to empower other women around you, who might have similar experiences, but who don't necessarily know how to navigate the same situations is where you can be most helpful, so supporting women and always finding your inner strength is what I'm going to take away from today. >> I love that; I'm going to borrow that from you, that was fantastic >> Caroline: Okay. >> Well, Caroline, you're going to be a big star, I can already tell >> Caroline: Oh, thank you. >> It's really nice to hear someone that's so young, that sees the opportunities here, and wants to very naturally, make a difference in it; you're one to watch, >> Caroline: Thank you. >> For sure. >> Thank you. >> Lisa: Thanks for joining us. >> Thank you. >> We want to thank you; I'm Lisa Martin with the Cube, we are on the ground at VMware, at the third annual Women Transforming Technology event, thanks for watching. (upbeat techno)

(electronic music) >> Announcer: From the VMware campus in Palo Alto, California, it's theCUBE! Covering women transforming technology. >> Hi, welcome to theCube. Lisa Martin on the ground at the 3rd Annual Women Transforming Technology event at VMware in Palo Alto, and I'm joined by an author and a senior VMware engineer, Pratima Rao Gluckman. Welcome to the Cube, Pratima. >> Thank you, Lisa. It's great to be here >> It's great to have you here. So you have been an engineer here for about ten years. You knew from when you were a kid, love this, engineer, you knew you wanted to be that. You fell in love with your first programming class. It was like a Jerry McGuire, you complete me kind of moment I'm imagining. Tell me a little bit about your career in engineering and specifically as a female. >> Okay, so I was raised, born and raised, in India, and I grew up in an environment where I was gender blind. You know, my oldest sister played cricket for the country. >> Lisa: Wow! >> And it was a man's game! You know and a lot of people kind of talked about that, but it wasn't like she couldn't do it, right? So, I always grew up with this notion that I could do anything, and I could be whoever I wanted to be. And then I came to the United States, and that whole narrative stayed with me, the meritocracy narrative. Like you work hard, you know, society, the world will take care of you, and good things will happen, but it wasn't until 2016 was when I had this aha moment, and that's when I suddenly felt, suddenly I was aware of my gender, and I was like, okay I'm a female in tech, and there's lots of challenges for women in tech. And I didn't quite realize that. It was just that aha moment, and VMware has been a great company. I've been with VMware for nine years, I started as an engineer, and I moved into engineering management. We had Diane Greene who founded the company, the culture was always meritocratic, but I think something in 2016 kind of made me just thinking about my career and thinking about the careers of the women around me, I felt like we were stuck. But at the same time be focused on the women that were successful, for instance Yanbing Li, who's our senior VP and general manager of our storage business. And we were talking about her, and I said, this is what I said, I said, "There are some women who are successful despite everything "that we're dealing with, and I just want "to know their stories, and I'm going to write this book." The moment I said that it just felt right. I felt like this was something I wanted to do, and the stories in this book are inspiring stories of these women, just listening to Laila Ali this morning, her inspirational story, and this book has around 19 stories of these executive women, and they're just not role models, I mean every story offers strategies of how to thrive in the tech world. >> So interesting that first of all I love the title, Pratima, of this book, "Nevertheless She Persisted." So simple, so articulate, and so inspiring. So interesting, though, that you were working as an engineer for quite a few years before you realized, kind of looked around, like, whoa, this is a challenge that I'm actually living in. Yanbing is a CUBE alumni, I love her Twitter handle. So you said all right, I want to talk to some women who have been persistent and successful in their tech careers, as kind of the genesis of the book. Talk to us about, maybe, of those 19 interviews that range from, what, c-levels to VPs to directors. What are some of the stories that you found, what kind of blew your mind of, wow, I didn't know that you came from that kind of background? >> So when I started off I was very ambitious. I said I'd go interview CEO women, and I did a lot of research, and I found some very disturbing facts. You know, Fortune Magazine lists Fortune 500 companies, and they rank them based on their prior year's fiscal revenues, and from that data there were 24 women CEOs in 2014. That number dropped to 21 in 2015, and it dropped again in 2016, but it went up slightly in 2017 to 32 women, which is promising, but back in 2018 we're down to 24. So we have very very few women CEOs, and when I started off I said I'll talk to the CEO women, and I couldn't find any CEO women, my network, my friends' network, And so I dropped one level and I said let me go talk to SVPs and when I looked at VMware and VMware's network, Yanbing was one of them, so she's in the book, and then I reached out to contacts outside of my network. So I have some women from LinkedIn, I have Google, I have Facebook, I have some women from startups. So I have around four CEOs in the book, I've got, and what's great about this book is it's got a diverse set of women. Right? They have different titles; I've got directors, senior directors, VPs, Senior VPs, GMs, and CEOs. And some of them have PhDs, some of them have a Master's Degree, and some actually don't have formal training in computer science. I thought this would be interesting because a woman with any background can relate to it. Right? And so that was helpful. And so that's kind of how I went off and I started to write this book. And when I interviewed these women, there was a common theme that just kept emerging, and that was persistence. And they persisted against gender bias, stereotype threat, just the negative messages from media and society. I mean like Laila Ali was talking about just even the messages she got from her dad. >> Right. >> Right? Someone who was so close to her who basically said "Women can't box." And that didn't stop her; I mean she persisted. When I was listening to her, she didn't use the word, but, you know, she said she was believing in herself and all that, but she persisted through all those negative messages, right? And she said no one can tell her what to do. (laughs) >> Yeah her confidence is very loud and clear, and I think that you do find women, and I imagine some of them are some of the interviewees in your book, who have that natural confidence, and as you were saying when Muhammad Ali was trying to talk her out of it, and trying to, as she said, "He tried to get me think it was my idea," but she just knew, well no, this is what I want to do. And she had that confidence. Did you find that a lot of the women leaders in this book had that natural confidence? Like you grew up in an environment where you just believed "I can do this, my sister's playing cricket." Did you find that was a common thread, or did you find some great examples of women who wanted to do something, but just thought "Can I do this?" And "How do I do that?" What was the kind of confidence level that you saw? >> I was surprised because I had a question on imposter syndrome, and I asked these women, Telle Whiteney, who's the CEO, she was the CEO, ex-CEO >> Lisa: Grace Hopper >> Yes. The founder of Grace Hopper. I asked her about imposter syndrome and this is what she told me, she said "I feel like I'm not good enough" and that actually gave me goosebumps. 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." And that actually helped me with this book because I am not an author. >> That's persistence. >> I mean I am an author now but 2 years ago when I started to write this, writing is not my forte. I'm a technologist, I build teams, I manage teams, I ship products, I ship technical products, but everyday I woke up and I said, "I'm feeling like an imposter." It was just her voice right? Yanbing also feels the same way, I mean she does feel times where she feels like, "I'm lacking confidence here." Majority of the people actually, pretty much all the women, this one woman, Patty Hatter, didn't feel like she had imposter syndrome but the rest of them face it everyday. Talia Malachi who's a principal engineer at VMWare, it's very hard to be a PE, she said that she fights it every day, and that was surprising to me, right? Because I was sitting in front of all these women, they were confident, they've achieved so much, but they struggle with that every day. But all they do is they persist, they show up the next day. They take those little steps and they have these goals and they're very intentional and purposeful, I mean just like what Layla said, right? She said, "Everything that I've done in the last 20 years "has been intentional and purposeful." And that's what these women did. And I learned so much from them because 20 years ago I was a drifter (laughs) you know I just kind drifted and I didn't realize that I could set a goal and I could reach it and I could do all these amazing things, and I didn't think any of this was possible for me. But I'm hoping that some girl somewhere can read this book and say "You know what this is possible", right? This is possible and you know role models, I think we need lots of these role models. >> We do I think, you know imposter syndrome I've suffered for it for so long before I even knew what it was and I'll be honest with you even finding out that it was a legitimate issue was (exhales) okay I'm not the only one. So I think it's important that you, that these women and youth are your voice, in your book, identified it. This is something I face everyday even though you may look at me on the outside and think, "She's so successful, she's got everything." And we're human. And Laila Ali talked about of having to revisit that inner lawyer, that sometimes she goes silent, sometimes the pilot light goes out and needs to be reignited or turned back up. I think that is just giving people permission, especially women, and I've felt that in the keynote, giving us permission to go, "Ah, you're not going to feel that everyday, "you're not going to feel it everyday." Get up the next day to your point, keep persisting and pursuing your purpose is in and of itself so incredibly empowering. >> Right but also imposter syndrome is good for you and I talk about that a little bit in the book. And you know why it's good for you? It's you getting out of your comfort zone, you're trying something different, and it's natural to feel that way, but once you get over it, you've mastered that, and Laila talked about it too today she said, "You get uncomfortable to the point "where you get comfortable." >> Lisa: Yes. >> So every time that you find that you have this imposter syndrome, just remember that greatness is right around the corner. >> Yep. I always say "Get uncomfortably uncomfortable". >> Pratima: Yes. >> And I loved how she said that today. So one of the big news of the day is VMWare with Stanford announcing that they are investing $15,000,000 in a new Women's Leadership Innovation Lab at Stanford. Phenomenal. >> Pratima: Yes. >> And they're really going to start studying diversity and there's so many different gaps that we face, wage gap, age gap, gender gap, you know mothers vs motherless gap, and one of the things that was really interesting that, I've heard this before, that the press release actually cited a McKinsey report that says, "Companies with diversity "on their executive staff are 21% more profitable." >> Yes. >> And that just seems like a, no duh, Kind of thing to me for organizations like VMWare and your other partners in this consortium of Wt Squared to get on board to say, "Well of course." Thought diversity is so important and it actually is demonstrated to impact a companies' profitability. >> Right, yeah. And that's true, I just hope that more people listen to it and internalize it, and organizations internalize that, and what VMWare's doing is fantastic. I mean I'm so proud to be part of this company that's doing this. And you Shelly talked about change right? She said, "I think, right now the way I feel "about this whole thing, is we need to stop talking about "diversity and inclusion, we just need to say "enough is enough, this is important, let's just do it." >> Lisa: We should make this a part of our DNA. >> Exactly. Just make it, why do we have to fight for all this, right? It's just pointless and you know, men have wives and daughters and mothers and you know, It impacts societies as a whole and organizations, and we have so much research on this and what I like about what the Stanford Research Lab is doing is, they're actually working with woman all the way from middle-school to high-school to the executive suite, and that's amazing because research has now shown, there was a report in March 2014 by a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, for Judith Warner, and so she documented, just with the rate of change, like I talked with all the percentages and the number of women CEOs, just with that rate of change, the equality of men and women at the top will not occur until 2085. >> Lisa: Oh my goodness. >> That's 63 years from now. That means all our daughters would be retired by then. My daughters was born on 2013 and so she won't live in a world of female leaders that's representative of the population. And so that realization actually really, really, really broke my heart and that made me want to write this book, to create these role models. And what Stanford is doing, is they're going to work on this and I'm hoping that they can make that transition sooner. Like we don't have to wait 'till 2085. I want this for my daughter. >> It has to be accelerated, yes. >> It has to be accelerated and I think all of us need to do that, our daughters should be in the 20s, 30s when this happens, not when they're in their 70s. >> Lisa: And retired. >> And retired, I mean we don't want that. And we don't know how that number's going to get pushed further, right? Like if we don't do anything now... It. (exhales) >> Lisa: Right. 2085 becomes, what? >> I know! It's insane. >> In the spirit of being persistent, with the theme of this 3rd annual Wt Squared being Inclusion in Action, you're a manager and in a people or hiring role, tell me about the culture on your team and how your awareness and your passion for creating change here, lasting change. How are you actually creating that inclusion through action in your role at VMWare? >> So what I do is when I have to hire engineers on my team, I talk to my recruiter, have a conversation, I'm like, "I need more diversity." It's just not women, I want diversity with the men too. I want different races, different cultures because I believe that if I have a diverse team I'm going to be successful. So it's almost like I'm being selfish but that is very important. So I have that conversation with my recruiters, so I kind have an expectation set. And then we go through their hiring process and I'm very aware of just the hiring panel, like who I put on the panel, I make sure to have at least a women on the panel and have some diversity. My team right now is not really that diverse and I'm working hard to make that because it is hard, you know the pipeline has to get built at a certain point, and then start getting those resumes, but I try to have at least one female on the panel, and during the selection process the first thing I'll tell them is, let's get the elephant out of the room, age, gender, whatever, like let's take that out, let's just talk about skills and how well this person has done in an interview. And that's how I conducted and you know I've had fairly good success of hiring women on the team. But I've also seen that it's hard to retain women because they tend to drop-out faster than the men and so it's constant, it's just constant work to make that happen. >> Yeah. I wish we had more time to talk about retention because it is a huge issue. So the book is Nevertheless, She Persisted. Where can people get a copy of the book? >> So you can get it on Amazon, that's, I think, the best place to get it. You can also get it from my publisher's site which is FriesenPress. >> Excellent well Pratima thank you so much for stopping by. >> Thank you. >> And sharing your passion, how your persisting, and how you're also helping more of us learn how to find that voice and pursue our passions, thank you. >> Thank you. >> We want to thank you for watching. We are TheCUBE on the ground at VMWare for the Third Annual Women Transforming Technology Event. I'm Lisa Martin thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: From the VMware campus in Palo Alto, California, it's theCUBE, covering women transforming technology. (electro music) >> Hey, welcome to theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at VMware in Palo Alto at the third annual, Women Transforming Technology event. Really excited to be here. I am joined by Shelley Correll, the director of The Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford. Shelley, exciting day, welcome to the Cube. >> Thank you, good to be here! >> Lisa: Big news. >> Very big news! >> Lisa: So you're also the founding director of The Center for Advancements of Women's Leadership. The Clayman Institute has been around since 1974, but you've been partnering with Vmware for the last five years? >> Shelley: Yes, in a variety of ways, yes. >> So talk to us about the big announcement today with Vmware and The Clayman Institute. >> Well we're very exited, we've been working with VMware for five years, as you said, in a variety of different capacities, And have really been engaged with them over the idea that we could better connect academic research with practice. And so, the news we had to announce today is that they are investing 15 million dollars into our efforts and we're going to be launching a new lab that's going to be focused on advancing women's leadership. >> Lisa: Phenomenal. Talk to us about some of the foci that you're going to be focusing on to accelerate the change we need, not just to bring more eyes and ears in dollars to it but accelerate it. >> I'm glad you used that word, that's exactly what it's about, it's accelerating. We come into this with research that shows very clearly that the progress, in terms of moving women into leadership, has just all but stalled. The progress we're making is very slow, and if we just sit back and wait, we're not going to see, you and I aren't going to see gender equality, in our lives, our daughter's lives. It's not going to happen. And so we're asking ourselves, what can we do to accelerate change? 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 a lot about the barriers to women's leadership, with the kind of activities that organizations are doing, the diversity initiatives their putting in place. If we can join forces, then I think we can better accelerate change. And so that was kind of the idea behind this lab. We really have three main things that we're hoping to accomplish. One is to diagnose the barriers to women's advancement, across all kinds of diversity that women occupy and own. So understanding those barriers, and then second is piloting solutions, working within companies to develop interventions that we can put in place, so we can learn how to get beyond the barriers. That's the kind of next thing that we're doing. And third, is just to be a hub of information. We're going to take these learnings from our research and translate them into tools that people can use, to be able to put research into action and in their own organizations. So that's the three-prong goal of this new laboratory. >> Lisa: So exciting. And it's something that, you know, as we talk about, it's 2018 and this is still such a massive issue. It's been very widely known for a long time that the numbers of women in technical roles in technology is what, below 25%. But something I found interesting when I was doing some research on you is that there's also this motherhood penalty that I was unaware. Tell us a little bit about what that is and how is that something that maybe this new innovation lab will help to eliminate? >> Right, and I think it's important because when we think about putting solutions into place, we know that they're not going to be, sort of, one-size-fits-all solutions. They're going to differ for different kinds of women. And in my own research on the motherhood penalty, what we found are very clear gaps between women who are childless and women who are mothers. And in fact, the wage penalty that we usually talk about, the gender wage gap, is largely a gap between mothers and childless women. And so, we got to asking ourselves, why? Why would a women who's a mother be so penalized relative to a childless woman? So we've got gender inequality, and now we've got this motherhood penalty on top of that. And so, our research found that if you take a resume for a woman and you just add in subtle information that she's a mother, >> Lisa: Like on the PTA, or something. >> The PTA association, that people are 100% less likely to recommend her for hire. >> 100%? >> 100%, yeah. You know, it's a huge gap there, and so, as we dig deeper, what we see is that people's stereotypes about mothers, are that mothers are so committed to their families that they couldn't possibly be committed to their job. Every one of us who work with mothers in the workplace know that's not the case, right? But yet that's the stereotype that's holding mothers back, in addition to what we find for women in general, if you will. >> So if a man on his resume has that he is a soccer coach or a baseball coach, that is not factored into the decision to not hire him? >> Well it is, but guess what? It advantages him, it doesn't disadvantage him. >> Lisa: Advantages? Yes, so for fathers, we find that people see fathers as more committed to the job than childless men. So, we're seeing how parenthood works differently for men and women in the workplace. So I think one of the barriers we want to get past is the effects of biases on how people are evaluated, and they're not just gender biases. They're biases about gender, but also about parenthood, about race, about ethnicity, about sexuality. I mean, all of those things intersect in complex ways. So, it means that we're going to see different barriers for different types of women, if you will, and that means also that we're probably going to need to have different kinds of solutions as well. >> Absolutely, so something that interests me is, you know, in the last six months, me too movement exploded on the scene, times up, Brotopia, a recent book out by Emily Chang, that is shocking to say the least, very informative, enlightening. When those movements popped up and there was a, sort of, unlikely alliance with Hollywood, I'm curious, we're you like yes, good, we have some momentum here that we need to be able to leverage to making the gaps, as you said, there's so many that women face, more sensible intact, was that kind of a let's get on the same bandwagon? Yes, you have to ride these waves when they happen. The problems that me too is identifying are certainly not new problems, and this has been going on as long as women have been in the work place, but the attention to it is what's new, and so, as a scholar when there's attention to important social problem that you research, you ride that wave. We've got the world's attention now. Let's use that attention to take the messages about what we know from research and the strategies we have and get them out to people that need them, so it is an opening that allows us to take the me too, kind of, moment that we're in and really turn it into a movement that produces sustainable change. >> We need to get our own hashtag. (laughter) What are some of the things that say in this next, what are we almost and half way through 2018, which is kind of scary. What are some of the, maybe, the small ones or the quick ones that you think with this new VMware partnership that you're going to be able to identify and uncover in 2018? >> We've been working a lot on ways to reduce unconscious biases in the workplace. I think some of the projects that we're launching are really about going into organizations and diagnosing where a bias might be affecting how they're evaluating women at the points of hire, at promotion, as we're thinking about who to put all the stretch assignments. So identifying the way those biases are occurring in workplaces and then working with managers in those organizations to design tools to help get beyond those biases. This is some work that we have stared initially that we're now expanding to more research sites and so I think that's one of the first things to do is to really go in and try to remove these biases that don't, they're not good for women, but they're not good for the organization either. If you're biased against women, what that means is you're not valuing women's talent and any organization wants to accurately assessing the talent of people in their workplace. >> I think I read in a press release this morning that a McKinsey report that said that organization, if I can, yes. According to McKinsey, companies with diversity on their executive teams are 21% more profitable than those who lack diversity. Profits. >> I know, it's profit. We see it with innovation, too. It makes sense if you think about it, right. If our biases we causing us to see women as less talented than they are and maybe men as more talented then they are, what that means is we're not hiring on average the most productive, talented people. I think all organizations want to source and hire the best people they can, and so we're moving these biases as one way of doing that. And, when we remove those biases, I think improvements or diversity will follow. >> When you look at a company that's been around for a long time and you think wow, culture is very slow to change. >> Shelley: Right. >> How do you advise organizations that have been around for decades that are predominantly male led, especially at the executive level, to just be more aware and open to changing the culture to, you know, maybe it's hey, you could be 21% more profitable. >> Shelley: Exactly. >> Who doesn't want that? >> Shelley: Who doesn't want that, yeah. >> How do you have the conversation with an accumbent about cultural change? >> Right, and I think sometimes people think culture is just sort of what it is and cannot be changed, but we can make small wins, small improvements in that culture, and so one of the things that has been most effective in our research is to go in and work with managers on trying to improve how they're hiring people, how they're promoting people, and so the conversation isn't really about culture. It is at a deep level, but it doesn't seem like that at the surface level. It's really about how can you more accurately asses talent, and when you start asking that question, what you start seeing is the ways that you were assessing talent before were flawed in some ways and they were flawed in a way that was limiting your ability to see women's abilities and their talents. The conversation really is just about doing what I think we all want to do, which is truly evaluating people based on their merits, and I think if that's the message, a lot more people are on board with that. The other thing I'll say is when we had, we were working with a company who was telling us that one of the ways they assessed people for promotion was they wanted their leaders to be very responsive to people in the organization, and that's a great value to have, right, to be responsive. When we probe them about how do you know when someone's responsive, they didn't really. First they couldn't articulate how they were evaluating that. What it became clear is without clear criteria for assessing responsiveness, they're implicit measures were like how quickly does this person respond to email. They realized that women weren't being as quick responding to email, especially during the dinner hours. I think you and I can know exactly why that is. >> Right. >> They they got to starting thing, well that isn't maybe the very, that's not a very good measure of leader responsiveness, and they went back to look at their responses from women and they were more elaborate, they were more detailed, they were more helpful, and so the measure they were using was sort of, it was biased against women, but it was also not productive for what they were trying to do. These are the kind of small wins that open people eyes to the fact that they could do things differently that would be good for diversity and inclusion and would be good for what they're trying to do as an organization, the bottom line as well. >> Wow, what are the other things. We talked about, you know, the numbers of women in technical roles is very small, under 25%. Another big challenge that we have in technology is attrition, and the fact that more women leave tech for other industries than women leave other industries. >> Shelley: Exactly. >> What are some of the things that your research has shown that companies can do to also, not just focus on bringing in young talent or working with universities on STEM programs, but for women that are maybe in the middle of their, whether they're thinking about the leaving the to have a family or simply this is not the right environment for me. That retention from middle career. What are some of the things that you found there? >> Yeah, and I'll say too about, I think one of the sort of narratives that people tell themselves in companies is that women are leaving tech to have children, but women don't leave tech to have children at any higher rate, and actually a lower rate than other professions, so it's not, that's not the reason they're tech at a higher rate than some other places. There's something else going on there. I think working on improving the inclusion and the environment is really important for retaining women. Surveys that sort of show why people left their jobs find that in tech, a big reason women leave tech compared to other places is they don't feel like they're supported in the workplace, more so than in other places, even including other STEM fields, like science and things like that. Higher exit rate because they don't feel included in the workplace, so the question is, what's the barrier there? What are we doing in our workplaces that women in tech don't feel included and what can we do to change that. I think, again, removing some of these biases, if you're in a workplace where you constantly feel like your talent is not being appreciated, that's one way you quickly don't feel included as a technical worker. I think this sort of cultural change that we're talking about is probably even more important for retention than it is for hiring. >> Do you think that younger companies maybe start us maybe, you know three to four years old or less than 10 year's, we'll say, have a better chance at being able to morph quickly and pivot than a larger company that's been around for decades? >> Yeah, I mean, it's much easier to get things right to begin with, you know, so people sometimes ask you know when they're founding a company how soon, you know, do we need to have a woman on board, and my answer is always as quickly as possible, and I you get to 10 employees with no women, you're already behind the curve. Really, kind of starting off with the idea that we want to get the culture right to begin with so that we don't end up having to scramble the eggs later down the road, and that's one of the things we've learned from working with VMware, is early on in the founding of this company, there was an attempt to create the kind of culture that I think more companies are wanting to emulate today. >> We've got Betsy Sutter coming on a little bit later and I'm really curious to talk to her about coming on years ago, when VMware was a start up 100 people. >> Shelley: Exactly. >> And now being in this chief people officer role of an organization of 20,000 and here we are at VMware today walking into a room of females who are here to really kind of embody what the charter of this consortium of WT Squared is, is connecting and inspiring, but supporting women and tech of all levels, right, not just here in Silicon Valley, but beyond as well and having the powers coming together from industry, from acidemia, from non-profits is, it's a very, the vibe when we were in the key note just an hour ago was so palpable that there's certainly that we will create change. >> Betsy's so inspirational to me in this regard, is that she has been here since 2001 and was sort of critical to getting the culture in place at that point in time and, you know, it's not that VMware doesn't have challenges with hiring and retaining a tech. All companies do, but they've created a culture from the beginning that I think is kind of a model for what companies are wanting to do today. >> Last thing before we wrap, here, is we had the opportunity to listen to Laila Ali and so cool. >> Shelley: So cool. >> I mean, just to hear a confident women, who was probably born with a natural confidence, that women have and some women don't, but to hear her talk about hey, sometimes this interwar, the flame is out or it's low and I, too, have to say this is my purpose. This is my passion. I don't want to have to look around and constantly think I'm in a man's sport. I know, this is my sport. I thought just that having that world kind of talk to us, women intact to say hey, it's going to take reminding yourself often what your purpose is, what you're passion is, but she challenged us to do that and I just thought it was a really encouraging, inspiring message for everyone to hear so early on a Tuesday morning. >> We run sort of a leadership program for high school girls and this whole issue of purpose is something that we really stress as well is when you're trying to lead and people aren't following, stop and ask yourself what was the purpose in doing what you're doing and articulate that purpose to others and that's the way you can kind of bring people along. I just loved her example today about when you're not feeling confident, go back and ask yourself why, the question of why. It's too easy to go through life just doing things and losing our sense of purpose and that really is a good source of confidence because you're doing something for a reason that really matters to you. That will help recharge you. >> Absolutely. Shelly, thanks so much for stopping by. >> I enjoyed it, I enjoyed it. >> TheCUBE this morning and sharing your purpose and the exciting news of what VMware and the Clayman Institute are going to do. We look forward to hearing some of the great stuff that comes out in the next few years. >> That sounds great. Thank you, nice to talk to you. >> And we want to thank you. You're watching theCUBE. We are on the ground at VMware at the 3rd Annual Women Transforming Technology event. I'm Lisa Martin. Thanks for watching. (funky music)