The Revenue Focused Marketer

Featured Speakers -

Robin Fleming

Chief Executive Officer Evolv Tech

Robin Fleming has 35 years of expertise in commercial software and over a decade of experience in executive technology leadership roles. Her expertise has reshaped teams and product lines with millions of daily active users and revenues from $150M to $3B. Robin has built a reputation synonymous with transformative strategy and business growth. Her leadership extends to product divisions, teams, and business operations

Harshika Chadha

Lead Product Manager– DiGGrowth

Harshika is a seasoned product manager with a passion for business transformation, design thinking, technology, marketing trends, SaaS security, and human-computer interactions. What interests her most is the intersection of these fields, which is why she stays on top of the latest industry insights to uncover strategies for success in today's dynamic business landscape.

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Transcription:

​0:08
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Revenue focused marketer where we discuss anything and everything related to marketing, as well as data.

0:17
My name is Hershey and I’m currently the lead product manager at DiGGrowth.

0:23
When I’m not really super busy with my day to day work, something that I love to do is keep up with the latest trends, see what’s up with technology, see what things are changing and also be up to date with what’s happening in the marketing environment, right?

0:40
And this platform honestly is something that gives me the opportunity to really get in touch with some people that have had a lot of experience in the related field and really hear from their stories and their experiences.

0:57
This episode is definitely a really special one for me.

1:02
I have always been super passionate about women in technology and since it is March and it is you know, International Women’s Day coming up very soon.

1:16
Today’s special guest that I have had with me is Robin Fleming.

1:21
Robin has had over 35 years of expertise in commercial software and over a decade of experience in executive technology leadership roles.

1:31
Her expertise have reshaped teams and product lines with millions of daily active users and revenues ranging from 1 50 million to 3 billion.

1:42
Robin has built a repetition that is synonymous with transformative strategy and business growth.

1:49
So, thank you so much for joining us today, Robin.

1:53
Well, I’m so excited to chat with you today.

1:56
Thank you for having me on.

1:58
Perfect
1:59
So we’ll just get started, I think for our users, we would just love to hear about your journey so far.

2:07
Yeah, for sure.

2:08
Well, as you mentioned, it has been 35 years.

2:11
It’s hard to believe at this point.

2:13
And my journey actually started prene so very early on, I focused on the software industry and built a lot of packaged apps, a lot in the graphics space and other industries that companies bought and used on, on those early computers.

2:35
moved into some back office application development and some early kind of batch processing before transactional technology was really where it is today.

2:49
I, I also have a lot of advanced experience in a lot of different platforms.

2:55
I’ve worked on a lot of SAS platforms that were B to C B to BB to B to C E commerce marketplaces.

3:05
those have their own special transformative and innovative challenges.

3:12
I have about 12 years in supply chain in manufacturing application.

3:19
And then really kind of the the balance of my time has been in enterprise B to B platforms focused in a lot of different industries.

3:30
you know, from front line worker technology and industrial environments to business automation with, with big P systems to big data and even marketing applications.

3:44
So I have a fair, fair amount of time there.

3:48
and just kind of the themes for me throughout my journey have really been focused on how can we move our customer experience to the most innovative solutions, how can we help them with productivity and value?

4:05
And in some kind, in some cases with, you know, B to B platforms on e commerce, it’s about selling your own services on that platform or allowing them to sell services.
4:14
But at the end of the day, it’s about making really kind of smart connections with your customers and helping them achieve value.
4:22
Definitely.
4:23
Wow, that’s such a wide range of experiences.
4:27
And honestly, we’re, we’re truly grateful to have you with us today.
4:32
I think like I would love to hear about your thoughts on the significance of digital innovation in staying relevant.
4:42
I know you mentioned that you’ve worked with a variety of different companies.
4:46
So what would you say has been like, you know, in your experience, you’ve seen something that works.
4:52
Yeah.
4:52
So I think there’s so many opportunities still today a across almost every industry for really digital innovation.
5:03
And despite the fact that we have name an industry name, a functional area, whether it’s hr or marketing or maybe it’s your supply chain.
5:15
There’s all kinds of wonderful solutions out there.
5:17
There’s, there’s still big kind of end to end applications.
5:23
But, but the, the move over probably the past 10 to 15 years is to move more toward individual point solutions because there’s so many good products out there.
5:32
But I think the thing that is still interesting to me is despite all that technology that’s available and all the innovation that’s in place, so many companies, especially smaller companies or some industry niches still have a lot of things that are manual processes.
5:53
They’re, you know, manually reentering data from one system to another.
5:58
It might be you know, into a legacy system, it might be exporting to a spreadsheet, manipulating the spreadsheet to kind of get the analytics and the reports.
6:08
And you know, it, it there’s just a lot of opportunities still for companies to, to drive innovation.
6:17
And if you think about kind of the sectors, just kind of generally manufacturing is definitely an area where there’s still a lot of opportunity for improvement.
6:29
There’s a lot of wonderful legacy systems out there.
6:32
But the the glue between the systems may be missing and even the most sophisticated systems don’t necessarily do everything.
6:42
And then kind of you couple that with aging data.
6:45
So companies have sit on top of lots of data, sometimes it sits within one system.
6:52
and then you have to, you know, really translate that data through technology or even in some cases manually to get it into another system.
7:00
So you can, can actually use it.
7:03
So I think it’s amazing to me, the clients I work with the customers I’ve worked with very recently.
7:13
There’s still just a, a lot of things that are not digital or that despite all the technology require you know, kind of human intervention, I would say some of the other areas where I think transportation and logistics, lots of great technology there, but there’s still these little pockets where you know, digital is not there or there’s opportunities for innovation lots in place in banking and finance, but you’re also talking about a lot of legacy systems there as well.
7:42
And then I would say the last thing would be really kind of challenges with on premise platforms still versus being in the cloud where you have better accessibility to technology and tools for data transformation and, and reuse and streamlined operations.
7:59
Definitely.
8:00
And I think there’s so much productivity and value that’s lost when data is in silos, right?
8:08
It could be because of like, you know, like you mentioned not having them, maybe all in one place, maybe it’s legacy systems that are being used and that’s why there’s such a disconnect, but just by like, you know, promoting more of a digital transformation and sort of having that guidance to bring it all together, there’s so much value that can be obtained from it.
8:30
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
8:32
One thing I would add to you, you mentioned, you know, the productivity gains depending on, you know, what your industry is, there’s also an impact on quality and the experience that your customers get.
8:45
And ultimately the kind of that lack of innovation or the gaps maybe in your innovation strategy, they impact the bottom line and, and as other companies get more competitive and are leaning in more on a really robust digital strategy and an ongoing digital strategy, you can really lose out from a computer competitive standpoint.
9:10
So it has a, a lot of, a lot of impacts all the way down to being able to retain people that the younger workforce is not, not too enamored with filling out paper forms, right?
9:25
So, so there’s lots of lots of opportunity, but I think the headline is that it can affect the bottom line of a company.
9:34
Definitely.
9:35
And I know that you’ve had like so much experience with these different companies.
9:40
what would you sort of advise like for companies that are just like, you know, verging on a digital transformation?
9:48
Are there certain things that they can look out for just to make sure their transition is smoother.
9:55
Yeah, I would, I would emphasize a focus on where your current system sit, whether it’s cloud or on prem.
10:05
The, the on premise solutions may still be required for your industry for certain reasons because of the the technology that you’re using or, or perhaps requirements about data privacy concerns there.
10:20
But I think ultimately, it kind of comes down to where’s your data and how clean is your data?
10:26
And do you have a data strategy?
10:29
And for you to really take advantage of technology without that data strategy, you’re going to run up against challenges, especially with legacy environments and perhaps data that has aged over time.
10:44
A lot of a lot of software platforms, If you’ve lived with them for years, then you know, your, your data can be what, what’s called dirty data just because the data wasn’t really managed properly or it wasn’t maintained over time.
11:01
So ultimately, that could mean multiple customer records or multiple skews or, you know, you know, numbers being off just a tiny bit and that can really be problematic when you think about your your transformation.
11:17
So it’s not just about what would make an employee more productive, it’s not just about which solution should you use?
11:26
Those are all very, very important.
11:28
But the one thing I would continue to emphasize is having a strong data strategy.
11:35
And and if you don’t have that in place, get help, you know, get, get some resources to help you really put that data in order and that can take time as well.
11:47
Definitely, I know our big growth, we always keep talking about this and we’re like garbage in is garbage out.
11:53
So if like, you know your data at the foundation isn’t correct the results or even the analytics that you get from the data are not gonna be correct and not insightful at all.
12:05
So just starting like, you know, getting the resource human technologies that sort of help with that, it’s very essential to just ensure that, you know, you have your right start and then yes, you’re really making the most out of your data.
12:20
At this point, I know in today’s world something that’s screaming left, right and center has become artificial intelligence or, or generative A I, right.
12:33
Gen A I is like one of the biggest buzzwords.
12:38
So I would love to know about like, you know, have you had any experiences with A I or gen A I?
12:45
And then what would you say has been the role of A I sort of driving these technological advancements?
12:53
Yeah.
12:53
So there’s so much to, to talk about here.
12:57
I would say, first of all, it is still just amazing how fast innovation is moving in the generative A I space.
13:08
If, if you kind of look at just open A I and Chat GP T,, the stats on what’s happened from like June 2018 to March of this year, it’s, the improvements are astounding.
13:23
So things that would have previously perhaps taken years of techno technological advances,, that the improvements, it’s hard to comprehend how we’re seeing the improvements in so many months.
13:37
And so when you look at like the stats for Chat GP T in 2018, it was able to process around 100 and 17 million parameters and then fast forward to June 2020 it’s already up to 100 and 75 billion parameters, which is just, it’s an astronomical change.
13:59
And so I think that is, that is the headline and, and you know, A I has been around for a very long time, natural language processing has been around for a very long time.
14:10
We, we use that at, at the last start up I was involved in.
14:15
but the things that have really changed are the advances in the large language models and then a lot of technology and technological advances have happened so that now it is much more accessible.
14:30
You have, you have much more data that you can f in.
14:35
there’s so much more that you can do with, with text and video and graphics.
14:41
So now talking to your data and getting things back from the data are are just it’s amazing what you can do.
14:50
And I think the, the thing that has really, it got everybody watching what open A I has done with chat GP T has made it very accessible now.
14:59
So where a lot of people maybe knew about natural language processing and some industries have been using A I for years.
15:06
So you think about fraud detection in the financial industry and risk ratings for credit, you could kind of go through a lot of industries.
15:13
There’s wonderful tech that’s been in place lots that’s been in place for call centers.
15:19
And if, if chat bots are not new, but what they do today is very new and what they can do is is pretty amazing.
15:30
So I would say I’ve, I’ve had involvement in it.
15:33
I’ve certainly benefited personally from, from chat GP T and now, of course, Microsoft’s got copilot and Google’s got Gemini and you know, Amazon’s working on, you know, an A I shopping assistant.
15:49
And, you know, some of the studies show that, you know, the most innovative companies really globally are investing in A I in making that part of their core strategy.
16:04
So it’s you know, we can’t ignore it and it’s so accessible now for really kind of the mainstream.
16:14
And the things that also kind of strike me are the the learning patterns from those data sets that the speed at which you can get answers, of course, there’s always how smart is the data you already talked about that your results are only going to be as good as the data is.
16:31
So, it’s, it’s certainly, you know, not perfect and then the ability,, you know, for those, models to learn and adapt, that’s,, that’s beyond anything that we’ve seen.
16:46
And,, you know, we’re probably just getting started what happens in the next months and, you know, the next few years is gonna be pretty amazing.
16:57
Definitely.
16:58
I think I’m also,, a big, big user of chat G BT,, started off with something like, oh, it’s interesting.
17:07
It’s on the news, let’s just figure it out to now.
17:10
Like, you know, I can’t even imagine a day that has gone by where I haven’t used it for like, you know, work or even sometimes personally, like I have someone who loves to travel.
17:21
So it, it’s made my traveling so much easier.
17:24
Like, just planning things is so much easier,, with a click click of a button these days.
17:30
, but I’d also love to hear about how would you say are like, certain actionable ways that businesses can, like, you know, really make the most of,, Ja I in today’s world, I think.
17:43
, you know, if you kind of look at some of some of the studies in the stat,, the, the use cases that, you know, a number of organizations have studied and believe are going to be the most prevalent and I think are showing to be the most prevalent would be certainly customer operations.
18:02
Lots, lots that can be improved.
18:05
Now, customer experience, marketing and sales absolutely is a, a huge area.
18:12
You software engineering and R and D, the the ability to, to generate code snippets or more than code snippets is pretty tremendous.
18:23
So I think those are areas that maybe are emerging.
18:29
But we don’t know what all the companies are doing right now.
18:31
I think a lot of companies are experimenting and using it in unique ways.
18:36
We talked a bit about or I touched on customer service before where you, you had voice res automated voice response systems and automated emails and natural language processing existed there before.
18:50
But now you think about advanced chat bots and advanced customer interactions and understanding you more as a customer to give you that personalized experience, that’s there’s huge opportunities there.
19:03
marketing and sales.
19:06
OK.
19:06
That is an area I think was already from a marketing perspective and having a bit of a marketing software technology background, lots that was already happening there, right?
19:16
And lots of technology and tools and that the content and the personalization that were fed across any platform, social platforms.
19:27
The personalization already is pretty amazing.
19:31
But you think about now you couple that with smart A I generated content that is personalized just for you and it fed into campaigns that, that, you know, are, are reaching you through text and personalized video and personalized images that intersection I think is extremely interesting.
19:57
I think R and D research and development lots of opportunities to leverage A I there for whether it is improving simulation and modeling or just accelerating innovation in, in more of the, you know, Dr drug, drug discovery, material science, there’s tremendous things that are happening there that I know little about.
20:21
Just know there’s things happening.
20:24
human resources.
20:26
that’s an area from resume screening to employee on boarding.
20:32
You think about a more automated interviewing processes and customized training programs where A I can, can play a part that can make getting up to speed so much faster.
20:45
You know, it’s no longer reading materials or going back through slack channels or going back through you know, a knowledge base to try to learn, it could be really customized and tailored for you based on your experience and your knowledge.
21:01
A couple of others would be supply chain.
21:03
you know, the things around demand forecasting route optimization.
21:08
There was already some just great technology already there.
21:13
The next level of that is is amazing in the ability we’ve talked about querying the data, getting those analytics and reports.
21:25
You think about supply chain, financial and accounting where you can now get that information that’s very tailored to what you need.
21:33
And that’s, that’s, that’s just tremendous, I think.
21:37
And then you could name any industry, I think applications could be super broad in terms of just personalization.
21:48
and getting a turning that data into actionable insights faster with your, you know, your custom data set, your company’s data set, your customers, data sets that becomes just the, the value there.
22:06
It’s, it’s hard to even think about it.
22:08
I mean, it’s, it’s tremendous, definitely, like just hearing you talk it like blows my mind that like, you know, there hasn’t, it seems like there isn’t any industry or any person at this point that hasn’t been like, you know, sort of touched with the blessing or some might even call the curse of the eye.
22:29
So I, I know we, you touched upon certain, like, you know, wonderful things that are possible now and I just think everything’s so much faster, right?
22:42
A lot of like, even with like a product that we just launched DG GP T Act insights are just so much more actionable with just a simple prompt now.
22:55
Instead of, you know, having us data engineers sit in the back end and sort of help you find the correct analytics from like, you know, your marketing and your revenue.
23:06
It’s just a simple prompt now that you can just use.
23:10
And that’s also so like, it’s a prompt that comes while you’re just typing it, you don’t even have to type an entire sentence and, you know, you have the answer right in front of you.
23:20
So it’s crazy to sort of see how much faster and more efficient things have become because of, you know, A I and specifically gen A I,, lately.
23:31
But,, as I sort of like, you know, joked about the curse aspect, I know a lot of people are also like, you know, worried about some of the ethical concerns that come up with like this huge deployment of A I.
23:47
And I just wanted to get your thoughts, like, you know, have you like, you know, had any thoughts of like, you know, what’s sort of like, of course, there’s so many great impacts, but are there any things that are concerning to you as of now or do you see them be concerning in the future?
24:06
Yeah.
24:06
And before I get to the concerns, let me just add one comment.
24:10
just to kind of add on to what you were saying about accessibility of insights.
24:17
II, I can’t tell you, I, I wish I knew how many hours I’ve spent over the years, you know, creating powerpoint presentations for the board or Analytics reports where I was really dependent on, you know, slicing data in a whole bunch of different ways and trying to come up with the pie chart and the bar chart and the the line charts and the combination charts and how do we best represent this data?
24:45
And that’s not really what I want.
24:47
And so the ability to analyze that data as you were talking about with, with what you guys have done, the hours that that saves, but not only that the precision around the information that you can get helps you make faster decisions.
25:08
Now, it all comes back to what we said, the data needs to be accurate, you, you know, so there is that data accuracy and you need to, to verify it.
25:17
But the ability to have those fast answers that is so transformative and so helpful for leaders and executives and managers to make decisions, have the right kind of information at their fingertips that can boost productivity and quality and revenue and all those things that we talked about.
25:39
So that is that is game, game changing on the concerns.
25:45
Yes, there’s definitely concerns.
25:49
And I think, I think we’ll hear more about that.
25:52
I mean, there’s lots of conversations around it already.
25:55
There’s lots of conversations around.
25:57
How do we regulate this?
25:59
Making sure that I in an organization, how do you make sure that your confidential information or your intellectual property isn’t fed into a public model?
26:12
So it’s, there’s the usage piece for employees who have access to these, these models and who could be tremendously productive.
26:20
So there’s got to be some balance there, there’s also, you know, data, sovereign sovereignty issues, you know, where does the data live?
26:28
Does it cross borders?
26:29
Are you there is, there is compute that is local, there’s global, it takes a lot of compute, it takes a lot of GP us to actually, you know, develop you know, the, the solutions and the output for, for generative A I.
26:50
So you do have to think about protecting that data.
26:54
Are you breaking, you know, laws within a country where does that data go?
27:01
You know, I think we’ve got, we’ve got security risk potentially.
27:06
And, and then certainly ethical considerations of how the data is used is it used in a way that is no more biased than humans today and ideally less biased.
27:19
So there’s a whole host of I think concerns and I think those concerns have always been there, but now that it’s much more accessible and the technology has really taken off and everyone’s trying to figure out how do I use it.
27:33
And how do I, how can I be competitive and how can it benefit me?
27:38
The speed at which we are making sure that we are protecting data is not caught up yet.
27:46
But I, I think, I think it will.
27:49
and I have a healthy respect for from a security perspective and making sure that you secure that data that you secure your models and that needs to be baked into those,, digital innovation strategies.
28:03
And it is for, for many companies today,, the smaller companies need to think about that too.
28:10
Definitely.
28:11
And,, would you say that, like, you know, despite the challenges and some of the ethical concerns A I is here to stay or do you think it’s like a?
28:23
Yeah.
28:25
Yeah, for sure.
28:26
And like I said, it’s, it’s not, it’s not like it just appeared, it’s been around for a very long time.
28:31
We didn’t necessarily have the compute power.
28:34
We didn’t have the techno technological advances on the large language models that we have today.
28:41
So, yeah, abs absolutely here to stay here to improve.
28:47
So much we can do with it and I think it can be tremendously valuable.
28:53
It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be fun.
28:55
It’s gonna be a fun ride.
28:56
I think it’s, I think it’s as as game changing as, as the internet was back in, you know, the early nineties.
29:04
Definitely.
29:05
I think it still amazes me like, you know, every couple of days there’s like some new advancement that you hear about and like even trying out certain of these applications myself, like I think I was just scrolling through my journey the other day and just figuring out like you type in a prompt and you get like, you know, such a beautiful representation and so many different options of it, it’s still,, I guess, crazy to me how, like, you know, fast changing and like, you know,, innovative this field has been.
29:39
So, I guess even I’m super excited to sort of see what comes up next.
29:44
And,, but at the same time, I would definitely say it’s important for like, you know, companies that are working with A I to sort of still keep in mind the ethical concerns and try to like, you know, make sure that they’re using or using A I in the best possible method that they can.
30:05
I would also at this point, sort of love to transition to.
30:10
I know when we, I started off, I sort of introduced the topic of, you know, how passionate I am about women in tech.
30:18
And I think you’re someone like, you know, who’s seen it all right in your experience from, I guess, like, you know, starting off with an age where even internet wasn’t such a big thing to now, like, you know, generative A I, and there’s so many other technological advancements that have also happened.
30:44
How has your journey personally been, like, have there been any challenges that you have faced or?
30:52
Yeah, I would just love to hear your thoughts.
30:54
Yeah, I think o of course, there have been challenges and, you know, when I started out, I didn’t start out thinking that I was gonna have a career in you know, the, the software technology space.
31:09
I started out with a focus on communication and journalism despite doing really well in computer science in high school.
31:15
So I, I kind of in college with the prompting of actually, my mom started looking at what I was gonna do in terms of my job and what kind of living I was gonna make.
31:30
And ended up with landed an internship with a large wood products and paper company.
31:38
And I was you know, I implemented an inventory control system in collaboration with the technology team.
31:48
It was a custom built solution and I was terrible.
31:53
I didn’t know what I was doing.
31:55
It was 100% learning on the job and I absolutely loved every minute of it.
31:59
It was everything from configuring the network to managing the databases, data entry, doing Q A on the product, working with the developers to get it up and running and training the users.
32:13
And I loved every minute of it.
32:15
And so that was game changing for me.
32:17
It was a hard pivot for me.
32:20
I went ahead and finished the degree that I was working on and my first job was working in customer support for one of those early software companies that did packaged apps.
32:34
And I haven’t looked back so de definitely, I got lucky in networking with right people to get into software.
32:46
it was an emerging field for sure.
32:49
in terms of application development and, you know, Windows was just being developed back then.
32:54
So, there was a lot of change going on and certainly pre internet and I was able to really, you know, advocate for myself, you know, do really kind of movements into management pretty quick.
33:11
And kind of built a career that way.
33:13
A lot of it was very much through relationships, networking, working very hard and, you know, studying as much as I could, to kind of make up for what I didn’t get in school.
33:27
There was so much changing that it wasn’t that hard really to kind of keep up.
33:32
Yeah.
33:33
No, definitely.
33:34
It’s lovely to see, you know, how your career started.
33:39
And I love that you pointed out networking.
33:43
I think it’s, it’s a skill that’s often underrated, like a lot of people don’t really realize the impact that it can have for me also, getting my first internship happened through networking that sort of chartered my career.
34:02
And so I think that’s definitely an important aspect to sort of keep in mind.
34:10
What advice would you probably have for, you know, the upcoming generation of women that are interested in technology, but like, you know, or probably still exploring if that’s a career option for them.
34:25
Yeah, I actually have advice though for, you know, the women exploring the the technology roles and also have some for employers.
34:36
So I’ll start with, you know, what advice I have for women.
34:40
I, if you look today at any company, they’re either a technology company or they’re a tech enabled company, we everything runs on technology.
34:53
And if you look across those functional areas from, you know, customer, customer experience, customer success all the way through the supply chain in, in manufacturing and delivering goods and servicing those goods, there are in number of technical roles.
35:12
It, you don’t have to think my only technology option is to be a developer that used to be what it was.
35:23
But, but now if you think about the intersection of A I and software development R and D that is perhaps leveling the playing field a little bit.
35:35
I’m not saying you don’t need an advanced degree or advanced experience to be a software developer.
35:41
But there’s lots of roles you can play and there have been for a long time, you could be a cybersecurity expert, you could be a data analytics expert, you could be a marketing analytics, marketing data scientist, there’s, there’s so many roles that, that leverage technology that I view are technical roles.
36:03
So if you kind of open the lens up to that it I think a lab, an individual to really tap into what their skills are.
36:12
So, you know, if you are naturally artistic and, you know, you are thinking about a role in design.
36:19
Then marketing may be a wonderful place for you to apply those skills or maybe you’re going to be a UX designer for, you know, a software product.
36:29
Those are still very technical roles and require technical skill sets.
36:34
But they may not be, you know, like a software architect or, you know, you know, a traditional general, I think, I think that I would, I would say that’s the most important thing is to realize there’s lots of opportunities.
36:50
And then, I think one of the most important we mentioned the internships, I think internships can be tremendously valuable for you to try things out and see what different fields and different functional areas are like.
37:08
And then I think it’s about raising your hand being, being more confident.
37:11
Women studies have shown that women typically will only apply to jobs where they feel like you can check every box and I absolutely can do all of these things.
37:22
Whereas studies have shown that men typically will go, oh, I can do 70% of that.
37:28
I’m good.
37:29
I’ll go ahead and apply.
37:30
So I would encourage women to raise your hand, apply for the roles network.
37:37
Put yourself out there More so than you’re comfortable doing and that just can reap so many benefits for you being open to, to what’s available out there.
37:51
And then I would say for employers, it’s really important to do purposeful hiring.
37:58
So when you think about hiring, you really need to think about the job descriptions and is a job description so restrictive that again, a woman might not even apply.
38:15
Are you encouraging women?
38:17
Are you offering those internships?
38:20
Are you engaging in sponsoring and mentoring women or engaging in sponsoring in stem organizations, offering perhaps technology scholarships and purposefully offering those for women, I think there’s just, there’s a lot of things that are on the kind of that social side where you can be a friendly employer and be more cognizant about how you appear that would attract more women to, to your company and to the roles.
38:57
Definitely, I, I love that you not only touched upon like, you know, your advice for women, but also for companies, I think certain initiatives like, you know, like mentoring and empowering women that are within the organization and even like, you know, like women that might be interested in STEM and like offering those scholarships can make a huge difference.
39:21
I know at our organization, we sort of have like our internal sort of women in tech meets that.
39:30
Honestly, I’ve seen them have a huge impact on a lot of people over time.
39:36
It’s like, you know, starting off with something as little as like feeling secure to speak.
39:42
Up in a room full of women and then being able to apply that in any room that they might be in.
39:48
So something as small as that just like sort of being mindful and also like sort of keeping in mind, like, you know, inclusiveness and diversity when hiring makes a huge impact also.
40:01
So I really like that you mentioned sort of like the job description, like putting thought before, like, you know, having a job description written up also can make such a huge difference.
40:14
So, yeah, I think II I am definitely taking a lot from this conversation and it’s motivated me to even like, you know, what to speak up more in certain situations.
40:28
because yeah, there are situations I think even like I read something about like negotiation, that’s something that most women like just salary negotiation isn’t something that they step up to or like, you know, even consider doing while accepting a job offer.
40:44
Whereas studies have shown men would definitely go in and try to negotiate.
40:49
So yes, just another I guess example of like, you know, it, it the confidence has to come from within.
41:00
And I think companies and as women, we can also continue to uplift each other.
41:07
I think that’s something the awareness is there.
41:13
But I think just being more mindful of that can make a huge impact because oftentimes it, it’s not even like you know, a man that like, you know, might be putting them down, but it could be another woman also.
41:25
So just being sort of aware and, you know, trying to uplift each other is something you know, that can really make a huge impact.
41:35
Yes.
41:36
When a couple of things I would add, I think would be you mentioned about speaking up and a, a simple example that I’ve used over time, There’s, there’s the concept of women taking a seat at the table and I’ve been in plenty of big meetings where there’s a conference table and then there’s chairs around the wall.
41:56
And I have observed in some of the companies I’ve worked in where women are less likely to take a seat around the table, they’ll sit around the wall.
42:07
So I, I think it’s just, it illustrates sometimes the view that you perhaps have about you or entitlement and how you fit into an organization.
42:19
So I always, I always say take a, take the seat at the table unless, you know, for sure it’s reserved for certain people.
42:27
You know, you’re, you’re just as equal.
42:31
I do think mentoring is really important and making sure that career developments available for everyone within an organization and your point on negotiation.
42:46
That’s true on salary.
42:48
It’s true for promotions.
42:49
It’s true for you really want to work on a particular initiative or project.
42:56
And I think just being, you can be very polite, very respectful, very thoughtful and still advocate for yourself.
43:06
Because if you don’t advocate for yourself, there is no guarantee anyone else is going to do it for you.
43:12
So you have to get comfortable in your own way of, of, you know, adding value first, but also making sure that you advocate for yourself.
43:24
Definitely, I think it sort of boils down to sort of like, you know, putting yourself out there even though it might seem difficult, even if it’s for an internship, speaking up to get that, that job, that promotion, even that salary that you want.
43:40
And I think once it’s like a habit, right, once you start and it might be uncomfortable the first or the second time, but when you do it more often, you sort of gain comfort in it.
43:54
No, I think you summed it up so well.
43:58
And I think this entire session has been quite wonderful.
44:02
So I just wanna thank you from the bottom of my heart for like, you know, taking the time to do this with us today.
44:10
Any closing thoughts or key takeaways that you might have from today’s session for our guests that are listening in.
44:17
Yeah, I think a few would be if you don’t already have it, you need a strategy for digital innovation and transformation.
44:29
That begins with data.
44:31
Don’t, don’t forget about your data that will come back and you, you require a lot of work down the road.
44:39
so much productivity boost or possible from, from A I.
44:45
If you’re already integrating that into your systems and process is wonderful if you’re not, it would be a really good time to catch up and stay up to date.
44:56
And then I think for, for women in tech roles or interested in tech roles, You deserve a place there and advocate for yourself.
45:10
pay, pay it forward, help, help other women for sure.
45:15
And do, do great work doing great work and delivering.
45:22
I think removes a lot of the barriers and stigma about you know, a gender.
45:29
So, yeah, that’s it.
45:31
Now, that was such a wonderful summary of all the things that we discussed today.
45:36
I love how we started off with like digital transformation and then of course, went into the whole A I even like, you know, the ethical unethical side of it.
45:47
But love that we sort of concluded with, you know, our special topic here today.
45:55
I think anyone listening in, especially women that might be listening to this episode would for sure, feel more empowered.
46:02
I know I feel empowered after this session with you.
46:05
So, thank you so much again and truly grateful to have you here today.
46:12
Oh, thank you.
46:12
I’ve enjoyed it.
46:13
It’s been, been a lot of fun.
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