Transcript
Narrator:
Welcome to Cyber 909, your source for wit and wisdom and cybersecurity and beyond. On this podcast, your host, veteran chief security officer and Cyber Aficionado Den Jones taps his vast network to bring you guests, stories, opinions, predictions, and analysis you won't get anywhere else. Join us for this special Women in Leadership Executive panel.
Den:
Well everybody, welcome to another episode of Cyber 909, the podcast which celebrates ideally leadership and all the fun stuff of surviving. Our role as technology professionals, we love to talk about things are noncrime and cyber related. Really it's about leadership and diversity, inclusion and wellness and thriving. And this as we enter celebrating all the women in the world month. But let's remind everybody, shouldn't celebrate the women that are special to you just one month a year. It's 12 months of the year. So I've got an amazing panel. This is a second part of our panel series of women executives and I've got a great panel this week. So let's do some introductions. Toni Van Winkle, she is from Adobe. We work together. Toni is the VP of Digital employee experience. Welcome Tony, and thanks for joining.
Toni:
Thanks Den. It's great to be here.
Den:
Excellent. And we have Dinah Davis code like a girl founder and previous podcast guest. Dinah, thank you for joining.
Dinah:
Yeah, it's always going to be a good time hanging out with you.
Den:
Well, we dunno. And now Michelle Ragusa McBain. So Michelle Global Channel Chief Entrepreneur Magazine, top four women to Inspire women and girls in tech Comp tia's Women of the Year, and the former CRN woman of the Channel board member. Welcome Michelle.
Michelle:
Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here with all of you amazing women and an amazing ally for women. So thank you Den.
Den:
Thank you. And then we've got Theresa Payton hopefully going to join us. Theresa was the first CIO of the White House and she is the founder and CEO of Fortalice Solutions security firm. And she's unfortunately got a last minute call for some meetings in DC so hopefully she's going to swing in and swing out on the way and we'll jump in, get some questions and answers from her. If not, she has said she'll come on a future podcast. She's been a previous guest as well. So let's just jump in. It's really funny because I always look at the questions, I'm like, are there some easy ones that ramp us into this shit? And then actually there's not. So Toni, let's start off with what's your biggest professional learning as a leader in technology and how has that shaped your leadership philosophy?
Toni:
Yeah, I really love this question. I think there's moments throughout my career that continue to shape me, but as I kind of look back in the rear view mirror, I think about all the disruptions that I've lived through throughout my career, whether that be web or mobile or the experience economy and now artificial intelligence, one thing that's consistent about all of that is change. So when you're dealing with technology, advancements are happening every single moment. In fact, I was just telling my team the other day, the number of AI startups or at least startups with an idea that they're going to get into this market changes from my commute, which is 10 minutes away from the office to the time I get to the office. And so that is the acceleration of disruption whenever we find these spikes. So what is the lesson? The lesson is that leaders need to understand the capabilities of organizational change management and that is centered around people. So the skills you learn with that are skills around eq, understanding, empathy, taking people along with you on a journey, understanding what a compelling vision is to lead them to the other side of a disruption. So those are really critical foundational leadership skills for me to navigate bringing a very large global team I have along on a journey of disruption.
Den:
That's excellent. And Michelle, what's your take? Do you have a big epiphany statement over the years?
Michelle:
I think my biggest epiphany is there's a lot of disparities that occur naturally between men and women, and yet some of the biggest differences are our biggest strengths. And so I believe that in my journey, I mentioned kind of in our precursor to this, I'm the first in my family to go to college to get an MBA to work in technology. Representation and mentorship are integral into not only attracting key women and diverse candidates into roles and technology, but keeping them there, maintaining their presence and lifting them through their leadership journey. And I do believe that there is a lot of obstacles that can come up through anybody's journey in the world, but especially in the world of tech, we have a lot of privilege. There's lucrative careers and there's flexible. Before the Covid Pandemic, we had the ability to work remotely and to telecommute and to do a lot of great things where we are changing the way the world lives and works and plays and learns. And now kind of looking forward into next gen AI and all of the future that hasn't even really been seized yet. The issues are how do you make sure that you have a table where you look across the aisle and they're not just people that think you. How do you show true representation and diversity of thought, whether from backgrounds, introverts and extroverts, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different international backgrounds and men and women, et cetera, to make sure that everybody's voices is being reflected. And I think that is where you really do shine as a company.
Den:
And I was thinking, so Dinah, if you were going to give yourself some younger advice, what would that be?
Dinah:
I think it would be to be a duck. So I know that's kind of off the wall, but it's something I learned from one of my later bosses in life. And kind of tying back to the question that Toni and Michelle had, your biggest personal learning, I am an extremely empathetic person. I feel a lot about what happens to people like right, I got to tell you right now, I'm a little messed up with everything that's happening in the world and I'm trying to put a blocker in there and I got to figure out how to be a duck again, but in a work environment to be a duck, which means to let the water flow over you and just let some of the junk and the crap and the things that happen just float off of your back like water on a duck's back because it's really easy to get feedback on a project or on something you were working on and to take that extremely personally and get very upset about it or to see somebody else get feedback in your team that you run and get very upset about that.
And it's learning when to just let it run off. And when that you have to stand up and say, no, that's not okay. It's not good. But for somebody who feels a lot sometimes the learning is to figure out how to stop yourself from doing that so that you can keep your sanity. But still, those values of empathy I think are some of the reasons why I was able to build such strong teams and people would follow me from place to place to place because they knew that I cared about them and I cared about their work. I didn't only care about what was best for the business.
Michelle:
I love that. Dinah and Den, may I just give a quick analogy that I also love ironically, which is another bird analogy. So since you wrote it up, it reminded me of that. Well firstly I'm reading right now the Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, which I think is a lot of what you're emphasizing here. And for anyone who's not read it, I feel like it's so, I highly encourage, especially right now with everything happening with women and girls, I think it's very well worth listening to. But beyond that, there's an analogy that I would give when I present and I would talk about geese and I would say, do you know why geese fly in the why formation? And the real answer is multi-pronged. Firstly, because when the first one slaps its wings, it helps lift up the ones behind them and the ones in the back honk. And they do that to cheer on the geese in front of them. And if any goose gets hurt or sick, two geese fly down to the earth and they wait with them until they're better or until they pass because no goose is ever left behind. And so I feel like in a team in your tribe that that's really the analogy of what you need. You need people to cheer you on, you need people to lift you up, and you need people to be with you in bad times and good because together we'll elevate.
Den:
Brilliant, brilliant. And Michelle, we'll add the book recommendation in the show notes as well. And Dinah, you mentioned something which I said at the start of this, I'm like, oh, the questions are great. We've got some questions there, but we might deviate a little bit. But you said something which I've witnessed in my career about people giving you feedback as a woman in tech over the years. I have no doubt you've all experienced receiving feedback, which is probably not correct in the sense of a guy might not get that feedback, but because you're a woman, you get the feedback. Do you guys have any advice for women who are in the wrong end of that kind of stick? I mean, do you have anything you could help other ladies that are taking some shit out there? How do they handle it? How do you emotionally get over it or deal with it?
Toni:
I think that we all have agency and one piece of advice that I received from a very senior executive was you have the ability to select who you choose. Judges, you
Dinah:
Just
Toni:
Think about that for a moment.
I would say take the feedback, but honestly you get to choose how much of that you consume. And as a woman of color, as I used to be the youngest, now I'm approaching the oldest on the team and so on and so forth. There's all kinds of judgements that people have when they meet me. Did you go to college and which college and were you given this opportunity? Did you earn this opportunity? So on and so forth. And I personally need to work past that and understand that really the way that I show myself in an organization is by the impact that I make and by the brand that I bring with me. And it should be evident going back to the quote, the content of our character. That should be the thing that I am measured by. Unfortunately, it's not always the truth. So I live by that principle of take the feedback, but you get to choose who judges you.
Dinah:
I think that's just really good. That's really good feedback. I've never really quite heard it in that way before, so I really like that. I appreciate that. I also think there's the idea of your sphere of control and what can you control with when you get that kind of feedback and what can't you, and there might be nuggets in there to take out and like you're saying, you pick what you can, but there are some aspects of the larger organizations where some people are going to bad mouth you no matter what, and you can only manage and deal with what you can control. And so yeah, I think that's great. You pick it, but you also manage and go, okay, well what can I control? I've been doing a lot of that lately. I can't control Mr. Trump, so what am I going to do instead? Right. And I'm a Canadian, so there's really not very much I can do other than right now with our lovely trade war, not by American things unfortunately.
Den:
And it is funny, and I kind of look at this and current world situations aside, the first thing I always say to people is, is this something that you have the ability to personally change?
Do you have the ability to control it? And if the answer is no, then do you have the ability to let it impact your life in an emotional negative way? Well, if so, why can you set it aside? And I do have a lot of friends that are in this going round in their spiral circle head and stuff. I applied that to everything in life, especially in business. And actually I look at it like I've received a lot of good advice over the years and some of it was that, Toni, you mentioned this about pick who is giving you feedback and you might determine what to do with the feedback. And I actually think it was my old boss, Paulette that shared that with me many, many, many years ago. And I've used that in my back pocket the whole time because I'm a very emotional character at the best of times. So the reality is do I want to let it emotionally get me or not? And I think that's the thing. So how can we as a collective, better sponsor women in tech? Dinah, do you want to start with that one?
Dinah:
Yeah, I think there's a lot of the obvious answers here, which is mentor them and all that kind of stuff. But I think the pieces that people don't often think about is advocating for them when they're not in the room.
And this is something that both men and women can do to help further the careers of other women or minorities of people in your team. And when they are in the room, make sure if they're interrupted, you redirect it back to them. If their idea is stolen, you call it out politely. I am Canadian, so I do try to be polite, but at the same time, it's even more important for you, especially as a leader if in your calls with your peers or higher ups to specifically call out when somebody has done something really good and make sure their work is credited. Because without doing that, those are the pieces that are needed for them to get the promotions, they got to do the work, but without somebody championing them outside of the room, it might get credited to somebody else. It might not get noticed. And I think those are really important things that if you're already in leadership or you are in a room and that person's not that you can do to really help push their career forward.
Michelle:
Yeah, that's excellent.
I'd love to double click on that. So I see a lot of places try to reenact mentorship and it fail. And I don't know why that is. I just feel like it's a buzzword that we use on a bingo card like we're going to mentor and then nothing happens for whatever reason. And so for me, when I say mentorship, there was a really interesting study by Cheryl Sandberg's lean in.org right after the Me Too movement. And it was 72% of men say they felt uncomfortable mentoring women. And if men are typically in position of power and leadership, then that's a problem because if they're the people that are going to determine who's on the bench for the next role, but they're playing golf with Bobby instead of helping mentor Susan that we're going to have a discrepancy of who's going to be next in the pool of resources.
So I love what you said, Dinah, and it's sort of for me, the mentor, the sponsor, and the champion. And they're three very different roles. One is I meet Tony, I'm impressed with her career. I want to meet with her once a month and connect and understand how she did her career and trajectory and any tips that she would give me. A sponsor is more like somebody who will give you sort of that real talk, you need to do this in order to get ahead, have you done these specific tactics? And then a champion is somebody who's not in the room because most decisions, and this is what I thought early in career, if you work real hard, you're going to get that career promotion, you're going to get that job opportunity. And that simply wasn't the case. In fact, now 20 years in my last five jobs all came from somebody tapping me on the shoulder before that job rec was even posted. And so that's where there's a distinction of saying, how do I grow my bench? And if you are a leader, man or woman, because there's unconscious bias and there's the queen bee syndrome where women don't always support other women, it's not just men. I think on both ends of the spectrum, we really need to have allies who are going in whether in front, in private or behind the scenes to help really champion and drive success and give that real talk of what you need to do to have tactical results in your career journey.
Toni:
Yeah,
Den:
That's
Toni:
Excellent. I think thank you for talking about those categories of development. I've always categorized as mentors, coaches and sponsors, but I think your point is well made in terms of we can mentor people, we can show them some of the way we can coach them into learning a new skill. We can sponsor them, which means talking to them or talking about them when they're not in the room. I really, really value that. And I think the other thing that we need to make a commitment of is lifting while we're climbing. Look, we have all gone probably further than we thought we would ever go. I know that I definitely have and way making for people that are coming behind us, particularly the young women who are now in college, which are going to sit on our seats in the future, what kind of way making are we doing for them? This is not just about us and who's sitting across the table from us today, but how can we create a future possibility for them? And so I think that kind of stuff starts very early. We need to speak possibility into young women that they can step into whatever role they need to, whether that be an athlete, a technology leader, a doctor, a lawyer, a housewife, a maid, whatever they want to do that they do that in a place of excellence and choice. I think that's really
Den:
Important. And Toni, as you mentioned that, it almost leads me into the next question. So how do we attract and retain more women in STEM fields from a young age? Is there something we need to change there to try and attract more people to enter into STEM space?
Toni:
Yeah, I appreciate that. There had been historically a position where we said, girls are not necessarily good at math. And likewise, men are not really good at let's say cooking and den. I know you make some of the best food I've ever had. And so we need to create that possibility very early on. And so we see the drop-off rate of women, they come in STEM and they really excelling in math and then all of a sudden there's just this drop off. No, I can't be in that club because I don't have a sense of belonging and I don't have the right, I would say the right environment for me to thrive in. So I think it's creating those environments. I think it is not capping out women and girls for what their future possibility is and then us being visible, showing up for them, going to the colleges, going to the schools and saying, this is a possibility for you. Dine, I know you just came off mute.
Dinah:
Yeah, I was just like exactly what you're talking about that drop off. I like to call it the stem cliff. And it happens at around the age of 13. So girls who are about 10 years old and women in their thirties have one thing that's really strongly in common and that's generally they don't care about what other people think and they just like what they like. And so what happens is when they have their peak interest of stem in at around 10 and then it just drops off at 13 because it becomes something that is not cool and their friends are their biggest, they need to be cool in front of their friends. So if that's not cool, then they're not going to do it. What we see is it drops dramatically and then over their twenties it starts to rise again and into their thirties it's back up at the same level of interest as it was when they were 10.
So a big thing I've often talked about is how do we get them over the bridge so that they don't drop off into this cliff? And it is right along the lines of what you're talking about. One, they need to see it to believe it, so they need to see the role models in front of them, but we need to create also alternative spaces for them to enjoy these STEM activities where it might not be at school for a while for a little while because it's not cool there. So that's where I think a lot, there's been a lot of great movement around clubs and things like that to keep and help maintain their interest and then just making sure that they can see what they can actually do. And that tends to work. I think I've successfully gotten my teenager over the bridge. I really wanted her to really like it's not in the cards, and that's okay, but she's just in love with chemistry and science and other things, which is perfectly, perfectly fine. So yeah, building that bridge over the stem cliff is really important.
Den:
Yeah, that's excellent. And welcome Theresa Payton. So I introduced Theresa earlier, the first female White House, CIO and the CEO of Fortalice Solutions. So Theresa, welcome and hear you're having a busy 24 hours, huh?
Theresa:
It's been something. So I should be talking to everybody from my home office and instead started getting all these weather alerts saying last night your flight might be canceled. It might be delayed because we've got wildfires in North Carolina and South Carolina. So I made the crazy decision to get up, do a news, hit at 5:00 AM and get in the car and go to the airport and catch a 7:00 AM flight. I'm now here safe and sound in Washington DC and glad to be here. I kept messaging Dan, I'm like, I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. I promise I wouldn't miss this. I wouldn't miss hearing from these fabulous, talented women and miss the opportunity to be a part of the conversation.
Den:
Excellent. Thanks Theresa. Yeah, and the thing for me on all this stuff is like no stress, life happens, stuff happens. This is not the hill we're dying on. There'll be plenty of opportunity to come back. I want to circle back on one thing. So women couldn't be mathematicians or women couldn't be in tech nonsense. And it reminded me of in World War ii, one of the secret weapons the US had was women cryptologists. And what was surprising there was the lack of awareness that after the World War ended, the lack of awareness that women could take on these really significant roles in our society. And I just kind of think there was a huge missed opportunity there for everybody to recognize that. And I did see a movie recently about the women regimen in the US Army that got involved with all the mail stuff. I can't remember what that is, but I'll find it and put the link in the show notes. It was an excellent movie. So Therea welcome. Oh, sorry Michelle. In you go.
Michelle:
I'm sorry. I just wanted to add two nuggets before you moved on from that question because I'm very passionate about this as well. And I'm a mother to two daughters and two stepdaughters that work in college and diapers at the same time. So it kind of went through a big spectrum there. Now they're nine and 10, my small ones. But I wanted to talk about two things real quick before we segue to a new question. One, I remember early days when my daughter had career day at school and they had all these professions show up. They had doctors, firefighters in full gear. I mean, how do you beat some of these great just the looks? And all the kids were like, oh, after the doctor went, I want to be a doctor. And after the firefighter went, I want to be a firefighter, I'm like, how do you make tech cool and sexy for kids?
So we thought really creatively. I brought my girlfriend Lizette who works at Microsoft, and we came up with these ideas to show them tech in their everyday lives like Alexa. And she had a Tesla and it did the self-drive mode, but I also brought in the other people in the other professions and industries and I said, how do you use technology in your career? Well, I use it every day. I do this, that and the other thing. And so showing the representation that tech isn't just one piece of it, technology is interwoven throughout everything that we do was really instrumental. And when that car drove itself, every kid was like, I want to work in tech. So I felt like we were onto something. The other thing I wanted to mention is just as they get older that the biggest thing is kind of that representation.
So whether you have children or not, going back to those places like Girl Scout troops or colleges and universities, and I don't just mean if you're a recruiter, don't just look at the Ivy League schools. I mentioned I'm the first in my family, three out of four of my family are immigrants to this country. And my one grandmother was Native American. So I had a single mom, we had a lower socioeconomic background. I worked my entire time through college and I somehow sold myself into Cisco in their engineering program out of 800 people to get one spot, which was very hard to do because I didn't have the legacy. So having people understand that if you just pull from the same pools that you've always gotten from, you're always going to get what you've always gotten. You have to diversify where you're recruiting and targeting both not only in terms of speaking to these youth of tomorrow, but also in where you're going to find your future talent for your companies.
Toni:
One thing I wanted to add to your comment, Den, about the stories that have been untold and what women and girls may not know is the beautiful movie Hidden Figures where it talks about the computers that were behind nasa and it was a regiment of women who were basically essential to the space program. And Dorothy Vaughn happens to be one of those women that was in that laboratory and gave essential advice to NASA to get our astronauts to space. And I think storytelling is a way for us to show up for people. So Michelle, I love that when the firefighters show up, and it's not only men, but it's women who are firefighting. When the technologists show up and it's a diversity of technologists, they can see themselves, they can see the possibility. And so Hidden Figures is a great story that really underscores them.
Den:
I
Michelle:
Love.
Den:
Excellent. And now Theresa, because I want to throw some questions your way since we've ignored you for the first 20 minutes. I mean, I dunno why, but whatever. So there was two things. So you went from the White House and then you started to build your business. So what advice would you give women business owners or trying to build a technology business?
Theresa:
Yeah, I mean I think first starters, obviously if you ventured out to start your own business, congratulations. And it's a good thing that you believe in yourself and just remind yourself when you have the great days, why you're doing it. And then when you have the not so great days as a business owner, why you're doing it. And then I had somebody ask me the other day of reflecting back on just the different roles that I've had, including the role I have now where in our 11th year at Fortalice Solutions and they were saying, what's some advice that you would give to people? So I'll share it with everybody here. And it's pretty simple. The first part, there's two parts to it. The first part is be in awe of what you do and the day that you're not in awe. If you start stringing too many days together and you're not in awe of what you do, then it's time for a change.
And then the second thing, and this is going to sound very counterintuitive because we're having a conversation about technology, is be more analog. Because really if you think about what are we really at the end of the day protecting here? I know the frameworks focus on data and they focus on systems, but why do those even exist? They exist to serve people, whether it's serving people at a business, serving people to a government, serving you in your personal life, technology is here to serve us. Sometimes we forget and it feels like it's the other way around. So my biggest piece of advice is be in awe of what you do and then be as analog as much as possible. Your business will actually thrive and do better if you can find those ways to connect with humans and the human user story.
Den:
That's excellent. That's excellent. I was thinking you were going to go down the path of just get out your house sometimes and walk in nature. I was like, that'll help me. I do want to cover about, yeah, I mean juggling. So you guys are busy executives, your moms, your partners to husbands and stuff like this. I think at the end of it, it's like how do you balance all this stuff and not drop too many balls? I mean, Michelle, why don't we start you? Because I've seen, by the way, I have never seen someone travel so much in one year as Michelle done, and it was between work and personal travel, but it was literally every continent. I think in 2024, you maybe lazily missed one, but how do you juggle all this shit?
Michelle:
I did Antarctica the year before, so I didn't really miss it. But yes, you're right. It was every continent and it was exhausting. And I don't think there's balance. I'm going to demystify right now. I don't believe in that word. I call it work-life integration because it's a seesaw at times. There's going to be ebbs and flows where you have to invest more energy and time in one part of your life or another, whether that's your professional life or your personal life. I mean whether you have children or not, whether you have aging parents or not, whether you just have time for self-care or not. And I'm a big fan. I'm not person that would actually typically, my husband and I both work in technology, my for 20 years, him for 30 years. We went camping recently. I'm not a camper per se, but it was legit.
It wasn't glamping. We had to go in a canoe with alligators. I'm from New York, living in Florida, this is a lot for me. But just getting out there and watching the kids, not on their iPads as much as I love technology, but getting back to being present, not having devices at the dinner table, not knowing when to turn off your laptop so your children are enclosing it down for you, knowing when to go to doctor's appointments because we forget, we fuel everybody else. And I like that analogy that they talk about where if the plane, God forbid, was having turbulence and oxygen came down, you have to put it on yourself before anywhere else because if you don't fuel you, you can't serve anyone else. So I believe it's the three-legged stool. It's mental wellbeing, it's physical wellbeing, it's emotional wellbeing. And all of that comes into play when you are taking care of yourself and then lifting each other as a byproduct of that being healthy and whole in order to make that a reliable possibility.
Den:
Yeah. Excellent. Anybody else? Theresa? I know we've text a lot and you're like, I'm going to soccer practice. So how do you juggle it?
Theresa:
So I've got a little system and it may feel like overkill for other people, but since I started off in corporate America, what gets measured gets done. I've got a system called the five Fs. I actually color code my calendar based on where I choose to spend my time. And then I hold myself accountable instead of lamenting, I didn't spend enough time on this, that or the other. I just look at it from accountability standpoint. And then I say, okay, how do I want to spend my time the next month? So my five F's are family, faith and fellowship, my friends. And then really what you get down to the last one and it's work related, what are you fighting for? Because life is too short. We spend so much time at work, you got to be fighting for something, whatever that is that you're fighting for, what are you passionate about?
And so there are times in my life where when I look at the pie chart of how I spend my time, I'm like, wow, work really got a lot of me and not everybody else did. And then maybe then I say, okay, my commitment in the summer months is I'm going to spend more time with family. I'm going to spend more time with friends. And then of course, looking at faith and fellowship. And fellowship can be what you do in your community, how you give back to others. That could be mentoring within our profession or it could be other charitable types of things that you might do. And I think the other thing that at least I try to relate to other people is even with this accountability system, you're just going to have to, if you're going for huge goals and huge dreams, you're going to be taking a lot of risks and you're going to be failing somebody at some point every single day.
So either you're going to feel like a failure as a mom or a failure as a business owner or a failure as an executive, a failure as a friend, because there's really literally not enough hours in the day to take care of yourself, take care of others, to do your big goals and your big dreams. And you're just going to have to be able to have some sort of system of measurement to say, I can't make it to this thing this week, and then hold yourself accountable to make it to something like that the next month. And again, because you don't want to live life with a backward look on regrets, you want to make work, work-life choices. I always say to people, work-life balance. I don't like that phrase because it implies you're the only loser who doesn't have it figured out. So I like to say work life choices. And so you make a choice. You're on travel for work, you make a choice, you're going to be on travel. I love what you said about Michelle. You're going to be on travel with family or friends, and so don't have regrets. Have a system that works for you and just understand if you are failing yourself or you're failing somebody else, instead of looking at it as failure, look at it as measurements and look at how you can plan out in a very thoughtful way where you spend your time.
Michelle:
I love that, Theresa, and I'll add one caveat, give yourself grace. Do not hold yourself to unrealistic standards. I know people look at social media and they see all of the things, and there are really strong moments and really weak moments that everybody experiences. And just give yourself the grace to know that you're doing your best. And that's enough.
Dinah:
I think a really big part of that. And I think one of the reasons why some of us have done so many things in our lives is because we will push ourselves and push ourselves and push ourselves. And one of the greatest things that I learned through definitely some therapy was to sometimes think of yourself as sitting across from yourself and talking to that person. You would talk to your best friend. And if the way you're talking to yourself right now is not how you would talk to your best friend, then you need to start really changing that and having a lot more empathy for yourself. Because there's probably a lot of things that we tell ourselves that we would never, ever voice to a friend of ours because it's not productive, it's not helpful, it's not. So just, it's really easy to be that extra critical of yourself, especially if you're somebody that's striving and striving and striving. But it's important to remember that we need to have empathy for ourselves.
Toni:
Yeah, I'll just make just one more ad as well is, and maybe two throughout your life, your priorities will change. So when I was starting my family, I made a career decision to go from corporate to consulting because I still needed to make money, and that was lucrative. And B, I needed flexibility because my health was impaired and I couldn't get pregnant. And so I decided that having a child at that point in my life was the thing that I would focus on, and I needed to make those pivots in my life. Now I'm an empty nester, and now I spend way more time on boards in my community, activation around social policy, social change, and so on and so forth, as well as my career because the kid is done with college, he's adulting and this type of thing. So I would say throughout your life, those priorities in that grid that Theresa so beautifully laid out, I also color code my calendar very similarly. That grid will change. But here's the thing is we all need to ask for help when we need it. And boy, there's probably some points in my career where I should have said, alright, the superwoman cape needs to be folded a little bit right now and put away, and today I actually need help. So I just want to invite people to this what Michelle, what all of everybody has been saying is that sometimes you do need to ask for help.
Dinah:
And I actually think that is so important and it's really important for people to know many of us who have had a big career, I wasn't a superwoman, I didn't do that by myself when I became a vp, my husband who also works in tech, dropped down to 90% time and he started just doing way more stuff around the house to support me doing that. My parents lived nearby, they drove my kid around everywhere for all the practices and whatever. So it's really important to know, and I think especially some of us who grew up in the nineties, we were sold this vision of a woman who can have everything because it was this really amazing time where you came out of those eighties, I think that working woman movie, remember with Dolly Parton anyway, but we were sold this plan of you can be and have everything and we can, but we can't do that by ourselves. We need help and we need support to get there and to do that.
Den:
So when I was at Adobe and Toni, I dunno if they still do it, but they had the women's Executive shadow program
And I participated that I think for maybe five years in a row. First of all, I was surprised that they thought I was an executive. So I was very shocked by that statement. But the one thing, I mean, I learned quite a few things over the years. I didn't do a day, normally I'd have one shadow day, I would meet with the boss of the person, I'd meet with the person, I'd say, what's their career goals? What are they hoping to get out of this experience? And then I would carve time over the course of a month to say, these are the things that you can shadow me on and you're welcome to shadow me on these other things. But the reality is let's build this little program where you'll get the most out of it. And I didn't hear of many other people doing that.
I heard of it just being like one day, the thing that I learned in that process, first of all, I learned a lot from the women that were shadowing me. I learned a lot about their life and how they've done their work. But the other thing was it didn't occur to me that when women apply for something like a job, so there's the asking thing, they never want to ask for help because it's seen as weakness or whatever. You're not superwoman any longer shit. But they also, if you're going to apply for a job or apply for a promotion or something like that, a man will apply regardless of whether they meet the criteria or not. We're just bullshit artists, not all men actually. I don't want to get in trouble on the internet, but then women won't. Women if they don't see a hundred percent, there's a thing like I'll not apply for that. So what encouragement or guidance do you guys have for women that are trying to advance their career but they don't feel like they meet the grade? And maybe Toni, let's start with you actually then Michelle.
Toni:
Yeah. So the Women's Executive Shadow program is an awesome program. And I would say anyone who is entering into a mentorship or hosting a membership or a mentorship, sorry about that, please come prepared with what you want to get out of that relationship because it's probably going to be much more effective for you to go into that mentorship with a plan. I want to upskill my communications. I want to hone my skills around a particular technology. I want to increase business acumen, whatever that is, have a plan. And remember, mentorship is about being able to acquire skills from someone that you admire or has that skill. Coaches you can hire for public speaking and things like that. And they can tell you targeted things. The other piece of advice that I would give is this whole thing around what Michelle was saying around the geese.
We also have the women's executive leadership circles and leadership circles. In fact, I think leadership circles started at Cisco, a program like that where we take birds of a feather, people who are up and coming, and we create community and connection. And those cohorts stay together throughout their career within the organization, and they come together to guess what, ask for help. Hey, I'm going through to Theresa's point, I got a fight today and here's what my fight looks like. Here's my presentation. Give me the critique and feedback because this is feedback you can trust and listen to because these people care about you. So these types of relationships and cohorts in groups are really strong ways for you to build a career and a network. I always think about networks as these kind of slimy little things that people you do deals with, but networks are empowering. And so I think that's pretty critical. Michelle, you came off mute.
Michelle:
Oh yeah. I love everything you said first. Just applause. I love it. But also for me, I think of the phrase, it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise yourself. It takes a village to have all of these people. And I say I'm greedy with the mentors, champions, and sponsors. I don't just want one, I want hundreds. I want, I admire so many women, including all of you and men including you, that I want to learn every single day. If I'm not learning, I'm not growing. And I think that certain times you reach a certain role or title in your career and you think, I can't ask questions, I should know it all. That's not true either, right? We are always learning on the job consistently, constantly. And so for me, the biggest thing is getting that feedback and understanding what is your vision mission?
I have a lot of people that I mentor and I talk to them because I've been in a small startup type company. I've been in a huge enterprise company and a mid-size company. So looking at those three different personas about how business is conducted in each of those places is very different. Whether you're on the partner side, you're on the vendor side, very different consulting as well. And so I think it's understanding where do I want to be? What is my three to five year goal? What is the title? Because title is important. It gives you a seat at the table. Do I want that title? Do I want that? And what do I need to do to get there and climb that ladder because it's not always shoots and ladders. Sometimes you're sticking, you're going down, you're going vertical and horizontal, and there's all sorts of movement that occurs to accelerate your career. And the final piece is, and I want to just call out the elephant in the room, this has not changed, is the salary disparity. So Caucasian women make 70 cents to the dollar to a white man, African-American women, 60 cents to the dollar Latino women, 50 cents to the dollar, and so on. So not only in gender, but in diversity, we're not making enough money. So negotiate ladies your salary and make sure you're getting what you deserve, what you are worth.
Den:
That's brilliant, brilliant.
Toni:
The one thing, and I think this will underscore Michelle's point here, this whole thing around the network, and this is a page of the Entrepreneur's Handbook, is create your board of directors for your career. Think about that. The board of directors possibly for your life. You need all those roles. You need to understand the finances. You need to understand the business that you're in. You need to understand the purpose and the cause. You need to have that spiritual guidance, that full circle who is on the board of directors for your life, for your career, because those people are going to be essential to you as you navigate.
Den:
Excellent. So ladies, as we're getting close on time, I do want a couple of shout outs. So Theresa, you and I met during my fun time as the Microsoft Cybersecurity Council or some nonsense like that for lace. You guys were brilliant with us, my team at Adobe. And then you were helpful with the Cisco stuff, doing tabletop exercises and things like that. When you're engaging with these companies is predominantly a man orientated leadership group. And then you bust in and you and your co-founders all female owned business, how do you turn their attention round to realize that you guys are credible, you do work with these great companies, and then how do you convince them to be like, Hey, give us a shot, because I know there's a lot of other companies out there that do what you do, but you guys have got some good firepower in your bench.
Theresa:
No, appreciate the shout out and appreciate the time with you and Toni and Dinah and Michelle. It's interesting. A lot of times I think just like, so as you know, I've got two, they both have just recently passed away, but I have two huge great pyrenees. So we're a family with big dogs, over a hundred pounds each, right? And so I think very much like my neighbor's got a small dog who thinks she's a big dog. And so I think very much like that persona. I forget, I'm a little dog, so to speak, and I just kind of show up and I'm like, I belong here and I have something to say and I value to add. And every once in a while it kind of smacks me in the face. But I think what I would tell people is, look, you have something to offer, something of value.
And even if you're the only in the room, you just put your elbows up on the table like everybody else, and you make sure you contribute and add value. And if you end up making a pitch and you don't win the pitch, then that work wasn't for you. So even if it may be there's an unconscious or a conscious bias there not to listen to you, these people aren't for you. And there are going to be people out there who will want what you have to bring to the table. So I guess in some regards, don't focus on the size of the dog that you are. Focus instead on your audacity, tenacity, the very unique and special skills that you have to offer and be bold and never give up. And the other thing too, there was this really interesting stat that was just put out by Gong the sales platform. And it literally said, so don't take no one, no as a forever, no, no means not right now. Not in this moment.
And gong the sales platform literally just said that it is six to eight customized, specialized touches to get to an 80% close rate. So if you get told no, who cares? It's just no right now, a lot of times that is my attitude, audacious attitude, I guess. And I'll just say, okay, I am hearing the answers. No. Why don't we touch base in a month and maybe you're going to need something else. Just continue to provide value in the meantime. That would be my biggest piece of advice. It doesn't mean I don't have moments where I'm like, are you kidding me? Picked what firm instead us. But you know what I see no as, no, not right now.
Den:
That's brilliant. That's brilliant then. Yeah, that's so Theresa, the five F system, I was thinking you and Dinah could collaborate in because the whole her platform of women writing is just fantastic. And I've went through and I confess, I hate reading stuff. So I go through that and I'll look at it, I'm like, oh, that's a brilliant article. And then my mind gets wandering off into something else. So I think that whole code, like a girl thing, five F's would be, but you're busy writing books and doing TV shows and shit, so you probably maybe don't have time for the small blog.
Dinah:
I'll take any blogs from any amazing woman that they want to write. I'll shamelessly plug that. Yes.
Den:
Yeah. And that was my plug, Danah, for your platform, right? Thank you. I mean, I think this is the one thing is code like a girl has the ability to have people from any of your amazing companies write stuff, publish stuff. I think it's a wonderful platform. So ladies, thank you very much. This is wonderful for me. The one thing is each of you, so first of all, I hunted Dina after listening to her on a podcast. I am like, I need to speak to this woman. I need to get to know her. I need to bring her in and converse and stuff, because really there's a lot of value you're bringing to the community. And then I met Theresa through a Microsoft event and I just chased her down ever since. And I've received some great gems from you guys, so I appreciate it. There was one thing, Tony that left, and I've mentioned this in the podcast recently. We were talking about was the person running away from something or running to something?
Toni:
Oh yes.
Den:
And I remember that. I remember the circumcised will not shade it here, but for me, that stuck with me a lot since then. And I look at this, every person has the ability to learn from anybody in their life. If you're open to it, if you open your ears and you pay attention, you'll catch the gems, you'll catch the opportunities. And for me, hosting something like this, I think it's just a case of we want to try and do more of this. One of the things in cyber especially, the diversity sucks. I mean, it's not diverse at all. So I want to just keep on our show bringing diversity back to the forefront. Tony mentioned about celebration of women's month, and I'm like, yeah, because that stands shitty planning really. We just kept pushing out. It was really hard to get you guys in the schedule. So I appreciate you all. Thank you very much for coming on the show. We'll need to drop in some show notes. I took some notes of books and other movies and things like that, so we'll make sure we publish all of those. Ladies, thank you very much. Really appreciate your time.
Theresa:
Thank you, Den. Thank you.
Michelle:
So great to be with everybody. I'm so glad I got a chance. I'll be calling you all for my board of directors. Just save the turn. If anyone wants to connect with us, please reach out on LinkedIn.
Theresa:
We'll do open meetings. Den, we'll host a podcast and we'll just have a board of directors meeting. What do you guys, I'm
Den:
Loving running towards things. Run towards, run towards it all. Ladies, thank you very much.
Narrator:
Thanks for listening to Cyber 909. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and don't miss an episode of your Source for Wit and Wisdom in cybersecurity.
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