What are the key milestones on your path to leadership?
I started my career at Bridgewater Associates in 2008 after graduating from Brown with a degree in Art Semiotics Modern Culture and Media and at the heart of the financial crisis. It was the biggest hedge fund in the world at the time but also unknown outside of the institutional investor community. I joined the growing communications team at the company. Communications was interesting to me because I could be in a business context while working in a creative manner, which has kind of been a theme throughout my life. I spent six years there and grew within that function as the organization's need for Branding, Design, PR, and Communications drastically evolved and I got exposure to the world of strategic design and innovation.
After learning a lot, evolving, growing and getting into a leadership role working directly with the CEO and CIOs, I felt like it was time to move on into a place where I could actually have mentors who understood my discipline. I was fortunate to be introduced to Fahrenheit 212. I had originally applied for business development and ended up having four amazing years there on the Idea Development team. One thing that I think is really lucky is that even though I was coming a little bit out of left field in terms of traditional pathways into this work, the Fahrenheit Partners at the time - some of whom are still my mentors today - recognized that I wanted to be doing the work.
After that, I wanted something new and wanted to get closer to really launching ventures versus doing it by proxy through our corporate clients. Although I loved them, it can be frustrating over time to learn that even after the project went well it’s still a long time before you see those results. I ended up working at a pre-launch startup called Chief, a women's executive network, building out their member experience and their core product from a time where we had no members to about 1000. It was a really amazing experience and now I'm translating that startup experience into a role at Company Ventures. I am currently leading our venture development efforts including all the things that we do to support the companies and entrepreneurs in our ecosystem and how they can accelerate and grow.
What are the key challenges you have faced as a leader?
One thing that drew me to Chief was that it was a place that recognized that a woman's professional advancement, particularly at the leader stage, is braided very tightly with her personal life and all the things that start to happen in those later phases of life, when you're not just a single woman who's in charge of herself.
That happened for me when I turned 28 - I had my first son - and right after returning from maternity leave my Mom got very sick. As the eldest child and her daughter, I became her primary caregiver throughout her battle with pancreatic cancer. So I had to go right back out the door after returning to work and spend essentially another leave of absence. I saw very acutely that it isn't just mothering that causes these interruptions in a woman's career - it's also the other caregiving responsibilities that disproportionately fall onto our shoulders. I feel so insanely lucky that I was working at a company that was like family to me and supported me through that phase. I never had to worry about being able to keep my job. Sadly, my mom passed away and I think her parting gift was a daughter. So, I was immediately pregnant with my second child. I had to go back to work, and basically within weeks, I said that I'm going to be out again. I ended up working and having a great spin. I was like a super human as a pregnant lady. Then I took another leave to have my daughter, and she came in July of 2017. Now, I’m having my third child so it never really ends!
That phase was a pretty big wake up call. I think that in-and-out factor delayed my trajectory along the way. It can build up a certain amount of drag on your career. I'm so happy with where I am but I also recognize that without all of those things I was processing from a personal standpoint, I could have been further - both title and compensation wise. That has definitely felt like a struggle. Now I go back and really make sure that they’re recognizing where I'm at. You can't just rely on time to take you there. You have to be really holding everyone else to your timeline.
Describe your leadership style / what are your core values as a leader?
To clarify, to step in, to be courageous, and not to be afraid of power, have always been my compulsions. I feel most comfortable and empowered when I can make my voice heard. That's what leadership means to me. It's connected to provocation and a healthy degree of irreverence and change.
The definition of integrity is being the same on the inside as you are on the outside. If you back a channel or don’t say something about something you see, that’s a gap. For a variety of reasons things don’t always go perfectly but there's a principle there of knowing where you stand and helping others know where they stand. Just to be fair, why wouldn’t we do that? We don't do it because we're human, and it can be emotionally painful. Do you hold yourself to that standard? And if you have that standard you're probably gonna fall short of it because it's very, very easy to not say something.
What advice do you have for women who are trying to establish themselves as leaders?
It has nothing to do with your position, it has to do with your own personal values. At any level it comes down to integrity and all the ways you can do it. I think that sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in this idea that it's going to be confrontational. You can approach all sorts of really hairy topics in a friendly and collaborative manner. A direct conversation is everybody’s right.
What else do you do to keep yourself creatively inspired and just evolving as an innovator?
For me cooking isn't just a love for food, it’s the one place where I can consistently access a flow state, feel that energy and lose track of time. I've had other experiences earlier in my career when I didn't have children and Paul and I could do things like taking drawing class every Tuesday night. That was awesome because by drawing you get on the right side of your brain and it’s like meditation. With cooking I realized the same thing was happening so I do it to engage in a more concrete part of who I am and what I'm about. I actually made an Instagram account just to record it. If you're going through a big change and processing a lot, using notebooks and writing things down helps me process everything. It sort of helps you evolve as a person because you're putting yourself out there. That's really helpful.
