Transcript by Descript:

So Stacy, I’m so excited to have you on the podcast today. You probably have one of the most impressive and varied careers that I’ve actually seen on our industry, and in fact, you’ve actually transcended, quote unquote, our industry, meaning retail, and now oversee health, education, consumer industries. So thank you so much for being here, and women around the world will surely be inspired by your journey.

So by.  How did you end up on the tech side of the business? I mean, certainly now there’s all kinds of funding for females to get into STEM jobs and now STEM classes offered even in many high schools. I remember one of the first programs was Girls Who Code in 2012, then came stem like a girl in 20. But tell us, how did you land on the tech side of retail before?

It was cool, so I worked.  At the time I was in college and I was going to college for  psychology ’cause that totally makes sense now where I’m at. But, um, I was going to college for psychology and my, my part-time job  through college was I worked at Walmart as, as one of their managers. And you know, they started, this was back in buy-in.

I was a buyer at the time and this was back when I’m aging myself for all the young ones out there. This really happened.  We used books and we wrote down and we walked through aisles and wrote down all the stuff that that was needed. And at the, in those days, Walmart was just kind of in their expansion strategy on West Coast and they wanted to go from book-based buying into automated replenishment and just in time replenishment.

And that’s when we were all talking about that as an industry. And, and here’s what happens, I think is  as long as you are always ready to just say, yes, I’ll try it.  People will give you opportunities, especially if you’re younger and it’s people who are afraid of that technology. And so I think really what happened is I was the only one not afraid of the technology.

And because of that, I became the technical trainer and started going around, um, the state in training other people how to do, um, just in time replenishment and, um, and then forecasting and, and open to buy and all of that. Using automated tools.  And then from there, I, I kind of was hooked. I mean, it was, it was something that, technology was something that really, really frustrated me, which means I love it because I like to be slightly frustrated at new things.

’cause it’s challenging and I had no capacity to understand it because it wasn’t my background. I understood people not. Objects and you know, electrons. And so I just went back to school and decided I gotta understand this stuff. So that’s kind of how I got my foot in the door with, with tech. Oh, that’s awesome.

And you’ve worked from some really highly recognized companies, American Apparel, Levi, and Tell. I.  Can you tell us about your journey in a predominantly male dominated function? So I’m talking about like technology and information systems. How did you get a seat at the table? Well, I think that for all women, you just take your seat  and you kind of get in there.

So I would say the way that I kind of grew up in it though, is the stuff that I was doing with Walmart and just learning that I then went into. A software company that built software products for luxury brands. And so the Prada Pradas of the world, Louis Vuitton, Gucci groups, Celine, those companies.  And  the reason that they liked this product is it was a product that was used all over the world.

And at the time, most of the luxury brands were the only ones who were global and international. True. And, and so our product fit, fit a niche. I went into that company as a technical trainer and then just. Again said yes to anything that was thrown at me. So can you go be a tester for the product? Sure.

Don’t know what I’m doing, but we’ll figure it out. And uh,  then, you know, you seem to be really opinionated about how it’s broken. Why don’t you be part of the, the solution and become a designer for the product? Sure. Don’t know what I’m doing, but you know, let’s, let’s figure it out. And, um, and throughout I kind of just took classes and kept educated.

And then, you know, the product grew. I grew with it and then became the CTO for that, that company.  Um, and then American Apparel came along and they were using the product, you know, for their vertically integrated manufacturing at the time and expanding internationally with their retail business. And so I went and jumped over to the company that was using my product.

And  if you’ve ever  done that, it’s painful because. You know, you have no one to blame for how things are working, but yourself, you know, you don’t get to be like, who designed this? And it was like, oh, that was, that was me.  And so that, that’s kind of where I started. So I, I think, you know, people say fake it till you make it.

And I don’t know if, and I believe in that, and I’ve definitely done my fair share of faking things that I knew.  But I, I think it’s, I like to frame it differently. I think it’s just like, have a sense of adventure.  Be adventurous. You know, if you don’t know something fine, the only way you’re gonna know is like have a sense of adventure.

If you’ve never been to a country, you can study it, but there’s nothing that replaces just going and being there and  being in that place. And so that’s kind of been my mantra. If, if it’s something that’s new  and I don’t know it, I, the only way you know it is to jump in and, and jump into the deep end and figure it out along the way.

I’m honest about it with people, like, I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I, I know that I can go figure it out. And  so that’s kind of how I, I will say, got a seat at the table in a male dominated space is I just didn’t see the gender part in it. I didn’t accept the limitations that people tried to put on me.

And I, even when I did have limitations, I didn’t accept that. That would always be my limitation, you know? Yeah. I don’t know this right now, but that’s not my limitation forever. It’s a, it’s an easy problem to solve. I just have to go get to know it and just kind of jump into things that way.  I love your transparency.

You’ve always been that way since I’ve known you, you’re just such a direct shooter and uh, I appreciate that.  Can you tell us of an example when you had a lead your organization through a significant change or a big disruption? I think every organization I’ve been a part of, I could use a couple of ’em, so.

I’ll talk about, um,  I’m gonna give three examples. Great. One example was American Apparel and they were, uh, this crazy startup company that the only thing they cared about was speed and run fast and sloppy was the motto. It didn’t like change management. We all laugh or like, no change management, you just go, it’s all go.

Um,  and you know, so speed was more important than anything else.  And so the, the thing that I really worked on there was you’ve gotta balance that and, and you can’t run sloppy on everything. It’s gotta be scalable without duct tape in and why you’re holding it together. And so discipline and a disciplined approach, I think is what I had to lead that organization through

And it’s interesting because when you’re in a company that loves change and loves speed, it is really hard to ask people to slow down.  I’m sure we talk about the opposite of asking people to speed up all the time. Asking people to slow down and be more cautious is really difficult without, you know, being labeled in a lot of ways.

And so that company was really about getting people to understand that go slow early so you can go fast later and go faster later and make it more sustainable later. Is kind of the practice that we had to go through and  really helping people get aligned with why it was better for them personally. To do that.

And that’s kind of the thing that I bring through all of these. And I go to Levi Strauss right after that. It was a year old brand, you know, at the time it was 150 year old brand that moved like the DMV, you know, and so you’ve got a brand that you know, wanted to be a startup, 150 year old startup. But you know, they moved like a year old.

And so, you know, what I had to kind of come in there was I had to kind of completely flip it. Instead of trying to get people to slow down, I had to get people to try to speed up without feeling that it was all risk. ’cause every change was, risk was associated with risk. And we really had to work with people on understanding the risk of not doing, and the risk of being too slow in terms of the risk to the business.

And had to work a lot with, with people on. Understanding that and, you know,  seeing again what, what was in it for them. I’d also say I made a lot of mistakes there, like a lot of mistakes in doing that. And you know, when you have speed and results is your only, your,  you know,  success factor. You tend to steamroll people and leave carnage in your path.

And, and that’s, I’d say my learning there was.  You’ve gotta bring people along. You gotta meet people where they’re at, and you’ve gotta get them ready for change and, and bring them along with you. And I think that’s where I learned that. And then coming into Intel, I kinda had both, you know, both, both ends of the spectrum down and in until we really had to take the same thing.

It was very similar to Levi’s, which is you’ve got a brand that’s been the brand category, the category leader, since the brand was established just like Levi’s with Dunham. Intel with, with silicon and the PCs, and how do you get a company that feels like we own this category to understand that, that you will not always own the category if you don’t continue to innovate  and, and really digesting that and  changing the behaviors with that.

So those are some examples that I’ve been through.  I think in all of that, it’s really helping people understand their personal motivations in that change. How it’s gonna help them personally in, in getting them aligned with that, that that kind of has crossed all of those areas.  That’s interesting. And I, one thing I really appreciate that you said is that I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I think a lot of young women, um, leaders think that, oh, here are these leaders and they go through everything perfectly and they never make mistakes when actually that’s the only way you learn, right, is by making mistakes and learning from it and carrying it forward.

So. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. Show me a leader that hasn’t made a mistake and I’ll show you a compulsive liar. Right? There’s no way that people go through this stuff and learn it and they just happen to land perfectly every time like I am. I don’t buy it from anybody. It doesn’t happen. So the other thing you talked about is kind of that buy-in, uh, from people and of course leading people.

You have to understand where they’re coming from. The question I have is. How do you make sure that you’re getting diverse perspectives and how do you integrate those perspectives into decision making processes?  Yeah, I love this question. I, I think that diversity, so I, I shoot for diversity of thought always and then, and diversity of backgrounds and diversity of cultures, but I focus first on diversity of thought because that’s the one that.

People don’t tend to focus on. So they might get diversity of cultures and they might get diversity of genders in the room, but everyone thinks the same, so  it doesn’t really matter. Um, you’re not gonna get diversity. So we actually,  we go and  we look at how do people think? What’s their communication style

We give everyone a personality test.  Everyone in my group has been through multiples. Everyone knows, you know what color somebody is or you know what letter they are, and we know what style that means. And if, if, if the people listening to this don’t know what that is, you will, if you’ve been in corporate America for a while.

And so we know who, who are kind of like the people who are the self-promoters and need to be included, involved in, you know, their vibrant energy in the room.  The people who just need, like, you have to go lead with the punchline with them. Like otherwise they’ll shut you down. I’m that person. Um, you know, and the people who need just reams of data and data points before they can make a decision, and the people who need to understand like, how will this impact the people around us?

What we found is that if we intentionally staff our programs with each people from each of those categories.  It’s a more frustrated team for the record, they, it is not like harmony, it’s not harmonious. Um, the most harmonious team are the ones who all think the same. But the the, when we staff our teams that way, and we make us kind of have those people there and we ask everybody like, represent your lens  and, you know, make sure that your, your lens is represented well.

Like if you’re the data lens, represent that data lens and frustrate the room. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s good. Because we need that lens represented. And so we look at it that way. And then we make sure that, you know, and there’s other lenses you wanna represent. You wanna represent a female lens, and you wanna represent a male lens.

You wanna represent, you know, cultural lenses,  especially if it’s any kind of product that touches people. You have to represent cultural lenses. And so we ask people like, Hey, can you pull this? Can you represent this lens in this conversation today?  That’s kind of how we do it intentionally.  I love that bringing your lens to the table that is just excellent that you purposely go out and look for that and it, I’m sure brings richer outcome and richer product at the end

Richer. Thank you. It is. And, and I’ll say the game here for people is always have a troublemaker lens. You know, the person that questions,  the person who gets that to be that lens that day, they have the time of their life, like they love it. Everyone hates them for a minute. But if everyone gets a chance to do that, you kind of love the person and you start really respecting how much they’re pushing and how much they’re challenging and how much they’re, they’re challenging the orthodoxies that, that people come in with.

So it’s, it’s delightfully fun for, for the person who gets to do that that day. Oh my gosh, that would be so fun. I would have so much fun playing that role. Yeah.  So, yeah, and you gotta set it up in advance so nobody’s offended, like, look, that’s true. This is what they gotta do. Like this is, you know, what they bring to the table.

Yeah, that’s great. So I have to tell you every time I’m with you, anytime I spend time with you, it could be, you know, we took a bus ride together, we’re at a conference for two minutes or whatever time I spend with you, I find my brain goes into overdrive and I’m just so inspired and you, and you really get me thinking outside the box.

So you inspire me with intellect and purpose. So, but for those of you that don’t know you, how do you empower and support your team members?  Excelling innovation attitude. Well, I think that, you know, when, when you talk about innovation, I like to get people really grounded in what innovation really is.

You know? ’cause a lot of people think innovation is just fun, creative time, big thinking, creative time, and there’s some of that. But for us, you know, we gotta get people grounded on one. What are the problem statement? Like, let’s get grounded in what problems do we think are important to us to understand?

And when you think that way, then we look at, you know, I work with the whole team on what are you passionate about? You know?  ’cause if you’re not passionate about solving the problem, you’re not gonna come up with a good idea for it. Just, it’s not gonna happen unless it’s like winning the lottery kind of odds to do that.

And so, you know, if you wanna give yourself better odds, like be passionate about the topic. And so we, we work a lot with our group on what are you passionate about? Um, we give people time to work on their passions with no strings attached. Like, look, if 20% of your time, if you’re passionate about saving the birds, and there is no intel revenue ever associated with that,  that’s fine.

The only ask we have is that you deliver results in what you’re doing. You have an impact. And so we focus more on impact than innovation,  and you can’t have an impact without thinking it innovatively most of the time.  And so that’s kind of, that’s as simple as that. Like understand what people, what drives each individual and what’s their purpose, like, what do they feel is their purpose is, and what they can wanna contribute to society and to the company and whatever.

And we, we have to filter people. Like people, we ask people, what are you passionate about? They’re like, I’m passionate about making a lot of money for the company. And we’re like, no, you ambitious.  Like, let’s talk about your passion and, and if that’s your passion, we need to talk like that’s not okay.  And so, you know, what are you really passionate about?

What kind of impact do you wanna have on the world or the people around you or your family or whatever, like get in touch with that, which is not as easy as people think it is. And some of us know it because we’ve done that work and some people really don’t know what it is and they, they have to kind of go figure that out.

And then once they figure that out, then we can.  Get them pointed to the right problem. So that’s kind of the way I approach innovation. It’s not let’s go do pie in the sky brainstorming and come up with cool stuff.  It’s more personal than that. It’s actually like, how do you personally wanna impact the world?

And then let’s go and figure out new novel ways to do that and let’s pair you with people that don’t think like you, that will then challenge everything that you’re coming up with. And then let’s go and test that. In the industry with specialists that really know. Um, and that’s kind of our process.  Wow, that’s really impressive.

So I’m gonna switch gears a little bit and I’m gonna ask you a little bit about the career path on the tech side. And do you think, and not just in retail, wholesale healthcare, but just on the tech side, do you think there’s any big obstacles out there specifically for women, but for anybody that are really trying to get a career on the tech side, I think that, um, the obstacles are generally.

And what I see, I, I don’t think that there’s any systemic obstacles. I mean, I, I, I would say it that way. Or systematic obstacles or new ones.  Um, I think the obstacles are really more about people holding themselves back because they don’t feel like  they’re good enough to do that thing.  You know, I didn’t major in computer science, so I can’t go do computer science.

I major in computer science. I actually majored in psychology. Um, and I’ll tell you, it’s helped me a lot  Oh, sure. In the way that we do innovation and the way we do things. Right. Most of the work I do is that, is I’m drawing from that experience. So I, I think that people shouldn’t write off, you know, their, their background.

Um, you know, I, I spent, I didn’t graduate from Harvard or MIT or any of those places. And, um, it’s not a boundary unless you u unless you let it be.  I do think there are obstacles. Um, I think that they are overcome through tenacity  and um, and good networks and good networking and, um, but it, it’s not, it’s not like it’s easy.

And then for women in particular, um, I think it, it’s harder because we are told a lot  that all the things we shouldn’t be.  And we’re told that a lot, um, in our lives and, and not just in work, but, but especially at work. We’re told what we shouldn’t be. We’re talked over a lot. We people reframe the, the things that we say, even when we’re talking about our own opinions.

I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, well, what Stacy’s trying to say. And I’m like, well, I’m trying to say, I said, I don’t need your help, thank you. And um, but that’s all the time. And so I think those are the obstacles that we need. And then the other obstacle, and this is for us women here.

Is that we are told that that other women are the, are, are our competition.  So true. And the women who buy into that  are going to be at a disadvantage. We are not each other’s competition.  We need to make sure that we pull each other up and we need to coate  and look at that principle of co-elevation a lot more with one another.

Or what we will see is additional obstacles. And so. I think the obstacles are lies. I think that they can be overcome by just ignoring those lies and having the tenacity to not believe in  these like false narratives that people put on us about what our limitations are.  Oh, I love that. I love Coate.

That’s excellent.  Have you had a mentor in your, over your career, do you have someone that really made a difference in your leadership or your approach to leadership?  I. I think that that’s my secret weapon is I always have mentors, always.  And I always, I always go for people that I, I’ll cold call people and ask ’em to be my mentor.

Um, and people that like, I’m like, they’re for sure not gonna call me back. They have no idea who I am and they’re really important. And I will reach out and ask, like, I know you’re probably very busy, I’m really impressed with this aspect of what you do, and I’d love to just like glean a little of that from you.

In a couple conversations,  would you spend some time with me? And, um, I’ve never had anyone tell me, no,  that’s outstanding. I’ve never gotten a, no. Now I’ve gotten a couple people that didn’t get back to me and I had to be like extra pushy,  but I’ve never gotten a no. And so, yeah, so, and then there’s some, you know, that will have a conversation and that’s it.

And we never talk again. You know, and there’s others that we built, you know, long, long-term friendships and bonds over the years.  Now I’ve also had really formalized coaching, and that’s in those moments in my career where, you know, kind of that whole thing of what got you here won’t get you there.  In those moments where it’s like, okay, you’re now at that point where you can’t continue on with the way that you were doing things to get to the next level.

You’ve gotta have an outside perspective. I’ve always been very  aware of those times when I need to bring in help.  That help comes in the form of somebody who will not hold back on me. You know, the person that kind of punches you between the eyes with the truth and it hurts and you wanna fight ’em, but you’re like, I can’t ’cause I asked you for this.

Um, so I’ve had that throughout my career and I’ve also had some really good leaders that I’ve worked for. Um,  Roland, who was the CIO, Roland Ker, who was the CIO of, um, Levi’s at the time was probably had the most profound impact of my career because he’s the one that. Made me not accept  that how I was, was good enough at the time, you know?

’cause I, I kind of had the same, well that’s just who I am, you know? And he is like, no, I’m not accepting that. That’s not good enough. Like you can still improve.  And so he really pushed me and he did it in a way that was, you know, I could accept it. So he’s definitely had a really profound effect on me as a mentor.

And then I have mentors. Peter Diamandes is another person that I respect a lot and count as a mentor. And he’s the person who accepts no limitation on anything ever, like on anything like he believes he’s gonna live to I, I said, you’re gonna live to 200. And he corrected me. He’s like, don’t put limitations on me.

And I’m like,  okay, well I don’t know what your age will be, but okay, you’re gonna live for a really long time. And um, and so he just has no limitations. He thinks big, huge thinker doesn’t understand why people. I can’t think bigger. And so that’s, that’s another mentor I have in my life.  Oh, that’s great.

What would you like to see in terms of changes on the landscape for female leadership in the years to come? What would you like to see differently? Yeah. One, um, I’d like to see women supporting one another better and, and to be unapologetic about it. Look, there’s always been men’s support clubs all over the place.

No one even thinks twice about it, whether it’s on the golf course or informal or formal, or men’s social clubs. Those have always existed and the intention of that is supportive networking.  And somehow women, we, we shy away from that a lot.  Some women don’t like, and I love that.  I wanna see more of that.

I wanna see more of women helping women and not to the exclusion of. You know, of our other gendered friends, you know, or non-binary friends or whoever it is.  It’s not to the exclusion of that, but I think that we  understand each other’s plight a little more  and we need to do more. So that’s one thing that I would love to see kind of going forward.

I wanna see more of that.  And I also wanna see more of  in this, in the workplace itself. We’ve all been taught really well how to,  how to like manage up  right? Or managing our people, but we need to learn how to manage sideways. We need to learn how to be really good partners with the peers on the side of us.

And to stop thinking of our coworkers and our peers and our partners as competition. We all can help each other. And so that would be the other thing that I’d like to see change  for all genders, you know, and, and for all, for all types is. Manage sideways, learn that skill of managing sideways and being collaborative with the people on the side of you and treating your peers like your customers, it goes a lot further.

That’s great advice. Thank you for that.  So now we’re in our rapid fire question. So I’m gonna ask you bang, bang, bang, three questions and just do quick, snappy, you know, first thing that comes to mind, how you can answer it. So question one is, what one piece of advice would you give to female leaders that are currently working?

One piece of advice I’d give to female leaders who are currently working.  Give yourself more grace than you give yourself right now.  Excellent. Love it.  What three tips would you give students are emerging leaders? Three tips I’d give to emerging leaders that are students. You know, students. The next generation are students who are emerging leaders.

Okay. Don’t glamorize  the work that needs to be done right, because I, I see that a lot. Don’t glamorize it.  A lot of it is grind and that is 95 percent’s gonna be grind and five percent’s gonna be, you know, glamorous.  Just know that and set your expectations properly and there’s no shame in getting a really wide experience before you, before you specialize.

And so get as much. Breadth of experience before you try to go deep and then build your net. Start building your network right now. It’s never too early. Start building it now. It takes years, and that will pay off dividends  over your career.  Great advice. So my last of the rapid fire questions is what do you want to leave behind for the next generation?

What’s your legacy? Um, yeah, I think about this quite often because this is how we motivate our whole team. You know, we all talk about the kind of impact that we wanna have. Um, I will tell you that the thing that is important to me, what I get joy out of is bringing out and brilliance in others  and, um, helping them have an impact.

’cause I think I can have a better impact that way. I can go do a bunch of stuff, um, or I can bring out brilliance in the people around me.  Surround myself by a lot of people who have the capacity to be brilliant and um, and then be good at bringing that out in them and inspiring that in them. And so that would be how I’d wanna be.

Like, the legacy I wanna keep is, you know, we don’t know how she was involved in that, but we do know that when she was involved, people got smarter around her. Um, or they did more, or they felt more emboldened. And so that’s kind of the fingerprint I wanna leave. On those things is I don’t want my name associated to it.

I don’t, I’m, I’m not somebody who wants to go build, you know, something for recognition. I truly want more impact in the world, and I truly wanna see that in the people around me. So that’s kind of my mind.  That’s awesome. And you already do that. ’cause I already shared with you when I’m with you, I, I just like, wanna run, run, run and get going and, you know, you just really inspire me.

So here’s the last question. And it can be fun and it can be anything. Okay? It can be work related or not work related. What’s your secret power? Um, self-awareness.  That’s it. Um, I, and I’m un offendable.  I, I mean, maybe I, I can be offended. Just I, I can’t remember when it’s happened last. But I don’t take things personal.

Um, and I, I look at, you know, I can look at myself and go, oh yeah, I can see where they would be frustrated with me. Or I can see why that person doesn’t really like me. Like I, I, I, it’s just, okay, it’s a data point. Um,  it doesn’t take myself worth away. I don’t feel less valuable because of somebody else’s opinion.

And so I think that’s my superpower is self-awareness and the resiliency. To deal with, um, lots of people’s opinions about, about.  That’s great. Stacy. Oh my gosh. Any closing thoughts you wanna add? I really appreciate Wow. You’ve given some great advice today. Well, I, here’s the closing thought. Thank you for having this.

And, and thank you for,  you know,  talking to me about this and for the work that you yourself do, I mean,  the things that you do, like you, you’re talking about, you know, you, you’ve, you’ve said me.  Like, I, I also feel energized by being around you. You’re a ball of energy. You, you, you’re always bringing good perspectives to the table.

You’re not afraid to challenge the status quo, and you do it in such a nice way, and it’s a way that I wanna learn more of is how do you do that and make people like, like you more for it. I haven’t got, I haven’t cracked that code yet. And so thank you for, for all that you do for, for this industry as well.

Thank you.  And thanks for being here. Vanessa will come back. Are you?