 From the VMware campus in Palo Alto, California, it's theCUBE, covering women transforming technology. I'm Lisa Martin with theCUBE, and we are on the ground in Palo Alto at VMware for the third annual Women Transforming Technology event. Excited to welcome back to theCUBE, Lily Chang, the VP of Strategic Transformation here at VMware. Lily, it's great to have you back. Thank you. It's fantastic to have this event again for the third time in the history. Yes, and in fact, I read online that it was sold out within hours and the keynote this morning was... Fantastic. Fantastic. And very inspiring. Very inspiring, for those of you that don't know, Leila Ali was a keynote this morning and what a great analogy her not just being a sports star but being someone, a woman, in a very male dominated industry who just had this sort of natural confidence that she just knew what her purpose was. I thought that was a very inspiring message for those of us in tech as well. Yeah, and it's also very key that a woman leader such as herself is willing to come out and share the story and be the role model and set a path and show the example for a younger generation to follow and to look up to. That is incredible. I love one of the things, Lily, that she said when she said, you know, she still sometimes kind of loses sight and has to reignite that inner warrior. I thought that was a really important and empowering message too that even really strong women who are very naturally competent still have times where they have to kind of remind themselves of what their purpose is. I just thought that was a very impactful statement, I think, regardless of any industry that you're in. That is absolutely true. I mean, that happened, we're only human, right? So every one of us experienced challenges in life. So there are times, even the old genders, you're going to bump into roadblocks and you're going to bump into challenges and then you need to self-motivating and lift yourself up and rise to the occasions and the challenge. A lot of times these changes, and I'm sure it's true for her as well, that actually make her a better leader. Definitely. So you are one of the board members of Women Who Code. This is something that's very near and dear to VMware's heart. VMware got involved in 2016 when it was about a 10,000 person organization. Actually a little bit less than that. They were very young. And now how large is it? It's 137,000 member globally, 20 countries, 60 cities. So what's the mission of Women Who Code? The mission is very simple. Basically we want to basically help all women that expire and excel in their technical career journey and in their career development. So that's basically the simple mission statement. And for that, a very critical thrust that Women Who Code has and that kind of a coincide with VMware's community vision is basically technical women community. So they were very young, but we saw the passion, we saw the commitment, and we believe that this is a great mutual opportunity because we want to be a global company. We want to not only view leadership within US, we wanted it to be in EMEA, to be in APJ. We have R&D research offices everywhere. And so we basically collaborated with Women Who Code. And that has been a very successful leadership program. We jointly work with them. And they basically blossomed under the collaboration. And we're not the only company, but we are the one of two founding partner and sponsor for Women Who Code. So it's grown dramatically as you said. Dramatically, yeah. In just a couple of years since you've been involved with VMware, what are some of the things that have surprised you about not just the growth, but of some of the lessons that maybe you've learned by watching some of these other women come into this organization and be inspired and impact their careers? So I see the story both in VMware women leadership and also in outside community women leadership, right? So what I see is all these women basically have the passion, but they were a little bit of a worry about let it come out. But when you're actually in a community, you're supporting one another. And you have that platform where they feel very comfortable to communicate, network, share, and learn. And so basically that is a very powerful thing. And I see that the growth and the booster of the potential is kind of like we lift them up all of a sudden, right? One of the story recently is that, for example, on the external side, we have basically a Canada city director is all volunteer positions, right? And within a year, she actually moved from a line management position to basically to a director position because the city director role basically exposed you to basically get the community viewed out and that encourage you and challenge you to basically has hands-on, soft leadership skill. And so a lot of the technical woman has a lot of technology and the technology's the mentality, but you need to accompany that with a lot of these soft skills. And then the combination of the two that makes a perfect combination. And we see a lot of that in our VMware woman as well. So we set out to do basically cities in China. We actually opened the China for a woman who code. So it was a zero member, now it has like three, four thousand member is actually in China. It's a little bit of a difficult, mysterious place, right? But we made it happen in Beijing. We made it happen in Shanghai and is basically participated by a lot of the local company, not just multinational company. And in India, we actually opened it up and India now is blossomed like crazy. So there are like since VMware is opening up Bangalore, basically there are three other cities that join in. India is like basically a rose in the blossoming peak point right now. And we also opened up a Sophia. And so basically we work with a woman who code to do a corporate leadership program. And within the first year, where we appointed some of the city directors from our woman, basically we have experienced about 50% promotion rate and pretty much 100% retention rate. Wow, 50% promotion and 100% retention is incredible. It is incredible. So I see that miracle happening and then I become very convinced after year one. And then I've also learned that I'm not the only leader in the world, I believe in this. That's reason why they blossom like crazy. I imagine growing up in China, I was reading a little bit about your story that the expansion into China must mean something a bit personal for you as well. Sounds like you were a bit fortunate though with your parents saying, hey, you had two choices when you graduated, right? Flight attendant or secretary and your parents thought that she should have more options than that. So maybe kind of full circle, how was that for you when those two in Shanghai and Beijing opened? To me, I feel like that is what 21st century supposed to be. I wish it was true in the 19th century. And but bottom line is just a minor correction. Actually, I did interview for those two positions. I was rejected. I was not qualified. Lucky VMware. Yeah. Actually lucky United States. There you go. So basically my dad and my mom, they basically raised me up very differently in that era. They basically feel that they gave me kind of almost a virtual space where I do not feel there is any difference between genders. They always made me feel like I'm an equal citizen in the family. I have the same speaking right. My dad, my mom both fostered me that. So when they learned that I could not get those two possible job and I was very well educated, graduate from the best university in the island as quoting my dad. He basically invested on me, right? So he basically said, well, what he needs to do is continue to invest me. So that's the reason why he exported me to United States. And then basically I went to the graduate school here and then since then I've been very blessed. So this is almost like the Beijing and Shanghai success of a woman who co is almost like I'm giving it back to my origin, right? And I'm bringing a lot of the blend between the Western and the Eastern culture together. To open that up, which is fantastic. And basically in a global environment to make it a very diverse and inclusive at the same time. So you had really strong parents who instilled this belief in you that you could do anything. When we look at some of the statistics that show that less than 25% of technical roles are held by women and then we also look at the retention nutrition is so high in tech. What were some of the things that kept you kind of focused on your dreams? How did you kind of foster that persistence? And I'm wondering what your advice is for women who are in tech who might be thinking of leaving? Well, very interesting. So first advice I have is basically believe in yourself and dream very big because that's the end. The second thing is never afraid of change. Change is always a good thing. And that has been throughout my growth in foreign country as well as in here, right? And I remember when I was in university even though it was the best university and I actually changed department and major twice. And the third time I attempted to do it because at that time I told my dad say, hey, I heard there's this cool computer science thing. I really want to go do. He did some calculation and said, look, if you transfer again the third time it would take you five to six years to graduate. So he said, no, just stick with it. And then later on you want to move, go ahead, right? And so in grad school I changed again. And I was very blessed that there are a lot of sponsors and mentors, not just my parents. Throughout my growth and throughout my journey in the career, basically really fostered and helped me, supported me, gave me a lot of advice. So I'm a big believer in mentorship and sponsorship. And that's what I believe the technical woman community will offer. It's kind of a genetically built in within that philosophy in the community, right? Doesn't matter which foreign. It is basically bringing the common belief and the vision together. And it's basically peer-to-peer mentorship. And because there are different walks and different levels of a woman and a technologist in that community, then you actually could do the tearing and the peering and basically help people to either inspire to people to basically move into new career journey or elevating themselves. So I'm a very big believer in mentorship and sponsorship. So speaking of change, talked about the changes that you've made previously. You've made a big change from R&D to finance here. The very first person at VMware to do that. Tell us about the impetus and what excited you and what you are benefiting from. Well, I've been in the R&D career for a couple of decades. And so every 10 years I look at my resume and then I kind of try to have an out-of-body experience to basically advise myself and say what would you do differently? So that you actually are set up for the growth for the next 10 years, right? So when I look at my career about a year ago, I basically said to myself and said, well, you got enough R&D experience, you made enough investment. For you to be in the next journey, you really need to have the business experience. And even though I have basically with VMware's support and sponsorship, I did go back to the business school and got kind of the Berkeley Business Certificate and I got lots of a great executive supporting me. But the reality is, if you don't do that role day in, day out and really experience it, blend it into your DNA, it's not going to come natural, right? And I don't want to be an imposter. So essentially I made a fairly major determination that I want to basically switch into business world. I'm kind of a unique case in the sense that I'm both over-qualified and under-qualified at the same time. I'm very lucky that I have a lot of the executive sponsorship, that I was able to find a perfect role that allowed me to learn and excel and basically be inspired basically in my role today. And that is something fantastic. Only after I transfer, that's where I learned that I'm actually the first employee in VMware's history that moved from R&D to finance and I still remain as the only one so far. And I hope that my success can actually inspire more R&D people because I truly believe that a lot of times when you actually can look at from the other lens, it would just simply make you be able to do your original job better. Like right now, I would tell my old R&D self that some of the decision I made, I will have debated and petitioned and argued and thought about it in a completely different way because my thinking has a shift, which I think is a very healthy shift. I agree. And you know, one of the things that Leila Ali said this morning was basically encouraging people to get uncomfortable to be comfortable. And that's, you talked about change, absolutely there's so many opportunities and we know that on one level but it can be pretty intimidating to change something but I love also what you said. I think there's a parallel with saying now that you have this business experience looking through that other lens at R&D you would have made decisions differently and I think that is very reflective and an opportunity for organizations to invest in creating a more diverse executive team and you bring in that thought diversity. Exactly. And it just opens the door of, not just seeing things through different lenses and perspectives whether we're talking about gender or whatnot but the profitability that can come from that alone is tremendous. Yeah, so for example one of the things that there is a statistics actually based on McKinsey for company that basically has a reasonable percentage blend of woman leadership actually grows better and makes much a sounder decision. And so the experience I have when we from R&D to business and then now I work still very closely with R&D community and the product business unit basically that's kind of a testimonial for that because the decision making all of a sudden is multifaceted and you always will be able to make a better decision and a sound decision. Now you will be able to see a different risk at a different level and we will be communicating in a more common language like I used to not be able to speak the business tone and the business language. Now I actually can be that effective communication bridge which I find it very powerful and very exciting and illuminating in terms of just the whole shift make it a very worthwhile actually. It's just a very fantastic personal and professional experience so far. You said that McKinsey report and that was actually mentioned this morning that the press release that VMware did with Stanford the claiming institute investing 15 million in building a women's innovation lab to study the barriers, identify how to remove those barriers but in that press release McKinsey report found and this is shocking that companies that have more diversity at the executive level are 21% more profitable. That's a huge number. That's because you actually for business right the technology moves so fast and there are so many different factors will be coming in hitting the business given business decision. If you just go down a unit land and not basically bringing all the different facets of a perspective, you tend to basically gradually work yourself into a corner or you may just believe what you want to believe. So that's where the other genders perspective or even the inclusive culture will bring you basically. So this is my firm belief, right? It's just in a different dimension basically. I think that's great advice for all walks of life. Lily, thank you so much for stopping by the cube and sharing with us what you're doing with Women Who Code and congratulations on being the first VMware to successfully transition from R&D to finance. Yeah, I actually hit my one year anniversary. Oh, congratulations. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Women Transforming Technology at VMware. Thanks for watching.