 Hello everyone, welcome to theCUBE's coverage of International Women's Day. I'm John Furrier, host. We've got a great lineup of guests this program, and this segment, we're talking about a hot company called Message Bearer. We've got three amazing executives and leaders, Rachel Thornton, who's the chief marketing officer in Antwerp Unheim, chief people officer in Asha Thurthy, chief product officer, we've got the CMO, chief people officer, and the chief product officer, we've got everyone who's building that company. This is about building a startup culture that empowers women in tech. Ladies, thanks for coming on, and thanks for taking the time. Thank you, John, for having us. Rachel, you've seen big organizations, you were the CMO at AWS, now at Message Bird. This is a world where now there's new standards, you get global culture, you can start out anywhere. A lot of things involved in being a C-suite leader from not only marketing product to customers, but building a product, hiring the right team, team dynamics, power dynamics. So as female leaders, you guys are building that culture that empowers women to not only find their voices, but to use their voices to lead. What's the secret? What are you guys doing? Give us a taste of what's it like right now. Give us a feeling for what's going on in this world for you guys right now. I'll go first. I actually want to say that I was the... When Message Bird was building out their team, I was super excited to join because I was so impressed with the fact that the product officer was a woman, HR officer was a woman. It was so great to see women in those leadership roles. And I was just really positive and bullish on that. I felt like any company that was really building out that leadership team and thinking about being conscious of how do we have diverse perspectives and doing that is only gonna make the product better. So I was super excited to join and I have really, really enjoyed being on a leadership team where I think we're 50% women. I think that it's true. It's half women, which is really amazing. And that's to be the standard because, I mean, software is in every product. Digital transformation is everyone and the world is not 17% women. I mean, let's face it. So this is really a product issue as well and team issue because, I mean, it just makes sense. I mean, this is really still the industry's behind. This is a big problem. But I do think that it's, like I said, watching what's happening here, it gives me hope. Actually, it makes me inspired for it to see other companies adopted. I think both Asha and Andrea and you guys trying in have just, they're doing great jobs as leaders. I feel like we're all able to speak, able to share our voice and able to inspire the folks in the company when they see that. Asha, could you weigh in on this because people matter in companies and now you have work at home remote. You're seeing very successful configurations of teams technical to business across the board, building products and working as a team. What's your take on this and what's your perspective? No, no, great question. The time is now. I really feel like the time has come for women to take what's really a deal for them and not just because we're women because we are equally strong and contributing on the table. So I'm super excited for the generation that's to come because great voices really represent great customers because customers come in all different shapes and forms and people who are building the products plus running company should represent the customers that end of the day by your product. So voice on the table is extremely important. And so is making an attempt to make sure that you are hiring across all walks of life all the way from sea level to even at icy level ensuring that there is inclusion and diversity from a representation perspective. You've got the keys to the kingdom there as the product officer, chief product officer. You know, you got to interface with engineering. You got to interface with the customers. And like I mentioned earlier, the products are used by everyone now. It's all, what's your experience been? What have you learned? Because again, a lot of engineers are male dominated around the world. Teams are male. What's your experience? How do you blend that together? How do you bring that harmony and productivity? Yeah, no, like I think the first thing is I think acknowledging the current state, which is women in tech, specifically because you asked about my role continues to be a challenge. Women in tech, be it in the product side of the equation or design side of the equation or engineering side of the equation, I think continues to be a challenge. I think all companies will have to lean in, especially starting education from STEM degrees going forward to see how do you kind of make an effort to ensure that women in technology is not as high of a barrier that it used to be. Women in color in technology is not as high of a barrier as well. And how do you kind of make sure that when you're hiring, when you're advocating for your company, when you're setting up your interview loops to actually setting up the right platform for all of these employees to thrive, you're ensuring that every walk of this is kind of including women and making sure that all voices are represented. Andrea, Rachel, I'd love your take as well because products just one piece of this whole equation where you build product. I'm kind of curious to see how you... And Andrea, weigh in because this is like a hiring thing too. Like if you have a special test, like, okay, do we have the right makeup? Is there a bro test, for example? I've heard companies have that where they have this kind of special questions that identify bros because they don't want that in their culture. Is there a playbook? Is there a best practice in sourcing and identifying and interviewing loops, for instance, we just heard. Asha, that was great on the product side. Andrea, this is a big challenge putting teams together, having the right cohesive harmony talent, looking for people, having the right interview loops, identifying that bro or the right makeup that you want to bring in or interview out. What's the strategy? How do you put these teams together? Because this is the real secret sauce. Not sure whether it's a secret sauce, but I think what we have shown at Message Brood is that we have made a very conscious effort and decision to start leading, for example, from the top to really build a leadership team that is already combining all the great traits on top of a good diversity in the team, not only from a gender, but also skills and personality point of view. And then from there, really making a planful, intentional way down to say, where do we hire which talent? What is it that we're still missing as a piece of the puzzle to really make the right decisions on leadership, but also team compositions, to really look at what the customer needs, how can we build great products? How can we also compose great engineering teams to meet those expectations that our customers have and how do we build for the future? And that needs to happen at all different parts of the organization to really see that we can make a great effort across the board. And Rachel, last year, your talk inspired a lot of folks in conversation around sponsorship and you talked about networking and mentoring, but you highlighted sponsorship. I remember that clearly and that got great play in the conversation. So it's not just mentoring, for mentoring's sake, there's also sponsorships. So there's really identifying, hiring, and then working with. And according to McKinsey's report that you guys are highlighting at Messersburg, one in four C-suite leaders are identified as women and with more hurdles to climb every day, especially at a startup. And I think that's why it has to be a combination of how do you think about your team composition? How do you think about your leadership composition? So all the things that Andrea just said, but then how do you make sure as you're bringing folks in, you're constructing the right loop so people feel like this is a great place they want to be a part of, that it represents a diverse group of people. And then once they're in, how do you mentor people? What's the mentorship program you put in place? But the sponsorship program, I think the sponsorship as well as mentorship also matters because you wanna make sure when you identify folks in the organization that you feel are ready for the next step, that you have identified as high potential, how do you come together as a leadership team and have a program that sponsors them that gets them training or maybe it's executive coaching, but also just makes them visible to or leaders across the organization. So when it's time to put together the case for that promotion or maybe that new project or that new group they would lead, everyone is aware of them and everyone has had some sort of interaction with them. So it really is building the right sort of sponsorship framework to help people get the kind of visibility and the kind of support they need to then unlock their potential in other areas, whether again, that's promotion or just taking on new groups or taking on new projects. Awesome. Well, you guys are fabulous. In addition to this. Go ahead, go ahead. Now, in addition to this, I think it's also what is critical even though we're not the biggest company we're on Amazon and not Microsoft, but I think it's still important to also give exposure to the great people that we have to make sure that everybody has visibility, everybody has a voice and to make sure that we can then build sponsorship and mentorship across the different levels and teams and to build a great succession pipeline to really make sure that people can be considered for the next big project that is coming independent of any skills that they might have but being a voice and having the experience that counts is most important. I love that inclusion. You jumped ahead. I wanted to get some questions because you guys are a great group here. I guess the first question I had on the list here is from you guys, what does it take to build an environment of inclusion? Because that's really key where female identified employees and aren't just asked questions. They take risks, they ask the right questions, they get involved, they're heard, they're recognized. What's it take to build that kind of environment? I can go, I think two things come to mind. One, I would say is commitment, like commitment at the top that you're not just going to lip sync but you're going to walk the talk that this is important to you as a company and who you stand or what you stand for as a human being and you're going to put in the effort as a leadership team at the top to actually set the right example. Like Messagebird, I think Rachel said in her intro, 50% of the C level is women and you start right there. The second thing I would say is giving our people voice. Giving them confidence, women because of, I don't know, thousands of years of social conditioning as such hesitated to kind of speak up. So setting the right example, giving them the voice and encouraging them to take the challenges even if they're sponsored or not to kind of make sure that they're willing to try new things and be not afraid of risk as much. I think it's also super important. I think that's very, it's so, so true about the voice and about encouragement and just, I think it's making sure people feel like across the entire organization but they feel like they have a voice, their voice can be heard and that we as a leadership team are supportive in those environments and people feel like I can take risks, I can ask questions, I can push the envelope in terms of, hey, do we agree with this point? Is there room for discussion? I think when people see that that's encouraged and it's encouraged for everyone, that's powerful. The McKinsey study had a lot of data in there. What's the summary on the people side? Obviously the women are underrepresented, one in four, the C-suite leaders are women but there's also people who are climbing through the ranks. I mean, what's the big takeaway for the McKinsey study beyond the obvious one in four stat? Is there any other messages in there that people should pay attention to? I think Ash just did it really well with building the pipeline at the top and I think that's something that we all think about every day. I think Andrea and her team do such a great job in helping us with that, but that is huge. Like you have to really think, how can you build that pipeline out? And I think encouraging people, women, underrepresented groups, everyone to just think what do I want to do? What are the companies out there that I think would be great to work for? How can I find the right environment to support me? I think that's important and I think that helps build that pipeline. Okay, when you're a startup, you're a lot different than the big company, right? So the big companies are different. You guys are growing, startups are a lot about, don't run a cache, hard charging, creative, teamwork, but it could be tough under fire to start up. What's the learnings? How do you guys look at that and how do you guys manage that because it's super important to the culture of where the phase of these startups are in? I think the advantage that we have is we're not a big company. So I think in that way, there is a way to really build a culture of empowerment and past making decisions together. And independent of where you come from, what experience you have, it's really what you can bring to the table. It's not having the fear of political cohesion that you have in larger corporations at times to really build that great team that we're building right now to say all that matters to us is to build great products for our customers. And there's a lot of discussion about quota and one in four. And I know large corporations are a lot more tied to meeting requirements that are depending on national laws and whatever, which is sometimes required to force a change in culture and how to do business. But I think us as a company, we just see a strong, strong benefit in not worrying about the gender. It's really like making an effort at the beginning to build the culture and the company that is just looking for a great team and a great culture independent of quotas. Iisha, on the product side, I want to get your thoughts because I know from startups, being done with you myself, product market fit is huge, right? So you got, that's the goal and there's a lot of pressure. Rachel, you got to go to market together and you got to build the product. If you don't hit it, you got to agile, you got to be fast, which could cause a lot of friction. People got to reset, regroup. It's not for the faint of heart. How do you pipeline folks? Women are great for that. Are people aware? Do you have to, are people ready for it? These are training, how do you get someone ready? Or is there a test if they're startup ready? No, no, it's a great question. So like we have a value at the company that's called Move 200 miles an hour. All startups I think will totally resonate with this as Andrea was saying, it's a balancing act. How do you ensure that you're moving 200 miles an hour but at the same time, ensuring that you're hiring the right people who ultimately represent the customer? One example, Rachel and I were talking about this earlier. We actually represent 40% of the B2C emails that sent globally. Imagine as the audience who's receiving one of these emails, think your favorite brand in Nordstrom that's actually sending you an email on the other end. Think about the customer on the other end. So it does require company commitment to ensure that the people you hire represent ultimately the customer you're going after. So even if you're a startup that's moving 200 miles an hour with lesser resources than any other bigger company, you have to commit to actually ensuring that your team has the right diversity starting all the way from sourcing to ensuring that this person is thriving and getting hopefully promoted to one day replace all of us, let's put it that way. We're weighing on the startup velocity, challenges, dynamicism, thoughts. You go, Andrea. It's not for everyone, you know, in that way, but it's something that if you find the right environment and the right people who thrive in such an environment like we do, it's magic. And building on that magic that we have is so powerful that we cannot afford giving voice to one group that is stronger than the others. We're counting on each other. And this is a key element to who we are and how we want to build going forward. Rachel, your reaction, you're in the startup scene with some white water rafting, heavy, speed. It's pretty different. It's very different, but I love it. And what Andrea said is totally true. I think it isn't for everyone, but when you find a great organization and when you find a great group of people, it is magic, you know? It just, it's amazing the things you can do and it's a palpable feeling in the company when everyone is working on the same thing and they're excited about the same thing. You know, it's interesting about startups, not to take a tangent here, but a lot of startups, it's not as much resource as a big company, that department doesn't exist. A lot of people doing multiple things. Wait a minute, someone doesn't write my emails for me, doesn't do the PowerPoints. Where's the marketing department? Where's the big budgets? There's a lot of juggling and a lot of versatility required, but also there's opportunities to identify talent that could be hired for something that could move into something else. And this is part of the growth. And that's one side. On the other side, and this is a question I promise, this burnout, right? So you have burnout and fatigue, whether it's cultural and or I don't see an opportunity to really, truly a lot of aperture for new opportunities. So can you guys share your thoughts on this dynamic? Because in startups, there's a double-edged sword that could be burnout or there could be opportunity. I'll go and then I'll have Ash go on the product side. I think it's, I think that's true everywhere. I don't know, it could be that in some startups it's exasperated, but I think that actually is true, whether in a big company or a small company. I think, depending on the industry, depending on the company size, depending on what you're going after, you have to be clear about what it is you're gonna deliver, how you're gonna do it. And I do think it's important that everyone be able to say for themselves, hey, I'm excited about this product or I'm excited about this company. And here's what I'm gonna do, but I'm also gonna make sure that I'm not putting myself in such a way that it does, burnout does happen, but I don't think you can confine it to startups. I think it can happen anywhere. Yeah, exactly, we've seen that now. Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Johnny, of three moms on the call and definitely we've all kind of come out of COVID into this phase. I'm not gonna lie, it's really hard. It's really hard actually balancing and juggling multiple different priorities that you have to, especially in a startup world when you move so many different miles an hour and you don't have enough support around you, it is really hard. The one advice I do have for women, which I kind of tell myself very repeatedly is it's completely okay to be honest. I have taken an intentional action to be a lot more vulnerable over the years. Talk about having to pick up my child or having to spend the evening out when I need to spend time with my family and being open about it because when I do it at the top, I kind of set the space for enough people to talk about it as well. So really helping women set their own boundaries without feeling guilty about it because by nature, we end up taking care of everything around us. So how do you take care of yourself? Fill your cup first so you don't burn out to your question, I think is extremely critical. Yeah, that's a really great point, good point. I think the thing about honesty and transparency comes in with boundaries, but also empathy. I think a lot of people, there's a lot of awareness now to this factor of teamwork and remote and creativity, productivity is kind of a new, not new thing, but it's kind of more forefront. And that's super important. How do you guys promote that because you still got to move fast, you got to schedule things differently. I mean, I find myself much more schedule oriented and it's hard to coordinate. How do you guys balance that? Because it's a management challenge, opportunity at the same time to have that inclusivity vibe. I think on the empathy part on balancing, I just think you have to focus on it. Yes, be a conscious choice. And I think sometimes we do it great, and I at least speak for myself, sometimes I do it great, sometimes I don't. But I definitely think you have to focus on it and think about it. Think about where you're scheduling things, what are you doing, how are you making sure you're thinking about your team, thinking about the example you're providing or the example you're setting. Thoughts on the boundaries and when does something not a boundary when it's not productive? Because I got my boundaries and they're like, whoa, whoa, stay in your lane. No one likes to hear that stay in your lane thing. I mean, not to say that people shouldn't stay in their lane. I just find that a little bit off-putting, like stay in your lane. That sounds like it's against the culture. What do you guys think about how people should be thinking about their norms in these environments where there's inclusive diversity? What are some of the areas to stay away from and what are the areas to promote in terms of how to communicate these boundaries and or good lanes, I should say. I mean, maybe I shouldn't say stay in your lane is a bad thing, but it could be more off-putting. I can touch on something which is what can you do more off? I really resonated so much with Rachel's comment from last year on sponsorship. I am the product of sponsorship. So it really resonates with me. I also wouldn't even be sitting here with these two wonderful women and you. In addition to that, I think allyship. I think that's extremely important. What I would love to see everybody set the right example on is promoting a lot more of allyship where you're kind of encouraged, not just women, underrepresented minority, knowing really well the backgrounds that they come from in the situational context around it and seeing how can you be a great ally and what great ally looks like for me is simple things. If you're in a meeting full of people and you see the underrepresented folks not talking or sharing their voice, how can you as the senior person in the room and any person in the room actually share the voice out and get their thoughts? If you can have many different people present in your company, all hands or what have you, whatever forums it can be, how do you ensure that it's not just you always, but like you're putting in the spotlight on other people and the calibrations come in when the recruiting comes in, how do you ensure that your loops are diverse? So long story short, how do you ensure that you're setting the right example even if you don't belong to one of these groups that I think do more of? Well, that's a great call out on the allies on mentorship programs and support networks. These are important. How should someone go forward and build a mentorship program and support networks so that people can help each other out? Is there a way you guys have found best practices, Rachel and team, is there a strategy that works well? Actually, Asha has some great examples here. So I'm going to toss it over to her. Thank you, Adi. Team, this is what I would love for everyone to do more of. Like we just kicked off 2023. Why not make it a goal for this year? Let's seize the year to ensure that I'll start off with tech, especially where women are underrepresented. We ensure that all of your rock stars, all of your women at least have a mentor either within the organization or you reach out to your network externally and pair this person up with a mentor. What ultimately helps is people having somebody they can bounce off their ideas off, get tips, get advice on how to tackle a particular situation. So really pairing people up to ensure that they have a way to kind of bounce off ideas and see how can they elevate themselves, I think will go a long way. I mean, this is a big problem. Rachel, you've been a leader. You've seen this happen before. How do people climb through the ranks successfully? And you've seen people maybe fail a little bit. Is there a best practice or advice you could share with folks that are out there watching and listening on how to be savvy on climbing through the ranks, whether it's finding mentors, being in the right place at the right time? I always have the old saying, hang around the basketball rim and you'll get a rebound. So is it timing? Is it placement? What's your best practice advice for coming through the ranks? I have a little and then again, I've been very impressed with the team Asha's built and just the things that she's done in her career. And I think that for women in tech, that's crucial. I would just say overall, finding your voice, using your voice, but also thinking about who's around you, who's supportive, who are the mentors or who are the people you would love to, either mentor or have mentor you and be sure to speak up and make that known. And then I also think don't be afraid to, like I said, use your voice, ask questions. Don't be afraid to also help people up. I think Asha, what you said a few minutes ago is so true. Like if there are folks in the room that aren't, as vocal that you know have amazing ideas, be sure that you're there to help them up, to help them with their voice because you wanna make sure that it just brings more to the conversation. Asha, you're running a product but that's a big challenge. What's your thoughts on that? Can you share your opinion? Imposter syndrome is a real thing. I would definitely say confidence is self-taught is what I have really learned over the years and really kinda knowing that the next person to you may not be any smarter than you or may not be any less smart than you. So really treating everybody as an equal around you and finding that inner strength and inner voice to be able to speak for yourself and to be able to share your ideas and do the best that you possibly can. Bring the A game and then you need help asking for it. So really just knowing that and taking initiative and we're here to help. Awesome. Andrea, you're here. I wanna get your thoughts on building out a mentoring program and networks for women so they can have this great environment. What's it take to do that? I mean, it's hard to do building out meaningful networking mentorship program and sport network for me to help each other's hard. What's your experience? I think you need some strong leaders within an organization all the way to sponsor and support. You need somebody to start it. It's usually senior female leaders who are kickstarting a networking environment and some good groups to have some great impact. But, and then also making sure that they get the visibility to see we accomplish great things together. We raise the topics that not everybody would see and really bringing the other voice to the table to have like contradicting perspectives on what a company should do on the product side but also on the general strategic side of things. And then building from there to say how can we also build great project teams that support these ideas and to really get the momentum going. Not big programs but more really impactful communities that will push the topics. Awesome, great panel here. Building a startup culture that empowers women in tech. You guys are amazing. Final question, rapid fire. Go down the line. We'll start with Rachel, Andrea and Asha. What's it take to have that kind of success for startup if you could share quickly what your advice is for people watching and succeeding in a startup? I would say focus, intention and commitment. Andrea. Current backbone authenticity. I couldn't agree more with Rachel. Focus and commitment it is for me too. Well, you guys are amazing. Congratulations and Mrs. Bird again, great ratios. You guys are succeeding. You're a standard for the industry. Congratulations and thank you for taking the time on theCUBE's coverage International Women's Day. We also have Women in Data Science at Stanford. A variety of other programs going on today. It's a big day. Thank you very much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you too. Okay, this is theCUBE's coverage of International Women's Day. I'm John Furrier, host. Thanks for watching.