 Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in downtown San Francisco at the Professional Business Women of California Conference. It's the 28th year Jackie Spears started it a long time ago and now it's grown to 6,000 people. It's a pretty amazing conference. It crosses all industries and actually a lot more than California as well. And we're excited to actually have somebody to come talk to us about the conference itself. It's Deepi Srivastava. She's a product manager of Google Cloud. From Google, great to see you again. Last we saw you, I looked it up was 2014. Top Coder Open. Indeed. And you were doing great work then. You were on a panel with a bunch of high school girls. I remember they bussed in a couple of bus loads of high school girls in you and a couple other, mainly young professional women, talking to them about the life of an engineer. So you're still doing good things. I hope so. Absolutely. I hope so, yeah, it's a passion of mine and I'm really happy to bring it to something like PBWC where I'm on the board. And we do a bunch of work across industries and across all levels. I mean, PBWC's mission is to work for gender equity and pay equal pay for women across all industries and in all professional settings. That includes young professionals as well as the pipeline of professionals coming in. That's terrific. So we could talk about your day job all day long. Google Cloud's a kick and tail. You guys had a big conference a couple of weeks back. Here in fact, yeah. Here in Moscone West, right? But in terms of what you're doing here with PBWC, give us a little bit of the history. So we know it was started by Jackie Spear. I think you said 1988, that's just amazing. I know. Obviously it's much more than California. But what is the top level mission and how has the conference evolved over the last several years? Yeah, so professional business in California, as you said, it was started by Congressman Jackie Spear and Judy Bloom, who's a co-founder. And we still exist and we've been doing this for so long and we really care about our mission, which is to work for basically gender equity and equal pay, as I said, for all professional settings for women. And in this particular case, this conference, we are talking about inclusion. And we chose this theme because we really think it's pertinent to what's going on right now in the world and in our country. And we, PBWC believe that the things that unite us, the potentials and the aspirations that unite us are greater than our differences and things like that. So we want to make a statement and really address the inclusion work that we do and the inclusion work that's required for all of us to really move forward as a country and as a people. And if you look at our lineup of speakers today, we really do walk the talk that we're talking about. We have amazing speakers today with Rosario Doss and Taraji P. Henson and all the way to Secretary Clinton, who's closing out our day today. We are so excited to have her. And there's nobody better to represent, breaking the glass ceiling than she has. So, I'm very excited to be here. What a good, I mean, I think I heard that it's her first public speaking engagement post the election. Yeah, I know. And it's very exciting because again, I think we're all about sort of coming together and rallying and sort of being a force for good. The conferences, that's our aim ultimately as an organization and having her here to give her speech, first public appearance after the election last year. Very exciting, I think, and we're very excited to hear from her. I'm sure, I'm already inspired by the thought that she's going to be here, so. And really a big part of the theme was kind of the strategy work is done. Everybody knows it's good. Now it's really time for the rubber to hit the road. It's about execution and about taking steps and measuring and a lot of the real kind of concrete nuts and bolts, activities that need to happen to really move this thing down the road. You mean like gender equity and yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's been a topic for a while and I think exactly like we need to sort of have the rubber hit the road. We have to get together. We have to have actionable plans and that's what a bunch of our seminars today are talking about, how to address those things. We really want to empower women and actually people of all backgrounds and ages and all sorts of people to take charge of their own lives and especially we are a professional women conference so that's kind of where we focus our messaging. But really we want women to take control of their own lives and we want to give them the tools, the networking opportunities, the aspiration, inspirations to meet their aspirations in those fields and so we want them to sort of take charge and like move forward by themselves, take away from here and like go back to your job, to your work, to your home and like sort of really bring your messaging forward. Take inspiration from here and bring it back to your life. I think Bev Crair in the keynote said, fill your well today because as soon as you leave here it's kind of back to the grind and you're going to need that energy. So while you're here, surrounded by this energy and your peers, take it all in and load up. Absolutely and I also want to say that we started out as a conference, an annual conference and that's definitely our marquee thing that we do every year but we actually have a lot more offerings that people can continue to engage over the year. So we have webinars and seminars that people can attend. There's community events that happen here, right? So there's, and you can go to the PbWC website and see what all offerings we have but we want people to engage and we want to be able to provide them with the means to engage throughout the year, not just here, but sort of take this, everything you get today and then sort of take it along the rest of the year and recharge yourself. It's kind of this whole 365 concept which we talk about on theCUBE a lot too because we go to so many shows but there's a huge investment of time and energy and money on those two or three days but how do you extend that, how do you extend it out beyond the show? How do you build the excitement leading into the show? So it's not just a one time kind of a shot and everything goes back to normal. Yeah, exactly. I think that's exactly the point that this is not just a one day you go there you get inspired and then what next, right? There's something you can go back to with our various offerings and sort of continue to your learning journey if that's what you want or networking journey if that's what you want to do. Wherever you are in your career we actually have a young women's professional summit that I have the honor of sort of chairing that we have every year and it's meant to help young professional women sort of navigate their way from being in college and high school and those entering professional lives. So as I said, we want to cater to all levels and all ages and all sorts of challenges that people face as they're going through their professional careers. So that's a separate event. It is, it is an annual conference. And when is that, give a plug? Or do you have a date? Yeah, we don't have a date yet but it's going to be in the summer. In the summer, okay, great. Well, I think, you know, when we met last I thought that was such an important piece of that top coat are open because it wasn't, you know, the Sheryl Sandbergs or the Hillary Clinton's or, you know, kind of these super mega, you know, kind of top of the pyramid people. It was, it was a bunch of young professionals. I think one of the guys was still in school, hadn't finished graduating to make it so much real for those high schoolers. They didn't have to look so far, you know. Yeah. To say, I can see myself, you know, I kind of look like that person. And I think that's very important, Jeff. Exactly, like, it's very important and that's what we try to do here at PBWC as well, right? We want to go from catering to the millennials and how we interact with them and all the way up to C-suite, we had a senior leadership summit yesterday leading up to the conference today where we have a bunch of C-suites and CDOs, chief diversity officers come together and talk about trending topics and how, you know, how to solve them. So we really are trying to move the needle forward on many fronts here. But our aim is to sort of, all of that to culminate into moving women and, you know, people of all, you know, backgrounds forward. Right, right. And then there's this whole entrepreneurial bent, which you can't see behind the camera, but there's, you know, there's boosts all over for Intel and LinkedIn and Microsoft and the names that you would expect. Google, of course. But there's also all the slight little boutiques, clothing stores and jewelry stores and crafty things. There's even, of course, you know, kind of women focused snacks with the Luna bars and I forget the other one. So it's kind of a cool entrepreneurial spirit, you know, kind of on top of everything else. Absolutely. And, you know, Jackie Spear, Congresswoman started this conference to help women who were in the SMB, sort of SME markets, like basically women who ran small businesses. And we want to, you know, continue to do that as well. But now, of course, the world is changing. We have a bunch, but much more of a corporate presence and we want to help there too. But yeah, we pay homage to that by having women who are, you know, women entrepreneurs running women-focused businesses. And we have them here in the expo area, you know, if you can get a shot of that later. And it's, the energy is palpable, you know, the excitement is there and it's so great to be here and like harness that and take it back. I mean, the first time I was here many years ago, when I was not even on the board, I was just like, oh my gosh, there's so many women here who are like me or, you know, who are, they're people I could look up to, you know, all the way up to the C-suite who are making their presence felt here and also all the people around me and like-minded like me. So it's a really inspiring event and I've been here for many years, but I'm still inspired by it. So yeah, I'm so excited that we do this and continue to do this. So, a little harder question. So, you know, you've been doing this for a while. What surprises you kind of on the negative that still, you know, you're still kind of fighting that battle that you wouldn't have expected to still be doing. And then conversely, what has kind of surprised you on the positive in terms of what's moved maybe further than you might have thought or faster than you might have thought? Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's, you already nailed it, right? Like the fact that we are still here talking about this is interesting to me and as I got more involved in these kinds of, in this kind of work, I realized that, you know, people have been doing this for a long time. Congressman herself has been doing this for so long. Right, right. And a fearless advocate for women's rights and equal pay and, you know, diversity and inclusion. And the fact that we're still here does, it is indicative of the fact that, you know, we need to have a groundswell movement in order to change policy, right? We can talk about it all we want, but unless there's actionable things you can take away and, you know, really have that grassroots level work to push the envelope forward, it's not going to happen. And that's, I think the positive is, as I've seen this conference over the years, it's grown and it's gotten a lot, you know, a lot more young people involved. And, you know, it's not just the senior leadership that is trying to pull people forward. It's the people starting out early in their careers or mid-level in their careers that are looking at taking charge of their own destiny and sort of pushing, you know, their agenda forward in this sense, right? Like they want, they're asking for, you know, equal pay, they're really engaged and aware. And, you know, conferences like PVWC actually help with that, sort of getting those minds together and making things move forward, you know? So I think from a positive side, I'm really excited to see so many more people engaged in this fight, right? And the more people we have, the more, you know, we can actually make real progress and real inroads. Right. And as you look back, for someone who's never been here and they see this interview and they say, you know, this looks awesome, I'm going to sign up. What do you think is the biggest surprise when they come for the first time? I'll tell you what I was surprised by is seeing so many women together across industries, across ages, across, you know, backgrounds, everybody together really wanting to move forward, right? Like they're really wanting to engage, to connect with each other and to like actually like make a difference. Like people are here to make a difference, right? And that's to say that 6,000 people come together and really all of them have that same sort of mentality of like, yes, I'm empowered to make a difference is electrifying. DP, I love the energy. I love the energy. Absolutely. It's all these people. It is. I'm sleep deprived with my, you know, very young son. So yeah, this is all the energy. No, it's good. And there is something special here and you can't feel it because we go to a lot of shows, you go to a lot of shows. And again, it's not an exclusive tech show, which is kind of nice because we cross a lot of industries. But there's definitely, you know, there's an energy, there's a vibe. It comes from the little entrepreneurial outlets. It just comes from the, that room was packed. The keynote room was not fire marshal friendly. Hopefully the fire marshal was not close by. Yes, we had some, some discussions on that too. But to your point, right? Like this is one of the conferences that I've seen where we really, perhaps the only conference I've seen where we really cut across all industries, right? Because there's packed focus. There's business focus. There's all sorts of focused conferences, you know, trying to do either, you know, their professional work on technology or what not. Or they're trying to solve the problem on the gender and diversity and inclusion piece in their own silos. And we try to cut across so that we can actually have a coming together of all of these various industries and their leaders, thought leaders sharing ideas and sharing best practices so that we can actually all move forward together. I think that's again, our senior leadership summit which happened last night. And the VIP reception which happened last night is all about, you know, getting those thought leaders together and getting them to share their best practices and ideas so that again, they can take it back to their companies and really move forward with DNI initiatives. It's action, right? It's all about the action. Yeah, absolutely. All right, D.V. I promise next time that we talk, we'll talk about Google. Oh, sure. Because that's hoppin'. But it's great to see you and congratulations on all your work with the board and your event in the summer. People should go to the website, keep an eye out, it'll be coming out. So thank you. Thank you so much. It's great to see you too, Jeff. Absolutely. All right, D.V. I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE. We're at the Professional Business Women of California Conference, the 28th year. Pretty amazing, 6,000 people here at Moscone West. Thanks for watching.