Jenn Ravalli, CMO Harri opens up about her career, building and scaling startups and her role in Annie...

[00:00:00] What is going on everybody? It is Ryan from WRKdefined and today I am so excited to introduce

[00:00:09] the guest that we had the opportunity to speak with, Jen Ravalli who is the CMO at Harry which

[00:00:17] is just a fantastic solution. But I'm excited about this episode because we speak to a lot of

[00:00:24] people and we collaborate with a lot of people. Jen is one of these people, we've worked with Jen,

[00:00:32] we've collaborated with Jen, we brainstormed with Jen, we just shoot the shit with Jen and

[00:00:40] we realized we'd never actually learned her story. We'd never took time to understand her

[00:00:48] journey. So I am so excited to get this episode live for you all to take a listen and learn about

[00:00:55] the success, the failures, the challenges, mentorship, everything that we go through with Jen

[00:01:02] without further ado. Here we go. Hey, it's William Tynka and Ryan Lee. You are listening

[00:01:11] and watching Inside the C-Suite podcast. We have Jen Ravalli on today. Jen, how are you doing?

[00:01:17] I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. Proud to have your last name for me one time.

[00:01:23] Vanalli. Thank you. See Texans we... It's not that hard. No, no we butcher that stuff. I'm sorry.

[00:01:29] So sorry. But I would have said Ravalli. Ravalli. Yeah. For as long as I've known you I always

[00:01:35] have said Ravalli. I'll answer to either one. So not bad. It sounds good to me.

[00:01:43] It's a part of life being called Ravalli. So it's totally fine.

[00:01:47] You know, I'm never going to unsee that now. I'm always going to know you as Jen Ravalli.

[00:01:52] Jen Ravalli. I don't know where we're going to go from here but Jen do us a favor and

[00:01:58] introduce yourselves. Tell us a little bit about what you're doing now, where you're at.

[00:02:02] Sure. So my name is Jen Ravalli. I am the Chief Marketing Officer at Gary which is an

[00:02:09] HR Technology Bathroom specifically for frontline workers. We have started really in

[00:02:17] restaurants and continuing to build into more frontline areas. It has been some of your favorite

[00:02:24] brands run on Harry. Oh folks like McDonald's, Shake Shack, etc. really support their employees through

[00:02:33] what, you know, I reason I joined was very much that it was something that I saw happened

[00:02:39] in HR Technology. You know, everybody's trying to take a desk, a desk workforce

[00:02:46] and then pigeonhole it for frontline. And this is really meant to be built for the

[00:02:51] frontline first and our founder was a restaurant owner himself and so really saw the need for

[00:02:58] something that was spoke and something that could work for them. Yeah so I know this is all about

[00:03:04] you, this show's going to be all about you and your journey but let's let's just dig for just

[00:03:10] 30 seconds. Why does a general HR tech software not work for frontline? What is really the

[00:03:16] difference between a software built for frontline versus not? Well it all needs to be mobile first

[00:03:23] and mobile-centric and built that way to start. The other thing is there are significant

[00:03:30] regulation for particularly quick service restaurants and other frontline workforces that

[00:03:37] are just not contemplated in terms of particularly the workforce management side. Nobody goes that

[00:03:42] deep down to the municipal valley level, the way that's necessary to support those

[00:03:48] regulations where fair work week and things of that nature. The other thing is just it's about

[00:03:55] speed, right? We make everything incredibly flexible so that a frontline manager can use it. It is

[00:04:02] not a recruiter or an HR practitioner that is running the day to day. It is a general manager

[00:04:09] of a restaurant who has 100,000 other things to do so they can't be stuck in their office.

[00:04:16] They have to be able to move quickly, change the process in flight and to be able to maximize that.

[00:04:22] So like we see often that you know we can go from post to hire within 24 hours

[00:04:30] and reduce scheduling time for that manager sometimes for four hours a week to 30 minutes

[00:04:36] given the way that we thought so implicitly about what did they need in order to be most

[00:04:42] successful. Yeah the only thing I'd add Ryan to is multi-unit. Yes. Being able to go across if it's

[00:04:49] a franchise they've got a thousand McDonald's let's say being able to go across a thousand things

[00:04:55] and letting the individual managers or operators be able owners in some cases be able to do what

[00:05:02] they need to do to do is uh is something that a traditional enterprise software play for HR

[00:05:10] takes fun with. Yeah. Now the tough part is they'll lie and I'll say lie because they'll lie and say

[00:05:16] they can do it and so there is kind of noise in the marketplace where people will say that they

[00:05:22] can handle restaurants or quick serve in particular and they'll say that we they can handle it

[00:05:28] and they really can't not in the way that yeah Jennifer's talking about it. So implicitly on

[00:05:34] that point we have built everything bottom up instead of top down to be able to support that

[00:05:40] flexibility because you may have a you know a thousand McDonald's but you may also own a thousand

[00:05:47] win and so if you if you want to be able to see everything related to your workforce in one place

[00:05:55] and understand the marriage between employee data and profitability then you need to be

[00:06:01] all of that there regardless of concept type regardless of state as well.

[00:06:09] So let's go all the way back to Holly's floor college what did you want to be when you first

[00:06:15] when you first started you wanted to be something like a race car driver or fire person

[00:06:19] what was the bit? So interestingly enough I spend a lot of my childhood performing which I

[00:06:24] think is some of what has gotten me like performing singing or acting all the above.

[00:06:40] It's for the big job of dance. All right look at HR Tech in the booth karaoke you kick it off

[00:06:48] yeah we'll do that definitely. What's your favorite karaoke song? My favorite karaoke song

[00:06:57] is what is it that I usually go to? I usually go to something either from like Gavin the

[00:07:02] Graw or maybe a little Houston just depends on what you're in the mood for. Let's say it's

[00:07:12] gotta be something joey's you're gonna throw in living on a prayer or on a ride

[00:07:19] like white free bird anytime I can do free bird yeah I'm gonna do free bird. Yeah I want to see you

[00:07:25] do karaoke. No that's what I want to see. Let's just say there's alcohol usually but not usually

[00:07:34] always involved if you see me on a stage karaoke you can just go ahead and assume

[00:07:40] there's a public intoxication ticket waiting for me. Yeah so anyhow you performed when you were

[00:07:46] younger etc so what did you want to be? So I had always wanted to be like I wanted to make you know

[00:07:52] I had some early like recording contracts and stuff like that that you know could have been

[00:07:58] part of that for a year but it's funny I like set my sights on like going to school for like

[00:08:05] international relations until I took a television and media class in high school

[00:08:12] and got to work both behind and in front of the camera and hey like you know I'm gonna apply to

[00:08:19] this whole school called NYU and you know go and see if I can get into their communications

[00:08:25] and marketing department that seems like something that could be a lot fun and I got in I went to

[00:08:32] NYU. NYU also afforded me great opportunity to still audition and to still perform while I was in

[00:08:40] school which was nice and that was where I really started to get my feet wet on how do people buy

[00:08:50] why are you people buy and what drives them and so my favorite class was something called

[00:08:56] um symbiotic analysis where I analyzed the song song as part of my um as part of my thesis

[00:09:07] song song song song the the classic why Cisco yes we did very well

[00:09:15] it took me a moment I'm like then she just say the song song

[00:09:20] she's left right over I'm like yeah right away we know this is not like the traditional C-suite

[00:09:28] interviews that we have no yeah no Cisco's involved yeah Cisco's involved how much symbolism and you

[00:09:38] know how people think about gender and come into what you do as a marketer a marketer and how

[00:09:48] about people to make certain decisions so um what's also interesting is I actually graduated

[00:09:55] just after September 11th so I was the graduating year just like at that point so I graduated yeah

[00:10:03] 2001 2002 so it was and you had to do something called integrated liberal arts and that was all

[00:10:11] about advertising and my thesis was called America's Got a Hamburger because there was a tremendous

[00:10:16] amount of rebranding effort that was going on to how did you make kind of the the you know rebrand

[00:10:23] America and you know make people feel like you know there wasn't this kind of threat of you

[00:10:30] know Western kind of methodization kind of coming to more Eastern cultures and so it was a

[00:10:37] but like I learned so much about PR and how do you think about you know where you want to

[00:10:46] sit in terms of brand visioning and messaging just through kind of watching that and studying it as

[00:10:51] part of it um and so I did some time at a PR firm for a while and loved that um particularly on the

[00:10:59] television side in the relations and by the time I was done with that internship I was my old

[00:11:04] clients like you know was handling their messaging end to end but it was really kind of you have

[00:11:11] to pay to build and PR isn't really the lowest always you know with money opportunity coming

[00:11:18] straight out of school so I actually took a job in sales and I credit a lot of who I am as a

[00:11:26] marketer because I have a tremendous amount of empathy for sellers from holding a bag I sold

[00:11:33] insurance from an inside sales perspective which is a really hard job and ended up

[00:11:39] that's better than knocking on doors no that's that's like Lynn Gary please please right there

[00:11:47] Verizon knock at your door dude that shit gets real when you watch that movie you're like oh yeah

[00:11:54] so so Jen where at what point did you say and I know you said you took these classes but

[00:12:01] at what point did you say you know what I'm not going to be your performer and I actually

[00:12:06] do enjoy this marketing thing or what became the marketing yeah so it's uh it was I had an agent

[00:12:13] when I was in New York and was working with her and had some success along the way but there

[00:12:19] was always this pressure to be smaller to do things differently and probably like 21 years old

[00:12:29] like you know 75 pounds sopping wet and they uh they said you have to lose 10 more pounds and

[00:12:37] oh yeah I that's a lot of joke yeah this is how people get in trouble trouble in the arts uh

[00:12:47] 100% it was you know I wasn't using my brain I was enjoying using my brain in some of the

[00:12:53] efforts I was doing both in my internship and in and in my schooling and just said hey like this is

[00:13:00] fun for me it kind of keeps as a hobby but I'm not going to put all of my energy here right now

[00:13:08] I also had a lot of friends who had grown up through the arts and who had kind of auditioned

[00:13:14] right alongside me who had run into a lot of different challenges in life you know going down

[00:13:19] that path um and so I really enjoyed being at workplace and really enjoyed working with other

[00:13:27] people a little coming up with ideas and just say hey like let's kind of go in this direction and

[00:13:32] make a living that way right it's it's like Morgan Freeman said you know if you weren't an actor

[00:13:39] any fool stops the interviews like I'd be an actor wherever it would be like I'm not going to

[00:13:46] not be an actor I'd be an actor I mean I might be at a like a shopping mall and acting at a

[00:13:52] shopping mall but I'm going to act and so I think that about all the lot of performers a

[00:13:58] lot of actors it's like either you've got to go all in and uh so when you were dealing with people

[00:14:04] you probably saw a lot of eating disorders or addictions to meth or coke or and some stuff

[00:14:10] and fat amines to keep them slender it's like that's counterproductive especially if you like

[00:14:17] using your brain like you said once you got turned on to hey wait a minute I can use my brain I'm

[00:14:22] actually smart and I can do all this other stuff and performing it probably became just less

[00:14:27] attractive for all the trappings the upside's cool the downside is not yours yeah and now it's

[00:14:33] the way that I decompress so like if I'm super stressed out I will do a show like and it seems

[00:14:40] counterintuitive but I'll throw all my energy into doing that uh right but it's I need to

[00:14:47] act it out like you see so much like where folks can't handle what's going on or they

[00:14:54] you know can't necessarily also support themselves and it makes it hard right um

[00:14:59] but you're right like you always are an actor you're always performing like those skills have

[00:15:04] helped me so much in being able to like speak in front of people and and do other things as well

[00:15:12] along the way that's that was interesting for Ryan's class it's like or his question like

[00:15:19] when did you stop or you didn't stop you just morphed your career and use your creative

[00:15:25] energy in a different way now you use your creative energy in marketing and and selling

[00:15:30] steps that you want to be sold around the ideas that you have in marketing so you're still creative

[00:15:36] you're just as creative as you are before you're just using that creative energy in a different

[00:15:40] way exactly so outside of the outside of sales would you do after so I started creating you know

[00:15:48] as any seller sometimes does my own materials and the marketing team actually took notice

[00:15:56] don't change the logo they uh they started asking questions hey what are you doing differently this

[00:16:02] seems to be working maybe there's a path for you here and collaborating a little bit more

[00:16:07] and I just I saw a lot of success in that area and kind of started putting a path to moving

[00:16:15] more into the marketing base in exactly so really well through some mentorship both internally

[00:16:24] and externally um learned some graphic design did some things that you know would help me

[00:16:29] kind of continue to do that and helped my sellers who I supported be more successful overall

[00:16:36] so when it was time to kind of look for another role the role I looked very specifically for

[00:16:41] something that was marketing centric and uh that's kind of what took me to health insurance

[00:16:48] company um so still an insurance but in a little bit different of an avenue um where I came in to

[00:16:57] run a very specific program that was about extremely local marketing it was high strategy also

[00:17:06] still really kind of dug into kind of the creative side as well and took that on and that's when

[00:17:12] I went to health net which is still maybe my favorite company I've ever worked for and went

[00:17:19] the team who had actually built Oxford health plans that you hear about Oxford millionaires

[00:17:24] in the health insurance space um and health net had hired the marketers particularly the

[00:17:30] VT marketing from Oxford to run their marketing program and I got to be a part of that team

[00:17:39] so about the people you get to learn from um I was really lucky to be in a place with great

[00:17:46] marketing leaders and a very supportive environment overall that was pried for growth you know

[00:17:53] everybody has their challenges but you know you get you if you start to be really invested

[00:17:58] in the business really early like you learn how to navigate those waters as well and that

[00:18:04] was a team that supported that wholeheartedly

[00:18:10] Jen I want to go back to you mentioned mentors you you found some mentors uh sought out

[00:18:16] sought mentors and mentors very specific yes so talk a little bit about what did you look for

[00:18:24] in a mentor a lot so a lot of let me rewind a bit a lot of people that listen to this show

[00:18:30] or aspirations are to get into the C suite whatever group they're a part of some some of them

[00:18:38] are stuck at this stage of how do I get to the next level who can I talk to who can I lean on

[00:18:44] talk about mentorship what role did that play in your climb and how did you pick who you

[00:18:49] wanted to be your mentor so um at that stage it was very much about looking at folks who were

[00:18:58] doing things that I was interested in and I was always very interested in leadership and leading

[00:19:05] teams and you know exercising the creative piece and kind of how and without sales um so I looked

[00:19:14] for folks in like the New York women in communications area who had done just that who had made changes

[00:19:22] through in uh through NYU or other works

[00:19:26] so everyone in communications is like a group that you can join and so I was I was in the city at

[00:19:33] the time and so I was able to explain that and kind of look for folks who had made some of

[00:19:39] those career journeys during the that's cool need ups that they would have I also looked

[00:19:45] like our home office was in Chicago and I was in New York so most of the marketing was out there

[00:19:52] but I made it a point to reach out and create create relationships in this folks who were

[00:19:58] managing above in the marketing department and just say hey can you give me some time

[00:20:03] to talk me through like how you got here and you know what we're doing next I also have

[00:20:10] a person I think has influenced me a lot in my career from my PR internship her name is Amy

[00:20:16] Mettrick and she actually leads marketing at Origins now but she stayed very close to me throughout

[00:20:24] kind of my early career and helped me kind of think about how I navigate the way through

[00:20:30] it was it's to me it's all about people are usually very very honored we asked

[00:20:38] if you can share some experience with them or hey I'm looking to do what you do like you know how can

[00:20:45] we talk about that so I've never been shy about asking someone I admire to give me some of their

[00:20:52] time in true mentor capacities it's to me all about chemistry and timing so how do you find

[00:21:01] somebody who you jive with and sometimes I can be super awkward and somebody who also has the right

[00:21:09] time frame in their career to spend the time with you because you are the one who as a mentee who

[00:21:15] has to drive that relationship um and I had later on in my career I have like the mentor who will

[00:21:21] be my mentor for the rest of my life but the sometimes it's not a great time to start that

[00:21:27] relationship and both of you have to be really in front about that if there's too much distraction

[00:21:33] but it doesn't mean that that's a that's a never it just means that might not be right now

[00:21:41] so one of the things you said pre show about uh health net is you had a healthy marketing budget

[00:21:49] so define that for us because Ryan and I probably went to two different places with that

[00:21:55] with that number like what what percentage of revenue or what type of what type of number

[00:22:00] we're talking about there's a lot of so I look up as in there is a lot of compliance requirements

[00:22:05] in the health insurance space so some of the dollars goes there by the time that I left

[00:22:12] health net I was running uh commercial which is employer based health insurance medicaid and

[00:22:19] Medicare uh and so with that there's a direct to consumer and a BME complaint so my budget was

[00:22:26] around 30 million dollars and that's where your career started on downhill is essentially is

[00:22:36] then you came to HR tech so let's talk about that I'm just that is a wonderful budget I mean

[00:22:44] even if even if some of it's covered up what was boring stuff but you got to do some

[00:22:49] creative things too right it's not a creative things besides running you know being able to

[00:22:55] be a part of a rebrand for like the entire company I ran the northeast region by the time that I left

[00:23:02] health net also got to manage we were acquired by united healthcare in the northeast and

[00:23:10] was able to play a really big role in the transition which was all a marketing job

[00:23:16] um to get members to change from health net and continue on with united so got to be in front

[00:23:23] and center both for like the m&a process but then also into how do you take those members make

[00:23:31] them feel like they're not being left being left behind and that they have a home at a much bigger

[00:23:37] health plan that um it may not be as friendly as the one that you're coming from and so being

[00:23:45] able to navigate some of that was really exciting we also you know medicaid was actually my favorite

[00:23:51] part of the business is you're just doing something right for the world and getting

[00:23:54] children healthcare and got to design a mascot to be able to support that work on some super

[00:24:02] creative things with folks like the mexican consulate um to be able to give opportunities

[00:24:08] for folks to enroll in places that they might not likely think a lot of the health plan sit

[00:24:14] in healthcare offices and enroll people whereas like you need to to play baseball you need health

[00:24:21] insurance you know how do you find those interesting places to be able to make your mark and get

[00:24:27] people to take action first that's all so let's get into the mind of gen what is it that you

[00:24:41] are thinking about now and we'll get back to the trajectory but let's let's kind of step aside

[00:24:48] what is it now that you're thinking about not not what's keeping you up at night but what are you

[00:24:52] thinking about for young people who are in this process what would you what are you thinking

[00:25:00] about for them is they're starting to grow their career maybe their job or two out of college

[00:25:05] they feel stuck like what are you talking about always raise your hands the things that got me here

[00:25:11] are the things that are completely outside of my you know normal job responsibility um

[00:25:19] project it's interesting you say that i mean i want to throw this in and say you can comment

[00:25:24] on it too well i forget we were speaking with somebody this is just a couple weeks ago

[00:25:29] where they said you know the mistake that i made is i made it and i got to the table

[00:25:36] and then i didn't raise my hand i didn't interject and give my thoughts that was

[00:25:44] yeah okay yeah somebody else would give my thoughts for me yeah yeah i think that's important

[00:25:50] yeah sorry i mean i don't want to cut you up but it just like i want you to comment on that too

[00:25:55] because i kind of feel like that's what's happening well you're just raising your hand just raising my

[00:26:00] hand let me just raise it in there you said just raise your hand this is where this is where the

[00:26:09] video audience gets it and then the audio audience is like why is it dead air i don't like it because

[00:26:18] we raise it as i like the idea of raising your hand yeah to run one drop a health net and it was this

[00:26:27] my town which was really cool and was like the biggest part of part of our marketing strategy

[00:26:32] because it was hyper efficient and strategic but i was like hey like i have been with like

[00:26:37] give me more to do and i just continue to take on more and more and position myself to be somebody

[00:26:47] who could be both trusted but also who could was not afraid of doing things that i had never done before

[00:26:54] and so that opened me up for lots of opportunities while i was there it's why i was one of the

[00:27:00] 10 people who knew we were being sold it's you know those are the the types of things that helped

[00:27:06] me like when i you know feel like give like mba in practice versus kind of in theory

[00:27:17] so would you do after i got recruited to a little place called adp who who was beginning a stealthy

[00:27:26] startup within adp focused on the on the health insurance brokerage space for small businesses

[00:27:32] i they were looking for a very long time for someone who had experience in health insurance

[00:27:39] to come and lead their kind of good market efforts so i uh i came in and you know into adp and you

[00:27:50] know learn to kind of navigate the ecosystem that is there and it was really very interesting because

[00:27:58] there were there was a handful of folks who really had a lot of experience in the industry

[00:28:04] but a lot of kind of bringing in from around um it was about a because there was probably maybe

[00:28:12] two million dollars of revenue at the time but a lot of growth and a lot of growing pains

[00:28:18] and i was there for a couple months i was you know getting everything a lot unloaded and you

[00:28:23] actually had a departure of the person who was running the operation side of health

[00:28:30] insurance part of insurance services and my who i i would call this sponsorship to not just mentorship

[00:28:39] and someone who i consider my sponsor is nick slitterman who was the general manager and sdp

[00:28:47] of the overall insurance business he actually spoke with my buddy he uh well but he said to me hey

[00:28:55] like you know this person departed i really like you to consider taking his job and like completely

[00:29:02] deadpan and i'm like i've spent like i'm a marketing person like i've never run a p&l like i you know

[00:29:12] don't necessarily like customer service call center like this is like all incredibly different

[00:29:19] and he goes and i said i'd sure i'd love to be considered you know i'll i'll put my

[00:29:24] hat in the ring and then i interview this no i think you should you should take the job

[00:29:32] i'm appointing you this position it really wasn't uh it really wasn't more of a question

[00:29:37] it was uh yeah and i was like i'd love to be considered that's great and i'm like i'm like

[00:29:43] are you serious and he's like yeah i didn't he's like i i don't come into anything without being

[00:29:48] completely serious uh and so i talked it over and said all right like let's try this

[00:29:58] and um it's still probably one of the most challenging things i had ever done i grew up

[00:30:06] we would do it again like to probably where i want to go yes i would have to but i

[00:30:13] i i went from being 14 people and about two million dollars of revenue to 130 people

[00:30:23] um across the globe and over 24 25 million in revenue of 5 000 customers by the time that

[00:30:30] i took on my next role at adp and it was one of the hardest things i've ever done in my life

[00:30:37] but i learned the most in that job and i had such a supported manager in that who would

[00:30:44] made it okay for me to not know everything and to make mistakes and push me hard but push me in

[00:30:51] the right way and i i i searched for that on a regular basis that like ability to learn and

[00:31:00] do more and and it was it was exhausting um but it was one of the best things i've ever done

[00:31:11] what was the next role at adp you got us you got us you teased us with this thing what

[00:31:17] it what did you do after that so um i so now i had like this level of business kind of experience

[00:31:24] that you don't see typically in markers adp was looking to really make a transition from being

[00:31:30] known as a services company to a technology company so i joined the inaugural product marketing team

[00:31:37] adp um to lead two businesses within so i took the health care reform uh which was going to be

[00:31:47] launched and needed to launch that across the company and then also the benefits business

[00:31:55] which was benefits administration so very much kind of within my understanding um but was not

[00:32:01] necessarily as healthy as kind of that new launch piece so um figure out how to do that before after

[00:32:09] y'all y'all like adp acquired i think it's been a focus that they they acquired a benefit management

[00:32:16] technology at one point right after a couple years after they fired that and um that's for the great

[00:32:24] yeah that was a great acquisition wonderful acquisition and a great product and you know we

[00:32:29] were able to really see like making that come for fruition within adp which you know what acquiring

[00:32:36] ingesting and then growing things is always hard at any company right so it was a lot of fun to

[00:32:43] kind of help make that come to life but it was also like what is product marketing product

[00:32:48] marketing like very do they were very few companies that even had parking at that point so

[00:32:56] you know that's a lot of work with like great people like tori marzulli and don limestone

[00:33:01] on defining that and being able to say this is where you know my role changes where the

[00:33:09] marketing team comes in where the product team comes in and also learn a ton about technology

[00:33:14] which really lit me up because it's very hard to take the complexity of technology and simplify it

[00:33:21] for people to understand it on the on the layman's terms and that was the ultimate challenge

[00:33:28] and so it was tons of fun i thought i'm more and more responsibility ended up needing then an

[00:33:35] overall hcm for the national account space and product marketing except on many of the parts

[00:33:42] of the business that supported multiple business units and really learned adp

[00:33:49] and how to kind of work in there get into the hr tech landscape you know as my first hr tech was

[00:33:55] probably i don't know 2015 and then that was like opening up an entirely new

[00:34:03] kind of area of like being a part of a community and not just a part of the company

[00:34:11] where tony i've got to work with tony and don as well were they

[00:34:14] mentors as well actually i'd say both of them are on my personal board of directors

[00:34:18] as i had uh lunch with don at the chuchu long ago we've been touched and tony is always my person

[00:34:27] when i need help navigating career decisions wonderful people you've been surrounded with

[00:34:36] wonderful people so you at one point you leave the largest payroll company in the world what was

[00:34:42] what was the impetus to leave because it seems like i could have stayed there forever before we got

[00:34:47] on you're talking a little bit about like family journey and i had gotten married um and adp was

[00:34:54] an incredibly long commute for me i was going you know 90 minutes each way you know most of

[00:35:02] the week and so when we started to kind of put our focus on starting a family like it just didn't

[00:35:08] seem like it was super sustainable um and we had struggled so you know you try to think about some

[00:35:15] of that balance and i was reached out to by isams who was going to be starting their their product

[00:35:23] marketing department and i like to build i think that has been a huge theme across my career

[00:35:30] and um i got to build that basically from scratch you know and hired some of the talent people

[00:35:37] i'd ever had the pleasure of working with you know people who are now also

[00:35:41] meeting within hr tech so you know gas calco bit and michelle mehan over at plume

[00:35:49] are all people who are part of that inaugural team and um it was a lot of fun to build that out

[00:35:57] here in chardon and then under the product market yeah of course okay yeah so gen do you you

[00:36:06] mentioned that you like to build do you prefer as a as transcending into the leadership roles

[00:36:15] that you're in now did you do you prefer now or do you still prefer to join a company that has

[00:36:22] nothing and build it or do you want to walk into a company that has something maybe is a

[00:36:28] shit show maybe it's not and you're there to fix it where do you follow that that's my technical

[00:36:35] time my favorite thing is taking startup to scale up so it's that period where you what got you

[00:36:45] there may not get you to that next you know mark the 100 million right and so you need to start to

[00:36:52] rethink kind of things for longer term scale i put in place all the stuff so it can support itself

[00:37:01] so that's been kind of the journey i've been on the last couple of jobs and i really enjoyed that

[00:37:07] you know have been able to see like when you put a little bit of that effort in how quickly

[00:37:11] it can change the trajectory and move really fast i also really love like being able to say hey

[00:37:19] like this is the strategy we set and it worked or didn't and taking responsibility for that so

[00:37:27] that's been really the most fun and i think you can get that in different comfort companies

[00:37:33] it just very much depends on you know where do you want to be locked in like all of my jobs

[00:37:40] at adp were innovation jobs you know things that they did this before but in a company

[00:37:47] i i since two with product marketing didn't exist what brought you to run it i wanted to have

[00:37:54] working in the end they came and were interested in kind of my background and i saw something

[00:38:01] really special that's the other thing i like seeing technology that is like diamond in the rough

[00:38:09] like to really make impact on the world but just needs the light and heat

[00:38:14] to be able to see it come to life and that's what i saw at pando and he had an tacit run

[00:38:22] that was a that was a wonderful rebrand by the way i mean it's like they went from overnight

[00:38:27] from people didn't have no idea that they were even the market to being all being almost

[00:38:32] market dominant thank you i'm very proud of that and the best executive team had so much fun working

[00:38:38] together yeah and uh that was a labor of love and i'm very proud of us what about let's so let's let's

[00:38:50] talk some challenges no one makes like a job interview was a challenge in how to overcome this

[00:38:55] right not bad where do you see yourself in five years but i'm sure you've come across

[00:39:01] challenges and just your background right coming from performing going in the marketing kind of

[00:39:06] starting obviously at the bottom to being female in a male dominant space at the time

[00:39:12] what are some of those challenges that you face that sadly some will still face today

[00:39:18] but how did you build that circle around you to get past that's a tough one uh yeah

[00:39:25] should we just extend 20 minutes is that what we're here i'm sorry you think you think you

[00:39:30] asked her like seven questions but no there was one of seven possible tracks so i have found

[00:39:38] given what so i am a very you guys know this about me i am very smiley i am very like um

[00:39:47] i would say and i've always been that way so i think there's been a big condition

[00:39:53] yeah you're positive every time i've interacted with you for years i've always got off a call

[00:39:58] feeling better because you're not a you're not a heavy downer no seriously you're not as heavy

[00:40:05] downer you're you're a pragmatist but you're always positive there was a time when being your authentic

[00:40:10] self was not really cool um i don't remember that time i got a lot of feedback that hey you know

[00:40:20] you already looked younger than you are your tone it down your hair is long

[00:40:26] cut all your hair off like you know pull me wow that's what i did it worked for me

[00:40:34] they warm us a little more or less emasculating you or making you more masculine

[00:40:39] under five feet tall um most people don't know that about me but i am i've always been very

[00:40:47] much my authentic self when i and brought my authentic self to work and that's what works for

[00:40:51] everybody uh it's been better i would say in the last like eight years um but you know being i kind

[00:41:01] of hate i might be this trajectory where like oh there is no glass ceiling i don't just like

[00:41:08] jump in for it right and then hit it hard

[00:41:16] i don't what have you why is realization totally good you know people don't just see people for

[00:41:24] their what they're providing value but like they actually actually you see other things and use

[00:41:31] that so many decisions about you and that was some of the hardest part was this kind of

[00:41:37] time you experienced that i was probably about 30 i said time and uh it was the first time that i

[00:41:45] really felt like everything was always you're young you're female keep going like you know go i was

[00:41:54] i mean one of the youngest that she is i didn't get the time and uh it was like it was very eye

[00:42:01] opening when like you realize that not everybody sees you for what you bring to the table and that

[00:42:08] you have to then think about how to navigate that differently i think things like situational

[00:42:13] leadership helped me move through that also my mentor who will be my mentor for life is

[00:42:19] christin andreski who had battled similar things and had a dedication to bringing women up through

[00:42:26] the ranks and you know she really helped me navigate those waters and i think toady really

[00:42:33] helped me navigate those waters too um he was a humongous advocate for me and uh was able to

[00:42:41] you know be able to be someone who like would speak without me positively when i wasn't around

[00:42:46] when things like that happened and you need that to be able to push that's interesting

[00:42:53] yeah that's interesting i think a lot of people i rarely think about that because i just assume

[00:42:58] everybody is just nice it's just kind of who i am but the way you said that kind of just hit

[00:43:04] like he speaks nice about me when i'm not in the room right we need more people around us

[00:43:10] like that by the last question for me did you ever perform and once professional on stage

[00:43:18] you're in the bedroom yeah as i say in the shower tomorrow well now so i did any when i was 10 years

[00:43:29] old and then again when i was 11 um that was my first professional performance and my

[00:43:38] was doing that at theater fest uh with the folks who were actually doing the little rockers on

[00:43:44] friday at the time and it was a lot of fun i was yeah so to get a paycheck when you're 11 years old

[00:43:51] is really cool it was on the wall for many years five percent that's fantastic jen we could talk to

[00:44:01] you forever but you've you know obviously got other things to do thank you so much for coming

[00:44:06] on the show sharing your journey your insight thank you so much for having me and uh please

[00:44:12] go any anytime it was such a pleasure and i really enjoy talking to you both