Jen Gardner

I attribute my success to my parents. I grew up with a dad who had 4 daughters and really believed that we never had limitations put on us because we were girls. So I never looked at the glass ceiling as something - you know, it was very real, but it was something that I wanted to break through. And I've got a mom who's extremely intelligent and is my biggest cheerleader. Having parents who never put limitations on me because I was a girl gave me the confidence to succeed in a male-dominated field.

One of the best pieces of career advice I've received is 'slow down to go fast.' Sometimes you'll be thinking about a problem and want to just solve it quickly, but slowing down and thinking through and being responsive instead of reactive is usually the better option. It's like when I played soccer in college and then coached for 10 years - I moved back to defense as I was getting a little older, and it's the same thing. It's seeing the field from a different angle. As a coach, you get to see the field from the entire angle. The lesson I've learned is to zoom out. It's so important to take that step back and look at things from a different perspective.

Take a chance on yourself. Don't worry about imposter syndrome. Just really believe in yourself, because the industry needs you. It goes back to the diversity of thinking - we solve problems in a little bit of a different way, and different customers need those problems solved with different ways of thinking. Women have imposter syndrome a lot, and men tell everybody how great they are, while we attribute our success to luck or say 'oh, I just worked really hard.' Women just don't ever say 'I was just really good at what I did.' We've had to work twice as hard, and we have to be exceptional to get promoted. My single best advice is to make sure that you are networking constantly in your career, because you never know when you're gonna need that. Find mentors who are going to speak highly of you when you're not in the room and who are going to help champion you. Look for the helpers, as Mr. Rogers would say. Find people that are invested in other people's success, connect with them, invest in them, and learn from them.

The biggest challenge in my field is the lack of diversity. It's a very male-dominated culture - we jokingly call it 'the bro show' sometimes. I've led teams of all men, and while I look at everyone as just people, I think there needs to be more diversity in teams because it allows for diversity in thinking. When you have the same copy-paste in a room, you're going to get the same output. But if you've got different people with different ethnicities, backgrounds, socioeconomic situations, and genders, then you're going to get real diversity in thinking and you'll solve problems better. As for opportunities, I think we need more women in sales. We see a lot of women go into marketing positions and HR positions, which AI is starting to impact, but sales is an underrepresented role in companies that I think more women need to look at, especially in tech. The industry needs women because we solve problems differently.

The values I look for on my team and in my life are curiosity, collaboration, and coachability - I want people who are coachable and want to learn, who can take feedback and it drives them to be better. I'm attracted to those same people in my personal life, but I would add that I love the ones that make me laugh. People who can bring humor to a situation are so important to me. I value kindness and integrity. These values tell you a lot about a person and how they treat other people. You never know what someone is going through, so I try to pick a critical lens of empathy in every situation and give people the benefit of the doubt.