Monica Sharma

I attribute my success to two main things. First, building teams and building leaders, especially product leaders and young women. I feel deeply happy in my heart when I see other people succeed. I've mentored many young women, helping them find their voice and their thought process, especially when they're too afraid to speak up or don't know how to think on their feet. I hope I have built some leaders who will be happy and successful. The second thing is my relentless customer obsession and focus on 10x value for customers. I know these words feel very common, but living them every day means having that line of sight to the customer outcome. It's almost like you're part of the customer team, and then working backwards on what needs to happen. I call this my line of sight methodology, which is very simple but streamlines everything and points all those dipoles of a magnet in the same direction toward the top of the mountain. I've applied this methodology at Google, VMware, Fastly, and Adobe, and it's led to successful customers. Under large companies, it's never a one-woman show, it's always a team effort. But driving customer outcomes, driving revenue and profitability for the company in a predictable manner, and setting up those systems in place is what I look back and see I can do any day.

The number one thing I encourage is to take risks early. Today, the environment is in a position that encourages risk-taking, especially for younger people and for women. If you have a vision, if you have dreams and you dream big, and you can take risks, and you can believe that you have the ability and the grit to work hard through problems, there is nothing to stop you. While traditionally, especially from the country I come from, India, a lot of our upbringing is, for good reasons, we've been told to follow paved paths. And it's a good philosophy, it's a way of living. But I think at some point, you have to find your purpose in life, and what really drives you, and motivates you, and inspires you, and makes you feel alive. The more you're able to define your own goals and have the grit and conviction to go meet them, the more fulfilling life you would have. That's what I tell them.

From a work perspective, the things that drive how I work and how I think are relentless customer obsession, team first, and customer outcome. Customer obsession is towards a customer outcome, and team is everything for me. I really believe in people. Team first, customer outcome, and execution - that's my triangle that drives me and how I structure my thinking, my engagement, and my work. On the personal side, maybe once you're a mom, you're always a mom, so my fundamental philosophy that my kids are tired of me saying is just be one person better than yesterday. That's it.