Suzanne McCool

I've been successful because I am a very adaptable person. I will roll with change, and I love to learn, so as change happens, learning new things and broadening what I understand is key to my success. I'm like a sponge, and I keep learning, and I retain all that I learned. Over 30 years, I have a really great understanding of higher ed as an industry, as well as our solutions. I remember our customers - we have over 3,000 customers from the company perspective, but over 600 that use software that I'm particularly expert in, and I know all of those customers. My willingness to learn anything and keep everything has been more important than certifications or anything else. Being able to absorb and understand how things work, and listening to people so that you can apply what you know to what they need, has been the key to my success.

The best career advice I ever received actually came before I started my career, when I was young and my father said to me - and I hate to say this, but right now, it is a man's world, but it is yours for the taking. That advice shaped everything. I didn't let gender barriers get in my way, even when they tried. In technology, in the tech industry, in higher ed even, which we would not necessarily think was super patriarchal or super limiting to women, it can be. I was very aware of that when I started in this role, and I just didn't let that get in my way. I followed other women who worked with other women to keep ignoring power structures that were in our way and just kept going in that direction. I've gotten lots of different advice over the years about how to lean in and speak up and those types of things, but it all probably stemmed from that initial advice that the world was mine for the taking.

I definitely say to women, young women especially, to not doubt their own voice, to stand solid on what they know. If they've done their research, they know their stuff, they can stand on it, and they can stand on that loudly. I think we were very conditioned to be quiet, or to couch the way we approach things to make it palatable for other people in the room. And while I think you should always approach things with a respectful manner, it does not need to be couched. You can watch the energy of the men in the room - if the energy of the men in the room feels respectable, if they're not soft-pedaling their knowledge, you definitely don't have to soft-pedal your knowledge or skill set. If you know your stuff and you know you are right, or you see the solution, there's no reason to hold that back or soft-pedal that. I had this happen multiple times in my career, where I would say something and get ignored, and then a male in the room would repeat the exact same thing and everyone would say 'oh yeah, that's great, I understand now.' At this point in time, in this day and age, it is more than acceptable, it's imperative that you go, 'well, yeah, that's exactly what I just said.' Be comfortable in that, whatever age you are. Young women, older women, we have to be comfortable and not worry about labels of bossy, or aggressive, or difficult. Those labels are just not assigned to men for the same behaviors and the same knowledge, and so we just need to ignore them. They're very rarely legitimate labels, and so we should not worry about them. Not worry about it at all. If you know your stuff, stand on that.

The biggest challenge is probably managing expectations - what people would like to do versus what they will actually do, versus what our solutions can support. People like problems solved, but they don't necessarily like to do the personal work associated with solving those problems. They would like magic buttons, but technology can only solve so much, and aligning those expectations and converging to a place where we can both be successful is probably the biggest challenge.

I value integrity above all, and it has been a challenge occasionally because I work in a sales environment. Sometimes getting the sale can feel like it might need to be more important than being wholly forthcoming - they want you to gloss over mismatches or misalignment of needs. One of the reasons why I've worked for this company as long as I have is because they do have integrity. It's very important to me that I don't lose my personal integrity in moving forward with getting a sale. I have stood my ground in saying no, the customer needs to understand this as we move forward, and that has always served me well. In 30 years, I still have to speak to these customers, so if I say the software can do something, then they know that it can. That integrity is very important to me, and the fact that our company has very good integrity as a whole is why I've been able to stay with it as long as I have. The other value I have is the blessing of working with exceptional people. I tell my daughters and their friends, if you find a place where the people you work with, including your immediate supervisor, are interested in your success and give you the opportunity to support their success, that's the best place you can be. When you work for leaders and not bosses, which has been my great blessing, that's invaluable. Having the opportunity to be actively supportive of my coworkers, actively supportive of the other divisions, and actively supported by those coworkers and by the leadership and by other divisions - I recognize that's kind of a unicorn. That network of people who are genuinely working toward mutual success is a huge value.