Taryn Felder

I would attribute most of my success to really my upbringing, but mostly my grandmother. She taught me the value of working hard, and I credit her for the work ethic that I have today. That same work ethic enabled me to work 16-hour days to figure out how to get video back to fans during the pandemic. When I was a kid, I wanted a pair of Jordans, Michael Jordan sneakers, and back in the 90s, $100 was a lot to pay for a pair of sneakers. My grandmother told me I could earn them by planting flowers in her yard, and she'd pay me $1 for every plant. As a kid, I didn't realize that meant going to the nursery with her, picking out the flowers, loading them in the car, unloading them, digging the holes, and she'd come check and make sure they were 3 feet deep with all the right dirt and everything. But I never quit. At the end of that summer, I had planted 100 azalea bushes and earned enough money to get my sneakers. That summer set the course for who I am professionally and how I approach every project.

The best career advice I received came from Jeremy Legg, one of our former CTOs who is now CTO at AT&T. When he spoke to us at Ladies in Tech at Turner, he told us about how whenever something new came up that no one knew what to do, he'd ask his team who wants to take it on. He said the women on his team never raised their hands, but the least qualified man would say 'I'll do it, I'll take it.' He told us that story to inspire us to not be afraid to fail. He said women are afraid to fail, and because of it, we take less risks. So my advice, which comes from that lesson, is don't be afraid to take risks and don't be afraid to fail, because you never know what you can do and what you'll accomplish if you never raise your hand for opportunities.

Don't be afraid to take risks. Don't be afraid to fail. Because you never know what you can do and what you'll accomplish if you never raise your hand for opportunities. I learned this from one of our former CTOs, Jeremy Legg, who shared that whenever something new came up on his team, the women never raised their hands, but the least qualified man would volunteer. He told us this to inspire us not to be afraid to fail, because women are afraid to fail and because of it, we take less risks. You have to be willing to raise your hand even when you're not sure you're fully qualified.

I think the biggest challenge right now is the same across many industries, and that's layoffs. As a people-first leader who believes in leading with humility, most of my job right now feels like consulting and keeping my team together. I want to make sure we're continuing to add value to the organization. As sports deals come and go in our organization, I want to make sure our workload is balanced 12 months out of the year. The biggest challenge is trying to maintain culture and keep morale up and high with the state of the economy when people are afraid of layoffs and losing their jobs. It's about that mental health and emotional health we talked about. When you're a leader, you have to take care of yourself, but you also have an obligation and responsibility to your direct reports as well.

The most important values to me are work-life balance and health and well-being in all its forms: mental, emotional, physical, environmental, all of them. I'm a Duke Certified Health and Wellbeing Coach, and I think especially with everything that's going on in current days, it's really important to check in with yourself and give yourself what I like to call nervous system resets. You need to allow yourself to slow down and decompress from whatever it is that you've got going on. Even what I call mini traumas, like being in traffic every day, those are things that add up. What's most important for me is that holistic view of health and self-care.