From the CUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE Conversation. Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. You know, this is a special week. It's Grace Hopper week. And Grace Hopper is the best name in tech conferences, the celebration of women in computing. And we've been going there for years. We're not there this year. But one of the themes that comes up over and over at Grace Hopper is women and girls need to see women in positions that they can envision themselves being in someday. You know, that is a really important piece of the whole diversity conversation is can I see people that I can role model after? And I just want to bring up something from a couple years back from 2016 when we were there. We were there with Mimi Valdez, Christina Doja and Dr. Jeanette Epps. Dr. Jeanette Epps is the astronaut on the right. They were there talking about the Hidden Figures movie. If you remember, it came out 2016. It was about Catherine Johnson and all the black women working at NASA. They got no credit for doing all the math that basically keep all the astronauts safe. And they made a terrific movie about it. And Janet is going up on the very first blue origin space mission next year. Just was announced a couple of months ago. So again, phenomenal leadership. Black lady astronaut going to go into space and really provide a face for a lot of young girls that want to get into that. And it's clearly a great STEM opportunity. So we're excited to have four terrific women today that will also are the leaders that the younger women can look up to and follow their careers. So we're excited to have, we're just gonna go around. We've got four terrific guests. Our first one is Annabelle Chang. She is the head of state policy and government regulations at Waymo. Annabelle, great to see you. Where are you coming in from today? From San Francisco. Awesome. Next up is Ina Marie Johnson. She is the chief people and diversity officer for Zendesk. Ina Marie, great to see you. Where are you calling in from today? Great to be here. I am calling in from Palos Verdes, the state. Awesome. In Southern California. Some of the benefits of virtual sometimes. We couldn't do that without the power of the internet. And next up is Jennifer Cabalquinto. She is the chief financial officer of the Golden State Warriors. Jennifer, great to see you. Where are you coming in from today? Well, I wish I was coming in for the Chase Center in San Francisco, but I'm actually calling in from Santa Cruz, California today. Right. Good to see you. And you can surf a lot better down there. So that's probably not all bad. And finally to round out our panel is Kate Hogan. She is the COO of North America for Accenture. Kate, great to see you as well. Where are you coming in from today? Well, it's good to see you too. I am coming in from the office actually in San Jose. From the office in San Jose. All right, so let's get into it. I am. You guys are all very senior. You've been doing this for a long time. We're in kind of a crazy period of time in terms of diversity, with all the kind of social unrest that's happening. So let's talk about some of your journeys. And I want to start with you, Annabelle.  You got into lawyering. You did lawyering with Dianne Feinstein, kind of some politics, and also the city of San Francisco. And then you made this move over to tech. Talk about that decision and what went into that decision and how did you get into tech? Because we know part of the problem with diversity is a pipeline problem. You came over from the law side of the house.  So when I made the move to tech, it was still a lot of the same. But what I knew is that I could be an attorney anywhere from Omaha, Nebraska to Miami, Florida. But what I couldn't do was work for a disruptive company of potentially a unicorn. And I seized that opportunity and I was very willing to join Lyft early on before ride hailing and ride sharing was even a thing. So it was an exciting opportunity and I joined right at the exact moment that made myself really meaningful in the organization. And I'm hoping that I'm doing the same thing right now at Waymo. Great. Annemarie, you've come from one of my favorite stories I like to talk about from old school Clorox, great product management. I always like to joke that Silicon Valley needs a pipeline back to Cincinnati and Procter & Gamble to get good product managers out here. You were in the classic, right? You were there, you were at Honeywell, Plantronics and then you jumped over to tech. Tell us a little bit about that move because I'm sure selling Clorox is a lot different than selling the terrific service that you guys provided to Zendesk. I'm always happy when I see Zendesk in my customer service return email. I know I'm going to get taken care of. Oh wow, that's great.  So thank you for that. You know, my journey is, you're right, from a Fortune 50 sort of more portfolio type company into tech. And I think one of the reasons is because when tech is starting out, and that's what Zendesk was, a few, you know, five years back or so, very much an early stage growth company, two things are top of mind. One, how do we become more global? And how do we make sure that we can go up market and attract enterprise great customers? And so, you know, my experience, having only been in those types of companies was very interesting for a startup. And what was interesting for me is I got to live in a world where there were great growth targets and numbers, things I had never seen. And the agility, the speed, the head plus heart really resonated with my background. So super glad to be in tech, but you're right. It's a little different than consumer products. Right. And then Jennifer, you're in a completely different world, right? So you work for the Golden State Warriors, which everybody knows is an MBA team, but I don't know that everyone knows really how progressive the Warriors are beyond just basketball in terms of the new Chase Center, all the different events that you guys put on it. And really the leadership there has decided, you know, we really want to be an entertainment company of which the Golden State Warrior basketball team is a very, very important piece. You've come from the entertainment industry. So that's probably how they find you, but you're in the financial role. You've always been in the financial role, not traditionally thought about as, you know, a lot of women in terms of a proportion of total people in that. So tell us a little bit about your experience being in finance in entertainment and then making this kind of hop over to, I guess Uber entertainment, I don't know even how you would classify the Warriors. Sports entertainment, live entertainment. Yeah, it's interesting when the Warriors opportunity came up, I naturally said, well, no, I don't have any sports background. And it's something that we women tend to do, right? We self edit and we want to check every box before we think that we're qualified. And, you know, the reality is my background is in entertainment and the Warriors were looking to build their own venue, which has been a very large instruction project. I was the CFO at Universal Studios Hollywood and what do we do there?  And we're in the entertainment business. And so that sort of B to C was a natural sort of transition for me going from where I was with Universal Studios over to the Warriors. I think a finance career is such a great career for women. And I think we're finding more and more women entering it. It is one that you sort of understand your hills and valleys. You know when you're going to be busy and so you can kind of schedule around that. I think it's really, you know, it provides that you have a seat at the table. And so I think it's a career choice that I think is becoming more and more available to women certainly more now than it was when I first started. Yeah, it's interesting because I think a lot of people think of women naturally in human resources roles. My wife was a head of human resources back in the day or, you know, a lot of marketing but not necessarily on the finance side. And then Kate, we'll go over to you. You're one of the rare birds. You've been at a center for over 20 years. So you must like airplanes and travel to stay there that long. But you know, doing a little homework for this I saw a really interesting piece of you talking about your boss challenging you to ask for more work, to ask for a new opportunity. And I thought that was really insightful that you picked up on that like, oh, I guess it's, you know, it's incumbent on me to ask for more and not necessarily wait for that to be given to me. It sounds like a really seminal moment in your career. It was a look, it was important. But before I tell you that story because it was an important moment of my career and probably something that a lot of the women on the panel here can relate to as well. You mentioned airplanes and it made me think of my dad. My father was in the Air Force and I remember him telling stories when I was little about his career change from the Air Force into a career in telecommunications. So technology for me growing up, Jeff, was kind of part of the dinner table. I mean, it was just a conversation that was constantly ongoing at our house. And I also, as a young girl, I loved playing video games.  And so for me, you know, my history and my, really at a young age, my experience and curiosity around tech was there. And so maybe that's what's fueling my inspiration to stay at Accenture for as long as I have. And you're right, it's been two decades which, you know, feels tremendous. But, you know, I've had the chance to work across a bunch of different industries. But you're right. I mean, during that time, and I relate with what Jennifer said in terms of self editing, right? Women do this and I'm no exception. And I do remember a mentor and a sponsor of mine who called me up when kind of I was at a pivotal moment in my career and he said, you know, Kate, I've been waiting for you to call me and tell me you want this job. And I never even thought about it. I mean, I just never thought that I'd be a candidate for the job and let alone somebody waiting for me to kind of make the phone call. I haven't made that mistake again. But I like to believe I learned from it. But it was an important lesson. It's such a great lesson.  They took that challenge that really enabled them to take a different path and really a different ascension. And I'm just curious if there's any stories on that or in terms of a leader or a mentor, whether it was in the career, somebody that you even knew or didn't know, that was someone that you got, you know, kind of strength from and kind of climbing through your own, you know, kind of career progression. I'll go to you first, Annabelle. I actually would love to talk about the salary negotiations piece because I have a group of friends about, you know, that we've been meeting together once a month for the last six years now. And one of the things that we committed to being very transparent with each other about was salary negotiations and signing bonuses and all of the hard topics that you kind of don't want to talk about as a manager and the women that I'm in this group with span all types of different industries. And I've learned so much from them from my different job transitions about understanding the signing bonus, understanding equity, you know, which is totally foreign to me coming from law and politics. And that was one of the most impactful tools that I've ever had was a group of people that I could be open with talking about salary negotiations and talking about how to really manage, you know, equity. Those were totally foreign to me up until this group of women, you know, really connected me to these topics and gave me some of that expertise. So that is something I strongly encourage is that if you haven't openly talked about salary negotiations before, you should begin to do so. Well, it begs the question, how was the sensitivity between the person that was making a lot of money and the person that wasn't? And how did you kind of work through that as a group for the greater good of everyone? Yeah, I think what's really eye-opening is that, for example, we had friends who were in big tech or friends who were actually the entrepreneurs starting their own businesses or, you know, law firm associates, law firm partners, people in PR. So we understood that there was gonna be, you know, differences within industry and frankly in scale, but it was understanding even the tools, whether I think the most interesting one would be signing bonus, right? Because up until a few years ago, recruiters could ask you what you made. And, you know, how do you avoid that question? How do you anchor yourself to a lower salary range or avoid that happening? I didn't know this, I didn't know how to do that. And a couple of women that had been in more senior negotiations shared ways to make sure that I was pinning myself to a higher salary range that I wanted to be in. That's great. That's a great story and really important to, like you say, pin. It's a lot of logistical details, right? You just need to learn the techniques like any other skill. Ina Marie, I wonder if you've got a story to share here. Sure, I just want to say I love the example that you just gave because it's something I'm super passionate about, which is transparency and trust. And I think that, you know, we're building that every day into all of our people processes. So sure, talk about sign-on bonuses, talk about pay parity because that is the landscape. But a quick story for me I would say is all about stepping into uncertainty. And when I coach younger, you know, professionals, of course, women, I often talk about don't be afraid to step into the role where all of the answers are not fetted down. Because at the end of the day, you can influence what those answers are. I still remember when Honeywell asked me to leave the comfort of California and to come to the East Coast to New Jersey and bring my family. And I was doing well in my career. I didn't feel like I needed to do that, but I was willing, after some coaching, to step into that uncertainty. And it was one of the best pivotal moments in my career. I didn't always know who I was going to work with. I didn't know the challenges and scope I would take on, but those were some of the biggest learning experiences and opportunities, and it made me a better executive. So that's always my coaching. Like go where the answers aren't quite, bet it down because you can influence that as a leader. That's great. I mean, Beth Comstock, former, I think vice chair at GE, one of her keynotes I saw, you know, had a great line, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I think that's a really good kind of message, especially in the time we're living in with accelerated change. But I'm curious, Annemarie, was the person that got you to take that commitment, would you consider that a sponsor, a mentor? Was it a boss? Was it maybe somebody not at work?  What kind of pushed you over the edge to take that? It's a great question. It was actually the boss I was going to work for. He was the CHRO. And he said something that was so important to me that I've often said it to others. And he said, trust me. He's like, I know you don't have all the answers. I know we don't have this role all figured out. I know you're going to move your family. But if you trust me, there is a ton of learning on the other side of this. And sometimes that's the best thing a boss can do, is say, you know, we will go on this journey together. I will help you figure it out. So it was a boss, but I think it was that trust and that willingness for him to stand and go alongside of me that made me pick up my family and be willing to move, you know, across the country. And we stayed five years and really I am not, you know, the same executive because of that experience. Right, that's a great story. Jennifer, I want to go to you. You know, you work for two owners that are so progressive. And I remember when Joe Leica came on the floor a few years back and was booed aggressively coming into a franchise that hadn't seen success in a very long time, making really aggressive moves in terms of personnel, both at the coaches and the players level, the GM level.  So I wonder if you can share any of the stories, you know, for you coming into that organization and being able to feel, you know, kind of that level of potential success and really, you know, kind of the vision and also really a focus on execution to make the vision real because vision without execution doesn't really mean much. If you could share some stories of working for somebody like Joe Leica who's so visionary, but also executes so very, very effectively. Yeah, Joe is, well, I have the honor of working for Joe for Rick Welts, who's our president who's a living legend with the NBA, with Peter Gruber. Our leadership at the Warriors are truly visionary and they set audacious targets. And, you know, I would say from a story, the most recent is right now what we're living through today. And I will say Joe will not accept that we are not having games with fans. Like he's just, he is so committed to trying to solve for this and that he has really put, you know, the organization sort of on his back and we, you know, because we're all like, well, what do we do? And he has just refused to settle and is looking down every path as to how do we ensure the safety of our fans, the safety of our players but how do we get back to live entertainment? And this is like a daily mantra.  And I think you need leaders like that who can set audacious goals, who can think beyond what's happening today and really, you know, energize the entire organization. And that's really what he's done. And, you know, when I talk to my peers at other teams and they're, you know, they're talking about trying to close out their season or do these things. And they're like, well, we're talking about, you know, how do we open the building and we're going to have fans that are going to do this and they look at me and they're like, what are you talking about? And I said, well, you know, we are so fortunate. We have leadership that just is not going to settle. Like they are just always looking to get out of whatever it is that's happening and fix it. And so Joe is so committed, you know, his background he's an epidemiologist major, I think. Can you imagine how unique a background that is and how timely. And so his knowledge of, you know, just around the pandemic and how the virus is spread. And I mean, it's, it's, it's phenomenal to watch him work and leverage sort of his business acumen, his science acumen and really think through how do we solve this? It's, it's amazing. Yeah. The thing that, that you had said before is that you basically intentionally told people that they need to rethink their jobs, right? You didn't necessarily like give them permission to get, you told them, we need to rethink their jobs. And it's a really interesting approach when the main business is just not happening, right? There's just no people coming through the door and paying for tickets and buying, buying beers and hot dogs.  Yeah, you know, I think when, when all of this happened, we were resolved to make sure that, you know, our workforce was safe and that they had the tools that, that they needed to get through their day. But then we really challenged them with re-imagining what the next normal is, because when we come out of this, we want to be ahead of everybody else. And that comes again from the vision that Joe set that we're going to use this time to make ourselves better internally, because we have the time. I mean, we had been racing towards opening chase center and, you know, not having time to, to pause. Now let's use this time to really rethink, you know, how we're doing business, what can we do better? And I think it's really reinvigorated, you know, teams to really think and, and innovate in their own areas because you can innovate anything, right?  We're all innovating, you know, we're rethinking the fan experience and queuing and lines and all of these things because now, you know, we have the time that it's really something that a top down, we want to come out of that stronger. Right, that's great.  I'm a big fan of Julie Sweet. She also, we went to the same school, so go, go Claremont. But she's been super aggressive lately on a lot of these things. There was a get to, I think it's called getting to 50 50 by 25 initiative, a formal initiative with very specific goals and objectives. And then there was a recent thing in terms of doing some stuff in New York with retraining. And then as you said, military being close to your heart, you know, a real specific military recruiting process that's formal and in place. And, you know, when you see that type of leadership and formal programs put in place, not just words, really, really encouraging, really inspirational. And that's how you actually get stuff done as you get into the consulting businesses. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. Yeah, Jeff, you're exactly right. And as Jennifer was talking, Julie is exactly who I was thinking about in my mind as well. Because I think it takes strong leadership and courage to set bold goals, right? And you talked about a few of those bold goals. And Julie has certainly been at the forefront of that. You know, one of the goals we set in 2018 actually was, as you said, to achieve essentially a gender balance workforce. So 50% men, 50% women by 2025. I mean, that's ambitious for any company. But for us at the time, we were 400,000 people. They were 506,000 people globally. So when you set a goal like that, it's a bold goal and it's a bold vision. And, you know, we have over 40% today. We're well on our path to get to 50%, I think, by 2025.  You know, the day that it came out, it's a proud moment. And I think it takes leaders like Julie and many others, by the way, that are also setting bold goals, not just in my company, to turn the dial here on gender equality in the workforce. But it's not just about gender equality. You mentioned something I think is probably as or more important right now. And that's the fact that at least our leadership has also taken a stand, a pretty bold stand against social injustice and racism. Right. And so through that, we've made some very transparent goals in North America in terms of the recruitment and retention of our Black, African-American, Hispanic-American, Latinx communities. We've set a goal to increase those populations in our workforce by 60% by 2025. And we're requiring mandatory training for all of our people to be able to identify and speak up against racism. Again, it takes courage and it takes a voice and I think it takes setting bold goals to make a change and these are changes that we're committed to. Right, that's terrific. I mean, when we started the conversation with Grace Hopper, they put out an index for companies that don't have their own kind of internal measure to do surveys again, so you can get kind of longitudinal studies over time and see how you're improving. And Marie, I want to go to you on the social justice thing. I mean, you talk a lot about values and culture. It's a huge part of what you say and I think the quote that you use if I can steal it is no culture eats strategy for breakfast. And with the social injustice, I mean, you came out with special values just about what Zendesk is doing on social injustice and I thought I was actually looking up just your regular core mission and value statement and this is what came up on my Google search. So I wanted to, you know, you publish this on a blog in June, you know, taking a really proactive stand and I think you mentioned something before that, but then you're kind of stuck in this role as a mind reader. I wonder if you can share a little bit of your thoughts of, you know, taking a proactive stand and what Zendesk is doing, both you personally as well as a company in supporting this. And then what did you say as a mind reader?  You guys are just now seeing cell phone footage of the madness. Yeah. Wow. So there's a lot in there. Let me go to the mind reader comic cause people are probably like, what is that about? My point was last December, November timing, I've been the chief people officer for about two years and I decided that it really was time in support with support from my CEO that Zendesk have a chief diversity officer sitting in, you know, at the top of the company really putting a face to a lot of the efforts we were doing. And so the mind reader part comes in, little did I know how important that stance would become, you know, in the May, June timing. So I joked that, you know, it almost felt like, you know, I could have been a mind reader, but as to what have we done, a couple of things I would call out that I think are really aligned with who we are as a company because our culture is highly threaded with the concept of empathy. It's been there from our beginning. We have always tried to be a company that walks in the shoes of our customers. So in May, you know, with the death of George Floyd and the world kind of snapping and all of the racial injustice, what we said is we want it to not stay silent. And so most of my postings and points of view were that as a company, we would take a stand both internally and externally. And we would also partner with other companies that and organizations that are doing the big work. And I think that is the humble part of it. We can't do it all as in-depth. We can't right all the wrongs, but we can be in partnership and service with other organizations. So we used funding and we supported those organizations and partnerships. The other thing that I would say we did that was super important along that empathy is that we hosted space for our employees to come together and talk about the hurt and the pain and the experiences that were going on during those times. And we called to those empathy circles. And what I loved is initially, you know, it was through our mosaic community, which is what we call our brown and black and persons of color employee resource group, but it grew into something bigger. We ended up doing five of these empathy circles around the globe. And as leadership, what we were there to do is to listen and stand as an ally and support. And the stories were life changing. And the stories really talked about a number of injustice and racism aspects that are happening around the world. And so we are committed to that journey. We will continue to support our employees. We will continue to partner and we're doing a number of the things that have been mentioned, but those empathy circles, I think we're definitely a turning point for us as an organization. That's great and people need it, right? They need a place to talk and they also need a place to listen if it's not their experience. And to be empathetic, if you just have no data or no knowledge of something, you need to be educated. So that is phenomenal. I want to go to you, Jennifer, because obviously the NBA has been very, very progressive on this topic, both as a league and then of course, the Warriors we were joking before. I mean, I don't think Steph Curry has ever had a verbal misstep in the history of his time in the NBA. The guy is so eloquent and so well spoken, but I wonder if you can share kind of the inside the inner circle in terms of the conversations that the NBA enabled, right? Everything from the jerseys and going out on marches and then also from the team level, how did that kind of come down and what's kind of the perception inside the building? Sure, you know, obviously I'm so proud to be part of a league that is as progressive and has given voice allowed all the teams, all the athletes to express how they feel. You know, the Warriors have always been committed to creating a diverse and equitable workplace and being part of a diverse and equitable community. I mean, that's something that we've always said, but I think the situation really allowed us over the summer to come up with a real formal response, you know, aligning ourselves with the Black Lives Matter movement in a really meaningful way, but also in a way that allows us to iterate because as you say, it's evolving and we're learning. So we created or discussed four pillars that we wanted to work around and that was really around wallet, heart, feet and then tongue or voice and wallet is really around putting our money where our mouth is, right? And supporting organizations and groups that aligned with the values that we were trying to move forward. Heart is around engaging our employees and our fan base really, right? And so during this time, we actually launched our employee resource groups for the first time and really excited and energized about what that's doing for our workforce. This is about promoting real action, civic engagement, advocacy work in the community. I mean, we've always been really focused in a community but this really hones it around, you know areas that we can all rally around, right? So registration and, you know, we're really focused on supporting the election day results, you know, in terms of like having our facilities open to all the electorate. So we're gonna have our San Francisco arena be a ballot drop-off. Our Oakland facility is a polling site. Santa Cruz site is also a polling location. So really promoting sort of that civic engagement and causing people to really take action. You know, heart is all around being inclusive and developing that culture that we think is really reflective of the community. And points is really amplifying, you know and celebrating one, the ideas that, you know the errors want to put forth in the community but really understanding, you know, everybody's culture and really just, you know, providing and using the platform really to provide a basis in which, you know, as our players like Steph Curry and the rest want to share their own experiences, you know, we have a platform that can't be matched by anybody, right? I mean, it's the order. So I think really getting focused and rallying around these pillars and then we can iterate and continue to grow as we define, you know the things that we want to get involved in. That's terrific. So I have like pages and pages and pages of notes and could probably do this for hours and hours but unfortunately we don't have that much time. I mean, we have to wrap. So what I want to do is give you each of you the last word. Again, as we know from this problem, right? It's not necessarily a pipeline problem. It's really a retention problem. We hear that all the time from girls in code and girls in tech. So what I'd like you to do just to wrap is, you know just a couple, two or three sentences to a 25-year-old young woman sitting across from you having coffee socially distanced about what you would tell her, you know early in the career, not in college but you know kind of early on, what would it be the two or three sentences that you would share with that person across the table? And Annabel will start with you. Yeah, I will have to make a pitch for transportation.  And so my advice would be that there are these fields, there are these opportunities where you can make a massive impact on the future of how people move or how they consume things or how they interact with the world around them. And my hope is that being at Waymo, you know with our self-driving car technology that we are going to change the world. And I am one of the initial people in this group to help make that happen. And you know, one thing that I would add is women spend almost an hour a day shuttling their kids around and we will give you back that time one day with our self-driving car.  That's great. Kate, I think I might know what you're already going to say but we'll, maybe you have something else you want to say too. I don't know, it'll be interesting. Look, if I was sitting across the table from a 25 year old right now, I'd say a couple of things. First, I'd say look intentionally for a company that has an inclusive culture. Because we know that companies that have inclusive cultures retain women in tech longer. And the companies that can build inclusive cultures will retain women in tech double, double the amount that they are today in the next 10 years. That means that we could put another 1.4 million women in tech and keep them in tech by 2030. So I'd really encourage them to look for that. I'd encourage them to look for companies that have support networks and reinforcements for their own companies. Support networks and reinforcements for their success. And to obviously find a waymo car so that they can not have to drive their kids around for an hour when they're parenting in a few years. I love the intentional, it's such a great word. Ina Marie. I'd like to imagine that I'm sitting across from a 25 year old woman of color. And what I would say is be authentically you and know that you belong in the organization that you are seeking. And you are there because you have a unique perspective and a voice that needs to be heard. And don't try to be anything that you're not. Be who you are and bring that voice and that perspective. Because the company will be a better company. The management team will be a better management team. The workforce will be a better workforce when you belong, thrive and share that voice. I love that. I love that. That's why you're the cheap people officer and not human resources officer. Because people are not resources like steel and cars and this and that. All right, Jennifer, go to you for the wrap. Oh my gosh, I can't follow that. But yes, I would say advocate for yourself and know your value. I think really understanding what you're worth and being willing to fight for that is critical. And I think it's something that women need to do more of. Awesome. Well again, I wish we could go all day but I will let you get back to your very, very busy day jobs. Thank you for participating and sharing your insight. I think it's super helpful. And as we said at the beginning, there's no better example for young girls and young women than to see people like you and leadership roles and to hear your voices. So thank you for sharing. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Okay, thank you. That's great. Thank you. All right, so that was our diversity panel. I hope you enjoyed it. I sure did. I'm looking forward to chapter two. We'll get it scheduled as soon as we can. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.