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How Leaders Lead with David Novak
#287: Julie Hansen, CEO, Babbel – Don’t fear change
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Listen to this leadership podcast with Julie Hansen, CEO of Babbel, and discover how to fearlessly lead through big change and industry disruption.
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of How Leaders Lead with David Novak. Today we have Julie Hanson on the show. Julie is the CEO of Babbel in the US and the chief revenue officer for the global organization. Babbel is one of the world's leading language learning platforms, helping millions of people learn new languages all across the world. Before Babbel, Julie also drove significant change in momentum for big brands like Penguin, Golf.com and Business Insider. And in this episode, you're going to understand what really drives Julie's success. Enjoy this conversation between David and Julie, and I will see you at the very end of the episode for the debrief.
- [00:45]
David Novak
Now, I got to ask you, if I dropped you into a country tomorrow where you didn't speak the language, what would be your strategy in the first 24 hours?
- [00:56]
Julie Hanson
Wow. Definitely start using Babbel. If we teach that language, use a little AI translation, because that is pretty handy these days and do a whole lot of listening.
- [01:11]
David Novak
What would be the toughest country to go in and do that where you actually offer the language?
- [01:16]
Julie Hanson
Where we offer the language, probably like Turkey, because Turkish is pretty different from any language I speak.
- [01:25]
David Novak
Yeah, that's where east meets west and there's all kinds of different languages for sure. So for people who may not know Babbel that well, give us a snapshot. What do you actually do and who's Babbel for?
- [01:39]
Julie Hanson
Yeah, we're a 19 year old company. We teach 14 languages. We are for the more serious language learner who actually wants to get to a conversational stage. We're not primarily a way to spend time on your phone, but rather a way to actually learn a language. And. But we're trying to create an experience that's also fun and enjoyable. You know, most of our learners, they tend to be on the beginner side. And app, when you think about it, is a great starting point for language learning. You really want to learn a language, you have to do more than that. You have to immerse yourself, you have to listen, watch movies, all the rest of it. But an app is a great starting point. And people come to Babbel for a variety of reasons. Some people are learning for work, so we teach a fair amount of English for people who are learning, you know, trying to advance their career, career mobility. But we teach a whole lot of Spanish as well in the US in particular. And that's often for, you know, relationship reasons, family reasons. One of the charming things about language learning in the US is we also have a lot of what we call heritage Learners, people who learn, you know, their grandparents language, they think that's very funny in Europe. But so we're teaching people who want to learn a language for a variety of reasons, whether it's for self improvement or actually because they need to speak a language and they want to get conversational.
- [03:04]
David Novak
I've always wanted to speak Spanish started. I've always wanted to speak Mandarin because we had a big business in China and I started, but I gave up. I got to believe that's the big, big problem, isn't it? Do people just like playing an instrument? They start and stop. I mean, how do you deal with that issue?
- [03:24]
Julie Hanson
Yeah, actually funny enough, we do offer a lifetime subscription and one of the reasons is for that on and off journey. And you know, when you think about it, there are many reasons your motivation can ebb and flow. Like maybe you're learning Spanish because you want to go to Mexico for a month and you went and now you're back and you know, you don't have quite the same impetus you had before. But we're working very hard on the whole motivation topic. We've introduced streaks so that you feel, you know, some little dopamine hit for continuing to do your daily work. That's surprisingly powerful. We're trying to make our lessons shorter because these days people's attention spans are shorter. So a lot of work is actually focused on that motivation topic right now.
- [04:08]
David Novak
I'm sure that like so many different markets, you know, the language market is really crowded, it's really competitive. You know, how do you differentiate Babel and how do you keep innovating? What's your secret?
- [04:22]
Julie Hanson
It is in fact a crowded marketplace and more so than a few years ago because we're seeing a lot of AI driven entrance. Number one thing. We are laser focused on efficacy. We are working hard to make sure that Babel actually works. There's a lot of learning science that goes into that. It's not just, you know, flashcards of vocabulary, but rather ways that we can repeat spaced repetition, the whole kind of scaffolding of how people learn that is baked into the product. A lot of the innovation that we're focused on right now is driven by AI and machine learning. And that's focusing on things like, like personalization, shortening the lessons. Frankly, we know our attention spans are shortening. Everyone's motivation is different. We can respond to that. And then we're also very focused on the motivational aspects of it. Not turning Babel into a game, but making sure that our users are rewarded for that. Our product's enjoyable and that we reward people for investing their time in it. I guess, in a way, of course, the competition is part of what helps you to innovate as well. You know, if we had a monopoly, that might be nice, but we wouldn't be as innovative.
- [05:36]
David Novak
Yeah, the competition could definitely make you better. When did you first realize the power of understanding someone in their own language?
- [05:43]
Julie Hanson
I mean, on a personal level? I guess in college, because I did spend a semester in France, and I was a decent speaker before I went, but it was only when I was there that I got anywhere close to fluency and just being able to talk to a stranger, talk to a kid. I was an au pair for a couple of months, and, you know, my kids did not speak English, so if I wanted to communicate with them, it had to be in French. That was fun. That unlock, you know, was really fun.
- [06:15]
David Novak
Yeah, you definitely had a burning platform to learn the language at that point.
- [06:18]
Julie Hanson
You know, I remember so distinctly one time there were two little boys and we were wrestling, and one of them pulled my hair, and I answered, I said, ouch. But of course, that meant nothing to him until I remembered to say, like, aye. And then he stopped pulling my hair. So. Kids are relentless. They're very good teachers.
- [06:39]
David Novak
That's a good point. You know, I want to get into everything you're doing at Babylon now. You're leading. But first, I want to take you back a little bit. What's a story from your childhood that really shaped the kind of leader you are today?
- [06:50]
Julie Hanson
I guess one thing is maybe a pattern rather than one story, but I grew up in a bunch of different places in reverse. Cron. We lived in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New Jersey. I was born upstate New York. At one point as between 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grades. I went to four different schools. And so I don't have an inertia problem. And I don't fear change. I don't make. I try not to be change for change sake. I recognize that people do like continuity and, you know, building on things, but, like, I don't fear change. And so I think that's been very helpful to me as a leader. And it's something that I try to help the team understand. Like, because if you don't, if your business isn't changing all the time, it's dying. And it can be harder, especially for people younger in their career and maybe for people who are less enamored of change. Change can be hard. For me, it's not as hard. And I try to impart that to my teams.
- [07:56]
David Novak
So, you know, what advice can you give to people who, let's say they have a big project, it requires change in their organization. You know, what have you learned about change management that could really help others?
- [08:07]
Julie Hanson
Yeah, that is a whole art and science unto itself. The first thing is you have to treat it as such. In other words, you have to be thoughtful, deliberate. You have to recognize this is a situation that requires change management. We will make a plan for that. The amount of over communication you have to do in a change scenario is huge. I try to think of it as when I get to the point where I'm just sick of hearing myself say something, that's about the point where it's sinking in. So remembering to do that, helping people understand the context of like you're moving the goalposts and if you work with people who are very oriented towards scoring a goal, that is really tough. So you have to make people understand why the goal posts are moving, what the new goalposts are, how we're going to get there. So really giving people an understanding of that journey and then also giving them the space to help create that journey. It's not like I have all the answers for any change we would be undergoing. It's all about the team embracing that change and making it happen.
- [09:21]
David Novak
What's the biggest change, project or initiative that you've had to personally spearhead?
- [09:27]
Julie Hanson
One of the things I'm working on at Babel and we've actually just finished the current first phase of it, which has been, which feels really good, is we are changing our billing management platform. I know this sounds like plumbing. You think we're a 19 year old company. When we started as a subscription service one year in, we were going to be ad supported. In the beginning. That's a bad. We felt that that was a bad solution. It interrupts the learning. So subscription. So 18 years ago, effectively there weren't off the shelf solutions. We built our own subscription billing management platform and then we hung onto that thing for 15 more years before we thought about changing anything. In that time, many compelling products came to market. So I've been leading the project to roll that out at Babel. And it really started with the evaluation and there were a lot of people internally who felt like, wait, we have a system, let's enhance what we have. And trying to get people over the hump of no, no, no. We build language learning tools. That is our special sauce. Other companies build billing management platforms. Let us buy, we should buy that. We should focus our efforts on creating the best language learning experience we can. So just from that initial context of why we would even make that change to the whole step by step plan, the mil, I mean, it has been a multi year project and we just launched the last country, the US Beginning of the month. It went great. I feel like I should knock on some wood. We're almost fully on the new platform and that has been a journey. Feels really good now. But the whole time we've talked about the need for this change, why we're doing it, what we're doing, and then the fact that the real goal is not just to swap out the plumbing because that's not worth the effort, but rather to have the new capabilities the system will give us. New products we can bring to market, new ways of billing, all of those benefits. That's why we're doing this.
- [11:40]
David Novak
You know, you've had such a successful career, Julie. Was there anyone in your life that really believed in you before you actually believed in yourself and what you could possibly do in business and with your career?
- [11:54]
Julie Hanson
I'm very grateful for my parents being, you know, big Julie fans, being super supportive. You know, my mom didn't have a full time career outside of the house. I mean, we were her main career, we kids. But she did have some work. She did part time, et cetera. But she always said to me, you know, you can do anything you want to do. Which not really true, but that's an amazingly empowering thing to say to a high school kid, you know, and then I sort of appreciate that from her. And then I learned so many business lessons from my dad.
- [12:30]
David Novak
And Julie, what did your dad teach you?
- [12:32]
Julie Hanson
A lot of stuff. Probably the most important takeaway was accountability. He has an expression, Jules, excuses are like noses. Everybody has one. And that's really always stuck with me. So to him, I'll be grateful forever to him for that one. He also taught me a lot around discipline. You know, my dad's a fun guy, like much, much more than me, but he is very disciplined at the core. Very structured, disciplined, organized, like he gets stuff done. And I think I learned that from him as well.
- [13:06]
David Novak
You know, I want to go through a little rapid fire here of a few of your early career stops and have you give me sort of a key leadership lesson from, from what you picked up at each one of them. And now let's start with Penguin, which is one of the most iconic and respected book publishers in the world. You built penguin.com when the Internet was still brand new. What did that experience teach you?
- [13:30]
Julie Hanson
I guess that was the first time I really saw something that I wanted to go after and just went after it. I mean, I did have to build a business plan ultimately, and it was very. It was laughable in terms of a real business plan. But, you know, I had to go through some level of formality. But I literally were shown. I really am dating myself here. I was shown the Netscape browser by a friend from college a couple of years into my career. And I was like, that. That is what I want to do. Which was interesting because I had gone into book publishing, like, absolutely knowing that I wanted to be in book publishing. That was just a given. Eventually, I figured out that book publishing is more like a hobby, less like a business, and that I wanted to chase something that was more evolving and new and growing. But at the time, I didn't think of it in those strategic terms. It was just like, that is cool. That's the future. That's what I want to do. So first time I kind of really saw something that I felt like, I have to do that.
- [14:30]
David Novak
Yeah. And@golf.com, you took it from inception to the number one website for golfers. What'd you learn from that?
- [14:40]
Julie Hanson
That was an amazingly fun experience. I actually, I got that job by writing a letter to the editor in chief of Golf magazine. Hey, you need a website, and I can build it for you. And they hired me.
- [14:54]
David Novak
You better be careful what you ask for.
- [14:57]
Julie Hanson
So that was everything from, like, how to get started, how to build a team. But also, frankly, that was the first time I ever had a. My job as a general manager was anything to do with the website. But pretty soon, once we were up and running, the most important thing was building a revenue stream. And so getting. Being personally responsible for sales, learning how to sell, you know, that was a pretty compelling experience for me and really helpful. Later in my career, a mentor, someone I really respect a lot, said, you know, Julie, in the startup world, you should either build it or sell it. Don't count it. Meaning don't be in finance. Nothing wrong. With all due respect to my finance friends, but that was a really good way of crystallizing the notion of value creation. You're either creating the product. That is why a company exists. Well, the customers are why a company exists, but the product is what they offer. And then. Or you're creating the revenue, which is how the company stays in business.
- [15:56]
David Novak
You also were employee number five for Business Insider and helped scale it and then go on to sell it as the president and chief operating officer. What was the big lesson there, I
- [16:10]
Julie Hanson
mean, that was an incredible learning journey. It felt like I was the person laying the track and the train was coming very fast. So it was really lessons around scaling, around team building, building up the right level of team and company infrastructure for that moment in time. Learning those hard lessons of in a fast growing company, you know, sometimes you have employees that can keep scaling with the company and sometimes people can't. And how you manage that, really, that's the first time I learned to be, I think excellence in performance management and people management, that I learned a ton of, that's probably the most important lessons I learned there.
- [16:56]
David Novak
If you had to crystallize the most important thing you learned when it comes to performance management, what would it be?
- [17:02]
Julie Hanson
Ripping the band aid off. Clarity, Transparency. Giving people feedback. I remember early on we had a writer who wasn't performing and I knew that because I had been speaking with the editors about it quite a bit. And ultimately we let her go. And in that process, she was genuinely surprised. And I thought, I will never again let that happen in my teams. Never. Because people, they may feign surprise, which is why we put things in writing. But no one should ever be surprised that their performance isn't good enough.
- [17:41]
David Novak
Yeah, absolutely. And that's a tough lesson. I think all of us learn, you know, as we, as we come up and, and then, you know, so you really have an entrepreneurial bent, there's no question. So what convinced you that Babel was the right next chapter?
- [17:56]
Julie Hanson
So when we sold that business, I realized I needed to do something more entrepreneurial. We sold it to a big company. I didn't want to compete with Business Insider. And at that point in time, Business Insider had gone very broad. They had just launched insiders, general media. It was like they were sports. They had kind of every category. And so I was really thinking hard about what was next. And Babel found me and, and what I really liked about Babel, besides the fact that I thought, you know, this company and this product is a diamond in the rough. In America, it was so well established. In Europe, it was an overnight success. They invented the category. But in the US it was not well known. And obviously the US is a very different market when it comes to language learning. So I liked the fact that, you know, I would be employee number 13 in the US could build that business up, but also that in Europe it was a scale up. So I had a startup and a scale up all in one. And I felt like if it went well, I could contribute on both levels, which is in the end, how it worked out. So that was what drew me to Babel.
- [19:00]
David Novak
What did you have to learn personally when you entered a completely new industry? What was your process? How'd you go about it?
- [19:08]
Julie Hanson
For me, it was kind of going around the other side of the table. I had been selling media for a long time. Now I'm responsible for buying media. So I had to learn, while I had the high concept of that, I had to learn the inner workings of it. That was a big thing. The bigger learnings were really about working with a company based in Germany, where you think the cultures are pretty similar to American work culture, but it is night and day and learning how to navigate that, understanding the importance of cultural nuance. When we have new managers here in the US who might be managing someone in Berlin, I personally sit them down and give them a talk about how it's going to be different for them. Not just the HR rules, of which there are many, but the cultural differences. The fact that our German employees are trained in the German work culture to be more precise and careful and conservative, that is just the work culture. And they're going to look at you and think that you are ready, fire, aim. They think you're a cowboy. You guys need to learn how to work together, how to meet in the middle. And people's eyes get very big when I explain that to them, but it's really an important insight.
- [20:32]
David Novak
So as I understand it, you walked into a struggling U.S. division. What felt most broken that you had to tackle?
- [20:38]
Julie Hanson
Yeah. I later found out that at the time, they were trying to figure out, should we just give up on the US or should we try again? And they were like, okay, we'll give her a chance. We had to do a few things differently. One, we had to understand that the US Consumer of language learning is very different from the European consumer. And we what worked in Germany was not going to work here. So that has to do with new messaging, of course, how you approach it, but how you think about demographics, the audience we're targeting, but also media. That was step number one. And number two was really how to convince this business culture that was pretty hardwired to be conservative and careful and maybe sometimes a little slow, that we could go a little faster and we could push harder, and figuring out how to make that message stick in a different cultural context. That was one of the big challenges, too.
- [21:39]
David Novak
Babbel was the world's first language learning app. But sometimes companies that are first isn't the company that wins. You get disrupted. What have you had to guard against. When you're out front, like you've been
- [22:02]
Julie Hanson
out front, It's a great question. It's been a huge challenge for Babel, I think, especially in the early days, especially in Europe, we were so successful so quickly. It's still the case that in Babel Germany, we have like a 90% brand awareness. You can literally get in a taxi and the taxi driver will know Babel. So that is easy to get comfortable from that. The way it kept us on our toes was two things. One, the US in general, because that market is simply more competitive and more challenging and different. So it forced us to question some of our product choices, think differently, be open to doing things in another way. So the US influence, to be specific, the push for Mexican Spanish, the idea that we don't learn Castilian Spanish in the US we need that other language. So we had to open eyes to the needs of a different market. We pushed hard for podcasts over here and they've become a very important part of our language toolbox. We would have gotten there eventually in Germany, but we got there faster because of the US operation. But the single biggest thing for sure was the competition here. Our main competitors, we had a legacy competitor that was quite well known in the English language world, not known in Germany, caused us to be a little sharper in our marketing. And then of course, our new app competition challenged us here in the US first. And so that competition was actually really helpful to the company in questioning what we're doing, rethinking the way we address consumers, like all of it.
- [23:43]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
Hello friends. I hope you are loving this conversation between David and Julie. As always, please stay tuned to the very end day of the of the episode. David and I have a great discussion where we debrief some of the concepts that he is talking about with Julie on this interview. So stay tuned to the very end of the episode and I will see you at the debrief.
- [24:02]
David Novak
You know, as you mentioned earlier, AI translation tools are improving so fast and AirPods promising real time translation competitors leaning heavily into AI along with yourself when you see that, what goes on in your mind. I mean, you just said competition is a positive, which is a nice way to frame it. But you know what's going on in your mind.
- [24:23]
Julie Hanson
On the one hand, there's probably a small chunk of our audience that was learning a language for really transactional purposes for a few months for a trip or what have you. And probably those types of very uncommitted transactional learners are not going to bother with Learning with Babbel or any other platform. And you know what, that's great because there was. It's hard work learning a language. And if you just need to speak a few words to it in a cafe, then by all means use your translation tool. And so we kind of welcome that, frankly, because language learning, you know, it's like an exercise program. It's a lot, there's a lot of commitment. So the users who would be more easily frustrated, it's great that there's a better solution for them. Where we think the potential of it is incredible for the personalization piece we talked about before. But also practice what we're doing right now is not something that we would want to do through a translation tool. If every time you ask me a question, I sat there and listened for 20 seconds and then I responded and then there was an equivalent pause when it came back to you. That's not a satisfying way to have a conversation. And by the way, if your mother in law happens to speak French or Spanish, she doesn't want to talk to you through an earbud either. So there really are some. As long as human beings have a multitude of languages, we think there will be a need for language learning. And it might look a little different than it does now. But that need is not going away. We don't think electronics are going to replace it.
- [26:09]
David Novak
You know, you're in the business of helping people learn, there's no question about that. What do most people misunderstand about how learning actually works? Because you got to become experts at it at Babel for sure. You are experts.
- [26:23]
Julie Hanson
I think people underestimate the level of effort that it will take. You know, I'm sure you remember the easy button ad campaign that we had here in the US like it's that that campaign spoke to a primal urge of Americans and there's no easy button in language learning. You cannot hypnotize yourself into learning. So that's one thing. The other thing is that I think people know that language. It's important to speak it out loud. But it is so intimidating, terrifying scary that they don't and they think they'll be okay. And that's again why we're so excited about AI tooling as a way to practice that with repetition, that there's no judgment in your AI robot conversation coach. There's only encouragement, endless patience. That's really powerful.
- [27:13]
David Novak
You know, you mentioned earlier that you're really working on ways to motivate people to stick to it and to, to really get the get the job done. You know, how. How are you doing that? I mean, you know, how are you going to motivate someone like me to stay after it?
- [27:29]
Julie Hanson
Well, of course we're going to have a streak feature, and that has been wildly popular. I'm stating the obvious there. When our streak feature broke, it was sort of the single biggest influx to customer service and many years. So that's one huge thing. Two, we're trying hard to meet people where they are. So shorter lessons, different styles of learning, even in our communications, our email communications, reminders, but also just bringing more of the learning to you wherever you are. A long time ago, we went to Switzerland for a ski vacation. I'm not a good skier. And so we had a. I was put in the beginner lesson, and one day we had a German teacher and he was very strict. And when I had trouble getting up, when I fell, he was mad at me and I was very sad and I was not motivated. And the next day we had an Italian teacher, and he was so warm and nice and encouraging that I was so excited about my lesson that day, and I did better. So, okay, now you know a little bit more about me personally, but I think that style of coaching and teaching might have some cultural relevance to it. And so we're just trying to make the product a little nicer, a little warmer, a little more encouraging. And most people respond to that.
- [28:54]
David Novak
Fin, you go from employee number 13 in the United States to being the president of the US Business, and now you're both that the president and you're the chief revenue officer for the global organization. What does the chief revenue officer role actually look like for you day to day?
- [29:16]
Julie Hanson
It's where I spend the most of my time, for sure. We are a worldwide marketer. One of the reasons why this role could make sense is that, as I said earlier, media evolution does tend to happen in the US first, TikTok launched here before it launched in Europe as one example. So we're able to kind of use our US Marketing operations as somewhat of a crystal ball. If it works here, it's going to work in Europe in a year or two. Probably not always. You know, there are differences in creative. There are differences around privacy and attitudes toward privacy. Those all make a difference. But for example, you know, we developed an email cadence in the US that drove more revenue. We send more emails, but we do it in a certain way. And for a long time I was told, like, no, no, no, can't do that here. Yeah, we can. And it's working really well. So a lot of the times we're exporting what we develop first in the US just because of where the media evolution is here and we apply it worldwide. But most of the time I'm working with our media, our channel managers. Every channel is kind of managed vertically, working with the creatives. Spend a lot of time on product and tech because we do run basically our own martech products is handled in the revenue org, not in some separate technology org in Berlin. So kind of a nice mix of. I guess I'm back to being a general manager in that sense and I guess I enjoy that actually.
- [30:48]
David Novak
The other thing it seems like you enjoy, Julie, is you like taking on the basic traditional thinking and saying, hey, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. I mean, you like taking on maybe the stereotypical view. Am I correct in saying that or.
- [31:06]
Julie Hanson
Yeah, I guess that is a feature or a bug, depending on your perspective.
- [31:12]
David Novak
No, I think it's a good feature. But how do you get the courage to take people on? Because you're not going to change something unless you have the courage to have the thought of that. People say, no, I disagree with you. You know, you gotta. How do you deal with productive conflict? Because you gotta be good at it.
- [31:32]
Julie Hanson
There is nuance to that. It helps if you know the person with whom you might have conflict because we are all different and we all like to receive our information differently. Most people that I'm working with at a company of our size and you know, it starts with data. So if the numbers are not on your side, it doesn't really matter what you have to say about it. So we do try to start, I do try to start with a data grounded conversation. I though know enough about my audience to know, you know, that one wants a song and dance and that one wants a presentation with lots of data in it and some quiet time to read it before we talk. So I think knowing whom you're interacting with is super powerful. I've come to learn at Babel the power of a good document. I once had a. Before I was responsible for revenue worldwide. We were doing, we're taking a certain approach to revenue growth in the US And I wanted to get some tech support that we needed to enable more of it. And so I wrote a document like this is, you know, just a couple pages on this thing we were doing. And that thing went around the company like more people shared it and read it. And I realized, aha, this is a company where putting it on paper is actually incredibly important. People were coming up to Me asking about it, I didn't write a document with that in mind. It was just assembling my thoughts. So learning sometimes what works. Every company is different. Learning what works at a given company is pretty important.
- [33:03]
David Novak
So you gotta start out with data. That's a given. How do you bring creativity to driving revenue?
- [33:10]
Julie Hanson
Well, I mean, that's the fun part, I guess. Part of it is just loving media and marketing and loving the fact that it is just never over. We're always evolving, and that's the impact of digital. I mean, I was lucky enough to kind of grow up in a media world that was in the throes of that digital transformation. We're still in it, but as a person who ended up working in legacy media, but always was focused on the digital side of it, just always been on the front lines of this constant evolution. You know, it's funny when you think about it. We're having a podcast right now that was an audio format for a long time, and now here we are on video and everyone watches their podcasts on YouTube. Why? It's still just audio, but media is constantly evolving. And so the way we use media to reach people and to convince them and to tell stories, constantly involving. I love that.
- [34:13]
David Novak
What do you think is the most creative thing you're doing at Babel right now?
- [34:17]
Julie Hanson
Some of our. We're doing some new creative development that's a little bit edgier for us. We've finally got OTT working, or ctv, whatever we want to call digital television. It took us a long time to understand the right creative formats for that, because you can't just take your TV commercial and slap it on YouTube. That does not go. So that's been creative and fun. We've had a lot of fun creativity too, in coming up with new experiences to ensure that we still receive some SEO love. So, as you know, with the advent of AI overviews, most websites are receiving a fraction of the traffic that they used to receive. Yes, it's more qualified, but it's still a fraction. But there are certain experiences that an AI cannot summarize. So, for example, in about 10 days, we're going to launch a cognate finder tool. If you're not deeply immersed in the language world, you might not know that a cognate is a word that sounds and means the same thing in two languages. So there are tons of these. But there's also false friends. You know, things that sound the same mean different things. Like ambarazado in Spanish is not embarrassed. It's pregnant so many, many words like that. And this is a very commonly searched thing in the language world. So we're creating a fun tool that lets you search, that lets you play with cognates and false friends. Google can't summarize. No AI tool can summarize that. So clearly having a lot of fun. I think that's. I was very proud of the creative team that came up with that idea. So it's like we, as a marketer, we primarily use media to reach. Whether it's paid or organic, it doesn't matter. That's how we reach people. And the fact that media is so dynamic and changing all the time, especially now, this moment we're living in, I find that so exciting.
- [36:31]
David Novak
You know, revenue is the lifeblood of any company. So, you know, it's the Chief Revenue Officer. You got to have a lot of pressure on you, I would imagine, you know, because when the revenue's not moving in the right direction, man, that puts pressure on everything, Margins, you name it, you know, how do you deal with the pressure of having to get the sale?
- [36:54]
Julie Hanson
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? When things are going great, all the meetings are so easy. And when things are not going great, the meetings are a little more challenging. I guess I like pressure at the end of the day. I mean, I'm a competitive person. I like goals. I like exceeding goals. Some people thrive on that. I think I'm one of those people.
- [37:17]
David Novak
How do you personally stay connected with your customers and what they're saying?
- [37:22]
Julie Hanson
We do do some, like, live customer interviews. Those are very helpful. We have quite a bit of research that we do. One of my absolute favorite ways is we have a Slack channel where we pipe in the reviews in real time from Apple. And we started. There's a bunch of them now, but we started with the US reviews. And actually we. We set it up, frankly, to help the folks in headquarters understand that the customer here was different and was saying different things than they were used to hearing. But every day, you know, we see what people are talking about, asking about, complaining about. Really, really love that, actually.
- [38:00]
David Novak
What is something you've learned as CEO in the past year that really surprised the heck out of you?
- [38:05]
Julie Hanson
I guess, how fast AI is changing our world and how different people embrace it, shrink from it, how people react to that. I mean, I've lived through the Internet revolution, the mobile revolution, the social revolution. If we can call all of those technology waves as revolutions, AI is a revolution. And it's so obvious to me. And yet I find that some of my colleagues don't seem to feel the same sense of urgency. And then some of them just want to hide under a rock. And that has surprised me, actually.
- [38:47]
David Novak
As a leader. How do you think a leader should react to AI? What should you be doing? What are you doing?
- [38:53]
Julie Hanson
A few things. One, we're making sure that we have as much AI tooling at our disposal as we can afford, and we're making it available. We're giving training to really trying to model that behavior. So we've had various sessions where we have someone from the team come forward and say, hey, this is what I did with AI this week. I have shown the team my own personal vibe coding project. Trying to make sure that everyone understand it wasn't much. David, to be clear, it was fun. So modeling the behavior, encouraging the behavior, training it, being explicit about our expectations around it, setting goals that include AI achievements. You know, we're not. We are sometimes we have a different business culture, again, as I mentioned. And the European laws around privacy sometimes make our adoption of AI internally slower than other companies. But making sure that I'm pushing on that and we want to do it the right way, with the right guidelines and, you know, support for the team. Support, I guess, is an important word too. But just making sure that we understand is coming. We are equipping them, and we are expecting them to start using it.
- [40:12]
David Novak
If everyone watching this decided to learn one new language, what would change about how we lead, how we work, and how we understand each other?
- [40:23]
Julie Hanson
Quite a bit, actually, because speaking another person's language gives you a whole new empathy, cultural empathy, but like personal empathy, when you can connect with someone on that different level really changes things. Many people say that they, in their second language or other language, they have a different personality. That's kind of a fun thought for a leader. And like, could your people unlock an aspect of themselves that they didn't know they had or could, you know, is that a facility that's open to people? That's super cool. Mostly the number one thing, though, is that notion of empathy, of understanding the world in a richer way.
- [41:07]
David Novak
You know, I know you're an athlete. Julie and I read an article in Fast Company recently talking about how 94% of women in C suite positions have a sports background. What did sports teach you that prepared you to be in the leadership role that you're in?
- [41:26]
Julie Hanson
So, so many things. Teamwork, the importance of teamwork. All of those euphemisms that come with a team, they're all true. There's no I in team. You know, the importance of trust in a team setting, that's just huge. I'm an avid rower. I've come to that late in life, and I have really come to appreciate that you're only as strong as the weakest link in the boat. So if you want to succeed, you gotta make sure that everyone's upskilling, everyone is going as fast as they can. And then also that if you have someone in the boat who's not trying, who's not pulling as hard as they can, it is so toxic, everyone else in the boat will know it and resent it. Whereas if everyone gives their all, if you don't win, it's still amazing. So those lessons are huge from golf. I've learned lessons around measurability. I mean, it's incredibly measured sport, right? Engineers love golf. There's a thousand stats you can collect, but at the end of the day, you're measuring your performance. How are you doing last week? This week, it's everything. I've also learned the importance of first impressions. I've played some corporate golf in my life, and most of the time it's with mostly guys. And so you're there at a corporate outing, and maybe you're on a team. Usually you're on a team. It's a scramble or whatever it is, and everyone's milling around, and I have a lousy short game. I can't pot to save my life, but I'm five' eleven. I hit the ball pretty far. So I get up on the 1st, and the driver is the best club in my bag. So I get up on the tee and I hit it pretty good. And all the guys,
- [43:19]
David Novak
oh, look, we've got a winner here.
- [43:21]
Julie Hanson
Well, and, like, they're intimidated. They gotta hit it well now because the girl just hit it really far, you know, that kind of thing. And it's all about that first impression. Nobody remembers that I didn't make a putt all day because they just remember, like, oh, that tee shot. So first impressions really do matter, and putting effort into that can be important in relationships. There's so much more, but those are a couple of my golf, my sports lessons.
- [43:48]
David Novak
Julie, this has been so much fun, and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. So are you ready for this?
- [43:54]
Julie Hanson
I'm ready.
- [43:55]
David Novak
What three words best describe me?
- [43:57]
Julie Hanson
Resourceful, resilient, determined.
- [44:01]
David Novak
If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be?
- [44:05]
Julie Hanson
I think I'd be Michaela Shifrin right now with my gold medal. I worked Hard for that.
- [44:12]
David Novak
What's your biggest pet peeve?
- [44:14]
Julie Hanson
I don't like repeating myself.
- [44:21]
David Novak
Who would play you in a movie?
- [44:24]
Julie Hanson
Well, I'm not going to give you anything realistic here. I'll give you my dream. My favorite actress. Meryl Streep.
- [44:30]
David Novak
I see a little bit of the resemblance there too. All right, what's the number of languages you speak?
- [44:36]
Julie Hanson
I mean, let's go with could at one point in time speak reasonably. Well, I'm going to go with two and a half.
- [44:44]
David Novak
What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work?
- [44:48]
Julie Hanson
I'd really like to get better at cross country skiing. Curious about how that works.
- [44:53]
David Novak
What's the one thing you do just for you?
- [44:55]
Julie Hanson
Swim?
- [44:56]
David Novak
Besides your family and friends, what's your most prized possession? Wow.
- [45:01]
Julie Hanson
I like golf clubs.
- [45:03]
David Novak
If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?
- [45:06]
Julie Hanson
It depends. It's either going to be NPR or Bloomberg.
- [45:10]
David Novak
What's something about you that few people would know?
- [45:13]
Julie Hanson
I am tougher than you think.
- [45:17]
David Novak
Hey, what's the difference between being tough and tough minded?
- [45:20]
Julie Hanson
I suppose it's about resilience versus being open minded. I think of tough minded as not necessarily being open minded.
- [45:29]
David Novak
What's one of your daily rituals? Something that you never miss?
- [45:32]
Julie Hanson
I always check my email. I wouldn't say I never miss exercise, but I try not to.
- [45:38]
David Novak
You know, you're out of the lightning round. Great job. It's really great to be interviewing Meryl Streep. You know, I've been trying to get you on the show for a long time. You know, I can only dream, you know, getting back to technology. And we'll wrap this up. I just have a few more questions. You know, you stayed on top of technology, you know, scaling digital and now AI with language learning. What's the common thread to how you've led through the digital transformations that you've seen?
- [46:11]
Julie Hanson
Curiosity. I think it all starts with that. I am genuinely curious and interested in all of these new technologies. Not in a hobbyist way, but in a what does this mean for me, for the world way.
- [46:29]
David Novak
And you're obviously leader. How do you lead at home? What do you take home with you when it comes to leadership?
- [46:37]
Julie Hanson
You learn so many things from your kids, don't you? I remember taking economics class for the first time. And we start out with economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. Like it is. I thought it was like the study of business and money and whatever. No, that is the definition of economics. And you see all the charts in the grass. And you think, okay, supply, demand, got it. When you have kids, you understand that because everything for them is about scarce resources. Your attention, that piece of candy, the choice of the movie. Everything is a scarce resource and they're always fighting for it. And so that insight, by the way, so helpful, it came from home. It definitely applies at work. Understanding how employees, even though we're all going for the same goal, sometimes we feel we're in competition with each other for resources. That's hugely powerful insight. At home, I am the organizer. I am the one that maintains schedules and regulations and routines.
- [47:45]
David Novak
Did you pick up that working for the Germans or is that something you've always had?
- [47:49]
Julie Hanson
That's just me.
- [47:51]
David Novak
So no wonder they hired you.
- [47:55]
Julie Hanson
No, I'm a cowboy, remember?
- [47:56]
David Novak
They actually thought you were a kindred soul. You're not a cowboy.
- [48:00]
Julie Hanson
It's all relative.
- [48:03]
David Novak
What do you see as your unfinished business, both for Babel and you personally?
- [48:08]
Julie Hanson
Well, for Babel, we're not done. We have to, you know, this new chapter for us is absolutely incredibly important. Really excited about making sure that we are winners in the AI age and not crushed by it. And candidly, we're a 19 year old startup, we still have our VC investors, so there has to be some kind of something that happens in our future. And that feels like unfinished business to me. In my personal life. Yeah, we're building a house right now and that feels very unfinished. It feels like it may never be finished, but I'm kind of looking forward to the point where it's mostly finished and the endless parade of decisions have been mostly taken. That would be really satisfying.
- [48:58]
David Novak
What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader?
- [49:03]
Julie Hanson
I think it would be to dream big. That's for you as an individual contributor as well. But to be ambitious for your team. I think also there's that incredibly important distinction between leading and managing. I think most leaders need to first figure out how to be good managers. Not all of them, but most should go through that evolution because it helps you be a better leader. But understanding that being a leader is different from being a manager, that it is your job to set the strategies, set the vision, communicate that clearly and that yeah, you're responsible for execution as well as ideation. We've all seen leaders that were all strategy all the time and couldn't get it done. So you have to do both. But understanding the difference between managing the day to day, the people and leading a team, it's different. And I really Respect and appreciate great managers. The great manager who knows how to get the best out of every person. When you become a leader, you then have to be able to think systems, structures, strategy, you know, frameworks. And those are different skills. And embracing those skills and learning that they're different from the skills that made you a great manager. That would be, I think, especially for newer leaders, really important.
- [50:28]
David Novak
And last question. You know, when you think about women and business, female leaders, you know, what advice can you give to them on how to maximize their potential?
- [50:41]
Julie Hanson
Women often don't ask for more responsibility. They don't. I'm not trying to victim blame here. I'm just saying, like in. I've seen. We've all seen that women often just kind of wait to be recognized and rewarded and doesn't always work that way. So I would counsel most women to be bolder, you know, raise your hand, ask for responsibility. As I said, I'm a pretty good listener, and I think that's important, actually. But I am not afraid to interrupt or be bold or put my ideas out there when the time is right, respectfully. But I think a lot of the times women don't know how to do that, aren't encouraged to do that. I don't know whether that's a personality again bug or feature, whether it's a learned behavior. I am, as I said, I'm 5 11. Like, I'm. I see eye to eye with most men. That does help. But I think whatever it is that's taught me how to do that, I would want to pass that on to other women.
- [51:41]
David Novak
Yeah. Great. And, Julie, I want to thank you for passing on your insights to all the leaders that listen to this show and appreciate you for taking the time. And I'm going to try to get motivated to really finish one of these languages.
- [51:58]
Julie Hanson
You should. Very satisfying. David, thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun. I really appreciate your questions.
- [52:04]
David Novak
All right, thank you.
- [52:10]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
David, after hearing this episode, I am desperate for you to speak to me in Mandarin for the remainder of our conversation.
- [52:19]
David Novak
Nihau.
- [52:21]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
Is that where it ends? Is that where your man.
- [52:24]
David Novak
She.
- [52:24]
Julie Hanson
She. She.
- [52:27]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
I love it. Well, David, I so enjoyed this conversation between you and Julie. As you know, I've even talked about it on this show before. I am a language lover. I speak Spanish. I play around with speaking Greek because of my grandparents, and I just love what learning new languages allows you to experience. And so I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. And I'm excited, David, to get your take on some of the themes that you And Julie discussed throughout the episode so that our listeners can leave with some real tangible tools that they can apply to their leadership and to their life. So the first one I really want to talk about is this idea of empathy. Julie mentions in the episode that when leaders learn a new language and learn how to communicate with folks who come from a different background, it gives them a whole new level of empathy for the people that they lead. And I just love that concept and what language allows people to experience. David, what are some other ways that leaders can develop empathy? Because learning a language takes a lot of time, and it's pretty hard.
- [53:26]
David Novak
Yeah, well, first of all, I think learning another language shows such respect to the people that know that language. And, you know, one of the things that I did when I went to Japan is I had the first three paragraphs of my speech written out in Japanese so that I could share it with the Japanese franchisees. Now, I did a absolutely terrible job. I butchered the Japanese so bad, and they literally were laughing all the way through it, you know, but when I was done, they gave me like a standing ovation because I tried. And, you know, I think learning a new language is hard. You know, putting your neck out there, trying to. Trying to, you know, offer it up in some way that is uniquely yourself is very hard. And. But people appreciate the effort. And I think that's. That's. That's really the cool thing about languages. It takes a lot of effort to learn a. A second language. I think in the United States, we're spoiled because we're the universal language. Everybody learns our language, and we expect everybody to know it, particularly in the educated world, because there's no way you're going to move up in a global company if you can't speak English. So everybody has to learn English, but you don't have to learn Spanish if you're an American. You don't have to learn, you know, Mandarin. You know, you can get by because everybody's expected to learn your language. So I wish I could speak more languages. I have a hard enough time with this one. But the fact of the matter is, if I could, I think I could be more relevant and more empathetic with a lot of other nationalities. But how can you develop empathy? I think the biggest thing I'd remember is this, is that, you know what? In every business, you have to study your customers, right? You have to study your customers. You got to know how your customers are thinking. If you know how your customers thinking, you can be relevant to them. You can frame up what you offer them in the positive way, in a way that they're going to embrace it. Well, what I would say is people that you work with are customers too. Just think about it that way. Think about people as customers. And if your success depends on your ability to communicate with and understand customer needs, then why don't you look at your people the same way? And I think if you look at your people the same way you think about customers, I think you will be more empathetic because you'll get inside their heads and you'll understand how they're really thinking. So that would be my biggest piece of advice.
- [56:12]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
It reminds me of that question that you always ask, what perceptions, habits or beliefs do I need to build change or reinforce in order to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish?
- [56:21]
David Novak
And I used that same question when I was thinking about how do I lead people? And that's why I wrote the book Taking people with you. And it's all geared towards being empathetic towards the people that you lead, understanding where they're coming from. And then you can overcome obstacles and inspire.
- [56:37]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
Well, speaking of overcoming obstacles, great. Dovetail into the next topic that I want to get your insights on, David. It's change management. And in the episode, Julie talks about how important it is to over communicate when you're going through a season of change. She says that when she is sick of hearing herself say something, that's about when it's finally sinking in for her team. Now, aside from over communicating, what else should leaders focus on during a season of change?
- [57:05]
David Novak
Her point about over communicating is a good one to really start on or at least reinforce. Because in media there's this thing called effective reach that you're not going to get your message across in media unless people have seen your commercial or your advertisement at least four times. And that is why you look at effective reach in terms of your media plans. Because you want to make sure that people see your message at least four times. And if they don't see it four times, it's not going to really sync. So, yeah, that's the way our life is. You got to communicate, communicate, communicate. Because you know the more you say it, the more it will ultimately sink in. I think when it comes to change management and advice in that area, I think the most important thing you have to do to drive change is you got to create a burning platform. People got to realize that if they keep going down the same path, they're going to fail. And if you don't change, you're going to Be in deep wanna. And then what you have to do is make sure that that reality is really understood. And then you gotta create hope about what it's gonna take to really drive the change that'll take you to the promised land. So, number one, you gotta drive extreme pain and communicate that pain so clearly that everybody understands that, hey, they gotta, they gotta do something different or we're gonna keep getting the same results or worse results or basically go out of business or lose our job. You know, you gotta create pain, then you gotta create hope by having a process and an approach that's gonna help you find the answer that's gonna get you moving in the right direction where you can succeed and your people can win. And if people are motivated by pain and then the hope and the desire for a better outcome, I think you can drive it. But I think that's really important. And I will tell you this. All change management comes down to why. Why is it necessary? What's in it for me and you as a leader? Are you going to do it too? That's very, very powerful.
- [59:33]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
I love that third one because it invites that accountability too, and transparency with the team. Hey, the pain's affecting me too. We all got to go here.
- [59:42]
David Novak
And I'm going to lead the way. I'm going to do it too, because if I don't do it, I'm going to be in deep one or two.
- [59:46]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
So with change often comes conflict. And the theme of productive conflict is another one that I want to break down with you, David. In the episode, Julie talks about when she is engaging in conflict, she usually always leads with data because she loves numbers and she likes leaning on that when she's making her argument. But she also studies her audience first and she knows how they like to receive information, whether they want a quiet room with a. With a printout that they can read and reflect on, or if they want this big presentation with a lot of energy. When do you think about productive conflict? What advice would you give people who want to get better at it?
- [60:24]
David Novak
Well, number one, recognize that no one even likes conflict. It's the least favorite thing for almost everybody in the world. If I asked a people, if I asked a thousand people in a room to raise their hand if they like conflict, nobody'd raise their hand. So I think the first thing you have to do to have productive conflict is to embrace it. And I think what you have to do is sniff out the conflict. Where is the conflict? And then when you know there's conflict, bring it up and seek productive Conflict is when you seek an outcome where the conflict no longer exists or you have an outcome that takes you down a path to where you're going to minimize that conflict, because you're going to come up with a much better solution. Productive conflict means getting rid of the conflict through a better option and a better solution. But you can't do that if you don't at least raise the issue. So I always really believed and I taught people in my leadership program to sniff out the slow nose, okay? You gotta have an eye for conflict. You gotta be. Just watch the body language. You know, a stereotypical example is, you know, let's say the finance guy always wants to trade, raise prices. The marketing guy wants to keep the prices low. That's a stereotypical conflict. So when somebody talks about a price increase, make sure both those people get engaged in the discussion. Don't let them. One of them just sit there with their arms crossed saying, I think that's a dumb idea. Okay. You know, I think that's important. The last thing I would say is that if you really want to have great productive conflict, you have to have team together, team apart. Team together means you get everybody's input on a discussion, you know, get all the conflict out on the table, let everybody provide their input, and then you, as a leader, you know, work with the team to come up with the best outcome, the best solution that you have at that point in time. Get everybody to agree on it and then execute the heck out of it. But demand everybody that now that we've taken the time to go through the productive conflict, to go through all the. To come up with the solution, demand everybody to stay on the same page when they walk out the room. That is now we're. We just did team together. Now we're going to be team apart, and we're going to be. When we're apart, we're going to be a team, and we're going to stay true to what we just decided here. You don't want people walking out after you have a discussion to try to. To where you deal with all the conflict that might be there. You don't want them walking out of the room and, you know, going off going, can you believe Tim wants to do this? Can you believe Kula wants to do this? I can't believe that. Hey, if they do that after you've gone through the effort to have productive conflict and get all the issues out on the table, man, when I would see that happen, I'd hunt those people down and they would get one Bit of two by four action by me, okay? Because it's unacceptable. That's just not the way how you are as a team. You're going to be a team. You work together to come up with the best solution, then you make the decision, then we all execute the decision together.
- [63:39]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
I'm so fired up by this, David, because, I mean, candidly, I am someone who is naturally pretty conflict diverse. And one thing that you've been encouraging me recently to do is to look for opportunities to respectfully disagree. And so I wrote that down and it's on a sticky note on my laptop. It says, look for opportunities to respectfully disagree. And I think it's so true because when conflict goes unspoken, it just turns into resentment, it turns into distrust, and it turns into toxicity. So if you don't air it all out in the team together piece, you're. You deserve two by four by you.
- [64:14]
David Novak
Yeah, right. Well, you know, I. I use that only as an example of. I know to make my point. I never used the two by four literally, of course, although I was very direct to my feedback when I have to be. And I think that's what you must be able to do. And I've never seen anyone become a great leader without being able to deal with conflict in a productive fashion.
- [64:38]
Podcast Host / Interview Producer
Well, David, I've learned so much from you and from Julie throughout this entire episode. So thank you again for such a great conversation and thank you to our listeners for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead. We will see you next Thursday day.