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- [00:01]
A
What advice would you give to your younger self about navigating your career while staying true to yourself?
- [00:07]
B
I had this realization that I was allowing other people to be my source of confidence and I was looking to other people for their feedback and their approval to know whether or not I was doing a good job. And I don't know what switch flipped. It was when I was doing my brand role when I realized that I think I am the most knowledgeable person in this building, if not the firm about the thing that I am talking about right now, which is the brand, the crisis and everything digital and what have you. And so I just felt in that moment that I was my own source of self confidence. It changed everything from that moment on and gave me courage to tap into that. I just hadn't felt that deeply before. And I always encourage people to be their own sources of self confidence.
- [00:57]
A
I love that. Hello and welcome to the Leadership Dance Podcast where we explore the art of leadership with trailblazers in business and the arts. If you enjoy the show, please share, subscribe and leave a five star rating. And if you're listening to this episode right now, also check out our YouTube channel. At the Leadership Dance, I'm your host, Alisa sue lynch and today I'm thrilled to be speaking with Lisa Shallet. Lisa is the co founder of Extraordinary Women on Boards, a powerful community of 1000 plus women serving on public and private for profit boards. A former Goldman Sachs partner, she is known for her agility, having held global leadership roles spanning capital markets, risk and crisis management, compliance, commitment, governance, brand marketing, digital transformation and innovation. She serves on the boards of PennyMac, Empower Partners and Lord Abbott's Alternative Funds. I'm so excited we're here today, Lisa.
- [02:01]
B
I am definitely excited to be with you. Thank you so much.
- [02:05]
A
So you have such an interesting background, but I want to start by talking about what was little Lisa like growing up. Tell us about your early years.
- [02:14]
B
I think I was pretty much what one would call a good girl in quotes. And that is something that I've been trying to shed for a very long time. But we can get into that if you decide. I was very curious. I always loved reading. We'll zoom up to when I was in high school. You know, having grown up on Long island was very lucky to have an experience that I could not have predicted. I was nominated by my high school, Rosslyn High School to compete for a scholarship to go do a homestay in Japan when I was 15 between my junior and senior years of high school and there Was no good reason for that to happen. But that was a game changing experience for me. I ended up living with a Japanese family for that summer three months. They did not speak any English, I did not speak any Japanese. And that really expanded my worldview and really to this day affects how I think about a lot of things.
- [03:17]
A
Wow. I definitely want to delve into that. But what language did you learn in high school? Because usually you pick up some kind of foreign language. It wasn't Japanese.
- [03:25]
B
No. There was no Japanese taught at that time. That was very unusual to have any of those Asian languages or, you know, non Romance languages that were taught, although I love languages. So in high school I learned Spanish and I learned Latin.
- [03:40]
A
Okay. I also studied Latin in high school. Very useful. Non speaking language.
- [03:45]
B
Yes. I mean, to this day. But I have to say, when I saw studying Japanese, which I did in college, one of the things that came out of that homestay experience was a real desire to go back and one day speak with that family in Japanese, which was something I was able to accomplish. But once I started studying Japanese, it pushed every other language out of my head.
- [04:07]
A
Yes. Wow. You know that I'm actually on a board of a Japanese company now.
- [04:12]
B
Yes.
- [04:12]
A
But I'm also starting to learn a little Japanese. I'm putting it out there, but I'm not putting in the hours really yet. I'm just learning very, very basic Japane. Because I have a couple of meetings in Tokyo each year.
- [04:23]
B
Oh my gosh, we have to talk about this. I have a lot of good shortcuts for you. And you know, as you're probably already discovering, Japanese is more than a language of words. You kind of use your body in it and you know you're really getting it when, for example, if you're on the phone or if you're face to face with someone, you find yourself starting to bow as you speak it. That'll be your benchmark.
- [04:48]
A
So tell me about the time in Japan, your first time in Japan that summer, you didn't speak any Japanese? They didn't speak any English? No. What was the scholarship for?
- [04:57]
B
It was an interesting offering from an organization called Youth for Understanding, which was a student Exchange program, the U.S. senate and the Japanese Diet. And from this program, there were two students chosen from each state and then some other partial scholarships that were offered. The process for deciding who would go was very rigorous. I remember getting my first interview, clothes ever, at age 15. I think it was a J. McLachlan with my mom. And then we had to take a ride From Long island all the way to Albany for some very tough interviews on cross cultural things that I really hadn't thought about before.
- [05:43]
A
Had you traveled much at that point?
- [05:45]
B
I mean, not really. I mean, I was very lucky to be able to go on vacation out of the country with my family, but otherwise hadn't really done that much traveling up until that point. So it was a shock when I went through all the competitive aspects, which competition comes naturally to me. So very competitive aspects of winning that scholarship and having that opportunity to go and then it not really hitting me until I was on a very, very long plane ride as to what I had signed up for. And this was to date my back in the day when there was no Internet, when international phone calls were really expensive, when there was a time difference no matter what, that obviously still exists. But that combination plus the snail mail maybe my parents and I were able to get two rounds of letters to each other the whole summer and to try to plan a phone call with the time difference when it was really expensive as well, ensuring that there wasn't very much communication. And now I'm sure we can't imagine a world where we're so out of touch.
- [06:52]
A
Oh yeah, well, we have Google Translate on our phones now too, for sure.
- [06:56]
B
I mean, but it was kind of a totally different time and place and experience. And, you know, not being able to speak the language, you become very good at charades. And what I discovered was because I was around so much Japanese, you know, I developed an ear for the language. And so when I ultimately went back and studied Japanese, my accent, I'm told, is very natural.
- [07:20]
A
That makes sense. Yeah. So my sister and I only spoke English at home. My parents spoke English to us, but originally they're from China and they would always speak Chinese to each other. So what you were just saying of it was in my head, I was listening to it all the time, even if I wasn't speaking it. So when I studied Chinese in college, also my pronunciation was better than somebody who, you know, had no exposure to it.
- [07:45]
B
Well, you'll appreciate that as an East Asian studies major in college, I was petrified of taking. There were so many tones, it was so difficult. Whereas Japanese had its own quirks. But Chinese looked so much harder. So you must have a musical ear.
- [08:01]
A
I do, because my mother was a classical pianist and taught piano in the home. So I grew up with music. And when I was dancing, I was always a very musical dancer.
- [08:11]
B
So that will help you with your Japanese.
- [08:13]
A
Yes. Yeah. So that summer though, was there a program that you were attending that was in English, or Was it immersion? 100%.
- [08:22]
B
It was a lot of immersion. You know, I would spend my days with my host family, mostly with my host mother, because my host sisters and brother were at school all day, even during the summer. I was very lucky. My host mother was not only just a wonderful personality and energy as with a great sense of humor, which one needed to deal with me and to deal with the language difference. But she would stay very busy doing lots of different lessons. So we went to jewelry making lessons, we went to calligraphy lessons, we went to swimming lessons, and there were all kinds of things. And she brought me everywhere. And so I had a chance to meet a lot of different people in the neighborhood and do some fun things with her.
- [09:05]
A
That sounds like an amazing experience.
- [09:07]
B
It was. But there were some programs that were put together to bring all the students together who were there on that program every so often. So they were once in a while.
- [09:17]
A
And then you said you did go back eventually and meet the family again.
- [09:21]
B
I did. So I went to Harvard, and I initially was going to be an English major. And when I started taking Japanese, it was very clear that if I were really going to take that language, I would have to major in it. It took up so much of my schedule, and I decided to. My parents thought I was absolutely crazy at the time, but I knew I wanted to go back and speak with that family. And so it took me until my sophomore year. I studied in Japan between my sophomore and junior and was able to go see that family. I spoke to them in Japanese, and I was criticized immediately for speaking too formally because I was family. I should be speaking in more informal
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A
language, which they don't necessarily teach you
- [10:04]
B
in, which they definitely don't teach you from the textbook. And so initially I was stunned by that. But then I realized that was probably the warmest, most inclusive thing that could have been said. And I will say that one of the host sisters that I've of course, stayed in touch with now lives in Florida. And she called me up last October and asked if she could come stay with me with her daughter. And I thought, how full circle is that?
- [10:30]
A
I know.
- [10:30]
B
And so she came to New York City and stayed with me. And that was amazing.
- [10:34]
A
Oh, that's so great. That's a great story. So you majored in East Asian Studies at Harvard? Yes. How did you end up at Goldman Sachs?
- [10:44]
B
Oh, my gosh. Well, that's quite a journey, I will say, about the timing of my studying Japanese. As I said, it was a very unusual thing to be able to study Japanese. And so when I started taking those classes, it was maybe 20 of us. And by the time I graduated, because at that time, Japan was really growing in prominence as an economic power in the world, I looked like a genius because the major had exploded. What was 30 went to, you know, 20, 30 went to, like, over. Felt like over 200, if not more. And I emerged, you know, one of the few people who was able to, you know, be fluent in Japanese. So after college, I had an opportunity to work at what was Japan's largest media company, a company called Fujisanke that no one in the United States really had heard of, but was the equivalent of then maybe Time Warner or name your huge media company. And I was able to make Japanese game shows and do a home shopping show for a year and a half in Japan, and then a little bit longer work in their catalog business and then come back to the United States and work in their overseas headquarters, which were in New York, doing all kinds of crazy things that were related to media, related to the US and really coming in and letting the fax machine spit out at that time, anything that the 102 companies in the Fujisanke Group wanted from this office here in the United States, that was in New York. And so I would get sent to test a restaurant to go to a show to explain the weather, to sometimes find people who would then be sent to Japan to appear on a show. Every day there would be an interesting adventure that was waiting for me. And so I did that and realized that I really wasn't learning very much about business and that they were never going to really promote. Promote me and let me run the place. And so I had to learn about business. And so something I had never anticipated doing was going to business school. And I was very lucky. I had the opportunity to go to Harvard Business School and was the person who showed up in an accounting class with accountants, you know, or with folks who had done programs at investment banks or consulting firms. And I had had this quite unique and unusual experience. So I really had to work hard and learn a lot. Even then at Harvard Business School, it did not dawn on me that Wall street was on my horizon. In fact, it was when the first original version of Wall street, the movie, came out. And I have to say that was not particularly an inviting introduction to Wall Street. And so instead I went to work for a company that was German in the media industry called Bertelsmann, that had heard of the Fujisake Group and very actively Recruited me in business school for that reason. I ended up doing something at Bertelsmann that was not Japan related. I signed up for a Japan related thing. It was a fascinating marketing assignment that was starting in Japan. Something that again, I'll date myself by saying 8 CDs for the price of one. Nothing more to buy ever. Which was a competitor to Columbia House's 12 CDs for a penny or something like that. Just, just a shout out to obsolescence. But you know, sometimes you sign up for something and you then do some additional research and discover in this case that that kind of direct marketing was not legal in Japan at the time because you had to opt out as opposed to opt in in. You would get the offering unless you said you didn't want it. And most people would get the offering and feel either embarrassed or feel like they couldn't return it. There are a lot of business models that are based on inertia. And so because of that I had to do something non Japan related. And I have discovered many times over that sometimes when you really see what you love, it's because you've experienced an absence of it. And so by not doing something Japan related, it made me realize how much that meant to me and how much I wanted my career to have something to do with that. So when I had an opportunity to interview for a job that was Japanese equity sales, that was initially at bzw, the brokerage arm of Barclays, I got that job and it was a phenomenal experience. I year and a half after that moved to Goldman Sachs in that role and then spent 20 years at Goldman Sachs.
- [15:36]
A
Wow. So a somewhat winding road, but very interesting. Yes. So you were talking about in business school, kind of signing up for the accounting and probably financial management.
- [15:48]
B
I had no choice, couldn't hide from it.
- [15:51]
A
Yeah. So I did something similar coming from my dance career and then wanting to pivot into business. I'm like, I've got to take the hard courses because this is where I lack the skills. And didn't say I did well in
- [16:04]
B
those, but I'm guessing you did fine.
- [16:07]
A
I did okay. I got my MBA and actually I found that supply chain management, which probably at the time I didn't enjoy the course that much, was so useful in brand management, just having that understanding.
- [16:21]
B
That's really interesting.
- [16:22]
A
So you spent your first decade in equities in New York and Tokyo.
- [16:26]
B
Yep.
- [16:27]
A
Then you pivoted to COO of Global Compliance, Legal and Audit. Then you ran the Goldman brand during the financial crisis. So most people don't reinvent themselves that many times within one firm. You were there for 20 years. What was driving those moves? Were they intentional? Did you follow your gut? How did you make those pivots?
- [16:49]
B
So I think that most people tend to expect very vertical careers. You know, they, they show up, they hope they do well and maybe run that business one day. And I would say I was probably no different. In fact, I had made partner in my role in the equities division. So I thought that one because of my, you know, Japan background and at that point, deep client relationships and international experience, etc. And being one of the few, at one point, one of the only female partners in the equities division globally, I did not think that I was going to be allowed out even if I wanted to. And so I was really surprised when one day I was called into the office of one of the co heads of the equities division and was given the opportunity to become the chief operating officer initially of Global Compliance. And that was one of those moments where you just have to take a beat because wait a second, what exactly is going on here? That is a big change from a so called external client facing revenue business to a control function that in and of itself is a big change. And then, you know, thinking about a job I had where every day I did it, I got better at it just by virtue of having another 24 hours of experience in markets and such and all of my relationships and all the things that I had, you know, built up at that point, did I really want to step away from that? And everybody was saying to me, don't do it. No, that's crazy. Stay where you are, everything will be fine. And I somehow started to think about it differently and it dawned on me that a role in compliance or most control functions is a great kind of portal to understanding all of the businesses of the firm. And that maybe with my business background and the things that I had just gotten good at doing, maybe that could be useful to the compliance team and how they did business with their internal clients. And I sort of came around and said, yes, I want to do that. And look, there are many mitigating factors aside from the fact that someone had the idea to begin with. But the person who was running Global Compliance was an incredible guy, Alan Cohen. And so getting to work with him, a very respected person, but someone who had come to Goldman from the outside and so I was going to be able to help him from the inside. There were so many aspects that seemed very interesting to me, such that I somehow worked up the courage to step away from a career that otherwise had been going very well and do something completely new. Now, I will tell you that the person who suggested this role to me when I later, you know, some years later, had a discussion with him about, like, what were you thinking? Like, why was. He said, I was actually wondering what you were thinking. Why did you do that? I'm like, what? You know, what I said, can we just erase that? I don't want to hear that, but thank you because that really changed my life. And so once I did that and experienced what it's like to learn completely new things but draw upon your experience doing it, I realized that agility was a skill. I enjoyed having super steep learning curve. I enjoyed figuring out like, okay, how am I going to justify my existence here and show up amidst a sea of subject matter experts and bring something that they don't already have? You know, how am I coming in at a relatively senior level, going to be respectful of everything that they already know and listen carefully and see what, with a beginner's mind, I can do? And that really changed the way I look at roles and the challenges that I would seek out for myself. And so I had many, many of those pivots like you, like you outlined, because I would decided to run toward them.
- [21:04]
A
That's an amazing experience to have and one that you've applied over and over again.
- [21:08]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's not that I'm fearless, but those things don't scare me. And when I talk with mentees or just become a sounding board for folks who are considering like big pivots or changes, I definitely have a bias, you know, because I think that those are the best ways to learn.
- [21:26]
A
Absolutely. I agree. Yes.
- [21:28]
B
I know you've done a few yourself.
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A
I have. So you were leading brand marketing at Goldman during the financial crisis.
- [21:38]
B
Yes.
- [21:39]
A
That must have been a challenging time. Tell us about what it was like and how you handled it.
- [21:45]
B
So that was yet another situation where by this point I had learned to raise my own hand and ask for an opportunity. So I had been in global compliance at that point for four and a half years and along the way had picked up the COO responsibilities for the legal department and for audit and just to timestamp it. That was when the financial sector was completely imploding. That was when Bear Stearns and Lehman, you know, went out of business. And that's when, you know, Goldman Sachs became a bank holding company. So that had been an interesting front row seat, as it was. And so when I raised my hand for my next thing, in fact went back to the same person, Gary Cohen, who had put me in the compliance, legal and audit seat. I said, okay, what is something you're trying to solve? Whatever it is, bring it on. And if I could do that, I can do this. And he suggested a role that didn't even have the CMO title on it yet, because Goldman wasn't a firm that had all these consumer businesses that required marketing in the traditional sense. There was no bank, there were no branches at that time, there were no consumer businesses. And so there wasn't really a need for the budgets of advertising and marketing in the way that many of Goldman's competitors at the time were functioning. So what was brand marketing really? That was about digital strategy, which nobody understood then either. So that was tacked onto my title and I was told, go figure it out. When I took that role, it was Goldman navigating very successfully through the financial crisis. But within two weeks of taking that role, it was a totally different story. All of a sudden, there was one day when the SEC filed fraud charges against Goldman Sachs related to the mortgage crisis. And that took Goldman completely by surprise and revealed that we needed to start explaining who we are and what we do and why it matters. Our strategy up until that point had been kind of mysterious because there was no need for those who didn't already know us, those who were on Main street or other kinds of stakeholders that weren't doing business with us, to know who we are. And as a result, mystique ruled. And that worked for a very long time. But one of the key lessons learned during that period quickly was if you don't tell your story, others will tell it for you.
- [24:29]
A
Yes.
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B
And the interesting thing about that moment in time was that it very quickly coincided with the rise of digital and social channels. So up until that point, the news cycle, however, it was managed on the basis of when the newspaper was published. You had so much time versus now, when everything is instantaneous, if not predicted by some algorithm. And all of a sudden there were these new channels, new sources of conveying information which moved faster than anyone had ever experienced before, which were democratized so anyone could say anything about a brand. And while it created opportunities for a brand, it also created huge risks that no one had ever really contemplated before in the same way. So that is what I found myself in. After taking a role that was already going to be a change and a challenge more innovative, like in its focus. Whereas all of a sudden this was crisis, crisis management for a Brand that was really the poster child for all that was evil on Wall Street, I like to say, because that's what happens when you haven't really invested in telling your story or recognize that your stakeholders are far broader than the folks you think they are.
- [25:49]
A
Yeah. Managing public perception when you don't know,
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B
when you don't think the public matters.
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A
Right, yes.
- [25:56]
B
So that was fascinating. And one thing that I'll say about it, because I've reflected on it a lot as we've seen, all the changes that AI is bringing is every so often, and I'm sure you've experienced this too, you have these level playing field moments where no matter how much expertise one might have in a given area, all of a sudden everything you have to learn is completely new. And so if you're a newbie like me coming into a brand role where I wasn't trained as a brand or advertising person, I mean, obviously I had certain skills, but not those. And you hit it right at the moment when even if you were super experienced, you had to learn all of this stuff about digital and social channels that were turning everything on its side. I was so grateful that that was the timing. And obviously I told you I liked steep learning curves. Like, yeah, these were steep, but steep for everyone. And so now it's so interesting to look at what AI is doing because it's the same kind of level playing field moment where you can come from nowhere or you could come from behind even, and then just leap ahead or lead the pack or drive new initiatives or new ways to solve problems.
- [27:15]
A
Yes. Yeah, it does feel like that right now, for sure. As a woman in a predominantly male world, did you face any major barriers or challenges you had to overcome?
- [27:25]
B
You know, it's funny, I guess I would say I had two very male environment experiences. One was in Japan. So when I was working in Japan at Goldman Sachs and then certainly at Fuji Television before that, most of the executives were male at Goldman, certainly a better ratio. But for women leaders, there weren't that many. And so that was a very interesting experience. I never felt disrespected because I was also female and foreign. So that was interesting. I always called it the talking dog phenomenon. So it was very easy for my colleagues as I was running the business to have the first meeting to have me meet their clients, because everyone wanted to meet the talking dog. And I told them, you know, it's wonderful to be able to bring your foreign, your gaijin female boss who can speak Japanese. That's interesting. You have to get the second meeting. Get the second meeting. But that was a very male dominated environment. And I would say there as a foreigner, I would get excused for a lot of things and I had some freedoms that other people didn't. But I would also get excluded from a lot of things, sometimes a lot of the social things that would happen at bars in the evening, et cetera. Now I didn't mind necessarily being left out of those things, but being left out, you miss some important relationship building and things like that. So, you know, you have to navigate your own way. But at Goldman, I always found Goldman to be a very inclusive culture. And when I became a partner, I received on my desk flowers, roses. And they came with a card. And even though I knew that the card was probably written by someone at a flower shop, I have treasured this card and I have kept it to this day. And I have a photo of it on my phone and it said, welcome to the sisterhood.
- [29:24]
A
Oh, wow.
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B
And that was a wonderful feeling. So, yes, most of the time I would walk into a room and I would be the only woman in a room or one of few women in a room, or maybe the only female partner in a room or the most senior woman in the room. However, I always felt like I was treated with respect. Now I always tried to be really well prepared. I always tried to be unassailable in terms of, you know, bringing my best. But I really cannot say that I, other than feeling it often felt awkward in any way. And there were plenty of things that I could do to help mentor women, to help sometimes, you know, coach the men on how to help promote women. Not that the women needed help being promoted, but just make them aware that, for example, the same way, like you might say, oh, well, I'm on a panel and, or I'm at a conference and there's a panel and all the panels are men. You know, sometimes it's the things that you don't notice because they're so commonplace, just saying like, hey. But otherwise there was a lot that I could do to get to know a lot of the high potential women and make sure that they were known and make sure that they were given opportunities and create a safe space for them to come in and speak if I could be helpful in any way. So all of that, you know, would go on. But I wouldn't say that if I hadn't been there, that would have been a horrible situation at all.
- [30:55]
A
Well, it sounds like you earned their respect and it's just wonderful how you've been supporting women throughout your career. So we'll get to extraordinary women on board shortly.
- [31:04]
B
But I always benefited from that. You know, a number of my best mentors and bosses, obviously, but especially mentors have been men. You know, I still stay in touch with many of them and always, always felt like they treated me like an excellent person first and then also wanted to understand me as a woman, as a mother. Paid attention to words that we don't say very often these days, you know, diversity and valued, diversity of thought.
- [31:36]
A
And when did you have kids? While you were at Goldman?
- [31:39]
B
Yes, while I was at Goldman. I remember being pregnant with my first son. I have two sons. When I was on the trading floor at Goldman in New York. And it's so funny because there was a colleague of mine from Japan who was Japan's number one ranked strategist. So whenever she would come to New York, we would go around and see clients together. And at one point for each of our second children, we were pregnant at the exact same time. Like our kids were born within days of each other in different places. And so there were these two pregnant women who were like wandering around these largely male offices and people didn't even know what to do with us. We would find that hilarious. But my first son I had in New York and I remember going almost right up to my due date and I was so lucky. I had an easy pregnancy. I know that's not always the case. And I would just go into the trading floor and go about my business. And then one of the guys who was sitting next to me just starts one day, just looking at me, he's like, you know, I really don't want your water to break while I'm sitting next to you and I won't know what to do. And that was a good wake up call because I'm like, oh, you know what, I'm pretty close. I could do it, but why make everyone uncomfortable and take a risk? And I didn't want him to be the person who would help me out if my water broke on the trading floor. Want that to become my new bumper sticker, so to speak. So from that point on, I worked from home.
- [33:15]
A
Okay.
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B
Which was a very unusual thing to do back in the day and, you know, was a week late and. And had my first son.
- [33:23]
A
How long did you take off?
- [33:25]
B
You know, so I think I was given a very generous maternity leave at that time. Two months, three months, I can't remember. But it was, it was, you know, across industries, Financial services did an excellent job of that. But I definitely got Antsy. And I was on a trading floor, and all of a sudden it was super quiet. I was very lucky to have a baby nurse initially and then was very lucky to find excellent nanny, and again, super grateful that I was able to do that, afford that, et cetera. But I knew I needed to go back sooner than expected when I found that I was arbitraging red pepper prices on First Avenue. And I just felt like I needed to get back into the flow and the energy of the trading floor. And so a little bit earlier than I needed to. And because everything was stable at home, I felt like that would just make me feel more me. And so I was able to try out going back, and it worked out. And that was, again, largely because of great help and family support.
- [34:41]
A
And your kids have turned out well?
- [34:43]
B
I think they have for sure. And I think they understand a little bit better, you know, what I was doing when I was not there. But my younger son was born also in New York. But when I knew I was going to be heading to Tokyo. And so I had to wait until three months before we could move. And so, you know, when we arrived in Japan for that next stint, one was three and one was three months. And so that was a big, interesting experience. And so they had their early years in Japan.
- [35:18]
A
How long were you there at that time?
- [35:20]
B
I was there about two years.
- [35:22]
A
Okay.
- [35:23]
B
And then came back. Yeah.
- [35:24]
A
So they may not remember it then.
- [35:26]
B
You know, they remember some things. And we haven't gone back yet.
- [35:31]
A
Oh, yes, we do.
- [35:32]
B
I didn't want to force it on them. I was waiting for them to tell me when they wanted to go back. And of course, they've heard stories, and of course they've seen lots of photos, and they know that that's an important part of their past. But over the past year or two, they've said, we really want to go back. And I've been thrilled and look forward to planning that trip as soon as schedules allow.
- [35:53]
A
Amazing. Amazing. So, Lisa, it's now time for the Elisa Asks Rapid Fire Questions.
- [36:00]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [36:01]
A
Okay. What's your favorite thing to do in Japan?
- [36:05]
B
Hmm. My favorite thing to do in Japan might be karaoke.
- [36:10]
A
Oh, okay. What's your go to karaoke song?
- [36:14]
B
That's a hard one. For a while, it was Drops of Jupiter. I'm not gonna sing it for you now.
- [36:21]
A
When I lived in Shanghai in China, I planned for my marketing team, a team off site. And like in the US we went to a salon and got our nails done, and it was very nice and then for the next one, I said, what do you wanna do this time? And they said, karaoke.
- [36:38]
B
Yes.
- [36:39]
A
And they videotaped me singing baby hit me one more time. You know, Britney Spears, and played that during my farewell. That was. That was not welcomed.
- [36:49]
B
I just want to say that violated a very important rule of karaoke, which is what happens in karaoke stays in karaoke. And I'm doing the Japanese pronunciation of karaoke. I should call it karaoke. But that was a big violation.
- [37:03]
A
I just want to say they did not care. They had a lot.
- [37:05]
B
I'm sure you were great, though.
- [37:07]
A
No, I was not. What's one thing you'd like to change about board meetings?
- [37:13]
B
Oh, just one thing. That is a really hard. That is the hardest question you could ask me. I think the thing that I would change would be having better board materials that then can lead to a much more actionable discussion in the room.
- [37:36]
A
We're gonna get into this again later. But. But what's your worst dating app experience?
- [37:42]
B
All of them.
- [37:43]
A
Really? All of them. What do you hate about it?
- [37:45]
B
That's a hard question too. I think that on the one hand, it's fascinating to have this endless inventory of men to choose from. That is a very weird thing. But on the other hand, it's hard to trust it and feel like what you're seeing is real and authentic. And authenticity matters a lot to me. So I would have trouble swiping unless a bunch of my girlfriends help me to do that.
- [38:19]
A
Right, right. Yeah. I think it's probably like anything else, if you're able to meet someone through your network, that hopefully would work out better. Yeah.
- [38:28]
B
But there are a lot of people who have met their dream person. Eastern dating app. So it's possible.
- [38:34]
A
It is possible. What's the last thing you googled?
- [38:38]
B
Oh, probably something silly. I think the last thing that I googled was something about Claude.
- [38:46]
A
Okay. Yeah.
- [38:47]
B
I probably should have just asked Claude.
- [38:48]
A
Yeah, ask Claude about Claude.
- [38:51]
B
Yeah, that's what we're supposed to do. Right.
- [38:55]
A
What's a book that you're reading right now?
- [38:57]
B
You know, I'm not good at reading books. I like listening to books. But even so, sitting still and making the time is hard. Tremendous thirst for knowledge. Have to figure out the best way into my head. And I just bought a new book that I'm really excited about, and it's about rituals, and it's by Bruce Feiler. And I know Bruce. He is a brilliant thinker. He's written so many fascinating books, including one of the best books I'VE ever read about transitions, which is another favorite topic of mine. But he just wrote a book about rituals, and I think rituals have become so important to us, and there's such an innovation of rituals that's going on. So I'm excited to read that.
- [39:45]
A
Okay. Yeah, I'll have to check that out.
- [39:46]
B
I highly recommend it.
- [39:47]
A
Yeah. And I know you do read a lot because you put together an incredible email newsletter for ewab.
- [39:54]
B
Our team does. Yes.
- [39:55]
A
Extraordinary women on boards. That really keeps me informed.
- [39:59]
B
I'm glad to hear that.
- [40:00]
A
Yes.
- [40:00]
B
You know, doing that newsletter keeps me sharp, too.
- [40:03]
A
Yes, absolutely. Okay, last rapid fire question. What's your favorite song to dance to or type of music?
- [40:10]
B
Wow. What is my favorite song to dance to? Okay, I've got to think about this for a second now. I'm with a dancer, so I wish. I wish, you know, you could teach me a thing or two, but lately I've been really into a few different songs. I've been listening to Lizzo's Good as Hell. Oh, yeah, I love that one. I've been listening to for some unknown reason, Stay by Justin Bieber and another person whose name I can't remember. Kid Something kid Laroi Leroy. Thank you. And I just love that. And I love Whitney Houston's version of Higher Love.
- [40:54]
A
Okay, nice. Inspirational songs. Okay, you made it through the Rapid fire questions. Okay, so you left Goldman after 20 years. What made you decide to finally leave? And did you know what you wanted to do next?
- [41:08]
B
We all have interesting reasons why we make changes, and sometimes they're ones that you do proactively, and sometimes they happen to you. So in this case, my dad suddenly passed away, and that was in October of 2013. I remember exactly where I was when I got not one, but two phone calls that made me answer at an odd time on a Friday afternoon. And it turned out that my dad had fallen off a ladder while at home and had lost consciousness. And I better get out to Long island really fast. And so I dropped everything and got myself from New York City to Long Island. And. And he passed away.
- [41:54]
A
He didn't regain consciousness.
- [41:55]
B
He never regained consciousness. And so that was a shock. And in the time that one takes to reflect on when those things happen, I really used that time well. And it dawned on me that I had never really stopped, that I always was running, I was always moving, I was always energized about what I was doing, and I hadn't really stopped to question my priorities and choices. I loved my work, I loved my family, and I Kind of bounced between those two things as best I could. But this made me question. So my dad had been a beloved obgyn. He was often off delivering babies. And, you know, you couldn't really compete with that. You wanted him to go do that. He loved doing that. And sometimes that would, you know, beat out his cutting the turkey for Thanksgiving or, you know, even being home in time for dinner. Both of my parents worked. My mom was a very successful interior designer. And there were often weeknights where my sister and I would, you know, have dinner together. And I realized that I was doing that too, and I was not showing up for dinner. And based on that experience, now I decided that my priority was to be home in time for dinner. And, you know, I lived at that time in Westchester in the suburbs of New York City. So the commute was not easy to make it home in time for dinner. My job was all consuming, either by my own design or by Goldman's, but that combination could definitely ensure that I had some pretty long hours. And suddenly being home in time for dinner was really important. I did not see a way to be a partner at Goldman Sachs at the level of excellence that I held myself to and still leave in time to get home for dinner. And that was my own thinking. That wasn't certainly necessarily. I mean, there were plenty of people who made it home in time for dinner, but I just didn't see myself working in the same way. And so I kind of surprised everyone and said, you know, I think I'm going to leave. And so I would say that the reflection on the death of my dad made it not an if, but a when. And then, you know, knowing that the right sign would happen, that it was the time to go, came not that long afterwards. And I felt like I was in a good place as far as how I was regarded, how my team was regarded. There were certainly great tal behind me, and I left specifically with my only responsibility to be home in time for dinner. So I did not look for another job. I did not even think about that.
- [44:48]
A
So what gave you the idea to found extraordinary women on boards?
- [44:53]
B
So I think amazing things happen when you give yourself space to think, to learn, or to experience things, and sometimes things you never expected would happen. And that was the case here. So one of the feelings that I had pretty much immediately after leaving a firm like Goldman Sachs, where so much information is coming to me, where I always could feel like sharp and at my best in terms of, here's what's going on. And not only that, but probably have a view on it, and then you walk out of the building and all of a sudden it's like radioactive decay. You know, how am I going to replicate this? How am I going to keep this? And I did not want to be the typical person who might go stale. You know, retirement was not the word I was going for. And I had joined two boards. I was very lucky to get on two boards through my own relationships and started to mingle around with board directors. And there were some board directors I saw who were content to be stale. It's like nowadays not knowing what ChatGPT is or Claude is like, no, I realized that that was a big nightmare of mine. And so how was I going to, you know, in the time between waking up and dinner, a lot of time, invest in staying cutting edge. And so I would come into New York City, and because of my brand role, I had so many connections within the startup ecosystem that I just started spending time with founders in the context of doing that, which worked really well, by the way. I started meeting all of these women who were, like me, the only women in their boardrooms. They wanted to meet more women on boards, and they also accepted that what got them into the boardroom did not necessarily mean that they were an excellent director. So where could they go to ask questions that sometimes would be basic if there was something that they didn't know or were newly encountering, and they were finding that there weren't so many places to go to for that. And some of the ones that they went to were not so hospitable, where more experienced board directors might say, you know, the equivalent of, you know, hey, missy, if you are asking a question like that, maybe you don't belong in the boardroom, Right? And so they would all tell me that they had had experiences along those lines. And then they would seek out other forums looking for organizations that focused on women and boards of which there were many. And what would happen there, as they were already in boardrooms, was they would be looking to have conversations about the context of their boardrooms, but instead would find that because those organizations combined women aspiring to be on boards with women already on boards. And by the way, all of these women wanted to help more women get on boards. They couldn't have conversations beyond how do I get on a board? They were more looking for nerdy conversations about, hey, an activist just showed up on my board. Anyone have that experience? What do I do? Or I just became chair of the audit committee. Has anyone done that before? And how do I do that? Really, really well. They were all about having impact and understanding how to navigate through what might be new situations. And so what they wanted was a trusted safe space and a peer group of women who were already in the boardroom with seats at the table, who were experiencing the same things that they were experiencing, could look at things from a risk perspective and an oversight perspective and really kind of compare notes and tap into collective wisdom. And they were finding that what we now call portfolio life, which is, you know, I guess the substitute for retirement. You're busier than ever before doing a whole bunch of things. Board work was one part, might be a big part, a small part. How do I find a peer group again? Because I had that when I was in my work life and now I'm kind of isolated having to figure out what that portfolio is. And so I met 15 women who all said that and realizing that I was the common link, why not bring them all together? And so what was supposed to be a one time lunch, which was to supposed an amazing experience, you know, ended up becoming a side hustle where then I would start to gather this group and the women started to refer in every time I would have a gathering. Other women who were on at least one public or private for profit board, they held me clean to that. And we would just learn together and we would walk out smarter and we would have actionable insights and smart questions to bring back to their boardrooms. Great. In the meantime, there were so many great friendships formed and a whole community where, you know, you could show up and just assume respect. And women don't always feel that all the time.
- [49:55]
A
Yeah.
- [49:55]
B
And so word of mouth grows, it gets to be a hundred and then we flip into the pandemic and all of a sudden nobody can meet in person anymore. Yet the issues facing boards and leaders were exploding. And so, so we replicated it in Zoom and were able to do it more often. The group showed up and then people started to refer people in from anywhere. And as a result it went from 100 to 200 and just started to grow. And I looked up in like August of 2020 and just realized that this was taking up a lot of my time. Delightedly so. But something was going on here that seemed pretty amazing and special. And so I realized I needed to take on a co founder. And that's when I met the incredible Le Lisa DiCarlo who joined me. And you know, we each brought different things to the table and professionalized whatever I had been doing with you know, like rubber bands and post it notes. Into a real functioning community. And then when, you know, the community kept asking us to do more things, which we were delighted to do, we realized we needed some help. And so we said, look, we need to hire some help to do all these things. We're going to turn it into a paid community. And look, if you don't think it's valuable, we'll shut it down. But if you do want to support it, then that will help us keep going. And everyone supported it.
- [51:16]
A
Yes. So you saw a huge need in the market.
- [51:18]
B
Yes.
- [51:19]
A
You filled it.
- [51:20]
B
An unmet need.
- [51:21]
A
Yes.
- [51:21]
B
That nobody was really talking about.
- [51:24]
A
Right, right.
- [51:26]
B
But sometimes if you listen well, you find those things.
- [51:29]
A
Yeah. How many members have you grown to now?
- [51:31]
B
So we have about 1100 members. It's all been word of mouth. We don't advertise it. And we're so touched and flattered if that's the right word, when members tell other amazing women about potentially joining the organization because they find it valuable. So I get to meet awesome women all the time.
- [51:51]
A
Yeah, that's how I heard that as well. And we met early when I joined because we went on a retreat in Mexico.
- [51:58]
B
Yes.
- [51:58]
A
The Modern Elder Academy. And then like you said, it's just incredible women and you become Fast forward.
- [52:04]
B
Yeah.
- [52:05]
A
Yeah. So, last question. Lisa, what advice would you give to your younger self about navigating your career while staying true to yourself?
- [52:13]
B
So I think the advice I would give my younger self would be one in relation to time and two, in relation to confidence. Time is a topic I think a lot about now, but I would say my younger self might have been more concerned with helping others and being responsive than necessarily self care or carving out time to sleep or time to think. And I believe that there were probably some better ways to manage my time rather than just always having a pretty crazy schedule. So I'd like to think I've unwired that a little bit. And late in my career, I was already a partner for a number of years when I had this realization that I was allowing other people to be my source of confidence. And I was looking to other people for their feedback and their approval and their permission to know whether or not I was doing a good job. And I don't know what switch flipped. It was when I was doing my brand role when I realized that I think I am the most knowledgeable person in this building, if not the firm, about the thing that I am talking about right now, which is the brand, the crisis and everything digital and what have you. And so I just felt in that moment that I was my own source of self confidence and it changed everything from that moment on and gave me courage to tap into that. I just hadn't felt that deeply before. And I always encourage people to be their own sources of self confidence.
- [54:12]
A
I love that. Well Lisa, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [54:16]
B
Thank you so much.
- [54:16]
A
Love for conversation and learning more about
- [54:19]
B
and congratulations on this successful, amazing podcast.
- [54:22]
A
Thank you. Like follow and share the Leadership Dance where we explore how to choreograph the career of your dreams and chat with visionary leaders in business and the arts. Until next time, keep dancing.