[Music]
as an executive female in tech I’m in a
tiny minority and this really bothers me
earlier this year I was at a conference
with about 6,000 delegates only a
hundred of them were women how is it
possible that for year four years after
llenan we still haven’t changed these
dynamics a few friends of mine and
myself created carbon leadership for
this specific purpose why carbon you ask
it always amazed me as a chemistry major
that carbon could come in two forms
Graphite’s and diamonds and although
alchemists could never change lead into
gold
mother nature showed us that with the
right environment she could change
graphite into diamonds all she needed
was pressure time and heat we are all
diamonds in the making all we need is
the right environment in which to
transform I would like to talk to you
about two elements that will help this
transformation confidence and change
many young women ask me when they first
meet me how it was possible where I got
the confidence to move careers so many
times in my life I went from chemistry
to Investment Banking to teaching to
finance to sales to coaching and as I
reflected on this I realized I certainly
was not born with it because my family
always said I was very shy and timid it
wasn’t a gift that came to me in my
youth because I am still terrified every
time I move I found the secret to
confidence through a failure when I was
in grade 9 my mother decided because I
was shy and reserved and because my
English was atrocious since I came from
Tanzania she decided that I should learn
how to debate I had 7 other
extracurricular activities no time
to debate so I tried to convince my mom
that this was really not a good idea but
you know she gave me one of those looks
the look that freezes your blood over
and the conversation was over my school
decided but the best way to learn was to
throw me into the deep end and see if I
sink or swim so they threw me into the
first debate the problem was I didn’t
even understand the question of the
debate and because fate has a funny
sense of humor they put another
challenge in my way and my first
competition was against the Canadian
national champion needless to say it did
not go well in those days they used to
put the rankings of all of the
competitors up on the board so at 6
o’clock 9 pages went up we all rushed
through the first page I don’t know why
I was rushing to the first page but we
all rushed to the first page and we
looked down so there were 473
competitors so we look down by the third
page I’m going well there must be
something wrong by the fifth page my
heart is sinking by the seventh page I
can feel the lump in my throat and by
the ninth page when I saw my name next
to number 473 while the tears just
started flowing I was humiliated when my
mom came to pick me up and she asked me
how it went I started crying I said I
was never ever going to put myself in
this kind of position again
I had no talent for it it was obvious
and she calmly said it just takes
practice I was like aren’t you are you
blind I didn’t come in second last which
has a little bit of a hope I came in
last it’s like a sign from God saying
stop doing this and she wouldn’t hear
anything of it so the next day she
stormed into my school yes every
teenagers dream she went directly to my
German teacher who happened to be my
debating coach and I don’t know what she
said to him but when he came
he was shaking and he said he said you
know what we’re going to double our
efforts here and I was like oh my god
but it was slow and painful progress in
fact I felt like a snail climbing a
mountain but fast forward four years
later and we are at the same venue
having a competition for a worldwide
championship position but this time the
results were quite different and I got
the first position now this is a great
story it gives me 15 minutes of fame in
the local paper but more importantly it
was the tipping point of my subconscious
it told me that the secret to success
was practice somewhat similar to what
Malcolm Gladwell says about the 10,000
hours to make an expert but practice
itself is not enough you need to
surround yourself with CEOs as Kevin
Carroll coined it CEOs are chief
encouragement officers in those days my
CEOs were my cousins and they were great
today surprisingly my CEO is my daughter
every time I have a small doubt or a
small insecurity she is there to stamp
it out until she’s replaced it with a
positive thought we all need our CEOs
now my confidence really took a little
bit of a challenge when Delphine asked
me to present the TED talk I am I got a
little nervous but I said yes it’s on my
bucket list I want to cross it off it’s
great but as we approach the the timing
of this TEDx I started getting long
nervous and you know writing the actual
talk practicing it’s having the sweaty
palms and the knobby knees and the heart
that goes thousand miles a minute that’s
I wasn’t so keen on so I decided to try
and convince my family to perhaps do the
talk next year I know I’m ashamed to
admit it but I said maybe you know with
my long
list of to do’s and all of this and the
fact that I might fail like I did in my
debate and my son says to me Mom
you can either quit you can choose to
quit or you can choose to try and I had
a moment of reflection or as they would
say in French and calm Oman the solitude
because I can tell you that he quoted me
to me now as a teenager my son got here
I think that you know things I tell him
go in one ear and out the other but
don’t you mistake it they hear every
word we say so don’t ever give advice
that you aren’t willing to take yourself
so obviously I was not going to be a
quitter to my children and so here I am
now that we’ve established that
confidence is really the first pillar of
success let’s talk a little bit about
change when I meet young women one of
the first questions I ask them is are
you comfortable in the job you have and
about 80 percent of them say yes I would
like you to reflect on that idea
yourself are you comfortable in the jobs
you have do you kind of have a rhythm
that you know or do you have your
network that you’re you feel quite
connected to are there no real surprises
at work anymore
now you don’t have to raise your hands
but I would like you to think about what
Ginni Rometty the CEO of IBM sated that
when you’re comfortable you’ve stopped
growing when you’re comfortable you
stopped growing I mean this is a
nightmare scenario a suicide scenario
for anyone who’s trying to get work-life
balance but she has a point
because even a Forbes study showed that
individuals who move careers every two
years or less earn 50% more than those
who move less frequently so I question
is this the reason why the statistics
around women in the workplace have not
changed according to McKinsey
in the 2016 study they showed that women
when they enter the workforce represent
about 46% of the workforce but at sea
levels they only represent 19% so was it
this fixation on kind of staying
comfortable that was stopping us but
then I saw an incredible study done by
Hewlett Packard they took men and women
of the same caliber and asked them to
apply for a promotion and gave them a
list of criteria now this was the
surprising part sixth when men achieved
60% of the criteria they applied but
when women would only apply when they
achieved a hundred percent of the
criteria now this is incredible this
means that we aren’t even expected to
grow in the new jobs but it gives you a
moment of reflection when I had when I
worked with a woman quite a long time
ago
her name was Claire she was a secretary
and she was brilliant
she was hardworking she was great a team
or great communicator very organized but
she had been a secretary or an assistant
for about eight years and the only thing
I could think of keeping her there was
the fact that she was a single mother so
after working with her for about six
months I saw this opportunity in
marketing and I said Claire you really
should apply it’s phenomenal and it’s
exactly what you were meant to do and
she looked at me like with this face of
horror saying are you kidding I’ve never
studied this I have no experience in it
thank you but no thanks so I was a
little shocked I thought well there’s an
increase in salary but she had nothing
to do with it so we continued
interviewing other people but it was
very clear that she was the right person
for the job so finally I convinced HR
and my management to feed her the job
piecemeal so we did that and three
months later
um she was doing the job completely so I
called her into the office and I said
Claire do you remember that job that you
were offered three months ago do you
regret not taking it and she said oh my
god no I love what I’m doing now and I
said but you’re doing that job right and
she said no no it can’t be
and I finally said look now you really
have to sign the contract because I need
a secretary I’m dying but but she still
didn’t want to and I said look we’ve
kept your your 70 percent of salary
aside you signed this contract you get
it you don’t sign it you become a
secretary again it’s not really what you
want and so she did sign it but do you
see how much of encouragement how much
of a push was needed now I know many of
you are saying well if that ever
happened to me I wouldn’t do it but I
mean I wouldn’t have this problem but is
that true think of the amount of time
someone has told you you should apply
for that position or you would be great
at that and we’ve kind of smiled and
dismissed it so what I would like to
leave you with today is really a story
that still haunts me and hopefully this
will give you the encouragement to
change course when necessary when I
graduated from university I went on to
Wall Street I worked for a company
called de sha a hedge fund that was
quite famous and I thought this is good
I’m going from chemistry to Investment
Banking that’s pretty proud of it
the first week there was quite an
emotional week because the superstar of
the company was leaving to start a
startup and he was looking for young
cheap Talman so it comes no more cheaper
than a young graduate so I asked well
what is this startup going to do and now
I know you guys are gonna judge me but I
want you to remember this was 1994 okay
so he says well it’s going to sell books
on the Internet
and I just laughed I was like that’s
never going to work
you need to go to a
bookstore you need to smell the book you
need to read the first few pages right
so thanks but no thanks
needless to say you’ve guessed it the
company was Amazon the individual was
Jeff Bezos and my kids still say that to
this day this is my billion dollar
mistake I say it’s my billion dollar
lesson which I’m sharing with all of you
today so there are opportunities all
around us if we’re just willing to be
open and receptive to them now I find
women are much less receptive to them
because in their heads they
overdramatize they over exemplify all of
the negative things that could go wrong
and so they just feel like the risk is
too high but the question I want you to
think about is really is it too high to
to move or is it more dangerous to stay
in a place of comfort in such a dynamic
environment so my takeaway to you is
this the next time opportunity comes
knocking don’t miss your amazon moments
[Applause]
as an executive female in tech I’m in a
tiny minority and this really bothers me
earlier this year I was at a conference
with about 6,000 delegates only a
hundred of them were women how is it
possible that for year four years after
llenan we still haven’t changed these
dynamics a few friends of mine and
myself created carbon leadership for
this specific purpose why carbon you ask
it always amazed me as a chemistry major
that carbon could come in two forms
Graphite’s and diamonds and although
alchemists could never change lead into
gold
mother nature showed us that with the
right environment she could change
graphite into diamonds all she needed
was pressure time and heat we are all
diamonds in the making all we need is
the right environment in which to
transform I would like to talk to you
about two elements that will help this
transformation confidence and change
many young women ask me when they first
meet me how it was possible where I got
the confidence to move careers so many
times in my life I went from chemistry
to Investment Banking to teaching to
finance to sales to coaching and as I
reflected on this I realized I certainly
was not born with it because my family
always said I was very shy and timid it
wasn’t a gift that came to me in my
youth because I am still terrified every
time I move I found the secret to
confidence through a failure when I was
in grade 9 my mother decided because I
was shy and reserved and because my
English was atrocious since I came from
Tanzania she decided that I should learn
how to debate I had 7 other
extracurricular activities no time
to debate so I tried to convince my mom
that this was really not a good idea but
you know she gave me one of those looks
the look that freezes your blood over
and the conversation was over my school
decided but the best way to learn was to
throw me into the deep end and see if I
sink or swim so they threw me into the
first debate the problem was I didn’t
even understand the question of the
debate and because fate has a funny
sense of humor they put another
challenge in my way and my first
competition was against the Canadian
national champion needless to say it did
not go well in those days they used to
put the rankings of all of the
competitors up on the board so at 6
o’clock 9 pages went up we all rushed
through the first page I don’t know why
I was rushing to the first page but we
all rushed to the first page and we
looked down so there were 473
competitors so we look down by the third
page I’m going well there must be
something wrong by the fifth page my
heart is sinking by the seventh page I
can feel the lump in my throat and by
the ninth page when I saw my name next
to number 473 while the tears just
started flowing I was humiliated when my
mom came to pick me up and she asked me
how it went I started crying I said I
was never ever going to put myself in
this kind of position again
I had no talent for it it was obvious
and she calmly said it just takes
practice I was like aren’t you are you
blind I didn’t come in second last which
has a little bit of a hope I came in
last it’s like a sign from God saying
stop doing this and she wouldn’t hear
anything of it so the next day she
stormed into my school yes every
teenagers dream she went directly to my
German teacher who happened to be my
debating coach and I don’t know what she
said to him but when he came
he was shaking and he said he said you
know what we’re going to double our
efforts here and I was like oh my god
but it was slow and painful progress in
fact I felt like a snail climbing a
mountain but fast forward four years
later and we are at the same venue
having a competition for a worldwide
championship position but this time the
results were quite different and I got
the first position now this is a great
story it gives me 15 minutes of fame in
the local paper but more importantly it
was the tipping point of my subconscious
it told me that the secret to success
was practice somewhat similar to what
Malcolm Gladwell says about the 10,000
hours to make an expert but practice
itself is not enough you need to
surround yourself with CEOs as Kevin
Carroll coined it CEOs are chief
encouragement officers in those days my
CEOs were my cousins and they were great
today surprisingly my CEO is my daughter
every time I have a small doubt or a
small insecurity she is there to stamp
it out until she’s replaced it with a
positive thought we all need our CEOs
now my confidence really took a little
bit of a challenge when Delphine asked
me to present the TED talk I am I got a
little nervous but I said yes it’s on my
bucket list I want to cross it off it’s
great but as we approach the the timing
of this TEDx I started getting long
nervous and you know writing the actual
talk practicing it’s having the sweaty
palms and the knobby knees and the heart
that goes thousand miles a minute that’s
I wasn’t so keen on so I decided to try
and convince my family to perhaps do the
talk next year I know I’m ashamed to
admit it but I said maybe you know with
my long
list of to do’s and all of this and the
fact that I might fail like I did in my
debate and my son says to me Mom
you can either quit you can choose to
quit or you can choose to try and I had
a moment of reflection or as they would
say in French and calm Oman the solitude
because I can tell you that he quoted me
to me now as a teenager my son got here
I think that you know things I tell him
go in one ear and out the other but
don’t you mistake it they hear every
word we say so don’t ever give advice
that you aren’t willing to take yourself
so obviously I was not going to be a
quitter to my children and so here I am
now that we’ve established that
confidence is really the first pillar of
success let’s talk a little bit about
change when I meet young women one of
the first questions I ask them is are
you comfortable in the job you have and
about 80 percent of them say yes I would
like you to reflect on that idea
yourself are you comfortable in the jobs
you have do you kind of have a rhythm
that you know or do you have your
network that you’re you feel quite
connected to are there no real surprises
at work anymore
now you don’t have to raise your hands
but I would like you to think about what
Ginni Rometty the CEO of IBM sated that
when you’re comfortable you’ve stopped
growing when you’re comfortable you
stopped growing I mean this is a
nightmare scenario a suicide scenario
for anyone who’s trying to get work-life
balance but she has a point
because even a Forbes study showed that
individuals who move careers every two
years or less earn 50% more than those
who move less frequently so I question
is this the reason why the statistics
around women in the workplace have not
changed according to McKinsey
in the 2016 study they showed that women
when they enter the workforce represent
about 46% of the workforce but at sea
levels they only represent 19% so was it
this fixation on kind of staying
comfortable that was stopping us but
then I saw an incredible study done by
Hewlett Packard they took men and women
of the same caliber and asked them to
apply for a promotion and gave them a
list of criteria now this was the
surprising part sixth when men achieved
60% of the criteria they applied but
when women would only apply when they
achieved a hundred percent of the
criteria now this is incredible this
means that we aren’t even expected to
grow in the new jobs but it gives you a
moment of reflection when I had when I
worked with a woman quite a long time
ago
her name was Claire she was a secretary
and she was brilliant
she was hardworking she was great a team
or great communicator very organized but
she had been a secretary or an assistant
for about eight years and the only thing
I could think of keeping her there was
the fact that she was a single mother so
after working with her for about six
months I saw this opportunity in
marketing and I said Claire you really
should apply it’s phenomenal and it’s
exactly what you were meant to do and
she looked at me like with this face of
horror saying are you kidding I’ve never
studied this I have no experience in it
thank you but no thanks so I was a
little shocked I thought well there’s an
increase in salary but she had nothing
to do with it so we continued
interviewing other people but it was
very clear that she was the right person
for the job so finally I convinced HR
and my management to feed her the job
piecemeal so we did that and three
months later
um she was doing the job completely so I
called her into the office and I said
Claire do you remember that job that you
were offered three months ago do you
regret not taking it and she said oh my
god no I love what I’m doing now and I
said but you’re doing that job right and
she said no no it can’t be
and I finally said look now you really
have to sign the contract because I need
a secretary I’m dying but but she still
didn’t want to and I said look we’ve
kept your your 70 percent of salary
aside you signed this contract you get
it you don’t sign it you become a
secretary again it’s not really what you
want and so she did sign it but do you
see how much of encouragement how much
of a push was needed now I know many of
you are saying well if that ever
happened to me I wouldn’t do it but I
mean I wouldn’t have this problem but is
that true think of the amount of time
someone has told you you should apply
for that position or you would be great
at that and we’ve kind of smiled and
dismissed it so what I would like to
leave you with today is really a story
that still haunts me and hopefully this
will give you the encouragement to
change course when necessary when I
graduated from university I went on to
Wall Street I worked for a company
called de sha a hedge fund that was
quite famous and I thought this is good
I’m going from chemistry to Investment
Banking that’s pretty proud of it
the first week there was quite an
emotional week because the superstar of
the company was leaving to start a
startup and he was looking for young
cheap Talman so it comes no more cheaper
than a young graduate so I asked well
what is this startup going to do and now
I know you guys are gonna judge me but I
want you to remember this was 1994 okay
so he says well it’s going to sell books
on the Internet
and I just laughed I was like that’s
never going to work
you need to go to a
bookstore you need to smell the book you
need to read the first few pages right
so thanks but no thanks
needless to say you’ve guessed it the
company was Amazon the individual was
Jeff Bezos and my kids still say that to
this day this is my billion dollar
mistake I say it’s my billion dollar
lesson which I’m sharing with all of you
today so there are opportunities all
around us if we’re just willing to be
open and receptive to them now I find
women are much less receptive to them
because in their heads they
overdramatize they over exemplify all of
the negative things that could go wrong
and so they just feel like the risk is
too high but the question I want you to
think about is really is it too high to
to move or is it more dangerous to stay
in a place of comfort in such a dynamic
environment so my takeaway to you is
this the next time opportunity comes
knocking don’t miss your amazon moments
[Applause]
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