Achieving the Executive Mom 3 Pivotal Moments
back in 1993
i was a month away from graduating from
uc davis
and i did not realize that i had just
met my future husband kevin
he was cute he was a aggie basketball
star
and he doesn’t let me forget that he
still holds three-point records today
i used to refer to him as marriage
material but not for me
for somebody else because i was moving
in a month
so i never would have guessed then that
a he would become my husband
10 years later and b that he would stay
home with our five kids
and that i would be the breadwinner i
grew up in the midwest
and from what i knew i would get a
college degree
and yes i’d work for a while and i’d
work hard
but when it came time to have kids if we
were lucky enough to have them i would
be the one to stay home with the kids
and that was the plan all the way up
until
one month after my twins were born our
fourth and fifth children
today i am so grateful to love what i do
as senior vice president of sales at
salesforce
my kids are now 13 to 16 years old they
are
genuinely good people that i enjoy
hanging out with
most of the time and while i had to
figure out how to navigate my way
through some pivotal moments in this
life to get to where i am today
let me try to see if i can save you some
steps you would think in 2021 that this
generation would have many
obvious paths and options to balance
this thing
called career and family but the
question
how do you do it is still the number one
question that i get from so many women
and increasingly men and even more
increasingly
men who are asking on behalf of the
women in their lives
they are all trying to figure out how to
navigate this rush hour of life
and truthfully there are many paths but
the decision is still complex
and through my journey thus far there
have been three pivotal moments that
have given me the opportunity
to take on a more challenging career
while still feeling fulfilled as a
mother
and this first pivotal moment came when
i picked the right partner
and i stayed in the game when kevin
offered
to stay home with the kids that was the
first pivotal moment for me
and i remember back when we first dated
he was always talking about what he was
most impressed with me about
and that was that i had a chemical
engineering degree
and that i had a job before i graduated
and then i was really excited about this
book that i was reading called power
talking
and it might seem like a small thing but
in retrospect
this view on equality made all the
difference
in terms of creating a true partnership
as we tackled
this working and parenting life before
kids
the decision on whether to continue
working or not
it seems pretty clear and simple ah i’ll
figure it out
but truly until you have a child no one
can predict
the feeling that you have of this
awesome responsibility
not just to keep the child alive but the
feeling
and the pressure that you feel to make
sure that they’re set up for success in
this world
it’s a lot and it’s this time after kids
that so many working mothers start to
diverge from their career
and i remember this deciding moment like
it was yesterday
i still feel this anguish in my chest
and the decision that i had to make here
i was two years into working in
salesforce i was an account executive
loving my role loving my team loving the
company
and but in those early years if you
weren’t out meeting with customers
you were expected to be in the office
and when you have a one-year-old
your schedule can be unpredictable and
kevin was also working
so when my daughter got sick it usually
fell on me
to go stay home with her or pick her up
from daycare
and that 4 30 pickup time meant i was
leaving the office
in a rush to go pick her up
and often that meant missing a lot of
those really critical networking happy
hours
so on top of all of that i had a i was
part of a youngish team
and i was the first one to get pregnant
so
all in all i was an outlier so i got to
this point where
i just felt like i wasn’t giving my best
to anything not to my job
not to being a mom not to my
girlfriend’s
or my my twin sister something had to
give
and the second maternity leave was
decision time for me
and the common choice for so many women
at this point is just to simplify it all
and to stay home and go be a full-time
mom and
this is if they can afford it but i just
wasn’t ready for that yet
i still loved what i was doing i still
loved working i still loved the company
so i scrambled to make something work
there was another mom from another team
that was also in the same situation as i
and so together
we created a role in support where we
could take cases from home
and this way i could work from home and
i could parse my work hours into blocks
that worked for me
whether it be early morning or late
night this also meant that kevin had to
shift and take on that wake up and
breakfast routine from 6 to 9 a.m
and this allowed me to actually spend
chunks of time
in the middle of the day taking my kids
to park and
spending a lot of time doing picnic
lunches
and while it was a super busy time i was
so grateful that i was able to stay in
the game
both in my job and in my kids lives
but as grateful as i was for the support
role and the flexibility
doing what you don’t love takes a toll
on you over time
it wears on you and i was a long way
from my sales role that i loved
so after four years in that role i
started to look for other options within
the company
and it also meant that the possibility
was there that i would
leave the game and stay home and be a
full-time mom
because at the time there weren’t that
many roles that were available that
allowed me to scratch my edge to get
back closer to the customer
to get you know closer to a selling role
you know but also have the flexibility
that i needed at home and that was when
kevin suggested
that he would stay home with the kids
and he would
take the flexibility that he had
managing his own real estate
to go do that it had never even occurred
to me that that was an option
and had he not offered i would not have
felt the freedom to take on these harder
and more complex roles
where i was so as they say it takes a
village
so make sure that whatever situation
you’re in
that you’re choosing a partner or
partners that will support your career
goals
and it will give you multiple options
and that allows you to stay in the game
so my second pivotal moment came when i
decided to step on that first run
and i nearly never took that leap into
leadership
one day about three years after kevin
decided to stay home with the kids
one of our executives pulled me aside
and he said
you really should think about getting in
to a leadership role
and at the time i was thinking why would
i do that
i love the accounting executive role i
love being close to the customers
i love being in the middle of the action
and i love being accountable
for being the one closing the deal
and i also looked around me and i didn’t
see a ton of women leaders
and i certainly didn’t see a ton of
mothers that were actually figuring it
out
and so my natural response was i don’t
think so
and he said well you’re 39 you’ve got a
good reputation here for success
and you naturally like to mentor others
so you should think about it
and so i walked away from that thinking
he made some really good points and so
as i was sinking into my subconscious
about a year later about five weeks into
our fiscal year
our manager for the team currently up
and left and went to a startup
and so he left a hole on that team and
on the way out he suggested that i
should be his backfill but that leader
at the time said no
she’s never managed before she’s gonna
have to start a level below
and i got that feedback and i sat on
that for a little bit
and luckily it only took a couple of
days for me to say you know what
that role really should be mine i am a
perfect candidate for that role
for the company and so i came back and i
played my case across the leadership
team
and i was invited into the interview
presentation process
i practiced that interview 50 times
across
50 different people before i gave that
and i came out the top candidate but
we weren’t done yet because it needed to
be approved by the president
who just so happened to be a woman and
so one day
i walked into the elevator and there she
was and i said
hi apparently you’ve got an approval on
your desk for my promotion
and she looked at me and she said have
you ever managed before
and i said no i haven’t and she said
well
you have five kids so you’ll have no
problem managing
and that is why we need more women in
leadership
how uncommonly refreshing that was for
someone to see
being a mother as a strength not a
weakness
and i came to learn just how right she
was
women and especially mothers make
innately
natural leaders so when i tell that
story
i still cringe a little bit why did i
have to be told
that i could be a leader why did i need
somebody else’s permission to encourage
me
i recently realized that i am not the
only one or i wasn’t the only one
the data shows that there’s a pattern
with women they’re calling it that
broken first rung phenomenon 30 percent
less women than men
take that first leadership role
right now 57 of all college graduates
are women
and 50 of the early workforce is women
but only 21 of c-level executives are
female
and many believe that this is due to
that broken first run
we are leaving one million leadership
jobs
on the table ladies so women need to go
take that first step
earlier if we are truly going to get to
parity
because this is an irreversible trend
and don’t wait for somebody to give you
permission
so the third pivotal moment in my life
was when i muted the noise
and i knew my worth the third pivotal
moment came in my life
when i realized that others would not
see my path
as clearly as i would and that there
were plenty of societal pressures
and those that would challenge my
choices including those that are closest
to me
and that i needed to learn how to mute
those external noises
i remember when kevin and i got into
this big argument at my company
christmas party
i had just taken on a promotion for
second line leadership
and he called me selfish he called me
selfish because he
said it could jeopardize my time with my
kids
and i think back could you imagine a man
being called selfish for taking on a
promotion with more pay
i pushed back that night and it was an
inflection point on me owning my role
i made the point that in the last three
years it had not affected my
relationship with my kids
or my time with my family and that i
could always pull back if i wanted to
and as it turned out it was just fine
because you know what else i realized
and what i learned was that the higher
up that i went
the more control i had over my schedule
and i could make all of those games and
those concerts
and those back to school nights that i
wanted to go to
so whatever you do don’t plan your
career around
wanting to be a parent find a career
where you love what you do
where you make yourself valuable and you
have a better chance to call your own
shots
and let’s be clear the decision that
kevin made to stay at home was not an
easy one either
there were plenty of societal pressures
for him
my brother-in-law pulled him aside
multiple times
dude what are you doing that job is so
hard
don’t do it run now
his dad a proud latino man could not
understand what his star athlete son
was doing and for the first two years it
was
really hard but you fast forward 13
years
and kevin’s now doing exactly what he
wants to be doing
he’s got a flexible schedule managing
his own real estate
he is incredibly active in the community
he coaches our kids in multiple sports
and he’s also their life coach maybe too
often
for their liking but to the college
students that are walking into the
workforce today
you are walking into a much more
friendly
flexible corporate working parent
environment
and society is following suit there are
many progressive companies out there
that are now offering
flexible work schedules or expecting a
flexible work schedule
even if it might just just be the
morning or the afternoon
and parental leave is now being offered
for both men and women
and oftentimes for a six month
maternity leave versus the former six
week
and child care is being offered
sometimes at a discount or even on site
but being an executive working mom now
does not come with
that stigma that you’re striking your
responsibilities at home
and it’s really important that we choose
to work at these companies
that are pushing these progressive
benefits
to allow this balance of working
families
because we need to pull forward the
language that aren’t there yet
i feel so fortunate that i’ve worked for
a company that has evolved
over time to be one of the top leaders
in offering these progressive options
so why is all of this worth it well
besides the fact that women often miss
out on this opportunity
to have a fulfilling career and to build
confidence
and to have financial independence and
dads not wanting to miss out on raising
their kids
and wanting to build a strong
relationship with them it matters to
global growth
because women are not matching the
productivity of men
we are leaving 28 trillion dollars worth
of gdp on the table
and mckenzie says just by changing a few
things we can capture
12 trillion of that by 2030.
and the science is clear on the positive
impact on children
there is no difference in long-term
success or happiness of children that
come from
two working parents versus one working
in one stay at home
in fact children have a higher degree of
confidence
and a higher iq when dads are more
involved in the parenting
and the daughters of working mothers
earn more
and believe they can get just as far
ahead in their career as their
male colleagues in the end i’m glad my
life plans didn’t work out
i’m so grateful that i picked the right
partner and stayed in the game
that i stepped on that first rung and
then i muted the noise and i knew my
worth
thank you