What has been your business/work highlight of 2024 so far?

Overseeing Cisco’s fastest growing SaaS businesses: Webex Contact Center and Webex Calling. Cisco is very large and to know that these two areas which I am responsible for are driving the future growth of the company…that is all every exciting!

Who is your business hero and why?

It’s definitely my mom. She played a significant role in shaping who I am, and how I think which is reflected in all my actions today. I was fortunate to watch her lead a life with a growth mindset, changing careers while pregnant as a newly landed immigrant to Canada. She eventually became a software developer while being a mom, wife, and head of her extended family of siblings (8), nieces and nephews.

Having a mom in tech certainly exposed me to the industry early which led to me taking coding classes in high school. These classes led me to speak on a panel of women in tech at different ages, high school (me), college, early in career, and successful professionals.

I can’t thank her enough for shaping the views that I have today for women in tech and science. To this day, I still aspire to be more like her every day.

What’s the biggest business mistake you’ve made and what did you learn from it?

When you’re in a product management role, you design for your ideal customer. And, when you are young… you want to make a change in how people work, and you want to make a change in how an industry runs. You want to be visionary. The reality of the world and everything else connected to getting that product into the hands of customers. It was something that I didn’t learn until later in my career.

Like, the difficulty of selling or the difficulty of migrating from what they use today to what they’re going to use tomorrow to this thing you envision. While I have a growth mindset and I really lean into, I don’t think I took into account exactly how uncomfortable it is for some people to have to learn new things when they feel they’re already doing a good job and what they do every day and so telling someone. “Hey, you’re doing good job, but do it differently.” Now that is actually more uncomfortable for folks than I gave it credit.

The naive me assumed that everyone wants to get better, and everyone wants to learn and change – and do more. But that’s not realistic for everyone’s lives. There are some people who are just trying to make sure they keep their job and secure it for their family.

At a young age and as a young product manager in tech – I don’t think that’s an easy perspective to capture. It took me being in the business longer to really understand that.

What’s the most inspirational book you’ve ever read and why?

How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci – This book is super interesting since it talks about how to capture and explore thoughts. It does mind mapping vs. linear and suggests that when you have a creative idea, you immediately write it down.

This book was introduced to me earlier in my career and as I was going through training. It unlocked a new way of thinking and working and there were some interesting ideas. A lot of us grow up being told to compartmentalise, and one of the things that I really latched onto is “if you want to draw right now while doing your math…why not? And if you want to add notes for other life topics while you’re in your art notebook…why not?

It unlocked my ability to not force myself to stay on topic or to focus and just accept that I will have different thoughts that will come throughout the day and that’s okay, as long as I document them. So, I can get them out of my head and know that they’re not going to be forgotten.

One example: In the middle of the night, you’re tossing and turning …and you think of an idea for work. But you cannot go back to sleep. Instead, the advice is that you should get up and write it down and you’ll have a much easier time going back to sleep because you released that idea from your brain.

We don’t realize how useful it is for our brains to incorporate all ideas and all thoughts throughout the day. Instead of forcing ourselves to only focus on one idea at a time. I think you see that and how I lead and how I work and how I integrate everything.

What’s the biggest challenge you face in your role in 2024?

Our industries that we are competing in are starting to collide and consolidate, like with calling, meetings and contact centers. We are competing with all the biggest software vendors in the world because the area has so much growth potential. You see Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all competing.

The good news is that competition brings out the best products in the industry. That’s the best thing for the customer. But competition also forces you to be very precise about your strategy, your execution because everyone in the industry is going fast. So, I would say you have a smaller margin of error available to you.

What technology will have the greatest impact on your business this year and why?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already having a huge impact on my area of business. I am constantly working with our Collaboration leaders to determine the best way to innovate with AI across our entire Webex product portfolio. How do you incorporate AI into everyday activities where it doesn’t seem disruptive? How can you keep customers safe and not defensive? One example would be, how do you implement AI where it doesn’t make employees feel threatened that it will take over their jobs? How do you innovate with AI, so you avoid any negative outcomes, or with people feeling scared or resistant to change? There are also security issues, because when you’re leveraging AI, you’re adding more risk to the business. All of this can be potential downsides and could paralyze an organisation from moving forward with AI.