ABC to CEO Interviews Jocelyn Mangan

Transcript of our conversation with Jocelyn

SHARON FIEHLER

Hello, everybody. Welcome to ABC to CEO Preparing for the Possibility Podcast. I'm your host, Sharon Fielder, and I'm joined by our co-host Beth Chesterton. And in our episode today, we are thrilled to welcome the founder and CEO of Him for Her, Jocelyn Mangan. Love to have you here, Jocelyn. This has been so exciting thinking about being able to do this podcast with you.

You have an amazing career. You've served on NASDAQ Center for Board Excellence, the Board of Netflix, Papa John's. You've led some of the world's most exciting brands like OpenTable Snag, Ticketmaster, Citysearch. You're a Henry Crown fellow out of the Aspen Institute. So with all of this, what prepared you for such an exciting career and such a high profile career? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

JOCELYN MANGAN

Yeah. So first, I just want to correct one thing. I'm not on the board of Netflix, but I do work with that leadership program. So I just want to make sure if anyone from Netflix is as I'm not on your board, but I do love Netflix and I work with their leadership programs.

So what prepared me? I don't know. I think when I really trace it back, I have a high sense of curiosity. And if you really think about my trajectory, it couldn't have been predicted. And I think that hopefully is an encouraging story for people who are listening. I was born in New Orleans and raised in Texas and was an English major in college and then started a career in technology. So that doesn't say anything about… Serendipity, I think, had a lot to do with it. Curiosity had a lot to do with it, not listening to people who thought they knew better for me, I think had a lot to do with it as well. You know, that's everything from where I chose to go to university, which was not the place everyone thought I would go and took the job, that no one understood what it actually did as a company or how it made money because it was new in the space. And so, you know, I wish I had like, here's the one thing that set me on my trajectory, but when I really look back, it was a pretty windy road.

SHARON FIEHLER

And, you know, a lot of times we talked to a number of women and men and nobody can kind of say, well this was it, this was the reason.

But I do think there's a lot to be said of being prepared for the possibilities that come your way. And I think for you, probably you were getting prepared without even realizing it. And then these opportunities happened and you were able to take them on. So what were some of the challenges you faced and overcame along the way to get where you're at today?

JOCELYN MANGAN

I'd say one was, in some ways, a lack of preparedness in the sense that I was working in industry technology. And, you know, this is 95, this is Internet 1.0 where no one had done the thing before. So everything was kind of a first. Everything was kind of a “Take a stab at it.” And so, it was a challenge because there wasn't a manual to read or a person to call.

And it was exciting. But there were many times where you almost felt a little bit lost because it just was so it was like a new frontier. And where I think I found solace at that time was my peer group. And to really have colleagues at work and friends around whom I could talk to about opportunities or questions or should we really be doing it this way.

And I think the other thing too was working in environments that had candor where I was able to go to the CEO and say, I don't understand or Hey, what about this idea? And that had a lot to do with it as well.

SHARON FIEHLER

So you were at organizations where it sounds like you kind of naturally fit in.

It was easy for you to go to the CEO. It wasn't an effort. So the environment you worked in was very conducive, it sounds like, to mentoring people.

JOCELYN MANGAN

Yeah. And I think it is conducive to innovation, right, because even the CEO himself hadn't done this before, right? I mean, we were building an Internet company and a space that was really disrupting print media.

So, you know, it it was a first for everyone, which may be created this spirit of innovation and collaboration. And you're right, I think what I learned during that time is those are the environments that I thrive most. And, you know, I always joke, I've never made it to the office that has a Starbucks at the building.

So that's when the company gets so big that I'm not a fit anymore, although maybe I could do it at the board level now. But, you know, it was really always these kinds of collaborative, innovative environments that I found myself thrive in.

SHARON FIEHLER

And I'm sure sometimes there were probably at least moments, if not situations that were maybe a little bit intimidating.

And I know a lot of our audience being younger and just not as experienced with different kind of situations. I'm sure you've run across things like that. So what have you learned that you could share with young women listening to us today that when they find themselves in a potentially intimidating situation, being a meeting or something else, what would you advise them to to think about or to do?

JOCELYN MANGAN

Yeah, a couple of things. One, I'll just give us a statistic. So women apply for jobs when they feel 100% qualified and men will apply if they feel 50 or 60% qualified. So don't wait to feel 100% qualified and take an opportunity or to try an opportunity. That would be one thing I would say. The other is when you're in a meeting and you know, it might be an intimidating setting, maybe there's a lot of other people in the meeting.

When you have that feeling in your gut that you really have something to say and it might actually be the different opinion or it might be the different perspective. That's exactly the right time to speak up. And so those are two kind of things that I would say. The other is, you know, one story I'll tell you, I remember one of my companies, you got a really big opportunity and I was living in London and the CEO was in the United States.

And this opportunity was a big kind of global opportunity, which maybe the United States company didn't think was such a great one. And I got this phone call. It was kind of like just you better not screw this up and I'll never forget, like I hung up the phone and just cried. I was so scared. I was like, How did I get roped into this thing?

And now, I've got all the pressure not to screw it up. And so what did I do? And I think the other kind of lesson I would say is when you find yourself in a position where you are in a management position, you can hire people, hire people who know the things you don't, you don't think and you're not going to be expert in everything.

And trying to become an expert in everything is just going to spread you so thin. And it actually isn't the secret to success. Right. The secret to success is to continue to stay curious about lots of things, but when you recognize there's an area of a company that needs expertise, hire it, hire the smartest person you know, because in this particular project, I needed engineering and I'm not an engineer.

So I went and hired the best engineer I could, and I hired another engineer to interview the engineers because I didn't even really know how to assess the candidate pool as well as someone else did. So there's always ways around the things you don't know.

SHARON FIEHLER

And I think your advice to hire talented people, surround yourself with talented people, don't get intimidated by that. You're all in this together. There's so much you can learn from each other. And I have always found the more questions I can ask and get answers, the better the team can make a decision. And it's good to have people on your team who know what they're talking about. I didn't realize you lived in London, So that was part of your career, too?

JOCELYN MANGAN

Yeah, that was actually a great story. I was 28 and I was working at the tech companies Citysearch and Ticketmaster, and I had an idea that we brought to the CEO and he said, Well, that's an interesting idea. Why don't you bring it to the board meeting? And so here I am at 28 years old and walked into a board meeting and pitched this idea to Barry Diller, who was at the time the head of this giant organization. And he said, Great idea. Why don't you move to London and launch that idea? And so I moved to London and it changed my life forever. I was there for four and a half years and one of the best experiences of my life for sure.

SHARON FIEHLER

And that's I think that's also some great advice for young women to keep in mind. Your having the flexibility to move around, to be able to learn different environments, learn about different people, see different situations. I think you come back to another situation and you bring with it those experiences that become invaluable because you've done an international assignment. So I'm sure that was one thing that for me it would have been kind of a little bit intimidating. But you had what it took to be able to say, I can do this. And I think that's a trait that's also served you well.

JOCELYN MANGAN

Well, I almost didn't do it. You know, I almost hurt myself out of it, which is, you know, I'm 28. I'm a fully paid off car that I now have to get rid of. You know, I had all these reasons why it would be hard. And I remember it was my mom who was like, this is a chance of a lifetime. And so that's the other thing is you'll always find reasons not to do the scary thing, or you can find reasons to do the scary thing. But I agree with you, especially on the international front, what an incredible opportunity.

Anyone who should find themselves in an opportunity where a company might sponsor them to do that. You know, to me it's a gift of a lifetime. It's hard. I'm not going to lie like you're. Many times when I first got there, I was like, I don't know how to get a bank account. I don't know how to get an apartment.

You know, the logistics can be tough, but the learnings are lifelong for sure.

SHARON FIEHLER

And learning is, is one of those traits that I think is critical for anybody in any situation. Never stop learning. There's so much more that you can add to whatever situation you're confronted with, the more you pick up knowledge along the way.

So let's talk a little bit about where you're at today with Him for Her. So can you tell us about that organization? It's a clever title, first of all, name. And I think what you're doing is an amazing, amazing service to everybody. So can you tell us about this and why you think it's important?

JOCELYN MANGAN

So, I'll start with the kind of big picture I think about, you know, what are the levers for change in our society and at least the United States, the two biggest levers for change, in my opinion, are the government and the corporation. And I've come up through corporations. So that's the one I understand. And I was a part of a fellowship. This is towards the tail end of some of these career stories I'm telling that challenged me to discover a venture I think would change the world. And that's where Him for Her was born after a lot of thought and it focused on the boardroom. I shared my personal boardroom story about how it changed my life at 28.

But if you think about the power of the corporation today, you know, Wal-Mart can put in place a gun policy and a company can set a policy on reproductive freedom, and Amazon can change minimum wage. So the companies have a lot of say over things that affect our social and economic future. And when you think about the boardroom, which is where we focus, that's the top room in these corporations.

And so Him for Her is an organization that's aiming to put more women in the boardroom because that room, while so important, is lacking women at large. And so our goal as an organization is to solve board diversity in the United States in ten years. It's a solvable problem. We have to put 14,000 women in seats across the country, which we know how to do at Him for Her.

And the way we do that is we bring people together who wouldn't have met otherwise. If you really think about it, you know, when people pick their board members today, they typically use their word of mouth networks. And as many of us know, our networks can often look a lot like us. So today that boardroom is filled, the average board member is a 62 year old white male.

And so those networks are limited in terms of women, in terms of people of color. And so what we do is we broaden that network. And the way we do that is we host executive roundtables where we bring together not only women who want to sit on boards, but the people who can put them on boards, which are CEOs, board members and investors.

And we do an off the record conversation. Some of these are over dinners, some of these are on Zoom, but the conversation is off the record on purpose. It's meant to focus on authentic conversation around leadership, around the boardroom. And what happens after these roundtables is relationships form and seats get filled. So we do other things. We curate lists for board openings.We partner with investment firms which tend to hold a lot of those board openings which aren't always known. You know, people don't advertise board openings like job openings. They're not often public information. So you have to know the person who has the board opening. So we partner with these firms. We can uncover who's looking, and then we curate referrals from our network, which we've built over four years.

We have approaching 6000 board ready women in our network that's growing rapidly because there's no shortage of talent. Despite what anyone would say, there's no pipeline issue. We always say it's a network problem and then we do a lot of demystification out there. What is a board member? What does it mean to be on a board? But equally, we demystify for CEOs, board members and investors how easy it is to find a qualified woman for your board.

And we do some academic studies as well, and we're a nonprofit, so we don't charge women and we don't charge for our referrals.

SHARON FIEHLER

Well, that's really amazing. And, you know, ABC, the CEO, shares a lot of these same goals that you have. Of course, we're on the other end of it. We are in the end trying to get more women to become CEOs of organizations, because again, it's the same concept, demystifying it.

So many young women think this is an unattainable kind of goal for them. They don't think about the fact that they, too, could be a CEO. And we want to plant that seed. And from hearing from people like you who've done this, been there, done it, and are an amazing role model to women. We think if we can have more women at the CEO level, we'll also be able to have more balance with things and hopefully it will naturally lead to boards that are also balanced, just naturally.

JOCELYN MANGAN

Agreed. And I would say our work is highly correlated because there's a study that was done that shows that women who sit on boards are more likely to be CEOs. So we think there's this stepladder path of , you need to do this and then become a CEO and then you become a board member. Women are defying that and often becoming a board member first.

And then that becomes a signal to be more often a CEO. And I agree with you. We need it all. We need women at the top. And I kind of go back to that statistic about women only applying for jobs we feel 100% qualified for. I doubt many people feel 100% qualified to be a CEO. So it's important to keep that statistic in mind, too, because almost every job I've taken, I've felt unqualified for when I took it. And that means that it was a growth opportunity. And, you know, many of you on this listening to this podcast will find yourselves in those opportunities and those are the opportunities to grow right in it.

I would imagine. CEO is no exception there.

SHARON FIEHLER

Right? The CEO at least you and I probably and all of us, Beth, have talked to a lot of CEOs. It's a very lonely job. And a lot of times, you know, CEOs feel like they're kind of in it just that they're at the top. And who do I talk to?

But I think it goes back to creating teams where everybody's comfortable talking to everybody and having teams that you can rely on must make being the CEO position a lot more comforting to know you've got a great team in place. So just a little bit more about Him for Her. So what kind of results have you had to date?

Have you placed a number of women on boards that, you know, got there because of the influence of Him for Her?

JOCELYN MANGAN

Yes. We're waiting for our big one of our first of many big milestones in the next couple of weeks, we will likely place our 100th board member.

SHARON FIEHLER

My goodness.

JOCELYN MANGAN

So that's exciting. And yet we've got thousands to go.

So we're you know, we're not resting with 100. But yes, our work is working, I think is the important thing to say. And there's a lot more to do. But I think when you're working on a systemic change, which is what we're working on, you have to have a healthy level of both patience and impatience. I call it systemic innovation.

And so we have to stop and celebrate milestones and we have to realize that there's a mountain to climb. And so that's kind of the space we live in as this kind of patience and impatience place.

SHARON FIEHLER

Yeah, that's wonderful. Beth, you were the one who introduced ABC to CEO Jocelyn. What kind of other things would we like to talk about with this precious time we've got here?

BETH CHESTERTON

Well, I wanted to hear I love Jocelyn. In addition to your obvious skills in tech analogy and leading and so forth, and even innovating, obviously innovating and creating something from the ground up, that's amazing. You are such a great communicator. You paint a vision for the future. Can you paint a vision for the future for us when there is balance, when you achieve your goal, when we you know, and when we're successful, what's the world going to be like?

What is it going to be like? Can you imagine it?

JOCELYN MANGAN

Yeah, I can. I think there's a lot of frameworks and systems and decisions that have been made by a single population and therefore we're missing out on what good could look like across pretty much every sector. You think about health care, you think about education, you think about the environment, you think about data privacy or even data companies.

They've all been built with kind of a single population of people. And what I mean by that is a mindset, right? So if you're sitting at a dinner table and everyone's gone to the same school and everyone's lived in the same town and everyone's parents worked at the same company, that's one conversation. And now imagine that same table where everyone had a different they came from a different place and you bring a problem to each table. Which table would you want to solve that problem? And so that's how I kind of think about it. So it really is profound and I think about it, you know, from if you started the investor, so the person who's out there to make money, they start to make more money. But if you take it all the way down to the community and every phase in between, so you take it from the investor to the board table, well, guess what? Those conversations are better when, for example, I'll use paid family leave as a topic, right? So when people around the table have different perspectives about where their families are and where they need to be when they're making decisions about that company's policy, which is maybe what governs those employees. And then you have those employees who can look at their board and see people that look like them and not only say, hey, I can be there someday or CEO, right?

I go investor to board to CEO, they can look at their CEO, they can look at their board, they see people like them. And so they stay in the workplace, they stay working. They stay aspiring to be in leadership positions. And then those employees are building products and services that better reflect their customers. Right. And then those consumers who are in our communities start to benefit.

So I really see it working its way throughout the entire system. And so when we have this kind of equal balance at the table, I think all things, all tides are going to rise. And I think we will see more and better innovation in some of these giant industries that shape our daily lives.

SHARON FIEHLER

I couldn't agree with you more about you and I have talked about this a lot.

I mean, what are your thoughts on that, Beth?

BETH CHESTERTON

Well, first of all, I think that the way that you say that Jocelyn is so inspiring and paints this picture that who wouldn't want that? You know, how could you be against that? And I guess when I'm hearing you speak and I do love the way you say it, because it's a problem, it's a challenge that we're grappling with in our own work here at ABC to CEO, in terms of how to help others see the same vision and see how exciting it could be. So I love how you described it.

Now, one of our things, as Sharon mentioned before, that we deal with is young women. As you said before, Sharon not having the vision for themselves as CEO. And so one of the things I like to do and we like to do is ask CEOs, what do you love about being a CEO?

You know, what's the thrill? I think so often people think of the obstacles, but what's the most exciting part or several exciting parts about being the CEO or the decision maker?

JOCELYN MANGAN

Yeah, I think one is finding your purpose and being able to execute it with as little friction as possible. Right? So when you're the CEO, you kind of get to hire people you want to work with and paint a strategy that makes you excited and you don't. You get to pick a board that inspires you and makes you better at your job.

And so there's a sense of empowerment with that. And I don't mean to stress the word power there because it's not about like you get to dictate everything. It's empowerment, in the sense that you get to create something in partnership with people that you are getting to have a say in working with, and that's both the people above you.

So. Right. I mean, every CEO should, if they don't have a board and that board should help you be growing and then at the same time you're in a position to help others grow and to really kind of lock arms with an amazing team and build something that's meaningful. So I do think it's really a great job to have.

And I also empathize with people not saying out loud that's what I want to be. It took me a long time to say that, and I will be honest, You know, I was in certain performance reviews, told I was too ambitious when I did say it. So, what I would say to the listeners who might be at all levels is at least think about what you want to be in two years.

I have this kind of two year frame because I kind of started an organization. I was like, okay, I'm a product manager, so what does it take to be a senior product manager? Okay, What does it take to be a director? Okay, What does it take to be a VP? And as soon as I got to one of those things, I was kind of asking about the next one, but within a two year horizon.

And what that did for me was create a framework of growth. And then at some point I made it through those growth cycles to where I was like, you know, I actually do want to be a CEO. And it felt uncomfortable for me to say that. And so I just kept saying it and then it became more comfortable because again, that 60%, 100% thing for me was real, which is probably why I bring it up.

And so I would understand people who don't say it. And yet there's ways to approach it differently, which is how do I want to be in two years? Where do I want to be in two years? How do I get there, I think is a good framework.

SHARON FIEHLER

Yeah, I love those ideas. Yeah, sure.

BETH CHESTERTON

And I think that you have a great comment that you often make about how your staff, what they would come to you women and men, they would want the same things for a certain period of time, right?

SHARON FIEHLER

Right. So when I was working in corporate america, one of my teams was H.R. And some employees would come in before the age of 30, the men and women would come in and pretty much ask the same question, what do I have to do, you know, to get ahead and so on. Something happened between 30 and 35 and the women would still come in and say, What do I need to do to get ahead? And the men would start to say, I want to be president of that division. What can I do to become president of that division? It was an amazing thing that happened when everybody started out in the same place. But somehow all the men got comfortable, either through confidence or seeing other men maybe doing those things, that maybe we need more role models of women.

But the women were still wanting to get ahead, but they weren't looking at the leaps of getting ahead, the way the men began to look at their careers. And it was always interesting to me to observe that. So, I mean, we like to think at ABC that we are educating women on paths. Good paths, maybe good is not the right word.

Correct paths, right paths versus maybe dead ends. If you get too much into administration, you need to be much more in contact with customers, with the product, the service, whatever you're doing, and not make too many of those dead ends. So we're kind of running out of time here. Is there anything else that you want to add that we haven't talked about, Jocelyn?

JOCELYN MANGAN

I think, you know, really just that I do believe that corporations are incredible levers for change. And, you know, we're here talking about boards and CEOs, but truthfully, to get to those levels, you have to stay in the corporation. So if you're on this podcast and you're wondering how to do that, I really feel that leveraging tools to help you stay in and learn and enjoy your job and that might mean moving companies, that might mean researching different industries.

But it's so important to me that women stay in the workplace because it shapes so much of our lives, you know, so that would be what I would want to leave everyone with.

SHARON FIEHLER

Well, thank you for that. And we appreciate you joining us today and sharing your wisdom with not only me, I'm always learning, and I think Beth feels that way, but also our audience of young women.

So where can people reach you if they would like to connect with you or learn more about Him for Her?

JOCELYN MANGAN

So our Web site is himforher.org that will share more about our organization. I'm on LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to find me.

SHARON FIEHLER

Wonderful. And thank you again. And thank you to our audience for tuning in today.

I want to remind you that ABC to CEO is also a non for profit organization. Our purpose is mentoring the next generation of women leaders. We like to think that we will make the world such that hiring and having a woman become CEO no longer makes headline news that it becomes just the way things are. So please check us out on ABC to CEO dot com to learn more and see how we can help you further understand our mission.

And Jocelyn, we appreciate what you're doing and you are making a difference in this world. So until next time, I'm Sharon Fiehler. Thank you again. And don't forget to follow us on social media to get your daily encouragement and proven tips for success.