Читать книгу Take a Lesson - Caroline V. Clarke - Страница 7

Executive Vice President, Global Sales, PayPal

In recent years, the comings and goings on the nation's major corporate boards have garnered almost as many headlines and as much scrutiny as the drafting of athletes for the nation's most beloved major league teams. Most of that heightened interest, especially in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, has been sparked by corporate America's broad and deeply entrenched resistance to diversity, especially at the top.

So when Peggy Alford was named to Facebook's board in 2019, it was big news—and for good reason. Not only was she the first Black woman to gain a seat at the table with those who help govern the powerful if ceaselessly embattled Internet services company, Alford is also on the leadership team at PayPal. That heady sphere of influence makes her a bona fide unicorn in Silicon Valley, where everyone seeks such storied status but few other than white men with Ivy League degrees actually attain it.

Blending in was never an option for Alford, who was adopted by white parents as an infant, along with several siblings of various races. So not being white, male, or an engineer trained at Stanford or MIT never fazed her. And while she's eager to leverage her skills and influence to make a difference for the companies and clients she manages, personally making news was never on her laser‐sharp list of goals.

Despite Alford's steady rise in tech over more than a decade, she moved from one groundbreaking success to another largely outside of the spotlight. Using her accountant's training as a springboard, she ran Rent.com (an eBay Inc. company) and was COO of PayPal Asia Pacific before becoming CFO and Head of Operations at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's philanthropic fund.

By her own admission, this mother of three (two of whom are under age 10) still struggles in social networking situations. In fact, she once described herself as “unapologetically reserved.” But there's nothing reserved about her ambition or her determination to leave a meaningful mark on the world.

When the news came out about my joining the Facebook board, I honestly wasn't prepared for the headline and all the focus on my being the first Black woman. Of course, I should have been, but it caught me off‐guard, which goes back to my beginnings and who my parents are.

My mother was a professor with a PhD in math and computer science and my father was an electrical engineer. They are white, and they adopted six children and fostered even more, of all races. I found out later in life that my [biological] father was Puerto Rican and my [biological] mother was Black and Italian, but when I was growing up, I didn't know what I was.

I was born the first year that interracial adoption was allowed in Pennsylvania, where I was adopted and, in those early days, you could be [mixed with] anything and white people could adopt you, but if you had Black in you, that wasn't allowed. So, the agency lied to my parents and told them that I was Portuguese and white. But it was very clear that I was at least partially Black and, growing up in the Midwest, people made all kinds of comments about what I was.

In second grade, in one of those dreaded assignments about tracing your family's roots, I remember saying that I wasn't sure what I was, but because all of my classmates indicated they were from somewhere in Europe and I knew my adoptive parents were German, I chose Europe too. The teacher said, “That's not true. You're not from Europe.” She pulled out a map and pointed to Africa. “This is where you're from.”

I went home and asked my parents, “Why is she saying this? How could she even know?” and my parents just said some people don't act nice, don't worry about it.

I still vividly remember being good friends with this girl whose house was near ours. When I rode my bike over there with all the other kids to play, her brothers and her dad told me in front of the others that I wasn't allowed in their house. I played in the backyard by myself until they came back out—and I never told my parents because I knew that they would never let me go there again. It's crazy when I look back on it.

Even though those types of incidents happened over and over, I was never taught that it was about race. I remember feeling sad but not really understanding what was going on. I was very clear that it was about difference. At least at that time, in Middle America, you were either Black or white and there was a very singular view of what that meant. Our family would walk into church and everyone would turn and be like, What the heck is this?

There were two sets of us—the older set of three and, after seven years, three more that are very close in age. Two of the younger set are half Black and half white. I was about 13 when they were starting grade school and I remember talking to my parents about moving to a more diverse area so my siblings wouldn't be “the onlies” at school. I explained to my parents why it was important to be around kids that are like you. I was constantly made fun of because my hair was a mess so I tried to help my sister with her hair and convinced my mother about the importance of that.

I was very careful with my messaging and, to my parents' credit, we moved a lot closer to the city. Even now, with my teams, I'm very careful to say things not to criticize but because I want something to change. My parents had to deal with a lot, having us around, and they did their absolute best. I honestly feel so blessed.

Think about the times we're in and the struggles that a lot of us have assimilating, trying to be who we are and to be seen for our whole selves. While I've had some of those same struggles, I also had a better chance of making it all work because, from my earliest days, I was exposed to different races and lots of white people and I lived in a home and a community where I never felt a sense of total belonging. All my life, people have expressed lots of strong, often critical, opinions about interracial adoption, but the reality is that it prepares you for being able to get along with just about anyone, and to do it even when you're uncomfortable.

My parents always made us feel like we were as beneficial to their experiences as they were to ours. That helped me form this belief that I could do whatever I wanted to do and barriers were just something you needed to overcome. They taught us that there are excellent teachers everywhere and the purpose of college is to get a good job—none of this basket weaving.

So, I took a very pragmatic approach to education and thinking about my career. I ran cross country track in high school and was pretty competitive, so I had an opportunity to go to University of Dayton and get some of it paid for. That was really what drove where I went. My first visit to campus was when I was being dropped off. I remember thinking, Oh my God, what did I just do? I'm literally in the middle of nowhere.

I fell in love with the idea of becoming a criminal defense attorney in seventh grade when I participated in a program where we were able to attend a trial. But in my sophomore year in college, I realized I would not have the financial means to go to law school, so I switched my major to accounting because I had found out that pretty much everyone with an accounting degree could get a job.

College and the few years after were where I finally started to become much more comfortable with who I was, but it was tough. I wish I had become more familiar with Black America earlier. I had gone to a diverse high school but—I mean, my last name was Abkemeier! So the Black Student Union didn't know what to make of me, and at 18 (as if being 18 isn't hard enough), that was hard to navigate.

Freshman year I became close to a girl from Connecticut whose father worked for IBM and theirs was the only Black family in their town. She was also Pentecostal and had never been to a movie, so the other Black students were like, Who is this girl? We became roommates and she had a big impact on my life in terms of shifting the narrative to one where we are who we are and no one can tell us who we need to be.

I started to realize I was on a path to actually being able to build some success for myself. I had a good set of friends and, even though it took many years to get there, I knew what I wanted in a relationship. So, I started to worry a little less about what everybody else thought and was able to focus on building the kind of life I wanted.

There were six large accounting firms. Arthur Andersen was number one at the time, and I had the opportunity through a relationship of my uncle's to interview for a job there. Public accounting is a very up‐or‐out culture. If you're doing well, you get promoted every year and make a little more money, so it's hard to say maybe I should go do something else. I ended up being there for nine years.

I had no understanding of how big my career could be, but I was always focused on continuing to build my skill set so that I could do big things. I started in Arthur Anderson's St. Louis office and felt like it was very limiting for women and people of color back then. I was working my butt off and the conversation was always, “We want to grow your career because we need the organization to be more diverse,” rather than talking about what I was bringing to the table. It got super frustrating.

I was always trying to overcome what I felt were stereotypes being placed on my potential, so I was an auditor, and then did M&A consulting which enabled me to do transactional work and help companies go public. Then I went to work for eBay, which grew out of my consulting and, after about four years, I got the opportunity to be the CFO of Rent.com, a company that eBay had acquired. I went on to run that company as the president and GM for three years. When I returned to finance at PayPal, I also took on some operating roles including co‐running HR for a while. I wanted to understand all the levers it takes to run a company because my aspiration was more on the CEO track than in a particular functional area.

Sales was something that I felt was really important and also a little bit counter to my personality. I still struggle with having to go up to people in work environments and start conversations socially. I've had to practice that and it totally drains me. But to learn how to do that well not only helps in every facet of your life, it truly makes you a better executive.

My reserved personality is grounded in not feeling completely comfortable with myself when I was younger. As you get older, you learn to appreciate who you are and not worry so much about what others think. I also have noticed, through observing other leaders I respect, that there is not one successful personality type. Mark Zuckerberg, as an example, is not somebody who's the center of attention in every room and I think he appreciates the quiet confidence of somebody who is really good at what they do but is not necessarily trying to always be talking.

People appreciate authenticity, so it is really important that you always try to become a better you, not someone else or someone you're not. It's about gaining confidence in what you're good at, letting that show, and building relationships around that. That enables people to tap you for opportunities that you might not even have thought were within the realm of possibility.

That was the case when I first heard from Mark about the CFO role at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative literally two weeks after I had my youngest son. I had no plans to leave PayPal and that's not a time when you want to add a lot of change to your life, anyway. You're happy with things being steady so that you can just survive that particular moment. But then I started to learn what he and his wife, Priscilla, were doing, and I've always wanted to be able to drive change at scale, doing good in the world in a way that is good business.

I assess opportunities based on what is going to add to my learning and development, and am I going to enjoy it. The am I ready question almost always pops up too, and sometimes the answer is, I'm not ready, but I'm going to do it anyway. Fighting imposter syndrome is something that you have to keep cranking at every single day.

As women, we question ourselves too much. I have seen so many situations where the guys are signing up for opportunities that they are not prepared for and they go in with full confidence. We need to learn from that. No one's ever totally ready. If you think about any CEO out there, it was a leap for them to take that position and that is relevant at every single level in a company. Your boss, your boss's boss, even the most powerful leaders struggle with the same thing. And it can help to get to a point where you decide to think, What are they gonna do, fire me? Don't do me any favors!

You also have to have supportive people in your corner that will push you. My husband is much more extroverted than I am, so he's always pushing me to make that phone call or go to that meeting or take that chance. This was really important when I was first approached to be on a [corporate] board because my first thought was, I've got little kids and I have this job and I don't have one more minute in the day for one more thing. But my husband said, “If you've got opportunities, grab them. The timing is never going to be perfect. You're always going to feel like you can't put one more thing on your plate but the last time you thought you couldn't get something done, you got it done. So, just do it.” He was right.

What happens for women, and for Black women specifically, is you don't often have either the relationships or the roadmap to show you what you should expect. We don't necessarily have a plan laid out for us that says, here's what you do when you're going for that regional sales leader position, here's how you should be advocating for yourself, here's financially what it should offer, and here's how to spot a progressive position.

Eventually, you start to realize how to leverage what you offer and to recognize if your value is not being appreciated. That requires listening for opportunities in the office and in the market, even if you're not interested in changing jobs. And don't be afraid, when you're having conversations about your career, to say, I'm an ambitious person, someone who's always thinking about whether my career is progressing the way it should. I would love to continue to grow my career within this company but if it's not going to happen, I am going to consider my broader opportunities. That causes people, if you're delivering the message right, to say, wait a minute, maybe we should think about what your next role is or how we add to your compensation. You should take this approach, even when times are uncertain—maybe, especially then.

This last almost two years has been nothing that any of us could have imagined. The beginning was just chaos. We had a son in second grade, a just‐turned four‐year‐old with a 10‐minute attention span, and a 23‐year‐old who was studying finance in New York and ended up at our house in California trying to do college virtually with these little ones that worship him wanting to be all up in his face. Trying to navigate all of that was crazy. But I will say that not traveling all the time, being able to do board meetings and events virtually, and to have dinner with the family much more often was great. So there was a certain comfort with the chaos and, on a broader scale, I do think there will be parts of this that we will sustain.

In some ways this is our time, as Black women. The conversation around the business case for diversity has gotten a lot clearer. The focus has shifted to building products that are relevant to customers, and why diversity of perspective, experience, and background that reflects the customer that you not only serve today but that you want to serve, is essential.

There still is a problem of having the right sort of awareness of all the rich talent that is out there. There's also an issue of leaning into the tried and true versus giving people that first opportunity. We can always help others, regardless of where we are in our career, but you do get to the point where you are getting opportunities that you can pass on to others, or you have a powerful voice in decision making that can enable people to get opportunities. I'm on two public boards and we're only allowed to be on two. So I find myself building my list of amazing Black women and amazing Black men who are ready for that next opportunity. We need to continue to do that for each other and to position ourselves to be both ready as well as in the conversation so we can infiltrate these pipelines to companies and corporate boards.

When I'm recommending people for boards, I very deliberately ask, If you were hiring a white guy, what qualities would you want? It's great that you want to have a board that looks more like our world, but what are the specific skill sets that you're looking to round out, because I don't know who to recommend if I don't know that. And if you don't know that, then are you actually giving someone a seat where they can make an impact?

The same is true as a relates to progression within a company. Being able to home in on additive skill sets within the goal of diversifying is key to making sure that we're giving people opportunities to be successful. The advice I always give is: Continue to work on yourself, always make sure you're prepared, and don't let anyone ever tell you that you're getting a job because they're filling a [diversity] slot.

Honestly, it doesn't really bother me when I get racism from the white side, because whether it's offensive comments or not getting the opportunities I deserve, I view those people as either insecure—worried about losing something they don't deserve—or just ignorant. I am hurt more by people of color who make assumptions about my life and who I am.

We're all made up of the experiences we have lived and the perspectives we've been exposed to, so I do not purport to understand what every person of color's experience has been. I had a different upbringing than most other Black people and there were probably times when I had it easier than others because of that. But it is hurtful when people make assumptions around whether I've had the experiences to be able to know what it really means to be of color or the perspective to speak on certain issues. If you don't know me, you don't know my experiences or my heart.

This all informs how I lead and how I think about my responsibility to develop each individual on my teams. There are some quirky people in Silicon Valley—quirky and super talented. I have met some of the coolest people after thinking at first, They seem odd but let me just stay open and listen. The best teams are made up of people who can truly bring their best selves to the team. And in order to get the very best out of each person, you have to be open to understanding what makes a person who they are, what motivates them, and what makes them prosper on a team versus not.

It's also how we raise our kids. My husband is Black, my kids look mixed, and I am very deliberate about them knowing that they are Black and they are going to experience certain things because of it. I'm very careful about ensuring that they're not judged or disciplined more harshly in school. But my nine‐year‐old is at that age of really making friends and figuring out who people are, and so I'm also very deliberate about making sure he knows that it's okay to be the different kid or to like something that isn't what everybody else likes.

I want my kids and the people I work with to welcome people in regardless of whether they fit “the mold.” That's something that we can do for each other. That's one of the first lessons in life I learned. That's how we achieve diversity.