Event Review: SheTO Summit 2023

Last week I attended the SheTO 2023 Summit in San Francisco. This was my first time in San Francisco, and it coincided with the first SheTO summit. In this post, I'll be going over what I learned at the summit, as well as my takeaways.

But first, what is SheTO? SheTO is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the number of female engineering leaders. They do this in a very positive and motivational way, encouraging people to grow and better themselves while also advocating for themselves. For more information about SheTO, check out their website here.

( Just here for the Takeaways? Check them out here. )

About the summit:

This was SheTO's first summit ever, and from my point of view it was a success. It was held in the Fremont, California Downtown Event Center - one of the cities that surrounds the Bay Area in San Francisco. The event center seemed a bit small for all the attendees. With good reason, as the summit had sold out, prompting the addition of more seats on multiple occasions.

The summit was a one day event, packed full of talks and events for engineering leaders. I have been to many conferences and summits in my career. This was my first time attending one dedicated to the leadership track. Most conferences might have a talk or two about leadership shoved in somewhere. This summit was dedicated to leadership and how to improve in that track.

Talks I attended:

These are the various talks that I attended at the SheTO summit. For most of the summit, there was a single track of talks. It did break into two towards the end for workshops. Attendees had a choice of attending the Self Advocacy Workshop or the Executive Workshop. I chose to go with the Executive Workshop talks.

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

This was the keynote talk given by SheTO's Nidhi Gupta. It was an inspiring talk about her journey from a beginning software engineer to where she is today. Nidhi talked about volunteering for different opportunities, not waiting around to be tapped on the shoulder. She also talked about how saying yes to trying things led her down paths that she might not have taken. Another key piece of advice from Nidhi was that you won't be perfect for an opportunity when it comes along - and to go for it anyways. These points were repeated throughout the conference - to volunteer, be imperfect, and go for it anyways.

Scaling Leadership for Success and Impact

This was a panel discussion with Claire Hough, Michael Lopp, Deepak Jain and Bavyaa Vasudevan centering around how to scale an engineering organization and a company.

One interesting thing I heard in this talk was from Claire Hough: "Startups scale at the speed of trust. If you have your people's trust, you don't have to worry as much about change." I found this particularly interesting since there are studies published that directly refute this statement. It makes sense though. Claire continued by pointing out that when assessing new hires, to look for passion and vulnerability. When you have a company with a culture of vulnerability and trust, along with passion for the mission, it's more acceptable if the company changes to better serve that mission.

Another good point came from Bavyaa Vasudevan: "People come for the role, but stay for the mission and culture". In other words, people come for a job. Let's face it, millions of people out there work a job for the money alone. They could care less about the company's mission and they hope for a tolerable culture. Bavyaa suggests that if your employees align with your mission ( again, having that passion that Claire speaks to ) and the culture is amazing, then your employees will have a job they love and will not want to leave.

Finally, there was one last bit of wisdom from Michael Lopp, to build a company that doesn't need you. Often, entrepreneurs, founders, and even leaders in a company can make it so that they are irreplaceable. This is a mistake. If you are irreplaceable you can't go on vacation. You can't have off hours. You can't retire. Being replaceable does not mean you will be replaced. You will still have the expertise and skill set to best handle your tasks. Being replaceable means someone else can step in if there is a need. So you should strive to be replaceable. Delegate those tasks and responsibilities, write out policies and procedures on how to do things, and in general make sure other people know how to access this information. This allows you to have off hours, and even go on vacation.

New Gold Rush: Prospects in GenAI and Tech Evolution

This was another panel discussion with Priti Choksi, Amy Cheetham, Yousuf Khan and Lizzie Matusov talking about generative AI from a venture capitalist ( VC ) viewpoint. It was an interesting discussion into their opinions on investing in companies that may have AI ( or don't have AI at all! ), and what they use to determine if it's worthwhile or not. Core investing principles of having a moat, having a strong use case, and having a strong vision for the future were ultimately their deciding factors more so than if a company had AI in their app.

Leadership Evolution: Path from Engineering Leader to GM

This was a great talk given by Meg Bear. She spoke about her path going from an Engineering Leader to GM. She reiterated some of the same points that came from Nidhi's keynote, specifically to jump and move fast instead of trying to be perfect for something. Another great point that Meg made was to be wildly curious about things, and to be willing to try new things and to look at yourself clearly.

Meg talked about when she was looking to land her first board position. One of the first things she did was to make a list of all of her skills, as well as a list of the skills that she would need for the new position. Then, with the differences in the two, she invested time ( and money where needed ) to learn those skills. For Meg, that translated to media skills and the ability to evaluate Profit and Loss statements.

I had a brief chance to talk with Meg after her talk. I asked if she had the list of skills published anywhere for others to see ( she doesn't unfortunately, but she referred some great sources like the Athena Alliance ). One additional tidbit that she did share was to be sure to network along the way. As you ramp up and learn new skills be sure to share that with your network. Often, your next position comes from your network of professional or personal friends - so be sure to share with them when you do interesting things or are looking for an interesting position. This way if they do hear about something they'll think about you.

GenAI on the Horizon: Prospects and Pitfalls

This was another panel discussion, this time with Surbhi Kaul, Maria Alvarez, Ashish Thusoo, and Lakshmi Baskaran. It touched on a wide range of topics related to general AI. One specific question that came out of it was "what is one thing your AI assistant should do for you?" followed by "What should it not do?" For instance, would you take a trip that was completely planned by AI? It makes you stop and think a bit about where AI is appropriate, and where it is trusted.

How accurate is your AI? Does it take privacy into account? What are the ethics and other policies governing it? Does it have Bias testing and how do you accomplish it? There were no firm answers here, but there were some very intriguing questions.

Building your Sphere of Influence

This was a great talk by Kirthiga Reddy and Monica Bajaj on how to build your sphere of influence. This again reiterated some of the keynote concepts presented by Nidhi, as well as some of the thoughts that Meg Bear had. Monica pointed out that your sphere of influence goes beyond your job to anyone you interact with and that it comes down to one question: how do you make them feel? Do people feel that you are trustworthy and reliable? That matters.

Kirthiga continued with advising people to raise their hand. Again, not waiting to be perfect for an opportunity, but to always volunteer and be ready to jump. She mentioned that careers are not linear, they don't have to be a ladder you are constantly moving up on. Maybe you go sideways for a bit instead. However, as you go always be willing to help your peers and stakeholders.

Unlocking your First Advisory, Board Opportunity

Another panel discussion, this time with Coco Brown, Yousuf Khan, Caroline Tsay, and Nandini Easwar. This had a lot of similar points that earlier talks had. Again, to connect with people and network so you come to mind when an interesting position becomes available. Also, be able to add value with your expertise, and demonstrate it!

They also had some new points and suggestions for folks. Specifically, to be sure you understand what a board is and how it works. Ask if you can observe a board meeting or even update the board yourself if possible. Even the prep work to prepare for a board meeting is valuable to observe.

As you start considering board positions, it's also important to keep in mind that you want the work the company is doing to matter to you. This will help make sure you are engaged with the company and dedicated to providing value for them. Again, back to just working a job vs having passion for your work.

Navigating the Path to VP/CTO and Demystifying Executive Compensation

This was another panel discussion, with Amy Reichanadter, Sam Wholley, Sue Nallapeta, and Nidhi Gupta. I'm not normally much of a note taker, but for this discussion I took a whole page of notes. I could probably do a post about this talk alone, but I'll try to summarize it down.

Again, for this discussion the idea of not waiting until you are perfect for an opportunity came up. For a VP role, Sam suggested identifying what you need to be able to do to be successful, and applying when you can do half of those things ( with the understanding that you would need to learn the other half in the next 4 years ). Being able to demonstrate skills came up again, showing that you can do the role, grow great teams, and mentor folks successfully.

After that, the panel got into discussing the black box that can be executive compensation. In general, executive compensation comes in four forms: base pay, bonus, equity, and misc benefits. It was strongly advised to leverage your network and executive recruiters at this point to help you determine appropriate ranges for all of these. That not knowing what the market is here looks uneducated and immature. Beyond that, everything is negotiable. Base, bonus, equity, title, a nanny to help with the kids. It really just comes down to knowing what your numbers are, and knowing what really matters to you and your situation.

Takeaways

Overall, the SheTO summit was amazing for me. I greatly enjoyed the focused talks about engineering leadership and how to grow my career. Each talk was well worth attending on its own. There was just so much value and knowledge shared, specifically with how to advance your career, what VC's are thinking about Generative AI, and more.

Key takeaways that I had were:

• Networking is super important as you advance past a Director role

• Be able to bring value and prove it

• Don't wait to be perfect for a role, volunteer anyways

• Know yourself and your skill set, and push to expand it

• Be helpful, be vulnerable, and be curious