Unapologetically Ambitious: My Never Stand Still Conversation with Fortune 500 Board Member, Advisor, and Author Shellye Archambeau

Shellye Archambeau, my good friend and fellow Verizon board member, wears many hats. She sits on the boards of four companies, she’s a strategic advisor to several other companies, she was one of the first Black female CEOs in Silicon Valley, and she’s now a published author. I’ve gotten to know her quite well over the years and I’m constantly inspired by her tenacity.

Back in the 1960s, at the height of the civil rights movement, Shellye moved to a majority-White suburb with her family. For the first time in her life, she was the only Black girl in her class. The experience made her realize that the odds weren’t in her favor, and that she’d have to work harder than everybody else to get where she wanted to be. In her new book, Unapologetically Ambitious, Shellye talks about the lessons she’s learned throughout her life and career, the risks she’s taken, and the challenges she’s overcome in the face of adversity.

Shellye’s drive has been an inspiration to me and I wanted to share some things I learned from our conversation.

Behind any success story is hard work, perseverance, and tough setbacks

“It was clear to me from an early age that nobody really expected much from me,” Shellye shared. As a result, she had to be intentional about crafting goals for herself, forging her own path, and seeking out mentors. At 16-years-old, after a simple conversation with a guidance counselor, Shellye to set her sights on an ambitious goal: to become a CEO.

And she did. She went on to take over MetricStream, growing the company from a struggling startup into a global market leader. This wasn’t without its challenges, though. Before the Great Recession, analysts had announced governance, risk and compliance as a new software category, with MetricStream as the market leader, and the company started to see an uptick in growth. However, once the financial crisis hit, by mid-2009, MetricSteam was “living on fumes,” as Shellye put it, with concerns that the company wouldn’t be able to pay its employees. Shellye says that knowing there were others counting on her helped her get through this period. By the time she left MetricStream in 2018, the company was back on its feet and her tenure was hailed as one of the great Silicon Valley success stories.

After hearing Shellye’s story, I shared with her that I experienced a similar time earlier in my career when I had to tell my team that we couldn’t make payroll. It was some of the worst news I’ve had to deliver as a leader, and the feeling that others are relying on you to do your best, especially in times of crisis, is something I deeply relate to. But we got through that tough time as a team, and I’m still close with many of those colleagues today. As Shellye pointed out, it’s easy to look at people’s careers and see the highlights, but she said, “Don’t think…since it’s hard for me, it must not be for me.” It’s hard for everyone.

Our work lives and personal lives are intertwined

As a society, we put a lot of emphasis on achieving a balance between our work and personal lives. But sometimes that’s not entirely possible. Many of the things we experience at work directly impact our personal lives, and vice versa. I love that Shelly admitted, “I don’t know how to do one without the other,” Shellye says. “I’m one person. I’m not one of these people where I put on a home hat and I put on a community hat and I put on a work hat and I’m different people.”

One of the first people I heard describe this concept was my mentor Richard Branson, and it has stuck with me ever since. Now, I don’t try to separate the different parts of my professional and personal identities—in fact, I enjoy that they’re intertwined and hope all PayPal employees can think of themselves as one person too.

The private sector holds incredible potential to drive change

The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others this past year have spurred a reckoning in our society around racial injustice—and Shellye and I agree that the private sector bears a responsibility to help drive that change. “Corporations and companies of all sizes have more power than they realize,” Shellye said. “My biggest plea…is [for them] to use the power that [they] have to actually be part of driving the change, to create more equity.” She noted that CEOs “represent a lot of citizens” and that she hopes they’ll continue playing more of a “senior statesman-type role because we’ve needed that kind of leadership.”

I strongly agree with Shellye that corporations need to stand up and advocate for change. In this time especially, we have a business and moral imperative to transform our words into actions. I’m proud that PayPal is standing up for our values, from our recent $530 million commitment to support Black and minority-owned businesses and communities across the United States, to helping our employees and communities at large engage in civic action. We do have so much power, and at PayPal we want to use it.

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Shellye and I hope you do, too. Check out the video below to hear our full discussion and leave me a comment to let me know what other lessons you took away from it.