Speaker 1  0:00  

What have you never set out to be a C-suite executive, and that turned out to be exactly why you’re good at it. That’s the thread running through today’s conversation in the podcast, and it’s one of the most honest and energizing accounts of a leadership journey I’ve recorded in a while. My guest is Charlie Rogers, Chief Customer Officer at Butterfly, a company that sits right at the intersection of search, AI, discoverability, and what it means for brands to be found in a world where LLMs are rewriting the rules of how consumers find anything, but she spent over a decade at Ticketmaster, worked at Adobe, and has now taken the CCO seat at Spotify at precisely the moment when the customer experience function is being reshaped by AI faster than almost any other part of a business, but this conversation isn’t really about search, it’s about leadership, specifically what it takes to become the kind of leader who genuinely unlocks potential in the people around her. Charlie didn’t set out to be a people leader, she put her hand up for it because she saw a gap and thought if someone’s got to do it, it should be me, and she’s been building on that instinct ever since. In today’s episode, we get into what quiet confidence actually looks like at the executive level, and why it’s different from the loud, performative kind that often gets mistaken for leadership capabilities. We talk about holding space for women in an executive team when you’re one of three women in an otherwise male room, and what allyship looks like when it becomes second nature rather than a conscious act. We talk about the and versus but language shift that Charlie teaches the women she mentors, small but the kind of thing that changes how you’re perceived in a room, and we get into the tension she’s navigating right now. How do you lead in an AI-forward customer experience function, while keeping the team delivering today, changing everything about how you operate, and nobody really knows what the next two years are going to look like. Her answer to the worst piece of advice she was ever been given: dial it down, Charlie. But it’s also one of the most satisfying moments in the quickfire round I’ve had in a while. I’ll let you tell her the rest, so if you’re figuring out what kind of leader you want to be, how to back yourself at that next level, or how to build allies in rooms that weren’t designed for you. This episode is for you. Let’s dive on in. Welcome to the Leading Women in Tech Podcast, the show that celebrates women in technology leadership. I’m your host, Tony Collis, and this podcast is the result of my passion for building better tech by diversifying the leadership of the technology sector. Join me on this journey as I discuss all things leadership, what it takes to be innovative, breaking through the glass ceiling, be a great leader, and how to navigate the unique experiences we face as women in tech. So, sit back, grab your headphones, and get ready to be inspired to become a better leader. Welcome to the show, Charlie. Thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 2  2:56  

Oh, thank you so much, Tony. It’s great to be here and to be able to have this chat with you.

Speaker 1  3:00  

Oh, I’m excited about it. Well, start with where I like to start with everybody. Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me, how did you get to where you are today? How did you become Chief Customer Officer at Butterfly? I particularly love it when people talk about the highs and the all-important lows that really shaped us and how we got to where we are.

Speaker 2  3:17  

Well, I always describe my journey as being one of serendipitous doors opening, but lots of hard work, so I think one thing about me is that I, if I really love something or I’m really interested in something, and preferably both, then I’m going to give 100% and I really, a lot of what I do is fueled by the desire to do good work and to unlock some passion and those around me and motivation, so that we can do that together. So, how I ended up at Butterfly, I mean, if I was to tell you how I got into technology, it was by complete accident. So it’s been a long road since that initial, let’s call it accidental foray into tech, but I realized quite early in my career, that I wanted to work with customers that I really enjoyed decoding complex technology and technological ideas for customers, for people who have a stake in a business, which depends on what that technology can do for them, and so, you know, culmination of figuring out that I really love leadership, really enjoy being with customers, and getting them excited about the possibilities of a partnership that we might have together led me really to be seeking my first Chief Customer Officer role, and when Butterfly came knocking, I was hooked on both the vision of the company, but also the potential of really building a company for its next phase of growth, and the team around that, that’s going to unlock that growth for the business. So, I got to Spotify again, somewhat serendipitously. A friend reached out to me, a guy that works at Spotify, who I’d worked with before, as is so often the case, as we get more senior in our careers, and we, we’ve invested. Making those great connections and investing in more kind of personal connection as well. It’s not all business and be super professional and buttoned up. I’ve been really benefiting through my career journey from having made those investments, and so when Phil said, I think there may be an opportunity for you here, I kind of felt like, well, why not? Let me have the conversation. Let me figure out if there is something meaningful. And here I am. And it was two years ago this week, actually, that I joined Butterfly, and we’ve come a long way since then. So, yeah,

Speaker 1  5:31  

well, I got there’s so many little nuggets there that I want to pull on. Um, so let’s, let’s start with why Butterfly. You ended there that it’s about doing something that’s exciting, that’s making a difference, but you also love leadership. So, what is it about what Butterfly does that energizes you?

Speaker 2  5:49  

I mean, Spotify is very much in and around the – we’ll call it the search space, but it’s really more about discovery and visibility these days, especially with the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude and others, of course, and of course to Google Gemini, which is rapidly gaining, gaining pace as you would expect, and so that that promise of being able to help brands be discovered, that’s something I’ve always enjoyed, I’ve worked in and around search on and off through my career, so I love that kind of idea of connecting brands to their consumers at a moment of intent, and Bottom I sits right at the heart of that, helping brands to be discovered through more organic ways of searching. It’s not paid search, it’s all around how are our consumers naturally existing in these environments, and either proactively or maybe just in a meandering way, looking to engage with brands, so it’s that discoverability. It’s also about making complex things more efficient for brands. So search is a very complicated and multifaceted adventure for brands to go on, and that can, you know, often comes with attention of, do we have enough resource to focus our energy in the right way, and so that’s why I love technology. It’s all about helping humans do ultimately the things humans should do, and taking some of that heavy lift, which technology really can kind of shine at doing. So it was that I think Spotify is really well positioned, long history and search could not be better positioned, actually, for this new dawn of AI discoverability, simply because of our history. Again, serendipity comes into it. We didn’t know that this is what was going to happen in the world of AI, but our history has set us up to be really well placed to take advantage, and it was that that really hooked me. How can I be part of something that’s a once in a lifetime wave of innovation at a pace and a velocity we’ve never seen before. I’m sure lots of changes happen, we all remember mobile phones coming along, voice search, all of these things, but I think the rate and pace of innovation and the kind of impetus that that and the pressure that brings, actually, for brands, businesses, humans to both become comfortable and also adept, and ultimately to thrive in continuing to engage in their with their consumer audiences at a moment where it’s harder than ever to do so with authenticity and staying true to your brand, but also winning against your competition, and so that’s kind of why Spotify got me hooked.

Speaker 1  8:24  

Yeah, I mean, it’s winning against competition, and it’s really interesting that you’re talking about this, because obviously you know I’m a small, tiny small business executive coaching, and you know, I’d never really paid much attention to SEO. I never really played that game, but I realized, you know, the world’s got more competitive, and I was like, “I need to pay attention, and actually, at the same time that LLMs were taking off, was the point where I was like, “Oh, I need to pay attention to SEO. Like, I get a lot of work through referrals, which is amazing. The best kind of clients come through referrals, right? But actually, it’s interesting. In the last year, I’ve had six people come to me off the back of Chat GPT. I haven’t heard anybody mention any of the others, but Chat GPT. I’ve had six people come and work with me, having said that they asked Chat GPT basically for a coach for them, Women in Tech Coach, and I was like, okay, I never intended that. I have a lot of content out there, but because of this podcast, primarily like doing a podcast every week for six years,

Speaker 2  9:20  

it’s going to do that for you,

Speaker 1  9:21  

it’s going to do that, but it’s really interesting, because it’s, it is something that we all need to pay attention to. If you work in a business, I mean, it for the listeners who are also entrepreneurs, I know most of them, most of the listeners are not entrepreneurs, you’re in corporate some description, but we all need to worry about this. Tell me a little bit about being a chief customer officer, though, did you intend to aim for a chief position? Like, what happened there?

Speaker 2  9:45  

Gosh, if you’d have asked me when I was at university what I wanted to do, I wanted to go into book publishing, find the next. I also loved smelling books, so I thought that

Speaker 1  9:56  

there’s something about a book, isn’t there?

Speaker 2  9:59  

Well, particularly. Good, by the way, although they’re not wearing footbrow, what was not on my radar was a career in leadership in unlocking the potential of partnerships between tech companies and customers, and all of these things have just come from learning and being opportunistic and saying yes, and I got to the point where I was leading groups of teams. I’ve worked at Adobe before, I worked at Yext and other companies as well, small and large. But really, what matters to me as a leader is having it, having a seat at the table. As a woman, particularly in technology, you know, I have a voice. I want to use it. I want to use it for good. I want to help develop people in the business to do great things, and I just kind of got to the point, was like, it’s time, Charlie, it is time to maybe go to another smaller company now, take a seat at the table, back yourself, take

Speaker 1  10:54  

the office

Speaker 2  10:54  

to be part of the change, and take accountability for what comes with that, right, so it’s a bit like I’ve got two sons, Spider-Man. With great power comes great responsibility. I don’t like talking about power in the professional sense, but it’s responsibility, and I take it very seriously. I’m a.. I don’t take life too seriously, but I do take very seriously the responsibility I have to hire, develop, nurture great people with high potential to do wonderful things that will be a professional technology concept. We’re not yet, we’re not saving lives. That’s a great privilege to me, and I love it. And so, for me, it was a matter of, right, well, it’s time. Be thoughtful about where you go, make sure the opportunity is both challenging, but has potential. Make sure it serves me, because I’m at my best when I’m being authentic, and I feel like I believe in the mission of the company, and I enjoy the company of those that I’m working with. And for me, that was Spotify. It was that combination of the kind of the talent, the ambition, lots of stuff to address and fix quite naturally, as we’re evolving as a company, and the world around us is shifting, as I said earlier. So, yeah, that’s kind of really for me. It’s not by design. If I was going to go back to the roots of my career, yet every step has been deliberate and thought,

Speaker 1  12:17  

yeah,

Speaker 2  12:18  

I don’t know if that’s a kind of contradiction.

Speaker 1  12:20  

No, I don’t think it is a contribution. I think very few people start out with I’m going to be a C-level executive. I am yet to meet a woman who I’ve coached, maybe this is our selecting audience that comes to me and work with me. I’m yet to meet a woman in my space where they’ve set out at the age of like 20 to be a chief executive of some description, but I’m often the one that’s saying, hey, you do realize your C material, or they’ve come to me because they know that, and they’re struggling to just get that next step, or they’re like you in that seat, and you know, I now need to, I now need to do something slightly different, I need to level up, I need to have a thought partner, but none of none of you start out that way, and I do wonder if men are different. I might

Speaker 2  13:08  

1. Yes,

Speaker 1  13:09  

yeah, I do wonder if more men are, you know, at 20 years old, 18 years old. I’m going to be CEO one day, like that’s what they set out to do. And I don’t think many of us sit out that way, but that comes back to your dislike of the word power, and actually, I would, as a coach, I would like you to embrace that word, because I think we need to use it in a healthier way, rather than this. I think you’ve got, quite rightly, a dislike of it, because of the way it’s often used in society, which is to control and to repress and do things that we don’t like, but actually, what if we all embrace the word for the better? Exactly what you were saying, right?

Speaker 2  13:48  

Yeah. No, I think that’s a great point. Honestly, Tony, and I try to be really conscious. I think I’m a words person, I’m an English literature graduate, I love language. I spend a disproportionate amount of time, my Instagram scrolling is often funny words used wrongly, all of that stuff, because words matter, words really matter. And so I tried to be conscious of it. A big one for me is the use of the word and instead of the word but, and I mentor lots of women, or have mentored lots of women, currently mentoring around three at the moment, and one of the things I talk about is, hey, just catch yourself, how many times do you say “but” Now try saying “and” with that, because it has – it’s a subtle thing, but it’s a far more kind of forward-toned word to say “and” than to be “but” which is moderately apologetic at times, I think, or signaling a bit of uncertainty,

Speaker 3  14:45  

maybe.

Speaker 1  14:45  

Well, let’s talk about leadership and your passion for leadership for a second, because that’s also something you jumped out at me when you first started talking, because this isn’t just about the technology, that’s one piece of the puzzle. It’s clear you love the leadership piece, and the mentoring is an interesting component of that, but obviously we know. Mentoring, leading, not the same thing. Sometimes we have to make the hard decisions as a leader. Sometimes we have to stop being as inclusive and go, no, no, this is the path we’re going. I know you don’t agree, folks. 90% of the time we want everybody on board, but sometimes we have to not. When did you realize leadership was your thing? Was it right out the get-go, or was it later on?

Speaker 2  15:20  

I was quite adamant when I was beginning my career. I was in a more operational role, was and product management, and this is where I kind of unlock this love of technology and decoding, demystifying for a business audience versus trying to speak native tech, which is definitely not my wiring, and I really, I guess there were a couple of different junctures in the journey where I put my hand up and said, look, if you’d have asked me, do I want to manage people, I would have said no, but what I can see is there’s a gap here, I can see that we, one example, I worked at a very small startup, later acquired by Adobe, and we were really kind of building the European operation for that startup, and the guys, the leaders on the ground in the UK team, which is where I was based at the time, they were very focused on being out in the world, kind of going drumming up business. Meanwhile, we’d hired some very talented grads and people in their first or second jobs, and these people were just so wicked smart, but so hungry, right? And you know that first stage of first foray in your career, I don’t want to say it’s box checking, but the kind of hurdles come more quickly, and you can jump them more quickly, and it takes, I think, some quite conscious management, and I was very selfishly, I was a bit like, well, I’m a more senior player in this team, and I don’t want these guys to be leaving and ladies to be leaving. I want to see them grow and develop, because that’s all successful. I said, “Please let me, let me kind of take some responsibility here. I’d like to have a crack at leading the team. And to their credit, the leaders on the ground were like, “You know what, go for it. And so it was at that moment I was like, well, hang on, if someone’s got to do it, I’m going to do it. And I had this life dallied with becoming a teacher, and I taught English as a foreign language. I love, I love that notion of unlocking potential in people exists, so it was in there somewhere, but I hadn’t consciously thought this is a path I’ll go down, and then as you get, you progress, and your group, suddenly I find myself at Adobe with a team of around 150 get further on, maybe 200 and you think, gosh, how did I get here? And I’m now managing a group of teams across multiple regions, multiple continents, and I love this, I like the complexity, I like the fact we must be thoughtful as leaders about the audiences in our teams and the ways in which we should be communicating, and how we articulate how we like to be communicated with, and so it happened, pardon the pun, given Butterfly’s business organically, but I will say at every step I’ve learned so much, and I think leadership again comes down to willingness to take responsibility, to be humble about the fact that you don’t know everything at all. I still know very little, actually, and yet we have this enormous capacity to have an impact on people’s lives, not to be too profound about it, but that’s how I see it. And I decided quite early on in my management career, I want to play that game. I want to play that game, and I want to, I want to see what I’m capable of, and I want to see if I can build really high performing teams, but do it in a values-led way by a playbook, which is all about, you know, be buttoned up, the, you know, making sure you’ve got frameworks up the wazoo for every question that you

Speaker 3  18:48  

make, because

Speaker 2  18:49  

that’s not the real world.

Speaker 1  18:50  

I’m a believer of frameworks to get you unstuck, right. And, but ultimately, this comes back to what I think authenticity is really about, which is the conversation I have all the time as well. Authenticity is finding your way of doing it in a way that feels good to you, that resonates with the people around you. It isn’t about showing up with your heart on your sleeve every day, it’s about learning to speak and lead the way that works for you and your team. I just love the way you’ve talked about your leadership here, and particularly, you didn’t set out to be a C-level executive, but you have had a team of 150 to 200 which, in the customer success world, is a very large team, actually. But one of the things, obviously, on the pieces of work I do is talk to people about how you need to lead differently as you level up, right? You start by just leading ICs, and you’re managing managers, and that’s different. Then you get to the point where you’re responsible for delivering on strategy, then you’re responsible for like creating the strategy, and then suddenly the C-level executive, it’s a whole like nobody around you knows what you do, that’s the whole problem I think with being as an executive is none of your peers know what you do, but they all have opinions, yes. Do what? If you, I mean, a lot of what I do is helping women find their natural level, and a lot of the women that come to me, they hate managing early on in their career, because they, they.. I think most of us actually struggle managing at the point where we’re expected to IC work and such different skills. Yeah, yeah, and yet it’s the first management we do. I mean, I’ve struggled there, and so I’m always about trying to find a woman’s, like, this is where you’re meant to be for at least the next couple of years, like, this is your, this is where you’re going to be settled. Sometimes you have to do, like, 18 months in a role that isn’t a good fit to convince somebody to hire you at the right level. When did you figure out where you wanted to be, or has it all just been accidental, and you’ve just taken steps?

Speaker 2  20:44  

I don’t think it’s been accidental. I would say another thing that’s been really important for me has been that I’ve had, I’ve had really great female leaders to look up to, like fantastic female leaders to look up to. You know, we’re all just a product, we’re all just the sum of the experiences we’ve had, we’ve interacted with, and that’s true in all aspects of life, but I think what I’ve seen is in myself is that aspiration has grown, as well as the confidence and the belief to know actually when you get into that next role, that next room, when you’re outside that room, you know, you’re like, gosh, what happens in there? Has everyone got it all together? Oh my gosh, I don’t think I’ve got it that together. How would I, how will I survive it, let alone thrive in there? You get in the room and you realize it’s just another bunch of humans, you know. On balance, everyone’s got there because they’ve worked their way there, and they’ve demonstrated that they deserve to be there, but it’s a bit like that whole principle of, you know, you don’t get promoted, you don’t take that next level until you have the capacity and the confidence, most importantly, to demonstrate I should be here, and here’s what I’ve done, and this is what I bring to the party, particularly this is what I bring to the party that is different and or complementary to the existing leadership group or forum or business that you might be joining, so I always talk about that kind of confidence as well as capacity or capability, because I think they are so symbiotic, and we often think, you know, when we, when we’re doing our kind of pros and cons, why should I do this job or not do this job? We often boil that down to what have I done, and what did I deliver, and what does this job description say, and have I done those things before, and we forget about all the behavioral stuff, and all of that, that amazing kind of essence of you that comes through when we, when we’re working, that it makes the one on one equals three equation work. It’s here’s what I’ve done, and here’s what I’m capable of. This is how I do it, and this is why you need to look at me as someone that probably need on your team, if what you’re looking for is what you’ve told me you’re looking for, so I think it’s that confidence, capacity, understanding the symbiosis between the two of them, but then knowing that it’s time to speak up and back yourself and not kind of talk yourself out of it through that pros and cons list, which quite often, candidly, there’s a lot more we need to be doing than that. Yeah, that’s all

Speaker 1  23:30  

right. Is that, is that quite confidence piece? And again, this is something I think so many of us struggle with early on in our careers. It has served us to downplay our skill sets, we’re threatening to some groups as powerful women, and so it serves us to kind of diminish ourselves. It becomes innate, it becomes ingrained, but I think truly the best leaders are quietly confident. It isn’t in your face confidence, it is a quiet ability to back yourself, as you say, like to know, like, hey, in this moment I need to hold my ground here, because this is the best thing for the organ, not about me, but the organization needs me to hold myself here. That takes an adjustment after a lifetime of diminishing ourselves to make society feel comfortable around us as women, and I know that one of the things you do with your fellow executives, because you talked to me about this before, was you like to hold space deliberately for the women in the room. What is that kind of advocacy? Because we’ve all heard that, like, get somebody who will make sure that you’re not talked over. We were told that, but what does it actually look like in practice to you? How do you make sure that happens? Do you, for example, have quiet words with them beforehand, or like, what does it really look like on that executive team to hold space for women?

Speaker 2  24:44  

Yeah, I think, and this is something I’ve benefited from in my career as well, at every level, not just in the exact room. Yeah, sometimes that’s a conscious thing, sometimes it’s that, you know, this is going to be a tough discussion today, I’m going to do. Best, if, if, if it gets kind of fruity or kind of colorful, I’m going to do my best to, to kind of get my point across, but keep an eye on that, please. Make sure that I’m doing that, hold me accountable for that, and I will do the same. And if, if it requires me to kind of amplify what you’re saying, I will do that, and there’s a.. I’d say it’s become more tacit. There are two fantastic women that I work with who sit on the exact team with me. One is our chief people officer, and the other is our head of legal globally. Both absolutely brilliant women, smart, thoughtful, capable of being completely objective, as you won’t be surprised to hear in those roles, and actually, as a group of three women in an otherwise male leadership team, it’s been fantastic to know that I’ve got allies, and not for the sake of being a cheering squad, but for understanding that we’re all after the same thing. We know that we’re here to do the right thing for the company. It’s not about our ego and our agenda, it has been, it’s been one of the highlights of my time here to forge those connections. Now, friendships, when I go into those rooms, that I can help them as they also support me. And it’s not, you know, all of us are very capable and competent doing that on our own, but there’s some great deal of comfort, I think, being part of a team within a team.

Speaker 1  26:27  

I think when you are the only one of a particular variety, in this case, women, right? Whatever the difference is, if you’re the only one and it’s obvious to you, it’s exhausting, even if you’re not thinking of it 24/7 it is just exhausting. This, the science backs this up. So, just knowing you’ve got that group of allies around you allows you to operate at your best, which ultimately, as you say, it isn’t about your egos at this point. Is I was at this is the step change that executives need to make. You stop making it about you, and you start making it about what does the company need, not what, not what do I need, but what does the company need, and that’s a step change that I think a lot of us struggle with, because early on I will say to women, what do you need, what do you need, what do you need, let’s be selfish, and then I’m like, no, no, no, now we need to talk about what the company needs,

Speaker 2  27:16  

I know, and it’s very hard, you know, we talk about, we talk about being authentic, and there are times as an exec leader it’s not being inauthentic to sometimes be to have to put that different hat on. It’s just a facet of your menu of capabilities, and it’s one – it’s those are muscles you need to flex, actually, at the leadership level, any leadership level, really, to a certain degree, and I will also say that on that point of allyship, it’s absolutely beautiful as well when you see that start to be, you know, not just women amplifying women, it’s also, you know, male allies in the room, me advocating, other women advocating for some of the men in the room that might be quieter, it takes all sorts to be on an exact team, we’re not all loud, rambunctious extrovert, and I think that the teams that thrive and win together are the ones that innately understand the profiles and the ways of operating of the individuals, so that we can become better as a unit.

Speaker 1  28:18  

Yeah, well, I have one more question I really want to ask you before we move on to the quick fire round, which is, what is the biggest challenge you’re facing right now? If you’re prepared to share that, either professionally, like where you’re going with yourself, and, or you know, something at work, like what is it right now that you’re like, that is the next big thing I’m tackling.

Speaker 2  28:36  

I think for me, less about a specific challenge, more about a more existential thing is how can you lead from the front and stay on top of everything, especially in the tech sector, but everything technologically that’s changing around us. I don’t mind saying it, I’m 47 years old, right? I am not, probably not even a digital native by definition, although become so, and for me, I take that very seriously. So, how can I stay ahead enough to encourage and mandate that my teams are working in an AI-forward way with our customers, because frankly, that’s our business, and you know, if we’re not thinking conscious, especially in the world of customer experience, efficiency is just as important, actually, as output productivity, because honestly, in the customer experience world, headcount doesn’t grow on trees, just doesn’t, because we’re in a business, and we got to be profitable, so how can we take massively boldly forays into being ahead on not just how we challenge and empower our customers, but how we continually scrutinize how we operate. So, as a leader, I’m kind of navigating right now that tension of. Well, my team has to keep delivering. It’s a bit like doing open heart surgery on a marathon runner while they’re running the marathon. You’ve got to keep delivering, but you also have to change everything about the way you work and the way you operate, and you know, well, what might this world look like in two or three years from now?

Speaker 1  30:18  

Believe the predictions,

Speaker 2  30:19  

everything’s changing,

Speaker 1  30:20  

the predictions are changing all the time, but like what we’re predicting, I’m kind of like we just do what we can, people like

Speaker 2  30:26  

exactly thinking about a lot at the moment, and trying to educate myself, and being humble enough to ask those around me that are far more comfortable native to the to the world we’re now living in. How could I do that, or what would be a great way of tackling this issue? And, of course, the hive mind is always better than us as an individual operating in asylum.

Speaker 1  30:48  

So much out there. I mean, the one thing I would say is we live in a golden age for information if you know how to sift through it. I, the amount you can learn from YouTube, for example. I’m not saying we should all spend hours on YouTube, I probably spent too much on YouTube, but I’m trying to build a house, we’re trying to learn construction as a hobby, like I know it’s amazing, but it is, it’s so powerful, the amount that we can learn today, but at the same time, because of that, there’s so much that we need to learn, because everybody else is doing the same thing. I mean, that is a topic I could spend a whole other conversation with, because it’s so, so important. But let’s move on to the quick fire round. Some of my favorite questions, so here we go. What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Speaker 2  31:37  

Dial it down a bit, Charlie. Oh, dial it down, or you know, maybe just kind of be a bit more professionally buttoned up. So I work in a tech environment. I, at that point, was in quite a big corporate, which I have named earlier, and you know, I’m kind of not the most conventional corporate citizen. Probably my nose ring, and other things give that away, but I was encouraged to bring less passion and, and stay, be more professional, whatever that means, you know,

Speaker 3  32:15  

and I

Speaker 2  32:15  

challenged the leader, male leader, actually, at the time, and I said, “Well, what do you mean by that? Can you explain what that means, and I had a long, quite one-sided conversation with that person, who then told me all the ways in which he had become more professional over the years. So, I thought it’s worth it. That’s terrible advice.

Speaker 1  32:35  

Yeah, absolutely terrible advice. I mean, I do say I’m here to help you be your best professional self, but professional has to be your version of professional. It’s like what I was saying about authenticity, it’s about your version. It isn’t definitely not playing copycat, it’s definitely not wearing a shirt and tie to work every day. If you’re a man, that’s not professional. Professional is like holding space for people. Anyway, I could talk about that all day as well. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Speaker 2  32:59  

I’ve been given lots of great advice. Actually, I would say one of the ones that’s very top of mind right now is take the time to connect with people, even if there’s no specific reason to have that connection in that moment. If someone is interesting or interested, protect space for that, have conversations, create connections, and you know, I found they become friendships, as I mentioned earlier, and often the world comes full circle, and whether it’s professionally or personally, I’m a huge believer in, you know, what you give is what you get, so investing in, we call it a network, that that that circle around you is very important, particularly from a mentoring perspective. From my, you know, in terms of how it benefited, I tend to think of that as a virtual board of directors, because different.

Speaker 1  33:51  

Yeah, I love that. But yeah, so yeah, take the time to really connect with people, even, and not don’t just make it about getting something in that moment. No, give more than you take. I love that, like, theory of give more than you take, and it will pay dividends down the road. Of the introverts listening, I’m an introvert. You can still connect and build networks when you’re an introvert. As somebody who is like so far down the spectrum on introvertness, my favorite thing to do is to huddle under a blanket and not talk to the world. But the network is everything, and I’m aware, even as the introvert, I do need my humans around me, just in very limited quantities on my terms, right? So, let introverts are listening, and this does not exclude you. Okay, how can people connect with you, find out more about you, talk to you, find Butterfly as well? Actually,

Speaker 2  34:38  

you can find me on LinkedIn easily, Charlie Rogers. Yeah, absolutely. There, I’m always happy for people to reach out to me on LinkedIn, and yeah, what you see is kind of what you get. And I will let you know, try and make..

Speaker 1  34:53  

I can vouch for that. Every time I’ve met Charlie, this is what you get, what you’ve heard, what you’ve seen today. This is who she is. She’s a fun. Common or rock star, and definitely somebody that is worth connecting with. I will put the links to Charlie’s LinkedIn profile in the show notes, so click over there if you would like to connect with her. Charlie, this has been fabulous, so I would love you to just leave us with your final thoughts. Anything you would like to leave the audience with today?

Speaker 2  35:18  

I guess final thoughts are you don’t have to always know what the end destination is really like. I haven’t ever known that, but it is important to be quite thoughtful about what you want, as you’ve mentioned, and also back yourself in knowing how you can contribute. Build that group around you, allies, mentors, have those folks around you, but ultimately have the confidence in whatever way is authentic for you to be able to speak for yourself. Don’t hide your, you know, your strengths – everybody has them, and your strengths are unique to you. So, I would say just have the courage and your convictions, know what you’re going after, but be open to those next opportunities, because you don’t know what’s around the corner.

Speaker 1  36:06  

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for these words of wisdom. And I just.. I want to leave everybody with one of my key takeaways. This is a slightly selfish key takeaway, which is don’t be afraid to realize that what you love is leadership. I, that really stood out to me from Charlie, because a lot of the people that come on this podcast, quite rightly, are passionate about their actual job, the technology, the engineering, the role they play, less about the leadership, and selfishly, I would tell you that the reason I do this is because I love leadership, I love everything about it, I realized early on in my career that great leadership makes the difference. I saw companies fail because of bad leadership. I saw products go amazing distance because of good leadership. And ultimately, long story short, that led me to become an executive coach. And so it is just simply wonderful to hear a woman on this podcast go, “Leadship is important to me. Leadership is why I’m here. Clearly, Charlie loves the customer success piece, but ultimately, what I really picked up here is leadership, leadership, leadership. So, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, “Hi, I’m not sure I love the technology as much as I love the leadership, don’t make that wrong. That’s not wrong. What matters is you’re doing something every day that lights you up, and if, like me, like Charlie, that is leadership, you’re still in the right place, my love. I really want you all to take that one away. If that’s you, that’s absolutely fine. I know you don’t hear that every week on the podcast, but this week that’s my key takeaway. I want you all to go out there, do something that lights you up this week, do something different. Lean into your wonderful power, not the icky kind, the wonderful kind, and go and change the world. I will see you all next week. Bye for now.

Unknown Speaker  37:52  

Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai