Toni:

Here’s a question I don’t think product leaders get asked often enough. Who are you actually building for? That should sound like the most basic question, but do you really know? Not in the mission statement sense, not the slide deck version, but in real practice when you’re making the 100 small decisions that add up to a product, whose life are you picturing whose problem are you solving, and whose experience are you in danger of overlooking? My guest today has spent over 20 years building products for people at scale. Debbie Hsu started a software engineer at Oracle many, many years ago, made a deliberate pivot into product management at a time when nobody wanted to hire someone without product experience already on their resume, and spent over a decade at Ticketmaster building some of the products millions of people use every time they buy a ticket. Today, she is EVP of Product at Experian Consumer Services, where she leads the evolution of EVA Experience AI-powered virtual assistant, and shapes how one of the world’s most significant financial data companies helps real people understand and an access and therefore improve their financial lives, but this conversation is about product leadership and something bigger is about what happens when you combine consumer first thinking with the speed of AI and whether the industry is getting in that combination right today. I want to dive into the problem with AI homogeneity, what people like Debbie are doing about it. 

How do you build something that genuinely stands out? How do you build something that is inclusive as a product? How do you make sure that what you build is responsible? And doing all that, while I was talking about her very real bit of a messy career, because none of us seem to end up where we started when we had the plan at the beginning, right, and she’s yet another example of that. I feel like I’m having this conversation a lot on the podcast at the moment. So, if you’re a product leader, a tech leader, tech-adjacent leader, or anybody who wants to build things that others depend on, this episode is for you. Let’s get into it. 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, Debbie. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me, Tony. I am really interested in your journey. So, you’ve had quite a journey today. You’re an EVP of product at Experian, but you started out as a humble software engineer. There’s many of us around here like that. You spent a decade at Ticketmaster, which is quite a jump from Ticketmaster to Experian. I would have thought that’s quite a change in technology underneath. Take us through your journey and your career. How did you go from software engineer to an EVP of product? What surprised you along the way? What’s driven you? Maybe where have you taken some wrong turns? If you have, take us through how you became an EVP.

Debbie:  

Yeah, I’d be happy to. And honestly, 20 years ago, or over 20 years ago, when I started my journey, I wouldn’t have thought to plan it this way. So, I would say my path wasn’t planned, really, not intentionally. And so, I think that’s unlike conventional wisdom, or what people are told to plan it out. So, going back in my history, I was a computer science undergrad major, and as you mentioned, I started as a software engineer at Oracle. I actually enjoyed coding, but it was one of those things where I enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of it, but I felt like I didn’t really understand the why behind, like, what I was doing and what I was building, and so I really wanted to get better in touch with what is that end outcome, or what success really looks like, versus I’m good at squashing bugs, or I’m good at creating, you know, the end and software, and so the way I did this was I was set on becoming a product manager, so the way I did that was I went back to, I went to business school, and so that was my way of broadening my business acumen, and how I could enter the business world and switch careers into product management, but I’ll, I’ll say it honestly wasn’t easy, because back then, and even maybe now, to get an entry-level product management job wasn’t the easiest, because hiring managers were always looking for people who’ve done it before, or have some type of experience,and by happen chance, when I decided, you know what, I’m just going to be curious and ask a lot of questions. Questions, that’s when I actually got the job, and so I would say, you know, ultimately what helped me land my first product job was showing that curiosity, asking a lot of questions, and demonstrating the willingness to learn, and having that technical foundation and background, and having good, let’s call it UX sense was helpful in my landing my first product job, and so when I then got to Ticketmaster, it was a defining chapter for me in molding me to becoming a product manager as well as a product leader, and so maybe others will be able to relate to this, but I had inherited a product that was an MVP that was launched, and I’m talking quite bare bones MVP, where there was no reporting for it. I was personally doing the analytics, and so I basically learned the job while I had the job, and by needing to really learn to operate it, it helped me figure out how to get myself out of doing the mundane things that I was doing on my own, like reporting, right, and so that’s kind of on the job how I learned to prioritize what matters, but also we were trying to scale this product into mainstream, so you know this helped me understand the importance of different stakeholders and constituents that make your product successful, and so I basically learned by doing, right. And then over the years it just kind of grew in scope with the different problems to solve, and you know, really learn the craft of product. And I would say the common theme between my journey, you mentioned it maybe looks like different industries, but I would say the commonality between Ticketmaster and now my job at Experian, because I’m with the Consumer Services business unit, is these are both direct to consumer products, digital, and they’re both at the scale, like in the millions, right, of interactions with consumers every month, and so what really taught me the foundation at Ticketmaster is solving customer problems at scale for the masses, right? And then taking that, how do you build scalable products for scalable consumer impact? And now at Experian, it translates into financial inclusion, financial access, right? Like stakes are high in financial services, and so how do we make this approachable for consumers and really solve the pain points that consumers have?

Toni:

That is, that’s quite the journey. So, let’s just go back here to like the move from software engineering into product, and what’s something that really resonated with me there was that the business outcome, that being closer to the end outcome, I think, is the phrase you used, and I certainly remember one of my frustrations in software engineering was I kind of knew what the impact was having, but I felt so far away from it, and I didn’t even consider product, I have to admit, I just thought, if I get further up in the organizations, that’s what I did, I climbed the organization, but it was the frustration was definitely being so far removed from the end user not really knowing I was having an impact on anything or anybody. What is it about product like? How did you know first of all that product was the way you were going to get that fulfill that need in your, or was it just like I’ll try this and then it happened to work,

Debbie:  

you know, so I did try different industries and different functional roles during my time at business school. So I actually interned at a, like, like a semiconductor company, so this was not software, it was more hardware, and then I actually tried an internship in product marketing, and so that taste of that really cemented for me that, you know, what hardware or B2B is really not my cup of tea. Like, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. For me, I felt like I needed to, and by the way, my job at Oracle was also B2B, so I had a taste of that as well, because it was logistics, like, sure, I was learning about it and solving that problem, but to me personally, I wanted to be able to relate to the problem space solving for, so you know, I guess my, my requirements were kind of high with what I was looking for when I was looking for the product job, it was in software, in consumer, like direct to consumer, and to this day, I would say, you know, working in scalable consumer problem spaces is what I enjoy and want to stay, but yeah, so, but that’s me, everybody finds their passion points, and I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to try it out in a non-committal way during a summer internship, and learn that I didn’t enjoy it, if I couldn’t just wasn’t passionate about it. And then, on the product marketing side, too, it was going back to problem solving, and like crafting and creating. I do think that’s in me, right, like to build something. Thing, so I wasn’t getting that joy by having the product marketer job, and so I don’t know, like somehow I just felt, let me give product management a try, and I’ve been in this role, this type of role, for the last 20 plus years, so

Toni:  10:17  

obviously products changed a lot in the last 20 years is something else here. I think it’s really interesting, because I think a lot of us gloss over, like you did, until I poked at it, the way we got to the solution, that where we’ve learned to thrive, right? For you, you actually did a couple of internships, you tried a couple of different things in an Oracle as well, and I think so many of us forget that we have to do that trial and error to find a thing, and also then the next piece of it is the evolution of a role, as you said, you’ve been in product for 20 years. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about how, for example, AI is now shaping product roles. How have you, how has your role evolved over the 20 years as a product leader? Obviously, you’ve also gone up the ladder, but how has your role evolved just from the product space.

Debbie:   

Yeah, so maybe let me talk about two sides of it, going from like an individual contributor, really like solving the problems yourself, and like working with engineers to becoming a leader. I’ll talk about that second, but definitely from a technology standpoint, things have evolved so much. So back over 20 years ago, everything was desktop, right, and the web was relatively new. Then there was the emergence of mobile apps and smartphones, and it’s, I think, the and then the now these days it’s AI. So I would say the common thread is about learning, right, and I’m a very hands-on learner, like I do best when I’m learning myself, and so these days, for example, while I’m not personally working on, say, the Experian Virtual Assistant or EVA, right, this chat bot that gives consumers financial assistance, but I’ve learned by asking my team to show me, and then being hands on about testing and trying it out, and looking at the tools the team is using to do evaluations, for example, because I feel like it’s important as a leader to lead that you have appreciation for what the teams are going through. Right, I also use Figma, make and try my hand at making prototypes, even though they’re simpler, right, but certain times where I have to maybe show legal a prototype with, like, to trying to get the point across in the old way, you would like ask somebody to create the prototypes, but for something like this, I know it’s just to socialize with our lawyers, it doesn’t need to be, you know, pristine and like exactly precise, I’m just trying to get the point across, and so I’d say, for example, it’s like the old wireframes are now just full-blown prototypes that people can make in a few minutes, right, and so I think it’s really important to stay on top of the latest technology and the trends and skills with technology advancement, it’s always about new ways technology can help solve consumer problems, like for example, like when I was at Ticketmaster. Our first version of the interactive seat map was actually built on Flash. Remember, Flash?

Toni:  

The thing that my Mac always said, ‘don’t don’t allow this on the website, because

Debbie:  

work on iPhones, right? And then they had to rebuild, right? So technology is, but back then, when it was introduced, it was, you know, solid technology for rendering interfaces, right, in an advanced way, but then until you had to go to then the prevalence of mobile devices that were not compatible, and then, right, like cloud was also new, right, so live through that phase, it’s always about adapting to new technology, and what that brings to the table in terms of solving problems, so AI is no different now. With AI, instead of creating business rules for things, you can leverage the models and seeing what they can do, right? And that just creates so many more new possibilities with how to solve the problems, so then the second part to round it out is like just learning to lead at a leadership level, and like how that’s different. I would say one of the biggest learnings for me personally has been I needed to really embrace that my job now is in setting a product vision and a strategy without knowing all the specifics of exactly how we’re going to get there, right, because then that becomes a problem for the team members to help solve, and then one of the things I’ve also learned is my quote unquote product outside of the actual product and the vision and the strategy for the team to implement is actually the teams themselves, the team members, the team topologies, together with my engineering counterparts, with how we create the internal system and like orchestration, so that everybody is successful in moving forward. In executing on the vision and the strategy, so and then how you lead in that world is very different than like I’m literally taking the problems and solving it myself, and so yeah, those are the two differences over the last 20 years that I’ve had to learn. I mean,

Toni:  

definitely, one of the one of the things I’m always coaching people on who I’ve got promoted is how to let go of being being at the level you were at before, being more hands on. Inevitably, as we move up, we have to let go, being so hands on. But then the shift that’s happening is we’re hearing you’ve got to be more in the weeds in AI, because the teams are going to be streamlined. You’ve got to be doing more of the stuff yourself. How are you seeing the future of AI impacting team structure in product? Like, what are you seeing? What are you? What are you experiencing? What have you heard in the industry that that is affecting product? I’m hearing a lot from engineers about flattening of orgs, CTOs being told to commit code. What is it looking like from the product perspective?

Debbie:   

Yeah, from the product perspective, I would say, you know, in the past, if we were giving estimates, setting expectations with stakeholders on when things can launch, the long pole is all typically is engineering, right? Like, okay, the LOE, and I used to say that, hey, it seems like stakeholders don’t factor in how much time it takes product people to do the thinking and the work, but it’s always about the engineering loe, but that’s completely changed now. Where build time and delivery is no longer the constraint, that could be so fast. And then now it’s actually even more critical, and putting pressure upstream on, are we thinking about the right problems to solve? Right, just because we can do all these 10s of like hundreds of things. Should we be doing those things? Are those the right things to be working on that will really move the needle, right? So you hear about the industry talking about product sense or UX or like design taste, like these types of things that arguably it’s about the strategic thinking and how close you are to the customer, and what’s really worth solving for, but then also having the awareness that it’s also now super fast to just build something and test it in the live in the market to see what the reactions are, but at the same time keeping in mind that you also don’t want to keep changing things for consumer or clients, right? Because then they have to keep learning your product is changing and evolving. So, how do you strike that balance between these things? Are things that, like, I would expect product people, together with their engineering counterparts and design counterparts have to think through and manage the different risks, but one of the things that’s definitely changed is I think the ratios, right, like the ratios of product people to engineers, like the number of people it takes to get something done is lowering, right, and the roles are blurring across folks, so I think about it, as you know, what is your forte, right? Or people talking about T-shaped builders, right? So you often have expertise in one thing, or you have a forte in something, or a power stroke in something, but then knowing a bit of everything else, and being able to dabble in everything else. Yeah, you definitely hear about team members where they’re, they’re, they’re submitting their first PRs, or they’re, they’ve created a full on prototype without easy needing a designer, right? So all the roles are blurring a bit, and what used to be ways of working and role clarity, now maybe isn’t so important. It’s about the unit that works together to deliver.

Toni: I mean, I’m definitely viewing this as an opportunity to redefine the what I’m calling APIs between teams, right? As you say, the roles were really well understood. This is where product starts and ends, right. This is who I hand over to. This is what the handover is. This is what I own. This is what you own. And I just view that those boundaries, they have blurred, but I think there are new boundaries to be put in place, because one of the things I am seeing constantly now. Obviously, I see a lot of broken teams, like kind of part of my work is picking up the pieces, often somebody comes to me once things are broken, when I wish they came before things break, but often they come when things have gone wrong, either in their career or in their company, and I see part of the problem is the blurring of these boundaries, and somebody thinking that they could do a thing. I like the fact you said you’re, you know, people can now build a prototype, there’s a very big difference between prototype and live product. In my mind, a live product, you’ve got to look at security, you’ve got to look at sustainability of the, you know, can you support this in the medium term? Have you got reproduced code? I mean, I’m coming from a software angle here, and I also, you know, the other side of it is I deal with other parts. Of businesses that feed into engineering, where they’re like engineers are trying to do the science behind it now, and they don’t get the science, and they’re choosing the wrong science, because AI says you could do this, and they don’t have the knowledge of the science to critique AI and say that’s not quite what we’re trying to do here, and so I feel like there’s a real risk here when we start dabbling, but there’s also the opportunity. How are you dealing with that with your team? Are you having those conversations, or is that not something you’ve met yet?

Debbie:  We’re definitely having those conversations, because on one side you know it’s pushing the boundaries of roles, right? And who really really is accountable for what? But you’re absolutely right, like a product person or an engineer is not necessarily going to be the one that creates the end state from a visual standpoint of where one to take the product, right. And then over reliance on AI can risk everything looking the same, right. And so now you can kind of tell what’s written by AI, you can also tell, like, what slides are designed by AI, what products are designed by AI, because they start to look the same, right? And so, in the world where everything is fast and arguably easier to deliver, how do you, how do companies stand out, like, with what you’re solving, right? And then that really comes with immersion in the problem space you’re in, like what you stand for, and how you inject your expertise and differentiation, so that your products are the ones that customers pick, and that’s really something that we think about all the time.

Toni: 

Yeah, I love the fact you’ve called that out, like with this homogeneity that’s coming, and you’re whisking it in everything, like, I was looking at buying some clothing the other day, and I ended up on a website, and this tells you, like, I shouldn’t have been on this website, maybe, but ended up with this website where, like, honestly, all the pictures are identical, and then just, like, AId at top onto the model, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, that’s like, of course, we end up in that place, right, where we have 10 ways of doing something, and that’s it. We’re no longer expanding our approach to how we solve problems, and to me, the reason we should be using AI is to solve new things faster. But actually, what’s happening is, you say you’re trying to, like, how are we going to differentiate ourselves from our competitors, when you’re in the competitive landscape, that’s when the human piece is really, really important. The US humans are really good at differentiation and making things look different and getting in the weeds. When you’ve got 10 products in the same market, AI will just make everything the same, because that’s how it’s designed. Do you see big companies falling for this? If we all pushing in that direction, are you pushing against it?

Debbie:   

Well, I mean, one of the things I would say is what AI is really good at is responses or things that sound right. So, let me maybe take a step back and talk about, for example, the Experian Virtual Assistant, Eva, right, because there I get asked, How does this compare against generic or not generic generalized AI assistance in terms of the personal finance guidance, for example, right, but if you look at that. One of the differences with what experience financial assistant can do, or Eva can do, is it’s grounded in trusted credit data about the consumer. It’s also got our credit expertise, right, because it’s a complicated, complex subject matter with how it works, and we also have consumer permission data with their finances, along with, you know, our bureau grade compliance and security with it, right? And how much time and care we spend with having our subject matter experts review, review the responses with ongoing monitoring and everything like that, and then on top of that, we have a integration with lenders with their lender eligibility right criteria, so it’s not, it’s not just generally saying, yep, the, you should go get this credit card, and then you potentially risk applying for that credit card, yet your financial profile doesn’t actually qualify for it, so then you might get declined, for example, right? So it gets very nuanced, and AI is good at responses that are believable, and they’re generally right, and it may be fine from you’re planning a trip to Japan or something like that, but when it comes to areas like financial services, where the stakes are really high? That’s where companies like Experian, I think, you know, with our expertise, it’s important for us to really help differentiate on what’s true, what’s not true, and what what really matters for you as an individual. Because everybody’s situation and financial profiles look different, and so this area is where I think companies, and you mentioned big companies, so not sure your definition of big company, but companies that exist that are in a specific industry, why they have such expertise, and what they need to really hone in back down to is that part that really differentiates and sets them apart.

Toni: Well, let’s shift gears for a moment. Debbie, something I know you’re very passionate about is inclusive product design, building products that are more accessible. Tell us a little bit about that. Why is this important to you? Where did that passion come from? And also, what does it mean, like, how does that play out in the way you build products?

Debbie:   

Yeah, so back when I was at Ticketmaster, I, you know, I, at some point, I was building the interactive seat map and introducing that for the ticketing space, and something that stuck with me has been building this for people who need assistive technology, and so in this sense it’s, you know, screen readers, but it’s never as simple as let’s just let the screen readers read all the seats on a map. First of all, that’s not really usable, right? Like to read 1000s of seats, how can they select seats in that way? And also, what’s tricky too is, you know, talk about product design, and what product folks and product have to think about is Ticketmaster. It’s probably no surprise, and this is what, at a time when bots were only ever bad, right? Like, bots are bad. This is like I’m talking 1520 years ago. Bots are bad, because the more readable something is to assistive technology for screen readers, the more it means that bad bots can take advantage of it, right? And then the worst thing you want is to make this available where we are making it accessible to those who are in need, who are visually impaired, yet it’s the bots that take advantage of it and buy up all the seats, right. And so, what I’ve learned from that experience is sometimes creating fair and equal access doesn’t always mean doing it exactly the same way. And so that was a big lesson that I learned, and it also introduced to me the different business constraints that you have to solve for, because there’s typically, you know, fraud risk, compliance risk, business constraints like these different things, and our job is to solve customer problems in a way that accounts for all of these different constraints and risks, so that what comes out the other end checks all the boxes across as many of these as possible, and having to make those trade-off decisions on what would you give up yet solve the problem for customers, and so that was an experience that I lived through, and obviously having assistive technology is important for companies, including now at Experian, and the way we incorporate this into our product development processes is it starts at the beginning, like at the beginning with the right folks thinking about different customers that we’re solving the problem for, as well as how we validate our product designs. So, in our research practices, we include as a requirement that we have to look at an inclusive panel of people that we research, and you know, invite to our panels, as well as for products that we put through usability testing. We often will ensure that we’re running it through assistive technology with people who really use these tools, and that it’s usable for them as well. And so it all starts at the beginning of product design, and it can’t be like inclusion, cannot be something that we tack on at the end, because that never works.

Toni:  Yeah, I love that, because one of the things that we definitely have, I mean, I run a website, I have to make sure it’s fully accessible, but we really have an issue that we’re, I feel like we don’t go far enough on accessibility, so I love that you have a passionate because you could have easily got out of accessibility requirements by just simply saying hey, bots problem, and that would have been sufficient, you know, 15 years ago, and I, that’s not, that’s not sufficient. I love that, that’s how that’s driven you. So, thank you for doing that. Okay, let’s talk about everything you’ve learned so far, what do you view is the biggest challenges we are going to face as leaders, as product leaders, in the coming years.

Debbie:  

I do think one of the things with AI is that’s been top of mind for me is given at least currently the high cost of like tokens, token consumption, and you see a lot of the more advanced tools that are available are actually behind paid subscription. For example, I kind of worry about or think about from an inclusion standpoint, is this the new. New new way, how socioeconomic, you know, levels are going to show up with the haves and have nots, potentially. And so, you know, you see that eventually, you know, devices and phones, like schools these days, public schools, they have Chromebooks and whatnot, so it’s more democratized, but that took some time to get there, and so, while AI is great and helps, right, be more efficient, and like businesses obviously adopt it, but if we think about then just the space that I’m in with accessibility and financial inclusion, like sometimes when people are, you know earning a living, they don’t have time to invest in something like this, and at least right now it may not be affordable for them to also have the best tools that are out there, like what does this mean for us as a society and as product professionals, right? So, so then the way we, I would think about it is, is there at least a common denominator version that, like, everybody ought to have access to, right? But from a business perspective, we have to think about, right, there’s different – the job of product is also to solve problems with within different constraints, right? And affordability and what you can offer is part of the constraints, so it’s just something that I think will evolve quickly over over the next months and years, but is something that is coming up for me.

Toni:   

I think that’s a really, a really insightful point that I’ve not been considering. I’ve been very focused on the leadership angle with AI and how that’s changing everything, because that’s my passion, but the socioeconomic fallout from this, we know we know it’s already changing jobs, and what we do with that is our choice is the species, actually, who we vote for. Are we going to vote for governments that prop up the people have lost their jobs, retrain them? But then, yes, the ability to use these tools, you know, we view most countries view the access to the internet as a human right, doesn’t mean it’s paid for, but it’s viewed as a human right in the same way that access to food and water and education is. AI potentially should be on that list.

Debbie:   

It evolved to that with internet access,

Toni:  

it did. It took a long time, though, and for a while we know that one of the splits in society was you’ve got access to the internet and you can accelerate your knowledge and learning, so that is something I’m going to start thinking about. So, thank you for that. Because, yes, you’re right, as product leaders, product leaders should have an impact on that. Every single one of us in tech should be part of this conversation. In my mind, that tech should be for good. I believe that’s why tech is on this planet, that’s why we’ve invented it, and we should be steering AI for good as well. So, I love that. Thank you so much for that insight. Let’s move on to quick fire round, otherwise we’ll end up talking AI all day, which is not a bad thing, but we’ve both got places to be, so does the audience. What is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given.

Debbie:   

I think the worst piece of advice I’ve ever been given is, and I don’t know if anybody’s like explicitly given it to me, or more, I grew up this way, is you know, keep your head down and let the work speak for itself. So I grew up in Taiwan, actually, and where, you know, being humble is a virtue and considered a strength, and so what I’ve learned, though, is being humble doesn’t mean being staying invisible, and so,

Debbie: 

actually easier to do this to advocate, like for my team and my team members, but I’ve learned that self advocacy is actually something that is not the same as bragging, right? So, I may have thought that if I advocate for myself, that’s bragging, but it’s not that. It’s about creating visibility for meaningful work, so that you can then create the next level of impact that you’re looking for.

Toni:   

I love that. I love those two things. Being humble is not the same as being invisible, and self-advocacy is not the same as bragging two things I passionately believe in, but those are just so succinct. What a beautiful way to turn that worst piece of advice into something that means you can shape yourself in a more productive way, so you can change the world. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? The

Debbie:   

best piece of advice I’ve been given, I would say, is in especially in corporate America, and you know, organizations where there’s a lot of high stakes decisions that have to be made. I would say is don’t let an official meeting be the first time people hear about an idea or a proposal. So I think for people to really become leaders, they need to learn this, and it’s not about being political, it’s not about that, it’s about how decisions get made. Who are the decision makers, and knowing who has input, who might have concerns? What are those objections? You don’t want to be going into a decision-making meeting not knowing what the decision. Makers are thinking right, and so then that invariably means to do this well, you’re you’re getting with them ahead of time, getting their feedback, inviting their feedback, and then that all becomes input into the decision, so that when the actual decision making meeting happens, it’s a non-event, doesn’t become a situation, right? 

Toni:   

I love this, because I talk about this so much, and I think people are like confused, like what’s the point in the meeting? Then the meeting is the final alignment. The problem with just bringing it up there is all the different personalities, and it becomes about them and not about the idea or the question or the approval or the thing you’re trying to get past, it becomes about one person’s stake versus another’s, whereas if they’ve all turned up already, all bought in, it’s a final alignment without their personalities getting involved, because at the end of the day, we’re dealing with humans, and humans have personalities and interests and passion projects, and it’s about recognizing that and dealing with it, and that’s not bad, and I think you build better products when you go and talk to stakeholders ahead of time as well.

Debbie:  

Yeah, and in the smaller forms, honestly, people are more collaborative and honest and direct, right, with their feedback. Yeah, yeah, worrying about the form and the optics and how they show up and like worrying about themselves and all that, so I would say this was like a learn lived experience learning as well as like coaching, and I know you coach a lot of leaders, so this one definitely has been one of the better pieces of advice I’ve gotten.

Toni:  

Yeah, it’s a big one, definitely. Well, this has been a fabulous conversation. So, where can people find out more about you, your work experience? Where can we find you online?

Debbie:   

People can find me on LinkedIn, just look me up, Debbie Shu at Experience. So that’s how they can find me, and they can hear more about the type of work that I do through some of the posts that I make occasionally.

Toni:  Yeah, and one of the things I would say to anybody listening to this episode, one that we didn’t get on to, your work in women in identity that you’re passionate about, just women supporting women in leadership as well. This is a passion topic for Debbie, so please do go give her a follow. She has a lot to say that we did not get a chance to touch on today, so go and check her out on LinkedIn. Debbie, as I said this has been a fabulous conversation, so I would love you to leave us with your final thoughts. What do you want to leave the audience with today? 

Debbie:   

The last thing I would leave everybody with is, as product leaders, professionals, as we talked about earlier, we are shaping the world with the products we build, and so you know, being a female leader, I would say our voices are important, and diversity of thought is important, and so each and every one of us have a chance to mold our teams and ensure that we are being inclusive and represent our diverse city of stakeholders and customers out there, and so our voices are important, and we just need to all think about the right way to make sure that our voices are heard in ways that we feel comfortable with, and that’s that’s what I’ll leave with,

Toni:  

that’s a beautiful way for us to wrap up this episode, because making sure our voices are heard is so important, and it touches on the where’s AI going to leaders in the socioeconomic impact. We need to make sure everybody’s voices are heard, everybody gets access to these tools moving forward. I love that piece, and I love what you’re trying to do at Experian with Eva as well, and giving people real insight. We didn’t even really get a chance to talk about that, but giving people real insight on their credit ratings. I truly believe that that is the way to empower the human race, and I love that. All the way back at the beginning of this interview, one of the reasons you talked about moving into product was because you needed to understand that outcome piece, and you know, Ticketmaster and Experian aren’t the obvious companies I would think for like having a product that is making a difference on the human race, and yet the way you’ve talked to me about what you’re doing is having an impact, and I really, really love that, but I also just want to leave the audience with the three pieces you gave me right at the end here. Being humble doesn’t mean being invisible, self advocacy is not the same thing as bragging, and always make sure your ideas are socialized before you bring them to the table. Those are three extraordinary pieces of advice that I wish every listener here really takes to heart. Whatever your passions in life, whatever you’re trying to achieve, those three things are universal. So, I hope that you’ve taken some notes from today’s episode. You go and give Debbie a follow, but until next time, remember: keep on leading, keep changing the world, and we can do this. We can change the world, the way we’re using AI, and the way we use technology for good, because we are women leading the change. Bye for now.