How Entrepreneur Learns From Other Entrepreneurs - J.T. Allen

In Chapter 15 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, education entrepreneur J.T. Allen answers "How Have Other Entrepreneurs Helped You Be a Better Entreprenur?"  Allen details how entrepreneurs have provided industry-specific mentorship to help him manage his business.  He also learns from other entrepreneurs working outside the career and education industry.  J.T. Allen is the CEO and co-founder of myFootpath, a company that provides higher education online resources and call center services to help high school and adult learners choose academic programs in line with career goals.  Before myFootpath, Allen worked in strategy consulting for Ernst & Young.  He earned his BBA and graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

How Software Engineer Switches to Technical Marketing - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 5 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "How Did You Decide to Leave Engineering to Pursue Product Marketing?"  After deciding to leave an engineering role at Oracle, Faykin finds an opportunity to do technical marketing in Silicon Valley for an Israeli-based startup and gain access to the adventurous travel that comes with the position.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

What American Express Marketing Job Teaches MBA - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 7 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "As an MBA, What Did You Learn About Product Marketing Working at American Express?"  Working in the American Express, or AmEx, travel division, he learns how large organizations can leverage economies of scale to make big bets on projects or campaigns.  Through this process, he learns lessons on brand loyalty and brand management.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

Learning Global Business Working at Intel in Shanghai - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 8 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "What Did Working at Intel in Shanghai Teach You About the Importance of Global Distribution Networks?" He shares the resource benefits available when working for a larger, global corporation and the advantages these create competing against smaller firms. Additionally he learns the value of international distribution networks and how benefits corporate resources and relationships enable them. Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011. Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures. He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

Why to Work in Developing Economies - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 11 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "What is the Source of Your Passion for Developing Economies?"  Faykin notes that most people in developing countries forget who developed them.  When everything is established and life is comfortable, the quality of life is often taken for granted.  Developing countries do not have this, as the current generation is responsible for making the change.  This drive to accomplish things inspires Faykin in his own professional pursuits.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

Why China Attracts Entrepreneurs - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 12 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "What Do You Enjoy Most About Working in Internationally Developing Economies Such as China?"  Faykin notes how the endless possibility and growth-minded culture attracts peers willing to start business ventures.  When considering several international locales to start his business, this culture informs Faykin's decision to choose Shanghai.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

How to Communicate Across Cultures - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 13 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "What Approach Do You Find Most Useful to Communicate Across Cultures?"  Faykin answers in one word: smiling.  Pushing away from MBA and consulting cross-cultural communication programs, Faykin shares how commitment, coupled with smiling, gets the job done.  If business communication issues remain, he notes why the concern should not be about cultures.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

What is the Best Part About Starting a Business - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 14 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "What Has Been the Most Gratifying Part of Starting a Company?"  He describes waking up each day and having the freedom to choose what he does.  Faykin finds the experience liberating and, also, fundamental to enjoying the entrepreneurial life.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

How Entrepreneur Starts Shanghai Internet Company - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 15 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "How Did You Decide to Start a Shanghai-based Group Buying Company?"  He notes it was a journey and not a spur of a moment decision.  Years before founding the company, Faykin works abroad in the UK, Israel, Sweden, India and China.  He ultimately decides on Shanhai, where Faykin had worked years before at Intel, in the process building a local business network.  He notes how he and his partner decided on a group buying Internet business, modeled after Groupon, and then how he navigated local culture to set up the business.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

How New Entrepreneur Learns Rules of the Game - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 16 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "Why is Learning by Doing So Important When Starting a Company?"  Faykin notes it is about the uncertainty and the necessary hands on experiences that teach an entrepreneur the rules of the game.  Its an adventure, learning new things daily and iterating based on market and customer feedback and signaling nearly as often.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

Why Bootstrap Finance a Startup - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 17 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "What Informed Your Decision to Bootstrap Your Startup Versus Pursuing Outside Capital?"  He notes not everyone can raise outside capital.  In his case, it was not clear he could raise outside capital for his Shanghai-based daily deals site, Tuanpin. Also, he finds it faster iterating via the bootstrap, focusing less on investors and more on customers.  Lastly, he wonders if it would be beneficial to get involved in the fundraising race around daily deals sites.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

How Non-Native Speaker Does Business in China - Anatole Faykin

In Chapter 18 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "As a Non-Native Speaker, How Do You Overcome Language Barriers Working in China?"  He shares how difficult it is navigating language barriers.  For Faykin, translators are often unable to translate words to meaning.  With a 25 person team speaking Mandarin Chinese, Faykin turns to trusted partners and a persevering attitude to get the job done.  Faykin is the founder of Tuanpin, a Shanghai-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011.  Previously, he worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startup ventures.  He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

Nina Godiwalla on Why Authors are Entrepreneurs

In Chapter 3 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What is the Business Model for Being an Author?"  Godiwalla notes the business model is being an entrepreneur, the book is the product, and everything else is the business world.  A Wharton MBA, Godiwalla finds her networking skills very useful making connections that create opportunities to accelerate her career.  She finds value and reward in pursuing an outreach strategy to senior level leaders as well as across her business networks.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What is the business model for being an author?

Nina Godiwalla:  The business model is being an entrepreneur and I see the book as your product and everything else is -- it’s the business world.  I used my MBA to the nth degree as part of this—as part of this book process because the reality is, is you get handed this gift of being able to have a product and then you can do nothing with it or you can expect everything to come your way but what I found is my business skills especially networking -- and I don’t even call it networking -- because what I did was I literally found people that I would have loved to meet.  Just people I would have you know like ‘oh that person is so interesting, they’re doing something so fascinating, I want to talk to them’ and I reached out to them and I – these are, some of them were authors, some of them were maybe they got a sense a better sense of the marketing than I did and it’s technically networking but the reality was it was just me reaching out to people I wanted to and the same with the networks.  I was already involved with a lot of networks and it’s basically how did I build deeper relationships with those networks.

So one of the most interesting pieces is the marketing piece, to be able to go out there and basically, you get to talk – I mean I get to talk all the time about things that I’m passionate about so I mean it’s hard to complain about any of it.  It’s just – it's fun and exciting and the other part is, is it’s what you make it, with any entrepreneurial thing.  One of the things I found astounding is you learn in a way I didn’t with a corporate job.  You have somebody standing over you and kind of telling you what you need to do and I don’t – you don’t have that.  I have that with my publisher and I do have a publicist, I have an agent, so they’re there but the reality is, is you get to do what you want to some extent and if you don’t like doing something you procrastinate, you put it off and you don’t do it.  So when you’re doing your own thing you get to do all the stuff you love because the reality is you just put your time behind things that you love.  So for me it’s just it’s been what I’ve made of it and the thing is I love is so much that you know it ended up just doing really well.

Nina Godiwalla on Speaking Up for Corporate America Minority Workers

In Chapter 9 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "How are You Learning to Adapt Your Message to Reach Broader Audiences?"  Godiwalla spends considerable time on the public speaking circuit while promoting her book.  By listening to audience stories and challenges, Godiwalla accepts responsibility to be the voice of the unspoken and unheard on workplace diversity issues in corporate America.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How are you learning to adapt your message to reach broader audiences?

Nina Godiwalla:  I’m less worried about broader audiences because I feel like I didn’t realize how broad my group would be.  What I want to do is have a message that’s more focused.  That’s become more important to me.  Right now, I get invited by all different kinds of institutes and organizations that I love.  I love speaking at the literary – from literary festivals to woman in leadership to Mind Science Foundation, I mean literally I’ve been invited so I have the broad audience and now what my focus is, is giving messages that are impactful and trying to find out what it is that’s my passion – through this process, I didn’t know, I mean I wrote a book and I didn’t know what it – I didn’t know that I had a message that I specifically want to get out there.  I didn’t know what that message was and through all of these events and all these presentations and these speaking events, I’ve started to realize I’m really passionate about diversity. 

I’m really passionate about giving a voice to people that don’t necessarily have a voice and I’m in a place of power to do that.  I used to be that person that was at the bottom of a company that came from the public school background, the woman where there were no women, the minority that didn’t – there weren’t a whole lot of minorities and the attitude is is a little bit of, you don’t necessarily get an opinion at the table because you are trying to prove yourself.  You are sitting there and you don’t belong and everyone around you knows that you don’t belong and they want you to do well and they want you to succeed but you’re not in a place to say, “Hey I don’t agree with anything you all are doing and I – actually, you know, what you said was offensive and this is…”  It’s not – you’re still that little person they’re trying to make it like them and I think I’m out of that.  I’m kind of out of that mindset and unfortunately, I think a lot of people that are in several different corporate cultures feel that way.  Like, “I don’t get to have that.  I don’t get to say what I want to say all the time.” 

So, I think of myself as being that voice and saying the – I mean they’re not even controversial things but things that people would like to say and I get so many emails and you know things that people say to me afterwards of, “I’m so glad you said it because I can’t say it.”  Because if you say that while you’re part of a corporation, it’s almost like you’re not being part of that team.  You’re not, you know, “Why don’t – do you think we don’t treat you well?”  And it’s not that they don’t treat you well, it’s just that sometimes I don’t agree with the things that go on around me but I don’t always have the, you know, the comfort to say it because I don’t want to be put on the side as that that person that was too vocal about things I didn’t agree with.  So I see myself as their voice if you will.

Nina Godiwalla on Improving Diversity Training with Sharing and Story

In Chapter 10 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "How Can Diversity Training Become Less About Avoiding Problems and More About Creating Opportunities?"  Godiwalla sees diversity training as an option to have a discussion rather than give a lecture.  She shares an example from learning diversity training from a theater group as well as from her own account in her book.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How can diversity training become less about avoiding problems and more about creating opportunities?

Nina Godiwalla:  One of the things is, is the mindset that people have and I love it that you said you know that of kind of avoiding these situations.  I remember when we had diversity training specifically in investment banking, because it was a more conservative culture and there weren’t a whole lot of minorities.  There was just this incredible dread like people were angry almost that they had to take an hour or two out of their day and it was pushed on you and it was you have to do it, nobody wants to do it. I really see it as an opportunity to have a discussion and those – those typically those weren’t discussions, it was basically like, “You all are not allowed to do this.  You’re not…” You know it’s almost like these slap on the hands, slap on the hands and the people that are in the room which is interesting, that do some of the stuff.  They don’t see themselves as the people that are doing those things. 

One of the most effective things I’ve seen is when I was getting a degree up on the East Coast, the university did diversity training and they brought in a theater company and what they did is they took real issues that happened at different universities and this was for the university staff.  They took the real issues and they had a theater people act it out, so all of a sudden it’s not you know you did this or you’re inappropriate, it’s like, “Hey, we’re just showing you some of the things that didn’t necessarily happen at your university but it’s happened in places.”  And they’re nuances things, it’s not someone hitting on someone which is like, “Okay, we all know that’s not supposed to happen.”  It’s really difficult conversations where someone might make an inappropriate joke but it’s not quite that inappropriate but at the same time, it offended four people in the room but no one’s going to say anything because that person is so senior, so it’s those types of things and what happened is afterwards, it became a discussion, the whole audience was engaged in the discussion and not everyone agrees and it was the most remarkable thing because you want to hear the different perspectives and I think when something was inappropriate I didn’t know, if I thought it was inappropriate, I didn’t even know the perspective of someone who doesn’t think it’s inappropriate and so it was amazing to hear those different perspectives and it was fun.  I loved it and I thought it was interesting.

And I think of my book as that, to me it’s a story, so that you get the theater thing and you get to hear a story, the book to me is a narrative.  It’s a story.  It’s removed from everybody.  It’s not threatening necessarily to them but let’s talk about some of the things that it raises and what does that mean for people. And I think the discussion makes people from all different areas feel like they’re heard because I don’t think diversity is minorities against non-minorities or women against men, it’s how do we all come to an understanding and see each other’s perspective because so often, so many things happen innocently.  I don’t think -- there are people that are out there to get other people but I think they’re very much in the minority.  That’s not the average person.  The average person thinks they’re doing the right thing.

Nina Godiwalla on How Inclusion Improves Corporate Diversity Programs

In Chapter 11 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "Why are Corporate Diversity Programs More Necessary Than Ever in the Workplace?"  Godiwalla notes how workplace culture is far more diverse than ever before and how organizations are able to recruit entry-level and mid-level talen but rarely retain them long-term.  She finds inclusion programs complement diversity hiring programs and pushes to shift the conversation toward inclusion programs and the culture they can create.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  Why are corporate diversity programs more necessary than ever in the work place?

Nina Godiwalla:  If you look at something 30 years ago, we might not have had a whole lot of people that were different but now, we’ve even got people in the environment and one of the challenges I think is the part that I would call inclusion.  So you’ve got, there are so many organizations that are able to bring people in.  They typically stay at lower levels, maybe make it to the middle levels and then they’re gone and it’s almost mysterious to companies I feel when they talk about it is, “What happened?  I mean we put so much money behind it.”  And it’s frustrating on the their part of I don’t get it, why are these people not staying and so I think the focus needs to be a little bit more on diversity and inclusion and we’ve heard that term, some of the programs have actually changed their name to diversity and inclusion and the idea is, is it’s not you just bring people in and hope that they survive. 

The reality is when you have an environment that tends to be so closed off to any type of people that are different, thought processes that are different, to values that might be different.  If the culture is that intense and that closed, it becomes hard to keep somebody feeling happy and welcome in that culture and I think there’s more work that needs to be done around inclusion.  I actually don’t think it’s that challenging to bring in somebody.  I think it’s challenging to make it a place where somebody wants to stay.

Nina Godiwalla on Advocating Women and Minority Workplace Equality

In Chapter 12 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What Can Organizations Do to Better Support Women and Minorities in the Workplace?"  Godiwalla finds many organizations make hiring women a top priorities but do not put as much emphasis to developing those female employees.  As a result Godiwalla comes to believe companies are not looking out for the best interests of women.  She shares investment banking experiences from when she worked at JP Morgan and associated challenges working in a male-dominated environment.  Godiwalla then discusses specific ways to improve workplace equality for women and minorities.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What can organizations do to better support women and minorities in the work place?

Nina Godiwalla:  One of the things I think is creating a culture that’s pretty open to them.  I use – I love this example that I had in investment banking. They have women initiatives, so they’re focused on bringing women in but the question is, what do you do once you bring these women in. And in my experience, we had it where women were – when I looked around and saw what the environment was, even if nothing necessarily happened to me, I would watch what they – the way women were treated by the company for – through my friends and the reality is, is I don’t necessarily think that the company really looked out for women.  Sometimes they did but often they did not.  One of the Morgan Stanley clients said, “We don’t want women working on deals.”  And so right away, she’d done a lot of work on the deal and they ended up pulling her off of the deal, when it came down to interact with the client and do all the fun exciting stuff that looks so great on your resume.  Morgan Stanley just said, “You know what?  They don’t want women on the deal.  You’re getting pulled off.” 

So it’s that type of thing where you kind of – you see that a lot of time, there was opportunities where you’d see women, the time that you’d get to network with senior management is through a lot of the social activities and you’d see all the men on a team, there’s two lower level women and they would be pulled off and they’d have to go to the spa whereas the whole rest of the guy’s team would go out golfing for like a corporate event.  So you just see a lot of things where that doesn’t necessarily make sense and that’s not how women are going to be getting ahead. 

So I think companies paying attention and saying, “What can we do to kind of advocate for the fact that this isn’t necessarily the appropriate behavior?”  And to say it from a guy’s perspective, I think there needs to be conversations because from one of those guy’s perspective that suggested, “Why don’t all the women go to a spa?”  I actually think they may have thought they were doing them a favor.  I don’t know but they could have been thinking, “You know what?  These women don’t know – I don’t even know if they did know how to play golf but they don’t -- probably don’t want to play golf.  Let me let them do what they want to do.”  And that’s why I think the conversations are important and what I really distinctly am not pleased about is when the conversations are the women and the minorities in the room because -- only -- because there is no understanding. 

When I go on – when I travel and speak, one of the most beneficial things I’ve had is we have people of all different types in the room.  We have the men in the room, the minorities in the room, the women in the room and the exchange and understanding that takes place and part of it is because we’re not in a corporate environment so you know the person across can’t say, “I’m worried about what she’s going to think about me because I have to work with her next week and I don’t want her telling my team that I said terrible things.”  There isn’t that anxiety around these talks.  It’s what can we do to learn from each other and some of the most brilliant things I’ve learned are from you know the guys that are sitting at the table saying, “Hey, I didn’t know that, I didn’t get it,” or a woman saying “Really? That’s why you did that.  I had no idea that, you know, your intentions were good.” It’s very helpful to have those conversations.

Nina Godiwalla on What Makes a Professional Women's Network Valuable

In Chapter 13 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "What Makes a Professional Women's Network Valuable?"  She shares how a network of female professionals supports her career development as well as allows her to support helping other women succeed.  Godiwalla also shares how she has built network relationships with more senior women professionals.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What makes a professional women’s network valuable?

Nina Godiwalla:  I’ve really used my network, so part of my, I think, my success with my book has been leveraging the networks that I’m part of and 85Broads is one of those and I think they’re an incredible women’s network.  I’ve had so many people that helped me.  Part of it is we share a passion for helping other women succeed because we have seen that there’s challenges out there.  Everyone’s coming from a different field and you can see how sometimes it’s not as easy to make connections and some of the organizations were most of them are in male-dominated environment so you see that connection.  What I think becomes so successful is that passion that people have for each other and what’s interesting about that particular environment is people are from across the board so when I’m interested, here I am.  I was a corporate executive.  I’ve been in the advertising world, the finance world, marketing.  I’ve just switched through so many worlds and now I’m into publishing world and the writing world and the reality is, is I need – as I switch through different things, I don’t necessarily have a network all piled up.  What I’ve found is through the women’s network, I do have a network all piled up.  I have – I can reach out to all these people in different industries and say, “Hey I just got a book deal and I have no idea what to do.  Do I need an agent?  Do I not?”  And not everyone takes the risk of going out there and just reaching out to people they don’t know but I think that’s one of the best things that I do is I’m very comfortable with it and the reality is I help so many people that you have to – it’s an exchange.  I’m always looking out for who can I help and I always have people reaching out to me and I make it within any kind of busy day that I have to help, you know a certain number of people that week.  That’s just - you make the time for it because so many people have helped me along the way and the fact that, you know, when you have that accessible – it’s just a diverse group of people that we have and it’s so accessible that I think it just – it makes it completely you know people are able to do -- kind of get whatever they need out of that environment which I think is amazing.

Erik Michielsen:  Do you tend to find yourself working more with people at your level or work, reaching up and dealing with more senior individuals or is it, does it vary?

Nina Godiwalla:  I will grab any which way and I don’t have a problem reaching out to the senior people. I think you always have to be careful and it’s one of the advice I give to younger women when I’m talking is, one of the things I wasn’t scared of and I haven’t been is, I typically do reach out to very senior people but there usually needs to be a reason so I mean I’m not talking you don’t walk into a 50,000 person corporation and contact the CEO right away but I’ve seen a lot in my environment.  I worked at Johnson & Johnson and I was interning there once and there was a president of that whole organization that I was in-charge that -- she ran that whole organization and I mean my boss’s boss’s bosses probably didn’t talk to her very often but I just decided we had a connection that we talked about meditation.  I heard her mention it to someone else.  I didn’t speak directly to her and honestly, I just wanted to meet her.  I was interning there.  She seemed really interesting so I reached out to her and nobody else would reach out to her.  My boss wouldn’t reach out to her and I just let her know I wanted to get to know her a little better.  I was interested in what she’d said about meditation and there it was.  I mean I ended up meeting her and she is one of my biggest advocates for the rest of the time and the reality is, is I think a lot of people are too scared.  We see the hierarchy and – but when I think there’s a natural -- I wouldn’t be persistent about reaching out to someone incredibly senior but sometimes you take that risk and it really pays off and I’m one of those people that are very comfortable taking that risk.