FEG Insight Bridge Podcast with Tiffany Pham

Chapters
00:00:00 Intro

00:00:30 Episode overview

00:02:19 Tiffany’s story

00:04:50 The road to founding Mogul

00:11:09 Three key pieces of advice for success

00:15:39 Moving from idea generation to startup to a fully-fledged company

00:21:02 Private Equity Diversity Alliance

00:22:53 How not-for-profits can target board and staff diversity

00:26:43 From Business Strategy to IT Roadmap – a guide for executives and board members

00:30:24 Diversity and financial services

00:32:48 Why mentorship is key and how to find a mentor

00:38:00 How to deal with rejection

00:40:23 Lightning round

Greg Dowling (00:00):

Welcome to the FEG Insight Bridge. This is Greg Dowling, head of research and CIO at FEG, an institutional investment consultant and OCIO firm serving non-profits across the U.S. This show spans global markets and institutional investments through conversations with some of the world's leading investment, economic, and philanthropic minds to provide insights on how institutional investors can survive and even thrive in the world of markets and finance.

Greg Dowling (00:30):

Today's FEG Insight Bridge will be at the intersection of capital investment and human investment. Why is this important? Because in the financial services industry, your assets are your people. That also extends to many of the great organizations that we serve. So today we will hear an inspiring story about entrepreneurship from Tiffany Pham on the founding of Mogul, a global diversity recruitment firm that is also a worldwide platform enabling women to connect, share information, and gain knowledge from each other.

Greg Dowling (01:00):

She is a graduate of both Yale and the Harvard Business School, a best-selling author, and was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media. Hear her story from idea generation to startup to growing the business through private equity and how she's now working to improve the private equity industry through the recruitment of diverse talent. She will also share her thoughts on the financial services industry and how it compares to other industries. Finally, she will provide lessons to board members and executives, including how to better recruit and mentor diverse talent. Invest in yourself; listen now. 

Greg Dowling (01:35):

Tiffany, welcome to the FEG Insight Bridge.

Tiffany Pham (01:38):

Thanks so much for having me, Greg.

Greg Dowling (01:39):

Yeah, we're excited. Maybe you could start off by briefly introducing yourself and Mogul.

Tiffany Pham (01:45):

Absolutely. Thanks so much, again, for having me. Delighted to be here. Well, I am the founder and CEO of Mogul. Mogul is one of the world's leading diversity recruitment companies. We support the recruitment--through our software and services--of countless Fortune 1000 clients, private equity firms, and nonprofits, as well as leading startups of today. I'm just really delighted to be here and be able to share my insights from building the company from what it is today and to be able to also share more insights on the future of work and my story and see if there's any ways in which I can share insights and takeaways for the audience today.

Greg Dowling (02:19):

The listeners will find out you have a very eclectic background, so we're going to go all over the place. But let's start with your story, because it is pretty interesting. It's a good journey. It's from Paris to Plano. So maybe talk about your story growing up.

Tiffany Pham (02:32):

My story does take quite a turn throughout my childhood. My story starts out with family there. My grandmother, she was this amazing woman who ran companies across Asia, she ran businesses, newspapers, she was just this incredible woman ahead of her time. She was one of the first women to drive a car in Vietnam. Truly a maverick, a mogul. But because of the war, my family ended up actually in Paris, France, and that's where I was born, so I'm actually a French-U.S. dual citizen. Growing up in Paris, I had a wonderful childhood because my parents always worked so hard. Having nothing in their pockets, they tried to rise up within Parisian society, but they always worried about me that since I was a minority girl, I wouldn't have opportunities like those around me. So when I was 6 years old or so, they started to increasingly fall in love with the idea of America as they were watching black and white movies from America. And all of a sudden, as a result, by age 6 to 10, we ended up in America. From Paris, France, to Plano, Texas. So we ended up in Plano, which is way different...

Greg Dowling (03:32):

It's very different than Paris.

Tiffany Pham (03:34):

[laughs] Absolutely. It was such a culture shock, but I loved it. I remember just coming in and seeing horses and McDonald's and football--it's very different, but I loved it. I ended up ultimately learning how to speak English around this time as well by watching American pop culture TV shows like Friends and I Love Lucy and listening to Delilah on KVIL. That's how I ended up learning how to speak English. And I could then see for myself how powerful the world around us--media technology--could be for learning and education. I never forgot that feeling and experience, which will translate itself down the line later as an entrepreneur.

Tiffany Pham (04:10):

But when I was 14 years old, that's when my entire life changed. That's when my biggest role model in life, my grandmother, ended up passing away, young and unexpectedly. That day that she passed away, I made a promise that I was going to spend the rest of my life working towards the same goal and mission that she had had forever after. Throughout all her time running these companies, her businesses in Asia, she was always looking to provide others in need with opportunities, women in need across the community with opportunities. And so I promised her that forever after, no matter how hard or challenging, I was going to dedicate every single moment of my life thereafter towards that same goal and mission too; I was going to follow in her footsteps.

Greg Dowling (04:50):

That's a good segue, because that's a great and noble goal to have, but translating that into action... You eventually found Mogul. So take us from being a teenager in Plano to going to Yale and Harvard and eventually founding Mogul.

Tiffany Pham (05:03):

Definitely at that time I didn't know where life would take me, but I ended up thinking to myself, "What could I do to be like my grandmother?" And that's when I happened to watch a TV show that was pretty much a big hit at the time called Gilmore Girls. And in it, Rory Gilmore, she was just like me at the time: an introvert, hardworking, loved her parents, very studious, very much like me. As a result, when I saw what the Northeast looked like--it was such a faraway land, but on screen I could see it. I didn't have the money to go to visit colleges and go to college, but I happened to see this on screen and I thought to myself, "Hey, wait a second, she's running the school newspaper in the show, just like my grandmother had run back in Asia."

Tiffany Pham (05:41):

That's when I started to realize maybe that's what I could do to be like my grandmother. So I started with that first small step of writing secretly, without telling my parents who were still at the time unfamiliar with the American school system and college system. I ended up writing this letter, application to Yale, asking for a chance. If they could just let me in, I knew I could do this one day, follow in my grandmother's footsteps. After a couple of months of silence, I remember still my dad picking me up from school and crying because he had gotten this letter from a place called Yale [laughs]. He didn't quite know what it was. But they had let me in on a scholarship. The first time I ever saw what a college looked like was my first day of class at Yale. I really was, at that time, fully immersed and feeling out of place, honestly, because everyone else seemed to be just so much brighter than me and with it.

Tiffany Pham (06:24):

I didn't understand what was going on most of the time my first year. And then I came back to Plano and promised myself I didn't want to regret a single moment of my life ever again as I had throughout the first year at Yale, because again, I had felt so out of sorts and out of place. So I promised myself I would be like my grandmother; I belonged, and I was going to try. I came back, therefore, to Yale and took the first opportunity I could, which was actually, by chance, at that school newspaper. It had gone into debts and as a result, everyone had fled the business staff. I was one of the few remaining as I stepped on, and I did what was my worst nightmare at that time as an introvert, I went and sold door-to-door-to-door myself.

Greg Dowling (07:03):

Wow.

Tiffany Pham (07:03):

As a result of all the passion I had for the newspaper--and especially for my grandmother--the local business owners bought in. And as a result, we went from bankruptcy to record profitability within six months. That became my first entrepreneurial experience and showed me I could be like my grandmother. Years later, as I graduated from Yale, I happened to watch another movie, this one was called Legally Blonde. In it, Elle Woods, she was just like me--again, didn't believe in herself at the time, but all of a sudden, she aspired for more and she went off to Harvard grad school and killed it. So when I saw that picture of Boston and yet another character on screen like me... As an immigrant girl, I was always looking on screen to see the example and the role model.

Tiffany Pham (07:43):

And then, as a result, I ended up writing a letter to Harvard, and they ended up letting me in on a full scholarship, and I became one of their youngest students. So I ended up there years later. It was a full circle moment in many ways, it was a life changing experience for sure. I ended up working for one of their alums, the president of BBC at the time, who years later became the first female CEO of Warner Brothers in 100 years and was a long-time advisor to Mogul, my company now. Years later--I actually am returning to Harvard Business School today, in fact, because I'm not only one of their key speakers for their annual women's conference this year, but also just annually they teach a case study about Mogul each year to their students as a part of the class discussion.

Tiffany Pham (08:23):

So a big full circle moment. I'm very proud of that institution, and the experience I had there was life-changing. But thereafter, I ended up not only working for these alums, but working for then their friends. And because I would always try to over-deliver on little tasks they would give me, whether it was stapling papers or delivering coffee, etc., just always overdeliver--any Excel sheets. And as a result, that became the way in which all of a sudden I would earn their trust. That trust became a friendship and a lifetime partnership and collaboration and business partnership. So I ended up working with HBO and then later CBS and became an executive leader within the media space. CBS was helping to oversee TV stations, radio stations, websites, mobile properties--150 different ones across 29 different U.S. cities--and talent and initiatives across the space.

Tiffany Pham (09:11):

But then at nights I took on side jobs with the vice mayor of Beijing. I co-founded a venture between U.S. and China investing Beijing government resources into U.S. talent that could enable us to therefore help the proliferation of U.S. talent and U.S.-China relations, and I became the global head of marketing for that venture. And then the third job I had at night was producing feature films and documentaries with A-list talents, featuring talent like Gerard Butler or Patricia Arquette, etc. In producing these films, we were able to highlight different social issues that needed more global awareness. I became one of the producers to produce the first North American feature film to ever feature Mosaic down syndrome in the lead role, for example. So you can see the through line throughout each of my jobs and my side hustles at the time. My three different jobs across different regions of the world were always highlighting new talent, new voices, pushing new people to the forefront.

Tiffany Pham (10:00):

And then all of a sudden one day... Different friends of mine, of course, had since left the school newspaper from these times  ago to become reporters for Vanity Fair and Wall Street Journal, etc., and friends would reach back out and ask if they could write about my three jobs, my three very unique, unusual jobs. So I guess buzz started building about my three jobs. And then all of a sudden one day... Forbes had started this 30 under 30 tradition at the time, they had listed all these celebrities on there, and then they must have run out of celebrities, because in the 30th final slot they included my name and my email. As a result, by mistake [laughs], I got a ton of letters from all around the world, from women and girls from across the world, from Afghanistan, from Pakistan to Brazil, China, U.S. Heartbreaking letters telling me that their girls' life was just all about marriage. As a result, they were just wondering for my advice on how did I get these jobs and how could they get the same jobs too? I would write back to every single letter, "Here's what you do," three-page essay, and write back, "steps 1, 2, 3, here's how you do it." And they would tell me that my letter changed their life. They got that opportunity or interview or promotion they never thought would be possible.

Greg Dowling (11:09):

Well hold on right there. Let's share those three things. What are the three things that you tell most people if you write them a letter?

Tiffany Pham (11:15):

Great question. Well, it's always really tailored and personalized to the specific problem. But my general advice, three things, for example, are to be strategic, yet flexible. That's number one. My whole life I had this broad idea of what I wanted to do, to follow in my grandmother's footsteps. But I ended up being strategic in getting there to this broad idea. I ended up thinking about, "Okay, I wanted to follow in her footsteps, wanted to build a company," and to do that I needed to know different skill sets. If you think about it, the side hustles and jobs I got was in content distribution, it was in strategy, business development, it was in marketing, international relations. I picked all these jobs that would enable me to gain the skills strategically to one day lead to that broad idea of following in my grandmother's footsteps and starting a company by learning every company facet.

Tiffany Pham (11:57):

Advice number two: collaborate to accelerate. All along the way--I mentioned the friendships I built along the way, overdelivering on everything I was given, and that friendship becoming a relationship, a collaboration, a lifetime partnership. And that's how I always am. I don't believe in networking; I believe in friendship-building. I say that all the time, and that's truly anonymously how I operate in every aspect of my life. Collaborate to accelerate. When I first started, I knew nobody, but I reached out to a friend that I had helped for many years, never expecting anything back, and immediately he jumped to help. He introduced me to others, and then I asked those people to help. They introduced me to others. And because I have them, it just was about friendship-building and giving and giving and giving. And then all of a sudden, as a result, when Mogul first started, I was lucky to immediately receive the first email back saying that they wanted to help from the founder of match.com.

Tiffany Pham (12:47):

That became my first investor and advisor. Anyways, all this to say, I have key advice on how to reach out to people through these friendships. But even cold, I even give advice on how to reach out cold to somebody by giving and giving and giving--even in the note, in a very friendship-oriented note. And with that, it translates into, 50 tees, 20 become cool opportunities to therefore become life-changing experiences. So that's the number two advice I would give: collaborate to accelerate, reach out to mentors, advisors, friends, and learn and help and give. And then the third one is staying true to your values. Speaking up and standing up and staying true to your values.

Tiffany Pham (13:26):

All throughout this time of building Mogul into what it is today, there have been many times where sometimes I revert back into that introvert that I was leading up to this moment. And yet, those times when I forced myself to speak up, to speak up to my values and share my thoughts, I've been rewarded with the most incredible, incredible experiences and life-changing opportunities. For example, in 2016, I was invited to Vienna with a lot of pioneers--19 other men, actually, plus me. We were invited to the palace by a mysterious organizer named Tim. He stepped into the room and told us to all collaborate to figure out what global solutions needed addressing, and what if there was one solution that, if addressed, would help address all other global issues. All together, all these pioneers that were working on all these different issues, all of us came together to think about what it could be. Could it be famine that if solved would solve all other global issues?

Tiffany Pham (14:13):

Would it, was it energy? Was it water? Everyone went, mostly saying what they were working on, but in the end, I knew what the answer was. I knew that the answer was girls' education, but I didn't speak up until the very end. Timmy had given us an hour to speak, and I spoke up at the very end, last hour, last minute: "Girls' education, because if solved, then it solves all of their global issues. Families prosper, education levels rise, incomes rise, cities flourish, the world flourishes. In any case, it's girls’ education.” I was much more eloquent than that at the time, but as I spoke up in front of everybody else, everyone realized, yeah, it was girls’ education. And then they started to say, "Hey, with all these brilliant minds in the room, how would we solve girls’ education?"

Tiffany Pham (14:54):

As they came up with the answer, it turned out that they were coming up with... Without even knowing it, they had come up with the exact layout of what Mogul's business model is. When they discovered that, they said, "Well, then we should all invest." And then they did. It ends up being my third piece of advice, is to always speak up. Even when it's scary, even when you are feeling out of place, you've got to speak up, you've got to force yourself. That forcing function becomes practicing of a muscle. It becomes confidence, which becomes later courage. That's my third piece of advice.

Greg Dowling (15:20):

This could be a movie in itself, right? You are summoned to a palace in Europe by a mysterious man to solve all the world's problems. I would get the movie rights for that right away. That sounds pretty good. So you--

Tiffany Pham (15:34):

It kind of sounds like a scary movie at the beginning though.

Greg Dowling (15:36):

Right, right. You're like, "What's going on here?" We at FEG, we are in the financial services industry, but we service mostly the not-for-profit sector. So I want to combine those two things here and really start on the financial services side. Talk to us a little bit about--and we're going to come full circle on this one too--talk to us a little bit about how it was like to raise money and create a sustainable company from idea generation to getting private equity and outside investors in. Talk us through that. And then also we'll go--after doing that, I want to hear what you're trying to do for the private equity industry.

Tiffany Pham (16:11):

Yeah, absolutely. You know, as a female founder... I founded the company at a time when most people getting funding were not women, and as a result... I mean, I think it's a famous statistic by now that less than 2% of VC funding goes to female founders, even to this day, and I started 8, 10 years ago in the startup industry. Giving that context is important because it'll explain why I didn't go the traditional route initially of going straight to necessarily those institutional investors within Silicon Valley. The first way in which I operated was in the very exact way that I just recently described of turning to friends, the peers that I'd helped through the years, the friends that I'd worked with, that I collaborated with, the partners that had come into my life as longtime partners and collaborators by this time.

Tiffany Pham (16:57):

All of that creating the momentum, therefore, that then led me to our first investor advisor, the founder of match.com. What happened there, just to describe that anecdote, was he was the first reply saying, "Yeah, let's get on a pitch tomorrow." I had never pitched before, right? This is like the beginning years of Mogul. Never pitched. And so as a result, I got on the phone with him and I made all these mistakes. I had put this pitch deck together with all-black background on the slides, which no one wants to print out--people were still printing out slides at the time [laughs]--and then ultimately put all this data on because I had come out of Harvard Business School thinking, "Data, data is good," instead of thinking about it as a story that needs to be told. Not realizing my biggest lesson that I share now in presentations, which is that if you were to only have one slide, that slide alone should be enough to be a home run and get you your buy-in.

Tiffany Pham (17:45):

If that's not happening within one slide, don't even have it in the deck. That's what I say now. But at the time, I didn't learn that lesson yet. So I presented all these slides with tons of data and numbers that only together might have sold the story, but not separately apart. What I mean to say is that it was overwhelming. So I did that and learned my lessons. But what was so great about the founder of Match--and later on other investors--was that in the end, he loved my passion and my dedication and the story, it resonated with him. Because what had happened at that time as I was speaking with him was that Mogul I had built in the background. I had been working in these three jobs, I'd been teaching myself how to code at night, trying to figure out how to help these women that were contacting me with these letters at a larger scale.

Tiffany Pham (18:29):

I taught myself how to code, that final skill set that I needed to know to build a company like my grandmother. That was the final thing I had had to learn, how to code myself, since I had come from this business background. And I did it. After a couple of weeks, I'd built the first very ugly iteration of Mogul, the very first one. Built it with my own two hands, sent it out, and it had launched to a lot of people. When he heard that story, the founder of Match, he said, "Hey, that resonates with me, because when I launched Match we launched a million people, and we lost those million people because I didn't have the money, the funding, and the advisory, and I would like to become your first advisor and investor." I was like, "Oh my goodness, like thank you so much, that's so great, thank you."

Tiffany Pham (19:06):

He was like, "Where's the paperwork?" And I said, "What paperwork?" [laughs]. And he said, "Well next time you talk to someone like me, make sure you get your advisor agreement from founderinstitute.com, and the next time you talk to someone like me, make sure you also get your investment agreement from ycombinator.com, the safe note.” And so that is how we got our first advisor and investor. I never forgot that and I always, therefore, brought those documents to future meetings. The next one was Gary Vaynerchuk, for example. In the first meeting I learned my lessons from the founder of Match, and Gary committed to invest 6 figures within 10 minutes. So you learn, and that’s how I built the approach for ultimately bringing on our first investors of Mogul. Over time, as a result, Mogul built itself into a sustainable organization, thriving off of our own revenues. At the time we were kind of an outlier because startups didn’t do that, startups weren’t profitable [laughs].

Tiffany Pham (19:56):

But because of the approach that I had—because I was ultimately initially very wary of how female founders were likely biased against in some way in the financial system, even early on before there was even this talk of it—I had luckily built ourselves into a sustainable, thriving organization that today can speak of itself as going to be profitable for the year and therefore we’re non-reliant on that capital. That said, we have continued growth opportunities around the world. Since then, we’ve grown to so much more than just a platform, we’re a full ecosystem supporting hundreds of thousands of candidates, and in fact have a bowl of diverse candidate profiles for our recruiters and our clients to recruit from of over 494 million diverse candidate profiles. And we support 580 Fortune 1000, as I’ve mentioned, and world’s fastest growing startups, and more. So we’ve grown into, again, the leading global diversity recruitment company globally—or one of the leaders. With all of that, there comes the opportunity for more growth capital. So now institutional investors behind Mogul, from Hearst Corporation to SoftBank—one of the world’s largest investment technology funds—and so we’ve been able to further grow globally to support from there.

Greg Dowling (21:02):

That’s great. I know that you are also working with the PE industry, so maybe explain what you’re doing there.

Tiffany Pham (21:10):

Absolutely. The PE industry is one of our most exciting areas that we support. That is because where Mogul has grown to, has really led us to a place where we can be one of the strongest resources for the PE industry. For financial players in this space, they obviously are acquiring organizations, turning them around, placing new board members across those teams, and placing new C-Suite leaders. Historically, they haven’t had typically the opportunity to place key diverse leaders necessarily across those boards, across the C-suite. And where Mogul is especially a key player, is that very same thing. We did it across the Fortun’ 1000; we do it across leading startups of today; we do it across nonprofits; we do it across financial institutions like banks, FinTech players, VCs, and hedge funds; and we realized we should be helping the PE firms. So as a result, we started something that is a very exciting alliance of PE firms.

Tiffany Pham (22:03):

More information will be coming out this year, actually, about all the firms participating, but top-tier firms, PE firms, all in this alliance called the Private Equity Diversity Alliance that is committed to building diversity across its boards, across its C-suite, and turning to firms like Mogul or other partners—that of course we support, because for everyone this is a solution. Then as a result of working with us, they’re able to diversify that leadership and just really ensure truly that their investment into the organizations they’re acquiring and turning around and ultimately leading to future exits and further growth opportunity are going to be truly packaged with the best, the best of the best. Mogul is there to support that. So that’s a really exciting initiative and creating a lot of impact across the industry. We’re just so excited and proud that really top-tier players are all taking a part.

Greg Dowling (22:53):

When you think of not-for-profits—let’s just say community foundations. So let’s just say community foundations, volunteer organizations, they do very important things, but how do they ensure...? Maybe they don’t have the proceeds of a private equity firm. Private equity firms’ 2 and 20, that pays a lot of bills. You’re a community foundation and you want to do a better job of diversity on your board, you want to make sure your board looks like the community you represent. Any tips on how they can improve diversities in the not-for-profit area? And you can’t say Mogul, even though I’m sure that’s [laughs], that’s part of it.

Tiffany Pham (23:27):

Absolutely. Well I think in the end of the day what you want to ensure is that you have a full pipeline to consider. When you have a full pipeline, you can ensure that your efforts and your consideration were comprehensive, and that comprehensiveness leads to inclusivity, so that is key. Because otherwise, when you just fully rely on your network or referrals, ultimately you’re likely going to be building off of people that look like you or think like you or have the same perspectives. Is that really going to lead you to the best board, the best organization, the best impact—the triple bottom line? It’s key to be comprehensive in your efforts. So how do you do that? You design first the profile of the board candidate you need, and you ensure that the profile is comprehensive in itself in terms of the skill sets you need.

Tiffany Pham (24:14):

Make sure it’s gender neutral if ever this is going to be out for distribution, which oftentimes nonprofits do distribute this widely. And ultimately, you just want to make sure that it’s well-designed to the market, it resonates. So these are the key three characteristics that we help our nonprofit clients and others... They can do it themselves if they need. Again, ensure those three things within that candidate profile. Then step two, you think of all of the candidates that fit that criteria—every single one, don’t leave it out. And that’s where things get a little harder, admittedly, because sometimes candidates are on LinkedIn, of course, and recruiters therefore, or board members, go on to LinkedIn. The difficulties of doing that though, just through LinkedIn, is that it in itself as a technology can also lead to bias, because LinkedIn’s business model is actually built on limiting your data view.

Tiffany Pham (25:01):

So in the same ways that I just said to try to avoid limiting your own capabilities and pipeline by referrals, the same thing ends up happening if you just use LinkedIn too, because it itself uses its business model of limiting data views to sustain itself. For example, if you go on LinkedIn and you search for a candidate, it’ll say maybe 30,000 people are available for this role, but in reality, you know it will just show you a small snippet of that and it won’t show you more until the next month or the following month, so you’ll never actually be able to see everybody. That’s what I mean. Therefore, on Mogul, for example, and tools like Mogul, you can always look for others. We show everyone comprehensively available. No constraining, no capping, you can see everyone. So anyways, I just say this simply to let everyone know that there’s ways in which you can circumvent the fact that you’re limited on your technology or in your network.

Tiffany Pham (25:48):

So be as comprehensive as possible. Then that’s where we interview. For example, for a nonprofit doing it themselves, they can interview in a way that’s going to limit biases. Make sure that the questions are consistent across all interviewers. Make sure that there’s consistency there. And try to ask across all aspects of the board candidate’s profile: the past experience, the present readiness, the future potential—all of their criteria. Oftentimes, by asking that 360, you’re going to land at the right person, not just from a skillset perspective but from a cultural perspective. Because other times that’s where it can lead to future friction, if you don’t ask for those aspects as well on culture by asking about the present readiness, the future potential aspirations, interests, and more. And then from there, going into new negotiations and the offer for the board candidate or for the C-suite or executives at the nonprofit. I know I spoke about this example more from a board perspective, but nonprofits can take this approach across any role that they’re recruiting for.

Greg Dowling (26:43):

You’ve written a lot of books, probably your most famous is Mogul. I would think that’s probably your best-selling book. But one of your earlier books was kind of a guidebook for executives and board members. I don’t know if it’s sold as many, but [laughs] our client base. Are there some quick cliff notes you can give us? Well first, go buy the book, but it they can’t buy the book, can you give us a couple of tips?

Tiffany Pham (27:05):

Yeah, absolutely. And actually, surprisingly, this book continuously sells so well, perhaps because it is a guidebook. While Mogul was a Wall Street Journal bestseller and an instant best-selling book across those memoirs. This book, though, is like this perennial best-selling guide that—

Greg Dowling (27:23):

It’s a beach book though, right?

Tiffany Pham (27:25):

[laughs] No, no. So it’s called From Business Strategy to IT Roadmap, and it’s a practical guide for executives and board members. It does lay out this very practical how-to approach on how to identify business strategies and then create a lot of value-driven technology roadmaps for your organization. The reason why the words “practical” and “how-to” are important, is now for the listeners who have heard me, you can see for yourself how I speak, how I lay out things very clearly and how I speak with very concrete examples any time I lay out those three bullet points—that’s how the book is laid out too. It really breaks things down—very how-to, very practical—for business executives and technology leaders both to understand each other, because the book is actually co-written by my father and myself. He was a top technology leader of his day and advised many top organizations throughout their technology revolutions and then I, myself, obviously have come from the business world and also now in technology.

Tiffany Pham (28:17):

So the combination of he and I, with our respective backgrounds in technology and business, could come together and understand one another and help other executives understand each other. We found that the two of us—all of our respective work had helped so many organizations be able to align better their business strategies and the IT roadmaps, that we just laid out all these impractical terms in the book. It really helps to solve real-world problems in this way, as you apply the examples, the practical approach, and the advice on your actual organization itself. So yeah, it’s very actionable and lots of case studies as well, laid out in the form of being able to apply this to the nonprofit space, multimillion-dollar organizations, or commercial family businesses. Whatever kind of business you’re leading, you’re able to apply those strategies of aligning your IT roadmap to your business strategy for your organization.

Greg Dowling (29:06):

We’ve had some great guest speakers before. The one that comes to mind that it was very much always in threes is Mohamed El-Arian. He was always like, “And here are three examples of...” So I’m going to make you do one. What is the one takeaway from that book? Just one—not three, one.

Tiffany Pham (29:22):

You know, the key takeaway, I would say, from the book is just simply gaining awareness of each other within the business space and IT space is as important of a start as anything else—and speaking, listening, and hearing. I know that’s such simple advice, but a lot of organizations don’t do it. They don’t have their IT leaders speak with their business leaders and there’s a lot of misalignment and asymmetry, therefore, in the organization. But finding a way to have them hear one another and speak through regular association—whether that’s regular meetings across product leaders and business leaders, or more—is key. As an organization grows from startup to large enterprise, it’s increasingly key to have the two parts speak and align regularly. So yeah, that’s my key advice.

Greg Dowling (30:07):

I think that’s great, because no matter what business you are in, you’re a technology company these days. You have to have technology and you have to have that backbone, and that can be its own language, right? So we talked about appreciating diversity, tech people and non-tech people, that is also something that—got to bring them together. So the financial services industry, that’s kind of where we play, that’s our sandbox. What can the financial services industry do better in terms of just diversity, bringing people aboard? You’ve worked in a lot of different industries, and I would think maybe they’re the same. ’ think of like TV and media as being more creative types, probably more diverse than financial services. Or maybe I’m wrong.

Tiffany Pham (30:49):

I think that every industry suffers from certain areas of need in terms of diversifying their workforces. In the tech space, in the media space, it might be the engineering teams, it might be in the sales teams. In the financial space, it might be amongst their advisory teams, that’s what we’ve seen a lot of. For example, whenever financial services industry companies turn to us for support, we see a lot of ask for wealth managers and advisors to be more diverse and asking for Mogul’s help in that area. Of course, always in the tech space as well, because, as you said, almost every organization in some ways is also a tech company. Even these financial services industry companies therefore need more diverse engineers and tech professionals within. But yeah, I would say financial advisory is where we see that need, and it makes sense, because they’re customer-facing and they need to support a diverse base, so they themselves should be diverse. So it makes sense that organizations are increasingly thinking this way.

Greg Dowling (31:46):

Oh, that’s great. Is there a mindset that’s a little bit different too in financial services?

Tiffany Pham (31:51):

I think I see a lot of evolution. That wasn’t the case necessarily five years ago, where the industry I think was still feeling protected from the wave of demand from the American population and corporate America’s call for diversity. So perhaps like five years ago it wasn’t necessarily a strong demand for diversity within the bulge bracket—investment banks, for example, or financial institutions, PE firms, hedge funds, etc. Now, five years later though, there’s a call everywhere, and they’re no longer feeling as protected. And so we see that movement, we see that action, and there’s a huge evolution. We see many organizations setting up internal initiatives where, for example, banks like Goldman Sachs won’t take a company public unless their board is diverse. They’re literally having key people, key personnel inside Goldman become responsible for diversifying that board or partnering with firms to help do that. We see a lot of internal—now—desire and motivation from these partners.

Greg Dowling (32:48):

That’s great. So it’s not just enough to recruit diverse talent, you have to provide mentorship. Can you talk a little bit about how mentorship is important?

Tiffany Pham (32:56):

Mentorship is absolutely super important. I think I saw stats yesterday that there was a recent survey done of girls, of women, and over 86% felt like they would do better if they had had mentorship when they were entering STEM, for example. And everyone generally across all the surveyed participants said that with a mentor, they would’ve better succeeded in their early careers and their mid-level careers, etc. Mentorship absolutely is important, especially for the diverse candidates themselves who don’t otherwise feel support. And why is that? Because otherwise they feel like they don’t belong as they continue to rise up. They don’t have their voice, they don’t have their seat, and then they get eventually squeezed out—or they squeeze themselves out—they feel. So that mentorship is key. Sponsorship as well, just slightly different. But ultimately, mentorship is key.

Greg Dowling (33:40):

How are mentorship and sponsorship different?

Tiffany Pham (33:43):

Mentorship is a lighter relationship where you can be the mentor to many and you can be mentored by many as a mentee. You can learn from someone with each interaction, and it could be a small interaction, it could be a larger interaction, it could be at a regular cadence or it could be at an irregular cadence, but they could be still your mentor. A sponsor is more involved. A sponsor is someone who takes you under their wing and really lifts you up across every part of the way, step-by-step-by-step across your career. That’s a sponsor. Both are key though. Both are necessary. Mentors can be as equally powerful as a sponsor or vice versa, so both are key. But as a mentee, how do you seek a mentor? You probably do what I did and what I therefore advise many to do, which is, again, as you enter your career, you build those friendships, you build those partnerships that last you throughout your life and career.

Tiffany Pham (34:34):

And those of course are the core of who you can turn to for mentorship. As you become friends with the people you work for and work with, those become mentors. But ultimately the ways in which then you expand upon that pool is through cold outreach. And how I do this and how I advise it is through kind of a more strategic approach. You have to think about what you want to do—5 years from now, 10 years from now, what is it you want to do? What would make you hop out of bed and make you feel like you’re not going to work every day, but you’re living your life. It’s—work and life has become one and the same. So what is that vision for 5, 10 years from now? Work backwards. Think of all the skillsets that you need to get there.

Tiffany Pham (35:09):

For me, again, starting a company was the bigger vision, following in my grandmother’s footsteps. So working backwards, what are the skill sets that I needed to get there? Then work backwards again based on the skill sets. Who were the 50 people who are really good in that skill set? Who’s known for that skill set in your industry? In marketing, for me, for example, it was working with that vice mayor of Beijing, with the government on the marketing initiatives. It was the founder of theknot.com, who was a marketing genius. Who is known for that skill set? Think of 50. For me, I thought about marketing, I thought about content creation and distribution, I thought about finance, strategy, and more. Anyways, working backwards, then who are the 50? And then write to each of them a note that says subject title, “Thank you: an invite this week,” you know, something to invite them into the relationship with you, not something so cold, something warm, because that’s the tone you want to set with a mentor.

Tiffany Pham (36:01):

And in the copy of the note, write, “Hi, [first name], it’s such a pleasure to meet you over email, I’ve heard such incredible things about you from x, y, z person,” if you happen to have heard about them this way. Or, “I read about you from x, y, z article and I look up to you so much, I followed you throughout your career.” And then next paragraph, “I would love to find a way to support you, collaborate with you. I’m so and so.” And never in my life, no matter what I accomplished, no matter what I did, never did I assume that someone would know me or have heard of me. Even if they had—and that would be wonderful later—I just always continue to assume that I should nonetheless, in that first note, let them know. So say that snippet that’s going to impress them or help them understand immediately the ways in which perhaps they might find a mutually synergistic relationship from you.

Tiffany Pham (36:50):

Find a powerful epithet. “I’m so-and-so, founder and CEO of this, and I do this.” The most impressive you can. “I’ve included more of my background below.” I would always include my bio at the end below. I never wanted to assume that someone would take the extra five minutes to come and research me. The reason is I’m trying to save them time. I put the bio below and ultimately that’ll lead to more conversion. And then, ultimately, I ask for something that’s hard to say no to. “Are you available for a 15-minute tea or a 5-minute call?” Like whatever is going to be so short that they’ll say, “Okay, yes.” And I’ll say, “Thank you so much and I’m so looking forward to hearing back from you.” Whenever I would include that, I would get more responses.

Tiffany Pham (37:28):

Something about that sentence makes people feel worse about not responding, if you’re so looking forward to hearing back from them. And, “warmest regards,” again, warmth. These are some of the tips that I might provide to a mentee who’s looking for a mentor, who’s really looking to build a relationship even from the get-go, even from that first communication, that email outreach. And so reach out to those 50 in this way, that becomes, like I said before, about 20 might say something back to you, 10 might actually make it with you to tea, 2, 1, will change your life.

Greg Dowling (38:00):

How do you deal with rejection? You were an introvert, but you’re so passionate and you’re kind of a force of nature. For those that are hypersensitive and feel vulnerable doing this... Because not everybody’s going to return your email. How do you kind of gear yourself up for that?

Tiffany Pham (38:15):

I quickly forget noes.

Greg Dowling (38:17):

[laughs]

Tiffany Pham (38:17):

So that’s one benefit of having my brain, is that I forget noes right away. I have a bad short-term memory, I think, because I forget noes instantly, I always go for the yes as much as I can. But for those who don’t have a bad short-term memory like I do, I think it’s important for you to think about it this way. Like first, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t just reach out to one person, reach out to 50, like I said. Reach out to 50 times 5, so 250. In the end, that way you’re not just putting all your hopes and dreams on that one response, you’re going to put it across the many that you could learn from. And from there, first off, people are so busy and even if they really want to reply, they may not be just by pure nature of being overwhelmed by 600 emails a day and yours was one of the 600.

Tiffany Pham (39:02):

So if they didn’t reply, don’t take it personally, they just may have not seen it. And honestly, they may not see it forever, because once it becomes the next day, they’ll have 1,200 emails in their inbox and it might have come to the bottom, you know? I still have friends that have a really tough time digging themselves out of their inboxes, it takes them months or it takes them years sometimes to reach back out to that one email from a time ago. So don’t take it personally. And then second of all, or third of all, ultimately you’ll find that in the sales world, for example, it takes about an average of 6 outreaches before you get a response, on average, and a yes. If that’s how long it took to ultimately get a yes on a sale, think about it that way from a mentorship standpoint, mentee standpoint. It might take up to six emails to that person for that person to finally respond. Four to six emails. Hooray if they’ve replied after the first 1 or 2, but yeah, it may take up to 4 to 6.

Tiffany Pham (39:50):

So in the end, don’t worry about the noes. And anyways, the final thing I’ll say, the fourth piece of advice is “no,” I’ve learned in my life, is a “not right now,” at the end of the day, that will turn into a “yes” with all your hard work and dedication. If you really believe that thing is meant for you, that person is meant to be supporting you, and you’re supporting them. If that thing is meant for you, whatever that thing is, it’s always going to be that that “no” that you got is a “not right now” that you can turn into a “yes.” And I’ve learned that time and time and time again. Any time I got a no and I needed that, I wanted that, I was able to later on in life, turn it into a yes.

Greg Dowling (40:23):

That’s great advice. All right, well, we’re going to do some lightning round questions for you. You have done so many things, you’ve founded a business, you’ve been a best-selling author, you’ve done modeling, advertising, you’ve been on tv and film, you’ve produced it—you’ve done all these things. One, how many hours of sleep per night do you get [laughs]? We’ll start there. First question: do you sleep?

Tiffany Pham (40:45):

Good question. Throughout my teens and my 20s, I have to admit that I only slept maybe 4 to 5 hours a night. I’m not proud of it [laughs], because I know everyone listening is all of a sudden like, “Wait a second, I shouldn’t have listened to this podcast, that’s unhealthy.” I think at the end of the day, I was just so motivated by everything I was doing. I was so passionate and excited to learn every day, I couldn’t help it. And then into my 30s, I realized it actually may be genetic, because my parents are in their ’0s, 70s, and they just sleep still about 4 to 5 hours a night [laughs]. And they have more energy than I do, believe it or not. I’m stunned at their energy levels. They’re going out and painting, learning languages, eating, and walking in Central Park for hours, exercising. I’m just blown away by their energy level 40 years above me. So I think it may be genetic [laughs].

Greg Dowling (41:39):

All right. Don’t try this unless you have the genetics for it. In all of that—you’ve done all these things, who was the person that you were starstruck by the most in all of these interactions?

Tiffany Pham (41:50):

The funny thing was that I actually had a discussion with a friend recently about this. We were like, “Who are we starstruck by?” I was never starstruck by actors or anything like that in the entertainment world, for example, because of my early beginnings in the entertainment industry within film and TV and all these aspects of media, I was always around these individuals that therefore left me un-starstruck because I could see [laughs] from an early age that we’re all human.

Greg Dowling (42:18):

Yep.

Tiffany Pham (42:18):

And within the business world, I think I found that even there I wasn’t starstruck from an early age. When I was meeting Warren Buffet when I was 18 in college, I was not starstruck at all. And neither on the political side. For graduation, I remember one of our graduation speakers, I had to have tea with Tony Blair, and I found myself un-starstruck as well. I hope they’re not listening to this podcast.

Greg Dowling (42:39):

[laughs]

Tiffany Pham (42:40):

I think I knew from an early age that everyone is human and there was no one to be starstruck over. Maybe just one then left, which is my grandmother. If I were to see her today, that’s the person who would leave me starstruck.

Greg Dowling (42:52):

Ah, look at that. That’s very well said. All right. So movies, I love that. All these movies as you’re learning English, as you’re getting different inspirations. Let’s hear your favorite movie list. Give us maybe your top five movies that inspired you or were a big part of your childhood.

Tiffany Pham (43:13):

I would say there’s two assortment of movies that influenced me—or three. Lots of black and white movies, so Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Life is Beautiful—or It’s a Beautiful Life, that is. I may be even saying the title wrong, It’s a Wonderful Life, but it’s the one with James Stewart, the one that is obviously the perennial favorite over Christmas. And all the Audrey Hepburn movies. Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Those 1950s films just instilled so much American values within us, my family, of the American dream and aspirations, growth, classiness, and elegance. And then there was the romantic comedies of the 90s too, when I first moved here. So that would be, for example, While You Were Sleeping, Legally Blonde, You’ve Got Mail. I think we watched those movies hundreds of times when I was a kid.

Tiffany Pham (43:58):

And that’s, again, why I was influenced into this belief of the American dream of American values and how kind and friendly everyone was here, and warm and giving. Anyways, all these values are kind of espoused in the three films I just said. And then lastly, the other assortment of films, the third bucket, are in the realm of fairness and justice. It’s To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s A Time to Kill, 12 Angry Men [laughs]. My grandfather was a lawyer and my father is a legal mind and a lot of my best friends are lawyers. I just always loved that realm of providing a fair world. Maybe that’s what also led me to a place like Mogul, founding Mogul, providing a fair world out there and one that’s more equitable. So yeah, these are the films that shaped me. I think you can see the influences of who I am today from those three buckets of films.

Greg Dowling (44:45):

Are you working on a new book, and if so, what is the subject?

Tiffany Pham (44:49):

Great question. I am working on new books. One book I will share in the upcoming year with you because it’s very exciting and it’s very different, and it’s very much still in the realm of what I deal with, which is representation across the world in different ways. But that one is a very, very exciting book that I definitely am excited to share more on shortly. But the other one that’s more public is one that’s oriented around business, of course. While that is still also to be announced more publicly soon, I’m saying it here, which is that it’s oriented around the future of work, sharing the insights of the top leaders of today on what is going to be ultimately the future of work.

Tiffany Pham (45:24):

Mogul and myself have this kind of unique access because we are one of the rare firms that talks, informs, advises, and listens and hears from the top companies of today and their respective chief officers, their CEOs, their chief human resource officers, their chief talent officers, their chief people officers, their chief human resources officers, and more. We’re privy to all these insights and trends and strategies across the Fortune 1000, across nonprofits, across the VC space, PE space, hedge funds, and across the leading startups of today. All in one and across hundreds and thousands of individual leaders or more, we’re therefore really able to distill it down. Anyways, the publishing world is very excited about this, and I think it’s going to be a really strong offering, a really strong publication for everyone that’s sitting on this podcast to really understand where the top minds of today are thinking the world is heading next in terms of work.

Greg Dowling (46:17):

Anything you can share, or do you need to keep this all under the bushel?

Tiffany Pham (46:21):

I think you’ll find really, really interesting insights, for example, in organizations that are thinking about the fact, again, that now the future of work is hybrid, remote. Okay, that we know. But it translates itself into a lot of different facets that now organizations are having to try to reconfigure, figure out. For example, manager effectiveness. How can a manager be effective when they can’t even see the body language of peers or those that they manage? How can they continue that effectiveness? How can they lead their subordinates to productivity? These are the things that now they have to really think next-level on. It’s beyond just policies for going to the workplace four days a week, it’s really come to the next stages. So these are the key things that now for the next five years, leaders will have to continuously think about, iterate upon, and help change and evolve towards. And this publication from myself and Mogul will be really effectively helping to support them on that.

Greg Dowling (47:13):

Wow, that’s great. Managing remote, that’s very hard. Because I had to do that during COVID, as did many people. So if you weren’t out recommending your books, do you have any favorite books that listeners should read?

Tiffany Pham (47:25):

Yes, absolutely. One of my favorite books in the business realm that very few people actually cite in their favorite books list and things like that online—I guess it’s just not one of those books that people popularly say is one of their favorites, but in reality, it’s like one of the biggest bestsellers of business books of all time, it’s a huge book. You can see it on Amazon, if you look it up, you’ll see it’s like one of the best-selling books forever, always in the business side. It’s called The E-Myth Revisited. The E-Myth Revisited is this incredible book that talks about how 90% of franchises succeed, but 90% of startups fail. And the reason is that franchises, their business in itself is the product. Their business is the replicable product. Whereas a startup, or even a larger organization startup, like even a potential large enterprise, works on making the product it sells replicable.

Tiffany Pham (48:16):

And so the product it sells is replicable and therefore streamlined, and the processes around it is streamlined, but the organization may not be itself. What I’m trying to get at is, that that’s why franchisees succeed, is because they work on making its business itself streamlined and replicable. Whereas the startups and other organizations may not, and just work on the product itself in itself, and that’s why they fail. So anyways, the book kind of walks through every department of an organization and how they can align with each other and how they can streamline and how they can be process-oriented so that everything is like as if you step into a hotel where everything is process-oriented, checklist-oriented, everything is institutionalized, systematized, systematic, to the point whereby it’s not person-dependent and it’s clear, it’s clean, it’s process, and that’s why the organization strives and thrives.

Greg Dowling (49:03):

I have not read that book, but I love to read, so I’m going to look it up.

Tiffany Pham (49:06):

Whenever I talk to billionaire friends that have like--so their respective businesses were big exits, they too will tell me secretly, confidentially, that that's one of their favorite books too. So it's a behind-the-scenes secret weapon of ours.

Greg Dowling (49:19):

Wow. All right. So now you know it, all the listeners know this now. This is very valuable. Hey, thank you so much. You are truly a mogul, and I really hope that our listeners were inspired and educated and can take some of the wisdom that you imparted to them and put it into practice. So thanks so much, Tiffany, for your time.

Tiffany Pham (49:38):

Thank you, Greg. It was really fun.

Greg Dowling (49:40):

If you are interested in more information on FEG, check out our website at www.feg.com, and don't forget to subscribe to our communications so you don't miss the next episode. Please keep in mind that this information is intended to be general education that needs to be framed within the unique risk and return objectives of each client; therefore, nobody should consider these to be FEG recommendations. This podcast was prepared by FEG. Neither the information nor any opinion expressed in this podcast constitutes an offer or an invitation to make an offer to buy or sell any securities. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of their firm or of FEG.