Meet Jennifer Lagaly, Executive Vice President for Tableau Americas at Salesforce, and a champion for women in the workplace. As an executive leader and a mother of five children, Jennifer knows too well the struggles of balancing a career and family. In this episode, Jennifer shares lessons learned from her time in the Ohana, advice for thriving as a working parent, and much more.
Meet Jennifer Lagaly, Executive Vice President for Tableau Americas at Salesforce, and a champion for women in the workplace. As an executive leader and a mother of five children, Jennifer knows too well the struggles of balancing a career and family. In this episode, Jennifer shares lessons learned from her time in the Ohana, advice for thriving as a working parent, and much more.
Quote
“What do you want your life to look like in 10 years? Then start and work towards that, knowing that it's a painful gauntlet and that sometimes, you’ll have to get through trying to fit work and parenting into the same thing. But, if you've got a partner that is in it with you as well, and you love what you do, you'll get through it.”
Episode Timestamps:
*(1:44) - Ohana Origins
*(4:252) - Jennifer’s biggest Salesforce wins
*(7:52) - Thriving in both parenthood and the workplace
*(11:19) - How the Ohana brings out your best
*(14:54) - What’s Cooking
*(20:56) - Future Forecast
*(22:33) - Advice for navigating parenthood with a career
*(23:56) - Lightning Round
Sponsor
Inside the Ohana is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.
Links
[00:01:26] Dan: Welcome to inside the Ohana. I'm Dan Darcy, Chief Customer Officer at Qualified. And today I'm joined by Jennifer, Jen, how are you?
[00:01:35] Jennifer: Awesome. Hi, Dan. I am so much better now to end my week on this Friday with you now. It's awesome.
[00:01:44] Dan: Exactly. Happy, happy Friday. All right. So I want to dive right into our first segment. Ohana Origins. How did you discover Salesforce in the first place? Yeah,
[00:02:02] Jennifer: You know, Salesforce kind of came to me. I was finishing up a trip or I just got back from a trip a year in south America with my boyfriend then turned husband, got married in Brazil at the end, came back.
[00:02:13] And I had a really good friend of mine who was a VP of marketing at Salesforce. And he said, Hey, you need to interview right now because he wanted a $2,000 referral bonus. And I was like, okay. I said, give me a month. Like, that'd be just like settle back in the United States, you know? And he's like, Nope, gotta do it.
[00:02:30] And so I said fine. So in a day I turned around. And interviewed. And I also, it was the only tech company that was in San Francisco at the time. It was the only one. It was like this, just back in oh 3 0 3. So interviewed with a guy named Rob backer and he was hiring his first pledge class. By people that was post.com bubble burst.
[00:02:52] And it was like the beginning of the hockey stick really. And most people were like, why would you go to a.com like that already burst that bubble has gone. And, uh, so it was kind of, you know, we dropped.com, uh, of, of our name shortly thereafter, but to salesforce.com, I went and men, 19 years later, never looked back.
[00:03:10] Dan: That's incredible. And I love Rob and a huge shout out to Rob backer if he's listening to this, but give me the details at the time back in oh three. What, what was your job? What was the company size at the time? And like, what was your first initial impression of the like basically the beginning of the Ohana, you know, back in oh three, I'm curious.
[00:03:30] Jennifer: Back in ‘03. So we're 300 people ish. Right? We had I'm in sales. I've been in sales almost the whole time. Actually it took a little deviation to raise my second two batches of children. We had a, you know, a good handful of salespeople that were focused on the enterprise. Marc Benioff had come over and he came from Oracle.
[00:03:47] He loves the enterprise. He loves the big marquee customers and he knows that. That's how you get your name out there and move. And so we had, I, I mean, I don't know exactly that they'd be 10 to 15 sales enter by sales. They use, and then two guys Rob hacker, and this other guy, George, who, who was a, you know, George became our COO eventually.
[00:04:05] And, but he started off as an intern from Stanford business school and he was very good with. And he saw some data that said, Hey, I think we could really make some money off of this small to medium sized business market segment. And I think mark was a little bit dubious, but he said, fine, I'll give you X number of heads and, and, um, and resources and let's go see, let's just try it out.
[00:04:28] And so that started off, you know, we had probably 15 to 20. People in our group, you know, for a bit, and then ended up being, you know, what is now a commercial business? And it's about, I don't know, five to 6,000 people that sell now to that segment. So a pretty remarkable decision made by them. And I love that, that data to help them make that decision.
[00:04:48] But, um, we were the first kind of, you know, pledge class.
[00:04:52] Dan: I love that you're, you're plugging data really early on because I know that I know that's where you are at now at Tableau. And we'll get into that in just a second. And I also love that you plugged George, who, who was just for a more recently as well, the CEO COO at Twilio.
[00:05:09] Um, and so, I mean, what an incredible. Beginning for Salesforce at that time. Now, Jen, I want you to, I want you to brag a little because you've really had an incredible career and still going strong 19 years at Salesforce. What would you say is your biggest success you've had while working at Salesforce and, and something that you really like the most proud of this.
[00:05:31] A lot
[00:05:31] Jennifer: of people will say, wow, you've got some incredible stamina to be able to still be in sales at Salesforce after all these years, somebody said that to me recently. And I was like, you know, I should, I should put that in one of my notches that, you know, you know, kudos well done. Um, you know, I kind of facetiously, I also say that I'm proud that I.
[00:05:50] That my five children that I pregnant three months after starting at Salesforce, they're still alive. My five kids. That right there is remarkable. So notch number two on the belt. There's a couple of things recently, you know, one, um, I am proud of the, I launched a vertical. You're the marketing or the manufacturing and auto and energy industry last year, that was a very fun thing to be a part of and to do it was much more complex than just running a territory.
[00:06:17] So I'm very proud of that. That's going very strong. Um, you know, I just moved over to Tableau, so that's TBD on my path there, but hoping to have some good things there, but you know, really what I feel, feel the most proud. You know, you feel proud here is, you know, I recently did a, um, a Ted talk. Maybe about a year ago, I did that and it was all about how, you know, the, the pivotal moments in my life that allowed me to become an executive, but still remain a mother and kind of be proud of both.
[00:06:45] And that's a sign, easy thing to do. You've got to be very intentional about that. And, and so, you know, anytime I joined a new group, they look me up on Google and they look and they see that I did a Ted talk and I get all of these, like. Oh, my God. I just watched your Ted talk. Thank you so much. This has been a very difficult, I wasn't sure if I was going to stay in the game or not, and, or my wife was having a hard time and this really helped us.
[00:07:05] And so, and to stay in and still have a career. And so that's something that I'm continuing to want to build on that too, because I feel like it's something that's really important in raising kids. It's hard, but it's very similar to leadership by the way. So I'm going to start a series here pretty soon in my Tableau world.
[00:07:21] And, um, it kind of bring that out and connect with people now.
[00:07:25] Dan: That's incredible. I mean, me being just a new dad myself, I'm obviously a little bit later in my career and I say this to all my friends as I worked with them, I'm like, I don't know how anyone did this, you know, um, back in the day, you know, so can you give us a little bit of those?
[00:07:42] Like, what are those, those tips that you would say, you know, from your Ted talk? I would, I'd love to understand and like dig into that a little bit of around, you know, what advice you would give to, you know, working parents, but also more specifically working moms.
[00:07:55] Jennifer: Yeah. And I could almost give them both because I can give my husband's perspective as well.
[00:07:58] Right. But, um, there's three little moments that I talk about in my Ted doc are one is you pick the right. And stay in the game because picking the right partner actually allows you to stay in the game. And the second one is to step on that first rung. And this is a lot for women, actually more than men because women tend to not do it.
[00:08:15] I didn't started leading until I was 41. I'm an AVP. Now I started out as an aide at Salesforce and became an EVP and every, you know, in 10 years. So I started late, but I really embraced it actually after a year and a half for a year and a half. I said, I'm not sure if I'm going to like this or not. Then I full on loved it, embraced it, but I'm step on that first wrong is a really important thing.
[00:08:34] And then the last one is how do you use the noise around you and you know, your worth. And so I'm not going to go into all three, but I would say the first one that I mentioned is incredibly important and that is picking the right partner. You know, this is maybe even more of like a life advice as well, but you really need to pick a partner that sees you as an equal, and that appreciates you for.
[00:08:57] Your strengths and what you can go contribute to the family. And in a lot of ways, We are as mothers and wives and sisters and daughters and all of that, we are, you know, that's the most fulfilling part of what we do, but it is so fun to own something that is yours and that is your career. And that is what you're giving back to your community and to work and, and to feel like you're also part of the financial aspect of giving back to the, to the family and the partnership.
[00:09:22] And so it's very fulfilling to be able to do both not easy, but, but very fulfilling. So that's, if I was to give any piece of advice that you've had. Share all of the FA the home. As well as the work-life.
[00:09:34] Dan: So let's take it to the opposite side of the spectrum where, you know, like, what would you say was a tough lesson that you learned while at Salesforce?
[00:09:43] Jennifer: Yeah. Interesting. I, it was a good lesson. I'm going to share this one, which is, you know, I was coming to the end of my second year as a second line leader. We call it an AVP here at Salesforce everybody's president and. And that year, our team actually was performing incredibly well, but leadership above wasn't having as great a year.
[00:10:05] And there was a lot of friction there and so much so that it made me. Rethink the role and I, for the first time ever at that point had ever, I looked outside of Salesforce and looked at changing roles. And I looked at it like outside, everywhere. I looked inside of Salesforce everywhere. Like I didn't actually take interviews and I realized I'm like, you know what?
[00:10:26] I'm in the exact place that I want to be a managing the team and the. I'm in the role that I want to be, but by releasing that, it kind of made me say, I'm going to lead the way I want to lead. The way I think is the right way to lead. That will get the best performance out of my teams and also the most fulfilling for me.
[00:10:43] And once I kind of broke the chain of trying to prove. My bosses and I chose to please my team and myself, but still hold true to Salesforce, meaning grow the business, which is, you know, growth I'd say is the number one verb that everyone needs to do at Salesforce is the only thing we're focused on is growth.
[00:11:02] Then once I did that, I realized that I became a better leader. And that year I became the number one ADP in a company. And you know, that leader that I was talking about basically would say, You're a great leader. And it was because I had chosen to delete the way I wanted it. So, Jen,
[00:11:19] Dan: I want to ask you about the meaning of Ohana.
[00:11:21] And I asked this of all my guests, because I feel like everyone really describes it differently, but I'm curious, how would you describe the Ohana and what does it really mean to you? The
[00:11:29] Jennifer: way I think it is the general people who love the Ohana. They want to go squeeze the juice out of life. Right. I don't like to say have it all because having it all as a misnomer, it's habitable, that's important to you is what you're trying to go do.
[00:11:41] Right. Which means prioritization, which is, which is a Salesforce thing to do. But squeezing the juice out of the Ohana is means, you know, you're there, there's this pace that we run at. And, um, I think it's, most people know what it is or has heard, have heard about it, but you know, the pace that we want to at Salesforce.
[00:11:58] There is urgency. There is a desire to succeed. There's winning there's performance, you know, but it's all been balanced out of this thing called giving back to the community and the humility that you get by keeping everything in check. Like it is not, we at all. It is winning the right way. You know, it is not just doing well.
[00:12:17] It is doing good. So, you know, it scratches this itch of really wanting to go be the best, this adrenaline adrenaline rush that you really get from striving for something together as a team, you're all like locked in. You're doing it as a very collaborative way. It's one thing that, you know, people come in into another company, they'll say, wow, it's crazy.
[00:12:38] How much people help everybody here? And it's true. We are all going after the same thing, you know, but we do it in a way that is giving back to society too. So ground you in this humility, you know, so I kind of talk about Salesforce. I always have. From people that come back and go boomerangs. And so for the boomerangs that come back, oftentimes they'll say I left because of the pace, but I came back because of the pace, because it's the pace that we run out here so hard, that actually is what creates success.
[00:13:08] And it makes you have to do the best work of your career. There are very little less than a players here, and that means you need to go be at your best every day. And if you love that environment, then this is the place for you.
[00:13:21] Dan: I truly love that definition of yours, Jen. So thank you for that. Before we get into our next segment, are there any special stories or Ohana moments that are a little behind the scenes that you would like to share?
[00:13:32] I mean,
[00:13:33] Jennifer: I danced with them looking at, you know, maybe I'm going to pull the one that you and I went to go do where we went to Sri Lanka and we, that was an amazing. And it was a trip that was really focused on how do we go into all of those tribes and really the interior of Sri Lanka. And we partnered with a group called room to read, which was really focused on how do we, there's this talk about multilevel, this multi-level way to Uplevel the education.
[00:14:03] Of children in Sri Lanka by getting them libraries, but also reaching out to their communities. They also have to make sure that they got to the girls in these tribes because girls weren't allowed to go to go get educated. They had to stay back and do work for the family. How did they go get them to college?
[00:14:19] And we went and built a help to build a school with a concrete, right? You may have used all of the week. We created this reading room outside. That was a lot of hard work. The sweltering heat, but you know, those kids and that, that village we're just, I mean, we still have those pictures. They just, they were so appreciative of us being there.
[00:14:38] So appreciative of what we went there to go
[00:14:41] Dan: build. That was an incredible memory and, and definitely a very, very special Ohana moment. I'm so I'm really happy that you shared that one, because that is something that I will never, never forget and always take with me forever. Let's get into our next segment.
[00:14:54] What's cooking.
[00:15:06] Dan: Jen, you are now the EVP at Tableau in sales. Talk about how you got to where you are now and what your journey has been like to get your current role.
[00:15:17] Jennifer: Yeah, well, you know, it's funny. They're just, they're top of mind for me right now is interesting.
[00:15:21] It's like, you know, I feel like the last three or four years, things have moved so fast and people have been promoted very quickly because of all of that. Just the equity that's been in the market and all of the jobs that have come open and every single one of my roles I've been in edit for a minimum of three years.
[00:15:37] Right. So I've kind of like not specific in the team necessarily, but in the role. And so the one thing I really do focus on is love what you do, you do it well and good. And I've obviously interviewed for roles, but oftentimes I've been asked to interview for roles. I think it was almost every time actually, because I'm not necessarily always worried about getting to that next.
[00:16:02] Peg and that next ladder, like that's not really, even now you ask, what am I I'm like, well, I'm an EVP. I'm definitely higher than I ever thought I was going to be when I started at Salesforce, certainly, you know, 19 years ago. But now like for me, every option is open now. And so every job that I've done, I've done because I built great relationships.
[00:16:21] You know, I would say the brand that you build. And who you are as your brand happens in every interaction you have with somebody and everything that you do on the team that you're on. That is the brand that you build. And so, you know, the brand that I build is ahead of wherever I go. So opportunities come because people hear about what I've done, you know, so that's what I would say, like whatever role you're in, just fricking do it.
[00:16:44] Well, enjoy first, pick something you love. And when you love it, the passion comes out is obvious. I see so many people that I want to give more to because they're passionate, they're in it. They're leaning in. They want to go do extra things. Those are the people that I want to go promote, you know? And then, then what I'm looking for now is every role that I'm in.
[00:17:01] I want to be challenged. I want it to be hard. Leaders get paid to solve problems. They go, they go get paid to do the things that nobody else could figure out or wants to do or needs to happen, but doesn't know how to go do it. And so I went hard problems, you know, and right now, We're taking Tableau, which we acquired two years ago and then gone through COVID et cetera.
[00:17:18] And we're zippering up Salesforce and Tableau to be a one company. And we're creating our new world. What is the new world? We're not going to be just Salesforce. We're not just Tableau. We are Tableau in Salesforce. So what does that look like? And it's been a blast so far.
[00:17:33] Dan: I mean, speaking of that specific challenge, how are you?
[00:17:36] Taking what you've learned, obviously while at Salesforce for those 19 years and applying it to really bringing Tableau and Salesforce together, as one,
[00:17:45] Jennifer: if you're maniacally focused on the success of your. You never have to think about yourself. You'll naturally find success. You don't have to worry about that.
[00:17:54] Don't even have to like spend time doing that because as soon as you start thinking about yourself, you're going to start to spiral. It's the wrong, always the wrong focus that you need to have. If you're focused on making sure that your team is successful in what they do, you will have success. Period.
[00:18:07] The second thing is. Is it every decision that you make and every, you know, everything that you do is aligned to what I always say. What would mark do? What, what would mark Benioff do? What would he do in this situation? Whenever it comes to go across the crossroads and like, okay, we're going to make a decision here.
[00:18:23] How do we do it? I just take myself all the way up to mark. Now we can say bread. Cause they're co-CEOs. So what would mark a bread? Do I also put Brian Millam of course in that. And he was an incredible executive here at Salesforce. I've been here for 20 years. I'm still old time. What would those three do?
[00:18:35] What decision would they make in this situation? And if everything that you're doing and everything you're building is in line with like, you know, some people are trying to get to these like five items, like what would be good just for my team. But if you open that up and you say, what is good for Salesforce would drive success for the company and what is your role in it?
[00:18:51] You're going to find success. So those are the two things that I always, that I always say is the, the driver and how you drive success in the future to.
[00:18:59] Dan: Yeah. So I'll recap that for the listeners and the viewers, it's obviously focusing on the success of your team and success for you will come from that and then place yourself in your leadership.
[00:19:11] And what decisions do you think they would take into account when they're making those decisions and go from there? Yeah, I mean, cause you know, a lot of those folks that would be listening don't really understand Brian mark or bread, but I know exactly what you mean, but I, yeah, it's just really. At that higher level and going from there.
[00:19:28] Yeah. So what, uh, w what's what's next for you? I mean, you know, I know you have this going on with Tablo and, and you're bringing that together, but I mean, like what's, what's coming up next. And how are you thinking about shaping the future as you, as you continue on your leadership role? Yeah,
[00:19:44] Jennifer: well did you're saying, I mean, Tableau is an incredible company and incredible company.
[00:19:47] They built a, you know, over $2 billion business on really aligning with the success of admins and analysts, et cetera. And, and they talk a lot about how we help you see and understand data, right? It said that that is the bread and butter of what we do better than any. You know, but we're all evolving right now and what we're trying to supersize, or how do we supersize Tableau in Salesforce?
[00:20:10] And we have this broader story that we can now tell. And, and it's, you know, if you look at it, data and AI and big data, it is an every single digital transformation conversation. It's what every company needs to go do. Data is not getting smaller. Yeah. Accelerating in terms of how much data we have out there.
[00:20:27] So when I think about what we're doing is how do we go tell this whole story end to end, where we get the data? How do we visualize it and how do we get insights? A lot of AI and machine learning. How do we go get that? And then most importantly, how do we take action on it? And we've got this incredible platform that is.
[00:20:43] From beginning to end focused on the customer and customer experience, how do we make sure that data informs all of that? And so it really is broadening that and really going out there and growing the value that we have with our customers.
[00:20:56] Dan: All right, Jen, let's get into our final segment, future forecasts.
[00:21:09] Dan: So, Jen, what do you envision as the future of the Salesforce ecosystem?
[00:21:14] Jennifer: Future of Salesforce is, you know, well, we are, you know, almost 30,000,000,080 5,000 strong right now, right. With an incredible ecosystem around us. You know, I think that feature of Salesforce looks like. It looks like it's probably leaning a lot into where we've already gone, which is the core of everything that is Salesforce is how do we allow our customers to create an incredible relationship with their customer, right.
[00:21:40] And we want to give them everything that they need with our ecosystem as well, to go to go do that. And I would say, you know, the future of Salesforce is how do we continue to make that easy? How do we make it easy? The right information to the right people at the right time. And as we see this innovation that's happening, how are we continually reacting to the innovation, you know, that we did with mobile.
[00:22:02] And then we do with social. Now we do with AI and big data, et cetera. How are we continuing to evolve our entire platform to be able to make sure that we are aware our customers. Every time that they need to be asked to
[00:22:14] Dan: be there. Yeah, I agree. I think, I mean, obviously the future of Salesforce is always staying relevant with where the innovation and technology is going.
[00:22:21] That's awesome. So general question, any advice for any parents out there who are also aspiring entrepreneurs or executives? First
[00:22:33] Jennifer: of I'll watch my Ted talk. Now it's easy for them to get the baseline on how to edit. They throw in that, uh, navigate some of those sticky parts. It is not an easy road is I remember I to give you this, uh, this little moment that I had when I had my twins way now had five, five kids, five kids in less than four years, twins, where I went for the fourth.
[00:22:53] One of that did not necessarily want that fit, but got it. Anyway. So buy four, get one free. And I remember I was going into the car and I just had to get some milk and. Yeah, but get all the kids loaded them in the car and I couldn't get this car seat in. And I was like, I was almost going to have a breakdown and I just kind of want to get you.
[00:23:12] I'm like, you know, what, why did I think this is going to be easy to go to the store and get milk? It wasn't, this is going to be hard as well. Everything else that I do in the next 10 years. And it just is, and so like being a parent, I think what you need to do is you've got to go into, look at what the future looks like because this too shall pass every, every parent.
[00:23:31] Phrase this too shall pass. And, and you, you don't want to make short-term decisions to, uh, you know, as opposed to the long-term. So what do you want your life to look like in 10 years and start and work towards that? Knowing that it's a painful gauntlet, you've got to get through sometimes trying to fit, work and parenting and do the same thing.
[00:23:50] But if you've got a partner that is in it with you as well, and you love what you do, you'll get through.
[00:23:56] Dan: Sage Sage advice. Thank you so much. So, but before letting you go, let's have fun with a quick lightning round lightning.
[00:24:12] you ready for this? Favorite product,
[00:24:17] Jennifer: of course,
[00:24:19] Dan: classic or lightning.
[00:24:21] Jennifer: Oh lady. And of course I saw a classic window club the other day and I was like, Ooh, memories.
[00:24:29] Dan: Favorite Salesforce.
[00:24:32] Jennifer: Oh, my gosh. Uh, I'm going to have to go with Einstein. He's just so smart and Einstein your data actually. I've yeah, I know we have a new one.
[00:24:41] We've been Dana rockstar data rockstar for Tablo. I'm going to have to go with him and he's super cool. And leather jacket. So.
[00:24:49] Dan: Peter rockstar. Nice favorite brand of anything besides Salesforce.
[00:24:55] Jennifer: Oh my gosh. I mean, I live in my Lululemon's it's either workloads or Lululemon's so
[00:25:01] Dan: secret skill, not on the resume.
[00:25:05] Jennifer: Oh, I can read people. I can read everyone.
[00:25:07] Dan: I love that two seconds. You just won front row seats dream event. What is it? I'm gonna have
[00:25:13] Jennifer: to say it's gotta be the warriors. I love watching. Front row. There's so fun right now, too. Tonight we have a game game to,
[00:25:22] Dan: yeah, it's going to be incredible, Jen. I just want to say thank you.
[00:25:25] This has been so much fun, but before I let you go, um, let the listeners know where they can find you. And is there anything else you'd like to.
[00:25:34] Jennifer: Y you can find me, I think the easiest way for those that aren't in the Salesforce ecosystem, I'm at Jayla galea@salesforce.com. Email me at any time, um, or go to my LinkedIn that said that's kind of, LinkedIn has really become a great social media for me.
[00:25:48] No, I'm like, I, you know, I loved being on the show. I love going back into the Ohana. I do think. We built that Salesforce is very special. And I think the fact that you're, you're going in and you're, you're figuring out, well, what is that special? You know, everybody's got their own take on it and why they, why they let, how, how that allowed them to be successful in their own career.
[00:26:07] And I think it's awesome that you're doing.
[00:26:09] Dan: Oh, thank you, Jen. And it's great to see you. Thank you so much