The Trailblazers Experience Podcast

EP70 Michaela Weber: SVP & GM BigCommerce - Empowering Women, and Building Resilience Through Unexpected Career Twists

• Ntola • Season 4 • Episode 70

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In this episode of the Trailblazers Experience podcast, Michaela Weber shares her remarkable career journey from her early years in Cape Cod to becoming the SVP & GM at BigCommerce. She discusses the importance of networking, navigating the financial crisis, and her transition into the FinTech and payments industry. Michaela emphasizes the significance of being open to new opportunities, the challenges of working in a global environment, and the need for women to empower each other in business. She also shares insights on finding balance in a demanding career and offers key takeaways for career growth.

Michaela Weber's career journey highlights the importance of networking, adaptability, and female empowerment in the business landscape. She shares valuable insights on navigating challenges, making strategic career choices, and encouraging other women in fintech.

• Discussing the role of networking in career advancement
• Reflections on starting her career during the financial crisis
• Emphasizing the value of taking risks and adopting new opportunities
• Insights gained from her experiences at Goldman Sachs and Bain
• Addressing challenges around work-life balance in demanding roles
• Focus on empowering women in technology and finance industries
• Sharing three key takeaways for career advancement and personal growth

 Chapters
00:27 Intro
00:28 Who is Michaela Weber ? The Early Years
03:41 Going to Germany and Teaching
06:50  High risk vs Cost of failure
09:21 Pursuing an MBA and New Opportunities
14:44 Strategic Career Moves and Option Expanding
21:27 Cross-Functional Collaboration in Global Organizations
28:10 Empowering Women in FinTech
33:59 The Myth of Work-Life Balance
39:16 Strategies for Effective Time Management
44:35 Outro

 Find Michaela
Linkedin :   (1) Michaela Weber | LinkedIn 
Watch on Youtube : https://youtu.be/zbVM7kRbp7Q 

Listen : to the audio version Apple Spotify .Amazon Music Google Podcasts
Watch and subscribe to my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@Thetrailblazersexperience
Follow Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thetrailblazersexperience/

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Welcome. Welcome to another episode of the Trailblazers Experience podcast, the podcast where we have candid conversations with women sharing their career stories and career journeys. Today I'm really excited to have my next guest and I feel it's a bit of serendipity because we're involved in a very interesting project together as well which is all about celebrating women in business, and it'll come to light in the conversation today. But today I have Michaela Weber, who's the Senior VP of Business Development at BigCommerce. She's had an illustrious career spanning over 15, 20 years and has worked across fintech, e-commerce, anything that has to do with the tech sector. She's been there and looking forward to this journey and this story. Welcome.

Michaela Weber:

Thank you so much, Anjola. I'm thrilled to be here.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

So we were talking earlier on about how important it is to talk about your career journey and your early years, because A it brings to light that life is a journey, your career is a journey in itself and it always has ups and downs and twists and turns that have sort of led you to the role that you're in now. Do you want to sort of share about your early years of where you're from and your experience and what sort of led to your own reflection patting yourself on the back as a senior VP?

Michaela Weber:

Sure. So I grew up in Cape Cod so outside of Boston and kind of the suburbs, and my mother's a landscape architect, my dad's in construction, so not a lot of fintech or finance in my family and went to a small women's university actually in Western Massachusetts called Smith and loved that experience as part of college or, I guess, a US university. You know you're always thinking about what amI going to do after and I was actually a government major and a German minor, which does not give your parents confidence that you'll ever have an interesting combination.

Michaela Weber:

Yes, have a well-paying job.

Michaela Weber:

And I kind of hit my junior year, didn't know what to do.

Michaela Weber:

And there was a woman who lived across the hall from me didn't know what to do and there was a woman who lived across the hall from me who was going to work in sales and trading at Bank of America and her name's Amy and she was super nice and she was like, oh, I've got this great new job, it's super interesting. And I stayed in touch with her and then, when I was thinking about what to do, she helped get my resume to the top of the pile. I went down for, you know, a full, super day of interviews to New York and got an offer and all of a sudden I had an offer to go work on Wall Street because of you know, my network and this woman who was working there, who knew me and we were friendly. So that was, I think, my first exposure to the power of networking and the ability to kind of get your resume out of the pile and into the top, at least to give you a chance to pitch. I had no business working with you, training for.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

I was going to say how was day one when you actually started the job and saying, what am I doing?

Michaela Weber:

here. So I actually deferred for one year because I got a Fulbright teaching fellowship to go to Germany for a year. So I lived in Western Germany, in the Saarland, which is a very small little area along the border with France, and taught disinterested German fifth graders, english graders, english, and that was actually, I think, still probably one of my hardest jobs I've ever had teaching, especially like rowdy groups of middle schoolers. So went into that and then came back and started on Wall Street and I was analyst class 2008. So I started in June 2008. And my first day fully licensed on the desk was the Monday after Lehman Brothers collapsed.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Oh, my days.

Michaela Weber:

So it was total chaos. You know, I didn't know. I had a new apartment I was sharing with two girls that I knew Was here in New York, had this big job, had these very boxy Brooks Brothers kind of suits, because I thought that's what I needed to wear. And it was total turmoil for the first six or seven months as the financial crisis unfolded and ultimately my analyst class was laid off in March 2009. So I had gone from having this mental image of working in a role for two years, getting promoted, working for three years, getting promoted, living in New York, having this life, and now I had to figure out how to pay my rent and it was really unsettling.

Michaela Weber:

And I was unemployed for a few months and then, through some people I knew at BAML, got interviewed at this place that was selling research on Chinese companies to hedge funds, and so went and worked in this unfinished office for very little money because I needed a job. And so within the span of 12 months, I had gone from this picture-perfect Wall Street career to really kind of scraping it out and had a great boss. That role actually brought me to Hong Kong and then I moved to JP Morgan in Hong Kong so I got recruited to JP so I was kind of back on a more traditional bank track, worked in sales and trading there bank track, worked in sales and trading there. But it was definitely not the first career trajectory that I expected. You know, when you come out of university you think that everything is going to be smooth sailing and your career is just going to look like up and to the right the whole way.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Yeah. So it's different sector industry, you know, going from a government to a German miner and then being plunged into a financial crisis and then being made redundant. I mean, getting fired from your first job is like the worst thing ever, isn't it? You have that roller coaster of saying was it me, could I've done anything better? Do you think there was a lot of you being curious and open to new opportunities that led you to your first role, second role and then, obviously, moving to Hong Kong?

Michaela Weber:

Yes, I think the first role so you know, going to kind of work in New York was it was almost a comfort decision because I knew someone who liked it, you know, and I think that that's you think I like Amy, amy likes this, I should like this, and but it was being open to going to live in New York. I always thought I was going to go back and live in Boston that's where my family is and then I think I was just a bit upended with the redundancy and it led me to take a series of probably higher risk decisions than I would have. And the Hong Kong move. Someone gave me great advice, which was what is the cost of failure?

Michaela Weber:

If you fly over there? You're there for a month, you don't like it, you just buy a plane ticket and come home. It's a two-way door decision, right, it's not irreversible, and I thought about that a lot the first couple months because it is so different. It was my first time in Asia and it ended up being an amazing three years which I really loved and still have a great network from that time I would have done if I hadn't been in a situation where I really needed to keep a job and was more open to taking new opportunities than maybe I would have been.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Yeah, a lot to be said about what's the worst that can happen, really, isn't it? Yeah, so you were there for three years and then you went back to New York. Was that like? I don't like Asia anymore. I'm moving back. What happened?

Michaela Weber:

So I went, I went to do, I moved back to the U? S to do my MBA. Um, and my boss at the time at JP Morgan was very against graduate education, so he his view of.

Michaela Weber:

He was a sales and trading guy and you know he didn't think I needed it. I was, had gotten an early VP promotion and his view was why would you pay money to not work? That's his assessment of grad school, and so I definitely was a little wobbly leaving this good job that I had JP is an amazing company. To take a step back, but because I had this weird German government background, I didn't have a lot of hardcore finance and I felt that I wanted to go back and do an MBA, take a breath because so much had happened that was unexpected and really shore up some of my financial skills, my strategy skills, and see if I could then get into a more traditional finance job. So I did go back.

Michaela Weber:

I went to Dartmouth for my MBA and, as a result of that, ended up at Goldman Sachs in their global investment research team in New York. So back in New York with a more stable job at this time, but doing financial analysis on companies working on the oil and gas sector, which was totally new to me. But they kind of take you as an associate and just drop you wherever they need a body. So I didn't have a lot of choice in terms of what desk I was going to be assigned to and ended up learning so much and really loved it. But that was another huge curveball where, if you had told me five years before I'd be doing oil and gas and LNG research, you know I never would have believed you.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Yeah, there's something to be said about. You also wanted that credibility, isn't it where you had the experience? But you wanted to say, right, I have a stamp of approval, an MBA, didn't study tech or digital, but I worked sort of this thing where I started off in fashion and then ended up in the IT, digital sector because it was. It was like a dirty word oh, those are the people doing e-commerce, those are the people. But because it was an industry, it was a sector that was growing, that was building up, and I always it's only now in, in hindsight, where I've worked from an educational perspective that getting that stamp of approval, that degree, to say, right, this is the statement that I actually am qualified to be in this industry, but your work experience actually speaks more for itself. In most cases, it's an interesting world we live in.

Michaela Weber:

Yeah, yeah. And I think the MBA for me it was given kind of that. It set me on a different trajectory. It was really the right decision and I met my husband and all these things. So on a personal and professional level, I really loved it. But I do think there's a lot to be said for just getting the work experience and if you can do it without grad school. I mean, I think about my role now, which I know we'll get into, but there's no and there's no grad school for the things I'm doing now. Right, there's a little bit of business acumen, there's a little bit of financial analysis, there's a bit of strategy, but most of it is figuring things out on the fly. So I don't think you need it, but for some people it is helpful, depending on your background yeah, so oil and gas wasn't really tickling your fancy, because clearly you're not doing that anymore, no.

Michaela Weber:

so what happened, you know? Another like classic curveball is that my husband was relocated to london in 2017, so I so that was how I ended up moving over to london. So I ended up needing to find a new role, which, through my network, I ended up at Bain and Company. I had a lot of MBA classmates who were there and thought that I had done all this work studying the financial analysis of companies. I want to actually see strategy and I want to kind of get inside companies and figure out how they tick, and it was an amazing opportunity to be at Bain and that's really where I started working in payments and fintech, in their private equity group and with some digitization projects. So that was really the key catalyst for me to kind of bridge over from old school finance to the new modern fintTech and payments world.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

So that was stability in a way, because we all know Bain is a stable company. It's been around for a lot of years, and then you drop the bomb and decide to join Molly. It's like so WorldPay WorldPay was in between.

Michaela Weber:

So WorldPay came through my network. There was a role there to run their commercial partnerships team and build out and you know it was an early time to leave Bain. I think I could have definitely stayed at Bain for a number of additional years. An opportunity where one of the partners at Bain who I was close to said look, if you don't like it, just come back. Like we'll take. You know we'll take you back. You're great.

Michaela Weber:

And so I felt really confident taking that step, knowing that I had a bit of a safety net if I didn't like it or it didn't work out that I could probably fall back and and go back to to consulting at Bain. So I was at WorldPay and then through that one of my leaders who ran our e-commerce business, he went to be CEO at Molly. So he asked me to come over to run the partner team, so went from World Pay, which was part of FIS 40,000 people had worked at these big orgs to Molly, which was 1,000 people, very scrappy, new market entrant, a lot of products, not a lot of process, and so it was definitely a really interesting opportunity for me to be in more of a startup environment do you think now, connecting the dots and talking about your career, has it all been strategic for you in terms of I'm going to do this to get to that next level and now I'm interested in this?

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Did you, as you were in each role, did you then pinpoint and say I think the next two years could look like this or the next three years, or were you just curious and open to new opportunities every few years?

Michaela Weber:

I would like to say that it was super strategic but, I think, not always right.

Michaela Weber:

I wanted to go, you know, followed consistently, went to work for leaders that I liked and respected, working on teams that I felt a connection with and getting new opportunities. So moving from RuralPay part of this big FIS organization to MOLLE was an opportunity for me to get exposure to kind of a more of a scale up environment and see what that was like. But I think it's one of the things I always say to people if I get asked for career advice you've got to think about what's an option expander for you. So if you're taking a role, is it an option expander or is it an option limiter? And I think one of the things I've been trying to keep as a North Star with these roles is what is an option expander right? And I don't think you can go wrong as long as you're continually either deciding to be a specialist and really being strategic about that, or it's okay to take roles that aren't exactly in a linear path for you, as long as it's expanding your options.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

I love that. That's already a nugget right there. Is it an option limiter, option expander? Because, to your point, then you also think differently about the companies that you are interviewing for or having conversations with within your network. It's a different way of thinking as well. Yeah, definitely, and we know that BigCommerce was probably in that cusp of expanding into Europe as well. So did that transpire then? Option Expander is that what led to that opportunity?

Michaela Weber:

Yeah, so I had the opportunity. I had worked with the BigCommerce exec team since I was at Worldpay, so I had familiarity with my boss, with the exec team, with some of the European team and had an opportunity to move across, initially to work on the Europe business, but then stepped into a GM payments role and having a broader business development lens, and that, for me, was this notion of having a GM seat where you're running a P&L, you're a business owner, you're making those key decisions. That was really attractive to me because I had been in financial analysis roles, strategy roles, partnership roles, but this PR, p&l, you know, setting yourself on as a GM role on the path to being a CEO, running something bigger, was something that I really wanted to do. So that's been a really fun, challenging, fun experience and something that I did feel exactly was was an option expander for me, going forward and putting me on the path to continuing to lead businesses, lead big teams, have revenue, impact and things that I wanted to do.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

What do you think have been the biggest challenges that you've faced so far? So just reflecting back on all the roles where you just thought I don't think I'm going to come out of this apart from being made redundant. But what was the biggest challenge for you where you sort of thought I don't think there's a way out here?

Michaela Weber:

Yeah, I think some roles were very demanding, hours wise, you know, certainly working at Goldman and at Bain. It can be really hard to have to be working in a job where, when you go in in the morning at nine, you're not sure if you're going to go home at seven or you're going to go home at 1am, right. And I think that actually a lot of companies in the intervening years have made a lot of strides on improving work-life balance and trying to limit work hours, especially for junior staff. But that lack of consistency was always a bit intimidating to me, and also just the pressure. There's nothing that compares to being at Bain and doing a two-week diligence and having two weeks to basically understand a business and then present back to people who know a lot more about it than you do as a subject matter expert. And so the pressure of producing slides, analysis every day that's then reviewed in front of a lot of people, right, and having your work really publicly criticized, not in a mean way but just in a constructive way, was hard initially. But then I started to really love it and feel that that was a really collaborative way of working. So, yeah, it builds resilience, isn't it as well, it is. And actually I've noticed that sometimes I can really freak out the juniors on my team now if I leave a lot of comments on things and they think, oh gosh, she's editing these things and she's making comments and asking me to change it.

Michaela Weber:

And my view is we're just trying to improve a product, right, we're trying to deliver a message to an exec pack or to a client, and it's not about your right or wrong, it's about how do we get this across in the most clear way possible.

Michaela Weber:

But I think the hours and the time sensitivity, the sense of urgency is hard about some of those jobs. And then the kind of consistent challenge that I think everyone has in large global orgs is working cross-functionally, especially with people that you're not co-located with and who are from different cultures, have different backgrounds, many of whom have been working in an industry for longer than you've been alive, which is always true in payments. There's so many people that are such subject matter experts and how do you build rapport, relate, influence, people that don't report to you and don't have to do what you're asking them to do or for help, and I think that is really challenging that don't report to you and don't have to do what you're asking them to do or for help, and I think that is really challenging. I've improved on it a lot over the years, but certainly something that I'm always looking to improve how I can work well cross-functionally across a big org across time zones.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

That's a very big one, I think, and a game changer in terms of how work. Culture has changed over the years because a lot of businesses are based in different territories, countries, time zones, so you're dealing with culture nuances, trying to understand how your colleague from a different department is trying to articulate themselves to you, what they actually mean when they say, yes, I can do it. Do they actually mean that? Are they being polite or do we have to have different conversations as well? I think has been the biggest learning is embracing that, but learning how to influence people who don't really directly report into you. They don't really have to do what you're saying, but it meets the common goal, isn't it?

Michaela Weber:

Exactly, and I think Slack is just the worst thing ever invented and I do it too. You can shoot off a Slack. You're standing in line for a coffee, you're in between them and it can come across more terse or more cheery or more harsh than you expected. And you can also read people's messages totally different. You know, if you and I had a text conversation, if I'm in a certain mindset, I could read into everything you say to me in a certain way, and so I really do try to pick up the phone and even just you know, having Zooms or catching people for a few minutes, it's so much easier than having a 40, you know entry exchange on Slack and feeling that you are being a bit grumpy with me about me asking you this thing. So it is really tough to have these quick pieces of communication where you don't have someone's full attention and you're not really sure how they are feeling or whether you're reading into something unnecessarily.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

And it also comes from the fact that, in terms of etiquette lessons coming from way back, you know, those have existed for how to articulate and how to communicate in person. Those have probably existed in terms of letter writing showing my age now but one of the things that has never been introduced and probably someone can make a killing for that is etiquette for slack, whatsapp emails. That does not exist anyway. There is no training, there is no nuances of messaging, how things come across. It feels like it's the wild west at the moment, from a personal and professional perspective, that you're right Having just a two minute conversation to say just pick your brain on this, x, y and Z, were you thinking in the same direction, or is this not what you were thinking as well? Just saves loads of messages.

Michaela Weber:

Yeah, and the context? You don't think the context is so important If I, if I send you a message and say, hey, until you know it's Friday afternoon, I need this for you. I need you to do this for me by the end of the day. That's so different than if I call you and I say, oh my gosh, I got asked by our CEO to prepare something. He's going into a meeting in three hours. Can you give me two bullets on X and like the full context is you and I both know this is an urgent request. That's not standard and helping you understand why I'm asking you this thing? That's out of ordinary on a Friday afternoon. You know, I think the full context verbally can just make a big difference versus hey, I need this from you.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

And it comes back to what you've been talking about all along, which I sort of want to dive into is networking and building that. And how do you, if we're talking to a 20-year-old, a 30-year-old, a 40-year-old, 50-year-old? I've noticed now that a lot of good roles, even for myself, have not come through things that have been advertised. It's been through my network that I've built over years. Over time you connect the dots and somehow someone says actually there's something interesting here, let's have a chat about it. How important, and I know it's played a very important role in the thread of your career. How do you build the ability to network and build those connections over time and over the years?

Michaela Weber:

Yeah, I think it's really practice. So there's a couple of things. One is find someone in your industry or your desired industry on LinkedIn who seems like they're out at events meeting people doing things. I think understand where you need to be to meet people that are going to be in your current or future network. So a great example is I have a friend who's currently looking for a new role in tech. She comes from a retail background, so she was at the retail technology show for two days. You know, walking around meeting people in London. I think you have to train yourself to go, to be able to go up to people, to have conversations, to attend panels to.

Michaela Weber:

There's so many free events out there. There's especially within tech and fintech. There's always companies having happy hours, information days, partner days. There's a lot of things. You can also reach out to people for coffee, right, because, as you mentioned, I feel so indebted to my network for all the opportunities I've had.

Michaela Weber:

I've had a bunch of people reach out and say, hey, can I get a coffee or I'm actually could I do a 30-minute call with you? I'm looking at finding a role like yours and I try to do it right, because so many people have made that time for me. But you can't do it from your sofa and I know that's like a very like you know cliche thing to say, but it's really getting out there and going to events and walking up to people which is really scary but it gets easier and saying hey, you know, I'm Michaela, I work in payments. I'm really interested in learning about how you run your payments team or you know some of the challenges you're facing as a brand and trying to unpack. So it's pushing yourself out there but find people who are doing what you want to do and see where they're going and see the people they talk to.

Michaela Weber:

Linkedin is an amazing tool. Well, you can get through some garbage on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn can be a really good tool to see what people are out and about doing and kind of start to plot that, even if you have a very internally facing role, it's really important to have an external network. You don't want to be in a situation where something's changed. You all of a sudden feel that you need to apply for a new job and you're just starting to build that network. You need the network already there.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

And it takes time, isn't it? Getting out of your comfort zone, taking that first step to reach out to someone, have a conversation, and you know what the biggest thing I've realized we're all human. Some doors might close, some people might not respond. You keep it. Moving onto the next one is a good mentality to happen, and I love the fact that you are paying it forward because you're remembering how the opportunities have supported you and helped you as well, and lifting others up is a great way to do that too. Let's talk about you and just being the woman empowerer that you are. I mean, you are one of the FT partners of women in fintech rising stars. How are you empowering women in the industry? And you talked about you've been to an event recently as well where that was an opportunity to talk about that.

Michaela Weber:

Yeah, so just this week actually, I was asked to be on a panel at a Barclays Women in Sales event, and so Barclays has an amazing group of colleagues, actually a lot male colleagues who are allies but for women in their sales teams. They were celebrating some of the women had been nominated for an industry award and hosting a panel, hosting networking and I think for larger companies it's so important, any company of any size. But just to see the real slickness which they produced this event, how everyone was so supportive, especially having senior male managing directors there, executive sponsors, male colleagues and allies Just really amazing to see the support they have for women who are in sales, which can be a traditionally more male-dominated industry, especially in payments and fintech. So I thought that was super nice and certainly for some organizations that are setting up women's groups, I think the stigma of being in a women's network has actually faded a little bit.

Michaela Weber:

I think you and I talked about this People recognize that actually it's so empowering to your internal teams to be able to connect with one another, to have those spaces to network, to have for the open discussions, and now colleagues can also be involved and are a really important part of that, both internal in your organization, but if you have a small organization, there's also other external opportunities, whether it's women in payments, women in fintech groups. I think there's a women in e-com group that does kind of meetups once a quarter where people come in and basically meet at a bar or somewhere. Social there's fitness classes I've seen on LinkedIn for people to get together. So really it's about lifting people up, empowering them and just sharing your own experience. I think that's really powerful, especially for women who are in industries that are less well-represented. To kind of talk more frankly about your career path, some of the challenges you faced and some of your successes I think, also post-pandemic, where it was an extraordinary situation where a lot of people were working alone, remotely.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Everyone is craving connection connection in terms of whether it's professional, personal, meeting up people coming with your authentic self, in terms of the challenges that you're facing. I love the fact and we're involved in the Women's Accelerator Program, which is to mentor six founders of businesses and they're all so young and they've started businesses and they're driving six-figure sales and I was just really so proud that I mean at their age and what they're doing to be able to say you know what we're reaching out, we know we need support and we're able to bring all these women together and have our male allies and provide the support and give them the space to ask the questions. There are no stupid questions, isn't it? Whether it's supply chain strategy, funding, you know it was like a full circle moment for me us being in that room and saying, wow, we are paying it forward now and helping others in that way. It's brilliant.

Michaela Weber:

It was, and that's the Women's Domain Accelerator and we have an amazing group of brands. I think one thing happened in that room which you may not remember, but one of the brand founders introduced herself and she's doing, I think, two or three million dollars in sales and she's primarily selling through wholesale channels now and she sort of introduced herself and then immediately apologized and said I haven't been doing very much direct to consumer. I know I haven't focused on it, I'm really behind. And you stopped her and you said hold on, don't introduce yourself and immediately apologize to us for what you haven't done. You're crushing it. You're running this amazing brand basically by yourself, doing $3 million of sales. Can you just stop for a second and acknowledge how exceptional that is and what a superstar you are?

Michaela Weber:

And I think that's also something that I notice a lot for women is, even when they're really successful, they spend so much time focused on what they haven't done or where they feel they need to focus more, and it's really one of the things I loved about the accelerator kickoff is just having a group of women and some of the men who are supporting the program sitting in like celebrating these amazing female entrepreneurs who have put so much blood, sweat and tears into these businesses and they're doing so well, and you know, for us to be able to support them in taking their business to the next level.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Yeah, I think if there's always one tip I share with women is never start with apologizing. You've got, like, your five minutes to pitch yourself, your brand, your personal brand. Lead with the positive and then everything else. That's what we want people to remember as well. Work-life balance, I know, is it a thing? I listened to Emma Greed, who's obviously an amazing CEO of many businesses, from Good American to Skims, and she was like there ain't no balance. I'm a mother, I'm a CEO, I'm leading businesses, I am being the best at what I can be in whatever situation I am in the time. And that resonated with me because, in terms of building a career, it's all about decisions that you have to make and realizing that you're going to be great at some things, you're going to fall down on others, and it's because you're making different decisions at different points in your career. What does even balance mean to you and how do you take the time outside of work to fill your cup?

Michaela Weber:

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think the notion of balance is also probably fictional. So I like to think about being overweight and underweight certain things One of my former leaders at Goldman would talk about that where this week she's got a big presentation, she's got overweight work, a little underweight on family, and you have a partner who can step in and support, you have external childcare, other people that you're relying on, and then some weeks you're more overweight. You know personal and family underweight work and you just kind of need to make sure that portions are probably okay. You know, I think it's really hard.

Michaela Weber:

I mean, for me the way that I have found the most kind of peace with working in what is quite a demanding role and often having a lot of late night calls and travel, is to really try to have some schedule autonomy, which is, I recognize, a privilege and not always possible for people. But, for example, I really try to avoid having recurring calls on Fridays so I can leave that time open to catch up with the team if there's something that's urgent, to kind of get through as much as my inbox as I can, to do things like this. You know, to try to do some things that are kind of extra 10% of things that I'm doing outside my role, some things that are kind of extra 10% of things that I'm doing outside my role. But it's really hard and I think some weeks I'm really frustrated with my lack of ability to turn off and sometimes if I'm on calls until 11 at night, you know if you're on big calls, you're making presentations, it takes a while to come down from that right and then it kind of leads into the next day if you've got something early. So it's a constant battle. I definitely don't think I have it figured out, but if I know I have a few late nights of calls, I try to start later. One morning I have some ladies in my neighborhood that I walk dogs with um at 8 am some. So like I try to make sure I do that.

Michaela Weber:

But really just finding some time for yourself and I work less on weekends than I used to, that used to be a real problem for me or like a challenge, especially when I was at Goldman is working over the weekend and that starts to feel like you don't have time to really recharge.

Michaela Weber:

But it's a huge challenge. I mean, I'm always taking tips and I would say, my inbox is one of the things that I sacrifice for trying. I definitely don't get through all my email every day and I really try hard, but sometimes people have to chase me and I think at least my team knows it's not malicious If they need to chase me and I think at least my team knows it's not malicious, like if they need to chase me. Sometimes I just don't see things or I just haven't circled back to it. So I do try to be better and more responsive, but there's only so much you can do if you have, you know, six hours of planned calls a day, plus you're getting a hundred slacks, plus you're getting 200 emails. So you've got to give and take a little bit on a daily basis.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

And small steps over time, isn't it? It's not something to solve right away and I think just giving people who are listening to the podcast the notion that nobody's perfect, we're all sort of battling and putting things into quadrants, isn't it Urgent, non-urgent, non-important? What I need to do now, what's important for this step in my career, it's finding not the balance, but understanding.

Michaela Weber:

It's all in small increments over time, and one of the things that I have really tried to put into practice is there's a book by a guy called Cal Newport called Slow Productivity, and it's basically about how, if you spend your day working on inbox zero, you're probably never going to get your big strategic projects done, and it's not going to occur in the seven minutes you get back.

Michaela Weber:

When a call ends early, right, you're not going to work on that big 20 page presentation or the strategy report or the importance of really carving out large blocks of time for execution of important projects, and I've really tried to put that into practice where it doesn't always work. But you know, if I have a big presentation coming up, I'm presenting to our exec leadership team, to the board, that I have a couple three-hour blocks of work to sit down and work through something, and I'm turning off my Slack and I'm putting an away message on and flipping my phone over, because I get an email every two minutes, as I'm sure you do. So if I'm sitting here with everything open, it's just so much easier to think I'm just going to do this, it will just take me a minute, but then you never have the time for the big strategic stuff. So that's something that I'm really trying to work on, but it is a work in progress.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

I totally agree. I've embraced time blocking and the stats on that seem to have paid dividends. That actually blocking time in your calendar, in your diary, to say I am focusing on this particular task and completing it, is so beneficial. Because you know, they say the average human has an attention span, even listening to a presentation 15 minutes and then they're gone, which is why people love an executive summary, isn't it? It's like summarizing everything at the beginning, but having those instances to time block and say I'm going to complete this task and finish it, and it's a sense of accomplishment, isn't it? Otherwise, you're chasing your inbox, you're chasing your slacks, your WhatsApp messages. It's just relentless and definitely leads to burnout and just anxiety and feeling that you're not a high performer in whatever role you're in.

Michaela Weber:

At that point, the thing that I do use because sometimes I struggle.

Michaela Weber:

it can be really daunting to sit down in front of your desk and say that you're going to work for two hours, so I use a Pomodoro timer sometimes which is 25 minutes on, five minutes off, and I have an app that I downloaded for free I think there's a bunch of them out there and, for whatever reason, mentally for me 25 minutes feels more realistic, right, and it's like I can sit with this, and so I set my little timer, I flip my phone over and then it's like 25 minutes on this outline or this presentation and then I can go make a cup of tea come back, but that is a little bit easier for me than facing down 120 minutes of needing to get something done and just not knowing where to start.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

I have a classic sand door so I turn it and then I did that's like my probably does take about 20, 25 minutes but yeah, it's something visual, something there that I've set my eye on and knowing.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Okay, when it rings coffee, stretch legs and then go again if necessary. So that's already a good tip out there. It's so interesting, isn't it? Do you find, the higher you've risen in your positions you know, c-suite, senior VP you have to be more tactical in terms of how you are a good leader and how you complete tasks, how you delegate. That's come with experience over time. It's not something that we learned off the bat, isn't it?

Michaela Weber:

It is, and I think delegation is really key. And it's also key to have and I've been so lucky to have direct reports and people on my teams who are really capable at picking things up and I do, you know, sometimes just forward stuff over and say, please, can you handle?

Michaela Weber:

this you know and and and that's really critical. So I think, just relieving yourself of the notion that you need to do everything and sometimes things don't get done the way you want them to and you don't give clear enough instructions, and that that sits on me right. But it is really important to be able to delegate to your point on maintaining some kind of balance and also focusing on priorities. But you need to kind of coach and empower your team to be able to execute that on your behalf, and that's really important.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

So, circling back, you have already shared so many tips and nuggets and snippets for the audience. What are three trailblazer takeaway tips? If you were to summarize and give advice to someone who's listening to help them with their professional and personal career journey, what would they be?

Michaela Weber:

Sure. My first would be when you're looking at a new role, is it an option expander or an option limiter? My second would be to be brave when you're networking, send that LinkedIn note to someone, invite them for a coffee, ask them for a call, go to an event, walk up to people, introduce yourself, connect with them on LinkedIn, follow up. And my third would be to really prioritize your time and make sure that you're working on things that are getting you closer to where you want to be in your career and and being vocal about what you want and setting those plans with your manager and making sure that you're holding yourself to account on on delivering that I've really enjoyed this.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

I feel a warm and fuzziness. Option limiter, option expander I will be using that a lot.

Michaela Weber:

It's been my biggest takeaway.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

Yeah, yeah, it's a good one.

Michaela Weber:

Well, thank you so much for joining the podcast.

The Trailblazers Experience Podcast :

I think what's been really great is you've had a very interesting career journey. I think you need to pat yourself on the back of all that you've achieved and you're all about paying it forward. You're all about women empowerment. You're all about empowering even our male allies in the industry, and that shines through. I've met you, I think, a few times and that really shines through in how you present yourself and bringing that to light. So thank you for sharing your story. Thank you so much for having me. That has been the Trailblazers Experience podcast, as always. We're inviting you to follow, share and subscribe and until next time, thank you very much.