Stacey Fernandes on the Tech Skills Modern Execs Need, AI in Coaching, and Advice for Becoming a “SHE-T-O”
In Brief: Stacey Fernandes (owlhub.com, linkedin.com/in/staceyfernandes1/), a highly experienced Chief Technology Officer and advocate for diversity and inclusion in the tech sector, joins host Dan Freehling to discuss her human-first leadership approach, which prioritizes the well-being and growth of individuals within an organization. Stacey emphasizes the importance of creating a work culture that values personal growth, collaboration, and innovation. She highlights the need for a coaching culture to support diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Stacey shares her own experiences and offers advice for aspiring women technologists, including the importance of continuous learning, developing emotional intelligence, and finding a workplace culture that aligns with one's values. She also discusses the potential of AI in various industries, such as law enforcement, construction, healthcare, and organizational culture, while emphasizing the need for ethical considerations and inclusivity in AI development.
Recommended reading: "People First Leadership" by Eduardo Braun, "Radical Candor" by Kim Scott, IAPP books on data privacy law for the EU and US, and “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi.
Transcript
Dan Freehling:
Welcome to Forward-Looking Leadership, a podcast for visionary executives building future ready organizations. I'm your host, Dan Freehling. I'm the founder of Contempus Leadership, a coaching practice that helps organizations develop their leadership pipeline through virtually unlimited coaching for their top rising talent. I'm honored to be joined today by Stacey Fernandes. Stacey has had an impressive 30 year technology career spanning multiple renowned companies. She was one of the earliest team members at monster.com where she revolutionized [00:00:30] the way they utilize data to enhance their job search and match services. Since then, she has served as chief technology officer at The Active Network, PlanHub and currently OwlHub, Inc., where she's dedicated to building AI-powered software solutions that allow for fostering an environment that values personal growth, collaboration, and innovation. Stacey attributes her success over the years to her then unconventional human-first leadership style, allowing for the creation of workplaces where employees thrive and exceed expectations.
[00:01:00] Stacey is also a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion in the tech industry, actively mentoring aspiring female technologists to pursue their dreams and break barriers. I met Stacey at a lunch table at a recent conference and was struck by her contributions to the conversation. This wasn't someone with the trite answers you often hear when it comes to the big technology and workplace questions of our time, but instead, a thoughtful and passionate executive with both serious tech expertise and deep leadership wisdom. Listeners, you're in for an insightful conversation. Stacey, thanks for [00:01:30] joining me on Forward-Looking Leadership. First, how would you describe Human First Leadership and why is it so important to you?
Stacey Fernandes:
In software development, we talk a lot about mobile first design, meaning that we design software around the assumption that our user base is going to interact with the environment that we're giving them via mobile device before anything else. So similarly, human First, it's like mobile first, and we think about putting people and our team members at the center of our decision [00:02:00] making, and it creates an environment that values and supports the wellbeing and growth of individuals in the organization. So it includes prioritizing, empathy, compassion, respect, and also too the tough love and making sure that we're asking those right hard questions at the right time. So I've found that Human First leadership kind of goes hand in hand with good coaching. It prioritizes a wellbeing and growth and development of individuals within an organization. [00:02:30] The importance of understanding and meeting the needs of the employees and creating sort of a work coaching culture and creating an environment where individuals can really kind of thrive and reach their full potential will in turn result in companies prospering, right?
So the result is more retention, a more skilled team, a culture of collaboration and innovation, accountability, ownership, all the things that you need within an organization for it to be right, and it does [00:03:00] start with its people. So really kind of centralizing all of your decisions around your teams and helping them prosper, which in turn results into those bigger bottom lines, those better environments and more success for the company. Also feel that in order to have a successful DEI program at any org, you have to have that solid human first coaching style culture to support your DEI [00:03:30] efforts, and that takes a lot of work and commitment, executive leadership and equalization of leadership development for everyone.
Dan Freehling:
I just love that. And the link to the organizational results, but those coming through the people and the DEI that you want to see in an organization having to center people first. How did you come to this realization? I know you've had a long career in tech. [00:04:00] How did you come to that realization of human first leadership being so crucial?
Stacey Fernandes:
Well, I mean, where I grew up in the tech space, we would hear, I would listen as a young tech. I would listen to my upper level management, refer to us, our teams as butts in seats or heads or hands-on keyboards. Those were the terms that were wildly accepted back in [00:04:30] the olden days where I started right back in the nineties. But when I came to leadership, I wanted to put martyrdom aside and not run a team between the lines of fear and blame and not have so much turnover. It was very unconventional way for me to run a team to make a connection, help team members work toward their goals and where they wanted [00:05:00] to go next. And that way they saw the task at hand as more of a stepping stone and a path towards their own personal success, and that resulted in a much more engaged, associate engaged team player, creating those safe spaces.
Some of the best ideas that I've seen come from those interns just coming into their profession or those support technologists. Some of the best revenue generating product ideas are coming from [00:05:30] what we used to refer to, not me personally, but what I've heard referred to back in the nineties and the early 2000 is butts in seats. These are people. So having experienced being the butt in the seat and growing my career through mentorship and good leadership, I found that I didn't have to run a team that way. It was more important for me to sit and advocate for my team members, [00:06:00] and as I help them grow, the company does better. We increase retention, better skill sets, better collaboration, more innovation. If it was just for me to make all the decisions and for me to have that idea, then the team isn't really all that important, and we know that's not true.
So I never saw people flourish or teams do well with that kind of mentality. And yet, oddly enough, it was like the dominant method of management [00:06:30] for a good part of my early career. So I never really felt connected to my workplace in the earlier days. I was just there for my paycheck and to go home and I wasn't really growing. So as I started to sort of change my approach, even acting as a coach with my peers and sharing my learnings with them, I started to see light bulbs turn on and people getting more engaged, and I realized that this is a better way. This is putting people before [00:07:00] or putting people at the center of your decision making was the best way to be successful.
Dan Freehling:
I just love all of that and bringing in so many different ideas and so much innovation and driving organizational commitment. So these are all real serious things that executives are looking to do, and this human first approach to leadership sounds like a great way to go about doing that. What other shifts do you envision modern executives either have [00:07:30] needed to make in recent years or needing to make right now to stay up with the curve?
Stacey Fernandes:
Yeah. I look back at when I became sort of like a VP versus 12 years ago versus a CTO just recently, and modern executives, we need to do better. We need to enable a workspace that's innovative and inclusive and insightful, and we have [00:08:00] to rethink how work gets done. So for example, talking about the DEI for just a second, it's incredibly important that we're aware, especially in the technical tech industry, that the number of women in technical leadership has dropped from 35 to 28%, right? What do we as executives doing about that, right? Since the pandemic, this is the statistic that came out of techopedia. We as leaders, we need to address [00:08:30] that, right? We know that women in leadership resulted in bigger bottom lines, yet the percentage is dropping. So what are we doing as executives to change that? That is a relatively new concept.
That's not something we talked about 12 years ago. Me as VP, as early CTO wasn't things we talked about today. We know that addressing these things result in [00:09:00] bigger bottom lines, better sales, more passion, more retention, all the things that we're looking for, all of the goals that executives have always had. But we found these sort of ignored methodologies or ignored principles that are now coming to the table. So executives are being held accountable for the cultures that they create and the examples that they set, and they should be, it's not okay, again, to run any organization between the lines of fear and blame. [00:09:30] The other thing is that I've noticed for myself, even personally, we need more diverse skills. The lines of tech and business functions are so much more entwined than they were say a decade ago. So for example, some of the best data scientists that I've known are CFOs, right?
That's not what you typically think. You think of the CFO as the accounting guy, writing the bills, doing the budgets, but because technology has permeated itself [00:10:00] throughout the entire vascular system of pretty much every organization out there, executives who need more tech skills and tech executives like myself have had to diversify into more well-rounded, product minded marketing minded professionals. So we've been expected, me as a CTO years ago, that was great. I I understood about servers and I could write code and I could execute [00:10:30] a technical. Today we have to liaison between the business because the digitization of what we sell. We have more digital products and more online offerings than ever. So just the mere existence of selling things that are digital require that tech leaders become more business-minded, and business leaders become more tech-minded. So I've enjoyed the natural diversification of my skill sets through this change, but [00:11:00] it's one that I've been very mindful of over the past few years. I find myself doing more product and marketing work in conjunction with sort of the tech leadership that I've always had to do.
Dan Freehling:
That's really fascinating. So a lot of seeing both organizational culture and technology as integral to the executive role rather than these sort of separate areas that someone else will do or that is not the main part of my job as an executive. They're coming front and center.
Stacey Fernandes:
[00:11:30] Exactly. It's not just to HR anymore, and it's not just to the accounting guy anymore. Everybody's much more entwined and it's, I think technology has brought a lot of that for sure. And here's the thing, it's such a wonderful opportunity. I've enjoyed the natural diversification of my skills. As markets become more digitized, it can be more work and more learning, but what a great way to avoid pigeonholing yourself if you're open to it. So I found [00:12:00] the past five years of my career to be incredibly exciting because of the diversification of what I've been taking part in. So I find it super exciting.
Dan Freehling:
What technology changes do you envision over the next five or 10 years? And I know there's no magic ball that will provide these answers, but what do you see coming in the next five or 10 years
Stacey Fernandes:
As a nerd? Through and through, I read a lot about technology. [00:12:30] Artificial intelligence is going to permeate itself throughout everything. We're going to see advancements in national language processing. We're going to compute more autonomous systems like self-driving cars. We're going to see more personalized assistance, I suspect too. In addition to that, with AI trying to permeate itself throughout the entire offering of the world, basically we're going to have to see more no-code [00:13:00] solutions around it. We're going to have to make it accessible, and that's going to require that technologists offer ways for people to get at it from a no-code perspective. Really good thing is the little chat box on my phone is a good example of that. But in addition to ai, we're going to see the number of connected devices continue to grow. I'm starting to see, even here in my hometown now, I'm seeing more smart homes, more smart cities. My husband who's a builder, people are asking for more technology [00:13:30] to be built right into their homes. I think we're going to see more and more of that. I find it interesting. I read the other day that 37% of the world's population is still not connected to the internet. That's like 3 billion people. They've still used the internet. I find that astounding. And so I have to imagine that we're going to see more 5G and more enhanced connectivity [00:14:00] going across the world as we enter into the next 10, 15 years or maybe even five.
I've been watching blockchain cryptocurrencies. I'm interested to see. You see, it's like it's good. It's not so good. It's good. It's not so good. I think we're going to start to see more and more global currencies and more technology around that. My 17-year-old son keeps wearing this thing on his face. I think he does it to ignore me, but it really, it's ar. [00:14:30] It's virtual reality. I go back to, I think about as a mom watching that movie, Wally from Disney comes back and everybody was just sitting on their chairs with their masks, their VR systems connected to their faces. But I think we will see more of that. It'll be interesting. I think probably you'll mostly be in the gaming and entertainment, maybe educational. I think [00:15:00] VR and augmented reality probably has its place in education and tourism, and I think there's already parts of that. I remember working on a system years back for the active network where there was a VR experience that you could use to experience a ski resort in Vail. Right. Cool. So we'll probably see more of that. I would like to see less of it though in my house.
Dan Freehling:
That seems to make a lot of sense. [00:15:30] Stay away from the brave new world aspects of this. Sit onto the connecting all those people to the internet and exactly. Unlocking all of that potential and the education. Yeah, please.
Stacey Fernandes:
Right? Yes. And then I think too, and this one, we can't ignore it, right? Energy and sustainability, it's everywhere. And so we all know solar, wind, energy, electric cars, everybody's all over that. Good friend of mine, he runs a blue planet. He's basically putting EV stations [00:16:00] across the entire country doing amazing work. But what I'm really interested in, I was just reading the other day about fusion technology, and if we can find a way to harness that and into more of a micro delivery, it will change the world. I definitely think that in the next 50 years, we'll find a way to harness fusion, fusion technology and to generate the zero emission energy sources, and it has the potential to pretty [00:16:30] much change the power of how we power everything. It would be life-changing. So I'm hoping after reading that article that I read the other day, that I'm alive to see it. So I think that's probably going to be the next big thing over the next five decades.
Dan Freehling:
That's really interesting. I've read a little bit on that. So the basic idea is that there would be some sort of a way to harness nuclear fusion at a household level that you could basically [00:17:00] power without needing to have emissions, without needing to have a lot of input and just really transform the way that we power everything,
Stacey Fernandes:
Right? Yeah, I mean, I think it's super, super exciting stuff. Again, I hope I see it in my lifetime. And then we've got so many breakthroughs through technology, technology, and healthcare. We're definitely going to be able, especially in the AI space as well, you'll see more of that, more automation. [00:17:30] I see Rockwell out there doing some amazing things there. So I mean, there's so much on quantum computing. Again, it's still very much in its early stages, but I fully expect maybe not in the next five, but in the next 10 20, we're going to see advancements in quantum computing, especially in areas of cryptography and maybe even the drug industry a little bit, I think too.
Dan Freehling:
Can you expand a bit on that? [00:18:00] What might be the opportunities from that?
Stacey Fernandes:
Yeah, so quantum computing and cryptography to solve complex problems that are currently not feasible for our classical computing, I think that we'll be able to increase the efficiency and the accuracy of solving much more complex problems.
Dan Freehling:
That makes total sense. So [00:18:30] it's able to just take on some of these things that have not been in the realm of our current technology and solving them in ways that we currently don't think that the technology can address, which is just really fascinating as all these advancements
Stacey Fernandes:
Are, and at those volumes, right, at those higher volumes for sure. But again, still early stage, but something I like to read about, they're still growing a lot in privacy. Privacy and cybersecurity, [00:19:00] especially with the onset of this AI revolution that we're going through. So we'll start to see more and more needs for cybersecurity, increasing privacy with all new technology comes, new problems and new legislation. It's one thing I've learned. Let's build something really amazing and then throw it out there and let it go haywire, and then let's put a bunch of legislation around it. So talk about job security. It's fantastic.
Dan Freehling:
[00:19:30] And you're just so used to that, having seen these new emerging technologies come about and having been part of these new emerging technologies come about that, that's the sort of process and that's how it goes, and you're not as daunted by that as I think some people might be.
Stacey Fernandes:
Right.
Dan Freehling:
So speaking of ai, I know that's all the buzz lately, and there's probably some over hype with that and there's probably some real benefit with it. What are the biggest opportunities you're seeing with the use of ai?
Stacey Fernandes:
[00:20:00] The biggest opportunity? So I would say AI is going to permeate itself everywhere. I mean, just go out to LinkedIn, all people are talking about is ai. The reality is that machine learning and AI has been around for a while. I just think that with the introduction of open ai, it's again becoming more accessible. People more aware of it, and they're starting to innovate around it. I still think the biggest opportunities are probably [00:20:30] in the services space, recommendation engines, retail transportation in the services space. For example, a few years back I worked with a couple of colleagues on doing some natural language processing around support calls and sales calls. So Gong, for example, is doing this. They're taking a sales call and then you're getting back a critique saying, Hey, maybe you should have said it this way instead of that way, or let's grade your conversation from a sales [00:21:00] perspective.
So you basically teach something, you teach a model, here's a great sales call, and then you kind of use that as a benchmark to weigh it against what actually happened in the real sales call, things like that. So we're going to continue to see that. I think we'll see more in gaming and also in fraud detection, security. But some of the areas that I think people don't really think a lot about with AI that I tend to get a little excited [00:21:30] about that I tend to read about is in law enforcement. So facial recognition has been around for a while, but I read about how we're starting to use it for crime prediction. I think there was a movie out there once about how AI technology, I think it was with Tom Cruise, AI technology, could predict a crime before it happened,
Dan Freehling:
Right? I remember that one. Yep.
Stacey Fernandes:
Yeah, so [00:22:00] am starting to see this come to fruition in some of the technical articles that I've read about and some of the things that they're doing with AI and law enforcement. So also AI-based emergency dispatch. So a lot of people are kind of afraid of ai, but in this case, I really see it as a way to improve human life and security. So I think that's a great opportunity. I don't know from a revenue [00:22:30] perspective, but I think just from a cultural geopolitical perspective, it might be super interesting and helpful to the human race in general.
Dan Freehling:
Yeah, it's helpful having some of these science fiction examples way before the technology's coming out to think about what could be some of the downsides to this and how can we guard against those too.
Stacey Fernandes:
And then another place, my husband, he's a builder in a gm, and the constructed industry as a whole really [00:23:00] has been a bit behind the curve in technology until the last decade. So now I'm seeing as a former CTO at Plan Hub even, we started to build some of this stuff, but just the work to create a bid or the work to measure a blueprint to determine how much lumber you need or how much copper wire you need from an electrical perspective. There is some companies out there that are using AI technology to help build efficiency and better accuracy around [00:23:30] infrastructure building from commercial to residential to commercial residential multifamilies. And we're seeing this an explosion of use of AI and machine learning technology in the construction space. I've even seen it recently with even contracts. So construction contracts and all of the documents that you need to have in place state by state is dizzy.
My husband here in Florida is one of the most litigious states [00:24:00] in the union. So with that comes a lot of legal paperwork, things that a GM or an architect or a Hammer swinger may or may not be well versed in. So there are now AI solutions coming out that legal institutions are pushing out for you to be able to say, here's my contract and the machine learning model, read the contract and call out areas of interest or potential issue for the contractor or for the customer. So I'm starting to see that. I think that's super [00:24:30] exciting and it definitely puts AI will put and machine learning will put technology into the hands of people that may have not had the skill or the ability to be technical previously. So lots of no-code solutions. A few years back, a colleague of mine and I worked on a system called EagleView, which is owned by Vista Equity, and I believe Job Nimbus uses it as well in a partnership. [00:25:00] But basically it was using pattern recognition to assess damage through drones. So damage is on roofs, on drones or hurricane damage or things like that. So again, increasing the safety because having to go on top of a roof, there's a lot of liability there. And roofing companies are paying wild amounts of money just because it's a high risk business. So a company EagleView comes along and they basically take [00:25:30] circle disaster areas or roofs to generate bids using drones and do their measurements from those images. So that's super exciting.
Dan Freehling:
So much of this is, so many of the positive benefits of this seem like they're enabling even smaller businesses to do without some of these really onerous legal costs or insurance costs or things like that. So there's some huge opportunity there that I don't think people really think about when they think about [00:26:00] tech and the abstract of what is the real world application to this? How can this actually make it better?
Stacey Fernandes:
Yeah, yeah, exactly right. So AI and its application outside of the SaaS space, there's so much going on, especially again, just coming out of a couple years at Plan Hub, just things that we were doing there. And then I think again, in the medical space, human life is going to be extended probably we will probably start to see people [00:26:30] living past a hundred years with some of the developments in the genetic testing to predict and prevent disease. We've already extended our lifespan by I don't know how many percent over the past a hundred years. I think we're going to continue to see that, and it's going to be through the enablement of AI through medical systems that doctors are using. I don't think you'll ever really get the human element out of it. I think that's super important. We talk a lot about that in the coaching coaching space. [00:27:00] Doctors are becoming more and more human-centric or focusing more on being that whole self in the examination room. But these technologies for AI to help find things that maybe a human can't find right away will extend human life. So that will be world-changing for sure.
Dan Freehling:
That really is a world-changing idea. That's really amazing to think about it. I mean, we've seen incremental extensions of life, which have been amazing, but that would be fascinating to think about even going beyond what we currently think [00:27:30] of as a lifespan.
Stacey Fernandes:
And then here at Owl Hub, the reason why I came here is because I believe that a good coaching framework and a coaching culture is imperative to women feeling safe in technology and in the workplace in general, and all members of diverse backgrounds. So even the coaching business itself, and there was something about [00:28:00] this in the ICF that we attended, and I think this is how we met, was how can we use AI in the coaching space? How can we use AI and machine learning to drive our passion for creating human first cultures in the workplace and getting more diverse participation in professions that we haven't historically seen? And so this is sort of my passion here at Owl Hub. So Owl Hub is this amazing coaching framework. [00:28:30] It's the only science-backed respect style coaching methods is the only science research-based framework out there developed by David Morelli who asked me to come work with him. And I'm in the process of building an AI-based application that's going to help permeate the respect coaching styles throughout an organization and making it easy for them. There's how many leaders out there and how many coaches, it's disparate. [00:29:00] There's not enough coaches for the leaders that need to become good leaders and good coaches in order to foster positive cultures in the workplace. So how do you build a software to do that? So here at OwlHub in the coaching space, we're building out an AI framework to help with that.
Dan Freehling:
It's amazing work that you're up to there. And I think it's, it's such a [00:29:30] refreshing perspective in some ways. There's this scarcity mindset that can come around coaching of there's only so many coaching clients out there, but there's another way to look at it, which is leaders really need coaching, especially as we're entering into this new world that we talked about before. And how can AI leverage that positive human first leadership and spread it into the organization like you're saying?
Stacey Fernandes:
Yeah, imagine if you're a new leader. I remember the first time I was promoted [00:30:00] to a manager, maybe a day or two of training, and they threw me in there. I said, great, now you're managing people. Wouldn't it be great for me to be able to have a difficult situation with an employee, type it up and say, I'm having this problem with this employee, blah, I need help and not have to run to an HR department, get a meeting, whatever it might be, and have a virtual assistant [00:30:30] that understands coaching methods, in this case, the OwlHub framework, and that can suggest and advise that new manager on how best to proceed. I think that that's the only way that we can scale this, right, as humans. So while the human is still delivering the message, how does the human get the guidance that they need? Not everybody walks into leadership knowing everything. I certainly didn't. I don't think anyone does, and I don't think that we ever do. [00:31:00] So how do we efficiently get help and how do we continue to push that culture forward, upward and downward throughout an organization? And there has to be an efficient way to do that.
Dan Freehling:
And there's so much of the more transactional kind of coaching, even the outside of coaching as a unique discipline and into that general kind of business advice or guidance. I think so much [00:31:30] of that can be done through tech, and then that actually frees up the best coaches to do that really touchy transformational work that is needed to really change leaders and make them better. But it's not necessarily the sort of small ball, the small guidance that would be really helpful for a new manager to have or something like that. And I think it's something that can work in tandem and work hand in hand with great coaching.
Stacey Fernandes:
I mean, sometimes it's just a matter of asking the right [00:32:00] question the right way instead of saying, why are you late to work? We may want to say, how can I help you get to work on time? Very different impact.
Dan Freehling:
Yeah, I'm really excited to follow along and see how this progresses and see what you're able to do with this. Because a super exciting space and something I'm personally very interested in,
Stacey Fernandes:
I have such a passion for this, I being able to bring technology to addressing some of the culture problems [00:32:30] that we have, especially in the tech space. And it's another spaces too. This is my experience. I think having a synergy between the two for me has been seriously exciting and I have such a passion for it. I can't stop working at it, to be honest.
Dan Freehling:
It's really showing through. And I think that when we first met, I was really hearing that, and it's something that's again, just refreshing to hear [00:33:00] and to hear that so well-versed in tech is thinking, this is amazing. So all of these opportunities for bringing AI and tech into the people space, into the culture space, into the coaching space, what challenges do you anticipate in doing this that you'll have to overcome?
Stacey Fernandes:
Yeah, so as we mentioned earlier, anytime you bring in a new technology, we've got to build a bunch of legislation around plate,
Dan Freehling:
The regulations [00:33:30] coming.
Stacey Fernandes:
That is absolutely different. No, and there'll be a lot, right? So with the introduction to CCPA, GDPR, privacy, all the stuff that all our CTOs have to be well trained in to protect data, AI promotes a very interesting problem, doesn't it? So a couple things. First of all, the ethical consideration, these systems have to be designed and implemented with ethical considerations in minds, make sure that we don't have bias, make sure that there's privacy [00:34:00] protections, transparency, accountability, all of the things. So we have to make sure that any automated responses following all of those rules, we can't have, I can't ask chat GPT for somebody's social security number. Can't do it, right? It may be out there on the web somewhere but cannot do it, right? So we have to make sure that privacy and security and bias is [00:34:30] eliminated from any solution.
I think the other area too that I'm seeing, and I think we did talk about this even at the ICF conference, is intellectual property, right? So like chatt PT for example, it's just an index NLP engine for the entire internet. I mean, that's literally what it's GPT is trained on a large data set of human generated tests. So AI [00:35:00] didn't create the internet, humans did. And now this AI engine has everything that humans have done on the internet. So it's possible that the text that it generates is going to contain elements that are similar or identical to existing works. It's possible. So the way that chat DPT is handling this is that it basically says that we don't own anything and it's your copyright, it's not ours. But I think that we're going to start to see more and more in this area of protecting IP and how to do it and how to do [00:35:30] it. And I think there probably will be guardrails and rules put in place to adhere to.
So I definitely see part of that. But then from a cultural perspective, a lot of people say, oh, AI's going to put me out of a job. So how do we integrate AI into this people space that focuses [00:36:00] on augmenting human capability as opposed to just replacing them? How can we make people better at their jobs through AI as opposed to how can AI replace people? I think there's, especially in more of the service-based jobs, but I think back, my dad's a village Greek guy. He owns a restaurant. And when I was in college, I used to waitress there to make money, [00:36:30] gas, money, whatever. I need books, you name it. And one of the things that struck me was I had these customers that would come in and they would ask for my table every time I want to sit at Stacy's table. And they came in to see me.
I created an enjoyable experience for their dinner. They were happy to see me. They knew they were going to get good service. There was some fun banter. You can't replace that with ai. So I think [00:37:00] that as people have some fear about a robot replacing their job, our AI replacing that human element is still going to be there. And we as humans still desire and want that, right? And we always remember that good human interaction first, right? I'm sure that 10 years down the line after this couple came in, they probably didn't remember what they ordered from me, but they probably remembered me being their funny, fun waitress at the time. So [00:37:30] I think there's some fear there. I think people are going to have to get to that understanding, that human interaction, that element of service is still something that we as people seek out in addition to efficiency.
Dan Freehling:
That seems spot on from what I've seen in how AI can be best employed. And it is really amazing that it can take on a bunch of these efficiency challenges, and it can take on some of these complicated computing challenges and some [00:38:00] of these even complexity challenges of how do we approach this in a way that has not been done before, has not even been thought of before, but keeping the people front and center, I think is going to be key. And yeah, exactly as you said. How can AI enable people to do more of that human touch, to do more of the people centered approaches rather than just turning everything into a sort of robot future.
Stacey Fernandes:
Exactly. Exactly. I think there's been too [00:38:30] much science fiction. I think too, as a person that designs technical solutions for people to use accessibility and inclusivity, I think it's going to be probably really important. We need to make sure that AI technologies are accessible and inclusive for all individuals regardless of what their abilities are. So I think [00:39:00] we're going to see more focus on those who have limited access to technology, those with disabilities, things like that. So I think that's probably something else that needs to be solved.
Dan Freehling:
This is something, again, that I just really admire about your approach and your perspective for this as you're putting this front and center and how do we make sure this is inclusive? And even more than that, how do we make sure that it's something that can be used to build cultures and organizations that are inclusive [00:39:30] and just the opportunities there are enormous,
Stacey Fernandes:
Right?
Dan Freehling:
So speaking of inclusivity, I know you often get asked what it takes to become a woman chief technology officer from budding technologists. How do you generally answer that?
Stacey Fernandes:
I get this question quite a bit, especially I've taken time to [00:40:00] make sure that I'm pulling more women out of their recent graduates or senior year of college, pulling them into internships. I do have a small consulting company and right now working with a lot of local colleges to help inspire more women in tech and then offer them internships, even just for a simple project just to get them exposed to it. [00:40:30] So I get that question a lot from especially that group. And the first thing that I tell them is don't think about your gender. Think about your skill, right? Focus on your skills above all else, and take every opportunity to learn. When you see a free course, take it. There are so many more ways to learn these days. I remember when I had to go and get my Oracle certification, it was like this $3,000 thing. I had to drive to Oracle in Burlington, Massachusetts, [00:41:00] and I had to sit there for five days straight and have my brain lobotomized in a classroom. Today, you've got Udemy, you've got Teched. You've got so many ways to learn. Don't ignore those, right? If there's something you want to know, chances are you can take an eight hour class and get a good overview and get enough information to go off and try it yourself. So dedicate your life to learning your craft. That is the most important thing.
When they say, well, what classes [00:41:30] should I take? I'm like a database design class. You must learn agile and you must lose your fear of speaking in public. Those are serious things that to be an executive, you have to understand data, you have to understand agile methodology as a CTO, and you must be able to speak to people clearly it's a must. In addition to that, a good mentor or coach, another woman is always great. Take a coaching class again, [00:42:00] I've taken a lot of coaching and leadership classes. As you're growing into leadership, learn to educate yourself on the emotional intelligence. Again, I haven't seen a framework better than Owl Hub, which is why I'm working here, but it's a must also, privacy and security, the protection of data that is paramount to the success. And then most important, especially for women and members of diversity, is to accept the role that has the culture that you're seeking.
Don't just go for the paycheck. The paycheck will come [00:42:30] with your skill and your accomplishments, but you must be able to walk into the door and having opportunity in front of you, okay? If you walk. And don't be afraid to walk away from a culture that doesn't give you what it needs. And I have to learn that the hard way. I've walked away from positions and taken pay cuts because I knew that the culture just wasn't right for me, that it wasn't open to the idea of a woman's CTO. I've been there. [00:43:00] I remember somebody saying to me, oh, you're a CTO. You don't look like a CTO. What does that mean? Right? What does that mean? My answer was simply, thank you. That meant that I was different, that I was memorable, that maybe I had something to offer. So I tell them that I tell any young woman or any member, it could be a woman, it could be anyone from any background.
It's important to remember that as a woman in tech, [00:43:30] that you have an opportunity to offer perspective that's unique, and that's in addition to the gender norm stereotype that we've gotten to know in our culture in tech. And that's a positive thing. If we were all the same, it wouldn't be gross. So don't be fearful to sit at the table and offer the knowledge that you've got and seek it from others. So also asking good questions, prepare for everything. So just the good study habits that we learn, the reason why we all go to school, remember those things, and then [00:44:00] work toward a passion and just not a paycheck. And if you employ that and always follow through your deliverables, it's going to result in just a natural awesomeness because we're always better at doing something we love. So forget your gender. Be good at your craft, and don't be afraid to have a different perspective. And if that's not welcome in the culture that you're in, then go find one. That is, [00:44:30] it is because you're not going to grow in a stifling culture where diversity is not being embraced. And again, going back, executives have a responsibility and absolute 100% responsibility to foster a culture of inclusion.
Dan Freehling:
That's all just such wonderful advice. And it seems like seeking that learning and mastery is so critical to this and putting yourself in the positions where [00:45:00] you have a chance to do that. So what books or other resources do you find yourself returning to the most often that help you as a leader?
Stacey Fernandes:
Oh God. Well, this is an older publication, but it's still my favorite is People First Leadership by Eduardo Braun. It's something that I literally keep on my desk. It's a book like This guy just went out and did thousands of hours of conversation with these world-class leaders. And through all of [00:45:30] that research, he found five key roles that leaders use to inspire people to strive for greatness and turn change into the world for good. Now this thing, the thing that's interesting about that book is that that was published in 2016, so the latest edition. So it's not even a new idea, but it just doesn't feel like we've been embracing it until recently. And I wonder, I tend to think, okay, so I remember [00:46:00] I had a CEO O one time tell me, you're too much of a people pleaser.
And I was like, well, actually, I think that's a good thing. And being a people pleaser doesn't mean I'm nice. It means that I'm focused on the development of others, and I understand that growing my people and asking them the right questions at the right time and challenging them at the right time and consoling them at the right time and showing compassion when it's necessary in order for them [00:46:30] to build strength is super important. So people First Leadership, Eduardo Braun, really, he was one of the first. There's so many publications out there now, but this one I really like. And I think it's super nuts and Bolts grassroots. And you're hearing directly from World-class leaders of some of the largest organizations out there. So I love People First Leadership, my other one, I had a problem in the beginning with difficult conversations. I [00:47:00] often tried to avoid conflict is something that I had to learn. And so I loved Radical Candor by Scott. She did a great job of how to communicate the good and the not so good and how to do it well. So this read really helped me out with that. So that's one that I keep quite often on.
Dan Freehling:
I hear that one recommended a lot, and particularly by the kind of people, it sounds like you are where you're so, but sometimes that can come with a [00:47:30] bit of an aversion to conflict, and a resource like that can really help in how do you approach this in a productive way that actually works out for the benefit of everyone involved?
Stacey Fernandes:
Right, exactly. Yeah. So I had really a hard time with that in my early career. And then my IAPP data privacy law book, that one, I have to have that here with me all the time. Everything is about data and everything is about protecting data. So unfortunately, [00:48:00] this is a book that I go to constantly, and every time there's a new edition, I buy it. So the IAPP book on data privacy for the EU as well as the United States for Your SIP certification is a must have for any technologist. I don't care who you are. If you're in tech, you're in data and you must know how to protect it from a more personal side or more self-improvement.
[00:48:30] One of my favorite books is When Breath Becomes Air, I think this guy's a brain surgeon. He, at the age of 35 or 36, whatever it was, he developed a, it's a story about his life, and he developed terminal lung cancer and wrote a book while he was going through it. But that book is not about dying. It's about living. And one of the quotes from that, and I actually [00:49:00] have this printed, is human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world and is still never complete. So isn't that really human first leadership at its nucleus, right? Isn't that what we're talking about? We're talking about how we bring connection into the workplace and become a better leader. And I think this quote says it beautifully. We don't know everything, and it's not contained in one human. It grows [00:49:30] from the relationships that we create between each other and the world, and it's never complete. So that quote in itself, I think epitomizes the book very well. At least for me it did, and it keeps me humble. So it's a read that I think every leader should have in their library.
Dan Freehling:
That's beautiful. And I think especially as we've been discussing when leadership is transcending the old kind of management frameworks and growing to something bigger and [00:50:00] more about people and more about broader culture, that a book like that, with that kind of a very serious life and death perspective can really open that up.
Stacey Fernandes:
I think. So there was a lot of buzz around Steven Jobs and what he said from his death, but kind of similar. But this one, Paul K, he examines it in a more intellectual way, in a way that we can kind of [00:50:30] apply it, I guess, a little bit more than what Steve Jobs did, which felt like just more of a letter about me. This book was really not just about him, it was about examining us as humans and our place in the professional world and how it shapes us. So I, again, it's a quick read. It's not a very good book, not a very long book, rather, I think it's something that everybody should have in their library.
Dan Freehling:
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. What [00:51:00] people, publications, podcasts, anything else like that do you keep up with so you can stay ahead of the curve?
Stacey Fernandes:
Yeah. So lately, Dr. David Morelli of Owl Hub, his podcast and his blogs, he just recently put out some amazing articles and amazing article in Choice Magazine. But again, having been trained as a respect coach and gone through their respect coaching styles, it's really the only framework that's provided me with actionable [00:51:30] methods that I can actually apply to all levels of an organization and be able to measure it. There's some amazing case studies coming out of his work. So while I'm building a system, I do subscribe to his publications and his podcasts, and I read them often. For me, going through his program was, it really did rewire me and it kind of affirmed sort of what I always felt the right way to lead was. But I didn't really have a way for somebody in the early days really have a way to [00:52:00] articulate it as much as he's done. So I definitely recommend that one. I also love to work in bootstraps and smaller startups. I've worked in the big corporations. I love to work in the smaller organizations. There's just such a variety of tasks at hand that I can dig into. I like to do things and stay busy. So super. I find myself going to the Startup Hustle blog quite a bit.
There's all kinds of tips [00:52:30] and tricks and things that people in bootstraps and startups are doing that I find fascinating. There's some amazing ideas. And then I wouldn't be a CTO if I didn't open up TechCrunch every single day, wired.com and the Gartner Magic Quadrant must do those three are these people. So I tend to hit those almost on a daily basis.
Dan Freehling:
And you're seeing the integration of what do you think is important in bringing to this new modern executive role of that coaching [00:53:00] best practices and the latest research, and then also just the best practices from businesses and then what's coming out in the startup space. And I think that's a cool example of all these different areas that people can think of as separate, but they're really critical to a well-rounded technologist and a well-rounded executive.
Stacey Fernandes:
I agree.
Dan Freehling:
So Stacy, thank you so much again for joining us. Where can listeners learn more about what you're up to, what Owl Hub is up to and keep in touch?
Stacey Fernandes:
[00:53:30] So owlhub.com is the best, right? We're going to be putting out, similar to the ICF, we're going to be putting out to find your top coaching style. So you can go out there and kind of learn about the framework and find out what your top coaching style is, which is super exciting. I'll be putting that up on the homepage over the next week. You can find us at ICF and SHRM conferences. Just so we met, we're kind of all over, can follow us on LinkedIn and again, Choice Magazine, which is a coaching magazine. [00:54:00] David put out sort of the science of coaching and the respect style coaching revolution that he has started while his work is 20 years in the making. OwlHub really is a young company really making big changes in the leadership development and coaching space. And again, having gone through so many of them like DISC and Hogan and great, I know about [00:54:30] my personality, I know about what kind of leader I am, but what am I bringing to my coachees, right? And that's really the difference with OwlHub is your coaching style. So all owlhub.com is the best place. And LinkedIn for sure.
Dan Freehling:
Yes, I definitely encourage coaches, but all executives in general to check that out. We'll definitely put the links in the show notes. So Stacy, thank you so much again. I've really learned a lot in this and I think people will find a lot of insight in our conversation. And listeners, thank you for joining us. If you got something out of the show, if you could please [00:55:00] share it with a colleague, leave a quick review on the podcast app you're using. It'll help to spread the word so others can find us. And Stacy, thank you so much again.
Stacey Fernandes:
The pleasure was mine. Thank you so much, Dan.
