Nicole Baxby: Carving Her Own Path in Financial Services

S4E1: Nicole Baxby is Senior Vice President of Customer Success and Partnerships at Quantifind and she shares her career journey in financial services and how she has taken risks and showed a bit of gumption to carve her own path.

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Unexpected Career Podcast, where we share stories of real people and the twists and turns they have taken along their career journey. I am Megan Dunford, and as someone who found myself in the payments industry, largely by accident. I'm fascinated by people's careers unfold and how they've gotten to where they are today. It's also why I'm passionate about reducing the pressure on young people about going to university, what to take in school, and on getting that right first job. My guest today is Nicole Baxby, senior Vice President of Customer Success and Partnerships at.

Megan 0:37

Thank you for joining.

Nicole 0:39

Thanks for having me.

Megan 0:41

Cool. So I always start with the very first question of when you were small, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you have an idea or something that you were intrigued by or dreaming about?

Nicole 0:55

This is a funny question because I have proof of my answer. And I was going to dig through and, and show you, but I didn't. I have a sixth grade newspaper where they interviewed all of the students and asked them that question and my answer, was I wanna be the President and the first, you know, maybe the first woman president. Hopefully not. Turns out like we still haven't had one, but that's what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Megan 1:21

That is amazing. I love when little kids have these big, ambitious leadership goals. Me too. Right away. That's so cute. I love that. Starting with such an ambitious goal and really the top of the leadership kind of ambitions. Where did you go from there when it was time to make decisions about school and things like that? Did you decide to go to university if you did, like what did you decide to take What in went into making that decision?

Nicole 1:52

I did go to university. It was always, my dream to go to a university and not really one that was an easy path just because financially university is expensive, you know? Mm-hmm. And so trying to figure out how do you pay for that? I had great grades, in high school, but the opportunity to live, away from home. Was something that would've been even more financially prohibitive. There was a university in my hometown called Columbus State University. And so really the decision making about where to go was about the ability to live at home and still attend university. So that's where I went. Still I feel like I got a great education there. I studied political science, I don't know that, that ambition to work in government necessarily, was the driving factor. I initially was studying journalism. And after the first semester of taking a political science class, knew I loved policy, I loved studying policy. And so I studied political science and graduated with the degree in political science. Did all of the, model UN and model Arab leagues and university and traveled to other universities have been a lifelong nerd.

Megan 3:08

I love that. It sounds like it wasn't intentional since you started in journalism that does connect directly back to that ambitious of when you were small of being the president someday. So that's pretty cool.

Nicole 3:22

When you tell the story like this, I think that there is some through line there.

Megan 3:28

That's really cool.

Nicole 3:29

So I think for me, the through line is really loving the idea of serving people mm-hmm. Through policy. Right. I think, I love the idea of being someone who could take the needs of people and find ways of helping them. And I think that's something that I'm really passionate about. And if I do look at some of the connective tissue in my job and in the, even the, where I spend my time in nonprofit

Megan 4:00

mm-hmm.

Nicole 4:00

There's a through line there.

Megan 4:03

That's amazing. I love that when you get the opportunity to, it's one of the things I love about this podcast is that opportunity to look back and see how sometimes those things connect. Because it so often does, but it's not obvious when you're in the day-to-day of it.

Nicole 4:20

You're right. It's not something you reflect on often and maybe even this has been a delightful, you know, you even asking that question is enlightening to me in a way I maybe haven't even reflected on previously.

Megan 4:31

Yeah. So you have this sort of political interest and interest in policy. So what did you do when you graduated university? Did you pursue government and supporting, policy or did you go end up going in a different direction?

Nicole 4:51

My senior year of college I got an internship at the Georgia General Assembly. Working for the the head of the Health and Human Services Committee.

Megan 5:01

Amazing.

Nicole 5:01

And the chairman. And so I was going to school and doing that internship in Atlanta. And one of the things I realized if you work in, if you're actually an elected official is that if people don't vote for you, you lose your job. And also all the people that work for that elected leader also lose their job and the idea of that financial instability that was really off-putting to me, and I thought, okay, well, do I wanna go into lobbying? And I did get to a lot of exposure in working with lobbyists. I thought there was some pros and cons of that, that it just wasn't attractive enough to me, to go in that direction. And I don't know about you, Megan, but when you come out of school you're also like, you just need a job. You need a job immediately you realize there's goals and there's dreams, and there's also the need to eat. So when I was living in Columbus, Georgia, and one of the largest employers there was a company called TSYS, which is a big payment processor. They were recently acquired by FIS and I had a friend who worked there and they put my resume at the top of a pile and I got hired. I think I made a whopping$23,000 in my first job. In 20, 2005. So it was great. It was a fantastic entryway into financial services. Something I would certainly have never thought of in the past. I don't even know that job existed. I didn't know anything about financial services when I joined. I couldn't even told you what that company did. But it's been that's, that changed the trajectory of my career and I've spent my entire career in financial services.

Megan 6:48

That's amazing I think you you touched on it, when you're graduating school. Quite often, you're just looking for a job and we end up in these industries or roles that we didn't know existed and end up building whole careers there. And it's funny because you spend so much time, speaking for myself, when you're in high school and even in the beginning university of like, oh, what do I wanna do? And people are asking you what are you doing when you graduate? You think you have to make all these big decisions and have answers, but actually most of the time it happens by accident and you learn what you like and what you don't like as you go.

Nicole 7:29

I almost wish you could go back and tell people in university and in high school. Take a little bit of that pressure off. There are some people that where your education absolutely is foundational for what you do. And I think for many of us it isn't. The education was that tick in the box you needed to say, I am willing to commit to something. I'm willing to work really hard at it. For x number of years and I think it's still important, that university degree is important and later, much later in my career, when I was I think 38, I went back and got a master's degree in law. So, which has nothing to do with what I do, and I knew that not nothing. But mostly nothing. So I, and I could have just gone and got an MBA, like a sensible person. But I still love policy and and I'm much more aware as an adult of how policy shapes, not only our daily lives as individuals, but also our companies and the trajectory of our companies. And I still find it fascinating.

Megan 8:34

That's amazing and I love that you just leaned into more of, this is what's interesting to me and there's always, I think, so much more value in that than doing the thing you're supposed to do. I'm doing air quotes here because like you said of even going back to university and take some of the pressure off. I don't have any illusions that anyone at the generations that are in university now would listen to this podcast, but I their parents do and

Nicole 8:59

Right.

Megan 8:59

Take some of that pressure off. But also just even while you were talking about, getting your master's in law and Sure the traditional path or the, you're supposed to do might've been the MBA. But when you're interested and passionate about it, first of all, it's more fun and you get so much more out of it. And regardless of what you choose to do if you do go back to further education it has unexpected applicability. Expanding your knowledge is never a bad thing, and it helps you bring new perspectives to things that might not be directly related.

Nicole 9:37

I'll tell you something that was very validating. So one of the reasons I decided to go back to school was because I did have a, bachelor's degree from a university that I bet you've never heard of, and I bet most people have never heard of. And especially in the age of ai, which I work in, you are aware there's filtering that happens. You may be a hiring manager and there is some filtering that you may be aware of or unaware of. Mm-hmm. If you go and look at their education and think. I recognize that I know where that is. I know that that's a followed education. And so I decided to get my master's from the University of Southern California top 15 law school. And I got a master's in law. I had no intention of ever practicing law. I'm not qualified to be a lawyer. And at this stage in my career, I wasn't planning on fully pivoting, but there was that element of curiosity about it very much. A personal passion of mine. And then in addition, I do work with a lot of vendor contracts, and have spent a lot of my career spending time contracting. And so even though I'm not a lawyer, I do work closely with lawyers and I thought. This is something I know a little bit about. And wouldn't it be great if I knew a bit more and was able to do my job just that bit better? After I did my master's degree and I was doing this while working full-time, brutal zero stars. I don't recommend it. That's

Megan 11:09

a lot.

Nicole 11:10

I question my sanity sometimes with that. That said, I'm really happy I did it now that I'm out the other side. But one thing that was validating is shortly after I went to work for the company I'm at now called Quantifind, and a few months after I'd started, they said, one of the reasons that, we picked your resume out of the, you know, hundreds of the pile was because you had that law degree from USC. And I thought, thank you so much. That's the nicest thing you could have said to me because it validated a kind of bizarre choice mm-hmm. That I, that made me question, why did you not go get an MBA, something that seemed like a more logical path. But it was something they appreciated. And so, I appreciated that because it, it validated that choice a little bit for me.

Megan 11:58

That's amazing. And like I was saying before, I think doing the things that are important to us or that we're passionate about ultimately is what makes us unique and stand out. And it clearly did in this case, which is amazing. And in financial services too, like you were saying, policy impacts business and that obviously is the case in financial services, which is evolving so much right now, but it's also a highly regulated industry. So having that little bit of extra information, and being able to understand and be able to read that regulatory and policy side of things is like a secret weapon almost, I would imagine.

Nicole 12:36

Yeah, I think it might be, and the software that, Quantifind has is around financial compliance and preventing money laundering, you know, it's helping banks and the public sector fight financial crime, fight, maybe foreign malign influence, help, the federal government not do business with companies that they wouldn't wanna do business with. Helping our banking customers detect money laundering. And so there's a lot of of global policy, all around the world that banks have to comply with. And so there is that knowledge of, the actual regulations and being able to understand that, I do think maybe a sacred weapon. Thank you for validating it. I

Megan 13:21

appreciate that. I think it's amazing. So you're saying you've been in financial services really since accidentally ending up in it. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that journey in financial services. You've certainly talked a little bit about what you're doing now as well, but what's that journey that got you there and the, some of the decisions you made along the way or things you learned along the way?

Nicole 13:43

So my first job, which again any job would've done at that point was to work in the, the payment processor and help with customer support. Mm-hmm. So they would, raise questions or issues about the payment processing platform. And my job was to answer the questions. So very, low level job, lots of research. And then working with the banking customers. And that is something that I still do today. Well, my team does and I do too. So because once you, I've always loved the idea of working with people and helping helping them with whatever it is. And I do think there's a high degree of diplomacy in customer success, which is the team I lead. Because you have to really empathize with the customer. You have to understand what it is they need and the reason that they bought the solution from your company. And then you also have to walk that line of being very diplomatic and understanding the needs of the business. And then finding a way, finding where those two things meet and intersect and then being able to deliver for the customer. So it's really an advocate for the customer internally, and it's an advocate for your company to the customer. So I do think that desire to serve people, the desire to help people, plus the interest in diplomacy. There may be some pattern there. It might be a reach, but there's a little bit of a pattern there.

Megan 15:13

And you were talking a little bit of there are some of those through lines, are there some other things you see when you look on that journey that really have guided your decisions

Nicole 15:24

Yes. So I, an initial company told you about my initial position after a few years and opportunity came up to move to England, with the company. I was unqualified for that position. They were looking for someone releasing your to come and lead some of their, key strategic accounts in England for, some of the English banks. I was probably a good 10 years behind where I should have been from a career perspective to really be qualified for that. But I was eager and I managed to get a meeting with the hiring manager who would come over from England to do that hiring, for the US office. And I think he ate, he just needed to eat lunch. And I talked to him the whole time and at the end of that, he said, I think we'll find you something. And so he did not hire me for that job, rightfully so. But he did keep his word and he did find me a similar position to what I was doing, but over in England. But what that gave me was the opportunity to live in another country. And not have to pay for that. And then a few years later I pivoted into another position with TSYS which was client advising. And it's really an advisory consulting role. And so you would travel around and move, I'd moved to Edinburgh for six months and then I'd moved to London, then I moved to Luxembourg with different banks and I would just be there you know, I was a nomad and I would travel around and advise these banks on implementing our company software. Maybe they had a large transformation project and I had some sort of role, within that to help them with software integration. Yeah. And that was probably the best. The best decision I ever made for myself. It gave me an opportunity to understand why do banks make buying decisions that they make and then how big it's really hard to do vendor change

Megan 17:20

mm-hmm.

Nicole 17:20

At at a large scale bank. And I think that's something that I didn't have an awareness of and how difficult that is, how expensive that is, how many people are involved in making that type of change. And then I was sort of a bank employee every time I went there. And so I just became part of the furniture there, really learned the ins and outs of banking as part of that. And it, I think that shaped my career. It shaped my trajectory. And after doing that consulting for a while I decided that living out of suitcase wasn't as fun as it first was.

Megan 17:57

Yeah.

Nicole 17:57

It's not fun forever, for sure. It wasn't fun forever. It was so fun for a little while. And I also was about to get married and wanted to live with my husband and so, I asked if I could run that team. There was no one in the UK that was running that team. The management was in the us

Megan 18:16

mm-hmm.

Nicole 18:17

And. Again, I feel like maybe I had no business asking in some cases because I had no leadership experience and I had no sales experience and that the role was really about then selling those consulting services to the banks. And I remember the head of sales at the time. I was like, what are you doing?'cause I, I did a business case for the role and, shared it with the executive leaders and said I really think we could make more money if we positioned it a little bit differently. And we bundled some products together and some bundled some services together. Yeah. And the head of sales said, no, she has no leadership experience, she has no sales experience. Like, why would you consider her. He was a really, a big detractor for this. And I say this because they made the decision, they allowed me to prove myself. I think there may have been you know, a revenue gap that needed to be closed. And they were like, there's four months of the year. What do we have to lose? And one of the cool things that happened was not only, was I able to be successful, but that sales leader advocated for me to get sales training, contract negotiation training and became my mentor. And what a gift, right? For someone who said like, this is a bad decision then committed to making me successful and, he's retired now. He checks on on me every once in a while. But what an incredible gift that was I was able to get. Really incredible negotiation training, external training and then also, he allowed me to go to meetings with him occasionally. See how he did that. And yeah, I owe him a ton actually.

Megan 20:04

That kind of support and backing is always amazing, but to have it also come from someone who was skeptical in the beginning and wasn't on board with the decision. I would think it must be even more meaningful, but also the commitment level from him is just higher.'cause he's like, okay, we've made this decision we're gonna make sure she succeeds. Rather than, you hear stories of the opposite happening of you went against what my advice was, so I'm gonna prove that I was right.

Nicole 20:41

Right I think it was leadership 1 0 1 in addition to all of the other things I learned from him, the other skills I learned from him. It was also about there was a little bit of humility in there. There was a bit of leadership about going along with a decision you initially don't support and then working to make it successful, that alone is a lesson that, I've carried with me. I hope I've carried with me and I hope I'm able to demonstrate for people now that I am a leader, I'm able to be willing to support a decision even if it isn't one that I would've made.

Megan 21:15

Yeah. Yeah. That's a sign of a true leader there.

Nicole 21:19

Agree.

Megan 21:22

Amazing. So you've basically created a brand new role for yourself and got a great mentor out of it as well. What happened then?'cause I know you're not still in the uk

Nicole 21:33

So I lived in the UK for 10 years. I did that role and then, I'd been away from family for a long time. My husband, who's English, I met my husband in England. We had an interest of moving to the US and trying out something new. And he, and we worked for the same company. And so, they let us move back to the US and, and keep our jobs. And so it was a pretty seamless move back to the us. And then after doing that for a while. I just wanted to try, I had worked for a big company my entire career and I was at a conference and I saw Martina King. The previous CEO of feature space speak at an internal like TSYS event and she was dynamic. she was working at this startup this AI startup to prevent fraud, and I was just mesmerized by what they were doing. There was a female CEO I really had an interest of working for a startup. I had no idea what it entailed at the time. And so I remember going up to her and getting her card and speaking to her. And I followed up afterwards and I her an email and said, you know, I know that you guys aren't in the us. I've just moved to the US but I really love what you're doing. I love what I've heard about the company, and if you ever do hire someone in the us I'd love to, to work for you. And she got back to me and said, actually, we need someone to manage our TSYS relationship. And, are you interested? And so I, I kind of maybe sold myself on her, there was, it was a long email. Yeah. And, but anyway, yeah I got a job and moved to a scrappy startup. I think I was employee 30 or something like that.

Megan 23:22

That's to me it sounds like three jobs in a row where you. Create an opportunity just by asking

Nicole 23:31

It's a good lesson. I don't think about it like that, but I think that's probably true and a good piece of advice actually is there's no harm in asking, right? The worst people can say to you is no. But there's no harm in asking. I think it, this stage I'm at now, if someone comes up to me and asks for something, I'm always, I think that you wanna help right People mm-hmm. I think are inclined to help. And they're also thinking if you do a thoughtful ask where it's well considered and maybe there's something in it for them too, and you can demonstrate that people are inclined to help you.

Megan 24:11

Definitely, I think there could be a lot more of that. And I just thinking back to the first role where you knew that you weren't, you were probably 10 years behind the level of experience they were looking for. But you still went in and had the conversation and created an opportunity. I think it's just such a great lesson of, you know, we often hold ourselves back of oh, well, they would never consider me for this. So there's not even a point in meeting that person, let alone

Nicole 24:41

very,

Megan 24:42

Going for lunch with them and talking to them about the role and what you wanna do.

Nicole 24:48

I'm sure you've heard that concept of negotiating against yourself, and I think we too often do that where what you've just described is, you know, if they're not going to meet with me or I'm not qualified, and it's something I still have to hold a mirror up to myself about and remind myself it's okay to ask. And, and just be gracious if the answer's no it may be no more than it's yes. But when it's yes, it can change your life, it can change your salary, it can change your trajectory. There's reward in being brave.

Megan 25:20

Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And yeah, you definitely see that in your career journey, for sure. So you joined a startup. Is that the, where you're still working now or have you, made further leaps?

Nicole 25:36

Nope. I worked there for eight years. One of the best career decisions I ever made in terms of I learned so much when you join a startup. You wear all the hats. Especially a really early, you know, young startup. Everybody's doing everything right. The CEO is going on sales calls you get to learn deeply about the software. We were doing AI before everyone was talking about AI before, like Chatgpt was ever a thing. Sam Altman was probably in college. And so. You know, I had no knowledge of, of what machine learning was. And so it was a really fantastic experience to see everybody dive in and get their hands dirty and build something. Mm-hmm. And again. Probably really unqualified to do any of that. I didn't know how to grow a business. I didn't know how to be the first in region. But the founder moved over and then him and I would sometimes he'd be like, come with me and we'll just go meet with this customer and see if we can get a meeting. And just an incredible human being, Dave Excel. And it was great because it was another masterclass. And how do you grow a business? How do you, find market fit? All of the things I learned that I've used in my current role I learned now. And then also, how do you, scale a customer team? How do you get customers? All of those things. I learned from Featurespace and so after eight years, I made the move to Quantifind where I'm at now. And that was, as a result of a headhunting, the, a recruiter reached out to me and at the time I wasn't interested in moving. I wasn't looking and. What attracted me was the mission, you know? Preventing financial crime, which is really a broad term that encompasses a lot of things like human trafficking and wildlife trafficking and terrorism. And if you think about that mission, being mission driven is something that's very important to me, and that's something that Featurespace had and Quantifind also has, that was attractive to me. The fact that they were building something, the time of a Featurespace, they were on the cusp of being acquired by Visa, a really large company. And the idea of starting again and building something new, but with the experience I had and being able to do that as a leader, that was very enticing to me. And then I met the leadership team and saw who they were and how they operated as people. And, and the product they were building and the customer set they were attracting. And I knew what was special. I knew what they were building was special. And thankfully, I still believe what they, what we have built together is very, very special.

Megan 28:19

I love that. And I think again, this is an outsider perspective, but. It sounds like in both Featurespace and, and Quantifind that bringing together of a value set of wanting to help people, that sort of policy interest inside of things. Like bringing all those things together in one, one place and as you said, the opportunity to. Take what you learned at Featurespace and build on that with that experience and in a leadership role, I think is amazing. And even when you're mentioning like, oh, maybe I was underqualified'cause you had never done those things, but those are the kinds of things you can only learn by doing them. So

Nicole 29:05

true. I I've been very fortunate. I think there's somewhere I've asked for the opportunity, but I've also been fortunate to be given the opportunity and to been able to work with leaders who have a lot of the qualities they have. They really lean hard into mentorship. They lean hard into explaining why they're doing what they're doing. So the way that I was able to learn from the first leaders of Featurespace and the current leaders of Quantifind, you know, my, my manager now is Graham Bailey, who has a really tenured career in banking and then came over to the software vendor side of things. He really serves as a mentor to me, and so there's a lot of explanation of the why mm-hmm. Of why are we doing these things? We talk a lot about leadership and, and how we're growing a team that we believe we've got a team that's going to be incredibly successful, but it's being very thoughtfully done. And I, I love the theory of that. I love serving. Not only our customers, but also the people that we're bringing into the organization. And I think we as a leadership team at Quantifind and take that really seriously.

Megan 30:18

I think it speaks to like the importance of finding the right culture and people to work with.'cause these kinds of roles and opportunities from a pure skillset or technical knowledge exist all over the place. To be both fulfilled and happy and to have a true opportunity to build those skills and be successful so much of that comes down to the culture and the people that you're working with. I

Nicole 30:48

couldn't agree more. Culture is everything. Culture is why we stay at companies. Even though the work is hard, the hours are long. It's not just because of the mission and believing in the excellence of the software. It's about the culture. And do you enjoy working with the people you work with? Because if you're not. If you're not treating each other kindly, if you're not enjoying it, then it doesn't become worth it. You know, like the, I have workaholic tendencies, that I have to keep in check and, I am able to do that because of the people that I work alongside. My boss called me yesterday and he said, I need to make sure you're not working too much. And so having people around you who also look out for you as a human I think makes the job a little bit better too.

Megan 31:38

Yeah. Massive difference. And we spend probably more time at work than anywhere else in our lives at this phase in life. So, yeah, it makes a huge difference.

Nicole 31:49

Agree.

Megan 31:50

So just going back to the threads. I think we talked a lot about some of the common threads at the beginning, and I've definitely seen them throughout around helping people and diplomacy and passion for policy. In the context of helping people. So I think, I've definitely seen that throughout and it's something you spoke about right from the beginning. Are there other things that you think really guided decisions or pull through when you look back or have we kind of covered them?

Nicole 32:22

When I think about what has motivated some of my decision making, a lot of it is a desire to build a life that I never thought was attainable. I remember when I was younger, I, you know, as kids do, right, like my nephew firmly believed he was going to be a Batman. I thought I was going to be president. I remember saying to my dad, I want a job where I can travel and I really just wanna be able to travel all over the world. And my dad, who is from Nebraska, you know, spent most of his life in Arkansas, just said that's not a realistic goal. And we talk about it now. Because for him, it genuinely wasn't, it wasn't a realistic goal. You know, no one in my family had ever been out of the country. I don't think anyone in his family had been out of the country, so it wasn't a realistic goal for him. And so I remember, the first time I had been out of the country was when I moved to England.

Megan 33:24

Wow. That's quite a first time is moving. Right?

Nicole 33:28

That's like go big or go home. Yeah. And I think now I've been to like 27 countries and, you know, I think that desire to build a life for myself and do something that I try not to let something that if you tell me it's unachievable or if I tell myself like, that's not a realistic goal. I want to inspect that a little bit more. And so there's certain things where I think there's times like, I think like anyone else, I'm really down on myself and I think, oh, you know, I should have handled that differently. Or I didn't deserve that and that's why I didn't get it. And then there's other times where in a moment of sheer gumption, I've taken a big swing. And I think that's where I'm most proud of in my career is where I've thought, I have no business trying that. I have no business in that room. And I'm just going to ask just in case I'm gonna apply for that, just in case. And those are the moments where, you know, what is it, what is the phrase, you miss a hundred percent of the opportunities. You don't, what is it? What's the phrase? It's

Megan 34:34

like you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take, or something

Nicole 34:38

like that. Yes. I think that's it. Yeah. That's it. And what truth there is in that.

Megan 34:44

Yeah.

Nicole 34:45

I think that's probably the thing I'm most proud of in my life is that I've just taken risks and I've taken opportunities when they've come. And some of the parts of my life that I'm the most grateful for is that I took a risk even when it wasn't one that made any sense. I remember three years into, my, my job in England. With TSYS, they made a decision to bring all the expats home

Megan 35:13

mm-hmm.

Nicole 35:13

And bring them all back to the US and they said if you don't come back, then you'll have to go onto a UK contract. And so financially that was a bad decision for me. Mm-hmm. There was just some implications of that, both in terms of like taxes and just 401k and there there was some negative financial implications. And I had started dating my husband and thought, well it's gonna be a bad decision if I stay. And oh, and they said, we won't move you home, so you know, you're, you're here. And I had to start paying for my own visa, which is, you know, I didn't make much money and it was expensive. So immediately I thought, well, I have to get a better job. And that's where I started doing the consulting work. But the risk paid off, you know, my boyfriend became my husband who is the best decision I've ever made for myself. And I think that that's the pattern is someone who has, recognized that maybe it's the decision doesn't make sense or it's not a realistic goal. Or it's going to be painful, like going to law school in your late thirties when you have a full-time, very busy job where you know you're gonna every night and every weekend. That's a hard decision. That's painful.

Megan 36:38

Yeah.

Nicole 36:39

And yet I'm so happy I did it. I'm so happy I stayed in England and mm-hmm. And did the other eight years in England.

Megan 36:48

I think it goes back to that gumption, and I love that word gumption. But goes back to that gumption of when you are faced with the, you have to come home. Your response wasn't like, oh, financially that's the right decision. I'm gonna go home. It sounds like your response was, oh, well, I need a better job. Then it,

Nicole 37:11

it was

Megan 37:11

instead of or, I'm making this financial decision. I'm staying, it's gonna be painful. Was like, no, I'm gonna just then aim higher. That's right. I think that kind of also goes back to that yeah, that gumption, which I love.

Nicole 37:26

Yeah, I, it, at the time, it doesn't feel as impressive, right? It feels scary. That's what I really felt was scared because I knew I couldn't afford to stay there with the role I had. And and there was some lean times, right? There was, my food choices were very different, but, it was also it was a great motivator because there was a necessity to make more money, and it also taught me a lot about how to negotiate and and when I needed to make another, a career jump. I also started to care a lot more about the amount of money I made. And that's been something that's helpful and it's something I actually do with women in general. Now, I've spoken at Women's Conference about negotiating your salary which was well attended by men as well, which I was always, I was surprised about too. And I talked to my friends. A lot of my female friends, especially women in the same industry is me, about benchmarking yourself and talking about your salary, which, at the age, I don't know if this was early in your career, but everyone was like, don't talk about your salary. Yeah. But actually with my female friends who were in the similar industry, we share that information with each other and we share tips of how to negotiate. And there's like a text thread about, okay, I'm, I'm, you know, in late stage interviews for this position. What do you think is reasonable? You know, like my friend Shemina, who you also know she's CEO and she gave me a lot of advice on equity options and really sat down with me and worked through how that works because I didn't know and how helpful, right? Yeah. These are the things that I think it is, or too seldom spoke about. And it's something that I had to learn and teach myself, but now I'm really excited to talk about it with others.

Megan 39:29

Yeah, and you're right, it's so important and hasn't been talked about and as you said, certainly the start of your career, but it's still quite even beyond that it's still quite frowned upon to talk about those things either within a business I know in different jurisdictions, sometimes legally a business can't say you can't talk about it, but there is always that unspoken, we don't want you to talk about it. Yeah. But even in this concept of polite society, we don't talk about money, but actually that often holds people back, but women, especially back because we don't have all the tools or the knowledge or the ability to fully benchmark or when you're stepping into a new space, like going from corporate to startup and suddenly your compensation isn't just a base salary, it is equity and other things like that. Just understanding how all that works. So I think it's so important to talk about, and I love that you talk about it with your friends and speak about it on, on stage and I would imagine through, mentoring, women as well.

Nicole 40:39

It's so important. And I also am very cognizant about it with the people I lead as well. People who are earlier in their careers, I encourage them to talk to me. You know, they're so quick to apologize for talking to me about their salary. I really try to put them at ease with that type of conversation. Don't apologize to talk to your manager about your compensation. That should, that's their job. You know, their job is, you

Megan 41:06

should be able to talk to about it.

Nicole 41:08

Absolutely. Absolutely. And do it without apology, right?

Megan 41:13

Yeah, a hundred percent. I agree with that. Something you were saying a little bit earlier about when you were younger and talking about oh, I want a job that will allow me to travel, and your dad was like, well, I don't think that's realistic. One of my favorite kind of questions is what do you think 15, 16-year-old you would think about what you're doing now? And I think it would potentially really relate to that conversation, that you were having with your dad back then.

Nicole 41:45

I think maybe two things. One is just because you don't see it around you like the jobs that that you're aware of today, and this is even more true in the age we're living in with ai. Mm-hmm. The jobs that the people you know, have may not be where you end up. And it's like, stay open, stay curious. And I wish I could have told, you know, that younger me self. Like have a lot of faith in yourself. You are far more capable of a big life than you think you are, and just because you don't see it in the people you know, doesn't mean it's not attainable. Mm-hmm. You just are going to have to, carve a path that you haven't yet seen. So I think that's what I would tell my younger self is. Believe. Believe that you are capable of things you've never observed.

Megan 42:42

I think that's really great advice. And I imagine just hearing a little bit about the younger, you should be quite proud of the fact that you have done that.

Nicole 42:51

I think about that sometimes. I mean, maybe we all do. But I hope I made younger me proud. I hope that I made decisions that that, you know, even while risky and maybe sometimes Ill-advised, like on the balance of things panned out well. And I hope that I can continue to do that. So I hope that 65-year-old me, looks back at 40-year-old me and. Says, yeah, you didn't abandon the 25-year-old who was still really ambitious and very curious and willing to take a risk. Because I think our forties are an exciting time too, and I don't think that I've taken my last risk or my last, you know, career step. I recently got promoted to senior Vice President and it was certainly something that I hoped would happen and I don't think I've finished yet.

Megan 43:50

I think our forties are potentially the most exciting because we have all this experience and knowledge behind us, which we didn't have in our twenties. And the confidence that goes along with that, but still so much runway to explore. So I think it's quite an exciting time in life.

Nicole 44:09

Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. And one of the things that I don't know if you've observed this, but I certainly have, is. I, I spent quite a lot of my life maybe comparing myself to other people and the journeys they were on and benchmarking myself on whether or not I was doing as well as they were. And what I'm experiencing now, especially with my, my female friends is far more of the experience of helping each other along the way. Less comparison, more cheering each other on. Yeah. And whether that be like within my own company but less of the, not competition'cause I don't know that that's the word I'm looking for, but less of that comparison. And maybe even a little bit of envy and more of that ability to cheer each other on see someone do well and be the first to congratulate them and really mean it. And really hope for the best for them. Yeah. And also be very willing to help them on their way.

Megan 45:14

Yeah, I definitely feel that of, you know, you might've all, when you're younger, you might've been happy for your friend, but there was still a bit of that comparison and envy, whereas now it's just like pure joy and cheering them on and like, how can we lift each other up? Which is so much more fun and fulfilling

Nicole 45:35

and freeing, right?

Megan 45:37

Yes.

Nicole 45:38

Yeah. You're not carrying around like the negativity about yourself and your own journey. And now when I see my friends do well and, and succeed or fulfill a goal that may or may not have been my a shared goal I feel so much pride in it as if it's my own goal. I have a friend of mine who, we were in the same career path and then suddenly she broke free, she left her corporate job and she decided to, start her own company and become like a public speaker and speak at all of these different conferences and she's so successful. And I, every time I like see her, you know, a video of her on stage especially, or some gorgeous photo because she somehow looks incredible in every outfit she ever puts on. Sometimes I'll just send her a picture of herself and be like, I cannot believe. I cannot believe you. You know, I'm so happy for you. But I almost feel delighted and proud of her journey, and I think that's the gift of your forties maybe. Yeah. That I am just delighted to see people I know succeed.

Megan 46:50

Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. And it is such a exciting and freer time of life. So with that in mind, when you look forward,'cause we've talked a lot about the journey till now. Mm-hmm. But when you look forward, what are you excited about? What are you hoping for? It could be short term, long term personal work, what are you excited about?

Nicole 47:14

I really love what I'm doing now. And I'm really excited about just continuing to build, the business and, you know, continuing to develop a product that is ultimately, serving a really important mission. I'm very excited about that. I think also I'm. I'm excited about what I don't know is going to happen. One thing that you, you can see is that I didn't plan any of this. Mm-hmm. It just, it sort of, kept unfolding and it was like one opportunity after the next. And some I asked one, some I didn't. And I don't know, what's going to happen next in my career. You know, I hope that I continue to stay open. I hope I continue to be. Be open to the unknown. So I'd love to continue to, rise through the ranks of, and I think I'm probably going to stay at smaller companies throughout my career because there's something really exciting about building and knowing what you're doing is knowing that every decision you make is building a business. That's exciting to me. I really enjoy that. And so I think I'll probably stay in that type of thing, but maybe I won't, you know, that's the truth of it. Something else might exciting come along that I think. I haven't tried that yet. And I don't know if I'd be good at that, but I'm interested. So I think that's the fun of type of trajectory I've had is that a lot of it has been surprising. And I am still willing to just take a leap of faith and work really hard and see what happens.

Megan 48:51

I love that. That's such a great attitude and approach to the future. Just being open to the unknown and what happens. I love that. Awesome. Thank you so much, Nicole, for sharing your really amazing career journey. I am still thinking about some of the things and, I love so much that you have, really taken control in a lot of situations and asked, and I'm gonna come back to that word, gumption. I really see that throughout and that common values right from when you were young. Like those really, really pull through. It's such an amazing journey and yeah, I'm so excited to have met you and been able to have this conversation. So thank you so much for joining.

Nicole 49:38

Thank you for inviting me. I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for taking me back on the path I've taken on my career. I think a lot of times you don't tie that neatly together and see some of the through lines in your career. So, I really enjoyed it and I appreciate the time you've taken to speak with me.

Megan 49:56

Awesome. Well thank you so much.

Nicole 49:58

Take care. Bye.

Megan 49:59

Thank you. You too. Cheers.

50:01

I really enjoy chatting with Nicole and hearing her career journey. Three things that really stuck with me about Nicole's journey and her gumption are first just ask. So many times in Nicole's career, she has had the courage to ask for what she wanted and has created opportunities for herself as a result. Second, aim higher when faced with a potential obstacle. She didn't turn away she aimed higher. Whether it was her dad cautioning her that traveling might be unrealistic, and then her first time out of the country was to move to England or facing down the financial consequences of wanting to stay in England and deciding she just needed a better job. Third following her passions. Doing a master's in law might not have seemed like the logical choice, and it was a huge commitment on top of a full-time job. But Nicole followed her passion and desire to learn anyway, and it ultimately helped her stand out and has given her additional skills and new perspectives. And I'd be remiss if I didn't call out Nicole's advice to her younger self to stay open and curious and believe in your capability to carve your own path. And while I'm not sure younger Nicole needs that advice as her career journey seems to me to embody that philosophy. I do think it's a great reminder that just because a path might not have been role modeled to you, doesn't mean it isn't available to you. thank you for listening to The Unexpected Career Podcast. Please follow, share, and rate on your favorite podcast provider. The Unexpected Career Podcast is produced, edited, and hosted by me, Megan Dunford. See you next week.