Transcript

Joe Mills:

What are the unique experiences that drive business leaders to keep growing and how can the lessons learned from those stories enable others to do the same? I’m Joe Mills, and

Reid Morris:

I’m Reid Morris,

Joe Mills:

And together we’re investigating who it takes and the tools to use to build companies and culture.

Reid Morris:

Then we’re sharing those stories with you.

Joe Mills:

This is 1000 Stories, an original show from Element three.

Reid Morris:

Okay. Joe, so next guest coming on the podcast, Joanna is just a super interesting individual. Yeah. And admittedly you have even more context to the different backgrounds and experiences that have been a part of her career so far. But I can already tell there’s gonna be a lot to learn from this. But knowing the, the vast array of things there could be to dive into, where are you gonna be focused in this conversation with her?

Joe Mills:

That’s a great question because I could see it going a lot of different ways. I think in my head, one of the key things I would love to unpack with her is she has such a way of sort of saying like, okay, just cuz it hasn’t been done that way doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done that way. And almost like not accepting the, the message of like, ah, it just can’t be done that way. And be like, well, we’ll figure it out. There’s sort of this like confidence and also her ability to rally other people around the Yeah, we’ll just figure it out thing that I really wanna understand where that comes from

Reid Morris:

And how she, that innovators mindset.

Joe Mills:

Yeah. That almost like doesn’t take no for an answer without being like, let me steamroll you into doing it my way. Cuz it’s not about doing it her way, it’s about finding a solution for the way it needs to be done. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and so I, that’s part of what I wanna unpack with her and also just some of her experiences are incredible and I, I’m, what I’m always curious about is not so much what you did at those experiences, but more how did they even happen? Like,

Reid Morris:

Because they’re not all the same thread, they’re not all the same industry, they’re not all the same background.

Joe Mills:

Yeah. Well and also they’re just like people that would feel out of touch to a lot of people. Like she’s worked with Richard Branson, she’s worked with the leaders of the Aspen Institute. Those are like people who you’re like, how do you even meet them? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, let alone have an opportunity to work together. So I’m curious about how that happened and I have assumptions on how it happened, but I don’t know them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I’m interested in hearing just about the story and how the opportunities came to light.

Reid Morris:

Yeah. There’s uh, a very unique energy when you are around people who have that like refusal to accept the status quo when this just innovator’s mindset, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> of, and when when they do those things, you’re like, oh yeah, well that made sense. But for people who, that isn’t their day to day or they aren’t necessarily that mindset, it’s just amazing to step it back and be like, oh yeah, like that that thing that you innovated that way that you changed a business process or a career or anything like that. It’s like, oh yeah, well obviously, and yes, so many people don’t do

Joe Mills:

It. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think selfishly I’m just very curious about how she got to where she was Not so much of a like, let me tell you my hero story, but more of like what’s the, what’s the mindset shift that needs to happen to allow yourself to dream that way?

Reid Morris:

We talk about inflection points mm-hmm. <affirmative> quite a bit and it’s not just one that happens, right? There’s oftentimes multiple inflection points that affect where people go and what they do. And yeah, there are obviously gonna be some, so

Joe Mills:

Yeah. So I’m looking forward to it. I genuinely don’t know exactly where the conversation will run. I’m sure it will take some turns that I didn’t see coming, which is always the best part. Um, but that’s the general premise of what I’m hoping to learn.

Reid Morris:

That’s what the show’s all about.

Joe Mills:

You gonna welcome to the show. Uh, thanks. Just to give the people a little bit of context in my head it is very hard to introduce what you do because you do so many things. But just for the context, you’re currently managing director at West, which is a venture studio that creates exceptional creative and marketing for people to make a really big impact. And you do it in a, an interesting structural way with companies where you truly actually partner with them, which is very cool. And then you serve on a litany of boards, everything from FCO to startup companies trying to change the fertility space. Um, so you do a lot. What would you add to what I just listed

Joanna Rees:

Of the things I do? I I also really care about the next generation of leadership. So I have, for the last almost 20, I guess 20 years now, I’ve been a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. And I take a very active leadership role in, uh, moderating the leadership discussions over the course. Most of them are over the course of a week for the next generation, the next set of classes of fellows. So that is work that I really love. It’s work that scares me every time I’m going to do it cuz you have no idea what people are going to say in the room. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and, uh, I have to really listen and pivot and make sure that I’m, I’m steering the dialogue in the right direction. So it’s wonderful to have things that still kind of make us nervous. Uh, yeah, as we age that’s where we keep growth going.

So that’s another thing that I actively do. And I serve on uh, two very important non-profit boards. One of them is the Representation Project. It is a nonprofit that was founded by the first partner of California, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Uh, and she creates films and then we, we develop educational content, uh, to change society’s perception of gender and gender inclusiveness. So our first film Misrepresentation is still actively being watched today and understood. And then I also serve on the board of him for Her, which is a nonprofit that’s focused on getting a woman on every private company board over the next five years. So hopefully if we do our job well, we’ll no longer exist.

Joe Mills:

One of the things from the outside that was interesting to me is, um, I see like a theme of wanting to showcase people who maybe get overlooked intentionally or unintentionally. Is that something that you experienced as a woman growing up through the business world? Especially I feel like on the financial side I’ve heard that it can be hard in that world, which is like kind of an old boys club to, to break into it. Yeah.

Joanna Rees:

I don’t know if I felt it necessarily growing up cuz I had a father who really instilled in me that I could do anything I wanted to do and be anything I wanted to be. As long as I put focus and determination behind it. I would say that it probably showed up much more in when I decided to meander into the world of venture capital. In fact, Forbes did an article about me in 2000 called Alley Cat and they said that I bootstrapped my way into the old boys club by acting like an entrepreneur. Uh, and I thi since over the last 22 years since I’ve really immersed myself in the startup ecosystem, that’s where I’ve really kind of felt the disparities and really tried to champion the others. So they’re great ideas and opportunity could really be fulfilled.

Joe Mills:

One thing I’m always curious about when I hear that from people is like, what was it like when you first noticed it happening? Like I don’t, I don’t imagine I could be wrong that people are just like, oh no we’re not. You’re othered of some variety, we’re just not gonna consider you. It normally more subtle than that. Like when did you start picking up on this? I don’t, I don’t know how to describe it. Sort of, um, bias if you will. Yeah.

Joanna Rees:

It started actually when I was fundraising for my first venture capital fund and I went and met with university endowments and pension funds and most of the people I spoke to on the other side of the table were male. And they often said to me, how are you gonna do this as a mother? How are you gonna do this with a family now I know for sure they never asked that question to any other man who showed up to fundraise. And I would say, well I noticed that there’s three kids pictures on your desk, how do you do it? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And often they would say, oh I have a wife. Uh, and I said, well I have a husband so I guess we’re equal. So those were, those were the really, you know, I would say the direct, uh, biases. But often it was little things like being talked over in a meeting.

I learned a great thing from Madeline Albright who I had an opportunity to have a discussion with her and she said, hold your voice. Don’t allow others to interrupt you. And she said that she had to do it so often in different rooms, obviously where the stake were quite high as Secretary of State. And that I really took to heart and integrated. And I can’t tell you, it just was again, subtle in a boardroom in particular where I would start to speak and someone would just start to speak over me and I just learned to keep talking and I’d smile and I’d look them directly in the eye, but let them know that I’m not going to back down. Not that I was saying anything forceful or controversial, I was just trying to share my opinion. And this is why when I talked about him, for her, it’s so important to get not just one woman into a room, whatever that room is, but having three or so because it really enables it kind of a, a change of the dynamic and the unconscious power structure when it’s a male dominated room.

Joe Mills:

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> do, do you see it different than when, when you were starting your career? Like has progress been made?

Joanna Rees:

Slow, slow? No. It’s so funny cuz even talking to my mother who’s 88 years old, she said she thought her generation had really paved the way, but the way is was not paved. And it still isn’t. I think we’ve made a lot of progress in the last 10 years, but I mean, just look at the outcomes even on pay disparities, whether it’s for gender or you talked about the others overlooked. There’s still a massive pay gap and that hopefully will get addressed going forward. And I think there, you know, one, one thing I try to do in every, every internal meeting at West, every client meeting, every board meeting is make sure that we’ve heard from everyone in the room because they’re there to add value and their perspective and their expertise, even if there’s a difference of opinion. And if, if we’re not conscious about making sure that we’ve actually heard from them, and this is where, you know, actually Zoom helped a bit because it made the understanding of who actually spoke like it was right in front of you where, you know, sometimes around a board table you’re not as aware of someone who might be sitting down towards the end.

Did they really speak up on a Zoom screen? We started to see that and it, it definitely shifted, you know, board conversations to give everyone more equal airtime. Was

Joe Mills:

This like a pretty quick passion of yours as you started in business?

Joanna Rees:

I think I always cared about the other growing up because maybe, I don’t know, I think I, growing up I was the shortest kid in the room. I was always, I grew five inches in college, which is unheard of. Oh wow. So I think that was just always part of kind of my d n a and my ethos was trying to be inclusive of others and bring people in and you know, as I think as my career progressed, I experienced more and more of the disparities and saw so much more of that happening. And when I took over my role at West, I said, if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do it, you know, my way, which means I wanna change what others view as possible in the landscape of venture backed startups, which it tend to be emails tend to be white males cuz that’s how the venture capital industry developed and put together a team out west where I talk about it as a mosaic where no two tiles are the same cuz we’re trying to do really innovative and interesting work for our clients and we’re trying to uncover every blind spot.

So we’re bringing in people with very different life experiences, not just the external check the box. So that’s a male of female, that’s someone mm-hmm <affirmative> white, that’s someone black. It’s really what is your different life experience and what are you bringing to the table that’s going to add dimension to how we think and what we do, not just overlap.

Joe Mills:

You said something interesting about making sure if you go around the room, everybody’s spoken. Is it challenging to decide who’s in the room then? Cause I feel like if you make the room too big, you get like the group think thing happening. How do you balance that?

Joanna Rees:

Yeah, I would say, well first of all, I think it really depends on what the room is. If you have a team, and I would hope that you want everyone on your team to speak because often it’s the most junior person who almost through like naivete can see something no one can see because you’re caught up in the paradigm of the way things are done. And some of the most innovative breakthrough ideas I’ve seen happen, it’s someone who just kind of naively says, oh, but why can’t we do that? I was trained in this in consumer products where when we gave feedback, it was the junior person who spoke first. Because when the most senior person speaks first, then everyone, it’s back to your group. Think no one who wants to like challenge the boss. It’s a, it is a scary place to be, but if you’re allowed to speak first, you can just openly share your thinking and then it builds from that.

Joe Mills:

You started to touch on one of the things that as I was preparing, we, we were, the way our show is structured, we talk about it beforehand. Like, who are we talking to? What are we looking to learn? And as I was preparing for yours, I was like, she’s just done some things that I don’t know how the opportunities even come around building the catalyst fund, working with the Aspen group. Like these are, these are big things. How did you find yourself in some of these rooms where you found yourself? Where did it start?

Joanna Rees:

Yeah, it’s such an interesting question. I don’t think, it was not intentional that I wanna get in that room, therefore I’m going to do these 10 things. It was, I am, I see an opportunity out in the world, I see something that nobody is solving or no one is addressing and I’m, you know, I have an entrepreneurial mindset, I wanna go figure that out. And in doing it with focus and execution came different inflection points and moments of success where, you know, all of a sudden I went from creating a firm that ended up turning into a series of venture capital funds and raising hundreds of millions of dollars as a female-led venture firm where no one had done that, no one had done that. And, and the then other people came to me and said, I’d love to learn about that. Or what you did is so compelling, uh, we’re going to invite you into this fellowship, or you’re, we’re gonna name you as a global leader of tomorrow at the World Economic Forum.

And I was talking about this with my team recently. I mean here I get invited to Davos and not only am I invited, they put me on stage as someone where I thought, wait a second, I can see Yasser aired and Bill Gates like in the audience. Why am I here? Uh, I just have to say, well, I’m here for a reason. I’m gonna find my inner confidence and just go with it. But, um, those things happened on the, but they weren’t the intention. They were the result of the intention to solve a problem or create something new.

Joe Mills:

There’s so many places I want to go with this. Um, one because it’s come up three times in the last few conversations we’ve had. I had a conversation with somebody, he’s like a keynote speaker and he mentioned to me, he said, I have never once felt imposter syndrome and I feel weird because I don’t feel imposter syndrome. And then I was talking to a CEO and he was like, yeah, coming up through business, I was in these positions of leadership and felt a lot of imposter syndrome. And I was like, why? What? You know, what about that? So when you know, like you’re on the stage at Davos and you’re like, whoa, that’s Bill Gates. You know, that’s the officer afa like, what, what were you feeling in that moment? Like, were you feeling qualified? Were you feeling it’s like, oh yeah, this is just another day at the officer. Like was there that moment of like, should I be on this stage?

Joanna Rees:

Yeah, I had that initial like, why am I here? Uh, and but then I thought about it, I thought, well, they selected me for a reason and they asked me to talk about something specifically. And I know that this is my domain, this is where I’m focused. This is the unique approach I took. This is how I thought about innovation. This is the creative way I got into all of these rooms of meeting with endowments and pension and, and raising this capital. This is how I think about what makes a successful startup. And I had my Proofpoint. So I think what I allowed myself to do was not think about do am I like Bill Gates. It made me think about what I was doing and I thought, I’m just gonna own that and I’m gonna speak to it. And if I can, I’m gonna speak with authority and credibility and confidence and not feel like an imposter. I’m gonna feel like someone who’s been on the frontline doing it.

Joe Mills:

You had a really, I think, important line that I hadn’t considered before. Tell me if this is right or I wanna know your take on it where you were like, it’s almost, I wonder if imposter syndrome comes from the comparison thing where you’re like, if I was trying to be Bill Gates, I would probably feel like an imposter, but I’m trying to be Joanna mm-hmm. <affirmative> and Joanna knows, like, is do you feel like that’s a key element of it?

Joanna Rees:

I think a hundred percent. You know, I always say it was interesting, I was talking to someone about an educational development program they can create for women inside corporations. And I said, I think you should call it find your voice or like hold your voice or own your voice. It’s about you, it’s your voice, it’s your perspective, it’s your expertise, it’s your, it’s not about you in comparison to others and it’s not about others and then how you’re like them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I do think that is, I think we feel imposter syndrome when we’re putting on the other person <laugh> or yeah, someone we put on a pedestal rather than just embracing ourselves.

Joe Mills:

The people we talk with on this show are ambitious, driven individuals who feel called to create positive outcomes in all aspects of their lives.

Reid Morris:

And as we all know, with that drive comes pressure and stress. And in order to show up and be your best self, it’s extremely important to have a professional at your side who can help you navigate that journey. So that’s the reason that we’re really excited to be sponsored by Better Help, better Help is the world’s largest therapy service. They have over 25,000 therapists and it’s all online. What’s really great about that is that if you don’t connect with the first therapist that you interact with, it’s super easy to try another. And that allows you to connect with the person that’s best for you. I think it’s awesome that in this day and age you can just do it from the comfort of your home. I mean, element three ourselves is in a hybrid environment and we’ve all become accustomed to this world of doing things that fit your lifestyle. So we love that Better Help can help do that too.

Joe Mills:

And for listeners of this podcast, you can get 10% off your first month on Better Help by going to Better help.com/ 1000 stories. Again, that’s better. H e l p.com/ 1000 stories.

So speaking of embracing yourself, you’ve done a couple of things that were interesting, but one of the things that when we’ve talked that I felt really clearly from you was an unwillingness to accept the way things were as a reason to not do the new idea. Yep. And you mentioned offhand you’re like, when we built the Catalyst Fund for Endeavor, it was, it was a new format for a fund. I don’t know if you wanna go into the detail of like what made it different or not, but what was the process like to get that over the line?

Joanna Rees:

Yeah, so I’ll use Endeavor Catalyst as a specific example. So Endeavor is a nonprofit that supports high impact entrepreneurs around the world in both merging and underserved markets. And uh, as a nonprofit you can’t do for-profit activities or else you’re, you lose your nonprofit status. So the idea of creating a fund that would create an economic return within a nonprofit, everyone thought was impossible. And the way that Endeavor had first conceived it was, well, we’ll just do it as another bucket of philanthropy where the value prop solution to you, Joe, would be donate a dollar and we’ll turn your dollar of donation into $5 of donation through a return. Interesting. But it’s still a donation. It’s not about emerging what the private sector has done so well or Venture capital has done so well with what a nonprofit does. And so everyone’s said, the’s not possible.

And yet I’m like, it’s gotta be possible. We just gotta go figure out the way. And it was interesting, even when I was talking to legal counsel and tax experts, they said, it’s not possible. And I’m like, but that’s why you’re so good at what you do cuz you’re gonna help me figure out how it is possible. And we came up with a structure that was quite unique that would enable that not only for people to contribute to Invest Capital, but to get a return on that investment capital and still have money go to Endeavor. And the money that went to Endeavor went to Endeavor Tax free with no capital gains based on how we set up the structure. Uh, so it was just, you know, a matter of, I always say persistence beats resistance. It’s about finding, and I spent a lot of time talking to experts, finding someone who understood both the nonprofit world and the for-profit world could help like kind of, you know, uh, uncover things that could be possible.

And, and it was also about being really flexible. And I didn’t even remember this until we had an Endeavor gala last week, and Edgar Bronfman, the chairman of Endeavor, when we were talking about how Endeavor catalysts now will enable endeavor to become an economically self-sustainable nonprofit. Not heard of it will be over time. Wow. Really through the money that comes back to investment capital. But he said, remember Joanna, you, you had three different fund return scenarios. So we told people you could be in the, just the return of capital bucket if you were more philanthropic. There was one where you could do a sliding return. There was one where you could get 20% of the upside. Like I just had to be, I couldn’t do one size fits all that made it work for Endeavor. I had to figure out what are all the different ways that was gonna work for what we needed, which was to get investment capital in and get people to believe. By the way, that first fund was 36 million and now endeavor’s most recent fund is over 200 million.

Joe Mills:

So, and that was what, how, how long ago was that fund started?

Joanna Rees:

We began the effort in 11. We did a close on the first fund in 2013.

Joe Mills:

That’s awesome. My, my aunt worked in nonprofits, her adult life, she had her third child had Down syndrome and she was like, I’m gonna stop my career, focus on my child and helping her have a fulfilling life. And in the, in my spare time where I can, I’m gonna work with nonprofits. And one of the things she used to always say to me is, don’t confuse non-profit with no money. They have to have money to do their work. And it’s like, I think sometimes we get caught up from like the out like Yeah. And I think it actually happens probably inside of the world of, I, I live inside a non-profits. I don’t think of myself as a for-profit entity. But if you can be self-sustaining, the amount of impact you can have must be levels different.

Joanna Rees:

It, it’s two things. It’s, you can have a gigantic impact, but unfortunately nonprofits, because they rely on philanthropy, they almost build a company within inside the nonprofit called development. How do you become an effective fundraiser and continue to get the engine for those philanthropic dollars? Because the worst is you’re doing great work in the world and then the philanthropy dries up and all of a sudden the impact dries up at the same time. Right. So that’s the challenge for all nonprofits. I love the idea of thinking about different models and integrated models where it’s a combination of private sector and the nonprofit sector kind of merging together to create innovation that will have a significant social impact.

Joe Mills:

So one of the things that came to my head while you were telling that story is the question of at what point do you take experts at their word? Like at what point do you think, all right, I am actually beating my head against the wall this time. Versus thinking there’s a way, like how do you, how do you balance those two

Joanna Rees:

Through really good questioning, with great questioning? So someone says it’s not possible, it’s uncovering why isn’t it possible? And really thinking about that,

Joe Mills:

Have you ever run into a why that’s like not been made up by people? Cause I feel like we just made up the rules, so couldn’t we just change the rules?

Joanna Rees:

We could, but the change might require legislative change or something. There could be something in the policy arena or in the legal structure that when you uncover and really get down to the essence of the why that isn’t possible. But I do think, you know, nine times out of 10 you can figure out a solution. Yeah. It might not be ideal. So even, you know, even a thing like within my own firm of enabling every employee to participate in equity in a, we have a, like a co-venture fund that sits next to our organization that directly invested in our client companies in order to have employees be able to participate in the carried interest upside of that, the lawyers said, well, well they’re not contributing capital in so they can’t. And I said, there’s gotta be a way like, you know, there’s phantom stock plans, there’s ways to do it. Now the, they might not be able to have that upside participation treated as capital gains, but they would still get the participation even if it was treated as ordinary income. So if I got stuck at the, it has to be capital gains treatment for the employees to participate, then it wouldn’t be possible. But by uncovering it then we were able to come up with a structure that enabled the employees to really participate. Um, even though most people said it doesn’t work that way.

Joe Mills:

So I’m gonna fast forward just a smidge. You’re currently a managing director at West. I mean, you have an incredible obviously resume. You’ve done a lot of things, you know, a lot of people. What is it that you felt called to this organization for and what, what brought you into the fold?

Joanna Rees:

Well first of all, I felt having been a lifelong marketer, that the services companies that support marketing and branding initiatives for venture back companies have, um, incentives that aren’t aligned. So I started almost 40 years ago in an advertising agency and our goal was to make as money as possible off our clients. Cuz that’s how we made money and focused on big companies with big budgets. In the world of venture backed startups, you’re trying to figure out how do I get the most amount of growth and the most capital efficient way I can with, so if I’m going to an agency, an agency’s like great client, but how do we get them to spend more? Spending more isn’t the answer. It’s figuring out how to spend less. So I love the concept of Wes being focused fully on venture backed companies. So that’s the expertise, knowing how to work in quick timeframes across sectors with innovation, uh, with a team that really embraced that, that’s very unique.

And then having a business model that incorporated cash fees to obviously pay people’s salaries, but where the real upside for the team, uh, was, uh, based on taking common, um, stock equity positions in each one of the client companies. So sitting behind the preferred investors and really aligning. And a lot of people talk about, we’re your partner and we align with you at West, we are your partner because we only make money, real money as if the company is successful. So we’re not gonna recommend, oh, here’s a great way to spend a bunch of money so we can make short term income because that ultimately is not gonna get us to the goal that we want, which is to have the company be successful. So that to me was really fascinating and it was wonderful to see the core in essence of a firm being able to do that.

Um, I thought there were lots of ways it could be improved and that was a lot of the work that I’ve done since now I’ve led the firm and I also said I wanna change the profile. So while it was a diverse team, it wasn’t as intentionally diverse as it is today. And that was really important to me to change perspective. I mean, you mentioned Endeavor early. One of the most powerful thing Endeavor did was create role models. So an entrepreneur in Buenos or in San Paulo, Brazil could see someone that looked like them that was like them, that would inspire them to say, I can do it too. And we’re trying to create in our own little way at West the opportunity to say, I can do that too.

Joe Mills:

I mean, I love it. Like I, when we first talked and I heard about your model, I was like, that’s so cool. When you think about building an intentionally diverse team, just to play, not even devil’s advocate, but just to throw a situation out to you and see how you handle it. Let’s say that you’re looking for a different background and do you think background, do you think demographic? Like do you think both, like when you say diverse team, what, what goes through your head?

Joanna Rees:

Diversity in all different levels, backgrounds, life, experience. So, uh, our most recent hire is head of ui ux. She actually grew up in India. She had an arranged marriage. Uh, she is a mom. She being in the US is a newer experience in her life. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, she’s bringing a perspective and a background that no one on our team has cuz no one grew up in that way. One of the women we hired before that, now I’m naming all the women, but one of the women we hired before that, uh, is a trained neuroscientist who really thought she spent all of her time in a lab and was really thinking about stimulus and impact on the brain. And we got into this great discussion about like the art of storytelling and how it impacts the brain and how people respond. Uh, the um, one of the men on our, uh, production team cuz we produced, you know, videos and out of home and a bunch of other things, he was in an orchestra and you would say, well he was, you know, a musician in an orchestra, what does that? But production is like putting together an orchestra mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And he comes with a very, very different background. So we’re drawing from all of these because his ex, his lived experience and an orchestra brings a different set of, you know, understanding to the symphony of creating a video where all these different components have to work together to create something really beautiful and powerful.

Joe Mills:

How do you handle recruiting? What’s the process like for you? Because I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine you being like, we would like to see seven years of experience in this field of, or a master’s degree from this university or this level of university. Like I can’t fathom you asking that question. So like the normal sort of filters for recruit, how do you, how do you do

Joanna Rees:

It? Yeah, so, um, we’re really fortunate because one of our client requests was West. Wow, you did great work, but you’re done. You’re gonna be done with your work. Can you help us find someone great to pass the baton to who could be on our team? So we built a recruiting practice for our client companies and now that recruiting practice also helps West recruit. So we do all the basics, you know, we need, there’s a bar of competency that we want and a certain kind of experience. And then Arthur who leads that effort looks for all the nuance and all of the texture in who that person is. And he spends a lot of time talking to people and really uncovering what’s unique about this person. Cuz what we see at the surface is the surface. And that’s the way we’ve kind of done it all along.

Well. They look like a good scale sales guy. They have the presence of a good sales guy and then, but you have to go way deeper. It’s challenging because he’ll bring a slate of candidates and my response will be not interesting enough. They’re all like, great A minuses or B pluses, they’re great, but are they gonna add dimension? And the way I’ve gotten the team to really understand that is 75% of our equity upside of all our, our client equity positions goes to the team. And so I asked the team, do, are you willing to give up a piece of your pie for this person? Are they gonna add enough value and and interesting dimension to west overall into the work that you’re doing that you, you’re willing to, you know, take your 10 pieces of pie and give them one. And boy does that think about it.

Joe Mills:

Yeah.

Joanna Rees:

It it really holds the bar hide. It makes people really think, is this person special?

Joe Mills:

Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah. When, when do you get it wrong? Are there commonalities among when you get it wrong?

Joanna Rees:

Yeah, I think, uh, not going deep enough, like getting a little bit enamored by the stuff that we get enamored by in the world. You know, someone who looks great and promotes themself well and, and maybe checks some external boxes we wanna check, but, but the, you know, the kind of the core values and the ethos of that person aren’t as well aligned with the rest of the team. Mm-hmm. Because even though we have very different lived experiences, there’s a common core of um, you know, a curiosity of an engagement of a willingness to be vulnerable, a willingness to put yourself in situations where you don’t know. Um, and I’ve been on many teams in my 40 years of working and the trust level among this team is so high. I feel like I could go to any single person and have a very open conversation. It would be a trusted conversation, which is very unique.

Joe Mills:

H how many employees do you have?

Joanna Rees:

There’s 20 people on the team.

Joe Mills:

Do you think there’s a size at which that goes away? Yes.

Joanna Rees:

I think it gets challenging. I think that’s hard. You communication gets, you know, kind of distorted at altitude and the more mm-hmm. <affirmative> you get a, a bigger hierarchical organization. I think it’s challenging. We really benefit from being small. We’re small intentionally. Uh, and I think from a nimbleness and flexibility to be nimble and flexible as economies in which I’ve been through many economic cycles, move up and down is really important. And we have an, like for us, we have a phenomenal roster of outside service providers who bring very deep vertical expertise in areas of that we do work. So if we need more talent, we know we can bring it in versus just, you know, having a large, large talent base. And I think we really like our nimbleness.

Joe Mills:

When you sit on a board like a FICO who is the opposite of that. Like they, they’re very large. I’ve met some people in that organization, they’re lovely great people, but it’s a totally different world. What about the nimbleness that you live inside of your day-to-day with West? Does that have application for a company that size or not?

Joanna Rees:

Yeah, I think it does. I think first of all, the mindset. We talked very early about getting stuck in an old mindset. And so I think, you know, just even coming from an entrepreneurial background and how you question things and ask good questions, which is the role of a board, it’s not to dictate, it’s to query well that does permeate the organization that makes people think you know, differently. I think in the case of fco we have uh, very different, uh, you know, perspectives on the board. We now have three women and one man of color on the board. When I joined, I was the only woman on the board. So we embrace these diverse perspectives, which also I think enables the company to become more nimble and more flexible in how it thinks about things. And responsive. You know, I think uh, FCO did a phenomenal job when the pandemic hit and to really pivot operations and to figure out great communication and to really look at what was happening in the market. And the CEO is in that case, I think is pretty phenomenal. And not only so phenomenal, we were just reviewing this over the last 10 years since he’s been the ceo, E o he’s in the top 5% of total shareholder return of all public companies. Wow. Top 5% incredible total shareholder return of all public companies. You cannot do that by following the same old, same old. Do you have to be nimble, you have to be flexible, you have to be responsive. And entrepreneurs are nimble, flexible, responsive. Cuz you have to be,

Joe Mills:

It’s interesting because the pandemic the shift to different modes of work. Communication is way harder if you’re 5,000 employees than if you’re 50. Exactly 10. Yeah. Like our company was able to do it. It’s like we all have computers, we weren’t ever remote before. We like the value of in-person. We’re hybrid now, but in, in the moment had to do it. And that was enough of a lift on us that I can imagine leading a 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 person organization. You’re trying to sort all of that out

Joanna Rees:

Is globally the ability to do globally. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Mills:

Incredible.

Joanna Rees:

Yeah. And they did a phenomenal job. I I think by really being flexible, nimble, and highly responsive.

Joe Mills:

Yeah. Um, and just before I’ll let you go, I’m, I’m just really curious cuz you’re somebody who at least in, in my short experience with you, feels like you’re never standing still. You always a lot that you wanna be working on. What’s got your attention right now? Like what has you really excited, where are you growing and what’s the thing that like, is getting you outta bed just invigorated in the morning?

Joanna Rees:

Yeah, I would say the first part that does that is, is my team and really, um, seeing the team evolve in, develop individually and collectively. That requires nothing from me. In fact, we were going through our communications outreach strategy and talking about different individuals who should speak at what conference and I said, I don’t want my name on the list. I I’m not gonna be a part of it. I don’t want to use my background, my expertise, my experience as a way to promote the firm. I wanna really stand behind and really help. So that to me is super inspiring when I see I had someone on the team who really wanted to learn about the world of venture capital and venture capital finance cuz it really does impact our work to understand like what does that mean and, and how is that done? And she saw this course, but the course required, you know, your firm to, you know, sponsor you and it was expensive and she, they had a thing where you could apply for a scholarship and she shared her background and she got the scholarship and that’s amazing.

Like today I said Honor our team meeting, I want you to share that experience. And she was embarrassed cuz she didn’t wanna look like she was self-promoting what she had done. But like when I see that happen, that gets me excited and knowing that the work I do every day is going to change the, you know, the, the wealth creation trajectories of every single person on that team. That’s super exciting. And it just get excited about continued impact. This came up, we started this conversation talking about Endeavor. I was on the Endeavor global board and I created the Endeavor Catalyst Fund and got that initial one launched and off the ground. And then I left the Endeavor board and people came up to me at the gala last week and said, why’d you leave the board? And I said, well I felt like I had made my impact.

Like I had done what I could do, I could stay on the board and have a great platform to say I’m on the Endeavor Global board and I get to, you know, interact with so-and-so. But I thought, no, I get to take my skillset and capabilities now and help the next organization at an inflection point, which I’m doing with the Representation project and him for her. So to me like that’s what’s really important is that I’m not, I’m never in stasis. Like it would be, it’s wonderful in one sense to say I’m gonna continue to do this for my platform, but I’m doing it for my impact. And I think, you know, when you have an impact out in the world that’s motivating, you always feel rewarded in service of others. Like when you do anything of service, it’s incredibly emotionally aw, rewarding. And I feel like my day is in service of others and that’s inspiring.

Joe Mills:

Well Joanna, this was an awesome conversation. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. So really enjoyed it and just thank you for all of your insight. Really liked it.

Joanna Rees:

Thank you for the opportunity and I hope we can collaborate again in some way.

Reid Morris:

Okay. Joe, tell me about your conversation with Joanna. We knew going into this conversation, her path is just very interesting. The opportunities that she’s had are very interesting. So was there anything within hearing about her experiences that seemed like they drove that aspect of her personality? Or tell me about what you really got from that. Yeah, I

Joe Mills:

Asked her that question. I was like, Hey, I, I don’t know how to ask this without it sounding kind of weird, but you’ve been in really big rooms and she was on stage at Davos, it’s a big room. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I’m like, how does that happen? And her answer was basically like, it happens by not thinking about it happening, right? Like those outcomes were just the outcomes of doing really good work for people repeatedly over and over again and doing unique things that people hadn’t accomplished before. But I did them for the sake of the work I was doing. Not for the accolade, for the invite for this outcome that people say is really cool. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I did it cause the work was fulfilling and it mattered and I wanted to do it really well. So it’s like,

Reid Morris:

It’s a really positive message. It

Joe Mills:

It really is. Like if you find it kind of goes back to finding the lane you stay in. Mm. And it’s not about like limiting yourself cuz that’s the other thing too. A lot of stuff that she’s accomplished, hadn’t been done before is what got her on those stages. The way she sets up a fund, the way she runs a business. Like those things were, you know, first of their kind sort of experiences. And so I asked her, I said, how do you know when to push the envelope versus when that’s just like underlying true, you know, like innovation doesn’t happen without pushing the envelope. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but when are you just running your head into a wall for no reason, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I was like, how do you just do that? And her response was essentially, you should always push at the beginning and push until you see foundational principles or pieces in place that would either take too long to change, say it’s legislation, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it’s like, okay, there’s legislation that stops that from working. Do I now want to go through the effort of changing the legislation? Do I have the ability to impact it, et cetera? Or is this just a preconceived rule that we’ve created as people that just doesn’t actually exist? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Because if you look around, there’s so many of those like, we’ve just decided this is the way it is. And does that decision have merit in fact? Or is that decision just a decision?

Reid Morris:

So when we, we look at those experiences from her, right? We talk about intuition being a driver in people’s decision making all the time on this show. And in speaking with her, did it really seem like something that she so inherently just has this disruptor’s mindset that that’s the trigger of anytime she experiences a thing, she would say, well how could this be done differently? Was there some intuition piece? Like what do you think was the trigger for making those different leaps?

Joe Mills:

That’s a good question. She definitely was brought up, she mentioned her dad being somebody who said, just like your classic, you can do whatever you want to mm-hmm. <affirmative> sort of message. Um, and it clearly lived in her. And she also has like, she has some sort of feeling or or desire to support those who have been othered in some capacity. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> like to bring them into the fold. And I think that the combination of those two things by bringing other people into the fold, she talked about how everybody who joins west is like another unique tile in the mosaic. She doesn’t want a lot of the same tiles. She actively hunts for. The difference in the tiles opens up perspective that you haven’t already had because their backgrounds are different, their experiences are different, their expertise is different. And I think she just has a real openness to other that allows her to see things differently. And then she has an inherent belief system of I can do it because I just can mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so now I’ll, I’ll take the effort, I’ll do the, I’ll do the things that allow it to happen. Cause I see it in a different way that

Reid Morris:

It, there’s a passing

Joe Mills:

About being told you can when you were growing up, but I think that’s actually significant. But you hear it all the time of people who have achieved these great things were frequently told, not always that as they’re growing up, like affirmation, you can do whatever you want, put your mind to it. That kind, that kind of encouragement that builds that confidence of oh yeah, I can make this thing happen. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and we’ve talked about people in the education space and there’s opportunity to influence it there. But that’s a really interesting, like little micro note from this that I think is actually valuable in terms of how we help people also achieve this kind of mindset and growth. Yeah. We talked about, I mean the title of the episode for Don’s was Don’t put a ceiling, don’t be your own Ceiling or Set your own Ceiling.

And it’s actually, as we’re talking, I’m thinking back through my own childhood and like, when did I receive messages that you can do it and when did I receive messages that you can’t do it? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> And I definitely got a mix of both. I think there’s an element of, um, the, the surroundings that I had were like, you can do a lot. I watched my older siblings be really successful in a wide variety of paths. But there, I always remember there being this feeling in my head when I was playing sports, for example, that like, our team almost couldn’t because of where we were from. It was very weird. It was like, Indiana’s not meant to be great. Like, that was sort of the feeling. It’s like, well, we’re playing soccer. We’re not from California, we’re not from Florida, we’re not from Texas. These are like, you know, they’re soccer culture.

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it was sort of like this, you know, some people use that message. Yeah. Some people use that message as well for fuel, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there’s the people who have inherent confidence because of hearing that affirmation. There’s also people who are fueled by being told that they can’t do a thing. That’s interesting. Are you more motivated by the chip on the shoulder or by like, love when people tell you you’re good mm-hmm. <affirmative> and they sh and they believe in you first. Does that, will you more? Or are you more willed by you can’t do it and like, to prove ’em wrong? I don’t know. I think that’ll require a little more digging than, than we have in a little poster recap. But we’ll put a little, uh, a little post-it to come back to that. Cuz I think that’s an interesting thing for us to, to dig into sometime. For sure. Awesome. 1000 Stories is brought to you by Element three with production by Share Your Genius. This show is part of our company mission to foster growth in people and business so they can change the world. If you’re finding the show helpful or inspiring, please help us by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify. If you’d like to stay in the loop for more updates from our show and to hear other stories of growth, please head to element three.com/podcast.