>> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE.
We're in downtown San Francisco at
the Professional BusinessWomen of California Conference.
It's the 28th year, Jackie Speier started it a long time ago
and now it's grown to 6,000 people.
It's a pretty amazing conference, it crosses all indrustries
and actually a lot more than California as well.
And we're excited to actually have somebody
to come talk to us about the conference itself.
It's Deepti Srivastava,
she's a Project Manager of Google Cloud from Google.
Great to see you again, last we saw you, I looked it up
was 2014 >> I know.
>> at Topcoder Open.
>> Indeed. >> And you were doing
great work then, you were on a panel
with a bunch of high school girls.
I remember they'd bust in
a couple of busloads of high school girls
and you and a couple other mainly young professional women
talkin' to 'em about the life of an engineer.
So you're still doin' good things.
>> I hope so. (laughs) >> Absolutely.
>> I hope so, yeah, it's a passion of mine
and I'm really happy to bring it
to something like PBWC where I'm on the board.
And we do a bunch of work across industries
and across all levels.
PBWC's mission is to work for gender equity and equal pay
for women across all industries and in
all professional settings. >> Right.
>> That includes young professionals,
as well as the pipeline of professionals coming in.
>> That's terrific. So we could talk about
your day job all day long. (Deepti laughs)
Google Cloud's kickin' tail,
you guys had your big conference
a couple weeks back-- >> Here in fact. (chuckles)
>> Here in Moscone West, right? >> Yeah.
>> But in terms of what you're doing here with PBWC,
give us a little bit of the history.
So we know it was started by Jackie Speier, I think
you said 1988. >> Yeah.
>> That's just amazing. >> I know.
>> Obviously it's much more than California.
>> Yeah. >> But what is
the top-level mission and how has the conference evolved
over the last several years?
>> So Professional BusinessWomen of California, as you said
was started by Congresswoman Jackie Speier
and Judy Bloom, who's a co-founder.
And we still exist and we've been doing this for so long
and we really care about our mission,
which is to work for basically gender equity and equal pay
as I said, for all professional settings for women.
And in this particular case,
this conference we are talking about inclusion.
And we chose this theme because we really think
it's pertinent to what's going on right now
in the world and in our country.
And we, PBWC, believe that the things that unite us,
the potentials and aspirations that unite us are greater
than our differences and things like that.
So we want to make a statement and really address
the inclusion work that we do,
and the inclusion work that's required for all of us
to really move forward as a country and as a people.
And if you look at our lineup of speakers today,
we really do walk the talk that we're talking about.
We have amazing speakers today
with Rosario Dawson to Taraji P. Henson
and all the way to Secretary Clinton
who's closing out our day today,
we are so excited to have her.
And there's nobody better to represent
breaking the glass ceiling than she has so we're very
excited to hear. >> And what a get,
I think I heard that it's her first
public speaking engagement post the election.
>> Yeah, I know. And it's very exciting because again,
I think we're all about coming together and rallying
and being a force for good.
The conferences, that's our aim
ultimately as an organization.
And having her here to give her speech,
first public appearance after the election last year,
very exciting I think. >> Right, right.
>> And we're very excited to hear from her.
I'm already inspired by the thought
that she's going to be here.
>> And really a big part of the theme was kind of
the strategy work is done, everybody knows it's good.
Now it's really time for the rubber to hit the road.
It's about execution and about taking steps and measuring.
And a lot of the real concrete, nuts-and-bolts activities
that need to happen to really move this thing down the road.
>> You mean like gender equity
and-- >> Yeah,
yeah. >> Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's been a topic for awhile
and I think, exactly,
we need to have the rubber hit the road,
we have to get together, we have to have actionable plans
and that's what a bunch of our seminars today talk about.
How to address those things in your,
we really want to empower women and actually people
of all backgrounds and ages and all sorts of people
to take charge of their own lives.
And especially, we are a professional women conference
so that's kind of where we focus our messaging.
But really we want women to take control of their own lives
and we want to give them the tools,
the networking opportunities, the inspirations
to meet their aspirations in those fields.
And so we want them to take charge
and move forward by themselves,
take away from here and go back to your job, to your work,
to your home, to really bring your messaging forward.
Take inspiration from here and bring it back to your life.
>> Right, and I think Bev Crair, in the keynotes said,
"Fill your well today."
>> Yeah. >> 'Cause as soon
as you leave here it's back to the grind
and you're going to need that energy.
So while you're here surrounded by this energy
and your peers, take it all in
and load up. >> Absolutely.
And I also want to say that we started out as a conference,
an annual conference, and that's definitely
our marquee thing that we do every year.
But we actually have a lot more offerings
that people can continue to engage over the year.
So we have webinars and seminars that people can attend,
there's community events that happen here.
And you can go to the PBWC website
and see what all offerings we have.
But we want people to engage and we want to be able to
provide them with the means to engage throughout the year,
not just here but take this, everything you get today
and then take it along the rest
of the year and recharge yourself.
>> It's kind of this whole 365 concept which we talk about
on theCUBE a lot too, 'cause we go to so many shows.
And there's a huge investment of time
and energy and money on those two or three days,
but how do you extend that out beyond the show?
How do you build the excitement leading into the show
so it's not just a one time kind of a shot, then everything
goes back to normal? >> Yeah exactly,
I think that's exactly the point, that this is not
just a one day, you go there, you get inspired
and then what next, right? >> Right.
>> There's something you can go back to with our
various offerings and continue your learning journey
if that's what you want,
or networking journey if that's what you want to do.
Wherever you are in your career,
we actually have a Young Women's Professional Summit
that I have the honor of chairing,
that we have every year and it's meant to help
young professional women navigate their way from
being in college and high school and those entering
a professional life so as I said,
we want to cater to all levels and all ages
and all sorts of challenges that people face
as they're going through their professional careers.
>> So that's a separate event?
>> It is, it is an annual conference.
>> And when is that? Give a plug.
Or do you have a date? (Deepti chuckles)
>> Yeah, we don't have a date yet but it's going to be
in the summer. >> In the summer, okay great.
Well I think when we met last,
I thought that was such an important piece of
that Topcoder Open because it wasn't
the Sheryl Sandbergs or the Hillary Clintons
or these super mega top-of-the-pyramid people.
It was a bunch of young professionals,
one of the gals was still in school,
hadn't finished graduating,
to make it so much real for those high schoolers.
They didn't have to look so far to say,
"I could see myself, I kind of look like that person,
"I kind of see things touch." >> And I think that's very
important, Jeff. Exactly.
It's very important and that's what we try
to do here at PBWC as well.
We want to go from catering to the Millennials
and how we interact with them and all the way up to C-suite,
we had a Senior Leadership Summit yesterday
leading up to the conference today
where we have a bunch of C-suites and CDOs,
Chief Diversity Officers, come together
and talk about trending topics and how to solve them.
So we really are trying to move the needle forward
on many fronts here, but our aim is all of that to culminate
into moving women and people of all backgrounds forward.
>> Right. And then there's this whole entrepreneurial bit
which you can't see behind the camera,
but there's booths all over for Intel and LinkedIn
and Microsoft and the names that you would expect,
Google of course, but there's also all the little boutiques,
clothing stores and jewelry stores and crafty things.
There's even of course women-focused snacks with
the Luna Bars and I forget the other one. (chuckles)
So it's kind of a cool entrepreneurial spirit
kind of on top of everything else.
>> Absolutely. And you know Jackie Speier, Congresswoman,
started this conference to help women
who were in the SMB, sort of SME market,
basically women who ran small businesses.
And we want to continue to do that as well
but now of course the world is changing
and we have a much more of a corporate presence
and we want to help there too.
But yeah, we pay homage to that by
having women who are women entrepreneurs running
women-focused businesses,
and we have them here in the expo area if you can get a shot
of that later. >> Right.
>> The energy is palpable, the excitement is there
and it's so great to be here and harness that,
and take it back, I mean
the first time I was here many years ago
when I was not even on the board, I was just like,
oh my gosh, there's so many women here who are like me
or who are, they're people I could look up to
all the way up to the C-suite
who are making their presence felt here.
And also all the people around me and like-minded, like me.
So it's a really inspiring event.
And I've been here for many years
but I'm still inspired by it.
So I'm so excited that we do this and continue to do this.
>> So, little harder to question.
So, and you've been doing this for awhile,
what surprises you on the negative that still you know,
you're still fighting that battle that you wouldn't
have expected to still be doing?
And then conversely what has surprised you on the positive,
in terms of what's moved maybe further than
you might've thought or faster than you might've thought?
>> That's a good question.
I think you already nailed it, right.
The fact that we are still here talking
about this is interesting to me,
and as I got more involved in this kind of work
I realized that people have been doing this for a long time.
Congresswoman herself has been doing this for so long
and a fearless advocate for women's rights
and equal pay and diversity and inclusion.
And the fact that we are still here,
it is indicative of the fact that we need to have
a groundswell movement in order to change policy.
We can talk about it all we want
but unless there's actionable things you can take away
and really have that grassroots-level work
to push the envelope forward, it's not going to happen.
I think the positive is, as I've seen
this conference over the years, it's grown.
And it's gotten a lot more young people involved
and it's not just the senior leadership that is trying
to pull people forward, it's the people starting out
early in their careers or mid-level in their careers
that are looking at taking charge of their own destiny
and pushing their agenda forward in this sense.
They want, they're asking for equal pay.
They're really engaged and aware.
And conferences like PBWC actually help with that,
getting those minds together and making things move forward.
So I think from a positive side I'm really excited
to see so many more people engaged in this fight.
And the more people we have, the more we can actually make
real progress and real inroads.
>> And if you look back, as someone who's never been here
and then they see this interview and they say,
"This looks awesome, I'm going to sign up,"
what do you think the biggest surprise when they come
for the first-timer?
>> I'll tell you what I was surprised by,
is seeing so many women together across industries,
across ages, across backgrounds.
Everybody together, really wanting to move forward.
They're really wanting to engage, to connect with each other
and to actually make a difference.
People are here to make a difference,
right? >> Right, right.
>> And that's, to say that 6,000 people come together
and really all of them have that same
sort of mentality of like yes, I'm empowered
to make a difference, is electrifying.
>> Deepti, I love the energy.
>> (laughs) Thank you. >> I love the energy,
absolutely. >> It's all these people.
>> It is. >> Trust me, I'm sleep deprived
(Jeff laughs) with my very young son.
So yeah, this is all the energy
that I need to feed off of. >> No, it's good.
And there is something special here.
>> Mm-hmm. >> And you can feel it.
'Cause we go to a lot of shows, you go to a lot of shows.
And again, it's not an exclusive tech show
which is kind of nice 'cause we cross a lot of industries.
But there's definitely, there's an energy,
there's a vibe that comes from the little
entrepreneurial outlets, it just comes from the,
that room was packed.
The keynote room was...
>> I know. >> Was not fire marshal
friendly. (Deepti laughs)
Hopefully the fire marshal was not close by--
>> Yes, we had some discussion on that too.
But to your point, this is one of the conferences
that I've seen where we really,
perhaps the only conference I've seen where
we really cut across all industries.
Because there's tech-focused, there's business-focused,
there's all sorts of focused conferences trying to do
either their professional work on technology or whatnot,
or they're trying to solve the problem on the gender
and diversity and inclusion piece in their own silos.
And we try to cut across so that we can actually have
a coming together of all of these various industries
and their leaders, thought leaders, sharing ideas
and sharing best practices so that we can actually
all move forward together, I think that's
again our Senior Leadership Summit which happened last night
and the VIP reception which happened last night
is all about getting those thought leaders together
and getting them to share their best practices and ideas
so that again, they can take it back to their companies
and really move forward with DNI initiatives.
>> It's action right, it's all about the action.
>> Absolutely.
>> So I promise next time that we talk,
we'll talk about Google Cloud. >> Oh, sure.
>> 'Cause that's hoppin'. (Deepti laughs)
But it was great to see you and congratulations
on all your work with the board
and with your event >> Thank you.
>> in the summer.
People should go to the website, keep an eye out.
>> Absolutely. >> It'll be comin' out.
>> Yeah. >> So thank you.
>> Thank you so much, it was great to see you too, Jeff.
>> Absolutely. Alright she's Deepti, I'm Jeff,
you're watching theCUBE. We're at
the Professional BusinessWomen of California Conference.
The 28th year, pretty amazing, 6,000 people.
Here at Moscone West, thanks for watchin'.
(upbeat techno music)