>> Man: Live from Las Vegas,
It's theCUBE.
Covering Splunk .conf19.
Brought to you by Splunk.
>> Okay welcome back everyone.
It's theCUBE's live coverage
in Las Vegas for Splunk's .conf.
I'm John Furrier,
host of theCUBE.
We're here for three days as Splunk .conf's
10th anniversary of their end user conference.
And we got some great guests here.
We're going to talk about diversity and inclusion,
breaking the barrier women in tech.
We got some great guest,
Jane Hite-Syed, CIO of National Government Services.
>> Yes.
>> Host: Thanks for joining us,
appreciate it. >> Thank you.
>> Host: Carol Jones, CIO, Sandia National Labs
from Albuquerque.
>> Yes. >> Host: Thanks for coming on.
Two CIOs I'm excited.
Suzanne McGovern, Diversity and Inclusion
Talent Leader for Splunk.
>> Yeah.
>> Host: Thanks guys for joining us.
>> You're welcome.
>> We really appreciate it.
I want to get into a panel you guys discussed
because this is the area of really importance
to the workforce.
Global workforce has made it,
men and women.
But most of the software and text built by mostly men
but we'll get into that in a second.
(laughs)
I want to get in and find out what you guys
are doing in your roles,
'cause you guys the journey is breaking through the barrier.
Let's start with you.
What's your role,
what do you do there CIO?
>> So I am CIO for National Government Services.
We do Medicare claims processing
for the federal government.
We also have a number of IT contracts
with the CMS.
And I have an organization of 331 people,
very different organization,
data center, infrastructure,
security, the gambit of IT if you will.
Great group of people, diverse.
We're in Baltimore,
we're in Indianapolis,
we're out of the Hingham office.
>> How long have you been in IT?
>> My career. >> Host: Your entire career?
>> Yes. Yeah.
>> But you've seen the waves?
>> Jane: Yes, I have seen the waves.
I have.
>> Carol?
>> Yeah, I'm Carol Jones.
And I'm the CIO at Sandia National Laboratories.
It's a federally funded research and development center.
So we do research and development for
on behalf of the US government.
I have about 500 employees,
and 400 in contractors.
So we provide the IT for Sandia.
All gambits of it,
including some classified environments.
>> That's a lot of security.
>> Carol: Yes, a lot of security.
>> Suzanne, your role at Splunk?
>> Yeah, so I'm the Chief Diversity Officer at Splunk.
I get the pleasure to do that everyday.
As well as it's everyone's job,
not just my job at Splunk
but I'm very honored to do that.
I also look after talent at Splunk as well.
>> I want to compliment you guys on your new branding.
>> Thank you!
>> Not only is it cool and relevant,
>> Like the pink and orange?
>> Pink and orange but also just the positioning
is very broad and everything.
It's a great message.
But the big posters have diversity.
It's not a bunch of men on the posters.
So congratulations.
>> Suzanne: Thank you. >> It's a representative.
>> It's important.
>> Host: It's really important,
I thought that was worth mentioning.
>> Absolutely.
>> Okay so start with the journey,
the topic you guys just talked about
on the panel here in Las Vegas
is female leaders smashing the glass ceiling.
So when you smash those glass ceiling,
did you get cut, was there? (laughs)
Were you bleeding?
What happened?
Take us through your journey.
What was the big takeaway?
What's the learnings?
Share your stories.
>> Well a lot of it,
as I shared today with the panel
is really learning and having that learner mindset.
And learning from something that you do,
it was just part of your life.
And I use the example of,
I'm married to an Indian-Muslim.
Went to India,
spent some time with his family
and they told me let's be ready at 6:30.
And I said okay.
I'm ready, I'm ready.
Dressed at 6:30,
and nobody else was ready.
And everyone in the room said
well we're going to have chai first.
We're going to have some tea.
And I was like,
well you said 6:30 and I'm ready.
And everyone said,
well you know,
we need to relax.
We need to connect.
We need to have some time.
So I took that back and said,
you know what?
We all need to make time for tea.
Then we all need to connect with our people.
And the individuals that work with us.
And I've kind of taken that on through
the last 20 years of being married to him.
But connecting with individuals and your teams,
and your partners says what's important.
And it has what led me as I've built those allies
and that great group of people that push you through.
>> So being very people centric?
>> Jane: Yes.
>> Relationship driven? >> Jane: Yes.
>> Not so much chasing promotions or those kinds of,
>> That's what's worth for me.
Yes.
>> Okay, Carol.
What's been your journey?
Tell us your story.
>> I think I'll start a little bit at the beginning.
So I've been in tech over 30 years.
I got a Bachelor's in Marketing
and then I was looking to get my Master's.
So I got a MIS degree,
but I didn't know even to go into that field.
So my professor said,
you know you needed to go into MIS
and said oh no,
that's too hard you know.
I probably can't do that.
And then he said no,
you can do it.
So it's always been challenging myself
and continuing learning.
I worked at IBM,
then I was there in the time
when they did the great layoffs.
You know, I had to. >> Host: '88?
>> It was '93. (laughs)
>> Host: Okay '93 okay.
>> '93 is the curse serve.
Look to your right, look to your left,
only one of you is going to be left
by the end of the year.
>> You know for the younger audience out there,
MIS stands for Management Information Systems.
Before that there was data processing divisions.
>> Carol: Right.
>> Which is actually relevant today if you think about it.
>> Yeah. That's right.
>> Quite a journey.
Got a great experience. >> Yeah.
>> What's the one thing that you could share for folks
out there 'cause there's a lot of young women
coming in to the workforce,
and a lot of people are looking at inspirational
figures like yourselves that have been there
and done that.
And there's a lot of mentoring going on.
There's a lot of navigation,
for a young women and unders and minorities.
And you guys there's no real playbook.
You guys have experiences.
What's your advice?
For folks that are watching?
>> My number one advice and I gave this to people
who are wanting to go into leadership,
trust yourself.
Trust who you are.
You all got to this place because
of the successful person you are.
And just continue to trust yourself.
Take advantage of those opportunities.
Take a risk.
I took a risk at,
when my total focus was in Medicare,
I was asked to do another job.
And I took another, you know,
position.
And it wasn't in Medicare so,
you have to take those opportunities and risks.
And just trust that you're going to get yourself early.
>> Carol your advice?
>> Yeah, it's similar.
It's to continue to grow and to be resilient.
There'll be times in your career like a layoff,
where you know you don't know what you're going to do.
But you can bounce back and make it
into an even better job.
And take risks.
I, you know, took a risk
and went into cyber security.
Spent 10 years there,
and continuing learning and being resilient.
>> The learning's key right? >> Carol: Yeah.
>> I mean one of the things about security,
she mentioned 10 years,
so much has changed doesn't it?
Just the tech?
>> Well the bad guys still outnumber the good guys.
That hasn't changed. (laughs)
>> They've got stronger and faster.
>> Exactly.
The technology's changed.
>> Talk about the diversity inclusion efforts
you guys have at Splunk.
Splunk's culture is very open, transparent,
and the technology solutions are very enabling.
>> Yup.
>> Host: So you're actually enabling a lot of change.
>> Absolutely.
>> Both on the solution side now we're seeing
the tech for good kind of story because,
tech is tech.
Tech for business but also you're seeing
speed and time for value,
time commissioned value,
a new term that we kicked around this morning.
>> Yeah.
>> Time commissioned value. >> Yeah.
So I'm glad you mentioned data, right?
We're a data company and we're very proud
that we actually pull star our diversity
inclusion numbers, right?
So we moved the needle 1.8% on gender last year,
year on year.
Pride but not satisfied.
We understand that there's much more
to diversity inclusion than just gender.
But our strategy is three-fold
for our diversity inclusion.
So it's workforce, workplace, marketplace.
The first is around just where I talk about
is improving our representation so that these women
are no longer the only ladies or the minority,
they were much more represented.
And we're lucky we have three women in our board.
We have four women in our C-suite.
So we're making good progress
but there's a lot more to do.
And as I see it's not just about gender,
we want to do,
we know that innovation is fueled by diversity
so we want to attract, you know,
folks of different race,
different ethnicity,
folks who are military veterans,
people with disability.
We need everyone at Splunk to be successful.
>> Well you guys are all three leaders in the industry.
Thanks for coming on,
I appreciate that.
I want to ask you guys because culture
seems to be a common thread.
I mean I do so many talks and interviews
with leaders for all types.
From digital transformation to DevOps to security.
And they always talk speeds and feeds
but all the change comes from culture, people.
And what I'm seeing is a pattern of success.
Diversity inclusions works well
if its in the culture of the company.
>> Yeah.
>> So one filter for anyone,
a woman or anyone is this,
is the company culturally aligned with it?
That's the questions is,
what do you do when you have culture
that's aligned with it?
And what do you do if the culture's not aligned,
so you want to get out.
But how do you unwind?
And how do you navigate?
And how do you synthesize those signals?
>> Yeah.
>> 'Cause the data's there.
Any thoughts?
>> Well there's one way to certainly
really harness and build a culture of inclusion.
And that's through employee resource groups in particular.
So at Splunk more than 50% of our Splunkers
are actually members, followers or allies
of an employee resource group.
So it gives community,
it gives that sense of inclusion.
So that everyone can bring their whole selves to work.
So to your point it really does build
a different culture,
a different level of connection.
And it's super duper important.
>> Yeah.
Any thoughts on culture and signals to look for?
Good, bad, ugly?
I mean, because you see a good way to take it right?
Why not?
>> Yeah.
>> Take the chance. >> Right, right.
>> Yeah, I know.
And I think, you look at it and you decide,
like some young women we were talking to.
You know, is this the right company for you?
And if not, can you find an ally?
You know if you're feeling that the culture isn't there
and help to educate them.
And help to give them the feedback
of what is inclusive even mean?
And as leaders I think we have to always ask ourselves
are we being inclusive for everyone?
>> In mine I would spin it a little bit
is that diversity and thought.
And to how,
when I joined this organization,
culture is a big factor that needs to change.
And some of the things that I'm working on.
But to bring people to the table
and hear those different thoughts,
and listen to them because they all do think differently.
No matter color, race, gender,
that sort of thing.
So diversity and thought is really something
that I try to focus in on.
>> You know Carrie Palin was just on theCUBE interview,
the CMO of Splunk,
and talking about the logos and the branding.
And she said it was a great team effort.
I love that you know,
'cause she's just really cool about that.
>> Yup.
>> As she said we had a lot of diversity and thought,
which is like that code word for debate.
(laughs)
So when you have diversity,
I want to get your thoughts on this
because this is interesting,
we live in a time where speed
is a competitive advantage.
Speed, creativity, productivity, relevance, scale,
these are kind of the key kind of modern efforts.
Diversity can slow things down too.
The benefit of diversity is more thought,
more access to data.
So the question is,
what do you guys think about how companies,
or the individuals could not lose the speed?
Keep the game going on the speed and scale,
and get the benefits of the diversity
because you don't want things to grind down to the halls.
>> Right.
>> I mean Splunk's in the speed game.
Get data, more diverse data comes in.
That's a technical issue but with diversity,
you want to diverse.
>> You know what I would challenge that to be honest.
Because we are a data company
and the data's irrefutable right?
So gender diverse teams outperforms
homogenous teams by about 15%.
If you see that to race in ethnicity
it goes up to 33%.
Companies like ourselves who pulls their numbers,
see an uptick in sheer price.
It's a business imperative right?
We get that it's the right thing to do.
But this notion where it slows things down
you find a way right?
If you're a really high performing team,
you'll find a way.
And the best answer doesn't always come fast right?
Sometimes it's about patience and leadership.
So I'm on the side of data
and the data's irrefutable.
Diverse teams just perform better, period.
>> So if it is slowing down
you're position would be that it is not working?
>> Well yes and no.
I think you got to find a way to work together, you know?
And that's a beautiful thing about places like Splunk.
We're in high performance right?
It's crazy,
tons of work to do different things.
We were just talking about this at the break,
but we have this unwritten rule
that we don't hire,
I'll say jerks for, (laughs)
>> Is there a gender neutral data?
>> Sorry.
>> Is there a gender neutral data?
>> Yeah absolutely. (laughs)
But not hiring folks that are really going to,
you know, have a different cultural impact.
They're not cultural as the organization.
We need everyone,
and that's a beautiful thing.
And that's what makes Splunk special.
>> I think, you know,
as you start to working being more inclusive,
you start to build trust.
So it goes back to what Jane was talking about,
it's the relationships.
And so you got to have that foundation
and you can move fast and still be diverse.
>> I think that's a very key point.
Trust is critical.
'Cause if people are taking chances,
whether they're male or female,
if the teamwork's there,
like you said in Splunk,
it shouldn't be an issue.
>> Right. >> Right.
>> It becomes an issue when it's an issue.
All right so big walk away in learnings
over the years in your journey.
What was some moments of greatness?
Moments of struggle?
Were you brought your whole self to bear
around resolving it, persevering?
What were some challenges and growth moments
that really made a difference in your life?
Breaking through that ceiling.
>> Wow.
Well, I'm a breast cancer survivor.
And I used my job and my strength
to pull me through that.
And I was working during the time
and I had a great leader who took it upon herself
to make sure that I could work if I wanted to or not.
And it really opened that up for me to be able
to say I can still bring my whole self,
whatever that is today,
that I'm doing.
And I look back at that time
and that was a strength from inside
that gave me that trust myself,
you're going to get through it.
And that was a challenge in personal time.
But yet had so many learnings in it
from a career perspective too.
>> Great story.
Thanks for sharing that.
That's awesome.
Carol any stories and struggles,
and successes that made a big impact
to you in your life?
>> I think it was my first level one manager job.
I got into cyber security
and I didn't know what I was doing.
I came back my boss said
Carol I don't know what you did this year.
And so I really had to learn to communicate.
So prior to that I would never have been on TV,
never would've done public speaking like we did today.
So I had to hire a coach
and learn how to move forward on communication.
>> Awesome.
Thanks for sharing.
Stories?
>> I think a pivotal moment for me,
I was in management consultancy
for the first half of my career.
And I had a first child,
and I was on the highway with a local client
at seven in the morning,
holding at eight o'clock at night,
started on a Sunday midday.
So I didn't see her awake for the first nine months.
I knew many women who do it,
just wasn't my personal choice.
So I decided to take a role internal
and not client facing
and I was told that my career would be over.
That I would be on a B track,
that I wouldn't be a partner anymore.
And it really wasn't the case,
I find my passion in the people agenda.
I did leadership development,
I did an HR role,
I got into diversity inclusion
which I absolutely love.
So I think some of those pivotal moments
you talked about resilience earlier in the panel.
Its just to dig down to know what's important
to you personally and for the family
and to really follow your true north.
And you know it works out in the end.
>> Well you guys are an inspiration.
Thank you for sharing that.
I guess at a personal question for me as a male,
there's a lot of men who want to do good.
They want to be inclusive as well.
Some don't know what to do
or don't even,
or afraid to ask for directions.
>> Right.
>> So what would you advice men?
How can they help in today's culture
to move the needle forward?
To support and be therefore this trust
and all this critical things that make a difference.
What do you guys have to say to that?
>> So the research says that women don't suffer
from a lack of mentorship.
They suffer from a lack of advocacy.
So I would say if you want to do something
super easy and impactful,
go advocate for women.
Go advocate for women you know
who is amazing out there.
And go help her forward her career.
>> And you can do that whatever gender you are.
You can advocate for others.
But yeah I would also echo the advocacy has helped.
>> I would agree.
>> Trust, relationships? >> Yes.
>> Across the board? >> Yeah.
And what we said to some of the women and now
and allies today was bring your whole self.
And I would just encourage men to do that too.
Bring your whole self to work
because that's what speeds up the data exchange.
That's what speeds up results.
>> Take a chance.
>> Take a chance. >> Yeah.
>> Bring your whole self.
>> Get the trust going. >> Right.
>> Be open and communicative.
And look at the data.
>> Be vulnerable.
Look at the data. >> Look at the data.
Yeah the data will drive it.
Thank you guys so much for sharing
your stories in theCUBE.
>> Interviewees: Thank you.
>> This is a stories on theCUBE segment.
It's theCUBE coverage here in Las Vegas for the 10th .conf.
This is theCUBE's seventh year.
I'm John Furrier with theCUBE.
Thanks for watching.
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