Globant S.A. (GLOB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hey, next up, we have Sheila Jordan. Sheila is the CDO at Honeywell. Sheila, welcome to the program Leading Courageously When Your Confidence Has Been Shaken.

Thanks, Hunter. Nice to see you, and nice to see all my colleagues on the call today.

Yes. Take it away, Sheila.

Okay. So -- oh, I -- have my panelists joined? Yes, I see them now, I believe. Okay. Yes, hello. Okay. So let me give everyone the context of this conversation. So about 4 years ago, I was one of the founding members of Silicon Valley CIOs -- women CIOs. And I hate to tell you this, but we started with like 8 or 9 of us, and the good news, we're at like 24, 25. Part of that process as we have created this entirely incredible network is, when we do our check-ins, we share what's going on in our lives. It's not just about all the good stuff but what's going on from a personal or professional -- well, one of each, 1 personal and 1 professional, sharing that we want to share with the network and really get their help and get their insights and get the more experienced CIOs and the ones that have done certain work before, how do we really share and really become super vulnerable. Well, fast forward 4 years, and this group is -- they really, really support each other, and it's been fascinating to be a part of that. But one of the things I learned is that it's not always easy to be a CIO. And there are days that there are things that happen that make that particularly challenging. And just -- we wish at some points we had all these do-overs. So what I thought this conversation could be is about that. Like, how do we really think about things differently when things don't go as well as we want, when our confidence is shaken? When perhaps, based upon something that's happened, whether new CEOs or new CFOs or new executives coming in, maybe trust is broken at some point. So anyway, that's the topic of today's conversation. So what I'd like to do is to open it up to the panels and begin asking those questions. I do, though, wanted -- before I do, I want to apologize for my casual attire today, but you'll be happy to know that I am in Charlotte, and I'm at a charity golf tournament for STEM. So I snuck off the golf course and joined this call today, but we really are trying to, of course, invest and improve our investment in this town. Okay. So what I'd like to do now is to introduce our panel: We have Kirsten Davies as SVP and CISO for Estee Lauder. We have Jennifer Greenman, who's the CIO for Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Mamatha for the CIO for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles; and Marina Saint-Lary, who's the Chief Solutions Officer in Globant. Hello ladies, nice to see you.

Hey, Sheila.

Hi.

Good afternoon.

Okay. So we're just going to go around. I have 3 really important questions, and I want you to spend some time thinking. Of course, the answer is in being as open and transparent and honest as you can during these -- for these questions. So the first one is, to be an effective leader, we must always find that right balance of confidence, curiosity and humility, among other traits. So what strategies have you employed to successfully navigate these dynamics? Kirsten, let's start with you.

I knew you were going to start with me. Let's be as vulnerable in front of 500 of our closest friends, shall we? Hey, everybody. It's so great to be here, and thanks, Hunter, for putting this on and for having me be a part of it. Look, I think this is such a great question. Being a Chief Information Security Officer, one of the things that they look at us to be is confident, right? The last thing you want is a CISO who walks in and goes, "I think this is the right way to go. We're going to give a shot." So I think that there's a really beautiful balance that does need to be struck. You -- we do need to have that confidence in ourselves. I know one of the speakers earlier said that you're having to -- we're needing to have more confidence in ourselves than sometimes is naturally there and take the risks. A risk-based approach is what I'm all about anyway. My career has probably been one of measured risks across the board for different continents for me. I've probably taken a lot more risk than a lot of my colleagues have in the roles that I've taken. But I think that there does have to be that curiosity of what can be accomplished, what might be around the corner, connecting dots. And I think that, that gives us that extra something, especially as women leaders, when we use our intuition, we use our curiosity, and we find that confidence in ourselves that is fueled by successes. And it's also fueled by failures, too, that as we learn, we grow and we pivot, and we become more curious, and we become more confident and also needing to remain empathetic, right, which I think is more of that humility piece. I don't know if I'm the right person to start that conversation off with, but I love the question because I think that's the sweet spot of who we are as women leaders, is we have the ability to pivot through those different aspects of our personalities, of our characteristics and of our behaviors and be very successful as we do that.

Thank you so much, Kirsten. That's fantastic. Jennifer, what have you done? What strategies have you employed to really successfully navigate those dynamics and characteristics?

Sure. Well, I would say, for me, active listening is key. And of course, that is certainly all the more challenging now when we live in a world of endless phone and video conferences. But this continues to be, in my opinion, one of the most critical behaviors for a successful leader. I think as women, we are uniquely qualified to be exceptional listeners. But with that said, I have to constantly remind myself that I'm always learning. It's always about listening to learn, so whether that's a new technology concept or a business trend or even just knowing the personalities of my team, I need to be constantly learning. If I'm disengaged, I'm probably going to miss an important insight or concern. If I'm not learning, I might fall behind on important knowledge that is important for myself but also for my business and my industry. So I try to remain connected and engaged, and that is a challenge, again, in this environment that we're in right now. But I do try to remain engaged with my teams, with my business partners through regular touch points. I'm a big believer in one-on-ones, team meetings, stand-ups, huddles, scrums, whatever term you want to use but for different opportunities for engagement. Also, on a personal level -- or I should say professional development level, I should -- I try to stay up to speed, utilizing different publications. If you've ever seen me out in the airport or around my home, I'm usually with my earbuds in and I'm listening to an article, less frequently but occasionally, a good podcast or a good audiobook, but really just trying to constantly learn. One final note I'll mention, though, when it comes to being confident and being -- for me, that very much equates to being prepared. So I am diligent to the point of compulsivity when it comes to meeting prep. I want to make sure I'm ready, I'm prepared to engage in a meaningful and constructive conversation whenever possible. And it's not always possible certainly in the environment we're in. There's a lot of ad hoc, last-minute kind of conversations. But whenever I can, I try to be prepared, try to review correspondence materials, make sure I'm ready with the questions and the information I need to be able to engage in meaningful dialogue but also, for me, and this goes back to the humility point, to show respect to my colleagues because their time is no less important than my own. So those are some of the strategies that I employ to find that balance whenever I can as a leader.

Thank you so much. Marina, what about you?

Oh, my goodness, everything that Jennifer said is right on. So hi, everybody. First of all, thank you so much for having me, and it is an honor to share the panel with you today. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Globant, but we are in the IT professional space, right, a place where we need to build more women leaders. So for example, as a company that -- Globant has always -- we've been -- for us, it's super important, gender diversity, having more and more leaders within the IT space and also within our company. It has -- it's super crucial, right? So thinking about being an effective leader, I'm all about being prepared, like Jennifer said. But I do think, I, myself, from time to time like to go back to the details of what my team is doing because I'm a big believer that, as a leader, you have to live it, do it, to be able to innovate on top of that, right? Sometimes, we prefer -- we're so much on management more on top that we forgot what our teams are doing or what they're up to or what we're asking them to do. So sometimes, I like to take some time and go work with the teams to see how they're actually doing it because I think that, that's when I'm on top and I'm asking them to be better and to be more innovative and just to add on top of that. The only way I can do that as an effective leader is actually being able to do it myself. So I'd like...

Yes, so knowing the details [ of what you're asking ].

Exactly. Exactly. Knowing the details because you're going to know what their burdens are, what their complications are. And that way, as a good leader, you're able to think strategies on how to help them. How do you -- how to boost your team's productivity. So for me, I agree completely with everybody else. I am prepare freak when it comes to being prepared for my meetings. And then also a couple of minutes, I want to take on management of fear and expectations. Sometimes, I feel that, as a leader, we have to be more -- empathy when it comes to the people that we'd need because, sometimes, you have to manage their fears and their expectation on [ what the matter is, right? ]

Especially now.

Especially now. So I'd like to also take a minute to think about that a little bit, about how to handle that. Fear has its levels. It has its moments. So how do I do that to be an effective leader, especially in my team, because I always tell my team, "I'm here to make you great. That is my purpose here: try to get the best out of you."

That's awesome.

So just to add to the rest.

That's awesome. Mamatha, what about you? How do you think about the balance of confidence, curiosity, humility when driving massive change for your organization? How do you do it?

I think, Sheila, for me, all 3 of these are very intertwined. And I think a few strategies that I've used in my career that have proven to be very effective that I've been sharing this. So I -- for a while, I was with the auto industry, then I went to a utility company. So to understand even how this company works, I went with the meter readers. This was a utility company providing electric -- electricity to 10 million customers in Michigan. So I went with the meter readers to visit customer homes. I went with the line workers and then went in the bucket trucks as they were repairing their lines. And when I went and presented our digital transformation strategy, I could really tell stories about how it impacts our business at -- really at the grassroots level, at the ground level. I was able to share stories back to that storytelling. And back to what Gerri mentioned, no 2 companies are alike, no best way to learn about the company than to be in the shoes of the people who are in the front line of the business. So we went back to our Board and I was presenting the digital transformation strategy for our company, it was -- I could share stories about these line workers. I could share stories about our customers. I could share stories about meter readers, how implementing smart grid impacts the meter readers, how it impacts our line workers, how it impacts, going to what Kirsten said, the privacy of our customers, giving them confidence that, "Hey, we are not really getting your data. We don't know when you're home, not home. We're not -- no one will be able to hack this." So I've used the same strategy when I was the first CDO, the Chief Digital Officer of ZF Friedrichshafen. I actually worked on the manufacturing floor for 2 weeks because there was a huge resistance in Southern Germany for our digital transformation to a software-centric company because people were thinking, "We have a mechanical engineering background. When we become a software company, my job will be gone."

Yes. Absolutely.

So being in their shoes helped me understand better and then present with confidence what the transformation means to them. So that internal curiosity helped me develop a deep empathy for them in their roles. And then that, in turn, gave me the confidence and also kept me grounded.

Right, right. Okay, that's awesome. And just the general theme from all of you, that is about knowing the details, understanding your teams, being there for your teams but also understanding the business and getting deep into that and being able to -- when you understand the business, you know that what we're recommending from a technology standpoint is going to support them and have a positive impact. So great answers. Thank you all so much. Okay. So now I'm going to go a little deeper. So we're balancing a lot of things. We're balancing the new technology, financials, making sure that we have the right data strategy, making sure we have the right ERP strategy. Technology, SD-WAN, infrastructure, you name it, we're balancing it. We're not going to get everything right all the time. So at some point, trust could be broken with your peers, with your team, with maybe the CEO. So how do you become more comfortable -- like, if that was the case, and you have an example where trust was broken inadvertently and just miscommunication or whatever the reason is, but trust was broken, how do you address that? How do you become comfortable with it when you're most vulnerable? How do you recover? How do you get that trust back? I'm going to start with you, Jennifer.

So you mentioned one of the words, which is vulnerability. I think the other important trait to demonstrate in those situations is authenticity. And of course, it's always tailored to the nature of the circumstance that we're dealing with. But in my experience, when I or when a member of my team has failed to deliver on a commitment, I will always start by acknowledging the failure, apologizing and taking accountability regardless of fault. I find, in the technology world, it's very common to shift the responsibility, so to say this vendor or this business unit was somehow accountable. And very likely, they were in many cases. But that approach...

It doesn't matter, yes.

Exactly. That approach is almost always perceived as our failure to take accountability for our customers. So my approach is own the problem regardless of fault and, more importantly, own accountability for the solution to that problem. And so on a personal level, sometimes that means articulating my own deficiencies as a leader. And that's tough, right? It's tough to absorb sometimes as it could compromise my own reputation. But what I have found is, in the long run, it almost always fuels trust and collaboration in a way that no other approach can. And then final note, I'll say that in these situations, it probably goes without saying to anyone on this call, trust restoration, delivery of the solution needs to become the very top of my priority list when that happens. So whatever you like to do, I use Outlook for, sometimes, my to-do list. Some people use sticky notes. Some people use [ lists ]. It doesn't matter what you do. Whatever -- whenever I or my team have not delivered, haven't -- when we have lost trust, that becomes my absolute top priority, to restore that trust and to make sure that my customer is satisfied, because once we've lost trust more than one time, it's incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to recover.

To get back. Yes. Great question -- great answer. Thank you. Thank you. Kirsten, what do you think? How do you build that trust when it's been broken?

I really love what Jennifer had to say. I hope I'm not on mute. Can you guys hear me okay?

Yes, we can.

Yes, super. Look, there's a book that I read quite some time ago by a former Navy SEAL called Extreme Ownership. And it talks about that. And Jocko is just -- he's amazing. He's an amazing human being. But he talks about really owning and being accountable for it and, as the leader, being accountable for the output of your team as well. And I practice that regularly, too, that when we miss something -- and we're going to miss, right?

Right.

That's the reality. We can't be perfect. None of us are. And I think part of that is, is allowing ourselves the room to fail and to fail fast and fail forward and fail cheaply whenever possible. But allowing ourselves that time to be okay with -- I'm not going to get it 100% right, and that's tough. I mean we're -- we didn't get to where we are without being strong delivery people and being high achievers and pursuers of excellence in so many different things. And so I think for me, it's taking that extreme ownership over the outcome to being the umbrella for my team. If it's something that my team did, I'm going to take it. I'm going to take it. I will take accountability for it. And if it's a success, I give the team credit for it. And so I think that what -- that starts to build trust because trust is a huge thing, which I could talk about for hours but I won't. But trust is relational and has very little to do with delivery. And here's why I say that: you can knock a delivery out of the park and people still don't trust you. Do you know what I'm saying?

Yes. Absolutely.

Because it's relational. And so I think that it happens from time to time in your teams, happens from time to time with peers. Happens from time to time on the level up, that kind of a thing. I think it's that extreme ownership of accountability for the results. And it's also pivoting to really prioritize the relationship. And this is something I continue to have to work on. I really do because I'm so accustomed to driving results that sometimes I go, "Oh, yes, sorry, I got to bring you on the journey, don't I? Sorry. I'm so sorry. Can we have a meeting? Can we grab a virtual coffee or a donut? And let's just talk about how you received what it was I just did. And I'm so sorry if I ran over you or if I steamrolled. That wasn't my intent." I think trust is one of those things where you have to be very intentional, and you have to focus your intent on the building and the constant rebuilding of trust, in my opinion.

Great answer. And I think both of you said it, but I don't think you can overcommunicate during these situations either. You just can't fundamentally overcommunicate. Mamatha, what about you? How do you approach this when you feel at some point something's happened that trust might be broken? What have you done? What would you do? Would you...

One of the comments from the audience that said, "Trust is built in drops but lost in buckets. " I think that's a great quote. And I think what I -- I can't distill my experience with relationships and trust and success into kind of a formula. Our professional net worth -- like personal net worth, your professional net worth is equal to your results to the exponent of your relationships. The higher you go, those relationships have an amplifying effect on the results that you deliver and those relationships that trust is the foundational element. And sometimes, when you -- the higher you go, these relationships become very high stakes. It may not necessarily be a series of events that have led to losing trust. It could be just one event where the context is completely misconstrued between 2 people. And sometimes, you could do everything, you could communicate, continuously apologize, do whatever you would, but sometimes, when you lose that trust, you can never rebuild a relationship. That's the example that I wanted to give Sheila. In one case, I had 2 opportunities, both with one of the -- 2 of the best colleagues I've worked with, one with one company, the other with another company. I didn't choose to go to a company with a previous CEO that I worked with. And to this day, the CEO chooses not to talk to me, right, because he felt like, well, he gave me an opportunity to come join him in one of the top 10 companies in the world, and then I did not. And then I chose to be with my family, move from Germany to Michigan. And then -- so there was a priority that I had in my mind. I tried to explain it, but somehow, we both...

But I think that to me is kind of misalignment. I mean you all have just mentioned that to be a leader -- an effective leader, it's authenticity. You got to be clear. You got to communicate. You got to make sure that you're articulating your vision and your plans and your desires. And it sounds like, in that case, it was maybe just a misalignment, and that happens. And I think -- I really thank you for bringing up that point because, sometimes, it's not recoverable. And you know what, you just got to kind of cut your losses at that point, too, and decide this is the right thing to do for my life and my personal life at this moment. So gosh, I really appreciate you sharing that story. Marina?

Okay. What can I say that you ladies haven't already said? It's a hard one, to go last. So just to add on top of what you all have said, sometimes, when trust is broken for me, I like to take a minute to think as why the other person believes that trust is broken. And sometimes, we don't do that simple exercise. We just jump on top of trying to get the trust back or what went wrong or -- but we never take a minute just to think of why that person is breaking that trust. And I'm a very emotional person. So that makes me sometimes jump up top of things and don't, like, calm down, take a minute, think about it. So I've had a couple of cases where trust have been broken. And I just took a minute as to think of what happened, why. Why is that person not trusting me anymore? I try to put myself in their shoes to be able to understand how I can either work on building it again or work on what's next on -- just to recuperate what I am. So I mean -- and then the other part of your question, Sheila, which was -- really was, how do you become more comfortable when you're most vulnerable? And in my -- and this is just my experience, I like to go back to what made me who I am today, right, because I -- you get more and more -- when you're vulnerable, you lose all that, you lose all your effort, you lose all your history, you lose everything that you've done. So I like to just take a minute to [ calm down ]...

Get regrounded.

And get regrounded and think about everything I've achieved, everything I've done, what made me come to this moment, right? And that really just helps me be more comfortable especially when I'm very vulnerable. So just to add on top because you all win me to it, although great recommendations. But I wanted just to add these 2...

No, I appreciate that. Okay. So we're kind of coming at the end of our time. I know I could talk about this for hours, but we have one more question that's really important and very meaty as well. But I'm going to ask each of you to get to an answer of 30 seconds or less. And I know this is super hard. But any tips and tricks? So what should you do or what have you done when your confidence has been shaken? What are some tips and tricks? How do you recover? What are your recovery mechanisms? Like, you just had a bad meeting or some program or project didn't hit the schedule that you expected and your confidence -- you may have picked the wrong technology and recommended that to the company. Okay, your confidence is shaken. I'll start with you, Marina, because we went last with you last time. What do you do?

Yay. So for me, I have 2. And at least, this is from my personal experience, and Jennifer touched on this: acknowledging the failure. And sometimes, it's hard. So for me, just accepting that it went wrong, what went wrong, really just grounding that. Because it's hard, sometimes I don't even like to accept my failures, and we have to accept them to be able to work on them. And then some recovery mechanism for me is talking to colleagues that I admire or people that I admire and just getting their point of view or their -- because I feel just like -- colleagues just like tell me you're looking at it from a wrong angle. So people that I admire and I look up to, I love to talk them after I have a failure because I feel that, that just really just makes me reborn a little bit and just give me that boost that I need. 30 seconds, Sheila.

Absolutely fantastic. We can argue forever or debate what's a failure. Just because we miss something, is that going to be a failure or not? But that's another topic for another event, Hunter. Mamatha, what do you want to do around -- what do you do when your confidence has been shaken?

I think, Sheila, just a recent incident, I walked from a very tough meeting directly into a Board presentation. Very tough meeting without even a gap, so there's no time to walk out to take a deep breath and come back to it. So I walked from a tough meeting to presenting to the Board. So in that case, I was constantly telling myself compartmentalize. This is -- you're presenting. There will be -- after this meeting, there will be time for you to look at the meeting that you just had and to talk -- think about it and to get around to the people and talk to them about it, but now focus. It's that intentionally telling yourself and boosting your own confidence because when that is shaken, you are the only one that can rebuild your confidence, and there's no one else in the world that can do it for you.

Yes. I mean that's such great advice. It's almost like it's game time. It's fourth quarter. It's game time. And the other thing I've learned is like nobody sees what's going on inside of you. So you might feel all that, but you got to just show that outer self and like, right, just get through the next thing. And I love your advice on compartmentalizing and focus, fantastic. Let's see. Who's next? Jennifer, what do you do?

So well, I often think back to a lesson that I learned when I was CIO at Moffitt Cancer Center, which is a really highly respected academic health care organization. And in that organization, I was surrounded by many, many expert -- world-renowned experts on medicine. And here I was, I was a brand-new 34-year-old CIO who really had -- never had experience in that organization of that size and complexity before. And with that plus the -- a lot of technical issues, a lot of very challenging political dynamics, I battled insecurity regularly in my first couple of years of my tenure there. So a trusted colleague once told me this, and I remember this to this day, she said, "Jennifer, you have to remember that they are all just normal people who have deep expertise, deep knowledge in their specific domain. You are the expert in technology, and you have every right to deserve a seat at the table with them. This is the role you have earned." And so this is a lesson I remind myself anytime I battle insecurity or difficult situations, is that I do have a right to be at the table. I have earned this, and I deserve to have my voice heard as loudly as anyone else.

Absolutely. Love that. Okay. Kirsten, rap this up.

After buying stock in a vineyard after a failure -- I'm kidding. I mean in all seriousness, though, I would be very remiss if I didn't take the opportunity to talk about my faith. And I am a woman of faith, and my grounding comes from knowing who I am. And it's been challenged many, many times. And so if I go back to trying to say, well, I'm the right person for the job. I'm the -- because I have like this -- the fears, too, that come up as well, right? And we have those moments where we question ourselves. And so my grounding in the moment goes back to what is my relationship with God being the source of my strength, my -- and being the source of my purpose on this planet. And I will fail because we fail. We're not perfect, right? And yet, when I need to pivot and when I need to get strength and get courage to face another battle, that's where I go. Honestly, I reset many more times than I care to admit needing to reset, that I often need to reset. And that's how I do -- Mamatha, how I can go from -- the same thing happened to me. I had to go back and be on camera. I went from a tough meeting to having to go back and do a full company-wide presentation. And the people who knew the meeting that I went from, they're like, "How did you do that?" And it's like, you know what, I had to recenter and refocus on where my strength came from, what's my purpose for doing here, and now let me speak out of that place of confidence, not this shakenness inside, right? So I had to dig deep.

I can't thank you enough. Honestly, your authenticity, your vulnerability sharing your stories, I hope the audience got as much out of this conversation as I did. This is a powerful audience, a powerful group, a panel, and I just can't thank you enough. So back to you, Hunter.

Sheila, best, top-10 panel ever in 14 years. Great job, Sheila. Great Job, Mamatha, Marina, Jennifer and Kirsten. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us for.

Thank you.

Great job. Hopefully, you can stay till the end.