unpopular
You will be
at times, and you need to have
the courage to be okay with that.
This week we go Up-Close with Vidya Peters, Board Member at InfluxData and Workhuman, and former COO of Marqeta.
Vidya is an expert operator who has succeeded internationally across multiple functions and businesses. From the Chief Marketing Officer at MuleSoft, to her numerous board appointments, Vidya’s wealth of knowledge positions her perfectly to provide us with insights as to what attributes are fundamental to the success of an operational leader. Additionally, Vidya shares with us some of the pivotal moments that have shaped the success of her expansive career.
What is your career highlight to date? How has this influenced you as a leader?
When we say ‘highlight’ I think the mind is immediately drawn to highs in one’s career, and highs are a moment in time, but they do not actually influence you that much as they are somewhat of a fleeting feeling. So when I think about highs, whether that be success on a project or a promotion, it feels wonderful for the moment but the learning and what really stays with you happens in some other parts of a career. So the highlight that influenced me most as a leader was when I got my first operating job in my career.
When I was leaving my swim lane in strategy and embarking on my first operational role, it was to go drive the revenue and P&L for a divisional product that was in decline; it was selling telephone support plans for a declining desktop product. I remember an immediate knee jerk reaction in myself that said ‘do not take this job; focus instead on something that has a ton of upward potential and is super exciting to be in’.
I then remembered my mentor and manager at that time, Andrew Swain (who was head of the strategy group at Intuit), saying: ‘No, that is not how it goes. This is where the company needs you the most. This is the job that we are having a really hard time filling, and this is where you can be the most valuable. If there is any advice I can give you, it is go shine in the job that is given to you.’ And that is not a very popular thing these days. What we love to tell everyone is ‘Go follow your passion; say no to everything until it is absolutely bliss.’ However, the truth is this was absolutely what I needed to hear because this ended up being one of the most meaningful learning experiences of my career.
Firstly, I learned how hard it is to actually implement something that looks great in theory and on a spreadsheet model, compared to the reality of the difficulty of motivating people from different walks of life, divisions and experiences to get behind a single strategy and make it happen. Secondly, the jobs that people do not want are where the lowest hanging fruit is and that ended up being a wonderful surprise. There was so much value I could add with very little actual domain expertise, and I could be very valuable in the role, much more than I could have been compared to the shinier parts of the business where there were 10 interested people for every available spot. So I still look back on that experience as super valuable, and it is one that I hold in my stead because sometimes the most ignored parts of the business are the ones that need the most love, and as a leader that is what you need to pick up.
“the highlight that influenced me most as a leader was when I got my first operating job in my career”
In your opinion, what are the top attributes of a great digital GM/operational leader?
I think the first is building a high performing team because what you realise as a GM is you are not an individual contributor and so the success of your team, your company and your product is so much more than just your own success. Keeping a high bar of hiring A-players that not only act and operate as A-players, but can work together as an A-team is critical. Second is being able to go between that 10,000-foot view and into the detail as and when needed. Being able to move seamlessly between them is vital because the details of the business are critical, but so is the 10,000-foot view so you know you are working on the right details.
The third attribute I would say is to be able to declaratively say ‘No’ to a whole bunch of priorities, and to do that with boldness and courage. You will be unpopular at times, and you need to have the courage to be okay with that. I think a lot of people underestimate that being a great GM or leader means that you are not going to be liked by everyone, and part of that means saying ‘No’ to a lot of things. People talk about setting the right strategy, yet in doing so you declare as much what you will be pursuing, as outline what you will not pursue.
In your opinion, do you need different GM skillsets for different stage of company growth (i.e. start-up, scale-up, listed, etc)?
Definitely. I think in the start-up phase it is all about being lean, experimenting, failing fast and never giving up until you find that perfect product market fit. It is also about listening really deeply to what the market is saying and responding quickly. When I joined Marqeta and MuleSoft, they were both in the later scaling stage and this stage is about paving roads. It is about identifying the areas that resonate with your customers and how you make that as seamless, as programmatic and as well paved as possible.
Conversely, when you are listed, it is all about predictability. It is about saying exactly what you are going to deliver as a business and doing exactly that and a little bit more, and repeating that every single quarter, no matter how much the market changes around you, because no downward deviation from the financial plan will be acceptable to public markets. So there are very different sets of skills for each one of those stages, and all are really critical to be able to continue to grow and scale a company.
Do you think that one person can learn those skills or do you need to have them honed in already?
History shows that certain people are naturally capable of going all the way from start-up, to scale up, to listed, and they do that well. They do that with a lot of support, with a lot of mentorship, and with a lot of experienced people around them on the executive team. However, I think that is more the exception than the rule, and it is quite expected to see a very different type of leader come in for each of those stages - that is generally what we see more. It is hard to hope and pray for the exception to come in - there are plenty of those - but they need a huge support structure around them to help them make that transition.
The War-time operational GM – how has the current economic and market context impacted your strategy?
If we were to go back two years, it was growth at all cost, so it was all about investing back in the business and really trying to eke out as much growth as you can; growth was the antidote for everything else and it was the most prized metric. Then very quickly over the last 12 to 18 months, as inflation increased, it was all about finding that path to profitability, so the focus was on making investments that would give you the ROI in the shortest time frame possible. Strategies were not necessarily changed in terms of customers and verticals, but investment priorities did change to strike the right balance between investment and profitability. Additionally, customers were under more price pressure, so the dynamics of the market were affecting both your priorities and the priorities of those you were serving.
“it was all about finding that path to profitability, so the focus was on making investments that would give you the ROI in the shortest time frame possible”
What does the future of payments look like in 2025 and beyond?
Expanding on the above, there is going to be real pressure on who can survive this current trend in the market. I believe there is going to be a consolidation of players, but perhaps more importantly, I believe there needs to be a consolidation of customer experience for the end user. Instead of having multiple providers, products, etc., and leaving the burden of choice on the end customer, I think you are going to see more platform plays that are going to be able to use data and AI to help make the consumer make smarter decisions from the plethora of options that are out there.
“be able to declaratively say ‘No’ to a whole bunch of priorities, and to do that with boldness and courage. You will be unpopular at times, and you need to have the courage to be okay with that.”
What would be your advice for GMs leading through economic challenges for the first time?
During economic turmoil and challenging times, a lot of leaders make the mistake of being even more inward focussed because there tends to be so much noise within a company - things like the great resignation, the war on talent, skyrocketing compensation, disgruntled employees or broader disconnection from customers for example. However, this is precisely the time when you need to look more outwards and tap into your network of other leaders as this can help to find commonality. During these times of turmoil it is so easy to fall into the trap of feeling like the problems you are experiencing within your company are only your own. You can draw on other leaders’ experiences and compare notes on what has and has not worked because there is no playbook for getting through quickly shifting macroeconomic challenges; rather it is about experimentation and trying different approaches. Finally, it is about keeping a steady hand and a cool head as you navigate these troublesome times as they too will pass, and what you can bring is consistency and stability for the team around you because if you feel frazzled, your teams will experience that ten times more.
What trends have you see in Fintech and in payments more specifically in the last 12-24 months?
We have obviously seen a slowdown in investments but, interestingly, this happened quite a bit after a lot of money went into the sector. This created a proliferation of fintech solutions for almost every single conceivable problem across the value chain, so now a lot of companies are starved for investment. Further, they are experiencing a lot of margin compression from customers as their customers too are under pressure and now have a plethora of different solution providers that they can play off each other.
“During these times of turmoil it is so easy to fall into the trap of feeling like the problems you are experiencing within your company are only your own”
“I think it is less of a focus on ‘stage’ and more on the actual company ‘type’ that determines where you are going to have to put your resources, and where that fine line lies.”
How do you keep up to date in your sector? Any suggestions of great books / podcasts / content that you listen to to keep up to date? Or any books or content that have influenced your career or leadership style that you would recommend?
I have learned in the last few years that focusing just on your sector is a mistake; your sector often changes as a result of the macroeconomic conditions that happen six to twelve months earlier. So there are certainly some great FinTech news sources out there like Payments.com, but I also love going up a bit higher in the funnel and listening to the Wall Street Journal podcasts or the Baron Streetwise because you learn what is happening with inflation, interest rates etc., which creates downstream effects for FinTech. So keeping that balance between not just FinTech, but also macroeconomic content is critical.
From a leadership perspective, I love anything that Yuval Harari writes. I think he is so smart. One of my favourite books is 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. I also love Reid Hoffman’s book on Masters of Scale,which is about how founders and executive teams must build a plane while they are flying it. Last but not least, I love The Lonely Century by Norena Hertz because I think we have learned so much about the human psyche in the last three years as people have been isolated, working in remote teams, globally distributed, etc. I think we often approach these realities as very functional problems, but in fact at the heart of them is human beings who are craving a sense of connectedness and belonging, along with a sense of mission and purpose. So, what is critical for us in building high performing teams is solving the question of loneliness in a company and achieving connectedness when you are not face to face or not in a room working on something together.
