|| Executive presence

40. Executive presence

• Signal, for the preparedness for the next big chance; more than knowing your craft
• Gravitas force, competence, intellectual heavyweight, credibility, eloquence, impact
• Communication, in an American centric corporation, from consensus to impact
• Appearance is small

Survey shows 

• confidence, poise under pressure
• decisiveness, showing teeth, toughness
• emotional intelligence, empathy factor, valuing diverse, customers and clients could be global, build trust; top down isn't working anymore
• vision, a mesaured vision, one that you can put data and evidence around

Tactics 

• Sugar coat strength with humor
• Signal statue and status
• Share stories of roots and passion - but do not overshare; small failures, blunders
• Figure out your non negotiables

Communication

• concise, compelling speaking style; mini ted talk; practice like crazy; know three different versions; learn to tell stories
• ability to command a room; get the buy-in, leave it having impressed, pushed the ball forward, have a central role
• forcefulness and assertiveness; the degree of edginess can be different by bias 
• ability to read a client, a boss, and a room
• sense of humor, ability to banter
• body language and posture; have the full eye contact in the person; 

Tactics

• lose the props; women prepare 1/3 more slides, have to show how much work they have put in but they really undermine them
• make eye contact
• lower your voice and breathe; voices go up when pressure up; not speeding up, not lifting up; manipulates your voice so that you are heard; tone and projection
• stiffen your backbone
• use silence as a weapon; becomes more economical for what you say; learn to surround the thoughts with silence, to deliberately make people feel important; manipulate in a way to get the voice to count; the communication is the way in, commanding importance

|| Founders and Funders

24. Founders and Funders

• Founders - 
• many are clueless and talk without much of a purpose
• several wanting to improve on digital product management skills, marketing skills, design and UX skill
• none have asked for financial planning or business planning advice
• several mentioned that they started from consulting and strategy background, "I do business development"
• 3 of the 4 presenters could do better with explaining business models, funding roadmaps and etc.  They all come from consulting pipeline, then developing software for sale.  Team composition is 1 BD, 1 CTO, 10-15 data/engineers
• Funders - 
• they smell money, corporate talk, sharp questioning
• seem to be more eager with talking to the rest of the investor community, incl. institutional sponsors and funders
• Politics matter a lot - 
• some of the venture presentations just threw big names of prior directors from NSA, NIH ... make you feel it's so hard to be an entrepreneur in DC, you need political influence
• several related to a social cause in storytelling, pay equality, national security
• Networking -
• founders and founders, investors and investors, 10-word speed dating style networking

|| Role in women's network

1. What is your role in facilitating the women's networking activities?  41 seconds

It's an honor working for a team of amazing women, on topics that are near and dear to our hearts. 1) I bring resources that inspire the women, the research papers, articles, videos, movies, books.  2) I encourage the women to come to our townhall style quarterly discussion.  Women want to help women elevate our presence, contribution, and accomplishments in workplace.  3) Also, last year we invited all associate, women, and men, to come and learn about pay equality.  We are exploring new ideas this year, such as women networking, volunteer to help the women in the local community and collaborate with the D&I council to learn about the hidden bias.  It's going to be a journey and we are just at the beginning of it.