David Novak 0:04 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learnings so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple that you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. You know, as a leader, I bet you've got a lot of things vying for your attention. How do you know what deserves your time and focus and what doesn't? Well, today's conversation is going to help you answer that big question. I'm joined by the CEO of HubSpot Yamini rockin. Now if you don't know, HubSpot is a $2 billion online customer relationship management platform. And it's growing by leaps and bounds. And a big reason for their success is this very clear sense of focus that Yamani has instilled to help everyone make better decisions and prioritize the right opportunities. In fact, Yamini even has a phrase for it, Fortune favors the focused way you apply your attention, and focus has a huge bearing on the results you can achieve. So if you're feeling spread a little thin, or you're just not sure what you need to be focused on right now, to really move the needle for your organization, then you're going to love my conversation with my good friend head soon to be yours. Yamini Iranian?

You know, I've had so much fun researching you, it because you you are one heck of a CEO. And I just love your approach to culture and people and customers. So I can't really wait to get into this. But if if you could give us a snapshot of HubSpot, and the business you're leaving today, I'd really appreciate it. Yeah,

Yamini Rangan 1:52 

thank you for having me, again, a HubSpot. We are really focused on helping millions of organizations grow better. That's the purpose. That's our mission. That's what we care about. That's our bread, butter and jam, the way we do it is by providing a customer platform. So think about this, David, if you want to connect to your end customers, you need to be able to look at their entire journey, whether they're coming to your website, they're buying something online, or they're interacting with your support, you got to be able to connect. That's what we enable small and medium businesses to do. We're about a 17 year old company, we are all over the world. And we are passionate people that are mission driven about helping customers grow.

David Novak 2:40 

Fantastic, you know, you became CEO in a bit of an unexpected way. Tell us that story and what it was like for you to just to be thrust into that role.

Yamini Rangan 2:50 

Yeah, you know, this will resonate deeply with you. I'm an accidental CEO. In many ways. Now, I've been in the tech industry for about a few decades. And I joined HubSpot as their first chief customer officer. And the reason I was the first chief customer officer is that HubSpot really believes in building and bringing together marketing sales and service in service of the end customer. So my job was to come in and bring together marketing, sales and service and really help focus on the customers. And I joined at a very cool time, January 2020. And I didn't know what the world was going to be. But I still remember Brian, who is the CEO, co founder, phenomenal leader, mentor coach. He said, well take your time. Yamane take a lot of time, and spend the time knowing our team, knowing our culture, and then March hit and he is like, move fast. Give me answers today, I can't wait one more day, what are the changes we need to do to really go into this mode of dealing with COVID. And so I was thrust into this position of reinventing what we needed to do during the pandemic and help our small medium businesses who at that time, were honestly churning, they were closing down and shuttering there was a question of how they were going to survive. And we said we need to do our part to help them get digital and help them get digital really quickly. And so we changed a lot of what we did for customers in a matter of days, we went to the board and we said that we are slashing our price. We're helping our customers, we're giving them a really fun, and we are going to help them survive during the pandemic. And turns out that was a good call. Because three months later, all small medium businesses needed a way to digitally connect, digitally grow and they came to us and we earn their trust and that period, then what happened the next March. So I'd kind of gone through one march to the next March, I got another call from Brian. And this time, he was calling me unfortunately, from his hospital bed, he had met with a snowmobile accident, and had broken a lot of big bones. And thankfully, all the Oregon survived. And he said, You're going to have to step up, and you're going to have to run the company until I recover and get back. And the My first thought was, Wow, pretty big shoes. And wow, no playbook. He basically called from the hospital and said, Don't mess this up. And I said, Okay, I'll try my best. The good part is that we had clear guiding principles as a company, we had great leadership team. And six months later, he came back, again, a call. And he said, Well, do it, you're doing a reasonable job, keep doing it and become become the CEO. My first reaction was, no, no, no, no, I, this is not what I had planned for, I plan to take a month off after, you know, kind of helping shepherd the company over this period. And I'm not really the person I never ever thought of becoming a CEO. And he said, Well, it's you or I'll hire someone else. And you might not like that person. What do you want to do?

David Novak 6:25 

You know, Yamini, that's, that's so interesting, because so many women that I've talked to become CEOs, they don't think they're ready, they should be doing something else, or whatever. And, you know, I love how he just said, Hey, I can hire somebody else. It's up to you. When you're faced with that alternative. The answer was something else.

Yamini Rangan 6:42 

Exactly. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, let me let me think about this. And in 24 hours, I got back to him. And I said, Well, I will do it. But I think I have big shoes to fill. And I'll need your coaching, mentoring and support. And he has been a phenomenal coach, mentor guide for me throughout this process. And it's now been about two and a half years since I got that first call in March.

David Novak 7:08 

It's interesting, I want to ask you about this. And I want to get back into this particular situation. But you mentioned you were the chief customer officer. You know, that's a unique title in a lot of companies. Do you think companies need to think more about what they call their leaders

Yamini Rangan 7:24 

100% 100%. And, for me, words matter, you stand in commitment to every word you say and what you drive. And so the Chief Customer Officer conveys that customer is at the center. Now, you could call that Chief Business Officer or Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, you could call any of those things. But it signals that the job of that C level leader is to put the customer at the center, and then make sure everything else works in order to serve that customer. And 10 years ago, that title was not existent. And I think the industry is embracing it for the right reasons, which is the focus on the customer, it's probably the most important thing in terms of a business. Now

David Novak 8:13 

I want to get back to what Brian says, Okay, you're the CEO, you've got this transition to make, you know, you're you're basically interim says, don't mess it up. We got a great company here. But now you got to move from caretaker, you know, to Hey, you got to be the driver, you got to figure out the future. Where are you going? How does the leader manage that kind of transition?

Yamini Rangan 8:37 

It's funny because again, this time he had like a one liner, which is be the driver of the bus was the was the conversation that we had. And so I thought about that a lot. What does being a driver actually mean? And how does like one goal from being a go to market leader to accompany leader, and it really starts with who are your constituents and who are your key stakeholders. Of course, all employees within the company, of course, all of the customers, partners, investors, board members, and overall stakeholders. So it really broadens who you're communicating. But it starts with the mindset of how do I learn what is important for every one of these stakeholders? I think from my perspective, I started as an engineer, then became a sales leader and then became a customer focused executive. And I've always put the customer at the center. Now I had more stakeholders and understanding the motivations. The key priorities for each of these stakeholders is where I started in terms of my journey as a CEO.

David Novak 9:50 

You know, that's always a great place to start. But you know, one of the things that is I think about that is you're taken over for a founder or he's been driving that bus. Yet. He wants you to drive the bus. And you got to create a new agenda. How do you really do that? I mean, how do you really make big changes to something that's really big, while that founders around without maybe hurting his or her feelings or causing a ripple?

Yamini Rangan 10:19 

I mean, first of all, you start with imposter syndrome. Not a lot of CEOs actually talk about this not a lot of like, C suite leaders talk about this. But, you know, when he said, Hey, take this on, the first thing was, am I the right person for this? And how do I actually set in, then the next question is, well, he's done a phenomenal job, you know, do I step into his shoes? Or do I create different shoes for myself? And I think from my perspective, I started with saying, what is the future that I want to help create as a leader, one of the lessons that I have learned as a leader is not to focus on the past, and where you're coming from, but really focus on the future and work backwards, I had to make that choice, David, because I could be sitting there and I could be thinking about what choose, am I filling? How am I going to get this role, you know, to be where it needs to be? And do I have the capability, the credibility to be able to lead this company. But that's not where I started, I made a choice. I made a choice. And I thought about 2030. And where HubSpot can be as a company, and what would be my role in getting the organization to where it needed to be in the next decade? And what would a great leader do? And how could I be part of that journey? So I started in the future. And then the answer became clear, I wanted to be the best CEO that the company and the employees and the customers deserved, not where I was coming from, but where it needed to be in the future. And so working backwards from the future really helped create a vision for where I can go with this company.

David Novak 12:12 

Did you ever have to dismantle something that everybody thought was really good before? That, you know, could have been perceived to be ruffling a feather? And if so, how did you do it?

Yamini Rangan 12:23 

That's a fantastic question. I think we've made a lot of changes over the last couple of years, but nothing dramatic. And I always say that a CEOs role is much easier when it's a turnaround role. Because you can come in and you know you're at the bottom, and then you start slashing, burning, making changes, HubSpot is not that we are going from good to great, which means you really need to be curious, you need to be open, you need to deeply keenly listen, to know what changes are necessary in order to scale the company, versus making changes quickly for the sake of you being a leader there. So part of my process was going on a 90 day listening tour, I listened to our employees all across the board, I listened to investors, I listen to our board members, and then I created a plan. And part of that evolved naturally, the changes that we needed to do was investments in certain areas within the organization to bring a leadership team together much more closely and be very clear that we're building a company for the future. So more of those changes versus a drastic dramatic change that we needed to make day one.

Koula Callahan 13:47 

Have you ever wondered what David is thinking as he interviews our guests each week? Or have you been interested and hearing David's take on some of the questions that he asks his guest? Well, I do and I know a lot of you do, too. My name is Kula Callahan and together with David I host the three more questions podcast that airs every Monday. These episodes are just about 15 minutes and in them I asked David three questions that dive deeper into the themes of his episode with his guests. David shares incredible insights and stories from his career leading yum brands and all of His answers are super practical and inspiring. Like this great insight David shared and one of our most recent, three more questions episodes.

David Novak 14:30 

There are going to be many times when you don't necessarily agree with your boss. And I think the first thing you need to do is let your boss know that you understand where they're coming from, that you've heard them and you know what they want to do, then what I think you need to do is to provide your perspective and your point of view and as respectful way as you can. And you know, I think that's a way how you You can really have a good discussion on what the actual best next step ought to be. Get

Koula Callahan 15:06 

the three more questions podcasts in your feed each Monday and dive even deeper into the episodes you know and love. Just subscribe to how leaders lead wherever you get your podcasts.

David Novak 15:24 

I want to get back into how you're leading HubSpot. But But first, I want to take you back, you know, tell us a story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today.

Yamini Rangan 15:35 

I love that. So I grew up in India, and I grew up in a super small town. My mom was a homemaker. And my dad was a mechanical engineer who had a small business. The town did not have a high school that went up to 12th grade in the English medium. It had it in the local language, but not an English medium. So part of the conversations at dinner tables was, what am I going to do? Where am I going to finish high school. And it was interesting. One of those days, my mom gave me an article about a woman who was attempting to climb Mount Everest. And I said, Well, I want to do that. And we were literally having this conversation of how could I complete my high school degree. And at the same time, I was like, I want to climb the Mount Everest, my mom's like, yeah, you can do it. And then the next week, I'd come and say, I want to become a lawyer. And she'd be like, yeah, you can do it. And literally, I had so many different ideas of what I wanted to do living in this super small town that didn't even have a high school. And my parents encouraged me every step of the way. They believed in me as a human being not as a woman growing up in the 80s in rural India, but as a person with potential. And to me that just a power of someone believing in my ability, when I didn't have any at the time certainly didn't have rock climbing or mountain climbing abilities, but someone believed in me, and I think that has propelled me over so many ups, downs, failures, successes, I just believe in myself, I just have a level of perseverance and the ability to dust it off and start back again. And probably the those dinner table conversations had a lot to do with the grit that I now have,

David Novak 17:33 

as I understand it, your your parents might have liked you to go on be a doctor, that you you went on to be an engineer, and you've been described, I don't know if you really like hearing this so much. But you've been described as someone who can be a bit defiant. Okay. Tell me a story of how that trait has shown up in the way how you lead? Oh,

Yamini Rangan 17:57 

absolutely. You have to be defined. And you're absolutely right. My parents, you know, it said that I could do anything but really secretly wished I became a doctor, just like my elder sister. And I chose not even go to the take the exam. That was how defiant I was I was like, Well, I'm not going to take the exam, which means I will never have any probability of becoming a doctor. That's how defiant I was. And you got to be, you know, somewhat defined that way. When later on, I'll tell you a couple of different places that did happen. I graduated from business school at Berkeley, and the first job that I got was accidental in the sales organization. When I joined the sales organization, I'd been an engineer for a few years, then went into business school and gotten to sales. And people looked at me and they looked at how I was approaching sales and said, Wow, she's just not going to make it maybe a first year, at the end of the year, we're going to give her a performance plan, she's probably going to leave because I approached, you know, sales like an engineer. And then I looked at people around me, they approach sales, like the art of sales. And I was like, No, I'm going to do the science of sales. And part of the Defiance came from knowing that I was strong analytically. And I was strong in getting customers to talk to me about their business. I was curious, and I was a learner. And all of that came from my engineering background. And so I said, I'm going to lean in on that. I don't play golf. I certainly don't know how to banter about, you know, Sunday night football, but I know how to analyze a 10k and I was really defiant. And at the end of the first year, I crushed you know, my goals for the year and gained a level of confidence and how I can present myself in front of customers and Yeah, almost every time someone says you can't do it, I I say well, I will

David Novak 19:53 

and you grew rapidly and then you've moved into leadership roles and and you started out first by being This Rockstar salesperson, you know, that was crushing your numbers. And then all of a sudden now you get thrust in I think it's about eight years later, you know, into this role of being a leader, how did you evolve and handle that transition because people have to move from individual contributor to leader.

Yamini Rangan 20:19 

It was really rough. And by the way, I don't think my role and value sales was like that easy. I had to prove every step of the way. But when I first got into management, I did what every individual contributor that moves into a manager role does, which is like, my way or the highway. It is I know exactly how I know how to do this. I've done it for so many years. So here's a playbook and giving answers. One of the first lessons that I learned in those early days is that people don't want answers. They want questions. People want to get to answers themselves. And one of the first skills that I had to learn as a manager was asking better questions, more thoughtful questions that would lead someone to get to their answers themselves. And that really meant that I had to go from being someone with a sprinter mindset go fast to being a cross country coach, coaching them to last to pace to get to where they need to do and to feel a sense of success themselves. A still recall, one of the first performance reviews that I got, as a manager was brutal. Here, I was thinking, I've done this role, I know how to do this role. Here's this amazing playbook. So all I have to do is give this playbook to others, and they're all going to be successful. And it absolutely did not work. And I had to completely reinvent and have a playbook for asking more questions, enrolling people, helping them see their potential. And ultimately, slowing down in order for the team to go far was huge, huge lessons there.

David Novak 22:09 

You say that something that you've learned throughout your career is to be a T zone executive? I'd never heard that one before. Explain what you mean by that?

Yamini Rangan 22:17 

Oh, yeah, this is one of my favorite lessons. So T zone. And the way I think about it is that you have functional leadership. So you can be an engineering leader, a sales leader, and you know, your function really well. That is the eye you know, or the the vertical, the T zone is your ability to connect across multiple functions. That is what gets you to break through from being director level VP level position into the C suite and beyond. And I learned this the really hard way. One of the first things that I did as I was working with sales and marketing was tried to bring sales and marketing together. And if you're worked in high tech, you know, organizations, sales and marketing are notorious for pointing fingers at each other. You're not good enough. You're just not good enough. You didn't give me the right leads? No, you didn't follow this through how many sales and marketing organizations sit in the same place? So one of my jobs was to bring sales and marketing together as a strategy leader. And the way I did it is connected the dots across both of these teams, and I said, What is your focus? What do you care, really, you all care about winning customers, acquiring customers and making them successful. So let's start with what is common. And let's connect the dots across all of this. And turns out it was exceptionally important that dot connecting across functions and the relationships across marketing and sales, at the time that I was working in the organization improved quite a bit. And to the point where people started trusting me, then I took it to product and engineering. And I said, this is what we're trying to do in the go to market side. And here's what you can do to help us and here's what we can do to help you. And so as I grew in my career, I stopped being a functional leader, and started being much more of a T zone leader connecting the dots. That's when I started seeing breakthroughs in terms of my career and progress.

David Novak 24:20 

If you really thought about what makes you tick as a leader, what would you describe as your your guiding principles of leadership and how did you come up with them, be

Yamini Rangan 24:30 

authentic, operate with high integrity, and be customer obsessed? I would say those are probably foundational for me. And I'll say on authenticity, I joined tech when there were not that many women, and there were certainly not that many Asian women in the go to market parts of the organization. And for a number of years as I was growing up in debt I tried to be someone else, I tried to be the person who played amazing golf. But I really was terrible at golf, I tried to be the person that had this amazing banter. And the first five minutes of a conversation I was an introvert didn't quite do do that well. And I started embracing who I was. And I'm a first principles thinker, and problem solver, I really focus on customers, and I want the company to win. And when I started being just authentic and embracing what I was good at, and just calling it as it is, I started seeing more people resonate with my style and resonate with my leadership. And so authenticity has been just so important in terms of my journey of finding my own voice. When you grow up in India, most of the time, Indian women are asked to kind of keep their opinions to themselves. And part of being authentic and figuring out who I am is to be able to voice out my opinions in the most authentic manner in the most high integrity manner. And I've had to find that voice as I've grown as a leader, and then the customer obsession that just comes from being in the sales organization, talking to customers and solving for customers and seeing how, if you truly wanted to be successful, it had to come to making your customers champions and making them win in their career. So I'd say those three are probably my North Stars as a leader. You

David Novak 26:31 

know, a lot of leaders are told, Don't let your people ever see his sweat. You know, what's your take on that? You

Yamini Rangan 26:39 

know, I've heard that advice many times in terms of my early career, I said, how do I be a leader? Well, do not show any vulnerability, be strong, Never show your weakness and keep working hard. And I think it's complete BS, I don't think that advice is good at all. And in fact, we have to not just embrace our authenticity, but also be vulnerable. We got to tell our people, here's where I'm learning, here's what I don't know, here's where I need your help. Here's where I've failed in the past. And the more you do that, the more you open up for others going through that big journey themselves. And for me, one of the biggest things that I've enjoyed is learning and growing as a human being not just a professional learning, growing and being curious. And curiosity can only come from a place of comfort with saying, I don't know this, I don't know. And I don't have the answer, and being deeply vulnerable. But what you don't know. And so I've learned, and I've grown as a person, as a professional, as a leader, because of the vulnerable moments that I've had in front of my team. And I think you would agree with that. David, right.

David Novak 27:57 

Absolutely. I think people want to want you to share what you're wrestling with. In my leadership programs, the things that people always enjoyed hearing the most. With the times I failed, and the times where I really messed up, people know why you're successful. They don't know. They don't know all the struggles that you've had getting there along the way. And, and now it's pretty much been open book like you I would say, you know, you spent time at SAP, then it worked day, and then Dropbox where you were the chief customer officer. And then, you know, three really good companies before you joined HubSpot, and you know, really found this phenomenal opportunity that your your your enjoy driving the bus on. How did you know it was time to move on and join another team?

Yamini Rangan 28:41 

Oh, that's a great question, David, I don't think I had a plan. And I don't think that there is a one clear way to look at when do you need to transition. And in fact, if you'd asked me early in my career, I just wanted to join a company stay there forever. And get through the ranks. And I think I have focused a lot more on learning and growing, and not on the company that I work for, or the role or the title that I have. And that has governed how I have transitioned. So let me give you an example. I did start my career in enterprise companies SAP workday being enterprise companies. And after about a decade in those companies, I felt like I knew the playbook for large customers sales really well and really wanted to figure out, you know, can I do this in a small medium business? Is the playbook the same. Turns out the playbook is completely different. And when Dropbox actually approached me, it was all about product led growth, which was a new thing that was happening in industry, and it was all about small medium businesses. And I knew Nothing about either of those. And that's when I'm like, Oh, this is phenomenal. If I know nothing, that's the place for me to be, because that's where I will get growth. And I will learn and I will be able to, you know, just get better as a professional with my competency. And so what I have actually held as my Northstar is do things that help you get breakthrough growth in your career, don't follow anything else, but just follow the biggest opportunity for learning and growing. And that's probably the advice I would say, you know, when the time is right, when you're not growing as much, and you know, some other places, right when you feel like you don't know anything, and you're going to have to reinvent yourself to be successful there. You've

David Novak 30:50 

mentioned how obsessed you are with customers, and you definitely are and you've carried this love for your customer and into your role as CEO. Tell us about SF TC.

Yamini Rangan 31:03 

Love it. sfdc is our Northstar at HubSpot, and it stands for solve for the customer. And it's not just a poster, it's not just what we talk about on day one of onboarding, this is how we run our company guide decisions, empower every single employee within the company to make decisions for the customer. And I'll give you an example. I mentioned this early, that when COVID hit in March 2020, we were looking at a really, really bad scenario of small medium businesses going out of business and churning. And the best way we want it to respond is by solving for the customer. And when you think about solving for the customer, at the beginning stages of the pandemic, the thing that stood really true for us is they're running out of cash, they will not be able to pay their employees. And so we got to give them breaks. And so that was the first principle. So we then designed every other pricing and policies associated with that. And we said, well, we're going to give our solutions at a deep deep discount, we're going to give them relief so that they can survive for six months, nine months a year till it takes for them to find their feet again, that was a policy that was purely from the first principle of salt for the customer. And when you know, I still remember the board meeting where we went and presented this whole series of decisions that we had made. And the board asked us this question of how are you going to recover all of this. And we said, we don't know. We're doing the right thing for the customer. We don't know. But it'll be it'll be okay. And there was this moment of silence and then complete support for that. And that is what solving for the customer looks like in terms of making decisions. And it's really I am just proud to be in an organization that takes solving for the customer. So seriously, I'm so grateful to be at HubSpot for that very specific reason.

David Novak 33:13 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Yamani in just a moment. You know, as we're talking about the power of focus today, I'm reminded of the great conversation I had with Jim Weber, CEO of Brooks running, they built a billion dollar business that's a billion dollars with a B based on one brave decision to focus on a single type of customer, focused runner.

Jim Weber 33:36 

You walk into any given category today, and there's usually a market leader. I think if you're not the lead brand, the platform in the category, you're a niche brand, which is I think the biggest choice every brand makes is who their customer focuses. You know, I'd rather win at something and dominate it be known for it credit for tried to create a successful, profitable business behind it, then be eight things to lots of different people. And being all surrounding the category. One of our biggest strengths we think is our focus.

David Novak 34:08 

It's a perfect case study and the power of focus. And you can hear the whole story in Episode 106 here on how leaders lead.

I heard that you have customers that many of the meetings that you hold even your board meetings. What's one of your more memorable experience with a customer at one of those meetings where you really uncovered something? So

Yamini Rangan 34:36 

many? I would say that our board meetings start with customer panels. Our company monthly meetings start with customer panels. The first email of the week is customer sentiment scoring so it is inbuilt into our customers. The most memorable stories are when people are champions or successful. We just had our annual customer conference about two weeks ago, in early in September, and I got to meet a few customers. And their stories were not about how many dollars they were able to save or how many leads they were able to generate. They told me stories of how they made a bet on HubSpot. And because of that, they got promoted. Because of that they bought their first home. Because of that, they have been able to really protect and drive through this macro environment. Those are the stories that make a difference. And that really brings us to what's our mission, you know, we all love having purpose in our jobs. And our purpose as an organization is to help these companies grow, help small medium, businesses grow. So every single customer conversation where we are helping someone grow, both in their career, or the company itself is deeply fulfilling.

David Novak 35:57 

You're a big believer in culture, I know this, and I learned that you treat your culture as another product. You know, I've never heard of anybody really talk about it that way. You know, what's your thinking?

Yamini Rangan 36:10 

Absolutely. I love that you are asking this question, because we take it seriously. Our first product is, of course, you know, the product that we create, and that is for our customers, and the products mission is helping millions grow. The second product that we have is our culture. And that is for our employees. And that mission there is to help hub spotters grow. So we think about, you know, two products. Let me tell you how we take it even further. The question that we have to ask ourselves is, as much as we are evolving our primary product, can we evolve our culture? And how do we make sure that we are evolving the culture, we have something called the culture code, which is online, you can go and look for HubSpot culture code, it has been downloaded something like 6 million times, and it has evolved. It's now I think, version 100. Plus, because we are constantly updating how we think about the culture. And the concepts make a ton of sense. What do you do in terms of your product? You say? What are the best features of your product? And you figure out like, what are the features that customers love the most same thing with the culture? What are the features of your culture that your employees love the most? And keep doing that? Then you ask yourself, what are the most requested features of your product and go build those things in? And it's the same thing with employees and culture, you just ask what are the most requested features of the culture, and if you pay attention to it, it becomes really obvious how you need to evolve the culture. In the last couple of years, the most requested feature, David has been flexibility. And that's why we leaned into hybrid, you know, our employees can go into work, they can stay at home, or they can go into the office like couple of days a week. And we've found that flexibility is one of the most requested features in the world that we live in. And that's now evolved into part of the culture and we want to be not just a great company that people want to work at. We want to be a great hybrid company that people want to work at. That's how we think about evolving culture, like a product.

David Novak 38:25 

That's great stuff. And you know, you as I understand it, you you actually have a program where you allow employees to work remotely in different countries for up to 90 days.

Yamini Rangan 38:36 

That's right internal mobility problem.

David Novak 38:37 

What was the genesis of that? What was your thinking behind that? Exactly,

Yamini Rangan 38:41 

this which is flexibility, the ability to be in a place a country, maybe visiting family, visiting friends, being with, you know, a loved one that deserves care needs care, that is where we started. And again, as you evolve your culture, and if you're paying close attention to what your employees are requesting on a quarterly basis, or half yearly basis, you know what is needed in order for us to support them in their jobs, but also as a person, as an individual that is working as part of HubSpot. And a lot of our programs, whether it is flexibility in terms of very work, flexibility in terms of how you get your work done, that all comes from keenly listening to our employees as much as we listen to our customers. Something else

David Novak 39:35 

I know that you're driving in your culture is focus. You know, how are you doing that?

Yamini Rangan 39:40 

It's a great question. So we talked about sfdc, which is solve for the customer. We have another leadership guiding principle, which is Fortune favors the focused. If you look at the history, and you look at a lot of companies that have been maybe at our scale and have grown They don't do it by, you know diversifying peanut butter spreading all of their resources they get from good to great by being focused on a handful that you can truly win. So one of the things that we have done is to get the leadership team together and say, what are the guiding principles that we can really focus on to help this company scale? And they came up with Fortune favors the focused. And so in the last couple of years, we have said, what are the omissions as much as we pay attention to the things that we will execute, we're paying attention to the things that we say no to, you have to be able to say no to good ideas in order for you to be able to execute great ideas. And that comes with this principle of Fortune favors the focus.

David Novak 40:48 

As a CEO, how you spend your time is so critical. Do you have any thing that you do to really get you focused on the right things? Absolutely,

Yamini Rangan 40:58 

David, here's the thought, I've always thought of my calendar as the most strategic tool. And a lot of people have different ideas about this, I think my time and my calendar is the most strategic tool, and I really prioritize what gets on that calendar. And I measure it, I'm pretty specific about it. If you look at my calendar, it is color coded. It has got every possible heuristic built in so I can measure where I spend time. And it's very clear, I need to spend time with our leadership team so that they work as a team, and they're making all the decisions in the right way. I need to spend time with our employees. So I do roundtables with frontline employees twice a month and connect with across levels within the organization, I need to spend time with partners with customers. And that is prioritizing the calendar. And I need to spend time on things that others cannot do, which is if someone else in my team can do it, they should do it. If some others in the team cannot do it, and it requires my time and energy then I want to spend time only on those. And I spend a lot of time on deep work and learning. So a good 30% of my time on the calendar is actually for deep thinking and reading. And I preserve that as much as I preserve the time for meetings. And so I think of like my time is really important. And it needs to be part of a strategic way in which I prioritize on the right set of conversations every single week.

David Novak 42:32 

You know, this has been so much fun, and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this?

Unknown Speaker 42:39 

Let's go.

David Novak 42:41 

What's one word others would use to best describe you?

Unknown Speaker 42:44 

Authentic?

David Novak 42:46 

What would you say is the one word that best describes you? high integrity?

Speaker 1 42:51 

Who would play you in a movie? Salma Hayek,

David Novak 42:55 

if you could be one person for a day besides yourself? Who would it be?

Speaker 1 43:00 

President Barack Obama. What's your biggest pet peeve? Not being on time?

David Novak 43:07 

I know you're a big reader. What's a book every leader should read?

Unknown Speaker 43:12 

Leaders eat last by Simon Sinek.

David Novak 43:15 

What's the biggest lesson you've gleaned from your regular yoga practice?

Speaker 1 43:20 

stay grounded, and stay humble.

David Novak 43:25 

If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?

Unknown Speaker 43:29 

NPR?

David Novak 43:32 

What's something about you? Few people would know.

Yamini Rangan 43:34 

I love to grow vegetables. And I like to cook a lot.

David Novak 43:41 

All right, we're out of the lightning round. Well done. That was great. Just a few more questions for you. I've read articles where you've called yourself an AI geek. Yes. Why is that?

Yamini Rangan 43:55 

I started my career as a computer engineer. And back then neural networks were a thing in computer engineering. I spent a lot of time as a computer engineer thinking about neural networks. In fact, I did, you know, research back then on neural networks, and it felt like it was too early for it to be meaningful. Now fast forward 20 years, neural networks and transformer networks is what has caused the whole generative AI wave to come into existence right now. And so I'm fascinated by this concept of thinking about brain and thinking about how computers can become that in the future. And so I spent a lot of time besides listening to NPR listening to YouTube videos on deep learning on neural networks on transformer models. It's just absolutely fascinating how quickly things have moved in the last couple of years but how long it took for it to get here. So I am totally into AI and the whole transformation that's happening right now.

David Novak 45:07 

You know, speaking of AI, tell me about Chatbot. And the biggest challenge you face as a leader getting that off the ground

Yamini Rangan 45:14 

Chatbot is absolutely fascinating. We basically took the power of HubSpot and connected it with large language model, which is Chad GPD. And we've provided a new interface. Now think about this. I've been now in application software for more than a couple of decades. And the biggest difficulty in application software is the ability for someone to get just easy answers to questions. You know, if you're if you're so good, like you should be able to get the answers from the software, but you cannot. And so chatbot for the first time provides a natural language interface into HubSpot, you can ask questions, what happened last week in terms of our pipeline? How does that compare to the previous month in terms of the pipeline? Can you just schedule this report and send it to me every Monday, that's the conversation that you can have with chat spot. And it's a game changer in terms of application software, the level of engagement that can drive and just the ease of using natural language to get more out of technology. So I'm huge on this, I would give full credit to Dharmesh, who is our other co founder in a he came up with Chatbot. In overnights and weekends, he saw how generative AI was kind of like taking off the ground, he saw the power and potential of having an interface that can just make it easy for our customers. And he created it and then we had to get everybody behind it as a company. And it's it's really taken off. It's been about six months. And we're pretty excited about where it's going in the future. You

David Novak 46:55 

know, speaking of engagement, tell us about Inbound and how that's grown.

Yamini Rangan 47:00 

Absolutely. So for those who don't know inbound is HubSpot customer conference. And we got started with this many, many years ago. And the premise for starting something like this was very simple. We want to educate and we want to help other customers prospects industry people grow before they even become our customers. And so the philosophy was much more about education and inspiration and thought leadership within this conference. And we've done that across the company. We have a whole university inside. HubSpot. It's a little known, but we call it the HubSpot Academy where we teach marketers salespeople service people how to, you know, get become great at their jobs. Inbound is the conference where they all come they exchange, you know, ideas, they are part of this community and they learn from each other. And we get so much fulfillment by looking at the community grow. And it's grown. We had this time over 12,000 attendees in Boston, attending this conference. And we had more than 100,000 participate online virtually through all of the breakout sessions as well as the spotlight sessions. And it's just become a thriving community to exchange great ideas about front office. So I love that. You know, you're

David Novak 48:26 

obviously in love with what you do. And you're thinking about this business 24/7 all the time. How do you handle all the pressure of being a CEO? And firing the balance that you obviously have? I can tell you how to balance it, there's no question about it. I know you're a mother and you have a family and you know, how does it all come together with you?

Yamini Rangan 48:50 

You just have to set an intention to stay exceptionally grounded and balanced. And I actually liked the word presents more than balanced David. Here's why. Like, you know, I have two boys. They're teens, they're 16 and 14. And in many years, it just felt like a constant struggle to balance. My role as a mom balanced my role at HubSpot balanced my role as a friend as a daughter. And it feels like a tightrope walking where I'm like going to fall every single moment. And so I really adopted this whole idea of life presents being exceptionally present in where you are. And I'll tell you a quick story. I took my son on a field trip at his school when he was about fourth grade. And it was also end of quarter. So I spent most of the time in the field trip, holding my years and being on the phone the entire time. And I was proud of myself. I said I balanced everything. You know, it's the end of the quarter, but I'm still there for my son. And I came back that evening and asked him that was great, right? You know, I was there with you. And he said mom, you were not out there. You were there physically, but you were on the phone that entire time. And it was this moment, that moment where I said, it's not about balance, it's about presence, I was absolutely not present. And the fourth grader that he was pointed out very clearly that I was not present. So now, I think about being present in every conversation, whether there's this conversation, or the time I spend every night with my two sons, it's only 30 minutes, maybe with them individually, but I'm there. I have no other electronics. I'm not, you know, a CEO. I'm just a mom listening to a team complain about what teens complain about. And that has helped me in a stay in the moment. It's

David Novak 50:41 

interesting, because one of the concepts that we really tried to drive deep in the yum brands was be here now. Yes, you know, and I think that's exactly what you're talking about. One last question here for you. And I'll let you let you go be present with whatever the next thing is on your agenda. What's the single best advice you can give to aspiring leaders, I

Yamini Rangan 51:02 

would say, be authentic and stand out. That would be the single best advice that I would give, especially maybe other women who are looking to break through other underrepresented minorities, embrace your strength, and just stand out, don't be afraid of standing out. And when you do that, consistently, people will really appreciate you for who you are.

David Novak 51:28 

Well, Yamini, I really enjoyed this conversation and really congratulate you on how you're thinking through your business, centering around the customer and your people and, you know, generating all kinds of innovation. So, congratulations, well done. It's such

Unknown Speaker 51:47 

a pleasure.

Yamini Rangan 51:48 

I listened to your podcast, I've learned so much from you. And I look forward to meeting you in person one day. But thank you so much for having me join you. And thank you for what you do for leaders in the world.

David Novak 52:12 

Well, Yamini has to be one of the most dynamic leaders around I'm so energized just by talking to her. I love her enthusiasm, her bravery and how she's just as comfortable leaning into her strengths as she is opening up about her vulnerabilities. But you know, what I really want to focus on is her sense of focus is Yamini points out, getting focused on what really matters means letting go of what doesn't. So this week, here's what I want you to do. Take a look at what's on your plate and ask yourself, what really, really matters. What can we put more process and discipline around that will really drive the needle, and then drop the things that really don't matter that much. I guarantee if you go through that discipline, you'll be working on the things that will have the biggest impact on your business. And that's really what you want. So do you want to know how leaders lead? Well, we learned today is the great leaders know that fortune favors the focused. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Jim Levine, a world renowned literary agent that's had something to do with many, many of the books you've read, including a couple of mine.

Jim Levine 53:29 

We have a set of guiding principles, and we say our mission, our goal is to ignite talent. That's what it's all about for us. You know, that's not just for our clients. It's really for everybody who shows up at work. It's like every day, everybody shows up with a sense that working together, each person is going to become better at it. You know, just by being together. I am so much better in doing what I do when I have a team of people that I'm working with.

David Novak 53:59 

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen and while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be