Latest / The Curve / RTC112: The first woman to list on the NASDAQ: Linda Jenkinson AKA an icon.

Transcript

RTC112: The first woman to list on the NASDAQ: Linda Jenkinson AKA an icon. · The Curve

0:00
Welcome to Raising the Curth, a podcast designed to teach you everything you need to know
0:05
to be better with your money.
0:07
And the wise words of Amy Shurma were slipping carrots into the brownie recipe.
0:11
I don't really get the saying.
0:13
It's kind of like eating vegetables that actually taste good.
0:17
You know, I'm like, I'm still not working on it.
0:19
Are you on the script?
0:20
It's basically like saying, investing in finance can be boring, but it totally doesn't
0:26
need to be.
0:27
OK, OK, so we're making it fun by putting the carrot.
0:31
OK, the vegetables are good for you.
0:33
It's the brownie recipe.
0:34
OK, we got there, we got there.
0:36
OK, OK.
0:36
Well, you've really got a finance brain.
0:38
Yeah, one of us has to.
0:40
This is true.
0:41
OK, come and learn alongside me from Vick Harris, ex-fun manager,
0:45
where I'm going to ask all the questions that you wish you could.
0:48
And I'm going to be eating all the brownie you wish you could.
0:50
No, that's so not the joke, Vick.
0:53
Oh, OK, just come and talk and learn and laugh with us.
0:56
Because together, we really can raise the curve.
1:01
I feel quite honored to have this guest on the podcast.
1:05
She was amazing.
1:06
Yeah, it was funny.
1:07
When our guest booker sends us like a link to who we're talking to,
1:10
because we obviously like, we get emails from her being like,
1:12
what do you think of this person, this person?
1:13
And when we saw all of the notes that she'd written
1:16
and the research on this particular person,
1:18
I mean, both of us were really excited.
1:20
I was like, she wants to talk to us.
1:22
Wow.
1:23
She's more so.
1:24
She was like, oh, my gosh.
1:26
No, don't realize this is such a big deal.
1:27
She is.
1:29
She was the first female to list a public company on the NASDAQ,
1:34
not the first New Zealand woman, the first woman ever
1:38
to list a company on the NASDAQ.
1:39
It's pretty amazing.
1:40
That's pretty amazing.
1:41
And we had her in a podcast.
1:43
Yes, he's the excited.
1:43
I know, sorry.
1:44
No, I am.
1:45
I was really excited.
1:46
It was more just the fact I think that if you've worked in investing,
1:49
I like you have for a long time.
1:50
The idea of a listed company, which if anyone doesn't know that is,
1:53
it basically means it's a public company.
1:55
So it's one that you can invest in.
1:57
So it's like, you could Google their stocks.
1:59
And it would be like, Google share is $3.50 today.
2:03
Oh, my God, imagine if it was that cheap.
2:05
But she basically took a private company.
2:08
So she grew this giant company and then got it to the point
2:11
where we could all invest in it, basically.
2:12
She was the first one to do that ever.
2:14
So if I think working in the industry for you,
2:17
you're like, whoa, you know how much work
2:20
and how amazing she must be to actually be able to do something like that.
2:25
And particularly back in the 90s,
2:26
when there was far less woman in the finance industry,
2:29
and like the glass ceiling she had to break,
2:31
the shit she had to put up with as well,
2:33
like I thought it was bad today.
2:35
Like some of the stories she goes into,
2:37
I'm just like, wow, did that feel awful?
2:40
Absolutely, it's awful.
2:42
So.
2:42
And even the fact that she's not even telling a story
2:45
about her great, great, great, great mother,
2:46
this has literally happened.
2:48
Yeah, it just felt quite archaic, didn't it?
2:51
Yes, yeah, it was crazy.
2:52
But anyway, she was inspiring.
2:54
I think the thing that I love the most
2:56
is she spoke about her growing up in New Zealand,
2:59
she spoke about her dad who was an entrepreneur
3:01
and how she just basically wanted to be a better entrepreneur than him
3:04
and how she kind of gamifies her life.
3:06
So when she's been in these really intense, hard situations,
3:10
what she does to get through it is pretty inspiring.
3:13
Her whole, we were both just like quite a few times
3:15
throughout the whole chat.
3:16
We were just like, steer at the screen
3:18
and kind of not really respond.
3:19
I had to lift our jaws up all over the ground.
3:21
Yeah, but you're going to love this one
3:24
and we're going to stop round blanks
3:25
so you can actually listen to it now.
3:27
It was funny just off mic before we talked about how
3:31
we always get bios wrong and people introduce you
3:34
and they're like, they're reading off a resume.
3:35
And anyway, can I just clarify?
3:37
When she said, we always get it wrong.
3:39
I'm sorry, not we.
3:40
We don't always get it wrong.
3:42
In interviews, people have done their research
3:44
and they're like, and we're bringing in Linda Jenkinson
3:48
and then they always muck it up
3:49
and they've got their information wrong.
3:51
So it wasn't that we're completely offending this,
3:53
I just need to prove it.
3:54
But we're super excited to have you here
3:55
and we want to start with, I mean,
3:58
we've got so much to talk about in this podcast,
3:59
but I want to start with the juicy stuff.
4:02
Well, juicy for me.
4:04
You were the first woman to list a company
4:06
on the nesting stock exchange.
4:08
Moment, moment, yeah.
4:10
Round of applause, round of applause.
4:12
At select, sorry, I know that might sound condescending
4:14
but like, that is iconic.
4:16
I just want to say it again.
4:17
The first woman to list a company
4:19
on the nesting stock exchange.
4:21
And she's on our podcast.
4:22
I'm like, wow, have we, and she's a Kiwi.
4:24
And she's a Kiwi, wow.
4:26
Like so amazing.
4:28
Can we just focus on this for a second?
4:31
What was it like?
4:32
Why within, I guess we kind of know the answer
4:35
but why would there so no woman beforehand?
4:38
And what does the nesting kind of look like now for you?
4:42
Well, it's interesting, you know, at the time,
4:45
I didn't know that no woman CEOs had listed.
4:49
There would have been a couple who were scientists
4:53
or whatever.
4:53
It was sort of like it's a typical Kiwi approach, you know?
4:57
We decided that we couldn't, back in those days,
5:01
venture capital was very focused on hardware
5:04
and we were doing a service tech business
5:06
which now is very common to get funding.
5:11
And so the only place that we could go at the time
5:14
was the public markets.
5:16
So I had no idea, just more of, we decided
5:18
that's what we were doing and we did it.
5:21
And yeah, I noticed, you know, like when I was pitching
5:25
to investors, they'd say, well,
5:26
woman can't be CEOs on the next deck.
5:28
And I'm like, well, why not?
5:31
No.
5:32
Now, the guy actually, the investor
5:34
who put the biggest amount in his opening comment to me
5:37
was to throw a report on the boardroom table
5:40
and we were going to pitch and say, you know,
5:43
woman can't be CEOs, why should I back you?
5:46
And yeah, sorry, how long ago was this?
5:49
So I listed in 98.
5:52
So, 98, so that's 25 years ago.
5:56
That is not long.
5:57
It's not a, like in this scheme of things
5:59
in terms of thinking that that was the reaction
6:01
that you were having to, I reckon many people would have
6:05
the courage to like push through that kind of, you know,
6:08
if someone said that to me, I would have to be so,
6:12
believe so deeply in what I was doing
6:15
to have the confidence to be like, you know what,
6:17
actually shut up and listen to my pitch
6:20
because a lot of people would start to believe it.
6:22
You'd be like, oh, well, maybe, maybe I'm not appropriate.
6:24
Maybe I am not viable for CEO.
6:27
There's a reason why.
6:28
So up to today, there's only 46 women CEOs
6:33
who have listed on the next deck in that 25 years.
6:36
And so what you're saying, it's true.
6:40
So there's been more than seven and a half thousand men
6:43
and less than 50 women.
6:45
It couldn't be just that quickly.
6:46
I've got the, I keep the list.
6:48
So maybe we're just at right at that number now.
6:50
And it's for me because I, everything I did was,
6:53
I was breaking the glass ceiling.
6:55
So I was used to being the only woman.
6:58
And so, you know, when I come up,
7:00
I was a high, off a farm in New Zealand,
7:03
you know, very independent.
7:05
So for me, that was my, I was used to that.
7:08
And I just took that as a challenge.
7:10
But even now, I'm still breaking the glass ceiling.
7:14
You know, I'm now chairing public companies.
7:16
And I still have that sort of challenge on a weekly basis.
7:20
Really used, even though you've,
7:22
even though you've listed a company on the next deck,
7:23
you still find people underestimate your abilities every week.
7:28
And it's interesting because I've had it my whole life.
7:32
But in some ways, now I do find it tiring
7:35
because I said,
7:35
if some days I feel a bit demoralized,
7:37
that it hasn't changed.
7:39
But then I know that it has because, you know,
7:41
when I was in my 20s,
7:43
like I was the first woman that was hired
7:46
into Price Waterhouse on the management track.
7:50
And so back then, there were no woman,
7:52
you know, and it was when I was, you know,
7:53
was I 22, you know, 21.
7:57
So, you know, I know now that that's changed dramatically.
8:00
But if you, and this is why, you know,
8:02
if you go and look at the boardrooms,
8:04
how many women chairs are there,
8:06
we've only just surpassed the statistics on the SAP 500
8:10
that there's now more women CEOs than men named John,
8:15
who are CEO on the, I mean,
8:17
so if you look at the very top of the funnel,
8:21
that glass ceiling is only breaking now.
8:24
And like I've got a lot of girlfriend colleagues
8:27
who look at me and say,
8:29
why are you doing this chair thing?
8:31
Aren't you sick of breaking the glass ceiling?
8:33
And I'm like, well, you know,
8:36
hey, if I'm not going to do it, who is?
8:37
So you just got to keep on going.
8:40
But to me, the thing that I find is that, you know,
8:43
women are very socialized, not to do this,
8:46
not to make the change,
8:48
not to take charge of their money.
8:51
And they don't even realize it.
8:52
I just even watch, you know,
8:54
the evolution of my son and my daughter.
8:56
And my daughter is very, very strong
8:58
and powerful young woman.
9:00
And she can see it because she sees the difference
9:03
of how society socializes the two of them.
9:05
And I do a huge amount of mentoring.
9:07
I've been supporting women for years.
9:10
And part of it is to say, you know,
9:13
the point you are making, trust yourself.
9:15
Don't listen to all the signals.
9:17
You know, all the women in my family
9:19
always control the money in the family.
9:20
I think that's part of it.
9:22
That control of finances, that control of outcome.
9:26
But I basically don't listen to the noise
9:29
because it is overwhelming still.
9:31
I don't not to be demoralizing or anything.
9:32
But yeah, it's, you know,
9:34
it's, I just find it incredible that women
9:38
are always looking outside of themselves as opposed to me.
9:42
I'm like, my parents very much,
9:44
yeah, I was very much an outsider,
9:48
you know, I was never good at sport or anything like that.
9:51
But they always had full confidence that I could do whatever
9:55
I wanted to do.
9:56
So I did.
9:56
And I just, when people told me I couldn't do it,
9:59
my view on that was, well, life's a game.
10:02
And I'm just going to demonstrate that you're completely wrong,
10:05
no matter what it takes.
10:06
And that's why I've done all these crazy things.
10:09
It can either do them, you know?
10:11
I have so many kids.
10:12
I'm so many kids.
10:13
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, don't talk,
10:16
it's my turn.
10:17
I'm like, no, but I just want to say quickly,
10:19
I don't know if on this podcast,
10:21
we have ever spoken to someone that has like,
10:24
almost in the first three minutes,
10:26
bought tears to my eyes.
10:27
And I don't, I know I hope it doesn't sound like really like cringy,
10:31
but I feel really proud to have even like,
10:35
met or talked to you.
10:36
Like I think there's, I don't know,
10:39
a lot of people have said really lovely things about what
10:42
we're doing with the curve.
10:44
And I don't feel like we're being very brave, you know?
10:46
It just feels like something that we're just doing
10:49
because we love enjoying it.
10:51
And we love it.
10:52
And like, you know, there's that.
10:53
But then I just can't even imagine,
10:57
and I don't know, I'm sure you've had this reflected
10:58
you so much throughout your life,
11:00
but maybe it doesn't sink in because when people say that to me,
11:03
I'm just like, I think nothing of it.
11:05
But just as a total outside perspective,
11:08
what you've achieved and your attitude
11:11
and the way in which you're paving the way for other people
11:14
to feel like that's a space for them too,
11:16
is like, incredibly inspiring.
11:18
I agree.
11:19
I just want to say thank you.
11:20
And all those other women behind you
11:22
who have now listed companies on the NASDAQ, you know?
11:26
Like whether they could or couldn't have done it without you,
11:28
but you've just made it so much easier
11:31
and being that first lady and that pioneer
11:34
and the fact that you're a Kiwi, I'm just like, yeah, yeah.
11:37
Yeah.
11:38
Yeah.
11:39
Go ask, go Kiwi.
11:42
Also, you mentioned that you grew up on a farm in New Zealand.
11:47
Can you talk to your upbringing and, you know,
11:51
when we were researching some of your background
11:53
and how you just sort of ended up doing all these amazing things?
11:57
We were like, oh, she must have come from, you know,
11:59
a big lineage of entrepreneurs
12:01
or people that were ex-wise here.
12:03
And I was quite interested to find out
12:05
that am I right thinking you were one of the only people
12:08
in your family that continued schooling
12:10
or higher education after 15?
12:13
So my dad was an entrepreneur.
12:15
But in my family, at the time, no one had gone
12:18
to school past the age of 15.
12:20
So my mother did school see, but that was it.
12:23
And I come from a highly competitive family.
12:27
So my, all of my father and my brothers,
12:29
my mother are very good at sport.
12:31
My father and brothers that will class level
12:34
and I'm a complete uncle.
12:36
And so my grandmother taught me how to play poker
12:39
and so I love games.
12:42
So I beat everybody in the family and every game.
12:45
I know they won't play with me anymore
12:47
because they think I'm cheating, it's their story.
12:50
But then when I was like 16, I got this idea
12:53
that I wanted to beat my father.
12:55
And the only way I could beat him was
12:57
he built all these little $2 million company.
12:59
So between 10 and 20, he started like 15 things.
13:03
And a broad range of sectors from,
13:06
like the funniest one is he figured out
13:08
there was arbitrage between cows in Japan and New Zealand.
13:11
So he'd got a Japan by the second hand cars,
13:14
cut them in half, import them as ports,
13:16
parts and weld them back together.
13:18
So I had a really cool car.
13:19
Oh my goodness.
13:21
This is very entrepreneurial.
13:22
So we had farms, restaurants, panel beating,
13:27
horse floats, horse breeding, delicatisms.
13:30
We had property business, commercial,
13:33
we were state development farms.
13:35
We had restaurants and motels
13:37
and we had the whole car business.
13:39
So he had three parts of the empire.
13:41
And I worked with my dad across the
13:44
instance, the age of about 10.
13:46
And so I decided when I was 16,
13:49
that I was going to figure out
13:50
how to build bigger companies than dad.
13:52
And so that's what took me on a quest.
13:54
So I've seen my life as a quest.
13:57
And I achieved that quest.
14:00
Yeah, and then I just keep on going.
14:01
I keep going around circle.
14:05
And so the business that you founded
14:07
and subsequently listed on the next step
14:09
was that your first business that you had founded or created?
14:13
Well, I was always doing deals, you know,
14:17
from a very young age.
14:19
But that was the first real business, I'd say.
14:23
You know, like things like buy houses
14:25
and do the map and cars and all different things.
14:28
But yeah, we started that in my 20s
14:31
and Wellington New Zealand actually on Oriental Parade
14:35
when I was 29, 29 years old.
14:39
So in my 20s.
14:40
But back in those days, people really didn't do that.
14:42
But because I was on a quest, it's, you know,
14:46
we did that because there really wasn't enough.
14:48
There was zero entrepreneurial scene in New Zealand
14:50
until after 2000, you know.
14:53
And so firstly, what is that guy up to now
14:56
that said that female CEOs cannot?
14:58
Oh my God, we actually never even got to that.
15:00
He put things down on the table.
15:01
I would love to know he's up to now.
15:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what happened?
15:05
So you then put, we were, we were having a IPO market,
15:09
you know, as you know, because you're a lady's of money
15:11
or woman of money, the windows open, the window closes, right?
15:15
So the window wasn't quite open
15:18
and we were having a really hard time
15:20
getting people committed to supporting our IPO.
15:23
So when you do an IPO, you have to go out there
15:25
and you have to sell get orders for twice the number
15:28
of shares that you want to buy
15:30
to know that your IPO can float.
15:33
And so we were about three or four days out
15:36
from when we were supposed to list
15:37
and we only had 50% of the orders
15:40
and we needed 200% of the orders.
15:43
And so we were in New York,
15:45
we'd met these guys once before
15:47
and we came in and the Skype, you know,
15:49
through the report on the desk and said,
15:52
gosh, woman CEOs, why would I invest in some in a woman,
15:56
you know, research shows that you're not strong on this.
15:59
And basically, we didn't spend three hours.
16:04
And you know, I had had this little accident six weeks before
16:07
I got flipped by a taxi in London
16:09
and broke my back in three places.
16:11
And so I said, and just a little accident.
16:15
Like a little accident, obviously.
16:16
Yeah.
16:17
And my annex had been cut off
16:20
but about 125,000 were completely out of money
16:23
because we put everything into doing the listing.
16:27
So there I was, I had nobody left.
16:29
We'd put everything in.
16:31
And these guys are saying, you know,
16:33
it's pretty unlikely at that point.
16:35
So we basically just went to war with the sky,
16:38
threw it all on the table
16:39
and walked out, we were, you know,
16:41
we'd down like the 27 floors.
16:44
We're sitting there talking to our bankers saying,
16:46
well, gosh, who else can we talk to?
16:48
What are we gonna do?
16:50
And this guy walked out of the elevator
16:51
and he had this little red tie
16:53
and he walked over to me and he put his arm around to me
16:55
and he said, good job.
16:58
We just put an order in for the whole book
16:59
and we listed the next day.
17:02
So he was being discursive.
17:05
He was trying to figure out how I react under pressure
17:08
and really, really, you know, understand what my metal was.
17:13
And so I often find that people that you consider,
17:17
you know, giving you a hard time,
17:18
are actually people who are very discerning
17:20
and are really trying to push you to understand,
17:23
you know, what the opportunity is.
17:25
So yeah, so he made it, yeah.
17:29
I do agree though, that sometimes when people challenge you
17:33
or say you can't do something,
17:35
well, personally for me, that just makes me want to do it
17:37
even more.
17:38
I don't know, you want to know what's going to happen
17:40
if you do it because someone says that you can't.
17:42
It's kind of gives you fire in your belly.
17:44
And I know it's happened to sofa and I once.
17:47
We were, there's a bank in New Zealand
17:48
that we tried to open a bank account
17:50
like when we first started the curve
17:52
and they were like, oh no, your business is too risky
17:54
and anyway, I won't name the bank.
17:56
But then I think it was about a year later
17:58
they came back and wanted to do a campaign with us,
18:01
an educational campaign.
18:02
And I just sat there and I was like, you know what,
18:04
I left that bank going, I'm going to show you,
18:07
you're going to want, you're going to want my millions
18:09
of of savings and it was tiny.
18:13
But it's like that tiny thing that you're like, you know what,
18:15
I'm going to show you and it, yeah,
18:17
it doesn't make you kind of dig your heels in and do well.
18:20
Yeah, 100%.
18:22
Linda, do you remember in that meeting
18:24
when he was like, why would I do this?
18:27
Do you remember what kind of energy you channeled
18:30
or how you remained composed and eloquent
18:35
and communicated in a way that you weren't thrown off
18:39
by that hostility?
18:41
Because I think a lot of us and, you know,
18:44
there might be like 1% that can not fight back
18:47
but that can hold their own in that situation.
18:50
And for those who really want to but maybe need
18:54
a bit of inspiration, do you remember like what you kind
18:56
of managed to drag up in that moment
18:58
that held you through that conversation?
19:00
So I don't know if you were familiar with martial arts
19:03
but my father was a Japanese judo black belt
19:07
and the whole concept behind judo is you take the flow
19:10
of somebody else's perceived aggression
19:14
and you, it's like the reverse, you take that energy
19:17
and then you take it back to them.
19:19
And so because I was brought up in that environment,
19:23
one of my gifts is I can contemporaneously think and debate.
19:30
And I'm not, if someone is aggressive to me,
19:33
that's my natural thing to do is to take that and reverse it
19:38
because I see that as a game and as fun and as a way of winning.
19:42
So it might be self and, you know, I'm not 80% at the time,
19:46
I do this and 20% of the time, you know,
19:48
there's a button that gets pushed.
19:49
But 80% of the time I see it more as an opportunity
19:53
because I've learned that, you know, people who are very easy,
19:58
typically they're like that with everyone
20:00
and you don't typically make progress with them, right?
20:03
So me, I look at like a game.
20:06
I look at like, okay, let me take that and use it
20:09
as a real point of engagement.
20:11
I don't take it personally and I find that the abstracting
20:16
is that a game enables you not to be personal
20:19
and then it's just a game.
20:21
And I think that's one of the challenges
20:24
with a lot of women is that they've been socialized
20:26
to see their aggression as something that they don't lean into.
20:30
And for me, I do the opposite.
20:32
And so, first thing, awesome, I'm gonna start as a judo.
20:36
Yeah, I know it's a name.
20:37
I'm like, need to start judo.
20:38
I like to do curved judo sessions.
20:41
Is it judo?
20:41
It's not judo, it's a different judo.
20:43
Yeah, and judo is called the judo asset.
20:46
So yeah, so it's quite interesting.
20:48
And so then if we were to then zoom out
20:51
and look at all of the, as you mentioned at the beginning
20:53
of this conversation, the glass ceilings
20:55
that you're continuously finding yourself
20:57
having to walk into and break.
21:00
And that, you know, friends saying to you,
21:01
why can you be bothered still?
21:03
Where does that continuous motivation
21:07
to step back in the ring or step back in and break another one?
21:11
How do you not get exhausted or frustrated
21:14
with the way in which society is built
21:16
to not help you ease into business
21:20
or ease into an IPO or ease into whatever it is?
21:24
Like, why is there not that bitterness
21:26
and like, how has that been something
21:28
that's kind of, I don't know, remained constant
21:31
because fear to still be, you know, 30 years through your career
21:34
and not exhausted by that constant energy in itself is amazing.
21:39
I mean, we're only 30, I'm 32 and I'm still like,
21:41
good Lord.
21:42
How much?
21:43
I'm like, I feel like you've got the gender pay
21:44
at one more time.
21:46
You start speeding you down.
21:47
It starts getting you down.
21:47
You're like, oh, we're not making any progress
21:49
or you know, you're just like, what?
21:50
200 years close to get the, I'm just like, good Lord.
21:56
I think there's, there's a few different questions in that
21:58
because I do get demoralized sometimes
22:01
and really I think what the hell, why am I doing this?
22:05
But you do look at people and especially as you
22:08
sort of have more experience and you see people,
22:11
a lot of people let that baggage overwhelm them
22:14
and I go through a very structured process
22:18
of allowing the experiences and the emotion to pass through me
22:23
and using it as a way to transform into something new
22:27
and stronger and different.
22:28
So I'm always rebuilding myself.
22:32
It's sort of like, I love Steve Jobs quote, you know,
22:35
if you look in the rear vision mirror and connect the dots.
22:38
So I always have this belief that even though something,
22:42
I could be in a very challenging situation
22:44
that that is actually equipping me for the future.
22:47
And so as opposed to looking at like as a negative
22:50
or relating to it that way, if you think about a game,
22:53
it's like I'm been given a weapon or a tool.
22:55
I just don't know what to use it for yet.
22:58
And I, and I have sabbaticals, I have practices
23:03
that I use to evolve through these experiences.
23:10
And there's something that one of my old mentors said to me
23:13
is that you have it as you want it
23:16
and short-term game, long-term pain,
23:19
short-term pain, long-term game.
23:21
So how do you take that pain and say, okay,
23:24
is it me, how do I level up?
23:26
What a white, what skill do I need?
23:28
How what's the strategy that I need to deal with that?
23:31
And that's part of the reason why I keep evolving
23:34
because that's part of what I do.
23:36
And so the challenge for me, why do I keep going
23:38
because I get such a kick out of when I do make a difference?
23:43
Because in your years, like I say,
23:46
when I was your guy's age,
23:48
I was like the third revenue partner at ATKANI, right?
23:53
When I did my Maryland summer internship,
23:56
there were three women and 157 guys.
23:59
So things are really changing.
24:02
And they do change on the metaside
24:04
and it's everybody making their contribution.
24:07
The thing I do find immoralizing
24:09
is more of just that women don't see the impact
24:13
of their own socialization.
24:14
So you know, you've heard about the analogy of
24:16
if you put a frog in water and heat up the water,
24:20
they don't notice that it's boiling.
24:22
And because it's so endemic in terms of the messages
24:27
that are coming to women.
24:28
And for me, I was in my childhood,
24:33
I had a very strong mother and a father
24:36
and we were all real contributors.
24:39
So I never saw myself like that,
24:41
but I realized that I'm one of very small percentage
24:45
and I don't listen to,
24:47
I recognize that there's all these signals
24:51
that are trying to condition me to be like this.
24:54
And I'm not like that.
24:56
And society doesn't necessarily like that
25:00
and there's a lot of pressure on that,
25:01
but that's where I think that's the ultimate glass ceiling
25:05
is that women waking up to what that means.
25:08
Now, I've got a, and not to say
25:11
that having a husband and kids means you're a woman,
25:13
but I haven't, I have a full family,
25:16
I have a full feminine life as well as my career life,
25:20
as well as my financial world, right?
25:24
I, yeah, so it's, and that's my decision, right?
25:29
I don't know if anybody else make that decision for me.
25:33
It's interesting.
25:34
It's so interesting.
25:35
Oh my God, I bet I know what you're gonna say.
25:36
You go over it.
25:37
It's so interesting that you said
25:38
you have a feminine life and a more masculine energy
25:43
in your career because I feel exactly the same
25:46
and it's definitely been something I've noticed
25:49
in previous relationships is I carry that masculine energy
25:52
from my workplace, from the finance industry
25:56
into my relationships and it's really hard.
26:00
I find it quite difficult to become feminine in my personal life
26:06
and in those relationships and when I'm at home
26:09
and all of that and then I feel like I'm constantly changing
26:13
into this more masculine role and in this more feminine role
26:16
and it's, yeah, it's really, it's been something that I've noticed
26:20
myself and that I'm trying to, I guess, improve
26:25
and focus on a bit more.
26:27
But yeah, I think when you are surrounded
26:29
by a lot of masculine energy and then you've got society
26:32
also on top of that, which to be honest,
26:35
I didn't even notice until we started doing the curve.
26:37
How ingrained little things are in society
26:42
and like you said, how it adds up and adds up
26:44
and adds up to women feeling like, you know, they can't.
26:48
They need to be masculine in order to speak to this
26:50
when I work in the business environment
26:52
because I would say Vic and just to reflect what she's saying
26:55
as someone who works with her, like I'm very much the opposite.
26:59
I would say in terms of like I really try
27:02
because for me creativity is feminine energy
27:05
and so my, the way I work is probably more with a feminine
27:11
edger as Vic has worked with men
27:13
and been surrounded by men for so long that that's all she knows.
27:16
And so it's kind of an interesting concept,
27:18
even the fact that you have a family
27:20
and have been able to lean into that, you know,
27:24
while also being incredibly successful
27:26
from a business perspective.
27:28
I don't know, maybe you have something to say around
27:30
the way in which you approach business
27:33
is that different to how traditionally women
27:37
have been told they have to be in business.
27:40
Was it hard to balance family and work?
27:42
Yeah, well, so it's interesting
27:44
because balance is an interesting word
27:45
because I said it's, you know,
27:47
it is masculine, a feminine energy.
27:49
And if you think about like a sorcerer or sorceress,
27:53
it's like balancing that in different ways
27:55
and using that in really different ways.
27:57
Like my husband is incredibly nurturing.
27:59
He's got some fabulous feminine energy
28:01
but he's also very masculine.
28:03
I sort of see myself as the same.
28:05
You know, I've got really masculine,
28:07
and I use the different energy
28:09
because I'm also, you know, like when I was at school
28:11
I was told you can't do art.
28:13
And I do, I'm really good at math.
28:15
Actually, I'm incredibly creative too
28:17
and I've only come into my creativity later in life
28:19
because I was told, well, you can't do that.
28:22
You can't do this.
28:23
You can't do that.
28:24
Exactly.
28:25
And so many people, especially women are like that, you know?
28:28
And then in terms of balance, I don't,
28:31
so this is women are wired to be multidimensional,
28:34
men are wild to be single.
28:36
Now that's generalist, that's generalizing.
28:39
But for me, I can do five things at the same time.
28:42
I can watch the kids, I can work on my computer,
28:44
I can watch the TV, I can notice this.
28:47
And so I use that as a superpower in business, right?
28:50
Because, and I can focus on multiple things at the same time.
28:53
Now, if you listen to the male view of life
28:56
where you have to focus on one thing,
28:58
well, that's just not me, I'm feminine.
29:00
I know I use that as a way of getting a big hyperproductive
29:05
so that, and I made the decision,
29:07
I'm very focused on my family, my kids, my friends.
29:12
And I say, I live intensely, I work intensely,
29:17
and I'm intense with my family and friends, you know?
29:21
And honestly, if I spend too much time with my husband,
29:24
he encourages me to do more work
29:26
because he wants me to focus on something else, you know?
29:28
It's same with my kids, right?
29:30
Well, like my daughter's like, she'll come up to me
29:32
and she literally knows to get my attention.
29:34
She's gonna go like this because I'm so intensely focused
29:37
on what I do.
29:38
So I just think life's for living
29:41
and you define what is enough, you know?
29:45
There's an old Buddha saying,
29:46
you have a glass full of water,
29:47
you put an egg in it overflows, you have an empty glass,
29:50
you put an egg in it, you fill it with water.
29:52
So I very deliberately decide what my eggs are
29:57
and I structure my life around that
29:59
and I don't believe in what people tell me
30:02
I have to trade off.
30:03
I decide what I'm gonna trade off.
30:06
And do you feel like when you are in that intense work modes
30:11
when you're in your senior leadership roles,
30:14
when you were at the company that you're listed on the network?
30:16
Did you find that your leadership style was unique
30:20
because you were a woman or do you think that helps
30:23
in any sense in terms of leaning into that more
30:26
feminine leadership style?
30:28
It's interesting, isn't it?
30:29
Because you know, I had quite a few co-founders
30:31
and then actually the company,
30:33
setting the next company I built,
30:35
my business partner, he was a lot more feminine
30:37
and I was more driving.
30:39
I find that I take different roles in different places
30:42
and I had, I went up for partner
30:44
and didn't make partner the first time around.
30:46
You know, there were four of us,
30:48
three guys of me, I sold like 20 million,
30:51
the next guy, three, the next guy, 600,000,
30:53
the next guy, nothing, they all made partner,
30:55
I didn't, because I wasn't driving enough.
30:58
And I was offered this coach,
31:01
what do you mean, sorry, not driving
31:02
enough, as you weren't in your kind of like
31:05
masculine driving energy enough?
31:07
Is that what you mean?
31:09
Well, I flipped my hair when I was told I can't.
31:13
Wow.
31:15
I'm surprised.
31:16
It's another whole story.
31:17
I'm so surprised.
31:18
People like this exist in the world.
31:20
I am just, please can I hear the story before we continue?
31:23
Like I've got to hear this story.
31:24
Can you just quickly tell us?
31:25
So I was in the US working with a big strategy consulting firm
31:30
and I was in the partner track
31:32
and we sold this huge project,
31:34
we restructured Bank of America.
31:36
And there were, we lived on the CEO floor
31:39
that we all had a desk on the CEO floor for the two years.
31:43
And one of the more mature partners came to see us
31:48
and the CEO of Bank of America called me into his room
31:51
and he said, if he crosses the door of this building again,
31:55
we can, you know, it just can't happen.
31:58
And so I was the one that sort of had to say,
32:01
actually there is an role for you in this.
32:03
And he was in the partner selection committee.
32:06
So I didn't really understand.
32:08
I had a view then that if you did a good job
32:11
and if you produce results, you would get promoted.
32:14
And basically that he didn't feel comfortable with me
32:19
because I did that, you know,
32:20
because in the way that I did that, delivered that message.
32:25
So I didn't make partner.
32:27
Even though we had, and I was told that I worked too hard
32:33
that I was too driven, but I wasn't confident.
32:37
So it's basically the whole thing about, you know,
32:40
when you're joining a partnership,
32:42
they didn't feel comfortable.
32:43
And so they offered me leadership development.
32:47
And so I took it.
32:49
And I remember it was really, really insightful,
32:53
really incredible guy in Dallas, Texas.
32:55
I went in to be in a day with two days with him a month.
32:58
And one of the really early comments he made to me was,
33:01
look, I see this with, you know,
33:03
senior woman like me were just starting to break into that level.
33:06
And he said, you know, woman, because you've had to work
33:09
twice as hard as the guys
33:11
and you've had to deliver so much more to be at the table
33:15
that you haven't really developed your political leadership skills
33:19
because there weren't really any woman ahead of me.
33:22
And he basically said, you know,
33:23
so you've got one strategy,
33:25
but if you look at really great leaders,
33:26
they'll look at what outcome they want,
33:28
they'll assess the strategy they use
33:30
and it's five or six key strategies.
33:33
And then you do that.
33:34
And so that was the beginning of what I would call
33:37
my leadership development,
33:38
which was sort of in my early firties.
33:40
And that was a gift, you know,
33:42
how I said before about hard experiences.
33:44
If I hadn't had that leadership development,
33:46
I made part in a six months later
33:50
and I quit the same day.
33:52
Oh, my God, I love that.
33:54
Oh, that is so weird.
33:56
There's nothing more fun here than that.
33:58
Yeah.
33:59
But I used it.
34:01
I always refused to not get to the goal.
34:04
And I used it as a massive learning experience,
34:07
which then shaped my ability to be a, you know,
34:11
I don't think I was a great CEO.
34:13
I think I was a good CEO
34:15
because I just had so much to learn
34:17
because it was nothing ahead of me.
34:19
Can we revert back now?
34:20
Sorry.
34:21
So I fully derailed your entire conversation
34:24
because I wanted to get that story, sorry, my bad.
34:26
But I just want to say with all of that,
34:27
even the tips that he was giving you,
34:29
it's very like, this is what men have.
34:31
You need to be, to be that in order to succeed
34:34
was kind of what I was getting from what you were saying.
34:36
You need to have all these things that men have
34:39
in order to be a good leader.
34:40
And it's like, hang on a second.
34:42
Who's defining that a good leader is a male?
34:46
Do you know what I mean?
34:48
That's what needs to be reconstructed is,
34:51
what are the qualities of a good leader,
34:53
indifferent of their sex or their gender or anything?
34:57
Yeah, well, I think part of it is,
34:58
so you're absolutely right.
35:00
For me, I always see everything as a game.
35:04
And so I want to understand what rules they're playing by
35:07
and what's going on underneath.
35:08
And I think especially as New Zealanders
35:10
and especially as women, New Zealanders
35:12
see the world more one dimensionally.
35:15
And I remember when I went to America,
35:17
I was shocked because it's such a multi-dimensional world.
35:19
So part of it is realizing there's a game.
35:24
And then secondly, then they're saying,
35:26
okay, I know just like I can beat people in games,
35:29
then I figure out what the rules are,
35:31
but then I play my own rules.
35:32
And that's how I went.
35:35
So to me, it's just part of the analytical
35:38
of what's the game being played
35:40
and what game do I need to play to win?
35:44
And sometimes I'll play within the rules,
35:47
but I have a very different objective
35:49
because I want to call it as boxes
35:52
and everyone's in a box.
35:53
So let me understand what they're boxes.
35:55
And now I change the box, I break the box,
35:58
I build my own one to play my own game.
36:02
And that's very much.
36:03
So partly, the earlier question you asked is,
36:06
well, how do you keep going?
36:08
Because I find it so fascinating.
36:10
And I'm in that situation I start to feel really uncomfortable.
36:13
And then I'll ask myself, okay, what's the game here?
36:16
How do I deconstruct and reconstruct the context
36:20
of which I'm operating in?
36:22
And how do I use who I am and what I understand to do that
36:26
and not listen to other people?
36:28
Because when I say socializing society
36:32
is always trying to put woman in a box.
36:34
And so the first thing is, do you understand
36:36
that you're in a box?
36:37
How do you break the box?
36:39
How do you create a box so it's your game
36:40
and not their game?
36:42
That's how I live my life.
36:44
Wow, my God.
36:48
I'm like, keep talking.
36:49
Keep talking.
36:49
I just want to sit here.
36:50
No, like, how do we apply for a mental shift?
36:53
I don't.
36:54
Well, you just go on to www.littlejankinson.com
36:57
and you just put your details in there
36:59
and I run three or four a year.
37:01
Perfect.
37:02
Cannot wait.
37:03
Cannot wait.
37:04
And level up, is that the mentoring program
37:07
you're talking about or is that different?
37:09
No, that's it.
37:10
Yeah.
37:11
And I started it, the whole essence of it, you know,
37:14
because when I listed my company back in 98,
37:17
and I started getting involved in nonprofits
37:19
and helping, and I was really into supporting women
37:22
given that I felt like I've just had incredible mentors
37:25
along the way.
37:26
And was really demoralized because I was able
37:29
to help young men.
37:30
But woman, it was just, I wasn't successful with.
37:33
And so I spent more than 20 years sort of trying
37:37
to figure out why.
37:38
And level up was really the outcome of that
37:41
in terms of my view of sort of how do I change
37:46
women's perspective of what their capability is
37:49
and then empower them and give them the support
37:53
because they're always being put back in the box.
37:56
And so how do I keep them out of the box
37:58
so that they can figure out how to win?
38:00
And, you know, everyone has their thing they do.
38:03
This is the thing that I do, right?
38:05
And so level up, I have more than 50 entrepreneurs.
38:09
And that's where half me and half woman
38:11
and I'm working with them, my sort of ethos
38:13
is around mindset, billion-on-mindset,
38:16
but then the skill set of figuring out
38:19
how to create that, not just, you know, running on a page.
38:23
I would love to know as a bit of a round off question
38:27
because I know that we could sit and talk for so long
38:32
and we just before the podcast started recording,
38:34
you said you were really looking forward to your walk outside.
38:37
So we will let you get back to that in a second.
38:39
But do you have any, I know it's such a cliche
38:44
and you can be like, I don't even want to answer this
38:46
if you're bored by the question.
38:48
But for young aspiring female entrepreneurs,
38:51
finance professionals, anyone who is trying
38:54
to break a glass ceiling or navigate their career
38:58
in today's landscape, which is still competitive
39:02
and challenging,
39:04
what would you have any just, you know, mic drop words of wisdom
39:08
for those people who are like, this has been great, thanks.
39:10
Okay, so a few, just a few radical things like,
39:13
so I, I've got lots of great woman friends,
39:16
women are really important to me in a personal side,
39:20
but I don't believe women's groups help women solve those issues
39:25
because I think it's a collective of men and women.
39:29
So to me, it's making sure that you've got this whole,
39:33
the support around you that really believes you
39:36
and enables you to break out.
39:38
So it's more like saying, how do I make sure
39:41
I've got the people in my life?
39:42
And this is especially important in New Zealand
39:44
because you've got not only the socialization box,
39:48
but you've got the tool poppy box.
39:50
And so there's a huge amount of pressure to not be different,
39:54
which to me to transform, you've got to be doing things differently.
39:58
That's got to be okay.
40:00
So, you know, what I say to Kiwis is go and find yourself
40:03
some optimistic Americans to tell you how great you are,
40:07
to get you out of that box, to be able to imagine that.
40:12
And the thing that is people love New Zealanders, right?
40:15
So use it to your advantage, but figure out
40:18
how to get out of the box because you've got huge capability.
40:23
And it's sort of like saying to someone, you can do it.
40:26
There are different possibilities.
40:27
There are different outcomes for you.
40:30
And making sure that you're surrounding yourself
40:33
or you've got some people in your life that do that.
40:36
Because if I go and look, I had through my formative years
40:41
until I was about 40, I had an incredible person
40:45
who could see my brilliance and supported that
40:48
and gave me the confidence to break the box.
40:52
So the question I would ask you as any of you
40:54
is what do I need personally to have the confidence
40:59
to see the box and break the box?
41:02
And what does that look like?
41:03
Is that traveling?
41:04
Is that books?
41:05
Is that people?
41:06
Is that individual mentors?
41:08
But if people are restricting you,
41:11
you know, try and minimise that energy in your life.
41:15
Love that.
41:15
Yes.
41:16
Put the egg in first and then fill it in.
41:19
Yes.
41:20
Don't be a frog in boiling water.
41:22
That's right.
41:22
Just decide on what your anxiety can tell I come from a farm.
41:26
Yeah.
41:27
I love an analogy.
41:28
I've always get it wrong, but I love it.
41:30
I love them.
41:32
Yeah.
41:32
Thank you so much, Linda.
41:34
Thank you.
41:35
I've got one even one party question here.
41:38
OK, go for it.
41:39
Well, he is your company.
41:40
DMS.
41:41
See you.
41:42
Yeah.
41:43
Still listed on the next day.
41:45
And no, it got taken private.
41:46
So broke happens to different pieces.
41:49
And so then the different parts of its form.
41:51
But it's interesting because we sort of defined
41:55
on-demand delivery.
41:57
So if you look at it, that's what DMS was.
42:00
We were same day delivery.
42:02
So, you know, that is.
42:04
You were like the first Amazon.
42:05
That's right.
42:06
Well, we actually built, we build out an Uber app
42:09
because we were, we actually had on-demand black car
42:12
20 years before Uber.
42:14
So it was very revolutionary what we did.
42:17
Yeah.
42:17
Oh my gosh.
42:19
See, women, we're great.
42:21
We are great.
42:23
Wow, wow, wow.
42:24
Wow, wow, wow.
42:26
No, well, it's been a pleasure having you on.
42:28
Thank you so much.
42:29
You were getting a couple of applications
42:31
for the venture program.
42:32
I'm in about 12 minutes time, I would say.
42:34
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
42:36
It would be really great, actually,
42:37
to have you guys.
42:38
You'd really enjoy it.
42:40
So you should.
42:40
I've got one starting in March.
42:42
Amazing.
42:43
And if you're in London, definitely get in time.
42:44
I am.
42:45
Yeah.
42:45
I am London August.
42:47
Oh, it's my birthday in August.
42:49
Can we do something?
42:50
Let's go for some eggs.
42:51
Yep.
42:53
Thank you so much for listening to Raising the Curve.
42:56
These conversations are designed to teach you
42:58
everything that you need to know to be
42:59
better with your money.
43:00
From saving, to investing, to talking to your friends
43:03
about your salaries.
43:04
And if you liked what you heard, we would love it.
43:07
If you could hit subscribe button, please.
43:09
Yes, please.
43:09
Better yet.
43:10
Leave a review.
43:11
It'll only take five seconds.
43:13
And it would really make our week.
43:15
Oh, yeah.
43:15
Oh, man.
43:16
OK.
43:16
Lots of love.
43:17
See you soon.
43:18
Bye.