Welcome to today’s episode where we delve into leadership and empowerment in the tech industry with Cerys Goodall, Chief Operations Officer at Vetster, the world’s fastest-growing pet telehealth platform. We’ll discuss her strategies for fostering female leadership and building resilient, scalable operations.
Cerys Goodall, Chief Operating Officer at Vetster, leverages over two decades of experience driving innovation and transforming pet care globally. As COO of the world’s fastest-growing pet telehealth platform, her goal is to create best practices and programs that effectively develop a brand, increase awareness, and achieve market leadership on a global stage. She enhances both employee and customer experiences, connecting millions of pets and owners with expert veterinary care through Vetster’s top-rated marketplace. Cerys creates integrated programs for marketing, communications, public relations, client service, business development, and product development teams, ensuring Vetster’s continued growth and success.
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Transcript
Note: This was AI-generated and only lightly edited
Greg Kihlstrom:
Welcome to today’s episode in which we’re going to look into leadership and empowerment of women in the tech industry with Cerys Goodall, Chief Operations Officer at Vetster, the world’s fastest growing pet telehealth platform. We’re going to discuss her strategies for fostering female leadership and building resilient, scalable operations. Why don’t we get started with you sharing a little bit about your journey to becoming COO at Vetster and a little bit about your background.
Cerys Goodall: Yeah, thanks so much. I am probably the most unlikely COO on the planet, I like to say. My background has been quite varied and quite non-traditional. I spent my early days in biotechnology. and had some amazing times working at microfluidics companies. I morphed into public relations because I realized I like to talk more about science than do science and was really fortunate I got to work with fantastic companies here in Canada some that were helping NASA go back to space in 2005 with the STS-114 Discovery’s return to flight, which was amazing as a Canadian to participate in such a global event for NASA, and parlayed that into a variety of different technical fields. I worked with the military, militaries around the world, in particular the United States Air Force and Army and Marine Corps, And then i luckily met the ceo of cobo who had also worked with nasa back in the day when he was a kid and we just formed this amazing partnership and he asked me to come in and build a global brand with him and we took cobo from at the time for countries when i joined to twenty two. And through that, I learned all sorts of things, how to work around the world, different cultures, how different companies were approaching work. And it really piqued my interest. And one of the cool things was that PR lets you, it gives you this amazing magic key into every part of a business. So I could go learn about supply chain, about marketing, about e-commerce. And through that, I found this passion for how a business operates. And fast forward a few more companies working with amazing clients. I landed at Vetster. And the co-founders are really incredible people and similar to some of the experience I had, they wanted to go global. They were thinking about marketplace. How do we bring this forward? And my motley, you know, sort of tapestry of experience landed me in a really great operations role where I look at marketing, sales, business development, and also thinking about how we take this company globally. So it’s been a really cool journey.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah, no, that’s that’s amazing. And as someone, certainly not not with your vast and deep experience, but with some as someone who has had done a few different roles over my my career, I certainly respect the diversity there. And I think I think it brings some amazing perspective on every role that you have. So that’s amazing, amazing career so far. I’m looking forward to talking about this more with you. First, we’re going to talk about a topic I mentioned at the top of the show, empowering women in technology and just exploring initiatives and strategies that support women throughout their tech careers. So as a tech leader, what strategies have you found most effective in empowering women at various stages of their professional journeys in technology?
Cerys Goodall: It’s such an important question. It’s one of those questions, though, that I think we often think it needs to be the system that changes, or how we navigate in the current system. And as part of that conversation, one of the deepest part of work that I’ve had to do myself was to realize that a lot of the success I had was by participating in a system that didn’t necessarily work for me. And I had to realize and recognize that some of my own career path and my own success was participating in a system, even emulating a system that wasn’t necessarily great for me or the women around me. And through that work, what I’ve come to realize is that we need to redefine what women in tech actually means. We’ve long had this idea that only STEM roles are considered to be tech. The reality now, fast forward, we’re now in 2024. Every company, every department has a website. They are transacting digitally. If you’re in marketing, you are using complex tools to market to your customers around the world. You are building websites, digital experiences. You’re almost building your own product. If you’re in customer experience, you’re doing the same. You’re now leveraging AI to automate some of your flows. You’re using chatbots. You’re using these things. So no longer can tech be considered relegated to product and engineering. And I think that fundamentally transforms the opportunities for women in tech. And I like to say, if you’re in marketing, you’re in tech. If you’re in HR, you’re now in tech. We’re all in tech now, and we have to be really good at it. And it doesn’t mean that you have to code. But if you redefine what that looks like, you get to participate in a system and change a system from a different vantage point. And so that has been a really big aha moment for me and a big part of where I coach women from is how do you redefine how you’re thinking and approaching this problem. The second piece that I think about is we need to do a lot more still in the foundational work. The first one and the most important to me is we got to get real about talking about money. We need to get comfortable about this uncomfortable topic. We need to be open about it, more transparent. We need to understand the levers at play, whether that is negotiating your salary right from the jump, whether that is advocating internally for better compensation and different mechanics of that compensation, or whether that is pursuing promotions, raises in different ways. Maybe that’s within an organization or maybe that’s strategically moving through different career paths to get bigger jumps. And I think for women in particular, the studies show women don’t love to talk about money, but also the system is working against you when it comes to money. And so one of the first things we did at Vetster, and I’m really proud of, we introduced a living wage for all roles. So nobody here, you know, isn’t well compensated. We have a baseline minimum wage. here for everyone. But more importantly, we did salary banding, we did pay transparency, we made sure we had multiple vehicles, such as retirement investing, so that we had a really rich tapestry of vehicles for people, particularly for women. We regularly review all of our bands, all of our salaries to make sure that everyone is keeping up. and that even in the economic climate that everyone is keeping up that they can afford to live in. We’re here in Toronto so it’s an expensive city to be in and I’m really proud of that because that sets people up for an amazing future right from the early day of their career. It’s the number one thing we can do for people but in particular women and I’m very proud of it.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah, that’s great. And it’s great that you’ve been able to set up those programs and everything from the transparency to other things. You mentioned that certainly some people are more comfortable talking about money and asking for things and other topics like that. Where does mentorship and providing resources, training, all of those things come into play? How would you recommend that organizations look at that and to support women in tech?
Cerys Goodall: Yeah, I think it’s such a great question. And I think it’s twofold. The first is, in particular, in operations, finance and HR, we need to take a much more proactive role and stop waiting for people to ask for a promotion or a raise. you know, there’s sort of always been this idea that, well, we’ll wait for people to ask for these things because it’s better for the bottom line. But the truth of the matter is, if we’re doing the right thing by our people, we should be well ahead of any of those requests. You should be promoting somebody giving someone a raise because you can see their potential and the work ethic and their progress far before they even do. And we know in particular for women, women are faced and affected by imposter syndrome far more than any other demographic. So they will ask last. We as an organization need to step up and be really responsible and proactive there. The second piece is for these uncomfortable conversations, whether it’s women or anyone else in any sticky topic that people are, you know, hesitant to enter into, we need to create those safe spaces. One of the things we do here at Betster is every month I take a small group of women out for an event or coffee or lunch and we just talk about some of these issues and get comfortable talking about money, talking about different challenges in the workforce so that I can foster conversations not only with me and that they can feel that my door is always open, but also so that they learn to have those conversations with each other. and find that network and that support system, which doesn’t always exist within your own specific department. It can only happen cross-functionally.
Greg Kihlstrom: And, you know, to your point about, you know, I’ve certainly seen in my career, there are certain people that there’s nothing wrong with being proactive at all. But, you know, there are certain people that do ask for, you know, hey, I want a promotion or a raise or other things like that. And there’s plenty of people that don’t. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that Some of those people that ask certainly deserve it, but some of those people that don’t ask certainly deserve it as well, to your earlier point. For those aspiring to leadership roles, what advice would you give to women that want more leadership in the tech industry and maybe don’t know exactly where to learn to develop some of those essential leadership skills?
Cerys Goodall: I think networking is a magical superpower. I myself am quite introverted, though most people might find that a bit surprising. And so it took me a long time to learn this one, but it has almost always been the thing that unlocks success. I can, you know, jokingly say I’ve applied for many jobs and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a call back, but I have used my network and maintained a network so that two things happen. One, so that people think of you when opportunities arise, but also so that you build a network of people who are advocating for you when you’re not in the room. And this is good advice for anyone. It’s not about glad handing and going to a meetup or a conference and handing out your business card. It’s about making meaningful connections. and a diverse set of meaningful connections. So one of the things that I learned early on was I needed to have a network to reach leadership level. I needed to have a network in the venture capital community. I needed to have a network of powerful people who could open doors and make introductions in the right way. I seeked out mentorship related to the roles that I wanted to have, but also the roles that I knew I may have to interact with. And through that network, people will keep you top of mind. And I think people, especially in today’s digital world, discount that a little bit. The world has changed since the pandemic. We’re at home more, we’re more insular, we’re more focused on our local community and our family, or we’re living on LinkedIn. But there’s a powerful medium in the middle, which is how do you build better connections? One of the things that I sort of champion people to do is networking is not about putting yourself on someone else’s agenda it’s about how can you deliver value between other people in your network and if you can do that that powerful giving will have a ten x return. And it’s something that i think is really important and that we often de prioritize but it should be equal priority to the role and the investment that you have in your day to day job.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. And so specifically about mentorship, because, you know, you’ve certainly mentioned that and I’ve seen that as a powerful tool in my own career. You know, a lot of people listening might be like, well, you know, what’s what’s in it for them, you know, for the for the mentor and, you know, and stuff like that, you know, what advice would you be to someone that may be reluctant to ask for, you know, for help or for some mentorship?
Cerys Goodall: Oh, it’s such a good question. I can tell you that if you are a mentor, you get more back than you could ever hope to give. I do a lot of mentorship through the Founder Institute. I work with the Rotman School of Business here and a program they have called RISE, which works with entrepreneurs with mental health and addiction challenges. I mentor a number of people both within our company and outside of it, and I can tell you it is the most important but also the most satisfying work that I do. It’s also, from a mentor perspective, it gives me ideas. I get to see what other people are thinking about. It opens my eyes to things that I might not have considered before. And so if you’re on the other side and you want to be mentored and you’re thinking about that, one, ask. You know and even if you get a no ask them if they know somebody who might be a better fit i can tell you that most mentors are absolutely happy to do it the one thing i do say though is if you’re asking for a mentors time be prepared. And so I like to say, particularly when I’m asking somebody new that I don’t have a relationship with yet, I say, I’m going to come with three questions, I’m going to send those questions to you in advance, so that we can have a focused amount of time, but also so that you know, you’re showing up for a purpose. And almost every time that I do that, that mentor has bought in. And it’s really exciting work that we get to do. So if you’re new to asking for a mentor, pick somebody that’s in your network, ask for introductions, and take the risk. The worst that will happen is somebody says, no, I don’t have the time, I’m sorry. But the next best question you can say is, do you know somebody who might be a fit?
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, that’s great. Great, great advice there. I want to switch gears a little bit here and and talk about you had mentioned at the top of the show, you know, you did not start out your career as in operations. And so this is you know, certainly took over the role here at Vetster. But, you know, I wanted to talk about your thoughts on scalable operations. And you’ve mentioned the importance of resilient operations. And I want to talk a little bit and get your definition of, you know, what do you mean by resilient operations? And, you know, what is what does this mean for a business?
Cerys Goodall: I love this question and I love that you’re asking this question because operations is so many things to different organizations. It may be a focus on scale and process development. Vetster is an early day growth company. We’re about four years in now. So operations today is going to be very different from operations tomorrow. For us right now, I like to say I’m a jack of all trades. My analogy for operations, though, in any regard, I like to say, you know, you have 100 marbles on a table and you’re wrapping your arms around all of those marbles and trying to keep them moving in the same direction. And that is most of my day. When we think about resilient operations, I really ground this in values. An operator needs to understand emulate and establish and nurture company values and if you root your principles in those values from the very early days, it becomes a very natural thing for your organization to grow around. Whether that’s processes, whether that’s your strategy, whether that’s the type of partners or clients that you’re going to work with, it gives you a framework for choice. I learned this when I worked at Kobo and then at League. Both companies were founded by Mike Servinus. And from the very early days in both companies, he established the company values before we even had product. And those company values do not change. At League, we did our value exercise at the very beginning, and those are still the values of the company today. And they dictate how a company is shaped. And so at Vetserv, we’ve done the same. And it lets everybody make decisions from the very basic of how we work together to the processes and policies that we’re going to implement all the way through to the type of work we’re going to do. And the reason I think that’s so important and why I think it balances out the resiliency piece is because it gives everyone a framework for decision making. It lets people in the good times and the bad times anchor in on a center and gives them confidence and comfort in how they’re going to make decisions and why decisions are happening. And as long as we stay true to that, we do have resilient operations. Last year, the economy obviously was very tough for many, many companies. But it really let us anchor in on we’re focused about customer obsession is one of our values. Unity and teamwork is another one of our values. Inclusion of diverse thought, diverse perspectives is one of our values. And so even as we have been riding the waves of change through our startup and the different decisions that we’re making, when we anchor in on those pieces and get people to focus in on those things that we believe in, It gives perspective. It lets people take some of the stress out of it. It lets people understand what we’re doing and where we’re going. And we bring all of our decisions back to those things.
Greg Kihlstrom: So, and I like the, I like the visual of the marbles. I think that’s, that’s a good one to keep in mind. I may borrow that at some point, but you know, it’s, it’s interesting to, cause I’ve, I’ve been at startups before and certainly, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of people listening to this show that, you know, it ranges, right. There’s a lot of people that work at very large enterprises as well, but wherever you are. There’s so many things happening so quickly. And I love what you’re saying as far as, you know, the values are the things that we can go back to, to, you know, we’ve got to make quick decisions. There’s never a 100% right decision or rarely is there. But you know, if values can guide us, then it makes it that much easier. And we can know and kind of have that that, you know, as you said, framework to go back to, because I mean, that that’s really what it comes down to. It’s, you know, almost the the speed of making decisions is almost as important. You’re not gonna make perfect decisions every time, right? So it’s almost like how do we make the best possible decision out of maybe a set of not so great decisions? Is that right?
Cerys Goodall: You’re absolutely right. If one of your values is fail fast, as an example, You might have made different decisions, say, during the pandemic, which affected so many, you might have said, you know, do you win at all costs? And if you have a win at all costs mentality, you might have been a company that streamlined your company made aggressive moves during the pandemic, innovated very quickly and through a lot at the wall, right for success. If you were a put your people first company, you might have said, hey, we’re going to slow down. We’re going to do everything to keep the people at our company. At my last company, Interspace, you know, that’s where I was when the pandemic happened. Putting our people first was a core value. And I’m very proud to say with James Wu, the CEO at Interspace, We kept everyone on staff, regardless of the advice that was happening on the internet, you know, with VC saying, you know, slash your team, go down to bare bones. We don’t know what’s going to happen. We did the exact opposite. And we said, you know what, that’s not our value. Our value is we’re going to keep everyone employed. And I’m really proud to say that that’s what we did. And most of that company is still there to this day, you know, almost 10 years later, because of what we did and the choices that we made based on our values. And so when you talk about resilient operations, that’s going to look very different for different organizations. but if you can read it and why people have shown up to work for you which should very much a line to your company values then as you make some of these tough calls for great opportunity calls they’re going to be rooted in something that everybody believes in.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that kind of, I think it’s a nice segue to the next thing I wanted to talk through is just, you know, how do you, you know, we’re talking about fast growth companies and even, even more established companies need to continually innovate and what you’re talking about having these values that everyone can rely on, it also speaks to trust, right? So is that, are those values a core component of building a culture of trust? And how do you look at that, supporting innovation and trust among team members?
Cerys Goodall: I think trust is so elastic and yet so fragile at the same time. And today’s world is highly complex. The narratives that people are exposed to rightly or wrongly in social media, the very tough economic times we’ve experienced, the political times that we’re now in, you know, the global issues that we face, You can no longer think that work and the rest of somebody’s experience are separated we don’t have that luxury anymore so when we talk about trust we have to think about people in a very 360. view. We have to think about what they are facing at home, what they are hearing in the world, and the fear, and recognize that, you know, even 20 years ago, at the beginning of my career, some of what was happening in the world might not have affected me so much in what I brought to work. That’s no longer true. So when we talk about trust, I think it’s much more fragile in the role and the conversations as leaders we need to be having with our people. We need to be more open about these things. We need to recognize that these things are top of mind. And at the same time, we also have to trust in our own people that they do have this elasticity and resilience in their trust with us. And so how do you balance those two things? I think when it comes to our organization at Vetster, we very much give people the empowerment and the support to bring their best thinking forward, but we also set very clear expectations around where, you know, the proverbial sandbox lives so that we can understand everybody has their different role. We give people time to fail and figure things out. We want people to grow and work through their problems. But the other part of that is, how do you build strategy? How do you build plans? And how do you change? People don’t love change, especially when you’re passionate about working on a problem. And then you know, a new opportunity comes through, or you need to pivot because the industry is changing. And sometimes that can fracture trust a little bit, when people don’t understand why you’re changing. And so we do our best and we’re constantly working on this. This is something that will never go away. And I don’t think we will ever be perfect at because we’re human, but we invest a lot in communication. We invest a lot in not rolling things out until we’ve really thought it through. We don’t want people ping-ponging back and forth in decision-making that, you know, can affect trust. And we make sure we’re really confident and that we’re giving people a clear line forward so that they can feel that they can do their best work.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Well, Cerys, thanks so much for joining today. One last question before we wrap up here. We’ve certainly talked about a few topics here, but wanted to get some summary ideas, I guess, on this concept of leadership and team resilience. What do you see coming down the pike in the tech industry? What should leaders be keeping in mind as they’re mentoring their own teams or growing their own teams in tech? And how would this impact how we think about leadership and team resilience moving forward?
Cerys Goodall: I think one of the best things we can do as leaders is meet people where they are and open the lines of communication. When we’re all busy, communication is the number one thing that falls to the wayside, whether that’s by making time with your people, whether that is proactively communicating decisions. We have multiple channels now, whether that’s Slack or email or another platform that you might be using. And as leaders, I think we sometimes forget to make sure that we’re connecting with our people more regularly. People want to hear from leadership. They don’t want a memo at the end of the month or only to speak to leadership when the reports are due. So I think that’s something we have to keep in mind. And I think that is a big change that people need more from us now than ever before. They need to see us having a steady hand at the wheel and that we are in support of them both as individuals but also as a team and then as a company as well and carving that path forward. I think we also can’t forget that with changes in AI and new technologies in general, there’s a lot of concern around what that means, both for people’s job security, but also how their jobs may change. And we need to do a better job of articulating our positions about things, even if it’s exploratory. And so it really does come down to communication and support. I can tell you probably 60% of my day is speaking to people at our company, connecting in with them, helping nurture them, helping foster their decision making. It is not 60% of my time mandating things that they need to do. And i think that is really important and it’s been a fundamental change i’ve made in my calendar and how i approach my day that i invest far more in our people and that’s where i spend my time that i spend in process or handing down direction and i think it goes a long way and i’m i’m really excited about it i’m seeing the results from our people Some days I sort of think, well, what have I done today? I haven’t made any decisions. And then I recognize, but 10 different people made decisions. And if that can be happening, I’m doing the right thing. And I hope more leaders can be doing that, too.
