#01 - Empowering Change: Saleema Sayed’s Journey From Engineer To Executive

Yeah, but we got an opportunity to work closely I think when you were at HCL. And I have seen you grow from there to where you are. Very incredible journey you have had. One of the favorite things about her  career that I like is her ability to be versatile and have that entrepreneurial spirit even in a corporate environment. So thank you so much for taking time for joining us on the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself to the audience before we start? Yeah absolutely. First of all, thank you so much, Shanthi. It’s been years since we reconnected. So I’ve watched you from the sidelines as well, grow into an amazing leader and an entrepreneur.

So first of all, congratulations on all your achievements. And it’s been great to connect with you after so many years. So as you said I’m Saleema Syed. Currently I work at Webex by Cisco. I It’s a collaboration platform and I run all of business operations and also global field marketing for Webex.

 I’ve been part of Cisco now for last six years. I came to Cisco as a part of an acquisition from Duo Security. 28 plus years in the corporate world. Still thriving to be in continuing my journey here because like you said, I take every job as a job that comes with every function that goes into a company.

So I’m glad to be here. So let’s start with your journey. There are very few people who can claim to have taken a company to IPO.  Who can claim for being part of acquisition and also coming up a sort of entrepreneurial strategy to take a specific division, especially when you are competing against others in the market.

I would like for you to share your journey on how that happened and give us some highlights on each of them. Sure. Sure. I’m an instrumentation and control engineer by education. So very far from where I am right now into marketing. But I think I owe it all to the education and the growth that we got, right?

As an engineer, it forces you to be analytical about things. So I think that’s where I get my analytical abilities to break down bigger issues into smaller problems and find solutions as such. So just on that same path, I’ve always been a person who likes to solve problems, right?

Like I like  complexities. I like to take things that are huge and big and complex and break it down. But when you like doing that, you cannot go deep in your career in the beginning of your career. So one of the things that was very intentional in what I think, when I look back now that I wanted to do was make sure that I have something I’ve spent enough time in the different functions of an organization so that I understand what it is to be able to run that part of an organization, right?

As a cliché, I started my journey as a programmer like we all do, right? Java programs and all of that, right? So I’ve been there, done that, run projects that are required to be in the middle of programming. But very quickly I realized that is not where my heart was. I love technology.

It’s bread and butter of what we do, but I wanted to go beyond that to understand, okay, what is sales? What is being part of operations mean? What is being part of sales mean? And because of what I was, anything I did, I wanted to learn more and grow and be competitive in it. So that led me to explore, but I think at the same time, very lucky to have had mentors and sponsors in my life.

Who took that chance to, okay, you’re a programmer, but I’ll give you a job as a salesperson. It’s fine. Come into the industry and try to sell because you’re able to talk about it. And then I moved into operations. And when you’re in sales operations, especially you’re able to understand the problems of sales, right?

Like you’re not going in front of your sales teams and saying, hey, put in your forecast, put in your opportunities because you know what it feels like, you have carried the bag. So you understand that. So, I think we know each other from McAfee days as well. I ran sales and marketing and partner operations all together.

So it really built that for me to go into the next journey of product operations and sales as such. So I think playing that role of understanding the different aspects of a business really helped me to go into an organization when they are small, really looking at the end to end, I like to call it lead to cash process and then identifying where is it that we need to strengthen? Where are the gaps? Where are the opportunities to grow and then take them, prep to go to IPO or whether it is to acquisition, that is a journey that takes itself. That’s what I love. I think I’ve been really blessed to be at the right place at the right time and also to take those chances on companies.

Like when I went into Duo, I didn’t go in with a great role or an amazing package or things like that. It was more from being able to seeing the CEO at that time who interviewed me, seeing the passion in him and seeing the small team and what could be if I stayed on. So I took a step back, but it was the best thing that happened to me to be able to grow into the company and being part of the acquisition.

So I think one thing, if I have to give anybody who is listening, saying, what could we do to get into this kind of career? I said, no, just explore. Don’t put yourselves in the box and stay that, okay, I’m a programmer, I’m a programmer, I’m going to stay a programmer for the rest of my life or I like project management, I’m going to stay there. So I think exploring the different aspects of a business knowing and running, even if you’re in a big organization, I tell my team today, yes, we are in marketing, but who are you selling to? As a marketer, who are you selling to? Who are your operations? Who are your marketing people for your own self?

So I think each one of us have to think of our own organizations. Then it becomes easy to be bringing entrepreneur mentality into a corporate world.  I totally agree with you. I don’t know if I have shared with you, one of the reasons I started my career also with Infosys as a programmer.

So that’s something we share. For me, the challenge was when there were so many people and you just become one of the programmer in the group, it’s very hard for you to see what you bring to table. How is what I do impacting anyone, whether it be the company or the client, so my way was paved as an entrepreneur when I joined a startup in California. And when you are a four member team, you are exposed in all directions.  You want a bug that you put in code, people know, oh, who has done this? So that brought in a lot of accountability for me. And I still think stepping out and becoming the entrepreneur was the easy way for me. When I see you do as part of corporate world, that is a much different scale. To be able to navigate that right because more often than not, you get slapped. Oh, stick in your lane. Do this. But when I see you, that is what I admire that you were able to keep up that spirit and still navigate it in your world and make it successful.

Thank you so much. You’re way too kind. But it’s not easy. I mean, can I say that? Yes, it’s been amazing. Of course, there are days when I don’t want to do it right. There are days when I’m like, okay, this is time to pack up the bag. But I think that one of the things that I really value and I think if anything, in my career that I want to take as is, I love building a team from the scratch and I’ve done it many times.

And I think every time you do that, it is almost like you’re having a new child and you’re building that child and making it go through. So I like to keep my energy and my passion up by saying, okay, if it’s a change happening, because incorporated change is the only constant every time it happens, I’m like, okay, it’s a new opportunity to build from scratch and start from there.

But you also think, oh my God, I just got to get everything set and I’m getting comfortable, but when I get comfortable, I start feeling the itch again, right? So I think it is important to, one, understand and be very clear on what is it that is in your toolbox that drives you.

And once, if that thing, that tool that you have, that you feel like, I don’t have an opportunity to use it. That is what brings that  thing of, okay, I don’t want to do it. I’m out of here. And if you don’t let yourself, you have to find a way to use that tool all the time. For me being able to build a team, being able to bring what my worth of solving problems to an organization is my tool. It’s what gives me happiness. And if I cannot do that anymore in a place, then it’s time to you know, pack my toolbox and head out. So I think when I interview people also, I ask them like, what is it that one tool in your toolbox that if you don’t use, you don’t want to be because then I need to make sure that is what keeps them going, right?

So that is a default question that I ask people when they want to come into the team, because as a leader, I want to make sure that I’m giving them that opportunity to use that tool.  Yeah very important. If there are some young listeners out there, I think it’s very important for them to know what drives them. 

For me, I’m not a very deep dive kind of person. I can go only so much deep in any subject. And it’s not that I don’t want, it’s I like broader range of knowledge. I can, like you said, you have a much broader range than me from marketing to strategy to execution and technology and all of that.

So that is what drives me to come every day. So when I started, it was the same thing. I could do finance and HR and sales and marketing, but it’s for the same company. I cannot pack my toolbox and go elsewhere.  So I built that in my company to see how I can stick around. But very true, I think it’s important for you to know what drives you so that you can choose the career path that you need. 

Coming to your latest role, Saleema, I was like, I was thinking about it. That was the toughest time for anyone to step in and say, okay, I’ll do this.  I want you to share about this, how you got this role. Yeah, sure.

Absolutely. Like I said, I came into Cisco as a part of an acquisition Duo Security. We got acquired in 2018. And as always, it’s a startup and I love being part of startups and growth. So the acquisition was great. It was very challenging to make sure that the company is well integrated into the main Cisco and we are able to sell through it.

But once that is done you’re like, okay, what next? You have to become part of the bigger machine or we call it the mothership. I was debating what my next role is going to be. Is it going to be another startup or what I do? But like I said, right place, right time. I was tapped to work on a huge program to build the SaaS tools and processes for Cisco.

Cisco has been on this great journey of moving towards more software organization moving from a hardware. So it was perfect. You have a best SaaS company like Duo coming in to taking those best practices and building an organization.

So that’s how I got into the main Cisco for a year and then COVID happened and Webex was going through a transformation, right? And even when I hear transformation, it’s such a cliché word, right? Everybody’s doing transformation. But this was truly a turnaround also for Webex because Webex as a brand was known to be like older, all of that.

So now everybody’s using it and Cisco always used  Webex and we always encourage people to work from home. So it was not a big turnaround for us, but from a customer perspective we had to do it and it was not like other competitors of ours who could, you could go and buy online using a credit card. So to take it to customers, the consumers was a huge thing. So I was part of the team that was building to take from an operations and processes perspective to take Webex to be bought for consumers for SMB businesses to be able to use their credit cards.

And I’m buying these licenses because Cisco doesn’t sell to consumers, it’s not a B2C, right? So it was very exciting to be part of that. And go through that, how are we seeing the growth? Which country is buying? How are people buying? Again, like I said, I need to have that energy of what I am doing is directly impacting the business.

That’s something that is very important for me to feel and touch and have. So while I didn’t work for Webex directly, but being a part of this team really helped keep that energy going. At the end of that is when it was very successful. We launched it and to be able to launch all the backend sales systems and processes as well.

And then I joined Webex, I think two and a half years ago to be able to run strategic programs. Like I said, that was a foray into me getting in and saying, okay, you set strategies, I’m not the person who is going to set the strategy for a person. I am a person who will sit with the team that sets the strategy and take strategies into execution. I love doing that. If it’s something that I’m passionate about, I’m very passionate about that because it’s again, a big problem breaking it into execution. But also it’s not about taking, you can take a strategy to execution in two steps, right? I think that is where people fail.

You cannot take a strategy and say, okay, tomorrow I’m going to get into an execution. There are tactical things you need to do to be able to get to that execution. So the programs I was part of, and I worked with the current CMO of Webex very closely on some huge projects and initiatives, which led me to this role.

Like I said, I’ve had great people who took chances on, she said, hey, we’d love you to come and work for marketing. And I’m like, okay, I’ve not done a lot of that before, but again, that is one area I’ve done marketing operations before, but not actually hands on marketing, it was perfect timing for me to take that challenge because again, I talk about how it fell beautifully into my operation and execution sense because I took over marketing, complete business operations and finance operations. Along with that, I took global field marketing as well. It came very naturally to me with my data and technology background, because people think field marketing is all about events and, which is a huge part of it, don’t get me wrong, but you are not going to show an ROI of those, unless you think about it from who’s their customer, where is the data?

Where is the pipeline? Where do you have to go after? Who was in? What is it, pipeline generation? It’s a pipeline acceleration? Now, I think this is where I go into. It’s a very natural way into how these roles play in and how I’m not making it as a oh, it’s a pure marketing role.

 It has technology. It has data. So my team and I think I have a wonderful team, which I built from scratch again in the last year and a half and we look at field marketing as a data science versus actually event. It has been a great journey because you’re constantly challenged, right?

You’re always on your toes in terms of your competition and what they are trying to do. But at the same time, I think we’ve had great strategic leaders who have done an amazing turnaround story of Webex, right? In the last 20 years of 25 years of my career, I’ve been part of some huge transformation stories, right?

 Many transformation stories of startup to IPO or startup to acquisitions and all of that or reverse acquisitions all of that, right? But I have not been part of turnaround stories, so that was when I came into Webex. That is what I wanted. I know the product is amazing.

It’s a great team now. We’ve got a great name in the market. Two years ago when I took my team like, oh are you doing Webex? Are you sure? I was like, no, I want to be part of a turnaround story. And I’m very glad that I’ve got the chance and the seat at the table to be able to be part of it.

Very impressive. And yeah, we all knew Cisco as only B2B. So when you mentioned that, oh, you can buy as a consumer, I can go and buy Webex.  I was like, oh, really? I didn’t know about it.  Yeah. And you had some really good competition coming from Zoom and Teams and all the other players out there.

Thank you for sharing that insight. I hope people who are listening understand that being in your comfort zone doesn’t take you too far. Sometimes you’re tapped and you’re asked to come in and do it. Sometimes you have to watch out for it and go and raise your hand to get it done.

And I’ve seen you do both of that. So kudos to that. Now that actually comes back to the things that both of us are passionate about STEM for women and STEM for kids. Let’s start with STEM for women because one of the biggest challenge when I speak to most of the C level executives or leaders is that they say  women don’t raise their hand as often as they should, or they shy away from risk and thankfully my circle of women is not that and you are a good example of that.

Please share more about what your thoughts are on this topic. And how you think you would like for women in tech to think about their career? This is one of the very, very close to my heart because, I come from a very conservative family. I’m the first woman to break the cycle and get into an engineering degree and to get to where I am.

And I’m very thankful and blessed to have parents who believed in me and gave me that opportunity to break the ceiling as well. I think, it’s not wrong that people think that way, right? I think that we tend to do that, right? We tend to overthink which comes very naturally even to me, right?

For all of us. And we want to be perfect in what we do, right? We want to make sure that line is drawn perfectly, and I’m coloring inside the box. Nothing comes out. And we also, as women, we teach our kids. I think our generation did that to our kids to you have to make sure that this, don’t colour outside the box.

It has to be perfect, that leads to this. Am I right for this job? Even if I have 80 percent of everything in that resume that they’re asking for, I might still not apply for it because I don’t think I’m good enough. I’m not fully there. But if you look at, not all men, I don’t want to generalize it right there.

If they know 50 percent they’re going to wing the next 50 or the other 50. So I think it requires a  change in how we think and also telling this is where I think we can help. Early in my career, one of my mentor she told me, you have to have your hand up all the time, keep your hand up all the time.

And that is something that I have learned. Sometimes I’ve learned also put your hand down. You can’t chew more than you can swallow. But I’d rather choke on greatness than go be mediocre in things we do. But at the same time, I think as women who have had a great career and who are growing, it is important to pass the message down.

I keep talking about sending the elevator down and telling the people that it is okay. You know what? You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to colour inside the box. Sometimes the color that comes outside the box creates beautiful art, right? So you have to be able to. I think that is what the onus is on us.

It’s not about whether we have enough women in the industry. It is not about whether we have enough women in technology. You go into an organization, you will see lot of women in engineering now. Lot of women in middle management. It is about telling them it’s okay if you don’t know, apply for that job, put your hand up and learn it on the job and equip yourself to be able to learn this on the job and present yourself so that you can get there.

I think that’s what it is. You have to be able to say, I know it, I can do it and believe in yourself. It’s hard. As moms and sisters and women in general, we want to be the best in what we do. So we undersell ourselves a little bit. So I think that is the biggest thing.

So it’s important because it really changes the equity of a family completely. When a woman grows, when the kids see that they are growing as a part of their career there’s a lot more that the kids watch with their moms versus their dads too. Both of them are equally important, don’t get me wrong, but I think that is where it is. They don’t put their hand up, there is truth in it because of the fact that they don’t think they have enough experience, but you have to, it’s okay if you know 60%, put your hand up.  Yeah, I think it is okay to fail. It is absolutely, but it is more important to try and fail rather than not try it at all.

I think I’ve learned a lot more in my failures than my success. Yes, it is hard. When you think of what is your biggest failing? There have been things that I have not made a bet and not worked that way, but I have learned so many things in that journey.

Whether it is a personal life whether it is professional life.  That’s the best thing that could have happened to me when you look at it. When you’re going through it, it probably is not right. But when you look back at it, definitely, that’s the best thing. And I think you mentioned STEM in kids.

That is another one that I’m hoping at some point in my life and career I spend more time in that. Because I think.  STEM education, it’s now become such a huge cliché, STEM, STEAM, you’ll find so many different aspects of it. It literally changes the course of an entire family, right?

Like in my family itself, I’m from India, there have been my family, far relatives, who’s one child who’s broken that cycle and gone into the technology has changed the entire family’s equity right. So I think that is something that I hold really close to my heart because my dad is an engineer from a long time ago and he broke that cycle.

He has a huge family. He made sure he brought that education of being an engineer into his family and his siblings and really changed the face of his family. And I think that is something that I’m very passionate about. And I’d really want to spend time on it as I get towards the later part of my years.

But that is something that I’m constantly keeping my eyes on that goal on my mission of what my purpose is. And I think that is my purpose. Yeah, I agree. It’s not just the family. If you think about it, Saleema, it’s the country or the community as well. And I keep telling kids, countries don’t become superpower because they are just good in art alone.

They become superpower because of the advancement that they have in science and technology and everything else along with the  arts. So it’s very important to have that differentiator. Whether it is your own family or whether it is for your country, it’s good feel to go in. And these days, there is so much of overlap between all these fields.

It becomes imperative that you need some amount of technology or science in your background, and it’s not hard. I think somewhere we started sending the wrong message that science is hard, math is hard. I think if you can do other things, you just have to be open to it. I think it’s not about being hard. I think it is about finding the way it has been portrayed to the people, right? Like science does not mean it’s robotics, right?

Fine girls moving away from STEM education and robotics and all of that, because it’s not been presented in a way that can, and they’ve also not seen representation, right? When you get a kid to go to a STEM club or a robotics club, you are surrounded by male teachers and you’re not seeing representation, you’re not being taught in that way.

So I think that’s something that is definitely missing in the industry. Thank you. I would like to close by asking, where do you see yourself, Saleema? Where do you see your journey take you next? Oh, it’s a great question. I wish I had a crystal ball for sure.

One thing that I know is that the fire in me is hard to put out. So I know that I am going to continue on this journey of making things my own and bringing the value of what I need to do valuable work and bring the worth of what we do. Technology, kids, education is where I see myself in the five to ten years. Again, sports and technology and kids are something you see a Venn diagram of things that I am extreme, like you put me in front of any sports and I’ll watch it. And you give me any problem to solve.

So I like to think of myself as still very early in my career, because I feel like 25 years, I have done what I needed to do. I’m an empty nester now too, right? So, right now I’m figuring it out, right? I am trying to not let any other variables call the shots versus me calling the shots.

I’m not going to be like, oh, I need to do this because I need to do that. No, it’s because I want to, this is my purpose. So I feel my journey in the next five, ten years is going to be something that is going to fill my cup and really give me the joy. I’ve been on this journey of finding joy because I grew up in my grandparents running around and all of that, when I think of joy, that is where my heart and soul goes to, that is joy.

And I’m trying to figure out what is it that as I grow older where can I find joy? So I think that is where you’re going to see me in probably five, ten years. Very nice. Very nice. I think it’s very important to enjoy the journey. Destination is very important for direction, but the journey you need to enjoy whether it’s up and down or whatever. 

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much, Saleema. It was really good talking to you. I appreciate you taking time and coming on this podcast, which is why I think Beyond the Bottom Line is what we call this because we want to explore what else  day to day is there, but what else drives each one of us.