The Value of Staying Creatively Relevant
In this episode, Jane Hynes, VP, Communications, Google Cloud, shares captivating behind-the-scenes stories from her successful tenure at Salesforce that emphasize the significance of creative problem-solving and product comprehension
(upbeat music)
- Welcome to Inside the O'Hanna.
I'm Dan Darcy, Chief Customer Officer at Qualified.
And today I'm joined by a great friend of mine,
Jane Hines.
Jane, how you doing?
- I'm awesome, Dan.
Thank you.
- Well, I'm excited about today's episode
because of just the history we have together.
So I wanna dive right into our first segment,
O'Hanna Origins.
So Jane, how did you discover Salesforce
and start your journey?
- Oh, I actually went to the Salesforce launch party
back when the company first started.
I was a plus one for a friend who worked at their PR agency
and I basically went for the free dinner and the free music.
- And so what year was that?
Obviously, 1999?
- That was the party we party'd like it was 1999.
- I mean, that's awesome.
- Well, I mean, and how did you come to be at Salesforce?
- Yes, so that is a different story.
I actually started working for a PR agency
and Salesforce was one of their clients
and I was working on a lot of their consumer accounts.
And then there was this enterprise software company
that decided that they wanted to launch a foundation.
And I had nonprofit experience.
So they said, "Hey, Jane, why don't you go
"launch the Salesforce Foundation
"and kind of be the PR person for it?"
I ended up getting along with the team super, super well.
And they're like, "Hey, why don't you kind of come
"do some enterprise software stuff?"
And the rest is kind of history.
I think I started doing all the product PR
and then kind of was the agency account lead.
And then when I kind of started getting itchy
to take an in-house job, Salesforce basically said,
"You're gonna come work for us now."
- That's awesome.
I mean, obviously they just saw a great talent
and they wanted it.
But tell me a little bit more about the details.
Like what was the title, your job?
What time, how big was Salesforce at the time?
- Oh, let's see.
I think my title was Senior Manager of PR.
I was the one and only communications person at the company.
I think officially my badge number was like 420 something.
But at the time there had already been some turnover.
So I think the company was about 250 people.
And Frank still had his tequila parties on Fridays
to celebrate the customer wins of the week.
- Yeah, and you're talking about Frank Van Veen
and Doll that had a sales.
Just obviously for the listeners out there.
And when you joined, what was your initial impression
of Salesforce?
- I mean, I'd had three years experience working
with Salesforce on the agency side.
So I really already knew the company super well.
I had helped launch early products, the foundation.
I'd even had exposure working with Mark
and understood what a creative person he was.
And so it really felt like home to me immediately.
- One thing I just even missed to even ask you before
is how was the launch party?
I mean, tell me a little bit about anything crazy
that Salesforce does events pretty well.
Was that launch party just as fun?
- It was pretty epic.
It was like in this three-story building
and each story had a different theme and different music.
And there was the B-52s on one floor
and then I'm blanking the name
but like a beautiful jazz singer up on the top floor.
And I think I was there for a good four or five hours.
- That's great.
Well, a success, obviously.
And that obviously led you to Salesforce.
Now you've had a long, obviously storied career.
What would you say is some of the biggest successes
you've had while working with Salesforce
or something that you're really proud of?
- You know, I feel like I really grew up at Salesforce.
When I joined, as I said, I was kind of the one
and only person and I was really fortunate
that I had managers and leaders that saw my potential
and were willing to invest in me.
I got the opportunity to move abroad
and I spent a year building up
our communications operations around the world.
I got the opportunity to come back
and really kind of scale our operations and build a team.
And I'm just so proud of the people
that I was able to hire there
and the amazing careers that they've gone on to.
For me, it's all about kind of the people
at the center of it.
- I love that.
And that's candidly what kept me there for so long.
And I think, you know, part of a lot of the great friendships,
you know, I still have to this day
is because of Salesforce.
So I couldn't be more grateful.
But you know, when you came in-house
and you know, you first started at Salesforce
and I'm sure there's a lot of lessons that you learned there.
But if you could go back to yourself
and talk to yourself beginning at Salesforce,
what advice would you give you to yourself?
- You know, I think Mark set a really strong foundation
from the beginning that the best validation
that you could possibly have
for your company, your product, your business
is your customers and that everything that we did
from a marketing and communications perspective
centered around our customers.
And so that was a huge lesson that I learned early on
and that I've been able to carry with me.
You know, I think advice for myself,
I think sometimes don't take everything so seriously.
You know, it's software, you know, it's not the,
it's not an emergency room.
I used to joke with my team that like, you know,
no unicorns died or, you know, were harmed, you know,
this week, so we're fine.
And, but when you're in it and you're building something
and it can really become all consuming.
So making sure that you maintain the right balance.
- I mean, I love that or, you know, and setting boundaries.
I think back to that, you know, I'm obviously currently
still at a startup again.
And, you know, Salesforce felt like a startup
that we were building something bigger
and it did become really intense.
And so it was always nice to have those reminders of,
you know, just, hey, like, let's check ourselves
and let's take a look at what we're trying
to accomplish and do.
So now, how would you describe the Ohana
and what does it mean to you?
- I mean, for me, I think the Ohana was,
it really was kind of the center of the culture
and, you know, treating your colleagues
as you would your family.
And, you know, building those trusted relationships
that, you know, kind of got you through the harder times,
but also like really enjoying yourself
and enjoying the people that you surround yourself with.
We all spend way more than 40 hours a week at work,
which is probably more than the waking hours
we spend with our significant others
and children and pets and things at home.
So, you know, it really, it made it enjoyable to,
like you said earlier, you know,
build lifelong friendships at a place where you were,
you know, busy and stressed and, you know,
building other things as well for the company,
but the relationships really were so special.
- So Jane, are there any special stories or Ohana moments
that are a little behind the scenes that you'd like to share?
- Oh, absolutely.
Let's see, I think a really fun one was, you know,
we kind of became strange bedfellows with Oracle
and had, you know, signed up to be part of their user conference.
And at the last minute, they changed Mark's keynote time
and, you know, it was a time they knew he couldn't be there.
And so effectively canceled it.
And we kind of were trying to decide,
what do we do with this?
And how do we turn this into, you know, a moment for us?
And I had, I had actually already had a restaurant
across the street from the venue reserved.
And I was, you know, being a little bit sneaky
and hosting a little media lunch for the reporters
that were in town for their event.
And, you know, as we kind of started brainstorming,
what are the options and what are the different things
we could do?
And, you know, I have this venue,
we could do something different there.
It doesn't have to be a media lunch.
And that's when, you know, kind of all the marketing leadership
came together and we started tossing out ideas.
And we ended up posting Mark's keynote
in this little restaurant and packing as many people in
as we could.
And we had a line around the block
and there were people handing out donuts.
And it was absolutely hilarious.
But it, you know, it taught me the power of being creative
and collaborating with other people and, you know,
and having, and being able to make a real impact
in, at the same time, because, you know,
that's something that most people wouldn't do.
So that was, that's a good one, I think.
- I mean, that was a great one because, you know,
I think, when I think about Salesforce and I look back,
I mean, you were at the center of a lot of it
because of, in a sense, there were publicity, you know,
moments for us in terms of turning it around
and making the story about Salesforce,
which I think was an incredible feat.
And yeah, I still remember that where we picketed outside
that the cloud must go on outside of that restaurant.
And we were on the news, local news,
which I thought was such a great time.
But yeah, that's a great O'Hara moment.
- And Dan, I actually have another one
that you've now prompted a memory.
So after we had acquired a company called ExactTarget,
they were based in Indiana,
and we suddenly had this huge employee base in Indiana.
You know, shortly after that, there was a bathroom bill
that came up in Indiana where they wouldn't let, you know,
folks that weren't born a certain gender
use an alternate bathroom.
And it became a little bit of a, you know,
internal conversation.
And, you know, I think, you know,
Mark as a kind of, you know, stakeholder leader,
really leaned in and took an aggressive stance against it.
And, you know, we put a small tiger team together
across communications and legal policy.
We had people on the ground in Indiana,
a group of us in San Francisco.
And within a two week period, I think it was,
we actually managed to get a law changed.
And, you know, one of the other big lessons I learned
is that, you know, business does have an opportunity
to be a voice and that--
- And be a platform for good.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
And you want to put your business and yourself
on the right side of history.
And those two things don't have to be in conflict.
- I mean, that story gives me chills too,
just 'cause I remember, you know, Mark was plain and simple.
He's like, they're discriminating against my employees.
And that's where I want to stand up for my employees
who don't have the voice.
So I thought that was, that's a great moment.
Now, in terms of Dreamforce,
we've got Dreamforce coming up in September.
Which one, what year would you say
is one of your favorite Dreamforces and why?
- Okay, well, my favorite Dreamforce is the one
that I didn't attend because I just had a baby.
So unfortunately, I have to take that one.
Let's see. - Yes, of course.
- My favorite Dreamforce,
from a music perspective, Bruno Mars at City Hall.
That was a highlight.
My team had an amazing dance party.
I loved that Dreamforce became bigger
than a technology user conference.
It became an important place to have conversations
around what was happening in the technology industry
overall and what was happening more broadly.
I loved, I thought it was just so special the year
that we leaned in on, you know,
on women's equality and equal rights.
And we had Women's Day for the first time.
Of course, Leila and Molly loved that initiative.
And that was just amazing to be a part of.
And I think that Salesforce was really at the forefront
of doing so much of those sorts of things.
- Our lives revolved around that event
for many, many years.
- Oh yes, my husband still jokes that he doesn't miss
not being a Dreamforce widow.
'Cause I would just kind of evaporate
for three weeks every year.
- Yeah, exactly.
All right, well, let's get into our next segment,
What's Cooking?
So Jane, you're now the VP of Communications
at Google Cloud.
I want you to talk about how you got to where you are now
and what your journey's been like.
- I talked a little bit about my journey at Salesforce.
You know, when I started,
I was kind of the one and only PR person.
When I left, I had this amazing team of amazing people
and I kind of felt like I had,
I've done what I could do there
and I wanted to do it again someplace else.
Google Cloud presented the perfect opportunity for that.
You know, it was a startup within a,
you know, super well established company,
but operated independently enough
that, you know, I felt like it was a great mix
of my skills around technology and, you know,
kind of my ability to kind of keep things creative
and interesting.
And I also love building teams.
That's where I get my energy from.
And, you know, working with, you know,
in the early days to think about, you know,
product positioning and, you know,
how do we kind of get through the next milestones?
And then, you know, hiring an amazing group of people
that make it all work and come to life every day.
- I love that.
I love that.
Well, what challenges are you seeing now?
And like, how are you applying what you learned
at Salesforce to those challenges?
- You know, I am really excited about all the opportunities
ahead for Google Cloud.
You know, we've done some amazing things
on the security front and, you know,
adding a company called Mandian that we acquired last year
has just, you know, supercharged our ability
to think about not just products,
but also what are the services that companies need
to secure their, you know, to secure their technology.
You know, I think in this age of AI,
you look across kind of the full spectrum
from data to databases to analytics to AI.
And there's huge opportunity there as well.
And, you know, and obviously some of the, you know,
some of the lesser known parts of Google Cloud,
some people don't realize that workspace
is part of Google Cloud.
And that's all of your Gmail and your docs
and your sheets and your presentations
and all that fun stuff.
And I think, you know, the opportunity of AI
has so much power to really, you know,
allow us to reinvent how people think
about collaboration and communication.
So that's what I'm super excited about doing
over the next couple of years.
- I mean, that's all I live in all day every day
is Google Workspaces.
I mean, I think it's obviously,
I think I'm so many people, especially in our world.
Google is just a part of their lives and it's pretty awesome.
All right, so let's get into our final segment,
The Future Forecast.
Jay, what do you envision as the future
of the Salesforce ecosystem?
And I think you have a really good point of view
because, you know, obviously have been at Google now,
you kind of are looking back at Salesforce
and the ecosystem in a different way.
So what do you envision would be the future
of the ecosystem?
- Salesforce was really at the forefront of Cloud.
And we also saw them jump into be early in mobile
and early in social.
And I think, you know, now you see them, you know,
really wrapping their arms around AI.
And so I think, you know, when you think about all the things
that AI can automate in that customer process,
there's so much opportunity there
and that, you know, extends to the partner community.
I have ultimate faith in Salesforce
that, you know, they continue to innovate
and they continue to think about how, you know,
how they can continue to surround the customer,
to make the customer experience even better.
And, you know, I've got high hopes for them.
- I mean, candidly, I think I said,
when everything was going down and I'm like,
you don't ever bet against Mark.
And, you know, and they definitely are
on a great trajectory to great things.
So what advice do you have for aspiring marketing
and communication leaders?
- A couple of things.
So number one, don't get stuck
in kind of what you do every day.
Take risks, think about how you can bring creativity to it.
Make yourself interesting and differentiate yourself.
I think also when you're operating
in an enterprise environment,
it's so important to get really close to the products.
Use them, know them.
I remember, I think it was my second manager at Salesforce.
You know, when we first launched the platform,
literally locked me in a conference room
while he didn't lock the door,
but made me go build an app.
You know, get hands on with the technology.
So you really understand it.
And I think also as Salesforce grew
and become a publicly traded company,
it's also so incredibly important to know the business.
Know who's buying what,
know what the opportunity is for your different products.
How are they being sold?
Who's buying which products,
with other products?
Understand, you know, how the sales,
what is the feedback that you're getting from customers?
And the closer you are to the business and to the products,
the better, you know, marketing or comms
professional you're gonna be.
- Well said, and that is definitely advice
that I have taken to heart too.
I mean, if you don't know the product,
how can you do anything about it?
So that's awesome advice.
Now, before letting you go,
I wanna have fun with a quick lightning round
and have some fun questions, you ready?
- Free it on.
- What's your secret skill that is not on the resume?
- Oh, I've been told it's getting shit done.
I have an immense capacity to just get shit done.
- That's awesome, that's awesome.
Well, what's your best way to spend an evening after work?
- Let's see, cooking dinner with my husband
and then playing games with my daughter.
- Oh, that's awesome.
Favorite brand of anything?
- I really like skinned suiticles.
They have a lovely C serum that I thank for my fabulous skin.
- I mean, you look like you're 25 years old,
so it's great to see you again, Jane.
All right, and you just won front row seat tickets
to your dream event, what is it?
- Taylor Swift.
- Yeah, duh.
- I mean, of course, I mean, that's everyone's answer
to that question, so I can't wait for the reviews
of the ARIS concert with you.
Now, Jane, this has been so much fun.
Before I let you go, I want you to let the listeners know
where they can find you and if there's anything else
you'd like to plug or share with today, please let us know.
- Absolutely, well, you can always find me on LinkedIn.
And if you're looking for something to do
in the weeks before Dreamforce, we do have Google Cloud Next
that is going to be at Moscone Center in San Francisco
on August 29th to the 31st, so come join us.
- Google Next, August 29th to the 31st, that's awesome.
Well, thanks, Jane, for joining me today.
I had so much fun and really appreciate you being here.
- Awesome, thanks so much, Dan.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)