To mark IWD, Neythri hosted our latest memorable online gathering with an inspiring leader.  Following in the footsteps of Indra Nooyi, Chandrika Tandon, Sara Mathew, Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, Aparna Bawa (this last being an IRL one) – the list goes on – this too was an authentic Zoom screen conversation filled with a sea of South Asian faces.   

My favorite moment was when Yamini told the story of how her mother maintained two households, the latter in a town with better high school options to give her children a running start in life.  We paused and honored the women – mothers, mothers-in-law, aunts, sisters, daughters, friends – on whose shoulders we stand and who make our journeys meaningful. 

Here are some key takeaways:

Stand out, don’t fit in: We plunged in right away to discuss Yamini’s name and how she made a decision early on not to anglicize or shorten it.  She also decided to lean into her strengths of first principles thinking to extract insights from the data of the prospects she was in front of versus try to figure out golf as a way of relationship building.  Soon customers started asking to speak to that *Indian woman* on your sales team…

Make your customer’s career your priority:  Everyone talks about being customer-centric and certainly as Chief Customer Officer at Hubspot prior to being named CEO, preceded by serving as Chief Customer Officer of Dropbox, Yamini walked the talk.  However, a key insight she shared was how to humanize your customer and think about how your product helps their career thrive, which builds lasting loyalty beyond the business transaction. 

Work backwards from the future: Yamini stepped in as interim CEO at Hubspot in the wake of the beloved co-founder Brian Halligan’s serious snowmobile accident.  When he asked her to take on the permanent role in August 2021, she was beset by the usual doubts about her ability to do the job.  “I made a choice that I was going to work backwards from the future that I was going to create, not from the past or that I’d never done this job before.”  With Hubspot commanding a $30 billion market valuation today, it is fair to say that her decision paid off. 

Nose in, hands out:  Yamini shared valuable advice she was given which resonated with the board members, advisors, and board-ready Neythri women on the call.  She said a board member has to understand the business thoroughly (nose in) but remember that they are advisors not operators (hands out).  This balance between engagement and non-interference is a key lesson that has served her well.

Define the few things you care about every day:  With many competing interests for her time, when she took over as CEO, Yamini set 4 priorities for her future – two around making Hubspot successful, one on fostering DEI, and one on spending time with her family, especially her teenage sons.  She also realized that the pandemic had taken away the hour-long commute which served as decompression time during which she listened to her favorite songs (Chura Liya from Yaadon ki Baraat is one of her top choices).  She now schedules time in her calendar for yoga, uses the 5.30-6.30 pm hour for the transition between work and family, and stays offline from late Friday to Sunday morning.  

Thanks to Yamini for her time and insights – #go Neythri!

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Author Bio:

Kamini Ramani’s mission is to deliver on the Mayfield brand promise to entrepreneurs and to provide a range of support to portfolio companies. She loves crafting memorable narratives that combine the magic of an entrepreneur’s bold vision, an unmet customer need, and a delightful product. She is a fangirl of entrepreneurs everywhere and amplifies the impact of the Mayfield portfolio directly or by matching companies with her ninja network of superb marketing professionals. Some highlights of her Mayfield experience include bringing improv comedians to run a messaging workshop for an enterprise company, taking the right story angle for a deeptech private start-up to a respected reporter at the Wall Street Journal, and working closely with the Mayfield team to unleash their POVs.

Prior to Mayfield, she was a messaging and corporate communications counselor to the leaders of emerging and established technology companies in Silicon Valley for three decades. These included companies from the client-server and internet waves, with a highlight of providing public relations counsel to Steve Jobs at NeXT in 1995.

She holds a Masters in Communications from Stanford University, a Masters in English Literature from Yale University, and a Bachelors in English Literature from Bombay University.