Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer, Revinate Interviewed by Rachel Humphrey

Karen details her journey from French professor to CRO and CMO of a hospitality technology company including many of the leadership lessons she's learned along the way. Find out how adaptability is a consistent theme for her and why she seeks out team members who can thrive in ambiguity. Karen discusses wellness, balancing time, the benefits of living internationally, comfort in public speaking, and what aspects of her leadership have evolved the most over time, among other great lessons.

Transcript

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Rachel Humphrey 0:02

Hi, I'm Rachel Humphrey with It's Personal Stories, a hospitality podcast, and I'm really excited today that Karen Stevens of Revinate is joining us on the program to share a little bit about her leadership journey and some of the insights she's learned along the way. So Karen, welcome to the program.

Karen Stephens 0:18

Thank you, Rachel. It's a pleasure to be here.

Rachel Humphrey 0:21

We are gonna jump right in, 'cause now that I've gotten to know you, I know we could chat about things all day long and not be aware of time constraints. But I wanna start with your journey to hospitality leadership really re-emphasizing how cool it is in hospitality that we can all take a different path, very unique to ourselves, and still find ourselves in hospitality industry leadership. So tell us a little bit about yours, and if you think that there were any pivotal moments along the way that really shaped how you ended up at Revinate with the CMO title.

Karen Stephens 0:53

Yeah. So it's definitely a windy road for me. So I think first of all, I should say that I've always been on the technology side of the house. I've always been selling either a platform or a distribution channel, but always within the hospitality sector. So it's an area that I love very much. I think, as a SAS, I work for a company that does service software as a service, so I could be selling anything, but I love hotels and this is where I'll always stay. But my background is actually in French literature of all things. I started when I got out of grad school, I used to teach, and unfortunately I wasn't able to make a lot of money. So I started selling for a travel agency, a corporate travel agency in the Bay Area, which is how I got into the travel industry. And from there I got a job with Travelocity. So that was my first foray, and it was on the global accounts team working with hotels. So that's when I really started to learn about distribution and it was everything... I did all the contracting and account management for chains like Starwood, Hyatt, Best Western, Choice. Those were some of my accounts. So it was definitely a kind of a windy road. And then from there I was able to work for our sister company Lastminute.com and in London. And when I decided to leave Travelocity, I reached out to a colleague of mine who was one of the first employees at Revinate. It was a nice moment of serendipity where he hired me in as a salesperson for Revinate. And I've been here for quite a while. So I've meandered my way through sales, professional services, CS, eventually chief revenue officer for five years, and then I've been in this role for two years, and I love it.

Rachel Humphrey 2:31

Wow. So anyone out there who is like, "What on earth do I do with a French major?" Is the start of that conversation.

Karen Stephens 2:40

That's right. Yeah.

Rachel Humphrey 2:41

But no, that's really such a great point, too. And it's funny to think of going from French into the technology side because it would seem like such a liberal arts education or career start would not end up in technology. But you mentioned even in that brief overview some things that I think are really interesting leadership topics, and one of them I wanna start with is living internationally. Not only from a cultural competency standpoint, but from- learning different business and leadership skills. I'm curious today in your role, are there lessons you learned from that experience that stick with you today in your leadership? And anyone who's considering what might feel scary or risky or out of their comfort zone in making a decision like that, what would you tell them today?

Karen Stephens 3:27

First of all, I think if you have the opportunity, absolutely take it. It's such a privilege to be able to immerse yourself in a different culture, a different business environment. The learnings that you take away from that it just can't be replicated any other way. So it was a very positive experience for me. And I think, it's interesting 'cause if you go back to my trajectory with French, the reason that I started to study French was that I wanted to live abroad when I was in college. So I ended up in France, and then I just got so many units that it made sense for me to carry on and graduate. And then, I went on to get a graduate degree in it. But the core of that was wanting to live and work in a different environment. So when I got the opportunity to live in London later for lastminute.com, it was game-changing. So you asked me what are the learnings. I think the first thing, especially coming out of the United States and maybe this is true for any culture you're in, you tend to think that the way that things are done where you are the way that they're done everywhere, and that is absolutely not the case, and I think that is what's so interesting about doing business in Europe is that the way that you work with a group in Spain is gonna differ than th- somebody in Germany, England, France, whatever it might be. And man, it's such a cool rich tapestry of the way that people interact, how business gets done, whether you go in directly or build a relationship. So learning how to pivot through that. America, I think we're I don't wanna say that... Obviously, we have different regions and different ways of working, but it's one way of approach in, in the US, whereas working internationally it's very different. So I think that's the first learning. Assume that you don't know anything, and if you go in listening more than you're talking and observing, and hopefully working with your colleagues who are in-market, you're gonna learn so much. It's amazing

Rachel Humphrey 5:10

I like the idea, too, of adapting to your audience. I think that's a big leadership lesson, knowing who you're talking to and how you might need to do that differently. Like you said, might be different culturally in some places, but also from company to company or leader to leader here. When you were talking about your Revinate journey, you mentioned that you had been there for a while. I think it's a little over a decade, if I'm right. I'm curious, in the different roles that you've had there, first of all how do you adapt to each of those new roles? But also, how do you stay fresh or relevant when you've been at a company for a while? I feel like the hospitality industry, we either have people that change roles every year or people that have been at the same company for 50 years, and there's probably an equal number of both of those. But talk a little bit about staying at the same company for a length of time and how that has really been important in your journey too.

Karen Stephens 6:05

Absolutely. So that's a great question and I think i- my journey at Revinate, I have changed and pivoted roles every two to three years up until I became chief revenue officer. I was in that role for five years. But it became... It was fresh for me because not only was my role changing and evolving but the company was evolving massively. So when I started with Revinate in 2013 we were the leader in reputation management and guest feedback, revolutionized. Hoteliers used to be out there checking review sites for TripAdvisor and then, oh my gosh, there's Expedia, and here comes booking.com, and they would literally spend all day long going website to website trying to figure out what their reputation was, answering everything. And Revinate was really the first one to put all of that into a single dashboard, both at the property and the corporate level. So having that data, that ease of use, being able to service property corporate, rolling up dashboards, was the core of what Revinate did, and that's where I came in. And I was selling to more the enterprise brands. But then as we started to evolve over time, we decided, gosh, this is a toothpick fight in terms of commercials, if you're selling to an independent property, maybe you're making, $300 a hotel. That started to dwindle down, and then you get up into those big enterprise brands. Now you're talking about, sub $10 a hotel and they own your roadmap. No offense to the enterprise brands, but when you do a deal with a Hilton or an IHG or a Marriott, and that's your main product, you're gonna do whatever they need. So Revinate, the leadership made a really bold move where we decided to pivot and to build an email marketing platform and to s- to target more of the mid-market sweet spot. So we shed all of that enterprise business, which was a big risk, and I really applaud our CEO at the time, Mark Heinecker, for doing that. But when that shift happened, that new product happened, then I got to go out in the field and work again internationally. I got to go to Dublin, I went to Sydney, I went to Dubai, and I was helping all the salespeople learn the new platform. So it, it was a, it was almost like having a n- a new job, right? It was completely different. And then from there we had to launch all of those customers, which was a muscle we didn't have. Even though, I always say if you held a gun to my head today, I couldn't launch an account to save my life. But what I was good at was circling the team and figuring out who knew what and how we were gonna get... I sold 50 units and now we have to launch 50 units and, that was a muscle we didn't have yet. Today, we've got, I don't know, 4 to 5,000 customers on that platform. We've got over 100 PMS connections. We've got all these partners that feed into our data platform. And we built that over time. To answer your question, it kind of pivots and moves like that. And that's what keeps it fresh. It's a very different company today. When I started, I was number 55 hired and now we've got over 500. We acquired Navis, we acquired a company called Go Moment. Even though it's the same company, it feels very different and it's every year seems to be a new year, for lack of a better word.

Rachel Humphrey 9:07

I feel like the consistent theme so far then is adaptability with the ability to pivot as the company was pivoting and really elevating and evolving your leadership. When we talk about a leadership evolution, you can certainly have one within Revinate, but talk about your own personal leadership. What has gotten better over time and what maybe is slipping off a little bit over time?

Karen Stephens 9:31

Yeah. So that's a wonderful question, Rachel. So I think as a new manager- When I very first started to manage, I wanted to solve everybody's problems, make sure everybody was happy all the time. I really took it upon myself to make sure that my team was always well-equipped in doing it, and that's important. But what it resulted in was that I was doing a lot of the heavy lifting, and I remember one of my bosses said to me, "Karen, you seem so stressed out and overworked, and your team seems pretty relaxed." "What are you doing?" But what he said to me that really did it for me was, "How would you feel if you were a star performer and someone didn't let you be a star?" You think that you're running interference for your team and protecting them, quote-unquote, from whatever it might be, stress, hard work. But what you're really doing is kneecapping somebody who actually has their own potential if you just throw them in the deep end and let them shine. So I think that's one thing that's important. A lot of people are star individual contributors, and then they get into management, and they don't know how to step back and let other people be a star. So once that kinda clicked in my head, now I think I'm very good at identifying talent that fills my gap. In other words, if I don't know something about a particular subject, I'm really good at finding that subject matter expert and getting out of their way, enabling them to make the decisions, helping course-correct where I need to. But I think it's really leaving your ego to the side and letting that person rise, right? And the whole team as a result,

Rachel Humphrey 11:08

that's such a great point. When you talk about filling the gaps, part of that is building great teams. I've had an opportunity to meet a lot of folks on your team at Revinate. When you're looking at a resume, when you're trying to fill a role, there's certainly technical skills, there's things on a resume that will catch your attention, but what is the it factor that when you meet with someone one-on-one, you're like, "This is the person"? What is that maybe less technical skill that really makes you feel like, "This person's gonna be a great fit here, a great fit for me, and someone that I hope to then bring along with me as we continue to rise"?

Karen Stephens 11:48

So I would say the number one thing would be, and this is gonna sound odd, but it's how do you deal with ambiguity, right? Because I do feel like there's different kinds of companies. If you want a big company with a lot of process and, you wanna show up every day, you know exactly what you're doing, and you're working for goals and you're within a system and you're marching through, and those can be great jobs. Revinate is not that kind of a company. Revinate, we've always had to deal with ambiguity. We're always pivoting. We're always trying to be ahead of that curve. And what comes with that is a lot of nobody really knows the answer." So if you know how to deal with ambiguity, And yes, you have to have the technical skills and the background and the experience, but in some cases we don't have a process in place because it's so brand new. We're all kinda cutting the cloth together. And certainly that having folks that can really master that skill is important, especially like today when you think about all the prevalence of AI and how that's impacting everybody's job right now. If you're someone that needs to know the answer and have that handed down from on high y- you're gonna struggle, because we're all needing to make sure that we do our, the best that we can to educate ourselves, and I expect members of my team to be the subject matter experts or at least come and say, "Hey, this is my perspective on it." 'Cause just 'cause I'm the leader doesn't mean I have all the answers. So I love somebody who can deal with ambiguity, and I love somebody who, what is what I call a utility player, and that means you can- you can pivot. "What do we need to do today? Okay that's not really in my job description, but I can see that it's needed, so I'm gonna go for it."

Rachel Humphrey 13:20

There's that adaptability theme again. Yeah. I have a question that when you're asking about ambiguity or trying to determine that skill, do you have a go-to question or a, an example of how do you pull that out of someone who's probably not expecting the question to begin with?

Karen Stephens 13:39

Yeah. So I think it's really tell me about a time in your career where, things seemed to be really up in the air and you weren't sure how you were gonna get out of it. And it could be within a specific job, it could be that you got let go in a job. It like, how did you really see, "Oh my gosh, everything is stacked against me, and I gotta figure out what I'm doing next"? And what you find are the answers there when people go, and, I think about the conversation you and I had on my podcast, which I'll plug for- Yes but you and I talked about some pivotal times in your career-

Rachel Humphrey 14:11

Yeah

Karen Stephens 14:11

where it seems like, "Oh my gosh, what am I doing here?" And you spin that into the next great move, and it's the biggest blessing of your life. That's somebody who can deal with ambiguity, and actually come out the other side. So I love those kinds of stories because that really tells me, okay, this is someone who can really build a path no matter what is put in front of them.

Rachel Humphrey 14:32

The reason I like that example that you just gave is because if you asked me that question, I don't know that I would tie it to those experiences, but you've heard those experiences from me and have drawn that conclusion about my ability to live in ambiguity. So that's one I'm gonna definitely take with me and be thinking a lot about- Yeah after this. But since you brought up your podcast, we're gonna pivot and talk about this for a second.

Karen Stephens 14:59

Okay, great.

Rachel Humphrey 14:59

One of the things I love to do is share with people why I've asked someone to join me, and I think that my relationship with you, which is very new, is a perfect example of what the hospitality industry offers with relationship building. Because we were introduced to someone about your conference, but it was more, "Hear Rachel might know some people that could speak." We met, we spoke, we seemed aligned on a lot of things. You invited me to speak at your conference. You invited me on your podcast. I've invited you on ours. And so just from a chance email of somebody saying, "Hey, you two are two people I think should meet each other," we are now having this incredible opportunity to see this chapter for both of us intersecting, and I really love that about the industry. But specifically on public speaking, since we've now been guests of one another's in a couple of different forum, I'm curious for you, you mentioned teaching earlier. I've seen you speak at your conference. I know you lead your podcast. For you, what is the role of public speaking in your leadership? And can be to your team, to your board, to any number of ways. How do you feel about it? How do you prepare? Yeah. Is it something you feel natural doing? Talk a little bit about that public speaking journey for you.

Karen Stephens 16:15

Sure. You know what? I do feel very lucky that it does come very naturally for me. And that is because I think that- There's a level of authenticity, and I know people use that word a lot, but I'm very confident in what I know. I'm even more confident in what I don't know. So whenever I'm giving a talk, whether that's internally to the board, on a podcast I'm very comfortable broaching certain subjects and then digging for more information if I can't find it. I love to be... I don't mind at all being in a public environment and speaking. I think that it's, What's the word? It's fun for me, it's really fun for me. And I think taking an audience on a journey, and again, whether... I probably do most of my public speaking, frankly, internally to my own teams or to, to the go-to-market teams at Reminate. And I like to think I have a sense of humor. I like to think that helps, because it keeps people moving along. But yeah it's very natural. When I prepare, I think it's more than... I don't really prepare for the speech itself. Obviously I practice and run slides and the rest of that. But I think so much is just being the subject matter expert, and then that's where really you're confident hitting the stage because you know that nothing is gonna come up that you don't probably have an answer for. And then if you're candid when you really don't have the answer, then everybody appreciates it. The worst thing you can do is try to bluff your way through it. And actually, I have to say, Rachel, so you led our panel at Navigate and you had three awesome women on stage with you, and you and I talked about some of them having a little anxiety before they got up there. But once they did, they realized, "Oh, I actually have these answers already." And I think you did a great job of getting that out of them.

Rachel Humphrey 17:50

I appreciate that. And I think you and I approach it in a similar way, which is we know our stuff. Whatever the topic is, we're only saying yes to the things we know. And if we can lean into, okay, I know what I'm talking about. Again, maybe it's the what is the worst thing that can happen, or somebody has asked me to speak for a reason 'cause they think I have something to contribute. It doesn't mean I don't get nervous or I don't prepare, but I think going in with that foundation can be helpful. I'm curious, though, I'm gonna... This may be a non-starter, but you say that you're confident in what you know and what you don't know from a public speaking standpoint. I think one of the things I have found is that sometimes I'm my own biggest obstacle. You mentioned some of those living in ambiguity things.

Karen Stephens 18:33

Yeah.

Rachel Humphrey 18:33

And that sometimes my own self-doubt can get in the way of ways that I could be accomplishing different things in leadership. I'm wondering, do you either experience that or do you find that with other members of your team? And if so, what would you advise people that are listening that are thinking, how do I overcome what can be a bigger hurdle than some of the external hurdles that exist out there?

Karen Stephens 18:57

Yeah. And this is a great question because I, obviously I have the first big promotion to C-level when I went, to chief revenue officer. That is a big job. That is a big responsibility. I had not only the sales team, but I also had the CS team, so it was all the revenue coming into the company. And it is definitely something where when you do take those big steps in your career, I think this is normal for everybody. There is that little imposter syndrome. Am I really ready for this? What? So two things I think about. One, I think that anxiety is... I think of it as fuel, right? So I think that's actually what keeps me sharp. I don't wanna be running around a- anxious all the time. But when I'm starting something new, if I don't have that little ping of "Oh gosh, I'm not really sure that this is gonna be working. But then over time, and this is part of, having experience in your career, you realize, oh yeah, but there was that one time that I had that and I worked through it. And I figured it out. Going back to my background, I have a degree in French literature. I'm not a native French speaker. That's insane. But I figured it out. I figured out how to graduate. So you kinda move through that piece on the self-doubt. And I forgot what the second thing was. I'll try to remember here. So there's the self-doubt-

Rachel Humphrey 20:10

I was just saying, like, how do you, how would you either for yourself or others on your team, advise someone who really is unable to... If you use it as fuel, is that what you would tell other people? Lean into the fuel that you're getting from, or that the nerves are normal- it's

Karen Stephens 20:25

normal

Rachel Humphrey 20:25

think about as normal?

Karen Stephens 20:27

Yeah. It's 100% normal, and eventually it will, it w- you will get to the other side of it, and this is the second thing. What's the worst case scenario, okay, so I take the big job and the big job doesn't work out. Going back to what we were saying before, some of the biggest opportunities in your life come from what appears to be the worst catastrophe of your life. From a career perspective, right? Like I was around during 9/11, I got laid off like everybody else did. That allowed me to move to California and get that job in sales, and then get the job with Travelocity. So you never know what the road is gonna take. So you have the doubt, move through the doubt. If the worst case scenario is the job doesn't work out, guess what? You find the next opportunity, and it's all growth. There, there is nothing that's gonna happen that is gonna set you back. It's the next step.

Rachel Humphrey 21:20

I love that. One of the things that I think positively to come out of COVID is really a renewed focus on self-care and wellness, both for ourselves, but also leadership teams realizing how important it is for our teams, whatever you define that as. And for everybody it's going to be very personal, very different. Do you think that this is something that either has been important to you throughout your career, not important today, is something that's renewed for you? What is your current perspective on it, and has that changed or evolved at all over time?

Karen Stephens 21:56

Definitely changed and evolved. I would say that pre-COVID I was running around like a crazy person all over the world. So I was traveling a lot, I was working really hard. Obviously, this business is so wonderful, but it's a lot of entertaining- Lots of dining and drinks, lots of client visits. Like I said, I work with hotels and it's the most beautiful thing in the world, but not always great on the waistline 'cause you're always on planes and working. So I think one of the gifts of COVID, in addition to, going home, it can be difficult to work from home all the time, but now I make it a priority every Monday and Wednesday, I have a strength training class that I go to, and it is the religion for me. It's like I stop, I get out, I move my body, I make sure that I walk all the time. I spend time in the morning, and not a lot of time. I think that again, gosh, es- especially I just, I think it's anybody but women we often have so many things that we're trying to do in one day, and God forbid you have a family, then you gotta deal with all those people too. So it can feel overwhelming, but I'm like, "Hey, if I got that 15 minutes in the morning to do a little stretching and have some quiet time before I do anything," and then I like to exercise at the end of the day because it kinda turns off everything and gets me ready for my evening. And so I think it's very important and, I know a lot of people use this analogy, if you're on an airplane, you put the mask on first before you can help everybody else, and I think that's true. If you wanna be a productive, happy person, happy being the most important part of that sentence, you have to take care of yourself first.

Rachel Humphrey 23:32

I like that too because the I equate it to the hamster wheel. You get moving so quickly on it, you're like, "I'll work out when, I'll go for a walk when, I'll do some breath work or something when, go to ex- an exercise class," and we all know, as you mentioned, especially as women tend to prioritize that last. Yes. So having the standing classes that you're going to, the time of day, I think can be really helpful in staying committed to it. When we turn our attention to the people around us, I think one of the things I have learned much later in my career chapters is how really important for me having the right people around me is. I'm curious for you, your personal care and board of directors how, what types of things do you rely on your people for? How do you select who are those close people to you? And again, has that really evolved in, in any way throughout your leadership journey?

Karen Stephens 24:34

I think it's invol- evolved in terms of the people in there. I'll say this, so there, I think that there's my work colleagues some of whom obviously I have great respect for everybody I serve with on our executive leadership team, and we're all great support to each other, which is great, but then I also have my besties, right? My besties within the company, and these are, and I think this is important, you gotta have the, you've gotta have the people who are within your company, who understand what you're talking about when you get frustrated, and it's a trust tree. Because I think as a leader you have to be very careful, right? You, I'll say one thing about me, it's very obvious where I am emotionally. I don't have a good poker face. So a lot of times- If I am frustrated or something is, annoying me, I need to have the people within the trust tree who I can speak to in confidence who are, my, my peers. They're not part of my team, my peers and and that's always great. Because my support system outside of work, I think a big thing for me is I don't like to talk about work outside of work. That's really important to me because I f- I, I like that division of church and state, so to speak. So when I get off of work, I don't talk about it with my partner very much. He has a little bit of understanding, but he knows what I do. But I want my time outside of work to be more focused on my personal life, and that has evolved over time, right? Because when I was younger if you looked at what is your life bubble, 95% of it would probably be my job. I don't have children, so 95%. So having that kind of anchoring with friends and family, where then it's more about what I like to do, which is hike and ski and, listen to music and all the things. So it's the internal support system- Yeah and then external that doesn't have anything to do with career.

Rachel Humphrey 26:16

I think it's incredible to recognize, too, the pivot from maybe where career was much more consuming I'll stop short of all-consuming- But to really wanting to make sure that you have some sort of good management or division for that. I wanna get into some things about you. Not that all of the leadership topics aren't personal, but-

Karen Stephens 26:36

Yeah

Rachel Humphrey 26:37

one of the things I have found over the last couple years of this podcast is I interview a lot of people I've known for a very long time, and they'll say something and I'm like, "I didn't know that," or, "Oh, I don't think that's how people would describe you." And so I'm curious for someone like you that I haven't known as long, what is one thing either people don't know about you or you think may be a common misperception if people were to describe you?

Karen Stephens 27:03

Yeah. I think because I've been at Revinate for so long, everybody probably knows this about me now, but back in when I was teaching, so when I graduated with my degree, I taught at Sac City, Sacramento City College and Sacramento State, and at that time I was also in a band, in a rock band in Midtown Sacramento. Probably one of the happiest times of my life, to be honest. I wasn't making any money, but I was... I would teach during the day, and then at night I was in this really cool band, and I was a singer, and I still am very musical. And I think- It's, I don't think I'm very cookie cutter. Obviously I love my career and my job, but there's a real, rock musical side of me that it becomes obvious when you know me. But that's probably the main thing. I've got a whole creative side that, is not corporate at all. And actually, I'm very surprised I found myself in corporate America at all, to be honest.

Rachel Humphrey 27:54

I am guessing that also lends itself to the fun of public speaking- Oh, yeah as being ways that you are in front of people. Regular listeners know that because I think that we all evolve as people on a regular basis, one of the ways we do that is by reflection. So when you look back on 20-year-old Karen, maybe you're studying French at the time, maybe even living in France at the time, what would you tell yourself either about how things have worked out for you, or maybe something that would've made your path easier or different along the way, if you could tell yourself that today?

Karen Stephens 28:32

Yeah, you know what? I actually, my 20-year-old self was studying in France, and I was at a point where when I went over there, I didn't have enough French to qualify for the higher classes. So I was in a position when we got out of the summer session where it's okay, you can either stay on the track you're on and you won't get any credit for this when you get back to the United States, or you can go up into the advanced track, which means you're gonna be at the bottom of the class 'cause all these other people have had two years of French and you've had two semesters. But you'll get credits and you'll be able to graduate. So the advice to my younger self actually came from my grandmother. I call- she called me and I told her my dilemma, and she said, "I don't know what you're so worried about. You always do well." And that has always really stuck with me. I think when you go back to when you have self-doubt or anxiety, so I think it's find the confidence in yourself. And then the second thing is don't take it too seriously. I, if I look at the younger generations now I feel like e- everybody, it appears to me, again, I don't have kids of my own, but I have nieces and nephews, and this drive to like I have to do all the right things in all the right order so that I can get the right job and do the right thing, and I'm like, "Why so serious?" Have a good time. I just had- You know? Like college is the best time of your life if you do it right. Yes.

Rachel Humphrey 29:47

Not only college, but I think about, there's such a drive toward the internships in your field and all of these things- Yeah and I spent every summer of college doing something completely silly and unrelated to anything I would do eventually in life, and I do, I understand a lot of the motivation behind it today, but I also think you're gonna be working and on that hamster wheel the rest of your life, and so trying to figure out how to make sure that you're taking in all of the other facets- Yeah the right thing.

Karen Stephens 30:17

Have fun.

Rachel Humphrey 30:19

Yeah. Have fun. Love that. You've given and shared a lot of incredible leadership advice today, some little nuggets about you. As you think of our motto, empowering personal success, what is one thing you would wanna leave our audience with?

Karen Stephens 30:33

Oh. First of all, if you're younger, I just, it goes so fast. I really just wanna say that, you think that, a- as you're kinda slogging away through different parts of your life it feels like you have a really long time. And I don't mean to be doomsday, but I'm just saying have fun while you can. Take the opportunity. See where things go. If it doesn't work out, you can pivot, and I know that might sound odd from somebody who's been at a company as long as I have, but I think really just make sure that you embrace everything that you can when it comes up. Don't leave the opportunity. Don't think, oh, I need to be more serious or more this or that. You're exactly where you need to be, and your job is to find joy. It's to find joy wherever you can.

Rachel Humphrey 31:16

I love that, to find joy. That's a great place for us to wrap up. Karen, thank you so much. I'm so excited by, like I said, how one email introduction can end up leading to such great conversations and such a way to contribute with one another. But thank you very much for joining the podcast today. Thank you for sharing more about your story to our audience. We know you have a lot of ways to choose to spend your time, so we appreciate you tuning in. We hope you'll head over to itspersonalstories.com to hear from other industry leaders as well. But Karen, thank you so much for joining us.

Karen Stephens 31:48

Oh, thank you, Rachel. It was so fun.

Rachel Humphrey 31:50

Good seeing you.

Karen Stephens 31:52

You too.