Career Podcast Featuring Carolyn Henry, VP and GM of Americas Regional Marketing at Intel : Women in Tech

 On episode #75 of the 2B Bolder podcast Carolyn Henry,  Vice President and GM of Americas Regional Marketing at Intel talks openly about being a woman in tech and marketing today and what it takes to be successful. She is responsible for Intel’s marketing activations across Canada, the United States, and Latin America. She leads a diverse group of marketers across consumer, commercial, and gaming segments and enterprise and data center marketing. 

On the show, Carolyn talks about her career path and how she identified opportunities and passions along the way. Her drive for success has led her to her current role, which combines her love for technology, people, and marketing.  She emphasizes the importance of recognizing you don't have to follow a straight path, but more importantly, you should be pursuing your interests, sharpening your skills and continuing to learn, and being mindful of where you can grow your career as you move forward.

Ever wondered how a marketing leader can advance and grow their career while putting people-first and leading with authenticity? Tune in and listen to Carolyn’s tips on developing relationships with mentors, finding your love language, and how genuine gratitude can inspire teams of people.

Connect with Carolyn Henry on LinkedIn

Resources referenced in the podcast

• After Hours podcast with Youngme Moon 
• Reshma Saujani Marshall Plan for Moms

The 2B Bolder Podcast provides you with first-hand access to some amazing women. Guests will include women from leading enterprise companies to startups, women execs, coders, account execs, engineers, doctors, and innovators.

Listen to 2B Bolder for more career insights from women in tech and business.

Learn more about AnitaB.org 

Transcript

Episode 75 - Carolyn Henry

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

marketing, women, mentor, career, people, prospected, mary, role, felt, bolder, learn, marketers, podcast, spent, 2b, absolutely, speak, spanish, love, college

SPEAKERS

Carolyn Henry, Mary Killelea

Mary Killelea  00:01

Hi there, my name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the 2B Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. 2B Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you; Encouraging you guys to show up, but to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation. 

Mary Killelea  00:33

Hi there. Thanks for tuning in. Today's featured guest is Carolyn Henry. Carolyn is the Vice President and GM of Americas Regional Marketing at Intel. In this role, she is responsible for Intel's marketing activations across Canada, the United States, and Latin America. She leads a diverse group of marketers across consumer, commercial, and gaming segments, and enterprise and data center marketing. Carolyn holds a BA from Connecticut College, a master's in technical communications from Northeastern University, certificates in marketing from Northwestern University, and a certificate in poetry from Washington University. She is an active and passionate board member of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, focusing on STEM education for underserved young people in the Bay Area. In addition, she is an avid traveler and enjoys learning new languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, and French. She lives and works in the Bay Area with her husband and young daughter. Carolyn, thank you so much for joining us.

Carolyn Henry  01:32

Thank you for having me, Mary, I'm so glad to be here.

Mary Killelea  01:34

Okay, so this is really cool for me, you have quite the exciting career journey. Tell us kind of from you know, 500-foot view, your career path and how it led to your current role at Intel.

Carolyn Henry  01:48

Thank you. I will! I tell groups of people that I get to speak to, especially through the Silicon Valley Education Foundation work, we speak to women in STEM, and we speak to groups of teachers and educators starting to get their arms around computer science. I tell them that I'm an unlikely person in tech. Alright, my background was very much English liberal arts, my undergraduate degree is English and Spanish. And it is an unlikely path to get to enterprise technology from there. It's not unachievable, right. So I like to say that to give people confidence to approach the field and to not think that it's so insurmountable to get the right credentials. 

Carolyn Henry  02:31

But I did have to put a few things together. So, one of my first roles out of college was at Jafco Ventures in Boston. It was a venture capital firm, and I got to see technology coming through the door and how that whole VC motion worked. And the groups of people who are investing, and the types of companies they're investing in and get to see a few things go IPO. And I thought, hmm, I get this, I get this business prospect, I get the technology. How can I put that together with my communications background? And I quickly went back to school to Northeastern University that had a very clear focus on co-ops and tangible experience, which I also loved. So when I went back to get my degree I centered in communications and computer science, learn C++, you know, kind of built my technical chops underneath me in my graduate work. And from there, I led the path through internships, to another fabulous enterprise software company that I won't name. And spent 15 years of my career really growing and learning there, where I was able to follow a management track, have world class education around how to be a leader, how to be a manager, how to inspire and grow teams, and really get those- my feet underneath me there. Through that work, I was able to dabble in leading demos across the world, really getting close to our sales teams and selling function and realize, oh, man, this is where it becomes real. I love this selling motion. And how can I quickly pivot into marketing, which I think is the one of the most creative, exciting disciplines when that sales and marketing connection is really rocking, we can be a growth engine and it's so exciting. And so I pivoted mid career about 15 years ago into marketing from there and have experienced a lot of fun, great experiences and so much learning ever since.

Carolyn Henry  03:37

That is so important to demonstrate. That you know, you might not,out of college known where you were going to get, but you continued to pursue things that piqued your interest and that your skills were, you know, I guess not easy to come by, but you excelled at naturally.

Carolyn Henry  04:48

Absolutely Mary. And I think I'd love to give that inspiration to younger people, right? You don't have to know the exact path. You don't have to follow a straight path. But what I think you have to do is always continue to learn, continue to sharpen your skills, and continue to figure out where that overlap is, right, those Venn diagrams of what the world needs, what you're interested in, and what you can get paid for.

Mary Killelea  05:11

I don't think there's been a better time because you know, technology and everything is moving at such a fast pace that not everyone is skilled at certain things, because there's so many things that are still yet to come. So it's the curiosity of learning that is such like, I think the secret sauce.

Carolyn Henry  05:30

Absolutely. And you know, wherever I felt like I didn't have the depth underneath me or the chops, I'd send myself back to school. Get a degree in digital -or not degree- get a certificate in digital marketing, and just kind of shore that up right, or go back to the chief marketing officer program that I did most recently. So, I think you can always add to your tool bag.

Mary Killelea  05:54

What unique challenges do you think a marketing career in tech specifically has?

Carolyn Henry  05:59

I love this question. I'm sure we could talk about this for a really long time. But I think a marketer has a deep knowledge and skillset. And it is a discipline unto its own, right? We know this as marketers. However, when you're a marketer, in tech, it's almost discounted to some some degree, right? And you can get a lot of pushback and pushback that you might not see in like a finance degree, right? Or finance realm, right? Nobody asked them if they understand every in and out of a CPU. But people want to know that their marketers have the technical chops. So I think you almost are, it's a two-fold commitment to growing both skills. So I've noticed that as some of the challenges along the way. In marketing.

Mary Killelea  06:47

Yeah, continuing to stay on your tech acumen is essential. And I found through through my role is that the people who are technical, are so willing to take time and teach those that are curious. And I think as women sometimes we forget to ask for help. 

Carolyn Henry  07:05

We do! We do do that, don't we?

Mary Killelea  07:07

Yeah, we're we put this pressure on ourselves, like, oh, I can't take that role, because I should have that depth now. 

Carolyn Henry  07:13

Correct. That whole "80%, 100% ready for the next step" conundrum that some of us women find ourselves in. We're gonna stop that!

Mary Killelea  07:23

Yes. Okay. So I'm so impressed that you speak so many different languages, you speak Portuguese, French, and Spanish. And I know you're raising your daughter to be bilingual as well. What value, and how do you think that shaped your life and your career?

Carolyn Henry  07:41

Ah, it's hugely valuable to me, and something I feel really passionate about. I will caveat that I don't speak all of those languages well. I just I really do love language. And, you know, I, my first experience was rather late in life traveling abroad, it was, you know, 1999, it was my semester abroad in college. And I had been studying Spanish almost my entire life, it felt like. And I got to Spain, and I couldn't communicate. And I was really frustrated by this. And I'd see my peers around me having such a better time because of their fluency in the language. And ever since then I said, you know, never again, right. So I learned more in those six months of the Spanish language than I did, and 15 years of trying to study it. But I do think it gives you so much more entry and approachability and empathy and just that cultural fluency that I think is so important in this world. I try, personally, I might offend a few people, but I try not to be the stereotypical American who travels abroad. And I think I, you know, I, I study the language before I visit a country, I tried to be culturally adept, or at least somewhat knowledgeable, and it goes a long way. I've had a lot of wonderful experiences, just because I've tried.

Mary Killelea  08:58

Well, and don't you think it opens up new career opportunities that, you know, if you're like, let's just say a candidate, and you're going for a global position? That's a real asset to have.

Carolyn Henry  09:11

It absolutely is. I'm sitting in a space where I work with Canada, the US and Latin America. And I absolutely know that as part of my candidacy, it was considered that I can speak Spanish and I could, you know, step into some of those countries with some working knowledge of Brazil, for example.

Mary Killelea  09:28

So what do you love most about your current role? 

Carolyn Henry  09:30

Oh, I love so many things. Mary, I really do. I have just so much excitement and passion for this role. I will genuinely and 100% say, I love the people. I love the team. I love how professional and capable and brilliant the team is. And part of my joy in my work is when I can maybe be a part of the solution for those folks to unlock their own genius. Right or, you know, give someone the confidence or, you know, give a person, the air cover that says, hey, go be creative, take some risks, take some chances, go be you - drive your business, shine. And I'll be there for you. I'll be there behind you rooting you on, and I'll be there in front of you, trying to knock down some roadblocks. And I just really enjoy that. I also love winning. So I deeply, deeply am competitive, want to win with our sellers, and with Intel, you know, get us back on the path to unquestioned leadership. And that's what I'm here for.

Mary Killelea  10:39

We touched on this a little bit at the beginning about kind of how you got to where you are today. And one thing that I know is building that career strategy just always seems so daunting. So especially if you're in a big corporation, and you may not know, what are all the roles, like, how do I get from here to there? What advice do you have for women in big organizations on kind of creating that strategy and identifying opportunities?

Carolyn Henry  11:08

Ah, this one is so key Mary, and I, I'd like folks to take a page out of my playbook and don't get stuck like I did, right. I feel like I spent a lot of time kind of early to mid career in that first 13 years at a large corporation, you know, doing my job, doing my job well, you know, getting good ratings, getting that, you know, kind of, you know, top percent where I wanted to be, but I really wasn't advancing as quickly as I needed to. The monetary gains weren't where they needed to be. And I could have spent another decade doing that. And I think the best advice I took was when I was getting really frustrated, and I couldn't get to that second level of management position. And I was feeling that I was bumping up against an unwritten ceiling. You know, a mentor of mine told me to step back and strategize my career and do the plan for the next five years. Do the plan, where do you want to be? So please take the time to work on your career, and take the time out of your day to day to do that. And I really reevaluated. I said, Do I want to be writing technical manuals in software in five years? The answer was no. Do I want to be leading teams of people at a global company? The answer was yes. Do I want to have more customer interaction? Yes. Right. And, and the marketing path was just the way to go. And, you know, I really jumped started my career after that first company, when I realized I needed to leave. I needed to go outside to get the, the level and the compensation that I knew somewhere in my bones, I knew that I was worth.

Mary Killelea  12:53

Thank you for being transparent on that, because I think you hit on so many important points in that statement. You mentioned you had a mentor who kind of gave you some good information, how did you establish that relationship with your mentor?

Carolyn Henry  13:08

This is a great one for all of us. I've had so many wonderful mentors are in my career, male and female, I would point to a couple of different paths. There are mentors you have that you might learn from, by watching them from afar, there are mentors that you have a personal relationship, and that just becomes natural, and it deepens. And you might meet with them, like once every two weeks and really dig into your career. And that's lovely and wonderful. But that's few and far between, I think, a lot of times, people or junior people in their careers come knocking and say, Hey, will you be my mentor? Will you be my mentor, and it's just not natural. 

Carolyn Henry  13:46

And then there are, you know, sponsors, sponsors who might see something in you, they don't know all of your work, but they vouch for you in rooms where you are not in, and I've been very lucky to have a great healthy mix of all of those. But I will share with you and with the group that I absolutely prospected a couple of those. Right. So we talked about sales, we talked about prospecting clients. I, you know, I identified a female leader who is, you know, headed for the C suite. And I knew that she emulated almost everything that I wanted to be and you know, I started sharing things with her. Like offering her items or wisdom or something that I thought that I could add or even just encouragement or say, hey, you know, don't let this big corporation make you more like them; we need you! Right? And so I started a relationship with her and then eventually ended up working for her. And one of my sales compatriots, my friends, my colleagues, she laughed at me. She said, You prospected her! I said, well, yes, yes, I did.

Mary Killelea  14:51

That's brilliant. I love it. Well, basically what you're doing is you're owning - you're the CEO of your own career. 

Carolyn Henry  14:56

Absolutely. Yeah. 

Mary Killelea  14:58

And I think so many people are waiting for an invitation or thinking their work will speak for itself. One thing I've learned is like, unless you're going out there and you know, marketing yourself, you won't get noticed. Or people will look at someone who might be more vocal in drawing attention to themselves. And that's a hard thing to learn.

Carolyn Henry  15:24

It is, it's really hard. And sometimes it's very uncomfortable for people. Right? And I think as someone who loves marketing, I get it. I'm like, okay, you got to be marketable, right? You got to rack up the differentiators. What's your value prop? You've got to cut through the noise, right? You gotta have people see you, but I think, maybe take yourself out of the equation and just have empathy for the person on the other side. There's so much coming at them. How are they going to cut through the noise? And how are they going to have the right perspective if you don't raise your hand? Right? Or if you don't, you know, at least try. This is what I'm known for. These are my superpowers, please think of me when you need this.

Mary Killelea  16:03

Yeah, great advice. What drives you to be successful?

Carolyn Henry  16:07

Ah, well, I think there's two answers to this Mary. Early in my life, I lost my father. And I think a lot of my childhood, my high school, college career, my early career, I just tried to spend making him proud. I had this, you know, angel or person on my shoulder that I really just wanted to make proud. It is an engine, right. And I think now, later in my life, it's my family, it's my daughter. I get up every morning and I want to achieve to, you know, provide for her and to make sure she has the life that I think she might enjoy.

Mary Killelea  16:48

When you have considered new roles over the years, what have been some of the non negotiables?

Carolyn Henry  16:53

Hmm, non negotiable... I think there's two. For me, is my immediate boss, I need to make sure that this person is invested in me, believes in me, and has some skin in my game, right. And by that I mean in the success. And so I really look for that. And I have spent a lot of time being the only. The only woman in the room, the only X, you know, in the room for a while, and I'm tired of it. Right? So now I look for other women. I look for for peers and women that I can rely on and kind of do that check on the culture.

Mary Killelea  17:35

What is the best piece of career advice that you've gotten? 

Carolyn Henry  17:40

Oh wow. There are so many. Do I get more than one?

Mary Killelea  17:44

You can have as many as you want. We want all your wisdom tips.

Carolyn Henry  17:50

Thank you, I think a really fundamental one is you know, do what you say you will do. Right? Just be credible. Make sure that your word means something and that you will deliver. I also think you know a bias towards action, just have a bias towards action. Just go rack up the wins, and try to put some points on the board. And I think market yourself, right, I've really taken that to heart. I've had coaches, I've had executive mentoring over the years. And, you know, they've always stressed the importance of, you know, what are the stories that you're going to be able to tell out of this experience, out of this, this role or this job? Or, you know, to the next one?

Mary Killelea  18:36

What do you think holds women back mostly from excelling in their careers? And what advice do you have for them?

Carolyn Henry  18:43

Oh, Mary! Okay. So this one is so near and dear to my heart. Obviously, I think there are so many things that women are up against. And if you hear nothing else from me, I want our women listeners to know that it's not our fault. It is systemic, right. And I think that there is systemic bias in the workplace, in the environment, in the country. Where we don't have the support we need to raise our children. We don't have the infrastructure or childcare as infrastructure to get to work, right. I think, you know, there's different biases in couples and you know, who is doing what work at home and whether that's a, you know, cisgender couple or, you know, whatever it is. But it's not all on you, right? And that's, that's a hard one, right?

Mary Killelea  19:35

 Right.

Carolyn Henry  19:35

Because you could get frustrated you could let it get you down, but what's the next right thing that you can do to try to make that better for yourself, your immediate team, or the next one? The other thing I wanted to say about that is that you/ve got to let go of the perfection. Right? We talked a little bit about that in the beginning, Mary. You're more ready than you think. Trust yourself, and you gotta go, I think, especially in these uncertain economic times, nobody has the answer. I mean, we've been surprised by so many things. And you're as smart as the next person, you don't have to have all the answers, you have to trust your capabilities and go,

Mary Killelea  20:18

I think I'm just gonna, like, loop that saying. You're ready before you think you're ready.

Carolyn Henry  20:25

100%. And Mary, if I, if I may just kind of loop back a little bit. You know, I spent or we spent, some folks around our age spent, some time listening to the "Lean In" messages, right. And, and I do think that they're partfully helpful. It's not all of it, that if we just lean in work harder, like go for that corner office, like, we talked about the systemic problems up against us. But there are some good nuggets in there, right, so don't count yourself out, before you're out. And I say that as a recent mom, as someone who is planning her family. And as someone who looks at my friends and peers around me, and I saw the inclination, I felt the inclination to pull back. Like, long before I was even married, or before we even had the child or before I was even up against, like, what does it mean to be working when pregnant? And what does it mean to be working, going back to work after you've had a child? Right? You kind of- some of us had an inclination to take our foot off the gas. And I would really just encourage you to cross the bridge when you get there. Right? Don't count yourself out before you're out.

Mary Killelea  21:33

No, and I think that's to Cheryl Sanders point from that book is really, you know, don't take yourself out of the race before you've even, you know, participated in the race. 

Carolyn Henry  21:43

Mhm! And you might find beautiful mentors who say, Hey, you want to be a VP with a baby on the way? I've had three! No problem, let's go. Right?

Mary Killelea  21:53

That's a beautiful thing. So that's a great question. So as women in upper management, what can we do for other younger women? In and outside the office? I mean, you participating in, you know, the STEM mentoring, that's fabulous. What are other things that women who are listening can do to help other people, other women?

Carolyn Henry  22:16

I think many of us are, and I know that we all want to, but we've got to pass it backwards, right? You know, however, the saying goes. We've got to extend the ladder back down and fiercely protect those on their way up. So, you know, really, try to be vocal, try to be vocal in a room full of men who might be our peers and protect those hours that that women might need to support their lives outside of the office. Protect those women who are on their way up. And, you know, maybe it's second nature to some of us who've got that Mama Bear in us really just defend, be vocal, nothing should be hidden or not talked about. Because we are making inroads and socializing things to be more normal. In a historically male dominated space where there was a full time partner at home taking care of the rest of the world.

Mary Killelea  23:11

What does 2B Bolder mean to you?

Carolyn Henry  23:14

It means to be courageous, and to be confident. I think that your podcasts have been amazing, Mary, I've listened to a few. I think we, we can all learn that we're worthy. We have it within us. And we should just kind of shed some of the baggage and be confident.

Mary Killelea  23:34

Fabulous. Last question. Any good resources that you could direct someone to who wants to upskill some of their marketing knowledge?

Carolyn Henry  23:45

Oh, sure. I personally love anything Youngme Moon puts her hands on. So she's a woman, a professor, at Harvard Business School. I think she had a beautiful book a few years ago, around differentiation. She's also a participant on the After Hours podcast from HBR. If anyone's listening to that.

Mary Killelea  24:06

I'm gonna include that in the show notes. 

Carolyn Henry  24:09

Awesome, awesome. I really just love and admire her. She's a marketing professional through and through. So that that's one. And then even in the podcast, I love her style. I love how she holds her own. With a couple of gentlemen on the podcast, you know, there's a lot to learn- to learn there. So there's one. I'm also following Reshma Saujani. Also, she's written Pay it Forward. She's very much in the forefront of the you know, in the US, the Marshall Plan for Moms, and she is part of the LeanIn generation who outwardly publicly said, Hey, we got it wrong, right. There are systemic things up against us. And let me tell you, you know, it's not all about being brave. So I just really appreciate those two women leaders.

Mary Killelea  24:56

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time. It's been a joy to talk to you and I appreciate your support.

Carolyn Henry  25:03

You're welcome Mary. My pleasure completely. Take care!

Mary Killelea  25:10

Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guest. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to please go check out our website at 2Bbolder.com That's the number two, little B, bolder.com.