#43 Career Podcast Featuring Mayura Garg, a Top Integrated Digital Marketing Leader : Women In Business

On episode #43 of the 2B Bolder Podcast, Mayura Garg, Integrated Digital Marketing Leader for Cy-Cog-nito , shares her rich and diverse career journey by discussing the various roles in tech she'd had over the years. From graduating with an electrical engineering computer science degree, moving on to different roles including corporate research, working as a solution architect, technology consultant, pivoting into product management, and then marketing, communications and strategy, and campaign management. Her story is an excellent example of how hard work and determination allow you to build the career of your dreams. Tune in to hear how Mayura developed her career strategy and her non-negotiables in taking on a new role and what she would tell her 20-year-old self.

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Transcript

Mary Killelea (Host): 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 and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Thanks for tuning in. Today on the show is a woman I have known for some time now, someone I admired and found to be confident, kind, assertive, and ambitious. Mayura Garg is an integrated digital marketing leader for Cy-cog-nito. Mayura is a dynamic product marketing and campaign leader with deep experience in being a creative and sales impact focused marketing leader with more than 15 years of experience in product partner marketing, strategic campaign planning, product line management, sales enablement, and successful launch and market adoption of new technology products. Mayura, thank you so much for joining me today.

Mayura Garg (Guest): Oh, thank you for the great intro. I had no idea. It's funny to always have someone introduce me like, oh, wow. That is a lot, but thank you for having me here.

Mary Killelea: Of course, and it's so fun to reconnect with you. I remember, you know, we worked at Intel, obviously, a few years back, and stayed in contact through LinkedIn, but to have you on the show really is special. So I would love it if you could tell us about your current role, but also start back where you got out of college and you came on your journey and some of the jobs that you've had to get you here.

Mayura Garg: Sure. So, I work for, it's a series B company based in Palo Alto founded by another, so he's an Israeli founder and worked for the Israeli Defense 8200 unit and has this incredible technology to allow organizations to see their entire IT footprint, right, as an attacker would. And it's just such an interesting concept. He's brought a lot of innovation into the space. We're trying to build a new category in security, and, you know, it's just, it's an amazing fit. You know, the technology is so amazing. And once we educate the CISOs on what is possible to do, how we really help them become more proactive about looking at their attack surface and reducing the risk, they just, you know, it's just a very exciting effect. So for me, as a marketer, when I kind of got introduced to the company, to me, it was so exciting to have a product that is so fabulous to get an opportunity to define a whole new category of looking at security and being a part of the growth story, helping this company achieve its growth goals, right, to get to the next round and beyond. So to me, that is an interesting and exciting opportunity that gets me going every day.

And so that's what I'm currently doing. And I don't know, it's been too many years since I graduated college. I started, I graduated with double E, computer science, University of Illinois, and I started doing research at Motorola. That was the company, I think very few people know about them now, but they were known for their first, you know, the StarTech, not StarTech, yeah, it was StarTech phone and radio communication.

Mary Killelea: Oh, yeah, right, right.

Mayura Garg: Now, they radium satellite, they started doing the space communication. So they had a lot of, you know, significant bets that company was making. And I was part of the corporate research group coming out of college. And I happened to know that team, I got an internship while I was still finishing college, and they offered me a position. So I went back full time. And it was, it was really interesting, we had a whole lab of PhDs thinking about the next generation of communications. And so I was brought on to help them manage all their servers, working with IBM, and there were silicon graphics. And so it was like high performance computing back then. And then I think for me, I worked in the lab, and the lab director, he's like, look, you only have an undergrad, and we have we hire PhDs and above. So, if you want to grow, you need to get more advanced education. So then I started my master's while I was working there in double E. And then at some point, I kind of realized that I was more interested in the business aspect. So it just happened that I was recruited by someone at Hewlett Packard to be in the field. And then I made that transition to be so I was like, the solution architect or technology consultant, if you will, based out of the Chicago office. And then I started business school at Kellogg. And that was a really interesting part of my journey, just kind of like getting exposed to the whole business school experience was very eye opening in terms of just the caliber of people you're exposed to and, and the parties were fabulous. It was it was really good time, I happened to meet my husband during that time as well. And so I was with HP doing a number of different solution architect, then I was in sales, I was actually had quota and I was running, I had the entire Midwest.

So I was 20 something and traveling to a new Midwest, I know, a city and doing business school. And when I look back, I think it was just so crazy that I didn't even think about it. Because I'm a vegetarian, and I would regularly entertain my clients at steak houses in middle America. And I didn't blink or think twice about it. Like, that's just life this is what you do. And then I finished business school. And we came to San Francisco, because my husband was training at UCSF. So then my next kind of thing was working, doing product management for a smaller communications company, it was a midsize company, about 5000 employees, they started doing product and distribution and marketing operations. And it was just a bunch of different roles. And that company was getting sold. So they cut our marketing budgets. And they would be like, here's your $5,000, go line your next. And we were working on wireless line switching, right. And it's sold by distribution by reseller. And it was just like, every day, we're like, okay, it just felt like, okay, as a marketer, you want enough resources, right, what you know you can do and everything you're you're trained to do, right. So I learned a lot, did a lot of stuff.

Then I had someone I'd worked with the HP, who was at Intel, and he called me and he said, hey, you you've been working in wireless, and we need someone who understands that space. And why don't you come and talk to us? So, I'm like, Oregon, my husband will not take it. I'm not interested. And he's like, just come out and meet us. So, we I met him at that R&B cafe, because he had just come up come down for the day. And he's like this would be really interesting and exciting time. And for me, having seen this the whole Centrino, right, and how much inside was able to do so it just felt like, hey, this seems like a place that has the resources to actually go do something amazing. So I ended up going through the process. And then they gave me an offer, I said, I can't move. And so they said, Okay, you'll be the only person in Santa Clara. But if you want to grow, you have to move. So I said, Okay, well, let's see how it goes. And at that time, I was like, Oh, I could do this four days in Oregon. That didn't last very long. And so yeah, I've been in different product groups, like I started in mobility, right in the mobility products group working on launching some of our wireless technologies, right doing co-marketing, then I moved into doing marketing for the anti theft service, which is a service that we ended up selling into retail, that helps you lock down your computer, if you lose it, then whoever finds it, they can't do anything. It's essentially a brick, right? So that was our consumer security. So we had to do everything for it from like the product experience, like how are people going to experience it? To like the branding there was we actually had a brand associated with it called and it looked like a crocodile, crocodiles mouth open. I don't know if you ever seen it.

Mary Killelea: I don't remember that one.

Mayura Garg: It's a yellow triangle, with a, you know, so anyway, so it was it was a lot of fun experience, right to figure out how, you know, how to work with Best Buy, how to like, take this technology, new consumers, what are the like elements to scale, because for us, everything is like, how are we going to scale, right, and get to all the markets. So that was, that was fascinating. And then, I needed to move to the Midwest for my husband's job. So from there, I moved to channels, partner, and alliances group, and was doing the communication strategy and media, and did some interesting things there for three years. And then, after that, I've been doing campaigns running the Vepro campaign. And then once we had more of a data center cloud for the North America team. So, it's been a lot of different jobs at Intel for sure. And I feel like that the 14 years I was there was truly the time where I grew in a lot of different ways with, you know, the different aspects of marketing, right in sales enablement and working with channels.

Mary Killelea: You've really transitioned. What were hurdles in your transition? And how did you overcome them, if there were any? Or did you just say, here's an opportunity, I'm going to go figure it out.

Mayura Garg: Well, there was a little bit of that. I always looked at things and kind of said, oh, this is fascinating. And I would do a lot of go to different seminars, I'd like train, right, or read on different things and kind of develop a point of view. And I think it's a very important thing to always know where things are going to shift to what's going to matter. And so I always did a lot of like, and also trying to fit between where life is going, right? And what you what interests you and like where the industry is going. And you always want to be doing some effort and some work on your own to have a point of view of where do you see yourself going, right? In the next year, in the next three years, five years. So, I think I've always done that. And it's also, the thing that I feel like I didn't do as well, which I would encourage a lot of the young up and coming talent to do is really take networking as seriously as doing right, like you could do a project. But I think the value of getting different perspectives and getting different people, especially when they start in a large corporation, it far outweighs anything you would learn from doing a project. So, I think that I didn't do it as well. But that's something is so important to make time and really get on people's calendars and really say, oh, I want to talk to you about something and have coffee or just to take a walk with someone.

Mary Killelea: Absolutely. I agree completely. Networking is so crucial. And I mean, obviously having intention and thoughtful questions going into it, but also just knowing that there are people out there willing to help you if they see that you're serious about something. One thing that I heard while you were talking was your love for learning. And I think that attributed to your success along the way, transitioning into a new role is one thing. But if you're not going to do the research and you're not going to develop that point of view, you're going to be in that role and you may or may not be seen as a contributor.

Mayura Garg: No, it's true in any single thing we do. And now when the pace is so much faster, even next week when I work, I will have to go talk to five or six different firms and develop like, hey, out of this, what is the best way for us to move forward? Right? You constantly have to do that to move the business forward, but also you as an individual. Right. And so next week, I am going to an event where Sixth Sense is hosting someone local in Palo Alto. It's going to be hard because there is a lot of things, right. Like in the evening, you're trying to, but I think it needs to be something you need to prioritize and do on a weekly basis to get new perspectives and meet with your peers and understand, hey, how are you tackling this? Because there are going to be the scale of problems that we will have is going to get bigger and bigger. So, you do need that perspective on an ongoing basis.

Mary Killelea: That's a great advice, especially from peers. I think there's a lot to learn from each other, not even up the chain, but just even your colleagues. When you've taken the different career positions along the way, when you get a job offer or when you're down to the acceptance, are there some non-negotiables about that role that you're like, it has to check these three boxes or it has to check these boxes in order for it to be a fit for me?

Mayura Garg: Well, first you want to see yourself being able to grow, look for growth for you as an individual. And does it teach you something? Does it give you an opportunity to do something that is going to change the trajectory of where you go next? So, you want to look at growth and, honestly, the personalities of the people, when I found… I think sometimes you go in, you know, and, you know, it's hard, right? Like you can have going through the interview process, you could tell that story, they will tell you a story about their management style, their company, but until you've kind of gone in there, you have to make that assessment, right? Like, is this a place where I want to continue to invest my time and energy? And it's an ongoing thing, not just at when you're given that offer, but it's every week you need to reflect and say, is this helping me grow or is it stifling me? Because a lot of, they don't mean to, or especially in smaller companies, they don't have the talent, the depth of talent or expertise. So, you have to really watch for that. It depends on where they've come from as well. When they haven't seen what good looks like, you know what I'm saying? And from a management perspective, from a leadership perspective, you definitely want to work for someone who's going to push you and grow you.

Mary Killelea: Right. Right.

Mayura Garg: So look for that personal chemistry with who you're going to be working for and look for, you know, how is it going to grow you? And you need to do a check to see, is it real? You know, do you, do you feel like there is more that you could do? There's more that you could take on, right? So to me, that's non-negotiable. Like, if you feel like, oh my gosh, I've done this, right? Like there is, there is no challenge in this or how am I going to grow here? Then it's not, it's not worth it. There are too many other things you could go do. So go, go find something else.

Mary Killelea: What's the best piece of advice you have received over the years? Negotiate every single time. It was very difficult for me. And then I took this class, you know, it's just like, Hey, you're going to be uncomfortable, but you have to negotiate because negotiations produces better outcomes for everyone. And you have to get comfortable with that. So I think I try to use that in every kind of situation, I embarrass my kids sometimes they're like, mom, but I'm like, especially my daughter, I try to explain it to her that I'm trying to grow the pie for both them and for us. And it's actually, I want, I do it more so that they get used to it. They get used to kind of asking to say, well, what if you do this or what is that? And that's, you know, so to me, I think that was really good.

Mary Killelea: Do you remember the class you took?

Mayura Garg: Yeah, this was a, there's actually a really good women's leadership course at Stanford that where negotiation is one of them. And, so we had like, like, and for women is there are certain ways that women can be more successful. So they actually, the whole thing was around as a woman, how do you negotiate and how do you ask so that you're not seen in a negative way?

Mary Killelea: Yes, I would love to look up, I'm going to need to look up that class. I think having the skill of negotiation just sets you apart in today's world as a woman.

Mayura Garg: Before I would say, oh, I would avoid conflict, right? And then once I got comfortable with it, it was actually enjoyable. It was like something silly. Like we were talking about, oh, we have to take down budget, right? Like in a group and nobody was complaining. I said, no, I will not take it down. And here's why. And because they just come off this training, right? And they're like, yeah, that makes sense. You keep your budget. So, so no, I still do it. I try to do as much and it's always a good reminder. Practice, practice that muscle.

Mary Killelea: When you reflect back on your career, what are you most proud of?

Mayura Garg: Just one thing, huh?

Mary Killelea: Well, no, I'm sure you have many things to be proud of, but obviously, but yeah, if there's something that rises to the top.

Mayura Garg: Well, I think when I was working the channel job at Intel, we didn't have a social community for the channel. So, I kind of had a vision for what it looks like and proposed it. And you know how we had all this like the governance for social stuff like that to kind of go through all of that and actually get something out and to have partners really enjoy like the connection with each other. And I thought that was really something impactful that they really enjoyed and benefited and it helped Intel reinvigorate that, you know, that relationship with the channel.

Mary Killelea: So, what you just said impact. I think that is a key for anyone looking to build a career is being able to show your impact, not only for the company, but for like what you said. It makes you so proud of what you do because you know you added value to all the stakeholders who participated.

Mayura Garg: Exactly. And the community. And I think in any marketing type of role, we should always be looking at building the communities, whether it's our partners, whether it's our resellers, whether it's people who want to build this category with us, right. And they're going to go on the ride with us. So, it's really important to keep that front and center.

Mary Killelea: All right. So now I'm going to shift into our rapid fire section. I only have a few questions here and then I'll let you have your Saturday back. If you could tell your 20 year old self anything, what would it be?

Mayura Garg: Oh my gosh, there are so many stuff, but I think it's just having the courage, to just try new things and really believing in yourself, believing in yourself more than I did. And definitely the networking, I think networking would be the number one message is very, very important for any young person to just kind of say that is table stakes, right. Learn to do it. It's okay if you're uncomfortable, but just get on the other side and do it right. And just taking chances and believing in yourself.

Mary Killelea: Who inspires you and why?

Mayura Garg: My daughter inspires me. She has such a passion for so many different things and she is like always full of energy and she has all these new ideas. So when I talk to her, it inspires me.

Mary Killelea: I love that. I love that. And I get that a hundred percent. What does to be bolder mean to you?

Mayura Garg: To me, it's just pushing yourself and really visualizing what is possible and every day making space and time for making that real. So it's really just pushing yourself and really believing that it's possible.

Mary Killelea: I can't thank you enough for sharing your career story, your thoughts, your wisdom and insights for the conversation.

Mayura Garg: Thank you for having me, Mary.

Mary Killelea: Oh, you're welcome.

Mayura Garg: Where can someone get in touch with you if they want to learn more about your current company or just want to connect with you through LinkedIn, on my LinkedIn profile, happy to, happy to connect and take questions and, and offer any help. I'm always ready to help, especially young women in tech.

Mary Killelea: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much.

Mayura Garg: Thank you, Mary. Take care. Bye.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guests. 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 2 little b bolder.com.