148 – How Microsoft Dynamics CMO is helping Partners achieve their greatest results

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A Microsoft Dynamics Executive Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

Business Applications are eating the world. This decade of the ecosystem is marked by rapid growth and acceleration of business applications, with experts expecting us to reach over 1 million SaaS solutions by the end of this decade. Microsoft has been at this game for over two decades and the Microsoft Dynamics business has wained and stumbled at times. Satya’s timely investments are resonating. Leaders, like Emily He bring a renewed focus to solutions, industry, and leverage Microsoft’s core strengths across three clouds. In this episode, you will learn how Microsoft Dynamic’s CMO is helping Partners achieve their greatest results.

In Emily’s Words

Emily is the CVP of Business Apps at Microsoft, responsible for developing global GTM strategy and catalyzing business growth for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. Prior to joining Microsoft, Emily served as the SVP of Marketing, responsible for global GTM strategy, brand awareness, and demand generation for Oracle Cloud Human Capital Management. She has served as the Chief Marketing Officer in two high-growth SaaS businesses, leading all aspects of global marketing strategy and execution and working closely with the CEO and the Board of Directors.

What You’ll Learn

  • Her Three Pillars / Why Microsoft is in the Right Place (5:32)
  • How Microsoft Differentiates on Lo Code / No Code (10:10)
  • Priorities for FY2023 (12:32)
  • Focus on Industry Applications & Industry Clouds(14:05)
  • Why Partners are Important (16:00)
  • What Emily believes makes a great partner (20:07)
  • Questions from our listeners (24:30)
  • Emily’s amazing journey from Beijing to the USA (28:16)
  • Words of advice for Partners and Earlier in Career Women (39:52)

It was so great to welcome Emily He. I hope you enjoy and learn from this amazing business leader as much as I enjoyed welcoming her to Ultimate Guide to Partnering®.

Quote From This Episode

“For partners, I would say take ownership and control your own destiny. You have all the resources available you need to navigate these resources and programs. But having been in smaller companies, I believe in entrepreneurship. And I believe you if you clarify your goals and you take ownership and control your own destiny, and leverage your own experience your own best practices and differentiate through the Microsoft ecosystem, you will build an amazing business.“

Other episodes feature Microsoft’s Dynamics & Industry Cloud Strategy.

134 – How Partners Achieve Their Greatest Results with Microsoft’s Industry Cloud Strategy? with Toby Bowers

Alysa Taylor, CVP for Industry & Business Applications – Focus on Listening, Understanding, Knowing Where the World is Going!

Our Sponsors

Resources

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Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Typos

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Microsoft, partner, business, data, customers, applications, Satya, industry, solutions, important, people, platform, Emily, journey, build, dynamics, strategy, career, supply chain, day

SPEAKERS

Announcer, Emily He, Vince Menzione

Emily He  00:00

For partners, I would say take ownership and control your own destiny. You have all the resources available to you need to navigate these resources and programs. But having been in smaller companies, I believe in entrepreneurship. And I believe you if you clarify your goals and you take ownership and control your own destiny, and leverage your own experience your own best practices and differentiate through the Microsoft ecosystem, you will build an amazing business.

Announcer  00:34

Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to partnering in this podcast Vince Menzione, a proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders to discuss transformational trends and to deconstruct successful strategies to thrive and survive in the rapid age of cloud transformation. And now your host, Vince Menzione.

Vince Menzione  00:57

Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering where technology leaders come to optimize results through successful partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and my mission is to help leaders like you unlock the leadership principles and learnings of the best in the business to get partnerships right, optimize for success and deliver your greatest results. How Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer for business applications is helping dynamics and power platform partners achieve their greatest results. I was delighted to welcome Emily he Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for the vibrant dynamics community and platform. Her organization works across engineering customers and partners to catalyze growth for Microsoft’s dynamics and power platforms. Emily is an amazing leader with a fascinating story. She grew up in Beijing and came to the United States as a 20 year old college student. Her journey business advice for partners and inspiration for earlier in career professionals makes this an outstanding listen. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed welcoming Emily he. Before we dive into the interview, I’m happy to announce that partner tap has become a founding sponsor of ultimate guide to partnering partner tap is the only partner ecosystem platform designed for the enterprise. Their technology makes it easy to align channel teams with automated account mapping, letting you control what data you share while building a partner revenue engine. Emily, welcome to the podcast.

Emily He  02:43

It’s great to be here.

Vince Menzione  02:44

I am so excited to finally welcome you as a guest that ultimate guide to bartering, you have an amazing role. And you’ve been around this technology sector that we all care about for quite some time. So I’m so excited to welcome you here today.

Emily He  02:59

I’m excited to be here.

Vince Menzione  03:01

So let’s dive in. You are Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for the business applications unit. This is a massive role. And I was hoping we might begin with you sharing for our listeners your mission and responsibilities with this organization.

Emily He  03:20

I was relatively new to Microsoft, I joined in September last year. And it’s been a very exciting journey to come into Microsoft. I’m the head of marketing for business applications. And currently business application defined as the combination of dynamics and the power platform is a massive role with massive opportunities. And when I think about my roles and responsibilities, there are really three things that my team is accountable for. The first one is to establish a clear vision for business applications based on the market trends, customer needs, and Microsoft’s differentiation. The first thing I noticed when I came to this company is business applications really represent an opportunity for us to establish relationships with the business decision makers as the world is moving to the cloud, business decision makers, CFO CMO, CROs. Increasingly they play a key role in these IT projects. The second thing we do is we work very closely with our engineering counterpart and our sales team. To create a customer centric product. We’ll go to market strategy, we’ve been working with the engineering team to realign our product portfolio to each target line of business, whether it’s sales marketing, service, finance supply chain, where it low code, no code, and really use that as a container to tell the Microsoft Cloud story spanning across model work, business applications and Azure infrastructure. Then once we establish this differentiated product portfolio for each line of business, our job is to support the execution of the go to market strategy through establishing thought leaders. To platform, product innovation and differentiation, telling customers stories, and also to sales and partner enablement,

Vince Menzione  05:07

such a massive set of responsibilities, I want to be clear here establishing the relationship with business decision makers, Microsoft is getting deeper into the lines of business. You talked about this, creating a customer centric realignment, you know, Microsoft has this huge opportunity, the decisions are being made further down the line of business. Microsoft has those relationships, and it has three clouds. So what are your thoughts there, I think

Emily He  05:32

Microsoft is in the right place at the right time to capitalize on what the business decision makers are looking for. Because historically, the market defined business applications as CRM systems or ERP systems and supply chain management systems, all of which are still very important. But in the last few years, because of the pandemic, people are working everywhere, a lot more people are working remotely. So as a consequence of that people are spending a lot more time in their cooperation tools. having meetings with customers and your seller, you’re studying probably spending 50% of your time in collaboration tools, I see an interesting opportunity to converge the user experience across productivity tools, collaboration tools, as well as business applications. While we talk to customers, what they’re asking for is the ability to enter data wherever they are, for example, if they’re having a meeting with a customer using teams, they want to be able to access customer record from Dynamics 365. And they want to be able to enter data into Dynamics 365. And that ability to work with user experience across all our product footprint is something that customers are asking for. And it’s also a huge opportunity. The other trend I see is business applications are transitioning from focusing on business process orchestration, to focusing more on data. So it’s all about ingesting data from different sources, and have the system using AI and machine learning process the data decipher insights and recommendations that most importantly, deliver the recommendation to the point of action wherever the users are, this is something that Microsoft is uniquely able to deliver because we own the data estate. And we also can connect with our productivity and collaboration tools. How can we re align our product strategy to accrue to the strength Microsoft already has in model work, which is in Azure? And how can we tell a more holistic story to each line of business, whether it’s sales marketing, service finance supply chain,

Vince Menzione  07:43

you’ve hit on some really important points here, because I think about CRM solutions, and I’ve used all of them in the past, you’d go into the CRM solution only when you needed to update the record, as opposed to a modern worker operating an Outlook or whatever other platforms I’m using from a collaboration perspective. And I want that to be seamless, I don’t have to pop in and pop out and have a siloed approach. And the other really important point you made the data state and the fact that you have access to all of these amazing tools with Azure, and you have access to all of that amazing capability built in collaboration across the platform,

Emily He  08:19

exactly, to the point of data is in addition to the elimination of manual data entry, or you know, entry, the ability to enter data wherever you are. The other thing that’s happening is, during the pandemic, people are spending all this time in their virtual meetings, all these times in their productivity tools. And as a result of that there’s a new source of customer engagement data, additional data being created the result of these engagements. And that’s data, there’s no way for example, if I’m a seller, I would be manually entering all my emails, were all my you know, virtual team meeting summary into my CRM system. But it’s really important for us to capture that data, the ability to reorganize this data into a new source of customer record, and have that automatically linked to the CRM system is really important. And I would say the same about ERP systems and Supply Chain system, there’s just too much data. So manual data entry no longer works. And we need to rethink our data infrastructure. So our system of record can capture the most up to date customer information without manual data entry. And the other thing that I think is happening with in the business applications world is the trend towards local no code now that business users want the ability to not just consume application, but also build new applications and automate processes. They want the ability to curate employee experience and customer experience without having to rely on it. And this is something Microsoft is the leader in power platform is the leading local notebook tool, and I think the This is a huge value proposition we can position to the line of business decision makers, as well. We

Vince Menzione  10:05

didn’t even dive in yet on power platform and the no code low code approach. And you’re right, there are some other companies that are coming on strong, but Microsoft is still a leader there. How do you differentiate your solution versus the others out there? from

Emily He  10:17

a platform perspective, I think when I look at Microsoft, there are several categories, right? There’s the local app development, there’s also local, there’s a local process automation, the RPA space, there’s also website development, and there’s Power BI or our business intelligence, Microsoft has the end to end local, local platform. And the other differentiation is we cater to people of all skill levels. So developers are using the power platform to transform their businesses, and so are the line of business users. So it’s really a platform that can be used by anyone with any technical proficiency. And we believe this is a new skill set for new business users, we’re business people, I equate power platform with Office maybe 1020 years ago, or 10 years from now or even five years from now, I envision that this is a requisite skill on your resume. So in addition, to be able to use Office, you also need to have local skills. So you start building your own applications where you can automate your your business processes without having to rely on it.

Vince Menzione  11:33

That’s the democratization of programming and IoT and data, right? Yeah,

Emily He  11:38

exactly. That more and more things aren’t being satisfied. I think that’s what’s happening, initially started with applications. But now business users want more control over their dashboards, their business intelligence, they either want more control into data management. So they’re getting into data warehousing, they’re getting into Insight apps. And more and more things are blending the technical users and business users together. And I think that’s a huge opportunity for Microsoft.

Vince Menzione  12:07

Such a huge opportunity in such an exciting time. It’s palpable to me, I’ve seen the investments I was at Microsoft when Satya joined and has made this key focus for the organization. And it’s the beginning of I call it Microsoft summer. I know this time of year, you’re getting ready to kick off fiscal year 2023. What are your thoughts there? Like? How is your organization? Where are you focusing for 2023,

Emily He  12:31

the focus for 2023 for us is very, very clear. It’s all about category excellence. Instead of defining business applications as the combination of dynamics 365 and power platform, which is a very product centric view, we want to take a more customer centric view, and focus on these key categories or might have business are going after. And for us the most important categories, we’re going after our sales, marketing, service, supply chain, finance, and it low code, no code with each category. When we say category excellence, it requires domain expertise and dedicated resources who are well versed in each category, because there’s so much in each category. And sales and marketing are completely different from supply chain. So we need to learn the language our customers are using, how to connect with them, we also need to deeply understand the market trends, their requirements and the IT landscape. So we can articulate how Microsoft fits in the each category. And that’s a huge endeavor for Microsoft. But we’re starting to embark on that journey by organizing our engineering, marketing, and the sales team around each category. And this is an area where we really need to rely on our partners to extend our domain expertise and establish those relationships with better business decision makers.

Vince Menzione  13:56

And of course, you have a tremendous industry focus at Microsoft, right, you’ve, you know, verticalized almost every industry now across healthcare, public sector American go on and on nonprofits and so on. How are you then taking these solution areas and localizing them by customer by industry?

Emily He  14:14

That’s a great question. And it’s true that we’re really we’re hugely focused on industries. I think industry clouds are a fantastic differentiation for Microsoft, because it’s a lens, industry specific ones that allows us to position all about Microsoft story, Microsoft Cloud stories specifically. And I really see business applications as the underpinning of the industry cloud. So industry cloud leverages the existing applications that Microsoft already offers, and it builds vertical applications on top. And when I think of business application, when you sell to a customer in the industry, it’s not like you’re selling to the CEO, you’re still selling to the CFO, you’re selling to the CMO and CRO and Pepsi supply chain. And it’s our job in business applications to clearly articulate the value proposition we bring to the table for these different lines of businesses, and the industry team will apply a industry flavor to the value proposition. So when I think about how we work with the industry team, number one, we plug into the Microsoft Cloud for each industry with a business application solution. So there’s an overarching industry value proposition that’s all encompassing, but when we sell specific supply chain or contact center solutions, we also apply it industry flavor to make those horizontal applications more resonate more with unhappy customers.

Vince Menzione  15:44

You know, you mentioned my favorite word partner. And, you know, we’re gonna we’re gonna dive in on the partner discussion. But you know, you have this incredible platform, and you have a I would call a community, a large ecosystem of partners that are really passionate about this solution area, how do you get more and more than, and maybe even bigger ones to build industry specific solutions? What would you say to our partners listening

Emily He  16:10

for partners are incredibly important for both our industry cloud and the business applications ecosystem in both industries. And in our line of business world, I see Microsoft as the technology experts. And I see our partners as the domain experts, we need partners to do a number of things. But most importantly, we need ISVs, who can build on our platform and build their IP onto our Dynamics, 365 and power platform and other solutions. And we need them to add their secret sauce to configure a better product that’s more targeted for our customers, depending on their line of business. And this is really important for us, because there’s no way that we can offer all the solutions our customers need. So we the ISV, is to fill the gap and help us deliver a more comprehensive solution. The other one is the system integrators. So we need them to provide domain expertise and consultancies. And we need their practices to advise our customers on how they work history in their supply chain transformation. How do they work history, their current digital contact center transformation, and help us flood the Microsoft solution into the whole ecosystem, their IT landscape, and also help our customer go through the journey of implementing the solution, whatever they’re looking for. So these two groups of customers are incredibly important for Microsoft, in our industry, cloud and in business applications.

Vince Menzione  17:42

This Microsoft Dynamics community, I referenced them a little bit earlier, right? I have gone to their events, and it’s amazing how collaborative and tight that community is. And I’m, I’m hoping you’re gonna get out there, we’ll be able to get out there in person now that we’re hopefully beyond where we were with COVID. What do you think from a community perspective? How do you How are you supporting this massive ecosystem? And what conferences would you suggest that the dynamics 365 partners and network and power platform partners, what conferences would you suggest they attend this year,

Emily He  18:18

we have our inspire conference coming up. And that conference is dedicated to partners. So I encourage all of you to come and attend Inspire. This is where Satya will lay out our vision. And our key business leaders are going to talk about what trends we’re seeing the market and how we’re delivering solutions to to address the trends. And we’re also going to spend a lot of time talking about partner programs, and how you can better partner with Microsoft and what we can do to make it easier for you to partner with Microsoft. In addition, I know in my career, Toby Bowers, who’s in charge of the partner programs, he I feel like every day, he has a partner, you guys, and we’re constantly talking to partners, and I’ve been in some of these partner meetings. And to be honest, it’s my favorite meetings to attend, because our partners are talking to customers every day, and they’re hands on implementing our solutions. So their insights are always so rich, and so on the ground and realistic. And they give us a lot of very valuable input on both our product functionality and how we can design our partner programs to be more friendly to make it easier for our partners. So I would say definitely getting to get in touch with Toby, and make sure you are participating in these meetings where we hear directly from partners. And I know at the regional level, there are a lot of partner events as well. So I encourage you to get in touch with the regional sales team. And be sure to attend the regional events.

Vince Menzione  19:52

Yeah, and we’ll provide some links. I know there’s some upcoming events here in the United States as well and there’s one in October particular that will reference And Toby has been a guest here we LOVE Toby. By the way, he’s such a great colleague of yours. And he’s been on the podcast. And we’re gonna have him back as well to talk more about this. But I do want to ask you specifically, you mentioned how much you love the meetings with partners. I ask all of my guests this one question, what do you believe makes a great partner?

Emily He  20:17

Well, just like anything, I think, for any great partner organization, the first thing they do is they deeply understand our business strategy. And I know our business strategies are ever evolving. And I hope our partners can be part of the conversation about our business strategy, that a good partner is a organization that really take the time to talk to business leaders and deeply understand our business strategy, how our organization is set up to execute the business strategy for the goals and objectives are, so they can dial into the ecosystem to help us execute that business strategy. The second, any partner organization is a business, right? So we want your business to be successful, if you’re successful, that we’re successful. So managing your own business from the inside out and optimize your business for success. Make sure you You are good stewards of your own business with the right oversight and also plugged into all the relevant partner programs is incredibly that the other thing I know this is really overwhelming. I’m still new to Microsoft, and I’m overwhelmed by all the programs, whether it’s sales programs, or partner programs. But it is important to stay on top of all the partner programs are running. So you have the resources you need to be effective in the business. And I encourage all of you to go to our Microsoft Partner Network site, where you can see the latest information about programs and incentives is so incredibly important for you to if you want to run a healthy business,

Vince Menzione  21:50

I love what you have to say here first of all get to know what the priorities are the business right what are the goals, the strategy and the scorecard. I always say it’s very important to ask leaders what the scorecard is, and that’s usually at an individual or regional subsidiary level. I’m so excited to welcome athletic greens as the latest sponsor, to ultimate guide to partnering friends who know me well know I’ve made taking a green drink supplement, part of my health ritual for over 20 years now. And it has made all the difference to my health and well being. About five years ago, I added athletic greens. And now their product ag one has become my go to green drink supplement. I take this literally every single day. Ag one is packed with 75, high quality vitamins, minerals, Whole Foods source superfoods, probiotics and antigens. It literally is replaced every vitamin in my cabinet. If you’d like to give ag one a try athletic greens is giving away a free one year supply of vitamin D, and five travel packs with every new purchase, check them out at athletic greens.com forward slash Vince M. You also mentioned optimizing your own business, right partners have to mind their own store and be good stewards of their business. And then staying on top of Microsoft and the partner programs. It’s super important to stay engaged and align and understand where the resources funding, go to market plans and strategies are working with the tech giant.

Emily He  23:30

It’s not for the faint of heart. But it is it’s a people business. It’s like anything in my role, I do the same I stay in touch with the different teams in the ecosystem. Because Microsoft is a very collaborative culture. And we do everything together. But you have to lead through influence and lead through getting people’s input, making sure they internalize the strategy, making them feel like it’s their strategy, not your strategy. We’re all in this together. And partners really need to spend the time getting to know the key stakeholders and build that relationship. Yeah,

Vince Menzione  24:05

I coach organizations about this very same topic. Actually, there’s a couple of topics you mentioned here and one of them is deliberate communication. And I say being aggressive, but in a diplomatic way. You have to be out there, you have to make yourself known you have to engage with the leaders. Microsoft is very they care. But they’re also very busy, right? You probably get 300 emails a day. So sometimes you have to stay on top of the relationship in order to make sure that it’s collaborative. So on LinkedIn, we do a lot of work on LinkedIn. And I asked the community, I mentioned that you were coming today, and I asked a couple a couple of questions. And one I wanted to pass on was from a dynamics partner Susan Tomi had Vina solutions in Toronto and she asked, What advice do you have for ISPs looking to leverage data verse to build industry specific applications and solutions, and where do you start internally and what Microsoft resources are available to us?

Emily He  24:59

This is Have a fantastic question data versus a very important part of our data strategy. So I would say it’s a combination of being focused on the industry specific this business outcomes for the customer, and connecting your data to data versus synapse. And even better making it read right in our data models for the industries. ISPs are the experts in their industries. And once you have identified the right solutions, connecting it to database can help you build your internal operability. We’re building the industry data model. And we’re also working to help enable connectivity. So a great place to start will be our Microsoft learn learning path for industry solutions, is now released as a self service for you know, healthcare, financial services, retail, and they really go into detail on the scenarios, relationship with diverse and data models. So I encourage you to take advantage of those resources and get really deep and diverse.

Vince Menzione  26:00

And that’s the industry clouds that we’ve referenced before on this podcast, right?

Emily He  26:04

Yeah, exactly.

Vince Menzione  26:05

So we have another question from James Sandoval from measure match in I think it’s in the UK that his company is based. But he was asking specifically about smaller consultancies, and I know there are probably 10s of 1000s of these smaller consultancies. He’s interested in learning how he could best capture revenue opportunities from Microsoft and if Microsoft has a need for professional services. And do they do anything to allocate to customer or through the consultancies, professional services business?

Emily He  26:37

Yeah, thank you for the question, James. And I’m so glad you’re working with Microsoft. First of all, I would say get your solution designation and specialization through the new Microsoft cloud partner program, the Microsoft cloud partner will help you demonstrate your differentiation in a product market where as you have the designation as specialization, and once you attained the social permit designation, you will become eligible to receive the new benefits package associated with that designation. With this, you will be able to be recognized for your solution capabilities as a specialization that you represent. In addition, I would suggest that you create your unique offers that you can repeat with customers and list that on app source. In addition to app source, you can also partner with Microsoft indirect providers. This is one example of how developing your partner to partner partnership can really help you scale your offer into the SMB space, that SMB is one of our highest growth space is a very, is a very exciting space to get into. So we need more partners like you to help us grow that business.

Vince Menzione  27:46

Such good advice, and partner to partner is just so critical and important. I think a lot of organizations miss out on the opportunity that it’s such a massive ecosystem. There’s so many other partners that you can collaborate with in order to be successful.

Emily He  27:59

And Microsoft, I have to say the other meetings I’ve been to is one of the most cooperative or family friendly ecosystems and partners really help each other instead of competing competing with each other. So tap into the partner network is really important.

Vince Menzione  28:14

Really great advice. Emily, I would love to pivot. Now. As you might know, I am fascinated with the career journey. And I’m also been a big ally for diversity in technology. In fact, I was an early dei lead while I was at Microsoft, and you’ve had a stellar career and amazing career to a degree from one of the most prestigious schools in our nation. And you’ve had top roles and tech companies, Oracle Siebel, I can go on and on. And now this corporate vice president role at Microsoft, which is a big deal. How did Emily get here? Was there a plan? Was there a pivot point, tell us more about your career journey,

Emily He  28:51

hearing you describe my career make it sound very intentional, but that is far from the truth. My career journey has been like climbing a play structure. Sometimes you go sideways, sometimes you go up, sometimes you go down. And it’s been a journey of discovery. I learned a lot through the journey. I been in Silicon Valley for more than 20 years. I’ve always been in the enterprise software space, and I fall he fell into tech accidentally, I went to Stanford Business School. And after that, I said, I don’t want to leave the Bay Area. I love the weather. I want to stay here. And I need a reason to stay here. So that’s how I embarked on my tech journey. And since then, I’ve been in a CRM, I’ve been in ERP. I’ve done supply chain for a couple of years and I spend a lot of time in human capital management. So I definitely feel like I’ve dabbled my way into different domains within Enterprise software. And the reason I came to Microsoft is because I think Microsoft is one of the very few big vendors in the whole world who can address some of the trends we discussed. before, which is to convert cooperation, productivity tools and business applications. And also taking a more data centric view, and AI machine learning driven view to orchestrate the user experience. The other thing I want to mention is I’ve worked in really big companies like Oracle and Microsoft. But as I’ve also worked in medium sized companies and small companies, and I personally find that to be really useful, because if you work in a small company, you have to do everything by yourself. So you cultivate this entrepreneurial spirit and was hands on style. And if you can bring that to a big company and have this candy attitude, but combined that with your ability to navigate the whole ecosystem, the matrix, that’s a very powerful combination.

Vince Menzione  30:49

Well, that empathy as well. And I’ve done both I’ve worked in the tech giant, I’ve worked in startups and turnarounds. And if you’ve only worked in Microsoft, or another tech giant, like you don’t have that empathy for what it’s like to be on the other side of the table, right?

Emily He  31:02

That’s my, when I talk to partners, I really do have a lot of empathy for them. Because I’ve been in those environments. And I know how it feels to have to do everything yourself. And, you know, navigating all these different programs or resources can be very daunting. So I’m always very eager to number one empathize with our partners. But number two, also keep them tangible help, as they build their business. Yes, absolutely.

Vince Menzione  31:27

And so also, you’re an Asian American woman. In fact, you’re fluent in Mandarin and English. I think that’s amazing. I want to hear more about your upbringing, and how did it shape your journey? And then I also want to talk to you about any adversity you might have had overcome.

Emily He  31:42

Thank you for that question is a really important question. And I reflect on that a lot. So I grew up with really, really strict parents to say my mom is a tiger mom is understatement. She had a very clear vision of where my future would be. There’s no deviation from that. I’m first generation. So I actually came to the US when I was almost 20 years old. I grew up in Beijing. And I went to college in Beijing. And this is when tenement square happens. So Juve work. And after that, the government is implemented this policy that says, if you graduate, you would have to stay in China for seven years, they were trying to stop the Brain Train. And this is when I decided to come to the US. And I came here without speaking a lot of English. And there’s a lot of things to adjust to, but also just the whole cultural value is so different. So I learned a lot of lessons along the way. But going back to the strict parenting, I think it really taught me a lesson how important it is to have a unique approach when you manage people. Because I remember on the receiving end of this, like, Okay, this is my vision for you, and you can’t deviate. And I remember how it made me feel. And when I managed people today, I tried not to do that, I think it’s so important to understand each person’s strengths. And each person’s what they uniquely bring to the table and help them build on that and carve out their own path, instead of imposing a free set path onto the employee. So that’s the first lesson. The other thing is speaking two different languages really gave me a window into different way of thinking. And I realized language is has an impact on the way you view the world. And speaking multiple languages taught me that there’s not a single worldview, when I approach employees in the workplace, I always try to understand their point of view, given the context they came from. And I think that really helped me have more empathy, especially when you work with a global workforce. And the one thing that I would say that that’s positive coming out of my upbringing is working. In China, I had to work incredibly hard through all the schooling, and it’s a really competitive environment. And even to this day, I still have the work ethic that I can leverage, whatever challenge I’m tackling, and I know if I put my heart and mind into it, I can get something done. But the other thing that I want to mention here is I grew up with really, really strict parenting. And that’s not something I want to replicate with my own children. So when I had my own children, I thought very deeply about the kind of parent I wanted. And I think a lot of times when you become parents, you kind of become your parent, even though you didn’t like your girl. And I had to make a conscious decision about the kind of parent I don’t want to be so I can bear differently from the way I grew up. And I hope I’m striking the right balance between giving them the resources to find their own path, but also giving them enough guidance. So they say on the right track.

Vince Menzione  35:01

So I love our discussion today, Emily. And but there’s one last question I love to ask each of our guests if you’re having a dinner party, and you can host this amazing dinner party anywhere in the world that you’d like to tell us where but maybe I’ll come along and bring a bottle of wine. In fact, we talked a little bit about wine before we started today, who would you invite? You’re allowed to invite three guests to this amazing dinner party. Who would you invite to this amazing party? And why?

Emily He  35:30

I think this is such a this is such a fascinating question. And I can think of three people. So the first person is Marcus cirrhosis, and the he’s a Roman Emperor. And he’s a stoic philosopher, I literally have his book and first hand brought next to my pillow. And I read it almost every day before I go to sleep. And the reason for that is you today’s crazy world where you have crazy schedules and constant prices and so many challenges, interesting challenges to solve. The most important thing is to have peace of mind, and to have that time to reflect and not be become reactive, but rather, always Center have a center to come back to. And I find his book to be fascinating, because in his Emperor’s handbook, he writes about his day to day thoughts. And it’s really fascinating to see how emperor as successful as he is, how many kind of like petty thoughts he has, and how he works through them and process them, and then come back to this center of tranquility. And this space where you feel centered, and you can make decisions in the right way. I try to remind myself every day of the importance of that. And I think he is one of the best example having this stoic philosophy. And always coming back to this place of tranquility.

Vince Menzione  37:00

We’re going to provide a link, by the way to that book in our show notes, the Emperor’s handbook.

Emily He  37:04

Yes, yes, please. The second person would be this is probably not not a surprise. But Oprah. I’m a big fan of Oprah, because of her humanity, her vulnerability, and also the fact that she carved out a space for, you know, minority women. I just think that’s so brave and so hard to do. She did that by being herself. And that’s something I tried to emulate. So I definitely look up to her and I would love to have a opportunity to talk to her. The third person I guess I can actually invite this person to a dinner party for real will be Satya are one of the key reasons I came to Microsoft is because of the cultural transformation. And I attribute a lot of that to Satya. When I look at Satya, I wish there are more CEOs like Satya who are human who really have the sense of humanity, in addition to just having a strong growing business. And I see Satya every day leading the team to strike the balance between doing good for the world, while building a strong business and the way he elevates our mission to the level of humanity and societal impact in addition to technology. Innovation is something I just I think it’s so hard to do. But I think he’s one of the best examples of CEOs who are doing that. So those are my three people.

Vince Menzione  38:36

Three amazing guests. By the way, by the way, I’m a fan of stoicism as well. And Marcus Aurelius is work. I don’t have Emperor’s handbook. I am going to get a copy now. Thank you. Yes, yes, I will have to compare notes on this. And Oprah, of course, is just an amazing person. I mean, her whole life story of you know, it is just incredible. And then sati. I’m a huge I’m a huge fan of Satya. I’ve had Dr. Michael Dovey here a couple of times. Oh, I see. And Dr. Mike was all started with if you read, hit refresh on page five, it talks about Michael coaching the leadership team at the time around the big bold vision for admission of Microsoft, and just that whole conversation about and we’ve talked about it on the podcast, but just what Satya has done from a leadership point of view, I couldn’t agree with you more

Emily He  39:23

Microsoft out of all the companies now that I’m inside of the company, I think we really try to strike the right balance is a very hard balance to strike when you want to do good for the world. And you want to make people’s life better, but you also want to build a healthy, strong business. And I don’t think any company has the perfect answer. But I know Microsoft tries very hard.

Vince Menzione  39:48

I want to thank you, Emily, this has been such an inspiring conversation today. For for our listeners. We have partners and early in career women in technology as listeners hear what words have advice would you share any parting words of advice on how to build for their success with you and your organization?

Emily He  40:07

For partners, I would say take ownership and control your own destiny, you have all the resources available to you need to navigate these resources and programs. But having been in smaller companies, I believe in entrepreneurship. And I believe you if you clarify your goals, and you take ownership and control your own destiny, and leverage your own experience your own best practices, and differentiate through the Microsoft ecosystem, you will build an amazing business. For earlier career woman, there are so many things I would say to earlier career woman or to my 23 year old self. But one of the best advice I think I’ve ever received is the five people you spend time with more defining who you are. So choose your company wisely and spend time with people who uplift you. I always tell people hang out with people who make you feel feel bigger, instead of smaller. And when I say they make you feel bigger, they see you as something that sometimes you can’t even imagine yourself. And I’ve encountered these people in my career, they saw the potential in me before I perceived myself, and they pushed me to become bigger and take more responsibilities were defined higher goals. And one nuance is these people are not necessarily the most positive people, some people they may be very positive, or they just they cheer you on. And they want you to maintain status quo. They are other people, they may be very tough. But the intention behind the toughness is they want you they know you can do more, they know you can be bigger, and they push you to be bigger. So spend time with those people. And they will define what will become

Vince Menzione  41:55

such amazing words of advice. I won’t say anything more about it. I want to thank you, Emily, this has been a great interview. So I would say humbled to have you here today as a guest on Ultimate Guide to partner.

Emily He  42:07

Thank you. Thanks for having me. And we will need to get together in person for that glass of wine.

Vince Menzione  42:12 We will do that. We will do that for sure. Thank you, Emily. All right. Thank you.

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