96 – How to Lead Mission-Focused, Outcome-Oriented Solutions Delivered by Partners

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For the 96th episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering, I welcomed Dr. Julia Glidden, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, for Microsoft Corporation, where she is helping to deliver on Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. In this episode, Julia shares how to lead mission-focused, outcome-oriented solutions, delivered by partners.

Dr. Julia Glidden is an internationally recognized expert on Digital Government, specializing in identifying and piloting emerging technologies such as AI, Cloud, and Blockchain in the GovTech space. Julia pioneered the concept of Cognitive Government and has delivered many of Europe’s leading innovation projects. She is currently serving as an expert advisor to the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and the European Commission. In addition to being named in Apolitical’s inaugural list of the Top 100 most influential people in digital government, Julia was recognized as one of the Top 40 GovTech Influencers in the 2019 e-Governance Global Industry Landscape Overview

I was excited to have Julia as a guest as I worked very closely with her predecessors while at Microsoft. It was great to get her perspective and point of view on the business and how it has evolved, including a renewed emphasis on partners to drive mission-focused, outcome-oriented solutions.

In this episode, you’ll learn more about the mission of her organization and the broad reach they have driving transformation and innovation in government, defense and public safety, education and so much more. We also have a really insightful discussion regarding her personal and professional journey and how she dealt with and learned to overcome a form of dyslexia.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Julia Glidden to Ultimate Guide to Partnering.

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Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below

Dr. Julia Glidden  0:00 

And I truly believe that if you can take a company with the breadth and scale the hyper-scale of a Microsoft, and the passion and the mission outcomes that our partner solutions can deliver, and authentically bring that together, we can do great things and great goodness in the world. And I think that comes from following what you love and believe in

Announcer  0:20 

Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. In this podcast, Vince Menzione. a proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders in this forum 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  0:50 

Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host, and for this episode of the podcast. I welcome Julia Glidden, the corporate vice president of Microsoft’s worldwide public sector business, I was excited to have Julia as a guest because I worked very closely with this business while at Microsoft. And it was great to get her perspective and point of view on how the business has evolved, including her renewed emphasis on partners. In this episode, you’ll learn more about the mission of her organization, and its broad reach driving transformation and innovation in the government’s defense of public safety, education, and so much more. We also have a really insightful discussion regarding her personal and professional journey, including challenges she has faced with dyslexia. I hope you enjoy this discussion. And join me in getting to know Julia Glidden. Julia, welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Julia Glidden  1:50 

Hey there, Vince, thanks for having me,

Vince Menzione  1:52 

I am so excited to welcome you as a guest to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering, you are the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Public Sector business. And so I’m so excited both to have you share with our listeners a little bit more about your business, your priorities, how partners can engage with your organization, and your journey.

Dr. Julia Glidden  2:12 

I am absolutely delighted to be here today and particularly about a topic that’s passionate for me the way in which Microsoft works with our partners to deliver on the Microsoft mission, which is to empower every organization and every person on the planet to achieve more. Because like I what I like to tell my team all the time is the Microsoft mission is the public sector mission.

Vince Menzione  2:38 

I am so on board with that. And I personally love the mission as well and have spent quite a bit of my career in the public sector space. So for our listeners who may not understand your organization and the focus, can you take us through that for a moment?

Dr. Julia Glidden  2:53 

Sure thing, as I referenced earlier, Worldwide Public Sector at Microsoft works with partners to empower governments, defense, and intelligence agencies and educational institutions around the world to achieve their very best to deliver on this public sector vocation which is to improve the lives of citizens and individuals everywhere. And we’re really committed to building a robust public sector partner ecosystem because we believe that by working together, we can deliver very robust, very targeted mission outcome-oriented solutions that meet the needs of our public sector clients. I would like to say one of the things that I love most about working with partners is that it truly helps us deliver on a view that is passionate for me, which is that the public sector is an industry of industries, right? There is no public sector, there is Public Safety and Justice, where people dedicate their lives to keeping a safe, there’s health care, where people dedicate their lives to keeping us healthy, there’s education, where the mission is to train minds and to re in to instill some skills throughout society. And so as an industry, it industries, partners play that critical role in allowing us to really deliver very specific solutions for our clients to meet the needs of the day. And we saw this most acutely during COVID with which was one of the greatest highlights and most rewarding elements of my entire career to be able to lean into our partner ecosystem. And when the world needed us most help to literally hold the fabric of civil society together. You know, I

Vince Menzione  4:35 

so get what you have to say here. I got to spend time in Microsoft in the Public Sector and the work that your organization does the mission of your organization, right. It’s, it’s about constituent groups. It’s about citizens, it’s around education. Some of the most inspiring and uplifting things that Microsoft does is in your sector as you mentioned here. I’ve had the opportunity, as I said, to work within the public sector I’d love to learn with you now enroll. How has the organization evolved over time?

Dr. Julia Glidden  5:06 

While we know living in unprecedented times, and particularly the last year that we have all experienced together, that change is truly the only constant I have been. I’ve had the privilege and the honor to take a role that’s been held by some of the true legend heavyweights, world-renowned leaders, female leaders in public sector technology. And my immediate predecessor, Tony Townes, Whitley, you know, it’s just been a career-high for me to follow in her footsteps. And when Tony enrolled at the time, the focus was on industry priority solutions, and really building out public sector-specific functionality around our specific solutions with partners at the same time that Tony worked, and so successfully put in the business development and capture capabilities and discipline that Microsoft needed. What we’re doing now, as we’re moving to software development, and the cloud is we’re moving away from simply looking at solutions to really looking at mission-critical infrastructure, to really building out data centers around the world to give our public sector clients the resiliency, the you know, cloud health, the fabric of civil society together as I just mentioned during COVID. And many times clients, and especially public sector clients want to have local control of their data and local control of where their public services are sitting. And that’s really our focus now is moving to cloud, harnessing the power of data and AI cloud-enabled data and AI to deliver real-time mission-specific solutions to the most pressing needs of society. Whether it is the ability during COVID to shift from remote work to remote learning, or the ability to use AI to deliver real-time decision making to improve healthcare prognoses to improve transportation systems to deliver on the UN sustainability, sustainable development goals. What we’re really focused on now is harnessing power, the power of cloud data and AI in an agile manner, working with our partners to move from, you know, cell to, to sell with, and drive really important mission outcomes for the public sector agencies around the world.

Vince Menzione  7:30 

As you said, you know, this has been a time like no other right? We in the last year have seen so much transformation. I think Satya has said, you know, first, he said, three years transformation and three months, and then it was you know, for every month there was another year of transformation, right? It’s like, and you’re in the organizations you support. Right? You know, you’re mission is so clear, and the transformation has been happening so fast. You mentioned about education, I mean, that we all have that personal experience 56 million students here just in the United States alone, that have all been, you know, educated at home, and just parents and families having to deal with this. And the technology, as you said, the partners that have been working with your organization that drive and evolve this transformation has been so great. What did you see that you didn’t expect to see during this time?

Dr. Julia Glidden  8:19 

Well, as somebody that has lived, eaten, and breathed the public sector for my entire career, I was shocked, pleasantly surprised, inspired to see that the historically change-resistant sector, like the public sector move as quickly and as agilely as you did, too in a time of need harness the power of technology to deliver real-time needs at real-time speed. Sarah Paquette a shared services Canada, one of our fantastic clients shared with us that the Canadian cheered service agency, 400,000 civil servants, over the course of a weekend because of their strong partnership with Microsoft, pulled forward what was a three-year deployment to empower every employee with remote working capabilities, expedited that plan over a weekend and rolled it out over three weeks instead of three years. Wow. And as you know, she and I have talked about, it’s because, for the first time in the public sector, the risk of doing nothing became greater than the risk of doing something out. It’s really easy for those of us in the private sector to talk about the risk aversion of the public sector but I like to always remind everybody in our partners, of course, notice your we’re not building widgets and when a child welfare system goes down, or health care records get packed, life is at stake, life and death is at stake. So the change resistance that we see in the public sector, I have always historically embraced I mean, would I like things to move faster. Like all of my clients and friends in the public sector. Sure. But there’s always been a reason why the sector has been so change-resistant and adverse. And it hasn’t just been because oh, it’s government, but seeing the way in which people that have dedicated their lives, their career as a vocation, to public service, we’re able to move so rapidly. And so agilely was really, really inspirational. And I think the genies out of the bottle, I think there is really no going back after what public sector agencies were able to deliver and achieved during COVID. In terms of digital transformation, I think there’s a huge chance of new, huge opportunity for us together with our partners to really take public services to the next level in the 21st century.

Vince Menzione  10:48 

I love what you have to say there the genie is out of the bottle, right? I don’t think we’ll ever go back. And, and to your point, I think now that they’ve gotten a taste for what they can do, and how fast and rapidly like your mention of this agency in Canada, and how rapidly they were able to deploy the technology, they’re empowered now, I think they finally are embracing and recognizing the value of what we’ve been talking about for so long.

Dr. Julia Glidden  11:10 

So great to see

Vince Menzione  11:12 

just great. It really has, it really has. And of course, our partners have been a key focus here. Right. So as you know, this podcast focuses on successful partnerships, and how has your organization best engaged within Microsoft? What do you believe? The key elements for successful partnerships have been,

Dr. Julia Glidden  11:31 

you know, I could talk from a corporate perspective and talk about expertise, skilling investment, Cosell, but I’m gonna, you know, go off script a little here and say, I believe at the end of the day, we are all people. Partnerships are grounded in people, trusting people, people, sharing a vision with people, and people trusting in each other to deliver on that, on that mission. When you do that, then both organizations Microsoft and our partners bring the right technical and industry expertise together, bring the right skilling together, and ultimately sell better together. Public Sector clients can smell a sales deal and a desire to close something in quarter and tick a quota box a mile away. Let me tell you, they don’t they may buy out a need from that. But what COVID showed us and what our clients including Sarah, from shared service, Canada told us, they entrusted us with massive life and death rollouts, because we were there by their side, because we had invested in them through the years. And because they believed that we would not let them down when they needed us most. So I believe that when you approach that, together with our partners, we create the right market conditions for our public sector clients to work with us to buy from us to consume from our cloud at scale. But it begins and ends with trust.

Vince Menzione  13:00 

I so agree with you here. What do you do specifically to enable trust?

Dr. Julia Glidden  13:04 

through there when you don’t need something, and you’re always there when your partner or your client does. And I know that sounds really simple. But again, if I go back to the dialogue I had with Sarah at the height of COVID. You know, she said we had everybody knocking on our door offering us solutions when COVID hit and we had to do the rapid snap to remote. Microsoft had been by our side for three years. And I believe that when you make that investment and you invest in personal relationships, and really getting to know people getting to know their children, getting to know their career priorities, really understanding their industry, their mission, there you know, what they need to do to deliver on their vocation, which is public service, you’re successful. And you develop a partnership and your interest.

Vince Menzione  13:55 

I love what you have to say in their own trust and being there for your clients. I found that as well when you know, with some of the clients that I was working with some of the partnerships I was working with it was it was an I want to hear your experiences here as well. Like when the shutdown happened. We’re all kind of sitting around going Let’s all get on a call like what’s gonna teams call and like, just talk to one another. Did you experience some of that?

Dr. Julia Glidden  14:17 

Oh, boy. I was not even you know, I was coming into the role. So I wasn’t even yet in a role bringing in new team members that I still haven’t met just hard to believe a year on and I really found even though there were 15 hour days, seven days a week it was so important to take pause and reach out to people have a cup of coffee, ask them about their kids. You know, everybody was new to remote working Vince it’s hard to remember we’re used to the dog barking and the UPS driver coming in the kid carpet-bombing the meeting, but that then that was still really new. And taking that time was important to my team to do virtual cocktails on Friday. afternoons and since we’re all over the world, we had, some people have mimosas on a Saturday morning, some people have a cup of tea at midnight because they’re struggling to stay awake, you know, but I did it always in front of my fireplace up here on the Canadian border, because it was, you know, minus 20 Celsius outside. But I think those are some of the most powerful moments we had as a team. Because we were able to come into each other’s homes. We know it wasn’t just a corporate function, it wasn’t just a restaurant, we got to get to know each other a little bit more as humans. And that was very important.

Vince Menzione  15:29 

You know you brought up a really good point because you came into the role during this time. And it’s so different than, you know, meeting one on one with your direct reports in a real setting, you know, where you’re in the office together. How did that feel like? How did you develop intimacy with your

Dr. Julia Glidden  15:46 

laugh a little bit because one of my new leaders reminded me that he first met me and I’m using the, you know, the bunny years quotation marks, were in the front of my truck with two dogs in the back because my husband and I realized what was going to hit with the pandemic. And as you recall it, it struck first in the Seattle area. And our son was, he’s was 13, at the time in boarding school in Scotland. And he was coming home this time last year, for his five-week spring break, and I got scared, we didn’t know what was really going to happen. And I thought, you know, we could get quarantined in Seattle and have kids sitting in the Boston Airport not see him. So we packed up the truck and headed east. You know, we did the reverse had West. One of my directs I had to interview let’s see to my truck. And he still remembers that

Vince Menzione  16:39 

I was thinking about what a trip that must have been. How many days did it take? It just got to hear

Dr. Julia Glidden  16:44 

that that was we took seven days because the truck got locked on the way as we were leaving, so we couldn’t get into the boot. So we had to go to the garage, which is right near where the epicenter broke out. I finally got a mini screen to replay about that. About that great trek.

Vince Menzione  17:03 

Oh my goodness. It’d be a great movie sometime. Yeah.

Dr. Julia Glidden  17:10 

Oh, that that point somewhere in Dakota, where I got called on a column. I was like, boy, someone, someone needs to run this process.

Vince Menzione  17:21 

On you look at my husband. Oh, boy, that’s me. My goodness. It’s wow, what a time write some great stories you have like I said, I do think it would be a great book or maybe a movie or at some point. But you know, this intimacy to like, how do you manage your team remotely? Like, how do you find that works? You mentioned, you mentioned the cocktail hours, the happy hours, which I think are amazing, given the time zones, I would love to participate at some point, I will have a glass of wine ready.

Dr. Julia Glidden  17:47 

It shows you what a great team I had. Because you know, almost you know, I mean, of course, some people do just prefer nonalcoholic but for those that do like to imbibe a bit, they all showed up no matter what time it was, it was great.

Vince Menzione  18:00 

give people an excuse to drink mimosas. He said. He said, don’t tell our listeners a little bit. You know this? Oh, this. You mentioned this earlier. And I think this is so true. People don’t understand the public sector. So many people outside of the public sector that look on the outside looking in, and you go public sector, their eyes glaze over, you did a really great job of explaining for our listeners, the various components and the mission and sort of the mission components. Can you tell us a little bit more about that strategy for your organization? And are you how are you thinking about roles? And are you funding specific roles to drive the partner component of that strategy?

Dr. Julia Glidden  18:40 

Yeah, the partner component for the public sector, as I mentioned earlier, is so critical. Because you know, on the one hand, I’ve never met a public sector team in a company that doesn’t say, oh, Julia, you can’t come to Kazakhstan and talk to my clients, you don’t understand they’re different I was I Well, I was actually at a un panel last year, and I understand exactly what the digital Kazakhstan 2025 agenda is, right. So no matter where you go in the world, the issues that public sector clients face is the same, we have a digital maturity model that we’ve built out at Microsoft based on my real 20 years of working with the UN and public sector clients around the world. That really makes it very clear. different governments, different agencies, and different divisions within agencies can be at a different stage, move to cloud and AI and the public service of the future. But the problems, the challenges, the migration steps, they’re all the same. No matter where you are in the world. They are all the same. So what’s different partners make it different. Because our partners really go deep in markets. You know, if you work in local government, you really understand the needs of the law. Government, you know, in a country that you’re working on your view, work in Public Safety and Justice, you, you know, you really know how to adapt the solution for the differences between, you know, the crime problems in Johannesburg and the political context and the regulatory needs that you may have if you’re doing business in Germany and the political context and, you know, the particular needs of the US, you know, our partners, really allow us to take the commonalities of government and, and personalize it. And so what we’ve done in the Worldwide Public Sector this year, that I’m really so proud of very proud of the team is we have set up a bespoke public sector Strategy Team, to enable us to really better go deep across all the, you know, areas public sector, as the industry of industries, whether it’s government, defense, and intelligence education, as I, as I mentioned, into really than work across all the engines of Microsoft GPS, marketing, engineering, field and sales, and connect in deeply to the field and give our partners that public sector TLC, that public sector differentiation that they need, so that we can bring even more as we sell together into our clients to the table. Because cliched as it is we are always better together.

Vince Menzione  21:25 

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I love what you’ve done in terms of reinvigorating the partner strategy within the public sector organization. So really great to see the work that’s gone on here. And also, you know, just and people don’t always understand working with Microsoft, like your team also works across the various subsidiaries, too, right. So those resources on your team, and tell our listeners a little bit about how they plugin. But they I understand they do plugin very well within these subsidiaries.

Dr. Julia Glidden  21:51 

Yes, I love to talk about and I believe in it. One Microsoft and I talk about the public sector family, I never see as subsidiary and worldwide or, you know, the partner team versus the selling team in the field. We have worked really hard this last year, and again, through the power of video conferencing and teams, to make sure that we stay very closely connected with what is happening from a public policy perspective, from a crisis perspective from what the market needs perspective with our colleagues in the subsidiaries in the field. So that together, we are bringing the best engines of Microsoft, again, whether it’s marketing, whether it is our partner teams in global, whether it’s, you know, the kind of bespoke engineering needs, we have to bring to the table to, to pilot to do a proof of concept to help a client migrate complex workloads. And so you know, our relationship is really been focused or we haven’t really been focused on building a familial relationship with the subsidiaries. One Microsoft, no line of differentiation across our teams. So that we’re better able to articulate a very, you know, strong and robust point of view on how we deliver and, and successfully execute against our client’s mission-critical outcomes and priorities. You know, and I’ve seen this firsthand, I’ve had the privilege of working with some of those partners that your team engages with, and what’s really nice is to see the coordination between your leaders and your team. And the various because there are resources all over the world, people don’t realize that. But it’s very different. When you move out of the US market, which I’ve been in. there are not as many resources so really, your team plays an even more pivotal role with those partners. Yes, no, I mean, that’s a that’s really well, well spotted. Well said. And this is not unique to Microsoft, I’ve worked in many large IT organizations, through the years and you know, it isn’t there are the US and the rest of the world there is just because of the large nature of the market in the large, you know, the aggregate nature of the deal sizes, that there are more resources in the US, I have to confess I have historically from the US the least interesting market for me to work in, because I really love bringing all the power of a large corporation into a subsidiary, like Singapore, for example, a country that is at the top of every US government index, every digital innovation index that there is, but it’s really pioneering the future of digital government or stonier. Heaven helping that team deliver on the future. And then taking those innovations that are often co-developed with our partners back into the US is one of those things you can tell really gives me a super career-high lots of energy from doing that.

Vince Menzione  24:52 

I can hear that, you know, I think about that in terms of agility, right because these smaller entities can be more agile. You The big US government entities. And then also you play a different role in those countries, right? I know, from working with your predecessors that you spent a lot of time if we were in a position where you could travel, you’d be going over to Estonia or to Singapore to actually have meetings with leaders, and maybe discussing public policy. And we’re sure so, I’d like to shift a little bit here because like partnerships, I want to understand from you like how to partnerships play a role, maybe in the public policy work that you do.

Dr. Julia Glidden  25:28 

Well, it’s fundamental in its, you know, foundational aspect. As I mentioned, my whole career in the public sector, I actually had wanted to go to the Kennedy School of Government, that was the plan. And then I got persuaded by Alma Thurman’s uncle, Dean Thurman to put an application in for a scholarship to Oxford. And the rest is they say, is history. So I ended up going down in the international relations path, which was also my public life. I’ve always loved public policy. And I’ve always loved international affairs and relations. And so those two worlds kind of brought me to where I am today. And I say that by way of saying, I’ve spent my whole life in the public sector and public policy, and what my friends in that world will tell me and you know, trusted clients, his public sector, stakeholders, leaders are navigating a world of complexity, they know what they don’t know. And they’re often looking for trusted back to that word partner back to that word trusted partners that they can lean on and rely on to help them shape the digital future to help them make the right decisions. You know, that was on a un panel a couple of years back, where we had a robust discussion about the danger of legislating for what we know, right, as the world is shifting So, so rapidly, and stifling innovation in the past, right, because like regulation, and legislation is historically how public policy actors have worked. But if you don’t know what a new technology or emerging technology like blockchain is going to do, if you regulate it with 20th-century paradigms, you kind of suffocate the you know, you put the genie back in the bottle and you suffocate it. So what I really wanted to just articulate is, public sector is hungry and eager to hear from the private sector. And many of our partners have in market senior-level access to the highest levels of government, where there’s an openness and a receptivity to shake pivotal discussions to help public sector agencies forge the legislative and regulatory policy framework of the future for the betterment of their society of innovation, skills, economic growth, and one of the things I love most about my job, but I miss most about not being able to travel, I don’t miss the jetlag, I think this is the first time in 30 years, I have not had jet lag in a year. But I do miss being able to go to Australia sit down with the digital transformation agency, talk about the trends I’m seeing around the world hear about the concerns they have around pressing issues like data protection, and privacy and data localization, when together with our partners articulate with them, you know, strong ways to deliver on data governance to meet cybersecurity threats to embrace the best of cloud in the most secure way possible. And that’s something I’m really looking forward to doing when you know, and I’m going to be glass half full when vaccines hit and the world returns to the next normal. You know,

Vince Menzione  28:34 

you brought up some really great points here around the work you do, which is amazing. And, and kudos for not having jet lag for a year. I think we’re going to open up the world pretty soon here, once we’re all vaccinated. You know, I was thinking about this in the context of partners, because of the work I did in the US as well. Some of them just intuitively, they didn’t realize the power that they have coming from the commercial sector to help these organizations is one of the things I was insightful for me, because I also did some work and policy and I’m a member of voices for innovation, which is an organization that advocates for various policies and works with partners to do so. So I’m just interested like, Is there anything special you do to bring the partner in? Or are they intuitively experienced here?

Dr. Julia Glidden  29:19 

We lean in heavily on our partners in their local relationship in the same way as I was articulating, leaning in heavily on their knowledge of the particular needs within a market for the application of a solution? hard for me to say, you know, in this COVID context, things have been more difficult, but we try to do if the world were normal, I would be doing regular roundtables and breakfast roundtables with our policymakers with ministerial-level decision-makers with heads of agency going around the world and really bringing their partners into the table. We’re having to do it and I know Satya loves to do that. We’re having to do it virtually now. And this is one area that I am particularly looking forward to getting jet-lagged for because those types of policy discussions, I often think, you know, they’re best-fueled face to face. And we’re looking forward to rolling out a much more formal effort in that regard when we do get back to the next normal. You know, one of the things I’ve been saying in the podcasts and some of the speeches that I’ve given and just in conversations, in general, has been that we in the tech sector are in a very unique position to help lead during this time, and there’s been, in some cases, there’s been a lack of leadership, right. But we are showing the way forward, I think it’s so exciting the work that you do, and your team does, and these partners do right now, to help really lead the change. Oh, yeah, we are forging the future. And we are part of history, what is, and not just because of the historical inflection point tech was at, you know, January of last year when the world was as we all remembered it. But COVID just took that and injected it with rocket fuel. You know, we were going to the moon in January, we’re at Pluto now in how much has changed. And this has been part of we are making history. And we are making it together, Microsoft, our partner ecosystem, and our public policy, clients, stakeholders, friends, and it’s a privilege and an honor to be part of this journey. And I know as somebody who started my career in academia and still has, throughout my career, tried to write articles and capture important technology moments in the moment, I genuinely know, I can see the HBr use cases and case studies that are going to come out of this error, I can see the books, I have friends that have founded some of the oldest and most long-standing digital government classes and seminars and training series in the world. And I just know that we are literally creating the content for the future.

Vince Menzione  31:59 

It’s an exciting time, it really is. You know, I’d love to pivot, we’ve been talking a little bit about your journey. And I want to learn about Uma Thurmond’s Uncle! This is gonna be really fascinating here. I do, share, I believe that we as part of what we give back to the world, it’s so important for our next generation to learn how leaders like you got to this spot in your career. So I was hoping we could spend some time here if you don’t mind on your personal professional journey. Let’s talk a little bit more about getting to Oxford and that doctorate degree, I was hoping to share more about your path with our listeners there.

Dr. Julia Glidden  32:36 

You know, when you set off, can I take a step back and pause for my moment madman moment in time,

Vince Menzione  32:42 

I’d love that.

I’d love to hear about that.

Dr. Julia Glidden  32:44 

So first for post-Oxford, I just came out in 1995 with a doctorate in international relations. My first job was in public relations in New York City. It was a time I’m really dating myself when cigar smoking in closed doors and cigarette smoking. page three. For those of you that are not British, it was the British tablets that had semi-naked women on page three of the tabloids. Those were the screen savers for my first bosses,

Vince Menzione  33:15 

oh my goodness,

Dr. Julia Glidden  33:16 

the jokes about me coming from Oxford and being an intellectual, we’re flying. And I have a slight dyslexia. So I would often have typos. Because the autocorrect was not as sophisticated back in the day. I’m now sending my grandmother here. But they would pick up my faxes and say x word box, for now, a typo. Tell me more about Oxford all I could hear is with Oxford, Oxford as a typo. And think, wow, I bet they didn’t think you know, Asperger was going to be driving as much goodness in the world of technology at scale. As I ended up being as I’ve

Vince Menzione  33:56 

ended up doing. Oh, that’s fascinating. So tell us a little bit more like, was there a best piece of advice you received on the journey like after you got started after this madman moment? What happened next?

Dr. Julia Glidden  34:07 

Well, if I look back crazy, someone asked me in an interview last autumn, and I would tell you, I have never aspired to be at the top of anything to be where I’ve gotten to. I have always followed my interests. I was a little girl back, I’m really turning old. Now there were only four channels. And on Saturday mornings, Sunday mornings, we would watch PBS and the National Geographic. And I would see the zebras running across the plains of Africa and I would want to see the world I would just want to get out of this small New England town. I grew up in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and see the world and at the same time, I would watch PBS news and Cokie Roberts was a really powerful seminal pioneering female broadcaster and she knew so much She seemed to just know so much about the world. And so those two desires to see the world and to know about the world were what really compelled me. I took a chance to be the first class of women at Columbia. It was an honor, it was just a real privilege. It was again a learning moment to be one of 300 women in a 2600 person institution that was the last dilate to go co Ed, that experience at Columbia, which was again about policy and history and philosophy in the world. And then that Dean Thurman, who called me in, I’ll never forget, it’s the Friday before Superbowl Sunday. And he said, Glidden. I don’t see your application for the Kelut scholarship. And I said, Oh, Dean Thurman, you know, kids like me, don’t win these things is I was there on scholarship. I didn’t come from a you know, a lot of money. I assumed that you know, kids with, you know, a more privileged background than me one these things, and he just glared at me. Then she snapped his pencil, and he said, Glidden. I want it on my desk by 9 am. Monday.

Vince Menzione  36:09 

Wow, I love that. I love Dean Thurman,

Dr. Julia Glidden  36:11 

why do I cranked out the application? And before I headed down to Wall Street for a Super Bowl party, I slipped it under his desk. And I guess, you know, the rest they say is history. But you know, long story short, at Oxford, I went and I did a master’s degree in International Relations. Studying with some really great people, many household names, you’d recognize today, very small classes of 13. My class was 13. And we’d study close with the class ahead of us are 13. And then really lucky to get into the doctorate program and win a scholarship to do my doctorate neoconservatives in US foreign policy and intellectual history. And so I would say to you, and nowhere, look at what I’m doing, we’ve just discussed being able to talk about policy with government officials around the world to be able to lean in with partners and create solutions that are customized for different parts of the world, depending on their different point in time, their different journey, their different needs. I really look at this amazing position, I have today to combine my interests as the result of me always following my interests, not a career path.

Vince Menzione  37:24 

I was gonna ask you about that. How did you get to this spot? Right? I mean, how did you pick technology going from the academic or intellectual disciplines,

Dr. Julia Glidden  37:33 

sometimes, you know, there’s luck. And then sometimes you make your luck. So I started my first job in Oxford, you know, public relations company, but I pivoted to public policy because that was what I was interested in. And I was public policy on a global scale. So I ended up doing a huge amount of work for United Airlines really stepping in as the deputy communications director when there was an absence vacuum for the United Airlines for a year or two, working on open skies agreement, big trade agreements around the world, which again, if you think about it, I didn’t as a little girl, say I want to be a PR executive in New York, I wanted to work in public policy and international relations. And then during my time in public relations, the dot.com boom happened. And I just saw this rapid pace of change that interested me. And I was interested in public policy, as I keep telling you all, and I had this great opportunity to run and launch the world’s first internet company, internet election company, and the world’s first legally binding internet election, which is the Arizona Democratic primary pause in the Grand Canyon with one of the Navajo Nation, the Navajo Nation Chief, you know, using the power of Internet voting to help to get the Navajo Nation to use the internet. I mean, it was just wild times. And you know, from that, the course kind of just led me to continue to focus on public policy, international expansion, and technology. You know, Julia,

Vince Menzione  39:11 

you mentioned about being dyslexic. I have a niece and a brother-in-law who both are dyslexic, and I’m just kind of curious how that shaped and molded your trajectory.

Dr. Julia Glidden  39:21 

You know, I’m lucky I didn’t even know me, I had something called compensatory dyslexia, which I didn’t realize I had until some pretty seminal moments in grad school. But what I always struggled with, was spelling and always struggled with teachers saying you’re so smart, and you know, you’re so bright, but you just you know, you need to take more time. You know, it was almost like you’re smart and bright, but you’re lazy. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, kind of erodes your confidence. Now. It turns out Pilates classes or Jane Fonda aerobics sorry. I would always kick and move with the teacher because I saw things like a mirror. So go into these aerobics classes and come out with my shins, you know, black and blue, because I’d be kicking myself and everybody else, and then thinking I was uncoordinated. You know what’s wrong with me. And there was one night in grad school, and my friend was telling me the turn, right to go to the ladies room in his flat, and I kept turning left, and he yelled at me, I think we were drinking it late at night. And he’d never snapped at me before. He was a really dear friend. He felt so bad about this, Vince that the next day, he called and he said, Hey, Julia, you really kept turning left when I said, right. And I said, Yeah, you know, I struggle with left and right, I have to do the oil on my hand. And you know, probably didn’t because I was having too much Sauvignon. And he said, to crawl as a kid. And I said, Well, let me you know, call my mother, my mother’s Oh, gosh, No, we didn’t. We used to have parties with, you know, your aunt and uncle to try to teach you to crawl. So anyway, long-winded way of saying I had, I was lucky because the dyslexia I had meant that somehow I compensated, not crawling meant some parts of my brain wasn’t talking right to each other. But I had compensated for it with a very analytical, verbal, strategic brain. So I was able to compensate for it right, I probably didn’t maybe have the same struggles as other people. But it shaped me because it eroded my confidence. And I really under, you know, understand how much that’s done to people with dyslexia, their whole lives. And then I hope it’s made me a better person, because it’s helped me to appreciate that we all bring unique gifts and talents to the world, that maybe I struggled on the LSAT, for example, Vince, you know, I just couldn’t get the formula for figuring out which fraction was right. You know, my brain did not work that way. I was lucky, I was able to go to great schools, I don’t think today with my SAT scores I ever would have stood a chance. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t smart my own way. And I hope we have more sensitivity to that today. more awareness of that, that diversity and inclusion is about diversity and inclusion of all types of people and brains and characters and ways of interacting.

Vince Menzione  42:16 

Thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate that. I think there’s a big message here for a lot of our listeners. So I really appreciate that. My pleasure. You know, I’m gonna pivot a little bit more here. We have been talking about this time like no other. I’ve had some amazing guests, Dr. Michael Gervais, who is probably one of the preeminent leaders in mindfulness and first principles and has worked with Satya his leadership team. And we’ve talked about mindfulness and first principles on the podcast with him. I’m curious, you know, as you’re living through this, is there anything that you’re doing specifically for your own mindfulness? Oh, yeah,

Dr. Julia Glidden  42:51 

I live in Eb I am so blessed to live in a beautiful remote mountain location on the main Canadian border. The first thing I do a write even wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I look outside, and I am grateful. I thank God for what I have. And I try to remain grateful and start the day with gratitude for all that I have. I then I get my energy and people think I’m an extrovert, but I actually get my energy being alone. I’m actually quite an introvert, I get my energy from nature. I get my energy from I create an hour every day to walk, no matter what is going on. In my day, I walk the mountain and I spend all of my weekends either skiing or snowshoeing or ice skating or hiking or kayaking. I’m lucky I live in a beautiful place, and I and I’m very blessed. But my mindfulness and my energy comes from making sure I carve out that time for me to recharge through walking and gratitude and being in nature. And then the other thing, I’m ruthless about my work-life balance, because if I can’t take care of my family and myself through the walking and mindfulness, I can’t be there for my team. And I believe being there for my team is setting an example that we need to be there for our families. Right. And this is part of the public sector mission. I’ve been talking about the vocation being there for people and so I really, unless it’s absolutely necessary, I may shut down at midnight on a Friday night, but I don’t start work again until Monday. And after a very painful loss last summer where I got that balance that out of whack under the pressures of COVID. I tried to stop every night at eight and had dinner with my husband and son. So getting that work-life balance, right, being close to my family to nature, getting inspiration from the mountains, that that’s what I do, and hopefully remind my team to the point where they’re tired. nagging, to follow the example in their own way and in a way that makes sense for them. Because I keep saying to everybody, we work to live, we don’t live to work.

Vince Menzione  45:10 

So many great thoughts and advice. Here are some really great nuggets around mindfulness. I’m so glad you got to share that with us. And thank you. We’ve talked about so much here today. But is there is one thing that Julia would like to be known for

Unknown Speaker  45:22 

being a good person being a good person?

Vince Menzione  45:24 

What does a good person look like? What is that vision look like?

Dr. Julia Glidden  45:27 

someone you can trust somebody who’s authentic, somebody who is empathetic, I just think we need more kindness in the world. And it’s really, really important to me, it’s more important to me than money. It’s more important to me than a job title. I just really believe that if my father passed away almost 25 years ago, and he was a beloved history teacher. 700 people came to his funeral he died quite young. He is talked about with such reverential terms, his grandchildren who he never met, I’m going to cry. Talk about grandpa Neil, my husband, who never met him talks about my father as if he knew him. That’s a legacy. That’s a legacy to be proud of, if I can, if I could have one half of the respect my father at one quarter has among the people’s lives he’s touched, I would consider myself a successful person.

Vince Menzione  46:27 

Sounds like an amazing, man. So I’ve got one more question for you. It’s one I have a lot of fun with. So hope you have some fun with me is

Dr. Julia Glidden  46:39 

depends on depends on what your definition of fun is? Well,

Vince Menzione  46:42 

we’re hoping to do this. I if you’re hosting a dinner party, let’s start there. And you know, it’s at a point where we’re vaccinated is either social distance, distance, and there’s no blanket social distance regarding mass, we could be vaccinated, but you’re having this wonderful dinner party, and you can invite any three guests. And hopefully, you’ll have it up on the mountain there. On the Canadian border. Who would you invite to this dinner party? What three guests would you invite to this dinner party? And why?

Dr. Julia Glidden  47:11 

Oh, that’s so easy. Both Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill.

Vince Menzione  47:16 

Wow, I know, I’ve been watching the crown. So I’m fascinated as to why I mean, I could understand why but maybe for our listeners, more on that.

Dr. Julia Glidden  47:24 

I think again if I talk about what’s always interested me, I’ve always been interested in understanding the world and history has been a part of that my dad was a history teacher. I have always been interested in other cultures. And I’ve always been interested in public policy. I didn’t mention that. My husband’s British we’ve spent over half my life. You know, having gone to Oxford on that my mother called it as I had gone to Oxford before grad school and a junior year abroad. She called it the junior year from hell that never ended because I cuz I was never coming home, you know, like, I never actually seem to have come home from it. spent a lot of my life in the UK been heavily influenced by and fascinated by British history have the privilege to live amongst so much of British history, both in London and at Oxford, studied Winston Churchill’s Interwar volumes have been amazed by the man’s vision and tenacity. And then of course, as a female leader, hard for me to even think of myself as a leader because I just don’t my own mind. But you think about the trajectory from Queen Elizabeth, the first to this amazing woman who holds the crown now and it said, such an example around the world, just the chance to hear their story. Just be amazing. I’m not personally I, I buy a ticket to my own dinner party I’m getting myself.

Vince Menzione  48:47 

I would certainly attend I have one more person you can invite is who’s the third person? Or do you have one?

Dr. Julia Glidden  48:52 

Margaret Thatcher.

Vince Menzione  48:55 

Margaret Thatcher. fascinating conversation, right? And in getting the two greatest prime ministers in, in British history, to exchange notes. I think she’d loved Churchill and you know, such a different relationship between Queen Elizabeth the Second and you know, between Winston Churchill sort of a father figure to her many ways, right? Yeah. And then that and Margaret Thatcher, Maggie Thatcher, they had a little bit of a contentious relationship if I remember

Dr. Julia Glidden  49:21 

They sure did. And it goes to show you know I don’t think we should draw assumptions that just because we’re the same in certain ways they’re going to be the same and others but talk about some fight now you reminded me events I’m going back to my crown. I might have quite a fiery little dinner party going on there.

Vince Menzione  49:40 

I’d love it. I’d love it. Well, maybe I could come and pop in for an after dinner drink as

Dr. Julia Glidden  49:46 

well invite you from the entire dinner through to desert.

Vince Menzione  49:50 

Thank you so much. Thank you, Julia. So you have been an amazing guest. I just love this car and get to getting to know you better today. I can’t wait till we can meet in person. It’s some point in the future, I was wondering if you have any closing comments, maybe advice for our listeners, a lot of the partners out there that might want to work with the public sector business, you know, and also to help them as they look to optimize for success.

Dr. Julia Glidden  50:14 

You know, it’s the consistent theme, do what you love, follow what you love, believe in what you love, invest in what you love. I have to believe partners that are working in the public sector love, and believe in the public sector mission, and are committed within the spaces that they’re working into delivering on that mission. And I truly believe that if you can take a company with the breadth and scale, the hyper-scale of Microsoft, and the passion and the mission outcomes that our partner solutions can deliver, and authentically bring that together. We can do great things and great goodness in the world. And I think that comes from following what you love and believe in.

Vince Menzione  50:55 

It is so exciting. You know, you’ve recharged my excitement around the public sector space and so great to have you in the role, Julia, so great to have you as a guest and Ultimate Guide to Partner.

Dr. Julia Glidden  51:05 

Thank you so much.

Vince Menzione  51:06 

It was my pleasure

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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