Women Navigating a Career Path in Data & Tech: Insights from Lindsay Murphy

In this AI age we are living in, the importance of having women in  roles of leadership is more important than ever, but how do we make the path to leadership more straightforward. Stay tuned.

Hey everybody, this is Chris Brandt, here with another FUTR podcast.

Today we have with us Lindsay Murphy who is host of the Women Lead Data podcast. She is also Head of Data at Secoda, who provides a all-in-one data management platform, with AI powered data search, catalog, lineage and monitoring.

So let's talk to Lindsay about the what it is like to build a career in technology.

Welcome Lindsay

Harnham Global Diversity in Data Study (this contains data on gender and ethnicity across levels and geographies–lots of interesting information here): https://www.harnham.com/diversity-in-data-summary-2023/

Women More Likely To Negotiate Salaries But Still Earn Less Than Men, Research Says: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2023/11/02/women-more-likely-to-negotiate-salaries-but-still-earn-less-than-men-research-says/?sh=3eb547cde8b0

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaymurphy4/ 

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Transcript

Chris Brandt: 0:00

In this AI age we are living in, the importance of having women in roles of leadership is more important than ever. But how do we make the path to leadership more straightforward? Stay tuned. Hey everybody, this is Chris Brandt here with another FUTR podcast. Today we have with us Lindsey Murphy, the host of the Women Lead Data podcast. She's also head of data at Sakota, which provides an all in one data management platform with AI powered data search, catalog, lineage, and monitoring. So let's talk to Lindsey who's building a career in IT about what it is like to build a career in technology. Welcome,

Lindsay Murphy: 0:45

Lindsay. Thanks so much for having me, Chris. It's great to

Chris Brandt: 0:47

be here. Oh, thanks for being on. I think I came to know you through, uh, Colleen Turtow, Dr. Colleen Turtow, astrophysicist, uh, you know, extraordinaire, uh, who's great friend of the show. And, uh, you know, I, you know, saw you kind of advocating for yourself, uh, and, and, you know, like you have this career in data and, and you, you, you were at that time just starting the women lead. Data podcast. And I thought, wow, that's what a cool conversation to have with somebody who's in the middle of it all, who's starting a podcast. You know, I love talking to podcasters because, you know, first of all, they got good gear. But second of all, we got, we have a lot of commiserating we can do. So, um, so first of all, tell me like, You know, from the perspective of somebody who's trying to build a career in data in tech, which is, you know, historically a challenging world for, for women. Um, what does a career look like?

Lindsay Murphy: 1:47

So I've been working in data for about 12 years now, so it's been kind of a winding path. So when I kind of look back and having these conversations now with the podcast starting, it sort of gives me a chance to sort of, reflect on my own path a little bit. And I think, um, when I, when I look back to one of my first roles in data, I actually did start at a tech company, strangely enough. So I was in a tech startup. Um, back then, I don't even think the question of gender really was really entering my mind. I was just thankful to be like out of university. Um, I switched out of psychology into data. Um, and so was able to apply

Chris Brandt: 2:18

my, I think that's a good transition by the way.

Lindsay Murphy: 2:21

Yeah. I was able to apply my statistics skills over to, to the data space, but I think it was really what drove me. Um, to, to be interested in data was like, what is, what drives people to do what they're doing? So the career or the, the role that I started in was at a, uh, a tech startup that was looking at social media behavior. So this was back when Facebook was just kind of starting out and brands were figuring out, Hey, we can use this for marketing. And so the company that I worked out was an aggregator for social media platforms. So we would pull in all your tweets, all your Facebook posts, all, all your Instagram posts and kind of decide like, You know, here's how many impressions you get has, here's how many engagements you get. It was very like archaic to us now. Um, but it was a really good first role because it gave me an opportunity to, like, I learned SQL in that first role. I was on a data team. I was the only female on that team, other than the person who I reported to, who my manager was also a woman. Um, and so I think that really set me up for success and sort of seeing like I had that role model in that very first job and I was able to really learn some technical skills on the, on the job and have some like hands on experience with that. And I may have been, uh, a little gratuitous on my resume saying that I knew how to use Excel and like I did know how to use Excel, but I didn't know how to use Excel.

Chris Brandt: 3:34

Everybody kind of knows how to use Excel, right?

Lindsay Murphy: 3:37

Yeah, yeah. So like transferring from like university to like actually doing what we were doing in the role, uh, was really hitting the ground running and I'm the kind of person who learns from other people. So it was really a perfect environment for me. And I think that startup mentality was just like, it felt like fire to me because I, in a good way, because before I was doing research studies with toddlers, that would take like three years to complete. So to go to a startup was just kind of like, I was like, Oh my God, this is so cool. This is so fun. Everybody's so upbeat and we're working on really cutting edge things. Um, unfortunately that business went bankrupt. We went, uh, we, I, I should say I'm from Canada. And so the company was really focused on RIM who was the maker of Blackberry. They were one of our biggest customers, the biggest fish that we had. And when they went under, so did the, so did a lot of other companies and we were one of them, unfortunately. So I had the experience of working in a fast paced startup and also getting laid off from a fast paced startup that didn't exist anymore.

Chris Brandt: 4:33

So that was the full life cycle of, uh, you know, working in a fast paced startup.

Lindsay Murphy: 4:37

Yeah, yeah. So from there, I was kind of a little bit you can imagine I was a little weary of working in a company that was so small, I kind of ended up working in like marketing analytics for a few years. So I took what I had learned and started applying it more to like the analyst type of role and learned a lot about how to apply data for the business. So how do you actually get value? Out of what you're, what you're doing, like the analysis and less of the technical side of things. Right. And eventually I kind of found like, you know, just being an analyst working on a campaign, you sort of, it's a bit of a black box. It's like, you don't really know if the customer is going to take the insights that you're given, if they're going to apply it, do any of that. So eventually I found my way back to tech and kind of back into sort of like, okay, here's how you would build a whole data stack and kind of build a data function at a company. So yeah, building a career in tech, I think it's, it's, um, a bit of a wayfinding path, I would say, like, at least it has been for me. And, um, I think right now it's probably harder than it has been for data people in the past, just given the way that the market is.

Chris Brandt: 5:36

Well, you, you mentioned that you had, um, A boss who was a woman to running the group, you know, and, and that was sort of inspiring and helpful to, I mean, he speak to like, because, you know, one of the things that I think that's always, you know, when you look at the amount of women who are in leadership, it's a very small number. You know, relative to what it should be. Um, and, you know, we see a lot of diversity, equity, inclusion, sort of efforts in, in organizations, but, you know, that, that, um, sponsorship into the leaders, leadership position is often really lacking, you know? Yeah. And, I mean, can you talk about, like, how it was different for you having that leadership? Yeah. You know, over, you know, what many other people have in a more, you know, regular kind of business.

Lindsay Murphy: 6:26

Yeah, yeah, I think, I think having that first, um, example and that first role model and I should give a shout out of Heather's listening. Heather was, Heather was my manager, my first role. Yeah. Um, and her and I actually just caught up a few weeks ago and it was really good to kind of, uh, talk about probably 10 years later at this point, but, um, but yeah, I, I really do think it kind of gave me this sort of like, role model to sort of look up to and sort of say, you know, like, why couldn't I have that type of position? And I think that sort of stuck with me and every manager that I've had in every role ever since then has been a man. So I haven't really had a manager who at least has been in a data role. I have had other managers who I've reported as like a data team of one, two, someone who wasn't a data person that has its own challenges. Um, but I do think that maybe I was able to kind of hold on to that and sort of see like, you know, that's the path that I can potentially take. Um, I do think for, for a lot of women, the first step from an IC role to a manager role is often that hardest part. first step. And I do think research shows that, uh, that tends to be where most of, of women are not able to make that first jump, or, or you may end up making it a few years later than men do on average. And that ends up holding you back more in your career, the further that you go. Um, and so for me, that first jump, I get a lot of times asked, like, how did I go from IC to manager? It was actually in a discussion that I had with my manager. I was an analytics manager at another startup when I got back into tech. Um, and I had kind of joined as like the first data hire and I had been there for about a year and I had done all these things and it kind of got to this point where I was like, you know, I can do all these things, but I can do a whole lot more if you give me a team and if you let me start building up this function. Right. And so I kind of brought that up to my manager and I sort of said like, like, I'm stretched really thin, here's all these things that I'm doing, but I don't really feel like I can really like plan or figure out. You know, how do we do more with data at this company? Um, and he sort of said, yeah, well, we were thinking of hiring this director role. And I was like, well, that's news to me. I was like, can I apply for that role? Like, why can't I, why would I not take on that role? And so I think in that conversation with him, I think there was kind of like a light bulb moment for me where. I don't know that he knew that I wanted that role as maybe one cop out for him, but also I don't know that he was thinking of offering it to me. Um, and so I sort of said like, Hey, I'm interested. I want this role at like, I, if I'm going to progress and stay at this company, like, I think that this should be a serious consideration for me. Um, and so there was kind of a process where I sort of put together an outline and I said, like, I actually built my own job description and true startup fashion. Um, and then kind of put together an outline of what the team would look like and that sort of thing. And so I think. Um, I felt, I feel like I had that courage to do that, or I was able to put myself out there because I sort of probably did have that role model earlier in life. And then also I think I was, I was ready and I wanted that next step.

Chris Brandt: 9:08

Well, but the thing that wasn't there is like, you didn't have that person to like automatically bring you into that process, you know? And I think that's where, where we see a lot of the failings, you know, it's like a lot of times women who are, you know, seeking, you know, a specific career path, they don't get. invited to the meetings. You know, they don't get asked to present at the meetings, you know, so they can't, you know, demonstrate their capabilities. And I think that's, that's a really, uh, challenging aspect of it. Right.

Lindsay Murphy: 9:36

Yeah, yeah. And even in that same role, that was something that I had to fight really hard for it. I eventually got a seat on the senior leadership. Uh, I forgot what we called it SRT or something like that. But, uh, it was a leadership team where we would have sort of monthly meetings and, and by being added to that meeting, I got a lot more visibility into what's going on with the business. What are the priorities? And I could make, it almost kind of yeah. not being in those types of meetings in a way set you up for failure if you are in a functional leader point, uh, position, because then you're not able to sort of, um, it, you still can, but it would be a lot harder. You have to sift through a lot more noise to figure out where's the business going, what's really important, what's like the most critical issues that we're concerned about to align yourself to that. Um, but I had to fight really hard to get into that meeting. And I think there was a few things behind that, probably less. of the fact that I was a woman, but more because it was a data role and just data roles are inherently political for a lot of different reasons. Um, but yeah,

Chris Brandt: 10:28

I think I heard you talking about that on your latest podcast, which I, yeah,

Lindsay Murphy: 10:32

yeah, the one, yeah, so definitely. Um, yeah, we, we, uh, published an episode this morning that is focused on that very topic. Um, so yeah, I think for women, not just in tech, but women in data that becomes, there's layers now to this issue. It's like, you now, Are dealing with probably societal things and biases and things that are holding you back. But you're also in a very political role to begin with. Yeah. And so there's a lot to navigate for that as well.

Chris Brandt: 10:56

Now, did you have, was there any women below you who you could sponsor into any of those meetings now that you were? invited to the meetings or was it just not enough representation in the company to make that even happen?

Lindsay Murphy: 11:08

Yeah, so it's funny you ask that because in that role I had a full male team. Um, and that was, you know, we, we did a lot of interviewing. I think that was actually my first experience interviewing and doing like hiring panels. And so I think there could have been things I did more there to get more women to apply, but we just, in terms of who applied to the role, we saw a lot more men coming through the applications. Yeah. Yeah. Especially one of the roles that I was hiring for was a data scientist role. So that was really, really male dominated for that role. Um, but then after I moved from that company to my next role, um, I actually kind of came in to inherit a team that was already in place and that was a full female data team. So interestingly enough, it kind of totally flipped. So I went from having A team of kind of like two or three people and then switching to kind of a full female team. So yeah, yeah, it was a bit of a change and I do think in that I was trying as much as I could just kind of encourage and have people speak up and, um, you know, get them in the meetings that they need to be in.

Chris Brandt: 12:04

You know, it's funny, I do feel like, you know, you say an all female team. I feel like I've seen more of that in the data space than I actually have in the rest of IT. You know, there's something about data and analytics that seems, and AI too, I think, that is sort of driving this new wave of women coming into the field. I don't have any numbers to back that up. And I'm, you know, that's completely from, you know, my small anecdotal experience, but I, you know, when I see things like that, I'm like, Oh, well, hopefully that's, More of an industry trend, you know?

Lindsay Murphy: 12:36

Yeah, yeah, there are. I mean, I can't think of the research study right now, but I will find it for you. Maybe we can throw it in the notes. But, um, but, uh, there, there is some research that gets done every year that does look at sort of, um, geographical differences and sort of gender diversity in the data space of who's entering the field and then importantly, who's making it to higher levels. And they have sort of seen that like at the, at the more, uh, entry levels that the gender diversity is starting, like it's typically is trending to improve over the last few years. I think with COVID and a lot of layoffs and data and just changes in the job market, they've actually seen the trend go back the other way, unfortunately. Um, but I do think at those lower levels, like, like entry level and intermediate, um, like even for me, this wasn't really something like I always knew that, you know, I had been the only female on a team or I didn't really see a lot of women in roles as much as. Um, other industries usually, but it wasn't like the stark feeling of like, you know, there's like, I'm in just a room full of men, um, until I started going to, you know, conferences or like the more senior I got. And I started to see like, a lot of my peers are actually now men, the more senior I get. And so, When you do start digging into the gender diversity more in segments and looking at it in different areas, um, and definitely geographically there's differences as well, uh, it, it is quite stark. You do sort of see this like major drop off and that's kind of, yeah, that's really where the idea for the podcast came from and why I wanted to talk more about it.

Chris Brandt: 13:59

Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, when I see it and I make these anecdotal claims, um, You know, I, I am so used to I. T. being such a male dominated place. Anytime I see women anywhere in I. T., I think, Oh, that's good. You know, we're making some headway here, you know. Um, so it, it, I would agree with you that I'm not, that women aren't outnumbering men by any, by any means. You know, stretch of the imagination, nor I also see not them not represented as heavily in sort of more the leadership roles that are probably the ones going to the conferences, right?

Lindsay Murphy: 14:33

Yeah, I was, I was just going to say, it's interesting because I run a meetup here in Toronto once a month, uh, called the Toronto modern data stack meetup. And we haven't really made any like conscious effort of being like gender inclusive or anything like that. And just by organic growth is like 90 percent guys. So we, and like there's free food and beer and I don't know if that's part of it. But, um, but we kind of meet, we try to meet once a month and, and it seems like every time that we come, I'm like, there are fewer of your women here. And, and I'm actively trying now to find, uh, you know, other women that are in the area and, and, and just get them out. Um, but I think problems with that, it's like, unless you're like really purposeful about it. And I think it's the same with hiring slates. Um, it's just gonna, it's just going to be. Like, you'll see kind of the numbers really sway to, to the, the male side of things. And I think in the networking, like, people don't want to come to, women don't want to come to a group that's just like 90 percent guys. So it's kind of this like self fulfilling prophecy a little bit, but. Yeah, totally.

Chris Brandt: 15:27

You do ladies night then, right? Worst thing, worst thing ever.

Lindsay Murphy: 15:32

Yeah, there is actually a Toronto women's data group in Toronto here, but they usually do virtual events and it seems like they get good attendance, but now I'm like, okay, let's get that. Let's get the people from that meetup to come to our meetup and we'll like cross pollinate the meetup. So I'm working on it.

Chris Brandt: 15:45

It'd be really interesting to see what some of the demographics are about that, you know, because, you know, if you look at the statistics around women, they. carry a heavier load with child care. They carry a heavier load around, you know, domestic, you know, duties and, you know, in the house and things like that. And when you think about like, who has the freedom to go and attend, you know, an after hours thing where you're going to be drinking, is it, you know, the man who's just like blowing everything off and going out, or is it the woman who's going home to, you know, like feed, feed her kids? You know, it's like, you know, I think there's just, um, you know, gender biased sort of things, probably in a lot of those numbers that where the problem isn't the desire to attend, but it's the ability, making the ability to attend, right?

Lindsay Murphy: 16:34

It's a good point because it was something I ranted about something on LinkedIn. I tend to do that. But if I put a post out a couple of weeks or months ago, kind of saying like, I think I saw another lineup of speakers at a conference. And it was like, like 75 percent men. And I was like, what is going on here? Like, it's really not that hard to get a diverse, um, group of speakers. Like we should be doing better and data conferences. And someone actually responded and said, like, I haven't gone to a conference. It was a woman who responded, said, I haven't gone to a conference since I had my children. So it was kind of like this idea of traveling and being away for a few days and being able to go to the conferences, something that, you know, maybe it's just not possible for, you know, A lot of people, what I say to that is kind of like, you know, okay, do you have a partner at home that is supporting you to be able to do those things? Because, like you said, why is the expectation that the woman has to go home and do all of that? It's like a man is perfectly capable of doing that, too. So. I understand there's probably a lot of extenuating circumstances for people, but to me it's kind of like, you know, I think that's like what you pointed out. It's like, we need to move our societal expectations ahead. And I think that's probably a really contributing factor to the leadership piece as well.

Chris Brandt: 17:37

Yeah, we have to address it on many levels. And, you know, and another thing that, you know, that's a big issue is, you know, the salary gap, right? And, you know, I know one of the things you've talked about is, you know, salary transparency. You speak to that a little bit and how that would play out.

Lindsay Murphy: 17:52

I was out for after it was after the meetup, I was out for drinks with some of the data people and some of that I actually worked with in my first role. One of the guys who I used to go to him was like, Hey, how do you do this in Excel? Or like, what, how do I write this in SQL? Um, one of my good friends, Varun, I was bothering him and he was like, Hey, you should talk about this on your podcast. You remember that time that. We all told each other our salaries and we found out that you were getting paid way less than us. And I was like, what? I was like, I didn't even remember that experience. So he brought that up and then I was kind of thinking about it more and I was like, yeah, I do remember that now. So essentially what had happened was our manager had left the company and someone who was our peer had gotten promoted into that role. And when they got promoted, they got, you know, they could see everyone's salary when it came around to performance review time. He noticed that, like, I was not being paid as much as everybody else and for, like, I was definitely more junior and I joined the company later, but I think it was like a really big gender or a really big gap. Sorry. Yeah. Uh, and so he just encouraged us to tell each other what we were making. And so we all kind of just disclosed to each other. And then what that allowed me to do was then go in and sort of like, you know, him as my manager and me requesting it. It was like, it was a bit more of an easier negotiation discussion. It was more than 10 years ago, so I don't remember what happened. I do remember that I got a promotion at some point and I'm sure I got a merit increase, but, um, but I think even just having that bold conversation, I think there's like the secrecy around salary transparency. Among companies, like you're not supposed to talk about it. You're not supposed to tell people what you make. And I think that just benefits the company at the end of the day. For sure. 100%. And yeah, and it just contributes to this gender pay gap. Uh, and then funny enough, recently, like more and more recent role in my life. It's come up again where I, I, uh, had a friend at work and she sort of, uh, disclosed like her and I just decided to disclose our salaries to each other. And I was actually really quite surprised. She was in a different function than what I was in, and I was kind of like, oh, I actually thought Data would make more than that function. And then the more we dug into things, we actually found out that there were two other male counterparts that were at the same level that we were at, that were making, you know, like, 20 percent more than we were, and they're also not in Data. And so once we started kind of digging into it, I then was kind of like, you know, okay, well, maybe I'm not really being compensated enough for this role. Uh, so I started doing some more research. I spoke to recruiters. I kind of went out and kind of armed myself with as much information as I could. Um, and yeah, I kind of came to the conclusion that I was, you know, I was being very underpaid compared to what the market was really paying for my role. Um, so I think all of that, like that's salary transparency at like just the individual level. I think maybe what's more effective is. There's like layers of salary transparency where a company just openly shows what everybody makes. I think we're probably pretty far off. I don't think a lot of companies are doing that. Um, but I do think like that type of discussion with your peers or even companies disclosing either, you know, salary transparency at like certain levels. Like if you're at this level, you should be making at least between these, this amount. Um, is going to support women to then get paid equally. Um, I was actually doing a bit more research about this, uh, this morning because I was sort of like, well, maybe it comes down to like, we don't, women don't negotiate as much. And that actually turns out, there's been some more recent research that women actually do negate, negotiate as often or if not more than men, the outcomes are just different. And so I think there was a study like, Yeah, yeah, I think there was a study like 20 or 30 years ago that did find that women didn't negotiate as much and so because that was so publicized and that was kind of the blames almost put on women to say,

Chris Brandt: 21:16

victim blaming who, who would have thought of that?

Lindsay Murphy: 21:20

You're not, you're not, you know, you're not asking for it or you're not really like negotiating and your salary and even I feel like I still would hear that. And so now what it looks like is that women have been kind of told that so much, you know, you're not negotiating, you're not negotiating that now we do negotiate, but we just don't have the same outcomes as men for various reasons. And so I think it's kind of time to say, like, you know, we are negotiating and we're still not getting to where we need to get to. So I think there's more that needs to be done. Salary transparency might be one thing that could support that.

Chris Brandt: 21:48

Yeah. And I would imagine regionally that's, that's very challenging. I know that like in Illinois, I believe, well, I don't know if it's Illinois or just United States, that discussing your salary, you cannot be penalized for discussing your salary for other, with other employees, you know? So that's not like it's, It's, it's, I had so many companies discourage it because it always creates a problem, right? And, uh, you know, but at least, but I think people ought to know that, you know, they can do it. You know, they're protected for, for doing it, you know, double check those laws. I

Lindsay Murphy: 22:21

guess I should say that, yeah, don't do anything that you're gonna,

Chris Brandt: 22:24

Yeah, I might, I might, I might be wrong on that because I'm wrong on a lot of things, but I, I, I do believe that is the case. So, you know, you, this next career jump where you, uh, startup, startup. A podcast and, you know, and, and like, it's interesting that a Sakoda is sponsoring that too. So, and, and like the nature of your, your podcast is about helping promote women, their careers in, in technology and, and beyond, I would imagine as you, you get going here. Um, so, you know, what, what, what was, what was, what was the whole thought process there? Like, how, how was it, what was it like going to your company? Did you start by going to your company and saying, Hey, this is what I'm thinking.

Lindsay Murphy: 23:04

I think it was kind of, it kind of came up organically because we were at a conference. So, uh, we attended a conference as a group back in July of last year, I believe. Uh, and it was at that conference where, uh, we were at one of the evening events and I was, it was actually one of my coworkers who kind of turned to me and he's like, there's a lot of guys here. He's, he's a man himself. He said like, there's, there's a lot of men here. And I was like, and I looked around and I was like, yeah, there is a lot of guys here. There was, there must've been like, I don't know, 500 people at this event. It was like a rooftop bar in Vegas. And, uh, I'm looking around and I'm like counting women. And I'm like, I got to like 10, maybe. Uh, and then one of the women I went over and started talking to and she's like, Ah, I'm not even in data. I'm here with my husband. And I was like, perfect. So it's like you brought a plus one at least. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then when I started talking to more of the people in the audience, it was kind of like, okay, well, this is not a con like I've been to conferences before where the gender diversity was a little bit more, not definitely not 50 50, but it was a little more balanced. Um, and I realized that this particular conference, the audience was, catered to more senior people. So when I started talking to who was there, it's like, okay, well, I'm the CEO of this company, or I'm the CTO of this company, or, you know, I'm the head of data, like types of roles that are a little bit higher up. And I was kind of like, okay, well, this, this is why you start to realize that there's not as many women here. Um, we came back from that conference and I was a little fired up as I tend to get fired up about things. And then I feel like it was kind of like this Bader Meinhof situation where I was like, once I saw that, like, I couldn't stop seeing it everywhere. Um, I spent a little bit of time. I put a spreadsheet together where I went and I looked at all of the companies that I could think of and data and who was their founding team or who was on their seat, their C suite. And it's like, yeah, the numbers came out like 90, 20 or sorry, 90, 10. Um, and so from there I was kind of just like hooked on it. Um, we actually ran a virtual conference back, uh, in August of last year. Called, uh, MDS Fest. And I did a panel at that. And I said, uh, in this panel, I wanted to speak to women, female founders and sort of say like, you know, what, what do you think about this issue? And I kinda, I think I went into it a little naive. It's like, I came out of it with sort of like, okay, I got some pretty good tidbits, but it was really sort of like, why do women have to be the only ones talking about this? Like, why can't we continue this conversation, um, and, and try to bring more people into the conversation.

Chris Brandt: 25:22

Because the funny thing is it's, this is really a male problem, right? It's the people who have the power have to relinquish the power, right? Yeah. So it's like when you look at sort of these gender, class, race struggles, you know, we always focus on the people who are, you know, the, the victims of these social structures, right? Not the people who are creating the social structures who need to change the structures to make it easier for, for, for people. So,

Lindsay Murphy: 25:50

yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think for me, it's like the, the idea there from the podcast was sort of like, how can we continue, like, I still want to have women as guests for the most part, but I want to essentially, by doing that give people a bit of a playbook. So it's like have someone on who has made it to some sort of leadership role in their life and have them share what leadership means to them, what their career path has looked like, so that it kind of gives people a bit of a playbook. And then the other half of the episode, we try to like peel away some sort of either leadership or societal issue that kind of affects women. And so, um, it's like the podcast has kind of gone a little bit all over the place. Like sometimes we talk about data stuff. Sometimes we go a little bit more social. I had Uh, Stefania Olofsdottir, who's the CEO and co founder of AVO on a few weeks ago, and we got talking about Iceland, and the culture of Iceland, and how it is very feminist culture, and how they're just role models for women all across the world. So So, we do cover a lot of ground, um, but it's, but I do think that it's kind of the intention is to sort of be, you know, a little bit of tech, a little bit of data, and a little bit of social aspects.

Chris Brandt: 26:51

Which is, which is kind of where I like to, you know, lay my, my, my podcast too, so it's, it's entertaining to hear your perspective on, on these things as well.

Lindsay Murphy: 27:01

And then, yeah, I think getting Sokoda involved just kind of made sense. Like I am pretty busy. So I think running a podcast totally on my own on the side. I know when, when I was first getting started, I should say a thank you to you. You and I met, you gave me some pointers on how to get started. So that was really helpful. Um, starting a podcast isn't easy, like figuring out what you're doing and. Um, even though I had some help and I had some advice from some great people, it still is kind of like you sort of have to just figure out what you're doing. Tough. And I think I just had to accept like if I can do this as part of my job, that's like a plus for me. It's kind of a, you know, but I don't have as much time on the side as I used to, to be able to do things like that. So it's been nice that Sakota has been interested in supporting me. Yeah, that's great.

Chris Brandt: 27:38

I mean, I think that's, I think that speaks. volumes about, you know, Sakota. It's not a lot of companies that, you know, will, will commit those kind of resources and make that kind of effort and, and, and provide that level of visibility. I mean, you know, a lot of, a lot of companies talk about DEI and, you know, we just don't see much more than a couple statements here and there. Maybe, uh, you know, a gathering.

Lindsay Murphy: 28:00

Or, yeah, as soon as the economy takes a turn, the DEI stuff goes out the window, right?

Chris Brandt: 28:06

Yes, there, there, there is definitely that. Um, you know, but I, the one thing I do find about this podcast that I love so much is like, I get to talk to all these different people with different ideas and different concepts. And, you know, I, I learned so much from doing this. It's like, I, I wouldn't, I would do this. all day, every day, if I could get away with it, because just keep, you know, like cool people doing cool stuff. I just love, love that. And you know, my definition of cool, it's all over the place too. So, you know, like getting people in and, you know, hearing, hearing about their stories. And I got to imagine that, you know, that's beneficial in your career path, right?

Lindsay Murphy: 28:41

Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. I would say like, Starting the podcast has been as much of a, like, a supporting the community as it's been, like, a self serving thing for me as well. Like, I will admit that. It's been, it's been very rewarding to be able to speak to all of these wonderful guests and learn from them and, uh, you know, and then just getting, like, I think one of the questions that we sort of had when I was first starting out is, and I even thought this, I was like, if we don't have enough women in these positions, am I going to run out of guests? Like, am I going to run out of people to talk to? And the more I do this, the less that, that's a concern for me, because every guest who comes on is very gracious and is like, Hey, I know five or 10 other women who would be great for this show. And that's when you really start to realize, like, there are a lot of people in the market and in the industry who are in these positions. I just don't think that we're highlighting them enough. And so that's,

Chris Brandt: 29:24

Well, I learned that lesson from Colleen.

Lindsay Murphy: 29:28

Yeah, yeah. I think that's how you and I got connected, was in that conversation, so yeah. I think it was, yeah,

Chris Brandt: 29:33

yeah, yeah. She just kind of gave me a hard time. And I'm, I will forever be grateful to her for that, because I think she really did me a favor, actually, by doing that. You know, it's like, come up with a lot of really interesting, cool content, met a lot of really interesting and cool people. Um, and speaking of that, so like, You know, you've had a lot of your 11 episodes in now, I understand, right?

Lindsay Murphy: 29:55

Yeah, yeah, just published 11 this morning.

Chris Brandt: 29:57

Yeah, you had some interesting guests. I mean, any interesting anecdotes, you know, favorite guests, things that you, you know, heard on your podcast?

Lindsay Murphy: 30:06

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's hard to choose because I feel like every guest has just been amazing. Um, I think some of the ones, some of the ones that come top of mind are, I mentioned Steph already. I will mention her again because I think the conversation that we had Avvo for one is just a really cool tool. So even just hearing, um, they're in kind of the data quality space and they kind of tried to move data quality upstream. So I feel like the, the product that she's building and she, she lived this problem, like lived and breathed it. So for her to describe what she went through to then create the company was just really, it's very relatable and it's very kind of like cathartic to hear. You know, she's kind of created the solution to a problem, but then the other flip side of that conversation was really around Iceland, which I just thought was so cool. It was just so interesting to hear, um, how cultures differ, uh, and how that can have such a big impact on your life as a woman. And, and it's, and of course it makes a lot of sense, but it's like, you kind of just have to scratch your head a little bit and you're like, how can we not look at that and just replicate that elsewhere? It's, it's like a bit of a playbook, right? Um, and then I think, yeah, the, the other guests I, that I had on that we just published this morning, Regan Avon, she is really very well known in the, the women in analytics space. She started the, uh, that, uh, group and then now she has her own company as well, Align AI. And, and that's focused on kind of solving this like organizational, um, uh, kind of Alignment issue of data and AI, it's like, you know, half of the problems are tools and an infrastructure, but majority of the issues become people and getting people aligned. And that's really what they're focused on. So her and I talked a lot about the politics of data and how we can kind of tease that apart. And I thought that was such an interesting conversation as well.

Chris Brandt: 31:42

Yeah, I mean, I don't know that you can extricate the politics out of data, but knowing that they're there is the first step.

Lindsay Murphy: 31:50

Yeah. It's just a lot of people ask about like, how to get into data and what, like, what do I do to get into data? And I'm always kind of like, are you sure you want to just take a second and not to discourage anyone from it, but it's like, I don't think people think that when you're starting out, you're kind of like, Oh, it's so fun to do an analysis. And Make a nice data visualization or build a dashboard or build a pipeline and you don't realize like you're kind of opening up a can of worms of politics, but I think that's what people realize. The more senior they get.

Chris Brandt: 32:14

So, well, and it's interesting because my sister, she's got a PhD in, um, like statistical sociology. So she designed a lot of like studies with people, you know, crunch the data, you know, handle all the statistics and things like that. And so, you know, she's been, she's had her own business for a while. And now she's started sort of leaving that and going into the world of data. And I actually connected her with Colleen. I'd love to maybe connect her with you as well. Yeah. She's trying to figure it all out too, because she knows how to design and build the studies, you know, how to manage bias, you know, all those kinds of things. And, you know, it is an interesting space for her because, you know, it's like, there's so much to do in that, that field. It's not just like coding. You know, it's not just being like a DBA, you know, it's like, you know, how was this study designed? You know, like what factors went into it? What, you know, internal biases were the questions that were asked, you know, creating a bias or, or, or some sort of causation that isn't really there, you know?

Lindsay Murphy: 33:17

Yeah, those are always the soft skills that I think people don't realize. It's like you focus, people say, what do I have to learn to be a data analyst? And it's like, well, sure, you're probably going to have to learn SQL and Python and all these other things. But You need to learn your soft skills and those are typically. They're, they're what will like, you know, you might get a job because of your technical skills, but you're not going to get promoted, you're not going to get to leadership roles if you don't have the soft skills.

Chris Brandt: 33:37

Yeah, you kind of have to know how to design studies and things like that. And I think a lot of, a lot of times, you know, when I look at companies and I see, you know, talking about their data scientists, data scientists don't always, Come out of data science backgrounds in education, they often are, you know, coders and DBAs and people have worked with data for years, and now they've become data scientists. I'm sure some of them are eminently qualified, but I think a lot of them have maybe missed a lot of the fundamentals in the background there that they need to do that job. And, you know, if you look at some of those, like you mentioned, soft skills. You know, a lot of, you know, the, the, the, there's a, you know, kind of a bifurcation between men and women in college and the type of courses and classes they take. And, you know, women do tend to be on the side of more of those soft skill kind of studies. And so, you know, that's why I think, you know, maybe there's like a bigger opening here, uh, for women with their background, you know, to come in and, and play a more significant role.

Lindsay Murphy: 34:36

Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. I do think that, um, and this is something that kind of Reagan and I touched on in our episode as well. It's sort of like, I think women do sometimes have more strength in those areas, um, of the soft skills and in some cases. And so, uh, being it being in those leadership roles, especially in data roles, we may be better positioned with the backgrounds that potentially we might have or the experience that we have to kind of take on some of those, those senior leadership roles. So, yeah, It's I think it's unfortunate that, you know, there's something happening along the path that we're not getting there because maybe data initiatives would be more effective if there were more women in leadership.

Chris Brandt: 35:08

Yeah, and I think, you know, I would I would suggest people, you know, in who are hiring look look towards because women in IT have had to work harder their whole career to get where they've been. So, I mean, there's, there's, you know, it's like, I had this conversation around accessibility, you know, like people with disabilities have had to work harder to get where they were, you know, they're, they're seasoned, you know, they're hardened by their Effort, you know, and I think a lot of that can be said of women in it too. It's like they've been kind of, you know, like put through the grinder and like come out the other side and, you know, fought, fought a lot of those battles. So have that sort of resilience that, you know, maybe some other candidates haven't. Yeah. Right. Yeah, for sure. So well, so what what's next were for you know, women lead data, you know, where are you going with this? You're gonna you're gonna be the YouTube channel eventually, too.

Lindsay Murphy: 35:58

Yeah Yeah, I mean so far I've only focused on the audio side of things and that's been kind of the big learning curve for me to start but We do record video. So, I mean, at some point we may turn something into that. We've talked about kind of creating shorts and maybe having like shorts that are a little bit more digestible. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think right now we're going to try to keep putting out episodes every week. Um, and yeah, just try to get more guests on, but I'm, we have some really exciting guests coming up, so I'm excited to keep it going.

Chris Brandt: 36:25

Well, you know, like let's, let's Talk keep talking because you know, there's I'm sure guests that would you have that would be great for me and guess that I have interviewed that would be great for you and and you know, like some of the pr firms that i've associated with and you know that Funnel me some interesting guests, you know, maybe I can help you along that way too. So absolutely Yeah, no, and uh, you know, it's it's been great. Uh talking to you. It's I i'm enjoying your podcast I would say you you have a level of professionalism with your podcast that I was surprised to see To find because I think you do. Yeah, you got like a good you got a good podcaster voice, too You know you kind of I

Lindsay Murphy: 37:01

have been told that which I wouldn't have pegged myself for that But here we go. I'll be in radio one day.

Chris Brandt: 37:06

I've had a terrible podcast voice I think and like I've had people tell me they they love that. You're my podcast. I think it's good

Lindsay Murphy: 37:12

I feel like it's one of those things you just got to lean into it. You're like we're doing it So

Chris Brandt: 37:15

yeah, you just gotta get over that because everybody's voice sounds uncomfortable to them.

Lindsay Murphy: 37:18

Yeah. Yeah So yeah, but you're over listening to my own voice a long time ago

Chris Brandt: 37:23

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, you're doing good. Uh, you, you got, you've had some interesting guests on and I wish you all the success going forward. I can't wait for your hundredth episode, you know, where you're like, Oh my God, I have done a hundred episodes. Um, yeah, but yeah, yeah. Keep going strong and, uh, thanks so much for being on.

Lindsay Murphy: 37:41

Thanks so much for having me, Chris. This is great.

Chris Brandt: 37:43

Anytime. Thanks for watching. I hoped you enjoyed everything. And if you did, please give us a like, think about subscribing, and maybe even share it. And I will see you in the next one.