A Top Tech Leader with Anna Schlegel

to be an incredible leader you have to constantly do different things you're not gonna make these these super high level positions in high tech at fortune companies if you're not constantly studying constantly you have to be careful when you're empathetic to your customer or you're being apathetic to the team you have to find the balance and then you have to explain why is it that you're changing course hello friends welcome to a new episode of Merging Minds the podcast brought to you by Bureau Works today I am here with my favorite leader ever ever ever I met this lady years ago we became close friends she's helped me with a lot of things she's always a go to person she's a localization and globalization industry star although she's no longer here with us this lady does not need an introduction but in any case here you are with Miss Ana Navarro Legel Ana Navarro the sculls the one and only Hola Hola Hola Shavi ha ha thanks for coming to the podcast it's so good to have you here Hannah Hannah I'm glad it worked I'm glad it worked where in the world are you today you are in Barcelona in Barcelona yes so that's not far away from you from the place you were born years ago right years ago yes years ago it's my it's my birthday I won't say how many years ago it's your birthday soon it's your birthday soon by the way it's my birthday soon yeah yeah yeah we're recording in February 2025 for those listening anyway for those who never heard of Anna which I think it's very it's very impossible if you're in the localization and globalization industry I'll allow her to introduce herself because today we're going to go through her journey from the personal perspective of two friends talking about one's life leadership and a lot of stuff Anna please very good well thank you have you first of all such a such a a kick and an honor to talk to you so yes I'm Catalan and I'm an American also I was born in the town because it's a town that's called ulot o l O t which is where all the main bikers like Lance Lance Armstrong go and train so it did the Pyrenees it did the mountains that divide uh France from Catalonia and that's where I was born yeah then just like most of us for some reason the globalisation industry one day you woke up and you said I need to leave I wanna leave you went to the States how did that happen like tell us what happened when was that yeah so um I left first for Germany I left for Berlin to do my post grad studies from philology and then from Berlin I pretty much took off to live in California and as many of us did you know I left for maybe a year and then 33 years later um I I stayed and I and I just left California to come back to Catalonia eight months ago so it's I'm going through the reversal osmosis exercise but I still have my home in California and my kids and my partner everybody's still there so I'm the one how do you say that California how would you call it I'm a California California yeah yeah yeah so many so many so many like you like me we left years ago like can I ask you what because it's be now in February we're recording this in February 25 it's been exactly 15 years since I left also I'm recording from my parents place it's been 15 years for me for you it's been way more but what motivated that thing like okay first Germany then out what what was it I always wanted to travel and see people and meet people and from very very young I would take the train inside Catalonia to go study Barcelona and I always met up with people from Morocco and I would always sit next to them when people go like oh no no don't don't I I'm the one that will always go and sit to the person that I had never seen and slowly start conversation I'm fascinated by by humans from different countries and their cultures and and what are they doing and I don't know I have this ease of talking to people from around the world and I left for California I was 23 years old and uh I left for a year but that year I created my first company and so it was too fun and I decided to stay another year and yeah it's it's 2025 do you remember how the world was in 92 and for us globalist it was a complete different scenario right like for all of us Catalans Hispanians like 92 was a great year for us it was the Olympics in Barcelona it was the Expo here it was like the 505th hundred anniversary of the discovery of America too that we were celebrating as well what a year what do you remember the most of those years when you were thinking well I remember it I'm leaving I remember 92 very well because I had trained to be in the Olympics for the Spanish national volleyball team for several years and I wasn't chosen to be the final 11 that went to to the the final games and so that also pushed me a little bit I was sort of waiting to see um because we had to wait until the very very end to see we were gonna make the the games or not and when I saw um in January that I I wouldn't be in the in the Summer Olympics I'm like this is a cue this is a sign I'm I'm out of here and so I left and um 92 I remember really well I landed in the middle of San Francisco and that's where I stayed and um it was a 23 year old young lady with no preconceived notions of that I was in the Silicon Valley that there was something called technology and I was in an incredible place but it was so fun I'm like oh my goodness what is this place I love San Francisco right away cause it reminded me a little bit of Barcelona where you can walk and there were shops and you can go get your groceries and tons of bars and clubs and art and museums and a lot of foreigners I already met Europeans right away Brazilians right away and um and I think because I created my company you know that's what rooted me there so you are you you are you are a founder from the age of 23 already right I was yeah okay okay okay so I wanna know more about that like like because on the podcast we have lots of friends that come from both sides of the spectrum people that are really doing well in what they're doing by their employer and there's also a lot of founders that have come and talked about their experience tell me what sparked that thing of like I wanna create my company I don't care I don't wanna work for anybody what what was it how how does one get those thoughts to start a company because I wanna know I need to know I need to do that one day as well yeah yeah I've created a couple um so I think he was out of need I was in the middle of San Francisco I had very little money and I'm like how am I gonna survive here so my first couple of years I worked at the airport I work for British Airways and in the meantime I'm like yeah I I don't wanna stay at the airport although I was having a lot of fun at the airport but I decided to create this company because I needed to create a safe job for myself kind of a thing I didn't know a lot of people I didn't know a lot of Americans and I had this idea I saw two free newspapers in San Francisco I went to each one of them on this newspaper I published that I needed translators and interpreters and in this other one I totally made up a an agency that did not exist that did all the translations of all the languages and all the interpretations in the world and so it took me a year to to get it going um and so that first year was really awesome because the ad that was calling for translators had me meet with hundreds of translators that were already settled in in the Bay Area and they were freelancers and what I couldn't see was an agency that they could go to all the time so I'm like I'm gonna create an agency I think I was the first translating agency in San Francisco and so I called it the San Francisco Translation Company and within one year I already had a huge hospital that started giving me work regularly and within two years maybe I had like 10 clients and then in three years I was like wow this is awesome because you are a natural saleswoman as well that's also true like that's the way you do sales right like by need as well right like I was hungry I was hungry yeah I was young and hungry and you know and I was coming from Europe where with that time we didn't have much I remember I had like one pair of jeans one pair of shoes uh one pair of sneakers one pair of I saw my first pair of boots I bought in San Francisco cause I didn't have a lot and so um that's how it started and I and I ended up employing five people and I had maybe a database of like 500 freelancers and then uh five years into this Cisco Systems came in and said we wanna buy you what we want this agency bring it in bring it in I'm like what is Cisco Systems what do you guys do you know and so they're like come on down next you have a telephone that says Cisco Systems on it right well we developed that there that telephone didn't exist but we developed it during the time I was there and I went I saw all these buildings I'm like what is this place they're like it's called the Silicon Valley I'm like holy crap okay so went to the Silicon Valley and I left the company and brought it all in and I was all of a sudden at Cisco Systems and I said how many people work here 30,000 people this was in 1996 33 years ago 33 years ago almost right so wow and I'm like what do they do you know so I got myself into a next degree I started I studied telecommunication so I have a degree in telecommunication so all of a sudden I went from being a Masters in linguistics to study Italian communications and that's where I started met um mixing both arts which is like technology all this technology we had no phones by by no cell phones no cell phones no no no no yeah you have in your car those like you know the bricks yeah yes I'm like all these computers all these technology I want it in Catalan how are we gonna do this and so that's what started mixing language and technology and I have to tell you already at Cisco we partnered with IBM to say there's not enough translators to translate the amount of content that these 30 40 50,000 employees need to translate so I started playing 30 years ago or 20 some years ago with machine translation so this is how long I've been working on this um and so we then uh made the decision to hire an agency we hired Lionbridge the first agency that went into Cisco System so I've really seen all of it right like the computers that were this big to like now there are these little phones and where we couldn't think that a machine could do the translations to all the way that I was working at Google Translate to make Catalan work my my my desires always Catalan Catalan I'm obsessed with Catalan Catalan I know you I know you I know you I know you yeah yeah but obviously I love it all I'm a big defender of all the languages so um we started studying like how are we gonna make sure that languages go technically around the world we came up with the crowd sourcing concept and then we started doing a meeting Travis was like oh maybe we need technology so I read you know I went through all of these technologies all the way to today so it was from a small village in Catalonia to California to buy pure need found in your own business to get into the corporate world and then I know you've worked for some of the biggest local um sorry tech companies out there I love yeah like super important leadership roles but I wanna ask you do you remember the first one you ever had like okay wow now I'm in charge what the fuck I don't know what to do what was that it was always um since very young other people pushed me I never asked to be like I wanna be the manager I would never ever in my life I've never asked for a leadership position other people would say you should try this or you you got this I'm like okay so the first time I I had somebody under me was already at Cisco they gave me the senior program manager title I'm like I'm in charge of telling these people what to do so they were really good this is something that I really like about Silicon Valley or many American companies that they train you right so they already put me on a female leadership program because we ladies need to manage differently apparently and those were the 90s those were the nineties well then we still have those programs unfortunately yeah oh yeah yeah yeah true and so the I was mentored I think for two years for two years I was mentored on what it was to start growing teams right and so when I I went from Cisco to zeros to Verizon to many other companies my teams became bigger and bigger to the point of having like a lot of people under me but it's yeah no no go go sorry I I just no it's been um you know I I I was not never thought I would be a manager let alone a global vice president of a Fortune 33 company I mean that's what you like when I must I I I can think that when you were thrown into the lions there were a bunch of difficulties like holy crap I cannot do this oh my God oh my God do you remember some of the most difficult things that came up in on your mind to you know because for example I oh my I'm gonna tell you one of mine like I consider myself as an outgoing person I love to make new friends to meet new people but at the beginning I was very very shy to go and talk to an audience and present for example the product that I was selling right and to me that was a mess I remember the first explanation of a product that I ever did was when I was 25 years old and I was working for a small company from here I'm I'm in I'm actually at my parents place so in the region that I was born and we flew to England and I was with one of my colleagues was just a year older than me and we were selling radiators back then radiators so we get the radiator like I had seen my my colleague do the explanations the the product presentations for the first three days and he tells me like hey the next one is you have it's like fuck yeah I'm gonna do it I'm gonna kill it don't know I'm gonna be the best whatever we put the we get in front of the clients I put the radiator there and then I so I put it off the box I put it on the table and it's like this is a radiator and my colleague is gonna explain you what it does and I sat down and I was like the and I still like more than 15 years ago and that was the biggest difficulties I have I got nervous in front of people and I remember oh my god but then I was able to to to to treat that by for example being a tour guide I Learned by being a tour guide to tell stories and to tell people to you know communicate and to be in front of people so it it turned out to be easy at the end right okay so now after this story of mine can you tell me or can you tell us a little bit about some of those early difficulties that you can remember yeah the the first one was when I got into Cisco Systems and they took me onto some my first big meeting uh where I heard words I had never heard before like mission and vision and statement and goals I'm like what are these people talking about and so I just like goals and mission and vision like how do these people have these visions right and what do they take what do they have for breakfast right what are we talking about like yeah and so I think the same way that I was telling you that I used to see and I still do next to airplanes and trains I talk to a lot of people um I did the same thing I was just me I'm like if they put me here this this what I keep thinking and I've thought for many years if somebody thought I could do this they saw something in me and so I just give myself the permission to be permission to be they want you here okay be here right but then when you're here you need to study I had to study I'm I'm always studying always studying I still study like I took a class today right I've I've studied for you know decades um I would interview people like what do you do what what do you worry about what's important always listening always learning through looking and then realizing that there were some great leaders and some leaders that people didn't like that much right and so what did they do that they that I like what did they do that I don't like was very much my first 10 years I think of repeating or mimicking what some of these awesome leaders I mean I would have breakfast with John Chambers wow was the the CEO of Cisco um and so how does this guy talk how does he sit how does he dress you know and then when I would see a female leader I was really hungry to understand who are they how did they how did they get here and again just by talking to a lot of them I remember a friend of mine that started more or less at the same time and she left for another company and I'm like you can leave for another company and so she called me and she said I don't know what the hell they're doing but I'm faking it till I make it and so I would grab these concepts of like okay somebody's faking it until they make it so maybe I could fake it until I make it and this is pure imposter syndrome that's complete pure imposter syndrome and I know what you're coming from yeah because actually a common friend of ours sorry to stop you there but this is very interesting because a common friend of ours was telling me exactly the same words you said right now he was saying like I have some doubts doubts about this I have some doubts about that take it till you make it and you'll figure it out and it's okay so I guess this is a problem of mind of of mindset and of what yeah you you can fake it for so long right I mean you really need to put your batteries on and start studying what's important because you're there to make the company very successful and your manager very successful I met with the CFO right back then from price and he told me you know Anna you only will only only always have one job and I'm like what is it and he said to make your boss look good and I'm like alright so where is my boss heading to that's I need to wrong you know I need to go that way too I can't go against it or start talking to my boss or have access to these people was always very interesting I think if you come from a curiosity place and a humble place and a service kind of mindset it opens a lot of doors empathy opens a lot of doors and studying opens a lot of doors and seeing things that maybe they're not seeing and saying them correctly opens a lot of door and knowing when to speak I had to learn that very carefully because I would speak in meetings and maybe I was out of turn um and so I learnt a lot to talk to leaders outside of the meeting or go and say like hey I heard you say these have you ever thought about this right and because I engage quite a bit you know they would go like yeah go figure it out and you ask the question because have you thought of that's I think that's the first step to empathetic to be empathetic to be an empathetic leader right so so that's I think they they asking the questions is key right I'm like I've Learned from you like honestly from you and from a couple of other friends that you know like to ask questions ask questions do not impose anything that you think could be right because others have other perspectives and it might also be okay right but if you ask questions and you expose your eh sorry your your you you you you you you talk you talk your opinions in a in an empathetic way then it it changes the whole game right you have to sound it out you have to be very cluding to the room do they want me to talk now are they looking for answers do they don't wanna be interrupted like there's a lot of leaders that don't wanna be interrupted there are some leaders they're super welcoming of ideas and there's always a place and a time right you're not gonna do it in a Q B R you're not gonna do it at a performance review but in the working meetings you definitely can do that yeah yeah yeah yeah eh can you share a specific moment a specific moment in which you thought I'm being super empathetic and we're gonna we're gonna go my way in a good way that's good for the company for all of us do you remember any of those it doesn't have to you we don't have to go back to 92 eh you can think of no yeah yeah no I can go last year I can go this year I okay and I was at Proquest Technologies I was the the vice president the global vice president for Proquest Technologies which is a Fortune 50 companies we're No. 33 where everything is customer based everything we had to talk to customers and we wanted our teams to talk to customers all the time I went to visit Vestas it's a great a customer in Denmark and I came back to the States with we have to do this because the customer is suffering in some specific temperature conditions and um I went to bat for this customer and I was being very empathetic to the customer not necessarily to my team because my team was working on something else and I came back I'm like we're gonna change direction and so um you have to be careful when you're empathetic to your customer or you're being empathetic to the team you have to find the balance and then you have to explain why is it that you're changing course right so and and this this you mentioned about working in I mean I'm working in some of the biggest tech companies out there and I was thinking as well because I I follow you your post always on LinkedIn and you're always like you're the the founding member the founder of women in localization and unfortunately tech has traditionally been a male dominated industry right and can you tell us how have you navigated gender barriers and what advice could you give to women aspiring to leadership roles I'm still navigating them I mean it's something that we haven't figured out yet so women in localization was founded uh three uh 16 years ago 16 years ago now yeah and it was because I went to talk to a leader at very sign because I needed more budget for for our team I was the executive producer already for the web team and for localization actually I don't know few things um and I kept trying to talk to a leader and I thought maybe if I went to a woman I don't know I had this idea the conversation will be easier cause the the culture back then was pretty harsh but I couldn't find any female leader I could not find one single female leader and in talking with Sylvia and Eva who are the co founders of Women Localisation I said you know maybe we have something here that we need to start helping each other and talk to other women in other high tech companies in the Silicon Valley to see where they're going through um and so we started three of us 5 10 and it took off like like rapid fire because we put the finger where it hurt which is women have um I I I have I'm a graduate of 5 5 universities hobby 5 American German Spanish universities it doesn't matter how many universities how many classes how much learning I have done I'm still treated as different you know and in high tech um women in leadership at the C suite or senior vice present level is like 2% 3% which means that 98 95% are male and so when you're in a room with guys and I grew up with a father that made me run marathons and I only have brothers so I'm very used to being around guys and I think it helped me a lot some people don't like me to say this but it helped me a lot to grow up with with siblings that were pretty rough you know that you have to understand um how men interact and do business it's different many times I'm just gonna say it is different than how it is different it is different this is my opinion and my experience of I agree with you I agree with you and if I can give my opinion here so like it's when you talk and this is like when you talk to your male friends you don't talk the same way as you talk to your female friends right so I guess in leading and in other aspects of the corporate world this you gotta be different you gotta have a different approach to it you have to find your style and your approach and your way and I always thought if I'm well prepared if I'm well prepared for every single meeting every single meeting I've had thousands of meetings right with these guys when and I became very apparent when I became executive producer director senior director vice president global vice president you go up up up up it gets lonelier there's fewer fewer fewer women and it's almost like a selected few and it's not okay that we're a selected few right I've had incredible male bosses incredible um that have been so good to me but it's almost like unnecessary the way they were good to me was they were like what does Anna think they they had to make space for me at the table that my voice would be heard um and again it's not enough and and one of the degrees and one of the the studies that I did was at Stanford is uh gender studies and it was the it really helped me understand how we as children boys play very differently than girls play very differently and grow up very differently and so it puts things in perspective you know and and it gave me a lot of tools to to to learn it's it's it's been this constant learning yeah because it's very I I I I didn't know I know you for personally for a long time but I didn't know that we never spoke about this you mentioning that growing up with male siblings help me a lot to understand a lot yeah so I can can I ask you like for those ladies listening today that haven't had that of that experience as you have can you give them some advice what advice would you give them study study study and but study hard you know I was looking at some video from a professor in NYU that said a lot of people are great but to be an incredible leader you have to constantly do different things you're not gonna make um these these super high level um positions in high tech at fortune companies if you're not constantly studying constantly I mean I've been given 50 the you know three 60s I've been studied I've been coached I've been trained I've trained it's just a constant learning on I remember when they told me you're now a vice president at Netapp and I'm like and now what and so I got a coach I got a coach and he told me there's different styles of leadership at a high tech being a vice president and we studied some styles and I tried and I found the one that I like the best and so study study study getting up there for women unfortunately today it's really hard and so what do you want to study you want to study how to listen you wanna study how to have the best teams you wanna study how to have the best teams your teams one thing that I Learned is they're gonna make you or they're gonna break you your team can break your career and so you wanna be surrounded by the best and so I Learned that at a university in Chicago that was already for senior vice presidents and it was only female women a female females where they taught us how to sleep how to eat how to train how to think and one of the the days was study who do you have in your team and go ahead and let some people go or find them another position because they will prop you up right and you know what make that makes me think as well that there's a a certain there are big chances of failing also despite studying and stuff because I don't know because sometimes just you don't create the right opportunities or you cannot find that right people or whatever and you do you do you remember oh all the time life makes room the best is to make the mistake the worst is to let the mistake linger right and so I um I made a mistake once when I was at nadap of not letting a particular person go from my team for almost a year you know this person was my friend but we were very friendly and it was a um a technical architect um and I he was fine with me but I didn't know he was causing a lot of trouble with other leaders in my team under under under me and I read the book of the 5 dysfunctions of a team from Patrick Lencioni we brought in a a corporate uh psychiatrist corporate psychiatrist to study my team to study me and we had to do a lot of changes because at some point I am a vice president in a 6 billion 6 billion dollar business unit you cannot mess that up so it's really on you know you're in charge of a lot of people lot of money and you have to perfect it's the way I wasn't born to lead this amount of stuff right so I had to get there with with classes and with coaches and by listening and then once you have all the information you you get a lot of analysts to help you and a lot of consultants but you make the decision to move forward Anna I could be speaking with you we could be speaking here for three five six hours but I know we want to keep it to 40 35 minutes and of course I know you're busy and have stuff to do you left the localization the oh sorry the globalization industry er last year and this year oh yeah 24 yeah yeah it's 20 it's 25 already it's 25 it's 25 what is it all this time go and it's your birthday soon oh my god so listen what is what is next for us Lego what is she do we know what plans does San Isleg have now can you share it with us yeah so I'm in Barcelona I'm in Catalonia and I became a member of parliament because I was asked to run next to our president and I was voted No. 2 and we're we're we're there I'm in the parliament every week and I I it's an honor to serve your country I I never never in a million years I thought I would get into politics but I was recruited as it always happens to me what's most important when will you when will you run football club Barcelona that's what we all care about no they're they're run by my friend John Laporta no no they're they're doing quite fine oh yeah yeah yeah well he's got to step up to some things anyway we have that's a separate conversation anyway I'll introduce it to him whenever I want please I need a photo with him 100% I'm going to Barcelona soon you set that up for us okay Anna like like any final words you like to say any type of advice that you like to share because like we I I we've known each other for a few years and when the pandemic I was running some online events and you were a participant and people would give me extremely good feedback on those that advised specifically that you gave leaders and I have a couple of of of my of our current clients who come with me like I love and I love to talk to her I have her book on by the side of my bed whatever so I know they're gonna listen to us so is there any type of advice that you'd like to share today with those especially with those female leaders that those females that aspire to be leaders or that just landed on that position by chance is there any the type of advice that you like to give before we say goodbye I would say the same way you train a muscle right if you want strong arms you train your muscles train your head train your head and um you train your head by learning uh how to listen how to write how to be brief so there's classes for everything and so go deep on all those things and build yourself stronger and stronger and it's it's the orchestra of all these little pieces you know how to manage team virtuously how to write a great review how to be a great leader take all the classes and and take different classes different things yeah so study like Anna said study being pathetic go do things fake it till you make it for a bit but keep learning and uh what a great what great pieces of advice you've given us today Anna I'm so thankful I am proud of calling you one of my closest friends ever thanks for the love thanks for the friendship thanks for everything thanks for being here today as well to all of you listening thanks as well and to the until next episode of Merchant Mines bye bye I will I will

2025-02-28 16:51

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