Career Growth Advice from Rachel Mushahwar, Tech Sales Leader | Career Tips for Women in Tech Sales

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 31
Featuring Rachel Mushahwar

Episode Title: #31 Career Podcast Featuring Rachel Mushahwar, a woman recognized as one of the top 10 executive women in retail, and one of the top 10 Industry transformers.

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Rachel Mushahwar



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you, encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Today's guest is Rachel Mushahwar. Rachel is the director of America's Channel and Partner Chief at Amazon Web Services, also known as AWS. And previously, she was the vice president and general manager for US sales for enterprise and government, HPC-AI, and NextWave cloud providers at Intel. She is a recognized and celebrated industry leader. She's been featured in Insight Success as one of the most admired women in business, recognized as one of the top 10 executive women in retail, and one of the top industry transformers and featured in Forbes Magazine as one of the most admired women in business. Rachel, thank you so much for being on the show. It is so wonderful to have you here.

Rachel Mushahwar (Guest): Thank you so much, Mary. It is wonderful to be here. And when I listen to that intro, it sounds way more impressive than what my life looked like this morning with a nine-year-old refusing to eat the eggs that were in front of him, even though it's the exact same eggs that he had yesterday. So, while the intro is so much appreciated, I think it's important that we never forget that we're all humans and we all put our pants on the exact same way. So I'm thrilled to be here and share a little bit about what life is really all about.

Mary Killelea: That is so fantastic. And I got to tell you, when I select women for this podcast, I look for successful women who really have what I feel is the heart and soul of other women in raising everyone together. And like I said, I know you are a professional woman and a dedicated mom. And what people don't realize is you're giving up your time on your weekend to be here and take this time to talk to me and our audience to create this content. What is it about helping other women that matters to you?

Rachel Mushahwar: Wow. Geez, that's such a broad question. But I think there's so many things and it's not just women. It's really URMs, Mary. And I think there has been so little discussion in the industry among women and URMs around the real opportunities that we face every single day and some of the flaws that still exist in the system, despite all the opportunities that are available to us. For example, did you know that 40% of women in the United States are actually the sole breadwinners? That's a really, really big number. But we don't talk about those things. And we certainly don't talk about what it really means to choose a different path. We don't talk about how hard it is to make some of these decisions. We don't talk about how hard it is for all of us. You just see this glossy picture of these executives or this beautiful introduction like you provided. And what we don't talk about is every single one of us struggles, all of us. We all second-guess ourselves. And we all have those days when we mishandle something. We all have those days when we're completely out of our minds in Target with kids running around and stuff being dumped in our cart. You've got a screaming kid and you just sit there and think, oh my God, this is my life. What happened? There are days when we all have to tell our kids not to wipe their mouth on the dog. And there's also days when we have to tell our kids that we aren't leaving them forever. We're just going on a business trip. Even though in our heart, we know that someday those kids are going to leave us. We don't talk about the crazy and the crying and the cuddles and the screaming. We just talk about the glossy perfect. And for me, I think it's important that we actually talk about the struggles. We talk about what it means to raise all boats. We have to talk about those things so that the next generation of leaders is better. And that's why I'm so passionate about it.

Mary Killelea: I completely agree with you. And it is so refreshing to hear you be transparent and acknowledge all the warts and the mishaps and the vulnerabilities that a successful woman experiences. So, let's talk about your journey. Obviously, your resume speaks volumes and is very impressive. Walk us through your career journey and share some of the highlights along the way so we can kind of see what that was like for you.

Rachel Mushahwar: Sure. So let's start with where I grew up. I grew up on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere Colorado. Graduated with 30 kids in my high school class. And I was fortunate enough to have parents that supported me and have a lineage of grandparents that tackled just about any opportunity that was out there. My dad used to tell me just because you can't see beyond the horizon doesn't mean that there isn't something else that's out there. And as a teenager and then going into college, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted. I knew I loved technology, but I didn't really know what that meant or how it looked. Right?

What I did know along the way was I knew that there were things that I didn't want that frankly, society said I should want. Right? Society said, frankly, still kind of does to this day talk about, hey, you've got to have a life that's culminating in marriage and children and hey, maybe you can build a job discreetly around it. That didn't sound like a good choice for me. And as I think about some of my career choices, all the way back from when I started to where I am now at AWS, it really comes down to it really comes down to starting before you're ready. Right? I think so many times women look at an opportunity and then they immediately get to, oh my gosh, here's all the things that I'm not qualified for, or, wow, here's all the risks that are associated with that. And oh my gosh, it's I don't know if I can do it. And I think so many times women specifically are told during their lives that, hey, you can't be good at multiple things at once. We're told, hey, you can't have kids and climb too high in your careers. We're told you can't run carpools and be on a board of directors. We're told we can't run large P&Ls and care for our families. We're told you can't bring home the bacon and fry it in the pan.

But here's the thing, Mary, and I think this is so important for our listeners is none of that is true unless you tell yourself that it's true. But that's really our secret. And that's been the secret in my career is being the contradiction, being the and, right? I earned my MBA after kids were going to bed and I was paying the bills. We can raise our kids and impact our company's EPS. We can be executives for some of the largest, most impactful companies on the planet. And frankly, still answer that plastic phone when our three year old hands it to us. This has got to be your life and your career. And it's going to be scary. But you have to start before you're ready. And if you don't like something, change it. We've got to open our mind and our arms and our heart to new things and realize that we're all united in our differences. And as we're deciding to move through our careers, we have to share our stories with each other. And we've got to be more comfortable with our backgrounds and where we came from. And frankly, success and easy really aren't synonymous with each other. In order to move forward, you have to jump. You've got to take some risks. You won't learn anything by standing still.

Mary Killelea: I think that is such great advice. And the whole time I was listening to you, I was going, how do we do this when we've been raised to think that we need to make the conservative choices or the social stereotypical ways? So I think it's amazing and great to hear you say that. And I agree with it.

Rachel Mushahwar: Let me ask you this, Mary. What would you attempt if you knew you couldn't fail? I think so many people, they don't aim too high and miss. They aim too low and hit. And as women, I think when we think about our careers, we think about them in a series of, you know, climbing the corporate ladder. And I think that's part of our problem, is thinking that every time we take a jump, that it should be a promotion. It should be an increase in pay. It should be. It should be. Well, what if we just took a step back and said, you know what, maybe it's not about the promotion. Maybe it is about a jungle gym. And maybe it's about taking lateral moves where they make sense to get us to that next step. So, something that I think a piece of advice that I got a long time ago, and I continue to just share it is when you're thinking about that next jump, you have to think about two jobs from now, because so many people just think about the next job. And then they get there and they're like, holy smokes. Well, now what? And I equate it back to planning a vacation. You don't just decide, you know what, I'm going to go on vacation. And then you don't do any other planning. We've got to think about that in terms of our careers as well of, okay, where do you want to go on vacation? When do you want to go there? What type of place do you want to stay in? What activities do you want? That way, when we actually get to the Caribbean, we're happy that we're in the Caribbean because we actually thought about going to the Caribbean versus just saying, oh, you know what, I think I should take this lateral move. The road is going to be bumpy for all of us, but I think everyone just needs to dream a little bit bigger and grow into their dream.

Mary Killelea: I think that's beautiful and such amazing advice. Thank you for that. In your previous role at Intel, you had enormous amount of responsibilities from setting the vision, strategy, sales, marketing, revenue growth, operations for over a $5 billion sales and marketing organization. What over the years prepared you for this role? And did you have moments of self-doubt? And how did you push through this?

Rachel Mushahwar: Like I said, I think everybody has moments of self-doubt. I don't think anyone is ever 100% prepared for their job. For those of you who have gotten married, were you prepared for everything that came after you got married? Or if you have children, were you prepared to have children? No, you learn as you grow. And that's an important piece. It's not learn as you go. It's learn as you grow. And this is going to be a really basic thing. But the only way I have been successful throughout my career, both frankly, personally, and professionally, is surrounding myself with people who are smarter than I am, people who balance out my weaknesses, and really helping people see beyond their limits and helping them think more limitless. The reason I've been successful is because of the people, period.

I think that so many people think that, oh, geez, once you get this fancy title, then you're a leader. Or they think once you have this in a high-level position inside of your organization and the corner office and everything just comes together. And that couldn't be farther from the truth. Real leadership and real success is about inspiring others and inspiring them to what they never thought was possible. And everything comes down to the people that you have the opportunity to influence. It's about them. It's never about the leader.

Mary Killelea: It's so great that you talk about leadership, because I know that there are a lot of women listening who are working on becoming the leaders of tomorrow. And one quote that you had in a magazine that I really love is, you said, real leadership is about creating a vision in your heart and mind and bringing that energy of manifestation to that vision so others can see and believe in it, too. What do you love most about sales?

Rachel Mushahwar: I think what I love the most about sales is you have the distinct opportunity to listen to other people's opportunities, really understand what are they trying to solve, why are they trying to solve it, and then work with them to put solutions together that will turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, whether that's using artificial intelligence to change the trajectory of spinal cancer or that's leveraging 5G in the cloud to create new business models. All of those types of problems are going to continue as we move into the roaring 20s. And frankly, technology is going to be the catalyst that helps us solve so many of those. And being on the front lines allows you to really create the future. And that's an amazing, amazing thing to be part of.

Mary Killelea: What is it about tech that excites you?

Rachel Mushahwar: So, the amazing thing about technology, even early on in my career, is how quickly technology and consumer behavior has spurred businesses that didn't exist five to ten years ago. For goodness sakes, just think about 2020 and how much change happened through 2020. We think about technology and how quickly businesses had to adapt just in the last 12 months. Unfortunately, coronavirus had a worldwide impact, but it was also what spurred more companies to leverage technology and make more changes in one year than they had in the past decade. And as technology continues to accelerate, it's going to have a wide-ranging impact on both businesses and our lifestyles. Think about not just the listeners right now, but five years ago, who was listening to podcasts? Ten years ago, what was the medium that we used? Right, I'll give you a really quick perspective from my 13-year-old daughter. My 13-year-old daughter recently told me, Mom, Instagram filters don't work on real life, and we're going to have to go figure out how to move my generation forward in a way that leverages all of the tech that we've grown up with.

Mary Killelea: Wow, that's super insightful and great to hear that she's thinking like that.

Rachel Mushahwar: Yes, it's a little scary because when I was 13, we didn't have Instagram. We didn't even have mobile devices. I was carrying around, like if you wanted a mobile phone, you had to get that big case and you'd carry it around and it still had the cord on it. And it's funny when you start to explain that to the younger generations of, what? What are you talking about? But that's why I think I was so attracted to technology in the beginning is it is so impactful and it changes everything.

Mary Killelea: So what are some of the key trends and technologies right now?

Rachel Mushahwar: Oh, goodness, Mary. You can't not pick up any newspaper or any type of professional journal without reading something about cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G, security, virtual world, everything as a service, machine learning, high performance. I can use all of the IT and the tech buzzwords, autonomous driving, but I think it's important before we talk about the trends, we really pause for a second and go back in time and think about what history has taught us and how we leverage, right? I talked about the importance of learning from where you are and looking back long enough to learn. Let's leverage some quick history lessons before we jump forward into where tech is going and what some of those key trends are.

If we think about, and I know it's hard, but if we think about a hundred years ago, electricity was just taking over from steam power in manufacturing. And I know it's hard to think back, but for a moment, go back into your history lessons and think about the companies that had existed before electricity and the companies that existed after. Most of those companies didn't survive that transition from one power source to the other. And it's really, really important for us to understand that today we are in that same type of transition. When you look at the largest companies in the world, the largest companies in the world aren't the same traditional companies that had existed 50, 60 years ago. The largest companies in the world predominantly are tech companies, companies like Intel, companies like Amazon, companies like Microsoft. Just pick up a newspaper and go search for the largest, most successful companies. In fact, I just read a recent article in the Wall Street Journal talking about the fact that the NASDAQ was going to be where the growth companies are and not the Dow. That's an interesting statistic. And I think that really tells the story of where tech is going and how important those trends are. But it's not the gains from technology, but what will happen because of technology. There's going to be a significant opportunity for redesign of orgs, redesign of production processes, and so many new opportunities regarding jobs that we probably don't even know about. And when you think about careers, right, I read a recent statistic that said 37% of all jobs in the next 10 years haven't even been created yet.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, that's amazing.

Rachel Mushahwar: 37% of jobs. So holy smokes, if you've got kids or you're young in your career and you're thinking, hey, do I go into 5G? Do I go into cloud? Do I go into engineering and silicon design? Do I go into sales? Do I go into marketing? There are so many paths and there are jobs that we don't even know about yet. So, what's more important than saying, hey, I'm going to go all in on artificial intelligence and machine learning or in 5G. Find something that you're passionate about. And when you've figured out what you're passionate about, follow that passion and follow your gut. And don't be afraid to take risks because your career path will be like a jungle gym. It's not going to be, oh, I do this and then I do this and then I do this and then I do this. That's not what makes people successful. It's the winding path and taking the road less taken. It's figuring out, hey, if I'm passionate about cloud computing, what do I need to go do to get that experience? If I'm passionate about artificial intelligence, what do I do there? So yes, it is about the technology, but more importantly, it is about you. What you are not changing both inside of your personal life and your professional life, you’re choosing.

Mary Killelea: You're passionate about pushing for equality and closing the gap on diversity inclusion. What actions can we individually implement today to make progress?

Rachel Mushahwar: Oh, I think that we all have to keep speaking up. I think we all have to keep pushing for progress with women, with URMs, with LGBTQ. We've got to keep focused on closing that diversity gap and we've got to be honest with ourselves. In 2021, the gaps still exist. We have to go change that. It's not enough for us to just talk about it on the sidelines. We have to support each other and we have to not be afraid to be the change that we want to see. And frankly, every single person listening, it starts at home. If you do not embody equality at home, our children aren't going to embody that as they move into the workforce.

Mary Killelea: That is key. That is so key. I mean, as I was listening to you, I was thinking of really in the workforce, it needs to be kind of that top level down. But to your point, if it's not in the home, we're not building that future generation or creating that mindset of equality from either sharing that outlook or to almost demanding it and having those expectations for ourselves. What does to be bolder mean to you?

Rachel Mushahwar: To be bolder means you've got to go all in. Even when you're terrified of starting something new, you've got to dance like no one's watching. You've got to talk about the hard things. You've got to commit to hard goals. I think you've got to be thoughtful and listen to the wisdom that you hear. I think to be bold means believing that we all have the power to make any change that we want. I think to be bold means believing how much change can happen when we come together in in all of our diversity and support each other. And I think to be bold means not being afraid to living an exceptional life. If it's not a hell yeah, then it should be a no.

Mary Killelea: I love that. Yeah, set those boundaries. Hell yeah or no. Have you had mentors along the way that really left the impression on you that you want to share?

Rachel Mushahwar: You need to have mentors, but you also need to have sponsors. So let's talk a little bit about the difference between the two. Mentors will talk to you about you. But sponsors will talk about you to others. And you need both. And recent studies actually show that women have mentors, but they don't have sponsors. They don't have the people that are talking about how amazing they are when the doors are closed. When the doors are closed, we find mentors and we say, hey, I want to go get this new job, but here's what I'm thinking. And then a mentor will say, well, here's the things you need to go do, blah, blah, blah. Mentors are important. Sponsors are going to be the cornerstone of whatever you go do next.

Mary Killelea: How do you foster those relationships?

Rachel Mushahwar: That's hard, right? Because I think there's so many people who are like, oh my gosh, I just I don't have the time to develop that. Or I don't play golf. Or I don't, I don't, I don't. Here's a secret, Mary. The last time I checked, we all have exactly the same number of hours in the day as everybody else does. Same number of hours as Helen Keller did. Same number of hours as Jeff Bezos does. Same number of hours as Pat Gelsinger has. What are you going to do with those hours? And how do you go build those relationships? Because the relationships that you build are going to help impact everything that you do going forward. Right? My dad used to always tell me, Rachel, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Right? And as a teenager, you're like, oh, you're wrong. Turns out he's probably right. So how do you build those relationships? What are you filling your mind with? What books are you reading? What podcasts are you listening to? How are you being fearless and reaching out saying, oh my gosh, you inspired me. I'd love to follow you or I'd love to learn from you. Make the time and make the time before you need it. Right? Some of the most important relationships in professional careers happen before you actually pick up the phone and say, Hey, I'd be interested in coming to work for you.

Mary Killelea: So, taking charge of your own career and having a strategy of where you're going and enjoying the journey and following your passion are key things that I've heard you talk about throughout this podcast. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to share with our audience today that can help them empower themselves in their own career journeys?

Rachel Mushahwar: I think when you listen to a lot of these podcasts, people don't talk a lot about their kids. They talk about their careers and all of these great things. But for me, my four children are teaching me something every single day. And whether you have kids or not, maybe it's your nieces or your nephews or someone else's kids. But I think for me, kids are going to show you the way to magical and you get a free pass to come on that journey. You have to breathe in that magic while they're taking you on whatever is important to them at that moment. Because that same kid will probably poop his pants or throw up in the next minute. That's just how kids are. But here's the thing. That's also how life is. That's how careers are, Mary. The crazy, the crying, the screaming, the sacred, the scared, the minutes, the magic, the mess. It's all part of it. And none of us really know what we're doing. But those people that are most successful are the ones that figure it out and build a tribe of people with them. Just don't regret your life. Don't regret your career choices. Frankly, accept that you're going to fall apart and do it all wrong, both at work and personally. But you've got to forgive yourself along the way. Take the leap and have no regrets. It's messy. It's magical. It's sacred and it's spectacular. But make it fiercely worthwhile.

Mary Killelea: That's so beautiful and such a great place to wrap up our conversation. Thank you so much for being here. If someone wanted to connect with you, have a great evening. How could they connect with you?

Rachel Mushahwar: Find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty sure I'm the only Rachel Mushahwar out there. I'm also on Twitter. And I wish all of you to find the fortitude to take the leap and make this world a better place than you found it.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guest. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number 2, little b, bolder.com.