Career Growth Advice from Kristie Mann, Tech Marketing Leader | Career Tips for Women in Tech Marketing

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 52
Featuring Kristie Mann, VP of Product Marketing

Episode Title: #52 Career Podcast Featuring Kristie Mann, Vice President of Product Marketing for the Intel Optane Group - Women In Tech

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Kristie Mann



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. Thanks for tuning in. Today's guest is an incredibly bright-minded, hardworking, experienced technology leader in engineering, business strategy, corporate sales, and product marketing. Kristie Mann is currently the vice president of product marketing for the Intel Optane Group, where she is responsible for product management, marketing, business operations, and customer enabling. Before joining Intel in 2015, Kristie spent 20 years at Hewlett-Packard as a design engineer, where she held positions in technology development, engineering management, and program management. After graduating from Duke University in 2007 with an MBA, she transitioned into strategy planning, business development, and corporate sales. In 2013, she started her own retail business. Kristie has 19 patents in the area of thermal-mechanical EMI containment. She lives right here in Portland, Oregon with her two children and Twinkie, who according to Kristie is the world's worst trained dog. She likes to spend time skiing and cooking and is passionate about supporting young women in science and math careers. Kristie, thank you for being here.

Kristie Mann (Guest): Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Mary Killelea: Well, you have a wealth of technical experience. Tell us about your unique perspective on fostering and developing new disruptive technologies.

Kristie Mann: That's one of my favorite topics. So I'll start by saying my experience has been mostly in big companies and it's colored by a background in technology and engineering, like you mentioned, as well as that shift to a business background. So I would characterize it that through a lot of trial and error, I probably have two or three guiding principles that I've learned the hard way. And I guess I'll start by saying this comes back to the big company experience. You have to really incubate disruptive new technologies. You have to protect it from that core business until it's well established. So I think that my first thought of what's so important, just incubate, incubate, incubate. If you don't, the tyranny of what's required for the core business often eats away into that ability to innovate and invest as you need to. And then the other thing that I always say is don't be trying to innovate when you're doing disruptive technologies. What you're really trying to do is just solve real problems. It has to be problems that customers are going to pay for or meet an unmet need. So, if you're solving a real customer problem, you do it in an easy way and then you protect it as you try to incubate it and get it into the mainstream market, you'll be successful with disruptive technologies.

Mary Killelea: I love that perspective and the characterization of incubation. What a fascinating opportunity that you have. How were you able to transition across various roles from engineering to marketing and sales to product management?

Kristie Mann: That is that is such a great question. I originally started as a mechanical engineer and I was on the technical career path similar to what we have here at Intel, where I work. You kind of have a choice where you can either be a deep technical expert or you can move into people management and you can have a really successful career in both directions. So, I early on thought that I was going to only be focusing on engineering. I was on the P.E. path. I worked on some patents in my area of expertise and I was just very deep technically. But kind of mid career around 2007, I started looking around and kind of thinking like, well, what else do I want to do? I'm not sure what I want to do, but I feel like maybe this is as much as I want to do in this mechanical and thermal area. And so I started asking around, talking to people about things that they enjoyed.

I had just a fantastic mentor who believed in me. And he said, hey, Kristie, someday you could probably be a general manager. You just have a unique perspective and you think about the customer first. Have you considered general management? And at the time I was like, well, no, no, number one, I don't see myself as that. And number two, like, what does it even take to be doing that? And so his recommendation at that time was to get a good grounding in many different areas of the business and consider going back to school to get my MBA. And so I did. I went back to Duke University, got my MBA, graduated in 2007 and came back to that same company and took my first role on the business side of the business. That was strategy and planning. And it was okay. I wasn't great at it. I'm not going to lie. It was such a change from what I was doing. But at that point, I started to really see how the different pieces of the business fit together and how they take that technology that I've been working on and turn it into something that a customer wants to pay for, and ultimately revenue.

So, to short circuit the story, I started from that point in time. Once I got back, I rotated job positions every couple of years, would use my network, try a different area of the business. I did some business development. I actually did corporate sales. That was a real experience. And then I came back into engineering in 2015. Intel recruited me to come back and do mechanical thermal engineering again for some of their businesses. So I've been back and forth both directions. What I realized after all of that kind of rotating around and trying different things is that I really do love the product management arena. It's a great blend of technical and business savvy and just such a great opportunity to be able to work directly with customers.

Mary Killelea: Looking at your life in tech, what drew you in early on? Did you always have that aptitude for tech? Was your parents really smart in math and you got this gene? Or what was it about tech that really got you interested in STEM?

Kristie Mann: Yeah, so I'm going to be embarrassed to tell you this story, but no, I did not have an interest in tech. And in fact, I resisted when they brought computers in elementary school into my school. I wanted nothing to do with them. I actually followed a boy into engineering school because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had won a physics bridge building contest. So, I thought that I wanted to be a designer of bridges or roller coasters. And my boyfriend at the time was headed to Georgia Tech. And I just followed him to Georgia Tech. Long story short, he dropped out. He didn't finish. I caught the bug. I really enjoyed design. I enjoyed solving problems and I really loved it. But I was like a fish out of water. I'm not going to lie. Mechanical engineering as a female, everything they teach you is in terms of car engines and things that I knew nothing about. But I ended up loving it.

Mary Killelea: What advice do you have for women trying to figure out how to be seen or heard within a tech organization?

Kristie Mann: That is a great question. It is something that without stereotyping, there is a difference in the way that we communicate as women versus men. So, I think for this question, there's actually two different questions. Being seen is very different than being heard. And I think oftentimes in my career, I had trouble with being heard. Being seen, I believe it's very important that you make sure that you demonstrate good results and then that those results are supported and shared by your network and that those results are seen so that people know that you did what was done and they saw the good results of your work. Regarding the hearing, that took me a lot of years. I wish I could short circuit how long it took me to feel comfortable in meeting settings, getting my voice heard. And I think what I've taken away from my experience is that there are two things you really have to do to be successful in making sure that you get heard in these forums. And the first is to silence your own inner critic. I don't know about you, but I'm often really hard on myself. And I used to sit around and say, oh, that sounded stupid or oh, I hope they liked that idea. And rather than worrying about how I was doing and how I was being perceived, I had to remember to ask that question, how can I help you? What can I do to help you? And then silence that inner critic that was like, oh, that was stupid or don't speak up because you're afraid to speak up. And then, you know, the other piece for being heard is I've learned that you have to build a coalition of people that support you and your ideas. And that happens outside of the meeting. So you definitely have to work with building your network, bringing them along with you, with your ideas and the things that you need to get across so that during the meeting, you can IM them and say, hey, can you back me up here? Or they just do it automatically because they know that what you're doing is the direction that they want to go as well. It's a tough one.

Mary Killelea: It is a tough one. Great advice, though. So when you take on a project or have taken on projects, are you thinking impact first? Or do you know, because I think that's at the end of the day, what we have to show as contributors to the business, what was our impact? And many times it's hard for us to articulate what the impact of our work was if you don't know it from the onset.

Kristie Mann: Yeah, taking on projects is basically it's an art and a science. And the worrying about what the results or the impact of my results are is not where I've spent a lot of my time. I tend to try to assess something first, can I add value? Is it something that is something where I have a unique ability to do something special or needed? Or is it something that nobody else can work on and so therefore they need my unique skills? And then the second piece I look at is, will I enjoy it or do I believe in it? And this belief structure, I think is what makes me who I am. When I believe in something and I know it's the right direction to do and I really understand the benefits to the stakeholders and the partners, that's when I really shine and that's when I'm able to influence, that's when I'm able to demonstrate those great results. So I really think make sure that what you're working on is needed by the business, make sure that you have the capability to do it well, and then make sure that you believe and enjoy and you're passionate about it so that you can be that champion and advocate for that project.

Mary Killelea: Definitely. And I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned from the project. Definitely. Have you ever felt that you've had roadblocks to advancing your career? And if so, how did you navigate around that?

Kristie Mann: Yeah, I mean, I've often felt like I had roadblocks to advancing my career. And I would say 99% of them were self-inflicted.

Mary Killelea: I hate that. But yes, I do get it.

Kristie Mann: I think that a lot of us worry about, well, are there opportunities for advancement with the job that I'm in? Or does my manager support me? Are these results going to be visible enough? And I think, you know, at the end of the day, my own behaviors and things that kept me from collaborating and partnering effectively, I call it effective stakeholder management, but the ability to do that is what would often get me in trouble. So that because you just never you never know you have to be in the right place at the right time for a career opportunity. You have to be the right person. But you certainly can't have left dead bodies in the wake in a past engagement. And you have to have that that confidence and that ability to present yourself as the right candidate for that that particular opportunity. So it's complex.

Mary Killelea: Any tips for self advocacy?

Kristie Mann: Believe in yourself. I mentioned early on that I had this mentor who helped me see who I was. And prior to that, I never saw myself as a leader. I never saw myself as having the potential to be an executive. And I just I wasn't confident. And had I been able to see that earlier, I mean, that was 10-12 years into my career. I could have helped shape and make those opportunities and really, really helped promote myself. So deal, make sure that you always focus on your confidence and trust your instincts, believe in yourself, as soon as you see yourself as that leader, you will be that leader.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, amazing. Let's talk about your 19 patents. I don't know the first thing about having a patent. So that really just amazes me. What is your advice to women who are working, you know, something that they can make a patent around? Educate us.

Kristie Mann: Yeah, yeah, sure. So, I mentioned most of my experience has been at very large companies. And so I will say that patents or intellectual property are actually assets that the company need to fight potential future legal battles. So, they invest a lot in when you have an invention, you have an idea, you have an innovation, they invest a lot in protecting themselves so that that can't be taken away by somebody else, or they can defend themselves in a legal engagement at some point in time. So, I was very lucky and Twinkie, the world's worst trained dog, but you guys hear her in the background, I apologize.

Mary Killelea: That's okay. It's life.

Kristie Mann: Life from working at home. I had the luxury in my early career when I was on that technical career path, that the companies, they were seeking innovations that could be patented, and they had all the infrastructure in place, the legal reviews, they would file the patents on your behalf. So it's your name, but it's actually owned by the big company. So, my experience may not be typical of every patent. Sometimes when you're when you're we have an invention of your own, or you're a small business owner, it would be a very different experience. But I would say that if you're on that technical career path, patents under your belt are very important for your resume and your progression. And so focus on I call that necessity is the mother of invention. I know we say that all the time. If you're solving a real problem that hasn't been solved before, chances are there is something patentable in there. Something that you can that is defensible in court should it be seen later. So just keep a critical eye on the things that you're doing day to day as you're solving these engineering problems. If you're doing it in a unique way, there may be an opportunity.

I will give an example, I have a patent for basically it's a hole in a piece of sheet metal. And don't judge me. But EMI containment is a big problem in computers. And that's basically electromagnetic interference. And you don't want what's inside the machine happening to radiate outside the machine and impact somebody else's electronics like a pacemaker or anything like that. And one of the things that I discovered is that if you punched a hole in the sheet metal, but you left a collar or a lip around it, the depth of that hole would attenuate EMI. And so a collared hole would not normally be patentable. But because you were using it to contain the radiation inside the machine for the first time, that's a unique application of something. It's a very low cost, easy way to contain that radiation in your chassis with just a piece of sheet metal and a hole. I actually have that was one of my first patents, I have a plaque for it. And my dad is like, Nice, Kristie, you got a patent for a hole in a piece of sheet metal. But it's because it's how you're using it and what you're doing with it. So there's just immense opportunity for things that you could patent.

Mary Killelea: That's great. And really educational to me, who knows nothing about patents that think, thank you for that. If you were starting out in tech today, is there anything you would do differently?

Kristie Mann: Well, yes, actually, two things. Number one, software is where all the fun is. I think I might do software. And it's also a much faster time to getting the product out the door and seeing the results of your work. But the other thing is, as an engineer one of the things that has had often been a heartache was the outsourcing of jobs to other lower cost countries. And it was something that I struggled with for many years. And we are a global economy, and we want to use engineering talent worldwide. So, I have no problem with it. But as for my own career development, it was always hard and difficult to think through those transitions and shift those jobs. And I would say that if I was going to be going into tech, I would want something that could be done at any location, something that can be done in any time zone, and that you don't feel like you have to be face to face in a location or in a particular geography. And that's that risk of always being outsourced.

Mary Killelea: So, as a product manager, you have to have really intense focus on the customer. And that's obviously been one of your strengths. But you also have to have focus on innovation and target differentiation from a competitive perspective. What about that excites you?

Kristie Mann: It's actually the combination of the customer, the technical and the business aspects of things. I think product management is very much a discipline where you're responsible for defining the right products that customers are willing to pay for, driving revenue, making sure that it's designable and executable. You set the features, you set the price point, and then you're also responsible for that actual adoption. You get to talk to customers, understand what their requirements are. And if you hit it out of the park, you get some amazing products. I'm a product person to my core. I don't think I'll ever be anything else. And I think it's that combination of being able to be technical and work with engineering to negotiate those features and the timelines and then work with the customer for adoption and then seeing it go to market. It's just it's so exciting. I love it.

Mary Killelea: Do you go to bed thinking about your product?

Kristie Mann: Oh, always. Always. Yes. I'm an Optane right now. I actually have Optane earrings, and I make my kids sleep with an Optane dim under their pillow. No, I'm kidding. But I have thought about that.

Mary Killelea: Okay, so you actively support women in STEM. What do you see being the priority work for women in STEM and all of us?

Kristie Mann: Yeah, yeah. So there's a couple things. If I think about the women themselves, I think that it is up to us to support each other in every way when we're going through, no matter whether it's a technical job or a non-technical job. We need to support each other, build an environment that is friendly to working moms, build an environment where we work well together, collaboration. I think that's very important. But I think it needs to start earlier to get more women in STEM. We need to find a way to make technology, math and engineering jobs cool and desirable for our young women. My kids are both in college now, and I just remember clearly my daughter, she's got like 100% of the questions right on the ACT for the science section or the SAT, whichever one it was. I mean, she's brilliant. But she was struggling with math and a project, and I was like, oh, you got this. You're so smart. And she's like, mom, it's not cool to do what you do. It's just not cool. And I just remember thinking, wow, how sad is that? She is actually going into, she's doing molecular biology now and pre-med. So she did end up going back to science, but it's really hard. I think there's a lot of social pressures and things like that that it's not cool for girls to do STEM careers. So I do like to spend a lot of time focusing on that middle school age group and really making it cool.

Mary Killelea: I think women who are in those roles become those role models that they didn't even know they could aspire to be. So while your daughter has you, obviously, as her role model, live in role model to the middle school kids, I think it's fantastic that you're representing, introducing them and exposing them to creative opportunities that they might not have ever thought of.

Kristie Mann: Yeah. You were talking about your passion project and I was part of a really amazing project when I worked for the power company in Georgia. And it was called the middle school teaching program. And we would go and we would take computers to middle school age kids and we would take them apart, show them to them. And these were the designs that I had worked on and the things that I had patented. And I remember at the time I went into my daughter's classroom and afterwards she was just like, mom, that was so baller. And it was like, okay. And the kids, they just couldn't wait to touch it and feel it. So I think more things like that are really, really valuable.

Mary Killelea: That's very cool because I do think there's the fear of that you're going to touch it, you're going to break it, but being able to reconstruct it and know that anything's fixable, it takes away that fear barrier.

Kristie Mann: Yeah. Yeah.

Mary Killelea: How did you balance being a working mom when your girls were younger? Because I think a lot of people have these misconceptions that when you're in tech, you're consumed 24 seven and there's no room to be a mother.

Kristie Mann: This question is so close to my heart, Mary, I'm not going to lie. And you may not know this about me, but while I am a mom, I've been a single mom since my kids were toddlers and they're both off at college now. So, I even going back to school and with my career, I have had to balance being a mom. And I'm, I would be dishonest if I said it's not hard. It is hard, but what career isn't demanding, to be honest, a simple four year engineering degree has enabled me to have a great nine to five type of job. And if I do need to work more hours and then I just work them on my own time zone, in the evening when I need to. And it's a financially lucrative type of job. So, I mean, I think it's been a great balance. Now I do have some advice having lived through this and my kids would tell you, I think they would agree with me here. It's not about the time. It's how you spend the time and the quality time and how you regulate yourself as you get through each day. And I would say my first piece of advice is always ask for help when needed. I was lucky that my parents have been near where I live for many of those years. And then the years that I didn't, I had a good nanny, I had a good support system, but I had to remember to ask for help. And I used to think it was a burden, but I was told by a friend at one time, she's like, it's not a burden. Ask anytime. I love helping out. I don't mind watching your kids at all.

The other thing is you do have to set boundaries and I've been up and down about how good I am at that. But your company will not set the boundaries for you and your desire to please everyone or to progress in your career will make it so that you want to take things on and say yes. Sometimes you have to say no. And it always shocks me, but people don't seem to notice when you don't take as many things on. And so take on fewer things and do them well, but set those boundaries. And then the last one is just take vacations and take long vacations, not just a couple of days here and there, but at least one every year. Some of the best memories in the world have been around those vacations, taken with my parents and my kids. It's just magical. Magical.

Mary Killelea: Great advice. When you reflect back on your career, what are you most proud of?

Kristie Mann: You know, there are so many things I've enjoyed doing. Just off the top of my head, one thing that comes to mind is we had, I helped with the blank slate design of the Z workstation products at HP with a team of engineers. And that was a chassis thermal mechanical design. And it was so innovative. And I loved the teamwork that we got there. And we brought that product to market and it was groundbreaking. It was amazing. People loved it. They loved the look in the field. It was very functional. It was the first time tool-less serviceability was 100%. Everything that you had to service was done with a snap or a latch. There were no screws. I was super proud of that. I've been proud of building a business. I think this Optane business that I'm in now, it wasn't even a full business unit when I started. And turning that into something that's driving a real business opportunity at a big company, that's been so amazing. But ask myself what I'm most proud of. I think that I'm proud of myself for being fearless in trying a lot of different things and learning from each of them and turning it into something amazing so that I can do great things.

Mary Killelea: I love that. You've obviously had to work with teams throughout your career. Sometimes there's roles where you have your to-do list and then you hand it over. What is some advice for working with teams when maybe the team dynamics are challenging?

Kristie Mann: Yeah, it's a good one. Okay, so I have some advice and then I don't always follow it. Yeah, it's like big ears, little mouth. It's really hard for me because I like to talk. But no, in all seriousness, I think we all need to practice active listening and then give each other grace. A lot of times when there's poor team dynamics or there's conflict between people, we assume negative intent in the partner or the stakeholder or whatever is happening. And so I think if we can get to the point that we give everybody grace, assume positive intent, assume that everybody's doing the best that they can do and that we all want the same thing, and then listen to what's driving their needs and their behavior and those communications, you can almost always chart a course to bring it down to where you're both rowing that boat together.

Mary Killelea: Excellent. What does to be bolder mean to you?

Kristie Mann: To be bolder. Yes, I'm going to come back to my mantra. Believe in yourself. Don't second guess yourself. And then be fearless in leading the change that you want to lead or leading the development of the product that you want to develop. Whatever it is that you do, start by believing in yourself and then be fearless and bold.

Mary Killelea: Thank you so much.

Kristie Mann: You're so welcome. I'm so glad we got a chance to do it, Mary.

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 to be bolder.com. That's the number two little be bolder.com.