Women in Enterprise: Emily Disston at BetterCloud
This series features profiles of some of the top women leaders within our enterprise technology community here in NYC. We hope by highlighting their terrific work, stories, and career trajectories within some of the top venture-backed startups and operating functions will encourage more women to consider careers in enterprise software.
Join us on February 28th, 2018 at our first-ever Navigate 2018: Women in Enterprise Tech Summit here at Work-Bench with Salesforce Ventures in New York City to meet and connect with these impressive women and more.
Emily Disston is the Director of People & Culture at BetterCloud
What were you doing before your current role in enterprise technology? How did you get to this role?
How I got here was a mix of amazing mentorship and stubborn persistence to keep getting new challenges and more exposure. Before BetterCloud, I was at a tech start-up called Mobiquity. I started as an HR Coordinator and then grew into an HR Business Partner role. The company was growing fast and we had many locations so I supported several offices. During my time there, I really latched on to a woman on the team. She was a fantastic mentor. I kept asking for more and she kept giving me more. It was under her guidance and confidence that I really grew and was therefore capable to take on the HR leadership role at BetterCloud. I found out about BetterCloud through a friend that worked here. They were looking for their first HR person at 80 people and I thought “I can’t do that.” That’s when my brother said: Em, a man wouldn’t question himself like that. You can totally do this. Just take the damn interview.” So I did. When I met David Politis, our CEO and founder, I knew I had to take this job. He’s passionate about people and he’s been an incredible mentor throughout my 3 years building the people function and growing the company to the 160 people we are today.
What pain point is your company solving, and what gets you excited to go to work every day?
Our product is solving a major modern workplace issue: managing a multi SaaS environment securely and easily. It’s a super nerdy product but its cutting edge technology and because of that, we have some of the smartest people in the industry on our team. Our culture has been fantastic since day one. I never had to “fix” that as an HR person often does. So instead, we’ve been able to quickly build people programs and processes on top of that and just make the company an even better place to work and grow every day. Honestly, that ability to make an impact that is so tangible and fruitful gives me butterflies. It’s so exciting to be building this company and innovating with this team.
What do you wish you had known earlier in your enterprise career?
The struggles of being one the very few female leaders at a company is no joke. Without any intention of ill-will, a male dominated team leaves me disheartened sometimes. But I look around and I see the progress we’ve made and I see the women here rising through the ranks. They are absolutely crushing it. We just have to keep going. We can’t give up. This landscape will change and we can leverage each other to get there. The future will be brighter. I can feel it.
Give us one piece of tactical advice (small or large), as a page from your enterprise tech playbook — that you would give to another woman considering a career in enterprise tech?
When I first heard this advice, I didn’t like it but it works. You have to act like the men. You have to mirror their behavior and tone. At its core, the human brain is pretty basic. We like what is similar. So to be integrated, I believe you need to emulate your male colleagues, at least until you have earned their trust and respect. I have found my femininity more and more acceptable to bring out now that I’ve been here for 3 years but it was locked up tightly for a while.
What do you love about enterprise tech?
Being at the frontier of change and being in the center of innovation is pretty fricken cool. There is never a dull moment. Its exciting and challenging and full of opportunity, especially in NYC because its a small community compared to Silicon Valley so people know eachother. Work-Bench does a great job of bringing that community together and encouraging us to leverage and learn from eachother. It’s very fun to be a part of that.
What do you wish would change?
I wish there were more women! They’re out there but the problem stems from the issue everyone is aware of — women aren’t encouraged to go for technology and science careers. That leads to less women in the experienced hiring pool for us to pluck from. It means we need to search harder and longer for women in certain roles, particularly leadership roles. And like most scaling companies, we don’t typically have the luxury of time so we end up hiring more men. We have improved and I know we will continue to improve but it will take time and I’m impatient.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I say this all the time but the best advice I ever received was to helicopter. That means gaining exposure, seeking context and taking on projects beyond your job description. That helps me every day to stay curious and grow. I have learned about every job at the company and their day to day work and how the roles interact with one another. I don’t need to know all that to be competent at my job, but learning this has made me better because I understand the whole organization more intimately.
Connect with Emily on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Our inspiration for this series comes from Digital Currency Group’s terrific profiles of Women in Blockchain — thank you!
Join us on February 28th at Work-Bench for our Navigate 2018: Women in Enterprise Tech Summit in NYC and get your ticket here. #navigate18
Know a woman leader in enterprise technology whose story we should feature? We’d love to hear from you.
