Crayon CEO, Melissa Mulholland, Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

If you want to learn how this leader’s passion for technology, partners, and future-focused leadership led her on a journey to CEO of Crayon, you won’t miss this special Women’s History Month Spotlight Episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. My guest for this podcast episode is Melissa Mulholland, the Chief Executive Officer of Crayon. Melissa was an early and popular guest on the podcast three years ago while she was still at Microsoft. I was delighted to welcome her back to discuss her incredible journey. In this episode, she shares her passion for technology, learnings on her journey, and her bold mission for Crayon.

Melissa is the Chief Executive Officer of Crayon, a global leader in providing innovation and services to help companies worldwide leverage the power of technology to drive the greater good. This charismatic, people-first executive is passionate about using technology to maximize impact, primarily through data and AI.

Melissa spent 12 years at Microsoft, leading strategy and business development worldwide to help businesses be profitable through cloud transformation. She focused on enabling partners and customers to accelerate their business transformation and deliver profitability, efficiency, and scale across Microsoft’s Cloud services resulting in over 3M people skilled and over 100K certifications. She has authored 12 books on building a successful business in the Cloud and is a board member of SHE, Europe’s largest gender equality conference.

In this episode, we have a great conversation about her company, career, and life journey with her family to Crayon and Oslo, Norway, significant lessons that sparked her, and great learnings and advice from a woman CEO in an industry not crowded with women CEOs.

What You’ll Learn

• Crayon’s Journey 2:12
  
• Melissa’s path to CEO 9:55
  
• Lessons from Microsoft 14:19
  
• Dr. Mike Gervais impact 25:07
  
• The importance of leadership 32:07
  

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed reconnecting with Melissa Mulholland.

Partnering with Crayon

Partnering with Crayon

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Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Typos

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, partnering, Microsoft, company, podcast, support, crayon, lead, sparked, organization, position, question, CEO, incredible, technology, excited, world, opportunity, role, Gavriella

SPEAKERS

Announcer, Melissa Mulholland, Vince Menzione

Melissa Mulholland  00:00

Make yourself a seat at the table like don’t ask for somebody to just come in and move the chair aside for you like don’t wait for the invitation, go forward, take it, any cable, like own it. And so don’t be afraid to step up. And I think that’s good advice.

Announcer  00:16

Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to partnering in this podcast Vince Menzione. A proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders to discuss transformational trends and to deconstruct successful strategies to thrive and survive in the rapid age of cloud transformation. And now your host, Vince Menzione.

Vince Menzione  00:39

Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering where technology leaders come to optimize results through successful partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and my mission is to help leaders like you unlock the leadership principles and learnings of the best in the business to get partnerships right, optimize for success and deliver your greatest results. My guest for this episode of the podcast is Melissa Mulholland. The recently named CEO of grand AI technology organization focused on innovation. Melissa was an early guest at the podcast, in fact three years ago this week, so I was excited to have her back is so much has changed both in our world. And for her professionally and personally. In this episode, we have a great and far reaching conversation on a number of topics, including her company, her career journey, great lessons that have sparked her and learnings and advice from a woman CEO and an industry not crowded by woman CEOs. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed reconnecting with Melissa Mulholland. Melissa, welcome back to the podcast.

Melissa Mulholland  01:54

Thanks so much. It’s such a great pleasure to be here today.

Vince Menzione  01:57

I am so excited to welcome you back to the ultimate guide to partnering. You are an early guest. And so much has changed in the three years since we spoke last. So I’m really excited to have this conversation with you today.

Melissa Mulholland  02:10

Hi, absolutely. I’m excited to be here. It’s also been fun to see you know, your growth, just with these Podcast Series. I love seeing the speakers that you’ve had come on board. And as you said, being one of the early speakers in the podcast series, it’s been so fun to see your journey through the process.

Vince Menzione  02:27

Well, thank you so much. And it has been an absolute blast. I love everything about what we’re doing here. And I love having you back because you’re a terrific guest. By the way, I probably have not told you this before. But you were one of the top downloads that we’ve had on the podcast. And so I’m really eager to have you back so much has changed. So you were named this year as the CEO of crayon, a technology organization with a rich tradition of innovation organization that I knew from my time at Microsoft, can you tell us about this journey and your new role?

Melissa Mulholland  03:02

All Thank you. And thank you for the kind words about the podcast, I did not know about those results. Wow. So good question. You know, the journey with crayon has been a multi year, I’d say destination to get here and move to the company I started working with crayon. About five years ago, when I was working at Microsoft when Gabriella Schuster asked me to go in and help these large organizations, large partners, really help them accelerate, you know, you could call it their cloud digital transformation back at that time. And I came across crayon and discovered that they had this incredible data and AI team, you know, 80% of their data and AI team have PhDs and they’re just this rich talent. But you know, no one really knew about it. And so I worked with the company went on a tour around the world, we went and trained and skilled, some of the biggest organizations leveraging these data scientists, and it just sparked my interest in the company and why they had this secret talent, and why they weren’t exposing it more and how they could grow it. So I started to see the innovation and working with their co founders. And over the period of those few years, it led to a stronger and stronger relationship. And eventually they approached me with the opportunity to come in and really lead their services transformation, because the company has been so committed around that. And the company’s vision is really around driving technology for the greater good. And as you know, that’s something I’m extremely passionate about with my own journey and my son and telling story around how AI has transformed our life. I felt compelled that I had a great opportunity to come bring that to crayon. And then you know, I moved my family. We moved all the way from C battle to Norway, we sold everything, and took a leap of faith, then became CEO six months later. So it’s been an incredible, it’s a year in the making, I’m definitely ready for vacation. But it’s been wonderful, I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity. And I think, you know, Microsoft, and the relationships I’ve had there and everything I’ve been able to learn, I mean, so grateful just for what the company taught me to be now in this position, you know, there’s

Vince Menzione  05:30

so much to unpack here, right, that last conversation we had, we were talking about the shortages of data and AI specialists and scientists. So it’s ironic that you were already working with crayon there. And then you know, this mission, this just cause is just so big and great. And I’d like you to maybe peel back a little bit more on that with us.

Melissa Mulholland  05:51

Absolutely. So you’re right data and AI, that market is still very much in demand challenge. Because these are specialists, they’re expensive the talent market is, is I would say competitive. And the company has been really able to have such quality talent. I think part of that is something that we’ve really been focused on around culture, and how do we focus on projects and engagements with customers that tie back to that, you know, vision statement of our goal is really to help companies be successful long term, I found that super compelling, because it’s really, I would say core to my values, which is, you know, I joined Microsoft 12 years ago, because I was so I would say, the amazing ability to join a company that could have global impact in society, through technology. And that actually, if I think way back, that actually stems back even to when I was working at Intel, where I was an intern, and the company gave me a chance because they really believe in equality. And it taught me a really important lesson that if you have an ambition, you can go and achieve it, if you really believe in something, you can do it. And joining Microsoft just fueled that, and that mission of the company, energize me and the same was for crayon, I saw this opportunity to really take a company that’s known, you know, for licensing and transactional business. And while that is still a very important lever, that’s not only what we do, and we can have, you know, significant impact in the world that we have. And it’s, you know, we come to work each day. And work is important. But at the end, it’s not just about what you do and how you get paid. It’s, it’s about the impact that you can have in society, at least that that is for me.

Vince Menzione  07:51

So I love this driving technology for the greater good. And I want to learn more about some areas of focus there. But I’m also thinking about the time that we’ve lived through, right, we’ve lived through this enormously challenging time and parts of the world are still struggling. What have you seen that you didn’t expect to see,

Melissa Mulholland  08:09

I would say from a technology side, the emergence of data, digital transformation, and I hate to use those buzzwords, but really moving into a digital space happened so fast. When we sold our house in Seattle, we were questioning do we have to go to the embassy in Norway to sign off, get it notarized? But no, because of COVID. Everything is digitized, including notary of a home. And so that I think is incredibly interesting to see how fast acceleration and Cloud has emerged or Accelerated due to COVID. And then on the flip side, I would say yes, in terms of personal struggles, it’s really challenging for people to be at home. In many cases, people have lost their jobs and or people have had to forego their jobs to take care of their children, being able to do homeschooling to employment matters. It’s challenging, and I think, you know, there’s so much opportunity to support people with you could call it psychological help in this time right now. So I love seeing companies come up with applications that they can support people where you can talk to a psychologist if you’re struggling, but of course, it’s there’s real impact from what we’ve seen in COVID in the pandemic that we’re going to have to face now that the world is starting to open up as well.

Vince Menzione  09:37

And, you know, talk to me more about the move to Norway, right, you got on a plane you left you packed up all your things,

Melissa Mulholland  09:44

you know, but maybe the audience doesn’t know I have a child with special needs. He has autism and we also have a daughter COVID At that time, you know, we were homeschooling. So I was working at Microsoft. My husband was a state Home father trained to try to take care of the kids, we saw that our son was unfortunately really negatively impact. Maybe that also ties into your previous question as well how children are impacted in COVID. I don’t think we also expected to see such delays of children being away from school and socialization that has has occurred, unfortunately, as an outcome, and our son was definitely impacted because he couldn’t get the services and support he needed. The school was asking us to become specialist and we haven’t gone to we’re not educated around autism, you can’t ask a parent to take that on. But we had to that was what we had to do to support him. And so we made the decision to seek out other options and Scandinavia is well known for their social system in education, of supporting with funding for special education. So we took a leap of faith, and we packed up everything as they shared, and we move during the pandemic, we, quite frankly, didn’t even know if Norway would let us into the country. So yeah, we took that risk. But we got our visa is approved in August, jumped on the first plane that we could and put our kids in school the next week, it’s been incredible to see how people have embraced us supported us, I would say it’s exceeded our expectations for the life that are that we’re able to provide our children and as a parent, that’s all I want. I want my kids to be happy, and to be thriving. And if this environment best supports them, then it’s worth all the risks that we’ve had to take as a family.

Vince Menzione  11:46

It sounds like a great environment for him and for his situation. Can you talk to us more about how your role is evolved? You came there with a specific mission. And it’s changed since then?

Melissa Mulholland  11:57

I know, it’s amazing to see how quickly it’s happened. So yes, I came on board to be the chief services and solutions officer really helping the company build out managed services, and also data in AI, which, of course, I’m very passionate about was part of that. And then over the course of the six months, got to know more and more about the company and was asked to step in and be CEO. And so for the past, you know, four months have stepped into the role of leading the company, which is fastly growing, we are now 2300 people and growing around the world in over 35 countries. So it’s been an incredible journey. And just a year time one year ago, we were contemplating whether we should leave the United States and move to a different country. These my career behind at Microsoft, little did I know that you’re fast forward, I would be in this position. And I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity.

Vince Menzione  12:57

You know, we talked about rapid transformation in technology, but your career is at a rapid transformation. How does it feel to sit in that seat?

Melissa Mulholland  13:04

It has, I think some days, I can’t believe I am in this seat. And I think it’s important to always remember that you have to earn the position you’re in. That’s something I really maybe I hold myself to a high bar. But I think you can never take for granted what your role is. And especially when you’re in these types of roles, people look to you for guidance, they look to you as an emblem for what is the company represent. So I take that extremely seriously. It’s incredible to think just a year ago, I was working with CEOs on learning about how do they transform? How do they build up these businesses? How do they balance the existing profitability that they have, and also take risk of building net new to drive that you could call it transformation and growth. And now to be in the position where the accountability or the pressure is on on me and the team. And so I feel, I would say blessed to have had all that experience in working with so many talented people, you know, externally partners, that I am still keep in touch with two great people at Microsoft that have helped support my career along the way.

Vince Menzione  14:19

Yeah, it sounds like you’re I’ll call it Microsoft dumb as being like a laboratory for this for you. Right?

Melissa Mulholland  14:25

Yes, that is a great way of putting it because I’ve done it’s kind of hard to explain you. I’ve done everything from finance to operations, sales, marketing strategy. And the beautiful thing about working for a company as big as Microsoft is you can really change your career and get different experiences along the way. So you could call it a laboratory. I spent those 12 years really curating that experience. To this day. I would say it’s been a huge asset because now I can say oh, I’ve know the HR side of the business too. Understanding what market how effective marketing is. And so, yeah, it was definitely a labyrinth, but a great journey and experience and I feel indebted to Microsoft for having the kind of culture where you can grow talent in the organizations.

Vince Menzione  15:15

Well, congratulations again. And you know, you’re a woman CEO, in a world and industry not crowded by woman CEOs. So can you tell us what advice you give to Melissa Mulholland every day?

Melissa Mulholland  15:29

It’s a great question. Because it’s so true. It’s such a lonely space. And you know, it shouldn’t be that way. We need far more diversity. And not just about male versus female. I’m a big believer diversity comes in all different shapes and sizes, based on experience, background, culture, all these things. But I would say that I’ve always in this is very natural for a lot of people in my position previously, especially a lot of women faces, which is imposter syndrome, which is you never feel like you’re good enough. You never feel like you’re there. And I had a dear friend of mine, I would say she could say almost broke me with the Psychological Consulting around this saying, you know, at no, you got here for a reason, you’re successful for a reason? How can you say you’re not good enough. But I realized that I was preventing myself from really getting to that next level, because I had all the capabilities. And I had what it took. And other people saw that in me, my prior management saw that in me, and they kept growing me and giving me tasks that I felt, am I ready for Am I ready for but I kept jumping and leaping ahead and taking the leap of faith with them. And I was successful, you know, looking back, and even now, believe in yourself, because you are worth it. If you really are passionate and you are committed to something you will achieve it, I dreamt of being able to drive global impact. And when I was at Intel, I was an intern. And I said to myself, there has to be a way that we can take Intel devices, recycle them, turn them into solar panels, this was back before environmental concepts were popular. So it was a little unconventional. And you know what I made it happen. And I was 20 years old. And I present to the CFO. And now Intel, you know, has a fantastic Solar Initiative Program in United States, because they took an idea that a 20 year old was super passionate about and they made it happen. Fast forward at Microsoft, I dreamt that I could take you know, technology around this AI and apply it to a circumstance around my son. And I went and told that story and it made it happen. And so I dreamt of being a CEO and I wanted it to happen. But if you really put that ambition out there, you will make it happen. And so I think I know it’s a long way of explaining it. But believe in yourself. As cliche as that may sound isn’t always as easy as it appears. And the last thing I would say just on that is have really good people around you that support you. Be honest with you. Help coach you. I think that’s absolutely essential.

Vince Menzione  18:23

You know, you said something earlier about the ambition, right? Wanting to drive global impact, like Was there something that sparked that in you? Was there a pivot point? Was there something earlier in your life that sparked you in that direction?

Melissa Mulholland  18:37

It probably comes from my childhood, like most things within everyone. I grew up in a small town, it was quite rural, or it still is, I was fortunate that my parents took me around the world and enabled me to see different cultures and experiences, then I would come home and I would be in that small town with you know, people that maybe haven’t had world experience. And so they have very much I call small town, small town mentality. And I said to myself, I want more I want to be I love different cultures. I love to be around people. I’m constantly I’d call myself a curious learner. I’m always trying to learn. And I felt the way I could do it was working for a global company. We’re put on this earth for no reason. And we need to make the most of our time here. You never know how long you’re going to have in this precious life that we have. So make the most of it and, you know, lead your life with integrity and do things to support people because I don’t know, maybe I believe in karma or whatever it is. But I do believe that people come back to you in some shape or form the good that you do. I think it probably comes from just my curiosity and just love for the great place that we’re in, in this global system. IoT,

Vince Menzione  20:00

and you come at it with such a spark. I mean, I could hear the spark in your voice and I’ve been with you in person you had that spark. He also said something about having really good people around. So was there like one great piece of advice that you received? I’m sure there were several. But is there one that stands out for you along the journey, I took

Melissa Mulholland  20:19

training by Michael Gervais back, Microsoft did this training for employees.

Vince Menzione  20:26

I went through it myself. So I guess it was amazing.

Melissa Mulholland  20:30

Oh, it’s forever changed my life. That high performance mindset training really changed my life. And I’ll get to why I think what I learned about it was focus, you know that taking the time, pace, and focus and your thoughts and really collect that because you can spread yourself thin and do all sorts of small things are many things, but they won’t accumulate to really, what is that outcome? You’re wanting to achieve? That series that he did, and I follow him on Instagram. And if for those that may not know, he’s an incredible thought leader on this topic. But it sparked something in me it actually was probably one of the big jumping off points for my career, because that’s where I really started to harness success. Because I started to and of course, it’s a methodology you need to practice but I do it each and every day, I think about what is the outcome that I want to drive that day? How do I stay focused on it? And yes, I’m not going to accomplish it all, but is forever impacted? I would say my career.

Vince Menzione  21:37

You know, my opinion on Michael Gervais has been a guest. Dr. Michael Gervais has been a guest here on the podcast, and we’re having it back on again this summer. In fact, I’m really excited about that. And this whole notion around mindfulness and mindset organizations really miss it here. I believe Microsoft got it early. What are you doing at crayon to help with that initiative? Where are you taking the organization in that way

Melissa Mulholland  21:59

the company is working in the environment, as a partner, you’re going to have vendors like Microsoft, AWS, you know, the list goes on come to you and say we need you to do this, we need you to do that whatever the new hot new technology is, that’s come to market. And it’s not always easy for an organization to just flip on a dime and be able to go and execute. And so we have to prioritize. And we have to really be a day mindful of what is it that we’re going to focus on. And so I would say that is something that I am definitely taking as part of Dr. Michael Gervais principles and applying into the company and guiding them because we do need much more mindfulness. And it can be extremely effective, not just in our professional lives, but also our personal lives. I would say focusing the organization giving them clarity, those are the things that I’ve been harnessing, also making it a great place to work, to your point around energy. I am a high energetic person, I’ve always been that way, but a build energy off of others. And that stems from people being really happy to come to work. And you know what, you’ll always deliver better results, if you’re motivated and happy in the job that you’re doing. And so I think mindfulness is a big aspect of that.

Vince Menzione  23:26

So do you have a key result or outcome for the organization? How do you how do you see it laying out so we

Melissa Mulholland  23:33

have ambitions to grow our services business, you know, we’re in the cloud today we have a 75% cloud mix. But for us, what I love about the company is it’s all about the customer, we have over 95% customer retention rate, which is extremely high. It’s a fantastic actually, it is and I am proud of that. Because, you know, at the end of the day, we’re there to consult and support our customers and our partners because we have both a direct to customer and also channel business. But customer satisfaction is key. And our role is to help advise, consult and guide that customer so that they can be successful. So as I was saying they can we can drive technology for the greater good, all tied to that vision. If we can continue to do that grow our existing customers and help them solve real business problems and needs through technology such as you know, through Microsoft or AWS or others. That is incredible. So we have ambitions to double our size and grow exponentially. But at the end of the day, that will happen when we have the people that are excited to come to work. They have clarity around where we’re going, and we support them with the capabilities to do that. jumps successfully,

Vince Menzione  25:01

really terrific vision for the organization? How are you applying and know you since you’ve been through Dr. Michael Gervais training as I have, I’m assuming you have a personal philosophy, how are you applying your personal philosophy to the business?

Melissa Mulholland  25:14

I would say being authentic people know it when you’re fake, you know, being really true to yourself is essential. And as part of that it’s leading with integrity, I really strongly believe that you have to lead by example, if you don’t, people won’t follow. And especially in these roles, where people look at signals around what you do how you say it. So you need to lead by action. And I would, you know, tighten that authenticity aspect, really following my instincts and my gut. Going back to your question around being a female CEO. It’s not easy being in an environment dominated by men in the sense that I often get taught. Are you old enough to buy alcohol? Like, how are you? How much experience do you have, like people judge you based on how you look or how you act? And so you end up really contemplating as I was going back to that impostor syndrome? Like, am I good enough? And do I have the capabilities? But you know, I know I do. And again, it kind of gets to it’s your question your own personal statement, follow your gut, follow your intuition. Each of us, you come to a certain place because of the work you’ve done because of the successes along your ways. And you need to just believe in that and trust yourself. I know that’s a long winded way of saying be authentic, lead with integrity, and trust your gut,

Vince Menzione  26:42

you know, what you said reminded me of Gabriella, his TED talk, right? With the whole conversation in the room and being taught to or mansplain. In some respects, do you find that still happens in the work environment?

Melissa Mulholland  26:54

Absolutely. And I don’t think it always happens consciously. Sometimes it happens because maybe the person’s insecure, or they don’t realize that they do it. I have even told people caught them out on it pulled them aside. And you know, they they often find they’re embarrassed because they don’t realize that they do it. And but it happens all the time. I would say definitely less now that of course, I’m in this position. But it certainly happened in my prior career. It can be very frustrating, because sometimes you feel like the loudest person in the room gets their voice heard. But you have to just overcome that. And it’s, it does happen. You know, Gabriella is she’s, of course been one of those incredible sponsors of my career, I can candidly say, I don’t know if I would be in the position I am without her coaching and guidance over the last, oh, gosh, 12 ish years, we’ve worked together and different ways. But she said something to me once. That was, I think great advice, which is make yourself a seat at the table. Like don’t ask for somebody to just come in and move the chair aside for you. Like, don’t wait for the invitation, go forward, take it, any cable, like own it. And so don’t be afraid to step up. And I think that’s good advice.

Vince Menzione  28:10

I love that advice. We’re gonna share that with our listeners. And you know, this is the ultimate guide to partnering. So, you know, I’m fascinated with this science and sometimes art around successful partnering, you have been on the other side at Microsoft, and you now are a partner to Microsoft, and you have other vendors and partners you work with. What do you believe makes a great partner,

Melissa Mulholland  28:31

someone that listens? I think, so often people talk at you because they’re so focused on what they want, but pausing what is it that I learned this, you know, when I was at Microsoft, but even now I see it even more, you know, a partnership is it’s two sided, it’s not one sided, but people forget that. So pause, listen, try to understand, how do you help that person? What are they looking for? What are their butter problems? How do you help them solve it, versus coming at it from what your objective is? And I think listening is essential, and perhaps maybe we don’t listen enough.

Vince Menzione  29:12

Then when the partnerships failed, was it because they didn’t listen? What did you see that?

Melissa Mulholland  29:16

Yes, I think people have their preconceived ideas in advance without really understanding what the other individual is trying to solve for. And I think a little bit of empathy to you have to realize that people that I’m a big believer I my empathy is super important to my just who I am as an individual. Don’t assume that the person has bad intent you know, really take the time to understand and that if you don’t I think that often time is one of the reasons why failure happens.

Vince Menzione  29:49

Yeah, misinterpreting, misinterpreting actions, and I see this so often to in the work that I do, where people just have a myth. I’ll say it the wrong expectation of what to expect. back from Microsoft.

Melissa Mulholland  30:01

Absolutely. I’m making assumptions and judgments you don’t know. So ask, don’t be afraid to ask and ask for clarification. But oftentimes, you know, people don’t. So that’s an excellent point.

Vince Menzione  30:13

You know, I heard clarity and focus quite a bit today. I love this.

Melissa Mulholland  30:16

I think those are important aspects, because people just want to know where they’re going. And they want to know why. And you need to give them the context and help them realize the opportunity ahead. And you can’t do that if you’re not transparent.

Vince Menzione  30:33

So I am so excited for you in this journey. Are there any closing comments about crayon you’d like to share with our listeners,

Melissa Mulholland  30:40

I’m just thrilled to be at this company. It’s fueled by incredible people with, you know, amazing customers, I’m honored to be in the position I am. I’m excited to see where, you know, we continue to grow. And we’ve had great success, but we’re just getting started. It’s going to be an incredible adventure that we’re going on as a company over the past 20 years. And I’m excited to take it to the to the next face.

Vince Menzione  31:11

And I’m excited for you as well. And we’re gonna have a little fun now. So I love this question I asked, I love to ask you this question. You are hosting a dinner party. And you can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this party. And you know, we’re in a situation now where, you know, hopefully we don’t have to mask and worry about social distancing. Who would you invite to this party? And why?

Melissa Mulholland  31:35

Oh, this is a final question. Although I have to say I’ve been having fun all the way.

Vince Menzione  31:40

Good job. I

Melissa Mulholland  31:41

think you’re so fun. So good. And goodness. So maybe because I’m away from the US right now, I’m probably a bit maybe homesick, it makes me reflect, you know, a little bit on the US history. And I would say maybe when that reaching into the past category, Abraham Lincoln comes to mind.

Vince Menzione  32:02

And Lincoln interesting.

Melissa Mulholland  32:04

I know, that might be interesting. But I thought about it. And it may be because there’s been such division in the US and even globally, for that matter. And, you know, it’s now and I think just also leadership qualities, if I think about the time that he was president, standing up for something that maybe is counter to society, or cultural norms, and going against the grain, but doing it because you believe it’s the right thing, especially back at that time, couldn’t have been easy at home, just curiously, how did he do what he had to do in order to, to really stand up for what was happening around slavery. And so I just think that that’s, its terms of leadership capabilities. He’s somebody that I’ve always, I’d say, maybe admired, if you’re looking back from the past standpoint, that, you know, we often don’t think about, you know, to me, that’s a true sign of leadership. And then another person who I would love to just have a, I think she’s alive today, maybe I would love to have a pint of beer with or something is Queen Elizabeth. And the reason is, is I think about to your question around the female CEOs, but you know, think about her position at a time when she was, you know, so young, anointed queen, and then all of the Prime Minister’s that she’s had to onboard, especially in a male dominated society, leading a kingdom and face with such resilience. I think she would be so much fun to have a lengthy conversation with so much insight and wisdom, I can’t even fathom. So she’s another person I would put at that dinner party, you know, and then I would say, yeah, so I’ve seen, you know, I’m really poking probably more from political leaders. But I think, you know, perhaps maybe because I’m in the CEO role now. And maybe there’s some aspect to it. I just look at leaders that have been in circumstances where they’ve had to step up for something that they believed in, and it took courage and conviction, which I think I just have deep admiration for is the third one, probably Gandhi, he just has so much wisdom. And I often say that you can really become the person that you want. And so much of that is, I think, stemmed from Gandhi.

Vince Menzione  34:30

So many great teachings, such a great dinner party, by the way, I’d love to come along. I’m going to stop by for a pint at least.

34:38

It’s just a mixed crew, but it would definitely be a lot of wisdom to say the least.

Vince Menzione  34:43

Well, you know, I’ve been saying this all along. And the fact that least since we came back with the podcast about a year ago is that we in the tech sector have both an opportunity and an obligation to lead during this time and I am in violent agreement with you on leadership and maybe a lack Got leadership in our society today. And you’ve picked some really great leaders.

Melissa Mulholland  35:04

Thank you. Yeah. And I think that’s probably a big part of it is, you know, we we are lacking leadership in many respects. And you know, people are hungry for it. And we have an opportunity to do something with it. And lead by example. Yeah, now’s the time you need to take action when you can.

Vince Menzione  35:21

Well, Melissa, I am so excited for you in this role. I’m so excited to see you lead this organization. I’m going to be watching you very closely, and hopefully having you back as a guest on Ultimate Guide to partnering. Thank you for your generosity today.

Melissa Mulholland  35:36

Oh, I would love that. And no, thank you for the time I’m honored to be part of this incredible list of podcast interviewers. So thank you for the opportunity, and I’m excited to also listen to your future podcast.

Vince Menzione  35:49

As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please subscribe on your favorite platform, like comment, tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to partnering and where they can find us. And I’d love your feedback. Please like the podcast and provide comments or reach out to me at Vince Menzione on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also like and follow Ultimate Guide to partnering on our Facebook page, or drop me a line at Vince M at ultimate dash partnerships.com This episode of the podcast is sponsored by ultimate partnerships. Ultimate partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships, get partnerships right, optimize for success, deliver results. For more information, go to ultimate dash partnerships.com

Announcer  36:40 Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to partnering with your host Vince Menzione online and Ultimate Guide to partnering.com and facebook.com/ultimate Guide to partnering. We’ll catch you next