An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Pick your battles & set boundaries. You are only one person and you can only accomplish so much in a day. Don’t waste your time or energy picking battles that you don’t need to fight. Find the one or two initiatives that are truly important to you and learn to let the other things slide. You will be happier and it will help you streamline and focus on the important things. It’s important to defend your energy so you can do your best work.
As a part of our interview series called “Women Of The C-Suite”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Erica Hennes.
Erica Hennes is the Chief Revenue Officer of Gradient, a startup building products that are good for the planet and great at keeping homes comfortable. A revenue-focused marketing leader with 16+ years of experience, Erica is adept at leveraging data to create and execute strategies that drive profitable growth. Over the course of her career, she has worked with DTC, B2C, and B2B brands to translate company vision and strategy into clear, executable plans.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
As a kid, I spent hours crafting stories and acting them out with my Mapletown toys. My parent’s house had beige carpeting with a thick navy blue border around it and I created an entire town near “the river”. Once I grew a little older, I spent my time focused heavily on art, particularly drawing and painting. I would skip recess and hangout alone in the art room just working on my projects.
Why it took me decades to understand that I am an introvert is beyond me.
When I was applying for colleges, I wanted to continue pursuing something creative like architecture or interior design. My parents weren’t thrilled with me narrowing my focus so much in terms of education so they “gently” pushed me to get a business degree to keep my options open. In hindsight, they were totally right. I chose the most creative business degree I could, and doubled down on all things marketing and psychology. It all boiled down to learning how people and companies make the decisions that they make and why.
I’ve been accused of being a job hopper. It used to worry me and then one day I realized that my lack of default loyalty to one company was actually one of my biggest assets. Joining an advertising agency was a great way to learn about several verticals. I loved finding the common threads or taking something that worked in one industry and applying it to another. I learned that, with those foundational skills, I didn’t have to stick to just selling hardware, consumer packaged goods (CPG), clothing, or cars. I could go anywhere and future proof my career by mitigating the risk of only having experience in one thing.
I learned that there are no rules, only patterns and traditions.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Since I’ve joined Gradient, the evolution of government policies has been, by far, the most unexpected and interesting change. It’s not that I am particularly interested in politics per se, but my whole career has been driven by understanding how a system works and why systems fail. Early in my career, I craved getting to the source of who made decisions. Who had all of this power to help a company succeed or doom it to fail?
Joining Gradient as a C-level exec is the perfect example of how, even when you reach “the top,” you still don’t truly have control. Gradient is a mission-driven startup focused on rethinking HVAC by building products that are good for the planet and great at keeping homes comfortable. Working in hardware, and particularly HVAC, means that we have to pass numerous regulations to meet requirements to sell our products in the US. That includes everything from certifications from the Department of Energy to local laws.
One example is New York City’s Climate 2019 legislation, a grouping of local laws aimed at mitigating the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. Particularly, Local Law 97 establishes emissions regulations on buildings over 25,000 sq. ft. Buildings produce pollution both directly and indirectly, representing 39% of carbon dioxide emissions according to the US Green Building Council.
Laws like Local 97 are a force multiplier to reduce carbon emissions across the US. I have been thrilled by the unexpected opportunity to work with several amazing organizations, including congress, to guide the US into a zero carbon future.
I thought I “just” joined a company to build a healthier, more comfortable world for all those who inhabit it — without compromising the environment. Now with the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Defense Production Act (DPA), it turns out that we are building a critical product for Americans. It helps our supply chain resilience, enables hiring of more American workers, and drives incentives for electrification across the US.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This is only funny in hindsight, because at the time I was devastated.
I really didn’t enjoy college, though to be clear, I had fun and did all the things college kids do. It’s just that I was bored and I couldn’t wait to be totally on my own. I craved responsibility for my own life — so much that I accelerated my courses and graduated a semester early.
I moved back home for a few months after graduation to plan a move to Chicago. Through a family friend (aka privilege), I was able to become an unofficial TA for a graduate-level marketing MBA course at the University of Chicago.
I would take the Megabus to Chicago for class once a week (6+ hour drive each way). They brought in a few CEOs to have students prepare marketing strategies for real businesses. A particular CEO liked my feedback to the students and offered me a job.
Once I was in my new role, I built out my marketing strategy PowerPoint and felt deeply confident in my approach to help scale the business. I centered the strategy around shifting from traditional advertising in catalogs and tradeshows towards digital, including a website overhaul and this thing I had read about called Google AdWords.
They fired me on the spot because my ideas were not at all aligned with what they wanted to do.
It felt like I made the biggest mistake of my life. How was I going to pay the bills? I lived alone; I certainly didn’t want to ask for money from my parents.
I decided to go learn more about this Google AdWords thing because it still seemed like a really interesting approach to marketing. I joined an advertising agency to learn the ropes and then Google bought them a short time later. Turns out it was a good move.
Spoiler alert, that company went out of business a few years later. So maybe not a funny mistake, but definitely one that makes me smirk a little.
Sometimes you just need to trust your instincts even when no one else does.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I moved to San Francisco without a job, which is insane given the cost of living. I had my first in-person interview and when the hiring manager walked in the room, he didn’t even sit down before he said, “well, I just don’t know if you are going to want to work here, you will be intimidated working with people from better schools like Stanford when you only went to Xavier.” I picked up my notebook and politely said, “you are right, I don’t want to work here,” and I walked out.
After that interview, I vowed to never work someplace just for the brand or the role. I went back to my tiny network and said, who is the best person to work for? Who can I learn the most from? Everyone pointed me to one person so I reached out and it turned out that he was hiring.
Once I accepted the job, he told me that he was quitting to go work for Kerry Cooper, another of the “best people to work for.”
I knew I couldn’t jump ship just yet, and quite a few people had left to follow her, so I waited for the right moment. I ended up taking another role at a different company which gave me a director title. A few years later, I got a call from the same boss who had quit. He told me he was leaving again and asked if I was interested in interviewing for his role at Kerry’s company. At this point I don’t think she had any idea who I was or that I had been trying to find a way to work with her for years.
We went our separate ways over the years but always stayed in touch and she’s the one who recommended me for my current role.
I am deeply grateful for the opportunities she has passed my way. She’s been understanding of my struggles, and hasn’t held my mistakes or missteps against me. She sees my growth potential and has gently guided me for years.
I appreciate her generosity of time, advice, and guidance immensely.
I still don’t have any fancy schools or brands on my resume, but Kerry helped me get a seat at the table based on my work. I will continue to pave a path for people with similar backgrounds. We are all capable of great things when given the chance.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?
The most effective executive leaders are exceptional at situational awareness. Pilots call this “staying ahead of the airplane,” which essentially means the pilot’s job is to act on information before the flight’s risk profile becomes elevated. An elevated risk profile is anything from straying off course or making a poor landing, to running out of fuel or avoiding a thunderstorm. It requires that the pilot continually receives and digests new information as the flight proceeds.
It’s the same with executives. We are responsible for constantly taking in information across economic conditions, politics, evolving consumer needs and expectations, and everything in between. We need to know about what’s ahead and how it impacts our businesses. Knowing how to evolve, but also able to digest information into focused initiatives to drive and scale the business.
Executives set the course and then hire top notch people to develop the right strategies and build the best teams to hit these goals.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a CEO or executive? Can you explain what you mean?
- You must always be on, and always be available.
Clearly in some organizations that is the norm, but when you join an early stage company you get the opportunity to shape the work culture and prove that it doesn’t need to be that way.
No one knows you better than you do. Personally, if I was always on, I would be a terrible leader. At this point in my career, I know when I work best and I try to optimize my day to be successful. I set boundaries using things like blocking out my calendar for family time, exercise, and my most productive time which is early in the morning. I could work for 3 hours after dinner each night but it would take me twice as long as first thing in the morning. I also know that doing work right up until I go to bed is a recipe for a bad night of sleep. I end up reading an email or slack that either gets me excited to think about a new challenge or frustrated with an issue. Both are recipes for a disastrous night of sleep.
Becoming a parent has also made me a master at prioritizing what is important. What needs to be done now, and how do I need to prepare for what is up ahead. One of my core strengths is knowing what doesn’t need to be done.
2. Employees can’t handle bad news.
The secretive nature of the C-Suite and lack of transparency has got to go. Sharing the good and the bad is how you create a culture of innovation.
When it comes to delivering bad news, the sooner you loop your team in, the better off you will be.
I often think about Apollo 13, when the Command Module lost critical functionality the team down in Houston had no choice but to figure out how to use the Lunar Module to bring the astronauts safely home. The bad news forced them to look at what they had available and come up with a plan.
It is also important to remember that your team is made up of adults with real world experience. They know when something is off and that’s when a bad culture spreads like a disease. When you aren’t transparent with your team, people get worried, they get territorial because they fear layoffs, or they just stop working because they assume the leaders have no idea what they are doing. It’s harder to rebuild that trust than to just be honest and include them in the journey. It’s the best way to get experience and learn.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women executives that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Let’s start with getting into the C-Suite in the first place. Women still make up less than 25 percent of executive-level positions, according to McKinsey’s joint report with LeanIn.Org, Women in the Workplace 2021.
One of the biggest barriers for women breaking into the C-Suite is that men are judged and hired based on their potential and women are judged based on experience.
I’ve seen this first hand during interview debriefs over the years. Unless a woman has had the exact role somewhere else there is a lot of, “let’s see how she does and then we can move her up in a year.” When men are interviewing there’s a lot more, “well he can definitely do this, let’s give him the opportunity, he’s such a strong candidate and we don’t want to lose him.”
This usually results in women doing the job for a year without the title or proper compensation.
Once we get a seat at the table, women-led startups received Just 2.3% of VC funding in 2020, according to Harvard Business Review.
Going up another level, according to the same HBR analysis, “only about 12% of decision makers at VC firms are women, and most firms still don’t have a single female partner, according to an analysis last year. Of all partners at these firms, only 2.4% are female founding partners.”
Frankly, it’s exhausting and one of the reasons I have considered starting my own fund.
What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?
There are two major differences.
The first is how quickly the imposter syndrome vanished. I thought that I would be second guessing myself and seeking approval of everyone until I proved myself. Then one day I realized I already had and I let everything else go. I really don’t worry about what other people are thinking about me.
The second is actually the sheer number of meetings. I assumed that I would mostly spend my time in senior leadership meetings building vision, strategy, and long term roadmap planning. Then providing my team with the proper resources to enable them to execute strategy and meet our goals.
However, I find that a lot of people schedule meetings to discuss literally everything. Perhaps, it could be a result of pandemic culture where people feel the need to over communicate. I find it rather disruptive, inefficient, and expensive.
This could be the introvert in me, but I am striving to find balance. It’s important to be an active member of the team, but it does come at a cost of productivity for me personally.
Is everyone cut out to be an executive? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?
Yes, anyone can become an executive, but for some it does come a bit more naturally.
As a society, we are undergoing an evolution in the types of leaders who will be needed to lead us successfully. In a post pandemic world, we need leaders who can balance economic growth through innovation, job creation with increasing costs of inflation, supply chain challenges, and government incentives to move business back to the US all while creating and maintaining a work life balance in a new hybrid remote environment, while not ruining our planet. That is a tall order for the executives of the past who only focused on shareholder value.
I see leadership qualities in people who are able to make clear decisions, even when they don’t have all the information, the ability to take in new information and adjust the plan as needed, take responsibility, own mistakes, and hire the right people to help them succeed.
The type of person who should avoid becoming an executive are ironically the people most likely to aspire to become executives: egocentrics.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- There’s no right way, only the easier way. Someone once told me that getting an MBA is like paying $200K for business friends, or something along those lines. It’s a great way to get good jobs, but it’s not the only way. I went my own way, and frankly I’m damn proud of myself for it.
- Build an “FU” fund. Have a substantial safety net to fall back on. Take some portion of each paycheck and sock it away. We’ve all been in those roles that you think might kill you. You get the Sunday scaries, you can’t sleep — and in my case — you start to have panic attacks. Don’t put your whole life in the hands of a company who isn’t obligated to care about people at all. Some do, but spoiler alert, it’s not a requirement in capitalism. I have been able to walk away from jobs without having a new one lined up and my safety net is the reason.
- Know your worth. Use as many tools as you can to pull data about what your compensation package should be, and if you don’t get it, go back and read #2 again. I think this is why there is such a movement around “quiet quitting” right now. When you give someone more and more responsibility, and you don’t adjust their compensation, you can literally get what you pay for. Companies need to do better.
- Find your champion. Having someone in your corner internally can go either way. We’ve all had those experiences where you are aligned with the wrong person and as soon as they are gone, you are gone too. If you have someone externally who you always rely on as a reference, a sounding board or a mentor, you will be set.
- Pick your battles & set boundaries. You are only one person and you can only accomplish so much in a day. Don’t waste your time or energy picking battles that you don’t need to fight. Find the one or two initiatives that are truly important to you and learn to let the other things slide. You will be happier and it will help you streamline and focus on the important things. It’s important to defend your energy so you can do your best work.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Send the elevator back down. I have encountered this underlying belief that just because you struggled to get where you are, others should have to face the same struggle, without any shortcuts. That is total BS. Our socioeconomic system is built around an immense amount of privilege, and shortcuts and nepotism are the epitome of privilege.
Let’s level the playing field. I challenge anyone who is hiring and building a team to send the elevator back down and recruit people who maybe didn’t go to an ivy-league school or work for a prestige company. Once those people are in, they will, in turn, open up avenues for people in their network. It’s a force multiplier to create job opportunities for those who need it most while diversifying the backgrounds of employees and cultures of companies.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them
Hands down, I would LOVE to chat with Glennon Doyle. I find her so refreshingly honest. She is exactly who I want to spend time with at this stage in my life. That is saying a lot, because I am an introvert and there are very few people that I actually derive joy out of being around.
My favorite thing about Glennon is that she has an incredible platform but doesn’t use it in the way people typically do in her situation. She doesn’t say, hey I’ve figured it all out, here’s how to be awesome just like me. She is clearly still on her journey, which is truthful and honest.
We never arrive at a place where we have it all figured out and that is totally ok! It’s supposed to be that way if you are doing things right.
I am continuously on a quest for self-improvement. I am in a constant state of curiosity about how and where I fit in the world around me. Maybe it’s because I see so much of myself in how Glennon thinks and approaches life. When I listen to her podcast, “We can do Hard Things,” I feel seen.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Women Of The C-Suite: Erica Hennes On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Senior Executive was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.