June 12, 2019 • 31 mins
Re-entering the workforce after time off to raise a family is not easy. Podcast creator + Host of The 43 Percent, Claudia Reuter, is committed to sharing more stories of what success can look like for women in business as they work to balance family and career.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Even when I had stepped out of the workforce, I
was still constantly trying to learn new things. And I
joined a board of directors for a local library and
learned about how that worked, and would take any kind
of if there was a online course or something available. Always,
you know, just always hungry for learning because that keeps
your skills up to date. Certainly, if you just sit
(00:21):
back and go stagnant, then that is going to lead
to more confidence issues and problems. But if you can
keep your skills up to date, I think there's a
lot of opportunities out there. Thanks for joining us on
the podcast where we talk about all things change, major shifts,
like transformations. I'm Lisa Oz and I'm Jill Herzig, and
we're talking today about a transition that hits so many women,
(00:45):
which is you are maybe out there working, you are
likely out there working. Then family, Then family happens, and
what does that do with do to your work life?
How do you keep your work life on track? How
do you deal with the terrific sense of conflict. I mean,
I don't know about you, Lisa, but I felt like
(01:08):
the second I had children, even just getting pregnant, it
just reframed everything for me. Did you even take an
hour off because you're super woman? I know, you gave
birth to the baby up in one arm and then
ran back into the office. No, I definitely. I actually
had longer leaves than most people. I was super lucky.
I was just in a position where I could, you know, well, actually,
(01:29):
this is it's a little bit an interesting story. I
got pregnant and was working for a magazine and it
folded when I was six months along. So then I
moved to another magazine and I worked till the bitter
end of my pregnancy there. But I intentionally did not
set up a staff job so that I could take
six months off with Julia, my first. So I had
(01:51):
a six monthly, which really helped me work through the
storm of emotions and um, you know, just basically. And
then I had four months off with my second, but
I did not you know, I took my leaves and
that was it. And I do recall distinctly the day
before I had Julia, I was doing a conference call
(02:12):
with the writer and I was actually lying down under
my desk, which by that point in my pregnancy felt normal.
I was like, you know, and it's more comfortable down here,
So I think I'll just I'll just take a little
lie down while I've talked to Stephen about his peace. Anyway,
I digress. We want to get to our guests to
helps helps women navigate the this time of great g Yes.
(02:35):
Our our guest today is the host of The Fort,
which is a new podcast which explores this exact area.
She's Claudia Reuter. Claudia, thanks so much for joining us today.
Thanks so much for having me. So the title when
I first saw I was like, what what does that
refer to? And um, what are you seeking to explore
(02:58):
through the conversations on this podcast? Yeah? So I um
so for of women right now still do take time off,
whether it's maternity leave or longer or a complete step out.
But I started thinking about the fact um that many
of the women I've hired over the years in my career,
the women I've worked with, we've all encountered different challenges
(03:19):
when it comes to figuring out how to balance career
and family. And there still seems to be a thread
that everything is binary, that there's this ladder that you
climb if you want to stay on the career path,
and there's another set of options if you choose to
stay at home. And so I really wanted to start
to explore other stories and let especially younger women here
(03:40):
that whether you're staying in and leaning in ad and
ten percent the whole time with foot on the gas,
or if you need to take a step out, that
that doesn't preclude you from having success. And so I've
really just started to interview women across the whole number
of different industries, not just women in tech or women
and one industry another, but women across you hord, doctors, lawyers, CEOs,
(04:03):
and just let them share their stories and help people
see sort of the messiness and blurry nous of all
this stuff. So it's been a pretty fun experience so far,
but really just helping people see and hear other examples
of what's possible. Okay, so I'm gonna make you I'm
not really a numbers of person, So I'm gonna make
you go back and really define the for us. So
(04:23):
of women are leaving the workforce after they have kids.
Is that? Is that what we're talking about? Yeah? So
one of the obviously everyone's familiar with the book Lean
In by Sheryl Sandberg, and it's really such a great
manifesto to encourage women and society to think about how
to support women along their career paths and how do
we get more women into leadership positions. And then in
(04:46):
that book, I realized as I was reading it that, um,
you know, there's there's a stat out there that of
women do step out, and that might I'm not sure
if that means they step out forever, or if they
step out for sick weeks or they step out for
a year, but there is a moment in time where
people feel that, you know, there seems to be a
(05:08):
high number of women who still don't. It's not like
you just come in and say, Okay, I'm gonna work
for the next thirty years and I'll take a three
week break when I have kids and then go right
back to it. That the fact that that stat does
come up as a big number. I think there was
also an article in The Atlantic a few years ago.
I'm pointing to that statistic um and even right now,
(05:29):
as millennial women are coming up, I think it's like
a million a year. I read and one of the
articles are stepping out of the workport force at some point,
and people are doing it for different reasons, right there's
the traditional idea we think of sometimes as the mom
who's in a married, you know, family, and is in
the financial position to step out. And then there's different
(05:51):
challenges for women who maybe are single moms not making
an income that allows them to have to pay for
care um, and so that becomes more affordable to actually
stay home. So there's just a wide range of experiences,
and I felt like the different stories that were out
there just weren't getting told, and instead we're kind of hearing, well,
(06:12):
if you take the traditional path and you end up
with an m b a. Or a law degree, here
are the five things you can do. And I really
wanted people to hear really the wide range of experiences
that are out there. What's the biggest lesson you've learned
from doing this podcast And is there a piece of
golden advice that you've gotten from one of your guests
so far. I Mean, what's been astonishing to me is
(06:33):
hearing over and over again the things that are similar.
I mean, at the end of the day, everyone's just
doing their best. They're trying, everyone's trying to do a
good job at work. Everyone no one's trying to do
something wrong, right, Everyone's trying to be good at their job.
Everyone's trying to be a good parent, and um, people
are making the choices that make the most sense for them.
But a theme that I keep hearing coming up, especially
(06:55):
from people from women who are on the other side
of it, who maybe now are you know, edging towards
retirement or further along. They kind of say things along
the lines of, hey, you know, don't be worried. If
I had to go back in time, I wouldn't spend
so much time judging myself for being anxious about what
could happen. Um that there seems to be a sense
(07:17):
of look, in the end, you know, things, things tend
to work themselves out. M hmm. It's so easy to say, though,
I mean, when you're in the throes of it, I've
you know, I've managed so many women. I've gone through
this myself. I feel like both of us have counseled
you know, lots of people at the stage of life
where at but those words, you know, when you are
in it and you have a tiny baby or or
(07:39):
an older kid, the sense okay, it's all going to
work out. But at three am, when you're doing a
feeding and you know you have to be you know,
back up and running at six thirty. God, the thoughts
can run around in your head. Oh yeah. And I
mean I remember when I was pregnant with my first
who is now sixteen, I had really terrible morning sickness.
(08:00):
So I was just throwing up all the time. I
lived in New York at the time, and I was
throwing up everywhere I went, it seemed. And I remember thinking,
how am I just going to do my job? Let alone,
you know, be apparent, and it just it is overwhelming
when you're going through it, and um, yeah, it's hard.
That's that's just so sometimes I think it's just helpful
(08:20):
for people to hear just other stories. So I'm interviewing
some people who are sort of on the other side
of it. I'm also interviewing people who are in the
thrones of it right now, in the thick of it,
so to speak, and are they honest about just the
complete mess of it? Sometimes? Oh yeah. And I think
one of the other themes that comes up is one
of the big challenges for people beyond even the baby years.
(08:41):
It's just simply logistics, I mean logistics of daycare or
pick up and drop off, and it sounds um like
it's not that challenging, but it is. It really is.
And then when you throw in you're trying to step
into your career, lean into your career, and maybe a
meeting is called four in the afternoon, and that's actually
when there's transitions happening school and home and all that stuff. Um. Yeah, people,
(09:06):
I think people feel conflicted about where where the right
decisions are and everyone everyone treats it a little differently.
So I know for both me and Ngel, and I
would assume for you and for most of the women
that you're interviewing, they're only able two take time off
and then go back to work because another woman is
stepping in to help with their home life, whether it's
(09:29):
taking care of the kids or um those women also
have family. So do you ever interview someone who's maybe
in the service industry who's not on a hype, not
a doctor or a lawyer, a tech mobile, somebody who
is actually supporting the rest of us, you know what
I mean? I haven't, Yeah, but I think it's a
great idea because there there is, and we've talked about this,
(09:53):
that idea that you know, somebody is there taking care
of kids. I have interviewed, um, someone who's a teacher
and someone else who um was a children's librarian. Uh,
and you know their perspective on really feeling connected to
the working family as part of their their job as well.
But I think that's a great idea to actually go
(10:14):
back an interview and I don't caregiver yes, all right,
when we come back, we're going to talk more about
your Okay, sure. Before the break, we we're chatting with
Audio Reuter about her new podcast, The Fort. But I
(10:38):
think part of what inspired you to do the podcast
is your own experience, which was you, we're working, then
you took time off, and then you came back and
you launched your own tech firm. So how do you
go from from being a stay at home mom to
being a founder? Actually, it's one of the things I
think a lot of I think there's a big opportunit
(11:00):
unity for women to think about getting more into entrepreneurship
as a way to lean into a career, especially if
you've taken time out. So I had. I had stepped
out of the workforce after I had my first child,
and then my second boy, uh, who's twenty three months younger.
I had him and then I was working on just
brainstorming all different ideas and I was feeling I was
(11:20):
actually feeling really creative at that stage of life also,
and started to realize that a lot of the experiences
I had as someone who I worked in tech for
an investment bank UM and sorted to realize that the
world of parenting where I was suddenly found myself UM
was pretty low tech at that point, and so I
started thinking about just different different things I wish I
(11:43):
had access to and started working on some business plans
and some ideas for you know, websites ideas and UM
started really exploring the idea of developing a baby book
for new moms to track development. UM. My husband was
is a software developer UM, so we were both technical,
and so he would brainstorm with me and UM basically
(12:06):
launched a site does pretty low cost at that point
to get something up and running. UM and started to
get attract a number of different users. But as I
was digging in and digging into it, started to realize
that there was probably a more deeper opportunity in the
education space. I started going to conferences UM and launched
(12:27):
a company, folks that was building the you know we
had assass solution for schools and education programs who were
working on accreditation and assessment, but all fundamentally the same
idea of how do I track what's happening in this environment.
So for me, starting now, I was thinking about how
do I check my baby's development? And that turned into
thinking about how to leverage software to check child development
(12:47):
in school and that led to, um, yeah, my pet
project got out of hand. I think of it well,
And that's what's so extraordinary. I think about your story
is that most people can barely get it together to
you know, put their pants on one leg at a
time and get back to a job that they were in.
You you know, dove head on into founding a tech company,
(13:12):
which people say is more than seven it's just an
explosively demanding it was to do. But I found I
found that one I could set my own I dictated
my own day, I could set my own meetings. I
could for in the beginning anyway, Um, so I felt
like I actually had control. I would actually bring my
kids along with me two different things early on. So,
(13:34):
I mean they came to the bank with me when
I was setting up my first account, and you know,
I'm giving them lollyfhabs and coloring books and um, so
they were good. Maybe that's why that's it. Yeah, that's
the that's so solution. So I was able to relate
and incorporate include them and a lot of my experiences
early on. Um, even some of the conferences I would
(13:57):
go to, you know. And also I should say I
have a really supportive family. I mean my in laws
and my parents. There were a number of people who
even if they weren't living nearby, there were just moments
where people would step in and um, so I was very,
very lucky to feel supported during the whole process. Typically
also were smart enough to ask for help. Seems like
(14:18):
it's one of the biggest stumbling points for women. It's
tough to ask for help, particularly with your kids. You
feel like I should be able to do everything. Yeah,
and I think you know it's um it is. It's
a balancing act for everyone, and you know, some people
have access to different resources. I was really fortunate to
my mother in law, um was someone who would come
(14:40):
by sometimes and she you know, if I called her
and said, hey, I have a meeting in New York,
she would be the first one to come over. Um.
And and try to help out. So your initial company,
which was Children a children's book, so we were we
were helping UM early education programs and then that led
(15:00):
into K twelve and higher ed. We're basically helping teachers
track what was happening in the classroom so they could
track UM how they were meeting key standards for accreditation.
They're certain accrediting bodies that they needed to demonstrate that
they had policies in place that allowed for strong communication
with families, or UM had a good curriculum in place,
(15:23):
So we gave them a software platform to track those
things so they could demonstrate that to the accrediting person
who would come in, and then it would also give
them the ability to track what was happening with each child,
so UM you could see was someone developing their fine
motor skills, where they developing, you know, things according to
(15:43):
whatever track they should be on, and it just gave
them a framework to do that. So it was essentially
an online portfolio, but that morphed into something in the
publishing world. Yeah, like I said, everything, So, so we
were we were first targeting and working with UM teachers
than that area in early childhood education, and then saw
that there was another opportunity, and a lot of our
(16:05):
customers brought us along on that journey because we realized
that a number of UM community colleges and universities that
had teacher preparation programs also had early childhood centers, so
there was some crossover there. And we realized that a
lot of the things we were tracking for young children,
while they weren't the same things you would track for
(16:27):
higher ed students, the software capabilities were very similar. So
that led into selling and working with higher education programs,
and then UM started working with started thinking about how
to go to the K twelve market, and that's when
I was lucky enough to meet some folks from home
MFF and hardcore. You kind of took off on that luck,
(16:48):
but it's very clear that you also are just an
idea machine and you have that entrepreneurial drive. So what's
what have you gotten from the fort That really applies
to women who don't necessarily have, you know, the startup
skills or the big idea or you know, to get
(17:09):
the ball roll and get them back, get them back
and feeling settled. I think you know, even if you're not,
you know, entrepreneurial and like the sense of your coming
up with a new product or new So there's always
a challenge, there's always an opportunity that people can address. UM.
Like one of the women I interviewed recently who I
found really inspiring, UM Aaron Alercon. She is She was
(17:34):
a partner at a law firm, very UM, math minded, uh,
logical of person and incredibly successful, and then her her
youngest son has autism, and she decided she knew she
needed to create a different working mechanics for her life
UM and created her own practice focused on mediation. So
(17:56):
it wasn't uh, you know, it's not a SAS startup
or a media company or something like that, but it
is her own business and it's based on skills that
she has and unique you know, unique qualifications that she has.
So I think there's this opportunity to think about how
to own your own your career path. UM. Even if
you don't feel that you're creative, I think everyone is creative.
(18:20):
How do you address the I think legitimate fears of
women who have left the workplace for several years and
then I feel like they've they're on a different track.
So the people that they were working with two or
three years ago or now vice presidenior vice presidents, and
they're going to be coming back in at at a
different level. I think that's one of the things I'm
(18:40):
most interested in is why people feel like they come
in at a lower level. I mean, I know that
if you've taken time out, you sometimes there is there's
things that you've missed right potentially, but if you keep
your skills up to date, you know, whatever the whatever
industry they're in. UM, I don't think it has to
be a step back. UM. I've just I've interviewed and
(19:02):
hired so many women over the years now who have
taken some time, some time out and then had this
big confidence gap where they'll say, well, I don't think
I'm qualified for anything anymore. I think I could just
get the coffee and I'm like, but I think that
they are they actually open with you that way. Do
they just sort of lay their cards on the table
and say, my my confidence is at rock bottom. Not
(19:23):
necessarily in an interview process with me, but for people
that I know who I've hired, some people that I've
known from other experiences, um or they've had shared these
types of things after I've hired them. Or in another circles,
and I just feel like, um, it seems like women
not to over generalize, but I see a pattern where
(19:44):
women will say I took some time off and I
no longer see how the things I was doing at
home relate. Therefore I'm somehow unqualified for all these other things.
And I, you know, I like to kind of stress
and walk back and say, Okay, but when you were home,
if that's what you did, were you doing any other things?
Were you working in volunteer situations where you managing tasks
(20:07):
at home? Where you you know, There's so many things
that go with caregiving that I think actually translate really
well to management that I like people to think about that,
because I mean, I personally think my job with with
my kids is not to be command and control or
make them a certain way of my job is to
help kind of find what's what's best for them and
(20:30):
help them on their path. And that's I feel like
I end up doing the same thing with people that
work for me, is how can I help you on
your career path, you know, and find the next place
for you. When we come back, I'm going to talk
more about the people work for you before the break,
(20:55):
we were talking with Claudia Reuter about starting her own
tech from UM, you are now with tech Stars, managing
director of tech Stars, so you have you're helping other
people do what you did. Yes, UM, and it's tex Stars.
I looked it up. It's a seed accelerator. I'm not
(21:16):
in the tech world to already have any idea what
exceed accelerator risk and you. Tex Stars is an amazing
place to work and tex Stars is known as like
the worldwidewide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Basically, when you're
starting a company, as you know it's it can be
a very lonely road in the beginning, especially before you
(21:36):
really have capital in a way to move your business forward. UM.
And what the founders of tech Stars realized about ten
years ago was that if you could provide the right ingredients,
if you could provide some capital, if you could also
provide mentorship UM and access to people who have kind
of been there, done that you could Their thesis was
that you could increase the odds of success for a
(21:58):
startup UM, because many startups just disappear right over time
and so UM. The idea was to create an accelerator
where you bring a company in. We bring in ten
companies at a time and make an investment in them.
We invest up to a hundred and twenty dollars and
then surround them with high quality mentors, so people ranging
(22:20):
from academics to business folks to engineering experts, and UM
really help them hone in on Okay, what are they
trying to do with their business? Can we consolidate the
two years of early stage K and struggle and try
to push that into thirteen weeks and really, um, get
to the core of what would make this company work
(22:42):
and really be successful. UM. And I'm assuming you work
with a lot of women and and are you sort
of biased because of your own experience towards women who
are kind of transitioning out of maybe time that they
spend at home or majornity leaves something like this. I mean,
I don't think I'm biased towards women. I definitely, UM.
I think I'm very open to everyone coming in, and
(23:05):
I'm sort of different, do you think from the attitude,
because that's that's not what I'm hearing is out there.
But I think open arms and lots of support for women,
you know who want to start up something in tech. Yeah,
I think I think there's a lot of unconscious bias
out there that and if you look at the stats,
I mean, the number of women who are able to
(23:25):
raise venture capital just is nowhere near the number of
men UM, and so that's one thing that's been I
was really UM excited to join tech Stars because they
are making a statement about UM making sure that they
evolve and become more inclusive and UM I'm one of
other many other managing directors they've brought on in the
(23:46):
last few years who are women UM and it's it's
a really great opportunity we also work with UM. I
mean I have a very specific focus right now from
my accelerator, I'm actually looking for to make investments and
companies for working in emerging technologies UM in the additive
manufacturing and sustainable tech space for packaging. What is additive
(24:09):
manufacturing it's three D printing, three D printing four which UM,
if you're familiar with it was like it came out
with three D printing, I understand additive manufacturing. It's basically
three D printing for the industrial space. So three D
printing at scale and UM it's not something anyone has
really figured out yet so there's a lot of opportunity there.
(24:31):
Can you print cars, you you can print UM. There's
different types of three D printing printing technologies out there
or systems ranging from three D printing ceramics to three
D printing metal to three D printing different types of
material UM. And so people are really looking at how
do they move from prototyping into things that are actually
(24:53):
part of the commercial life style. So people are looking
at three D printing parts for cars UM, and there's
all sorts of interest challenges to think about because UM,
for example, if you're three D printing metal, which everyone
is excited about because that could go into planes and
machines and all sorts of stuff, UM, there can sometimes
be a prosity issue or and so you have to
(25:14):
worry about how how strong that part is. So we're
really you know, it's this really unique time period to
really meet the starting that there are a lot of
women in that space. Well, what's really what was really
exciting to me this year in particular, we just closed
our applications UM for our second year. I had actually
a much higher percentage of women applicants than I expected
(25:37):
to have. Looking like I looked at sort of my
initial pipeline and looked at the different companies that were
out there, and then was really pleasantly surprised by the
number of women founders who've niflying. So I'm super excited
about it. Yeah, so weird question. As an employer, not
necessarily someone in tech, but someone who hires people. If
you have jil you were in a situation too. You
(25:59):
have a woman leave to go have kids. You'd have
to hire perhaps another woman to work for those two years,
and then the woman who had the kids wants to
come back. What do you do? You can't fire the
woman that you brought in because my experience we never
you just keep everyone. No, no, no. We had fill
ins if we could afford it. For you know, the
(26:20):
three monthly that it's not a three monthly. You took
two years off. But I mean, but I had formally
quit at that point. And that's and that's the uphill battle.
I think that's king back in IF. What you're trying
to talk about is it's so hard the doors do close,
I think rather firmly. And you know, one piece of
(26:41):
advice that I used to give to women who worked
for me and went out on maternity leave was number one.
I quietly, behind the scenes worked out special deals for
them coming back because I knew how hard it was
going to be. And I saw in the first three
months that we three to six months, we would often
lose people. They'd come back and they just could not
(27:03):
deal with conflicted feelings. And we put so much effort
at a time into them. And I love them as people.
I mean, I'm not going to pretend it wasn't emotional
for me. Um and I just wanted them back so badly,
So I would often say to them, you know, just
between the two of us, you do what you have
(27:23):
to do. FaceTime is not that important to me. And
when you come back, we'll say you're back five days.
Don't come back five days, come back, four days, come back,
half days. You know, don't come back in a way
that is going to break your heart, because you will
eventually leave this company if it breaks your heart to
(27:44):
be here. And so we you know, we tried to
work out every side deal that we could, but we
still lost some people. And and I think that one
of the things that I've come away with is is
just trying to help women dealing with this really multuous
time by telling them try to take the long view,
(28:05):
try to see this as something that will not last.
And I think this goes back to back to what
you were saying at the beginning, Like you, it will
only feel this hard for a short, relatively short in
the scheme of things period of time, and you know
your perspective will change so dramatically. I don't know, because
(28:26):
I was listening to your podcasts and one of your
guest was talking about how she left work when her
child was in middle school, right, and so there's a
whole different set of needs that your child has as
they get older. So I don't know that it will.
I don't know that at all. Actually is that that's
a piece of advice that someone gave me that was
incredible when my kids were tiny and I was feeling
(28:48):
all the fields I'm talking about now, and she said,
you know, you look at little, tiny kids and you
think they need you so much, and how could you
possibly be withdrawing yourself, you know, daily to go to work.
You ain't seen nothing yet your kids. You may find
at the time when you need to step take a
step out from work, is middle school or high school,
(29:10):
or when they're getting ready to go to college. You
don't know when they will need you most. And in
some ways, babies needs are the easiest to fill. Um.
I mean, obviously you're the mom, and you're going to
be there, you know, the vast majority of the time.
But so, I mean, I think it's so interesting that
you you give people like you empower people to feel
that way and to feel because I think that's a
(29:32):
big part of it too, is just feeling safe at
work and feeling that you know you're in a safe
place to have feelings and explore all these different things. Um.
But yeah, I think everybody's different, I think, and Linda
was a great example of someone who was i mean
just leaning in like to no end, and leaned out
for three years and then came back in and she
(29:52):
was super successful. She's worked incredible companies and and so
I just think every every journey is different, and every
personal story is different. And so, um, I just hope
that whether like I said, whether someone stays in for
thirty years and never looks up, or you know, people
weave in and out, that they don't feel that weaving
(30:14):
out for a little while meant there somehow not as
valued or not as and I think, you know, one
of the other folks I was interviewing, Susan mc salmon,
who works on child development issues. You know, she brought
up that she thinks part of the challenge here is
that we as a society don't place enough value on
child care. And if we placed more value on that,
(30:35):
you know, like when people were up until I think
just over a hundred years ago, um, there was no
such thing as an O, B, G Y N. Right.
That was formally it was mostly women in the room
when you were having the baby. And then it became
a position that you would be educated for and go
to school for, and you became highly paid for and
highly compensated for, and then it became a predominantly male
(30:59):
And so I think maybe there's an opportunity to think
about how how do we put more value on childcare
so that it's a field that warrants higher pay and
warrants um different types of people entering it as a field.
Something to be exploring. Glaudia, thank you so much for
being with us today. Thank you for having me. If
(31:21):
you want to know more about Claudia, check out her
podcast The forty three. Yes it is so cool. Thank
you so much for joining us, Thank you, thanks everyone listening,
and thanks to our producer Alicia Heywood. And we'll be
back with you all next time.
Even when I had stepped out of the workforce, I
was still constantly trying to learn new things. And I
joined a board of directors for a local library and
learned about how that worked, and would take any kind
of if there was a online course or something available. Always,
you know, just always hungry for learning because that keeps
your skills up to date. Certainly, if you just sit
(00:21):
back and go stagnant, then that is going to lead
to more confidence issues and problems. But if you can
keep your skills up to date, I think there's a
lot of opportunities out there. Thanks for joining us on
the podcast where we talk about all things change, major shifts,
like transformations. I'm Lisa Oz and I'm Jill Herzig, and
we're talking today about a transition that hits so many women,
(00:45):
which is you are maybe out there working, you are
likely out there working. Then family, Then family happens, and
what does that do with do to your work life?
How do you keep your work life on track? How
do you deal with the terrific sense of conflict. I mean,
I don't know about you, Lisa, but I felt like
(01:08):
the second I had children, even just getting pregnant, it
just reframed everything for me. Did you even take an
hour off because you're super woman? I know, you gave
birth to the baby up in one arm and then
ran back into the office. No, I definitely. I actually
had longer leaves than most people. I was super lucky.
I was just in a position where I could, you know, well, actually,
(01:29):
this is it's a little bit an interesting story. I
got pregnant and was working for a magazine and it
folded when I was six months along. So then I
moved to another magazine and I worked till the bitter
end of my pregnancy there. But I intentionally did not
set up a staff job so that I could take
six months off with Julia, my first. So I had
(01:51):
a six monthly, which really helped me work through the
storm of emotions and um, you know, just basically. And
then I had four months off with my second, but
I did not you know, I took my leaves and
that was it. And I do recall distinctly the day
before I had Julia, I was doing a conference call
(02:12):
with the writer and I was actually lying down under
my desk, which by that point in my pregnancy felt normal.
I was like, you know, and it's more comfortable down here,
So I think I'll just I'll just take a little
lie down while I've talked to Stephen about his peace. Anyway,
I digress. We want to get to our guests to
helps helps women navigate the this time of great g Yes.
(02:35):
Our our guest today is the host of The Fort,
which is a new podcast which explores this exact area.
She's Claudia Reuter. Claudia, thanks so much for joining us today.
Thanks so much for having me. So the title when
I first saw I was like, what what does that
refer to? And um, what are you seeking to explore
(02:58):
through the conversations on this podcast? Yeah? So I um
so for of women right now still do take time off,
whether it's maternity leave or longer or a complete step out.
But I started thinking about the fact um that many
of the women I've hired over the years in my career,
the women I've worked with, we've all encountered different challenges
(03:19):
when it comes to figuring out how to balance career
and family. And there still seems to be a thread
that everything is binary, that there's this ladder that you
climb if you want to stay on the career path,
and there's another set of options if you choose to
stay at home. And so I really wanted to start
to explore other stories and let especially younger women here
(03:40):
that whether you're staying in and leaning in ad and
ten percent the whole time with foot on the gas,
or if you need to take a step out, that
that doesn't preclude you from having success. And so I've
really just started to interview women across the whole number
of different industries, not just women in tech or women
and one industry another, but women across you hord, doctors, lawyers, CEOs,
(04:03):
and just let them share their stories and help people
see sort of the messiness and blurry nous of all
this stuff. So it's been a pretty fun experience so far,
but really just helping people see and hear other examples
of what's possible. Okay, so I'm gonna make you I'm
not really a numbers of person, So I'm gonna make
you go back and really define the for us. So
(04:23):
of women are leaving the workforce after they have kids.
Is that? Is that what we're talking about? Yeah? So
one of the obviously everyone's familiar with the book Lean
In by Sheryl Sandberg, and it's really such a great
manifesto to encourage women and society to think about how
to support women along their career paths and how do
we get more women into leadership positions. And then in
(04:46):
that book, I realized as I was reading it that, um,
you know, there's there's a stat out there that of
women do step out, and that might I'm not sure
if that means they step out forever, or if they
step out for sick weeks or they step out for
a year, but there is a moment in time where
people feel that, you know, there seems to be a
(05:08):
high number of women who still don't. It's not like
you just come in and say, Okay, I'm gonna work
for the next thirty years and I'll take a three
week break when I have kids and then go right
back to it. That the fact that that stat does
come up as a big number. I think there was
also an article in The Atlantic a few years ago.
I'm pointing to that statistic um and even right now,
(05:29):
as millennial women are coming up, I think it's like
a million a year. I read and one of the
articles are stepping out of the workport force at some point,
and people are doing it for different reasons, right there's
the traditional idea we think of sometimes as the mom
who's in a married, you know, family, and is in
the financial position to step out. And then there's different
(05:51):
challenges for women who maybe are single moms not making
an income that allows them to have to pay for
care um, and so that becomes more affordable to actually
stay home. So there's just a wide range of experiences,
and I felt like the different stories that were out
there just weren't getting told, and instead we're kind of hearing, well,
(06:12):
if you take the traditional path and you end up
with an m b a. Or a law degree, here
are the five things you can do. And I really
wanted people to hear really the wide range of experiences
that are out there. What's the biggest lesson you've learned
from doing this podcast And is there a piece of
golden advice that you've gotten from one of your guests
so far. I Mean, what's been astonishing to me is
(06:33):
hearing over and over again the things that are similar.
I mean, at the end of the day, everyone's just
doing their best. They're trying, everyone's trying to do a
good job at work. Everyone no one's trying to do
something wrong, right, Everyone's trying to be good at their job.
Everyone's trying to be a good parent, and um, people
are making the choices that make the most sense for them.
But a theme that I keep hearing coming up, especially
(06:55):
from people from women who are on the other side
of it, who maybe now are you know, edging towards
retirement or further along. They kind of say things along
the lines of, hey, you know, don't be worried. If
I had to go back in time, I wouldn't spend
so much time judging myself for being anxious about what
could happen. Um that there seems to be a sense
(07:17):
of look, in the end, you know, things, things tend
to work themselves out. M hmm. It's so easy to say, though,
I mean, when you're in the throes of it, I've
you know, I've managed so many women. I've gone through
this myself. I feel like both of us have counseled
you know, lots of people at the stage of life
where at but those words, you know, when you are
in it and you have a tiny baby or or
(07:39):
an older kid, the sense okay, it's all going to
work out. But at three am, when you're doing a
feeding and you know you have to be you know,
back up and running at six thirty. God, the thoughts
can run around in your head. Oh yeah. And I
mean I remember when I was pregnant with my first
who is now sixteen, I had really terrible morning sickness.
(08:00):
So I was just throwing up all the time. I
lived in New York at the time, and I was
throwing up everywhere I went, it seemed. And I remember thinking,
how am I just going to do my job? Let alone,
you know, be apparent, and it just it is overwhelming
when you're going through it, and um, yeah, it's hard.
That's that's just so sometimes I think it's just helpful
(08:20):
for people to hear just other stories. So I'm interviewing
some people who are sort of on the other side
of it. I'm also interviewing people who are in the
thrones of it right now, in the thick of it,
so to speak, and are they honest about just the
complete mess of it? Sometimes? Oh yeah. And I think
one of the other themes that comes up is one
of the big challenges for people beyond even the baby years.
(08:41):
It's just simply logistics, I mean logistics of daycare or
pick up and drop off, and it sounds um like
it's not that challenging, but it is. It really is.
And then when you throw in you're trying to step
into your career, lean into your career, and maybe a
meeting is called four in the afternoon, and that's actually
when there's transitions happening school and home and all that stuff. Um. Yeah, people,
(09:06):
I think people feel conflicted about where where the right
decisions are and everyone everyone treats it a little differently.
So I know for both me and Ngel, and I
would assume for you and for most of the women
that you're interviewing, they're only able two take time off
and then go back to work because another woman is
stepping in to help with their home life, whether it's
(09:29):
taking care of the kids or um those women also
have family. So do you ever interview someone who's maybe
in the service industry who's not on a hype, not
a doctor or a lawyer, a tech mobile, somebody who
is actually supporting the rest of us, you know what
I mean? I haven't, Yeah, but I think it's a
great idea because there there is, and we've talked about this,
(09:53):
that idea that you know, somebody is there taking care
of kids. I have interviewed, um, someone who's a teacher
and someone else who um was a children's librarian. Uh,
and you know their perspective on really feeling connected to
the working family as part of their their job as well.
But I think that's a great idea to actually go
(10:14):
back an interview and I don't caregiver yes, all right,
when we come back, we're going to talk more about
your Okay, sure. Before the break, we we're chatting with
Audio Reuter about her new podcast, The Fort. But I
(10:38):
think part of what inspired you to do the podcast
is your own experience, which was you, we're working, then
you took time off, and then you came back and
you launched your own tech firm. So how do you
go from from being a stay at home mom to
being a founder? Actually, it's one of the things I
think a lot of I think there's a big opportunit
(11:00):
unity for women to think about getting more into entrepreneurship
as a way to lean into a career, especially if
you've taken time out. So I had. I had stepped
out of the workforce after I had my first child,
and then my second boy, uh, who's twenty three months younger.
I had him and then I was working on just
brainstorming all different ideas and I was feeling I was
(11:20):
actually feeling really creative at that stage of life also,
and started to realize that a lot of the experiences
I had as someone who I worked in tech for
an investment bank UM and sorted to realize that the
world of parenting where I was suddenly found myself UM
was pretty low tech at that point, and so I
started thinking about just different different things I wish I
(11:43):
had access to and started working on some business plans
and some ideas for you know, websites ideas and UM
started really exploring the idea of developing a baby book
for new moms to track development. UM. My husband was
is a software developer UM, so we were both technical,
and so he would brainstorm with me and UM basically
(12:06):
launched a site does pretty low cost at that point
to get something up and running. UM and started to
get attract a number of different users. But as I
was digging in and digging into it, started to realize
that there was probably a more deeper opportunity in the
education space. I started going to conferences UM and launched
(12:27):
a company, folks that was building the you know we
had assass solution for schools and education programs who were
working on accreditation and assessment, but all fundamentally the same
idea of how do I track what's happening in this environment.
So for me, starting now, I was thinking about how
do I check my baby's development? And that turned into
thinking about how to leverage software to check child development
(12:47):
in school and that led to, um, yeah, my pet
project got out of hand. I think of it well,
And that's what's so extraordinary. I think about your story
is that most people can barely get it together to
you know, put their pants on one leg at a
time and get back to a job that they were in.
You you know, dove head on into founding a tech company,
(13:12):
which people say is more than seven it's just an
explosively demanding it was to do. But I found I
found that one I could set my own I dictated
my own day, I could set my own meetings. I
could for in the beginning anyway, Um, so I felt
like I actually had control. I would actually bring my
kids along with me two different things early on. So,
(13:34):
I mean they came to the bank with me when
I was setting up my first account, and you know,
I'm giving them lollyfhabs and coloring books and um, so
they were good. Maybe that's why that's it. Yeah, that's
the that's so solution. So I was able to relate
and incorporate include them and a lot of my experiences
early on. Um, even some of the conferences I would
(13:57):
go to, you know. And also I should say I
have a really supportive family. I mean my in laws
and my parents. There were a number of people who
even if they weren't living nearby, there were just moments
where people would step in and um, so I was very,
very lucky to feel supported during the whole process. Typically
also were smart enough to ask for help. Seems like
(14:18):
it's one of the biggest stumbling points for women. It's
tough to ask for help, particularly with your kids. You
feel like I should be able to do everything. Yeah,
and I think you know it's um it is. It's
a balancing act for everyone, and you know, some people
have access to different resources. I was really fortunate to
my mother in law, um was someone who would come
(14:40):
by sometimes and she you know, if I called her
and said, hey, I have a meeting in New York,
she would be the first one to come over. Um.
And and try to help out. So your initial company,
which was Children a children's book, so we were we
were helping UM early education programs and then that led
(15:00):
into K twelve and higher ed. We're basically helping teachers
track what was happening in the classroom so they could
track UM how they were meeting key standards for accreditation.
They're certain accrediting bodies that they needed to demonstrate that
they had policies in place that allowed for strong communication
with families, or UM had a good curriculum in place,
(15:23):
So we gave them a software platform to track those
things so they could demonstrate that to the accrediting person
who would come in, and then it would also give
them the ability to track what was happening with each child,
so UM you could see was someone developing their fine
motor skills, where they developing, you know, things according to
(15:43):
whatever track they should be on, and it just gave
them a framework to do that. So it was essentially
an online portfolio, but that morphed into something in the
publishing world. Yeah, like I said, everything, So, so we
were we were first targeting and working with UM teachers
than that area in early childhood education, and then saw
that there was another opportunity, and a lot of our
(16:05):
customers brought us along on that journey because we realized
that a number of UM community colleges and universities that
had teacher preparation programs also had early childhood centers, so
there was some crossover there. And we realized that a
lot of the things we were tracking for young children,
while they weren't the same things you would track for
(16:27):
higher ed students, the software capabilities were very similar. So
that led into selling and working with higher education programs,
and then UM started working with started thinking about how
to go to the K twelve market, and that's when
I was lucky enough to meet some folks from home
MFF and hardcore. You kind of took off on that luck,
(16:48):
but it's very clear that you also are just an
idea machine and you have that entrepreneurial drive. So what's
what have you gotten from the fort That really applies
to women who don't necessarily have, you know, the startup
skills or the big idea or you know, to get
(17:09):
the ball roll and get them back, get them back
and feeling settled. I think you know, even if you're not,
you know, entrepreneurial and like the sense of your coming
up with a new product or new So there's always
a challenge, there's always an opportunity that people can address. UM.
Like one of the women I interviewed recently who I
found really inspiring, UM Aaron Alercon. She is She was
(17:34):
a partner at a law firm, very UM, math minded, uh,
logical of person and incredibly successful, and then her her
youngest son has autism, and she decided she knew she
needed to create a different working mechanics for her life
UM and created her own practice focused on mediation. So
(17:56):
it wasn't uh, you know, it's not a SAS startup
or a media company or something like that, but it
is her own business and it's based on skills that
she has and unique you know, unique qualifications that she has.
So I think there's this opportunity to think about how
to own your own your career path. UM. Even if
you don't feel that you're creative, I think everyone is creative.
(18:20):
How do you address the I think legitimate fears of
women who have left the workplace for several years and
then I feel like they've they're on a different track.
So the people that they were working with two or
three years ago or now vice presidenior vice presidents, and
they're going to be coming back in at at a
different level. I think that's one of the things I'm
(18:40):
most interested in is why people feel like they come
in at a lower level. I mean, I know that
if you've taken time out, you sometimes there is there's
things that you've missed right potentially, but if you keep
your skills up to date, you know, whatever the whatever
industry they're in. UM, I don't think it has to
be a step back. UM. I've just I've interviewed and
(19:02):
hired so many women over the years now who have
taken some time, some time out and then had this
big confidence gap where they'll say, well, I don't think
I'm qualified for anything anymore. I think I could just
get the coffee and I'm like, but I think that
they are they actually open with you that way. Do
they just sort of lay their cards on the table
and say, my my confidence is at rock bottom. Not
(19:23):
necessarily in an interview process with me, but for people
that I know who I've hired, some people that I've
known from other experiences, um or they've had shared these
types of things after I've hired them. Or in another circles,
and I just feel like, um, it seems like women
not to over generalize, but I see a pattern where
(19:44):
women will say I took some time off and I
no longer see how the things I was doing at
home relate. Therefore I'm somehow unqualified for all these other things.
And I, you know, I like to kind of stress
and walk back and say, Okay, but when you were home,
if that's what you did, were you doing any other things?
Were you working in volunteer situations where you managing tasks
(20:07):
at home? Where you you know, There's so many things
that go with caregiving that I think actually translate really
well to management that I like people to think about that,
because I mean, I personally think my job with with
my kids is not to be command and control or
make them a certain way of my job is to
help kind of find what's what's best for them and
(20:30):
help them on their path. And that's I feel like
I end up doing the same thing with people that
work for me, is how can I help you on
your career path, you know, and find the next place
for you. When we come back, I'm going to talk
more about the people work for you before the break,
(20:55):
we were talking with Claudia Reuter about starting her own
tech from UM, you are now with tech Stars, managing
director of tech Stars, so you have you're helping other
people do what you did. Yes, UM, and it's tex Stars.
I looked it up. It's a seed accelerator. I'm not
(21:16):
in the tech world to already have any idea what
exceed accelerator risk and you. Tex Stars is an amazing
place to work and tex Stars is known as like
the worldwidewide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Basically, when you're
starting a company, as you know it's it can be
a very lonely road in the beginning, especially before you
(21:36):
really have capital in a way to move your business forward. UM.
And what the founders of tech Stars realized about ten
years ago was that if you could provide the right ingredients,
if you could provide some capital, if you could also
provide mentorship UM and access to people who have kind
of been there, done that you could Their thesis was
that you could increase the odds of success for a
(21:58):
startup UM, because many startups just disappear right over time
and so UM. The idea was to create an accelerator
where you bring a company in. We bring in ten
companies at a time and make an investment in them.
We invest up to a hundred and twenty dollars and
then surround them with high quality mentors, so people ranging
(22:20):
from academics to business folks to engineering experts, and UM
really help them hone in on Okay, what are they
trying to do with their business? Can we consolidate the
two years of early stage K and struggle and try
to push that into thirteen weeks and really, um, get
to the core of what would make this company work
(22:42):
and really be successful. UM. And I'm assuming you work
with a lot of women and and are you sort
of biased because of your own experience towards women who
are kind of transitioning out of maybe time that they
spend at home or majornity leaves something like this. I mean,
I don't think I'm biased towards women. I definitely, UM.
I think I'm very open to everyone coming in, and
(23:05):
I'm sort of different, do you think from the attitude,
because that's that's not what I'm hearing is out there.
But I think open arms and lots of support for women,
you know who want to start up something in tech. Yeah,
I think I think there's a lot of unconscious bias
out there that and if you look at the stats,
I mean, the number of women who are able to
(23:25):
raise venture capital just is nowhere near the number of
men UM, and so that's one thing that's been I
was really UM excited to join tech Stars because they
are making a statement about UM making sure that they
evolve and become more inclusive and UM I'm one of
other many other managing directors they've brought on in the
(23:46):
last few years who are women UM and it's it's
a really great opportunity we also work with UM. I
mean I have a very specific focus right now from
my accelerator, I'm actually looking for to make investments and
companies for working in emerging technologies UM in the additive
manufacturing and sustainable tech space for packaging. What is additive
(24:09):
manufacturing it's three D printing, three D printing four which UM,
if you're familiar with it was like it came out
with three D printing, I understand additive manufacturing. It's basically
three D printing for the industrial space. So three D
printing at scale and UM it's not something anyone has
really figured out yet so there's a lot of opportunity there.
(24:31):
Can you print cars, you you can print UM. There's
different types of three D printing printing technologies out there
or systems ranging from three D printing ceramics to three
D printing metal to three D printing different types of
material UM. And so people are really looking at how
do they move from prototyping into things that are actually
(24:53):
part of the commercial life style. So people are looking
at three D printing parts for cars UM, and there's
all sorts of interest challenges to think about because UM,
for example, if you're three D printing metal, which everyone
is excited about because that could go into planes and
machines and all sorts of stuff, UM, there can sometimes
be a prosity issue or and so you have to
(25:14):
worry about how how strong that part is. So we're
really you know, it's this really unique time period to
really meet the starting that there are a lot of
women in that space. Well, what's really what was really
exciting to me this year in particular, we just closed
our applications UM for our second year. I had actually
a much higher percentage of women applicants than I expected
(25:37):
to have. Looking like I looked at sort of my
initial pipeline and looked at the different companies that were
out there, and then was really pleasantly surprised by the
number of women founders who've niflying. So I'm super excited
about it. Yeah, so weird question. As an employer, not
necessarily someone in tech, but someone who hires people. If
you have jil you were in a situation too. You
(25:59):
have a woman leave to go have kids. You'd have
to hire perhaps another woman to work for those two years,
and then the woman who had the kids wants to
come back. What do you do? You can't fire the
woman that you brought in because my experience we never
you just keep everyone. No, no, no. We had fill
ins if we could afford it. For you know, the
(26:20):
three monthly that it's not a three monthly. You took
two years off. But I mean, but I had formally
quit at that point. And that's and that's the uphill battle.
I think that's king back in IF. What you're trying
to talk about is it's so hard the doors do close,
I think rather firmly. And you know, one piece of
(26:41):
advice that I used to give to women who worked
for me and went out on maternity leave was number one.
I quietly, behind the scenes worked out special deals for
them coming back because I knew how hard it was
going to be. And I saw in the first three
months that we three to six months, we would often
lose people. They'd come back and they just could not
(27:03):
deal with conflicted feelings. And we put so much effort
at a time into them. And I love them as people.
I mean, I'm not going to pretend it wasn't emotional
for me. Um and I just wanted them back so badly,
So I would often say to them, you know, just
between the two of us, you do what you have
(27:23):
to do. FaceTime is not that important to me. And
when you come back, we'll say you're back five days.
Don't come back five days, come back, four days, come back,
half days. You know, don't come back in a way
that is going to break your heart, because you will
eventually leave this company if it breaks your heart to
(27:44):
be here. And so we you know, we tried to
work out every side deal that we could, but we
still lost some people. And and I think that one
of the things that I've come away with is is
just trying to help women dealing with this really multuous
time by telling them try to take the long view,
(28:05):
try to see this as something that will not last.
And I think this goes back to back to what
you were saying at the beginning, Like you, it will
only feel this hard for a short, relatively short in
the scheme of things period of time, and you know
your perspective will change so dramatically. I don't know, because
(28:26):
I was listening to your podcasts and one of your
guest was talking about how she left work when her
child was in middle school, right, and so there's a
whole different set of needs that your child has as
they get older. So I don't know that it will.
I don't know that at all. Actually is that that's
a piece of advice that someone gave me that was
incredible when my kids were tiny and I was feeling
(28:48):
all the fields I'm talking about now, and she said,
you know, you look at little, tiny kids and you
think they need you so much, and how could you
possibly be withdrawing yourself, you know, daily to go to work.
You ain't seen nothing yet your kids. You may find
at the time when you need to step take a
step out from work, is middle school or high school,
(29:10):
or when they're getting ready to go to college. You
don't know when they will need you most. And in
some ways, babies needs are the easiest to fill. Um.
I mean, obviously you're the mom, and you're going to
be there, you know, the vast majority of the time.
But so, I mean, I think it's so interesting that
you you give people like you empower people to feel
that way and to feel because I think that's a
(29:32):
big part of it too, is just feeling safe at
work and feeling that you know you're in a safe
place to have feelings and explore all these different things. Um.
But yeah, I think everybody's different, I think, and Linda
was a great example of someone who was i mean
just leaning in like to no end, and leaned out
for three years and then came back in and she
(29:52):
was super successful. She's worked incredible companies and and so
I just think every every journey is different, and every
personal story is different. And so, um, I just hope
that whether like I said, whether someone stays in for
thirty years and never looks up, or you know, people
weave in and out, that they don't feel that weaving
(30:14):
out for a little while meant there somehow not as
valued or not as and I think, you know, one
of the other folks I was interviewing, Susan mc salmon,
who works on child development issues. You know, she brought
up that she thinks part of the challenge here is
that we as a society don't place enough value on
child care. And if we placed more value on that,
(30:35):
you know, like when people were up until I think
just over a hundred years ago, um, there was no
such thing as an O, B, G Y N. Right.
That was formally it was mostly women in the room
when you were having the baby. And then it became
a position that you would be educated for and go
to school for, and you became highly paid for and
highly compensated for, and then it became a predominantly male
(30:59):
And so I think maybe there's an opportunity to think
about how how do we put more value on childcare
so that it's a field that warrants higher pay and
warrants um different types of people entering it as a field.
Something to be exploring. Glaudia, thank you so much for
being with us today. Thank you for having me. If
(31:21):
you want to know more about Claudia, check out her
podcast The forty three. Yes it is so cool. Thank
you so much for joining us, Thank you, thanks everyone listening,
and thanks to our producer Alicia Heywood. And we'll be
back with you all next time.
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