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Across The Lines
By Angie and JayBusiness
Across The Lines episodes
- S3 Ep1 | Debby Soo, CEO @ Opentable, on Understanding the Structure You Operate Within
Debby currently serves as the CEO of Opentable. She stepped into her role in August 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Previously, Debby spent the past 10+ years at KAYAK, where she joined as an intern and spent many years building up KAYAK’s international presence, from launching in 30+ countries to serving as the GM of the APAC business. Most recently, she was the Chief Commercial Officer at KAYAK and OpenTable, responsible for P&L ownership and revenue-generating activities.
In this episode we spoke with Debby about the following:
- How she navigates feelings of “otherness” that manifest in both her personal and professional life
- Why it’s important for people to recognize the structure or paradigm they’re working within and learn how to successfully operate within or not be in them
- Why she believes there are no wrong turns, especially early in your career
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Episode resources:
- Debby's LinkedIn Profile
- Debby's LinkedIn post against AAPI hate
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If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com and follow us @acrossthelinespodcast to get the latest updates.
29 min - S2 Ep 13 | Career Advice Compilation
This week we’re excited to share our second season career advice compilation. In our episodes, we ask our guests “what is one piece of advice you would give to your younger self” or its close cousin “what was something you did well early in your career”.
There were so many gems in those answers, and we wanted to share quick hits that you can incorporate into your own career. You'll hear from Christine, Brian, Joseph, Seema, and Dave, who are several of our wonderful second-season guests.
Angie & Jay
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Episode resources:
- Christine's Episode (link)
- Brian's Episode (link)
- Seema's Episode (link)
- Ajay's Episode (link)
- Dave's Episode (link)
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If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com, follow us @acrossthelinespodcast, and subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates.
11 min - S2 Ep 12 | Angie, Jay & Ankita Reflect On Season Two
In this episode, we’ll be reflecting on our second season! Creating and building this podcast has been such an insightful and rewarding journey. In this week's episode, our team reflects on the joys, challenges, and learnings of Season 2. We'll be speaking about the following:
- What we wanted to be when we grew up
- Our reflections from our private guest happy hour
- Why you should focus on the input of the work you're doing rather than optimizing only for the outcome
- The nuances of external and internal validation early in your career
- How we transitioned from the initial excitement of starting our podcast to creating a consistent process to scale it
If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com, follow us @acrossthelinespodcast, and subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates.
26 min - S2 Ep 11 | Brian Rumao, Managing Director @ Next Play Ventures and Chief of Staff @ LinkedIn, on Compounding Wisdom, Trust, and Love
Brian Rumao is currently Managing Director at Next Play Ventures and VP, Chief of Staff to the Executive Chairman at LinkedIn. At Next Play Ventures, Brian works with Founding Partner Jeff Weiner to coach and invest in entrepreneurial leaders building world-class, purpose-driven organizations. Previously, Brian spent over six years working alongside the executive team to manage cross-functional strategic and operational initiatives as Chief of Staff to the CEO of LinkedIn. During this time, he led post-acquisition integration with Microsoft and launched and managed the Economic Graph team. Previously Brian was a Manager on the Business Operations team at LinkedIn and a consultant at McKinsey & Company.
In this episode we spoke with Brian about the following:
- How he developed his personal mission statement, which is to compound wisdom, trust, and love
- How separating what he should do from what he wanted to do showed him that he didn’t want to become a CEO
- Why investing in long-term professional relationships and managing ego helps you become more comfortable with your career decisions
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Episode resources:
Brian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianrumao/
Brian’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/brianrumao
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If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com and follow us @acrossthelinespodcast to get the latest updates.
34 min - How he developed his personal mission statement, which is to compound wisdom, trust, and love
- S2 Ep 10 | Seema Kumar, Chief Marketing Officer @ New Relic, on Choosing Vulnerability over Perfection
Seema Kumar is the CMO of New Relic, the leading observability platform that helps engineering teams improve the usability of their software. Prior to New Relic, Seema spent 18+ years leading product marketing, brand, events, and demand generation at companies like ServiceChannel and Salesforce.
In this episode we spoke with Seema about:
- Why she tried to fit into the model minority stereotype while growing up
- How she learned to embrace vulnerability as a leadership superpower by letting go of the focus on external perception she was raised with
- How she shifted from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset
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Episode resources:
Seema’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seemaxkumar/
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If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com and follow us @acrossthelinespodcast to get the latest updates.
30 min - Why she tried to fit into the model minority stereotype while growing up
- S2 Ep 9 | Wes Kao, Co-Founder @ Maven, on Turning Bugs into Features
Wes Kao is a Co-Founder of Maven, a platform that enables anyone to build a cohort-based course and deliver an incredible student experience at scale. Prior to founding Maven, Wes co-founded the altMBA, where she designed the program’s coaching system, grew the community from zero to 550 cities in 45 countries in three years, and built a team of 40 people. Wes is a thought leader in building cohort-based courses and frequently writes about marketing, online courses, and rigorous thinking on her blog.
In this episode we spoke with Wes about the following:
- Choosing to play games you can win by turning features into bugs
- The mental load created by the narrow range of motion Asian Americans, women, and other minorities are afforded
- Learning to be comfortable taking up space and embracing productive conflict in the workplace
Episode resources:
- Wes's Twitter: https://twitter.com/wes_kao
- Wes's website: https://www.weskao.com/
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If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com and follow us @acrossthelinespodcast to get the latest updates.
34 min - Choosing to play games you can win by turning features into bugs
- S2 Ep 8 | Eric Kim, Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Goodwater Capital, On Finding Purpose Through Serving Others
Eric is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Goodwater Capital. Goodwater is a venture fund founded in 2014 and manages over $1.1B across its funds. They were early inventors in companies like Musical.ly, Coupang, and Kakao; all massive exits for the firm. Before Goodwater, Eric was a Managing Director at Maverick Capital, and a Business Analyst at McKinsey.
In this episode we spoke with Eric about the following:
- Unlearning the association between achievement, acceptance, and self-worth
- Raising capital for his firm, Goodwater, one of the few venture capital firms founded and led by Asian Americans
- Why it’s more important now than ever for Asian Americans to serve their community rather than prove their worth through achievement
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Episode resources:
- Eric’s post supporting the AAPI community: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6778472588139204608/
- Eric’s LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erickim37/
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If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com and follow us @acrossthelinespodcast to get the latest updates.
34 min - Unlearning the association between achievement, acceptance, and self-worth
- S2 Ep 7 | Gokul Rajaram, Product Executive @ Doordash, on Being Comfortable with Ambiguity
Gokul Rajaram serves on the executive board at Doordash and is also a Board Member of Coinbase, Pinterest, Trade Desk and others. Gokul’s career has spanned multiple iconic companies including Facebook, Square, and Google, where he helped build Google AdSense from the ground up. Gokul is viewed by many in his network as the most helpful and humble person they’ve worked with, traits that shone through in our conversation with him.
In this episode we spoke with Gokul about the following:
- His belief in generously offering help, and why it’s actually “selfish to be selfless”
- Shifting from a paradigm of solving problems to one of identifying the right problems to solve
- Why all good leaders need to be both “in the clouds and in the dirt”, and how his life experiences impacted this view
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Episode resources:
- Gokul’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/gokulr
- Gokul’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gokulrajaram1/
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If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com and follow us @acrossthelinespodcast to get the latest updates.
29 min - His belief in generously offering help, and why it’s actually “selfish to be selfless”
- S2 Ep 6 | Casual Conversations on Unique Paths To Leadership
This week we’re excited to share our third community event with our dear friends at LinkedIn. In partnership with the LinkedIn Asian Alliance (LIAA), we hosted three of their AAPI leaders to discuss their unique paths to leadership. In this discussion, you’ll hear from Connie Chan Wang the Senior Director of Global Brand Marketing, Jen Weedn the Vice President of Business Development, and Brian Rumao the Chief of Staff the Executive Chairman, Jeff Weiner.
In this podcast we spoke about the following:
- Having tough conversations with family about unconventional career decisions
- How the need for financial stability as a child of immigrants can influence career goals
- Finding and honoring your true north while advancing your career in a non-linear way
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Episode resources:
- Connie’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conniechanwang/
- Jen’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferyangweedn/
- Brian’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianrumao/
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If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com, follow us @acrossthelinespodcast, and subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates.
50 min - S2 Ep 5 | Dave Lu, Co-Founder at Pared and Managing Partner at Hyphen Capital, on Building Your Own House
Dave Lu is the Founder and Managing Partner of Hyphen Capital, a syndicate that invests in pre-seed companies founded by Asian Americans. He is also a seasoned operator (ex Yahoo, eBay, Cisco) and a serial entrepreneur who co-founded Pared (staffing marketplace for the restaurant industry) and FanPop (bootstrapped entertainment website with 35M+ monthly visitors). Dave is a steadfast advocate of Asian American entrepreneurship and recently rallied the community around an initiative to publish an open letter in the WSJ in response to an uptick in violence against the AAPI community.
In this episode we spoke with Dave about the following:
- Conflating what he thought his parents wanted for his career with what he truly wanted, and how he broke out of that thinking to start his own company
- Why it’s crucial for Asian American leaders to advocate for themselves and “have more swag”
- Encouraging the next generation of AAPI entrepreneurs to overcome the bamboo ceiling by building their own houses
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Episode resources:
- Hyphen Capital: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hyphencap/
- Dave's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davelu/
- The $10M commitment to support AAPI organizations: https://www.kqed.org/news/11867492/thousands-of-business-leaders-commit-10m-to-aapi-organizations-fighting-racism
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If you enjoyed today’s conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We’d really appreciate it!
Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com and follow us @acrossthelinespodcast to get the latest updates.
33 min
About Across The Lines
From the publisher's feed
Across The Lines is a podcast that highlights the stories of Pan Asian American leaders and explores the intersection of their personal and professional journeys. Our vision is to inspire and empower…
the next generation of leaders through candid conversations about the confluence of identity and work.