Great Minds Think Differently

Lola currently works at Shopify as the Director of UX

She is passionate about how design can (and should) be a form of activism. In particular when it comes to creating equity in the world. 

She is also an advocate for increased diversity in the tech industry. She is a mentor and is  always interested in participating in programs focused on increasing women, and black and ethnic minorities in technology.

Brandon Chu is currently the VP of Product Acceleration at Shopify overseeing all mergers and acquisitions activities. Previously he was the VP of Product and GM of Platform and Ecosystem. 

His unique product journey started in finance then startups and landed at Shopify when there were only 5 other people with product related titles. He eventually grew his organization to hundreds of employees. 

In this episode, we chatted about:

- His family's connectivity with Cuba

- How he hacked learning in school

- How he ended up playing World Series poker tournament in Las Vegas

- His first startup and experience in raising investments

- Crafting product knowledge as a non engineer

- Leading diverse teams and his learnings on the best way to impact change

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Dennis Yao Yu

Martyn Boddy is currently the Head of Partnerships in the US West. He is responsible for creating, developing and recruiting for the Shopify Plus Partner Program that he has cultivated from the ground up. 

For the majority of his career, he has been a global leader focusing on channel growth and management within commerce and payments.

Above all his professional accolades, Martyn is charming, creative, and just an all-around great person.

In this episode, we chatted about:

- Relationship building and stakeholder management
- How living in different neighborhoods helped him build resilience
- Why everyone is in the people business
- How to de-escalate extreme situations
- Why authenticity is important to him 
- Why he thinks the quietest person in the room often has the most important thing to say

Jayson is an experienced leader with a demonstrated history of balancing empathy and human connection with data insights and process optimization to build high-performing teams. For over 12 years, he has been helping businesses develop skilled, engaged employees. I have experience leading cross-functional teams in sales, collections, operations, marketing, communications, event management, employee experience, business analytics, and quality assurance.

He is currently the Senior Merchant Success Team Lead at Shopify

In this episode we chatted about:

- Growing up as an immigrant 
- Being surrounded by others who did not grow up the same way
- Lessons from his early sales career
- Transition from an individual contributor to a team leader (mistakes and learnings)
- How a moment sipping on Hennessey changed his view on leadership 
- Superpower of being different and thinking differently
- Role as Co-Chair of Black ERGs and importance of communities
- Which Superbowl Team was he cheering for

Ryan Kelly is the General Manager of Innovation Lab

Ryan brings nearly 20 years of experience in research, innovation and commercialization to his role at Innovation Institute’s incubator, the Innovation Lab. 

At the Lab, he leads a talented team of professionals across the country, and together they manage partnerships with seven major hospital systems and alliances with organizations including the Cleveland Clinic, Boston Scientific and Deloitte.

In this conversation, we explore what it means to innovate in capital intensive space like healthcare, what he looks for in startups and how Innovation Lab differentiates itself from competitors