Global Tech Leaders' Podcast

Women in Tech Series: Erica Jenkins, Chief Product Officer at Crayon shares how being prepared means having a picture, proposition and data to back it up.

Listen Later

Welcome to the Women in Tech Series from the Global Tech Leaders Podcast. Today we are speaking to Erica Jenkins who is the Chief Product Officer at Crayon. She is a very passionate B2B leader accelerating product management processes to reach the highest possible revenue and leading successful acquisitions throughout the course of her career. She thrives in the $10-100M growth trajectory organisation and helps other product managers on her team grow. She is a very big believer that successful companies are product led when sales and onboarding customer success are in place. She has scaled businesses from 10 to 300 people and various companies, she comes from real estate and has grown from startups that have been bootstrapped right through to well-funded and IPO-led organisations.

We kick off the conversation by asking Erica to share her story and what has led her to where she is today.

  • Online marketing for real estate.
  • Three of us in a basement.
  • Early social media management days.
  • Customer focused.
  • Back to startups.
  • Monitoring B2B tech.

    • We ask Erica if would she clarify the solutions we create in tech today to solve real problems.

    • Lean into the “day in the life”.
    • Customer empathy.
    • Proof of concept.

      • Then we ask Erica to share more about Crayon and what they are doing to solve problems.

      • A lot of signals.
      • You can't do everything.
      • Road map reviews and Slack community.
      • Feedback channel.
      • Salesforce.
      • Gong.
      • Product Board.
      • Zendesk.
      • Comptitive intelligence.

        • We ask Erica what is her single most important line of truth from a data perspective.

        • Percentage of wins.
        • Wins vs open opportunities.
        • Discipline.
        • The people you serve.
        • Fast time to value.
        • Saving time.
        • Quality of life.
        • Security and compliance.

          • Then we ask Erica if she has dabbled with the product-led growth phenomenon.

          • Customer execution.
          • Hub and spoke.
          • Internation and external.

            • Next, we ask Erica why she feels not many women are Chief Product Officers and what advice would she give women.

            • It slowly grows.
            • Be clear and thorough.
            • Expensive problem solver.
            • Overly dramatic.
            • Data as your backup.
            • “Fight for the seats I've had.”
            • Come with a picture, proposition and data.
            • Strategy and research.
            • Being precise is helpful.

              • Then we ask Erica how would she describe her leadership style and what advice would she give to growing leaders.

              • Forgiveness versus acceptance.
              • 15min decisions.
              • Collaboration.
              • Customer experience.

                • Next, we ask Erica if she has any tips that she can't live without that keep her on track.

                • Product feedback and planning tool.
                • Jira
                • Product Board.
                • Alignment.
                • Unified front.
                  • ...more
                  View all episodesView all episodes
                  Download on the App Store
                  Global Tech Leaders' PodcastBy Ross Lauder & John Quigley
                  • 5
                  • 5
                  • 5
                  • 5
                  • 5

                  5

                  7 ratings