Becky Kaapuni - Sr. Executive Assistant to CEO of Salesforce AI

Becky · 0:00

Hi, my name is Becky Kaapuni, and my favorite leadership quote is by Bill Gates. As we look ahead to the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

Speaker 3 · 0:16

The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

Jeremy · 0:31

Everyone is talking about Nova Chief of Staff, and it's no surprise when graduates walk away with huge benefits, like greater confidence and the validation that they can do the role. There are over 300 students in the Nova Chief of Staff Certification course, many of which are growth-minded executive assistants like you. Many of the Leader Assistants taking the course aren't necessarily looking for a promotion, they simply want to become more effective, strategic, and game-changing assistants. Over 18 countries around the globe are represented by students in Nova's course, so I highly recommend you join the club. Visit leaderassistant.com/nova to learn more about this amazing professional development resource. Hey friends, welcome to The Leader Assistant Podcast. It's episode 271, and I am Jeremy Burrows, your host, and I'm excited to be speaking with Becky Kaapuni. Becky has 20-plus years of executive assistant experience in high-pressure and fast-paced companies such as Salesforce, Twitter, Goldman Sachs, and BMO Capital Markets. Becky, welcome to the show. I'm very excited to be speaking with you.

Becky · 1:47

I am super excited to be here.

Jeremy · 1:50

And what part of the world are you in?

Becky · 1:52

I'm in San Francisco, and I've been here for about 25 years, so I consider this to definitely be my home.

Jeremy · 1:59

Awesome. Where were you before that? Like, where were you born?

Becky · 2:02

Yeah, Southern California. So I was, I actually spent the initial first few years of my life in San Dimas, you know, Bill and Ted, San Dimas. And then I moved to Thousand Oaks, Ventura County, and I was there until college. And then I spread my wings and left and never came back.

Jeremy · 2:22

Nice. Awesome. Well, what do you like to do in San Francisco, like when you're not working?

Becky · 2:30

It is very rare that I'm not working. But currently, I am in a stained glass class on Saturdays, which is really, really fun. I also put together the EA Social Club and we do various activities throughout the week, generally dinners. And then I just really love spending time with my dog. She doesn't get to see me that much. She is here at home alone a lot. But having been here for so long, I don't really take full advantage of the city. And one of the things, one of the reasons that I wanted to start the club was also to be able to start reintegrating myself into the city and take advantage of all of its natural beauty and all the activities that it has to offer.

Jeremy · 3:14

Awesome. And tell us a little bit about the social club, too. I've been connected with you for a while on LinkedIn, and we'll talk a little bit about different ways that you're active on LinkedIn. But one of those is kind of building a social club.

Becky · 3:30

You know, I kind of started posting jobs on LinkedIn. That's how this all started. I had a job. I wasn't looking anymore. I kept seeing all of these jobs come across my feed. And so I thought about giving back and forwarding it on. And from there, it just kind of grew. People started really leaning in. And I really wanted to start connecting with people in person. So I decided to host a dinner series that literally was just supposed to be a dinner series. And there was such an overwhelming response. I heard from over 200 people that really wanted to engage in something like this. They really wanted it in their area. So I took it on and got it started and just started developing a plan. And now we host dinners in various cities. It's been a really great opportunity for EAs to get together, lean on one another, build community and mentor one another. People actually come to these with jobs that they're looking to fill, with different classes that they're taking. I mean, it's just really been a community that has brought a bunch of EAs together.

Jeremy · 4:43

That's awesome. So tell us about, like, I just, I'm just curious. I have to know logistically, like, do you fly to all these cities? Do you find EAs in those cities to host? And you just kind of put people together and let them have fun and have a dinner? Or is it a little bit of both? Like, just curious on the logistics as an assistant, you know, thinking through that.

Becky · 5:07

Yeah. So originally it was just me. You know, I wanted to meet people and so I started hosting names. But as people started becoming really interested in them, I kind of flew with it. And so I just immediately started taking action. And so I found hosts in other areas. I'm always looking for hosts. If anybody would like to host an event, then we can definitely try it in their area. And people basically find the venue, go into Eventbrite, put it on Eventbrite. It goes out and then people sign up. Probably the biggest problem that we've had is people actually following through on attendance. So I just implemented a fee for $20 to sign up to go to an event. I mean, there's also membership options, but trying to give more flexibility so people can just try it out. Because as you know, there's so many admin costs on the back end. I'm sure you've experienced that too.

Jeremy · 6:06

There's nothing worse than setting up an event or a happy hour and you've got 50 people on the list and 35 RSVP and then seven show up.

Becky · 6:18

Yeah.

Jeremy · 6:18

And you're just like, okay, wait.

Becky · 6:21

And at these dinners, there's generally max eight people. So when they don't show up and I'm just there all alone, then that's not really helping.

Jeremy · 6:32

It's not much of a social club if you're by yourself.

Becky · 6:37

Because I know how to socialize with myself for sure.

Jeremy · 6:40

Right. Awesome. Well, that's great. That's awesome that you're doing that and I hope to be able to participate in one or two of those dinners in the future.

Becky · 6:48

Yeah, we would love to have you.

Jeremy · 6:51

Awesome. So I want to talk a little bit about the job thing. So, you know, there are a lot of people searching for jobs. Fortunately, there's been a lot of layoffs in different industries. And what's maybe something that you would want to share with those looking and encourage them as far as, you know, I know a lot. I see this almost every other day on a Facebook group or on a LinkedIn thread, an assistant that says, this job market sucks. I've had to do 20 interviews and seven of them were with one company and 13 were with another company. And it's just this long, crazy process. And then they go with someone else because they have a little bit more experience. And I look on LinkedIn and there's a job posting and it's got, it says it's got four thousand applicants and there's no way I have a chance. So obviously, it sucks having to look for work in the first place. But all these other factors just make it really, really depressing, to be honest. And I'm just curious, like, you know, you share all these awesome job opportunities. You connect with assistants all over. What's what's something you would want to say to encourage assistants looking for work?

Becky · 8:06

Yeah, it's definitely way more competitive these days than it used to be. There's also social media, which it didn't used to be like it is now. We are so saturated in information and people have so much more access to view jobs and to apply for jobs. So I would just say keep going. Keep applying. Keep trying. Don't give up. If you're having a lot of trouble, I would seriously get your resume looked at. Get your resume looked at by somebody who can be trusted. I have a resume writer that I am happy to share out if anybody wants to reach out to me. It is one of the most important documents that you can have. What's changed for me recently is that now I think networking is one step above the perfect resume. Because if you network with the right people, you can get into a job regardless of your resume. But if you are not networking, then everything comes down to that piece of paper that is going before a hiring manager. So if you're looking at some place like Salesforce, they receive over a million resumes a year. What is going to make a resume stand out? You recently, or maybe you didn't recently, but you did a podcast with Halini. She does a storytelling class that you can take through her website. And besides getting a professional resume writer, which is absolutely essential, taking her class, I also believe, is essential. She will teach you how to create your own narrative and add your own voice and make the blurb that we have. The one that says, I'm an executive assistant with 15 plus years working for a prolific leaders. She'll teach you how to change that so that hiring managers will notice you. So I think, you know, just tapping in on resources and making sure that you set yourself up for success. I 100% believe that you should pay to get your resume done. And I think that all the resumes that people send me and all the resumes I see, people are not getting them done. And you absolutely need to do that at this point in the game. EA jobs vary so much. I mean, they can be more simplistic. They can be definitely more focused on engagement. And everybody's going to come and show up to the table with their own talents and their own skills. And so you may not fit in one place, whereas you may fit in another place. And just to always be curious and learning and really listen to what other people have to say that has helped them. And just making sure that you show up the best that you can given the experience that you have.

Jeremy · 10:59

Yeah. Yeah. Well said. And the other thing I wanted to share real quick too is my friend Al Hussein Madhani put together a really great course and template on resumes for specifically for executive assistants. So that's you can find that at resume.assistanceguide.com. resume.assistanceguide.com for that awesome resource as well. And yeah, I think that I think you're right. I think the resume is is huge, but I think you're also right that networking is is huger. I'm going to make up a word. It's huge.

Becky · 11:37

It's my boss, my current boss. She had met me eight years prior and she called me eight years later. To hire me into Salesforce. So if that doesn't tell you the power of networking, I mean, I know that you experience all the time just because, you know, you're out in the public and people well, people are reaching out to both of us all the time. So we see it, right? But it's really hard for people who are not a part of it to like really realize how much power there is behind it.

Speaker 4 · 12:14

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Jeremy · 12:46

Yeah, totally. And my every job I've gotten was through networking through someone. Even my very first real job at Walmart in the Pet Department was I was referred by a friend of the families, put in my name or whatever when I applied and got the job.

Becky · 13:17

Amazing.

Jeremy · 13:17

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Okay, so that's awesome. What about, let's shift gears a little bit. So first, and again, thank you for all the work you do to connect assistants and share the job opportunities. You too. I try to do a little bit of that, but I'm like, I have a hard time keeping up with everything. And every time I see your posts, I'm like, wow, you just curated a whole bunch of jobs. So nice work.

Becky · 13:46

It is hard. I mean, it's hard when you work a full time job, right? And especially like one that is demanding and requires a lot of of your life. But I think the work is so important and there's nothing like hearing from somebody who gets a job from one of these posts.

Jeremy · 14:04

Yeah. Yeah.

Becky · 14:05

I mean, that is an incredible, incredible feeling.

Jeremy · 14:09

Yeah. Okay. Well, let's talk about your current role for a minute, if you don't mind. Your Senior Executive Assistant to the CEO of Salesforce AI.

Becky · 14:18

Yes.

Jeremy · 14:18

Yes.

Becky · 14:18

So I support Clara Shai. She is the CEO of Salesforce AI. We basically were new. When I originally was hired in, it was to support her as the CEO of Service Cloud. And then AI was kind of in the background, right? So this was last year. And we literally just out of nowhere had to create AI and create this org and make this a focus and a purpose. And here we are. And I mean, it is absolutely incredible. It's also really incredible to work for Clara because she is definitely an amazing woman. She is so admirable. I look up to her so much. I mean, there's nothing like going to a job where you look up to the person that you support. I'm doing really fun stuff. We do podcasts and press events. And she is always, always on the go. So it's really exciting to learn from her, see how she thinks and support her on this journey.

Jeremy · 15:21

That's awesome. You know, the funny. So obviously, Salesforce is a huge company, huge. But interesting story. Back in it was either 2017 or 2018. I always get these mixed up. But my company, Capacity, I work for a company called Capacity, which is an AI support automation platform software company. And I was hired number one. Now we have like 105 employees. And either the first year or the second year, I believe is the first year. But again, I'm bad at my timeline. We were trying to raise money and, you know, start up software startup company. I'm pretty much always trying. In fact, we're raising our Series D now. But at the time we were raising our seed round or Series A or something. And my executive's like, hey, go find a bunch of investment competitions that we can apply for. So I start filling out all these competitions. Long story short, we get selected for Ashton Kutcher's venture capital fund, Sound Ventures. And they were doing a thing at South by Southwest in Austin. And it was you basically they were going to pick the top five companies to come pitch to a panel of judges. And the judges were so my CEO, David, he got selected to pitch our company. And the judges were Ashton Kutcher, Matthew McConaughey, Gary Vaynerchuk, Melissa McCloskey, who was like the CEO of StyleSeat, Company StyleSeat, and then Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.

Becky · 17:04

Well, that's interesting because, you know, Matthew McConaughey and Mark are very close.

Jeremy · 17:10

And he does his commercials.

Becky · 17:12

And yes, I just met him at Dreamforce and took a picture with me. You know, we were backstage kind of in the green room area and I didn't want to ask him for a picture. So my boss, Clara, she has interacted with him multiple times as well. So she leaned into his ear and asked him if he would take a picture. So it was pretty funny, but he was a really nice guy. So it makes sense, I guess, that Mark would be there. Interesting, right?

Jeremy · 17:42

Yeah, that was like, like I said, six, seven years ago.

Becky · 17:45

He gets to do all the cool stuff.

Jeremy · 17:47

Yeah, the fun thing was, though, like I remember, you know, we're an AI company at the time. We were essentially just a bot that would be for companies and employees to find the information they need. Like, what's our paternity policy? How many vacation days do I have left? That kind of a thing. That was our initial. And we use natural language processing. And we had started like building up this large language model before large language models were cool.

Becky · 18:16

Yeah, before everybody knew what an LLM is.

Jeremy · 18:19

Exactly. So anyway, so then like, you know, you get feedback like, oh, you know, what about this? And I remember Mark, I don't remember exactly what he said, but I remember Mark said something along the lines of like, oh, you know, everybody's going to have the AI, you know, their own AI. And then my CEO's response is essentially, yes, but we are going to we're building an AI that will talk to the other AIs and they will connect the other AIs. Because it's like, you know, if Microsoft has their own AI and Salesforce has their own AI, Google has their own AI and all this, you also have your company's information and you're connected to this app and then you get this app. And so anyway, it was just a fun experience to do that.

Becky · 19:02

So that's really cool. Yeah, you know, it's been really interesting to get into AI at Salesforce because we are not really allowed to use any outside AI, you know, because of data breaches and whatnot. So as the world is experiencing AI and really digging into it for their workplace, you know, there's AI now that can, you know, dial into your meetings, take the most amazing follow up notes. Ambient is one that does incredible work in this realm, but it's something that I can't use at Salesforce. Because trust is so important, right, as it should be. And so in some ways, I have to test everything kind of on my own, but it's fun. And I've joined some classes, Fiona Young from, you know, she created CARV, and that's AI for Assistance. I mean, Jessica McBride's doing great work around it. There are so many people that are embracing this and really giving this to EAs to, you know, figure out how to use in their daily life. So it's pretty interesting. I know that a lot of EAs are concerned that they may lose their jobs because of AI, but I personally feel that you need a human being to interact with the AI to get what you need. So that touch point is going to be so important. Plus, you have to fact check AI. I mean, it's just not in any position to take over our careers, I think, anytime soon.

Jeremy · 20:32

Yeah, totally agree. 100%. And I think the AI plus humans is the future, not AI versus humans.

Becky · 20:44

But it's really interesting because I've been thinking about how we're getting to the point where our daily life inevitably will include AI. And there are people who don't want to engage in that. And I think it's getting harder and harder to be a part of society if you aren't embracing these changes that we have. So it's really interesting to think about.

Jeremy · 21:09

Well, kind of the last topic I had on here to chat with you about. And we could chat all day, but I want to want to wrap it up here in a minute. But what about, you know, you're an advocate against workplace bullying and building a great culture. What are your thoughts or even just practical tips on how we assistants can, you know, build and cultivate a great company culture?

Becky · 21:37

Yeah, I think that there is a lot of competition amongst assistants. I think that when we go into companies, you know, usually there are cliques or there are people that are so familiar with each other that they leave out other assistants. And that creates a toxic work environment. So you have two elements, well, really three. The company can be toxic, your exec can be toxic, or your admin environment could be toxic. None of those are going to help with making you feel secure and able and have the confidence that you need at work. So I think just really being mindful when you go into companies, making sure that it's a culture that fits with your ideas and your ideals. And then also being the person who kind of advocates for the community, the person who brings everybody together, not excluding EAs, not talking behind their backs, just really creating a welcoming, cross collaborative environment. I mean, it's so important, right? I mean, Slack has been so great at this. Slack brought people together onto a single platform where we could go back and forth asking questions. For EAs, this has been game changing because we can all connect. We can ask for advice from one another. We can tell each other what we're working on, see if anybody has any other best practices that we don't know about. I think just continuing to look at our workplace as a place to learn and a place to be curious. We spend so much time at work and with our coworkers that it just helps us and others if we really try and nurture that. I think just don't be a jerk. Literally believe in people's best intentions and lead with empathy. That was one of the biggest things that I learned while I was at Twitter, was really leading with empathy. That was a very, very big part of the culture there. I think if we can take that into our personal lives and our work life and we can treat people with empathy, we will make it so much farther in life.

Jeremy · 23:50

Well said. It seems sad that it has to be said. It seems simple. But don't be a jerk is not as easy as it should be, apparently. There's still a lot of people.

Becky · 24:04

And one of the reasons that I created the EA Social Club was because I would be, I have been in toxic environments, especially amongst the EAs. And there's so much competition. And I wanted to be around EAs where we all could show up as equals. We can show up as we are. We all know that we work so much that we might get pulled away on our phones. But the idea is that we can be there. We can mentor one another. We can show compassion, commensurate on what we go through. There is a lot of power when people come together versus coming at each other.

Jeremy · 24:42

Yeah. Definitely. Awesome, Becky. Well, it's been a pleasure to chat. And I really look forward to meeting up in the future and grabbing dinner at one of the social club events in the future. But what's the best place for people to reach out if they want to connect and learn more about social club or just follow you on LinkedIn for job opportunities? Yeah. What's the best way?

Becky · 25:08

So you can follow me, Becky Kaapuni on LinkedIn. And then if you would like to check out the social club, you can do that at www.easocialclub.com. Very straightforward, exactly the name. I do post a lot on LinkedIn. I've been a little quiet lately, but I post jobs. I post advice. I also do mentoring one-on-one, very ad hoc oriented, not long-term. And you can find most of that information on the website.

Jeremy · 25:38

Perfect. Well, I will share all those links in the show notes. For those listening, that's leaderassistant.com/271, leaderassistant.com/271. Thanks again, Becky. Best of luck to you and we will talk soon.

Speaker 3 · 26:03

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