Episode Notes

Zach sits down with Shonnah Hughes, Global Product Growth & Innovation Evangelist and Salesforce MVP, to chat about GetFeedback's efforts regarding racial equity, inclusion, and belonging. She breaks down her very unique job title and more in this follow-up episode to our interview with SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie.

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Connect with Shonnah on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Check out GetFeedback's website and social media accounts: they're on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and you know what we're doing, right? Every single week we're having real talk in a corporate world, and we do that how? We do that by having conversations with Black and brown executives, activists, elected officials, public servants, authors, professors, shoot, CEOs, entrepreneurs, influencers, celebrities. You know, just having real conversations trying to, in those conversations, center and amplify the experiences of those on the margins, and I'm really excited because, again, every week we have an incredible guest, and this week we have Shonnah Hughes. Shonnah Hughes is the global product growth and innovation evangelist at GetFeedback by SurveyMonkey and is a Salesforce MVP, okay? She is passionate about tech equity, accessibility, equality, and customer experience. Shonnah, welcome to the show. Now, look, I know this is a loaded question, but I'm gonna ask you anyway - how are you doing?

Shonnah: Yeah, that's a loaded question. I'm--you know, I'm alive. I think, you know, we've gotta be grateful we wake up every morning and take a breath, and, you know, I'm optimistic, so I'll leave it at that.

Zach: Okay, what are you optimistic about?

Shonnah: I'm optimistic about our future. I am so excited to see so many young people that are standing up and fighting for social justice, equity and equality. I am just in awe of their grit, their determination, them being unapologetically who they are, and I'm here for it.

Zach: I love it. First, let's just talk a little bit about your role at GetFeedback. Like, I'm looking at the title, "global product growth and innovation evangelist," and I'm like "Okay, what does that mean?" What do you do?

Shonnah: It's a mouthful, right? I know. Everyone always asks me what I do. What's interesting or what's funny is that, you know, the people closest to me still don't know what it is that I do, which is so funny. My mom thought for a while that I was, you know, drug trafficking because I was traveling so much.

Zach: You know... I mean, you know, I can't knock your mom, you know?

Shonnah: She was like, "I don't know anybody that travels as much as you do." Okay, Mom. Well, with my position I sit at the intersection of product development and product marketing, right? So my job is all about growing awareness of our product in the Salesforce ecosystem. So whether that be I'm at events, I'm speaking about product center services, I'm speaking about our commitment to diversity and inclusion efforts, I am essentially the face of the product if that helps out a little bit.

Zach: It does, it does. And shout-out to you and you being the face, because I love your brand, right? I looked at your LinkedIn picture. You know, I do my little research, and I was like, "Oh, snap, I love this, and she got this hair. This is fire. I'm all for it," 'cause, you know, when we promote this episode, we're gonna take, you know, a headshot, and that's gonna be, like, the thing. And this is not even self-promotion... or maybe it is 'cause it's, like, our platform? I don't know, but the point is you go to Living Corporate's website and you look at the grid, you just see all of these Black and brown faces, so I love the fact that you said that you're the face and you're the main point of engagement. It's also interesting because typically, at least in my experience, it seems like--you know, when you talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, sometimes there are organizations that have a lot of--they may have a decent amount of Black folks there, but they're not necessarily touching the register so to speak. Like, they're not the ones necessarily, like, pushing the product or, like, directly interfacing with the market or clients, and so I find this all very intriguing, right? Continuing forward, you know, it's interesting because GetFeedback, by the nature of its organization, is focused on feedback. So, like, can we talk a little bit about this season and how, if at all, the internal culture of GetFeedback has shifted regarding marginalized employees feeling empowered to speak truth to power and leaders being receptive to those uncomfortable points of feedback?

Shonnah: Yeah, thank you for that question. You know, when I came on board, it was interesting because they had their, you know, ERG set up, and they kind of tapped me and said, "Hey, I think it'll be great for you to be involved. We know how your reputation is in the community, and we think it'll be a great voice to have you involved," and I was like, "Sure, just let me try to get my footing here, figure out what's happening," and then this season--so essentially I'm coming on board, and then all of this chaos starts happening, right, or it continues to happen from our perspective, but it starts from theirs, if that makes sense. So, you know, I'm like, "Wow, this is taking on a lot of responsibility," because I not only have my position, but I also am being asked to take on this additional position, and the leadership has been phenomenal, and when I say, you know, they call our leadership team VP level and above, they call them "the horizon team," and our horizon team, they have been phenomenal. Now, when you look at our horizon team, they're not diverse. Like, no one's gonna pretend like there's anyone on the horizon team that looks like you and I or any other, you know, under-represented candidate. However, they have made a commitment to take on a mantle to essentially make sure that marginalized people at work feel not only valued but included and also represented. So putting in places, policies, and procedures on what we call now the racial justice task force in our org where I'm in constant contact with our CEO, with other leaders in our organization, making sure that our hiring practices, our retention practices, are matching what we're saying out to the world that we're actually doing in house. So holding them accountable, and they've been 100% open with that internally and also externally. So it's been amazing to see that transformation.

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