AMA with Shivani Berry on Empowering Women at Work

We've got an exciting AMA today with @Shivani Berry! She's got an MBA from Harvard and worked at Paypal, Intercom and GetYourGuide before launching her own company.

She's an expert in empowering women at work, training folks to get buy-in for the ideas, managing up, getting and delivering good feedback and overcoming imposter syndrome. She also happens to be hiring a full-time content lead for her team. Feel free to leave questions in the main channel and she can answer in the threads. Let's do this!

I'm especially curious about getting buy-in for ideas. In my own experience, I found that no one really paid attention to my ideas until I had some seniority. Then, the same ideas were well received. What's the best way to accelerate that process?

Shivani: Here's the article I wrote on getting buy-in that I mention in the Loom which provides more tips

Any advice on overcoming imposter syndrome and becoming an amazing storyteller for yourself, team, department that positions you in a phenomenal way of managing up? and assuring you have the buy-in from your team? I'm in my early 30s and marketing director for a startup. It's fun, scrappy, and challenging. Also, knowing time is our most important commodity, do you also have any suggested resources that are great sounding boards to explore in instances you don't have an internal network and just need a gut check (outside of these fabulous Slack channels)?

Sometimes I get a little imposter syndrome when I'm going to pitch an idea if we don't have data to back it. Basically, there's no 100% proof a marketing approach will work, but it is based on my experience in the industry and really any direction couldn't be 100% foolproof or data-backed. How can I feel confident moving forward based on my own expertise?

As a woman, I've been on the receiving end of some pretty gendered feedback e.g. "you're too direct/assertive/aggressive", and feel like a lot of feedback from male leaders has been focused on EQ and interpersonal than actionable and developmental. In your experience, how do you combat this in the workplace?

What tips do you have for helping other (maybe employees or friends) overcome THEIR imposter syndrome? How can we be good managers and friends to those who may have it?

How can men be better advocates/allies for women at work—specifically in tech?

How about your open content role? What are you looking for in a candidate?

I wanted to ask about ways I can be more assertive without coming off as domineering? Like taking up space and giving my thoughts without the guilt and second guessing myself?

How do you recommend getting buy in for inclusive activities (e.g., even small stuff like ask a team or external vendor to replace the word ‘guy-s’ with a more inclusive salutation) when you feel like you don’t have the authority to start the conversation and/or it just feels weird to start it?

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