Today, I'm connecting with Deena Metz, Head of Customer Success at Flagship. For Deena, being at the nexus of a company is where she thrives, so she’s placed herself at the heart of an early-stage startup: customer success (CS). She’s one of 12 employees, building alongside Simon Molnar to establish Flagship as the backbone of retail operations in Australia, the US, and beyond. In today’s episode, we discuss: Deena’s childhood dream of playing soccer for the Matildas; How an internship in New York launched her career in digital health at ANDHealth+ and Perx Health; Joining Flagship as the first female on the team, and her approach to building the company's post-sales function and customer experience; Why CS is a team sport, and how sales, post-sales, and product teams need to be “Batman to each other’s Batman”; Partnering with retail brands to raise the bar in visual merchandising and bring more data to brick-and-mortar stores; And the refreshing reminder: “we’re not saving lives”.
Today, I'm connecting with Deena Metz, Head of Customer Success at Flagship. For Deena, being at the nexus of a company is where she thrives, so she’s placed herself at the heart of an early-stage startup: customer success (CS). She’s one of 12 employees, building alongside Simon Molnar to establish Flagship as the backbone of retail operations in Australia, the US, and beyond. In today’s episode, we discuss: Deena’s childhood dream of playing soccer for the Matildas; How an internship in New York launched her career in digital health at ANDHealth+ and Perx Health; Joining Flagship as the first female on the team, and her approach to building the company's post-sales function and customer experience; Why CS is a team sport, and how sales, post-sales, and product teams need to be “Batman to each other’s Batman”; Partnering with retail brands to raise the bar in visual merchandising and bring more data to brick-and-mortar stores; And the refreshing reminder: “we’re not saving lives”.
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Connecting with Deena Metz Head of Customer Success at Flagship:
Laura: Deena, welcome to the podcast
Deena: Thank you for having me great to be here And I'm very grateful You asked me to join
Laura: I'm very close to Flagship and its growth with it being a portfolio company of co Ventures Simon's Molnar an amazing founder and I'm really excited to dive into your story today
Deena: And yes Simon is 10 out of 10 Big fan of Simon over here
Laura: we're going to start at the very beginning Where did you grow up and what were some of your early experiences like
Deena: I grew up in Sydney now Melbournite was very much your classic tomboy growing up All of my friends were boys Big into my sport I think I started playing soccer when I was like five and I was in an old boys team and I was like that girl that was with this curly little [00:01:00] Afro playing against all the boys And I was just as tough as them I absolutely loved it my childhood when I look back on it I think I was a bit of a dork a bit of a weird kid but I think that was my quirks I remember always loving technology I used to take apart My dad's old computers and then try to put them together and lots of Legos as well as a kid but yeah I think the biggest thing for me was sport I always wanted to play for the Matildas and when I was about 14 years old I was come back from a soccer game and I told my dad I want to play for the Matildas one day And he was just straight back at me like If you haven't been scouted by now you're never going to make it And I was just like okay cool Best dream comes crashing down but yeah encouraged me to play nonetheless And my parents always encouraged me to try new things try new skills and just grow and develop in that way
Laura: Are you still playing soccer today
Deena: I've hung up the boots the metaphorical boots after what was 18 years of playing caused a lot of knee and back injuries and I decided I'm a Pilates girlee now so [00:02:00] gone 180
Laura: from university what did you start doing for your career Because I know you're a proud generalist so talk me through those early days
Deena: studied occupational therapy and then started working in the community with adults with disabilities I quickly realized it Wasn't tickling My fancy is I imagined it would and I took a step back and I was like what do I really want to do And at that point that was really scary because I'd spent four years studying this degree coming out with a profession And that profession had like four real clear pathways And when I looked at each of those pathways I was like that's not for me I couldn't envision myself in that when I look 20 years ahead Or 10 years ahead and so I took the risk I quit my job and was unemployed or fun employed for a little while and took that time to identify what was really important to me and where I wanted to go Now that I had a literal profession that I had no other options To do anything with I was really fortunate to talk to a good friend of mine's dad Who's a careers coach or I guess like CEO coach and he helped me identify like what my key [00:03:00] pillars are in life And help me figure out what that next move was going to be And my natural next step was The digital health industry I thought bringing health and tech and things that I love all into one was a natural next step and I think I spent two months reaching out to about a hundred people on LinkedIn I had this huge Excel spreadsheet where identified everyone I spoke to what questions I asked them what I learnt from them and then I always ask them three people they could introduce me to and that Beautiful minded My Startup network from that ended up landing a internship in New York at a digital health fund slash startup accelerator I think I spent More money getting over there than I did actually earn during my time with them but it was well worth every dollar it was the perfect transition out of that traditional role into something a little bit more Startup-y
Laura: when you got into the startup world you've worked in various roles from program management to operations to commercial roles Can you walk us through your journey
Deena: from that internship I did a [00:04:00] lot of mini projects It was so much fun I was calendar stalking One of my managers Calendars one day And I saw she had a meeting with the Australian digital health delegation and I was like I think it's important that I'm on that call I asked her if I could join and then I met my what was then going to be my next boss for four years who runs ANDHealth+ so I moved to Sydney New York New York Melbourne and I took a role with ANDHealth+ in a project management role which was all around helping Australian digital health startups commercialize and bring that products or technologies to the market I loved every moment of it It was really cool to see the breadth of the industry in digital health And I was definitely a digital health geek I felt like I wanted to know everyone in Australian startup ecosystem in the digital health world and that gave me a really good basis of understanding of that And also network of course after my time with ANDHealth+ I wanted to zoom in a little bit more and get actual startup experience which is when I took a role with Perx health still in digital health but I took a customer success role there and I absolutely loved it Hugo and Scott the founders [00:05:00] of Perx Absolute legends they're 10 out of 10 loved working with them the team was incredible It was all throughout COVID So it was lots of working from home and they did such an amazing job of Fostering such a well connected team even though we were all completely remote that was my first journey into a startup itself and I loved working with the team but I kind of felt it wasn't exactly what I was looking for It wasn't the perfect puzzle piece I started asking myself what else I was looking for And I realized I really wanted a role that was a little bit more brains trust-y if that makes sense connecting dots being at the nexus of a company which is what I had at ANDHealth+ and at Perx Health I think I felt a little bit more in a swim lane if you will I really stuck to being a customer success manager for these five accounts or whatever it was I ended up Taking on a few other handful of projects at Perx that were Special projects-y I wanted that to be my full role but at the time they weren't able to offer me that which is totally understandable and so I caught up with Simon who I actually grew up with we grew up playing touch football together and [00:06:00] he would pick me up in high school and we would play mixed touch together every Wednesday night and I saw on LinkedIn that he was building flagship At the time it's called e-tail let's all take a moment and appreciate that We're now called flagship Um And we caught up for coffee I love what he was starting to build it was obviously very early days at that point and I said hire me please
Laura: before we dive too much into Flagship you said something there about brains trust and I'm keen to hear more about that
Deena: Yeah it's probably a reflection on me as a person more than anything I'm a sticky beak I like to know what's going on I like to be in the know and that was something that I loved about my role at ANDHealth+ is I worked really closely with the CEO knew what was happening in each area of the business And being able to connect the dots things like we can't start this project until that person's finished that project in my mind I call it the Eagle's eye view being able to look down on how a business or a startups operating and see all of the different moving pieces [00:07:00] instead of just swimming in the one lane
Laura: I'm smiling and no one else can see that I'm smiling I'm just reflecting on my conversation with Matt your husband before this call And he was like she's such a taskmaster And I could just hear that coming through
Deena: Yup That's definitely accurate If there's a job to be done the best believe it's getting done
Laura: Actually Matt said a couple of things that I really loved That one the dog respects you more always gotta love that And two that there's an ongoing family joke that Dee will be good at that it just says a lot about your generalist superpowers
Deena: Yeah I think the dog one's may be more of a reflection on Matt He's just the nicest person you'll ever meet which you know doesn't shine a light on me and so he's Lenny's best friend our dog He respects me but he loves Matt
Laura: let's get into where you are at in your career now what do you think the customer success function does to a business's bottom line
Deena: We're very specific in what we do I do think our CS function's maybe a little bit [00:08:00] different to whatever a standard CS function looks like Flagship so right now we are a visual merchandising tool for physical brick and mortar retailers we help head office teams place products in their stores Imagine you got a head office in Sydney but they have stores all across Australia or internationally How do they communicate what products need to be placed in what stores or what items need to be on what mannequins Effectively to their store teams and what I think is the coolest part about flagship is once we know where product lives in a store We marry that information up with how many times that products has sold in any given period of time so that we're able to provide A money map of a store floor plan So we can say this fixtures generated or this mannequin's generated X amount of revenue over this week or this month or quarter then we give our retailers the ability to drill down And understand really in depth how their stores are performing from a product placement perspective Unlike maybe some other customer success teams The retailers that we're working with Had never done what we're doing today Flagship's [00:09:00] a novel technology in a sense that It's not like a zoom or a Google Meet where it's the similar basis but different actual user interface we are taking completely manual processes and digitizing it And so that journey from where they are today to where they need to get to to get the most Value out of flagship is more of like a change management process than anything that's where I think what we do is really unique and perhaps different to Some other CS functions in that We need to go on that journey with the customer We don't just give them the keys to the car and you know how to drive already So you just get in the car and start driving we're teaching a new way of driving in a way to your question we see a lot of value add from that because one we get them Onboarded a lot quicker than if they had to figure it out themselves and two the efficiencies that our customers get out of flagship are Game-changing we like to say both from time-saving and then revenue generating point of view And it's my job to get them there as quick as possible
Laura: Love it And you joined early as the first female on the team how would you [00:10:00] describe your role in the growth journey so far
Deena: I actually joined flagship in more of an operational role it's funny I wrote my own job description before I'd even signed my contract because I was super clear on what I wanted my role to be And I was looking for the right start up to Fit with that that has completely gone out the window since then for a number of reasons but I think CS for me Makes a lot of sense It's in my mind the perfect mix of project management or time management and also relationship building to be successful in CS you have to be able to build that rapport really quickly and I think that's something I love doing and that comes really naturally to me I think on the first female on the team if I think about my life that makes a lot of sense as I kind of touched on I was always playing in the boys soccer team a lot of my best friends are guys and so I'm definitely more male inclined in like a working relationship Point of view I love it I think after eight months of being on the team I got married and I invited the whole team down At that point there was only six of us it was just like so special to have them [00:11:00] there And so yeah building those relationships quickly It was imperative I would say at an early stage Company you need to have ultimate trust in your counterparts At that early stage because things are going awry all the time It's super challenging And you need to be able to say So-and-so go do this and have complete trust that they're going to nail it and I can hand on heart say that for everyone in our team old and new I think we've done a really really strong job at building A team that's very well connected and genuinely care about each other and the company we're building together I'm very lucky to work with them day in and day out
Laura: And for context how many people are on the team
Deena: Right now there's the 12 of us Some in Australia and some in the us our office is based in Sydney but I'm actually based in Melbourne So I'm a lone soldier over here
Laura: given it's a very early company how are you thinking about building the foundations for this post sales function and shaping the overall strategy
Deena: I'd say that's probably our biggest challenge as a company at the moment as I mentioned we [00:12:00] offer a very white glove approach to onboarding and support and we've seen that work incredibly for us We've got great results with all of the customers we worked with to date and now it's our job or my job to figure out how do we scale that hands-on white gloved bespoke approach and do that with 10x 20x a 100x number of customers I think it's a combination of getting the right people in the right roles and being able to work with product to understand what are the things that we can productize And build into the onboarding experience from a product perspective and what are the things that actually need to sit with a human I'm a big believer in you want to work with people that you want to work with both within your team but also from a customer perspective with the Service providers that they want to work with that's been something that was a really good learning for us early on was people want to work with us because they enjoy Our company they like what we do and we deliver results it's so important to keep those three things for all of our customers as we grow and that's something that I'm personally very connected to and I want to make [00:13:00] sure when someone joins flagship they feel like they're the number one priority because they are
Laura: do you either have any early learnings that have been like the biggest aha moments as to what you can systemize versus productize versus actually needs a human or are there any playbooks that you're following and testing that would provide any inspiration for the audience
Deena: I had a really good learning early on I think it was maybe our fifth customer or something where I was like okay I've done this a handful of times now this is the customer experience They're going to go down this exact pathway and they're going to love it because our last four customers have loved it And That just wasn't the case it was from that learning that I realized the bespoke newness is actually really important I think that ties back to my earlier point in that because it's a new experience change is scary for a lot of these brands and because our tool really touches the breadth of a company we're not just working with one person you know it's not like a notion where you could use notion by yourself for the rest of time and no one else in your organization needs to flagship touches pretty much [00:14:00] everyone across a retailer from head office to store staff to regional managers When you're rolling out a tool that's so Expansive you need to be able to make sure you've planned for all of that every customer that we work with has a completely different process and so we need to be able to be flexible in both our CS approach but also from a product perspective around what we're offering them
Laura: do you have any Early thoughts or learnings as you're starting to think about building out your people strategy under you or is it just too early
Deena: there's definitely ideas there I think a natural first step is splitting up the market size you know small to medium market versus enterprise is completely different experience and the time for rollouts completely different and then I'd say also from a product perspective having a light version of flagship versus The fully fledged version also opens up the type of onboarding or CS experience and what you need for one version of flagship will be different for another right now our CS team is two of us myself and Julie in my team what I'm seeing is we're able to do more in general [00:15:00] as a team as we get better at what we do our product gets more mature in my mind I envision it as like a ladder Where and I'm using my hands so apologies Anyone that's listening to this you've got The two sides of your ladders and then you've got rungs going up on the ladder you kind of need the CS function and the product function to be At the same level product can't get to advanced and CS is trailing behind and CS can't get to advanced and product's trailing behind them So I find it's this constant dance between CS and product where We have Constant communication I think I chat to Roger and our team more than I chat to Matt my husband half the time and so we need to be in constant communication so that we're doing the right things at the right time from a high level that's how I see The maturity of the CS function alongside our product and then obviously to answer your question we'll have US-based we'll have Australian based CSMs for those different market sizes one day one thing I'm really excited about for next year is working with product To think about how do we have those aha moments for our customers in product [00:16:00] sooner and that will be a big focus for us
Laura: what's your process currently for iterating on that customer journey and product map
Deena: we're in constant communication as a business we are retailer led In and out Retailers have built flagship and they'll continue to build a flagship for the rest of time because we want to make sure we're building a product That meets the needs of the people who are using it I have my weekly syncs or fortnightly Syncs with our customers and any ideas or any opportunities that they're sharing with us I'll digest Sometimes I put a bit of a filter on things and make sure the top of the priority gets shared with Roger who leads our product team we then identify you know what needs to be built now versus later versus potentially never and that's something we're constantly iterating on I would say weekly daily sometimes
Laura: your customers are some of the best global retail brands so I can imagine the stakeholders that you're dealing with there is pretty complex especially if you're playing this change management role
Deena: Well that's the most complicated part for us as a team is because we're [00:17:00] helping these retailers go from something that's very manual go through that change management process bring it into flagship We need to be able to say to them confidently we can do what you're doing today in flagship no problems We could do that tomorrow with you And then once foundations are in place that's when we look to level up phase two phase three phase four when we say okay Now that we're doing exactly what you're doing today but digitized it How can we get more value out of your VM process in flagship and how can you make better decisions quicker faster stronger reminds me of that song Um and do that all within flagship that's what I love about my role is like Not only are we digitizing what they do today but then we're working with them literally week in and week out to say okay How can we level this up together
Laura: Yeah It's so powerful I'm just thinking of all these retail brands in the world The potential is huge
Deena: one thing I love seeing is when a retailer we're working with you know maybe in Australia has a great opportunity and we might turn around a feature for them that has [00:18:00] benefit to three or four other customers and that cross pollination of learnings you know really small example of this is one of our customers really wanted to be able to Do color swatches in flagship for anyone that's in a retail game or in a design world this might mean something for you and now we see most of our customers using this feature that we built for one specific customer early on As a collective we're all getting better at product placement install which is awesome
Laura: I spoke to your colleague Marcel before this chat who did actually reflect on your wedding as part of his commentary so loved it
Deena: fun
Laura: but he described you as an absolute weapon and said you're both each other's batmans and I really loved that because obviously he's playing that sales role and partnerships role and you're playing that post sales customer role how do you approach building these cross functional relationships that fill your cup but also strategically enable you to deliver that end to end customer experience
Deena: I will say I think [00:19:00] I got very lucky in Marcel as a teammate he's just like the male version of me We laugh at exactly the same things and whatever he says I'm like I just had that exact thought so we're very in tune which is amazing And indeed yeah no Batman and Robin just Batman and Batman that's because I think we work incredibly well together We do a lot of conferencing and a lot of going out to meet customers As I said relationships is paramount here in my role as it is in his and I think when we reflect on some customer journeys I think there's often the experience where you meet a sales person and they hand over to Customer success or account management and then you kind of never see that person again until it's time to sign a contract renewal that's something we definitely want to avoid customers experiencing because genuinely do care And I think we've seen success in authentic relationships and we want to continue that but internally and externally of course and so that's one thing Marcel and I have always been on the same page about you know he is around If a [00:20:00] customer wants to call him and Mentioned something to him that he's always going to pick up the phone And he's always there to support them just as much as I am On a personal relationship we love hanging out together which just makes work so much more easy we've got a really high sense of respect and a really strong feedback loop with each other which is also so important especially at this early stage where we're all 30 something building a business together where we might not know if we're getting it right or wrong and we need to feel that trust and support from our teammates or our colleagues to tell us when we can be doing things better or when you know in the good times as well when we've absolutely nailed it
Laura: given that you're operating so early and you're growing so fast what have been some of the biggest challenges in building the plane while flying it any valuable stories or lessons to share for those just behind you on their journey
Deena: The first one that sticks out is you don't know what you don't know is probably most pertinent we're learning so much about this industry And whilst we have Simon who's so [00:21:00] retail focused As a pillar for us to sense check ideas you know being able to have those conversations also with our customers is paramount one learning that I got really early on and maybe this is a little bit insular but not everyone's going to love you or love what you're doing And I think that that is really important to remember at an early stage company because we're so involved and I genuinely love working with flagship I love my role I love the people I work with In my mind I'm like why doesn't everyone else see that as well when a deal doesn't go through and you thought it was going to go through or customer trials it and they're not you know Blown away that's okay I know for me really early on again I think fourth customer or something Our key user as I said I love building rapport with people but I just didn't gel with this person and I was like got my spiderweb hands out And I was like Spider-Man like why isn't this working I thought everyone's going to love flagship and love working with me but some people just don't and that's totally okay And I think at first I took that really personally and I went a bit introspective there [00:22:00] but I think you really got to back yourself and know I like to think and we're making the right decisions at the right time most of the time and you got to back yourself in a lot of the time especially early on to say this is the right call and whether someone else makes it on another team or you make it I just think it's really important to back yourself in
Laura: So it sounds like that's one of your mantras day to day now
Deena: I've had a few mantras that feel Like I have three sayings that are constantly going on in my mind You don't ask you don't get so I'm a big believer and always shoot you a shot the next is you've got to earn the right whatever that right is you got to put in the effort at the time and the care To earn that the last is you win some you lose some And they're probably all very basic but I think that's what's going through my mind constantly
Laura: I can just imagine you typing away almost like inside out Ding ding ding
Deena: Yeah Typing a follow up email and I just have that going on in my background
Laura: And I know we've mentioned Simon a lot but given in the context of [00:23:00] flagship retail does really flow through his veins as the founder of the business what's it like partnering with a founder who's so deeply connected to the problem
Deena: firstly Simon is an absolute weapon His ability to think about Solutions to problems and have these weird and wonderful ideas is something I will never understand Cause I'm way more of an operator than I am a blue sky thinker but having him at the helm and with that as he's kind of like emo is exactly what I think our company needs as The visionary if you will And he's wonderful at that And I think the other thing that's A huge Testament to Simon two things One is ability to bring Really strong people together Not to toot our own horn but I think he's done an incredible job at building an extremely strong team that really work well together One of the first things we do when someone joins the team is we have the Gallup strength test Everyone has to complete one and we have this matrix that's available at any point in time To see what we look like as a team and where our strengths are across our team [00:24:00] which I think is one Testament to his ability to bring these people together and have a very well-balanced team but also these genuine care around building the right team the right time the second is as you said because he's so deeply connected to retail he has an incredible network And so we are able to tap into Very senior people across many many organizations that really help us shape where we go with things I'm so grateful to have the ability to call out Rachel Kelly who Used to head up retail Afterpay absolute legend give me 30 or 40 minutes of her time to sense check if we're on the right path is so valuable at this stage of our company
Laura: It sounds like you've got the best little Rolodex there of people
Deena: It's definitely a strong one it's also a Testament to all of those people in that Rolodex and beyond kind of falls into one of my mantras of You don't ask you don't get I'm always surprised at people who are willing to give up that time they might be super busy or in a really senior role but I think more times than not people are very much willing to give up their time [00:25:00] help you out when you need you just go to ask
Laura: that's a great overview of flagship how you're building the strategy and customer focus I'd love to zoom out slightly and understand what are your biggest operator strengths and what do you think are the biggest skills or genius zones that set you apart
Deena: Two come to mind and maybe your conversation with Matt touched on them The first is my ability to get stuff done or be a taskmaster if you will I absolutely love ticking boxes I love having a to do list and this is the five things I'm going to achieve And ticking them all off which I think probably pairs nicely with my love of learning what Matt also said about me you know the family joke that I'll figure it out or Dee will be good at that is probably just the fact that if I don't know something or if I don't have a skill I'm so eager to learn that and fill that knowledge gap I'm recently trying to build a garden bed Sounds simple never done it before I'm a grew my own grass recently which was like a huge achievement for me I love not having a skill and [00:26:00] then having it and being able to be like look how cool this is now And then I think my last one is probably the rapport building piece it's probably less of a learned skill and more of something that comes naturally to me I'm able to connect with people whether they're OLD young whatever stage of life it gives me energy This is actually uncomfortable for me because all I want to do Laura is ask you a question but I'm holding my breath and we'll have to save that for another time but yeah I love building new relationships And learning about new people
Laura: we're going to look ahead to the future now I'd love to take a moment to think about trends that are going to shape the future for operators and tech You're obviously seeing a lot of retail and fashion trends but what trends do you see shaping the future of operator roles
Deena: I love this question because when I think back to My biggest career forks in the road I think how I wish I had what younger generations have today Which is such a fruitful and robust startup ecosystem where we see students in high school now not even thinking [00:27:00] about university and going straight into a sales role at a FinTech startup that is just so cool in itself that 10 years ago or five years ago it wasn't possible for me I didn't even cross my mind at the time and I just love What we've built as an Australian and New Zealand startup ecosystem is Actually opening so many more doors to one new opportunities for the youth of the world and two maybe even people that Don't align with a traditional education and offering Opportunities that they wouldn't have necessarily got career trajectories that they wouldn't have necessarily had if they went through a traditional university degree for me I studied Occupational therapy for four years And I don't really use any of those skills or those learnings in my day to day role a lot of what I've got was to self-taught So being able to skip those four years and going straight into a role is so exciting that's looking backwards a little bit but looking forward I actually see CS as maybe one of the next hype roles if you will again using inverted comments when I say hype roles what we saw was chief of staff and it's a great role Laura [00:28:00] I definitely at one point saw myself and the chief of staff-esque role I think it definitely had its hype moments at times and similar to an operator you know it was really Undefined and in different organization means something completely different maybe I'm skewed and biased here but I think When you see a lot of those traditional professional services type roles Wanting to get out of those industries and come into startups I actually think CS is a really nice Role for those individuals you're the conduit between the customer and the rest of the team day in and day out We are the customer voice internally because they're not necessarily in the room and in order to continue to build a product that services your customers you need to be able to know that voice understand it and then translate it internally really well we see a lot of lawyers going into your chief of staff or strategy type roles but I actually think CS is sometimes overlooked and might be the next big thing Heard it here first
Laura: Heard it here first what's your vision for the future Both personally and professionally
Deena: I want to do something really cool with my career [00:29:00] I want to be able to turn back you know in 20 years time and be like That was an awesome period of time and look what we built together I really want that for myself I'm so invigorated by working hard and getting cool results and achieving things both individually and as a team here at flagship and that's what drives me I'm of the opinion that if you're waking up and you're not excited to go to work then you're in the wrong role or something's not right and I can hand on heart say that I genuinely feel that every day the day that I don't feel that Is what I use as my sense of okay You need to move on now or we need to change in some way shape or form I'm on the flagship journey I'm not going anywhere I'm really excited to see one how this product grows and bleeds into other areas of retail and you know Jumps out of just the visual merchandising realm and can start ideally being the Shopify of physical retail and then personally when I look back on my prime years I think COVID maybe took a lot of time that I would have loved to have spent traveling exploring working hard I'm eager to do all of that now that things are Back to [00:30:00] normal but yeah that's the north star
Laura: looking at your career what tactics frameworks or people in the industry have been your North Stars
Deena: I'd say my north star has probably changed depending on where I am in my career I think when I was more in the digital health world I was very much hyper focused on people in digital health that have done really well or companies that were doing really cool things and now that I'm more in retail that's shifted a little bit towards that lens one person that's been a constant for me is my brother-in-law Gabriel baker Who's the founder of Mosh he's just been the best sounding board a girl could ask for throughout my career I've always gone to him as the first port of call to sense check things Do you think I'm making the right call here I'm very grateful to have him with such a close phone call away as I touched on earlier I think now being in flagship in an industry that I love fashion and I enjoy working with retailers but I've never really worked In a retail brand before So having access to Our incredible network of advisors People like Rachel Kelly or Steph leathers you know That's a [00:31:00] huge brains trust that I can tap into when I need to sense check those things they've been amazing from a tactics or frameworks point of view I Consume information in bite sized chunks I'm not going to be one That's going to sit down and listen to an audio book or read an audio book for hours on end I'm probably more of a bite-size information kind of person and two newsletters that I've been following for a while now is Alex Brogan's faster than normal I started reading his mental modals and then I was like this is awesome I've been signed up and probably tap into that Probably every second week or so the other one is Wes Kao's newsletter when I was reflecting on the two things that they have in common is one very bite-size information That's practical that you could implement tomorrow I'm a very practical person and if I have an idea I want to see it in action And I think they've been two that I've been constants and then I tap in and out of CS related ones as well
Laura: Wes Kao is amazing She's the founder of Maven I recently went to one of her sessions and I was just like whoa I want to be like you [00:32:00]
Deena: Yeah that's what I want to be when I grow up
Laura: Yeah in terms of operators in the Australian and New Zealand ecosystem or further afield if you have any who's out there doing incredible things that you really admire and respect
Deena: I mean the first person that comes to mind is Zoe who I worked with a Perx Do you know Zoe I feel like you're nodding like you know her Yeah She's 10 out of 10 genuinely best combination of wickedly clever and strategic but genuinely a good person and totally humble about how amazing she is I loved working with her at Perx she was one of the main reasons I wanted to stay I was like can we just be best work friends forever And we still catch up to this day I think she's the first person I added on slack connect when I started at flagship and I think she's the brains trust at Perx and she's built an incredibly great career for herself there as well And I'm excited to see where she goes with things I'll definitely always going to be keeping a keen eye and a good friend of mine actually lives in London now but Jackie Rotman works at a massive FinTech startup there [00:33:00] in like a chief of staff-y I guess strategic operational type role she's a weapon She's the person I always say if I had to Run anything by she's my go-to
Laura: Amazing So shout out to Zoe and Jackie we're on to our final question And as we all work to become better operators can you share a piece of advice or a tactic that has helped you stay grounded along this journey
Deena: My go-to is probably we're not saving lives I think it's really easy to get caught up in work being the most important thing in the world and you know causing a lot of stress like this nights et cetera that was one thing that I realized when I left the health care industry is you know I don't need to be up at night thinking about that person's wheelchair assessment that I haven't ordered So they're going to be bed bound for another week whilst obviously your work is 10 out of 10 important we're not saving lives and if something has to wait for tomorrow because you need time to yourself past six o'clock that is totally okay your personal life and your wellness in that respect is number one priority [00:34:00]
Laura: Well Deena thank you so much Where can people find you
Deena: LinkedIn is probably a best place I think I use LinkedIn more than any other app on my phone so please reach out to me there I like to think I'm pretty responsive but if for some reason you feel like you've fallen through the cracks I'm a big fan of a nudge So please follow up with me