Women in Customer Success Podcast

125 - How to Transition From Academia to Customer Success - Charlotte Jupp

• Marija Skobe-Pilley • Episode 125

Share episode

Curious about what it takes to transition from the world of academia to an entirely new career in customer success? In this episode, Charlotte takes us on an incredible journey from the halls of Oxford University, where she earned her PhD, to the world of customer success - leading teams in the heart of New York City.

Charlotte Jupp is the VP of Customer Success. She empowers and advises cybersecurity teams and C-suite stakeholders on how to strengthen their control and risk analysis across cybersecurity domains, allowing for security posture determination, prioritisation, and measurable improvement, driving product value, adoption, and usage. Charlotte leads teams to achieve exceptional ARR growth and customer retention with a hands-on attitude. 

Here’s what you'll learn:

  • Transitioning from academia to customer success 
  • Building customer success teams from the ground up 
  • Finding comfort in something completely new 
  • One key lesson that her current role taught her 
  • Facing challenges as a woman in a male-dominated industry 
  • Responding to gender stereotypes in cybersecurity


Hit play and learn how to break barriers, build confidence, and build your own path to success. Growth doesn’t happen by staying where it’s safe. It happens when you take those bold steps into the unknown and trust yourself to figure it out along the way. Charlotte’s journey is proof that with determination, curiosity, and a willingness to adapt, you can succeed in places you never imagined. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself, take risks, and create your own unique path.

Follow Charlotte!

This episode was brought to you by Vitally.

__________________________________________________
About Women in Customer Success Podcast:

Women in Customer Success Podcast is the first women-only podcast for Customer Success professionals, where remarkable ladies of Customer Success connect, inspire and champion each other.


Follow:

Women in Customer Success

Host Marija Skobe-Pilley


NEW - Women in Customer Success Courses:

  • Thriving as a First-Time People Leader - https://womenincs.co/thriving-as-a-first-time-people-leader
  • The Revenue CSM - https://womenincs.co/the-revenue-csm



Speaker 1:

This episode is brought to you by Vitally. Vitally is bringing in a new era of customer success productivity. With their all-in-one customer success platform, vitally gives you unmatched visibility into your company's health and success, and now you can measure operational strategies on customer outcomes at scale with goals, directly in Vitally. Exciting news for all the listeners Vitaly are also giving away a free pair of AirPods for all Women in Customer Success podcast listeners when you take a qualified demo with them. If you're in the market looking for a CS platform, make sure you visit vitalyio slash women vitalallyio slash women to book your demo and get your AirPods. And now let's get into the episode how to transition from academia to customer success. Join me in conversation with Charlotte Jupp, who talks about her journey of research and PhD from the University of Oxford to building customer success teams from the ground up in New York City. Also, as a woman in customer success and in cybersecurity, a very male-dominated industry stay tuned until the end to hear how Charlotte responds to some very interesting gender stereotypes. Let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

Hi everyone, this is Maria Scobe-Pillay and you're listening to Women in Customer Success podcast, the first women-only podcast where remarkable ladies of customer success share their stories and practical tools to help you succeed and make an impact. If you want to learn more about customer success, get career advice and be inspired, you're in the right place. So let's tune in. She is one of the most talented CS leaders. She is a VP of customer success at OutSync and also she is a doctor. She has a master's and a PhD from none other than the University of Oxford. She is Charlotte Japp. Welcome to the show, charlotte. It is such an honor really to have you here today.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you very much. It's a very kind introduction. So, yeah, I'm really pleased to be here and looking forward to our conversation.

Speaker 1:

Charlotte, you obviously have such an amazing career and education and I can't wait to dig deeper into some of those topics. But let's get the audience to get to know you a bit better. Where are you based?

Speaker 2:

So I actually live in New York City. So I'm from the UK originally. I moved out here seven years ago. So I actually live in New York City. So I'm from the UK originally. I moved out here seven years ago. I've loved my time in America. I've been to every state since I've moved here. That's my clone to fame. But yeah, I live in New York City so it's a good time of year to be here. It's heating up, maybe a bit too hot at times, but yeah, it's a fantastic place to live Maybe one unfair question.

Speaker 1:

Do you have a particular favourite state in the US? Maybe one unfair question.

Speaker 2:

Do you have a particular favourite state in the US? See, I've made this mistake before. I'm very loyal and I say New York is my favourite state. But I do like I've enjoyed travelling to the obvious ones like Hawaii, california, but I do enjoy the southern states. I think the hospitality is great, the food's great, the music there's the music belt Really, really excellent. So I'd definitely recommend a trip around some of the southern states.

Speaker 1:

So what's your next travel destination?

Speaker 2:

Well, later this summer I'm going back to Oregon, so I also love going to the national parks of the US. So I'm going to Crater Lake and then hoping to journey up the coast. So I know the weather can be a bit more temperamental over there, maybe a bit British, so I'll be packing my rain, my rain cagoule, ready, but, yeah, hoping for some spectacular scenery.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I'm sure you're going to get that. Okay, Charlotte, I can't wait to hear more about your time at Oxford in particular. I just love everything about PhDs and doctorates, etc. But I do have one question that will take us there. Would a 16-year-old Charlotte be surprised to find you in the current role?

Speaker 2:

So that's a great question. I think probably, yes, I think, a 16 in the role living abroad. I think, yeah, I'd be. I was very much a mathematician and it's always have been what's not necessarily an obvious career choice. When you're thinking about maths at 16, people point you towards accountancy and areas like that, which is like oh yes, figures, people, people should work in that area. So probably I didn't really have a defined career path. I don't think I always knew I wanted to study mathematics but didn't know what I really wanted to do after that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, this is perfect for me. You were 16 and you were already a mathematician and you knew you wanted to study mathematics. Where does that come from? Like when did you realize? I'm super curious because I was always on the creative part and I don't know that many people, especially women, who absolutely knew that they wanted to be mathematicians when they grew up. So for me this is just really fascinating.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I suppose I was always a bit of a geek at school and I think it was just always encouraged me. I love solving problems from a young age and you know, and I took that joy, I guess, into solving maths problems as well, I really enjoyed it. My parents always encouraged me to kind of, you know, keep learning and if I was happy sitting there doing sums, do some more. I always had a great teacher when I was about the age of seven or eight who I think really helped grow my love of maths. I remember reciting my times tables and enjoying it and doing things like that and it always continued to and I think it just became my thing.

Speaker 2:

It became obvious that I was going to do a maths degree and there was no. Really I was quite lucky in a way that I didn't consider anything else. I didn't need to worry or consider what else I was going to do and I've never regretted not taking more time to think about it. I've really enjoyed the path that maths has taken and it's such a valuable skill I think that can be transferable that you don't realise perhaps when you're 14, 15, 16, the skills that you're learning and how they transfer to lots of different kind of job opportunities outside the obvious. It's wonderful, I've just enjoyed it the geek, I guess, but proud.

Speaker 1:

Very proud. I really like what you're saying, how you didn't need to have a choice because sometimes people, especially young ones and teenagers, can be overwhelmed with choice. But you kind of knew maths was your thing. It's like you know, for some people they know swimming or ballet or music is their thing. Like don't need to ask any more questions. For you it was maths which is so amazing. So what was your PhD about? So you already studied maths. You went and did a master's degree and then there was a PhD in mathematics, which sounds absolutely fascinating as it is. Tell us more about what was that research?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So it's funny because at school I always thought, oh, I love pure maths. And then when I went to university I learned that everything you study at school really is like applied maths. And so I became an applied mathematician the more I did. My undergraduate I specialised in applied mathematics, courses like maths and the environment, so kind of modeling the weather or climate, mathematical biology. So my PhD and I continued to study was in the field of mathematical biology, so taking mathematical concepts and applying it to kind of I guess biological scenarios and understanding how you can use modelling to predict what might happen. So my PhD specifically was in feather formation in embryonic development, so how the patterns form within the skin of chickens, in particularly as that embryo is developing and there are different ways that you can influence those patterns. So there's different kind of, I guess, environments you can put kind of those growing embryos into to make the patterns change.

Speaker 2:

And you might think this is a bit random. What? What does it mean? What does it do? But like like anything actually. And something else that's quite cool is this pattern formation. It was first studied mathematically by alan turing, so I know the father of the computer and obviously someone who did loads of great stuff in the war at bletchley park. He was so diverse as a mathematician this was another area he started looking into and he wrote some of the first papers on this theory and how you could model the pattern formation mathematically and kind of. I built on just a little bit on his research over my time and obviously lots of people who came in between us and how these patterns form. It's across biology really and in different scenarios, and it's the same kind of concepts of scar healing, scar tissue healing. How can you influence that to either kind of reduce the scarring or change the way that those happen? It's all the same types of processes really. So yeah, it can be applied in lots of different ways to lots of different phenomena, um so this is.

Speaker 1:

This is amazing. So basically, your pattern formation for chickens can and is already informing the pattern formation for scars and for skin development and rejuvenation yeah, exactly, it's all transferable.

Speaker 2:

So it's it's the same types of ideas. So obviously if you study in one area, you can then reapply the theories and things into different areas of kind of biology. So, yeah, very, very applicable. And I had a great research group. We were all doing lots of different things but yeah, it was kind of it was fun and really interesting hard work, like one of the hardest things I've ever done, kind of that level of research, but yeah, it was. It's a great experience. And I guess, on the same vein, if I love solving problems, still solving those problems and kind of continuing it on a bigger scale, I guess in a PhD- I think you're pretty humble.

Speaker 1:

I knew just a few minutes ago you said you build only a little bit on work that Alan Tunick already did. And that's another fascinating thing about a PhD in research. You spend years and so much effort creating theories and researching and all together it's building up just another block of knowledge in the world of knowledge that already exists and you almost feel you know. It's amazing accomplishment but it's like a small contribution to the society which is so fascinating after spending so many time and efforts into it. But it's absolutely amazing and well done for doing it and I can see in your face when you talk about it that's something that is an absolute passion of yours and it does look like you had lots of fun doing it. That's really wonderful. How did it happen that after BSD and after research, you somehow found yourself in customer success a few years after?

Speaker 2:

How did that look like the transition? So I guess for me I knew I wanted to do something different outside of academia, like I'd really enjoyed the work, the problem solving, but perhaps a lot, as I found, particularly a lot of the time it was it could be quite insular. You're doing a lot of work on your own, although I had a great research group. Like I said, everyone had their own projects, so you spend a lot of time and I decided I wanted to do something a bit more in industry and I joined. So after I finished my my degree, I went to work for a company called Detica who'd been acquired by BA Systems and they specialized in kind of doing consultancy, but more, I would say, technical or kind of mathematical modeling type consultancy for lots of different organizations focusing in kind of fraud detection, for prevention, and so that's what I did. So I transferred, I guess, my skills of building models into building, helping to build software for customers, specific projects that looked at fighting first party fraud, investment banking fraud and looking for patterns within data that would help reveal where there might be risk. So that's what I did and so I moved across mostly in a technical type role, so building out those models but also being on the consultative side working with customers.

Speaker 2:

I'd say probably at the start of that part of my career it was a lot more hands-on keyboard technical than me owning the relationships. I was supporting the projects kind of more internally. But then as I went through that I ended up working on customer site and you started building up a lot more on those relationship sides of kind of the customer success part of the role. And even though we didn't call it customer success, in a way it was. We were called technical leads, we were still doing quite technical work, but we were also kind of interacting with the customers, understanding their requirements, understanding what value meant to them and then helping to deliver on that value Was this kind of almost the beginning of You're very rich skills development, about you know people and building relationships and understanding and communicating value.

Speaker 1:

I wonder and maybe I'm completely wrong, so please let me know, because you were a mathematician and it seems that for years you were doing very technical work very much. You know modeling, calculations I don't know how much of it involved interaction with you. Know different people like customers. How did you pick up those other skills, because obviously you were technically incredible for sure. What about those other skills that you needed to have for customer success? How did you go about?

Speaker 2:

it. It was definitely the first time I'd probably formally been in those environments. From a career perspective, I think I've been very lucky that I've worked with some great leaders over the course of my career. And just what you can pick up through osmosis, that's not even really training. You see how people handle situations where sometimes you're sitting there thinking, oh, this is a difficult conversation. I'm glad I'm the one just listening, I'm not leading it.

Speaker 2:

But you learn so much in that, in that environment, by kind of how you work with people, how you can see them, and I think one of the things I learned was how to adapt perhaps to the different people that you're working with, how, if you can kind of work with them in a way that makes them feel comfortable, it can kind of grow the relationship much more quickly. So I guess one of the challenges I like about customer success is adapting your style depending on who you're working with. Like about customer success is adapting your style depending on who you're working with. You can have such a variety of customers from a variety of backgrounds, industries and and working out how to best work with them so that you can build a good relationship quickly is something that I find quite enjoyable because you you can go in and, like you, you can always be yourself, but you can maybe pick and reveal different parts of yourself depending on who you're working with and how you're working with them.

Speaker 1:

Charlotte in your customer success career. Once you found yourself in that role, it seems that you started building teams and you've been doing it continuously. What is your favorite part of building teams and building the function from the ground up?

Speaker 2:

I think building teams, I like perhaps working with people who think in a different way to me, like sometimes there's some level of similarity you want to have so that you're kind of you're all working towards the same goals obviously, but perhaps you challenge me to think in different ways. And I definitely like working with team members who speak up, not people who just say kind of yes to all my ideas. I want to make sure that my ideas like you know they might not be the right ideas. What are the great ideas? And I hope I always encourage that within my teams that everyone's you know opinion is as valued as everyone else and that we can all speak up and decide what's best For growing a function.

Speaker 2:

I think what I love about doing that is it's variety from just the day-to-day Sometimes, you know, working with customers. Obviously you're always in that, you know. Maybe sometimes it can be more stressful. Other times you have to always bring your best self to those meetings. Building a function obviously you want to kind of build it in the best way possible, but sometimes I find it relaxing.

Speaker 2:

You're doing something different. You're not like presenting or performing all the time, whilst kind of like working in some of the relationships. And so having that time to like step away and think strategically and plan what you want to do and how you're going to get to the end goal by doing little steps on the way, I find really enjoyable. And it's like you can give yourself mini projects that you can work to and you're setting yourself your own deadlines and perhaps being driven by external deadlines and working to reach those you know and still making yourself meet them and don't let you kind of drop the ball just because it's your own deadline and not someone else's. Yeah, I just find it and learning things. I think that's something else that's super. That I love is just learning and I think pushing myself and thinking, well, how can we make this better? What's not going well here? Getting other people's opinions from across our organization who aren't even in customer success that's something I've always enjoyed doing.

Speaker 1:

You have experience of building. You know first customer success team from the grounds up in various companies and just now you've been talking about like the joy of the process of building different projects. For me I kind of call it different building blocks of customer success function. So when you started with maybe blank canvas or you have the no, it's white canvas, right, and you have the opportunity to build from the ground up, what are those building blocks that you start putting together? Like, where would you start from? What are the first things you would start looking at to understand what has to be built firstly and then what comes next?

Speaker 2:

That's interesting. So we've just, I guess, been in my role eight months now, and so coming in, it's immediately understanding from the team the day in the life what are they doing? What are they doing? That's perhaps not the most efficient way of doing it, where we're burning hours and energy into doing things because we don't have some kind of even basic processes in place. You don't want to make the full end process. Just what can we do? Kind of quick wins. That would actually reduce the amount of pain that people are suffering and make our customers have a much better experience.

Speaker 2:

It's, I think, as you gain experience you learn things that make team's life easier.

Speaker 2:

You know what to look for. So, like you know the support experience for a customer, like when there's an issue, when there's a problem, how do we deal with that? Because that's when they're at their most fraught, probably, and they need help, and making sure that you recover from whatever pain they're feeling quickly is super important, otherwise it grows the pain. So, looking at some of the key processes within the team and saying, well, are they working efficiently or how can we make them better, and making sure those are in place, because then, equally, once you've got some structure around some of those it gives you the chance to perhaps do, whereas you'd love to come and do some strategic, exciting things straight away. They're not the generally things that you you need to work on. It's what can we do to make our customers experience better, and are also our teams, and usually that's driven by how can we make our teams more efficient as well internally, so it gives them the time to then focus on talking about value to customers and not doing firefighting behind the scenes.

Speaker 1:

So you're VP of Global Customer Success at Outink and it seems that you're in the very new industry for the first time as well in cybersecurity. So I wonder how do you learn, how do you pick up the information, especially when you go into very first industry? Even after having technical knowledge and knowledge of building teams et cetera, how do you find yourself comfortable in something completely new?

Speaker 2:

I think that's really and personally I think this is one of the things that makes customer success kind of people as successful as they can be is to be curious, to read around, to always ask that extra why in a meeting, if a customer says something you don't necessarily understand, kind of why they might have said it, it's much easier to ask at the start of a relationship than six months down the line when they think, well, why don't you know this? Always ask that, why like well, why would you do that? Why is why? Why don't you know this? Always ask that why, like well, why would you do that? Why is this important to you? But read around in your industry like soak up as much knowledge as you can kind of.

Speaker 2:

I've gone to conferences. I've, you know, paid for my own attendance in some areas, like to go and to learn and to better. Um, if you see that article on on a website, a news website about in where my instance, cyber security breaches happen, read the article, understand what's caused it, what were the factors there. So I think kind of being curious is super important. And another reason I guess I've enjoyed being in the industry I am is that we're being category creators in terms of like the, the. So, whereas security awareness training, which is what I'm working in, has been around a while, like what we're looking at kind of beyond that is, human risk management.

Speaker 2:

It's a new space within cyber security and it's building that space and I found that very similar as a process to doing research at university. You're building something new for the first time, looking into something new and I definitely see that parallel here, like transferring those skills into category creating. What do you need to do to get the market? Or like wider than customer success, even that market interest in what you're saying and believing that it's kind of like yes, this is the, the new thing that we should be paying attention to and helping to influence that market. It's just so interesting. I think you can develop such a range of skills outside what might be the traditional CS role, but then really apply and come back when you're then working with customers and kind of helping them understand why your product is so valuable and what value it can bring to them and in their roles and the insights they need to present within their organization.

Speaker 1:

I wonder, in your career, charlotte, I'm sure you had so many learnings in the way, but could you point out what has been one thing or one lesson that you all maybe, maybe this current role taught you to think?

Speaker 2:

anybody should learn at some point in their lives it's interesting, I think definitely I've grown in confidence over the years. So you know, I would never be at school. I never answer a question if I even if I was 99% sure I knew, because I did not want to be seen putting my hand up. I wasn't unless I was, even when I was 99% certain, or what happens if you got it wrong, don't speak up. But I think, partly overcoming that and having that confidence to ask like there's no stupid question really as long as you're asking it in the right way and asking. And then I'd say advocating for yourself is another one.

Speaker 2:

There are so many times perhaps earlier in my career I didn't speak up again in meetings and then someone else says something that you thought 10 minutes ago and they get lauded for that brilliant opinion. I think I should have said something. Why didn't I speak up? And you know, express mine.

Speaker 2:

And so I definitely say advocate and one, speak up when you've got ideas and share them, because even if it's not the right idea in that moment, it's probably guide the conversation towards a different topic. That might be the right idea. And secondly, do advocate for yourself because not necessarily, I mean, everyone's always kind of very busy and so if you're trying to kind of push your career and look for opportunities like Speak Up, don't expect the opportunities to come to you. You have to kind of look for them, search for them, kind of find out what else is going on wider in the business, ask if you can get involved, ask for those opportunities and then kind of put your hand up because everyone's really busy and there are probably those opportunities there, as people don't necessarily always have the time to think and so that's your responsibility is to look and to ask.

Speaker 1:

I think when you're leading your team. I really wonder how are you as a leader, because you have so many awesome advice that are very empowering I would say it's very empowering for individual contributors. You know, raise your hand, ask, feel free to ask. Know, ask questions even if you're not sure about that's how you're building confidence. Are you, or have you ever been in situation when you're leading the team that you really have to almost teach people how to do it, like do you see that there is so much potential hidden in in them, but they just no one knows about it because they don't raise hands? I really wonder how are you noticing that within the team members?

Speaker 2:

It's a great question. I'd say what I've always worked to is trying to kind of guide people along. If you give people an overwhelming amount of kind of constructive feedback at once, they're not going to know what to do with it. So if you identify certain points where you think a team member might need to improve, it's just picking one of them and working with them to work on that one, rather than because if you get them too many it might be overwhelming or they might, you know it gets lost in terms of what you're trying to do. It's picking one and making help, build up their confidence and, I think, learning, watching, watching other leaders perhaps it's more difficult in today's remote world. So it's, you know, giving them people the opportunity to shadow you, even you know, if you're just on the phone. Whereas before they might have overheard things in an office, it's now making sure they can overhear things on Zoom calls, I guess, and getting them to join you if you're doing a certain meeting so they can learn the techniques, so that they can follow them next time and, yeah, really guide them through. But also, I think, realize that just because I do something one way, it's not the right way for everyone. It's the outcome that's important. So how does that person who you're helping get to the outcome in a way that's comfortable for them? And I think you can give them guidance and tips in certain ways, but equally, they might have a much. They might discover a better way of doing it, which you can then learn from them, and I think that's an important point If you can show your team as well that you're learning from them and you pick up some of their ideas and follow the ways that they do things.

Speaker 2:

A basic example is I think we'd produced a slide deck for something that I'd kind of knocked together quite quickly. The team had started using it. They came back and said oh, we actually think it would work better in this way. I was like brilliant, I agree with you. Yes, I think that is much better. And taking on that feedback, I think they can. I hope it helps grows their confidence that they also you know they should be guiding me and they talk to some customers a lot more than I do, so you know guiding me in those things and working together as a team ultimately for the one goal.

Speaker 1:

Those are some really, really practical observations. Thanks so much for sharing those. Now I do wonder about one thing, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. Given that you have a PhD in mathematics, I could imagine but I may be wrong that there were not that many women doing it at the time when you would do it Now you're in cybersecurity Again. As an industry. It is pretty much male dominated, as long as you know. As far as I know, talking to other leaders, I always hear how cybersecurity is really male dominated. Now, as a woman in customer success in cybersecurity, did you ever felt some challenges related to you being a woman and how did you overcome it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's an interesting question because I think sometimes you do face challenges. I always try not to jump and think, oh, is it because I'm female. But I think what I've learned is anyone will have a challenge if they don't become educated in what they're trying to talk about. So, as an example, in cybersecurity, you know I knew nothing about cyber before I joined the field about 10 years ago. So to me it was really important to become, especially in customer success.

Speaker 2:

If you're trying to guide people and add value to conversations, if you don't know the thing, you're going to fall down quite quickly. And then obviously stereotypes can come into that sometimes and whether that be around. So I think if you can be informed and kind of stand your ground, that's super important. I'd say again, speaking up perhaps for yourself is another thing that perhaps well, I'll talk about stereotypes now. Stereotypically it's said that you know men will speak up for themselves, advocate for themselves more than women, and so I think be conscious of that and realize that if you're not speaking up for yourself, other people will be perhaps for themselves, and so make sure that you kind of have to push yourself, even if it's uncomfortable, because that's like a growth opportunity as well. And finally, I think you know you have to just brush some things off.

Speaker 2:

I once went to an event in New York when I'd first moved here and it was actually an event, a British event, and I turned up and it was had members of kind of British civil service government there and someone said to me one of the delegates, oh and who's wife are you?

Speaker 2:

They asked because I was at a business event and and I was, and I luckily stuttered through um well, actually I'm here because I'm the first person who's moved here from Britain with my company and I'm building the business in the US and and I probably over egged what my role was, but my comeback and they look quite shocked and you, they realize they put their foot in it and I think things like that. You are always going to meet people perhaps who are old-fashioned, but and I'd say, if you can have a dignified, great response to come back with and and kind of, show you know, you don't have to be rude, you don't have to, but just to make a point saying, oh well, actually this is what I'm doing and yeah, I'm proud of this, then I think that helps as well and you have to brush it off. I think sometimes it's not right. I'm not saying it's right and you just have to try and help educate those views, I think in a constructive way.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, it's an interesting experience, that one definitely interesting and like I can already imagine it pictured like a scene from the movie. You know they're asking you, they want to be cheeky, but you just say everything. Uh, I would even add and on top I have a PhD in University, university of oxford, just if you were wondering.

Speaker 2:

I mean just joking but like, yeah, well, that's it. You come out of it. You think of all the responses that you could have had. You're like, oh, I really hope this happens to me again so I could use up all all the answers that I've built up in my head if I was in this scenario again of what I should have said yeah, but uh, no, it's. I think it's interesting. But definitely, I think, also education and calling out respectfully, because some people do genuinely make mistakes. They'll say the wrong thing and they don't necessarily mean what they've said. It's come out wrong and so I don't think you should necessarily go into kind of like attack in that instance. It's try to educate and make people understand other people's point of view, where, like, no one else walks in anyone else's shoes.

Speaker 1:

So it's it's important, I think, to kind of do it with a smile yeah, do it with a smile, but I like how you said and also showcase how you're proud of all of that that you're doing. Yeah, that's wonderful, charlotte. This was so amazing just learning about your career and amazing relationships really between the research and PhD and how you're applying it in customer success. I wonder, do you have any favorite book that either helped you in your career or just gained any lessons that you would like to recommend? So in customer success.

Speaker 2:

This is quite a lot, Actually. I talk about this quite a lot, and so my colleagues or friends they'll be laughing about this if they heard it. Seven Pillars of Customer Success is a great book that I've read. I talk about this quite a lot, and so my colleagues or friends they'll be laughing about this if they heard it. Seven Pillars of Customer Success is a great book that I've read. I can't remember who's written it, but there are so many, I think some of it.

Speaker 2:

You read it and you think, oh yeah, that's a bit obvious. But then other bits. You're like it's making sure that you've captured. Sometimes you forget to do the obvious things, obvious things, and so that's where. But then I've learned so much around like structure, around what you can think about how you can pull all the different parts of customer success together into a plan. I've really taken a lot and I've read that book so many times. It's the kind of one where I've actually got a hard copy rather than a Kindle these days, just because I like to kind of jump to the pages easily of what I need to find. Yeah, I've really taken a lot of value from that book.

Speaker 1:

Excellent. That is really a very good recommendation. I'll make sure I put it in the show notes. Shalom, this was wonderful. Thank you so much for coming to the show. I am so enlightened by some of your insights and, as I said, I do feel honored to have somebody who had a PhD from Oxford in my show. I am very proud of you for that achievement because for me, that education is incredibly important. So thank you so much for taking the time of your day to come here.

Speaker 2:

Oh, no, thanks very much, really enjoyed the conversation, so thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening. Next week new episode, Subscribe to the podcast and connect with me on LinkedIn so you're up to date with all the new episodes and the content I'm curating for you. Have a great day and talk to you soon.