Why Technology Needs a Seat at the Strategy Table

Jonathan Morgan [00:00:00]:

Welcome to The Strategy Gap, a show for leaders who want to bridge the gap between strategy creation and strategy execution. I'm Jonathan Morgan and along with Joe Krause, each episode we have conversations with strategy and operational leaders on key issues in strategic planning and strategy execution. If you're looking to actually accomplish your goals, this is the show for you. Welcome in everybody to another episode of The Strategy Gap. Joining us today is Tonjia Coverdale. Tonjia is the Senior Vice President, President, Chief Strategy Officer for Operations and Technology at Associated Bank. She spent over 25 years in the technology industry where she's developed a passion for technology and it's role in strategy and execution. She has a wealth of knowledge in technology and Systems, including an MBA in Computer Information Systems and a PhD in Information Science and Systems.

Jonathan Morgan [00:00:53]:

But beyond the official education, she's a lifelong learner, which stems from the beginning of your career working in higher education and a lot of experience there. Tonjia, welcome to the show.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:01:03]:

Hi. Thank you and thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Jonathan Morgan [00:01:06]:

Yeah, absolutely. So, Tonjia, I know we've caught up in the past and have talked a lot about your experience. I gave our listeners a very brief overview, but I'd love for you just to share a little bit about yourself and your passion for it.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:01:18]:

Yeah, absolutely. So I feel I've been very fortunate to have had a career focused on technology and having studied it not only academically, but being in the career from the beginning of my career to now, I've seen lots of different things. And so I always talk about my career in terms of the dual pathways that I have. So starting with my industry pathways, how I jumped into technology, I was a developer at one of our large Fortune 50 technology companies. And so I started on a very technical path and had roles including architect and quality engineering, business analyst. So when thinking about the roles that I've had in technology, industry side of my career really has spanned across most technology verticals that you would find in an organization. So I've not only experienced it, but just also been able to see it across different industries as well. So I've been in banking, which I am in now, insurance, government, higher education.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:02:21]:

So that gives me just a lot of breadth as well as depth in industry. Wrapping up the industry side of my career, I've also held positions including CEO and cio. And now, as you know, I'm a Chief Strategy Officer. But the flip side of my career is my academic career in which I spent a lot of years, as you mentioned in your intro, in higher Ed and as an actual tenure track professor. So that was really interesting because I got a chance to look at technology from a deeper level. Not just a practitioner, but also very theoretical and being able to learn how to communicate it well. And so in that vein, I also became an administrator at the university and sort of moving up there. So when you put that all together, and then also my focus studies in technology, I think it's lent itself well for me to be a strategist now, because I'm not only able to pull on real experiences that I've had across industries, across job families, and just across technology, but also with the ability to articulate strategy or technology to our business partners, other stakeholders, constituents, and that communication skill that I really gained from being in the higher education field and then also studying it at the highest level, being able to come up with models for optimization that we can employ in different organizations.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:03:51]:

So I guess that's the long way of saying I'm just a big nerd and I just love tech.

Jonathan Morgan [00:03:58]:

Yeah, that was fabulous. I should have let you do your own intro. You smoked my introduction. That was good. And we'll definitely dive into many elements of that conversation as we discuss everything today. So really where we want to start the conversation is a lot of the elements you mentioned about the role of technology. For a lot of organizations, technology gets lumped into it and it becomes this very operational aspect, right? There's the firewalls around it. It's a cost center is how you think about it.

Jonathan Morgan [00:04:26]:

It's very rarely is it thought about from a strategic standpoint. Obviously, you're a testament to the fact that it shouldn't be thought that way. But for organizations that maybe traditionally I've thought about it in a different way, why should technology be thought of as a strategic focus? And how do you start thinking about it in that context?

Tonjia Coverdale [00:04:44]:

So before I answer the question, I'm going to say that I understand why having, you know, again, been in the industry for now 27 years, when I started, it was very much technology was like, I would say your call center is very operational. Enable our network, make sure our firewalls are intact, make sure our email works, our voice systems work. It was very foundational, almost like the plumbing to any organization. And so because of that, it was really overlooked. But there's been a migration over the last years from technology being that, just foundational to being a strategic partner. So here's what I would ask and challenge every CEO, cfo, coo, whoever's not in technology, any business leader, ask yourselves if we took out all the technology today, if we said, you know what, we're gonna just shut down it, would you be able to run your business? And I think I would bet a lot to say that most people would be like, well, no, we can't. And there was a point in time where they could. There was a point in time where you can sell in person.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:05:59]:

There was a point in time where a lot of things were calling and face to face and you didn't need the digital tools like you need. But I think they haven't migrated from that point of view to really seeing how much technology is work and how technology drives their business forward. So we're at a point in time where we need to take a strategic focus, because that partnership and for business lines of business to understand. Understand what the technology can do, how they can leverage it to continue to propel them forward, I think will help them grow exponentially if they just really start to invest and understand a strategic roadmap.

Joe Krause [00:06:33]:

It's interesting there's a parallel between what you're saying in IT and also what we see when we work with health departments. I was at a conference recently in New Orleans, and the keynote was the Chief Health Officer for Louisiana. And he was basically saying their job was difficult as a whole because they're often judged on things that didn't happen. So their job is to make sure, to your point, the plumbing works. Right. So they're doing education so that there isn't a disease spread, or they were able to jump on something before it became a bigger issue that doesn't make the front page of any newspaper. Only when there's a mishap are they now put on the. On the carpet.

Joe Krause [00:07:06]:

And it. I'd say you probably have experienced that as well, where you're only really called upstairs in the lesser roles to get yelled at potentially. Like, how come this isn't working? Vs wow, everything worked seamlessly this week because of all your strategic investments. So let's say that the CEO or CFO has that realization, and they say, yeah, I think we need to be more strategic. How do you celebrate wins in your role to be able to ensure that people don't overlook that plumbing is a critical part of everything that we do. To your point made earlier, if we removed it, we couldn't do business. But how do you highlight those successes when sometimes success means something bad didn't happen because of your foresight?

Tonjia Coverdale [00:07:42]:

Yeah, I think again, that focusing only on that infrastructural part is hindsight view. But really I want people to start focusing on the enablement part. So how do we celebrate wins? Being able to really put value to your technology, whether it's in revenue optimizing or cost minimization. So celebrating wins can look something like we were able to onboard X amount or X percent of customers through our digital interface. That's a win because the digital interface is a tool that's enabled through technology that's allowing for another part of the omnichannel reach for the business to onboard new customers. Right. It could also look like, okay, because we have had a strategy to address our tech debt. Consolidate architectures, come up with preferred platforms and common chassis.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:08:41]:

We were able to eliminate X million dollars or X percent from our budget because of the tech strategy, making it real and speaking it in the language of the people who don't usually care about it. But getting them to care is going to be how do we translate what we're doing into things that they are find valuable and can measure? So we're just saying there's up time, run time, run cost. Those are measures that only technologists care about. If you go to your business partners and talk to them about that, they don't care about that. So a lot of it is for us to learn how to speak the business language, which going back to my intro is, I think what makes me unique and fit to be a strategist is that I'm able to communicate value in their plain terms. So they're like, oh yeah, this is great, let's invest more in that because we're driving revenue and you can spell it out for them and not just leave it to them to sort of figure out on their own.

Jonathan Morgan [00:09:38]:

Yeah, you brought up a great point there around the metrics that you use. You mentioned things like runtime and uptime, and those are all the things that you have to do. They're in your contracts with your customers or else you're going to violate something. So they're important, but they're more operational aspects as opposed to, these are the things we're doing to improve the business. When you think about those things, it kind of comes down to, you know, Joe and I talk a lot about the difference between operational plans, how we're running the business, and strategic plans, how we're growing the business. And probably within most technology organizations, I highly doubt they themselves are only thinking about the operational items. They probably things that they want to do on the strategic side. They have their own strategic plan.

Jonathan Morgan [00:10:19]:

But where that disconnect often happens is how do the technology Aspects from our department or our group's plans, how do those align and roll up to our executive level plans or things that we're doing across the organization? What success have you had or what strategies have you taken to better align the technology components to that overall organizational plan so that those are done together and they have commonly aligned goals as opposed to being some afterthought that you're then trying to build into? Prove that we're important.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:10:48]:

Yeah, I think it's just reframing the role of technology in the business again and handling it as if it were a business line. So when you handle technology in that same frame, you have your organizational strategy at the top of the house generally, then you'll have your lines of business, your revenue generating lines. They will have a strategy that is aligned to that overall arching strategy for the top of the house. And then technology is usually made to do their own thing. But in this reframing of how we're looking at technology as a business enabler, as a strategic partner, as a line of business who can help you generate revenue, we too, I recommend, and this is what I have done, I align the technology strategy to the strategy at the top of the house. And it's more from an enablement perspective. So if you have very specific things where you may say the top of the house strategy may say reach more households or you know, close more savings or checking or whatever it says. Now I should be looking at a technology strategy that says let's look at our core architecture, let's look at our journey maps.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:11:56]:

How can we then support this goal from a technology standpoint? None of that, none of that. Time did I say we need to have Outlook and we need to have email and we need to have teams and we. That that's not strategic thinking. Strategic thinking is how can we use our tools to help the businesses reach what they are going to do. And we are in direct alignment. So there are pillars. If the pillar is your traditional people, process technology or an offshoot of that, then technology should have the same pillars. How can we focus on our people? That might be in a data driven organization, it may be helping to educate and upskill in data literacy so that our businesses can use the tools more effectively that we put in process may follow the same thread, technology may follow the same thread, but it has to be directly aligned, almost in a cascade from what your CEO wants.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:12:57]:

And then lines of business have vertical and technology is right in there.

Joe Krause [00:13:01]:

And the way that you're talking, I think our listeners might say, I've never actually met an IT professional that is coming into the room saying, how can I deliver upon all the dreams that you have in your strategic plan? A lot of times what I've seen firsthand, and Jonathan as well, is we get in those rooms and there's a good conversation happening over there and they look over to the IT professional, whoever, the cfo, cto, I should say, or cio, and they're like, yeah, we're not doing that. Yeah, we can't do that. And it's like it's squashing of dreams of actively happening. And as a result, there's a little bit of friction and tension that exists. So what you're referencing seems to be almost equally important. The soft skills that somebody in your role needs to happen. You can't say yes to everything, but you also can't say no to everything. So in your experience and in the conversations that you're having, how have you deployed those soft skills to make sure that you're not over committing, but you're also being a good partner? There's that nice balance.

Joe Krause [00:13:50]:

How have you done that in your role?

Tonjia Coverdale [00:13:52]:

Yeah, so first of all, I really understand that technology is an enabler. I think we have this whole kingdom or queendom in technology traditionally. Remember, I've seen it for almost 30 years and at one point we were the smart kids that knew everything and that's just how the industry was. And so I feel like we, I'm saying we, as a technologist, felt like we got a chance to dictate we're going to do this, we're going to do that because we could. We were the only ones who understood it. And it wasn't as forward moving and enabling to our business again, it was just how do you communicate, how do you keep the lights on? Security, just sort of the basic infrastructural things. I think we also need to come into a partnership and understand that we are now in a service role to our lines of business and it only benefits us. Traditionally, technology usually gets the smallest budget or one of the smallest budgets in an organization.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:14:54]:

And a lot of times the work that we do is charged back or sort of embedded in a budget of a line of business per se, because we are a call center. So if we help them make more money, wouldn't that then be reciprocated into larger budgets if we can prove our value? So our conversation needs to be, how can I help you? How can I make your job easier? And these are just some of the real things that I've Said, and I've done. How can I make your job easier? What is it that you want to do? Okay, this is what we can do. I don't say this is what we can't do. I say this is what we can do. And just think about just in regular life, like technology aside, if somebody came up to you and said, jonathan, Jo, I've got something that is going to make your life easier. You're not going to say, yeah, no thank you, I'm good. I just want my life not to be easy.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:15:45]:

You're going to at least listen and see what is. So that's how I'm able to get people to listen. And I'm listening as a technologist and I'm like, now maybe I still have in my, my cocky technology mind. Yeah, no, we can't do that, right? Oh, gosh, no, we are not doing that. Oh, no, we are not. But then if that's in my mind, that stays in here. I think, okay, but what can we do? Because they don't know if I'm the expert. You can just shut people down and say, no, they don't know that.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:16:15]:

They don't, you know, so, so show your expertise and say, I hear you, Jonathan, I hear you, Joe, great ideas. What I hear you. What I think you want to do is speak back their business goal. Now they're like, oh, she understands me. What I think you want to do is speak their business goal. Here's what we have technologically that can support that. Today, if we want to expedite this or grow this exponentially, we're going to need additional investment in. Can't do it today because we don't have that investment.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:16:46]:

But if you're willing to invest in, we can get you there. So it's not, we need more money because we need more, you know, space and we need more whatever. That's us technologists being selfish. And then on the other side, it's like, well, we don't want to invest in them. The conversation needs to be in the middle. How can I help you with a service orientation?

Jonathan Morgan [00:17:06]:

I'm absolutely loving all this. I think for anybody not watching video, it's like constant head nodding from Joe and I. It's all of it. It's not in a negative way, but it all sounds so obvious, like, yes, we absolutely should do this. This is how these organizations should be working. It's how these teams should be working. But for whatever reason, Right? That's not how it happens in most organizations. I'm over here in my Head trying to make hypotheses for my next question about why it does or doesn't work.

Jonathan Morgan [00:17:29]:

But oh, I have ideas. Yeah, instead of that, I was going to throw it over to you. Like, why do you think this for the most time doesn't work within an organization? Maybe it's ego, maybe it's communication. What do you think?

Tonjia Coverdale [00:17:38]:

I think is lack of understanding. Remember when you're looking at people in the C suite, generally by this time in their career, they've been in their fields or their career 20 plus years, like that's just sort of an average. Okay. When you're thinking about 20, 20 years ago, late 90s, early 2000s, technology wasn't as prevalent and embedded in business as it is now. So if I'm a CFO who started back then, chances are my training, my discussions, my anything just did not take into account technology. It's finance, finance, finance. I'm looking at the bottom line, devoid of any technology discussion because that's just not how I came up. Same with CEOs, I'm looking at managing the business, looking at the EBITDA, all the things that's just devoid of technology because that's where we started.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:18:38]:

Just like we all had to take a pivot and become technology literate. Although, like our kids are digital natives, we weren't at some point we had to take the pivot and learn. I think they haven't taken the pivot to really understand what technology can do as an enabler. And they're still seeing it as a call center. That it was in 1999 and in 2000 and in 2001. My hypothesis, which I love saying because, you know, I had to do that a lot in doctoral school, my hypothesis is if you had executives who were younger in their careers, this is not an age thing, this is when you started in the career. Who may have started on their track, mid to late 20, teens, maybe in the last eight to 10 years when they are seeing from the onset of their careers the integration between technology and business. If you fast forward 30 years, I think they will get it because they don't know a difference.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:19:39]:

They grew up in their careers where you have technology, they're enabling. You have digital tools, you have data, you have ML, you have AI. It's just what they know from the beginning. You're talking to people who start on telephones and notepads. They're running the companies. So it's up to us as technologists to be able to have the soft skills. Again, going back to your question, Joe. And be able to translate the value into how they're going to understand it.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:20:08]:

So they are that they are propelled to learn and they want to understand it. But right now they have no reason to. So that's what I don't really think is ego. I think it's just they have a lot going on. They don't see the value. Besides, can I run my business on a very basic level that's a B. I also think so. Not blaming on business people.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:20:31]:

We're not immune in technology. I think a lot of our traditional leaders, CIOs who are at this level, again 20 years plus in a career, they all started out very technical degrees, computer science, information systems. Now you're seeing technologists come in. Psychology, sociology, you're seeing a lot more. But when I started, if you were in computer science, information system, you just was not getting in a career. You even have boot camps now. And there's so many arm ramps to the career. But the people who are in charge, the CIO CTOs, are highly technical.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:21:04]:

They don't know how to speak business. They only know how to speak about their technology because that's how they were trained. And so they have to pivot. So that's my thoughts.

Joe Krause [00:21:15]:

Makes sense. The people coming up at a certain time. I just recently turned 40, I guess not recently February. I'm an elder millennial, so analog childhood, digital teenage adulthood. So it's interesting because I did have a little slice of make sure you come home from the basketball court before it gets dark. Right. Like there was no cell phones, but then the cell phone came in and that was fine. So I could see that.

Joe Krause [00:21:33]:

But I guess my point is on that point, I was able to adapt and technology. So there's. For the people out there that are using that as a crutch, let's get with it. You had a cell phone for a while, so that's one thing for sure. I also think you bring up an interesting topic because of your educational background. Jonathan and I are similar persuasion. He has his mba, I have an Ms. And an mba.

Joe Krause [00:21:52]:

So we've invested well. And you have invested even further beyond what it takes to be something in undergrad. It's everything that we're doing is bonus. But in your mind, do you feel that your trajectory and the perspective and the worldview that you have was how much benefit do you think you had from all your extra education? Do you think it is the reason you're here? Is it a piece of it? Is it would you say I wish I didn't spend as much time on it because there's a lot of people that are like, do I or don't I? Do I go? Do I not go? How can you convince somebody either way to say that this has really helped you in your role in being a leader in your space?

Tonjia Coverdale [00:22:24]:

Completely helped me. If your focus is going to be strategy or something, innovation, something where you're bringing forth a new idea or a new ideal that doesn't exist. So I'll explain the differences. When you're in undergrad, it's a very technical focus. It's focused on getting you out in four years, getting you a job so that you can do something that already pretty much exists. Like you're going to go into, and I'm not talking about entrepreneurs, but just traditional career paths. You're going to go into an entry level job that's already laid out for you. There are roles and responsibilities.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:23:03]:

You're just kind of plugging into a machine and you're doing what's already laid out for you that is great for a bachelor's degree. If that's what you want to do, then you really don't need to do anything else. And that's not a negative thing. Some people love to be developers. They love to play with the code and they love to, you know, just focus and create at the base level. You don't need more education, formal education, if you're going to do that. However, moving up, if you want to work at a managerial level, I recommend doing a master's level study. MBA would be great because now you're not only learning about your craft, which is technology, but also the dynamics of an organization, the dynamics of the people, and understanding how you're going to lead the people and not only lead your downward vertical, your peers manage up, manage diagonally.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:24:00]:

You get into a lot of those topics when you're studying for your mba. And it prepares you to think broader than you. What people don't really understand about leadership is once you leave from being an individual contributor, you really don't do the work anymore. You do the work through other people. You manage people who are doing the coding, you manage people who are doing the planning, you manage. So that means you have to understand budgets, you have to understand timeframes, you have to understand lots of things that you don't usually get in that first level. You can stay there and that's great. Why would you want to get a PhD? Absolutely.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:24:38]:

Getting a PhD helped me to be here. Because when you're creating and you look at the areas of technology that are very creative, like your data science, you will notice a lot of PhDs there because the whole way that you even get a PhD and some people don't know this, it's not like MDs or any other thing where it's very practical. You have to come up with a novel concept that does not exist in literature in the field and you've got to defend and prove that. So said differently, you've got to come up with something and convince everybody that is worthwhile to contribute to the literature or to your field versus md, where you do practical study and you pass classes and you go to practicals. It's not that you're, you're really thinking. And so as a strategist, how I use that is I'm looking at an organizational context and all of its constraints. I'm coming up with theoretical models the same way I came up with theoretical models in doctoral school. And I'm optimizing dependent variable.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:25:38]:

I'm looking at manipulating independent variables to optimize dependent variables and hypothesizing what that might look like and coming up with an optimization curve that's acceptable. I know I'm not going to get to 100% in this tech investment. What's my acceptable percentage? We can get to 67% of productivity if we can get. It's going to, that's my manipulation of my independent variable. It's going to propel revenue by X percent. So I'm able to pull on this knowledge that I got in, in doctoral to be able to strategize strategists, look forward. We're making up stuff all the time. Like I get paid to just dream and try to convince everybody that it makes sense.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:26:22]:

It's just like, like doctoral school. I don't know how you, how you do it if you don't have practice in something like that. And again, you see your AI people, your ML people, they're bringing forth stuff that doesn't exist. You're heavily seeing your PhDs in those fields. And so that's the difference. And there's a trajectory and a path for every education level. But it has been very helpful to have studied it at so much depth because as a strategist, when you're thinking of things, I don't think there's a context that I haven't seen. And if I haven't seen it, I'm still able to come up with a model for how I think we should work through it.

Jonathan Morgan [00:26:59]:

Yeah, well, super interesting. And I say I have A similar but slightly different perspective from my experience. And for those that don't know, I studied civil engineering in college, so I thought one day I was gonna be building buildings and roads and here I am sitting behind a microphone. But I went back and got my MBA because I felt like I was lacking those core fundamental business aspects. And I think I definitely picked up on that in school. I can't say, I can look back now and say what I learned in business school is helping me today. But what it did make me do is it did make me rethink what I want to learn about and what I want to focus on and how I can better upskill myself in those foundational business areas. That was so, they were so absent in the other aspect of my education.

Jonathan Morgan [00:27:40]:

But you know, for some people that may be an option. For some people it might not be an option. So kind of last question I want to ask you is how can technology leaders or people in their career that maybe don't have the opportunity to go back to school, what can they do from a foundational standpoint to become more business focused to think about those business focused deliverables and progress in their, their career in the way that you have.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:28:02]:

I would say read lots of books, listen to lots of podcasts. That's the great thing about being in the age that we're in now, where I think that education is not only disseminated through formal structures like they used to be. Like I mentioned when I first started, if you had to have this path now, it's almost an infinite amount of ways for you to learn. And there's so many different books out there that'll help you look at technology as a business or even benchmark on other businesses and understanding people, understanding yourself as a leader, understanding cultures, organizational structures, there's just, I would just say just read a lot of it. You don't need a minted degree stamp to do if you're going to spend the time to invest in learning something new.

Joe Krause [00:28:49]:

Excellent. Yeah, I agree. And I think it's also similar to what undergrad is not always going to teach you how to do the job that you're going for entry level, but it teaches you how to be an adult in some case. Some people get the memo, some don't, but you know what I mean, like having a schedule and nobody's watching over you. Grad school is this more, infinitely more interesting to myself. It's just because to Jonathan's point, you pick what you want to study. MBAs, you get a concentration for MS's there's a lot more. Like, every class is interesting versus getting through maybe the core stuff in undergrad.

Joe Krause [00:29:16]:

So that's to your point. From a curiosity standpoint, you're able to hone it a little better in grad school. And for those that like to learn, there's not a lot of downside, except for the time and the money potentially. But beyond that, you're usually better for it at the end of the day. So.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:29:28]:

And it teaches you how to think. I think that's. We're getting a lot of people, especially juniors and seniors coming up, and they're like, I can just go to school on YouTube and I can learn everything I need to know on YouTube. But you're still a passive learner. You're receiving from the videos and you're not exercising that analytical thinking portion of your brain that is necessary for you to move up in a career, any level, as you're going to the next level. And all of us have been there. There is a first time for everybody that they were a CEO. That CEO wasn't a CEO all his or her life.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:30:01]:

They. It was the first day and that person had to figure it out. The analytical skills that you get from learning in a higher education structure or even just reading the books, like I'm saying, independent learning, it flexes that muscle. So you're able to figure it out, because a lot of it we're figuring out on the flat. What school prepares you to do is at least to have some base knowledge of the concept. So, you know, if I walk into somebody says a balance sheet, I'm not like, what is a balance sheet? Like, I know, okay, we did that in the county. I don't quite remember what's on it, but at least I have the idea it gives you that foundation. Rather than just going and calling, you're like, I have no idea what these people are talking about right now.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:30:45]:

What's human resources?

Joe Krause [00:30:47]:

That makes sense. Yeah. It gives you some, some, some context to be able to understand what you're saying. So I think that's a sage advice. And as we draw it to a close, so we ask all of our guests the same question. And that question would be, if you can teleport back in time and tell your. Your past self a bit of advice as you entered into your career of strategy and it. What bit of advice would you give yourself to have made your journey easier or different or better, what would that look like for you? What would that advice be to your younger self?

Tonjia Coverdale [00:31:13]:

I would say my advice would be to stay curious and keep going. And the reason why I say that is if you looked on my LinkedIn or, you know, just a little bit know a little bit about my career. I've had a very meandering career. And there were points in my career whether either I questioned myself or other people questioned me. Why does she want to change for or to change this role? Why is she wanting she an opportunist. And the answer is no. I just wanted to learn. But sometimes people will make you feel bad about wanting to learn.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:31:50]:

Like everybody's not meant to be in the same role for 25 years. Like, that was not my path. And because I've had so many different roles in Fortune 100 companies, down to startups, and in every industry in between, I've amassed this body of knowledge that is rare. And I'm glad I didn't let people detract from me just wanting to learn. And I'm glad I followed my own path. It's kind of like a river. Rivers don't go straight up and down. Sometimes they go south to go back north, they go east to go west.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:32:27]:

It's meandering, but they still flow. So my advice would be keep flowing.

Jonathan Morgan [00:32:33]:

I think that might take the cake for the best metaphor there to answer our final question. So hopefully none of our previous guests hear this, but I'm sure they will. So sorry, everybody, but thank you so much, Tonjia, for joining us. It was a really fun conversation. I know our listeners learned a ton from your insights and experience, and we look forward to catching up in the future.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:32:51]:

Yes, I'd love to come back later on. And thank you so much, Jonathan and Joe. This was super fun. And to all the technologists out there, keep strategizing.

Jonathan Morgan [00:33:02]:

Alrighty. Thank you.

Tonjia Coverdale [00:33:03]:

Thank you.