410: Dustyn Kim - How To Stand Out & Speak Up

Dustyn Kim is the Chief Revenue Officer at Artsy. Artsy is used by art lovers and collectors to discover, learn about, and buy art. Prior to working at Artsy, Dustyn was a senior executive at LexisNexis. While at LexisNexis, she was my boss! She is a rare combination of highly respected, extremely well-liked, and typically the smartest person of every room she walks in. I loved working for her.

Notes:

Excellence = Authenticity and team building. "A leader should be focused on building great teams."
What Dustyn learned from one of her favorite bosses, Kumsal Bayazit (the CEO of Elsevier)
- "She was inspiring and very human. Work and life go hand in hand."
"When I got a senior leadership role, I didn't want a command and control organization."
What she learned from Sebastian at Artsy:
- "He said to me, 'I advise, you decide.' That empowered me and gave me ownership of my decisions."
- It's critical to empower others
What are must-have qualities in a leader?
- Empathy - EQ + IQ
- Communication skill - Set the vision and communicate that effectively to you team
- Collaboration - Lead through influence. Cross team collaboration is key to getting things done.
How to collaborate better?
- "Map out the key people you need to know and understand their goals."
Starting early:
- "When I was 15, my dad woke me up and told me he was taking me to Wall Street for my first internship."
How to lead as a parent for you children?
- "I try to introduce them to as much as possible."
- "My job is to help you figure out what you love doing, but you have to show up and do the work."
Advice for women leaders?
- "I don't love the advice from Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In." It's really hard to have a full time job and travel a lot if you want to build a family. It's okay to slow down at times for your family.
- "Kumsal wanted me to go for a big promotion when I had just given birth to Mason. I didn't want to travel the world and be gone all the time. It's okay to not go for the big job all the time."
Advice for new managers:
- Avoid the desire to micro manage
- Know that there are lots of different paths to success
- Don't expect to know everything
- A lot of new managers are too nice
  - You need to give feedback
How to be both respected and liked?
- Focus on the challenge at hand - "What's the plan? What's the goal?"
- "Then build the narrative and ask the team, what do you think?"
"It didn't work for me to try and act like a guy. I had to be myself."
Confidence is very important. That comes from being prepared and knowing your stuff.
A tangible takeaway for how to find your voice in a meeting:
- "In meetings, when I was younger, I would turn bright red when speaking. A trick I had to implement was, 'say something very early in the meeting.' Just so that too much time passes without me saying anything."
Career/Life Advice:
- Stand out -- Be excellent at your current role. Make sure others know they can count on you to do great work.
- Speak up -- Don't expect others to read your mind. TELL THEM what you want in your career. Make sure people know what you want to do. Give them the opportunity to help you get there...
- Have a goal, but be flexible on your path to achieving it