Episode 83: Breaking Through to the C-Suite

Sue Bethanis hosts consumer and marketplace product and technology executive, and author, Yue Zhao.

Yue was the first product manager and Head of Professionals at Thumbtack Inc. for 5 years, where she worked alongside the founders to build and scale a technology leader valued at $3.2B in 2021 with investment from Sequoia, Tiger Global, Capital G, QIA, and more. Then, at Fuzzy Pet Health, she was the Chief Product & Technology officer, helping the team find PMF for its telehealth offering and reach EBITDA positive within 6 months. Previously, she co-founded a wine e-commerce startup called FirstCrush. She spent 4 years at Meta working on Instagram Feed and Profile, Messenger Web and Desktop, and SMB Advertising.

Yue is currently a Venture Partner at LifeX Ventures, a $100M fund actively deploying capital in healthtech, climatech, and the AI space. Her network in the product space, in particular, adds a new dimension to LifeX’s team of ex-founders and operators.

As a seasoned executive career coach and advisor, Yue is passionate about coaching mid-career minority executives and helping the next generation of CEOs and founders hone in on the real pain points to solve for their customers.

She holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Sue and Yue discuss her new book, The Uncommon Executive: Breakthrough to the C-Suite as a Minority, and:

• How to adopt an executive mindset and develop skills that are critical for success
• Ways to demonstrate executive potential and land stretch assignments
• The challenges minorities face — overcoming biases and stereotypes, finding role models, and discovering superpowers
• How to influence luck and create opportunities with sponsorship, networking, and making smart job changes