An Interview With Ming Zhao
… Identify your goals and communicate them clearly to your partner. This will help you to get their support early on, which you’ll need later when the going gets tough. Finding success in your work life and personal life requires constant communication with those you love. Keep everyone in the loop and you’ll find that succeeding and maintaining your momentum are much easier.
How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.
As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Esther Katz.
Esther Katz is a visionary CMO and strategist focused on emerging tech. An accomplished Marketing Executive, with a successful career, bridging legacy business and Web 3, Esther is considered a true visionary having envisioned the potential and promise of Blockchain technology in its earliest stages.
Esther is an OG of the space having spearheaded Marketing innovation in crypto since 2015, successfully overseeing the full scale run of 3 IDOs, raising $90m for AI and Blockchain startups featured in Wired and Tech Crunch.
Esther was an active member of the booming Israeli tech community which she joined in 2011 upon moving to Israel. Esther lives and breathes Web 3, innovation and digital transformation.
Esther acts as trusted advisor to Founders and CEOs who seek marketing expertise as well as executing projects and assembling high performance teams. Esther offers expertise in growth strategies, brand identity, Web 3 Integration and NFT product launches.
Today, Esther is one of the most active and influential voices in the Web 3 space. She is a co-founder of 3 pre-seed startups as well as acting fractional CMO for Joblio, a human capital management and relocation platform.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?
Iwas born in the old world of the USSR before the Berlin Wall came down. It was a very polarized world. I was lucky enough to have parents who were academics, however, so I received an excellent education from an early age. This meant I was fluent in English by 15, and could interpret English professionally by the age of 16. My English skills would prove to be incredibly important in the days to come.
As the Cold War ended, countless investors began flocking to the former USSR to tap into its budding markets. Thanks to my English fluency, I was one of very few who could do business with those from the West. By 18, I was already the marketing manager for the first chain of Western supermarkets in Ukraine.
Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?
I’ve always been led by dogged determination. My entire world came crashing down around me when I was very young, and I had to learn how to navigate the chaos. You went to sleep each night knowing that stability was never guaranteed. Clothing, food, really any sort of consumer product was difficult to locate, let alone buy when all of our currency was worthless.
You have to figure things out for yourself very quickly when you live like that. All the while, you’re thinking about how much better life is in Italy, Germany, France — places that were just a two hour flight away! You’re living in the middle of Europe but can’t help but feel like you’re in the poorest place in the world. In those early days of Ukrainian independence, there were so many threats…but also lots of opportunities.
Tenacious individuals with the talent to find their place in society could move up quickly. I was ready and willing to take on risks and responsibilities. That determination to move up in the world has been serving me well ever since.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
It was December 2018, and the team at Neu.ro was preparing for its Initial Token Offering (ITO). This would be a public sale of fungible tokens that serve as currency in certain business transactions. It was also Christmas time, of course, and my husband and I were traveling across South East Asia.
As the senior vice president of marketing, I was working remotely long before it was deemed a necessity by COVID. It wasn’t unusual for me to work from remote or exotic locations back then, so we could travel freely. My husband decided to surprise me by arranging a trip to a private island with white sands, blue seas, and gorgeous sights all around. It was basically a dream come true!
Unfortunately, he wasn’t aware of the scheduled public offering, which was set to occur halfway through the trip. When our boat arrived at the island, my heart sank — there was no way the internet bandwidth in a remote place like this could let me connect to the dashboards, multiple communities, and team members across the 8 different markets that we were opening on. We planned to sell these tokens over the course of a full week, dashing my hopes for a private island getaway.
We had an amazing dinner on the beach before I left the next morning, leaving my forlorn husband alone on the sands, like Robinson Crusoe without his Friday. I returned to the mainland and connected to the dashboard to oversee millions of dollars in transactions as the sale opened. As we launched, I couldn’t believe my eyes; sales figures were soaring far beyond our initial expectations. Instead of the 7 days we expected it would require, we sold out in just 8 short hours.
Neuro’s token sales set a record of raising $45 million USD in such a short time. It had taken us 2 ½ long years of hard work to reach that mountaintop, with an incredible amount of hours put in by multiple remote teams working in tandem. We had experts in marketing, community management, investor relations, and product development all seamlessly combining their talents.
With the sale wrapped up, I issued a press release and set sail for the island, keeping my phone off for 24 hours for the first time in years. We got to have our cake and eat it, too. It was the perfect balance between work and private life. Sure, it was incredibly tense and included many obstacles, but that made the thrill of the achievement all the better. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
The most instrumental character trait for achieving success is definitely the ability to take risks. For women, that’s not always easy. Women are more cautious than men. So learning to take risks is important, as it helps you stand out and achieve early.
I would also say that empathy and emotional intelligence are important. You have to be able to relate to people. The ability to understand others will serve you well in both your personal life and in the business world.
Finally, we can’t forget about curiosity! As a business leader, you have to be a curious lifelong learner who pursues knowledge in every domain. The more you know ahead of time, the more prepared you’ll be.
I try to maintain an interest in many things — science, technology, medicine, mindfulness, nutrition — different things that help you out in a myriad of ways as you progress through your career. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve been able to help a partner or appease a client by pulling a random card of knowledge out of my sleeve.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. The premise of this series assumes that our society still feels uncomfortable with strong women. Why do you think this is so?
I think society feels uncomfortable with strong people in general. We’re naturally discomforted by the idea that anyone can hold serious power over us.
Society is built on rules, and rules force people to behave in certain ways or suffer from punishment. This is done for the safety of everyone, of course, but some feel more constricted than others by society’s rules. Independent thinking and strength of will aren’t something that everyone has in spades, but are for a small percentage of people who go on to become leaders.
For a very long time, society’s rules forced women to behave in a certain way due to biological differences between men and women. The roles that women were once pushed into don’t necessarily come naturally anymore in the modern world. As our society progresses and our roles change, it may take some time for this new normal to become cemented in the public consciousness. Women may never become equal for as long as we continue to be the only ones giving birth.
Without saying any names, can you share a story from your own experience that illustrates this idea?
I have definitely experienced plenty of misogyny. When I was working in the startup tech industry in Israel, I was attending many meetings with private investors and venture capitalists. It was always very hard to get a message across or secure their attention because of the way I looked and sounded.
There are many ways that discomfort shows itself; they might be ignoring me because I’m female, because I was an immigrant, or for any other reason they can think of. In a tech industry ruled almost exclusively by white males, and that’s very much the case in Israel, it can be very hard to break through.
What should a powerful woman do in a context where she feels that people are uneasy around her?
There’s one rule I always apply in any conflict — approach everything from the position of love and understanding. This position is the most powerful one can ever imagine. When you meet someone new and face bigoted attitudes, they don’t know anything about who you are — they’re simply reacting to your outside image. They know you’re female, or come from a certain place, but it has nothing to do with who you really are and everything to do with how it makes them feel.
Hate, bias, unacceptance…these all come from fear. Whether it’s racism or misogyny, it all has one source: fear of competition and change. Many men dislike strong women because they feel jealous and competitive. They’re disarmed by their own fear, because they’re not used to feeling that way. This can lead to additional anger or bias.
Professional humans have to find a way to behave and treat one another with respect in a professional environment. Rather than seeing a woman or a man, we need to see a person or professional who has value that they can deliver. When we understand this, we don’t engage in petty conflicts that lead nowhere. Instead, we feel compassion and work from a position of loving one another in order to collectively overcome our fears. We’re making it clear that women in the workforce aren’t a threat, they’re partners here to bring great value to the table.
What do we need to do as a society to change the unease around powerful women?
Mindfulness needs to become an everyday part of living for all of us. Being mindful about yourself, your emotions, and understanding how you impact others are key principles of mindfulness. As we grow as a society, we must avoid radical seperationist movements and embrace mindfulness instead. I can never support radicalization on any side of the political spectrum, but I’m confident mindfulness can bring us all together.
In my own experience, I have observed that often women have to endure ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve success that men don’t have to endure. Do you have a story like this from your own experience? Can you share it with us?
In my case, it’s a pattern of behavior more than a single story. You notice that men in meeting room environments would rather address other men before speaking to a woman, for instance. They expect decision making to be done by other men, and turn to women to manage more mundane tasks like setting up the next meeting or answering the phone.
When you see men and women in the same meeting room, you can see them subconsciously making these choices. Men and women are addressed differently on a barely perceptible level; Questions that someone asks or the tasks they assign are often based on gender.
There’s a sitcom I’m fond of called “House of Lies” about management consulting. In every episode, there’s a very realistic moment where a team of “overachieving” male counterparts ignore the competent female team member because she’s young and blonde. In the real world, you see this all the time — men expecting that women are only in the room in order to help out the men.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women leaders that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
The leadership style of a woman will always be judged with more attention paid to emotions than when it’s a male leader. A man who is a “tough leader” is called just that — tough. A woman who does the same thing is simply called a bitch.
Women typically have to control their emotions, reactions, and demeanor much more than men do. The smallest mistakes that would be forgiven if made by a man are turned into defining character traits when made by a woman.
Women also grapple with dueling expectations. She is supposed to be a firm leader, but also soft and comforting. Nobody expects a male leader to be comforting in the same way. Women in business have to find a way to balance out these competing expectations, but you have to ask yourself — how much of yourself can you give up in order to meet other people’s expectations?
Men aren’t asked to sacrifice character traits in order to become leaders in the same way that women are. Male leadership includes a whole spectrum of behavior — there are introverts and extroverts, quiet types and loudmouths, analytical thinkers or emotional “gut-feelers.” Female leadership is typically restrained and far more narrow — you can’t always be yourself.
Let’s now shift our discussion to a slightly different direction. This is a question that nearly everyone with a job has to contend with. Was it difficult to fit your personal and family life into your business and career? For the benefit of our readers, can you articulate precisely what the struggle was?
First of all, you need to be honest with yourself and accept who you are prior to making commitments to your partner or creating a family. This is really important for women who want to become leaders.
If you plan to become married while becoming a CEO, you need a partner who is very supportive and will understand that they’re probably not going to get that perfect soccer mom at home. She’s going to be busy and occupied with business preoccupations. Taking trips abroad, maintaining a presence at events…the list goes on. You have to split your 24 hours between your career and your family.
What I hate seeing is how women stress and go on guilt trips about being unable to deliver according to some abstract standard that society, through movies and books and culture, imposes upon them. Who said that you had to be present at every single game? At every single meeting? Does this make you happy, or would you rather be somewhere else while your partner manages this?
Would you rather stay at home with a one-income family and spend more time with your kids, or would you like to have a two-income family with better material living standards but less free time?
All these questions you have to ask yourself. You’ll need to discuss it with your partner. Only then can you embark upon that bumpy path of career building. And remember that balance doesn’t always mean 50/50. Balance means whatever marks you happy. That, I believe, is also part of the leadership path — playing by your own rules.
What was a tipping point that helped you achieve a greater balance or greater equilibrium between your work life and personal life? What did you do to reach this equilibrium?
I’m not sure if I’ve found this equilibrium! Perhaps it can never truly be found.
Perhaps it’s always changing — there are more intense moments in your career, then less intense moments in your family life, as circumstances are always changing.
Balancing is a daily task; sudden life events might seize your attention with little warning. There are days when I feel perfectly balanced, and days where I feel no balance at all. I can’t think it’s honest to say we’ve found perfect balance forever.
What’s more important is the internal balance within yourself. I’m talking about aligning your goals and priorities with those of the people you love. That’s where you find true “life balance.”
I work in the beauty tech industry, so I am very interested to hear your philosophy or perspective about beauty. In your role as a powerful woman and leader, how much of an emphasis do you place on your appearance?
Appearances are a way to communicate to the external world who we are internally. It’s basically a statement. Your appearance, your facial expression, the color of your clothes, the fashion style that you follow….all of it factors into how the world views you.
I do believe that how we express ourselves with our facial expressions the most. Look at yourself in the mirror and the question is always “does this person reflect who I am?” or “Is my appearance in connection with my internal self?”
To me, it’s not exactly what you look like but what you want to communicate with your looks. Beauty is abstract — there’s no one standard for everyone — but finding harmony between your true self and the image you present to the outside world, that’s what I would call true beauty.
Do you see beauty as something that is superficial, or is it something that has inherent value for a leader in a public context? Can you explain what you mean?
Sometimes you see people and you understand they’re just wearing that body or hair or suit because somebody told them that this is what they should look like. It can look very unnatural and you can see it’s not their true self.
Beauty has to be authentic for a leader to derive value from it. Being authentic requires integrity. Let that be the guidance for your style. If you want to be a lawyer with tattoos because that’s who you are, be a lawyer with tattoos — you’ll find your audience. Integrity is the key word in 2022.
With our information system where nobody can hide anything anymore….just be yourself.
How is this similar or different for men?
I think it’s the same for us all. True beauty is inside, but we dress our outsides up in different ways. Men and women should both strive to meet the same basic hygiene standards, but that’s a different thing than being beautiful. Oftentimes, beauty is used so superficially…it can be hard to identify what we even mean when we say “beauty!”
I think that both men and women can experience frustration dealing with a superficial expectation of beauty. Finding your true inner self and representing it honestly to the world is always going to be difficult for men and women alike.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Powerful Woman?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Identify your goals and communicate them clearly to your partner. This will help you to get their support early on, which you’ll need later when the going gets tough. Finding success in your work life and personal life requires constant communication with those you love. Keep everyone in the loop and you’ll find that succeeding and maintaining your momentum are much easier.
- Prioritize “me time” and things that bring you joy. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice everything that makes you happy in order to sate others. Taking care of yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally will help you stay motivated when you encounter tough obstacles. It will also ensure you bring your A-game to the table when you arrive at work fully charged.
- Be mindful of your circle of communication. Be considerate of how those in your inner circle speak to you. Providing positive feedback is always welcome, but harsh and unwarranted criticism and a total lack of support can’t be tolerated. Make sure that your relationships are healthy, whether it’s your family, friend, or partner.
- Support other women. Greatness is next to kindness. If you want to be great, develop your personality so that you’re generous to other women. There is no space for jealousy.
Consider mentoring a younger professional, lecturing in the educational establishment, or sharing valuable insights online. Do whatever you can to support and encourage those future leaders who are just getting started.
You’ll find that doing this means more than simply giving back to society; every time you support another budding female leader, you’re cultivating a support network of your own for future endeavors. - Never stop learning. Even if you are busy working, multiple online learning options allow you to improve professionally and personally. Choose topics that interest you and plan to enroll in or self-educate.
You’ll find yourself facing a greater variety of challenges than ever before as you attain more success. You’ll also encounter a diverse array of people who are far different from those you’ve met before. A curious attitude and commitment to constant learning is needed to overcome these and other obstacles.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post. She has balls to stand up for what she believes in! I think we could have a great lunch together.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
ORIGNAL ARTICLE LINK