Kiva Allgood | Corporate Board Director, Advisor | December 2024

Holly Smithson

Welcome Everyone. I'm Holly Smithson, Athena's president and CEO, and I'm your host for this edition of our Lifting Wall Climbing podcast. I'm really excited to close out this very dynamic, 2024 with this month's, podcast. We have a special guest in our studio, and I'm really, really pleased that you could make some time to join us. Kiva Allgood, is with us.

Holly Smithson

And thanks so much for coming on and sharing your your leadership journey.

Kiva Allgood

Thank you. Holly. Excited to be here. Hopefully to inspire some young women to reach further and higher.

Holly Smithson

Yes. And, and I will I will tell you as a as I think about and I know we had you on a previous program of Athena is where we were trying to recruit and get people excited and prepared for, board readiness. Yes. And and I remember listening to your kind of very impressive and illustrious career, working in the technology industry for a long time.

Holly Smithson

Even before the data was out, that indicated greater performance and greater productivity and greater profits, all of that, that, that the market is very well aware of in terms of diversity, within companies. But we have a we have a track record here with you. It almost seems like this straight line.

Kiva Allgood

From Ericsson.

Holly Smithson

Motorola, General Electric, Qualcomm. And obviously now, the World Economic Forum and what a ride. You have enjoyed and the contributions that you've been privileged to make as it relates to the Internet of Things. Certainly the global supply chain. I just can't even imagine the value that you bring to the World Economic Forum, certainly as the head of the center that's overseeing all of the supply chain, projections that we all get to grapple with, like it or not.

Holly Smithson

Certainly, this this is an interesting time. So I'd love to hear your story and kind of give folks a little bit, a little sense and some insights on how you're able to navigate and enjoy that success.

Kiva Allgood

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think, you know, I wasn't one of those blessed people who, you know, at the age of ten said, oh, I want to be X or Y. I kind of went on a journey and had an affiliation for science and math, and, was able to kind of straddle both those worlds as part of the science club in high school, but then also a cheerleader.

Kiva Allgood

I lived and I'd say, you know, lots of different spaces. I'm one of five. I have four siblings. And that also, I'd say it was a good, solid foundation for, you know, being able to survive in tech often as the only woman. I had some great, I'd say, mentors also earlier in my career who really encouraged me to leverage being the one and only versus looking at it as, obstacle.

Kiva Allgood

And so I think, you know, I always had the mindset because I was the only girl in the house. Growing up, other than my mom. And we had a I had a girl dog once. But other than that, I never really got comfortable, I'd say, with, you know, having to be surrounded by people who look like me or were like me because I didn't have that growing up.

Kiva Allgood

Really? And so I started my career off as an IT consultant and digital transformation. Always awesome. The only woman there as well, and then had some really good mentors and I'd say coaches and sponsors along the way. So all three of those things are very different. And picking them wisely, I'd say, is probably one of the key things to my trajectory.

Kiva Allgood

And so I think for me, I was always fascinated by things that couldn't be done. So I gravitated to those really tough problems. And I became, you know, kind of the fixer for every single boss. I also had the privilege of working for the same boss for quite some time. And he took me on my journey as well, like he took me to from GE to Motorola.

Kiva Allgood

And so I think, you know, finding those folks that really, truly believe in you and are really to give you the stretch opportunities that kind of see more in you are super important, especially early in your career. So, you know, for me, it was taking the tough assignments, being okay and comfortable in my skin, looking different and being different and then leaning into things that I enjoyed doing, which was kind of solving those difficult problems.

Kiva Allgood

And often haven't been done before. Problems.

Holly Smithson

Yeah. And I like your I like the, I don't.

Kiva Allgood

Know.

Holly Smithson

What you start off talking about, being comfortable with the uncomfortable.

Kiva Allgood

Yeah.

Holly Smithson

And that certainly would make sense for the internet of Things to be something that you would jump into, as you're thinking about a million different use cases. Yeah.

Kiva Allgood

As John at the time, I was also convincing, my employer that the those use cases mattered, that the car mattered, that connectivity beyond just the hands that mattered because that was, you know, the bulk of our business. And so getting them to believe that, you know, this other segment was going to be a large contributor to the strategic intent of the company.

Kiva Allgood

Those are a lot of, you know, hard conversations of, no, we need to have long life or we won't succeed in automotive. And I'm excited that, you know, today I get to see that manifesting itself in a big part of their portfolio. So that's also one.

Holly Smithson

But it's and it's and it's kind of cool because you're talking about you know, these are just challenges. So as opposed to seeing yourself as the only one as sort of an obstacle, but instead seeing that as a challenge. And yeah, I and I would argue that most people in the fields of science and technology and certainly engineering, they're very, very excited by challenges.

Kiva Allgood

It's not the same. Yeah.

Holly Smithson

They're not those aren't typical safety, you know, safe and traditional and conventional type of, trades, if you will. So wrecking mazing that quality or that affinity within yourself and applying that to I'm in the only room, but how am I going to take that as a challenge? To really leverage your contributions and obviously the opportunity to to rise the ranks.

Kiva Allgood

So yeah.

Holly Smithson

I that's pretty that's pretty powerful. Pretty salient. Reframing. I think our, it.

Kiva Allgood

Is a reframing. I think often there's this, this view of, I'll never make it because I am the only, if you think about it. And actually, Pat McCrory, warrior, who was at Motorola when I started, brilliant. Engineer. And scientists leading a lot of our, semiconductor development. And she, she actually was the one who I can't I'm maybe my late 20s, early 30s, and she really, you know, switch that for me.

Kiva Allgood

She said, hey, look at it as an opportunity. You look different. You'll stand out more, be better. Deliver more. They'll see you more. And she was right. I mean, so it was definitely an opportunity also for me to go from a technical track from, you know, doing software quality to doing product planning, and stretch myself a little bit more because I can sell myself in a, in a different light.

Kiva Allgood

So, you know, for me, she was spot on in the sense that it may feel uncomfortable, but lean into that. And if you if you can do that, then you'll be able to really, you know, go well beyond where you think you want to go. But I, you know, again started off the conversation was I never started off as a little girl saying, oh, I want to be X, Y, or Z, or I'm going to be a doctor or and I always used to, you know, feel like, oh, wait, am I getting something wrong?

Kiva Allgood

Like, I have no idea what I want to do. And then I gravitated towards what are the things that I find happiness in. And so when I coach people, I often say, hey, you're at this intersection on a piece of paper right down the middle left things you like, right things you don't like. And that can be.

Kiva Allgood

I don't like spending all day in front of a camera on phone calls. I want to be up and out and about. Or that could be I don't like conflict and confrontation. Well, you better solve that because you're never going to get any more senior if you can't be able to solve problems. And that helps you identify kind of things you enjoy, and also things you have to really focus on in order to get to that next level.

Kiva Allgood

And so I think it often is a great exercise just to do that kind of self reflection and reframing. And it's also okay, you know, depending upon where you are in your career cycle, that those things change over time. I just had a baby your likes and dislikes or I don't want to travel, you know what I mean?

Kiva Allgood

So you have to really take a pause, I think often and ask yourself, where am I at in the moment and what are the things that are going to bring me joy? And what are the things that are going to bring me growth and joy? You may or may not get at work all the time. That may be something that you do some years or don't, but you got to find it somewhere that could be your family or that could be something else.

Kiva Allgood

But then the growth piece of it is also super important, right? And there's sometimes that growth comes from taking the hard challenge or it comes from, saying no to something because it isn't right for you at that point in time. And you have to give yourself that, that freedom. And, and you also have to be honest and reflect on not what you think you should say or the things you think you want, but the things that you know are good, like attributes for yourself.

Kiva Allgood

And be honest with yourself about that. And again, they change. So this is an exercise you do once. It should be an exercise that you do, you know, on an annual basis with yourself.

Holly Smithson

Yep. We do. We do a market analysis. We do a market evaluation. Yeah. There's no different right now. But a couple of things, really stand out for me. And your comments, talking about being the only one and your mentor or sponsor at Motorola was talking about, you know, really being visible, rather than feeling, you know, sort of that reframe because oftentimes what we find in our research, is the invisible factor where because women are the only one, they feel invisible.

Holly Smithson

I just, I just offered the same exact proposal that I know David did. I just made the same suggestion, or I came with the same, but yet I'm invisible. And so it's interesting, you know, it's interesting. You you have to work within the culture that you're in, particularly if you're in science and tech. But then also, how do you how do you strike that balance between.

Holly Smithson

Well, my top track says that I am visible because I'm the only 1 or 1 of the few, but yet the response is that I'm invisible. How do you how do you solve this?

Kiva Allgood

I mean, I think to especially in industries where, you know, semiconductor industry is, is male dominated, in part because the education processes as well. And there's, you know, there's been a few times in my career I've actually had people come up, but, oh, you're just the marketing person. I was like, nope, I don't work in marketing, but thank you very much for that.

Kiva Allgood

Just because I haven't been the only woman in the room does not mean I'm from marketing or H.R. Yeah, and not that they don't contribute to the business because, I mean, they they both those are huge contributors to the business. But, sometimes you have to take those assignments that are like the super hard technical chart assignments. If you're in a, in a tech role, and, and demonstrate that you have that prowess and that ability.

Kiva Allgood

Yes. You may have an engineering degree just like everybody else. Yes. Like you have the qualifications just like everybody else. But it is true. Often you have to prove that and you have to demonstrate that value. And that could be through patents or through something else. You know, but I think there's a, a strong hesitancy for women to kind of lean back and set it.

Kiva Allgood

And at that point when it starts to get really like technical in nature. And so I, I always encourage women to, again, lean forward and try and figure that out. I also think depending upon where you want to go with your career. Right. There's lots of different tracks, and there's operations is a great one.

Kiva Allgood

And it, it is, because it's often, one that is technical in nature and programmatic in nature. But you can't be successful unless you bring the rest of the organization along with you and that you're collaborative. And I often, often think that women underplay the fact that they can get people to do things by them thinking it was their idea and they don't have like the the they don't have the ego that makes it be like, oh, I did that right.

Kiva Allgood

And so it's a, it's a distractor for some women too. Because a lot of women fall into that, that, that space. But there's lots of roles where I think women can kind of stand up and step up. But to your point around being talked over, having your idea come out of someone else's mouth and being more articulate, I do see that.

Kiva Allgood

And I think it's it's also cultural behavior that has to be, you know, systematically changed. And that's where making sure that the only woman in the room isn't the only woman telling everybody else that they were just talking over her. That's where other people in the room need to step up and say, hey, wait a minute. Actually, Kiva just said that, and as soon as they start doing that, then the behavior will change.

Kiva Allgood

It won't change if the only woman in the room is the one saying, hey, wait a minute, I just said that because then everyone's like, why is she like, bringing up that? She just said that because Tom just said that. So that's where culturally you have to say that's not a behavior that you accept and the organization has to step in and start to change that.

Kiva Allgood

But that's also takes time. And it takes that has to come from the CEO and the executive leadership team.

Holly Smithson

And again, so it's definitely that allyship. And actually asking for somebody and the and the executive, the ELT, the executive leadership team saying, hey, every time I'm bringing up some great ideas, I'm getting I'm getting a negative response. I would love for you to can I invite you to kind of support me on the next, you know, executive team actually asking for allyship, asking for somebody to step up to amplify, some of these things that just aren't really, they're not sustainable and they're not productive.

Holly Smithson

I think is is probably a when you talk about everything that's happening to you as a one or as a only one, seeing it as a challenge will I want to be visible. But I feel invisible. And every time I contribute and do all these things to show my technical proficiency or to chose, you know, my domain expertise.

Holly Smithson

Yeah, I'm completely invisible. So that means that I have to see that as a challenge and then invite somebody who I think would be who has shared values and wants to squeeze out all the juice in the room, all the talent, to invite them to serve as your ally. Have you ever had an opportunity, where you needed to do that and saw somebody that was.

Kiva Allgood

Yeah. I mean, again, I, my youngest just turned 23, so I'm at the other end of the spectrum. And, you know, the the concept of allyship wasn't really there for the bulk of my, my wear. And what I can say, is my allyship came from my peer group saying, hey, she's really good. And, you know, and then leaning into that, or they would ask for me to partner with them and then their leaders would be like, well, how come everyone keeps asking for Kiva?

Kiva Allgood

And it's like, oh, she gets stuff done with fewer people and without that added up. And so you create this reputation with your peer group. What I'd say is I could have done that more effectively. And, you know, finding those right allies, I always had, again, a coach, which was the person who was helping me with certain behaviors.

Kiva Allgood

And that person was also sometimes brutally honest, like Kiva, you know, you always you always have an opinion and you share it. Maybe sometimes you shouldn't. Right. And it's like, okay, so coached me through that. When when is it appropriate for me to lean in and not being in? Because I do think often women will over overcorrect when they feel as if they're not being hurt, they'll step back in and say it again and again and again and again and again.

Kiva Allgood

And then people just get tired of hearing that person speak. And they want people who are optimistic and they want people who want to solve the problem. So I didn't necessarily have an ally that I could go to and say, hey, we're going to have this meeting. I need you to to back me in this way.

Kiva Allgood

With the exception as as I got more senior and was presenting to the board, I would never go to the board and present to the board without vetting it with the senior leadership team first and making sure they agreed with everything that that I was about to present. And I would say, hey, so at the meeting, I know this is the decision, the outcome that we're looking for.

Kiva Allgood

Do I have your support in making that decision and proposal to the board and then. Yes, but that was a one on one conversation before I got into the board meeting. So that I knew I wasn't walking in there and they didn't have any hidden agendas or something else that they were trying to position for, potentially their group.

Kiva Allgood

Because no matter what, you know, every organization has politics, unfortunately. And that those come with how do you bring them into your journey and ensure that they understand that's supporting them to ultimately, even if it may happen to be a little competitive at the time, or may be distracting taking resources from their organization to your organization. Often that isn't necessarily a positive or looked at as a positive.

Kiva Allgood

So I think there's definitely an opportunity to to lean into that allyship now that that's there. What I'd say is, I mentor some people where that's not been a positive experience for them in the sense that they hear one thing in the in in an email, and then they get in the room and they don't get the support.

Kiva Allgood

And so what I'd say is don't count on an email as an affirmative. Yes. Yeah. Been the time to meet with people if you really are going to leverage them as an ally, make sure that they're going to do that on a personal level. They're going to look you in the eye so that then when you're in that room, that they will actually execute against that, that, that agreement.

Kiva Allgood

Because email doesn't necessarily always work. Like saying, hey, I have your support. You'll support me on that. And then you get in the room and I've, I've met so many women are like, I was devastated. He said yes in the email. And I'm like, it was an email. It probably didn't know what he was saying yes to. So you have to make sure that if it's a critical component, that you're not relying on allyship in the form of like email, it has to be some type of, yeah, you know, sometimes.

Holly Smithson

You can get, lost in translation on an email. What you say hundred.

Kiva Allgood

Percent, right? Yeah. They probably genuinely are trying to do it like, you know, but then they didn't have the context and you haven't set the context.

Holly Smithson

To point.

Kiva Allgood

So that the context has to be set if you're truly looking for that ally.

Holly Smithson

So I want to talk about, you know, one of the, one of the things we announced at Athena, we had our, annual global lift in while climbing summit, a couple of months ago, where we talked about the World Economic Forum's projections and terms of our global, talent pool. And, we understand that there's about 85 million is the estimate in terms of the shortfall in and talent, globally.

Holly Smithson

And the lion's share of that 85 million shortfall, hangs out in the Stem space, the Stem expertise around the world, by 2030 and that, I forget the trillions of dollars in GDP that is, subsequently impacted. Talk to me about that projection and what that means, to what I would argue is this untapped.

Kiva Allgood

Workforce for women by women around the world.

Holly Smithson

Super, super excited to hear your perspective on that projection.

Kiva Allgood

Yeah. And also, we're about, around Davos. So January time frame, we will start to release additional information on the latest report there. So on both gender parity and jobs. So look out for that. But you know, I think the exciting part about my role now is that I get the chance. I don't have to make a quarter.

Kiva Allgood

Right. We're a nonprofit form as a nonprofit, and our mission is to improve the state of the world, which is a very, very ambitious goal for me personally. I'm very, very focused on some different Stem initiatives. And, you know, my aspiration and my goal would be that we get to gender parity in Stem, especially in education. And that often comes with, we've done a couple different programs around just changing the dialog and how you position the education track, including sustainability, including programing around.

Kiva Allgood

Hey, engineering is just problem solving, right. And so, and you can use it for good. It's what's used to figure out, sustainability initiatives, water connecting the unconnected, all of these types of things. And we've had really good success in just shifting the narrative and the lens on, hey, let's upgrade and update our whole engineering system to be more inclusive and to be more attractive to the broader population.

Kiva Allgood

And in two of those instances, we went from a 10 to 1, application process to 2 to 1, and then went from 20% to 44%. And so, now you've got to get all your tendered professors that are teaching mechanical engineering and all these other things to do things a little differently. But there is a way to get there, and there are a lot of programs that are pretty close to getting to gender parity in engineering.

Kiva Allgood

So 46%, we're all with some of the top schools. So that's a challenge that we're putting out there right now. And we're really starting to research how can we help, even leverage AI to help them transform their curriculum? The other the other space, I think is, you've got to change the narrative in emerging markets. So you've got countries like coming up to, and that's a state in India.

Kiva Allgood

And they said on this journey, probably about 12 years ago, to get to gender parity, and to bring advanced manufacturing to their state. So lots of foreign direct investment, billions of dollars getting up to the trillions of dollars. And they have 46% of the women who work in these and these facilities that are women. Sorry.

Kiva Allgood

So, yeah, and I'll say that again, 46% of the people work in manufacturing in the state of Tamil Nadu in India are women. And they did that very consciously by modifying the educational system from the elementary all the way to college, by putting programs in place to help educate parents that women working is a positive thing, by putting incentives for families to let their daughters go to work, by putting in things that it gives them, safe housing and safe transportation, all of those things.

Kiva Allgood

So when you think about driving towards tapping into half of the population in the world, it can be done right. It just means you have to have a strategy to get there. So you have a lot of folks that put in programs, but they're not necessarily holistic enough. They don't take into consideration day care. They don't take into consideration like the work that needs to be done at home.

Kiva Allgood

So, you know, my view really in Stem is you've got brilliant minds that are untapped. Just because we can't figure out the operational elements of things to empower them to to even consider these types of jobs, often they think, well, I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough at math. Yep yep yep. Not a that's not a legacy.

Holly Smithson

Legacy stories that are absolute rubbish.

Kiva Allgood

But I also think, you know, industry plays a much bigger role in that than they have in the past. That's, you know, they need to walk the walk and talk the talk. When you look at senior leadership team, you can't have leaders that are only men. And the only women you have are in support functions like that.

Kiva Allgood

You need to inspire young women to want to grow and go to your company, because you've promoted other women in the same way.

Holly Smithson

Well, it strikes me, what's really striking is you've got companies like Microsoft, Oracle, met all of these companies. Apple are setting up manufacturing facilities in India. Right. And Hyderabad, in Mumbai, all of these places where there is engineering talent. Yeah. In anticipation of, you know, the next disruption in supply chain because of another global pandemic or because of the Trump administration, and their isolation, and tariff, threats, all of that is disrupting the entire global economy.

Holly Smithson

So if you are going to be disrupted on supply chain by some crazy event or you have an isolation administration in America, you better go ahead and establish and set up close to the engineering talent and be able to get get. Yeah, control and certainty on production. And in that expertise, that to me is extraordinary shift from China into India.

Holly Smithson

And I just can't even imagine the opportunities to lift all of these women out of poverty. I mean, it is.

Kiva Allgood

Just, oh, I hadn't been to India in a while, and I was just there, six, not even six months ago. And I hadn't been there since the the DPI was launched, which is the digital identity which gives everyone a bank account. And we had several, village that I guess call them village ministers. But these are people who were executing in each of the different states.

Kiva Allgood

And then in villages. And this is the first time many women had any type of identity and also the ability to collect, income. And it greatly reduced to, like if they were getting money from the state, often they would only see a portion of that money because somebody would take a little somebody would take a little, a little.

Kiva Allgood

So now, yeah, fully empowered. It is it's been transformative for these communities because now the women are actually stepping up and they're putting in programs and getting, young kids and other folks. So getting to that gender parity component of things is, is is crucial. But your comment around resilience, you know, I actually think Covid was a huge accelerant for resilience in the sense that people had to figure out how to hey, with this crisis, I gotta be able to completely reconfigure my supply chain and, and a very short period of time.

Kiva Allgood

And I would say we're actually starting to become much more global than we ever were. Yeah. Because so much manufacturing did happen in China before. Now we actually are starting to see that, that transition, to other parts of the world and to me that it's opening up a lot of opportunities. And what I'm calling these kind of emerging clusters or centers of excellence.

Kiva Allgood

And that's where you're starting to see things. And Turkey and Romania and obviously Mexico's been amazing from that perspective. So there's lots of opportunity in my mind for women to to lean in and especially in these new markets and the educational system and supporting that and so I think engineers are there. Women are graduating with engineering degrees.

Kiva Allgood

Now the playing field needs to be more level once they get into an industry job.

Holly Smithson

Well, I can't tell you. It's just such a fascinating time in our and our history. And as we shift from all of the politics and much of the globe going to the extreme right, to kind of, you know, signal to the market that the status quo is markedly, unsustainable. It's just it's going to be a very interesting time.

Holly Smithson

And I suspect, people like you who love a challenge, will be, what are we swimming in, joy? Because it's going to be a very interesting time. So thank you so much for for.

Kiva Allgood

You.

Holly Smithson

All. Great to see you. Yeah, I always enjoy talking to you. And thank you for your great leadership at the World Economic Forum.

Kiva Allgood

I appreciate it. Thank you for your great leadership and helping women achieve more awesome.

Holly Smithson

Thank you. All right. That wraps up this edition of Athena's Lifting Wall Climbing podcast. We hope you had an incredible 2024. And we're really excited about what's what lies ahead in 2025. Thank you and take care. Bye bye.