“All Paths Lead to Where You Are Today” – Interview with Ed McDonnell, Braze
Barry: How much of the premise do you know of what we're doing?
Ed McDonnell: Okay, so I read the one-page brief. You guys tell me to do something, I do it.
Barry: So we've been in New York the last couple of days. We've met some really interesting people for the No Wrong Turns podcast, and we are excited to share all the good learnings that we've got from these great people. And that's what we should never lose, it's just human connection. You're going to absolutely crush. It's going to be the biggest deal that Fras has ever done. Do you remember your first paid job?
Ed McDonnell: Of course. Well, that summer of 1986 was super memorable. Like I can look back, I remember the music I was listening to, the friends I was hanging out with. So my first job was McDonald's, which taught me so much.
Barry: I was going to ask, what was it like? Is there anything there that you carry with you?
Ed McDonnell: You do things in a very structured way, um, very fast-paced. So especially during high volume times, you learn how to work in a little bit of chaos, but you do that chaos within structure, which is why it works. Yeah. Um, yes, 17 years old and I'm managing inventory for lunch and it's like, okay, how do you think about having enough product ready to then deliver and never being short, but also not having too much product where you only have a shelf life on that product for so long that you don't want to also have waste. And so you're kind of managing all of those things, all the ins and outs, and it was just, it was a lot of fun.
Barry: And were you managing... did you get to a position early in that role or subsequent roles where you started to manage people?
Ed McDonnell: I wasn't ready to manage other people from that perspective, but you're managing the chaos of the business at that point. And listen, there's owners of those franchises, that's their livelihood. They're making sure that they're putting people in those positions that they know can handle it. And so I learned a lot of that, you know, love the owners that I got to work with. And um, but I think back at that all the time. It was a phenomenal experience as a first job to go and do something like that. It was amazing. I think all of the decisions have led me right to the point that I'm at today, whether they were good at the time or bad. Um, if I look back, some of the ones that didn't work out was where maybe I sacrificed my values in that decision, or I wasn't living up to my values, I should say. Um, or I made the decision for the wrong reason. I was running from something versus running towards something. And there's definitely a spot in my career where that was true. Um, and that didn't work out right. So I mean, that was an experience that didn't pan out well, but it led me to other opportunities that then take your life in a different course and direction.
Barry: The values one is really interesting because at the time, was that something you were conscious of?
Ed McDonnell: No. No, it's something that you become conscious of after the experience and you look back and you're like, "Oh yeah, you weren't your best self. You weren't showing up the way that you would expect to show up as a leader. You definitely were not managing chaos or the complexities of what you were doing." And um, but it led me to a career change and it led me to uh, which found my way to Eloqua, which then led me to Salesforce, which again, all paths kind of lead to where you are today. Uh, so I bookend my career with two 10-year experiences. I started my career at a place called Thompson Financial, which is now Thompson Reuters. It's where I met my wife. Okay. Uh, and um, a good career move... great career move, the best career move I've ever made by the way. Um, so it's where I met Maddie and spent my first 10 years. It's where I got my first sales gig, it's where I got my first leadership gig, and um, worked for some amazing, amazing people, some mentors that I still have to this day that I rely on.
But I went from there and I took a startup role, uh, and started a company with several other folks. All right, raised money, tried to get something off the ground. And that was, you know, that led me... um, that was a great experience, but we were in the financial community and we did that right around the 2008 mark. And so, um, it didn't have the outcome that I wanted, but I learned so much and I still, again, lots of folks that I worked with that I'm still very deeply connected to and that I've crossed paths with professionally over the years as well. Um, but when that kind of, when that didn't go the way that we wanted it to go, uh, then I kind of chased a couple of things. And in that chasing, you know, one of those experiences got me um, laid off from a role. And that's when I had to sit back and say, okay, well what do I actually want to do? And do I want to stay on this, in the financial, you know, uh, financial markets and the financial kind of side of the career, or do I want to do something different?
And that's when... and I had a short time to do it, right? So this is back in a time when two very young children didn't want to be unemployed. So uh, I had a deep desire to be employed again very quickly.
Barry: Very diplomatically you put it, yeah.
Ed McDonnell: And so um, the bills needed to get paid. Yeah. And I was lucky enough that I got introduced to this company Eloqua. Um, again, great mentor Alex Schupman over there who I got introduced to. And uh, I had to go from being, you know, a head of a selling organization to I took a first-line manager role in software, high-growth software at the time, marketing technology, which is what I do. Um, and that allowed me uh, to go learn a whole different skill set and a whole different experience and work with a group of folks that I never would have thought I'd put myself in the same conference room with. And what just, I mean it was an incredible experience and I look back at that as one of the most career-defining moments, um, uh, you know that I've had.
Barry: It's really interesting because even in the last couple of minutes as you're talking through all that, there's a huge amount of professional change and what sounds like a huge appetite to just go after the opportunity, which is in itself a change type mentality.
Ed McDonnell: I mean, my risk aversion is definitely on the riskier side, so I'm willing to... I'm willing to make the bets if I've thought about them the right way. Some of those bets haven't paid. Um, they've all paid in some area of growth. I've grown from every one of the decisions I've made in my career. And again, some of them have been great decisions and some of them have not taken the turns that you would expect, but I still learned from those opportunities.
Barry: It's an interesting mindset though, isn't it? Like, I think it's... how innate do you think that is in you or in anyone that gets confronted with that level of change and then kind of goes, "Well, I'm going to learn something from it."
Ed McDonnell: I think I got it from my mom.
Barry: Oh really? Yeah. My mom was a risk taker, was she?
Ed McDonnell: Yeah, so I mean she was uh, she started as a cardiac care nurse very early in her 20s, you know. Her first opportunity when she got it was to go out to Denver and take a chance on herself to go run nursing education. And then um, a few years later she got the opportunity to go be a VP of nursing at a hospital back here in New York.
Barry: And it's interesting, the osmosis of that, isn't it? Because from my point of view, I've been fortunate enough to be in the orbit growing up with people that had a relatively strong appetite for risk as well. And it almost uh... normalize maybe isn't the right word, but it makes it familiar. So it's an enabler almost of a "I'm going to do it because well, I've seen other people do it."
Ed McDonnell: Yes. Um, the trick, and I think the gray hair and old age kind of get you to um, they make you think a little... you do it more calculated as you get older versus um... if I look back and say, hey, when I left Thompson at that moment, my wife was pregnant with our first child, we were living in New York City, I had a very good job working for excellent people, and I chose to go start a company and that was basically pre-revenue.
Barry: Yes. And I look back at the... I would make the same decision again today. I was going to ask, would you?
Ed McDonnell: I would, because it was a phenomenal experience with phenomenal people, right? Um, and we did really good work together and we were able to build a team that was incredible. And I'm still in contact with a lot of that team. Uh, so I would do it again because I have that knowledge. But if I were to advise myself again, like, "Hey, you sure?" Like I say to myself, well, all decisions led you to this moment in time, so yeah, you would go do that again.
Barry: We've talked about team. You've talked about team so far, and that's a community.
Ed McDonnell: Yeah, of course. Um, I think community is one of the cornerstones of how to lead is you have to think about your community, your teams, your customers, your partners, the communities that you're in, right? So, and I learned that from Salesforce. I mean, Salesforce is such a believer in community, and you know, Mark from the early days made that such a point and think about their office spaces and the way that they've designed the way that they react in communities. So um, just a strong affinity to that for a leader. From a leadership perspective, community is really, really important.
Barry: As a leader in the business, how do you... with the changes in workplace model, yeah, hybrid, remote, etc., how do you... Because I've seen you in action with people from the stage and in groups, and there's an energy that you bring and that is easier when you're physically with people.
Ed McDonnell: I agree.
Barry: So how do you maintain that connection and community when you've probably got... maybe there are some folks in the room, but there's a whole bunch of them dialing in, or they're not even dialing in, they're going to pick up the recording because they're in a different time zone?
Ed McDonnell: I mean, scaling community and scaling communications is um, it's both one of the best parts of what I do and also just one of the things you have to be very intentional about. And that's where if you show up and you think to yourself, okay, how do I reach a bunch of people that I might not see every day, that might be in different parts of the world, that I might not see for a full year, and how do you make sure that they understand the vision, how do you make sure that they understand what we're trying to accomplish together, why it matters? And I think you have to be really good with your communication strategy.
And um, I do something um, that I've been doing for years. So anybody out there that's um, that knows me, like uh, on Friday mornings I like to run. It's like the best time in the morning for me to get a run in. And I always pop a quick, like, one-minute video off of that run. One take only.
Barry: When you get back, just right after the run's over? Like, straight away?
Ed McDonnell: Like boom, cool. And it's one of these beautiful, no... like just regular running, regular tennies, right? Just um, and I come off and I'm like, here's what's top of mind for me. And then I'll put a little message together and I drop that off on Slack out to the global population. And I don't do it every Friday, but you know, every couple of weeks. It's um, it's my way of trying to stay connected so that folks understand, one, it's okay to take care of yourself, really important actually. Um, two, I want them to hear from me in a really authentic way at a really authentic moment.
Barry: Catch your breath...
Ed McDonnell: Barely, barely! I just go and I only allow one take. Okay, like that's the thing, I never retake the video. Um, and then I'll package it up with a couple of sentences and just let folks know what's on my mind. Like you have to go to your hubs, you have to be out there with your teams, um, and you have to make sure uh, that you create some level of programming that brings folks together. What are those moments that you can bring? And how you and I have gotten to know each other is over kickoffs. Yeah, that's one mechanism. Yep. And high energy all the time inside of that. Uh, there's other moments where you might not have that high energy but equally as important to stay connected to your organization, stay connected so that they know that you're thinking about something that might be on their mind, and how do you get that message out and stay with them.
Barry: It's interesting you mentioned the energy because that's what I... I've really enjoyed your company. The energy is always so good, but I'm sure you have bad days.
Ed McDonnell: Every day. You have bad moments. Yeah, like you know, it's uh...
Barry: And so how do you feel about when those moments or those days or those periods of time come along and you want to maintain strong good energy? And like we talked about earlier on, the sun will come out another day, but how do you balance the reality of "okay, this is where we're at and it may not be so positive" with the fact that it will eventually be okay in the end?
Ed McDonnell: Yeah, sometimes I do that really well and sometimes I don't. Uh, and it kind of just all depends. Um, you know, we've all had some... I've had life things hit my way, whether that be um, uh, you know, parental loss, or whether that be uh, um, some health-related challenges. Like those have all hit all of us. I'm not unique in that. Uh, and I didn't take care of myself as well as I should have after some health things or after some parental loss. And I can look back at that now and say, "Wow, you weren't... you shouldn't have... there are decisions you shouldn't have made, there are ways you shouldn't have shown up, but you didn't give yourself enough time to heal and you didn't give yourself enough space to process." There are other days you just wake up and it's not your day. Uh, and I think it's important that... and I've used coaches and I've used friends and mentors to learn this about yourself. You just recognizing it is the hardest thing. I'm not in the space. I don't have the space today. I don't know this today. And being kind to yourself and saying, "Okay, what do I have to show up for that I know I have to be present for?" And that can be personal, professional, but what do I have to do today? What can I not do today that might be on the calendar or that might be there that I can do tomorrow? I can move it. And that takes again, a lot of intentionality, a lot of self-awareness, and that's where you get it right sometimes and sometimes you don't. I mean, I'm better at it today than I was two years ago and I'll be better at it two years from now than I am today.
Barry: I mean, is it... because I think it's so important, it's so interesting the psychology of not necessarily always being able to see it in yourself but actively looking for the feedback from other people.
Ed McDonnell: You also have to have... you have to have the support system around you. I've been very lucky. I have one. I have a great partner in my wife. Uh, and I've had great partners in my professional life where folks that are in that inner circle, that they'll let you know. Like if you build those relationships, they'll let you know, like, "Hey, you're off." It's like, "Oh, okay, how is that showing up?" And you also have to have the courage to say, "How am I showing up then? What am I doing and how do I do that different so that you can recognize it in the future?" So that you can recognize it faster in the future. But again, that comes with a lot of trial and error. Yep. A lot of trust, um, and a lot of relationship building. And you have to do the work. If you're not willing to do the work on yourself and willing to understand how to create those balance moments, then it's tough. It's tough for anybody to uh, improve upon them. And again, I don't... I think I get this as right as I do wrong.
Barry: Yeah, yeah. And it's being comfortable knowing that you're not going to get it right all the time.
Ed McDonnell: We're human. Exactly, yeah.
Barry: And so that piece around fast-moving environments, reflection, and I guess the scalability because you're you and you've lived all the things you've lived... but so obviously where you're working at Braze, I always think companies are rollups of individuals.
Ed McDonnell: Yes.
Barry: So as we talk about any entity as a singular unit, but actually it's a collection of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, whatever that is, they have their own experiences, their own things happening in work, out of work. How do you manage, with the people that you have worked with in your career, that sense of okay, people are maybe going to have a good day, a bad day, or somewhere in between?
Ed McDonnell: You have to check in on people. How are you today? It's actually one of the most simple questions you can ask somebody is, "How are you today?"
Barry: Simple, isn't it?
Ed McDonnell: It can be. And it's just... and find out where folks are. If you notice that something's off, just like, "Hey, how are you today?" And if people need space, I have found that uh, you have to be, you know, you have to give people the space that they need and be kind to folks that you know are navigating something, and you don't even have to know what they're navigating. You just... it's having that awareness that there's something that they're navigating. Folks know that they have the ability to create that space for themselves and that they should reflect and take that time for themselves because they'll show up better next time. I come back a lot to intentionality. You have to have that intentionality to go make sure that, one, people know that you know their wellness, their family's wellness, the things that are important to them are just that—they're really important. Um, and that's not to suggest that their work isn't important because that also is important, but people should have the space to know how to navigate between those.
Barry: What's the tolerance level, and I don't expect you to speak for current roles or anything like that, but what's your perception of the tolerance for "okay, you're not at your best, that's okay"?
Ed McDonnell: It... it's, you know, you get the question a lot about work-life balance or balance and this whole thing. And I've always, I've always pressure tested the whole balance thought process because balance suggests that the pie is 100% and balance in 100% is 50/50. And I think that's really unrealistic to think that you can balance 50/50 all the things happening in your life because your life is your life. It to me, it's more when you need to be present in your moments, can you give those moments that level of presence? And so there are moments at work where you have to be all-in, and that's where your intentionality and your presence is. And so, are you in balance at that moment? Absolutely not, you're really focused. There are times, and I'll go back to, you know, when my son was like, "Hey dad, let's go play a video game." And I'd be like, "Okay." And I'd go downstairs and I'd put my phone away and I had to be intentional and go do that with him. But my balance then shifted, right? I wasn't thinking about work. Um, and those are just examples by the way, and I'm sure everybody that would ever listen to this would have a hundred examples of their own.
Barry: It's interesting the whole work-life balance conversation. We talk about this internally all the time. You can't divide out your work self and your outside-of-work self. You are a whole human being, and it's the fluency to be able to go, "Well, this is what needs to happen right now." It's not life-defining forever, it's just this is the shift for now. But that's it, it's hard.
Ed McDonnell: Yeah, it's hard. It's... I mean for anybody it's hard. It's hard for you, it's hard for me, it's... and it takes a lot of work to be able... By the way, you're leaving something out in that whole equation. And um, I've had a great coach for years that has really helped guide me on this one.
Barry: What about yourself?
Ed McDonnell: Everybody always does the whole work/life, but they always forget about "what about me?" Yes. Am I present for myself? Am I... for the reflection, just for anything, whatever it is. Yeah, are you just, are you also there for you? And are you giving yourself the time? And there's, I mean moments in many people's careers when they're like, "I want the next thing and I want that right now," and they're going to push themselves really hard and they should. Um, but you're giving up something in order to go do that. And it's really starting to just gain the understandings of those trade-offs that you make in these types of uh, in these types of decisions.
Barry: So as we always hear at the moment that people early in career, because of the change of workplace model, um, it's just a little harder to absorb some of the learnings that other people that have been around a little bit more in any business, in an industry, just in the working world um, have been able to live. Is that something that you are conscious of? Was that something that you actively try to mitigate against, them not having the opportunities to learn that maybe you and I might have had?
Ed McDonnell: I think that there's so much opportunity out there. In fact, um, there's more opportunity today than there was a week ago, and next week there'll be more opportunity than there is today because what a time to be alive. I mean, you're in the age of a technology revolution that is going to... it's going to change the world.
Barry: Yeah.
Ed McDonnell: Um, and uh, so that's just... it's this next inflection point. But that stretches to multiple... it's not just technology, that's multiple industries, multiple ways of living. So I think there's ample opportunity. Uh, I think it's... is that opportunity has gotten fragmented because of the where do we work, right? That it's got a little conflated on the where do you do the work and how do you get the exposure and the access points correct. And but then I go back to intentionality, Barry. Like if you want those access points, go find where those folks are and go get... go find your access. Um, uh, it's just like you have to own your own health, you have to own your own career. And you have to make sure that you are finding your ways to allow your work to shine and allow your work to be recognized and seen. Uh, and you have to create those moments where you can find those access points. And I get that that's hard, like I'm not suggesting that this is easy, but it takes thought and it takes intentionality and that's the ownership of it.
Barry: It is ownership. Very few things come to you, and I don't mean you, but I think very few... you got to go and get them.
Ed McDonnell: You... that's that... that hasn't changed. Like in my career, and again I've been doing this a while, uh, that hasn't changed. You have to want it, you have to take the ownership of your career, and by doing so you have to be willing to take a bunch of nos and a bunch of failures and a bunch of "nots." And that happens. And you also have to be courageous enough that "well, why? What can I do differently? How do I take that next step?" And um, I give a lot of that advice to folks, which is hey, on a piece of paper just write down what you think your skill sets are right now. Just write them down, whatever they are. It doesn't matter how long or how little, what are your skill sets that you have right now? What skill sets do you want to go and acquire that you don't have? And then go talk to your community about that. Back to community. Have that conversation with your leader, have it with your friends, have it with your teammates, have it with your partners and say, "This is something that's important to me, I want to go and acquire this." And bring everybody into that journey with you, because you will acquire those skills so much faster if everybody is there, because people will root for you.
Barry: Invested, they're invested.
Ed McDonnell: They'll root for you. Like that's the human nature says, "I'm going to root for somebody that is putting themselves out there and they want something."
Barry: I think good almost always prevails and people want people to succeed, of course.
Ed McDonnell: So I think you got to... you got to ask the questions, you've got to go after it.
Barry: Yeah, and I think that it's hard to do. Yeah, it requires a certain amount of confidence and clarity and intentionality to actually go after it. And a willingness to hear no. What's the hardest no you've ever gotten?
Ed McDonnell: Uh, my wife the first time I asked her out on a date. Just one no, oh God! The hardest no I've ever gotten... uh, I would say uh, when I was at Thompson. Um, and a good friend of mine who's here, Chris Perry, was uh... he had just gotten the head of sales for the division that we were working in, and he was a leader and I was a sales guy. And I remember calling him the day that he got the job and I was like, "Hey, I want your job." And he's like, "I just got it, Ed." And I said, "No, the one that you just left." He goes, "Yeah, I'm not going to give that to you." And I was like, "Oh." He goes, "But let's have a conversation in the next week and let's talk about what that would take." And so it was a hard to hear the no in the beginning, but he also made such an investment in me and really helped me get into leadership, and get into leadership the right way because of the investment we made over the course of the next 12 months in helping me prepare for that first leadership job. And so I mean amazing, he was so invested and still is. He's still a mentor and a friend. And um, but it's those types of nos that are, you know, that you want.
Barry: Yeah. I have two more questions for you. In the world of AI, everything, we just hear AI everywhere, it's all-pervasive. Where do you see it in two years?
Ed McDonnell: Oh, I... I don't know two years.
Barry: I didn't say 10 years, I didn't even say three years!
Ed McDonnell: But I don't know where I see it in two weeks right? Okay. It's... you're seeing it, I think it is fast-moving. The only... what I tell folks, like I think it's different work to personal. Like personally, I just try to get anybody that asks me that might not be in technology... I have a lot of friends that aren't in technology... I'm like, just start using it. Yeah, just start understanding and see where it takes you. And like um, see what that can offer you. Like my college-age kid and even my high school son, I'm like, go vibe code something. Like just go do something and just learn skill sets. Uh, because I think that's really important. Where this all goes... I mean um, listen, I think we're in that next revolution. Um, and if you just think about previous, I think history tells you that this one will go faster than the last one.
Barry: Yeah, the speed is the...
Ed McDonnell: The speed is just... so when you say two years, I just... well let's go one year. Um, you know, one year uh, I think you're going to continue to see the uh, foundational models continue to evolve. The OpenAI stuff this week where now they're into automated commerce and they're partnering with companies like Shopify. And you know, what does that mean? It means that you can go on OpenAI and look for a sweater and say, "I want this sweater," and you can now just go buy it off of OpenAI. Like that's incredible. Like what an experience for fast, and all of that, and that will continue to evolve. And so I think the consumer experience will evolve so fast. Like what you're able to do today versus what you'll do a year from now, it won't even look... you won't even recognize it a year from now. You'll be booking your airline tickets, you'll be like, you'll be curating a trip. "I want to go to Rome." And you'll learn everything about Rome and then you'll be able to say "book it on ChatGPT." And ChatGPT will say, "Book what? Airline, hotel... um, the tours, everything? Like, book the curated experience you just gave me? Book it for me."
Barry: So here's a question for you. That's crazy, it's crazy and you're right, I mean that is the direction of travel, which is amazing.
Ed McDonnell: Well, it is amazing.
Barry: I wonder, is there a point in time... because if we think about certain communities like the medical community, if people want to talk to a human doctor there... I wonder, does it come around at some point in time where, "oh, I think the human connection just cannot be achieved by the technology"?
Ed McDonnell: Oh, I think this makes humans stronger than it does weaker. Especially those types of connections. AI can only take... because like that's a curated experience, I would be okay with go to Rome, curate the whole experience for me, and then do all of my purchasing and give me all my receipts. That's great. Um, read this lab report for me? Not so much. I kind of want to talk... maybe I want to talk to my doctor. But there's a generation, there's a generation of folks that might not want to. Yeah, but I do think that there's all those human connectivity points that remain so important, and that's what we should never lose. It's just human connection is what... that's all that actually does matter, is human connection.
Barry: I agree. And one of the things I think about and we talk about it is that AI will actually put humans back in the center of the business. I think so. Very, very last question, because I know you've got a customer call that you're going to absolutely crush, it's going to be the biggest deal that Fras has ever done. Do you think about legacy in any way, or is it just an accumulation of the day-to-day doing the job as well as you can day-to-day and that's what creates the impact?
Ed McDonnell: No, I think your legacy is your people. Okay. And the work you do with people I think is always going to be the legacy. And did you leave your people in a better place? Or, and it's not that you did it, did you allow your people to grow? Were they able to find different opportunities? Were they able to um, were they able to advance and grow professionally? I think the best legacy you could ever have are the people. And I look across and uh, I see some folks that I've had the absolute privilege of working with just doing really big wonderful things these days. And I look at that as more legacy than anything else. It's a pride thing. It's like, look at that, like I had a small piece of that opportunity. To just be a part of it, to be in their orbit and to have had some portion of their success and to have been involved in it, that to me is the best legacy of all.
Barry: And we're leaving it at that. Thank you for your time, good to see you.
Ed McDonnell: You too buddy.
“All Paths Lead to Where You Are Today” – Interview with Ed McDonnell, Braze
Barry: How much of the premise do you know of what we're doing?
Ed McDonnell: Okay, so I read the one-page brief. You guys tell me to do something, I do it.
Barry: So we've been in New York the last couple of days. We've met some really interesting people for the No Wrong Turns podcast, and we are excited to share all the good learnings that we've got from these great people. And that's what we should never lose, it's just human connection. You're going to absolutely crush. It's going to be the biggest deal that Fras has ever done. Do you remember your first paid job?
Ed McDonnell: Of course. Well, that summer of 1986 was super memorable. Like I can look back, I remember the music I was listening to, the friends I was hanging out with. So my first job was McDonald's, which taught me so much.
Barry: I was going to ask, what was it like? Is there anything there that you carry with you?
Ed McDonnell: You do things in a very structured way, um, very fast-paced. So especially during high volume times, you learn how to work in a little bit of chaos, but you do that chaos within structure, which is why it works. Yeah. Um, yes, 17 years old and I'm managing inventory for lunch and it's like, okay, how do you think about having enough product ready to then deliver and never being short, but also not having too much product where you only have a shelf life on that product for so long that you don't want to also have waste. And so you're kind of managing all of those things, all the ins and outs, and it was just, it was a lot of fun.
Barry: And were you managing... did you get to a position early in that role or subsequent roles where you started to manage people?
Ed McDonnell: I wasn't ready to manage other people from that perspective, but you're managing the chaos of the business at that point. And listen, there's owners of those franchises, that's their livelihood. They're making sure that they're putting people in those positions that they know can handle it. And so I learned a lot of that, you know, love the owners that I got to work with. And um, but I think back at that all the time. It was a phenomenal experience as a first job to go and do something like that. It was amazing. I think all of the decisions have led me right to the point that I'm at today, whether they were good at the time or bad. Um, if I look back, some of the ones that didn't work out was where maybe I sacrificed my values in that decision, or I wasn't living up to my values, I should say. Um, or I made the decision for the wrong reason. I was running from something versus running towards something. And there's definitely a spot in my career where that was true. Um, and that didn't work out right. So I mean, that was an experience that didn't pan out well, but it led me to other opportunities that then take your life in a different course and direction.
Barry: The values one is really interesting because at the time, was that something you were conscious of?
Ed McDonnell: No. No, it's something that you become conscious of after the experience and you look back and you're like, "Oh yeah, you weren't your best self. You weren't showing up the way that you would expect to show up as a leader. You definitely were not managing chaos or the complexities of what you were doing." And um, but it led me to a career change and it led me to uh, which found my way to Eloqua, which then led me to Salesforce, which again, all paths kind of lead to where you are today. Uh, so I bookend my career with two 10-year experiences. I started my career at a place called Thompson Financial, which is now Thompson Reuters. It's where I met my wife. Okay. Uh, and um, a good career move... great career move, the best career move I've ever made by the way. Um, so it's where I met Maddie and spent my first 10 years. It's where I got my first sales gig, it's where I got my first leadership gig, and um, worked for some amazing, amazing people, some mentors that I still have to this day that I rely on.
But I went from there and I took a startup role, uh, and started a company with several other folks. All right, raised money, tried to get something off the ground. And that was, you know, that led me... um, that was a great experience, but we were in the financial community and we did that right around the 2008 mark. And so, um, it didn't have the outcome that I wanted, but I learned so much and I still, again, lots of folks that I worked with that I'm still very deeply connected to and that I've crossed paths with professionally over the years as well. Um, but when that kind of, when that didn't go the way that we wanted it to go, uh, then I kind of chased a couple of things. And in that chasing, you know, one of those experiences got me um, laid off from a role. And that's when I had to sit back and say, okay, well what do I actually want to do? And do I want to stay on this, in the financial, you know, uh, financial markets and the financial kind of side of the career, or do I want to do something different?
And that's when... and I had a short time to do it, right? So this is back in a time when two very young children didn't want to be unemployed. So uh, I had a deep desire to be employed again very quickly.
Barry: Very diplomatically you put it, yeah.
Ed McDonnell: And so um, the bills needed to get paid. Yeah. And I was lucky enough that I got introduced to this company Eloqua. Um, again, great mentor Alex Schupman over there who I got introduced to. And uh, I had to go from being, you know, a head of a selling organization to I took a first-line manager role in software, high-growth software at the time, marketing technology, which is what I do. Um, and that allowed me uh, to go learn a whole different skill set and a whole different experience and work with a group of folks that I never would have thought I'd put myself in the same conference room with. And what just, I mean it was an incredible experience and I look back at that as one of the most career-defining moments, um, uh, you know that I've had.
Barry: It's really interesting because even in the last couple of minutes as you're talking through all that, there's a huge amount of professional change and what sounds like a huge appetite to just go after the opportunity, which is in itself a change type mentality.
Ed McDonnell: I mean, my risk aversion is definitely on the riskier side, so I'm willing to... I'm willing to make the bets if I've thought about them the right way. Some of those bets haven't paid. Um, they've all paid in some area of growth. I've grown from every one of the decisions I've made in my career. And again, some of them have been great decisions and some of them have not taken the turns that you would expect, but I still learned from those opportunities.
Barry: It's an interesting mindset though, isn't it? Like, I think it's... how innate do you think that is in you or in anyone that gets confronted with that level of change and then kind of goes, "Well, I'm going to learn something from it."
Ed McDonnell: I think I got it from my mom.
Barry: Oh really? Yeah. My mom was a risk taker, was she?
Ed McDonnell: Yeah, so I mean she was uh, she started as a cardiac care nurse very early in her 20s, you know. Her first opportunity when she got it was to go out to Denver and take a chance on herself to go run nursing education. And then um, a few years later she got the opportunity to go be a VP of nursing at a hospital back here in New York.
Barry: And it's interesting, the osmosis of that, isn't it? Because from my point of view, I've been fortunate enough to be in the orbit growing up with people that had a relatively strong appetite for risk as well. And it almost uh... normalize maybe isn't the right word, but it makes it familiar. So it's an enabler almost of a "I'm going to do it because well, I've seen other people do it."
Ed McDonnell: Yes. Um, the trick, and I think the gray hair and old age kind of get you to um, they make you think a little... you do it more calculated as you get older versus um... if I look back and say, hey, when I left Thompson at that moment, my wife was pregnant with our first child, we were living in New York City, I had a very good job working for excellent people, and I chose to go start a company and that was basically pre-revenue.
Barry: Yes. And I look back at the... I would make the same decision again today. I was going to ask, would you?
Ed McDonnell: I would, because it was a phenomenal experience with phenomenal people, right? Um, and we did really good work together and we were able to build a team that was incredible. And I'm still in contact with a lot of that team. Uh, so I would do it again because I have that knowledge. But if I were to advise myself again, like, "Hey, you sure?" Like I say to myself, well, all decisions led you to this moment in time, so yeah, you would go do that again.
Barry: We've talked about team. You've talked about team so far, and that's a community.
Ed McDonnell: Yeah, of course. Um, I think community is one of the cornerstones of how to lead is you have to think about your community, your teams, your customers, your partners, the communities that you're in, right? So, and I learned that from Salesforce. I mean, Salesforce is such a believer in community, and you know, Mark from the early days made that such a point and think about their office spaces and the way that they've designed the way that they react in communities. So um, just a strong affinity to that for a leader. From a leadership perspective, community is really, really important.
Barry: As a leader in the business, how do you... with the changes in workplace model, yeah, hybrid, remote, etc., how do you... Because I've seen you in action with people from the stage and in groups, and there's an energy that you bring and that is easier when you're physically with people.
Ed McDonnell: I agree.
Barry: So how do you maintain that connection and community when you've probably got... maybe there are some folks in the room, but there's a whole bunch of them dialing in, or they're not even dialing in, they're going to pick up the recording because they're in a different time zone?
Ed McDonnell: I mean, scaling community and scaling communications is um, it's both one of the best parts of what I do and also just one of the things you have to be very intentional about. And that's where if you show up and you think to yourself, okay, how do I reach a bunch of people that I might not see every day, that might be in different parts of the world, that I might not see for a full year, and how do you make sure that they understand the vision, how do you make sure that they understand what we're trying to accomplish together, why it matters? And I think you have to be really good with your communication strategy.
And um, I do something um, that I've been doing for years. So anybody out there that's um, that knows me, like uh, on Friday mornings I like to run. It's like the best time in the morning for me to get a run in. And I always pop a quick, like, one-minute video off of that run. One take only.
Barry: When you get back, just right after the run's over? Like, straight away?
Ed McDonnell: Like boom, cool. And it's one of these beautiful, no... like just regular running, regular tennies, right? Just um, and I come off and I'm like, here's what's top of mind for me. And then I'll put a little message together and I drop that off on Slack out to the global population. And I don't do it every Friday, but you know, every couple of weeks. It's um, it's my way of trying to stay connected so that folks understand, one, it's okay to take care of yourself, really important actually. Um, two, I want them to hear from me in a really authentic way at a really authentic moment.
Barry: Catch your breath...
Ed McDonnell: Barely, barely! I just go and I only allow one take. Okay, like that's the thing, I never retake the video. Um, and then I'll package it up with a couple of sentences and just let folks know what's on my mind. Like you have to go to your hubs, you have to be out there with your teams, um, and you have to make sure uh, that you create some level of programming that brings folks together. What are those moments that you can bring? And how you and I have gotten to know each other is over kickoffs. Yeah, that's one mechanism. Yep. And high energy all the time inside of that. Uh, there's other moments where you might not have that high energy but equally as important to stay connected to your organization, stay connected so that they know that you're thinking about something that might be on their mind, and how do you get that message out and stay with them.
Barry: It's interesting you mentioned the energy because that's what I... I've really enjoyed your company. The energy is always so good, but I'm sure you have bad days.
Ed McDonnell: Every day. You have bad moments. Yeah, like you know, it's uh...
Barry: And so how do you feel about when those moments or those days or those periods of time come along and you want to maintain strong good energy? And like we talked about earlier on, the sun will come out another day, but how do you balance the reality of "okay, this is where we're at and it may not be so positive" with the fact that it will eventually be okay in the end?
Ed McDonnell: Yeah, sometimes I do that really well and sometimes I don't. Uh, and it kind of just all depends. Um, you know, we've all had some... I've had life things hit my way, whether that be um, uh, you know, parental loss, or whether that be uh, um, some health-related challenges. Like those have all hit all of us. I'm not unique in that. Uh, and I didn't take care of myself as well as I should have after some health things or after some parental loss. And I can look back at that now and say, "Wow, you weren't... you shouldn't have... there are decisions you shouldn't have made, there are ways you shouldn't have shown up, but you didn't give yourself enough time to heal and you didn't give yourself enough space to process." There are other days you just wake up and it's not your day. Uh, and I think it's important that... and I've used coaches and I've used friends and mentors to learn this about yourself. You just recognizing it is the hardest thing. I'm not in the space. I don't have the space today. I don't know this today. And being kind to yourself and saying, "Okay, what do I have to show up for that I know I have to be present for?" And that can be personal, professional, but what do I have to do today? What can I not do today that might be on the calendar or that might be there that I can do tomorrow? I can move it. And that takes again, a lot of intentionality, a lot of self-awareness, and that's where you get it right sometimes and sometimes you don't. I mean, I'm better at it today than I was two years ago and I'll be better at it two years from now than I am today.
Barry: I mean, is it... because I think it's so important, it's so interesting the psychology of not necessarily always being able to see it in yourself but actively looking for the feedback from other people.
Ed McDonnell: You also have to have... you have to have the support system around you. I've been very lucky. I have one. I have a great partner in my wife. Uh, and I've had great partners in my professional life where folks that are in that inner circle, that they'll let you know. Like if you build those relationships, they'll let you know, like, "Hey, you're off." It's like, "Oh, okay, how is that showing up?" And you also have to have the courage to say, "How am I showing up then? What am I doing and how do I do that different so that you can recognize it in the future?" So that you can recognize it faster in the future. But again, that comes with a lot of trial and error. Yep. A lot of trust, um, and a lot of relationship building. And you have to do the work. If you're not willing to do the work on yourself and willing to understand how to create those balance moments, then it's tough. It's tough for anybody to uh, improve upon them. And again, I don't... I think I get this as right as I do wrong.
Barry: Yeah, yeah. And it's being comfortable knowing that you're not going to get it right all the time.
Ed McDonnell: We're human. Exactly, yeah.
Barry: And so that piece around fast-moving environments, reflection, and I guess the scalability because you're you and you've lived all the things you've lived... but so obviously where you're working at Braze, I always think companies are rollups of individuals.
Ed McDonnell: Yes.
Barry: So as we talk about any entity as a singular unit, but actually it's a collection of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, whatever that is, they have their own experiences, their own things happening in work, out of work. How do you manage, with the people that you have worked with in your career, that sense of okay, people are maybe going to have a good day, a bad day, or somewhere in between?
Ed McDonnell: You have to check in on people. How are you today? It's actually one of the most simple questions you can ask somebody is, "How are you today?"
Barry: Simple, isn't it?
Ed McDonnell: It can be. And it's just... and find out where folks are. If you notice that something's off, just like, "Hey, how are you today?" And if people need space, I have found that uh, you have to be, you know, you have to give people the space that they need and be kind to folks that you know are navigating something, and you don't even have to know what they're navigating. You just... it's having that awareness that there's something that they're navigating. Folks know that they have the ability to create that space for themselves and that they should reflect and take that time for themselves because they'll show up better next time. I come back a lot to intentionality. You have to have that intentionality to go make sure that, one, people know that you know their wellness, their family's wellness, the things that are important to them are just that—they're really important. Um, and that's not to suggest that their work isn't important because that also is important, but people should have the space to know how to navigate between those.
Barry: What's the tolerance level, and I don't expect you to speak for current roles or anything like that, but what's your perception of the tolerance for "okay, you're not at your best, that's okay"?
Ed McDonnell: It... it's, you know, you get the question a lot about work-life balance or balance and this whole thing. And I've always, I've always pressure tested the whole balance thought process because balance suggests that the pie is 100% and balance in 100% is 50/50. And I think that's really unrealistic to think that you can balance 50/50 all the things happening in your life because your life is your life. It to me, it's more when you need to be present in your moments, can you give those moments that level of presence? And so there are moments at work where you have to be all-in, and that's where your intentionality and your presence is. And so, are you in balance at that moment? Absolutely not, you're really focused. There are times, and I'll go back to, you know, when my son was like, "Hey dad, let's go play a video game." And I'd be like, "Okay." And I'd go downstairs and I'd put my phone away and I had to be intentional and go do that with him. But my balance then shifted, right? I wasn't thinking about work. Um, and those are just examples by the way, and I'm sure everybody that would ever listen to this would have a hundred examples of their own.
Barry: It's interesting the whole work-life balance conversation. We talk about this internally all the time. You can't divide out your work self and your outside-of-work self. You are a whole human being, and it's the fluency to be able to go, "Well, this is what needs to happen right now." It's not life-defining forever, it's just this is the shift for now. But that's it, it's hard.
Ed McDonnell: Yeah, it's hard. It's... I mean for anybody it's hard. It's hard for you, it's hard for me, it's... and it takes a lot of work to be able... By the way, you're leaving something out in that whole equation. And um, I've had a great coach for years that has really helped guide me on this one.
Barry: What about yourself?
Ed McDonnell: Everybody always does the whole work/life, but they always forget about "what about me?" Yes. Am I present for myself? Am I... for the reflection, just for anything, whatever it is. Yeah, are you just, are you also there for you? And are you giving yourself the time? And there's, I mean moments in many people's careers when they're like, "I want the next thing and I want that right now," and they're going to push themselves really hard and they should. Um, but you're giving up something in order to go do that. And it's really starting to just gain the understandings of those trade-offs that you make in these types of uh, in these types of decisions.
Barry: So as we always hear at the moment that people early in career, because of the change of workplace model, um, it's just a little harder to absorb some of the learnings that other people that have been around a little bit more in any business, in an industry, just in the working world um, have been able to live. Is that something that you are conscious of? Was that something that you actively try to mitigate against, them not having the opportunities to learn that maybe you and I might have had?
Ed McDonnell: I think that there's so much opportunity out there. In fact, um, there's more opportunity today than there was a week ago, and next week there'll be more opportunity than there is today because what a time to be alive. I mean, you're in the age of a technology revolution that is going to... it's going to change the world.
Barry: Yeah.
Ed McDonnell: Um, and uh, so that's just... it's this next inflection point. But that stretches to multiple... it's not just technology, that's multiple industries, multiple ways of living. So I think there's ample opportunity. Uh, I think it's... is that opportunity has gotten fragmented because of the where do we work, right? That it's got a little conflated on the where do you do the work and how do you get the exposure and the access points correct. And but then I go back to intentionality, Barry. Like if you want those access points, go find where those folks are and go get... go find your access. Um, uh, it's just like you have to own your own health, you have to own your own career. And you have to make sure that you are finding your ways to allow your work to shine and allow your work to be recognized and seen. Uh, and you have to create those moments where you can find those access points. And I get that that's hard, like I'm not suggesting that this is easy, but it takes thought and it takes intentionality and that's the ownership of it.
Barry: It is ownership. Very few things come to you, and I don't mean you, but I think very few... you got to go and get them.
Ed McDonnell: You... that's that... that hasn't changed. Like in my career, and again I've been doing this a while, uh, that hasn't changed. You have to want it, you have to take the ownership of your career, and by doing so you have to be willing to take a bunch of nos and a bunch of failures and a bunch of "nots." And that happens. And you also have to be courageous enough that "well, why? What can I do differently? How do I take that next step?" And um, I give a lot of that advice to folks, which is hey, on a piece of paper just write down what you think your skill sets are right now. Just write them down, whatever they are. It doesn't matter how long or how little, what are your skill sets that you have right now? What skill sets do you want to go and acquire that you don't have? And then go talk to your community about that. Back to community. Have that conversation with your leader, have it with your friends, have it with your teammates, have it with your partners and say, "This is something that's important to me, I want to go and acquire this." And bring everybody into that journey with you, because you will acquire those skills so much faster if everybody is there, because people will root for you.
Barry: Invested, they're invested.
Ed McDonnell: They'll root for you. Like that's the human nature says, "I'm going to root for somebody that is putting themselves out there and they want something."
Barry: I think good almost always prevails and people want people to succeed, of course.
Ed McDonnell: So I think you got to... you got to ask the questions, you've got to go after it.
Barry: Yeah, and I think that it's hard to do. Yeah, it requires a certain amount of confidence and clarity and intentionality to actually go after it. And a willingness to hear no. What's the hardest no you've ever gotten?
Ed McDonnell: Uh, my wife the first time I asked her out on a date. Just one no, oh God! The hardest no I've ever gotten... uh, I would say uh, when I was at Thompson. Um, and a good friend of mine who's here, Chris Perry, was uh... he had just gotten the head of sales for the division that we were working in, and he was a leader and I was a sales guy. And I remember calling him the day that he got the job and I was like, "Hey, I want your job." And he's like, "I just got it, Ed." And I said, "No, the one that you just left." He goes, "Yeah, I'm not going to give that to you." And I was like, "Oh." He goes, "But let's have a conversation in the next week and let's talk about what that would take." And so it was a hard to hear the no in the beginning, but he also made such an investment in me and really helped me get into leadership, and get into leadership the right way because of the investment we made over the course of the next 12 months in helping me prepare for that first leadership job. And so I mean amazing, he was so invested and still is. He's still a mentor and a friend. And um, but it's those types of nos that are, you know, that you want.
Barry: Yeah. I have two more questions for you. In the world of AI, everything, we just hear AI everywhere, it's all-pervasive. Where do you see it in two years?
Ed McDonnell: Oh, I... I don't know two years.
Barry: I didn't say 10 years, I didn't even say three years!
Ed McDonnell: But I don't know where I see it in two weeks right? Okay. It's... you're seeing it, I think it is fast-moving. The only... what I tell folks, like I think it's different work to personal. Like personally, I just try to get anybody that asks me that might not be in technology... I have a lot of friends that aren't in technology... I'm like, just start using it. Yeah, just start understanding and see where it takes you. And like um, see what that can offer you. Like my college-age kid and even my high school son, I'm like, go vibe code something. Like just go do something and just learn skill sets. Uh, because I think that's really important. Where this all goes... I mean um, listen, I think we're in that next revolution. Um, and if you just think about previous, I think history tells you that this one will go faster than the last one.
Barry: Yeah, the speed is the...
Ed McDonnell: The speed is just... so when you say two years, I just... well let's go one year. Um, you know, one year uh, I think you're going to continue to see the uh, foundational models continue to evolve. The OpenAI stuff this week where now they're into automated commerce and they're partnering with companies like Shopify. And you know, what does that mean? It means that you can go on OpenAI and look for a sweater and say, "I want this sweater," and you can now just go buy it off of OpenAI. Like that's incredible. Like what an experience for fast, and all of that, and that will continue to evolve. And so I think the consumer experience will evolve so fast. Like what you're able to do today versus what you'll do a year from now, it won't even look... you won't even recognize it a year from now. You'll be booking your airline tickets, you'll be like, you'll be curating a trip. "I want to go to Rome." And you'll learn everything about Rome and then you'll be able to say "book it on ChatGPT." And ChatGPT will say, "Book what? Airline, hotel... um, the tours, everything? Like, book the curated experience you just gave me? Book it for me."
Barry: So here's a question for you. That's crazy, it's crazy and you're right, I mean that is the direction of travel, which is amazing.
Ed McDonnell: Well, it is amazing.
Barry: I wonder, is there a point in time... because if we think about certain communities like the medical community, if people want to talk to a human doctor there... I wonder, does it come around at some point in time where, "oh, I think the human connection just cannot be achieved by the technology"?
Ed McDonnell: Oh, I think this makes humans stronger than it does weaker. Especially those types of connections. AI can only take... because like that's a curated experience, I would be okay with go to Rome, curate the whole experience for me, and then do all of my purchasing and give me all my receipts. That's great. Um, read this lab report for me? Not so much. I kind of want to talk... maybe I want to talk to my doctor. But there's a generation, there's a generation of folks that might not want to. Yeah, but I do think that there's all those human connectivity points that remain so important, and that's what we should never lose. It's just human connection is what... that's all that actually does matter, is human connection.
Barry: I agree. And one of the things I think about and we talk about it is that AI will actually put humans back in the center of the business. I think so. Very, very last question, because I know you've got a customer call that you're going to absolutely crush, it's going to be the biggest deal that Fras has ever done. Do you think about legacy in any way, or is it just an accumulation of the day-to-day doing the job as well as you can day-to-day and that's what creates the impact?
Ed McDonnell: No, I think your legacy is your people. Okay. And the work you do with people I think is always going to be the legacy. And did you leave your people in a better place? Or, and it's not that you did it, did you allow your people to grow? Were they able to find different opportunities? Were they able to um, were they able to advance and grow professionally? I think the best legacy you could ever have are the people. And I look across and uh, I see some folks that I've had the absolute privilege of working with just doing really big wonderful things these days. And I look at that as more legacy than anything else. It's a pride thing. It's like, look at that, like I had a small piece of that opportunity. To just be a part of it, to be in their orbit and to have had some portion of their success and to have been involved in it, that to me is the best legacy of all.
Barry: And we're leaving it at that. Thank you for your time, good to see you.
Ed McDonnell: You too buddy.
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