Tiffani Bova – Chief Growth & Innovation Evangelist, Salesforce Business Strategist, WSJ Best-selling Author, and Keynote Speaker

Kara Goldin (00:01):

Hi everyone. It’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin show and I’m so excited to have my next guest here. I was actually on her podcast and talking about my book and I am really, really honored that she agreed to come on my podcast to talk about her book, which is a couple of years old, but it is, it is so incredible. If you have not read it, I absolutely loved it. But let’s get to who this guest is. Tiffani Bova. She is a business anthropologist growth and transformation advisor, a keynote speaker, a best-selling author, and chief global growth evangelist at that little company called Salesforce. So, so honored to have you here.

Kara Goldin (01:13):

Tiffani, I’m going to give you a few accolades here. Before I actually allow you to talk, just to embarrass you a little bit. So evangelist, chief growth evangelist at Salesforce, and the author of the wall street journal bestselling book growth IQ, get smarter about the choices that will make or break your business. She’s been included on the thinkers, 50 lists of the world’s top management thinkers among other things. She also hosts that great podcast called what’s next, such a good podcast. If you haven’t heard it, definitely download it. And, let’s see what else. She’s a top Twitter influencer and business growth customer experience innovation in sales. So definitely follow her there. And she’s been named one of Inc magazine’s 37 sales US experts. You need to follow on Twitter, a top 100 women in tech and one of the most powerful and influential women in California, according to the national diversity council. So welcome Tiffani.

Tiffani Bova (02:23):

Oh, thank you, Kara, for having me, whenever my parts of my bio get read, I always say, I wish my mom could hear this because she thinks I don’t do much. Right. Sad.

Kara Goldin (02:33):

I hear ya. Well, you definitely have. And a very, very exciting. So where did the story begin? I know where the story began, but I want to hear it from you. Where did the story begin for Tiffani?

Tiffani Bova (02:48):

Well, I was blessed to have been born and raised in Hawaii, which I am, you know, 54 years old. So you can be a kid traveling to the mainland and saying, you’re from Hawaii and you’d get this. Do you guys live in houses? Like, do you have phones? Right? Because it was just completed this unknown, you know, islands in the middle of the Pacific. That was part of the United States that not people, not many people had gotten an opportunity to travel and visit too. So it was an amazing place to be from for so many reasons. But most of which was around the cultural experience I had been raised in Hawaii. You know, it’s the only place in the US that had a King and a queen. We had a monarchy, there’s a lot of deep rich culture in, in the, in the Hawaiian islands, as well. It has a very large APAC population. So I was sort of, I was the minority. And so it gave me a very different perspective on life and on the sort of what our role is on the planet. And so, you know, it’s really just a great story for where it all began for me. And

Kara Goldin (03:59):

How did, so you talked about moving over to the mainland. So how did you end up moving over? What was the, what was the pole?

Tiffani Bova (04:06):

Outside of the fact that my mom said you need to get out of the house besides that? You know, I wanted to work and found that I was pretty good at sales and marketing, and then I accidentally stumbled into technology. And so once I realized that that was the career I wanted to pursue, it was difficult for me to do it in Hawaii at the time because obviously most businesses was happening in the mainland, you know, in the sort of the continental US. But when I first moved, I was just about 30. I was going back and forth. And so I always kept Hawaii and my sales territory. So I could go home, you know, I never want to be like, love it. You’re really the only rep who’s ever been successful in Hawaii. And it was because I knew everybody, you know, I either went to high school with them or grew up with them or it was my friend’s parents. So I was able to be fairly successful flying back and forth. And then when I finally really had to not make Hawaii part of my territory, I kind of moved full-time if you will, but still, have my house there. And I go home as often as I can. That’s awesome. Which Island a wahoo.

Kara Goldin (05:12):

Very, very, very cool. So, so you seem to fear of less and, I think you are pretty fearless and, but I would also just, how did you gain the confidence to just go and kind of do what you’re doing today?

Tiffani Bova (05:29):

I would say that anybody listening to this who played sports as a child will agree. I think it was really through my athletics. I was an only child. And so it, it was my sort of outlet of being around other kids. Cause I didn’t have siblings to sort of play with, and I had a ton of energy. So my mom was like play any sport and every sport you can possibly play and do. And I did my whole life, you know, sort of five, six, seven, eight, you know, and then all the way through to college. And it taught me, you know, how to lose with my head held high and how to win with humility and how to work on teams, how to you know, follow leadership and coaches and have people give you a card, constructive criticism, some of which is, this is just not your sport.

Tiffani Bova (06:21):

Like, pick another one, you know, when as you’re 13, you’re like, Oh my God, my world is over. And so I I’d say that that fearlessness comes from my athletic background. Um, but it, it, it is a confidence that even if I fail, I can dust myself off and get back up. And so I think that that was a really great lesson from sports. And there was some stat out the other day that I tweeted that it was like, you know, 75% of women in leadership roles were an athlete, you know? And so that, that just says a lot. And so when I see people, not able to work together as teams, I always want to, you know, if I could just sort of go, how many of you played sports as kids because so true. You just see their inability to navigate that push and pull of it. We are all going in the same direction and if one breaks off or splinters of the team does not win. So, I’d say that that’s probably where it came from. And my mom is, was a single mom raising me. And so she is fearless. And so I think she taught me.

Kara Goldin (07:27):

I love that. That’s, that’s so great. And you saw strength I’m sure. And just having that, you know, growing up in that environment. So I always.

Tiffani Bova (07:37):

And my mom was a teacher, so, you know, I was an average middle-class kid, right. That, that was raised by a teacher and I was not a great student, so that was always difficult for my mom. But I think that her ability to be, you know, around sort of kids that were my age, she realized that I wasn’t all that bad. You know, I was going to sort of work it out and figure it out. So I I’d say that that, that, that’s probably key.

Kara Goldin (08:02):

It’s so funny. My dad had one rule and he had some other rules along the way, but he had one rule in our house, I was the last of five kids and that was, we had to play sports. And so I often talk about, I was a gymnast and I ran and, and but there were certain times a year where we were taking a break and the teams were taking a break. And so I was forced to play softball and I was a terrible software ballplayer. And I always talk about, you know, something that you mentioned, humility and how humor actually, I was still pulled into a bunch of these teams because I just knew how bad I was and, you know, people would want me on their team because I was just funny. Like I would just, and I didn’t think I was that funny, but I would make fun of myself while everybody else was really trying to be serious.

Kara Goldin (08:56):

at running and, and gymnastics. And anyway, I just think it’s something where there are so many things to your point where I look back on and, you know, I know that you’re never going to be the greatest at everything you do. And, you gotta get back up again after you fell and all of those really key things. I think I totally agree. And particularly for female executives, I’ve, I’ve seen, that they, they always played a sport. I mean, maybe there’s one or two out there, but it really is true that you know, it seems to be this consistent thread, some kind of sport along the way. So really, really interesting. So you get to Salesforce, how did this happen?

Tiffani Bova (09:49):

Oh, you know, I often get asked this question and my career path was I went to a state school. I went to Arizona State. I don’t have my MBA. I don’t have my undergrad in business right.

Kara Goldin (10:01):

In a state, you know? Yeah. We both, we were at the same time. Yeah. Which is just crazy

Tiffani Bova (10:08):

Overlap, I think, two years. Right. I was 84 to 88. Yeah. Yep. A little bit of an overlap, but so my, I guess my college counselor guidance counselor, it’s kind of the middle-end of my sophomore year, you know, called me in and said, Hey, we need to rethink your undergraduate degree. We don’t really think that business is your thing.

Kara Goldin (10:32):

Great. It’s just what you want to hear. Right. That’s what I want to hear.

Tiffani Bova (10:36):

And so every time I get a little notice in the mail of, you know, Hey, donate to the alumni association, I’m like, all the money I make is from the business. Yeah. But I kind of realized that the school of doing was where I had learned most of my lessons. So one of my best friends growing up, her mom was one of the first female presidents of YPO to run a million dollar business. And like, I want it to be her. Right. So she was sort of who I looked up to. And at 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 to about 22, I worked for them and she gave me a ton of responsibility and spent a ton of time teaching me things like supply chain and sales and marketing and, you know, cash and hiring and training and firing and all kinds of things.

Tiffani Bova (11:25):

And so when I got to college and I was learning it in a book, I was like, I don’t. And of course, at 19 you think, you know, everything, but I was like, this is kind of not how it really works. So I disengaged, which is why, you know, I didn’t sort of pursuing that. But I realized I was really good at kind of sales and marketing. And so when I found technology as a way that I could be successful and use my superpowers, then I kind of started on the journey working for tech companies, small startups. And then, you know, one of my last jobs was running a division of gateway computers. If you remember the teen pattern boxes. And then I went on to so I ran a sort of sales, service, customer service, and marketing. And then I worked for a company that was, named Gardner and the largest analyst and consulting firm in the world, advising companies all over about how to sell better, use digital technologies to engage and marketing, and all of that.

Tiffani Bova (12:21):

And I didn’t know that that was the next superpower that I had to uncover, which was being able to distill lots of data points and trends, and be able to give that as actionable advice to executives that were making massive decisions for, you know, small brands and billion-dollar brand and so I did that for a decade and decided that I wanted to try something else. And Salesforce came along and said, Hey, we’d love for you to continue doing what you’re doing, but we’d love for you to do it for us and for our clients. And, uh, you know, really go out there and be a voice for the market. And, you know, how do you say no to that? I think it’s an amazing company brand and yet doing just a, you know, more than just selling software. Uh, so, you know, it was not a straight-line journey. It was definitely up and down and backwards and forwards, but I usually tell people that you have to trust the process of letting your career path show itself, uh, and then having the courage to give it a try and find champions along the way that will help support you on that journey.

Kara Goldin (13:22):

That’s amazing. How long have you been at Salesforce?

Tiffani Bova (13:25):

In March this year, it will be five years. So it’s been last year was obviously a big blur, but it seems like it’s been much shorter than that. It’s been, it’s been a great ride.

Kara Goldin (13:39):

So your focus there is pretty unique. So chief global growth evangelist. So how did you, I mean, how did you swing that? I, that just sounds like an amazing title. I mean, it’s, it’s great. I mean, not just title, I should say. How did you like the focus of it? Cause I know it’s much more than a title that’s not fair. So I I’m just, how did you, I mean, it just seems so forward to of Salesforce to be thinking even five years ago about the, just the customer like that. I mean, it sounds crazy, but just actually what, think, what people are thinking about today more and more is really that the customer’s in control and really driving this. And I think that that, that’s what I see in this. And they obviously picked you up because you knew so much about this and it’s a lot too about what you write about in the book. So do you want to jump in there and talk a little bit about the book and, and also just how that kind of goes hand in hand with what you do every day? Yeah.

Tiffani Bova (14:48):

Yeah. So I’d say this, you know, when I first joined, they gave me the opportunity to pick my title. So I tried to make it that the evangelist gives the feeling as if, you know, I’m out sort of talking about the art of the possible, trying to inspire companies and executives to think differently about what they’re doing in their business because I don’t have P and L responsibility. I don’t have a sales responsibility. I don’t have a team of people. There’s a handful of us that make up the team of evangelists and, and we are really customer-facing and we take the opportunity to meet with, um, customers. And non-customers right, talking about trends, talking about what they’re doing in their business, what are they challenged with? What are the opportunities, how are they overcoming things, and really looking for those patterns so that we can pull together a story of how can technology really help companies achieve the goals they’re trying to achieve.

Tiffani Bova (15:42):

And it can’t just be the way that it used to be along the lines of what you were just saying. You know, it’s I got involved in the world wide web all the way back in 2000. I bought my first domain name, actually my name, I bought my, my name, domain name in 1997. So I’ve been on this journey on this thing called the internet for quite a while. And you know, over the sort of 10 years prior to, you know, the last 12 months, many companies were resistant to making these technology investments, they felt that it was more of a human engagement that they wanted with customers, that they were worried that technology would replace jobs, or it was too overwhelming. You know, it was too complicated. They were a small business. They didn’t need something like that. Then the pandemic hits and you literally see that the lack of investment in a lot of these things really hurt some small businesses and medium and large businesses.

Tiffani Bova (16:39):

You know, I’m just going to pick on the restaurant industry. Many restaurants, you know, have reservations and people show up and they might show up every Thursday and 99% of their business is people sitting in the restaurant, boom, the pandemic hits. They don’t know who their customers are. They don’t have their menu online. They don’t have any relationships to deliver food with a delivery service. They don’t have any of the infrastructure available to them to keep the restaurant going. If people aren’t able to sit inside and eat. Right. And so being able to share that, how do you then take a brick and mortar business and allow it to go online and you know, help you to be successful through something like a Black Swan event that we’re in the middle of that is the kind of investment that’s accelerated over the last 12 months and regardless of what industry you’re in.

Tiffani Bova (17:25):

And so, you know, it’s been amazing to watch the resiliency of businesses during this time and feel like in some small way in a handful of companies I’ve participated in that transformation and sort of that is exciting for me and inspiring for me to continue to tell the story, you know, as, as widely and broadly as I can. And the book was one way I could continue that conversation, but, you know, it’s being on the front lines and seeing how executives like yourself, Kara, right. You know how you say, I have hint water, what are the other product categories that my customer may want for me? And how do I expand into that and earn permission to do it, and what is true to my brand? Like those kinds of conversations to me are so exciting, right? Because you watch the wheels spin, and then it’s like, well, how can technology help you achieve that? And that human and tech connection I think is just so powerful.

Kara Goldin (18:21):

No, it’s really forward-thinking. So I, one of the things way back in the world wide web back in, even before 1997, so I was started there in 1994. And you know, it’s funny, I worked for a little tiny little CD ROM company, another word that we don’t hear too often. And I was meeting, I was responsible for going out to all of these catalogers and people like Mickey Drexler at the gap. And all of my friends I’m in my twenties and all of my pals are, you know, entry-level people at the gap in San Francisco. And they’re like, how the heck are you getting these meetings with Mickey Drexler? Who was the CEO of the gap at the time? And it was because we were really, I was walking in and it like a consultative sale. I mean, I was, he wanted to figure out how does he take the gap online?

Kara Goldin (19:24):

And it was, you know, how does he figure out? I mean, they didn’t do the one-to-one ordering. I mean, there, there was just a lot. And, and so we ended up, I was sort of the lead on bringing in a team of people and then America online acquired us. And then I had more people to bring in and, and it was, but we, a lot of the reason why we were able to do what we were doing and ultimately get big clients like J crew and the gaps, some of them had backend. Some of them didn’t was because we had this consultative sale. Right. And we were ultimately like, okay, you gotta go get this technology. Here’s this person that you should talk to, whatever if we didn’t do that in-house. But I totally get, I mean, it’s really smart yet. People don’t invest in that typically large companies don’t invest in it because they just think that’s for the client to do. And I think that that’s just so forward and so great that, that you, that they got you to come in and do that. So that’s super awesome. So let’s specifically talk about the book and what do you think what, I mean, it’s been out for a couple of years now and it’s gotten, you know, tons of best seller, uh, notoriety. And what do you think are the key things that people are coming back to you and talking to you about the book that they’re getting out of it?

Tiffani Bova (20:44):

Yeah, no. Over the 10 years of me advising companies, while working at Gartner about sort of achieving growth, I realized that I would hear pretty consistently from the largest tech companies in the world to the smallest is when growth got difficult, they would pull three levers, hire more salespeople, spend more marketing dollars, cut costs, sort of like it’s easy, right? With every head I add from a selling perspective, I know I can make, you know, a million dollars in six months in new sales, or if I spend more marketing, the funnel will fill up, I’ll sell more stuff. Or if I cut costs, I’ll artificially, you know, grow, grow the profit of the business. And I knew that it couldn’t be just those three things. Like I knew that there had to be more, yeah. And so, I had a unique opportunity because I was a practitioner sales, marketing, and service leader who was also now playing an academic at work, right.

Tiffani Bova (21:37):

Looking and analyzing lots and lots of companies. And over the course of a decade, I had 5,000 conversations with businesses around the world on these very conversations. And so when I started thinking about growth IQ, I said, look, I don’t want to actually reinvent the wheel and come up with a new brand new framework and try to teach people that no, no, no, everything you’ve read before is not right. This is what’s right. Instead, I approached it a little bit differently. I said I am going to modernize the growth strategies that have been used for literally the last hundred years and have been written about in the best business books in the world. And I’m going to modernize them now with the social mobile cloud, big data, artificial intelligence, AR VR, you know, data, warehousing, machine learning, robots, all the things we now have at our disposal changes.

Tiffani Bova (22:28):

You know, if you look at the book, good to great, like what was good and what made big brands great would be different today because the context of the market is significantly different. It doesn’t mean that management isn’t still important, but technology is just as important. Right. And the experience the customer has is, excuse me, just as important. So I modernize these growth levers that have been talked about for a very long time. And I think that had a lot to do with why the book was so well-received because I wasn’t trying to create something new. Um, I just said, let me, let me sort of approach it a little bit differently. Now, the one thing that was really, I think the aha for me was throughout it. I use 30 stories to sort of tell my story, and that really helped it resonated with people that could learn about what Starbucks do, or John Deere or Sephora or Kylie Jenner, or, you know, the airlines or whomever else, red bull.

Tiffani Bova (23:24):

And those stories would draw people in, instead of it being this 250-page sort of research readout, which is not that, not that interesting. So I’d say the aha was on the timing of what businesses when they make decisions. So just going back to the conversation we just made, what is the right time to invest in technology? If you’re listening to this and you’re an entrepreneur and you have five people, should you be investing in technology now? Or is it when you have 50 people? You know, it’s sort of, when do you hire your first salesperson? When do you hire a full-time marketer? As those questions are big. Are that entrepreneurs ask are big and if you’re a medium, medium-sized business, it’s like I have all these legacy systems, how do I rationalize? You know, and what should I be investing in in the future?

Tiffani Bova (24:07):

And if I’m a large company for all intent and purposes, most of them develop their own stuff. And so, you know, I think it’s, it’s relevant to so many people. And, and right now, you know, the foundation of the book was about recovering from a growth stall. And now the globe is in a growth stall except for certain key industries. So that’s why I think Kara, to your point, ‘s remained relevant. Um, it’s done very well over the last year. You know, it’s been published into nine languages and, and sort of making it cry around the world because getting back to growth is what everybody needs John today. Yeah.

Kara Goldin (24:42):

Yeah, totally. Yeah. And you’ve talked about, you’ve talked before about getting back to growth. So, during this time, I mean, do you see a huge stall all globally in people not really focusing on the growth aspect? I mean, I, hundred percent agree with you. I think that the only way for us to move forward is to start innovating and start looking at these challenging times and what problems do we have, but also what solutions do we have to so many, you know, issues. I keep looking at, you know, what’s going on in Texas at right at the moment. And, you know, so many people are without power and obviously, there’s all kinds of issues about Texas owning, you know, that grid and, you know, challenges, challenges with that system. But also, you know, isn’t there, some really smart entrepreneur out there that is thinking about a way to kind of bridge what Texas wants and what we need to do for the consumer actually. Yeah.

Tiffani Bova (25:50):

It’s a great question. You know, the last recession seven or eight of the largest companies in the world were founded during the last recession and by the way, powering most of what we’re doing today. Yeah. I found the last time we were sort of hit with this. I think that the one thing I want to call out is there still some 30 or 35 million, almost 10% of the population in the US does not have access to high-speed internet. And we’re moving everything to this kind of work from anywhere, educate from anywhere, you know, order food from anywhere, this kind of very digital human existence. And that leaves out a lot of people. And so, you know, when I heard the stories about, Texas, which I think is just, you know, awful on so many levels that people saying, you know, wow, I don’t have an internet connection.

Tiffani Bova (26:38):

I can’t do all these things. And I was thinking in my head, yeah, 30% of this has felt this every day for the last 12 months of, I don’t, I don’t have enough money for heat. I don’t have enough money for air conditioning. I don’t have enough money for high-speed internet. I don’t have a car to drive me to the, you know what I’m saying? Like, so I think that you know, when I hear the term, let’s get back to normal. I don’t like that because I think where it’s hard was, it’s not what we should aspire to be. So to your point, what entrepreneur will, you know, be listening to this podcast and say, what job needs to be done? You know, what’s the failover, if this were to happen again, how do we mix green energy with oil and gas, you know, because it’s going to be a blended model for the next, whatever couple of decades. And so how do we make that more interesting you know, from an innovation standpoint. And so that kind of whole jobs to be done concept if you’re not familiar with it was life-changing for me because once I understood what that meant, I approached challenges and problems and opportunity completely differently.

Kara Goldin (27:44):

And what do you think are the key things for people who are thinking about that today?

Tiffani Bova (27:49):

So, that the job to be done sort of concept would be something like this. Okay, you’re going to go to, you know, your local hardware store and buy a drill, and then you’re going to buy a drill bit. Do you want the drill and the drill bit, or do you want a quarter-inch hole? The job to be done is the quarter-inch hole, according to the person who came up with Johns to be done. But I would almost argue that it isn’t, that you want the quarter-inch hole. You actually want the shelf to be hung or the desk to be built, or the cabinet to be put together, or the car fixed. That’s the job to be done, not the drill, not the drill, but not the hole in the shelf. Right? How do you get that? Right? And how do you get that?

Tiffani Bova (28:33):

So if you say the job to be done would be going back to the comp, you know, the example we were just using, if there’s a deep freeze and the power grid shows down the job to be done would be, how do we get power to people more quickly? Like that’s the job to be done so that they can heat their home, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s not just, how do I modernize the power grid? You modernize the power grid for the job that needs to be done. And so approaching anything, if you’re listening to this and you want to launch a new product, you want to enter a new market, you have a good idea, understand what is the job that is going to be done. Totally agree. And then you can back into how do I solve that? Do I develop it on my own? Do I partner to deliver it? You know, even like thinking of the the founding of hint, it was like, what was the job to be done? I want to produce something that has no sugar and is healthy for you. And it gets, you know, stops me from drinking so much soda, right. Or pop, whatever you call it. So that, that was the job to be done. So you have to back into how to do that. So it’s a great way to frame, uh, thinking during these times.

Kara Goldin (29:34):

Yeah, I totally agree. Steve Jobs. I’ve said this a number of times on my podcast, he used to, don’t focus on asking the consumer what they need just to actually solve problems. And if you just think about that and, and focus on, you know, how do you, what, what exactly is that issue? Another way to say that, and you know, that problem, and then back out so often though, you get stuck in, okay, well, I need a drill bit. I need this, I need this. Yes. Maybe. Uh, but, but in addition, what is that problem that you’re actually solving? And that’s what I talk about the key to entrepreneur-ism and starting any company, or whether it’s a physical product or a service. I think it’s just so, so key to, you know, don’t get caught up in kind of all the little details.

Tiffani Bova (30:27):

Yeah. And I’d say you don’t have to, don’t let the Steve jobs quote, intimidate you. Yeah. You know, you don’t need to be Steve jobs and know that every one there’s going to be more smartphones on the planet than toothbrushes. Like, you don’t need to think out 10 or 50, you don’t need to be Jeff Bezos or Mark Benioff, or, you know, Richard Branson or Steve case from AOL, or, you know, whomever, you just need to want to think 18 to 24 months out. I mean, you may be someone who can think out 10 or 15 years and, you know, God bless you because you know, you really disrupt markets and shape the way we do things. But if you just can stay in that 18 to 24-month window, you still can have a tremendous impact. So it doesn’t need to be something that completely transforms, you know, an industry like the iPod or the iPhone, or, you know, any of those things. It absolutely can be something that is very niche, very specific, and very unique to you. So don’t, don’t let the Steve jobs thing intimidate you, that you have to be him.

Kara Goldin (31:29):

Totally agree. So great. Well, this is awesome, Tiffani. So where can people find you and talk to me a little bit more about your podcast as well?

Tiffani Bova (31:42):

So I’m pretty active on social. You can find me at Tiffani underscore Bova on Twitter and you can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook. I’m pretty active. And the podcast is what’s next with Tiffani Bova on sort of all the major planets.

Kara Goldin (31:56):

Really so good, everybody. And it’s just.

Tiffani Bova (31:58):

A lot of fun. Yeah. It’s a lot of fun. I get really fun and interesting people. And at the end of every podcast, I feel as if I’ve had a masterclass in whatever sort of topic we’re talking about, love it. And so that’s the podcast. And then the book growth IQ is for sale online pretty much everywhere.

Kara Goldin (32:15):

I love it. It’s so good. So thanks, everybody. Thank you, Tiffani, for coming on, and have a great rest of the week. Everybody we’re here every Monday and Wednesday, and, do give Tiffani five stars and come back and visit us and all that kind of stuff. Thanks, everyone. That was awesome. Super, super fun. Thank you so much, Tiffani. That was really great. Yeah, it was great. It’s just downloading just for a second. But yeah, that’s great. I forgot for a second that you had gone to ASU, so where’d you like 82 or 88? No, 89. I graduated. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so 89 I graduated, and actually, I haven’t announced it yet, but I just got which I’m still sort of laughing about it, but I just got alumni of the year. And I know, and they called me, I’ve been kind, they’re friendly.

Kara Goldin (33:20):

Do you know who Christine Wilkinson is by any chance? Anyway, you have to understand, like, my friends are all still laughing about this because I joined this like alumni. I’m sure they’ve reached out to you a million times, but I’ve joined this alumni thing I had to do, you know, Ellen levy by any chance. Anyway, she and you guys are like one-degree separation away from each other. She was the first employee at LinkedIn and really smart. And didn’t go to Arizona state university though, but she’s an advisor to Michael Crow. And so she knew that I had gone to ASU. And so she reached out to me and she just said, Oh, like, we’re doing tons of stuff. Like, and just really interesting. And anyway, so Michael Crow calls me one day. This is years ago. And he said I love your water.

Kara Goldin (34:12):

Like Ellen, I’m at Stanford right now. And Ellen hooked me up with it. And that’s really great. Like, do you do stuff with our alumni group? And I’m like, no. Anyway. So I ended up getting into this advisory group, not directly with Michael Crow, but with this woman, Christine. And anyway, it was like, I did it for two years and it was basically how do we kind of get into the alumni association? The thing that is really somewhat unbelievable is that they have no idea who likes what Tiffani does. Right. They know you graduated in what year you graduated, but they don’t know. They don’t have a list of this anywhere. And so they put this entrepreneur center together and they were like, Hey Kara, do you know any entrepreneurs that graduated? And Kate and Andy spade? I knew those guys when they were Kate was a few years older than me.

Kara Goldin (35:11):

And anyway, so I had con I felt like I was like this person that just naturally, I wasn’t even trying very hard. I kept poking them up with just these different people anyway. So I went off of the board last year, just cause I felt like I just didn’t have a lot of time to do it. And, I would give somebody else an opportunity to do it. And then Christine called me and I actually thought she’s a little older. And I thought maybe she was retiring. And, I don’t know, like for some reason it was like this frantic call. She had to talk to me right away. And it was very important. And Kai was like, she really seems like she’s really kind of out of sorts. And I thought, Oh my God, you know, what’s going on with her?

Kara Goldin (35:53):

She had somebody, something happened to Michael Crow, whatever. And, she gets me on the phone and she was like, you got alumni of the year. And I was just like, wait, what me seriously. I was like, I like, well, on the one hand, I’m happy. But I actually thought that you, there was something really bad. She’s like, what’d you think I’m like, I don’t even want to go there. Like I just was anyway. So it’s, um, anyway, it’s pretty crazy. And we’ve been on this, like almost every day we’ve been on this call. So it’s a whole thing at the end of March. And it’s like, well, congratulations. I know, but I was not the person, you know, you and I were probably one-degree separation away from each other. Like I was not, you know like I knew Doug doosey. He was in, he and my brother-in-law are like best friends. Like they were off doing government stuff. And I knew those people, but I like that wasn’t me at all. I was in my sorority. I did buy, you know, like I was going to fraternity parties. I was like, what, what sorority were you in? Kappa?

Tiffani Bova (36:55):

I was Alpha Chi Omega, and then I got kicked out.

Kara Goldin (36:57):

Oh, okay. Yeah, I probably, I’m sure you and I crossed over my sister was a Kappa to that. How long were you in there?

Tiffani Bova (37:08):

Two years? My first two years. So four to 86.

Kara Goldin (37:11):

Was Marine Keenan. A lot of people knew my sister too. She very well, it looks.

Tiffani Bova (37:18):

To connect with that alumni group for ASU. You know, they are a massive Salesforce customer. I mean, massive. So we power almost everything that they do. You and Chris.

Kara Goldin (37:28):

I mean, just between you and I, the one thing that I would, and this is totally between you and I, the one thing that I would do, there’s a, there’s a bunch of local ones like in LA and because you’re in LA, right? Yup. Yeah. In San Francisco, I wouldn’t do those. They’ll suck you in. And they’re really not were like, just knowing who you are, where stuff gets done is actually back in Tempe. Do you know what I mean? Like, and now so much of this is virtual now mean you’re a doer, you know what I mean? Like.

Tiffani Bova (38:01):

I would enjoy, I would enjoy a local chapter. I would be like, how can I help you guys with this other stuff? We’re a massive client. Like, what can I do? I, you know, I graduated from here and

Kara Goldin (38:10):

They’ll try and sell you on the local because they really need great people locally. And I’m, and knowing what I know now, and, and again, like, you know, Michael Crow is a fricking genius. I just, I mean, I’ve just gained so much. I actually thought that under the, there was talk under Hillary that he was going to, um, be the head of education. And I was pretty like, sure that under Biden and I guess Biden appointed somebody else, but it’s good for ASU. I mean, that places just like, it’s a business machine. So anyway, I will introduce you to Christine. But just trust me, like, just…

Tiffani Bova (38:52):

All right. So I have no time either. I would literally be like, Hey, you know, I’m an alumnus.

Kara Goldin (38:57):

I’m going to tell Christine about you. Cause you would be terrific. And it’s a great group, but make sure it’s the one that Christine does because it’s higher level because I know people who have gotten sucked into these regional and just, it’s like, it’s not worth your time because that’s…

Tiffani Bova (39:12):

If you could even just say to her, like, if it’s not going to be with you, I wouldn’t pitch her on anything.

Kara Goldin (39:17):

No, no, no. This one is awesome for you. So for sure. Okay.

Tiffani Bova (39:21):

All right. We will see you later. Okay. All right. Bye.