Northwestern University Alumni

Transcript:

HELEN KIM: Welcome to Northwestern Intersections where we talk to alumni about how key experiences have propelled them in their life's work. We're here to find out what they have done right, wrong, and what they've learned at each intersection along the way. I'm your host, Helen Kim, from the Northwestern Alumni Association. And on today's episode, we'll be hearing from Amit Walia, the CEO of Informatica, who was appointed to his new role two months before the coronavirus outbreak. 

This episode was recorded on September 9th where I had the privilege of chatting with the Amit about his big move to Northwestern with no money after finishing his undergraduate studies in India. And his responsibility as the new leader, addressing transitions and changes for the company during the time of a coronavirus outbreak, and racial injustice in America following the death of George Floyd. 

HELEN KIM: Hey, Amit, thank you so much for being here today. 

AMIT WALIA: Great to be here, Helen. 

HELEN KIM: And big, big congratulations to you for becoming the CEO of Informatica earlier this year, correct? 

AMIT WALIA: Yes, January of this year. 

HELEN KIM: Great, and then how long were you at Informatica right before you transitioned into your new role? 

AMIT WALIA: Almost six years. Yeah, I've been almost six years. I've been there for a fair bit of time. 

HELEN KIM: Wow, OK. 

AMIT WALIA: Although, this year seems to have lasted an eternity given everything that's going on around us. 

HELEN KIM: And I can't wait to hear about how you've been doing during this time of the year. But everybody wants to hear the story of how people become CEOs, and I would love to hear yours. But before we go into that more, I want to hear your Northwestern story. So why did you choose Northwestern and how did you get to choose Northwestern as a school of your choice? 

AMIT WALIA: Great question. So first of all, I came to the US a couple of years before, maybe two years before I joined Northwestern and my story to get to Northwestern starts way back in my undergrad. I went to undergrad in India, I went to an IT, and engineer by background, but somehow in my junior year, walking into senior year, I felt like I wanted to go to business school. 

And I saw this picture of Rajat Gupta who just became the Managing Director CEO of McKinsey and it just fascinated me. And I said, look, I want to be a consultant, and McKinsey sounded pretty cool to me. Like, you can do so many different projects for different clients. 

And I came out of undergrad, I worked in tech. I actually came to the US to follow my now wife, then my girlfriend became fiancee. I got to know her from my undergrad days. And I wanted to go to business school and as I was evaluating, to cut a long story short, it was clear to me I wanted to do something tied to tech, engineering, and add business to it. And Northwestern Kellogg was one of the rare programs that had dual degree. Triple M, which is what I went to, master's and manufacturing management, and that was a great program. It had actually gave me an opportunity to study at the McCormick school and obviously a full-blown MBA as well from Kellogg. 

As a great engineer, I thought I was getting more than my bargain. I was getting something that appealed to me. Very analytical program and when I looked at it, it basically got you into the roles and jobs I wanted to get into. And Northwestern was a great school, and Kellogg was number one in business school ranking. 

I was in Chicago, I literally just fell in love. The lake, Northwestern setting, the beautiful campus, it had the dual degree that I wanted too. It felt like something that I just had to do. 

HELEN KIM: Like everything that you wanted, and you wanted to see, and you wanted to be. 

AMIT WALIA: In a way, yes. I mean, obviously, the Chicago winters definitely taught me to be resilient. I will say that. But having said that, I just loved Evanston as a city. Came from my interview, by the way, during my application process to Northwestern, and I was just cleaning up a bunch of old pictures and I saw my picture from those days just like years ago and I just love the campus. Morning mist and I remember my interview was 8:00 AM. I arrived at like classic 7:30, 7:35 to walk around. Misty morning by the lake, as you can see. It had a sense of what I call appeal to it and I just totally loved it. So I really wanted to go to Northwestern Kellogg and I was fortunate to get in. 

HELEN KIM: Yeah, it just felt right when you were there? 

AMIT WALIA: It felt right. Great set of people that I made friends with, great set of teachers, and great learning, and, obviously, it made a big difference in my life. 

HELEN KIM: Yes. When you moved from India to the US, what was going through your head? What transitions needed to happen and how did you make that transition? 

AMIT WALIA: Well, first I was following my now wife, so I had a clear mission. I didn't want to lose her, so I followed her and I came here, which I think I made the right decision in my life. I was nervous because let's say when I landed here, I didn't know the country. Whatever I knew about the US was through movies. I actually landed in the Midwest, which I thought was great. I learned so much about the country. 

I was anxious. I wanted to go to business school, so I came in with a strong sense of mission in my mind. So for me, studying and getting into business school was one part of it, but I was extremely nervous. I didn't have the money. I had no money. And I put the thought behind my head that, OK, let me get into a good school and I'll fill the economics then. 

And I was nervous, how will I be able to get into a school? I was worried that, hey, I might get into a school and not be able to pay, so I would not be able to go and that would be pretty disappointing. So I was apprehensive, I was nervous, but at the same time, believe it or not, amazingly positively and upbeat because I feel like there's tons of opportunities. And I had read so many stories of people pursuing their dreams. It can be done, just put your mind to it. 

HELEN KIM: That's incredible that you took that big risk of moving here without money, but you just knew that you could do it. You believed in yourself and you followed your now wife. That's amazing. Now, looking back, would you have done anything different or were you happy with whatever path that you were able to take back then? 

AMIT WALIA: Actually, in some ways, nothing different. Probably, if I would have over thought it, it could have scared me. It could have made me feel less optimistic, less ability to take the risk, less have the leap of faith. To be honest, I was fortunate that it all worked out for me. I followed my wife, we got married, I went to my dream school. I got my dream job. I wanted to work for McKinsey. As I told you from my undergrad, it was something I wanted to pursue. And I did my summer internship with them and I got a return offer with them. So there's nothing that I would change at all. 

Maybe the only thing I would say, sometimes, that if I reflect on that experience, like you asked me, you have to sometimes go with your gut. Go with confidence. Sometimes things are not clear. It's like when you're taking a morning walk in Chicago through the fog. You can't see and you don't know what's there from two miles, three miles, but sometimes your own belief, your own confidence, your own conviction takes you through it. And I'm a firm believer that even if I didn't land at Northwestern, I landed somewhere else. I would have still be better off not doing anything. So you just have to go do something. 

HELEN KIM: When you became the CEO in January 2020, you obviously did not expect a pandemic to occur. So what was that transition like for you two months into your new role, and how did you navigate managing Informatica and being the support and role model for your employees during that time, and still today? 

AMIT WALIA: Well, I did game plan the pandemic element, if you believe me or not. Who knows? So that was quite something, I have to say. I still remember. The pandemic, it was not yet a pandemic. In February, I was traveling. I remember my last trip was the last week of February. I was in New York, Paris, London, and Dublin where our offices are, meeting a customer with our employees. And it was peaking. So I came back. Right after that, within a week or so, we had our employees go home and we shut down our offices even before the state and local government mandated it. And of course, we have our people working remotely right now as we speak. 

It was an unnerving moment for sure. There was no playbook for this. There was nobody I could lean on for this. You get advice, but then the thing is that nobody knows how to operate through this. There was so much uncertainty in the context of business where our customers would be. 

So much uncertainty and we had to immediately lean in and make sure that our employees are safe. So I went down to, what I felt like, the core basics. We have your three very, very fundamental things I automatically focus on. Number one is innovation. We are in tech, we focus on innovating. Number two, we are amazingly customer-centric. And three is it's all about our employees, which drives our culture. 

And to me, it was very clear it's the employees that matter at this point, because our customers and our innovation rides on them, so we leaned in very heavily. And I had to almost become a role model. So we first had a SWAT team got everybody out of offices, make sure they're safe. We had to make sure people get the right remote equipment. Some people didn't have the equipment, so we made sure that people could get their monitors. Things of that nature. They could be productive from home. 

We had to make sure we can communicate to them regularly because everybody was uncertain what's going on, right? Around them, for themselves, or for the company. I almost went into a weekly communication mode. We leaned in very heavily communicating with our customers so that our employees can see that we are leaning in towards our customers. I spoke to almost 100 customers in a matter of two, three weeks just to make sure I can understand where their head is. 

But we reminded our employees that they matter the most to us. We did all hands, email communications. I was in front of it. And to be honest, I kept myself very, what I call, human. If I didn't know something and if I felt something grappling me, I was very transparent with them. I don't know, we're going to learn together. And I think people realized that this was such a unique situation that if somebody came through telling them this is exactly what we're going to do, and this is exactly I know the answer for something, that's not true. And our people love it. 

So we leaned in very heavily and, obviously, I can tell you that we've been fortunate we were able to work remotely. And our employees are all safe, and we are still functioning very well as a company. Everything worked out, but we had to be human, open, communicate, lean in, focus on people. 

We told people not to worry about their families. People have dogs, kids, old family members. And we told people that there's a Zoom burnout, that's OK. If your kid comes crying, they're asking for you, it's OK. I've had situations where that happened in front of me. And I've sent out an email, and we had a little fun thing and I had so many emails coming to me with videos of my employees kids saying, hello, to me. I said, hey, let's just say, hello, to people and let the kids walk through. So I think that created a sense that people feel like it's OK. It's OK. That's been something that has helped us so far. 

HELEN KIM: Yeah, I mean, you see plenty of people during Zoom meetings where their kids do pop up in the back or their spouses pop up in the back and that is now the norm, right? And you got to be forgiving when that happens when we're all stuck at home. 

AMIT WALIA: Absolutely. Look, I say that to my teams that are unfortunate. I have somewhat grown up kids. One is high school, one is in middle school, and we are privileged. I have my own office to work from. But if I'm young, out of college-- I know a lot of young kids who send me emails, they're sharing an apartment with three other friends or two other friends and they're all working remotely now. It's not like they have all the monitors at home. There is noise. Or if I'm a mom who has a kindergartner or a two-year-old. Nanny cannot come, husband wife both work. You got to be empathetic. 

This world fell upon us without us planning, so we have to be empathetic. And by the way, everybody is trying to do the right thing. So we had to tell people, it's OK. It's totally OK to have noise behind you, and I think that eased the tension. Eased the tension. I still remind our managers to be very empathetic to people and let them be and people will go above and beyond, and I think that's like my philosophy in this situation. 

HELEN KIM: So during this time of COVID-19 pandemic, we're all trying to figure out what our lives look like at home, and parents have kids starting virtual school. It's pretty hectic, but at the same time, America has gone through a lot of turmoil, especially starting in May because of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many, many other folks who have been affected by police brutality. So for employees, especially people of color at your company, how have you been providing a safe space for them and letting them know that you are there for them and you're supporting them during this time when they're facing and seeing this on the news every single day? 

AMIT WALIA: It's been a tough time. The events in the last couple of months I think have touched everybody and everybody, it touches them in different ways. Look, I came to this country myself as an immigrant and I had my own experiences. Everybody has their own experiences. So I have some level of empathy and I can relate to some of the things from my experiences. But look, some of the stuff that has happened is difficult to even fathom. 

Our first approach has been to give employees a place to talk, share. I think in any scenario when you have pain or anguish, the first thing is, can we talk, and as you said, can we talk in a safe way? We didn't begin by first saying what we will do. That was not my belief. I remember I sent out a long email to the company and in fact, I shared a couple of videos that moved me. In fact, shared a video that I shared with my own boys over the weekend before we sat down and it was gut-wrenching. 

There's a YouTube video of this-- I think he was a rapper, he became an activist now called, Killer Mike. Look it up, it's on YouTube, and he was in Atlanta. And the way he speaks from his heart, it's hard not to shed a tear. And I tell you, Helen, the maximum number of applies to any of my communications so far came from [INAUDIBLE] 

And people shared their personal stories, really painful personal stories. And it tells you how much people are holding inside when somebody is replying to you and sharing their deepest personal stories. It moved me. It really, really moved me. 

So one of the first things I decided is that, no, we're not going to decide a course of action. We're going to let a conversation happen. So internally we have chat forums and we said we're going to open it up. Employees took ownership and we let free flow of communication happen and that was amazing. I would go there myself and I would read every day. So we let that happen. And that, by the way, was the best thing that happened. 

People were able to pour their heart out, get it out. And you could see amazing amount of diversity of things that people feel, whether you are a person of color or not, and I could see people who were not of color but able to reflect and say how it moved them. So that was the first thing we did, created that safe place. 

We obviously have been focused a lot on diversity and I tell you places we have [INAUDIBLE] and said, where did we fall short? Diversity, we were focused on gender, not as much in race to be really honest. It allowed us to introspect a lot. We created a formal rule for diversity inclusion. We have a leader in that role now, in fact, that's a topic at the board level now, my level right now. 

So we are going through this process of first acknowledging what we don't know. Accept what we don't know, and not be defensive about it. Let the conversation happen, take that in, and then come back and put a plan of action. So we're in the middle of that, to be very honest, Helen. I wouldn't change that. I think it's still a work in progress and we still have to let the conversation happen as much as it can before we firm up our points of reason. 

But there is a lot to be done, especially in tech. Tech is guilty of not having great representation from people of color as well as gender, and we need to do both. 

HELEN KIM: And it sounds like you've cultivated that culture of listening with your employees. 

AMIT WALIA: Has to be. As I said, are three key attributes. We are a very strong culture, very people-driven, and it begins by listening to them. And we can never be perfect. We are not perfect. I know when we fall short sometimes, but we have to create a place where we can listen to people. 

In my role, even before, I travel a lot to listen to our employees. Even now, I do so many different virtual meetings to listen to our people because that's the first place where you also learn. See, I believe in a leadership model that is servant leadership. You flip the model upside down, and in a servant leadership model, you are in service to your people. 

And they are the clues as to where work is happening. So my job is to listen to them. My job is to make sure I can get the strategy of the company and allocate resources to the right place. And the more I listen to my own people, and more I learn from them, the more I can make better decisions. Or, if I make a decision that is contrary to what they think should be done, I can explain to them why because that's what then motivates people to go put their entire heart behind something. That's like a notch that I've tried to follow. 

HELEN KIM: So I really appreciate that you have closed the gap that exists between CEO and employees. I think for you, you are very accessible, it sounds like, to your employees. You're there for them, and you communicate with them consistently, and that's really refreshing to hear. 

AMIT WALIA: That's what I love. I mean, best moment for me is when I walk the halls and I can just stand by someone's cubicle and just can have a quick chat and just look at their name. Most times, I know the person, how you're doing, and those 5 minute conversations go a long, long way. And in fact, that's the one thing I miss the most in this virtual world, that human interaction has reduced and it has to be a lot more engineered through virtual meetings. 

It gives me energy, Helen. And I know that it gives our people a lot of energy because when they know that they can be heard-- and I have people tell that to me. Even if they feel like the parts they have with ideas, even if they don't get implemented because they have an idea, they want to share. That's the way I've led my own life, that's the way I want to lead the company and I want to change that. 

HELEN KIM: And now let's go back to 2001 when you graduated from Kellogg. So in your professional career, you went through two recessions. Through 9/11 in 2001 and in 2008, and now we're about to enter, probably, another recession. So that's a lot in your lifetime. But how did you get through those situations and those years as you were navigating your career in McKinsey, and consulting, and et cetera? 

AMIT WALIA: Wish there's no more recessions that I have to deal with in my lifetime, but a couple of thoughts come to my mind. And I know there's a lot of fresh graduates or even the ones who spend one or two years in the industry and I know that can be hard times for everybody. I'll first remind everybody, that look, bad times don't last forever. You have to all remember that. I know it's easy to say, sometimes hard in the middle of it, but you have to remind yourself of that. Bad times don't last forever. Good teams last forever, so you have to think of yourself as your own team. It's you. You'll outlive a lot of difficult situations. 

I've gone through difficult times, scared times. I've been uncertain, right, but I graduated from Kellogg in 2001, and as you said, there was the 9/11 happened and I was at McKinsey. I was pretty scared to lose my job and I was on a visa and did not know. It was very uncertain and every day I would go to work and feel like that I don't know what will happen. 

And guess what? I think you develop a certain sense of resiliency, and you dig deep and you find yourself in that dig deep and you just dig deep. And then I remember 2008 happened and we had just bought our current house, both me and my wife, and it was a deep recession. And my wife's company, she worked for a start-up and they obviously let go of people, and she lost her job and she took it very hard and we were very scared. We just had our second kid a year ago, so we had two kids, more kids and with this and that, we didn't know what to do. Both of us, we dug deep again and I saw her come back from it and we dug in together. 

So I genuinely think that, look, bad times don't last, strong human beings do. So a lot of us have a lot of resiliency that we don't know and it teaches you something and believe it or not, prepares you for other times. So today, when this pandemic hit, as much it's like, what the heck hit me? At least I knew I can draw from my own life experience and say, look, we can do it. We can do it. 

Secondly, I'll just say that, look, for people who think about their life and career, no career is linear. You'll never know where you begin, where you went. Don't overthink it. Do not overthink think it. Some people have this, some people are very structured, this is the way I want to start or this is what I want to end. You know what? Life throws things at you. Good and bad, take it both as gifts. 

And the more you can dig deep, the more you can have the strength, you'll come out of it. You'll be surprised sometimes that you were there. I feel like today for myself, for a kid who grew up in India, I had a lower middle class family, a very low middle class family, and here I am. Here I am. Think a lot of good fortune came my way for sure. And sometimes, you just have to have to believe in faith. 

So that's the only piece of advice I can give. Dig deep, don't let the situation get to you, bad times don't last, nothing is linear. It can be very unpredictable, but good things happen to people who dig deep. 

HELEN KIM: And speaking of curve balls that life throws at you and unexpected circumstances, were there any missteps that you took in your career path? 

AMIT WALIA: I wouldn't call them missteps, but I do call them things that I could have avoided. Like, I know there were a couple of times in my career where I felt like I knew that I am getting stuck, and sometimes, I was a little bit risk averse not to take control of my life in my hand and change it. Maybe that slowed me a year or two or three years of life to where I am. Maybe it didn't. I don't know. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say. 

I think more often than not, I say two things. I say evaluate the same to my high schooler. He gets annoyed and to say, because I pass the same feedback to him about what I would say here. The hardest thing to do and what you have to learn is give yourself self-feedback. and people end up being either over optimistic about themselves or over pessimistic about themselves. Don't be either. Give you some constructive self-feedback. What's going well with you, what's not going well with you, what are you good at, What are you not good at? 

If you come to a state where you can give yourself honest feedback, then you've reached a stage of nirvana. It's a very hard thing to do. I struggle with it myself. And then once you've been able to give yourself honest constructive feedback, stick with your gut sometimes. If you know when things are right, when things are not right. More often than not, we all know. More often than not, we all know. Go with that feeling. 

And once you've given yourself honest feedback, then applying [INAUDIBLE] is better versus just going with a gut feel all the time because it can be luck sometimes. So that's like the only learning I have had from my career. 

HELEN KIM: Yeah. Amit, I feel like your story is an example of what it means to take a leap of faith. So I thank you so much for sharing your story. And before we end, do you have any last words or advice that you would like to share with the Northwestern network? 

AMIT WALIA: Well, first of all, as I said, I would remind everybody that you all went to a great school. Don't forget that. I know that. I know it made a big difference in my life. Remember, it's not easy to get into a great school. so you crossed that bar. So remind yourself of that one. You did hard work to get in there and you did hard work to graduate. First of all, remember you have crossed a very big part of yourself, so don't underestimate what you've been able to accomplish so far. 

Second is be resilient, dig deep, be honest to yourself. And at this stage, if you are just getting out of school or one or two years out of school, just work hard. Learn. Seriously, learn. Don't over optimize for things 20 years down the line. Learn. 

Do things you genuinely like-- and I say that today, it's so cliche, but it's so true. Do what you like. Do what you like. And learn the habit of giving yourself honest assessments. Be prepared, but life will take you a lot further if you put these solid foundations for yourself. These are years where you're building yourself, putting solid foundations for yourself. You will not be able to change who you are when you are my age, trust me. You'll be a creature of habit. Build those good habits, build those foundations now. Break things that you want to break now. You will reap the reward of that 10, 20 years out. 

By the way, don't forget your network you build, it goes a long, long way. I think those are a few things that would really pay you a long ways in your career for the next decades to be. 

HELEN KIM: Thank you for tuning into today's episode of Northwestern Intersections. For more information about our podcast, please visit northwestern.edu/intersections. Until next time, stay safe and take care of yourself and your families.