We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashley Chang. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashley below.
Ashley, thank you so much for joining us today. Let’s jump right into something we’re really interested in hearing about from you – being the only one in the room. So many of us find ourselves as the only woman in the room, the only immigrant or the only artist in the room, etc. Can you talk to us about how you have learned to be effective and successful in situations where you are the only one in the room like you?
I am half-Chinese and half-Italian. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve felt like the only person in the room that looked like me. As I got older and entered the tech industry, this became even more pronounced, I was in technical product manager roles and was often the only woman in the room at all.
My strategy for being successful in these situations is to be the most prepared, which helps me feel confident. I know that I do my best work when I have time to think about a problem area ahead of time, so I intentionally schedule time to prep ahead of meetings. I’ll look up who will be there and think through what their goals are, as well think through any problems were trying to solve to come with informed solutions.
I used to be really quiet in meetings and let people with louder voices talk because they seemed much more confident. I had an amazing manager push me to contribute to meetings after seeing that I’d often have meaningful things to share 1:1. This helped me realize how important it was to be a part of the conversation.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Sundays is an executive assistant service for working parents. Our goal is to accelerate parents in their careers while creating more quality family time.
In the last year I’ve interviewed 400+ parents. Every single one told me that they didn’t have enough time in the day to have focused time at work and the time they wanted with their family. At Sundays, we try to solve this problem by pairing each family we work with with an amazing executive assistant who gets to know them, their goals, and how they think to take work off of parents’ plates.
Sundays is different than a lot of other services because we are intentionally human-first. We think that having a relationship with one person who works with your family over time is how we build trust and proactively take on work for your family. Our team is U.S. based and made up of mostly moms, so they know what it takes to run a family. They are backed up by smart technology and AI to help us be as effcient as possible.
We also have a lot of parents who are doing inspiring work and cross over to help them with more traditional executive assistant work so that we can support them holistically.
Right now everything we do is remote, but later this year we are introducing a house manager service where we’ll pair the remote work we do with in-person support for families too. Many families tell us that the chores and errands around their home are some of the biggest things that take away from time with their family, we can’t wait to dive in to help!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
#1 – Learning to teach yourself – I think this has been the single most impactful thing that’s made me successful in my career. I studied genetics, was the first employee at a highly technical startup without any tech background, then worked in health insurance and finance. Working in all of these areas gave me a ton of valuable knowledge when I started my own company. In each role, I had to teach myself about the industry and everyone we would work with, as well as teaching myself what it meant to be a product manager, and now a founder and CEO. When you start a company, you are constantly facing new problems and areas to learn. No one tells you what you need to know to solve that problem. The faster you can learn, the faster you can build your business, and the faster it can grow.
#2 – Ownership mentality – It is always a risk to hire someone who doesn’t have experience in a certain area. I’ve only been able to make so many big career leaps because I have an ownership mentality. When I take on a problem, I am always going to find a solution to it. When you demonstrate that you will solve (even hard) problems, you build trust.
#3 – Empathy – I believe I have a strong ability to read people and to feel their emotions. This has helped me build and lead teams because I can understand how each person is feeling, what their motivations are, and what they need to feel connected to what they are doing. It is always worth spending the time to get to know someone individually first.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
When I was looking for my last role before starting Sundays, I made an intentional decision to look for a manager that I could learn from. I was lucky to meet Vrushali Paunikar, who’s now Chief Product Officer at Carta. She was the first woman I’d worked for and also the first person I knew could do the job that I wanted to learn to do amazingly well.
During my time working for her, she was a wonderful mentor and advocate for me. She gave me opportunities to grow, trusted me to execute on solving hard problems, and gave me valuable feedback to improve. She advocated for me, especially in times when I was not in the room.
Her leadership helped me build the confidence I needed to excel in my roles at that company and to be ready to start a company of my own.
I think your manager is the #1 determinant of your success at a company. Taking the time to find someone who you can learn from and who you click with is incredibly valuable.
Contact Info:
- Website: withsundays.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/with_sundays
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleymchang/
Image Credits
I own all images.
