Ekta Chopra, Chief Digital Officer, at E.L.F. Beauty, made the transition from IT leader to business leader by staying curious and continuously learning. In this episode of Conversations with CommerceNext, Scott Silverman and I talk with Ekta about the culture of E.L.F Beauty that empowers its team to try new things and leverages communications and a shared vision to move quickly and pivot the business so that it stays in sync with changing market conditions.
Welcome to the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with CommerceNext and presented by Wunderkind.
Ekta Chopra, Chief Digital Officer, at E.L.F. Beauty, made the transition from IT leader to business leader by staying curious and continuously learning.
In this episode of Conversations with CommerceNext, Scott Silverman and Michael LeBlanc talk with Ekta about the culture of E.L.F. Beauty that empowers its team to try new things and leverages communications and a shared vision to move quickly and pivot the business so that it stays in sync with changing market conditions.
Ekta also shares her advice for skills training within a career strategy and what she is looking for in the many different roles and teams she is hiring for at E.L.F."
Thanks for tuning into this episode of Conversations with CommerceNext. Please follow us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast platform where we’ll be sharing career advice and marketing strategies from eCommerce and digital marketing leaders at retailers and direct-to-consumer brands each and every episode. CommerceNext is a community, event series and conference for marketers at retail and direct-to-consumer brands. Through our online forums, interviews, webinars, summits and other in-person events, we harness the collective wisdom of our community to help marketers grow their businesses and advance their careers. Join CommerceNext events to meet other industry leaders and learn the latest ecommerce and marketing strategies. You can find upcoming events at CommerceNext dot com
Have a fantastic week everyone!
ABOUT US:
Scott Silverman
An ecommerce veteran, Scott Silverman has been active in the industry since 1999 and is passionate about digital retail and the innovation driving the industry. Scott Silverman is the Co-Founder of CommerceNext. Previously, he spent 10 years as Executive Director of Shop.org where he launched the Shop.org Annual Summit. Scott co-invented “Cyber Monday” in 2005 and was the founder of Cybermonday.com in 2006, a shopping site that has generated more than $2.5 million for Shop.org’s scholarship fund.
Veronika Sonsev
Veronika Sonsev is the Co-Founder of CommerceNext. She also leads the retail practice for Chameleon Collective and is a contributor for Forbes on how to grow retail and ecommerce in the age of Amazon. Having spent the last 10+ years working with some of the largest retailers and direct-to-consumer brands, Veronika has intimate knowledge of the challenges facing retail and ecommerce today. She is also an advocate for women in business and founded the global non-profit mBolden, which is now part of SheRunsit.
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
About CommerceNext
CommerceNext is a community, event series and conference for marketers at retail and direct-to-consumer brands. Through our online forums, interviews, webinars, summits and other in-person events, we harness the collective wisdom of our community to help marketers grow their businesses and advance their careers. Join CommerceNext events to meet other industry leaders and learn the latest ecommerce and marketing strategies. You can find upcoming events at https://commercenext.com/commercenext-webinars/.
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with CommerceNext, and presented by Wunderkind.
Ekta Chopra, Chief Digital Officer at E.L.F. Beauty made the transition from IT leader to business leader by staying curious and continuously learning.
In this episode of Conversations with CommerceNext, Scott Silverman and I talked with Ekta about the culture of E.L.F Beauty that empowers its team to try new things and leverages communications and a shared vision to move quickly and pivot the business so that it stays in sync with changing market conditions.
Ekta also shares her advice for skills training within a career strategy and what she's looking for in the many different roles and teams she's hiring for at E.L.F.
Ekta Chopra
For me, it was important that whatever I was building was not for just today, it was for tomorrow. And it was just not a technology project, it was going to be a transformational project. And that was really important to me. In order to do that, I have to sort of bring the business along the journey. And through that process, I felt like the leadership saw my desire, my hunger, and as well as the value I was providing.
Michael LeBlanc
Let's listen in now.
Scott Silverman
Welcome Ekta to Conversations with CommerceNext. So, thanks so much for joining us today.
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, really happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Scott Silverman
I'm joined here with the Producer of Conversations with CommerceNext, and co-host, Michael LeBlanc.
Michael LeBlanc
Hello, good, good afternoon. Where are we finding you today Ekta?
Ekta Chopra
I'm in L.A. at my mom's home. So, it's not my usual setup, but it's working good.
Michael LeBlanc
All right, fantastic. Well, I'm in Toronto, Canada, and Scott, you're in, where are you today?
Scott Silverman
I am in Chatham, New Jersey. Yeah., so I'm really excited to talk to you Ekta. And you have been a great supporter of CommerceNext. You are on our advisory board. You've been a speaker. You've come to our events. You're going to be a speaker in the future when we returned in person. We love having your contributions and your point of view, thank you so much for that. And I, to start off the conversation, I thought you could talk to us about your career journey and walk us through a little bit of your personal professional journey and, and what your role is currently at E.L.F.
Ekta Chopra
Now first of all, thank you, thank you for having me. And I cannot wait for IRL, like I am dying to meet people and actually embrace the new normal, or back to normal, some super excited about that.
A little bit about my journey. And I wrote an article about this on LinkedIn, which was from a flower, Flower Girl to a CDO. And that article really focused on sort of what my journey has been and sort of the foundation of my journey. I started in technology in a manufacturing sort of a environment and it was aerospace. Where creating a space for me as a female in tech was, was a little bit difficult. I started as a System Administrator.
And I quickly realized that I'm not a behind the scenes, you know, person. I like to be out there, I like to learn about the business, I want to sort of understand how things are made and what I can do to help them. So very quickly transitioned into a manager, directorial role there. And that company was owned by a private equity company. And they saw my work and the work that I was doing, they actually brought me to the private equity company as their Technology Head. Which by far was my most favorite job because I learned very well how to zoom in and zoom out.
So, which meant understanding the intricacies of how things worked and, and the business and, and so forth. And from a technology perspective, but then also sitting in a boardroom and with investors and trying to build a case for more funding or, you know, offshore, a new system or whatever you can think of. So, that's where I think I learned a lot about zooming in and zooming out, which really is a skill that I encourage everybody as a leader to learn, is how do you, you know, in different settings, you have to do that.
So, from there on, they bought a retail company called Charming Charlie's based out of Houston, Texas. And I spent a lot of time there and fell in love with that brand, because it was young, dynamic, fast growing, and that's where I think I bring a lot of value, as well. So, I joined them as their Head of Technology. Was there for several years.
Parallel path to that I moved to the Bay Area, and that's when I joined, I wanted to do something different. I love new experiences. So, I went into, I reported under a, in, to a Chief Investment Officer working for a foundation and helping them grow their technology portfolio, as well as managing their foundational tech stack. So, that really was a new experience in itself. I got to learn a lot about technology funding, and how do you sort of get in front of investors and other things, which was just building upon my skills that I had learned at my private equity time. So that was really exciting.
And from there on, got my role, my gig, at E.L.F Cosmetics, which is my, my dream job, but I still wake up every morning feeling very excited. And this is where I've been able to transition from a technology leader to a business leader. And that's where I got the opportunity to do this as the Chief Digital Officer. So, in a nutshell, that's like high level, my journey from a tech, a technology background to now a more holistic digital transformation leader, which, you know, managing a P&L as well as customer service, and all of the technology.
Scott Silverman
One of the things I love about this industry, and the people that I meet in it, are all the interesting journeys, and they're so different. You know, you find people that were a chemical engineer, or they came from finance, or in your case, they, you know, you were in technology, and they end up in eCommerce. And everyone,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah
Scott Silverman
Brings a different perspective to it, which I think is super helpful.
So, I want to get a little bit, in a minute, I want to get more into the technology background and how, and how you made that transition into a business leader. But first, just tell everyone about E.L.F.
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Scott Silverman
It's a, it's a beauty brand. There are a lot of beauty brands, you know, what makes E.L.F. different? You know, how do you differentiate yourselves? How do you, why do your customers choose E.L.F. com-, you know when they have so many other options in front of them?
Ekta Chopra
First of all, E.L.F. is a very special place. And I know probably everybody who works at a great brand says that, 'This is the best company and it's a great brand'. I can tell you I get chills every time a new employee joins E.L.F. And they, in two weeks, the statement that stands true and true and true is, 'I've never worked for an organization that is so transparent, so nimble, and it allows me to things that I, do things that I thought I could never do before that anything is poss-, E.L.Fing possible'. And if I think about that our mission really is around serving every eye, lip and face and furry friends our paws. We don't we never discriminate. And I think you know, when you sell, when you listen to that you're like, 'Oh, that, you know, how can you serve every eye, lip and face and, you know, this unique experience?', it truly is about building a culture that you know is inside out what we say and do internally is what we're projecting externally with our community. And as well as sort of our, the full ecosystem that we you know, that the E.L.F. Brand sort of lives within.
Now we have grown from E.L.F. Cosmetics to now a chassis of three brands, keys, Alicia Keys, our recent brand Keys Soulcare, as well as, W3LL People, which is our clean brand. And then E.L.F. Cosmetics, which is our value brand. But above all it all uni-, like kind of ladders up to this concept of that we are a company that truly believes in serving the unique needs, wants and desires of our consumers and not, not one person is the same, like everybody's so different, right? So, I think we celebrate that. We live it in our culture.
Our culture is very data driven. We are you know, in so many different checkout channels as well from brick and mortar. I mean, our distribution for E.L.F is, a huge we're global presence as well. And our dot com since COVID, if you know has sort of grown tremendously as well.
And we don't look at Digital as our own brand site. Digital for us is a more ecosystem. And it is retailer.com, amazon.com, as well as our brand sites and any touch point that's, you know, non-physical is what we serve as in our digital ecosystem. So, E.L.F. is a brand, strong brand, you know, that serves so many different unique needs, wants and desires. We leverage data tremendously, not just for the sake of it, but we actually take action against it and they're also very, very speedy. E.L.F. speed is a real thing.
Scott Silverman
Your passion for the brand and your role are really exciting. to hear. So, you arrive as a Chief Digital Officer with this technology background, and I'd say more typical, we see someone in as a Chief Digital Officer coming through the marketing organization. And so, your path is a little, you know, not as unique as some of the, or it's more unique than, than many of the others. And can you talk about did, did you choose this? Or did it choose you?
Ekta Chopra
Yeah.
Scott Silverman
I mean, you had been in so many other industries. Beauty is one in particular, where it seems like almost all of the leadership has a background in beauty. So, someone coming from another industry is also pretty unique. So,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Scott Silverman
I'd love to hear about that.
Ekta Chopra
And I would say it was meant to be. And the reason why I say that is, I am inherently very curious. Like, I love learning, learning is a passion of mine, I till this day, I take two classes each year, that's in either augmenting, or learning something new, or becoming a deep expert in something. So this year, I've taken two courses at Harvard. One is focused around leading with finance, because I want to continue to become a better business leader. And the second one was around data science and fundamentals of data science.
So, I think that unique, not unique, but this curiosity that I have, it just feeds my hunger for learning a lot. And that's when, as I was at E.L.F., and, you know, I took on sort of the ecommerce transformation at that time. And that was like, you know, the technology aspect of it, the platform, right? Like, I'm going to revamp the platform, and I'm going to partner with the director of eCommerce.
During that journey, I found out 'Oh, my God, the world around us is changing. Digital is not just eCommerce, how can we think about it just in such a silo?' So, I continuously pushed and pushed and asked questions, and answers,
Scott Silverman
This is pre-COVID, right?
Ekta Chopra
This is pre COVID. This is like 2018, 2017 is when we started sort of looking to transform. Our journ-, our digital journey transformation didn't happen in six weeks, or six months, like it did for many people last year. It was a journey. It has been a journey for several years. And I think it is through this journey, through this curiosity, I sort of really, you know, jumped in and sort of offered my ideas. I'm not the smartest one in the room, and I never want to be. But at the same quest-, like for me, it was important that whatever I was building was not for just today, it was for tomorrow. And it was just not a technology project, it was going to be a transformational project. And that was really important to me.
In order to do that, I had to sort of bring the business along the journey. And through that process, I felt like the leadership saw my desire, my hunger, and as well as the value I was providing. And I think that's when sort of this role came to fruition. And I ended up taking over sort of the business side of it as well. And I would say only at E.L.F. that could have happened because we are a place where we give people opportunities. And if we see talent, we really expand and if they're capable, we expand their, you know, tools in their toolbox. And that's what I've been able to achieve at E.L.F.. But it's really is because the leadership is amazing. The culture is amazing. And if you are someone who has curiosity and thrives in a crazy, chaotic culture, and this constant, you know, landscape shifting and no set thing, no boundaries. Well that's the place E.L.F is and that's what makes it so special.
Michael LeBlanc
We'll be right back with more from Ekta Chopra after this important message.
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Scott Silverman
(inaudible) quite a, an endorsement for the culture there.
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Scott Silverman
I'm assuming, you know, anyone listening you would encourage them to consider joining the team I guess.
Ekta Chopra
Oh my god, I have so many openings come join.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, I, I can't think of a better ambassador to convince people to join. I mean, I was gonna I was gonna follow a thread, but you kind of followed it for me. I was gonna say it feels like one of your key attributes, and it sounds like the key attribute that, that the organization loves about you is curiosity, right?
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
There's a lot of other skills and passion, but that curiosity to learn more to try new things. And as Scott said, I loved Scott's question about did it choose you? Sometimes, you know, sometimes retail is described as the accidental career, right,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
A lot of find their way into retail. And in some ways, that's the been the case with you. So, it's just ,it's so interesting to listen to your perspectives, and what, what is that essence that really drives your career? And, it's a lot about curiosity and passion. And obviously, you know,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
Obviously, a willingness to learn, which is, you know, such an important ingredient to any organization.
Let me pull back for a little bit and talk about the tradecraft of what you do, you know, part of what we do at CommerceNext is, is understand marketing and tactics and strategies. You described a wide gamut, you know, from three brands at different price points at different value equations, some celebrity connection, some building value on, on, you know, the people and some just building a great value brand. What, what's been working for you from, from when you pull the different levers? I, I was speaking to a CEO yesterday, and he was, I asked him what he would have done different over the past year, and, and he said, 'I would have doubled down on some of the social media with podcasters, who have a YouTube site, and not even in my category, not even product reviewers'. And that's working well, just as an example of something that struck him as something, but that in all the tactics that you're likely using, you know, give us kind of a bit of that landscape of things that are kind of maybe surprising you in terms of productivity, you spoke a lot about data being data informed. What does what does all that look like?
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, so I'll start with a couple of things, what really sort of allows us to be successful in this really highly competitive environment, especially after last year, even more so, right. And I think,
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Ekta Chopra
The value equation there is that we firmly believe in three things. Have your feet on the ground. Listen to your community, your community will call you out, when you're not doing the right thing, you're not listening to them, you're not reaching out to them in the ways that you want to. So, really having your ear to the ground, your feet to the ground, making sure your foundation is strong.
And never lose sight of sort of the new frontiers, the head in the sky. That's and basically that's about, you know, testing and learning. We are a TikTok billionaire, we were the first TikTok beauty billionaire. And there's a reason for that. Because we started small, we weren't looking for perfection, we were like, 'Okay, this is new, let's try it'. And then as the signals told us that you need to be there, we weren't the experts, we got the expert team together and actually did that. So, I think it's about taking those risks and keeping your eyes out for the new thing.
And then moving at E.L.F. speed. And when I say speed, every company says, 'oh, we're fast, we go to market really quickly', no,
Michael LeBlanc
Sure,
Ekta Chopra
What we do at E.L.F. It's, it's truly monumental in many ways, and I think that's where we think we do, we think we do, we have no red tape, there's no, you know, hierarchies that you have to get approval from or anything like that you, if you're a leader of that org, you're making decisions, and you're moving forward with them and you're, and you're supported by the organization. So, I think that's like one unique piece.
And I think the second piece of like, what surprised me last year was we didn't skip a beat, everything, so everything that we invested in, throughout this time paid off. All we had to do would pedal to the metal and go as fast as you can and pivot. So, Monday morning meetings started, which was around what's happening? What are people talking about? What are their needs? Our go to market plans went out the window, why? Because those weren't relevant anymore during COVID. So, we have to come out with new ways to engage with the consumer. And we did it in a moment's notice. You know, and I think that's where I think data, taking action, because you can have tons of data and no insights. And for us, it was,
Michael LeBlanc
Right, right.
Ekta Chopra
Like data, insights, action, data, insights, action, and that allowed us to move really quickly. So surprising thing, or not so surprising thing was that I would say that the team even got more closer. And the culture of E.L.F. that we knew was there just came even at the forefront, you know, that how strong,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Ekta Chopra
Our culture is, and our beliefs are and our strategies are.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, if there's such a thing, it sounds like your organization was built for a crisis like COVID. I've talked to organizations who were born out of crisis.
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
You know, some organizations are born out of crisis. Other organizations are built for crisis that, that agility,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Is part of the DNA. Like that's culture, right? That's, that, that's not,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Nothing to do with technology, right? That's a cultural thing.
Ekta Chopra
That's a cultural attribute.
Michael LeBlanc
How do you continue to nurture that? Because like many things, it can atrophy, right?
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Cultures can go a bit stale. Now certainly in the past 18 months, nothing's gone. stale. Everybody had to kind,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Of move and adapt.
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
Maybe that was a great, maybe that was a great lesson for those, those who are less agile than you, but, but okay, let's talk about the, the post COVID, the normal times whatever that means, how do you, how do you make sure that, that bias for action doesn't become frenetic and, and stays attached and moves you forward versus moving you in different directions all at the same time? How do you,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Get that focus?
Ekta Chopra
I would say it, that's because our culture was like that even before COVID. So that's like one thing, that it is part of our DNA, moving fast, not dwelling over decisions, taking action against data, all those things are part of our DNA. So, that's number one.
Number two is it starts with the leadership of the company, from our CEO, our CMO, our executive team, as a whole is so strong, and they truly, like if I think about the town halls that E.L.F. has, I don't think any other brand has the town halls like we do. We, our CE, everybody's part of that, everyone in the company joins the townhall. It's not a CEO town hall, it's more about being transparent about what's happening. You know, what's happening around sort of our ecosystem, what's happening with the company, as well as it's a town hall where we invite sometimes external speakers, we have masterclasses for everyone on, you know, issues, whether it be, if it's a pride month, we just did a really amazing masterclass with that. Asian hate within another one. Like, we always sort of invite external masters to come in and educate our teams. And we try to like, always make sure that we live that inside-out, you know, we're, we're listening to our employees as well as our, as well as our consumers. So, the transparency, the speed, and sort of really sort of, hey, we're not the smartest one, let's get, you know, people smarter than us to come in and also educate us and learn about, you know, issues and other things. I think those things matter. And, and that's part of our DNA, I would say. So,
Michael LeBlanc
Now, you know, as part of that, I just want to follow up on quick things, that part of, part of that very open honest and direct discussions when things aren't going well, right. I mean, that, that I would expect as part of your culture. But that's a fun, that's a fine line to walk sometimes between,
Ekta Chopra
It is,
Michael LeBlanc
Not being you know what I mean? Like, sometimes it's, it's particularly,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
Junior employees. I mean, there's correction, and then there's kind of overcorrection, if you know what,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
I mean, how do you how do you think about that?
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, I mean, I think that's where I think, you know, E.L.F. does shine. One is, of course, there is the broader, we are a public company, so when it comes to financial data, of course, you have to be very sensitive of what you can or cannot say.
Michael LeBlanc
Sure,
Ekta Chopra
But then there are things that are not financial things, these are things around, why are we you know, supporting a particular purpose? Or why are we supporting certain things? And I think our leadership truly believes that we don't want to go extreme, like change the dial so much that you will, you're trying to appease everyone because you can never do,
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Ekta Chopra
That. But there are,
Michael LeBlanc
Right,
Ekta Chopra
Fundamental things that we believe in, equality, when we make a statement as a company, E.L.F. is for every eye, lip and face, that means that we try to serve different thinkings and different ideas and so forth. So, I do think it is a fine line. We walk that very eloquently and knowing that you cannot appease everyone, we still,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Ekta Chopra
Stand by our, we never like retract, you know just because of fear of something. So, I do you think that being authentic is the number one thing that you as a leadership can do when you're offering a transparent culture. And I think we do that very well at E.L.F. I would say our leadership does that really, really well at E.L.F. and it is a very fine line.
Michael LeBlanc
If you're enjoying this interview, you may want to join us for CommerceNext IRL on September 28th, 29th at the New York Hilton, Midtown. Some of the speakers you'll be seeing including Noam Paransky, Chief Digital Officer at Tapestry, Ekta Chopra, Chief Digital Officer at E.L.F. Beauty, Matt Gehring, GM of eCommerce at Everlane, Alex Waldman, Co-founder and Creative Director at Universal Standard, Jennifer Patrick, Global Branding and Packaging Director at Patagonia and many more.
CommerceNext IRL will cover themes such as the resurgence of brick and mortar retail and its impact on eCommerce, and how to prepare for a cookieless future. We can't wait to get the CommerceNext community together in person. And hope you'll join us learn more and register now at commercenext.com.
Let's talk about that fine line for one second, then I'll pass the mic back to Scott, I'm kind of curious. You know, as Scott mentioned, it's somewhat unusual for a technologist and a digital marketer leader to be in the same role. I mean, typically in the room, there's a bit of I want more technology, why do you want it? There's a bit of, a bit of natural fun, or sometimes
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
You know, just tension, not kind of or, cultural tension, sometimes between I want more, why do you want it? I'm not going to give you every-. Do you, how, do you look in the mirror and have that discussion with yourself? How do you, how does, how does that? Give me more, I don't want it, give me more, give me one. I don't know, what do I want?
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, oh my God, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc
Like, how do you? How do you recon-, how do you reconcile those two forces, in,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Michael LeBlanc
In your day-to-day work?
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, I have like the devil and the, the, you know, whatever the angel sign there.
Michael LeBlanc
That's right, yeah, yeah.
Ekta Chopra
It’s so funny, I remember, when, you know, this happened back in 20-, when I like took over sort of this role in 2019 timeframe. And so, I had the business team, and you know, that had sort of the, the constant needs, and I had the tech team was constantly, you know, serving them. And I sat,
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah,
Ekta Chopra
them in a meeting, and I said, 'Well, we're on team now. So if you're going to fight with each other, you're gonna have to do it in this setting'. So, it was about integrating, it was about like really integrating that no matter what, like the funnel. And sort of the, the way to think about a strong digital team is that you have to break the barriers of physical and digital, no matter what, it's one team now, right? So, I had to become the mediator, the educator, and sort of this cheerleader for that team. I had to balance sort of, you know, constantly, like, 'Hey, at the end of the day, we have to make sure that digital is serving and driving growth and all of that stuff. But then on the tech side, there's a reality of theirs so, there's only so many things you can do in a sprint, you know, when you're trying to sort of launch something'. So, it was about education and balancing and really sort of communicating that tension in and it's not a bad tension, it's a good tension.
And then at the end of the day, I prioritize, and then if I can't, then I go to my boss, who's Chief Marketing Officer, and that's another unique thing. At E.L.F. 80% of the organization reports to the CMO, right. So, I think it's because we believe in that, that you have to serve and remove friction in your consumer journey. And if you think about from the time you develop a product to build a product to, you know, you think about selling it to, you know, all the ways through, all of that is under sort of the marketing domain.
Michael LeBlanc
Fascinating.
Scott Silverman
So, I want to turn a little bit more, you know, to the career aspect of this, and you've touched on so many, like core leadership themes around authenticity and communication and a shared vision. And, you know, thinking about, you know, the anybody's journey moved, getting promoted, moving up into the C suite, do you see, do you feel like now more than in previous years, or in previous generations, that there is a more clear path for technology and, and digital savvy leaders into that C suite eventually into a CEO role? And do you feel like your set of experiences have prepared you it before that in some way?
Ekta Chopra
So, I fundamentally believe you are a author of your own story. And, and I think in in doing so you have to be self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses, because they can often become your, your strengths can also be your weaknesses, and you have to balance on how you sort of use them. So, I think that fundamentally I live through.
I absolutely, if I continue to be curious, if I continue to sort of live by the learning principle of feeding my brain and, and seeing things and getting excited when you know what I've thought of as actually paying off, then I fundamentally believe I can be a CEO of an organization.
In a more broader sense. I sit on a lot of sort of CIO boards or you know, these communities that I'm part of, and I usually talk on those boards around how to transform from being a traditional CIO to a CXO who can be anything and that is by putting throwing away what you know of like, hey, it's security hat and it's in the infrastructure hat. No, at the end of the day you're serving a business need you're serving, you're enabling a strategy. And in order to do that, you have to sort of understand the business. And you have to understand the business drivers. And you also have to understand sort of the customer at the end of the day, who the customer is. So, I think, just shifting that anyone, you know, who is a technologist in a general sense is very well situated to be a CXO. Because that's what they actually do. They change behaviors, they change systems, they change processes. So, and most of the time, but what's missing is this business hat of like, you know, the actual mechanics of fundamentals of like, margin and running a P&L sort of comes into play. So, that's what I would say to that is that as a CIO, or is very well situated to be a CXO, which has many C's, as long as they're open to embracing the business side, you know, and learning that very well.
Scott Silverman
I think that's great advice. So, we're gonna switch gears here and look into the future. So, imagine your role in five years from now, think about all the things that keep you up at night now. And you know, how do you think it'll be different five years from now,
Ekta Chopra
Some of the things will still remain the same, I think, you know, no matter who, which CIO or CXO you are, you have to have two things that you have to be fearful of, there's not fearful of, two things that you have to know. One is security, it's a real concern, whether you are a CEO, or a board member, whether you are anyone learning the basics about, you know, security, and making sure that your organization is set up the right way to tackle that more and more cybercrimes, and new ways that you, you know, you're getting attacked, and so forth. And this is a real concern that even larger organizations don't have, you know, enough bandwidth to sort of serve. So, I think that's one thing.
I think the second thing is data. Data is your best friend. Data is the currency for a digital ecosystem, learn how do you build that muscle to not just like, look at plethora of data that you're swimming in, but how do you take a look at that and drive action, and it build a culture that is very driven by data? I think those two things are going to become fundamental to any CXO out there. Security, knowing enough about that data. And then I think this, the third piece is, which is something that I constantly believe in is sort of the curiosity aspect of it, right? Like, because the world is changing, how you do business is changing, supply chain is changing, supply chain is like a big pain point for retailers and brands today, right? So, once again, like knowing about sort of what's happening out there beyond your domain that's impacting you, I think, is also very important.
Scott Silverman
Yeah, the security one's really interesting. It's, it's so topical right now. I think that's one for all of our listeners to probably think a little bit more about.
So, I mean, you've mentioned curiosity, a lot. You talked about how you're taking I think you mentioned two classes a year. That's, it, and I just wanted, it sounds like, you know, you put a lot of weight into learning, and,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Scott Silverman
Do you see that, in terms of how you're selecting team members, and what you're looking for, obviously, universities are, provide a certain core group of strengths in, in knowledge, but the industry moves much faster than what they can you know, what you're going to get from
Ekta Chopra
From the textbooks,
Scott Silverman
(Inaudible) or an,
Ekta Chopra
Yeah,
Scott Silverman
MBA, but you know, like, how do these certifications these classes like, how important do you think these are, when you're looking at new hires? Or even bringing someone in and thinking, 'Okay, they have this raw talent. But if we, you know, if I have make sure that they're focusing on some certifications, or some continued learning that there, we can shape them into the like, the next level for them?'
Ekta Chopra
Yeah, great question. And I'll give you my personal journey. My dream since I was a kid was to be a doctor. Then life happens and you know, you realize that a lot of years and you won't be able to support yourself financially if you did that, while you're dating that degree. So, then it pivoted to being a technologist. And my dream there was, I have to get an executive MBA from one of the most amazing Ivy League schools, and then, you know, you life happens for whatever circumstances, I haven't been able to go get my MBA yet. And sometimes I really, like if I think about my life and my journey, I'm like, one of these days, I'm gonna make that a priority, and I'm going to go get an MBA.
So, my mentors always tell me, 'Oh, my God, what you are doing, what you have done is already an MBA.'
Michael LeBlanc
Right, right.
Ekta Chopra
Like, the type of challenges that I've gone through the different transformations of different companies, that is an MBA. Now, now, why take these certification courses? For me, they're not about, you know, learning something like really disruptive, or it's going to, you know, change my life. It's knowing those foundational things, I think that's what universities or other education sort of provides to you is just the basics. Because sometimes you could do a lot of stuff, but you missed the, the, the basics, and I think, if you have the basics down, then you can augment with other things and your other testing and learning to create new things, right? So for me, it's when I look for candidates, 'A' Do they have the hunger, the desire to learn? They might not have the experience, that's okay, I'm going to give you that experience. But do you have that capacity and that hunger to go and learn? And you're going to have to invest your own time in doing that. I think that's really important.
The second is, do you have the basics down? Like, do you even just know that, you know, if this plus this is equal to this. If we don't know the basics, sometimes I think your foundation can't be strong. So, I think and that basics doesn't mean that you have to go to an Ivy League school or have an MBA, it just have you invested enough time in learning those basics. You know,
Michael LeBlanc
You know, Ekta it's been such a wonderful interview, I want to thank you for joining us on Conversations with CommercNext. Your personal professional journey, listening to your, your ethos, and, and learning about the organization. It's so impressive. You know, as I said, if there's such a thing built for the times we're in it sounds like your organization, is it. So, you know, on behalf of Scott and Veronika, I wish you much continued success. And,
Ekta Chopra
Thank you,
Michael LeBlanc
I wish you a wonderful and safe rest of your day. Thank you for joining us.
Ekta Chopra
Thank you really appreciate it.
Scott Silverman
Thank you so much.
Michael LeBlanc
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