Jeremi Gorman

Jeremi Gorman :

I got to take a risk that people that are just buried in these college loans don't get to take. And so, the socioeconomic impact of coming to a company that feels smaller or riskier, we have to get those thinkers in the buildings.

Sam Saperstein:

Welcome to the Women on the Move podcast from JPMorgan Chase. I'm Sam Saperstein. Women on the Move is a global initiative designed to empower female employees, clients, and consumers, to build their careers, grow their businesses, and improve their financial health. Each episode will feature successful and inspiring women who are breaking the mold. They're sharing their career journeys and leadership lessons, talking about their professional and personal goals, and making a difference in the lives of others.

Sam Saperstein:

This season, I'm taking you to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where I caught up with many of the women who inspire me every day.

Sam Saperstein:

Today's guest is at the forefront of social media. She's super plugged in, and she's helping me stay relevant to my kids. Jeremi Gorman took a leap of faith when she signed on as Snap's chief business officer, after a successful career at Amazon. Since joining Snap, she's focused on Gen Z, using her expertise in sales and advertising, to redefine Snapchat's purpose. Jeremi is keeping the company focused on new trends, without sacrificing user privacy. Here's my conversation with Jeremi during her first visit to Davos. I hope you enjoy it.

Sam Saperstein:

So Jeremi, thank you so much for joining us here.

Jeremi Gorman :

My pleasure. I'm happy to be here.

Sam Saperstein:

So you've had a really interesting career at some of the most well-known tech companies of our time. So I want to start there with you. Tell us about the evolution of your career, and your stints at Amazon, and now at Snap.

Jeremi Gorman :

Sure. Yeah, happy to. I feel very fortunate to have been at the market leading places, at the times in which they were market leading, and kind of watched every manifestation of tech really. In 1999, when I graduated from college, was really kind of the first year that the internet was being monetized.

Sam Saperstein:

Yes, yes.

Jeremi Gorman :

And so, it was a really interesting juxtaposition between my graduating class and the one before me. The one before me, the internet was sort of a fad, and if you went and worked for a tech company, it was a little bit like, are those things going to last? What's the web for? And by the time I graduated, it was very much like, we need to monetize this. And so, I worked for a small startup company called Job Track, that got bought by Monster.com, very shortly after I started. And so, I was immediately in big tech. Monster was one of the largest sites on the web at the time, and I was responsible for collegiate marketing.

Jeremi Gorman :

From there, had a small stint at Variety Magazine, which was my first sales job. So I was on the marketing side of the business, buying media, and then I was like, "Well, I could probably sell media, let's see how it goes," and did that, which was really interesting, very different.

Jeremi Gorman :

So coming from a tech native platform to one that was a 100 year old newspaper, where I was really the person in the building saying, "We need to break stories online, and these kinds of things," and there was a push-pull there at that time to say, "But the integrity of our paper in the morning will be impacted if we break stories online", and super interesting period, but brief. I was there about two years, and then went to Yahoo, when it was the biggest thing in the world, and still actually remains enormous, even though people talk about it very differently. And I think being there was really extraordinary. I was there through five different CEOs, so kind of during that period.

Sam Saperstein:

That in and of itself is amazing.

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah. So I learned a lot about change management during that period of time, both internally as well as with my peer set. And then I was actually not looking to leave Yahoo, it was really fun, but got a call from Amazon, and they had just sort of decided that they wanted to go into the advertising business, and this was one of probably the biggest risks at the time I had taken in my career, because it was very small, relative to Yahoo, which is hard to believe now, but nonetheless.

Sam Saperstein:

Right, right, but at that point.

Jeremi Gorman :

And so, I said no three times, and then had the woman who was running it at the time called me, and I think, as a woman, as a person, I always look for where did you get the best advice? And this woman who was running the organization called me and said, "You don't have to come here, but you can't stay there." And I said, "Why?" and she responded and said, "Because you're growing and it's not, and at some point, those things will be in conflict with each other."

Sam Saperstein:

Wise. That is unbelievable.

Jeremi Gorman :

So wise. And-

Sam Saperstein:

Was this a person you knew well?

Jeremi Gorman :

No, I didn't know. I had met her through the interview process.

Sam Saperstein:

Wow.

Jeremi Gorman :

And she was running the Amazon advertising business at the time, and so I thought, I want to work for somebody who will talk to me that way.

Sam Saperstein:

That is incredible.

Jeremi Gorman :

It was.

Sam Saperstein:

And so, then you went to work for her?

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah, in that phone call I was like, "Okay, let's go."

Sam Saperstein:

Oh my goodness.

Jeremi Gorman :

And she's like, "Oh, that's actually not what I meant."

Sam Saperstein:

That is so funny.

Jeremi Gorman :

[crosstalk 00:04:44] Is the offer is still here?

Sam Saperstein:

Yeah.

Jeremi Gorman :

So I went and I thought it was incredible advice, and learned an extraordinary amount at a company like that, helping to build the organization.

Sam Saperstein:

Yeah, from the ground level.

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah, that was an awesome team, and really smart people, of course, and then you put the Amazon values on top of it, and the efficiencies of a company like that to build an advertising business, and we were able to grow it really, really big really quickly, which is exciting.

Sam Saperstein:

That's amazing.

Jeremi Gorman :

And then similarly, I was not looking for a job, but I got a phone call from Snap on a Thursday. This part, every time I say it, I feel like a crazy person, but I got a call from Snap on a Thursday that said, "Hey, we keep hearing your name in this job search. Will you come meet with Evan Spiegel?" And my advice is always if you get a call like that, you just say yes, because why not?

Sam Saperstein:

Take it, and [crosstalk 00:05:32] the conversation.

Jeremi Gorman :

A smart, amazing founder, and I met him and was just totally struck by his innovation, wise beyond his years, how important Snapchat is as a way for the youth to communicate, Gen Z and millennials, and I was so inspired in the conversation that the next day, we decided we should work together. That was great, and then the next day I signed the offer. The next day I resigned. The next day I left, because it was a competitive situation, and then the next day I started.

Sam Saperstein:

So day six? [crosstalk 00:06:07]

Jeremi Gorman :

So all in less than a week. Yup.

Sam Saperstein:

That's unbelievable.

Jeremi Gorman :

Crazy.

Sam Saperstein:

What's amazing about that is you were called on both of these accounts to go into those next roles, because presumably, you really built a great reputation in the business. They were coming for you, right? They knew who you were, which is great, and that you were open-minded to take those calls.

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah. I mean, there are many I haven't taken, and I think in every version of everybody's life story, there are those sliding doors moments where it's like, "Oh, what if I had said yes to that?" And I think particularly given, I've been doing this for 20 years, I think everybody has a story of, "Man, Facebook called me."

Sam Saperstein:

The one that got away, possibly?

Jeremi Gorman :

Day one, you know?

Sam Saperstein:

Oh yeah.

Jeremi Gorman :

And it's like, "Shoot!" But I can't, I mean the choices that I have made have been really great. I feel really fortunate, and then in hindsight, it's even more interesting to be like, Monster's at the top of its game and then now, it's been disrupted.

Sam Saperstein:

Right.

Jeremi Gorman :

And Variety, top of its game, disrupted or changed anyway, at least a lot more digital now. Yahoo, top of its game, disrupted. And so, it gives me, I think a really unique perspective that nothing is guaranteed to be forever.

Sam Saperstein:

Right, which is when you think something is the standard or the best, right?

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah.

Sam Saperstein:

No one's ever going to trump it.

Jeremi Gorman :

You couldn't imagine a world where Yahoo wasn't the homepage to the internet.

Sam Saperstein:

Definitely not. Right.

Jeremi Gorman :

It's crazy, and it's still my homepage by the way, to the internet. It's how I get my news.

Sam Saperstein:

Fair enough.

Jeremi Gorman :

So I'm a loyalist through and through.

Sam Saperstein:

Loyally, loyalty.

Jeremi Gorman :

For sure.

Sam Saperstein:

So you're riding these waves, right? And you're finding the next opportunity, and so now you're at Snap. So talk about your role here and what you're trying to do for the company at a really critical time.

Jeremi Gorman :

So I'm the chief business officer. I'm responsible for the revenue side of the organization. So the sales team, sales operations teams, revenue strategy teams, and then interestingly, I'm also responsible for a lot of our customer operations. So our content review, our ad review teams, our customer service teams, our business operations teams, trust and safety. And so, it's part of why I wanted the job actually, was to kind of-

Sam Saperstein:

Really so many different pieces.

Jeremi Gorman :

So many different pieces, and I'd been in ad sales, or on the other side of ad sales for 20 years, and so having the opportunity to learn all of these other functions, which has been extraordinary, was kind of the opportunity of a lifetime.

Sam Saperstein:

Yes.

Jeremi Gorman :

And I think one of the things I'm learning is that there's no way I'm going to be an expert in all of those things, so I just have to figure out how to help the people I need to help from my position, in the best possible way I can. We kind of think of it as servant leadership, for lack of better terms, as like, I'm not going to be the foremost authority on what is the appropriate content in Saudi Arabia, but I need to know how to support the person whose job that is, and that means getting them the right resources, and the right funding, and the right tooling, and these kinds of things, and that's where I can add value, but they are the experts. Our product team is extraordinary, they don't need me to come in and help them innovate. They are the most innovative people in the world.

Sam Saperstein:

When you think about privacy and safety, what are you thinking about doing? How are you thinking about protecting those things for your users, and what more do you think is needed to be done in these areas?

Jeremi Gorman :

This is my favorite topic, because I find that very few people know this about Snapchat, but Snapchat has been private by design since the very beginning. So we have an extraordinary product team, and they built the communication tools to be sort of like we're having a conversation right now, although without the headphones. All friendships are bilateral. There is no notion of following somebody, unless there are accounts for celebrities and these kinds of things, but regular people, you can't just follow. I mean, you have to say, "I want you to be my friend. You have to be my friend?" There's no notion of virality, so I can't tag you in something and make it go viral. It's not broadcast. It's more one-to-one or one-to-few communication. There's never been likes or comments. So to see the other publishers coming around to that side, I think is [crosstalk 00:10:03] wonderful for society.

Sam Saperstein:

They are now.

Jeremi Gorman :

And I think something that for us, we have 3.5 billion pictures taken every single day with our camera.

Sam Saperstein:

Oh my goodness.

Jeremi Gorman :

Billion. Crazy.

Sam Saperstein:

Wow.

Jeremi Gorman :

Crazy. And I think part of the reason for that is because people feel comfortable on the app, because they know that it's private, and it's just their friends, that it's not going to go crazy. If you take a screenshot, it tells you that somebody took a screenshot. Little things, like you are represented by your Bitmoji, the sort of cartoon version of yourself effectively, in your profile, not your own picture. And so, you can't just go look for 15 year old girls named Alexis in Phoenix.

Sam Saperstein:

No, not with that.

Jeremi Gorman :

And find them. Everybody looks like a cartoon.

Sam Saperstein:

Right, right.

Jeremi Gorman :

So it's like that keeps the community really [crosstalk 00:10:48] Safe too.

Sam Saperstein:

That's another layer. Yeah.

Jeremi Gorman :

And you have to know somebody's username to add them or scan their code one-to-one. So there's a lot of these things that are just built in, that's so exciting to see everybody else kind of come around to these worlds, that is keeping people much more safe.

Sam Saperstein:

It's a completely different approach.

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah, totally, and I think we were lambasted for a little while like, "Why wouldn't you want this earned media of all these extra things?" or "Why can't I measure," when we get purchased by media buyers for instance, they'll be like, "How much earned media did I get?" Which is fine and fair and I understand why that's important, but our answer is like, "One, we're not going to tell you, and two, not very much", and that's on purpose, and because we don't want it to go to 5,000 other people, we want you to feel comfortable being a weirdo dancer in your living room [crosstalk 00:11:39] and making faces and putting dog ears on.

Sam Saperstein:

Or whatever you do. Yes.

Jeremi Gorman :

Just having a great time.

Sam Saperstein:

So it's interesting that you have the sales and advertising responsibility, and safety and privacy, and can oversee both. What kind of interesting opportunities does that offer you, and how do you have to keep those two areas separate so you make sure you're doing the right thing for each?

Jeremi Gorman :

This is another one in the hiring world, particularly because I didn't have the trust and safety type experience before. Actually, I didn't hire anybody. They were all there already, but some really extraordinary leaders who've done this at scale, at companies like Accenture, for instance, and we have law enforcement operations that have been with us, and then with a lot of our other social media platforms that are very, very good at it.

Jeremi Gorman :

I would say in my world, one of the things that's really interesting is that because I am responsible for both functions, I have to make choices every single day, and I think the easiest way to say that is what would the Snapchatter want in this moment in time? What would a 15-year-old girl want in this scenario? What would a 23-year-old male want in this scenario, and in all the countries in the world? And then we have those experts as well, thank goodness, because the variability there is extraordinary. And so, I really like the structure this way. I think it's really, really cool, because I used to fight what is now my current self.

Sam Saperstein:

Right.

Jeremi Gorman :

To be like, "Accept the add what is wrong with you!"

Sam Saperstein:

Yeah, exactly. So you can resolve things quickly.

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah, yeah.

Sam Saperstein:

Doing the both of them, but presumably you will take into account all those risks before you go out there with something.

Jeremi Gorman :

And we will always err on the side of the Snapchatter.

Sam Saperstein:

And so focusing on the Gen Z demographic, and particularly their buying behaviors of the future, what does that open up for you in terms of focusing on that particular demographic? And how are you thinking about, also, as we sort of mentioned, challenges or ways that you have to control for things?

Jeremi Gorman :

One of the things where we're really fortunate is that we very squarely sit in a generation where people are forming lifelong habits and I don't think it's new marketing. It's interesting in that Snapchat's newish and some of these other platforms are newish, but if you actually rewind time, like I graduated from college in '99, as I mentioned, from '95 to '99 at UCLA, I would walk down the corridor and it would be sign up for this credit card and get a free UCLA t-shirt, and do this whatever, and get this insurance, and join this. We were a Coke campus, not a Pepsi campus. A Taco Bell, not a McDonald's campus. An Adidas campus, not a Nike campus.

Sam Saperstein:

So these brands were there.

Jeremi Gorman :

They were there.

Sam Saperstein:

They were trying to influence you.

Jeremi Gorman :

And now a lot of that is not allowed on college campuses anymore, but the human behavior hasn't changed, which is all of these switching moments in your life. They are very, very few of them really. It's when you move out of your parents' house, it's when you graduate from college, typically when you get your first home, when you get married, and when you have a baby, like that's it. Those are the times when you can switch your allegiance or build an allegiance. And we have almost all of those moments in the generation that we serve. And so I think we need to be bigger and better about proclaiming that message to our marketing partners. And then beyond that, the household influence that this generation has, independent of brands, but just generally speaking is extraordinary, and they're much better educated on issues. I mean, you look here around Davos and see these young people.

Sam Saperstein:

Just so passionate.

Jeremi Gorman :

Making a huge difference. And so if you kind of just distill that down to what it means to a marketer, then it's, "Mom, your phone's so old. That's so embarrassing. Can you please just get a new phone?" That's an a thousand dollar influencer. Like for Apple or Samsung or whatever it is.

Sam Saperstein:

So personal.

Jeremi Gorman :

In the household, or if you have an Xbox or a PlayStation, the parent is not choosing which one the kid is choosing, which one? And so kind of harnessing that power.

Sam Saperstein:

So want to understand some of the work that you do internally to help women. So your female employees, I think you're a member of the Lady Chillahs.

Jeremi Gorman :

Yes, the Lady Chillahs. Chilla is the name of our ghost. His name is Ghostface Chilla.

Sam Saperstein:

So what do the Lady Chillahs do, and how are you involved with them?

Jeremi Gorman :

It's a group that's worldwide. Women supporting women. It's a fully voluntary thing. You don't have to be in the group if you don't want to, but we have an opportunity to kind of have our own space, talk about things that have impacted our particular work, or our particular career, or get advice. And it's interesting, in my role, I sort of participate in different ways. So I think there are rooms that people don't want me in. They want to talk amongst their peer set. And so I have to kind of pick my moments to say actually like how can I help you? And I've found that people are so willing to help me too. It's hard sometimes. Even though our executive team is half and half, which is awesome.

Sam Saperstein:

That's great to hear.

Jeremi Gorman :

I have like amazing C-level peers that are women, and we can have our own dialogue and the men are incredibly supportive. So very, very lucky, but I feel, in the Lady Chillahs environments and so we'll have like an hour long where everybody sits on the floor, and everybody talks about anything from like what's a book that inspired you to what scared you. There's a person that sort of is the moderator.

Sam Saperstein:

Facilitator.

Jeremi Gorman :

Exactly. And so if the conversation's not moving, they'll come and do that. Like what's a book that inspired you, and why? And then sometimes I go in there and people just pepper me with questions. Were you ever scared? And how did you get to where you are? And these kinds of things. And it feels amazing to be able to do like a one to many, in that regard. To help people understand like these jobs are not impossible to get. And I didn't actually do anything special. Like I just worked my ass off. I made good connections, always put my customers ahead of myself, always put our audiences first no matter what company I was in. And to your point, like built a reputation where I'm very hireable, but I think it's actually cooler that I didn't, you know, I don't have a Harvard MBA, like these kinds of things where I don't feel, I don't think impossible. And I think that part's really cool.

Sam Saperstein:

Very cool. And I think it really helps people say that's an accessible leader, and I can see myself doing that, which is so important. So the top of the house looks great, from a diversity perspective, what's the rest of the company like in terms of representation and also inclusion? Right? Are people really getting their thoughts and opinions valued, and feel like they have a seat at the table.

Jeremi Gorman :

I think one of the joys of having a 3,000 person company is that you're heard. Whether you want to be or not.

Sam Saperstein:

There's only so many people around.

Jeremi Gorman :

There's only so many people around. And of course like for me, having come from these behemoths before it's like oh.

Sam Saperstein:

Right, right. This feels small.

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah. Like literally. And our primary mode of communication internally is Snapchat. So it's like two seconds.

Sam Saperstein:

Wow.

Jeremi Gorman :

To be heard.

Sam Saperstein:

Small and immediate.

Jeremi Gorman :

So yes, I would say that culturally the to be heard is pretty available at any minute. Evan is like, just send me an email, and I'll get back to you. And none of us ever put out of office messages on, which by the way is really stressful right now, because we're very time shifted.

Sam Saperstein:

Because here you are.

Jeremi Gorman :

But I think it's the right message, which is like I'm not gone. I just need a little bit of delay before I get back to you. So accessibility for sure, and then I think people are feeling heard. We also have hired an incredible VP of DNI, named [Una 00:18:55] King. She came from Google, but prior to which she was in parliament in the UK working on these issues. So she's amazing and is infusing a lot of different thinking into the company beyond just gender and race. So one of my personal passion points, and one of her initiatives she's helping me with, is figuring out how to get more socioeconomic diversity, not only in the company, but in tech in general.

Jeremi Gorman :

I think of my position, when I graduated from college, I was in a good position that my parents were able to help me with college. And so I didn't have loans, but the job I was offered at Monster paid $21,000 a year. And I was also offered your standard management consultant job from all the big five firms that paid twice as much as that. And I worry that had my parents not paid for college, which I thank them for every minute, I would have chosen an alternative path, and that probably would have been a perfectly good path to, and it was, for a lot of my friends, but I got to take a risk that people that are just buried in these college loans don't get to take. And so, the socioeconomic impact of coming to a company that's feels smaller, or riskier, or tech is confusing, or whatever, we have to get those thinkers in the building. So that's one of our huge initiatives. It's everywhere in the building and on my team we're about 50/50.

Sam Saperstein:

That's great.

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah, across the board, which is awesome.

Sam Saperstein:

Super excited.

Jeremi Gorman :

Yeah.

Sam Saperstein:

So you were involved in the reorganization of the sales teams back in April, and during the second quarter sales call predicted that while that might be disruptive in the short term, it would have very longterm benefits. So when you're thinking about something that will definitely impact employees that way, how are you communicating that to employees and thinking about their morale, and making sure that they're with you as you really implement something that company needs to do?

Jeremi Gorman :

I think it's the hardest thing to do and the easiest thing to screw up. In this particular case, we over-communicated the why, and I think that was really important. One of the things that I had sort of said to myself before I even started was like, "I'm just listen for the first 30 days and then formulate a plan in the next 30 days and then act the next 30 days."

Jeremi Gorman :

And ultimately what happened was that during the listening period, it became very clear that what I had already hypothesized around the verticalization of the sales team and breaking into certain segments was something that the team was sort of yearning for too, but nobody had pulled the trigger because they thought that it was going to be too disruptive to client relationships for everybody to change from a regional model to a vertical model at the same time.

Jeremi Gorman :

So I did more listening with the advertisers and was like, "Do you wish that somebody was more of an expert in your field", in whatever it is, financial services, automotive entertainment. And they did. And so it was like between those two things, it actually only took about two weeks to make the decision. And that was very stressful, because I was new. And you're right.

Sam Saperstein:

And a big decision.

Jeremi Gorman :

And people love their clients in the best possible way. And so it's like because we were regionally based before, imagine the same person had Target and McDonald's, both of whom are amazing partners of ours, and that same person is beloved by both of them, and they love their clients equally. And we're like, "You have to choose", because you can't be on the retail team and the restaurants team, because we need to level up our expertise in both. And therefore you have to pick a lane. That was hard for people, but giving those choices where we could, obviously you can't all the time, was really, really helpful. And so everybody really came along that journey. And then fortunately, for a litany of reasons, not just this one, but as you've probably seen in our earnings reports, revenue turned around pretty quickly. And so that's nice.

Sam Saperstein:

Okay. So here's a personal question for you. We talked a little bit about taking risks in the beginning. You talked about your career, but I understand you have a thrill seeking nature.

Jeremi Gorman :

I do.

Sam Saperstein:

To you. So tell us what are some of the craziest things you've done in the past to seek some thrills?

Jeremi Gorman :

So I think that it's just like the most measured thrill-seeking possible answer is that I knew, always, that I would be very corporate, and I love adventure, and I like fast cars, and fast boats, and all these things. And so I was like, "Okay, I will always deliberately do something insane so that-"

Sam Saperstein:

To balance out.

Jeremi Gorman :

To balance out my other stuff.

Sam Saperstein:

Corporate life.

Jeremi Gorman :

So I don't even know if that counts as crazy if you're like deliberately planning it, but nonetheless. Craziest thing I've ever done was in Rio. I went hang gliding, and landed on Copacabana Beach.

Sam Saperstein:

When you do these things, are you even afraid as you approach them, like what's going to happen here? Or you're just thinking, I'm just going to do this and I'll ask questions later.

Jeremi Gorman :

I'm afraid in the way that you want to be, right? Like that adrenaline, that version of like, "Oh my gosh, I can kind of do anything", and I think that's the same type of behavior when I jumped from a company like Amazon to, which at the moment in time, was the largest company in the world. And they're now obviously top three, and just say like, "I'm going to do this because it feels right like that." It's actually the exact same feeling.

Sam Saperstein:

The same feeling.

Jeremi Gorman :

Of like, "Oh my God. Oh my God, what am doing? I hope this works out", and luckily my gut now for different job changes, which isn't that many in a 21 year career, has worked out and so it's that same feeling where I know I can do anything.

Sam Saperstein:

It's going to be okay.

Jeremi Gorman :

So I think they are actually interrelated.

Sam Saperstein:

Well, I can't wait to hear what you do next. This is so exciting. Thank you so much for being with us.

Jeremi Gorman :

My pleasure.

Sam Saperstein:

It's been great to hear about your career, and to learn lessons that you've learned.

Jeremi Gorman :

My pleasure.

Sam Saperstein:

Thanks Jeremi.

Jeremi Gorman :

Thanks for having me.

Sam Saperstein:

Thanks to Jeremy Gorman for taking the time to speak with me about her work at Snap, and for talking about the value of taking risks in and out of the office.

Sam Saperstein:

Thank you for joining us today. The mission of Women on the Move is to help women in their professional and personal lives. Our goal is to introduce you to people with great ideas, inspiring stories, and a passion to make a difference. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe so you won't miss any others.

Sam Saperstein:

Thank you to our partners at the Female Quotient and Magnet Media for helping us tell these stories. For JPMorgan Chase's Women on the Move, I'm Sam Saperstein.