Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have Her Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. Her Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum.

Erica: We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career in life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside her collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. For women in the corporate world where the climb to the C suite can seem like a journey that is walked alone, Katy McFee, CEO of Insights to Action, is a woman on a mission. With a corporate career that landed her in an EVP role in tech, Katy's path was, you guessed it, not always smooth sailing. We talk about the mindset challenges and the often overlooked perception problem that hinders progress. You will hear her insights as she unravels the complexities of why women find themselves in these career plateaus, and the best part, she provides actionable strategies for breaking free.

Erica: But the story doesn't end there. From her view in the executive suite, Katy makes a pivotal career change and now empowers women in their career journeys, demystifying the path to senior leadership. This episode is jam packed with actionable insights and tangible tactics that you can use to accelerate your climb. So grab a pen, grab a piece of paper, because you're gonna wanna take notes. Katy, welcome to the podcast From Now to Next.

Erica: I am so thrilled that you were able to create some time for me today. How are you?

Katy: I am great, and I'm thrilled to be here. I'm super excited for our conversation.

Erica: Let's dive in. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Who are you? What do you do? Who is Katy?

Katy: Yeah. So I'm the CEO at Insights to Action. It's a company on a mission to help more women get to the exec suite and thrive as senior leaders. Prior to that, I had an eighteen year corporate career. So I did finally end up becoming a VP and an EVP in the tech space.

Katy: But I really struggled with my journey going from manager to director to VP. And what I noticed when I got there was a couple things. One was, wow, I thought that everyone here was like magical unicorns until I got here, and they are just regular people like us. But secondly, I saw so many women and men get stuck in those same spots.

Katy: And so, ultimately, I decided to leave my corporate career, start my company where now I can help other women break glass ceilings and teach them all of the lessons that I learned through my corporate career.

Erica: I love it. You are my Canadian counterpart here. This is perfect. So I've got a question for you to kick it off. Why do people get stuck?

Katy: Yeah. I think it's two main things where we are keeping ourselves stuck. I'm not talking about external factors, which might be bias or might be opportunity. But ways that we keep ourselves stuck, there's two.

Katy: One is our mindset. The other is what I call the perception problem. So the mindset piece is, you're too afraid to raise your hand and share your great idea. You're not showing up as your full authentic self. You're not challenging your manager when you need to.

Katy: You're not really taking that command. All of these things that are often rooted in fear, in limiting beliefs, all of that stuff. On the flip side, there's what I call the perception problem, which is you feel like you're ready and your boss isn't seeing it. And that can be being stuck in the weeds, stuck in the doing, feeling like our value is in getting stuff done.

Katy: And so not making that sort of transition into more strategic activities, not changing our communication style to ensure that we are communicating effectively with VPs and C suite execs, which is a little bit of a different skill. And I think it's one that is not talked about enough, and it's certainly not taught from where I've sat. And so that's a big part of what I do, is try to break that stuff down in a really tangible way, because it is all learnable.

Erica: I love it. And this is gonna lead me to my next question because it's come up twice for me this week. And I've had two different women come to me that have gotten feedback on their voice. Not just like, oh, maybe they have uptalk and it comes up at the end, but their actual voice.

Erica: And they're like, what am I supposed to do, speak deeper? You tell women who are getting this feedback that we can't take you seriously because of your voice, what do you say?

Katy: Yeah. I mean, there's gonna be some bias that exists. To me, if someone's saying it is your actual tone of voice, the thing that I always recommend to people, if you get feedback like that, I'm like, lean into curiosity. We can go to the place of fear, we can go to the place of not enough or anger or whatever. But I'm like, lean into curiosity and say, okay, this is my natural speaking voice, help me understand what you're recommending specifically.

Katy: Are you recommending that I speak in a different voice? It's entirely possible that they're saying it's your voice, it could be the way this person's presenting themselves and their voice is what they're pulling out. But, I mean, I get it, because we know if you recall, like Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos speaking in a deeper tone, I don't think that was an accident. There is an element of when you, if you have a high voice, and I don't, like I feel like my voice is a little bit on the lower side, which I used to be mortified by, but now I'm like, oh, maybe it served me, I don't know.

Katy: Then that is something that it's almost like you just need to be aware of. I remember starting my career, I was like 24. I looked young. And I was in biotech. And I knew that people weren't going to automatically take me seriously.

Katy: It was the hard truth I had to admit to myself. Based on my appearance, people were not going to automatically assign credibility to what I was sharing in a very technical space. And so I did things to help them take me more seriously. I knew my stuff cold, I always knew my stuff cold so that no one could question my knowledge. But I also, I wore my hair back.

Katy: I didn't wear big jewelry. I dressed more conservatively. And when I think back, I'm like, you know, it's too bad, I wasn't really letting my full authentic self shine because I was so afraid of that. And so I don't necessarily think that people should go all the way where I did, right, I think that we want to still be authentic to who we are. But I think that being honest with yourself about, how am I being perceived today?

Katy: And am I bringing my best self forward? Am I acting in a way that's credible and strategic and, quote, senior? And what can I do to impact that?

Erica: I talk a lot with people about the importance of perception, and impact, intent versus impact, and how then perception plays into that, because it's true. And especially, like you said, entering the workforce at 24, looking young, actually being young, and being in the workforce, there's a lot of people who will just kinda wave you off. Like, she doesn't know what she's talking about, she has no experience, and they don't, like you said, automatically assign this credibility. I love how you phrased that.

Erica: What is another hard truth that you learned in corporate America, especially about being a woman?

Katy: So I would say this is one that I learned, and it surprised me a little bit. But I would say, they're kind of two things combined. One, I believe women have to be better than their male counterparts to get that same level. I think that if you see a man and a woman at a VP level, generally speaking, that woman is actually leveled up a little bit because it is that much harder for us to get there.

Katy: The second thing is I feel that the expectations of women are higher at the exec level. And so by that, I mean, a woman's gonna be more likely to be let go if she's not performing compared to her male counterpart who's perhaps not performing at that same level. The expectations of her are just gonna be higher. And this is, again, something that I saw during my career, and it surprised me a little bit. I hadn't actually expected that, but I sort of saw it over and over where it's like the women at the exec levels were almost expected to be perfect.

Katy: We're expected to be unicorns, whereas the men at the exec levels were just expected to perform as men at the exec level.

Erica: Well, there's been actually a lot of studies out there where it has shown that men don't have to prove their expertise or their authority or their respect. Women have to perform consistently time after time after time in order to get that same level of respect in the workplace. So it's not that you just saw it, it's that that's like factual all over the place. So I love that, because we tell our children and we tell so many people, show up, be authentic, be your true self, that's the lesson that we teach them throughout life.

Erica: But then we get into this corporate world, and it is a totally different game, especially for women, because the bar is set higher for us. It is not a level playing field, and so we have to play by different rules. So when you think about some of those different rules, what would you say is your top one or two rules that you would tell women they need to be aware of when playing the game in corporate and climbing that ladder, trying to get out of that manager director level into VP, EVP?

Katy: Yeah. One of the things to me, when I think about this perception problem, one is ensuring that you're communicating in a really effective way. So I always talk about the three C's of communication, clear, concise, compelling. Because so many people get stuck there.

Katy: It's super simple, but it's like simple is not easy. So when you're sharing information, especially peers and up, prep for that. Take your top three points and deliver it in like a concise way. So I find that that is really impactful in terms of the way you're presenting.

Katy: In terms of other rules, if I think back to the mindset piece, which is the other element that can hold us back, I really think of focusing on self awareness. I think so many people go through life and never really tap into true self awareness. There's so many ways we can do that, through a mindfulness practice, through regular reflection. Those were both things that really helped me.

Katy: But certainly, in my corporate career, creating a regular reflection practice where I was able to regularly say, how did this meeting go? Okay, it went well, why did it go well, what did I do, okay, I'm gonna keep doing that. Or, hey, I pitched this idea to the management team, and they asked me a bunch of questions and poked holes in it, it did not go the way I thought it was going to, why was that, what could I have done better?

Katy: When we start to create that habit in our life, we are just going to naturally get better and better, and learn from our own experience. I've heard a quote that was like, we don't learn from our mistakes, or we don't learn from our experience, we learn from reflecting on our experience. I was like, that is so powerful. It's so true.

Erica: It is. Because otherwise, we can just shove that way down deep and never revisit it again.

Katy: Totally. We could just keep making the same mistake over and over, which I have done. But also stuff I've learned is, like, trial and error.

Erica: Right. And sometimes you have to learn it a few times. But I love this, because it's almost like you're saying, put together this premortem with making sure that your communication and your talking points are very clear and concise and compelling, and then creating the postmortem to say, was I clear, concise, and compelling, did it really come through the way I intended it, and did my impact land? I think that's perfect.

Erica: Katy, when you think back to your sticky floor, the limiting beliefs, toxic behaviors that you experienced in corporate that kept you stuck, you talk a lot about mindset, you talk a lot about mindfulness, where did that show up in your life?

Erica: Hey there, listeners. If you have ever felt like you're stuck in a place, held back by self doubt, perfectionism, or that pesky inner critic, you're not alone. We all face those sticky floors that keep us from reaching the heights we dream of. But guess what? It's time to shatter those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors to uncover infinite possibilities.

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Erica: It's your road map to success, confidence, and freedom. Grab your copy of Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors today at www.ericaandersonrooney.com. Whether you're in the boardroom, the classroom, or just starting out, this book is for you because no one, and I mean no one, deserves to stay stuck, no one deserves to feel small, and you have glass ceilings to shatter. Let's do this.

Katy: Yeah. So when I think about this specific time in my career where I was at a company for eight and a half years, I was a director for five of those years trying to get to that next level. I made a lot of mistakes. So I've got a plethora to pull from.

Katy: But one of them was not putting enough intention into how I was presenting myself. So let me explain. The CEO that I was working for, I had known this guy by the end, by the time I left, I'd known him for fifteen years. He reached out and recruited me to come work for this company and build a sales and marketing org. And so I had that level of trust already.

Katy: And I think that I almost rested on my laurels a little bit. I was like, this guy thinks I'm the best, so I don't need to try to impress him. And I'm generalizing, of course I wanted to impress him, but I would go into meetings with him and be like, oh, I wanna talk about some ideas, where now me looking back, that is not the way to get promoted. Instead, I should have been preparing my idea, thinking about how I wanted to present it to him, going into that meeting and taking it more seriously.

Katy: A lot of my life, I had spent winging things, and that worked for me in high school, and it kinda worked for me in university, although I had to learn to study. But then my career was in sales, and I was pretty good at winging meetings. I had never put a lot of time into intentionally prepping for things. And when I got to a leadership team, I realized that this is not working for me anymore, I need to slow down and put more intention into the things I'm doing. So that was one of them for sure.

Katy: Another one was that definitely my mindset, where I felt intimidated by the people on the team. And initially coming in, it was like ignorance was bliss, and I was sharing my ideas. But as I wasn't getting promoted at the rate that I wanted to, I started to really question myself. And in this period of my life, a couple things happened.

Katy: I was also in a very toxic, abusive relationship. And then I was in this work situation where I was constantly being told, you're not there yet, I'm not sure if you're even, like, ready ever gonna be a VP. And so all of this really took a toll on my confidence, where towards the end of that, I knew I wasn't showing up as my best self. But I just could not, I did not know how to fix it at that point.

Katy: I was kinda beat down, I would say. And so what I needed at that point was a fresh start. I was talking about this with a group of women yesterday, where sometimes we can get into a space where things haven't been going our way. We start to get into a bit of a negative mindset, almost like a downward spiral that we cannot get out of.

Katy: And when that happens, you need to shift your mindset, but you can't always do that where you are. Sometimes the environment you're in is not conducive to making that shift. And so that was something that took me too long to realize, I would say. I probably spent longer than I needed to in that role, trying, I felt like I was banging my head against the wall every day.

Katy: And one thing I think is, it shouldn't be that hard. When I moved into my new VP role, I was really successful in that role, I enjoyed my job more, and it felt easier. Whereas I had been doing the grind for years and years before, it just felt so hard every day. So I was just in this, again, I was stuck in this space where I almost felt that I wasn't allowed to leave until I accomplished my goal.

Katy: I was like, I can't leave, I haven't made it happen yet. And so I was just putting myself through torture for a lot longer than I needed to, when I probably could have just said, is this situation serving me? I've been in this position for x amount of time, is this really where I want to be? And maybe I would have admitted, no, it's not, I think I need to take my chances somewhere else.

Erica: Well, yeah, I mean, you've got this boss who's like, I don't know if you're ever gonna be a VP, like, damn, that is the GTFO sign right there, because that person does not have a growth mindset. That person, it's not even saying that they don't believe in you, but they could have approached that with, I don't think you're ever gonna be a VP if you continue on like this, however, these are the actionable things you need to do.

Katy: Well, and this is something that I tell people now. If you're thinking about, should I stay or should I go, if there's no path for you where you are, if your manager isn't able to say, okay, this is what you need to work on to get here. I was getting feedback, but it was vague. It was, you need to be more strategic. And I, at that time, did not know what that meant.

Erica: Yeah, what the hell does that mean?

Katy: Oh, I was googling, like, what is strategic, I'm like, I think I know, but clearly I don't. Buying books, I think I bought at least three or four books about good strategy, bad strategy, or strategic thinking or whatever. Because I'm like, clearly I'm not doing the thing. And so there wasn't really a tangible path for me that, okay, I know I need to do this, this, and this in order to get to that next level.

Erica: I was interviewing Deb Liu yesterday, who is the CEO of Ancestry. She is the woman who created Facebook Marketplace. And she has a story in her book, which is called Take Back Your Power, and it's about, she had this dream job at Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg did not give it to her, not once, but twice. And I was like, Deb, how did you even stick around after that?

Erica: Because I would have crawled under my desk and never come back out. And she talked about, yes, it was hard, but in the way that Mark presented this to her, he was like, you are so much better and stronger and made for other things that I don't want you to keep doing the same thing.

Katy: I know.

Erica: So I love this whole should I stay or should I go concept, because, like, had that been me, I probably would have been gone.

Katy: Oh yeah, I know, I know. And, hindsight's twenty twenty. In retrospect, though, because I learned so much reporting to this person. He was a hard boss in a lot of ways.

Katy: I never got that position that I wanted. And, to be clear, there was no VP above me. There was, I reported right to the CEO, so I couldn't get the title even without, it was an empty, it was like there was somebody that had to leave. So, but I really feel that that experience, although in a lot of ways it did knock me down, it also really leveled me up from a skill perspective.

Katy: So when I finally got that VP role, I was like, this is easy, because I had learned so much in this role. And I think that there's also an element sometimes when you are at the same place for a long time, someone's known you for a long time. Like I mentioned, that CEO had known me from the very beginning of my career. You can grow a lot, and people can still look at you as the person you were when you join.

Erica: Yeah, they can't see you any other way.

Katy: There's some truth to that. And so sometimes, if you wanna get to that next level, you do need to go take your talents elsewhere, where you're coming in fresh, they don't know you, and you can step in as that VP or as that C suite exec on day one.

Erica: A fresh start, a fresh perspective. Don't be afraid to walk away from something that isn't serving you, which leads me to my next question, because here you are rocking it out as an EVP, and we're not doing that anymore. Now we have our own business, we're bringing women into positions of power, making them all executives. Walk me through that transition.

Katy: Yeah, it's ironic, right? I spent, so fifteen years it took me to get my first VP position. Then I moved into an EVP position, which was also a great supportive company.

Katy: Both of those roles were wonderful. And so this was what I learned. I got to this EVP position, I'm like, my life is perfect, and I am miserable. So this was a burnout event that I went through, which I think had to do, one, with just overworking myself for years and years and years.

Katy: But the second is that I actually was no longer aligned with what I was doing. And oftentimes, burnout has a lot more to do with not being aligned than it does with how many hours you're working. And I always say, real burnout, you're not gonna fix that with a week in Mexico. Like, it is no joke.

Katy: And so that is what I went through, where I was just feeling really fragile and negative and unhappy. And I was like, what the heck, what's going on here? And so I took a bit of time, I mean, I was still working, but I took a few days and started to just explore, what do I really want in life? And I think I'd been after that goal for so long, I had not stopped to ask myself, what do I actually want my life to look like?

Katy: Probably ever. I had just been going and pursuing what was next. And so for the first time, probably in my whole career, since being 25 and deciding I wanted to be a VP, I took some time to think, what do I want my life to look like? What do I want my days to look like?

Katy: What do I want my impact to be? And I realized that there was elements of being an executive that I really enjoyed. But the things that drove me the most were the mentorship, helping other women, I had been on a board, like a nonprofit, Women Powering Technology. That was the stuff that made me wanna jump out of bed in the morning, not my day to day job.

Katy: And so that was a pretty harsh reality for me, because I had spent so long building this career, and I had a lot of fear around leaving it in terms of my ego, will I be important in the world if I'm not an executive anymore? Will anyone even care about me? And that's the stuff that, usually we don't say out loud. But those are inner fears.

Katy: We've got these inner fears of, who am I if I am not Katy, the corporate person? And as soon as I allowed myself to start to think about, what could my days look like, what if I did actually start my own business, what could that look like, it was like I couldn't unsee it. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. I was like, I think I need to quit my job.

Katy: So I ended up making that decision. It was a really hard decision, but the best one, because I now really feel like I'm living my purpose.

Erica: I have already cyberstalked, you've done all the things, but tell everybody here, you've got an executive presence course they can take, you've got a whole, you've got masterclasses galore. Tell us how people can work with you.

Katy: Yeah, my big goal is demystifying what it takes to get to senior leadership, breaking it down, making it simple, also building communities. So some of the stuff that people can do with me, I do have a master executive presence digital course, which is like a self paced course that anyone can do at any time.

Katy: I really try to break it down, make it super simple, super digestible, because executive presence is one of these evasive, vague things that people aren't quite sure how to develop, so I just make it easy for them. I also have a free masterclass coming up on January 9, which is the top three things that hold women back from a seat at the table. So I talk about what do I see that holds women back today.

Katy: It's an interactive masterclass, so you get a little workbook and you can work through and be like, what's holding me back, does this resonate with me. So people should definitely sign up for that, because it's totally free, and there's a couple different time slots they can choose. And at the end of that, I talk about my group program, which also launches a little bit later in January.

Katy: My group program is near and dear to my heart. When I was a director and I was stuck, I think back and I was like, what was the exact thing I wish I had? And then that's what I created as my group program. So it's like an accelerator to help you get to that next level.

Katy: And it combines structured curriculum, group coaching, and then a community of women. And so every single week, you get a chance to connect with other women who are in the same boat as you. I just wrapped up one of my groups yesterday, and it's such a special experience to be part of that community of women. So those are the ways that people can work with me.

Erica: Which is perfect, because we're heading into 2024, everybody's gonna have goals that they're trying to get after, so perfect timing. And Katy, I've got one last question for you, it's my favorite one to ask. If you could go back in time to corporate Katy who's stuck, what would be the one piece of advice you would give her?

Katy: The big thing I would tell her is, you belong at the table. If you want that seat at the table, you deserve it just as much as anyone else, and the stuff you need to do to get there is learnable. That would be the thing I would tell her.

Erica: Yes, all that is so true. Katy, thank you so much, this was such a fun and awesome conversation. I feel like we could go on for a whole another hour.

Katy: It was great. Thank you so much for having me.

Erica: Y'all, Katy is not only a badass, but an inspiration. She is a woman who not only conquered the corporate climb, but is taking it further by empowering women and helping them land that leadership role. So y'all know she is my kind of girl. So make sure that you check out her free masterclass, I will be there in attendance because I know that it is going to be amazing.

Erica: So until next time, I hope you have a fantastic day, and please head on down, rate, review, and subscribe if you haven't already, because it truly lands in the hands of the woman who needs to hear it the most.