Jennifer Kenny, Speaker, Mentor, Mobilizer and Facilitator on Human Innovation
Jennifer Kenny speaks, mentors, trains and facilitates Human Innovation, with a specific focus on two of the big levers of innovation: technology and gender diversity. Her work is founded on Systems Thinking and Language Action Design and human-centred Design.
Jennifer has held senior consulting positions with Accenture, Booz Allen and Gartner, senior executive roles with Wells Fargo and Cisco, and was CIO, SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute) where she designed and led the enterprise's IT transformation program.
Jennifer was most recently honoured at the 2019 Silicon Valley ITLG Top 50 Global Awards. She was awarded the internationally acclaimed IDG DEMO Entrepreneurship Award and won the Intel (University of California) Business Plan Award.
Jennifer is on the Advisory Board/verses.io and is a Fellow of the Irish Computer Society. Jennifer holds an M.Sc. (Hons.), in Engineering Geology, Imperial College, University of London, a B.Sc.(Hons), in Geology and Chemistry from University College, Dublin. She currently lives in San Francisco.
Who do you most admire in business?
I think former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, is amazing; passionate, high integrity, no-nonsense, of service, learning form love and concern, agile, adaptable, principled. I know she is not 'in business', but it is hard to find business leaders I really admire. A lot of us are doing really great work, but the underlying system is fundamentally broken, so it is hard to be really admirable.
In the business realm, the best I can look for is people who try to act with integrity and manifest values I admire. Rose Marcario CEO of Patagonia, is one of those. When she took over as CEO, she evaluated Patagonia's production processes and revised them to be more environmentally friendly, by eliminating waste and excess packaging materials. And wow, surprise, Patagonia's profits have tripled since she joined in 2008. Indicating that a lot of us really like the idea of respecting the planet.
She has also been a vocal supporter of on-site child care. She believes that employer-operated child care facilities are the answer to getting more women on company boards and in CEO positions. Under her leadership, 100 per cent of the company's working mothers have returned to work after giving birth. So, someone is really aligning her energy and power of position with great values.
What companies or brands do you like or do you think are getting it right?
Patagonia, Flor (the rug company) because they are actually looking to the future. The future of 'growth' for business is going to be very different from how we understand growth today. We cannot continue to work in models that demand infinite growth on a finite planet.
What is the best advice you ever received?
"Life is for the Living" This is advice my Dad gave to me when I was very young. There are lots of different ways to listen to this. Life is for living well. Life is for people who are alive, don't spend lots of time lamenting the past, live in the present, be present, every moment is a gift, pause and really live – smell the roses. Living is a blessing; don't let anyone reduce your enjoyment of the gift.
What drives or motivates you each day?
I am grateful for the beauty and abundance I get to experience every day I'm alive. I always take time to smell the flowers and enjoy the beauty all around us in nature. I had cancer when I was in my 30's so it was a big wakeup call to really love every moment I can. The incredible magnificence of leaders also motivates me I meet every day, particularly innovators and women leaders – their generative abilities are astonishing!
What are your thoughts on the future of social media?
I think it is a really complex issue. Like all things tech – it has light and shadow sides. The light or beneficial side is to bring people closer together. But the dark side: control, surveillance, stealing our personal data without informing us, is very worrying. We need to educate ourselves and put in place legislation, with teeth, that will protect our freedoms while allowing us to build more empathy. The bottom line for me – is it can't just amplify the lowest common denominator, and be used as a tool for more control and consumerism.
Do you have a mentor or do you mentor anyone?
I definitely have a mentor. Anyone who is passionately committed to excellence or mastery in any domain needs a mentor or multiple mentors. I also mentor executives in emerging technologies to help them build innovation ecosystems. And I love to mentor a younger woman who is passionate about what they do and are looking to make a difference. I do quite a lot of that for young Irish women immigrating from Ireland to the US.
How do you network?
I network around my passions. I discovered a while ago that meeting people for the sake of meeting people was not my thing. I like to meet people who care about what I care about. So I network around Innovation, Emerging Technology, The social impact of AI, ML, Spatial Web etc. Women's Leadership, Women on Boards, Irish people in Technology. I'm fortunate enough to be an Irish woman living in Silicon Valley, where lots of Irish related technology events are hosted regularly. I try to network in person as much as possible, but I also use LinkedIn.
How did you get into this line of work and what advice would you have for someone looking to get into the same line of work?
I started off as a geological engineer. The emphasis on systems thinking leads me to where I am today. Everyone should learn systems thinking! I also recommend learning cognitive pragmatics and how we use language to create our future.
What do you wish you had known when you started out?
I wish I would have more deeply understood the value that women bring to the workplace and been more confident in my own opinions as a result.
What is the most common reason for people failing or giving up?
I think people lose sight of why they started in the first place. Mindfulness, passion is key, staying on a conversation with others who are similarly interested and doing something EVERY YEAR (or every month, week, day) that hurts your brain and pushes your learning. I mean, we are here to learn, right? However, we choose to do that.
What are you most proud of in your life?
I came to the US, 30 years ago, with the best education my parents could afford and $500. I have never stopped learning and creating opportunities for myself and others. I have always refused to play the doom and gloom game and have always been about what is really possible. Human Beings, under the right circumstances, are infinite, glorious possibility machines.
How do you define success?
I believe, if you have made 1; 10; 100; 1,000; 1,000,000 beings (people, plants, animals, ecosystems) lives' better because of your existence, then you have been successful. You can do that by example, or be active direct engagement, but if you make it a narcissistic experience, you have failed miserably.
What do you think your unique skills are that have helped you become successful?
I practice deep listening. This allows me to be fully present with others and see the situation as clearly as I am able. I'm ALWAYS learning and studying. And I pay a lot of attention to what 'game' is that I'm in at any time and how that serves what I am committed to making happen in the world. This enables me to be very strategic.
What valuable lessons have you learned so far that you could share?
My newest meme is "Less effort, more joy."
Anything new you are working on that you would like to share?
My book STAND UP - Groundbreaking ways to speak your value as a woman leader is coming out soon, and I'm releasing the first 30 pages of the book to the first 100 people who subscribe to my newsletter. You can subscribe at www.jenniferkenny.com.
What do you see as the measurable impact of women in the business, and what is their effect on the company in your perspective?
We are getting more solid data every day on the real value of gender balance. It's something many women have always known, but it is really showing up in business. Women are proving their value in business over and over again. Women raise less money but return more revenue (Inc). Companies with more woman are more innovative than others (HBR). Gender diverse companies outperform others on profitability (McKinsey).
I'm looking forward to better gender balance in politics and policymaking – I think that will have a huge impact on our own and planet's overall Well-Being. (New York Times Article). I love the work that Jacinta Ardern is doing via NZ's Well Being Budget. I think that this is the future. Balancing Well Being with Production. Scaling production of 'stuff' back to focus on the well-being of all.
"The world would be better if men thought more like women."; (66% agreed) - Do you agree with this statement, or do you think the men's thought is also helpful for the world? In which lines of life do you think is better to think more like women or men?
Yes and no. What we need is balanced leadership. We need both female and male leadership traits to be used to reach out full 100% leadership capacity. But the problem is that no one knows what female leadership is.
There have been no distinctions for it, until now. I've spent the last 20 years building an ontology of women's leadership. I've worked with women executives in all industries and by coaching, observing and mentoring them, I have come up with a new language for women's leadership. Can learn all about it in my new book (STAND UP) groundbreaking ways to speak your value as a woman leader.
One of the data that you presented about social impacts says that developing countries “for every 1 dollar a woman makes; she invests 80% on her family. For every 1 dollar a man makes, he invests 30% on his family.” What’s your thought on it?
I think it's indicative of how women earners are more involved with their community. For every $1 a woman earns, 80 % goes back into her community. She spends on clothes for her children; she spends it at her friend's business; she buys goods etc. She is generating more for the economy.
"For every $1 a man earns, only 30% goes back into the community. Men spend on themselves rather than re-investing it in the community. If you want to fix the economy, invest in the generative power of women."
Understanding that, there is a huge number of regulations created in the 1960s by men for men (such as climate in the office). How do you think can the companies improve the way that they look at all types of genders nowadays?
Simple! Embrace diversity and inclusion. Not as an HR fix or social justice imperative, but really as a necessity for being competitive in business. The easiest thing we can do is have more women and gender diverse individuals in decision making positions. In 2018 California passed a law requiring all publicly held companies to have ¼ of the members be women. That's progress.
How we can improve all the types of genders in the business society (considering all types of gender as male, female, transgender, gender-neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these)?
I take a cue from Millennials on this one. They know that gender is a social construct. It's a spectrum of how one identifies, and it doesn't limit your leadership abilities based on how you self-identify. Rather, embracing the diversity of gender allows companies and leaders to fully leverage all the great leadership qualities that exist. Forget the binary, embrace the spectrum!
Remember: Nature uses diversity to innovate!