[00:00]Brian Jackson: Welcome to Owl Have You Know, a podcast from Rice Business. This episode is part of our Flight Path Series, where guests share their career journeys and stories of the Rice connections that got them where they are.

Joining us today is Summer Husband, a Rice Ph.D. Thank you so much for being here, Summer.

[00:17]Summer Husband: Thanks so much for having me.

[00:19]Brian Jackson: Well, great. Well, we're here because of the Women in Leadership Conference. You were hosting a workshop, or on a workshop. Could you tell me a bit about what you were working on?

[00:29]Summer Husband: Yeah. So, I had the fantastic opportunity to co-present a workshop with one of the Rice MBA school professors, Kathleen Perley, who is incredibly talented. And we spoke together about unleashing your inner cyborg and also addressing the ethics of AI. So, we spoke some about just how to empower women in their roles by really leaning in with AI, but to do that in a very mindful way, addressing the ethics and the risks that go with these very powerful tools.

[01:03]Brian Jackson: I feel like, every conversation with AI, you're on the cutting edge, because it's progressing so quickly and we're trying to all catch up. So, when you look at it in terms of ethics, you know, is it a broad definition? How are we trying to define it?

[01:18]Summer Husband: Yeah. So, that's a great question. And just laying the groundwork, too. You're absolutely right. It's not just hype that it's changing very quickly. The technology is changing so rapidly. When we look at our pipeline of AI use cases at Worley, there are things that we had tagged as not technically feasible a few months ago, last spring, last summer that now are feasible. The technology is just changing really quickly, which makes this a very exciting space to be in, but it makes it really challenging around ethics.

One of the other, I think, challenges in this space is, because it's fairly new, it's changing rapidly, so the technology is changing rapidly. The legal landscape is changing really rapidly, also. So, some of the partners that we tend to go to for playbooks in these spaces don't have a fully baked playbook in this space. A lot of organizations are needing to define and figure out their approach to ethics and AI together.

So, at Worley, we're approaching that with a pretty comprehensive approach that includes our AI experts, of course, our legal experts. We want to ensure that we've got our operations involved in that. They're the ones that are, you know, boots on the ground and are going to be using these tools. We've had to cast a pretty wide net, but we've had to do a lot of discovering and shaping for ourselves.

[02:44]Brian Jackson: So, I mean, AI can move at warp speed. It seems like the human factor is the part that's going to slow down the progression. You know, is that what you're finding? And I guess, in terms of getting to answering these questions about, okay, these are the limits in terms of ethics, you know, are we able to keep the pace? Are you able to keep the pace?

[03:05]Summer Husband: Yeah. So, there definitely are some roadblocks in keeping pace. And the risk and the ethical concerns is one of those. But I would say, also, having the right skill set in your workforce and upskilling your workforce — that's a challenge. There's a real opportunity for people who know their business very well and do the work to learn how to deploy AI in their field, in their area. It's that combination of skills. I think there are a lot of very smart people doing very smart things to build really amazing technology. What I think a lot of businesses have challenges with and where we face a bit of a roadblock is, how do you deploy those tools well in a breadth of different businesses?

So, also, it makes sense. It's an opportunity for people who are willing to, kind of, lean in and take a risk there to differentiate themselves.

[04:06]Brian Jackson: So, when you talk about upskilling, could you give me a bit of an example of that?

[04:10]Summer Husband: Yeah. So I'll give one great example. So, we just deployed something called the Sales Response Generator. So, it's a generative-AI-powered tool that our sales team uses to automate a lot of the process of responding to an expression of interest. So, we'll get an expression of interest from an organization, and we have very little control over the format. So, that could come as a PDF. It could come as an Excel. It could come as a Word. And we previously had a lot of repeated activity in going to gather, what are the documents that I need to respond to this? You know, what's the specific question that's being asked? Okay. Where have we done this before? A lot of hunting and gathering.

But it's repetitive. So, we built a generative-AI-enabled tool that automatically generates the first-draft response to an expression of interest. And then we have a human come in and refine that, to review and refine that product.

Well, for this tool to be successful, we needed… there's no way the AI team is not going to build this on their own without very active ownership and involvement from the sales team. We're actually really fortunate. Actually, it's a Rice MBA grad, Luis Rodriguez, who has been one of the business owners of this process in our organization. But he is curious and wanted to figure out how to better deploy AI for his team.

And that's really exciting. I think it's one of the things I enjoy most about my job. I love working with the technical people on my team. They're incredibly talented. I also really love working cross-functionally with folks in different business areas. So, that, you know, entrepreneurial mindset can be a huge enabler for organizations.

[06:06]Brian Jackson: When I think about your Ph.D. in computational applied mathematics to, all of a sudden… Not all of a sudden, but to a progression of vice president of data products and applied intelligence. I mean, one, your role, probably, was it around 20 years ago, 15 years ago?

[06:23]Summer Husband: No, the work that… and I like to point this out, Brian, that the work I was doing, really good work right out of my Ph.D. program at Rice in the Department of Defense space, the work that we would essentially get problems that didn't have an out-of-the-box solution. And it was our job to say, “Okay, what's the… to, kind of, structure the problem and figure out what's the right approach?”

The right approach, very often, was a machine learning algorithm. Well, 20 years ago, the entire job was to, okay, identify what's the machine learning algorithm and then to code that up. Well, that whole process has been automated, you know, at this point, that, you know, what was my entire job that I think was very valuable and I'm very proud of has been automated for years, so that, you know, you can't get married to the details of your current job. Just technology is going to change things. So, I think I've veered from your original question.

[07:18]Brian Jackson: No, no. It's a great response, because I mean, to me, it's just everything I talk about in terms of… I'm in the energy world, so data centers come up. I might as well just get it tattooed on my forehead. We talk about it so much. And that conversation has changed in six months. And the technology we're talking about, the computational power, the energy usage, water usage, I'm on the outskirts of it. I'm seeing the data centers that are, you know, housing the AI and allowing for that computational power to actually be there and available, but know nothing about what's actually machine learning.

[07:58]Summer Husband: It's a fascinating… it, really, is a fascinating space. And the speaker in the keynote this morning, she was fantastic, but she was encouraging the audience to get a minor in AI, across the board. No matter what you're doing, you need to get a minor in AI. It's going to impact your job. It's going to be… you're going to be much more empowered in your role if you're identifying, “how does AI impact my role?” You know more about your job than 99% of the world does. You are much better placed to figure out how to deploy AI to supercharge your role than anyone else does.

[08:34]Brian Jackson: So, leveraging it to be more valuable. If it can write emails for me that don't necessarily require me to sit there and sweat over for two hours, maybe I should be doing it. Is that a better use of company time?

[08:48]Summer Husband: Yes. 100%. You could even write them in the format of a poem.

[08:51]Brian Jackson: You know, I have asked AI to write an email and I said, “Do it in the style of Hemingway.” It was a great email.

[08:57]Summer Husband: I love it. Yeah, that's a joke. But seriously, I have colleagues who've said, this is actually… it's really impacted their jobs. They've struggled over adding enough emotional connection in email and they've offended people without meaning to, and that being able to write the bullet points of an email and then ask AI to, like, make it nice has actually impacted, you know, their careers.

[09:21]Brian Jackson: Empathy up.

[09:22]Summer Husband: Yes, up the empathy. Yeah, I need that chip in all my voice, up the empathy.

[09:28]Brian Jackson: So, you, kind of, hinted on a bit, and I'd love to chat about, you know, your work with the U.S. Navy Airborne Laser Mind Detection System program. What was the genesis of working on that project? And, I guess, looking at the technology from then and looking at now, you know, what are some of the lessons learned?

[09:48]Summer Husband: So, that's one of my favorite projects that I worked on. So, essentially, this was… so, first, the organization that I was with Metro, it's the job that I got right out of grad school. They hire a lot of Ph.D.s in math and computer science and are continuing to do some really fascinating work.

The problem there was you needed to be able to automatically detect mines. What it looked like at that, you know, this was 20 years ago, before ships were navigating a particular area, they'd have helicopters that scan to try to pick up, are there any mines in the area? And you had a human that would look at thousands and thousands of photographs to say, “Yes, this is a mine. No, this is not a mine.” And the false alarm rate was extremely high, so 99.9% of what an operator looked at would be a false alarm.

Humans are not well-suited to that kind of — highly repetitive, you know, very few actual hits. But what was really interesting, and it was a great way to learn about machine learning, machine learning actually wasn't… I did a little bit of it in graduate school. A lot of what you do in a Ph.D. program is learn how to learn. So, I learned a lot about machine learning in that first job. But you would sit down with a human operator who was very good at distinguishing what is a false alarm and what is not, and say, “Okay, what is it about this photo that tells you this is a false alarm?” And they would say, “Well, you know, the white spot is too big.” Then you think, as a mathematician, “Okay, well, how do I quantify that?” Well, that's the amount of light that's covered, you know, in this area. You know, how can I automate that and make that a quick measurement that comes off of…

[11:34]Brian Jackson: So, you give it parameters, right? 

[11:35]Summer Husband: You give it some parameters. And that's a feature of machine learning. What we just did is identify a feature of a machine learning algorithm.

Another one was the brightness of the spot compared to the depth that was detected at. Again, you can compare how bright is this spot, how deep was it detected? And again, that's another filter that you can put on.

So, the process, I really loved that the process of talking to a human operator, understanding what is their work, what is their world, understanding their expertise, and then figuring out, how do I automate that to make your life better?

[12:10]Brian Jackson: And that's what it is. I mean, you're automating it to make life better. Because imagine the work before. It sounds awful. You're looking at thousands of images, and you're just trying to pick which one may or may not be, and then someone else is going to look at that image, right?

[12:24]Summer Husband: There's better work for humans to do, yes. And that's a lot of what we're doing with AI. I'm going to be honest about it. There's some spaces that cause me concern, that cause a lot of people concern. But there are a lot of places where we can bring in AI and automation to automate tasks that are better suited to a machine and that free up humans to do higher level and more rewarding and satisfying work.

[12:48]Brian Jackson: What would be those areas that cause concern for you?

[12:51]Summer Husband: Oh, anything that… you know, we are in the… I'm in the engineering field. We've got to work in first principles. So, when we get to… we're starting to… we're leaning in more on some AI use cases that have to do more with the core of our business. We can't take… there are a lot of things we can't take a probabilistic approach to. First principles physics is really important. So, making sure you have the right… that you're grounded in physics, where that's really important and where you're building actual physical things, is an area that we pay a lot of attention to.

Now, that's an area of some exciting research. So, physics-based AI is an area that's really growing. There's some fascinating research that's handled that's happening in that space. So, that's one that we think about.

And, you know, another area that you always have to be really careful about is, anytime you have AI, making decisions that impact people. With the very best intentions, you can do some really terrible things. So, it's extremely important that you have a very robust approach to AI governance that asks hard questions and gets beyond what was the intent of what you're providing versus what is the capability of what you're providing.

[14:17]Brian Jackson: I've played with AI myself, and ChatGPT, I think, is great. I'll ask it questions, and sometimes the responses aren't great. But when I refine it, give it the rules, give it more background information, I'm seeing the responses improve and improve and improve. So, I mean, do you think, as we continue and it continues to learn and it continues to have new parameters and new information, you know, we're going to be able to rely on these, you know, outputs and say, “Okay, we can make an actual decision on it?” You know, do we get to that point?

[14:49]Summer Husband: Well, I think you're all… well, first, I would say there, what's probably most impactful is your learning as a user. I mean, the models are really increasing in their accuracy, but also our proficiency in being able to deploy them well is also really increasing.

I think we are going to need humans in the loop and in a lot of… in many places, and we'll need to be very thoughtful about where we're doing that. But agentic AI is something that is technology that has really picked up speed, where you're deploying AI as an agent. So, it's taking action. You're not just getting information, it's taking action. So, we're definitely getting to some places where we put more trust in AI. But we're going to need to be really careful and thoughtful about that.

[15:42]Brian Jackson: Yeah. We still need, I call it the human factor. We can call it human intuition. Like, that needs to be a part of it, right? Do you think we ever get to, you know… I guess, really what I want to know is, where do you see human intuition and decision making still holding a strong advantage over AI? Is it just in these situations we're talking about complex problem solving with physics or, you know, actual decision having to be made?

[16:10]Summer Husband: So, first, I think it would be incredibly arrogant for me to say with a lot of confidence, this is absolutely the way it's going to look. You know, even two years from now, I think there's, you know, a lot of room for people to be extremely wrong. But right now, I can tell you the way we're actually deploying AI and some of the challenges that we're seeing where we really need people is coming up with, what are the right problems to solve? What are the interesting areas for us to be pointing AI towards?

That's, you know, a lot of what we were getting at in the session today on, you know, unleashing your inner cyborg and really leaning in with AI, is figuring out where the opportunities are, where to deploy it in your job. That is less explored than you think. I think most people under-appreciate what kind of an open field there is and figuring out where to deploy AI well in your job.

So, asking the right question is something that still is an area where humans have a lot of impact. People will catch up, but I think that you need the right combination of skill set. And I think it takes some intention. We've really… you know, this time a little over a year ago, we had an AI team of seven people that was functioning more as an R&D group. I feel very fortunate to be in an organization with executive leadership and a CEO who identified AI as a critical driver for transformation. He made significant investment in AI. We brought together our strategy group, our subject matter experts in that technical team, to really make a very intentional push and play around AI. We now have a team of 50-plus. It includes those AI experts. It also includes full stack developers. And we're very intentional about how we're partnering across the business.

So, this is what I'm talking about, too, about the right skill set in employees of putting… it's not just building up technical skills. It's putting the right mix of skills together. And I think you can do that more in individuals. I think it's going to be increasingly powerful to have expertise in your field, know your field really well, and have that minor in AI where you can identify, “Hey, this is where I can supercharge what I'm doing with AI.”

And, you know, in my career, some of the… I would say, if I were, kind of, thinking through who were the top five most impactful employees I've been privileged enough to have working on my team, that list is overwhelmingly populated with people who were not AI experts. But although, I want to be fair, my AI experts are fantastic. But the people who know their business really well and understand enough about the technology to be able to help direct, “Hey, no, no, no. This is actually the problem that you need to solve.” I had a really smart team member who helped redirect me on that. I had a model that I was so excited about. You got a very detailed probability curve of, you know, how likely a job was to be filled over time.

You got so much information out of the probability curve. I really was very attached to it. She had to, kind of, come in and say, “Nobody cares about that probability curve and it's actually getting in the way. What they want is red, yellow, green. You're getting in the way.” She said it much nicer than that, but that's essentially what she was saying.

[19:52]Brian Jackson: You’re really attached to this.

[19:55]Summer Husband: I really was. I really like all the information. But, you know, that kind of understanding, she understood the person who was going to be using the output of the model, she understood what they really needed, and she understood the UX, you know, the user experience of what we were doing. So, the technical skills are really important. You do really need that. But there are a lot of other skills that you need to have in the mix.

[20:18]Brian Jackson: It just sounds like humans aren't going obsolete, so we don't have to be afraid.

[20:21]Summer Husband: 100%. Yeah.

[20:23]Brian Jackson: But, you know, it's the truth. I think we're all, like, nervous in how to approach it. And be it ethics, be it your data, your information, the security of your confidential information, like, none of us are exactly sure where it goes out into the data sphere.

[20:38]Summer Husband: And I think it's also the, like, perceived risk versus actual risk. It feels risky. And there's a significant startup cost, I think, to really lean in with it. But it's also a very significant risk to do nothing. But you just don't feel it. It's not felt as much. And it doesn't have the startup, you know, kind of, that initial bump to get over.

[21:01]Brian Jackson: That's a great point. So, I mean, today, being woke, we're here on campus and you're talking about AI with folks, I'm curious, in your workshop, what types of questions were you getting? What's the general feeling around AI? Is it positive? Is it nervous?

[21:18]Summer Husband: Yeah. Well, it's a mix, as it would be in any audience. There were some questions from people you can tell are thinking deeply, who are already doing really cool things, and, you know, trying to figure out how to go from, you know, proof of concept models that they're already building. And how do you put that into production? And what are the right skill sets that you need? I mean, that is so super, super impressive. There's also, you know, some tentativeness that I think is a lot of what we were wanting to address in our session today, of, “Hey, this is an opportunity. Lean in. You don't need to ask for permission.” I mean, you've got to be following, you know, your company's guidelines around safe use of AI, but to show some leadership in that space, it's a huge need. And lean into that, yeah.

[22:10]Brian Jackson: Yeah, I agree. It's an opportunity to lean in. And trying to catch up five years from now, I don't think, is ideal. So, the attendees today, what do you hope that they take? If they could take one thing, you know, from the activity, be it from your workshop or just the conference in general, what's one thing you hope they take away?

[22:31]Summer Husband: So, I think it's really powerful for women to be around other very capable and talented women. I didn't realize what an impact that had. I've loved all the organizations that I've worked for.

My first job, there was only one other woman on the technical side. I didn't think that impacted me. But my next organization had a lot of women in executive leadership. And I suddenly started to feel like taking a more senior role was a possibility for me in a way that I had not… I just hadn't perceived that to be a possibility for me before. And I never would've, you know, connected those dots, but I really appreciate Rice opening up the opportunity for women to hear from other women. There's just a different… it's just a little different when it's mostly women in the room and you feel safe to ask some questions that you just don't feel safe to ask in some other spaces. That's just, kind of, the way that goes. So, I appreciate the opportunity.

I also… you know, someone brought up, there were some questions around imposter syndrome and how to deal with that. And that's something, I think, everyone's dealt with, male or female, women for sure, is something that we, kind of, work through. I've had an approach to that that has worked really well for me. And that's just thinking through, what's the value that I bring in this room? And to be brave and honest about that.

So, sometimes I ask, “Okay, why am I here? What is the value I bring?” And sometimes I have expertise in a space that nobody else has and I need to embrace that, and I need to speak out bravely in the, you know, the area that's my job to speak to. In some other areas, I will feel… I will know I'm out of my depth. Actually, there's a lot more expertise in this space, in this room that I have. And this is an opportunity for me to learn. And that's also okay. That's actually good. If I'm ever in a job where I never feel a little on my back foot sometimes, or a little outta my depth sometimes, then I probably need to look for another job.

So, just that kind of… look at that honestly, and be brave when you need to speak up, and be totally comfortable with the fact that you've got some things to learn when you're in a space where you have some things you need to learn.

[25:05]Brian Jackson: This is the space to do it. And I think you're right, it's hard to envision yourself in a position when you've never seen anyone else like you-

[25:13]Summer Husband: Yes.

[25:14]Brian Jackson: … stand there and take it. And we're so fortunate that we have so many women who have these incredible backgrounds and careers and stories. And, you know, this opportunity to sit down and ask them candid questions, and how do you deal with failure and how do you, you know, sit back and push norms or, you know, challenge the status quo? Like, this is that space. And one, thank you very much for sitting with me and for sharing your story. And yeah, it has been such a pleasure.

[25:45]Summer Husband: Oh, it's been my pleasure, too. Thanks for a great conversation. And I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. And it's been a great day at the conference.

[25:54]Brian Jackson: Thanks for listening. This has been Owl Have You Know, a production of Rice Business. You can find more information about our guests, hosts, and announcements on our website, business.rice.edu. Please, subscribe and leave a rating wherever you find your favorite podcast. We'd love to hear what you think. The hosts of Owl Have You Know are myself, Brian Jackson, and Maya Pomroy.

[00:00]Brian Jackson: Welcome to Owl Have You Know, a podcast from Rice Business. This episode is part of our Pivot Series, where guests share stories of transformation in their lives and careers.

Michelle Lewis has built a career around transformation of companies, teams, and even her own career. As a seasoned board director, private equity principal and founder, she's led strategic transitions and overseeing $10 billion in acquisitions across 30 countries in the energy and industrial sectors. I sat down with her during the Women and Leadership Conference to talk about the power of soft skills, breaking into board service, and how she went from a bachelor's in fine arts to the C-suite. Plus, she shares one of her secrets to staying organized while juggling it all.

Joining us today is Michelle Lewis. Michelle, thank you for being here.

[00:53]Michelle Lewis: Happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:56]Brian Jackson: So, we're here because of the Women in Leadership Conference. I want to know, what are your thoughts?

[01:01]Michelle Lewis: On the conference today? Well, I think it's fabulous. I actually had not realized that it had been around. 25 years is a really long time. And I graduated in ‘05, so I feel like it's, you know, the same conference, but even better, if that makes sense.

[01:22]Brian Jackson: It does. And I mean, things have changed so much every decade.

[01:25]Michelle Lewis: A lot. Well, the university in general.

[01:26]Brian Jackson: Yeah. So, your career is just so interesting. I was looking at your background — fine art to being on board leadership, across industries, across countries (30-plus countries), $10 billion worth of deals. What's driving this? What puts you in these positions to, kind of, take on these challenges?

[01:49]Michelle Lewis: Well, everyone is different, so I think I've just been incredibly lucky, incredibly fortunate, I mean, if you really have to boil it down to that. And that sounds, kind of, like a silly answer, but it really is true. I think I've been in a fortunate position to wherever I am to be, you know, working really hard and trying to do a good job and be a good person, and then, through that, have found that other people have come to me and said, “I see something in you that, maybe, you don't even see in yourself. And we think you can do X,” which might be completely different to what I was doing at the time.

And that's typically been the case throughout my entire career. So, the majority of my career, I was just going along to get along, and then someone else came along and said, “We're going to move you over here,” either a different industry, a different city, a different function, and all, really, through someone else's vision. And it wasn't until 2003 when I joined to go to business school. That was really the first time that I said, “Okay, I am going to make an active choice to do something in my career.”

[03:10]Brian Jackson: Okay. So, then it became this intentional effort to go the next step.

[03:17]Michelle Lewis: Yes.

[03:18]Brian Jackson: Okay, understood. And I mean, when I hear your story of luck, it almost sounds like it's all predicated on a lot of hard work and effort.

[03:24]Michelle Lewis: Yes. I mean, I think I'm a typical Gen-Xer, right? So, I had no idea what I was going to do when I went to college. I had no idea what I was going to do when I left college. And so, I just did a lot of things. I did whatever made sense and whatever people said, “Hey, we think you could do this.” And so, it wasn't until going to business school and then I got recruited to a role at a consulting firm called Alvarez & Marsal, and I went to that role and I loved it, and I fell in love. It was like, “Oh, my god, this must be what my friends experience, because I fell in love with my career.” And I moved from consulting to restructuring while I was there, which was like being a Green Beret in my mind, or an emergency medical, you know, physician at the county hospital, because you are trying to save your patient. And it was 24/7/365, go, go, go, full of adrenaline. And I’ve loved it.

[04:37]Brian Jackson: And you earned your stripes, right?

[04:39]Michelle Lewis: I did. I earned my stripes enough to stay there, until I realized that a lot of people were… either they weren't lasting very long because it is so intense, or they were having challenges with their families. Because you're gone, you're on the road, right? I lived in three different cities while I was with them for a few years. And I was married. And, you know, my husband and I would see each other on weekends when we could. So, that leads to, you know, challenges if you do that, I think, long term.

[05:15]Brian Jackson: So, the part I wanted to focus on, too, you talked about, kind of, these mentors that came in and saw parts of you that you didn't necessarily see yet. You know, as you've become a leader and you have these advisory positions, you know, how are you mentoring other people?

[05:32]Michelle Lewis: So, my mentors and the people that saw things in me, each one really, kind of, taught me something different along the way, right? Unbeknownst to me, sometimes. So, you don't always know in the conversations that you're having what you're going to get out of that conversation or that relationship.

And so, a lot of that came through just conversations. One of the things, I think, that I learned and I do as well is just conversations where I'm asking a lot of questions, not necessarily telling them what the answers are. And it's the same thing in a board and advisory role, right? I'm not there to tell the CEO what to do. I mean, if I'm telling the CEO what to do, we don't need that CEO. I'm there to ask questions.

So, it's the same thing that my mentors did for me — asking questions that may highlight there are different ways, different paths, different answers for me to consider. That's the same thing that I'm doing when I'm in an advisory role or a board role.

[06:42]Brian Jackson: So, the pathway to being on a board, I know that's what you were talking about with today, but what does that look like? And how do you, at the start of your career, actually say, “I want to be on a board,” and then get there?

[06:55]Michelle Lewis: So, first of all, there is no one right path. There is no one path for anybody, right? There is just not. And hindsight is 2020. When I first joined… I mean, I've been on public company boards for, you know, eight years, nonprofit boards for 30, and private boards for seven. So, a long time. When I joined my first board, I really didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't know to ask for D&O or director and officer insurance. I didn't know that it makes sense to set yourself up as an LLC, just, you know, for legal purposes, to ensure that, if the board gets sued, you know, you, kind of, distance yourself from it.

There's a lot of different things. I didn't know to ask those things. I didn't know who my peers were. I didn't know what the networks were. Like, I didn't know. I was somewhat naive. But I hadn't prepared. I didn't know I was going to be a board of a director, right? Someone came to me and said, “You meet all these criteria, you know. We want you.”

So, to go back to your question, well, how do you get there, I mean, today when I am talking to men and women who are interested in board work, I would say, “You know, you can start it a lot earlier in your career, in your thinking, so that you can prepare to be a potential candidate.” There are certain things that are required for every board member, right? You have to understand the role of a fiduciary. You have to understand how to really delve into all the financial statements. You got to know how to read a P&L. You need to understand M&A, you know, from due diligence through integration. You need to understand a lot of different areas of how to run a business, right? The levers that you pull to increase or decrease revenue or margins, or EBITDA.

So, if you're interested in a board, you know, one of the number one things is to make sure that you have that experience or that exposure. It doesn't mean you have to be a CFO or a CPA. You know, you can be in corporate development, right, and get a ton of experience there. You could run a P&L. There's a lot of different ways to get there, but you have to have that, right?

The other thing I would say is second most important, maybe these are actually reversed, is emotional intelligence. So, when you walk into a boardroom, first of all, it's noses in hands out, which means the CEO is the one doing the work. You're just there to ask questions. You're there as a fiduciary for all of the shareholders.

But you're also there as a team member. It's a small group, right? Eight to 12 people. That's a small group to walk into to not ruffle feathers or make waves in the water. So, you have to be able to walk in and become a part of that team, be able to speak with confidence, ask questions with confidence, but not completely upset the apple cart, because if you do, then they are stuck with you for a long time. And no one wants to be in that kind of situation, where they're thinking, “Gosh, I wish we had never asked this person to be on our board.” You don't want to be that person.

[10:15]Brian Jackson: So, how did you learn that lesson?

[10:16]Michelle Lewis: Oh, gosh, that's a really good question. I think, mostly, through observation. At least the first few board meetings… I did actually talk to our chair and just, you know, ask for feedback, like, “How am I doing?” Because I was a new board member. “You know, am I doing this right?” Which sounds so naive today, because now, everyone has so much exposure to conferences like this and different board organizations for networking and there's so much content available and, you know, women, corporate directors and all these different… and NACD. You can take classes. You can go away for a weekend and learn everything you need to know.

But I don't know if it didn't exist or I just didn't have it available to me at the time. So, it meant I had to read a lot, sign up for every magazine that I could related to boards, private boards, public boards. I joined every single organization. I do remember my husband being like, “Oh, my god, how much money are you spending on all these board organizations?” I have to learn, right?

[11:23]Brian Jackson: Yeah. So, Michelle, I'd love to know, you know, there's a pretty substantial pivot in your career from fine arts to private equity, you know, can you tell me about the moment where this came to? And what was the deciding factor?

[11:37]Michelle Lewis: Well, did you guys hire your fact-checkers? Are you sure? No, I'm just kidding. 

[11:44]Brian Jackson: Just kidding. We're going to have words.

[11:47]Michelle Lewis: I mean, it's unbelievable to me. That's why I say that. That is totally true. Really, the first part of my career was, after art school, I went into advertising and marketing. That was, kind of, what made sense at that time, at least in my career.

And my first job was $19,000 a year, which I hear today and I'm like, “Insane.” And I thought I had hit the jackpot, by the way. That was crazy, ain’t that right? From that point, as I said, you know, I took, you know, any opportunity that, kind of, came along. I was just like, “Why not? I'm going to try everything. I'm young. I can do anything, right?”

So, that took me largely into what I would call the soft skills. So, executive recruiting, facilitation, leadership development. And my mind was pretty blown by the fact that there were organizations that were teaching people how to be leaders, how to run a meeting, how to facilitate a conversation, how to coach a difficult conversation. All of that language was really mind-blowing to me.

So, I went from that organization and was recruited to another organization called Alvarez & Marsal when I was in business school. So, I took all these soft skills that I had learned for many years and said, “Okay, you know what? It's time to go learn some of the hard skills,” because at the time, I was watching a lot of my friends who had graduated in accounting and who were investment bankers. And they were really successful. And I was, in my mind, successful, but it was a different level in the game.

So, I felt like I had to pivot. I had to go back to business school in order to, kind of, get into a different lane. And so, I did. And so, business school led me to Alvarez & Marsal. And that was really very financially heavy, very financially laden, meaning that, when we were doing restructuring, a lot of it was looking at how we can take… it was cost-cutting, right? I mean, how do you take $200 million out of a budget? How do you take $2 billion out of a budget? Which meant really poring through the financials, looking at what you can cut that won't negatively impact the operations of whatever it is that you were trying to cut.

So, that was really the pivot for me into what I would call finance. And I joke that I left there and eventually ended up working for the president of a division whom I met, actually, at Rice Business School, doing M&A. And he said it's really very similar. And it sounds silly to say that, but when you're looking at how to cut costs in an organization, it's the same documents, right? You're looking for income statements. You're looking at your balance sheet. You're looking at your cash flows. Where are you spending the most money, right?

[14:53]Brian Jackson: Yeah.

[14:54]Michelle Lewis: And then when you're looking at a deal, when you're looking at analyzing whether or not you want to buy a company, yes, you're looking at their operations; yes, you're looking at their people; you know, what differentiates them; what are the products, et cetera. But you're also looking at their financials? And are they healthy? Are they not healthy, right? Am I willing to pay what the multiple is in the market for the last three years of EBITDA, on average, right?

So, it's a lot of the same documents. And so, when he looked at me and said, “I think you could do this job,” he based that on what I had been doing. And that was really, you know, another key pivot for me. Then, I'd spent several years with him growing that business from $600 million to close to $6 billion when we went public. And we did a ton of acquisitions. That's at NOV, National Oilwell Varco, and then DistributionNOW, which was a phenomenal playing ground for me to learn a lot, not just in M&A, but how to work with a team, how to build a team to work with you because you can't do it all, how to learn to be more efficient so that you can do more with less, whether it's through technology, whether it's through people, how to work globally, you know, how to hire people in other countries, how to make sure that, when you're doing a deal in another country, in another language, you know, things don't go south.

And so, I think, because I had been there for so long, again, someone else called me and, for two years, you know, took me out to lunch, asked me questions. And I, kind of, was like, “Why are these people taking me to lunch all the time? What's going on?” Well, that ended up being a private equity firm. And eventually, they said, you know, “We want you to come build our origination practice. And can you come do that for us?” And that's how I got there.

[16:46]Brian Jackson: What an interesting career, Michelle.

[16:49]Michelle Lewis: Thanks.

[16:49]Brian Jackson: And what I like about it, it's like…

[16:51]Michelle Lewis: It's just my life. So, it doesn't seem that interesting.

[16:53]Brian Jackson: It's like you're open to the conversation. You sit down with folks. They say, “Oh, yeah, here are the skill sets. This is what we're looking for.” And you're finding, basically, cross-functional uses of things you've already done.

[17:05]Michelle Lewis: I mean, I've never been… you know, I don't know. I guess I, kind of, attribute this to my mom when we were little. We had a farm and she would, like, throw vegetables in this little red wagon and say, “Okay, go down the street and sell the vegetables and see what you can get.” Like, I've never been afraid to knock on the door and say, “Hey, how's it going? You know, I got some eggplants. I got some zucchini.” I've never been afraid to just try something new. I mean, because what can happen, right? You can fail. And what happens when you fail? You learn. You learn more than when you're successful.

You know, I sell all the veggies. And great, I got, you know, some coin in my pocket. But if I don't sell them, I got to try a new way the next day, right?

[17:43]Brian Jackson: Yeah.

[17:43]Michelle Lewis: So, I mean, there are a lot of my mentors who I attribute that to. Like, another woman, same thing in executive recruiting. All you do is just, like, pick up the phone and ask someone. It's an opportunity. Maybe they're interested, maybe they're not. Like, worst case they say, “No, thanks,” right?

[17:59]Brian Jackson: Or, “I don't have time.”

[18:00]Michelle Lewis: Right. But a lot of people are afraid to pick up the phone. I mean, you meet some fascinating people. So, I've just always thought, like, there's no downside to trying. The downside is if I don't try, not if I fail. And I've had amazing mentors who've said, “Failure is what we want you to do. Like, if you don't fail, I'm not investing enough in you. Fail and then come back, because that is the best training class that I could ever give you.”

[18:28]Brian Jackson: That's fantastic advice. So, as a leader, is that what you're telling your team, “Charge out, go forward, and if you need me, I'm here?”

[18:36]Michelle Lewis: Take a risk. Yeah, fail fast. And have a network underneath you. Like, fail smart, though, to be fair, which I haven't always done. But yeah, take a risk and fail. And I'll be here to help you. But let's take a more calculated risk, you know.

[18:57]Brian Jackson: Yeah. You can, from the outset, kind of, take a first shot and go, “Okay, this isn't going to work at all.” But sometimes, those assumptions are wrong. You just got to dive into it.

[19:06]Michelle Lewis: Yes. Now, don't make the same mistake multiple times, especially if it's a very costly one, because that's a different issue. But if you make a mistake and you learn something from it and then you build something even greater the next time, that's great. That's what you want.

[19:23]Brian Jackson: So, looking at your career and then looking at, you know, the next five, 10 years, where do you see yourself going? What strengths of yours are you going to lean on? And what are some things you might work on?

[19:34]Michelle Lewis: So, hopefully, in the next five to 10 years, I'll have a company that I'm running with a couple of my partners, which is what we're looking at right now.

[19:44]Brian Jackson: Fantastic!

[19:44]Michelle Lewis: So, it's an exciting time in the market, depending upon what industry you're in. We're in oil and gas. And so, trying to find the right opportunity. So, knock on wood that we get those opportunities closed and we're off and running and operating them in a few years.

And the strength to draw on, I think, are that host of skills from the soft skills and the harder skills and everything in between. At this point, I've run almost every function except for finance, accounting, legal, and operations. But I mean, everything from facilities, like, you know, build to building, build to campus, without ever having done that before, you know, IT, IS, SAP, implementations on a global basis, you know, corporate development, investor relations, HR, you name it. So, it's taking the amalgamation of all of those skills and then putting them into use to run a company.

[20:46]Brian Jackson: So, this partnership, you know, when you look for partners to work with and to take on a venture, it's a lot of trust.

[20:53]Michelle Lewis: Tremendous amount of trust.

[20:54]Brian Jackson: When you're trying to build that and get to that next step, what are your red flags, so to speak?

[21:02]Michelle Lewis: In my partners or in the business?

[21:04]Brian Jackson: In your partners.

[21:04]Michelle Lewis: Oh. Well, I've been through a couple partners. And, you know, one is, when they expect you to do all the work but they want to be there to take the glory. Learned that one. That one didn't work out. My partners today are people who I know. And to be fair, I didn't know that person very well. And I probably should have invested more time. My partners today are people I've known since business school. And they're like my brothers. I've known them that long. And we were a very tight team. You know, we go to each other's kids' weddings and, you know, grandparents’ or, you know, parents' events. So, we are really, really close. I know them just as well professionally as I do in terms of family. Those are people I trust all day, up and down, you know, morning, night to do anything. I know they have my back, and they know I have theirs.

[22:02]Brian Jackson: They'll be in the trenches with you working just as hard.

[22:05]Michelle Lewis: Absolutely. Yeah, for sure.

[22:06]Brian Jackson: So, we've talked a bit about soft skills and how they've, you know, come up in your career. You know, which ones have you seen are really the most valuable?

[22:15]Michelle Lewis: So, the soft skills is a big button for me, and probably, not for the reason that you're thinking. I wasn't sure that I valued my soft skills. It was almost like I was embarrassed, you know, that I had all this experience and soft stuff, because all my investment banking friends, you know, they didn't have the soft skills. To be fair, that's not totally true of all investment bankers. So, if you're an investment banker, you know, understand. It was just more that I thought, you know, maybe it's not soft skills that you need, because that's not where people who are, you know, making a ton of money, they're not soft skills. They're all in finance, right. So, that was part of my, “I got to pivot.”

And it wasn't until a little bit later in my career that I realized, “Oh, my god, they are both so important. Soft skills actually might be more important.” And it took me a while to realize that and value those skills and then to really begin to dig in and to use them again. There was certainly a portion of my career. And my feedback from my peers and my bosses would tell you where I needed to work on my soft skills. And some of that feedback really helped me to realize how important that stuff was. And you hear a lot about, in the boardroom, one of the most important skills is, you know, being able to be a part of the team. Well, there was certainly a part of my career and, you know, mid-career, I was a part of the team but I felt like I needed to prove that I was better than everybody on the team, working harder than everybody on the team.

[23:59]Brian Jackson: Deserve to be there.

[24:00]Michelle Lewis: Yes, that I deserve to be there. And a classic example, my former boss, the CEO of DNOW, will tell you is, you know, I don't know, it was, like, three or four days after I'd had my first child and I was at the office. And he was like, “What are you doing here?” And I said, “You can't make me leave.” And he'll tell you, like, today, he still remembers the quote, because I was like, “I have to show you I am dedicated, right?” How stupid. It was silly, silly thing for me to do, but I was not going to let anyone prove that they were better than me, including as a mom. I mean, as a, you know, C-suite employee. So silly. Would never tell anyone to do that today.

So, now, looking back, I realize, soft skills are so incredibly important. The, you know, willingness to be vulnerable, willingness to be the person that you are, be authentic, not have to bring that, kind of, ego into the room, or, “I have to prove that I'm better than everybody else.” But it took a long time to actually be okay with that.

[25:08]Brian Jackson: Have a bit of humility and maybe be receptive to feedback?

[25:12]Michelle Lewis: Oh, my god, yes.

[25:13]Brian Jackson: Without personalizing it.

[25:14]Michelle Lewis: Oh, yeah. I mean, there was a period where I had to pop the balloon of my head to go through a door. And once that popped I was like, “Wow, who have I been?” And that was, you know, pretty transformational for me.

[25:30]Brian Jackson: Your story about coming back to work just days after the birth, like, as an example to the women who worked beneath you in the company…

[25:40]Michelle Lewis: I would never let them do that.

[25:42]Brian Jackson: It's almost like you want to be the example of, “It's okay to take time for you.”

[25:46]Michelle Lewis: Absolutely. That's what I mean. Like, it was crazy. I would never have let a male or female. I would say, “You're going to be at home, you know, with your child. You need to be home.” It was a silly thing for me to do. But, you know, [crosstalk 26:02].

[26:01]Brian Jackson: Well, you only recognize that when you've been through it and you can think and have a bit of humility. You've been called an Uber organizer. And this is, I think, in your bio. So, our fact-checkers, this is true. I can't get in trouble.

[26:17]Michelle Lewis: No.

[26:17]Brian Jackson: You've managed a boisterous career, a family. You've got two kids, husband. How do you do it? And what's a key trait or a, I guess, piece of advice you can give for us who aspire to maybe pull more and take on more challenges, too?

[26:35]Michelle Lewis: Well, I mean, the biggest piece of advice is it takes a village. It's hard to do all that alone. The more help you have from family and friends and neighbors and, you know, whether it's carpool… We used to have carpool when I was a kid. Now, it feels like everyone drives their own child. I'm a big fan of carpool.

You know, take all that help. And on the other side, be willing to help, right? I'm the first person to say, “Look, I will drive any of the kids to school on early mornings.” I drive the boys to lacrosse, and they have to be there at 6:00 a.m. I will take that shift because I'm up anyway, you know. So, get as much help as you can. So, that's definitely my first piece of advice.

And on organizing, there's a lot there. I like to be, you know, orderly and neat and stuff like that. So, I started this tradition with my kids that, before any major holiday, if there are to be gifts given at that holiday, and I don't know where I came up with this number, but you have to find 20 things in your room that you are willing to donate to someone before you can have one item. And they do it. And they still do it. And they're 15 and 13. And they still…

[27:48]Brian Jackson: And they're not in a deficit?

[27:49]Michelle Lewis: No. I mean, there's so many tchotchkes and t-shirts. And I will say that… And then we have a box that we keep all of our donations in, and we have different people that we give all of those items to. So, I mean, we gift.

[28:04]Brian Jackson: 20 is large. I could see starting at five.

[28:09]Michelle Lewis: Certainly, one. I mean, the other is, like, when something new comes in, something old goes out. So, if you get a new jacket, then do you need the old one anymore? Big believer of the circular economy.

[28:20]Brian Jackson: These are tough questions that I wouldn't be… I'm not ready to ask these things.

[28:22]Michelle Lewis: Big believe in the circular economy.

[28:25]Brian Jackson: We do want to wrap with, we're here because of WILC. You know, if you could hope that attendees took away one thing from today, what would that be?

[28:38]Michelle Lewis: There's not one path for anyone in your career. And whatever it is that you want to do, just try it. Just go for it. So, there's not a map that's going to get you from point A to point B like you may think there is. You know, if you can go from a BFA to a PE, you can get wherever it is that you want to go. Just keep opening doors, keep going through those doors. And remember, you know, if you don't like what's on the other side, you can always go back out and go through another door. And if you feel like you failed, that's probably a good thing. And what did you learn from it? And then go through another door.

[29:20]Brian Jackson: Well, thank you so much, Michelle. This has been a real pleasure. 

[29:23]Michelle Lewis: Thanks. It's nice to meet you.

[29:24]Brian Jackson: Thanks for listening. This has been Owl Have You Know, a production of Rice Business. You can find more information about our guests, hosts, and announcements on our website, business.rice.edu. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you find your favorite podcasts. We'd love to hear what you think. The hosts of Owl Have You Know are myself, Brian Jackson, and Maya Pomroy.