[ad_1]
American Dreamers is a series of conversations with leading Asian American entrepreneurs and business leaders, where they reveal everything from their startup stories and company building to confronting racism and making it in America.
This week, Susan Lee became Meta’s new CFO. At 36, she is one of the youngest people to hold that role at a major public company. However, Susan used to be different and mischievous. She immigrated to the United States from China at the age of 2, where she grew up as an Asian American immigrant in Oregon. She entered high school at age 11 and college at age 15.
Susan sees being different as an asset, not a hindrance – as you’ll learn from our conversation. She told me that her experience growing up as an outsider forced her to embrace who she is, become comfortable in her own skin, and connect with people she wouldn’t normally want to.
From her 19-year-old start as a banker at Morgan Stanley to her leadership roles in the finance team and Meta in the early days of Facebook, Lee attributes her success to several factors: the work ethic instilled in her by her parents, an unwavering belief that she could be anything she wanted to be, and the ability to take on new responsibilities and Her willingness to grow, as well as wonderful mentors who champion her in all the right ways.
Tell me a little about your immigrant experience. I was born in Chengdu, China, home to wonderful spices and panda bears. When I was two years old, my father was getting his Ph.D. In fact, I didn’t find out until then because my mother started the program while she was pregnant. Eventually he became a professor at Portland State University and we moved to Oregon. While there we lived in a suburb called Lake Oswego, which was beautiful and had good public schools. My parents put a lot of emphasis on education.
My parents call me a generation and a half old. Allow me to explain. They think of themselves as the first generation. My youngest sister, who was born here, counts the second generation. But, I’m somewhere in between.
I really stuck with Lake Oswego because I was one of the very few first-generation immigrants at my school at the time. Today, when I remember my childhood, I cling to the memories that are very close to me. For example, my parents were very frugal and my lunch was packed in a leftover plastic bread bag, which was embarrassing. I just wanted a plain paper bag.
What are some of the most important things you learned from your parents? My parents gave me two gifts. First, they sacrificed a lot when they moved to a completely new country in their mid-20s, with a different language and culture. They worked in restaurants and cleaned houses when my father got his doctorate. I knew we weren’t good at the time. In fact, for a while we shared a three-room apartment with two other families. But they always made me feel that there was something I needed, especially when it came to my studies. When I look back at the enormity of what they did, it was more difficult than what I did, so I let myself down.
Second, they pushed me to work hard and always believe in myself. As a child, I loved Michelle Kwan, and especially when I was at an amazing age, I wanted to be a figure skater. This was not remotely possible as we lived far from the snowfield. However, my father didn’t want to stop me, so he said, “Why don’t you start practicing until you can do one axel on the mat?” he said.
When I was in high school, Madeleine Albright became the first female Secretary of State. I remember him talking to my father about how amazing it was: “It could be you; You can do it one day. Knowing that my father believed that I would one day be as important as Madeleine Albright, and knowing how that felt, are still some of my most powerful and formative memories. I am very lucky to have my parents.
Besides being a skater or secretary of state, what were some of your childhood dreams? I was simply inspired. I remember we used to watch the news every night at dinner, and I thought Connie Chung was so cool—she was doing something so awesome at the time. However, my parents were very enthusiastic about me becoming a doctor or an engineer one day and strongly supported careers in my family. However, I decided to pursue a career in finance in college. Although I did not know much about that field, my parents were very supportive. I was lucky enough as a kid to grow up in a time when there were a lot of people doing good things in the world, and there were a lot of doors that you could open.
Being unconventional has served you well in your career. How did you develop that mindset? One of the funniest stories from my youth was when I was in sixth grade and I really wanted blue jeans. For years I wore these ridiculous mismatched sweaters and sweatpants from China and told my dad I really wanted jeans for my birthday. I never asked for clothes because I saw clothes as needs and not needs. However, my father wanted to make me happy on my birthday, so he went to Costco and bought it for me. purple Jeans wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but he was very pleased. I always have those memories of what it was like to be a little older.
In addition to being one of the few immigrant Asian kids in the area when I was in elementary school, I started high school at the age of 11. I started at Stanford when I was 15 and was on the trading floor working for Morgan Stanley as I got older. 19. So, I’ve always been in areas where I’m clearly not like everyone else. But I embrace that feeling of being weird, because I know it’s something a lot of people feel in many ways.
So how did you make the jump from being a trader at Morgan Stanley to Facebook? Morgan Stanley was an incredible first job out of college. While I was getting excellent training, I looked at the career ladder in investment banking and being a managing director seemed more like a sales job. I knew I had to do something else.
While I was working for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong and in between job searches, I decided to go on vacation to Southeast Asia with friends. While waiting for a long time at the Malaysian bus stop, we started chatting with other people and had a great time. When the bus finally arrived, these complete strangers we met on a street in Malaysia said, “Hey, find us on Facebook!” they said. This was in early 2008. How this product started in college is changing the way people interact with each other around the world.
I had many friends from Stanford on Facebook; They were very excited about what the company was doing. It was still smaller than MySpace at the time, but it was growing very quickly. The people I knew who worked there were very active and enthusiastic and dedicated to what they were doing. When I was younger, I thought it was a really fun activity.
How has the company (now called Meta) and your role changed over the last 14 years? I was very young when I joined the finance team. I joined through revenue planning and one of the first big challenges I faced was finding a way to forecast revenue around this newly developed online sales model for ads on Facebook. Finding a way to simulate the results of this sales model to get different types of supply and demand dynamics – that’s where I found my stride. It was a place where I could develop a lot of knowledge, and I loved that feeling.
Over time, my responsibilities increased. So, for a while, I worked to launch every new monetization product, like Facebook Games Payments. In the year Moving into 2011 and 2012, I spent about a year and a half working diligently on my first public offering. It was a lot of fun.
After the IPO, I took on extensive financial responsibilities such as resource-allocation, expenses and headcount management. Eventually, I was running a general planning business. My journey at Facebook has really been a story in the stack of things where I’ve been adding new skills and responsibilities every couple of years with lots of incremental opportunities at the right pace.
Who was your most important mentor? I have had excellent managers and mentors throughout my career who have helped shape my career path.
I was very fortunate to have both David Wenner, our former CFO, and David Ebersman, the CFO before him, as mentors. They have been very important mentors in my career. They put real challenges in front of me, even if I never thought I would take those challenges myself. Most of the opportunities I’ve had at Meta and taken on new responsibilities, I remember Ebersman or Wenner saying, “I think you’re ready to do this.”
I will also say, even though I don’t work with her directly, Sheryl Sandberg makes Meta great company. So many employees – including myself – are real beneficiaries of her work. In whatever way works for you, Meta has made it work for both career and family. And obviously different people have different models for that, but I think she set a lot of things up for our generation in a way that I thought was very difficult even a decade or two ago.
How do you feel about taking on the CFO role? I feel like there’s a lot of work ahead of us, especially as a finance company – and I’m excited about the opportunity. I feel like I learned from the best in the industry at Eberman & Wenner. Moreover, I am fortunate to work with a world-class finance team and learn from great colleagues every day. Therefore, we are moving towards a stage where there will be many important decisions and there will be great joy and absolute anxiety. I always think to myself, “I can’t believe this is happening to me.” I can’t wait for it to arrive.
Do you have any advice for future Asian American executives? For someone who grew up with some of the same feelings I did – being an outsider in different environments, finding your way – for anyone who doesn’t feel like they have many role models who look and feel like you. I think it’s really important to embrace who you are and learn to be comfortable in your own skin. Look for ways to build those bridges with people who are clearly not human and you can hit them right away.
One of the things that always amazes me is how much fun people have when they start interacting with them. There are so many unexpected connections with people that I think are really fun when you find them, and they can go a long way.
What do you like about America? There is something that feels uniquely American about my parents’ journey here. The things they have done and been able to do here for their children, the opportunities they have had here and their ability to turn their commitment and hard work here into a better opportunity for them and their children.
What do your parents think of what you do? Perhaps they came in peace saying that I am not a doctor.
[ad_2]
Source link