Taking over when tragedy strikes

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BIJAL SHAH: There was a business continuity plan in place, and so it was known that I would step up. I remember turning to my husband and being like, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” I am reckoning with my own postpartum. I have a new baby. I have a three year old as well. And my husband was like, “You’re going to put one foot in front of the other, and you’re just going to get through every single day.”  

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Bijal Shah, who became CEO of Guild Education when the founding CEO, 34-year-old Rachel Romer, suffered a stroke. This episode of Rapid Response is quite personal about the human challenges of dealing with the unexpected, about when leadership is thrust upon us and how we handle it. Bijal has had to navigate her own emotions, while taking on new responsibility for the business, and making tough calls, including a round of layoffs. She’s also had to find ways to provide inspiration to others, and to inspire herself, tapping into resources from Taylor Swift to Team USA. I’m Bob Safian. This is Rapid Response.

[THEME MUSIC]

SAFIAN: I’m Bob Safian, and I’m here with Bijal Shah, the CEO of Guild Education. Bijal, thanks for being here.

SHAH: Thank you so much for having me. Super excited to chat with you today.

Copy LinkIntroducing Guild Education

SAFIAN: I want to start first by asking you to briefly explain what Guild’s business is for our listeners.

SHAH: We work with some of the world’s largest employers to help enable their employee population to get upskilled and reskilled. We come to those employer partners with a curated learning marketplace of offerings. Those employers fund the education experience for those employees, and then they get certifications, degrees; they finish their high school diploma. They get skilled in very specific roles or pathways so that they can hopefully continue to grow at their existing employer or find new opportunities in the future.

Copy LinkGuild Founder Rachel Romer’s health issues

SAFIAN: Guild was started by your predecessor, Rachel Romer — who was on the show a few years ago, super dynamic, energetic, young founder. I don’t think anyone, you included, expected anyone other than Rachel to be running Guild anytime soon. You’ve taken on the leadership because of a kind of unexpected and harrowing health issue for Rachel. So can you take us back to last summer and explain what happened? 

SHAH: Yeah so, last summer in the middle of August, I was out on parental leave. I had just had a newborn baby, managing what I would describe as postpartum symptoms after having a pretty tough delivery. And at about seven o’clock in the morning, I got a phone call from someone in Rachel’s family, and they said, “Rachel went to the hospital, we need you to clear her calendar.” And I said, “I’m on parental leave. Is this something that’s urgent? And is she going to be okay?” And they said, “we don’t know, we’ll call you back.” A few hours later, I got a phone call from her dad, explaining that Rachel had had a stroke. And that she had been sent to the best care facility in Colorado, but that I needed to call the Board of Directors. I called the Board of Directors. I let them know what happened. As you can imagine, the board’s super concerned about Rachel, as was I and everyone else who was now learning about what had happened. I then called the executive team, and then the following Monday, I stepped back into the business.

SAFIAN: As I was told, Rachel had this episode like the night before and was alone all that time and was found by chance? 

SHAH: Yeah, that’s correct. I’m not sure exactly what time she had had the stroke, but she was found on her patio in the morning by her aunt, who happened to be walking by. And it’s a miracle that she found her, and she found her in time and knew exactly what to do and exactly what was happening.

Copy LinkStepping in as the interim CEO

SAFIAN: And so you go into this interim role while you’re still not quite recovered from your own medical issues. What are you grappling with? And at that point, like, where is Rachel? What is she going through, through this? 

SHAH: Rachel is in the hospital in critical condition and in the ICU. I am reckoning with my own postpartum. I have a new baby. I’m struggling with breastfeeding. I remember turning to my husband and being like, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” And my husband, Amit, was like, “you’re going to put one foot in front of the other, and you’re just going to get through every single day.” And every member of the executive team and the leadership team rose to the occasion. I showed up on Monday, they asked what I needed. They said they have my back. I felt incredibly supported.

SAFIAN: So you were kind of drafted to be interim CEO. How did you know that this was going to fall on you? Or was that part of the sort of already existing plan?

SHAH: There was a business continuity plan in place, and so it was known that likely it would mean that I would step up. But the continuity plan doesn’t really contemplate months or even years of something happening. And so, I had a very frank conversation with the board about why it would be a good idea to keep me in as interim CEO, what the gaps would be, what the areas of opportunities are, who else is on the executive team, and is there someone else better suited? I asked the executive team if they thought there was someone better suited once we realized it wasn’t a few weeks, and it was going to be at least a month, several months. I thought it was really important for us to make sure that we were having a conversation about who is the right person to be leading this business because first and foremost, I really care about the mission of what Guild does, and that it continue to persist. 

SAFIAN: Was there a point where you went to visit her, or was she not even in a situation where that could happen? I don’t know whether she was giving you any feedback about the business or whether she was really just out of it?

SHAH: I did not communicate with her for over a month. And I had asked a few times to see her. But she really was focused on her recovery. The first time I did get to see her, I went to her hospital room. We’ve worked together for six years. We don’t always agree on everything. And I remember telling her dad, like, “I just want to argue with her again about something.” And he’s like, “that time will come.” And so I hadn’t seen her until I got to go to the hospital. And I remember being super nervous and not knowing what to expect.

I mean, she had a stroke, and so there were obviously physical differences, but from like a mental agility and sharpness and awareness and ability to inspire me in some ways, like no change in that. And as soon as I walked in the door, I just remember her saying to me, “hey, boss beetch, are you bossin?” And it was incredible. I wasn’t sure what to expect. And it just kind of removed my anxiety, and it was off-limits to talk about work. But if you have met Rachel, Guild is her third baby. She says that to everyone that will listen to her say that. It’s a core part of who she is. And repeatedly she would ask me questions, and repeatedly I’d have to say, “We can’t talk about that right now. I’ve been instructed that I can’t see you again if we have conversations about Guild.”  

SAFIAN: So you were interim CEO in this role for about six months. And then this spring, you were confirmed as CEO. In that period, were you all hoping Rachel would come back? Did you know that she wasn’t going to come back?

SHAH: It was not clear what the recovery plan or timeline will look like. The recovery on strokes are quite variable. She was 34 when she had the stroke. The ability to recover at 34 is wildly different than the ability to recover at 65. So I think in the back of my mind, I thought, ‘yeah, she’ll come back.’ And so that’s how we operated, except that the board and Rachel both made it clear to me right after I took on the interim CEO job, they were like, “to be clear, the title says interim CEO, and it’s your job to make sure you act like the CEO. The ‘interim’ is just there because there is another CEO who’s on leave.” And it was really great to also hear that from Rachel. She was like, “you know what to do with this business. You know this business better than anyone. Go do the things you need to do to make sure this business continues to thrive.”

Copy LinkWhat Bijal Shah learned from being CEO

SAFIAN: And were there things about being CEO that were different than you expected? I mean, it’s a new job. 

SHAH: Yeah, I think there are things that were surprising. So one, the job at the top is truly lonely. And I think when you’re on the executive team, you know, if something’s not going well or you’re upset about something, there’s someone to talk with and be like, “ugh, I’m annoyed at X or Y or Z.” When you’re at the top, the decisions that I make and what we ultimately end up doing, they truly do rest on my shoulders. And I think I hadn’t experienced that type of burden and responsibility at this type of scale before. There’s a weight and a gravity to it that I think you can’t fully appreciate until you do the job. 

There are also some other things around changes I wanted to make or things I thought were important for us to put at play that before, I’d have to go get alignment from many other people to actually enable. And there’s some amazing thing that happens when you become the CEO that people just say like, “yes, we can do that.” And so I try to use that very, very sparingly. But there are times where I get really excited about something. 

I’m currently on a customer listening tour. So going around the country, talking to every single one of our customers, either in person or through Zoom, and understanding what’s working, what’s not working, what we could do better. And I thought I’d face a lot of resistance, and people were like, “yep, that sounds great. You should do it.” And so there’s some surprises or delightful surprises, I would say.

Copy LinkBeing named the official CEO

SAFIAN: Were you excited when you became official CEO? You sound like the interim situation, there was some reluctance. Was there still some reluctance this time around? 

SHAH: Yeah. I think their honest answer is yes. And mainly because I had never imagined that this would be the role that I would play inside of Guild. I didn’t expect Rachel to go anywhere. If you had asked me, “do I want to be CEO of this business one day?,” let alone CEO somewhere else, my answer would have been, “I don’t know.” If you had asked me that question 15 years ago, by the way, I would have said, “yes, I want to be CEO.” And then something along the way changed. I’m like, “I’m good behind the scenes.” So I think that there was still some hesitation just because it’s a new role. And there’s a lot of gravity to the role. And there’s a lot of people that you’re either going to make proud or let down in some way. And there’s a lot of really hard decisions to make as you continue to grow a high growth business. It’s really messy. And so, yeah, I think there was still some hesitation.

SAFIAN: You can hear in Bijal’s words and in her tone, the razor’s edge she’s been navigating. She’s heartbroken about Rachel’s situation, which has included multiple surgeries and serious questions about her future. But Bijal also has to be a leader, without seeming like she’s pushing Rachel aside or enjoying her new opportunity. And the hard decisions she references, they’ve hit right away, including a big round of layoffs. We’ll talk about that after the break. Stay with us.

[AD BREAK]

Before the break we heard Guild Education’s Bijah Shah talk about the stroke that befell the company’s CEO and unexpectedly thrust her into the corner office. Now Bijal explains why one of her first official acts as CEO was a big round of layoffs, and the decisions she’s made around AI. Plus, she shares the inspiration and lessons she draws from Taylor Swift, and what’s behind a new reskilling partnership with Team USA. Let’s jump back in.

Copy LinkRestructuring for future growth

SAFIAN: You have had to make some hard business calls amid all of this. Recently, you announced that you were laying off a quarter of the workforce. Did you know that like, ‘all right, if I take this official CEO role, that one of the first things I’m going to have to do is a big round of layoffs?’

SHAH: I did know that when I took the opportunity. That was something in order to continue to ensure that we were building a sustainable business that this would be something that I would have to do. It is the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my career and something that I knew was going to have to come with the territory and the job. And also made it something where I couldn’t take the job lightly.

SAFIAN: You have to get the business to continue to and lean into high growth, right? That’s part of the reason the layoffs are necessary. Maybe you weren’t growing fast enough from here. I mean, you have 2000 courses, companies like Walmart and Target and Taco Bell as clients. So it’s got a lot of reach. Like what is the growth plan from here then? 

SHAH: There are 85 million adults working in the United States who need access to Guild, and so we’re nowhere near done. We also have a lot of opportunity to build adjacent products, and deliver on more specific or niche needs of the workforce. When we think about where America is headed from a workforce transformation perspective, there is so much to do in this country to upskill and reskill. The notion around the restructuring was more about ‘how do we put even more investment into growth opportunities’ and less so about right-sizing because we’re worried about growth.

SAFIAN: We had Sal Khan of Khan Academy on the show recently, and he talked about their AI-based Khanmigo bot. And you guys have made some investments in AI. How much is that part of the growth opportunity? Or is that just an experiment for you at this point?

SHAH: It’s very much a part of our growth. But maybe not in the way that you think about it. How do we help our employer partners as well as employees understand how the future of work is going to change for their specific roles as AI continues to get adopted in the workforce, and for the tasks that they do every single day, which ones do we expect to get augmented or automated? And if those things get augmented and automated, then where should they be spending their time? And how do we make sure they get skilled for the role? And so we are using it to provide better insights to both the employee and the employer on exactly what they need to do next.

Copy LinkViewing reskilling as imperative to business

SAFIAN: I will say that sometimes I feel like the conversations that business leaders have around reskilling does not always connect to the effort and resources that are put towards it. 

SHAH: We’ve been pretty lucky, in that we have employer partners who really do view this as a business imperative in order to have the workforce of the future and in order to make sure that they have people that they need in very critical roles. 

I also think that they are seeing in the broader labor market that going out and finding that talent; there is talent on the market, but finding the talent that has that specific skill set to bring inside their organization is actually quite challenging to find. And so their desire very much is to find people inside their own organization, who they can skill. And so I do think at least for us, we are working with those employers who are leading the conversation and leading on the solution that’s most important for them to drive their business strategies. 

Copy LinkThe stickiness and savvy of Taylor Swift

SAFIAN: I heard that you’re a big Taylor Swift fan. I heard that for your 40th birthday, you went to the Eras Tour. For people that don’t understand the hype, like what’s the appeal? Are there things about Taylor’s business success that appeals to you and how she’s pulled it off?

SHAH: Yes. And yes, first of all, I happen to love her music. I think she’s an amazing lyricist. I think that she knows how to create, write, and produce a hook that stays in your head for a very long time. And as someone who grew up in the world of product, the stickiness aspects of what she creates is genius, in my opinion.

And then yes, she is one of the savviest business women I have ever heard of, based on what I know about how she runs her operations, how she treats her team, how she enables her business and continuing to grow that business. She’s an icon from a business perspective as well, in my mind. And very much someone that I fangirl wholeheartedly.

SAFIAN: Are there things from Taylor’s world that you learn from and try to apply at Guild? 

SHAH: I think she’s a great storyteller, and has the ability to understand how to break something down, or make something relevant to a wide audience of individuals. And when we think about who we serve, we’re trying to serve the broad American population. And we’re trying to ensure that the content we deliver and the learning marketplace that we curate applies to a broad population. And so, yeah, I think there are things to learn about her approach — the ability for people to feel inspired and motivated by what she does, I think are all learnings.

Copy LinkReskilling Olympic athletes

SAFIAN: I noticed that you recently added the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic committee and the LA 28 Olympic and Paralympic games as partners, offering Team USA athletes access to Guild. How much of that was about this sort of storytelling as opposed to the number of athletes you reach? Like does that help the Guild story?

SHAH: I mean, I think it’ll drive awareness, but more importantly for me — first, I love sports. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about athletic careers and second acts for those who go and devote so much of their time to their sport and what happens after they complete their sport. I recently learned that the average tenure for a football player in the NFL is less than two years. That’s not very long as a pro athlete playing in a sport that you’ve dedicated your whole life to. 

And so I do think it’s really important for athletes in particular, whether they’re Olympians or Paralympians or not, that they have the ability to invest in themselves, in educating themselves equally as in investing in their athletic careers. Skilling and career mobility provider for Team USA is way more about: how do we support athletes on their second act? And Bob, I don’t care if it’s 10 of them or a thousand of them. It’s a really important need and a thing that I think we owe to these athletes who spend so much time doing something and really do need help.  

SAFIAN: Thinking back to last summer to that stroke, it’s a reminder that anything can happen. And I’m curious how that may have changed the way you approach the world, the way you approach the workplace, the way you think about the future? 

SHAH: Yeah, I think it’s been a good reminder for me of the importance of making sure that I continue to live each day to the values that are important to me. That I prioritize and spend time on things that are meaningful in this world and that I believe are going to drive impact. And that I ensure that I take care of my health and my wellbeing and do the best that I can to play offense on that, knowing that life will throw curve balls and that I can’t predict exactly what’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen. And I think having the right support system around you and the right mindset at the end of the day is really important.

SAFIAN: Well, Bijal, this has been great. Thank you for sharing so much of the journey.

SHAH: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

SAFIAN: Listening to Bijal, I’m reflecting on her words about Rachel, that she thinks of the business as one of her children. And I think the emotional side of our connection to work is so powerful, so central, and just doesn’t always get the attention it should. It sometimes takes something tragic and difficult to jolt us out of our veneer of professionalism. And that’s too bad. Because the human side of work really is the most gratifying. It’s essential to business success too. The stories we tell ourselves about the work we do, they motivate us and define us. Hey, that’s why Bijal is drawn to Taylor Swift. Hopefully that’s part of what draws you to Rapid Response. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.