The tech guru turning managers into ‘movement starters’
Silicon Valley boss Jennifer Dulski tells Marie-claire Chappet the secret of her success and why her new book will inspire women
Jennifer Dulski’s CV reads like a game of Silicon Valley bingo. The 46-yearold has survived 20 years in the notoriously maledominated world: at Yahoo, as COO of Change.org, as a group vice-president at Google, and in her current role as head of groups and communities at Facebook. Now she has written a book, Purposeful; a guide to those who want to be what Dulski dubs “a movement starter”. Arianna Huffington has called it a rallying cry “for anyone who wants to change the world”. The book not only chimes with our evolving understanding of leadership – more value driven, less corporate monster – but its message of selfbelief goes to the heart of Dulski’s own success.
“No one told me I couldn’t,” she shrugs, when I ask how she has achieved such professional heights, and raised two teenage daughters along the way. Dulski was instilled with self-belief from a young age. She grew up in California, where her parents – her father was in investing, and her mother worked full time in HR, while studying at night – taught her the importance of “grit and hard work”.
Their sense of social responsibility led to her first enterprise, when – as a student at Ivy League Cornell College in upstate New York – she volunteered for Summerbridge, a programme that tutored underprivileged children.
“I gained so much confidence that I believed I could start my own programme,” she says. Aged 21, she did just that; raising $1 million, from donors, for her own branch of the non-profit. The teachers gave her two years to do it; Dulski did it in one. “I always knew I would be able to,” she says. Twenty-five years later, her programme is still up and running.
I ask whether she credits her success to this seemingly unshakeable selfconfidence. “You can be confident about something and still nervous that it will fail,” she explains. “But the best thing you can do as an entrepreneur is stuff that scares you.”
Dulski has put her confidence to the test multiple times. She began as an intern at Yahoo, in the early years of the internet. During a decade at the company, she held 10 different jobs – and gave herself a demotion. “It was the best career decision I ever made, and put me on a different trajectory,” she explains. “Being in the right job, where you are leveraging your natural talent, is so important.”
It teed her up to leave Yahoo and start her own business. Dulski and a co-founder built discount aggregator app The Deal Map. She worked round the clock, with interruptions from her husband, who “would stop by the office with my daughters to bring cookies”. They raised $10million in venture capital before, in 2011, Dulski became the first female entrepreneur to sell a company to Google, aged 39.
I mention the groaning levels of disparity in funding for female entrepreneurs in the UK – the subject of the Telegraph’s Women Mean Business campaign – and she almost cuts me off in her haste to agree. “This is something I have so much experience of!” she cries. “When I was trying to raise money for my ventures, it was so hard. Although we met with over a dozen venture capital firms, I only came across two women. I didn’t fit the pattern of what they were used to. It was probably the only time in my career that I thought: this would be easier if I was a man.”
We discuss the Women’s Business Act, introduced in America in 1988 to support female-led endeavours. “It feels like it’s getting easier for women in the US,” Dulski says. “There are more going into venture capital, and more funds focusing on female entrepreneurs and women of colour.” Perhaps Britain should have it, too? “Yes!” says Dulski. “We are missing out on funding women to build businesses. Women bring great understanding, empathy and determination. Plus, you’re missing out on half the market.”
When not working, Dulski, who lives in San Francisco, does what any true Californian would: hiking and organic gardening. Though she won’t disclose her net worth, one assumes her success has afforded her a comfortable position; one she seems keen to ensure other women reach. As COO of Change.org, she granted equal parental leave; reducing the stigma facing working mothers. Her presence on multiple boards is, itself, a boon to female enterprises.
Her advice to budding female businesswomen? “Just get started,” she says. And maybe it really is that easy.
Purposeful: Are You a Manager or a Movement Starter? by Jennifer Dulski is published by Ebury (rrp £10). To order your audiobook for £8.99, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk. To read about the Women Mean Business campaign go to telegraph.co.uk/women/business