Breaking Through to the C-Suite
Guest Speaker Yue ZhaoSue Bethanis hosts consumer and marketplace product and technology executive, and author, Yue Zhao.
Yue was the first product manager and Head of Professionals at Thumbtack Inc. for 5 years, where she worked alongside the founders to build and scale a technology leader valued at $3.2B in 2021 with investment from Sequoia, Tiger Global, Capital G, QIA, and more. Then, at Fuzzy Pet Health, she was the Chief Product & Technology officer, helping the team find PMF for its telehealth offering and reach EBITDA positive within 6 months. Previously, she co-founded a wine e-commerce startup called FirstCrush. She spent 4 years at Meta working on Instagram Feed and Profile, Messenger Web and Desktop, and SMB Advertising.
Yue is currently a Venture Partner at LifeX Ventures, a $100M fund actively deploying capital in healthtech, climatech, and the AI space. Her network in the product space, in particular, adds a new dimension to LifeX’s team of ex-founders and operators.
As a seasoned executive career coach and advisor, Yue is passionate about coaching mid-career minority executives and helping the next generation of CEOs and founders hone in on the real pain points to solve for their customers.
She holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Sue and Yue discuss her new book, The Uncommon Executive: Breakthrough to the C-Suite as a Minority, and:
- How to adopt an executive mindset and develop skills that are critical for success
- Ways to demonstrate executive potential and land stretch assignments
- The challenges minorities face — overcoming biases and stereotypes, finding role models, and discovering superpowers
- How to influence luck and create opportunities with sponsorship, networking, and making smart job changes