Check Out Kimberly Shenk Online!

• Website - Novi

• Instagram -@kimberlyshenk

• Facebook - Novi Connect Facebook Page

• LinkedIn - Kimberly Shenk

• Twitter - @kimberly_shenk

Full Transcript:

Note: This is an original transcript–edited for sense, length, and clarity.  If you have any questions or concerns, please email our host, Doria Lavagnino, at doria@sheventurespodcast.com.

00:03.71

Doria Lavagnino:

It’s a safe bet today’s guest never let gender stereotypes stand in the way of her success. A graduate with distinction from the United States Air Force Academy with a double major in math and operations research, she went on to serve in the Air Force for five years, received her master’s degree as a Draper Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT), and served as a data scientist in the Air Force at Pearl Harbor — interested to learn more about that. Data mining fueled her pivot to entrepreneurship, most recently as co-founder and CEO of Novi, a B2B marketplace for transparency of raw materials in consumer goods. Kimberly Shenk, welcome to SheVentures.

01:05.67

Kimberly Shenk:

Thank you, excited to be here.

01:09.66

Doria:

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your early influences in your life.

01:13.93

Kimberly:

When I grew up, my dad actually flew search and rescue for the California Highway Patrol and my mom was a preschool teacher and actually still is. A lot of what I grew up around was this fundamental value of service and serving others. My mom’s so passionate about kids and serving families, and my dad’s extremely passionate about flying, but also serving others in the capacity of working for the California Highway Patrol. So that was a lot of my upbringing and example, and I grew up in Northern California in a very kind of rural environment.

02:00.68

Doria:

Nice, and was it because your dad flew that you became interested in flying?

02:06.30

Kimberly:

Yes, I was very fascinated. He worked an hour and a half drive away from where we lived and actually we ended up owning a small aircraft so that he could commute to work by flying there. And so I was introduced to flying at a very early age. For that reason, I ended up flying and getting my private pilot’s license when I was 17, so at the same time I was getting my driver’s license pretty much. 

02:31.88

Doria:

That’s amazing. Is that still what people can do if you have enough hours? 

Kimberly:

Ah, yeah, yep, Absolutely yeah.

Doria:

Even if you were like 12 and had enough hours?

02:41.10

Kimberly:

So there’s a limit. I think the minimum age is still 16 to get your pilot license. But it’s kind of scary to think that you could send a 16-year-old on their own in a plane unsupervised to fly across the country, which is what I did.

02:57.39

Doria:

But you seem to do it quite well because you, no pun intended, landed at the Air Force Academy. How did that come about? How did you research options for college etc. and how did you decide?

03:14.95

Kimberly:

Well I think the first piece was just this motivation to serve and figuring out where I was going to serve the greater good, and I felt like serving my country was an awesome opportunity to do that. I was also very passionate about flying and so I wanted to become a fighter pilot. Then another really interesting piece: I played volleyball and I was very interested in playing volleyball in college and the Air Force Academy is actually a Division One school in the Mountain West Conference, and so I got recruited to play volleyball there as well.

03:47.50

Doria:

Of course you did. Do they give you a scholarship to join?

04:07.34

Kimberly:

Well, typically at other colleges that is exactly what happens, and in this case because you are going to a military academy everybody is under scholarship because in exchange you serve in the military for a number of years after graduation.

04:24.50

Doria:

Does that amount vary?

04:26.76

Kimberly:

No, actually everybody that graduates from an academy has a five-year service commitment as an officer in the military and then you can choose to stay on further years after that.

04:38.20

Doria:

You are an example of a woman who you were either, and I would love to know, unaffected or not stymied by gender stereotypes. I say this because I’m a mom of two teenage daughters and research shows that girls start to internalize and define themselves with some positive but also with some kind of harmful stereotypes as early as middle school about things like, “I’m not good at math” or body image, etc., and these are really serious issues for a lot of young women. Not wanting to take up space is another one. So I realize these are generalizations. There are some young women out there that do not have these issues but what was the difference, do you think, about your upbringing or your way of approaching life?

05:36.80

Kimberly:

I actually give a ton of credit to my dad who basically just instilled and encouraged this “You can do whatever you want and don’t let anybody stop you.” I think I was introduced to things that typically men would do like flying. There were just things that he never introduced even the concept of gender to me, so I never had that thought in my mind that this was only a man’s world. I think it was really interesting and an eye-opener and probably a little bit of naivete as I was applying for the Air Force Academy to learn that only 17 percent of the class was female and that’s a very high number, and traditionally it’s 15 percent. And I was actually shocked to think, “Oh my goodness, I’m gonna be the only girl there.” But I think a lot of that is because I also grew up in a rural environment and so there wasn’t a ton of outside pressures in that and it didn’t really occur to me till later. So I think that’s a really interesting question because my dad had a bunch of influence on that.

06:46.30

Doria:

That’s wonderful and then when you did realize it, how did it feel to be the one young woman in a class of guys?

06:53.28

Kimberly:

I embraced it. I am extremely competitive and so I actually loved it. Especially when you go to the Air Force Academy you have a stint of time before where you’re going through boot camp essentially and being able to do more push-ups or more pull-ups or run faster than some of the guys was obviously something that fueled me, and I just loved to do that. So I kind of just took it as a challenge, and the competition piece really stuck out.

07:26.38

Doria:

I was thinking to myself the only example that comes to mind from an athletic perspective for me was I decided when I turned 40 that I was going to run the New York City Marathon and I trained for two years and I did it. But I remember at mile 16 — it’s where you turn to go on the Queensborough Bridge — and it’s uphill, it’s cold, and no one is cheering for you at that point. I remember I ran the whole thing, I ran slow but I ran and I started to pass these pretty built dudes and it took kind of a mental fortitude as well because I’m thinking, “Wow I must really be in much better shape than I thought.” Then you come off the Queensborough Bridge and people start cheering and it is a great feeling.

08:24.41

Kimberly:

I love that. Yes, it is. It’s so satisfying. It’s fueling and then you’re like, “Okay no I’m gonna pick it up.”

08:30.61

Doria:

Exactly. So you became interested in data analytics and data mining. What drew you to that?

08:43.45

Kimberly:

Well, it’s crazy I was set on being a pilot, I had even gotten my incentive ride in an F-16, which is an incredible experience by the way. Ultimately I was also at the Academy starting to take a ton of math classes and just fell in love with the concept of what it can do. I had an instructor that was very influential on me, and a lot of the stuff that he had done in his career and I just started to think that that was something I wanted to do in my future, and ultimately decided to depart from the fighter pilot life and journey and switched completely over into becoming a data scientist. 

09:27.50

Doria:

And that you did and went to MIT. Gosh talk about exclusive — probably like 1 percent acceptance rate. So how did how did that go for you?

09:42.50

Kimberly:

Yeah, that’s such an interesting story I mean honestly because if you’re graduating from an Academy you’re required to go on and serve and to be able to go to a graduate program is actually a very hard thing to convince, first off the military to let you do it, but then also to get in. So I ended up flying myself out to MIT and almost begging the head of the Department of Operations Research to let me in and take classes and study for my master’s degree. That was an amazing experience and I got to work for a laboratory as a Draper Fellow and do work for the Naval Health Research Institute. And I still had to have a full-time job as an officer in the Air Force, and so I balanced that alongside my work but that was probably the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. When they say MIT is hard, it’s not a joke. I don’t think I’ve ever felt dumb in my life until I went there. 

10:48.62

Doria:

There are a lot of really smart people. You were working full time and going to school full time, is that right? 

10:52.85

Kimberly:

Yeah.

Doria:

Oh my goodness. So I’m sure you had a lot of time to play volleyball?

10:57.92

Kimberly:

There’s an interesting story in there. I ended up, after graduating from the Academy, there’s a team in the Air Force that is essentially the all-military team for each sport. In other countries, the one element of your duty as a citizen in a country is to serve in the military and a lot of countries do this and for professional athletes they will place them on a military team so that they can continue training. So all of the militaries will get together and play, they call it the Military World Olympics. Usually you’re pressure testing the Olympic training sites before the Olympics happen, and so I got to play on the Military World team for the entire military for the volleyball team, and we got to go pressure test the Olympics site in Rio, which was really cool. Yeah, but they didn’t have hot water yet. So there were a lot of cold showers. So that was a fun experience. I still got to play a little bit of volleyball.

12:14.37

Doria:

I’m glad to hear that it’s very, very cool. I was interested, and I think listeners would like to know in layperson’s terms as much as it can be, that you then were deployed to Pearl Harbor where you were a data scientist for the Pacific Air Force. What does that job entail?

12:33.91

Kimberly:

It is so beautiful in the fact that it is stationed in Hawaii but it’s a top-secret security clearance. So obviously you’re handling a lot of very confidential information and so I got to work in what they call a SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility], where you have to have a badge to get in, and you have to lock up all of your stuff in another locker in a safe before you can even leave the building and so I didn’t have windows in my office, let’s put it that way. But a very, very amazing opportunity to have access to. I worked directly with the three-star general, got to do a lot of the analysis that led our decisions in the Pacific, just really cool work. Obviously still to this day, I can’t talk about any of it. 

13:25.19

Doria:

I realized that yeah like, “I guess she can’t tell us because who knows who’s listening and they heard all of United States security in the Pacific on SheVentures Podcast. Who knew?” So after leaving the Air Force, you seem to dabble — and I don’t mean that like you didn’t take it seriously because obviously everything you do with great passion — but equally with entrepreneurship as you did working with big companies such as Eventbrite. Before your current venture, which we’ll talk about in a few minutes, what were some of the pros and cons of working for startups versus big companies? Albeit, I think always in the data universe.

14:19.55

Kimberly:

So I was, after separating and getting out as a captain in the Air Force, just fascinated about tech in general. And a lot of what I had studied at MIT had applications in AI and there’s just a lot of future stuff happening in tech that was leveraging AI. So for me I think what’s interesting actually is my very first job out of the Air Force, I worked as a data scientist for Sports Authority, which is a blast from the past. But that was actually my first big company experience because at the time they were still a large company. I got to see the inner workings, I just never had that context before and so it was very interesting. It operates completely differently than the military does, obviously, and there’s a bunch of different departments that I had never had any exposure to, like marketing, before. So, that was, I almost call it like a mini business school in a way, just understanding how businesses operate. When I moved into Eventbrite, I actually joined when they were pretty early on and so still in that startup phase, and for me what I learned there is a lot about, well in the context of what I do today, network-driven business models and Eventbrite was one of those. But I also built and led the Data Science Organization there. In the Academy and in the military, leadership is just something that you do innately and you are trained in and I hadn’t actually had the opportunity to apply that in the business side yet and so that was my first opportunity to really leverage a lot of those skills, and I learned that I loved doing that. I just loved building teams and pulling people together to accomplish something around the concept of data and that was my focus in that organization.

16:19.80

Doria:

I never thought about that. But yeah, right, the military is completely different in terms of hierarchy, and companies do have hierarchy but they also have politics and all sorts of things. So that must have really been quite a mind shift.

16:42.74

Kimberly:

Definitely a mind shift. It’s not a “Yes, Sir. No, Ma’am” salute and take your orders and go on. But I Ioved it. I felt like I thrived and I really found my place in being able to leverage a lot of the great stuff that I learned in the military about leadership but then layering that on with a lot of the cool stuff that you get to do with a little bit more freedom and less guardrails in business.

17:11.43

Doria:

For listeners who are starting their career or are maybe pivoting and are looking at whether they would like to work at a big company versus a startup, what is your experience at both of them? Pros and cons.

17:26.27

Kimberly:

It’s, for me, very stark in a larger company. The folks that thrive there, and I learned actually this was not me, but it’s where you need a lot of structure, which you might say that sounds crazy because I came from the military, which has a lot of structure. But, essentially it’s an opportunity where you want to see best practices, potentially a well-oiled machine, learn from people who have senior experience, lots of years of doing the craft or the thing that you’re joining a company to do. Largely we have a very important but probably defined and smaller piece of the pie, that is what your job is hired to be a cog in the wheel, and I don’t say that negatively, a lot of people thrive in that environment, but it’s mostly like stepping in to do a well-defined role with clear boundaries.

In a startup, you are joining something that has a ton of ambiguity. You’re going to wear a bunch of different hats. Nobody’s going to know what they’re doing. It’s not going to be a great process. You’re not going to be able to look up to somebody and be like, “Oh you have 10 years of doing this thing.” But it’s exciting because you get to write your own rules, you get to get your hands dirty. You might be doing a customer call one day and then coding in the backend on the platform the next day. You’re all over the place, but it’s more thrilling and so you have to be okay with that ambiguity and lack of structure.

19:03.90

Doria:

That’s a great answer, and I like the fact that it was one not of judgment on either side because it really depends on what’s right for the person. So what led you to start Novi? And again, in simple terms, what is the purpose of the company and where did the idea originate from?

20:07.24

Kimberly:

Part of my upbringing, and this goes a little bit back to growing up in a more rural environment where when we had 40 acres of nothing around us, and then going into the military I just have always had this passion for the environment and for health, for wellness. When I was at Eventbrite, I was very close with the chief marketing officer of the time, her name is Jalei Bisharat, and she and I bonded over this common passion. And when we had both left Eventbrite and had gone our separate ways and were in different companies, we kept meeting up for lunch and talking about how we could maybe do something together to just address our passion. So actually in 2017, right around this time, I also got pregnant and I started to just become obsessed with the different types of products I was using, what kinds of ingredients were being used, the impacts they had on my health, the health of my growing baby, the environment, all these things.

Naturally as a data scientist, I started creating spreadsheets of ingredients and trying to understand the landscape. So all of this kind of culminated into starting the original company that we started called Naked Poppy with Jalei. And basically the approach was to build clean, or better for your health, better for the environment, personal-care products. It was a startup, we raised venture capital, and I got very close to the manufacturing side of the business and so that was where we were actually developing the products that we wanted to sell as a brand. The whole thing was shocking to me and the fact that we wanted to use data to build these better products, and there was no data to be found. I didn’t actually understand how brands create products, and I had a misconception that these brands understand information about the materials they’re using and the impacts of these chemicals. Some of these products we use have 50 chemicals in them and where the chemicals are coming from and how they’re made and that was very much not the case.

22:32.72

Doria:

Is it something that is true across the industry? They don’t even have scientists? How does that work?

22:44.27

Kimberly:

So there are absolutely some extremely intelligent scientists and chemists out there doing this and building products. It goes back to if you’re going to select a chemical to go into your product, you are going to know if that will make the product more foaming or nicer when you put the lotion on your hand. But when it comes to the toxicity of that chemical or the impact that chemical might have on the environment once it’s washed down the drain or thrown into the trash, that is not available and people are not taking that into account.

23:28.21

Doria:

That is so mind-boggling to me. I guess it falls in between EPA and FDA, what a huge hole.

23:37.23

Kimberly:

Yes, and regulations in the U.S. are very, very lenient and when I say that it’s because there are none. And I think what’s interesting is if you look at the European Union, the EU actually bans about 1,400 different chemicals from personal-care products. We ban I think at this point it’s still only 13 or 14. It’s quite a disparity.

24:04.10

Doria:

Wow. I would imagine that that’s because commercial interests are driving the people not to ask questions?

24:09.17

Kimberly:

It’s definitely a world in which capitalism is thriving, and I think a lot of these companies are not driven by mission but they’re driven by revenue. I think the interesting piece is that this is shifting and we’re seeing consumers waking up to the fact that they want to know what’s in their products. We see climate change happening. We’re starting to put our dollars in different places. And actually what’s really amazing is that, because of that, a lot of companies are now out there searching to figure this out and find better source materials, and that’s exactly what Novi does. 

24:51.42

Doria:

That is fantastic and you’re so right about this because I have two Gen Z daughters and they’re super aware. That’s why it’s so important to work with ethical companies because so many companies say that they’re “organic” or “natural” but it has no real yardstick. So, I want to ask about your raise of venture capital but I want to ask you before that: I am a company and I come to Novi and I guess I would present you with the chemicals that I use. Tell me how a company would work with you?

25:40.43

Kimberly:

So there’s two ways that we work with different companies and brands. One is we are a marketplace, essentially, for materials, and so we work with hundreds and hundreds of different suppliers all over the world. I think actually we’re in 43 different countries at this point who are making things like the chemicals or the ingredients that you would put into a face wash you’re making, or packaging the bottle that it’s going to go into, or the fragrance that’s going to be used. Essentially, we through the data lens are capturing a ton of information on all these materials and surfacing it to help a brand as they’re trying to say, “I want to create this organic, or vegan, or biodegradable thing. How do I find materials that meet those standards for health and sustainability that I care about?” So we are, through the marketplace lens, helping them find those materials and purchase them. So that would be the most common use case. 

Then the second one is, “I already have this face wash that I’ve built and it’s been selling in market and I actually want to understand more information about the materials I’m using and potentially even swap out different materials,” like “the glycerin I’m using isn’t sourced responsibly and it’s burning down rainforest, and I want to find responsibly sourced glycerin. How do I do that?” So we help the brand learn more about the ingredients that they’re currently using and then find alternatives that are better for the environment and health.

27:17.67

Doria:

What are the criteria for someone to be considered as a supplier for you?

27:27.71

Kimberly:

We actually, and this is kind of going back to the data side of it, do not have an opinion and we don’t put out a definition of “good” or “bad.” And we’ve done that kind of on purpose because in the journey of making better products and toward sustainability, it is, in fact, a journey — and everybody starts on that journey in different parts of the spectrum. So, from the data lens, if we can help you make your decision with the information that you need at your fingertips, then we can help you. If you’re more focused on trying to make an environmental impact versus a health impact, you can focus more on those data points. So when we work with suppliers, some suppliers are more focused on the environmental side, some are more focused on the health side. We just leverage the data that they have and present that to the brand to help them make an informed decision. 

28:24.54

Doria:

And how do you verify it?

28:40.44

Kimberly:

So a lot of this information if you think about, like you had mentioned, the chemical industry it is these chemistries or these ingredients are created by scientists who are extremely intelligent and they document their information in very formal ways. We leverage massive, massive amounts of documentation. But we leverage official documents that have manufacturing principles, everything that would go into creating a chemical and then be basically through that and technology that we’ve built we ingest it and digitize it and so that’s the whole concept.

29:07.80

Doria:

How many chemicals or materials do you have in your database?

29:14.41

Kimberly:

At this point, I think we’re approaching about 80,000. Our primary focus in our early stages has been in the beauty and personal-care market, and so that’s everything from color cosmetics to haircare to Chapstick to deodorant. So that’s going to grow extensively as we move into household cleaning, which we’re leaning into now, and other areas like food, ingestibles like vitamins, and things like that.

29:48.42

Doria:

I’m a small business owner, and you’ve worked at startups, cash is tight. So can a small business leverage your services or is it something that’s better done a little bit later when you have traction?

30:05.68

Kimberly:

I love that you asked that because that is the whole mission and vision and why I wanted to build this business. The up-and-coming and the smaller brands I’ve found are the ones that are driving the innovation and care and want to make an impact. The whole point of Novi is not only to find better materials but actually to have access. A lot of what we’re doing is providing financing and negotiating better pricing, and the whole point of that is so a small brand, and we work with brands that are actually pre-launch that don’t even have a product and market yet, so that they have the accessibility or the the means to actually purchase the materials so that they can create those products.

30:51.39

Doria:

And that’s great. I was looking on your website and I read an article about supply chain issues and they’re such a big deal right now and so someone potentially could work with you knowing ahead of time that X, Y, or Z may be happening to help their company.

31:11.18

Kimberly:

Yes. A lot of what we find also is, “I’ve just got to find an alternative material because I can’t get the one I’ve been using.” So it’s another amazing use case. Not an amazing dynamic for the industry but also we’re able to help in that case.

31:32.69

Doria:

Yes I think it was kind of an unforeseen, I hate to use the word “benefit” when it comes to COVID, but it just disrupted the supply chain. So the fact that you can help is great. 

I’m sure you know this statistic that women-led companies or women-founded companies raise 2.3 percent of venture capital. You raised more than $10 million with your co-founder. What tips can you share with listeners about what worked for you? Why do you think you’re part of the 2 percent?

32:14.88

Kimberly:

So when I reflect back on it, I will be honest that raising money as a female is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And it’s largely because I think, and this is still a stereotype and I don’t want to make a generalization, but I do think there’s a dynamic where it’s a sales pitch, when you go out to raise money you are definitely doing sales and it’s your job to storytell. There’s an element of grandiosity and gravitas that you have to bring to the room, and I think there’s two things propagating it. One is in an environment where men have been predominantly the ones filling that space and so driving what that looks like and setting the example for many years on what this gravitas should look like. But then, two, women just potentially, or in my case, not being that way and being a little bit more analytical on where you are today and wanting to showcase that element of it and maybe not selling so much into the future. I’ve just seen that the reaction and what I’ve noticed, and I’ve talked to so many different female founders about this, is that you’re held to a standard where investors want to see more, they want to see more of what you’ve done and more proof, and I think it’s really interesting because you’ll talk to men that are at the same stage as you and have the same numbers but are not asked to show that proof and they can sell more of this vision into the future of come along with me on that. That was just like a lot of what I had to work on and I ended up working with an amazing coach to think through how I communicate my story and talk about vision and do that in a comfortable way that didn’t feel like I was bragging or just the things that didn’t feel natural to me. And that’s kind of what I had to focus on because I knew that was going to be a weakness of mine going into fundraising.

34:15.82

Doria:

How many people, or companies, or venture capital firms, whatever they all are, how many did you have to pitch?

34:27.60

Kimberly:

That’s a really good question. I never actually kept track. I’ve had a bajillion conversations. It’s a learning process, you learn and you get said no to and it’s crushing and you have to pick yourself back up and learn why. But I will say that I was very fortunate to work closely with somebody at Eventbrite who ended up going on to become an investor and because of the pre-existing relationship that we had and knew each other so well, in our very first round, our seed round, when we raised $1.5 million, he was the first person I called and he ended up putting that check in. So I do think from that perspective, there’s the relationship side of fundraising and finding people that you trust and building those relationships.

35:18.57

Doria:

Absolutely. Networking I hear over and over again, and not just in the sense of exchanging business cards, but how you’re talking about having meaningful relationships with people. Traction to date, how has it been?

35:43.82

Kimberly:

It’s been incredible. I think the thing we saw over the past year was 9X, close to 10X growth in our customer base. We pretty much just exploded across the beauty and personal-care space, which has been very, very exciting for us, and so this next year a lot of the focus actually is taking the learnings in the playbook and starting to expand. The opportunity is tremendous. The chemical industry, you probably don’t know this, is a $5 trillion industry, so for us that’s what we’re trying to tackle is taking that on and bringing it online.

36:32.80

Doria:

So is that the ultimate goal: to have every chemical, I don’t know, in the world, in your database with data points?

36:42.63

Kimberly:

Absolutely and honestly I think the piece of that which is the most exciting part and aligns with our mission is that as we are driving commerce in this industry and exposing it and essentially bringing transparency to it, it’s going to start turning over to brands actually deciding because they can and they have the information at their fingertips to purchase better materials for the environment and human health. So the whole point of this is we just want better products in the hands of consumers. So if we can bring the purchasing of the materials that go into those products online and make it more transparent and enable brands to make better decisions, that’s what’s going to accelerate that.

37:22.77

Doria:

So it could be at some point that businesses could just log on, have a tiered membership, I’m not really sure, and look up chemicals with their scientific team if they had one?

37:37.00

Kimberly:

Absolutely, That’s exactly right.

37:41.78

Doria:

This is incredible and just really amazing to me that it’s not been thought of before. You have worked in male-dominated industries, you had said this earlier in the podcast, for much of your life. How have you been received as a woman and as a mother?

38:02.40

Kimberly:

So it’s interesting, the mother part, I think that’s actually been a very positive piece of the puzzle. I think as a woman without children you’re just viewed as very young and naive. And I think actually having my daughter and talking to that, especially even when I’m still with the chemical industry (and honestly the CPG industry is very male dominated as well), but bringing that up gives me, whether it’s good or bad, just more of a point to credibility. “Oh, you’re old enough to have a family, you must have done something in your life” kind of thing. So that’s what I’ve experienced at least.

38:52.25

Doria:

That’s good to know and anyone who looks at your résumé, I just find it hard to believe that they would have any difficulty knowing that you’re qualified. Do you think that women in STEM have a unique perspective to offer?

39:15.59

Kimberly:

From my perspective, I’ve always found that in these fields, particularly STEM or the military or just anything where female presence has not been traditionally there, it’s just a whole new perspective and a way of problem-solving and looking at the problem that women bring to the table. And I think that even extends into when you think about leadership, board members, your executive staff. There’s just a different way and I think it’s great,. It’s a balance to the conversation and to the point of view, and so from that perspective I do think everybody brings something different to the table whether or not you’re men or women. But I do believe that women bring a very different lens to problem-solving.

40:16.75

Doria:

And you’ve served on a board or two or are currently, right? So you’ve seen that in action. I did want to ask before we wrap up, I just had one more question about Novi. How do you earn money?

40:34.20

Kimberly:

So the way that we earn money is through the transaction and so you can think of it as any typical e-commerce site where you’re going on to buy something. There’s a cut that’s negotiated between the seller and the platform, and so that’s exactly what we do as a brand is purchasing material. We’ll take a cut of the transaction of that material. So we only win if the brand wins.

41:05.30

Doria:

That’s a good way to be aligned. So last question before we talk about where listeners can find out more about you and Novi – actually I have two. Because you’re so into AI, where do you see big data evolving into in the next three years and having the biggest impact?

41:27.42

Kimberly:

I think the interesting piece about AI and data is it’s only as good as the data source that it’s coming from. But I think we’ve traditionally been in a space where we have lots of data but we’re not leveraging it in intelligent ways, and so I think it’s just going to start evolving into a place where we’re leveraging it better,. When I say better, we’re doing it in respectful ways to people’s privacy. I think there’s a lot of inappropriate ways that data is used to continue to drive anti-diversity, drive the gender gap, create these biases. And so there’s a responsible way of using data to make sure that that’s not incorporated into the models and the AI that we’re using. So I think there’s going to be a lot more into the algorithms and how we’re using the data, and before, I think, it was a lot of just capturing mega amounts of information.

42:32.39

Doria:

When you say that, I know this is such a small example but I think it’s one that resonates with people. It’s like when you look at something online and then because of a cookie it follows you everywhere for the next week or year, it can be quite annoying. Last question: What advice would you give to your younger self being where you are today?

43:05.11

Kimberly:

I think there are definitive moments that I know and I can remember in my younger days when I was told that I couldn’t do something or that wasn’t possible, those had very large impacts on me. And so I think I would tell myself: “Just blow through that barrier, ignore it, and keep moving on. Don’t even give it a second thought because the future you and what you’re going to be able to do is inconsequential.” 

44:05.28

Doria:

Do you feel comfortable giving one example?

44:19.13

Kimberly:

Absolutely. The one that’s coming to mind is I had a difficult coach in high school when I was

playing volleyball, and he told me that I would never amount to anything or play in college. And it made me reconsider if I was ever going to do that, and I took a long time evaluating my life and then I ended up actually getting to play in college. 

44:36.76

Doria:

Yeah, Coach, I hope you’re listening to this now. We do all internalize those things and you have done so much and inspire many. Where can listeners learn more about Novi or about you?

44:53.96

Kimberly:

So you can obviously go to our website, which is noviconnect.com, find us on Instagram @noviconnect. We also are on Facebook @NoviConnect and LinkedIn, so those are our main places.

45:09.46

Doria:

Fantastic, I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

45:13.83

Kimberly:

Thank you so much. It was wonderful chatting with you. I’ve really enjoyed it.