Why This CMO Doesn’t Feel Guilty About Ambition

Jessica Serrano (00:00)
Sometimes these things align perfectly.

we flew in the day before and we woke up in this new house and we all started with this first day.

Me and my mom dropped off the girls at school and then my mom dropped me off at work, which is just very funny full circle.

Kevin Rice (00:17)
It’s like

Jessica Serrano (00:17)
⁓

Kevin Rice (00:17)
full circle. Yeah, three

three generations in one car.

Jessica Serrano (00:21)
one of the things that surprised me about maternity leave is it actually really lit a fire in me professionally. It gave me so much more of a want for purpose. Like if I’m going to be away from my kids, it better make it count.

what it did inspire in me was a need to build a life that was going to allow me to pursue my professional ambitions, but not stretch me in a way where I felt like I was constantly having to choose.

another thing that I’ve heard that feels true to me is that the first 15 minutes when you see your kids is the highest impact so that’s a choice that I’ve made when I walk in the door, at least for the first 15 minutes, phone is away.

Prioritization,

So that then when I come home, I still have something to give of myself. I can’t give it all to work.

It used to be like, it’s just tacos, it’s just broccoli, and now it’s just bagels. we’re not sending anybody to the moon.

Kevin Rice (01:33)
Welcome back to CEOs and ABCs. My guest today is an incredible marketing executive who spent nearly two decades shaping how we experience some of the world’s most beloved food brands. She’s led marketing for Taco Bell and Burger King, bringing creativity, warmth, and a deep understanding of how food connects us.

Kevin Rice (01:50)
She went on to help lead the brand turnaround at Dig In, and today she’s the chief marketing officer at Bagel Brands, homes to Einstein Bros and Noah’s Bagels.

Jessica is known for building culturally resonant brands that blend comfort, creativity, and community. But what makes her story even more inspiring is how she’s done it while raising twin daughters, navigating cross-country moves, and balancing the full plate of motherhood and executive leadership. In this conversation, we explore how becoming a parent transformed her worldview and her decision-making, why she believes growth requires taking the roles others avoid

and how she protects her energy so that there’s still something left when she walks through the door at night. This is a conversation about intentional living, courageous career moves, and building a family life that can hold it all, and what it really looks like to grow a career you love without missing the moments that matter most.

Kevin Rice (02:39)
My guest today is Jessica Serrano, CMO of Bagel Brands. Jessica, thank you so much for being here today.

Jessica Serrano (02:45)
Thanks for having me.

Kevin Rice (02:46)
I know you recently took on this new role and I also saw that on your first day of starting this new position, your daughters also had their first day of kindergarten. How was the kind of first day nerves for you and your daughters amidst like a big transition in life?

Jessica Serrano (03:03)
Yeah, that was such a fun day.

Sometimes these things align perfectly.

And so when this opportunity came up, it just so happened to be during the summer. And as a part of the offer conversations, the organization was flexible with me on when my start day would be. And they’re like, you could move in October if you want. But I looked at when the school started, and I was like, you know what? We’re just going to

jump in and everybody’s gonna start this together. Cause it was important to me that my girls had their kindergarten experience in one singular school.

So we flew in the day before and we woke up in this new house and we all started with this first day. So that was really fun. And my mom came to support us during that transition. So it was kind of funny cause we were just sharing one car at the moment. So.

Me and my mom dropped off the girls at school and then my mom dropped me off at work, which is just like, I don’t know, just very funny full circle.

Kevin Rice (04:01)
It’s like

Jessica Serrano (04:01)
⁓

Kevin Rice (04:01)
full circle. Yeah, three

three generations in one car.

Jessica Serrano (04:05)
Yeah, for sure. So it was awesome.

Kevin Rice (04:06)
That’s amazing. How is the adjustment going?

Jessica Serrano (04:10)
really well and I don’t take that for granted. It’s not my first cross country move for a role and I’m really grateful that we have found a place that we really enjoy. It’s been a little over three months now. So on the personal front, we’re really enjoying Denver and getting to explore the areas and then the girls are thriving in school. My husband’s doing great in his work, which is remote. So that’s what

made this an easier decision for us. And then I’m really having fun diving into the role as well. And we roll deep. So we actually had some of his family who also decided to move to Denver as well.

Both my husband and I were Cuban. My husband’s from Cuba. I was born here, but my father was from Cuba. So culturally, multi-generational living is

a part of our culture. And I noticed that Americans usually have a strong reaction to that. But what it’s allowed me to do is be able to pursue both things that grow me professionally, but also feel like at any given point when I’m not with my kids, they’re always with people who love them and are committed to their growth and happiness.

So my in-laws and my sister-in-law, they live like 15 minutes away from us. So we’re all enjoying a new city together.

Kevin Rice (05:31)
That’s amazing. I’d love to hear, cause it really takes a village, right? having the community, having family support, makes the family dynamic just so much more connected and tight. So that’s amazing that they moved with you.

Jessica Serrano (05:44)
Yes, we are. We’re grateful.

Kevin Rice (05:45)
it’s a big decision to, make that choice to move your family, for a career opportunity. What did you and your husband talk about? what went into this decision? Was there anything you wrestled with when you were, deciding to make this move?

Jessica Serrano (05:59)
We’ve been married for eight years now. And so we’ve had conversations about, career and what’s within guardrails, what’s on the table, what’s off the table. And so I know that quality of life is important to everyone, but I know what that means for my spouse and what are some of the things that are important to him to make sure that not only are we pursuing career success, but are we choosing places where we feel like we

can really thrive.

So I’ve gotten calls over the years where I really won’t even take the call much further because I’m like, I know that’s out of bounds in terms of like a city that, you maybe my family wouldn’t thrive in. And so when I got the call about Denver, we hadn’t really spent a lot of time in Denver. I think we’d been here once for a ski trip, but knowing what I know about my husband, was like, I feel like maybe Denver is a maybe. And so I told him, Hey, this opportunity came up. But at the time I was like,

there’s probably a 2 % chance that I’m willing to take it because I was really happy in my previous role. And we had actually only been in the home that we bought for like a year or so. It really would have taken a lot for me to at that moment make a change. And then that percentage just kept creeping up. So, but you know, I’m like having that conversation with him along the way. once he started to realize like, okay, this is tipping

towards more likely is when he started to really wrap his arms around like, okay, yeah, I’m up for that. And so we made a trip out and we checked out different neighborhoods and stuff before I had committed as well. So it was a very intentional decision that we made together. And like I mentioned, there’ve been times where we’ve passed because it wasn’t right for us. So this one, we went in eyes wide open and I feel really good about it.

Kevin Rice (07:45)
I thought about moving to Dallas many times. knew it would be like Dallas, LA, San Francisco, New York, bigger city hubs. And I knew it be just so beneficial for my career. But back to what you said, it’s just quality of life. we have such a nice outdoorsy community here. We have so many friends and family, my parents live nearby and I just could never pull the trigger. I just couldn’t

make that decision to sacrifice the quality of life we have for, a potential of better career success.

Jessica Serrano (08:16)
Yeah, the role I had taken previously was based in New York. And when I started having a conversation about that, I was really clear with them, New York is 100 % not an option for my family. It just didn’t fit, the kind of environment where we wanted to raise our kids, but they were open to remote. And so we were able to stay in Florida. And I was happy in that role for three years and we were able to make the travel work in a way

that work for my kids and my family. And that’s because we have the benefit of a lot of family support. And as I was evaluating that role, I did realize though that I needed to spend time in New York to be successful. Like I couldn’t just open my laptop in Florida and thrive in a restaurant role remotely. And so as a part of that process, I did express that I felt like I needed to spend three months

in New York with my family and they said yes. And so we all spent three months in New York and that was fine. Like we could do it for a season, but we weren’t gonna be able to uproot our lives entirely. So that’s definitely been something that I have been pleasantly surprised to see in my career is sometimes you just kind of have to set your boundaries and be clear with them.

And if the opportunity is meant for you, it’ll all conspire in support of that. And if it doesn’t, then, you know, it’s probably just not the right opportunity and you gotta let it go.

Kevin Rice (09:39)
Yeah, it’s kind of the way the universe works. Like it’ll it’ll line up for you if it’s meant to be.

Jessica Serrano (09:43)
Yeah, I think so.

Kevin Rice (09:44)
You’ve had this like incredible career trajectory, going from a brand manager at Taco Bell to I think it was a director at Burger King. And then you made this huge leap all the way up to the C-suite and became the chief marketing officer at Dig In. that was the role you’ve been talking about in New York. If you look back on that, what were some of the steps or approaches that helped you move up the ladder so quickly?

Jessica Serrano (10:06)
Well, you know what’s funny about you in particularly asking me that question is that you played a role in it, which is, I don’t know if you remember this, but as I was preparing, for this conversation, I wanted to go back and look at our LinkedIn history. And my initial message, to you was back in 2020 and I was on maternity leave at that time.

Kevin Rice (10:13)
You

Yeah.

Jessica Serrano (10:29)
And one of the things that surprised me about maternity leave is it actually really lit a fire in me professionally. And I wouldn’t have expected that. I thought that my maternal instinct would maybe be to pull back from my career, but it was the opposite. It gave me so much more of a want for purpose. Like if I’m going to be away from my kids, it better make it count.

so during that time, you know, working in the hospitality industry,

digital really wasn’t as important as it is today. And I think COVID really accelerated that. And I became really clear that I had a big gap because my real sweet spot as a marketer is I’ve led menu innovation for many, many years. And so I had never done an email campaign. I never led a loyalty program or paid media or any of that. And so I got really obsessed over COVID and trying to figure out like, how am I going to

round myself out as a marketer. And so in 2020, I did some coffee chats and you were one of the people that I thought to reach out to. So one, I just want to thank you for making that time for me. And I’ll share with you that at that moment, I wanted to explore roles that were going to give me digital experience and I did get scared and I didn’t do it. And I took the next role that was more of what I had always done.

And, you know, no regrets. I, of course I grew in it. It was bigger in scope and it brought other challenges that grew me, but I found myself again, 18 months later going, I still haven’t rounded myself out as a marketer with, with digital experience. And so that’s how I ended up pursuing the role at Dig In was because I knew that if I went to a smaller organization, they might take a chance on me and give me more

remit and exposure to other parts of the marketing world. And so that was kind of the exchange is I, you know, I had an interview with the founder. I’m like, here’s what you get with me. I’m highly strategic. I know how to do this at scale. You want to scale this thing and I want to learn digital marketing. And so those two things worked. And so that’s what I got. So I got to be hands on keyboard, and leading a, an organization across

all of its marketing initiatives. And that helped me to round myself out as a marketer and prepare me for the next role, which was CMO at a larger scale, which I’m really in on that journey now.

Kevin Rice (12:51)
Yeah, I think we had also connected at like a brand innovators event, right? Do you think being in, those industry communities also helped you, in that upward mobility of your career?

Jessica Serrano (13:00)
Definitely. Really what it comes down to is just spending time with other marketers across industries, across functions, that time away from your desk, you know, because when you work in these really large organizations like a Yum or an RBI, you get the benefit of working with lots of talented people that are in your same atmosphere. But if you can…

kind of break away from that and also spend time with people that are doing that in other organizations of different sizes and scopes and at different stages of the journey. It really helped open the aperture to me and realize what were some of the other areas that I wanted to round myself out in as a marketer. And I got more intentional about that when I went to a smaller organization because I realized, and because I was working remotely. And so I got really

intentional about building community. and now it’s how I approach everything, I’m new in a role And so I’m constantly thinking about, do I have the right vendors? Do I have the right ecosystem to do the job? And my instinct now is to pick up the phone and talk to other marketers. And I think earlier in my career, maybe I, spent a lot of time trying to figure things out on my own.

Kevin Rice (13:57)
and

you mentioned that when you became a mother, it really lit a fire. And I’ve heard this before, I had a guest on recently, Deena DePhilips, you might know from Red Robin and she echoed those kinds of sentiments where she said her work was her passion, but her children were her purpose. and she had the same kind of moment of realization that instead of pulling back, this was going to push her forward.

What was that experience for you like? Was it a moment? Was it kind of a buildup of feeling? And then what did you do with that in those kind of early years while your daughters were still young?

Jessica Serrano (15:08)
it did come on quite strongly during maternity leave. And

what it did inspire in me was a need to build a life that was going to allow me to pursue my professional ambitions, but not stretch me in a way where I felt like I was constantly having to choose.

I’ve had the benefit of working with so many women in my career. And so I’ve seen a lot of women that are able to do both succeeding professionally and also being there for their families. And what the women who I’ve seen that have had the most ⁓ success with it, I’ll say, is that they’ve been willing to embrace ⁓ non-traditional

life constructs, I guess, is the way I would describe it. And so that’s why, you know, one of the choices that we’ve made as a family is to live multi-generationally.

So I have not really felt a trade off because when my kids aren’t with me,

They’re with their aunt or their grandma or their cousins. And so that was like a pretty meaningful choice that I’ve made that has allowed me to take a role where I was going up to New York once or twice a week for a couple of nights a week. And it’s interesting, like people bring their own biases and perspectives into conversations when they’re like, how are you able to be away from your kids? it’s like, because I have a support system that allows me to do that.

Kevin Rice (16:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. And not just any support system, it’s family and they’re going to learn different things from their aunt, from their grandparents than they will from their mom and dad. And so you have this whole community helping, you know, support the growth and upbringing of your children. And that’s beautiful. ⁓

Jessica Serrano (16:51)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and even

on vacation, we often invite family members with us. And that allows my husband and I, can still like, go out to dinner or do things on our own on a vacation. And again, it’s because we have this support system. my niece who’s in college, she joined us on a trip to Spain and Portugal this summer. And so

It was great to hear her reflecting on what a great experience that was for her, but what a big help it was for us that we were able to work virtually some of those days so that we could be there longer and go out when we needed to. So yeah, those are the kinds of things that we’ve done to just make it all work for us.

Kevin Rice (17:31)
Yeah, my parents live about 20 minutes away. And when, I was still an executive at Hathaway before we got acquired, I was traveling at least two or three times a month and I was probably gone 30 to 40 % of the month. So it was a lot. really without having my parents around to support, there’s no way that I would have been able to do that. But I did find that the travel did

start to create a disconnect with me and my kids. Like at the time, my son was like three and a half. My middle son was kind of a newborn. and so I noticed the kind of impact of all that travel. How did you manage to stay connected with your daughters? when you came back, did you feel any sort of rift or was it like you just came right back to them and you were just as connected as before you left.

Jessica Serrano (18:19)
I think the timing worked out that it was right for us to make the next move when they were starting kindergarten. And so it just so happened that the role that I had that required a lot of travel was during a time where they were in preschool. And now that they’re in kinder, I can feel how much more they crave the routine of week to week. And so I’m grateful that the timing synced up, that now we’re living in the same…

city that I’m working in and one of the choices that I made was a short commute. So my office is 10 minutes away. So that means that I can be a part of morning drop off and evening pickups. I don’t know if I would have started to feel that travel become more disorienting for them. So I think the timing was kind of perfect now that they’re school aged.

Kevin Rice (19:07)
Yeah, so you have mornings with them, have evenings with them. What are kind of your routines like that keep you guys anchored and grounded as a family?

Jessica Serrano (19:15)
We like to listen to music in the morning when we’re getting ready and it’s a whole family affair. My husband does the breakfast, I do the hair. ⁓ And then in the evenings, we always read books at night before going to bed. So nothing out of the ordinary, but just the things that when I reflect back about my parents worked, ⁓ but ⁓ you still remember those things like that my mother read to me every night before bed.

And another thing that I’ve heard that feels true to me based off of my experience is that really the first 15 minutes when you see your kids is the highest impact of like where they really need you to be all in. And so that’s a choice that I’ve made for myself is when I walk in the door, at least for the first 15 minutes, phone is away.

And it’s that excitement I never want to take for granted that age where they

are so excited to see you and they run to you. And so just at least protecting that initial time, even if later in the evening I need to get swept into other things is really important to me.

Kevin Rice (20:21)
Yeah. Yeah. mean, at some point, so my oldest is nine. I probably, feel like I have a couple of years left until I’m not the most important part of his life. you know, he’s going to have, he already has friends, but like it only becomes more and more important. And so I’m just trying to soak up as much as I can while he’s still willing to hug me in public before he’s too cool for all that.

Jessica Serrano (20:42)
Yeah.

Kevin Rice (20:43)
I actually, want to go back a little bit when you moved from being a, director to a C-suite executive, what did you notice? what was the difference in the roles? And also how did you have to grow, personally or individually to support like those new expectations of a higher title?

Jessica Serrano (21:01)
Yeah, that was a growth spurt for sure. That was painful. It was a bumpy ride. I’d say, ⁓ the, there were two big differences. One was that I went from being more junior in a larger organization to more senior in a smaller one. So I was adjusting to an organization that, you know, was doing more with less first of all, and then reporting to a founder, which is entirely different as well. And so,

when I had a check-in like 90 days in in that role. And it became clear to me that I was just kind of missing the mark on some of the things that they would have expected from me in that role, in that I was being a little overly deferential because it’s different reporting to a founder because it’s his baby. And so I would state my opinion, he’d state his

If they differed, I just do what he proposed and realized that I was kind of moving through the role without conviction. And then when we had a check-in, he was kind like, what happened to the person that I interviewed that had all these strong points of view? And I’m like, ⁓ I totally lost sight of that because I made an assumption that if you said B, you wanted me to pursue B. And it turned out that what

as an executive, what you actually have to have is the conviction behind your point of view and the confidence to articulate it. And he was looking for more of an intellectual sparring partner than a yes woman. And so we recalibrated after that. And it really took off after that once I understood that. So yeah, there were some hard lessons learned along the way. ⁓

It’s continuous, right? So now I’m in another executive role at another scale and now adjusting back to an organization that’s larger. And so I got so comfortable with the rhythm of just like, you’re in a startup, you make a decision, it’s done tomorrow. And now I’m adjusting back to an organization that’s still nimble, but it’s larger. There’s more stakeholders and how do I make sure that I’m…

bringing everybody along with the right level of pace and the right level of information. So what I’m learning is that every role has some adjustment period. And the growth for me, the maturity is having the awareness of that and not being so critical of myself as I’m navigating and like recalibrating how I approach these different cultures and within different organizations.

Kevin Rice (23:41)
Amazing.

⁓ What are some of the skills that you’re working on in your current role? Soft or hard skills? Like what are you focused on? How are you focused on developing yourself right now?

Jessica Serrano (23:50)
This is really growing me on the soft skills front as a leader in terms of really pulling up a level and getting work, achieving work through others, achieving results through others. So when you come from a smaller, scrappier organization, there’s a lot of value of being in the trenches and really leading hip to hip. And this is one of those environments that’s like, well, what was successful in that environment is not

the same as what I need to achieve in this one. And so I really need to be able to operate at a more enterprise level and make sure that I have the right functional leads to really own their piece of the marketing ecosystem. So that’s on the professional development from like a leadership standpoint. And then in terms of technical skills, I’m still…

learning so much when it comes to digital marketing. ⁓ so that’s the area that I am wanting to be a little bit closer to the work to make sure that I’m fully appreciating, are we using our budget for its highest and best use? So there’s a little bit of both, both the technical but also how I lead the team.

Kevin Rice (25:06)
Amazing. I imagine that in this new role, it’s fairly demanding. And the question that a lot of people listen to this podcast for is, you know, what are you doing to manage all that pressure and stress of balancing this really high performance career, but still being able to show up and have that tight relationship with your daughters, like going to dance classes or soccer practices. how do you manage to juggle all of the responsibilities?

Jessica Serrano (25:35)
Prioritization, maybe that sounds so cliche, but it’s true. It’s being ruthless in looking at the things that I have to achieve this week versus this month versus this quarter and making sure that my calendar and the way that I’m spending my time is in alignment with that. And so that means that sometimes I have to look and go like, this, am I really needed in this meeting?

Could my time be better spent elsewhere? So that then when I come home, I still have something to give of myself. I can’t give it all to work.

And also knowing when that equilibrium needs to shift. And so there are weeks where I really need to give a lot at work. And it’s about having a conversation with my spouse, which is like, I need you to give

more than 50 % this week. You’re on for pick up and drop off this week, because I need to stay late to finish a board deck or whatever that looks like. making sure that on the weeks when I don’t have to be giving more, that I protect that space so that I can be all in at home. And also just not taking it that seriously. I have always worked in food. And so

It used to be like, it’s just tacos, at dig in, it’s just broccoli, and now it’s just bagels. Like we’re not sending anybody to the moon.

So like trying to keep it all in perspective and not taking myself too seriously helps me to like leave it all at the door when I get home.

Kevin Rice (26:59)
Yes.

Yeah. Remember we’re not, we’re not saving lives here. I think there’s an interesting delineation. said like making sure you still have enough when you get home, it’s not necessarily about time or hours, but it’s more about like the energy. because in an executive role, it’s not nine to five, like I don’t know a single executive that is working nine to five. Right. So the concept of like work life balance in terms of hours isn’t necessarily there where I really struggled kind of at the.

Jessica Serrano (27:09)
Yeah.

Kevin Rice (27:36)
peak of halfway, you we were at 250 employees, we were gearing up for exit and the pressure was on. It was very long hours, but, but I never left anything left for my kids. And that’s something that I really had to come to terms with and make some big changes around because I was putting 100 % of my energy. I still had time with my kids. So I would spend a couple hours a day with them. but there was no life in me because everything was left at the office.

And when I was with the kids, we’d be doing something, but my mind would be, working on a board deck, thinking about the next meeting. And so how do you protect your mental space so that when you walk through the front door, you’re actually present in your intentional about the time you spend with your daughters.

Jessica Serrano (28:21)
Yeah, that still happens to me sometimes. when I feel most at risk is when my husband has to travel for work. And so when I am solo parenting for a couple nights is when I feel really drained and I can feel myself go, okay, you guys can watch TV or they’re playing and I’m like,

Kevin Rice (28:28)
Mm.

That’s

the one thing is it’s like, I’m so tired and my defenses are down and my kids can sense it because if my defenses are down, they’re like, ooh, can we have pizza for dinner tonight? Can we watch a movie? And if I have no energy to cook or to like play with them, then they know when to strike.

Jessica Serrano (29:04)
Totally. And there have been times when I’m there and I’ve beat myself up about that. And I’m now in a place where I’m realizing that’s actually not helpful. It’s really more than I need to see it as a signal. And so if I my head down on the pillow at night and I’m like, man, I really wasn’t there tonight, then it’s not looking back and beating myself up about it, but it’s a signal of

what is on the plate that needs to be taken off and just like revisiting, something’s got to go and having those conversations with my spouse. I think, at times in my life when I haven’t had that figured out, it shows up as resentment or just like not being a good partner. And so at least it’s not that I get it right every day, but now

I’m less critical about it and use it more as information to adjust the days to follow.

Kevin Rice (29:54)
Yeah, I try to look at it as like the fact that I am reflective and I also try not to beat myself up about it. but the fact that I am reflective and I think about like, I, I was kind of not there. I was checking my phone or like the kids noticed that, I wasn’t totally present while we were playing that board game. That’s actually a good sign, right? It means that I want to be better. but yeah, it’s no use like beating yourself up about it, but thinking about it like a signal and like, okay, how can I be better tomorrow?

Jessica Serrano (30:20)
Yeah, someone once said to me, bad moms don’t say, are you a bad mom? They don’t ask themselves that question.

Kevin Rice (30:23)
I’ve

Right,

Exactly. Have you ever had any periods where you felt stretched pretty thin? where like kind of career and motherhood were maybe pulling it both ends for you?

Jessica Serrano (30:37)
Yeah, I mean, I think in some ways I’ve probably blacked those periods out, but I’d say that for the most part, it usually is like the first few months in a new role when you’re established in a role, you’re a knower, and then in the first three months, you’re a learner, and that requires so much more energy.

Kevin Rice (30:42)
Yeah

Jessica Serrano (30:59)
I’m really proud that this will be my third time taking on a new role as a parent. And this time around does feel different. It’s still hard and challenging and it does require more energy. I just feel more self-assured about it. But certainly in the last couple of roles, felt like, just like too hard on myself about, am I doing everything I can in the role?

Am I doing everything I can at home? And it’s so sad to be in a place where you feel like you’re not doing either well. But I think that having those experiences were what helped me to go into this role. A lot more eyes wide open, like you know that you’re going into a learner role and you know that this is something that in the past has been challenging for you. How are you going to protect yourself?

And I think that’s helped this time around to be less painful than it has been in the past.

Kevin Rice (31:54)
Yeah, no, I love the awareness, the confidence. Like when you are firing on all cylinders, where you feel like I’m doing great in my career, ⁓ you know, my kids are really being supportive. Like what does your world look like when you feel at your best?

Jessica Serrano (32:09)
⁓ you just, feel like I have more to give to other people. I’m a better friend, I’m a better listener, I’m a better leader. You know, I think back specifically one time when I was at ⁓ dig in and I was stretched thin as a leader and someone who reported to me, you she came to me with a challenge and ⁓ I just reflect back on how I…

reacted, which was kind of like figure it out. I just had nothing to give to her in that moment, and months later she brought it up to me like, do you remember this conversation that we had? And, and I was like, my gosh, yeah, I do. And that was a little bit of, like it doesn’t feel good to have those moments of reflection of yeah, I really wasn’t there for you the way I would have liked to. ⁓ so that’s what it looks like now is to know that when others are struggling, I have

I have something that I can pour into others. And that’s what it feels like to be firing on all cylinders. And that is such a good feeling. But again, I can tell when it’s like I have nothing to give and I don’t spend as much time there as I have in the past.

Kevin Rice (33:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, to carry that analogy further, what are some of the things you do to keep your cup full?

Jessica Serrano (33:26)
Nothing groundbreaking. mean, it’s things like sleeping, you know, like so. one of the one of the things that I learned is, as you mentioned, it’s not a nine to five job. I do work, nights and mornings and weekends and all those things. But what I found is if I am on my laptop until 11 p.m., I’m not getting to sleep that light in my face really disrupts my ability to fall asleep.

Kevin Rice (33:30)
That’s pretty important.

Jessica Serrano (33:52)
And so I’ve adjusted and realized that I’m better at doing work early in the morning. So if I didn’t get it all done today, I’m more likely to set my alarm for five and have an early start to my work day than work late and then throw off my equilibrium. It just becomes this like vicious cycle that it’s hard for me to catch up on. So it’s not about feeling,

bad for myself or anything that I need to put in the extra hours, it’s figuring out where does that fit into my life. And on the weekends, it’s like sometimes I have to work on the weekends. I don’t want my work to take away from the time with the family, but they don’t wake up until seven. And so for me, I feel good If I wake up on a Saturday and I bang out two hours of work, and then that means that we have the rest of the day together, that’s a good use of my time. I don’t feel robbed.

Kevin Rice (34:41)
So I really agree with that. And I feel like it’s kind of controversial because a lot of people will say protect your evenings or protect your weekends. I recently talked about working on vacation. And I feel like if I were to work for one hour, but then that gave me the rest of the day to be fully present and not have to like mentally be deliberating on whatever that was I needed to work on. Then I think it’s a great approach, but there’s a lot of purists will be like, don’t ever work on your weekend. I don’t just don’t totally agree with that because

then I would be thinking about this thing I need to do all weekend.

Jessica Serrano (35:08)
Thanks.

I’m with you. There have been times where I shut the laptop on Friday and said, gosh, I didn’t get to that thing that I needed to get to. And I just, it ate away at me all weekend long. And then you do it on Monday and it’s like, I wish I just would have done this on Saturday morning and I wouldn’t have spent, it wouldn’t have been like a thing looming in the back of my head. And I saw your post about vacations and I fully agree. I’m just one of those believers that

I just don’t think about life in like these buckets. It’s not all linear to me. So to me, it’s like a vacation here where we work one day remotely and then the rest of the time is to enjoy or you’re checking emails so that you don’t come back on Monday and you have 250 emails. I think each person has to decide what works for them. And that’s what I have come to realize works for me.

Kevin Rice (36:00)
Yeah. When you became a mom, when you became a mother, did you notice any changes to how you approached leadership or how you approached your career?

Jessica Serrano (36:13)
Yeah, I think one of the biggest impacts that motherhood has had on me as a leader is, ⁓ I mean, it certainly just expanded my empathy just in general. ⁓ And how I approach leadership is, I think, just reflective of me wanting others to feel like they have the flexibility, whether they’re a parent or not. I think everybody has

other things outside of work that are important to them and they deserve the flexibility to pursue. my style is really, here’s the outcome and you can take whatever path you want to get, you need to get there. Like I’m not really interested in managing the how, I’m only interested in holding you accountable to the deliverables.

So I’ve never been the type that really cares where you’re at, what time you start, what time you finish. ⁓ It’s just like, just get the work done. And I found that to be, it’s how I want to be led. And I found that most people respond well to that also.

Kevin Rice (37:20)
Yeah, absolutely. I found myself kind of when I went into full-time parenting mode, I found myself a little lost and I was like, I know nobody’s ever taught me how to do this in my career. had mentors. Um, you know, there were trainings that I went to and, when I became a parent, it was like, what do I, what do I do here? Um, one of the things I ended up doing was starting to look at like how I operated in my career.

and applying some of those principles to how I could act as a parent to give me a little bit of structure, right? I didn’t want to go in and like be the, you know, president to my children, but I wanted to take what I had learned in an area was actually like felt competent in into an area that I didn’t feel very confident. So I started taking some like business frameworks and ways that I did a skill versus will matrices for employees. And I started like applying them.

Jessica Serrano (37:46)
Mm.

Kevin Rice (38:12)
I’m curious because have you ever looked at some of the things that you like rituals or routines that you use in work and applied them to your personal life?

Or am I just like totally weird and…

Jessica Serrano (38:23)
To my personal life, yes, probably. I don’t think so to my parenting necessarily, but like, you know, kind of like that example I mentioned of how I make decisions ⁓ is very, very rational in a lot of ways. But for me, what parenting challenge for me was, there were things that I saw that

Kevin Rice (38:24)
You

Jessica Serrano (38:46)
I thought maybe moms were supposed to do. And I just really struggled with making time for them all. So things like being the person who cooks in my home or being the person who cleans my home or does the laundry in my home and ⁓ letting go of those shoulds just like infinitely made my life better. you know, I started hiring a housekeeper, you know. ⁓

Kevin Rice (39:12)
you

Jessica Serrano (39:12)
Like

those little things of just to your point, like at work, you go, okay, what can I outsource? What are things that ⁓ I don’t need to do that still need to get done? ⁓ And that really opened up the quality of my life is when I let go of some of those things that somewhere along the way I decided were needed to be done by me and it turns out they don’t.

Kevin Rice (39:20)
Yeah.

Hmm?

Yeah, you just had this thought of like, what a mom is supposed to look like. And it’s not necessarily your reality. Like, I think that’s like societal or, you know, just programming that we get externally. ⁓ but I do the same thing. Like I want to be able to sit down and like have breakfast with my kids. I want to be able to play board games at night. And if I didn’t get to have the help and the support by leveraging my time and having somebody that helps.

clean my house and, ⁓ I wouldn’t, would just constantly be taking care of household stuff, like cooking, cleaning, laundry. I would never have time to actually spend with my children. So that’s a great example of taking like, you know, a lesson learned in your business career about like, what’s the most important thing that I can be doing right now that nobody else can do. And then how can I find other people to help leverage my time to take those other things off my plate?

We have a lot of audience members who are in that kind of senior manager, director type of role, and they aspire to move into the C-suite. If you look back, do you have any like tips or suggestions or guidance for people who are trying to make that similar career trajectory?

Jessica Serrano (40:46)
The biggest things for me have been taking the roles that others wouldn’t, frankly. So when there’s an opportunity that feels less clear, less sexy, more complicated, ⁓ those are great opportunities to raise your hand and say yes, because there’s so much upside in it, and there’s so much growth in taking on those challenging roles.

⁓ so I think keeping your mind open to, it’s not always about linear growth in title in, in safe and familiar roles, but being willing to make those rotations onto maybe other functions and, and broadening your, your skillset. And I once got a piece of advice that has really carried me through, which is I keep this matrix of what are the different skill sets that I, ⁓ want to make sure that I’ve

Developed and so when I’m evaluating a new role I like to look at it through that lens and is it helping me in these different areas? I think when you don’t do that, there’s a risk of I would characterize it’s like falling in love with the fireplace so if you’ve ever like bought a home or rented an apartment and You go into a place and you fall in love with one really random feature of it But then you forget wait does this like check all the other boxes of you know my commute?

how much it costs, like when you really matrix it out, making a decision that’s well-rounded. That’s my advice is like, don’t fall in love with the fireplace, but make sure that you’re looking at roles and making sure that every step that you’re taking is growing you and challenging you in ways that’s rounding out your profile as a leader.

Kevin Rice (42:23)
Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciated this conversation. I think you showed us that parenthood doesn’t shrink our ambition. It only clarifies it and that travel and pressure and new roles don’t have to disconnect us from our family when we’re honest about what we need and when we really are intentional about protecting those moments that matter most and that leadership evolves as we evolve from being in the trenches to empowering others. So just thank you so much for your candor,

the clarity and the example that you’ve set. Really grateful that you shared your story with us today.

Jessica Serrano (42:58)
Thanks, it was my pleasure and I really appreciate all the candor that you bring in sharing your lessons learned along the way as well. So thank you.

Kevin Rice (43:06)
Awesome.