Leading Women in Tech Podcast

What does it mean to build products that truly work for everyone — including the people most systems were never designed to include?
Debbie Hsu, EVP of Product at Experian Consumer Services, joins Toni for a conversation that spans the full arc of her career — from software engineer at Oracle to leading product at one of the world's most significant consumer financial data companies — and gets into some of the most important questions facing product leaders today.
Debbie leads the evolution of EVA, Experian's AI-powered virtual assistant, and brings a consumer-first lens to everything she builds. In this episode she shares how AI is changing team structures and role boundaries in product, why over-reliance on AI risks making every product look and sound the same, and what the socioeconomic stakes of AI access mean for product leaders who care about inclusion.
She also shares three pieces of advice that I see as foundational to leading: Being humble is not the same as being invisible. Self-advocacy is not the same as bragging. And never let an official meeting be the first time people hear about your idea.
What we cover:
⏹ The unplanned path from software engineer to EVP of Product — and what learning by doing really looks like
⏹ Why Debbie went back to business school to pivot into product management — and what actually landed her the job
⏹ How product leadership has evolved over 20 years: from Flash-based seat maps to AI-powered financial assistants
⏹ T-shaped builders and the blurring of roles in the AI era — what this means for product teams right now
⏹ The AI homogeneity risk: why over-reliance on AI makes products look and sound the same — and what differentiates the ones that don't
⏹ EVA: how Experian's AI assistant uses trusted credit data, expert compliance, and lender eligibility to go beyond generic AI responses
⏹ AI access as a socioeconomic equity issue — and why product leaders need to be part of this conversation
⏹ Financial inclusion and credit invisibility: what it means to build products for people the system overlooked
⏹ Being humble is not the same as being invisible
⏹ Self-advocacy is not bragging — and why visibility for meaningful work is a leadership skill
⏹ Never let an official meeting be the first time people hear your idea
⏹ Diverse voices in product: why every product leader has a responsibility to build inclusively
Useful Links
Connect with today's guest and sponsor, Debbie on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-hsu/ and find out more about Experian at https://www.experian.com.
This episode was sponsored by our guest, Debbie Hsu. Thank you Debbie & Experian for helping to bring Leading Women in Tech to this community!

There's a room you're not yet in. Maybe it's a literal room — the board meeting, the investor briefing, the conversation at the level above yours where decisions get made that shape your organization and your career. Maybe it's more of a concept — the level of credibility where people seek out your perspective rather than just your report. Where you're consulted, not just informed.
Becoming a trusted advisor to a board is one of those topics that sounds like it belongs to a specific career stage. But the behaviors, habits, and communication patterns that make someone genuinely valuable at board level are not developed the week before you need them. They're built over years — and the leader who starts now will be genuinely ready when the moment comes.
In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, Toni Collis breaks down exactly what board-level credibility looks like, how it's built, and what you can start doing right now — wherever you are in your career.
This is for you if:  
➡️  You're the leader actively working toward the C-suite who knows the board relationship is her frontier
➡️  You're the woman considering fractional work, NED roles, or an encore career — and who needs to understand how to position herself for board-level advisory work
➡️  You're the Director or VP who's not thinking about boards yet — and who is going to leave this episode with the most immediately actionable content, because the seeds of board credibility are planted years before the harvest
What's covered:
➡️  What being a trusted advisor actually means — and why the conventional picture is wrong. Boards don't want information providers. They want people who help them think.
➡️  What boards actually want from an advisor — the real version, not the official one. Five specific capabilities that make someone genuinely valuable in a board context, including pattern recognition, intellectual honesty under pressure, and executive listening
➡️  The communication shift that changes everything — stop leading with the what and start leading with the so what. The four-part trusted advisor structure that works in any high-stakes senior room
➡️  How to build the relationships that create board-level credibility — including why most people start too late, how to be useful before you make an ask, and why making your thinking visible is one of the most effective career investments available to you
➡️  What you can start doing right now — five specific behaviors for the earlier-career listener that compound into board-level credibility over time. Including reading the rooms above yours, practicing strategic language in every meeting you're already in, and volunteering for board-visible work
➡️  The fractional and encore career dimension — how to translate your experience into board language, how to be findable for the right roles, and how to build the portfolio of evidence that boards and fractional hiring organizations are actually looking for
 
Whether you want the C-suite, a non-executive director role, a fractional career, or you just want to be the kind of leader who gets consulted rather than just informed — this episode gives you the framework.
 
Further listening (related episodes)
⏹️  Episode 286 — Executive Presence for Women in Tech: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/286-executive-presence-for-women-in-tech
⏹️  Episode 292 — From Tactical to Strategic: The Unspoken Rules for Women Stepping Into Executive Leadership: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/291-c-level-leadership-for-women-in-tech
⏹️  Episode 238 — Thinking Like an Executive: From Firefighter to Strategist: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/238-thinking-like-an-executive-from-firefighter-to-strategist
⏹️  Episode 241 — Thinking Like an Executive: Setting Priorities as an Executive: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/241-thinking-like-an-executive-setting-priorities
⏹️  Episode 236 — Thinking Like an Executive: Cultivating Your Executive Presence: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/236-thinking-like-an-executive-cultivating-executive-presence
⏹️  Episode 291 — C-Level Leadership for Women in Tech: What It Really Takes to Thrive: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/291-c-level-leadership-for-women-in-tech
⏹️  Episode 256 — No More Crickets: The Networking Strategy That Lands Jobs in 2025: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/256-networking-strategy-lands-jobs
⏹️  Episode 284 — Am I Ready to Be a Fractional Leader?: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/am-i-ready-for-fractional/
⏹️  Episode 288 — How to Position Yourself as a Fractional Leader: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/288-fractional-leadership-positioning/
⏹️  Episode 289 — How Fractional Leaders Actually Get Hired: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/289-how-fractional-leaders-get-hired/
 
Book a complimentary strategy call: tonicollis.com/lets-chat

Michelle Darcy-Clarke didn't have a five-year plan. She took a job by accident, made deliberate lateral moves when everyone expected upward ones, stepped back to be an individual contributor, and eventually became a Chief Experience Officer — without really aiming for it.

In this episode, Michelle joins Toni for one of the most honest and energizing conversations about non-linear leadership careers, the VP comfort zone, ambition redefined, and the single mindset shift that separates people who keep growing from the ones who plateau.

She also gets into the AI transformation her team is driving right now — and why women leaders need to be the ones at the front of that conversation.

What we cover:
⏹  The accidental start to a 27-year career in market research — and what kept it interesting
⏹  Lateral moves as a deliberate growth strategy: why sideways sometimes beats upward
⏹  The VP comfort zone: what safety at that level really means and why it can become a trap
⏹  Doing the C-suite job before getting the title — and knowing when to have that conversation
⏹  Ambition redefined: how wanting to do good rather than be better than your peer actually gets you further
⏹  The red personality: challenge first, commit fully — and why this style gets mistaken for resistance
⏹  Best and worst case scenario decision-making at the executive level
⏹  The team-to-company mindset shift: the single biggest blocker to executive progression
⏹  Women driving AI transformation — and why female leaders need to be at the front of this
⏹  Impostor syndrome, confidence, and learning to own your outcomes rather than calling them luck
⏹  The role of executive coaching across every level of a career
⏹  What Michelle would tell her younger self: trust your decisions and let the negativity go
Connect with today's guest & sponsor Michelle Darcy-Clarke of Cint
⏹  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michelledarcyclarke 
⏹  Cint: cint.com
This episode was sponsored by our guest, Michelle Darcy-Clarke of Cint. Thank you Michelle & Cint for helping to bring Leading Women in Tech to this community!

You know something is wrong with your team. Maybe it's the missed deadlines that have become the norm. The low energy in meetings. The friction nobody's naming. The high performer who's gone quiet. Or just a general flatness — a team that's functional but nowhere near what you know it could be.
In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, Toni Collis gives you the honest, practical framework for turning a struggling team around — including the part most leadership advice skips: the leader's own role in the system.
What's covered:
➡️The four types of team struggle — and why getting the diagnosis right before you act is the most important thing you can do. The wrong solution applied with confidence makes things worse.
➡️The over-functioning trap — why managing around a problem signals to your whole team that the problem is acceptable, and what it's costing your best people right now
➡️Why your team is not where you are — the emotional and informational gap between you and your team, and why moving at your pace without accounting for theirs leaves people behind
➡️The three conversations you've been avoiding — performance, expectations, and recognition — and why the difference between a team that stays stuck and one that turns around is almost always the conversations the leader wasn't having
➡️How to retain your high performers when the team is struggling — because they're always the first to leave, and they always have options
➡️The honest question about your own leadership — and why understanding your role in the system is what makes the rest of this possible
➡️Where to start this week — three specific actions, not twenty
Whether you've inherited a struggling team, watched one develop on your watch, or just know things need to change and aren't sure where to start — this episode gives you the framework.
Related episodes: 
⏹  Episode 152 — How to Give Feedback: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/152-how-to-give-feedback
⏹  Episode 174 — What to Do When You Inherit a Poor Performer: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/174-what-to-do-when-you-inherit-an-underperformer 
⏹  Episode 172 — When You Need to Let People Go: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/172-when-you-need-to-let-people-go
⏹  Episode 178 — How to Lead and Retain High Performers: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/178-how-to-lead-and-retain-high-performers
⏹  Episode 250 — Leading Through Change: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/250-leading-through-change
⏹  Episode 158 — Unleashing Team Performance: Simple Coaching Approaches: https://tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/158-unleashing-team-performance-the-power-of-simple-coaching-approaches
Book a complimentary strategy call: tonicollis.com/lets-chat/

Burnout isn't a personal failure. It's a clinical condition with three specific characteristics — and understanding exactly what it is may be the first step toward actually recovering from it.
Sheetal Ajmani, physician turned speaker, coach, and consultant, joins Toni for a conversation that reframes burnout and self-care from the ground up. Sheetal practiced pediatrics for over 16 years and experienced burnout multiple times across her career — the first time in 2006, when nobody was talking about it, and the most recent in 2022, when she made the decision to step away from clinical medicine entirely.
This episode goes deep on what burnout actually is, why high-achieving women are so skilled at missing the signs, and what self-care genuinely needs to look like to make a difference — hint: it's not the bubble bath.
What we cover:
⏹  The clinical definition of burnout — three characteristics, and why naming them matters
⏹  Eustress vs distress: where helpful stress ends and burnout begins
⏹  Why high-achieving women are the last to see burnout coming in themselves
⏹  Anticipatory burnout — the specific exhaustion that comes from knowing a change is coming but not being able to make it yet
⏹  Self-care redefined: why the most impactful forms take less time than you think
⏹  Micro moments of self-care — what they look like and how to find yours
⏹  The difference between self-care and self-improvement (they are not the same thing)
⏹  The Ayurvedic whole-person lens on well-being — and why your emotions, relationships, and career all affect your health
⏹  The one thing Sheetal wants every woman to start doing today
⏹  Why small changes make a larger impact than grand wellness gestures
⏹  The inner critic that adds layers of judgment on top of an already hard experience
⏹  Why burnout is an individual stress response within a social context — and what that means for systemic change
 
Connect with Sheetal Ajmani 
⏹  Website: radiantlivinginstitute.com 
⏹  Podcast: Essential Self Care: https://www.radiantlivinginstitute.com/podcasts/essential-self-care 
⏹  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sheetalajmani