Kelly Ling, Leading Customer Experience L&D at DoorDash

February 1st, 2020

Kelly Ling holds an MBA from UC Berkeley-Haas, and her career is centered around innovation, coaching others, and program design. She currently leads Learning and Development for Customer Experience at DoorDash, and prior to that she held roles in corporate innovation, strategy, product management, and marketing in the Healthcare Technology Industry.

In this feature, Kelly shares her key learnings from her first role, what she considered prior to switching roles, why she pursued an MBA, and how she built a foundation in a new industry. Read along to soak up her incredible career advice for ambitious women, such as yourself.

Early Career

While attending University of California, Berkeley you worked as a Research Analyst at the Haas School of Business. What key learnings did you take from your first role?

In my Research Analyst role as an undergrad at UC Berkeley, I worked with a professor to review hundreds of public companies’ press releases on their quarterly earnings. I was specifically categorizing the sentences in the press releases, and whether the sentiment was positive, negative, or neutral. This was back in 2008, and what I didn’t realize at the time, is that this was the early stages of being able to train algorithms or AI technology for things like sentiment analysis. Now, when I see the tremendous progress and innovations enabled by AI technologies, I often think about how models were trained, and who were the humans that helped train the models. Another key development for me in the role was starting to build a network and relationship with professors and other researchers, which broadened my perspective beyond the traditional classroom setting. This was an important differentiator to help with things like letters of recommendation, and highlighting academic research experience, in my post college career search.

After working as an intern at Deloitte and then working for two years there post grad as part of the Audit Senior Staff, you transitioned to a Financial Analyst role at Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. What made you switch roles/companies and what are the most important elements to consider when moving to a new company?

As an auditor with Deloitte, I reviewed in meticulous detail, companies’ reported financial statements. I learned how to ask critical questions of the accountants within the companies we audited, to ensure the accuracy of their financial statements. What I didn’t learn, however, was why the employees at our clients were excited to come to work everyday. What was it about their company that inspired the financial results that I was auditing. What was it like to be on the operating team that created, marketed, and sold a product or service to happy customers willing to pay, such that there were revenues and costs that needed to be audited. So, to get this experience, I sought to move into a financial analyst role at Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, a company whose product puts a smile on it’s customer’s faces. It helped tremendously to have a strong network at Deloitte and with Deloitte alumni, and have built a reputation for my work ethic and optimism, as the lead for my job with Ghirardelli came from this network. When moving into a new role or company, I believe there are 3 important elements to consider:

What additional skills or experiences are you seeking? How will this new opportunity help you develop these skills or experiences? Write this down, share it with your new manager and team, and hold yourself accountable
Start out humble and confident, and create a path for some early successes to set you up for longer term success at your new role.
If you are looking to negotiate a higher salary in your next role, the easiest way to do this is to have multiple offers. To get multiple offers, you’ll be spending a lot of time interviewing. Interview preparation is a great mechanism to understand your professional goals better, and refine how to articulate those goals and the value you bring to your next role.

In 2013, you returned to the University of California, Berkeley to get your MBA at the Haas School of Business. Why did you decide to get your MBA?

While I was at Ghirardelli, I worked very closely with the Brand Management team, as their finance partner. The brand managers’ roles were as “CEOs” of their specific product. You know those delicious Ghirardelli squares? Behind that delicious free sample you get when you walk into a Ghirardelli shop, or the bag of Peppermint Squares you get during the holidays, there was a Brand Manager running the business. From forecasting demand, to new product development and attending chocolate photo shoots, the brand manager was responsible for the whole operation, including the Profit and Loss statement. I was inspired by the work of Brand Management, and after several informational interviews with our team of brand managers, it was clear getting an MBA was core to developing the skills for that opportunity. So I decided it was time to go back to school, and I sought an MBA program where I could build a skill-set for brand management, innovation, and technology, and where there was a strong culture fit.

While in business school, you founded Volunteer Forever. What motivated you to start Volunteer Forever & how did you balance pursuing your MBA while running your own organization?

While attending a spring welcome weekend for Berkeley-Haas MBA admits, I was chatting with a fellow admit about some travel stories, and shared with him that I had gone on a volunteer trip to Costa Rica after undergrad, to help students learn English. He shared with me that he was working on a startup idea around helping those with goals to volunteer abroad crowdsource funds from friends and family to be able to pay for travel and accomodations. Needless to say, we were a good founder partner match, and as we enrolled in the fall, we leveraged several of the startup and entrepreneur resources available, such as the “Launch” Business Plan competition, and classes like Entrepreneurship Lab, to launch Volunteer Forever. I can’t imagine a better way to gain a business education, than by building a business while in business school. And while Haas had several resources to support entrepreneurs, time management and prioritization was still definitely difficult to balance. For example, there were times where I did leave or miss a class to take a customer call, or prep for a pitch competition.

After graduating from Haas, you entered into a rotational program at RelayHealth where you were part of a variety of teams within different practices: Strategy, Marketing, & Product Management. What were the most valuable skills you utilized throughout all these areas and how did you build trust within these teams most effectively?

I’ll break this down into “hard skills” and “soft skills”. The hard skills I learned from strategy focused on product portfolio management, and building strategic recommendations and the business case behind it. The hard skills I learned from the marketing rotation were on website design, pricing, and building sales training materials. And the hard skills I learned in product management were around identifying customer needs and prioritization of resources. Overall, this was a great way to put what I learned from my MBA classes into practice in the real world. Beyond the hard skills, and what’s hard to learn from the classroom, are building the soft skills that lead to trust, collaboration and influencing others (often without formal authority). The project leaders I reported to in each of these functions varied widely in experience, personality, and often priorities. By building bridges between the different functions I worked in, and understanding the goals of each respective team, I was able to find shared goals and values, which in turn built trust among the teams. That trust is the “secret sauce” that makes cross-functional collaboration run smoothly.

In 2019, you became a career coach. What is the most frequent challenge individuals face & the advice you provide?
The top three opportunities I coach individuals on are:

Career transition, especially into a new or adjacent subject matter
Interview preparation
Salary Negotiation

For each of these, here are my key takeaways:

Career transition, especially into a new or adjacent subject matter

Do your homework on the new role/ field/ industry, and craft your story around how your past experience will add a unique perspective to your new role
Lean into having a beginner’s mindset - this is a great asset for problem solving and checking assumptions
Set up “informational interviews” with people in the type of work you seek to do, to learn about their experience in the role

Job application and interview preparation

I think any resume can be 1 page in length
Your digital presence (i.e. LinkedIn, portfolios) can augment the 1-page resume
Practice, practice, practice with friends, in the mirror, with your dog, or even join online communities with other folks looking to practice

Salary Negotiation

Be prepared with market data
Consider things of value to you outside of salary. For example PTO, flexible schedule, work from home, budget for career development. Oftentimes salary ranges are not flexible, but some of these other benefits are.
Don’t negotiate against yourself

Doordash

Now you work on the customer experience team at DoorDash, a food delivery service, after working in the healthcare industry for four years. What attracted you to DoorDash and how did you build a foundation in a new industry?

I have always been interested in innovation, and imagining the “future of” of different industries. One of the “future of” topics I am particularly interested in is the future of work, and “gig-economy” platforms like DoorDash fits well into this category. Food delivery is nothing new, but the way that DoorDash has built a sustainable delivery machine, powered by independent contractors or “Dashers”, who have full autonomy of where and when they work, is amazing to me. I think more and more people will supplement their careers with gig-style or freelance work, with delivery, consulting, or creative Tik Toks videos. This will allow people more flexibility, the opportunity to change careers or try new things, and overall have more ownership of their time and career. I was able to build a foundation in this industry, leaning on my past experiences in building innovation programs in the healthcare industry where I had spent 4 years prior to joining DoorDash. With my background in techniques like Design Thinking and Lean Start-up which I used to build a corporate innovation program in healthcare, I was well set up to join an actual startup on its growth journey.

What exactly does your role entail and what is your day-to-day like?

In my current role, I lead the Learning and Development team for Customer Experience and Support. Our thousands of customer experience teammates are located all over the world. So, my day to day can range from observing a new hire class, to shadowing teammates on customer support calls, to reviewing trends in customer satisfaction surveys to identify opportunities to continue to develop our team in providing excellent customer experiences.

Advice

What do you wish you knew when you were first starting your career?

Working long hours is nothing to brag about

What’s advice for someone who experiences imposter syndrome?

Almost everyone has some form of this! You’re not alone and there is strength in numbers. To get outside your head, seek external feedback from friends or colleagues every so often. Ask what are some of your greatest strengths with examples, as well as your development areas. Use this to think about your own growth plan, instead of the pesky voice inside your head that can lead to imposter syndrome.

Who is one woman you aspire to be like?

My mom. She is a computer software engineer and has always worked in startups. She has been challenging gender stereotypes my whole life, and now that she is a bit more “tenured” than many of her colleagues, she is challenging age stereotypes.