Terri talks to Christine Tao of Sounding Board about how working with her dad in the family business taught her to be scrappy, to be a hustler and find ways to do more with less. He also taught her to dream big and ask for what she wanted. She shares how this ultimately led her to start her company, Sounding Board.
Who is Christine Tao?
Christine Tao is the CEO/Co-founder of Sounding Board, a VC-backed startup bringing personalized, continuous leadership development to the $40B+ leadership & training industry. Prior to co-founding Sounding Board Christine was a Senior Vice President of Developer Relations at Tapjoy, a venture-backed, leading mobile advertising platform. She led the growth of Tapjoy’s network business from $0 to over $100 million in revenues in less than 3 years. She has also advised several venture-backed startups including Flyby Media (acquired by Apple), Immersv & Comprendi. Prior to that she led e-commerce partnerships and strategy at YouTube. Christine holds an MBA in Marketing & Operations from Wharton and a BA in Business Administration from UC Berkeley.
Show Highlights
Christine shares her experience growing up in a family business and how that has influenced her professionally and how she operates as the CEO/Founder of Sounding Board.
Christine shares the importance of thinking big when starting a business and making sure there is a strong sense of purpose for the employees to believe in and subscribe to. She gives her dad credit for this thinking.
Christine talks about the importance of providing employees with purpose and opportunities for growth. This is important right now because there is a war for talent and you want to attract the best talent.
Christine explains her personal journey that led her to start Sounding Board.
Terri talks about her experience working with an executive coach and how valuable the experience has been for her.
Sounding Board is all about democratizing coaching for employees throughout the organization so that they can grow and scale at a rate they aren’t able to do on their own.
Christine turns the tables on Terri and asks her for one of the major takeaways from working with a coach. She responded in how she recommends approaching working with coaches.
Terri shares how her experience working with a coach helped her not only professionally but personally as well. The work she did applied across her life.
Christine talks about how coaching has shifted and how Sounding Board uses tech to scale coaching.
If Christine could wave a magic wand, she would change people’s assumptions and have them come into conversations thinking the best of the other person or people in the conversation.
Bonus questions (new): Christine’s recommended founder resource is the podcast The Startup Chat.
Terri’s Key Takeaway
Dream big and ask for what you want.
References in the Podcast
Sounding Board: https://www.soundingboardinc.com/
Tapjoy: https://www.tapjoy.com/
Women’s Startup Lab: https://womenstartuplab.com/
The Startup Chat (podcast): https://thestartupchat.com/
Contact
Christine can be reached via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/christineptao/.
You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.
Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.
To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.