EP 26: Etsy's Jenn Clevenger on Navigating Leadership Through Covid and a House Burning Down
Leaders Unscripted podcast with Jenn Clevenger, VP of Engineering, Etsy
👋 Hello! This is Suzan. I write about leadership and interview leaders from tech companies like Etsy, Github, Google, Netflix and Spotify who share their insights on how they overcame a challenge.
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I decided to create a separate edition for each podcast episode so you don’t miss a these incredible leaders’ stories about what they’ve learned. This week’s podcast episode is with the wise and delightful Jenn Clevenger, VP of Engineering at Etsy.
Enjoy!
Leaders are humans too, and Etsy’s culture has given Jenn Clevenger the opportunity to lead through remarkable adversity.
In her 8 year tenure, she’s become VP of Engineering, tackled a pandemic, and stayed her course while her house burned down. It’s the staggering story of a remarkable leader and a resilient human.
We talked about:
Jenn’s ‘zigzag’ path to leadership
Leadership lessons learned from Etsy’s culture
Our ‘nonsense buckets’, and how to make space in them
Taking time to breathe, do nothing, and be self-empathetic
Advice for leaders tackling headwinds, both external and personal
Listen online
Video Clip
Prefer to read? Jenn’s written interview is here.
Episode highlights
8:30 “You never know where the opportunities are. The things that you think might have been a failure, you never know what kind of connections you're gonna make that are gonna totally change the course of your life.”
13:25 “Our nonsense buckets are full to the top, so everything that makes your nonsense bucket overflow is exhausting.”
18:00 “Tragically, I think dealing with death does change your perspective. I hate the word resilience, but it gives you something - a perspective, maybe? It changes things because leadership is a hard thing already, but it gives you something different.”
23:55 “There are always things you could help out with if you were an octopus - you can keep an eye on them, but tackle things one at a time.”
31:00 “Life is hard, and you need to make space for that. That doesn't mean that you only make space when something dramatic happens. It means you always make space for it. ”
Links & references
Suzan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanbond/
Constellary: https://www.constellaryhq.com/
Jenn’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennclevenger/
Etsy’s career page: https://careers.etsy.com/home