An Interview With Vanessa Ogle
Early Career Leadership Talent Development
Identifying women who aspire for leadership or management early and supporting them with talent development programs that ensure that these ideas of mentors, stretch assignments, competency development happen for them is important. Organizations of any size can create this structure and make it happen. These programs ensure that the leadership development is happening, and not just an afterthought.
Despite strides towards equality, women remain underrepresented in leadership and management roles across various sectors. In this series, we would like to discuss the barriers to female advancement in these areas and explore actionable strategies for change. We are talking with accomplished women leaders, executives, and pioneers who have navigated these challenges successfully, to hear their experiences, tactics, and advice to inspire and guide the next generation of women toward achieving their full potential in leadership and management roles. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Megan Buntain.
Megan Buntain is the Chief Market Officer at Seeq, responsible for leading the company’s transition to cloud-native solutions in support of Seeq’s global customers. She previously served as Director of Cloud Partnerships at Seeq, where she built the program that launched Seeq as a top-tier partner of the cloud providers.
Buntain has more than 25 years of experience in the software industry. Prior to joining Seeq, Buntain served as a Sales and Marketing Executive at Microsoft for 15 years and was CEO of a consulting firm that advised SaaS companies on cloud go-to-market strategy.
Buntain holds a bachelor’s degree from University of King’s College in Canada. She is actively involved in several partner advisory councils for AWS, Microsoft, and Tackle.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more .Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
As a kid growing up in Nova Scotia, Canada, one of my earlier memories is setting my alarm to wake up early on Sundays to watch political talk shows with my dad. My passion for civics, as it was called, ran deep. In third grade, I was assigned to write an essay about a superhero. Most kids chose Super Man or Bat Girl. I picked…..Cokie Roberts, the formidable ABC political analyst who appeared for decades, often as the only woman, on those Sunday shows.
I thought I was destined for a career in journalism. I was curious about the world, about history and context, and about how people had the potential to work together to get things done — or not.
My dream to become the next Cokie was not in the cards, but those interests didn’t wane. Through a stroke of luck, I started working for a global software company five days after college graduation and I was hooked almost instantly. I found the tech industry to be filled with innovative and optimistic people who moved quickly to try to solve problems at scale.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I think the most interesting stories are when I’ve been in over my head and somehow managed to push through to get to a good outcome.
One story that sticks out was when I was a marketing director in my mid-twenties. I was responsible for launching a program that involved purchasing nine buses, filling them with computer demo stations, hiring staff, and sending these buses to 3,000 events across North America as a mobile event unit. I remember standing in a large warehouse in Elkhart, Indiana being asked to approve the buses as ‘ready to go’ so we could launch the program. I had no previous experience that qualified me to make this decision or run a program for two years of that scale and logistics complexity. I can’t even manage my household calendar! In these situations, you might succeed, or you might fail but, you always look back and relish the intense personal growth that happened.
Can you share a pivotal moment in your career that significantly influenced your path to leadership?
To be honest, I don’t think my path to leadership came from a single pivotal moment. To me, it feels like it was a lot of small things that added up. I can say that, throughout my career, I have actively sought opportunities for stretch projects or to work with people outside my core team (even if it was simply joining the company party planning committee). I always wanted to learn more about the business than whatever I had direct exposure to. I still feel that way. I think I’ve found that my path to leadership has been centered on trying to add more value to my team by being someone they can connect with who is deep in my functional area, but also very broadly knowledgeable about the business.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My husband has always provided the support I need to be successful in my career. Three times in our twenty-year marriage my husband and I have flipped responsibilities for being the primary earner in our family. After our son was born, I worked part-time for three years. Currently, my husband is the at-home parent working freelance and managing most aspects of our household and family life. We have tried not to both have ‘big jobs’ at the same time. It was a choice we made early on, and it works for us.
The opportunity to have a single income household is obviously an incredible privilege, but it has also required some sacrifices on the timing of our individual career paths. Gender roles are changing, and I think my husband, Jordan, is an example for others. Both his career accomplishments and his mastery of all things related to our home life have inspired me and supported me.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
My favorite book about leadership is “Personal History” by Katherine Graham. It is a memoir that includes the story of how Katherine had to walk into the newsroom of The Washington Post as the new publisher less than one week after the previous publisher, her husband, had committed suicide. I am fascinated by how she stepped into a leadership role, which she had no previous experience, during the most profound personal tragedy. What did she do? How did she lead in those early days? What did she learn?
I confess that I don’t read a lot of business books. I prefer biographies because leadership in real life is very messy. Our daily trials may pale in comparison to Katherine Graham’s, but I have presented at a board meeting over Zoom while my toddler was in my lap sick with a cold. I have assembled business review slides while sitting beside my husband waiting for him to wake up from surgery. I have made mistakes in my relationships with friends and colleagues that I regret because I was too busy or preoccupied with work and didn’t take the time to value these relationships. All of it is complicated and fluid.
Memoirs offer a window into the messiness of another person’s lived leadership experiences. I take inspiration, and frankly comfort, from those stories. Of course, Katherine’s book also geeked out on the inner workings of a newsroom which appeals to that dormant “Cokie Roberts” in me.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?
A recent speech that I watched on YouTube and immediately sent to my nieces, my family, and several colleagues was by Kara Lawson, head coach of the Duke women’s basketball team.
She had a simple message for the athletes on her team, “Handle hard better.”
She went on to say, “We all wait in life for things to get easier. It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better … So, make yourself a person that handles hard well.” (Link to YouTube video)
She encouraged the young women on her team to build resilience, to be adaptable, to put in the hard work, to roll with the punches. I think about this often when I’m overthinking a problem or if I find myself getting negative about a work situation — it’s just an opportunity to handle hard better.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
My current role at Seeq has actually been one of the best opportunities I’ve had to make an impact on the world through my work. Specifically, we work with industrial companies to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. By our conservative estimate, the impact we’ve had in the last two years is the equivalent of taking one thousand cars off the road — and we’re just getting started. This year, I had the chance to partner with colleagues at Seeq and other tech companies to develop a toolkit for measuring ‘clean hydrogen’ as an alternative energy source. There are boundless opportunities but there is also no time to waste and I’m eager to see what we do next in this space.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this report, only about 31.7% of top executive positions across industries are held by women. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from leadership and management?
Two challenges come to mind immediately. The first is that we don’t have enough women in the biggest jobs — the venture capital partners, the lawmakers, the banks, the CEOs, the ‘centers of power’ if you will. For all the progress that has been made, it’s too often the case that if a woman leader needs to go raise money, or present to the board, or lobby a senator, or even be on a panel at a tech conference, she will be speaking mostly with men. I have the experience of working for an amazing woman leader. She is both the CEO of our tech company, and she works with our customers, the heads of manufacturing and engineering companies. I’m sure she can count on one hand the number of organizations she speaks with in a month that are led by a woman. Before some of these big meetings, I will send my boss a hype song on Spotify simply because I can appreciate how hard it must be to be a ‘her’ in that room. Dolly Parton’s “Nine to Five” is a favorite.
When women aren’t in the big jobs, the next level of women leaders encounter bias — whether explicit or implicit. That puts a drag effect on all women at all stages in their career.
The second headwind that comes to mind is the lack of progress in the US compared to the rest of the world on paid maternity leave, support for childcare costs, options for elder care. I mentioned above that my husband and I have split these responsibilities, but I don’t kid myself into thinking that this is the norm for most women. Women still bear the primary responsibility in our society for parenting and running their households. Without additional support, women will continue to face challenges in climbing their chosen career ladders at the same trajectory as men.
This might be intuitive to you but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become leaders and managers?
Diversity is crucial across all levels of a company. When it comes to leadership, a diversity of perspectives, including female perspectives, plays a key role in building and maintaining an innovative culture. Bringing together differing perspectives, styles and backgrounds creates opportunities to approach challenges in new ways to find the best solution.
Can you please share “5 Things We Need To Increase Women’s Engagement in Leadership and Management?”
1 . Mentors and Sponsors.
Aligning early and mid-career women with top executive mentors, both male and female, is critical. It’s a rare gift to learn by watching a great leader in action and to be coached by them. If your mentor is operating at several levels above you in your company or industry, it’s a bit like having a career GPS showing you the way. I’ve had five mentors in my career. Each one pushed me to take new opportunities, gave me tough feedback, endorsed me in front of others when I wasn’t in the room. Three of these mentors pulled me into new jobs that I hadn’t applied for or weren’t on my radar. One mentor told me I was failing in a role, and he helped me have the courage to acknowledge it and move on. Increasing engagement from women starts with more support and great mentors are the best kind of support.
2 . Access to Capital.
“Women-owned businesses received just 32.6% of the approvals and 28.4% of the dollars offered in SBA 7(a) and 504 loans in the 2023 fiscal year.” (Lendido, 2024)
“Women founder’s received 23% of US Venture capital in 2023” (CFO.com)
Simply put, we need to fund women’s ideas and women’s talent. For everyone working in incubators, or at SBA offices, or in community coworking spaces, we need to actively and relentlessly connect women entrepreneurs with investors. Engage with these leaders to help them make contacts, build networks, spot opportunities, and celebrate their success so they can inspire the next cohort of women that follow them.
3 . Family leave benefits, childcare, and elder care support
The US needs to catch up with the rest of the world in both government-backed and employer-sponsored benefits that make it easier for women to lead at work and at home. On the global stage, the brutal reality is that we are worst-in-class in this area. We can take action to advocate with lawmakers and within our own companies and industries to make both large and small changes to the professional lives of women that are balancing many responsibilities in their lives. These benefits need to be available for men and fathers as well. It’s also important for women leaders to use these benefits themselves as a model. As an example, if a CEO takes time away for their maternity or paternity leave, it’s an incredible signal. If managers take the time to learn about the benefits offered and go through them with their employees, and not just leave it to HR to cover, it lets everyone know that we are serious about the wellbeing and careers of our teams.
4 . Stretch Assignments
It’s important at all levels in your career to learn by doing. I think there is always an opportunity to assign stretch assignments to women at various stages in their career to have a direct opportunity to learn new skills. If the team is intentional about these assignments, you can look for opportunities to match the work to the growth areas of various members of the team. I had an experience early in my career working on a very small team with very limited budget and resources. This team leveraged interns from a local university and it’s likely an understatement to say those interns were pulled in from day one into important and complex work. There was no time for onboarding or ramping up. However, the feedback from the interns was excellent. They knew they were doing real work that was impactful and they learned by doing.
5 . Early Career Leadership Talent Development
Identifying women who aspire for leadership or management early and supporting them with talent development programs that ensure that these ideas of mentors, stretch assignments, competency development happen for them is important. Organizations of any size can create this structure and make it happen. These programs ensure that the leadership development is happening, and not just an afterthought.
In your opinion, what systemic changes are needed to facilitate more equitable access for women to leadership roles?
If I had to choose one of the points above to start with, I’d choose increasing access to capital to facilitate more equitable access for women to leadership roles. By funding women’s ideas and talent, we create more opportunities to highlight the contributions of women in leadership, thus encouraging others to follow suit and introducing young girls to these roles at an earlier age.
What strategies have you found most effective in mentoring and supporting other women to pursue leadership positions?
Bring women to your executive meetings — to listen, learn and contribute. Provide them with opportunities to work on strategic projects or initiatives so they can learn by doing. Follow up with feedback and coaching. Encourage women that you mentor to not be afraid to be specific about their career aspirations. If they want to be CEO, get them to write that aspiration down, and use it to have amazing discussions about what skills and experiences would be needed for them to achieve that.
Connect women with other women leaders you think might inspire them. If you can’t connect them in person, connect them online. One example of a leader I have never met but who I look up to is Amy Hood, CFO of Microsoft. She might not be a household name, but she has been arguably the number two person in charge at Microsoft for the past decade, leading the transition of their culture and business to enormous success. Amy Hood isn’t flashy. She doesn’t seem like a person who would be good at schmoozing. However, when you hear her speak, she oozes expertise, credibility and speaks logically. I take time to listen to her comments on Microsoft’s quarterly earnings as a person I want to emulate. Not because I want to be her, I just want to be that good at what I do.
And, perhaps this last point is obvious, but, hire women. It’s impossible to create more equitable access for women in leadership if we never hire them.
How would you advise a woman leader about how to navigate the challenges of being a woman in a leadership role within a male-dominated industry? How do you balance the demand for authoritative leadership with the stereotypical expectations of female behavior in professional settings?
In my thirties, I worked at a company that was big on development ‘competencies’. I think there were forty competencies and they each had four levels, so it seemed like 640 ways to improve yourself. One of the competencies was labeled “Executive Maturity” and while it seemed to be a benign term, I really disliked it. In my mind, Executive Maturity meant dressing in crisp suits, being impeccably groomed, speaking in clear sentences, ‘commanding the room’, and well, being good at golf.
I couldn’t relate to any of it, and I certainly couldn’t figure out how I was supposed to develop into this prototype of a mature executive.
Instead, I simply stopped trying. I have reframed my own version of this competency in a way that is personal to me. My personal list of executive maturity competencies I work on is:
1. Know the KPIs of your business deeply — know all the important numbers and know them all the time.
2. Read the annual reports and financial statements of your customers, partners, and company. Seek out information that gives you more context.
3. Learn to present well in all settings — speeches, conference calls, 1x1s. Be authentic and be prepared when you present.
4. Bring your ears and your voice to the table in all meetings — don’t disengage when the conversation isn’t about your department. That is like telling everyone you’re not ready for the next level of leadership.
5. Be calm under stress. Remember Kara Lawson’s words: “Handle hard better.”
6. Learn how to ask tough questions without demeaning people.
7. Share kudos often and everywhere.
8. Only work for a company, manager, and/or team that truly believes in you. If they don’t, find a way to leave. You are robbing yourself of an opportunity to learn and grow. Worse, if you stay you are modeling for other women that your style of leadership doesn’t work — find a place where it will. They exist.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
This is an amazing question. My answer is to find a way to make a difference in the life of a child. In the two years before the pandemic, I changed my work schedule to spend every Friday morning working in our elementary school library. Just simple stuff — checking out books, shelving books, encouraging anyone who would listen to read my favorite book from sixth grade, ‘Anne of Green Gables.” It wasn’t much, but to be surrounded by educators, school staff, volunteers, and high-energy, funny, curious kids was good for my heart and my head. Plus, I helped the kids get their books returned on time!
Supporting children, educators, childcare workers and after-school programs is something everyone can do in their communities, and it has both an immediate and sustained impact.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The best place to find me is on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/meganbuntain.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEO’s in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.
Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and X and of course on her website VanessaOgle.
Megan Buntain of Seeq On How We Can Increase Women’s Engagement in Leadership and Management was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.