From Consulting To Financial Services To Tech: Unlockd COO Aliza Knox's Talks Career Changes & More

What are the most important decisions you made in your career?

One of the most intriguing decisions I made was giving up consulting. I spent 13 years at the Boston Consulting Group, leaving after having been a partner for a number of years. Executive search people were telling me: “if you don’t leave soon, you will be a consultant forever”. That is not a bad thing; people have great careers as consultants. But I don’t like missing out. I wanted to have the chance to try operating a business. What if I found I liked running a business more than consulting? That’s how I got to Charles Schwab and a career running P&Ls.

A few years later, curiosity got the better of me again. At that time, I was living in the Bay Area and everybody was talking about dot-com and I didn’t really know that much about it. I met Vint Cerf, who was one of the real founders of the internet and an evangelist at Google. That became another turning point in my career. I moved from financial services to the tech world, not so much because I wanted to work in tech specifically, but because I really wanted to learn something new.

I spent 5 years at Google and almost 5 years at Twitter, which really changed the type of work I was doing. However, there are still a lot of similarities between what I did at a consulting and finance companies to what I do in tech like building client relationships, building sales teams, understanding how to get problems solved quickly, knowing how to communicate clearly.

What will be the most valuable skill for your profession in the next 3 years?

I don’t have a crystal ball. I think in an industry that moves as fast as technology, if you don’t work in it directly, you can become outdated in 18 months. I think the best skill, but it’s really a competence than a skill, is to learn to learn quickly and be open-minded.

An example from Twitter is that we started by selling ads that were text or pictures, then moved quickly to video and live. Everyone on the team has to get up to speed with each new product very quickly in order to be able to explain to clients how it helps address their objectives.

Given the technological underpinning of everything we do these days, I think it would be wise to have some coding and quantitative/ analytical skills.

What’s your worst mistake and how did you overcome it?

There are times I think I should have spoken out and I didn’t. Or the opposite, saying things that I shouldn’t. 

I regret that I didn’t learn to code and I didn’t take Chinese or any other foreign language at college. I think knowing another language helps you expand your brain, prevents you from being one-dimensional and makes you much more versatile as a professional.

What’s your biggest ambition now?

Having just taken on the COO role for a start-up, my ambition is to help the company continue successfully in hyper-growth mode.

Can you recommend any recent books that have influenced or changed the way you work?

One book that I read recently that I found very impactful was “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. Another that’s very useful is “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott –great ideas about the best ways to give feedback and really help people improve. I particularly like the idea that the frequency of giving feedback should be about the same as tooth brushing. The book “Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life” was good.

What talks such as TED or podcasts do you listen to?

I actively participate in different boards and I read a lot online professionally, but when it comes to books and podcasts I like to discover new things outside work.  I’m currently engrossed in the podcast CrimeTown. I also like listening to Bernard Leong’s podcasts AnalyseAsia.

What industry columnists, bloggers or influencers should I bookmark right now?

I read a lot of articles from The Economist, World Economic Forum, Fast Company, Huffington Post. For tech news I follow TechCrunch, and TechinAsia for local updates. I follow and read a lot on Twitter.

Statista it is a bit random and more about graphics, but interesting nonetheless.

Also Blinkist – a service which allows me to read overview of non-fiction books. [Editor’s Note: if you’re interested to know more about Blinkist, click here for a detailed third-party review.]

I also like a blog on mobile trends by Edith Yeung, a founder of an investment firm Right Ventures and a newsletter by Fortune CEO Daily

What are you going to learn in the year ahead?

I think the thing I need to learn more about this year is programmatic advertising, the ins and outs of it. Of course, I get the basics, but I would like to deepen my understanding of the nitty gritty.

What is the most surprising thing about you that most people don’t know?

I play badminton regularly and I used to be a synchronised swimmer.

Learn more about Aliza Knox on Linkedin or follow her on Twitter @alizaknox