Cecelia Myers Of Grainger On How We Can Increase Women’s Engagement in Leadership and Management

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 Cecelia Myers.

Cecelia Myers, Vice President, Group Product Manager at Grainger has spent her career in digital, tech and product and is a passionate leader within the field. While she has faced challenges associated to being a woman in tech, Cecelia will tell you the biggest challenge she has faced personally and professionally was navigating her cancer diagnosis and treatment while working with a young child. Her ambition for advancement as a female leader intersected with the negative perceptions around health and assumed leadership capability, as many people believed she wouldn’t work through treatment. As a leader, Cecelia tries every day to bring herself to work and show that honestly to her teams: the wife and mom of two, cancer survivor, runner and reader.

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?

Coming out of school, I had an English degree, liked learning, was very curious and had no particular plan in mind. I started out as a Founder in Residence at a venture capital firm, where I explored new business ideas using the VC’s innovation fund, eventually building them into companies if they had legs. It was a very cool job, and pure luck that I, an English major, stumbled into it when I did. But that’s how I discovered that I liked to start things and grow them.

This was during the era of tech-enabled, digital to consumer (D2C) eCommerce and we saw a vacuum in the digital women’s personal styling space. There were great options for men, but we believed women wanted and needed this too, so we founded CakeStyle. We made style a “piece of cake” by sending clients a seasonal box of outfits, with personalized videos explaining why they were selected and how to style them.

During the process of fundraising, many male investors had the same belief: Women love shopping, why do they want someone to do this for them? Even with clear proof points of value, like an average transaction of $750 and a $4M run rate on an inventory-based business with just $1.5M of funding, many investors dismissed the concept out of hand, thinking that it didn’t have a market.

I loved co-founding and building a company, but fundraising is hard, and we ultimately didn’t secure the next round we needed to grow. I learned, though, that I was most passionate not just about style, but about building systems that work. One of the best parts of CakeStyle was the operations side of the business. I enjoyed inventory management and the complexity of buying and distribution — both which are difficult and can be an exciting puzzle to solve. Jumping from startups to tech was a natural next step that allowed me to drive growth and solve tough problems at scale.

None of us can 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 career path has been the product of many supportive leaders, mentors, peers, family and friends, but one leader stands out. I was diagnosed with cancer soon after giving birth, and during a job change. During treatment, my manager was quietly but firmly empathetic and supportive. He intuitively understood the need to prioritize my health, and that part of that was feeling like myself, which is someone who wanted to grow at work undeterred by what I was dealing with. He treated me the same way he would any other high potential leader in his organization, which was incredibly important to me given that I didn’t want to be sidelined and risk my career slowing down because of treatment. Others assumed that I’d take time off, but work was the best possible distraction when I had to be away from my husband and son during inpatient chemo.

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?

I love to read and there are so many books that stay with me. But an especially notable one is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The main character, Francie, illustrates how difficult experiences will not be all your experiences, and that learning, reading and curiosity are for everyone.

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?

One thing I’ve seen throughout my career is that women are often given more things to improve upon and are expected to work on it longer before they have an opportunity for promotion. Practically speaking, this means it can take longer for women to move up the ladder. People expect women to be a sure bet to get that promotion, which results in an enormous amount of pressure for women not to mess up. Organizations shouldn’t expect women to prove themselves more than others and for longer before we promote them to leadership and management positions.

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?

For the same reasons we should have leaders and managers of every type, not just women: everyone should be able to look around and see others that they can relate to on some level, and different experiences build more empathetic and creative teams. As this happens, companies see better performance outcomes and better employee engagement, so it truly benefits all aspects of the organization.

Can you please share “5 Things We Need To Increase Women’s Engagement in Leadership and Management?”

1. Provide clear, specific, actionable feedback: Women often get generic feedback such as having a leader say “good job” after a presentation, without providing any specifics on what went well or what they could improve upon. Without specific feedback, improving and ultimately moving onto the next role becomes significantly more difficult.
2. Ask people’s advice up, down and across organizations. When teams see leaders who seek input they feel comfortable sharing it more readily, creating space for engagement and relationship development at all levels of the organization.
3. Look across the organization and try to identify if and where the ladder is breaking: many organizations have stronger diversity for those in early career positions and at the very top, with a wide gap in the middle. Put energy into developing the middle and take responsibility for getting high-potential leaders to the next step.
4. Be visible when you need to be flexible: Whether it’s a need to pick up kids from childcare, support aging relatives, take care of the dog, etc. people need flexibility to be engaged both at work and live their lives. When teams see you do those things as a leader, they know it’s ok to help their kid turn “Bluey” back on too.
5. Be open to taking chances: We have a program to bring moms back into the workforce after they have taken a career break and have some incredible success stories stemming from those women. Whether its hiring someone after a career break, waiting less time for them to “prove” they are ready for the promotion or understanding that mistakes happen and still giving them growth opportunities, taking a chance on someone you believe in is usually worth the risk.

In your opinion, what systemic changes are needed to facilitate more equitable access for women to leadership roles?

Gender drives an enormous number of implied expectations which play out in weighty ways for everyone, not just women. Specifically for women, we need workplaces where leaders are curious about the experiences of women, listen to that feedback without assumption or pretension, and ask how to help. When leaders are serious about evolving, they don’t need to be perfect; just repeatedly engaging and getting better.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Follow me on Cecelia Myers | LinkedIn to see the latest that Grainger has to offer on Grainger.com.

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.