April Underwood: Company Networks Are The Foundation Of One’s Network

Dec 14, 2022

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April Underwood is the former Chief Product Officer at Slack. She was early at Twitter and made great friends at Google. As she describes in the podcast, the collection of people from companies A, B, and C is the foundation of one's network. April picked companies where she loved the product and knew these were people (Stewart Butterfield, Dick Costolo) she'd love building with. At this point in her career, April is an early-stage investor, co-founder of #ANGELS, and serves on the boards of Zillow and Eventbrite. In a fun conversation with Annie, hear April’s recommendations on building relationships, making good asks, and connecting friends.

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“Networking and mentorship oftentimes sounds like something that you can just go do. I think that you have to, in my experience, foster those relationships. You network and you cultivate mentors through both on the job experiences, but also like real personal connection. Those are where I think people can really show up for one another because they know, they know you and you know them.” - April Underwood

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Episode Timestamps:

*(03:50) - How April’s begnings as an intern at Deloitte Consulting as an intern lead to connections

*(05:31) - Why it’s important to foster work relationships outside of the workplace

*(07:52) - How April cultivated a relationship with Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter

*(09:29) - How April made smart choices throughout her career by joining, Google, Twitter, Slack

*(12:33) - Let your gut be your guide

*(14:57) - Choose the path where you feel at ease and feel like your best self

*(17:11) - How April created a relationship with Katie Jacobs Stanton

*(23:39) - Why relationships don't get built in a single meeting, but in multiple interactions

*(29:27) - The importance of #ANGELS

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Sponsor:

Who Got Me Here is brought to you by Connect The Dots, mapping professional relationships so you can find the strongest connections to the people and companies you want to reach. Visit ctd.ai to learn more.

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