The Power of Adaptability and Authenticity with Wanji Walcott
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Description
What would you do if you were handed the reins to a completely unfamiliar role? Would you embrace the challenge, or would panic set in?
Throughout her career, Wanji Walcott has faced this scenario more than once. Instead of letting uncertainty hold her back, she leaned into learning—researching, seeking guidance, and figuring things out along the way. Her willingness to take risks, trust herself, and step into leadership has propelled her from her first job at Lockheed Martin to her current role as Chief Legal and Business Affairs Officer at Pinterest, where she oversees legal, compliance, public affairs, and trust & safety.
In this episode of Branding Room Only, Wanji shares how adaptability and authenticity have shaped her career, from navigating identity and belonging as a first-generation American to becoming a respected leader known for thriving in unfamiliar territory. She also discusses the impact of aligning with a company’s mission, the importance of board leadership, and how staying true to yourself fuels professional success.
Chapters
1:10 – Wanji’s definition of personal brand, the four words that describe her, her favorite quote, and her go-to hype songs
6:02 – Growing up as the daughter of Guyanese parents in Massachusetts and how it shaped her perspective
15:53 – How attending Howard University influenced her confidence, career, and sense of identity
20:48 – Wanji’s career path, from Lockheed Martin to Pinterest, and the mindset shifts that helped her advance
35:18 – How she took on public affairs at Pinterest to help shape the platform as a positive space on the internet
41:01 – The importance of personal branding when working with major corporate brands
44:31 – The most unexpected use case for Pinterest that Wanji has ever heard
47:07 – Why board leadership and civic engagement are core to her professional and personal mission
50:13 – How Wanji got into golf and the strategy she used to get her skeptical husband to love it, too
54:04 – The one thing Wanji will never compromise on and what people in a standing-room-only crowd would experience about her
Connect With Wanji Walcott
Since 2022, Wanji Walcott has been the Chief Legal and Business Affairs Officer at Pinterest. There, she oversees legal, corporate affairs, ethics and compliance, trust and safety, and public policy. Previously, she was the Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel at Discover Financial Services where she led legal, ESG programs and government relations, and co-led the company’s innovation initiative. Her career also includes serving as Senior Vice President, General Counsel at Paypal.
Wanji holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Howard University and a Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law. Currently residing in Chicago, she is also the Chair of the Board of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA). Additionally, she serves on several boards in the Chicago area where she resides including the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Economic Club of Chicago, the Women’s Board of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Mentioned In The Power of Adaptability and Authenticity with Wanji Walcott
Minority Corporate Counsel Association
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Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar’s distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show.
Hi, everybody, it's Paula Edgar, your host of Branding Room Only. I'm super excited for my conversation today with the fabulous Wanji Walcott. Wanji is the Chief Legal and Business Affairs Officer at Pinterest, where she oversees legal, compliance, government relations, philanthropy, ESG, sustainability, and trust and safety.
In addition, Wanji is the Chair of the Board at the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, MCCA, and also serves on the boards of the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Economic Club of Chicago, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and the Women's Board of the Art Institute of Chicago. She's also a wife, a mother, and an avid golfer. Wanji, welcome to the Branding Room.
Wanji Walcott: Thank you so much, Paula. It's so great to be here.
Paula Edgar: Thank you, I had to take a deep breath in hearing all those commas.
Wanji Walcott: I sound busy, yeah.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, that part, that part. Tell me this, I start off my podcast asking everyone, what does a personal brand mean to you.
Wanji Walcott: Oh, my gosh. Your personal brand, in my opinion, is how people think about you when you're not there. When someone says your name, what comes to mind? What do they think about? The interesting thing about your personal brand is I think first impressions matter here. That first thought that people have about you, it's hard to shake that. I have been very thoughtful about “Gee, what is my brand? How do you shape your brand?”
I think your brand can evolve over time, but I think what's difficult to do is to do a complete 180. If your initial impression upon people is terrible, I think it's really hard to turn the ship so people should be thoughtful about that.
Paula Edgar: Agreed 100%. That being said, how would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases?
Wanji Walcott: Oh, wow. Three words or short phrases: caring, funny, thoughtful, and energetic.
Paula Edgar: I was going to say every single lawyer is like, “And I got one more.” I love all of those things. I like to see when it aligns with what I was thinking. All of those, but thoughtful definitely comes to mind. I think of you as someone who has their thinking hat on, they're going to put care into what they're going to do and say, which is a good part of branding, so thanks.
Wanji Walcott: Can I share a funny branding story?
Paula Edgar: Sure, please.
Wanji Walcott: A long time ago, around 2000, I'd say four through eight, I endeavored to and successfully trained and ran the New York City Marathon in 2004, 2005, and 2007.
Paula Edgar: Wow.
Wanji Walcott: I would say after 2007, I thought, “You know what? I'm not going to do this in 2008 or 2009.” I haven't done it since. But my brand by 2007 was synonymous with the New York City Marathon. So much so that even years later, 2015, 2019, people would say to me, "Oh, are you going to run the marathon?" And I would say, "No, not this year." But it's just an example of how you just become associated with something because of actions you've taken or things that you've said or done that just sticks with you.
Now, that's a positive thing to stick with me. It's great. I wish I could run the marathon right now. I would say I'm nowhere near in a position to do that, but it's just something that stuck with me and it's so funny that people I work with even way back when will say, “Are you still running marathons?”
Paula Edgar: It's so true. I love that example, especially because we just had the New York Marathon here recently and I go out and chair every year. It is for me one of the most fabulous events ever because of the New Yorkers together, but it's true. It's something that it takes, think about the brand new piece that comes from it: determination, strength, endurance, resilience, all of those things are good. To be in line with that is not a bad thing at all.
Wanji Walcott: But I feel like a bit of an imposter at this point since it's been some time since I have--
Paula Edgar: You did it so it's true, period. I love that story. Tell me this, do you have a favorite quote or motto that you like to think about or reflect on?
Wanji Walcott: Yeah, so my kids will tell you, and people who work with me will tell you that I have always said “To whom much is given much is required.” I firmly believe that. I think that's something that has been passed down to me by my parents and I firmly believe that. I feel so much of us, if we are fortunate enough to work in these spaces in which we work, we are very, very blessed and I think because of that comes a certain level of responsibility and undertaking that we all must lean into.
Paula Edgar: I 100% agree. That was drilled into my experience by my parents and everybody else as a child of West Indian immigrants. It was like next step. Tell me this, do you have a hype song? This, for me, is two different things. Either the song, when they're going to get full Wanji coming in the room, what song is playing in your head, or if you're having a bad day, what song do you need to pick you up and it could be the same song or two different songs?
Wanji Walcott: Yeah, bad day or tough day, I would say the song Lovely Day. It's really just a song that makes me feel great and then I would also say Jill Scott Golden because it's a song that when my daughters were younger, it would be our female empowerment song and we'd listen to it. My husband would be singing along and it was just a very uplifting song for me as a woman and for my daughters to sing together.
Paula Edgar: I love that. Tell me about this, where did you grow up and how did that shape you?
Wanji Walcott: I'm a first-generation American. Both of my parents are from Guyana in South America and I grew up in Massachusetts. Unlike many Guyanese people who come to the United States and pass through Brooklyn, that did not happen. My husband is from Guyana as well. Maybe what drew us to each other is he did not pass through Brooklyn either. His stop was Pittsburgh.
For me, my dad came here and went to college and he knew my mom back home and when he finished school sent for her and they got married here. Then my dad got a job in Massachusetts so we moved there. We lived in the suburbs so we never had a place in a city until five years ago. I'm a complete suburbanite. We grew up in a place where it was not super diverse but it was a neighborhood where, I don't know, I would say white people with means.
Now, where we lived was not the place where the white people with means lived. We lived in a rental community, which was great, which had a little bit of diversity in it, but up until, gosh, up until sixth grade, I was the only Black person in my school. From 6th through 8th, there was one other girl. In high school, I went to a small boarding school. Out of 9th through 12th, there were maybe 10, 15 [inaudible]. There weren't a lot of us.
So, I grew up in an environment where I was always the only or one of a few. In terms of how that shaped me, I would say, in my very early years, it was hard. You just wanted to fit in. My parents were young relative to some of the-- because I always went to private school. I found myself in private school. A lot of the parents were much older. Sometimes the dad was on the second marriage and had kids who were my parents' age, and then little kids who were my age.
My parents were young. They spoke with an accent, they were from another country, we ate differently, we listened to different music, we just did things differently. At the time when you're between five and 10 years old, you don't really take pride in your differences, you just really want to fit in. For me, I really just wanted to fit in. I wanted my parents to not speak with an accent.
I would always correct them when they'd say something. I'm like, “No, you don't pronounce it like that. You pronounce it like that,” and I just wanted to fit in so badly, and it's tough you're the only Black person in your school, your name's Wanji, your parents have an accent, and your mom makes you curry in a thermos for lunch when you just want peanut butter and jelly or Fluff n Udder, which is something [inaudible], you just want to fit in.
But over time, that helped me develop a bit of resilience, because I learned how to fit in. I think in my early years in learning how to fit in, maybe I sacrificed some of myself. But then over time, I developed a tremendous amount of pride in where I'm from, who my people are, who I am. But I still carried with me that ability to fit into situations where maybe on its face it wouldn't look like I would fit in or with people who might look at me and go, “She doesn't fit in.”
I think to this day, I still have that ability to fit in while not sacrificing myself anymore, while being authentic to who I am and wanting people to know who I am, but still bridging gaps with people and fitting in.
Paula Edgar: That resonates so deeply because I also am a boarding school kid in Massachusetts. I went to Deerfield Academy and--
Wanji Walcott: I went to Middlesex.
Paula Edgar: Same, we played [inaudible] Soccer. I always say I started to do inclusion work when I got to Deerfield because I was one of 20. Also, I realized the power in the individuality and authenticity because there was so much sameness on the other side, whereas to your point, with family from Barbados and Jamaica, I was in Brooklyn, so again, that was the normal, but still, when I was transitioning into those spaces, it was like, “Okay, don't say anything when we get here. Just let me do the talking. I got this. I know how to code switch for good.” Then realizing really quickly, I didn't have to, and that in fact, that I was going to shine more when I didn't. I love that, that connection.
Wanji Walcott: You know what's so great about that, I have two daughters, they both went to boarding school. I have one who went to Middlesex like I did. Then I have one who went to the Frederick Gunn School, which was known as The Gunnery. It's funny, there were times where, looking at my own parents, I saw how I perceived other parents treating them, maybe treating them like other or they didn't belong. I always thought to myself, “Gosh, I want my kids to feel like they belong.”
I had a certain sense of what would accomplish that. It's funny, what I've learned over time is what I thought would accomplish that isn't necessarily the case. So instead of focusing on, “Gosh, are we fitting in? Are we like these people?” I decided as a parent at boarding school that I was going to make sure other families who maybe didn't feel like they were fitting in, or I could just see them off in the corner on their own, I would make it a point to go up to them, introduce myself, and help them fit in. It was easy to do because at the time that my kids were in boarding school, I was on the board of trustees of both of their schools while they were there.
Paula Edgar: I love it.
Wanji Walcott: I would just walk over to a table of a couple or mom or dad sitting alone. I'd say, “Hey,” and they'd be taken aback like, “Why are you talking to me? Do you work here?” I would say, “Hi, I'm Wanji Walcott. My daughter Layla is a sophomore, junior, whatever. I just want to introduce myself and say, hello, where are you guys from?” I talked to them.
My daughter would always say to me, “Mom, why are you doing that? Why are you always talking to all the Black folks? What are you doing?” I said, “You know why, Layla? Because nobody spoke to my parents and I want people to feel like they have just as much right to be here and that they feel welcome here.” That is a promise that I made to my teenage self that I would do this and I'm going to do it.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I think I probably made that promise too and I didn't realize it. Same, where my parents dropped me off freshman year came for one parents weekend and came for graduation. After that, I was like, "I still exist." But I definitely had those times when it was like, "Ooh, I felt ownership there." I immediately was like, "This is going to be my spot. This is my space." And I've done the same thing in every institution so I, like you, am on a lot of boards.
I'm on the board of the New York City Bar Association. I walk and I tell people, "Welcome to my house. I'm on the board. Come in." And people are like, "What's going on with this lady?" But I know what it feels like to be othered in spaces where people don't expect you to feel comfortable because usually, people on the wall don't like you, etc.
Wanji Walcott: It's easy not to feel welcome and comfortable, but again, I've had a lot of perspective in those spaces as a student, and also I was a bit of a different student in that I was a day student in boarding school because I lived in the next town over, and I was not in a program, my very proud West Indian parents wrote the check, it meant there wasn't a lot of flex and other things we could do.
We weren't going to St. Barths for spring break or anywhere. We weren't even going to Boston for recreation, it’s for working, but my experience was a little bit different growing up in the suburbs and being local. Then also trying to figure out where you fit in, because I oftentimes didn't feel like I fit in with the kids who were from ABC who were all clustered together, because they were like, “Oh, you're different,” and whatever.
Then I also felt like, “Yep, yep, big up to ABC.” I also felt like I didn't really fit in with the other kids. I tried to figure out where's my path and where's my place. Fortunately, eventually, I figured that out. But those are tough years to find yourself.
Paula Edgar: I can imagine, because I'm just thinking to myself, “I don't think I know any Black DEI students.” You’re the first Black DEI student that I know who went to a school. I think that that's true. I don't think that I can recall any. There are a lot of different places of identity that are different than what you would normally see because there is some kind of, I think, fetishization of people who would be like, “Oh, Paula is from Brooklyn.” I’ll be like, “That's right.”
Wanji Walcott: I’m from Lincoln, Massachusetts, yeah. You know what's funny, when I joined the board of trustees at Middlesex in 2001, I remember when I joined, the board chair did a little speech at my first meeting saying, “We're so excited to have Wanji here. She brings diversity to our board,” I felt like, “Really, you had to say that?” Then you know what he said? He said, “She's the first DEI student on our board.”
Paula Edgar: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Look at me, yes.
Wanji Walcott: Look at me, that's the diversity I bring. I'm the first DEI student on the board.
Paula Edgar: This is an important perspective. I have a lot of good friends who are DEI students, again, all white and all staff, either related to the staff or the professors who were there at the schools, but I love that. That is definitely something that I have never heard of before, so branding. All right.
Now we know about your education. Talk me through what came next after boarding school and then your career path.
Wanji Walcott: Yeah, sure. While I was in boarding school, my dad started planting the seed with me that you're going to go to an HBCU. I was like, “What?” Because that wasn't really what anybody was doing. I also think I was probably the first person at Middlesex to go to an HBCU. There have been subsequent--
Paula Edgar: Trailblazer, trailblazer once.
Wanji Walcott: But nobody was doing that. The college admissions people didn't know how to process the information. They didn't know these schools. They were like, "What?" But anyway, that's what I did. My dad took me to look at Hampton, Howard, and Spelman. I decided I was going to go to Howard.
I remember having a lot of trepidation about that because I was thinking, “Whoa.” I used to spend two weeks every summer in Brooklyn and I will say it was the high point of my summer. That was where I summered. I mean, people were like, “We're going to the Hamptons.” I'm like, “I'm going to Brooklyn, how about that?” It was the highlight, I'd spend two weeks with my cousins, it was so fun.
But I was very nervous going to Howard because it was different than the environment I was used to. I was thinking, “Oh, my gosh, am I going to be enough there? Do I talk right? I dress differently? I speak differently. I'm different. Am I going to be accepted? Am I going to have friends?” I kept telling my dad, “I don't think this is a good idea. I don't think I'm going to fit in.” He said, “You know what, give it one year. As you're nearing year one, if you feel like this isn't for you, you transfer.” I said, “Okay, deal, I'm going to give it one year.”
Well, I will tell you, I got to Howard, I found the other boarding school kids in the first two weeks. I don't know how. They just see, they look at your sneakers, they're like, “Boarding school?” Because you're just different. They found me, I found them. But what I realized is that I actually wanted a branch out. I did not want to stick with the boarding school kids.
It was a good starting place. I felt like, “Okay, I know these people, I get them, but who else is out here?” I would say Howard was so great because for the first time, I appreciated the diversity within our community globally and just meeting people from all over the world, from every different state, other countries, it was eye-opening for me. It really shaped me and helped me develop such a sense of pride in the history of our people throughout the diaspora, and it was amazing.
I was a philosophy major at Howard, which was also interesting. Why did I choose to be a philosophy major? My senior year at Middlesex in high school, I took a philosophy class and I was blown away. I felt like it taught me to think differently, to question, analyze, examine. I loved writing the papers. I felt for the first time like I'm really good at writing these papers and my teachers asking help other people and talk about my papers. I thought, “This is what I want to study.”
My dad came to this country on a government scholarship to study engineering. He was like, “You are not going to be a philosophy major. That's insane.” But I really, really wanted to do it. My dad had been telling me since I was five years old that I was going to be a lawyer because I was argumentative and opinionated and I talked too much and I talked back too much and all these things. So I thought, “You know what, I'm going to convince my dad that I should be a philosophy major and that this is going to help me prepare for law school.”
So I gave him my pitch, didn't work but then I thought, “Okay, I have to go figure out who I can get to talk to my dad who has more credibility.” So I went to the chair of the philosophy department and I said, "Look, my dad's visiting. I want to be a philosophy major. He wants me to consider something else. He doesn't believe in the merits of this major. Can you help me?" And he said, "Absolutely."
So I set up a meeting for my dad to meet with the chair of the philosophy department. I was not in that meeting. I didn't know what happened, Paula, but after that meeting, my dad said, "You can be a philosophy major."
Paula Edgar: Wow. You're an advocate. You've advocated for yourself and came up with a strategy, look at you.
Wanji Walcott: You know what, it was important to me. I really knew I wanted to take charge and study what I wanted to study. I was a philosophy major and it was great. I met so many interesting people doing that. For five seconds, I thought about pursuing a PhD in philosophy until I realized, “Nah, that's probably not the path.” I ended up going to law school and I stayed at Howard and I went to Howard Law School, and my plan was to pursue public interest law.
While I was in law school as a 3L, I thought, “I'm going to take every public interest-related class I can take, and that's what I'm going to do.” I had an internship, and I was like, “This is what I'm going to do.” Well, it turns out the universe had other plans for Wanji because I never found a job in the public interest space.
But I did find a job that was non-traditional. What I mean by that is my first job out of law school was in-house. I worked at Lockheed Martin. I did not go to a law firm, I didn't go to government, I didn't go to anywhere else. I didn't go to a public interest kind of organization, which is what I really wanted to do, but the one I had interned for did not have the budget to hire anyone, and so that chapter closed.
So I ended up going to Lockheed Martin, which when I was interviewing at the time, I first thought it was a law firm. I had never heard of Lockheed Martin, did not know what it was. There was no Google, I couldn't figure it out. Then I figured out it was like defense aerospace. It turns out when I was interviewing, it was a state and local government subsidiary.
Unlike the rest of Lockheed Martin, they were very focused on state and local government contracting, because they were doing what was known at the time as privatization, where they'd go into state and local governments and take things over, take over their parking ticket collection, take over their child support payment, collection and distribution.
What Lockheed Martin realized in the early 90s is that they would succeed better in the marketplace with an employee base that mirrored the people they were trying to get business from, which is state and local government officials, which looked many times like you and I.
They made the case for diversity in the early 90s. I get to that company fresh out of law school as a green lawyer. It was amazing. There were so many senior Black folks in that company in our operating company. I just thought, “My gosh, corporate America is amazing. Look at this. It is beautiful.”
Paula Edgar: Super diverse.
Wanji Walcott: So diverse, and I'm part of it. I loved that job, I loved my boss, I learned so much. My boss at the time was the general counsel of our operating committee. He reported to a regional general counsel who reported to the general counsel. At the time, there was a lot of connectivity between all of the lawyers. We would have regional lawyer meetings. We'd have the full-on everybody in the company lawyer meetings, we had these smaller practice area meetings.
I got to meet a lot of lawyers, a lot of other older Black lawyers, a lot of other lawyers, and it was amazing. I worked for, I had a boss, his name is Bob Downing, white guy who grew up at Lockheed Martin. He started in a non-legal job and then ended up going to law school while he was there and ended up being the general counsel of our operating company.
Now I remember during my first year-end review after I'd been there for a year, and he was such a good boss because he'd give you real-time feedback. He'd say, "You came with me to the meeting. We were talking before you shared your opinion, but in the meeting, you didn't share your opinion." And I'd say, "Well, I don't know. I felt nervous and you were there and you would say it."
He's like, "No, people need to hear you. You need to speak up. Don't just talk, just to be talking, don't be that guy. But if you have something to say, say it, do not hold back, and do not feel nervous or embarrassed or wondering whether your idea is a good idea about it. Just say it and you'll get more comfortable over time.” So I followed that advice.
At my year-end review, he was like, “You're doing a great job, do more of this, less of that, but everything's going well.” He said, “One day you could be the general counsel.” I said, “You think I could do your job one day?" He goes, "No, no, no, not my job." He goes, "You could be the general counsel of all Lockheed Martin one day." And I went, "What? That's insane. That's crazy talk."
But I walked away from that meeting and I remember going home thinking, "Oh, my gosh, if Bob thinks I can do it, maybe I can do it." And it planted a seed in me that I carried forward. From there just very quickly I left and went to a software startup company because it was now the late 90s and that's what everybody was doing. I was like, “I'm going to strike it rich at a software startup.” Did that, did not strike it rich at all. [inaudible] big company person.
From there, I decided, “You know what? I need to go back to a big company's legal department.” I met a recruiter who basically changed my life. She said to me, “To get the kind of job that you want in a big company law department, you need to work at a law firm.” I thought, “Are you sure? Because I didn't do that. I skipped over that.” She's like, “No, no, no, I'm sure.”
I listened to her. I went to Shaw Pittman, which is now Pillsbury. She also helped me figure out what kind of lawyer I was, because, at Lockheed Martin, I was a generalist. She's like, “What's your practice area?” I said, “I'm a generalist.” She's like, “That's not a practice area.”
Paula Edgar: Right.
Wanji Walcott: So after talking with me and meeting with me, she's like, "You're a technology lawyer. That's what you spend the bulk of your time doing technology transactional work." And I thought, "Yeah, I'm a technology lawyer." So she sent me out on interviews with a bunch of law firms in their technology practices, and I ended up choosing Shaw Pittman because they had a breadth of different clients and matters in their technology transactional department that I thought, “I want to be a part of this.”
I did that for four years. I knew that was a temporary thing. It was sort of going back to school. It really was like going back to school because I really honed my legal skills. What I think I learned at Lockheed Martin was to navigate a corporate environment and develop relationships, get things done. But what I learned at the firm was really how to be a lawyer, just the technical skills and abilities.
After four years, I decided, “Okay, I want to go back into a corporate law department and figure out how to become a general counsel.” But at the time, it was right after 9/11. It was not what it was before, which is you call a recruiter and they send you out on seven interviews. It was you call a recruiter and they call you back and tell you they have no jobs.
It was post 9/11, I'm heads down trying to figure out how to get out of the firm, but there's nothing out there. Then all of a sudden, I got a call from a recruiter that I'd never heard of who said there is a job in the technology law group at American Express. I thought, "That sounds great."
I ended up going there, and my plan was to stay there for four years because again, I wanted to be a general counsel and I thought, “I'm never going to be a general counsel in the technology law group.” I'm in a staff function supporting another staff function. I just thought, “Technology is a dead end.” This was my short [inaudible] in 2001 I thought, “Tech's a dead end. I need to be somewhere else. This is not really where the future is.” Just, again, being completely clueless.
My plan was to stay at AmEx for three to four years. 13 years later I was still there and that's because my career was growing and blossoming and I was learning things and I had increased responsibility and it turns out, Paula, to my surprise, technology ended up being the hotbed for everything and I was at the center of it and I just thought, “How did this happen? Who knew?”
But yeah, I didn't know, but it turned out to be the case. It was such a great experience. I was there until I left. Why did I leave? The guy that I supported at the time, he had left American Express to go to eBay with the promise of being the CEO at PayPal when it was spun out of eBay to shareholders. A year after he left, but when he left, people were saying, “Oh, are you going to follow him?” I was like, “No, gosh, no, I'm not going to do that.”
A year after he left, he called me and said, “I want you to come here.” I thought, “Well, okay.” No one had ever called me up and said, “Hey, I worked with you before, follow me.” I thought, “Sure, I'll do that.” So I went to go work with him at PayPal. I wasn't his general counsel. He had a general counsel, but I worked for the general counsel in a lateral role.
When I interviewed with her, I remember telling her, “I don't know if I really want to do this because I really want to be a general counsel. I don't know if this is the path.” She said, “If you give me two years, I'll get you general counsel ready.” I had known this woman for a few minutes, but I just thought, “Wow. Okay, I'm going to believe it because what have I got to lose?” Even if it didn't work out, it would have been a good experience, whatever.
So we moved from East Coast to West Coast. At the time, I had a daughter in college in Connecticut and my younger daughter was in boarding school in Connecticut so we up and left, moved, and got to PayPal. The first year I was digging into the work, so great. Wasn't really thinking about, “Oh wait, how am I going to get to be a general counsel?” I was just really focused on doing a good job and things were going well.
After about a year, the general counsel, actually maybe six months in, the general counsel said to me, “You know what, I haven't forgotten that you want to be a GC, we're going to work on that.” I just thought, “Okay, great, let me know when it's time.” I just thought maybe we'll go to some dinners and have GC talk and maybe I'll sit in a board meeting and see GC stuff.
What happened is six months later after I'd been there for a year, she calls me into her office and she said, “The head of HR is leaving. I'm taking on HR so I'm going to have an expanded role and I'm creating a general counsel position reporting to me.” So I thought she was going to say one of my two male colleagues was going to take on that role because I had only been there a year and they had been there longer, and she said, “I'm going to appoint a general counsel,” and I'm getting, I'm like, “Okay, it's going to be one of these guys and I'm going to work for them and okay, that's fine.” She said, “I'm going to put you in that general counsel role.” I was like, “What?”
She said, “Okay, you look shocked.” I said, “Well, I am a little surprised because you said we were going to work on getting the general counsel ready.” She's like, “Yeah, we're going to work on getting your general counsel ready. I'm giving you this title and then we're going to work on it.” I thought, “Okay, I didn't see it playing out that way. I thought we'd have some dinners, have some meetings, but this is what we're doing.” That was it.
Then I had a general counsel title as a general counsel reporting to a chief legal officer. It's funny because even after that, it's not like we sat together and she was teaching me stuff. It was just like, “Go deal with this, go deal with that. I'm dealing with this, you take on that.” A lot of it was like baptism by fire. Then at some point, maybe another year later, she's like, “All right, I got to get you in the boardroom. Here's what we're going to do.”
Then she said, we've got to get you in the boardroom. Then she started course-correcting me in the boardroom as she liked to say, “Okay, that thing you did. Don't do that. Do this other thing when you're in the boardroom.”
Paula Edgar: [inaudible] see you in the boardroom.”
Wanji Walcott: Yes. She's like, “Here's how I want you to show up, here's how I want you to present.” It was so helpful because you just don't know. It was just learning on the job. It was so helpful. I'm super grateful for that experience. But a few years in, I thought, “Okay, I'm ready to take my training wheels off. I want to do my own thing.” Then fast forward, the opportunity came up to go to Discover in Chicago land.
Paula Edgar: Everybody who's listening, Wanji told me ahead of time that the dog was going to start barking because it's her protector. I said, “Let the dog do what the dog's going to do because y'all know that this is life, this is real life. This is what we do. The dog's barking, it's all good.
Wanji Walcott: I thought about locking him in a bedroom and I just said, "He’s a dog mom, I couldn't do it." So here we are. At any event, opportunity came up to go to Discover. I was the chief legal officer and I thought, “Okay, this is what I'm going to do.” I did that and we moved to Chicago land, which is where we still are.
I did that for about four years. Then my former chief operating officer at PayPal landed the CEO role at Pinterest. I shot him a text just to congratulate him because like me, he had these aspirations. I wanted to be a public company general counsel, he wanted to be a public company CEO. So I called and congratulated him and he said, "Hey, can we talk later this afternoon?" And I said, "Sure."
We got on the phone and he said, "I have a crazy question to ask you." And I said, "What?" And he said, "Would you consider coming to work for me?" I thought, "100%, that is not a tricky question." So I left Discover and went to Pinterest to be the chief legal officer. After being there for about seven months, he said, “I need to expand your role. I need you to take on some other stuff.” Then it just has snowballed from there.
Paula Edgar: All those commas in the beginning of the conversation.
Wanji Walcott: That's how we got all those. It's not like I went in saying, “I need all this other stuff.” Just to actually give you more details on that. When he hired me, he hired me to look after legal compliance and public policy or government affairs. I said, “Great,” because I've done that before minus the compliance piece, because in financial services, that's separate. But I figured, “Okay, those all fit together. I can do that.”
Sometime during the month between the time I accepted the role and started working there, he reached out to me and said, "Look, we just had a new org change. I need you to take on public affairs." I didn't know what that was, but I just said, "That sounds great." And I just figured out when I got there.
Paula Edgar: That's a branding point, though. There are two things I want to pull out. One is that you've had two people call you to say, “I want you to work with me,” and it says that you have a brand that people have been able to see that you do the work and that they can trust your work product, and then also you said, “Fine, I'll do it. I'm going to figure it out.”
I tell people all the time, “Look, if you're in the seat, you're in the seat.” You will figure out, you will learn by fire but you will learn. That is a point where people think of you as a leader because you're not scared of what the possibilities are. Actually, all those commas means that the next thing, whatever that is for you, you've got all these bullet points under there in terms of what you've been able to do.
Wanji Walcott: You can do it. It's funny, I then got to the company, figured out what public affairs was. For us, it was kind of managing and looking after our relationships with our civil society partners, which is really very important core to a lot of the work that we do around ensuring better mental health outcomes for all people, including youth.
Also, just the work that we're doing around being the positive corner of the internet and to really just inspire people to live a life that they love, as opposed to having them just doom scroll and watch stupid cat videos, but to really discover things in our platform and then go out and do them or buy them or what have you. Took that on, it all fit together, it sounded great.
A few months into my time at Pinterest, there was an nbcnews.com article that came out, this is all public, about how bad actors were on our platform pinning otherwise innocuous pictures and being inappropriate. It put a spotlight on our platform and we all internally were working really diligently to make sure that our platform was really the positive corner of the internet, not just something we aspire to be, but that we were doing it.
As part of that, I remember being in my CEO's ear saying, “You gotta make some changes in trust and safety. It's not where it needs to be, we haven't invested in it the right way, we've got to make some changes.” I was just constantly in a zero about that.
Then once we got through that crisis—which we navigated really well and came out much better for it and really made some pivotal decisions about our platform and what we were going to allow on the platform by way of content, by way of policy, just around for example, no messaging to people under 16, just making it a safer place for all, especially our most vulnerable users who are young people—once we got through that, my CEO said, “You've been in my ear about trust and safety, and I'm thinking about making some changes there.” I said, “Well, thank God, it's about time.”
He said, “Where do you think I should put trust and safety?” I said, “Oh, well, I think you should give it to the head of strategy,” who is another woman who I had been working very closely with and who I have a tremendous amount of respect for. He said, “You know what's funny, I asked her what I should do with it and she said I should give it to you.”
The lesson there was like gosh, that's what women do like, “I'll give it to Paula.” Whereas I feel like I've seen this a million times with men who are like, “Give it to me, give me everything. I will be one to supervise her.” He just said, "You know what, I'm going to park it with you for now, and let's just see what you can do." I just thought, "All right. Now might be a good time to remind you that I have zero experience with trust and safety. I have a lot of opinions and a little experience."
“I know,” he goes, "But you're a problem solver and a doer and you can figure it out.” At that point, I thought, “You know what? I can figure it out.” I had to figure out how I was going to figure it out, but I was confident I could do something with this. That's what I set out to do. So I started talking to trust and safety leaders at other companies. I met with one of the big consulting firms that had their trust and safety practice to figure out “If you were me--”
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Like, “If you were taking on a role hypothetically.”
Wanji Walcott: Asking for a friend, yeah. So I just figured it out, realized I needed to reorg, realized I needed to hire a solid leader, just got all the things done. Also, I thought, “This is just a temporary thing. At some point, once we get this stabilized, it'll move.” It's just grown from there.
It has been such a fun journey. I think what I'm most grateful for is one, working for a CEO who has trusted me to step outside of my legal box, which has been really fun at this stage in my career to do something really new and challenging, that's not like, “Oh, I can do this with my eyes closed,” own it in, it really requires me to focus and learn and talk to people and understand our users and all the vectors of threat that come with running a platform like ours, it's been just amazing and really just exciting.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I mean, I hear it in there, innovation and leadership and vision and all the pieces that you see when you think about a leader that you want them to have. But the biggest thing is continuing trust, even your dad trusting in you that this is what you said you want, you're going to take it and leverage it the way in which you said you were going to. I love that chain, that thread throughout your career in terms of that.
Okay, so you answered four questions in that one. I have to, I could never have done this podcast with you without acknowledging that Pinterest is a big family's life just so you know.
Wanji Walcott: Yay, I'm so glad. What's your best use case? What do you do?
Paula Edgar: My husband is a chef, so he cooks, he finds all kinds of things and uses them. But I do a vision board party and exercise and webinar every year. I teach people how to do it in person and also using Pinterest as their platform. We are Pinterest people just so you know.
Wanji Walcott: Yay!
Paula Edgar: I love when I was thinking about talking to you, it's a really great platform to build and think about your brand. You have been aligned with big brands for pretty much your whole career and when you think about that, does that make you think about the concept of branding differently? I think about it this way. I say, “Here's some strong brands.” I love Coca-Cola. Everybody who knows me knows that Coca-Cola is my jam. Pinterest and Discover and all these places that you've worked for have been big, solid brands.
Leading in those means that you have to have a brand that is complementary, but it doesn't have to be the same. What do you think about that? I don't know what my question was.
Wanji Walcott: I understand what you're saying. I think it's interesting. I have to say, being at Pinterest, when I think about our mission to inspire people to live a life that they love, I mean, I know every company now is mission-driven. We make plastics to make the world better. Everyone has a mission, I get that. But you've got to figure out does the mission resonate with you?
Look, at different stages in your career, it doesn't really matter. You need a job. You're going to work somewhere. They're not doing anything illegal. You work there. I'm at a point now, though, I’m at a different life stage where I'm like, “My gosh, I feel so blessed and excited to work in an environment for a brand that resonates.” That has been a hallmark of every company I've worked in. But what we're doing is so important.
The work we're doing youth safety, youth mental health and youth safety is so important. The work that we're doing around positivity is so important in this toxic social media environment. I love that. I feel so blessed that I get to work somewhere where what we're doing matters.
When I go to Capitol Hill and talk to senators, congresspeople, their staffers about what we're doing, I mean, it matters. People are looking to regulate the space to make it better and we're at the forefront of that and I love that. It's funny, I remember when I was at American Express, I once went to an after-work conference cocktail thing.
You walk into these things. They have a table with all the nametags, you get your nametag, you put it on. So I remember talking to someone and someone said, I'm making it up, “What does TPC Corp do?” I said, "I'm not sure, what is that?" They said, "Well, don't you work there?" And I said, "No, I work at American Express." They said, "Oh, your name tag says TPC Corp." And I looked down and it said, "Wanji Walcott, TPC Corp." And I said, "I don't know what that is."
Then I spent the rest of the night walking around with people saying to me, "What is TPC Corp?" “I'm not sure, I actually work at American Express.” But then for the first time, I thought people always say, “Oh, your company is not who you are, and you're separate from that.” Then I thought, “Hmm, I don't know if that's true.” I have a certain amount of pride in working for American Express. I'm not saying I am American Express, but I do take pride in that. I do like to go to the conference and have people say, “Oh, wow, you're with American Express.”
But here's the thing, sometimes people would say, “Oh, my gosh, I love American Express. That was my first credit card.” Or sometimes people would say, “I hate your card. I was at a client dinner, card got declined.”
Paula Edgar: Oh, no.
Wanji Walcott: Usually, it's because bill wasn't paid, but card got declined. They had a bad experience with the brand, terrible. I have to say, since being at Pinterest, I've not had anyone who's had a bad experience. Everyone, they light up. They're like, “Oh, my gosh, I use Pinterest for [fill in the blank].” Here's the craziest use case—I shouldn't say it's crazy, but I just did—crazy use case I've heard.
I met a young woman a couple of years ago and said, “I work for Pinterest.” She said, “Oh, my gosh, I love Pinterest.” I always ask people, “What's your use case?” She said, “I used it to study for the bar exam.” I said, “I'm sorry, excuse me?” She said, “I used it to study for the bar exam. There are outlines on Pinterest.” I said, “I hope you trust and verify them.”
Paula Edgar: Exactly.
Wanji Walcott: This is my disclaimer. I cannot [inaudible] that those are correct or should be used to study for the bar exam. I just thought, “Okay, you win a gold star,” because she passed the bar exam. I said, “You win a gold star because you passed the bar exam. I've never heard of this use case before. I did not know we had outlines on Pinterest for the bar exam. I don't know how you found those or why you thought to come to us for that.”
Paula Edgar: I mean, yeah, huh, I do a lot of goal-setting stuff. My husband does the food thing. He used to have a cheesecake company. He would look at designs for how to design the cheesecake icing. He is through and through Pinterest. [inaudible] my vision, but it is. Yeah, everybody loves it and I never heard the tagline, “The positive corner of the internet,” but it makes a whole lot of sense in terms of that. I hope that anybody who's listening, who has not tried it out yet, goes and checks out because we need positivity.
Wanji Walcott: We want you to come discover stuff and then go do it. We don't want you to just scroll on our site for eight hours. We want you to visit regularly and get inspired. I'm decorating my house for Christmas now. I'm going to go to [inaudible]. You can see on my bookshelf, my books are--
Paula Edgar: It's color coordinated.
Wanji Walcott: That was a Pinterest idea. It took six seconds to bring that to life.
Paula Edgar: I did notice that.
Wanji Walcott: You get the idea, then you go do something, which is great.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I did notice that. Yes, everybody who's listening, come and look at the YouTube, so you can see the color coordination of the bookshelf.
Wanji Walcott: I get some level of inspiration from, I think, being associated with a brand. And again, it's not like I handpicked these brands, a lot of them, I explained to you, I was sort of stuck at the firm waiting for something to happen. Then American Express came along, which that was just a lot of timing.
Paula Edgar: Serendipity, serendipity.
Wanji Walcott: Serendipity. Yeah.
Paula Edgar: Speaking of things that you're involved in, you are on a lot of boards. Talk to me about why board leadership and board participation is important to you.
Wanji Walcott: Yeah, so it's such a great question. I remember when I first graduated from law school, I don't know, I just felt like I've got to get involved in civic activities, I wanted to do something. So I joined my local chapter, the local NAACP chapter in my town. I mean, I used to take my daughter, she's now 30, I used to take her to these meetings after work picking her up from daycare and she'd be in her pajamas at these meetings. It was just important to me to do something in my community to give back.
Fast forwarding to moving to Chicago, we moved here. I had been to Chicago maybe six times on business. My husband had been here once on a college visit with my daughter. We didn't know anybody here, and we didn't know anything about this place.
But I know one way to really patch in to your community is to get involved civically. It started there, just getting involved with a few different organizations, then you meet people, then next thing you know they're like, “Do you want to be on this board?” Then you say yes too many times, and then you have a lot of commas in between all the things you're doing.
For me, it's been great though, because it's been a great way to have an impact, but also get to know people, and just to learn about what's going on in this great city of Chicago, which is just an amazing place. For me, it's been great. I can't imagine not doing it.
I caution people to not take on more than you want to take on and to not take on things that you are not interested in, because you're going to have to read some materials, go to some meetings, chair a committee, whatever you may be asked to do, and you want to make sure if you are being asked that you can actually joyfully give of your time and talents to support these things.
Paula Edgar: It's a really good point because fundraising usually has to do with when you're [inaudible] you’re using who you are, your street cred to get to fundraise and invite people to do stuff for the organizations. I tell people all the time, “If you're going to Chicago and then you have to know my BFF Sonia, that's it.”
Wanji Walcott: 100%, well, yes. Of course, I know Sonia, I knew a few people coming here who were here. She's certainly one of them. Yeah, it's such a great place. It's a great, great city. That's why I actually work in San Francisco now but we're still here.
Paula Edgar: That's the homestead now.
Wanji Walcott: Well, it's sort of, but yes, we're still here. I'm actually a Florida resident. It's complicated, but we still have a home here because my grown kids are now here and love it here. It's been a blessing. It's been really good. My dog loves it here.
Paula Edgar: Chicago is awesome in the summertime.
Wanji Walcott: It is amazing. End of June through October, fantastic.
Paula Edgar: Yes, I'm a fan of it that time. Well, I knew this conversation was going to go by quickly and it certainly did. Tell me before we end, I have a couple more questions for you, what do you do for fun? I know the answer to this.
Wanji Walcott: I'm a golfer, I play golf for fun. I play with my husband. My younger daughter is a golfer. I play with friends. I love it. It is challenging. I've met so many people and spent time with people who I wouldn't otherwise know or spend time with. It's amazing.
Paula Edgar: When did you start playing golf?
Wanji Walcott: First job out of law school at Lockheed Martin. I started in September and I noticed the first two weeks everyone was meeting outside of my boss's office. I could see his office from my desk. Everyone's meeting at his office at lunchtime, all these guys and they're going somewhere.
After two weeks of watching this, I thought, “I need to be going somewhere at lunchtime too.” So I walked over to my boss and I said, "I noticed you guys are going to lunch every day. I'm going to start going with you. I'll see you tomorrow at 12:00." He said, "Wanji, we're not going to lunch. We're going to the driving range." So just trying to be quick on my feet, I said, "Okay, well then I'll come with you to the driving range." He said, "Do you play golf?" I said, "No." He said, "Go take some lessons and you can come." So I did.
Paula Edgar: I'm really glad I asked you that question because that's just another point showing that you're like, "You’re not going to leave me out."
Wanji Walcott: Well, here's the thing. Gotta fit in because guess what? On Fridays at one o'clock, they're gone and they don't come back. I'm like, "How do I get on that program?" I'm still in the office. I'm like, "How do I get on that program?" So how I got on that program was I took some golf lessons.
My mom's neighbor was a golfer and I knew that. So I asked my mom, I said, "Can you ask Ms. Pam if I can talk to her about golf?" So my mom had us both over and Pam was like, "You know what, let me go in my garage. I'm going to give you these clubs. Everything you need, do not buy anything because it's expensive. You don't know if you're going to like it, take some lessons.”
She told me where to take lessons. I signed up with this woman, Dottie Giesler. She was my teacher, took lessons with her. Dottie Giesler got me connected to some other women who play, who had just formed a kind of now it's a national group. I think at the time it was called the Executive Women's Golf League or something.
I learned how to play, got comfortable, went back to my boss the next year and I said, "Okay, when is it driving range time? Because I'm ready. I've been taking lessons and I'm ready.” I started going to the range at lunch, started playing with them. We went on a lot of outings. All of our business travel was bring your clubs, bring your clubs, bring your clubs.
I started playing. Said to my husband, “We should play golf together. You would love it.” He was like, “Nope, that looks boring. I'm not doing that.” I was like, “Yeah, you can't play tennis forever. I mean, come on.” Anyway, Dottie Giesler, I asked her, I said, “I want my husband to play. He doesn't seem interested. What can I do?” That was my instructor. She said, “Give him six lessons for me for Christmas. He'll start in the spring and I'll get him hooked.” I said, “Okay, it's a deal.” She sure did. He took six lessons with her. He has not looked back. He plays more than I do. He's playing right now.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I love that. You're getting me thinking. I love wearing the golf outfits and I'll be like, “Look at me.”
Wanji Walcott: The clothes are so much better now than they used to be. Oh, my gosh, the clothes are outstanding.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, I'm an outfit wearer, but you've inspired me. I feel like I need to do this also because I don't like to be left out so I need to be where everybody else is.
Wanji Walcott: I don't want to be left out. Now I'm not left out and it's great.
Paula Edgar: I love it. All right, so on my podcast, I ask everyone the same two questions. One is this: what is one aspect of your brand that you will never compromise on?
Wanji Walcott: Oh, my gosh, my integrity. People know me as kind of a guardian of the integrity of the organization. They know I have high integrity and I will never compromise that for anyone or anything.
Paula Edgar: I love that. So Branding Room Only is a play on the term standing room only because I am clever, so I ask everyone, what is something that people would get into a room with only standing room only to experience about you?
Wanji Walcott: Oh, my gosh. I am known as someone who provides wise counsel across the board. I don't mean just on legal issues. People come to me personally. They know someone who knows me. People at work come to me, not on legal issues, on how do I deal with this issue, that issue?
I'm known as someone who has sound advice and solid wise counsel. I also respect people's confidentiality. I learned that actually from a guy I used to support at American Express, who's now the CEO of American Express, Stephen Squeri. What I loved about Steve is he never said, “I'm going to tell you this but don't tell anyone.” What I surmised is that, and sometimes he told me things, I'm like, “I feel like you should have said don't tell people about that.”
But I feel like he told me what he would risk me running off and telling people maybe and then in part, I think he told me things because he knew I wouldn't run around telling people. So I've tried to employ that sort of posture with people which is like, “You tell me things. You don't have to worry about me.” You're like, “Oh, girl, you're not going to believe what [inaudible] said.” No, I'm not that person. So because of that, people trust that they can come to me for advice and counsel, which I am here to dole out daily.
Paula Edgar: Wanji Walcott, trusted advisor and avid golfer and dog mom, I want to thank you so much for being on the podcast. Can people connect with you on LinkedIn if they want to?
Wanji Walcott: 100%.
Paula Edgar: Awesome. Everybody, tell your friend who knows somebody who needs to talk to somebody to hear somebody about how to become a trusted advisor and how to take risks and set a goal and get it. I love this conversation. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Wanji Walcott: Thank you.
Paula Edgar: Bye everybody.
Wanji Walcott: Bye, Paula.
