An interview with Rachel Guthrie, Customer Success Account Manager, Microsoft

Through the Women Rising® program, Rachel found the inner work that led to an outward pivot — moving from finance to engineering to customer success, landing a promotion within her first year, and discovering the power of women supporting women.

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Tell us about who you are and what you do.

This program changed my life. I was nominated when I was with the engineering group at Microsoft. I moved from finance to engineering — I was trying to get closer to the business and a role came up through someone I knew in finance. I loved that role because I was learning continually: teaching myself how to program, learning DAX and Power BI reports at a level I’d never done before. But in that time, I was nominated with 30 of my female engineering colleagues for this program, and I’m never one to skip an opportunity.

Every six months at Microsoft we do something called Connects — write a few pages answering questions about the impact you made on the business. I always had a hard time doing that in finance and then in engineering. I wanted to get closer to the customer. It was through the program and the exercises I was able to do that.

Walk us through your career path at Microsoft.

I was a Senior Finance Manager when I got hired into Microsoft almost 5 years ago, and I spent 2 years in that role. The second year was Covid, and then I was a year in engineering as a Senior Program Manager. And then I moved over to the Customer Success Account Manager role. Even with all my decades of experience as a CPA, I was starting almost at entry level in a customer-facing role.

Within my first year, I managed to get promoted. In a customer-facing role, all my soft skills counted for something. Both my former manager and my new manager went on about how I “hit the ground running” — the things they were talking about, like building trust with the customer and relationships, those are just the way I operate. The program really helped me align what my values are to the type of role that would appreciate those strengths.

What difference did you see in yourself when you made that pivot?

I came into my own. I gained more and more confidence in myself, especially as I got promoted. I got that outward recognition of what I always believed I was doing well, and my confidence went through the roof. My ambition to learn more and do better increased as well. I became very motivated just knowing that naturally it was such a good fit, and I was doing all the right things already.

What were some of your blind spots revealed by the program?

I read the book How Women Rise a couple of times, because I identified with so many of the habits that I didn’t realize. I can’t even stress how huge it was to realize that even just the way you word an email has an impact on your brand and how you are perceived. My blind spots were habits that I didn’t realize were undermining my own credibility. Recognizing that these are things a lot of people do — these are just habits, just like a chocolate bar in the afternoon. I can break that habit if I decide it’s not serving me.

What elements of the program did you get the most value out of?

I got the most value out of my 1:1s with my coach Christine. She was fantastic! Especially because of the accountability I felt to do what we talked about. I’d say, “I want to go do this — what are the next steps?” I need to email so-and-so. I better have emailed by the time I talked with her again. Doing those things she pushed me to do are what got me where I am now.

The second-best thing was reading that book about habits. And the CliftonStrengths assessment. I’ve since mentored a few people and had them do CliftonStrengths and read the book too.

What values are most important to you as a leader?

Building trust and well-being. My role now gives me a good amount of balance. Empathy is paramount with the customer. Inclusion is a huge part of my role where I’m connecting people who can help each other and helping drive a team to success. And then integrity — doing what I say I’m going to do. And gratitude is one of my core values. It’s all about relationship building and building trust across the Microsoft account team and the customer.

What’s one thing you wish you knew more about as it pertains to women in leadership?

I wish I knew the power of women supporting women, because the connections I made as a result of this program ended up just accelerating my career so much faster than what men had told me for years in the past would happen. It’s really the women that were the ones that propelled me through.

I came from oil and gas, which is a real old boys’ network. Then yachting — Olympic campaigning — which was also quite cutthroat. My whole life my understanding of women was that we were competing. It wasn’t until my 30s and 40s that I started to recognize women who were supporting me and had my back. I wish I knew the power of that sooner.