Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Phonometer's podcast. I am Jenna and I'm here today with a really, really special guest. One of my former co-workers, Kristen, take it away, introduce yourself.

Thank you for having me. So hi everyone. My name is Kristen and me and Jenna work together, not closely, but we work together at TikTok.

I was there for around two years working with like some of our top creators on the app. I recently left to start my own company and just so excited to be here.

Yeah, so this is really exciting. So I left TikTok in like September and before I even started at TikTok, I knew of who Kristen was because I would see her videos all the time and she just has like a very impressive experience in like the tech industry, which we'll get right into.

But so I wanted to have her on the podcast a little while ago, but she wasn't able to and now that she is away from TikTok doing her own venture. I wanted to have her on and kind of like talk about what she's going through, but also just give all of her career advice because I know there's a lot of girls that are in college that listen to me.

So I'm really excited to have Kristen on today.

Kristen, just some like background information. Where do you live? How old are you? And just kind of like an overview of some of the places where you live.

But it's not something that you want to do. So I'm really excited to have Kristen on today. Kristen, just some like background information. Where do you live? How old are you? And just kind of like an overview of some of the places that you've worked so people know just literally how cool you are.

Okay, okay, thank you. So, okay, first off, I'm from Nebraska. So like I always wanted to like kind of live. I either wanted to work with entertainment or tech.

So right after I graduated school, I like set my sights on either LA or San Francisco and I ended up getting a job in San Francisco.

I worked at Instagram at Pinterest and then I ended up getting a job at TikTok, which was more entertainment focus. I ended up relocating for TikTok. And so now I'm based out of Los Angeles, but the work I've been doing has you has primarily been working with like top content creators.

So like some of you know the hype house people, the people we all like know and love. I've gotten the pleasure to be able to work with and help just better develop them on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

Yeah, super crazy to because I think that your job is just always a lot of people that are in like the younger generation like influencer industry is just so big and everybody wants to be a part of it.

But there's just so much competition that a lot of people want to know like how like how do I get into it.

So this episode is going to kind of talk about that and also just being a woman and trying to progress in your career and everything.

So, you know, kind of going off of all of your experience. So I also looked at your LinkedIn before this. Let me just say you have the most impressive LinkedIn profile I've ever seen, which I'm going to get to.

And I also saw that you work that places like HBO and soul republic and pop sugar, which are all like you said entertainment and tech, you know companies.

So my first topic that I wanted to talk about is just like women in tech. So obviously you and I both worked at tech talk and women only make up like 28% of the tech industry.

And so with that being in like a male dominated field, I have a lot of questions for you because you have way more years of experience than I do.

So number one question is like how can you be taken seriously without coming across as like too assertive or too bitchy or too much of a pushover like how do you find that balance of just being like girl boss.

Yeah, I think I think really a lot of that has to do with like the company that you're at and like your co-workers like I have definitely worked at companies where I have totally felt like the odd woman out in in these room full of men.

And then I've worked at other companies where I feel like just the whole vibe is different. So I think one it's about finding like the right fit for you.

...