Hello, everyone, welcome to another episode of Maximize Your Career; I'm your host, Stacy Mayer, and super excited, as always, to be here with you again this week.

Stacy Mayer: So today I am bringing in a dear friend and colleague of mine who I have been watching and admiring her career as a minority in tech, and she is just a total corporate badass. And I really admire everything that she says, everything that comes out of her mouth. I'm like, Wow, she really sees the tech world differently and her leadership. And I just wanted to get her on the podcast to share some of her experiences, as I'm sure many of you will be able to relate.

So let me give a more formal introduction, and then we'll just dive right in. Maxime Kramer is the founder of MENNENIA, a company working to eradicate barriers for women entrepreneurs in tech. Yes, please. She fast tracks female founders in creating world class and live changing software because the world simply needs their ideas. With her ability to erase the gap between the technology and business, she's worked on apps that have seen a million downloads on the first day and been featured in Apple retail stores around the globe. Maxim, thank you so much for being here today.

Maxim Cramer: Stacy, thank you for having me. That was such an exciting intro. I was like, Yeah, I'm so happy. I'm here and I can't believe I'm your first international guest. Are, you know, what do I think?

Stacy Mayer: Right? We have to blow this stuff up.

Maxim Cramer: Super fun. No, I can't wait.

Stacy Mayer: Yeah. So tell us, let's just start out, what are some of your secrets to success?

Maxim Cramer: Huh. We're going straight in. This is yeah, this is a good, juicy question because it's funny. The other week I gave a talk to there's a thing here in London. It's called Ada's List. It's also international, I think, but I know we have a lot of Londoners on there and it was about my kind of career in my journey and what it's like to be a quote unquote woman in tech. And it's a very long story. But when I was telling that story, one of the things that I kind of noticed and spoke about and that I was actually quite proud of was that I'm nice. And it took me a long time to be OK with that because I think there's this whole idea of like the higher up you go, the more badass you have to be. And with that comes a level of seriousness. And I don't know, like people can think like business is cutthroat or like being in the executive suite is cutthroat and all of these things. And you know what I'm like? No, and I know, first of all, sassy. One thing I love about you is your background in comedy and improv and how you bring so much joy and fun to everything that you do. 

Maxim Cramer: So I know I'm in the right place when I say that it's not. It doesn't have to be cutthroat. But yeah, and I was looking. I was sharing some of the bits that I got in my performance reviews, and I was like, someone wrote that I was one of the kindest people they have ever worked with in their entire career. And I was like, You know what? That's something I'm proud of, you know? So that's one of them. And I think another thing that comes along with it is the level of I don't know if it's naivete or like a can do attitude, but I just kind of am like, I want to do this thing. So I'm going to do it. And I I'm not here for other people's opinions or to be stopped or whatever. I'm like, Yeah, that's fine. You can say that you can do that, whatever, but I'm going to do me and I keep going. So I think that's been that's been pretty helpful. 

Stacy Mayer: Oh, I love that. So much so basically, you just showed us two sides to this nice coin, this conversation about niceness, because you were like, No, that's OK, I'm going to do me. And I think that some people would look at that and they would say, Oh, she's changing herself, right? She's not being nice, right? That's not a nice thing. And actually, I don't think that's true at all. And so I think this is a great place to actually start the conversation. I have a whole chapter in my book, Promotions Made Easy about all the things that you might be doing wrong as an executive leader, as you transition. And one of the things is that you're being too nice and and I am a big like you said, like, I laugh, I joke all of these things. But I think what happens for a lot of women is that we're not actually able to say the thing, right? So I want women to laugh. I want women to be nice. I want women. We're changing the face of the leadership table. The way we're going to do that is to bring our whole self to it, right? You have got to be a total nice badass, right? Like, so so what does that mean? Where does that balance? And I think where we lose ourselves, is that forgetting to speak up to forgetting, to say no, forgetting to set boundaries, forgetting to say something that we hear and we see that feels a little off and we're like, Hey, I don't see the things that way because we're being too nice now. That's in the negative sense of the nice, whereas you're speaking to the other side. So I'd love to unpack that a little bit. 

Maxim Cramer: No, that's great. And I couldn't agree more. And I think really at the heart of that is the boundaries, right? It's why you do something and there is a difference, I think kind of exactly what you say around being nice because you're worried about the outcome and you're trying to be agreeable or being nice because you just feel like it's you, you know what I mean? Like, you care about someone or you do something or. You know what I was trying to say in that particular talk was when you look at my first performance review, someone was like, Oh, Maxim is so nice, and she organized this thing for the team. And you know, all of these things. Exactly, exactly. No one wants to be the office secretary, and I agree. 

Stacy Mayer: I know, right? 

Maxim Cramer: But at some point, I'm also like, I just naturally do some of these things. And instead of being worried about that or being ashamed, whatever, I do it. And what changed is at some point people were saying, Oh my gosh, Maxim is so incredibly good at tying the team together because at that point we had a really distributed team. And you know, across, I think, five different countries and everyone's on the same page. The type of workshops that she hosts like brings everyone together, and it really is transformed the way we work, et cetera, et cetera. And so that same skill suddenly becomes incredibly valuable in the business context. And so that's my belief. At least every skill that you bring to the table that's really natural to you. It will absolutely serve you in the context of business as well. It might take some time for people to see that, but like, don't try and mold yourself into what you think the corporate suite will want from you. 

Stacy Mayer: Absolutely. Oh, I love that so much. But there is a subtle shift that you made. Can you talk to us about that transition? So whether it was just owning your niceness or you know, what was the actual step by step? What did you actually do to create that transition? 

Maxim Cramer: That's a good question. So I think another thing we we just set boundaries and, you know, kind of knowing where your limit is so that you don't just agree to everything burning out early is one way of finding out, right? I burned out at twenty five. The tech industry is really exciting and it makes you want to do amazing work and it makes you want to be there all day, every day. And that's at the end of the day. Not really good for you. And at the same time, you know, I think when you're anything quote unquote other in a group, right, whether it's being a woman or a minority of any kind of sort, what you try and do is you try and fit into whatever you think the general narrative is. So you make all of these little shifts. You start having certain behaviors that you feel like are expected of you or certain attitudes or perspectives or thoughts and. Not being the office secretary was one of them being terrified to admit that I wanted kids in a family was one of them. You know, working on weekends when I would much rather, you know, go and explore London and have amazing food or whatever was one of them. And it took me like having that burnout at twenty five, realizing that like this is not sustainable and actually, quite frankly, it's not necessary. Then I was fortunate that for a while there I had. I became part of a really great team and I had a really wonderful manager who in that context, I could just kind of be me. And another thing I realized I had to say to myself, I was almost any time a manager would say, Hey, do you have five minutes? I could swear to you, I was being fired. 

Maxim Cramer: Nothing, you know, I'm really good at what I do. I can tell you that right now. But for some reason, there was this fear always there of like. I don't know if it's not being good enough or I don't know if it's imposter syndrome, you know what I mean, like that gets used a lot and it's a real thing, but like, I can't tell you where it came from, but I was just like, Oh my God, I've done something wrong and they figured it out, right? And it was never that. And so something I said to myself very consciously was, you know what, Maxim? Trust that they'll tell you if there is a problem. No one's going to fire you in one go unless you've literally like, expose trade secrets or crash things on purpose or hit someone in the face whatever. But you're not going to do, right? So. If there's ever an issue, the people in your team will say, Hey, you know what, I've noticed this and you have a chance to fix things and it'll be fine. So instead of worrying about that, just do your thing. And it was a really strange thing that I had to say that to myself because like I said, people listening to this might be like, Well, you must be a really strange person, like, you must be doing really weird things in the office. It wasn't right. No, not at all. 

Stacy Mayer: Like, I can't. I don't even hear that what I hear, the other side of the coin of being nice, right? Which is that you nailed it with that. It's all about the outcome, what we want from other people. And so for being nice to please, right, then that's when it can kind of get us into trouble. But what you're describing is the other side of that that we're so terrified of not being seen as nice or good or whatever that might be in our in our world, our work, then we do things. We're for ourselves, like to sabotage ourselves, to worry, to be upset, to be constantly on edge, right? And then you found a way to just be right and to just be who you are. And that might mean setting boundaries, and it also might mean being incredibly nice, right? Maybe you do bring the donuts right? But you're like, Look, we need the donuts we've been working since, you know, whatever that might be, right? 

Maxim Cramer: I love that so much. 

Stacy Mayer: So you touched on something which was this idea of burnout, right? Twenty five years old. And I'd love to explore that a little bit more. And. I'm going to go back. Let me ask another question, that's actually what I want to. So when you were talking, I couldn't help but think that maybe you got into some sort of spiritual practice, so and maybe I'm just inferring, but it sounds like, you know, if you're ever doing the inner work, really looking at yourself and sort of saying, Hey, maybe I'm maybe I'm not presenting in the way that I want to be presenting. Maybe I'm not living the life that I want to be presenting. So my hunch is that something also happened in your 20s where you maybe found yourself and you can tell me if that's true, but I'd love to hear more about that. I'm a big fan of any sort of spiritual practices in that way.

Maxim Cramer: Definitely. There have been a few moments, actually, I wouldn't say that my toes were, were it? There's actually another moment that was even stronger for me when it comes to that kind of find yourself moment. Mm hmm. Yeah. When I was younger, so you talk about international, I think you started off with a great test. If I do say so myself, I have lived in quite a few different countries. I'm mixed race, but I grew up primarily in the Netherlands and I love Amsterdam. It's a really lovely place and in many ways I had a really good time there, but also culturally, it just did not work and it did not fit for me. And there's a bunch of reasons why, but at high school, I had a difficult time. Everything I wanted to do, it was like, Why would you do that? Why are you trying to achieve more, do more

Stacy Mayer: Or do other people would tell you that? Or you would tell yourself that

Maxim Cramer: No other people and teachers?

Stacy Mayer: They would say, why? Why would you?

Maxim Cramer: Oh, OK. And that was really tough because and this is where that thankfully that naivete ish ness helps where I'm like, Yeah, fine, I'll just keep doing it right. But it was continuously fighting against the norm, and I stumbled on a book called I think it's called Girlosophy. I think it was an Australian writer. I her name slips me now. I've not thought about this book in years. They'll tell you that, but it was really instrumental in my teens because it was one of those about like, stay in your own lane and do your own thing. And it had loads of spiritual messages. And I think I found that again years after and I was like, This is so cool because we're so familiar with these things now. But I remember finding that book randomly at like, I think a borders on a holiday in the U.S. and it was that focus that really helped me kind of get through that and then decide to go abroad for university, which is something I always wanted to do. And again, I was one of, I think, two people in my entire high school that left the country after after school. And so that was my start in doing my own thing. But then in the tech industry, an industry that I loved, I had to find my own way of doing things again. And I think as well a practice that we have and anyone who's in the business will be like, Yeah, this is really normal. We have something called stand up. So every single day we say what we did yesterday and what we're going to do today. Now, if you had one bad day and you maybe didn't accomplish much yesterday, like you're standing there feeling like a complete idiot. And that was one of the things that really I found very difficult because I was like, I'm still working on this thing that I said I was working on, and I at the time didn't realize. Still, I wasn't good at estimating how long certain things take. And I thought that was my guilty guilty. 

Stacy Mayer: Very much so on the daily. 

Maxim Cramer: Well, there you go, right? And now I know it's normal thing, but at the time I was like, Oh my God. And so suddenly there was just this fear that started building and so after the burnout. You know, I already did yoga. I already had my spiritual practices, what I think there are two things I did. One, I went back to therapy and I did a good chunk of it at that time and it was really good and really necessary. And so through that, I learned my own patterns, my not just kind of belief patterns and triggers and things, but also energy patterns. I say yes to too many things when I'm excited and then my mood drops and then I can't complete it, and I feel awful because I now have too many things on my plate. And so that was a good insight. And also learning to give myself the grace of like just doing things slowly like I and I feel like Stacy know, correct me if I'm wrong that you have same energy like you want to get a lot of things done. You love what you do and you're like, Oh my god, oh my God, I want to do everything. And so I really had to also step back from that. And so I think at that point in time, in my 20s, it was, yeah, probably therapy like kind of in the vein of I think that's also spiritual work, right? You're kind of assessing, reflecting and taking that time with yourself to to learn things. 

Stacy Mayer: Yeah. And to question and to say, OK, is this what I really want to be doing? And you know, or am I just being a product of everything? Then I fought against it. You know, it's sort of like this cycle. So it sounds like as well, you know, you mentioned a couple of times that you had burnout at age twenty five. And I think for a lot of women in the tech industry and especially when they're starting to transition into leadership positions, they realize that their way of doing things currently is not going to scale, quote unquote right as they get more and more responsibility as they get larger teams, as their projects get bigger, as the stakes get higher. They're not going to be able to hold it all together, right just by the hours that they're putting in or being able to show up at stand up and to say, I did all of these things right. It's just not going to work for them at those higher and higher levels. So can you talk to us about transitioning from being the desire to do it all, the desire to be the smartest person in the room, right? The desire to do a good job right, to make sure that you have approval of everybody and into really being able to make that impact, right? Because the irony is, is that I've seen when we when we stop trying to do it all, that's when we can actually see where we can make the biggest impact, when we can actually push the envelope, when we can change the status quo. So I'd love to hear more about that in your journey there. 

Maxim Cramer: Absolutely. I think for me, it's ever so slightly different. Instead of doing it all or not doing it all, I did the right thing that suited me the best. People now talk a lot about zone of genius and that kind of stuff. But at the time I was a very odd individual, apparently because I have a computer science background, so I'm technical. But at the same time, I love people. What makes people tick? Why do they do what they do? And so I naturally did a lot of UX design or user experience design. And I did mobile development, so it's kind of how I got into development as well, why I decided to do it full time, it's like people carry these apps around with them all day, like it's part of their life. And so I'm really big on creating those experiences and people are like, Yeah, but there's no role that does both of them and you're strange, like, do one or the other. You know what I mean? And so. I'm a really good developer, but I'm even better when I mix both things, and I couldn't do that for a while until I got to a level where people finally start to realize that it was something they needed, even though I was trying to tell them that before bed and I got hired as a, you know, so I was kind of in the corporate ladder in terms of an individual contributor, I was a senior principal design technologist, which the name kind of says it. I did it both. Finally, and so. That was such a breath of fresh air, because now I felt like the work was easy and I had the bandwidth in the space to do more. 

Maxim Cramer: Start thinking about other things influence like where do we take stuff? What do we do here? Then over that fully answers your question. But I think there are a lot of other ways as well to have influence without doing it all. It's spotting the right problem to solve and who to talk to about it in what context? I was twenty three when we were working on SwiftKey, which was the first kind of. Let me restart. I was twenty three when I was working on SwiftKey, which was a kind of soft keyboard, multi-lingual typing experience for Android and for the first time it was coming to iOS. We have three months to make it because Apple announced it in June and had to be ready in September, and we had there was no way. It was just happening in three months. And so there was like six to eight of us crammed in a room all summer. And one of the first things that happened was the direction that we got from leadership was we are making the exact same product. And my stance was, Listen, you can't do that because typing you don't mess with typing. I don't know if I'm getting a little bit geeky here, but the keyboard has a different layout where you have kind of old school, where you have the letters on one side and then the numbers on the other, rather than kind of the numbers along the top, which is what people on iOS were used to. 

Maxim Cramer: And I was like, If you move those keys, even the SwiftKey lovers, they're going to throw this out the window because they're not going to type like they're not going to be able to do what they do. Yes. Well, no. And so I set up a user test within three days. I created the prototype and the demo and we tested it. And sure enough, everyone was like, I can't even type the sentence to my mom, like using this and. I don't know what it was, but I was like, this is really important and I'm going to kind of challenge leadership on this. And when I look back at my career, I've done that a few times where I pick the right moment, where I was like, Hey. I as a subject matter expert, I see something. And what I got better at over time is also seeing the perspective of leadership, right? What's the context in which you're deciding your goal? Yes, your business. What is it that you're looking to do? And so this is where the two intersect and this is where I'm trying to tell you one very specific thing because this is the potential impact or effect of this decision that you're making right now. So being in the right skill set kind of the right job was really crucial. And then, like I said, learning over time the context, the business context was really helpful and then I was able to marry those two and have some impact.

Stacy Mayer: Oh yeah, for sure. And you know, it sounds like the perfect formula where you're able to see what what people need, even the users, what management needs, what leadership needs. And then you also really understand the technical and it's like, it seems like you could pretty much have any role that you want in in the tech world. Like, I, you know, I'm in Silicon Valley. We would hire you and you could work remote now, you know, like whatever you want. So tell us about that transition into doing what you're doing today and MENNENIA and the work that you're doing and why you made that transition.

Maxim Cramer: It's kind of exactly that, because what's such a joy in my business now is that I get to do it all. And I think that's the really unique thing that I can offer to my clients is, you know, you've kind of got four or five types of roles in one person. And so especially when they're early stage, it helps to have those different perspectives now. But just backing up on like why I do what I do, you know, so I work with female founders in tech, and that's really important to me because. It's not that the other founders aren't important, aren't doing amazing things because they are right, tech has been, like it or not, has been transformational to our lives. But women come up with other ideas. Men like it's in, say, like the people I work with. They have concepts around sexual violence, domestic violence, sustainability like they're trying to do a level of good that is just incredible. And because they have all their expertise and I think similar to kind of what you teach, do see like you come with so much expertise when there's one thing that you need to unlock to get to the next step, whether that is the executive suite or in this case, into the world of tech, because you're looking to do a tech product, basically. And you need a translator sometimes, and that's kind of exactly what I do. One of the things I love to do is, and I call it, making technology as simple as everyday English. That's the feedback I consistently get people like the metaphors you use. No one's ever explained it to me like that. Now I suddenly understand the trade offs and the options in front of me and the decision that I need to make here. So, you know, it's all about getting women with those amazing, crazy ideas through the first set of hurdles. I mean, there are so many hurdles, but hey, the first set of hurdles to get their products out there and to start those businesses.

Stacy Mayer: Wow, that is so huge. You are definitely an international translator. It's not just around the world, but through tech. It's just like everything is coming together. I love it so much. So you are basically doing what you didn't have as well, which is normalizing. You kind of use the word crazy, but it's normalizing their crazy ideas as being wonderful, right? This is perfect. All right. You want to eradicate childhood sexual abuse with an app? Let's do it right. Like, you're like, what exactly is out right? And and there are ways that we can figure this out. And oh, that is just gives me chills.

Maxim Cramer: No, definitely it's and it's a real privilege, in my opinion, to be doing that and working in that, and I love it. In an odd way, actually slight like I've been doing it since I was young. You know, one of my first kind of side jobs when I was 13 was I was teaching seniors how to get online, how to use the internet, like not that women entrepreneurs

Stacy Mayer: Regulating the internet for seniors. Exactly. It's brilliant. That's amazing. Oh, totally bridging those gaps. So it sounds like your mission really drives you and what it is that you're able to see change. Can you talk to us even bigger picture? Like, let's say, over the next 20 years? You know what? What do you imagine? What drives you? What do you want to see this industry look like? What fuels you to wake up every single morning and do this amazing work?

Maxim Cramer: Absolutely. So I think we have that in common, right? We're very mission oriented. Ultimately, and Caroline Perez's book is such a good example of this Invisible Women, which I'm sure people listening are familiar with as well. Everything we use today, more or less, has been designed by men for men. Right. And we are moving into now a digital future and we are effectively recreating everything that we know and love in and don't live in the daily life into this digital twin format. And I don't mean like metaverse digital twin, but like just, you know, kind of, you know, we have groceries online where we shop online now. We let me say that again, we have groceries in real life and now we have groceries online, et cetera. Like all of these things are being translated, and if you will upload it into the digital verse. And with that comes the exact same problems that we already have in day to day life, right where voice recognition fails significantly on female voices, they don't understand their pitch. So if we speak deeper, suddenly the cars are like, Oh, well, yes, of course I will close the doors for you. 

Stacy Mayer: Because voice recognition software is created by men? 

Maxim Cramer: It's that one on male data because that's the default. 

Stacy Mayer: Oh my God, this is brilliant. That's amazing. 

Maxim Cramer: 70 percent more accurate for male voices. 

Stacy Mayer: Wow. 

Maxim Cramer: And just like typical seatbelts in car accidents are tested on an average person of one 180 cm, which is what six feet or so in feet? Like most women are smaller than that like on average, right? So the average is always been male. 

Stacy Mayer: So we're going to die in car wrecks and then nobody's going to be able to hear us call for help because the voice recognition software didn't work. 

Maxim Cramer: We're screwed. Yeah, this is what gets me out of bed every day because I don't want that to happen. 

Stacy Mayer: Yes. Oh my gosh. 

Maxim Cramer: And so, you know, this is why I think it's imperative that women play a huge role in creating all of this technology for the future. Because this is everyone knows it's a problem, but it's a little bit like climate change. It's invisible to most people, so they don't realize this is happening because everything is so feral on the internet and so on. But like everything is being driven by technology and it's only going to increase. And so if the data sets are incorrect, if women aren't creating other products that we also need, right, what's going to happen? And I don't I don't want to see this go downhill. I don't want to literally copy create a carbon or digital copy of the mess that we're in today. 

Stacy Mayer: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that is so huge. It's like full circle to our conversation, which is being able to, you know, bring your niceness to the leadership table, right? And like literally being able to bring the woman into technology and not only the ideas, but also in the research and who we're thinking about when we're creating these products so that they work for everyone. And that's just incredible. I love this work that you're doing. I'm always so impressed by you, and I want more and more people listening to be able to find you. So how can we reach out to you and connect with you and learn more? 

Maxim Cramer: Well, thanks a few ways. I mean, I'm always up for a conversation like, say hi on LinkedIn, connect with me. Dm me, that would be fab. My website is millennia. It's difficult to spell, probably. But I'm sure maybe Stacey will pop a link in the show notes and there are. People can get access to a range of different things we do. We have a podcast as well. We've got a program. We've got consulting options, all that kind of stuff. And you know, I love hearing from people. I love hearing what they want to see in their digital future. And so, you know, even if it's just thoughts and ideas like that, like, honestly, hit me up on LinkedIn, I would love to hear from you all. Wow, that's so great. 

Stacy Mayer: Well, sorry. Yeah, go ahead.

 Maxim Cramer: Especially as well, you know, people who are in that executive suite who are climbing up to make those changes. Stacy, because what you do is so it's the exact in a way it's exact same where like, you know, we need more women in the executive suite because they are driving decisions in that company. It changes how they hire, it changes how they do things, it changes the goals they set. And similarly, for tech, right, it's it's very, very much in line. And so I would always love to hear what people think so good. 

Stacy Mayer: So any final words of wisdom for a woman who's trying to grow in her career and looking towards how she wants to spend the next 20 years before she retires and all of the great work that she wants to do anything that you want to leave us with.

Maxim Cramer: Yeah, I would say two things. Firstly, make sure that your goal is your goal, right? It's not because of some belief that you've picked up or some idea or some notion of this is what I should be doing, like pick your goal for you. And then like I said, and I think I already kind of touched on, this is. One of the best things I kind of learned as an had to learn throughout my career, you don't start off with it, I think is really seeing things from different perspectives. And so being able to marry the context of all the different people around the table and what they're looking to achieve. And if you can be in the middle of that and translate and add your own expertise, the impact that you can have is so vast that that's just really worthwhile bringing into the mix, no matter what you do where you are in your career, I think.

Stacy Mayer: Mm hmm. So good. Well, thank you so much, Maxine, for being here. I really appreciate it, and I'm sure all of the listeners do as well.

Maxim Cramer: Thank you for having me, Stacey. It's been such a joy.