Hi, it's Bob Saffian. You've been hearing me as the host of Rapid Response in this feed for a few years now. Well, I'm excited to share that Rapid Response has expanded into its own feed. We're releasing shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time. While some rapid response episodes appear on Masters of Scale, many of our best are only available every week in the rapid response feed. To make sure you catch it all, search for rapid response wherever you get your podcast and subscribe. See you on the other side.

There was a business continuity plan in place, and so it was known that I would step up. I remember turning to my husband and being like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. I am reckoning with my own postpartum. I have a new baby. I have a three-year-old as well. And my husband was like, You're going to put one foot in front of the other, and you're just going to get through every single day.

That's Bjil Shah, who became CEO of Guilde Education when the founding CEO, 34-year-old Rachel Roemer, suffered a stroke. This episode of Rapid Response is quite personal about the human challenges of dealing with the unexpected, about when leadership is thrust upon us and how we handle it. Bejil has had to navigate her own emotions while taking on new responsibility for the business and making tough calls, including a round of layoffs. She's also had to find ways to provide inspiration to others and to inspire herself, tapping into resources from Taylor Swift to Team USA. I'm Bob Saffian. This is Rapid Response. We'll start the show in a moment.

Afterword from our premier brand partner, Capital One Business.

I woke up in the middle of the night because I had this nightmare that we were front-page news that we've done the stupidest mistake of our life by making this pivot.

That's Aparna Saren, Chief Marketing Officer for Capital One business. She's recalling a moment from her previous position at Capital One when she was heading up a team designing a new business card.

We had just made the decision to go all in and sunset the prior version of the product, which was honestly the cash cow for our business. When we made that decision within a senior leadership meeting, as someone who had been on the journey to build this out for five plus years, it was really exciting. But by the time the weekend hit, I started to feel the responsibility and the pressure. We are taking this big bet on something that I've built.

Perhaps you've been there. You've made a pivotal decision, and then panic sets in. How would Aparna calm her butterflies and steer her team through this pivot? We'll find out later in the show. It's all part of the Refocus Playbook, a special series where Capital One business highlights stories of business owners and leaders using one of Reed's theories of entrepreneurship. Today's Playbook Insight, have multiple plan Bs.

I'm Bob Saffian, and I'm here with Bijal Shah, the CEO of Gild Education. Bijal, thanks for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. Super excited to chat with you today.

I want to start first asking you to briefly explain what Gild's business is for our listeners.

We work with some of the world's largest employers to help enable their employee population to get upskilled and reskilled. We come those employer partners with a curated learning marketplace of offerings. Those employers fund the education experience for those employees, and then they get certifications, degrees, they finish their high school diploma, they get skilled in very specific roles or pathways so that they can hopefully continue to grow at their existing employer or find new opportunities in the future.

Guild was started by your predecessor, Rachel Rome, who was on this show a few years ago, super dynamic, energetic young founder. I don't think anyone, you included, expected anyone other than Rachel to be running guild anytime soon. You've taken on the leadership because of a unexpected and harrowing health issue for Rachel. Can you take us back to last summer and explain what happened?

Yeah. Also, last summer, in the middle of August, I was out on parental leave. I had just had a newborn baby managing what I would describe as postpartum symptoms after having a pretty tough delivery and At about seven o'clock in the morning, I got a phone call from someone in Rachel's family, and they said, Rachel went to the hospital. We need you to clear her calendar. I said, I'm on parental leave. Is this something that's urgent? And is she going to be okay? And they said, We don't know. We'll call you back. A few hours later, I got a phone call from her dad explaining that Rachel had had a stroke and that she had been sent to the best care facility in Colorado, but that I needed to call the board of directors. I called the board of directors. I let them know what happened. As you can imagine, the board super concerned about Rachel, as was I and everyone else who is now learning about what had happened. I then called the executive team and then the following Monday, stepped back into the business.

As I was told, Rachel had this episode the night before and was alone all that time and was found by chance?

Yeah, that's correct. I'm not sure exactly what time she had had the stroke, but she was found on her patio in the morning by her aunt who happened to be walking by. It's a miracle that she found her, and she found her in time and knew exactly what to do and exactly what was happening.

You go into this interim role while you're still not quite recovered from your own medical issues. What are you grappling with? At that point, where is Rachel? What is she going through through this?

Rachel is in the hospital in critical condition and in the ICU. I am reckoning with my own postpartum. I I have a new baby. I'm struggling with breastfeeding. I remember turning to my husband and being like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. My husband, Amit, was like, You're going to put one foot in front of the other, and you're just I got to get through every single day. Then every member of the executive team and the leadership team rose to the occasion. I showed up on Monday. They asked what I needed. They said they have my back, and I felt incredibly supported.

So You were drafted to be interim CEO. How did you know that this was going to fall on you, or was that part of the already existing plan?

There was a business continuity plan in place, and so It was known that likely it would mean that I would step up. But the continuity plan doesn't really contemplate months or even years of something happening. I had very frank conversation with the board why it would be a good idea to keep me in as interim CEO, what the gaps would be, what the areas of opportunities are, who else is on the executive team, and is there someone else better suited? I asked the executive team if they thought there was someone better suited. Once we realized it wasn't a few weeks and it was going to be at least several months, I thought it was really important for us to make sure that we were having a conversation about who is the right person to be leading this business because first and foremost, I really care about the mission of what guild does and that it continue to persist.

Was there a point where you went to visit her? Was she not even in a situation where that could happen? I don't know whether she was giving you any feedback about the business or whether she was really just... She was out of it.

I did not communicate with her for over a month, and I had asked a few times to see her, but she really was focused on her recovery. The first time I did get to see her, I went to her hospital room. We've worked together for six years. We don't always agree on everything. I remember telling her dad, I just want to argue with her again about something. And he's like, That time will come. I hadn't seen her until I got to go to the hospital. I remember being super nervous and not knowing what to expect. I mean, She had a stroke, and so there were obviously physical differences, but from a mental agility and sharpness and awareness and ability to inspire me in some ways, no change in that. And as soon as I walked in the door, I just remember her saying to me, Hey, Boss Beach, are you bossing? And it was incredible. I wasn't sure what to expect. And it just It removed my anxiety, and it was off limits to talk about work. But if you have met Rachel, guilt is her third baby. She says that to everyone that will listen to her say that it's a core part of who she is.

And repeatedly, she would ask me questions. And repeatedly, I'd have to say, We can't talk about that right now. I've been instructed that I can't see you again if we have conversations about guilt.

So you were interim CEO in this role for about six months, and then this spring, you were confirmed as CEO. In that period, were you all hoping Rachel would come back? Did you know that she wasn't going to come back?

It was not clear what the recovery plan or timeline will look like. The recovery on strokes are quite variable. She was 34 when she had the stroke. The ability to recover at 34 is wildly different than the ability to recover at 65. I I think in the back of my mind, I thought, Yeah, she'll come back. And so that's how we operated, except that the board and Rachel both made it clear to me right after I took on the interim CEO job. And they were like, To be clear, the title says Interim CEO, and it's your job to make sure you act like the CEO. The interim is just there because there is another CEO who's on leave. It was really great to also hear that from Rachel. She was like, You know what to do with this business. You know this business better than anyone. Go do the things you need to do to make sure this business continues to thrive.

Were there things about being CEO that were different than you expected? I mean, it's a new job.

Yeah. I think there are things that were surprising. So one, the job at the top is truly lonely. I think when you're on executive team, if something's not going well or you're upset about something, there's someone to talk with and be like, I'm annoyed at X or Y or Z. When you're at the top, the decisions that I make and what we ultimately end up doing, they truly do rest on my shoulders. I think I hadn't experienced that type of burden and responsibility at this type of scale before. There's a weight and a gravity to it I think you can't fully appreciate until you do the job. There are also some other things around changes I wanted to make or things I thought were important for us to put at play that before I'd have to go get alignment from many other people to actually enable. There's some amazing thing that happens when you become the CEO that people just say, Yes, we can do that. I try to use that very, very sparingly, but there There are times where I get really excited about something. I'm currently on a customer listening tour, so going around the country, talking to every single one of our customers, either in person or through Zoom, and understanding what's working, what's not working, what we could do better.

I thought I'd face a lot of resistance, and people were like, Yep, that sounds great. You should do it. There's some surprises or delightful surprises, I would say.

Were you excited when you became official CEO? You sound like the interim situation, there was some reluctance. Was there still some reluctance this time around?

Yeah, I think their honest answer is yes. And mainly because I I'd never imagined that this would be the role that I would play inside of guild. I didn't expect Rachel to go anywhere. If you had asked me, Do I want to be CEO of this business one day, let alone CEO somewhere else, my answer would have I don't know. If you had asked me that question 15 years ago, by the way, I would have said, yes, I want to be CEO. And then something along the way changed. I'm like, I'm good, behind the scenes. And so I think that there was still some hesitation just because it's a new role and there's a lot of gravity to the role, and there's a lot of people that you're either going to make proud or let down in some way. And there's a A lot of really hard decisions to make as you continue to grow a high-growth business. It's really messy. I think there was still some hesitation.

You can hear in Bejil's words and in her tone, the razor's edge she's been navigating. She's heartbroken about Rachel's situation, which has included multiple surgeries and serious questions about the future. But Bejil also has to be a leader without seeming she's pushing Rachel aside or enjoying her opportunity. The hard decision she references, they've hit right away, including a big round of layoffs. We'll talk about that after the break. Stay with us.

We'll be back in a moment after a word from our premier brand partner, Capital One Business.

There was panic that set in that night because I didn't want to let people down.

We're back with Aparna Seren of Capital One business, she was recalling the time she woke up in a cold sweat, terrified that the new product she had been working on might fail. So the next morning, she sat down and wrote an email.

It was Sunday morning, and I said, You know what? I'm going to just share this with my peers. It was very emotional. It was a cry for help.

Aparna realized that if the new product didn't take off, she needed a plan B, preferably multiple plan Bs.

I'm inviting them to be the thought partners so that we are mitigating as much risk as possible, and we have contingency plans in place as we'd make this move. You'd write something like this, and your heart is pounding, should I send this? It was a super vulnerable moment for me. But then I was like, I'm going to just send this. What's the worst that will happen? It can't be worse than being on the front page of the newspaper.

She held her breath and hit send. What happened next would surprise even her. We'll hear about that later in the show. It's all part of Capital One Businesses Spotlight on Business Leaders, following Reed's Refocus Playbook.

Before the break, we heard guild education's Bjil Shah talk about the stroke that befell the company's CEO and unexpectedly thrust her into the corner office. Now, Bejil explains why one of her first official acts as CEO was a big round of layoffs and the decisions she's made around AI. Plus, she shares the inspiration and lessons she draws from Taylor Swift and what's behind a new reskilling partnership with Team USA. Let's jump back in. You have had to make some hard business calls amid all of this. Recently, you announced that you were laying off a quarter of the workforce, did you know that, All right, if I take this official CEO role, that one of the first things I'm going to have to do is a big round of layoffs?

I did know that when I took the opportunity. That was something in order to continue to ensure that we were building a sustainable business, that this would be something that I would have to do. It is the hardest thing I've had to do in my career and something that I knew was going to have to come with the territory and the job, and also made it something I couldn't take the job lightly.

You have to get the business to continue to and lean into high growth, right? That's part of the reason the layoffs were necessary was maybe you weren't growing fast enough from here. I mean, You have, what, 2,000 courses, companies like Walmart and Target and Taco Bell as clients. So it's got a lot of reach. What is the growth plan from here then?

There are 80 We have 35 million adults working in the United States who need access to guild, and so we're nowhere near done. We also have a lot of opportunity to build adjacent products and deliver on more specific or niche needs of the workforce. When we think about where America is headed from a workforce transformation perspective, there is so much to do in this country to upskill and reskill. The notion around the restructuring was more about how do we put even more investment into growth opportunities and less so about rightsizing because we're worried about growth.

We had Sal Khan of Khan Academy on the show recently, and he talked about their AI-based ConMigo bot. You guys have made some investments in AI. How much is that part of the growth opportunity, or is that just an experiment for you at this point?

It's very much a part of our growth, but maybe not in the way that you think about it, how do we help our employer partners as well as employees understand how the future of work is going to change for their specific roles as AI continues to get adopted in the workforce. For the tasks that they do every single day, which ones do we expect to get augmented or automated? If those things get augmented and automated, then where they should be spending their time, and how do we make sure they get skilled for the role? We are using it to provide better insights to both the employee and the employer on exactly what they need to do next.

I will say that sometimes I feel like the conversations that business leaders have around reskilling does not always connect to the effort and resources that are put towards it.

We've been pretty lucky in that we have employer partners who really do view this as a business imperative in order to have the workforce of the future and in order to make sure that they have people that they need in very critical roles. I also think that they are seeing in the broader labor market that going out and finding that talent. There is talent on the market, but finding the talent that has that specific skillset to bring inside their organization is actually quite challenging to find. Their desire very much is to find people inside their own organization who they can skill. I do think, at least for us, we are working with those employers who are leading the conversation and leading on the solution that's most important for them to drive their business strategies.

I heard that you're a big Taylor Swift fan. I heard that for your 40th birthday, you went to the Ares Tour. For people that don't understand the hype, what's the appeal? Are there things about Taylor's business success that appeals to you and how she's pulled it off?

Yes and yes. First of all, I happen to love her music. I think she's an amazing lyrisist. I I think that she knows how to create, write, and produce a hook that stays in your head for a very long time. As someone who grew up in the world of product, the stickiness aspect of what she creates is genius, in my opinion. Then, yes, she is one of the savviest businesswoman I have ever heard of based on what I know about how she runs her operations, how she treats her team, how she enables her business and continuing to grow that business. She's an icon from a business perspective as well in my mind, and very much someone that I fan girl wholeheartedly.

Are there things from Taylor's world that you learn from and try to apply at guild?

I think she's a great storyteller and has the ability to understand how to break something down or make something relevant to a wide audience of individuals. When we think about who we serve, we're trying to serve the broad American population, and we're trying to ensure that the content we deliver and the learning marketplace that we curate applies to a broad population. I think there are things to learn about her approach. The ability for people to feel inspired and motivated by what she does, I think, are all learnings.

I noticed that you recently added the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the LA 28 Olympic and Paralympic Games as partners offering Team USA athletes access to guild. How much of that was about this storytelling as opposed to the number of athletes you reach? Does that help the guild story?

I mean, I think it'll drive awareness. But more importantly for me, first, I love sports. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about athletic careers and second acts for those who go and devote so much of their time to their sport. And what happens after they complete their sport? I recently learned that the average tenure for a football player in the NFL is less than two years. That's not very long as a pro athlete playing in a sport that you've dedicated your whole life to. I do think it's really important that for athletes in particular, whether they're Olympians or Paralympians or not, that they have the ability to invest in themselves in educating themselves equally as in investing in their athletic careers. Skilling and career mobility provider for Team USA is way more about how do we support athletes on their second act. Bob, I don't care if it's 10 of them or a thousand of them. It's a really important need and a thing that I think we owe to these athletes who spend so much time doing something and really do need help.

Thinking Back to last summer and that stroke, it's a reminder that anything can happen. I'm curious how that may have changed the way you approach the world, the way you approach the workplace, the way you think about the future.

Yeah, I think it's been a good reminder for me of the importance of making sure that I continue to live each day to the values that are important to me, that I prioritize and spend time on things that are meaningful in this world and that I believe are going to drive impact, and that I ensure that I take care of my health and my well-being and do the best that I can to play offense on that, knowing that life will throw curveballs and that I can't predict exactly what's going to happen and when it's going to happen. I think having the right support system around you and the right mindset at the end of the day, I think, is really important.

Well, Bijal, this has been great. Thank you for sharing so much of the journey.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Listening to Bijal, I'm reflecting on her words about Rachel, that she thinks of the business as one of her children. And I think the emotional side of our connection to work is so powerful, so central, and just doesn't always get the attention it should. It sometimes takes something tragic and difficult to jolt us out of our veneer of professionalism. And that's too bad because the human side of work really is the most gratifying. It's essential to business success, too. The stories we tell ourselves about the work we do, they motivate us and define us. Hey, that's why Bejil is drawn to Taylor Swift. Hopefully, that's part of what draws you to rapid response, too. I'm Bob Saffian. Thanks for listening.

And now, a final word from our brand partner, Capital One Business.

Throughout the day, text messages and emails kept pouring in. Whatever you need, just let us know.

We're back one more time with Aparna Seran of Capital One Business. She was telling us about a Sunday morning email. She fired off in a moment of panic. Minutes later, her inbox was overflowing, and the support she found wasn't just emotional, it was practical.

We talked about detailed contingency plans, and we created our go-to-market strategy. Before we are in full rollout mode, we are in stage gates so that we could test and quickly learn and iterate. Within a matter of six months, as we were rolling things out channel by channel, those stage gates would allow us to pivot if we saw something that we didn't like.

That day, Aparna learned a lesson that stayed with her. Having multiple plan Bs doesn't just expand your options. It gives you new opportunities.

The best way to pivot is actually open doors for thoughtful conversations because humility The empathy in knowing that you actually don't know everything, as well as the empathy in knowing that disruption is always drastic and abrupt, helps you go through that pivot with other people in a very different way.

Capital One business is proud to support entrepreneurs and leaders working to scale their impact, from Fortune 500s to first-time business owners. For more resources to help drive your business forward, visit capitalone. Com/businesshub. That's capitalone. Com/businesshub. This up.

Rapid Response is a wait, what, original. I'm Bob Saffian. Our executive producer is Yves Trou. Our producer is Alex Morris. Assistant producer is Masha Makutenina. Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastinelli. Theme music by Ryan Holladay. Our head of podcast is Litaal Malad. For more, visit rapidresponse-show. Com.