Melissa Di Donato, CEO of Kyriba | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:13Melissa, welcome. Thank you so much. You know how much I've been looking forward to this. I've been looking forward to it as well. Brilliant. Tell me, who is Melissa Donato-Ruz? Gosh, that's such a big question, isn't it? Do I have like one word or something? No, I have a couple words. How could you do that? Okay, so who am I? I am a wife. I'm a mother. I'm a dreamer. I'm a founder. I'm a writer. I'm a risk taker. I'm a CEO. I'm a board member. I'm a friend. I'm a woman. Force of nature. I'm a woman. So much energy. Where did it all start then? So there's so much there and pieced together, there's things you were born with, being a woman and so on, but then there's this corporate career.

0:55There's the work you're doing in charity, which we'll come to. But those early influences, who and what kind of shaped who you are now? I think probably everyone says this, but I think a big part of who I've become probably originates with my family. I'm a family of, you know, a background of immigrants who came to the U.S. from Italy. So I have Italian origins. But American nonetheless. Now British, of course. You can tell by my accent. I've been in this country now 20 years. But I think, you know, the early influences were probably, you know, societal, probably my family. You know, my dad was an early entrepreneur.

1:33He used to bring me to work with him as a very, very young baby and child. So I used to hear him talking about business and hear him inventing things and dreaming about things. And, you know, there's a lot of pomp and circumstance in my house. But I go very, very humble. I mean, I was one of the kids that went for free school meals. You would call them here, right? In this country. So I was the kid that stood in line and had the free lunch ticket. And I was the kid that was part of the family that got free cheese and milk from the town hall. Right. I was the one that was, you know, the rust on the side of my car.

2:07So I used to beg my mother to drive and pick me up at school on the non-rusty side so that no one saw, you know, where I came from. So, you know, humble origins. And the word, you know, poor or disadvantaged, never, ever. I was never poor. I was rich in so many ways. Maybe just not financially. It was a happy childhood. Yeah, a really great childhood. I mean, I thought I could do or be anything. I mean, I just, I wouldn't say, you know, folks, friends come around to, you know, our home or, you know, to where we work. And I often get the question, is this what you dreamt about when you were young?

2:41And I said, I never had dreams this big, ever, ever. I never dreamt that I would be who I am. But by wanting to get out, be dropped off with the car, rust, be on the wrong side, there's almost an element there of ambition, harbored ambition and drive. So when I said happy childhood. It's like you had love, you had support, but it feels like there was desire and ambition to actually go, I'm going to work out how to get these things, how to not have to hide these things. And that's, of course, what you've gone and done. So that was quite an early shape. Yeah, my mother used to say, let's get in the car and drive around the rich people's neighborhoods.

3:11I want to see the houses. And I was the one that said, I don't want to be in the car. And I don't want to see what I don't have. Or I don't want to see what I can't have now. I'd rather just look ahead rather than look at what other people have. So there was a bit of me that, you know, self-belief but doubt at the same time. I can't have it today, so I'm not going to bother looking at what I can't have. I don't want it rubbed in my face, you know, kind of thing. She used to love to drive around and look at people's houses and stuff. I mean, I just don't know why she does that. But you ultimately have created this scenario where you've made yourself go and do that.

3:45So you haven't gone looking. You haven't been observing. You're a doer. I get it. You're not someone that goes, how can I go and get it? So where did that mindset come from, that your dad taking you to his work and so on? But ultimately, Melissa went into a very successful corporate career that's allowed you to buy the nice houses in the nice neighborhood. So where did that transition that kind of from not looking to I'm going to have it? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think it was it was a slow burn, perhaps. Like it wasn't one day I woke up and said, oh, I'm going to do this. I just always kept moving and growing and wanting more.

4:20and my first job, my very first job as a software engineer, I said, I want to be promoted every year and I'd get promoted and do anything to get the promotion every year. I always wanted more. My mother says, I'm never happy with what I've got. Maybe that comes into play. I don't know. Um, but you know, you're always want more, Melissa. You're always looking for something else. You're always striving for things. You know, you're not happy with what you've got. Maybe, you know, that, that, that desire always lived right. And always wanting more, you know, you, you get to A, want B, you get to B, you want C, you get to D, and it goes on and on and on.

4:53And so I guess it was like a slow burn that was constantly growing. We talked about it once before, it's like, well, I never, if you asked me, the 10-year-old or 15-year-old or 30-year-old me, you're going to be the first woman to list a billion euro business on the German stock exchange, I would tell them they're out of their minds. Like, probably not me. Or are you going to be a CEO? Yeah, probably not me. I mean, I still have my first CEO business card and I treasure that as I can't believe they gave me the job. So while I wanted more and felt like I could do it, I didn't think anyone else thought I could do it.

5:28Yeah. But you manifest that and you make it then happen. And I think very quickly you'd have got past the whole, didn't think I could be a CEO, now I am. What's the next thing? Because you listed some of the things that you're on the board of Porsche. I am on the board of Porsche, yeah. There are huge global names you're associated with and I think a key thing as well we must bring into the conversation is in many instances the first woman to be so which is a triumph it's an achievement but you but isn't that that's the thing that's I'm complimenting you there coming from a heartfelt but actually you reframe that as all that energy that your shoulders slump for a minute they come right back up again quickly but you're that frustrates you so I know that a key part of um one of the things I want to talk to about was actually is that shift changing are you in any way from a role model point of view from kicking like in the corporate sector are you seeing that changing um how far have we come right i i was on the cover of erp magazine now probably it must be four or five seven years ago and the cover of this magazine said literally how far have we come and there's a picture of me in a man suit with a bun you know i've seen it yeah and they open it up and there was the real me which looks like me, you know, high heels and big hair and makeup and the whole bit.

6:41And that was, you know, quote, seven, eight years ago. And how far we come seven years ago, we haven't come that far. I mean, and we didn't go far then. And I don't think we've moved the needle that far even since that article was published. And we were troubled then, in my view. And yes, I've done these amazing things and the first woman to do this or that or, you know, joining the board of Porsche. But I joined the board of Porsche. And when I went to Germany the first time, I spoke at an event with the handles button and so many people there said, I can't believe they gave me the job. I can't believe they gave, like, that was a big decision for, you know, a German business of this size and scale and brand to give, well, you the job.

7:20And make no mistake about it, I've been very vocal over the years about not loving quotas. However, however, quotas are a bit like an antibiotic. I learned this from a friend of mine most recently. We talked about quotas. you need an antibiotic to solve a problem. It's not meant for you to live on, right? So quotas are like that a bit. And I was a successful bit of the quota system in Germany, which requires 30 % of women to be sitting on public boards. So they had to do a shake-up in Germany. They had to do a shake-up of Porsche to get more women on their board. I had recently done an IPO in Germany.

7:56Porsche was coming against an IPO. I was helping, giving some advice to Oliver Blumen, who's the CEO of Porsche, on what the IPO was like and how to work with the bankers and the public markets. So I was a good choice. I was a great choice, in fact. But make no mistake about it, that that was probably the initial reaction was because they needed a woman. Now, I've since been renewed. It's been many years since I've been on the board, and a very, I would view, and I think they too, a successful component of that board. But just the need for these quota systems, this need to make concerted efforts to move the dial, how far we come, we still face it every single day.

8:36I mean, we still do. I mean, not long ago, I was at an executive session with the CEO of one of the world's largest banks. And as you know, I sit on the board of JP Morgan here in Europe. That wasn't JP Morgan, by the way, it was a different bank. And I walked in in a black suit and they were the biggest business leaders, bankers, politicians in Germany at the time. I mean, I was the CEO and I had just done a multi-billion dollar listing for the first time as a woman. And I walked in and one of the politicians asked me for a glass of champagne. As if I worked there. Wow. I did an interview very similar to this in Germany not long ago.

9:12And they said, you look more like a beauty queen than you look like a CEO. And this is within the last four years. So, you know, and that's okay. That happens to be, you know, in Germany. It's the same everywhere. It's not limited to just there. And in fact, the person that asked me was not, you know, was actually French, wasn't even German. It happened to be in Munich, but it was a French politician. So no matter where you are, whether in the U.S. or Europe or the U.K., you know, how far we come, we've got a lot of work to do. It sounds like it. And I didn't know what you were going to say when I asked that.

9:45I actually hoped for a different outcome. I was hoping you'd say, yeah, I'm seeing change because you're a role model. And we've talked about this off camera before. looking like you do as a ceo of a multi-billion tech company and all the other things that you do is so powerful and so are there girls and women that can look to you as a role model that can start to believe in themselves more push these these situations that need changing because you can look like you and sit in the boardroom rather than being whatever the stereotypical women should look like or more importantly clearly he's always been a man in the foot yeah but it needs to change clearly it's 2025 and we talk about this all the time in other industries and other sectors but it doesn't seem to be changing at the top at the boardroom that's right that's exactly right and in fact you know i mean we'll talk about inner wings and the charity in a moment but you know i think when it comes to that this is one of the reasons why inner wings was born in the first instance because there were enough people in the boardroom that looked like me and um there wasn't enough diversity and without diversity of what we look like and who we are there's no diversity of thought, right?

10:52In a boardroom, you can't have birds of a feather. Not everyone can look alike, otherwise there'll never be a diversity of thinking and a new way of looking. And by the way, no one, I don't care who, but no one's customers look exactly the same either. So you have to have a diversity of thought in the boardroom. And that hasn't existed in the true organic sense. We've had to really push our way through. Of course, it's gotten better statistically. We're doing a lot of effort, a lot of work around trying to get more diversity in boardrooms, but we still haven't come far enough, not even a little bit.

11:24And the question you asked was, can I be a role model? And there's a lot of evenings I want to go home and sit down with my husband and be at peace for myself for a minute, but I don't. I really try and be present. I really try and be visible. And I really try and make myself vulnerable and be out there and be present to be visible, to show, because for girls and for women, you can't be what you can't see. Literally, you can't be what you can't see. And if you don't have the role models to look up to and towards, women and girls in particular, the way that our brain forms, we struggle. I mean, you have to have some sort of role model behavior and inspiration.

12:08And at the same time, I don't want preferential treatment either. I don't want to be chosen because I'm a woman. You do sometimes. No, I want to be chosen for merit. And I want women to work hard and not think that I'm going to give them favoritism because of their gender either, which is a different problem. You know, you get a lot of women that say, well, you know, Melissa's a woman. She'll hire me because I'm a woman. That doesn't work like that either. Right. We all should get equal treatment, but I just want to be visible enough to inspire people. And, you know, I still, you know, rare do I walk into a room and they say, oh, you know, what do you do?

12:42And I say CEO or I'm a chair or I send the board of JP Morgan or I send the board of, you know, Porsche or I work with Muse. I do all of these things. I founded a charity. I'm the author of three children's books. And they're like, sorry, you do what? Really? How do you fit that in with your hair? Because that looks like it takes a long time to do. And you're smashing it as well, right? It's not even like you've done that. You are. Trying to smash it. Trying to smash it. Because when we first sat down, I said how excited I was to talk to you. I've got two daughters. you know there's 13 and 15 year old girls growing up so the importance of role models is something I've really learned through conversations like this where I've been wanting to champion women in business and entrepreneurship and try and understand why less than two percent of VC funding goes to women and is that an archaic broken system which clearly there's a lot of work to be done there but also that lack of self-belief and self-confidence particularly in young girls that can carry through to them not having the confidence to ask for promotion to position themselves where they should, where men just automatically do it, or to start their own business.

13:45So let's talk about inner wings, because there's such a why there. I mean, you've almost reverse engineered the why, but it takes something to feel strongly about something, try and make change, but then to actually put your money into something and commit time. You're at number 10 Downing Street last week. We were, yeah, the charity was number 10. So just tell me what you're doing and what the why is there. Yeah, we are trying to empower all children, because we started out with just girls and now we've now we really found that you know boys are oftentimes left behind not as often let's say as girls but the boys also to deserve the chance to have to find their inner strength and inner wings is all about that it's empowering young children between the ages of six and twelve with confidence and bravery skills we even have a workshop very similar to the American version of Toastmasters we got a child psychologist and we we coupled that with a scientist around how girls' brains form to help them, arm them with public speaking so they can get up and feel confident about who they are, how they move, how they hold themselves, how they communicate, how they speak, how they build self-belief in themselves.

14:51Because, you know, we found that one of the reasons why we don't have enough women in the boardroom, there's a number of theses on why we don't, but one of them is a pipeline issue. And science tells us, not the world according to Melissa or John or anyone else, but science tells us that by the age of six, girls begin to formulate stereotypes of what a girl could be, should be, what a girl's job looks like, a boy's job looks like, girls' color, boy colors. It's the nurse, the word nurse, a feminine word, a masculine word, firefighter, police officer, CEO. CEO is a masculine word. Oh, really? Because I thought it was a feminine word, right?

15:28I don't want to be a princess. I want to be a CEO. So that's what we wanted girls to grow up with, right? And to give them the tools to arm them with that confidence and bravery. Because, you know, now you look, and you know this very well, you've got teen girls. You know, they approach around 16, 85 % of girls are on diets. They've lost identity. They're not, you know, thin enough or beautiful enough or their eyelashes aren't big enough and their hair's not blonde enough and they're not whatever it may be. And what we're trying to do is while we can't help them in issues like, you know, psychological issues are self-harming, we are trying to do is arm them with the confidence and the bravery strong enough to power through one of the toughest phase of life that adolescents will endure as they become young adults.

16:12And I think, you know, I learned that myself. I mean, you know, I don't know if I was smart or stupid, really, to get to where I am because I just did what I wanted to do. I didn't know better, right? But what I would say is I spent most of my young adult life, especially in the early years of business, acting like someone else, dressing like a man, wearing my hair in a ponytail or a bun, wearing in the early days skirt, you know, pinstripe skirt suits, not trouser suits because they look too masculine, but skirt suits so I can play the masculine and feminine cards against and with in concert with each other.

16:48And only about genuinely, if I put my hand in my heart, only about 10 years ago have I been confident enough to look like I want to look. Right now, one must have, you know, respect for, let's say, you know, the environment you go into if you do business in Japan or if you go to the Middle East, you know, you must adhere to cultures and culture, of course. But only recently have I been, have I afforded myself the opportunity to really be myself and show up genuinely as myself. But even my first CEO meeting, I mean, I wore a ponytail and a t-shirt because I didn't want to look like me because I was afraid that maybe they think that, you know, I didn't look like a CEO.

17:27And in fact, when I did the first transition with the private equity firm at the time, I met a couple of people. It wasn't the firm. It was the people in the room that I was learning from to get advice from to do the transition from the previous CEO. And one of them said to me, oh, you were awfully glamorous, aren't you? How are you going to get along with open source engineers. What a label. This was in two, this was 2020, this was 2019. It's not long ago. For context, 2025 now, it's not that long ago. No, it's a minute ago, right? And what am I doing? Maybe I need to bring it back a little bit.

18:02Maybe I need to not wear my hair down. Maybe I need to, you know, not wear my high heels. Maybe I need to change myself. So you questioned yourself then, whereas now you probably go right back. I don't, I don't, I don't care now. Now I'm going to be who I am. And I encourage women. And this is what Inner Wings is about, is finding that strength and that bravery and that confidence. You can not have to pretend to be someone you're not or not have to try and fit the mold or what the perception of your desire, your job, your career, your area of study should be. This is all about finding the bravery to be yourself.

18:33And that's the one thing that I try and advise all the women. You talked about Roe Metal earlier. Well, OK, if I teach nothing to the girls, if I if I lead nothing by example, I try and teach women or men, anyone to be your authentic self. Be who you are. Don't hide. Because guess what? The real you is going to come out anyway. That's phenomenal. It's going to come out. There's the resilience in you that is just and although so much of what you are doing within the wings and what we should all be doing is trying to build our own confidence through curiosity, the right role models and then taking responsibility of our own actions if you like just putting it back to you that that resilience that strength that energy you've got have you have you always had that are there certain moments in your life that have almost built your resilience you know the things that have shaped you if you like you know i thought i was one of the most female uh it was a senior female executives at salesforce at the time and i was going from strength to strength and really building a very good business i was early on with Salesforce in Europe, so early employee.

19:37So I thought I was doing really well with my career. And then I felt pregnant with Francesca, who's now 11. And managing that first six months of a baby. And I walked to the office, actually, at Salesforce Tower. And people, the first moment, first day I came back after four months off of maternity sleep, they looked at me and said, I wonder if you'd come back. I wonder how you're going to do this. Because you're such a visible force of nature, leading female executive on behalf of tech in the UK, on behalf of tech globally, and on behalf of the office. We wondered how you were to come back. It's so great to see you.

20:11We were wondering what's going to happen. And then Sheryl Sandberg, if you remember very well when Sheryl Sandberg lost her husband, it was August of 2015. And I sat at the table, kitchen table, dinner table, actually. My baby was asleep. My husband at the time, I was reading the passage that everyone read when Sheryl Sandberg lost her husband. And I started crying, and I said to my husband at the time, my God, if you died, what would I do? I could never live. I mean, first of all, I wouldn't eat because I don't know how to cook. Second of all, I couldn't raise a child. And 45 days later, he was dead very suddenly.

20:47And that's not the worst of the story. I mean, that's pretty bad as it is. I had a baby who every single morning would stand up in her little cot and say, daddy, daddy, daddy. And every morning he'd go get her. And 22 days later, she stopped after he died saying, daddy, daddy, daddy, and said, mommy, mommy, mommy. And that, the loss of my husband at the time was, it was, was that changed my life. And I think it changed my life because I wouldn't be a CEO if he were alive because I didn't understand the strength I had like I didn't know what I was capable of doing I didn't know how strong I was I didn't know how capable I was I didn't know how how you know what my ambitions were I I just I I was doing great things but I was happy with that and then I was faced with death I was faced with poverty the police showed up in my house and said we found your husband he's passed away oh and by the way Your rent has been paid in three months and by the way, there's no money in the bank accounts Oh, and by the way, everything's been sold.

21:51I lost my house in Italy. It's been sold So I had you know a deceased husband a baby 18 months old and I had no money now Luckily I had a good job. So I managed to borrow some money from a friend of mine borrowed 50 ,000 pounds from a friend to Get myself out of the debt. I took an advance on my bonus at Salesforce So I put things in place to get myself in order. But, you know, that I didn't, if someone said to me, well, in fact, I said to myself 45 days before, if that happened to me, I couldn't live. And here I was, broke, baby, alone. I had to move out of my house because I didn't get paid, right?

22:28So that started on a whole different trajectory of my life. And I didn't want to carry on. Like, I didn't want to live in an environment like this. But I had this baby looking at me saying, mommy, mommy, mommy. And, you know, she started speaking and she started, you know, at the time we were watching Finding Nemo, you know, and they were going along and it was, you know, there were three little fish. It was, you know, mommy fish and daddy fish and Nemo going along. And Francesca said, oh, mommy, mommy fish, baby fish, baby fish. And I said, oh, but no, that's a mommy fish, daddy fish, baby fish.

23:06No, mommy fish, baby fish, baby fish. So I had this child, like I'm going to raise this child to understand, you know, what a man and a woman and a family is like and how I'm her family and I'm going to be her mommy, her daddy and her world. And I downshifted. I downshifted. I did everything I could to say, OK, I need to step up. I need to step up for my kid. I need to step up for my life. I need to step up for the women around me. And I walked in the office then again. Now my husband had passed away. Now I wasn't going in as a new mom. I was going in as a widow. And the women were crying in my office.

23:41People saw me, broke down crying and ran away because they thought, oh my God, what now is going to happen? Now is, you know, what role model will she become? Is she going to live? Is she going to thrive? Is she going to collapse? Is she going to sail? What's going to happen here? And I downshifted and I said, I'm going to kill it. And I didn't realize I could. And not long after, I got the offer to go on to the next job at SAP where eventually I met my now husband, my amazing husband, and he and I have gone on together, do amazing things together. I'm becoming CEO and a founder of charity. My daughter is a gifted child.

24:17She's, you know, going off to boarding school and done amazing things. So you ultimately thrived. Because that cross-phrase, you could have, you know, a lesser resilient person could have, that could have been overwhelming. Most of us spend most of our life trying to figure out who we are, right? And take your time to figure out who you are, but figure out quick and be it. That's number one, right? And number two is, God, don't wait. for a tragedy in your life. Because, you know, we're all going to have ups and downs. I mean, we're all, you know, we all get older, right? Everyone ages. I'm not talking about being old, but we all age, right?

24:48You go from 11 to 12, 12 to 13, 13 to 15, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that, you know, one must not wait for a tragedy in their life to define who you are and to find that inner strength, right? Everyone is so far more capable of more than what you do today. I can assure you. It's crazy how many people need a trauma or an unforeseen to then come alive and then actually potentially even get close to realizing their full potential. And that's like you say, it's through tragic circumstances and really difficult. Yeah. We have no choice. You thrive. Yeah, you thrive. You brought up Darren, your husband.

25:21Yeah. You're a CEO. That is a high pressure role that takes you all over the world. and yet that could be something that you know there are people probably watching and listening that have got a partner or they themselves are that and their partner is not in their role Darren is a CEO no it's really weird does that work he's been on this it feels like 100 % my point being it's almost like when you say oh this has just happened and I've got to go to to Porsche tomorrow I've got to fly tomorrow he's just understanding right but is there I say right like yeah yeah he is understanding but there's there's a whole management of time there because between the two of you, you probably have to make sure you make time for each other, right?

26:02Because otherwise you guys could be... So talk me through that because that's quite an interesting dynamic. Yeah, we are extremely rare. I mean, not just in Europe, but like anywhere. I mean, it's very, very rare. You're going to have two... I mean, a couple of years ago when he was a sitting CEO and I was a sitting CEO, you're going to have... I was a CEO of a public company. He was CEO of a private company. But having two CEOs, husband and wife, both private equity backed and founded and then being in same household. And now, fast forward, he's a chairman of three companies. I sit on four boards, including my main job with Kariba as chair and CEO.

26:32So we have seven boards in our household. Plus, we've got the charity that runs out of the house. Well, not out of the house, but runs within us. He's also helping and very passionate about. In addition to having three children and having animals and horses and all these other things and having hobbies, right? And then you've got - And then you've got each other. How do you make time? And I think we really try and do is, sometimes he's understanding by the way, sometimes he's not. Because he's like, wait, wait, you're going where I'm looking at? I think everyone's glad to hear that, right? He's not always understanding.