It's Personal Stories, A Hospitality Podcast

Noreen Henry, Chief Revenue Officer, Sojern, Interviewed by Rachel Humphrey

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Noreen shares how she intentionally created her path to leadership through continuous learning, taking risks, and developing trusted relationships. She talks about advocating for yourself and overcoming self-doubt. She discusses how her involvement in non-profits further develops her leadership and how marathon training shares many common traits she uses as a business leader.

Rachel Humphrey:

I am Rachel Humphrey with d e I advisors. We are a nonprofit organization out of Arizona, empowering personal success in the hospitality industry, and I am delighted to welcome to the show today, Noreen Henry. Noreen, welcome. Thanks,

Noreen Henry:

Rachel. I'm so excited to be here with you. Thank

Rachel Humphrey:

you for the invitation. For those who are listening who are not familiar with Noreen or her background or her bio, we hope you'll head over to d e i advisors and read a little bit more about her. But for now, we're gonna jump right in. And Noreen, you've listened to the show before. Others have as well who know that one of the fascinating things I find in the hospitality industry is how unique everybody's path to leadership is. There's not one route that everybody has to take. So tell us a little bit about you, your background, and how you ended up where you are today.

Noreen Henry:

Sure. So unlike some of the other ones, I, as I have listened to your podcast, which I really have been enjoying, so thank you for those. I stumbled into this industry unintentionally, but immediately fell in love. I majored in college in communications with a focus on radio, TV films. You're like, what are you doing with that? History. But I got my first job working for Sabre, working for a very innovative tech leader named Terry Jones. And he was always on the leading edge of technology. And he, this is this show my age, this is back in the eighties, late eighties when travel agents were. Booking hotels by using that big hotel travel index or brochures, like they didn't have images online. And so the product was called Sabre Vision. It was about bringing images to the travel agents so that they could be able to, book travel more effectively. And I. That started my journey of this place of having travel and technology and in particular focus on hos hospitality be the place that I have just thrived. And I love. Fast forward, I spent 12 years at Sabre and this is the early years. So I'm just learning all kinds of skills as I can and trying to just be a sponge learning from everybody else. The next technology way was the internet. The late nineties, I made a very intentional career decision to leave Sabre, which I had adored and loved and they treated me really well. But I wanted to get onto this new technology and see what's going on in the internet. And I went and worked for a company called Netscape and I also wanted to get new skills. I wanted sales experience. I was finding that I was. Thriving and loving being with customers and getting that client interaction. But at re I started my career really in product and developing products that were for customers, but not actually being the one selling them. And so I was pigeonholed and I'm like, I gotta get out of this to get the experience that I want. So I left. Spent three years really learning. This is a startup, boom, face of the internet. And so I've got some great experience and then Travelocity was coming about, and so it gave me the chance to come back to travel. With internet in a startup. Again, working for Terry Jones since he was the founder of Travelocity. And I consider this kinda like the second phase of my career where I really just this was my leadership phase. I really learned about the business. I learned how to do different functions. So I, I call it the spiral staircase. So I did operations, I did marketing, I did, I leveraged that sales background. And Travelocity was growing leaps and bounds at the time and. I'll give you an idea of the trajectory of the company when I was there. So I started the first market management team. He was shortly after nine 11 and we're getting into our hotel merchant business. And it's funny to think of this now, we had five market managers covering all of the United States, but this is US business and figure it out. Fast forward 12 years later, I'm back out in the field running this field organization that now is a 400 person organization with market managers and sales and operations. And it was just so fun to be part of a company that was growing leaps and bounds over that 12 years and the journey that I was able to take with that. The last phase then is what I consider my executive phase. So with Travelocity being acquired by Expedia, I'm like, okay, I've spent 12 years, this is all I know. I was like scared about what was gonna be the next phase and the next chapter. And I took an educational sabbatical. I spent two months, I went to a Harvard management program, leadership program. It was life changing for me. It gave me the skills and the confidence that I needed to go face This next chapter and this next chapter really was about, different C-level roles. That's really where I wanted to go. So I did a number of different companies after that. One of the companies was Wayblazer, where I was the c e o. That was a company, I also founded it by Terry Jones. You'll find there's a consistent thread in my career here. Had an amazing experience there and eventually it led to my current role where I'm the Chief Revenue Officer at Sojourn. So I feel very blessed to have had this journey and always beyond, technology and how it helps the industry and in particular how it helps hotels.

Rachel Humphrey:

So many incredible lessons in there, and some I wanna talk about a little bit later. But the idea of having a really broad base of knowledge across your company, taking a risk and leaving something comfortable to step out to something, not expanding your education to see what else is out there. Having a champion, Terry, so much incredible advice there. Really appreciate your sharing that. I also like to share with our audience why I have asked you to join us as an advisor and talk about that for a minute. One of the interesting things for me is you're actually very new to my universe. Our paths had not crossed until recently in serving on the advisory board for Women in Travel Thrive together, and what, after a few meetings that we were in together and listening to you, it reminded me how important it is. For our networks and our relationships to be outside of maybe the lane that we are in, because here is somebody, you in our industry, in an executive role who I have so much to learn from in an area I know literally nothing about. And so I really appreciate. The opportunity to learn from network, build relationships with other people in other facets of this industry. And I wanted to say thank you for that'cause it's a good reminder for me at this stage of my career. But it also leads me to asking you a couple questions about. Being involved with boards, associations, nonprofits, you spend a tremendous time volunteering and serving the community. And one of the great things about that is not just the giving back, which makes a lot of us feel good, but it's actually the ability to acquire completely new skills or different leadership techniques when you are taken outside of your day job. Can you talk a little bit about your roles there, your service, and how that has helped you define you as a leader?

Noreen Henry:

Sure. And I'm so appreciative of the opportunity to get a chance to meet you through women Travel Thrive. Like I'll start with that organization. I'll talk about some of the other ones. But I love that organization and what I find really beneficial whenever I spend time volunteering and helping is not only do I feel good about, hey, I'm able to help an organization and leverage some of my skills, but I get so much in return by doing that. This. Group of women, they're so passionate about what they're trying to accomplish. And I first met Sylvia and the ladies and I, I consider them the girls that just get stuff done. And like there we're I'm blown away by how much they get done and how accomplished and I get so much energy from them. So I'm, I got sucked in. I'm like, oh my gosh, how can I figure out how to be a part of this organization, how to help them? And not only that, Then it gave me opportunity to meet others. And so it's an opportunity to meet you, opportunity to meet others that are on the board that I haven't met before. And so expanded my network and helped me along those lines. And I have found that, and this is actually advice I give to people all along as. It's really important to establish your network and get outside of your company. Like we spent so much time in the company and this is all we know. Yeah. I was very intentional when I set my sets on, Hey, I want, I really wanna understand the hotel industry that I went into head no organization, and eventually became part of that, their board, I started partic participate in H S M AI and eventually became part of the board. That's a way for me to really get to know others and then understand. Ultimately I'm selling to folks that are in these rooms and I learn more about the challenges that they're going through and how to empathize, and they see me in a different way. Not just, oh, she's got a bag and she's trying to sell me something. She's actually trying to understand my problems and understand the industry and figure out how she can contribute to it. So I found it hugely valuable for my career as well as just for me personally.

Rachel Humphrey:

Yeah, that's such an important lesson and I've had that same thing as well. Pivoting a little bit, when you were talking about your path to leadership, you mentioned different stages or how you define maybe different stages. Growing up as a young girl, did you always think you had leadership in your final destiny, or was there a turning point where you're like, you know what? I actually can see myself turning into a leader, whether it's in this industry or this company, or somewhere else.

Noreen Henry:

So leadership was something like I always wanted from a child. Like I saw it with my parents, my dad was a strong leader at his company. He became c e o, so I saw that they modeled it. They were also leaders in the community. They were leaders within the our church. Organization. So I saw that. And so e even at an early age, I was participating in high school student council and running for those types of things in college. I was, leadership in the sorority. Like I always found places that I could do that. But it's definitely different in your career and you've gotta really learn the basics of that before you're like, okay, now I'm ready for leadership. And I'll tell you, when I really got passionate about leadership, Not just leading a team, but like in hospital, like how do I do it in this industry was early days at Travelocity. So going from, hey, you're the expert, you know this to, Hey, I gotta manage a team and get these guys fired up. And we were launching our merchant hotel program and. Having us all like really focused on a mission and for me figuring out how am I getting rid of the obstacles and how are we actually helping the hotels during this? What was a really tough time for them?'cause it was right after nine 11. I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is where I want to be a leader and I wanna figure out how I just can excel at this space. And I dove in. I laid out a plan and went, okay, how am I gonna get from here to there? And what experience do I need? I became very intentional about it and I'm really delighted that I chose that path.

Rachel Humphrey:

That's such an interesting thing to hear too, that the moment for you in realizing leadership really came in a moment of adversity. It. Some people say it's easy to lead when everything is great and whatnot, but to really say in this moment, here's a place where we're all trying to figure it out, and yet this is where I feel like I'm really shining. What an incredible. For you. Turning a little bit to the to the side of advocating for women being dedicated to elevating women. One of the things, the generalizations we hear a lot is that as women we are not good at advocating for ourselves. What advice would you give to our listeners who may be struggling to really feel like they can advocate for themselves in a way that will be beneficial?

Noreen Henry:

Sure. I might be a little bit controversial, like it drives me a little bit crazy that women don't advocate for themselves. If you don't believe in yourself, how can you expect somebody else to advocate for you? So I've always been able that you need to advocate for yourself. It's how I've secured many of the jobs that I've had. Now what I would say is when you advocate, it needs to be a balance of, Hey, I'm confident and there's a reason why I'm advocating. And you have your plan to justify it, but it's also being humble. Okay, you're advocating and maybe it might not be you may not get at the end of the day what you're asking for. But you're gonna learn something by advocating and you're gonna gain respect by advocating. And I'll give you a story. So I recently had a strong woman on my team who was advocating for herself for expanded responsibility and expanded compensation to go with it. And whether at the end of the day, I end up, accommodating that or not. I paused and I thanked her for advocating for herself, and I wanted to reinforce that was a really good thing for her to do because if, and I think probably particularly in the sales role, like I expect people to be advocating for themselves because I expect you to advocate for the company when you're negotiating. If you're not doing it for yourselves, are you gonna represent the company the right way? So I think it's a, as a leader, I think it's a terrific thing. And I think. People should realize you're gonna get respect by advocating, so don't be afraid to advocate. Know that there is benefit. Even if you don't get the end result, you are gonna learn from it. Others are gonna learn that you're interested in something. They're gonna try and find the path for you. People want to help. So please everybody. Confidence to go advocate for yourself, it will pay off. I

Rachel Humphrey:

love that. And I love the analogy to sales. That's so interesting.'cause I think a lot of people are great at selling their company, selling their product, but have a tougher time when it comes to themselves. And I wanna talk about that for a minute because you mentioned at one point being c e o then. Now being chief revenue officer, certainly not in every moment are, do you have the confidence? You said, have the confidence in yourself. What strategies do you have when you are experiencing self-doubt about yourself, your role, your competencies, your bandwidth, whatever it is that really help you get over that stuck spot.

Noreen Henry:

Sure. And I wish at this stage in my life, after all these years of experience, I wouldn't still experience no doubt, but I do. And we all do. And so what I try to do when I'm in the midst of that is remind myself, Hey, you have been here before and e either you belong at this table'cause you've been here before and you've proven yourself. So I remind myself, believe in yourself. I also remind myself when I have believed in myself and I have done this, it's opened up other doors and opportunities for me. It might even be different than what I thought. So get yourself at that table, overcome the self-doubt and the, if I'm still not there I remind myself like, what's the worst thing that's gonna happen? The worst thing that might happen is you might fail. You know what? I have failed before. I have failed publicly before. I'm okay. I actually came away from that stronger and people respected what I learned from it. So I have to remind myself that sometimes, honestly,'cause failures still scary. And I gotta go. It's okay. You need to believe in yourself and you need to put yourself out there. And I push myself to go do it.

Rachel Humphrey:

And think about that too. Noria, even at this chapter of your life, it's okay to say I have self-doubt, or failure is scary, or I'm not, I have to convince myself that I belong here. So as earlier careers are experiencing that, that's nothing to. Detract from what path you may be able to be on. And I think that's great advice to everyone. One other piece of advice we hear a lot is surrounding yourself with people who see the true you and can help you overcome some of those self-doubt. So if you're experiencing self-doubt and you can't redirect yourself, you've got a team around you, not of people who just build you up. Sometimes they're gonna give you the honest. Truth, but who can really help you with that? Do you rely heavily on a support system? How do you identify the people that you select to be on your personal board?

Noreen Henry:

Yeah I definitely have a support system. I consider them my tribe. My, my trusted tribe that I can go to for advice and counsel, and it consists of, folks that I have worked with in the past. So they know me from the work world and they know, you know how I. They might be the ones that remind me how I overcome, here's what I typically see of you, Norie. This is the way for you to handle it. I also have folks who are outside the industry because I think it's helpful that folks who haven't necessarily seen me there and they've got a different perspective about, I'll tell you one of those is. It's actually my sister. So my sister is an executive in a different industry. She's in software translation and she's somebody I can be completely vulnerable with. I can have my tearing cry up, oh my God, how am I ever gonna do this melt down with her. She lets me melt down, and then she helps pick me up. And she, either is encouraging and, gives me the confidence that I need. Or sometimes she gives me the kick in the butt and Hey, toughen up buttercup. This is your. Okay, you're at a point here, sister, that you need to make a transition in your life because this is not the right thing for you. And so I think it really helps if you have someone who can be that honest with you. And so I, I'm grateful for her and I'm grateful for the rest of those who support me. And so I highly encourage everybody to make sure you have those trusted confidence that you can, be completely yourself with. That's

Rachel Humphrey:

great advice. And you talked earlier about having failures, even some very public failures. Not any executive reaches the level you have without some setbacks or challenges along the way and continues to, on a regular basis in this or any other industry. Do you have a process you go through when you're faced with a challenge and obstacle of how you navigate that and how you reflect back

Noreen Henry:

on it? I do, and I've definitely encountered a lot of different obstacles in my life. And I'll tell you I recently wrote, I think it was last year, I wrote a blog about training for a marathon and like the lessons that I learned from doing a marathon and how I apply them to work because I found that there's tons of obstacles when you're trying to do a really big, hairy, lofty goal. And I was able to simplify it from that experience and. For me, it's a couple things. It's like you have to have, if you're trying to accomplish something, you have to have a really big plan. How are you gonna get from here to there? You can't just get there and you have to, execute doggedly. Like you can't skip days, you gotta go after it. But you're going to hit those obstacles. You're going to hit the wall, you're gonna have injuries, you're gonna have all those things in your career that you have, like when you're training and you have to ask for help. You have to, look for experts who are gonna help guide you along that. And you have to respect the obstacle we call it in running, re respect the wall. You're gonna hit a wall, you're going to hit that wall. You have to respect it and go, what do I need to do to get around this? You pause, you take a break, you pull back, you take a look at it. Sometimes you know you're in the midst of it and you're just overwhelmed by what that obstacle is. And if you pull back, Get advice from others, reassess it yourself. You gonna help figure out what are your solutions to work around it. And my big advice To, to others and to myself is don't let that derail you. It's easy to then just go, okay, these obstacles are too much and I can't get past'em, and I'm just not gonna go forward and don't, there is a way around it. You gotta just take the time to figure it out, what's the best solution and then once you do get past that obstacle, celebrate your success. Acknowledge that you were successful here and acknowledge the small successes along the way'cause they helped get you to this point. Everyone's gonna encounter them. Just you need to take the time to figure out how you're gonna work through'em.

Rachel Humphrey:

I love the concept of celebrating successes too, because we can be so hard on ourselves when things do not go how we or others want them to, but we really gloss over very quickly, if at all, any successes that we have. So that's wonderful Advice and your marathon running. While I cannot relate to that in any way,'cause every step I take running, I wonder how many more I have. To take before I can get chocolate cake or something at the end of the day. Does bring up two things that I would love to ask you about. Coming out of the pandemic especially, there's been a renewed focus on self-care and wellness and we are hearing so many more people talk about the prioritization. I have said before that in retirement it is probably the most important thing that I have learned is that self-care is not selfish. That it's a really critical part of our. Our growth and our leadership talk about self-care and wellness. For you, the role it plays, has that evolved over time? And what would you tell others who are listening who maybe aren't carving out the time for that?

Noreen Henry:

So it's, it is a huge part for me. Like it is rare for me to not take time out of every day for my health and wellbeing. So whether that's running, whether that's paddle boarding, whatever it is, I need some kind of mechanism. That's going to help charge me. Not only is it good for me physically, but it's really good for me mentally. Like my husband he could tell if I've gone a couple days without running, like he could just see that stress levels building up, babe. I think you need to go, think you need there. And so like part of it is, for me personally, the other part I would say is it has opened up. My network outside of work, like it's a way to connect with others. And I've got a running group that I run with on Saturday mornings and they're my therapy session. You're spending that much time running these long distances and they become your support mechanism as well. And I also hear their stories from out the week and I discover my life's not so bad when I hear someone, teachers, oh my gosh, they have a challenging job. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so like I, I think it's really good, for you for you to figure out how you carve that time out. And for me it's just been really important. And I'll tell you my secret on it has been, It started when my when I had my first newborn and I was waking up early in the morning to feed them. And once they started sleeping through, I was still waking up early. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is my quiet time before anybody needs me. So I became a early morning workout person because I could carve out that quiet time just for myself. Oh my God, that's

Rachel Humphrey:

fantastic. And. Pivots perfectly into work-life. Harmony. We hear a lot, again, a renewed focus on people and I think, you know when you initially hear about work-life balance, most people think you're talking about parenting, but it can actually be. Spouse or hobbies or health or many other things. How do you find time or do you find time? How do you think you've been at finding a balance? You've had a very incredible career with a lot of demands, a lot of trajectory, a lot of travel and managing big teams, different time zones, all of these other things that can really. Blend time for you. How do you manage or find harmony in that

Noreen Henry:

space? So I really like that you used the word harmony,'cause that's a word that I use as well. I don't know that it's balance, like it's harmony. How do we spend so much time at work? So first, make sure it's a job you love and that it's people that you wanna work with, and that helps with the whole harmony of embracing that with the rest of your life. For me it's also been, I, I'm incredibly supportive. Spouse, my, my husband understands the challenges that I have and he's able to be flexible. When the kids were young, he actually was a stay-at-home dad for a while. Like we looked at our careers and said, okay, how are we gonna balance this? But then with all of my travels, he then would join my, we figured out how do we take advantage of my travels for work to also have travels for the family and travels for him. And so we blend. A lot, but I would say I, I also really make sure that I do carve out specific time for family, like you have to, which what? It's not just quantity of time with your children. It's not just quality, it's quantity. Like you have to be there not just for the special moments, but you have to be there for the regular moments in the day to day and hear what their stories are. And so you have to shut off work and carve out the time for the kids. When I was traveling a ton, when they were little, this is before, before all the gaming really took off. Like we would talk for hours on a conference call, playing checkers and stuff, and I'd hear all the stories of the day while I'm playing with them. And it was just, it's crazy that those are still my special memories, even though I'm, states away having these, this time with them, I found a way that I was still gonna connect with them even when I was on the road.

Rachel Humphrey:

I like the intentionality of it too. We can't assume that when we travel just by picking up the phone and. And checking in that's gonna feel connection. But I like your strategy of being very intentional in how you were doing that. When you were talking about your path to leadership, you talked about the decision to leave a place that you were very comfortable, you were very successful, you were learning a lot. And by the way, fun fact, my mother was a travel agent in the days that you were talking about. So I can relate. To what you were talking in the eighties, so I can relate to what you're talking about there. You did take a big risk in saying, okay, this is good. I could be good here forever, or I could take a big risk and change. How do you tackle risks? Evaluate, how do you know, okay, this is a risk I am going to take and maybe this one I'm could be good, but I'm gonna pass on this.

Noreen Henry:

Yeah, I did take some very intentional risks in my career and got outside of my comfort zone. And the way I evaluated it was, first it was, what is my long-term plan? Where do I wanna be? And can I get where I wanna be, where I'm at? Or do I have to make a change to be able to do that? And then if I'm going to make a change, I wanna make sure that I'm gonna accomplish the things that I want to accomplish. What skill gaps am I gonna get by making this change? What am I gonna learn and make sure that the change that I'm doing aligns with that? So I don't wanna change this for change's sake, when I. When I left Saber, it was, I want to get in an experience and I wanna get sales experience. I'm pigeonholed here, I've got to go figure that out. And people thought I was crazy leaving me like, you're this great company, blah, blah, blah. Yes, but, and if I didn't take that risk, I wouldn't be where I'm at today. I wouldn't have got that sales experience I wouldn't have, et cetera. I think about, the, my time at White Blazer. And so that was a risk to go to this small startup company. I was the second C E O. They had limited funding and unfortunately, ultimately the startup did not make it. But I learned so much by doing that. And what I thought was really interesting about that one, I talk about that's my public failure. Everybody knows that startup did not make it. In interviewing afterwards for roles. Everybody wanna understand what did you learn? And they appreciated that I took that risk. And, board members, they know not everything's gonna be successful. Those were the questions that I was getting asked when I was interviewing, and so I value that experience and value the fact that I took that risk. That's great

Rachel Humphrey:

advice. As expected, I could talk to you for hours. I have so many more things I want to learn from you, but we are winding down on time and my favorite question to always be asked and to ask in return is advice to our younger selves. And it's because I really think that we are all works in progress, but reflection is a really important part of personal growth. So what does Noreen today tell? Radio and TV college major Noreen? Either about how things would work out or something you wish you knew then. That might have been instrumental in your path?

Noreen Henry:

The advice I would tell myself, and I have since told my children, this is take a breath. Okay, slow down, smell the roses. I think in college, I'm like, Just this overachiever. And I have to finish college in three years and oh, two weeks later I gotta go get married and I gotta start a new job. And holy cow, I look back and then I'm like, what? Why? Why you slow down a little bit, enjoy your time, because that was your best time to be able to do that, right? And so I think I miss out on some opportunities by just driving too hard at times. And so just take a breath, enjoy life, enjoy what you have going on. Appreciate it.

Rachel Humphrey:

I love that. And then keeping in mind the motto of d e I advisors to empower personal success, do you have any final tidbits you'd share with our audience? Any final pieces of advice?

Noreen Henry:

Yeah, and it's probably something I've kinda weaved throughout the conversation here, and it's really Own your career. Don't let your career just be you. You're in the backseat of letting it drive you. Be in that front seat, know where you wanna go, know the navigation. Now different windows are gonna open along the way. My dad used to always talk about that this window's passing. Are you gonna jump through or you're not gonna jump through? You have to evaluate that. Own your career and be intentional. Understand that path and then be very intentional about those different moves that you wanna make. So that would be my advice.

Rachel Humphrey:

Wow. That's a great place for us to wrap up today. So Noreen, thank you so much for joining us, sharing your story, some of the insights you've learned along the way, and thank you so much for your leadership and your advocacy in our industry. It

Noreen Henry:

was a pleasure. Thank you so much for the time and I appreciate all the things that you guys are doing at DI Advisor. And I'm happy to be part of this.

Rachel Humphrey:

Thank you so much and to our audience, thank you so much for listening today. We hope you'll head over to dei advisors.org and hear from over a hundred industry leaders who have also shared their stories and their insights they've learned along the way. You can also stream us on your favorite podcast streaming service. Thank you so much, Norrie.