How To Nail Your First Conversation with Senior Executives
You want to meet the executives at your work but you don't know what to say to them. Here are 10 tactical ways you can add value to them and position yourself as a rising leader in the company.
Client: I want to build relationships with my VP / C-level executive and other VPs across the company who are not directly involved in my day-to-day projects. How do I go about doing so? What do I say to them?
It’s important to make yourself known to senior leadership at the company if you want to move up. Making sure they are aware of your skillset and the impact of your work while building a mutually beneficial relationship is important to building credibility and influence. However, if you don’t interact with senior leaders regularly in your work, this can feel unnatural and intimidating. Why would they want to take time out of their busy schedule to meet with you? What’s in it for them? In this post, I will cover step-by-step how to build a relationship with your executive leadership team.
The Reach Out
The first step of the relationship begins with you initiating a meeting. The best approach depends on the size of the organization, the formality of the culture, and the proximity of your work to that leader. At smaller, more casual workplaces, or if your work is closely tied to that leader’s goals, the reach out can be more direct. At large companies with many layers where there’s sensitivity around hierarchy, or if your work is fairly distant from the leader’s day-to-day work, a more formal approach is better.
Types of outreach
More informal: Send an email to the leader requesting time to meet.
“Hi [Name of leader], my name is Yue. I am a PM working on xyz. We’ve been in a few meetings together but have not connected 1:1. I would love to grab 30 minutes in the next few weeks to get to know each other, get feedback on project xyz that just launched, and any thoughts you may have on the strategy for xyz.
The important points to cover are:
Call out any previous interaction you may have had with this leader. It could be a group meeting, an all-hands where they presented and you attended, or something you’d heard about them. The goal is to find shared experience (even if they may not have noticed you) or at minimum a reason why you’re interested in speaking with them.
State what you are looking for: e.g. 30 30-minute meeting, a breakfast, walk, or coffee break
State why you’re looking to connect. Simply making an introduction likely isn’t enough. It’s important to help them understand why they should get to know you (more on this below).
Give it a time (e.g. in the next few weeks, at this conference we’re both attending) so that the executive has a starting point.
If the executive has an assistant or admin, please cc that person as well.
More formal: Introduction through a mutual colleague
On the other end of the spectrum, a formal way to meet a leader is through an official introduction. This involves someone who can vouch for you who also knows this leader, and is willing to make a double opt-in introduction. This may take a few intermediate connections and asks to get to someone who can make this introduction. The further someone is from your work, the more valuable it is to have someone make a formal introduction so that your request is accepted. The double opt-in would start with the Mutual Connection sending the executive an email like the following (without you on the chain):
Hi [Executive], I’d like to introduce you to Yue Zhao, PM of XYZ. She recently helmed project A, which led to significant increases in revenue. She is a rising leader at the company and would like to share and discuss her thinking on XYZ with you. Would you be open to a 30-minute conversation?
If the executive responds positively, then your Mutual Connection can send a separate follow-up email connecting you and the executive.
Tip: If the executive sponsors a certain employee group, club, or community, or is planning to attend an event near you, don’t pass up the opportunity to say a quick hi. You may not be able to have a full conversation, but it will give you a “previous interaction” from which you can ask for 1:1 time in the future.
Why should they get to know you?
In a prior post, I wrote about how building influence is about figuring out how you can help someone. The same concept holds for getting an introduction to someone who is not involved in your day-to-day work. Consider how you can help this leader. Here are some starting points:
Share a problem you see and want to solve, where solving the problem would also benefit them. Perhaps it’s a process between your teams that needs to be improved. Or a customer problem you are passionate about solving. Or a skillset gap that is slowing down the teams.