Jonathan Sposato - 7 Ways to Win with Women

Jonathan Sposato

Copyright 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data is Available:

ISBN 9781119452188 (Hardcover)
ISBN 9781119452133 (ePDF)
ISBN 9781119452089 (ePub)

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Jonathan SPOSATO. Before you even meet him you are thinking it's totally going to be a different guy. Italian last name, Asian face. What is that story?

It's like picking up this book and saying Wait a minute. Why is a middleaged dude writing a book (which will inevitably make him a target for haters) passionately making the case for gender equity in the workplace? What gives him the right? What makes him special?

Well, I would argue, Sposato has the right. He has earned it. Jonathan's experiences, starting with the circumstances of his birth, make him very uniquely qualified to address any issues surrounding bias and inequity. He has lived the struggle, and he walks the walk. I often jokingly refer to him as Asian Obama.

It's not just that Jonathan is an ubersuccessful businessman, founder, investor, husband, and dad who supports women 150 percent. He's really taking on gender workplace inequity as an individual who cares deeply about inclusivity. Inclusivity is part of Jonathan's DNA.

Jonathan's whole existence has been about beating the odds. He is someone who has been rejected and accepted throughout his life: separated from his biological father but accepted, loved, and raised by a single mother and later an adopted father. From age 3, Jonathan survived six years without his single mom because she couldn't afford to raise him. When he finally rejoined her in the 1970s, he was brought into and raised in a mixedrace household and had to learn to fit in.

He had to push his way in through his positivity, charm, openness, inclusivity, and willingness to listen to people and understand where they are coming from and build bridges. It's what made him originally a great entrepreneur.

Jonathan's leadership style focuses on what's best for all involved, what's always a win for all parties. It's been a huge part of his success building great software that people love and great businesses that are successful in their communities because he works hard to understand the community and give them what they care about.

Without Jonathan, our company may not have existed. At first, he couldn't believe my story of being a female CEO consistently rejected for funding. He heard me out and he didn't write it off. He remembered our time together at Microsoft, and, ultimately, he invested in me and our company because he did believe in us. He couldn't let it rest. He couldn't just sit by and accept that a pattern bias of not funding qualified female founders was the norm.

Because Jonathan has dealt firsthand with issues of inclusivity in his own life, any kind of social injustice or inequity is an issue that he will not tolerate in his businesses, on his teams, and in his environments. What he stands for as an individual is inclusivity. Let the best rise to the top no matter who they are. I am perfectly comfortable with having him speak out on behalf of all of us who suffer bias. Although we are primarily talking about women right now, we are in an increasingly diverse culture, and if our products and services and environments are going to reflect who we are, they must be built by all of us.

Jonathan has as much right to tell this story as any one of us, and I'm honored to be included in Jonathan's book.

Lisa Maki

CEO of PokitDok

This book would not have happened without Grace Kahng, who catalyzed the notion that there was a book here. She strategized, congealed, debated, and refined so much of what is BEST about this book. She conducted countless interviews with many people whom I wouldn't have thought to ask, imbued this project with energy, recalibrated my thinking on numerous themes, and bravely authored when i asked her to, as well as helping fix a couple of mine.

Her editorial instincts are nothing short of masterful, refining and reshaping cloddish ideas into those worthy of publication. She is the very model of the kind of effective blended leadership that I speak of, and I honestly don't know how she does what she does so dang well, all the time. She is also, in strength, values, and work ethic, the very embodiment of the kind of baller women that this book is about. Anyone would be lucky to have Grace Kahng on her team.

A successful serial entrepreneur and investor in many startups, Jonathan Sposato is chairman and cofounder of GeekWire.com, one of the tech sector's top news sites, and chairman and cofounder of PicMonkey, the world's most fun and popular photo editor.

He also has the distinct honor of being the first person to sell two companies to Google.

In 2016, Jonathan made headlines when he announced he would be the first technology investor to invest