Now Global Account Manager at LinkedIn, the web’s largest network of professionals, Myriam El Ouni first served as Platform Sales Executive at Salesforce and as Account Manager both for private and public sector at Microsoft in France and in the UK. Since her participation to the first edition of our Women Talent Pool program in 2012, Myriam thus continued on her way to become, in her own words, a “digital fashionista” and “growth hacker”. As a passionate person who loves to share, Myriam welcomed us at the offices of LinkedIn in Paris, the perfect place to interview a digital expert!

You have been a Global Account Manager of LinkedIn for eight months, helping Global Accounts to become connected enterprises. What is your role exactly about and which success factors do you see as essential?

Our Global Account team helps global organizations in France grow by transforming their human resources’ organizations to better meet the new talent expectations and recruitment goals. After transforming customers’ journey, the way digital has transformed the people, now brings companies to rethink the way they interact with their people, from Talent to Employees.  

The challenge, which global organizations are facing today, is mainly about identifying and attracting the right talents for the roles they provide today and will have to fulfill tomorrow.

LinkedIn empowers them with intelligent data to overcome this challenge and become pioneer of the digital HR. We help organizations to become data-driven in the way they identify, attract and retains talents.

The first success factor is the ability to listen and understand your customers’ challenges and priorities in this changing environment. The second factor is compassion: understanding where customers stand in their journey to digital. Transformation is a journey and it is key that customers can successfully go through it while remaining true to their values and culture. The third success factor is teamwork, and being able to leverage every talent of the team. We are now a global team of  talented people, who by working together are able to empower our customers to achieve more.

You describe yourself as “customers obsessed”: in an ever-changing digital environment, how do you keep your brand and services agile and what is the key to bringing satisfaction to your customers?

Being customers obsessed to me means first being passionate by getting to know my customers from headquarters to the field in the various countries they are implemented. Then it consists of imagining that you are the customer and thinking about the kind of experience and solution you would expect LinkedIn and your partners to deliver. It all comes down to integrity. Treat your customers as you would like to be treated: with trust, fairness and empathy.

“My golden rule: being customers obsessed and deliver excellence! Become a trusted partner who serves with integrity and empathy”

Why haven't any companies been able to challenge LinkedIn so far and where do you see it heading in 5 years? Any new services for enterprises coming up?

On LinkedIn, people spend only 30% of their time trying to find a job, while 70% of the time they want to consume its valuable content. LinkedIn is the one and only professional network that is offering its 530 million plus members the ability to connect with other professionals and companies as well as sharing content and accessing learning opportunities to grow in a professional way and then finding the next step in their career. LinkedIn is building a digital map to empower the 3 billion workforces to successfully thrive in their career. This goes far above and beyond finding a job.

“LinkedIn is the one and only professional network that is offering its members the ability to connect with other professionals and companies, as well as sharing content and accessing learning opportunities ”

I see a bright future for LinkedIn, and I do believe that being part of Microsoft will allow us to even go a step further by allowing our members and every company to truly leverage the latest technologies from AI, to blockchain and quatum computing.

Do you have an insight of the number of people that have found their job through LinkedIn?

With 530M members, 18M companies and 11M job posted, I believe everyone will find their next dream opportunity through LinkedIn. From finding inspiration on where they want to go next through articles and posts to applying to a job, LinkedIn is providing on a daily basis to millions of people their next career move within a click.  

What are your tips and tricks to create a powerful LinkedIn Profile and make the difference?

Your profile should reflect who you are and be the most accurate possible. First, you should have an up to date professional picture that embodies who you are in your daily work environment. Then I would recommend a good description of your missions and values as a professional in the description part just below your picture, and then, on the job experience part, I suggest you mention for whom you have worked, how long, and what you have achieved. You should also connect with the right people. Finally, as LinkedIn is not only a job board, you should be active in terms of articles that you share, posts that you like, or comments that will help you being seen as a knowledgeable expert in your field of expertise rather than just having a resume on LinkedIn.

Representing only 30% of the seven million people working in the ICT European sector, women are clearly underrepresented, especially in leadership positions. To face this considerable gender gap in the ICT sector, has LinkedIn any particular best practices that you can share and how do you personally try to act on this (at LinkedIn and in general)?

LinkedIn is very engaged in any type of diversity, gender being one, and we have a network dedicated to help women progressing in their career inside the company.

In order to promote gender diversity, first it is important not to keep it as a women’s topic. In many companies, gender diversity is led by and for women, but since 70% in the ICT world are still men, we should onboard men in every gender diversity initiative, train men managers to know how to attract, identify, develop and retain women inside their teams, and we should give them a voice on how they could help us on how to reduce this gap. Second, women are their own worst enemies because we are too shy to be successful at work: we also need to empower women to increase their self-confidence and be convinced that they have everything to become a successful leader. Third, without having regulation and flexible working conditions, we will not reduce the gap completely.

“The right question to ask in the time of digital transition is how do we leverage the technology to empower more women to sit at the table?

I believe that the right question to ask ourselves in the time of digital transition is not so much how to ensure the life-work balance of women, because today technology allows us to  work from everywhere and at any time, but instead, how do we leverage the digital technology to empower more women to sit at the table. 

We read that LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner, always asks the following question to job candidates: “What is your dream job?” and “Looking back on your career, what do you want to say you accomplished?” Pretend you are being interviewed by him. What would be your answers?

My dream job is to manage a company with a social and societal responsibility in digital transformation. Accompanying a business and a team to first transform themselves to then be able to impact positively the market, the society and its people. I do believe we are at the very beginning only of all the transformations digital will bring. I am willing ever since I have joined Microsoft 12 years ago, to one day lead a company that will empower people to be successful throughout their digital journey.

The best thing I have accomplished in my career so far is first to learn from my mentors and the leaders I am inspired by, and to build with my customers long-term trusted relationship.  With time and passionate work, I have become a trusted advisor of customers transformation. And their own success is my best reward.