Google Cloud's Jane Hynes on mentoring communications talent

Catch up quick: Hynes started her career in agency, working for Hamilton Ink and Outcast. It was there that she worked with two of her future mentors, Outcast co-founders Caryn Marooney and Margit Wennmachers.

• "I had this experience of working for these powerhouse women and it gave me the opportunity to see myself in leadership roles and to feel like I had a voice that mattered," Hynes told Axios. "And these are women that weren't afraid to make big decisions or tough calls and weren't afraid to be the only woman in the room. That was just very motivating for me."
• Hynes joined Salesforce in 2003, where she helped grow the comms function and supported the company through its IPO, quickly climbing the ranks to senior vice president, communications.
• In 2017, she joined Google Cloud, where she has scaled the team more than 10x.

Here are key ways Hynes builds talent, according to her mentees:

• Creates opportunities. "She's really good at giving people ownership of things that might feel slightly beyond their comfort zone, allowing them to rise to the occasion," says Cynthia Horiguchi Trejos, senior director of communications at Salesforce. "It's big to have that vote of confidence from a leader like her."
• Plus, "if you lead a project, she'll put you in front of the executives. It doesn't matter if it's [Google Cloud CEO] Thomas Kurian or [Alphabet CEO] Sundar Pichai or whoever else, if you're involved and you're leading, then you're a key part of driving the project forward," Trejos said.
• Doesn't gatekeep. Hynes has a reputation for sharing information and key stakeholder relationships.
• For example, "She would go into a meeting with [Salesforce CEO] Marc Benioff, who was very notorious for coming up with some new strategy or plan on a whim, and she would just write up detailed notes and blast it out to the team," says Ted Ladd, senior director of go-to-market communications at Google. "It was clear she thought it was important to share what she knew with her people."
• "She has an incredible way with transparency. She's the opposite of a gatekeeper, and she keeps the ego out of it," says Allie Cefalo, marketing partner at Kleiner Perkins. "Which makes it so much easier to get to a solution quickly."
• Gives credit. Hynes defines her success by her team's success, says Trejos.

• "Part of that is giving people visibility, showcasing their wins and giving them credit publicly, which not every leader does."
• Hynes also credits her agency partners for wins, says Cefalo. "When an internal stakeholder would say, 'thanks for something' or 'how did this get placed?' Jane gave credit to the agency and made sure that the credit was passed back to the people who made it happen."
• Stays close. Once you're in her orbit, Hynes is intentional about maintaining the relationship, says Ladd.
• "The thing is, Jane always checks in on you," he added.

What they're saying: "The only way to scale is to give people the opportunity to do good work. And if you're micromanaging them or trying to control how they are going to get it done, they're not going to be able to bring their full power to bear," Hynes says.

• That means "making sure they have the knowledge, the context, the information they need to make really well-informed decisions and recommendations or serve as a great business partner," she added.

Best advice from Hynes: "When I left Google, she said, 'Don't forget that your people are your power, and to always take care of your people,'" Trejos said.

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