Bernie Borges:
Genefa Murphy, welcome to the Midlife Fulfilled Podcast, a maximum episode.
Genefa Murphy:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here.
Bernie Borges:
Well, I’m super excited to have you here. I wanna begin with a little bit of introduction for my listener to to give my listener some context. You serve you currently serve as Udemy’s. I have to get pronounce it correctly. Udemy’s. Udemy’s.
Genefa Murphy:
Udemy. You It had to be you.
Bernie Borges:
Udemy. Okay. Udemy’s chief marketing officer. You’ve been there since July of 2023. Prior to that, you were the chief marketing officer at Five9, which is a company I’m familiar with, a publicly traded Company that’s in the cloud contact center software space. Mhmm. Hope that helps companies expand market share. And then prior to 59, you were in senior marketing roles, Including the chief marketing officer at Micro Focus, which I believe is where we first met when you were CMO at Micro Focus.
Bernie Borges:
They’re a multi billionaire software company. Now they’re part of OpenText and Hewlett Packard Enterprise where you spent 10 years in numerous consulting, product, marketing, And go to market positions. And, Genefa, you have a PhD in user acceptance of new technology. I definitely wanna discuss that with you As well as a bachelor of science with honors in business IT from Swansea University in Wales in the UK.
Genefa Murphy:
Indeed, I do.
Bernie Borges:
So clearly, learning and education is a big part of who you are, and I’ve invited you here for this Maximum episode to really Discuss the value of learning to advance our career in midlife. I think such a it’s such a valuable topic. But if I may ask you, Genefa, can we begin with sort of the beginning of your career? When when you were first starting out in your career, Did you know what that dream job was gonna be for you? Did did you know what you really wanted to do?
Genefa Murphy:
No. And I Definitely never envisioned that I’d be a chief marketing officer. I started out I mean, honestly, I started out when I was doing my degree with a a a thirst and an interest in law. And then, you know, and then I started to get interested in e commerce and business. That eventually took me down the path of my PhD, and that eventually took me down the path of consulting. So I would definitely say If you would have asked me many years ago, would I have ended up being a chief marketing officer? I think my answer would definitely have been No. I I don’t even know what you mean.
Bernie Borges:
Okay. So I’m gonna ask you to describe what is the role of a chief marketing officer For anybody that may not be familiar with that role, and specifically, you’ve had that role in in large companies. So why don’t you put a little definition to that?
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah. So I think the role of the chief marketing officer I think the first thing is that the chief marketing officer has evolved in its role over the past several years And I think there’s an inbound and an outbound role. So on the inbound side, the role of the chief marketing officer in my mind is to bring the voice of the customer and the voice of the market into the organization. So whether it be trends, whether it be personas, bring that into the organization to help influence product direction, strategy, sales. And then there’s the outbound side, the thing that everybody knows about marketing. How do you take your message outward into the into the world into the market? Tell the world what you do, who you are, what you stand for, and what value you can bring to customers. So that’s how I look at it as CMO. There’s the inbound side and then there’s the outbound side.
Genefa Murphy:
And I think in Large organizations, I always used to describe my role as method, message, and making it work. So method, How do you work with, sales counterparts to build out sales methodologies and how we’re going to health? What’s the value Message, what are we saying to people? Who are we? What’s our value proposition? And then making it work. All of the stuff around generating demand, generating interest, ultimately health an organization to achieve its financial goals.
Bernie Borges:
Yeah. I love that. So at what point did you know did someone tap you on the on the shoulder and say, Genefa, you are destined To be a a chief marketing officer because I don’t want it to be lost in anyone that the first word in chief marketing officer is chief. This is a c level role. Mhmm. So at what point, Genefa, at what point in your career did someone say to you, you have what it takes to be a chief marketing officer?
Genefa Murphy:
You know what? I don’t know. I don’t know if if, I think it was when I made the move from product, from product management. Right? So being on the product side of the house, building the product, figuring out what to build, how to take it to market, And then I moved into the marketing role. I think once I started to get into the data of go to market, the data of business, the data of understanding whom you’re trying to position something to. That’s probably when, You know, people were like, hey. You know what? You could take on the chief marketing role. Right? You could take on a role of leadership. You could take on a role of management, on a role, actually, to be fair, in inspiring people.
Genefa Murphy:
I mean, I still to this day, I’m like, oh, I won the CMO. And I have lots of different things that I have to do and a part of my responsibility and my remit. But, yeah, it was it was an evolution thing. It wasn’t like I ever set out to be a CMO. Sure. I think it it sort of it sort of happened based on experiences and Context and a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work.
Bernie Borges:
I’m sure there’s a little bit of luck, and I’m sure there was a lot of hard work. And in fact, speaking Of hard work. Tell us a little bit about the journey to your PhD. What was that journey like? And then How or why did you select the PhD in user acceptance of new technology?
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah. So I think The first things first is I wanted my PhD to be practical. So as I was doing my degree, as I said, I I fell in love with, you know, e commerce and business and computer science. And I thought, well, how can I bring all of those things together? But I wanted my PhD to be practical. And as I was, You know, learning more about technology as the world was becoming more digital and more, digitally centric. I thought to myself, well, What makes people adopt technology? I I love the notion of understanding what makes people tick, what makes people do what they do, Whether it’s buy a new piece of technology, reject an idea in an organization, come together and collaborate as a team. And so for me, really, it was great. I went and had a conversation with my my professor.
Genefa Murphy:
And my PhD really looks at, It’s a combination of structured equation modeling, which is statistics and math. It’s psychology and sociology. Right? So human factors, and then the technology element together as well. And that’s sort of a little bit like what my my job is today. Right? You know, your job as a marketer is to influence and to create preference and awareness and change perception of the brands that you are responsible for.
Bernie Borges:
Now you by the way, I think that’s fascinating. I love your point about how you wanted your PhD to be practical, particularly since you spent a large portion of your corporate career in different marketing roles, including CMR roles in technology. Mhmm. But you’ve recently moved to a company that I don’t know that you would characterize as technology. I’m sure there’s a lot of technology that that goes into the company Operations and even go to market strategy. But what was your motivation, if you will, around going to Udemy?
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah. So I think it really came down to 2 things. So on one hand, it was the opportunity to work for a company that has a mission. A mission that means something. A mission that can really truly impact an individual’s organizer life in an organization’s life. I mean, I spent so many years in b to b marketing. It’s great. It’s fun.
Genefa Murphy:
It’s exciting, But the opportunity to impact an individual, a single person’s life with what you do, with your product, and the opportunity to Give that to more people in the world, to me, was something that I just I just couldn’t pass up. And I think more and more, You know, there’s that that desire to do something more than just the financial goal. Right? It’s the it sounds cheesy, but the desire to do something good in the world. And that’s really what sort of attracted me to Udemy is the ability to, first of all, Take on the 1st CMO role at Udemy, so the 1st chief marketing officer role. Okay. But then also as well to be able to sort of Tapping to that doing something good for the world. And then the second part is just the platform is incredible. I mean, we are a technology platform.
Genefa Murphy:
We’re also a skills marketplace. Right? So we have, you know, 200,000 plus courses, which is just incredible. We have over 70,000 instructors. We have over 15,000 organizations. I think the count is now 65,000,000 learners who are engaging with our content and who are on the platform. And so it’s just incredible to be to be a part of that and to be able to spread that news to more people in the world And give everyone access to learning. I mean, that’s the most incredible thing. Not everybody can go to university.
Genefa Murphy:
Not everybody can get a degree. But does that mean that you shouldn’t have access to learning? You shouldn’t have access to skills? Not at all. And that’s what we bring. We bring learning and skills to everyone.
Bernie Borges:
Anecdotally, I’ll just mention an observation. I was pleasantly surprised on the website to see that any individual can sign up for courses At really affordable pricing. I mean, I was expecting pricing to be like 5 x what it really is. It’s really affordable. So to your point that it’s just Very accessible. Let’s talk about, because education has been such a big part of your life and your career, and now being at Udemy, which is an education company, What do how do you see the role of learning and education, especially in our midlife seasons? And, Genefa, I use the word seasons a lot because I believe we go through Seasons just even within midlife itself.
Genefa Murphy:
Mhmm.
Bernie Borges:
And, you know, we’re generally raised to focus on education in our youth And then go to work and have a career. But Yeah. Clearly learning has a much bigger role on that. So I’d love to get your perspective on that.
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah. It does. And, I mean and we see this today, you know, when we speak to our customers, the big organizations that we work with, big and small, to be fair, You know, the need for upskilling, reskilling. I mean, look at what generative AI has done to the world. Completely changed the game. Right. It’s creating jobs, it’s potentially removing jobs and people need to be able to have the skills to be able to leverage that technology and also to be able to figure out what do I do with that technology. So I think there’s always this opportunity for up Feeling, reskilling, learning something new, and you’re exactly right.
Genefa Murphy:
Sometimes when you get to that point in your career, you’re like, can I learn something new? Am I too old to learn something new? Never. You’re never too old to learn something new and I think the great thing as well about Udemy and what attracted me is it’s not just It’s not just professional skills. Right? It’s not just the technology skills. It’s not just the business skills. It’s also Personal skills. Right? Communication, collaboration, mental health. You know, maybe in order to de stress from the world, you wanna go Take a course on sourdough breaking, on baking, on knitting, on on something that’s gonna help your own personal self. And so I think the value of Learning especially in the different midlife phases.
Genefa Murphy:
I mean, 1, it opens up new opportunity. You know, you learn a new skill, You’ve got something new to talk someone about. You have an opportunity to make new connections.
Bernie Borges:
Exactly.
Genefa Murphy:
You learn something new, It keeps you healthy. It engages your brain. It creates new connections in your mind that’s gonna help you, You know, stay young. Right? Younger art, young in mind, you know, young in body. So I think it opens doors. It keeps you healthy. It increases your adaptability, right, that ability to learn a new skill. Sometimes you just wanna prove to yourself you can do it.
Genefa Murphy:
Right? Can I learn
Bernie Borges:
a new
Genefa Murphy:
skill? Right? I don’t know. Go try it. You know what? Yes. I can. And that gives you that sort of Self confidence that that boost, you know, which sometimes when you see how fast the world is moving, you’re like, Wow. Am I am I still relevant? Are my skills still relevant? Yeah. So You
Bernie Borges:
know, I’ll I’ll add 1 more, Genefa. I’ll add 1 more
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah.
Bernie Borges:
Benefit To learning in Midlife. And that is, it can give us a sense of fulfillment.
Genefa Murphy:
Yes.
Bernie Borges:
And I frequently say that fulfillment, Unlike happiness, fulfillment is immutable. When you have achieved fulfillment in some little corner of your life, Right. Whatever that may be, that fulfillment is immutable. If you’ve learned how to write code or or You know, build a website or sourdough baking, whatever it might be. Right? Once you’ve learned that, Nobody can take that away from you. And that gives you a sense of fulfillment. Are you seeing more and more individuals sort of branching out and diversifying what So ifying what they’re willing to go and experiment with their their own learning?
Genefa Murphy:
100%. Yeah. I mean, we always see traction on our platform with the technical skills, The Python, the coding, the AWS, the cloud, etcetera. But we definitely are seeing an uptick in people learning more of those. You know, call them soft skills. Call them personal skills. Call them human skills.
Bernie Borges:
Mhmm. And
Genefa Murphy:
that is becoming more and more, popular and getting, you know, more and more traction. And I think it’s because, you know, it just again, those can be so much more Fulfilling and they’re they’re hard. Right? They’re hard to master. They’re hard to to sort of Capture the value of them, and I think people are seeing more value. And as we work in a more hybrid world, as we work in a more digital world, I think people are craving more of those type of soft personal human skills. And so we do see that surging up in the platform as well, which is really interesting.
Bernie Borges:
And is that what you’re seeing on the business side in terms of the skills that businesses are looking for today? Are are you seeing a demand for a lot of technical skills or soft skills or is it both?
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah. We see both. I think technical skills, The evolution that’s happened on technical skills is people want technical skills, but they also want to be able to validate the technical skills. So, you know, not to get too much into the product, but a couple of months ago, Udemy, we released a badging, right, for some of our, technical courses. And that So popular. So appreciated. So it’s developing the technical skills and being able to validate and certified and verified the technical skills. Then on the other side of the house, we definitely see we just released a learning trends report.
Genefa Murphy:
We definitely see people putting more emphasis on the personal skills, time management, project management, and then Business skills, right, of specific functions. So one of the trending, skills was around social media management. Right? Okay. Social media is everywhere. People trying to understand in fitness. How do I leverage it? How do I understand it? How do I do something with it? And then You’ve got the personal communication skills, empathy skills. The other one as well is the ability, especially for managers, how to deal with Disruptive environments, right, change management, how to deal with change management, and how also to facilitate Open discussion and collaboration. That was another thing that we saw trending.
Bernie Borges:
Yeah. I I would think that those those last 2 are are huge right now because there is so much Change going on and so much emphasis is placed on the technology change and not enough on the change management and Processes and and and like you said, collaboration. I wanna come back to badging, though. I wanna make sure that I understand what that is. So if I complete a course On Udemy, I can get a badge and I can put that on my LinkedIn profile to validate. So there’s a visual there. People can see my my My badge from Udemy?
Genefa Murphy:
Okay. So that’s the idea. So, basically, if you take a course and it’s available for, a subset of our courses right now, and we wanna expand that. But basically, yeah, you can go. You can take a certification. The certification is enabled by the third parties, right, so that it’s unbiased and, You know, it’s fair, and then you can bring your badge back and you can you can showcase that badge. And I think that’s something that internally within an organization, people put a lot of value on but then externally as well being able to sort of show that out in the world that you’re certified in a particular skill or a particular technology. Again going back to not everybody can get a degree, so how do you prove that you have the knowledge, the skills to be able to leverage a particular technology.
Genefa Murphy:
You do it through something like certifications and badging.
Bernie Borges:
So something else that we’ve touched on, but I wanna elaborate a little bit, but I’m gonna I’m gonna frame it up for a little context here. And that is that so often in Midlife, and and I see this on the podcast, Gosh, Genefa. I’ve, you know, talked to so many of dozens and dozens and dozens of people on this podcast that have spoken about career change. And and to some extent, there’s a common theme there. And the common theme is they graduated or they went down a career path And they were on that path for years. They woke up one day and they realized that they’re no longer fulfilled and they want to Pick your verb. Pivot, change, reboot, you know, pick your verb. Right? They wanna do something new and different.
Bernie Borges:
Mhmm. So With an opportunity to get training from from you to me, what what what kind of guidance do you wanna give the listener who might be thinking in in those terms Midlife, okay, I’m ready for something new. I don’t know exactly what that is.
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah. So that’s the great thing is we can actually help with that because when you log into Udemy we can help you sort of say well what is it that you’re trying to do? What type of skill are you trying to learn? And we can actually help guide you in that process. But the biggest piece of advice is just get started. Right? Go try it. Go see. You know? Take take that leap. You know, going back to the earlier part of the conversation, sometimes you ask yourself, hey. In those midlife phases, Can I do it? Should I do it? Should I bother? What’s the purpose? And the answer is yes.
Genefa Murphy:
Yes. You should. Yes. You can. Yes. You should go ahead. And then when you land on the Udemy platform, that’s where we can help guide you based on Searches based on inputs that you give us, based on what other people we see are are learning, what might be trending right now. You might not have any idea.
Genefa Murphy:
You might say, hey. I wanna learn, you know, I wanna learn technology. I wanna learn coding. Great. We can help you understand What’s the most popular thing that people are learning in coding? What’s the most popular thing that people are learning in productivity, as an example. And the great thing is is you’re you’re not taking advice from from us at Udemy, per se. You’re taking advice from those, You know, 65,000,000 other learners, who are leveraging the platform and the content. Yeah.
Bernie Borges:
And the expert trainers. How many I think you said 70,000 trainers?
Genefa Murphy:
Over 70,000. So, you know, I think it’s one of our Biggest strength is that anyone can be an instructor on Udemy. We have a quality process and and really the marketplace decides. If you put a course on Udemy And it gets liked, and it gets purchased, and people engage with it, and then and the community says it’s good, then It will continue to thrive and be successful. And I think that’s pretty cool because everybody learns in a different way. You know, the way you, Bernie, the learner, the instructor that you might respond well to might be different to what I respond well to.
Bernie Borges:
Right.
Genefa Murphy:
And that’s the beauty of Udemy is that It’s not 1 size fits all.
Bernie Borges:
Exactly. Exactly. So then as people are engaging in courses, Are they communing with each other? You used the word community. Are people sort of engaging in community and networking and building relationships, that sort of thing?
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah. So we’re they’re building relationships definitely with the instructors. Right? So our instructors can put q and a. They can do, you know, different posts. And our instructors with especially with our individual learners have a lot of 1 on 1, communications. And then that’s something that we’re building out as we go into 2024 is learner based Communities. Right? So if you’re interested in a particular topic, how can you get together with other people who might be interested In that topic might be taking the course as an example. On our business side of the house, we already have what we call, UBLA, which is Udemy Leadership Academy Udemy Business Leadership Academy and that is a cohort based learning platform.
Genefa Murphy:
So on that particular platform you are going through a learning experience with a cohort of people who you exchange ideas with, You exchange posts with, learning with, you’re doing async learning by yourself, you’re leveraging a moderator, an instructor in person or virtually And that’s a really great way. We definitely see that that notion of community is something we’re really passionate about building at Udemy.
Bernie Borges:
And I assume that I can go at my own pace Or or is each course different and unique?
Genefa Murphy:
Each course is different and unique. You can go at your own pace. So some of our courses are multiple hours. Some of our Courses are a few hours. The other thing, we just released a really cool feature, actually. The team call it semantic search. I call it microlearning. But, essentially, what it allows you to do is using the power of AI is go to the specific point in the course that is most relevant for you.
Genefa Murphy:
So if you wanna learn about the role of marketing and generative AI, say there’s a course that’s 5 hours long And you just wanna learn about the marketing piece, you put that in. We’ll direct you to the specific module, the specific minute, The time and place that matters to you. I mean, you can take that little bit of microlearning, and then you can decide, hey. I wanna take the rest of the course later. I wanna take the rest of the course. Never. I’ve learned what I needed to learn. So we definitely value that notion of being able to sort of pick your own path, if you will.
Bernie Borges:
Interesting. Okay. I like that. I like that. So back to the role of learning in midlife. Mhmm. If people are going through Some transition in their midlife, career transition, life transition, and they start to Engage in Udemy learning environment. Back to the community thing, or is there an opportunity for them to network with other people, or is it strictly just with the instructor?
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah. So it’s mainly with the instructor right now, but that’s one of the things that we’re actually putting together as we go forward next year is how do we bring our learners together. Our organizations, so on the b two b side of the house, they a 100% have the opportunity. We do a, We do a virtual forward event, we call it. We just did 1 in October. We had over 2,000 different learners from different organizations come and join us and engage in about a half day of sort of different presentations and learning opportunities and panels. But for the individual learner, that’s something that we’re looking at putting in for 2024 so that we can bring people together. Right? Hey.
Genefa Murphy:
You’re a group of Udemy users, You know, in Florida, do you wanna get together to learn Python together? I think that’s something that we’re excited about building out and learning from our b to b side and bringing it into our direct to consumer side.
Bernie Borges:
Okay. Genefa, 1 more question before we begin to wrap here. And it comes I wanna come back to something you said earlier in our conversation. You reflect back on your career prior to Udemy. You were in technology, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Micro Focus, Five9, all technology companies. And now you’re at Udemy. So What is what’s going on with you? Like, how do you feel? I’m using the verb feel very intentionally about being a CMO now, and I realized that It’s a technology platform. I get that.
Bernie Borges:
But it’s a learning company. So how do you feel about that versus all the years you spent in technology?
Genefa Murphy:
Don’t get me wrong. I love technology. I’m a technology enthusiast, believe me, but the ability to impact a person’s life, Life, people’s lives. Honestly, I wake up every day and I feel fortunate because I’m because I mean, just some of the stories that Since I’ve got here are just incredible. I mean, we had 1 1 story stories of transformation, we call them. And one story that we we put out there, it was a a gentleman who took a course on Udemy. They were doing an MBA. I think we’re doing traditional learning as well but they took some courses on Udemy.
Genefa Murphy:
They got to meet their instructor. Then after they met their instructor, they became an instructor on Udemy. And now together, the 2 these 2 gentlemen essentially are using some of their funds From being part of the Udemy community to set up new schools in Rwanda.
Bernie Borges:
Wow.
Genefa Murphy:
Like, that that’s the type of story that I feel so fortunate to just even be a part of in the sense that I get to tell that story that it it’s just I I think I have definitely, Had a renewed passion for being a CMO since I’ve come to Udemy because the stories that I get to tell, The voices that I get to represent for the Udimates who are our internal employees.
Bernie Borges:
Right. Right.
Genefa Murphy:
The instructor community who we work with And all of the learners, whether it’s an individual organization, it’s people’s lives. And when you can learn a new skill, I mean, truly you can transform someone’s life.
Bernie Borges:
Yeah.
Genefa Murphy:
It’s amazing.
Bernie Borges:
Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. That must provide a level of fulfillment that again is immutable And just so gratifying. I can I can see it in your smile, Genefa?
Genefa Murphy:
No, I think that’s it. I mean, you know, Sometimes b to b, b to b tech, you know, and being just technology focused, it it it can you know, You think how many times can I make some think faster, quicker, better, more affordable, ROI? And it’s like, no. How can I make someone’s life better?
Bernie Borges:
Yeah. How
Genefa Murphy:
can I help them get their next job? How can I help them get their 1st job? Like, that’s incredible.
Bernie Borges:
Yeah. Well, here on the Midlife of Phil podcast, I talk about the 5 pillars of Midlife. And you’re really, Speaking to the 5th one. So the 5 pillars are health, fitness, and I make a distinction between the 2 career, relationships, And legacy, legacy meaning the impact that you have on others. And that’s what I’m hearing from you, Genefa, Is that you are really feeding that legacy pillar in your career. You’ve had the CMO role in various Technology environments where you’ve proved yourself over and over, and now you get to take that wonderful experience, those wonderful skills, And bring them to a company that can really have an impact on people’s lives. So you’re really feeding that legacy pillar and that is just so wonderful.
Genefa Murphy:
A 100%. And it was the it was the first 2 really well, the first one that drove me here. Right? You know, I had some health issues over the past several years That did make me take a step back and say, well, what’s important? And, you know, do I need to potentially change what some of my priorities are? And I’m, I’m really glad that I’m at I’m at Udemy, and I’m very passionate about being a CMO. I’m extremely passionate about being a CMO at Udemy.
Bernie Borges:
Fantastic. Well, Genefa Murphy, I will include your LinkedIn profile linked up in her show notes. Where can people go to Udemy? Why don’t you maybe even spell it out for those that are listening because it is spelled a little bit unique.
Genefa Murphy:
Yeah. I mean, it could it could be my accent might not help things in all fitness. But, it’s, it’s Udemy, the Academy of You, essentially. Udemy.com. So it’s, u for umbrella, d for delta, e for echo, m for mother, y for yankee.com. So there you go. I try to do my best, to my best friend Eddie there.
Bernie Borges:
I love your accent, Genefa. Yeah. Well, I just wanna thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Midlife of Health podcast, a maximum episode to share your experience, your passion for Lifelong learning as we go through midlife seasons and the access to the ability to Continue to learn on a platform like Udemy. It’s just so wonderful, and I just love what you’re doing. And thank you so much for sharing it with us here on this episode.
Genefa Murphy:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s never too late. Go learn a new skill, opens up all types of new opportunities.
