In Comparably’s new Women’s History Month series, female executives from our most recent Best CEOs of 2019 list sit down with us to impart some important leadership lessons. Following is an excerpt from our conversation with co-founder and CEO Lynn Jurich of San Francisco, California-based Sunrun (Nasdaq: RUN) – a company revolutionizing how consumers get electricity. Not only did she endure 2008’s infamous financial crisis, she beat the odds to create the largest dedicated provider of residential solar services in the country (to the tune of over $3 billion).
Prior to Sunrun, Lynn worked at Summit Partners as one of a few female VCs and completed investments with an aggregate market value of over $900 million in the financial services and technology sectors. Named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2013 and Forbes’Women to Watch in 2015, it is no wonder why Lynn’s employees consistently rate her as one of the best leaders in the country. Read the full excerpt below to see what qualities she deems as essential to be an effective leader, how she maintains work-life balance, and how she overcame workplace inequality.
——–
What Top 3 qualities are essential to be an effective or good leader?
At Sunrun, we’ve worked to instill the values of curiosity, courage, and staying human-centered across the company, because these qualities helped us break into solar, and become the nation’s leading home solar, battery storage, and energy services company.
In 2007, solar was inaccessible to most people because it was confusing and there were large up-front costs. My co-founder, Ed Fenster, and I called many of the early solar customers in those days, which were universities, public schools, governments, and some forward-thinking businesses, trying to understand what they wanted and what their needs were. Because it was a nascent industry, there wasn’t a lot of research — so we did our own, talking to anybody who would take our call. We spent a lot of time at the beginning listening to what these people wanted and needed, and we’re incredibly grateful for the time they shared with us.
Out of these conversations we developed our solar-as-a-service model, which provides people with clean, affordable solar power from their roof without any upfront cost or maintenance concerns. Many industry insiders and investors told us that solar was an impossible industry to break into. Yet 13 years later, our idea changed the way Americans are able to participate in a clean energy future.
What hero, book, or piece of advice has helped you most in your career?
I follow The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, which is a book that has helped me find balance in my leadership style. Each of these commitments is valuable, and at Sunrun we use a framework called Impeccable Agreements, which boils down to committing to do what you say you will. It sounds simple, but has really transformed how we interact with each other. If for some reason you can’t follow through, you have to explicitly renegotiate the agreement. That’s painful, so the end result is that we’re much more careful about what we agree to in the first place, and we keep the vast majority of our daily promises.
I try to make my own commitments impeccable, and when someone makes a commitment to me, I pay a lot of attention to whether they’re giving me a “whole body yes” versus hesitating. I’m much more careful to listen to people with my heart and gut, not just my head. Now I can connect with people more quickly and listen to what they’re not saying as well as what they are.
Have you ever experienced inequality in the workplace, and if so, how did you handle it?
Yes – when I first started talking about building a solar company, the response from people was that it was too hard, and that there was no way I could succeed. “There are enough smart people trying to do this – we don’t need you – go home, little girl.”
In terms of advice, in my experience, I think it’s really important not to be intimidated by the money side of things, and to have the confidence that if you work hard and are ethical, that you can overcome anything. No one is ever going to disrespect that. Our society has somehow cultivated perfectionist tendencies for women, and these hold people back. We want to be savvy in what we’re doing, but we also need to understand that a few failures are OK.
As a society, we need to value things other than dominance and independence. We need to value community and some of these other qualities that tend to be thought of as feminine. Until we have a system and a culture that values more of that, I don’t think the problem gets fixed.
A small percentage of women are CEOs — and an even smaller percentage in the Fortune 500. What can companies do to increase females in leadership roles?
We can’t expect more women to become CEOs overnight – as a society, we have a lot of cultural and workplace bias that we need to overcome. Nothing will happen on this front unless we address gender equality, diversity and inclusion head on. Sunrun will continue to do more, but I’m proud of what we’ve achieved so far. In 2018 we were the first national solar company to achieve 100% pay parity after committing to The White House Equal Pay Pledge in 2016. Women make up 50% of our senior executives, and 38% of our Board of Directors.
What was the biggest challenge you faced and how did you overcome it?
We started Sunrun in 2007, and were just starting to get our feet under us when the recession hit. On the same day we closed our first project finance fund in 2008, the S&P 500 hit an 11-year low. It was a really stressful time, and we asked ourselves a lot of hard questions. Could we still raise capital? Do we need to give up and shut down? Ed and I looked at each other and said, “we’re going to get it done because we have to; we have no choice.”
Thankfully, we showed U.S. Bank the strength of our business model, and they invested $40 million, which kept us going through the crisis. Because of this, we were able to build a product that people really wanted, and showed that there was a lot of consumer interest in our business model for solar. From that point on, we’ve been able to steadily attract the capital to finance the business, and we now employ 4,400 people and have more than 270,000 customers in many states across the country.
How do you motivate yourself?
I stay motivated by regularly getting out into the field to spend time with our teams. In the 13 years since Sunrun started, I’ve worked in nearly every job at the company, from sales, to installing panels, to working on project finance. I started Sunrun to build a planet run by the sun, and I’m inspired by the passion and dedication that everyone here has for fighting climate change and transforming our electricity system.
Last year in California, utility blackouts put millions of people in the dark to reduce the risk of wildfires. Hundreds of Sunrun customers were able to keep their lights on for the duration of the outages, which lasted 36 hours on average. One family relied on their rooftop solar and home battery system for 142 hours straight, nearly six days. Not only are we reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, we’re also providing backup power to people who are suffering through the impacts of climate change.
How do you balance your personal and professional life?
I mentioned before that Sunrun started right before the financial crisis, and finding a balance has always been a work in progress. In 2015, I was pregnant and we wanted to take Sunrun public. My daughter was born in July, and one month later on August 5, we took Sunrun public and did the full roadshow with my daughter in tow.
I was incredibly fortunate that my mom was able to be there to help, and I’m really proud that we rang the opening bell on NASDAQ with three generations of Jurich women all together. It was a really special experience to have her support, both physically and emotionally.
I’m optimistic that the days of this frenetic excitement are hopefully behind me, but I’ve realized the importance of nourishing your mind, spirit, and body. You can’t ignore one, because it’s going to make the others fall apart. I meditate, walk three miles to work every morning, and I make time to play and laugh with friends as much as I can. Sticking to this routine has been a huge life-changer.
What does earning a spot on Comparably’s Best CEOs list mean to you?
I’m humbled to be recognized in the Top 10 of Comparably’s list of best CEOs in the U.S. with so many other impressive people that run large companies. Every day we’re showing that you can fight climate change, reduce pollution, and help provide backup power to those impacted by natural disasters, all while being a successful publicly traded company.
