Brewing Authenticity with Nancy Benter on Culture and Leadership at Starbucks

What happens when you stop trying to fit in and start leading from who you truly are?

In this episode of Breaking Through the Mayhem, Nancy Benter, Enablement & Strategy Partner at Starbucks, shares what it really means to lead with authenticity in today’s workplace.

With over 14 years of experience driving innovation across tech and retail, Nancy unpacks how staying true to her values has shaped her career, why diversity must be a business imperative, and how building trust through transparency creates real organizational impact. She also reflects on her personal journey from assimilation to empowerment and how honoring her Chinese American identity has helped her lead more authentically and inclusively at scale.

What you’ll hear:

 ✨ The turning point where Nancy chose authenticity—and didn’t look back

💬 The three questions she uses to check in with herself as a leader

🌱 Why diversity isn't fluff—it’s fundamental to business

☕️ How coffee tastings at Starbucks turned into moments of cultural connection

⚖️Why clarity on your core values makes leadership (and life) a lot less overwhelming

Nancy’s powerful reflections on human connection, integrity, and courageous leadership will challenge you to bring more of yourself to your work and help others do the same. Tune in now!

TRANSCRIPT

Michele Ching
Welcome to a brand new episode of Breaking Through the Mayhem. Today we've got something truly special for you. We're interviewing Nancy Bender. Nancy is a visionary leader recognized for her strategic acumen and transformative impact across global markets. With over 14 years of executive experience, she has consistently driven revenue growth, operational excellence, and organization innovation in the tech and retail industries.

Nancy's leadership style emphasizes empowering diverse teams and fostering inclusive company cultures, resulting in resilient, high performance organizations. Her expertise spans corporate strategy, digital transformation, and market expansion, earning her multiple industry awards and accolades. A mentor and thought leader, she actively contributes to industry panels and executive networks, sharing insights on leadership, innovation, and the future of work. Nancy is currently leading strategy at Starbucks, furthering the mission of nurturing human connection with every cup, conversation, and community.

Nancy, welcome to the Sightly podcast. We're so happy to have you.

Nancy Benter
Thank you for having me, Michel. And wow, what an introduction. I don't know if I ever felt that way, so I appreciate being on

Michele Ching
Oh yeah. I mean, it's honestly our privilege to feature you and the incredible work that you do. So some background for those tuning in.

Nancy and I are friends off camera. So this is one of the first times we’re actually taking our friendship in the public eye. I'm super excited to do that. We actually met each other through a women's leadership organization that we're both part of, and we have collaborated across a handful of different projects, including TEDx Culver City, and the, Asian-American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month celebrations.

At both of our companies. So I'm just honored to get to feature you, and your professional work today.

Nancy Benter
Likewise. Michele. I think I'm getting used to the fact that we're doing something that is kind of professional in the moment. Because I see you as a friend first. So. Yeah, I'm. I'm excited to be here.

Michele Ching
Cool. All right, so for those of us who don't know you as well as I do, can you tell us a little bit about your personal journey as a strategy executive?

Nancy Benter
I sure can. And when I was reflecting on this question, what I'm going to share in vulnerability is that it's been really lonely, and it's been a really interesting experience to really understand what is driving that loneliness and how I work my way through it.

So, like you mentioned in my introduction, I've been in corporate spaces for over 14 years. I've been in the wireless industry. I've been in financial services, and now I'm leading human connection over a great cup of coffee at Starbucks. But it has been interesting to realize that what made me really successful in corporate America was assimilating. It was assimilating and fitting and and observing how all the leaders around me were really successful.

I would do everything that Dave does. So if Dave says synergy or Dave speaks in corporate jargon, that was exactly how I would behave. And by the way, this is not an insult to anyone named Dave. Dave is just like my corporate leader archetype, for lack of a better word. But yeah, I spent a lot of my time just observing really successful people in professional spaces, and I just replicated what they did.

And it made me really lonely and isolated because I realized that wasn't true to who I, who I was. And so I made this very intentional decision, midway in my career that I'm going to choose me, I'm going to decide to empower myself to take ownership for the kind of experience that I want as I'm growing my career, which is why I got involved in Chief.

I'm so thankful I did that because it connected to me, to leaders like yourself, Michele and many, many others. But I started realizing that I wasn't recruiting people on my team that had like values as me. I am somebody who wants to share. I'm somebody who wants to be educated. I always tell my kids, my loved ones and even my team that I'm a lifelong learner.

I get really nervous if I'm in environments where I'm surrounded by people who say that they know everything, because it makes me wonder, we've known everything, then how are we innovating and how are we going ourselves as individuals, and how are we contributing to the business, and how are we contributing to society and the community? So I get very nervous when I hear the word no really often.

My whole point is I started making decisions about who I wanted to be surrounded by. And once I made that switch into my trusted advisory group is going to be made up of people who are going to give me tough feedback. They're going to, what's that cheesy Instagram quote? They're going to fix your crown when nobody's looking.

Like I started surrounding myself around leaders like that. And then I found myself in a more expansive space where I felt I was not only thriving in my career, but I was thriving in my personal life as well.

Michele Ching
That's beautiful that, you know, here at Sightly, we care a lot about authenticity. We prioritize it in the clients that we serve, and of course, the people that we collaborate and work with and also internally with our own leadership.

We really actually are and it's kind of cheesy to say this, but we do a wonderful job of encouraging every single one of our employees to bring their whole selves to work. I can say for myself personally, I have actually had the opportunity to do that, not truly until I started working here at Sightly. And so when I hear about your journey with authentic leadership that really resonates for the way that we kind of see not only our internal culture, but the work product that we put out there in the universe.

Which leads me to my next question. When it comes to your work nowadays, how important is authenticity to you and why?

Nancy Benter
Yeah, well, authenticity is one of my core values. I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise for anyone. I have to be able to lead with authenticity in mind. So I have to be able to bring all the parts of me into my leadership style, or I can feel it.

I can sense that I am trying to be someone I'm not. Something that has really helped me understand authenticity is that I have to be in full alignment with the product, the mission, the vision, the values. I can't pick and choose which things I want to be authentic about. It has to be total alignment through and through.

It's been really eye opening that I'm now at a company where all of my values around authenticity is surrounded in the product and surrounded by the people that I'm surrounded with, and community with. And so it has made it easier for me to just breathe that authenticity in every single conversation.

Michele Ching
So it leaves me wondering, Nancy, nowadays in your work, what actions do you take day to day to ensure that sense of authenticity in how you show up either professionally, in-house or how you show up within the work that you do on behalf of Starbucks.

Nancy Benter
Yeah. So first I have to say that I'm learning it's a very privileged position to be in a place where my values are in total alignment with the values of my employer, Starbucks.

When I think about Starbucks' mission, it's all about how we are serving a high quality cup of coffee over every conversation, every connection, and every community, and that we're nurturing limitless possibilities of human connection. That's just who I am as a person. And so I want to acknowledge that that authenticity is able to come through and through, because my own natural belief system is an alignment to my employer.

What I will say in ensuring that I don't go off track with my authenticity, because my authenticity is not for sale. And my integrity is very adjacent to my authenticity. There is this symbiotic relationship there. So I have to slow myself down here and there to make sure that I am still honoring my authenticity and how I lead and the products that I support and just how I show up in the world.

So I do ask myself a series of like, mirror questions just to ensure that I am protecting that authenticity. So a few questions that I, I tend to ask myself in case people are curious, I like to ask myself, is this a problem I’m solving aligned to my purpose? The second question I usually ask myself is, are my boundaries valued?

And then lastly, I ask myself, do I feel safe? If it is a unanimous yes without any hesitation, that's when I know my authenticity is in a place where it is respected. It is appreciated. It is valued. And I'm happy to go through some examples if that's helpful.

Michele Ching
I definitely want to hear some examples, but first I want to reflect on something really important.

Back to what you said. It's actually not. It's pretty interesting and not a surprise that this is the case, but what I heard you say is that the way you ensure authenticity is that you have total alignment in the way you lead, the products you support and how you show up in the world you also have alignment in your values to the values and mission and vision of the company that you're a part of.

It's so interesting that you say that, because what if you already know this? But just for the audience listening, it's like Sightly had the same AHA moment, not only about human beings, but about brands, and that consumers were demanding that level of alignment and authenticity from the brands that they support. And so it's so funny, you have a series of questions.

Sightly created their whole brand profile around a series of questions that we ask brands so that their work and how they show up in the world can be in total alignment with their mission, vision, values and purpose. So it's kind of cool that, like, we're creating technology that helps brands and businesses have a code of authenticity, and it's actually what you're doing in real time as a human being, I love that.

But yes, if you could give us maybe some examples of the ways that this structure of this framework has supported you in your work, I'd love to learn about that.

Nancy Benter
I love hearing that Sightly’s doing that, by the way. Because what I will reflect back before I share some examples is that I can't pick and choose.

I can't choose to be authentic in this one meeting or authentic in this one situation. It is too exhaustive. It has to be a complete picture for me to be genuine to myself. And this makes me think about how I've started to incorporate my Chinese identity into the workplace. And I'm very fortunate to be at a company that allows us to share stories.

One of my favorite components of Starbucks culture is that we have coffee tastings. And there's two goals of the coffee tasting. One, we get to get closer to our coffee heritage and really understand how the beans are made, where they are produced. The farmers that have taken care of the beans. We're able to understand the sourcing methods and just really, genuinely appreciate the high quality art of crafting coffee.

And the second thing, which I love about our coffee tastings is we get to know the person who is leading that tasting, and no two stories are the same. And it's one way that I get really connected to the people on my team and the people that I partner with. And so I started thinking about, all right, when it's time for me to have my coffee tasting, or if I'm thinking of ways where I'm bringing my full, authentic selves to work, I start talking about my Chinese identity.

I'm first Chinese to Chinese American. I am the daughter of immigrant parents. My family survived the Cultural Revolution way back in the day, and I have a really powerful immigration story, which I kind of know a little bit about. But I also understand that it's pretty traumatic. And so I don't know every single nuance of their courageous journey. And so what I started sharing with my peers is exactly that.

I started sharing that when I hear people talk, I'm double thinking because I hear them in both Mandarin and I hear them in both English, because my goal is I don't want to be the same leader. I want to create a space where we can have new leaders make their way, and the only way to do that is if I bring in these unique components of my background and my lived experience.

I don't know if anyone knows this, but Nancy was not supposed to be my real name. Yeah, so my real name is Li Na, but my parents, they understood that we were growing up in America. They wanted me to have friends. They wanted me to present as American. So I was actually named after Nancy Reagan. Only because the way that my parents learned English was watching television.

So we watched the news. We watched The Price Is Right, Jeopardy! Wheel of Fortune. That was our English education. And my mom really liked the name Nancy. And so she was like, all right, that's going to be your American name. But I started thinking about how do I even incorporate aspects of that so that people start understanding that I have these two identities that are so important to me as a leader, and I'm learning how to integrate both parts because that's a part of who I am.

And I also know that there's other people that are going through a similar journey.

Michele Ching
And what's so beautiful about what you shared, not only your personal story, but the way that you're weaving that through to your leadership at Starbucks is and this is how I've always thought of you, because you work at these huge companies. You're not sharing this diversity story for the impact of like six people.

I mean, how many employees does Starbucks have nowadays?

Nancy Benter
Thousands, tens of thousands across the United States? At the retail level, we have 14,500. In the United States alone. And then in our corporate office, I think it's around 500 if my numbers are correct. But yeah, tens of thousands.

Michele Ching
Right. Like, that's what I love about this is that you are sharing this story and weaving that through your leadership that has impacts, that impacts thousands of people who are actually serving a massive more than thousands and millions of people as like a community of customers.

So I think a few things that I heard is that when you're going through the coffee tastings, as a way to connect with your team members, you are able to share these personal stories. And, by sharing these personal stories, you can kind of what you said is like, create more space there for including more stories like this and bringing more authenticity into the workplace.

And that in and of itself is culture defining, at a, at an organization. So that's already beautiful in its own right. But then on top of that, we know the data shows that diverse leadership equals diversity of thought, which equals better business performance outcomes in the end. And so really what I'm hearing from you is that your commitment to authenticity connects to your commitment to diversity in the workplace, which ultimately connects to better performance overall for the business at Starbucks, it's really really cool.

Nancy Benter
That's right. I see it as a business imperative. I know I have a very provocative point of view and I tend to say very unpopular things. It's part of my reputation. I struggle to understand companies who are not considering diversity as part of their business models. I think those companies are going to have a very difficult time thriving.

And as modern day age, if they're not taking that into serious consideration.

Michele Ching
We completely agree here at Sightly. If you actually take a look at our executive leadership team, where a majority like over 80% female. So I love the people I get to work with every day. But also on top of that, in our Brand Mentality® platform, we're not, look I'm not here to say that technology has it all right when it comes to diversity and inclusion.

We know that to be, that to not be true yet. And we hope to change that. Sightly wants to be a part of that change. But also in our platform, we very intentionally included questions about inclusivity and about diversity so that brands not only have to, but they get to take a code of ethics or code of authenticity position on what diversity and inclusion actually means to them as a business and as a brand.

And we ask them in every single profile to validate that. So even if it's an afterthought in their day to day business, we ask them to bring that to the forefront. And we say, hey, like, we need to know who you are in this way so that we as a, you know, marketing thought partner on your behalf, as a strategic partner on your behalf.

We know where you stand on this because it actually does truly matter to the performance of your business.

Nancy Benter
That's right.

Michele Ching
All right. So we're bringing our time to a close. And I wanted to ask you, you've given us a lot to think about from, you know, authentic leadership perspective. So the question is what can we do here? Nancy Benter, what is your advice?

What can we do here from here, as people who either work in this industry or in corporate America, who want to maybe use some of the tools that you've shared today.

Nancy Benter
Such a fantastic question. And I know this seems like a Captain Obvious thing to say, but the first thing is get really clear on your values. Even if you have to sit down and write down what they are, their top values that really guide your decision making.

Because if you start there, then it starts being a lot more simple to prioritize the right things. So take some time to really think about like, what is my purpose and what values are enabling that purpose? So it might be resiliency. It might be authenticity like we talked about. It might be driving courage. Just get in alignment to what those core values are.

And then everything that seems really daunting will be a lot more clear because you now have this decision making framework of what energy consumes in your life and what energy you are choosing not to spend. Something that has been really effective for me. Then I have to thank a mentor and a sponsor of mine at Starbucks, Chanda Babu, who recommended this tool for me.

There are the values, the values that I live. It's like a card game. And it easily helps you start defining what values you are in tune with. And once I found my, my results are like ten different categories of how I live my life. It just brought a lot of clarity into the things I want to say no to.

So those moments where I feel like I'm all consuming or I'm scattered, or I'm burnt out, or I am all over the place, it's because I'm not following my code, my code of values. So that's my first piece of advice is getting really, really clear on what those are. The other thing, which I cannot stress enough, is really thinking about your trusted advisory group, not people who are going to tell you what you want to hear.

That's very different. That's an echo chamber. And echo chambers do not push you to grow into a person who's going to come and transform industries and transform systems. You need a trusted advisory group that is going to give you sound feedback and push you to really think more critically or think even even help push that. Your idea might not be great and tell you that there are failure points in your idea.

So then you can stop working on that piece of work and try something different. So those are my two main advices getting really clear on your values. And then secondly investing in a sound trusted advisory group

Michele Ching
I love that. I love that for you as a leader, but also, you know, selfishly at Sightly like the words you say is like actually the entire business platform we designed.

So it's funny, as you're telling this story about getting clear on your values, helps you, streamline the things that you want to say yes or no to. It's funny, because we did that exact exercise both with our internal team members and we said, hey, if you don't have a framework for doing this, we have a platform of technology that we use for businesses and brands.

But you could totally put yourself and your identity through the decision framework and the profile that we set up. And it was actually really cool because doing it with internal team members and then hosting these, like getting clear on your values sessions and authenticity sessions with clients like I think it helps them see. Oh, wait a second. Yeah, I'm doing work on behalf of the business I support, but I'm also getting to use this type of approach to get clearer about who I am in the workplace and the work I want to do.

So yes, love this advice and to the extent that we can perpetuate this call to action with you saying is about it, okay, next question. It's a little bit of like a lightning round. It's like a quick first answer off the top of your head, name your favorite mission driven business and why

Nancy Benter
Can I say Starbucks? So it totally comes off like I'm kissing up to my employer, but really?

And here's why I think now more than ever, especially in a technology dominated world, we are losing the art of conversation, of human connection. I think it's really difficult to support a business, a global business at scale, that still values that intimate human connection. So like eye contact, really understanding Michelle and her favorite beverage when she comes in, having that banter around like, hey Michelle, how did that presentation go the other day?

I remember you talking about that a few days ago. I desperately missed that. And I remember when society was more in that way, just being in-tune to each other's emotions. So this is why I like genuinely at Starbucks. I don't think there's many companies who can do human connection at scale the way that they do. And I'm just very honored to be a part of the mission.

We just wrapped up, like more facts about Starbucks. It's right now my favorite season because it's holiday. So if you walk into any Starbucks retailer, you got the Red Cup, you got the beautiful merchandizing, but you also have baristas that are joyous. They're like happy to serve your community. They understand the regulars that come in. And so through and through.

I'm just very blessed to be at a company that is prioritizing human connection as our mission.

Michele Ching
I love that, and I think that if you're considering you know, we all were in quarantine when human connection had suffered a massive blow. And we're still sort of all collectively recovering for that, working at a company that has human connection as its central goal.

And it's big picture vision and mission around. Like, I just there's something I really love about human connection. Yes, the human connection over a cup of coffee because I feel like you gave some good examples, but for any of us who've been working for a decent amount of time, my strongest relationships were the ones where you just kind of get up in the middle of the day and you go, hey, let's walk across the street, let's get a cup of coffee.

And that's like, that's how you build those relationships. And like, quite frankly, I feel like that's where a lot of the real work gets done because you get to talk out your ideas. You get to like reflect on what's going well or what you'd like to change. And so through human connection over a cup of coffee invites innovation.

Nancy Benter
It totally does. And what I would build on to what you shared, Michele I work for a company that invests in baristas, career growth. So I surround myself where I'm constantly surrounded by people at the company for ten years, 15 years, 20 years. The leader who invented pumpkin spice latte works two floors below me. And so it's very like I think I'm sitting amongst history when it comes to coffee.

And so I'm just really blessed that there are investments all around in how we invest in people.

Michele Ching
I love that, and I also I'm like, who invented the pumpkin spice latte? That's kind of cool.

Nancy Benter
Peter Dukes

Michele Ching
Oh, okay.

Nancy Benter
He's probably like I had no idea I'm going to be talked about on a podcast, but yeah, yeah, speak of innovation.

He was able to work together with the team, and they realized that pumpkin pie pairs very deliciously with espresso.

Michele Ching
Natural. Yeah. Of course. Oh my gosh. Brilliant. Iconic. Okay, so last question. What would you leverage your courage for?

Nancy Benter
Such a great question. It would be for justice. It would be to give voice and give visibility to those who don't have it or haven't had a chance to tell their stories, or when they have tried to tell their stories.

It hasn't been taken for truth. I always joke with my husband that in another lifetime, maybe I'll become a lawyer or something, because there's something very empowering with understanding the law and what you can, what you can do to help those in need. But yeah, it's absolutely for justice.

Michele Ching
And I can just second that because I know you. And that is truly something you actively leverage your courage for. So that wraps us up. Nancy, thank you so much for being our featured guest today on the Breaking Through the Mayhem podcast and sharing vulnerably your personal stories and your professional journey.

Nancy Benter
It was a pleasure to be here. Thank you Michele.

Michele Ching
I'll see you later.

Nancy Benter
Bye.