Google’s director of global partnerships and former yearbooker Thao Tran addresses developers at Chrome Dev Summit 2016 in San Francisco. In addition to the more than 1,000 attendees, the summit was livestreamed. “It’s crazy to think that my product area includes more than 4 billion users,” she said.
On her busiest of days as Google’s director of global partnerships, Thao Tran might have 15 meetings back-to-back. Calls with Europe mean an early start in California and connecting with Asia sometimes requires evening chats.
Long hours are the norm in Silicon Valley, but there’s flexibility, she said, allowing for family time and dinner at home.
A busy schedule never scared Tran away from her goals anyway.
While managing an ambitious academic load, she was senior class president at San Jose’s Independence High School and co-editor-in-chief of the American yearbook, a 320-page volume with a legacy of Crowns and Pacemakers.
The decades between have been filled with opportunities, challenges and achievements, but the connection between the two phases of her life is clear. At heart, she’s a storyteller, motivator and organizer.
At heart, she’s a yearbooker.
Tran joined yearbook in sixth grade and was identified as “reliable and responsible” early on. She rallied her friends to transform the middle school book into a more credible history with thorough captions and reporting.
After three years in the world of picas, coverage and sales, she found she couldn’t be on high school staff until she was an upperclassman. That would be OK, she decided. She’d have time to concentrate on the space-science classes that attracted her to Independence in the first place.
The respite from yearbook did not last long. She contributed unofficially at first, then was invited to enroll in a before-school class as a sophomore. She went to camps and conventions, sought to cover individuals on the giant campus and led the 80-member staff.
When her time at Independence came to a close, she took her credentials to Yale, where she majored in political science.
She worked on the Yale Daily News, and used her organizational skills to define the role of managing editor so design/production editors could help improve the publication. Though she had other summer projects (more than once, related to yearbook), she kept going back to the summer workshop she attended as an aspiring editor.
Tran stayed connected to the process and mentored young staffers.
After college, she moved to New York and worked for Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst.
Later, as she transitioned to a business analyst’s role, she found herself involved with messaging. Her wordsmith prowess set her apart. When thinking about grad school, she contemplated media options once again.
While mentors told her an MBA would open doors, she decided to pursue new media and publishing at Stanford. It led to a position at The Washington Post where she managed digital innovation.
During those years, she married Andy Dunmire and had a son, Matthieu. They’d talked about the opportunities, and the family, in Silicon Valley and began research. Five years ago, the stars aligned. Tran joined Google’s team, and they relocated to San Jose.
It turned out, yearbook set her up for success in her new job. She even had co-workers take the True Colors personality test she did as a staffer.
Her professional conversations at Google focus on content strategy, user journeys and the web ecosystem. She brings innovation and insight on the evolution of the consumer experience with Chrome to companies worldwide.
“We need to work with our partners to create the road map, determine the stories we want to tell, craft narrative and stay on message,” Tran said.
Just like in yearbook.