How one female CEO turned grit, bold moves, and a deep respect for her roots into a powerful vision for OpenTable.
In a bold, wide-ranging conversation on the How She Does It podcast, female CEO Debby Soo joins Karen Finerman to talk candidly about her path to the top of OpenTable and the values that fuel her every step. From steering the company through the chaos of the pandemic to rebuilding it into a sharper, more competitive platform, Soo’s journey is anything but conventional.
Rooted in Grit: Growing Up the Daughter of Immigrants
Soo’s story begins in a crowded two-bedroom apartment in Daly City, California, where she shared space with her immigrant parents, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. Her parents worked long hours building a brick-and-mortar travel agency, while Soo learned by watching, absorbing a relentless work ethic and an instinct for adaptation.
“Afternoons when I was a very young kid were spent with my grandmother going to Chinatown, buying groceries, visiting the local Mahjong Hall,” she recalls. “My parents were always working.”
As an only child in an immigrant household, she became an expert at code-switching and reading a room, skills that would later prove invaluable in boardrooms and pitch meetings.
From Stanford to Wall Street, and the Graveyard of Failures
Despite graduating from Stanford, Soo admits she never saw herself as the smartest in the room, but she was always the hardest worker. She woke up at 4:30 a.m. in high school to study, worked multiple jobs during her MBA, and powered through dozens of rejections before breaking into investment banking.
She’s honest about her hard-won accomplishments. “I always say, you look at my resume now, and it’s shiny and bright. But what you don’t see is behind each one of those bullet points, there’s a graveyard of failures.”
Becoming a Female CEO: The Bold Move That Changed Everything
Under Soo’s leadership, OpenTable has shifted its focus toward serving its true customers: the 65,000 restaurants on its platform. “We serve restaurants, that’s it. We are trying to do what’s best for our restaurants because if our restaurants thrive, we thrive as a business,” she says.
From eliminating two-year lock-ins during the pandemic to revamping pricing structures and improving product design, Soo has led a complete reset of the company’s approach. She also implemented a strategic partnership with Visa aimed at regaining elite restaurant clientele and competing with rivals like American Express-owned Resy.
Leadership Evolution: From Fixer to Builder
Soo describes herself as a natural problem-solver. But as a female CEO, she’s had to learn to resist the urge to fix everything herself. Now, her focus is on building systems, developing leaders, and ensuring long-term scalability.
“As a CEO, there are a lot of problems and a lot of obstacles. Everything that a company faces could land on my plate,” she says. “Now the game is not to go in and fix it, which is always my first inclination, but it’s how do we train the system and the people so that they can fix it so it doesn’t come to me.”
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