In this keynote, Meredith Davis shares her unconventional career path driven by a personal mission to give a voice to sex, dating, and relationships. She began by creating her own human sexuality major at Indiana University and conducting four years of research at the Kinsey Institute, only to discover she disliked lab work. After graduation she joined a high‑end luxury sex‑toy company, where an acquisition brought in misogynistic leadership, leading to harassment and her eventual firing. With only a suitcase of vibrators and no money, she hit "rock bottom" but reframed it as a starting point, identifying dating apps as the bridge between sex and tech. Through relentless cold‑emailing she secured a contract role at The League, a dating app for high‑achieving professionals, and grew with the company over two years, eventually shaping its hiring philosophy. She emphasizes hiring for passion and mission‑fit, the scrappy nature of startup work, and the importance of staying true to one’s purpose despite setbacks. Her closing message urges the audience to follow their passions, embrace failure, and keep a clear mission as the compass for their careers.
Chapters
Hi, my name is Meredith Davis, and I'm so unbelievably excited and honored to be speaking amongst all these amazing, empowering females. I'm going to take you on my journey tonight. My journey has been a little unconventional. It starts from lugging around a suitcase full full of vibrators— Yes! —to becoming the league's first employee. And the one thing that you'll hear me talk about a lot tonight is my passions and my mission. And my mission has really been the driving force in my career and has really led me to where I am today, which is that I want to bring a voice to sex, dating, and relationships. And that mission initially drove me to Indiana University, where I created my own major in human sexuality. I studied at the world-renowned Kinsey Institute, and I did sex research for 4 years. I researched topics such as women's arousal to what increases and decreases pleasure and orgasms. It was amazing. Why wouldn't it be? But while I was there, I realized that while I loved studying sex, I actually hated research. And so I— Yeah, it wasn't that fun. I'm too much of an extrovert to be sitting in a research lab. So I thought to myself, "OK, it's second semester of senior year, and I need to figure out what I'm going to do with my life." So I thought about my mission, and I started to think about all the different career paths that I could go into that would align with that mission. So I'm having this conversation to myself, and I'm thinking, "All right, here we go." OB/GYN. Uh-uh. Mm-mm. Not taking that MCAT. All right. Stripper. You know, I'm just— I'm a really bad dancer. But what about sex toys? Huh. Yeah. Sex toys. I could do that. So fast forward to after graduation, and I landed a job at a high-end luxury sex toy manufacturer based here in San Francisco. The company's mission was to enhance relationships and bring pleasure to the people. Awesome. It was amazing, and it totally aligned with my own missions and my own passions. I was unstoppable. Not even TSA could stop me when they— Let me tell you. Do not travel with vibrators. Every time I was at the airport, I was frisked because I was carrying a huge oversized carry-on full of lithium-ion batteries and vibrators. Woo! Unfortunately, soon after I started this new job, the company went through a major acquisition and was purchased by a company that when you walk into that dirty, grimy sex toy store and you see those phallic-looking products on the wall, that's the company that acquired mine. And so all of a sudden, all the managers and execs, those who I was reporting to, were now misogynistic, uneducated, and sitting on billions of dollars from the porn industry. All of a sudden, my mission of bringing pleasure to the people was now totally different. And all of a sudden, I felt really unsafe in my work environment. I was now being asked to unbutton my shirt when I was at client meetings, and I was asked to sit on vendors' laps. All of a sudden, I was walking down a career path that felt really scary. Scary. And what I'm about to say, I actually have never said in public. I have a lot of coworkers and a lot of friends in the crowd who don't even know this part of my story, because the truth is I've been really ashamed and embarrassed about it. But I do think it's unbelievably important and has shaped who I am today. So I went to the CEO, and I really wanted to talk to him about how uncomfortable I was. Not only was he dismissive, but he fired me. So here I am in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the world. I had no money, I had just been fired, and the only thing that I had was a huge oversized bag full of dildos. So, I started to think to myself, Well, I've hit my rock bottom. But sometimes hitting rock bottom is not a bad place to start. So I started thinking again about my mission. My mission of bringing a voice to sex, dating, and relationships. And then I realized, "Ah! I am in the headquarters of every possible tech company you could ever dream of." All right, so how do I bridge the gap between sex and tech? Dating apps. All right, so now I just needed to research. So I started researching all the different dating apps out there. Tinder. Ah, you know what, Mare? I know you have higher standards than that. We all should have higher standards than that. But what about The League? Hmm. Founded by Amanda Bradford, former Salesforce Googler, Stanford MBA, aka an alpha female badass, creating a platform where high-achieving individuals could seek out the other part of their power couple. Perfect. All right, so I needed an intro. I go on LinkedIn, zero connections. So what is an unemployed gal to do? Try to guess what her email is. A. Bradford at theleague.com. Amanda at theleague.com. Amanda dot Bradford at theleague.com. How could I possibly figure out which one was the right email? I didn't. I simply emailed every single possible combination I could think of, hoping that at one point one would go through. Finally, I got a response that wasn't a bounce back. "Hi Meredith, thank you so much for your email. Unfortunately, We're not hiring right now. Sincerely, Amanda Bradford. Hi Amanda, thank you so, so, so much for your email. I'm attaching my resume below. I would really love the chance to talk to you. I believe that the league's mission very much aligns with my own. Best, Meredith. Hi Meredith, thanks again. Really love your enthusiasm. Unfortunately, we're not hiring. Get back to us in 6 months to a year. "Hi Amanda, I am now attaching every single reference that I could possibly think of because I would love to talk to you." "All right Meredith, why don't you come in for 15 minutes?" Well, what can I say? My persistence paid off and I sure landed that 1-month contract to hire position. 2 years later, and I'm still here. And I've seen a lot in my 2 years, and I've been a part of growing the company, and a part of that has been a lot of hiring decisions. I've seen the company grow from 1 to 8 employees, 8 back down to 3, 3 to 20. And the one thing that I will ask any prospective hire is, "What is your passion?" Or, "What is your mission?" Because I've seen a lot of people come and go from The League, but the ones who are able to handle the rockiness of a startup are those whose personal missions and values align with ours. You know, I was talking to Amanda the other day, and we were talking, and she asked me, "What— how would you get off of a deserted island?" And we're laughing and talking about it, and she looks at me and says, You know what, Meredith? You would build a boat, but it would not be a pretty boat. In fact, it would have holes in it, we may even sink, and you probably would forget to build the oars. But to work at a startup, you don't need to necessarily know how to build a boat, but you gotta believe that you gotta get yourself off that island. And so that's something that we look at when we're hiring, is people who are scrappy, people who will execute, and people who will do anything that needs to be done in order to promote the league's missions and passions. And, you know, sometimes it's not always pretty and the water is not always rocky or not always clear. Some days I'm having to run QA tests and some days are not fun, and I'm having to pull data. Other days, I am trying to hire a tarot card reader or a sword swallower for a party that we're hosting. But I am constantly reminding myself that I am on the greater path of promoting the League's missions in creating power couples and enhancing relationships. And, you know, doing this for other people and helping others in growing their relationships has definitely affected my personal relationships. I can't deny that my dating life has taken a hit. I mean, thank God I have all those dildos still. But— but I'm constantly reminding myself that my personal missions in bringing a voice to sex, dating, and relationships align with the leagues. And so if you're to take away anything tonight, take away the fact that you should not— that you should follow your passions, and that sometimes hitting rock bottom is not always a bad place to be. And don't play it safe, and don't play it conventional. And if you play, play with a clear purpose and mission. So write down what you're passionate about and follow that mission of yours, and don't ever lose sight of it, because that mission is going to be the most important thing in order for you to follow your careers. Thank you.
