Latest / The Bold Lounge / Jessica Sibley: TIME to Be Bold

Transcript

Jessica Sibley: TIME to Be Bold · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or douse along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: This morning I have Jessica Sibley.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: She is the CEO of Time.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: So happy to have you in the Bold Lounge.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome, jess.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Lee.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: It's so great to be here and to see you again.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: So excited to jump into your world of bold and wondered what your definition of bold is.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this in preparation for our conversation, and when you study the word bold and its definition, you see risk, risk taking, you see confidence, you think about being courageous and those are all my definitions, I would say, of bold.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, risk taking, courageous, really kind of moving through.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It might even create some fear or just, you know, tells you you're getting out of your comfort zone.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd agree with that.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: So when was the first time, based on your definition, that you remember being bold?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I would say every day.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Every day, I feel like there's a moment where I have to be bold, especially when I think about the last year I'm coming up on a year as being the CEO of Time and every day I've had to have confidence.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I've had to lead with being bold, being courageous, taking risks, facing, you know, resistance, facing issues that I need to address and solve.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: And also, when I think about bold, I also think about exciting, you know, being bold and having that energy and that passion and that excitement.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: And I feel like every day there's something that I face in my career journey, especially over the last year, that's required to be bold and to lead with boldness.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: So I love that you brought in the excitement part, because we hear a lot about, I think you know the risk taking and the uncertainty and the discomfort of getting out of comfort zone which we talked about, but you're one of the rare people that I think have mentioned the excitement part about it.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Which I also think is important for people to realize is once you kind of step into it or just start getting at whatever it may be, you start to get excited.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: You see that you can create change, you can have impact, and you certainly have done that.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And boy has a year gone really fast in your role.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: So, as you're coming into these roles and doing new things, where do you start, Like when you come?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Obviously have lots of experience and expertise, but what would you do as you come into an organization, like Time?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: And where do you begin when you're being bold?
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I began before I started and I would say number one, I've been doing this my whole career.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: So working at traditional or what you'd say legacy media companies that are in need of major change and transformation and innovation.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Time, you know, now in its 100th year, we've been celebrating our centennial all year.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: It was very much like that and its legacy to relevancy, to revenue, to growth, and being on that journey is hard but it's also exciting and it does require everyone to be bold and to think boldly.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: And when I say I started before I began I studied the business.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I was asked by Mark and Lynn Benioff, our co-owners and our co-chairs, to take a look at what I would do and I was able to, again a little bit of an outsider's look, create a vision and a strategy for time to set us on the journey that we've been on for the last year.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And like any writer, like any person of thought, you know you kind of look at your computer, it's blank.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: And I just started with, you know, time 3.0.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: And it's really become a rallying cry and it's really become a thing and a movement, both internally, and they've been very public about it and speaking about it externally in the press and Time 3.0 was seven pages, version seven by the time I started with seven leading priorities and sort of midway through, when I was talking to Mark Benioff who's this super priority person?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: He said are your priorities in priority order?
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: So midway through I looked and thought about the priorities that I had set forth on day one and realized they were the same priorities, just not in the right priority order.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Reprioritize them.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: And now that I'm looking at completing a year, we've had all of those seven priorities and now I'm starting to create the vision for whether it's, you know, time 4.0 or kind of where we're headed next in our journey.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I'm really proud of the work and the transformation that we've made and the change that we've made and the progress that we've made in the last year.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you made a lot of progress in a very short period of time.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: You know, from an outsider looking in, it looks like in the sense of bringing it into.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: You know the century that we're in, being on top of topics, being able to quickly pivot and kind of have the relevant things that are happening.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: You know, in our world that moves so fast, in front of us at least.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Again, these are some of the things that I've noticed.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I know there's tons of things you notice when you think about your priorities and what you've accomplished this year.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Are there any of that come to the top that you think, wow, that was.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I'm so proud of that because it was a bold move, or it was something that was unexpected, or it's something that needed to be done that no one ever did.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say there are several of those, and probably the number one that I would talk about and share with you today is taking down the paywall.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: That was a really bold, courageous move and it was certainly going against the direction of the rest of the industry.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I wasn't sure how popular a decision it would be, because all of my peers and media is now you want to read an article and you land on it and you have to pay for it.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: So I was working it was actually day two I was in my office and I was introduced to the chairmen and CEO Verizon.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: They're in the same building as ours and he was sharing with me all the work that he's been doing around digital equity and digital inclusivity and the acceleration of sort of the digital divide that occurred through COVID and, of course, it's in his work as having 150 million customers as this chairmen and CEO Verizon, but, more importantly, the work that he had been doing in the past several years with the World Economic Forum and the Edison Alliance to make a commitment to get a billion people access to affordable technology and reliable Wi-Fi by 2025, and the commitment around this and how important it is to get access, to have the skill set and have it be affordable.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: And I joined him on this journey because I thought it was our mission and our purpose to allow anyone anywhere in the world to get access to timecom for free.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: And I took down the paywall.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: It was the right decision for our mission and our purpose.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just access to real-time information on timecom, but also the 100 years of archives.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: We are the most trusted brand, not just in news, because we're really not a news breaking brand, but in the world, and I had a chance to travel the world for time and everyone has a time story.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Everyone wanted to share their time story with me and this brand, this business our readers so highly value 100 years of objective, rigorously reported, kind of straight in the middle information and I thought it was really important for our brand and our business to make that accessible to everyone.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: And now, as we're facing such a crisis of misinformation and disinformation and trying to understand what is real, what is fact, what isn't, come to timecom and you'll get all of what you need and we're really playing our role in that.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Also the movement to protect consumers with the FTC, with the quick click to buy and call to cancel easy to buy something.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: You don't realize the charges that you're getting over time and you try to call and cancel and you can't really get anyone on the phone.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: This isn't just a media issue meeting a publisher issue, but it's pretty wide ranging and it's just the right.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It was the right decision for our business, our brand, our journalism, and I'm really proud of that decision.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: But it was a bold one.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: So making sure that Everyone has access to information that is accurate and timely and not skewed, and being able to do that with not just three free articles and then you have to pay so I think those are definitely bold moves, particularly in the industry that you're in.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: So when you think about where you started last year to now, what are some of your learnings about you in your role, specifically, kind of like I didn't realize I would, or it's hard to believe we've been able to, or anything like that that comes to mind for you.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: And if you look back on the last year, what has been memorable?
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been the most exciting but also most challenging year in my career and I've learned so much the responsibility of being a CEO and so many of the the issues that we face that we we have employees and journalists in dangerous locations around the world.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Safety, security and protection are number one.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Being in the sort of in the role of changing people's minds and changing people's lives is really, really important to what we're doing at time and sticking to our core and our mission and making sure that we cement the future of time for the next 100 years.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: And so much of that is what we've done to continue to make the brand relevant and contemporary, to diversify and transform our business so that we're a sustainable, profitable business on the path to growth.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: And, most importantly, and what I'm really proud of, is partnering with Sam Jacobs, our editor-in-chief.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: I named Sam editor in April.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: He's the youngest editor in our 100 year history 37, first millennial to lead time and its newsroom.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: While he's the youngest, he's been at time for 10 years.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: He's very well respected and I'm really proud of the coverage and his leadership.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: We want to make sure we continue to reach young audiences, diverse audiences around the world, and 45% of our readership is 35 and younger and I think that's really important.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: We launched time 100 voices during the United General Assembly Week, climate Week in New York City, where we have the most influential thought leaders writing exclusively for time.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: We launched with Oprah Winfrey, jose Andres, melinda Gates, angelina Jolie, ariana Huffington.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: We recently had Lindsay Vaughn, the head of the ADL, and many, many others that are experts in specific topic areas, that are contributing their IP and that thought leadership to time.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: A lot of action and a lot of influential individuals who I think have had, and will continue to have, an impact on the world that we live in.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: One of the things you touched on there was creating the team.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: There was a team obviously there in place and doing a great job, but you've been building your team and this is probably something that the listeners, too, could learn from when you come into a new organization.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Although doing your homework and being prepared and kind of getting things set, it's hard.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: You can't do it all by yourself, and one of the things in being bold is understanding that you can't do by yourself and that you have others helping you.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: What are some of the key things you've done to build the team or to really elevate or support the team that you have at time?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I'm a first-time CEO.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I'm a new CEO at a new company.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: When I think about being bold, I also think about mentorship and what is mentoring?
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: One of the things I would say when I look back at my career path is I've had mentors who haven't mentored me along the way, but they gave me a chance.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: They gave me the first you know, to be the youngest, first female global publisher of Bloomberg Business Week and I feel like I've had that opportunity also with Mark and Lynn Banny off and I'm super.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: It was super CEO ready and super prepared in this role, really mapped to my strengths and the success that I've had over a long career and I've given a lot of firsts also to leaders.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: So it's a mix of external hires and internal elevations.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: So I named first-ever chief communications officer.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: She was super ready, somebody who'd been with time and timing for many years.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I brought in a chief marketing officer first-time chief marketing officer, first-time chief revenue officer, first-time chief operating officer.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: I have a very seasoned CHRO and chief legal officer.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: So it's really a balance of talent and skill set and the team has really come together to move time forward and I'm really excited about the team that we have in place.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as you think about getting the team into place and kind of moving from 23 into 24, what are some of the key topics or key areas that you're looking into or thinking about are going to be some of the things that are going to be the most important thing for us to be aware of or informed about.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: As a commercial CEO, I'm really excited to spend as much time as I can with our customers.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: We have incredible relationships with CEOs and chief marketing officers at global blue chip household name companies, and we are in ongoing conversations with our customers continuously so we help grow their businesses and solve what they're looking to achieve, and that's really important.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: It's really important to understand your business models, to diversify them, to find areas of opportunity and growth, and you can't do that if you're not in the market with your customers on an ongoing and regular basis.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: So really growing the relationships, really nurturing them, taking the time is very, very important, as we kind of come in and end this year and then begin next year.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we're really focused on some key topic areas that are so important right now healthcare, AI and all the conversations around AI climate.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: So we're going to continue to do what we do and we're really going for high value, high impact.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: We really want to make an impact whatever we do, wherever we go, and part of that is continuing to grow what we've planted this year.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, excellent.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: You mentioned AI and I wanted to touch on that just briefly.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: What are you seeing as the key trends or areas of impact within journalism for AI?
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm really proud of our AI coverage.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: As a business, as a brand, we want to be the leaders in covering AI from every aspect and we've already started to do that.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: We have five of the most well-known, respected editors focused on AI.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: At time, we launched our first ever AI 100.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: We identified the most important, influential individuals in AI globally today and I'm really proud of the work that the team did, spending five months working and getting submissions and talking to experts and thought leaders widely defined, to create this first ever list that we launched at Dreamforce, which was the largest AI conference in the world three days, one topic, ai.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: When the team came to me, they said this is really exciting.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: We've identified 25 to 30 women leaders in AI.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: And I thought to myself well, time 100, that's our biggest platform.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: We have time 100.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: We have time 100 next, 25, 30%, 100, that's hot, especially if it's a look inside technology.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: And we started with women and where we netted out was the AI 100 list 50% or people of color, 40% women.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: And we didn't just name those that are icons in AI, like Elon Musk and Sam Altman and Reed Hoffman, but we have those that are focused on regulation, those that are doing science.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: We have activists that are focused on the ethics.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: We have those that are focused on the promise and the progress, but also the perils and the dangers.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: We have a woman who's leading the efforts and an activist she's 18, on the list and then we have Jeffrey Hinton he was just on 60 Minutes as 76 year old who left his position at Google to again focus on using AI responsibly.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: So I'm really proud of the deep reporting that we've been doing in AI.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: So AI is very bold and I think when people talk about it or want to learn more about it, I do think the coverage that you had has been very helpful for people to understand the ins and outs and also, I think, understanding the risk and reward of using it.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And I think key thing for people to understand is just educate yourself, keep reading, keep learning, keep trying and learn more as we progress through it.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: One of the things as we close out, is coming into the role that you're in being a CEO of time being a female leader and publishing.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Did you set out to do that?
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Or when you said, this is what I want to be, was this on the trajectory?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think when I look back at my own personal story, I always wanted to be in an office and I had ambition to be a CEO.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: It was largely to not be rich or famous, but to just be self-sustainable and be able to pay my bills quite honestly.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: And, looking back, my mother tells me all the kids wanted to play teacher and you wanted to play office.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: I don't really know what you're talking about.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: So I think all along I looked at CEOs and I looked at leaders, especially female leaders, as my heroes and my celebrities, and I always aspired to have a great career and I've had a lot of support along the way from my family and I never looked at myself as a female CEO or a female leader.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: I spent much of my career working alongside and with mainly or only men, many years at companies like the Wall Street Journal, dow Jones and Bloomberg, and I always felt, wow, this is amazing that I have a seat at this table, and I always felt really proud and special and I'm really proud of the work that I've done.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: We just looked at some statistics and our female leadership so director level and above at time over the last year has grown from mid 40s to 60%, so 60% of leaders at time are female.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: So if you had to give someone advice on their bold move they're thinking about whether it's a new role or starting something new or maybe even rethinking what they want to do, kind of moving forward what would be your guidance or advice to someone who's thinking about being bold?
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: You're going to have success, you're also going to have setbacks and boy have I had many.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: So it's not a hockey stick and I wouldn't change it.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: And I've learned more from my setbacks than anything else.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: And the comebacks feel that much greater when you've had those setbacks, I've learned once you kind of overcome them and get through those challenges, you learn more from them and you lose fear and maybe you get more confident and courageous, because if you've been through some setbacks, you can get through anything, and I think that's propelled me on my journey to get to where I am today.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for being on the bold lounge.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: All the information about Jess is in the episode notes.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Have a great rest of your day.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jess.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Great to see you.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.