Latest / SHeCOMMERCE / Ep 37: Shelley Zalis, Rewriting the Rules - Why Access Changes Everything

Transcript

Ep 37: Shelley Zalis, Rewriting the Rules - Why Access Changes Everything · SHeCOMMERCE

0:08
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to SheCommerce, where power women and real talk collide in the CPG world and where we're building brands, careers, and each other up.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm Christina.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: And I'm Jackie.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: And Christina, today is a big one.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: I know.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Can you even sit still right now?
0:29
SPEAKER_00: It's a big, big, it's not like what's a bigger word than big?
0:33
SPEAKER_00: It's a colossal.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Humongous.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Ginormous.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, there are people you follow because they're smart.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're they're industry experts.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: They're inspirational.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: They're people you admire because they've built something that's extraordinary.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: And then there are women whose work actually changes the way you think about leadership and about your career and about what's possible.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: Our guest today has been that for both of us.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, when we started that um, when we started like ruminating uh about she commerce and talking about creating a sisterhood where women build brands and careers and each other up, that was definitely her DNA in the idea, way before we even realized it.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: But before we bring her in, you know what time it is.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: And this week the tea has a theme.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: This isn't celebrity gossip.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: This is women refusing to accept the rules that they were handed.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: So we start with a lap song Sushang.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: Tea spell number one, Paris Hilton, from survivor to system changer.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a good one.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: So if your brain immediately went to the simple life, tiny dogs, chihuahuas, that's hot.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Just stay with us a second because we're gonna change your perception.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: This Paris Hilton story is about what happens when a woman takes one of the most painful chapters of her life and turns that into power.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Paris has spent years publicly speaking about the unfortunate abuse that she says she experienced as a teenager inside the residential youth treatment programs, including the Provo Canyon School in Utah.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: She testified, she went to state legislature, she went to Congress, and she kept showing up.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And in December 2024, after years of advocacy from Paris, other survivors and lawmakers helped make the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act into federal law.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: But this story does not stop with let um with the legislation.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: This summer, Utah regulators revoked the licenses of both campuses of Provo Canyon School, citing serious health and safety violations.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Something happened to her as a teenager for years.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: She could have put that behind her.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Instead, she kept using her voice until people in power were forced to listen.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's the part that really hits home, right?
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Because influence isn't about having millions of followers.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: I tell my daughters this every day.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Influence is what happens when you use whatever platform you have to move something that wasn't moving before.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: That's good trouble.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's something else here for the women listening.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we think creating change means having a perfect strategy, the perfect title, or the perfect moment.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: But it does not.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it starts by saying this happened.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: It was not okay.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not going to stop talking about it until somebody does something.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: And that's where you go from voice to access to action.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: So keep those words in mind because we're definitely gonna come back to many of them with our fabulous guest.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: And here's our Darjee Ling T number two.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: Lee Mason.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: Five miles, one period, zero shame.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Ladies, this is not one about a marathon and a period.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: So obviously.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me start that again.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Ladies, this one is about a marathon and a period.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: So obviously, she commerce entered the chat.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we have Chinese elite runner Li Mizhen has been going viral recently after footage resurfaced from the 2024 Heng Shu Lake Marathon.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: She, imagine this.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: She's running a marathon, which is what, 26.4 miles.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: She's roughly five miles from the finish line.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: We'll have to convert this for you, Jackie.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: I know you don't know you miles.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: But she's five miles from the finish line.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, nobody in the rest of the world does but the US.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: So she's roughly five miles from the finish line when her period unexpectedly starts.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: That not not discreetly either.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Not at home with sweatpants, you know, Advil and a heating pad.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: She's literally in the middle of running an elite marathon with cameras all around.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: And she keeps running.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: Blood visible down her legs.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: Five miles.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: Nine kilometers.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: She finished it in two hours, 35 minutes, and seven seconds.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: Because, and I love this.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: I love this.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Stopping would have meant she had to run another marathon to get the qualifying time she leaded.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, I don't think so.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: So basically, period, noted.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: Still got a job to do.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Efficient.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: And can we talk about why this became such a mess of story?
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Because, like, okay, women men straight.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: This happens just like every single month for a good portion of our lives.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Yet, seeing that visual evidence on an elite athlete was apparently enough to make the internet lose their freaking mind.
7:37
unknown: Yeah.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: We celebrate athletes vomiting, bleeding from scraped knees.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, can I say bleeding, right?
7:46
SPEAKER_01: Losing toenails, playing through injuries.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: That's grit.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: That's toughness.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: That's sport.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: But period blood, suddenly everyone gets uncomfortable.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, FYI, period blood.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: That is the lining of your uterus shedding.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's it's yeah, it's not a hair follicle falling out.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: It's the lining of your uterus shedding.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: Month after month.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: And to me, that that discomfort, that's the story.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, Lee wasn't running, obviously, she didn't know this was gonna happen.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: She wasn't running to make a feminist statement, she was running a freaking marathon.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Her body did something a woman woman's body is meant to do, and she pushed through it, she kept going.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: So maybe the conversation isn't can women perform despite being women?
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's why are we still treating the realities of being a woman as an exception we need to hide and not talk about?
8:50
SPEAKER_01: Yes, at work, at in sport, in leadership, pregnancy, periods, menopause, childcare.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: These are not niche women's issues.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: They're not outliers, they're human realities experienced by 51% of the frickin' population.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: And maybe, just maybe, instead of teaching women how to quietly work around them, we should be designing systems that actually account for them.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: And that's pretty much the perfect segue into today's guest because if there's one woman who has spent her career looking at the rules that we've inherited and asking, wait a minute, who wrote this rule and who does it work for?
9:39
SPEAKER_00: And my personal favorite is why the hell can't we change it?
9:43
SPEAKER_00: It is our guest, Shelly Zalis.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: There are women who get invited into powerful groups.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: Shelly Zalis builds a room.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: And then she holds a door open.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Shelly is the founder, CEO, and officially, which may be our favorite job title ever, chief troublemaker of the female quotient.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: She is a trail-blazing entrepreneur who disrupted the market research industry long before disruption became a corporate buzzword.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: She founded OTX, built it into a powerhouse, and sold it to Ipsos.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And if that wasn't enough, she co-created hashtag seeher, challenging how women and girls are represented in media.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And after finding herself as the only woman in far too many rooms, she started what became the FQ Lounge, creating spaces at popular conferences and industry events such as CES, CAN, Davos, the Super Bowl, and beyond, where women didn't have to fight their way into somebody else's network.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Today, the Female Quotient connects a global community of more than 7 million professionals across 30 industries and 100 plus countries.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: But those accomplishments aren't actually why this conversation means so much to us.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: Shelly has inspired both of us for years because she doesn't just talk about equality.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: She challenges the architecture underneath it.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Who's in the room?
11:11
SPEAKER_01: Who has access to the room?
11:13
SPEAKER_01: Who gets sponsored before they even reach the room?
11:17
SPEAKER_01: Who designed the goddamn room in the first place?
11:20
SPEAKER_01: And who decided those rules couldn't change?
11:23
SPEAKER_00: And her philosophy is beautifully simple, which we love.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Make good trouble.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Challenge what everyone else has accepted as normal, and stop asking women to fix themselves when sometimes it's the system around us that needs fixing.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: So today we're talking about the evolution from equality to access, ambition, opportunity, AI, leadership, the rules women are still being asked to play by, and the ones the next generation should throw straight in the trash.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Shelley?
11:53
SPEAKER_01: This one is personal for us.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: You have inspired Christina and me in more ways than you probably realize.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: So getting to finally have this conversation with you is a genuine full circle moment.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to She Commerce.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: We are so, so happy you're here.
12:09
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
12:09
SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I just have tears coming down my eyes.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
12:12
SPEAKER_02: That was a beautiful introduction.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, when I hear, first of all, your your voices resonate and are so powerful in a disarming way.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's how change really happens.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: And I listening to all the things you said, I'm like, wow, you know, it really isn't about me.
12:33
SPEAKER_02: It is about the community that works together.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, I call it power of the pack.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: It's woman alone is power collectively, we have impact.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: And that's this wosh moment.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: And I just had another wosh moment because you rallied all of us to, yeah, and inspired all of us to want to do more and to not just talk about what needs to change, but to activate those solutions for change.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for such a warm, welcoming, beautiful introduction and for being part of my world and our community.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: Happy to be here.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for like we are huge fangirls.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I thought Jackie was going to definitely have a heart attack when we got the response back that you would do the episode.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: So we really appreciate your time.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: And yes, in more ways than one, you have inspired what what we're trying to build and doing as well.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: But before we jump into the all the questions around the chief troublemaker and how you're starting all that good trouble, we we just want to give you an easy one to start.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: So, what is filling your cup right now, both literally and figuratively?
13:46
SPEAKER_00: What are you what are you drinking these days?
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure, any cup.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: It's super hot coffee with my powder in it, which is amazing.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: It's it's believe it or not, it's no sugar vanilla coffee mate powder, which makes my bad coffee delicious.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: So any coffee, I I travel around the globe with it.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, Swell saw me with this bottle.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: They so they sent me every color of customized bottles with my name on it, and then coffee mate saw me with my coffee mate cond thing.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: And so they sent me cases.
14:21
SPEAKER_02: So that that that definitely fills my cup everywhere I go.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: But that's what I drink.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: What fills my cup every day is my children, my grandchildren.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I just get so much joy from my family that you know that that always propels me forward in in every decision I pretty much make.
14:40
SPEAKER_03: And we love your day.
14:45
SPEAKER_02: What what do your grandkids call you?
14:48
SPEAKER_02: Bubby.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: I am a Bubby.
14:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's you know, I will do anything for those kids.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: And it's uh it just every day I wake up, I can't wait to talk to them.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: When I'm traveling, I they called me every morning to say hi before they go to school or camp or whatever.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it's actually very funny.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: I was in Davos a couple years ago.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: I was interviewing the CEO of Cisco, and we were just about to walk on the stage for a fireside chat, and my phone rang.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: And of course, in Switzerland it was the afternoon, in Los Angeles it was the morning, and it was one of my grandchildren.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: It was my grandson calling me.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: And I said to Chuck, I said, Chuck, I'm so sorry.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: I just have to take this call.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: I said, if it was anyone in the world, I wouldn't take it.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: But if it's a grandchild or if someone from my family, I have to call this.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: Of course you do.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: So I talked to my grandchild, and then we go on the stage.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: And I opened with that story.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: And Chuck goes on talking about his family and his grandchildren and how he would do the same thing.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: It was just amazing.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: That was like beyond the hug that I gave him, no matter what.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: That was like a whole new level.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: That's what makes you so great.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: And this message that we're all we're human, and like you bring your whole self to work, and it's not just business.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: We always say it's not just business, it's personal, right?
16:09
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to separate.
16:11
SPEAKER_02: So we make it a taboo topic, like we're not supposed to talk about our children, or it's supposed to be there's work and then there's family.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: You have an integrated life and it's all part of it.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: And and when I said to him, Oh, I'm so sorry, I just have to take this call as my grand, he was the first to say I would do the same thing.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: And so who said that we're not supposed to?
16:30
SPEAKER_02: It it's perception becomes reality, but that's not really the reality.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: Right.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: We just think it is for some stupid reason, but it is not in a handbook that says you cannot talk about your children at work or take the phone call.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: It has to wait.
16:46
SPEAKER_02: Like it there is no textbook that says that.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: We just think that that's a rule or something.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: I do the same when when when I'm in meetings, like, I'm sorry, I need to say goodnight to my kids because you know, London, so different time zones.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: And I I've had one person go, oh, okay.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yes, I will say goodnight to my children.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
17:10
SPEAKER_02: And uh but when you do that, then others say, Oh, that's okay.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like someone has to start the new pattern.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Onward.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: And with that, we're going into part one, which is Chief Troublemaker.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: Shelly, again, you had a quote displayed at the FU Lounge, which we loved, that said something which both of us totally, totally love both of us loved it.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: And that is, I love trouble.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: Because trouble means you're starting something.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Trouble means you have a plan and you're disrupting the status quo.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: So let's start there.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: When did you realize you weren't just building companies anymore, that you were intentionally becoming a troublemaker?
17:53
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I think, you know, it's it's what she said in the opening.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: We have to stop fixing the women, we have to fix the system.
17:59
SPEAKER_02: And it's not that the system was intentionally designed to isolate women or to push women down.
18:06
SPEAKER_02: It's just that the workplace was was created over a hundred years ago by men for men, because men were in the workplace.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: And so they created the rules, and they never really had been modernized.
18:16
SPEAKER_02: And so I just never felt the rules worked for me.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I have three children, I have three grandchildren, a fourth on the way, and you know, I have a full life.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: And when you walked in, I'm turning 65 years old in 20 in March 2020 uh 2027.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: So I've been in the workplace a really long time.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: And when I came into the workplace, you know, it was really my first review that propelled me into realizing I have to follow my heart, not my head.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: And when you follow your heart, not your head, you sometimes the head says, follow the rules that, you know, have been given to you, but your heart, ba-boom, ba-boom, says, but that doesn't work for me.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: And I won't be successful in my life if if I follow them.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: And so my first review, I must have been 25 years old, I was in a market research company, and we had typewriters at the time.
19:10
SPEAKER_02: I walked in, it was six pages of typewritten review.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: And the first paragraph was nice.
19:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm smart, I'm kind, I'm, you know, collaborative, whatever.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: But then the rest ripped me to shreds.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: And I spent too much time with clients, I listened to clients, I push, I pushed the team out of their comfort level.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: I I, you know, customized too much because that's just not okay.
19:33
SPEAKER_02: And they wanted me to sign the review.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: And my head said sign, I was 25 years old, I really needed this job.
19:38
SPEAKER_02: But inside, I'm like, but but you're wrong.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: Like, well, how do you not listen to clients?
19:43
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to just be an order taker.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: And if a client doesn't want that and they want to customize, say, but no, this is the way you have to do it.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: I I didn't know how to operate like that.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: And so I wouldn't sign the review.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: As a result, I got demoted and this woman got put above me.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: And the answer was, well, she's a researcher and this is a research company.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: And it was supposed to be all about statistics and numbers.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: And of course, I was a researcher, but I really was about relationships.
20:07
SPEAKER_02: And so I think that was the first moment of truth for me of realizing that if I follow the rules, I will not enjoy working in the workplace.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: And these rules are dumb, they just don't make sense.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: And so I gave myself the title chief troublemaker when I started my first company, just giving myself permission to break the rules that make no sense and create the new ones.
20:32
SPEAKER_02: And so when I started my own company, I created a culture of creating a space where I was no longer the exception.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to be the new norm.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: And if I built the rules around what works for me as a primary caregiver, it's gonna work for pretty much everyone, you know, because those that aren't primary caregivers will benefit from the rules of caregiving, you know, and so it sort of just propelled me into that because so many times, even after that first review, I was told, I'm not the right one, it's not the right time, you're gonna fail, you know, whenever I'd come up with new ideas.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: And I thought to myself, well, how would you know?
21:10
SPEAKER_02: You've never done it.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: Someone at some point has to create a new pattern.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: It might not work, but change will only happen if you have a change mindset.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: And a change mindset and a transformative mindset means sometimes you have to break the rules, you have to not just go in a straight line, but zig when others are zagging.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: And that's not an easy path.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: It's hard.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: So I decided if I give myself the title of chief troublemaker, I'm just giving myself permission.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, not sorry, no permission necessary because I just granted it for myself.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm a researcher at heart too to start, um, have evolved, but it's so funny because research should be about deeply understanding humans, right?
21:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think Like that's innate in you and what you're doing, and then bringing that forward to say, okay, I understand this, so let's let's build this the right system around what's gonna work for those humans.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: So you've been making what you call good trouble for decades.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: If if you were to tell the younger Shelly that you'd still be having some of the same conversations in 2026, would she be surprised, or would she say, of course, you know, changing systems are always gonna take longer than changing people's minds?
22:29
SPEAKER_02: You know, I didn't realize this about myself until one day I paused and said, wow, you know, I'm a four-time movement maker.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: And the ingredient across every movement I've ever created has been around collaborative action for change, collaboration.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: Doing it alone, you can have a great idea, but it will take a very long time to get people to buy into something they're not comfortable with.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: Because people stick with the stuff they know and that they're comfortable with, it's much easier.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: It's hard to bring new, completely different ways of doing things, you know, going from offline to online.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: You know, when I when I wanted to migrate research from offline to online, I was told, oh gosh, no, because people will lie, not tell the truth online.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: I said, Do you know how many people lie on the telephones, you know, when you do a telephone survey?
23:25
SPEAKER_02: Or have you ever looked at an all-intercept survey where there's erase marks because it was a rainy weekend and they couldn't get X amount of women at this age, so they would change the age, you know?
23:36
SPEAKER_02: I said, Are you kidding?
23:38
SPEAKER_02: Why are you putting uh a different threshold to a new category to destroy it before you even give it opportunity to grow?
23:46
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:46
SPEAKER_02: And so I think, you know, when I look across all the movements I created, the first one was standardizing online advertising before advertising existed.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: And I would say, well, we don't have a 30-second commercial and a 32-second commercial and a 28-second commercial.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: We have 15, 30, and 60s.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: We have standards.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: And we need the same standards for banner ads and interstitials and split screens in a day and age where nobody was creating standards.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: But you're not gonna be able to do a media buy if everyone is creating different sizes.
24:20
SPEAKER_02: And so we created 10 different formats and we created sizes for each of these formats.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: But that required a consortium for change.
24:27
SPEAKER_02: And so I created a consortium of 10 non-competitive big advertisers that all kicked in different ads and we tested them and then came up with these formats and then handed it over to the IEB, and the IEB got formed.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: But that was a consortium.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: And then when I pioneered online research and everyone told me, but we do mall intercept and we do telephone, and this is the way it is.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: Coming in with an online mindset when no one was online except wealthy old men with broadband connections, everyone looked at why not versus why yes.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: And once again, I said, just give me all of your offline scores so that I could benchmark and create like uh norms around what offline is and calibrate to online, that required people coming together and sharing with belief that we're better together, we'll go further, we'll go faster.
25:19
SPEAKER_02: It actually will happen.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: If I had to wait and watch, I would not be where I am today.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: And then when you brought up see her, the same thing.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: We brought the idea to the ANA, the Association of National Advertisers, to get advertisers to work together to create, you know, representation and reflection accurately for training in media and entertainment.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: That required collaboration.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, the female quotient, you know, creating transformation.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: You could call it good trouble, but it is transformation so that the workplace works for everyone and not just the selected few requires us working together, or else we'll be waiting a really long time for change to happen.
26:04
SPEAKER_02: So I would always bring 50, 100, 1000, 10 together.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: And when you bring them together, you can create a mindset shift because it's not as scary when you all go together.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: You can create benchmarks much faster when you go together, and it's how you create the new pattern, the new trend that might not be what status quo was, but it really is about possibility.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: And possibility becomes probability much quicker when you go together.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, one other thing we've noticed is just how your language has evolved.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: So years ago, the a lot of the conversation centered more on equality, and today you talk much more about access.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Can you explain the differences?
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Some people might use those interchangeably and what changed your thing.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's all intentional.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I I transform language very intentionally.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, we actually started as the girls' lounge.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: And so the female quotient I knew would always be, I started this like 11, 12 years ago.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: I knew the female quotient would always be the name of the company.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, and the name came in one minute to me.
27:15
SPEAKER_02: First came IQ, the intelligence quotient, then came EQ, the emotional quotient.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: Now comes FQ, the female quotient.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: When you add more women to any equation, the equation gets better.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: And that was that was that.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: And so I knew one day it would just be called FQ.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: IQ, EQ, FQ.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, now we're talking about emotional intelligence in such a different way than we did before, you know, with AI and how important the human factor is.
27:45
SPEAKER_02: So it just is pretty interesting to see the evolution.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: But the lounges, which I had no idea would become what they are today, was for me just giving back with generosity what I wish I had my whole career, which was girlfriend business.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: I would go to all these big conferences, and the men's room was very long, you know, long lines, and and the women's room, you know, there was no line.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: My goal was to make a line and to have a line at these big conferences.
28:12
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, so the first one I went to was CES Technology Conference, Real Bro Culture.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: It was never an issue for me.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: I succeeded in business, but it was not as much fun.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: And I don't golf, so I don't really like golf.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to hang out in the bars, and that that's not really, you know, my thing.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: And so I invited five women to walk the floor, 150,000 people, less than 3% were women.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: I said, let's walk the tech floor together.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: And if you know other women, please invite them.
28:40
SPEAKER_02: And 24 hours later, 50 women showed up.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: Power of the pack.
28:44
SPEAKER_02: And that was this aha moment for me.
28:47
SPEAKER_02: I call it a whoosh moment because it was this, it was a feeling.
28:51
SPEAKER_02: And every single guy's head turned, like, where the heck did all you women come from?
28:56
SPEAKER_02: And when I coined the phrase, a woman alone has power, collectively, we have impact.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: One woman is visible.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: 50, you can't miss us.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: And we I was also surrounded by women just like me talking about work-life balance and imposter syndrome and how do you do it all?
29:10
SPEAKER_02: And what is perfection and ambition and money, taboo topic.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: And we started doing deals.
29:16
SPEAKER_02: We all were power players and we started doing business with one another.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: And 50 turned to 100.
29:21
SPEAKER_02: And next day, my little, you know, king-sized room turned into the penthouse suite.
29:26
SPEAKER_02: And I brought my hair and makeup person.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: I said, get in my car and drive on over, and let's do hair and makeup, and let's do nails, and let's do business the way we want to do business, and not the way we're supposed to, and wear the ugly suits anymore and let your hair down and and bring the feminine to the table.
29:42
SPEAKER_02: It's okay.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: And you know, 350 turned to eight and a half million women in our community now across the globe.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: And I called it the Girls Lounge.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: And that name came to me so easily.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: There's a boys' club, now there's a girl sound.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: The opposite of boy is girl, the opposite of club is lounge.
29:57
SPEAKER_02: If there's a boys' club, now this girl's lounge.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of women at the time didn't like that.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: They hated the name Girl Sound.
30:04
SPEAKER_02: They're like, we're not girls.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: We're women.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, first of all, have you ever heard of men object to being a boy in a boys' club?
30:12
SPEAKER_02: Like, why are we creating another double standard?
30:14
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, a women's lounge sounds really boring and a ladies' lounge sounds like a bathroom.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: Girlfriends, you know, own the word girl and stop pretending that we're not.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: Like, who are we afraid of?
30:30
SPEAKER_02: And bring yourself to the table.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: So the girl's lounge became a thing.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: And you know, it it it did create controversy.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, I had people, a lot of people wrote beautiful things about it, but some were like, oh, it's called the girl's lounge.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: It's girly and it's pink and it's got hair and makeup and it's a salon.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: I said, no.
30:49
SPEAKER_02: I put hair and makeup in the room just to put an exclamation point of owning who we are.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: It's a billion-dollar business.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: Why are we hiding the fact that we wear makeup or we put we want to wear a beautiful dress?
31:05
SPEAKER_02: We don't have to just wear pants.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: Pants suits are beautiful, but people who are.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of senior women at the time were kind of nervous to come into the space because that's not where the power was.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: The power was at the bar, the power was on the golf course.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: You had to shift, we had to move the power to the lounge.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: And so when I got invited to the econom at the World Economic Forum, which was a really big deal, my invitation was, we want you to come, but you might not feel welcome.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: And I went to a financial sponsor to sponsor me.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: I needed$250,000.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: It was probably the fourth lounge I was doing.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: It was a really big deal.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: And the sponsor said, We'll sponsor you, but you have to change the name.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: The Girls Lounge will not work at the World Economic Forum.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: And I said, changing the name.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: It's called the Girls Lounge.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: And I invested myself in the lounge because I knew I had to do it.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: And I put a shingle up.
32:01
SPEAKER_02: It was a tiny hole in the wall.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: And I put a shingle up and it said the girls lounge, the place for the 17%.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: Because less than 17% of white badges at the World Economic Forum were women.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: And I hung chandeliers in the windows with really important messaging.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: We had amazing content.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: We had food.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: It was beautiful.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: And I invited 50 women, power of the pack.
32:25
SPEAKER_02: Because I thought, you know what?
32:28
SPEAKER_02: If we're not going to feel welcome, we'll have our own group.
32:32
SPEAKER_02: And whether people come or don't come, we're going to be there and we'll have a great time.
32:37
SPEAKER_02: And we we had a slumber party, year one, where we took fit, you know, villas and we all showed up and it was amazing.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: It was amazing.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: Year two, someone from Jamie Diamond's team came and said, Jamie wants you to know you have balls and he loves this.
32:54
SPEAKER_02: And from this day, if you want him, he will be your keynote speaker, and he will be your first sponsor.
33:02
SPEAKER_02: He has shown up 10 years in a row.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: That is amazing.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: What a story.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: My gosh.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it was hard.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: It was not simple.
33:13
unknown: Oh.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: But it was, it took courage, right?
33:17
SPEAKER_00: And you took those risks and you betted on your channel.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: It didn't take courage from me.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: It was courage at the pack.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: You have you're surrounded by all of us going together.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: That's how change happens.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: Like I wish I could take credit for being a big idea.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: It was, it's our community.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: And you know, we're doing 80 events a year now.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: And we are free for all.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: Back to your question at the beginning about access and why I evolved.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, Girls Lounge was really important because I wanted women to support women and show up for each other and own being a woman and not hide that.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: So once women started supporting women, I then evolved to equality lounge.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: And it was a very intentional, like I remember the moment I just took girl out and replaced with equality.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't, I don't do press, I don't make announcements.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: It's just one day it was now the equality lounge, brought to you by brands in the world.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: And I called it a quality because it's not about men, it's not about women, it's about conscious leaders.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: And I called it the equality lounge the place for conscious leaders.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: I don't care if you're a man or a woman, if you're in a position of power, use that power to pull others up.
34:30
SPEAKER_02: And men were always welcome in our space, obviously.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: But I wanted everyone to know this is about collective action.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: And so I called it the Equality Lounge.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: And then only last year did I realize, you know, I never wanted to put the FQ logo on it because it is a collection of all of us.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: But FQ became synonymous with collective action, you know, that it is about all of us activating with intentionality the change.
35:05
SPEAKER_02: And so under the FQ umbrella is this house of grants.
35:10
SPEAKER_02: And it could have Unilever and Proctor and Coke and Pepsi.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: It isn't about, you know, competing on business.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: It is about working together to create transformation.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: Um world that hasn't seen any.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: We haven't seen transformation in the workplace until COVID.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: Right?
35:28
SPEAKER_02: 50 years, 100 years, nothing really has changed.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: But COVID hits and everything about the workplace had to change.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: So it is possible.
35:38
SPEAKER_02: And so it became sort of the credibility seal for change can happen if you want it.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: And it now is a collection of companies that are committed with intentionality to fix the system and to modernize the system.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: And so that that's just how the evolution has has happened.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: Shelly, it's it's commendable and it speaks to your character that your humility refuses you to take credit for being strong enough to start.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: It needed the person to take the first step.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: You were that person.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you had not created that girls' lounge, if you had not started any of this, I mean, who knows?
36:24
SPEAKER_01: Who knows where we would be right now?
36:27
SPEAKER_01: Right?
36:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, listen, it needs that one person how to hold the movement.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Even, you know, no one at the time, there was no HR departments were HR at the time.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: There was no, you know, we went from chief human resource officer to chief diversity officer or to chief diversity and equity officer, to chief diversity, equity, inclusion officer, you know, all that.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: And when I needed funding for the lounge, I went to CMOs.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't know CMOs at the time.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I'd like you to sponsor us.
37:03
SPEAKER_02: And they would send me to their HR departments.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: And I knew then that I did not want to be put in an HR bucket because this is not about HR.
37:13
SPEAKER_02: This is about true workplace workforce transformation that has to happen at the CEO level, has to happen at the COO, CIO, CDO, CMO, CFO level.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: And so I turned down funding 12 years ago when I needed it really badly because I did not want to be put in.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: HR is a very important group, but I didn't want to be put in that group.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: And that's probably the best thing I ever did was make it a business imperative at the top most senior levels of the organization.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: It's not a nice to have, it's a bit I absolutely love that.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, talking about talking about knowing exactly um where you wanted to go and kind of rewriting the rules, going back to what you've done with the quality lounge, one of our favorite stories is how you introduced childcare into major conferences.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: And even now, Shelly, at Cannes, we were telling people, uh, we were telling some of the presidents of uh some of the major corps that we were interviewing.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Yes, the FQ actually has childcare at all the events, and they're like, really?
38:31
SPEAKER_01: And immediately they were like, Oh, I could have brought my kid, I could have brought my and the I mean, how many times, Christina, did we say this in in our shuttle conferences?
38:39
SPEAKER_01: But it's still a line.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, they they actually thought we were kidding.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, it was such a simple idea, but it completely changed who could participate participate.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: And that's the whole that that's your whole ethos is access, right?
38:53
SPEAKER_01: So was that one of the moments where you realize that access is sometimes not actually complicated?
39:00
SPEAKER_01: It's just about asking that different question.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: And and do you think organizations spend too much time trying to pigeonhole people, you know, round people into square holes, square systems instead of redesigning it themselves?
39:16
SPEAKER_01: Is it just is it laziness or fear or uh lack of imagination?
39:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, this just became a really important word for me because I thought, what is holding us back?
39:32
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think that, and if you actually ask yourself the question, well, why hasn't change happened?
39:41
SPEAKER_02: You know, and we talk about we're losing our best leaders to caregiving, and you know, we know caregiving is a big issue.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: But also I know that even when you have women in leadership positions, it's not we're not seeing change happen there either.
39:56
SPEAKER_02: It is about access.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: And if you provide access, that leads to opportunity.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: And that's up to individuals to create the close the close the door, get the get the deal.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: But it's all about access.
40:11
SPEAKER_02: And so if we want to provide access for everyone, there's things that need to change.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: We talk so much about are you a sponsor or are you a mentor?
40:24
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, okay.
40:25
SPEAKER_02: And then we go into the definition of, well, this is a mentor.
40:28
SPEAKER_02: You could get if a sponsor has your back when you're not in the room.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: But we also know that sponsors tend to pull people up that look like them, that sound like them, that hang out with them, that, you know, all that.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: If you shift it, and you know, I'm playing with this concept called proximity ship, where it's not about the top pull someone up, but anyone in the organization could be able to say, oh, I would like to meet with this person, that they could pull who they want to meet.
40:58
SPEAKER_02: Not that it's a linear hierarchical one, but we shift that to giving everyone the opportunity to have access.
41:06
SPEAKER_02: If you could have access, you might not be the right one.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: You might not be, but how do you know if you don't see me?
41:13
SPEAKER_02: So, how do we make the invisible visible, first of all?
41:16
SPEAKER_02: And not just in this linear little way.
41:19
SPEAKER_02: And so that's access, having access to opportunity.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: And and the other thing with access, if we could get companies to help with life stage accommodation from childcare to elderly care to self-care, why don't and and not just say, oh, yes, take maturity leave.
41:39
SPEAKER_02: We know the biggest problem in the workplace, there's two places where women fall back.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: One is at the first promotion, because we know that women don't ask for it and they don't negotiate.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: And the second is parental leave.
41:54
SPEAKER_02: That right now the primary caregiver in general is the woman.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: And they take three months off or six months off or a year off, they're missing the promotion, they're missing the raise, and they don't catch up.
42:08
SPEAKER_02: So if companies think about access, how do we across the board provide access to visibility in the right rooms, to understanding the care?
42:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't even say that it's a care, a care challenge.
42:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna say it's a challenge because men in general, especially in the US, it's not mandatory.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, if they don't take it, they're they're the ones being seen, right?
42:36
SPEAKER_02: And and heard and getting the raises and the promotions.
42:38
SPEAKER_02: So we have to fix the system issues that all are access issues.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: You know, where are the access gaps?
42:47
SPEAKER_02: And if you understand the access gaps, you can provide the solutions.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: But first you have to be aware of where the access gaps kick in.
42:56
SPEAKER_02: And then the solutions are not that hard.
42:58
SPEAKER_02: And that was sort of my epiphany when it came to Cannes, where I said, well, so many women feel guilty.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: They they still come to Cannes.
43:06
SPEAKER_02: I'm going the south of France.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: I feel guilty leaving my family for a week, especially a day after Father's Day, you know, whatever.
43:13
SPEAKER_02: And to how can I provide access to eliminating the guilty gap?
43:18
SPEAKER_02: I thought, well, I'm gonna have child care.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: And we had an amazing partner, Lowe's, the building company, that loved the concept because it was not, it's not that, you know, getting permission slip sign-offs and you know, this isn't what we do for a living.
43:34
SPEAKER_02: But we did it.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we accepted 25 kids year one.
43:38
SPEAKER_02: We had a wait list of 150.
43:40
SPEAKER_02: And it was amazing.
43:42
SPEAKER_02: Parents got to see their children during the day whenever they wanted.
43:46
SPEAKER_02: The kids had the best time, you know.
43:49
SPEAKER_02: So I think the camp was from age two, we did a camp, from age two to age 12.
43:54
SPEAKER_02: And then the older kids came and interned in the lounge and you know, had the best time.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: They all became friends.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: So like the next generation of our partners and their kids all, you know, spending time together and and you know uniting was amazing.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: Now, I mean, it just it just worked and we can't wait to do more of that.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're bringing our kids next year.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100%.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: How do we get on the list?
44:20
SPEAKER_00: Get on early, because it's a long list.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
44:24
SPEAKER_02: But you know, even the hotel, the Martinez, they were so amazing.
44:27
SPEAKER_02: They said, This is the best thing that happened at our hotel.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: They loved it.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: And they said, We'll give you as much space as you need next year.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: It's good, keep going.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: And the whole staff was lining up just to thank us for, you know, especially a lot of the the moms that work at the hotel, you know, how much they loved it.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: And and even if it was the prime, if the woman was the one coming to Cannes, she then brought her partner.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: Like she could bring her partner, their spouse, or that you know, and their children and see each other, you know, and after hours all be together.
44:59
SPEAKER_02: Like it was a whole different enjoy it together, yeah.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: God is just beautiful.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: And I there's so many, I remember seeing a few pictures of you like in the ball pit with the kids.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: Like it you you're so in your elbow.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: And came.
45:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like what my grandson.
45:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was it was just like we started, what fills my cup, that filled my cup.
45:23
SPEAKER_02: That was joy.
45:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
45:24
SPEAKER_02: I would leave the lounge whenever I it just gave me my my happy break.
45:29
SPEAKER_02: I would leave in the you know, right before I was moderating a panel or an interview or whatever, and I'd run and I'd go play with all the kids there, and I had the best time.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: Kids have that impact.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh little shot of endorphins, then head back.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the conversations that we wanted to touch on that was recently in that latest Women in Workplace report, the headline had suggested, and I know this is a topic you're passionate about, that women were becoming less ambitious than men.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: And so much of this and and access is also about perception, right?
46:06
SPEAKER_00: You were quick to jump in on that conversation and as you do, work to challenge that narrat narrative.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: So, what what's the conversation that everyone is missing?
46:15
SPEAKER_00: And how do we, you know, help in changing that perception?
46:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's when I actually started talking about the access gap.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: Because I said we don't have an ambition gap.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, are you ambitious?
46:27
SPEAKER_02: Are you lacking ambition?
46:28
SPEAKER_02: Definitely not.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: We like the ambition, Jackie?
46:31
SPEAKER_02: No.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: Hell no.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm double ambition.
46:33
SPEAKER_02: How could they do any woman I've asked?
46:36
SPEAKER_02: I have asked a million women, do you lack ambition?
46:40
SPEAKER_02: No one has said yes.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: They all say we're ambitious.
46:44
SPEAKER_02: So how do you get a headline that says we're we're not ambitious?
46:50
SPEAKER_02: And and why are we labeling us again?
46:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, so we we get our periods, we have menopause, we have imposter syndrome, we we're bitchy, we're bossy, and now we we lack ambition.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: Like, why do why should that become a new narrative around us that, a number one, isn't true?
47:13
SPEAKER_02: And you know, as a researcher, you know, how you ask a question or how you define ambition is how people would say yes or no.
47:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you say, do you care about money as, you know, the sole ingredient of success, maybe you'll say no as a woman.
47:30
SPEAKER_02: And maybe a man will say yes.
47:31
SPEAKER_02: And so that's how they define ambition.
47:33
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how they defined ambition.
47:34
SPEAKER_02: So depending on how you define ambition, is how you're gonna get a yes or a no answer.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: And so I thought to myself, it's not an ambition gap, it's an access gap.
47:44
SPEAKER_02: And that's when I started writing about access.
47:46
SPEAKER_02: It's about having that opportunity.
47:48
SPEAKER_02: It's why I profile women and make the invisible visible.
47:52
SPEAKER_02: We we are badass, ambitious, passionate, purpose-driven people.
47:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:00
SPEAKER_02: And that narrative and that language, we need to be very careful because then we're gonna end up with another label that is putting women in this bucket, and I'm not really sure why we're doing that.
48:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, and that's when I took it on by saying, don't call women lacking, don't say that women are lacking ambition, because you show me, show me the description then.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna pivot slightly, Shelly, into AI in the next generation, right?
48:29
SPEAKER_01: And you know, unlike many people, you have been so incredibly optimistic about AI.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: Not because you look at it as a solution to all things, but because we still have the opportunity to shape it.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: What responsibility do you think or or do you feel women have in building the future of AI, um, you know, similar to the example set by the anthropic ladies?
48:54
SPEAKER_02: You know, to me, um, AI is an ingredient.
48:58
SPEAKER_02: It is not a solution.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: It is an ingredient.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we we have a lot of amazing ingredients.
49:03
SPEAKER_02: You know, electricity is an ingredient.
49:05
SPEAKER_02: It's how are you going to use it?
49:06
SPEAKER_02: It is an ingredient.
49:08
SPEAKER_02: And for me, it's an ingredient for growth, an ingredient for amplification, and an ingredient for getting rid of mindless tasks that can actually accelerate you in your career, can free up time that you were, you know, investing in something that's mindless to actually now, you know, taking on other things and finding more time.
49:30
SPEAKER_02: So I see it as the best friend.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: And if you embrace it as that, you will be so grateful that AI has uh now become a very, very important ingredient in the solutions that we need for the workplace.
49:42
SPEAKER_02: Fine.
49:43
SPEAKER_02: The thing that we need to be involved in is ensuring that we have representation and reflection data.
49:52
SPEAKER_02: You know, when you look at health and AI pulls historical data from the past to feed the predictive models of the future and so junk in, junk out.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: So we do need to ensure that we are part of the development of AI solutions, that we ensure that the data is representative.
50:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, when you look at women's health, women weren't in clinical trials until 1993.
50:19
SPEAKER_02: And so if you're using data that predates that, you know, we don't have, you know, male-female case studies at the volumes or algorithms.
50:30
SPEAKER_02: And so that could taint the data.
50:32
SPEAKER_02: So we we just need to be conscious of having representation of lived experience across the board so that we are reflecting reality in society moving forward.
50:43
SPEAKER_02: So the past definitely does help to predict the future, but we do need to have the right data sets.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: Even an example of changing your name.
50:51
SPEAKER_02: Men in general don't change their name when they get married, and women do.
50:54
SPEAKER_02: I kept my maiden name of Zalis, but had I've changed my name to Fleshner, the algorithm would not have connected Zalis and Fleschner.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: And I've written hundreds of articles and you know, it wouldn't connect the dots.
51:09
SPEAKER_02: We're working on that now.
51:11
SPEAKER_02: But had I not thought about something like that to bring that up to developers or whatever, someone that never changed their name might not think about that.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: Right.
51:21
SPEAKER_02: And why why do women always have to be the ones?
51:24
SPEAKER_02: I've been challenging this for a long time.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: Why can't we it's back to access?
51:28
SPEAKER_02: You have to have access to the right people that are developing the systems to be able to say, hey, have you thought about this?
51:34
SPEAKER_02: But even thinking about not just an AI.
51:36
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I used an example yesterday in a speech I gave.
51:39
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you don't wear skinny high heels, you don't realize that those heels get caught in escalators.
51:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't think men have invented the escalator because, you know, it's really dangerous still today that, you know, if if you're wearing uh, you know, a liboutan shoe with a skinny little heel, it gets caught in the escalator things.
52:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
52:03
SPEAKER_02: And unless if you're wearing a heel that you're you could pull your foot out of, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've had to pull my shoe out of the escalator.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: Now I know to tiptoe.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: I go on my tippy toes when I'm wearing those heels.
52:15
SPEAKER_02: But that's representation and reflection.
52:18
SPEAKER_02: And it's really designed.
52:20
SPEAKER_02: You have to do that as well, right?
52:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you have to send it to the body.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: The number one fatality when an airbag opens is women.
52:28
SPEAKER_02: Because it wasn't designed with women in mind, with with women's bone structure.
52:33
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, these are the types of things that and it's the same thing with AI.
52:38
SPEAKER_02: So we do need to have representation at the table to be reflective of ensuring that we take the bias out of the out of the equation.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: Agree.
52:48
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: So we have time to talk about the legacy that you have built and will one day leave behind.
52:56
SPEAKER_00: So when you look back, how has Shelley Dallas changed?
53:01
SPEAKER_00: Not not so much professionally, which obviously, you know, you've evolved and grown, but personally.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, is there something you used to believe in that you no longer believe in?
53:12
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, what's next?
53:13
SPEAKER_00: What's that work?
53:15
SPEAKER_00: What that that you feel is unfinished, that you still have more to do.
53:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I really believe in leaving a legacy in the lifetime of my leadership.
53:23
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to wait until I'm gone.
53:25
SPEAKER_02: My sister has terminal brain cancer.
53:28
SPEAKER_03: I'm so sorry, Shirley.
53:29
SPEAKER_02: And when you think about life, you have one life and it should mean something.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: It should matter.
53:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, interestingly enough, a window fell down on me several years ago.
53:43
SPEAKER_02: Um, as this 350-pound window was coming down in a hotel room.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: I thought to myself, I hope, I hope that my work will make a difference, and I hope that God takes care of my children.
53:55
SPEAKER_02: And then of course, I thought, I hope I thought I'd either be paralyzed or dead.
54:02
SPEAKER_02: These were the thoughts.
54:03
SPEAKER_02: And I thought and then I saw angels, I willed angels to hold the corners of the window and put it down on me.
54:12
SPEAKER_02: And that's what happened.
54:13
SPEAKER_02: I saw them, they held the corners, and nothing happened to me.
54:18
SPEAKER_02: I had a concussion, I had a hole in my head.
54:21
SPEAKER_02: But that's fine.
54:22
SPEAKER_02: To me, it's if you're gonna do something, make it important.
54:25
SPEAKER_02: Um and that's why I tell people when you love what you do, it's called passion, when you don't, it's called stress.
54:30
SPEAKER_02: And you know, if you're just pushing papers and you're not enjoying what you're doing, don't waste your time.
54:37
SPEAKER_02: Make it matter.
54:38
SPEAKER_02: And I was invited to the uh Title IX.
54:41
SPEAKER_02: So it was 50 years, it was the Espies, it was a big sports thing, and I was next to it wasn't a Wimbusse, it was the Espies.
54:48
SPEAKER_02: We were celebrating Title IX.
54:50
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sitting next to Legends, I was sitting next to Billie Jean King, and I was sitting next to Abby Wombeck and all these amazing women.
54:58
SPEAKER_02: And here we were celebrating the 50-year anniversary of Equal Pay and Tennis and in Title IX.
55:04
SPEAKER_02: And it was such a proud moment to be there.
55:08
SPEAKER_02: And I go home that night and I get a report that talked about that the World Economic Forum does this report and it says it it said it would take 132 years to close the to close the gender gap.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: And I thought to myself, 132 years to close the gender gap.
55:27
SPEAKER_02: Where will you be?
55:28
SPEAKER_02: Where will I be?
55:29
SPEAKER_02: Where will your children be?
55:30
SPEAKER_02: Where will your grandchildren be?
55:31
SPEAKER_02: Where will your great grandchild?
55:33
SPEAKER_02: That means it's not possible.
55:35
SPEAKER_02: And here we are every year going to the World Economic Forum.
55:39
SPEAKER_02: People sitting around the table, they talk about closing the climate gap.
55:42
SPEAKER_02: They they talk about, you know, all of you know the global goals.
55:47
SPEAKER_02: Well, first of all, climate takes everyone working together to close it.
55:51
SPEAKER_02: That that's and they're they talk about they're putting money, they're investing in it, you know, the hunger gap, the poverty gap, the education gap, the gender.
56:00
SPEAKER_02: But the only global goal, global goal five, gender equality, that actually it's the only goal that you can achieve in the lifetime of your leadership because it's fixable.
56:12
SPEAKER_02: And yet, we're saying it's gonna take 132 years.
56:15
SPEAKER_02: And I looked in the mirror and I thought to myself, shame on me.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: I've committed the rest of my work life on closing the gaps in the workplace.
56:28
SPEAKER_02: And according to this study, it's not doable.
56:31
SPEAKER_02: Shame on me.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: And then I thought that night I wrote an op-ed and it said, Why wait 132 years?
56:40
SPEAKER_02: We can close it in five.
56:42
SPEAKER_02: It's possible if you want it.
56:44
SPEAKER_02: And then that became sort of my guiding light of this data is bullshit.
56:51
SPEAKER_02: That's for people who wait and watch.
56:53
SPEAKER_02: It will require intentional action for change.
56:55
SPEAKER_02: And I I created an initiative called the flipping point.
56:58
SPEAKER_02: The tipping point, you wait and watch, Malcolm Gladwell.
57:01
SPEAKER_02: The flipping point, FQ, requires intentional action for change.
57:05
SPEAKER_02: And that was that.
57:07
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, all of these things are, you know, propellers for continuing to create the good trouble, to break the rules that make no sense and create the new ones.
57:20
SPEAKER_02: Because status quo means you're gonna keep doing the same thing over and over again.
57:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
57:26
SPEAKER_02: Insanity.
57:28
SPEAKER_02: And that's insanity.
57:29
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, all these things come full circle.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I know Jackie, you've built the legacy, you know, from here on it's just bonus, but you've already done so much to to lead the back.
57:42
SPEAKER_00: And I know you don't give yourself the credit, but it it just takes one person to start that revolution, right?
57:49
SPEAKER_00: To make a change, to have people think differently.
57:52
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you you really deserve all the credit, Shelly.
57:56
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you inspire us every day.
57:58
SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
57:59
unknown: Thank you.
57:59
SPEAKER_02: It's really funny.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: I was working with the treasury on getting a woman on the front of the$20 bill.
58:05
SPEAKER_02: Rosie Rios was the former treasury of the United States.
58:08
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, if you actually look at the bills, you'll see her name on everything.
58:10
SPEAKER_02: And and so we were working together on getting the woman on the 20.
58:15
SPEAKER_02: And so I brought all the women to the Treasury.
58:19
SPEAKER_02: So 30 women in the in the can in the FQ community.
58:23
SPEAKER_02: We all went with Rosie, whatever.
58:24
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
58:25
SPEAKER_02: And we're at the time, you could walk, well, Rosie got us in to the actual printing press where they print the money.
58:32
SPEAKER_02: And we're inside the printing press.
58:35
SPEAKER_02: And my girlfriend by accident sat on, you know, as they're showing us how money is made in the printing in real time.
58:41
SPEAKER_02: She sat on this red button and all the alarms are going off.
58:47
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, what is happening?
58:49
SPEAKER_02: She stopped the printing press.
58:51
SPEAKER_02: It's just when you said that, it just made me think someone has to push the button.
58:57
unknown: Yeah.
58:57
SPEAKER_03: You know, the rest has to go together.
59:00
SPEAKER_02: But like when you said button, I'm like, it was a red button.
59:03
SPEAKER_02: And there's probably, and every bill has a number sequence on it.
59:08
SPEAKER_02: So there is a sequence that's paused.
59:10
SPEAKER_02: So there's probably, I don't know how many bills that did get printed, and there's probably a skip in numbers or something like that.
59:19
SPEAKER_00: You literally stop the press.
59:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, that is what you do.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: Like to sum it all up.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: What you do is cause the good trouble, stop the press, and you know, restart it again the right way.
59:32
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
59:33
SPEAKER_02: Well, we weren't successful that time getting Harriet Tubman on the front of the 20.
59:38
SPEAKER_02: So we started working on the 10, but no one was gonna remove Hamilton because the the Hamilton show became so popular.
59:46
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
59:48
SPEAKER_00: We we still have the fives, the singles.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: We'll take the hundreds.
59:51
SPEAKER_01: We can do it.
59:52
SPEAKER_01: We can do it.
59:53
SPEAKER_01: All right, now we have our signature round coming up, Shelley, where we ask you a couple of questions, a few questions, and you give us the first thing that's that's that's in your head.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: So one business rule you would happily delete.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_00: That there's only one way.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_00: We've come who's creating good trouble today besides you that we should pay attention to.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_00: Conscious leaders.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, people used to use the word unconscious.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: I said if you if you use the word unconscious, you're conscious.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_02: Once you're conscious, you have a choice, do something or don't.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_02: So good trouble is conscious leaders.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: And what's your hype song before you take the stage?
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I I love Sia, Unstoppable.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: That's a good one.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: It's on we have a sheet comment play list on Spotify, so we always ask this and add to it.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: So check check it out.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_00: It's a good one.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_00: All right, last one, finish the sentence.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_00: Real leadership begins when you believe anything is possible.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: So, Shelly, imagine there's a woman listening today.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_01: There are a few, there are a few.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_01: She's qualified, she's capable, she's ambitious, but she's standing outside a room she doesn't think she's being invited to.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: What's the first rule you'd tell her to stop believing, and what's the new rule you would encourage her to write for herself?
1:01:10
SPEAKER_02: Shut that bitch up in your head and and be you.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_01: That I want that in a t-shirt, shut that bitch up.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean, because we we have this imposter syndrome, this voice, but it's not a real voice.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we gave ourselves that word imposter syndrome.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_02: Men and women have imposter syndrome, men in general tend to ignore it, and women let that voice get louder, and it's not even a real voice.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_02: So just flip the narrative.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: Flip the narrative and just say, I'm amazing.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, and all these studies that say, you know, if there's a job that requires, you know, you having 10 qualifications.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_02: If a guy has six out of 10, he's like, yep, I got this.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_02: If a woman does one out of 10, she's like, I'm not qualified.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: Flip the script, right?
1:01:50
SPEAKER_00: Play that unstoppable and push through.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: Shelly, just again, we can't thank you enough for joining us and just all uh what you shared, your stories, like how real and transparent you are and vulnerable.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: And you don't see that often with with leaders in this industry, especially I I would say female leaders try to put up that, you know, or put that armor on.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_00: And you're just so real, and you are making and have made just incredible change and transformation already.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_00: So before we let you go, at SheCommerce, we're building something much bigger than the podcast.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_00: And I I know this resonates that we're building this global sisterhood, and we believe the same thing that it is about creating that movement and not going alone and having those women and allies who believe in leadership and believe that when more voices are heard, that we can do more together.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_00: So we'd love to invite you to join our SheCommerce community and sisterhoods and take the pledge to pay it forward.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_00: You already do all this stuff, so we like fast forward because you do it, but amplify women's voices and challenge those outdated systems and elevate women.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_00: So will you take that pledge with us?
1:02:59
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_00: How are you building your community?
1:03:02
SPEAKER_00: One conversation at a time and inviting those women in and you know, hopefully doing some taking a uh page from your playbook, right?
1:03:11
SPEAKER_00: And having hosting those communities and conversations that they can join into as well.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's do it.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: Shelly, you know, as well as as saying thank you to you, the inimitable Shelly Zalis.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_01: We we appreciate what you're doing, we appreciate everything you have done so far and and what you will continue to do.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_01: And we thank you for being here, and we thank our amazing listeners for tuning in and joining us.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_01: So, all that's left to say is all brands, fierce women, one sisterhood.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_01: And it's a wrap.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, Shelley, you were amazing.