Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The Supreme Court maintains FDA approval of mifepristone—for now, Bed Bath & Beyond files for bankruptcy, and the CEO of Heineken USA wants to diversify her industry. Have a productive Monday.
– Grab a beer. Maggie Timoney grew up in Ireland until she came to the U.S. For college. After graduating from Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y., she found a job as a sales rep for the wine business Gallo. It was a twist of fate that set her on a path for a 30-year career in the alcoholic beverages industry.
Today, Timoney is the CEO of Heineken USA. After her stint as a wine sales rep, she joined Heineken in 1998 and has held jobs overseeing the Dutch brewing company’s businesses in Canada and back home in Ireland; she spent some time working from the brand’s home base in the Netherlands before taking on the Heineken USA CEO job in New York in 2018.
“It was an unbelievable experience that helped me grow as a person,” Timoney says of her journey within the company.
This year, diversity and inclusion are major focuses for Timoney. At the end of 2022, Heineken published the second edition of “Behind the Label” an annual report which cataloged experiences of belonging and inclusion within the alcoholic beverages industry. Eighty-six percent of employees in the industry said they experienced some type of bias during their time at work.
Those findings are guiding Timoney as she works to welcome new kinds of talent to the traditionally male-dominated industry and create a work environment that encourages new recruits to stick around. Rather than focus on diversity in hiring, she wants to improve the experiences of workers already in the industry. She says she was a “bit naive” about the gender disparity in the industry when she entered it after growing up in an environment she describes as a level playing field for boys and girls in Ireland.
The alcoholic beverages industry can have an outsize impact on culture compared to the size of its businesses, Timoney argues. Consumers know beer, wine, and spirits brands even if some of those companies themselves are relatively small. Heineken earned about €35 billion in revenue globally last year and is still controlled by Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, a member of the brewing business’s founding family.
“We are doing it for our own company,” she says of Heineken’s work to diversify its workforce. “But we want our industry to get the best talent in—and not only in beer, but in wine and spirits, too.”
Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Safe, for now. The Supreme Court on Friday left in place the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone. The drug used for medication abortion will remain available while a Texas ruling on its distribution is appealed. Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, dissented and Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have denied an emergency application to keep the drug accessible. CBS News
- Bed time. Bed Bath & Beyond, currently led by CEO Sue Gove, filed for bankruptcy yesterday. The troubled chain will begin an "orderly wind down" of its businesses while it seeks a buyer for some assets. Coins2Day
- Tangled web. JPMorgan's ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ran deeper than the bank has so far acknowledged, the Wall Street Journal reports. Executive Mary Erdoes, who is now CEO of JPMorgan Chase's Asset & Wealth Management, reportedly met with Epstein twice at his New York townhouse and discussed sharing fees with him on a charitable fund. She declined to comment; a bank spokesperson said the level of engagement was typical for a private banking client. Wall Street Journal
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Coins2Day alum Caroline Fairchild joins Lean In as the organization's first editor-in-chief.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Investigation to resignation. NBCUniversal chief executive Jeff Shell announced his resignation following an investigation into what he called "an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company." The woman, who remains anonymous, filed a complaint that prompted parent company Comcast's investigation. Wall Street Journal
- Making a list. ChatGPT can be used not just for work or school, but at home. The generative A.I. Tool can cut down on domestic labor usually performed by women by helping to plan family trips, write packing lists, propose meal plans and shopping lists for the week, and more. The Atlantic
- In compliance. As sports betting has become more popular, so too has GeoComply, a company that analyzes online bets to figure out whether they're being made in states where doing so is legal. The company was founded by a husband-and-wife team, CEO Anna Sainsbury and David Briggs. Wall Street Journal
ON MY RADAR
Rachel Weisz and the glorious horrors of pregnancy New York Times
The exhibit that reveals Toni Morrison's obsessions The Atlantic
The gospel of Candace Owens The New Yorker
Birth control is next Slate
PARTING WORDS
"She was having the greatest fun dissecting a literary icon."
—Bill Hamilton, literary agent to the late author Hilary Mantel. The Wolf Hall author was working on a "mashup" of Jane Austen novels at the time of her death in 2022.
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