Most Powerful Women Summit 2023

Lt. Col Bree Fram, Chief, Acquisition Policies and Processes Division, United States Space Force Terri Burns, Investor; Board Member; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech 

MPW Summit 2023: The Inclusion Imperative

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Today is national coming out day, an annual celebration of LGBT Q Plus identity and a reminder of the ongoing journey toward acceptance, inequality and the power of coming out. It's a day that is undoubtedly meaningful to our next guest. Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram is the highest ranking out active duty transgender officer in the US Department of Defense. She's an astron engineer in the United States Space Force and currently works with the pen developing space acquisition policy. Bree also Coley is the Department of the Air Force LGBT Q Plus initiatives team which eliminates barriers to LGBT Q Plus Service. We're thrilled to have Bree join us today to talk about trans rights under attack across society and the importance of inclusion in the military, the business world and beyond. Bree joins Terry Burns, investor, board member and co-chair of fortunes brainstorm Tech. For today's conversation. Please welcome them to the stage. Alright, so, good morning. Good morning. What an honor to be here. Good. I love the energy. Good morning, everyone. Yeah, absolutely. Ok. So let's get into it. You are an active duty lieutenant colonel and astron engineer in the United States Space Force. What is the mission of the space force and why do we need defense and space? Well, the mission of the space force is to secure our nation's interests in from and to space. So in short, that means we need to be sure that we can access the space domain. We need to be able to protect, defend and know what's going on in space. And then we need to bring all those amazing capabilities that space delivers back down to earth, not just for our joint force and what we do to secure and defend the nation, but to everyone, you know, most people don't know that the space force runs, flies, designs, GPS. So anything that you do to navigate, anything that you do with a credit card or the timing signal that underpins every financial transaction in the world is supplied by the space force. So all of you probably touch us every day in a way you've never even conceive of calling on a military service and understanding the fact that we actually need to protect these capabilities is so important because there are threats out there. And we couldn't even imagine a day without space. Think of the capabilities it provides to just about every sector of the economy from telling farmers when to plant uh when to water, the sensing that we do the weather prediction capability. I mean, it is phenomenal what space brings and if we were to lose space capabilities, think of setting us back 70 or 100 years in where we are as a planet, it would be almost unsurvivable. So you served 18 years in the Air Force before recommissioning into, into the space force. Why do you serve? And what made moving to the space force so compelling? Well, I could easily tell a 30 minute story filled with family connections and events. That is a lot of emotions uh about why I serve and, and why the Space Force, but I'll sum it up in, in three ways. One, it is that ability to serve that ability to give back and protect and defend the things that I care about so much. Support and defend the constitution and the ideals of creating a better nation. It, it fuels my passion in space. I have always been a space nerd and I like to say if it's nerdy, I probably tried it and I almost certainly enjoyed it. Uh So being part of the space environment, being a technology developer that really excites me. But as for the space force being a new military service. Wow, talk about viewing my other passion of building a culture because we have this opportunity to develop a 21st century military culture. A new service does not come along very often. This is once in multiple generations and we through our founding documents and our core values, connection, commitment, courage, character are setting the foundation for a service that values all of us. Um In fact, I'd encourage you all if you actually have a few minutes, read a document called the Guardian Spirit. It is a short like 16 page document on leadership and what we believe in. And it is one of the best primers on leadership I have seen and it has words you wouldn't expect to see in a military leadership document. It talks about embracing diversity and engaging inclusively. It talks about the value of openness, openness, authenticity and vulnerability, I mean, vulnerability in a military leadership document that's wild to think of. But vulnerability, the ability to show ourselves we're human is that opening to connection and embracing that connection with our teams makes us all better. So I could not be more excited than to be part of the space force and the culture that we are building, that's awesome. And, and to that point in that spirit, vulnerability, openness, diversity, inclusion. Today's national coming out day, you have said before, quote, it took me a long time to get to the point of this is who I am. So I wanna ask you what gave you the courage to come out into your full self and tell the world who you are. My journey to authenticity was, was a long one. And for most of my military career, I was prohibited by policy from coming out from, in fact, even letting a word slip that might get to the wrong ear that I was trans because if it did, I could have lost my career for something that had absolutely nothing to do with my ability to serve. But still, when that moment came, when I could come out, I was afraid I didn't know what the reaction was going to be when that message got out into the world. And it, it took a lot because when the secretary of Defense in 2016 finished speaking to say, trans, people can now serve openly. I had a Facebook message ready to go to the world in a letter to go to my colleagues. And once I got up the courage to hit post to hit send, I ran away. I went and found the gym underneath the Pentagon got on the elliptical machine and I went nowhere faster than I'd ever gone anywhere in my life with all the nervous energy I had. But eventually I did have to go back to work and I sat down at my desk and one by one, my colleagues walked over to me, shook my hand and said, it's an honor to serve with you. And I was, I was floored. Um that I see that was a moment that will live with me forever because it was truly my honor to serve with them. And what we're trying to do trying to accomplish is so important. But still that, that courage to come out is something that everyone has to face. And for anyone on national coming out day coming out is not a single event. It is a process. It is something people do over and over again with the picture that sits on their desk of their family or talking about the pronouns of their spouse. It is something that happens again and again and you always have to do that risk management to think through that process of. Am I going to be ok if I come out in this situation? So for me, a lot of it was if not me, then who, because there's almost a sense of duty, a sense of obligation to take care of the others that are going to follow me as one of the senior most trans folks in the military. You know, we embrace that leadership ethos of leave no one behind. How do we bring people along behind us? How do we make sure that they don't face the barriers that we had to face and that if we can do that by cutting down the trees and paving the road behind us so that the people joining the military today can get to the places that I've been to with the energy to go further. That's success, that's leadership building. That is what we need to do in the military to deliver capability far into the future. Absolutely. And, and your point around the act of coming out as a continual act throughout one's life really resonates with me, my partner is non binary. And I think a lot about when and how it is OK to sort of share that information. So that is really resonant in just a moment. I want to open up questions to the audience. But first, I want to lean a little bit more into some of the barriers and challenges that, that still remain today. What are some of the challenges that remain specifically for transgender service members in the military? I think one of the biggest barriers that is out there are the stereotypes of who trans people are and who trans people in the military are, is an even wilder and more outlandish stereotype. The concept of people like me is that we're weeping masses who could never return fire from our foxhole because we're too busy thinking about what we're going to wear that night or our gender identity or the transgender men are steroidal rage monsters. They're going to charge at the the hill at the wrong place and get everyone killed and nothing could be further from the truth. But even at a more mundane level, I had a boss who I worked for for a about six months after coming out and he retired. But before he did, he called me into his office and said that I broke his stereotype of who a trans person was just by showing up to work every day. I thought, whoa, that is a really low bar. Let let me just step right over that one. so, but it's, it's crazy that a lot of people think we have second heads growing out of our shoulders. I mean, we are a small portion of the population and, and too easily conceived of as this last boogeyman that's out there, the scary people that no one knows. So I take every day, every day as a gift to meet people, to interact and to show that we're not monsters. We're here. We're serving for the same reasons as anyone else. And it's just an amazing opportunity we have every day to change hearts and minds. Do you have any questions from the audience? Any questions? I'm curious to know a little bit more about, of course, inclusion in the military, which is super important and this is women. Fortune's most powerful women. So how do you think about the importance of inclusion, not just in the military but in business as well? So inclusion is a national security imperative. We fight today and we are going to fight in the future using brain power. And if that brain who's going to revolutionize the way we fight in space, we fight in Cyber just happens to be in a trans body. You should want them all serving alongside me and for your organizations. It's the same way, those perspectives that we get from a diverse set of individuals. It's been talked about on stage a lot regarding the science behind high performing teams, we need those perspectives. But it's inclusion that actually drives that because you can bring people in. And if they don't feel safe to speak up, if they don't feel safe to bring their full selves to work, you're not gonna get the value of the diversity. So for us, it is absolutely critical to drive our future success as an organization and potentially on the battlefield. And I think it's the same way for all of you because we can't leave that talent that is going to revolutionize the way we do business behind. I think we have a question right here. Hi, my name is Beth Depalo with Earth and scientific. I just want to say thank you for being you and for your role model model leadership and for your service. Uh What was the name of the document that you said we should all read? I apologize. It is the Guardian spirit, the guardian spirit. So it talks about our, our core values, what each of them mean, what team members should believe, what team leaders should believe and talks about all those amazing concepts that we are trying to do to build high performing teams because it's how do we connect with one another? How do we embody those values? And again, how do we build a culture? Which is such a cool opportunity. Thank you so much. I think we have one question over here and we're running a little low on time. So let's keep it a little. Thank you for your service. My name is Jiga Aaron. I'm a ciso at Octa. I wouldn't be a ciso without my friend Joan, whom I've shared this story with a little bit. My question to you is what can we do to help continue to push your message forward and support you while you are in service? So, one of the things I think all of us can do is tell stories, share stories, share with people that you know, LGBT Q individuals uh and highlight them in your companies in the work that you do. Because representation truly does matter. And that ability to see someone who's done something incredible and to see that from a young person's perspective and give them that opportunity to say I can do that. And it's, it's not a new concept. In fact, we can go all the way back to Frederick Douglass in 18 81 standing at the right hand of the president while serving as Marshal of DC. And he remarked about how valuable that was, how not even the hoary Locks of time could remove that image from people's minds and give something that people can strive to. So highlight us, tell our stories, show the achievement and watch possibility bloom in young people's imaginations. One of the most rewarding things I ever do is give speeches and I see a young individual come up after uh afterwards and speak with me and say, I never knew that was possible for me and that touches me because it's amazing to see that open up for someone. Lieutenant Colonel. Thank you so much for your service. It's been an absolute pleasure. It has been so much fun. Thanks for having me.

Corie Barry, Chief Executive Officer, Best Buy Interviewer: Emma Hinchliffe, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: Capturing The Consumer

Good morning. Hello, good morning, everybody. Welcome. Thank you for being with us for our final day of the NPW summit. Um As we start today's program, I wanna mention that today is the annual International Day of The Girl. We celebrate girls around the world today and we look forward to them becoming the change makers and the most powerful women of tomorrow. Um I have to say just being here with all of you um the power, the intellect that we've gathered and all of the information sharing has just been fantastic. Um And, and incredibly inspiring these last few days. Um The whole NPW team has enjoyed talking with you and learning from you and I really, really appreciate all of your questions and comments throughout. Um Before we get started, I'm sure many of you saw the heartwarming photo board on the monarch patio. Um This highlights A R P's charitable arm wish of a lifetime which grants seniors the opportunity to pursue long standing passions. We all have those. Um We asked you to vote on which of the seniors featured on the board should win her wish. And we're happy to report that a ARP is declaring all three women winners. Everyone's a winner and they will have their wishes. Granted. There's 100 and one year old woman who uh, flew with Amelia Earnhardt and is going to get to fly a plane again. Yeah. Uh one woman is going to drive a race car and another is going to take dance classes a long, long held passion. So thank you so much for those of you, to those of you who voted and of course to a RP for granting their wishes. Um Yeah. Amazing. Ok, let's get to our discussions for the day. We have a great lineup. Um We're going to start with a visionary businesswoman known for successfully navigating the challenges of the retail industry, driving growth and transformation through strategic and innovative thinking all while leading with purpose in mind. Cory Barry is the CEO of Best Buy. She's been with the company for nearly 24 years rising through the ranks all the way to the top. And we're pleased to note that Corey once again is on fortune's list of most powerful women in business. This year. She joins Fortune, senior writer and MP W co-chair Emma Hinchliff for a conversation on identifying new opportunities, meeting consumer demands and delivering on the promise to enrich lives through technology. Please welcome them to the MP W stage. Hi, good morning, Corey. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Of course. Thanks for helping me take things off of course. Yeah. So, are people buying big ticket electronics right now? And what does that mean for Best Buy if they're not? Yeah. So, I think most people know there was a definite pull forward of electronics purchases in the pandemic. Like, we all woke up one day and we're like, oh, sweet. My office is now in my kitchen and my kids are going to be in the living room and we got all the things right. And we started with computers and then we're like, oh no, I'm going to have to be here for more than six months. And so then we're like, I need a camera filter and then we realized, oh, it's been a year and I'm streaming a lot more. I'd love to have my own home theater and, and you just saw this massive amount of purchase. And so what's happened as we've come out of that? We assumed the industry would pull back. You're just not going to have that kind of elevated demand, especially when you pumped $3 trillion of stimulus into the economy. But what doubled that is as you all know, incredible amounts of inflation. And so people now are prioritizing really? I call it, I'm gonna overly generalize two big things. The basics, food fuel and lodging are up 20 to 30% versus pre panem wages are up at 17%. So you're eating into that savings and they're prioritizing fun. Fun. Taylor Swift. She was just on, like, I'm paying $1000 for that front row ticket. And those experiences are really where people are willing to pay, which means the bigger ticket items in electronics. Not right now where people are as interested, but, but there's a good story there which we'll get to. I'm sure what is the story? A great thing. So, I think we live in a really misunderstood industry. There's like this idea that it's discretionary who here will go today without using some kind of electronics, like in the next 10 minutes, maybe like, right, I have a 17 year old boy and I think if I took the electronics away, I mean, he's got four screens at any given point in time. Right? This is, this is a need. I don't know if you saw the Consumer Technology Association just announced in partnership with the UN. That technology is a human security pillar, things like food community, water now technology because it's so essential to being connected to the world. So you've got this amazing need and there's a larger install base of products than there's ever been. Think about your own house. How many pre pandemic versus post pandemic pieces of connected equipment do you have in your home? Biggest install base ever? And the coolest part about the stuff we sell is it's never static I out highly. And if you do come see me, anyone in here has a computer more than 10 years old, right. It just won't work, the operating system changes, the hardware changes. And the greatest thing about our industry is innovation. And so yes, right now people are pulling back, but the future, the future will only be more enabled by technology. And we are the ones we are the last left standing. We are one of one that knows how to commercialize that new tech better than anyone. Do you feel like, you know, investors, Wall Street, are they on board with your idea that technology is, you know, more of a human, right, and less discretionary spending and how does that affect things like your share price? So the the great thing about Wall Street is they are the most pragmatic thinkers by nature. Like if I'm an analyst or an investor, just like many of us in this room are you are looking for the sure bet, right? So it is always harder to bet on the idea of the future, the idea of innovation, you're going to kind of look for the safe harbor. So I think there is a realization that we are an end of one and that we add real unique value in the ecosystem. And at the same time, you're against a consumer backdrop that is incredibly uneven, which means investors are going to make their own calls about where they want their own safe harbor. Yeah, you know, and some of these indicators are, you said are contradictory. Can you explain that a little. How do all of these signals contradict each other? It's, it's just the most fascinating thing. So I always think about it as a funnel. So let's start at the top with the consumer. The consumer is in a good place and there's a lot written, you know, when does the cliff come right now, the consumer is in a good place. They're spending still at record levels. Yes, debt is increasing but it's like normalizing to what it was pre pandemic. Savings are coming down, normalizing to pre pandemic and they're spending on as we talked about things like services in air quotes, which is restaurants, trips, all those wonderful things that we missed so badly. And um so at the highest level and what's that buoyed by lots of savings, three trillion is a lot of stimulus and a jobs market that I would say defies expectations, right? You still have the lowest unemployment, hundreds of thousands of open jobs. Um So that is helping to buoy but then you take that consumer and you go down into retail. So not even to ce just retail. And because of that trade off between services and inflation in general, people are starting to shift away from spending and it's hit the sub industries at different times. They've started to pull back in pet care, right. Going for more the basics versus the really high end treatments for pets started to pull back in lumber and home improvement where you had 60% inflation for a while. Each of these are kind of hitting at different points. And then when you get into c definitely because of that huge pull forward of demand, that's a place where we've seen people start to, to wait on making some of the purchases. So depending on the consumer, they're gonna prioritize again, especially when it's the basics, they're going to prioritize what's right for their family. And still right now, that experiences, I think after lacking experiences for a couple of years is such a priority for families. So this is a very interesting conversation and we'll open it up for, for questions in a moment. So start thinking, oh, I think we have one right now. Um We'll wait for the my handler to get to you. We'll get right back to you. But um you know, earlier this week, Best Buy announced that you were selling glucose monitoring systems, which I was interested to see. Can you talk a little bit about that strategy? Some people might be surprised to hear that that's something you can buy at best buy. The interesting part of health care is that it is moving into our own hands, right? We are more and more able to buy devices and look at data like I'm wearing my A ring and my order ring told me I didn't sleep very well and I'm very stressed out about being in front of all of you. Uh I have, you know, five devices now that are telling me that and, but it's real, the reality though is this device has become the most accurate predictor of whether or not I'm going to have COVID. If I get up and my score out of 100 is closer to 40 or 50 I might feel fine. But the underlying metrics are pointing to the fact that I'm going to get sick and there are devices like this proliferating. And so our strong point of view is the future of health care will be in labeled by technology. We're actually going into people's homes who have chronic conditions, helping them hook up a number of different devices. We have a data platform that analyzes the geek sweat agents go in and help them. We have data platforms that analyze and get that back to the doctor. So you don't have to stay in the hospital. We are an aging society. I mean, 10,000 people are turning 65 every day. And as far as I can tell, very few of those would like to be anywhere other than their home. And so our bet is strongly supported by data. You're going to be able to start to use more and more technology to also pull cost out of the health care system and take control of your own health care. Well, let's go to our question and please introduce yourself. Hi, good morning everyone. Ashley. Tappin insignia. And you just answered the question, I was going to ask, which was about your bet on health care. So, thank you for that. But so another question is that people are saying that it's harder than ever to be a CEO and wanted to hear your thoughts on that and why that might be for you. My guess is every generation of CEO S has said it's harder than ever to do a CEO. I'd also say it's harder than ever to be a mom. I mean, I think, I think these, all of these are escalating topics for me. I think there are a unique set of challenges that today's CEO is navigating because I mean, we just spent 10 minutes talking about a really diverse, difficult set of business issues. And I and I talked to my team a lot. I mean, it's not just been one major life changing event. We have stacked 10 major life changes. Like any one of those taken alone would be a generational event, an invasion in Ukraine $3 trillion of stimulus, a pandemic. And we have stacked those and so by its nature, no CEO before us, none of you, no one before all of you has had to navigate that stacked set of crises. I laugh because the CEO before me, Hubert Joly left this beautiful array of leadership books in his office that I walked into and not one of them told me what I'm supposed to do at the start of a pandemic. And I looked, and so I think I, I think there is this, this real difficult so you have these business issues and then there is a real stack of social issues and expectations for companies that has not existed before 20 years ago. Your answer as a CEO could be, I'm not gonna give you an opinion on that. We don't talk about that in business. Like that could be a viable answer. That is not a viable answer today, not for my team and not for my customers. And so that's that, then you stack on top of the stack, set of crises. And I do think whether it's CEO or whether it's the leadership roles, many of you play in this room, they have never looked like they do today. And, um, I think you have to build a different level of resiliency and humanity in this role than you've ever had before. Another question back there. Hi, good morning. Uh Jennifer Deon, uh CEO of home partners. Um I'm to uh recovering CFO and just wondering if you could give some advice for the group and transitioning to becoming a CEO, whether it's from CFO or something else and just how you made that mindset shift. Yeah. So, um I, for those who don't know, I was a CFO for three years before I became CEO and I at Best Buy for like 20 something years. Yeah. And so I've had a lot of different roles at Best Buy. Um I think there's a couple of things that were really instrumental for me. I had a CEO who was also very much a mentor to me and stretched my responsibilities as CFO. And I think that can work in any role where I became CFO and the Chief transformation Officer, which by its nature, like left brain, right brain every day, you gotta think about growth and how you're going to drive growth. And I'm on the hook to make sure our SGN A is in line with where it needs to be as an organization. And I think the more throughout our collective careers you push, not just and I just the personal belief, I just don't think you're going to see many linear careers that go like straight up one level of expertise. I think it's going to look a lot more like we call it at best. Buy, we call it a lattice versus a ladder and you're going to spend more time trying to add responsibilities or change just like we're, we're trying to teach the team. Don't just worry about the next rung. Think about how you're going to build the breadth because that is ultimately, I think what makes these days. Uh I'm not saying I'm one. Hopefully I will be but a successful CEO, right, which is you're gonna have to think around every corner of every issue. Um And for me, that was the biggest change from CFO where you're, you're a little bit more linear in how you're thinking to CEO where you will opine on everything from, you know, an invasion in Ukraine all the way to a structural issue about your business model. Um So I was just, I, I'm always recommending add change, push yourself, get uncomfortable. It's way easier to try to be great at like this linear path. You've got to try to make yourself really uncomfortable in your career journey. I think we have another question. Um Hi, I'm Lorraine Harrison. I'm CEO of catalyst. You know, the recent scotus decision around affirmative action has really put um de I and the backlash and de I and all the political things on the front burner. And I'm wondering how you're reacting to that and what do you think the risks are? And how do you look forward to that as a CEO? I think any conversation you're going to have on this topic has to be anchored in who you are as a company and your values. So if I, if I just take a step back, we've been a company for 50 plus years and I actually just had a chance to sit with our founder, Dick Schultz. He's 82 and Dick from day one, talked about stakeholder capitalism and it never being one or the other. It being a balance and that is employee that is customer that's vendor partners, it's your communities, it's your shareholders in the employee piece. Then you have to decide as an organization. Again, culturally, what are you trying to do? We've been very clear, we are trying to create a culture of belonging, not because it's a nice to have because it clearly is the number one driver of employee engagement and high employee engagement. Empirically, data driven says delivers better financial results over time period. And so our focus on belonging. Now there's lots of different tactics that we can use to create that culture of belonging. And I'm very lucky, we have an incredible, we have 90,000 employees. We have an incredibly diverse set of employees and employees who want to lean in and help us create this culture. And so our focus has been always since day one and is still the employee and their engagement with the company. And that sense of belonging is crucial to that experience. And so, however, you now whatever the changing environment is like outside, I said out outside our proverbial walls, we stay really focused on the culture and the environment that we are trying to create. So Corey, you became CEO in your early forties, you spent most of your career at best Buy, what comes next for you? I should I have the luxury to choose that. Um I would laugh and say there's lots of things you choose as CEO. How long you're one is not one of them sometimes, um, you know, my, my truly joking aside, my, my real dream is someday I'd love to give back and I, I'd love to give back as an educator. I have a deep respect for the educators in my life and I have a deep thirst for education. Um, and, you know, I have two kids. I have a 17 year old and a 13 year old. And, um, I would love to be part of, you know, the, the kind of network and fiber that builds our next generation. So maybe someday I'll, I'll get that chance. Well, thank you so much, Corey. Thank you.

Kate Ryder, Founder and CEO, Maven Clinic Joanna Strober, Founder and CEO, MIDI Moderator: Maria Aspan, FORTUNE 

MPW Summit 2023: Menopause And The Workplace

Now we want to talk about something that's not talked about enough, something that affects or will affect just about every single person in this audience at the summit. In some way, menopause right now, more than 50 million women in the United States are over the age of 51. The average age that menopause hits and for some menopause symptoms start even earlier around the age of 40. According to a recent study by the Mayo Clinic, the US economy is losing more than $26 billion a year due to lost productivity and health expenses. As women in the workforce deal with menopause symptoms. The study also says menopause costs American women, nearly $2 billion in lost working time per year. Those are not the kind of data points we like to hear, but this isn't just about dollars and cents, it's about health equity as well. Our next two guests are leaders in the space and say we need more research, more effective treatments and better benefits packages at work that include menopause care, Kate, writer, founder and Ceo of Maven Clinic, the largest women's and family health telehealth network globally. And Joanna Strober founder and CEO of Midi Health, a virtual care platform for women in pre menopause and menopause. Fortune's Maria Aspen will lead this conversation. Please welcome them to the stage. Ok, I think we love the t-shirt menopause is hot. I have to say throughout this event, everyone I told about which sessions I was moderating was like this is going to be a good conversation. So thank you guys for making the time. Um And maybe to start off with your T shirt. You know, we women have been going through menopause since the birth of humanity. Why is it so hot right now? Yeah. Why are we finally talking about it? Right? I mean, the reality is we are talking about something that is de derailing women from their, from their careers and potential for for a very long time and it's been very secret because people have been embarrassed. So I mean, the reason I'm wearing t shirts like this is to bring it out in the open and kind of shout from the ceilings that all these things that are happening to your body during this time of life are very normal can be treated and don't need to derail people's lives. And so that's really the, I I think it's just super important that the conversation is starting and that people are talking about it and the more that they talk about it, the more less start looking for treatments and the more they'll start feeling better. He had anything to add. Yeah. Sure. So, um I, I, you know, at maven we cover not just menopause but pregnancy fertility. So we've been kind of seeing for the last nine years, a lot of these subjects that have been heavily stigmatized and taboo kind of come out of the shadows. And so for fertility, you know, like 10 years ago, people were suffering in silence, they're in fertility journeys with no support. Um you know, pregnancy, whether it's miscarriage or postpartum oppression. And you know, it took menopause quite a few years to now. Then come on the map. I think the pandemic kind of disrupted some of that. But you know, for our client, we, when I think about our platform, we have over 30 different types of specialists and the two specialists that are the most passionate and the most kind of enraged at the lack of, of care for women in certain areas are our pelvic floor specialists and our obgyns that specialize in menopause. And I think it's because they just see women suffering and they say there are treatments. It's simple. We, you know whether it's H RT, whether it's, you know, just little things that you can do to alleviate a lot of these symptoms. And so, you know, for us, we kept, we have a client advisory board across a lot of these other products. And we would ask our clients every year, would you buy a menopause product. And the answer was always like, well, you know, we're prioritizing other things and then about a year and a half ago, um, you know, in early 2022 we said, you know, would you, you know, what about menopause? We always kind of talk about what's on our product road map at the end of the year and all four of them, which are Fortune 50 companies said. Oh, yeah, my employees in the UK are talking about it because the conversation really started in the UK in 2021 in like a big way. And um and so when we launched our product at the end of of last year, it's the fastest selling product in the history of, of maven, like these other categories which are also are deeply underserved. You know, it took years to kind of, you know, bring them out of the shadows and 300 clients have now adopted menopause um in the last year alone. And it's, it's like an incredible and, and yeah, everyone is, everyone's like menopause like, you know, tell me what, what's really gonna happen or like this was my experience. And, and so it's, it's great to have the conversation finally with menopause. As with many things, women, women's health. There is the existential question of how do you make, how do you make men care? How do you make investors care? How do you make the CEO S of employers um who are you know, still 90% of fortune 500 companies care. Um And I'd love to hear, you know, with this stigma of this, with this historical stigma, maybe Joanna from the investor standpoint, and Kate from the employer standpoint, like how do you have those conversations with people uh who haven't traditionally had to think or talk about it? So, I mean, there's obviously two parts of this. Uh I get on linkedin messages from men every day asking how to help their wives. So I actually think men do care. They're seeing that their wives are suffering and they're seeing that their, their wives are having challenges and they, they actually really want to help them. Um with regards to making investors care, that's really about growth. And the reality is we're just growing incredibly quickly because there is a lot of desire for menopause care. And so investors are responding to the demand and there is finally a lot of demand from, from women saying that they deserve great care and they can get it. And so that I think there's a new generation of women who are not interested in suffering silently. Instead they're, they're looking for treatments and um you know, so the male investors are responding to that. Yeah, I I couldn't agree more. I mean, I'm, I'm also surprised sometimes when someone, a man will pull me aside in one of our, our client meetings and he'll say my my wife suffered. So much and I'm so happy to see something. So, um, so, so definitely that's a big, a big thing. I think, you know, one of the things that when one of our clients, um, she was going through menopause when she kind of brought on our products. So she tried our product and, and, uh, and so she was, was really, um, really amazed at, like, actually, wow, like I can have symptoms alleviated and not actually do that much in my really busy life, just get whether it's H RT or something. And so she's like in our communications then to the company, she actually wanted us to kind of really go deeper on what the menopause symptoms are. So all the men at, at the company because I could learn a little bit more even at the launch. Um, and I, I thought that was just very, uh, you know, there's, there's just a lot of people really eager to talk about it. I think that celebrity endorsements that have come as well have been amazing that, you know, celebrities are talking about this on social media and, and lots of people are now viewing it. And, and so I think, um just the, the, the overall conversation, there's just so many people contributing to it and, and, and, you know, I think more men, probably men don't want to talk about their wives journey, but, but certainly, um, have been really supportive in the background. I want to open it up to audience questions in a minute. But uh the celebrity endorsement factor brings up menopause treatment has historically been um in, in this weird space where H RT has, has been stigmatized. Now there's this gold rush. But you know, some of the treatments are more health care based than others. How do you separate? Um maybe starting with Kate, how do you separate like the real treatments from um what I'll call the snake oil? Well, this is happening everywhere in every category of health. We're seeing it a lot in the fertility industry as well at the moment. And so I think what, what, what is just so important is that, you know, you have the right treatments and you have the right doctors like for us um when we talk about our product, like we don't just someone comes to us, we don't just give them H RT S the second they come to us because, you know, they're asking for it. We actually have like a whole clinical protocol around, you know, what do you need if you need a drug, what type of drugs you need? And so I think, you know, providing that access to specialists is so critical to kind of combat some of this misinformation and then just talking about it more, more openly. I mean, I think we were just, you know, hearing some of these amazing talks today about just the social media, advertising and pharmaceuticals and how, um you know what that does to people. And so I think, you know, it's, it's really important to just continue and, and why telehealth is so important in this is to continue to educate patients and empower them so that they actually can separate facts from fiction. Um And, you know, I think our chief medical officer is very passionate about, you know, not overprescribing H RT, that H RT is really important and there's been a huge, you know, huge issues with access, but it's also important not to just kind of peanut butter, spread, everyone, give them hormones because you know, that's now what everyone's asking for because of some ad they've seen. How do you, how do you navigate this as the founder and owner and CEO of a company that is offering treatment? Yeah, you know, it's interesting you asked about celebrities. I think the fact celebrities are talking about this is great because it's brought a lot of awareness, but a lot of why they're talking about it is because they're pushing certain supplements that they're working for and, and that's a problem. So what maven is doing and what we're doing is we have trained providers who are medical experts who are taking care of people. This is a medical issue. It is not something that can necessarily be solved by a supplement that you read about on tiktok. It is a real medical challenge and it needs to be solved. By experts. So we spent a year building this thick pile of care protocols for all of the things that women are going through. And now we have this Midi University where we train all of our providers to do this level of care. And it's really that knowledge that has been missing from our industry. When you go to your doctor, they usually spend about two minutes with you and in that two minutes you're not gonna get through your joint pain and your lack of sleep and your painful sex and your anxiety and your sleep issues. And that's just five of the 32 or 64 symptoms that are related to menopause. So you have to have experts. And so this is really all about for both of us training the experts to give really high quality care to women. You're not finding that with the supplements that you're seeing on tiktok or on youtube, it really is medical care and, and offering women access to really high quality care. Do we have any questions? Yes. So, um so actually, that's a perfect lead to my question. So, um could you tell, oh, sorry, Linda Finley, um Ceo of Blue Apron. I, I really love the fact that we're seeing so much more awareness of menopause, but I'm a breast cancer survivor and from my conversations at this conference, certainly not alone and I, I am in medically induced menopause for treatment and I find that the, the swing to really talking about menopause has left that group a little bit out. Um And, and feeling like this, all the conversations around the H RT are around not demonizing H RT, which I totally appreciate. But for those of us who can't actually do it, it still feels a little bit lost. And, and there also does seem to be this sort of weird world in between of your oncologist versus other doctors and how they can actually help across different treatments in triangulating that. How are you thinking about that fairly large population of, of breast cancer survivors or ovarian cancer or anything else where hormones are, are critical? So, Doctor Mindy Goldman is our chief clinical officer. She is the head of UCSF Survivorship Clinic and this has been her entire career for 30 years. She's one of the first people who started focusing on what all the treatments are that are available for women who had breast cancer because you can't take hormones. So, what are the options? What are the supplements that are appropriate and tested? And one of the non um the non hormonal medications that are tested? We have an entire survivorship clinics that we have launched for women who had breast cancer have concerns about breast cancer and we have trained providers who only do that. And um it's a really important issue that we, we care really deeply about. So that is um access in all ways to great care is what we are, is how we is, how we think about this and, and so we do have an entire survivorship clinic. Yeah, I think it's the, it's the 1 to 1. Right. It's not the one to many. So, you know, you see a lot of women's health journeys, they're non linear except we've reduced them to, oh, menopause is when you don't have your period anymore. And that's the kind of common um, understanding of it or pregnancy, having a baby, it's just nine months, you're pregnant, you're fine, you know, go back to work. And so, um and so it's through a lot of the one on one conversations with providers that can, you can really start to unpack kind of how you're coming to the, to the table with your symptoms, your needs, your personal medical history. So it's why access to care is, is so critical in. And I think a lot of women's health journeys and, you know, we, they don't, we don't get enough in our actual like in person physical system. One of the statistics that I think is, is wild A 02 is so two of three women between the age of 40 64 don't talk about menopause CMPs to their provider of the one out of three that do talk about menopause. 75% of them. I'm told to just get on with it because it all happens to all women. So there's just a huge problem in a lack of training, which is talking about in the system where it's so important for, you know, if we have these access to specialists that you are training them and you're providing that 1 to 1, you know, in this age of A I, and everyone's talking about all the A A I bots again. Um, you know, uh it's really critical as well to keep, you know, so many of these providers um at the front and center of a lot of these very underserved issues where there's not as much data and, you know, you can't train uh maybe one day but like not any time soon. And so it's, it's just really important for reasons like that. A corollary, I would like to ask you both briefly. Um We started off this conversation by talking about the impact on the US economy of menopause symptoms in the workplace, brief advice for those of us in this room on how to broach this topic at work and have that conversation. Yeah, I mean, I think if you are a someone suffering from menopause, you should just, you know, just it's hard talk about it, you know. You know, because I think you are putting it, you know, an example for women who are going to come after you. Um You know, I think a lot of hr leaders are hearing about menopause benefits like ours in the market. So a lot of companies are under pressure to actually, if their peers have launched a menopause benefit, then they might have to too, if you're in a leader where you buy benefits. I think, um, you know, menopause has become just as much a health equity issue as so many other parts of, of, you know, health care benefits in the workplace. So there is, you know, there's always doors that open and close when you're trying to help kind of underserved populations and create new categories. But in this market, the door is open right now. And so this is the time to kind of be, be more um you know, vocal. Yeah. So we host um 10 seconds webinars uh where we have our doctors come and talk and we did one this week that had 3500 employees um from one company. And what then you see on the side, all the questions that are coming in and they're pouring in to ask what, what to do about things. And the message we got afterwards was that people felt so much less alone because they saw other people were asking the same concerns they had Joanna, I'm sorry to cut you off, but that's all the time we have. Thank you both so much.

Meredith Kopit Levien, President and CEO, The New York Times Company Sonal Shah, Chief Executive Officer, The Texas Tribune Moderator: Ruth Umoh, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: The News Leaders

According to an Oxford University study this year, just 22% of the top editors at global news outlets were women. That's despite the fact that 40% of the journalists in the top 12 major news markets, I'd say including all the journalists in this room are women. These are definitely statistics that we need to move the needle on. But fortunately, there are bright spots uh especially in this country. The study shows that in the United States, 44% of the top editors are women, including the editor in chief of fortune. Our next guests are some of the women forging the way in media and journalism breaking barriers as they helm news organizations where they have power, influence and reach and they are in the top jobs at a pretty challenging time in the media landscape. The industry is transforming as it works to harness new technologies. Keep up with shifting consumer habits and hold up high standards of journalism in a rather politically divided society. MEREDITH Kopit Levine is president and CEO of the New York Times Company and we're also pleased to add that she is on this year's list of the most powerful women in business. And Sanel Shaw is CEO of the Texas Tribune. They join us for a conversation with my colleague, Ruth Uo. Please join me in welcoming them to the stage. Delighted to have you my fellow newswoman. This is the panel I've been looking forward to all week. Um So thank you so much for joining us and welcome to NPW. So happy to be here. I just want to say if I always felt the way I felt when I was in a room full of women leaders, life would be perfect. I know it's so much more comfortable, isn't it? Yeah, let's jump right in until about a month ago. All of the major U STV news organizations were led or co led by women. Two of those women, Kim Godwin of ABC News and Rashida Jones of MS NBC were supposed to be here. Unfortunately, they couldn't because of the break in situation in Israel, which is completely understandable in the corner office. We obviously have the two of you women at time, Inc, we have Jeff Ss here at Fortune. We have Chantel. I'm curious, does having a woman at the top of a news organization change its output, change its coverage area. What are your thoughts? I'm so glad you're, you're starting there. And I want to say Kim Godwin and Rashida are extraordinary and every, I'm the CEO of the Times, I'm not the editor. I can tell you everyone in journalism is working around the clock right now to cover the, um, the situation in Israel. So, um, they're here spirit and we'll try and hold it up for them too. Um, I don't, I'll, I'll give you my perspective at the times and I suspect. So now you'll share this, I don't think you can be, um, a news organization endeavoring to serve, you know, we, we serve 10 to 15 million people every day. You come directly to the New York Times 50 to 100 million every week. I don't think we can be that at our best if we are not as diverse as the population to whom we are trying to give understanding hard stuff. So I think um it is incumbent on every leader of every organization and maybe especially news organizations to see that the whole team top to bottom reflects the diversity of lived experience, race, gender, ideology of the world around them. I I can only add to uh everything MEREDITH saying I live in Texas, right? So uh 40% Hispanic, 15% black, 7% Asian. Just to re remind everybody here, 15% black means we are the largest black population of any state in the United States. And so when you in in sheer numbers and size, remembering that when we cover the state, we think about our newsroom reflecting what the state looks like. We think about that every single day. How are we getting the stories. Where are we getting from? Who are we sourcing from, who are we connecting to and remembering that? And so when leading, you're always thinking about who's going out there, how are they thinking about it again? I'm not the editor in chief, but we're always asking these questions. So the newsroom from everything from technology side to the, you know, the audience development needs to be reflective of the audiences. We, we're trying to serve. Can, can I add one more beat? Um when I got to the New York Times, um shortly after I was there, not right at the beginning, but I'm there 10 years. Shortly after I got there, there was a period of time, maybe a year and a half where I was the only woman on the executive team, pretty big, executive team of the New York Times and all the religion I have about why no one should ever be the only um sort of comes from that period. And I want to tell you today, half the executive team of the New York Times, which is, is business and news um are women and more than half of the newsroom, mast head and desk heads are running the journalism, running the coverage, running the report are women. I wanna talk business. Uh Both of you have led the charge and are leading the charge in transforming your respective companies into more than just print news operations and into modern digital news operations, uh videos, podcasts, social channels, et cetera. One of the biggest challenges of running a multi platform news organization. Um I mean, you can see the biggest challenge, I think unfolding in real time right now. And the the there are two things. The first one I'll describe is just the enormity of the change, not the process of reporting and editing so much. Although that, that changes too, but the pursuit of truth is basically the immutable thing, wherever it may lead, the thing that is changing dramatically and probably presents the biggest challenge to every news organization is the scale at which we expect people to find an experience that the multiplicity of format in which we expect them to find an experience of the fact that, you know, so much of what we used to do was the once a day kind of polished record of history that a couple of million people read. And now you've got tens of millions on some days or, or weeks, hundreds of millions of people expecting you to be able to give them understanding um in, in, you know, the most fair way possible in the palm of their hand in near real time in every conceivable format. And that just means enormous change to the people doing the work of bearing witness and translating that to understanding and all like the freshest example is sometime between Saturday night when Hamas attacked Israel until yesterday, we had produced more than 50 um, videos, visual investigations, um, visual graphics to give people an understanding of what happened and where there are dozens of people on the ground for the New York Times from all of our, you know, all the major national and global news organizations there now. But, you know, they're not just writing 900 word text articles, they are, you know, showing you, they are getting you understanding by, in some cases, shooting themselves at a scene and describing what's, what's happening. There's a long time New York Times columnist who's an expert in all things. Um Europe and Middle East named Roger Cohen. Roger Cohen is probably in his sixties. He landed in Tel Aviv, I think yesterday. And the first thing he did was make a tiktok that he is in, you know, describing what it was like to be walking on the streets of Tel Aviv. And I would say just I could give you hundreds of examples like that. The, the enormity of change that has already happened to the report. Um is there and I think even more change is yet to come. We'll soon look to the future, but same question. Yeah. So I run just a background. Texas Tribune is a nonprofit newsroom. It is the largest nonprofit newsroom in the country. Uh We're the largest nonprofit newsroom running a statewide newsroom. So our challenges are twofold. So one part is everything that MEREDITH just said, right? A journalist can no longer is no longer just writing an 840 story. They're thinking about Tik Tok, they're thinking about going TV, they're thinking about radio. So what, what we had trained for and what the world is asking for are two different things. So how do we train journalists differently to think about their job differently and from a nonprofit space? Do we partner with places like N PR and PBS and other places? Like where does that look like? Because you don't, you can't do it all yourself? But how do you think about that? So that's changing and technology is just changing every day. Audiences are finding us in different places and we segment it by age, right? Some people, we're digital, only, some people read it on their laptop and on a screen, others just get it through Google News and others get it through Tik Tok and that those preferences are constantly changing. So understanding where people are finding you, but more importantly, building trust with them. So they keep coming back to you is actually the bigger challenge that we all have to work with and understanding that is not a one time thing, it's changing daily. You look at it monthly, then you look at it, you know, annually and like, what did we learn in this, that we have to be prepared for? So we have to be way more agile today than we've ever been before. And it's not as simple as you produced a great product. The product is great journalism. It's that where are people reading you, finding you and how are they staying engaged with you? Because in the absence of it, it's more polarization and more misinformation. So let's talk about polarization, misinformation. Uh trustworthy, rigorous journalism is obviously the bulwark of democracy uh especially as we approach, what I'm sure will be yet another contentious and fraught election cycle. MEREDITH. what were the key learnings from the 2020 elections? And how will that inform in your times approach to 2024? And then I have a related question for you. Um I would actually go back to, um well, let, let me say a headline thing first, which is the answer to almost every challenge at the New York Times um is more journalism, do more, more journalism. And I would go back to 2016. And I would say, um so much of what we learned um after the election of 2016 was, um we want more journalism, we want more reporters in more places getting to more voters from more angles. Um you know, looking at things like and this is something I would say we have substantially more of today post even 2020. Then we have then more people covering more religious communities in this country and how that intersects with politics from places that are not New York or Washington or California, but other, other parts of the country. So just more boots on the ground and more people out in the country talking to voters and trying to understand it. The second thing I'll say about covering the election, this is a moment where, you know, the two leading candidates are quite well known, like maybe obvious thing to say. But so, so much more can be done about how will they govern? What would a next Trump administration look like Jonathan Swan, one of our killer political reporters. He's amazing came from axios, did this piece over the summer and what does the next Trump administration look like in terms of what happens to all the agencies, what happens to these institutions of government that intersect with the presidency? But, you know, potentially in some profoundly different ways. So you should imagine that's an angle and then I'll just say 2020 election week, New York Times, I believe had the largest audience we've ever had for anything. And you know, COVID was giant, but in terms of um like a next level and we, we were able to bring that audience to the destination, to the app, to the home page, to the website and hold them there. And I think hold many people for a complete experience of an election unfolding in real time. So that maybe cable news is amazing, but maybe you didn't have to turn on cable news, you didn't have to go to twit or you could actually get that complete experience in real time at the New York Times. And you should imagine that is a huge part of what we're trying to do for an election or anything, even for the, the war between Israel and Hamas right now, anything that's happening in real time, we want to be able to hold you and give you perspective on the whole thing as a destination. So I'm curious to hear your experience because obviously you service all of Texas, but you're headquartered in Austin, which is this tiny blue dot in a sea of red. So going back to saying, you know, trust is so important and fundamental. How do you, how do you go about uh obtaining that? Yeah, I mean, that's something we think about a lot which is 254 counties in Texas. Uh They are not the same, it's not Houston, Dallas Austin, right? And you have to think about what does the rest of Texas look like. So we have actually uh reporters across the state. Uh while Austin is our headquarters, we have people in Lubbock, we have people in the Permian Basin. We have, we're raising money to put someone in the Rio Grande Valley, which is in, in South Texas. We have people in East Texas, we have people in Dallas and Houston, San Antonio. We think it's important to be where the communities are because it's not just as simple as reporting what's happening in Texas. It's reporting, you know, how do people perceive Texas from where they are? And what happens for us, for example, is we can talk about, for example, Roe V Wade or we can give you a story of all of the maternal health clinics closing down in East Texas. So where are people going to get their health care? Today's story about a young woman who had to carry her babies to term and that the real impact on her life because she was not allowed to get an abortion, a medical abortion to actually make it work and what it meant to her and her family. When you can tell the real life story of real life Texans and what they're going to policy starts to become a real thing. It's not just something we write about and what the statehouse is doing. We're starting to write about what people are actually going through and farmers have no water, we can talk about climate in a whole different way. So being in those communities really matters to us, we also do not do editorials and we don't do opinions and we don't do endorsements because we know to build trust in Texas, we have to give people the facts of where they are and let them make those interpretations because that trust is really important for us and local news. I just want to bring it down to local aspect of news, which is what we think about local news is where trust is built at a day to day. So we have to make sure we're there locally. I, I just wanna add a beat to that. Um Something like a third of all the working journalists in the United States have lost their job in the last decade. Most of that is at the more of that is at the local level than anywhere else. You can draw a direct line from that to the increasing sort of fracturing and polarization of the country. Uh social media is in some ways, a competitor to traditional news. Uh It can certainly be an inhibitor as we've seen on X, formally known as Twitter. How do you grapple with that and compete for eyeballs on the internet on mobile? I'll say just a couple of things first, you know, social media in the last 10, 15, 20 years, even as long as it's been here has played an important role in helping get our journalism to more people. Um At the same time, I would say we feel very strongly at the New York Times. It is not a substitute for the idea that news is best experienced, we believe by consumer in one or a handful of relationships with news organizations and that relationship I think is best sort of manifest by going to the destination of a news organization and seeing the fullness of an unfolding event in context. And I would point you to what's going on right now between Israel and Hamas or the war in Ukraine or, you know, the unfolding of the, um, the taking down the, the speaker a couple of weeks ago, you don't just come to the New York Times and see sort of one story or one perspective, an 800 word article or a video or an opinion piece, you see it all presented in a way that is meant to give you the fullness of as much as you can absorb, as efficiently as you can absorb it to, to understanding on that topic. And I think social media never did that, right. And um what it lacked, you know, when you, and again, there are some positive things about social media in terms of amplifying the content, but to have a complete experience of news and get to understanding, I think that's best done at a destination, I'll say one more thing, which is one of the things, you know, independent journalism, um I think is insufficiently understood and appreciated in the country and in the world. And the idea that you would get your news, um get your independent journalism from something that is inherently an echo chamber is not good for society if that's the only, only way to get it. And before long before Twitter, now X changed ownership, we actually asserted New York Times newsroom leadership asked our journalists to consider spending less time on Twitter because just like we think the reader shouldn't be in an echo chamber. The journalist shouldn't be in an echo chamber either. And I think that's had a positive, I want to end with this question if we may, because I definitely want to get this in the media industry over the last decade has seen tectonic shifts. It certainly beholden to platforms like Facebook, like Google, uh which, which, which are almost gatekeepers for who has access to information, how it's disseminated. Um We've seen kind of the defination of advertising. And so it's an industry that's really in flux at this point. How do you maintain agility and, and what are you bracing for as you look down the horizon? I just wanna, I think it's important to recognize what the media and stream and what the platforms do when they change their algorithm. It has a dramatic impact on journalists, right? Because, you know, meta changing their platform has dropped the readership of journalism by 50%. So just to keep that in mind, like we're constantly paying attention to when those things are happening. And I think what, what MEREDITH has done extraordinarily well, at the New York Times, what we think about all the time is like we're the multiple places. So we're not dependent on any one source. We, we do events, we do everything from tiktok to all of social media platforms, but also directly connecting to people through the places where they're getting connected. But I think that is that is probably the most critical thing is that we're not dependent on any one source. Our version of that have to be 10 seconds. We want to be in the direct relationship business. Come play wordle which tens of millions of people do. You're going to find that however, and then maybe you'll read a news story or do a crossword puzzle. Thank you so much, ladies. Such a pleasure chatting with you.

Anne Milgram, Administrator, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Interviewer: Maria Aspan, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: Battling Fentanyl And The Drug Cartels

The United States is experiencing a crisis with deadly results. According to the CDC, more than 10,000 people in the US died of drug overdoses last year. And nearly 70% of those deaths involved fentaNYL and other synthetic opioids. Just last month, a horrific situation, a child died and three were hurt at a daycare center in New York City after exposure to fentaNYL. Our next guess is fentaNYL is the single deadliest drug threat our nation has ever encountered and no community is immune from its dangers. Anne Milgram is head of the US drug enforcement administration. She leads nearly 10,000 people in the DEA S3, 134 offices around the world as they work to combat the illegal drug trade in the United States and joins Fortune, senior writer and NPW Coa Maria Aspen to talk about leading the agency, the role of international cartels. What's fueling and what's fueling the so called fourth wave of the devastating opioid crisis. Please welcome them to the stage. Let's go into the other stage for a minute and thank you so much for being here to discuss this important and really overwhelming topic at least I find when considering the statistics and the stories like the horrific Bronx daycare story. Um I believe in 2010, there were 40,000 drug deaths of drug overdoses in the US. And last year, there were more than 100,000, almost 70% which came from fentaNYL. How in your role, how do you wrap your head around the size of the crisis and identify priorities to respond? It. It's a great question and thank you so much for having me. It was such a privilege to sit yesterday and listen to so many of you talking about your work. I find it, I find it truly inspiring. The information I often use is that in 2019, there were 71,000 US deaths. In 2022 we just experienced 110,757 American lives lost those numbers. Don't include the people who have been given the antidote, naloxone Narcan and have survived. And so we talk about this as it is the deadliest drug threat we've ever seen. It is also totally different than any other drug threat the United States has ever known. This is all chemicals. It is literally chemicals that come from China that are going to two criminal organizations in Mexico that are mass producing fentaNYL and then it's coming into the US and killing Americans and it's being hidden in other drugs, it's being hidden in pills that look like they're real oxyCODONE or real Percocets. And in fact, it's fentaNYL and just the amount of fentaNYL enough to fit on the tip of a pencil can kill someone. And so it is devastating communities from coast to coast and everywhere in between and many people are dying that don't know they're taking it. They think they're taking a real Percocet. They think they're taking a real oxyCODONE or Adderall that they bought on social media or they think they're taking cocaine or heroin or methamphetamine that's all laced with fentaNYL because it is so highly addictive. If people become addictive, they buy more and the cartels make more money. You have really identified the cartels and also China as responsible for this crisis. And you've said in the past that the governments, there haven't taken enough action or cooperated enough. And I believe just last week, the Biden administration took action against Chinese entities and individuals. How do you? Well, a couple of questions, our relationship with China is super tense as, as you know, at a time when the Biden administration is trying to navigate that relationship, how do you think about what actions DEA and justice are taking, how that plays into the greater geopolitical situation? It's such an important question and I would say just going back a little bit to priority question, our top priority is to save lives, to stop people from dying. It is not a war on drugs. It is a fight to save lives. And our top operational priority is to defeat these two networks. Again, it starts in China with chemical companies that are making these chemicals that cost pennies to make a dose of fentaNYL is then sold for 10 to $30 in the US. They are then being mass produced in Mexico by two criminal organizations. I was reflecting yesterday, one of the incredible angel investors was saying she likes to invest in people who lose sleep at night. Thinking about how to build companies, I lose sleep at night, thinking about how to destroy and take down multinational global billion dollar criminal networks that operate like diversified corporations in the world, right? And, and that are essentially peddling death and making a lot of money for it. So this is a largely international supply chain issue that ends in the US. When I came into DEA, I felt very strongly. We had to transform the way we were working. We could not just go after the top individuals. So DEA did successful investigations into El Chapo. He's now in a US prison for the rest of his life. His sons, the chaos came up and took over his organization. So we are now working across the globe on entire criminal networks starting with the chemicals in China. So we just announced cases we've brought for the first time against Chinese chemical companies that are mass producing these chemicals that can be used to make fentaNYL. We did a series of cases, a huge case against the chaos. El Chapo's sons and their entire criminal network. From the precursor chemical suppliers in China to the manufacturers in Mexico, to the security apparatus in Mexico, to the people who bring it into the US. We did a series of cases about the traffickers in the US that are responsible for those sales on social media and in our communities. And so what we're trying to do is really work across the supply chain as a whole of government. And so the state department has formed an international coalition against fentaNYL, for example. But we work with any country that will work with us right now, we will work with. We also, again, my commitment is to save lives. We'll take action wherever we need to take it. You came in in 2021 unanimous confirmation by the Senate. But at that point, the DEA had been criticized for responding slowly to the fentaNYL crisis. How are you catching up? So we've had to transform ourselves and I would say a couple of points which is first the entire space of drug trafficking. FentaNYL is unlike any other substance we've ever seen. My own view is we will never go back to just plant based drugs like cocaine, chemicals are cheap. They're easy to make synthetic or man made drugs from and they allow so much profit that no one is ever going to turn back. We had to turn and they've transformed. The cartels have transformed with chemicals using social media to recruit people who will take the drugs into the US, to sell to young people who think they're buying a Percocet. So we had to transform ourselves and we've done it in a couple of ways. One is by going across the entire supply chain. Two is by building a strategic layer over everything we do. We have 334 offices around the globe. We had our data and our information in 334 separate places. So what we've done is form these two counter threat teams. Three now one devoted to Sinaloa, one devoted to Helio, the two main threats that we face the two cartels and now one devoted to illicit finance because we're tracking billions of dollars across the globe on regular basis. So we are now pulling together all the information we have, we're analyzing, who are the members of the cartels, who are the people we're mapping and we're targeting and that's what's letting us do the first cases against the Chinese chemical companies do the entire Chito's network. And there's a lot more work to come in the coming months that you'll see, you know, you mentioned that the cartels operate like for profit, multinational corporations, but it has to be said that legitimate for profit, multinational corporations have also been held accountable for their role in creating the opioid crisis in the first place. What are you and the DEA doing to continue um taking action on that front? It's a great, it's a great question and a great point as the, the quick recap is that the opioid epidemic really did start with the overprescribing of legitimate prescription medicine, oxyCODONE. Um Purdue Pharmaceuticals has now been convicted of fraud. Um And, and you know, a number of actions have taken, what happened is that when the supply of legitimate oxyCODONE, when everyone realized what was happening in the United States. And this is many years ago, that supply was pulled back. Many people who had substance use disorder went turned to heroin, which the Mexican cartels pushed into the United States from there. We've transferred into fentaNYL into fentaNYL, which is cheaper, it's deadlier and it is much more addictive. And I would stop here and say the question, people ask me the most and you may be about to ask me this, but it's just why would the cartels kill their customers and thinking about it's so different than the original opioid epidemic where people were seeking pain medicine. What we see happening now is that the cartels want to make money and they make money by selling more fentaNYL is 50 times more addictive than heroin. So that's why they put it in cocaine. That's why they put it in these fake pills. It's far more addictive than oxy. And so anyone who takes it if they survive may come back and buy again and again. And it's the price of doing business for the cartels because think about our modern world, more than 200 million Americans are on social media and the cartels are on Snapchat. They're on Facebook, they're on Tik Tok, they're on Instagram. And so if one of someone dies, they believe there's always somebody behind them to buy the next pill. I want to open it up to questions in a minute. But I also want to ask you're a prosecutor, former state attorney General enforcement is in your agency's name. The narrative about treatment in response to drug addiction has really changed since the DEA was formed 50 years ago. How do you think about harm reduction versus prosecuting and victims? I think it's a great question. Our work right now is at the intersection of national security, public safety and public health. As I said earlier, this to me is a fight to save lives. We have to do everything we can to save lives. And that means treatment, it means prevention. It really means awareness. So being here with all of you who are in, in your communities, in your jobs, having the opportunity to talk to you about how dangerous this threat is when we spread the word. And we spend a lot of time with families who have lost loved ones. We believe we save lives. And so we are committing, we are committed to making sorry we're committed to making uh making treatment accessible to any American who wants it. And I think it's, it's a core part of who we are at DEA helping those who are harmed and targeting going after the people causing the harm. Are there questions in the audience? We have one in the back. Uh Kate Wooley from IBM. Uh we've had a lot of conversations over the last couple of days and technology and A I has come up in all of them. Are you using technology and A I in the fight? And, but are the cartels using it faster or how are they using it? So that's an amazing question. The cartels have harnessed technology. So they have people who are in charge of social media, for example, they are incredibly sophisticated at this. We have to be more sophisticated, we have to be proactive, we have to be able to be ahead of it. We are now and I was reflecting on this yesterday. We are now at a point where we have pulled our data together where we can start thinking about what are the sophisticated analytics that we could use? We've pulled together our financial data across the globe from our 334 offices. And within one week, we found a major money launderer for one of the cartels tracking at billions of dollars over three Cryptocurrency exchanges. So I really welcome the opportunity to learn from you and to think about how we should be thinking about our next 50 years. I believe if government doesn't innovate, if we don't figure out how to use the tools of the modern world, we will not be able to proactively counteract these threats and save lives. So we love to learn more from all of you about, you know, how to think about this. Uh We have another question here. Hi, Julie Howard. Um, I have deep, deep respect for the work that you do. It's just Yeoman's work. Is this A US issue? And if so why? Because it feels like all we talk about is that all in the US? That's an incredible question right now. It is a primarily North American issue. Part of it is starting with the opioid epidemic with the pills that moved to heroin that then moved to fentaNYL. So some of it is that in the US, we had the opioid epidemic that came from the over prescribing of oxyCODONE here. As many of you may know the US is one of only two countries that also allows direct to consumer marketing of pharmaceutical drugs. Um And so we are unique in, in certain is what I would say is I was just with 138 countries that we brought together across the globe. And our message is that fentaNYL is either there or it is coming because it is the cheapest product to make and the most highly addictive. And so it has been, these two cartels are operating in more than 50 countries around the world. FentaNYL has been seized in many other countries. And the cartels have the piping globally to be able to push fentaNYL into countries. And so the one thing I would say that one of my core messages to them is you have to start testing for it in the US for a long time. We were testing for heroin because that's what we expected to see. And heroin all of a sudden started going down and we realized we have an incredible lab if we test for every substance fentaNYL was in so many of them. So our message around the world is you're just testing for cocaine or you're just testing for heroin, you may find it. But fentaNYL is hidden in those substances and that's the treachery of this drug threat, which is that the cartels, it's so tiny, they can hide it in other things to drive addiction. And so many people are dying and they don't even know they're taking fentaNYL. So we've been sounding the alarm for other countries. We have incredible partnerships around the world, but we've also offered send us anything you want. We'll test it, call us, we'll send our experts over to train you because we don't want it to happen to anyone else. I'll ask a corollary question which is, who are the victims of this wave of the opioid crisis? You know, the opioid crisis was initially thought of as primarily affecting white rural Americans. And that sort of played into some of the racial disparities we see in health care. What is, what, who is this affecting, this is affecting everyone, this is affecting everyone. We started a little over a year ago, a wall at our headquarters in Arlington, Virginia that we said to the families who lost loved ones, brothers, sisters, parents, Children. If you want to send us a photograph of your loved one, we'll put it on our wall. We thought we'd get about 100 photographs. Today. We have more than 5000. And when you look at those photographs, you see America, you see black, white brown, you see the youngest on our wall. Seven months old, forever. Seven months riot Mitchell, the oldest James cox forever. 70 years old. You see people in uniform, you see kids at soccer games, you see families. It is impacting everyone. And this is also why I think it's so important to talk about it because no community in the United States is immune from this. And it is anyone who has a smart smartphone, anyone who has a cell phone, whether it's Snapchat or tiktok or Facebook or Instagram within three clicks, someone can get a fake pill that looks exactly like a a real pill and people are dying. And so it's really important for I think all of us to understand that this is 100 and 10,757 Americans and we are making progress, but we have a long way to go. This is not the first heavy important systemic problem you have worked on in your career. You've worked on human trafficking, civil rights gun tracing. Um But you also made time to be the legal advisor for Law and Order SVU. How did that happen? I did, I, I sometimes joke, it was my best law job because it, it's legal ish. And you know, at the end of the day, drama, drama always wins over over the law. I was sitting, I was teaching at NYU law school at the time and a man called Warren Light. He's an amazing individual. He was the showrunner on SVU called and said, will you come in and just talk to us about your work. I'd done human trafficking. I'd done prosecutions. I'd also overseen the Camden New Jersey Police Department. Um and taking it off the list of the most dangerous cities in America. So he was really interested in all these different things. And I went in and they said, would you ever consult with us? And I thought what an incredible job. So I got to work with them and they've covered so many important issues including human trafficking and sex crimes, obviously. But a lot of Americans still learn about the law and the criminal justice system from Law and Order and TV shows. So I felt like it was a, it was both incredibly fun and a great way to contribute. So, you know, that show has been on for a really long time is that the retire, the Post Biden administration retirement plan? I'm, I'm so focused right now on, on doing the work. I can't even think about it, but I do still watch it. I do still watch it. Well, um and thank you so much for making the time to be with us today.

Sian Beilock, President, Dartmouth Kristin Mugford, Senior Associate Dean of Culture and Community, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Harvard Business School Moderator: Ruth Umoh, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: De&I At A Crossroads

Here, the US Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to consider race and university admissions spanning affirmative action. In a landmark decision. The ruling is forcing many schools to rethink their admissions rules and practices. But the concern about the court's decision goes beyond what happens inside the halls of learning. There's concern in the business world about the effect the ruling will have on the talent recruitment pipeline. We want to dive deeper into the important role higher education plays in diversity, equity and inclusion in the workforce and talk about ways that schools can collaborate with the corporate world to ensure the pipeline promotes equitable outcomes, including access to jobs and wealth creation for underrepresented groups. So let's get some perspective on all of this from two people within higher learning CC and be Bloch is president of Dartmouth and the first woman to hold that role in the institution's 254 year history. Kristen Mugford is the senior Associate Dean of Culture and Community and senior lecturer in Finance at Harvard Business School. Sian and Kristen joined Fortune leadership editor and MP W co-chair Ruth UO for today's conversation. Please welcome them to the stage. Welcome ladies. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh We are delighted to have you at MP W it's great to be here. Fantastic, perfect unison. The Supreme Court's reversal of affirmative action will certainly have far reaching consequences, but it does provide an opportunity for higher ed leaders to articulate the value of diversity and their continued commitment to ensuring diversity and bodies and that will ultimately bleed into the corporate sector. So let's dig in, first of all, what role does higher education play in diversifying the corporate pipeline, CNC kick off? Well, I mean, we are producing the next generation of employees and so what we do um especially at selective institutions is really important. And um at Dartmouth, we really have a commitment to making sure that students regardless of background are able to come to Dartmouth and succeed. And I'm proud that we're one of just seven universities in the country that need blind and meets full financial need without loans for all students across the world. Yeah. Yes. And um at the Harvard Business School, our mission is to educate leaders to make a difference in the world. So we are trying to educate the people who will, who, who dream of sitting in your seats. And just as Melanie Hobson yesterday said that, you know, de is an imperative for companies. I also think it's an imperative for leadership that if you want to be a leader who makes a difference in the world today, you have to be able to lead in the context of difference. And so what does that mean for us, we have to teach our students how to lead in the context of difference. That means how do you listen more than you speak? How do you ask spectacular questions? How do you create cultures that not only invite but celebrate different perspectives? And then very importantly, we practice this in our classrooms. How do you take that different perspective and use it to challenge your assumptions and beliefs and hopefully make better decisions as a result. Because if we can get all of our students to do that, well, I think it has a massive impact on the capability of companies going forward. Absolutely. And I'll just add that this is the skill we learned at Dartmouth. We're actually launching something called the dialogue project which is designed to teach students how to have difficult conversations in the classroom. The idea is to make sure we're centering voices that haven't always historically been centered and then working to have people talk across differences and this is not something that we're endowed with. We have to teach this, we have to teach it to our employees, we have to teach it to our faculty, we have to teach it to leaders. But the data are really clear that better decisions are made when you have people at the table who feel like they belong and can push at each other who feel like what they say will not be taken as an imperative of who they are in psychologists terms. We call that the fundamental attribution error. And part of that is feeling like you can trust one another. You have a community, then you can say things you can make mistakes, you can feel uncomfortable. And I think that's so important for getting to the best outcome. I want to follow up with you because see, and I know you've been keenly focused on women in stem talk to us about your role in the edge conor show. And first tell us what that initiative is. Yeah, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity in our country um to think about the semiconductor industry and how we onshore as a matter of national security. Some of our semiconductor work. Uh One of the problems though is we don't have enough engineers to do this work and it's not just in the semiconductor industry, it's everywhere. Um women make up are not making up a majority of, of the workers and in semiconductors, it's actually very clear, we make up only 15% of the workforce. And one of the issues is that we are not bringing enough women into engineering and technology fields more broadly early on. And so um I got together with actually the only six universities in the country where there are women presidents of deans and deans of engineering to come together to make a commitment to diversify the stem engineering and technology workforce together. Dartmouth and Indiana University are leading this with Berkeley, University of Washington, Rochester and Brown. And we're really pushing an agenda forward that we have to open up the doors to get into these fields. We have to think about multiple entry points. It's not just one weed out calculus class, but how do we think about all the opportunities to show meaning in engineering and stem for our women and especially people of color. And I think Dartmouth is a great test case. We're actually the first engineering school in the country to have gender parity at the undergrad level. And it's because you don't just do engineering through calculus, you can do it through design thinking, you can think about it in terms of social impact and that's so important. Everything we're doing in the technology space is not about technology for technology's sake. We have to really couch it in terms of how it's having an impact for good in the world. Uh Kristen, you brought up the great points that you're working with the next generation of leaders. Certainly the next generation. Well, hopefully next generation of most powerful women, what will it take to ensure that they're able to land in leadership roles in the future? So one of the things we know in looking at research on women is that there still are big thriving gap. And I see this as I talk to my students, they are, the good news is the world has changed in the appetite for companies, particularly in finance, to want to hire women. I remember the day when I would go see firms when I first got to H BS and they would tell me that they weren't hiring women because women didn't want to do private equity. And I remember I put together literally a resume book of 100 resumes and sent it to every private equity firm I could think of and say, ok, what's your next excuse? Those times have changed? And that's great. But there's a difference between hiring and thriving. And part of what organizations are realizing is that we have to kind of close these striving gaps and those appear in a myriad of ways. We know women get less effective mentorship, they get less sponsorship, they get less quality and quantity of feedback, they get more office, health work, they get fewer stretch assignments, the list, they get less of just the understanding of how to get things done in an organization. And so part of what we're trying to do at H BS is do the research work with companies to try to close those thriving gaps for women. And I also think this is a role where universities can partner with industry. We know women often go in and out of the workforce and there's not great on ramps in many fields. So I know this is happening at H BS. It's certainly happening at Dartmouth where we're thinking about how an education for life means that you can reskill think about what other career opportunities are out there work with the realities that a lot of women face in terms of how they engage in the corporate world. So that we're not losing great talent regardless of whether you care about gender equity or diversity, which I know we all do. But the this is not about that. It's about losing talent at the table. That is what we are missing. And all of the work that I think we do is about making sure the best talent is at the table so that we can help ensure that we have the best outcome. Same question for both of you. Let's see. And I'd like you to kick it off. You're the first woman to be elected president in Dartmouth's 250 year history. Quite the feat as you reflect on your arc from education into the professional sector, what was catalytic in reaching this level? Well, I mean, I think this is a lot of people often say this, but it was having great people around me and, and great mentorship. And I want to be very clear that that mentorship is not just from women, it's from men too. Men have a real responsibility here to help uplift the best talent, regardless of gender, regardless of race. And I think this is true for so many of us. And so when we see problems with networks, when we see women not getting that same type of support, not just mentorship but advocating. Um you realize how we fall off a ladder and how we get into the system and then don't succeed to the top. So it was having great people around me and also really defining for myself, a set of principles that I abide by. That's hard to always stick to those as in leadership roles. But it is the center of what I do and those principles are what? Well at a university level, for example, I think it is really important for institutions to lead, take stand that allow dialogue on both sides of an issue. I want, for example, people to be able to voice opinions that are different than my own. And so I bring a real push around free expression, around creating brave, not just safe spaces where we can have differences of opinion and people hear each other on issues that they don't agree with. It means oftentimes as a leader, not taking stands on particular issues that people want me to have because I'm trying to create a situation where other people have a voice in the room. Um I also bring a principle around diversity and an understanding that the data are really clear about the impact of diversity. And of course, I bring a great admiration and excitement about being a in an institution and in a leadership role where we are training the next generation of impact makers. Same question for you, especially given the fact that you were the first ever woman partner at Bain Capital, one of the largest private equity firms. Talk to us about that career arc II I think similar to Xian, you know, I had the benefit of great mentors and my mentors couldn't look like me. Um And I was surrounded by great people. And I do think that one thing I see now I have the great joy of for me, you know, academia is my second act and the ability now to be able to give back. And in many ways, see as my mission to make the path clearer for the women and the diverse people who come behind me is just a great opportunity. Uh Again, for the book, I sorry for, for you, Cian, what skills uh are you finding that your students need to be job ready, especially women to be job ready? Um And, and really thrive post education? Yeah, I will say that there is this idea that if you have a liberal arts education and education across the arts and sciences um that you're not job ready on day one, I think that's exactly very far from the truth. It's opposite of the truth, what a liberal arts education is teaching our students is how to think, not what to think that's a very important distinction, how to think across multiple fields. And then you combine with that experiences in businesses, in government, in nonprofits in the education world that are helping our students think about what they learned in the classroom and apply it. And that's what I think you really need to be job ready at day one. So I would love to see more universities and companies partnering on this to think about how we give our students those skills in vivo as they're going through their education. Because the reality is we want students who are learning how to think and who are learning what questions to ask. And especially as we deal with how we're going to cooper with A I in the future. It is about thinking in a different way and that's what we teach students with an education across the and sciences. Anything to add to? That sounds fantastic. Um You both have repeatedly mentioned the importance of partnering with businesses. How can colleges partner in a meaningful way with the private sector to provide all students but especially those who are from underserved or under resourced backgrounds with real world hands on workforce experience. Do you want to start? Sure. So we need partners in three ways. First, we of course, need partners to create opportunities for our students. 100% of what we do at Harvard Business School is case study. So all of our students learn by seeing case studies. And it is particularly important for our students to see themselves in the protagonists of these cases. So one thing we need from companies and from leaders are examples that we can use to teach our students. The third thing that we need is frankly help from companies as sources of research. So we have lots of faculties who are trying to do research on DE I and understanding what works and what doesn't work inside companies to do that work. Well, we need companies who have the bravery to share their data, to partner with us, to help us understand what works. So we can then share that without the community. Yeah, I mean, I love all of those and I would say that it's, it's a blurring of boundaries, right? It's not that you have an education and then you go into the workforce, how do we think about the workforce actually coming into education? So as part of this edge consortium, we're launching, we're going to be having a convening in DC this month with leaders of the semiconductor industry to talk about the kinds of skills they need with our faculty who can then put them in the classroom. And it's those conversations that often don't happen. We see our job is to develop students, companies, sees their jobs to hire students. And we have to think about this in a new way and this is all about partnerships, how we can think about how we partner and it's not just handing off one, leader to the next. I wanna go back to touching on the Supreme Court's reversal of affirmative action. Um, it's obviously the top of Du Jour, uh, obviously colleges can no longer use race as a consideration, um, in, in who they're, uh, accepted into the universities. But still how can colleges at least plan to ensure or maintain a student body that is representative of the workforce, but certainly of the US communities they serve. It's a great question. And when we talk about the good decision, I also want to be clear that different people can have different views on the decision. I think that's actually really important for university leaders to put out there because that opens up a space to have a discussion. But for me, what's not on the table is this principle of diversity that we know that having a diversity of views of lived experiences leads to better outcomes. And so then the onus is on us as an institution to go out there and get those students. And I think oftentimes colleges are passive receivers and universities are passive receivers of students. We need to be out there recruiting those students talking to them about the fact that a Dartmouth education is remarkably affordable, that if you have an option to go to Dartmouth, you will come out with very little and or no loans that we will help propagate you into a community for life and we have to be in rural areas, in cities, in places educating students who might not understand what's attainable to them. The onus now is on us as an institution more than ever to go out and get the best and brightest regardless of background. Same question for you. I would echo that we have to double down on recruiting and talent. I worry that this Supreme Court decision has a chilling effect on students not applying that somehow they now believe that they don't belong at Harvard Business School. I also worry that it has a chilling effect for companies in not continuing to do this work, you know, diversity, thriving, having the workforce where every and can feel that they belong, can have their work valued and to be able to do their best work is hard work. And I think it's more important than ever that we as organizations are making the case for why difference matters that we are making sure that we're describing diversity in ways that everyone can see themselves in effort and that we're continuing to stay the course in this commitment to diversity as a value. Yeah, I'll end with this final question. When you and I were talking Kristen, you were sharing with me just how thirsty for lack of a better word your students are for mentorship. What advice, what takeaways do you have for the women here in the room? Yes. So I would say two things. First. It is a wonderful joy to get to spend time with um people who are in their late twenties who are seeking to sit in your seats. They inspire me every day. They give me great hope for the future. They are incredible and they need your help. I think as we talked about, there are real gaps and challenges for people, particularly women, people of color who are different and they need the women, frankly, the men who are in the room where it happens to make change. So I would just encourage all of you. You are the most powerful women to use your individual power to importantly use your color, active power in the room where it happens to make the changes that are needed in the organization so that we have equity so that everyone has the opportunities to be able to thrive. And I would just say that we have a built in mechanism to do that, which is where you went to school. I think alumni bodies and the ability to connect through your institution is such a powerful form. I find that we, we often don't take that and especially women as they're busy and leading companies and dealing with often families may not be thinking about that, but it's such an important way to get involved. And it's such a great mechanism to talk to people who were in similar experiences that you were about where you are now. Absolutely. Thank you so much, ladies for your time. Thank you.

Karen Lynch, President and CEO, CVS Health, Interviewer: Alyson Shontell,  Editor-in-Chief, FORTUNE 

MPW Summit 2023: Reinventing American Health Care 

Let's get started. And it's fitting that our first conversation of the summit is with the most powerful woman in business. She also happens to be the most powerful woman in health care. CVS Health President and Ceo Karen Lynch tops Fortune's most powerful women in business list for the third year in a row. That is no small task. Karen is really leading the charge for change and she's on a mission to build a better healthcare industry for America. We have a lot to discuss with her. So let's get right into it. Please welcome to the stage, Karen Lynch and Fortunes editor in chief Alison Chantelle. Oh, the energy in this room is so awesome. It is so nice to be with all of you tonight. Karen, thank you so much here with us. So thrilled to be here and I love being and honored to be with the amazing women and powerful women in this room. So thank you for having me. Absolutely. So Karen, yes, you're a woman but you're just playing like powerful. OK, Karen was our cover of our Fortune 500 issue because CBS health is the number 11 global 500 company in the world. No woman has ever run a company anywhere remotely the size of CBS. We're talking over $300 billion in revenue. Um So, so Karen is the number one on our list. Three years in a row. There's no bribing that it takes to be number one. It's just the size of the business that you oversee is one of the main factors and this lady oversees quite a bit. So, Karen, thank you for being here with us, really thrilled to be here and um you know, running a company like CV S health where, you know, Alan, you said it, um We have purpose and that's really kind of what gets all of us um going every day because we have the purpose of really improving the health of all Americans. And my belief is there's no better company positions than CV SL to do that. So thanks for having me. Absolutely. So I wanna talk about how big health care has gotten and if it's too big in a little bit, but first, let's hear your vision for what you're building and why C has gotten so big for those of you who haven't been following Karen has been on an M and a spree. It might be slowing down a little bit coming up at $19 billion has gone into acquiring companies for CBS in the last few years. Um So what is the vision is CV S going to be my one stop shop for health. Uh Will I need a primary care doctor in the future? Will be CBS? Will someone come to my home from CBS? What is the future? Yes, all of that. But let me, let me just like, uh take a step back because I think it's important if we think about our strategy, you know, I always sort of look to the future and if you think about the next few years, we're going to have unprecedented change, more change than probably the last 50 years, just look at the US population and the demographics, the change that you'll see is both massive and it will be extreme. You know, the advent of technology is, you know, coming upon us faster than a freight train. If you and IBM says that there's 2.5 quintillion uh data bytes on a daily basis. And then you kind of look at um the connectedness world by 2030 $20 billion.20 billion devices will be connected to the internet. And having said all of that health care is the, the costs are unprecedented. And if we don't have radical change in the health care system, we will falter and we will fail in the health care system. And you know, one of the things that, you know, I was thinking about, you know, kind of is re people say you're reinventing health care. No, I'm realizing, you know, health care because you know, everyone goes, it's reinventing, it's reimagining. It's all the re well, I'm realizing the power of what we can do as a company and our vision and our strategy is really about building connections in health care. And we're starting with building multiple channels for accessing health care that we can build locally but have available nationally. We're driving at value based care versus volume based care. We're driving at consumer connections and personal engagement by using technology so that people can be connected to their health care. And we're driving at community convenience because health care isn't about just going to the doctor. It's about being in the community, having transportation to the doctor. It's about being in the home and having access to health and nutrition. So essentially kind of our strategy in a nutshell is connecting all the dots for someone on their personal health care journey. And so we will be in the communities, we will be in the home and we will be digitally connected because we owe it to improve the overall cost, lower, the um lower the cost, improve access and improve quality of the American health care system. But doesn't it remain to be seen if the like big health care industry actually does mean lower cost better care. I mean, there have been some studies that have shown that actually when you consolidate an industry, it's not better for those things. Well, I think it um I think it's better for health outcomes. And if you think about, you know, today, there's $320 billion spent on health equity, people not getting the right care. Our view. And my view is that if we can have people engage in their health care and that they can get the access, we lower the overall cost because you're getting the right treatment at the right time in the right places. And we're helping them navigate the health care system because every single person in this room experiences the health care system in an incredibly fragmented way. And so if you think about CV S health, your journey, you worry about access to financing. We have the insurance so we can keep that sort of um uh uh you know, if you're not, you're afraid that you can't afford it. We have the insurance, we have the benefits of pharmacy and then we have the care through our recent acquisitions. I don't know if it was a free, but it was a lot of money. Um And um our recent acquisitions care in the home care by PC PS care in the communities. Clearly, we have that opportunity to lower costs and improve quality of health care in America. I mean, you said that the demographic is changing in our nation and a lot of the places you've been acquiring have been in the Medicare space. Medicare targeted age. You said there's a Medicare tsunami coming. You just explain that a little bit more. So what's happening is today, um People between the age of 54 54 four and 64 there are more people in that age group bracket than over 65. So that age so we included will be moving into over 65. So because there's so many people, there's gonna be so much more pressure on the health care system because 60 per, 40% of Americans have one chronic condition, 60% of Americans have two or more chronic conditions. Imagine the access, they need the pressure that that will put on the entire health care system. We have to find a better way. Um I wanna talk about some of the acquisition strategy a little bit, but really, I mean, this is an incredibly competitive space, very high deals uh in size. What's your, how do you wanna deal? What's your strategy when you're courting someone? How do you make them come to CBS and TU because you've done this over and over and over again? Yeah, I think, you know, the first thing is, what's your business strategy? What are the capabilities um that you need? You always do a strategy of build versus buy. Um You know, and, and then when you look at um sort of the acquisition, it's OK. How does it fit? Is it strategic? Does it fit strategically? Can you operationally connect it um to your business? And does it financially make sense? And you always have to have those three things when you're looking at any acquisition. And, you know, we picked, um, the acquisitions we picked because we, you know, we looked at our business, we said, um, we're seeing an aging population, we know people don't have access to primary care. We know that value based care is where it's going. We know that there's been a renaissance in home. We, and that's why we bought for the home business that we bought as well. That kind of how we approached our acquisition. And you another goal is to make it much simpler because the health process is really complicated for many, many people. How can technology solve that? Yeah, I, I think the important thing about technology and if you look at what's happening today um with artificial intelligence, I think there's, there's a lot of uncertainty. Um but there's a lot of power with artificial intelligence. And so if we think about the opportunities in health care, artificial intelligence, there's a couple of things, one is we'll see improved patient engagement because we're using technology to connect, we'll see better diagnosis. There's actually been a recent study coming out of Sweden that talks about how artificial intelligence helps with radiology. 20% more insight into um cancers. And those are the good things we're, we're regulating at the same time that we're creating and it's our responsibilities as leaders to make sure that we do responsible artificial intelligence. And I think about it kind of as a Hippocratic Oath do no harm. And in our view in health care, there's three ps, you know, it's powerful, it's personal and it can and it's productive from a personal perspective. It's hey, I can use it to engage and get really insights, but I need to protect those individuals privacy, productive. I say we can, you know, we can use it to bring better information and better tools to our health care workers. But we, but at the same time, we can't lose the human element of interactions in health care. So that would be really critically important for us and then it's powerful, but we need to use it for the betterment and the good and so that we can use it for. How can I understand um social determinants are there ways for us to improve health outcomes. But it really, I mean, I don't know if anyone watched 60 Minutes last night. Um I'm showing my age probably but if I'm definitely showing my age. Um but you know, if you listen to the 60 minute program, 60 Minutes Program last night, he's kind of, there was a gentleman talking, he actually was one of the initial founders of A I, he talked about how uncertain it was and a little bit how scary it could be. So it's our responsibility to make sure that we have responsible A I. So we talked about um even before we came on stage, purposeful leadership. And that also means not just taking care of your shareholders and the environment and many and many other things your employees as well. Um There was an incident in recent weeks where some of your employees staged a walkout. Um It shut down some of the stores and they're fighting for safer conditions. Um and just better work environment. How, you know, you're in a very powerful seat, you touch 100 and 10 million lives with your company every day, 300,000 employees, what, what can you promise and what can you do in your position to help that situation? Yeah. So I think you have to look at the environment, right, the entire uh environment. Um you look at UAW, you look at um Kaiser, there's just a lot of uh unrest in health care, you know, we, you know, um through the pandemic. Um you know, we're still, you know, some of our pharmacists are still feeling some of that burnout. Um I would say the other thing that sort of impacted it was we had unprecedented demand for COVID-19 vaccines and we are at the same level of demand that we were in um 2021. So one of the things that we're boosters, yeah, for the boosters. Yeah, right now. So we're doing more per day than, you know, some, some days we're doing more per day than we were back then. So there's been incredible demand. So what we're doing is, um, you know, we're obviously increasing, um, our scheduling, putting pharmacists, um, we have 30,000 pharmacists. Um, and sometimes we don't get it right in certain markets and we address that market and, um, you know, we didn't actually close any stores. We were able to keep them all open. We actually brought in other, um, pharmacists because in the end, you know, we have a responsibility and an obligation to people that they get their prescriptions and they get access to health and we're all rallied around um to make sure that that's happening at the same time supporting our colleagues. So for people who don't know your backstory, um quite a story growing up. Um a lot of resilience in it. Uh You had a mother who died by suicide. Um You were raised by an aunt who um then died in your twenties. Um And that first made you interested in the health care system and navigate it better. Um You were told early on in your career that women take up space in board rooms and that like you didn't belong, which is of course crazy. Um And now you are sitting here as the most powerful woman to ever run a business in the history of businesses. What's your career domination advice for everybody? Yeah. Don't let your past or any, any setbacks or any failures take the power away of the future that's in front of you. That would be my best advice to you. Thank you, Karen. Thank you all of you and have a great time eating your dinner.

Laphonza Butler, U.S. Senator, California; Former President, EMILY'S List Interviewer: Emma Hinchliffe, Fortune


MPW Summit 2023: Building on A Legacy

Hello, everyone again. Um, I hope you enjoyed your first two courses. It's time for another conversation and we are thrilled and very honored to have with us this evening. The newest member of the United States Senate, as you all know, Senator Alonza Butler was sworn in just last week to fill the seat left by Dianne Feinstein, the late Dianne Feinstein. Now, Senator Butler obviously has very big shoes to fill, but she comes with an incredibly impressive resume reflecting her experience serving the people of California to name a few of her achievements. She has a long history in working in the state's politics. She's a well known strategist in high stakes campaigns. She led California's largest labor union for over a decade. And recently she served as president of Emily's List, an organization that works to support pro choice democratic women candidates and with her appointment to the US Senate, she's making history because Senator Butler is the first openly lesbian black senator to serve in Congress and she is also the only black woman currently serving in the senate. Senator Butler joins us tonight for a conversation with Fortunes Emma Kinsler. Hello, Senator. Thank you. So much for being here with us. Good evening fortune. Well, the last time you were with us at an NPW event, which was not that long ago. You were the president of Emily's List working to elect Democratic women today. You're here as a US senator. Was this on your vision board? Not on my vision board, not on my bingo card. Um, not in the wildest dreams of my ancestors that I ever believe that I will be the third black woman to serve in the United States Senate. Oh, my gosh. Oh, ok. Here we go. We can do another round at the end too. But, oh my gosh. Well, thank you everybody. Um So Senator can, can you walk us through the past week? When did you get the call? Did you see it coming? Did you consider saying? No, I don't believe that anybody could imagine what the last six days of my life um have, have been like, I got the call on a, on a Saturday. I was doing my work for Emily's List at the home of one of our uh supporters and, and community members in, in Colorado. And the governor called on a Saturday on that Saturday. You all might recall at that time just last weekend. Um We were facing an imminent government shutdown. Uh And the governor did not have a whole lot of time for me to think through and call there. There were no phone of free in a and, um, but, but, um I was able to speak to my wife and, um, we were honored to be asked, um, to serve in the, in the seat that, that Dianne Feinstein held. Um, when you think about the, what she offered to this country for women in leadership, whether in public office or in business, raising her hand to lead in a time of crisis. Um It's not something that you say no to. So, as much as I have enjoyed um immensely my work at Emily's List. Um It was an opportunity for me to again raise my hand at a moment of crisis for our country. I do not liken myself to Senator Feinstein. Um But it was a moment that I was, that was put in front of me to, to lead and, and my family, we chose to raise our hands. You know, let's talk about Senator Feinstein's legacy. What parts of it are you, you know, most focused on what's on your mind as you step into this role. What do you want to bring forward with you? Look, if I try to measure my service to Senator Feinstein's, I fail. Um There is so much that she has brought uh to California into the country. People don't know that the Amber alert is Senator Dianne Feinstein, right? So the, the ways in which she has always thought about um the safety and security of our communities, the future for uh young people, whether it's through transportation or through um her commitment to water, the water crisis in our state and the environment, her creation and, and um constant fight for our um federal parks, Joshua Tree like all of that is Senator Dianne Feinstein. And so, uh I am um not so audacious as to believe that I um will um be able to contribute as, as much as the senator did in her decades of service. My life has always been an example for, for women and girls and their economic empowerment. And I want to continue that whether as a labor leader fighting for higher wages and, and raising them, helping to raise the minimum wage and get uh sick days and paid time off for caregivers in this, in this state who didn't have it as of 2016 or working uh at the work of doing the work of Emily's List or my time at, at air B NBI. Feel like I have, I had the opportunity to serve the economic empowerment of, of women, the, the political power uh of, of women. And this is another opportunity for me to do that and to do it in the spirit of Senator Feinstein. Amazing. Well, you know, as we heard, you are only the third black woman to ever serve in the Senate and the first openly gay black woman to serve in the Senate. What do those milestones mean to you personally? How do you feel about them? Um Here's the, I, I only know how to be a black woman, you know, I don't know how to be anything else. And so I don't know how to lead any other way. Um And so I think what those milestones really mean for me and hopefully serve as an example for other black women, other uh lesbians, others who just wanna live their life, their own way. Um What I hope it means um, and offers a little bit of semblance of is just, do you totally and relatedly, not just the first, you are also currently and only the only black woman in the US Senate right now. There's also the vice president, but you're the only senator. You know, what does that feel like for you as you step onto the Senate floor? I can't say the same thing I said before, can I? No, it is, it is not lost on me that there was Carol Moseley Braun, there was Kamala Harris and now there's La Fona Butler. You know, I was sworn in, I was sworn in just last Tuesday. And um my mother celebrated her 70th birthday this year and uh that in August and I thought I was doing a big deal, like taking her on our first mother, daughter, only. I have two older brothers. Um, our first mother daughter trip, just the two of us. We're gonna like knock this 70 thing out mom and um, and then I got to see her um, in the state cap in the US Capitol for the first time in her entire life. Um, I, I got to see her with Senator Cory Booker. Um I got to see her with Congresswoman Lauren Underwood. I like to call it. I tease her. Now, I was like, you live your best MS NBC life girl. Um, and we all look, I grew up in a small town in Mississippi. I went to a historically black college. Um I uh never thought that the day that I would recognize and see pride in my mother's eyes would be when she was walking up to shake the hands of the vice president who was swearing her daughter, her youngest child in as the third black woman to serve in this historic chamber. And so it means a lot to me. It means a lot to my family, I think. Um II, I think it might mean a little bit to my daughter who's only nine and chose to, chose to not come to, to the swearing in because she wanted to go camping. Did she have fun? She, it was her first time being able to go camping without her parents having to go and all experiencing first. I know. Right. And I was like I said, so Nyla Mama's got this thing going on and I was like, but you can, you know, do you want to do this or do you want to go camping? And she said, oh, no, I'm, I'm gonna go camping. I said, well, the vice president is going to be there. She said, well, tell her, I said hi. That's, that's incredible. So, I hope it means something to, to young girls who maybe are not my daughter. But, but, but, but I, I hope it is a demonstration of, of what is possible. Um, and, and, uh, when we can imagine uh together and even when we can't, um there is, there's, there's more possible for us. So that's what I hope. Well, thank you so much, Senator. Um So Dianne Feinstein was 90 years old, you are much younger than that, you know, are you worried about, you know, the aging leadership in politics? And do you think this is the direction that we should be going in which direction a younger direction? Well, as was mentioned in the earlier um talk, I don't think that we have a choice but to go in a younger direction. Um But I will say, look, we, we are at a time. I think where the gift for me is to have been able to learn from Senator Feinstein. The gift for me has been able to um see uh speaker Pelosi's magnificent leadership. Um I think the opportunity for leaders of my generation is to see how leadership is um uh on display uh and to learn all of the tools uh and sort of tricks of the trade and be able to listen very clearly um to what is being communicated from generations. Um that, that come after me, I've always sort of thought about my on the cusp of gen X millennial sort of nature and real responsibility is to be a transmission bill. And so is every uh at every turn and every um evolution of leadership, there is always going to be a passing of the baton at Emily's List. I was able to receive that baton from Ellen Malcolm um who passed it to Stephanie streak, who, who passed it to me where I was also the first black woman to serve in the leadership of, of Emily's List. And so is this a direction that we should be going in? Absolutely, we can't be for representation and inclusion without representation and inclusion. Um And we should take the opportunity to learn from those who have led before us um So that we can do better the next time around. Yeah. You know, so you are joining the US Senate at what could be called a tumultuous time from the threat of shutdowns to now outbreak of conflict in Israel. You know, what do you feel like you can bring to this moment as you step into this role, experience working across the aisle, getting things done with just so much happening in our country and in the world? Yeah, I think it's a great, great question. I've thought about this a lot when um the governor reached out to me. And I think that my, both the story of California and my experience in it um is an offering that I can bring to, to leadership in this moment. The story of California being one of such great innovation um and hope. Um and we understand very much the economic inequality that exists in our state. Um We um have some incredible innovations in policy regarding the environment um and electric vehicles, water transportation, fascinating um pathways to the future and as the a symbol of hope in spaces of policy and people and, and connection, what California has taught me and my work in it has been about how do you, you know, take what is the one of the greatest melting pots uh in the world and find com common ground and, and build coalition. Um And I think what, what um young people and, you know, everybody in between senior saints um would have us to, to believe is that, you know, things are, the government is broken that nobody is talking to each other. The only way that we were able to pass a $15 minimum wage in California was through coalition. It was not just the labor movement, but it was small businesses, it was not just small businesses, but it was nonprofits and everybody, they play a role in figuring out what might work for California. And so having the had the experiences of trying of working to build those coalitions to make significant change in one of the most dynamic places. Um and, you know, economies in the country and, and dare I say in the world is, and I think an asset that I can bring and, and will bring um to my service in the US Senate. So, is this a temporary job for you? It is a early job for me. Uh It is day six. II I literally went through orientation which is usually three days and like four hours. Um And so I would say it's a early job for me. Um But my life has been one that has been dedicated to service and that is my commitment. Well, thank you so much, Senator. Incredible to have you here.

Bela Bajaria, Chief Content Officer, Netflix Interviewer: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: The Future Of Streaming

Hollywood is in the middle of a roller coaster moment. One that may even be considered an inflection point. The business is changing for a variety of reasons from shifting consumer habits to technological advances to the way shows and movies are made. This is a time of challenge for the creatives who bring content to life, for actors, for content distribution companies. And those challenges include the recently resolved Writers Guild strike and the actors strike that's still underway. So today we are joined by an executive who is seeing it all up close and in real time, she's a woman who is responsible for bringing some of the most beloved and binged content to traditional television and now to streaming Bela Bia is chief content officer at Netflix. She's got a long history with the company having joined in 2016 and a long career in the industry overall. Bella once again ranks on fortune's most powerful women in business list making it her fourth time on the list. She joins us now to talk about the current state of the business where streaming is headed and her rise to become one of the most powerful women in Hollywood. So please thank her and welcome her, excuse me to the stage. Bella. Hi, thanks. Thanks for being with us. I know you are literally all over the world, so we appreciate you making a stop here. Um I just real quick, I want to ask you, your role has changed over the year. Obviously, the company has evolved significantly as well as the industry like we mentioned. But tell us just what does it mean to be Chief Content Officer at Netflix today? Um Good morning, everybody. It's, you know what it means, it means. It's a really fun job. I, you know, I get to work with the best creators and filmmakers around the world, many different languages, many different countries and bring these stories to a global audience. So it's, you know, incredibly rewarding, especially for somebody like me who is an Indian immigrant to the country, never saw myself on screen. And it's a very powerful thing to see yourself. Um And so to be part of a company that doesn't just export Hollywood content, but really tells these stories from around the world and have discovery around the world. And the way we do is, you know, it's such a fun job. I mean, I get to work with Chloe Dumont and David Fincher and David Beckham recently and lots of amazing, you know, filmmakers around the world. So it's, you know, it's a great job. Can't forget posh, posh, posh. Yeah. So, so we're going to talk a little bit more about the global scale Netflix streams in more than 190 countries. About two thirds of your, more than 230 million subscriptions are now coming from outside of the US and Canada. So I'm curious to hear over the last few years in particular and your career, what have you learned about how to approach the strategy for approaching content on such a global scale? So I'd say like looking at, you know, it's always about like, what do audiences love? What do they want to watch? Right? What we do is we are an entertainment company, right? We only make movies and series and it's really understanding that people have lots of different tastes and lots of different moods even in your own family. And, you know, depending on what you're in the mood for, right? That there's a wide breadth of choices if you know, earlier in the year, if I look at something like, you know, in the US, there was Night age in an action show, beef, a beautiful award winning thing really about human connection in so many ways. And love is Blind, a very popular dating reality show. All of those things were number 12 and three in the US and they kept flip flopping, which really shows you kind of the breath of, you know, different tastes. And when we look at, you know, what are those great titles? And how do we really do that? It always starts with a creator, it always starts with a filmmaker and it starts with being very specific and authentic to that voice and what language that is and that thing is universal, whether it's in Mumbai or Madrid or Los Angeles, right? There's a very cultural specific thing of voices and it's authentic and we really support that vision. We do that on this scale by doing it. You know, we have 27 local country offices with local people in those offices who are from the creative ecosystem, who speak the language, who are from the culture, who work in that community. And that's really kind of we do it, you know, in that way. And it's always like in the end of the day, audiences do have different tastes. We know that our members watch on average six different genres a month. And so people do have a wide range of tastes. And so it's really been about creator first. And I say the other thing is I think people look at us and think we make global shows, we don't make global shows, we make local specific authentic shows and films and then we launch it to a global audience because I also think if you try to make a show for everyone, you make a show for no one. And that's really kind of how we have been, you know, successful at storytelling first and really being very authentic to what that voice is in whatever country that comes from. So, since you're brought up, love is blind, I'm going to stick to it for a minute here. But you, you have love is Blind Brazil and you've got Love is Blind Japan. How do you decide this is what we're going to, you know, these are the countries we're taking it to. This is, this is going to work here. So what's interesting about that is so, you know, the love is blind. The US version was first and you know, it really resonated and that version in English resonated around the world and it really becomes like the country teams or a local producer who's like, oh, here's our take on it or here's why this would work. So we don't start with saying, OK, we're going to just push this out to these countries. It's not really again when I talk about starting with the idea first. It was those country teams, right, Qatar who runs Japan, you know, or Elizabeth who runs Brazil. It really was a very specific like, OK, we love this here. Here's what our version locally would look like. Here's how we're going to make it locally and make it sort of more relevant to our country and that's really how that comes about. OK. Um I, I wanna ask you about the Hollywood strikes uh that these have taken center stage, of course, over the last few months um We just saw WG A members um approve a contract agreement after nearly five months. Um This is really being touted by union leaders and members uh in large part as, as a success. Um And uh both when it comes to gains in payment, giving writers more control and transparency over the use of generative A I in scripts. Do you see this as a win for the studios and for Netflix? Look, I, so first I'm going to say congratulations to the WG A which who did ratify the agreement yesterday. And in that agreement, there was, you know, really meaningful gains and protections for writers. And I'd say for, you know, all of us to get writers back to work and you know, that really is the goal of, you know, all of the members of the A MP TP and really as a community, right? It was like to get everybody back to work. And so now, you know, obviously with S A which is still in the middle of a negotiation. So I can't really, really talk about that a lot, but the focus now is to really reach agreement with Zag. And now we have two agreements out of the three with the guild and to really get, you know, everybody back to work, making amazing series and films that all of you should watch and will love. And by the way, be, be thinking of a question for Bella will go to you. Um but uh you, you've said just sticking with technology here for, for a bit because you brought up gen A I, you've said in the past that algorithms don't dictate your content decisions. And I know you've already talked about it a little bit, but Netflix has always um you know, you originated in Silicon Valley and, and there was this tech platform even in the DVD days, right? And you've always had such amazing technology at your fingertips. So how do you balance that, the tech and the science piece and the art and the intuition you yourself and as a company. So first, I'd say it's really important to remember we're in an entertainment company. We don't do anything else except make movies and series, right? That's what we do and it's the core of what we do. And so for me and I've been in an entertainment executive for 27 years, something like that a long time. And it's always about the creativity, right? It's always about working with writers and directors, having that relationship, having that trust, building a relationship and really supporting that vision. And whether that's when I was at CBS or ran Universal Television or Netflix, the core of it is always judgment, gut intuition, creativity. There is not an algorithm in the world to tell you the next thing that's going to actually connect and resonate with people. That's not what we do. It really is a, always a creative business and we are an entertainment company and I think it's amazing that we with great storytelling coupled with, you know, really amazing quality subtitles and dubbing and with easy access and discovery, that sort of a combination of those things is really an amazing thing. But we are an entertainment company. And for me, if you talk about discovery and access, what's been incredible is, you know, the experience when you come on Netflix is that you can discover Lupin from France or La Casa de Papel from Spain. And right, you can watch, you know, the David Beckham, you know, doc series and there's just such a wide breadth of things and that sort of the experience in Netflix of coupling like great storytelling with amazing discovery is, you know, what has been really successful and why our members love that they get to discover, you know, dear child, you know, a month ago from Germany that people have, you know, loved all over the world. I seem to get stuck with a lot of dino trucks and Pokemon recommendations because my five year old boy uses my Netflix profile. But I was, I was going to say would just use your own profile, then you would not have that. Yes. Questions for Bella, please raise your hand. We'll bring a microphone over to you. If anybody would like to ask a question. No, I've got plenty of my own. I want to ask you going back to David Beckham, I want to ask you about sports programming just kind of more more broadly and you haven't really leaned into live sports TV, deals, right? Streaming deals. And some of your competitors definitely have. Can you explain a little bit about the strategy and this kind of sports adjacent genre? So I think, you know, for us, it's always been that our power and our strength is storytelling. Character. You love stories, you love a world, you can discover, right and really experience. And that was always the focus. And so early days, you know, we did right to survive, which is following, you know, doc series in formula one. And that was amazing because people who had never watched the sport or like the or knew anything about it fell in love with the characters and the story, some of them, now a lot of them watch the sport that they never did. And Formula One has really been public about talking about the growth in the US because of the show, the power of storytelling and falling in love with characters. Kind of is the key to that. And you've seen recently, we had a show called Full Swing, which was golf. And the PGA has also talked about the growth of the sport because people discovered the sport through great characters and storytelling. And so our focus has been that whether it's, you know, quarterback with the NFL or a lot of these like doc, you know, like, like, and David Beck and like the doc sports, you know, shows that we do. So the focus has always been that for us and we love that we have really become the premier home for sports programming and it's a really important part of what we do. But again, it goes to the core of storytelling and characters, like that's what we do. And I say on the live sports, it's just, we have never, we haven't really ever figured out how that as a business of licensing live rights from the sports. Like, you know, how that actually makes sense for us as a business. But what does make sense is always focusing on great partnership with these leagues, which we do have and really expanding that programming because our members love that sports programming. Great. Very, very quick question over here. Hi, I'm Fatima Goss Graves with the National Women's Law Center. And I'm just curious with the strikes and the conversations we're having around the A I how you're planning for what feels like more fundamental shifts to the business model. Look, I think, um, you know, we have really always what's been like amazing, I think in Hollywood and even through the strikes, right, it's been like the companies and the community, really wanting to get everybody like back to work and really focusing on great storytelling and, and how to do that. So that was at least the core on both sides, you know, this kind of thing of one community getting back together. A I has always been a thing that we've talked about with, with all of the guild and there's, and that's, and we have, you know, two agreements that obviously have been resolved and people are very happy, right on both sides about that agreement is that, you know, A I is a really great tool in the hands of creators. And so directors can, you know, use A I in visual effects and you can use them in sort of background for anime. I mean, there's lots of different ways to use it and it's a really great tool for us in the hands of creators and when they want to use that for efficiencies. So that's sort of always been kind of a conversation, you know, even throughout the negotiation. Thank you, Bella. Um Bella, we do need to wrap, but thank you so much for joining us again. Um And congrats on being on the list and we always appreciate your uh recommendations for new shows as well. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Efrat Duvdevani, Director General, Peres Center for Peace and Innovation (appearing virtually) Interviewer: Alan Murray, Chief Executive Officer, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: Live from Israel

Injuries, kidnappings and trauma that's going to have long lasting effects and this new war will have impacts that go beyond the borders of Israel and even the Middle East and will likely have ramifications globally potentially for years to come. We want to get a check on what's happening on the ground right now and to talk about what the attacks mean for Israel, for the region and for the world. Ela Devani is the Director General of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation flat began her public service with the late Prime Minister Yak Rabin, then continued her career working alongside President Shimon Peres in various governmental positions over the past 22 years. She joins us now from inside Israel for a conversation with Fortune Ceo Alan Murray Efrat. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. So, so tell us first, how are you, how are your employees, your family are, are I I see their missiles still flying into Israel? Are you in a safe place? Do you feel safe? So right now I'm sitting here in the, in my house and nothing is actually safe. We've had two sirens today and we had to run to the shelter with all of the Children and the dogs trembling and everybody in. Um, and I'm considered actually lucky because we're living in the center of Israel, but in the southern part of Israel, which is only an hour from my house live, my parents in Ashkelon and they have thousands of missiles and rockets on their house. Their house is almost torn apart. They're 85 year old people and they will not leave their house. So imagine how torn we feel. And maybe I'll give you a bit of what we're going through here in Israel on Saturday morning. I, I woke up at 6 36 45 and started hearing beep, beeps from my phone and, you know, it was like waking up from a nightmare, a nightmare that we couldn't even imagine how bad it's going to be. We have almost 3000 people injured. Over 1000 people murdered some of them beheaded Children and elderly people, women, Children. We have more than 150 kidnapped over to Gaza and we see horrific pictures of women walking, being dragged around in the streets of Gaza with bloody pants, terrible things that you can't even imagine. And we're trying to work it out and this is what we're doing now in Israel. Yeah. I'm sorry, what are you doing? What can you do at the, uh, uh, Paris Center to help. So let me tell you before the Pair Center, I'll tell you a bit about the, what we're doing here in the Israeli society. So, you know, Israeli society is sometimes torn apart by politics and everything. But this is a time where we solidarity is 100%. You can see a Children grown ups working shoulder to shoulder, packing up packages and helping victims and helping the soldiers sending over parcels from all over as well. Supermarkets are empty because we bought everything and sent them over to, to the victims and to the soldiers and we're trying to do everything that we can. And at the Pair Center, we're actually looking not at the, um, at the here and now we're looking at the day after a day, a day after the war. And, you know, Shimon Peres was our founder and he always told us to dream big and we're trying to dream big. So we're thinking of plans to rehabilitate the society which has been torn apart, shredded, vanished. Some villages are actually non-existent anymore and we're working on how to, to make things, you know, make, make things into a better world for us here. Uh The, the, the Prime Minister said that the country should prepare for a long war. You're working for what has to happen after the war. When do you think that's going to be so things can be so dynamic here uh, in this region. Um We're now we now have a Southern, uh you know, a Southern war, but we also have signs of having a northern war with Lebanon and Syria. And we know that Iran is standing behind all of these atrocities. Uh It's been said very clearly, I can tell you that one of the most encouraging things for us is to have a US support. Uh It's one of the, I can tell you that people in Israel walk around feeling so much more um stronger and better because we know that the US is on our side. And I really actually encourage the women here in the audience uh to try and reach out and help us, you know, with every representative that they have because we know that it's going, it may be a very long war. We hope not, but it may be a very long war and we're hoping not. What, what can the women in this room do to help? So I, I would, I would really suggest and to have all of the women who can influence their representatives in the US government and approach and let them have, let them show the support for Israel, the need for Israel to show that it's, you know, if us is its best friend and this is the only way that I think we can prevail because we are here in the darkness trying to hold this for against the terrible things around us. I can tell you that um I don't want to seem so, you know, not talk all the time about darkness because my boss for 22 years was Shimon Peres, a man of a great vision and one of the sentence that he said many times and I am, you know, saying it to myself many times these last three days, he would always say that optimists and pessimists die the same way. They only live a different life And we definitely want to live the life of an optimist. So even in times of the greatest nightmare and crisis, we have, we try to stay optimist and look at the way that we can pay for ourselves. And what would Shimon peres' advice be right now if he were here? I think the first thing he would do was to, um, you know, he considered the US Israel, Israel's best ally. I think that's what he would do is have this pact with the US working together trying to solve this terrible, terrible problem. And he would also form a pact with the European Union, of course, and with all other neighbors that Israel has, but this is not only an Israeli problem, this is definitely a world problem because we understand clearly that Hamas is like Isis, now we're dealing with this. And if we don't deal with this and if we don't finish this problem, it's going to spread all over the world. Is it your, your center is dedicated to peace. Is it possible to keep Iran out of this, out of this fight? Iran is in this fight because Iran was behind everything and it's spoken very loud and clear. Uh But the last thing we need here in this region is to have uh you know, all hell broke loose. Uh And we would do everything that we can to prevent it. And in any means we can, you know, a means of and you know, means that you can talk about sequence means that you cannot talk about. We'll do everything we can shoulder to shoulder and together with the US because this is not what I told you before. It is not an integrate problem. It's a worldwide problem that we have to deal with or else it will knock on everybody's no door. Yeah, you talked about 100% solidarity among the people that you're working with. But of course, before the attacks, there was anything but 100% solidarity in Israel. We were seeing significant divisions over government policy. Has that disappeared? Is there a clear vision on how to move forward here or are there going to be widespread disagreements? So, uh in terms of, uh in terms of Israel public, you can see people shoulder to shoulder, working together and it doesn't matter if you have, you know, different political visions or everything you could have been torn apart before. But now we're packing things together, hugging people, wiping away their tears. We're doing it together. The government is now trying to form a uni a unified government. Uh Bibi Netanyahu is trying to bring into the government. Uh Mr Guns who was before and other members of other members say that he's now trying to bring inside his coalition and make it into a big coalition. And I totally agree with it. It is such a trauma, such a we have never ever had anything like this and it is something that needs coalition that gives the force of everybody. I want to tell you another thing, our center is uh works for peace, but also for innovation. And we believe that innovation can make the world a better place. We can bring, we believe that through innovation, you can bring clean air and clean water, you can tackle world hunger, you can bring medical aid to people in dire straits. And you know, sometimes I find that there's a similar DNA between people are trying to make this world innovative and people who are trying to make this world a better place and bring peace. In both cases, you have the same DNA. In both cases, you have to think what we call out of the box. Be creative, be optimistic. Understand that you fall on your eye, but you always always have to dream big. So this is something that we're doing here and this is the word that you know, I want to have you stay with. Yeah, that's a great message for all of us to think big and recognize that innovation can be a road to peace. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us and please be safe. Thank you so much.

Jodie Grenier, Chief Executive Officer, Foundation for Women Warriors, Janett Liriano, Co-founder and CEO, INARU Deb Liu, President and CEO, Ancestry Paula Schneider, Chief Executive Officer, Susan G. Komen Moderator: Emma Hinchliffe, Senior Writer, FORTUNE; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit

MPW Summit 2023: Bridging Divides 

Jodie Grenier, Chief Executive Officer, Foundation for Women Warriors Janett Liriano, Co-founder and CEO, INARU Deb Liu, President and CEO, Ancestry Paula Schneider, Chief Executive Officer, Susan G. Komen Moderator: Emma Hinchliffe, Senior Writer, FORTUNE; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit

Jodie Grenier, Foundation for Women Warriors, Janett Liriano, INARU, Deb Liu, Ancestry, Paula Schneider, Susan G. Komen, Emma Hinchliffe, Senior Writer, FORTUNE

Get to know the attendees of the Most Powerful Women Summit 2023

MPW Summit 2023: Welcome And The Big Get-To-Know-You

Beth Ford, President and CEO, Land O’Lakes, Inc. Interviewer: Maria Aspan, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: Food Security Is Global Security

Business experience represented and we look forward to hearing from you all throughout the course of the program. Now, let's get underway with our first conversation of the day. Beth Ford is president and CEO of Land O Lakes. The century old member owned Cooper that operates in all 50 states and more than 60 countries. It's one of the largest producers of butter and cheese in the US and also makes animal feed and crop protection products. But Beth's work goes beyond the goods on our storefronts and shelves and she's keenly focused on concerns such as technology, sustainability, immigration, global food security and how they all relate to a more secure world. Beth has ranked on Fortune's most powerful woman in business list many times including this year and we congratulate her on that. She joins MP W co-chair and senior writer Maria Aspen for our leadoff conversation today. Please welcome them to the stage. Bye bye, Beth. Thank you so much for being here. It's great to have you back on our stage. Well, thanks for the invitation. Um I want to start off, you know, Land Lakes is at the center of, of our food supply and of so many issues affecting our nation's food supply. You have been raising awareness recently, in particular about national, about food security. You say it's national security and geopolitical security. And obviously we are in a week where we're seeing with the attacks on Israel just increased threats to geopolitical security. Could I ask you to talk a little bit about how you see what's going on in Israel and Gaza and in the wider world affecting our food security right now. Well, the events in Israel and Gaza are just, you know, it unspeakable, just horrible. And um so, you know, when I was, when we were originally having this conversation, we had a conversation about um food, the food supply, the global interconnected nature of the global food supply. And it was related to Ukraine. And now we have another unstable area of the world. I'm going to put the framing actually about um you know, I say food security is national security, but it's also about geopolitical stability. Think of what happened in Ukraine. You saw inflationary pressure. But one of the challenges is that's a breadbasket area of the world. It's a production concentration area, those goods were shipped into North Africa, some of the least stable areas of the world, you know, over 30% of the global population are either food insecure or tremendously, food insecure, starving. And so food security is absolutely critical. That's why we see migration coming in from the south smallholder farmers, they can't beat their families, they're going to do anything. They can just like all of us would to try to make sure that their families are fed as a primary issue. So the reason I speak about this and I'm fortunate we are, you know, a cooper, I work with farmers, but we're a fortune 200 company work around the world. We also have an NGO we're working in Africa and other areas on, on food and on food security, Cooper technology utilization, etc. The reason I speak to this is because we are fortunate as Americans, we are food secure there. That doesn't mean there's not food insecurity in our country. OK. That's an economic issue, a disparity issue but there's food in the country and you go to other parts of the world. That's not true. There is an interconnected nature of the global food supply chain that we all need to understand and have concern with. 1% of the population is involved in agriculture in this country. 1% they feed all of us, they feed the world. We export 20% of the production here in the United States. It is a stabilizer and there are multiple concerns that I have about our investment in food and in technology enablement tied to the food supply chain that I have a significant concern about because it's coming at the same time where for instance, water, water availability, what's the major user of water, agriculture set water demand will outstrip supply by 2030. This is in the near end by 50%. Ok. So technology in agriculture offsets that more drought tolerant seed, for instance, different practices that help us produce food. Yet we don't have these conversations. We don't have this conversation at all because we, we aren't from a period or a place of want necessarily. We don't understand how fragile the global food supply chain is. And so I speak a lot about it. Not just because it's the business of that I'm involved in, but because I feel like I need to, you know, shout about this, really raise alarms about the fragility that we have here, the fact that we're food secure. But at the same time, we are critical as a, as a I guess a place where production happens where we can stabilize different economies. Speaking of threats to the nation's food supply and just global threats, climate change, our business is doing enough to respond to the urgency at this moment. Well, in agriculture, um what we're trying to do and certainly in my own business, we do have a sustainable production business. True. Terra, it's a technology business. But also we are partnered with our agronomist. We have expertise, we have the largest applied research uh platform in North America. Um Are we doing enough? You know, there are transitions in different businesses occurring, there needs to be investment. I sit on the business roundtable board of directors. I'm constantly with other ceos. Folks are focused on this making investment. Is it fast enough? Well, we always ask, is that fast enough? Are we doing enough in agriculture? There is transition that needs to occur? Oftentimes folks will say, why aren't we immediately not doing X versus Y? I think we all want the farmer to be profitable. We want them to make investment in the transition. That's not an immediate change on the acre. It costs probably $60 plus per acre for them to transition to more sustainable practices cover crops, you know, variable rate applications, stabilize stabilizers, etc. So during that transition, we have to say, well, there's an intention and it's going to be a process and there's an urgency but we need to make sure that the farmer is investing appropriately and can only do that if there's profitability. One last comment. And I said 1% of the population involved in agriculture. What you should know is there are about 2 million farmers, for instance, in the United States different times because of commodity price volatility, they make no money, they make no money. 90% could be considered hobby farmers because they have to make their income off the farm to hold their land and do the work that supports all of us. It's important. It's not a rural issue or it's somebody else's problem. It's not a political issue. This is a security issue. For all of us. And we need to really think about that as we look at investment right now, we're looking at it because it's Farm Bill time. We've got some disquiet going on in Washington and it's one of the critical times of a five year period in agriculture. You have long been engaged on multiple policies in Washington. You're a member of the President's Sex Support Council. You've advocated for increased rural access to broadband immigration reform. And I wonder if I could ask you to talk a little bit more about what is going on or perhaps not going on in Washington and how that affects. Well, listen, I, I talk policy, not politics. We talk policy policies that are enablers for business for the areas of which I have most responsibility or familiarity. Um I am always on the hill um and talking with members of the administration, talking about that right now, obviously not a lot getting done and we are in farm bill time and even the AG appropriations bill didn't get passed, the defense appropriations bill didn't get passed. So there's not a lot happening right now. We need a new speaker to get things moving in the house. Interestingly, you know, you talk about immigration. I've been talking about that again on BRT the Immigration Committee, Tim Cook is the chair of that. He usually talks about tech workers. DACA, I talk about laborers, farm workers, kind of the folks who do the work, the people who build this and you know, interesting, the Farm Worker Modernization Act passed the house twice on a bipartisan basis. Yet still, we can't get that thing over the finish line and we're 2.5 million workers short in agriculture. And we know we need workers in this country. And we are grateful, I am grateful for the people who want to do this work because generally Americans don't sign up for these jobs. Um So back to your policy question right now. It's a bumpy time. Um I am grateful to be part of B RT because you bring friends to the table with you to have conversations to really educate um uh house and senate members about what needs to happen. What is our enablers? That doesn't mean we have broad agreement on everything that's not the test of leadership in the discussion. It's trying to help them understand what the risks are. One other comment about that right now, ag research funding is at 19 seventies level. Ok, 19 seventies level. Do you know who's out spending a 5 to 1? China Brazil? We now are we, we were net export positive for many years now. We are, you know, in a deficit, we are importing more in agriculture and that's unbelievable to me. Um But, but here we are 19 seventies level for funding and we've had consolidation at the top end of the basics buyer bought Monsanto Chemchina was purchase of Syngenta. So we've got really one basic in the country doing the R and D work. This is at a time again where water availability is declining, where there is yield that is going to drop. And so when I'm in DC, I said you should consider this not part of the farm bill. This is part of national security spending. We must invest in technology in order to enable production that keeps us secure. I want to go back to policy, not politics. Um and ask how it affects you as both an individual but also a CEO. When you were, when you became CEO of Land O Lakes in 2018, you became the first openly gay female CEO in the Fortune 500 and congratulations. You're now five year more than five years in. Yeah. Um We're also at a time when we're seeing rising attacks in public on people who are LG TB Q and on businesses who try to engage in that conversation. I'm curious for you as you engage in policy as you engage publicly. How do you think about this as an individual? But how do you also think about how your company and you as a CEO want to speak out or not speak out on any sort of issue that could be seen as political or social or not directly related to your business. Well, it's such a sensitive area and you know, I was at an earlier session you know, the the role of the CEO you just don't know, understand the diversity of the constituencies or people who believe their constituencies that you, you have to kind of thread a needle with. I do try to continually focus on policy, not politics. I focus on the things that are relevant to my business. I'm I am in a role where I am representing the voice of the company. And I recognize that and I recognize the importance of this conversation with the employee base. You know, that may have a point of view. Why aren't you talking about it? Because my voice is an additive at all times in a conversation just to have me out there saying something. If it's not relevant, if I'm not the relevant person holding that conversation based on my business or based on my background, et cetera, then I'm just one other voice and there's just too much noise of that. So we try to be very careful. I'm careful not to say I want to avoid it, but to say in my role as my, I have this responsibility, it is important to recognize I am representing my company and my employees and my shareholders. And so I am, I am not just careful, I'm targeted in the things that I think are important that I speak to and they're generally relevant to our business or our members uh how and we are again entering into what's going to be perhaps an even more fraught political time. What's your advice to the leaders in the room for navigating the coming election year? Well, first of all, I mean, are they all over your phone with requests for funding? I mean, wow, it's a lot technology enablement in that area has not been great in terms of the noise. Um You know, we are, we do have our pack. We, I do give directly my wife and I do for candidates that I think are important. I try to be very unbalanced. I really do balance between Republicans and Democrats. I look at the issues at which they're supportive and I think that that's important. We need to be thoughtful. There's confirmation bias, we're constantly getting reinforced about our beliefs and there's nothing wrong with that, but just as I have my, my Children now are now all three off to college. Um And I say, you know, be, be thoughtful, be thoughtful about what you're reading about the different sources, read broadly. Um talk to others and they, they have their own points of view. Similarly in politics, you're going to see that there are some folks that are very clear to me, others that have a variety of thoughts that may not be aligned with mine. That's ok. That's ok because it's not about universal, a uniform agreement. I'm not sure when that got to be the measure of whether we like someone or not. Rather the role is to move the ball down the court that requires compromise at times. And, um, that's, that's one of the things that I think about, uh, frequently Beth. Thank you so much. Thank you.

MPW Summit 2023: TheHeather Manchin, Founder and CEO, Americans Together, Pattie Sellers, Co-chief Executive Officer, SellersEaston Media Disruptor

MPW Summit 2023: The Disruptor

Heather Manchin, Founder and CEO, Americans Together, Pattie Sellers, Co-chief Executive Officer, SellersEaston Media

OK. Now to a topic that many people, especially business leaders are trying to avoid these days and that's us. Politics don't, don't walk out please. Politics are messy, divisive and some say that our political system is so dysfunctional right now that it is a threat to us competitiveness, but it's not all bad blood and name calling. Of course. Right, Kathy. Yeah. Yeah. There are those who are working to mobilize the middle support centrist ideas. And the question is, is there enough power in such a movement to bring real change? Our next guest believes that there is Heather Manchin is the former CEO of the drug maker Mylan at the time. She was the first woman to run a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company and her work is now focused on politics. She's the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Americans together, which is focused on changing the national narrative, disturbing ideolog ideological extremes and putting country over party Heather joins us for our conversation with fortune most powerful women, co founder and co CEO of Sellers Eastern Media Patty Sellers. As I mentioned yesterday or as we mentioned, this is the 25th MPW summit and Patty obviously has been a huge part of it since its inception since she helped start this whole thing. And we are so grateful to her for that. So please welcome Patti and Heather to the stage. Thank you, Mi so Heather. OK. What's the problem you're trying to solve here? It's a small one. It would be the, I guess, toxic polarization. I think we find ourselves in this country and I think I probably share it with many of you that feeling of just exhaustion or had enough. And so what to do about it. And that journey really started for me about a year ago. How did it start? So, I retired, got divorced and was an empty nester all at the same time in 2020. And, you know, I started doing what most would do is spending some time with loved ones that you hadn't been able to spend as much time with. And so I ended up going to DC quite a bit, spending time with my parents and those conversations on the boat in the morning, kind of led to really recognizing that, say who your father is. Senator Joe Manchin for those. So he has found himself, you know, as you may imagine, quite alone sometimes in his really putting what's right over party. He's not often the party line vote and, and just recognizing the truly big business of politics and that, that divide is really being driven by business um the party, the party line votes, the, the polarization and the reality is that the Dems and the Republican parties, I think working as a duopoly, the business model is working as intended. It's working for the party but not the American people. And what's being left behind are the everyday problems we're facing and having no resolution to because it's feeding the parties. And you know, as you guys know, a duopoly in most industries is illegal, there's just no regulators for the regulators in this instance. So we find ourselves with, I believe a huge percentage of people out there that feel politically homeless. They don't identify with the extremes and just going more right, more left, more right, more left and the blaming what can we be against versus what we can be for. And you know, I think that we find ourselves that Americans are hopeful and optimistic even in the chaos we find ourselves in today. How can we kind of harness that energy and tap into the souls of people that I think very much want to share common ground, common values and make a difference. So how is Americans together different from no labels? So there's many platforms out there talking about centrist and moderate ideas. I think no labels by your example is a group that started in Washington trying to help sitting senators and congressmen be bipartisan by camera looking for solutions legislatively recently in the last year, they have started an effort to get to get ballot access. And they've talked about if it is a Biden Trump rematch, is there an opportunity to run a candidate as an independent in the middle? So I would say all of that effort is very different than what we're looking at Americans together is truly about, can we create a platform that harnesses what people are feeling and seeing every day? You know, you recognize that actually listening both socially and humanly, you learn a lot and what does that mean? Create a platform? So create a platform. For instance, when you, when we think about things that could help heal this country, I think that whether we're talking about a year of service after high school, that there have been a lot of proven discussions and a lot of proven policies that really would bring the country together. But there's not a central depository that lets you come and say, how could I find out more about this in 11 area as far as policies around finding those common ground and common sense solutions to immigration. Those are the chaos at our border. You look at where we stand with abortion now throughout the country, I believe as most that we get around the table and have a discussion, we find common ground. I mean, you guys do it every day in your personal life and your business life. That opportunity to say yes, I can, I can live with that. It's a compromise that I can live with. Instead of being just this, this outrage and monetizing, the anger is sure way to power in politics today. How big is this middle that you want to mobilize? Well, look, you guys are smart, intelligent business women. And if I said to you when you wake up in the morning, you're going to tell your board that you're going to ignore 70% of your market. You would say, well, that's crazy. I would never do that. Well, of course, but us government, if you think about them as a business, they're ignoring 70% because the right and the left are catering to the fringes and normalizing those fringes. And I think like I said, 70% of Americans out there are saying I don't identify with either of these. Those aren't the issues that I'm talking about. They're not the issues affecting my everyday life. So I think the market is huge. I'm looking at Americans together a start up a lean start up. How do we lean into this? Be agile? How do we harness this conversation that's happening, propose and try to get people physically around a table to say, look, we can find common ground and we need to hold politicians accountable for that. And is Americans together going to endorse a candidate or put up a candidate? I would rather think about this as candidates or politicians endorsing our agenda. So if we can put forth a moderate agenda that people set back and say, well, of course, that makes sense of how we should be handling our border. How do we secure it and get working visas and get people working again? How do we look at the chaos in our streets and, and, and respectfully deal with guns? How do we think about abortion or codifying Roe versus Wade as a starting point? I think that there's controversial issues. But again, we in our everyday lives find ways to come around and find what is the path forward that compromise? Who has a question or anything to share anyone? OK. Well, I'll ask the question that a lot of you are thinking is your father going to run for president? And do you want him to look, he has said he'll make a decision by the end of the year and look, I think it's complicated and I know obviously I hear often about the concerns that there could be a spoiler or you know, that it could, it could end up helping Trump end up hurting Biden. I guess what I would say. I would ask everybody to be open minded and really think about how less choices is not democratic. I think our democracy is founded on options and choices. So when you hear people saying, let's limit it for the sake of democracy, I would ask you to really think hard about what they're really asking you to do? I think that, look, we are, we are in an unprecedented moment in time. I don't think we've ever been here before. So when people want to talk about, you know, back when Ross Perot Ran, I think today is so different. You were talking about Bush and Clinton. I think Biden and Trump is a completely different era. I think problems we're facing as a country are completely different and I think it's going to take, you know, very unprecedented actions to how do we disrupt that and how do we perhaps get this country back on the right track? So look, Americans together, as I've said, was not about any politician or any action. It was about creating a platform with a modern agenda that I think we can harness and truly perhaps mobilize change because we're at a tipping point in this country and it's usually hard to mobilize the middle. We're usually, it's the un organiz we're not advocating for something, but I almost believe I can feel such a palatable when I'm going around this country of people being hungry for something. You can, you see it in the papers every day, you see the opinions and the editorial boards talking about. Wow, is there another course for the country? So certainly we don't have all the answers and don't know what that decision will be at the end of the day. But I do know that this country, we have American values. We're hopeful and I think there's ways to tap into that optimism and that people truly have had enough of the rage and extremism. Yes. Back here, Carrie. Yeah. Hi. Carry Schwab Pomerantz. I come from a pretty politically active family also. Um, I just want to know how, how do we help you? How do we get involved? Oh, I love that question and I wish I could say, go to my website and, and read all about it. I'm in the midst of setting this up and over the next couple of weeks, um that I will, I can't wait to have people get involved in the meantime, get involved with having discussion, conversation with me. I am talking to people all around the country in a lot of different fields and expertise because this is going to take, this is going to take everybody uh really putting their arms and wanting to make a difference. And I have found that people who want, who care and want to get involved. There is a place. So please, um afterwards see me and I'll share my information, Heather will be here until tomorrow. So talk with her. Yes, Carrie Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. So, so yeah, my father, brother. Um but so I thought I have two questions or one statement, which is, I think that the thing that's driving this is that the system is not working for people and that's why they're so frustrated and does and sometimes angry. So that's just one part. My question is um how do you change the structural a design of the Democratic and Republican parties? Because Gerry Gerrymandering has made it in everybody's favor to make sure the other party boozes or doesn't have legislation. So I'm just wondering how in your mind we um we attacked that problem. Thank you. It is broken. I mean, I think all of us know and feel Washington is broken. It's what to do about it. I think to your point, there are many efforts that are looking at gerrymandering, for example, being able to take, you know, computer based systems to really think about and take this, take this partisanship out. I think that there's the open primaries, the rank file voting. I think that there are many efforts and I don't, again, I don't think there's a silver bullet fix. I do think that if we can create and energize people to one get involved, hold accountable and understand the issue. What I found is that people don't really understand how things are working. And so the sound bites and the and that's quickly driving people to their corners versus saying no, these issues are complicated and complex. We didn't get here overnight. We're not going to fix them overnight. Americans together to me is a I hope a decades long platform that allows starting to have people really understand and dig in to know that how we got here and I think that these fixes that people, there's a lot of smart people doing smart things, they've just not been scale and been able to really find their way through the billions being spent on each side. And, you know, as you know, in, in marketing, if you're trying to convince something, somebody of something that doesn't resonate with them, you have to spend a whole lot to do it. If we can tap in to what you're feeling and what resonates with you and what makes sense, just what start with just what makes sense. You don't have to spend as much. But I, but I truly believe if we can give a voice to, to harness that energy, we could go long, long way over the years. It's not going to change for 24. I think 2024 is going to be again a moment in time and probably a pretty historic one, however, it ends up. But I do think it sets the stage for people really getting involved and wanting to get involved and want to try to help be part of the change real quick. What's the, what's the most important thing you learned from your father that if you can't change your mind, you're not gonna ever be able to change anything. It's great. Thank you, Heather. Talk with her this afternoon.

Laura Alber, President and CEO, Williams-Sonoma Interviewer: Emma Hinchliffe, FORTUNE
Before
THE DISRUPTOR


MPW Summit 2023: Home Sweet Home

Our next guest is the longest 10 yard female Fortune 500 CEO and she's on Fortune's list of the most powerful woman in business. Again this year, William Sonoma president and Ceo Laura Alber has led the company and served on its board of directors since 2010. Laura spearheaded the company's expansion to new markets, has broadened its portfolio of multi channel brands with great success and it's a driving force behind Williams and Noah's technological innovation including its recent A I powered partnership with salesforce designed to deliver a more targeted customer experience. As Laura has said there are no shortcuts to success. It takes years of dedication, hard work, unwavering, consistency and steadfast discipline to achieve goals. She joins Fortune, senior writer and NPW. Coacher. Emma Hinchliff to talk about her rise with the latter, her passion for customers and delivering the perfect home experience. Please welcome them to the MPW stage. Hi, Laura, good morning. Hi. Hi. So thank you for being here. Thanks. So we're in like a crazy macro environment. And what happens to Williams Noma, when people are not buying and selling homes, please have your water first. No rush. I'm gonna just relax, you know, even though we're in a bit of a home recession because the interest rates are really high, people still love their homes. Right. I mean, when you ask people your intention with your home or are you thinking about a second home, there's a lot of dreaming that goes into what will be a sort of, you know, the ultimate American dream. And, you know, obviously life stage changes affect how you live, whether it's moving into an urban location or having Children or, you know, downsizing any of it affects your home. Unfortunately, people are having a hard time moving right now, but that doesn't mean they're not interested and that they don't love their homes. And obviously the pandemic led us all to spend more time. Lots of people learned how to cook because you had to and those same things are still affecting how consumers are purchasing today and what they're interested in. Yeah. So what are consumers willing to spend on right now? You know, it's great to see such buoyant interest in the seasonal holidays? You know, it's, people are together. I remember last year at about this time, you know, Halloween was a bit dampened because COVID came back and the kids, you know, you couldn't feel that great about it and this year everybody's in full force for Halloween. And um, so if, if we see that we think for Christmas, you know, the holidays will be quite good for us. They're also buying, you know, smaller things like bedding decor and we have some dynamite collaborations right now. I don't know if you guys have been in and seen the two C collaboration at William Sonoma. We just did an incredible one with Sheila Bridges. We have a lot of stuff in the Hopper, but that stuff also allows us to bring new populations in that don't know our brands and it's super fun. Yeah. And we should say Williams Sonoma includes West Pottery Bar and lots of other brands besides William Sonoma. Yes. Yes. So, as we heard, you are the longest tenured female CEO in the Fortune 500. 0, yes. You know, I mean, is that a good thing? I don't even know what to think about that. Like, hm. Yeah, that's my question for you. I mean, lots of emotions go through your mind. Like I think a lot of people job hop. A lot of women get fired. A lot of people get fired, right. So I feel like I'm a survivor maybe, I don't know. Like I also have a lot of resilience. So I put up with, you know, things along the way that might have punched people out. It's been totally worth it. I do think I have best job ever. Um, any examples, what have you put up with that? Others might have said, I think, you know, you get like, as you go through the ranks, you get a lot of different bosses. Right. There's a lot of different org structures. It's not all perfect. Um, and if you can't base, I think your future and your tenure on an individual, a single person, whether good or bad. And I've worked for, I went to a company once for someone and they were let go immediately after and that was a really bad mistake because then I was stuck at that company and at the same time, you know, sometimes you have this boss that doesn't work out so well. And yet you can learn something if you think of it in that way, in that more evolved way. If you're thinking about trying to learn something, if you make it through, you're better off, right? But oftentimes you see people pop out the minute anything goes wrong because there's a lot of jobs, there's a lot of opportunity out there. And I think the staying power, especially if you're in a company where the product is fantastic and the opportunity is there, it might just be worth staying throughout some of those tribulations. Yeah, that's some good advice. Yeah. You know, so one of the things you're known for, you have a long career at Williams Noma even even before you became c is that you came up with the idea for Pottery Barn Kids and then later that evolved into Pottery Barn Teen or there are some iconic brands in my opinion, you know, but what do today's kids and teens want in their bedrooms. And how is it different from when you were coming up with these ideas? I mean, my kids are adults. So, and I wrote the business plan for Potter and kids when I was pregnant. And so it's, you know, at that time, believe it or not, there was nothing for children's rooms. There was sort of the Laura Ashley and the Winnie, the pooh. And, you know, we all, I loved my Laura Ashley room. Oh my God. But now there's, you know, the kids have a lot more sophistication, fashion. Um And so there's a lot more choices out there. So we have to stay on top of what, you know, different things they like and not get too trendy, but also really encourage them to find their own identity in the rooms, which is their whole space and where they study and do all the things that we know they do in the rooms. Totally. There's more to talk about there. But um so, you know, we were talking before about, you know, the idea of maintaining a culture of entrepreneurship even within a legacy company like William Sonoma, you know, how do you do that? You know, it's a really good question and I don't know about you, but I'm always, I come to these things and I sit there and I think, am I thinking big enough, you know, am I stuck? Maybe I have been too long in this job and, and you push yourself to say what's next, what can be. And I think giving yourself that push to dream and to think big is super important to achieving things. And, you know, I had this boss who's now deceased Howard Lester, who I, you know, people give Chuck the credit of founding the company. I see Howard as the person who really built the company and I followed him after he had a couple other ceos in the interim and he was dying and I was very close to him and I um you know, I'm sure if you read Tuesdays with ma, right? Um I would fly down to the desert and talk to him and sit there and, you know, talk about business and say over and over to him. You know, how do you build entrepreneurship? What do you do? How do you put that into your culture? What's the answer? What's the answer? And he would just ignore me, ignore me, ignore me, change the subject, talk about lunch, whatever. And you know, it was getting towards the end. I knew it. I was like you got to answer this question for me like this is important to me. So just can you for one minute answer his questions and I can't, I won't try to do the accent. He's from Oklahoma. Um But you said Laura and threw a few expletives out there. Uh I did nothing all I do is hire people who are entrepreneurs and they are different and you have to find them. He goes, you got to find those people who are natural entrepreneurs and put them in the biggest job that you're comfortable with. You're probably not going to be comfortable with it. But that's how you get that next level of entrepreneurship. So, I think about that and, you know, are we doing enough to attract them, Are we doing enough to retain them? And I do think that there's both the carrot and the stick, you know, I mean, haven't we all been motivated by both where you hate it when they give you a hard time. But the most important lesson you learn is when somebody gives you the hard time. And, and so I think about that and just the importance of engagement and connection and seeing people, you know, not ignoring people and calling on them. And I think we tell a lot of stories at Williamson Oma and we have a lot of stories at practice. Women don't tell stories. And I think it's important, we get comfortable doing that because they're more memorable, right? The stories are memorable. And so if you tell a story about starting a business or a failure um to young women, they're likely to remember it and emulate it. And so that's what we do. Thank you so much, Laura. Well, if anyone has any questions for Laura, you can start thinking about it if there's any audience participation, you know, ok, we can come back to you. But you know, thinking of Williams Noma as a legacy brand, something that you're doing like many companies is fermenting with A I. But you know, you've talked about, you know, maintaining authenticity while you do that and specifically as a 67 year old company, how do you find that authenticity as you bring in this new technology? Yeah, I mean, customer service is personal, right? When you are served, well, it is generally that someone really understands what you're looking for. But at the same time, furnishing a house is daunting. It's complicated. You make mistakes, even if you're good at it. Even if you understand beauty and design, the spatial relativity of furniture is really a big problem for most people. And I just think about the next generation first in the, in the the next generation of innovation for us making that design process for your house or for your room easier, like easy, gorgeous, fun, orderly, you know, satisfying, fulfilling good investment quality. I think of all those things. How do you get there? You know, you can get a good person, but even that even the best designer makes mistakes. So what if we can take all the best designers and all the best rooms ever built and dump them together and really help you? We have a 3d room planner right now. This customer facing and also where you can go in and have our people help you. And what we're thinking about is as you drag and drop our furniture from our brands, we would say no, no, no, too close to the door or we'd tell you like, try these other three things with us here. And so we're working on building this and I just think this next generation is going to, it's going to enable better service, but it can't be artificial, it can't, there's a lot of mistakes with A I right now, we know that, you know, try to write a song, the song you write is going to be better than the one the A I writes for you. And the same thing with a room right now. So we have to figure out how to use it effectively and we have some great use cases right now that we're piloting that are really, really working. They're pretty simple though. And I think a lot of people talk about A I and I think what the hell are they talking about? And for me, it's just simply we're going to improve our customer service because we're going to have the knowledge of a lot of people who have decorated a lot of rooms or cooked a lot of things and done it successfully. And we're going to feed that to you based on what you're looking for. So as we talked about, you've been at Williams Noma for a long time. Would you ever run a different company? No, why not? I know it's my heart. I'm not looking for a different husband either. I am, I am like, fiercely loyal. I am, I am to a fault, loyal. And so, you know, I mean, you never say never. But I think if you're super present in what you're doing and you're not always thinking about the next thing which is counterintuitive to what most people tell you about careers. If you just stay present and you give it your all people notice and they connect better with you and you get more done. And so I just try to stay just fully immersed in what I do and that is Williams Sonoma. Well, thank you so much, Laura.

Connie Britton,Actress; Producer, Activist; Board Member, Dartmouth, The University of Southern California Interviewer: Mallun Yen, Founder and CEO, Operator Collective; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit

MPW Summit 2023: Renaissance Woman

Hello, everyone and welcome back. Now, our next guest says that empowering women is personal for her, whether she's working towards that goal on screen or the United Nations goodwill ambassador. She says that empowered women make the world a better place. She is the actress, producer, activist and five time Emmy nominee, Connie Britton known for her roles in critically acclaimed productions such as the White Lotus Friday Night Lights and Dear Edwards. She is also a board member at Dartmouth and us C. Connie joins us today for a conversation about using her influence for good and she will be sitting down with Malan Yen, founder and CEO of Operator Collective and an MP W CO chair, Connie, welcome. Thank you. Um So I'm so excited to be here with you. Thank you for coming. So I gotta tell you whenever I told anyone that I was interviewing Connie Britton, the response was, oh my God, I love Connie Britton uniformly. So you know whether it's uh whether it's, you know, from men or women, you have this universal appeal, but we know there's this tension between likability and ex success, especially for powerful women. And um it seems to me that you've been able to weave power and likability pretty effortlessly, but I know it doesn't happen. Well, maybe it does happen naturally. Like, how do you, how do you do it? Well, um, I love that question because I think we, as women see that around us all the time, this, this sort of expectation that we must be likable. Um, and we've witnessed it in politics, we've witnessed it in the workplace. Um And certainly on television, you know, there's always, there was always this dictate about, you've got to be likable. You know, you're a woman, woman character, you have to be, she's not likable enough, she's not likable enough, you know, or else or else you're the villain, either you have to be super likable or you're the bad guy or you're just a bitch. But what's really important to me is I never, ever once think about being likable and I never judge my characters from the outside. And um every character that I play, I play from the standpoint of my fundamental belief, which is, I believe that as women, we are always trying to find our own power and that's very authentic for each of us individually. It's different for each of us individually. And so um if, if by by accident, the characters end up becom coming out as likable, great, you know, to some degree, I'm always serving the story that I'm trying to tell. But um it's really important to me that the, the, that I show women who have the complexity that we all have and, um, the drive and determination and flaws and, um, sense of helplessness some days and all of those things. Um, and, and then the hope is that we can see ourselves in that way and say, oh, I like her and I didn't know that I would like her with all those flaws and all those problems and all those questions. And I didn't know that I would like her if she wasn't perfect. Yeah. So that's the goal. It's, it's, well, it's brought us a lot. Um One of the things that I've noticed is that you make choices that are not typical, they're out of the ordinary. Um You lived in communist China in the eighties. No one in the eighties when your roommate was Kirsten. Um You adopted a baby from Ethiopia as a single mom. You're an activist for climate poverty, human rights. You're on the board of Dartmouth and US C and you're also a venture investor and which is actually how we know one another. So I wanna just wanted to ask you, which is why in the world were you interested in investing in a venture fund like operator collective, which focuses on enterprise and B to B software. Whereas most celebrities start um and really focus in consumer an area that, you know, is closer to their daily lives. Um Well, um first of all, because Erica Schultz asked me to and I've learned from working alongside you at the Dartmouth Board that I really wanna do whatever you suggest. Um And also because I didn't, I didn't know anything about it. I mean, nothing, the only thing that I understood about the operator collective was that it was created and founded by and for really incredible women, primarily women and also with an emphasis on women of color and that, that really interested me. So, um you know, but I, I do throughout my life, I've, I've, I've always tried to look at things more globally and um I've been, I've always been intrigued by the thing that I have the least understanding about because I, I just think that I, I think we never stop educating ourselves, you know. Um And especially now at my ripe old age, I, I feel like I'm, I'm always ready to try to learn about something that I never thought I understood before. And boy, it's harder as you get older because like we get, we feel like we're so smart at the things that we're so smart at that's much more comfortable. But I like and, and as an actor too, um taking risks is really important. And so even with my acting roles, um every time I choose a role, I want to make sure that there, it feels like it's going to take me outside my comfort zone in some way and um you know, it's not really a risk if there's not really the possibility of failure. So, you know, a risk is a big deal, but um those are the best opportunities to learn and to grow. So I wanna continue doing that in every regard with everything I do. So, what are some of those things top of mind that you're pushing your, that are pushing you right now challenging you? Well, um you know, um as actors, we've been on strike for a while and um and the writers have been on strike, sort of is we're really at a an inflection point in Hollywood and, and everywhere in the world obviously. Um So, but for the last four or five years, I have been developing um a production company and that is a very different set of skills than my acting work, which is very familiar to me, but I wanted to do it because what I found as an actress, I really enjoy the creative part of the process. Iiw, I was finding myself yearning to be at the very baseline of creation for stories for the stories that we were telling. And so um that was, that was something that made me say, think, OK, I would like to start a production company because I wanna, I wanna be at the helm and at the foundation of whatever the next things are that I do and it's really been a steep learning curve. But and, and I've learned a lot and it's fantastic as I was saying, you know, this is, this is where I want to be. And I, I'm gonna, I'm always still acting and, and always want, and the, the goal and the dream is that I will be acting in the things that I have created and I have put together and I've had, I've envisioned with all kinds of other great collaborator, collaborators, great writers and great, great directors and studio executives and the rest of it. So um that's been my, my focus right now from the on the work standpoint and then there's of course, the being a mother standpoint, which is, you know, that's like learning something new every day. So especially with a 12 year old boy with a 12 year old boy. Yeah. Yeah. And as a single mom. But, you know, it's, that's the, as we all know, the greatest gift, the hardest job ever, I'm gonna talk to the audience in a sec for, for questions. But, but so the production company. So this is new for you. Um So how has it been? What are there, are there challenges? Are there so many challenges? It's been, you know, it's been incredibly rewarding but also incredibly challenging. And I've been able to see firsthand from a very different vantage point where we bump up against um our own cultural obstacles as women. And seeing that from the standpoint of what we're putting out into the world what we're putting on television. And, um, it's real frustrating and I'm very fortunate because I, I actually feel like I've been able to play incredible characters in almost kind of a golden age of TV. I've, you know, I mean, I started on, not started, but one of my first, my first and favorite things was a show about football and high school football. And I was playing the wife of the coach. And, oh my gosh, I'm going to be literally sitting on the sidelines in this show. And it became a wonderful, powerful role and we were able to show who those women are. Tammy Taylor, a Friday Night Live best character ever. And so what you brought to that, but, but, you know, I, I from, from this sort of, from the sitting in the position of trying to develop programming and as a producer, I am really, really seeing the pushback that is, that is deeply embedded in the structures of Hollywood and Hollywood studios, even as they are celebrating themselves for being so progressive. We had a show. We had this incredible show. You guys are going to love this. It's called hysterical women. And it's basically four generations of women told from the lens of they're hormonal changes. So we've got, we've got a daughter who's getting her period. We've got a mother who's permenopausal. We've got her sister who's trying to go through fertility treatments. And then we've got the mother, the grandmother who's on the other side of menopause and having the best sex of her life. It's a fantastic show. Oh, wait, wait, wait a minute would do that. Who wouldn't watch that show? Do you wanna know what? I'm not gonna tell you who the studio was said when they rejected it. And by the way, there are people in that studio who I know are fantastic and like, feminist women and like want with female programming. Well, we already have a show on the air with four women. So you can't, that show is sex and the city pretty different. Yeah. So anyway, guys, it's like that. So yeah, those are the challenges but that, you know, I respond to those challenges by saying everything I do. I look at from a much more a much really the lens of like, where are we in the culture where we, where are these women in the culture? My goal is always to be telling as un the stories that are as universal as possible and that are really reflecting us back to ourselves. So to, to me the challenge of getting shows like that made or any, any show that is going to help us deepen our understanding of who we are and the culture as women, um poorest human beings. Uh That, that is my goal and I, and, and pushing up against the structures that are in place to, to prevent us from even having those shows on the air is just now part of the new part of the job for me. Well, I'm glad that you're focused on it because I believe Connie, you can do anything we have time for. Uh, probably let's do a quick question or two. Let's grab, um, Erica, Erica Schultz. Hi. Um, so Connie, I have to say you are such an inspiration to so many, I mean, through your acting, through your advocacy, your humanitarian work. I know I speak for the women in this room that you're such an inspiration. So my question is what can the powerful women in this room do for you? Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna start crying. First of all, I'm just so um just honored and blown away to be here with all of you today. And I was really, it was exhilarating to walk in and walk down the hall and see some of you sitting out there making billion dollar deals or whatever it is you're doing or, or, or calling your nannies. I don't know, it doesn't matter. And um so thank you for that and I mean, I, you know, I, I'm, it's always really hard for me to ask for help. I, I think that's also a woman's thing. Um So thank you for asking the question. I think if, as I have been thinking about my production company and been really inspired by actually what you created with the operator operator collective. Like I, I think the idea of creating um a truly independent um company and studio where we have control over the what we're putting out and what we're putting on, on the air and into the world. Um That would be a really exciting um and divergent idea from how the system works right now in Hollywood. Um And to do that um with a collaboration in a community of women would be really exciting. Um Men have done some version of it. Um But I think it'd be really exciting to do that in a collaborative way with some women. So, I mean, if anybody is interested in talking about that with me, I would love to chat about it. Can you raise your hand if you wanna help Connie Britton with her production company? OK, Connie, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Oh my God, that was so fast. Thank you guys.

Kathryn McLay, President and CEO, Walmart International  
Interviewer: Ellie Austin, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: Innovation And The Global Consumer

Thank you so much to Connie and Malan. We continue now with a leader who oversees a complex business that operates in 18 countries. Catherine mclay is Walmart International's newly minted chief executive. She took up the post as CEO in September, but she is no stranger to the company having joined World March leadership in 2015. She most recently served as CEO of Sam's Club, a subsidiary of Walmart where she drove consecutive quarters of double digit comparable growth and navigated the members own warehouse club to huge retail success during the pandemic. We're thrilled to have Catherine join to talk about the road ahead for Walmart strategies for driving growth, the roles of data and innovation and much much more. And we're also pleased to note that c once again ranks on fortune's list of the most powerful women in business. Please welcome Catherine mclay. Hello, K hi. Hello. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much for being here. Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, you are very new to this new job. I think you said you're four weeks in. Absolutely. How's it going? And what are you hoping to achieve in that 1st 100 days. A big question. It is. It is very much like drinking from a fire hose, not to abuse that expression. But like I've gone from a company that was one formatting one country and it was like an $84 billion retailer. Like it wasn't a small company but it was, there was less complexity. Now, you're in 18 countries, you've got multiple formats. You've got over 500,000 associates around the world. We serve 80 million customers like a day. Like it's just incredible. The scale is phenomenal. Um And it is like having a portfolio of companies. So I am uh yeah, I am getting deeply involved in understanding all of that. My ambition in the 1st 90 days, I always think when I go into a new role, um I've had so many different kind of careers across retail. I always think the 1st 90 days is so important to take time to listen. Um The team that you inherit have are really proud of the work that they've done. And there's something about honoring the work that they've done and getting the rhythm of the organization and looking for the opportunities and the gaps and that 1st 90 days is um yeah, such a gift of time to be able to make sure that you immerse yourself and you uh yeah, acknowledge the work that's going on and, and look for the opportunities. Now. Walmart International's Revenue shrank. I think around 21% between 2020 2022. And this was in part due to strategic exits from certain markets. In April, your predecessor, Judith mckenna laid out plans for the international division to more than double its sales over the next five years. So I have a two part question. Is this a goal that you're committed to? And if so, how are you thinking about executing it? You're so new to the role and you're still fighting your feet, given the global economic uncertainty that we're seeing at the moment, I would say, first of all, um it's wonderful to be able to take over from a strong female leader. Judith did a phenomenal job in really going through and tightening up our portfolio and being clear on the markets where we wanted to play. Um And she set a really ambitious goal of getting us over $200 billion in top line. And um those goals were set though um by each of the individual teams. And so there's strength and there's merit in them and I don't see any need to walk back from them. Um You know, I think we are ha we do have tough inflationary environments where we operate in. But Walmart's purpose is to save people money um every day. And so now is it time where we are more than relevant in consumer life? And on that note about the consumer when you were at Sam's club, I know I mentioned the enormous growth in the introduction that you oversaw, but you spent a lot of time focusing on the members and what they wanted in the division. Can you talk to me a bit about how data helps you get inside the mind of the customer and maybe how you're going to apply that as you figure out your new role. Yeah. Um so I joined in 2019 and it was just before COVID and after about three or four months, we had to transition to work remote and I'm a new CEO and I'm in my home, like I would get out of K like to be able to go and see the clubs. But besides that, there was no, there was no office environment and there was none of those chance encounters where you're hearing and seeing what's going on in the organization. And I was hungry for information. Um And so I, I got onto Facebook and I got into Instagram and I got onto Reddit and I got on to all of these, these, these social media forums and I started to read what consumers were saying about us. Um I think historically, we've looked at tools like NPS where you're asking members and customers, would you promote us? Would you tell your friends about us? Well, I think the truest data right now is, are they? And you can tell cos there's, there's um groups and communities of members from Sam's club who are on these forums talking to each other like, oh, I just went and bought this. What would you buy for this party? You tried this? I bought this product and I couldn't get it open. What's wrong with the packaging? I was in the club and I met this delightful person. You get the good, the bad and the ugly and the truth of that data was just was, it was powerful. And so what I started to do was bring all that content into our trade meetings that we have every week, key leaders across the company. And at first, people were like, how does she know about all of this? And then as we started to work out how to ingest the information, um we started using tools like sprinkler that allows you to um really look at sentiments. And so, you know, you can look at the specific issue, you know, um Tony has on this product or you can look at what are the rising issues and where have we got people who are loving Sam's club and where have we got issues that we need to go and fix right now? And that data brought in immediacy within the organization to focus on the member and to really be accountable for fixing problems. And it was a little bit of a a revolution in our, in our company's culture. Um What could that strategy look like if you try and maybe transpose it to the 18 markets that Walmart International now operates in. Well, I mean, I, you know, day one, I was in India for a um a board meeting with flip cart and I went immediately on Reddit and started looking up like, ok, what are the consumers saying about phone pay and the things I learn about like the importance of trust of digital transactions and how they feel in that moment when they make a payment and is it going to go through and you know, the benefit of phone pay's payment system because they trust it like that immediate voice of the consumer is like it's relevant in any market and actually it's relevant across retail, into other formats as well. Now, you're a big advocate of what you have spoken to me about as being authentic leadership. Um when we, when we spoke earlier and I know you have an open door policy, you're very keen on employees at all levels of the company disagreeing with you. If they feel strongly, how do you balance that desire for employees to speak up with needing to provide stability as a leader and have a firm goal vision set of values? Yeah, I think um there's a couple of things in that first of all. Um You know, I, I think when people speak up and you have divergent views in the room, it sharpens your logic. And so what I found too often was that people wanted to agree with me versus giving voice to people who were sitting there cos I knew I was one of those people, like I came up in the organization and I would have a contrary view, but I didn't necessarily know whether like the media, like the, the, you know, large media was a place for me to, to voice that. And I want to invite those voices around the table and I want to give voice to the person who sits there and might not actually speak up. And I think that makes us better and it makes us stronger and it makes us sharper. Um But you also have to have a, a, you know, a sense of trust in the organization and people want to know who their leader is to trust them. And so there's a really big part like go back to 2019. I'm a new leader. I'm suddenly working remote, nobody really knows who I am as a CEO, like, how are they going to trust me? And so my comms team has this great suggestion that we do like an open, like open Q Q and a like just take random questions. And for me, it was kind of terrifying because I didn't know what I didn't know. And we're doing it over zoom, but we did that and it built this sense of trust because they learned who I was as an individual. Like, how do I make decisions how do I, you know, what are the values you bring to play when you're asked thorny questions? And I think there's a really large part in leadership about being willing to reveal your character and who you are when you want people to work with you and you want to build trust and alignment and move fast. And I think that was part of the magic that we had going on at Sam and maybe sometimes saying you don't know the answer to a question. 0 100%. Yeah. Oh, like there were so many times and actually, I don't think my leadership loved it either because I would be like, Lance Lance, what do you think about that? And I'd call people in because I mean, it's ridiculous to assum that I am going to know everything and have all the, all the answers I very much believe like, you know, in my leadership team, there are 11 people and I wanted 100% mindshare. So I didn't want my supply chain leader to just talk about supply chain. Like I wanted all of them to weigh in on every aspect of the business and you know, across my leadership team, I had senior directors up to evps and you couldn't actually tell who had what role because actually title is really irrelevant. Like you're there, you, you earned that seat. Now, I expect you to engage like, and I want all of your, all of your mind share. Does anyone have a question for k if not, I have many, many more. OK. I, I will continue for now but if you have a question, please just raise your hand and I will aim um to come to you. Um You mentioned earlier that you, when you were appointed to a new job, it was part of a rare really women to women ceo handover. It shouldn't be rare in this day and age. But sadly, it, it still is. And I wonder what would your advice be to other companies who want to cultivate a similarly deep bench of female executive talent? I think we need to open up the perspective of what leadership looks like. So, you know, I give a lot of credit doug for like, I don't think I'm a traditional leader. I remember when I stepped into the role, someone saying to me like, oh, you need to, you need to behave like this because that's how a CEO behaves. And I was like, oh, I'm, I'm not gonna be a very good CEO because I'm just gonna be me. Like that's all I can do. I can just turn up and be me and I can do my very best every single day. And that is what I think is required of the role. Not that I have like some big like flouncy, like ego and you know that I, I don't know that I perform like a CEO does. And you know, I think I've had the most wonderful professional four years of my life. Like, I think the last four years after us as leaders to step up and, you know, um going through all the social unrest, going through COVID, going through, like even just the, you know, the challenges of inflation, um you know, hyper growth that we went through, there was just, it called for a lot in us And I think we have to expand that view of the, of our leader can look very different these days. It doesn't look like historical views of what leadership look like. And you said earlier, we touched on wanting people to speak up in the company. How do you, what tangible steps can you take to make that happen? Because I think we hear a lot these days that people saying they want their employees to bring them wholesales to work and to be candid, it's another thing as a worker to feel like you can do that without being penalized. So when you're thinking about setting the culture now at Walmart International, what tangible steps are you taking to create that ethos? Yeah, I think first of all, the first conversation I had with my team was all around expectation around you will have an equal seat. So I think that's important. And then I, you know, I, you know, I reflect back when I left Sam's club, I got, you know, a bunch of emails and letters from people to say, you know, congratulations and the stories that they um shared, you always think as a leader that the things that you do that are important are the strategy that you bring or the vision that you have or the growth that you enable or the big bold moves that you make. Um and um the things that people pointed out was like, I had one guy say to me, you know, remember that day we were in the meeting and we were, you know, we were tasting samples and you stopped the room and asked why I didn't have one. And um, then I, I laughed it off because I, you know, I, I was the most junior person in the room and then the meeting carried on and then you got up and went and got a sample and brought it to me to eat. He said I felt seen and I felt like valued. Do you know how like it was those stories that those very human touch stories that people wanted to share? That's why they felt they had permission to speak. And I think it's, it is, it's about just like bring people to the table, ask them like notice who's not talking, notice who's like, like dwelling on their thoughts and trying to think and you know, engage and bring and invite them in. I mean, that's, it's really simple final question. And then we have to wrap. Um, Jack mcmillan, he ran Sam's Club, he ran Walmart International. You're following in his footsteps. Would you like to be Walmart's CEO one? You know what? I have the biggest job in front of me right now. And as I said before, every day, do you absolutely best. So, but thank you so much, Matt. That's a good thank you.

Mar Hershenson, Founding Managing Partner, Pear Ventures Jess Lee, General Partner and Chief Product Officer, Sequoia Capital Moderator: Terri Burns, Investor; Board Member; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

MPW Summit 2023: Investing In Today’s Climate

Mar Hershenson, Founding Managing Partner, Pear Ventures Jess Lee, General Partner and Chief Product Officer, Sequoia Capital, Terri Burns, Investor; Board Member; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

The venture capital markets. OK. Um So it hit new highs in 2021 breaking records in the United States and around the world. According to CB insights, global venture capital financing reached $621 billion in 2021 which is more than double the previous high, which was reached the previous year in 2020. But times have changed an endless flow of cash, an abundance of IPO offerings seem to be behind us. However, that doesn't mean there aren't opportunities knocking money to be made and the possibility of new unicorns waiting in the wings. So what are the best strategies for investing in this climate and how can we keep important principles such as diversity and inclusion and investing in companies with female founders, front and center. We are joined to discuss this by two leading women in VC Ma Hinson is founding managing partner at pair ventures and Jess Lee is partner and chief product officer at Sequoia Capital. They join investor board member and Fortune Brainstorm Tech co chair, Terry Burns for today's conversation. OK. So the market is tough right now. We've seen a lot over the last year we've seen layoffs, interest rates. SVB LO Lots has happened in the market. Jess, I want to start with you is now a good time to be investing in technology start ups. Yeah, it is definitely a very tumultuous time in the world in the market. But I actually think that now is one of the best times to be investing. I think there's, you know, the world moves in cycles and there are two cycles that are happening and intersecting at the same moment. The first is the capital market cycle. And you know, we see this boom and bust and it's happened multiple times across in the venture industry. We've seen it at Sequoia over the last 50 years. But the founder of Sequoia used to have this license plate and it said Baruch, which is German for like sort of crazy times. And it was a reminder that after the crazy times, the 2021 era, everyone's sort of throwing money at everything. There's a sharp correction and it's actually in those moments after the baroque times where some of the best companies are created because you've got all the capital flows away, the tourists leave the market and the founders who start companies in those eras where there's no money, no good reason. That's not glamorous anymore. All the parties are gone are the people who are the missionaries, not the mercenaries who don't care about the market. They're like, I just have this burning problem I need to solve. And so they start companies then and that, that burst after the 2000 crash or the 1999 dot com bust that bursts paypal, Google Yahoo in the 2008 era that bursts doordash stripe airbnb. And so I think we're seeing that. So that's one cycle that's happening. We're in the most fertile time for founders then the other cycle that's happening, the technology cycle, we've got the semiconductor industry that, that proved drove a lot of interesting companies. Then we had the internet and era which you know, Google and Yahoo, then the mobile era Instacart and a bunch of other companies. And now we're entering the A I era. And what's really interesting is these are overlapping at the same time. So I think we're going to see some very, very interesting companies started. So I would say now is probably like genuinely the best time to be investing. OK. Well, I definitely like to hear that we're all actually early stage investors. Mar I want to ask you as an early stage investor during what is, you know, a fertile time as, as Jeff said, how do you think about revenue and growth for early stage companies? What is it that you're looking for? Um Maybe I'll put it in perspective. I invest so early days. Um maybe a couple of people or three people uh many times there is no revenue and a lot of times there is no product. So I, I am what I call a, I know it's scary. I am, I am what I'm called a whiteboard VC or a spreadsheet VC. So there's no spreadsheet that I can look at and be, let me look at your projections. So a lot of people are like, well, how can you invest like that? Is it just God? And there's definitely more than God that goes into that investing. We are really trying to figure out what is the potential of that founding team to build a company that you know, can be a large company, high growth, positive unit economics and that. So how do you do that when there are two people in a room uh pitching an idea and I think there's maybe two a access that we use to evaluate a company, one is really the character of the founder. So I think, you know, different venture funds have different tastes and that's good because otherwise we would all invest in the same companies. Um but we have, you know, ambition or, you know, wants to win. I think I like people that really can't sleep at night. It sounds horrible, but that's kind of that tension uh every day. And the second thing which is a little more subtle, but it's really important for what we do is how deeply you know, the customer on the market, right. So many times we will invest in people that are in their early twenties. And, uh, you know, a lot of folks will tell me you're crazy. This person has no experience, but some of these people have been working on their company even if they don't know it for perhaps 10 years. So, um I don't know if you guys know Canva, which Melanie Perkins, the CEO, she was a graphic designer from being a teenager since she was a teenager. And then she went to college, started teaching Adobe Photoshop, started a company selling um year book soft software. So it would be easy to make yearbooks. And finally she started Canva at the age of 20. So, but, but when she was 20 she had already been working on her company for a year. She had figured out what was the real problem if you actually wanted to design something? So that's what we're looking for. It's a little subtle but uh you know, it's important. So in a moment, I want to see if anyone in the audience has, has a question or two. But before that, you know, this is a room of smart, powerful women. Um some of whom might be interested in investing. What advice I would love to hear from both of you. Would you give to folks in here who might be interested in angel investing or, or getting active in the investing market for start ups in some capacity? Actually? Can we do a quick poll? Um you know, I think what's really special is this is a room full of powerful and probably more wealthy and you know what you do with your, your money and, you know, a money is power in a lot of ways where you place those bets in the world and where you, you know, what problems you want to see solved in the world. Like I think angel investing is a really powerful way to do that. But I'm curious who here is an angel investor is invested in, in a, could be an S and B A tech company. It could be anything great. Half, that's great. It looks like about half be great to see the other 50% maybe also participate. But um advice wise, you know, I, I think Mar shared some of her, her thoughts on um you know what to look for. But I think another thing is you're, you know, you're looking for someone who is contrarian and right, and that can be kind of hard to pick out. And so I think if you focus on an area, you know, particularly well, where you have a perspective on like what is a unique thesis or theme that you believe in a problem, you know, particularly well, where you can be helpful to the founder if you're ac ro and there's a lot of CS in the room, you know, you control a health care budget, right? With your employers, you pick a lot of the software that, you know, is deployed to your department. So I think finding an area where you have like a little bit of that contrarian thesis or an idea of what customers want. So, you know, because I think it's hard to invest across everything and then I would just meet a lot of founders in that given space because it can be kind of hard to tell in the beginning. You know, maybe you're an optimist, you love everything and you end up spending a lot of money on things that don't work. But once you've met five founders that are doing something in kind of a similar space, you can start to tell because we're better as humans, we're better at relative assessments. Like knowing this is better than this, then this is great. And it's the only spaceship company I've met and it's fantastic versus like if you meet five of them, then you can kind of tell. And so I do think it's important to invest the time, meet a lot of people before you make that cut that first check. Well, II, I want to say that there's so much wealth in this room, but it's not just money, it's actually know how. And I think a lot of the founders, you may write a small check, but they're gonna get a lot more out of you if you spend the time helping them build a company and you have an impact. I mean, I think the, each of the companies, I think that we invest, the investor um can really make a, you know, a big impact on that company. So, in a way, I would say angel investing is really hard. Um I would consider almost a type of philanthropy and it's a great way. So if you want to back more founders that you believe in, that's a way great and then actively help them. It's actually a great way of being a participant of that wealth, right? Um I think Malin who's one of the co chair here runs Operator Collective, I was sitting next to somebody earlier that was got into investing through Operator Collective and she basically brings operators into investment um industry. And, you know, there's a lot of venture firms that have, you know, we call them Industry Council consider just as another name, but basically brings it operators into their companies because they're so valuable for them, right? I don't think we can do a company on our own and we need everybody. So I think um the first to your point, I think um being calibrated is so important, like the first year you're like, oh my gosh, everything is great. Um But, you know, just get involved, I think with a venture firm or an angel group or something to get your, you know, foot in the door and I think you can learn it pretty quickly because everybody here is super smart I would also say tap the power of the network, right? Um Mar and I are co founders of a nonprofit called All It was co founded by 30 women, some of who are in this room. And our CEO page is, is somewhere around here. Uh But it is hi page. Um It's, it's a nonprofit to level the playing field for women in tech on the VC side as well as on the founder side. And so, yeah, I think it's been very powerful to see the community come together and I'm sure there's a lot of, if you're a VC in this room, I don't know, raise your hand, like talk to any of us about investing or, or, you know, coveting, you know, I think you, you learn from other people and, you know, we have a power. I mean, I think what's so special about this conference is the convening power of really great women to build networks. Any questions from the audience, questions from the room? I'm curious to know you mentioned Jess um the idea of having a contrarian view and I, I agree, I think many folks would agree that having a contrarian view and being right, that's the winning combination for investors. Um I think we all know some folks who are contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. But anyway, um what's your contrarian view? I'd love to hear from both of you. What are you seeing in the market? That's your contrarian view right now. Um You know, it's funny, I don't think this would be contrarian to this audience, but it was, it, it felt contrarian for a long time. I was the founder working before this on a company targeting women and I would go into these rooms of V CS and people be like, oh, is that an important customer? Like, what is that? Is that a big market? And I was just shocked by that response. And so I came into venture with this like supposedly contrarian thesis that women are very important customer. We're the, we're the chief, you know, medical officers of the home. We're the Chief Financial Officer. We control a lot of the household purchasing budget, whether it's the groceries on Instacart or CPP or whatever it is, we make a lot of important decisions for the family and for the home and we have a lot of buying power. And so one of my contribution was invest in companies that target women as a consumer. Um and one of those is Maven Clinic. The founder Kate is speaking later this week, but her idea was like, well, women, you know, one in four hospitalizations are maternity related. And it's crazy that after giving birth, we get one checkup after six weeks. Like I think I got more frequent checkups when I broke my wrist, right. It's just crazy how health care treats women sometimes. And so her hypothesis was, let's build a telemedicine clinic, wrap around support for maternity fertility pediatrics. And let's sell that to employers. And it was so contrarian, she could not raise money, but she eventually, she made it happen. And now it's the largest telemedicine network for family health. And it was so crazy to me that that was so contrarian, but you know, she's done very well well. Um I, I'm an engineer by training and I am happy to say that there are some industries that have traditionally not been loved by venture, but today, uh they're getting a lot of attention, some of, you know, semiconductors, climate defense, I think the three of them. Um it's interesting because there is a big pool from uh industry and there's also a big support from government and they're solving major existential problems. So you take a look at semiconductors. Um you know, you have NVIDIA growing 100% year over year and it's 35 billion in revenue. It's like it's a mega company. Um And at the same time, 90% of our chips are made in Taiwan. It's a huge national security issue. So the government, you know, released the chips Act of 50 billion invested in semi. There is so much, you know, I think I have it for 10 years. I had not seeing any semiconductor companies and all of a sudden there's a couple every week in my inbox. So people are seeing like there's more companies after that same with climate. I think you cannot, you know, go on media and not hear about some disaster and saying there's a tremendous amount of interest from young folks to get into, you know, address that problem and also government support. So I think it's a trend, you know, same as A I and this is a big transition. There's these three other things that are happening around us that are geopolitical industry driven, etcetera. So lots of opportunities for us. Lots of opportunities on that note, Mar Jess. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you.

Daniela Amodei, Co-founder and President, Anthropic Lila Ibrahim, Chief Operating Officer, Google DeepMind, Pilar Manchón, Senior Director of Engineering, Research Strategy, Google AI; Board Member; Eventbrite, Moderator: Maryam Banikarim, Co-founder, NYCNext; Founder and Managing Partner MaryamB; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit

MPW Summit 2023: Artificial Intelligence Changing Our World

Daniela Amodei, Co-founder and President, Anthropic Lila Ibrahim, Chief Operating Officer, Google DeepMind Pilar Manchón, Senior Director of Engineering, Research Strategy, Google AI; Board Member; Eventbrite Moderator: Maryam Banikarim, Co-founder, NYCNext; Founder and Managing Partner MaryamB; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit

Daniela Amodei,  Anthropic, Lila Ibrahim, Google DeepMind, Pilar Manchón, Research Strategy, Google AI; Eventbrite Moderator: Maryam Banikarim, NYCNext; MaryamB; Fortune MPW Summit

Alright. One of the biggest topics of conversation happening everywhere from boardrooms to dinner tables, of course is the power and impact of generative A I. And there are varying levels of excitement, confusion and even fear questions such as how can A I be used? Will it kill jobs or create jobs? Can it be trusted to be accurate? What about the spread of misinformation and bias? How can it be implemented properly and securely? And when is the right time to jump in? They're all genuine concerns and important points of conversation. And one thing is for sure A I is here to stay. So we want to have a real conversation about the power of machine generated intelligence. We're joined by three women who are leaders in the space. Daniella Amede is president and co founder of anthropic Lila Ibrahim is coo of Google Deepmind, Pilar Manch is senior director of engineering research Strategy at Google A I and a board member of Eventbrite. This conversation will be led by Miriam Becken. Ban Kiram, co founder NYC. Next and founder and managing partner of Miriam B and MPW summit co chair. Please welcome them to the stage OK. So I think we're between you and lunch. So with that note, I'm going to get going Lila in the last two years. You can't avoid stories about A I. In fact, I think the session before was oversubscribed. Billions are being invested in A I globally. It's a brave new world and it's rushing at us at break. Next speed. You've been in tech for 30 years. What are the one or two key things you think everyone in this room should know? By the way, both from a business perspective, we have big questions here, big big topics, but also as humans, right? Because I think we wear sort of two hats, mother, daughter, son and C Suite executive. What a great place to start. You can imagine this year, I have had a lot of conversations about A I and actually every single conversation deals with risks and responsible responsibility. How are we going to develop this technology in a responsible way? What are the risks? Those are very, very important conversations. I think we'll probably touch on today, but I really wish someone would just ask me, what are the opportunities? What could this really unlock for us? How could A I be used as a tool to help understand diseases come up with solutions, find solutions to the climate crisis, create new materials. There's so much possibility. Um And so I would love us. I think everyone here to be thinking about what are a couple of opportunities, both personally and professionally where you're excited where A I could transform the world ahead so that we can actually leave a better place for, for our kids or their generation or, you know, those who follow us. So that would be my, my wish for, for the conversation. Great. Um pr top tech executives mask Zuckerberg and Gates discussed the future of A I. And they all agree that there's some role for government to play. But yet legendary VC Bill Gurley says that regulation is the friend of the incumbent. So we understand the benefits of competition and innovation. We've also all lived through the internet revolution. So we also know that some guard rails are needed for unintended consequences. What are the general areas that we should be focused on from both the safety and regulation perspective? And do they vary like country by country or is this now a global conversation? Well, I think that's clear to everybody, the regulation is needed and it's important that it is the right regulation so that we don't impede innovation. So as as Lila said, it's, it's important to take into consideration the bre the birth of opportunities that A I will bring us. So we wanna embrace that, but the kind of regulation that we need have to focus on transparency control and being auditable so that regulators and people and all other organizations, not just A I, people can understand what A I is doing, why is it doing it? How is it doing it? Where is the data coming from and so on? So more transparency around that is probably what everybody is claiming for. And uh also an understanding of what the governance processes are not only from the large corporations like you know, Google and some of the other bigger companies, we have very strict governance processes internal to the company and we share those processes, but we also share the tools for other companies to be able to have their own governance processes. And that is extremely important because no matter how many guard rails or how many regulations you put in place, if you don't take into account what you're doing with your own data, with your own processes, with your own applications, then things could potentially go wrong. OK, I have a lot of questions on that. OK, Daniella, a couple of interesting things about your company, anthropic as I did my homework, your chatbot Claude has been trained using something called Constitutional A I. What is that? And why should we care and you're set up as a public benefit core which is different than A B Corp. And I know that that was intentional. So same kind of question like what is that? And why should any of us pay attention to that? Sure. So I'll start by talking about your first question. What is constitutional A I? So really the goal of training A language model like quad is to be helpful to people, right, to ensure also that it is harmless and that is honest. So we have this kind of triple H framework that we apply at Anthropic to the models that we train. And just to give sort of a very brief history lesson, the way that these models were sort of trained the gold standard for them in the past was by using a technique called RHF or reinforcement learning from human feedback. And what that means is essentially the model would give an output and a human or a lot of humans actually would give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. So if it said something dishonest, it would get a thumbs down. If it said something honest, it would get a thumbs up. And this is a technique that we pioneered really an anthropic in our previous company. And we were wondering, are there ways to help advance this kind of, what was your previous company open A I? OK. Yes. And before before, you know, when, when we decided to go co found anthropic, you know, we were still using RHF, we still use it, but we had this insight that potentially you could train these models using a different type of technique. And so our team of researchers created this idea of constitutional A I and all that means really is that you give the model a constitution for how to behave. So instead of scoring specific examples as good or bad, you say, OK, what are the values that we really want this model to have? And we incorporated more than two dozen different types of documents in that things ranging from the UN Declaration of human rights to trust and safety, terms of services, from major companies and businesses who, who writes the constitution, right? Because we know in our constitution there was a collective that sort of had a voice in that. And there's lots of opinions about whether that was good or not or inclusive or not, who's writing that constitution. So it's a great question. Part of why we chose to use such a large corpus of different documents to go into the constitution was for that exact reason we said rather than create a to on our own, let's look at documents that are related to things like human rights and ethics and also have been used by companies for decades, sometimes to ensure that users are treated fairly and that the models are developed ethically. So rather than trying to arbiter it ourselves, we really picked a wide range of different, of different documents to go into that. And this is a distinct difference from your former company Constitutional A I is something that we pioneered, but we've actually published our safety research on it. And so uh if you've seen our website anthropic dot com, we published, we published more than 20 safety research papers, including the techniques that got us to constitutional A I um I didn't answer your P BC question but we can come back to it. I can come back to. That. Sounds good. Um I wanted to open it up because I know that many of you have questions and um while we figure out where the question is because it's pitch black and where the mic is, I will ask one other question which is as of April 35 years into the internet, there were, there are five point I can't read 5.2 billion internet users worldwide. So 65% of the population is connected, that means 35% of the population is still not connected. What are the key ways to think about the inequality issues in the digital divide? Because as this moves at rapid speed, we've already left some people behind. What, what, what are we gonna do to not, you know, aggravate that situation further and pillar. Why don't we start with you? Sure. Um I think that one of the great advantages of A I is that democratizes access, access to resources, access to information, access to training. So uh in all likelihood, a lot of the people that don't have the right kind of resources that don't have access to it. And by building the tools that we're building and providing general access most of the time free. But don't I still need a device and connectivity? You do need a device and connectivity unless that device is provided for, you know, not per individual but for say a classroom or a group or something like that. And that is actually being done in some of the, for instance, Google dot org and some of the other foundations that we are aware of. But it is important to understand that the device is not enough, you can have a device and still not understand how to use it. It's not going to educate you. It's not going to help you in that sense. The device is a means an artificial intelligence can actually coach you teach you guide you, make you better give you motivation. There are so many things that can be done with artificial intelligence that do not require another person to be there doing it for you that it opens the door to a fantastic growth and expansion of, you know, everything everywhere. How about you? Pillar, sorry, Lila Lila. Um I, you know, equity in A I is absolutely a critical topic. Um as mentioned uh by pur I, I think, you know, we have to get people connected to the internet and learn how to use technology in the right way. I personally do a lot of that. It's a personal passion of mine, actually a nonprofit I have called team for Tech where uh we've worked on, on um building up the infrastructure. Um That's step one, step two is how do you we need those voices into where the technology is going. We've been working with Raspberry Pi Foundation to do experience A I. We specifically targeted at 11 to 14 year olds knowing that having a chance to learn how to use technology in a responsible way from a young age is going to be critical for that literacy long term. But there's still a lot of lifelong learning that needs to happen if I could leave you with one thing about this though, it's, this has to be about collaboration. No one company, no one organization can do this on their own. We've worked with the Aspen Institute as an example, specifically around equitable A I. Knowing that this was go is going to be an issue to say, how do we bring together different points of view, different perspectives, have very constructive conversations and publish out. What are the learnings about building equitable A I? We need to have the literacy is a key, key aspect of that have common vocabulary and do this in collaboration. We have to make sure that we learn from past technologies and we start bringing outside voices into the development and that we think about this in international terms. Well, I'm not gonna ask a question about A I specifically but listening to you, um it, it struck me that, you know, you, you really are, it's the very genesis of inventing something that's going to have, who knows how long of an impact. So how do you deal with yourself about that? How do you deal with yourself ethically all of it? Like, how do you, do you talk to yourself about that? Like yourself, I'm inventing the future. I know they have the digital, the digital assistant. Yeah, like that. So how do you deal with your, I, I think you're understanding my question. How do you deal with yourself and navigate that for your? And actually when you were talking is when the question struck me? Yeah, that's a, that's a wonderful question. I love that. You know, I think, I mean, first of all, II, I don't pretend to speak for everyone working in this industry. I think, you know, for, for me, it's, it's a little bit of a of an odd kind of balancing act, right? There's almost a duality that we are facing in this industry. And I think some of it is, you know, like Lila talked about there's incredible potential benefits from this technology. And I think sometimes they don't get talked about as much, but some of the work that is being done in health care or science or climate technology, right is incredibly inspiring and even just the sort of productivity gains that can be made through a tool like quad, I think are incredibly impressive. There's also really big risk that come with this technology, right? And to sort of circle back to what you said, you know, part of why we incorporated as a public benefit corporation was to say, we think it's, it's very important for corporations that are working in this area to, to balance this potential positive benefit with this, you know, this sort of risk, right? This this um opportunity but also potential uh for the technology to be used for harm. And so I think from a personal perspective, it's, you know, there's, there's no perfect answer, but I think just sort of remembering that both things can be true, right? Like there's this potential positive thing that can be gained from doing it. We also have to be careful and really this feeling that I think has also been expressed so much on this stage that it shouldn't be left up to any one of these companies alone, right? This is a multi company, um also international government, inclusive civil society, inclusive process, maybe that, that just sort of makes it feel a little bit less like it's personally on you. It's a great question. Uh Hello, Anne Clayton Schneider Electric. I really wanted to talk about speed and velocity because I get the sense and we talked about it actually in the breakfast yesterday about how quickly this is moving. Could you characterize that for us? Because a lot of the things we're talking about require policy and thinking and understanding and education, but it's also moving very, very quickly. So your comments would be appreciated. Who wants to take that? I I don't mind taking that. Um, I think it's very clear that we're moving very fast because of the exposure to the general public A I has been developing very fast for a very long time. But those of us who have been embarrass in that world we're already accustomed to that. The moment that that became big part of our every day and exposed to the rest of the world in such way, then there is a sense that everybody has to adopt it almost immediately that you're gonna be left behind if you don't. And there is some truth to that. This is an unstoppable train. So you better jump onto it, but you have to do it, in my opinion, in a very responsible way, taking into consideration where you are what kind of business domain and, and influence the technology and A I will have on that and making sure that you educate not only the the top executives on, on the potential of A I, but it trickles down to the rest of the organization. So it is moving fast, we have to move fast with that, but we also need to do it responsibly and make sure that we have the right guard rails in place for that. Can I give a very real example too though of what if done? Right, we, we can potentially um do to benefit the world. So uh we have developed something called alpha fold, which is a protein it predicts the way the mo it predicts the way that proteins will fold or perhaps misfold. And typically, it would take a phd student about 4 to 5 years in a lab to maybe do one protein. Um This is a decade like 50 plus year old problem in biology. And we released something called alpha fold, which is a library of all the known proteins to humankind available for free, for scientists, biologists. So, if you think about that, we're now doing science at digital speed. How is that being used? Um People are, are researchers are using this now to understand neglected diseases, which maybe didn't have a good business model around them. Uh malaria, vaccinations, plastic eating enzymes, uh solving industrial waste. So we're at the very early stages, but this is now we've like beat frogs in advancement. In fact, we just also announced something around um being able to determine if something is a pathogen or not. And previously less than 1% 0.1% was known and we're now up to 89%. So this is science at digital speed. So there is some benefit to uh to this as well. This is a big topic. We only have 17 minutes to be specific. Um Thank you so much for coming and consider not me, but then your safe space for any questions related to A I. That's what we agreed to, right.

Asha Sharma, Chief Operating Officer, Instacart Clara Shih, Chief Executive Officer, Salesforce AI Moderator: Ruth Umoh, FORTUNE 

MPW Summit 2023: View From Silicon Valley

Hello, everyone. Welcome back. We can also please settle down so we can get this show on the road. Thank you so much. Welcome back. All right, we want to talk now about the state of the tech industry which is still in the effects of several shifts all at once from the impact of A I to a slowdown in fundraising and the growth of tech hubs outside of Silicon Valley. How these shifts in tech affect the broader business world? And what should corporate leaders know about implementing A I at scale safely and responsibly? Joining me on the stage now are two tech industry leaders with a view from the inside. ASHA Sharma is the co OO of Instacart and Clara Shai is CEO of Salesforce A I. Please welcome them to the MP W stage. Welcome. Welcome ladies. We're so delighted to have you. Thank you so much for joining us at NPW. Thank you for having us. Quick reminder for the audience. I will be opening up the floor for a question. So do keep it in mind as we kick off this conversation. Uh ASHA I'd like to start with you, machine learning. Has long been at the center of Instacart business. But the advancements in generative A I over the years uh have obviously turbocharged and unlocked the potential for new and innovative use cases. So how are you leveraging genitive A I across your marketplace? From customers to retailers to your more than 6000 shoppers who pack and deliver orders across the US and Canada. Yes. So to your point, we call it the invisible ingredient in Instacart. So we have a catalog of 1.4 billion items. It updates 6000 times every single second. And we are constantly thinking about how we connect the millions of customers to the hundreds of thousands of shoppers and the tens of thousands of retailers with generative A I I think the big innovation is that it's natural language. So all of a sudden we can democratize how people express themselves. So for consumers, the number one thing we're thinking about is how do we help the meal plan? How do we help them find what's for dinner? If you think about it, a grocery store has 30,000 items. It's really hard to spear fish by shopping for an avocado or cardamom instead of actually shopping for the meal. And that's what generative A I is going to do. At the same time, we have 5500. And so we are thinking about how we create the perfect ad for the perfect moment, an explosion of creative, that generative A I can help us with. So that's how we're thinking about utilizing it. Well, that's certainly useful for this audience because women never know what they want to eat so we can use generative A I in that regard, Claire, I'd like to turn to you. You were tapped with sales forces, new head of A I in the spring of this year in the last five or six months or so. What core areas have you been focused on to accelerate A I solutions across the company? And certainly among your customers. Well, it's really amazing because A I is not new, it's everywhere around us. Every time we use Instacart or Netflix or Amazon, any of sales forces, you're using salesforce, your salespeople are using A I over a trillion A I inferences every week now across every salesforce cloud. So what's new in the last six months is to Asha's point expanding upon traditional classical A I and now making generative A I safe, secure and trusted for enterprise use cases and sales force really thinking about this in four different ways, right? The 1st, 1st and foremost is data, right? Because A I is only as good as your data, you need data to train the A I models, you need A I to fine tune models and then of course to ground and give context into the prompts so that the models don't hallucinate. So for us, it really starts with our data cloud and so many companies B to BB to CS MB, all the way to enterprise, have their customer data already in salesforce. And so that's really where we start, I think from there, it's phase two and what we've delivered out into the market. And we have amazing four leading customers like Instacart and Gucci and William Sonoma using our generative A I now is bringing these use cases into the flow of work for sales teams, for customer service teams for marketers to really address operational bottlenecks and issues and kind of undesirable tasks that have slowed teams down. For example, if you're a customer service rep, customer calls in expecting a quick answer, instead of having to look through pages and pages of knowledge articles to read the solution and then let the customer know, generative A I allows us to automate that right. And that's just one example, salesperson walking into a customer meeting, instant account summary of everything that's happening at that account, kind of it's completely up to date. So that's what we have out in the market. And then what we announced last month at Dream Force is creating a platform around this so that our customers, they want to be able to customize those prompts. You want to be able to create your own prompts and build your own applications with no code. And so allowing customers to do that, we announced it's called Einstein Co Pilot and co pilot studio. And last but not least, it's our research team continuing to innovate across all areas of the stack from vector databases to the tooling training, infrastructure, ethics, toxicity, filters citations and more. We'll touch on epic shortly. I want to turn to you. How are you using A I in fulfillment logistics and to solve for or avoid inventory challenges? Yeah. So in our business, we often have to know what's on the shelf more than our retailers know. And so like I mentioned, we have a huge catalog that catalog updates, you know, multiple times every single second. And so when a shopper, one of our 600,000 shoppers are going into the store, we update our catalog real time when they're taking items off the shelf that feeds all the way through to our advertisers. So they're not advertising on products that aren't even available to customers. We use this term, we use A I to match shoppers with the right customers. We use A I to match them to the right stores to actually navigate through the stores, you know, in a business like ours, every second matters, every basis point matters and every moment of quality matters. So we do this from, you know, start to finish and the the customer delivery. Yeah. And the impact on the consumer is what? Talk to me about that consumer experience. Yeah, I mean, so when I open the app, what I want to be able to promise our customers is that you have the best selection, you have the best quality and it's going to be delivered when you want it A I is the way that we do that at scale for 250 million orders every single year. Question from the audience. If you have a question, please raise your hand and Mike handler will come to you any questions at this point? OK. All right. Let's keep going. If that changes, I will circle back around both of you view A I as a lever for scale and productivity to that end. What is your approach to using it internally? To simplify day to day workflows and to expand its adoption in the company outside of your typical tech savvy functions, whether it's hr legal marketing, etcetera. Yeah. Well, we have our CMO or CH I run in the room so they'd be great at answering this. But I mean, we look at, we look at A I as some that can augment the workforce offload tasks, but I also think it's a massive accelerant. So yes, generative A I is automating a lot of the code that is written, but it's also the first knowledge base we've ever had. We hired more than half of our employees during COVID and we're all in different locations. And so for the first time, we can build a knowledge base, we call it Ava named after avocado where anybody can query Ava and actually learn about the business learn what's happened in the past and can actually grow together. So that's something that I'm really excited about. We also are using it with customer service. So it's helped us decrease escalation rates, improve contact rates. That is a really important part of our operating leverage that we get out of that. Our legal team, we have, you know, 1200 retailers that we partner with thousands of pages of agreements. And so we are able to actually look at all the bespoke nature of those agreements, understand them and then build off of those, all the generative A I. So we're trying to use it and really explore and power the workforce with it and same question for you. Yeah. Well, we're, we're of course in the business of building A I for our customers, but we refer to our own company as Customer zero and we're always, you know, eating our own dog food or drinking our own champagne. And so we, every product we've released in the market, we test on our own teams first. And so some examples, all of our developers are now using developer GPT Apex GP T to do automated code generation, test case and comment generation. Our sales people are using sales GP T our own customer support team using service GP T both as an assist for our customer support engineers as well as there's a lot of common questions that customers just want to go directly to our website and be able to self service and ask. And so that's another great use case for A I. Yeah, going back to Instacart. Um you believe that the future of grocery shopping in commerce really in general isn't online or in store? It is both, which is great news for me because I love perusing through Trader Joe's Isles. How are you using the online experience? So then augment or compliment in person shopping? Yeah, it's a great question. I can also talk about why generative A I is important there. I think for decades, we have, since the advent of e commerce, we have taught people to express themselves in keywords, which is a very bizarre and unnatural thing to do. Again, if you're thinking about the 15 ingredients that go into a meal is so odd that you can't just ask what is for dinner. And so I think that's a big opportunity when you think about going into the store, it is a very generic experience. You're walking through the aisles, you're going in a, you know, a non linear pattern to get through it and you're spending 45 minutes in the store. So we've invested in a company called Caper Cards and it is in our opinion, the best computer vision technology to help you when you are shopping. And so now you can connect your Instacart account. You can connect your loyalty for the first time. Retailers can know who you are. When you get into the store, advertisers can know who you are. When you get into the store, they don't have to just wait until checkout. We have a screen in front of you. You can check out as you go and we know exactly what's going into the cart and you can pay and we can develop preferences. We can suggest things based on your past purchases. So I think that those are the types of experiences that are better because you're online or better because you're in store and only manically unlocks your technology. Absolutely anything to add to you were not in your head. So you had something to, I mean, just to build on that. I think that the first big UX revolution was when we went from very basic assembly language to higher, higher order, more abstract code. Then the big revolution. I think a lot of reason why companies use platforms like sales force is going from code to clicks, right? Being able to democratize who can build a business out. Now, we're seeing yet another UX revolution come from A I which is to go from code and click to conversation. And you know, exactly as you're describing whether it's consumer who's doing it that way or all the employees and partners that you have in your organization. And I think too about, you know, we've got Lydian and my colleague who leads Slack in the original conversational interface. It completely changes how accessible intelligence and creativity can be to every worker. Yeah, I want to talk about some of the concerns around A I because it obviously offers up a mixed bag of risks and rewards. Uh It can certainly help to enrich and enhance the customer and employee experience, but it can also fabricate information or promote bias or discriminatory information. Uh which is why data privacy and security is a major concern. How do you leverage A I at scale while ensuring ethical and responsible use within your respective organizations and perhaps we can kick off with you this time? Sure. So I mean, right now, this is our 1997 moment for A I, right. We know that it's going to be big. We know that everything is going to change every job, every department. We know the customer experience is going to change for the good. But we also know that there's going to be new risks that will be introduced some of those risks we've identified, we're having really healthy discussion and dialogue about as we have the last couple of days, some of them, they're unknown, unknowns and we have to be very agile and vigilant at looking at those. And so, I mean, if I look at salesforce 25 years ago, the company convinced organizations to put their most treasured data, their customer data in the cloud. That was, that was a controversial concept at the time. And in order for the company to do that. We all had to invent new ways of securing and encrypting data and do it in a trusted way. Right. That's why trust is the company's number one value. 10 years ago, we had to do the same thing with predictive. There were new risks that came with predictive A I, including some of the same risks that we are talking about today, like bias and unintended training data sets. Now we have a new set of risks and it's on a completely new scale because of how accessible and how broad the applicability that the A I is. And so we have to come with a trust first mindset which includes both data security and data privacy, not just across companies, but even within an organization, different employees and departments have access to different data. And so two people asking the same prompt can and should get a different response. And so making sure that access control is a part of it. The other side of it is is on the ethics side, right? Making sure that these large language models, they are trained on the corpus of content. On the that unfortunately, there is bias, there is hate speech, there is a lot of not trustworthy sources out there. And so we have to compensate for that with really good toxicity filters, citations. Again, going back to the data is so important to ground all the prompts in trusted reliable, truthful data to ensure that the outputs are reliable and accurate. And then I want to with you, ASHA very quickly A I can deliver real value to companies that are early adopters. What advice do you have for leaders who have yet to fully embrace the technology in a meaningful way within their organization? The last 30 seconds. Yeah, I mean, a couple of things, one, I think it needs to be leader led. This is the largest technology transformation since the shift to mobile, potentially since 1997. And I think it needs to start from the top and I think every single person needs to be experimenting and exploring with A I in order to get the full power of it. Third, don't just deploy A I for A I's sake, deploy to solve real world problems. That is what we're in the business of doing as technologists, as business leaders, as operators, use it to solve the most pressing customer problems and we'll succeed together. Absolutely. Very well said. Thank you both so much.

Ginni Rometty, Former Chairman, President, and CEO, IBM; Author, Good Power; Co-chair, OneTen Interviewer: Ellie Austin, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: Leading Positive Change 

Next guest is on a mission to help people everywhere, make a meaningful change and solve problems and do it in a positive way. And if there's anyone who has the experience and tools to do it, it is Ginny Rometty, the former chairman and CEO of IBM Coacher at 110 author of the book, Good Power. Ginny is without question, one of the world's most influential leaders. During her tenure at IBM, she invented 50% of the company's portfolio, built a $25 billion hybrid cloud business and pushed for leadership in A I and quantum computing. She did so while keeping diversity inclusion and leading with purpose, a central focus. She joins Deputy editorial director of Fortune Live Media, Ellie Austin to talk about her journey to the top of the business world to share leadership lessons and to offer her thoughts on how good power can bring positive change. Please welcome them to the stage. Hello, everyone. Welcome Jenny. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Um So is Ruth alluded to in and Ellie before you start? Can I say something? Of course, you can I just, I uh Ellie, I got a chance to talk to you before this, but um I just wanted to tell everyone II, I haven't been back here for a few years and obviously, uh since I retired, but I wanted to thank you all for giving such the old dog a warm welcome. So, um I am very appreciative of that and the grandma of the group. So if you walk around the hotel with Ginny, you don't get very far because she's being stopped every three minutes. That's all. So it's been just under two years since you stepped down from IBM. Um As we had in the introduction, you've kept very busy. You've written a book, you're co-chair 1 10. What has that transition away from the CEO office been like for you? What have been the highest? What have been the challenges? Well, as I listened to the introductions this morning, though, many people are far away from that moment that they're stepping down. Yet, everybody is stepping into things now. So let me try to answer Ellie's question in a way that maybe it's useful for whatever stage of life you're in. Um, because I think one of the things that I transitioned that I discounted and didn't uh focus on enough till it was really late because I think we're all in our job till the day we're not. And uh Lou Gerner, who I worked for in the nineties, sort of the infamous Lou Lou would he's still my good friend and mentor to this day would call me in his office and say, you know, what are you gonna do? And I would say, well, I got this long list of ideas and he'd be like, you get a f go back and he says, you've got to think about, you've amassed this platform. And he's like, you know, in experience, what are you going to do to have impact or you're gonna really miss that? And, uh and he was right. And so my, my, my first thing I learned on this transition was and I'm glad it just all kind of linked together. I end up doing this work about 1 10, which is skills over degrees to get more and more people, better jobs. And uh so that was why I would say one thing I think. Um So I did that eventually, right? I got a plus on our last meeting on that and uh and, and sort of sorted out my priorities that way. And the other two things I'd say in the transition I learned, um you know, I think I, I said to all my men friends who had been, who had stepped down and they would all give me lots of tips. I went back to an arm and I said, I said, you guys were not honest. I said no one ever talked about how it feels to leave something you love. And I guess I said, it was like this, you miss this thing, you're going to nurture. And uh I said, you guys, we need to talk about that more because I wasn't prepared for that feeling of emotion. Um And then, and then the other thing, someone said to me, I learned in this transition and this, I think really will be helpful for you. They said, you know, when you step down from a career, sort of toward the end, he said, I don't know if someone wrote this book or was gonna, he said, 20 summers, I think 20 summers you have about 20 summers that you're physically able and all these things to do. So be judicious with your time. Be in, in, as I really thought of it. You know, I looked back and I thought, oh God, all those times I, if I was at a fortune conference in DC, my mom's there and I'd tell my sisters, you know, don't tell her I'm in town. I don't have time and then they'd say to me, well, then don't go on television. Ok. So I said, oh, so I like, ok, but I, I would have done more of that and it has certainly made me now. Absolutely. Like, make time for my husband and things like that. I, so those two things are feelings, I guess you didn't ask me. But it made me think of the transition, those two feelings of that lack of nurture and then this idea about, remember that time is it is finite and you're so used to controlling every minute. And then you realize, you know, it's a resource that never replenishes a lot has changed in our society since you became a CEO with how we think about gender, workplace, culture, social justice. I wonder when you look at the women who have come behind you in terms of rising through to that top office. Does that change mean that they're able to deploy their power differently to how you were? I, I think so, Ellie, Ellie and I were talking about this. You know, I can remember my first year a long time ago and I remember I was told when I was an NCO first things were look whatever you do do no media interviews, you will be defined as a woman. And that is not what we want, you defined as. And I'm like, but well, I relearned the lesson my mom taught me that I've talked about my mother here before. You know, if you don't define yourself, someone else will OK. So valuable lesson. But it was about, you know, just it would be tough, be firm, do all these things. And I think um what I do think is different now. Uh it isn't that the world needs just more women leaders. I think it needs more feminine leadership traits and, and that is what in the end, what I ended up writing about in good power because it was, I think you can do really hard things and I, I know you will do them in a positive way. And that, you know, I, I often said, well, everyone talked about what I did. I hope the greatest legacy I left was how I did it. And that to me, like, you know, Heather was up here earlier talking about divisiveness and that idea that you could unite people, you can appreciate their differences. But you know, you can love tension and conflict, but come to a closure, you could do it with respect. So I actually think this is the moment that, you know, men can have feminine leadership traits too, right? So I think it's very much across the board and I'm hopeful that um this is, I think a unique time though that what you do naturally is gonna really be in demand. You wrote in your book about your upbringing and specifically the adversity that a lot of the women in your family have experienced. I think your grandmother lost two husbands, your mother raised a family on her own after your father left the home. Um You talked about your concern about how you do things. What was the impact of that childhood on the way you thought about leadership and the people around you in the company? Yeah, I think um OK, I, I would say I was raised by three strong women. All suffered hu huge tragedies. Um But it did teach me, I, you know, and my mom is still alive. So I get to tell her in that book. But people sometimes say that book is a love letter to my mom and my husband. Um But I get to this idea that you are never a victim when you have nothing, you have power. And that idea is what has kind of stayed with me that it doesn't matter how bad the situation is, there is always a way forward and that's how to look at it. Don't complain. We all it handed our circumstances. I was handed IBM at a time when it was most tumultuous of change and I knew how deep it would be to have to change it. Um So I think that's what I learned, I learned that there is always a way forward and um, and that's what we're all here to do in one minute, I'm going to open it up. So if any of you have questions for Ginny, get them ready. If we're thinking about power, one very real tussle we're seeing in the workplace at the moment is the remote versus in person work. And I wonder how you look at that debate now and if you were running IBM today, what you would be communicating to your employees. Well, look, I am still a big believer of a human touch. All right, as much as I love technology, I would, I would say that. Um, and there's one, I'll just leave you with one thought about this debate back and forth when I thought about, you know, how did I progress through all the years? In essence, I was an apprentice. I was always doing something. I didn't know. That's probably not comforting for many people. But I mean, give me the thought that she's in a job doesn't know all the time. And, but that idea that I think a lot of jobs are like that, that you have to apprentice with people. And so that's to me why I think on one hand, you want to have people to give them freedom because I think one of the most important things to do to keep when people say, why aren't there more women in our jobs? You've got to keep them in the workforce. And so that's a million things you've got to do to get people to stay in or come back when they've left. And so it's not one thing. And so you have to give flexibility and the like fine hybrid work. But this other idea about if you're not around people, you lose that opportunity to apprentice. And I am so thankful to the like hundreds of people that I apprenticed under. So that's, that's why I think instead of trying to convince people it's good for the company, I try to talk to someone and say it's good for you. You know, that ability for you to learn. Does anyone have a question for Jenny, for the old dog? If not, I will keep going for. Now, um You're a big advocate of skills based hiring. That's so much of what 1 10 is about. Um And the organization has committed to placing 1 million black Americans in upwardly mobile jobs by 2030. Um How could society be different in 5 to 10 years if all organizations adopted skills based hiring? So, first off, um for those members, there's people in the room that are members of 1 10. Thank you. Um Let me give this just a teeny bit, little longer answer because um my commitment to this topic of hiring people for skills over degrees is very rooted. And Ellie mentioned my mom when my mom didn't have an education and we were on welfare. She, she had to go get some, a little bit of education to get a better job, a little bit, get a better job. I, I'm an engineer. Everything's an equation in my head. I took away that access and aptitude are never equal. My mom was smart. She had no access. Then I would go on and learn in my IBM career of having to reskill everyone. Um I would stumble upon, I've been on the stage and talked about the high schools and community colleges and we would start to hire people but not a lot. And I'd ask why we weren't hiring more of them, they could do cyber work, they could do these jobs and people would say, well, we only hire college degrees and phds and, uh, time would go up. We'd start, I'd start, you know, checking how many and how did they do? Get some data. I have all engineers to convince of this, more loyal, more attentive in about one year LD. Better performance. So this is interesting. 75% went back to get degrees. It taught me next equation where you start should not determine where you end. And then I would in the wake of the George Floyd murder, you know, in my mind, economic opportunity, the greatest equalizer to any kind of racism that's out there. So that's a little those things connect every dot to me to this topic. And so why I'm so focused on it now, Ellie Heather was up here to talk about the political system. I believe this is important if you believe in democracy and I do not think I'm overstating it. I think that if people don't view they have a better future, 65% of people do not have a college education. Like most of us, 80% of black Americans don't have a college education. There's not time to put them all through yet. They have valuable skills. So when you say, what would I, I think this country will come alive again because that's all people want. It's a better future for their family. Their kids to be able to provide for a family of four, etc or six or eight or whatever it is. So, anyway, so this is why I am so committed. So those of you that just, it's like a movement, I feel that's what we're trying to do as a movement to get everyone to adopt in our own companies, which by the way, half your jobs are over credentials. That's what I found in 10 years working on this. And by the time I left 15% the folks who are hiring did not have college degrees to start. It doesn't mean that's where they ended. Many went on. But for an 90% of the pool was black and Hispanic. So if you believe in an inclusive workforce, I'm like, I have just discovered they're like the greatest new talent pool that had been overlooked. And so now with 110 it's for everyone. I know it's like a commercial. It's a non profit. It's not a commercial. So, I mean, but the idea that I feel we can lift all boats, that's what I hope for it, that we lift all because it helps everyone those with and without degrees. Hey, I just listened to the last panel skills change every 3 to 5 years, every one of us is going to go through this. So to move the whole culture to be skills based as a talent strategy is really what's underneath it. Makes sense. We've got one time for one question. If you could keep it brief, that would be that she means if I keep my answer brief. Go right ahead. Exactly. Because you're a wealth of information. First of all, Jennifer Legi sales force. Um I just wanna thank you for being such an incredible role model for all of us. Oh And, and now that you're in this introspective space, I'm curious if there's anything that you could go back in time and change, what would you change? OK. Now, and in the process of writing a book, you end up with like a long list of this. Um So, um because I'd never intended to write a book. So, but here would be the 11 thing I would have changed. And I heard this, I heard a lot of women exemplifying this on the stage, you know, because I often was the only woman and certainly in tech, I spent a lifetime not talking about personal things. And I think being vulnerable is one, probably one of the most powerful tools for change that you have. And it really came to life to me writing the book. The book was one of the hardest things I'd ever done because it required me. I first wrote a very academic book with all the proof and data about this and they're like, no one's going to read this. And I'm like, OK, that's, well, that's not what I meant. It for and I had to go back twice and rewrite and it ends up to be a memoir with purpose, but it meant I had to tell my stories and, but now that I see the other side that that is really the only way to reach people. And so I think that idea, if you can, I heard Laura heard others say that storytelling as a leader is the most powerful way. So I would go back way earlier and have been far more vulnerable um decades ago and I think that I would have been a better leader, Ginny. Thank you so much. There's a lot of love for you in this room. We really appreciate you.

Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary, Commerce for Intellectual Property; Director, United States Patent and Trademark Office Moderator: Ruth Umoh, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, And Economic Growth

Ok. So next, we're on to our conversation with Kathy Vidal. Kathy Vidal is serious about safeguarding the ideas of American innovators and as under Secretary of Commerce, the Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. She is very well positioned to do so. Kathy is the principal IP advisor to President Biden and the administration through her work with us, Commerce Secretary, Gina Raimundo. Cathy is a fierce proponent of promoting entrepreneurship across all demographics, especially in key areas of technology. And she's dedicated to helping workers and businesses compete and collaborate as Cathy puts it. Her role is at the intersection of IP law policy, innovation and impact. We are honored to have Cathy join Fortune's Ruth um for a conversation on the power of supporting and protecting bold ideas and fostering business growth. Please welcome them both to the stage. Welcome Kathy. We're delighted to have you a long time NPW member. Thank you. Thank you so good to be here. We're going to kick off today's session uh with a video from you as Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. If you could please roll the tape. Hello, everybody. It's such an honor to join you virtually for this year's most powerful women's summit. I so wish I could be with you in person. I know that for many of the women in this room working in business, one of the top issues on your mind is China and the ability of us companies to invest in China and to expand there. So that's why I want to share some of my insights from my recent trip to Beijing and Shanghai. My visit in August was the first trip by a US Commerce Secretary in more than five years and it was a productive visit. But the real work lies ahead. The good news is that I had candid constructive conversations with my Chinese counterparts. I didn't hold back. I explained that I will protect what we must but promote where we can. So that means our national security is not negotiable, but we should do business wherever we can. In preparation for my trip, I spoke with more than 100 US CEO S and I was very fortunate to sit down with more us business leaders first in Beijing and later in Shanghai to hear their view of their experiences of what it's like to do business. Now in China, I heard increasing fears that the regulatory and legal environment is making it nearly impossible to make new investments. China is a market with over a billion people. There's still a strong desire among us companies to participate in that opportunity but companies need to see predictability due process and a level playing field. But the good news is that as a result of the trip, we've created new channels of communication including a commercial issues, working group and an export control enforcement information exchange to further explain our national security policies and prevent misunderstandings and miscalculations. We also announced the 14th China Us Tourism Leadership Summit and we agreed that technical experts from both sides would convene to strengthen protection for trade secrets. As we all know at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words, but shutting down communication doesn't serve our economic goals or our national security goals. So I would say overall, the trip was an excellent beginning. I'm clear eyed about the challenges that lie ahead and we're looking for China to show us that they're serious now that we've established the necessary channels to make progress. They have an opportunity to match their words with actions in making the business environment clearer and more predictable. And I hope they take it. I hope you continue to communicate with me at the Department of Commerce. Let us know the concerns you have and the opportunities you see when it comes to doing business in China. I'm relying on your insight now more than ever have a wonderful summit. Thank you. Ok, again, welcome. Uh I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo's recap of her visit to China on one hand geopolitical threats are forcing companies to reduce their reliance on China. But there is still a large us corporate presence in the country. What did your office learn after that? China? Business and what do business leaders in particular need to know? So, so let me ask. So first of all, happy to be here. Let me ask how many people do business in China? Substantial amount? Wow, a lot. So um you know, the her talk that she just gave really embodies everything that she's about. It's about action, it's about finding opportunity and it's about Deris. Uh So you're right, there are a lot of risks in China right now. Um We understand them, we hear from stakeholders on it. And what we're doing with China is we're trying to engage in a productive dialogue to figure out where we can make positive change for the country. So the secretary, as she said, has gone to China. There hadn't been a Secretary of Commerce who had gone for five years. We are in China. The US PT is in China every day this morning. I was on a 5 a.m. call with China with my people in China talking about how we're implementing on her plan. So it's an area of extreme focus. It's a big opportunity. It's a big market, but we need to make sure that we're not creating any issues with regard to national security. We need to make sure that we're protecting intellectual property because as you said, trade secret misappropriation is a big issue for companies doing business in China. And so we're doing everything we can to de risk where we can to find opportunities and make the most of it. You are still engaging in dialogue. Are there commercial areas where the two countries can effectively collaborate? So I will say I had meetings this summer with China, Japan, Europe and Korea. And we tried to come up with an area where we could really all lean in together and we chose climate. I mean, that's an area where everybody knows we need change, change, that happens anywhere can affect change across the entire globe. So I thought that was a very productive way to lean in in a technology area where we're not competing where we just need to solve it for the benefit of the world. We'll circle back on climate shortly. Looking back stateside from your vantage point, how would you characterize the state of entrepreneurship in the US at the moment? So I would say look around when it comes to entrepreneurship because you know, it's not heavily woman, it's not heavily color, it's not heavily diverse. And so in my view, anything that hasn't reached that equality and that inclusiveness needs fixing. And so a lot of the work that we're doing across the Department of Commerce, including on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and entrepreneurship is trying to identify with your help with those who sit on the committee and your help. When you contribute your ideas, what are the barriers and how can we create a better ecosystem within the United States so that more people can be pulled into entrepreneurship and more people can thrive. And just as a part of that, the secretary and I also founded the women's entrepreneurship initiative where we're a actively working to reach out to women, help them understand the value of intellectual property and why it's so key not only to launching and getting the funding, but to protect your innovation and your company from your ideas being stolen. And then we're also obviously talking about funding, mentorship and all the other things you need to be successful. Let's bring some data to that women as you know, are listed on about 13% of us patents. You've previously said that bringing a woman into the patented system at the same rate as men could add a whopping $1 trillion to the US economy. No small number. Why are we, first of all seeing this gender imbalance among patent holders? And what initiatives have you launched to reach perhaps younger, more diverse audiences? So, and I will say I take everything up a level, right? So the office that I run is patents and trademarks, but I sit within commerce. So I'm always thinking about what do we need to do as a country to create jobs, to increase DP, to have a better level of life for people. And so when I think about that, and I think about the untapped opportunity of bringing people who have not traditionally participated in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in. That's where I'm focused. That's the biggest opportunity. It's women, it's people of color, it's on military, military spouses, veterans like the amazing women that you met. We're leaning in, across all of that. And in terms of our initiatives, again, what we're focused on is where is the opportunity, like where are the barriers? So one thing is we don't teach our kids about innovation and entrepreneurship. Although I was talking to melody backstage and she said her daughter knows about trademark. That was, that was a delight to hear that. So last year alone, we, our office worked with a partner organization and we trained 343,000 Children across our country about innovation, entrepreneurship, intellectual property. Within a week, these kids are asking questions like, how can I protect my merch on the internet? And I have to tell you the younger generations and women very empathetic when it comes to the things they're solving for. I went to an on base school in Hawaii and there were placards on the wall and the kids were supposed to come up with their inventive ideas and put them on the wall. And the one that said climate was so full of inventions. I mean, 11 kid who was nine years old had this idea. Some of them are a little crazy ideas of creating gloves. So when he swims through the ocean, he can pick up the plastic particulates with his gloves. I mean, just, you know, crazy ideas and some of them are really empathetic, they're really ideas that could make a difference in the world. Let's touch on A I, your master's thesis was an artificial intelligence A I is a big focus at the US five years ago, a few years ago. And it's a big focus at the US patent and trademark office. Has there been a considerable uptick in terms of A I patent applications and which companies do you see lead in the charge. So I will say, first of all, I will say on A I, it's not just the focus of our office, it's the focus of the entire Biden administration. So the president is going to issue an executive order soon on A I. And that will tell you the ways that we're leaning in, across us government. When it comes to A I, we do see it not just as a potential risk but as an opportunity. It's an opportunity for equality for inclusion for the US to get even further ahead when it comes to innovation. But again, we have to de risk it. So when it comes to what we're seeing at the, at the patent office, we are seeing A I innovation throughout the entire country. So we have mapped that. We have a study on it where there are certain states where you see a bunch of A I used in the farm industry and other states where it's used in sports gear. So it's not just in the normal pockets of innovation, it's much more dispersed. The other thing we're seeing is not just A I applications, but we are seeing A I dispersed across most of our technology groups. So we break up all the patents into different technologies right now. They're in at least 50% of our technology groups. So it's both an opportunity and a challenge because now our patent examiners need to understand A I as well as whatever the fundamental technology is that they were working on. Let me ask you this, would a human be able to receive a patent for an invention that was A I developed? OK. So that's interesting. So I will say I'm working on that. So um so we did go to court because of Davos. The, it was the, they listed the A I as the inventor. And so we won on that. It's the case has been tried across the globe where A I itself cannot be an inventor. You need a natural person. So the next thing I thought was OK. The next thing somebody's going to do is they're going to invent something with A I and they're just gonna list themselves. So how do we deal with that because for IP I mean, it's in our constitution, it's supposed to strike the right balance of providing an incentive for innovation but not overly locking it up. Right? If I set A I loose on the internet now and I said, search for every problem and come up with every solution, you can imagine that would be a disaster. None of you could release new products because we would have patented all of them. So we're trying to figure out what the right balance is on that. So I am now working on inventor guidance, other countries have asked me about that because this is not something that's just a US issue, we have to solve for this across the globe. And the way I orient to it is not what role at A I play. But did the human provide enough of a contribution where this warrants the reward of a patent for the ingenuity for the investment that the human or the company put into whatever they were venting. So that's in process probably release it in the next month or two. And then we're going to move to some of the other issues around what should we be protecting now that we know that A I can solve for things much more quickly. I say the most important question for last, why did your office reject Mariah Carey's application to trademark the term queen of Christmas. So I will say so I was, I was forewarned and say, I don't want to talk about anybody's their process before my office. But I will say those things are trademark 100% that bitch that not a So I'm just saying, if you, if you've got a good brand and you want to put it on a T shirt and it, people think that li that when they see 100% that bitch, we'll give you a drink so well I might trademark ruthless. That'll be mine. It's already October. So I'm sure Mariah Carey is already defrosted in anticipation for the Christmas season. But Kathy, thank you so much for your time. This is such a robust conversation. Thank you. Thank all of you.

Robbie Brenner, President, Mattel Films Lisa McKnight, Executive Vice President, and Chief Brand Officer, Mattel, Inc. Moderator: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: The Phenomenon that Is the Barbie Movie 

OK. I'm going to channel my inner reporter Barbie. Um Why is this movie so amazing? Well, first of all, Greta Gerwig is truly just a force of nature. She's an incredible filmmaker with a authentic and original voice. And I think that was sort of the key in unlocking this incredible story was hiring somebody that was so singular and so bold in her vision, but also had such a personal connection with Barbie and a love for Barbie. OK. And we'll get more into just the creative risk that the company took here. But I'm curious to hear your, your sense from a brand perspective. Also, why did this need to be not just a box office hit, hopefully, but also a really cultural moment, a phenomenon like we said, well, as we like to say, you know, Barbie is more than a doll. She, she's a pop culture icon. She has stood the test of time. She's gonna be 65 next year. She looks pretty good. Um But so we knew that we had not only an opportunity to reach a really broad audience, but again, to tell a sophisticated story, a story that provoked conversation and a story that we had hoped would become a cultural phenomenon. And that's what we set out to do from the beginning. This is not a giant toy commercial. We wanted to create impact in society. And again, thanks to my partner Robbie, who's a genius filmmaker and of course, the amazing Greta and Margot. Robbie and the folks at Warner Brothers, they helped shepherd us on this journey and we couldn't be more thrilled by the way, we have a ARP here. So since Barbie's turning, I know there, maybe there's some synergy. So i it's, it's such a moment in time. It captured so much and it also means different things to different people. And so I'm curious to hear, you know, and, and by the way, there are also people who took it as a man hating uh you know, statement. Um But I'm, I'm curious, I think those are just people who found out that the patriarchy is not about horses and they're upset about it and that's what happened there um Clearly, but I'm curious what it means to the two of you or what you, what you hope the message is. I mean, I think for me, you know, just to see a movie that is about messiness, it's like life is messy, it's things are not perfect. We are not perfect. We have such expectations, especially as women to live up to, to be Lisa and I were just talking upstairs in the green room about how, you know, we have these zooms that, you know, very early in the morning and we're trying to get our kids out the door. And so I think we just, we all have, you know, such expectations and demands. And so I think the idea that you, that life is just perfectly imperfect, like just go with the messiness, go with the grayness, like it's ok to cry, it's ok just to be you, Ken is Ken. Barbie is Barbie. You know, we all sort of find our own journey and it's ok just to be messy. I couldn't agree more. Um And again, I think, you know, as I as a brand leader, I've done a lot of work to evolve Barbie. But what I loved about the film was, it was the ultimate evolution of Barbie because she chose to be human at the end, she chose to choose Messi over perfection living in perfect Barbie land. I also loved the takeaway at the very end where, you know, it's not about Barbie land, it's not about kom, it's about, you know, coexisting and finding that balance and that harmony and appreciation for everybody. It was a story about humanity and, and Lisa, I wanna ask you more about kind of the, the evolution of Barbie. You were a big part of the diversification, the expansion. Um It's, it's, it's really an amazing process. Um who Barbie is today. She comes in more than 175 body shaped skin tones, hairstyles abilities. I it's not just your stereotypical Barbie who was amazing in the movie, of course. But, um, but talk a little bit about how, how that evolution, I mean, did that sort of pave the path to this movie being a reality? I think. So. Um, you know, candidly, we've been dreaming about a film, a feature film, um, for decades and, um, you know, we were not ready for it until more recently, we had a lot of work to do to modernize, to evolve the brand, to build a better foundation to make the brand more reflective of the world that kids see around them to um also reinforce the true purpose behind Barbie, which we hadn't done about, you know, 67 years ago to lean into female empowerment, why she matters what she enables. And we elevated Barbie again beyond a doll to an idea. Um And, and that I think is what intrigued Margot. Robbie and Greta um to work with us. They, they saw that evolution and they were inspired and, and Robbie, can you talk a little bit more about um sort of what Greta Gerwig early vision was? I mean, what, what did she come to you with? Well, she, she loved the idea, she wanted to make this Barbie movie, but she really didn't know what it was going to be. And I remember flying to New York and sitting down with her and she said, I just have this idea. I see this Birkenstock and I see this high heel and somehow it's going to live in between the two of them. And I was like, ok, and, and she said, well, I don't know, I'll, I'll have to go figure that out, but trust me. And, uh, and so, you know, it's not very often that you go off to make a movie where you have really no idea what the movie is going to be about until it lands in your inbox, uh which it did. And of course, we were pleasantly surprised what does it mean to uh even prepare yourself to take such a creative risk. And I don't think, you know, we think of Mattel as clearly a lot of innovation in the company over many decades, but I don't think of, of, of a toy company as a big risk taker. So, so what was it in the culture or in your, your mission and your CEO S mission that really pushed you guys to make this to take this step? Well, um it, it's crazy but, you know, I started at Mattel five years ago and Enon cries, my boss, who's the CEO of Mattel started two months before I did and his um mission was to sort of unlock the IP there never had been any movies made. So that's pretty crazy. Um So when he, I think when he approached me when he co you know, when he came to hire me, um I, I, you know, just based on the type of movies that I've made in the past, he knew that I was going to be focused on really telling stories. It was not about selling toys, it was about telling the best stories with the best filmmakers, with the best actors, with the best writers. And that will drive toy sales. There's so much, you know, accessible and available in the world in terms of content. If you're not making something that feels out of the box and different and, and sticky, then you have no business making content. And so, you know, we sort of set on this mission together to um to tell these stories in an authentic, you know, way that was gonna be provocative and inspiring and, and all of that and, and that is sort of what our dream was for Barbie and, and, you know, we, we, we hit the bull's eye on that one not to say that the rest are gonna be easy. They're each gonna have their own challenges. But um I think we're very proud of at our approach and um we're, I think we're gonna make, you know, wonderful movies moving forward. Um And I want to go to you all for questions in just a second. So please be thinking of them. Um But, but on that note, you do have this really ambitious slate of movies. Um, you know, Barbie, yes. The, the attachment and sort of the associations that we have with. Barbie is nuanced and complex and, and has been there for decades, but I don't get the sense. Maybe I'm wrong and it's just me but that people have that same level of, of, you know, complex relationships with like hot Wheels or, you know, some of the other toy lines. How do you approach? I mean, do all of the Mattel movies need to like, strike this chord with, you know, with, with, with everybody and how, how do you, you've also said the bar is so high. So how are you looking at the next, the next few ones? Well, I'll speak quickly about fandom and then you absolutely should speak to the, the film strategy. But the, the Phantom for our brands is actually quite deep. Um Hot Wheels. Uh We just had a huge um collector convention and uh we've got a lot of die hards that are making life size Hot Wheels. Um It inspired actually a, a show on NBC. Um The fandom is real. People are, you know, connected emotionally to our brands, which is a really great jumping off point that said, I think we can all agree that, you know, Barbie is wildly unique. Uh She's a, she's a cultural flashpoint. The fact that the fashion trend around the color pink that took off on the runways 18 months ago really peaked last summer is called Barbie Core and not Pink Core is incredible. So there is something about Barbie that certainly transcends, but Robbie's got a million brilliant ideas across the board for all of our brands. Well, thank you. You know, as I said before, I think we're approaching all of the brands in sort of different ways. We're trying to sort of look at each brand holistically and just say what is, who is the best person? What is the best idea for Magic Eight Ball? You know, you think about Magic Eight Ball and you think I have very deep connection to that. Really? Me too. I ask you questions every day. Um um but the idea is, you know, you think that that would be like a great thriller, you know, you know, you would ask you questions and these things happen and come true or with Hot Wheels. I mean, we, we've teamed up with JJ Abrams and, and so many of our other brands Polly Pocket we're doing with Lena Dunham and Lily Collins and Rockem soccer robots with Vin Diesel. So, I mean, the list of goes on of just, you know, incredible talent and I think that people ultimately, you know, love, have nostalgia, their childhood and for the toys that they played with. And uh I think we live in a complex world and it's just so much fun to play and with all these toys and play in this universe and create great questions for Robbie and Lisa. We've got one over here bringing a microphone over to you. Hi, Laura Sam of Instacart. I'm curious about the creative process and approvals and what the balance was between the director and the company. Robbie. It was, it was very involved. Um uh There was an army behind this, this project. Um Again, I would say everything started though, as Robbie said, from a place of trust, you know, we, we knew we were getting pushed, but we also knew we were in good hands. Um Robbie was a great consigliore, you know, in a lot of instances when we're like, oh, why are we putting this out there? Remind me. Um But again, you know, no risk, no reward. So, um we, we had a lot of good counsel. Um but there was an army of people behind um every aspect of the marketing activation around the movie. And again, great partners with Warner Brothers, the filmmakers, the marketing team. But um we are a detail oriented group and we really did need to pressure test everything and we played out scenarios that something felt too risky. But 95% of the time we said, let's go for it. I mean, I think I just, you know, to dovetail to her point, I, I think that, you know, from coming from the film side of things, I, you know, we, we definitely held hands and just sort of said, OK, we're in this together. Trust, trust me. I know you've never made any movies before but you test them, people watch them if things feel too risky or too far and we're going to take them out, we're going to massage it. We're going to work the film. But I think, you know, the idea, you know, and this is something we talked about a lot is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and, and really, I just said, listen, you're going to white knuckle it the whole time and just get used to it. It's going to be fun. And that's kind of what we did. And I think, you know, when you take those big swings, that's when life rewards you. Um, thank you too so much. Uh, we II, I think, you know, I probably speak for, well, actually how many of you have watched the movie? Yeah. Ok. So I see, I think I probably speak for all of us. But, um, we thank you for brightening our summers. Really? Thank you. Thank you.

Kara Nortman, Managing Partner, Monarch Collective; Co-founder, Angel City Football Club Christen Press, Soccer Player, Angel City Football Club, U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team Moderator: Emma Hinchliffe, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2023: Investing In Women’s Sports

Kara Nortman, Monarch Collective; Angel City Football Club, Christen Press, Angel City Football Club, U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, Emma Hinchliffe, FORTUNE

From the big screen. Now we're going to the playing field. It's been an incredibly exciting few months for women's sports. From the women's World Cup to the women's tour de France, to the US, open the energy and the enthusiasm and the wins and the viewership was real. Would that women continue to show their power and their economic value in professional sports? But the fact is in sports are still not receiving the funding or marketing of men resulting in just a fraction of revenue generation and fewer opportunities for female athletes. Our next guests see this as an incredible moment of opportunity and change. Kara Nortman is co founder of Angel City Football Club, a managing partner of Monarch Collective, an investment platform that's dedicated to accelerating equity in global sport. And Kristen Press is a player with Angel City Football Club and the US Women's national soccer team. They join Fortune, senior writer and MP W Coacher Emma Hinchliff for today's conversation. Please welcome them to the stage. Hello. Hi, Kara. Hi Kristen. Thank you so much for being here. Hi, Emma, how are you? Good. How are you? So, how many people here have been to an Angel City game. We're in southern California after all. Has anyone been? Ok, we've got one back there. Thank you so much. So, for everyone who hasn't been, what is an Angel City game like right now? What's the vibe? What's the energy? Who's in the stands? I mean, I have played in a lot of different arenas and in front of a lot of fans for about a decade and there's really nothing like an Angel City game. And I think that's because everybody that comes to a game comes for more than sport, they come for the community, they come for the fight for equity and progress and they come for the belief that women from all industries can rise and when we do, we create a better world for everybody. Mhm Totally. And Kara, you, as we heard have launched Monarch Monarch Collective, which is investing in women's sports in a lot of ways. Can you tell us what that means? This is $100 million fund. Is that right? It is though we'll announce the final close tomorrow, not today, but we closed fairly north of Target, which I'm excited to share. So, yes. And how are you defining women's sports as you look at investment opportunities? Where will you be deploying this capital? Yeah, I mean, we're so a lot of this came out of Angel City and just sort of set the landscape. I think we defied all expectations and we were fortunate enough to get Kristen as our very, very first player as an A native, but went from 0 to 30 million in revenue a year, selling out really kind of changed sponsorship models and really kind of grew out of just recognizing that it does take purpose and it takes kind of building a community in the cap table or in the investor group in the C suite. But it also is a moment in time where you just show up and you do the work and what we're doing is investing in teams, leagues and rights and in particular in the sports where media revenue is growing like this. And the crazy thing is what got me into, this was actually trying to get Kristen paid. Um So I got involved in the pay equity fight with the US women's national team. And so like the cost of running a team from a salary standpoint is crazy low and the revenues have also been crazy low but to build a sustainable kind of business, which is what I hope we do in women's sports, they both kind of have to grow together. So we're excited about soccer, basketball, golf, tennis, racing, et cetera, but more focused on sports that people want to watch on streaming platforms and broadcasts. Yeah, let's talk about like kind of the opportunity here. I think last time we talked about this, you identified this gulf between like for instance, how easy or not easy it is to watch a women's sports game on TV. And then how many followers these players have on social media demonstrating interest in other channels? Can you kind of describe that Gulf and what the opportunity is? Yeah, I mean, if Instagram didn't exist, Angel City wouldn't exist, I was a fan in the audience with like Kristen trying to find Kristen Jersey with my kids, went to nine stores, couldn't find, it, couldn't find content. But what I could find was Instagram and a bunch of people told me I was crazy that I wanted to watch women's soccer more than every four years. But I could follow Kristen and all of the incredible players on the national team. And so, I mean, social media was the first distribution channel and as I like to say, women have twice as many words as men, they're kind of fun to follow on social media. There's some great lifestyle content. No, totally. And Kristen, how has this explosion of interest in the past few years? You know, changed your experience, your career, your life as a player, you know, what is different now compared to looking back five years ago. I think the thing for me that is the most powerful is that, you know, I spent my career fighting for betterment, fighting for pay equity fighter, fighting for basic resources for athletes that just weren't there. And now when we get a young player, I have an 18 year old teammate in Angel City and her first experience is professional. She has fans, she has a life that can sustain her. And so the goal that we had this with the whole fight for equal pay with the US women's national team. And now the NWL following that, the goal is that the next generation doesn't have to fight. They don't have to spend their entire career doing two jobs. But what's really unique is out of my generation of player. We're actually quite entrepreneurial. So many of us have started our own business because we see the value in women's sports, we see the value in what we're doing. And so it's a really cool generation of players that came together to fight for more and now we're going to continue in the next chapters of our lives to continue to improve and fight for progress and equity. What is that unique insight that players have into the business opportunity here? What do they know that others might not realize the giant gap that exists between the demand for women's sports and the delivery of it? I mean, I can't find my own team play like, you know, I'm injured right now and when the team's away, it takes me 10 minutes trying to find the content for my own team. And so it's like how many people does that deter. And so I think that's where the investment comes in and that's where the belief that this isn't a charity. We don't, we're far past the time that we want people to come in and they say, oh, I'm doing this for my daughter. Like we want people to come in like Kara because they see the business opportunity because they see the potential that we have in women's sports. To not just change sport but to change the world in a really positive way. Totally. I'll come to everyone for questions in a moment. So if you have any start thinking, but Carrie, you know why now, why is this the moment where women's sports seems to be gaining this momentum in business? You know, for me personally, I mean, I spent my entire career in tech and media and if you told me I was going to quit the job that I love to go start a women's sports fund five years ago, I don't know if I would have believed you. And yet I feel so fortunate that I found this at this moment in time. And it is the first place in my life where building representation into coalitions, into cap tables, into C suites where the people we hire actually care that we walk on the field, right? The players, I think care if you look at our team, I mean, we're not perfect and we have to create room for imperfection. But if you look at our team on and off the field and our community in the stands it is a modern consumer community and it is like the country club, none of us ever had. And so the why now is just sort of, it's the first place in my life where I've seen that diversity drive enterprise value and drive revenue stream. So we have generated at Angel City north of $50 million in sponsorship revenue. We have more revenue than the lowest tier of the men's MLS teams without media revenue coming in. But we did it with a new kind of impact sponsorship model. So we take 10% of every sponsor contract and we put it into the community. So with doordash, for example, we will have put over a million dollars into delivering food to food insecure parts of L A. Well, what does that do? We do that with our community and it actually has brought in many new sponsors. So it's not just beer and cars and banks and we love our beer and cars and, but we have supplements and female alcohol and fashion. And so it's a moment in time where you can actually, I mean, I'll talk like an investor for a second because you can, there's literally an arbitrage on sexism right now. But also people, you can tell that people are just showing up to make the money or because they have an arena that they want to utilize versus they actually believe that they can put butts in seats and you know, and and, and still an arena of fill a stadium to watch the best players in the world who aren't small men but are virtuoso in a completely different way. And so I guess I was working on my side project at two in the morning for too long. I had my Jerry Maguire moment in a cathedral and I said I am building the wrong cathedral. It is time to build a different one. Amazing. Well, does anyone have any questions for Kara and Kristen? If you do, you can raise your hand? Ok. Well, we'll keep going. You know, Kristen, the World Cup finished a few weeks ago and I'm sure many people saw the incident in which the Spanish soccer federation leader kissed a player without her consent and ended up in a huge controversy in Spain and internationally. You know, when you are having this kind of conversation about how much potential there is and how much opportunity we see and how much more respect women's sports is getting. Then at the same time, something like that is happening on the biggest world stage in sports. You know, what does that feel like for you as a player to see that dichotomy? Yeah, I think the thing that I take away from this is we've made so much progress and there's so much more progress that needs to be made and so we can't let our foot, we can't take our foot off the gas and I think in the NWSL, we experienced a ton of toxicity, a ton of abuse and as players and with teams and ownership in the league, we really have come together and try to eradicate that behavior in the best way that we can. Um But I think that the, the, it's a silencing mechanism in so many ways that we've been told again and again that if we speak up, if we speak out, oh, the league, you know, the league won't sustain it. You can't say anything because you know, what are the consequences? And so I think we're beyond those silencing mechanisms now and we have the strength and the autonomy to speak out and make our environment safer and, and hopefully inspire everyone across industries to continue to speak out a type against these types of injustices. And I would just say like Kristen's a cultural icon because she couldn't afford not to care about her work environment. It wasn't a choice for you to care, right? And so, I mean, it's very, it's kind of amazing if you look at the women that the athletes who come into women's sports, highly educated, you know, forced to be activists in their own way, very purposeful doing it for the love of the game and twice as many words, right? And so, um I mean, it, and I think in Spain it's really opened it, it's just an example of like the world paid more attention to, to soccer or football than they would have otherwise. Um And then I paid more attention to Spanish policy than otherwise, like they're more progressive in some ways in the United States. And so I think it's an amazing way that sport has become culture and kind of wakes us up to how all these dynamics come together and makes us more of a global community that can care about global topics. Definitely, thank you. Um You know, also at the World Cup, the US women's national team ended up getting knocked out of competition pretty early. You know, at this moment when there's so much momentum and there's been so much attention on the US women's national team, you know, is that, does that end up being a setback? Is that a challenge more than it might be otherwise when at this phase of development, when there's so much momentum and things are still pretty nascent in the grand scheme of things before this World Cup, a reporter asked me if it would be good for the world if the US lost because for the last two World Cups, we were able to use the World Cup to create massive change and fight for equal pay and find a settlement and agree to equal pay moving forward. And so a lot of other countries were just having their beginnings of fights with their federations for pay for resources. And so when I got asked that, of course, I was like no, like we'll just keep leading the way and keep inspiring. And also you always have to like, be blindly foolish and thinking you can win. Um And then after we lost, it was a really interesting series of events where I did understand the merit of other world powers stepping up. Um Both in England and in Spain. Uh the two finalists are having massive fights with their federations about basic rights. Um And so I think we hope as the US women's national team that our fight was able to inspire the fight. And I, and I always think about walking towards a quality with a torch in my hand. And when I joined the US women's national team, I was handed a torch because there was a whole other decade, a generation of players that had already been fighting and when, you know, I continue to carry that torch as far and high as I can. Um And, you know, in, in one way, I thought my job was to pass it to the next generation. But in a lot of ways, I think that over the last 10 years, we were able to, you know, light a little fire and let it spread out and let other countries model after what we did, let other people and other industries start to stand up and fight. And I think that's a lot more powerful than a single torch that you can continue to hand down. That's amazing. So who do you both want? You know? So who do you both want to reach right now? Who should be watching? Who should be sponsoring, who should be investing in women's sports and in women's soccer? You wanna go first? I mean, first I'd say everyone in the audience can play a role, right? If you're in another industry, it doesn't matter what it is, you can come in non profit media tech. It, it doesn't matter. Everyone probably can figure out how to play a small role as an investor, as a sponsor. I think what I would just say is get really curious. Um follow players you like, that's what connects you, I think to, to the sport. And then what I say is when I show up in a stadium or an arena, I feel sometimes like the Forrest Gump of women's soccer, I just show up in the right place at the right time. I fill 12 again. And how often do we get to fill 12 again? Just go field 12 again. And you know, if someone told me that I was going to start a professional women's sports team, you know, I didn't think women in their forties were sports team owners. So to me, it's convinced me that anything is possible and a lot of people told me it was not possible. So I kind of now just think, think something is possible. Make a new friend, show up, go to a game. Enjoy yourself. Definitely sponsor and just buy a ticket, buy a ticket. There's some finals going on at the w right now. Buy a ticket. I, well, hopefully we'll have some more people raising their hands next time when they've been to an Angel City game. Thank you both so much. Thank you very much.

Mellody Hobson, President and Co-CEO, Ariel Investments Interviewer: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE


MPW Summit 2023: Leadership Lessons With Mellody Hobson

You Community Melody. Hobson is CO CEO of the Global Asset Management Firm, Aerial Investments. She's chair of the Starbucks Board of Directors, a board member at JP Morgan Chase and an influential force in the world of finance. Melody is a longtime advocate for closing the racial wealth gap. And earlier this year, she launched project black, a groundbreaking fund designed to create and support minority owned businesses of scale. She's known for her business acumen and recently shared her wisdom, teaching a master class on strategic decision making. Melody is no stranger to Fortune's most powerful women in business list ranking once again in 2023 her fifth time on the list. We're delighted to have her with us at the summit to talk about her recent projects, the the decisions that shaped her career and to offer lessons in leadership, she joins Mahala Brahm for this conversation. Please welcome them to the stage. Thank you for joining us Melody. Um So you literally uh taught the master class on strategic decision making as we heard and I wonder if you could start out by just sharing with us? Where do you feel like your lessons in strategic decision making um throughout your career, where, where, where did most of that come from? Was it from the boardroom from your childhood? From somewhere in between? So, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I always love coming to this conference and I used to dream of being here when I was really young and reading fortune. So it's very exciting to sit on the stage and to be on the list and just meet and be with so many amazing women. Um My strategic, my point of view around strategy came through growing up. My mother had really practical advice for me all the time. From my life experience, generally, the hardest things and the worst things taught me the most about strategy when things weren't going well. And then I've had the opportunity to work with some iconic leaders like Howard Schultz, Jamie Diamond, Jeffrey Katzenberg, being in a room with David Gethen. Um people who John Rogers be married to an icon like George Lucas. And so those titans all have been great um uh advisors and I try to eat up and soak up wisdom. Uh best lesson from your mother though was what? Well, I was telling some of my mother's stories in the green room, which were hilarious. Um But I think in work, her number one lesson was make myself indispensable. She always said, make it so you couldn't lose your job that everyone would want to work with you. And I used to joke with John Rogers when I first started Ariel, I want one of me because I really did make myself indispensable. But this was also the mother who told me which I made the joke in the other room. No one wants to see you eat all of that. So she would say if you're out at any kind of event, you know, with dinner with people half she's like, never or does anyone want to see you eat all of that? That hilarious. That's hilarious. True. It started at very young. So it wasn't like at 13, she started saying it, she started saying it very young. That's very funny. Um, so you were a four year old who left half your plate as it started pretty, I was like, oh, I supposed to eat half. So, um, one of the things you've talked about in the past and the master class as well is kind of the, the, the art of having tough candid conversations. And, um, I wonder if you could just give for us, like some of your biggest lessons over the years when it comes to that something everybody in this room has to deal with. And so many of us have a hard time doing. Gambi Sa Moyo was the person who crystallized this for me. She's one of my best friends. We're doppelgangers. She grew up in Africa, I grew up in America and was an economist. Right. And um she always used to say to me in the very early years, feedback as a gift, it is not a right. And that was something that I realized was really important. I think people think we have a right to feedback when we don't. And so she was like, what, wherever you can get it, however you can get it, you should be excited about it. We had a coach inside of Ariel who always used to tell us that um you, we'd ask permission to get feedback because he, he said everyone doesn't want it. So when we were in a situation, we would say and still at Ariel, do you want feedback? And don't say yes if you don't want it. And so getting feedback in that situation. And then last, lastly, don't qualify feedback by who gives it to you. I think what typically happens is we say I don't really like that person. So therefore I'm going to discount everything that they say when sometimes someone you least like admire maybe think has the values that you have. There is a kernel in there that could be helpful to you. And so being accepting of feedback from anyone at any time anywhere is the goal that I've always had. And then I can tell you, you know, being willing to accept it. And there have been many times in my life where the feedback was extremely tough and I have had a rule do not cry. Because if someone gives you feedback and you start crying, then they have to spend a lot of time putting you back together and they never want to do it again. So they're thinking to themselves like, I don't have 30 minutes to give melody when I give her this feedback. So do not cry. I tell people, you know, if you cry, you sort of ruin the possibility of getting feedback again. Don't cry. Eat half your plate. What does he eat all of that? Um So Alan Murray, our CEO and I recently interviewed the Newish CEO of Starbucks for our, our podcast leadership. Next. And it was fascinating hearing him talk about his sort of immersion into Starbucks, not just doing the, you know, typical listening tour, but actually taking months getting to be a certified barista working as a barista across the world. And, and this is something that you and Howard Schultz really put to Howard really thought of it. So I want to give Howard credit because that's really the person Howard said, let's give him six months to get totally immersed. And during that time, he said I'll stay longer because he was supposed to leave earlier than he did. I'll give him that time where no one is reporting to him. He doesn't have to make any really hard calls and he can spend the time just learning the business from the ground level up. And then we slowly layered on, um, reporting responsibilities. But he was unencumbered for a long time to really move around the world and be behind the counter and in being behind the counter, it's the way you really learn the business. You got to spell everybody's names. It's not easy. If only it were just that. Yes, I'm sure the baristas is hard. I have zero doubt. But one of the interesting things to me was that he mentioned, as we were asking him about this process that in kind of the Western mentality, it's like, oh my gosh, how did you take so long to train for this to do this, you know, immersion and the Eastern mentality is why was it so short? Just six months? So can you talk about just your role and and in in shaping that helping to shape that? And why as chair of the board um of Starbucks, you decided that this was really worth his time because the culture of our company is so important to our success and understanding that culture is truly um critical to understanding the customer, the partners who work inside the company and what makes us different. And you know, when you think about it on the one level, we sell a commodity. On the other level, we sell an experience that is so ingrained in cultures, not only here in America but around the world and it's so important to people and they choose this third place because it makes them feel something like they belong or special or um valued. Noticed it's the name on the cup. All of those things. They set us apart from a traditional um mind competitor. No disrespect. And I think making sure that someone could really assimilate inside of that culture was, was very important. When you think about many careers, you know, there were jobs where you were an apprentice for a long at aerial. We talk about our analysts being apprentices, their apprentice, they're an apprentice for a very long time where they're just learning the craft. And that's what Lakshman had the opportunity to do. Again. It was Howard's idea. And as a board, we were fully, fully behind that idea based upon we thought what we thought ultimately would be important to his success and therefore the success of the company. Amazing. Um I know this audience loves to hear from you. So I definitely want to give you all an opportunity to ask melody some questions as well. Please raise your hand and we'll bring a microphone over to you. Um But I, I wanna pivot a little bit in the meantime, um we saw so many um diversity initiatives um after the murder of George Floyd in particular um and so many commitments um and, and, and, and statements put out and um and now we're seeing at least uh in some companies uh de prioritization um of those commitments of those initiatives. And so obviously, this is near and dear to your heart and to Ariel and the whole mission from the get go. But what's your advice to other companies on how to, how to keep your eye on the ball, how to keep it a priority and why? What's the argument? The argument is very simple. So my perspective around diversity and initiatives, inclusion belonging is that if you want to be a world class 21st century company, if you want to understand your potential customer, if you want to understand the people who work in your company, you need diverse perspectives, diverse ideas, diverse backgrounds, all to come together for better outcomes. If you don't want that, then stay monolithic and over time you will disappear. And I think that, you know, people are trying to make this about the right thing to do. This is good corporate governance. This is about being a fiduciary to all the stake holders that are important to a company. And unfortunately, the pullback after the horrific murder of George Floyd that shined a light on an issue that anyone who was black or brown already knew about. There was no revelation for us is that the pullback has certainly been been directly related to the Supreme Court decision with Harvard in the sense that they're coming for us. If we have diversity on our agenda, I say don't give in to that. I think companies have to stand firm because this is ultimately in the best interest of the company, the shareholder and our society. Are you? And we have a question over here, but I wanna just real quick ask a follow up. Are you concerned about the legal landscape? You've got projects Black, the, the fund that you started? Um Does that concern you? How are you navigating? No, I'm not concerned at all. We've looked at all of the legal possibilities and we feel very, very strong and, and confident in our point of view about what we're doing to grow and scale minority black businesses, uh minority businesses, black and brown in the United States. So this is a good business decision and that's ultimately, you know, what matters over time. Hello, um The Hair Washington, Ceo of Otri M Melody. I just wanna thank you for your leadership example. Um You spoke, uh my company is Index back and um you spoke at a conference earlier this year and you looked across the room and you asked where were the Black and Brown founders and CEO S? And you know, if you saw me, I was one of the ones, but I wanted to thank you for at least for example, 11. Exactly. That was meant to say that you often speak truth to power in rooms that need to hear the message. So thank you for that. The question on a lighter note, I'm a Seattle Seahawks fan. So when Russell came over to the Broncos it was definitely one of those who had mixed feelings. I wonder how your ownership in the Broncos with the sports franchise has changed your leadership or perspective on winning and losing in business. Curious, since it's so public and emotions run so wild. So, first of all, I just want to be very clear. Never in a million years did I imagine I'd own part of a football team just so like, just to be super clear, I didn't like grow up thinking that's what I'm going to do. But what I will tell you is you can learn anywhere and I've learned one a lot from sports. It's hard, it's a very hard thing. And I have two takeaways that I think have really influenced me in the last year of ownership. One, I was on the phone with Sean Payton, our coach very recently on a Zoom and he said you have to earn the right to coach hard, wrote it down. And I was like, you have to earn the right to coach hard in any setting. And I thought about why I could co chart at aerial after 30 years or how I show up in boardrooms because I've said in those rears for a lot rooms for quite a while, but you have to earn the right to coach hard. I think that's a really intuitive statement. The other thing that I learned from and I, I used this example with my young colleagues who are very excited about hybrid work and maybe never done it before. And it's not my favorite thing. I'm being very honest and I always told them, I said, listen, I want you to just imagine the Super Bowl huddle. I want you to imagine the two teams on each side. I can assure you neither was hybrid, even like the time in the weight room is together. It, you can't win like that. And so, you know, just using that as a real life example, it's hard to argue with, but it's true at melody. Super, super quick. What's next for you? Like what's on your, you know, we talked about vision boards earlier. You've done so much. Is there something that you're like, just dying to, to, to own or to, to work at, or to accomplish that you haven't done yet? There are so many times that I wanna do. I mean, I, I can't even, my list is long. Um, you know, I, I, there's so much, I mean, it's, it's hard for me to, I want all kids to learn financial literacy in schools. I mean, that's one of the things I wake up every day thinking about. I want Ariel to be um great and that's, you know, so I've never looked for another job or something else that I wanted to do. I wanna do a really good job as chair of Starbucks because, because right now, which is tragic of the Fortune 500. I'm the only black woman chair that doesn't make sense. And so these are things that are all really important to me as understand being cognizant of the fact that they set trails for other people and needing to do a good job. So there's a lot, I, I think we're all in awe of your to do list. So thank you for coming and sharing with us. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

Most Powerful Women Summit 2023

MPW Summit 2023: The Inclusion Imperative

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Lt. Col Bree Fram, Chief, Acquisition Policies and Processes Division, United States Space Force Terri Burns, Investor; Board Member; Co-chair, Coins2Day Brainstorm Tech

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MPW Summit 2023: De&I At A Crossroads

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MPW Summit 2023: Building on A Legacy

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MPW Summit 2023: The Disruptor

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MPW Summit 2023: Leading Positive Change

MPW Summit 2023: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, And Economic Growth

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