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MPW Toronto 2019

Indra Nooyi On Being One Of The Longest-Serving Female CEOs

Leadership

As one of the longest-serving female CEOs of a Fortune 500 company, Indra Nooyi made her mark on the business world as a champion of long-term thinking and a “performance with purpose” strategy for growth.

I know obviously it was an honor to serve and it was a great run. But what was the brutal side of it? See, I think when you're a female, colored woman, immigrant, serving as a CEO of a large company and undertaking a transformation, every day there was a critic. I'd say the critics to support us mix was like 80 % critics and 20 % supporters. [ LAUGH ] Wow. And so all the time you were in the public eye trying to answer the critics sort of allay their fears. So it was a grind all the time. And you had to do it with great aplomb because if you were down they read too much into it. What is your guidance to people who are leaders, who are feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders? Look everybody's waiting for you to buckle under pressure, especially for woman unfortunately. The expectation is that you won't be confident and you won't be able to withstand tremendous pressure. So when you have to go through all the pressure, act as if you're confident you're absolutely in control And if you really do need to scream, have a good cry which I didn't know then. I left my room and I said to my secretary, don't let anybody in here for 15 minutes. [ LAUGH ] Did you cry? Yeah, sure. You cried. Okay. I wanna know that. Out of frustration. Frustration, yeah. And then put the makeup back on. [ LAUGH ] When you come into the workforce. You have to address the whole issue of unconscious bias, because when bias happens in the workforce, it strips away a woman's confidence. When it attacks your confidence it attacks your competence. It's a vicious circle and so it's very very important that we stop talking about unconscious bias and actually do something to address [ APPLAUSE ] The onus is not just on the men it's also on the women. I think as women are sisterhood has to get much stronger. Unconscious bias can only be addressed. Is it the sisterhood decides to support each other to call out the unconscious bias. We tend to compete with. At ourselves. And I think it's getting better, but we have to really step it up. That's so awesome. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Indra Nooyi: Every Day There Was a Critic

The former Pepsi CEO talks about her tenure.

Welcome. I try to give you a glowing start, so let's- No pressure No pressure at all. How do we make agriculture fun is a good question to start with, but I'm gonna start first with the fact that, how does a city girl from Addis ababa, move to another urban centre like New York- And then suddenly go hang on a minute. I'm going to get into the Food and Agricultural world because that fascinates me. City girls don't tend to think like farmers. What's the story that? It's real girls can think any way they want? So I'm, like you rightfully said I was born and raised in Ethiopia and in Addis Ababa. And I ended up in the US on scholarship for university. And I went to college at a women's college called Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts and then found myself in London. Where I got recruited to a Wall Street internship, as Wall Street is one of the few places that actually hires a lot of international students. So I kind of fell into that job. And that was the beginning of my career, which started as a trader in commodities. So I actually used to trade oil and gas. So the shift from oil and gas into agriculture is a little bit of a big one. But, [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Becoming a trader you make money basically Capturing arbitrage opportunities, and I had seen that the amount of efficiency that had been brought to energy markets. And as I started looking at investing in agriculture, which was around the time of the financial crisis in 2008, and 9, I just realized how much more complicated and messed up it was. And that small kind of interest led to a complete obsession. And really like a lack of interest in doing what I was doing, which was trading, so I just decided to quit and try something completely new and How old were you when you decided to do that decision? At the time I was 29 So 29 you decide to quit the fancy flashy Wall Street job. Start Grow intelligence. Tell us a little bit for those of us who might not know enough about the company, what is Grow? What does it do? And how do you think it can change the pattern of the food industry and how we look at global hunger? Yeah, well when I quit I wish I quit to start grow intelligence. My boss reminded me of what I told him when I quit. And he was like, please take a sabbatical. Like, you sound like you've lost your mind. But at the time it was, I'm obsessed with agriculture. I want to be connected to home to Ethiopia. Food security issues are, you know, huge in Africa. And I don't think we can solve it until we solve the capital structural problems. So I'm gonna start this company and it's gonna do this stuff with farmers and we're gonna do mobile apps. And he reminded me I created symbolically recently that I forgot. [ LAUGH ] But anyway, so when I quit, it was an interest in ag and I took two years off To actually figure out what this company and this product was going to be. And so it was 2014 that the company really started. And those two years I became a student of the world. I traveled across farms everywhere in the world you could imagine. I wanted to know if information was lacking, or we just didn't know where to find it. Do we need to create new data or did we need to organize it and and as soon as it became clear to me that it was an organizational problem, I said Okay, this I actually know how to do because I did this for energy markets. I saw what this can do. I can see how capital markets can be completely transformed through that and so that's what Grow Intelligence does. We harvest really large amounts of data from around the world. This could be data that comes from satellites and weather stations to Government agencies, commodity exchanges, small trade organizations No one's ever heard of, you know, there's like the Avocado Association and the International cocoa Association. And we take all of this data, we're processing north of 800 trillion data points a day now, and we created a language that normalizes. Is all of it because one of the things we realized was, hey, you know, agriculture. First of all, it's not just four a five crops, it's 10s of thousands of different crops, animals. It's this big system that's messy and very interconnected and So we developed a completely new language in a dictionary. So I was somewhere you know on point with the symbology idea just to know it was called back then that normalizes all of this information and once we stitch it together it gives us Certain amount of visibility into the world so it enables discovery. But then once you discover you then want to predict. So it gives you the clean data infrastructure that you need to now start forecasting, anything that could be driving the supply, or anything that could be demand driving the demand of really agricultural products. And that's actually one of the things that I also Started to appreciate a lot more once I started the company which was when we think agriculture we think food. Yeah. And there's this very famous quote that says eating is an agricultural act. And I realized living is an agricultural act because often times you wake up in the morning and you don't appreciate your waking up to cotton sheets, that's agriculture. You use a bar of soap. That's used some form of extracted oils from some plant that's embedded in it and so everything we do involves it. And we don't understand it. So who are the clients. Because very famously use. You've said we work with everyone in the ecosystem but the farmer. That, is that a problem or is that one of the advantages? Who are the clients and how does that data in fact the farmer even if you don't deal with them? Yeah, our clients are like you said everyone but the farmer so think of it as anyone who sells product to farmers. So, seed input crop protection money, so banks, insurance companies, Intermediary so that's your trading community that's essentially transferring risk. And then buyers CPG companies, wholesalers and retailers of fresh produce, and we think it's a great advantage. The reason we think it's a great advantage is that if our goal is. Is to drive up the productivity of farmers, if our goal is to drive down the cost of food and make it more equitable. Then we must be able to price and transfer risk way more efficiently. And that transfer of risk happens across these organisations. And by creating an efficiency in the way they all operate and being a platform that powers all of them You create a base level of knowledge that allows her certain amount of understanding and much better risk management of those businesses and our long term theory is that success for us will be when I always give the statistics 63 % of Sub Saharan Africans are involved in, in agriculture in some form and less than 1 % of outstanding bank loans have anything to do the agricultural industry. If we can move that one to 10 %, that means that you have pushed money in the right direction at the right cost because again, it's not just a question of getting money in the hands of farmers. It's a question of getting it at the right Cost so that they're essentially able to make money but also the end product is affordable for all. Getting money into the hands of the farmers is one thing but you're a female founder, getting money into your hands might have been an interesting story. You landed TPG as a backer, you also landed Data collective, DPG as we know were the early backers for Airbnb, Uber, Spotify, that's a big name to get, what was that story like as a female founder going out, selling the story where one boss has told you; take a sabbatical, think really hard, what are you doing? And then going out and pitching that and getting the money that you needed. That same boss is one of the first people that wrote my checks when I went and asked for money. [ LAUGH ] So the first pool of money for the company came from the people I worked with, people that I had traded for, eight and a half years I done really well. The one thing that Wall Street It afforded me was that opportunity at 29 to say [ SOUND ], what's the worst that can happen? But also, it lets you take tremendous amounts of risk early on, if you show promise. And so, those same people were the ones I went to and I think that [ INAUDIBLE ] Gave us the first $ 4 million that we needed. Literally came from myself and a combination of people that I worked for were my competitors or my customers. And then the next batch was when we went for institutional money. And there it was about telling a global story. And I think initially it was Complicated because we're actually not a company or a product that's trying to mimic something that someone has done before. And so I couldn't give analogies of what we're trying to do. Yeah. And so learning to communicate Cartier vision has, frankly continues to be a big part of our journey and my journey as an entrepreneur, but we've now raised 40 million and actually one of our backers is in the room, which is GGV. Well, good to know, let's open that. And on that note to some questions from the room. If anyone has a question, please raise your hand, our mic handlers will come to you [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Hi, I'm Robin Colver. I'm with Canadian Tire but I'm asking this question on behalf of my daughter and maybe, some of the other young women in the room. Your story is fascinating in terms of how you got into doing what you're doing, and I think it's hard for kids to figure out How to pursue their passion. So you go to university and I think a lot of the guidance counselors are still pushing kind of traditional jobs. No one would have imagined your story. I don't think that any guidance counselor's office. And your question because we are running out of time. Okay, so on behalf of the kids that are in science and looking for. A way to move forward in a very innovative way. These sorts of opportunities are hard to find. What's your advice for kids that want to do something different? It's a tough one. I think I was lucky in a sense that I was raised in a home that gave me I guess, boundless freedom to explore. It's maybe not as traditional. And so, in some ways, I was raised to be a little bit fearless. And it also had to do with the fact that my grandmother was- So Ethiopia was the only African country that was never colonized. It was occupied by the Italians, but it was never colonized. And my grandfather orchestrated the plot to kill General Graciani and ultimately got assassinated. My grandmother was pregnant with my father when she got taken as a prisoner of war, and my father was born in an Italian prison, and so growing up I had her, I was named after her, he was very close to her but I think I had that as kind of my Northern Star. So nothing seemed impossible. So I think in some ways, and this is something I'm learning, which is I've been relatively quiet and private, which is, maybe the more stories we see, the more fearless we become. And some of us have it at home, which I think I was lucky to have. And others find it through stories that they hear elsewhere. So maybe it's the power of telling stories. What's got the expression like that ?. Hi, my name is Kumi- sama Scanlon anecdotally. I've been to Mount Holyoke because they do bring a lot of international students probably like 25 years ago because I have a couple of public cousins, who went there. I assume that was a very big part of how you got to Wall Street, but the question I have for you is. How did you sort of know where to sell your product? Like I get the idea? It's very cool, but how did you how make the first start on selling your product? I mean, like I said, it took me two years to even figure out what product to build. So you know, when we're trying to map and understand a system that's been around since the Neolithic Revolution It just takes time. And you just have to try things. And so the first iteration of our business model was do we go to everybody in anybody so do we go to small and medium businesses do we because that's ultimately our goal. Our goal is not just to be a provider of data and data infrastructure for large companies. Our goal is How do we democratize access and when we first went to the market, we went and said let's go small bits at a time. And that was really difficult to do and the reason that was difficult to do is no one had budget cuz they never heard of a product like ours. And so we took a different approach and said why don't we go to the [ INAUDIBLE ] Which again sounded crazy at the time because no one's heard of us. So how do I get meetings with CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, but go in and convince them that this is something that they need to do if they're going to be ahead and get ahead of the markets and be ready and brace for, you know, climate change. And that started to work. It requires a lot of buy in from every organization so every time we do a sale we're really doing a top down and bottom up sale at the same time. But you know I think it's it's a bit of a process it's experimentation. It's lots of failure. It's no different than inventing a product I guess which is you build it and you're like hope they want it. I think this is right. [ LAUGH ] Well, I think we're pretty much running out of time. So on that note of that particular statement, here's a last question for you. You are a disruptor. Even though the technology is new, you are still dealing with the USDA and others who have been putting this data out, and you're not their favorite Person, politely but how do you deal with the incumbents and the thought processes that are still stuck? maybe perhaps, in another generation, how do you change minds and mindsets? You engage and there's really no other way around it because As you've said, they're incumbents. It's a relatively old industry. If you look at the ag census, I mean, you don't have, and that really goes from farmers all the way to industry and to corporates. I am not a typical agricultural executive. But you have to engage. And you have the hard conversations. You Become very open and transparent. So we've taken a very different approach to our models and our predictive AI, which is openness. So we essentially, open up the methodology. We publish the methodology when we're right, we're right publicly when we're wrong. We're wrong publicly. And eventually the idea is that you build trust. Because none of these models are perfect. So what we're saying is we're not a perfect solution, but we are a way to getting to a place that's much better than where we are today. Trust seems to be a word that we've used a lot. In the past two days on that note Sarah thank you so very much for joining us. Give her a round of applause for doing what she's doing. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Using A.I. to Feed the World

Gro Intelligence CEO Sara Menker explains her company’s mission.


[ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ APPLAUSE ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] So Erica, we are sitting down, that piece, that Bach piece, I listen to it all the time. It has brought so much calm and composure to me, and to my daughter, who didn't stick with Suzuki violin, but Goes to bed to that almost every night. Yeah, amazing. That's such a powerful piece, and I listen to it, played by Yo- Yo Ma. And I love the story in your book where you were, I think, just three years old listening to Yo- Yo Ma and how it infused your body, your psyche, your whole being and set you on a A journey to be a musician. Yeah, absolutely. And so we have just a short time. I wanted to just talk to you. This book is about, I've read it, it's very powerful. It's about your journey as kinda discovering that you were bipolar, and then treating it, and moving on, and gives a lot of wellness tips. But I also wanted to talk to you about what you and I discussed earlier, the never- enough syndrome. You were just a star student, everything went well. This is something that resonates with everybody, regardless of whether you have a mental illness, the never- enough syndrome. What would you say to the women in this room? I I think a big part of it, it was just growing up as a little girl, and I've been thinking a lot lately of how we raise our daughters and how we talk to our daughters. And I mean, I grew up Presenting as really outgoing, bubbly on the outside, you would look at this girl and think that she was a confident- Perfect little girl, perfect tell a player. Perfect, yup. Yes. And I Behind closed doors my self worth was felt like zero. I just, and it didn't matter how well I did in school, how well I did playing, whether I got into a university or grad school. I always had the sense that I was never doing enough, I was never practicing enough. And it was so toxic and prevalent And then, and this all sort of tied together with when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and I began to take care of myself, my whole self, my mental health, my physical health. I stopped from being that kind of frazzled insanely busy- ness. I'm so over that, I You guys listening? [ LAUGH ] I was always running from one gig to the next and fitting everything in, and what else can I pack my schedule with? And it was making me sick, not just with my mental health, but I developed gastric reflux. And I was no longer my best self for the communities that I serve. left and I had to with my diagnosis, I had to start putting my self care first. So what's your piece of wellness advice to the high acheivers in this room. Well, I can speak to what really worked for me. I know this might be impossible for so many of you in this room but I had to schedule one day off per week. And I started scheduling sort of a 1015 minute buffer between every single appointment and activity. I know and a lot of you're probably thinking not with my schedule. I don't think I could that could ever work but it's that little bit of breathing room Has given me the recharge moments and the energy to approach my next task. And so I've learned how to be a very busy person but walking from each event as supposed to spring time. And it's made a huge difference in my sleep and I Overall way. And now you're a mental health advocate and promoting your book, right? Yes. This is what you're doing. Yes. And because why? When I was first diagnosed, I was afraid, I was ashamed, I felt alone and isolated. And that was only six years ago and there weren't very many memoirs or there wasn't a lot of literature at their about bipolar disorder other than K. Jameson's memoir from 1996. And when I finally found some stories of people I could relate to, one was a cartoonist from Seattle with bipolar disorder. And all of a sudden, I had a community. And the same with the support groups. That I joined. And what I took from reading those stories is I learned about the power of our stories and what they can do for someone else in their struggle. And so I wanted to share my own In hope that it would bring hope, healing, and comfort to other people who've been diagnosed not just with bipolar disorder, any health condition, any mental health, physical health condition and I think the more we talk about it the better. Well, Erica, you're an incredible musical talent and an incredible visionary and you're so eloquent. Thank you so much. Thank you [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

A Special Performance by Cellist Erika Nielsen

Entertainment

At Fortune’s MPW International Summit.


'Dragon's Den' Alum Michele Romanow: How I Made it

The co-founder and president of Clearbanc joins Fortune’s MPW International Summit.

okay. Michelle welcomed unfortunate, powerful women. Thank you. Like your, um So, like, there you're taking shoes. Oh, my gosh. So I want to get I want to get your back story because you have actually entrepreneurial roots in Canada. So tell us where you grew up and what your family was like that led you to this place you are at today. Yeah. I mean, it's great. It's a great question. I grew up in Calgary and so, you know, had parents in the resource industry and felt like a group in a really entrepreneurial place. My parents told me I could study anything I wanted. Thio, as long as it started with engineering, had a lot of choices. Um, and that ended up, you know, serving the incredibly well. I did an MBA right after, and by the time I had graduated, figured out that worldwide supply of caviar of all products was down by 95% because we had over fished the Caspian Sea. Crazy enough to say no to all of my job offers. Move out to the east Coast and build a fishery from scratch. This is everything. It sounds like. Boats, fishermen. My hands knee deep in fish, like the hopeful five yards. And, you know, our thesis is cracked. Couldn't find the products that we had no problem selling the product. Problem was, we went into the biggest recession of the last 70 years, the year after I started with. So I'm 21 years old, selling the world's most superfluous luxury product and quickly figuring out I'm probably not gonna make it. And I think having early failure at the beginning of your career is is just so important. You just have this incredible realization, the world of you. Absolutely nothing. And so, from there and it up, getting to take a job as a director of strategy from a big retailer, I thought Commerce blow up and started commerce company. The big retailer was tears. Yeah, uh, that's correct. Another and, you know, always be grateful for that opportunity because I got to mean they gave me as a 22 year old. It was the director, that baby, you know, uh, in the commerce area. Yeah, and so So I got to leave my own e commerce company. Um, we were self funded for five years. I couldn't raise any money has figured out how to grow just by low cost customer acquisition, which then became a your team in kind the rest of my career. That story ended up pretty well. We just tapped going. At one point, we had six competitors that raised more than $10 million that company was called Utopia. And is that the company you sold Thio Group on? No, that was That was a little bit later way. We figured out too many to count way figured out. You know, this the e commerce. If we could attract customers for low enough cost, we could keep growing on. Dhe then started an app called Snap Save the digitized coupons with CPD space. That company got sold to group on, and after that was asked to join the cast of Dragons in I'm on the show. And that was five years ago, five years ago, five years ago. And how many of you? I mean, I know we don't have a lot of Canadians in the audience. How many people watch dragons? Wow, a lot. I know I said the Michelle backstage. I said, Now well, the Canadian women know you is this a really popular show. It is a very popular show. I think it it is popular because, you know, everyone has a dream, and there's a natural tension between investors that have money and people that have dreams. So the show has really shown that, and it's shown it in, I mean seven minute segments of of these different businesses. And so it circles back really nicely because I'm on the show. One of the things that most people don't know about is that we film 250 pitches in 17 days back to back. So I sit in that chair and I see 10 pitches a day. Um, it's a lot of things start to clarify when you see 10 pitches today and what I kept seeing. Waas. You know all of these commerce entrepreneurs air coming on the show and remember these guys they had made those wooden iPhone case and they're like it's a father son team so memorable for me. They did a $1,000,000 in sales, which is pretty good for entrepreneurs on the show, and they were like, Look, we have great unit economics. We make each case for 10 bucks cost $10 on Facebook ads, Ben and we sell them for 50 bucks, and we're here on the show looking for $100,000 for 20% of her. And I just remember sitting back thinking this is a bad deal for both. Like, this company isn't gonna sell to Apple 10 times multiple. Uh, these guys really need the money, and they're gonna be really resentful when I own 20 or 25% of the company. And if they take $100,000 in investment Facebook ads, they're going to make $4000 of feels pretty good for them. And so this is You know, four years ago on the show, I was like, Okay, guys were throwing out a distant deal type. I'll give you $100,000. I'm not gonna take any equity in your company. I want 5% of your revenue until you pay me back. $106,000. We'll charge. You said this on the air on the air and, uh, and really not thinking anything of it. Just kind of brainstorming with these guys needed. And I said, This isn't alone. There's no personal guarantees fixed payment timeline. There's no compounding interest. You use my capital to grow. I could pay back a little bit faster. I'm happy. And if your business slows down, awaited out for the journey. And even the entrepreneurs were like throat. It's the only thing I wanted to see with Facebook ad because I knew I'd look at Facebook campaigns for e commerce companies. I would know if they had a really good return on there, and that became kind of effectively was the first clear bank deal, and I never would have guessed that would have become so big. So here Michelle joins Dragon Stone five years ago. There's this moment and you're thinking You okay, so the cameras go off and you make you fund this company wouldn't nice phone case, father and son team, and you think to yourself immediately or later. Wow, Maybe I should start an alternative startup funding company and call it clear back. Oh, this is like, you know, it takes two years of hop, skip and jump to actually get to the right place and seeing if you think that. But how did you get from there to clear bank this company that by the end of 2019 will have funded to the tune of a $1,000,000,000.2000 companies. How do you get from there to here? A lot of things, Not working. That's the first thing. So So when we started Clear Bank, we kind of I could see that. Like, you know, the future of work was changing. We started a couple of different products. We had done this one experiment, and I think what struck a chord is that 40% of all VC dollars today go into cos they're spent directly on Google. That means that entrepreneurs are spending the most expensive capital to do something that by definition, should be repeatable, scaleable. That's what the magic of the digital platforms, where you knew if you injected a dollar, you could get $4 in sales out. And so we can just give entrepreneurs a cheaper way to fund that and a faster way to fund that. We created something called the 20 minute term sheet. I thought it was a cute name because typically it takes you 6 to 8 weeks on the road to get a single term sheet. So in 20 minutes. We could tell you we can give you this much capital on on these terms. At least you had another option in your back pocket. When the how does the 20 minute term sheep she work? And how does it possibly, uh, provide adequate screening for companies? Really good. Really good. Uh, really a question. So what you know typically happened in the old world Waas a bank would look at a company that was small, and they would say, we have no idea if you're gonna pay our money back, so we'll take a personal guarantee where we could go off your personal assets if we don't pay. It was it was the catchall for basically not having, you know, data that was easy enough to understand. Or that was in a no automated stream. That way I could look at and the other option was going to equity investors, and you'd have really smart Stanford MBA, you know, spend four weeks looking at your company and determining if this is good enough. And so what we saw is that there were all these new data sources today. You know, you could automatically connect two bank accounts two payment processors like striped the Facebook ad account, your commerce account And with all of that data, we could build automation. So, clear bank, there actually isn't anyone that looks at individual companies. It's all a eye on automation that we've built to be able to do this really quickly. And we're looking at data for more accurate, you know, system of record. So, you know, people can't lie when they give us their data, they have to connect the real account. Um and, uh and we can see what their return on ad spend is and what their unit economics are, which are far more indicative of if the company is going to be successful. That if not, and it takes out the gender bias it takes of the gender by the other night. Part of it looking at Data iss, is that you get rid of your bias. And so we've funded eight times more women, and I mean, it's very sincerely not by doing anything at the top of the funnel. And how what is this gender split between these 2000 companies that you have funded? Now I realize men tend to start Maur company Well, no, actually, no, That's not true, is it? Women start more companies. Yeah. So anyway, basic question. What's the gender split? So, Arjun, we funded eight times more women in the venture capital, right? Three average. So it's politically the vent. Traveling, traveling with 2%. So where? Anywhere between 16 and 20%. I Okay, who has a question? Turn up the life against See back here? Okay. Uh, yes, Cape. Reckon I'm curious. How did you raise the $1,000,000,000 that you actually funded? The companies with, uh, I got 450 knows how the heart Everyone on Wall Street thought I was completely crazy because they told me that, um, I think the line was I don't think you understand, Miss, this is not how you lend to Small. Um, and I was almost certain that using riel system of record data would be far more productive because they had run one of these companies and former accurate been doing what had historically been done, which is looking at personal credit score and adding personal guarantees. But it took us a long time. Our first funders were actually ex founders like us who had determined who had seen the problem cell. The second son was anchored by Jason Finger, who had started Seamless, folded to brew pub and deeply understood the problem that we were doing. And then eventually, as soon as you build up enough data, you can start going to larger and larger creditors. Two shins. But it took a long time, and I have an enormous amount of respect for kind of our early credit backers because that was, uh, that was not easy. And you just raised, what, 250 million for a new fund for any fine? Yeah, and, well, that's fun. Be any difference in its mission and intention from what you've been doing? No, it's see, it's the same thing. We just want to expand. We want to expand right now with service e commerce. Business is, we want to expand its different verticals. We want to expand it a different geography of this year. We're in Canada and the U. S. Marshal, the UK, and are looking at other places because if we think it's hard for founders in Canada and the U. S. To get capital to grow their business, it's even harder in international markets where the venture capital system is way less developed and the banks are even more conservative. And I think that you could do a lot when you empower every founder at every level, depending on what they're building. Yes. And the other questions Over here. Over here. Hi. My name is creamy. Someone can. The nun with our PC. My question for you is, uh, back to your roots. Where did you go for your engineering degree? Oh, I am. I went to Queens. My, uh you know, by second year I had figured out that I was gonna be much better at building businesses in building bridges. And so I started this little sustainable coffee shop on campus called the Tea Room. The still there 11 years later. And I credit the university for forgiving me that ability to be entrepreneurial in in kind of the early days. You know, people ask me all the time like, Well, why were you successful in like I just failed more started earlier. When you're 21 it's a lot easier to fail than being 31 on your How do you encourage young women and men do what you did because to start up that age is, um you think you need to have capital or you need to have backing you. How do you do that? Yeah, I think, um, you gotta remind young people today that it's easy to become an entrepreneur than it's ever been in the entire course of history. I mean, I always think of this like pets dot com example. You probably covered from a merely days. Well, I just Carolyn Iverson, who's one of the most senior executives that Facebook was part of that founding team recovered from that. And it wasn't It was that it was a $1,000,000 servers. It was a $1,000,000 to build that website. And, you know, $2 million get going. I mean, that entire process today cost you 100 bucks. You can get started with an online e commerce account. You can get going with AWS, and even better, you could do a Kickstarter and see if people actually want your product before you have to make any of it. And so I say this on dragons and all the time, like it literally cost you almost nothing to figure out if you have a good idea today and that envy Global Instant, Let it be globalist Lee. And so that should really reduce the risk of young people starting and seeing if they can figure this out. Because more founders we can create the more global problems I think we can solve. I mean, I personally look at, you know, the trillions of dollars that governments have invested in climate change, and the biggest difference that has been made in the U. S. Is the nest thermostat and the entrepreneur that built cars and trucks. People want to drive. And so if we want to look a real solutions for the future, I think that all comes in and backing entrepreneurs. And I think that that's part of my own personal mission, the McClure vanquishing That is an inspiring note to end on. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you so much for being here.

Two Fortune 500 CFOs on How They're Shaping Company Vision

CFOs of The Estée Lauder Companies and Gilead Sciences join Fortune’s MPW International Summit.

So this is, you can tell from my trees. Introduction thing is really not a conversation about numbers anymore. CFO's uh, by the way, there's a great article in fortune. Last year our former colleague Leigh Gallagher did on the influence the CFO's air having it cos it's really well worth a read if you get the opportunity. So today we have Tracy Travis, CFO of Estee Lauder, before that CFO of Ralph Lauren High Fashion, but started a GM engineer. I love that, um, Robin Washington CEO. Excuse me, CFO of Gilead Sciences. Sorry. Also a board member of Honeywell Sales Force and Alphabet and Robin count everybody a little bit about Gilead and its role in the AIDS uh, crisis. Sure. So Gil EOD is a 20 plus year bio pharmaceutical company that really was pioneering relative to making HIV a livable, chronic disease. We haven't cured it yet, but we're very focused on it. Um, and we now see everyone remembers. You know, in the eighties and nineties, people were dying in their twenties. The average age of an HIV patient that takes treatment today is 50 plus years old, and they'll live a normal, healthy life with one pill one today, and we continue to advance in that regard. And we're also focused a lot on prevention as well for those that aren't infected ways that we can ensure that they don't ever get the horrible disease. That's fascinating and important work. So let's start with you, Tracy. And in terms of the changing nature of the CFO, you're on your way to China in a few days. Um, talk about the importance of geopolitics to your job right now. It's very important. So everyone knows Estee Lauder Cos we're have 30 brands on dhe. Much of our business is actually global. So 70% of our business is actually outside of North America edible. So we have a tremendous amount of growth in a lot of emerging markets in China being being certainly one of them. So between my CEO and myself, we spend a fair amount of time traveling to China, Hong Kong, other other countries to really, you know, make sure that we're investing appropriately in growth opportunities. Geopolitical events, you know, have a tremendous impact. So, obviously, all of the discussion today on trade between the US and China there was no conversation last night about US Canada tensions, US Mexico. Tensions on all of those things have an impact on us. From a business standpoint. The Hong Kong protests and sales in Hong Kong. Hansel sales in Hong Kong. We just talked about it on our earnings call a few ah, few weeks ago are down quite a bit. Azia. Result of of protests and in stores being being shut, Andi areas being blocked. So it has a big impact. It also has a big impact on currency markets. And so, you know, if we look at currency volatility, um, you know, and, uh, um, you know, and how we manage that from the company's standpoint, those are all things that a cz, the CFO you're really engaged in an involved with the management team on How do you personally stay ahead of the curve on that? Do you? What do you read? You goto Council on Foreign Relations events. I mean, how do you have you stay abreast? Yeah, I am a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. Well, at the Economic Club of New York. So? So those air great sources of information and other things as well so I mean, I do. I spend a fair amount of time on weekends just keeping up with everything that's that's going on with the Financial Times fortune on DA and other other periodical. But we also get an awful lot of intelligence from our teams on the ground. So we have boots on the ground and more than 150 countries, and we rely on our general managers a lot as well. Thio tell us what's going on in the market, Um and, uh, and what they're saying from A from a consumer standpoint, in a customer standpoint as well, really interesting, Robin. Also, the CFO's role has changed in terms of making sure companies or more purpose driven. And you talk about CFO's meeting now and e Q. What did you mean by that? Yeah. I mean, I think, um, the person introduces said it very well. The job is very much beyond the numbers. I mean, really a business partner to the CEO to the management gene, and I do think e Q is really important because I believe you're great fearful when you can really understand the business. The higher level economic issues, the industry the competition. So having that e Q and ability to reach out and understand what's happening around the world in your company to meet across the various areas, being able to be a spokesperson, not only to our investors but the other stakeholders, I think really important gives you a better pulse of what's going on. And I find now what shareholders and they won't understand your strategy. Where you're going, you're being Yes, profitable. Growth is important. But being a responsible company, for instance, one of the things that Gilead is known for is in addition to our commercial business. We're known for our access business, where we have a model in place where we work with Indian generics that can formulate our products at a much lower cost that allows it to be used in countries that could never afford access to our medicines. But global access is really important for us, particularly with helping reduce the spread of HIV AIDS. The other piece of this as being purpose driven is it. Employees are more concerned and more activist when it comes to social issues and you particularly in congratulations, you've just joined the alphabet board. But sales force. You've seen some employees protests over three use of technology by Border patrol, I believe. But how do you How do you have companies cope with that? Yeah, I think it is, Um, even going back to the Business Roundtable. I just think being responsible and thinking about all stakeholders is just much more important in our world today. And if you think about the next generation of employees, they want to be part of purpose led organizations. They want to know that their work, whether it's being a software engineer or whatever, is being used for good purposes and good. And I think this is something that not only technology companies have to tackle, but all cos we do as well as just being responsible employees and thinking about ethical use of our products. Um, you know how they get distributed, how they get you. So it's it's this broader platform and responsibility if the companies have to be aware of. I mean, it could be brand destroying if you're not, but I think it's just become really important to have that broader focused on a lot of different brand destroying. So I mean, our company has been known, I think, for for years being a company that very caring about their employees and caring about, you know, multiple societal manners we have, along with the with the great work that Caylee Out is doing in terms of pharmacy pharmaceuticals as it relates to a our Mac brand is has done a lot of fund raising for the church and, for a related causes, has raised several $100 million. There were over over a couple of decades as it relates to that. Breast cancer research is also an area that, uh hey Lauder on Breast Cancer Research Foundation have really focused a lot. On an earlier this year, we announced SG initiative. So you know, when you think about beauty products, you know, packaging, ingredient transparency are all things from an environmental standpoint, carbon footprint that we've announced gold for this year and are making a lot of progress. And again, to Robin's point, very important, important for employees, very important for consumers. You know, the finance team, you know, is involved in all of these areas. So making sure that, you know, we're capturing the metrics, um and, uh and we're communicating them appropriately and working with the teams on. Actually, how do we implement some of these some of these programs and get get value out of them as well? Because there is the balance between the investment that you're making in order to become a sustainable company and the return on that which is a long, you know, long term return. But they're also opportunities for short term. But what advice? So for dealing with employees. Protests on one protest from stakeholders, whether its employees protesting something that is part of your business in the key part of your business, and employees may not even be right in your mind A or B, you've The cosmetics industry has been the target of pita protests. For example, what's your advice to on on addressing those issues and getting ahead of the curve? I think transparency is just evermore important that you're explaining your strategy. You're explaining me. We talk a lot about engaging with being government. Obviously, you know, for a lot of companies where the government is the primary healthcare system, those are customers, and I think getting in front of describing how you get back to the communities. But more importantly, how you're focused on innovation and ultimately improving. Enhancing the lives of the employees or customers used employees and customers that you serve is really, really important. And I think getting that story out there and that engagement it's really critical. I mean, you're never going to please everyone. I think any time you're in innovative areas, you may run across controversies. But I think being transparent and being open and discussing what you're trying to do and and listening as well I think that the engagement early engaging and it's very, very important and understanding the issues and to the extent that we you can actually help some of those issues, we certainly we certainly try to questions. Raise your hand and a paddle will come and I'll continue the Congress. Oh, bek. Here. Go ahead. Hi. Good morning, Chiltern. A bet with Jen Packed you both talked about at the ethics and sustainability. So I've got two questions. Tracy. Estee Lauder. Um, the sustainability goals you just talked about, I think 75 100%. Your packaging is supposed to be reusable. Recyclable by 2025 right? Can you talk a little bit about Thea reengineering the execution effort in the supply chain and how you manage. You talked about this a short versus long term impact on margin and then the narrative in the C suite as well as with investors, and that's a big one on then. The second question is to the both of you, since you both are on corporate boards and very esteemed corporate boards. Um, some specifics around how that's been a creative to you professionally as well as in the context of your CFO rolls. So let's start with the 1st 1 for both of you. To they. You know the decision about deploying resource is in the and how you make those positions and how you make the argument the narrative. So in terms of in terms of packaging, I mean we do about 30% on average of our innovation. Every year, somewhere between 25 to 30% is new innovation. And so we have an opportunity as we launch new products to make sure that we're doing that with sustainable packaging. We're also looking at some of our, um you know, uh, regular product lines and ah addressing addressing packaging, some of the cartons, making sure that some of those air reusable looking at other ingredients as well. So they had a big financial investment to do that. It is a some financial investment. Again, we're gonna make financial investments anyway in innovation. So you know, the more broadly that we can actually look across our portfolio for those investments on, the more we can engineer the costs down. And so there is some investment, but but again, important to our consumers and certainly from a long term perspective, the view that we take is it's right for, you know, the environment. It's right for the company and over the long term will have an impact on sales if we don't address some of those issues. So that's the investor philosophy. And that's certainly our philosophy as we approach some of the GSG initiative as it relates to the boards. I mean, I joined my first public company board about 16 years ago. I've been a public company CFO for about 18 years, my first public company CFO role, and it was, ah, a terrific experience. The first sport I was on with Jo Ann Stores. I think as a CFO, it gave me a better perspective on how to actually serve the CFO are served the board in my company and, uh, and what I was interested in what I needed to be an effective board member. It's certainly something that I learned and took back to the various CFO roles. I've had sense. So I think it's been a tremendous, tremendous help Thio my role to actually be on boards. And I encourage everyone who can be on a board to be on a board and just understand what's important from a governance standpoint. Thio to make sure that the company can continue toe, operate and operate successfully with the board. Yeah, maybe I'll start with the second question and go back. I wholeheartedly agree with Tracy. Actually joined my first board before I became a CFO. Which waas? Tektronix? Yeah, so it was through, um, the audit chair. I was the corporate controller. People softened. We were going through a hostile takeover. I was involved in a lot of different areas, and he was very much a sponsor of putting me on my first board, where I was the only female and three only person of color. But I think it really just helped frame for me, to Tracy's point, the role of the board thinking as a CFO, more strategically regarding kind of stepping back. And I actually think being able to be on board that's outside of the core industry that you're in is really critical. You see things that are different but also things they're like. But I think it just helps make you a much more strategic thinker. Was just interviewing with Mastic about how I believe being abort member made me a better CFO in a lot of different ways, and I to very much encouraged Ford Service if you can make it work with your day job. I and I actually even think board members that have day jobs is really great as well, because I think you're right in the midst of seeing things evolve so you can benchmark and better understand areas with regard to sustainability. Agree. I think Ear D It's more and more important to our investor base. It's also very important to our employees. You know, we outsource a lot of our manufacturing, but we look at sustainability and best practices were in a regulated industry, so these things are very important. The facilities that we do own were very green. We were just named one of the top companies around sustainability in terms of just water usage, you know, carbon usage, etcetera. But I I'm just galvanized by seem, employees interest in ensuring we're doing the right things by our environment as well. So we're very engaged in those areas. Yes. Thank you. So reintegrate yourself. Sorry. Claudia Ramon Edelman. Um, I used to work for the Secretary General when we were launching the sustainable Development goals on our dream in our office wants to have, um, the sustainable development goals move from corporate surfer responsibility. The little corner, you know, little office in the corner, Toby, come early lead more like the C e O. And then moved to CMO se. But I think that the real thing and the Secretary General of the Times said like but change will never happen until it heats the CFO. Do you think that you're Do you think that CSR has moved into the C suites? Who's responsible now for CSR on? Do you think that you're alone or pioneers? CFOs actually understanding of, you know, like sustainability on purpose. Now that you know your emperor used on investment and so on. And when you answer that question, can you not just speak? I know you both believe in the purpose of your companies, but speak broadly. Other companies have panic. Please. You know, I think Robin touched on it. You know, investors more and more particularly European investors have, you know, always had they were, ah, ahead in terms of really caring about, you know, e SG issues on dhe whether or not we were good corporate citizens from an environmental standpoint, et cetera. But Maur and Maur investors now in the U. S. As well. Black Rock obviously has come out with a statement as it relates thio to corporate citizenship of the Business Roundtable that we've we've spoken about. So it is very important that the CFO be involved inside the company in terms of what investments are we making in this area and making sure that we're making progress because we're engaging with investors. Andi were engaging with the board board's arm or interested in this as well, recognizing the importance to long term corporate sustainability, right? I also would just add to Tracy's comments with JJ. I agree with I think in the CFO Sweet. You're about measuring things. And so I think it does give you another base of really thinking about the metrics, et cetera, that show not only additional value that you're adding, um, you know, in terms of improving environment but hopefully turning them into financial investments for your company. So I think that aspect has made it very important. And I know there are a lot of this is there's a great initiative in the UK that I've involved with. It's really focused on sustainability, and we started to move that to the U. S. Think about, um, you know the opportunity to advance that in the in the financial areas within the U. S. I do think it's a really important topic, and it's a great way to engage younger finance folks in other ways that you can add value in company beyond just the basic blocking and tackling. And at least in our company, there is a leader of the sustainability initiative. But I'm the executive sponsor way. We're running out of time. I want you each to give you both incredibly success. Awful leaders give us one very quick piece of advice on leadership to this room, being a successful leader. What have you learned, Robin? I think being a continuous Lerner is something that I've learned the world is constantly evolving on. Guy would say. The other thing that I think's been a critical point in my career is being comfortable being uncomfortable because I think when you're pushing and driving and developing yourself, you're learning. And it's the other side of that uncomfortable that come comfortable. This when you start to really realize how you continue evolved about here, get out of your comfort zone. You know that I I would agree with that 100% in terms of, you know, the learning aspect of taking risks in your career. Um and, um, and continuing Thio learn and grow and develop from that very much a part of building yourself a leader. I've had so many varied experiences in my career. I think it helped me certainly in this role be a better, better CFO, another business oriented CFO. We're both extraordinary leaders and we thank you for coming and sharing your insight and wish you the best. You both have exciting chapters ahead. Thank you. Thank you

Catherine, thank you for joining us. Thank you. And it's also super interesting that you made the time because you have a ten- week- old baby at home. I do yeah. What's that like to be one of the rare women and the mining industry, young, leading the organization and a ten- month- old baby? Ten week old baby. Ten weeks. Ten weeks. Yes is stressful. No It's been quite entertaining actually. Only in so far as the chaps I work with have absolutely no experience with dealing with the issues associated with. Being pregnant and growing in size and not knowing whether to comment on this or not. [ LAUGH ] And maternity leave and not, you know, because I've got to the point where I'm management, I've not just switched off, you know, I've not disappeared, but at the same time I'm not going into the office every day. I've just had a baby so balancing that now luckily, I had my first child. When I just joined Barrett and I had a sort of non role I describe it so there was some experience of how I was gonna stay attached stay in touch. But yes the last few weeks have been entertaining only and so far as these chaps with desperately trying very hard to be helpful, Accommodating, but with no experience, keep asking me whether they're doing a good job. [ LAUGH ] Don't you like it when men do that, that's genius. But you've also taken a different trajectory of joining the mining industry. Because you're only 38, but you are chief operating officer, you had the role of CFO And the journey has been very different to many of the men in your organization. How did you skip the line? Well, I used my brain [ LAUGH ] was so I was a geologist originally. So I studied natural scientists at Cambridge specialized in geology, did a mining finance masters thinking I'd go into sort of evaluations in the mining industry. A combination of not wanting to go out to the middle of nowhere and do my three years in the field in order to get back to the office, which was the normal route. As well as being the bottom of the last commodity cycle, so it was just after the dot- com bubble, 2002, 2003. I went to work for Merrill Lynch instead of going to work for [ UNKNOWN ], which were my two options. And so luckily, Over the next decade, we had this huge commodities boom I was a portfolio manager ended up being co managed with the largest mining fund in the world. Got me huge amounts profile, got me a lot of experience very quickly. Which then meant i could effectively as you say leapfrog and get myself into a position where my background and my expertise is around strategy, around finance, around investors. It's a very different angle To the typical mining root and at the time the new chairman was looking for new blood, looking to change the behavior of mining and that's a lot of what we're going to talk about, actually trying to change the way the mining industry behaves. And I suppose to some extent epitomize that having me. Up there. Not only do I think differently, I look differently, I sound different. It just, created an opportunity that for me was too good to pass up. To talk us through the strategy because that's quite important when we look at gold, it's always been, The standard. How important in your eyes, [ UNKNOWN ] you look at technology and all of the changes and geopolitics and tensions, how important has gold become in this time? Is it relevant? Is it coming back? Where is it at? What's fascinating gold, everyone always says it's a barbarous relic. In fact, that's kings who said it was a barbarous relic. When was that 100 years ago, if not more, that it's somehow going to lose its, glitter blisters, Shakespeare would say, the thing is It always comes back to being that store of value. Now I brought a prop with me She's got a prop. To illustrate the point, which is, here is a note from a country. It's the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and it's a $ 100 trillion note And what this illustrates is just the danger of feared currency, of paper money. And the danger of people trying to manipulate currencies in order to get themselves out of the problems that they face. Now, today and over the last decade we've seen a huge amount of that, quantitative easing, debt crises, we've seen interest rates being cut. This manipulation of currencies in order to solve human problems. The thing about gold is the only way you can get more gold is to dig it up. So on the whole gold supply increases by no more than 2 % per annum. And what that does is it means its value is very tangible. And literally it's tangible in that to hold a bar of gold you feel the weight of it. And so for centuries for thousands of years That has had value and and we can see today with gold having rallied very rapidly from 1200 to 1500. Whether it's trade wars with China, whether it's you know, the drones attacking a Saudi oil refinery whether it's Currency manipulation and in particular the interest rate rises or interest rate cuts. So now we're looking at a weaker economy and interest rates cuts in the US. What people do is go to safe havens and gold is the epitome of safe haven. And so yes, this keeps me sane. So whenever someone tells me that cryptocurrencies are gonna take the place of gold, I look at this And I realized that I would still rather have my gold sovereigns hidden away, that I can pass on to next generations that a mobile that can come with me wherever I go, that will be forever fungible into any currency than ever trust paper. If anyone wants to see what 100 trillion dollars looks like in Zimbabwe, please do Couch Catherine as she's leaving. And here it comes the question about technology, then because it's gold is gold at the end of the day it comes down to mining. It comes down to human beings in those mines and technologies playing that big part. How does AI? How does digitalization change The very waggled functions for you as a company as a product and how does it impact the workforce? How are you implementing it at this point? Well the pain thing really is around what there are three areas that technology is really gonna help Gold money in particular, but mining in general. So the first thing as a commodity business, you can't really change your revenue line. I speak as a former CFO so you don't have the flexibility that a lot of other companies have, which is you evolve or change your revenue line to be able to increase profits. So everything is always around costs. Or it's around producing more. And so technology and AI in particular provide us the opportunity to prevent the margin erosion that we're currently seeing. So we're seeing taxes increase. We're seeing the environmental cost, the social cost of mining going up. We're seeing huge pressures on the money exchange in general. So when you look at the opportunity of automation taking people out. And when you look at the opportunities of ALI to stop [ UNKNOWN ] to actually be able to react in milliseconds rather than days to things. And approve efficiency's. They're always protecting your margin over time. The second thing, which I think is most important is around the changing nature of the workforce. One is that the safety element of mining it's a dangerous job mining, unfortunately particularly when you are Underground and so by being able to remove people from that danger, particularly the face of underground where you've got seismic activity you have the potential for rock for instance. But also tracks moving around. We had a terrible terrible accident the other day with a bus. Having an accident on the road, just tracking people to work. You're always going to be at risk, and so by automating, what you do, is remove some of that. And the workforce also is changing. So if I look at the demographic in Nevada, which is under my domain, The average age is 47. So 50 % of your working population is over 47 an dthe challenge we've got over the next 20 years is they are all gonna be retiring. And what we don't have is a huge amount of young blood coming into the industry. And we have to attract that young blood. We have to make mining somewhere they want to go to, somewhere cutting edge, somewhere that's going to be full of opportunity rather than people fearing that it's the same old drudgery that job cuts whenever the commodity price goes down. How do you do that with Automation, because there in lies the fear that you wouldn't have the talent that wants to do the job. But then with technology in the eye, you have sexier fields to go into as competitors. People would rather work at an electric car company, than be Dealing with mining perhaps. How do you win that battle when you are implementing the technology? Well it's a peer in fact. >. Yeah .>> Because the application of those techologies to miners is just important. Effectively what we're changing is, we're taking the truck drivers and turning them to data analysists We're taking the mining engineers and making them AI specialists. And it's changing the nature of our business. And so, that's also the big pressure In terms of communicating to communities and to governments. It's not about taking jobs away, it's about changing the nature of the jobs and making them much more transferable skills. So the biggest challenge we have is in Northern Nevada, you're in Elko, you've got a small population. You want to be able to offer them opportunities that means they don't have to leave that town. And if you can provide them with those kind of hi- tech skills in the local college, [ UNKNOWN ] in college, well then the whole approach to the business and to the industry is going to change. And so yes, for us, it is very much taking What we're supposed to Old World skills and retraining or bringing in new blood and turn them into the electric car company in the future. In fact, Tesla is based now in northern Nevada too. So we're continuing to purchase a change in Questions from everyone in the room. That's one of the back [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Thank you so much Scotty Greenwood, Canadian American Business Council. The immediate past chair of our board Silla board member is Christina Erling from Barrick. So wonderful company, Great Investor in Public policy Kennedy USA but I just texted Christina because we have a board meeting here in Toronto tomorrow. And I said are you here, your COO is speaking at this Fortune conference and she said no she's not. She's on maternity leave. [ LAUGH ] I said she's here. And we agreed how kick ****. So anyway, Christina sends her best. I should have told Christina I was here, yes. Thank you. And she's doing a great job by the way. She is. Commutes to [ UNKNOWN ] to Washington D. C. which is a heck of a commute. But anyway thank you. And I think the other thing that highlights is the importance of building a team around you so Christina's government relations for North America but US and Canada and so my ability to step away I have no qualms doing that because I've got that team around me to do it, and that is, I think, the most important thing around, particularly in the mIning industry, is creating that support network that means that you don't feel guilty, you don't feel bad for not being there all the time. And it provides people opportunity as well. Any other questions in [ UNKNOWN ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Hi Jennifer Flannigan from actual. I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to any initiatives that Barrack is doing to invest in that workforce of the future. So you talked about reskilling but are you doing any. Long term planing to bolster that work force. Yeah, so great base in college, the reason I mentioned them which is the sort of local tertuary college in [ UNKNOWN ]. We've partnered with them effectively to create the core skills that we're looking for in the future. So we've got it both on the electrician side of it for manual skills but also data analytic skills to bring it in locally, and then what we're doing is we've tried both successfully and unsuccessfully the last two or three years was partnering with smaller Companies. So, one is automation. Driverless trucks in Nevada. We couldn't get any of the big manufacturers, Caterpillar, Sandvig, to engage. And, so what we've done is, we've partnered with some smaller outfits. Really to try and customize it to apply to the technology that we have on site, rather than having to buy brand new. So those are the two areas in particular. And then the final thing is we're actually introducing a graduate scheme. We've never really had a proper graduate scheme. Because of this boom- bust nature of mining industry, you hire when you can, and you let people go when you can't. And it's that lack of consistency, that lack of longevity, that I think has really held the mining industry back over the years. It would be great if we had time to talk more about the responsible mining agreement that you have been part of. But we Have pretty much run out of time but we would probably get into it if you can grab it on the way out as she runs back to her 10 we go baby. So thank you very much [ UNKNOWN ] for joining us, and it's been great having you [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Preparing Mining for a High Tech Future

Finance

Barrick Gold’s Catherine Raw on how her company is is ready for disruption


Welcome to most powerful women. Thank you. Your first one. So I'm going to start with a I just said to Jessica backstage I said I'm going to I'm going to start with a very general question. Answer it however you like. Okay, Jessica, What's your story? What's my story? Very broad question indeed. I grew up in a conservative town I wasn't exposed to much diversity when I was young. I knew that I felt different but I didn't know what it was. And it wasn't until high school that I could I learned what it was to be transgender and That there were options out there for me that I could transition. So shortly after high school I took some time off to try and figure out what I needed to do to be happy in my life. I went to a university, I began transitioning which is not the easiest process but Completely worth it and in 2015 I had gender affirmation surgery and it was the best thing I could have ever done in my life. Shortly after that, I decided to follow my passion which previously was hockey and I played in a recreational league. And that summer and then that winter I decided to play as high level as I could and I tried out for the Toronto furious and the CW HL and I made the reserve roster that year and then the next two years I've played on the full roster. Wow, that was good. That was really good, your life in a minute or so. [ LAUGH ] That's very interesting. So when you join the [ UNKNOWN ], no one on the team knew that you were transgender, is that correct? That's correct, yes. And was that stressful for you to be on this team with these best women hockey players in Canada? And them not to know your truth. At first I didn't think it was stressful. I didn't realize until after I came out how much stress I had been living under. I knew that I had worked my **** off. I knew I deserve to be there with them I knew I had the talent and skill and the work ethic to play with them. But, after I came out, it was like a weight had been lifted. I had one less thing to worry about. People finding out and I could just be me. I didn't have to worry about what I said about my past and it was really freeing. So, why and how did you decide to come out? I decided to come out because there is real need for visibility and representation and the LGBTQ + community. I came out to my team. I first told my coaches. And then I had them call a team meeting before one of our practises, and I had a speech prepared for my team with everything that I wanted to say, and I just told them all and left the room for them to digest the information that they had, that I had given them And shortly after they came out gave me hugs showed support. That's really, the best reaction that could have wanted. Wow. Did you not give your speech? You just said it and you didn't give your speech? I kind of had my notes in front of me and it was kind of reading from it. So I gave my speech I said everything that I felt that I needed to say in that moment. Did some of them know or think that you might or was this a surprise to everyone? As far as I know, it was a surprise to everyone. There was one player on my team who was from the same hometown as me. So I Think she may have known at some point, but I hadn't told anyone previously. What did you worry about coming out? What was the worry? The worry before coming out was that I would be rejected. I was worried how people would react Not necessarily the public but the people that were close to me, my hockey team, my family, my friends, I worried what they would think of me if they would reject me if they would. They wouldn't support me and if I would be able to continue to do the things that I loved. Did anyone reject you? No one close to me rejected me the only hatred I received was from, you know, online trolls trying to bring me down tell me that I didn't deserve to play with the people that I played with and really dis valuing all the hard work I put into it. Of course people online I mean and and How do you handle that? Do you respond to that? Do you go, do you still tweet Do you? How do you handle that horrible online traffic? For the most part, I ignore it. There's the hard time where I'm feeling especially sassy well, I'll respond to it, but. For the most part, I ignore the negativity because a lot of these people, there's no getting through to them, and I'm not gonna change their mind, so I try to be the bigger person. So you had a big disappointment recently, and tell this group what happened with the Canadian Women's Hockey League. Well, I believe it was March the Canadian women's hockey league folded which was absolutely devastating because it had become essentially my whole life besides my full- time job and my fiance I was at the gym five days a week running five days a week. Practice three days a week in Toronto, away all weekend for games. So it was essentially everything I did. So why did it fold? It folded because they said it wasn't economically viable for the long- term. Which I understand, it might not have had the most successful business model, and didn't grow as much as The skill of the players deserved for it to grow. So hopefully, we're gonna build something better, and set a sustainable future for young girls, so they can dream about playing hockey professionally. So we're gonna open it up in a second. I'm gonna ask you one question about this community. So Jessica drove in about an hour and a half from . Where do you live? What's your town? Kitchener .>> Kitchener from Kitchener, Ontario. And this morning she drove in and I said why did you decide to come and she was interested in this Communities she is very interested in helping what are on the diversity inclusion and inequality front. But very specifically what can this community do to help bring Equality to the transgender community and maybe help with this new hockey players association that you're starting. Well, this community has a lot of influence. And I think it's important as leaders to be able to. Use that influence to, create positive change. We have the ability to create conversations in places that don't typically have those conversations. This is why I came out as a transgender athlete. I wanted to create a conversation in the sports community, where they don't typically have a conversation about. A transgender athlete and kinda get the ball rolling on that. And Proctor & Gamble clearly is taking the lead on that. And what did you think of their commercial? I thought it was a great commercial, it seemed very genuine to me, which was awesome to see because positive representation is everything. But everyone can do that. Evertyone has marketing budgets here. So let's open it up, would does anybody have a question, comments? In the back right there? Yes? Hi my name is Tonya [ UNKNOWN ] and first of all thank you for being here. I think you have courage. Beyond what many of us can even understand so. This is a very personal question but can you talk a little bit about before coming out and you know, going kind of this whole period of exploration of who you were as a person. How did that affect you in the day to day world? Like good or bad? In the day to day world before coming out, When I was trying to figure out who I was, I suffered through a lot of depression, some really dark times and a lot of self hatred. It wasn't until I truly accepted who I was, and learned how to be my authentic self, that everything changed for me, I started to actually see a future for myself and a future that I wanted to live. So, I was pretty negative before and once I fully embraced who I was everything kind of flipped upside down for the better. How did your family handle this? My family was terrified to tell them but they have become some of my. Most, some of my strongest supporters, my parents instilled upon me from a very young age, to be to work hard, be positive, never give up and I can achieve anything I set my dream I can achieve anything I set my mind to me because of my parents. It's really shaped who I am as a person today. It's come around again and again and who I am. And then what I do from working endlessly to being a professional athlete. From my full time job, from speaking in front of an incredible room of people such as. Such as you all here. Everything I am and everything I do is because of my parents. There's a great video. What is about, eight or ten minutes long? Yeah, it's about that, yeah. Yeah, if you look up Jessica Platt, like YouTube, you'll come to this video. It's like a little short film. It's really great and The director or the filmmakers interview your parents. Yeah. And I just found your dad. So like, just so he was so he has a lovely about it. He has a way with words He does, and what did he say to you when I can't remember what he said in the video. I mean it was very moving, just, you'll have to watch it. So what are the lessons from what you experienced? Are there life lessons that you take out of this? That's really important to have a strong support system. My friends who Obviously I chose were very supportive of me. My family turned out to be incredibly supportive, which, obviously I was going to be a little bit worried about at first. But most importantly, I've learned that I'm really lucky to be who I am. A lot of people might not consider me lucky because I enter hatred on almost a daily basis from strangers. People who don't know anything about me. But I honestly believe I'm lucky because I know who I am and I know what I stand for I stand for equality, I stand for people who can't, I stand for people who don't feel like they can share their voice, and I hope that they find strength in mine. And we live in a world now where we can choose, right? Yes. Yeah, and we can live our truth? Yes. Who else has a question, anyone else? Yes, over here. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Hi, Pam Moore. And again, I share the thanks for sharing your story. Jessica, I guess all of us come from a, I would like to believe all of us come from a place of good intent. And do you have any words for those of us who are trying to create inclusive environments just things that we should just be thinking of That maybe it seems so obvious to you, but maybe not to us. Right, just be open and willing to learn new things. Be accepting and receptive if someone comes to you with sensitive information, But I mean bear in mind these are leaders of some of the biggest companies in Canada, the United States the world these are women with, who oversee a lot of people. And whether they're in HR or marketing or running a company or running a division. They have a lot of ability to change, make major changes in diversity and inclusion, so I don't know should they be doing what Procter and Gamble is doing? Should they be? I mean any Yeah, definitely. I know. Positive representation is important. It's something I keep coming back to. But my fiance and I at home we get absolutely thrilled when we see, for example, a same sex couple on TV, not just because we see someone that It's like us. We, we see that a company is accepting we see that, they're progressive we see. We see positivity we see them willing to make a change. When you get married Summer 2021 probably. Fantastic. Congratulations Jessica. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Equity: On and Off the Playing Field

Sports

Jessica Platt is the first transgender woman to play in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.


So as Janet settles down, I have a question to ask you. Can you list the restaurants you have at the moment on the books with Gusto? Sure. So we have, I opened it as cafe, [ UNKNOWN ] Then Gusto 101, King West area. Pai northern Thai, Kin another royal Thai restaurant, Chubby's Jamaican Kitchen, Felix in Los Angeles, and we're under construction for five more restaurants. So here's the question for all of you how many of you have eaten in one of Janet's restaurants? Here's your audience, they know your food. Wow, okay. I can also put my hand up and ask them the MPW coachella team because we actually merged to get dinner at Ken. So when you have so many restaurants, can I ask the audience, who loves the food at these restuarants and who does? Put your hands up if you love it. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] All right, for those who've been, who don't love it as much? I think that's pretty obvious. Would they really put their hands up? Eh, they would. It's a pretty honest crowd. Sisters supporting a sister. Eh, but is also a pretty honest crowd. So here's the question You have a loyal fan base in Toronto, you have a loyal fan base in LA now with Philex, where there is a weightless for a while. The party sellers did not believe. How is Philex different to Your entire setup in Toronto. And how do you convince people like Patty that is amazing experience? Well, Patty was a little lukewarm and she told me she was going to LA tomorrow and I said, Well you have to eat at my restaurant Felix and And she was like, yea tell me more like, how good is it? And I said ask your friends because it's a hard restaurant to get into, so when I opened up Felix two years ago Esquire Magazine about three months after we opened said we were the number one new restaurant in all of America, so being a Canadian woman I was just. So proud of myself and the team that we had such incredible accolades. So it's a tough restaurant to get into. We have a wait list of 300 people a night to get into the patty. I got you. Yeah. [ LAUGH ] Getting you in. There you go. So The way you set up your business, the story of it is quite different from the way a lot of businesses I mean in the restaurant industry work. Your strategy is being quite different. Run us through the start, because I know I've read about and we talked about it as well that you took the money that your father set aside for you wedding And put it into your first business nervosa and then you followed a specific path that is not common in the restaurant industry, which is what explain how the success of gusto happens. Well, I was asked to be a partner at Novosa and so I was in partnership with a man who was a, [ UNKNOWN ] for four and half years. And I like to coin that relationship was so destroying. It was an awful, awful relationship And after four and half years of being partners and I used money from an investment I made in my 20s by asking my father to give me money and still not married. Never say never but glad may my father rest in peace but I got the wedding money. Is a smart move. Got to ball, roll in. And the happiest day of my life is when I bought this parter out ., and I decided that point I was going to just do it on my own for a while And took on no partners I didn't take on any financing. I just built a company on my own slowly. I thought the smart idea would be to buy real estate. So I saved my money selling Margarita pizzas, and I bought the corner of your cuddle in bel air and I think it's a very important piece of real estate in Toronto. After I purchased that real estate, I felt that I had a very solid foundation. And from there, that's when I started to go out and buy other buildings and then put restaurants in these other buildings. So I own the majority of the real estate where the restaurants are, and I'm not gonna be purchasing many more buildings. I don't think it's the way to really grow I think my foundation is Solid and i'll just concentrate now on proliferating with restaurants. So explain how the strategy is going to change because at the end of the day this is now becoming a behemoth of an empire five new restaurants to in LA property prices are interesting is a polite way i can say it How do you plan to change the way the company functions? How are you going to raise the millions that this is going to cost? So 5 restaurants under construction each restaurant costing us you know on average. You know give or take about $ 5 million to open up each restaurant self- funded up until this point we'll have 13 restaurants and moving forward. I'm going to look for another way. To grow the company, anyone who want to invest? [ LAUGH ] Anyone know of any private equity companies with unlimited finds? I would probably got to a private equity company, perhaps sell a portion of the restaurant group, and then have access to unlimited funds to grow, because i feel like we're just getting warmed up. You're just getting warmed up with another facet that's changing, which is fascinating for me that the restaurant business. One of the elements in the new business or the new restaurant is going to be cannabis. Tell us a little bit more about how I can eat a meal that's going to be healthy, which is what your entire empire is based on with a heck of a lot of cannabis thrown in. Yeah. So we have a new concept that's opening in downtown L. A.. It's called Gusta green and the focus really is about health and wellness and we truly believe that cannabis is going to play a part in that CBD and cannabis. And right now it's not legal to infuse food with THC or CBD. So the food is infused with adapted genes to help support your health and when it becomes legal we will then infuse the food with THC and CBD, which is really going to be like alcohol is now today. And we do infused dinner parties, private dinner parties now in Toronto. And we will be also catering private dinner parties in LA Infusing. Infusing. Mm- hm. How does that work? You just take THC, you distill it down. You want five milligrams? How do you wanna feel? You wanna feel a little happy or gonna make you feel happy? Is that gonna be on the menu there? Yeah. That's interesting, because it's a fascinating job of balancing Healthy food with what is possibly a new way to look at things. It's a balancing act that you do quite well. You are by Coastal you live in LA and in Toronto, you run business and on both sides. You also somehow managed to balance your work with having a very high profile relationship. How do you do that because it cannot be An easy ride for Janet to be dating, a legend of return up at Tiff, open Tiff with a with an amazing documentary about him and then run back to other restaurants. I know. How do you do that? Life is really exciting right now. With a little title [ UNKNOWN ] I love it. Yeah. So my boyfriend is Robbie Robertson. I don't know if you know him, but he was the lead of the band. And his documentary film opened, which I'm very, very proud of him. And he now did the music score for Martin Scorsese's The Irishman. So we go to New York and do that and My life is very full and his life is very full and sometimes I think it's better to have a relationship where both lives are kind of going at the same pace. He's mega famous and I'm not though, so. Do you regret using the wedding money for the restaurants then? [ LAUGH ] Well here's the question for everyone, we've all eaten at the restaurants Any questions from the audience about the very interesting way that Janet's run, her business, built it up. And of course, if anybody wants a table at Felix. Thank you. Hi, so nice to meet you. Scotty Greenwood, Canadian American business council. And I just wanna put this out there for Talking later because I'm on the board of directors of a company called Tilray. It's a cannabis company publicly traded on NASDAQ, and I think we wanna invest in you. Seriously. She found an investor .>> [ APPLAUSE ] This is called sisterhood. Anyone else? Thats awesome. Anyone else either wanna have a question or invest with Janet's company and THC? Well, here's a question right? Wait for the mic. Hey, Paula. I told displeasure we know each other. So I have known Janet when she only had nervosa and I just want to make a comment. So extraordinary proud. Of your accomplishment, and just the way things are going since 20 years ago? Yeah. Yeah. 20 years ago. And in those 20 years, I think people forget when people become celebrities, get on television, judge TV shows, and cooking shows. That there is a whole history that was That was involved in building up that empire. There's another history that you've had possibly access to view, which would be the Me Too movement in the food industry. You very famously love having a clean home. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] And you threw out Mario Batali his books recently. What was the story there? And how do you turn around and say, okay, in my industry, I can be the change, because I've worked from the ground up to build us up. Yeah. I think it's very different when you know, myself being Owning my own company and being a woman, the majority of the leadership in my company are women. We need to Dixon sitting front and center here president of the restaurant group. You know, zero tolerance. You know it's never gonna happen when you have women at the top And you're never gonna have that's just men behaving badly. We don't tolerate it. So it's zero tolerance. And I used to respect Mario Batali and I collect cookbooks, but keeping his Cookbooks it's like bad juju. It's like it just brings me down and it's supporting him. So I have to get rid of that because I don't support that kind of behaviour. But did you see that happen in the 20 years while you were building up the business before you were John Zuccarini. Did you see this happen? Did you Hear about it, did you hear about it from other chefs, from other industry groups, in your own chain? Yeah, I would hear about it definitely in all the restaurants. It's very prevalent in the male dominated industry, of the restaurant business. But definitely zero tolerance in my company. I've never had any incidents of any kind of me too movement. It doesn't make a difference when it's a female leadership team ?. Yeah, the fish rots from the head down. Whatever is happening at the top is going to happen below. So, you set the tone and absolutely zero tolerance. Because it's a heated environment, isn't it? A kitchen Is heated you have all the stress between the front of house and the kitchen in itself. Yeah. How do you balance that if you have a female leader? How's it different from the rest of the industry? It's really hiring great people surround yourself with great people. Surround yourself with people that have the same values, concerns outlooks. And I've never had a minute of this as even a conversation in my company, because I won't tolerate, I don't hire for that I hire the right attitude. And this may sound corny but we run a company based on love. Right we need a wee wee and a lot of meetings saying I love you. Love you too. Does that work? Yeah it really does. I'm just wondering if the front of house is going around saying I love you. That causes another problem altogethe [ LAUGH ] No, it's the right kind of love. Well it's [ UNKNOWN ] It's the right kind of love and people are absolutely key to your your business and that's something that you seem to have learned from family. You can give an interesting family background, your father was Italian Your mother was German. What would your mother say? Because John is one of three sisters and all three of you are extremely successful. If your mom had to look at you now and describe the three of you as a food item that you grew up with, what would the three of you be? Right > Each of you. My my sister, Jennifer. She's a fashion designer out of New York City. She has a brand called flirt a mall. And she's beautiful. She's smart, she's witty, so I think she has many layers to her. So I think my mother would say she's 100 layer of lasagna. [ LAUGH ] How is that. My sister Jackie, who my father brought the first espresso machine into Canada after it was invented. My sister now carries on that business espresso coffee machines. and people think she's really soft, but she's really strong on the inside. So I would say my mother is a she's a tiramisu. Really strong espresso. And I was a child actress and my mother would say I was a ham. But I will say like thin really thinly sliced parachuto though, played a beautiful reshoots and I'm fan of Emily's list parachuto. How's that? I think that's brilliant. I've never heard someone describe themselves as parachuto though but okay. Only Janet can, so thank you Janet. There's a special little announcement that I wanted to make because Janet did something very sweet for our little community. She has a special treat for all of you. So when you leave today, after lunch Gusto 54 special biscotti is going to be gifted as you depart an MPW event. So you have something to snack on your way to work or to the airport. Wherever you're going after this, so thank you Janet for that. Great being here. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

How Janet Zuccarini Built a Culinary Empire 

The CEO of Gusto 54 Restaurant Group joins Fortune’s MPW International Summit.


Solving Humanity's Biggest Challenges

we're going to space and back. But we're going to first start in Iran. You are born in Iran. You actually lived through the Iranian Revolution before you, like so many of the Iranian be espera, um, and brilliant brain power moved away. Tell us about Iranian women. Um, I can tell you, um, interacting with Iranian woman in Iran on dhe abroad. I think that Iranian weren't are one of the most powerful women communities in the world. They had to be because they went through Revolution Wars, conflict. And they're the ones that have to keep the family together. They have to push things forward. I know many women when we came here with their family, their husbands went too deep depression because they lost high paying jobs on their careers and their lives in Iran. And they just thought that they will go back on the woman. I thought that well, I need to make ends meet for my family. So they stepped up, and now I think they have a lot of high powered careers here because of that's interesting. And speaking of high powered careers, one of the highlights of your career with 2006 you joined the space crew of the Russian spacecraft Soyuz, and you went to the international space station for 11 days. So you were out in space. Two questions. How did it change your life? And how did you wash your hair? Um, it was a dream off mine since a very young age to go to space. And I got this opportunity that exceeded all my expectations. I had dreamt about going to space. I imagine Hyde would be and how I would feel. And when I was actually there it just transformational for me. So to be able to see our world from, you know, to see Earth from space. Even though I have seen many pictures, it had a different impact. I could feel this energy off life. I could see the world for truly being our only home. And, you know, you grow up in geography classes and everywhere you see, um, I see these lines separating us. And when you see our planet from space, you are empowered in ways that it's beyond words. You feel like you belong to the entire human population on Earth so that the whole your home becomes the planet Earth and every single person on it becomes, you know, part of your clan in that way. And you also realize how small our world is and how unique it is a comfort to the entire universe. You see this dark background and all these stars and each have their own planet systems and you think to yourself, Well, you know, But look at it. This is beautiful, colorful, full of life and energy. And is this thin halo off a blue light, which is our atmosphere, which is the only reason we're alive on this planet on dhe, It makes you realize how important it is on its help. It helped me sort of put things in perspective. It was like I had my eyesight were not good. And I put on a glass for the first time, and everything cleared up on my life became in focus and, um, washing your hair my hair so I would not be the story last night. No showers on the space station on you stay there. I stayed there for 11 days, but some people say six months, so they're no showers. Get some towels. Wet towels every few days to clean yourself, but the hair becomes another issue. So most people actually cut their hair short, but I didn't. So you have water that you drink in this little containers. So what I did is to destroy with squeeze a little bit of water, making little water bubble over very slowly washes on. And I had to be very careful side Don't get the water bubbles flowing all over the station because we're in micro gravity so the water doesn't flow. It floats, right. It becomes a big issue when you return to you. You know, had a lot of photos taken when you look into that they worked on. And I should say that your name on the chez means immortal. So you've gone on, you know, it was so appropriate, I think space journey. But now you've gone on Thio to be CEO of the X Prize, and that is to tell everybody what that is and how it drives innovation. Sure. So I actually got involved with the X Prize Foundation many years ago from the beginning days when Peter Diamandis, the founder, came up with the idea of a prize that would propel the space industry and created commercial space program. And he modeled it after the aortic prize, which did the same thing with Lindbergh on the aviation. So when he started, no one would support the $10 million price on DDE. All the men around said too risky, So he found the only woman who says This is an amazing idea, You can the risk or Andy can actually get everyone to work on your passion on your project without saying anything and you only pay at the end. So that's what the competition doesn't. It was very successful and it created a leverage off the $10 million bringing $100 million in investment and creating a $2 billion industry now. And it brought a policy change and awareness like nothing before. So we took this model and we expanded it into solving humanity's grand challenges, where the lack of awareness, lack of investment lack off breakthrough on. We are in many different domains energy, food, health, environmental issues on. We run these large competitions because we believe the answers are out there. We crowd sourced this in a way. We put the framing off the problem. This is what you need to solve. You can be anyone from anywhere. You don't have to be a scientist or a mathematician or an engineer. You can be a tattoo artist. You tell them about the tattoo artist in the dentist. So one of our prizes, which Wendy Schmidt sponsored and she had a lot of our ocean prizes, this was about oil cleanup. It was right after the accident and the old bill that was taking everyone and, uh on because, like, let's do an X prize on we got together and launch this on Dhe. There was the tattoo artist in Las Vegas on one of his clients. Dentist was there and they were talking about this price. They had heard about it on the news and like, But if we do something and, uh, what do you use to clean the ink? And I have this instrument I use in dentistry. So they made up a team and they actually were one of our finalists. Onda. We hear a lot of stories like that. Just a few months ago, we awarded a junior high school team. $800,000 for winning are the bonus prize for our ocean discovery. Andi love that because we believe if you incentivize people and you give them a target to hit, then you have no idea what kind of innovation can come from where. Andre, we're very proud for a global what give us, like one or two problems that are out there, that there's a contest for that coming up. So right now we're very focused on environmental issues because time is running out for us. So we have an active carbon prize, which is a taking carbon out off a coal plant or a natural gas line and turning it into a product. And it's being tested. Actually one centers in Alberta, Canada, and one centers in Wyoming. We're in the final stages of testing, or 10 finalists were announced that the next year, and we're about to launch our largest ever carbon prize that is going to be about $100 million or more. On. It will be about extracting carbon as a very high rate to get to the gigatons that we need to get to and extracting it from the atmosphere on DDE, either turning it into a product for to create a reacting carbon like you could actually turn around global warming because you yet with distracting and turning it into a product. Because if we use all solar energy and stop putting so much, too in the actress, there's so much accumulation and still we will be producing so much more that we won't hit our target thing below one and 1/2 degrees. So we need to We need to do that. What? We're product be like me An example of the products that the teams are creating. It goes anywhere from, you know, shoes and flip flops to vodka to cement. So we have all sorts of creative ideas anything you polymers. OK, so tell Tell us, Timewise what should we look for when that going to be announced? Um so I think the second quarter next year we will have the testing finished at the Centers on Dhe will be announcing and we hope to actually, we're helping our teams. This is one thing that we were we were starting to doom or off. We want to get the products to the market. So we're starting to make partnerships to create advanced market demand for four teams because thes solutions are getting out there, but they need a little bit off a spotlight lift to get out there. So So before we run out of time, I do want to get your prognosis on space on space exploration. I think it's something that gets short shrift, and in fact, it's going to change our lives dramatically because there's a lot happening. Um, what? What are we gonna see in the next 5 to 10 years? So there's a lot happening boating man, flight operations and non man flights. So a lot off people here may be already aware off all the differences that the satellite technology have made in the way we understand global warming and the changes in our planet. Earth observation and sensing has given A with a I. And machine learning has given these opportunities to insurance companies, to farmers to any financial market, to look at how things are changing and accordingly make decisions. So it's helping decision making at every level on dumb. You know a lot of these technologies because off space and what we've been able to do in reducing the cost of access to space and the shrinking off technologies in sensing and satellite operations. So you have Oops at Nana's now that are put out there. We also if you go a little bit further in time. One of the things I'm excited about it if we could take. Actually, our data centers that all these companies is the clouds. Basically, because everything is in the clouds, massive data centers that are huge energy drain because of the power they need for the computing and also cooling. And if we put them in space, actually orbit on then. But you gotta centers in shooting them up into Yes, not for real world applications. But four stores restore tons of images that consuming so much energy. So putting him in in space will actually reduce the cost. Because nobody pays for the energy of the sun and and it's already cold. There's the cost of just putting him up there. And an entrepreneur that has heard me talk about this came to me a few months ago. I said, I'm going to do it on. He's putting a business model and his fundraising, so I'm hoping that it will happen. Okay. What about Moon and Mars? I think we're going to ah, start building a base on the moon because we need to learn how to live in space before we can go to Mars. Mars. I think it's still another maybe 30 35 years away for humans to step on Mars on. We first will be sending robots to build our happy that three D prints our habitat and create an environment where we can actually live in. And then I think humans will go to Mars. But we will have something on the moon so we can test out all these technologies. Andi learn how to live for a very long time because our body changes. When we're in micro gravity and we lose bone density, we lose muscle mass. Psychologically, it has an impact on us. So getting finding solutions for all these problems will require some time in the one minute we have left. When you look at all these big guys out there doing stuff Elon Musk, Jeff businesses Who do we watch? Well, of course, Ellen has advanced tremendously the whole commercial fits and reusable rocket trees, so the cost has been reduced. But I think Jeff has a lot off his sleeve that he's not talking about on very soon He's going to enter the market and competition is always good because it drives innovation and brings the cost down on Dhe. So I'm excited about both their work. But more importantly, I love the fact that a lot of it had to do with X Prize at the beginning, getting NASA toe actually given opportunities to the commercial space and working partnership sighting where government agencies on private sector can partner, especially early tech. Ah, lot of the environmental issues will require that. So when it comes together than it creates an opportunity that benefit for the government agencies on the public long term Thank you for being at the forefront of our future and bringing innovation to it and bringing broadening the brain power that's going into planning our future. Thank you for much

Hello everyone, thanks for coming. Hello. Thanks for having me. Thanks for comming Christina. Yeah my pleasure. And I hear your husband, and your daughter are also in the auadience too. Right there [ LAUGH ] Hi. The cutest little girl in the audience that's my daugher. Yeah. [ LAUGH ] Your welcme. So You also have an interesting story. And I want to get to your family life, which is super interesting, but you were just telling me that the way that you founded the company, you didn't actually know your cofounder founders from college or anything like that, how did you get involved in Nubank? What attracted you to the opportunity? I guess, to make a very long story short, I worked for one of the incumbent banks, the largest incumbent bank in Brazil for five Five years. And I was just done making rich people richer. I saw no purpose in what I was doing. I was trying to make a lot of changes to make consumers lives better and failing miserably at it. And at some point, i was like, you know what? I'm done. Any consigning with the time that my partner the David, who's our CEO, he was. You know, kicking off the business, he had this vision, he had this thesis around financial services, but he didn't know the industry. So he was looking for partners, you know, to get it off the ground. And I was just in the right place at the right time. So it was really like one of those serendipity moments, you know. That we ran into each other. I had the excuse that he needed, who had the vision of something that he really wanted to be part of. So it kinda worked out. Yeah, you've also been fundraising a new bank lately, you now have, the company now has an evaluation of more than $ 10 billion. And I think you're the only company in the world with more than $ 10 billion evaluation with a female founder. It's pretty impressive. What was the fund raising process like I mean what was it like going into those meetings, seeking funding. Tell us a little bit about that. Sure it's been a journey we've raised over seven rounds of funding at this stage. Almost a billion dollars in funding at this stage And it had different flavors as the company evolved, but the rental that you know was really challenging for me was our first one or series A, which I raised when I was pregnant with Ellis with my first daughter So I actually flew to California from Brazil, seven months pregnant, to pitch to this multiple rooms full of VC investors. You can imagine, the type of reaction that I got, the nicest ones were things like I've never seen a pregnant woman pitch. It was pretty nice actually, closed around that You know, very close to the day she was born my partner took the you know, the papers for me to sign at the hospital [ LAUGH ] so it was pretty intense Yeah, did you feel i mean they've never seen a pregnant woman pitch and we know y'all know the statistics about how few venture dollars women actually receive, how did you overcome that or did you feel like you had to Yeah, for sure. We just had to, but I was very lucky because my partner, the visa, our CEO, he came from the venture capital industry. So he knew a lot about how investors, think about companies how, what type of things they assess, what type of things they value. So, that kind of helped us tailor pitch and of course for me to do my part on that for sure. So that we could get the better odds, but it kind of worked out. I gotta say we were lucky. And of course based on merit we were able to pick the investors that we wanted to have with us that were more aligned with our long term vision every step of the way. So yeah, happy to hear. Did you have a comeback ready or anything what when they would comment on your pregnancy? I know you're pregnant. Now. Again, congratulations Thank you. But is there some something you've gotten used to saying to kind of Get people over that hurdle of. yes, you're a female founder and you will you're a mother too. It was weird because that time I was just trying to make sure people wouldn't notice [ LAUGH ] I was pregnant, which was hard because I got pretty big that she was a big baby. [ LAUGH ] So, I just wanted them to feel that it didn't matter, that I was in, this was my company, it was my life's project. And I was willing to do whatever it took to get it off the ground, and to do what my customers needed me to do, or my shareholders needed me to do. So Yeah, the stage. My point was to get them distracted with the business. [ LAUGH ] Well yeah it seems like you've been able to do that pretty successfully. New Bank is now the largest digital banking startup in the world. I'm curious, the US, Europe also have a lot of digital banks It's, kind of, a hot trend right now. But, you have more than 12 million customers. You've taken off much faster. Yeah. Than many of those. What do you think has made the difference. Why the, be able to, take off so much quicker? I think it's a combination [ UNKNOWN ] of several factors. When you look into Latin America, the incomes are so bad. As bad as they are. I mean, I know banks are loved anywhere but they're specially hated there. You have no idea. If you Google, I hate banks in Brazil, in Portuguese, you're gonna get Pages of pages of pages ->> [ LAUGH ] of people people spilling their hate all over the internet for the banks. So people have been accustomed to that case of abuse of being overcharged, of having horrible products, and a horrible experience and pain. Some of the highest interest rates in the world. Some of the highest fees in the In the world, so I guess what we saw was a lot of pain, just consumer pain in people that were ready for an alternative. I used to tell my partners that you know, they better watch out because we're going to have to spend a ton of money marketing because people hate banks, etc. And what happened was by the time we got the first customers. People are actually asking us, begging us please, to let their friends and family be our customers, you know, so they were firing customers to us for free. So most of our growth like over 80 % of our growth so far has been strictly organic. Just people reaching out to us wanting to be our customers finally ready for an alternative that wasn't incumbents. So I guess a combination of, really bad experience large markets, of course. So when you think about Brazil alone is 210 million people 60 million of them unbanked. So of course a huge opportunity but also a lot of pain. Yeah. I'm gonna come to the audience for questions in just a minute, so get your questions ready, raise your hands and they'll come to you with a paddle. But Christina, so far you've been just in Latin America. You've started to expand from Brazil into Argentina and Mexico. Do you think your model could work in North America or maybe beyond the Americas too? Listen, I think everywhere in the world, the banking industry is being disrupted, right like are seeing challenges everywhere. For us, like from our perspective is just a matter of sequencing and prioritizing. When we look at Latin America we see much more pain as I've mentioned, as bad as they could be in Canada or the US or in Europe. They're not as expensive like spreads are under high or fees aren't super high. So we do see more opportunity in Latin America, but it's not like the model would work. You've mentioned a lot of startups are, having great impact in Europe? A lot of new banks are rising here in North America as well. I think the point is, they just don't have that much fat to go into, to compete also on price. That's my feeling. But I think, consumers are ready for A digital alternative for to do everything from their mobile phones and not ever have to go to a branch in their lives anymore all over the world. That's not going away. Yeah, and you offer a 6 % savings rate. Which I think in the US, 3 % is unheard of. Is that something that could potentially affect? I mean, in the US we actually have the Fed is lowering rates. Is that something that could be affected by monetary policy around the world? Or in Brazil that's actually sustainable? Well, it has been affected. When we started the business, the risk free rate, which is what we were offered, was 15 %. Rates have significantly gone down just because of improvements on the macroeconomic fundamentals there. So, there is a trend of lowering interest rates but I think our point is just to capture efficiencies and pass that on to customers whether that's in higher yields or lower interest rates or lower fees. Yeah, question over here, please, and tell us who you are. Hi. Hi. Marcia Moffett with Blackrock. One thing, so I was just looking on your website while you were speaking. I mean, I was glad to see you had a non- Portuguese version of the site since we don't speak Portuguese. [ LAUGH ] We're very international. One thing I'm always curious about with small companies, so you start off with a vision, you're in a particular niche. How do you stay true to your roots and what you want to accomplish as you grow and become bigger. Because right now you're the disruptor. And you have that The challenges of a disruptor but you also have the opportunities as a disruptor. So as you go forward and maybe it's too early in your company's life to be thinking this way, but how are you going to how are you going to stay true to your values and what you're seeking to accomplish as a company? Listen, that's a great question and something that we will obsess over. You know what my founders and I We've always like one of our values. We have five core values in the company and one of them is like, stay hungry and challenge the status quo. What we don't want is people resting on their laurels and just believing, we're done. We got this big valuation and we're now in four countries. And, you know, we have over 2, 000 employees, so we're good and we can behave, just like they can come in town. So, It's something it's a culture push that we make every day like through our leadership, through our actions through the way that we make decisions to make sure that people stay hungry. We've borrowed some things from Amazon like that they want concepts like we keep repeating that so that people can understand. Though it's always the beginning. There's so much opportunity, even as you know we're serving now close to 15 million customers which is you know huge but we're like well there's another hundred you know, in Latin America alone that we could get to. So when you take things into perspective, you can, depending on how you frame it, you can always see yourself as a beginner you know and have the beginner's mindset, that challenging. That's what we're trying to do. That's the plan, to conquer Latin America first and then potentially see about other markets. Listen, we see a lot of opportunity in Latin America. When you multiply the size of the population versus the spread versus the customer [ UNKNOWN ], this is the biggest opportunity in the world, even Asia when you compare them So for sure it's more interesting here, but it's always a problem about privatization, you know ?. Yeah, were there any other questions ?. Here I've got more if you guys don't over there. Yeah, please tell us who you are. Hello. My name is Nadia Tada. I was wondering what's the biggest challenge you're facing right now ?. It's always people, always people. Listen, we have over 2, 000 employees as I've mentioned. We have a fairly diverse team. One of our core values is also we build strong, diverse teams. We have over 40 % of women at our bank, which is amazing. If you think about financial services and technologies it's unheard of. We also have over 30 % of our staff identifies as LGBT, which is also unheard of. So we do have a lot of diversity but still like to grow at the pace that we wanted to we would need a lot more people. We are our biggest bottleneck is in capitalism regulation is in consumers isn't it just people who just being able to grow the team at the high bar that we have in terms of talent across the regions that we want to serve. So for sure like that has always been and will continue to be the biggest challenge. That's why diversity so important Yeah i wanted to ask you speaking of technology one of the biggest trends in fintech over the past few years has been blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. Is that something that you've looked at or that you have interest you might be interested in using in your business I think for now like we're curiously Watching what's going to happen with crypto because the blockchain itself as a technology has so much potential, but as far as the use cases go, we haven't seen something that has truly solved a need even when you think about Bitcoin has been used mostly for speculation as well as some [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Shady businesses. So we're kind of cautiously watching the the use cases and applications, even when there's something that really, is meaningful for our consumer. Sure, we could get into that too. But right now you feel it doesn't it doesn't add a lot of efficiencies. It's about the consumer. I don't see a real problem that consumers have that that technology will solve yet. What are the biggest consumer problems that you're trying to solve? So for us it has been about sure high spreads and high fees for sure but also horrible customer service. And we have an amazing team that we called expers that offer the best experience when people need service and they reach out to us across all our channels. Our NPS is close to 90 which is amazing. Like if you think about big tech companies The benchmark worldwide is 60 to 70. Like when you get to 90 just people just really love us so we're solving for just offering them the experience that they deserve. You know in treating them as humans and you know just figuring out finances so that they don't have to worry about that and not be held hostages of you know the incumbents anymore. Just. Grab back the control of their financial lives. Yeah, just less than a minute left. Do you have any final thoughts about what banks can learn from you? Or what message should banks and other fintechs take away in terms of where finance is going? I always tell people, it's about solving customer pain and real problems, right? In my business, often innovation Is mistaken Bye You know we're working on this dream that will make payments or this bracelet or this like new shiny thing. And I tell people like how many customers are losing their sleep tonight because they don't have a ring that makes payments like zero tell you like zero people are losing their sleep tonight. [ LAUGH ] But many of them are losing their sleep because tomorrow they're gonna have to go to a branch to figure out like some fee that they were overcharged for, They have no business being deducted out of their account. So those things matter, the pain matters. So just focus on that solve those problems. Great. Well, we're so glad you could join us here. Thank you so much. Thank you .>> [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Nubank Wants to Break Up Big Banks in Latin America

Co-founder Cristina Junqueira explains why she’s betting on Fintech.


[ MUSIC ] Now we have water. So, Carolyn has been with PNG for longer than I want to announce. So I'm going to let her tell her- That just sound like 50 or something. [ LAUGH ] I'm trying to be nice, but she's been around Long enough at most. More than 30 years. More than 30 years, we're gonna stick with that number. Okay But the interesting part was how you actually got into PNG. Yes Tell me that story because when someone sticks around in a company that long, it must have always wanted to be in the role that you are in now? Yeah, mine's my story's a little different from that. So, hello to fellow Canadians. I went to school in Saskatchewan. [ LAUGH ] And I go, and I have a computer science degree. My friend had a marketing degree So she said, you can apply to PNG. And I said, Okay, what did they do? And then proceeded to write on my application, and I got an interview. And halfway through the interview, I, the interviewer said, Do you have any questions? I said, Yeah, what does your IT department look like? How does that operate? And he said, Why are you asking me that? And I said, because I'm applying for your IT position. I have a computer science degree And he said, I'm interviewing you for brand management. And I said, but I'm interested in IT. And he said, I don't even know. I'll have to get back to you and the interview ended. Seriously that was it. So I thought, Well, that was a blast and did get a call back, went to Toronto for a day. And got a job offer but we typically hard co ops where it so i was a bit of anomaly all the way through so i have since had the great privilege of working in it in our supply chain doing a lot of our merger and acquisition work integration work sales and general management but i haven't actually Done brand management. [ LAUGH ] Well, that particular gentleman must be very, very disappointing to have never worked with you, possibly. But you've now been with P and G Let's say at my 36 years- 36 years. Everybody do the math. Do the math. [ APPLAUSE ] 36 years at PNG has also given you an opportunity to kind of see your journey and the company's journey through the same eyes. How has that been like, about the core of what keeps you at P & G? We get asked this all the time. My intention was never to stay at P & G I was gonna move to Toronto. Toronto is a far it's far away when you grow up in Western Canada, anybody from Candidate knows this. So i thought I will go there for two or three years and then I will move back home. And I just always ended up having more reasons to stay than to go. I had many opportunities to leave but PNG is a company that enable me to continue to challenge myself. To take on increasing responsibility. To work in many different countries and many different parts of the company, and it has great values, it has great values and principles, and stands for things that are congruent with who I am as a person. And so a lot of reasons to stay .>> Lots of reasons to stay in. It comes down to purpose because I know I've had a had the opportunity to speak to Alex Keith, your CEO of the beauty business and the London summit. And she kept talking about the fact that purpose was part of what all of you stood for personally and for the company long before it became fashionable and woken to be full of purpose. Run us through that journey of how that strategy of Purpose works with the core strategy of running a business, at the end of the day, about making money and consumer needs. Well, from a P and G standpoint, our strategy is to deliver consumers great products and great experiences. And we think about that, our strategy is a strategy of delivering superior products, packages, Brands communication, retail execution online offline, and a value proposition and across all of those vectors, that's how we think about delivering the consumer a superior experience. A superior product and a superior brand proposition. And so as we think about that superiority That's fundamentally what we do. But within that, we're also very cognizant of how consumers are shifting. If you think about consumers today, again, they still want great products and great propositions. But they want convenience, they want personalization, and they want brands and companies To be socially responsible, and they think about this social responsibility from an environmental sustainability standpoint, speaking out on social issues that are important to them. And also on good governance, as you think about consumer privacy and transparency and everything that is topical in that right now. So This whole notion of purpose, I think, is becoming more visible, but there are many cases, because of our values, where we've always stood, for making consumers' lives just that little bit easier every day. And with values and principles that are very congruent. Well, I know, if you haven't watched the Gilette ads which got a lot of backlash That's an example of having purpose and sometimes at not working out. The first one came out, got a lot of flag from a certain segment of the male population. And you were brave enough to not stop there and you decided to go ahead and make another one which was for the Canadian audience. I want to place this one out before we talk a little bit rather. Sure. Okay. Growing up, I was always trying to figure out what kind of man I wanted to become. And I'm still trying to figure out what kind of man that I want to become. I always knew I was different. I didn't know that there was a term for the type of person that I was. I went into my transition. just wanting to be happy and glad I am at the point where I'm able to shave. South, south, north, north, east, west. Never in a hurry. Right? Now don't be scared. Don't be scared. Shaving is about being confident. You're doing fine, you are doing fine. I'm at the point where in my manhood where I'm actually happy. It's not just myself transitioning it's everybody around me transitioning. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] We know that the grooming business is having its own set of problems at P & G, yet that ad came out. What was the reception compared to the first one? Well, let me talk to you a little bit about the first one as well. Our grooming business has struggled, that's really what you're referring to. And there's a lot of things that we're working on to strengthen and accelerate our results in grooming, and I'm very confident that we will get that business back to growth. But what's really important for us, is to do it across all of those vectors of superiority, so product, package, execution in stores, online, brand communication and value proposition, On the brand communication part, that's one piece of it. And within Gillette one of the things that the team was really focused on, is how do we become more relevant to today's consumers? The point of entry into shaving is typically 18 years old, at 18 every Every young boy gets a Gillette razor. We have a program that delivers that as a point of entry program. But we had to become more relevant. All of you know Generation Z. Millennials under 30. This social responsibility part is very, very important to them. And so the Gillette team made a massive shift. So the tag line of the best a man can get was historically very focused on the quality of the razor and all the different pieces and the perfection of the shave. And what the team has shifted to is the best a man can be. And it's all about being your best person. So even in the Gillette ad That you are referring to in January. We are on where we were and we all knew what was going to happen and I think that's really important, for that Ad which was really about toxic masculinity, we took a lot of criticism, but we also took praise. So the criticism was highly orchestrated by. A number of people that really didn't like it. And as the ad progressed, because our team had such conviction that we would not pull the ad, and as the ad progressed over the course of its airing we got to 65 % positive sentiment. 65 % said they would be more apt to purchase Gillette. For Generation Z, for millennials under 30, 80 % positive sentiment about the ad. So I first wanna dispel the perception that it was a negative, terrible experience, it wasn't. We are really proud of that work. But that work continued, right? This whole notion of the best a man can be Really continued to this ad which we aired in June in Toronto. We've got one coming in September on emergency responders, and it's really about celebrating modern masculinity. And that's what Gillette wants to stand for. How do you bring authenticity to that because a lot of folks will say it's work washing, you're just playing to the sentiments of the cell to The generation Z impressed your daughters, 25 and 21, and get them to give you positive feedback. How do you balance that in a business that is struggling to make it authentic rather than a [ UNKNOWN ]? Yeah, what's really important is it must be authentic. Consumers can see through this, right? With any of our brands, and we have so many brands that are taking bold stands On issues that are important to our consumers, and those issues can stamp, can be anything but it has to be something that is authentic to the brand voice. It has to be authentic to the brand voice. It has to be authentic to the issue itself. And it has to be fully integrated and baked into the business model. It can't be an ad that plays and everything else stands for something else. It has to be totally holistic. It has to be in how the brand continues to use its voice, it can't be one and done. It has to be in how the brand interfaces with the consumers it serves. What is it doing within society, where the Gillette team is donating a million dollars every year to continue to help young men grow up to be wonderful, wonderful human beings. And establishing role models for them. So working with big brothers and big sisters in this and all kinds of whole program so it has to be authentic again to the brand voice. It has to be authentic to the issue itself. And then again, it's one part of the solution. We still have to deliver all the other parts of superiority. We have to deliver package and product and we have to deliver the right execution. We have to deliver a value proposition that works. Well, we have time for a question forom the audience, so it's a great opportunity to kind of get in and see if you have a question for Caroline. Anyone? [ BLANK_AUDIO ] So I have a question. At some point when you're looking at the makeup of Procter and Gamble and the amount of women in leadership positions in Procter and Gamble, it is quite a testament. What's brought that about and how much does that influence the way the company's performance Happens and it's quite successful outside of talking about grooming. Yeah, yeah, we've had. We've had very strong results, we're really happy about that, we're at an all time high from a stock price standpoint, our results are strong and very, very broad based. And I will tell you, for sure, it's a testament to the leadership of our company, it's a testament to our board, it's a testament to the 90, 000 employees that we have. But within our representation, over 47 % of all of our management worldwide is women. We have more than 40 %, slightly higher than that Our C Suite that our women our board is slightly over 40 % women. But importantly, our goal is 5050 I have the privilege of sponsoring our gender equality work. We are very committed to 5050 representation at all levels of the company in all regions and all disciplines and we talk about it all the time. So when will we see as female CEO of PNG. I'm not going to speculate on that because we really liked the work that David's doing. He's doing a great job. Sure he do. But we do have a talented leadership team and we have a lot of options. On that now, Carolyn, hopefully we will see a new female CEO at some point. Soon enough. Thank you very much .>> Thank you so much. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

How P&G Connects to Its 5 Billion Consumers

P&G’s Carolyn Tastad joins Fortune’s MPW International Summit.


An Effective Pathway to Parity in the Business World

Careers

Women are seeking parity at a time when the ground underneath us all is shifting and cracking.


Kim's Convenience Teaches Through Authentic, Relatable Stories

Kim’s Convenience has developed a global following by offering authentic, relatable stories of immigrants and their families. The show’s matriarch shares her journey as an actress and what she thinks can be done to help more Asians and women of color

Well, let's start with one thing in one fact, Um, Kim's convenience was the one show that actually allowed my mother and I to bond. Um, she struggles to find a show that she could watch with me. And this was one show where Mama became her best friend in London. We watched a show on Netflix. We don't get CBC, but thank you, Netflix, for giving us Jeanne Yoon on Dhe. She kept telling me how it would be amazing that when she was living in London in the eighties, if she had a friend like Oma, how much of a difference do you think you've made, um, to the women and the immigrant families and the ability to have these conversations with their with their Children about all the things of the show talks about? It's really interesting the reach that Kim's convenience is hot. Um, and I think there's a lot of dialogue and discourse. It's happening in many directions, whether it's like from from first generation immigrant parents to their Children, to the Children, to their cousins back and forth in amongst friends. It's really interesting to me because I have no view, Um, because, uh, what? What I find really interesting. It is how broader reach it had whether in Canada, in the U. S. And the UK Australia, we get, um, once the show dropped on Netflix. See, the response around the globe was a little overwhelming. Pretty amazing. So it's gone from within a couple of years going in. It's weird, for me, is a Canadian and as an actor, is a minority actor to be recognized at all. So to go from going to the gym and being naked in the in the wind changes. Um, yes, I make it. You're naked. Let's talk after, um, Thio being in Seoul just a couple of weeks ago, and I was out getting dumplings with some with Andrea Bang, who plays my daughter. I wish he really were my daughter. She saw um, and being recognized there. But by because the show is also being broadcast in Korea, which I have to admit, as as a Korean Canadian as a hybrid Korean as a d a sport, Korean was a bit nerve wracking because obviously I'm I'm not really Mrs Kim. I just pretended to be Mrs came on. And you know my mom he tells me when I do it wrong. Well, I know my mother thinks that you are Mama, and she truly truly believed that you offer generation what have bean the experiences because you are more off Janet, who plays the character of the daughter and Kim's convenience. You are more of a Janet. Let's be honest on Dhe. My mother's heart is breaking as Lifestream is being done, and she is big daugher as all our mamas. Sorry, mom, and more me than you. But when you look at the reception or off Mama and Janet and the way it's being accepted even back home in Korea or in the West, what does that make you feel about your life's journey? Because at some point, you've got to kind of go. Was it about timing because you've bean trying to raise the ball fool actors. It's from minority groups for a long time, from the 80. Yeah, so yeah, yes, it's about timing, but I am also aware that I was aware when I when I I wanted to be an actor in the eighties, a teenager in high school, looking at all of my prospects, even my own drama teachers were saying, Don't pursue drones, Don't you don't have It's like it's going to be hard and, um, there really were not opportunities or past to performance for actors of color in Canada. And, uh, it would those that did sort of start then had lots that we all had lots of obstacles. But, um, my goal back then was to combine, um, career of writing and and, uh, writing and performance. And and my, I think my reason for being an artist is to try to understand who I was a Korean Canadian. Just understand. I really didn't know how it was that I would have landed here in Canada and, like, how come? How come my parents behave this way? Like what? They're so weird, you know, like everybody else's parents are okay with this. Like, why are my parents not okay with that? Um So even back then I was aware that I was at the forefront of a demographic wave that was going to eventually become what we're seeing now, which is maturing of Asian American voices and Asian Canadian voices. And way back in high school, I was telling my drama teachers well if I If I do stick it out, I'll just play all the mom and she did on. Did they? Yeah. So it started out and you know, that way I just playing Mom's in my thirties. But you ended up moving into television. Very simple reason. Was that transition easy begin A. As someone who was it in the television business for 18 years, I can say it's never easy being a person of color, Um, on television, especially if you are in Western television. What was that journey like? And did that really define the way you look at almost character? Um so my transition from theater into television was after a decade of of new place. I was I was running a theater company. I was doing a lot of advocacy. I was on. I sat on a number of committees and studies at various levels of government and different NGOs in terms of social equity. Um, and I was writing, um so that when I transitioned to film and television acting, I did it knowingly and knowing exactly what the environment was and also did it with partnership with an agent of color, who who, uh might. My agent Ishwar, if well, is he had been working in cultural equity along with me and decided to transition into into film and television at the same time that I was. And honestly, a big reason was that I wanted to have a child, and I knew that I could parlay my acting talent into whatever jobs I could get in film and television. I'd only have one day of working in film and TV was equivalent of a week to week and 1/2 of work in theater in the kind of theater that I was doing. And did they embrace you? Yes. So it meant that I could work a, you know, an audition audition audition shoot the day of and still have the flexibility to raise a child. So that that was my from 2003 onwards sort of laid the groundwork ahead of climate starting in front. I really wanna start acting for film and TV in the late nineties. And then there was one interesting thing that you mentioned to me before we came up on stage. Uh, when we were talking earlier was that you were actually asked to go back to school. When you joined television on there, Did you know how to write for TV? And did you know howto identify with the characters who were not? You don't look like you or didn't sound like you. How did you jump over that hurdle? How did you convince them that you could write for any one and play anyone? So I went to the Canadian Film Center Center for it was a TV prime time television writing program. Um, and I did that in 2000 to 2003. I did not convince them I was not successful As in terms of television writing. I did. D'oh! I did develop a pilot and, uh, and found a producer. And we were going from, you know, broadcaster's broadcaster. And I was literally told at the time we love this. We love this. We love this story. We need white. Me. We literally said that to me, like literally So, um and it was just that it was not. It was not the right time for that show. Is this the right time? Done. Full actors of a color are different ethnicities. Is this the right time and what's really changed. There has to be some kind of stumbling block Your is that it's gonna be smooth sailing going forward, that everyone's gonna accept everyone. And that's the new normal. It's the right time for artists of color right now in Canada and in the United States, um, to pitch project. And I think that it's very clear to broadcasters and advertisers that there is an audience that is not served, that is hungry for stories. And that's why we're seeing this big movement with whether it's in terms of the Asian community, Asian Representation, South Asia representation, Black film and television project. There's a huge market for it now that is underserved. So this is the time. This is the time for those projects to be successful. And I think that the talent pool in our community is maturing, and it's also a time for women like in. There's definitely a gente imbalance in on the other side of the camera in in terms of film and television. But it is in balance. It is being addressed, but it in within unions, within, within the industry itself. But, yes, do you find acceptance in the Korean community because the one thing that that comes across within immigrant communities on. Even for that, you mentioned you were in Korea and people were approaching you. How much of that acceptance is a stereotyping, and how much of that is looking at Koreans in Canada being accepted by people at home? I mean, how much of that balances there? I don't understand your question. So the question is, do you think the Korean community in itself has embraced Kim's convenience as a sign off the future? Yes, Creon community has definitely embraced show, which is raising the Korean community here and the Asian community here and in Korea. The responses really surprised me, but, um, the show just in August was given the a new award sole International Drama award for most popular foreign drama. But so, no, I mean any comedy or whatever, but yeah, it was very nice. Oh, that's what's next. I mean, you're filming your port season is run going to continue? What else are you going to do? How are you going to amplify the voice that mama has now given you? So, um, Season four is shot. Has we've been a shooting that in July and it will start to air in January. Um, and we're all it looks. It looks like all the signs are good for season five and, um, knock on wood beyond So, um, what I'm basically doing now, we've finished shooting at the end of July, and then since then I've been busy with a bunch of different things and then also been happening. But, um, I'm basically going back to writing now. My son is my son. Turns 16 today. She's here? Yeah. So, yeah, this morning I was baking a cake, but basically, it's like, here's your cake and I'm gone, and he's like, Fine. Bye. Um, so, uh, yeah, I'm at a stage now where I can actually focus on my own, writing in my own voice. And really, I just want a couple of months where I just can focus on going to the gym every day. One of the things about shooting is that you don't You know you're working 14 hour days and you don't get to exercise your goal, Vogel, But, um, but I just want to go for, like, a long bike rides and long sauna. Steam room Jacuzzi. That's my favorite workout. like that Work out a cold shower. Oh, yeah, that's nothing. Everyone's favorite work. Favorite work. So in that relaxation zone, what are you going to be writing about? Is it going to be about politics? Isn't going to be about gender issues. Is it gonna be comedy isn't gonna be about life or your 15 year old son right now. I think I'm going to I'm going to the next bit of writing. I've got a bunch of different ideas in my head, but I'm actually just gonna see which one. I'm gonna try the gladiatorial approach. Which idea? Win. Kill me. Really? Really. What I'm looking forward to now that school's started. Now that I'm done, the shooting is setting up a regular routine for me. A regular practice like coming back to my own practice, which involved, you know, keeping keeping my body in shape, keeping strong and taking the time and having the time to prioritize reading again, like a lot of times, months go by and I don't have time to read or watching things that if their shows that I don't think I should watch that, but it's like I don't have a brain powerful and then and then writing and just a regular practice without interruptions without it suddenly going haywire and then see which idea wins. Because, um, so, honestly, I I think I want to do a one woman thing. I don't want to do a one woman things, but we'll see what happens. We know one that worked in the past, so yes. Yeah. I mean, that is amazing story way. Hope that that one woman thing will be as successful as a previous one woman saying that we can old single and knowing you, you'll make it happen. So thank you very much for your time. We knew everyone.

Finding Joy In Life's Darkest Moments

One has defied the odds in sports and shown just how much the human spirit can endure. The other has described her life as “extreme,” refusing to be defined by societal norms. A candid conversation with two Canadian greats—on mental health, embracing

I was telling Neela backstage to look at Nina's shoes. So Neela, welcome to your first most our fortune most powerful women's summit. Thank you. Good night. Good to be here. It's wonderful to have you and I was we were standing backstage so we couldn't see how many hands went up. So how many of you actually shut up at I should say actually, but you shop at Crate and Barrel? Excellent. Good most of the room excellent. It's one of my one of my go to stores although I live in 900 square feet in New York City so I can't buy a lot at your stores. So Nila, give us, Nila has a very interesting background. I sort of think of Crate and Barrel now as a sort of all- American or North American brand. And but your, background is so international. Just give us a very quick run through, of the various places you've lived and worked? Sure, so I'm British Indian I grew up in the UK in North Manchester and my parents are Indian and I studied in the UK Then I went to it briefly in New York in advertising. My first job actually was as a political speech writer, which didn't last long. And then I moved back to Europe to study for my MBA and France and Singapore. And then I joined Tesco, which is for those of you who know it, a very large UK retailer. And I spent 12 years with them and worked in various different markets as is often the case with these large multinational companies. Worked, spent three and a half years in Malaysia, worked in South Korea for a little while I then came back to the Uk with a husband and two children from Malaysia and then finally Tosca and went to work for a privately held German company. Very large and family owned. And I didn't really know that those kind of companies existed at that time. So I'd always worked in a public company. And I met the founder billionaire Michael auto and was so impressed with his like, purpose lead lead of a private company that I was enticed to go and run. Sit on his board, not realizing that I was the first woman, the first non German and about 20 years younger than everyone else on that board. So, shame on me [ LAUGH ] to my due diligence, but part of their companies that they own is, Crate and Barrel. So I was the chairwoman of Crate and Barrel for a couple of years. And then, two years ago, I decided to come and be the CEO and get back into an operational role and move to Chicago. So and you replaced the CEO, who was maybe didn't have quite the right vision, And when you took over for him when you succeeded, what was what was your charge? What was your mission? What did you want to do? Well, one thing about Crate & Barrel is that it's a much loved brand and whenever you say to people you work for Crate & Barrel they go, I love Crate & Barrel you'll say well when did you last shop there and then you're like well, you know, and there's a lot of humming and honouring and and so somewhere along the way, the relevant And the sense of urgency in the sense of discovery that comes with being a relevant brand in people's mind as opposed to something that I love, but I'm not actively engaged with. So, my whole mission, if you like, has been about brand relevance. We don't need to be loved, I think we actually are quite loved and that's a great place to be as a brand, because for many companies that's their priority. Ours is about relevance and about reimagining our amazing stores to do something different. So for example, today 45 % of our sales are online. And the reality is that we have to rethink and reimagine what are stores are there to do. And so a lot of my energy has gone into reimagining the stores, thinking about the next generation of service and how do our associates connect. And I could go on and on, but I guess you only have- So, we were just talking to Indra Nooyi, who you'll hear from later who was telling us that whe she went in to become CEO of PepsiCo in 2006, she She did this report. She said it was the first very important thing she did this report on Megatrends now correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the mega trends in your industry is that young people do not want to own a home, do not want to own a car and do not really want to own furniture. Is this correct? I wouldn't say it was a mega trend I'd say there is a very specific set of customers in urban locations that don't want the hassle factor, and in those situations we have to think about how do we engage with furniture rental models and we are doing at the moment we have an interesting partnership With a startup called furnish where you can rent Crate and Barrel furniture in certain cities around the world. And that's a great around the country sorry. And that's a great way for those audiences to engage With our brand, I think what brands like us have to recognize is we don't get to control the experience the way we want. Did you know In the past it was relatively straightforward you came to my store, I gave You great service and great product and you are my loyal customer and that was kind of the relationship. Now there are so many different ways that you interact with my brand. And I have to be there for you in the way that you want to be there. So whether you have a need to rent because you just can't commit to that. Sectional [ UNKNOWN ] that I would love you to buy, Patty. I have to have something for you. But I also have to be there for you if you just wanna come and have a meal in a new restaurant or you want to You know engage with me on social media or on Instagram. So when you took over as CEO the the sort of way of the Crate and Barrel way of marketing was these. It was not Instagram was it? Catalogues. It was a catalog That we got in the mail. That I throw in my apartment building in the shoot. Still get that big thing from restoration hardware every [ LAUGH ] Okay, throw that one away. But anyway, you did a big Sort of transformation there. Talk about how you're using technology, whether it's Instagram or AI or AR to transform the experience. I mean, the great thing about this is, we have 26 million visitors to our store every year. We have, I think over 100 million interactions online every year. So I have so many more opportunities to talk to my customers about what we stand for a product etc. But of course, what we have to think about is where are we going to spend our very expensive marketing dollars what how we can transform those into digital marketing and build capabilities in there. But also, you know, pull away from more traditional media like TV or Catalogs and invest in Instagram or some of those other channels or search marketing. And I the one is the CEO and very engaged in that that transition because I think it's critical to how are customers. [ UNKNOWN ] So, I visited stores today in Toronto, as I should, but I am just as engaged and looking at how we look today on Instagram and what stories we posted. Sure, who has a question? [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Or a comment? Yes, right here, on my three So I wanted to- Wait for the mic. And there it is. It's a simple question. You're from the UK. I struggle to shop for home goods in the UK. Why are you not in the UK or in your So the founder of Crate and Barrel back in 2000 sold to a German parent company, which is the Otto Group that I work for today, and at the time was very convinced that we still had so much opportunity in the US market that we were not going to pursue international expansion, that it would be I kinda of expensive destraction I would say I necessarily agree with that point of view but the reality here is now that market is much more competitive that it was today and your strategy that would have to be multi channel you would have to go in my view online first just to be clear 45 % of our sales today are online so. For us there is no bricks and mortar strategy without online. And we just see that as a very crowded market. The UK is super competitive and when rents come down, we will reconsider. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Yes right here in the middle. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Hello, my name is Ananya. Please identify yourself. Yes. Ananya Chatta. I was wondering what's been your happiest moment? Wow. Just in life, generally? Or at Crate and Barrel? Both. Well I mean, it's kind of a boring answer but the birth of my two children whereas not at the very moment I was not happy but [ LAUGH ] I was in kind of a lot of pain But you know, the day subsequently, obviously, was one of my happiest moments. But I mean, it's actually a very interesting question. So I talked to my team all the time. I love this quote from Roald Dahl about Remember to watch the world around you with glittering eyes. And I told my team often about where are your glittering eyes have you looked The potential of the situation, can you see beyond the obstacles that are right in front of you. And it's something I find a lot of my, I run a mainly female lead company and I find especially my some of my team resoundingly practical they're always so practical about pointing out to me all the All the points of potential failure. And I'm like, I get it. Sometime you do have to have your glittering eyes. And so, one of my best moments for example was when we celebrated She Makes Us Great. We celebrated all the women right through from our studio where we have wood workers through to our. Vendors and artist, all the way through our company. Globally to celebrate the contribution that women have made to making Crate and Barrel. And it's a great site, look it up, it's right on the Crate and Barrel corporate website. Yes, Irene? Hi Irene Britt one of my homes actually is mostly Crate and Barrel so there and it was relatively reason so there we go. Okay My question for you is as you continue to build your brand How do you keep that engagement up when you have your up against the great aggregators of the world like Amazon So, I mean, I get it for the big furnish a room thing, but when you're looking for Little those little add ons? Can you really really connect on the Crate and Barrel brand anymore when people will just go to a big search aggregator? Sure. And it's something we talk about all the time, which is that the world is increasingly gravitating to platforms, and they have a massive advantage around traffic. But my very strong position on that maybe comes back to the glittering eyes. Is that. There is no way you can out Amazon, Amazon or any platform. So what you have to do as a brand is be able to tell your story and choose to compete in product categories Where you can develop something unique. So my placemats are made in a Carola village with a unique technique, a weaving technique that has been preserved for 20 years. You can get a cheaper placemat in the market and you will be able to find one on our friends at Amazon or Walmart or any place. Platform, but I have to be able to tell you the story of why you should come and buy mine for 699. So you pay a $ 2 premium for that. And you're doing some a good some good in the world and we're also helping to preserve something that I think is important. So I think it's around, what is it, around 95 % of Crate & Barrel's merchandise is unique to Crate & Barrel. Quite right. Are you saying that you will never ever sell on Amazon? [ LAUGH ] I don't see, hard to be as definitive as that, but as much as I can see it, I can't see a reason why we would right now. Preserving the story, very interesting, yes? Hi, I'm Carol Deacon, I work in automotive retail. Which is like home goods, quite a traditional retail model. As you think about how you moved investment into more, I would say, experiential or social media- based influencers are where you test out new things, how do you balance the investment in these new areas while keeping kinda the bread and butter going in where you've had strong returns up till now? Yeah, very good question, and always the tension when you're trying to manage legacy teams, legacy budgets, legacy skill sets even really. Because if I think about, I have a huge photo studio in downtown Chicago, with lots of people who are Brilliantly trained taking beautiful catalog shots. They may not be the same shots that I now need for social media where someone can take it on their iPhone. And so, you're always having to say, Okay, I see where the world is going. I need to get there so you should never lose sight of that you have to hold on to that. And then you have to decide, what are the steps in which I'm going to get there? And I think what we've tried to do is, you can't go so test and learn into it. You have to keep iterating, but there are points where you have to leap. You have to say, you know what? I won't be able to measure the return on store events as well as I can measure The next incremental catalog in the mail, but there are occasions where you have to take some of those leaps. And then measure the hell out of it afterwards, and say, is it working, is it not working? Don't pivot too quickly. But keep going back and asking yourself that question. Because without that, you really will only ever move forward incrementally. You have restaurants and how many stores now? Only one. I just opened one two months ago. And it's called? The Table at Crate. Table at Crate. The Table at Crate. And what are your expansion plans there? Yeah. I have no idea about running a restaurant and I have discovered that it's really hard. [ LAUGH ] But even running retail stores I had this idea it was gonna be this beautiful brand vision and it is. But then I learnt that you have to have a certain number of tables and a certain number of sittings and a certain number of out call sales and Now, I know that. And the great thing was, it was a win right out the gate. So it's profitable in its second month, and so I wasn't really expecting that. I thought it was going to be more of a test- and- learn scenario. So now that we have a success, we'll probably roll it out to the top 10 or 15 stores where we have the space. Fantastic, a new dining choice. Neela Montgomery, thank you very much. It's wonderful to learn a little bit more about Crate and Barrel and good luck. Thank you.

Meet The Woman Modernizing Crate And Barrel

Meet the woman who is modernizing a 56-year-old furniture chain by redesigning stores with surprise offerings and investing heavily in digital platforms and partnerships to transform the customer experience.

Hello again. Blanca, having Blanca here is really great, because we very much view this particular event in Canada as an event of the Americas going from Canada through the US, but including Latin America. It's absolutely wonderful to have you here. Thanks for having me. Let's start by a little bit of They get to know you. You and I had lunch together full disclosure today and you were telling me how, despite your being in a what we might call a patriarchal society, your dad actually encouraged you to go into, Computers and engineering. He did and he did I don't think about mid 70s even though you think about my age, but mid 70s technology was not necessarily the word or he was not well known that kind of industry so it was more computers and my dad loved the idea that her. Her daughter was gonna be involved in something so different, so exciting. No one had ever seen a computer in any home. Yeah. So for him it was incredible. And yes, he did encourage me to get into this. But he was mostly he was embarassed that you'd be fearful about taking this on, right? You came home and said I'm scared, I can't do this anymore. Yeah. That's something that I like to share because people keep asking me, who really encouraged you? And it was my dad, I remember when I told him that I was gonna be into computers. He was so excited, but after two or three days I went to the University. I said you know what, I don't wanna be into computers, I'm It might be very difficult, so I went back home. My dad was sharing this idea with his brother, bragging about her daughter, and when he left, I told, you know what? Dad I'm not getting to computers. I'm afraid. And probably that was. I don't know if it was the right word or the wrong word, because my dad told me, afraid I could leave with the idea. That my daughter is not smart. Whatever, ugly, not smart, whatever. But someone that is afraid, no, that I cannot. That I will not have it. So you better go back to the university, if that's your only constraint. I mean, if that's the reason why you decided not getting to computers, then you have to go back and- And your fearlessness continued because Back then in particular, but especially in Mexico, you're from Monterey. It was, that is it has a great business community and so on but entrepreneurship was and you say still really isn't in the DNA too much there and yet you started Start. Yeah we did a taste or mid 80s in entrepreneurs were not necessarily a work well known today entrepreneurs is. I mean, everybody talks about entrepreneurs and all this companies that you have in the US that at that time I remember when you describe yourself will introduce yourself. As an entrepreneur don't say you're unemployed. And you like to use this word that sounds so sexy. No one knew about entrepreneurs. That's right. Right. But we were so committed and I remember every time they will question you are unemployed. No, we're not. We're starting this company, But to your point In Mexico there were not probably we were the first in entrepreneurs at that time of that probably decade. And so it was it was tough to keep on saying, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm going to build a we're in entrepreneurs and we're going to build this global company. And they would look at us and say your people keep joining our company, even though we were very small. And so then they change and they said, I don't know why people believed them why they truly believe that soft, [ UNKNOWN ] Is going to be a global company. It's like a coat. Brag because it for them it was easy to think that way than to say that we were gonna be able to build a company. Yeah. In entrepreneurs. We're not there. So, it was, we have been fearless. It is true. I mean, by the way, she started this company with four Male partners. That is true. So, obviously, you're typically the only woman in the room. Not anymore. But, yes, for many years, yeah. And your advice in those situations? You know what, I keep saying that every time that I am in a room I like to see each other as executives. I don't wanna think about gender because we're executives at the end of the day, or team players or whatever. So my only advice or the way that I have handled it always it is not thinking about, he's my male partner. He's my female partner. It's more about we are executives we'll work for this company or for this board. Whatever. So it's the never never thinking about gender. Even though we I truly believe that we have to understand that we are different and there are things that are needed in order to promote much more the the inclusion of women in the business but, but again, it's once you're in the room, it's more What, talk about gender, it shouldn't be a topic. Yeah, but you didn't come up against obstacles. Tell them about the resignation, the black resignation letter that you had signed. It's true. It's interesting because it is true. Before starting this company I used to work for this industrial group from Mexico, a very important one. It was I mean, getting into that group, it was something that you always wanted to do. But amazingly, it was me late 70s, late 70s, early 80s. And my very first day they said, Okay you have to sign this resignation letter. So I just joined the company. But you have to sign it because if you. Get married, we don't wanna have any kind of talk, you already resigned. So it is the way it was at that time. It was that. Okay, you have chance to work here as long as you're single. Once you get married, you're not gonna be lay off. It's something that you already understand. So I signed that resignation letter. Yeah and I'm happy I did because when I got my engagement ring, we were starting ths company that when we started thinking about the company. And I- You started a company as well as getting married- Both things at the same time. Both things at the same time. I mean given that culture What happened you had obstacles and difficulties along the way as a woman? I know that for some woman, people they don't believe me but I always said that no, I have been very previlidge. And whenever they said, but that is not true you must have faced obstacles and probably I did but the decision that I made is there was an obstacle there I could always turn and take the other road. So probably there were obstacles, but there is not something I could remember saying this was very, very difficult, and I'm seen in different wards, and the chairwoman of the global company that we have presence in so many different countries. And. Clients all the fortune 500 our clients most of the Fortune .>. Yeah .>> And no, it's incredible. I have an amazing family support system. My partners are amazing also. So probably obstacles but I decided not to, Not to necessarily start- Not to engage them. Not to engage in those obstacles. I decided to walk away from them and look for other opportunities. So the company has 300 and some clients, major companies Tell us about your near assuring strategy that you used to help get there. Yeah well, the thing is when you started, I mentioned about entreprenuers not necessarily very well known at that time, but also Mexico in the tech business. It was very difficult. It still is that they see Mexico as a technology Powerhouse, if you wanna call it that way. They don't expect that from Mexico, any company from Mexico. So when we started, we made this very strong statement. We're gonna be a global company. And we meant it. We said global company and from the very beginning, the way that we define ourselves was global. The way that we structure, it was global. But when we look, we start opening offices in South America and even in Europe, then we look at the US, our neighbor, very close. The largest market for anything, but also for ID services. But we were gonna face, like we do in every country where we participate, Those very large companies the Accenture's, the IBMs, the Indian vendors that work ten times larger or even more than us. And so we said the only way to compete, it's to find our own space to not necessarily compete face to face, but to differentiate ourselves. So what we did is we launched this concept that is called Nisha today's mainstream. Is a trademark we are not necessarily fighting for but it's a trademark. And what it means really is to say we can offer similar things that the Indian vendors, but we don't have the advantages of being near. Remembered Mexico and the US have been partners for years. So we have worked together as partners, meaning both economies for years so so emphasizing that doing this kind of work ID services from a nearby location could have benefits. So it was like in a way tackling the deficiencies of the Indian model Near shore versus offshore. That's correct. That is correct. At that time, at that time it was the Good marketing It was a good mark. And you know what? I remember we changed the services of this marketing company 20, 25 years ago and we said we liked nature and they told us Don't use near shore. Don't bring all that. I mean, they will think about all the disadvantages of torture. So we pay them I don't know how much money we didn't have like $ 300, 000 [ LAUGH ] But we pay them and we left the room and said we're going to call it near shore. So we spend that money and at the end, I mean today people don't know that it is a trademark old vendors ID service provider Use that term. So it helps us. You know, fearless from the beginning Yeah So Blanca get your questions ready. And Blanca can talk about all of Latin America to and give a broad perspective about the region and technology. If you have questions there What would you say about the status of women in Latin America, in leadership, and in STEM? I think in every country we face similar Challenges. I mean, we all want to have more women in the C suite or not even the C suite. But in the second or third level, we need more women. Like I said before, Tommy has no gender and the company or the economy that the table to attract the most billion time is the one that is going to be more successful. So you don't wanna leave behind the woman. So I believe that we do face similar challenges but when you think about Latin America, we also have a culture issue that not necessarily Canada or the US face, it's more, and it's not the companies or not, it's more related to family, it's more related to society, it's, really if you ask me, the policies are there, companies are Open and willing to bring more woman. But then those women at the beginning they are probably being questioned by their own families. And not always but it's more common that here in the US and sometimes not the families but the mothers Of your daughters friends that it will say that that you are not necessarily paying enough attention to your kids. I have two daughters, two granddaughters and they're amazing. So I did pay enough attention to mine Family. Then you would go to school you told me go to school just to show up. Yeah, sure. I was there and we were sharing stories because I've also raised children while working and traveling and everything and I told you the best piece of advice I ever got from a child development person was. They smell guilt. Don't give off the whiff, the scent. And I was like [ LAUGH ] No but that's what I told you. And that was- Every time that they ask me what would you say it was even before you told me that's what I said. Cuz I said the best pieces never feel guilt. Never feel guilty cuz if you do, your children will feel that will smell that. And they will grow as victims. And if they grow as victims of you, that's not the way to raise a kid. You don't want your kids to raise feeling victims of something. So do not ever make anyone smell that guilt. Yeah. It's horrible for your, it's unfair for your kids. It's not unfair for you, it's unfair for your kids to be raised. Feeling that way. Yeah. And congratulations on incredible daughters and. Incredible daughters and incredible granddaughters. Do we have questions right here in front? Mic. And please identify yourself. Stand up. Hi, Blanca. Thank you so much. It's Irene Britt and I'm on several boards as we I know it earlier. So political rhetoric between the U. S. and Mexico has been in the news a lot. How, I'm wondering how that has potentially affected business opportunities. As well as cultural motivation within your company. Excellent question. Yes, it is. Well, like you said in the previous session today, it seems like it's a competition between which country is facing most challenges. But it is true, lately in the past months it has been in this all the kind of things to talk about the art relationship and the, The new nakta I keep forgetting the name USMCA. USMCA but the new knocked has been in negotiations for for many months and in the past week of the past months. They this present from decided to probably put in the same kind of negotiation different issues. And that put a lot of pressure to your point because it was no longer just about the commercial side, the trade side of this, it was something else to get from that. I believe that we have been partners, I mean the US Canada and Mexico for many years, we're very strong region when we work together. And no matter what kind of agreements we have at the end, it's gonna be very difficult to break what the breach that we have today the supply chains that we have today. Sooner or later elections of before elections. I think we're gonna get an agreement that will allow us to keep leveraging the advantages that we have as a region. Are you happy with the direction of the US MCA? Well, I think it needed the kind of remember that it was signed. Almost 30 years ago. So there were things that were needed to get improved. Right. Right ?. There will always be things that you like or don't like but it is true that it was something that was needed to include for example intellectual property was not there. Right. Services was not there. Again, it was signed- Is mostly about trucks and stuff back in 1993. Right, they keep fighting about about trucks. But if they look at a Tesla, look at a Tesla, then it no longer has a moderate things like that. So talk about those things, is like computer within the car. But they keep talking about that and the border, and I'd like to say focus more to It's almost like an alternate reality that yeah. Yeah. They're living in, yeah. But to your point, one thing that I cannot deny that probably some companies are waiting or expecting. I mean for investment, expecting what's gonna happen before I make my next investment. But regardless of that The point investment is growing in Mexico. I will not say that probably they have some concerns. AR people it's not necessarily talking about the culture within our company. We're today largest IT service provider in Latin America. But also the us is our largest market. The second largest market, it's Europe, it's not Mexico. So we are in a way dependent of this. But when you're in services, no matter the agreement, this is not gonna have a huge impact in us and we are very balanced in where the revenues come from. Is there another question? Yes. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] You have to identify yourself again. Yes, okay. I'm Marcia Moff at Blackrock. It's a related question but I won't repeat it, so I won't repeat the elements that I was thinking of. I'm interested in, so I get an opportunity to hear from a lot of business people, Here in Canada and the US I don't often get to hear from business leaders from Mexico and I'm really curious, and I hear what you are saying about much of your business being outside the country and the US and Europe, and other parts of latin America. Where do you see, you're thinking about your business in the future, where are you seeing the opportunities. And the growth, the world is changing but we can look at it as it's changing and it's all negative for us or we can look at it as the change, it can be, can benefit those who embrace the change and lean into it. So, I'm curious as to how you think about your strategy. Okay, one thing that I believe it's difficult to predict what's gonna happen in three years, I'm in this industry that changes so fast and so much that to think what's gonna be there in four years in three years, just think what we didn't have in technology five years ago. Probably Uber was not here. I don't remember but things change so much that one thing that will be constant its uncertainty. So planning. What's gonna be there in five years is gonna be tough. I might be hugely mistaken. Whatever I said today could be so crazy and probably it will be real in five years. So one thing that I wanna emphasize. Is that uncertainty how difficult it is today to plan ahead for five years, six years. Having said that, I will say that opportunities are everywhere when you're involved in this kind of industry. Today most Most of your companies are technology companies. Most of the challenges that we face no matter if it's security, if it's a financial need and are leveraged by technology, so we do believe I do believe that opportunities will be everywhere. If you look at African the things that you can do with technology, if you're asking me about the industry that I participate in, if you ask about the US think about as the largest. In consumer of IT services. So for us opportunities everywhere meaning I don't know which kind of technology is gonna be there, what kind of services that will be needed. But what it is something that it's gonna be very obvious this technology is gonna be part of those opportunities. And we truly believe that we'll be able to leverage that And we want to be part of that also One really quick question, because we have to wrap it up. When you and I were talking earlier I asked you where do you see the most kind of women in leadership positions in Latin America and you said Colombia, not Mexico or No for me it has always been surprising. We have a strong presence in Latin America. And obviously in Mexico we started there, but every time that I go to Colombia, I noticed that you find in Colombia, many more women CEOs than in any other countries in Latin America. It is interesting because if you try to say, what was the difference, why is the reason for that? Because if you look at Mexico, Chile, Brazil, whatever in there is this list of 100 the most whatever businessmen, business people in Mexico, there's just 99 men and me in that. And will 9798 there was another woman last year. There are not many. It hasn't changed in many years, but in Colombia You've been to Colombia? Yeah. I don't know what is different, but you do find more woman there. Blanca, we are so glad you're on that list. You've been called the Sheryl Sandberg of Mexico just simply for supporting women and women in technology, as well as building a great company Thank you so much. No. Thanks for coming. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Mexico's Big Future In Tech Innovation

The woman at the helm of Latin America’s largest IT services company opens a window on the future of innovation in Mexico, what she’s doing to get more women involved in tech, and why investing in emerging markets is good for the bottom line.

Lovely to meet you. How are you? I am good. We have an interesting bunch of questions lined up for you. And I think the first one kind of starts off with the question Nina had put to us about the situation around the world. We're all competing for who's got it worse. So in this kind of environment. [ LAUGH ] What do you do when when you're looking at investments around the world? Do you worry do you say it'll be fine? Well, let me first of all tell you that I hope that Canada will be the best. Not the worst. [ LAUGH ] And by the way it's an amazing group of people, I was listening to all of you backstage and well it's quite a powerful group of people and very pleased to be with all of you. When I look at the situation. And you know on a global basis. First of all, we need to recognize that the global economy is slowing down and that essentially you can go into a lot of details but they are two important trends. The first is certainly trade conflicts. And geopolitical tensions around the world. And it's very, very difficult to predict the way it will go. It will depend the ways some presidents will wake up in the morning and decide the way it will go that day. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] So it's, no, but that's the reality, unfortunately. When I look at Canada, to a certain extent, I feel a little bit more comfortable. I hope that we will not be going into that trend of populisms and protectionisms. I hope that we will continue to be a very open Country, inclusive country, innovative country compared to unfortunately the trends that we can see right now in Europe with the Brexit. The tension in the US with China [ UNKNOWN ] So that's, from an investment point of view. That's not easy and it's not easy but where do you put your money in an environment like this, if you're sitting in Canada and saying Where do I attract people to invest in my country? Do I put it in innovation? Do I put it in AI? Do I put it in natural resources? Where is the target for you? Well, I think that when I look at it, I like very much the Canadian story. And the reason is, I guess, this is a country where we have important natural resources and energy, which is important, water. We have educated people, a reasonable system for innovation. So when I look at it from An investment point of view, compared to other countries. And I have the privilege to travel a little bit. I like my Canadian story, and I like my Canadian, I would say, context to invest. However, I guess that You know. I would, I would certainly suggest to consider alternative investments because when we look at traditional fixed income. Opportunities or [ UNKNOWN ], we need to make sure to have a very well diversified portfolio, and by the way that's what I am doing myself. So looking at Canada first, but looking Looking also at the world. I do wanna ask all of you, this is our opportunity to ask Monique our questions, so if anyone has a question, do raise your hand and our mic- handlers will come to you. So at this point I just wanna go back to Monique with a question of my own but do raise your hand if you have a question, I'll come straight to you. Let's talk about competitiveness. What are the issues that we're looking at when we are looking at Canadian businesses versus other other countries in the Americas? Yeah. We're not even going to go as far as Europe at this point. So when we look at Canada versus not just the US but Latin America, South America. Where does Canada stand and where does it fail? Well, even though I'm a fan. I'm a fan of Canada as I said, there are things that we need to do better. And I think that right now when we look at the economy, the economy is doing well. And mostly because there is a positive consumer confidence level into the economy. That the labor trend is is also quite positive. However, when we compare Canada to the United States, and unfortunately we are not as productive, not as innovative. Not as entrepreneurial. So I think that and the level of business investment is not as significant. So I guess that when I look at our country and when I look forward in terms of what we can do to improve the competitiveness of the Kenyan economy, it is certainly To work and do better in terms of those three elements. These are productivity, business investment and innovation. But do you think that last bit in terms of innovation, there's been a lot of criticism that not enough investments are going into things like artificial intelligence in Canada? Do you agree with that analysis? I would say yes and no. I think that we are doing and, depending on where you are talking about in the country, we are doing well. If I think about some clusters in Montreal, for example, if I look at what's going on in Toronto, they're a very interesting initiative. Can w do better? Probably so compared to the US there's also in the US a very strong defense sector that we don't have per say in Canada it makes a very big difference. So I would say that I'm happy about the momentum but can we do more no doubt about it. Now There are some issues regarding artificial intelligence and some of those things in terms of new developments in the, you know, the technology and the question of data protection and so forth. And I think that in parallel that we do more, we need to also increase the level of Work that we do in terms of ethical conducts. Because there was an article, I guess, two or three weeks ago in The Economist talking about artificial intelligence in warfare. And when you read those articles, you start to be a little bit nervous about the state of the world because you realize that something could happen. Some machine could decide to launch something somewhere in the world without having the usual check and balance that you have with people. So you know, you need to make sure that in parallel that you increase the level of investments that you do in the artificial intelligence that- Are you doing with investment k back? Are you pumping in the money in that direction? Yep, yeah, I guess that the federal government but also the Quebec government was very keen in investing into the crossroads we have in Montreal. There are some interesting initiatives, but still some work to make sure that we can Do something meaningful with it. We have a question from the chair of MBW International [ CROSSTALK ] To say that. Sorry. What you think for being herem, could you describe how Canadian relates the economic relationship with China. Has changed, changed and shifted as the US economic relationship with China has shifted? Well, that's a very interesting question because if you look at the history of our country, Canada was one of the first country to have official relationships with China. And, and I guess that, many prime ministers were able over these three to get some, ongoing positive relationship with China. And, of course with what's going on with. Stand all the conflicts between the US and China, it's much more delicate and complicated than that. That's a big issue in my mind. We need to recognize that we have some important Canadian values. But at the same time, we need to recognize that We need to diversify our trade partners around the world and China is certainly an important country for us. One important aspect, I hope that Dominic [ UNKNOWN ] was the new ambassador from Canada to China. Highly experienced person with large connections around the world. Large connection with China will be able to help a little bit to resolve this kind of very intense situation. Do we have any other questions from the room? Right there [ BLANK_AUDIO ] No, this mic coming. I just build a note, my question thanks Monica it's good to see you again. I'm Marcy from Black Rock. One question that I want to have and I think that this really is to your role as because you have a particular bird's eye view as chair of investment. Yes. Back and this will be more relevant to my Canadian colleagues in the room than the US but maybe it'll resonate for the US colleagues as well is I look at Canada as being a small country, not geographically but in terms of number of people. And I wonder what you think the opportunities are for us to get some scale behind some initiatives as a country with a less regional approach if you will. And I think that could be the same as true in other countries where we splinter. Into these smaller groups and we're not really accomplishing the big exciting- Yeah, well, a very- [ CROSSTALK ] This part of Europe. Yeah, very interesting, yeah. I think that one of the risk that we're facing in Canada, and we need to be very careful about that, and we are not isolated from the big trends around populisms around the world. Is that we need to make sure that we keep the unity of the country we need to keep the country together from a political point of view. So far, you know, we've been able to do that we have some conversations of course between Quebec and the other part of Canada, but we've been able to do that. With respect and we were able to progress in that journey, and I hope that it will be the same thing going forward. With some of the issues that i'm listening to from the western part of Canada, I hope that we can keep things together. I think that from a pure economic point of view there are a lot of opportunities to do more trade across this country. We have provincial barriers that doesn't make sense any more. So we'll need to correct that and adjust that. And to a certain extent, I guess that I'm not Uncomfortable with this kind of middle power country. So we are not as huge as the US, we have to deal with a huge partner. And in fact with, of course, the change in directions coming in the US that we had to manage with when it was time to renegotiate NAFTA. I think that we were able to do it right. And I think that Canada should continue on the global scene to be, I would say, a country of inclusivity, country where we respect people and a country where we have strong social values and hopefully this As something that will keep the country together. How much does business end up playing a role in bringing that to fruition because you're seeing the same issues in Europe as well. where businesses seem to be taking this on as almost a purpose a cause and some of it would be walk washing and some of it is actually a reality of out of born out of necessity for talent. Well Personally, I am a very strong believer and the fact that business is there to create value not just for shareholders, not just for the economy, but for society And when you look at some of the successful corporations with long history of success, you will see that those companies have a very balanced way. To deal with the responsibilities but also most of the time, have a purpose. And I found very interesting this evolution in the US of the US business roundtable at to move from that focus on shareholders. To stakeholders. And I feel comfortable with that because as the former chair of the board and CEO of digital day, when I was thinking about the strategy of the organization when I was thinking about the future of the organization, it was about Customers, of course members will ask, but customers, if you are not aligned with your customers today and tomorrow, if you are not able to understand the evolution of the customers going forward, you will not be any more in business, so sometimes you need to adjust and you need to invest into the future. To make sure that your customers will be getting value from your organization. Employees, it has to be there because the success of an organization is people. Without people you don't have a business. So by definition I felt comfortable with that and the best ideas, the best Strategy will come to friction that the condition that you will be able to implement and you implement how with people, your employees. By the way, this connection with suppliers are very, you know, are essentially partners of your organization. So it makes, you know, a lot of sense to include them Communities, it makes sense also. And, eventually, shareholders. So, in which order you need to position all of that. Some people will start with shareholders. And, I know that there are some debates. There was a very interesting article in The Economist, I think it was, last week, about You keep quoting The fact Competitors that, yeah, well, I know. But, you know, I'm a fan They do a damn good job. of that. Magazine I have to admit, but the point is that there was a very strong argument against this position of the US business roundtable but personally I feel comfortable even though I have to admit that it is a little bit unclear to me How you want to define a company with a purpose. That's not easy. And we had a few minutes before this session, a small round table talking about that, when you think about it, how to define a company with a purpose, is not something easy to do. You can't define a company with, an appropriate corporate responsibility approach. But defining a company with a purpose is something much more demanding in my view. Well it- Pull off the rest. It sounds a bit like writing a piece of music, and I know that you're Background as a musician helped to you to almost look at your companies and business you deal with [ UNKNOWN ] almost like an orchestra. It is, it is. So how has that entire life journey really helped you to figure out what is critically important At a level of a Desjardins or at Investment Quebec or if you're looking at Canada as a whole or in the companies that you're going to and advising or investing in. How do you draw that perfect musical piece together? What do you You put first and second and third. [ LAUGH ] Well my background in music and arts is very important to me that it gave me. I guess when I was very young. Quesion, a sense of discipline, rigour but also being. Comfortable with emotion and emotion is about people. So I realized very quickly that when I was with different organization, and that when you want to bring people to, I guess to realize or to execute the strategy, it's about bringing some sort of positive emotion. Positive energy. And it's like a little bit like conducting an orchestra. It's very, very similar or it's like playing music with a lot of people. And at the end of the day, I guess that I was able from time to time to bring a little bit of that. Experience musical experience into what I was doing, bring people into one direction with not one voice, very different voices but at the same time we have the same song or the same kind of music and that's you know what you need to do with large organizations if you want to be successful. If you had to. Think about the current political situation in Canada and you to put that into a piece of music. Would you say that this election is going to be, well in tune? It's going to end up with a beautiful piece of Mozart style music or is it going to be more underground? [ LAUGH ] Where would you go with this? [ LAUGH ] You know what? That's a really good question. [ LAUGH ] Thinking about the election from a music point of view, well, it is certainly maybe something like a very long symphony. Funny. [ LAUGH ] There will be some emotion in the middle, but hopefully at the end we will be going with Andalusia. So hopefully, [ LAUGH ] at the end of the day we will be able to keep the country in the right direction. And nothing's keeping you awake at night worried? I'm a little bit as I said worried about the fact that, there could be a trend to some populism into the campaign. And I don't think that this is something, that could contribute to the well being of the country. So hopefully the typical Canadian well balanced style, more to the center will, the result of this election. So my last question to you and you can answer in one line one word however you want. I was told by friends of mine in Quebec that there was a lot of chatter about you Thinking about a political role in Canada, is that true or is that just gossip? Let me think about it. [ LAUGH ] There couldn't be a nicer answer to that question. Monique, thank you so very much for giving us your insight. Thank you so much. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

How Monique Leroux Is Shaking Up Quebec's Investment Arm

Monique Leroux has been described as proactive and energetic and is one of Canada’s most powerful women in finance. She spearheaded Desjardins’ revival from the financial crisis and today shares her vast experience with firms worldwide.

MPW Toronto 2019

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