Most Powerful Women Summit 2024

Cameron Diaz, Actor; Author; Co-founder, Avaline Katherine Power, Founder and Chairperson, MERIT, Versed; Co-founder, Avaline Moderator: Emma Hinchliffe, Senior Writer, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: The Multi-Hyphenates

Conferences

Cameron Diaz, Actor; Author; Co-founder, Avaline Katherine Power, Founder and Chairperson, MERIT, Versed; Co-founder, Avaline, Emma Hinchliffe, Senior Writer, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit 

Hello. Hello. Hi, everybody in the ladies. Yeah. Hi, Cameron Catherine. Thank you so much for being here for having us. Yeah. Thanks for having us. And I think everyone's really excited to see you and we're here to talk about your wine brand, Aveline, which I hope everyone is drinking. What a great group of women. No, totally. So Cameron, you must have had so many opportunities over your career to start a brand, whatever may have crossed your path. So why did you decide to do one Catherine power, period? Um, no, I, you know, there's obviously in the world of celebrity. Um, a lot of people come to you, they want you to sign on to whether it's a, you know, something that they're gonna pay you for something they want you to invest in. Um, there's a lot of different opportunities. I myself have never been sort of a product person. Um, my products have always been movies so I sold my films really well, you know, um, I pounded the pavement. I went out there, I pushed my, you know, push the product. Um, but I didn't really, uh, ever take on sort of a product because I didn't want to put my name on something and, um, it just wasn't my, it wasn't my back, you know what I'm saying? Um, but Catherine and I are good friends. We were, you know, we spend a lot of time together. We would always kind of find each other at, uh, friend gatherings, um, where we would sit in the corner and have a glass of wine and talk about food and houses and, you know, be a little antisocial, be a little antisocial. And um you know, one day we just sort of had that moment where we were just like, what is in the bottle? Like we asked this question about everything else that we consume. Um But we both realized we had never thought to ask about the wine because it kind of felt like one of those really romantic notions that wine was just like fermented grapes, you know, how fun that is and like squishy and warm it felt. And then we were like, but is it because I feel like every time I have like a glass and a half, you know, so like what's happening? Um So we turned the bottle around and realized that it was, you know, there was no label, there was no ingredient list and we thought to ourselves. Hm. That's very interesting. We wouldn't consume something of anything else if we didn't know what was inside of it. Like literally the ingredients and we said, is it just fermented grapes? And that led us on to a path of learning about how, what the wine making process was and how there could be over 70 ingredients added with no, you know, transparency and all the different things that those ingredients were and could become and um that we would never consume otherwise, you know, we just wouldn't, if we saw any of those on a label, we would just take our hands off of the, the, the product and never consume it. Um So we decided that we were gonna make a wine that we could drink and feel good about and put give to, to other wine lovers. Um and give, you know, really be the brand that um was leading that transparency and that people could, you know, depend on to have the highest quality so amazing, you know, Catherine. Why was it that the wine industry had not been of these conversations around ingredient, transparency, organic products, non toxic products. Those conversations have gone pretty mainstream. How had the wine industry avoided it? And has anything changed since you launched the brand? Yeah, it's a very old fashioned industry. Um And you know, it's not a product that's governed by the FDA. It's governed by something called the T TB. So they don't have the same kind of oversight as any food that we would eat or other even beverages that we would consume that are non alcoholic. Um So it used to be, you know, you would go into a wine store and if, if a wine was organic, it would be kind of pushed off to the side and it would, it would be kind of like a dirty word, right? Even though many, you know, producers and growers across Europe are farming without pesticides, making wine in this really beautiful way without a lot of additives. Um, and it was really a personal journey that we set out to, you know, find cleaner wine. And when we couldn't find it in Los Angeles, which is like the mecca of wellness, we thought this is a problem. So we would go to the restaurants, we would go to the stores and we would say, do you have any clean wine? Do you have any organic wine? Do you have any natural wine? And people would roll their eyes at us. They were so snobby and or they would say it's all organic, just grapes, you know, but we knew from doing the research that as Cameron said, you can add over 73 ingredients throughout the process. Many of which uh you know, these ingredients at high levels can be toxic um without any transparency. So we really wanted to lead the charge. Not only did we want to be able to drink, we love wine, you know, we love good wine, we wanted to be able to continue to drink it. Um So we created it, you know, first for ourselves and then felt compelled to share our story with our consumers. And I think we've really championed this whole new movement in, in better for you wines. Now, we have dedicated organic month at grocery stores and menus that note, you know, if something biodynamic or organic. And so the industry is really coming around, but it's a very old fashioned industry that needs a lot of pushing. Yeah, I'm laughing at you. I can't imagine Cameron, what does your ideal wine set up look like you're having a glass. Where are you, what's going on? I mean, in this room with these ladies, I'm, I'm arrived. Um You know, I think that one thing for us with avene, you know, you think a lot of times about wine as sort of this, you know, celebratory beverage where you're like, you're sitting down, you, you serve it at an event or you sit at, serve it at a, at a dinner party, but Catherine and I really wanted avene to be so your everyday drinking wine, the one that you put on, put on the table, you know, um and you, you know, that's why we put the, with our three core wines, we put the um the screw tops on because we're like pull the cork out. What are you gonna do? You got it, you gonna put it back in, they gonna say like how I don't want to drink the whole bottle, you know, um, so we put the screw cap on so that we could, you know, have a glass of wine with dinner and put it back in the fridge. And tomorrow night I'll have another glass of wine with dinner. I just want a glass, I just want a glass of wine. And um, so that's kind of, you know, we, we kind of say it's your, it's your everyday wine. It's the glass that you enjoy wherever you're at, whatever you're doing, doing your laundry, doing, you know, watching the baby monitor. Um I don't know, you just insert it wherever it works for you. OK. That's a beautiful vision. Um You know, Katherine as Cameron alluded to like you have launched several successful brands of your career, but this is really the only one that could be considered a quote unquote celebrity brand. So what made Cameron the right partner for you? And what's your view on what makes for a successful celebrity brand? And what does not work? Yeah, even though I have um a celebrity brand or participate in, in one, I don't necessarily believe in them just broadly, right? Um Cameron is a founder of this business. I mean, we literally, you know, the first dollars into the business were ours. We picked the pantone chips, we knocked on doors in Europe trying to convince these old world wine families to work with these two girls from Hollywood. Like, you know, it's, it, it is not a celebrity brand. It's a brand that needed to exist that we wanted to build so that it would stand on its own. And now we're at the point where when people learn it's Cameron's brand, they're pleasantly surprised, but they've actually heard of the brand first. And so that's how I know we've done a good job and I think, you know, it's, it's very hard as a venture or private equity backed business um to have a celebrity attached. I think alcohol is maybe one of the only categories where we're still seeing a lot of M and A um uh around celebrity brands, but there's often a lot of risk in that. And so they just don't trade, they don't get the investment and ultimately, you know, you have to take a business to an exit. So um as an investor, it's actually not something I'm super excited about, but for a brand like a that needed to exist, no matter who the founders were. You know, we were just two passionate people, you know, that brought different perspectives to this new business we created interesting and of course, it doesn't hurt. But yeah, well, you know, part of your strategy is targeting what you've called this xennial consumer. Who's this microgeneration between millennials and Gen X, what is so powerful about this consumer and what you get out of targeting her. I love the, the Zenol customers. So all of my businesses, um I have Aveline, I have AAA beauty brand called Merit. I have a um skin care brand called Verst. Um They all target the Zenol and um it's really somebody who has um you know, who grew up without technology, but now participates in it. They kind of bridge the, the gap between millennial and, and Gen X. Um they're very influential across all different generations. So they show up and they buy it for themselves. But she also buys a bottle of ale for her mom or she goes to Sephora and she buys a blush for her, you know, 13 year old daughter because it's clean and natural. So we feel like by targeting this consumer, we're actually reaching multiple generations, they're more brand loyal, they're higher, you know, average order value, basket size, all of that. I think it's a very exciting um sort of micro demo. Yeah, it's a really interesting strategy. Um So Cameron, you made a transition away from acting and took some time to focus on other parts of your life, including Ave. And you've spoken about wanting to simplify your life and, you know, have a more manageable lifestyle, you could handle yourself. And we have a lot of other women in the room who have similarly very high level, high powered careers that are very complex and have likely considered some of those same existential questions. So for someone else, considering whether to press pause or to pivot to something else, what advice would you give them about how to know whether it's the right choice and how to do it in a way that serves them. Well, I can only speak for myself. Like, for me it was just, um I had something I had to do. Um, it felt like the right thing for me to reclaim my own life and I just really didn't care about anything else. I didn't like, I don't, it's nobody's opinion, nobody's success, no one's offer. No one's anything could change my mind about my decision of taking care of myself and looking after the, you know, and building the life that I really wanted to have. Um And so I think it's, it really comes to, you know, what are you passionate about? You know, whether it's for me, it was to, you know, build my family for other people. It might just be, you know what? I, I went to school for this and I've done it my whole life and I know how to do it really, really well, I'm at the top of my game but it doesn't feed my soul and always like taking pictures or, you know, whatever or I always thought I could be a gardener or whatever it is. Like, that's the thing you feel in your soul that speaks to you and you feel peace in it. Um You're gonna figure it out, you're gonna find a way to go there and then um a friend of mine a long time ago said, told me this and gave me this imagery, which I thought was really interesting. It was like a, a jellyfish has to suck into itself before it can propel forward. Right. So if you think of a jellyfish, it's like all of its power even. But any of these is like comes in and it comes into itself and it pushes forward and I always thought of that. It was like I can't go forward anymore if I don't come into myself and I don't pull in all of my energy and my power to be able to thrust forward. So once you figure that out for yourself and take the time and however much time it takes you to do it, it doesn't, it's on your timeline, it's yours. Um You just do that and you'll find your way to your next, you know, passion or you'll build the passion you're in. So, wow, amazing. Um On the other side of that, you do have your first project in a while coming out in early 2025. So how did you know it was the right time for you to come back? And how would you frame that for others? You were considering whether to get back into something? Um It was just the right time for my family after the COVID. Um I was like we were in the house for a long time, which is amazing. And the problem was, is that we would probably stay there. We would still be there. Right. No, people would be like, it's over and I'd be like, no, it's not, it is not, it's not over for me. Um, so I had to push myself. My husband and I were like, you know, and my husband who's the best, he's just the best. He was just like, you've been supporting us and, you know, building the family and, you know, supporting him in his businesses. He's like, it's time for us to like, support you and let mommy, like, you know, ascend and do her, do her thing. He's like, let me see you do it, girl, I was all right. Here we go. So, are you excited with that? I'm really excited. I mean, also Jamie Foxx, I couldn't say no to Jamie. He said come with me and I was like, ok, let's do it. It's our third film together. So amazing. Great. Yeah. What have you taken with you from this time? You know, focusing on other things and including building aveline. What have you learned um from your time as a founder that you're not bringing into other parts of your life. Well, I mean, we were talking about this on the way down, you know, it's entrepreneurial endeavors are creative endeavors. You know, they're, it's about creativity is about finding something and making something out of nothing, right? And um telling a story and um you know, you know, picking to pan toes, you know. Um but we, uh you know, it's in a CRE creative endeavor. So I think it's just a natural thing for me um personally to, to create and um Catherine's a phenomenal entrepreneur who knows how to build a business and also is very creative and um you know, an artist in so many ways. Um So the two of us just, we just had a lot of fun doing it. It was just felt really natural. I don't think we ever like as many people as to who told us, no, you can't do it that way. We just were looking at him like whatever you can't do it that way we can watch us, we'll figure it out. So, yeah, that's a lot of, you know, Catherine, something that really separates you as a founder is that you've not just built one successful brand, but you have this entire portfolio where you've built so many. So what is the key to that repeat success? How do you build not just one but several brands? So they all come from a white space in the market and they usually line up with the personal need that I have or a problem that I wanna solve. Um you know, and that I wanna solve for other people. So it's, it's kind of starts with that and then, you know, I use data to validate that opportunity. And even in the early days of avene, we went on our Instagram and said, you know, ask questions about wine. Do you know what organic wine is? How often do you drink wine? And we, you know, it's just like all these things to inform, you know, what we wanted to create and you start to get signals, you know, from people from the universe that you're headed in the right direction. And then, um you know, from there, it's just about putting the right people together. Um you know, not unlike, you know, doing a film, right? It's like there's a, there's a brand, there's a narrative and then you gotta put the right team together to execute it. So Cameron has this, you know, scratched a founder itch for you. Should we be keeping an eye out for any other brands, any other projects from you? Um Only if Catherine doesn't love me. Seriously. That's it amazing. Well, thank you both so much. It was a pleasure to chat with you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

Lizzo, 4x Grammy Award-winning Artist and CEO, YITTY Interviewer: Ellie Austin, Fortune    

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: From Grammys To Gap Year

Hi, everyone. Hi, Mia. We made it, we made it. Um, welcome to my ta of women. Thank you so much for having me. Uh I, I don't get out the house much so it's an honor to be here in front of all of you guys. I wanna say thank you to Fortune for having me. It's a very big deal. I'm very emotional right now. And one of the reasons why you maybe don't get out of the house much at the moment is because you're on a gap year. Can you tell us how you're spending your time because I'm sort of fantasizing about doing the same gap year. Oh girl who had a gap year? Um I'll say it like this. Um I launched my company Yiddy in 2022 at the same time as my album special. I had been on the road all the way until August 2023 working and as soon as I stepped down home from tour, I may not be as public facing, but I went straight to Ed headquarters and I just been working, working, working. So you might not see me but I'm working. It ain't a gap year. It's a blind year. So, ok, let's talk about yi we're in a room full of business women and Marriam introduced kind of what the concept is. It's shaped wear. It's a really crowded category. We've got Kim Kardashian skims, we've got Spanx and that's only to name a couple. How does yeti distinguish itself from the competition? Can I just say something? How cool it is to finally be in a place where we can say it's inclusive. Shapewear is a crowded category because it was not, it was nice. Um And it definitely wasn't when I uh was inspired to create yi, you know, I've been a big girl my entire life as long as I've been able to buy clothes, um I've lived in the intersection of the things that I want don't fit me and the things that fit me. I don't want. Um I have been through the shame and pain of wearing shapewear in middle school and wearing these garments that aren't breathable with these like snaps inside that can cut you. And sometimes I come home from school and I have blood on my shirt from the binders in the shapewear. And um I remember this was around 2015, I was in a store and I was looking around in the shape wear section and it was in disarray. I mean, clothes was everywhere and it was fully stocked, but it was messy. So that means people could not find what they were looking for. There were three colors, jet black, stark white and off pink. Nobody is that color. And you'll be lucky if you got a double XL and I was like, somebody has to do something about this. Um And I was like, I guess it's gotta be me. So I started taking, oh, that's cool. Thanks guys. I started taking meetings. Um, around 2016, 17, I got a lot of nos because people didn't think shapewear was a viable category. Can you believe it? And then finally, Fab Lettis said yes and not only yes, they gave me the opportunity to build my own company and be a CEO of my own company. Yeah. And shortly after that skims launched and it was so validating actually to see that because I was like I told you, I told you shapewear would be viable. You can see it as a negative thing you want to see. Do you and Kim Kardashian exchange notes? Oh my God, that's hilarious. There's one. Ok. No, but there is, there is truly, I mean, you might. No, it's funny. There's truly room for all of us. And what this means now is that young girls don't have to grow up the way that I did with no option. Yeah, that I want to talk a bit about the body acceptance movement that you've started. And I caveat this by saying it's uncomfortable in a way to ask you about your body. It's uncomfortable to ask anyone about their bodies because it is not the most interesting thing about you that is clearly your talent. However, you have become such an advocate and symbol for loving yourself. Recently, you've been posting online about a very steady journey you've been on to lose weight. Can you talk a bit about why that felt like the right time to embark on the journey and to talk about it publicly? 000. Well, the interesting thing about my body, I have an amazing body. I love my body and it has, um it has kind of been woven into my career and everything that I do. And I mean, that's why I started Yiddy. I started yiddy because of my body. We're very body forward and I um one inevitability that we all have to face is that our bodies will change. It's uh you know, and it's true. I'm so sorry. But it's a, it's, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing, especially. That's what, you know, self love is all about is accepting that journey. I created yiddy knowing that my body was gonna change. Whether I gained weight, which I did from when I launched Yiddy to, to, you know, last year or lose weight or have a pregnant belly or get older like our bodies change. And it's a beautiful thing. And Yiddy, my company has your back every step of the way with no shame. And that's kind of why I put myself out there because I want somebody to see themselves in me so they can feel less shame about their body changing. And how do you, how do you experience your body changing and still kind of connect with the person or the woman who maybe identified you with you when your body looked different. How do you walk that line? Well, for years now, I have evolved from talking about body positivity into body neutrality, which means my body is nobody's business other than yours, other than me, my doctor, my trainer and my man. Yeah. So you know, uh observe if you like what you see cool if you don't keep scrolling. Um I want to change tack a little bit. You had a difficult year, last year, you had um some allegations against you of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment, all of which you have denied. And I want to be completely clear about that. How did you feel when that news came to light? You know, I don't wanna talk about things like that. This isn't the space where we're celebrating female CEO s and powerful women. This isn't really the space to talk about the negative things that happened to us because so much negative stuff happens to powerful women is it does. I did. And I think that's, that's one of the reasons why we have to ask the question to give the powerful woman, the opportunity to answer in her own words, rather than just let stories circulate online. Right? As I agree with you, I don't think this is the platform for that. Ok. Um I want to talk a bit about your philanthropy. Um So every year to March June, you donate $50,000 awards to nonprofit organizations, black-owned nonprofit organizations. And when Roe versus Wage was overturned, you donated half a million dollars um to Planned Parenthood. And we were talking outside about how this morning you posted about going to vote in the presidential election. Um How do you in this quite charged moment for this country? How do you think about the way you want to use your platform? And I just want to say you've got 12 million followers on Instagram and you've got 25.8 million followers on tiktok. What do you see your role as it's evolved? I think, um I used to be uh internet yapper in my early days and I would just fire off and state my opinions. And I think that when you get a bigger platform, you do have a responsibility to not just add to the conversation if it's not helpful. And because there's so much in the fray now, um But I thought that today was a special moment to share that I did vote and I voted for Kamala Harris, you know, and I think it's important to say that because I mean, people think you walk into a room and it's just like Kamala Harris Trump and you hit one and then it's over. But there's so many important issues on the ballot this year. And I just wanna encourage everyone, I know everyone in this room is gonna vote. But please anyone who's gonna see this video or hear this, please vote because I didn't just vote for the president. I voted so we could make it illegal to make prisoners. Have to do involuntary servitude. You know, I voted to get rid of some of the homophobic and racist rhetoric in the constitution that allow, that doesn't allow people to get married to the person that they love. You know, I voted to raise the minimum wage. There are so many important issues on the ballot this year. So I think I'm always about advocating vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, especially to young people because your vote actually does matter. And if it didn't, they wouldn't try to convince you it didn't. We're in an era where a lot of artists understandably are nervous about wading into the fray on issues because cancel culture, everyone's so polarized. Has there ever been a time where you've held back from talking about an issue on your platform to protect yourself? I mean, you've talked about protecting your piece is one of the reasons for your gap year. Does that ever impact what you say and what you post on social media? Where rather been cancel for everything at this point. Only God can cancel me. Now, I think that um I talk about the things that are important to me and I talk about the things that I can bring a difference to. And I think that those are my boundaries now with the public. Do you think you would have been treated differently? You talk about cancel culture. If you were a man, the tea coolly. It ain't shy. Um I don't know because I've only been a woman but when you look at your peers in the music industry and the press they get the treatment they get. Is there a disparity? Maybe there isn't. Uh I don't think about those things. I really don't, I'm just, I'm just a fat black woman in this industry. I already got three things against me in this society and I'm still rising and I'm still successful. So let's talk about the music. Um You've teased online that you are working on a new album. Uh When are we gonna hear it? Number one? No pressure. You ask all the questions. Uh Yeah. Yeah. Um Well, you know, let me be an artist and give a proper roll out so you guys can enjoy, you know, the art the way I intended you to. Um And yeah, I'm really, really proud of the music that I've written. I'm very, very close to it being done. Um And I think you guys are gonna love it. You, you just wait and see what can you tell us without ruining the surprise about how it compares in terms of sound and subject matter to your previous work. I mean, I always am writing like um autobiographically. So my albums are always like a snapshot of my life and this album is definitely a snapshot of my life very specifically. Um The sound is always evolving. Uh The genre is always being bent um Because that's who I am. So it's a lot of fun if you had to describe the snapshot of the moment you're in now. What is that? Huh? Fabulous. It's fabulous. We're witnessing a really amazing moment in the global music industry right now where there's women everywhere you look, whether it's Cesar Tyler Taylor Swift, Chapel Roan Charlie. A a how do you reflect on this moment and why we're here right now? Oh, baby, I reflect most of y'all might not know this, but I started off as a rapper. Um Back in the day, I had a song called Batches and Cookies and I did a lot. OK. We got one fan in the back of Minnesota. Um But back then there weren't that many um women in rap. So I had to endure this question thousands of times. It was, how do you feel about being a female rapper in a male dominated industry? And I started to resent that question and I would answer, I would be like, you know what my dream is that one day, there are so many women that are dominating in the industry that you can fill an entire festival slot with just women. And that dream has come true. I'm so proud of the musical landscape. It's an incredible time to be a woman and an artist and a fan. Like the fans are getting fed right now because there's so much great music out And I'm so proud of my contemporaries and my sisters. And who are you listening to? Which women are you listening to right now? Oh God. You know, you know whose album I just listened to? I just listened to Chapel R's whole album when I was working out and it's incredible. Um I see a lot of parallels to her and my um we have the same kind of like rise and it was so quick and like, you know, I watch how she handles her relationship with the public and fame and how it's ever changing. And baby, if I have to say one thing, her cardio therapist, I wore my therapist out when I was becoming famous, baby, that her phone number and my phone was just indenting with my fingers. You so um II I looked at her and um I respect her a lot for how she handles herself because she's pulled back a bit from time to time, hasn't she? And do you and other female artists? You talked about sisterhood? Like, is that metaphorical or do you ever reach out to each other and exchange advice? Oh, my God. Me and Siza, every single day, like every single day. Yeah. I mean, I've known her since like 2013, so I watched her rise and I watched her become successful. Then she watched me. Right. And the entire time we were so supportive of each other and we still have that support system. Like she'll be like, girl, how much are you spending on your tour? How much are you spending on the business? I'd be like, well, let me say numbers with one another. Oh yeah, everything, everything. And so I wanna go back to the business for a second. Um When we talked a couple of days ago, you said your goal for it is that it becomes like world renowned, I think you said or kind of a global brand. What does that look like in terms of revenue, product lines, marketing? You know what I think that every business owner dream is to see their business continue beyond them, you know, and I don't want giddy to just be a synonymous or a celebrity brand as I would call it. I, I want it to be known for what it's actually good at and that is incredible fabrics, incredible fit, that's for inclusive um sizing um and the the technological advancements that we're making in shape where we have anti uni boob technology we for real and I'm seeing the dupes on the internet now. Ok, we did it first um butt lifting technology, antimicrobial crutches. Um and I really want our brand. No, it sounds silly but it's real and we need this, you wanna breathe and be lifted. And um I really want our brand to be known for that. And so I think that when it comes to passing the torch a little bit and me just stepping back and being more in design and more in in the background of um proliferating our business. And um also reiterating that like Yiddy is not a plus size brand. Yiddy is a brand created by a plus size woman for every damn body and so everyone can enjoy this brand. I think that's the future. I also think expanding our lines. We've already gone into swimwear. What else are you gonna do baby? Let me tell you, we got intimates coming up, which is really exciting. We have um amazing every day like cottons coming up. Um We just launched, oh, we, we have Pet me. Oh my God, you guys please check out pet me. What that means. Pet me is our lounge wear line that always sells out immediately. It's the softest like squishiest fabric. You feel like a little teddy bear, but it also snatches your waist and you can and there we have onesies, we have shorts, we have tank tops and we just dropped the card again and you are gonna love it. So, um I think it's, you know what I think about. Yes. Pet me. It's quite, yeah, everyone's like yit.com. Y I tt y um but I think the most exciting thing about um our business and what I think is the future is our member based. Uh We have this membership based model where you can sign up and be a member and you get like close at a way less rate. You get to communicate with us in real time and we get feedback from our members and we can make real changes in real time. So I think that's truly the future of Ecom. OK. We've got two minutes left. So I've got three quick fire questions. Oh OK. Um Who is the business person and practically women who you most admire? 00 my goodness. 00 why one who you admire someone? You know, my mother, OK. My, she always uh her and my dad always had businesses together. So I grew up in an entrepreneurial household. Have you time to have for advice during the launch of Yes, I have not. OK. That, that's all I'm a super independent child. Um Proudest moment of your career today. Proudest moment, honestly. Uh My, one of my proudest moments is June 10th, 2023. We donated a quarter of a million dollars to Black L LGBT Q and trans organizations and businesses. And that was huge, huge for me, especially at a time where they were rolling back rights to protect trans people. That was super important to me. That's, that was a huge moment for me. Final question. You're currently 36 I believe. Unless you've had a birthday since I researched you. Um, what would you like to achieve by the time you hit your next decade that you haven't already? Hm. That's a great question. Um, man, I don't know you guys, I feel like I've never even thought I would make it this far. Like I feel like I've really done it all and I'm really grateful for my life. Um I think I just wanna continue dreaming the ream I'm, I'm having things happen to me that I never even dreamed of, so I just have to keep making my dreams bigger, I guess. Yeah, Lizzo. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh enjoy that gap year. Although it doesn't sound like you're taking much time off no more. Oh, thank you, Nao. Thank you.

Elizabeth Gore, Co-founder and President, Hello Alice , Arian Simone, Founding Partner and CEO, Fearless Fund Moderator: Emma Hinchliffe, Fortune 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Fearless Fight

Elizabeth and Aaron. Thank you so much for being here. Closing out the summit with us. Pleasure everybody. Hi. Yes. Yeah, we'll take it. Um So as we just heard, you both didn't know each other that well, until you had one big thing in common. So tell us about what that was. Elizabeth. Maybe. Start with what happened with you. Um It was the type of alcohol we drink, right? No, we both um we both uh got hit basically at the same time with federal lawsuits uh for our programs benefiting black owned businesses and it was a, a heck of a time actually I was first. You were first. Yeah, you went and who sued you? Um I was sued by Hello Wallace. So we're a financial technology. We fund 1.5 million small businesses with credit and loans in all 50 states and we have ac that deserves a client. Well, ok, thank you. Um And uh so our, that's our financial tech and then we have a philanthropic program. We do about $50 million in grants. And um uh Steven Miller and America first legal sued us for um one of our programs a great program with progressive auto where we fund small business owners who have commercial vehicle companies who are African American and so America first legal and then Jonathan Mitchell who overturned bro V Wade. Um, a lot of good, just awesome guys here. Um uh, so they were, they were the two that sued us. Well, and a and what about you, what happened with your lawsuit if you could walk us through? Yes. On August 2nd. It was a regular day in Atlanta, Georgia and I found out on the news that we were being sued for alleged discrimination and I didn't even believe it was real at first. But in our case, the plaintiffs filed three things against us. They filed a temporary restraining order, meaning they were trying to have us out of business and shut down by August 17th. I thought Tr Os were for like stalkers. And then the other thing they filed was a preliminary injunction on one of our grant programs. And then the case itself alleging discrimination against four of our companies. Wow. And where do things stand now? I believe you recently settled. Oh, I'm permanently case dismissed, but I deserve to clap too. But yes, I run the nation's largest and first ever venture capital fund that's built by women of color, for women of color. But one thing I would like to, oh, thank you. One thing I would like to point out prior to these lawsuits, the work that we do is difficult. Right now, women of color receive only 0.39% of venture capital funds. That means that there is opposition way before these lawsuits took place for those numbers to exist. Women of color are the most founded entrepreneur demographic, just the least funded. So for anything like a litigation to take place should let you know there was opposition way before we even got sued. And honestly, there's opposition even afterwards we're facing it now. People trying to make us close our fundraise early. It's, it's ridiculous, honestly. And just to finish with the case, why did you decide to settle? Oh, it was very simple. I learned as a very young child, you never let a nickel hold up a dollar. And that's, that's why we chose to settle the preliminary injunction was only on one grant that was left out of a program that had already been deployed for $20,000. And I just pretty much asked the plaintiffs, I let the time run out on the scotus appeal. I was like, well, you know what, we're not going to the Supreme Court with this, that would be very damaging. So after I let the time go out, the plaintiffs saw we weren't headed to the Supreme Court and we know that what they wanted was to establish case law. I can assume that's what they wanted based upon what we've seen in recent rulings. And I said, Hey, what is it? You all want, just negotiate it. And I just said, hey, I've gotta keep going with the work that I do because it's important. Yeah. So you did not want to set a precedent that would have hurt other people? Oh, it would have been disastrous with today's current climate in 2024. What would the impact has been? Oh, it would have eliminated race based programs nationwide. It would eliminated funding for women nationwide and people of color nationwide and that was too much at stake. Yeah, let's talk a little bit. Oh, ok. Thank you again. So let's talk a little bit about the personal impact while all this was happening. Elizabeth, you mentioned drinking wine. How did this all impact your health, your relationships, your lives outside of this legal action? Well, we found each other which was pretty special um through this, I mean, you, you form very tight relationships and crises. I think they do that in rom com. So we have our own rom com, I guess. But um you know, it was um it was detrimental. I mean, we, ours was a class action suit so any white male could sign on um to the suit. And so we were, we were in the middle of a series c fundraise for our company and um it blocked that fundraise. So we had to lay off two thirds of our employees. Um and there we also had a significant amount of cyber attacks, um people following, um we assume following a fl and so we had to have security teams. Um It was, it was tough and um I mean, I, I ended up having some heart failure and some crazy stuff and I really resonated with Ariana yesterday saying, you know, all this is connected in mind, body and spirit. But, you know, my number one objective is for my family, my employees and most of all are a million half business owners. So um like any company that goes through a Black Swan event, it was, you know, you know, hold your head up high and give them help. Wow. So what lessons did you draw from that for other business leaders who are faced with some sort of crisis? I don't know if it's a lesson I drew from that. But just something that I've always honed in on is I do prioritize myself even in the midst of this, I took a sabbatical from like March to half of April. And I was like, I'm off the grid. I'm at Miraval at Wellness Resorts. I'm zenned out. And the moment I shifted myself, everything around me shifted. I had clarity on how we could resolve the case and just how we could move forward as a company. And I encourage that in general. But one thing that people don't talk about, she was telling me about even just the state of mental health, our physical safety. I was in the, oh, I can't say where I was but it was here. But I, what I can say is there was a CEO and she was talking about her personal safety at her house. I said nobody talks about that. The first three weeks of this, it wasn't even safe for me to even be at home. You know, especially in a state like Georgia. That's a very conservative state. So nobody talks about the fact that where our safety can, can lie in the midst of all of this. You know, we had a, we had a sheriff's view club in front of our house and I have little Children and it was, um, you know, it's something that, you know, this is a philanthropic program that we care deeply in. But, you know, come on, let's go. Yeah. No, that's really scary. I'm very glad you're healthy today. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll come to everyone for questions in a moment, but just to return to that idea of lessons for business leaders on how to get through a crisis. What would you tell people in this room? You know, um, obviously, it was amazing in this room and I will say that the basic fundamentals of running a solid company really got us through there. I think if there had been anything else, we were too much debt or we were overspending or we didn't have a good leadership team, we didn't have a good board of directors. I don't know that we could have made it through and by the way, we did grow and become profitable during all this. So, so for, you know, a venture back company during a tough economic year, that that was exciting for us, but I will say just the basic fundamentals, both personally, professionally and then of the company, um you just never know who's gonna run a red light and side swipe your car and so driving safely in your company in your life, no matter what's gonna hit you, whether it's, you know, an alt right lawsuit or whatever that may be. So, you know, we have an election coming up. I heard, yeah. What, what do you expect to see in either scenario? Do you expect to see more legal action like this, targeting other people trying to achieve that precedent that they didn't achieve with your case? And what would you like to see from a Harris administration? Elections have consequences? I'm so glad you just said a Harris administrative. Ok. Go ahead. No, seriously. Elections have consequences. I was in a federal lawsuit that had multiple federal rulings and every Trump appointed judge said that what we were doing was in violation of the law and not even just in violation of the law of civil rights law at that a law that was actually put in place to ensure that black people had the right to enter contracts So elections have consequences. Every Obama appointed judge and every Clinton appointed judge ruled that what we were doing was not in violation of the law. Now, this is not a Democratic or a Republican discussion because I do believe that Republicans are very heavy in capitalism, very, very heavy in business. I do believe if I had some Bush appointed judges, we would have been just fine. So this is not a matter of that, but it was to just show that there is clearly an agenda that is going on against women and it needs to stop one of the things that, um, you know, Aaron's, right, in the sense of your, your federal local circuit, I know more about judges now than I ever wanted to know. But the other thing is, is just supply chain and funding for the corporations in the room. The other thing that's was sued the exact same time as R two organizations is the eight A program. So supplier diversity contracting, federal contracting, the four categories of women, people of color, veterans and disabled veterans were also sued and blocked as was the restaurant revitalization program. So there are federal government programs that, you know, are the tune of, you know, almost a billion dollars that are also being impacted by politics instead of policy. So supply chain for Fortune 500 we spent 4 billion a year at Dell on smart diversity when I was there contracting. And so this also absolutely affects corporate, the P and L of corporate and our supply chain as well. Got it. Any questions for Elizabeth and Aaron? 00, sure we have. Yeah, we've got a little Diane from the boss. Hi, everybody. Um, you know, I'm curious, we've seen people like Robbie Starbucks prompt companies to back away from, for example, supporting pride was. Right. What, what impact does that have when you're seeing companies really track for good reason because they're facing these campaigns? What impact do you think that has on the situations you found yourselves in? I was actually about to speak on that before you even asked because I wanted to share prior to our lawsuit, our investors received threatening letters to stop their de I funding. I run an sec regulated financial institution. We are backed by JP Morgan Chase mastercard, paypal ventures, Bank of America and plenty of fortune 100 companies. And when you see movements like that, it's very concerning because everybody wants to make diversity conditional based upon current climate. So it is, it's very, very concerning when we were in litigation, right? When the case started, I had just closed on 23 million. We had about 100 and 50 million in diligence that just was like poof, I was like, what they're like, we need you all out of litigation before anybody can move forward. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, what, what's happening here? So when you see movements like that. It's very concerning, but we know that we are at Fortune. Yes. And we know that there are powerful women in this place. Isn't that correct? Most powerful women. So we need everybody in this room to stand by the principles that you all believe at your company. We don't need anybody being concerned with the threats. If everybody just stands strong, we will be ok. But we need everybody just to stand strong. Yeah. And diane, the thing that I'm really focused on is as I mean, we are capitalists through and through. And one of the things that concerns me is these significant gaps. So we, we provide credit loans to small business owners. There's a $40 billion gap in the BPO community for small business owners who have applied them in decline credit generally not because they have bad credit but because they don't have credit history. So a lot of these programs actually are highly beneficial to the banks. So if you look at secured credit, for example, which we provide a lot of, I want these to be our customers. I want individuals to be able to apply and get the loans and credit so they can be job creators and so on. So this is good economics. So I do think those who stick with these programs are gonna win out in the end and they're gonna be highly profitable for it because this is a whole new we call them, the new majority of small business owners that are coming in and applying and growing. Yeah. Is there, have you learned anything? Is there a strategic way that companies, funds can do this kind of work without the same legal risk? Well, one of the things I've seen that I've been really excited about, um, I, everyone from AD P to chase others, they're actually putting these programs in their PNL. Um, and so they're, they're looking at it as um I've, I've heard emerging markets, I've heard uh new customer base. So ironically when you push this as marketing or going after a new customer segment versus the en I philanthropy, I mean, it's, it's bullshit that we all have to, to snake around but look when it's in the PNL and it's making money for a company, it seems like you're not getting quite the, the eyebrows raised and that's just good business too, I think. Yeah. And is there regulation or anything you would like to see to prevent this from happening again to other people? Well, I've said it many times on many stages, even including yours is a fortune stage that the lawmakers and the legislators, they do need to make sure that we have legislation that protects the right to fund marginalized communities so that everybody has a fair chance at achieving the American dream. Now, these uh our, our lawyer, Neal Katyal talks a lot about these types of debates used to happen in Congress. So 181981 was the law that both of our lawsuits were based on. It was a post civil war reconstruction. That law about contracting. If that law needs to be interpreted in a different way in a modern society, normally that would be negotiated in Congress, not litigated in the private sector. So one thing I'd like to really see and we've met with a lot of congressional leaders and senators on this is if, if these debates need to happen, let's have them not sit and stop the private sector from creating jobs and making money. Let's have these debates in Congress. Mhm. Yeah. Do we have any? Well, you know, I have something, something. OK, please go. Yes, we, we discussed this backstage and I told you I definitely wanna even place an ask to the audience this work. We do. You guys is not easy but it is needed. The US economy is made up of over, oh, gosh, 99.9% of small businesses or businesses are small businesses. Any disruption and access to capital is a disruption. Access to the US economy and the work we do is so important. I'm talking about the most founded least funded right now in our portfolio. The top quarter of our women we've invested in and they've been on everybody's magazine covers TV, shows et cetera. They have eight figure revenue, year over year growth. I was dealing this morning with a portfolio company at 50 million in revenue, struggling to fundraise. Have you heard of that? From a white male? Exactly. Struggling to fundraise. So if you all truly believe in this work and it's a, it's a black founder, she is a co founder, that's a white gay male and they are struggling right now in a fund raise makes no sense. I don't care what the current macroeconomic climate is a business that successful. That makes no sense. And we have some others. I've seen one at 20 million, 30 million. But if you all truly believe in this work and I do not do this from a stage. But I'm asking you guys to invest in the fearless fund and let us know. And if you do not have it in your personal capacity, then please feel free to make any introductions. The work that we're doing is phenomenal. The impact we're doing is phenomenal, the job creation and reducing the wealth gap. But this is difficult. They, it was difficult before we got sued and it's still difficult unfortunately, afterwards. Yeah, Aaron, you may. Oh, thank you. Oh, yes, Erin, you made your as to the room, Elizabeth. Is there one thing you'd want everyone in this room to do? I really think um it is, it's important that we get policymakers to start negotiating all this and discussing it. And I really appreciated the undersecretary's. Have you talked to your congressman and women. Have you talked to your legislators? Um This should not be in the private sector and it should not be hitting nonprofits either. So I really encourage all of you to push your legislators to think about these issues. No matter what side you sit on, it's time for them to pull it back into Congress and do their jobs. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Thank you all.

Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property; Director, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 
Interviewer: Allie Garfinkle, Fortune 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Innovation And AI

Hi, Cathy. Hello. Hello, amazing women. You can say hello. So we're going to come to you all for questions. But Cathy, I'm really excited to be here with you because you are uniquely equipped to talk about this long arc of A I. You started working in A I in the early nineties. Take us back in time a little bit. I think a few things have, maybe a few things have changed. So I started working on A I, when I couldn't ship my files via email, I had to use FTP. If you remember that this is way back in the day, there was really no internet that we all had access to files had not been digitized. So when we were working on A I back then, and I worked on it in the aerospace industry trying to detect faults on aircraft. We were really looking at using our own data. We weren't looking at these massive data sets. We had no concerns about what we were training on or bias. We were just trying to come up with system. It was a little bit more insular. Well, and it's the sort of thing we were talking sort of about it earlier earlier where you were said, well, data, we weren't thinking about how big a role data would even play. Exactly. There was no big data then. Now how do you think about A I policy in broad strokes? It's something I know a lot of folks here have a, have questions about lay it out for us. So in my role, I think about poor things, I think about jobs. I think about innovation to solve community and world problems. I think about us competitiveness globally and I think about national security. So whether I think about intellectual property or A I or anything else, I'm looking at it through that lens. And so one of the ways I like to explain it is NIST is really there on safety and security related to A I, I'm really there when it comes to opportunity. Now, how do you think about the election that's coming up? Is there an election there is, I've heard, I've heard, I don't know if you've heard. How do you think about it though, in the context of what you do? So this is what I'll say over the last four years, the Biden Harris administration has really leaned in when it comes to supporting communities and creating jobs. We are creating silicon valleys everywhere. We are creating tech hubs everywhere quantum, for example, in Colorado and in Chicago. And so what really needs to happen no matter what administration is in is that continued commitment to us, communities and us innovation. This election does have a couple of very key tech figures who have been very vocal. One of them is Elon Musk. Any opinions about Elon, I would say um my relationship with Elon is more of a personal nature. So, so I, I drive the Tesla, I have the Tesla plad because I wanted to get an electric car. And when I drive and I see a voluptuous woman walk across the street. Elon depicts her as a tall white man. Really? That's the A I recognizes everybody as tall white men. So I have the Roadster on order and I'm Elon. If you're listening, I'm going to withdraw my money. If you don't change that, Kathy has some questions for you, Elon. Now, I want to talk about the role of women in A I, what role do women have to play in this space that is evolving so quickly. And so it is so important. So one thing that I love, which I never take for granted is when I sit around a table in government and I talk about a I at most, there's one man in the room. So it's incredible. Elizabeth Kelly, that's really on the Secretary of Commerce. All of us across government, most of us are women who are dealing with this at the highest levels. So it's, it's I find that very interesting, I will say in terms of the role that women have to play. Um Actually, let me ask the question on this, how many in the audience have lobbying organizations? OK. Now, if you can put your hands down of all those who don't have lobbying organization who has reached out to government to express your thoughts on policy. OK. That's great. I'd like to see that number be much, much higher because we are listening to everyone and I think there's a general misconception that you have to be a very large company who funds a lobbying organization to be heard. And if we look at policy through that lens, we're going to be shaping policy for the large organizations. So we really need everyone here. All of you have a stake in the future of A I. All of you have a stake on how we shape policy and we need you to reach out, you can write personal letters, we'll take meetings, Elizabeth Kelly and I just last week had a meeting from a very small company. So when I think about women's participation, I think not only about the fact that we all need to educate ourselves, we need to use A I, we need to think about how A I applies on our organizations will be left behind and the stats of women owned businesses outperforming men will change if we don't do that. But in addition to that, you need to weigh in on us policy because we're trying to create policy right now that helps everyone. And if we don't hear all voices, we're not going to be able to do that. Who here after listening to Cathy speak is going to write a letter, who I want to see more hands than that. Come on. There you go. Now, in terms of what is it going to take to get more women in the mix? Because I found a UNESCO study. I was telling you about earlier, the numbers, the numbers don't look great. About 80% of A I professors are men at a lot of A I conferences. 18% of presenters are women. What is it going to take for more women to get involved, sort of at the research level and beyond? So I'm going to talk fast here because we're doing so much on this. So I will say we released recently the first ever national entrepreneurship strategy. We also released the first ever National Inclusive Innovation Strategy. We got to start from the beginning, we got to get girls in the mix. And so we're doing programming now across the country. 350 3000 Children participated last year alone where we're introducing Children, 6789 year olds to innovation, entrepreneurship, intellectual property. And I want to put A I in there as well and we're working with NSF on that. So everywhere we connect with people, we want A I to be part of the mix with innovation, but it starts there and it continues on. We teach teachers across the entire country how to teach innovation, entrepreneurship. We invited NSF come talk about A I to make sure we're teaching A I. So it's all along this process. It's everything that we should be doing on stem we need to be doing when it comes to A I. And we need to bake A I into all of our, all of our teachings and all of our outreach. Well, and you said something really interesting earlier about the letters that people get when they receive patents. Can you tell us about that? So it's interesting. So when I came into office, which was two years and seven months ago, the first thing I did is say we're going to rethink everything hearing, you know, why did you decide to rethink everything? Because you always hear it's always been done that way. And I thought one benefit of having a political come in is that I don't know how it's always been done. And it gives me a chance to say, are things working? Are they not double down on things that are working but fix things that are not working? So I instead of waiting, I was told stakeholders will start to reach once. I'm like, no, I'm going to reach out to all of them immediately and reach out within the organization. So I heard from 2000 of our 14,000 employees on what's working, what's not working. One of the, and one of the things we've been trying to do is expand innovation so that more people who don't participate statistically, women, but also people from different racial groups, people from, from rural areas, we want to bring more of them into the ecosystem and empower them. So one of the, and once we get them in the system, we want them to stick. So we've done a lot of things to bring them in the system. But what I recognize is that women who come into the system and file for a patent, I surmise that they did not persist at the same rate as men. And the reason I thought that was because the first substantive communication you used to receive from the office was a rejection and given my huge brain, I realized that was not welcoming. I agree. If I received a rejection from the patent office, I'd probably take it pretty hard. Yeah. So I thought that does not seem like a people we're here to support you. And so I asked our chief economist just do back of the math analysis. Do women opt out at a higher rate than men? The answer was considerably. Yes. Um And then I, you know, if we're solving for women, we're solving for other demographics as well. So what I did was we now send a letter actually, when you file before you get your substantive communication, we welcome you to the innovation ecosystem. We tell you about our women's entrepreneurship efforts that we've been doing. We invite you to free programming. We teach you how to learn what the steps are, how to track your application, what to do next. And we teach you that we're here to help you get a patent and that when you receive a communication that's fashioned as a, it looks like a rejection. It's really about saying you're not quite there yet and we're here to help you get there. And so we're measuring data. We don't have the data yet, but we anticipate that's going to dramatically move the needle on everybody staying in the system. But we'll certainly hopefully level out when it comes to women. This is one of those things I'm fascinated by because it seems like something where people would say, oh, that would never make a difference. But it sounds like you're fully anticipating that it will, it will make a huge difference. And I will say a lot of what we do is we get out in communities and listen to women entrepreneurs on where, where were the stumbling blocks. And so many of them say I was so lucky that I had a lawyer who helped me realize that when I got that rejection, I could move on and move forward. And these are, you know, the first black inventor of this century woman, black inventor in Colorado told me that. So women are telling me this and as I said, if we sell it for women, we sell it for other demographics as well. But we know that this is going to make a difference. So when women are receiving that rejection, they're taking it as a permanent rejection, they're taking it. Who wouldn't? Right. You don't know the system. It seems pretty opaque to most people. Now, are there any questions for Kathy if we could raise the lights? Yes, over here. Hi, I'm Janet Gerald and with Miller Knoll, um going back to your comments around creating more education um and getting educators to um adopt A I I think about my 17 year old daughter who in her A P language class who's uh the first thing that her teacher said in the syllabus is don't use chat G BT. However, there's such an opportunity to have these educators better understand how can they use those tools to advance learning. And yesterday in one of our breakout sessions, a statement was made that A I isn't going to replace humans but humans who use A I will replace humans. Who don't, how do we get educators on board and understanding the importance of adopting these tools? Really great question. And I love that phrase that humans who use A I will replace humans. Who don't I truly believe that which is why I would encourage everybody to adopt it. So, first of all, we need to make sure that people understand that adopting A I is safe and teach them safe ways to adopt it. So that is something that I'm working on. I know Secretary Commerce Gina Ramundo is working on. And I will say just on that topic, we are running a contest right now where we're asking developers to basically run A I and then create a boolean output to show that A I was basically doing what you would think of putting into a system anyway to give people more trust in the system. Um But in terms of the educators, we have programs at the Department of Commerce through my organization where we are reaching out to teachers, we run a national summer teacher institute, I institute a kind of a graduate program. When it comes to teaching on all of this, you can email me directly and get your school involved in this. If you want your teachers involved, if you want to connect them in, we do free programming once a month to teachers and we're in reading A I is part of that, but it's not just A I, it's the rest of the ecosystem as well because A I is great, but there's also young girls who Tinker and innovate and we teach it out of them through the educational process and we want them to be interested and understand not just A I but stem generally and then the whole innovative and entrepreneurship process so that we can really empower them So my email is director at upto.gov and that goes directly into my inbox. So I will connect you up with the right people. We can get the camps into your schools, we can get your teachers involved. And that's really what we want people to do is to reach out and scale the work that we're doing. So that more schools, more communities across the country will benefit. I don't know if I've ever had anyone give out their email on the stage. You aren't kidding? You weren't kidding? Yeah. No. Yeah, I know we were talking outside. You said I want people to email me. You're really serious about it. Yes. Yes. Silly. Wait, we've got to do it together. I can only do so much by myself. I understand. We have some questions over here. Hi, I'm an fo friend of Cathy and I highly recommend it. She is amazing. She is um she's not just breaking and shattering the glass ceiling. She is drop, kicking it. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I'm also a fan of Cathy. Um So I, I'm CEO of the Creative Coalition, which is the nonprofit arm of the entertainment industry. Our actors are our members are actors, writers, producers, directors, executives that use the power of entertainment to impact social welfare issues and we partner with companies like yours. Um So Kathy, your moment, what can you say to my constituency where A I became two dirty letters. So there's, there's a reason for that. Right. There's real concern when it comes to your industry and that's something that we're tackling right now. We actually worked it into an executive order where we need to issue guidance to the Biden administration on how to deal with the intersection of A I and copyright. So one thing that I would say is have their voices be heard and don't just work through lobbying groups. I'm not saying any lobbying groups are great, but I will you that ceos of companies call me directly, they call senators directly, right? They send letters directly. And so and that's much more impactful in some ways. So to the extent that you have well known actors have them reach out directly and have their voices heard so that the people who are making decisions really hear from the end consumer, that's terribly important. And then I would say, keep your finger on the pulse of what is happening internationally. One concern that your constituents have right now is that in Singapore, they're considering allowing A I to train behind paywalls and your industry is extremely concerned about that as other people should be as well. So we don't just develop policy in the United States. We go out and advocate for policy that's going to be good for us businesses across the globe. So they should keep an eye on that as well and make sure they're hurt on those issues as well. I understand we have one more question over here. My name is Shannon Nash. I'm also, I didn't know what fo meant, but I am, I also consider, I know right. I also consider you to be a mentor, a supporter. In fact, you brought me to the fortune. Um What was it next gen conference or something like 10 years ago? I wouldn't be here if you hadn't have bought me to that. Um My question is I saw how you, I mean, this woman was killing it in corporate America, bad ass doing all the right things. And then she decided to go be in government. I'd love for you to give more about that decision. But even given where we are right now, hopefully the election goes a certain way. I think there's a lot of people considering maybe going into government or maybe not full time, but maybe doing other things, government adjacent, if you could give more input on like what that would look like. Um Even if you don't become, you won't become the patent secretary, but maybe being on commissions, just what are options. So thank you for that, Shannon. I will say, I think now more than ever, we need more women to step up into those roles. For me. I wake up every thinking about how I can have impact. Usually I do kind of as I'm waking up my brain, it's by connecting women doing things like that. But when this opportunity presented itself because I was not lobbying for it. And I said I would not lobby for it because I wanted to be unbiased in everything that I do. I thought about how I could have broader impact for more people. And I know that everybody in the room is working on having that level of impact. You don't need to go full time. I, you know, regardless of where my career takes, I hope to always play a role in government. There's everything from the Council for Inclusive Innovation that we run that I co chair that Mary Barra is on. So she sits on our Council for Inclusive Innovation. You saw a little bit about her movie, which is a great prelude to all the work we're doing around inclusive innovation. There's all kinds of committees, there's the National Advisory Council on Innovation and entrepreneurship. There are roles opening up in that soon that that's going to time out at the end year and there will be more roles opening up. But there's so many opportunities right now in government to be on a committee to really have your voice heard and lifted. If you're interested in that or any other government role, it really helps to know people who are in the government. So again, feel free to email me. Tell me what you're interested in. I will connect you with the right people to make sure that you can move that forward because we need more great women in government. One last question, Cathy, can I email you? Oh, I don't know. I have your email now. It's already too late. Ay, thank you so much. Thank you.

Mary Barra, Chair and CEO, General Motors (appearing virtually) Interviewer: Alyson Shontell, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: In The Driver’s Seat-  A Decade Into The Transformation 

Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO, Moms First; Founder, Girls Who Code, Christy Turlington Burns, Founder and President, Every Mother Counts Moderator: Jennifer Fields, Fortune 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: The State Of Motherhood Today

Artemis Patrick, President and CEO, North America, Sephora Interviewer: Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: The New Beauty Standard

So I know you've been with Sephora for a very long time, almost 19 years, I believe. Um But I wanna take a step even further back. Um You had a really unique childhood and upbringing and I'm wondering if you can share a bit about it with us today and how it shaped you as a leader. Yeah, happy to and thank you for having me here. Um So I was born in Iran uh and uh lived there until I was about seven years old. Uh My father was actually one of the pilots for the Shah. So in 1979 during the Iranian revolution, um we had to get out very quickly. Um And so my mother, my father and I um escaped to uh America. We came to Los Angeles actually. Um I didn't speak a word of English. Uh I was put into an ESL class and I learn more Spanish than I did English. So I was like, not a lot of Iranians here. Um So uh so I was there, we were there for about a year. But um unfortunately, my parents were having a lot of problems. My, my mom was very young when she had me. And, um, you know, my father had a really hard time dealing with this fall from grace. Uh So, um after about a year, we moved to Northern California and um my mom decided to go back to Iran, um with, I think the hopes of bringing me back there and sending for me, but she got there and very quickly realized that um the country had changed a lot and was really not a place to raise a little girl. So, um, I was trying to figure out what to do was trying to get actually back to America at that point, but it was during the Iranian hostage crisis. So she couldn't get out. Um, and my father was really not equipped to take care of me. So I ended up in the foster care system and uh lived in a group home for about a year and then I moved in with American foster parents when I was 10 in Northern California. And they raised me. What do you think? Um, you take from those days? I'm sure it strengthened you in so many ways. But what do you kind of fall back on when you need to? Uh, you know, I definitely know what it feels like not to belong, uh, to feel different. I think it was Palina yesterday who was talking about, um, you know, watching a lot of television, I can relate to that as an immigrant. I learned all of my English from TV shows. Um I'm still a L A Lakers fan and people are like, well, I'm like, that's how I learned English from watching the Los Angeles Lakers games. And so I think just, you know, being feeling, you know, different and looking different and speaking different and especially, and also with my foster parents, they didn't look like me. And um that's, you know, I think it's really shaped me who I am as a person, but also who I am as a leader. And I really truly believe in bringing in different thoughts and uh diverse ideas. And, you know, I, I think for the most part, people don't get up in the morning and think I'm gonna do a bad job today, like everybody has a story, everybody wants to do good. And, you know, I think that as long as as leaders were welcoming to that, um it's really, really important to me. And I think, you know, it's not to say that, you know, you're gonna take everybody's opinions and always do what everybody says. Ultimately, your job as a CEO is to set the strategic vision and to create focused priorities and to remove obstacles. But how can you get there if you don't bring in diverse thoughts? So I'm gonna pivot to the business um at Sephora of Sephora and I mentioned some of the growth um but we've seen so many different patterns in consumer behavior over the last few years. What's, what's, what are the trends that are driving growth at Sephora today? Yeah. You know, I mean, I, like you said, I've been there a long time and so, um you know, I've been through, through all of it, through youtube, through Instagram, through, you know, and obviously tiktok is a, is a big part of it through social, for sure. Um You know, it's for us it's really about understanding the trends before they happen. And then so social media is just a way that, that actually captures it. But, you know, it's not by an accident that a lot of the hot brands that are trending that are only sold at Sephora are on tiktok. I mean, uh you know, there's a method to the madness with our um incredible merchandizing and marketing teams. Um But certainly that has, I think democratized beauty, right? And the conversation around beauty, I mean, I always joke that, you know, thanks to brands like the ordinary, my 14 year old now knows what niacinamide is and I couldn't even pronounce that when I was her age. So certainly it's, you know, I think opened up the appetite, the conversation around it and especially around skin care. I think what Instagram did for makeup. Certainly. Uh tiktok has done it for skin care. Yes. Anybody here who has teenage Tween daughters. Yes. You know, they're really into their skin care routine and they, there's smoothies. What are smoothies, by the way, for anybody who doesn't know. Well, yes, you gotta, you have to mix it, you gotta mix them all together. They mix and mix it all together. Yeah. Yeah, you got to glow with the moisturizer. It's the whole thing. By the way, I've been doing that for a long time. So these kids are hilarious. I'm like, but they're call it what you want. But, yeah. Um, well, ok, so speaking of kids, there's been a lot of talk at the conference about Gen Z and, and um and Zel, which I millennials, you know, this micro generation, which I didn't know existed. Um but I'm a part of apparently, um but I wanna hear more about Gen Alpha and, and what does Sephora know about Gen Alpha? Sure as a consumer. Yeah. So I have a 14 year old so I definitely can relate. Um You know, the thing for us is, first of all, I mean, we do not market to this audience, right? Um And so it is really important for us to continue to remain committed to marketing to the appropriate age. You're never gonna see teenagers in our windows. In fact, I had a brand not that long ago who had a, a product that was not appropriate for um a younger consumer. And we actually asked them to change the model because um even though it's not, you know, our brand, we're, we're not comfortable putting you know, young kids selling retinoids and retinols um in our, in our window. So we do believe we have a responsibility to make sure that that what we sell is age appropriate. We have over 25,000 beauty advisors across the United States and can and Canada who are highly educated. Um that, that has been the core in our DNA from day one, they are not commissioned, they are very unbiased. And so we do train on what's right for the skin depending on the age. Um And at, at some point, you know, there's the responsibility of us as parents like me, as my 14 year old, you will not catch my 14 year old using Retinol, right? And so um I, but it is incumbent on us, it's incumbent on our over 253 100 brands to make sure that we're talking to the right audience at the right time about the right thing. Um So yes, there's been an influx of the younger generation coming into Sephora and we really do do our best to encourage them um to use uh the age appropriate products. Um I wanna ask you about the retail strategy. Uh You're in the midst of revamping a lot of your stores. What, what, what is the strategy there and why so much focus on the the retail footprint, right? Well, I mean, we've always had a beautiful relationship between the digital um and as and retail So we started our e commerce business in 1999 kind of ahead of our time. But the stores have always been the soul in the DNA of our, of our brand. I mean, our first uh store in 1998 was in Soho in New York. And it's now our number one store across North America. So the fact that it has sustained over 26 years, our first store in Canada opened 20 years ago in Toronto. So we took a step back post the pandemic and I'll never forget I was like, people aren't going to come back and use testers and people are like within three seconds or putting everything. And I'm like, oh, ok, let's slow it down a little bit here. So, you know, I mean that I think that interact, beauty has always been tactile and then that relationship, you know, our beauty advisors and that relationship with each other as your shopping, Sephora. So we took a step back and we said, ok, our stores have been around for a long time and our new stores look really, really pretty, but some of our older stores not so pretty. And so we said, what would that take? And I think, you know, you hear a lot about retailers doing a store of the future, so they'll take, it's very much a design element and they'll take one store and it's design driven. Usually you have the design team who kind of leads that we said, OK, let's take a step back and make this a merchandizing driven uh project, right? And so how do people want to shop? What are the right brands? How should we position? Where does beauty uh beauty to go and minis and more go? Now that one in four consumers are shopping with a mobile, mobile P OS. Are they going to stand in the long wave like that? And what are the hot brands we want to pull forward? And so we created the, what we say, the ideal map and it's actually in a lot of the stores that you see today that have been built over the last couple of years and we are gonna go back over the next 5 to 7 years. Um And we are embarking on the largest capital project in the history of Sephora globally and we're gonna refurbish every single one of our stores because we feel that whether you're shopping in Boise Idaho or in Toronto, Canada, you should have the same beautiful experience no matter where you are. Um I'm gonna go to you guys for questions in a minute here. So please be thinking of them. But um and one more question for you on the on the retail footprint side, um You're also experimenting with kind of mini stores under 4000 square feet in urban areas. You've done this before. It quite work out. What, what's different this time? Yes. So I was part of that project years ago. Um And we still have a few of those around. We had an urban, urban concept and um you know, our biggest learning was don't cut the assortment. I think what we did is we said, oh, we still have this big beauty studio and this cash strap, but we'll just sell less brands. It turns out people want to buy a product. And so we said, ok, let's take this back. And what would it take for us to have a store that is like about 15% smaller than our existing store? It's under 4000 square feet, but still offer the exact same assortment. And so what we've done is we've reduced the backstage and now we have more deliveries to that store and then we also remove the cash, the tradition cash wrap. So everybody is at Mobile P Os. But if you wanna pay cash, there's an end cap there that has this very small. Um The small end cap, we've reduced the area for services. Um We actually launched uh three this summer. We'll see. We were like, let's see what happens. Um One in uh Queens, New York, one in Brooklyn and one in uh Toronto at the Well, and they have far exceeded our expectations. I actually went to the opening at the Queen store and you would have thought you were at a party. It was bananas, people were dancing. I'm like this is amazing. And then that same day I, I went over to the Brooklyn store and this is crazy in the Brooklyn store. You can watch, you can walk 10 minutes to the left and be at a normal regular Sephora walk 10 minutes to the right and be at a regular Sephora and that store is killing it. It is over 60% above plan and over 60% new Beauty Insider signed up within the first month. So six out of 10 people walking in did not already have a Beauty Insider account and there's 10 minutes either way. So we believe that this is a really, really exciting concept that we're gonna look at more dense populations. This isn't gonna be thousands of stores. But when you think about New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, maybe even San Francisco. Um I think we have, we're onto something here. Great. We've got a question over here. But today we met yesterday. Um, first for anybody doesn't know Artemis is a historical figure. Navy commander, fierce leader. You're living up to your name very well. Um It's, it's fascinating. Please look that up. You've had a tumultuous childhood and it's build resilience. You can also throw people off quite well, but you have turned to the other side of it and you have made you a very strong female. How do you pass on those values to your Children? I asked that. So she asked how I passed that to my Children, my child, um, my husband also had quite a tumultuous, uh, upbringing. It's for a whole another, another time. But, um, it's hard because, you know, I, we're, we're both funny because I tend to be sort of like, I didn't have anything so I'm gonna give her everything she wants and he's like, I had a hard life and she's gonna work for it. And I'm like, so we've definitely taken the, the two different approaches of how you raise Children when you've had tumultuous um childhoods. But uh you know, I just, I, I just, it's empathy. Uh We talk about it all the time. It's empathy. I, I don't know how else to say it. We are constantly. I mean, it's, you know, be kind say thank you. You know, be thankful. We, we make sure that she understands um where she came from. But, you know, the of the day you don't fully understand until you're older. I mean, I, I definitely also, I had a lot of anger around what my mom, you know, my mom abandoned me and all this stuff and until I was older and I had a kid of my own, I didn't fully understand the sacrifice that she made. So what I always tell my husband is, you can't expect her to be any more than 14. And when she turned 15, you can't expect her to be any more than 15. Just keep teaching kindness and be empathetic and really at the end um they'll get there. Yeah. Other questions for Artemis. Let me see. We have, let me bring a microphone over here. We've got a couple. Can you raise your hands again? Oh, there you go. Start at the front. Hi, Mona in Africa. Equality. Now I have a question about, I, I love Sephora and I love that. It's multigenerational. I love it as much as my kids do. Um How do you manage to keep that product makes so relevant to so many different customer groups and now that I see that you're going into your own brand and you're developing sort of a Sephora line. How does that fit into the mix? Good question. Yeah, we've actually had Sephora Collection since the beginning when we launched um Sephora in France as the first store. Um even before that, when Sephora launched in uh Limoge France in the 19 seventies, Sephora brand was its own brand. So that's always been part of our DNA. We're definitely stepping it up. I think we look at it as an entry point. Um It's amazing quality to be clear for all of you with young ones for collection is amazing. It's part of LV Mh. So it goes through the same rigor as every LV Mh brand. Um just really good prices, so very good quality. So that's how we think about it. It's an entry point, great quality. Um and a way to enter the brand and we're very proud of it because it's what you take home at the end of the day. You see that you see the name in terms of remaining relevant. Listen, I mean, that is the secret sauce of Sephora, I'll tell you. So, you know, if you take a step back and, you know, when Sephora first came to America in 1998 similar to me, it was a bit of an outsider. And um you know, a lot of the big strategics didn't want to work with us. You know, there was the big department stores. And so just by sheer survival, we had to work with these little Indie brands and start in the kitchen and we would start early and we'd hear their stories and we'd be in there trying the formulations and give feedback and any brand that's ever worked with us. I see one in the audience here knows that we really love getting in there and getting in the kitchen and that allows us to build a brand together in many, in many ways. So you think about, you take for granted brands like two face Urban Decay Stella, you know, these brands that were, you know, not household names 28 years, 26 years ago. Uh So I think that to your question, it's really about getting in early, you know, I see uh cmo Rare Beauty here and I remember our very first meeting. It was goop in a jar and Selena Gomez and it was like, whoa and you know, and her passion um for the rare impact, fun and her belief in giving back. And so we were like, wow, great founder, great team, good product. Wow. And they give back as well to an authentic cause. That's very, very real to the founder. You could not ask for anything more as a merchant. Now, let's get in the kitchen and figure it out together. Um So it really starts very early. Do we have another question over here? Go ahead, please. Hi, Suzanne Juan, I'm with mccormick and company. And I was curious. Well, first of all, thank you because I have two bonus daughters and you make Christmas shopping. I was curious as you look at your professional career with Sephora, what's the biggest bet that you made and look back and say that was the one for me personally or for the, for the company one you want? Yeah. Uh Well, I can uh uh quickly answer both. Um I think professionally it was when I asked to be the general manager of foreign inside JC Penney. So at the time I had a whole ecommerce background and I was like, what do I know about running a PNL and JC Penney? Um and it was the, it was so amazing. I stepped in right during the Ron Johnson time. So it was very, very tumultuous at JC Penney and I remember the CEO at the time, our CEO Sephora, he sent me a note and I just had one line and it said Rome is burning, protect your house. And I thought, oh my gosh, what is going on? And so, and I did and I put my arms around the team and we just focused and we went forward and I'm very, very proud of what we delivered over the, the partnership there, um which ultimately then resulted in a really, I think, deep understanding of how to work with another retailer. And I was very early on talking to Michelle about the Coles deal. So, um so I think professionally, I, I wasn't sure I should take that job and I think it really sort of turned the tide for me. And then, um I would say for us, like there's so many decisions, so many brands we've launched that, you know, now again, our household names, which is really, really exciting, but something um that is, I think meaningful to me. And so a lot of the team was in 2020 when Aurora James reached out to us to become part of the 15% pledge. Um It was after the murder of George Floyd and there was a lot going on and we were at home alone on Zooms and there were six women um on this zoom and I'll never forget. Um when we said yes, we will be the first retailer to support the 15% pledge and the commitment that we made. And back then, we only had 3% of our assortment that uh you know, being sold by founders of color by black founders. And today we've doubled that assortment and we've actually reached 15% pledge in hair. So, um to me that will, it's, it's a lifetime journey and making a commitment to bring founders um of diverse backgrounds is, it's so critical to me, I talk about this all the time that, you know, I have a daughter who has curly oily hair and she has no idea how lucky she is because, you know, back when I was younger, you know, I didn't have the right products. But that's because people with hair like me weren't making brands for people like me and I, and I wanna change that um very, very meaningful note to end on. We'll have to get your smoothie recipe later. But thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.

Halle Berry, Actor, Director, Producer, Advocate; Founder, Respin
Interviewer: Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Real Talk About Women’s Health 

Welcome, Hallie. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Hello, everybody. It's great to be here. Thank you. I love a room of all women. It's amazing. OK. So it was mentioned in the intro, but I wanna hear more about your little trip to Capitol Hill. You went last May, you stood right by the steps and you yelled out a statement and I wanna recreate it here for everyone. Bye. I mean, how liberating is that like that is that was so liberating to stand there in Capitol Hill and say that and you should have seen all the men. They were like what the what? No, that's a secret. You don't say that lady. So it was, it was really great to go to. I think it was actually I'm in menopause, ok? Wasn't that what it was exactly that? Something like that? Yes. So you were there not just to raise awareness but also to help unveil a proposal, which pretty incredible has bipartisan backing for 275 million to be set aside for research, training, you know, all sorts of things like that. And you again, we're joined by a bipartisan backing here, Senator Murray and Senator Murkowski, a democrat and a Republican. Can you talk a little bit about just how these conversations even started and how you were able to get bipartisan attention? Well, when I realized that I was in menopause and I realized what a dearth of information there was out there, that there was nothing, it was like a desert and I realized that my own doctor didn't really understand what was happening with my menopausal body. You know, I was 54 years old. I had probably been in perimenopause for maybe 10 years and nobody mentioned the word to me. Um I realized that the reason I didn't know is because doctors um only have a chapter in medical school of education. Only 13% of doctors are NM certified or understand the menopausal body. And I started to go, hm, this is, there's a problem here and then I dug a little more and I found out, well, there's no money. The NIH doesn't fund menopause research. It goes to many other great, amazing issues. But menopause has been historically left out as if it's not a thing, but we know that it is a thing, right? Yes, you can. It's a huge thing in a woman's life and no woman escapes it. So I realized the only thing I could do use my power and to go advocate for myself. And by doing so I knew that I would be advocating for all of you and for all women, right? That's what we do when we stand up for ourselves, we stand up for others. So when I got there, I went first to Senator Murray, I knew she would be a friend of the court of the court. She was a friend of a woman that works at my law firm. And I went into her and I told her my story of how I found out I was misdiagnosed with herpes, but it was really vaginal, you know, dryness, uh vaginal atrophy. And I told her the time that's been said on the stage here, I think so. I don't. Yeah, I had razor blades in my vagina after a great night of sex. And I went to the doctor and he told me, oh, this looks like the worst case of herpes I've ever seen. And I thought, hold it what he said, yeah, this is herpes. And then I realized, you know, after I took the test, no, I did not have herpes. And when I dug a little, a little digging, it was vaginal atrophy. So I said, told this story to Patty Murray and she totally understood. And she said, I agree, I agree has been historically overlooked this issue. I've gone through menopause and you're right, we need to band together. And I said to her and I know this is, this will be a big election year. But I said this is one issue that should not be politicized. This is a human rights issue. It affects every woman that's half of our population. And if we're, we live long enough, which is a privilege, we will all face these years and we deserve more. We deserve health care. We deserve to have doctors and health care professionals treat us that. Understand what's happening to us. Not tell us. We have herpes when we don't or we have Sjogren's disease when we have dry mouth or misdiagnose us or just really not know what to say or to tell us. Right? So she said, I agree. So I enlisted her help. She wrote the bill for $265 million. And she said the only way we get money for menopause is to our own stand alone bill. Otherwise we will continue to be overlooked. And she and I then joined arms. And I said to her, I have a goal to get every female senator on both sides to back this bill. And let that be a allowed statement to our government and to congress that we really mean business that we really are demanding as women uh dollars so that we can live our best lives in midlife. And right now, out of the 25 I have 18 senators, there's still a few I have to get over the line but uh iii I will not, will not stop. So um I wanna get to resend your company but, um, just real quick before we dive into that. Um, you are out there spreading the word on menopause, not just in Congress. Uh I heard that you spoke to Mike Tyson about it recently in the green room at the Jimmy Kimmel show. I just want to know what that conversation, how that started. Mike understands. I mean, I've known Mike for a while and when I saw him at the show, I hadn't seen him in a while and he was sitting there with his wife. And so right away when I said hi to Mike, I saw his wife and she said to me, oh my God, talk about this menopause. And I was like, are you there? And she was like, not yet, but I want you to help me. And then Mike right away jumped in and he said, oh, please tell me it's not going to mess with my sex life. I said, well, Mike, I'm sorry to tell you if your wife doesn't like, know what I know it possibly could affect your sex life. So let's talk about it. And we launched into like a 20 minute conversation and by the time it was done, Mike was telling me and telling everybody that walked in the room that he knows all about vaginal atrophy and that he is not going to let this happen to his wife and that he is going to support her and he is going to, you know, understand her mood swings. He's going to understand when she floods the kitchen, when she forgets why she walked in a room. Like he was really going to be really supportive. So who knew that Mike Tyson would be like our advocate for the menopause, you know, but he also understood how it affects men too. You know, we're laughing about, you know, Mike caring about his sex, but he really understood that it's really an issue. It's a human rights issue. It affects all of us because every man knows a woman loves a woman has a mother, has a daughter, has a female coworker, right? So men are affected just as much as we are. Ok. Tell us about resin. What, what is it, what can you tell us? And I know there's like a bit of a relaunch happening and some of it is TBD. But what can you share? Well, the original brand resin, the idea I had, it was just a very broad um health platform and the idea was res spinning everything you thought you knew. And I wasn't really quite sure what I was doing with it, but I knew that I had an idea and that the idea was germinating. And when COVID hit, I sort of launched it out there because, well, during COVID, what else was there to do but try to put out a business at home, right? Like duh. So after the COVID years and when I found out that I was in perimenopause. It occurred to me one day, what topic deserves a resin, menopause deserves the biggest resin of all right, rethinking everything you thought you knew. So then when I got singularly focused and decided that resin would be a, a brand that deals with women sort of at the perimenopause stage. That's their entry point. But that we would hold their hands throughout menopause, postmenopause and through the rest of their life, through midlife until hopefully the end that what it is, it's a female longevity brand where we have community, we have technology, it's science backed, doctor backed. And we realized that while, you know, that study of, you know, years ago really was probably the single most important study that I think derailed us as women that turned us all against H RT. Uh I think H RT isn't the answer for everybody, right? There's still women who are afraid and it'll be a long time. I think before we really change the way we as women think about H RT, right? That stigma is sort of stuck with us. So I know that we need more than H RT. And I think what we need is community. We need a place to talk about what we're going through. So we don't feel alone and we just did a sort of MVP um program at REIN and two thirds of the women uh had uh improvement because they just were talking with their health coaches and understanding what was happening to their bodies. And this time of our life, we lean out of our health care instead of leaning in. But when you can talk about it with other people, kind of like Weight Watchers, you now are accountable to yourself when you have a support system. Right? And it's actually, it's actually working. Um, I'm gonna go to you guys for questions in a second, but I'm curious for a show of hands. Um who in the room here had their doctor, whether it's your gynecologist or your your, your general practitioner, um talk to you about perimenopause or menopause without being asked without being asked. OK. But that doctor is female. OK. Um That's actually more than I was expecting. Is that surprising to you? Um No, it was a minority. It wasn't the, I don't think it was the majority for sure. But no, but I would question how much they know they might bring it up because if they're a woman, they know what's happening, maybe it's happening to them. Most doctors have heard about menopause. It is one chapter in medical school. So they have heard about it. But do they know all they should know about it? Is the question, right? And I think that's where the gap is. OK. Here we go. Questions for Hallie. Please raise your hand if you would like to ask a question or you can also just air some grievances if that, you know, feels right to you. We've got one over here. Ok. This is a great subject. So what is your recommendation on good sources to get information? Because actually doctors aren't that good? Well, I would ask you to come to rein and what we are going to do is we want to gift everyone in the room here today, like a special access to be able to come to resin and sort of try it out and be a part of our launch. I really wanted to do that. But we have doctors, we have seminars, we have scientists, some of the leading scientists in the space that are talking about, you know, what hot flashes do to our brain and why it's not just a hot flash. Because what I've learned along my path of midlife is that every time a woman has a hot flash, it's almost like having a little mini stroke. Like there's these nodules that become uh apparent on our brain. And when you look at a brain that's in Alzheimer's, this is what the brain starts to look like when a woman has hot flash after hot flash. And Doctor Mackey is one of the leading scientists um out of Chicago has this study that she's been doing and she uh has a device that she's devi devised and she puts it on a woman and we can find out exactly how many hot flashes she's having. So you might not even know you're having hot flashes because while we were there with the first lady visiting her, she had a subject that was being monitored and this woman thought she had five hot flashes. She really had 50 hot flashes. She didn't feel 45 of them, but that hot flash is still doing what it's doing to her brain. Right. So, I think it's really important that we understand how to stop ourselves from having hot flashes and HRT isn't for everybody. So there has to be some other therapy, some other answers, which is why we need money for more clinical studies and more research. The question back here, I love your ambition to get such bipartisan support. Vicky. Can you introduce yourself? I'm sure I'm Vicky Med Beck from the Kellogg School at Northwestern. I love your ambition of getting such bipartisan support. You mentioned there are seven senators who are not yet on the bill. I'm sorry if you might want to share their names, his political power. Do you know somebody who knows somebody? I think we all probably are voting. Well, you can talk to me after. OK, come find him. That's my goal to call out other ladies. But there are still seven that are, are, are need some more and, and, and, and I will say this, it's not because they don't believe that this is an important topic, but the more conservative members of our government just feel like we should not spend any more money. They don't want new appropriations. They think there's enough money already in the pot that should be moved around and we should get our due. But we know that men never gets it to do because it never rises to the level of needing money because nobody really has ever acknowledged that. It's a real serious moment in our life. Right. So that's really what it's about. It's not that they don't believe that it's, it's worthy, they just don't want to spend the money. New, new appropriations. Got it. Got it. Question over here and then we'll come to you. Hi, Ellie, Bet Madani Herman, Senator Ernst. Get her. I'm a health care executive. I'm the global head of research at Phillips. Uh, if you are launching this, relaunching it as a consumer health, uh, or, uh, specifically to individuals, but you are looking at expand beyond that. What are some of the barriers and partnerships in the entire ecosystem of health care? You're seeing aside from the political side that you wish you could tear down, uh, some of the barriers you're asking. Well, I think it's about getting people to understand that this is a real issue and sort of join forces with us. And one of our issues has been, you know, we're venture backed, but when I was out trying to raise money, it was really hard. You know, I went, you know, to Silicon Valley and I was trying to raise money and it was really hard to get uh people largely men at some of these big, you know, venture capital companies to believe that, like I just said that menopause was a real thing and that menopause deserved a company that was built in the framework of what our company is. That was while it's, it's very holistic in nature, right? It was very hard for them to see that they there is the way I put it for the reason for this company to be. So that was probably one of my biggest barriers was getting really people to believe that this was a worthwhile venture, especially with what our approach was. So it's still at such a basic level, it's awareness, urgency and it's community based and it was really hard to get people to understand. Well, you know, how do you sell community? How do I make money with that? You know, too many people are thinking about how do they monetize it? And I really was coming from a place of, but how do we as women just get the help we need? It's not about selling them product after product. That's not what our company is about. So that was the barrier to get people to understand. Well, then how do you scale it and how do we make money if we give you money? Right? I had to really make them understand that this is a really good business model, if you think of Weight Watchers and you think of this the same way, but it's Weight Watchers from menopause. There is a model there community really does sell. And after a time, once you get your community together, they're going to need things to support their journey. And then if we provide them products in a very thoughtful way that's born out of what they're asking for, then you have a business that's viable at serving a community and it's also a viable business. At the same time. Cheetah. Hi, Sheeta Bena from uh insignia. I'm going to do a quick share. And then a question, I, I went through my hot flash period, right when Viagra was being advertised every week and I'd have to explain that to my young kids. So I decided that in any meeting I was in where I had a hot flash. I made a point of everyone knowing about it because if I could hear about how they couldn't get it up, they could hear about how hot I was at the beginning, they were a little uncomfortable and I considered it like a one woman crusade to educate and to that point, if men went through this, this problem would have been solved a long time ago, long time ago. Um I, one thing I would want to know how you are planning on handling or if you're cognizant of, you know, for years, decades, centuries, the reason why women weren't given positions of power with people who were afraid we'd be going, having our periods and we'd be moody and we'd make decisions, bad decisions. So, when you just said about the hot flashes actually affecting the brain, how do you, how are you planning on contextualizing that? So, it, there isn't a backlash around women can't now be trusted when they're going through menopause because it makes them crazy. Well, you know what I'm talking? Yeah, I do. And this is exactly what we have to destigmatize it. That's a big myth that just because we're having a hot flash or we get a little forgetful that we can't run a company and then we can't make brilliant decisions. You know, we still do all the things. But that's the reason we need this kind of education so that women can start taking this time of their lives into their own hands and they can figure out therapies that they need to minimize those hot flashes, minimize that brain fog, minimize the raging because that's just how we, that's just how we get it. Right. So we have to start figuring out how we treat ourselves, how we can be treated. So we go through that time of life in a more seamless way. Right? So that's the story. That's why we need, oh, we, we always have the right certainly. And we know that as women, we know part of the, the part of the campaign is awareness. And don't you go using that against me because I can manage myself very well. Thank you. So that there isn't a back, a back now, you know, um scientific reason to say our brains don't function. Well, yeah, I, yes, I do understand. But at the same time, you know, men can't actually, you know, purport that their brain functions well, all the time either. First of all, I know some men that do some real dumb shit and I don't need to say the name of the men. Well, we all know. So I do think that's part of the, you know, destigmatize what menopause is as women. You know, it's that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers thinks, you know, she goes backwards and heals. We can do all of that and we always have right. We've raised our Children, you know, we've been working mothers and we've working mothers and we have done it all and as women, we're able to do that, we're able to multitask in ways and I'm sorry that men just aren't, they're not built that way. We're built differently. That's what makes men, men and women, women, in my opinion. Hallie, we are so appreciative of you coming here and speaking to all of us elevating the subject and going out there going all in on menopause in the halls of congress with Mike Tyson with whoever will listen. So, thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Sue Bird, Basketball Legend, Co-founder, A Touch More, Co-owner, Seattle Storm, Michele Kang, Founder, Kynisca; Owner, Washington Spirit, Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, London City Lionesses, Clara Wu Tsai, Vice Chair, BSE Global; Co-owner, Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, San Diego Seals, Barclays Center Moderator: Emma Hinchliffe, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Changing The Game - How Women’s Sports Became Big Business

Sue Bird, Basketball Legend, Co-founder, A Touch More, Co-owner, Seattle Storm, Michele Kang, Founder, Kynisca; Owner, Washington Spirit, Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, London City Lionesses
Clara Wu Tsai, Vice Chair, BSE Global; Co-owner, Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, San Diego Seals, Barclays Center
Moderator: Emma Hinchliffe, Fortune

Sue Bird, Seattle Storm, Michele Kang, Kynisca; Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, London City Lionesses, Clara Wu Tsai, BSE Global; Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, San Diego Seals, Barclays Center

Hello, everyone. So, while we settle in, I want to ask who in the room has been to a W NBA game? Raise your hand. Let's go. Ok. Awesome. And then who has been to an NWSL game? Ok. We got to get some more people. It's a soccer, it's a soccer game, but great, great to know. So Sue would love to start with you. You've been in women's professional basketball for more than two decades and you have a view into other sports as well. So when you look at the craziness, the attention of the past year, good and bad. How different was this year compared to what you've seen earlier in your career and even just a couple of years ago. Oh, incredibly different, entirely different. Um, when I think back on probably the last five years or so, we've really seen a shift. I think it does start with women's soccer and their fight for equal pay. That really put a lot of these conversations on the map. That's why I should be going to NWS games. Um, and then we look at the WNB A's bubble season 2020. I think that started putting us in different conversations. You fast forward. Now the, the platform was built and then we had this rookie class, especially in the W NBA come in, but younger players in soccer as well come in and they've got flair, they've got personalities, they've got followings because of nil boom. Yeah. Amazing. And nil for anyone who doesn't know is the reform in college sports allowing college athletes to earn money. Oh, yeah, my best. Yes. So Clara, thank you so much for being here because your team is in the finals right now between game two and three. So I don't know, we have a lot of New Yorkers in the room so we might be rooting for the liberty. But um I would love to hear a little bit from you about what has been driving this growth. You know, a lot of people are likely familiar with the rookie class like Sue mentioned and Caitlin Clark and her popularity, but there are a lot of other factors. So could you tell us a little bit about what this growth from a fan and business perspective? Well, I think what's really driven the growth is a very compelling and exciting product which of course starts with the incredible basketball excellence on the floor. If you've gone, you've seen that it's physical and it's gritty, it's super competitive. Um So it starts with that, but it's also um now complemented by a really great um game day experience and for us, if you've been to a Liberty game, you've seen the Time Timeless Torches and you've seen Ellie. And so all in all, I think what's driven a lot of fans to us is not just the game, which is really why everyone's there, but also the wrap around wall to wall entertainment that we have around. Secondly, I think, um, the star power definitely, um, the spiciness of Angel and Kaitlyn and that sort of rivalry, um you know, has brought a lot of attention. And then thirdly, I would say the mainstream media coverage, it's mainstream media coverage who followed uh these college stars when they were in college. And um you know, being able that and the social media and the virality of social media allowed some of these stars to be household names before they even got to the draft. And for the first time, we were able to take that fan base from college basketball right into the Pros. And I think that made a big difference for us. Totally. Um Michelle, so you have a global view into sports, um especially soccer or football in the US UK and France. So are we seeing the same women's sports trends globally? Um what's the same across markets and what's different? Yeah, I mean, I think this is definitely a global trend. I think that uh football or soccer is probably the, the biggest sport uh globally, um something like 6 billion out of 8 billion either played or watch. So I think that actually the women's uh uh football is growing everywhere. France, England, especially Spain. Uh even in Leon where I have a team. Um I took it over about a year ago. Um It was probably a couple 1000 but now we actually have 40,000, the Champions League final game in Bilbao. Uh Last May, we had over 50,000 almost sold out at a stadium. So it is a global trend and it's not, it's, it's out of the back, it's not gonna stop. Yeah. And you have talked about how you came to sports. You know, a lot of people come to sports ownership in a way as some sort of passion project, whether they grew up playing sports or it's just emotional and meaningful for them. You've basically said this is a business opportunity. So how did you identify that? What numbers did you see that led you to that conclusion? Yeah. So I think that initially, I mean, I didn't play soccer, I was not a fan, I didn't know who Leo Messi was. So I was really totally new to sport. So, but I think I got involved for equal pay, the, the whole cleaning up the scandal and everything else from that perspective. But in the process, I became very passionate and I was actually very surprised um seeing the potential that there hasn't been the kind of investment that I expected. So what I saw where it was and where it could be, it could go. That gap was really huge, but that wasn't going to happen just because where women sports come and watch. But rather it has to be taken seriously as an entertainment product. We're not just competing against men's sports. We are competing against other forms of entertainment. We all have seven evenings a week and it is not just the sports games, but it is going to a movie, going to Taylor Swift concert or going out to dinner. So, what's our value proposition? As Clara said, um, we have to put out really the best product, compelling reason for our fans to come to 13, uh, weekends or even more. So, I, I think that the, the investment was not absolutely necessary to put the best product and be the most compelling entertainment product and we're getting there. So for a variety of complex reasons, you know, the surge in viewership and attendance doesn't necessarily translate to much more money for athletes immediately, at least in their actual salaries rather than other opportunities. So sue, how does that disparity affect players in the meantime? And what can be done by owner sponsors other stakeholders while we wait. Um, well, I mean, the good news is, I think for both leagues, we've signed massive media deals. So the money is around the corner. So that's, that's really exciting for a long time. A lot of us had to play overseas. Um, but really recently you've been able to make money off the court and that's actually what was so, um, from a player standpoint, so confusing. I was like, wait, I'm only getting paid, you know, in, in some of my, my later years after the new CB A was signed, I did get to make in the 200 you know, $250,000 range, which was wonderful. But, um for a large portion of my career, I was stuck at like 101 10 for, for I pretty much lost money playing in the W NBA if I'm being honest, like if you look at like inflation and stuff. So it was really confusing because I was getting offered crazy deals off the court from a marketing standpoint, representing brands, maybe going to do a speaking engagement. And that's really for me that disconnect, I knew we had something, I knew that the players were in the community. I knew that the players had value even outside of being basketball players. But why weren't we being valued as a player? Um So the good news is all of us. I mean, I'm retired now, but a lot of the players, we learned how to be our own businesses. We understood what it was to, to create our own brands and, and now you're getting a really dynamic athlete that brands get to work with. And that's really when I talk to different brands, what I push and, and, and athletes are ready for it. But yeah, the media deals here now so it's all change. Yeah. And we have a lot of those big business decision makers in the room and, you know, a recent report found it found that 6% of the Fortune 500 sponsors women's sports compared to 20 per percent for comparable men's sports. So that does not even include the NFL. So what opportunities are businesses still missing? And when they do engage in women's sports, what do they get out of it? And who can they reach Clara? Maybe if you Yeah, well, I think that there's, well, first of all, you know, I think there's a lot of room for, I mean, you know, if, if I could say what I think industry leaders can do to help us is I think that, you know, be season ticket holders, um you know, be buy suits, entertain at women's sports events. The same way you entertain at men's sports events and talk about it, be vocal about it because actually I think your employees will take a lot of pride in that. Uh And I think that, you know, we've come a long way but um we can definitely still do better because advertisers still don't think about women's sports the same way that they think about men's sports. Um But I do want to talk about two partnerships that we recently did that were first of its kind and maybe indicative of what's coming. One is the off white partnership. Um It's a luxury lifestyle brand, um which has never really ever invested in a US sports brand and they chose to come to the US market through, through a women's team. And I think we just had great uh brand alignment and they wanted to be disruptive and that they wanted to come in through women's sports and work through sports and culture. So that is a cash investment. And then the second investment we've done was with a company um called um um Well, Xbox, right, who wanted to use a liberty brand to help promote their video collaborations versus Roblox. And then with CF thieves and um we did three different custom courts uh for them and again, a very unusual way to work together, but it involved cash and it was brand alignment and just, um you know, first of its kind again for uh many sports leagues. Yeah, really innovative and I'll come to everyone for questions in a moment. So start thinking if you have any. But we've been talking about basketball and soccer. But Michelle, you've also announced a I believe, $4 million donation into women's rugby. What potential do you see there? That was the most expensive game I've ever attended. Um So I was at the Olympic, of course, for the women's soccer team and so forth. And I was invited to the rugby game. I've seen rugby games but not women's, especially not the, the rugby sevens. And when I walked into the stadium, I was just really, really shocked that it was sold out. And actually, quite frankly, women's football was not sold, it was near sold out, but it wasn't sold out. The, the rugby was sold out. It was something like 70,000. And I sat next to the US rugby, uh, chairman and so forth. I started chatting and actually what I found out was that rugby right now, women's rugby in the US is about the same place where women's soccer was about, I would say four or five years ago and by looking at just the, the, the stadium, the fans and the excitement um just very, very similar. They're just 34 years uh behind us. And I think there's an incredible potential. So I just wanted to do just a little too nudge to move to, to that direction. So I did say it was the conditional that they have to win the gold medal in L A. And when they do, I want one too fascinating. Um Do we have any questions for our panels? 01 over there. Um a microphone is coming your way. Hi, ladies. Thank you. I'm Natasha Galotti, president of uh Bimbo uh bread company and also a division one athlete. There's quite a bit of activity right now. Um with name, image and likeness for college athletes and pro sports are because of the amateur pipeline that, uh, college athletes have been able to have an experience, any perspective on the potential of nonrevenue sports, which are not women's basketball, but could be rugby, lacrosse, other sports and making sure that while the power and funding goes to athletes, there's still the ability, uh, to get that talent at the collegiate level so that we can continue to have as many sports and women participating in the Olympics. Yeah, I don't know who wants to take that one. I, I mean, I'm a bit, I love nil because nil name, image and likeness for college athletes, this impacts women, I think more than, than, than men. Um It gives us the ability to, to use our college moment and that platform because let's be honest, NC A tournaments, no matter what sport you're talking about are big people tune in, they watch and so to, to give the athlete the opportunity to benefit, benefit off that and, and again, create that brand, I think does help, you know, I can, I obviously, I can mostly speak to basketball. The impact of nil I really believe in 5 to 10 years is gonna be written about and how it, how it changed things for our league. So my only hope is that it does maybe for, for rugby players, for other sports. Um And, and to really actually answer the last question you're asking, I think another reason why brands do need to get involved. Another reason why the investment still needs to come from Corp corporate pa partnership is, it's a known thing. I mean, you just said you're ad one athlete, right? It's a known thing that when you participate in sports, a lot of CEO S are birds from that for women. There's something there. And so I think for companies to back women's sports, we always talk about inspiration, but aspiration plays a role as well. And, and when those two combined, I think what you get left with is yes, some really incredible athletes that might become pro but also a lot of the people sitting in this room right now that become CEO S. So I think it, it just all interacts and and nil plays a big role in that. Totally. I think we have another question back here. Hi, Zoe Weintraub from Guild, um dove tailing off of your kind of comments. So um we supported the Olympics in this last um games as the official education, skilling and career partner. So we supported athletes to be able to have the opportunity to think about transition out of sport. Um So that for the first time our team usa athletes can go back to school or learn a new skill and think about what is that pivotal moment when they transition. And so my question kind of comes from what you said and what you said um in terms of kind of thinking about athletes in a different way. We have a room full of executives and leaders that sit and think about large workforce decisions. Like what are some pieces of feedback or advice you think about giving to this room about considering hiring athletes, women specifically, but just looking for that, I mean, it's its own skill and we've been talking a lot about skills based hiring. Um, how can you think differently? Um, And really lift up those, those individuals. Yeah, I mean, I, the things I learned by playing sports, I'm learning, I'm realizing now, um I often joke, you know, I retired when I was 41. I was really old. I was, my age was talked about all the time. And yeah, in my field, I was old and now of a sudden I'm in the real world and I'm young again, but I have this, I know it's crazy but that's really how I feel. Um Although I turned 44 soon so I'm getting up there now. Um But I realized like, oh my God, I have a skill set that I've literally been working on. I started playing sports when I was in like, oh God even, I was like 1st, 2nd grade. So I've literally whether it's teamwork, goal setting discipline, how to work with others. Sometimes I joke, I'm like, oh, man, if the country was ran, the way sports teams are ran, like we'd be in a better place. Because we, we just have an understanding of what it is to interact with each other and every athlete has this skill set without a doubt. Now, are some better at some things than others, of course. But every athlete has that in them. I mean, I could go on and on about the skills that again. I feel like I woke up when I retired and I was really, oh, I can walk into these different rooms and I can actually have a voice because what I'm bringing to the table is a little bit different because of my sports background. Yeah. Amazing. I think we have one question back there. Hi. Uh Daniel Croucher, Alexa. Um I feel like the US has a once in a generation opportunity in the next 10 years, you guys will host the soccer World Cup, the L A 28 Olympics, the Paraly uh the Paralympics, um the Winter Olympics in Utah, the Cricket World Cup, et cetera. So how do you feel like you guys are going to utilize this opportunity? Um I feel like sports is one of the only things that brings the world together these days. It's a huge opportunity. So curious of your, your thoughts on that. Yeah, Clara Michel. Any plans? Well, I mean, I think, you know, we're just focused on, um, continuing, I mean, you know, I, you know, continuing to promote, you know, us basketball and now we're, of course we haven't lost in how many years? Too many to count? Ok. So yeah, but you know, I, I will chime in here and say that I do believe that this is definitely a way to get more eyeballs onto women's sports. So I think it is important to of course, build a team that can win but also have people on the roster, uh that will really bring um new fans because I will say in order to sustain the growth that we're seeing, we need to broaden our reach, we need to attract new fans and fandom. You know, it definitely comes from marketing your stars. So I think actually in the football, um if you look at actually soccer in the US, uh how do you get attention? Actually, a significant portion of the population, US population actually identify these sports with the National Olympic or World Cup kind of events. That's really the fastest way to bring awareness. A lot of people are aware, but they're not aware that we have a professional league uh in the football soccer world. So, um the, the study after study actually proved that that was the case. It's actually part of what we're trying to do. All our players are actually playing in those games. So in 2019, the World Cup women won. And right after that, the US, uh NWSL had a significant uh uh push to, to um increasing the, the fan base, even the, the uh Washington Spirit I think sold out right after because rose little, uh, play. Unfortunately, the COVID happened and now the Olympic, the World Cup, I think that will continue to bring the awareness and then we're gonna have to tie our efforts through the players and through the national games have to tie to the fact that we have actually very vibrant and incredible national, um, professional leagues. And I think it's going to be very helpful. Can I add to that? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I, I just wanted to add that. Um I think the beauty of having all of those main events in the US and this doesn't just go for us, athletes, it's really all athletes, particularly women. We have as athletes, we have microphones in front of our faces a lot and these big events have mainstream media covering us and the storytelling piece that is starting to pick up in women's sports, which is something I'm super passionate about. That's what drives fandom, that's what brings people in. And we talk about things not just you know, our performance on the field, but we talk about the ways in which, you know, society has impacted us. We talk about the ways in which maybe we had hurdles and obstacles to overcome, not that different from male athletes, but as we all know, the journey of a woman is different. And so because we have the lights on because we have the microphones in our face, this is gonna be the next 10 years to your point. It's gonna be a really great opportunity for the stories of these athletes to be told because everyone can learn from them. Amazing. Well, well, thank you so much to all of you for making conversation.

Rosie Rios, Chair, America 250
Interviewer: Maryam Banikarim, Managing Director, Fortune Live Media; Co- chair, Fortune MPW Summit 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: America’s 250th 

Now, remember we are going to take audience questions. So I'll start the conversation, but get ready to ask your questions, Rosie, what should we know about America? 250. 1st of all, thrilled to be here. I haven't attended this event since before the pandemic. And I got to tell you, I feel like I'm back at home. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Hi, Patty. So I've got to ask you all this question. Who remembers the bicentennial of 1976? Right? Thank you. So do I, I was 11 years old and I remember it like it was yesterday. It's not an event. It's a feeling. And if you remember July 4th, as I do, July 4th, 1976 born and raised in Hayward, California, it was a cloudy night, but those fireworks were never brighter. I was never more proud to be an American. And as 1/5 grader, I just felt like the world was my oyster. My parents came from Mexico in 1958 to find a better life in California and I am living the American dream. So when I think, thank you. Thank you. So when I think about this. This is not a moment. It's a movement. It's a journey that our country has never taken before. And I'm privileged and thrilled to take the lead. Ok, I can feel the passion in your, in your voice, right? But let's talk about the fact that America is pretty divided today. Do you think something like America 250 can bridge that divide? Absolutely. And look, it's already happening. So, you know, when I took this song, I was appointed onto this congressional commission which is established by legislation, 24 members, 16 of them are private citizens, eight of them are standing members of Congress four from the Senate, four from the House. 24 equally Democrat and Republican. And thankfully, no political ideology has made its way through any of our conversations. We're a fully functional commission and in fact, we just approved our full programming this last march and we're hitting the ground running. The beauty of this is I think twofold. One is we want to make sure that it's all partisan bipartisan nonpartisan two is when I became chair officially two years ago, September of 2022 I made two pledges. One, it has to be community based, it has to be sea to shining sea. We established, we pledged to establish 56 state commissions. So every state, the District of Columbia and the five occupied territories all had to establish their own state commissions. Because if you think about our history, right? Look back to 1776 Alaska was Russia. Hawaii was its own kingdom. California was Mexico and Spain. We doubled our footprint with the Louisiana purchase with France, Texas had at 1.6 different flags flying over it and, and all through all of that is in and slave experiences. So every state has to tell their own story. Today we have ready for this 53 state commissions established. Only three left and all have executive orders on the governor's desk to move forward. So any 2nd 56 the other pledge that I made ready for this, I wanted to be, I will, we will be the largest bipartisan bicameral congressional caucus on the hill. Why is that important? Because we're a congressional commission. So to have this bipartisan port with congress was very important for anyone in those congressional caucuses. They're very hard to establish and even harder to grow. The average size is 20 to 40 members. Just to give you some context. The adoption caucus. How safe can that be? It's one of the largest caucuses at 145. We are at 216. Crazy. But here's the beauty of it. Almost exactly half Democrat, half Republican. I couldn't have tried to do that. So the two metrics that I wanted to use two years ago are actually happening. I think people really want this to happen. What's the timeline? Because here we are and you have a road map ahead of you. Well, it already started. So I mean, look, the two things you're always going to hear from me is awareness and action. If you were to go on the street right now and ask people what's happening of historical significance in 2026 for our country. Barely anyone would say it's the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But here's, here's why it's important. So, first of all, I mean, we are the oldest democracy in the world, right? This is again, that journey, this is that, that movement, not the moment. So we, we literally started this public initiative last July 4th. Our first big event was in the great State of Wisconsin. Nice purple state. We launched with Major League baseball at the Milwaukee Brewers against Chicago Cubs game called America's invitation. That's basically inviting the American public to take this journey with us. You can go on our website right now, American fiftyf.org and submit your video on your memories, your ideas, what you want to think about for 2026. So that already happens. In addition to that, we just finished our pilot program, our first big trophy program which is called America's Field trip. America's field trip is a national student competition for grades three through 12, asking the question, what does America mean to you? Here's the beauty of it. The award recipients, 75 get to choose from these backstage experiences, most of which had never been offered to the public before. So we just finished that. And by the way, the National Park Service along with Smithsonian National Archives Library was also part of our commission. So they're the ones who are offering all these great experiences. So I did the field trip with some of these kids this summer. It wasn't just the tour of the Statue of Liberty. We went up to the crown, we went to Ellis Island and no one else was there. We were hosted by the CEO of Bny Robin Vince for lunch where he took us to the Markets Room, the trading floor, the Cybersecurity Command Center. We ended the day at the New York Federal Reserve getting an overview of monetary policy and getting into deep storage. And I'll tell you I can summarize that by saying there was one high school young woman who came up to me and she said, I feel like I won the golden ticket, but this is better than Willy Wonka. So our goal is to buy those memories, right? Those those generational experiences that we'll never see again. Kind of like the memory you shared from me. Absolutely. Again, any questions I want to turn on the lights so I can see if we have any questions from the audience. OK. Um While you come up with your questions because I know you have them. Let's talk about the role the business can play in America 250 A, you have a lot of power in this room. How can we help? Well, thankfully, we are federally appropriated, but I made it clear to Congress, look for every dollar that we get. I want to match that one for one and it has to be a public, private partnership. There has to be skin in the game. Thankfully again, and BNY was our major sponsor for America's field trip. Uh Goldman Sachs Facebook. Um Walmart is major sponsor for one of our upcoming initiatives called our American Story. You can go online American fifty.org and you can actually nominate whose story you think should be preserved in perpetuity at the Library of Congress. So we're taking this nomination process now all the way through next July 4th and then we're going to get on the road. So Wal Mart is sponsoring these air streams. We're getting out, we're going to all parts of the country. We're going to tribal nations, the Deep South rural America, faith based communities, farming, farming, parts of our country and, and bury those stories that we know have never been told. And again, we want to find those stories of main street. We want to find maybe it's your uncle who served in the Vietnam War. Maybe it's your grandfather who remembers World War. I, I maybe it's your mother who came here by herself like my mom did and raised all nine of us as a single parent and sent all nine of us off to college. So those stories should be remembered and should be preserved. So that is our goal with these three initiatives already out the gate, you can already participate in every single one of them. OK. I know we have a question over there. Thank you so much and thank you for all you're doing. I'm I'm curious about um there are 22 pieces that, you know, in the declaration of inde independence. Excuse me, you talk about all men being equal. And so we're in a room full of women. And um and in addition to that, we're now living in a time where even the concept of freedom is so politicized. And so I'm curious for you with those two things. How is the commission thinking about um you talked about sea to shining sea, but how are you thinking about those who were almost explicitly not included? Yeah, absolutely. And that's a really great point. There's a reason why we're the oldest democracy in the world. It didn't just happen overnight. First of all, the American Revolution did not end in 1776 right? It took two continental Congresses for EPPS to form our government. And then it wasn't until 12 years later after 1776 where the constitution was ratified. And then it was the following year in 1789 when George Washington became president, our kids a lot of kids don't know that story, how long it took for us to have and be that oldest democracy in the world. That's why this isn't a one and done. This isn't a moment. This is that journey and perhaps a journey again that our country has never taken before. And it's not just again, you know, look, I mean, my goal is to make this the most comprehensive and inclusive celebration and commemoration this country has ever seen. But let not forget. I mean, us here for anyone who knows me. I'm the one who led, initiated and led the efforts to put the portrait of a woman on a Federal Reserve notes for the first time in us. History. That hasn't happened yet. We just kind of bypassed what happened in 2020. What happened in 2020 of historical significance for our country for this room here, more than anyone. It was the 1/100 anniversary of the 19th Amendment. It kind of came and went right in 2020. A lot of people don't realize that was, that was probably it for us in terms of a historical milestone for women of that significance. There's not another one like that. I want to reclaim that the National Women's History Museum is one of our national resource partners who's making sure that women's history is included in this. This is 51% of the population. And again, look for me, this is as much about the future. As it is the past, we've been trying to plant those seeds of inspiration for this next generation of leadership to understand why they've been given this gift. If you look at the typical profile of a millennial, post millennial, they don't trust institutions, they're very cynical, they're very pessimistic. So giving them something to believe in everything that we're doing is actually a lot of it is geared towards them. A lot of it is thinking about again, how to inspire this next generation. Let's not forget those other three passages of the Declaration of Independence that is so important for all of us, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. My goal in 2026 is to make as many Americans as possible, feel like this is a land of opportunity all over again. Ok. That's the last word from Rosie Rio. Thank you for joining us.

Pearlena Igbokwe, Chairman, Universal Studio Group, Debra Martin Chase, Chief Executive Officer, Martin Chase Productions, Nina Shaw, Founding Partner, Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang, Sharon Waxman, Founder, Editor-in-Chief, CEO, TheWrap 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Hollywood Power Panel  

Pearlena Igbokwe, Chairman, Universal Studio Group
Debra Martin Chase, Chief Executive Officer, Martin Chase Productions, Nina Shaw, Founding Partner, Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang, Sharon Waxman, Founder, Editor-in-Chief, CEO, TheWrap 

Pearlena Igbokwe, Chairman, Universal Studio Group, Debra Martin Chase, Chief Executive Officer, Martin Chase Productions, Nina Shaw, Founding Partner, Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang

Pearlena Igbokwe, Universal Studio Group, Debra Martin Chase, Martin Chase Productions, Nina Shaw, Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang, Sharon Waxman, Founder, TheWrap 

All right. Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome. Um to this amazing assortment of powerhouse women who run the entertainment industry. Uh Pretty much pretty much. Ok, so, uh we're gonna get right to it right down to it. Um It's a tough time in the entertainment industry. People are being laid off, companies are going away. Companies are consolidating. Um You guys are in the trenches of it every day. So let's just talk, take it, get like, let's get real your view. How bad is it right now in the entertainment industry, you have many decades of experience between you, Palena. We'll start with you. How bad is it? Yeah. You know, look, I tend not to be an alarmist. You know, I think that there's probably lots of different times in our business when people thought it was the worst it's ever been. It's definitely challenging right now because I think there's been a lot of disruption in our business and people are being forced to rethink the business wholesale, which I think is really troubling for a lot of people. But I think in the midst of challenges, there's also opportunities to rethink the business, you know, and and perhaps it's an opportunity for us to, you know, think about how do we do it differently and who we do it with differently. So, yeah, it's, it's challenging, but I, I don't think it's necessarily horrible. Here's two things. One I have learned over the course of, you know, whatever 30 plus years you have to stay open and stay nimble because there's this, this build, this, this business is influenced by technology, culture, politics, you know, global economy. So you, you have to try and live in the present but also always look for it. But what I will say from the 30 years that I've been in business diversity is now a part of the business in a way that it has not been in the past. And part of that is a real recognition that there's money to be made. I mean, I was, you know, making this argument for years that diversity was good business and people were like, oh, I don't know if we haven't tried it out. We're scared to try it out. But now they know. And so there are more opportunities in many ways now now than there were even a decade ago. Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that in a minute, Nina. What's your thought? Yeah, I, I tend to agree with um my colleagues uh because this is something that we see in the business and we've seen all along. I can remember when um cable TV, when the DV DVD world. So all these different things happened. Um, and it always felt like we weren't going to move along. The truth of it is, is that people have become much more adept at doing things in different ways. For example, you see a number of people in the business who really are small business owners and they're doing them in their homes at their computers. Uh So we see the advent of influencers and the way that they have impacted the business now, that's a group in the business that didn't exist 1015 years ago. And they have changed in many ways, the product we're seeing children's programming moving away from networks and broadcasting and into youtube. So, so every change is an opportunity, but it is a difficult time and I don't, certainly don't want to make. Um I don't, I don't wanna not talk about the people in the business, many of the below the line people who are finding it very difficult to adjust and, and we're seeing, I think for them a very, very tough times, but I have hope that we will come through it and yet um for each of you, um I think it's worth acknowledging each of you in your own careers, whether it's in the studio system or whether it's in independent producing or whether it's as uh a le a legal representation for so many people, Ava Duvernay and John Legend. And so many people I can go on about all their credits. It's like, absolutely remarkable. We have on this, we only have 20 minutes. So, um, what allowed you to think that there was a place for you because there were no models for the people. You were at a young age. And, well, I want to talk about each of your paths because they're so remarkable whether you're from New York or Illinois or Nigeria. Um, it's, um, it's an act of faith to create that path. And here you are now, still going strong, having incredible careers at a time where a lot of people are having to abandon the business frankly because it is so difficult, you know, how, how did you like, project yourself into the sort of key role you have now, you know, in some ways and in a very odd way. Um, it was a lack of opportunities that really made this so clear for me. I really didn't have. I remember when I was, I had gone a very traditional path after Columbia law school, gone to Big Law. And then from there, I was trying to get into the entertainment industry in, in the boutique law firm and no one would hire me. It was just an amazing experience to be as, as experienced a lawyer. I was with the kind of credentials I had and be unable to find a job. So I just went, I answered an ad in the news paper and ended up in a small law firm with great lawyers who ultimately trained me to be an even better entertainment lawyer. And then when it was time for me, I felt it was time to strike out on my own. It wasn't really a lot of other options. It was so funny how a lack of options can make, you can make your path very, very clear. And I ended up beginning my law firm. We just had our 35th anniversary. Um um I think with, with, um out being immodest, we are absolutely considered one of the top law firms and we're both with her would have been just kind of awkward otherwise. So sometimes when the doors are all seem to be closed, your way forward actually is a bit clearer because it's going to be what you make it. And that was really the lesson that I took from this. And I had such a great family, such as so many strong women in my family that, you know, they could do it. I had to do it, Deborah, how are you? So, I'd always loved film and television. My dad was huge, film, television buff. I was a lawyer. I practiced, you know, Harvard law school, big law firm, whatever. And I decided that what I really wanted to do in life was to make movies. I didn't know that nobody who looked like us was making movies. So it was actually you know, I got, when I got to Hollywood and I looked around and I'm like, really? And so, but I had, I, I was determined to do it. I wanted to do it and I figured other people are doing it so I can do it, which has been my philosophy, my whole life. So in some ways, it was like, you know, the ignorance of the situation, but also a belief in myself by that time because, you know, I, I successful kind of everything that I tried to do. And this is the thing I really wanted to do and I really wanted to have an impact on culture. I grew up not seeing people who look like us or felt like us on the screen. And I wanted to change that. And let's, let's, let's talk about some of the shows that you've made over the course of your career that have changed the way uh popular culture appears on, on our screens. Uh I mean, I know you, I, I can mention them. I mean, you did the Pelican brief and I, I actually do you ran Denzel Walk? We did uh devil in a blue dress and encouraging the fire and the preacher's wife and I picked the one that you didn't produce. OK. Di I say the Pri Cinderella Cinderella Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. One, am I right? OK. So stuff that equalizer, equalizer. OK. Together. Yeah. So these are things that have really had a big impact on shaping what, what the conversation is, what's conventional wisdom, what's normal, what's interesting and I'm really proud of it. All right. And thank you for that and should be Palena. So, you know, I was born in Nigeria, came to this country when I was very young. So I was obsessed with television because that's how I got acclimated to this country. And I think that's similar, similar story for a lot of, you know, immigrants and, you know, TV teaches you, you know, in some ways like values, like what are you supposed to aspire to? What are you supposed to believe in? Um And so I had this deep seated desire one day to, to work in television, but it's deep seated because I never thought it would happen because I didn't know anyone who worked in TV. And it wasn't until I got to college and I was looking for a summer job one day I saw on the board it says NBC was looking for summer associates colleges. Yale, by the way. So, you know, so, so it was like my mind exploded because I didn't know that people worked in television and they could pay you to make TV shows. So I applied, I got the job and I spent two summers in New York and it was like life changing for me. II, I was in the business, you know, and then I had to figure out how to get a, uh, a permanent job in the business. That was not as easy as I thought I applied everywhere and no one wanted me. Um, so I went to do something else and worked in financial services for a while. And then I decided when I, I want to go back into entertainment and figure it out, I went to business school and then eventually, uh, made my way into a Showtime network on the marketing side, hoping one day I'd get to the entertainment side and I did after a few years and I came out to L A and I was just determined to go, you know, for my path. Now. It's interesting because already I, where I was, I felt so improbable, you know that, oh my gosh, I'm this immigrant kid who's now in entertainment. I kind of felt like there's nothing I can't do because I've already done this. And what made me feel like there was a path for me. I went to an event and I saw this woman who was a producer, she had produced Courage under fire. And, you know, all those other things that she produced and I saw her and I said, oh my God, there's this black woman who's a producer out there, you know, producing these amazing shows and by the way, always looking amazing. And uh and, and so I thought, like, wouldn't it be great to try to, you know, that maybe I could find, um, you know, a path in there as well. So, um, so that's, you know, it, it is a little bit of not knowing any better, you know, and sometimes not having another, you know, option. Um, that sort of gets you there and just, you know, it's a slow and steady path. It, it wasn't like I had a friend or an uncle who called someone and got ready for the job. Mine was, I say to people, I was the third. You guys are the anti nepo lady. I mean, I say to people, I was a 30 year overnight sensation. You know, like when I got this job, when I got this job, you know, uh as chairman, I mean, pe it was kind of like rich. She came out of nowhere, you know, and got this job and, you know, and that's for some people that was the perception and for me, it was, you know, steadily working in the business and hopefully performing well, you know, to get this job, I just want to mention a few of the shows that Palina has been, I don't have only have a couple of cards here, but at Showtime, Dexter nurse Jackie. Um is there anything you want to mention from your showtime at the moment? Masters of Masters of Sex. I love that series at NBC. She was responsible. Shows like this is us the black list. You've heard of any of the shows. Um, um, she was all, she's right now she's in charge of, um, NBC. Like a lot of production that includes things you're not seeing. You ever watched a Law and Order or? That's right. But then also, then also hacks hack girl, five of any, any winning hack, the Gilded Age bel Air Umbrella Academy. So, really? Yeah. And I, yeah, ok. Stop there Sharon. But I wanted to also point out that, you know, it looks like you're here and you've been here and it's always been like this, this, you know, you talk about the beginning of your career and nobody would give you a job. But even when you're on the path of a career, there are moments that are really challenging and when you ask yourself, can I continue to do this? And I just wanna ask you Deborah because you and I spoke, she was in Prague the other night at 11 p.m. talking to me awfully nice location scouting. Um So that's, you know, the job's fun for sure. But I mean, it's high risk and you mentioned that like that's something if I have it right that 10 years ago. So quit. Yeah, I was out so talk, talk about that. I just, you know, it was a time in the business, knows for sure because I was sitting over your house in tears. But um it was just a time in the business where nobody was interested in making TV or movies about women, about women of color, about people of color. It just was not happening. I would go in the pitch stuff. People's eyes would glaze over and, and, and, and, and honestly, I, I do believe part of my success is that I have been on a mission, you know, like I said, I wanted to have an impact on culture and imagery. And so then all of a sudden I found myself just throwing stuff up against the wall like, oh, this is a story about a dude. It just didn't, you know, it didn't have meaning for me. And if it doesn't have meaning for me, I can't sell it, I can't shape it. And so I, um and so I, I said, finally, I'm like, well, maybe this is the universe's way of saying it's been a good run. You need to think about doing something else. And so I literally spend, I've been at Disney for 20 years, grateful for that. But also, you know, had become kind of legacy wallpaper because everybody who was invested in me personally was long gone. And so I took a year what, you know, I'm still working, but to explore their options, should I practice law, film, finance, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And when I finally decided that no, this is, well, actually Vernon Jordan was the one who, who's a longtime friend and I was 18. I had known him since I was 18 years old and I went in and I told him this whole story was a known expert in the entertainment industry, but like AAA expert in my life in my life and knew me well. And he sat there and he listened to me and poured my heart out and he looked at me and he said, you are too old to do anything else. He said, what a warm heart, right? He said, you, you have a great reputation, you have great relationships, you have great experience, you need to figure out how to make it work. And it was that kind of boom, boom, you know that I was like, yes, you're right. And, and also I want to say one thing, literally, these women have held me up and I know we've helped each other. And so that and for this audience, you know, it's really important to know for a long time and, and that's important. No, it is. Uh Deborah and I actually met, I was a summer clerk. Deborah was a paralegal law firm and it was me and her and Anita Hill. And we were like, we were the three, we were the three black women, right? Yeah. And Anita was AAA summer clerk also. And I've known for Lena since the very early, I was, yeah. Now we work together and now when I took over a studio, I said, what producers do? I want to be in business? He called me uh you know, out of the blue and said, you know, are you interested? And I'm like, yes, yes. So it's the sisterhood is really important that that is so a let's tell you, there's representation that you guys are, have carved pathways for representation. You have created a sisterhood. And i it's really visible um throughout the industry, the number of women of color who are dominating in the industry. It is a, it's Shanda Rai who said that she was your intern or something like that when we talk about mentorship, right? These things really do matter and your careers are long enough that you're not, you're still working and people who were your interns are, no, I like, you know, didn't know at the time but like are in their prime, you know, from Shonda who wrote Princess Diaries Two for me and Hathaway, I discovered and Blake lively and Jesse Williams. I mean, so now all of a sudden, I I got the end with, you know, but it's, it's such an important point because I think these relationships are the things that hold you up in the world and you have to stay close to them. I mean, I have this great relationship with John legend, which is because of you because remember that night, so I called, I called Nina. I said they called me his producing partner called they need a lawyer. Nina was in the car that night met me at John's house, signed John and got the bonus of Chrissy and got the bonus of the whole family. And, and then John called me and said, well, I there's this young woman, she's from Philly, blah, blah, blah, on and on. And it turned out to be Linta Bronson who created this great show, Abbott Elementary. And all of these are this all started with me going to John's house that night with you. OK. So that, that those are all words of wisdom. They're gonna make me rap. I'm not going before I hear from each of you 30 days to the election. Kamala or Trump. What's your case? Oh Come on, we know we know it matters to everybody on this stage. Not. Who are you voting for? Who do you think? Oh, Kamala Car Carolina. Is this a question like three more questions? Kamala? All right. Yeah. OK. You heard it here. Thank you guys.

Priscilla Almodovar, President and CEO, Fannie Mae Sallie Krawcheck, Co-founder and CEO, Ellevest Moderator: Allie Garfinkle, Fortune 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Closing The Wealth Gap

Sally, Priscilla. I am so excited to be here with both of you. I am in preparing for this conversation. I was thinking a lot about something that you brought up. Priscilla, which is Virginia Woolf's a room of one's own. You're laughing, you're laughing, you're already laughing. But it's um it actually was really serious. It drove some home something to me. That is an essential truth, which is when we're talking about women's wealth. We're not just talking about money, we're talking about agency and Sally, when I told you about this the other day, you said we're talking about power. So how high stakes is this? I would love to just hear, hear what you go ahead, please. Yeah, that great to be here. It is high stakes and it is about agency, which is what it comes down to. You know, uh we Fannie Mae, it's all about home ownership for us. And today there are a million, there are 11 million single women who are homeowners more than men and women. Despite it being the tough housing market desire to be a homeowner and when women have wealth and homes, I mean, it's not just themselves. It's the families, it's the Children, it's the parents they're caring for. Said, actually the wake of women when you invest in women is way more powerful than just that individual woman. So, I think it's women's time. Yeah, I agree. Let me, let me tell you why you care. So, first of all, the gender pay gap, as we all know is about 80 cents to a white man's dollar. The gender wealth gap is about 30 cents to a white man's dollar for black women. It's a penny and it's been going backwards. Whereas the pay gap has been steady to increasing a little bit. Now, the reason we, we care on a macro basis, we love to say at L of S nothing bad happens when women have more money and when women have more money, they spend it. So the economy grows, your businesses grow, their families are stronger. Societies are fairer communities are stronger. Women give more to nonprofits. Women are more likely to believe in the negative effects of climate change and give money to them politics, everybody is super happy with politics in this country. I know we are uh women give about 30 cents of political donations to a man's white to a white man's dollar. But when they do, they tend to be, you know, politicians who agree with our points of view and are more family friendly. So everything gets better when women have more money today with the gender, we wealth gap. You've got too many women who are stuck in marriages, they can't leave because they don't have the money stuck in jobs. They hate because they don't have the money getting chased around a desk at a job. They hate because they don't have the money, not starting a business because they don't have the money living smaller lives because they don't have the money. And finally you care because of your companies. Women's number one financial concern is not having enough money and not building wealth. And as a result, the stress on them leads to presenteeism, which means they're sitting there but they're worrying instead of working. Now, I wanna start with housing on this end. What is the state of how the housing journey for women? Yeah. No, it's so I agree with everything. Sally just said. I will add to that, that women are, they're less confident than men when it comes to homeownership, they wanna be homeowners, but only 30% of women feel they have the confidence to actually go through the mortgage process. So it tells there's a gap there, there's like a confidence gap as well with women. Well, because society tells them to be less confident, right? They receive negative money messages their whole lives about, you know, financial planning doesn't have to be really, really hard. And so they, they're told to have a confidence, it's com and also, um, we do surveys just to get a sense of the understanding of the, the mortgage process. And women, there's a bigger disconnect with women in terms of the down payment. One needs to buy a home. Uh, you know, they think you 20% today, there's a lot of products where it could be 10 or 5% even 3%. Also FICO scores, you know, there's a real lack of understanding and everyone in this room hopefully is, you know, has, has that information. But you would be amazed how so many women don't know. I think when you and I talked, right, especially, you know, the millennials, they are millennials and the gen Z, I'm not millennials. Right. Right. I confess to Priscilla, I, I feel, I don't feel millennial. I love that term yesterday. Millennials, that's our future homeowner. That's that cohort and they're the ones that don't understand, uh what it takes to own a home. The other thing I find interesting and I love that Sally and I are on this together women today. When you look at the older women, the in terms of their wealth, 66% comes from their home equity that seems high. But it's not because they have more equity in their home. It's because they don't have other rights, right? They, but the average person is 50% because they have other assets. So homeownership from our perspective, again, it's not the all and be all. I, I don't want to suggest that it's a fast thing, you know, homeownership should be about, it should be lasting, it should be long term. It's not like a regular, you know, investment security that said it is part of wealth building. It's part of a portfolio, your personal portfolio. But the lack of understanding for women really just amazes us. So there's a lot of work to be done there. What is your take on where housing fits in women's overall? financial health? Oh, first of all, I love my house. Um You know, and so absolutely, it's an important component of wealth building. In fact, I would argue there have only been two scalable, predictable over a medium to longer period of time means to build wealth in this country. It's not entrepreneurialism that's too hit and miss. It's been owning a home. Uh and it's been investing and for, for investing well, for homeownership, you know, the stats I've seen show that, you know, home prices increase about 3% a year, different amounts in different places, but it compounds on itself. Investing in the stock market since the early 19 hundreds has returned about 10% a year, which compounds on itself. And if you had stayed invested for 15 years, you could have invested in any given day, any given day and you stayed in the market for 15 years. Historically, you had a 98% chance of a positive return and for 20 years, it was 99%. So I'm in favor of home ownership. I'm also really in favor of investing, which is what we do at all of us because it's actually been less risky historically than women have thought. Yeah. One thing I will say if I may again, I'm not an advertisement for homeownership because it's also understanding what it means to be a homeowner as well. I think the other thing we're finding about all consumers is when you buy a home, why one, first of all that you could afford and by that it's, once you're home there's a lot of other costs. That's the other thing that people don't understand. They think it's just their mortgage payments. Right these days you have insurance and that's going up with climate, uh, taxes. By the way, if you own a home, the roof leaks, you gotta fix it. So, it's, it's about understanding what it means to be a homeowner. So you're lasting, lasting homeownership. So, I just wanted to put that out there. Not like a walking commercial, but it is a responsibility to understand what it means. Um, but investing doesn't have any of that. So, yeah, that's, so you have to take them into account. Right. You know, the, um, housing is a big issue this year's election cycle. There's an election coming up. I don't know if anyone's heard. Um, but regardless of the outcome, how do you foresee this election cycle affecting women's wealth? Yeah. Look, I, I can't talk about politics, but I will say this, I've been doing housing for a long time. It is the first time that I could remember where both sides are talking about housing, which really demonstrates that housing. Obviously, it it impacts the affordability crisis we have right now in this country obviously impacts the unreserved and the low income more. But it's happening across all income levels, all ages. I mean, you have Gen Z now living with their parents, right? That didn't happen before, right? You have homeownership now, the average age now 3537 years old before you used to be in your late twenties. So, um, it's a real issue. Um, for people, housers, we call ourselves housers. It's an exciting time. Yes, that if you're, um, it's an exciting time because people are, you know, are finally saying we know what's up with, with housing and it's, you know, people still remember mortgage rates from just right before the pandemic. It was like 3% 4%. By the way, historically, 6% is a low mortgage rate, but the consumer still hasn't adjusted. We've been trained, we've been trained. That's what you remember. Home prices to your point. You know, that's the one thing that we have the best economists. It's even surprised us how home prices continue to go up. Right. So, um, I think it's an affordability crisis. I think it's exciting that both sides are talking about it. Housing is not gonna go away. I'll shrug here. I'll talk about politics. Um, you know, and we all know the answer to this one. and a good part of the answer is the repeal of Roe V Wade was many things and it was a negative economic issue for women. It was a negative economic issue for their families and it was a negative economic issue for the states in which they live and that's just the beginning you can. Right. Yes. Well, boo hiss, boo, hiss. Um, you know, and then these, these states where abortion rights are being restricted, don't have things like paid family leave, don't have adequate child care and support. So it's a double and triple impact to women's wealth. I wasn't going to let them boo you. Was that no, but not boo me. But boo. Yeah. And that's before you get to get to tariffs and what the impact of those are gonna be, etcetera, etcetera. So, so we all know the answer here on the subject of other completely ubiquitous news. A I, how do you sort of see a i affecting women's wealth moving forward? I know you have distinct thoughts about that. Yeah. No, I, we're very excited about you and I, by the way, I'm a fir of doctor Thursday. William was great to, I finally see you on the panel the best. Yes. That's definitely, by the way, I, when before the speaker said about the New York times article, I remember when I read the article, she, I noticed she was not on that list, so I was so delighted that it was right here. But in any event A I has been really for women in particular the other, it's allowing us to see consumers, including women, self employed, women, women who don't have a W-2 income. I mean, historically, the way credit has been available in this country has been through credit scores very often. You have to be in the credit system for that, right? So women, Gen Z millennials, they're credit invisible, right? Because they're not in the credit system yet. I'm new to country as well. Um but also the gig economy, 30 million Americans are in the good economy. So with technology, we now could underwrite a consumer, including women that are not traditional W-2 income employees. And we we have confidence, underwriting that risk by looking. If they give us permission through their bank statements, we can look at that data and we can we can we're teaching models how to understand that information and take the risk that that person has the capacity uh to be a, you know, mortgage holder. So for us, it's exciting. The other thing that's exciting is consumers. One thing I will say this is including women, more and more women and men understand their credit score now. So that's what I love about millennials and Gen Z, they're using all the credit monitoring tools that are now out there and they're monitoring their credit, which is a good thing. So I, I'm very, we're very big a fan in May keen on technology and how it's enabling us to see and serve more consumers and women benefit from it. Yeah. Well, maybe. Um so you know what they say, garbage in, garbage out. Um you know, Mistruth in Miss Truth out. And so let me give you a couple of things, you know, if we put in the world as it is today, then what comes out of the world as it is today? So a couple of things that we all know, for example, one of which is we all know women are risk averse, right? That's why they don't invest as much. That's why they don't buy houses as much. We all know that women aren't as good at math as men. That's another reason they don't invest. We all know that women need more financial education. Um In order to invest, we all know they don't enjoy investing. Those are things we know and are said all the time and none of them are fucking true. OK? But these are repeated so often. Then I had the nodding heads. So look, let, let me, we do a ton of research on women and money at all of S A ton. Let me tell you one thing we found again, another thing we all know, which is that women are not confident around money, what we and so therefore, they don't have as much money because they're not as confident. They're not investing no, when women get money and I'm looking at you great wealth transfer, right? When women get money, they become more confident. It's, it's the relationship is inverse, which is why I personally am looking forward to the great wealth transfer. Not when you know, the boomer husbands die that part of it. But, but there's not all of them anyway. Should I say it? Should I say it? I have nothing, I have nothing against middle aged white men. I've been married to a couple of them. So I'm not looking forward to that part, but I am looking forward to when women get the money. We think about the millennials and the Gen Gen Zs getting the money, but it goes to mom first and I'm looking forward to when women have the majority of wealth in this country, which is coming up the amount of confidence we will have. So one thing to watch out for, for particularly for your daughters is the media still gives women these negative messages around money. You know, and it's the financial planning doesn't have to be really, really hard and they're like, oh, so it must just be really hard and don't buy the latte and don't have the facial and don't have the avocado toast and the pumpkin spice latte. The press goes berserk about that because it's all those women spending their money that otherwise would make the millionaires on that frothy pumpkin, delightfully spicy pumpkin spice latte. So swift concert tickets. Well, that, you know what I loved about that is the media tried to mock women for that with the bracelets and women. Just forget it. Right. We're going, we're going to dance, we're going to multigenerational dance and I loved it that women were stepping into their economic power and didn't mind the blowback. They were getting, I need a question. How are you? How are you doing? So, until I've been, I've heard that before. You're just, we love you. I mean, I love you. It's uh uh you know, what are the guys that say on the, the wealth transfer? You know, a lot, there's a lot of hype about it and you're probably right. I will say that it's about 84 trillion or something to be transferred when you really drill down a little bit more. It's very high net worth individuals. Of course, a lot of that. And um you know, the average like 60 year old has maybe million dollars of net worth and they're gonna spend it on health care. So I hear you. So what happen? But it's really a high net worth. So we uh I, I've looked at that, I will say this, I'm not as, you know, I have a 22 year old daughter. I have to say I am really like, I think these young women are, they're pretty smart and savvy and technology is helping that. Um I, I really do. I have a lot of confidence in women. The questions you all ask, um how you all communicate with each other. So we just gotta make sure that education is a big part. Um I think Fortune does an amazing job but tapping those young women, I, I getting them early and, you know, in high school and college, um I think women, young people are just stavi these days. So I I'm very hopeful. So I'm I'm hopeful for one quick question for Priscilla and Sally, who wants it? And it's got to be a fast one. Anyone, anyone over here, there's a mic right behind you. Is there anywhere around the world that you think that could role model this and we could look at them and learn Scandinavia? Hm. That was quick. That was great. That was, that was incredibly quick. I want to spin that out but we are running out of time and I want to leave the audience with one takeaway from each of you. One piece of advice, financial or otherwise that you think they need to remember when they walk out of this room, make a plan, have a plan, financial plan. Yeah. Um I would ask you to remember nothing bad happens when women have more money. Nothing. And the best day to invest was yesterday. Uh but if you didn't invest yesterday, the next best day is today and then there's also tomorrow and it doesn't mean there won't be volatility along the way. But it does mean that if you can invest for the medium to longer term, particularly if you can get your daughters and sons started on this. The power of compounding is simply enormous. Warren Buffett, who used to attend this conference always said that was the secret to success. The secret, not stock picking and trading and watching. You know, I won't say the name but um but that, that tapping into that compounding is really it. So for all of our daughters opening brokerage accounts, for them opening investment accounts is key. If you want to leave our audience with one word, what would it be? Courage to invest? Money? Money, money, money. Yes. And as we establish when we're talking about money, we're not just talking about money. Thank you all so much Priscilla Sally. Thank you.

Michelle Gass, President and CEO, Levi Strauss & Co.
Interviewer: Ellie Austin, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Beyond Blue Jeans 

Michelle Dos is the boss at Levi's Straus, one of the most recognizable and iconic brands in existence. She joined the company last year and now leads it as its first female ceo Michelle's got big plans to take Levi's beyond just cool comfy jeans. She wants it to appeal to even more people and to help achieve that vision. She's teamed up with another cultural, another cultural icon, Beyonce. Michelle will join us in a moment to chat about this and more. But first, let's take a look at Levi's collaboration with the one and only Queen Bee. You call me pretty little thing and I love to turn them on. Uh I had to fema um that thing and, and bye. So you. Hello Michelle. Hi lie. It's not every day that you get to start a conversation um with Beyonce, but that is where we're going to begin. Um So as Emma mentioned, last month, you launched your reimagined campaign with one of the world's most famous women and also a woman who is very selective about the project she takes on. Now, it was all started by the release of a song on her latest album called Levi's Jeans. I want you to tell us about the day that you learned about the existence of that song because I imagine a pretty good day for you. Yeah. It's sort of like a dream come true to have Beyonce name a song after your brand. Like that's a once in a lifetime moment. So we did get a little whisper literally just days before, not like months and months before it was truly completely organic. Um You know, the back story is that she's been a fan of the brand for decades as we've been a fan of her and way back when in the nineties, when she was part of Destiny's Child, believe it or not, we did outfit the group in Levi's way back then. We still have a pair of her jeans in the vault. And so that relationship has just been sort of nurtured over time. And so she made this decision to name a song on her Cowboy Carter album. It's spelled Levi. I si did have a lawyer ask if we were worried about the trademark infringement. I'm like, are you crazy? This is like a gift. Um So, but in any way at all, now, we're all super excited and the team, once we learned it was going to happen, literally kind of days before um moved very quickly. We changed our handle on all of our social media to represent the song and then it just kind of like went crazy. I love the song at that point. Oh Yeah, I mean, once it was released as literally when it was released though, not, not sooner. Um But, you know, you don't have these moments very often, obviously. And so we really took the opportunity once we saw the reaction and the populated song say, well, maybe there's something more here. And so a few weeks later, um a couple of us self, our head of marketing, our chief marketing officer and our chief product officer had a dinner meeting in L A secretly to talk to a couple of her two key people and just sort of started to reimagine what was possible. Literally, within weeks after that, we, you know, came up with Kenny is our chief marketing officer. Him and the team came up with a big idea around this to actually, I mean, not only is it Beyonce, but it actually pulls from the heritage of the brand. It's a remake uh very popular ads in the mid eighties. So, you know, the, the wonderful thing about Levi's is we've got all this incredible heritage. So to take this and now move it forward with one of the world's biggest icons. Um So all of this happened literally within five months from the idea to signing the contract two weeks later doing the shoot. Um And here we are launched and it's been a great lesson also with the team as we become, I know we'll talk about this but really become a retailer, how you can move with speed and agility and capture these moments because they don't come around very often. They truly don't. And one more question on Beyonce before we move on, how are you measuring impact? You mentioned to me about Beyonce's school cards? Tell us. So we do, I mean, we do have a scorecard and the last one I looked at now we've only been live for two weeks. Um But we've had over 2.4 billion impressions, 2.4 billion. I mean, when you think about, I still have a hard time getting my head around it. I mean, this, she is a cultural icon, a culture shaper. She's got over 300 million global followers. Uh So it's just, it's incredible. It's a privilege. It's an honor and like we've had a relationship with her for decades. You know, our hope is that decades to come. This particular campaign is happening in China. So that was chapter one. She is wearing a pair of 501 s but she will be wearing other things in the chapters to come. And I have to say Ellie, there's been a lot of questions about my dad today. So I think we have to take the mystery away. But actually, this was one of the many options that was created for Beyonce for the shoes, but she did not choose to wear it. So I get to wear it. Um But uh I will tell you, given all the feedback I'm getting at this conference, I suspect this will be in production um here in the coming year. So stay tuned. Um So you joined Levi's last year as president and designated CEO. Um And then you spent a year working alongside your predecessor, Chip Beg. And then at the start of this year, you became officially CEO. Now that's an unusual and really interesting succession plan. Can you take us back to the conversations between you and Chip that led to that structure? Yes, absolutely. Well, you know, I'd say it was unconventional, um but quite intentional and the unconventional piece was not only was it a OK, I'm coming in, I'm gonna take a year to learn the business, the culture, importantly the team, but I was a sitting CEO at Kohl's for five years and one of his biggest customers. And that's how I got to know him over a decade ago. We sold a lot of Levi's and, you know, I instantly fell in love. I mean, I already was in love with the brand, but the company, the team, the values everything it stood for. So as he started to think about retirement, um he called me and just said, what do you think about this idea? And I think you actually at NP W-2 years ago when you were having some of that, that was indeed two years ago I think I was on the stage when I was still with call. Um But that's when it all started happening. Um It moved very quickly. Um But it was really important. I mean, when you think about Levi's right, we're 100 and 71 years old, tremendous responsibility, anybody who takes the mantle of leadership for this company and for all of Levi's stakeholders, chip the board, the Hoss family still owns over 70% of the business. It was really important to have an insider, be able to transition and transition effectively. And I know it was um unconventional. I got lots of questions. Wait, you're ceo of this big company and then you're gonna take this year. I viewed it as an unbelievable gift and I encourage anybody who has that kind of opportunity. I think it was Patty who talks about the jungle gym and not the latter. Um I'm all about the jungle, jungle gym. I mean, if I think about my career, so many of the opportunities that were unconventional led to the biggest opportunities. Was it nerve racking? Was there ever a chance that you wouldn't get the top job during that year? There's always a chance. I mean, you know, you're not in it until you're in it. Um But you know, like anything, there's a level of any kind of risk when you make a move like that. Um But I just so believed in the company, the brand tip the team. Um And as soon as I landed there, it was like, oh my God, this is a dream come true. And I felt like all my experiences going back to Procter and Gamble 17 years at Starbucks, a decade at Kohl's having been a CEO prepared me for this role, which is truly a dream job. Let's talk about numbers for a minute. So last year, Levi's reported revenue of 6.2 billion. Um Before you came on board, your predecessor had said that by the end of 2027 the company would hit $10 million in revenue. You've recently delayed that timeline. Um You've been really transparent about why saying it's high cost of living impacting consumer spending at NPW. We talk about the high points and we also like to talk about more challenging moments. So how does it feel to have to go out there and publicly say, hey, we're not gonna hit that target? Yeah. No, I mean, I think from when that target was, was announced, um the world looked very differently and we're a lot smarter today on all the headwinds that are happening around the world. So we haven't put a new date out there, but I have unbelievable conviction that we, we will become a $10 billion company. I mean, Levi's should be at least a $10 billion company and we have clear line of sight on how to get there. I mean, when I go back to succession when Chip joined 12 years ago, company was in a tough state. The brand was in a tough state. He put the brand back in the center of culture, right? So I'm building up a great foundation. That's how you get opportunities like that, right? We never take it for granted, but our growth is going to be to really go from being the best pair of blue jeans on the planet to head to toe denim lifestyle and selling lots of things like this and denim shirts and, and the jump suit I was wearing yesterday and everything that complements it. And we're in the early chapters of this, right? We're going to become a true apparel company and we're going to do that through direct to consumer set another way, retail through lots of stores. We actually have 3000 stores globally. A lot of people are surprised by that because smaller here in the US, but in many parts of the world we're seen as a retailer and in our e commerce business, you know, we're just getting started on that as well. So it's pretty incredible to be here with such a rich foundation again, 170 years, but feel like, you know, the next chapter is ahead of us and we're just getting started. We've only got a few more minutes, I'm going to whip through a couple of things with you. Um One thing that you talk about a lot is winning with women. Um, because I think it's only a third of levi customers at the moment who are women. So, um, what does the company, what does the company need to do to better market to and serve the people in this room? Absolutely. Well, for many, many years, the legacy of the company was not only was it down in bottom, it was guys jeans, right? And so you, it takes time to not lose the core of who you are. So men are still very important to our business, but to evolve very thoughtfully. So you can stand for something much bigger. And as I said, you know, having people really think about it as an apparel company or we like to say a denim lifestyle company because it always does center with denim. But for women, it's a third of our business and that should be at least half of our business. I mean, just look at who the a lot of the apparel shoppers are out there. And if you look at my husband's closet versus my closet, that would say, you know, there's a lot of consumers, female consumers to serve. And our data says actually when they're coming in the store or online, they're actually buying stuff for, you know, guys as well often, but we're barely scratching the surface, right. So first, it's about having relevant bottoms making it easier to shop denim bottoms that can be very intimidating. So how are you going to make it easier through great tools and we're still working on them on our e commerce, right? So fit navigation. Find your favorite fit. What's your right size? Our stylist in the sort of part of becoming a retail company is really thinking about the front line first and I'm really excited about the cultural changes we're making as well. I mean, this isn't just business transformation, it's cultural transformation to have people who work in say corporate to be thinking all the time, what can I do to serve that stylist who's going in turn serve the customer? So back to having the the customer come in, you know, leading in fashion fit. So whether it's skinny, high, waist, low, waist, loose, baggy, like, you know, we want to help you find your next favorite Levi's um tops jackets, jumpsuits, skirts, I mean, we're barely in some of those categories but the proof points are coming. So um you look at our last couple quarters, women's has dramatically outperformed and there's a big benefit of me being here for a year is to work with the teens. Um um to as we start addressing these, these new Arbor too, women have outperformed. You were saying in the last couple corners outperformed a couple of quarters. So we started to implement some of these changes and expand Atan product lines. Ok. There's lots more I want to touch on with you, but we are sadly at times, but Michelle is going to be with us for the afternoon and the evening. So I'm gonna take the liberty of saying come find her to ask your questions about Levi. Um Thank you so much Michelle and also for the world's greatest jacket. Thanks. Thank you.

Rachel Romer, Co-founder and Executive Chair on Leave, Guild, Bijal Shah, Chief Executive Officer, Guild
Moderator: Emma Hinchliffe, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: When Business And Personal Crisis Collide

So Rachel, thank you so much for being here. And if I'm correct, this is your first time doing something like this since what happened the summer before last? Is that right? That's right. Yeah. Amazing. Well, I think I speak for all of us when we say we really appreciate the chance to hear from you today. So just to start, how are you doing today? I'm doing pretty well. Last time I saw you, I was still in the wheelchair now. It's just me and the cane. So I feel pretty good. That's huge. So, as we just heard on an evening in August of 2023 you were on your porch when suddenly you collapsed. So can you tell us a bit about what happened that night and the next day? Yeah. So what I remember is feeling like a collapse just to use your word. Yeah. And then not being able to get up off the ground. And at some point that night I fell asleep, I think, or blacked out maybe and ultimately was found by my aunt who's a nurse the next morning. Luckily, wow. And she found you, she just happened to be walking by. Yeah, she was walking her dog, which is the last thing I remember thinking about before passing, it was knowing that she and a neighbor of mine often would walk by my house in the morning and kind of feel like this prayer of sort that they would walk by the next morning and find me. And she's a nurse. Right. So she knew exactly what was going on and what to do. Yeah. She immediately knew I, I've had a stroke because she could see the paralysis on the right side of my body. Yeah. Wow. And she called down one woman. The paramedics came. Yeah. And they took you to the hospital and what happened after that? Yeah, they took me to the hospital where I had a thrombectomy where they identified that I had a blood clot in my brain and they pulled it out, which was surgery number one. And then they decided that they needed to take my skull cap off and relieve the pressure and the swelling in my brain, which was the next surgery I had. Yeah. Thank you so much for going through that and telling us about what happened vigil. Do you remember where you were, when you heard about this? I believe you were on parental leave at the time. What did you hear? What was going through your mind? And what was, how did you jump into help? Yeah, I got a phone call. I was on parental leave. I was roughly three months postpartum. Um and I got a phone call in the morning. Um, a missed call actually from someone in Rachel's family. I thought it was odd that someone was calling me. I was also on parental leave and I pick up the phone and uh yeah, they were like uh Rachel's gone to the hospital. Um I don't have more details for you right now. Uh But can you please call the board of directors? Wow. And you came back early from parental leave? Yeah. So over the weekend, I got more information on what had happened to Rachel. Um and what uh was going on, we had a business continuity plan. And so uh Friday is when I got the phone call on Monday morning, I stepped back into the business. Wow. Yeah, that's for be as well. Ok, Rachel, you described that kind of early, first few months and you know, the medical procedures that followed. But what about the months that followed? You were in and out of inpatient care and therapies and all kinds of things? Can you describe what that time was like and what was required for your recovery? Yeah. So ultimately, I was in a medical coma to let my brain rest and recover for a couple of months and then started inpatient therapy for a few months. And now I'm in outpatient therapy, still recovering a lot of the nerve damage that the stroke caused. Wow. Um And at that time, you know, you um obviously you spent so much time building this company and you spent a lot of time as well in the health care space now as a patient, which is somewhere that you had also spent time in your role at guild thinking about how to transform that industry's workforce. So what was going through your mind? What experiences did you have at a patient as a patient? And how did they influence your view of what Guild can do for the health care system? Yeah, it was really interesting time because we had been making the transition into serving more health care workers and their upskilling as a company and guilt. And then I ultimately got my own residency in health care living in the hospital for many months. And it's ironic to follow a conversation about A I. But as technology does more and more for us, the surface economy is going to be a more and more important job that we got to help people transition into. And so every nurse that would come into my room, I would drill them about their career path and ask them all the questions. Yeah. Some nurses start to get weary when they would come and they would say I heard you interview every nurse and I would say yes, I do. And I would take lots of notes on my ipad and send them to vigil and T. Yeah. And the first time I saw her, we were not allowed to talk about work, which if, you know, Rachel, it's really hard to not have the skill. Um And I walked into the hospital uh room and literally with, she was like, how are you? And I was like, I'm ok and she was like, ok, here's uh here's some ideas I have uh based on what I've seen, there's a shortage, here's what's happening, the schedules. Um Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, that's incredible. And so what about today? What does a typical day look like for you these days? Yeah. So these days I still do about five hours of therapy a day. Um And think about work a lot because sometimes therapy is really boring. So I still interview the occupational and speech and, and physical therapist and then give beat and team every idea I've got. Yeah. Yeah. Um and we'll come to everyone for questions in a moment. So if you have one, please start thinking. But Rachel, you know, you've clearly found so much determination and grit to get through this huge personal challenge at such a young age. So how do you stay positive and what is some advice for others about how to emotionally and mentally push through something like this? Yeah. Thanks for asking. It's been interesting. It's very similar to how we aim to motivate our learners and our students that we work with. It's very goal oriented. So it's all about setting goals and thinking about, ok, what I want to be able to do by this day or by this event. So I know I wanted to walk up here with my cane today. 1000 of thank you. We, we've also been working on the shoulder shake. Yeah, a personal favorite. That was the um the goal was for today, but there we go. We didn't, that's amazing. Well honored that we could be part of that goal setting for you. Um What are some of the other goals you've set? I think we talked about this last time we caught up. But, you know, getting my hand back has been a real struggle and it's very hard to get our movement back after strokes. And I really want to be able to do my kids' hair again for their ballerinas and I want to be able to help with that again, but it's very hard because I still don't know yet when I'll get my finger movement back and I'm probably at least a year out from now anymore, but, well, walking is step one. So congratulations on that and just keep working towards, we'll keep working towards the other ones. Um Bejel, you've spent some time in the CEO job now. So what are your priorities for guild in this moment? And what do you think are the needs of today's workforce amid a rapidly changing environment in many ways? Yeah, I mean, the environment we just heard about A I um my goal is to make sure that every company and every employee of that company who needs access to Guild has it. We have a skills shortage in this country. If you took the number of jobs in this country today and the unemployment rate, even if everyone was qualified for those jobs, they actually can't. Uh they're not, they're not skilled to do the jobs. Um And so there is a gap, the gap is only going to increase. Um And more and more employers, you're going to have to rely on employees, they have all inside of their organizations and there's a lot of untapped potential inside of your businesses. Um And so the ability to upskill and reskill and provide guild, uh the way that we work is for the most marginalized populations. And so we deliver value across your entire workforce. Um And so my goal is to get guild in as many hands as possible and to support employers on their journey. Amazing. Um Do we have any questions for Rachel, Abiel? No. Ok. Well, if you think of any raise your hand, um Rachel, you also, um you know, you still obviously are very involved in guilt and think about it all the time and serve on the board. So what is top of mind for you with guilt? Where do you see the company going as you've reflected over this past year? So top of mind is a lot of gratitude for this little sister who's taking care of my baby. No. And that's how you talk about guilt. You've kind of referred to it as your other child. Yeah. Well, yeah, when I woke up from the first medical coma, the first thing I did was I saw my dad in the hospital room and I said someone called Bejel and put her in charge and then I asked about my kids. But yeah, that was, that's how my brain went. Yeah. Yeah. Speaks to how important the company is. Oh, we have a question right here. Thank you for sharing your story. What one wisdom would you like to share with us if we were to encounter something similar? If you were to encounter something similar? I think the first thing I would say is surround yourself with positive people. And the thing you can do today in advance of that is have your soul sisters in your corner because you know, as parents, we often have a dad with our Children or a partner who helps take care of our Children with us. But if you run a company, having somebody who you've sat side by side with for 10 years who you know, can take care of. It is a blessing. Wow, on that note, um B you alluded to this, but the company had done some prep for kind of a crisis preparation and even for if leader was out for something routine, like parental leave. Can you talk a little bit about how Guild had prepared for something like this even unintentionally. Yeah. I actually didn't realize how prepared we were until we were in a crisis. So there was a business continuity plan. Um Rachel and I had talked a little bit about um when she goes out on leave, what she had, she took a sabbatical um who steps in how they step in what decisions are, can be made. What decisions, you know, should we should wait on et cetera? And when I went out on leave, she knew there were three things if this this or this happened, please call me otherwise I don't need to be called. Um And so we kind of had been in a rhythm. Um And obviously no one expected something like this to happen, but the ability to kind of, you know, be out on a Friday, step in on a Monday and then have the executive team just like kind of hug you um and lift you up behind Behi behind me. Um And just not skip a beat was a pretty incredible sight. Yeah. Do we have anyone else to? Oh, we have a question right here, Carrie from work day. Um Rachel, anyone that has watched you grow this company? You're a total badass. I just wanna thank you for being so vulnerable and brave today on stage. You're amazing. Yeah. Thank you. And I'll name that having physical disabilities has really reinforced my belief in vulnerability. How so you really have to be more disclosing with people about what's going on with you, which is something I've tried to practice at work and in my personal life before the stroke, but like today I had to ask for help on how I was gonna get up on this stage to no insult. There just isn't a railing here on these stages. And so you get used to asking for a lot more help and telling people why you need help and vulnerability has been a tool for me for that. Yeah, Rachel, why did you want to be here today? Why was it important to you to uh make it to this point and join us there? Well, I think to that same point about vulnerability, it's I feel like telling the story of how we've been able to keep guilt going has been important to a lot of female founders that I've talked to and I appreciate your work, Emma in helping us tell the story. Well, thank you so much, Rachel. Thank you so much vigil. We really appreciate you being here as everyone does as well. So thank you. Thank you so much.

Campbell Brown, Senior Advisor, TollBit
Fei-Fei Li, Sequoia Professor, Computer Science Department; Co-director, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, Stanford University 
Moderator: Mallun Yen, Founder and CEO, Operator Collective; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: The Future Of (Ethical) AI

Campbell Brown, Senior Advisor, TollBit, Fei-Fei Li, Sequoia Professor, Computer Science Department; Co-director, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, Stanford University, Mallun Yen, Founder and CEO, Operator Collective

Campbell Brown, TollBit, Fei-Fei Li, Computer Science Department; Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, Stanford University, Mallun Yen, Operator Collective

So welcome Fei Fei and Campbell. It's great to have you here today. So thank you for being here with us. So before I start, I wanted to let the audience know that we are going to try to take, we probably only have time for one question or so. So if you do have a question, please flag down the person with mics and we will try to get to you. So um great to see you guys. It's good to be here. OK. We're going to start with a question. How many people in the room think that A I will be a net positive to humanity. Bye, great. Um Ain't that negative? See, very cute. Now, does that surprise you? It does, I didn't realize how many people think it's a net positive. II I actually think we've come a long way in terms of just over the last three years, partly because people like Fife who have taken, who have given me a framework for how to think about it. And I think have taken a much more measured approach to talking about what it means, the both the positives and the negatives as opposed to some of the other people who are very visible around A I and have been at the forefront of it, who have been somewhat hyperbolic, perhaps about the positive and negatives. And so I, I think you're seeing people become more comfortable with more uh people, like they say, sort of taking center stage. Thank you. II I, it's true. I do believe it's true. II, I think you're absolutely right. Um So you two both raised your hand and I also know that you are both excited about A I and in fact, this year, you both transitioned into the A I start up world. So um Campbell, you started out as an NBC news correspondent for the White House. You were anchor, you joined meta to lead partnerships there. And then very quickly, you found yourself right in the midst of content in A I. And um we actually met through um Tol Bitt, um which we mentioned, which is, you know, for a fair disclosure. Um operator collective is an investor in Tol Bitt and which is content licensing. And so now you're working on another stealth A I start up. So what led you to leave, leave meta and enter into this realm? Yeah, when I was at meta, the two things I was focused on were um content and business models and helping people mostly news try to make money on our platforms and then misinformation on the meta platforms. And so I think going back to when Chat G BT was first released. Um It was very clear to me, I think a lot of us that this was gonna really disrupt the sort of information ecosystem in a way that we had never seen before, even with social media becoming so disruptive. And I wanted to try to get ahead of it and I see everything right now through the lens of my two teenagers and how they consume information. And so a big driver for me was trying to figure out how we ensure that there is accurate, reliable information, that's part of the LLM training process. And you know, we're not there yet. I was on Chat GPT last night and asking a question, it gave me an answer that was just completely false and so authoritatively false. And, and you recognize that there's still a lot of work that has to be done on that front. And I um you know, part of what the start up that uh Mullen and I are both involved in is doing is trying to create a marketplace to ensure that creators of content, um reliable uh you know, uh content, um timely content are, are being compensated by the tech companies who are building these models, right? Thank you. You are the godmother of A I. So this has been your life's work. You began working on image net in 2006. And when you did, you were repeatedly told this was a go nowhere project that it was. Yeah, your phd students were never going to, you know, get their phd S. And at the time, most A I research was focused on model and algorithms and image net was focused on expanding and improving the data of the available to train the algorithms which we now know has been crucial to the development of A I. So what prompted the move this year from years and years in academia to found your own start up? Yeah. OK. How many hours do we have? I'll try to be quick. First of all, I, I have lived in the A I technology ecosystem for more than two decades and especially privileged to be working at Stanford. So I I always felt that the world I live in is a very porous world between academia, technology industry entrepreneurship. So it didn't feel like I was abandoning a particular part of my world. Uh So uh you're right that uh my own life journey has been seen the transition and the coming of age of uh of A I starting from um you know, the image that project which is seeing that the critical element now that we know we have known as the three fundamental elements of A I, the the computing chips, the neural network algorithm and big data. And that was my image that project now fast forward to um to now to 2024. 1 thing that has been always fascinating me and driving me is really unlocking the full capability of the science of intelligence of machine intelligence. And if you look at the evolution of intelligence, Campbell already mentioned, LLM most of you probably know it as large language models. We are starting to realize that we can create machines that unlock the linguistic um um capability of intelligence, whether it's conversation, summarizations, knowledge, uh uh search and and reasoning. But there is a huge part of intelligence that are uh that advanced animals like humans have developed over the course of evolution. And that is everything to do with seeing and interaction with the 3D space which I call spatial intelligence. In fact, evolution took 540 million years to create the capability of perceptual reasoning and understanding and interaction. Whereas language compared to the half a billion years took about a million years ish. So there is a profound capability in the science of it intelligence that is centered around the ability to understand 3d world reason with the 3d world generate 3d world and interact within 3d world. And that's what I'm so excited about that. Um Together with my former students and co-founders, uh we feel this is the moment to bring this capability to the, to the world and unlock so many use cases and business opportunities. It's um it's so fascinating. So, Feve when I called you the godmother of A I, I saw you sort of cringe a little bit. Um, and, and in fact, um, when we were talking last night, you said that when you thought about starting this company, you weren't sure that you should be the CEO and, and then I'm gonna say one more thing that I frankly find just really annoying. Not that you did that, that speaking of media was that, do you guys remember when the New York Times came out with that list in December? That was who's who behind the dawn of the modern A I movement? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so there were the C OS of open A I Anthropic Microsoft Google. There were some researchers who made tech advances in A I and there were a couple of investors who mostly just invested in the A I companies and didn't really do anything on the tech. So there were 12 women, I mean, sorry, 12 men and no women and most glaringly say that you were not on that list. And even though image net, your work was the foundation that enabled all of those companies, including the research. Yeah. Yeah. So um so uh so I just had to get off that, off my chest, but we're the only one Twitter exploded after that with all the women who are obviously very offended. And I think even some of us spoke to reporters at the New York Times about it because it was such an outrage. And I think they feel like they, I mean, I think they recognize that was a total media failure and they really screwed up. But yeah, so, so when you see the headlines today, they do tend to be dominated by one gender. Um And so would love to hear your reaction to this. Well, thanks me for, yeah, so, so first of all about the godmother of A I title, it came around, I don't know, a year ago I started seeing that I had to take a pause because it really is not my personality to call myself godmother of anything. It um it, it really, I did cringe but I had to, you know, my natural reaction is let's just reject this. I, I don't want this title, but I really had to take a pause and realize in the entire history of science and technology. So many men are called whatever founding fathers, Godfathers. And if women are so readily rejecting that title, where's Our Voice? And I'm, I'm standing here. So I kind of with the cringe. I did not fight back that title. And yes, the New York Times list. II, I actually I'm a pretty shy person but I think I went on social media and called it was just wrong. It was wrong that in 2023 any media will look at the technology that so many people from all walks of life, not just men and women, but people of all backgrounds have contributed and they didn't even try to make a little bit of effort and we do still see that today. And this is why as Campbell was alluding earlier that it's so important for me, no matter how advanced a technology, how fancy advanced and cutting edge and sci fi a technology looks like we have to put humans in the center of it. You know, we have to put human representatives in the center, we have to put human well being in the center and we have to put human values in the center of the development of this technology. It's just so important. So Campbell, when Fe Fe's book first came out, you were one of the first ones to raise your hand and say we got to get this out here. So, so tell us a little bit about that. And by the way, if you haven't gotten this book, um it's a phenomenal book. It was one of the first books I read. That was kind of an introduction and II I highly, highly recommend for just if you're curious about A I and everything, but also um just as an inspiration to young women, um your, your life story and maybe you can give people just the, the, the, you know, thumbnail, even of um being a young girl in New Jersey and growing up with your parents, I think it's pretty incredible. Um And I, there are a lot of young women at meta on our A I or when I was formerly there. But on the A I research team who I heard speak about you as that inspiration. We had a book party when Facebook came out and several of the women were there. So I do think it is not only for getting um a primer if you will on, on what's happening in the history, but also um one of the most inspiring stories um of, of anyone sort of overcoming odds in this country. Thank you, Campbell. You, you're the one of the first people who threw a book party for me. I was, I was so grateful overseeing New Jersey from your New York home. Um But it's true. I wrote the book. Um I wanted to tell the A I story, my personal coming of age and A I's coming of age is so intertwined, so many ways, including how my work was involved in this. But it was also, I was deeply encouraged by my friends and colleagues at Stanford to tell the story so that the young women, the immigrants, the people of all walks of life will find a voice in A I because today's A I, like um you said, it's so hyperbolic. It's so, um you know, we hear words like global scale, infinite productivity, billions of whatever, but at the end of the day, um whoever makes A I changes the world and it's so important people from all backgrounds feel they have a, they have a role, either it's in development of A I or in creating products and business of A I or doing interdisciplinary research of A I or using A I to, to um uh to create something they care about or in the governance of A I, everyone who cares has a role. And I, that was the reason I, I wrote this book. Um The, so you uh so both of you actually worked at have, have worked with social media sites. You were meta for seven years and you were on the board of Twitter for two years until it was dismantled. So it's widely understood that LL MS are trained, you used a very interesting word. OK. Um The uh anyways widely understand that LL MS are trained on all the content that's out there. And then some reports suggest that 90% of the information on the internet will be A I generated within a few years. So we've talked about the lack of women in A I the social media news sources, Campbell, any words of I ought, I mean, the one thing that does worry me right now especially um is the, the misinformation. I mean, I don't know how closely people are following it, but the, these tools are incredible and it's almost impossible to tell. I mean, it is impossible to tell what's real and what's not. And we haven't developed tools yet to help us do that, whether it's water marking for things that were created by A I or, or things that weren't or identifying what is, isn't. And you know, you've seen examples, the hurricane recently, there was so much misinformation flying around to a point where it was literally endangering people who were, who FEMA was trying to help. And you've seen numerous examples. I don't think anything has, has sort of shocked us to the point that we're ready to address it in a regulatory way or anything yet. But I am very worried about how we think about this and keep track of it. The one thing I would say that that I think is meaningful for people in this room is that brand, I think becomes increasingly important to be able to know that this is a trusted brand. I'm familiar with when you see something, whether it's a news organization or a company um in a world where we're just being flooded with information and you cannot identify the source looking to trusted brands, seems like it's going to matter again and it's worth investing in. Um Thank you so much Campbell and Fe Fe for joining us today. Thank you.

Lauren Greenfield, Emmy Award-winning Filmmaker Interviewer: Maryam Banikarim, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Social (Media) Studies - A Conversation With Emmy Award-Winning Documentarian Lauren Greenfield

Social (Media) Studies - A Conversation With Emmy Award-Winning Documentarian Lauren Greenfield

Let's turn our attention to a topic that is really already playing a role in shaping the next generation of leaders. And that is social media and how it impacts our brains, our happiness and our lives. More generally. The Emmy Award winning filmmaker Lauren Greenfield explores social media's influence on teens in particular in her New Doctors series, which is called Social Studies. It offers a really intimate look at a diverse group of L A high schoolers revealing how social media shapes their lives from really joyful moments to quite harrowing consequences. Marian Bacarri will talk with Lauren in just a moment. But first, we've got a glimpse of the series for you to watch. Social media is kind of like the only way to communicate. It's the only way you go connected to anyone. I could be myself. I need a perfect body. I can't get rid of it. She was bullied and if you want to beat up somebody, it it becomes everything how you going to do this. I hope to document the first generation that had grown up with social media their entire lives. Teenagers from Los Angeles agreed to share their private accounts and their digital experiences. School is starting how many of you were asked to send a nude of yourself? If you put out content like Kim Kardashian did, maybe you'll get famous. My social media consumption 12 hours a day, you edit your body to be something. It's not one of the major beauty centers is you kind of have to be Caucasian. People would just call you the N word. So I took action and they took my whole account down. It's frightening to see how sexualized some of these images are. I sort of don't want to look at my kid's Tik Tok. Go the more time I spend on social media, the more anxious I feel it is so scary that we are allowed to actually do this. Social media has a role in everything, doesn't it, it's hard to figure out what you want, but you know what social media is telling you to want. There was so much hate. It did affect me a lot. Social media took a toll on me, but I'm not alone in this. It's up to us to figure out how we can still be people. OK? Hello, everyone. Just remember that we're going to take questions. So I'll start the interview, but this is when you should be thinking about your questions and the mic will be brought to you if you raise your hand. So Lauren, you worked on this project for two years, 1200 hours of footage 2000 hours of screen time. You were trying to explore what it was like for kids who grew up with a smartphone in their hand. What surprised you the most about this project? Oh my gosh. A lot of surprises. I mean, I have been looking at youth culture for 30 years. My first book, Fast Forward, Growing Up in the shadow of Hollywood, looked at some of the similar things, the influence of fame, look, the influence of materialism, um the importance of image and what I saw was just everything amplified to the nth degree that a big part of childhood now is about getting fame, getting likes doing branding, cultivating an image. I think the early loss of innocence, which was also something I looked at 30 years ago. But then just looking at how media was impacting like cable TV and movies and music, which seems pretty benign. Now, now the loss of innocence comes when one gets their smartphone and basically the whole world is kind of coming at them. You told me that when you started, you had a 14 year old son and a 20 year old son and you were pride and how there was a difference between a 14 year old's experience and a 20 year old's experience. What does that mean? Yeah, that was like really an inspiration for going back and looking at this thing because I saw that my 14 year old was a different generation than my 20 year old, that my 20 year old used social media to talk to friends a little bit, but he was really a reader. And my youngest, we had constant battles about screen time. He gets all his news from tiktok and I saw that it was an addiction. Well, I also saw him getting depressed from it during COVID when screen time increased. So I really wanted to look at what is the thing that they're looking at. And the unique part about the series is that the kids gave us access to their phones. And so we see that all of that content in real time and it's all in the kids' point of view, teenager's point of view. There are no experts, they're the experts. You not only got access to the kids and their digital habits, not just their social habits, you also got access to parents. How were you able to get them to open up to you in the way that you did because they're pretty open? I mean, I actually didn't start thinking the parents would be a part of it at all. I thought it would be more like Charlie Brown where we just kind of see them in the background. Um But I think first of all, I came into this as a parent not knowing that much. And what I saw that was so shocking was how caring loving parents are completely clueless about what's going on often. Right next to them. And so I think clueless about what about this social media life, which I think is the biggest cultural influence on young people's lives, like, bigger than parents, bigger than school than peers. And it's like a black hole where parents don't know what's going on. You talk a lot about sort of social media and comparison culture. And I thought that was a really interesting insight into what's driving a lot of the anxiety. What does that mean? Yeah, I mean, one of the things that's so toxic is the constant comparison and teenagers have always dealt with insecurities. Am I popular? Can I be in the popular group? Do kids like me comparing against other kids in their friend group against a popular group against the kids in the school? Now, young people are comparing themselves against every peer in the world and often those peers are face tuned, photoshopped, manufactured, not real. So when it comes and it's not just beauty, although beauty and body image was a huge thing, but also college pressure also um all kinds of um comparisons. It's constant, even one of the surprising things was that mental illness in addition to exploding is also a trend. Well, actually you actually talked about um suicidal ideation and how there was a reddit that um told you how to commit suicide. What, what was that all about? This is a little bit of a spoiler for episode five. But yeah, I mean, I think what the algorithm does is it takes you it kind of and the, and the teenagers are very aware of this. It kind of exploits your most um private and delicate vulnerabilities. So it takes you by the hand and shows you how to do things and sometimes that can be how to have a good eating disorder, how to be sicker, how to take action on suicidal thoughts, kind of the worst things that we can imagine it will take you there. So it's five episodes, I highly recommend watching it because you know, it is a world we don't live in the same way. In episode five. Jonathan says social media is our lifeline, but it's also a loaded gun. I think it's hard sometimes for parents or adults to understand what we're going through, even though they care what role can parents play since it really isn't the world in which we grew up. I mean, I think the first thing is parents need to know what's going on. I hope parents watch the series, watch it with your teenagers. We did an educational curriculum, we did a parent guide to spark conversation. Sometimes I hear from parents what Danny says in the trailer, which is, I almost don't want to know. Actually, we really need to know and I think teenagers are really relieved at parents and adults knowing and I think that's why they kind of divulge their most private lives in this show so that people would know. So I think there's actually a lot that parents can do, but I also don't think it's fair to have it be on parents or on kids. I feel like I got into the battle with my son about screen time. I feel like that's the first thing we go to is kind of blaming the victims. These, these apps are made to be addictive. We would not treat opiate addiction this way. And so to have it fall so squarely on the individual I think does not work. We need collective action, both in schools, parent groups, regulation, corporate responsibility, all of it. Uh There was another quote that struck me. One of the girls said we're not doing well but we can't get off. So it sort of goes to the addiction point that you're making. Yeah, I mean, I think that Lifeline loaded gun is so important because it's part of growing up today. I mean, the show in a way is less about it. It's not an issue film about social media. It's really about coming of age in the time of social media. It's also entertaining because the kids are so great. I don't, I don't wanna scare you from watching it, but I think that what we see is that it's part and parcel of social life and that's really important to teenagers too. So it's not a binary like get rid of social media or keep it. It's the genie is out of the bottle, it's here, but it doesn't have to be the way it currently is. Ok. So I'm going to see if there's any questions. So if there is a question, please let us know, what do you think the role of regulation is in this equation? I mean, every other media is regulated and it, it's just kind of shocking that this one is not and that also the tech companies have no responsibility for it. So I think regulation is important. Um But I also think that the engineering can be different. I was just watching the movie about Jim Henson and at the beginning of the children's television workshop, when they brought on Jim Henson, they, the idea was to bring together people who know what kids love with people who know what kids need to learn. And that second piece was never there with tech and it's always just been give kids what will create maximum engagement, maximum advertising, even if we know it's not in the best interest of young people, so growth at any cost. Ok. We have a question. Hi, I'm Laura Heisman. I have a 15 year old daughter. Um And this like my body is shaking right now because it hits me so hard. And my question is with the kids that you spoke to. How, what can I learn from that about how to talk to my daughter? So she'll share more about what's going on on Instagram and tiktok. I mean, I'm in marketing. I know what's going on in that, but I don't know what's going on enough. And I'm thankful when she opens up, but it's not enough. And I'm wondering if you learned anything from those conversations that can help me connect more with her. Thank you for your question. And I really appreciate your emotion. Um I think that knowing what's going on is actually a huge relief to young people. We premiered this show in Telluride Film Festival. And afterwards a 20 something and her mother came up to me and the 20 something said it was really uncomfortable watching this with my mother because she knows nothing about my life. But I'm really glad she does now. And I found that too. Like when I, we have, there's one episode four which is about sexuality and how kids learn about that. And one of the main educators is pornography and one trend that really shocked me was B DS M and choking as a trend with teenagers and hearing this from, we, we have a kind of focus group in the show where there's peer to peer conversations so that we can see if a problem is unique to one person or common. And really we only include in the show, the universal issues. And when I heard so many teenagers talking about this jaw dropping trend, I went home and I asked my boys like is this real? And they validated this, she means is the choking thing real and they validated it. And so I think, and I feel like it was a relief for them to talk about it because it's uncomfortable. And I think that that's why we did this parent guide because I think having conversations is so important. And also at school, like one of the reasons we did this kind of round table discussion is the teenagers so wanted to talk about it and so wanted to know that they were not alone. Almost every teenager in the project said if they had a choice, they would rather be in their parents' generation before the phone. So 22 million Americans are aged 15 to 19, they could be your kids, your employees, your consumers. What do you think we need to understand to really bridge this divide beyond sort of like reading the parent guide. I mean, I think we need to address what is a massive mental health issue which has kind of been under the radar. Um I mean, the therapists that we've showed it to have started to cry like there are not even enough therapists. So I think it's an urgent issue that we need to deal with. I feel like for this generation, the important thing is finding out about it. For the next generation. I think there is movement towards change. It's entirely possible and I hope that that happens. OK. So, unfortunately, I know you're gonna have a lot of questions and actually, that's one of the reasons Lauren's staying for dinner. So I hope you find her because we've definitely been um given the, we're done with time. Thank you, Lauren. And I have one thing I just wanna say we do need your help. This is an incredible room of marketing professionals and young people don't watch Hulu and FX. Um they watch Tik Tok and so we need your help in spreading the word in doing a digital advertising campaign in getting the curriculum into every school in America and in really facing this issue, Sasha is here. So listen, I want you to find Lauren. I want you to watch the five part episode. It really is the beginning. It's, it's, it's still rolling out now and it's on Hulu and N FX. Yes. Really good question. Common sense media recommends 14 plus and gave it their highest approval.

Valerie Jarrett, Chief Executive Officer, The Obama Foundation
Interviewer: Jessica Yellin, Founder, News Not Noise 

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Protecting Democracy Globally

Oh, you guys look fabulous. And Martin, ladies, ladies. Not, not too many guys. Good, good, good. It is so nice to sit here and talk to you, Valerie. I think the first time we met you were CEO in Chicago. It was before then Senator Obama was starting to run. Of course, you became a senior adviser in the White House and you're now again, a CEO of a $1.5 billion foundation, the Obama Foundation and counting and counting just in case anybody's interested. Well, that's an impressive start. Thank you. I know you're still fundraising. Um, first, I'd love to give people a sense of what's happening at the Obama Foundation. There are programs for girls and young people we'll talk about, but let's start with the facility itself. It's a very impressive campus. Tell us a little bit about what its focus is when it opens and why it's on the south side of Chicago. Ah, so I grew up on the south side of Chicago. That's why it's there. Right. No, that's not exactly why it's there, but it does make it very special for me. It's a 19.3 or campus right adjacent to the Museum of Science and Industry. Chicago's amazing Michigan lakefront and on the other side of the University of Chicago, just a 10 minute drive to downtown and it is going to be fabulous. It opens in the spring of 2026. You are all invited and come and take a hard head tour. Now, if you're curious and so it will be not only an economic engine for Chicago, but a beacon of hope for the world and it will house the presidential museum that will tell the story of not just President and Michelle Obama, but also the people upon whose shoulders they stand, it will have a Chicago public library because it's so important to the Obamas that the young people in the neighborhood feel that this is their home. We'll have a forum building for huge gatherings, including our democracy forum, which I know we're going to talk about and also an athletic center where we're not going to just do sports, but teach young people about the importance of self esteem and team building and the business of sports because not everybody's 68 and can dunk and, and they will have walking trails and vegetable gardens and fruit gardens and sledding. You can't sled anywhere else in Chicago and growing up Michelle Obama always wanted to go sledding. So we're building a sledding hill for her and it will just be an incredible asset for the city that we call home. Why Chicago? Well, it's where the Obamas began their career together, their life together. Michelle was born about two miles from where the center is located. He came to Chicago and he tells a story about coming those of, you know, Chicago along the sky way from Indiana and landing on the south side. They lived basically when they married not far from where we're located, their kids were born at the hospital less than a mile away. And it's where they built their life together and they wanted to put down their library in a place where they already had roots and where the people in the community would welcome them. And that's what Chicago has done. It's lovely. We're all excited to go good, please. The foundation is already doing work that is up and running a lot of scholarships and programs for young people because you're very focused on building the next generation of leaders. Yes. So when President Obama left office, he and Michelle spent a lot of time just trying to think through what do we want to do next? They're obviously still very young. They're very popular and they wanted to continue to be a force for good, but they also believe in taking the long view and building the next generation of leaders. And so we have leaders programs in the United States, Asia, Africa and Europe. We have a scholarship program thanks to airbnb for juniors and seniors in college to not only provide financial aid but provide them a summer travel experience. And these young people just came back a couple months ago and all of them were standing like 3 ft taller as a result of going 70% of them left the country and the other 30% went to cities or counties or rural communities where they had not grown up. And so this experience, as you can tell is one of my, my favorites. We also have uh my brother's keeper, which President Obama started when he was still in the White House to help improve the trajectory of boys and young men of color. And we have leadership programs for young girls. Uh And our goal is to keep adolescent girls globally in school and also in the United States. Um So and Columbia and the University of Chicago also have leadership programs. So we have now over 1000 alumni who've been through our leadership programs who are out there changing the world and uh spending time with them is what keeps me hopeful. A number of the students who come through your program actually live in countries with authoritarian leaders where democracy is not functioning for them. Can you speak a little bit about the challenges of training kids for young people to work in a world they don't yet live in. Well, it's hard for a variety of reasons and I'll give you an example of a young leader in our program. Who was uh from Vietnam and she was actually incarcerated. And the Obama leaders program isn't necessarily the best calling card in some countries. And so you have to really respect and admire these leaders who are willing to take a risk to fight for human rights when they are enco countries that are not supportive of those rights. We have another young leader named Zuma who's from Poland and she's now the Deputy Minister for Justice, fighting for human rights and civic engagement. And she says if it wasn't for our program, she would have never considered putting her hat in the ring for this office. And her best friend said grade was also in the leaders program and occupies the top position in government as well. And so when you see that so many people out there have great ideas and they're working so hard and they feel alone and they feel overwhelmed and all they need are some simple tools to help them do what they're doing, take it for, to scale and meet other people from around the world who are trying to tackle the same challenges. And so we don't tell our leaders care about this or care about that. We're not issue specific. We just want them to have the tools to be more effective and to take what they're doing to scale and to meet some people from around the world with whom they can bond and develop relationships and maybe even do a little business together, strengthening democracy here at home and overseas is a big focus for you all. Would you talk a little bit about your democracy forum? Which I think is coming up. Yes, December 5th. We have our third annual democracy forum. I'll be honest with you. When President Obama left office, he didn't think he had to have anything focused explicitly on democracy. It's kind of a through line in all of our programs. But given the state of the world he thought, well, let's zero in on that. So our first one a couple of years ago was on disinformation. And he gave a speech at Stanford University, my alma mater on the different ways that business, civil society, the individual and government could try to tackle this huge problem of disinformation, which we know is only going to get exacerbated as a result of A I um last year, we focused on inclusive capitalism. What are the ways in which we can build a strong middle class? Because we know that a threat to democracy is if you have countries where you have the rich and the poor and you see uprisings when people feel government is actually not working for me. So what can we do to make the tent big enough and the pie large enough for everybody to benefit? I always say that look, um talent is ubiquitous. It's opportunity. That is not. And so how do we build this bigger opportunity? Platform. And then this year we're focusing on pluralism and I was talking to someone earlier who I won't out. But she said she probably hadn't heard that word since college. And it's particularly relevant right now, I think because we are in this polarized, not just country but world and people are so comfortable in their echo chambers. And as a result of social media and the way we are organized and the people who came of age during COVID, some of the basic skills of having a very difficult conversation with someone with whom you disagree, but you come to the table in goodwill and you want to try to figure out is there common ground and there may not be but it's healthy and it is essential in a democracy to go through that exercise. And so how do we build a pluralistic society if we don't, then the chances of us having a strong democracy begins to fail. And so each year we're looking at what are the foundations, what are the threats? What are the opportunities to strengthen our democracy and taking on specific areas of focus? You guys never take on the big challenges. Um I want to switch gears a little bit and ask you about the Girls Opportunity Alliance because I remember this from some of the work Mrs Obama did at the White House. It's an outgrowth of some of her work there. Um Tell us what this focus is on and how it really is could help strengthen democracy here in the US. Yes. So, um as you said, Jessica, first of all, can I just say how happy I am to be here with Jessica? I should have said it from the beginning, but you realize her focus is to tell good news stories, stories that don't just scare people to death. And I think that's good because of this current climate. You can seem overwhelmed by all the bad news. And so taking a moment to put out the good things that are actually out there. So I wanted to give you that shout out before we run out of time. So um when Michelle Obama was the first lady, she launched a program called Let Girls Learn. And her goal was to focus on the 100 million girls around the world. Adolescent girls who are not in school, why are they not in school? A variety of different reasons. Some of it's poverty, some of it's child marriage, some of it's oppression, some of it's just lack of good resources and opportunity. And she worked with a variety of organizations when she was in the White House, raised a billion dollars to help keep girls in school when she left. She said, well, what can I do without the platform of first lady but continue this hard work. And so the girls opportunity alliance and I hope they are partners. We have so many partners in the corporate community that are focusing on this here in the United States and around the world is the same. How can we keep these girls in school? And we work with a whole range of grassroots organizations on the ground that they're having success, evidence based strategies that are keeping our young people in school. And last year, Melinda French Gates and Amal Clooney and Michelle Obama teamed up quite a, quite a threesome if you asked and went to Africa and really put a spotlight on the issue of child marriage, which is a huge challenge. And one of our leaders, a young 18 year old was very instrumental in Malawi in trying to raise the age with which young people could get married. Uh So this is our plan and what we wanna do around the United States as well as around the world is to find those organizations that care about this passionately partner with us and let's help girls learn from it. So finally, you've been a leader, your whole career. Um and not my whole career. Let's be honest. Well, in the very beginning, maybe not started out a lawyer at a big law firm. That was a nightmare. So just in the spirit of full disclosure, I like that. That's true. But we all come from humble beginnings. Uh Talk a little bit about if you would, you, you were a $1.5 billion foundation. You're juggling family and life and all the pressures we all deal with but also in a tense election year while you're trying to raise money, what advice would you give other women leaders about doing the job without compromising your essential needs and values? Well, first of all, um this notion of work life balance, I think sets us up for disappointment and the way I prefer to look at it and I can say this because I'm older than most of you. Thank you. Is that life is full of chapters and, and different chapters. There are going to be trade offs that you're going to make and some chapters are just really hard, like raising Children. Any of you have kids in this room. Ok. Well, the best thing is when they have Children because first of all, it's payback. But second of all, there's just nothing better than grandchildren. I have two, don't hate me, but they're just the best. But when you are young, I felt and I still obviously remember it quite vivid searingly like I was holding on by my fingertips and I felt particularly when I was in that law firm that I couldn't really, and this is 38 years ago, but I just felt like I didn't tell anybody I was pregnant until I was six months pregnant. I gained so much weight. I was obviously pregnant, but I was afraid if I talked about it, people wouldn't take me as seriously. And that was the way the environment was back then. And so I was compartmentalizing and if I had to take Laura to a doctor's appointment or anywhere else, I would just, oh, I'm going to a meeting and why couldn't I just say taking her to a doctor's appointment? Because when the men would leave for soccer practice, everybody thought, oh, what a wonderful dad. He is. Right. And, and so in that era, I also felt alone and I felt like I had to do it all myself. And I used to think about, well, what must it be like for moms who don't have the good paying job and the health insurance and the great childcare and the support system that I have. And how can we take care of those structural and cultural impediments and legal impediments? Which is why part of my passion when I worked in the White House was chairing the White House Council on Women and girls. And so look, it's hard when you're younger, but then they grow up. And so I think part of what I'm trying to say is that during these different chapters of life, make informed decisions and don't feel like you're compromising, make it intentional and own the decision and be realistic about what you can do and what you can't do. But I also say you have to, you know, put the oxygen mask on yourself first. And so even in the White House and you know what that was like covering us is, is that I get up an hour earlier and exercise. Do I enjoy exercising? I do not enjoy exercising. Let me be really clear, but I needed to clear my mind. I knew I would feel better when I was finished. The happiest moment of the day was when I got off that treadmill. Um, and I was doing something for myself and I would, you know, in the beginning I'd say, well, I do it after work. Well, there was no after work. And, and so this notion of balance sets you up to think that you can have it all at the same time. And what I would encourage you to think instead is when you look back, I'm not saying my life is over. But let's say when I look back, I've had multiple chapters and the question is, do the chapters add up to a whole life? You know, did you love, did you build relationships? Did you find time and space in your heart for the people that you care about? Knowing that that meant that you didn't get to do some other things. And when my daughter was young, I, I had her when I was 28 and most of my friends and relatives didn't have Children. They would go off to Europe and they go doing whatever partying all night and I would be home with Laura and they said, well, don't you miss being out with us? And I was like, no, I made this decision to have this baby and now they're paying college tuition and Ih, that's nice. So that's my point. And so just be intentional about your life and try, try not to put too much pressure on yourself to say I have to have it. All right, this second. And I think for the younger generation where let's face it as a result of technology so much does happen quickly and it's right there at the palm of your hand. And I'm always telling them this is actually not a sprint. It's a marathon with lots of hopefully twists and turns. And the final thing I'll say as our clock runs down, I wrote a book called Finding My Voice, The Journey To the West Wing and the Path Forward. And then when I did a paperback, I changed the subtitle because it's really the story of my life, which is when the perfect plan crumbles. And I thought I had a perfect plan, a 10 year plan and I checked off all the boxes on my plan except for 10 years in the last one was live happily ever after and I was miserable. And so when the perfect plan crumbles, that's when the adventure begins. Yeah. And if you look at life like an adventure, then the swerves end up being an incredible line. Thank you guys, Valerie. Thank you. Thank you for your leader.

Presenter: Kristen Soltis Anderson, Political Pollster; Founder, Echelon Insights

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Election 2024 - Breaking Down The Polls 

So my name is Kristen Soltis Anderson. I am the founder of echelon Insights. We're an opinion research firm that works for brands, advocacy groups and occasionally we dabble in politics. And so every 2 to 4 years around pumpkin spice season as a political pollster, I get asked one question over and over and over and that question is what will happen. What's going to happen in this election? Everybody wants to know and part of that is just natural curiosity. It's kind of like how a kid on Christmas wants to know what's under the tree and they might shake the box to see what's inside. Is it a toy or a lump of coal? Except in my world. The box is Pennsylvania. What's inside? Is it a lump of coal toy? Which candidate is, the lump of coal may vary depending on your political persuasion. But nevertheless, what we're trying to figure out is what is it that voters are going to do when this election season wraps? And the reason why so many people care about this may be curiosity, it may be entertainment for some, but for the women in this room, the reason why you want to be able to see what is going on in the future is because you need to be able to prepare your companies. There are going to be policies that may be different, things that affect your bottom line, things that affect your employees, your ability to do business around the world, that matter whether one candidate or the other wins the election. So I get asked that question a lot because people are rightfully very anxious and know that there are huge amounts of things at stake. But this is not a very easy election to predict. Uh There's a piece written by a variety of folks at Politico. They pulled together about a dozen different academics, uh pundits advocates to all come together and try to figure out what is the Black Swan event that could affect this election? This was a piece from January and it has stuck with me ever since because of the dozen or so things that they talk about, not just one but many of them have already occurred. The article included a number of people who said, I predict that it would be unpredictable but possible for a climate change, filled natural disaster to affect our battleground states in the weeks leading up to election day, one person wrote that they believed the debate over abortion was only going to get more intense. And this article came out just weeks before the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling on IVF. We had some who predicted that there could be a death at a Trump rally or a violent attempt on a candidate's life. Both of which sadly came true at that rally in Butler Pennsylvania. In fact, in that article, most of the things did wind up coming to pass in one way or another, except for one, if you have the aliens making contact on your bingo card, we still have a few weeks, they still have time. But I just put this up here to underscore unbelievably unpredictable. This election has been to say nothing of the fact that the two candidates on the ballot at the top of the ticket are not the two candidates we thought we would have back in January at the start of the year. So knowing all of this, I want to then give some context for how stable this election has been in the face of chaos. So back in 2008, you had an election where you had John mccain, Barack Obama, they were in a race of the, of their lifetimes. And in that race, the polls were all over the place when we took a look at how far the margins were apart on these polls. We found that John mccain at one point in the last two weeks or pardon me, two months before election day, John mccain at one point was up by three and then Barack Obama was up by seven, a 10 point swing. We then also had Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in their election. The swing, there was about about five points. It went from a Romney minus one to an Obama plus four. We had Trump versus Clinton. That was an election where the polls in the closing weeks had about a six point worth of swing and the last election as well, only about four points, but still in those closing weeks, we expect the polls to move a lot. And so then I looked since Labor Day, how much has this race moved? It has not moved at all. I had to go to decimal points in order to show any sort of difference between where this race stood. So that's just to give you some context for how unbelievably stable it is and it is the same way in the battleground states. We see Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and Michigan are all races that are not just within the margin of error. They are essentially within a point. Our friends at a ARP put out a poll today of voters in Michigan. It had Harris 46 Trump 46. So as somebody who works in the statistical profession, it would be irresponsible of me to tell you that I knew how this election was going to go. So instead, what I'll tell you is why is this race so close and why isn't it moving at all? So we'll start with why it's so close part of why this race is so close is that the candidates at the top of the ticket are now very evenly matched on two criteria that voters say is incredibly important, who will make the country safe and who will make the economy better back when Joe Biden was at the top of the tickets. My polls show Donald Trump with a fairly sizable lead on a variety of these metrics. But since Democrats made the change, and Kamala Harris became the Democrats nominee, we now can see that you have keeping our country safe and making our economy work better as even and the important metric of being competent and effective has now swung decisively in the democrats' favor. But why then do we still have such a close race if those numbers had moved so much? The reality is that we're incredibly polarized and I want to double click for a second on what our polarization means. Some people think our polarization means that half of America believes one thing and half of America believes the other. At my firm, we've done lots of experiments where we ask people what they think about their different political and partisan views. And we find that the vast majority of Americans take a little from column A and a little from column B. They are not entirely Republican or entirely democratic in their worldview. The reason why we are so polarized is because voters look at the other side and they think these are people that want to harm me and they have the power to do. So. Republicans and Democrats increasingly you their side as losing. And when you feel less powerful, you are more willing to excuse bad behavior of the others in the foxhole with you, you're more willing to do or accept whatever, whatever it will take for your side to win. And that's where we find ourselves today. And so that's why this race is so evenly divided because people across this country really feel set in their tribe and are concerned about what happens if the other side takes power. But then why does the race not move? Well, there are so few people who really don't know how they feel about all of this, that that's why this isn't moving very much so back in May, I wrote a piece about Donald Trump and why his brand image has remained so stable. And part of it is because he has been a factor in American life for decades. My entire time on this planet, Donald Trump has been a celebrity of some kind. And so it's important to keep that in mind when we look at those other races where the polls swung one way or another. It was because voters were still getting to know the candidates at the top of the ticket in this race. We have one anchoring force, Donald Trump who people know how they feel about him love him or hate him. And his views have been locked in place pretty strongly. Even as Kamala Harris has consolidated the views of Democrats has gotten more people within her own party to say that they think that she is a strong candidate and she can do well. But if her brand image is moving and Trump's isn't, then why isn't she decisively winning? Because there is a small but very significant portion of voters who do not like Donald Trump. But nevertheless, say they intend to vote for him. I call these voters the begrudging Trump voters. Again, it's about 7% of them. And they say I don't not like him, but it doesn't matter. I had a focus group where I talked to one voter. She was a moderate former Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but she still said she planned to vote for Donald Trump anyways. And I asked her why. And she said if I go to the doctor and I need heart surgery, I don't care if I don't like the heart surgeon, I just want him to do a good job. And in her view, she thought that Donald Trump would do a good job on the issues that mattered to her. There are a lot of voters going to the polls this year who do not like the candidates that they have on offer, but are nevertheless of the mind that this is an election with enormously high stakes and they're going to participate. So I'll leave you then with one voter who really doesn't like the options available to her either, but has nevertheless decided to vote for Kamala Harris. I don't know if this will resonate with any of you in this room. But this was from a focus group. I did for the New York Times back just a few weeks ago. This respondent, her name is Kay. She's 61. She was a Biden voter in 2020 she said I voted for Biden because I thought he was a little bit more than the lesser of two evils. Harris. I just don't know enough about her, but I don't think Trump can string five words together to make a sentence. He's a global embarrassment. Everybody says if I don't vote, it's a vote for Trump. So I guess I have to vote. I'm not going to love it. I'm not going to enjoy it. I'm not going to have fun. There might be wine afterwards. I wish I could tell you the answer to what will happen in this election. But statistically I can't, the polls are simply too close. All I can do is tell you to be prepared for anything. Thank you.

Katherine Boyle, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz, Nini Hamrick, Co-founder and President, Vannevar Labs Moderator: Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: Inside The Defense Tech Revolution

Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO, Thrive Global Fidji Simo, Chief Executive Officer, Instacart Moderator: Alyson Shontell, Editor-in-Chief and Chief Content Officer, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: What AI Means For Health

Good morning. That was an awesome to get to know you. Thank you all for participating and thank you both for starting us off today with the agenda. Uh I think personally one of the most exciting use cases of the A I teacher is in health and in wellness and how it can improve all of our lives, especially through um not just, you know, the drug advancements that we're going to see but through behavioral changes and hyper personalization. So excited to talk to you both about that. But first, I want to talk about a really big overarching question. Um America spends more than any other country on health care but has a lower life expectancy than any other wealthy nation. Do you think that A I can actually move the needle here? Is this something this is, do you feel hopeful when you think about all the advances you're seeing in A I and your roles in it as your companies? Maybe Fiji, we could start with you? I think, you know, fundamentally at the heart of this problem is a data problem. And I think with A I, we're going to have way more ability to collect a lot more data, to mine that data, to find better insights and then to use those insights to tell people how to change their behavior. If you look at nutrition, which is obviously the thing I know the most with Instacart, there's also really like fascinating stuff which is that the healthcare system in the US spends about a trillion dollars on diet related diseases. That is the size of the US FOOD system. So that means that for every dollar you spend on food, the health care system spends an additional dollar treating you for from all of the problems that the food creates. That's pretty mind boggling when you think about it. And in fact, there is a real business case to solving that. Theres a lot of studies that show that if insurance companies funded the cost of healthy food, they would save $180 billion down the line, which is like a massive amount. But in order to do that, you actually need technology platforms and solutions that makes that easy. You need insurance companies to have a tech platform that can scale food as medicine. You need doctors to be able to prescribe food as easily as it is to prescribe medication. And right now, that's simply not the case. And then you need patients to be able to follow these changes in behavior in a way that's really that simple for them to be able to do. So that you can see over time this number of changing and go ahead. Well, I think Fiji is so absolutely right. And actually we are excited to thrive to be working with Instacart to address that. But the truth is that right now healthcare systems everywhere, not just in the US are literally breaking under the burden of chronic diseases in America alone. We have 130 million people with chronic diseases. We are spending over $4 trillion in health care. 17% of our GDP and the numbers are getting worse every year. I mean, anybody here who is a self insured, employer knows how deep the problem is. And there is this tool that uh Fiji alluded to, which is our daily behavior. That is kind of the neglected tool in health care. And yet if you look at the science, 7% of our health is our genes. Um at most 30% is medical care and the rest is our daily behaviors. Our motor arthritis health is what happens between doctor visits. Good point. You know, people go and have their annual physical and what happens in between. How are you sleeping? What are you eating? What's your stress level? Are you moving? We don't even call it exercise, movement, stress management connection. These are the five key behaviors, sleep food movement, stress management connection. Addressing this is really a miracle drug and A I has a unique power to address this problem because of hyper personalization right now. Even if your doctor uh mentions food, they are most likely to tell you go on a Mediterranean diet. People have no clue how they go about that. Um A I will know everything about you. The A I uh health coach that we are building in partnership with open an A I collect all your data, everything you are willing to give us biometric data, lab, data, medical data, but also your preferences. What foods do you like? How do you like to move and exercise? How do you sleep? And then the nudges and recommendations are hyper personalized. I mean, it may tell you at 315, you are picking up your daughter from school, go on a 10 minute walk in the afternoon, you normally have three sodas. Can you replace one of them with sparkling water and lemon? So it's very, very detailed and very applicable to you. And therefore through what I tried, we call micro steps, tiny little incremental changes. You can begin to adopt healthier habits. That's so interesting. Yeah, and you've said that behavior changes are the miracle drug and it sounds like you think through hyper personalization behaviors can be changed. We can you can nudge us in the right direction. Maybe finally use phone notifications for as opposed to stress. Um So one thing I did want to address is, you know, I think the most high functioning ceos have feel personal about the mission that they're solving. I know health is personal for both of you. You have high powered jobs. You always have, you're doing a lot and Arian, I think you might have been the first person on the planet medically diagnosed with burnout in 2007. Um, so I wanted to chat with you both. I know, um Fiji recently launched something called Metro Dora that's personal for you. Can you just talk about your personal health journeys and why this is a personal mission? Of course, um In 2020 I was kind of falling apart from head to toe is the best way to describe it. And I was diagnosed with a new iun condition. And um I realized that the level of research on these conditions were absolutely appalling very much in the same vein as autoimmune conditions. But 80% of the patients are women. And when I asked my doctors, the researchers in the field, why are these conditions impacting women so disproportionately, the answer was, I don't know, like they had no idea and we still don't fundamentally know why like autoimmune conditions impact women more than men. And that seemed to me like very terrifying that I would be diagnosed with a chronic illness that's incurable and that there was pretty much no research being done to explain the biology behind these conditions. And so I set out to create Metro Dora, which is essentially the idea of partnering with patients to enroll them in research and gather all of the 360 data points on them very similar to what you just described. But we look at their genetics, we look at their immune profiling, we look at our reported symptoms, we look at their environment and the beauty of A I is that in the past, these data sets were very siloed. And even if you wanted to analyze a ton of genomic data, that was a huge endeavor that could take many months. Now, let alone if you wanted to do that across all of the data points I mentioned. But now because we have this tool that allows us to analyze giant data sets, we're going to be able to understand patterns we couldn't understand before. And I fundamentally believe that the chronic diseases we're dealing with are not well suited for the current health care system that we have, which is really treating you as a set of body organs, right? Like you go to the cardiologist for your heart and the gynecologist just thinks you're a giant walking uterus, but it just happens to be that we are a whole body and all of these systems interact together. And I believe that by collecting the data about this very complex biology and analyzing it all together, we're going to understand these much more complex disease processes and be able to address them at the root source in very different ways. So that that's basically the mission of Metro Dora and why that's so, you know, important and personal because I can. And I said, I don't think we're on the path to solving chronic illness or at current cost and speed. I think we just got amazing tools with A I to allow us to do that. But it's really up to us on how we're going to deploy them in our organization in new applications in order to change the course one. And Ariana, I know it's personal for you as well in your book, thrive one of your many, many books. You're talking about how the lent this pursuit of success, money and power is actually killing us. Um And that we should be focused on other things. Instead, can you talk about how you've evolved in your house as you know, Alison, for me, it, it was really a personal wake up call when I collapsed two years into building the Huffington Post and divorced mother of two little girls. And I thought I didn't have the luxury to take care of myself. And I hit my head on my desk, broke my cheekbone. I was diagnosed with burnout. And that was actually the beginning of covering these things relentlessly at the Huffington Post. And, and realizing that we had defined what is a good life as simply a successful life based on status and money and ignored our health and well being, which is central, you know, we work with a lot of you, a lot of your companies here and sometimes CEO say, oh, you know, well being is so soft, you know, we need to focus on productivity and business metrics. Well being is a productivity multiplier if your employees are sick or stressed or depleted. Do you think they are going to perform at their best? So that's really what we are recognizing right now and that you can actually make huge changes with these micro steps. And you know, my favorite micros step um I thrive and we have thousands is the 62nd reset that I was showing you, which is the recognition again based on science. It's very important and to base all interventions on data and science so that they are not seen as warm and fuzzy and reset is based on this neuroscience that tells us that stress is unavoidable. If there is anybody here who doesn't have stress in their lives. Can you please meet me afterwards? But cumulative stress is avoidable and we can interrupt it in 60 to 90 seconds by focusing on conscious breathing on things that bring us gratitude and joy. We have hundreds of them that they are fed to, let's say employees on Microsoft teams or Slack or at contact centers and the results are absolutely amazing and it's 60 seconds. But my favorite thing is creating our own personalized resets. We have one for um Fiji, we have one for me who is people and things that give you joy quotes, music and to know that in 60 seconds you can interrupt. That cycle is really amazing because nobody can say I don't have 60 seconds. Yeah. Very efficient, very efficient stress saver. Good, good pro tip. Um, so I want to switch the topic a little bit. You both have a nice window into open A, I actually, um, the hot company of the planet, actually, 100 and $56 billion valuation. Um Fiji sits on the board, Ariana. You have uh co created thrive A I with open a sorry, thrive A I with open A I start up fund and S A. So I'm curious, you have this vantage point into the future of generative A I, you're sitting up close, you're apparently, I think there's probably you, I would assume frequent board meetings. Um What is the future of generative A I look like from your vantage points? Um Any concerns about some turnover recently or anything? We're gonna need another two hours. So I, I would say, I think we're about to witness a massive explosion in intelligence. And imagine if every single one of you had a phd level assistant in your discipline available 24 7 to help you realize anything that's on your mind. I think that we're very close to being able to realize the dream and being able to uh as a result, which is like abundance of intelligence, crack problems that we haven't cracked before I talked about biology earlier, but really cracked a variety of problems. And so that gets me incredibly excited. At the same time, I think that historically, we have seen that it's not always obvious how to translate the scientific breakthrough into people's lives and actually giving them all of the upsides and minimize the downsides of this breakthrough. If you look at scientific discovery in general, usually there is a gap of 17 years between a scientific breakthrough being discovered and that breakthrough impacting patients in the clinic 17 years is a really long time. And so my hope is that A I also helps us like really narrow that gap. But I know from experience that it is going to take a while for society to really absorb this massive innovation that's coming our way and actually turn it into applications that are really useful. I call myself a pragmatic technologist. And at Instacart, I really gave the mandate to the team. Let's not do A I for A I's sake, we're not checking a box here. Let's figure out the customer problems we've always wanted to solve and figure out if I can help us solve them. Uh And I think that's uh that's gonna be the right approach of like seeing it as a tool, seeing it as a tool that can massively accelerate solving the business and customer problems we're all solving uh so that we can put this goodness in the hands of people as, as fast as possible. Um Yes, I think um we completely agree here and that's how Sam and I came together to launch this new company because as Fiji said at the moment, the emphasis is um A I and drug development speed A I and diagnostics. But what about A I and everyday health and if A I, not just open A I, but all A I companies are going to be able to touch hearts and minds and convince people that A I can't be for good. We need to have a real impact on people's lives right now and we can do that because of the superhuman memory of A I. It can know everything about you all data points and then personalize the interventions and the micro steps. And uh and we are seeing that it can also democratize access to these behaviors because right now the 1% anybody with resources is all in on changing their behaviors. People are competing with how much sleep they got. I'm wearing my aura ring and you know, how much have you given up ultra processed foods altogether? You know, it's like it's constant, right? But millions and millions of people are being left behind and health inequities are huge and growing bigger every year. There is one statistic that I can't get out of my mind, which is that last year in America, there are 150,000 amputations of legs and toes of people with diabetes. Now we all know this is barbaric and completely avoidable uh diabetes, even if it's not preventable, it's a completely manage disease, not just with drugs, but with behavior. And the change here is not just to see behaviors as prevention, but as optimizing the management of disease. Because for millions of people, the prevention train has left the station. So we are working, for example, with Eli Lilly, they are going directly to consumers. They launch Lily Direct. You can go to Lily Direct, buy your drugs and then you are given the thrive coach for free. And you can say, why do they care? It's going to improve adherence of medication right now, 25% of people do not even fill the first prescription. So once you are engaged with people's daily behaviors, you are going to improve compliance, you are going to improve management of side effects. So the incentives are very aligned. And I actually see Pharma having a big impact here because they are directly into people's behaviors through the drugs that they, they sell. So we started this conversation talking about the health care spending in this country and, and really, um what's happening? One of the biggest fears I think people would have is hyper personalization sounds amazing, but in the wrong hands, it can be used against us. So um we're, you know, almost out of time here. But could you just give us some thoughts on how we can make sure that A I is working for us and not against us when we're giving it the information, what guard rails need to be in place. Well, I think it's all about value um that you give back to the, to the people. And um for example, at my clinic at Medora, we are asking patients to share a lot of data with us, but a lot of research studies don't actually drive results back to patients. So it's like give us your data, trust that something will happen. We actually really prioritize figuring out even though it's very complicated in jail care system. What is the return of results that can actually inform them and change their behavior? And so I think it's about clarity of how your data is going to be used and a very clear exchange of value so that you know exactly what you're getting in return and how you can change your behavior as a result. Wonderful. Thank you both so much. I would love to hear your answer, but we are getting the hook. Thank you both so much. Um And enjoy the next conversation. Thank you. Thank you all.

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Cameron Diaz, Actor; Author; Co-founder, Avaline Katherine Power, Founder and Chairperson, MERIT, Versed; Co-founder, Avaline Moderator: Emma Hinchliffe, Senior Writer, Fortune; Co-chair, Fortune MPW Summit

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