One of our goals tonight, was to bring someone to the stage who could represent the most powerful women community, and could set the tone for the next three days. Who could we get? Who could we get? And Cathy Englebirch, who was the first CEO of a big four, the big four consulting firms in America. Cathy became CEO of Deloitte. Cathy has been a huge supporter of Fortune's most powerful women, and thank you Deloitte for sponsoring. [ APPLAUSE ] We would have invited her. This has nothing to do with Deloitte. This past summer, Cathy made a switch. She joined Deloitte in 1986 You get out of college. And she became the CEO of the WNBA. And the tone we wanna set here is that women can do anything, and women are champions. And we're gonna talk about inspiration, winning, and championship here tonight. With Cathy Engelbert. Come on now Cathy. Yeah. Thank you for being here. So Cathy How different is it from running a light? Going from 100, 000 people to 144 players is quite different. I will tell you that but you know, I was looking for something different something with a broad women's leadership platform and something I had a passion for. So sports By the way, isn't that different is big business as you read every day, so it's not as different as everyone thinks. Women's forces even be more interesting, we can get into that hopefully. But I was joking with the group earlier at the cocktail hour about how I used to be worried about. You know debt and deficits, trade and tax policy, AI and the future of work, and now I watch the SPN every morning. [ LAUGH ]. So Kathy was born in Philadelphia, grew up mostly in New Jersey, one of eight children. Yes. And what did your parents do for a living? And where were you in the birth order? So I'm Jen Brady, middle girl fifth of eight. Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, those who are middle children know that. But five brothers and three older, two younger so I was the fourth out in the yard and I did go on to play college basketball. And my father worked three jobs to put eight kids through university through college. My mother didn't go to college, but she's the most competitive, smart person I know and she is still alive. My father passed away years ago my father was actually drafted By the Detroit Pistons in 1957. [ APPLAUSE ] When by the way his one year salary would have been $ 900 [ LAUGH ] and he got a job for a company called RCA for $ 2, 000. And he took the $ 2, 000 job, [ LAUGH ] and the MBA wasn't what it was back then. So Kathie went to Lee High and she played basketball at Lee High. All right. [ UNKNOWN ]. Some engineers out there. Yeah, and I'm from Allen Town so we love Lee High. Lee High valley. You You were the captain of the team your last year. Now, what did you want to do when you were graduating from college? I actually started as a computer science major, I'm one of those who switched out of STEM to To accounting, believe it or not, because someone said, Warren Buffett said, I know Warren's a big MPW supporter, accounting is the language of business. And then someone else told me, and you'll get a job. [ LAUGH ] This thing called the big eight, back then, so But I switched to business and accounting and obviously became a CPA and But did at 5, 33 years later, five different careers within Deloitte later again. I mean I couldn't be more proud of the firm and everything it represents and the diversity inclusion platform that Deloitte has. But you know, moving on to something different in a second career is a big change. Not having all those resources at your fingertips. big change, but again, I never ever thought never aspired to be the CEO or the Commissioner of the W MBA, but Again, it was something I think and we have a big issue in women sports right now around money. And less than 5 % of all corporate sponsorship dollars in sports go to women. And less than 5 % of all media coverage of sports goes to women. This is a big boulder we're pushing up the hill, but we have this huge opportunity with this moment coming off the US women's soccer World Cup win. [ APPLAUSE ] There's an enormous momentum around the WNBA cuz the product on the court I inherited is so good. And all men tell me that too so I know it's good. And then there is this obviously movement around women's empowerment and if we can't take advantage of this moment, this momentum and this movement and drive these women to a higher level of Recognition and get more corporate sponsorship dollars. So any I know there's a lot of big companies in here. I used to be the one that was being courted. [ LAUGH ] Now I'm the one who's groveling for sponsorships, but there's so many assets amongst women's sports that deserve a higher level of attention. And so that's my job I was hired because my finance background and to really transform the economics. So we actually tried to get a member of the world champion Washington Mystics on stage with us, and ten days ago, the Washington Mystics won the WNBA championship. [ APPLAUSE ] And here's why we couldn't get them on the stage. Because, right after they win the world championship, tell me if I'm right on this, Kathy. The average salary for a WNBA player is 75, 000? It varies, but- Round there? It's not enough, that's all we need to say. For 34 games in the season, the average salary, or pay for total pay, average for an NBA player Is 6. 3 million? Probably about right. Yes. 6. 3 million now that's 82 games. So it's like twice as many games but 6. 3 million. Still not enough. Do the math. So this goes back to why we could not get a mystics player on this stage. Even the best ones, so Alaina Delladon, who has been at the most powerful at Summit thanks to our friend and community member Ellen Coleman the former CEO of DuPont. Ellen actually befriended Alaina Delladon who's the MVP of the mystics when she was playing for the University of Delaware and we had Alaina here on this stage a couple of years Can you tell us what would Elena make? Well, Elena's one of our few athletes that have national endorsements so she actually does make a better living. Okay, but okay. But in the league, you know, not enough, not enough, so. Yeah, not, not, so anyway, my point here is, what these women have to do to survive, to live Go off to Europe and play basketball. And Asia. And Asia. Yeah. So all of them are gone. There's no doubt that the model today isn't working. We want these women wearing collective bargaining, active collective bargaining negotiations. it expires next week on October 31st. And that ecosystem I was talking about about sponsors and media coverage and. The WNBA just concluded its 23rd season. The NBA by the way as it entered its 40th season. That's when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson started to put the NBA on the map. They started getting endorsement deals and sponsor deals and tv deals. We can't wait four years , we need to pay these women more. We need to give them a better experience as a player. I was a huge beneficiary of Title Nine in the 70s and to the 80s playing sports. And today, our players have title nine at the college level. Same treatment as the men and they come into the WMBA and it's a very difficult transition. So we're working on player experience. We need more fans in the seats. We do not have enough fans on like the men's sports get a lot more fans. And we don't have enough TV coverage and sponsorships. And that's what the transformation, not only the W. This is a money losing organization that Kathy has worked into, walked into, and what a business problem. So there's all this stuff. Low pay. The women can't even be here in the United States to celebrate and promote the teams that just, so that's a problem. Yep, working on it. Okay, working on it, good. [ LAUGH ] But it seems like there are so many issues. How do you choose? How do you prioritize? It's a perfect business problem whenever you transition to a new role. I did a tour, there's only 12 teams, so this doesn't sound like it should be that hard. 12 teams, 144 players. I did a tour of all 12 markets You know, downloaded just the other day, everything that was on the list 54 items and obviously I'm in my 19th day today on the job. All right. And really really excited to now that the season has concluded, we have a great champion, we had a great series where it went down to the last game in the last quarter and the last four minutes. And now we need to work on our TV coverage. ESPN has been a great partner for the WNBA for a long time. But we've gotta have more coverage, more games, more recognition, more sales and marketing capability to drive our players personalities. These women, they are so socially conscious and community minded. We actually had one of the best players in the league [ UNKNOWN ] take off this year to go work on Prison Reform and work with a particular person on death row in Tennessee. And they're so community minded and socially conscious. And whether it's around gun control, whether it's around Prison Reform the opioid awareness They just you know, girls in STEM, the mystics held a big girls in STEM event and it's we need more people to step up and sponsor us so that we can, you know, have an economic model to pay the players more and to give them a better travel experience. I mean the players share rooms in their first couple years. Can you imagine that And so, we need companies to step up and help us fund some of these initiatives. So, what is an example? Kathy doesn't know I'm doing this. We would like to be helpful to you. What is an example of a company that has supported the WNBA In a sort of creative way, and a way that has benefited that company Yeah, so believe it or not, we really only have one national sponsor. That's AT & T, every player wears AT & T on the front of their jersey right now. And that's been great, great sponsorship the way they activate it around a DNI platform. The assets that we have, the all- star game. We're gonna do things like a baller fest, cup plays. So we have a lot of ideas just coming in now that we're gonna expand the game. We'd love to expand beyond 12 cities, cuz when I talked to a CEO today, they said, well, you're only in 12 cities and I'm in 100. Hard to expand the brand when you're only in 12. And what do you need to do to expand? Well we need to get the economics for our 12 teams. We need to get our players paid more, give them the better travel experience, more fans in the seats. Then down the road we'll look at expansion because look at the Bay Area for instance. There's not WNBA team in the Bay Area. And if so much Of your economy is being driven by technology and you don't have a team in the largest tech sector place in the in the country. So everybody wants a team but you need to have people with the financial wherewithal them that know how to run a team and The depth of talent in this league is amazing. You could be a first round draft pick in the WNBA and actually not make the team. It's one of the only sports that happens. Wow. Because the depth of talent is so enormous but when you only have 12 teams, it's very difficult to make the team. But we also have a lot of positive things going on. I wanna mention that our USA basket Basketball team women's basketball team in Tokyo next year is going for their seventh consecutive gold medal. [ APPLAUSE ] And in the six gold medals that they've won. Their record 100 wins and one loss. This is like a dynasty of massive proportions. And when I was a CEO, Deloitte, I didn't know anything about this. I walk in and someone tells me that and I'm, nobody's talking about it. Why is no one talking about this? MBC did their One year run up in July even before I started on the Olympics ain't even talk about the women's basketball team. Why is this? Because again, less than 5 % of all media coverage goes to women's sports. So we need to change the narrative part of my job will be to do that, not just for Women's basketball but women's sports and, hopefully, women in society more broadly. Cathy, it's wonderful that you are transferring your power and all your skills to the WNBA. We wish you luck and thank you for coming back. Thank you everyone, thank you. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Most Powerful Women Summit 2019: Cathy Engelbert on Her Past at Deloitte and Future at the WNBA

Cathy Engelbert on Her Past at Deloitte and Future at the WNBA

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Cathy Engelbert, Commissioner, WNBA
Moderator: Pattie Sellers, FORTUNE