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

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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.