Speaker 1: I think women are constantly battling with stereotypes about their age,
Speaker 1: the motherhood penalty. So there's so much that they are
Speaker 1: up against. And when they finally get there, we asked
Speaker 1: them to speak on a panel, we ask them to
Speaker 1: mentor we hold them up to such a high standard
Speaker 1: on top of them just doing their job that they
Speaker 1: are now teetering at this very um tall precipice. And
Speaker 1: we wonder why women get burned out. We wonder why
Speaker 1: they're leaving the workforce. I think we all know, and
Speaker 1: yet we're not doing enough to support women and to
Speaker 1: really give them strength when they get there. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Calling Bullshit, the podcast about purpose washing, the gap between
Speaker 1: what companies say they stand for and what they actually do,
Speaker 1: and what they would need to change to practice what
Speaker 1: they preach. I'm your host, Time Montague, and I've spent
Speaker 1: over a decade helping companies define what they stand for,
Speaker 1: their purpose and then help them to use that purpose
Speaker 1: to drive transformation throughout their business. In this special positive
Speaker 1: case study, we're headed to Toronto with the leaders of
Speaker 1: an extraordinary three year old startup called Chief. I'm going
Speaker 1: to interview co founders Caroline Childers and Lindsay Kaplan on
Speaker 1: the main stage at the Collision conference where they're going
Speaker 1: to tell us how they're pursuing Chief's purpose to change
Speaker 1: the face of leadership. When you close your eyes and
Speaker 1: picture of CEO, who do you see? Who I see?
Speaker 1: Is this girl I knew in high school who started
Speaker 1: this like shoe company. And then there's like the faceless
Speaker 1: corporate man in the suit too. But like it's a
Speaker 1: bit of vote of course. Like back in the day
Speaker 1: was like a man um but now I think it's
Speaker 1: very diverse, getting a lot more diverse. I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: like a male or female. It's a picture, but the
Speaker 1: first thing that comes to mind is a man. I
Speaker 1: see a guy in a suit. Yeah, hot guy in
Speaker 1: a suit. It does feel like to some extent there's
Speaker 1: kind of like an ivory tower, you know, there's like
Speaker 1: an in club, and then that produces the same kind
Speaker 1: of people. I think that the people that are in
Speaker 1: power are pretty homogeneous. It's true, corporate America is homogeneous.
Speaker 1: In there were more men named James serving as Fortune
Speaker 1: five CEOs than all the female Fortune five CEOs combined.
Speaker 1: Last year, the number of women on the list came
Speaker 1: to a pathetic forty one and in its entire history,
Speaker 1: only four female CEOs have been black. But what's even crazier,
Speaker 1: I mean to me at least, is that we now
Speaker 1: know that diversity at the top leads to better business results.
Speaker 1: Because of this, things are finally beginning to change. For example,
Speaker 1: Goldwyn Sacks won't take a company public unless the leadership
Speaker 1: team meets their new diversity criteria. But change is painfully slow.
Speaker 1: When it comes to leadership, women still face pernicious stereotypes.
Speaker 1: For instance, they're more likely to be seen as consensus builders,
Speaker 1: not as aggressive decision makers, so even when they are
Speaker 1: promoted to CEO, it's often when a company is in crisis,
Speaker 1: which of course increases the pressure on them to perform
Speaker 1: and decreases their chances of success. This phenomenon, known as
Speaker 1: the glass cliff, means women typically stay in power for
Speaker 1: shorter periods of time than their male counterparts, and when
Speaker 1: they leave, they're often succeeded by you guessed it, white men. Clearly,
Speaker 1: we need more women in power and more support for
Speaker 1: them when they get there. To solve this problem, Caroline
Speaker 1: Childers and Lindsay Kaplan founded Chief, a private network designed
Speaker 1: to give women the tools they need to strengthen their leadership,
Speaker 1: magnify their influence, and pave the way to bring others
Speaker 1: with them. Chief helps their members to hone their leadership
Speaker 1: skills while also fostering community. Within just three years, Chief
Speaker 1: has grown to serve more than ten thousand women, and
Speaker 1: it's attracted speakers like A. Mall Clooney and Michelle Obama.
Speaker 1: With meeting spaces in three cities, evaluation of a billion
Speaker 1: dollars and plans for expansion, Chief is on course to
Speaker 1: truly live out their mission and change the face of leadership.
Speaker 1: All of our positive episodes focus on industry disruptors, but
Speaker 1: as an organization looking to disrupt every industry, I knew
Speaker 1: the Chief co founders would be amazing guests. We met
Speaker 1: up at Collision, a big tech conference in Toronto where
Speaker 1: thirty five thousand attendees learn from the most successful entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: in the world. Caroline Lindsay and I recorded two conversations there. First,
Speaker 1: we spoke on the Collision main stage about how Chief
Speaker 1: supports driven women in their climb to the top and
Speaker 1: helps keep them there once they arrive. Then we hopped
Speaker 1: over to the Collision podcast booth to go deeper on
Speaker 1: the why. Here's how it all went down. First, I
Speaker 1: want to welcome you both to Collision and welcome to
Speaker 1: calling bullshit. Thanks for having us. It's all bullshit. Yeah yeah. So,
Speaker 1: as you know, on this podcast, we focus on purpose
Speaker 1: led organizations, some of whom have some issues, but we
Speaker 1: also since we like to light candles instead of just
Speaker 1: curse the darkness, we want to focus on purpose led
Speaker 1: businesses that are really getting it right as well. And
Speaker 1: obviously you fall into the latter category. The two of
Speaker 1: you are absolutely crushing it. So, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: just start out by getting into a little bit of background.
Speaker 1: What is the history of Chief? How did the two
Speaker 1: of you meet? What made you decide to start this business? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I think the irony is that Lindsay and I first
Speaker 1: met at a women's networking event. Um, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: the best one. It was terrible. And we've all been
Speaker 1: to these networking events with like amount of cheese on
Speaker 1: the side and warm white wine and named tags that
Speaker 1: are placed in awkward positions. And Caroline and I saw
Speaker 1: each other and enrolled our eyes and it was cynicism
Speaker 1: at first glance. It's cynicism. That brought us together. But
Speaker 1: we often say, you know, if a bad networking event
Speaker 1: could actually bring together to co founders, and I imagine
Speaker 1: what a really powerful, well intentioned network can do. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so as I started to think about the idea
Speaker 1: of Chief, UH, Lindsay was one of my first calls
Speaker 1: to start to talk about it as my co founder,
Speaker 1: and I think for us, the idea of Chief came
Speaker 1: from a very personal place of we were both getting
Speaker 1: more senior in our careers. We're spending all of our
Speaker 1: time managing teams, mentoring people, and actually never felt like
Speaker 1: we had resources for ourselves anymore. And that was our
Speaker 1: inspiration to go and art an organization of Chief, to
Speaker 1: build the most powerful network of women and really focus
Speaker 1: on senior executive women as our as our first step, right,
Speaker 1: And so how do you articulate the mission a Chief? Well,
Speaker 1: our mission is to change the face of leadership. It's
Speaker 1: really simple, and yet we have a really big job
Speaker 1: in front of us. At the current rate of change,
Speaker 1: it's going to take over two hundred years for women
Speaker 1: to reach parity in the workplace, and so we need
Speaker 1: to make that change now. And it starts with powerful
Speaker 1: women coming together and creating a ripple effect in their
Speaker 1: organizations and in their communities as well. I love that.
Speaker 1: And you know, purpose led businesses tend to be disruptors.
Speaker 1: I just love to hear you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the dominant belief system that you are trying to disrupt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's interesting because in some ways
Speaker 1: it's disruption, but other ways it's building the status quo
Speaker 1: that has allowed certain types of people to find success
Speaker 1: where others haven't in just building that same ecosystem for
Speaker 1: different demographics. Um, And I think we all know that, Uh,
Speaker 1: A big part of what allows for success and allows
Speaker 1: for new opportunity is who you know and those networks
Speaker 1: that you build. So I think for us it was
Speaker 1: really important to create a similar type of ecosystem and
Speaker 1: network that I think has been in place in many
Speaker 1: ways for certain demographics that just haven't been in there
Speaker 1: in that in that same shape and form for others. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean some of the doing my homework for this,
Speaker 1: some of the statistics about women in sea level positions
Speaker 1: are shocking. Right, less than eight percent of Fortune CEO
Speaker 1: are female. Of board seats globally are occupied by women,
Speaker 1: And the thing about this to me? Is that makes
Speaker 1: it so crazy? Is I've also seen suggestions. I was
Speaker 1: reading a McKinsey report that says business outcomes are better
Speaker 1: in companies where there is diverse and an often female leadership.
Speaker 1: So it's it's almost like the patriarchy is cutting off
Speaker 1: its own nose despite its face. You know, if you like,
Speaker 1: I just don't. It's it seems crazy to me. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would assume vcs here in the audience.
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope you are listening to this. You
Speaker 1: will get better outcomes if you fund diverse companies. So
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear if either of you have experienced
Speaker 1: any of the the issues that you're trying to address
Speaker 1: through CHIEF personally in your careers. Yeah. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think for me, the UM the real focus on this
Speaker 1: area and the drive to start something like Chief was
Speaker 1: as I started to be in those rooms where decisions
Speaker 1: were being made and recognizing that it was just different conversations, UM,
Speaker 1: and it was more affecting my team than me because
Speaker 1: I didn't hear the conversations about myself, But as I've
Speaker 1: heard the conversations being had about people on my team
Speaker 1: and different ways of evaluating people different ways of even
Speaker 1: just thinking about problems and not taking like the holistic
Speaker 1: point of view of recognizing that a business solution that
Speaker 1: might be great for certain populations aren't great for all populations.
Speaker 1: And so I think it was in those moments where
Speaker 1: you were finally in that room and you saw how
Speaker 1: it was playing out differently for such different populations, was
Speaker 1: and it's why we wanted to start with senior executive
Speaker 1: women to just get more of them into that room
Speaker 1: and make sure that more of those perspectives were being
Speaker 1: shared in those rooms. And the ripple effect that that
Speaker 1: could have across so many different organizations. I love that.
Speaker 1: So I want to pivot to just talking about the business.
Speaker 1: I want to understand how the business actually works. So
Speaker 1: how how does one become a member of chief? So
Speaker 1: we are a vetted network, So we, like I said,
Speaker 1: focus on senior executives, which the easiest way to describe
Speaker 1: what that is is VP level and above UM. And
Speaker 1: it's really important for us to make sure we stay
Speaker 1: vetted because otherwise you end up falling into that de
Speaker 1: fecto mentor. And we want to make sure that there
Speaker 1: is truly a peer organization of people that understand your
Speaker 1: context and responsibility UM, and it's an annual membership model UM.
Speaker 1: I think the amazing part of all of this is
Speaker 1: that companies have recognized some of what you were saying
Speaker 1: before that there needs to be more representation, They need
Speaker 1: to be investing in their amazing women talent. And so
Speaker 1: about seventy of our membership is actually funded by the companies.
Speaker 1: In the same way that they would send you to
Speaker 1: a conference UM or get you an executive coach, they
Speaker 1: will fund a membership into Chief UM and there's a
Speaker 1: whole suite of services that you get as part of
Speaker 1: that membership. The probably dominant thing that we talk about
Speaker 1: is what we call Core UM. It's called Core for
Speaker 1: a reason. It's a it's a peer group where we
Speaker 1: break down the entire community into groups of ten that
Speaker 1: meat on a monthly basis. There's an executive coach in
Speaker 1: the room, and it's just this amazing opportunity for you
Speaker 1: to work through your biggest professional and personal challenges. And
Speaker 1: the two of you are in some of these groups, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you actually participate as absolutely. Shout out to my Core group.
Speaker 1: We had a great session last week. And look, it's
Speaker 1: really important for women to find other women who are
Speaker 1: in these senior levels and have time in a confidential
Speaker 1: space to talk about things that are pressing for executives. Right,
Speaker 1: executive problems always end up being people problems, and it's
Speaker 1: really important to find a professional board of directors to
Speaker 1: go through that, to give diversity of thought, opinion advice
Speaker 1: to help you not only become a better leader, but
Speaker 1: to stay motivated and to stay a leader and not
Speaker 1: burn out. So one of the things that I have
Speaker 1: noticed folks here have probably noticed as well, is that
Speaker 1: you've been out raising some money. I think I've got
Speaker 1: these numbers right. You've raised a hundred and forty million
Speaker 1: dollars and your latest valuation is one point one billion dollars. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of powerful women. But how does how
Speaker 1: does that first? How does that feel? That's got to
Speaker 1: feel pretty good? Yeah, I mean, I think for us,
Speaker 1: we start a chief about three years ago. Um, and
Speaker 1: if you think back to where we were three years ago,
Speaker 1: we started early two thousand nineteen. Then you had the pandemic.
Speaker 1: There was just so many shifting things that have happened.
Speaker 1: And I think for us, this milestone is less about
Speaker 1: like evaluation and it's less about uh, you know the
Speaker 1: amount that we raise, and I think it's actually more
Speaker 1: for us, just a really amazing moment to be able
Speaker 1: to celebrate a lot of pivots that had to happen
Speaker 1: over this period of time and the idea that investing
Speaker 1: in women is good is a good investment decision um
Speaker 1: and so we're really proud of that and our members
Speaker 1: are really proud of it, and it's just been an
Speaker 1: exciting time. So how are you using that money? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think for us first and foremost, as always,
Speaker 1: we have fifteen thousand active members right now, we have
Speaker 1: sixty thousand members that are on our potential members I
Speaker 1: should say that are on a wait list. So for us,
Speaker 1: we're just really wanting to make sure that we continue
Speaker 1: to invest in the experience and build more for all
Speaker 1: of our all of our members. But we're because we're
Speaker 1: in such early days of what we can build and
Speaker 1: who we can build for. So we're talking before about
Speaker 1: the fact that you know, our mission is to change
Speaker 1: the face of leadership. We were really thoughtful about where
Speaker 1: we wanted to start with senior executive women, but to
Speaker 1: really change the face of leadership, I think there's so
Speaker 1: much more that we can do under that umbrella, right,
Speaker 1: and you have physical locations as well. We do. We
Speaker 1: always say we're a community that happens to have a space,
Speaker 1: and so we have spaces in New York, l A, Chicago,
Speaker 1: and one on the way in San Francisco. But really
Speaker 1: what makes Chief special is the network is those core
Speaker 1: groups that as we know, we're not really reliant on
Speaker 1: spaces anymore, and so they're wonderful amenities. They're great for
Speaker 1: getting our members together. But if you're joining, you're joining
Speaker 1: to grow that network and to be a part of
Speaker 1: the community. And do you have plans to expand outside
Speaker 1: the US. So we just launched nationally in January, so
Speaker 1: we're still in early days of just being two days
Speaker 1: in Canada, and I think that's on the road map now.
Speaker 1: So thank you Toronto. So we will we are working
Speaker 1: on expansion. I will say this. When we did raise
Speaker 1: the money, we knew it was really important for us
Speaker 1: to think about how we grow and continue to stay diverse,
Speaker 1: and so we committed to doubling our grant program to
Speaker 1: making sure that we are welcoming in women from all
Speaker 1: different areas, from different roles, functions, um as as underfunded
Speaker 1: women founders, and we're also committing a million dollars annually
Speaker 1: to make sure that we can invest in nonprofits charities
Speaker 1: that are aligned with our mission of changing the face
Speaker 1: of leadership. One of the things that I have learned
Speaker 1: from other CEOs of of purpose led businesses, they have
Speaker 1: pointed out to me that who you raise money from
Speaker 1: is actually quite important. In other words, having investors who
Speaker 1: understand your mission, are aligned with it, and I'm really
Speaker 1: supportive of what you're trying to get done. Has that
Speaker 1: been part of your journey as well? Yes, Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know that we would have gone on the path
Speaker 1: that we did in the way of raising capital that
Speaker 1: we did if we didn't find those right partners. And um,
Speaker 1: it hasn't always been easy, like We've gotten plenty and
Speaker 1: many uh knows as we've gone through the process, and
Speaker 1: you definitely have those moments of you know, do you
Speaker 1: need to pivot the business model? Do you need to
Speaker 1: take capital from somebody who might not be as mission aligned?
Speaker 1: And I think for us it was really important that
Speaker 1: we stayed true to that because we never would have
Speaker 1: been able to stay as true to our mission as
Speaker 1: we have been able to if we didn't have the
Speaker 1: investors that we do UM, and truly feel grateful every day.
Speaker 1: You know, we are a company that feels it's really
Speaker 1: important to make statements on you know, things that are
Speaker 1: happening in the world. Our investors actually reach out to
Speaker 1: us and say, like, we're proud of you. There's not
Speaker 1: that debate in the boardroom, and I think that that
Speaker 1: is a really key part for us of being able
Speaker 1: to do what we do well. What advice would you
Speaker 1: have for any female entrepreneurs here at Collision, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I'm really inspired by the concept of time travel. As
Speaker 1: I said, it's going to take two hundred years for
Speaker 1: us to reach parity, and I don't want to wait
Speaker 1: that law. So when I think about this as somebody
Speaker 1: that's driving impact, I always think about what I can
Speaker 1: do during my day to cut out the bullshit which
Speaker 1: is your favorite thing in your podcast, UM, and to
Speaker 1: really make sure day to day I am thinking about
Speaker 1: what's going to have the most critical impact on the business,
Speaker 1: on the mission, and on really changing the shape of
Speaker 1: the future. Yeah. I mean the other thing I would
Speaker 1: just say, and especially for people that are here, it's
Speaker 1: great that you're here. It's really important to build a network. UM.
Speaker 1: Our earliest investors were people that we knew, UM, that
Speaker 1: knew us, believed in us, and we're like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: business feels like it'll it'll be great, But I believe
Speaker 1: in you, Caroline and Lindsay UM. And so I do
Speaker 1: think it's really important to constantly be investing in your
Speaker 1: network and in your relationships UM, because that's ultimately I
Speaker 1: think what what helped us out of the gate was
Speaker 1: people that believed in us. So you also produce an
Speaker 1: excellent podcast at Chief. I listened to every episode. Thank
Speaker 1: you for plugging the New Rules of Business by Chief,
Speaker 1: a wonderful podcast you can download now. Russ and I
Speaker 1: am going to steal a trick from you because there's
Speaker 1: a question that you ask everything you know your guests
Speaker 1: in every episode, which is what is the best piece
Speaker 1: of business advice you've ever gotten? I will go first, Um,
Speaker 1: we got We've gotten so many great answers to this
Speaker 1: on the podcast. I feel like a lot of pressure,
Speaker 1: um of of coming up with something like new and novel,
Speaker 1: But I actually think to me, and it's something that
Speaker 1: I have to tell myself daily, is don't let perfection
Speaker 1: get in the way of progress. And particularly for a
Speaker 1: mission based business that um, you know, you want to
Speaker 1: hold yourself to a higher level of and do all
Speaker 1: of the right things, and the reality is you're not
Speaker 1: going to be perfect, you're not going to get it right,
Speaker 1: you're not going to have the right position on everything,
Speaker 1: and you might be a little late done something. And
Speaker 1: I think it's important for us to give ourselves some
Speaker 1: forgiveness on that and to give each other some forgiveness well.
Speaker 1: And on the topic of networking, as we're at this
Speaker 1: amazing conference, I met somebody at dinner last night who
Speaker 1: said it was important to increase the surface area of serendivity,
Speaker 1: and so I think meeting people, forming relationships, getting to
Speaker 1: know different people from different walks of life, it's really
Speaker 1: important in business. Even if it doesn't make sense short term,
Speaker 1: it could really pay off long term. You literally said
Speaker 1: last night at the dinner, oh, I'm going to steal that,
Speaker 1: and you already have. I did so. Thank you to
Speaker 1: the kind person who sat next to me at dinner. Fantastic,
Speaker 1: all right, Caroline Childers, Lindsay Kaplan, thank you give it
Speaker 1: up for chief please. After we exited the stage, we
Speaker 1: spoke in depth about what it means to be co
Speaker 1: founders with shared values, what women are up against, and
Speaker 1: why every company is inherently political. That conversation right after
Speaker 1: the break. Okay, all right off the stage and into
Speaker 1: the booth. The bo that was a ton of fun.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks so much for inviting us. So now
Speaker 1: that we're in the booth, we can get at the realty.
Speaker 1: Um So I want to just do a little more
Speaker 1: about your background, let people get to know you a
Speaker 1: little bit better. One of the first questions I had
Speaker 1: was have you always known that you wanted to be entrepreneurs? Actually,
Speaker 1: probably the opposite. And I actually really love telling this
Speaker 1: story because I think so often you hear the founder
Speaker 1: stories that are like I knew from early age and
Speaker 1: I was, I was doing my lemonade stand in my
Speaker 1: paper route, and I was an entrepreneur even early days.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, so my family had a
Speaker 1: family business, a travel agency, and so like the family
Speaker 1: business was hard, and I remember seeing that and thinking like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is like such a hard journey, and therefore almost
Speaker 1: thinking I'm going the opposite way. I'm going to like
Speaker 1: a big company with yeah, yeah, And I started my
Speaker 1: career that way, and it wasn't until after business school
Speaker 1: that I pivoted over into startups and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is where I meant to be. And it was
Speaker 1: only then that I started to think, I don't just
Speaker 1: want to work for somebody else, like I want to
Speaker 1: build something myself. And it wasn't until the idea of
Speaker 1: chief came around that you could get to a place
Speaker 1: where I can dedicate my life to this type of business,
Speaker 1: this type of mission. Um. But it was very late
Speaker 1: for me in my career or later in my career
Speaker 1: that I really started to think about startups in general
Speaker 1: and being the entrepreneur my self. How about you, Lincy.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think I grew up thinking about business.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be an artist, so I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a painter, that I wanted to be a writer, um,
Speaker 1: And I think business became something that I just needed
Speaker 1: to do to pay the bills. And it became really
Speaker 1: clear really early to me when I started that I
Speaker 1: was a little anti authority, that I didn't like paint
Speaker 1: what to do and reflecting back, I also come from
Speaker 1: a family of entrepreneurs. My grandfather owned a business, my
Speaker 1: father owns a business, my mom's a real estate broker
Speaker 1: that works on her own and so it makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense that I found my way towards entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: as an anti authority kid of parents who wanted to
Speaker 1: do their own thing. Cool. Well, you know, entrepreneurs are
Speaker 1: rule breakers too in their own way. I certainly resonate
Speaker 1: with that. You and I share a more creative background,
Speaker 1: and I I get that completely. So, Caroline, you have
Speaker 1: been an athlete for big parts of your life, and
Speaker 1: I wondered if you could talk about how you think
Speaker 1: that translates into being a CEO. If it does. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: um So, yes, I grew up playing sports. I almost
Speaker 1: every weekend was traveling, and I a basketball team my
Speaker 1: road in college. Um So, you know, the idea of
Speaker 1: team and that collaboration was just such an important part
Speaker 1: of what I think I brought into you know, any
Speaker 1: type of business, any type of company, and it's something
Speaker 1: that I brought, you know, as I was starting Chief
Speaker 1: and the type of culture that I wanted to build.
Speaker 1: But I think the interesting thing about so much of
Speaker 1: you know, me and my leadership and it being defined
Speaker 1: in sports, is it actually made it somewhat hard as
Speaker 1: Chief got bigger because you're used to like a team
Speaker 1: that is, you know, a team of twenty, and you're like,
Speaker 1: you're actually like in the in the trenches together, and
Speaker 1: then you get to a bigger company You're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now this is a different type of leadership. This is
Speaker 1: a different way of leading an organization from the coach
Speaker 1: to the commissioner. Yeah, I guess something like that. I
Speaker 1: don't really know if I like that analogy of who
Speaker 1: I am, but but there's something really meaningful in that
Speaker 1: transition that you have to go through that the sports
Speaker 1: analogy only took me so far, and like the entrepreneurial journey,
Speaker 1: and there was a definitely evolution that needed to happen
Speaker 1: post that, right. Yeah, And I was also looking at
Speaker 1: some amazing statistics. You're not the only one, like something
Speaker 1: like ent of Fortune female CEOs played team sports and
Speaker 1: a big percentage of them, somewhere in the high fifties
Speaker 1: made it all the way to college, and the others
Speaker 1: all wanted to be artists and writers. Right. Thanks to
Speaker 1: the shoutout Caroline, so lindsay as co founders, I'm interested
Speaker 1: in how the two of you decide to divide up
Speaker 1: leadership duties in the company. Your title is Chief Brand Officers. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a really clear division. I think at first,
Speaker 1: when it was just the two of us, it was
Speaker 1: a little sloppier because it was two people attacking a project. UM.
Speaker 1: And as chief got bigger, as the team grew, it
Speaker 1: became really obvious Caroline is the CEO, incredible operator, just
Speaker 1: a brilliant business leader. UM. And I love to be
Speaker 1: the storyteller. I love to kind of dig into the content,
Speaker 1: the creative and it became really clear that my domain
Speaker 1: would and should be around my superpower. So I own brand, marketing, partnerships, editorial,
Speaker 1: all of our events, and Caroline owns well just about everything. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's actually an important evolution that a lot
Speaker 1: of startups have to go through, which is we were
Speaker 1: co founders and it was you know, a we are founders,
Speaker 1: co founder lead. But now we're a senior leadership team. UM,
Speaker 1: and there's you know that that broader, amazing suite of
Speaker 1: people that have come on this journey with us. Now
Speaker 1: that the divide and conquer is not just about like
Speaker 1: how do we both divide and conquer? But how do
Speaker 1: we as an executive team and a leadership team really
Speaker 1: divide and conquer. And how how big is the chief team?
Speaker 1: Now we're over two hundred people staff. That's a lot
Speaker 1: a lot of growth, and a lot of it virtually. Um.
Speaker 1: So we were probably around thirty when you know, the
Speaker 1: pandemic hit and we went into a bit of a
Speaker 1: hiring freeze as most people did, of just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what the world was going to be. And
Speaker 1: we actually saw some really great growth over that period
Speaker 1: of time. We started to hire again, but all of
Speaker 1: it virtually. Um. Even if we were hiring them in
Speaker 1: New York, you were still hiring them virtually because nobody
Speaker 1: was in person. And so it's been really important for
Speaker 1: us to just figure out how do we not only
Speaker 1: tackle the challenge of maintaining a culture as you get bigger,
Speaker 1: but maintaining a culture as you get bigger while in
Speaker 1: a brand new way of working. Yeah, well it's interesting also,
Speaker 1: you know, as I was listening to you talk about
Speaker 1: the shape of chiefs business, and I can't think of
Speaker 1: a better pair to run a business life chief because
Speaker 1: part of it is business and operations, but a huge
Speaker 1: part of it is also just the experience and in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, you are also a content company,
Speaker 1: which is really interesting. I hadn't really thought about that. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, when Caroline and I were pitching early investors,
Speaker 1: and you know this conversation very well because it's stuck
Speaker 1: with us. We heard so many nose It was just
Speaker 1: no after no after no, like great idea, I love
Speaker 1: you too, and it's a no from us UM and
Speaker 1: want to invest Star said, I love what you do,
Speaker 1: but guys like I invest in great products, right, Like I,
Speaker 1: I invest in a company that makes one thing and
Speaker 1: sells it and they do an incredible job. You're doing
Speaker 1: five things right. You're doing these peer groups, you're building
Speaker 1: an entire digital social network, you're putting together events, you
Speaker 1: have spaces like this is a company of five to
Speaker 1: seven depending on how you slice it services, and so
Speaker 1: it's it's a complicated business, but when you're offering a
Speaker 1: membership to these incredible women, we did want to make
Speaker 1: sure we gave her a really incredible, impactful experience that
Speaker 1: covered everything that she was piecemealing together. So we wanted
Speaker 1: to take the place of the coach of the conference,
Speaker 1: um of the content and really make sure that she
Speaker 1: had an a list holistic way to become supported and
Speaker 1: become a better leader. Staying with this theme of the
Speaker 1: two of you for just a minute, I've gleaned from
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast and also just hanging out with
Speaker 1: you for the past you know, seventy two hours, which
Speaker 1: has been super fun, that the two of you have
Speaker 1: very different personalities. We do this. I want to grow
Speaker 1: it back to you, be like, how would you describe
Speaker 1: those two different personalities. I'm not even gonna touch that. Um,
Speaker 1: Dr Jekyl and Lady Hyde. You're very different, but it
Speaker 1: obviously works incredibly well. So is Do you have any
Speaker 1: relationship advice for other co founders, you know, because partnerships
Speaker 1: are hard. I have a co founder. Occasionally we fight
Speaker 1: like a cat and a dog. Like starting a business
Speaker 1: is stressful and difficult, and the two of you have
Speaker 1: you're very different, but your chemistry is is amazing. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the thing that we realize very
Speaker 1: quickly and why we therefore wanted to do this together
Speaker 1: other is that we are very different. Our skills are
Speaker 1: very different, our personalities are very different, but our values
Speaker 1: are not different. Um. And we talked a lot about
Speaker 1: what we wanted chief to be from a you know
Speaker 1: vision of the business, but also a vision of the culture,
Speaker 1: and we just it was really important for us that
Speaker 1: we were very aligned on that um upfront, because that
Speaker 1: that's really hard to have a disagreement about. It's pretty
Speaker 1: easy to have a disagreement about, like I think we
Speaker 1: should do this different design or that different design, and
Speaker 1: like those are just so they're they're surface surface, surface
Speaker 1: level decision making. Sometimes we may disagree on but the
Speaker 1: values that Caroline and I share are so similar, and
Speaker 1: so when people don't know us well, we've gotten the
Speaker 1: like on the on the scale between Lindsay and Carol
Speaker 1: and I'm right between you two, and we laugh about
Speaker 1: that because we're we feel like we're actually very close
Speaker 1: together on that scale. We're not really sure what that
Speaker 1: scale is because we often, and this is so reassuring,
Speaker 1: we often come to the same conclusion and we get
Speaker 1: there in such a different way, and when you hear
Speaker 1: somebody else it's almost like we're doing the math problem differently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Caroline actually doesn't show my work show write a deck,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, my gut says this um, And we
Speaker 1: get there almost always to the same place, and it
Speaker 1: is that much more um compelling to say, I feel
Speaker 1: so good about this answer because I not only trust you,
Speaker 1: but I trust that you went there a different way
Speaker 1: than I did. Yeah, And maybe I'm just thinking, like
Speaker 1: maybe that's an advantage of being a purpose led business
Speaker 1: in a way, right is, If you're just making a
Speaker 1: widget or a product and you don't have some larger
Speaker 1: purpose that you're pursuing, like, it would be easier for
Speaker 1: founders to get off track and disagree and fall apart,
Speaker 1: whereas the fact that you've signed up to like change
Speaker 1: the world right like that keeps you aligned in a way.
Speaker 1: I think it's actually harder for our team than it
Speaker 1: is for us because I care about certain things deeply impassionately,
Speaker 1: and she cares about things deeply and passionately that I
Speaker 1: might not as much because we both think about things differently,
Speaker 1: and they have to actually like bridge that gap of
Speaker 1: like two people who like deeply care and will come
Speaker 1: at something from a very different place, but they have
Speaker 1: to kind of satisfy both. That would be a that
Speaker 1: was a hard thing early days for some of our
Speaker 1: team to to overcome. Now I think that's um less
Speaker 1: of a I need to manage to co founders and again,
Speaker 1: it's that broader senior leadership team. But I actually think
Speaker 1: it's something that for us was really important that we
Speaker 1: recognize could create a struggle for the team of of
Speaker 1: navigating two very different ways of needing to present an idea,
Speaker 1: like I need it. I need to get to a
Speaker 1: place from a very different perspectives. She needs a deck.
Speaker 1: She needs a deck. Everybody she needs a deck. She
Speaker 1: needs the charts. I need an analogy, right, I need
Speaker 1: to get excited. But to be fair, like I love
Speaker 1: data and you love a story. So again, I think sometimes, um,
Speaker 1: people fall into thinking we are more stereotypically different and
Speaker 1: caricatures of ourselves than we are. That's great, Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't really even know how to ask this question, so
Speaker 1: we'll see. That's it. Nailed it. So we started to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about this on stage, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to dig more into my metaphor is the obstacle
Speaker 1: course that women need to run through in order to
Speaker 1: make it into leadership positions in business. I just love
Speaker 1: to hear your observations about those obstacles and how Chief
Speaker 1: is trying to help women take those on. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that there's so many different aspects
Speaker 1: of the challenge. There's the external factors of as you're
Speaker 1: getting more senior, you're likely starting a family, you're likely
Speaker 1: starting to take on the responsibilities of child's care, and
Speaker 1: we know that that burden so much more goes to
Speaker 1: women inside the office. There's um both the unconscious bias
Speaker 1: that you're battling, but it's also your your own. I
Speaker 1: think there's so many studies that talk about how women
Speaker 1: need to have a hundred percent of the qualifications of
Speaker 1: a job before they apply for it, where men are like, good,
Speaker 1: fifty to sixty king that one a shot, he's got potential.
Speaker 1: I had a job once I know how to do this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's not just you know, the factors that other
Speaker 1: people are putting upon them, but it's also how they
Speaker 1: are conditioned and other things things. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the most important parts of CHIEF is that you
Speaker 1: have two things that come out of an amazing network
Speaker 1: of other women. One is it normalizes things for you
Speaker 1: of just like I don't have to have all the answers, um,
Speaker 1: I don't have to have the perfect work life balance
Speaker 1: that so many people talk about and nobody has. And
Speaker 1: it also really helps to motivate people to take risks.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the most powerful and fun
Speaker 1: parts of cores. You walk in and you talk about,
Speaker 1: like what is it that you really want to do
Speaker 1: and be, and you hold each other accountable to that,
Speaker 1: and so now you do maybe apply for that thing
Speaker 1: or go for that stretch assignment that maybe you're at
Speaker 1: fifty percent of instead of a percent of. And so
Speaker 1: I think it's all of those small things that having
Speaker 1: a network like CHIEF can really bring about. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the expression it gets lonely at the top up,
Speaker 1: it gets lonelier a lot faster when you're a woman,
Speaker 1: and a woman, to Caroline's point, is battling not just
Speaker 1: everything happening in her life at that time, but just
Speaker 1: the unconscious bias that comes with being a woman. I mean,
Speaker 1: We're at a conference and I'm worried about what I'm
Speaker 1: wearing on stage. I don't give a ship about my clothes.
Speaker 1: I don't care about shoes, and yet here I am
Speaker 1: feeling like I need my hair and makeup done. I'm
Speaker 1: going to get judged on my shoes, which by who,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think women are constantly battling with
Speaker 1: stereotypes about their age, the motherhood penalty. So there's so
Speaker 1: much that they are up against, and when they finally
Speaker 1: get there, we ask them to speak on a panel,
Speaker 1: we ask them to mentor we hold them up to
Speaker 1: such a high standard on top of them just doing
Speaker 1: their job that they are now teetering at this very
Speaker 1: tall precipice. And we wonder why women get burned out.
Speaker 1: We wonder why they're leaving the workforce. I think we
Speaker 1: all know, and yet we're not doing enough to support
Speaker 1: women and to really give them strength when they get there. Yeah, agreed. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So another area that's related to this that I wanted
Speaker 1: to sort of dig into a bit is an area
Speaker 1: that you cover in several different dimensions in your podcast. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's in the past, and I think still right.
Speaker 1: There are a different set of rules for women in
Speaker 1: business than for men. There are different ways that women
Speaker 1: are judged. To the point that you just made lindsay
Speaker 1: in the workplace, can you talk about some of those rules,
Speaker 1: how they're different for men and women. In the podcast,
Speaker 1: for instance, you talk about some of the issues around
Speaker 1: bringing your whole self to work, some of the issues
Speaker 1: around like humor in the workplace and the different different
Speaker 1: sets as a as a self proclaimed funny person. You know,
Speaker 1: men are Men are rewarded for their jokes. Women are
Speaker 1: taken less seriously. Um Women in the workplace are often
Speaker 1: expected to pick up the birthday cards, bringing the cupcakes,
Speaker 1: take care of a lot of the the thankless work
Speaker 1: that is so important in the office around culture building.
Speaker 1: What does that mean, We'll let the ladies handle it, right,
Speaker 1: So we know that women are constantly being judged around
Speaker 1: being apathetic, showing up being nice, right, Like, we just
Speaker 1: interviewed somebody who was like, fuck, the word nice. Nice
Speaker 1: gives us nothing. Nice can actually be toxic. And yet
Speaker 1: as women, we feel the obligation to be liked because
Speaker 1: if a woman isn't liked, she's known as exactly right,
Speaker 1: so it is I've seen that happen a million times.
Speaker 1: But if you're too nice, yeah, then you push over
Speaker 1: your doormat exactly So we put women on this tight
Speaker 1: rope of be funny but not too funny, be empathetic,
Speaker 1: not too empathetic. And then we also don't talk enough
Speaker 1: about the intersection of women who are you know, from
Speaker 1: underrepresented minorities in the workplace and everything they have to
Speaker 1: juggle on top of that to be this model worker.
Speaker 1: So again, like it's it's such a narrow tight rope
Speaker 1: that we've put women on um and it's why we
Speaker 1: built Chief to make sure that there is a supportive
Speaker 1: community where we can normalize these problems and make sure
Speaker 1: that we talk about it and we try to fix
Speaker 1: the systemic issues that are facing women and executive women
Speaker 1: in the workplace. Step one, be aware that there's a problem.
Speaker 1: Step two applied to Chief. My co founder Rosary says
Speaker 1: all the time, like, it's not important to be liked
Speaker 1: for for women, it's important to be respected. But I
Speaker 1: don't know if I fully agree with that. It's really
Speaker 1: hard as a woman to be respected without being somewhat liked, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's it sounds good in theory, but if you're
Speaker 1: not liked, you're kind of implying your disliked. And to
Speaker 1: be disliked as a woman is really difficult. And I
Speaker 1: can name some women who are disliked and have been
Speaker 1: taken down because of it. So your reputation becomes everything,
Speaker 1: and so it's easier to say, it's harder to do.
Speaker 1: So let's pivot and just talk about purpose and purpose
Speaker 1: sied businesses. So a lot of the purpose led leaders
Speaker 1: that I've talked to measure impact, you know, beyond kind
Speaker 1: of the traditional R o I financial measures. What do
Speaker 1: you measure at chief? Like how do you decide whether
Speaker 1: you're succeeding or not? I mean, I I assume you
Speaker 1: measure financial metrics as well, but are there things beyond that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean our mission is to drive more women into
Speaker 1: positions of leadership and keep them there, which I think
Speaker 1: creates a very clear definition of what does success look like.
Speaker 1: And that is what is the representation of women people
Speaker 1: of color in leadership? And unfortunately, we are right on
Speaker 1: the heels of a pandemic where it is disproportionately affected
Speaker 1: women dropping out of the workplace. And so for us
Speaker 1: that means that our role and our job just got bigger,
Speaker 1: because even before the pandemic, it was going to take
Speaker 1: two hundred years before women reached the same level of
Speaker 1: representation in senior leadership UM. And so for us, that
Speaker 1: is like the macro like what do we measure? How
Speaker 1: do we how do we continue to strive to do
Speaker 1: something that will create a ripple effect that will help
Speaker 1: to change some of that there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: that we measure internally with like the members that we
Speaker 1: do have of you know, what new opportunities have they
Speaker 1: got in UM, and also things that are just a
Speaker 1: little bit softer in measurement of just you know, how
Speaker 1: confident are they feeling in the leadership positions that they're
Speaker 1: in and how supportive has your network expanded? Are you
Speaker 1: making more money? Right? Yeah? Is there more opportunity? Right?
Speaker 1: Like there's there's the softer questions that I think are
Speaker 1: really leading into into austin knowing we're driving impact and
Speaker 1: I think that the more difficult question for us is
Speaker 1: the macro change we're seeing when we're up against the pandemic,
Speaker 1: when we're up against a recession. So you know, two
Speaker 1: steps forward, one step back. Yes. So a lot of
Speaker 1: the companies that we have featured on on this podcast
Speaker 1: are also certified B corps. You're not a certified B
Speaker 1: are you? We're not? Have you ever thought about UM?
Speaker 1: I did very early days of of founding Chief, And
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the things that are really exciting
Speaker 1: about being a certified B Corps is that UM in
Speaker 1: order to become that, you have to be measuring some
Speaker 1: of those other things, and you know you're you're broader
Speaker 1: um impact. And I remember looking at it and being
Speaker 1: like that, And I will say candidly like that almost
Speaker 1: feels like table stakes for us, Like that is what
Speaker 1: we are. So it might be something that we decided
Speaker 1: to do down the line, but um, I think for us,
Speaker 1: we wanted to just make sure that we were most
Speaker 1: focused on the mission and the impact that we were
Speaker 1: trying to drive as our central mission. Right, Yeah, we've
Speaker 1: we've thought about it also, and we are not a
Speaker 1: certified b although I think we are going to head
Speaker 1: down that road. So let's see, we'll let you know
Speaker 1: what it's like. So we've talked about this before. Also,
Speaker 1: I really believe that being a purpose led business is
Speaker 1: a journey and no no company is perfect, nor should
Speaker 1: we expect them to be. But taking on a social
Speaker 1: justice issue as you have with Chief in some ways
Speaker 1: can make you a target. Do you ever feel additional
Speaker 1: pressure because your purpose lad and because you have such
Speaker 1: an inspiring but weighty mission, I would say yes. I
Speaker 1: think the hard part is when you have something like
Speaker 1: really focus on women in business, there are many different
Speaker 1: social issues that all factor into that, and so I
Speaker 1: think it's actually really most important and like most pressure
Speaker 1: filled of where do you draw the line of what
Speaker 1: you feel like you should be weighing into versus not
Speaker 1: um And I think that's honestly where I feel the
Speaker 1: most pressure of wanting to you know, in our our
Speaker 1: members are eager for us to to play some of
Speaker 1: those roles, but we're also running a business and we
Speaker 1: have to make sure that we are focused on the
Speaker 1: mission that that we have built chief for and can't
Speaker 1: weigh into everything and do all of that at once.
Speaker 1: And so I think that to me is one of
Speaker 1: the biggest pressures. Less so about like what do you
Speaker 1: specifically say about this one thing, but it's more of
Speaker 1: how do you how do you make that determination of
Speaker 1: what you want to stand for? I think also the
Speaker 1: pressure to weigh in on everything. It's not only difficult
Speaker 1: to running a business, but it's difficult to focus. And
Speaker 1: so we saw an outpouring of support around the rumor
Speaker 1: that Roe v. Wade will be overturned. Right, it was
Speaker 1: in the news. Every organization is making a statement, Um,
Speaker 1: we signed the don't ban Equality coalition, and yet two
Speaker 1: weeks later there's a shooting, Right, and you don't hear
Speaker 1: anything about Roe v. Wade, right, and so like, it's
Speaker 1: really difficult to stay on top of what you believe
Speaker 1: in and the causes that you absolutely want to support
Speaker 1: when the news cycle is changing, public opinion is onto
Speaker 1: something else. And so it's really morton for us to
Speaker 1: make sure we're clear about what we stand for, that
Speaker 1: we commit to what we stand for, because if not,
Speaker 1: it starts to become performative, right, Like, it's not actually
Speaker 1: healthy for a company to be taking a stand writing
Speaker 1: a statement every three days about the new topic. We
Speaker 1: really want to make sure we're doubling down on what
Speaker 1: it is we stand for, what we ourselves can commit to,
Speaker 1: and going all the way, so that we're not just
Speaker 1: writing a statement, posting it on LinkedIn and moving on, right,
Speaker 1: And we want to make sure our members and our
Speaker 1: broader Chief community understand what we stand for and know
Speaker 1: that when we take that stand, we are doing it
Speaker 1: and we are doing it all the way and it
Speaker 1: is part of who we are and it is baked
Speaker 1: into the DNA of Chief. Yeah. Yeah, just to build
Speaker 1: on that on this podcast, Obviously, one of our big
Speaker 1: themes is this issue of we call it purpose watching.
Speaker 1: In other words, saying that your purpose letter consciously capitalist
Speaker 1: enterprise but not really meaning it. And lindsay, I've heard
Speaker 1: you say that you think that a lot of brands
Speaker 1: just need to knock off in quotes, knock off their
Speaker 1: performative bullshit, which I loved. So it sounds like you
Speaker 1: agree right that it's it's a problem in the world.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of companies are torn. I think
Speaker 1: that they want to say something, they don't want to
Speaker 1: go all the way, and they end up kind of
Speaker 1: like mincing their words and staying in the middle. If
Speaker 1: you want to say something, say it and do it right.
Speaker 1: Like at this point, I think consumers are really smart
Speaker 1: and for the most part, especially younger consumers, really want
Speaker 1: to align themselves with brands and companies that follow the
Speaker 1: same set of values. And so if you're going to
Speaker 1: do it, do it right and do better. Because there's
Speaker 1: so many companies out there now that I think I
Speaker 1: want to put out the statement, want to get the
Speaker 1: like box checked. Particularly d e I Right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: hire a d e I person. We're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: make a claim that we're going to do something. And again,
Speaker 1: you don't have to boil the ocean. You don't have to,
Speaker 1: you know, make a statement about everything, but at least,
Speaker 1: if you're going to do it, pick a topic, pick
Speaker 1: an issue, commit to it and do better. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that, And um, the statistics are incredible. It's
Speaker 1: like n of young people expect companies to take a
Speaker 1: position now and they expect c e O s to
Speaker 1: be out talking about the position that the company has. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of companies say we're not political.
Speaker 1: Well guess what. If you're giving your employees healthcare, if
Speaker 1: you're making decisions about their time off when they become
Speaker 1: new parents, you're making political decisions, whether you want to
Speaker 1: or not. Right, that's a fantastic point. We've forced companies
Speaker 1: to be political, and so you have to be educated
Speaker 1: on some of these broader issues and some of these
Speaker 1: social issues. You have to be to lead a company
Speaker 1: because you're making those decisions. You're deciding, you know, where
Speaker 1: your company is incorporated and how you're paying taxes. So
Speaker 1: you're political no matter what. Totally. So you know, this
Speaker 1: idea of of being purpose led has been talked a
Speaker 1: lot in the investing community as well. Sometimes it's called
Speaker 1: E S G investing. Sometimes it's called impact investing. Does
Speaker 1: that ever come up with your investors? I know we
Speaker 1: talked about on stage that you you do try to
Speaker 1: find values aligned investors, But have you ever gotten any
Speaker 1: pushback from potential investors because of your purpose? In other words,
Speaker 1: is there any friction there for you? I mean, if
Speaker 1: they had it, they didn't explicitly say it because they
Speaker 1: knew that the mouth day, because very much could be
Speaker 1: behind you know, some people's questions of is this an
Speaker 1: investment that I want to make um while not explicitly
Speaker 1: said to us, I think the bigger thing for for
Speaker 1: us and someone of how I think about it is
Speaker 1: I love that there's this attention on you know, E
Speaker 1: s G investing and impact investing or investing in women
Speaker 1: led businesses and investing in businesses that are being built
Speaker 1: by people of color. Like, I love that it's getting attention.
Speaker 1: I just don't want it to be siloed that it's
Speaker 1: only one type of investor that should be investing in
Speaker 1: that type of thing, or only women investors that are
Speaker 1: investing in other women. I actually just I hope that
Speaker 1: like the broader investment community starts to look at and say, like,
Speaker 1: these are just good investments. Yeah, it's just called investing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well it's a process, right. I believe we will get there,
Speaker 1: I really I do. It'll take take maybe some time.
Speaker 1: So do you think do either of you think that
Speaker 1: being leaders of purpose led businesses is I guess more
Speaker 1: difficult than being a leader of a traditional company. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think leadership, no matter what position you're in, is hard. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it gets harder every day as expectations of
Speaker 1: leaders making statements, making stands, needing to take the role
Speaker 1: that traditionally had been held by government because people are
Speaker 1: losing faith in that institution. I think that there's a
Speaker 1: really hard challenge across the board for all leaders. I
Speaker 1: think the aspect of it that sometimes can feel more
Speaker 1: challenging and being a purpose led business is that sometimes
Speaker 1: the acceptance of error is less tolerated. That when you
Speaker 1: are making statements and trying to do good, when you
Speaker 1: inevitably make a misstep. She's looking at me when you
Speaker 1: lin you Lindsay kaplan inevitably missed up. And we had
Speaker 1: this conversation to get really personal. I called Caroline a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago really upset because I just felt this
Speaker 1: pressure on our calm side on on our events team
Speaker 1: to make sure that we are delivering a rapid response
Speaker 1: when shit happens in the world. And I felt like
Speaker 1: I missed something and I wasn't sure and I I
Speaker 1: called you so upset and felt like I was going
Speaker 1: to be disappointing members and if not today, then when
Speaker 1: will that happen? And Caroline said to me, it will happen.
Speaker 1: It's not an If it happens, you will fuck up,
Speaker 1: and it's okay, and I will support you because you
Speaker 1: will funk up. We will funk up, you said, we
Speaker 1: not you. She met you. She said, we will. We
Speaker 1: will fun up, and we will get through that. And
Speaker 1: let's just make sure that we acknowledge we're human. We're
Speaker 1: not perfect. We're trying our best, and we hope that
Speaker 1: our ore again, our broader community understands our values and
Speaker 1: our mission and knows that we're human and will be
Speaker 1: there to forgive us when inevitably we sunk up. And
Speaker 1: thank you for Thank you for being so wonderful to me, Carolyn,
Speaker 1: because no, it was. It's it feels like a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure. On one hand, I think leading a purpose
Speaker 1: built company, it's a rallying cry. I think our members
Speaker 1: believe in our mission. It's why they joined our team members, right, Like,
Speaker 1: on one hand, there is so much love for that
Speaker 1: mission and passion and it brings good people. It's a
Speaker 1: magnet for great people. But on the other hand, it
Speaker 1: can be really polarizing. UM, And there's a lot of cushion.
Speaker 1: The bar is high, and I will fall off that bar. First,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to the bar. Then I'm gonna fall
Speaker 1: off the bar. Yeah. So beyond the the two of you,
Speaker 1: because you obviously totally have each other's backs, are there
Speaker 1: other female leaders or founders that you particularly admire and
Speaker 1: drawing inspiration from. Yeah, I mean, I think so many
Speaker 1: members that we have that are a part of Chief.
Speaker 1: It is the amazing aspect of building this business is
Speaker 1: that we also get to tap into just amazing community
Speaker 1: of aspiring women leaders. And we joke all the time.
Speaker 1: We're like when we do a podcast or we're you know,
Speaker 1: on the stage and collision and we're like, it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of funny that it's the two of us, and
Speaker 1: we've got some members that Chief that are like a
Speaker 1: lot more impressive than both of us. UM. And So
Speaker 1: I think it's just this like inherently built into the
Speaker 1: DNA of what we get to do to be able
Speaker 1: to tap into a community of fifteen thousand women that
Speaker 1: are really really inspiring, um, which is amazing. You know,
Speaker 1: We've brought in so many people that have been speakers
Speaker 1: that have just been like so inspired r Michelle Obama,
Speaker 1: Percella Burns, like mal Cleany. It just has been like
Speaker 1: an amazing you get incredible speaker. It's so yeah, and
Speaker 1: and I literally am like, this is the business we're running.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, like it's a master class
Speaker 1: every single day for us of you know what good
Speaker 1: leadership looks like to be able to be in that ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well well put okay. UM. So to wrap
Speaker 1: this up in the spirit of it's a journey and
Speaker 1: nobody is perfect, we have a tool on this podcast
Speaker 1: called the VS Scale. The idea is to rate companies
Speaker 1: on the gap between word indeed, I e. How closely
Speaker 1: are you following your stated purpose? And our scale goes
Speaker 1: from zero to a hungard zero being the best, zero bs,
Speaker 1: a hundred being the worst. Glad to clarified, I would
Speaker 1: have got total b s. Yeah. Yeah, it's easy to
Speaker 1: flip that around. So hundreds of the worst total b s,
Speaker 1: so the worst purpose washers out there get high scores
Speaker 1: on our scale. I want to ask you both to
Speaker 1: rate Chief on that scale as it exists today and
Speaker 1: give yourselves a score. I feel like we should newlywed
Speaker 1: game this and like yeah, yeah, um well, in the
Speaker 1: spirit of women in confidence, I'm giving us a zero
Speaker 1: because we have been so intentional about our goal from
Speaker 1: day one. So I am a no bullshit person. One
Speaker 1: of our brand values is no bullshit. Well we changed
Speaker 1: it to we had to our Chief people officer was like,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have a curse in our an explicit word
Speaker 1: in our values. Oh is that right? So wait, what
Speaker 1: is it now? Real? It used to be noble ship
Speaker 1: and we change the value in the word. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got you. Well, you know you're like like yeah, I
Speaker 1: like no bullshit. You know, maybe maybe you two, maybe
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of like, um, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: we're not perfect, but I think we're pretty. We're pretty
Speaker 1: no bullshit, very little bullshit. Like there's there's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're a company, so it's almost like are there no nuts?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe this gets made in a nut
Speaker 1: factory where there's traces of nuts, maybe there's traces of bullshit. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think our intention is no bullshit. Yeah, i'd
Speaker 1: create us a little bit harder, but I actually it
Speaker 1: depends on like exactly what we're measuring this. You can
Speaker 1: tell I'm a data person, like I immediately going to
Speaker 1: like being specific about what we are measuring on this scale. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I think the reason why I give us, you know,
Speaker 1: probably like a i'd say thirty, let me give us
Speaker 1: a thirty is honestly because it is honestly because we're
Speaker 1: three years old and like, okay, we're like we always
Speaker 1: want to be at a place of doing more than
Speaker 1: we're saying. And I think that is a fundamental part
Speaker 1: of like being a no bullshit company. And I honestly
Speaker 1: think that in the last few years, with everything that
Speaker 1: has happened, sometimes you have to because it's all that
Speaker 1: you're able to do in that moment, say a little
Speaker 1: bit more than you're able to do at that moment.
Speaker 1: And I think that given that we're three years old,
Speaker 1: that so much is happening in this world, that things
Speaker 1: are changing every day, that I am at a place
Speaker 1: of like there's so much more I want us to do.
Speaker 1: There's so much more I know we can do, and
Speaker 1: that's not really a bullshit scale, which is why I'm like,
Speaker 1: what exactly are we measuring? But I want I just
Speaker 1: know that we can do so much more that I
Speaker 1: can't give us. I can't, at my heart give us
Speaker 1: a perfect score. I love both of those scores. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it's for us to do better. So I think we
Speaker 1: can do more. But are we currently bullshitting? No? I
Speaker 1: don't think we'll trace there's trace amounts of bullshit everywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, we could snap a bread of filter on
Speaker 1: what we do and get down to zero. I think
Speaker 1: there's trace amounts of bullshit. Okay, Caroline Lindsay, I absolutely
Speaker 1: love the work that you were doing in Chief. I
Speaker 1: find the two of you to be so inspiring. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you for being on the show and
Speaker 1: thank you for hanging out with us at Collision. Such
Speaker 1: a good time it has been. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: All Right, folks, it's time for Chief's official BS score.
Speaker 1: Caroline and Lindsay gave wildly different numbers based on their
Speaker 1: different interpretations of what the BS score is all about,
Speaker 1: and honestly, they're both right. Lindsay score of zero shows
Speaker 1: the purity of their intentions. Chief has been designed from
Speaker 1: the mound up with their purpose in mind. Nothing they
Speaker 1: do takes them away from it. Their purpose and their
Speaker 1: business are inextricably linked. But Caroline is also so on
Speaker 1: point when she says the Chief is a work in progress.
Speaker 1: Every purpose led business is on a journey. The best
Speaker 1: leaders acknowledge their shortcomings and stay laser focused on making
Speaker 1: improvements to better meet their goals. Although let's be real,
Speaker 1: thirty is a little harsh, I'm going to give Chief
Speaker 1: a ten. It's one of the lowest scores we've given
Speaker 1: on the show to date because I truly believe that
Speaker 1: Lindsay and Caroline's intentions are pure. But as a three
Speaker 1: year old company, it also gives them a little room
Speaker 1: for aspiration, room to grow into the impact that they're
Speaker 1: trying to make in the world over time. If you're
Speaker 1: starting a purpose led business or you're thinking about beginning
Speaker 1: the jour any of transformation to become one, here are
Speaker 1: three things that you can take away from this episode. One,
Speaker 1: start with a problem that you care about personally. Lindsay
Speaker 1: and Caroline met at a super lame networking event and
Speaker 1: realize that there was something missing and networking, especially for
Speaker 1: senior female executives. They looked around the world and realized
Speaker 1: that that lameness was just one part of a whole
Speaker 1: system that holds female executives back, and chief was born.
Speaker 1: Choose your problem carefully and remember sometimes the problem chooses you. Two.
Speaker 1: Surround yourself with people who share your purpose but not
Speaker 1: your skill set. Caroline and Lindsay couldn't be more different,
Speaker 1: and that's perfect. A successful purpose led business gets that
Speaker 1: way because everyone agrees on the problem blum and brings
Speaker 1: their own unique tools to solve it. And three, just
Speaker 1: because your purpose, lad, does not mean you have to
Speaker 1: have an opinion on every social or environmental issue that
Speaker 1: hits the news. There's an increasing pressure on leaders to
Speaker 1: have a point of view. That's a new and very
Speaker 1: real part of leading a business today. But having a
Speaker 1: point of view on things that have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with your purpose can come off as as Lindsay says,
Speaker 1: performative bullshit. If we change the face of business for
Speaker 1: you today, subscribe to the Calling Bullshit podcast on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to people speaking to your Ears. Thanks to our production
Speaker 1: team Hannah Beal, Amanda Ginsburg, Andy Kim, D s Moss,
Speaker 1: Haley Pascalites, Parker Silser, Basil Soaper end Me, John Zulu,
Speaker 1: and a special thanks to the folks at Collision and
Speaker 1: to the entire crew at Chief Calling Bullshit was created
Speaker 1: by co Collective and it's hosted by me Ti Montague.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. M