Impact Initiative 2023

Ziad Ahmed, Founder and CEO, JUV Consulting Peter Carter, Executive Vice President, External Affairs, Delta Airlines Ellen Weinreb, Managing Director, Weinreb Group Sustainability Recruiting Moderator: Molly Wood, Molly Wood Media

Impact Initiative 2023: Unlocking The Potential Of Gen Z

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Ziad Ahmed, JUV, Consulting Peter Carter, Delta Airlines, Ellen Weinreb, Weinreb Group Sustainability Recruiting Moderator: Molly Wood

OK. So now we are changing direction again, this time to talk about unlocking the potential of Gen Z. So the US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2030 Genz will account for 30% of the workforce and more than any other generation that came before it. Genz prioritizes working for companies that are transparent and purpose driven as today's young people enter the workforce. How can organizations attract and retain talent that's hungry to make a difference to discuss how eg efforts play a role in attracting Genz employees in particular. Please welcome Zad Ahmed, the founder and CEO of Jews consulting, which is a Genz consulting firm, Peter Carter, Executive Vice President of External Affairs at Delta Airlines and Ellen Weinreb, managing director of Wine Web Group, a sustainability recruiting agency. And they will be interviewed by Fortune Impact Initiative co chair, Molly Wood. Bye. Right. OK. Everybody Energy up. It's Gen Z. They are fired up. You need to be also uh welcome to our last panel of the day. Thank you for hanging with us. I'm super excited about this and happy to be here with all of you. Um I'm kind of gonna kick us off with a question. We'll go down the line each of you. Uh I know that I don't want to put you in the position of speaking for all of Gen Z and yet that's your whole job, I guess. So, I guess for a company that does that. So, um, why are you like this? No, no, you're right. But, but you know, even when you go to your website, it's, you're like this is why we are like this. This is what Gen Z wants. You are handing this on a silver platter to future employers. Can you give us a sort of a high level summary of what people are missing when they try to engage with Gen Z? Yeah, for sure. So I mean, it's not an easy question, right? And of course, of a cohort of 2 billion, it's impossible right? To reduce that right to some quick sound bites that can make you understand, right? 2 billion people, right? And I would be reckless and foolish to posture myself as an expert on all 2 billion of us, however, however. Yeah. Yeah, it is my job to in part try to look for pattern identification to say what is the story that Gen Z is telling, right? And I think for me the story that Gen Z is telling that I most want to get across is one that it is fundamentally impossible to understand Gen Z without talking to Gen Z, right? I think that what is so wrong often around business, around impact is that there are people who make decisions about communities for when no one from those communities are in the room to impact those decisions. And Gen Z is no exception to that rule. There are so many conversations that happen around services programs, marketing initiatives for youth where no young people are present as stakeholders or decision makers to shape those decisions. And so they fall flat because they were flat because they were forced, right? And I think that's a fundamental problem that we're often encountering. But I think further who when you say like who are you and what are you demanding? I think what Genz is asking for is a democratization of power is a seat at the table, right? It's being taken seriously. I think that it is the standard position of the status quo to dismiss genie's anger as naive as misplaced, right? And I think that it is instead my hope that to whatever extent Juve consultant can play a role to make folks contend with Gen Z's anger as righteous as necessary to hopefully ultimately make us achieve an equilibrium that works better for more of us, for all of us, right? Then I think there's an awesome opportunity in front of all of us. Formidable. So Peter, I turn to you now as a hirer and uh we did learn backstage by the way that uh I was going to ask Peter. Ok. How do you attract Gen Z talent and also keep them as customers considering climate concerns and um all of that. However, now we know, what is your, what is your Delta status? Oh, I am a platinum medallion member. So apparently not a problem but not diamond. Not a problem with the I know someone, but when you look at this coming cohort Peter, um how do you engage and are they in the room? So it, it's so fascinating by the way. And first of all, good Thursday afternoon, um it's great to be here. Uh What I would say is um it is a different cohort. We see that we feel that we know that um and what we find is that at Delta Airlines, which is really a value led company with a pretty noble purpose. I mean, our purpose as an airline, we like to say, no one better connects the world. And, and when you think about what that means, we are the ultimate globalist, right? We are the ultimate solution to a world that's become more xenophobic, more nationalistic. We bring people together and what could be more important and powerful than being the company that can connects people. It connects people to experiences, it, it opens people's minds. And as a result, it resonates with Gen Z. Gen X because these are folks that when we interview and we bring into our organization, they want to be a part of an organization that's trying to make a difference. And, and at Delta, it really is part of our DNA, whether it's our community commitment, we give a percentage of our profits away every year. We share our profits with our employees by the way, which Gen Z loves because it gives them skin in the game. We're one of the only, we're one of a handful of fortune 50 companies that does that. We're quite proud of that. So I think we've had and the other thing is travel, right? You heard it from Zia? He's a platinum traveler is a very young man. I think Genz love experience, they love travel. Um They love to be able to work wherever they are and we help enable that. So I feel pretty fortunate at Delta, but you are right. One of the experiences we have and I'll see it. We have an open door policy at Delta and periodically on my calendar, there'll be a name that is in the organization, brand new, not familiar with, have not yet met. And it will be somebody who we've just hired, who wants to sit down with a leader and say to me, what's your vision? What's my role? And how can I really grow in this company now? That's something that a baby boomer would never do. And, and, and Gen Xers may or may not, but it really is a leaning in that we haven't typically seen quite in the same way, Ellen, you do recruiting and placement around sustainability jobs specifically. And we keep hearing that Gen Z as a cohort is heavily focused on climate and, and engaged in having conversations with their employers about sustainability initiative. Are you finding that? And are you finding that the roles are being created with Gen Z in mind? Yeah, I mean to clarify, Gen Z is their ages 11 to 26 right now. And we as recruiters are mostly placing leaders who are older than 20 have more years of experience in the workforce. And at the same time, we're very committed to supporting what we can do to support the entire pipeline of an of a sustainability professionals career and also understand the workforce of tomorrow. So understanding Gen Z as the up and coming the entry level positions that these companies is really valuable and in terms of their commitment, even if they're not looking for sustainability jobs, they're interested in very concerned about climate change and justice, climate justice, all these issues and they're looking for companies, they're asking these questions in their interviews and they're also wanting to see examples. They, they're testing authenticity for that company and they're going on social media to see what others are saying about that. So they, they do their homework and they, and they stand up for what they are seeing as important to them, you know, as we have this workforce conversation, it one of the things we were briefly talking about backstage actually is that, I mean, Zia has his own company that the idea of company and work, you know, as much as we talk about how work has changed, work has specifically changed. For Gen Z, I would argue. Do you think that that's true that there's, there's maybe less willingness to even go inside at a company when you can build your, your own brand. No, I mean, I think absolutely is the question, right? Is the answer to the question? I started my company when I was a junior in high school, right? Started my nonprofit when I was in eighth grade. Right? And of course, I'm tremendous. I was in a tremendously privileged position to be able to do so, right? To have the imagination and the agency to achieve on that imagination, right? It's something that I do not take for granted and is why I do the work that I do to hopefully empower more young people with the access to opportunities such that they have the agency to achieve their dreams. But when we think about the world today and why I think so many employers are struggling with their Gen Z employees, what we have to contend with and realize, right is that especially because of the pandemic, but also because Gen Z is outside power in the sense that every young generation has looked at the world and said just because things have been this way, does not mean they have to stay this way. And I looked at the world with the sense of moral clarity and freshness and those of you who have kids in the room that probably reminded of that every single day when your kid gets angry at an injustice. And you're like, I remember feeling that angry, right? And I, you know, I'm getting old, I have some scruff now, right? I feel my age. I remember feeling that angry, right? Um But I think what is unique about Gen Z is because of the access to digital tools that we have, our disruption got to be mainstream instantaneously, right? It didn't necessarily take mass protests for us to be heard. That doesn't mean that we're not partaking in mass protest. It means that the barrier to entry was much lower such that more of us could participate in a discourse around disruption to ultimately change norms. And how that's translated to the workforce specifically is I think a lot of the world is built on myths and there were certain myths that we have been taught around the workforce that this is the way that it is. And what the pandemic showed us is that if the political will existed for things to be different, it could be different if circumstances demand a difference. And simultaneously we're scrolling on social media and seeing that there are so many different ways to live to earn to be. And so we're looking on the other side of that and saying, well, maybe my parents didn't have to suffer the ways that they did and maybe they didn't have to give themselves to a company that didn't see them as a full person as they are only for them to still be paying off their debt. Now, right after having bent their back and, and, and, and, and, and, and succumb to the will of bosses who didn't care about them their whole life. So I'm gonna choose different path for me because we have more access to a standard of comparison of the other ways that you could earn r and of course, as an employer, I see it from both sides, right? I get it. It's hard, right? That employer ge but that imagination is ultimately hopefully going to get us to a new equilibrium where historically we were told you for 20 years, you learn for 30 years, you lead and maybe for 20 years, if you're lucky, if you live this false American dream, then you get to live. And Jez is taking the microphone back and saying hell no, I want to learn, I want to lead and I want to live simultaneously and you'll be damned if you tell me otherwise, right? And I think that genie is not alone in that. I think Boomers are saying that I think Jex is saying that I think John Y is saying that I think that we're saying we get to be more than the archetype of what you've told us this life stage has destined for me. And I think that benefits all of us. Um I've decided to be adopted by Gen Z. Um What so Peter when you hear this and you know, and Ellen, when you hear this because you're working, I assume with legacy organizations and, and generational generational clashes have existed as long as humans have. How do you imagine reshaping workplaces around these expectations around what frankly a lot of people do see as a broken contract? Well, I would say a couple of things and this is fascinating for me to listen to the ad. I think the Gen Z clearly, it's our first truly digitally native, you know, work cohort, which is really something because I think that means at least in our world that they speak and, and they understand a channel um which the rest of us had to catch up to understand and they understand it better than we do. They know how to use it for good and for not good. And, and, and that's a power which you alluded to. It's a, it's a real power. And I think employers have to figure out how to use that superpower as a channel that helps employees feel empowered and also presents a certain amount of transparency so that it's not the traditional hierarchy, but it's much more of a relationship between um the folks who are leading and the folks who might be, um running the front lines and the best, the best analogy that I can use from Delta is that our prior Ceo Richard Anderson used to leave a voice mail on a telephone every Friday to all 90 plus 1000 of our employees. Hey, everyone, tough week. Hope you guys are doing well, kind of thing. Right? So now, of course, Ed Bastian, it's not a voice mail. He's, he's all about using social media. Might be linkedin might be Instagram, I think is what it's called, might be Facebook, but there's a channel constantly reaching out to our employees. And then when we have employee events, our employees are doing selfies with Ed, that's the way he's literally spending time with the. Now we have to do one after that, we, we will do one. I want one with you. And then, and then the other thing though is that Ed has created an expectation among every one of our uh employees that if they have an issue, a concern, a problem, they can email directly and he doesn't have a team, read those emails, he reads each and every one and he responds to each and every one that is an employee focused, a people focused leader. And that's part of I think responding to some of what was talking about this expectation that I've heard that I'm taking care of. Um and, and, and that's the way it's manifested itself at Delta. We still have a lot to learn. Ellen talked to me about how you're trying to make the future leaders more like Ed, I think we can learn from two famous um um one is Greta Thornberg and the other is Coco Goff. So um Greta and all the people that are uh young ze that are following her and, and old people like me who are following her as well. They have this that we're looking to them to clean up our mess and they're taking the responsibility that they're gonna do it and you know what they are like, I have faith in this generation. And so they're, they're the our future and they're going to right the ship and these are also our future chief Sustainability officers 10 years down the line and, and then yes, and, and they should be on the board too. I like representing that voice. But anyway, the other is Coco Goff who was, um that was calling the linesman um on um the time violations, the time violations. And she stood up for what was right. And she was able with conviction and clarity to say like this is wrong and this is why it's been wrong. And I think that the message to employers is to listen and to be active listeners because they are standing up and they, they have, they have good things to say. So it's valuable to listen. I would imagine our time is short. But I wanna ask you how you feel when you hear the, that the responsibility of writing the wrongs, not the responsibility, right. But I think there, there are certainly people, there are certainly Boomers, there are certainly Gen Xers who feel like, you know what I'm gonna check out and, you know, will write the wrong. How do you feel quickly when you hear that? Um, I personally, I don't know that my whole generation agrees with me. No, anything much less, much less the guy. Um But I don't view it as that previous generations let us down and that it's our view and it's our responsibility to take it forward from here. Because I think the reality is there have been people who have been fighting on the right side of history in every generation for as long as time that has existed. What is instead the reality is those voices were never given the platform the privilege and the possibility to become mainstream, right? And so what we had was structures that were built to serve a very small subset of the population that was consistently fed by that subset of the population where there were community organizers from each of these marginalized groups who had been doing the work. And we follow in the footsteps of all of those leaders. And so for me, it is about an inter generational collaboration that we can create the solutions so that we can achieve the solutions to the problems that we know exist from black communities, from indigenous communities working together who have been doing this work, right? And haven't been getting the recognition, haven't been getting the reward, haven't been getting the investment that they deserve right to really feed us and save us. And so for me, it is not about necessarily we're the ones to save us. It's we're the ones that may finally get the possibility to be mainstream and follow in those following the following, in the footsteps of those who've been doing this a lot longer and better than we can ever dream to. I cannot imagine a better ending to this specific conference. Let alone this panel. Thank you so much. Everyone, appreciate it. Hope it's alive. So we're done. Uh I want to on behalf of the co chairs and on behalf of fortune, I want to thank all the speakers, the discussion leaders and all of you really for engaging in such a rich conversation. Over the last a couple of days, I want your feedback, we want your feedback. We want to hear from you about how we can make this community more valuable to you. You'll be hearing from us about the global sustainability forum that we're doing virtually on September 28th if, if you're interested in that. And mostly I just want to urge you to all go out and to learn to lead to live all at the same time, no matter how old you are, go for it, uh, be well, safe travels.

Dr. Priscilla Chan, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (joining virtually) Interviewer: Ellie Austin, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Leveraging Cutting-Edge Science To Cure, Prevent, Or Manage All Diseases 

Since the inception of the Chan Zuckerberg initiative in 2015, Priscilla Chan and her husband, Mark Zuckerberg have committed more than $6.4 billion to scientific research. They've also pledged to devote 99% of their meta stop over the course of their lives to philanthropy. And a major part of this money is focused on one specific goal that they set for their organization curing preventing or managing all disease by the end of the century here to share more about the Chan Zuckerberg initiative. Please welcome Dr Priscilla Chan, who's joining us, virtually, co founder and co chief executive of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Hello, Doctor Chan, and thank you so much for joining us. And I just want to say that this is your first interview um back from maternity leave following the birth of your third daughter. So, first of all, congratulations. And secondly, a particular thanks for taking the time to speak to us today. So in my introduction, I reference that very lofty goal that you and Mark set when you started the initiative in 2015, 8 years and the small matter of a global pandemic later, how realistic. Does that original goal seem? Uh Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. This is in fact, day three of coming back full time. Um So I'm, I'm thrilled to be jumping back into talking about the work. Uh Yeah, so it's been eight years since we started the Chan Zuckerberg initiative. And at that time, Mark and I decided we wanted to dedicate our experiences, our expertise and our resources to addressing some of society's biggest challenges. And in science, we set the audacious goal to cure prevent or manage all disease uh by the end of the century. And in science that our work shows up in three ways, um we build uh valuable open source tools for scientists to be able to do their work better. We fund great biomedical research across the globe and for projects that need more concentrated efforts, more collaborative efforts. Um We do science in our bio hubs um first in San Francisco and soon in Chicago. And it might seem like a strange question. But what's the ultimate goal for eradicating disease? Is it that we all live to 150? Is it that our life expectancy stays the same? But the quality of our life is better. I guess what I'm asking is how would eradicating the threats posed by disease change humanity? It's really important to be able to uh keep people healthy and keep people well in order for us to be our best productive selves. And uh we're in a place in, in science where we can look at mutations but, and we can look at the end state of what happens in disease. But the middle is largely a complete mystery. And we can't actually really understand how to diagnose treat or prevent all of those would be a fantastic outcome because we don't understand what happens in the middle. So our work is really focused on making sure that we do our part in advancing how uh our understanding from a scientific perspective of how the body works. And for us, our um you know, 10 year goal is to really focus in on the cell. Um Cells are hard to study for a few reasons. One there's trillions of them and they're all different types. Um They're really, really small and they are dynamic. And so our goal really is to really understand what cells are doing in healthy and disease states so that we can um we can help patients and families understand um what's happening in their body and how to actually address it. And but you know it, no, please, no, please continue. Doctor Chang. And I was gonna say there's no one end utopia. It's really about making sure that we're accelerating our knowledge so that we're empowering scientists, doctors and patients. Um health is only one part of what you do at the CC I. There's also education and there's community work, which looks at economic inclusion and affordable housing. When you have the funds, the ambition, the social network that you and Mark do. How do you decide which of the world's many problems you want to solve and which issues and areas maybe aren't right for you. I want to start by saying the same thing I say at every new higher orientation, which is we're a big philanthropy, we're so lucky to be able to part uh to be involved and participate in power work in the field. But we are teeny tiny. Um You know, you've mentioned that we've funded billions of dollars of science, but the NIH in the United States funds on like 300 plus billions of dollars of science every single year. So we have to be really careful and strategic about where we think we can bring uh differentiated value. And so we look beyond dollars, we look to expertise um that we have, we're approximate to, we look at our ability to make a different bet um that can complement the work that's already happening. And so we at CC I, we call it like does it fit into AC C I shape problem? Um Are we, can we be a unique contributor in this space based on the resources and the uh capabilities we have within our four wall? And you talked about your new hires there. Now, in 2019, you and Mark donated almost $7 million to increase the diversity of college stem students. And I wonder now when you're hiring at C I or when you're thinking about the universities you might partner with for the bio hub. How diverse are the pools of people wanting to work for or with you? We've been so lucky to have uh an incredible community around us and the work that we do. And, you know, as you mentioned, young people are a huge part of that, but it's actually core to the work and the science that we want to do too. Um Right now, our our goal is to cure, prevent and manage the disease and that's for everyone. And in biomedical research, the majority of uh our knowledge, our data that comes out of labs is based on adults of European ancestry. Um that doesn't fit me, doesn't fit many people in the room and obviously leaves out a huge subset of people in the world role. And so our goal is to make sure that our work, both the people doing the work and our work um actually move the needle forward for everyone. And so um we funded uh the Historically Black Medical Colleges, one of which is right, right near you guys in Atlanta right now. Um to actually both diversify the people doing great uh science within their institutions as well as building uh a genetics and genetic counseling program to um demystify a lot of what it means to participate in research and to bring many more into the fold so that we have individuals of all different backgrounds coming in, um, and participating in the work and being represented in science. And, uh, you know, racial diversity is just one form of diversity. Another that's very near and dear to my heart as a pediatrician is making sure that we don't forget kids. Um Right now, a lot of research doesn't represent kids and doesn't tell us about their development. And um what should be happening as they grow up, what happens when they get sick because they have a different subset of issues that they face. And so we've been really intentional about seeding research that includes um brings in Children so that we have information across the spectrum of race, race and age as we um as we move forward in this really exciting era of science that that's really interesting and, and just one extra note on the health equity um question, public health experts estimate that treatment often only accounts for about 20% of a patient's outcome when they're suffering from a chronic health condition. Lifestyle education are also key factors. How do you make sure doctor Chan that any major breakthroughs you make at the initiative will be accessible to anyone, regardless of where they live or how much money they earn. So our research is um in the work that we do and the tools that we build, we keep it as an open source tool so that people can really access, uh scientists can access it wherever. Another really important part in health equity is actually you mentioned that treatment is just a tiny portion of it. Uh We have a portfolio called Science and Society where we support Rare disease research. And what we find is that the diagnostic journey is a place of large inequities. Um patients that don't have access to established medical centers may live far away or um aren't well plugged into the medical system, spend a lot of their time in on the just going bouncing from one place to the other without getting an answer. And we've been working very closely with rare disease groups um uh to make sure that we learn from their experiences to understand how our science, that is the science that we're supporting can be applied quickly and um equitably to individuals so that they can receive the uh the diagnosis. One of the first and most clarifying steps in their health journey um to get the treatment that they need. I have one more question and then I'm hoping that we have time for a question from the room. So Bill Gates once said in an interview that he doesn't want a legacy. How would you like to be remembered Dr Chan as an individual? And how do you hope you and your husband are remembered as a couple? Well, first of all, I want, I want this work to be successful. This work is so much bigger than myself or Mark. Um And, you know, we're building these incredible data sets and tools, but um it's both very exciting and a little nerve wracking because we're at the beginning of this journey, we want to be able to see this work applied. We wanted to just see this work translate to um affect patients lives. And every single time that we get to see an example of that, whether it's seeing cystic fibrosis in a new way or uh seeing a rare uncurable disease, um have a new cutting edge treatment. That's what gives me life in this work. Um And so I think first and foremost, I want to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to both build up the science and ensure that the basic science has a very, very strong connection to the lives of individuals. Is there a question from anyone in the room for Doctor Chan? If not? Yes, yes, please. Could we get a mic? Um And if you could keep it relatively brief, that would be great. Thank you. I appreciate it. Uh Doctor Chang admires CC I uh what CD I do for, you know, for all of us, I'm in mental health uh industry. So my question to you is uh for, when you mention about very dear to you is for children's health. And I wonder c I has done anything or it's going to do anything for the mental health for Children. Um What, you know, one thing that we do at CC I is make sure is really think about how we're supporting the whole child in the classroom. And it's not just about, you know, working in math and getting the math results. It's really thinking about how the child needs to be supported in their sense of belonging and their sense of well being um every day in the classroom so that they can thrive. And so that's the place where we do the most work um in, in your sector. Doctor Tan. Thank you so much for joining us today and good luck with the rest of your return to work. And we're thrilled that you are here.

Junelle Cavero Harnal, Head of Political, My Code Andrea Hailey, Chief Executive Officer, Vote.org Maria Teresa Kumar, Co-founder and President, Voto Latino Foundation Moderator: Ruth Umoh, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Getting Out The Vote

Marion Brooks, Vice President and US Country Head, Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion, Novartis Alphonso David, President and CEO, Global Black Economic Forum Joelle Emerson, Co-founder and CEO, Paradigm Moderator: Holly Ojalvo, FORTUNE  

Impact Initiative 2023: Affirmative Action Rollback And Its Corporate Implications

Marion Brooks, Novartis Alphonso David, Global Black Economic Forum Joelle Emerson, Paradigm, Holly Ojalvo, FORTUNE  

Charlene Lake, Chief Sustainability Officer, AT&T Bruce Jackson, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft Danita V. Knight, President and CEO, YWCA of Greater Atlanta Moderator: Holly Ojalvo, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Minding The Digital Gap

Thank you everyone and welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the conversations over lunch. So now we're really on to the home stretch of our program and our next session is taking a deeper look at the digital divide that stretches across America. So earlier this year, the Biden administration announced the launch of its internet for all initiative, a program that will work with nonprofits and government stakeholders to raise awareness and help eligible families access discounted or free internet. And although this is a crucial initiative, the private sector also plays a really important role in creating the digitally literate workforce of tomorrow. So this is what we're about to discuss and here to talk about the key steps their organizations are taking to close the digital divide. Please welcome Charlene Lake Chief sustainability Officer at at and T which has committed $2 billion to closing the digital divide. Bruce Jackson, associate general counsel at Microsoft, whose airbag initiative has helped more than 51 million people gain access to internet. And Denita Knight, president and Chief executive officer at the YWC A Atlanta, whose Digital Skills Academy program is helping bring digital literacy to women in the Greater Atlanta area and they'll all be interviewed by Fortune Impact Initiative, Co chair, Molly Wood. Right. Hello again. Hello to this wonderful panel. How exciting and what an important conversation we're gonna have. Um And I wanna be mindful of our time and everyone's interested. Yes. By the way, there has been a wardrobe change. I realized I was literally camo off with the stage in that last dress. So that's what's going on, but it was fabulous. I know you. I know I miss it already. I feel I owe everyone an explanation before we get to this much more important topic. Ok. This is such a persistent problem. It was identified at least 25 years ago and has been very stubborn. Um In terms of something that we solved as a society, there are several parts of this kind of bigger problem broadly labeled the digital divide. There's digital inclusion, digital participation, digital skills, media literacy, digital accessibility, access to hardware, access to software, access to broadband, it goes on and on. Um I wanna start with you Charlene and Bruce. Uh AT&T and Microsoft have done wide ranging programs. You heard a little bit about the dollar amounts that have been contributed to address multifold issues. How do you given that long list of priorities start to focus and prioritize? I'll start with you Charlene. Well, thank you Molly and thank you for fortune for, for recognizing that this is such a major problem. Um But I'm so optimistic that we're at a great time to be able to solve it too. So how we are approaching it. Um It's really the core of our business. And so our purpose is to connect people to greater possibilities. So we really believe that if we get them connected, they can have better futures, but it takes all of the company to do that. So it's our policy team, it's our product team. It's our fiber network team, it's our product team and it's our social innovation team working out in the community. So we surround it because it's not just one problem, it's access, it's affordability, it's adoption. You got to lay the fiber, you have to make it affordable, then you have to make sure you get over this really vaccine adoption problem, which is really complex and you list it off some of those issues within that adoption issue. So it's also really important for all of us. It's not just the people who are being affected by it because not only do they not have access to online learning or telehealth or they can't work at home but they can't access any of your products and services that you're offering on your digital platforms either. So it's really a problem for all of us. So you prioritize by making it the priority priority. It is the number one priority. Bruce. How about you? No, I think it's the same thing. I think we're a global company. It really starts from the top to the bottom. It's a major priority part of the culture of the company. And we have a host of programs to really address this issue in the US, but also abroad, right? All of our subs are really actively involved in the programs that we roll out here. And we're basically involved in this sort of initiative in all 50 states, multiple programs in 50 states, right? I think you brought a broadband broadband to us is one of the key sort of issues, right? Because of our broadband, the digital vibe, we saw result of the pandemic and basically just widen those who are fortunate and privileged, took advantage of the internet access and it just widened the gap. It's not sure that those who are unfortunate and grew up in urban areas as well as rural America, right? Has continued to suffer and firsthand, I tell you, it's still the same way. I grew up in urban New York and a underserved population, the public housing and I go back the other day and the problem still exists today. So we have to try to get people on broadband. We talk about affordable but affordable is not affordable at all. Right. And you talk about rule where the infrastructure is not there and it's essential for education is essential for telehealth, as you mentioned, is essential for looking for jobs and all the training. We're trying to do people have to be connected, right? And not just connected. Now, we have the issue with affordable devices because without, with the connect connection and without the device, it's it's not gonna really work. So the gap is continuing to wide. So we need all of you just because Microsoft A T and he is investing a ton of money that doesn't exclude you from doing any and all that you can do and you can collaborate with us. Although, although we compete on certain issues with some of the customers or big companies out there, when we talk about issues like this, we're perfectly aligned and it's all about collaboration, not just with government, with uh companies as well. That, that as a community based organization, the YWC A Atlanta takes a hyper local and a partnership approach uh through its programming. I wonder what you know, from the ground that Microsoft and AT&T don't know, you know, what are the challenges that you're accounting uh encountering in those partnerships that give you that hyper local knowledge? Thank you Molly and, and thank you all for giving us the opportunity to be here today. So what we know is what we learned from talking directly to the people that we serve. And that's really the most appropriate way in my mind for us to move because I think it would be inappropriate for us to make some assumptions in terms of what ideal service or ideal customer service might look like in that regard. So we take the time to do the research to hear from our clients in terms of what they need and then respond and also make them aware that we've heard them and we've seen them and that's a very important way to move forward. And then we move forward with our corporate partners and other friends based on the knowledge that we have to say this is the reality, not the reality that we have made up at YWC in Greater Atlanta. But the reality that our, our women, our, our participants, our folks who are part of our programming talked to us about. Yeah. Can you give us some examples? I mean, what are you hearing? That is counterintuitive. Sure. So I'll use an example of the digital Skills Academy and I'm so excited to have our program manager. So Soraya Williams with us here today. So with that particular program, we took it to the west side of Atlanta where it's very active and we are launching a cohort in next week in that regard. And we said we have this wonderful program that's based on digital literacy and also based on financial literacy to give you the opportunity to go higher with your career if you wish or to learn simply more about how to use a laptop and a hotspot, whatever is of value to you. Talked to women, ages 18 and older, some as old as 70 said, tell us what you need. They told us very specifically what they needed, which has helped us to shape that program again, which launches the next week in a way that is collective in terms of support but also individualized to each of the women being served. Um The Secretary of Education recently called the Digital Divide, the equity issue of our moment. The president has pledged that the whole country will have high speed internet access by 2030. But the person who coined the term digital divide, writing in Fortune magazine said there are so many roadblocks built into some of this legislation. I wonder how you all approach speed. You know, I mean, because again, here we are 25 years in there are always, there's gonna be red tape, there are going to be requirements, there's gonna be, you know, issues of access, there's gonna be I'm sorry, slightly slow fiber deployment um in certain areas like my neighborhood. Let's talk later. Yeah. Call me. Yeah. What I mean? If you could, you know, if you could pick a tool out of the box, a magical wand, what would make us go faster? I don't think there is one. Yeah, I'm sorry to disappoint you on that, but I will tell you why there never is, but I keep trying. This is a really, really important time right now and I don't think we've ever been in a better position to actually come up with solutions and make a significant inroads into solving this problem. And it's because companies like ours have been investing in fiber. We laid 60,000 miles of fiber last year. Other companies are doing the same and Congress has appropriated $42 billion that's now going out to the States for companies to extend their infrastructure even more in the public, private partnerships. And what's really important is they've also appropriated $14 billion for consumer subsidies because it's not enough just to have the network run by the home, the people have to be able to afford it that $14 billion. And this is really important is probably going to run out the first quarter of next year. There's 20 million people who are now getting that subsidy. And so it's really important for Congress to extend that so people can continue to be able to participate in this digital economy. But that's why I'm hopeful because everybody understands now that it is a significant problem and it's like all hands on deck to fix it. Now, are you all seeing the same that everybody has? No, I would agree. I think that I was gonna bring up the point that the money is running out. So we need to make sure that we continue to have that money allocated for those who need it for the low cost service. So call your congressman. Um I love an action item coming out of this. We uh in sports and style, we'll be taking questions. So if you have one, put your hand up and our runner will find you in the audience. Um Let's talk more about partnerships, public, private, clearly a huge part of this. But Anita I'm gonna come to you for profit and nonprofit. Um Even between industry competitors, a big theme of some of our conversations today has been cooperation. So how I wonder and I'll start on this end and come on back but jump in. Um how do we get behind? I think you called it checkbook philanthropy, get beyond that and use these partnerships really, really effective. So it takes a village to make a difference. And in our case, once we understand what our program participants need, the next step is to provide context to our corporate partners. So we were talking earlier just about the value of these parts partnerships. And in Charlene's case with the AT&T team, we've been in partnership for over a decade and so grateful for that. But as we also talked about earlier, it's not enough just to receive the check on our end, we have to provide programmatic context and information about the individuals being served. So that, that syncs up ideally with what Bruce and Charlene are talking about as our corporate partners so that together we can make a difference. Yeah. Yeah, we just don't write a check, right? I think the reality is we have, we cannot scale to do what we do without partners. So partners are crucial, particularly those on the ground. They know the customers that they serve better than we do. But what we do is work with them, right? That's why we have, we're in all 50 states and we use partners really to deliver our skilling services, right? In terms of till, which is what we do from a tills perspective of the program where we bring computer science to the high school. So we'll teach the teachers about computer science so they can roll out programs in high schools and, and another thing valuable program. I think it's all about cyber security, right? It's about how do we fill all the opportunities that are available? 700,000 jobs that are available. So we partner again with the American Association of Community College because we think that's what we're getting a more diverse student body and we worked them on building a curriculum for community college around cyber security. So it's all about working with someone else who can help you deliver and they can execute on your mission. Um Can you keep giving us giving us examples? I'm gonna pick up on that and ask you for more specifics because I think these partner, these specific examples hopefully can inspire companies in the room to pursue similar partnerships if they're not already doing them. Yeah, absolutely. Um Our partnerships, I'm so proud to share the stage with Denita. Um It's for relationships and for expertise and for scale. And so Denita knows her clients by first name, right? She knows her community, she knows the neighborhood, she knows what they need and that's important to us. Her neighborhood has the trust in her and her folks. And so that's really, really important to us is why we support the digital skills program. It's also why we do um community centers connected learning centers with trusted organizations in the neighborhood and provide fiber and wifi and employees who come in and volunteer, all your employees can come volunteer, right? So there's a way to get engaged. Um And so the relationships are important, the expertise is important because we know connectivity, right? We don't know education, but we partner with the education experts and we have a digital learning program called The Achieve. And so we have um content that's um aligned to common core standards to make online learning really helpful. And so again, that expertise is important and finally scale um because, you know, we can't do it alone. So for example, the Public Library Association, we have all kinds of digital literacy programs, thousands of courses that are going on across the country. There's libraries and there's four right here in Atlanta that we're working with. So um scale is really, really important because we need the local community, but we need to spread it across the country too. Are there questions in the audience? What? Talk to me about this learning process over time. I think there is still a tendency when you hear digital divide to just think, well, broadband, right? It's just about access, maybe it's about a device, talk about the kind of progression of this understanding of all of these facets that go into truly closing the digital divide. And because I think that there may be people who are just sort of realizing that it's not only that complex but that, that complexity gives you a way in that you might not have been able to see before. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll start, um, so someone can have the fiber running right by their house and they can be told that they can get it for free with a government subsidy, but they still don't sign up. They're afraid to admit that they don't know how to use a computer. They may not have a computer, they may not understand that there's a real value in it. And that's why initiatives like digital Navigators who go work with each individual person to say, what are your barriers? Why aren't you on it? Why do you know about the AC P program that can give you this, um, this service for free? So that adoption piece of it is really the most complex, the most see part of it. And that's why all of the community programs are so important because those are the ones that tackle them right? Once you move away, the financial barriers, then you're right. It's about training people on how to use and access the information on the internet. And, and, and you have to rely on the community organizations because they're there. They're, they're the most valuable resources for us is a community based sort of program that we run. I agree. And you all have done such a beautiful job of explaining the partnership which I still appreciate. And for us on the programming side, we have to build trust. So we were talking earlier about the importance of coming in and using people who've been through our programming, who came through it and who thrived based on it to go back out into the community to say, try this. This is a proven product. Look at what it's done for my life and my family's trajectory and look at what it can potentially do for you and your family. And so we are so proud to say we're impacting the program participants, but their families, their friends and in some instances, a larger community as well. Amazing. So it sounds like the the big takeaway here is call your congress person, make sure that funding is continued and tell everyone. My brother works for the Oakland school district and was working with a teacher just the other day who just, just using a, a wifi hotspot from the school because she doesn't know about that program and was too afraid to take advantage of it. So thank you for everything. You do. What a wonderful conversation. Thanks so much to our panel and I think we'll leave it there. All right. Thank you.

Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO, GLAAD Interviewer: Ellie Austin, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Taking A Stand: Empowering The Lgbtq+ Community

So, moving on to a completely different subject. Now, since the Stonewall Inn riots of 1969 June has become Pride Month, a time to spotlight and celebrate the LGBT Q Plus community while also calling attention to the myriad challenges that it still faces over the years, many corporations have supported month via donations and public ally ship. However, this year was slightly different targets. Pride merchandise received major backlash leading the retailer to remove some of the items from its stores. And it's been reported that this backlash was at least in part responsible for the company's first sales slump in six years. Bud Light also found itself at the center of controversy earlier this year when it partnered with the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney as part of a marketing campaign. So how can companies publicly display support for the LGBT Q Plus community without finding themselves at the center of a crisis to talk about all of this and more. I'm thrilled to sit down with Sarah Kate Ellis, the President and Chief Executive Officer at Hi. So um lots to talk about Sara. I'll go back in a moment to the target and the Bud light incident. But I want to start bigger picture a report that God released earlier this year shows that 91% of Americans think that LGBT Q plus people should live without discrimination, which seems incredibly obvious. But you know, it hasn't always been the case sadly and yet this year's Pride Month in June. So I think it was a 300% increase in anti LGBT Q plus incidents. How do you explain this dichotomy? Yeah, I think we're all seeing this dichotomy, right? Whether it be people of color women, LGBT Q folks, we're all under attack as a marginalized, as marginalized communities. And um I, I just want to build out a little bit more context to that. Um from a legislative perspective, we've seen over 600 anti LGBT Q bills at the state level across the country. And so when you think about that, the don't say gay bill in Florida is actually law now in nine states across this country. Um And about 79 of those 600 bills have been enacted. So they are law now. And so what we're seeing and the, and the culture that we're living in is being driven by honestly misinformation um and is really targeted if we're being very honest against the trans and gender, nonconforming community within our community. And they're the, they're the easiest target if you will, they have the smallest share of voice in the country in the world. Um they are incredibly marginalized. They can't get jobs, they can't. Um uh you know, there's so much that goes on the violence against this community. And so we're finding in this day and age, um we have as a community always been politicized, even though this is about human rights. This is not a political issue, it's a human issue. Um but it works for ratings, it helps um anti LGBT Q politicians raise money, get people wound up. Um And so I think that we're in the center of that right now and I think it's going to increase over the next year during this election. It's gonna be a very volatile time during this election. What do the figures show about the number of people that are spouting this abuse, this horrific abuse or committing these violent acts? I think it's easy to make the assumption that this is a huge section of the population, but I don't know if that's the case. What does the data show and what does it show about the bipartisan nature as well as support for the LGBT Q plus community? So that's a great question. And I just want to say everybody in America knows someone who's LGBT Q. You're either in, we're either in your family, we're at your workplace, we deliver your mail, we serve you your, you know, dinner at a restaurant. And so it is 91% of Americans that think that LGBT Q people should be left alone. There is a very, very small minority of folks who are anti LGBT Q and they have an outsized voice right now. Um And I often say that, you know, where we stand is that this misinformation gap. So if you think about the not missin non information gap, so we have an information gap right now, especially around the transgender community, 30% of Americans say they know somebody who's transgender, more Americans say they have seen a ghost. OK. So what is filling their heads is what these anti LGBT Q politicians are saying? And it's being reported out by the news as, as word of these anti LGBT Q politicians. So that's what's filtering this, this kind of culture that we're living in and it seems so outsized. The one thing that I really think is important here and for all of you in your corporate roles, something that we've been working really hard at glad with is that the attacks in our community have changed. And now I think Corporates are seeing social media weaponized against them. The same way the LGBT Q community has seen social media being weaponized against us. And so the thing that I've been doing more so than ever before is working with your risk folks around how to mitigate this and how to see this coming. And so a lot of them don't even know what to look for, right? Because they're not trained in this. So we're starting to train a lot of risk managers and security managers around. What, who are the anti LGBT Q voices? Where is this coming from? Because all of those attacks that you referenced earlier started on social media, they whip up and energy on social media and then the companies are caught flat footed because they're not looking for it. And then all of a sudden this happens, right? And you, and you're in the headlines and you don't want to be in the headlines for that. I know that, um I will say that what we, we did after Target was create a corporate war room with about 300 of our corporate partners and we started to look at all of that so we could get ahead of it. And so the thing back to what you originally said, there were hundreds of pride campaigns that went off without a hitch. Um, there were two that got a lot of media attention. Now, there were other companies that did get attacked. Um, let's be really clear about that. The difference in that is that those companies were ready and they didn't step back, they leaned in and that's the difference here. And it's, you know, when I talk to a lot of CEO si say it is basic school yard behavior we're talking about here as soon as you give space to bullies, they will be back the next day. But if you stand up and you say that's not happening. Take Bud Light and Nike, for example, Nike has a deal with Dylan Mulvaney too and was very out and and loud about their marketing partnership in pride. They went after Nike and Nike Ceo said that's not our value proposition. We stand with who everyone. And that's another thing I think one of the ways that you all um can really build in some safe around this is you represent everyone, right? Like Coca Cola makes drinks for everyone and you know, you make sneakers for everyone and that is a compelling way to not have to get caught in picking one side over another and there are no sides here, right? There's a right side and there's a wrong side of history. I'll stop. Sorry, I have that as you talk a lot, a lot of my questions. That 10 um another thing you do at glad is you release an annual social media safety index which analyzes how the five major social media platforms keep LGBT Q plus people safe. Now this year Twitter or as it is now known, dropped 12 points compared to its 2022 score. And let's imagine that Elon Musk was here with us on stage right now. What would you be saying to him about what he needs to do to help and keep the LGBT Q plus community safe? Uh Yeah, I mean, what's so sad about that is that Twitter actually was a leader in this space. Um We used to hold them up before Elon took over. Um They had a Trust and Safety Council that was really effective. Um And I think for us, when we look at the social media platform, it, as I said earlier, it is a place of convening and collaborating. It is also a place that has been weaponized against our community at dramatic rates. And that's why we started me measuring it because I always say even though they've all had incremental good change, except for Twitter who fell off, this literally fell off a cliff on this. Um It's that they didn't back slide. That's actually the win for us um because it's not a priority for them. And until we move in a legislative place and space and regulation on social media, we're not gonna see the change that we need to see at that level. But I would tell Elon, like, cut it out literally stop. You are putting people's lives at risk. Um And we see the conversion from online to danger and violence offline and in real life, are there any questions for Sarah Kate? Yes. Can we get a mic just here, please? Thank you so much. Hi, I'm Francy with Allstate. Really appreciate your remarks about um standing forward. That was our take away from what happened with anti Russian target. The other takeaway. Unfortunately, though was the business implications for these are significant, the stock price they their loss in market share. And in my position, I don't have those same case studies for people standing up for the brands. I'm wondering how you're counseling brands right now who are uh perhaps taking up? Maybe we just sit this one out or stay silent approach. So thank you for that question. And I think what's really important to understand here is and we're getting to the bottom of this. The math actually doesn't work out. When you look at LGBT Q folks and our allies, we are way faster and quicker to move away from brands that don't support LGBT Q people or women or people of color. And so if you're thinking about a marginal or a small community of anti LGBT Q people, my theory on this is it's actually the LGBT Q people and our allies that drove the downturn in retail uh target. And at Bud Light, you can't find in New York City a an LGBT Q bar that's going to serve Budd Light. You won't go, go to an event that is going to serve Bud Light. So I think that when those companies stepped away from us, we stepped away from them. Um And I think so, I'm, I'm trying to get that build that for you all because I think I know that's critical in your conversation. Is there any way to measure that? What you just? Yes, yes. They're actually, yeah. So our research department is working on that. Um, and we're working with, uh, to build that out but the numbers don't even work out. Like, if you think about the anti LGBT Q people who really, really detest us, it's 13% of the population. So they have to be outsized in those companies which they aren't because they're mass market companies. So, it's, the math doesn't line up in my opinion. And, and I, I'll prove that I, I'm hoping to prove that out. We've got another question right at the back. Hi, my name is Keisha. Um, and I work in public health and also federal consulting. So I have a sort of devil's advocate question, um, particularly with the, with the Bud Light situation because there are some, uh, voices that say, ok, well, that was, you know, part of a certain culture and Bud Light represents this thing and we weren't quite ready to have this representation. And so I'm curious, that's not my opinion. I'm, I'm just saying, I've heard that conversation. Um, and I'm curious what you would say to that if it's, well, we all need to be ready or you just have to get over it or if there's anything to, you know, sort of combat this idea that there are these sort of protected spaces that feel like I'm not, I'm the person who represents me is supposed to look a certain way or be a certain way and this didn't do it for me. II, I want to understand that. Did you understand that question? I couldn't understand exactly what you were asking in that question because I want to make sure I answer it properly. I was the question about the companies feel like they have to be ready to take action. No, it was more about with, with Dylan representing Bud Light, that Bud Light. It has a certain um Oh, yeah, I see. I hear what you're saying. Ok, great. Yes. So I think here's something that we've been talking about for a day and a half, right? Like the generational gap that we're facing here. So Bud Light has a situation where their, their clients or their customer is starting to age out and they need in order to grow as a company, bring in new customers, right? Um And so that's the challenge that they've been trying to navigate. Um I think Dylan is um I mean, Dylan is just a person. I, I don't know that she doesn't represent other people. If you like clothes and fashion and drinking, she represents you, you know, so I think that is a way that people justify shutting others out. Um And I think that also they are a brand for, they're Bud Light, they're a brand for all Americans and Dylan is an American too and, and and should be reflected in that, but she wasn't, I I don't know if you watched it, but she wasn't doing it as a trans person, she was doing it as a drinking person, you know, someone who enjoys the beverage. Um And I, and so I think that is used and weaponized in order to divide as opposed to bring together. Thank you so much for your question. That's we've got time for, which is frustrating because there's so much more we could talk about with you. Um But Sarah Kate, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for being here. Thank you very much. Thank you.

John Oxtoby, Senior Vice President and Director of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Investing, Ariel Investments, Jackie VanderBrug, Head of Sustainability Strategy, Putnam Investments Moderator: Ellie Austin, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: The Triple Bottom Line Of Esg Investing

John Oxtoby, Senior Vice President and Director of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Investing, Ariel Investments Jackie VanderBrug, Head of Sustainability Strategy, Putnam Investments Moderator: Ellie Austin, FORTUNE

John Oxtoby, Ariel Investments, Jackie VanderBrug,  Putnam Investments, Ellie Austin, FORTUNE

Now it's time for the last time that we're going to talk about ESG. Is that possible? Is there ever the last time that we talk about ESG? No, I don't think so. We're going to keep talking about ESG um the triple bottom line of EG investing. And that's something I remembered from John Elkington, right, the triple bottom line. We're going to hear from investors though about how they're capturing eg performance. Um and without formal reporting standards, as you know, they're under way but not fully there and to discuss the future of the EC reporting integration, I'd like you to welcome John Ox, senior vice president, Director of ESG investing at aerial investments, one of the largest black owned investment firms in the United States and Jackie Van Der Burck, head of sustainability strate strategy at Putnam Investments, an investing firm who helped establish one of the first balanced mutual funds. Very interesting to hear what and there's two. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Hello again, everyone and thank you so much John and Jackie for being here. Um Let's start with the basics and John, I'll go to you first. What do you currently consider the most useful metrics for figuring out the ESG performance of companies that you are interested in investing in. Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me here today. It's great to be with you all. Um I think like a lot of our peers, we, we focus on a um A SAS B align originally SAB align financial materiality focused approach. So depending on the company and the industry, we're going to identify a different set of, of underlying material issues that we're going to assess. So whether that's carbon intensity, whether that's uh board and leadership diversity. Um And I think for some companies we specialize in the small midcap side of the market, which I think is often a, a bit of a different conversation than the one that seems to play out on the, the front pages of the, of the newspaper. And so for some companies that are lower disclosure on certain metrics, I think that's where there's an important qualitative component that active managers like like an A or a Putnam can also pick up on where when you're speaking directly with management teams and you may not have the metric or the three years of year over year data to assess progress and benchmark that against the, the peer set. But you can look the CFO or the CEO in the eye and see the level of energy, the depth and conviction that they bring to this or conversely, are they are they, do they feel a little bit disconnected to the management of this area? Does it feel like this was a eg report that was fully outsourced to a third party? So I think that that's an important part of the conversation when you're thinking about metrics or assessing companies that don't yet have those metrics and earlier in their journeys. So there's a human element to it as well as the hard fact, Jackie, I'll pose the same question to you to kick off. Yeah, as John mentioned, um Putnam is also an active manager and so we are also looking at a set of materiality maps and, and they are different, right? So um what we look at in, in equity is, is slightly different than what we're looking at in corporate credit. Um What we're looking at, you know, in structured products and they're updated regularly because materiality is dynamic coming out of uh what was going on in the pandemic. You saw a lot more focus on worker engagement um and flexibility and, and how companies were looking at those particular issues. And like John said, we're not necessarily just looking at a, a set of data or dare I say a score, that's the beginning of the conversation that allows us a jumping off point, but it is that active conversation with the management team that really allows you to assess what's going on. And so can you give us some examples of what those active conversations might look like and maybe the specific pieces of counsel you might give to the teams in the hopes of them improving their scores. Well, just I mean, one as of late and again, improving their scores, not what we focus on, right? But um even the financial services companies, we have been looking very carefully at governance processes, especially given all of the challenges of late. And this question of as things move very quickly, are your governance processes? Um And specifically the role that boards have um set at pace given how quickly things can unfold in, in financial services. So that was an ongoing question of, have you updated processes? What is the board role? What was the board role in this last set of challenges? How did that look? And those are conversations back and forth um with board members specifically with the independent directors to understand how they're playing. Let's say we have a lot of in terms of examples, you know, a lot come to mind. 11 in a segment of the travel and leisure space, for example, um the smallest company in its peer set that is by third party metrics considered to be the riskiest from an esu standpoint, high risk from MS C I, et cetera. But we actually think it's the top performer on eg and it's getting unfairly hit not only because it's a smaller market size and lower disclosure. Um But, you know, when we speak to the management team and understand um you know, the extent to which ESG is, is um integrated across their culture and all the initiatives that they're um that they're involved in from circularity to local sourcing of their products um to kind of leveraging the smaller size of their facilities and how that gives them an advantage and access to certain sustainability technologies relative to the folks who have a much larger scale. So I think that's where there's an opportunity and inefficiency you can exploit when you actually get in there and do the work yourself, read the uh read the reports and the 10 Ks and engage with management where you can have a distinct point of view relative to what the third party metrics are showing. Do you ever get pushback from the teams that you're in conversation with? And if so how do you navigate that? We have? I think it, it, it's a, we have gotten pushback and, and a lot more so 57 years ago than where the conversation is today. I think the confluence of factors from the conversation at the board level to the regulatory and policy discussion and the um media scrutiny. And I think some of the um some of the data that you're seeing around kind of customer trends related to um that's driving demand decisions. So I think it's a much easier conversation but I think it does take um it does take creativity and thoughtfulness to, to think about who you're talking to and how you approach them. Are you talking about um the importance of the, the un Global Compact and Human Rights? Are you talking about supply chain transparency and, and really kind of breaking it down into terms that um A CFO who doesn't see himself as a environmentalist will, will still um resonate. So I think for the most part, we haven't had a lot of pushback from some of our companies, but some, some you do and, and, and it does, um it can lead to some difficult conversations where you have to push yourself and think about, well, what, what do we really think about our, our approach to escalation as a using our proxy voting power? Um Is that enough, do we need to go? Um Do we need to go further than that? And consider, is there actually financial risk that we think would um would necessitate a uh um a, a cell decision? For example, Jackie, you and I were talking before and you were saying that sometimes the disclosures that are required by the SEC, for example, don't represent the information that you would maybe find the most useful when you're thinking about investments. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah, I think the, the key piece in terms of um disclosures and maybe step back from the SEC because there's a lot, we're, we're waiting to see what the SCC will require in, in some sense here. But um is that folks are looking for reporting information for different purposes, right? So um investors, institutional and individuals are, are looking for reports um from funds to say, does this particular uh investment products match my preference? Right. I'm looking for a certain type of sustainability approach and I want to understand from reporting if, if this matches um whether I'm looking for sustainability leaders or, or more uh future products or, or whatever it is. Um versus regulators have a whole set of things that they're looking for and, and more specifically what I was speaking to there is European requirements. So we have some, some article eight products in Europe that require a set of disclosure around principal adverse indicators. Increasingly that those data points while we will absolutely disclose them are not what the portfolio managers, investment teams are looking at because they are looking for that fundamental question about your purpose and how sustainability is going to drive forward your business fundamentals. And so increasingly, there's a bit of a, a divergence in what's being uh the different types of information that are required. Does anyone have any questions before I press ahead with all of mine? Um ok, so John Ariel has been known as a socially responsible company since it was founded in the 19 eighties, 1986 I think. Um Can you give us some tangible examples of how as ESG has morphed into a key priority across the business community. Ariel has further integrated sustainability ESG in general into its day to day practices and considerations. Yeah, thanks for the question. I think um you know, as you know, this is something that's been, you know, integral to our approach and our culture since our founding, we also take seriously the idea that um you know, we're not just adopting, we think that the, the, you know, the most the best in class approaches and policies with respect to ESG but the the importance of living your values and walking the lock when it comes to, to ESG. So I think currently what we know in our most recent report, we're going to be putting out a our own TCFD disclosure, not, not a new or novel thing for an asset management firm, maybe for smaller firms, you're less likely to do it. But I think it, it enables us to have deeper conversations with our management teams when we can discuss our approach to PC FD disclosure to disaggregated workforce diversity, reporting certain things that we're going to expect that or ask that of our portfolio companies that they hear from us, that this is something that we believe in and that we're doing. Um But when I look back on when you sort of think about the evolution from the sr days to, to eg you know, at a, we've, we've, we've evolved as the marketplace has evolved we've put in place more dedicated resources. We have a three person dedicated team that we've got a unique model. We're a hybrid in that we sort of provide that sort of traditional centralized support and analysis across our strategies and PM. But then we're also embedded deeply in our small midcap value portfolio. So on the same hallway as our portfolio managers were in the engagement meetings and investment committee meetings with them. And I think that's a unique depth of integration that I think um in that unique part of the market, small mid cap that I think there's a real opportunity for active managers um to to really um uncover value and make a difference using your voice as shareholders. And that and that is concentrated, investor is often the largest one of the largest in a particular holding. And you've mentioned a few times, John, the difference between small and mid cap and and bigger companies when it comes to best practices. I'd love to maybe hear you both give a couple of concrete examples of what you consider the biggest differences to be Jackie if I get a few first. So um I will say we look um in terms of integration um for that, you know, basic materiality, you know, what are you doing from an opportunity and a risk perspective, but then there are markers. Um so we have a couple of products uh that like John said, you know, the the evolution at Putnam has been from an integration perspective to a set of products where sustainability goes further and, and there you're looking for markers of leadership, right, where they're going beyond esg compliance um to really something that is expansive, something that's durable, something that you can show is um innovative and, and beyond or that there's a whole set of products. And I think those that opportunity is um where people say is this just going to be investing? That's the question I get usually on a panel. Is this just good investing? Is this just sharing? The answer is in some sense? Yes. And you're seeing a lot of managers who go beyond really looking for, as you said, where does sustainability drive that performance? And that's the central thesis. So I think it's a, it's a bit of both anything to add. Yeah, I mean, I think I would add the um the dynamic between small and, and, and um larger companies. We've, we've also tried to, you know, we're only a three person team but how can we kind of leverage and amplify our efforts? Well, we've built these great relationships across the portfolio. A number of our larger companies in our portfolio have a degree of sophistication and thoughtfulness on certain issues. And we've actually at times been able to, to activate them to connect them with a uh a, a separate portfolio holding, not a, not a pure competitor, but there's a company that's thinking about and they've set short term um greenhouse gas reduction targets and they are thinking about how to approach long term targets and what this, what the process of um applying for uh this science based targets initiative entailed. And um so having them be able to connect directly with a team who's really done that work um help to accelerate their, their own efforts. So I think there are some ways in which the the larger companies can help pull up those smaller companies, whether it's through the, the supply chain and some of the work that's getting driven down by the, you know, the targets, Amazons and Walmarts, et cetera and federal government procurement process. But, but also from that kind of human approach to um helping connect companies that want to improve and want to know what to do but aren't maybe resourced or optimized necessarily to able to do everything Jackie, I read you um say that you said in a previous interview that you don't think we're ever going to get to the point where different regions have the same reporting requirements for ESG um why do you think that is and what does it mean for the future of investing? Um So I guess, think and hope are, are two different things. Um I, I, we are huge advocates of um Sbissbifrs and as was mentioned earlier, um S one and S two and have been very firm, in fact, have chaired the IISSB Investor Advisory Board to say um this is the standard um that, that we think is important for companies to report to. Um And it also is very useful that there has been um specific materiality based uh differences by sector. So we stand with, with Issbifrs and then there is the reality of um what's going on in Europe, what has uh just happened in California and a bit of the the differences. Um Some people will say competition, I don't see this as competition. I just think it's the reality of um the US approach to sustain in ability is going to be different than the eu um it's a, it's a bottom up much more incentive based versus the top down, much more centralized and so reporting is gonna be different. Um Not saying that's what I'd want, but it, it is where we are right now. And John, what do you think the ripple effects on us, companies might be of the regulation that we're going to see come into force in Europe? Yeah. Well, I think um and just 11 point to add there um is that I think the, the building blocks approach that the ISSB has brought is, is, is um I, I think that's, you're bridging the difference a little bit and helping to find a common baseline, but then allow for that jurisdictional um requirements on, on top of that and then we're seeing it firsthand from um from the issuers that we're talking to on a regular basis, you know, by the most recent example, um you know, last week we actually had a engagement meeting with management from Aflac, a Georgia based company. Um 70% of the business is in, in Japan. And so you can sort of hear first hand sort of how they're managing on the one hand, the evolving dynamics here in the US. But then what's happening in Japan, which is a little bit more aligned to the um to the eu approach, there's a Japanese stewardship code and just totally different context. So in terms of what we sort of hope for, uh and the idea is you have limited resources to dedicate to um ESG strategy and management. We, we hope we can get to a place where we can have a little bit less focus on, on managing very different types of approaches and, and um and evolution of them and, and uh um helping companies find sort of a single path that can be um uh that, that can navigate across um the, the most uh significant jurisdictions of, of uh relevant to them. I think John and Jackie, we are going to leave it there. Thank you both so much for your expertise and sharing all of those examples. Um We're really grateful that you joined us today. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Chris Baker, Head of North America, Enel X Way, Bart Franey, Vice President, Clean Energy Development, National Grid, Kristen Siemen, Vice President, Sustainable Workplaces, and Chief Sustainability Officer, General Motors Moderator: Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: The Electric Revolution

Chris Baker, Head of North America, Enel X Way Bart Franey, Vice President, Clean Energy Development, National Grid Kristen Siemen, Vice President, Sustainable Workplaces, and Chief Sustainability Officer, General Motors Moderator: Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Chris Baker, Enel X Way, Bart Franey, National Grid, Kristen Siemen, General Motors, Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Ok. I think we're all aware that to tackle climate change, we have to end our reliance on fossil fuels, eventually increase our investment in alternative energies. Electricity is and will continue to play an increasing role in the energy transition. According to the United Nations fossil fuels account for more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions, nearly 90% of carbon dioxide emissions. Our next group of speakers are going to be with uh Fortune executive editor Peter Van. Him to talk about how they are advancing renewable energy through electrification. Please welcome Chris Baker, Head of North America at Enel X Way, an organization aiming to add charging stations around the country which is a significant barrier. Bart Fry, vice President of Clean Energy Development for National Grid and Kristen Seaman, vice president of sustainable workplaces, chief Sustainability Officer at General Motors with Peter Van. Please welcome them to the stage. Thank you so much. Great to be back is the last time you'll see of me today, but not of a. Um And I'm very glad that we're having this discussion now on uh the electric revolution. Uh because it's a topic that I think is very important. And I just don't, I, I don't just say that I write about that too. Uh, and I've, I've written a story both about you, Chris and, and about Kirsten. Well, about your companies. Uh, but maybe you're up next. So what would you say? Um, but let me maybe start off with, um, with you, uh, Kirsten because, you know, a lot is happening in the world of cars. Uh, You know, GM, I don't remember this. Maybe you do remember the GM one, right? The EV one. Is that right? That was, that was over 25 years ago. Anyone ever own or drive one you're doing? Oh, there we go. Ok. Ok. That, that works. So you were of course a pioneer in electric cars back in the day. Some appreciation here. Um I'm too young for that. That's my excuse. Um But uh but of course, in the meanwhile, a lot changed Tesla came, became the most valuable car company. The GM said we're gonna go all electric by 2035 in the United States for New Light to the US vehicles. Yes. Right. And this is a big deal, right? For, for Gim. But then as you know, in recent weeks, we've heard news from your competitors including Lantis, I believe. Did you tell me that your husband works for this conversation? Um So that said we're actually going to continue to produce cars with internal combustion engines until at least 2050. Now, when you discuss that with your husband at the dinner table, uh, next question, uh, you stick with 2035 all electric. Yes, I, I mean, you can see our portfolio of vehicles that's coming out from the GM perspective, you know, and, and once you drive, uh, uh, an electric vehicle, you don't want to go back. If you look at G M's carbon footprint, over 75% is scope three category 11. The customer usage of our vehicles for us to get to our vision that was actually set back in 2017. Around zero crashes, zero emissions, zero congestion, you know, getting to zero requires us to go all electric and to decarbonise the grid. No second thoughts then because you know, it does, you know, make you wonder and I look at this and I think many of us look at this and say, well, you know, these the other big car makers, you know, they're, they've thought this through as well. They're no dummies, you know, and they say we cannot do it or we will not do it. Which of us do is it? Do you think already won't? II I can't answer for them. Of course. Right? I mean, all I can focus on is, is our strategy and, and what we see from a consumer demand standpoint and it's gonna take some time to transition, right? We can't do this by ourselves. We need a charging infrastructure, right? We need um materials. I mean, we've done a lot with sourcing of battery materials in order to be able to produce and, and localize and have a strong and resilient and sustainable supply chain. Um We need governments, you know, to partner with us. And so, so that is all gonna take time, but you can see our product portfolio that's coming out 2035 remains, you know, our, where are we today in America for GM new uh vehicle sold, percentage share of, I don't have the exact number, I mean, but we've made announcements, you know, we'll have capacity for um you know, up to a million um EVs by 2025 in the US and you know, pardon? Yes, yeah. So, so it's coming, I mean, the you can see the products that are out there and the excitement that they're driving, whether it be, you know, um our, our loyal customers for the bolt in the vault, you know, were, were tremendous. I mean, and, and huge loyalty. Ex Exactly. And um so, you know, in the recent announcement to reimagine the bolt based on the customer feedback, you know, it's a very affordable ev in the market. But then you think about products like the Cadillac Lyric, um the IQ that was recently announced um you know, the Silverado EV pick up is gonna be on the road soon, the super truck. So you see the um portfolio growing to offer products across, you know, all segments and really to be able to have everybody participate in and be in an ev the blazer, you know, the equinox. Do you see any resistance? I mean, do you think Silverado, the client? I, I would think that might be a client that would be resistant. Is that the case or not at all? I, I mean, it's gonna be some time for that entire segment to transition, right? And so we'll be producing both simultaneously to um as time goes on and that conversion occurs. But um they're awesome products. And so I think once people experience it, they're fun to drive, the acceleration is incredible and to be able to see the infrastructure continuing to grow and develop and that you can really live in a world, you know, people are used to seeing a gas station on every corner. Um We know you don't need one on every corner, but people want to see a charging station even though most people charge at home or at work, but there's still multi dwelling, you know, housing solutions that need to be addressed. And so well, I'm glad you brought it up because as it happens, our second Panelist, Chris Baker is actually building that infrastructure. Chris tell us, tell us a little bit more because you work for a company that I know from back in Europe. And now as being like, you know, a stuffy old school monopoly player in providing Italian no less uh uh energy. Um So, but then I discovered that you were like the most innovative and most ambitious player when it comes to electric charge in America. What is that the same company or do you share the same name? Well, thanks for the glowing intro. So, yeah, I mean, for those who don't know, and then many of you don't know that NL group is dedicated to empowering sustainable progress, right? That sounds fancy. But we did 150 billion in revenue last year. And the way in which we do that is really simplicity, right? So that the goal is to drive simplicity for our customers and for our businesses to make it as easy as possible for them to procure renewable energy um in the charging world. What that practically means is smart charging, right? So if you look at the numbers last year, 19.1 billion miles were driven by electric cars that was six terawatt hours of power. Most of you have no idea what I was gonna say. I was gonna try to sound smart, but it's a big number. So it's a million megawatt hours and practically what it means is to meet the projected growth of the market in the US. Uh You'll need to increase the power capacity 0.3 to 0.6% annually every year for the next 25 years of the grid, right of the grid so you could do that through adding 2 to 4 nuclear plants every year for the rest of our lives. Maybe not the best idea or you can do it through smart charging and incentivizing. And this is really what we need to see a little more from the energy commissions from the utility commissions. How do you incentivize charging at night and off peak hours when there's an excess of solar capacity so that you can, you can enable these evs at the lowest total cost. And that's what you're doing and that's what we're doing. How many, you were very ambitious? Right. Well, how many charges do you want to install in America? 10,000? 10,000? That would make you remember what that layer? Yeah, that, that would make us uh near the top if not the top II, I think it's also practical to say um that was two months before Tesla announced, the North American charging standard is uh a much more open network for many of these auto manufacturers. And uh practically what that means is much greater access to fast charging infrastructure, which is absolutely good, right? You don't pull up to a gas station and have seven different apps and seven different charging types for your vehicle. That makes no sense. But you stick with your ambition to build 10,000. I think the timing in which we do do so will potentially change. But I think what we're looking at really is. So there's a greater supply of chargers, lower utilization, where can we unique add value. And I think it's really supporting utilities and in the fleet depot space where we can aggregate our energy storage, aggregate our. And so what that means is that you don't just install chargers, but you also install batteries as opposed with those chargers that basically can harness correct when the, when the time is right. And, and this is where I think uh to do this properly, you the timing matters, right? So there's lots of renewables when the sun isn't shining or the wind doesn't blow, you can't create a stress on the grid because ultimately, we would all pay for that. So the intelligence and the timing of the charging really matters. So let's let's turn to uh to you Bart um because you work for the national grid, which, which was very confusing to me. Um Because you're obviously American and you work for a company called National Grid. But National Grid to be clear is not the American national grid. Well, it's not the physical national grid, but we do operate in Northeast New York and Massachusetts, primarily in the US. But we also have roughly 60% of our asset base is in the UK. And that's, that's where you operate National National Grid. Welcome to. Um you know, thank you America. I could say that as a um but so talk about this grid. Um And about how you develop it because obviously, there's a challenge that we're gonna have to increase if I understand by 0.6 to 0.9% the capacity of the grid each year. Uh There's the challenge also of making the grid clean. Am I right? Uh Can you tell us a little bit more about the current state of play and how do you think it will change? Absolutely. Um Before I get there a little bit about national grid, we are a large international electric and gas utility. Our strategic ambition is to provide equitable fair, affordable energy transition. And my work is focused on enabling that. So it is all about getting ahead with one of them was sustainable, right? Or not equitable equitable fair, affordable, affordable energy transition. But, but it is transitioning to clean. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. We are, we are very involved in integrating and modernizing the grid to accommodate large scale renewables. These are the things that are gonna move the needle in decarbonising the grid. We're also involved in laser focus conducting studies um advocating for anticipatory build outs that would enable electrification of transport. So all the transportation need not just in the passenger vehicle space but the medium and heavy duty truck space where they're not going to be charging at home. They're gonna want a seamless experience where they're going to pull into a service plaza, they're going to plug in and their, their batteries are going to be up to a megawatt, which is a big number. Are we ever going to see those replaceable batteries in cars? Does anyone have a prediction on that? That was the thing? Right. That point, it was the thing. It's still a thing. It's still a thing. Ok. Well, ok, we'll talk about that later then. Um So, uh so you're working on all of that? Where is America today? And where do you think it will be or should be, let's say five or 10 years down the line. So we're in this critical decade and we're 75 months away from 2030. And the reason why I say 75 months, because we're a large investor in infrastructure and infrastructure as you know, it takes a tremendous amount of time and that's why we need to have actionable plans today. We can't wait till the demand arises in some ways like uh Chris was saying, you know, people need to see that charger before they buy the car. So when you say 2030 that's because there isn't a stated goal of how green the grid will be by 2030. So how much would would that work? We want to achieve a 70% renewable energy target by, that's huge. That is huge. And we are today at uh 34. It's probably 60. OK. So it is actually quite, it's ahead of the nation, I suppose a lot of hydro. Mm um I want to turn to the to the audience for, for a question if, if you want to uh before I'm gonna ask my, my question about the batteries over here. If you state your name and your affiliation. Hi, my name is Angelo Molino. I am the president of Latina and Wellness. I am a fan of the electric car. I am Italian. Sorry for the uh no, no problem. We have a huge problem with infrastructure but my question is this the technology of the batteries when we will improve, we are waiting for the solid state batteries because the problem is that I cannot stop on the on the road to charge my car four hours. Ok. Now, I know that new models are very faster but the dream is go there and have the same meaning. So when I pump correct, I don't know where you charge. It takes four hours on the road. II, I won't be mean Italy but uh but it's, but it's what? 30 minutes, 40 minutes uh on a standard uh fast charger. I mean, it's obviously depends on capacity but it's frustratingly low, uh slow and nevertheless, right? So where, where are we headed to? What? Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I I personally think, I mean, and it's hard to conflate the diagrams of artificial intelligence, potentially quantum computing. But uh I think it's a basic R and D investment, right? If you have new material technologies for batteries, you will absolutely have superior battery lifetime safety density. Right. Solid state batteries are certainly coming along quite, quite well. I defer to when they're actually ready for show time on the road because there's heat and vibration, all sorts of things. Right. Yeah, I mean, battery technology, we're innovating every single day, um, to advance, you know, if you talk back to the, to the EV one to where we, you know, we with the volt and then the bolt and the the new technology, the ALL M platform that GM is coming out with, you know, is focused on increasing efficiency, reducing critical material usage, you know, which drives ultimately with faster charging and better customer experience. And so do you have a plan for what to put on the market in uh salt state battery? I mean technology, we're looking at everything, right? You know, and it's just a matter of the M platform is what we're producing with today. So, and that is that technology. No, no, no, no. So, but I, I mean, it's, it's really looking at what can give the best solution from an overall customer standpoint, right? And I think focusing on the customer experience and what the battery can provide in the from a platform standpoint and being able to put that across all segments is is what's important and the materials that it takes to produce that, you know, in ensuring that they're again available, done sustainably, you know, we've made a number of announcements with raw raw material suppliers to be able to secure that supply for the production that we're talking about. Fast charging is important. Battery is important. Grid is important. You're also working on your own, on creating infrastructure, aren't you on your own? I mean, actually with other car makers, can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, so recently we made an announcement with um a number of other automakers, um Honda BMW and many others about developing a public charging network again to really accelerate this transition, you know, in, in being getting and customers to be able to see that that infrastructure is available. There's no shortage of opportunities in the space right now. Um And so we've done a lot on our own. Obviously, other companies are doing their own. We've adopted the North America charging standard which will also be available in our vehicles to give our customers access to, as you mentioned, the, the Tesla network also. And so that's really just gonna continue to accelerate um the availability for the consumers if you bring it all down. But you know, you have these predictions, you said 75 months to 2030 reaching certain targets. You know, if you see all this activity, do you think it's feasible? Yes. Yes. Because if we, the only frustration would be we have the plans in place, we just need to execute on them sooner. And because we're primarily a regulated business it's, it's hard for policy makers to commit that kind of capital and, and pass along those two to ratepayers and consumers across the state without there being a need. But it's, we can't, it's not a chicken and an egg scenario. They're coming and we need to get out there and ready the grid for it. I can't wait for it. I have an electric car at home. Uh but I have to say after hearing this panel, I think like, you know, it's electric car heaven here and uh over here. But then I think back on my experience and I realize I've never been an electric car in America, so we're going to stay hopeful. Thank you all of you for this, a very interesting panel. And thanks to the audience for uh listening to.

Tom Davidson, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, EVERFI from Blackbaud Interviewer: Alan Murray,  FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Technology For Social Good

Now it's something of an understatement to say that A I has become a buzzy topic for business leaders. As many of them look to innovate and push boundaries with the goal of achieving new successes. But what about those leaders who also want to use their resources to help solve some of society's most complex issues. How can they leverage technology to help them do this to discuss this? Please welcome to the stage, Tom Davidson, founder and CEO of Ever five from Blackboard and Fortune Ceo Alan Murray. So Tom, we've been talking a lot about diversity here over the last 24 hours. I think you and I are like nail dressing very different. You have hair. Yeah, I mean, they're, they're so we apologize. Well, give us, give us a brief interlude. I want to talk about technology because when we were in this room together a year ago, most of us, I can't speak for you. I know I had never heard the word generative. A I, I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it meant. And when you think now about how it has changed our whole perception of the potential of technology to affect our lives. It's a reminder of just how fast technology is changing. Technology is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. But can you talk a little bit about how you see technology changing the efforts on the issues that we've been talking about for the last 24 hours. So I think uh specific to this group, um like everywhere else, you're going to see such a wide range of applications towards this. So in the areas that we're seeing internally, allowing companies at the highest level to story tell in a way that they never have before. So think about you're a very large corporation, you're operating over multiple continents, you're operating over multiple towns and you know, these are areas now where you need to be a storyteller in Hazard Kentucky, you need to be a storyteller in New York City. What A I and generative A I is can allow you to do is pull that data from hundreds of different touch points, interactions, learning uh situations in schools and communities, everything you're gonna be able to understand and compare company to company town to town, what you're doing in local education, how your team is engaging, number of hours spent everything and tell that story in real time when you're in front of a member of Congress, you regulator. So get a little more specific, tell us how you're incorporating that in your products. So one of the things that we're doing is um we talked a little bit of about this with a number of folks. All of this is living in government relations. It's living in coms, it's living in foundations, it's living over in the Exec suite. And what this is for the first time it's allowing us to do is pull all of that data into one place. Using A I to tell that story to compare state to state town to town division division company to company. And that's going to be something that's going to be live and it's going to happen really fast and that will help, it will help to impact. There's some other areas where you think technology can help advance this. It's really exciting and what companies are doing, for example, in education right now, I mean, you know, the status of K 12 education in this country and the need for corporate engagement in that is like never before the coming out of COVID. You're seeing test test scores declining, lack of counselors, you're seeing teachers burning out, you're seeing students show up in truancy levels at their highest levels in years. And so we really feel like this need for technology to come in and allow teachers and others. The time to get students back on track is like never before. And you're seeing that accelerate at a level that we have not seen in the 16 years that I've been doing this and it's really hitting kids in high poverty areas at a level that, um, that, you know, is, is very different from anyone else right now. And are they able to take advantage of it? I mean, do they, the resources they need the knowledge they need to make the most of it? You know, we're in an endless process of trying to wire schools and get broadband into schools and others. But it's one of the great successes. One of the great bipartisan successes is the wiring of schools and libraries, the provision of computers and allowing kids to get online has been just a fantastic success in the last, you know, 25 30 years. And uh we now allow the highway has been built and we can build things on top of that. I'd love, I know there are a bunch of people in this group who are focused on using technology to address some of the issues we've been talking about. We had a great presentation from, I'd love to hear from for, from uh some others, you know, raise your hand. Uh If you have something to I is Justin in the audience from IBM. Yeah. Can I put you on the spot? Ok. So hi everyone just, you know, Nixon Chief Impact Officer at IBM. Um And you know, we're, we're very focused on how we um provide skills, especially to low skilled individuals, entry level. Um you know, people as well. And one of the things that we did just two years ago in 21 is to make a commitment to skill, 30 million people by 2030. But what we're doing right now around A I and generative A I is how do we make sure we don't have the divide that we had? Especially when like new technologies like the internet, broadband, etcetera affected those underrepresented groups, underrepresented communities. So how do we make sure even something as simple as prompt? Engineering, how do you write the right, you know, create the right prompt. How do you understand how to make decisions around products and solutions? So under stand in ethical A I is important, it's very important to bring awareness to that as well. So very focused on how do we make sure we're bringing those skills to these very specific communities to make sure they're not being left behind? And honestly, this is a business imperative, but it's really about the bottom line as well. We want to make sure people are skilled to work not just for IBM, but for our clients and it's support society at large. So it's a huge effort of ours. Yeah, keep the microphone for a second because I have a question for both of you. I think it's pretty generally agreed among economists that the technology revolution we've seen over the last two decades has exacerbated inequality in advanced societies. You know, it's, it's given more power and more riches to the people who understand how, how to use it and widen the gap. There have been a couple of studies, Eric Brien did one. There have been a couple of others that suggest that this latest wave of generative A I may actually be the opposite. It may empower the the lower, less educated people, more than the most educated people. I wonder if either of you have any evidence of that being the case. So we we don't have evidence yet of that. But I know that I've seen examples of language, right? Language barriers and how A I can help people who may not be fluent in a certain language and that helps them, right? It empowers them, it helps them in their, their job as well. Um I think also like we talked about lower skilled individuals who need to understand how to create the right prompts. How does that help them in their current job? So it's really around how do we make sure that they understand how to be successful in the position that they have today? Because if you're not up skilled, re skilled and it includes a gene A I component, you, you may be at risk, right? I think there was a recent study that 40% of executives um said that, you know, there will be, I think 40% of jobs will need some sort of A I skilling over the next three years. So this is not like 10 years of this is over the next three years. So I think it's, it's really urgent that we bring those skills. Yeah. And I, I, by the way, I love the quote. I don't know who first said it. So I don't know who to credit it to, to say you don't have to worry about being replaced by A I, you have to worry about being replaced by somebody who understands how to use A I Yeah. Well, and also this is the thing about A I right now and any resource like this for teachers or kids thinking specifically about kids in schools, it's taken us on the positive side. This thing is going to leash a tremendous amount of energy and excitement and optimism in classrooms and skills, skill betting on the downside of this. You always have to come back to the fact that I would say it's taken us 400 years to so perfectly disadvantage kids in high poverty areas in this country. And it's devastating when you see the effects of that compounding effect of 400 years. I love your comment because this can't be one more area where at some point this computing power, at some point, the energy that it takes to drive, this is going to have a cost and what you learn as a, you know, as a former state legislator, you sit in these arcane conversations around school funding formulas and the way they work. What you realize is that's also a multi 100 year process of fully disadvantaging kids in high poverty areas. And so what I say it in this room is this group of people in this room. We have a unique responsibility to actually step into the gap of financing these types of things. Because if you're waiting for uh uh the Clarksdale school district in Mississippi or larger schools across the country to step in and finance these things for kids. You will wind up in the same place that you've wound up for multiple hundreds of years in this country with the haves and the have nots and the kids who had it four years before everyone else. And when that happens, you see this with reading and everything else, you can never catch up. This is the sales pitch part of your presentation, but that's ok. It's not a sales pitch for me. Yeah, but that's ok because you, you're helping uh these companies, there are lots of options by the way that are, you know, not just us and others who are trying to do this work in schools, but it is a round game. Make the case why this group, uh the the case, it's a version of what Justin was saying, why this group needs to get involved in this issue in the education issue. It's, it's very simple. Uh This is the biggest whiplash business of all time. Um You have governors and others and state superintendents, you know, the average life of a superintendent in the United States about two years. Um Governors will last four years, eight years. If they're lucky, it takes a long time for policy to get embedded in the work. And what happens is schools say, oh, great. We have a, you know, financial education program or mental health program. It's been funded by the state, the district others and in a year it's gone. And so the whiplash and the, and what teachers do is they say, I just, I don't know if I want to do this because I just don't know if it's gonna be here next month or next year or in the next bi annual budget cycle. So what I think about corporations, this is always strange to say, but in many ways, you are the thing that teachers and schools can count on the most, you're the most dependable source of revenue over multiple years that can help and they can actually look and see. And it's one of the few areas where you can look and see and guide and judge that as whether it's working or not and do comparative analytics school to school all funded by the corporate sector. And I say that is a good bleeding heart, you know, liberal Democrat is a big teacher union guy. So I, I believe that in my bones and, and I, and I believe IBM has done that, but who else is Caroline Golan in the room? Uh uh No who, who else wants to talk about uh exam show in the room? Yes. Can I put you on the spot? I love, I love putting people on the spot. Well, um I can give you examples that are a little bit different from immediate impact to education in um in, in the United States. I think technology plays a huge role in democratizing access, creating connections in a way that truly transforms lives and societies. And I'll give you the example of a platform that we call U which is uh from generation, unlimited UNICEF public private partnership forum that we do in India. And the goal is to transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people with the recognition that transformation is not un dimensional. It's not about giving digital skills or access to computers or uh mental health support. It is all of them and it's more, it's about social, you know, um support to them. It's about creating sponsorships, mentorships. So the platform is entirely enabled by technology and increasingly A I to make it more effective, more accessible, more leverage and it brings, brings together many public uh private sector players, many some of them are in the room today here, uh nonprofits, educational institutions, all of these to create a seamless access from education, skill development all the way to employability and support beyond that entirely enabled by technology, the technology because if the technology didn't exist, everybody is doing their bit and intervention here, an intervention there, but it's not transformative, so many great examples, you know, from biodiversity to creating more access and so on. Big believer. Um That's the example I would like to share you, you're an optimist. I absolutely am a believer. Uh anybody else have a quick example reaction to that. Oh I think that there's people should be incredibly optimistic about the tools that are getting put in place. The challenge for it is always a distribution issue of, of, of where it goes, how fast it gets it. That's always that. But it, but, but if you take a look, 10 years out, if we were to have this conversation 10 years from now, will we have seen significant improvements? Oh, I think you will. I, I think you absolutely will. Yeah. Good. Well, thank you. Thank you for your support for the impact initiative. Thank you for being here and uh the rest of you. Right.

Presenter: Jensen Harris, Co-founder and Chief Experience Officer, Textio

Impact Initiative 2023: A.I. That Works For Us

Good morning, everyone and welcome back. We have some fantastic conversations ahead for the rest of the morning. So let's get straight to it. So here's a fact for you, manager, performance feedback is often biased. That's because it typically lacks actionable advice, which can lead to inequitable growth opportunities, particularly for women and people of color without clear guidance and tangible feedback, how can people progress to get promoted? So, here to discuss all of this, I'm thrilled to welcome Tech's co founder and chief experience officer Jensen Harris and he'll be giving a presentation and demo of the company's generative A I software which removes biases from workplace language. Jensen. Welcome to the stage. Thank you so much. I'm Jensen Harris. I am the founder, co founder of text and we build software that helps companies around the world, hire and retain diverse teams. And I'm here today to talk about DE I, now we've all heard the scare tactics about the decline of DE I over the last day or so and DE I is about equity. Yeah. Right. It's about fairness. Yeah. But as Stacey Abrams said on this stage, not 30 minutes ago, it's also about the bottom line, right, every piece of research that has ever been done about diversity in the workplace has showed that more diverse teams actually perform better in the bottom line. HBs published in 2015 research that showed that public companies that have more diverse workforces in the top quartile outperform the market by 35% companies that are majority non white over the last four years have grown the revenue 10 times faster then their competition. So, DEI is about the bottom line. Now, I'm going to talk about something that is really, really important today, which is the crippling impact of the feedback gap in performance feedback. So we've all spent this time hiring diverse teams, right? We spend money, we spend effort and then people leave the company. Well, why do people leave the company a lot of the time? It's because of the feedback that they get? So I want to show some data text has put together some longitudinal data about performance feedback that I think is really important to show. I don't have my powerpoint clicker, but if someone does have it, thank you. So I appreciate that. So here is some data that's coming out next week that you're getting a sneak preview of here for the first time ever. So why are people quitting their jobs? Well, if you look on the TV screens to your side, you can see the top eight reasons. Three of them are directly about poor performance feedback that their managers are doing a bad job of telling them what they need to do to do their job better and then get promoted. And really the fourth, I'd say there's 1/4 1 on here, which is my manager is the reason I'm leaving, which is usually about performance feedback as well. So when people write poor performance feedback, what are the problems with that feedback? Well, oftentimes it isn't actionable and there are patterns of bias that show up again and again in performance feedback. So for instance, as you can see here, women are almost twice as likely to get non actionable feedback than men and people of color are way more likely to get feedback that's about their personality or is sort of like milk toast that you can't do anything with then white dudes who are getting the best feedback in our public companies. And so there's this pervasive bias throughout written performance feedback that shows up in this huge longitudinal data report. So you look at what language is used to describe women, collaborative, helpful. Nice. Any of you women heard that in performance feedback? What do men hear about themselves? They're ambitious, they're confident these are patterns that show up in real world data. And does it have an impact? Yeah, it has a huge impact because men then tend to take that feedback and use it to get promoted to get more opportunities to eventually end up in the C SUITE to end up on boards of directors. Last piece of data here that I'm going to show average salary versus the bias and performance feedback, direct correlation. The more bias, the groups that get more bias, Latinx women, black women get the most bias, lowest average salary, least amount of bias, white men for instance, have much higher average salary. So now I'm going to show you software a new product. So text you has been well known for recruiting software for the last almost decade that uses artificial intelligence to help you recruit more diverse teams. For the first time ever, we have a product called textual Lift that uses artificial intelligence to actually interrupt bias as managers, right, performance feedback. So that when you're reporting on pay equity, when you're reporting on promotion velocity, you know that there's fairness in the system that leads to that data being great. So I'm going to come over here and I'm going to show you a very short demo of textual lift. So the first thing that it does is this kind of data that I showed you about what's happening in your organization. It can show you about your organization during the performance feedback cycle. So I can see here, this is data from one of our customers that has 9044 reviews, 1.4 billion words of feedback written by this organization. And what are the patterns that show up? Well, black employees received 141% more personality feedback. That's just feedback. That's about your personality. Like, do you smile enough? Are you agreeable enough than everyone else in the organization? Women received significantly more non actionable feedback than everyone else. And white employees got 39% more written feedback than all other employees. This is just what's happening. This is not about politics, this is not about what do you wish was happening. It's literally what's happening in your organization in real time. And so I can dig in even more and look at this data so I can see across and I can pivot by department, I can pivot by kinds of feedback and I can just visualize like for instance, looking here at the quality of feedback given to white folks versus black and Hispanic folks, black and Hispanic folks are getting almost double the amount of problematic feedback. This is obviously a huge, huge problem and ends up defining who stays in your organization, who gets promoted, who ends up in leadership roles, who ends up in the C suite. It all starts here with the words your managers use to give feedback to your employees. So there may be nothing more important that you can be investing in. And so what text O does is interrupts that bias while the manager is writing their performance feedback using this is as large as we can make it unfortunately, on these screens, but you can look at this again later after online and of course on our website text dot com as well. So I apologize. It's a little small here. So what I have here is a performance review that a manager is writing and it's highlighted in a whole bunch of different ways to show different categories of problems. And this is integrated directly into where your, where your employees write their performance reviews like workday or something like that. And I can hover over different categories and see, wow, this is an exaggeration. I can see here's a claim that you're making that's non actionable. It says you're doing something but doesn't tell me how to fix it. I can see here's another example of personality feedback or here's an interesting thing. It says, I feel like Mabel is very robotic. Well, that's personality saying it's robotic, that's not something I can take action on. So let's fix this. So we've all heard about how generative ai creates bias. Well, it doesn't just create bias. We can use generative ai to remove bias. And here's an example of that. So I'm going to click, let's fix this sentence here. And as I do text you is going to generate bias free alternatives to the sentence. It's going to help the manager find a different way of saying the same thing that has then been verified by text you to be bias free that then the manager can choose the one that sounds more like them and they can go ahead and just replace it in the text. So imagine being able to interrupt the language that's used by your managers to make it more impactful, to make it more fair to fix the problems as they're happening in your organization. As opposed to waiting to reporting years down the road. Once those, those folks that you've worked so hard to recruit to create your diverse team have already left your organization. So if you want to see the data in this report, you can go to text dot com slash report and you will get all of this data about performance feedback and its effect on diversity, equity and inclusion and the bottom line of what you're doing at your company and how you perform. So that's what I have for you today. Thank you so much.

Michelle Gethers, Chief Diversity Officer and Head, Corporate Responsibility, Inclusive Impact, and Sustainability, Visa Alethia Jackson, Senior Vice President, ESG, and Chief DEI Officer, Walgreens Boots Alliance Brian Tippens, Senior Vice President and Chief Social Impact Officer, Cisco Moderator: Holly Ojalvo, Managing Editor, FORTUNE; Co-chair, Fortune Impact Initiative

Impact Initiative 2023: Inclusivity That Meets the Moment

Michelle Gethers Corporate Responsibility, Inclusive Impact, and Sustainability, Visa Alethia Jackson, Walgreens Boots Alliance Brian Tippens, Cisco, Holly Ojalvo, FORTUNE

OK. And then uh we're getting ready for our next panel and I should introduce this by saying the following last year brought economic uncertainty. We all know that a mass layoffs for many organizations, data from REO labs found that more than 300 diversity equity and inclusion employees were laid off from major organizations de I officers that is a much higher attrition rates than any other job function. I think that's quite a shocking revelation in this next conversation, we'll hear from business leaders on how they are trying to remain committed to inclusivity amid these headwinds and amid of course, also a public outcry in certain circles against diversity efforts. Please welcome Michelle Getters, Chief Diversity Officer and head of corporate responsibility inclusive impact at Visa. Alicia Jackson, senior Vice president of ESG and Chief Diversity Officer at Walgreens Boots Alliance and Brian Tippetts, senior vice president and Chief Social Impact Officer at CISCO. They will be interviewed by Fortune's Deputy editorial director for live media, Ellie Austin. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Thank you, Peter and welcome Michelle Alicia and Brian. We're so thrilled to have you with us, Michelle. I want to start with you So last year, Visa opened a big new office in Atlanta. And at the same time, the company committed to creating 1000 new jobs to start the office by 2025. Now, companies like Coca Cola CNN, Home Depot, they have HQS in Atlanta. And despite this, the city has the widest income inequality based on race in the whole of the US. And so to kick us off, my question is, is there a way for visa to ensure that its presence in the city has a meaningful trickle down effect so that it really positively impacts the day to day of minority communities? Yes. So thank you for the question. And we are very excited to be in Atlanta and we came here for three reasons because there's great talent here that is diverse. Our customers and clients are here and we believe in being part of community. And so the one of the first things we did to show the trickle down impact is we went to high school, which is one of the local high schools with a large percentage of Children in poverty. And we went to be part of financial education and we had the mayor there and many other city officials to say we have to invest at root causes and not just put band aids on and some of the root causes of poverty are education, their disparities in health, et cetera. So we're trying to be part of the ecosystem and not just an employer of choice, Alicia, I want to throw it back to Peter's introduction. He mentioned that we're seeing attrition um when it comes to de I roles at a higher rate than almost every other job function. And there's been a lot of different reasons thrown out and speculation as to why this might be. What's your perspective on this, concerning trend? For sure why? I mean, I'm definitely not in a position to speculate on the, the attrition. You're seeing, what I can speak about is our long history of having ad I officer. So for Walgreens and Walgreens Alliance, um we've had a diversity equity inclusion officer for over a decade. Um It's something that is just embedded in our business practice and what we do, we like to say that uh D I is in our DN DNA based on the customers and patients we serve and where we sit in communities across the country and, and Brian, I know you bring a bit more of an external perspective um to this discussion. Do you think this decline that we're seeing in the DN I function? Is it, is it terminal? Is there a way to turn the ship around? Yeah, I think it's about having embedded systems. And so we at Cisco have long had a commitment to diversity equity inclusion within the four walls of the company. We've long had diversity leaders. We've got our Chief Diversity Officer here today. Gloria, who's, who's joining for the couple of days, we in 2020 in the wake of racial reckoning of 2020 asked ourselves what we could do more to focus externally in communities and formulated a social justice office with 12 primary pillars, some internally facing, but a lot externally facing on increasing our number of African American owned partners and suppliers in our supply base and focusing on hbcus and the importance of that program was making it sustainable, making it sticky coming for the metrics that get reported to the board on a quarterly basis, creating those systems that are pervasive so that you don't see retraction when things get kind of bad externally, you mentioned metrics and that's a really interesting point. And Michelle and Alicia, I'd like to ask you, are there any metrics that you found to be particularly efficient? You depend on more than others when it comes to reporting your diversity and inclusion, Michelle, let let's start with you, you know what gets measured gets done. So it's really important to look at the key results, but it's also important to look at the indicators. So we do care about our representation rate of our Black Latinx mixed race, indigenous at the vice president level at the leader level as well as overall. But we also care about how we representing women because this intersectionality, how do we think about women at leadership levels? How do we think about women overall and then what are the leading indicators, the pipeline, who's interviewing, who and then who's getting promoted? So we look at several different um metrics and no single one Alicia. Have you got anything to add? Sure. Um Just uh similarly, we look at again, what is our leadership um level? And so we look at women, people of color, we overall, we look at uh representation for people with disabilities across our company and really try to ensure again that our workforce is reflective of the, you know, the communities we serve across the country and we measure and we report out. Um and so in our ESG report, we, you know, use very stringent standards about being able to quantify um our progress and um in our measures and you talked just then about leadership. Last month, it was announced that Ros Brewer is stepping down as CEO of Walgreens. Um that news was met with a lot of surprise, but also a degree of concern. I guess that one of only two female black CEO S in the Fortune 500 is, is stepping away on what this might mean for women and minorities more generally at the top level of corporate America. And I, I wonder um how are you talking to employees about Rose Brewer leaving? And also what are you doing to retain workers during this potential time of flux for the company? Sure. Well, first again, I'd like to thank Ros Brewer for her leadership and mentorship um during her tenure as the CEO of WB A and um and we, as our board has announced, we are searching for a new CEO and we'll look for diverse candidates as we always do um in consideration of the sort of candidate slate with respect to what are we doing for our team members. One of the great things and the things we're so proud of is that we have been working very hard for years to create a culture of inclusion. We have a strong business resource groups. And so those are uh you know, really looking to provide that space um where people feel included, where people's voices are heard. And so we have open conversations and we with authenticity as we look at our overall corporate values and wrap around our team members, not just now, but always. And so having already done the work of creating that culture, um it's helpful when you have challenging times. So it's a multi pronged approach really. Um I want to talk a bit about the rollback of affirmative action and its possible implications on the corporate world. One possibility that we are going to potentially see more of is lawsuits when it comes to DN initiatives. We've already seen a couple and I wonder how Brian, if let's put this question to you. Um First of all, what do you think companies could or should be doing to prepare for that possibility and is it going to make organizations less risk averse when it comes to their diversity and inclusion. Thank you for asking me the most controversial question. Can I say first on the issue of metrics? I, I love what Michelle said about what gets measured gets done. I think as we think about our metrics, we have to be thinking about tying our metrics to business value. I've long talked about the three CS of diversity. It's about compliance, meeting compliance requirements everywhere we need to, it's about corporate social responsibility, doing the right thing. But most importantly about competitive advantage, we have to show that diversity, equity inclusion adds to business value, whether it's around eliminating regrettable attrition or making sure that our employees needs are met or making sure we can satisfy our customers in the marketplace. We have to try do tie dollar value to the work that we do in terms of metrics. And then in terms of long term sustainability, I think we just have to be sure we're defensible in what we're doing and all of our programs are not, they're not quotas, they're not set aside. They're about making sure we have a wide table and we're looking at a broad set of candidates and making sure that all voices are heard. I think it will change the way that some people message what they're doing and that's a bad thing. Unfortunately, I think it's important that us companies that are in this and are about purpose, speak loudly about continuing to be about purpose, right? And so it's not about set asides or quotas or affirmative action. Really? It's about setting a wide table again so that all voices are heard. Michelle, I want to come to you on the the affirmative action question. And is the ruling in any way changing the way that you internally are thinking about DN I, the reality is as a purpose driven organization that believes that we do our best work when we are inclusive. And for us inclusion is this idea that we value the unique identity of everyone and their contributions so we can all reach our full potential. And so as we think about it, that way, we are staying the course, we are doing the right things and it is fundamental to our business model. We're a network of networks that exist everywhere and our reality is everyone is a visa card holder. We are in communities around the world. We should represent those communities and we should do it proudly. And we have, I I think Brian put it perfectly as he referred to. Let's not give it the wrong name and sabotage our work instead, let's be proud of this work because it's the right thing to do. And it's fundamental to good business practice and that's how we look at it and that's how we're thinking through and acting internally. It's undoubtedly the right thing to do. I I guess recently it's possibly become a bit more complicated and risky for want of a better word, Alicia. How is WB A thinking about this? Is it a question of taking external counsel? What steps are you taking to shore yourself up essentially against the possibility of legal action? Sure. Well, we continue to really shape all of our programs based on what our business values and business priorities. Um, as Brian says, what really helps us get the be the deepest talent bench, um and be able to serve all of our customers across the country, whether that's in part West Virginia or South side Chicago, where we were formed. And so we continue to look at it from that lens, what aligns to our business priorities and how we best positioned um to be innovative, to provide innovative services and products um that make us more competitive in the marketplace. I want to talk a bit about the growing partisanship that we're seeing across the country really and how that has really turned corporations into political battlegrounds. We only have to think of the bud light situation from earlier this year or target. And I wonder, Brian, I'm interested to hear maybe about a time when you and Cisco potentially or at a previous organization have found yourself in some sort of external cross hat if one springs to mind and, and how you navigate it. No, I I would say these external partnerships are critical because those are the folks that are doing the hard work, right. We invest a lot in equal justice initiative and Southern Poverty Law Center and, and HR C and in the long list that I'm sure a lot of us partner with and those organizations are frequently taking positions that might be viewed as controversial, but we have to be ok with that. Right? I think we have to invest in the companies or the organizations rather that are the feet on the ground that know best how to challenge these issues and be able to stand by our, I guess I'd say that we can't be reactive in these situations. We have to tie back to our corporate principles, our purpose as a company. And as long as we're doing that, we could feel kind of assured in standing our ground. So it's being willing to be controversial if you feel that it's for the right reasons and it aligns with your values, being willing to stand by our purpose, whether it's viewed as controversial or not, right? And sometimes we have to make these decisions that, you know, this is what we stand by, this is our purpose. We're not a waiver from this. And if you don't agree with this, maybe this is not the company for you and that's maybe where Bud Light and target they were different and that they did waiver slightly on, on their, on their decisions, Alicia on this subject earlier this year. Walgreens was criticized by Progressives for announcing that it would not dispense abortion pills in 21 states where Republican A had threatened legal action against pharmacies that did dispense the medication. And, and I wonder how you reflect on that moment now? Sure. So we never wavered on our position that we once certified by the FDA that we would dispense anywhere that any jurisdiction where it was legally permissible. And so we, we did not change that. And that was, I think people got the wrong message around that. But our, our, where we stood on that remained the same and that's where we currently stand. So unfortunately, I think it was a, a very uh confusing issue and it was a very complex issue, right? And so those take more than sound bites to understand. Um and it takes a bit of explanation, but again, where we came out very early saying that we would dispense and we didn't waiver from that. But so you think people misunderstood maybe that, that the headlines or that the media weren't reporting wasn't accurate around it? Can you just elaborate slightly on that? Sure. I will say our position never changed on, on, on the fact that we would dispense in jurisdictions where it was legally permissible. I would love to open this up to questions from the audience. Mr Alan Murray is, is, is a allowed to ask questions. Ok? I want to go back to the numbers that both Peter and Ellie cited because we clearly have three great companies represented here on the stage. We have Visa and Walgreens and Cisco. And we have great companies represented in the room. And I was thinking, listening to you talk, well, maybe we invited the wrong people to the conference, but something is going on out there when you look at those numbers of layoffs of DEI officials and you all three are very well plugged in, you know, the community. Well, what's your sense of what's happening more broadly outside of your company? I would say that in the wake of the racial reckoning of 2020 a lot of companies were very reactive. We've got to do something. We had an old crap moment in corporate America. So companies who tied this to purpose, our purpose at CISCO is to power an inclusive future for all right. So this was part of our DNA. This is not new, this is not being reactive. So that allowed us to stay the course companies that were reactive and said we've got to do something in 2022 years later, three years later says, oh, well, this is not cool anymore. This is not important to our customer base. And the second thing I would say was tying it to business value if a company can do away with the den I officers because it didn't have business value. Well, that's a problem, right? That the situation wasn't set up in such a way that the Den I leader was adding business value through the metrics that I talked about, you know, satisfying our customers or satisfying our team members? Right? Does that make sense? Any other questions from the floor? One question I have for Alicia and Michelle in particular, is that looking at your titles? Um It's clear that there seems to be a bit of a trend which is de I roles attached to other job functions, you both have other job titles attached. Um Other functions. Do you have as much time as you would like in these split roles to dedicate to de I initiative? I don't view my role as actually split. The reality is, is inclusion and diversity. If we stop thinking about it as a head count game is actually in a thread in your business. It exists when I talk to customers and clients, it exists when I think about community and philanthropy, it exists when I think about the environment. So it's not actually separate functions. It's about really understanding corporate responsibility and the value of inclusion and diversity in your business system, especially if you're purpose driven. So the answer is yes, I have plenty of time and I would agree completely. Sometimes people will ask, well, where does B I fit under the ES and the GM I answers, it fits under all of them and it is the running threat. If you're looking at the environment and especially your internal environment as far as your workforce and your team members. If you're looking at social impact, when you think about health equity, which is a big issue for us and something we're trying to tackle and when you think about community and then governance, good governance as well. And so it really does, it is that thread that runs through them all, it doesn't stand in isolation, but in fact, it is something that brings them all together. Michelle Alicia o'brien. Thank you so much. That's all we've got time for. And thank you.

Donnel Baird, Founder, BlocPower Dr. Caroline Golin, Global Head, Energy Markets and Policy, Google Dr. Tammy Ma, Lead, Inertial Fusion Energy Initiative, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Moderator: Molly Wood, Molly Wood Media

Impact Initiative 2023: The Green Revolution Is Here

Donnel Baird, Google, Dr. Tammy Ma, Lead,Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Molly Wood, Molly Wood Media

And now I'm gonna make an abrupt transition. We many of us I assume woke up to breaking news alerts about flooding in Libya that has left the last I saw something like 10,000 people missing, um thousands dead. That is just the latest in a string of increased natural disasters, roaring fires across North America Europe and Australia devastating hurricanes and typhoons. Climate change has unquestionably arrived in full force and is here to stay. There are however, uh and I have focused the back half of my career on this solutions and opportunities for change and so on. Uh One of one such opportunity is the transition as soon as we can to cleaner and renewable energy sources. Joining us. Now we'll hear from three leaders who are focused on accelerating that green energy transition. I'm excited to welcome Dr Carolyn Golan, the global head of energy markets and policy at Google, who's focused on how to help the tech giant reach the goal of 100% carbon free energy by 2030. Doctor Tammy Ma is the Inertial Fusion Energy lead at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory which is a mic drop all by itself. And which successfully achieved nuclear fusion in December of last year. And Carly Swift is the General Council for Black Power, a Climate technology startup that focuses on bringing eco-friendly all electric heating and cooling systems to older buildings in primarily low income communities. Please give a warm welcome to my panel. Welcome, welcome to my second straight all woman panel feeling pretty good about this. Um So I wanna be mindful of our time, which is short because we're going to talk about some complicated energy issues with a pretty eclectic cast here. Um So I'm going to start by asking each of you to explain a little bit what you're working on and I'll start with you Caroline. Thank you and thank you for having me that being my hometown talking about such an important topic. So I lead a global team at Google and our responsibility is broad, but I think most relevant today is we are responsible for coming up with the solutions to decarbonise, the grids that we operate on. And that includes the partnerships, the policies, the products, the innovations that Google wants to spur in the ecosystem today to make sure that not only we can meet our sustainability goals, increasingly our business objective, but also create access across the globe for everyone to reach a decarbonise future. And so we work in every country that we have operations which are many uh I think 29 right now and we're working at every, every level. And I spend most of my days trying to think through how we're going to create more innovation in this system so that we can drive change faster. Ok. Hi. Thank you for having me. Um So fusion is the reaction that powers the sun. Um And what we do at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore, national Lab is we have the world's largest most energetic laser. Um And what we do with that laser is actually compress fuel pellets of hydrogen and deter and tritium and get them to fuse. And if we can do that, which we did last December, we demonstrated more energy out than we put in with that laser. And what that means is it opens up an entirely new energy source that would be clean, completely abundant, sustainable with no high level nuclear waste where we are now, we still have a lot of R and D to do to make this an energy source that we can put on the grid. Um But we've, we've demonstrated the fundamental scientific feasibility now and we're hoping to deploy this as a new energy technology for the future Charlie. Thank you so much for having me. Um So at block power, we are a startup based in New York City. And what we're doing is we are trying to make buildings smarter so that we can reduce emissions while at the same time improving air quality and creating jobs. So we're doing that by um managing and creating workforce development programs where we train um folks in, in the community to, to uh enter the green workforce. But then we're also uh taking on a very, very big task of retrofitting older buildings. It's, it's difficult work. It's not easy. Um The science isn't, hasn't always caught up to where we are, but we think that by doing this, we're gonna be able to help reduce um emissions um in greenhouse gas. Um It, it's interesting because every one of you, you would think that fusion is the hardest problem on the stage. And yet I would argue that every one of you is tackling something that's incredibly difficult. So I'm gonna come back this way and then of course, as is in fortune style, I'll be coming to the audience for questions. So please start thinking about them and flagging down our runners. Um The built environment and buildings account for depending on who you ask. 60% of greenhouse emissions and retrofitting is the single. I I would argue hardest thing about that. Um Talk about the challenge of scaling that everywhere. Well, absolutely. So there are about 5 million small to medium size commercial buildings that we can focus on and that accounts for about 7% of greenhouse gas there. That's the estimate. Um And there are a lot of challenges. First, there's a workforce challenge. We don't have a workforce that is um pre prepared to to enter the market for green jobs. The second problem is really technology. We do a lot of projects that no other company would ever consider taking on. We're talking about old churches um that have oil systems that have never had air condition um where we're going in and we're helping them transition to a new um heat pump system. And so there's a lot of learning that we are, are doing and we are, and part of that learning is so that we can help others um learn from what we've learned to in order to, to expand what we are doing. So I think all of that is, is part of uh the, the challenges that we have. But we're, we're, we're in it and we um the founder El built this company based on a simple idea that clean energy should be available to everyone. And so we have to scale it in a way that everyone has access. Um And so that's what we're trying to do with Black Power. And then quickly before I move on, what are some of the, what are the pieces of the science that haven't caught up to where you want them? So I would say we have found challenges specifically around older buildings. Um Often many of the manufacturers who are building heat pumps, for example, aren't necessarily testing them on the types of retrofit projects that we are embarking on. And so even though you can, you can have um equipment that it functions. But when it is introduced to an environment that is different, it's not gonna work. Someone, someone set an example was you can have a Lamborghini that goes 0 to, to 60 on the highway, but try to drive that up a hill or a mountain, you're gonna have a different experience. And so we have to figure out a way to uh the science has to catch up with what happens because we, we're not gonna build our way out of this by building new buildings. We have to figure out a way to make our existing building portfolio work. If you convert that Lamborghini to electric, I'm just saying, if you would buy me one, that'd be great, right? Yeah, we'll talk about that later. I don't have one. OK. And then fusion super hard problems, but also one that's in an interesting point right now, I would argue because you have both public and private entities working on it. Do you feel like you're in a race? Are you sort of hopeful that a public entity gets there first? Yeah. So we've been trying to do fusion for over six decades now. And for the most part, it has been publicly funded because it is this very high risk, long term R and D work. We are seeing a lot of new startup companies in this space, they're bringing a lot of momentum and it's, it's awesome because Fusion is such a big challenge. We absolutely need help. And so government, we have a, a history right of doing the very fundamental R and D and then the transition, the tech transfer happens with commercialization through private companies. And so hopefully, we're at that point where we can work together and really push to make fusion power plants a reality. Now, the Biden administration came out with a bold decal vision for the commercialization of fusion in a decade. Um And um hopefully, that means uh we get uh a lot of investment from the government, a lot of support. Um But also the private companies that can help us to take that technology and transition it. I'll, I'll come back to that in a minute again. 10 to a million questions about fusion. Um Caroline uh Google has been a really interesting player, I think in clean energy and net zero in, in terms of being the company, I think that demonstrated to a lot of other companies that it is possible actually to decarbonise. Um Now I wanna ask you why you're like, oh thank God, that's where you went with that. Interesting. But now those efforts are coming in the context of massively increasing power use, right? The tech sector is the NA I are only uh uh probably exponentially growing the amount of power that's gonna be used. And so how do you see this challenge and the your ability to keep up with it? Well, that is the million dollar question, right? Um So, uh at a high level, I think we all have to recognize we're in this really interesting place in, in history where we both have an onslaught of clean energy, a race to finance and deploy clean energy, which means we need space on the grid and we have this resurgence of industrial and manufacturing growth, which means we need space on the grid, right? And the key to this is actually making sure that we're doing that together and we're doing that thoughtfully and we're creating the market structures that are a win win. I will tell you when I started at Google, our investment in 24 7, our goal around 24 7 in decarbonising operations and really having control over what our electricity makeup looked like was largely couched in the sustainability goal. I will tell you that it's changed dramatically and we see that as a competitive advantage across the globe and we see that as a piece of our resiliency and our to grow our product and, and meet our business needs and where I think that's gonna become the most interesting. And what I'm I've been really passionate about recently is making sure that where we are locating the investments we're making are actually driving impacts in the community. We were talking about this, you know, backstage, which is that where we put our money matters. But it also we also recognize the communities that we invest in don't have the same access to clean energy that we do. So that means working with our policy makers, working with other NGO S, we went through a three year um sort of review and engagement where we listened to every NGO every community developer and said, how do we do this? Well, how do we create wealth within our communities around the clean energy transition? And we landed on a number of programs. And in addition to that, it's also about working to fundamentally change the infrastructure. So we have to work with the Ts Os. We have to work uh with the RT Os. We have to work with all policy makers because it's not built for vision. It's not built for fusion actually either. Um It's not built for what we need, but it's, it's, it's uh it is the challenge. And I would say though, for anyone who sees the growth in clean energy strictly at the sustainability goal in this country, they're not talking to the industrial manufacturing class because that is not the conversation anymore. Say a little bit more about that if you would, I I think that what we've recognized is that a decarbonization of the grid is, is inevitable, how fast we do it. And at what cost is going to determine whether we meet the challenge of climate change and whether we do it in an equitable manner. But if you are a company that's trying to grow. You see clean energy, particularly firm, clean energy and you see the growth of that new technology as resilience and your ability to have ownership over the number one input that's going to drive your competitive advantage in the marketplace and as utilities in this country and across the globe catch up to that, they are gonna be investing as well. So do we have ownership, do we drive the agenda? Do we make sure it is both net positive for business and for the communities we operate in or do we leave it to chance? And I think increasingly our customer class is recognizing we need to be in charge of it, right? And I think sort of to the point even about public private partnership and fusion, do we want with all due respect, private companies to have that ownership and to have deployed this, you know, kind of critical infrastructure. We're seeing conversations about that with respect to spacex and all kinds of, of um of infrastructure before I let you jump in there, I am gonna see if there are any questions in the audience. Otherwise I'm gonna keep peeking out on Fusion. We have, we have one over here if you and if you want to be prepared in advance, we have other runners. So put your hand up and they'll find you. Hi, uh I am Angelo Molino, president of Latina Music and Wellness Company. My question is about the Fusion like a argument and the dream to have the cold fusion reactor in a place or the actual reactors that are providing energy. How long is I know that it is a question of billion dollars because I start to listen in Europe, I am Italian about the cold fusion maybe 25 years ago and then disappeared. The topic in a way that is like hidden because we have another kind of a production of energy in this moment. But the danger to use the fission is under the eyes of everyone. And the fusion is a real, a new prospect of the production of energy in your professional opinion. Like a scientist. How long we have to wait? Thank you. The same fusion question. So let me do a quick clarification. Coal fusion has been debunked. What we actually do is hot fusion. And so you'll, you'll hear it as thermonuclear fusion or just, just fusion where we are right now. We're still in the very early R and D phases, to be honest, right? And you never know when those breakthroughs will come or there's still a lot of parallel technology development. We need to do, we need better lasers, we need to figure out how to generate targets cheaply. We have to integrate all of these different subsystems. So there's still a lot of work to do and how fast we can do. It very much depends on the level of funding and the support we get in all honesty, right. The way the US government right now, we are the largest funder of fusion in the world. It will be never. However, the government is right now is very supportive, Germany just pledged a billion dollars by 2028. The UK is putting in 6 700 million over the next few years. So we're starting to see a lot more interest. I would say if we did a Manhattan project type scale or an Apollo project type scale where we said this is really important, right? We need the clean energy, we need that limitless energy. It probably could be done in a decade, right? Barring that, I'll say a few decades, I have seen many quotes to that effect. That sort of there's there is a level of funding that gets us there in 10 years and the level of funding for the last 60 years has effectively been fusion. Never to your point. Are there other questions in the audience? I'll ask you. Um then I will kind of I think start to wrap us up with a question about mm a question about adoption. So you know, there's this, there's a, there's a rush, there is a sense I think of urgency and also there is a need for power full stop globally. And so I wonder how you see like, well, I'll start with Black power, you know, I believe in the adoption curve as people adopt heat pumps and retrofit technologies, they become cheaper and more available across the world. But I wonder how you think about Black Power's mission even larger with acknowledgement that it's already really hard. Well, I think the scale question is what we're, we're trying to answer, we are looking at technology as a way to identify risk so that we're able to take on these projects and then scale those. Um because once the projects become more repeatable, it'll be much easier for us to, to scale. Um And I think that coupled with the work we're doing around helping to create this green, this, this what we call a green core or folks that are able to jump into these jobs that we need in order to move um these clean energy projects forward, that that's what we think is the way that we do it. And then also, I think the other part of our power is that we're, we are working with sort of the Wall Wall Street, we're working with um nonprofit community. We are sort of the the connector of all these group to try to help them bring, to get, bring those folks together, which would, which we think helps skill. So our light lightning round version, tell me what is the biggest barrier that you have to scaling fusion? I think we know it's cash money, well, making it work, first of all. Um But um you know, the the potential of is so great that we want to deploy it around the world because that, that level of energy will raise standards of living worldwide. However, right now the US is in the lead, we want to maintain that lead because whoever gets there first gets to set the values, right. Um You know, we don't want our adversary states to get a hold of fusion first and then set a rule set that limits the way the energy is used in a way that's not fair and not equitable. And so that's, that's we're aware of that. And we're trying to get ahead of the curve now and think about these things as we develop a new industry. Amazing and then five words or less. What's your number one? How do you, how do you fundamentally change every single market in the world to be focused on decarbonization instead of fossil fuel production? Um I will say this alignment. We have shadow policy institutions, we have shadow governing boards, we have incentives coming from every single direction. There is not a governor or a regulator in this country who really understands ESG, who understands greenhouse gas protocol, who understands all these different shadow institutions that are developing the incentives for private capital goes, if we do not align those, we will run around in circles and the things we need to build, we will not get those amazing. Thanks everybody. Thank you so much to my wonderful Panelist.

Deborah Draper, Director, OnBoard Roosevelt Giles, Board Member, Just Capital La Nise V.  Hagan, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, OneTen Moderator: Ruth Umoh, Leadership Editor, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Advancing Boardroom Diversity

All right, good morning, everyone. Uh Alan said, great to see all of you here early, bright eyed and bushy tailed uh and welcome to our panelists. Thank you so much for joining Fortune today. Thank you. I'll pose this first question to the entire group. Obviously, this conversation is going to touch on what it will take to advance boardroom diversity. Let's start by level set in. What are some of the major challenges the barriers that you're seeing today to accelerating boardroom diversity was about? Let's kick things off with you. Well, thank you for uh having me and uh you know, one of there, there, there's several things here uh around the board diversity because companies to look at diversity as they, as they step down, especially in the boardroom because the boardroom represents the Supreme Court of stakeholder capitalism, right? And so if you have not been a CEO, if you have not been in the C Suite, therefore, you do not have the skill sets, ok? That's necessary to be a board member. But what we're seeing now is this shift, we're seeing this shift from, from compliance governance, ok? The Banks Oxley and Dodd Frank era to stakeholder governance. And when you look at that shift, it requires a diversity of thought, right? And it requires a whole different mindset as to how you look at risk and the sustainability of the company, I want to turn to you. Uh because in many ways, uh board recruitment uh mimics some of what we're seeing among rank and file employees and some of the challenges we see in terms of expanding diversity. How do we then expand beyond traditional pedigree and form boards based on competency? What does that recruitment model look like? Yeah, great question, Ruth. Um It's really about shifting the dynamic and thinking out of the box. And when you say thinking out of the box, it requires a dynamic effort around recruitment where it's not focusing on traditional requirements. One of the things that we um at 1 10 look for our folks that don't have four year degrees skills first hiring. And so the same thing for a board recruitment process is looking beyond the traditional credentials of having to have an NBA or having been a CEO before. Like what else could someone bring to the table that is not that traditional route or that traditional background? Yeah, it's interesting you bring up that point. Um I noticed in more recent years we're expanding beyond just tap in CEO S for board directors. Um A number of C Hr Os are now, you know, getting, getting selected for board appointments. So, Roosevelt, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this matter as well. Yeah. The, if, if you, if you look at, uh, lots of companies are global in nature, right? They have global footprints and when they go into a country they don't bring a native. Ok, they hire someone from the host country because that individual understands what the culture understands the market. Right. And so when you look at emerging markets, all you have to do is just look two or three miles around you. All right, it's what you have to do there and on recruitment because again, when you shift into the stakeholder model, there's so many things now around around talent. When you look at technology, having a, having a digital native in things inside of the boardroom, C hr Os, right? Because you're dealing with talent, you're dealing with risk and so many boards look at from the standpoint. Well, if I bring those in, they're just a one trick pony. No, that is, that is definitely not the case. And so boards have to expand that, that realm of knowledge. And that's why when you look at the average age of a board director, you're looking at over 60 years of age, those individuals sit on multiple boards, they have, they've managed their, their personal portfolios, they have grandkids. And when you look at the complexity today around companies, they do not have the bandwidth, they do not have the bandwidth so therefore, that is a risk to the company. OK. And so the, the other part of that is that the, the number of seats around the table have to expand also because of the complexity. And so boards need to really look at and consider adding two additional seats so that they can accommodate all of the oversight. Otherwise that goes directly to systemic risk to the organization, Deborah, you bring a unique lens to this discussion uh from a storytelling perspective. You recently co produced a now award winning film. Congratulations on that. Uh on the first black woman to sit on a board, talk to me about that experience and the progress that this demographic in particular has made uh for the last few decades. Absolutely. Um I'm the writer and director of on board, which world premiered at Tribeca. It's the story of the, the black female trajectory in American board. The very first company in the United States was founded in 16 13. The first black woman appointed to a board was 1971 at the IBM Corporation that's 358 years um into our history. And we are now about 52 years after Patricia Roberts Harris was appointed to the IBM board and 4% of black women hold uh board positions. So that's the facts. Those are, those are the stats, right? But what we're seeing through black women on board is an amazing organization that's really at the forefront of creating awareness among black women where there may not have been awareness, there may not have been interest. Um And these facts are really important about messaging and storytelling. Because in order for people to wanna aspire to be on a board, they have to see it, you actually do need to see what you wanna be. You have to have that visibility. And in addition to assembling all of the facts and figures, we really need to assemble stories and tell stories. Because as people we relate to characters, we relate to stories, we will find out that we're all very similar. But the barrier question is about the previous storytelling, the previous 400 years of storytelling actually creates barrier to entry because people are accustomed for leaders to be a certain way to look a certain way. So collectively as creators and people who sit on boards in corporate entities, we have to find the right stories to be able to push some of those barriers and erase them. We need to see more stories uh like succession, but where the boardrooms are diverse, where the now think about it, think about how powerful film and television is, think about the work will and Grace did think about the fact that on 24 there was a black president before President Obama was already elected. So that Story World was created with the players in the world that the creators wanted to see. So we can create the write worlds and stories and the rest of the world will catch up so that life will imitate the art. I like, I like to add on, I like to add, add, add on to that. One of the things too on, on the on the recruitment side of the house, the traditional recruitment is the fact that you're told to network, network, network, network, create your one page bio uh you engage with a search firm, right? And what you do after that is that you constantly check on your email to see if you get in the, in the email that you have an interview and, and, and your phone. And so I would say that it is much more difficult to get the board interview than it is to get the seat on the board. Much more difficult. And what you have to do. Let me interrupt you. Why do you say that the, because of the fact that when you look at, you've got a, a numb gov chair and you got the CEO and the board had decided, ok, we're gonna need this skill set on our board is it, is what we're gonna need and what do they get in front of them? What a bunch of, of uh bios is what they get. So, women and people of color have to go one step above that and what you have to do with that, you have to put together a board document and that board document consists of the following. It consists of the fact of having a document that speaks to the value of that corporation as you see it, the culture of that organization, how you see it and also the risk associated with that organization and how you see it. And so now by going out and doing your research because board members are expected to be able to do research, right? Because you have all of these issues coming before you in the boardroom and you cannot rely solely on management to do the research. You have to do your own research. And so what this tell the board when I receive this document, OK, outlining how you view us from a value perspective, how you view us from a sustainability perspective. Now you get my attention because I can go directly to this and see where you fit the other piece on. This is the fact that when you go, when you, when you, when you look at going to school, you go to school. I major in finance, a minor in marketing, you know, they et cetera. But when you put together your board document, you need to do the exact same thing. What is your major? Well, I've been a Chief financial Officer for X number of years. I've been a chief human resource officer. So that's my major. But what are your minors? My minor is in technology. My minor is in risk. My minor is in sustainability. And so now again, when they receive that document, they now know exactly where you fit versus someone sending in a one page bio. Right now, they see what your leadership, they see your thought leadership, they see exactly where you can fit in and they see exactly where your skill sets reside. And it also demonstrates to them that you under stand the process very well said. And I, and I want to touch on something that both of you have alluded to. Uh it's a recurrent theme. I'll throw this question to you. Uh I think one of the major barriers, especially for black and brown people get board seats is that we simply don't have the same social capital. And a lot of this is very much based on informal networks. So how do we build those networks for people of color? Yeah, it's about having the exposure. And so when you say the social circles, when you think about certain golf courses, you think about certain yacht clubs, you think about the access to having those networks in the circles they don't exist. There are companies that have seen this and are gearing up to help young black women learn how to play golf, to help um you know, young um African American men learn how to hold certain conversations in a room where you already have this feeling like I'm not supposed to be here. So it's about finding your voice and that authenticity. But it's definitely about expanding beyond just the traditional social circles and really putting yourself out there um to just to again learn and meet new people and not feel like, you know, I'm actually not supposed to be here. It's more about that acceptance of yourself and being authentic. Yeah, that's what I discovered um in telling the story of black women on board. So this idea of the social currency, the social capital and the social network and really expanding that so that they overlap with the traditional ones. So it's just not separate, but they begin to interact and then they begin to become one, right? Because that at the end of the day, all of the social circles should be a single circle about the business of making your companies better, stronger, more diverse, more profitable and, and the, and the research shows that diverse leadership literally makes for more profitable companies. So when those circles combine and they overlap, it won't be such um a big gap between who this particular person can network with, network with or who this particular person can network with. They become the same circle and becomes much more powerful. The other part of this, this goes directly to section planning, right? Um And a lot of companies don't do it well. All right. Um and um when you look at, you know, companies that do get it right, they spend a lot of time on secession planning with the C suite in a couple of levels, but so does below the C suite. But the tendency to not have a tendency not to do it from the board perspective, right? And the board happens to be the institutional knowledge for the organization. So the average CEO tenures around six years and the the the other, the other, the other piece here is that we have implemented a program to allow companies to have succession planning and build that around succession planning and not get into the, into the this fish bowl of, of polarization around diversity. And what I'm speaking to is this, how many of you have heard of the advisory board concept? OK. Now let's put it on steroids. What I mean by that is this, we come up, we came up with a program where we asked corporate America several public and trading companies in the New York Stock Exchange here to take a look at putting an advisory board role on their board. OK? Putting it on their board with the skill set deficit that they currently have on that board and the deficit and the skill they would need looking out four or five years, right? And, and if you look at this, this these individuals sit on the board, they assign to the respective board committees is what they assign to. They don't have a fid, they don't vote, right? But they participate as a full board member, right? And compensate the same. And, and so that is off and running, it is in place and going, we have an sop on that and if you look at it, it's akin to sports sports have what farm teams, right? The pitcher gets hurt, pull up one from the farm team. Right? And so, and what this does is what it takes care of the secession planning issue. It's what it takes care of. And if you have a, a board member that's going to be aging out or want to retire from the board, that candidate can now move into that judiciary slot. The, the uh season board member can move into the advisory role and now mentor the newbie. All right. Now this shows companies are doing what they are bringing in the next generation of board leadership is what they're doing. And if you had a blank sheet of paper, why not? You fill in the blank? Because there is zero risk to that company in doing that. And that is happening now is what that is uh uh happening. There are 17 other companies right now going through the process of uh of uh getting that approved. And so again, it's a no brainer. It is simple and there's zero risk to the company. It is only upside. Yeah. Well, we'll run up on time. So I'm going to end with this. There's a couple of recurrent themes. I'm here in here. First of all social capital is huge. You need mentorship, you need apprenticeships and really to expand beyond traditional pedigree. While we are seeing some progress among more marginalized demographics, we still have a ways to go. What's really important here is to view a diverse boards as akin to risk and obviously boards are in the risk business. Uh Thank you so much to my Panelist for taking the time to chat with us a really robust conversation this morning. Thank you. Thank you.

Tim Brown, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Allbirds Interviewer: Molly Wood, Molly Wood Media

Impact Initiative 2023: The Path To A Truly Circular Company

After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016, all boards launched and quickly became a certified B corporation. Three years ago, they partnered with Adidas to make their first iteration of a low carbon shoe. And in June of this year has announced they've created the world's first net zero carbon shoe here to discuss their Moonshot shoe. Please welcome Albert's co founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Tim Brown. He'll be interviewed by Impact Initiative co chair Molly Wood. Hello again. Thanks so much for joining me, Tim. Thank you for having me. We are going, don't worry, there are photos of the shoe coming shortly in case you haven't seen it. But um I, I want to jump in by asking you about this focus for you as a company and why carbon and why make this attempt at a carbon negative sho Sure. Uh So was founded with the idea that for 50 years, uh we've been making things out of plastic and synthetic materials and there was an opportunity uh in natural materials. Uh We were anchored in the idea that sustainability was our purpose, but what the hell does that mean? Uh And so we started uh anchored in this material innovation and quickly realized that our North Star was carbon uh sustainability. Part of the problem is that word has been pushed and pulled so much to almost be meaningless at this point. Uh And we were able to anchor on the idea that carbon could be our North Star in the way that we created products. So in the same way that calories go on food, we started to label the products that we made with the kilograms of carbon that were emitted in their production. And that was really the beginning of our, of our carbon journey. And all of a sudden, our designers and creators were putting products out into the world and they had effectively uh like a tin of baked beans, uh a score on them. So that was the starting point just out of curiosity, carbon as opposed to what as a well, I mean, I think sustainability means 100 different things. It's about air quality, water quality, animal welfare, biodegradability. And before long, you're not getting out of bed in the morning. It's so confusing, often times with competing incentives and really what you're trying to do is make a pair of shoes. So uh carbon became the focus in the same way that calories isn't the totality of a healthy diet. It's a very, very important North Star unifying metric and that allows us to compare different food groups uh in different places around the world in a consistent way. So the same thing we believe is going to be the future of how we evaluate the products and services that we use and every day. Um And so the result of that and we'll talk about some of the journey, but the result of that at least now is the Moonshot shoe, um, which I think looks like a cozy sweater. Let's have a look. We have some pictures here. Here it is the, is this the, this is the world's first carbon negative shoe as I understand it. Yes. Yeah. Right. And cozy sweater. Do you see it? Do you see it? So, our designers and creators and makers all of a sudden uh their work is effectively getting scored when it goes out into the world. Uh We did a partnership with Adidas uh that landed on a shoe that we released a couple of years ago at 2.94 kg of carbon, about half a hamburger. And our team was like, ok, as we look across the carbon footprint of the product, uh where are the opportunities to go even lower? Um And we were able to, with a partnership with our growing network, New Zealand Merino. Uh we were able to start to measure the out the gate carbon impact of the fiber that we were using realized through regenerative practices. Those numbers were low and in some cases negative. And there was a possibility if you designed and engineered every aspect of the product uh to make uh to make a shoe without offsets. That was uh net 00 My gosh, all of a sudden, this is really, really interesting. Um And the most fervent adopters of this particular methodology uh wasn't the sustainability department, it was the designers and creators that all of a sudden realized this was the path forward. This is the way that we were going to uh to, to continue to be able to talk about objects of desire in the same breath that we talk about sustainability. And this again seems enabled by this focus on a very specific one metric. Like it seems like the magic of what you've done here is create one metric and work toward that metric. The focus is really important. Um Five big buckets within a carbon footprint, the materials, the manufacturing, the transport, the packaging and the end of life all of a sudden, OK. I need to really, really look at every decimal point here. Uh And this is a game of ventures and actually you can, you can make really meaningful impact if you connect the dots here. Uh And that's been our journey. Um And it started really with this connection uh with the growers. So our uh we source wool from the New Zealand Merino Network. It's uh it's about 700 farms in New Zealand, slightly biased but very, I think the most beautiful corner of the world Uh And for the better part of a generation, no one in New Zealand's uh been growing up wanting to be a farmer. In fact, politically, they've been held up as the enemy of the environment, but we're able to partner with this growing network. Tell them that we will pay more for this fiber. Uh And that if it's properly measured, uh that there is uh some incredible opportunities to provide uh low carbon or even negative carbon fiber. Uh And in 24 months, almost 700 of those farms have signed up. Uh And it's an incredible example. I think of this moving quite quickly when you connect the spirit uh of innovation and economic opportunity to the idea of uh of, of making products and doing it now. So it's been an incredibly important thing for us, the other thing you did and I, I do want to give you an opportunity to ask questions. So think of your questions, put your hand up and a runner will come to you. Um One of the things though that I think you did it, that's really interesting is, is effectively open source, this tool kit sort of issue, this challenge to the rest of the um footwear community. I mean, is it specifically about building shoes or are you trying to sort of inspire carbon negative goods? So we've had some success through our history, open sourcing the materials that we use uh with the idea that that could serve our purpose. Uh And the more when we bring an innovation to market, the more people that use it, the more impact uh that we can have. But also with scale the cost come down and we're able to negotiate terms with our suppliers to make that happen. And in the case of Moonshot, again, that open source spirit has been there, the more people that adopt uh an understanding of carbon and an appreciation of, of the ability uh to use this framework to uh make better products with lower impact, the better that will be for everyone, but also for us because we believe we're doing it uh as good, if not better than, than anyone else. Um And also this is the future of how I think we're going to buy and consume. So um that mentality is, is at the core of how we build the business. And so this was uh released as an open source tool kit. Uh It's incredible, the number of people that have, have reached out uh big and small to, to use it. I think I'm yet to meet someone in the fashion industry that doesn't want to work this out. Uh often times the barriers to entry uh and an understanding of how to do that in a complicated economic environment. Um necessitates that we work together and we share. So we're trying to show leadership in that area. Wait, so I want to put a slightly finer point on that. It sounds like it's both altruistic and selfish. Because if you can get people to adopt these methodologies, you, you get past the kind of adoption gap more quickly, you get better economies of scale faster. I I think you, you can't look at this altruistically. You have to look at uh the opportunity to drive your purpose. But also for opportunities for economic economic gain, do not get into a conversation with a farmer and mention the term regenerative agriculture because they will and this has happened to me, they'll boo at you and they won't want to talk uh talk to them about economic opportunity and talk to them about the, the uh the grandchildren boun bouncing on their knee who uh has is counting the days before they can get off the property and tell them actually, no, this is, this is shifting back in your favor. Uh These kids are gonna want to come back and they're gonna see agriculture not as, as a, a historical part of New Zealand and uh but actually part of the future and that's what's happening. And so it's incredibly exciting and the language and the way that we talk about this is as important as the science that underpins it. Are there questions in the audience yet? No. OK. Oh Alan has one. Thank you. Uh You talked about the five big buckets uh materials manufacturing transport. I forgot what the last two were but, but I got hung up on the third. How do you get the carbon out of the transportation system that you have to use to deliver these issues? Well, look, it's, it's, it's, it's all about looking at this, at scale for us uh in really, really simple terms, air sea shipping and then within the, you know, get this on a boat. Uh and then within the, the sea shipping space at scale biofuels are coming into, into that space and you're able to um aggregate this. And relatively speaking, it's a tiny part of the overall carbon footprint of a pair of shoes that you put on. Generally speaking, we find that about half the number is in the materials a third give or take or even more is in the manufacturing. So it's a relatively small part of the overall carbon uh carbon number that, that constitutes the the final score on the product so that I had a similar question. So the carbon negative determination is inclusive. It's a life cycle and with, it's within, it's within the uh no offsets, it's within the calculation of the product. Uh And it's largely in, in our case driven by the uh the carbon negative merino wool. So wool is a little bit like saying cars, there's a lot of variants. Uh We're now understanding that technology can applied to measure out the gate scores for each property and each property is very different depending on how it's farmed, the cover crops, the, the nuances of the topography in each particular case, once we start to understand that which we are beginning to do, uh you can then incentivize the farmers, uh you can get truly accurate numbers and all of a sudden, uh the playing field is, is a little fairer in terms of the impact of the product at the end of the day. Um So the wool is that negative that it actually it, it serves as an accidental. It's one part of it. Yeah, you've got to look at every part of it. You know, there's a series of other carbon negative materials within, within the product. And then you've got to look at the packaging, you've got to look at every aspect of how, you know, uh of how it's put together. But it is possible. And I think that's exciting. We uh we went to the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen to release this product. Uh the preeminent event in the fashion industry. Uh And it was, it was notable for three things. No CEO S were there. Um None of the supplying network, the people that actually make stuff. Uh And no one showed up with an actual object. We spent a lot of time talking about 2050 which is really important. Don't get me wrong. But what are we doing right now? Uh And is the leadership of the business uh there and involved? And are we connecting um that business strategy and that feeling that we have that this is important to the consumer. And I think uh otherwise the criticism would be, there's a lot of people at Copenhagen and possibly even at this event, they are in the business of risk mitigation and the sustainability department is there to, to not get anyone in trouble. And I don't think that's where we need to be. Um I think that we need to think about sustainability as innovation about creativity and we need to balance the, the future with what we can do immediately. And right now and then finally it to that storytelling piece is this why consumers are buying all birds. And August 1 analyst suggested consumers are maybe not as excited about carbon negative uh shoes and said there were slowing sales at all bids. Is that why they're buying or not buying? Do you think a surefire way to not have someone meet you for a beer on a Friday night? Is to say that you want to talk about uh sustainability? That's when your friend will, will run. We, I mean, I will have that beer. You and I, you and I just uh you know, uh people don't buy sustainable products, they buy great ones. I don't think that uh any product or service can lay claim or business can lay claim to being great in this moment in time unless they are thinking deeply about sustainability and the principles of how it applies to their business. Um But let's, let's not get uh put the cart before the horse. You need to make great products, great experiences and you got to look for opportunities where purpose and profit intersect and where great consumer experiences and great product experiences uh can leverage sustainable uh opportunities. That's where we'll move this thing forward. And uh and I'm, I'm incredibly excited. I, I think there's a little bit of a lag between what people feel and what they believe and what's happening. Uh I'm, I'm excited for where we are. Great Tim Brown Ceo of all. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Roger Martella, Chief Sustainability Officer, General Electric Kathleen McLaughlin, Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, Walmart Inc.; President, Walmart Foundation Ann Tracy, Chief Sustainability Officer, Colgate-Palmolive Moderator: Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Esg Resiliency

Roger Martella, General Electric Kathleen, McLaughlin, Walmart Foundation, Ann Tracy, Colgate-Palmolive Moderator: Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Well, good morning, good morning everyone. Uh If you are feeling a little down because, you know, it's been a heavy morning. Well, I am here to wake you back up because I am in the middle of my day, caffeinated and ready for this discussion. Uh I wanna get into this, of course, we're going to talk about the ESG backlash in the next 15 minutes. But uh I want to start with you Roger. You've had also other things on your mind. I think ge I was actually wondering uh what GE do you actually work for? So it depends on the day. Um And it's a great question. So as you know, is 100 and 30 year old company founded by Thomas Edison has changed a lot over 100 and 30 years, many different businesses, many different great innovations. But one thing has always been true in those 130 years. It's been focused on innovating technology to lift up the quality of life for people all around the world. So when we talk about sustainability, that's never been more important. So today we are separating into three separate companies, our health care company very critical purpose. There has already spun off as doing quite well. And early next year, our energy businesses and our aviation businesses will also be separate. The energy businesses provide one third of the world's energy help provide one third of the world's energy will do it increasingly in a carbon neutral way. The most diversified portfolio, our aerospace business three out of four engines and also has a net zero vision. I I work for all the business like a hard choice to make then for you. And I will, I will be with energy II, I feel very passionate about our aerospace business, but I think energy um is really the, the urgency at the moment, we have to decarbonise the energy sector so that other sectors can then electrify and decarbonise. So I'll be headed in that direction to help support those. Uh we look forward to that and I think we, we all support that decarbonization drive, not just of the company, but of course, the entire economy. Nevertheless, I don't think that at least for me, you know, GE was not the first company that came to my mind when I thought about a topic as ESG. Um and that's of course, because of, you know, the whole history with Jack Welch and you know, the idea of shareholder primacy back in the day. Um where does GE, whichever of the three I suppose, where does GE stand today on ESG as such? Because we're talking about the backlash against ESG. Sure. Well, we think of sustainability. It's core to what we do. As I mentioned, Thomas Edison's goal, innovate the technology and lift up the quality of life. So all three of our businesses sustain ability is core. And when you talk about something like ESG those aren't letters, we necessarily, we don't use those silos internally. Sometimes we might engage, you never hold, we, we don't really align in that way we cover. I think the topics that are part of ESG, but we don't really use those silos internally as, as we're talking about. So what I I frequently think is going back to Jack, we, we may have the world's best sustainability goals. I'm not saying we do, but let's say we do or we have the best mission. All of that is for nothing if we're not successful as a business first. And this is really, really important. This is maybe where there's some confusion with ESG. We have to succeed first as a business and we have to be unapologetic about that. I don't mean to be provocative but like we have to return for our shareholders, our investors, our employees. And if we can do that's a G I know. Yeah, that's a G. Well, then we do that and then we align these important sustainability goals, decarbonising energy transportation to our business plans. And that's my job is to bring that alignment together. And so we see it as a mutually inclusive opportunity, not something you have, you had any backlash in your business uh on esc or sustainability. We always have backlash. And I think that's because we take a very pragmatic view. Some people will say we should be doing more and some people should be say we should be doing less. And we have very vigorous discussions with our board which is very diverse. Some want us to do more and some you know, might be taking a different view. We end up with this very pragmatic view and an example of this, I'll give you one rip from the headlines. Example, a few years ago, we make gas turbines. We think gas turbines are critical to dec carbonizing the planet. We make wind turbines, we think they are critical, we make nuclear power. We had a lot of pressure from certain stakeholders saying we want you out of the gas business, that's a fossil fuel. We looked at it very closely and we said we're going to be unapologetic here. We think we right that gas is critical to dec carbonizing places like Vietnam Bangladesh. The world has now come around largely on that view. And I think it was important for us to remain pragmatic and get to the right answer. Good for the business, good for climate change, good for sustainability, right? And I think that gets to the question in this panel, which is what is your nord star when you're dealing with headwinds like that on, for example, ease or sustainability. I want to go over to you Kathleen. You know, of course you're representing a company that cannot afford to get into a political, um, controversy you serve, I suppose all Americans. Is that true? I mean, do have stats on that. Yeah, we do. Our customer base reflects America, our associate base, our employee base reflects America and the world. We operate in multiple countries around the world. At the same time, Walmart has been, you know, sort of unlike I think GGE an explicit fan of stakeholder capitalism embraced the idea of stakeholder capitalism and, and I think its leader has been sort of one of the leaders of that movement. And of course, if you think about stakeholder capitalism, you think about ESG your function, it includes ESG is that right? So when you are now faced with this ESG backlash, how do you deal with that? Yeah. So for us, and I think this is probably true for many of us in the room, our focus is on shared value. So it's just simply recognizing that our long term business success, financial success value creation strategy um really depends on the extent to which we can address the biggest concerns that are relevant for our business, on the minds of our customers, our associates, our suppliers, our communities, policy makers and communities um and things that we think um we can actually make a difference on through our business. So you talked about, you know, you gotta get the business right first and then you can for us, the way we get the business right is by addressing the things that matter most um to those stakeholders. So, um you know, if you think about value creation models, NPV, what goes into those assumptions about your continuing revenue streams, your cost structure, your sources of advantage that future value creation model depends on the assumptions you make about. How are you governing your company? How are you handling the environmental issues? How are you handling the social issues? Um So for us, it's part and parcel and like you um the priority themes that we have identified uh don't neatly fall in silos of ees and G, you know, for us, it's four things. It's opportunity, economic opportunity that we can create for our own people through advancement through for suppliers in an equitable way. Um It's sustainability of retail and supply chain, social and environmental sustainability. It's community resilience because we operate in 10,000 communities around the world and their um livelihoods, the extent to which they're thriving. Our business depends on that and then ethics and integrity, having the highest standards as a multinational business around those things. So our strategy is to address whether it's energy transition and climate change or workforce development and advancement of hourly people through upskilling and career path. Those things are important for our business success. So it's very integrated for us. So if I get it right, you're replacing the acronym ESG with the acronym OS re opportunity, sustainability resilience. You know, we don't really use the acronym but uh either of those acronyms. But uh but yeah, it's, it's really about the fundamentals and I think, you know, um to the extent that there is backlash, it's because of um concerns that people have all across the political spectrum about the apparatus of this. What's evolved, how is it working? How is it showing up in companies? And maybe we'll get into that a little bit. Hm. Yes. Uh, let me maybe turn over to you and, uh, you know, you work for a company that I suppose has been dealing with backlash for quite a long time. Um You know, when you look at your supply chain, I'm sure you were part of the movement back in the 19 nineties and two thousands where you had uh advocacy, you know, ens ensuring that your supply chain was clean or sustainable or things like that. And then perhaps ESG was a response for you to that previous backlash. Is that right? Or, or where does g fit in your uh Yeah. And I think you're starting to hear, you're going to hear from me, a common theme that you've heard from, from everyone else. And even in some of the round tables we've been participating in that we, we tend to think of it as sustainability and social impact. We don't use the term ESG and we never have also not, we sometimes when we're interfacing with investors, that's where it comes up. But other than that internally and even when we speak externally, we don't use the acronym. So it's so it's sustainability and social impact for you. Yeah. And like Kathleen described, we have a very focused strategy on what's relevant for our business and we also believe so. But going back to your, your first point um as a global manufacturer with a footprint all over the world, yes, we've always been facing kind of resistance whether it's ingredient controversy or clean supply chain controversy or these types of things. So we've always, we've been doing this for 20 years over 20 years and whether it's addressing a responsible sources or um even we've been measuring in our factories, uh greenhouse gas emissions, waste to landfill reduction of water and energy for over 20 years. Our baseline goes back to 2002. Um So we've always felt this was important. It's a, it's the right thing to do for manufacturing for our supply chain, for operations. Um It's made us more efficient, fast forward to today. And our purpose statement is reimagining a healthier future for all people. There are pets in our planet and that is our North Star. Um And we believe, you know, all those issues we've had to manage, those are risks, all companies face risks, we face risks relevant to our, what's relevant to our business. But we also believe there's opportunities um and, and opportunities to grow the business. Do, do you not have backlash today then on your ESG work? Because you, you know, the things you mentioned that you measure they constitute ESG so you actually embrace ESG in, in what in your operations. So do you not face backlash on that politically speaking by any of your constituents? For example. Well, if you look, if, if Colgate were a personality, we're, we're kind of uh an introverted quiet company that we, we don't, we don't tend to, we try to, we actually, that's very swiss, by the way. Yeah, we steer clear. We're probably one of the few companies that don't have anybody in Washington. We don't have government affairs. You do not have any, you don't have nobody with nobody in the swamp. No. Well, you said that I didn't uh we, we'll turn to another, you'll turn to uh to another topic. Um Maybe from the audience. If you have any questions, please raise your hand and we'll bring the microphone to you. Mhm. Um And then unless there's a question from the audience, I'm going to keep on asking questions. Um So please feel free over there. You know, I have to say, II, I once had this sort of contest of who can be silent for the longest and I love that you know, I won. Is this working? Yes. So Jeremy Hanson with Hydro Struggles, I, I can't imagine a better panel for, you know, this, this discussion. I guess the question is, um you know, I think Kathleen, you mentioned you operate across 10,000 communities. So if you think about in all of your companies, you've got, you've got to manage across these many human boundaries in light of the divisiveness, you know, that we're faced with. Now, what are the skills or principles that your ceos and your board follow to do that effectively? Yeah, I I'm happy to uh to talk about that. So I mentioned um the litmus test that we apply for uh prioritizing our environmental social governance agenda. And we have, as I mentioned, four themes, standing issues in each of those based on three screens. One um is the issue relevant for our business in terms of valuation. So long term valuation. So you talked about risk and opportunity against revenue cost, you know, advantage returns, et cetera. The second though goes to your question, which is what do our stakeholders expect of us? Meaning the customers, the employees or associates, the suppliers, communities, policy makers and it's not always the same. So the listening that's required and we have many ways of of doing listening. I'm sure many people, you know, in this room, um consultations, town halls, community meetings, social media, social listening and so on. And um when new issues arise or crop up issues at the moment. That's really where the listening is most important and it, and what we have found is uncertain issues. Not everybody agrees. Um There are differences of opinion amongst our customers, differences of opinion amongst our associates. And sometimes it's tempting to kind of go out with the view that you feel good about personally. But does that reflect what people believe and how does it connect to your role as a company? And do you have license from those stakeholders to even engage on that issue? You know, a lot of people have said Walmart, thank you very much. We appreciate your opinion, but please just tell us the bananas like we don't want to know what you think about whatever the topic is. And then the third is, would our engaging in that issue, make the outcome better or worse? Because sometimes getting involved in something we actually don't have the capabilities, the assets to actually make a difference. So for us, with those screens, it's very much. All right, we're gonna take on something. What's our strategy? And we put as much effort into figuring out that business strategy on issue X, whether it's energy transition, digital citizenship, um forced labor in the tuna chain in Southeast Asia, whatever these issues are, we put as much effort into defining the strategy with those stakeholders that are involved in that system as we do any other business problem and then measuring it that way. Um It's a very sensible strategy. I saw a lot of people nodding along when you, when you mentioned those three screens, now, what it does not include at least those three screens is ethics. No, no, it does. Ethics is our fourth. Is it? Ok. So, so, you know, ethics and integrity in terms of um corporate governance for, from the human rights or human rights, you know, policy. Yeah. So that's a really that comes first and then when you've done that, that's when you Yeah, OK, I understand it's, it's a, it's a great uh approach I think and a lot, a lot of people would, would, would probably agree. As for ESG I want to ask this question to all three of you. Um Do you still use the acronym in your engagement with some stakeholders? And if so whom I I we will use it when the context is right? II I think as mentioned, sometimes the stakeholders will wanna talk specific about ESG there might be a disclosure and we say this is relevant to what some people think of as ESG again, we prefer to talk about our. So it's, it's uh reactively when reactively. OK. How about you? We use it with certain stakeholders in certain contexts. So certain investors have said to us, institutional investors, please, on your website just can you have an ESG micro site? So we know where to go. Don't call it something weird. That we don't know what that is like, we need to know where to go to get the data that we need for our own governance. So literally, if you go to our corporate website, uh pull up the page, you'll see, we have it double faced, you know, we're retailers. So we put, you know, the bananas in two locations in the store, same thing on our website. So we do have ESG as a way to organize the topics, our priority issues. And on that same page, we have our four themes of opportunity, ethics and, and so on. So um we use it where it's useful. I mean, the trouble with the term is it's become a bogeyman, it's become, it means a lot of different things to different people. Um You know, and as I said, sometimes for legitimate reasons that people should be concerned about that and then sometimes, you know, not, but uh Roger, do you have a section on your website with ESG on it or? No, we have very similar. We have a section where you can find ESG and it will then link you to the way we share our. How about you? Yeah. Um I think similar to Kathleen, you know, if you were walking down the street and ask people about ESG, I know a lot of people wouldn't recognize that, but it is more a term used by investors and even by our board, that's the stakeholder group that we would refer to it as. But like I said before, we prefer to call it sustainability, socially impact. But the website point is really important because a lot of these um surveys and reports and aggregate reports that we have no control of, but they have the chat bots out there going out and grabbing stuff. They're looking for specific terminology to get accurate data to pull on your company, like MS C I etcetera. So that's a whole another topic for another day. But yeah, it's important to acknowledge that. So that also means I have to adjust my conclusion. A couple of months ago I wrote ESG Is Dead Long Live ESNG. But now I've learned from this discussion that in fact, the ESG lives on, on the interwebs. Fantastic. I want to thank you all for uh the wonderful discussion and I look forward to hearing more of you in the coming year.

Lindsey Hall, Head of ESG Thought Leadership, S&P Global Sustainable1, Marissa McGowan,Chief Sustainability Officer, North America, L’Oréal Emily Pierce, Chief Global Policy Officer and Associate General Counsel, Persefoni, Moderator: Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Cracking The Esg Code

Lindsey Hall, Head of ESG Thought Leadership, S&P Global Sustainable1 Marissa McGowan,Chief Sustainability Officer, North America, L’Oréal Emily Pierce, Chief Global Policy Officer and Associate General Counsel, Persefoni Moderator: Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Lindsey Hall,S&P Global Sustainable1, Marissa McGowan, North America, L’Oréal Emily Pierce, Persefoni, Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Stacey Abrams, Former Minority Leader, Georgia House Interviewer: Alan Murray, Chief Executive Officer, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Electrifying America With Stacey Abrams

So it was, it was about a year ago that President Biden signed the inflation reduction act into law. And one key part of that act was some pretty remarkable rebates for low and moderate income households. As it stands. If you make less than 80% of the area median median household income, you can be fully refunded for up to $1800 a year in home energy costs and appliance upgrades uh for this next session. I'm, I'm happy to be talking to uh author, former Georgia House minority leader Stacey Abrams who has thrown herself into the challenge of, of getting people to avail themselves of these new rebates in order to electrify everyone. Uh Let me welcome to the Sage Stacey Abrams. You got you. Good to see you. You have some fan. I see all of you may not know this, but the governor of Georgia is sitting about 200 ft away in the uh uh in the next room. I wonder if we should get him in and have a show. We did. Well, ok, we don't do politics here. So, um uh I, I wanted to, first of all, let me say it's an honor to have you here you are. And, and all of you may not know this. We all know a lot about Stacey Abrams role in the voting rights uh efforts. But she is a true polymath, a renaissance woman. Um uh not only uh house minority leader, first black woman to run for the Senate uh but also a novelist, a couple of novels. I've downloaded them. I've gotten started a little bit actually, 15 books. Everybody got that number, 15 books. So I, I just want your Amazon queue to be completely limited. I I I'm I'm starting with the most recent one. If that's ok. Um Available at your local bookstore. I learned backstage. She is uh a, a foodie, a chef um which we're not gonna talk about in the short time we have here. Uh But this uh rewiring America, your role in electrification is really interesting and we'd love to start by having you talk about that. What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Why is it important? So, 40 2% of all carbon emissions come from the household. So it's what you use to wash your clothes, how you heat your home, how you cook your food, what you drive. So 42% of the emissions come from the home. Some portion of the investment to address climate change should come to the home. And the inflation reduction act added $8.8 billion in direct rebates and tax credits that go to families. So basically in real money, real money, $1800 a year in what we call an electric bank account, it will yield, it will leverage that 8.8 billion will leverage $859 billion in commercial activity because people have to go and buy these machines. We're talking about 1 billion machines that need to be purchased for the home over the next 10 years. And my job is helping rewiring talk about how we get this done because most folks, especially the ones we're targeting low to moderate income families. They don't know or they don't believe. And if they know and believe they have a cost, there's a cost interference. The upfront cost for trying to do this, trying to wade through a tax credit, trying to figure out how to get your rebate is hard. It creates a friction that stops them from even starting. How do you eliminate that friction? So I'm glad you ask rewiring America. We've built a tool, an very simple online tool to start that just helps you understand what you get from the IRA. But what we're adding to it are additional tools that help you find a contractor, help you understand where to get those machines, let you know what your family can afford and how to get it. Uh The two challenges that we're very aware of. It's the upfront cost. And so we're working, uh, we're actually bidding for resources to help cover those costs for the, to find the upfront. Exactly. And we will help you get your credits later. And then we're also making sure that you understand what it means and how it changes the cost for your home. So for example, if you get a heat pump, we think heat pump means heat. It actually means air conditioning too. And if you remember the heat bubble that was in Oregon two years ago, that killed all those people because they've never had central ac this saves lives. And as we watch more extreme events take place across the country. This is a way that we can protect our families, protect our homes and protect our future. Is this full time for you? It is not, but it's not a simple path. It is not. Is it working? Are you getting people over that friction bump? We are. So we actually have demonstration projects outside of. So there's a lot of work that's already being done in California on the east coast. And so we're intentionally in places not there. So we're in the Midwest, the northwest, southwest and the southeast. Shockingly, I'm doing a few projects here in Georgia. The goal being to show people what this can mean and use it to demonstrate to others that there is a way to make this work for all families. The Inflation Reduction Act was obviously a game changer for this country. We have been a laggard in terms of policy on climate and suddenly left to the head of the pack, at least in terms of incentivizing action like the one you're talking about. But critics have said it has an awful lot of strings attached. Uh you know, on bigger projects. You have, you run into these uh uh local sourcing, native sourcing, national security concerns. Um You've got a lot of labor rules tied into that. It's not only complicated for, for the constituents you're talking about. It's kind of complicated for everybody, even big companies. It's an awful lot of strings, but it's an awful lot of money. We're talking about $278 billion that have already been let to suit 272 projects, 44 states and 170,000 jobs that we believe can be created across the country. And so with that in mind, the goal is to use this opportunity to learn how to create this, not just for the short term, but to create a long term transition in our economy that keeps up with the reality of environmental change. So you're, you're a fan. Yeah, I, I want to change the subject a little bit to another because you point out this is not your full time job. You are a polymath. You have a, I have uh uh fingers and more pies than you have fingers. Um uh uh Another thing that's been a topic of conversation over the last 24 hours among this group is the spate of lawsuits challenging a variety of corporate diversity efforts. I know you're talking to some people about defending those about what's going on there. What's your view of what's happening and what can the people in this room do to make sure that they're not subject to legal action? Well, let's start with the end in mind. There's no way to avoid being sued because it's working that the attacks on DE I are directly a response to the effectiveness of actually matching our commercial side and matching our economy to our populace. That's a native good. But there are those who are very resistant to it who would like to both ignore the past and I would say want to manufacture a false future where we disallow participation from communities that for so long were not included. But we also know it is lucrative companies that participate in de I make more money when you add people to the roster. I mean, let's go back to rewiring one of the things we know about the energy economy. We need 1.4 million additional people just to take on the jobs for the residential side of electrification. But if they can't be introduced into those apprenticeship programs, because they're targeting populations that are typically not participating, then we're never going to get the workforce we need. I would say that first of all. Thank you for those of you who are willing to engage. Thank you for your bravery. But also remember your bottom line, you make more money when more people can afford to use your products and when we improve access in this country, we improve the bottom line for everyone. Lawsuits are designed not for victory but for a chilling effect. And the chilling effect is when you decide to unilaterally disarm for fear of being attacked. I'm in politics. If you do that, you never go anywhere. Unilateral disarmament only works if you already have everything you need. But Stacy having said that nobody in this room, nobody in this room wants to be caught up in this legal fight. No one does and they don't want to be caught up in the political fight either. So are there things they can do to minimize the risk? You can't avoid the risk, minimize the risk. So the the challenge is that the risk is a fundamental attack. This is not a question of how do you game the system? It is a fundamental question of whether or not we are going to address inequity and diversity. They're attacking military academies. We know that the military was the first major institution to engage in desegregation. And one of the lawsuits is seeking to end access to military academies. We know that people of color are more likely to be enlisted, but they are less likely to go through the military academies and have the means of access. And so I would love to give you the, the fun answer which is, oh, just keep your, keep pride and you'll be fine. But this is actually a moment for action. This is a transformative moment where we can do right? And do well, we can do good and do well. At the exact same time, you can urge yourself by making sure that we're creating a new narrative. Part of the way they're winning is that those of us who agree are silent and not this community. But there are so many who are going silent hoping that if they just stand still and keep their mouth shut, no one will notice them. They've already found you, they know who you are. And so the issue is it is more important that we bind together that we use our philosophical premise, which is that we want to do. Well, I'm a small business owner. We can do well and do good. But we have to defend the fact that it makes sense that more people have access to the and dream and that's your fundamental. You know, it's really important that you're saying that I one theme I've heard over the last 24 hours uh from members of this group is, hey, we're, we're, we're doing all the same stuff we were doing before. We just aren't talking about it as much. You're saying there's a cost to not talking, there's a cost and you and I have a mutual friend who has just been sued, not because she, she didn't stop talking about it, but she didn't know anyone else was paying attention. And they found her. We know that when you are silent, silent is often seen as consent, we are agreeing to the attacks. We are agreeing that they are correct. If we do not push back and put, I mean, you guys know this silence when you're, when your competitor is putting their narrative into the air and you are silent, your competitor wins. And the same thing is true on D I, this is not about changing your value system. It's about articulating those values. That's a strong message. Anybody, any questions, anybody uh want to uh further clarification on that comment. You know, it's really ironic that I'm getting silence in that sense right here, please right here on the front table. Stacy. Thank you for your leadership. Um What can business leaders do with regards to rewiring America? Get their employees? I mean, absolutely. And, and, and when you're done, can you pass the microphone to this woman sitting right in front of me? So we get her question. Yeah, go ahead. So if you will sign up with, go to rewiring America, we're actually in the process of getting letters of support for our efforts. Find me, I'm, I'm right here. Uh But we are, we're going to ask employers because your employee, these, these, these rebates, they want this help. And so we will be creating a roundtable of businesses to help us push this information out. It makes it better for you because their costs go down and their money goes further. So we'd love to have your help. It's a great benefit. Yeah. Go ahead. Hi, Jackie Martin Fox Factory. I didn't have a question. I just want to thank you for your courage, your role model ship. If that's even a word and your resiliency, you said everything. I would imagine everyone here in this room wants to say and should be saying if not shouting from the rooftops. So thank you for that reminder of, of courage. Thank you. One of the ironies of this. Yeah, you got fans in this room. One of the ironies of this moment in sort of corporate history is companies are really stepping up and recognizing that things like climate change and inequity are existential problems for them in the long term. But I don't think they've gotten to the point where they realize that our political dysfunction is also an existential problem for them in the long term because so many CEO S who stand up on climate, stand up on, on social inequality, but say please, please, please don't get me involved in any kind of political debate. Uh uh because I don't know how to deal with it. I, I, and I understand the reticence but politics, politics is a stalker. Whether you want to be there or not, it's going to find you. So, my, my posture is, I don't have to have an opinion about everything, but when I believe something, I have to have an opinion about that. And I think the challenge is calibrating where your opinion matters and where it ties to your business. Bottom line. If what you do affects people and if what you're silent about will harm them, then you have the responsibility to speak up. It's well put. We were talking about that earlier. Quick question right here. Hi, Stacey. Thank you for everything that you do. So my question is going back to your combat action and voice and thinking about the lessons that corporate America learned in this, in their own racial awake awakening after George Floyd. So what would your advice be to corporate influencers frankly? Right. All these CEO S and C Suite leaders who have the podium and have the national ear, what can they learn from the, the actions they took in the voice that they use for George Floyd in this moment as we think about the future of diversity equity inclusion in 30 seconds or less. Talk about the successes. Right now, the narrative is only filled with the stories of failure or difficulty. We know that transformation is difficult. We know evolution is difficult. But when you tell the positive stories, it starts to create a counterbalance and that's where we start. Talk about how it's helped you improve your bottom line, how it's improved your workforce and how it improves your ability to deliver your product. When you start there, it creates an environment where more people can join to amplify the good and we can start to protect against the bad Stacey Evans. Great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. That was our first standing ovation. No one gave me a standing ovation. Thank you, Peter. Ok. It's time for a break from the main stage conversations. You'll have about 30 minutes. Then we'll meet back here for our next conversations which will begin at 11 o'clock. When we come back, we'll kick off with a presentation and a demonstration from text on how they're using generative A I to remove biases from performance reviews. So you're going to want to want to be back in the room at 11 o'clock. Thank you.

<p>Well, hello and good afternoon. It's a pleasure as Alan said to be back here in the great city of Atlanta. And I have to warn you a little bit ahead of this uh session. I myself just came over from Europe. So it's quite late for me. Normally you'd run the risk as a moderator to bore your public and put them to sleep. But I might just do that to myself. So to make sure that we don't, let's get this conversation started and I'd like to suggest that we start with Roy and just one more thing, you know, you're going to hear a lot about ESG and ESG investing and about the backlash against it. We're gonna get, we're going to stay out of that trouble because we're going to be talking about impact investing, right? Do you remember impact investing? Well, these people are all experts in impact investing. And Roy, I think if we can go back a little bit in time, we work, of course, for the Ford Foundation, you know, I think if we go back perhaps a century in time, almost, you know, Ford, of course, the founder Henry Ford was maybe one of the people that did impact investing first. Now you as a foundation though, changed that model of combining for profits, uh investing with social impact, you change that model to corporate philanthropy. And I think if, if we know uh any organization that did corporate philanthropy or philanthropy over the last century, I think a lot of people would think of the Ford Foundation today though, it seems like you've embraced also this impact investing trends. Could you tell us a little bit more about the evolving approach of the Ford Foundation and what the role is of impact investing uh for your organization today? Uh Sure. First of all, thanks for having me here. Great to see everyone here this evening. So I, I tend to start with, I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I get to work at the Ford Foundation and I'm leading a really exciting initiative. Um When Henry and Ed made their last uh donation in 1947 a lot has happened since then. I was hired in 2018 to lead impact investing. And III, I do wanna say that um Alan Murray, he, he, he made the comment about um ESG becoming dirt impact investing can sometimes be seen as a dirty word. And I started referring to what we do as patriotic capitalism, which is a form of capitalism that puts the interests of country democracy, seeing the common good. First. It also has the benefit of being a little bit harder to weaponize. Uh as a term uh for those who are looking to divide us, uh There are opportunities out there. Uh We all know about but the, the Ford Foundation, um we believe that we are able to generate um attractive financial returns along with social impact. And we've, we've uh proven that um I still around after 80 years. Uh we are, we are, we're still around, We're doing well. And the key to this is truly thinking about what is good for the country. The world is changing, the world order is changing. The current driver of economic strength for any nation is its human capital. So almost everything we do has to do with human capital. We have a quality jobs name. Uh and we have a diverse fund manager's name. I can, I don't want to take up too much time. I'll stop there and we can come back. Let me just ask one follow up question. So my idea of the Ford Foundation was that it operated historically by taking its endowment investing that in markets or in, in companies and then using the proceeds to do philanthropy has that model fundamentally changed today. There's an old joke in the world of philanthropy that says, did you hear the one about the lung cancer prevention foundation? They made a killing in tobacco stock, right. So the important point about philanthropy is that the endowment investments usually do not align with the charitable mission of the foundation. That's the whole point to what the Ford Foundation has done. And what Ford did was it studied it very carefully and decided to carve out a billion dollar commitment and say, hey, let's give this a try. I think most people thought that we would lose money because when people here uh do well and do good, there's a sort of a cognitive bias that it says you got to lose. We generated in our first five years, a 28% compound annual rate of return and strong uh positive social impact. What does that mean? That means? Um in the diverse fund manager world, 1.4% of all assets under management, 80 trillion in assets under management in the US. 1.4% of that is managed by firms owned by women and people of color. Our portfolio is 68% 1.4 68. Uh Our fund managers have helped develop 23,000 affordable housing units. Um We have passed uh 76 million consumers in the global South low to moderate income. People who need fintech uh uh products to help with savings insurance, et cetera. That of course, you've been on the endowment side, you've done that as an investment, as opposed to philanthropy impact investing at the Ford Foundation is endowment capital. I run a separate endowment. Our mission was to was to display what an endowment can do. That's attempting to generate financial returns and social returns. The 28% is roughly 3.5 times what a foundation needs to achieve, which is spend rate, all foundations in the US are required to spend 5% plus inflation, purchasing power, um spending a lot these days. So uh we're spending more than 5%. We're spending 6% and we raised a billion dollar totally separate social impact bond to, to bond to give away. Uh But the point is we need to make at least eight or 9% to be sustainable and we've done well. Now, I don't say that we're not bragging. I don't think I'm a market wizard. We publish that data to provide a countervailing data point for people automatically assume that you're trying to do well and do good. You're going to lose, right? We say you don't have to lose that. That's an important point, I think. And it certainly adjusts my point of view or, or my understanding of how the Ford Foundation works. Now, let's take a more recent organization, Michael, you work for the Emerson Collective. It's been around for about 10 years. Is that right? Yeah, it depends on when you start the clock, 10 years is good. Um And so if you take that historical model of endowments and then uh philanthropy has that, was that different from the get go at the Emerson Collective? Were you all in on impact investing from the get go. Yeah. So from the very beginning, we were stood up as an LLC rather than as a traditional foundation. No, we preserved a lot of flexibility in the way we allocated capital and we're able to run some experiments and be creative. Is that for, for um ethical or moral considerations or, or for, for the flexibility for it was more for the flexibility, the observation and the reason for the collective was there's very difficult social issues out there that humanity's traditional tools haven't yet been able to address. And so Loraine looked at it and said, well, let's try a new model. Let's experiment. You know, we're at the uh the doorstep of Stanford, some of the greatest minds in organizational theory. Um Let's try some different ways that haven't been done before. So the idea of the collective is we've got a group of people focus on different issues using different tools and we're trying to be inspired by each other's work and um port some of those lessons over to other sectors where they can be more effective. Give us a few examples of places you've invested in and that has worked well for you to have returned uh good returns, both social impact and financial. Yeah. So our venture team that I'm on, I lead the energy and environment group more recently could be referred to as climate tech, but I've been doing it for a lot longer than that's been a term. Um And we look for consequential companies and the way we define consequential is generational scale impact and venture scale returns. So we don't see there's a trade off. There's really two ways we do that. One is how you filter and then how you help. Um So out of the gate, we look deliberately for opportunities where there's going to be profitability and impact that are well aligned. It's pretty easy to do in the climate space. It's more difficult in some of the other categories such as education, technology. Sometimes those can come into when you say it's more difficult. Have you cracked that code or, or not? And, and do you think it's possible if not? I think it's more being intellectually honest with what is the underlying um alignment between the profit motive and the impact motive, right? Or what the particular um technology is. So with climate, it's pretty obvious there's times where you really have great alignment. For instance, an investment in a company called Posen down in Louisiana that focuses on solar for low and moderate income households using a new underwriting approach. Um And then there's other opportunities where it maybe is not as obvious. And we have an opportunity to partner with really dynamic entrepreneurs who are gonna change the world and we have an opportunity to help them out of the gate, make sure that they're doing in a way that is planet positive and good for the environment. Right. I, I want to turn to Nikita. So you, of course, work for a, a firm that has traditionally been known, I suppose, since 100 and what, 70 years now. So 100 and 75 100 and 75. Congratulations in Switzerland. There's a, a club that you can only belong to if you exist for 100 and 75 years. Um, so, you know, but of course you're not a Swiss company. Um There's many, um so, uh you've done most of your existence, I suppose in traditional financing wealth management that we all know what is the size and growth of impact investing at Lazar. Um I think it's one of the most exciting areas uh within asset management and wealth management. Um Obviously, it comes down to definitions. Yeah, when you say exciting, could you, could you be more precise? I, I think the whole space including ESG is actually really, um we're in early stages, you know, first innings as much as we would, a lot of us here have been doing ESG for 15, 20 years, but that is still very young compared to the history of financial markets. I would kind of place us at where we were pre ec in financial markets when there were no definitions for, you know, what was and two investors couldn't necessarily speak and compare notes on the financial productivity or the health of the business that's still where we are in this space. So definitions are still very early. But if I would clarify on our end and the way I do think it is important to, to be clear about what your intentions are, I I define eg personally as an investor from an investor's perspective, discovering and pricing and g risks and opportunities. And it's really about financial materiality. Do you not uh segment out impact investing at Lazar? So um not currently, but the way I would define impact investing and and hopefully this is helpful for specifically this audience here. And one of the main points I wanted to make at this panel is impact investing is not just for the realm of private investors. It's certainly not just about grant making as we just heard from, from Roy, but also not just limited to venture capital and private equity public, large public companies can have significant impact in the world if we define impact as the intention of having positive measurable, environmental and social impact in a way that that that lasts and where you can measure your contribution, that's how a majority of people in this field kind of define it. And I think corporations in the world are the units, the largest units of change. They are the drivers of change, positive and negative. They are by virtue of the size of the companies that you all work at and the complex stakeholder relationships you have, you are generating impact in society every day. It's a question of measuring it, articulating that story tying it to your investment and that then creating opportunities for us as investors to participate in. Does that also mean that ESG investing as you, as you define it? Um does not have a limit and upper limits could, could all investing be ESG investing since you know, we're all companies who are the greatest driver of change in the world. And so, you know, everyone can be an ESG investment for Lazar. I remember when I was interviewing at Lazard several years ago and, and my pitch to them was that you will know we are successful at what we're doing when I've lost my job because doing ESG and incorporating ESG into your work is about being a good fundamental investor. If you, how can you be a good fundamental investor today, an active investor doing deep research if you don't think about the consequences of the energy transition or healthier living habits and how consumers are shifting their preferences or worker rights and how that's shifting the operational margins of businesses, especially service oriented businesses. So it's part and parcel of being a good investor, right? But since we're in the early innings, I suppose you're still a while away from losing your job, which is a good thing I suppose in a way, at least for you. So uh I want to turn to the question for uh to, to the audience. There we go. This is my jet lacking and I want to turn to the audience for, for a question. Uh, but maybe just before, uh, we do, um, uh, Roy back to you. So, you know, we've heard a bit about the, the new models that are, that are being looked at ESG from the point of view of Lazar being an LLC, from the point of view of the Emerson Collective, is the Ford Foundation ever fundamentally going to change its model? Or is it just basically turning all of what you do in your endowments over to patriotic capitalism? Yeah. Well, um I assume that the board of trustees both at Ford and other um organizations are watching us very closely. There was great skepticism when impact investing was announced at the Ford Foundation. Um We've published our achievements thus far. And again, I want to stress even a broken clock is right, twice a day. I mean, we knock the cover off the ball but I mean, I live in Switzerland that that wouldn't die there. Um You don't like broken clocks. Um So, um I, I agree with the, that um um my theory is that as time goes on ESG disclosures, uh we will quantify them into dollar figures that can be baked into investment modeling and then you're taking risks and opportunities into evaluation and then investing in. There's no, it's investing because you have more investing has been about more information, creating better valuation alter, that's right and understanding the quantified cost of g helps um policy makers determine what needs to be internal, what externalities need to be internalized. Helps consumers decide. Do you want to make purchases from a company that's dumping costs on society or do you want to go elsewhere? Makes sense. I got time for one question. Um Let's maybe come over here and if you can state your name, perhaps also what you do or the company you work for any of your question and we're getting, we're getting the mic to you right now. Hi, I'm Raja and then one of the founders at Ulnas. Um we're a technology firm, we do data quality engineering. Uh We are an impact venture um and just as context. So our mission is to demonstrate neuro diversity as a competitive advantage. We have teammates in 30 states, three quarters are autistic, son of teammates are dyslexic, dyslexic, nonspeaking, etcetera. Um My question to you is um what are the trade offs you see as acceptable when you're trading off impact and profit? Because as an operator, I can tell you it's not a perfect world. We're making management decisions every day that you're trading off EBIT with, invest more in training and development in mental health support, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't buy it that there is no trade off that you can achieve the same market returns without sacrificing returns and have an impact. I would just like to hear your thoughts on, where are those tradeoffs happening and where is it acceptable, Michael? Can I turn it over to you in one minute or less? Yeah, I, I think it's like any other market where you're going to have diminishing returns. There's opportunities where there's great alignment and there's opportunities where there's no alignment or negative alignment. And so I think it's being honest with where on that continuum you fall of what the alignment is between the fundamental profit motive and the impact motive. Um I think, you know, one of the things it sounds like you're doing is you're finding a way to tap into talent pools that traditionally have been ignored and that can be a way to uncover talent that otherwise wouldn't be noticed. And so you're gonna, you can have great alignment there. It's possible there's a lot of recruiting and training and things like that that go into it, but also you probably have a higher hit rate and you find the talent being able to get them on to your team. So I think that's a great example of a program that has huge impact. Um but also can have great probability. Excellent and you did that perfectly on time. Thank you so much, Mike. Well done. Uh My Swiss compatriots will be very proud of us and me. That's it for, for us. Thank you so much. We'll be talking much more about this in the next 24 hours. But for now, thank you to our panelists.</p>

Michael Bruce, Venture Investing, Emerson Collective, Nikita Singhal, Sustainable Investment and ESG, Lazard Asset Management, Roy Swan, Ford Foundation Peter Vanham, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Aligning Profitability With Purpose

Well, hello and good afternoon. It's a pleasure as Alan said to be back here in the great city of Atlanta. And I have to warn you a little bit ahead of this uh session. I myself just came over from Europe. So it's quite late for me. Normally you'd run the risk as a moderator to bore your public and put them to sleep. But I might just do that to myself. So to make sure that we don't, let's get this conversation started and I'd like to suggest that we start with Roy and just one more thing, you know, you're going to hear a lot about ESG and ESG investing and about the backlash against it. We're gonna get, we're going to stay out of that trouble because we're going to be talking about impact investing, right? Do you remember impact investing? Well, these people are all experts in impact investing. And Roy, I think if we can go back a little bit in time, we work, of course, for the Ford Foundation, you know, I think if we go back perhaps a century in time, almost, you know, Ford, of course, the founder Henry Ford was maybe one of the people that did impact investing first. Now you as a foundation though, changed that model of combining for profits, uh investing with social impact, you change that model to corporate philanthropy. And I think if, if we know uh any organization that did corporate philanthropy or philanthropy over the last century, I think a lot of people would think of the Ford Foundation today though, it seems like you've embraced also this impact investing trends. Could you tell us a little bit more about the evolving approach of the Ford Foundation and what the role is of impact investing uh for your organization today? Uh Sure. First of all, thanks for having me here. Great to see everyone here this evening. So I, I tend to start with, I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I get to work at the Ford Foundation and I'm leading a really exciting initiative. Um When Henry and Ed made their last uh donation in 1947 a lot has happened since then. I was hired in 2018 to lead impact investing. And III, I do wanna say that um Alan Murray, he, he, he made the comment about um ESG becoming dirt impact investing can sometimes be seen as a dirty word. And I started referring to what we do as patriotic capitalism, which is a form of capitalism that puts the interests of country democracy, seeing the common good. First. It also has the benefit of being a little bit harder to weaponize. Uh as a term uh for those who are looking to divide us, uh There are opportunities out there. Uh We all know about but the, the Ford Foundation, um we believe that we are able to generate um attractive financial returns along with social impact. And we've, we've uh proven that um I still around after 80 years. Uh we are, we are, we're still around, We're doing well. And the key to this is truly thinking about what is good for the country. The world is changing, the world order is changing. The current driver of economic strength for any nation is its human capital. So almost everything we do has to do with human capital. We have a quality jobs name. Uh and we have a diverse fund manager's name. I can, I don't want to take up too much time. I'll stop there and we can come back. Let me just ask one follow up question. So my idea of the Ford Foundation was that it operated historically by taking its endowment investing that in markets or in, in companies and then using the proceeds to do philanthropy has that model fundamentally changed today. There's an old joke in the world of philanthropy that says, did you hear the one about the lung cancer prevention foundation? They made a killing in tobacco stock, right. So the important point about philanthropy is that the endowment investments usually do not align with the charitable mission of the foundation. That's the whole point to what the Ford Foundation has done. And what Ford did was it studied it very carefully and decided to carve out a billion dollar commitment and say, hey, let's give this a try. I think most people thought that we would lose money because when people here uh do well and do good, there's a sort of a cognitive bias that it says you got to lose. We generated in our first five years, a 28% compound annual rate of return and strong uh positive social impact. What does that mean? That means? Um in the diverse fund manager world, 1.4% of all assets under management, 80 trillion in assets under management in the US. 1.4% of that is managed by firms owned by women and people of color. Our portfolio is 68% 1.4 68. Uh Our fund managers have helped develop 23,000 affordable housing units. Um We have passed uh 76 million consumers in the global South low to moderate income. People who need fintech uh uh products to help with savings insurance, et cetera. That of course, you've been on the endowment side, you've done that as an investment, as opposed to philanthropy impact investing at the Ford Foundation is endowment capital. I run a separate endowment. Our mission was to was to display what an endowment can do. That's attempting to generate financial returns and social returns. The 28% is roughly 3.5 times what a foundation needs to achieve, which is spend rate, all foundations in the US are required to spend 5% plus inflation, purchasing power, um spending a lot these days. So uh we're spending more than 5%. We're spending 6% and we raised a billion dollar totally separate social impact bond to, to bond to give away. Uh But the point is we need to make at least eight or 9% to be sustainable and we've done well. Now, I don't say that we're not bragging. I don't think I'm a market wizard. We publish that data to provide a countervailing data point for people automatically assume that you're trying to do well and do good. You're going to lose, right? We say you don't have to lose that. That's an important point, I think. And it certainly adjusts my point of view or, or my understanding of how the Ford Foundation works. Now, let's take a more recent organization, Michael, you work for the Emerson Collective. It's been around for about 10 years. Is that right? Yeah, it depends on when you start the clock, 10 years is good. Um And so if you take that historical model of endowments and then uh philanthropy has that, was that different from the get go at the Emerson Collective? Were you all in on impact investing from the get go. Yeah. So from the very beginning, we were stood up as an LLC rather than as a traditional foundation. No, we preserved a lot of flexibility in the way we allocated capital and we're able to run some experiments and be creative. Is that for, for um ethical or moral considerations or, or for, for the flexibility for it was more for the flexibility, the observation and the reason for the collective was there's very difficult social issues out there that humanity's traditional tools haven't yet been able to address. And so Loraine looked at it and said, well, let's try a new model. Let's experiment. You know, we're at the uh the doorstep of Stanford, some of the greatest minds in organizational theory. Um Let's try some different ways that haven't been done before. So the idea of the collective is we've got a group of people focus on different issues using different tools and we're trying to be inspired by each other's work and um port some of those lessons over to other sectors where they can be more effective. Give us a few examples of places you've invested in and that has worked well for you to have returned uh good returns, both social impact and financial. Yeah. So our venture team that I'm on, I lead the energy and environment group more recently could be referred to as climate tech, but I've been doing it for a lot longer than that's been a term. Um And we look for consequential companies and the way we define consequential is generational scale impact and venture scale returns. So we don't see there's a trade off. There's really two ways we do that. One is how you filter and then how you help. Um So out of the gate, we look deliberately for opportunities where there's going to be profitability and impact that are well aligned. It's pretty easy to do in the climate space. It's more difficult in some of the other categories such as education, technology. Sometimes those can come into when you say it's more difficult. Have you cracked that code or, or not? And, and do you think it's possible if not? I think it's more being intellectually honest with what is the underlying um alignment between the profit motive and the impact motive, right? Or what the particular um technology is. So with climate, it's pretty obvious there's times where you really have great alignment. For instance, an investment in a company called Posen down in Louisiana that focuses on solar for low and moderate income households using a new underwriting approach. Um And then there's other opportunities where it maybe is not as obvious. And we have an opportunity to partner with really dynamic entrepreneurs who are gonna change the world and we have an opportunity to help them out of the gate, make sure that they're doing in a way that is planet positive and good for the environment. Right. I, I want to turn to Nikita. So you, of course, work for a, a firm that has traditionally been known, I suppose, since 100 and what, 70 years now. So 100 and 75 100 and 75. Congratulations in Switzerland. There's a, a club that you can only belong to if you exist for 100 and 75 years. Um, so, you know, but of course you're not a Swiss company. Um There's many, um so, uh you've done most of your existence, I suppose in traditional financing wealth management that we all know what is the size and growth of impact investing at Lazar. Um I think it's one of the most exciting areas uh within asset management and wealth management. Um Obviously, it comes down to definitions. Yeah, when you say exciting, could you, could you be more precise? I, I think the whole space including ESG is actually really, um we're in early stages, you know, first innings as much as we would, a lot of us here have been doing ESG for 15, 20 years, but that is still very young compared to the history of financial markets. I would kind of place us at where we were pre ec in financial markets when there were no definitions for, you know, what was and two investors couldn't necessarily speak and compare notes on the financial productivity or the health of the business that's still where we are in this space. So definitions are still very early. But if I would clarify on our end and the way I do think it is important to, to be clear about what your intentions are, I I define eg personally as an investor from an investor's perspective, discovering and pricing and g risks and opportunities. And it's really about financial materiality. Do you not uh segment out impact investing at Lazar? So um not currently, but the way I would define impact investing and and hopefully this is helpful for specifically this audience here. And one of the main points I wanted to make at this panel is impact investing is not just for the realm of private investors. It's certainly not just about grant making as we just heard from, from Roy, but also not just limited to venture capital and private equity public, large public companies can have significant impact in the world if we define impact as the intention of having positive measurable, environmental and social impact in a way that that that lasts and where you can measure your contribution, that's how a majority of people in this field kind of define it. And I think corporations in the world are the units, the largest units of change. They are the drivers of change, positive and negative. They are by virtue of the size of the companies that you all work at and the complex stakeholder relationships you have, you are generating impact in society every day. It's a question of measuring it, articulating that story tying it to your investment and that then creating opportunities for us as investors to participate in. Does that also mean that ESG investing as you, as you define it? Um does not have a limit and upper limits could, could all investing be ESG investing since you know, we're all companies who are the greatest driver of change in the world. And so, you know, everyone can be an ESG investment for Lazar. I remember when I was interviewing at Lazard several years ago and, and my pitch to them was that you will know we are successful at what we're doing when I've lost my job because doing ESG and incorporating ESG into your work is about being a good fundamental investor. If you, how can you be a good fundamental investor today, an active investor doing deep research if you don't think about the consequences of the energy transition or healthier living habits and how consumers are shifting their preferences or worker rights and how that's shifting the operational margins of businesses, especially service oriented businesses. So it's part and parcel of being a good investor, right? But since we're in the early innings, I suppose you're still a while away from losing your job, which is a good thing I suppose in a way, at least for you. So uh I want to turn to the question for uh to, to the audience. There we go. This is my jet lacking and I want to turn to the audience for, for a question. Uh, but maybe just before, uh, we do, um, uh, Roy back to you. So, you know, we've heard a bit about the, the new models that are, that are being looked at ESG from the point of view of Lazar being an LLC, from the point of view of the Emerson Collective, is the Ford Foundation ever fundamentally going to change its model? Or is it just basically turning all of what you do in your endowments over to patriotic capitalism? Yeah. Well, um I assume that the board of trustees both at Ford and other um organizations are watching us very closely. There was great skepticism when impact investing was announced at the Ford Foundation. Um We've published our achievements thus far. And again, I want to stress even a broken clock is right, twice a day. I mean, we knock the cover off the ball but I mean, I live in Switzerland that that wouldn't die there. Um You don't like broken clocks. Um So, um I, I agree with the, that um um my theory is that as time goes on ESG disclosures, uh we will quantify them into dollar figures that can be baked into investment modeling and then you're taking risks and opportunities into evaluation and then investing in. There's no, it's investing because you have more investing has been about more information, creating better valuation alter, that's right and understanding the quantified cost of g helps um policy makers determine what needs to be internal, what externalities need to be internalized. Helps consumers decide. Do you want to make purchases from a company that's dumping costs on society or do you want to go elsewhere? Makes sense. I got time for one question. Um Let's maybe come over here and if you can state your name, perhaps also what you do or the company you work for any of your question and we're getting, we're getting the mic to you right now. Hi, I'm Raja and then one of the founders at Ulnas. Um we're a technology firm, we do data quality engineering. Uh We are an impact venture um and just as context. So our mission is to demonstrate neuro diversity as a competitive advantage. We have teammates in 30 states, three quarters are autistic, son of teammates are dyslexic, dyslexic, nonspeaking, etcetera. Um My question to you is um what are the trade offs you see as acceptable when you're trading off impact and profit? Because as an operator, I can tell you it's not a perfect world. We're making management decisions every day that you're trading off EBIT with, invest more in training and development in mental health support, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't buy it that there is no trade off that you can achieve the same market returns without sacrificing returns and have an impact. I would just like to hear your thoughts on, where are those tradeoffs happening and where is it acceptable, Michael? Can I turn it over to you in one minute or less? Yeah, I, I think it's like any other market where you're going to have diminishing returns. There's opportunities where there's great alignment and there's opportunities where there's no alignment or negative alignment. And so I think it's being honest with where on that continuum you fall of what the alignment is between the fundamental profit motive and the impact motive. Um I think, you know, one of the things it sounds like you're doing is you're finding a way to tap into talent pools that traditionally have been ignored and that can be a way to uncover talent that otherwise wouldn't be noticed. And so you're gonna, you can have great alignment there. It's possible there's a lot of recruiting and training and things like that that go into it, but also you probably have a higher hit rate and you find the talent being able to get them on to your team. So I think that's a great example of a program that has huge impact. Um but also can have great probability. Excellent and you did that perfectly on time. Thank you so much, Mike. Well done. Uh My Swiss compatriots will be very proud of us and me. That's it for, for us. Thank you so much. We'll be talking much more about this in the next 24 hours. But for now, thank you to our panelists.

Ryan Seacrest, Emmy-winning television and radio host, producer, entrepreneur, and
philanthropist
 Interviewer: Alan Murray, Chief Executive Officer, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Wheel of Fortune's Ryan Seacrest on prioritizing philanthropy

Wheel of Fortune's Ryan Seacrest on prioritizing philanthropy

So as I mentioned, just before we started the Food. Tonight's guest is a name we see in here pretty much everywhere. In addition to becoming the host of Wheel of Fortune, one of the longest running game shows of all time and posting and producing some of the most popular television and radio shows around. He somehow also finds the time to be the founder and chairman of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation here to talk about the future of the foundation and the work it is doing to bring state of the art media centers to pediatric hospitals across the country. Please welcome Emmy winning television and radio host, producer, entrepreneur and philanthropist Ryan Seacrest together with Fortune Ceo Alan Murray, Brian. Thank you so much for, for being here, Alan. No pressure. Yeah, we didn't plan on that. Alan, no pressure that um I'm very happy to be interviewed and not having to ask the questions and I'm happy to do it. I got to tell you, I have done hundreds of interviews at these Fortune events. This is the first time I've had to do an interview in front in front of the interviewee's mother. Well, that's a that's that about a particular pressure tag, by the way, brag her about all those interviews. But uh mother OK. Would you like you can chime in my mom is here. She, it's like I can't ask you a tough question. Sure you can, she'll answer them. We can put, we can put a chair up here for you. No, no, no. She had her hair done but she's fine right there. You look at you. Look beautiful mom. Good to see you. My parents live here. So uh well, it's great to have you here. We're, we're uh we have a lot of questions about this guy which we'll get to in a minute. Yeah, thank you. But I, but, but I, but I want to start with secret studios. Tom introduced uh his son got an experience of it. What is it? And why did you do it? So, through my work, I had spent time in different children's hospitals around the country and after I would visit some of the patients, I'd spend time with their parents and I would ask them questions and the story I heard most often was um my son, my daughter run out of things to do or things to look forward to or reasons to get up out of their bed and even walk down the hallway. And as I left it really resonated with me that potentially there is an idea here that we could create a nucleus a heartbeat, a real destination within, inside the walls of the hospital. And then I asked myself the question, what if and is it possible for kids at some point to actually look forward to coming to receive treatment at a hospital and what would draw that excitement out of them? So the idea, as I talked with my mom, my dad and my sister that night at dinner, we were all together. The idea was to build multi media content, creative spaces inside children's hospitals that are fish bowls where the patients and their families can come to interact and, and really come alive inside the hospital. It's a great idea and I want to go into it in a little more depth. But before I do, I mean, you do and have for a long time, done a five hour radio talk show every day. You were doing Kelly and Ryan every day. You've been doing American Idol for 21 years. It's not like you needed something to do. Why, why add this those things are important? But this is really important. Um This is something that is, um it's, it's very meaningful to me to hear and see the stories from, from parents, from patients. There's a, there's a story from a Dallas patient. Um there was a young girl who was in the hospital and she was working on her self confidence and she really wanted to be a part of the Sea Crest Studios. But she didn't want to be seen, she didn't feel good about herself. So through the technology that we have inside these studios, which are live broadcast studios, we create an avatar for her. And she developed this personality through her avatar. Well, after she gained more and more confidence, she finally said I want to go in the studio and I want to host the show and she became a star inside our studio at the Dallas Seacrest studio and hospital there. Well, I think we have a picture of the studio maybe. Yeah, there you go. Um And so these are in the hospital. So these are mainly in the lobby in the atrium of the hospitals. And if you think about any, if you think about GMA in the morning or you think about a sound stage where you think about a green screen, a radio studio, a podcast studio. I know you do a podcast, all of those capabilities can be executed inside these studios, all of the content that is created inside hosted many times by the patients. All of that content is then broadcast into the rooms of the hospital. So the patients who are in their beds can partake in it and interact with it. Do you, does it have, do you think it has medical effect, health effect? I definitely think it helps with the healing process. We know that it helps with the mental health of these patients when they are going through difficult things. But, you know, to have a young patient tell their mother that they wake up in the morning, excited to go for treatment because they're going to be on TV, and they're going to see their friends inside the studio. I mean, that's why this is important to me. Yeah. Yeah. And, and by the way, it's not just the studio. Can we pull up the other picture? You, you, you bring in people to Russell and Sierra? Yeah. Yeah. They get to meet people that the rest of us don't get to meet. I mean, that's part of the magic. It's, it is, uh, just 10 days ago, Ed Sheeran stopped by and, and these celebrities just do it. Ed Sheeran came by our studio in Colorado that he played, he played two songs and that habit and perfect. He sang with the kids. He let them ask every thing and they're great at creative questions. I mean, they ask what we want to know and they're not shy about it. And so they had a chance to interact with him. Taylor Swift opened our Nashville studio with us. The Jonas brothers have come through recently and that electricity, even the anticipation of these celebrities coming through. That's part of the programming as well. That's part of the excitement. Then of course, there's the payoff, then there's the after effect of talking about it, sharing those stories with other patients. I, I, but I want to go back to this question of why on top of everything else that you do, did you do this? I mean, everybody in this room you got a bunch of very busy corporate executives sitting in this room, they all have very busy. Talk faster. Yeah, they all, they all, we are in Atlanta. It's ok. You can say that they, they, my own town careful. They all, uh, struggle with work life balance. You don't struggle with work life balance, you have none. You can't possibly have any. I mean, five hours a day doing the radio show, you know, I really do. I segment my days to be very heavy and efficient in terms of production. I am very um focused on what meetings are most important to have for me. When I'm in a meeting, it's very efficient and when there are phone calls or conference calls that we need to have, I strategically take those when I'm in transit to another job. Uh so that I know in my head space that between, you know, by, by four o'clock, I've got free space to exercise to take a walk, to play with my dog to eat dinner. But the front end of it is efficiently and strategically. Um Do you ever just say I gotta, I gotta take the next five days off? I'm sorry, you know, I'm checking out. I say I want to take two weeks off. I mean, and I do, you know, over the summer I get my breaks and I, I take that time and it's important to see this is where I want your mother on the stage. I mean, like, was, was he always like this always? Right? And the, you know, the other thing I've always this, I've wondered this for a long time. Your business. There are people who are, who want to be famous, they are talent and there are people who want to get rich who want to be moguls. Um You're doing both, you're doing both at the same time. Did you set out the dude? No. Listen, did you set out? Did he know he wanted to? I, I really would rather it next year. Always want to do both. Mhm She says yes, I always wanted to be able to go out for dinner and afford to have what I wanted on the menu. Even when I was a little kid. I thought that was cool. Um We would go when I was, when I would do well in school, we'd go to La Paz Mexican restaurant or dos Amigos in Sandy Springs. And I thought, wow, this is living like three cheese enchiladas. I want three cheese enchiladas with two sauces on the side. Like that's what I want in life. You, you, I think you have achieved that. Well, I, I, but I, I also looked, I, I looked at Dick Clark, I looked at Merv Griffin. I looked at these legends in, in broadcasting who were not only in front of the camera, they were also behind the camera. They also understood the dynamics of production and ownership and having assets as well. And I, I studied that and I wanted to do that. Yeah. Uh something we were talking about earlier, that is another thing everyone in this room struggles with. Uh uh because these are people who are really trying to drive companies to social purpose, to do social good. And the problem that they faced in the last couple of years is they're getting pulled into a political ring that they don't want to be in. You've done an amazing job in your career. You talked to everybody about everything all day long, but you've done an amazing job staying out of politics. How do you do that? Why do you do that? Who, who taught you to do that? Well, the, the, the programs that I front and the programs that I have produced in the past are general broad mainstream programs that appeal to large audiences and we want everybody to tune in. We want all ages to feel welcome. We want all ages to feel included. I'm thinking of the radio show that I do in the morning, which is broadcast back to Los Angeles on a station called Kiss FM. Um, you know, we look at the ratings from, you know, six plus, right? You know, we, we're, we're trying to make sure that this is a destination and this is a place that when you're commuting with your kids in the car, you will hear a conversation that you'll be interested in that they will also not be turned off by it or there will be nothing that is offensive to them or have to be explained to them about a conversation that we're having. So I do look through that lens of appeal. I mean, what if someone calls up and wants to talk about, you know, should, should people be able to play sports and uh in a gender different than the one they were born in? I mean, the, the all the controversial topics that everybody's getting pulled into every day. Do you screen those out? I mean, I don't screen them out. Um That's probably a caller that wouldn't come, call into our show because if, if they're familiar, if they're familiar with it, they know it's not our show. I mean, um we are talking to do and this morning Demi Lovato, you know, it's like, and, and, and if any of those conversations come up with some of those artists, then they are fluid and they happen. But we do want everybody to feel welcome and comfortable and appeal to large audiences. What I want to. If anyone else has questions here, we do have microphones of somebody. I have 100 questions I could keep and Sasha is going to come out in a minute and cut me off. So I, but I, I'm happy to take questions from anyone else who mother. Yeah. Go ahead. Is there anybody question you've been dying to ask him? Yes, ma'am. I don't want to say your favorite book, but a book that you gift most often or a couple of books. Great question. Yeah, I just started reading. Well, so one I've fallen in love with recently, which is maybe a little bit bizarre, is unreasonable hospitality. It's this book about uh 11 Madison Park and the story of it and exceeding expectation when it comes to entertaining people or hosting people or being hospitable hospital, hospitable. Um And I see myself as someone that is in the hospitality business. And so that's a book that I really gravitated towards. And the other one we were talking about back backstage is, is uh Second Mountain by David Brooks is Second Mountain. I love that book too. Yeah. Have you read Second Mountain? You have, you're in favor. I, I heard that. Yes, you have a, a question right here. Yes. How do you manage your energy? Not? Well, um I, what, how have I always been like that? I guess so. Yeah, I fortunately I, I wake up with energy. I absolutely love the opportunities that are in front of me. I like people. I enjoy it when someone says, do you mind if I, I mean, someone said to me, I'm so sorry to bother you for a selfie. I'm happy. Like I, I love that. You know, you sleep? How many hours do you sleep at night? I sleep well, you do you, I don't know how many hours I get it. My ring is off right now. But you're right. Yeah, I sleep. I sleep well, I'm tired by the time I go to bed and then I, how about diet? What kind of a diet do you? I eat a plant based diet. I don't eat no meat. I eat a little bit of meat when I'm traveling. If it's a great place and it's authentic to the region, I'll have something. Um, but generally fish and, and a plant based diet and I don't have breakfast in the morning, but I do have coffee. Question mark here. Hi. Hi, my name is Carmen and I wanted to ask because impact when you think about impact many people think is always good. But have you gone through a tough moment that was decision making in your life and change you for the better and change through that time by going through that time? You really ended up in a good place. Well, I mean, I, I think that for me, um, fortunately, I've, I've known what I wanted at a very young age and I've had a very ferocious appetite to try and achieve that. And I've been focused on that. But one of the most difficult things for me just in terms of career we're talking about here was at the beginning when I was at the University of Georgia here. And I come from a very traditional family. My father is here. He's a lawyer. My parents have been married. I'm sorry, not to mention your father. I was focused on your mother. That's just the thing we got, he got his hair done today too. Um, but, and you've been married 53 years. Yeah. And so when I was at the, that's pretty good too. Not married another topic. And you're 54 48. Um, but to go back to your question, I was, I was at the university. I knew that traditionally in my head, you're supposed to go to school, get your degree, get your job. But I was losing sleep at school because I wanted to so badly drop out and pursue my dream in Los Angeles. But I didn't have a contact, I didn't know how or who or, or really what I was going to do, but I knew if I didn't try and do it, I would regret that for the rest of my life. So I packed up my little Honda prelude. I drove down to Atlanta from Athens and I told my mom and dad, I'm dropping out of the University of Georgia. I'm going to go pursue this and I said, I really hope that you will support me, but I want to know no matter what I'm going to do it and it was a very difficult you guys ever doubt he would succeed. No. Oh, sure. Now you say that. So, so that was, that was a very difficult at 19 years old moment for me. I I've saved the really big question for last. Yeah. Are you gonna keep Vanna White? So I am going to, I'm fortunate enough to take over for the legendary Pat next year, which I am. So my energy is gonna go up sir on that. I'm telling you. Um I have been the biggest fan of that show forever. I love Vanna White. I've known Vanna for a long time. We sat in important places next to each other and I hope for nothing more than to be able to walk out on that stage and host with her. That's cool. So I have a present for you. You don't know about this. Um uh This is the very first issue of Fortune magazine February 1930. You were not there then. I was not the CEO at that time. How did he get you back? Feb February 1930. You know what this is? Yes, that is the Wheel of Fortune, is it? That is the first cover, the first cover of Fortune Maggie. So we're kind of like brothers. I'll call her mom. It's so funny. I thought this was like from Six Flags. I was like, oh, that's the Ferris Wheel of Six Flags. Uh Thank you. That's very kind. Yeah, you can put that. You can put that in one, by the way, the subscription annual, you know what it was $10 a year. You can do it. Yeah, anyway, thank, thank you so much very in what you do. Really great to have you with us. Thanks man. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for, thank you guys.

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