Closing the CPG Gender Gap with The Female Quotient's Shelley Zalis

Shelley Zalis (00:00)

I'm Shelley Zalis the CEO of the Female Quotient, otherwise known as Chief Troublemaker, and I am excited to be on CPG Guys podcast.

PVSB (00:09)

Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys podcast. I am your adorable co-host, PVSB. I also moonlight as head of industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the Commerce Acceleration Division of Omnicom. My co-host, he's the father of pop stars, Rhea Raj, and Katseye's Lara Raj. The fans call him, of course, Papa Raj. He's also the chief revenue officer at ThinkBlue Consulting. Sri can't join us today because he's out helping his daughter Rhea with some urgent business imperatives, but fear not, dear listeners. I have a blast from the past for your enjoyment.

She's appeared as a guest host on our podcast several times and along with our friend Cristina Marinucci is the co-founder and co-host of the brand new and quite trending She Commerce podcast. She's also a colleague of mine in my avatar at flywheel. Please join me in welcoming my sister from another mister Jacqui Donowski. Jax, how you doing ? What's going on?

Jacqui Dynowski (01:01)

Pretty good. You're still my brother from another mother Peter Super excited super excited to be back on the CPG guys soil It's like nostalgia and energy together,

PVSB (01:05)

There we go.

I know.

And I will say that when I asked you for this particular episode and our guest who we're going to introduce in a second, you had a definite fangirl moment and did a big scream. To say that you screamed out loud would be an understatement. Jacqui before we get to that, remind our audience what she commerce is all about.

Jacqui Dynowski (01:23)

⁓ huge fan.

Well, SheCommerce is technically it's a podcast, but really what we're doing, Peter, Cristina and I, we're creating a community and using podcasts as the medium. It's around, yes, we're talking about CPG, we're talking about retail media, we're talking about, you know, what's happening. We're celebrating women, we're celebrating leaders, but really it's about bringing this community together to

talk to the female leaders, to talk to allies, to look at what it takes for women to go from point A to point B to point Z, and what the blueprints are, creating that sense of community, fostering that spirit between the CPG leaders and up and coming folks on the trail. And it's really around that supportive sisterhood and real talk. know, we talk about

what's going on in media, we also talk about how menopause affects it, how pregnancy affects that, and everything in between.

PVSB (02:35)

That is great, Jacqui I especially like when you spill the tea. That's my favorite part of the episode. I encourage. Yep, and that's what we love here. ⁓ Anyone listening to this episode, go to the digital show notes. There is a permanent link in all of our episodes to She Commerce podcast. It is one of our sister podcasts. We are so honored to have been part of the creation of this and you're part of our podcast family.

Jacqui Dynowski (02:39)

No.

Shelley Zalis (02:40)

when you say menopause I'm like, yeah.

Jacqui Dynowski (02:43)

right?

PVSB (02:59)

And let me remind our audience. Please follow us on your favorite podcast platform be at Apple Spotify YouTube whatever and if you're on Apple or Spotify Particularly while you're there give us a rating our favorite number is five, but that's up to you doing so helps our podcast Become more findable by industry contemporaries who are looking to be both educated and entertained by the content We are producing. All right enough of that. Let's get to our guest

We have someone joining us today who has spent decades doing something most people in this industry only talk about, actually moving the needle on equity in the workplace. She built a global movement out of a simple but radical idea that when women are in the room, business gets better. She's the founder and CEO of the Female Quotient, an organization that has become the go-to destination for companies serious about equality as a business strategy, not just a talking point. From Davos.

to CES, to Cannes the FQ's equality lounges have become iconic gathering spaces where real conversations happen and real commitments get made. And she brings that same energy to every boardroom, every stage, and we are thrilled to say to the CPG Guys podcast today, she's a researcher, a disruptor, an advocate, and frankly, one of the most energizing people in our industry, Shelley Zalis. Welcome to the podcast. How you doing?

Shelley Zalis (04:22)

Wow, what a phenomenal welcome and you are adorable, Peter. So I'm happy that you know that you are. I will confirm and Jacqui's so excited that you have joined us as well. So let's go.

PVSB (04:35)

I'm going up to see my mom in Halifax next week. She'll be happy to know that I am still adorable This will be some some good news some good some good news to her To our audience, please again check out the digital show notes this episode You're gonna find hyperlinks to Shelley's LinkedIn profile the female quotients website all that as we carry on this conversation that way you can multitask and know your You're out for a jog in the morning. You want to open up you want who is this Shelley? I want to check

Shelley Zalis (04:41)

I'm so armed.

PVSB (05:02)

Check out what she's all about. You can all do that as you're listening to our melodic dulcet tones going on with this conversation. All right. I'm going to kick it off, Shelley. And this is really around the business case for equality. The female quotient operates on the premise that when you add women to any equation, the equation gets better. What's the most compelling ROI data you've seen from particularly CPG companies that have actually closed their internal gender gaps?

And what is it that they're doing differently?

Shelley Zalis (05:33)

Well, first, let's just talk big picture. 85 % of purchase decisions are made by women. I think that's a good starting point. if you start with that and then you think about why is diversity so important? It isn't about diversity of race, age, gender, religion. It's about diversity of lived experience.

And to me that translates to representation. If you don't have representation on the inside, you cannot reflect the consumer, the customer, the society, the purchasers, the decision-maker on the outside. So it's kind of obvious in my opinion. And when you look at any product that just doesn't work for everyone, you know that it wasn't designed intentionally for everyone. I mean, even an escalator, I don't know.

You might not be able to have this experience because your shoes are flat and ugly, but ours are high with high little heels. When you go on an escalator, I can guarantee you your heel gets stuck in that escalator. You know how dangerous that is? If it's a pump, you can leave your shoe. If it's a tie or a buckle or whatever, your foot is caught in that escalator. And so just the most basic examples, you if you think about why representation matters for everything we do, everything we say, everything we create.

That's a business case.

PVSB (07:02)

I remember when Indra Nooyi became the CEO of PepsiCo. Anyone who worked at PepsiCo headquarters like I did remembers the horrible cobblestone pathways at the entrance. First thing she did when she got there, she cleared out a very flat, smooth surface of stones to make it easier for women to walk into the building from the parking lot.

Shelley Zalis (07:24)

But until you've been there, done that, you don't know you need to do it. It has to be designed with intentionality, but it's based on experience.

PVSB (07:26)

You don't. You don't. You don't.

It does.

Jacqui.

Jacqui Dynowski (07:35)

I absolutely love that and I 100 % agree. Yes, those escalators are death traps if you're in heels, right? My question...

Shelley Zalis (07:42)

But also Jacqui, about the seatbelt.

The seatbelt, they're not comfortable in your boobs. mean, anatomically, it just like, you we could go through.

Jacqui Dynowski (07:47)

my god!

PVSB (07:50)

Preach woman,

preach. I feel your pain.

Jacqui Dynowski (07:57)

Shelley, said that 85 % of the purchasers purchase power comes from women and they are still severely, severely underrepresented in senior commercial roles in literally all of these companies. How big is that disconnect and what's the cost to brand relevance when

Leadership doesn't reflect the person going out there and buying your product.

Shelley Zalis (08:34)

Everything. you know, when you think about, I mean, the pipeline starts at 50-50. That's not really the problem. It's as we're rising the ranks to senior leadership positions. And if you actually look at where the problems arise, we actually could create the solutions for change. There are two places that the problems kick in. One is caregiving, caregiving, caregiving, caregiving. We lose most of our best leaders to caregiving.

And caregiving is still predominantly a female issue. And so, you know, and that's in the messy middle, you know, that's in middle management where we have this big problem. And if you actually break down the caregiving problem, when you have a child, the biggest problem is from zero to one years of age, because there is no school or not many places to put your kids. So it really does become a challenge. And maternity leave.

Most women take it. Paternity leave, when it's elective, most men don't because it either shows a sign of weakness or, So until we have either mandatory parental leave or, you know, some kind of systems put in place where companies take responsibility for caregiving, which I have solutions for that too, we're still going to have that problem losing our best leaders to caregiving. The second thing

where it kicks in is at the first promotion. Men ask for it and they'll negotiate their salaries. Women in general won't. And so if you actually know where the gaps start, we actually can fix it because there are amazing solutions. Also, when women take maternity leave, they miss that promotion and they miss the raise and they never catch up. So that's where we see a big problem happening.

Jacqui Dynowski (10:25)

It's when you go on that mat-lave and, you know, been there, when you come back, you're not going, it's not that next step. You've just gone two steps back and you're now running to keep up, to go up to the next step that you would have ordinarily taken if you hadn't have had that break, right?

Shelley Zalis (10:47)

Well, and also why are women in general paid 80 cents on the dollar, black women 64 cents on the dollar, Latinas 53 cents on the dollar. If especially in today's day and age, we have the data. So when people say, it's unconscious bias, if you use the word unconscious, you're conscious. You have a choice, do something or don't. So you can close the gap. You can, it will cost you money. Ouch, pull off the bandaid, it will hurt. But once you do, you put the,

process the policies in place to ensure that equal pay for equal work, whatever the job is, everyone should be getting paid the same range. It's not a complicated conversation.

PVSB (11:29)

Shell, you co founded hashtag see her, which was designed to eliminate gender bias and advertising. How, from your estimations, how CPG companies historically, some of the biggest advertisers in the world performed on the gender equality measure score and where's the big gap they still need to fill?

Shelley Zalis (11:49)

You you treasure what you measure. And as a researcher of 40 something years, a really long time, you know, why your mother, how much I love you. you know, it, really is, is true. And we've measured, you know, in advertising, persuasion and relevance. And we added likeability when online started, you know, emerging and, all of a sudden.

PVSB (11:57)

You started at age five? That's great. That's pretty good, Shel. That's nice.

Jacqui Dynowski (12:02)

Yeah

Shelley Zalis (12:18)

You know, we've never measured gender representation and perception becomes reality. So when you always are seeing, you know, the mom getting in her big van, taking kids to school in her house coat and backing up and hitting the dog or the cat, like really? That's how we're being portrayed? Like that is the silliest thing in the universe. And so, you know, we co-founded Gail, Patty and I.

the See Her movement and brought it to the A &A, the Association of National Advertisers, to get all of us. It's the collective we. If one company alone does it, it might be invisible. If collectively we march forward in a new way to measure what matters, which is gender representation for reflection and creating an accurate, realistic portrayal of girls and women in media and entertainment, we can make a difference as a community, as an industry. And so that's what happened. We created

the gender equality measure. And when we called it gender equality measure, I looked at it and I'm like, oh my God, that's gem. That's a gem. This is a gem. And it's the first new measure we launched since likeability in a very long time. And so it really is just measuring what matters. And when I started doing boot camps with all of the marketers, not research officers, chief marketing officers sitting around saying, let me just dissect this for you.

Your scores are so-so, but here's how you can make it so much better. And I showed them an ad that with, they tried very hard, but it was a little nuance that went a long way. I showed them that they had ⁓ a husband, wife, pair, partner pair, both working parents, check. That's great. And then they both come home. The kids are waiting for them. The dad goes outside and rides on the bicycles with the kids. That's great.

The woman goes into the kitchen to put dinner on the table. Fine. But then she comes out to call everybody for dinner in an apron. And it's like back to stereotyping, you know, and it was fine that she was in the kitchen, but and they were both co-parenting and sharing their responsibility. It was a little thing. And when I pointed that out to the market, they're like, my God. So that's such an easy fix. We fixed it. Their scores.

went through the You don't even realize how the nuance matters. Or we had a boardroom with men and women in the boardroom. It was great. equal male, female in charge, you leading the way. And the woman is racing to get to the elevator. Her team is coming to ask her a question. And in the middle of her answering the question, the elevator door closes on her.

like in the middle of her conversation. Interruption boss, simple, leave the elevator open until she finishes her sentence. Like little things like that goes such a long way, but we don't really pay attention to it. So just making you.

PVSB (15:19)

Yeah,

I would encourage our listeners go back and listen to our previous episode involving Lori Tauber-Marcus and Cie Nicholson, part of a group of women, former PepsiCo executives called the Band of Sisters who wrote a phenomenal book called You Should Smile More. I hand it out to everybody on my team whenever I can. It really talks about this bias in the workplace. But Jacqui, over to you.

Jacqui Dynowski (15:45)

Shelley, you talked about just a little while ago, you talked about how pay equity is so prevalent and even within the pay at the disparity, there's disparity within the disparity, right? We're seeing some major CPG players walk back their DEI commitments in response to political pressure. As someone who's been in the quality business for a while.

How do you counsel companies that are getting squeamish? And what do you say to those who argue that pulling back is a business neutral decision?

Shelley Zalis (16:23)

Okay, well, pulling back. So when I started the female quotient, was before DE &I, was before anytime about women, it was before Me Too, was before Time's Up, it was before any of those things. And I have never been in the business of women or in the business of equity or the business of diversity or inclusion. I'm in the business of opportunity. That's really what it's all about. And any company that is dropping

their initiatives in DE &I, it really wasn't something that is part of your strategy in DNA, which it really needs to be. It's about opportunity, it's about growth, it's about scale, it's about innovation, and we all need to be present in that equation if we truly want that and we don't want to be obsolete as a business. And so, you know, when you think about language, language matters a lot.

And, you know, any company that dropped it, it was a quota or it was, it wasn't done for the right reasons. And so we really have spent a lot of time with our partners in forcing instilling why representation and reflection matter. Call it what you wish. It cannot be in an HR bucket. It has to be part of the company's DNA, the company's purpose, the company's strategy. And if it is, it's not going anywhere.

And if it does go somewhere, you will be obsolete. Like some of those companies we know so well that just were not relevant and did not have modern workplace rules that everyone could thrive in. Everyone could be seen, everyone could be heard, and everyone could feel included. you know, we just have, you know, we just use the language that is real and not just create perception that becomes reality and put the icing on the cake because

you just like the taste of the icing. It has to be intrinsic to the values and core of who the company is and wants to stand for and the why. It's the why.

PVSB (18:24)

Shelley I have heard you speak about AI's potential to democratize opportunity, but there's also significant concern that AI that's trained on biased data will replicate or frankly even amplify existing inequities. For consumer goods companies deploying AI and marketing, hiring, consumer insights, what are the guardrails that you think they should be building in to keep this from happening?

Shelley Zalis (18:50)

You know, there is a lot of bias right now in the data. So junk in, junk out. And because AI pulls from historical data and then creates future roadmapping, the intrinsic value and cleanliness and reflection of the data is incredibly important. Just an interesting little thing that no one thought about until now we're thinking about it.

Imagine historical data. First of all, women's health, clinical trials. Women weren't in clinical trials until 1993. So if you're just even thinking about women's health and why the misdiagnosis is so prevalent, it's because we don't have the same amount of case studies and data. So unless we're pulling everything 1993 on, we're not going to have that same, the X chromosome, the extra X chromosome is missing.

I actually just wrote an article with a girlfriend of mine, Sharon, which was called mice don't menstruate. And imagine that implication. I don't know if it impacts the results, but lab rats are lab rats that are used in all of our trials and yet they don't menstruate. you know, these are really important things to think about. Or even when you think about your last name, men in general don't take their

partner's name when they get married, but women most of the time take their partner's name. In AI up until now, AI was not connecting the dots. So my married name is Shelley Fleschner. I go by Shelley's Alice, but if I started going by Shelley Fleschner, all my historical data would be lost.

Like that's crazy. And so these are the, or even this one shocked authorship. In general, women co-author, and we always put our names last. AI only picks up the first name in a paper. So think about the implications.

of AI and it's new and it's well, it's not new. It's been around for a long time, but it's growing. So we just have to be thinking about how to ensure clean data and give it check marks of some sort to say trusted source and that it has, you know, dotted it's it's it's ethical and it's responsible AI.

Jacqui Dynowski (21:18)

We're going to pivot for right now, Shelley, to what you've done with the Equality Lounge. You started with 50 women at CES and Cristina and I were at the lounge earlier this year at CES. Loved it. And you're now at Cannes Lions and Davos and SXSW. How are you seeing CPG executives use those spaces differently than other industries?

What are the conversations that you're hearing most from in terms of the women in retail media in that ecosystem?

Shelley Zalis (21:52)

Thank you. First of we're probably hosting over 80 in real life experiences a year now across every industry. So we do have the largest global community of women in business. Over seven and a half million women across 30 industries, 100 countries. And we are not about women. We are about creating the changes that we all want to see, rewriting the rules in the workplace. we have

Leaders imagine the best leaders. don't care if you're a man or if you're a woman It's about using your position your power to bring everyone up and that's what's happening and in our lounges We have you know, it was designed by women for everyone where women feel comfortable They feel seen power the pack a woman on his power collectively with impact. We're all supporting each other You walk in you get a hug. Hello to yes, you're not wearing a badge so it's not like someone's coming to talk to you because you're

this title or this company, they're going to say hello and get to know who you are. And then when you walk on the Croisette, you're like, hey, hey, hey, hey. And someone that might've felt invisible is now like a power player because he or she has this amazing collaborative, collected, connected community of people that are just people. And you know, this year in Cannes, we are expanding exponentially.

We have the Martinez penthouse, which we've had for over 11 years now. We are now also expanding to Martinez beach. So community will be where our beach and our programming is and our, our penthouse will be where our partners, we are so fortunate and so grateful to have, you know, the most amazing partners that have stayed with us from day one and continue to grow understanding why we do what we do collectively. And then we're also launching a camp at can for

everyone to bring their families. Like you can do it all your way. We have one life with different dimensions. It's not an either or, it? Bring your family. We are going to have this amazing space brought to you by Lowe's. So thank you. You know, with that, that is, you know, space for our future builders. And we are really excited about this. So, you know, our partners have been amazing. We don't talk about male allies. We talk about leadership allies. We talk about conscious leadership.

We talk about the power of collaboration, not just having conversation, but leading to intentional action for change. And it's just a great space of everyone getting to know each other. And we are the official partners of CAN, obviously, but we're unbatched and we'll always be unbatched so that it democratizes the system and everyone can participate together.

PVSB (24:35)

I love that. There's a big deal about people who are on the north side of the Croisette Badging means a restriction. It's not democratized. I feel like I'm at a bit of a disadvantage. Like the CPG guys are doing our first residence at Cannes this year. And I think we're going to have to take some cues from the FQ and how we're doing our activation there this year.

Shelley Zalis (24:58)

Make more space

with us. Come activate with us.

PVSB (25:01)

I love it. We'll talk about this after the podcast. Let me remind our audience that we're speaking with the indefatigable Shelley Zalis, founder and CEO of the Female Quotient. All right, you've written about the care gap, the disproportionate burden of caregiving that falls on women and derails careers. Glad to hear you're trying to address that at Cannes this year. In CPG, where field sales, trade roles, and supply chain jobs

often require significant travel and irregular hours. How do you think companies should redesign work structures to stop losing women mid-career?

Shelley Zalis (25:39)

Well, first of all, it starts at the top with not rewarding how much time you actually spend in an office. It's what your performance, how well you do. it really is ⁓ beyond profit. It's also purpose and having a reset of expectation. And then you won't lose as many people if you are rewarding for what really matters, which is driving.

the growth and the innovation and the success and not just ticking the box of how many hours you're sitting at your desk. By the way, most of the time, most people are just sitting at their desk.

doing what you think they're doing anyways. So like, let's get over that, about ticking, you know, ticking the clock and figuring that out. And so I think that's a big issue. I also really do think that retaining our best talent is a company's responsibility and yet we're losing our best talent. You know, when you look at, talk about bring your human to the table and compassion and empathy and collaboration and contextualization, that's the feminine, not the female, it is the feminine.

Those are qualities of caregiving. And yet we're losing our greatest leaders to caregiving. It's an oxymoron. It just like makes no sense to me. And so if you think of the benefits that companies offer their employees, most of those benefits employees don't know about or care about. So what if you just took that money, redirected it into a care wallet and let everyone individually use that money as they wish every year based on their life stages, whether it's from self-care, if you don't have children or children that need, you know, ⁓

care at home or child care or elderly care. I mean, it's going to cover everyone at that point. And to me, you will not only attract the best talent, you will retain the best talent. Like it's easy adjustments. We just need to think about possibility and not just about performance. What we've been doing, status quo.

There are so many new opportunities to create a modern workforce and a modern workplace that will work for everyone if we intentionally design it that way. And if you intentionally design it for the lowest common denominator or actually the most common, which is caregiver, it's going to work for the current majority. It'll be easier for the current majority. Wow. But you got to give everyone the same threshold. And, you know, I started rewriting something called the Rose Gold Rule.

When you think about the golden rule, the golden rule, do unto others as you'd want done to yourself. But what might work for you, Peter might not work for Jacqui. So then everyone created the platinum rule, do unto others as they'd want done to themselves. But not everyone is in the same life stage at the same time. So the rose gold rule, do unto the workplace what the collective requires.

And so if you don't have the lived experience of a caregiver, how are you going to really be able to create the new rules of the workplace if you don't understand really the challenges, because you haven't gone through it, or accessibility, or coming from a neighborhood that you might not be able to afford Uber, and you have to take the buses, and you're dependent on the bus schedule or the train schedule. We have to think about the collective we.

if we truly want to create a culture of inclusivity where we all can rise and shine based on who we are, where we come from and what we need. And not be the exception. I want the exceptions to become the new norm. I want to create for the exceptions and make that the new norm.

Jacqui Dynowski (29:28)

I love that. I love that so much. To pivot slightly on that, you've been very, very deliberate about including men in equality conversation rather than, as you've mentioned before, framing it as a women's issue. What does it look like when a male CPG CEO truly leads on this versus when it's performative? And how can listeners of this podcast who are male executives actually show up?

differently starting Monday morning or in London because we have Easter Monday Tuesday morning.

Shelley Zalis (30:01)

You know, it's all about the conversation that's no longer taboo. mean, when you're sitting around, I don't care if you're a man or a woman, if you're a leader at the table and having your team there, ask everyone, how are you? What do you need to do today to ensure you're coming in as your full self? Go pick up your kids. If I'm a man, I can also say, I'm going to pick up my kids at the soccer game or take them to the doctor. Make it, normalize the conversation.

I brought up menopause before. Like menopause isn't an illness. It's called life. Men have menopause. We just never talk about it. Men start losing testosterone at the age of 30. I mean, who cares? It's called life. And you know, we don't have a life that compartmentalizes us. This is my life and this is my work. You have one life with five dimensions. Your career, your family, your community.

your friends, and the last one that we always forget about is ourselves. And at every stage of life, they're not equal slices of the pie. It's based on your life stage, and you might have to adjust accordingly. But if we want everyone to be able to show up fully, don't hide the pictures of your family. Like, who said we have to? We think there's a playbook, but there's no playbook. We think we're supposed to stay until midnight doing nothing. Who said that?

You know, it's like break a pattern and start a new one and then share it and get everyone to go with you. And then that new trend will become a new habit. And it's actually not complicated. So, you even on panels when I have men and women, I'll say, who's got kids? And, you know, people will raise their hands. I say, well, how do you do it all? And the women will actually start telling me, my God, it's so complicated, work life balance, I have imposter syndrome, I think I'm going to And men are like, what are you talking about?

So like, I ask it just to normalize it so that it's not something that we think should be a secret. It's not a secret. And then once you talk about it, everyone starts talking about it. Or, gosh, Peter, who's your shirt made by?

Like, good for you. But you know, it's like, no one asks what you're wearing, who's the designer, or if you ask it to me, ask it to everyone.

PVSB (32:11)

Plan's end.

No.

By the way, last night after I cooked dinner for the family, I was up till ⁓ midnight making slime for my daughter's school fundraiser today. That's a whole other story. That's and it would have been a lot easier if my daughter was okay with me making one color of slime. No, no, she needed nine different colors of slime. Nine.

Shelley Zalis (32:30)

I that. I love that. I'll color with some wine.

Daddy. ⁓

PVSB (32:45)

Note

nine, and of course her mother is like where her mother said, no, no, we're gonna make nine different colors. We'll do that for you, dear. Okay, anyhow, enough of that. The Equality Lounge. It's coming up again at Cannes. You've had a strong presence, as you mentioned, at Cannes Lions for years. We're gonna be there too, as I mentioned, with our own activation. What do you see as being the unique opportunity that Cannes Lions creates for driving meaningful?

Jacqui Dynowski (32:47)

Nadia is the queen.

PVSB (33:09)

equality commitments from chief marketing officers and brand leaders versus it just being another wonderful, know, rosé on the quasi conversation that doesn't get back to the office. Yes, exactly.

Shelley Zalis (33:21)

You know, we have evolved from girls lounge, you where I wanted to just sensationalize the space, you know, the boys club opposite a boys girl, opposite a club is lounge. This is a boys club, this is a lounge. Once we had women supporting women, we then evolved to a quality lounge to ensure that everyone comes. And because this space was designed by women and I keep making the space bigger and bigger, so women will bring their meetings and their meetings happen to be men. Stephen Quinn was actually one of the first men in our lounge.

It really started, you know, just really opening it up to saying, everyone is welcome here, to now being the FQ Lounge. And it is, you know, powered by all of our partners. And so in Cannes, you'll see we have such a great group of powerful partners that all activate. If they see garbage on the floor, they pick it up, they pick up the mic, we all, it's not mine, it's not yours, it is ours collectively. And it's the same thing with

you know, ensuring that we all create the table that we want to sit on and that everyone is included. It isn't about a pledge. I can't stand when I hear people say, we're making a pledge. A pledge is just words. It's about activating the solutions for change. So what do you want to do? And lately I've made it about legacy and the lifetime of your leadership. Like I ain't going anywhere until

We close the gaps that need to be closed, which is creating a workforce, a modern workplace where we can all thrive. Why should it take 132 more years, according to World Economic Forum? That is dumb. We think we can fix climate in 50 years. Climate is something that collectively we have to do. But what we can truly activate individually is make the decision, the choice to

close the gaps in our companies. They are achievable. And it's the only global goal actually that we can achieve as an individual in the lifetime of our leadership.

Jacqui Dynowski (35:23)

So to build on that, Shelley, you've developed tools and research frameworks to help companies measure equality outcomes. What are the two or three metrics that CPG companies should be tracking internally that most currently aren't? And how would you hold leadership accountable when the numbers don't move?

Shelley Zalis (35:46)

Well, you I think we're probably measuring the wrong things because it isn't just about putting placeholders in place. It is about hiring the best talent and creating fair opportunity. So, you know, I think it is about fair opportunity and then choose the best. And so it is about representation and ensuring that your products are relevant for today, for tomorrow, for the future, future proofing them.

⁓ And I think it's looking at a double ROI, not just a single, you it's not just return on investment, which is short term number based financial, but it's also about return on impact. And when you look at the double ROI and Mark Pritchard says it all the time, you could do good and do well at the same time. When you look at a double ROI, you will also start hiring different kinds of people that bring those talents to the table and not just look at.

potential, but also look at performance and think about things very differently and hire the best. And you will see that your net will be cast wider and that your talent will be elevated.

PVSB (36:55)

Wow, Shelley, what a fantastic conversation. We are so greatly appreciative that you took time out of your day to speak with us. We look forward to seeing you at Cannes later this summer. Thank you.

Shelley Zalis (37:07)

Let's go.