The Provocateurs:

Stuart Crainer:

Hello, I’m Stuart Crainer. I’m the co-founder of Thinkers50, and I’d like to welcome you to the monthly podcast series Provocateurs in which we explore the experiences, insights, and perspectives of inspiring leaders. Our aim is to provoke you to think and act differently through conversations with some fantastic people. This is a collaboration between Thinkers50 and Deloitte. So my co-host today is Stacy Janiak. Stacy is Deloitte’s chief growth officer, so she brings deep insights directly from the marketplace and Deloitte’s global clients. Welcome Stacy, and please introduce today’s brilliant guest.

Stacy Janiak:

Thank you, Stuart. And I am thrilled to introduce today’s guest who I consider an incredible friend and mentor, and we are so pleased to have Shelley Zalis with us today. I’m so excited that all of you will get to hear from her. Shelley is the CEO of The Female Quotient. It’s an equality services company that creates platforms for women and solutions for organizations committed to closing the gender gap in the workplace. You might have seen or heard of its signature Equality Lounge at key industry conferences around the globe, and I’m sure we’ll hear more about the Davos experience that Shelley just had.

She is a pioneer for online research, becoming the first female chief executive ranked in the research industry’s top 25, and today she works with Fortune 500 companies, impact organizations and conscious leaders to advance equality in the workplace. And I think, most importantly, she gives tremendously of her personal time to mentor women all over the world. So welcome Shelley. It’s great to see you. And I want to start at the beginning. I know you’ve told this story many times, but I’m not sure our listeners have heard the origins of The Female Quotient. Can you share that with us?

Shelley Zalis:

Oh gosh. First of all, I’m so delighted to be here with both of you and Deloitte is truly a partner that I am so blessed, honored, grateful, and inspired by. And it’s a company that I’ve dreamed of always being a partner with. So thank you for having me with you today. I couldn’t ask for anything better than this, so thank you so much. The story’s a pretty crazy story and it’s definitely not a textbook one, that is for sure. There is nothing that I’ve ever done that comes from a textbook. When you do things that is a first and you make things up, you kind of go with the flow, and you never know what tomorrow brings. So The Female Quotient, the name really; first came IQ, The Intelligence Quotient. Then came EQ, The Emotional Quotient. Then came FQ, The Female Quotient. When you add women to any equation, there’s a return on equality, and that really is how the name came about.

It started as something called the Girls’ Lounge. And the name really was on a little piece of paper. If there was a Boys’ Club, then came the Girls’ Lounge. The opposite of boy is girl, the opposite of club is lounge. If there’s a Boys’ Club, then there’s a Girls’ Lounge. And I really was the only female CEO top 25 my entire career, and I lived in a man’s world, and I was tired of being alone. And as a researcher, as you said, I was a market researcher, and I wanted to go to CES, the Consumer Electronic Show. I heard there was 150,000 people, less than 3% were women. And going to a conference where you are going to show up filled with technology and be this woman by herself walking the floor is kind of lonely, and boring by the way. So I decided to invite a few girlfriends and I said, “If you know other women, please invite them.”

And so they did. And 24 hours later, 50 women showed up and that’s really how it all started. And that was 10 years ago. 50 women walked the floor and two remarkable things happened. The first was every single guy’s head turned like, “Where the heck did all of you women come from?” And that’s when I coined the phrase Power of the Pack. A woman alone has power, collectively we have impact. And it was this woosh moment. A woman is invisible. One woman in an ocean of 150,000 men, no one notices you. But 50 women, you see big screens, little screens, fine, but you see these men’s heads turn like, “Where did all of you women come from?” And it was this remarkable moment for me. And the second was, I was surrounded by women just like me. All of a sudden we were talking about imposter syndrome, work-life balance, all of these things I never ever talked about.

And we also, Power of the Purse. We were all doing deals with one another, and I didn’t feel alone. And it was just this amazing, empowering moment. I loved it. And we went back to my hotel room, I had a king size bed, tiny little room, and we were in my closet, all doing business with each other. And for the first time in my life, women were supporting women. I’m 60 years old, so just imagine a long time ago, there was no “supporting women.” We all were competing with one another. There was such a scarcity of jobs at the top. We were competitive as women, in my lifetime. And all of a sudden we were all doing business with each other, and it was this remarkable feeling.

And the next day, we all invited someone else. And so 50 women turned to 100 women and 100 women turned to 300 women. And my one little tiny room, next thing you knew, we were in the penthouse suite of the Four Seasons, and that’s how the Girls’ Lounge was born. And we called it the Girls’ Lounge. And I thought, “Gosh, if I could connect women in technology, what about connecting women in marketing, in media, in advertising, in research?” And Girls’ Lounge started at CES, and then I did it at the ANA, and then I did it at Four A’s. And the next thing you knew, we did pop ups all over the world so that women would have a safe space to connect and collaborate. And then I got invited to the World Economic Forum. Davos, Switzerland. And my invitation for the Girls’ Lounge was as follows: We want you to come, but you might not feel welcome. And at the World Economic Forum, it was all about white badges and that was for world leaders.

And world leaders, who are world leaders? They’re all men. 17% of white badges were women. So my head said, “Who wants to go to a place you might not feel welcome?” That’s the cognitive. My heart said, “I have to go.” And I needed $250,000 to create this space in this tiny dump, because that was the only space left. And I remember going to a client saying, “Would you support me?” I didn’t have funding. I said, “Would you support me for the Girls’ Lounge?” And they said, “We would if you changed the name.” They didn’t like the name the Girls’ Lounge. It didn’t seem like a World Economic Forum name. And I said, “I’m not going to change the name.” It’s historically been called the Girls’ Lounge, and we were pretty successful. We already were doing about 20 Girls’ Lounges up to this point. And I said, “I’m not changing the name. We have to go as the Girls’ Lounge to the World Economic Forum.”

But they didn’t like the name ‘girl’ because they said we’re women. I said, “Have you ever heard of a man object to being a boy in the Boys’ Club? Why are we creating double standards? I’m not changing the name.” So they didn’t support me. And I remember going to Jackie Kelly, the chief operating officer at Bloomberg. I said, “Would you go with me? We might be the only two in the lounge, but would you go?” And she said, “Absolutely.” So the two of us went and we created amazing programming, and I wasn’t sure who would show up. And plenty of white badges, the men would come, peek their head in. And women who had heard of the Girls’ Lounge from other conferences showed up. Year two, we doubled the space. Year three, Jamie Diamond from J.P. Morgan came.

And today we are a two-story glass house, standing room only. And of course it has quite a presence. Once women started supporting women at the Girls’ Lounge, and today of course we do 70 pop ups all over the world as the Girl’s Lounge, once women started supporting women as the Girls’ Lounge – I called it the Girls’ Lounge, the place for the 17% – once women started supporting women, we evolved to the Equality Lounge and called it the Place for Conscious Leaders, making it an equality lounge for everyone to come. But that was after women supported women. And the agenda of course was changing the equation, closing the gender gap. And now of course, it’s called the Equality Lounge. And we do it all over the world with Deloitte being one of our most important partners. And that is truly the story of the Equality Lounge.

Stuart Crainer:

I think the Power of the Purse is really important, isn’t it? And that’s not really talked about.

Shelley Zalis:

But it’s so true. People really underestimate that women are leaders and in the C-Suite and have so much power. But we underestimate. First of all, 85% of purchase decisions are made by women. And we don’t even think about that, which is so unbelievably ridiculous.

Stuart Crainer:

So this is really taking over your life, Shelley. That’s the difference; that a lot of people would’ve had the initial excitement and the initial momentum, but then wouldn’t have followed it up in the way that you have so spectacularly over the last decade.

Shelley Zalis:

Listen, it was not simple. I’ve been doing this now for 10 years. As the Girls’ Lounge evolving to the Equality Lounge, pre-pandemic we were hosting over 70 lounges at big industry conferences. We evolved from Girls’ Lounge to Equality Lounge about five years ago. We’ve connected over a million women in the workplace across every industry in over a hundred countries. And that’s one of the pillars from FQ experiences, which are lounges now evolving to FQ media in the content space and FQ services. So our business has evolved under The Female Quotient umbrella, and it’s been a pretty remarkable journey. But at the beginning, really pushing the agenda I have to say has been… We were pre the DENI business. Being in the business of equality was not popular. No one was in the business of equality. So you’ve got to keep at it. You have to really believe in changing the equation and closing the gaps.

Stacy Janiak:

I think you have done a tremendous job in actually changing the equation. And I personally benefited, my first trip to Davos and coming to the Equality Lounge, it was such a welcoming environment and we had amazing speakers, men and women, that it was just a much different environment than the rest of the conference, so I’m deeply appreciative of that. But you’ve continued to change the objectives as you see success and progress. And so it’d be interesting to understand what the agenda is today. What do you see as the next hurdle that The Female Quotient can help us all jump over?

Shelley Zalis:

Anyways, so this year was crazy because WEF published a report that says it’ll take 132 years to close the gender gap. 132 years to close the gender gap! Well, in the Equality Lounge, the only agenda that we have is to close the gender gap.

If you’re a conscious leader, you’re here and we’re going to do it in five. And President Kennedy decided to put people on the moon, men on the moon, if we had spaces that fit women, women would’ve gone to the moon. But he did that in 10 years. We had a pandemic, we created a vaccine in one year. We have self-driving cars. When there’s a will, there’s a way. If there’s a priority, people make things happen. And so it set everything in this intensity and we did a call to action, we’re looking for 10 Fortune 500 CEOs that will prioritize closing the gender gap.

And so the conversations were just on fire and really exciting and that’s what this Davos was all about, is how we’re going to close the gender gap and not just the pay gap, but the leadership gap and the diversity gap and the sponsorship gap and the care gap and the culture gap and creating a more collaborative environment where we’re going to work together and create a priority around closing the gender gap. It’s really not that complicated. We have the data, we know what we need to do. We need to close the skill gap. I mean, I spoke at the UN recently and this was the craziest thing. We’re all sitting around, the panel before me talked about The Future is Female by 2030.

And then it was my turn. I got up and I’m like, “I’m confused. How is the future going to be female by 2030 if the future jobs are tech jobs?” There is no system in place, we’re losing women to tech. So unless we’re going to put a plan in place to fill these jobs, the future is not going to be female by 2030. So we talked about closing the skill gaps, which we all could do if we create a roadmap. We just need to be conscious, intentional, and put the plans in place. So that’s what we talked about. So it was a really exciting, lit Equality Lounge with CEOs from Fortune 500 and plenty of dynamic, expert women having engaged conversations with action plans in place.

Stacy Janiak:

So Shelley, I was at CES this year and had the pleasure of speaking with Joanne Lau who’s the founder of LAU Technologies and a fan of our podcast here, and she was so excited to hear that you were going to be on, she’s a big fan of yours. And she said, “You have to ask Shelley, what is the conversation that we should be having with our younger men leaders?” We’ve been women helping women, and women helping younger women leaders advance and having the conversations with the CEOs of the Fortune 500, but how can we speak to, how can we get these younger men that are entering leadership roles to really understand and to lean into cutting that 132 years down?

Shelley Zalis:

First of all, we should never talk about male allies. That drives me absolutely nuts. We should talk about leadership allies but not male allies. The second we start saying male allies, we’ve just given men more power. Leadership allies. There’s no male, female. Why are we saying they’re male allies? Once you say they’re male allies, we basically said “You’re the boss.” We’ve already put that in their head that they’re in charge. Don’t start that way. Secondly,   caregiving should be a shared responsibility. So shared responsibility at home creates equal opportunity at work. So everyone should take responsibility at home so that we can all have equal opportunity in the workplace. So that’s what everyone should know. And I think that everyone should also take responsibility for care in the workplace. Why is it always that when the woman is a manager, she’s also taking care of the team? Care is everyone’s. A collaborative culture requires everyone, man, woman, to look after each other. Collaborative culture isn’t top down or bottom up, it’s all around. We all have to take responsibility for that and I think that that goes such a long way to attracting and retaining great talent. And success in a company is about people. And I hire for passion, I train for skill, unless you want to be a doctor, lawyer, or an accountant. And I think that is just so incredibly important. And I think men, women, we have to start rewriting job descriptions for compassion, for empathy, for resilience, for care. And that starts with our people. I don’t care what your gender is. And that goes such a long way to success. If you love what you do, it’s called passion. If you don’t, it’s called stress. We don’t need that in our lives. We really don’t. I love what I do every single day. This could be good days, this could be bad days, but I love what I do and it’s why I keep doing it.

Listen, 10 years of being in the business of equality, I made that up. There is no one in the world in the business of equality. I own the trademark Business of Equality. I did it because I just realized it was time. I mean, I’m 60. I don’t even know if I’ve been paid less than men in my whole career. I probably have been, I’m probably owed a lot of money, but I have never worked for money my whole life. I’ve always worked because I’ve loved what I’ve done and that’s how I got chief troublemaker. I made that up too. I have broken every rule in the book because they never worked for me. I had to break every rule because I never would’ve been where I am today because the rules of the workplace did not work for me. I’m a mother of three, I have an amazing husband, but he’s a butt doctor, he’s a colorectal surgeon. I would never have been able to rise the ranks, and done what I did, following corporate rules.

As a young mom, I was the primary caregiver. So I would not have been able to work until midnight. I wouldn’t have been able to travel like everyone else. I want to go to my kids’ soccer games and all that. And I’m not even really sure that the corporate handbook said “Leave to go to your kids’ soccer game.” People think you couldn’t have done that. But I don’t  think that says that in the handbook, but you look at everyone around you and they weren’t going, but I was going to my kids’ soccer games, period. I left and I got in trouble for it.

Well, I don’t know that that’s why I got in trouble. But no matter what I did, I was always in trouble for something, and that’s why I had to leave and start my own company because I had to be my own boss and write my own rules because no matter what I did, I was doing something wrong. So I decided I’ve got to be my own boss and create the uncorporate rules so that I could no longer be the exception. I wanted to be the new norm. So I decided I’m going to call myself Chief Troublemaker so I can have permission to break the rules and create my own.

Stuart Crainer:

You’re a mentor and inspiration for people now, Shelley, but who inspired you at that point and who mentored you? It wasn’t completely a solo effort. I know your energy is what moved it forward.

Shelley Zalis:

I have so many mentors. I believe in something called mentorship in the moment. I don’t think that there’s any one mentor because no one has all the tricks. You learn so many things from so many different people. And I think that you get bits and bites of advice from different people who have been there, done that. So I have learned so many things from so many people and so many things of what not to do from people that have been great advice too. And I’ve learned great things from amazing men too. One of my greatest mentors was a man named Jerry Lupman who passed several years ago. But he taught me to have a no regret policy. I mean, my father did too, but he was one of my bosses at ASI, my early career. I remember when I went for an interview with him, he had pictures of his family on his wall of his kids growing up. And I loved that about him.

And he always told me never to miss moments that matter with your children. And he had a sofa in his office and always had personal meetings with employees. He cared about his people and he taught me about the importance of people and employees and he taught me so much about people and about his kids. He dropped everything for his kids. And really, he had a no regret policy. And he taught me, never miss the moments that mattered. And to think forward and ask yourself the question, if you’re going to regret something, don’t miss that moment. And it is so incredibly true that he said, “No one’s going to ever remember the meeting that you missed later in life, but your kids will always remember the important times that you were there.” And he would always go to his kids’ softball game or his… And he really taught me that. So I will never forget that. And he was such an amazing person.

He also taught me something else that I will never forget. And I think it was a Yoda, which was there’s no such thing as trying, you either do it or you don’t. And he took a pen, it was in my interview, it’s why I took the job at ASI, he took a pen and he threw it on the floor and he said, “Try to pick it up.” And of course I tried and of course I picked it up and he said, “There’s no such thing as trying. You either do it or you don’t.” And so he was a really important role model for me. And then there was another woman, Jackie Pinkowitz, who taught me what I never was going to be, which was a workaholic. She worked, worked, worked, worked, worked and always told me that there was going to be that one day.

And I just remember one day, we went to Florida for a meeting. She was wearing a heavy turtleneck and I’m like, she didn’t know how to smell the roses. I’m not going to go into the whole story because it’s too sad, but you’ve got to smell the roses. Life is just too short. You’ve got to live in the moment, and I live in the moment, and you’ve got to love what you do. I love what I do. And so I’ve learned so many amazing things. And then there was another moment for me, and this is a quote that I so believe in, which is Sarah Jessica Parker; trying to be a man is a waste of a woman. And I remember everyone around me acting like a man my whole early career. I dressed in these suits and wore my hair like this. I was not feminine because we all had to be the guy because that’s how you got ahead.

And then I think I was like 26 years old and I was so privileged as a researcher, I was told I’d get to go to this meeting and meet this woman, Penelope Queen. And she was this top person running an agency, 30 people working for her. And I got to go to the meeting, and I was so young and I got to go, and Jerry sent me on this meeting and I was wearing this corporate suit and my hair like this. I didn’t want to look feminine at all. I go to this meeting, I’m like, “I’m Shelley Zalis, here to see Penelope Queen.” And I go to this meeting to meet Penelope. They say, oh, right this way.

And I go, and there she is. Penelope. Brown cascading hair, makeup, wearing a purple leather suit skirt-thing. And I’m looking like this stuffy urgh!. And she’s feminine and magnificent. And in that moment I’m like, who am I kidding? She’s a successful, gorgeous woman dressed feminine, and I’m looking like a man. I don’t know who told me to do that. And in that moment, I take my hair, flick it out of my ponytail, let it come out cascading and from that moment on I’m like, I am going to be me. I don’t know why I’m trying to be someone else. And that was that. And from that day on, I owned my femininity and I was Shelley Zalis. And Oscar Wildes says, “Be yourself because everyone else is taken.” And I never looked back from that moment on. So I have so many different mentors in my life.

Stacy Janiak:

Shelley, I’m going to poke a little bit more on the origin because I’ve heard you talk about your mother and the impact that your mom had on you, and I think a lot of us will resonate with that. So maybe you could share a bit about the Shelley Origin Story.

Shelley Zalis:

My mom is the most important role model in my life. I’m one of four girls and my mom actually is the strongest, most incredible woman I know. She lives actually right down the block from me. She just turned 86 three days ago. Actually, I just found this, which is so incredible. I’m going to show you this. This is crazy. Hold on. This is my mom. I never thought about this until recently. So my mother, she was a full-time mom until we all moved out of the house, but she created the first conference for women for the state of California for Pete Wilson. She worked for the governor of California. She created Call To Action, which was Governor Pete Wilson’s conference for women November 19th, 1992.

Stacy Janiak:

This is in your blood.

Shelley Zalis:

But I never thought about that, which is crazy. So this was over 30 years ago. So when I was 30 years old, I actually remember going… So Maria Shriver took this over. I went to this conference when I was 30 years old and I remember 5,000 women showed up, thinking to myself, why would 5,000 women… And this is right before I started OTX, pioneering online research, starting my own company. I still was working for ASI. I hadn’t left yet to start my own company. But I was thinking, “Why would 5,000 women show up at a conference for women?” It was bizarre. And so I wasn’t in equality, I just was starting. I hadn’t started yet my own little company, and all these women flooding Long Beach at this conference. And I’m thinking, why are all these women coming to this thing? But I went because it was my mom and I was sitting in the audience and all these women were going up asking very vulnerable questions. And I’m thinking, that is so weird. And then the other day, I started reading what they were talking about and it’s all the things I talk about today, 30 years ago. I mean, the anger in your life, networking for career success, women in transition, the power of money, ways women lead, male-female communication style in business, networking success, marketing for small businesses in the ’90s, making a living without having a job, women in the media, the power of politics, I mean, workplace diversity. I mean, crazy. It is crazy. And then I was reading the descriptions. This is my mother. This is who you should have on your podcast! My mother will excite and delight you and entertain you like you can’t believe and actually knows every football player, knows every quarterback, knows more about football, knows more about sports than anybody you’ll ever talk to. That’s my mom.

And my father was a cardiologist. My mother ran the household, but also every president in the United States knows her as Rosalie. There’s Cher, there’s Rosalie. And was the most amazing mother, didn’t miss a beat, and would then come to my house after working for the governor for a full day with a car full of Costco and fill my refrigerator and my pantry. That’s my mom.

Stacy Janiak:

Well, Shelley, you have provided a tremendous amount of food for thought on how we get there and how you got here, which I think is really inspirational. As you think about the leaders that are listening to this podcast or watching, what’s some final words of advice on how we make that 132 years happen in our generation?

Shelley Zalis:

Anything is doable. I mean, I honestly don’t think this is hard. I honestly think this is right in front of our faces. I mean, how hard is it to pay Sally the same as Peter for the same job? How hard is it to encourage all people to get to leadership positions? How hard is it to have diversity in the workplace? I mean, we have done really hard things before. These actually are easy. It’s all about mindset. It’s all about choice. It’s actually about just rewriting the rules of the workplace for today. We have a whiteboard. The rules were written a really long time ago and we have never challenged them. We don’t have to undo anything. We just have to say, here we are today. We had a nice break. It was a break. It wasn’t a nice break, it was a challenging one, but we had a break. Now we can write a new handbook.

It’s a moment in time. That’s why I called it the flipping point. We are at a flipping point moment. I coined a new phrase. It was a tipping point, you wait and watch. This is a flipping point. This requires action. It’s all choice. There’s nothing holding us back. Now we can create what flexibility means. We’re kind of all over the place. It’s just making some decisions. It’s just about decisions. And what we have been looking at is what’s wrong or going on the defense. This is an offense moment. What does it look like? Do we want a ‘three day in office’ and then ‘two day at home’? Just call it. It’s just a new model. Let’s just call it what it is.

Stuart Crainer:

Shelley, we’re out of time, but feminine and magnificent, if anyone can shrink 132 years to five years, I think your energy can certainly achieve that. I agree entirely that we are at a flipping point, and I would encourage anyone watching or listening to check out the work of The Female Quotient, and don’t contemplate picking the pen up: Make it happen and do it. Shelley, thank you very much.

Shelley Zalis:

We go together and wherever Deloitte goes, I go with you. So sign me up with you guys.

Stacy Janiak:

Thank you, Shelley.

Stuart Crainer:

Thank you, Shelley.

Shelley Zalis:

Thank you so much.