The Provocateurs:

Des Dearlove:

Hello, I’m Des Dearlove, the co-founder of Thinkers50, and I’d like to welcome you to Provocateurs, the podcast where we explore the experiences, insights, and perspectives of inspiring leaders. Our aim here is to provoke you to think and act differently through conversations with insightful leaders who offer new perspectives on traditional business thinking.

Now, this is a collaboration between Thinkers50 and Deloitte, and my co-host today is Steve Goldbach. Steve leads Deloitte’s sustainability practice in the US. Prior to his current role, Steve served as Deloitte’s US Chief Strategy Officer for eight years. He’s also the co-author, along with Geoff Tuff, of two books, Detonate: Why – And How – Corporations Must Blow Up Best Practices (and Bring a Beginner’s Mind) to Survive. And most recently, Provoke: How Leaders Shape the Future by Overcoming Fatal Human Flaws. Steve, great to see you as ever.

Steve Goldbach:

Great to see you, Des, and I’m super excited to be here today with my good friend Lisa McKnight, who I am so pleased we finally got on the podcast. So Lisa is the executive vice president and chief brand officer of Mattel. And since joining Mattel in 1998, she has served several leadership positions, including the global head of Barbie since 2016 and executive vice president and Global Head of Barbie and Dolls since 2019. And her current role oversees all of Mattel’s toy categories and global brands as well as design and development. It is a massive role at Mattel. She is rightly credited with leading the transformation of Barbie.

Under her leadership, Barbie was the number one global toy property for 2020 and 2021 and the number one global doll property for 2020 through 2022. She’s driven the significant expansion of Mattel’s portfolio, including winning back the licensing rights to the Disney Princesses and Disney Frozen franchise. And I am so proud of what she’s done. And I will say she’s got the biggest fan in my daughter, Grayson. She has redefined Barbie’s global social mission with the launch of the Barbie Dream Gap Project in 2018, a multi-year initiative dedicated to leveling the playing field for every girl. And since the launch, that program has positively impacted over 25 million girls. And Forbes, my former employer, recognized her as one of the top brand marketers in the world for 2023.
Lisa, it is so great to be speaking with you again. It’s been well not too long since we last saw each other, but too long since we’ve collaborated. I’m so excited for you to tell the story because I’ve had the opportunity to see a little bit of this evolve over time. But let’s start with you. Let’s start with your backstory. What drew you initially to the world of marketing? What drew you to the world of toys? Tell us your backstory.

Lisa McKnight:

Okay. Well, thank you, Steve. Thank you, Des. Great to be with you both today. It’s a real pleasure. So thank you for inviting me.
Yeah, I have been in, I’ll call it the brand marketing space for over 30 years. I graduated from Denison University, go Big Red, a small liberal arts school in Ohio, as a history and media comms double major. And from there I thought that I actually wanted to go into broadcast journalism. I had an internship in San Francisco, where I was born and raised, at a local NBC affiliate station. Loved the idea of being a journalist. I love storytelling, I’m curious, I love investigating different topics. But when I found out the reality was that my first job would not be in San Francisco, it would be in a small rural community called Watsonville, California, which is the artichoke capital of the United States, I said, “Okay, I got to do a pivot here,” because I really decided I wanted to live in San Francisco and then figure out a career from there. So I started to look at advertising, and my first job was at Grey in the media department, which I loved. I worked on Bank of America, which was really interesting. I worked on a grocery chain and loved that, but then had a sobering experience a year into it where we lost the account, the Bank of America account. And so I lost my job. Sort of last one in, first one out, and that was tough to process. But what I realized then was I actually wanted to pivot more to account management than media, and soon thereafter, I started to work at another boutique agency in San Francisco. And then, from there, went on to Grey. So I had many years in advertising. Again, worked in all sorts of sectors, a lot of good experiences working for Taco Bell and Fairmont Hotels. Those were two favorite clients and different experiences. And what I loved about advertising was not only the creative process and the opportunity to help clients solve problems through communication strategies, but I also loved getting exposed to different industries and getting sort of a crash course on the business world. And that got me interested in business, and it made me realize that I actually wanted to be more of a stakeholder and work for the client themselves. And that took me to the Gap in San Francisco, where I was marketing director for Gap Brands. We had a good- better-best strategy between Old Navy, which was one of their newer brands, Gap, and Banana Republic, and absolutely loved the job. But then life took over, and I moved to Los Angeles for my husband’s career. We got married in the late 90s and then moved to Los Angeles and started working at Mattel. I had met some people at Mattel when I was working at the Gap, if you can believe it. Back then, we had a Barbie collaboration. We just did another Barbie collaboration last year, tied to the movie. So pretty crazy how this all comes full circle, but I knew a few people at Mattel, started to work at Mattel in the late 90s. And what I like to say since then is that I’ve had sort of many careers within the career at Mattel. I’ve worked under six CEOs, different leadership styles, but absolutely have always had a passion for brands. And I think that’s what’s exciting about Mattel. We’re absolutely a toy company, or at least our origin, I should say, is in toys, but we’re intentionally focused on brand building, and we’re recently, under our new CEO, Ynon Kreiz, we’re pivoting to being an IP-driven company. So it’s a really exciting space to be in. And again, thank you for having me.

Des Dearlove:

I think you did well to pivot out of journalism. I think it’s… Having spent years in it, I think it’s very overrated even if you didn’t get the story about the artichoke capital of the world. So I have to ask you, did you have a favorite toy when you were growing up?

Lisa McKnight:

Well, of course, it was Barbie. I have fond memories playing with Malibu Barbie, a popular doll from the 70s. I have a younger sister, and we played for hours on one of our bedroom floors and made up stories. Certainly, Ken was in the mix. There was a Camper. We went on a lot of adventures.

But I will say, growing up in San Francisco, where there was a lot of fog back then, unfortunately with climate change, there’s less. But it was a foggy, sort of colder city, and I definitely had this fantasy about the Southern California, Malibu lifestyle and played that out when I was playing with my Barbies.

Des Dearlove:

It must be so exciting to have played with Barbie and then to find yourself responsible for the future direction. And you have been instrumental in the transformation of Barbie. What’s that been like?

Lisa McKnight:

Well, it’s been an incredible journey. I will share, and I’ve said this many times, but there’s a huge team effort behind this brand. It’s a massive brand on a global scale, and I like to say, “It doesn’t take a village, it takes a large metro area” to steer this brand, but it’s been really rewarding over the past eight-plus years leading this transformation. We really had to take stock over, eight years ago, on the brand perception. Barbie was losing relevance. We were not keeping pace with culture. We always, still had a kid audience, but parents that had grown up themselves playing with Barbie no longer felt good about their kids playing with Barbie, and they certainly didn’t want to give Barbie as a birthday present, we learned, at their friend’s parties. And so the social currency was waning. And the brand was viewed as very one-dimensional, too perfect, unrealistic standards of beauty. And nobody knew who she was and what she stood for. So it was very sobering, and frankly, we were in denial for a while and then finally realized we have to mobilize. And we started by going back to the origins of the brand and taking inspiration from the vision of Barbie’s creator, Ruth Handler, whose sole purpose for creating Barbie was to inspire girls to believe they could be anything when they grew up. And we used that sort of purpose as the North Star for the brand, to inspire the limitless potential in every girl. And that started to guide our communication strategy. But then, really, the biggest undertaking was we had to evolve the form factor and the product itself because she was not representative of the world that kids were seeing around them. And that was a very big decision to make. I give all the credit to my partner and our head of design for Barbie and Dolls, Kim Culmone, who said to her team, “If you were going to create Barbie today, what would she look like?” Well, obviously she would look very different. And so, the team created five different body types and introduced different ethnicities and face sculpts and hair textures and fibers and eye colors to the line and rapidly evolved the entire face, if you will, of Barbie to be inclusive and representative of the world around us. And that absolutely took some time but has absolutely made the brand now the most diverse product line, doll line, in the world. We have over 175 different dolls. In addition to that, we had to also practice what we preach. And if Barbie is supposed to be an original girl empowerment brand, then we should use the brand to showcase real women role models; help girls see that they can be anything by showcasing these trailblazers. So we created a line of products called Inspiring Women, where we honored historical figures. Everything  from Catherine Johnson to Amelia Earhart to Sally Ride, Maya Angelou; we created dolls of them in their likeness. And then we also created a role model doll line of women today that are breaking boundaries and are trailblazers, and we did that to, again, reinforce that you can be anything, and we know seeing is believing. And then, of course, I would say the boldest move of all was taking Barbie to the big screen, which was a six-year journey that started in 2018. And I could go on and on, but I’ll pause here.

Steve Goldbach:

Before we move on to the movie, because you were talking about the recent role models, I have to share the story that we exchanged. I had the opportunity to sit next to Ibtihaj Muhammad, the American fencer who won an Olympic medal for the United States. She’s a Muslim American and competes in her hijab. And I sat next to her and was at a TIME100 Gala dinner, and she was so amazing to learn from, and I’ve since spoken to her, and we’re trying to get her on this podcast as well. And she and I exchanged contact information, and she had a little emoji of herself as her contact picture in her phone. And I went home, and I said to my daughter, Grayson, who was nine at the time, I said, “Look at who I sat next to.” And I showed her the little emoji version of her, and Grayson said to me, “She looks like a Barbie.” And I thought, “Wow, isn’t it wonderful that a woman wearing a hijab would be considered by my daughter?” Clearly, I was so proud, and I was thinking, Lisa, clearly the branding works. So I sent Lisa a text message, and I said, “Here’s what happened. And Grayson said she looked like a Barbie.” And Lisa comes back and says, “Steve, she is a Barbie. We made a Barbie of her. We made a Barbie of her a few years back. Here’s the link to… I can maybe hook you up with one.” Because I think that they were going for… I think the only one I saw online was, they were going for about 300 bucks for collectors.

Lisa McKnight:

Yeah. On eBay.

Steve Goldbach:

Yeah, exactly. But that’s a perfect example that that’s what kids are seeing today. So, Lisa, the branding has definitely taken shape with the kids of today.

Lisa McKnight:

Well, I love it, and I love… First of all, your daughter’s adorable, but I love that association with these strong, powerful women and Barbie. I mean, that is exactly what we set out to do. We had to massively shift perception and really move beyond the physicality of the doll and what Barbie is to what she inspires. And that enabled us, when we got into that headspace, I think, to work with the amazing Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, and the filmmakers on the movie.

Steve Goldbach:

So let’s pivot there for a second, if we could, to the movie. And Barbie had been in the content space-

Lisa McKnight:

Yes.

Steve Goldbach:

… previously. So how did you and your team think about pivoting from what had largely been an animated footprint to live action? How did that all come about? What’s the backstory there?

Lisa McKnight:

Yeah, you’re right. Barbie has been telling stories, and we’ve been creating movies for over 20 years. Barbie’s first animated movie, that was a 70-minute sort of direct-to-video film, was Barbie and The Nutcracker. And we had created a series of successful kid-targeted stories and movies. But interestingly, Barbie was always playing a character. It was Barbie as Clara in The Nutcracker, Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses, Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper. Also, I will share, a lot of those stories were Barbie positioned as a princess in this sort of fairy tale genre.

And as I mentioned earlier, when we fast-forward to about 10 years ago, again, the playback we were getting from today’s kids and moms was that they didn’t know who Barbie herself was. What does she stand for? What’s her personality? Because she’d always played these characters. So we created a vlog for Barbie to speak in first person and to start talking about herself, her day, her interests. We also created an Instagram channel called Barbie Style, where she’s sort of viewed as an influencer, tastemaker, traveling the world. So we started to play around with her voice and dimensionalizing her.

That gave us confidence that there could be a story to be told about Barbie herself. Now, having said that, as a company, Mattel has been contemplating doing a feature live-action film about Barbie for decades. So that was never a new idea, but really it was the combination of the transformational work we had done on the brand that had started to make her be viewed as a more positive role model and multidimensional that got the interest of Margot Robbie as a producer, combined with literally our CEO, Ynon Kreiz, joining the company who comes from an entertainment background. And I mean, he really became the catalyst for us working with Margot on this film. And then, from there, everything followed. A year later, Greta signed on to write and then direct and so forth. The cast was built. But we’ve always wanted to tell a story about Barbie, but timing is everything. And I was in a couple of rounds, before Ynon joined the company, with other producers and filmmakers, and we just never had the right story. It was always a little too expected. And again, I think because we had done the work to modernize Barbie and evolve her, we started to attract very interesting people again, like a Margot, like a Greta, to tell her story in an unexpected way.

Des Dearlove:

And the interesting thing, I mean, I’m sure everybody’s seen the film by now, I mean, I don’t think there’s many people left on the planet who haven’t seen the film, but I was struck by; it really is quite provocative. What was your thinking? How did you sort of sell that to Mattel, or was it something that the director and the scriptwriter had to twist your arm to do?

Lisa McKnight:

Yeah, I mean, like I said, we knew we wanted to tell a Barbie story. We didn’t know what the story was, but we certainly knew we didn’t want something again that felt too expected. And it was really… it was Margot’s kind of push to do something just broadly unexpected. But it was really Greta, when she signed on. And I’m such a fan of hers. Growing up in the Bay Area, she’s from Sacramento near San Francisco, and obviously, Lady Bird really hit home for me. I’ve got a sister, mother-daughter relationship, that coming-of-age story, very relatable, and she’s an amazing storyteller, especially with female protagonists. Anyway, when she came on, we knew, “Wow, this is going to be really interesting. This is going to be a take that we had not expected.” Now, having said all that, like I mentioned, a multi-year journey with them, the first script that we saw absolutely made us uncomfortable, and Greta acknowledged. She and her partner at the time, now husband, Noah Baumbach, co-wrote the script in lockdown. This was in 2020, and we got the script, I think, end of the year of 2020. So they were in lockdown, as well as there were a million societal things happening beyond that. And so I was absolutely nervous. Now, by the way, again, as I mentioned before, team effort. So, certainly, Ynon was very involved. And then we hired an amazing head of our Mattel film division, Robbie Brenner. So Robbie and I would tag team. Robbie would provide story notes, and I would provide the brand notes, but we were pushing into territories that made me uncomfortable. And I think we just had to appreciate, though, that if we were going to do something at all, it had to be provocative. It had to be… There had to be tension for it to be successful. And I will say right out of the gate, we always said, we wanted to tell an amazing story. We did not want to create a film to advertise toys.

Steve Goldbach:

Yeah. I can only imagine the kinds of conversations that would’ve gone on behind the scenes. And I’m not asking you to share those, but what advice would you give to other brand leaders who have the kinds of conversations that go something like, “We can never poke fun at ourselves, or we can never acknowledge what people say about us that are the not so attractive parts of our history.” And you lean right into them. And I still remember the advertising, “If you love Barbie, you’re going to love this movie. If you hate Barbie, you’re going to love this movie.”

Lisa McKnight:

Yeah.

Steve Goldbach:

How did you get over what I would describe as very traditional corporate antibodies that tend to say, “We just can’t go there,” or “We can only say positive things about ourselves?”

Lisa McKnight:

Yeah. Well, I mean many sleepless nights and lots and lots of discussion. I absolutely… Of course, my first reaction to that marketing message was, “That’s a hard no. Why would I ever put out in the world, ‘If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you?'” I was like, “That is going to get picked up and played back to us in surround sound. Why would we ever do that?” But again, I think – big picture – it’s all about the creative collaboration. And I did have confidence and know that we were working with the best creative talent in the industry and that everyone also had Barbie’s best interest in mind. No one wanted to torpedo the brand. There were just different approaches. And the expression I’ve used a million times is I had to get comfortable being uncomfortable. It was very difficult. Again, I’ve had an amazing team. We spent a lot of time discussing pros, cons. We got cultural consultants that we worked with. We worked with all sorts of folks just to troubleshoot scenarios and sort of play out, like, worst case. And what we appreciated at the end of it all was we’re in a point today in society where authenticity matters. And to show that we were self-aware about, frankly, the polarizing nature of Barbie would really go a long way and be well received. And so that was the final choice, it was like, “Okay, we’re going to go for it.”

Des Dearlove:

And I think the bravest thing, of course, is the satire on Mattel itself, and Will Ferrell as the CEO of Mattel, is not exactly… it’s not exactly the most flattering portrayal, but you were brave enough to do it.

Lisa McKnight:

Well, that was interesting too because when you think about Mattel, Mattel is not very consumer-facing. We’ve been… The company has been more of a maker’s mark when it comes to association with product and brands. And we put Mattel center stage in the film. I mean, some of us say that Mattel is another character in the movie that we introduced the audience to. And so yeah, then to portray Mattel in that very satirical manner, big bad corporate America, was tough. And I will say, again, I learned so much, of course, about filmmaking and storytelling in this medium because what you read on the page is very different from the final product and the final performance and so forth. And the minute we knew that Will Farrell was cast as the CEO, we felt much better because we knew then that it would be so clearly comedic and satirical and that point would be made. And he’s endearing, as we all know, as an actor. And it made us again feel like, “Okay, this is a good example of ‘We’re in on the joke, and we are self-aware.’” And that’s kind of… that’s actually kind of a fun, very confident place to be.

Steve Goldbach:

Yeah. Let’s pivot for a second from the movie, although we may come back at the end to ask you some of the more… some of the less business-oriented questions as we wrap up. But we are, both Des and I, we’re super keen to hear more about the social mission behind Barbie and how you’re thinking about the Barbie Dream Gap Project and giving you an opportunity to share a bit more about that and how that ties into what you’re trying to do with the brand and how you’re transforming it.

Lisa McKnight:

Well, thank you. I would love to talk about the Dream Gap Project. This was a good example, again, of walking the talk. And that was something that we set forth to do with all this transformational work that we were doing. If Barbie is the original girl empowerment brand, what are we doing to serve girls? What is the state of girls today? And we uncovered some research from a professor at NYU that, starting at the age of five or six, girls start doubting their capabilities, and their competency, and their intelligence and start thinking that they’re less than boys, and there’s this gap that’s created in their confidence. And we thought, “Okay, that’s horrifying, and why, though, is this happening, and how do we mitigate that? How do we close that gap?” And so we started to do a lot of work, again, we created this social mission platform, the Barbie Dream Gap Project. We started to raise consciousness around this issue. There’s a fact that parents Google, “Is my son a genius?” more than they Google, “Is my daughter a genius?” Boys are enrolled in more STEM courses than girls. There are these behaviors that are real. And so we got fact-based information, started to create consciousness around this, and then use the Barbie brand to try to remove barriers where possible.

So we’ve done a combination of things from literally creating, as I mentioned earlier, these role model dolls, especially of women in career areas where women are underrepresented. In tech, in finance, in manufacturing, all sorts of areas where women are underrepresented, we started to create dolls of real women leaders to tell their stories and to show girls that again, “You can be these amazing people and have these careers when you grow up.” We also created a curriculum that we’re testing right now in schools in the LA area, again to help remove these barriers and to give girls skills around leadership. And then we’ve been working with a ton of partners. We’ve always said from the get-go we can’t do this alone. So lots of nonprofit organizations that are in service of girls. So whether it’s Girls Inc. whether it’s Black Girls Who Code, Latinitas, we’re directing marketing and funding to those organizations for them to do the good work to connect and touch girls and, again, remove these barriers and obstacles. And I would say, to date, I think we’re at 25 million girls that we’ve impacted positively to help them believe that they can be anything. But it’s a long journey, but again, I’m very proud of the work that the team has done. And again, the commitment, not just of the team, at Barbie, but Mattel. We are a very purpose-driven company.

Des Dearlove:

I mean, some of the dolls that you’ve produced in recent months, I mean, in July 2024, you produced the first blind Barbie, and a Black Barbie with down syndrome were added to the Barbie range. I think you made the point earlier that there is this incredible diversity now with Barbie, which kind of was almost unimaginable a few years ago. What do those new dolls that you’re adding to the set, what do they say about where we are as a society and where you see Barbie’s future?

Lisa McKnight:

Well, again, I think inclusivity is such a core value of the brand and also certainly of Mattel. And to reflect this level of diversity in the line to help everyone feel seen is really powerful. Again, it gives everyone value and confidence and helps them use their voices in micro leadership situations and ultimately, when they grow up, to be macro leaders. And I think, again, to help normalize some of these disabilities is important, and to create empathy is really important.

And interestingly, this is more about doll play in general and not specific to Barbie, but we’ve done clinical studies and know through neuroscience that when a child plays with a doll, even alone, it helps trigger empathy in them because they’re role-playing a situation and they’re walking in the shoes of the character that they’re imagining, and it’s really powerful, so absolutely inclusivity and representation matters.

Steve Goldbach:

Lisa, say a little bit about what were some of the important lessons that as you think back through your career that led to some of these courageous choices as you became an executive? What were some of those moments where you said, “Okay, that’s a principle I’m going to come back to,” whether it’s thinking about the needs of kids or how parents view you? What are some of those higher-order principles that were imprinted on you early on that you now use as an executive?

Lisa McKnight:

Yeah, I would say a key thing is you cannot stand still, and there’s a million books and authors about this topic, but it’s the whole expression that we’ve heard, “What got you here won’t get you there.” I mean, what we’ve really learned is that enduring brands do not stand still. You have to stay connected to culture. You have to be consumer-centric, whether you like the feedback or not. One thing that we learned early on, again, on the Barbie journey was that perception is reality. And even though we had been doing all this work to transform the brand, not everyone had been exposed to that work. And Barbie had 60 years of legacy prior to, again, heading into the movie and whatnot. And there was a deep perception that people had about the brand. Some people loved Barbie, and some people did find her polarizing. And so again, really appreciating having that consumer-centric, I think, mindset. And then, like I said, adapting and evolving.

Des Dearlove:

And if you were giving advice to somebody who’s coming up through the management ranks now through the leadership ranks, that phrase you used about, “I had to get comfortable being uncomfortable,” how do you pass that on? How does someone put themselves in that position and learn to live with the discomfort and hold themselves without, sort of, you know, the temptation is to run or to duck?

Lisa McKnight:

Well, I think that’s all about the environment that you’re operating in. And Mattel is a collaborative company and is a company built on deep relationships and trust. And trust gives you the feeling of safety, and I would say that allowed me and others to take some bolder swings. We felt like we had the unwavering support of the company. Now, to get that support, you’ve got to earn it. You’ve got to be a good communicator. Steve, back to Ibtihaj Muhammad and that story, when we launched that doll, I underestimated what the reaction would be to creating a Barbie doll from a Muslim faith background. And there was some tough reaction from certain parts of the world, France in particular. And I had not prepared our European team. I had not prepared our CEO. I had not prepared our board of directors and everyone got letters and emails. It was crazy. Again, it was polarizing. There was a lot of fandom, but there was also some discomfort. And so I say that because what I’ve learned now is you’ve got to bring everyone on the journey with you. Build the trust, get the support, build the scaffolding around you. So when you make these leaps and these big decisions, again, you’ve got that support system.

Steve Goldbach:

It also means, I think, for executives today that if you’re making a truly difficult decision or a truly strategic decision, you can’t hold yourself to the standard that everyone is going to be on the same page as you.

Lisa McKnight:

Yes.

Steve Goldbach:

Des, you look like you got one… another question.

Des Dearlove:

I was just going to reference, I mean, the conversation — psychological safety, Amy Edmondson’s…

Lisa McKnight:

That’s well said. Yeah.

Des Dearlove:

Yeah, absolutely. And she happens to be number one in the Thinkers50 ranking at the moment, and we put a lot of store in Amy’s work, current work on failure as well in the Right Kind Of Wrong. But it is so important that we… that those pieces are in place in organisations. Is that something as a leader that you consciously think about, or is it just lucky that you just stepped into a culture, that Mattel already had it? Or do you feel that you have to do something as a leader to make sure that’s maintained?

Lisa McKnight:

You absolutely have to take that onto yourself and make sure that it’s maintained, as you said. Again, like I mentioned, I’ve worked under six CEOs, so there’s been a reset each time a new leader has taken the helm. And so I provide continuity to my team. But yeah, there’ve been many times where I’ve had to sort of educate and manage up the need for that support system. So nothing can be taken for granted. It’s something that’s got to be an active muscle.

Steve Goldbach:

Yeah.

Des Dearlove:

Yeah. I mean, and protect your team. I mean, particularly in a creative industry.

Lisa McKnight:

Absolutely protect the team. Yeah.

Des Dearlove:

Yeah. Yeah. Can see that.

Steve Goldbach:

So Lisa, maybe just two short questions in closing, and it’s been so much fun to chat about all of this, but just thinking to your personal life, you’ve got such an extensive work schedule and lots of pressure at work. What do you do to take care of yourself? What do you do to make sure that you’re ready to go on a daily basis? And then, who else should we have on this podcast? Who would you… Who should we reach out to and say, “Lisa McKnight said, come on the podcast?”

Lisa McKnight:

Oh, gosh. Okay. Well, I would say a few things. Kind of stating the obvious for decompressing, but exercise is important to me. So whether it’s literally walking my dog when I get home, I’ve got a rambunctious two-year-old little Terrier, or hitting the Peloton, it’s definitely a time when I decompress as well as think because we are in rapid-fire mode at Mattel, and I’m sure many executives are, and it’s hard. You kind of go from meeting to meeting, and so you need the end of the day to kind of process what just happened and to take stock. And frankly, I sometimes play conversations over in my head when I’m on the treadmill and come up with different answers, and I’m like, “Oh, I wish I had approached something this way.” I also love, when I’m on the Peloton, and I like doing the scenic runs, and I love transporting myself to Portugal and Japan, British Columbia, and also planning those next trips because I’m a big traveler. But I would say that definitely it’s exercise and then it’s also absolutely connecting with family, friends, loved ones, and just sort of again processing, catching up, and just connecting to people that are really important to me in my life.

Steve Goldbach:

And any podcast guest recommendations that you would send our way?

Lisa McKnight:

Well, I’m impressed with Sean Tresvant from Taco Bell. His company and the work he’s been doing was recognized the same time Mattel was in Fast Company, and it’s interesting to see, again, how they’ve created kind of like a lifestyle brand, and they’re definitely doing a lot of things that are contrary to the norm. They’re on the edge, I would say, in their respective space, and it’s interesting to see what they’re doing.

Steve Goldbach:

We will reach out to Sean and see if –

Des Dearlove:

Yeah… I think that’s an excellent recommendation, and I’m afraid that’s all we have time for. Huge thanks to our guest, Lisa McKnight, and to you for listening. This is The Provocateurs Podcast, and we’ve been Des Dearlove and Steve Goldbach. Please do join us again soon for another episode.