Edelman Trust Broken?

0:00:01.0 Announcer: We've been about this work, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, share through the voices of a white woman and a black man. We bring lived experiences. We have pursued the DE&I progress for most of our professional lives. We use Crazy and the King to cover news, tips from colleagues and host incredible guests. Listeners count on Julie and I to transparently drive the conversation. We thank you for rocking with us. Check in. Julie, kick off the show.

[applause]

0:00:39.4 Julie: Welcome, welcome, welcome to Crazy and the King, July 2022.

0:00:44.9 Torin: July 2022. We left London at the right time. Like the headlines over there around the heat are crazy. Is it hot in Indiana?

0:00:58.5 Julie: It is very hot in Indiana, hotter than it was in Portugal...

0:01:02.0 Torin: Yeah.

0:01:02.6 Julie: Not as hot as it was in London, with 104 degrees this week, the hottest temperature ever recorded in the city.

0:01:10.9 Torin: Yeah, like I said, when... My mom sent me a message earlier in the week, and she... Her headline to me... And let me tell you, J, she sends me a text message, it's got a cute little cuddly teddy bear image in it and all this, "I'm glad my baby made it back safely, and you got back just in time." And so I'm sitting here like, "Well, what's going on? What happened?"

[chuckle]

0:01:33.9 Torin: It's just a headline of heat.

0:01:37.3 Julie: Yeah.

0:01:38.2 Torin: And I said, "Well, what happened? What did I miss?" And when she sent it to me, I just had to smile because she's always worried and concerned with me moving around. But did you enjoy yourself over in Europe?

0:01:48.0 Julie: Oh man. How great was RecFest? What a fricking... Just a fantastic show.

0:01:55.1 Torin: Yeah.

0:01:55.2 Julie: Thank you to you for bringing Stubbsy and I on stage during one of your sessions. I got to host the awesome Disrupt stage with Chad & Cheese and with Stubbsy, we brought him on stage for a bit. Just a fucking great show, as always.

0:02:11.4 Torin: Yeah, it really is an interesting event. And I can't tell people enough how much I appreciate what Jamie Leonard, what Bobby Leonard, what Matt, what Lois, what Charlotte, what so many of them are doing inside of The Recruitment Events Company. It really, really, really is a special event. I actually have a beautiful photo, a nighttime aerial photo of the entire setup. And I know that I was a little salty, because I felt like my tent didn't have as many people in it as were present in 2019. I know for those listening, you might say, "Well, that's pretty selfish of you."

[chuckle]

0:03:00.4 Torin: I wanted... You know I've always said, and I'm unapologetic about that, I want everybody to hear messaging around diversity and inclusion. I always want whomever it is delivering that messaging, to be overwhelmed with attendance, with people, with participation. But what I will say to you, J, is that when I looked at this beautiful image, it was a really big tent this year.

[laughter]

0:03:30.1 Torin: It was a really, really big tent. So, to Chad's point, Chad was like, "Well, T, you might have had as many people. Your tent was a lot bigger."

0:03:39.0 Julie: Yeah.

0:03:39.3 Torin: They did an incredible job. So, hat tip to the entire crew over there. And if you're listening and you've never been to London, you've never been to the RecFest event, I can't encourage you enough to talk to your chief people officer, chief human resource officer, your CFO, your COO, you need to go.

0:04:06.2 Julie: So, something I have not told you yet, before we move away from RecFest, and I meant to tell you before we hit the record button, while we were there, I met so many Crazy and the King fans. It was really remarkable how many listeners I got to meet for the first time and sort of just really... I'm always energetic about our show, mostly just 'cause we get to talk to each other, but then when we get to meet listeners like we haven't been able to do for the last couple of years, it was really fun. I met, in particular, a couple of listeners from Chicago who said they love to listen to the show because of the amount of shit I give you.

0:04:44.5 Torin: Okay, okay, okay, okay.

0:04:45.1 Julie: They were like, "Hey, you know what, Torin is always like... "

0:04:48.2 Torin: Buttoned up.

0:04:48.9 Julie: "On it, on it, on it, on it, and he's like the king of every room, and then Julie comes in, she's like, 'Yeah, but... '" And...

0:04:54.1 Torin: Yeah.

0:04:54.3 Julie: Just talking about our dynamic and how we call each other out on things and how we learn from each other is basically their favorite part of the show, which is...

0:05:03.1 Torin: Absolutely...

0:05:03.6 Julie: Also my favorite part of the show.

0:05:05.1 Torin: Absolutely. They would have really enjoyed the vulnerability from the stage at RecFest for real...

0:05:11.8 Julie: It was excellent, excellent.

0:05:13.8 Torin: If they were there. It was perfect. It was absolutely perfect. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that.

0:05:16.2 Julie: I hope we do that in every show this year... I hope we do it every show.

0:05:19.5 Torin: Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. So cannabis, HR is the new frontier, and the question off of HR Dive is, "What should it look like?" So, did you get a kick out of the headline? I mean, what did you think about? Do you think that HR teams are really wrestling with cannabinoid policies, dropping drug testing, what's acceptable, what roles? What do you think when you read the headline?

0:05:51.6 Julie: Obviously, whatever you think about marijuana and HR together, you have to laugh a little bit because you know these two shall not meet, they shall not mix.

0:06:02.8 Torin: Yeah.

0:06:03.8 Julie: But honestly, I think it's a great article. I found it amusing to think about how HR has been fighting against drug use for the past 50-plus, 60 years, I don't know how long they've been mandating drug tests at companies, and then all of a sudden to figure out how it lives in our space now. And a good example I can think of is our parent company, Ability Beyond.

0:06:28.9 Julie: You said, "Just hire in Connecticut and New York," and now that we're hiring all over the country, they've adjusted very quickly to what the marijuana laws are in that particular state, and they're not holding it to a Connecticut standard or a New York standard. It is the state where the person lives and is their primary place of employment. I really appreciated that. I think what's even more interesting is, how is HR at a cannabis company going to function? That to me is the funny part of the next generation of, how do we create leaders in HR that are as innovative and forward-thinking and free-thinking, for lack of a better word, as cannabis startup leaders?

0:07:14.9 Torin: Yeah. So let me tell you, when you read the story over on HR Dive, again, the headline is "Cannabis HR is a new frontier. What should it look like?" You have a commentary, the writer of the story, it's Caroline Colvin, she's the reporter, her angle is to give you a bit of a view around how HR has, I don't wanna use the word struggled, but some of the iterations that HR has had to go through over the years, whether it be accepting people from black and brown communities, poor communities, the LGBTQ community, then she talks a bit about HR inside of cannabis companies, and staffing firms really having to work hard to level up a variety of different positions, like a cannabis company needs a CFO like every other organization. A cannabis company needs a COO like every other organization. And then she continues to go on and give some of the history around the Nixon Administration and where sort of this is going.

0:08:20.0 Torin: So, I absolutely think that it's something that you should put to your read and share with others inside of your HR, TA, your sourcing, EB, recruitment, marketing teams. And I think that you might consider sharing that article from HR Dive with folks in your CSR, philanthropic and ESG communities, because I believe there's always an indirect connection to some of these other communal events. We found something that says we've got blood on our clothes. I don't know what that's really about, but maybe you can give me a peek.

0:09:02.7 Julie: Yeah, I absolutely love this article from corporaterebels.com. It's really talking about something that you and I have never talked about again on the show, is fast fashion, right? The global market or the global garment industry. And so, an absolute must-read from Corporate Rebels. Did you know there are 40 million workers in the global garment industry, and 32 million of them are women?

0:09:29.6 Torin: Say it again. Say it again. Say it again. Say it again.

0:09:32.0 Julie: 40 million workers in the global garment industry, and 80% of them are women, most of them outside of the United States and Europe with a lot of the traditional labor protections. Definitely worth a conversation and a read from Corporate Rebels.

0:09:48.2 Torin: Yeah, and there's a fund. So when you get over to the article, Corporate Rebels has actually set up a fund to try to fight some of the gender harassment, some of the misogyny, some of the illicit workplace practices that are taking place. They don't use the word... As I skimmed the article, they don't use the word, J, "sweatshops" a lot. You remember that word? We used to always hear the word around sweatshops, or the reference to sweatshops. But even though it's not used, it's still inferred that there are certainly some issues that need to be taking place. And when the workforce is 80%, largely 80% women, and in many instances, women that are... They may be less educated. They may come from poor backgrounds. They may find themselves in... And let me just say this, you don't have to be less-educated. You don't have to be from a poor background to still find yourself in a disingenuous position, relationship, an ill-balanced... Imbalanced relationship. But I think in many of these scenarios, they are...

0:11:10.5 Torin: Well, there it is. Actually, they did document it in combating sweatshop conditions. They actually did use it one or two times in the article. So it's one that I think a lot of you should read because like J said, we don't talk about it enough. And that's the beauty of what we are trying to do. We're trying to even force ourselves to find stories, find articles, find content that while we may not talk about ad nauseam in the show, we still refer to it and go read about it once the show is over.

0:11:40.4 Julie: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think just the whole conversation around fast fashion and maybe how we've replaced the word sweatshop with fast fashion because it makes us feel more comfortable with the buying habits that we have, myself included, and very, very guilty, but love this article and definitely worth a deeper dive and a read.

0:12:02.6 Torin: Okay. Okay, okay. So hold on for a second. Now, we got something big that we can talk about here, or we can tease it out a little bit more. I mean, you all can't see her right now, but she's smiling because she thinks I might just drop this landmine about Bristol Myers Squibb and Disability Solutions... You know what, before we do that, stay tuned... But we wanna ask a question. Is it up to employees to fix the remote work gap around promotions? It's just a question. We don't even have to go into the article, J. I'm just curious as to your opinion. Is it up to the employee to fix the gap around promotion?

0:12:54.3 Torin: Because basically what they're saying is, all of these folks working in Agile and distributed and remote capacity are missing out on opportunity. People that they report to are not able to see the beauty of their contribution, the value of their contribution. They don't have the luxury of that interaction, and so they are not being promoted. I mean, I'm just tripping because quite frankly, I didn't even know anybody was getting a promotion over the last two years. I thought we were always trying to figure how to just keep our jobs and like just be happy with the fact that we were being safe... You know what I'm saying? What did you think when you read it? Is it up to the employee?

0:13:37.8 Julie: In part, it is. I mean, it's a relationship. You have a relationship with your leaders, you have a relationship with your employees, and you both have responsibilities to each other. But again, just someone who has worked in a completely remote environment for the past 10 years, who's been promoted three times, who's promoted people, and who's also failed to promote and recognize talent who's remote, there is so much nuance and conversation that we could have around this topic, and it's something that employers and employees are gonna have to figure out how to get good at. And it's not... It's a different way of communicating, a different way of interacting. I think in a lot of cases, it's incredibly valuable because it forces you...

0:14:33.6 Julie: As the way that you think as an employee, it forces you to think differently about how you're communicating with your leader. It's not just over coffee, it's not just over cocktails, it is visually and orally showing them your value. And I think that's good for us as employees. I think it's been good for me as a remote employee, but it's a skill that I had to take the time to learn, and that quite frankly, as a leader, I fucked up a couple of times because I didn't recognize what I needed from employees and I didn't recognize the value that they were giving me because we weren't communicating with each other. This is gonna be huge as we go forward.

0:15:13.9 Torin: Yeah, and you actually claim that, I think back to, some of the time when I was a leader and I messed up from the other side, being a good leader, being inquisitive enough, understanding what it was like to be a parent. Because at the time, I was just focused on the numbers. I wasn't focused on childcare issues and all of those things. Let me just say, I was probably a walking HR disaster, like an incredible leader, energetic, supportive, I would jump in and get on the sales calls with my team whenever, like it was always fun for me. So, from that angle, Torin was awesome, top notch, off the scale, but there were issues, there were times where I probably held people accountable unfairly because I really didn't recognize the humanity of leadership. I didn't understand the real breadth of dimensions of leadership, knowing that it's more than just hitting the numbers. So, I agree with you, it is up to the employees.

0:16:23.9 Torin: So, I wanna talk about... We gotta talk about Bristol Myers Squibb. Last year, you and I both had an opportunity to sit on an incredible panel with Bristol Myers Squibb. This year, you get to... And it's not your first time working with them. This is a long time coming. And I think it's only right that you get to tell our listeners about the beautiful announcement that was made this week between your organization, Disability Solutions and Bristol Myers Squibb.

0:17:02.7 Julie: Yeah, and thank you for that. It's been a big week. We have had the pleasure and the honor of working with Bristol Myers over the last couple of years on a few different projects. But also being the strategic think partner to their disability ERG who, Tinamarie Duff, who joined us from All Wheels Up a few months ago, leads that for Bristol Myers Squibb.

0:17:28.8 Julie: And really over the past... Over 12 months now, we've been talking about BMS is doing an incredible job in cultivating talent within the organization, retaining talent, helping people feel more confident about self-ID and self-disclosure, universal design, all of this really, really incredible work. And as a part of this, we started to recognize, how can we start to make a patient impact? What can the PBRG, the DAWN PBRG do to help drive opportunities for patients with disabilities?

0:18:05.7 Julie: And what we found through this relationship and through this work on strategy is that people with disabilities are largely auto-excluded from participation in a clinical trial. And where we're not auto-excluded, there are definitely exclusion and inclusion criteria or informed consent that will exclude a person who may be suffering from mental illness, who may have cognitive disabilities, who may have a missing limb or something to that effect.

0:18:39.0 Julie: And as you know, people with disabilities are about a quarter of the population in the United States and about a billion people worldwide. So, how can we help the leadership team of Bristol Myers Squibb understand that not only are we losing an opportunity to create the best and most inclusive medicine, but we're missing an opportunity to be the leader in this market to do it? And today, long story long, Bristol Myers along with Disability Solutions announced a Disability Diversity in Clinical Trials Initiative to improve healthcare outcomes for people with disabilities, which means that Bristol Myers is the first pharmaceutical company in the world, let me say that again, the first pharmaceutical company in the world to proactively start to build how to include people with disabilities in clinical trials. Access to healthcare is one of the biggest social justice issues in our world for people with disabilities. We've had those conversations with Frantz, you've talked to Dr. Okanlami. This is game-changing stuff.

0:20:00.7 Julie: And so for Bristol Myers to come out and say that publicly and to be the first to do it, it really shows what kind of an organization they are and what their commitment to diversity is. But what I think is also really important here that gets me very excited is a lot of times people say, "Julie, why does it matter if we hire people with disability outside of it's the right thing to do, it's good for, whatever, whatever, gives me the good feelies?" This is why it's important to hire people with disabilities. This is why representation in your workforce matters. If it wasn't for the DAWN PBRG, which is their Disabilities ERG, if it wasn't for leadership like Tinamarie, Erika Heiges, there wouldn't be this announcement, this conversation won't be happening because you have representation and you have support from your corporate leaders like they do at BMS. We get to drive innovation that wouldn't happen. BMS gets to drive that information. And quite frankly, this is gonna be a multi-year process and we're really in the, just figuring it out, the knowledge part of this first part of the journey, but this can be transformational for an entire quarter of our community to be represented and have access to healthcare that they have not had before.

0:21:39.0 Torin: Yeah, let me tell you, we're gonna pick up on this after the break, because there's a couple of things that you said that I think warrant some additional discussion. So how about this, J, why don't we... First of all, congratulations to you and the entire team, because I know that it was a Herculean effort, and not because you had to convince Bristol Myers to do it, but partnerships like this, collaborations like this, when you are the first in the world in a community that that has often been overlooked, it had to make sure that all I's were dotted, T's were crossed, legally things were put in place. I know a lot went into it, Herculean effort, hats off to you and the entire team. We get to celebrate you with digital confetti and all types of fizz snaps and finger claps and all of the other stuff, and we'll do that right after we take this break.

0:22:42.0 Torin: Alright, so In A Flash, NASA opened a new window into the cosmos when it released the first full-color images from the James Webb Space Telescope this past week, revealing 13 billion years of galaxies. It's the highest resolution infrared image ever captured. The new picture is a deep field image, not deep fake, deep field image, a long exposure observation of a region of the sky which allows telescope to capture the light of extremely faint distant objects. Let me say this in another way, it's a beautiful picture. Alright, Lego revealed its highly anticipated model of 1,164-piece Dunder Mifflin Scranton or the workplace for The Office, and Walmart.com has the exclusive on that buy.

0:23:36.2 Torin: In another office, The Nursing Association is on a racial reckoning journey. They must acknowledge that from 1916 until 1964, the association purposefully, systemically, and systemically excluded black nurses. I don't know why I say systemically twice. Anyway, the rapid-delivery startup Getir is the focus of an investigation by the New York State Department of Labor. It has been said that they are shorting workers on their paychecks and paying folks under the table. Speaking of getting around, some drivers say they're ditching their Teslas over Elon Musk's politics. And Walmart, again, In A Flash, has a fresh new fleet of electric vehicle delivery vans coming in 2023, and since J talked about Bristol Myers Squibb, the Walmart vans looked like pill dispensers.

0:24:39.6 Torin: From Legos to real life, a few stories that you may have missed. For decades, the US Government has racially discriminated against black farmers through federal agricultural programs, denied them loans and contributed to billions of dollars in lost land, you can find that story over on Capital B as in boy. And the FBI says fake job applicants are on the prowl. How can HR protect itself? And that is back over on HR Dive. Let me just say, HR Dive is doing some amazing things. I read something earlier, J, they have like 100 full-time reporters. When they set out, and I believe they started in like 2007, I'm a little wrong maybe on the year, but when they set out, they wanted to be one of the biggest digital destinations for news in the business space, and I didn't know that they had 100 reporters spread across more than 25 different areas.

0:25:52.5 Torin: So here's something I wanna ask you. I wanna ask you a question around something that we often refer to. And this is gonna probably tie in well with the monumental effort that you all are doing. Because what you're doing at Bristol Myers Squibb and Disability Solutions is really what... If you remember when we had the conversation with Gerard Charlot back in... Was that March of this year? I think it was March of this year. He talked about the trust pillars. Remember, we talked about the trust pillars. You and I often make reference to the Edelman Trust Barometer. That's a resource that we often talk about. My question to you this week is, when do you allow yourself to be a part of something controversial, when you have built so much of who you are on trust? Here's why I'm asking the question. The headline reads over on Politico, "The Daily Show meets Riyadh! How a Giant PR Firm," and that PR firm is Edelman, "How a Giant PR Firm is Pitching the Saudis".

0:27:20.5 Torin: Now, I didn't share this with you because I just wanna get your take on it. We are always referring to the Edelman Trust Barometer. They are working hard to help the Saudis repair their damaged reputation around the world. How do you feel about that? And the reason I'm asking you is because you gave me... You gave me shit in 2019. You weren't happy about Edward Snowden being a part of a particular event, let's just say that.

0:28:03.9 Julie: That's correct. Yep.

0:28:06.2 Torin: And it was a principal thing for you.

0:28:09.0 Julie: Yep.

0:28:12.0 Torin: How do you feel knowing that you and I... And listen, anybody out there, if you work for Edelman, we'll still talk about Edelman Trust Barometer in 2024, we love the document, unless you all do something incredibly crazy. Well, this might be incredibly crazy. So how do you feel?

0:28:28.7 Julie: Yeah, I mean I just... I'm not gonna lie that it's a little bit of a took-my-breath-away kind of moment and I don't know why I reacted so strongly to it. And literally, I had no idea it was coming, so this is just my raw reaction. I put a lot of trust and I put a lot of conversation, business process, talking points into what Edelman puts out because it has been, for me, so reflective of what I see in our world and in our companies and what I know works when companies do it correctly. And so to your point, just as Edward Snowden, that feels off to me to be working to help to rehabilitate the Saudi government and not at all speaking about the Saudi people at all, that we need to make that clear distinction, the Saudi government after what has been an incredible... With the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the war in Yemen, just... Wow. It's almost like that whole thing with the PGA going over and Phil Mickelson being a part of. It's like, "Hey, if they're gonna give me money, I'll do it."

0:30:02.2 Julie: Is there a place where we just need to say the money isn't worth... It isn't worth the cost to my reputation and it's certainly not worth the cost to my consciousness? That's my gut. Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts that I don't know or understand. But yeah, it's definitely not what I was hoping to hear you say just after the break.

0:30:25.6 Torin: Yeah, Edelman has a history of working with the Saudis, including the campaign. I didn't know this until I read the article, but they actually had worked with them back in 2020, if I'm not mistaken, a campaign to promote LinkedIn. Go figure. A campaign to promote LinkedIn. Because in the article it talks about, is a platform that amplify the voices of Saudi career women. What they were trying to do, Edelman was working to show people in Saudi Arabia, if you will, or perhaps in the Middle... In that region of the globe that LinkedIn was a platform that could be used to amplify the voices, the persona, the professional pursuit of women. And so when I saw this, I gotta tell you, I sat there and I said to myself, "Do you say yes to this? Do you... And you've hit it. You hit it... I don't need to repeat what you said. When do you sa no?

0:31:43.3 Julie: Yeah. Well, and I think it goes nicely with another article that we picked up this week from Fortune called "Anita Hill: Business Leaders Must Commit Fully to Diversity For The Sake of Their Own Longevity".

0:31:54.6 Torin: That's right.

0:31:55.4 Julie: And what I just... As soon as you started reading that to me, something in the article that just caught my attention, it says, "Beyond a corporation's financial interest today, investors, shareholders, consumers and workers are interested in new perspectives and the kind of innovation that is possible because of diverse workplaces. These stakeholders are pressuring leadership to deliver more than profits."

0:32:20.4 Torin: More than profits.

0:32:20.6 Julie: "They want corporations to reflect their values." That's so much what we're talking about, that we live in a world that is demanding more of our companies. And to me, that is what the Edelman Trust Barometer has talked to us about for a long time, is what we expect from our CEOs, what we expect from our boards is something that is reflective of our values, and it is more than just that profit center and that bottom line. It is seeing what we need reflected and what we want reflected in those that we spend the majority of our lives toiling away for it.

0:33:05.8 Torin: Absolutely. And again, part of the reason why I brought this up is because when you think about the huge announcement that you made before the break, when you think about the trust that you all, that both entities are working to deepen with the disability community, and let me just say this, I wanna be better about saying this, the collaboration and where you are trying to build trust in that major announcement goes beyond the disability community, because it's the people that are supporting the disability community, the people that are connected to those in the disability community, what you all are trying to do, Bristol Myers, as well as Disability Solutions, you're working to deepen and build trust, period, period. And these are the types of decisions that will cause individuals to question whether or not, "Do we participate in the clinical trials? Because we found an article, some place out on the web from a reputable source that puts into question the authenticity, the genuine sentiment, the true desire to develop solutions and remedy and practice and protocol in healthcare for us, so you know what, we're not going to participate in the clinical trial. We're not going to participate in the donating to corporate rebels side around the fast fashion industry."

0:34:43.4 Torin: "We're not going to participate in the ERG inside of our organization because we've seen this movie before. We're not going to help in philanthropic efforts." It goes on and on and on. And the piece that you pulled out of the article on Fortune with Anita Hill is so incredibly important. We cannot drive home enough that work is so much more around the stakeholder as much as, if not more, than the shareholder. We cannot drive that message home enough. And listen, I know you may be out there listening and saying, "Well, who are you, Torin? You're not working or running a Fortune whatever business. You got your little small consulting agency over there, you do a couple of little speaking engagements. Yeah, that's cute." And I get it. I get it. I absolutely get it. You guys can't see me doing all of the antics with my hands and all that stuff. "So who are you to say that stakeholders are equally, if not more important than shareholders?" Well, I'mma tell you who I am. I'm a person who's listening to the sentiment of hundreds and thousands of people, people that are hitting me on social feeds, people that are hitting me in my email, people that walk up to Julie and I after we present at these events like RecFest, 3,500-plus, thousand people there.

0:36:19.4 Torin: We are people that have an ear to the ground listening to people. Edelman, listen, I don't know why you made the decision to try to help them repair their image. Do I feel like their image should be repaired? I suppose. I just don't know if I necessarily feel like it should come from a person who is... A firm that has built so much of their cache, their panache on the word trust. I don't trust the Saudis like that. I don't trust their government enough that I would risk my reputation for a seven-figure engagement.

0:37:00.9 Julie: Yeah, and I think that you're hitting another one of the important nails on the head is that this is a conversation about action, what got announced by Bristol Myers today is actionable. It's an initiative that they are doing, putting in place to build a more inclusive system for patients with disabilities. If they had come to me and said, "You know what, we just wanna put out this press release and we'll figure it out as we go along, or well, maybe we'll get to it," that's not the conversation that you want a company to have. That's not the way that you do disability inclusion, diversity inclusion. And so often what we see from companies around DEI is just sort of the talking points. It's the nice press release, it's this and that. It doesn't have the action that goes with it. And so anytime we're working with a company, we fully say, "Let's get to a point where we've got things to be talking about, things that we can show, things that we've got in the works," so that you are demonstrating to the community that you are walking the walk while you're talking the talk, and that your communication demonstrates how you're driving innovation for our community, your stakeholders, your shareholders, all of those things, and that's what BMS gets right here.

0:38:32.9 Torin: Yeah, inside of the... Go ahead, I'm sorry.

0:38:34.8 Julie: Sorry. If we're the Saudis...

0:38:36.9 Torin: Yep.

0:38:37.2 Julie: If you kinda flip it on the other way, if we're the Saudis, what happens is we continue to have bad behaviors, and then we hire a company to rehab our reputation, that's not trust. That's the opposite of trust. That's PR. That's media manipulation. That's propaganda. That is not what should be happening. If the Saudis start to actually change behaviors, and again, I mean the Saudi government change behaviors, change and move out some of the bad actors that they have in place, then does it make sense for them to hire a PR company to help tell that story? Abso-frickin-lutely it does. It absolutely makes sense, but there has to be actions before there are our words, because that's where the trust breaks down. And that's what's really, I think catching me at this whole story with Edelman.

0:39:33.9 Torin: Yeah, I wanna end on a beautiful note again, just congratulations to you and the team, and inside of the announcement that went out on July 20th on the Business Wire, it was said, "Through this work, Bristol Myers Squibb can set the standard and stage for access to life-changing and life-saving medicines for people with disabilities." It was said by Samit Hirawat, medical doctor and Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of the Global Drug Development Division inside of Bristol Myers Squibb. You can actually find BMS on Twitter at @BMSNews. They are on Twitter at @BMSNews. They are also at, of course, Bristol Myers Squibb or bms.com, the easy way. You can also find Julie's team at disabilitytalent.org. There's another website for you all. Which one do you prefer them to go to, disabilitytalent.org or abilitybeyond.org?

0:40:36.9 Julie: So Ability Beyond is our parent company. So if you wanna learn about what we give back to our parent company, you can go there. If you're interested in Disability Solutions, check out disabilitytalent.org. And a huge congrats to the BMS team, incredible amount of work has gone to get us to this place, and there's an incredible amount of work ahead of us, but this is how we need our corporate leaders to lead. So congrats to that team and thank you for the extra time.

0:41:02.3 Torin: Absolutely. A quick break, and then our Her Voice segment. Her voice is where we amplify women that are making moves. Last week, Mary McLeod Bethune became the first Black American to be represented with a state statue in National Statutory Hall. It is a central room of the United States Capitol and it's where she was honored for her work championing education and civil rights.

0:41:39.1 Julie: We have ride share helicopter platform, Blade, hired Roisin Branch as its first chief marketer, and Maricella Herrera was named CEO of Ellevate Network.

0:41:51.8 Torin: And glasses up for four women vying to replace UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Did you see that fiasco when we were over across the pond, as they say? And the four women are Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch and Suella Braverman.

0:42:15.1 Julie: And finally, 13-year-old Alena Analeigh is the youngest Black person accepted to medical school at 13. Alena says, "I really wanna leave my mark on the world and lead a group of girls that know what they can do." Congratulations.

0:42:31.4 Torin: I'm curious, I'm curious, I'mma put you on the spot, as a... We're gonna call you a girl in this moment, since this is Her Voice and we would talk about the young lady girl. At 13, were you saying things like, "I really wanna leave a mark on the world," J? Were you saying things like that at 13?

0:42:46.8 Julie: Hell no. I was too worried about boys and what make-up I had on and how I was doing my hair, so yeah, incredible.

0:42:54.6 Torin: Beautiful thing. Shoutout to you, Alena, for the good work that you are doing. Quick mention, Business Insider is seeking nominations for their 100 People Transforming Business Series. The categories are DEI, sustainability, healthcare, money, supply chain, transportation, emerging tech, shopping, entertainment, and real estate. To nominate someone, there is a form that needs to be filled out and if you go over to businessinsider.com and look for... Or just search for 100 People Transforming Business Series. You can find that form and fill it out. It is a Google form, easy to do, it'd take you a couple of minutes. And then there's a new suicide prevention number, which is nationwide here in the US.

0:43:42.4 Torin: I don't know if they have one over in Europe, I actually looked real quick, I couldn't find anything around suicide prevention in Europe and in Lat Am. Those are the only two other geographies that I checked. But the number here in North America is 988. Again, 988. And in the show notes, we're gonna make sure that we put a link to an article from NPR to support this announcement around suicide prevention and this new number, which is 988. I think it's beautiful that we now have this number and resource here in the county.

0:44:19.7 Julie: Yeah. And so Disability Twitter this week, a couple of really interesting tweets, the first one from John Loeppky, L-O-E-P-P-K-Y, who tweets, "Hey, Disability Twitter. I am a disabled journalist working on a story about disabled people who feel or have felt uncomfortable with the concept of disability pride. Email and DMs are open. Need to speak to folks by the end of the week." This came out about eight days ago. However, what I think is really interesting here is, as you know, July is Disability Pride month, and we... I would say a lot of leadership in the disability community have been focused on this month versus [0:45:09.6] ____, which is is about employment, because this is just generally about embracing our disabilities and in our community. So I'm eager to read this article when it comes out from John.

0:45:20.1 Torin: Absolutely. And then the next tweet that we had under Disability Twitter talks about the stigma of leprosy. It comes from the Disability Justice Project on Twitter. They are at the @BJP underscore and the tweet says, "I used to want to be a teacher, but the obstacle, because I have leprosy, I was expelled." It was written by a Disability Justice Project fellow, and basically it talks about that person not being able to satisfy their dream because of the leprosy. So I thought it was interesting that this is not something that we really talk about, and this was happening over in Indonesia.

0:46:03.4 Julie: And last but not least, could have been another woman in our Her Voice segment, from @MsWheelchairUSA, announces they have crowned a new Ms. Wheelchair USA 2022 and it's @Sara, S-A-R-A underscore G-A-V-E-R. Sara Gaver is Ms. Wheelchair USA 2022. Congratulations.

0:46:26.5 Torin: Ms. Wheelchair USA. Let me tell you all something. I... Julie and I, when we put the segment in for Disability Twitter, it was really for us to continue to keep an audience on our listening radar, radar of consideration and awareness, and every single week I'm fighting to determine, how do I just cut it down to three tweets? So if you'd like to go out and see what's happening in that thread, go on Twitter and use the #DisabilityTwitter and educating yourself, inform yourself, introduce yourself to some of the many considerations, challenges, perspectives, beauty points. It's not all bad and downtrodden. Just get into that community and get close to them. J, another good week. Thank you ever so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I close reminding each and every one of you to share the pod with your digital tribe and to find your voice. Be a better human. Let's create better culture, better teams and better workplaces. For now, J and I are ghosts.

[applause]

0:47:35.0 Julie: See you.

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