Ukraine, Adzuna, and Women in Leadership Transform Gender Stereotypes.

0:00:01.0 Torin Ellis: We've been about this work: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging. Shared through the voices of a White woman and a Black man. We bring lived experiences. We have pursued D&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 it. Julie, kick off the show.

0:00:36.1 Julie Sowash: Welcome to Crazy and The King.

0:00:41.8 Torin Ellis: Whats up? Whats up? Whats up? What's up? Hey, listen, I know we got some new listeners out there. We are excited about each and every one of you. We thank you, we thank you, we thank you. And the only reason I went straight to the listeners is because... Well, I can't really tell you what Julie and I were just talking about, but it had something to do with going across state lines. But we really do. We appreciate our listeners. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing Crazy and The King. Thank you for continuing to amplify the work, the conversations that Julie and I have from week to week. I don't know, Julie, have you thought... Here we are in year four getting in our stride for 2022. We record every single week, for the most part. Have you ever thought about us doing seasons where we drop like 15 or 20 episodes, and then we just sail off into the moonlight for a minute? Have you thought about that?

0:01:49.0 Julie Sowash: Well, I know you've thought about it 'cause you keep bringing it up. But I don't hate the idea of it for me, but I feel like our sponsors and our listeners would be like, "Could you fill us in with some good interview content while you're gone or something like that?"

0:02:05.1 Torin Ellis: Oh yeah, those folks that are really important to the show.

0:02:08.1 Julie Sowash: The people that we do this for... The listeners and our sponsors so...

0:02:12.6 Torin Ellis: Yeah, they're important to the show. We really do appreciate them. I don't know, I mean recording for an hour is not a bad thing.

0:02:19.6 Julie Sowash: I'm not gonna lie. I'm happy to see your face for an hour every day or every week.

0:02:24.3 Torin Ellis: Absolutely.

0:02:25.5 Julie Sowash: And...

0:02:25.8 Torin Ellis: Absolutely.

0:02:26.7 Julie Sowash: And I loved our end of year interviews last year, and I know we are spotting up some summer interviews now that we're recording and getting in the can for our listeners for good summer listening, and that was a nice break for me.

0:02:40.9 Torin Ellis: It was. It was. It was. So this one right here goes, "My name is Alex, and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Restream. I'm also a father, husband, and above all up to today, a proud Ukrainian." That's how he started a letter to people like me, me being Torin Ellis, a customer of Restream. Are you familiar with Restream?

0:03:06.2 Julie Sowash: I'm not. What do they do?

0:03:07.5 Torin Ellis: So Restream is a streaming platform that you can link other platforms into. So it allows you to broadcast your video, whatever it is that you're doing, to various platforms. So I used Restream last November when Workplace participated with me, and in the end of my cohort party, I used Restream to simulcast our virtual party to both Facebook and LinkedIn at the same time. So Restream is a platform.

0:03:45.5 Julie Sowash: Let me ask you, could I use Restream to watch RuPaul's Drag Race with Tristan in Portland at the same time?

0:03:54.7 Torin Ellis: You might be able to.

0:04:00.2 Julie Sowash: Okay.

0:04:00.9 Torin Ellis: But I don't wanna say yes. I think it's more around our creating the content and pushing it out. I don't necessarily know if it allows you to plug in from some of the more established networks. Alex, if you happen to be listening, CEO of Restream and all, if you happen to be listening, that's a question from Julie. Her name is Julie Sowash. She goes with the J, S-O-W-A-S-H. But he went on to describe what Restream is doing as it relates to this conflict. And in that letter that he sent out literally to all of the customers because I certainly don't feel like a special customer, but to all of those that are on the email list and/or are customers of Restream, he went on to talk about how he felt during this Russian and Ukrainian situation that is going on.

0:04:50.1 Torin Ellis: And he talked about employee safety and having solidarity with the Ukrainians. From the employee safety standpoint, Julie, he said that the safety of teammates is always a top priority, which signals that Restream has employees over in Ukraine. And that last month they offered to arrange relocation for the Ukrainian-based team mates and their families. That is a very big deal. I can appreciate him for that. And then number two, he reiterated his solidarity with the Ukraine, and he offered to assist and has assisted with humanitarian efforts by making a donation of $100,000 to the Red Cross in Ukraine. In addition, compiled a list of Ukrainian-based and international organizations that are assisting those that are affected. Now, I made a small donation to try to just help with the effort as well, but I really appreciated Alex and Restream for what they got in. But there are some other companies that are participating as well and taking a stand in this conflict.

0:05:55.9 Julie Sowash: Yeah, probably too many to list, but some that definitely stood out to us are Delta Airlines, who I am a frequent flyer of, has suspended its codesharing service with Aeroflot, which is a Russian-based airline. Which just means basically you can't book through Delta for any Russian Aeroflot flights. And for the most part, airspace has been grounded, so I don't think there's a lot of flights coming out of Russia into the EU. Formula One has cancelled their 2022 Russian Grand Prix. Dell Technologies has suspended sales in both the Ukraine and Russia, and a company near and dear to my heart that we have a relationship with, Disability Solutions, Adzuna, excuse me, which is an employment advertising, a programmatic vendor, has suspended all Russian operations, announced this morning on the adzuna.ru site, in protest of the Russian invasion of Ukraine sovereign territory. And let me tell you, there are more than two million open roles in Russia right now, so that does not come without a cost to Adzuna, and I, for one, I applaud them for taking that stand. I'm really, really proud to be a partner with them today.

0:07:09.2 Torin Ellis: And that kinda... I wanna just shift for just a second, because I wanna bring it back to you and I. And I've been meaning to do this for a couple of weeks. And for those out there listening, if this is an ill-timed insertion on my part, just take my apology in advance, but you just raised... You raised the issue on the two million jobs that are open on the Adzuna platform. What that suggests is... Because I'm not familiar with Adzuna. So what you're saying is, Adzuna is very similar to some of the other job boards. Russian companies are paying Adzuna to advertise those opportunities. With the 2 million that are represented, you're basically saying they are cutting themselves off from future revenue.

0:07:57.5 Julie Sowash: So not... Current and future revenue, as of now. So Adzuna is a pay-for-performance, a pay-per-click employment advertiser, so if there's a job that's advertised, Adzuna gets paid by the company only when a click happens.

0:08:17.5 Torin Ellis: Got it. Okay...

0:08:18.4 Julie Sowash: So they.

0:08:19.3 Torin Ellis: Clear on it.

0:08:19.3 Julie Sowash: Yeah, so that... The programmatic advertising for jobs is a couple billion dollar industry, and Adzuna is one of the big players. I believe they're London-based, and so I was just really impressed with it in the... At the start, and then I got... I hopped on and saw that there were two million open roles, and that's a significant count of cash.

0:08:44.6 Torin Ellis: Got it. So they took a hit. So...

0:08:46.0 Julie Sowash: Yeah.

0:08:47.8 Torin Ellis: Here's a the question that may be a bit ill-timed in where I'm inserting it, and you had no idea that this was coming. When we think about the conflict of Joe Rogan and/or some of the others from a couple of weeks back, should we have made the decision to pull Crazy and The King from Spotify?

9:09:07.4 Julie Sowash: I thought about it, I thought about it long and hard.

0:09:10.8 Torin Ellis: Okay, because we never talked about it, right?

0:09:13.0 Julie Sowash: But we didn't talk about it, and...

0:09:14.3 Torin Ellis: We never talked about it.

0:09:16.4 Julie Sowash: I will say a little bit. I kicked myself like, "Are we missing an opportunity to live our values? Did I muck it up by not bringing it up?" And then I just sort of didn't do anything.

0:09:27.3 Torin Ellis: Yeah, yeah, and I never... I didn't really think about it, and then when I thought about it, and this is where you always get on me. For those of you listening, this is one of the areas where Julie constantly, or when I do it, she always corrects me. So my thought about it was, it was limited, and what I said to myself, "I don't know the data. I don't know the statistic of our presence on Spotify. I don't know how many people listen to us on that platform versus some of the other platforms." So the question became, "Will it make a difference?" And so I just, I let the thought go away. And what brought it back up for me last week, and again, I didn't share this with you, is there was an article on the Podcast Industry. And it talked about Spotify, and it talked about how like Meghan Markle, and is it a Prince Harry, Prince Harry, they were paid like $25 million and have done a 30-minute episode on the podcast.

0:10:44.2 Torin Ellis: Talked about so many other people who have been given money. Ava DuVernay, who I absolutely adore and appreciate her work, and I believe the article said that she had not done any episodes on the platform. The Obamas, given money to do platform... Do episodes, and for the most part, had not necessarily lived up to the agreement in which they were enrolled on the platform. And it just made me sit and think for a second like, "These platforms give all of this money to these names of people. And in many ways, they're losing," and yet you got Julie and I out here recording every single week, and do they even know that we were one of the two million shows that they put on their platform in the last 18 months?

0:11:43.2 Julie Sowash: Yes, so it would have made a significant cut in our listeners, or in our downloads, let's put it that way. Probably to the tune of about 10-15%, which, for us, I guess for anyone, is significant. They're definitely not in our top five in terms of where listeners are coming from. Apple is still dominating for us in a huge way, and so we would have felt it. But it wouldn't have been significant enough for us to lose sponsors, or anything like that, it just, I think it would have bummed me out a lot.

0:12:28.6 Torin Ellis: Yeah, but to your point, it was one of those opportunities where you and I had a chance to at least discuss living out our values. That right there is... Again, I didn't know what we would go there, it's a great place to let it land, and Julie and I are still appreciative and supportive of the people that are in Ukraine going through this terrible conflict. We absolutely applaud organizations that are living out their values, that are taking the stand. At one point, it's really a matter of time, Julie. At one point, you can do something right, and then within a few seconds, within a few days, weeks, months, same organization can have a terrible misstep. So in this instance right now, these are organizations that have gotten it right. So shout out to each and every one of them.

0:13:17.6 Torin Ellis: There was an article on the Wall Street Journal that talked about maternal deaths rose during COVID-19 in the first year, and I'm not gonna go into the article. We don't have to spend time on it. Here's the piece that I want to highlight. You can read it yourself, we'll put it in the show notes. But once again, we have an example of Black women dying three times more, or... Yes. No, actually dying three times more than white women during childbirth. Why does this continue to happen? Here's the thing. I don't even want you to answer the question, so to speak, because I don't wanna see any woman dying during childbirth. That's not... I'm not looking for this to be a one-to-one relationship. That's not exactly... I'm not looking for that at all. I'm looking to understand why is it though, that that is such a disparity? And in almost every category of healthcare we seem to be losing. That's what I wanted you to take from reading the Wall Street Journal article.

0:14:29.1 Julie Sowash: Yep, and well worth the read. And so finally, in our opening segment, we have Elon Musk, who we give a hell of a hard time to all the time, and I saw this yesterday and wanted to give him a little props. He sent Starlink, which is Tesla satellite-based internet basically in mass to the Ukrainian people and government. I'm talking about hundreds of terminals that were up and running in less than 24 hours and having more terminals on the way. And as you know it, I'm sure as a veteran, and I've heard from my husband in the midst of war, communication is one of the most critical components to success, and this keeps that infrastructure piece for the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian Army intact for now. So thank you, Mr. Musk, for doing that.

0:15:19.6 Torin Ellis: As a communications analyst, we worked in what we call the elephant cage, Julie. And basically if I could paint a picture for you when we... This is when I was in the Philippines. When we were stationed in the Philippines, in order to get into our compound, we had to go through three levels of security. It was almost like walking into an embassy, but it was the outside security, so we had to go through these different turnstiles and security barb wire, but around our entire compound was barb-wired fence and a whole bunch of really, really, really high antennas, and it looked like an elephant cage. So I'm absolutely, absolutely keen on the importance, the criticality of great solid, real-time accurate communication in the process of war, or in peace, as a matter of fact. Communication is key to everything, so shout-out to Elon Musk, because we absolutely do give him a little bit of a hard time over here.

0:16:24.5 Torin Ellis: Awesome. So in a flash, four in 10 hiring managers who hold responsibility for some, or most of the hiring at their workplace, admitted to age bias in a resume builder survey of industry professionals conducted on February 1st and 2nd. That's according to HR Dive, and construction work in New York City and state-wide remains the most deadly profession in the country, the country. I'm not the bearer of bad news, just keeping you abreast. Looks like the network by We The Culture, will provide new opportunities for Black creators to join a network of culture-makers and monetize their efforts on Meta's platforms, and for some, wages have been rising, which is good news for our workers, but a source of concern for our policy-makers who worry about inflation.

0:17:31.7 Torin Ellis: I kinda think we should talk about this inflation thing, not today. Buffet says that Berkshire owned and operated more US-based infrastructure assets than any other American company, setting that company up to benefit from a surge in the federal spending on transportation assets, while some wonder if Amazon is under-counting its carbon footprint. You can find that story over on Reveal. And according to Ray Smith, there are secrets to getting a job after 50. That's over in the Wall Street Journal, and the good folks, and I do say good folks with a side eye, in the Florida House passed the Don't Say Gay Bill last week. It prevents any classroom discussion about sexual orientation, or gender identity in Florida schools. Shut the front door. I think that does it for J and I this week. In a flash, we'll be right back.

0:18:25.0 Julie Sowash: Alright, welcome back.

0:18:25.0 Torin Ellis: So Julie, if I were to ask you... How do I wanna say this? If I were to ask you to give me three words that describe your leadership style, like what three would immediately come to mind? Which three are top of mind for you? And I'mma do this while I put on a little ChapStick, cause I wanna see what you... Let me hear this.

0:18:52.9 Julie Sowash: Okay, you ChapStick away. [chuckle] So I think it would definitely be... It would be transparent, it would be compassionate, and it would be intense. What about you?

0:19:07.9 Torin Ellis: Transparent, passionate.

0:19:10.5 Julie Sowash: Compassionate.

0:19:12.1 Torin Ellis: Oh, compassionate. Alright, got it, and intense.

0:19:14.9 Julie Sowash: Yes.

0:19:15.9 Torin Ellis: Oh, that's a combination. I'mma put a little x.

0:19:18.9 Julie Sowash: That's what they say.

0:19:19.6 Torin Ellis: Yeah, I'mma put a little... I'mma put a little X by the compassionate, intense. Okay, got it. For me, three words I would say honest, aggressive, and understanding.

0:19:30.3 Julie Sowash: So not that far off from mine really we're pretty close.

0:19:33.0 Torin Ellis: Yeah, aggressive, honest, and understanding. And well, one of the words that Mary Barra would use is that same vulnerability that you... And I can use it synonymously or interchangeably with transparency. Have a listen.

[music]

0:20:01.7 Mary Barra: I find saying I screwed up to be hugely empowering, because I'm a type A personality, and I generally have a point of view. But I always tell my team, I will have a point of view, and I might jump out too fast. But I always encourage them, but if you come with facts, or data, or a different opinion, I'm going to listen. And I think it really reinforces it when you can say to your team, "You know, I was thinking about that wrong." Or, "You know what, I got that wrong." Because no one does everything right. And so, I think when you create that environment, I think it's the foundation of a learning environment as well. I think it's so important. And every now and then you have to remind yourself about that, it's like... And at least I should say I do. Every now and then I have to... I have some great people around me, who every now and then will say Mary...

[chuckle]

0:20:54.9 MB: And I value them because sometimes you get so wrapped up in what you're doing, or what you're trying to get the company to do that you lose sight. So I also say have people around you who are willing to pull you aside every now and then. It's so important.

[music]

0:21:20.6 Julie Sowash: So what I love about this clip... I'm a big fan of Mary Barra, let me just be clear about that, but...

0:21:28.0 Torin Ellis: Is it Burra or Barra?

0:21:29.5 Julie Sowash: Barra, excuse me. One thing that I know that I do really well as a leader...

0:21:34.7 Torin Ellis: I only asked, Julie, cause I didn't know. So you switched it only because I asked. I seriously, I don't know how to pronounce it, but wait...

0:21:41.3 Julie Sowash: Yeah, I think it's Mary Barra, but we'll find out.

0:21:42.8 Torin Ellis: Barra, Barra, okay, okay.

0:21:45.0 Julie Sowash: So one of the things I do really well as a leader is say when I fuck up, right? And I like that she says that. I think that's one of the hardest things... It was one of the hardest things for me to learn as a leader. And it's one of the things that I think is hardest to do for some leaders because it's like you're giving away some power by saying you're imperfect. But I think it's so empowering to have that vulnerability and that transparency that you can own when you get it wrong. Because that allows your people to come in and have that same conversation, "Here's what I thought was right, but I was wrong. How do we fix it?" And you don't create that impenetrable expectation of perfection in your organization, and she said that so beautifully.

0:22:32.8 Torin Ellis: Yeah, she did. Do you remember for yourself personally, that moment where it clicked for you, like, "Oh, you know what, I can be transparent, I can be vulnerable, I can say I fucked up? Do you remember when that moment was? And if you don't, it's cool, but do you happen to remember what turned the tide for you where you felt like you could be more of that type of leader?

0:22:58.4 Julie Sowash: Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about the intense piece. I used to be, maybe I'm still a little bit, a bit of a PowerPoint freak. So if the PowerPoints were not perfect, that the people on my team made or sometimes they were my teammates, they didn't even report to me, I would just lose my mind. I mean, lose my mind and stay up all hours of all nights to my husband's chagrin, "Rebuilding their damn PowerPoint." I wasn't gonna deliver it, I just didn't like the way that it looked. And the first time I ever said, "I'm sorry, that's your content, I'm gonna make suggestions, but I'm not gonna make changes anymore because that's not my job, it's not my place to correct every time you do it," it was probably one of the most empowering moments for me because I had to say I was sorry for the way that I was treating my colleagues. But it was also the first time I ever let it go. And then I got so much better at saying, "Maybe it's not the way that I would do it, but it's done, and we're gonna go forward to it." And our business has blossomed since I've given up that control and been able to say I was sorry for that. It's very clear moment.

0:24:18.6 Torin Ellis: So the blossoming is actually a perfect segue because the reason we brought this story up is a group of B-School professors and students recently... I can't remember exactly the date. Let me see if it's on this report. I'm scrolling to the top real quick. So recently a group of professors and students from a B-School got together and they analyzed 43,000 pages of corporate filings. These are SEC filings, 43,000 pages or 1.23 billion words. These are words and filings from public organizations, companies in which a female, I hate that word female, in which a woman succeeded a man as a CEO. So in instances where the man exited stage left, and the women came in to lead the company stage right, they looked at 1.23 billion words and the article, or the report, is titled, "Hiring Women Into Senior Leadership Positions is Associated With a Reduction in Gender Stereotypes in Organizational Language."

0:25:45.4 Julie Sowash: So they basically got to this conclusion, and I think it's a great read, it's academic, but it's well worth your time, by using natural language processing, so AI machine learning to analyze the effect of how female leaders impact language within an organization versus a male leader. Is that a fair statement?

0:26:08.4 Torin Ellis: That is a fair statement, and it's one of those things where I think it's so incredibly important that we continue to share examples of this. Sure, Julie and I don't always lean on academic research, we don't always cite peer review studies. Sometimes she and I are just locked in our own personal, observational, experiential banter, if you will, but in this case, we are leaning on the report, and Julie's right. It really is a detailed read, graphs, and sightings, and it's... You gotta spend some time with it. But that is the essence of it. And really, the outcome was that the organizations did better.

0:26:57.0 Julie Sowash: Yeah, and the whole point is, is that the language started to shift after females came into leadership, right? So we're always talking about how our words matter, our actions matter. But the truth is, is when we use words to describe women that are stereotypical, that are misogynist, that are degrading, even though they're a part of our culture and a part of our stereotypes, it creates limits where women can succeed, especially in leadership roles. And as we see women move into leadership roles, we start to see that language ebb, and I would be curious as to how long that that timeframe is before we see that change. But I think it's especially important, and we didn't put this in our notes, but I think a really, really great and important example that we use, and I've been just as guilty of is the word Karen. It's funny, but it really is a way to degrade a woman who asserts herself for something that she wants. And it reinforces stereotypes that women cannot be persistent, aggressive, or certain about getting to the answers that they want. Now, are these women always acting right? No.

[chuckle]

0:28:20.6 Julie Sowash: I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that women are acting right.

0:28:23.4 Torin Ellis: I was waiting.

0:28:25.7 Julie Sowash: But I am saying the use of the term for any woman that we disagree with, or any man that acts in a Karen way, reinforces stereotypes about the role of women in leadership and in our society.

0:28:39.0 Torin Ellis: I can appreciate that.

0:28:39.8 Julie Sowash: Even when people don't act right. [chuckle]

0:28:41.6 Torin Ellis: I can appreciate that example. You distinguished how it's being applied, so I can appreciate that. But to the point of language, and the power of language, just reflect back to the list, and if you missed last week's episode, we talked about the Baltimore Sun and the apology that they put forth for the reporting that they had been doing, really since the inception of the newspaper. That's language. Reporting is language. I want you to think about that water cooler conversation that you might be having in your social circles, or that Zoom after-meeting that you might be having, where you are using language to describe, or to talk about some of your colleagues, your teammates. Think about that opportunity where you may have cast an extremely wide net that ignored people with disabilities, or categorized people with disabilities broadly as not being able to contribute in the corporate corridor. That language is dangerous, and it's dangerous in a number of ways, whether it be gender-specific, race-specific, marginalized communities, talking about people's geographies, their academic accomplishment, their socio-economic status, the language in which we use Karens, if you will, that language, it absolutely matters.

0:30:06.8 Julie Sowash: Yeah, and I think that water cooler talk really, we should start thinking of that including... As part of our social media, or social media being part of our water cooler talk. So thinking before you post on social media is a very important value that we should see in our leadership. We saw John Demsey, who posted something completely stupid on Instagram. He's a really high-up at Estée Lauder, $10 million a year salary, posted a racist meme that included Sesame Street, and one of my favorite rappers from the 2000s, Chingy, and he lost his job over it. And it was not thoughtful, it was perpetuating negative language, it was perpetuating stereotypes, and all of those things matter. And so think before you post, just in the same way you'd think before you say something at the water cooler.

0:31:03.0 Torin Ellis: Yeah, I'm looking at that now, I hadn't seen that. 65-years-old, terminated from the makeup company after he posted a cartoon to his personal account that contained a racial slur. We're talking 30 years at the company and... Wow, yeah, that's okay, that N-word caught his ass again. Well, I shouldn't say caught his ass again, caught another ass again. Yeah, but the fact is, in this particular piece, it really talks about how once Mary Barra was installed as the CEO in 2014 and the organization started to use language like decisiveness and assertiveness, it started to trickle and be associated with other women in the organization in a more positive and promising way, and that's something that came out of the report in that analyzation of the 1.23 billion words.

0:32:09.3 Julie Sowash: Yeah, and I love the way that they frame it in the article. It says that, "It gave women agency," right, it took them from females to agency and that they have power to move things and to make decisions, and that's incredibly important. Let's hear it from Mary Barra one more time on transformational leadership during COVID.

[music]

0:32:38.2 MB: Well, our industry is so complex, and so we need different perspectives. I'm very proud of our leadership team. There's people like me who have multiple decades at the company and really know the auto business, but then bringing people from other industries, other countries, other backgrounds allows us to look at decisions from multiple angles, and I would also say our board is very diverse and has diverse experiences, and so often we start looking at the strategic direction we wanna take, and the discussions, either at the leadership team or at the board help us really round it out and we make better decisions. So I am convinced that diversity of thought that comes through a multitude of different aspects of diversity leads to better business decisions.

0:33:23.2 Speaker 4: It's our differences that make us stronger.

0:33:25.9 MB: Exactly, exactly.

0:33:26.4 Speaker 4: But how does it make us faster?

0:33:28.9 MB: I think it makes us faster... Well, I think that's more about the culture in the company, do people... We live by a set of behaviors. When I first took the role everybody said oh, you've gotta work on the culture, and I'm like how do I work on the culture everyday? But I can work on how I behave and... 'Cause I can change how I behave tomorrow, and so we define behaviors that we rolled out to everyone every... And people use them, they'll say hey, in the spirit... One of our behaviors is be bold, so they'll say in the spirit of being bold, I'm going to say this, and so I think empowering everybody with a common language and knowing how we wanna behave and treat each other allows us to move more quickly.

[music]

0:34:18.5 Julie Sowash: And I think that's a really incredible clip, and it's something that we learned during COVID, I think as leaders, is that we can allow our teams to be more agile and we can stop these kind of analysis paralysis and when we move, we can move decisively, and she was able to demonstrate that through their ventilator speed at GM.

0:34:41.4 Torin Ellis: Yeah, and I mentioned earlier in the conversation that the data showed that the organizations are doing better, and just as we wrap this segment up, the data really does talk about women's participation in management has shown to empower subordinates to signal change, to lead to better management of conflict and to improve decision-making and performance. So for now, language processing analysis is limited to SEC filings, but researchers hope to study more informal avenues of communications like emails and Glassdoor reviews, and I actually know a company, a Baltimore-based company that's working on some technology to analyze language and organization's emails. So for those of you out there listening, have a look at my good friends over at MindStand, that, you can find them on Twitter, at MindStand that's M-I-N-D-S-T-A-N-D, MindStand on Twitter.

0:35:49.9 Julie Sowash: Alright, let's hear from our sponsor, and then we'll come back for our Her Voice segment.

0:36:00.2 Torin Ellis: As always, our Her Voice is where we amplify women making moves and it's sponsored by TalVista, seeing beyond the obvious. Ketanji Brown Jackson, Federal Judge on the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was nominated to the Supreme Court. Let's hear the actual call that she received from President Biden.

0:36:29.0 Ketanji Brown Jackson: Hello.

0:36:29.7 Joe Biden: Judge Jackson?

0:36:31.5 KJ: Yes.

0:36:32.2 JB: This is Joe Biden. How are you?

0:36:36.2 KJ: I am wonderful. How are you, Mr President?

0:36:37.8 JB: Oh, you're going to be more wonderful. I'd like you to go to the Supreme Court. How about that?

0:36:42.2 KJ: Sir, I would be so honored.

0:36:45.0 JB: Oh, I'm honored to nominate you.

0:36:46.0 KJ: I am just so so overwhelmed. Thank you.

0:36:50.5 JB: Well, you deserve it. You deserve it.

0:36:53.0 Speaker 7: We are so, so grateful. Thank you, Mr President.

0:36:56.2 JB: No, I meant what I said, I think it's important. You're incredibly well-qualified, and I think the court should look like the country, and I mean it. So, thank you.

0:37:03.8 KJ: Thank you, sir.

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0:37:09.7 Julie Sowash: So Ketanji Brown Jackson first worked as a federal public defender, at first for Supreme Court Justice resume. The last justice that actually had that experience representing criminal defendants was Justice Thurgood Marshall. She clerked for Justice Breyer, who she's nominated to succeed and praised mightily at her introduction for the federal courts with a focus on reducing racial disparities in sentences such as drug crimes. If confirmed, she would indeed be the first black woman, sixth woman and third black justice to serve on the nation's highest court.

0:37:51.3 Torin Ellis: Shout-out goes to a regular citizen. This is Nataliya Ableyeva, who crossed the border from Ukraine into Hungary on this past Saturday with two children from a stranger. What happened was the stranger father, he begged her to take his children to safety, gave her his two children, gave her a phone number, and when she crossed the border to safety, she called their mother and presented the mother with her two children. It was a very tearful moment. If you find the link, which we will post in the show notes, you can see the meeting with Nataliya Ableyeva and the mother of the two children.

0:38:37.4 Julie Sowash: Incredible. And finally, Karen Rupert Toliver, from Hair Love, producer to VP of animated films at Netflix, Toliver made history as the first black woman to win an Oscar for animation for her work as the lead producer on Matthew Cherry's Hair Love.

0:38:53.5 Torin Ellis: "And all who flee a conflict situation have the same right to safe passage under the UN Convention, and the color of their passport or their skin should not make any difference," said by President Muhammadu Buhari. And there actually are about 4000 Nigerians in Ukraine, which are mostly students, and the reason I use that as a quote, is because as much as Julie and I are supportive of the Ukranian's challenge because of this conflict that we are in or that they are in, which ultimately is going to impact all of us in some particular way, there are reports out that some people in the Ukraine are denying the humanitarian effort to Nigerians and/or other Black folks, and that is not something that should be happening.

0:39:54.8 Julie Sowash: Any quick mentions this week?

0:39:55.2 Torin Ellis: One quick resource. Actually, we got one quick resource, I just wanna send you all over to Twitter real quick, go to P4parity, the letter P as in Paul, the number four, the word parity on Twitter, P4Parity. Companies like CVS Health and Bank of America have been using Paradigm for Parity for some time to help skill up their Black women inside of their organization, and just in short, what Paradigm for Parity is doing is they are trying to fast track more Black women into roles where they are touching on responsibilities associated with profit and loss, because that is a route, that is a track so that they can hit that C-suite or become a CEO. So on Twitter, take a look at P4parity. Name-drop?

0:40:49.3 Julie Sowash: Yeah, a couple today, so first to the people of Ukraine and their President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, keep up the good fight, keep running the Russians out of town. And of course, to Chef Jose Andres, who is one of the most amazing figures, I think in our world today, who is already in Poland feeding thousands of the over 500,000 people who have already fled Ukraine due to the Russian invasion.

0:41:17.9 Torin Ellis: Shout-out to the team behind the Unwritten Rules Project. You can find it at unwrittenrulesproject.com, again, unwrittenrulesproject.com. Fascinating, and I love the design of the website, I love the functionality. And when you get to the destination, unwrittenrulesproject.com, you see all of the rules that we talk about in Black households. 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, better workplaces. For now, J and I are ghost.

0:41:56.6 Julie Sowash: See ya.

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