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March 5, 2020 15 mins

You can put purpose at the center of your business and succeed; that's what Tory Burch learned when she created a global brand that also empowers and supports women entrepreneurs. Tory's other inspiring message: We should all "embrace our ambition." Hear Tory's conversation with Melanne Verveer at Seneca Women's Forum at NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hi, This is Milan Vervier and this is Kim Azarelli.
We are co authors of the book Fast Forward, How
Women Can Achieve Power and Purpose. And you're listening to
Seneca Women Conversations on Power and Purpose, brought to you
by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio.
Tory Birch built her business into a global lifestyle brand,

(00:38):
but what you may not know is that the heart
of her company is a foundation that empowers women entrepreneurs
and encourages us all to embrace our ambition. Listen to
this conversation between Tory and Milan and learn how Tori
put purpose at the center of her strategy, bound support
and unexpected allies, and overcame naysayers who ridiculed the idea
that a purpose driven business could be success us well,

(01:00):
and make sure to stick around after the conversation to
hear our top takeaways and tips that you can use
in your life and work. Tory is an aime everybody
knows and a label that so many of us have worn.
She has been way ahead of the curve, not just

(01:21):
in fashion, but in the way she runs her business.
We've been talking about how companies use their power for
purpose and um. They are doing that not just to
accelerate progress, but also to be companies that make that
kind of a difference that aligns with their business. She

(01:42):
has embraced purpose uh an ambition clearly in a way
that works. There's no doubt about it. It goes together.
It propelled her company, which was launched in two thousand
and four, into a global business with more than two
d and fifth de boutiques around the world and more

(02:03):
than three thousand stores are selling her label, So Tory.
That's quite an accomplishment. And it goes on and on.
But there are so much about you. I want the
audience to know, thank you so much, so happy to
be here. How did you get so many famous people
to do this video? Well famous and hopefully some that aren't,

(02:24):
because you know what, I it occurred to me that
there is a very harmful stereotype, and that's when women
are ambitious, it's it's perceived as a negative and celebrated
in men. And so we wrote an email and it
was as simple as that, and we put it together
fairly quickly, so I think it was about a month
and a half before we shot for that, and I

(02:46):
just said we could together do a public service announcement
and and start the dialogue to change something that needs
to change. You're absolutely right, and it's so true in politics. Um,
they're something about a female candidate being a appearing to
be ambitious, as she surely is, and it's a good trait. Uh.

(03:08):
And men, it's highly admired to be. Well, it's interesting
when I first and actually Milan was one of the
first people I ever had the guts to to cold
call and ask for a meeting in two thousand and eight. Um.
But one of the reasons we and then I'll go
back to that, UM, came to the word ambition. Even
is there was the first article written on me and

(03:29):
the company by the New York Times, and the journalists
looked at me and said, are you ambitious? And I
thought it was such a rude question. And after that article,
a friend of mine called me and said, why on
earth did you shy away from the word ambition? And
that was in two thousand and five, a year after
I started the company, and it just really struck a chord.

(03:50):
And since that moment, I've realized that something that I
wanted to work on and change. Well, it's a great
contribution because we've got to shatter that stereotype. Yes, so
thank you for that. Now, there was an article I
think it's in the current Vogue, UM, in which you
talk about how brands are starting to realize, UM, that

(04:10):
their values and actions have to be aligned with their customers,
which is maybe for some of very novel concept that
those two go together. UM. But you've been doing that
since you launched story. You have had this sense of
your mission, your purpose. UM. Maybe you'll leave and tell

(04:30):
us about how first time I met Tory, she was
well into her foundation work, but she actually started thinking
about not starting a business so much as starting a foundation.
Tell us, well, first of all, far war too, because
it's a great story. Are My business plan was about

(04:51):
how do you build a global lifestyle round so that
we could start a foundation. And when I went to
meet with people, particularly private equity, they really almost laughed
at me and said, never ever say business and charity work.
I can't even say that because that's not what we do,
um charity work in the same sentence. And it was
really funny because last Christmas I went to a conference

(05:14):
and it said doing good is good for business. And
I called one of those people and I said, oh, hey,
you know, I just came from this conference and I
think it was doing good is good for business, And
I said, just so you know, um, I think things
have changed, because well, what do you want? And I said,
we'll check for the foundation, naturally, and so he told
me at one time check and I should never call back,
but I will. But back to when I met Milan.

(05:38):
It was one of those cold calls and I will
never forget it because I was in awe of all
the work you're doing. Land. I was and um, she
took my meeting and I said, you were such an
amazing support system and gave me hope. After I was
ridiculed and told never um to talk about business and
social responsibility. But I will say that was a meeting

(05:59):
that I will never forget. But and I just sent
to the Land back stage. What I never realized back
then is how important purpose would be for the bottom
line of the business. And that's a really important message.
And now he's practiced, and now it's time to change.
It's become very occurrant for a lot of good reasons. Well,
let's tell us about the talk about the foundation a

(06:20):
little bit. So, yes, there are one of our best
partners is here today, Bank of America and UH. We
have partnered with Bank of America America to give women
access to low interest loans and access to capital is
obviously one of the major barriers women face. So that
has really unlocked a big part of what we're trying

(06:42):
to do. And to date, we've given out over fifty
million dollars to women entrepreneurs in the United States and
they just raised that to a hundred millions, So we're
extremely excited. So how thank you, well deserved? How how
did you zero in on working with women entrepreneurs? So
it was it was a process. I knew that I

(07:04):
wanted the foundation to be about women. I knew that
and um I mean women and children. I went to Haiti,
I did so much UM work to figure out what
would be the best way that I could contribute. And
what I realized is I had a lot of experience
in a startup and being an entrepreneur, and I also
saw the challenges that women face day in and day out.

(07:26):
And women are great investments. That is something I know,
and the women that we work with are what is
going to bring our economy to UH the highest place ever.
UM if we invest in them and really looking at
their businesses, looking at the way that they juggle and
collaborate and um mentor each other. The idea of peer

(07:47):
to peer mentorship is something that we're really interested in. UM.
It's it's all. It's all good when I think about
women in business. For now, it's in the United States,
but we hope to be international at some point. You know,
it's so terrific because us UM, entrepreneurship really is the
wind at the back of the economy. Uh. And women
entrepreneurs in the United States have contributed immeasurably to our

(08:10):
economy besides their own lives inclusive prosperity, UH, and so
much more. And I think you're zeroing in on something
that related to yourself being an entrepreneur, because entrepreneurs do
face a lot of challenges entrepreneurs, but certainly women entrepreneurs,

(08:30):
women entrepreneurs. But are you um, you're addressing the credit
which you mentioned, because it's very hard to access credit
by you and Bank of America have created a great partnership.
Are their trainings or their other We have a fellowship
program that just literally opened last week. And what's exciting
is it used to be ten women that we would
fly into New York. UM. Now it's fifty and it's

(08:52):
for a week, and we have seminars, we introduce them
to potential investors. UM. But really it's a out. Also
the networking that they get from that week and then
they're continued networking after. That's something they need. Men are
great at networking and women really UM can benefit a
lot from that. It's um all business, it's uh. The

(09:14):
only common threat is that their women. There's um uh
there's a chocolate company, there's um all kinds of businesses.
There's a woman um that makes movie set sustainable. UM.
There's a hot dog stand, there's a deli. There's so
many different kinds of business. It's very inspiring. So I

(09:36):
know that the next cohort is open now. Now we're
taking applications and for this we don't we don't charge,
and we fly them in for a week. And it's
what's it's amazing for all of us at the foundation. UM.
Lauria sitting right here, she spearheads the whole week and
she's done a great job. UM of of just I

(09:57):
talked to them throughout the week and then at the
and and they have gotten something out of it. So
it's fifty women for a week. It's our fourth year.
And and do they tell you why they want to
participate because you get lots of applications, I get a
lot and it's hard to to whittle it down. But
that said, we we want as many as possible because
we want to create that network. And they we We've

(10:19):
created a platform online on the Tory Birds Foundation dot
org site and they over fifteen thousand women have written
business plants from our site. But also it gives them
the ability to communicate a network. And what question do
you ask them? Do you ask them why they think
they would benefit? That's a question. And then we have
our summit coming up on March five, which is also

(10:41):
a question, which is um we tackle unconscious bias, stereotype
and ambition. And we we do not charge, but we
ask people to apply and they have to write essays
on why they should be there, so we really curate
the audience. And it's it's a day that's rapid fire.
If anyone in the audience would like to come, we

(11:02):
would love it. It's people and it's from nine in
the morning until sixth at night. A lot of actions
sounds good. One thing that I will say we're that
our foundation UM feels very strongly about is having men
be part of the conversation and we can talk about
women's issues all day long to each other and we
all agree we have a lot of things to work on,

(11:23):
but we need men to be part of this dialogue.
Tell them what you told me about the first question usked.
So I was telling Milan, I was asking her to
come to the summit, and last year we we touched
on politics. So I had, uh, well, Joe Kennedy and
Kevin McCarthy on the stage, and I said to them,
you know, I'm gonna start with asking you a question
I get or have gotten every single interview. And I said,

(11:46):
to tell me, what are you wearing today? I'm sure
they've never been asked. And how do you manage being
a father and having a family? So you you they
started looking at their ties. They had no clue. You
mentioned Bank of America that we talked about the difficulty

(12:09):
of when women entrepreneurs accessing capital. UM. We are focused
on partnerships somewhat a difference they make. How does your
partnership work with Bank of America? So we have been
working together now for years and UM we knew that
UM we we wanted to give together money out work

(12:30):
with local c d f I s, local lenders UM
to identify the entrepreneur and women are great investments. As
I said, they pay their loans back over ninety I
would at the time, So it's UM, it's a win.
And the loan size that we're addressing banks generally don't
want to deal with as we mentioned backstage, So our

(12:51):
average loan size is roughly sixteen thousand to twenty dollars.
So they help us partner with the c d f
I s across United States and really help us find
the entrepreneurs and then collectively we invest in them and
then hopefully take their businesses to the next level. These
partnerships really bring to the table different competencies, different sets

(13:14):
of resources, and the reality is that it then achieves
something that one may not have been able to achieve. Well,
you know what was interesting is it took us a
little while to figure out how to give out the capital.
We I thought that would be easier than in fact
it was. But it has to be with the right
time of the business and and UM the right amount.

(13:36):
And we were certainly investing in women as a no brainer.
So she's doing it, and she's doing it in a
great way, and we're really really happy to have you
with a story again. The time has just been Thank
here very much. Stay tuned for our takeaways after this break.

(14:04):
That was a great conversation. Check out Tori's foundation at
Tory Birch Foundation dot org. Now Here are top takeaways. First,
it's important for each of us to embrace our ambition.
We need to challenge the double standard in which women
are criticized for their ambition while men are celebrated. Second,
you can put purpose at the center of your business

(14:25):
strategy and succeed. Purpose and business success are not contradictory.
In fact, often purpose is the fuel that drives success.
Tori is such a great example of this. She built
her company with the intention of having a positive impact,
and just look at all she's achieved. Lastly, go outside
of your comfort zone and reach out to people outside

(14:46):
your immediate network who share your values. They can give
you the energy and support you need to keep going.
Tori got that inspiration and support in those early days
when she cold called Milan. Now, our challenge to you
this week is to think out side the box and
reach out to someone unexpected who shares your values and
can work with you to achieve your goals. You're listening

(15:07):
to Seneca Women Conversations on Power and Purpose, brought to
you by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart
Radio with support from founding partner p ANDNG. Listen to
Seneca Women Conversations on Power and Purpose on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
and please support this podcast by telling your friends, subscribing,

(15:31):
and rating us. For more information on Seneca Women, follow
us on social media, Visit our website Seneca Women dot com,
and check out the Seneca Women app free in the
app Store. Have a great day.
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