August 5, 2025 • 55 mins
On this episode of Throttle Therapy, Katherine Legge is joined by Kory Marchisotto, CMO of e.l.f. Beauty. Kory shares what brought e.l.f. to the Superbowl, Twitch, and the Indy 500, and the response they’ve gotten to their venture into motorsports. They also discuss the philosophy behind e.l.f. 's success – from showing up in unexpected places and speaking to underrepresented audiences, to democratizing access and supporting the e.l.f.z. themselves.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Throttle Therapy with Katherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, Welcome to this week's
(00:22):
episode of Throstle Therapy with Me Katherine Legg.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
This week we have the wonderful and amazing Corey Marchessoto
and I am thrilled to introduce this lady. This lady
makes me want to be a better version of myself.
She makes me think more deeply about things and things
outside of the realm of things I would normally think about.
And she and Elf together have given me a new
(00:48):
lease of life in racing and have really changed my
life and so many others. They've changed the landscape of
women in racing in my opinion, and I am beyond
proud to have her on Throttle Therapy this week. Hello
and welcome to this week's episode of Throttle Therapy with
(01:10):
Me Catherine Legg And. This week I have joined by
an extremely special guest who I've been looking forward to
having on the pod for a few months now. She's
incredibly busy, but we finally managed to pin her down
and get her on board. Every time I talk to
this woman, I learned something new about something that's going
(01:31):
on in the world and about myself. And she has
been probably one of a handful of people that has
influenced my life the most, and I am very grateful
to call her a colleague and a friend. Welcome to
the podcast, Corey.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Okay, did you want me to start off crying? Because
if that was the intention, we might be there. So
luckily we're not on video because there's miss Gara dripping
down my face.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Okay, so get so get the last extending this car
because it doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I love that you're a lash Extender fan. I'm a
lash and roll girl. I love Lash Extender. I love
all my babies. I also love our new incredit Curl
miscare as well. So if you haven't tried it, I
have that level is my daily go to and I
learned a new trick. Are you ready for this truck?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I'm ready to go.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I use black on the top and then I use
brown on the lower.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Oh, I don't do the lower. I'm going to try that.
That's a good idea.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Do brown on the lower, and for the fans listening in,
give this a try. I've been obviously in the business
which I know we're going to talk about for a
long time, and I never did that before and now
I can't do it any other way.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Well, you learned it here first, folks, So thanks for
the tip I have. There's many more to come. I'm
going to try it, but no, lash extender is now
one of those things. You know they say, what product
could you not live without? And I'm like, this is no.
This is hands down that one. Anyway, for those of
you who haven't guessed, Corey is these CMO of elf Cosmetics,
(03:02):
elf Skin, and you've since acquired another company. HEYI BB's company,
and so probably one of the busiest people on the planet.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I am no busier than you. I just drive ways lower.
So I've never been in a car driving two hundred
and forty one miles an hour. I have been in
a car that someone else was driving at one eighty,
which was around the Indie truck right Who was driving
I don't remember. And it was so funny because you
(03:32):
know when you first get in the car, now you're
used to this, so for you, this this is nothing
but you get in the car and you're like, wait,
this is fun hundred and eighty And it doesn't really
feel like much until you start to see that there's
a turn.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Where you're not braced either, are you. Like you're sat
in the back and like you've got us seatbelts on,
but you have nothing like a steering wheel to hold onto.
You just kind of flopping around back. Now. It was really.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Wild and super excited, And as much as I really
have no idea what you do, I felt like I
got a little tiny glimpse of it. So I appreciate
all of the exceptional things that you said about me,
and when I look at you, I feel exactly the
same way. What you've done to empower women create pathways
(04:21):
for growth. Be a bold disruptor with a kind heart,
which is how we were magnetically attracted to each Other's
a little bit of inspiration At ELF Beauty, we say
that we are a bold disruptor with a kind heart.
We put out that ELF signal and kindred spirits come back.
And that's too. You are bold in your kindness, your
kind in your boldness, and it's pretty extraordinary to think
(04:46):
about how many walls you've knocked down. How many hardships
you've had to endure and you never let that knock
you off your horse, And that's truly exceptional. So your
power of persistence, your power of endurance, is an extraordinary
role model for all of us.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Thank you. I appreciate that. But this podcast is about you,
about me, and actually, like, I had this whole list
of questions and comments and I've got so many I
could go on for days, but it's kind of jumped.
And what I want to do is I want to
circle back and figure out how you got to where
you are. But you just bought up a comment that
(05:26):
I feel it would be appropriate to put in here
now in that you say those things about me, I
think the exact same about you. But what made you
the way that you are? Like a lot of people
say the right things and don't stand behind it. A
lot of people say the right things, think the right things,
but don't put any firepower behind it. And yet you
(05:49):
one hundred and ten percent. And I've never felt as
empowered as I have this year. And I've said it
over and over again. You like stand behind everything that
you say and your ethos at elf and it's what
you and Patrick and everybody there have created. Is that
you are empowering women and you've done it in so
many different ways. I'm just a small part of that.
But like, what made you the way you are? Is
(06:12):
it like your parents the instilled that ethos in you.
I know that you work daily on yourself, which I
find incredibly impressive, But what is it that drives that
to be so stand up?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I have an incredible coach. Like you have coaches, I
also have coaches. I think the greatest business executives in
the world have coaches. And my coach, her name is
Sanyon Shing, and she said something really amazing that I
thought about these words for quite a long time, and
(06:46):
I'm going to see your reaction to them. She said,
we are solving problems for our younger selves, and I
just thought, wow, I never really put that into perspective
in that way before. So I always thought I was
getting up every day to make an impact, which I am,
and create pathways for growth for others, to lift up
(07:12):
everyone around us, to help people achieve their best version
of themselves so they can achieve their highest vision. Then
when you think about it through the lens of what
problem am I solving for my younger self. That's it.
And if I go back.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
To the beginning, the beginning of time, yes, I want
the whole story, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
From the age of four, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I grew up with women who were put in a box.
My mother is eighty one years old and grew up
at a different time. She wanted to go to college.
Her father said, no, women don't go to college. A
women's places in the home. So I grew up listening
to her tell me stories about all the things that
she couldn't do. And it wasn't just my mom, it
(08:00):
was really all of the women that I grew up around.
And I almost had this very simplistic view of things,
because you know, when you're a young kid and you
play the opposite game. So I played the opposite game.
I'm like, well, if I want something different than this,
then I'll just do all the opposite things. My mom
didn't go to college, so I'll go to college. Nobody
(08:22):
in my family was a business executive, so I'll be
a business executive, right, So you start to play the
opposite game. And what I really was trying to do
was not have the boundaries constraints or handcuffs that I
saw everybody have around me. And you know, I was
the youngest of three. Very oftentimes the youngest is the
(08:46):
rebel and the renegade, and there's no doubt that I
fit that definitely put and for me, it was it
was really important that I also saw all problems for
my mom. And she gave me the gas. Not by
being a role model because she wasn't the things that
(09:08):
I became, but because she cleared the path and she
always told me I could be whatever I want, that
nothing was going to get in my way, that she
would help me achieve my ambitions. And it was incredible
to have her in my corner. And it's really funny
because she's still the person that humbles me the most
because I think she thinks I'm like an avon lady.
(09:29):
I go door to door selling lipstick. She does every
time I say the word too sweet or anything like.
She's never worked in a corporate job before, so she
doesn't really know what I do. What does it mean
to be ringing the bell at the NYSI what are
these things that are huge milestones in my life? She
doesn't know what they are? What she boils everything down
(09:50):
to is a story worth telling at the beauty parlor.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Oh, I mean, that's amazing. My dad also instilled the
Emmy and I think we have that in common, is
that if you work hard enough and you believe and
you never give up, you can be anything that you
want to be. And I think that kids should grow
up with that mindset.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Absolutely, And so I think in a lot of ways,
I was solving challenges that she faced and challenges that
I faced when I got into the workplace. It wasn't
easy even in college. When I was in college and
I was in Manhattan at Pace University, which is in
the financial district, which I chose on purpose because I
wanted to work for a financial institution, And when I
(10:31):
was taking a class on getting ready for the workforce.
They teach you how to do a good resume, They
teach you how to go on an interview, They teach
you how to dress. And they told me women don't
wear pants, that I needed to wear a skirt suit
and panty hose.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Wow, I'm not that old now.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So even those things were constraining, and I remember going on,
I went to Zara, I bought a skirt suit, I
put on pantyhose, and I remember were walking to one
of my first interviews feeling like I am not myself.
This is not how I dressed.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Not comfortable, not authentically you.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I am not comfortable. I am not me, this is
not who I am, And those things are all important.
And then when I got into my first job, I
was belittled immediately by my first boss. And in that
moment it took me right back to seeing how my
mother was treated and the women around me my whole life.
(11:29):
And in that moment, in my first job, in that
first conference room, I swore to myself I would get
as high as I could, as fast as I could,
and do everything that I could to not have this
happen to other women trying to rise.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
That's amazing. So very early on, you knew you wanted
to be like a business powerhouse, and you wanted to
go into finance or something like that. Did you have
any interesting cosmetics? I did not interesting at all.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So there was, like I said, no one in my
family had gone to college or graduated college, so that
was not something that they could help me on the path.
But my uncle was a businessman, and he was wealthy
and had power and stature and wore a suit and
carried a briefcase. That was my symbol and I saw
(12:17):
him and for me, that said Wall Street Finance. So
go do that, Go figure out what that is. So
that was my starting point and I wanted to work
for a financial instit usually that was my dream. And
when I put on the skirtsuit in the pantyhose and
went on those interviews, my antenna was telling me I
(12:39):
was in the wrong place. This was not feeling like me.
And maybe that had something to do with the fact
that I was not dressed the way I wanted to
be dressed, and I wasn't feeling my best self and
I was starting to feel defeated along this interview path.
And funny enough, my dad called me. He used to
(13:00):
call me kid. He's like, hey, kid. Debbie Nuzzo, who
is the head of sales at LVMH at the time,
working in their Givon sheet division, somebody was going out
on that leave and she was a client in my
family's beauty salon and she was talking to my dad
and she said, you know, what's Corey up to. I
know she went to the city to go to college.
(13:22):
I have this maternity leave, I need to fill in.
Is she looking for a job. So of course my
dad called me immediately, and I did what any twenty
year old would do. I was like, Dad, I don't
need your help. Stop calling me and giving me advice.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I can do it on my own.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I can do this all by myself. And after a
couple more interviews that didn't feel right, I called him
back and I said, okay, give me Debbie's number with
my tail between my legs and I called her and
she asked me to come in for an interview. And
I got to Park Avenue, which is where their offices
were at the time.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Fair nay.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
It was a very sexy building. I gotten a very
sexy elevator, and then the doors opened to their lobby
and it was Blacklacker.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Why are you wearing a pop hers?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I was wearing a packsuit this time.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Okay, good, sorry?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
The marriage black Lacker and mirrors, And there was this
stunning woman at the front desk with a short black,
severe haircut, snow white skin, bold red lip. And as
I was walking and the phone was ringing, so she
paused me and put her hand up like hold on
a minute, and she picked the phone and she goes
(14:38):
and I was like, that's it. My antenna was raging.
I was like, okay, okay, I gotta get this job.
I got to say all the right things. I got
to get this job. And I did get the job.
And that was the first minute I entered beauty. And
here I am, almost thirty years later.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You haven't looked since. How did you come up on elf?
Did they had I hunt you or did you head
hunt them?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
They did? And everything has a story, it's parallel passed.
So I'll give you the first path. I was at
the time at Bare Minerals and the head of the
company invited me to go to a Women's Word Daily
CEO summit, And for those of you who don't know,
it is a very expensive ticket. It is a pretty
(15:26):
elite audience, all c suitet executives. And I was blown
away that I got this invitation, in near tears, said,
oh my god, I've made it. I'm going to be
in this room with all of these giants of industry.
And we get into the first day it's usually two days.
We get into the first day and I have my
notebook and my pen and I'm a forever student, so
(15:47):
I'm ready to take notes, and I wasn't finding myself
very inspired, which was very surprising. And I'm thinking to myself,
as my ego too big? Am I not humble enough
to be inspired?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Why am I not inspired? And I just found that
every body that was speaking there was a lot of
hot air, but there wasn't a lot of depth behind us.
There wasn't a lot of substance that I could connect
to in a meaningful way. So we're at the second
part of the first day and I looked down at
my notes, feeling a little down because I didn't really
have any and I usually like to leave these things
(16:18):
with pages of notes and stuff I could take back
to the team. And then this gentleman gets on the
stage who I'd never heard of before, and he starts
his presentation and I'm taking copious notes. My antenna is ringing.
I am finding the whole thing finally meaningful and finally
and giving me golden nuggets. And his name was Terrangamin.
(16:42):
He was the CEO of this company called ELF, my
boss who had invited me to the meeting, who I
had This was my second tour with her, and we're,
you know, still friends she's one of my mentors. Was
sitting next to me so I could be cute with her,
and I leaned over to her about how halfway through
his presentation, I said, Kathy, I hope you don't mind,
(17:04):
but I'm going to give that guy my resume. And
she looked back at me and she said, give him
mine too. So at the end of his presentation, I
wanted to go up and introduce myself and tell him
what I thought about his keynote, and there was a
long line. So I said, oh, you know, I'll run
to the lady's room and i'll find him later. Two
(17:27):
years later, Oh wow, I get a phone call from
a headhunter elfe Is looking for a chief marketing officer
and I said, well, what specifically are they looking for?
If you had to boil it down to three words,
and they said bold change agent.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I said, okay, I got to check that box. My
question for you, is Turangamine still a CEO? And they said,
yes he is. So I took the call on the
interview and here we are. It's funny because when I
look back on it, I don't like to have regrets.
At the same time, I do wish I had engaged
(18:09):
with him in that moment. I do wish that he
had understood the impact that he had on people, and
it was a good lesson for me that I take
going forward is even if I didn't find the moment
to connect with him there, I should have sent him
a note after because it was so inspiring. It shouldn't
have been two years later at an interview to share
that with somebody. So my advice to your listeners in
(18:32):
the audience is do that in real time when somebody
inspires you, gives you golden nuggets, shares the world with
you in a way that you haven't thought about before
that really brings meaning or value to your life.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Tell them.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I was also listening to somebody else's podcast where they
one of the drivers wiped out another driver Indy this
past we Can and the driver didn't just apologize to
the driver when he made the mistake. He went down
and he apologized to all the crew members that he
did that, and none of the crew had ever experienced
that before. I've never done that before, and I'm like,
(19:17):
you know what, I'm going to do that if I
mess up again. So that's the second thing I've planned today,
which is amazing. So I digress as always screen.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Now, but that's a beautiful lesson and that is something
I will highlight. Similar with Billy Jan King. You know,
we do a lot of work with Billy Jan King.
She's part of the reason we are where we are
in women in sports. We've joined forces with the equality Champion.
And the first time I entered into a big conference
(19:47):
room with her where there's production, she actually spoke to
our team at a big conference we were doing. She
doesn't even speak to you when she walks in the
room with you. She goes right to the production crew
immediately to the back of the room, looks them all
in the eye, thanks them all for what they're doing,
and make sure that they know that we can't do
(20:08):
what we do without them doing what they do. And
when I saw the impact that had on them, it's
so incredible for people to be recognized for their work
and nobody does that. Nobody does that. So I love
what you just said. It's a similar story in two
different fields, and it's an incredible lesson for all of
(20:28):
us to realize, well, what needs to be true for
me to be true?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Right? Yeah, there's definitely a lot of food for the
thought as always when talking to you, who do you
look up to? Like? Who are your heroes? Who do
you look to and think I want to be like
them when I grow up?
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Stille there are so many So I'll put this in
three buckets, which I think are really important in terms
of being fully aligned with yourself, which is head, heart, And.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
So I think that it's great that you have so
many buckets, by the way, because I think I could
count on one hand. So I'm impressed already. I'm like,
I'm always I'm going to make notes. Carry on.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
The head is the intellect, and this is super important.
That's where your curiosity is, your ideas are going to
be formed. And I am blown away by Mike Csario
of Liquid Death, and what I love about him is
his exceptional bold disruption, creating a brand called Liquid Death,
(21:32):
starting from the question of what is the dumbest thing
we could do? Create a water brand and call it
Liquid Death, and really building the brand as a entertainment
business with such a profound respect for the audience that
any piece of content that they put out has got
to be something that is worthy of their time. And
(21:54):
I just think the way in which he's structured the
company the way in which they have a culture of innovation.
If you're going to be an entertainment company that is
absolutely hilarious, well then you better surround yourself with comedians,
which they do, which is not what corporations do. So
I find his disruption and path of most resistance something
(22:18):
to be studied and inspired by. Then I'll go to heart,
and on heart, I'm going to go with Billy Jinking.
This woman has changed my life in immeasurable ways. Every
moment I spend with her is a masterclass, and she
teaches you that having the courage to care is the
(22:42):
bravest act. We can take the story I just told
about how she walks into every room and make sure
that everybody knows they matter, everybody matters, and that is
such a heart forward leadership, also from a bold disruptor,
coming from a place of a very kind heart. And
(23:04):
then I'll go to the soul, and on this one,
it's Alicia Keith. And for those of you who don't know,
we created Alicia's beauty brand together with Alicia, which is
called Key's Soul Care. And Alicia's belief is that beauty
really starts with what you pour into yourself. It's the
words that you say to yourself, the energy you surround
(23:29):
yourself with. And she changed my life also in immeasurable
ways by teaching me how to speak to myself in
the affirmative and to start by looking in the mirror.
And you can't be kind to others if you don't
start by being kind to yourself first. And she's really
taught me incredible lessons about being more in touch with
who I am, painting my highest vision and then going
(23:53):
after it with a spirit of abundance.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
That's amazing. I struggle with this a lot because I
think to get to where you've gotten, to get to
where I've got, you have to be self critical in
order to improve. Right, So I will say, oh, Catherine,
you're an idiot when I'm talking to myself, and then
I have to be like, no, you're not an idiot,
and then I have to reframe my thinking. And I'm
trying to do a lot of reframing of my thinking.
(24:17):
And the last time we were together, when we were
in New York, and we did like a word association
and a deep thinking process with a lot of very
very cool, very dynamic, very powerful, very standout women, and
I have marveled since then. How difficult it is to
(24:39):
continue to change your mind frame, right, Like you're a
work in progress. I've been a work in progress for
a number of years, like probably amped up over the
past kind of decade when you get older and you
get to know yourself a little bit better, but some
days you completely forget and it seems like every day
for you you're working on, like you remind yourself these
(25:02):
are the things, and then then you do actually reframe
your mind and reprogram. And the mind is like a muscle, right,
so you can train it and then it will do
what you want to do. But it's just it's really hard.
Do you have techniques or do you also struggle with
sometimes going oh no, I need to change that way
of thinking and I need to pivot, and I need
(25:22):
to do this because you catch yourself getting into old ways.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
I do have a trick, and it took me a
while to figure it out. And the trick is to
start by deprogramming.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Huh, explain please, So you have to.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Recognize how you were programmed and why you were programmed
that way, and then you have to deprogram that before
you can reprogram the next steps, and I think a
lot of times people just get into let me get
to the reprogramming part. The challenge with that is you're
just building something on a weak foundation.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
So how do you You just reason with yourself and
it D programs.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
So its awareness is always the first step and recognizing
the thing that you're doing and then knowing where to
stop it and interject it and then replace it with
something else. So what you're describing is what's called ants,
which are automatic negative thoughts. There is a programming in
(26:28):
your brain that is going to take you to automatic
negative thoughts. We all have it the same way. We
all have fight or flight. As soon as we are
presented with stimuli that is outside of our realm of expectation,
we immediately go to fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Always, fight, always.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
That's what I mean by you have to actually stop
yourself in that moment and get in touch with what's happening,
reflect in the moment on what is happening, and then
reconnect with the moment once you have made the new position.
And that's really important because let's say you're in a
(27:10):
conference room having a very important negotiation, or you're with
a sponsor having a negotiation or whatever environment that you're
put in, you have a specific desired outcome. If you
get into fight or flight mode, it's game over.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
For you, right well, as soon as emotions creep in.
So I try and frame it as like robot because
if I can take the emotion out of it and
just try and think as logically as possible in that moment.
And it's the same on the racetrack, right that you
can't get angry or get flustered or get happy that
you're in a good position or any of those things.
You've got to put your links on and you've got
(27:46):
to do it. So I'm pretty good at doing that
kind of thing. How would you describe your way of
leading this bold disruption at ELF? Like you have such
a great team around you, and I have everyone. I
know it sounds gushy, but it's not a promise. It's
amazing gushy.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
That's okay, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Honestly so great. Did you just kind of learn what
works and doesn't over time? Do you think that you
lead by example? How would you describe your your leadership role?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
You said the three words before, and they're worth repeating.
I'm a work in progress, Okay, we're all works in progress.
And the way that I treat myself as a work
in progress is I start in the morning with affirmations. Okay,
so I look in the mirror and that's why four
key Soul care. Every bottle has an affirmation on it.
(28:39):
So I open my bathroom cabinet, I see these beautiful words.
I repeat them to myself in the mirror. One of them,
for example, is I am a masterpiece. I let go
of what doesn't serve me. I am beautiful as I am.
And if you start your day with that already putting
(29:01):
yourself in a different mental mindset. And that's really important
because it's very hard to recover. If you start your
day negatively, saying negative things to yourself, I have the
best driver on the planet. Then you're going to have
negative energy around you, and then you're going to potentially
say negative words to others. So starting your day like
(29:21):
that is absolutely critical. Then what I do at the
end of every day, and this is not hard stuff.
The affirmations in the morning are sixty seconds. The reflection
I do at the end of the day is maybe
five minutes. I reflect while it's fresh in the rearview mirror,
I look at the day and I ask myself, what
could I have done better today? And that way, when
I start tomorrow, there's incremental progress that I can make.
(29:45):
And that is how I treat myself as a work
in progress when I think about my team. And yes,
you learn this over time if you are focused on
incremental progress, if you say every day, I just want
to get one percent better, that compounds over time.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
So I feed myself with my own reflections and then
I take in inspiration. Every time I see something that
inspires me, I write it down, and most importantly, I
try to understand why why did that stop time for me?
There are things that stop time for you where you
just either it's a phrase or an action somebody took,
and I write it down and I go back to
(30:24):
those things often to understand what are things that I
could utilize on my journey. What are those things that
have been put down that I can pick up that
I can exercise, turn into a habit, and then give
back to others. And that's really what my leadership style
is like with my team. I'm giving them mentoring or
(30:45):
coaching or tips and tricks or tools that I pick
up along the journey, feeding them oxygen and stimuli so
that their minds can be expanded, and then sotting them
up to win, empowering them to be the best version
of themselves. I hire unicorns and set them free.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I've seen like snippets of corporate Americas. I've gone on
this journey which is not corporate America at all in
the race world, and none of it has come anywhere
close to what you guys have done. And so I
guess I'm a little bit like mesmerized by it in
a way, you know, and I want to know all
the things because it's so different to me. I'm like,
how do you do that? What do you do there?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Well, you have to codify your ethos, and that was
really the that's the foundation. Once you have a codified ethos,
it becomes a common language, which then becomes a frequency
that you send out.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
And that's absolutely fundamental because frequency that you send out
is what you're going to track back. And our Alpha
verse was created by people who are aligned with our frequency.
So when you think about us putting out in the world,
we are a bold disruptor with a kind heart, fearless
and heartful, like unpack that for a second, because every
(32:19):
word we put in the ethos is incredibly meaningful. Bold disruptors,
there are very few kind hearts. There are actually lucky
for all of us, if you thought about kind hearts,
you're going to find a lot. There are a lot
of kind hearted people. Find a bold disruptor with a
kind heart, you're now in unicorn territory. So if you
(32:42):
say I'm going to be a bold disruptor with a
kind heart, well then you have to hire bold disruptors
with kind hearts. And then those bold disruptors with kind
hearts are going to force multiply with other bold disruptors
with kind hearts. You are one of them, like attracts
like exactly, And that's how you make your universe bigger,
(33:02):
because you're force multiplying with kindred spirits, which then creates
a collective. And then that collective is now all rising together.
So when you look at all of the people in
the ELF orbit, you're going to find that unicorn intersection
people who are disrupting the status quo and are doing
it with kindness.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Do you think that's why Elf has such a staunch following,
Like they're all very loyal and very passionate about ELF
and I love that, and I think they must be
in some way, shape or form drawn to that as
much as they are the products, right, Like, the products
are great, but there's lots of people who have great products,
(33:42):
so there is the it factor about it. And I
hadn't put my finger on it until you said that,
And now I'm starting to think that that they get
that frequency and that's why that's why you have those
I don't know, not ELF fans is how would you
describe them else?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
They're super fans. They're also evangelists, which is amazing. When
I asked myself six and a half years when I
got to ELF, a very simple question that I would
tell all businesses, regardless of what business you're in, whether
you're in racing, sports corporation, whatever it is, what business
(34:22):
are we in? This is a really important question. Had
I said or come to the conclusion that the business
that we were in is selling beauty products, we wouldn't
be doing any of the things we're doing.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I saw something way bigger than that, And when I
read every letter interviewed, our founders understood deeply from our
community what it was they loved about ELF. What I
found was a very different answer. The business that we
are in is democratizing access. We opened the door to
(34:58):
a world that other people shut them out of. The
starting point is democratizing access to the best of beauty,
creating this unbelievable premium quality, taking down the velvet ropes,
and offering it to you wherever you want it at
an accessible price. But that's not the end point of
(35:21):
democratization of access. It's a starting point. The next place
we democratize access is to equity. And our CEO grew
up in the biggest corporations, Procter and Gambell, Chlorox, and
never really understood why only C suite executives or the
most senior officials in the company could have equity. So
(35:42):
when he came into ELF and took the company public,
a core tenant from day one was this concept of
one team, one dream, where every single ELF is a shareholder.
That already changes the entire dynamic of the company, because
no matter what meeting room you're in or who you're with,
(36:03):
we all have a vested interest in the organization. We
are a passionate team of owners.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
We also democratize access to the boardroom. The foury one
hundred publicly traded companies are predominantly white male.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I loved that campaign so much.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Our board of directors is sixty seven percent women and
forty four percent diverse, So we created a board of
directors that mirrors the people we serve. Then, when you
think about democratizing access to our c suite, I just
literally an hour ago did a Twitch live stream me
(36:44):
and our CFO because our Twitch community wanted career advice.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
That's democratizing access to the c suite. Our CEO goes
on Twitch and TikTok lives and asks our commune to
what they want to see from us, so that we
establish zero distance between us and our community, because we
are the community, and we democratized access to sports. And
(37:13):
when you think about what we did with gaming in
the first place, the reason we entered Twitch was because
we read the stat that seventy seven percent of women
were being bullied on the platform. Didn't know that, and
many of them, who love gaming and are amazing at
it and who can easily take on the boys, would
(37:36):
come in under aliases so that people didn't know their gender,
so that they could still play and be respected. So
we created a channel called ELFU, which was a safe
space for girls to come in and game and beauty
and have real conversation.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
With real people.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
And when we realized the power in showing up for
people who nobody else was showing up for, that then
compelled us to ask the question, well where are they?
Where are the other people that nobody is talking to
like me, like you? That brought us before we got
to the ND five hundred, It actually brought us to
the Super Bowl, and that was an incredible moment because
(38:17):
when you think about that being one hundred million, I mean,
I think last year was one hundred and twenty five
million spectators at that single game, and you start to
get under the hood and you say, well, who are
these people? Fifty percent of them are women? Okay, right,
(38:38):
so great? And what are they like about the Super Bowl?
Seventy five percent of people say commercials is their favorite
part of the game, right, So what are the commercials?
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And when we dissected the commercials, less than one percent
of them had anything to do with beauty and most
of them were speaking to a male audience. So we
came out with, you know, a sixty year old woman
in Jennifer Coolidge that made this major splash to say,
not only do we beauty industry have a right to
(39:11):
be here, but you women, fifty percent of this audience,
have a right to be seen and to be entertained
and engaged in the way that you want.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And I think that that is what happened to India
in a large part as well. You know, the women
would go with the guys with their families. They never
felt represented, they never felt seen, and then Elf came
along with a pink car with me, and all of
a sudden, they had somebody who looked like them, who
(39:42):
they could cheer for, and they all knew the brand obviously,
and they loved the activation, and it just started this
whole like they stood up, they were noticed for the
first time. I still think about that, and that I
will think about on my deathbed because that had such
a huge impact on me and I think on so
many people like you literally changed the face of motorsport, right,
(40:05):
and so I just I want to continue to do
that with you. I want to figure out different ways
of doing that. I didn't realize that the Super Bowl
did the same thing, obviously, I know that Billy Jean
King does. I mean, there's nothing that woman can't do.
But it's amazing to me how you can see into
the future and you have the forethought of the planning
(40:28):
and go, yes, that's a good idea because we're going
to do it this way. A lot of people don't,
myself included, right, Like, I had been working towards that
for like a decade, trying to put all girl teams together,
trying to trying to do things to make that kind
of girl power moment in my sport, because that's all
I know. And it hadn't happened until you guys came
(40:50):
along at ELF and did it properly. And now there's
no looking back, and now every series wants it, and
every driver, every female driver wants it, and it's it's
an amazing thing for you to look back on and
be proud that you've done it all across North America. Honestly,
in so many different ways. I think it's very very cool,
(41:11):
and you will forever be my hero because of it,
because of a lot of other reasons. But there aren't
many people I look up too, core, but you I
definitely one of them.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Wow, that is pretty amazing and you have to know
the same as true of you. And this this question
what needs to be true is really important because I
see everything as a necessary step for the next thing
to be true. And that's why I bring up the
Super Bowl. But it also started with beauty, like when
you realize the power of taking down the velvet ropes
(41:42):
and giving people access to something they didn't have access
to anymore than now you can open the apertature and
say where else, Well, most employees aren't given equity, Well
why not, Okay, let's democratize. Okay, where else the boardroom?
And then it starts to snowball from there. And when
we got into the Super Bowl, that had to be
true for us to be open to Indie, right because
we saw the power of it. We saw the power
(42:05):
of showing up in a place that most people thought
was for the boys, for the men, and did our
homework and recognized the power of what was there and
the people weren't being served. So then when the Indie
came up for us, it was a no brainer. We're like,
let's look at the data. That we looked at the data.
(42:26):
The largest single day spectator sport in the world, almost
three hundred and fifty thousand people show up. Great, who
are they? Forty eight percent women? Here we go again?
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Great?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Is anybody talking to them?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
No? No, you were the friend.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
And there's one driver in the race, one of nine
out of one hundred and eight years. You were the
only one in that race, but only one of nine
and one hundred and eight years. So this was ripe
for us to step in, and we had the confidence
to do it because we had done it before, right,
And then once we stepped into that space with you,
(43:02):
then it became easier for us to keep going. And
now being in NASCAR, which is incredible, and we love
every minute of that. Forty percent of the NASCAR audience
is women. And I don't know, Catherine, that I would
be as passionate about it if I didn't come myself
(43:22):
to that indy five hundred with you.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And just get the goosebumps and see it with your
own eyes.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
I cried the whole day. The number of men, which
was the big shocking point for me. The number of men,
the grandfathers, the uncles, the dads, the boyfriends that cried
in my arms, fell in my arms. You're the person
who did this, like sought me out and said, my daughter, wife,
(43:50):
whomever in my life has never been this excited to
come to the Indy five hundred before you did this.
You got my whole family now energetic about being here.
And that was a really powerful moment to recognize it
wasn't just about the.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Girls, right, But it's never been just about the girls
for me either, because if you think about it, I
have only got to where I am and I don't know,
but I would assume the same is true for you
by help of other people who could be women, could
be men as well. So if I didn't have the
men on my side too, I wouldn't have got here
just purely with women's support. So I think that's a
(44:28):
really important point to make. Everybody says, you know, you're
so pro women and women this woman that, but there's
a lot of men that have stepped up and helped.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Us along the way as well, and you need advocates
and allies, and you brought up Patrick and for your audience,
Patrick O'Keefe is our chief integrated marketing officer and I
would say my fiercest advocate and yours too. Patrick is
an extraordinary human being who wakes up every day with
an ambition to empower legendary females, and it comes from
(45:00):
his heart, head and soul. Being in perfect alignment and
surrounding yourself with people like that makes you taller, stronger,
more powerful, and more possible. So where are those people
in your life that you lock arms with? I mean,
obviously your dad is exceptional, and you also have an
incredible team around you. So it's about creating that circle
(45:23):
that becomes your community that helps you be everything that
you can be. And then the other moment at Indy,
which I've told you about and I speak about often,
is the moment I had with you in the garage
and seeing you be your full self for the first
time in your career, being able to be a woman,
(45:46):
being able to be feminine, being able to put on
lipstick and be proud of it. Was so special for
us to recognize the true power of what we were doing.
And at its core, that's what ELF is doing, helping
everybody achieve their highest vision and unlock their greatness and
(46:08):
be their best self.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
I also think that to be it, you have to
see it right, and so I think by giving these
young girls a role model or somebody to look up
to whether it's you, whether it's Billy, whether it's an astronaut,
whoever it is. I think then they believe that anything
is possible. And I think the more we can instill
(46:31):
in them what we were instilled by our parents, which
is if you work hard enough and you never give up,
and you believe, then you can be anything that you
set your mind to. I wanted to be a fighter
pilot when I was a kid, and I couldn't because
my eyesight wasn't good enough back in the day. But
then I wanted to trade stock on the trading floor
(46:53):
in London at the Stock Exchange, and I found racing
and everything kind of went in that there. But I
think it's always competition. For me for some reason, it's
always adrenaline and competition. But I think that, and I
say young girls, it should be, it should be anybody.
I think that if they want to be the best
(47:15):
gardener that they want to be, then they should be
able to believe that that's exactly what they can do.
So I don't necessarily think, oh, we need to get
more women in racing, we need to get more women
in the boardroom. I think that the opportunities need to
be there, but I think that they should be allowed
to be the best version of themselves that they want
to be, instead of forced to be something else. Because
(47:37):
I took the advice of so many people like you
wearing the pencil skirt and the suit, like you should
act this way, you should dress that way, you should
do this because you've got to be taken seriously, but
you still got to be feminine. And so I'm like
trying to fit into somebody else's vision of what they
think I should have been. And I did that for
a long time and until you came along, and then
(47:59):
all of a udd and I could just be me
and that was accepted. I mean, it wouldn't have been
in any other circumstance. So anyway I can say I'm
eternally grateful seventeen one hundred times. The last thing before
I let you go, the last thing I wanted to
touch on is when I last saw you, gave me
a stat that was mind blowing to me. And it's
(48:20):
not that I didn't believe you, but I went away
and did some research and you said that one in
three women has been sexually abused. And I just sat
there with that, and I sat on the plane on
the way home, and I was googling and I couldn't
believe it. And I also couldn't believe on what. I
(48:40):
couldn't believe what an impact you guys have had in
such a short amount of time in changing that. And
so I would like to give you the opportunity. And
I think that our audience a needs to know that
stat because it's incredible and I never would have guessed
it in a million years, and it's absolutely terrifying. And
b I think again, it's something amazing that you and
(49:03):
Elf and other people are doing to change the world.
And so I would like you to explain it in
part to our audience so that they can get a
glimpse so that they're aware of it too.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
In some countries, and that staff proves it, the most
dangerous place for a woman is in their home. And
the work that Amanda Wynn has done with her Rise
not for profit organization is extraordinary and that is why
(49:37):
we are incredibly supportive of Amanda and her work. And so,
Amanda is a sexual assault survivor and rather than just
getting over her trauma and getting back to her life,
she started a not for profit called Rise to actually
change legislation around the world in favor of of survivors.
(50:01):
When I first met her, and she is also a
female astronaut, so put her astronaut ambition on hold for
a minute to go get this not for profit off
the ground and make real change at the United Nations.
It's not like she's playing small. She's playing big at
the United Nations. When I first met her, the number
(50:22):
was eighty seven. Eighty seven pieces of legislation had been
passed thanks to the work that she did with her
not for profit. And I thought to myself in that moment, like, okay,
one I would have thought was a big deal. Eighty
seven pieces of legislation. Then I saw her for a
second time, actually at the United Nations, and I was
(50:45):
doing in the General Assembly room because I told you,
she doesn't play small, and she asked me to introduce her,
which was an exceptional honor to not only be in
that room, but to introduce this exceptional woman who's done
truly extraordinary life changing work for so many people. And
I said to her, hey, you know, last time I
(51:05):
was with you, you had eighty seven pieces of legislation passed.
I just want to check in on that. Number to
make sure I get it right. When I introduce you,
she said that number is one hundred. Now I was floored,
you would think eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
I'm like, I did her number thirteen. You know, just
sits and giggles.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Yeah, this is you know. And then when you and
I were together a couple of weeks ago in New
York City and Amanda was there, and that evening I
introduced you, and I also introduced Amanda. I did the
same thing. I went over to her again and I
asked her, Hey, last time I checked in with you,
the number was one hundred. I now know better than
to assume that the number hasn't changed. So where are
(51:42):
we today and that number is one hundred and fifteen.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
So it highlights one the exceptional work that she's doing
and the impact she's having on the lives of so many.
It also highlights how many laws are just broken right,
how much actually needs to be changed so that the
system starts protecting people from abuse.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
It's just a number. Is still so mind blowing to me.
You know, it's so powerful to think one in three
And I know that's a global stat so it's less
in America, But just to think about that around the world.
One in three it's just honestly is like really got
me in the guts.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
And that's you know, when you think about the work
that you're doing, the work that we're doing, the work
that our collective is doing with all these incredible people
we surround ourselves with, again, it compounds over time. You're
doing incredible work to change the game in racing so
that little girls aren't going to be afraid to get
into the space. Our Twitch channel gave people a safe
(52:45):
space to say, Hey, I can game and be a girl.
It's okay, those two things can be true in the
same sentence. All of these things actually matter for that
because when girls feel empowered and supported by a community,
it makes them more powerful in their own skin as well.
So when I think about our Change the Board Game
(53:05):
initiative and how we build a coalition of change makers
who want to see more women and diverse representation in
the highest seats of power. When more women in diversity
are in power, things change because the change happens at
the top. And seeing like our board of directors right
(53:27):
there is just an extraordinary group of human beings who
want to move the needle forward. And when you have
those people in the highest seats of power, then real
change can start happening.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
I can if those people are in that are in power.
I like you and lead in the way that you do.
I think it very much depends. There's a lot of
there's a lot of female leaders that aren't doing anything
close to what you're doing, and I think that that
comes with a hot too. So I thank you for
that and I I'll let you get on with your evening.
(54:02):
I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us
on Throttle Therapy.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
I appreciate you and everything that you're doing to be
the incredible, bold change agent that you are. So thank
you for on behalf of the millions of lives that
you have changed and will change.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
On the road ahead, hopefully we can impact even more
in the future. So thank you, Corey. I love you
heaps and I will speak to you soon. Thanks for
listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next week with
more updates and more overtakes. We want to hear from you.
Leave us a review in Apple Podcasts and tell us
(54:40):
what you want to talk about. It might just be
the topic for our next show. Throttle Therapy is hosted
by Katherine Legg. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz, and
our supervising producer is Grace Fuse. Listen to Throttle Therapy
on America's number one podcast network, I Heart, open your
free iHeart app and search Throsto Therapy with Catherine Legg
(55:02):
and start listening
Throttle Therapy with Katherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, Welcome to this week's
(00:22):
episode of Throstle Therapy with Me Katherine Legg.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
This week we have the wonderful and amazing Corey Marchessoto
and I am thrilled to introduce this lady. This lady
makes me want to be a better version of myself.
She makes me think more deeply about things and things
outside of the realm of things I would normally think about.
And she and Elf together have given me a new
(00:48):
lease of life in racing and have really changed my
life and so many others. They've changed the landscape of
women in racing in my opinion, and I am beyond
proud to have her on Throttle Therapy this week. Hello
and welcome to this week's episode of Throttle Therapy with
(01:10):
Me Catherine Legg And. This week I have joined by
an extremely special guest who I've been looking forward to
having on the pod for a few months now. She's
incredibly busy, but we finally managed to pin her down
and get her on board. Every time I talk to
this woman, I learned something new about something that's going
(01:31):
on in the world and about myself. And she has
been probably one of a handful of people that has
influenced my life the most, and I am very grateful
to call her a colleague and a friend. Welcome to
the podcast, Corey.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Okay, did you want me to start off crying? Because
if that was the intention, we might be there. So
luckily we're not on video because there's miss Gara dripping
down my face.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Okay, so get so get the last extending this car
because it doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I love that you're a lash Extender fan. I'm a
lash and roll girl. I love Lash Extender. I love
all my babies. I also love our new incredit Curl
miscare as well. So if you haven't tried it, I
have that level is my daily go to and I
learned a new trick. Are you ready for this truck?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I'm ready to go.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I use black on the top and then I use
brown on the lower.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Oh, I don't do the lower. I'm going to try that.
That's a good idea.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Do brown on the lower, and for the fans listening in,
give this a try. I've been obviously in the business
which I know we're going to talk about for a
long time, and I never did that before and now
I can't do it any other way.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Well, you learned it here first, folks, So thanks for
the tip I have. There's many more to come. I'm
going to try it, but no, lash extender is now
one of those things. You know they say, what product
could you not live without? And I'm like, this is no.
This is hands down that one. Anyway, for those of
you who haven't guessed, Corey is these CMO of elf Cosmetics,
(03:02):
elf Skin, and you've since acquired another company. HEYI BB's company,
and so probably one of the busiest people on the planet.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I am no busier than you. I just drive ways lower.
So I've never been in a car driving two hundred
and forty one miles an hour. I have been in
a car that someone else was driving at one eighty,
which was around the Indie truck right Who was driving
I don't remember. And it was so funny because you
(03:32):
know when you first get in the car, now you're
used to this, so for you, this this is nothing
but you get in the car and you're like, wait,
this is fun hundred and eighty And it doesn't really
feel like much until you start to see that there's
a turn.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Where you're not braced either, are you. Like you're sat
in the back and like you've got us seatbelts on,
but you have nothing like a steering wheel to hold onto.
You just kind of flopping around back. Now. It was really.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Wild and super excited, And as much as I really
have no idea what you do, I felt like I
got a little tiny glimpse of it. So I appreciate
all of the exceptional things that you said about me,
and when I look at you, I feel exactly the
same way. What you've done to empower women create pathways
(04:21):
for growth. Be a bold disruptor with a kind heart,
which is how we were magnetically attracted to each Other's
a little bit of inspiration At ELF Beauty, we say
that we are a bold disruptor with a kind heart.
We put out that ELF signal and kindred spirits come back.
And that's too. You are bold in your kindness, your
kind in your boldness, and it's pretty extraordinary to think
(04:46):
about how many walls you've knocked down. How many hardships
you've had to endure and you never let that knock
you off your horse, And that's truly exceptional. So your
power of persistence, your power of endurance, is an extraordinary
role model for all of us.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Thank you. I appreciate that. But this podcast is about you,
about me, and actually, like, I had this whole list
of questions and comments and I've got so many I
could go on for days, but it's kind of jumped.
And what I want to do is I want to
circle back and figure out how you got to where
you are. But you just bought up a comment that
(05:26):
I feel it would be appropriate to put in here
now in that you say those things about me, I
think the exact same about you. But what made you
the way that you are? Like a lot of people
say the right things and don't stand behind it. A
lot of people say the right things, think the right things,
but don't put any firepower behind it. And yet you
(05:49):
one hundred and ten percent. And I've never felt as
empowered as I have this year. And I've said it
over and over again. You like stand behind everything that
you say and your ethos at elf and it's what
you and Patrick and everybody there have created. Is that
you are empowering women and you've done it in so
many different ways. I'm just a small part of that.
But like, what made you the way you are? Is
(06:12):
it like your parents the instilled that ethos in you.
I know that you work daily on yourself, which I
find incredibly impressive, But what is it that drives that
to be so stand up?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I have an incredible coach. Like you have coaches, I
also have coaches. I think the greatest business executives in
the world have coaches. And my coach, her name is
Sanyon Shing, and she said something really amazing that I
thought about these words for quite a long time, and
(06:46):
I'm going to see your reaction to them. She said,
we are solving problems for our younger selves, and I
just thought, wow, I never really put that into perspective
in that way before. So I always thought I was
getting up every day to make an impact, which I am,
and create pathways for growth for others, to lift up
(07:12):
everyone around us, to help people achieve their best version
of themselves so they can achieve their highest vision. Then
when you think about it through the lens of what
problem am I solving for my younger self. That's it.
And if I go back.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
To the beginning, the beginning of time, yes, I want
the whole story, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
From the age of four, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I grew up with women who were put in a box.
My mother is eighty one years old and grew up
at a different time. She wanted to go to college.
Her father said, no, women don't go to college. A
women's places in the home. So I grew up listening
to her tell me stories about all the things that
she couldn't do. And it wasn't just my mom, it
(08:00):
was really all of the women that I grew up around.
And I almost had this very simplistic view of things,
because you know, when you're a young kid and you
play the opposite game. So I played the opposite game.
I'm like, well, if I want something different than this,
then I'll just do all the opposite things. My mom
didn't go to college, so I'll go to college. Nobody
(08:22):
in my family was a business executive, so I'll be
a business executive, right, So you start to play the
opposite game. And what I really was trying to do
was not have the boundaries constraints or handcuffs that I
saw everybody have around me. And you know, I was
the youngest of three. Very oftentimes the youngest is the
(08:46):
rebel and the renegade, and there's no doubt that I
fit that definitely put and for me, it was it
was really important that I also saw all problems for
my mom. And she gave me the gas. Not by
being a role model because she wasn't the things that
(09:08):
I became, but because she cleared the path and she
always told me I could be whatever I want, that
nothing was going to get in my way, that she
would help me achieve my ambitions. And it was incredible
to have her in my corner. And it's really funny
because she's still the person that humbles me the most
because I think she thinks I'm like an avon lady.
(09:29):
I go door to door selling lipstick. She does every
time I say the word too sweet or anything like.
She's never worked in a corporate job before, so she
doesn't really know what I do. What does it mean
to be ringing the bell at the NYSI what are
these things that are huge milestones in my life? She
doesn't know what they are? What she boils everything down
(09:50):
to is a story worth telling at the beauty parlor.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Oh, I mean, that's amazing. My dad also instilled the
Emmy and I think we have that in common, is
that if you work hard enough and you believe and
you never give up, you can be anything that you
want to be. And I think that kids should grow
up with that mindset.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Absolutely, And so I think in a lot of ways,
I was solving challenges that she faced and challenges that
I faced when I got into the workplace. It wasn't
easy even in college. When I was in college and
I was in Manhattan at Pace University, which is in
the financial district, which I chose on purpose because I
wanted to work for a financial institution, And when I
(10:31):
was taking a class on getting ready for the workforce.
They teach you how to do a good resume, They
teach you how to go on an interview, They teach
you how to dress. And they told me women don't
wear pants, that I needed to wear a skirt suit
and panty hose.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Wow, I'm not that old now.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So even those things were constraining, and I remember going on,
I went to Zara, I bought a skirt suit, I
put on pantyhose, and I remember were walking to one
of my first interviews feeling like I am not myself.
This is not how I dressed.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Not comfortable, not authentically you.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I am not comfortable. I am not me, this is
not who I am, And those things are all important.
And then when I got into my first job, I
was belittled immediately by my first boss. And in that
moment it took me right back to seeing how my
mother was treated and the women around me my whole life.
(11:29):
And in that moment, in my first job, in that
first conference room, I swore to myself I would get
as high as I could, as fast as I could,
and do everything that I could to not have this
happen to other women trying to rise.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
That's amazing. So very early on, you knew you wanted
to be like a business powerhouse, and you wanted to
go into finance or something like that. Did you have
any interesting cosmetics? I did not interesting at all.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So there was, like I said, no one in my
family had gone to college or graduated college, so that
was not something that they could help me on the path.
But my uncle was a businessman, and he was wealthy
and had power and stature and wore a suit and
carried a briefcase. That was my symbol and I saw
(12:17):
him and for me, that said Wall Street Finance. So
go do that, Go figure out what that is. So
that was my starting point and I wanted to work
for a financial instit usually that was my dream. And
when I put on the skirtsuit in the pantyhose and
went on those interviews, my antenna was telling me I
(12:39):
was in the wrong place. This was not feeling like me.
And maybe that had something to do with the fact
that I was not dressed the way I wanted to
be dressed, and I wasn't feeling my best self and
I was starting to feel defeated along this interview path.
And funny enough, my dad called me. He used to
(13:00):
call me kid. He's like, hey, kid. Debbie Nuzzo, who
is the head of sales at LVMH at the time,
working in their Givon sheet division, somebody was going out
on that leave and she was a client in my
family's beauty salon and she was talking to my dad
and she said, you know, what's Corey up to. I
know she went to the city to go to college.
(13:22):
I have this maternity leave, I need to fill in.
Is she looking for a job. So of course my
dad called me immediately, and I did what any twenty
year old would do. I was like, Dad, I don't
need your help. Stop calling me and giving me advice.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I can do it on my own.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I can do this all by myself. And after a
couple more interviews that didn't feel right, I called him
back and I said, okay, give me Debbie's number with
my tail between my legs and I called her and
she asked me to come in for an interview. And
I got to Park Avenue, which is where their offices
were at the time.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Fair nay.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
It was a very sexy building. I gotten a very
sexy elevator, and then the doors opened to their lobby
and it was Blacklacker.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Why are you wearing a pop hers?
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I was wearing a packsuit this time.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Okay, good, sorry?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
The marriage black Lacker and mirrors, And there was this
stunning woman at the front desk with a short black,
severe haircut, snow white skin, bold red lip. And as
I was walking and the phone was ringing, so she
paused me and put her hand up like hold on
a minute, and she picked the phone and she goes
(14:38):
and I was like, that's it. My antenna was raging.
I was like, okay, okay, I gotta get this job.
I got to say all the right things. I got
to get this job. And I did get the job.
And that was the first minute I entered beauty. And
here I am, almost thirty years later.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You haven't looked since. How did you come up on elf?
Did they had I hunt you or did you head
hunt them?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
They did? And everything has a story, it's parallel passed.
So I'll give you the first path. I was at
the time at Bare Minerals and the head of the
company invited me to go to a Women's Word Daily
CEO summit, And for those of you who don't know,
it is a very expensive ticket. It is a pretty
(15:26):
elite audience, all c suitet executives. And I was blown
away that I got this invitation, in near tears, said,
oh my god, I've made it. I'm going to be
in this room with all of these giants of industry.
And we get into the first day it's usually two days.
We get into the first day and I have my
notebook and my pen and I'm a forever student, so
(15:47):
I'm ready to take notes, and I wasn't finding myself
very inspired, which was very surprising. And I'm thinking to myself,
as my ego too big? Am I not humble enough
to be inspired?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Why am I not inspired? And I just found that
every body that was speaking there was a lot of
hot air, but there wasn't a lot of depth behind us.
There wasn't a lot of substance that I could connect
to in a meaningful way. So we're at the second
part of the first day and I looked down at
my notes, feeling a little down because I didn't really
have any and I usually like to leave these things
(16:18):
with pages of notes and stuff I could take back
to the team. And then this gentleman gets on the
stage who I'd never heard of before, and he starts
his presentation and I'm taking copious notes. My antenna is ringing.
I am finding the whole thing finally meaningful and finally
and giving me golden nuggets. And his name was Terrangamin.
(16:42):
He was the CEO of this company called ELF, my
boss who had invited me to the meeting, who I
had This was my second tour with her, and we're,
you know, still friends she's one of my mentors. Was
sitting next to me so I could be cute with her,
and I leaned over to her about how halfway through
his presentation, I said, Kathy, I hope you don't mind,
(17:04):
but I'm going to give that guy my resume. And
she looked back at me and she said, give him
mine too. So at the end of his presentation, I
wanted to go up and introduce myself and tell him
what I thought about his keynote, and there was a
long line. So I said, oh, you know, I'll run
to the lady's room and i'll find him later. Two
(17:27):
years later, Oh wow, I get a phone call from
a headhunter elfe Is looking for a chief marketing officer
and I said, well, what specifically are they looking for?
If you had to boil it down to three words,
and they said bold change agent.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
I said, okay, I got to check that box. My
question for you, is Turangamine still a CEO? And they said,
yes he is. So I took the call on the
interview and here we are. It's funny because when I
look back on it, I don't like to have regrets.
At the same time, I do wish I had engaged
(18:09):
with him in that moment. I do wish that he
had understood the impact that he had on people, and
it was a good lesson for me that I take
going forward is even if I didn't find the moment
to connect with him there, I should have sent him
a note after because it was so inspiring. It shouldn't
have been two years later at an interview to share
that with somebody. So my advice to your listeners in
(18:32):
the audience is do that in real time when somebody
inspires you, gives you golden nuggets, shares the world with
you in a way that you haven't thought about before
that really brings meaning or value to your life.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Tell them.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I was also listening to somebody else's podcast where they
one of the drivers wiped out another driver Indy this
past we Can and the driver didn't just apologize to
the driver when he made the mistake. He went down
and he apologized to all the crew members that he
did that, and none of the crew had ever experienced
that before. I've never done that before, and I'm like,
(19:17):
you know what, I'm going to do that if I
mess up again. So that's the second thing I've planned today,
which is amazing. So I digress as always screen.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Now, but that's a beautiful lesson and that is something
I will highlight. Similar with Billy Jan King. You know,
we do a lot of work with Billy Jan King.
She's part of the reason we are where we are
in women in sports. We've joined forces with the equality Champion.
And the first time I entered into a big conference
(19:47):
room with her where there's production, she actually spoke to
our team at a big conference we were doing. She
doesn't even speak to you when she walks in the
room with you. She goes right to the production crew
immediately to the back of the room, looks them all
in the eye, thanks them all for what they're doing,
and make sure that they know that we can't do
(20:08):
what we do without them doing what they do. And
when I saw the impact that had on them, it's
so incredible for people to be recognized for their work
and nobody does that. Nobody does that. So I love
what you just said. It's a similar story in two
different fields, and it's an incredible lesson for all of
(20:28):
us to realize, well, what needs to be true for
me to be true?
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Right? Yeah, there's definitely a lot of food for the
thought as always when talking to you, who do you
look up to? Like? Who are your heroes? Who do
you look to and think I want to be like
them when I grow up?
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Stille there are so many So I'll put this in
three buckets, which I think are really important in terms
of being fully aligned with yourself, which is head, heart, And.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
So I think that it's great that you have so
many buckets, by the way, because I think I could
count on one hand. So I'm impressed already. I'm like,
I'm always I'm going to make notes. Carry on.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
The head is the intellect, and this is super important.
That's where your curiosity is, your ideas are going to
be formed. And I am blown away by Mike Csario
of Liquid Death, and what I love about him is
his exceptional bold disruption, creating a brand called Liquid Death,
(21:32):
starting from the question of what is the dumbest thing
we could do? Create a water brand and call it
Liquid Death, and really building the brand as a entertainment
business with such a profound respect for the audience that
any piece of content that they put out has got
to be something that is worthy of their time. And
(21:54):
I just think the way in which he's structured the
company the way in which they have a culture of innovation.
If you're going to be an entertainment company that is
absolutely hilarious, well then you better surround yourself with comedians,
which they do, which is not what corporations do. So
I find his disruption and path of most resistance something
(22:18):
to be studied and inspired by. Then I'll go to heart,
and on heart, I'm going to go with Billy Jinking.
This woman has changed my life in immeasurable ways. Every
moment I spend with her is a masterclass, and she
teaches you that having the courage to care is the
(22:42):
bravest act. We can take the story I just told
about how she walks into every room and make sure
that everybody knows they matter, everybody matters, and that is
such a heart forward leadership, also from a bold disruptor,
coming from a place of a very kind heart. And
(23:04):
then I'll go to the soul, and on this one,
it's Alicia Keith. And for those of you who don't know,
we created Alicia's beauty brand together with Alicia, which is
called Key's Soul Care. And Alicia's belief is that beauty
really starts with what you pour into yourself. It's the
words that you say to yourself, the energy you surround
(23:29):
yourself with. And she changed my life also in immeasurable
ways by teaching me how to speak to myself in
the affirmative and to start by looking in the mirror.
And you can't be kind to others if you don't
start by being kind to yourself first. And she's really
taught me incredible lessons about being more in touch with
who I am, painting my highest vision and then going
(23:53):
after it with a spirit of abundance.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
That's amazing. I struggle with this a lot because I
think to get to where you've gotten, to get to
where I've got, you have to be self critical in
order to improve. Right, So I will say, oh, Catherine,
you're an idiot when I'm talking to myself, and then
I have to be like, no, you're not an idiot,
and then I have to reframe my thinking. And I'm
trying to do a lot of reframing of my thinking.
(24:17):
And the last time we were together, when we were
in New York, and we did like a word association
and a deep thinking process with a lot of very
very cool, very dynamic, very powerful, very standout women, and
I have marveled since then. How difficult it is to
(24:39):
continue to change your mind frame, right, Like you're a
work in progress. I've been a work in progress for
a number of years, like probably amped up over the
past kind of decade when you get older and you
get to know yourself a little bit better, but some
days you completely forget and it seems like every day
for you you're working on, like you remind yourself these
(25:02):
are the things, and then then you do actually reframe
your mind and reprogram. And the mind is like a muscle, right,
so you can train it and then it will do
what you want to do. But it's just it's really hard.
Do you have techniques or do you also struggle with
sometimes going oh no, I need to change that way
of thinking and I need to pivot, and I need
(25:22):
to do this because you catch yourself getting into old ways.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
I do have a trick, and it took me a
while to figure it out. And the trick is to
start by deprogramming.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Huh, explain please, So you have to.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Recognize how you were programmed and why you were programmed
that way, and then you have to deprogram that before
you can reprogram the next steps, and I think a
lot of times people just get into let me get
to the reprogramming part. The challenge with that is you're
just building something on a weak foundation.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
So how do you You just reason with yourself and
it D programs.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
So its awareness is always the first step and recognizing
the thing that you're doing and then knowing where to
stop it and interject it and then replace it with
something else. So what you're describing is what's called ants,
which are automatic negative thoughts. There is a programming in
(26:28):
your brain that is going to take you to automatic
negative thoughts. We all have it the same way. We
all have fight or flight. As soon as we are
presented with stimuli that is outside of our realm of expectation,
we immediately go to fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Always, fight, always.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
That's what I mean by you have to actually stop
yourself in that moment and get in touch with what's happening,
reflect in the moment on what is happening, and then
reconnect with the moment once you have made the new position.
And that's really important because let's say you're in a
(27:10):
conference room having a very important negotiation, or you're with
a sponsor having a negotiation or whatever environment that you're
put in, you have a specific desired outcome. If you
get into fight or flight mode, it's game over.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
For you, right well, as soon as emotions creep in.
So I try and frame it as like robot because
if I can take the emotion out of it and
just try and think as logically as possible in that moment.
And it's the same on the racetrack, right that you
can't get angry or get flustered or get happy that
you're in a good position or any of those things.
You've got to put your links on and you've got
(27:46):
to do it. So I'm pretty good at doing that
kind of thing. How would you describe your way of
leading this bold disruption at ELF? Like you have such
a great team around you, and I have everyone. I
know it sounds gushy, but it's not a promise. It's
amazing gushy.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
That's okay, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Honestly so great. Did you just kind of learn what
works and doesn't over time? Do you think that you
lead by example? How would you describe your your leadership role?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
You said the three words before, and they're worth repeating.
I'm a work in progress, Okay, we're all works in progress.
And the way that I treat myself as a work
in progress is I start in the morning with affirmations. Okay,
so I look in the mirror and that's why four
key Soul care. Every bottle has an affirmation on it.
(28:39):
So I open my bathroom cabinet, I see these beautiful words.
I repeat them to myself in the mirror. One of them,
for example, is I am a masterpiece. I let go
of what doesn't serve me. I am beautiful as I am.
And if you start your day with that already putting
(29:01):
yourself in a different mental mindset. And that's really important
because it's very hard to recover. If you start your
day negatively, saying negative things to yourself, I have the
best driver on the planet. Then you're going to have
negative energy around you, and then you're going to potentially
say negative words to others. So starting your day like
(29:21):
that is absolutely critical. Then what I do at the
end of every day, and this is not hard stuff.
The affirmations in the morning are sixty seconds. The reflection
I do at the end of the day is maybe
five minutes. I reflect while it's fresh in the rearview mirror,
I look at the day and I ask myself, what
could I have done better today? And that way, when
I start tomorrow, there's incremental progress that I can make.
(29:45):
And that is how I treat myself as a work
in progress when I think about my team. And yes,
you learn this over time if you are focused on
incremental progress, if you say every day, I just want
to get one percent better, that compounds over time.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
So I feed myself with my own reflections and then
I take in inspiration. Every time I see something that
inspires me, I write it down, and most importantly, I
try to understand why why did that stop time for me?
There are things that stop time for you where you
just either it's a phrase or an action somebody took,
and I write it down and I go back to
(30:24):
those things often to understand what are things that I
could utilize on my journey. What are those things that
have been put down that I can pick up that
I can exercise, turn into a habit, and then give
back to others. And that's really what my leadership style
is like with my team. I'm giving them mentoring or
(30:45):
coaching or tips and tricks or tools that I pick
up along the journey, feeding them oxygen and stimuli so
that their minds can be expanded, and then sotting them
up to win, empowering them to be the best version
of themselves. I hire unicorns and set them free.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I've seen like snippets of corporate Americas. I've gone on
this journey which is not corporate America at all in
the race world, and none of it has come anywhere
close to what you guys have done. And so I
guess I'm a little bit like mesmerized by it in
a way, you know, and I want to know all
the things because it's so different to me. I'm like,
how do you do that? What do you do there?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Well, you have to codify your ethos, and that was
really the that's the foundation. Once you have a codified ethos,
it becomes a common language, which then becomes a frequency
that you send out.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
And that's absolutely fundamental because frequency that you send out
is what you're going to track back. And our Alpha
verse was created by people who are aligned with our frequency.
So when you think about us putting out in the world,
we are a bold disruptor with a kind heart, fearless
and heartful, like unpack that for a second, because every
(32:19):
word we put in the ethos is incredibly meaningful. Bold disruptors,
there are very few kind hearts. There are actually lucky
for all of us, if you thought about kind hearts,
you're going to find a lot. There are a lot
of kind hearted people. Find a bold disruptor with a
kind heart, you're now in unicorn territory. So if you
(32:42):
say I'm going to be a bold disruptor with a
kind heart, well then you have to hire bold disruptors
with kind hearts. And then those bold disruptors with kind
hearts are going to force multiply with other bold disruptors
with kind hearts. You are one of them, like attracts
like exactly, And that's how you make your universe bigger,
(33:02):
because you're force multiplying with kindred spirits, which then creates
a collective. And then that collective is now all rising together.
So when you look at all of the people in
the ELF orbit, you're going to find that unicorn intersection
people who are disrupting the status quo and are doing
it with kindness.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Do you think that's why Elf has such a staunch following,
Like they're all very loyal and very passionate about ELF
and I love that, and I think they must be
in some way, shape or form drawn to that as
much as they are the products, right, Like, the products
are great, but there's lots of people who have great products,
(33:42):
so there is the it factor about it. And I
hadn't put my finger on it until you said that,
And now I'm starting to think that that they get
that frequency and that's why that's why you have those
I don't know, not ELF fans is how would you
describe them else?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
They're super fans. They're also evangelists, which is amazing. When
I asked myself six and a half years when I
got to ELF, a very simple question that I would
tell all businesses, regardless of what business you're in, whether
you're in racing, sports corporation, whatever it is, what business
(34:22):
are we in? This is a really important question. Had
I said or come to the conclusion that the business
that we were in is selling beauty products, we wouldn't
be doing any of the things we're doing.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I saw something way bigger than that, And when I
read every letter interviewed, our founders understood deeply from our
community what it was they loved about ELF. What I
found was a very different answer. The business that we
are in is democratizing access. We opened the door to
(34:58):
a world that other people shut them out of. The
starting point is democratizing access to the best of beauty,
creating this unbelievable premium quality, taking down the velvet ropes,
and offering it to you wherever you want it at
an accessible price. But that's not the end point of
(35:21):
democratization of access. It's a starting point. The next place
we democratize access is to equity. And our CEO grew
up in the biggest corporations, Procter and Gambell, Chlorox, and
never really understood why only C suite executives or the
most senior officials in the company could have equity. So
(35:42):
when he came into ELF and took the company public,
a core tenant from day one was this concept of
one team, one dream, where every single ELF is a shareholder.
That already changes the entire dynamic of the company, because
no matter what meeting room you're in or who you're with,
(36:03):
we all have a vested interest in the organization. We
are a passionate team of owners.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
We also democratize access to the boardroom. The foury one
hundred publicly traded companies are predominantly white male.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I loved that campaign so much.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Our board of directors is sixty seven percent women and
forty four percent diverse, So we created a board of
directors that mirrors the people we serve. Then, when you
think about democratizing access to our c suite, I just
literally an hour ago did a Twitch live stream me
(36:44):
and our CFO because our Twitch community wanted career advice.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
That's democratizing access to the c suite. Our CEO goes
on Twitch and TikTok lives and asks our commune to
what they want to see from us, so that we
establish zero distance between us and our community, because we
are the community, and we democratized access to sports. And
(37:13):
when you think about what we did with gaming in
the first place, the reason we entered Twitch was because
we read the stat that seventy seven percent of women
were being bullied on the platform. Didn't know that, and
many of them, who love gaming and are amazing at
it and who can easily take on the boys, would
(37:36):
come in under aliases so that people didn't know their gender,
so that they could still play and be respected. So
we created a channel called ELFU, which was a safe
space for girls to come in and game and beauty
and have real conversation.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
With real people.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
And when we realized the power in showing up for
people who nobody else was showing up for, that then
compelled us to ask the question, well where are they?
Where are the other people that nobody is talking to
like me, like you? That brought us before we got
to the ND five hundred, It actually brought us to
the Super Bowl, and that was an incredible moment because
(38:17):
when you think about that being one hundred million, I mean,
I think last year was one hundred and twenty five
million spectators at that single game, and you start to
get under the hood and you say, well, who are
these people? Fifty percent of them are women? Okay, right,
(38:38):
so great? And what are they like about the Super Bowl?
Seventy five percent of people say commercials is their favorite
part of the game, right, So what are the commercials?
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And when we dissected the commercials, less than one percent
of them had anything to do with beauty and most
of them were speaking to a male audience. So we
came out with, you know, a sixty year old woman
in Jennifer Coolidge that made this major splash to say,
not only do we beauty industry have a right to
(39:11):
be here, but you women, fifty percent of this audience,
have a right to be seen and to be entertained
and engaged in the way that you want.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And I think that that is what happened to India
in a large part as well. You know, the women
would go with the guys with their families. They never
felt represented, they never felt seen, and then Elf came
along with a pink car with me, and all of
a sudden, they had somebody who looked like them, who
(39:42):
they could cheer for, and they all knew the brand obviously,
and they loved the activation, and it just started this
whole like they stood up, they were noticed for the
first time. I still think about that, and that I
will think about on my deathbed because that had such
a huge impact on me and I think on so
many people like you literally changed the face of motorsport, right,
(40:05):
and so I just I want to continue to do
that with you. I want to figure out different ways
of doing that. I didn't realize that the Super Bowl
did the same thing, obviously, I know that Billy Jean
King does. I mean, there's nothing that woman can't do.
But it's amazing to me how you can see into
the future and you have the forethought of the planning
(40:28):
and go, yes, that's a good idea because we're going
to do it this way. A lot of people don't,
myself included, right, Like, I had been working towards that
for like a decade, trying to put all girl teams together,
trying to trying to do things to make that kind
of girl power moment in my sport, because that's all
I know. And it hadn't happened until you guys came
(40:50):
along at ELF and did it properly. And now there's
no looking back, and now every series wants it, and
every driver, every female driver wants it, and it's it's
an amazing thing for you to look back on and
be proud that you've done it all across North America. Honestly,
in so many different ways. I think it's very very cool,
(41:11):
and you will forever be my hero because of it,
because of a lot of other reasons. But there aren't
many people I look up too, core, but you I
definitely one of them.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Wow, that is pretty amazing and you have to know
the same as true of you. And this this question
what needs to be true is really important because I
see everything as a necessary step for the next thing
to be true. And that's why I bring up the
Super Bowl. But it also started with beauty, like when
you realize the power of taking down the velvet ropes
(41:42):
and giving people access to something they didn't have access
to anymore than now you can open the apertature and
say where else, Well, most employees aren't given equity, Well
why not, Okay, let's democratize. Okay, where else the boardroom?
And then it starts to snowball from there. And when
we got into the Super Bowl, that had to be
true for us to be open to Indie, right because
we saw the power of it. We saw the power
(42:05):
of showing up in a place that most people thought
was for the boys, for the men, and did our
homework and recognized the power of what was there and
the people weren't being served. So then when the Indie
came up for us, it was a no brainer. We're like,
let's look at the data. That we looked at the data.
(42:26):
The largest single day spectator sport in the world, almost
three hundred and fifty thousand people show up. Great, who
are they? Forty eight percent women? Here we go again?
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Great?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Is anybody talking to them?
Speaker 1 (42:36):
No? No, you were the friend.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
And there's one driver in the race, one of nine
out of one hundred and eight years. You were the
only one in that race, but only one of nine
and one hundred and eight years. So this was ripe
for us to step in, and we had the confidence
to do it because we had done it before, right,
And then once we stepped into that space with you,
(43:02):
then it became easier for us to keep going. And
now being in NASCAR, which is incredible, and we love
every minute of that. Forty percent of the NASCAR audience
is women. And I don't know, Catherine, that I would
be as passionate about it if I didn't come myself
(43:22):
to that indy five hundred with you.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And just get the goosebumps and see it with your
own eyes.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
I cried the whole day. The number of men, which
was the big shocking point for me. The number of men,
the grandfathers, the uncles, the dads, the boyfriends that cried
in my arms, fell in my arms. You're the person
who did this, like sought me out and said, my daughter, wife,
(43:50):
whomever in my life has never been this excited to
come to the Indy five hundred before you did this.
You got my whole family now energetic about being here.
And that was a really powerful moment to recognize it
wasn't just about the.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Girls, right, But it's never been just about the girls
for me either, because if you think about it, I
have only got to where I am and I don't know,
but I would assume the same is true for you
by help of other people who could be women, could
be men as well. So if I didn't have the
men on my side too, I wouldn't have got here
just purely with women's support. So I think that's a
(44:28):
really important point to make. Everybody says, you know, you're
so pro women and women this woman that, but there's
a lot of men that have stepped up and helped.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Us along the way as well, and you need advocates
and allies, and you brought up Patrick and for your audience,
Patrick O'Keefe is our chief integrated marketing officer and I
would say my fiercest advocate and yours too. Patrick is
an extraordinary human being who wakes up every day with
an ambition to empower legendary females, and it comes from
(45:00):
his heart, head and soul. Being in perfect alignment and
surrounding yourself with people like that makes you taller, stronger,
more powerful, and more possible. So where are those people
in your life that you lock arms with? I mean,
obviously your dad is exceptional, and you also have an
incredible team around you. So it's about creating that circle
(45:23):
that becomes your community that helps you be everything that
you can be. And then the other moment at Indy,
which I've told you about and I speak about often,
is the moment I had with you in the garage
and seeing you be your full self for the first
time in your career, being able to be a woman,
(45:46):
being able to be feminine, being able to put on
lipstick and be proud of it. Was so special for
us to recognize the true power of what we were doing.
And at its core, that's what ELF is doing, helping
everybody achieve their highest vision and unlock their greatness and
(46:08):
be their best self.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
I also think that to be it, you have to
see it right, and so I think by giving these
young girls a role model or somebody to look up
to whether it's you, whether it's Billy, whether it's an astronaut,
whoever it is. I think then they believe that anything
is possible. And I think the more we can instill
(46:31):
in them what we were instilled by our parents, which
is if you work hard enough and you never give up,
and you believe, then you can be anything that you
set your mind to. I wanted to be a fighter
pilot when I was a kid, and I couldn't because
my eyesight wasn't good enough back in the day. But
then I wanted to trade stock on the trading floor
(46:53):
in London at the Stock Exchange, and I found racing
and everything kind of went in that there. But I
think it's always competition. For me for some reason, it's
always adrenaline and competition. But I think that, and I
say young girls, it should be, it should be anybody.
I think that if they want to be the best
(47:15):
gardener that they want to be, then they should be
able to believe that that's exactly what they can do.
So I don't necessarily think, oh, we need to get
more women in racing, we need to get more women
in the boardroom. I think that the opportunities need to
be there, but I think that they should be allowed
to be the best version of themselves that they want
to be, instead of forced to be something else. Because
(47:37):
I took the advice of so many people like you
wearing the pencil skirt and the suit, like you should
act this way, you should dress that way, you should
do this because you've got to be taken seriously, but
you still got to be feminine. And so I'm like
trying to fit into somebody else's vision of what they
think I should have been. And I did that for
a long time and until you came along, and then
(47:59):
all of a udd and I could just be me
and that was accepted. I mean, it wouldn't have been
in any other circumstance. So anyway I can say I'm
eternally grateful seventeen one hundred times. The last thing before
I let you go, the last thing I wanted to
touch on is when I last saw you, gave me
a stat that was mind blowing to me. And it's
(48:20):
not that I didn't believe you, but I went away
and did some research and you said that one in
three women has been sexually abused. And I just sat
there with that, and I sat on the plane on
the way home, and I was googling and I couldn't
believe it. And I also couldn't believe on what. I
(48:40):
couldn't believe what an impact you guys have had in
such a short amount of time in changing that. And
so I would like to give you the opportunity. And
I think that our audience a needs to know that
stat because it's incredible and I never would have guessed
it in a million years, and it's absolutely terrifying. And
b I think again, it's something amazing that you and
(49:03):
Elf and other people are doing to change the world.
And so I would like you to explain it in
part to our audience so that they can get a
glimpse so that they're aware of it too.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
In some countries, and that staff proves it, the most
dangerous place for a woman is in their home. And
the work that Amanda Wynn has done with her Rise
not for profit organization is extraordinary and that is why
(49:37):
we are incredibly supportive of Amanda and her work. And so,
Amanda is a sexual assault survivor and rather than just
getting over her trauma and getting back to her life,
she started a not for profit called Rise to actually
change legislation around the world in favor of of survivors.
(50:01):
When I first met her, and she is also a
female astronaut, so put her astronaut ambition on hold for
a minute to go get this not for profit off
the ground and make real change at the United Nations.
It's not like she's playing small. She's playing big at
the United Nations. When I first met her, the number
(50:22):
was eighty seven. Eighty seven pieces of legislation had been
passed thanks to the work that she did with her
not for profit. And I thought to myself in that moment, like, okay,
one I would have thought was a big deal. Eighty
seven pieces of legislation. Then I saw her for a
second time, actually at the United Nations, and I was
(50:45):
doing in the General Assembly room because I told you,
she doesn't play small, and she asked me to introduce her,
which was an exceptional honor to not only be in
that room, but to introduce this exceptional woman who's done
truly extraordinary life changing work for so many people. And
I said to her, hey, you know, last time I
(51:05):
was with you, you had eighty seven pieces of legislation passed.
I just want to check in on that. Number to
make sure I get it right. When I introduce you,
she said that number is one hundred. Now I was floored,
you would think eighty seven.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
I'm like, I did her number thirteen. You know, just
sits and giggles.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Yeah, this is you know. And then when you and
I were together a couple of weeks ago in New
York City and Amanda was there, and that evening I
introduced you, and I also introduced Amanda. I did the
same thing. I went over to her again and I
asked her, Hey, last time I checked in with you,
the number was one hundred. I now know better than
to assume that the number hasn't changed. So where are
(51:42):
we today and that number is one hundred and fifteen.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
So it highlights one the exceptional work that she's doing
and the impact she's having on the lives of so many.
It also highlights how many laws are just broken right,
how much actually needs to be changed so that the
system starts protecting people from abuse.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
It's just a number. Is still so mind blowing to me.
You know, it's so powerful to think one in three
And I know that's a global stat so it's less
in America, But just to think about that around the world.
One in three it's just honestly is like really got
me in the guts.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
And that's you know, when you think about the work
that you're doing, the work that we're doing, the work
that our collective is doing with all these incredible people
we surround ourselves with, again, it compounds over time. You're
doing incredible work to change the game in racing so
that little girls aren't going to be afraid to get
into the space. Our Twitch channel gave people a safe
(52:45):
space to say, Hey, I can game and be a girl.
It's okay, those two things can be true in the
same sentence. All of these things actually matter for that
because when girls feel empowered and supported by a community,
it makes them more powerful in their own skin as well.
So when I think about our Change the Board Game
(53:05):
initiative and how we build a coalition of change makers
who want to see more women and diverse representation in
the highest seats of power. When more women in diversity
are in power, things change because the change happens at
the top. And seeing like our board of directors right
(53:27):
there is just an extraordinary group of human beings who
want to move the needle forward. And when you have
those people in the highest seats of power, then real
change can start happening.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
I can if those people are in that are in power.
I like you and lead in the way that you do.
I think it very much depends. There's a lot of
there's a lot of female leaders that aren't doing anything
close to what you're doing, and I think that that
comes with a hot too. So I thank you for
that and I I'll let you get on with your evening.
(54:02):
I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us
on Throttle Therapy.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
I appreciate you and everything that you're doing to be
the incredible, bold change agent that you are. So thank
you for on behalf of the millions of lives that
you have changed and will change.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
On the road ahead, hopefully we can impact even more
in the future. So thank you, Corey. I love you
heaps and I will speak to you soon. Thanks for
listening to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next week with
more updates and more overtakes. We want to hear from you.
Leave us a review in Apple Podcasts and tell us
(54:40):
what you want to talk about. It might just be
the topic for our next show. Throttle Therapy is hosted
by Katherine Legg. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz, and
our supervising producer is Grace Fuse. Listen to Throttle Therapy
on America's number one podcast network, I Heart, open your
free iHeart app and search Throsto Therapy with Catherine Legg
(55:02):
and start listening
Host
Katherine Legge
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