February 8, 2023 • 32 mins
Carolyn Childers grew up in a town so small it had no traffic lights. Now, the club she co-foundered - Chief - connects more than 20,000 women in business across the US and has 60,000 more on the waitlist. Chief opened its first overseas branch in the UK in January 2023. Childers explains what membership at Chief gets you, learning through failure, and why the notion that women can have it all is a trap.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Caroline Childers grew up in upstate New York in a
town so small it didn't have a traffic light. Her
graduating class had a grand total of forty students. Today,
she's at the center of a network that connects twenty
thou business leaders in the US, and guess what, there
are sixty thousand more on a waiting list. Caroline is
(00:26):
the co founder of Chief, and all women members only
club that offers mentorship, friendship, and executive leadership coaching practical
advice from a curated peer group. Caroline and Lindsay Kaplan
founded Chief in twenty nine, its first venue a New
York City clubhouse in Tribeca. The co founders say they
(00:48):
felt it was getting lonelier as they moved up their
own career paths. While they had supportive male colleagues, they
were well aware that women have different experiences and different
challenges at work, so they'launched Chief to provide women this
space for professional networking. The start up became a unicorn
in March two when it's valuation reached one point one
(01:10):
billion dollars, and it now has clubhouses in Los Angeles, Chicago,
and San Francisco. And Chief launched in London in January three,
it's first international branch. Caroline joins me now to talk
about what Chief offers its members, Why the notion that
women can have it all is a trap, learning through failure,
(01:31):
and why do you think the waiting list is that long? Yes,
Caroline on out of office. Caroline, welcome to out of Office.
Thank you so much for having me. I was excited
to join, Caroline. There are many other private networking organizations
out there. I don't know of one that has sixty
(01:55):
people on a waiting list. What's the appeal? What's going
on here? Yeah? Well, Chief is really building a network
of the most powerful women in business. And I think
that there are a lot of other professional networks, but
there are There was this big white space that Lindsay
(02:16):
and I really felt um in our own careers of
not having a community of other women who were more
senior in their careers, who were managing people and UM
mentoring and uh, we're always that mentor in the room.
Who do they go to for a community? Uh? And
for peers? And we felt like that was really missing
(02:37):
for ourselves and that was what we wanted to go
and do as we built Chief UM and so it
was really clear to us even from day one. UM.
We had just a small press release to say that
we were launch in chief and had thousands of people
join our waitlist pre launch as we were kind of
(02:58):
building this network rely focused on senior executive women with
the real mission of driving women into positions of leadership
and keeping them there. When you say this came from
a personal space, this is something lindsay and you realized
it wasn't available to you as you were climbing the
corporate ladder. Can you give me an example of a
(03:21):
moment when you felt, you know, what, if only I
had another woman, I could speak to another senior woman leader.
Do you remember any particular incident I do? I actually remember, UM,
I didn't really realize the weight of what it felt
what it meant to be a senior executive women until
(03:43):
I was in those leadership positions. And I remember multiple
instances of you know, women on my teams or on
other teams in the organization coming to me and saying,
you know, it's so great to finally see somebody who
is a woman in leadership at this company. UM. And
(04:04):
I didn't even realize the weight of what that meant
to other people, and it created for me this moment
of Oh, that means I need to be really conscious
of the type of leader that I am in the
example that I am giving knowing that people are looking
at at me is that example? UM. And being able
(04:25):
to have a community that is also taking on those
extra elements of of you know, defining what it looks
like as a woman leader UM for a lot of
the next generations is something that I think is really
valuable for us to be able to talk about, like
what is leadership look like for us? How do we
(04:46):
make sure that we are showing up in the right
ways for our uh teams? Um? And that's kind of
where it started for me, and then it continued to uh,
you know, as you are the only woman in a
lot of those rooms there are UM, it's just a
really lonely feeling of not being able to have the
(05:08):
type of conversation that you can have with people that
just are more like you, that are handling circumstances and
situations that may not be felt by everybody in that room.
It's so interesting though, I mean, you can have great
bosses who are a male right and you feel, yes,
I can talk to them about anything and everything. But
(05:31):
there is something different about having a female leader, isn't it?
It is? It is I think you know, Um, there
is that saying of you have to see it to
be it, um, and I think really inspirational to people
to be able to see um, whether it's women, whether
it's people of color, all of those things that like
(05:53):
when you see somebody who looks like you in a
position of power, in a position of leadership, in a
position of influence, it really opens up for you the
idea of what is possible for yourself. Absolutely. Um. Obviously
there was a space in the market and there was
a need for this because you had women flocking to
(06:15):
sign up to chief or to be considered from membership
to chief. I'm also wondering whether the timing was just
right you launched in um. I mean timing was bad
from the pandemic point of view, but we'll get to
that later. But in terms of almost like a reckoning
in the workforce, right, this was after me too. UM.
(06:37):
What do you think do you think that the political
environment really played into this and there was just much
more of an awareness and you know where women just
ready to be more vocal and say yes, we need this. Yeah,
I think that there was more of the shift from
a business perspective that really opened up the opportunities for CHIEF.
(07:00):
I think that over the few years before we launched CHIEF,
you were starting to see companies really UM focus on D,
E and I in a much different way, making sure
that like you actually had representation in leadership, that they
were supporting UM that UH diversity UH in their workplace,
(07:27):
that they were really rethinking policies in a new way
UM and I think that that shift in business as
business over this period of time has realized that that
they need to have a greater role in some of
the societal shifts that they want to see UM, and
as employees have been more vocal of well, what they
(07:49):
want their businesses to be in the values that they
need to hold. I think those shifts are the shifts
that really allowed for something like Chief to come into
into existence. You know, the way that our business works
it is we are now twenty thousand of the most
powerful women in business and UM they we are are
(08:14):
membership is these women, but the vast majority of them
are sponsored by their companies. Their companies are saying, we
really need to support these women executives. UM, this is
a great way to be able to give them that support.
And it is because companies had really started to see
that shift UM and have that shift internally that I
(08:36):
think something like Chief could really come to be UM.
It's interesting though, of like, yes, that kind of wave
has allowed for something like Chief to start, But I
actually think you mean you reference the pandemic. There's you know,
the the impact that that had for us as a
business of We were a fairly in person model where
(08:58):
you know, we one of our core services is what
we call actually core. It's at this core group model
that meets on a monthly basis. There's an executive coach
in the room, you can work through your greatest personal
and professional challenges. That was all happening in person, and
with the pandemic everything had to shift over to virtual.
(09:19):
So we had our own kind of UM pivots that
we had to make as a business model. But I
also think the shifts that happened over the last few
years UM that created even greater need for CHIEF. Now,
women were not just you know, trying to UM balance
(09:39):
the typical work life balance where at least you had
a school system that you could tap into uh to
help UM and and have your kids in school while
you're trying to go to work. Now you were taking
on that extra bird in yourself and UM, it's just
been amazing to see how how much of the last
(10:02):
few years has really impacted women in the workplace. You know,
the latest Mackenzie study showed that, you know, for every
woman that is being promoted to a director too are
dropping out of the workforce. It's amazing how much the
last two years has really impacted the progress that we've
had here. And it's going to take over a hundred
(10:23):
years before women get to equity in leadership. Tell me
a little bit about yourself. You've founded a company that's unique. UM,
you have senior executive leadership positions in other startups. You
were started off an investment banking earlier on, and then
(10:43):
you decided to take a plan to do something completely different.
It was a risk. What makes you a risk taka?
I don't know that I've ever really defined myself as
a risk taker. I like it. I'm going to go
with that, y. I actually think you know so so
(11:04):
often you hear the stories of entrepreneurs where they talk about, yeah,
I was going to be an entrepreneur from day one
and UM, and I think it was very much the
opposite for me. UM. There's a lot of entrepreneurship in
my family, probably most notably. You know, my grandparents on
my mom's side had a travel agency that they started
(11:26):
in ran and you think about a travel agency, those
are some hard times over the last several years. UM.
And so it was never something that you know, I
looked at and said, oh gosh, that's the dream. UM.
And therefore I started my career very much in big
companies UM, and thought that was the way to go.
(11:49):
And UM, I think it really wasn't until a good
friend of mine had gone to a startup UM and
they were looking for a position UM to be filled,
and he was like, you should just come in and
talk to them. And this was Mark Glorie and Vinny Berrara,
who were running Quincy. At the time, it was just
diapers dot com and they were looking to launch soap
(12:11):
dot com. And I went in and met with them
and just got captivated by their their vision, by their energy.
And as soon as I made that shift into startups,
I knew it was the right place for me. I
am somebody who's all or nothing UM in the way
that I operate, and so uh, it was just this
(12:34):
place that was you were focused on the most important things.
It was like a place of UM, where like that
last twenty percent that in big companies you could spend
years focused on UM. That just wasn't the speed with
which I wanted to operate and was was good at operating,
(12:57):
And I think that kind of pulled me into this
place of startups. And then I knew for myself that
I would never really be happy unless I had given
it a full go UM and being an entrepreneur myself.
And it wasn't until the idea of Chief came around
that I that that I found something that I knew
(13:19):
that I could dedicate my life too. And I think
it's really important when you are UM it's an entrepreneur,
that you truly have passion for what it is that
you are building because you just dedicate so much of
your life and your heart and your mind to it.
Tell me a little bit about how Chief works. You
talked about the core, which is this group of ten
(13:41):
women who meet once a month with an executive coach.
What did these women get out of these sessions? Yeah,
I mean I do think that part of the feeling
of loneliness, of being the only person UM that is
like you in a room is that it's really hard
(14:01):
to have confidential conversations about the things that are UM
that you're struggling with UM. And I think for a
lot of people it is not a you know, gendered
list of challenges that they're working through. It is the
classic challenges that come with leadership UM and just being
(14:22):
able to have a group of people that you can
really work through that with. It is all of the
UM challenges that come with managing people and there are many,
and especially in an environment like today that every few
months there is a massive shift, merging shift of that
(14:45):
you have to navigate a business and a team through UM,
and the pace of change that is in business right
now is just higher than it's ever been. And being
able to have a group of trusted people that you
can have a confidential conversation with UM, it's really invaluable
in moments like this. Chief is all about cultivating leadership.
(15:10):
Tell me about your own leadership style and what is
the one quality you most respect and admire in the leader? Yeah, UM,
I think that everybody needs to find their own you know,
authentic leadership style. And UM, I think there's a lot
of times that there's the very charismatic leader who can um,
(15:35):
you know, uh stand in front of the crowd and
motivate them and inspire them. UM. I don't think that
is my leadership style. I hope I can be inspired,
I think, but I actually think I am much more
of the leader who really anchors in like just trust
and reliability, inconsistency um and that you know, I think
(16:01):
what I really bring to the team. UM. Cantion Alt
who is on our board, talks all the time about
like the role of a leader is to define reality
and inspire hope. Like that is like the role of
a leader, UM. And I think in order to do that,
you have to really be anchored in trust with your
(16:23):
team that like what you were saying is both is
smart and logical, is authentic and true um and that
you can really be depended on to help them navigate
through again a business environment that is changing on a
really regular basis. UM. So for me, I think the
(16:46):
like foundation of any leader has to like truly be
anchored in trust. Without that, no amount of um showmanship
is going to going to overcome it. But it's hard
to build trust, isn't it. I mean that that is
the goal. What does the leader need to do, UM
(17:07):
to build trust? How do you create an atmosphere of trust? Yeah? UM?
I actually I always think of Francis Fry, who is
a Harvard Business School professor. She actually has like a
full formula for trust UM that UM. You know, Francis
had worked with a number of companies as they were
(17:29):
going through you know, major cultural changes that need to happen.
She joined Uber when they were going through UM all
of their transitions, as as as Travis was also leaving
and trying to like how do you build the culture
of trust in places like that? UM? And for her
actually like boiled down to three elements UM, which is
(17:53):
logic of you know, you have to make sure that
you are a leader that people understand why you're making
the decisions that you are making. They believe that they
are the right decisions. You can communicate what those UM,
why these are the important decisions. The second piece of
it is empathy that people feel like you have their
best interests at heart, that you know, UM, that you
(18:17):
are an advocate for them. UH. And the third is
authenticity that people truly believe that what you say and
what you do matches what you believe UM and I
do believe that, you know, all three of those are
really important elements. I I kind of think there's a
fourth that I that I tend to think is missing
(18:39):
from that, which is that idea of just consistency and
reliability that like they have that the leader has the
grit that will like get you through UM hard times
and good times. And every company is going to go
through hard times. I think we've all seen over the
(19:00):
last few years, whether it's the pandemic, whether it's the
macro environment that we're facing right now. But I also
feel like these are huge opportunities UM. I think these
are opporsied moments where leaders are truly defined, where brands
are truly defined, Like what you do during the hard
times is actually what defines you as a company and
(19:21):
as a leader. And I also think that there are
huge opportunities to learn because I don't think I don't
think you can learn anything through success. I think it
is actually really hard to figure out what is the
driver for your success. There's so such an ability to
like miss attribute what success is really being driven by.
(19:45):
UM and it's really only when you fail that you
have this opportunity to say, like, Okay, that didn't work,
Therefore we can find the thing that does work. UM.
And So I think it's a really important time as
as every company right now is really facing those headwinds
to both learn as a leader and learn as a
(20:06):
company in a really important way. So can you give
me an example of a time you've learned through failure? Yeah,
I mean I think that, UM, there is uh quite
a lot of things that have continued to shift for
for Chief over a period of time. And UM, you know,
(20:28):
I think for for us UM, there is such a
UM really rich, amazing community that is a part of
Chief that are almost co creating so much of what
Chief is UM. You know, our members are are just
(20:50):
amazing at the leaders that they have become, uh and
are becoming, and just have such enthusiasm for helping each
other out. UM. And I think our biggest failures have
been when we have not created the right environment for
them to be able to create within the within the
structure of Chief. You know, we have members who are
(21:13):
leading groups of UM around social impact. We have leaders
within Chief who are helping each other find boards and
in many ways there's this this tension that we always
feel of like, well, should we be running all of
that or how much should the community be doing? In
(21:34):
any time that we have stepped too far towards you know,
UM us controlling versus allowing the community to create with
us has always been a huge learning for us UM,
and I think it's what makes Chief really special is
how much every UM member of our community just really
(21:56):
is inspired by this mission and wants to support each other.
You know, Caroline, when I get together with some girlfriends
who who work, the conversation invariably comes down to what
I suspect sometimes happens that your core group a CHIEF.
You know, you talk about the work life balance, You
talk about how much to lean in, how much is
(22:19):
of that is practical and not? So I have to
ask you. You know, there's always various schools of thought
when it comes to women in the workforce. Those who
believe in the fact that you have to lean in
to get ahead, those who say, no, no, you can't
have it all. Where do you sit M I actually
(22:40):
believe UM. I think the idea of ken women have
it all is it's kind of a trap of making
women believe that they should have it all. It's kind
of trapping them to believe that they need to do
it all. Yeah. And I think that the you know,
(23:02):
the idea that women so often are taking the unpaid
labor of the households, of the corporation, of all of
those things and kind of masking it under the idea
of like you can have it all, just lean in
and and and do these things. UM. It's furthering that
UM idea of of women taking all of that unpaid
(23:25):
labor on themselves. UM. And I think it's really important
that uh change happens across so many different dimensions, UM
that you know, from a policy perspective, whether it's you know,
paid leave that needs to be you know universal for
us UM in the US, whether it's policies at companies
(23:47):
that helped to really acknowledge some of the UM extra
work that comes from unpaid labor in the workforce, UM.
In the home where you know, it would be great
if school started to call fathers as much as they
called mothers. That'd be amazing stuff. And I think it's
(24:08):
so important to have those shifts because when you say,
like it would be great for women to have it all.
Oftentimes it means they're just taking on more and more
of the unpaid burden. UM, and I think there needs
to be a shift towards instead of women trying to
have it all, actually women distributing it more to other people.
(24:29):
I couldn't agree with you more. Carolyn, who has been
the greatest influence on your life? Mm hmmm. I think
one of the reasons that, you know, I was really
inspired to do something like chief UM. You know my family.
I'm the youngest of three girls, so I have two
(24:50):
older sisters UM, and I do think that being able
to see them as they have gone on their journeys
and the women that they have been come in, the
professional successes that they have had, UM was really an
inspiration for me. And they continue to be the people
that I call UM. You know, my sister is the
(25:11):
chief people officer at Harry's. She's often a very first
call for me when there are things that I'm going through, UM,
and being able to have that network has been invaluable
for me as I've not only seen what was possible,
but to then really have that support network so I'm
(25:33):
going through it. UM. It's partly what made me want
to build something like chief to really do that at
such a larger scale. And so for me, it's always
been my family that has been kind of the rock
on which I've been able to, you know, take some
of this risk. Now that I have officially, you know,
(25:54):
embraced my risk taker, good you should. So I'm one
of three daughters as well, except I'm the I'm the
middle little daughter. Your parents obviously have raised three extremely
driven girls. What was your childhood like? What would the
atmosphere like at home? Mm hmm, yeah. I mean I
(26:16):
grew up in a in a really small town in
upstate New York. We actually had like one traffic light. Actually,
we didn't traffic light until I left. Now we have
one traffic light. Um, so super small, small town. How
many how many people did you have in this town? Um?
(26:37):
I don't know what the total town was, but my
graduating class of public school was forty people. That's so small. Yeah,
very small. Yeah, and I think that my parents, Um,
you know, it was a great place to grow up,
you know, I think it actually had a great school system.
It was right outside of Eaca, New York, so who
(26:57):
had the universities right there. So it was a great environment.
To grow up in. But I think one of the
things that my parents really did was they let us
just experiment and try in all things. You know. My
my mom was really big into music and so I
played um piano and saxophone growing up. My dad obviously
(27:20):
loved sports. We would every weekend be on the road
for a travel team. And I think for for them,
I think they just wanted to continue to expand um
our world views of you know what, UM things we
can achieve, an interest we can pursue, knowing that we
(27:40):
were growing up in in you know, a smaller town. UM.
But probably the most important thing that they did, you know,
I go back to what I talked about it like
the things that I really value in a leader is
that reliability and consistency is like that is my parents
to a t. You know, I think about UM. You know,
(28:02):
for me, I I was an athlete growing up, and UM,
I remember one time after a track practice, I was
like I had been trying to do high jump. This
is a really random story, but trying to do high jump,
and UM, I kept knocking the bar because I was
like scared of of falling on it, and my dad
(28:24):
seem to pick me up and we stayed behind and
he spent you know, an hour with me just like
going through it again and again, so that you know,
I got over kind of that fear of landing on
the bar UM. And that's the environment that I grew
up in of of having such a supportive environment around
me that like really consistently showed up and put in
(28:47):
the time with us to help us achieve our dreams.
CHIEF is expanding. I know you're launching in the UK
in three mm hmm. How's that going? And where are
you going to next? Yeah? Well, I mean I think
that what you referenced at the beginning of this is
that what's amazing is that there has been just such
(29:10):
interest in joining the CHIEF community within the US where
we just launched nationally at the beginning of two and
internationally and that's what's really driving this waitlist is there's
a lot of people in locations where we're not yet UM.
And as we were thinking about UM building, the most
(29:33):
UH the network are the most powerful women in business.
How could you not be in the UK and London
UM as such a powerful hub of business UM and
so we're really excited to launch their We officially launched
at the beginning of this year. UM and it's been
(29:53):
just kind of amazing to see that community come to light.
And that is our ambition is to be you know,
the network of the most powerful women of business UM.
And to us that means in all of the places
where you know, businesses are the centers and hubs. So
(30:14):
and Caroline, this podcast is called out of Office. What's
your favorite thing to do when you're not in the office? UM.
So I actually my daily routine, UM is well, when
I'm allowed, when I'm able to UM, I actually really
love to get out and go on a bike ride
(30:34):
every single day. UM. And it is actually like quasi
active and quasi meditative because a podcast, as I'm writing,
um and, it is this moment that like gives me.
It's always a business podcast, so it gives me like
inspiration as a leader and as a you know, for
(30:56):
the business at the same time that you know you're
getting the endorphins running um. And it is by far
one of the most sacred times of my day is
being able to have those moments to go and and
and ride and be inspired and have a little bit
of me time exactly. Caroline, thank you so much for
(31:16):
chatting with me today. Thank you. I've really enjoyed the
conversation that was Caroline Childers, co founder of Chief, and
I hope you enjoyed our chat. I find it so
interesting to hear different views and whether women can have
it all, should have it all, or need to have
it all? And I agree with Caroline it's a real trap, right.
(31:38):
I don't know if anyone really needs to have it all.
So that's out of office for this week. You can
find more episodes than Apple Podcasts, Spotify, bloombug dot com,
and of course, the bloom Bug Terminal. This episode was
produced by Yang Yang. I'm Alika Kapoor. Stay well and
as always, thank you for listening.
Caroline Childers grew up in upstate New York in a
town so small it didn't have a traffic light. Her
graduating class had a grand total of forty students. Today,
she's at the center of a network that connects twenty
thou business leaders in the US, and guess what, there
are sixty thousand more on a waiting list. Caroline is
(00:26):
the co founder of Chief, and all women members only
club that offers mentorship, friendship, and executive leadership coaching practical
advice from a curated peer group. Caroline and Lindsay Kaplan
founded Chief in twenty nine, its first venue a New
York City clubhouse in Tribeca. The co founders say they
(00:48):
felt it was getting lonelier as they moved up their
own career paths. While they had supportive male colleagues, they
were well aware that women have different experiences and different
challenges at work, so they'launched Chief to provide women this
space for professional networking. The start up became a unicorn
in March two when it's valuation reached one point one
(01:10):
billion dollars, and it now has clubhouses in Los Angeles, Chicago,
and San Francisco. And Chief launched in London in January three,
it's first international branch. Caroline joins me now to talk
about what Chief offers its members, Why the notion that
women can have it all is a trap, learning through failure,
(01:31):
and why do you think the waiting list is that long? Yes,
Caroline on out of office. Caroline, welcome to out of Office.
Thank you so much for having me. I was excited
to join, Caroline. There are many other private networking organizations
out there. I don't know of one that has sixty
(01:55):
people on a waiting list. What's the appeal? What's going
on here? Yeah? Well, Chief is really building a network
of the most powerful women in business. And I think
that there are a lot of other professional networks, but
there are There was this big white space that Lindsay
(02:16):
and I really felt um in our own careers of
not having a community of other women who were more
senior in their careers, who were managing people and UM
mentoring and uh, we're always that mentor in the room.
Who do they go to for a community? Uh? And
for peers? And we felt like that was really missing
(02:37):
for ourselves and that was what we wanted to go
and do as we built Chief UM and so it
was really clear to us even from day one. UM.
We had just a small press release to say that
we were launch in chief and had thousands of people
join our waitlist pre launch as we were kind of
(02:58):
building this network rely focused on senior executive women with
the real mission of driving women into positions of leadership
and keeping them there. When you say this came from
a personal space, this is something lindsay and you realized
it wasn't available to you as you were climbing the
corporate ladder. Can you give me an example of a
(03:21):
moment when you felt, you know, what, if only I
had another woman, I could speak to another senior woman leader.
Do you remember any particular incident I do? I actually remember, UM,
I didn't really realize the weight of what it felt
what it meant to be a senior executive women until
(03:43):
I was in those leadership positions. And I remember multiple
instances of you know, women on my teams or on
other teams in the organization coming to me and saying,
you know, it's so great to finally see somebody who
is a woman in leadership at this company. UM. And
(04:04):
I didn't even realize the weight of what that meant
to other people, and it created for me this moment
of Oh, that means I need to be really conscious
of the type of leader that I am in the
example that I am giving knowing that people are looking
at at me is that example? UM. And being able
(04:25):
to have a community that is also taking on those
extra elements of of you know, defining what it looks
like as a woman leader UM for a lot of
the next generations is something that I think is really
valuable for us to be able to talk about, like
what is leadership look like for us? How do we
(04:46):
make sure that we are showing up in the right
ways for our uh teams? Um? And that's kind of
where it started for me, and then it continued to uh,
you know, as you are the only woman in a
lot of those rooms there are UM, it's just a
really lonely feeling of not being able to have the
(05:08):
type of conversation that you can have with people that
just are more like you, that are handling circumstances and
situations that may not be felt by everybody in that room.
It's so interesting though, I mean, you can have great
bosses who are a male right and you feel, yes,
I can talk to them about anything and everything. But
(05:31):
there is something different about having a female leader, isn't it?
It is? It is I think you know, Um, there
is that saying of you have to see it to
be it, um, and I think really inspirational to people
to be able to see um, whether it's women, whether
it's people of color, all of those things that like
(05:53):
when you see somebody who looks like you in a
position of power, in a position of leadership, in a
position of influence, it really opens up for you the
idea of what is possible for yourself. Absolutely. Um. Obviously
there was a space in the market and there was
a need for this because you had women flocking to
(06:15):
sign up to chief or to be considered from membership
to chief. I'm also wondering whether the timing was just
right you launched in um. I mean timing was bad
from the pandemic point of view, but we'll get to
that later. But in terms of almost like a reckoning
in the workforce, right, this was after me too. UM.
(06:37):
What do you think do you think that the political
environment really played into this and there was just much
more of an awareness and you know where women just
ready to be more vocal and say yes, we need this. Yeah,
I think that there was more of the shift from
a business perspective that really opened up the opportunities for CHIEF.
(07:00):
I think that over the few years before we launched CHIEF,
you were starting to see companies really UM focus on D,
E and I in a much different way, making sure
that like you actually had representation in leadership, that they
were supporting UM that UH diversity UH in their workplace,
(07:27):
that they were really rethinking policies in a new way
UM and I think that that shift in business as
business over this period of time has realized that that
they need to have a greater role in some of
the societal shifts that they want to see UM, and
as employees have been more vocal of well, what they
(07:49):
want their businesses to be in the values that they
need to hold. I think those shifts are the shifts
that really allowed for something like Chief to come into
into existence. You know, the way that our business works
it is we are now twenty thousand of the most
powerful women in business and UM they we are are
(08:14):
membership is these women, but the vast majority of them
are sponsored by their companies. Their companies are saying, we
really need to support these women executives. UM, this is
a great way to be able to give them that support.
And it is because companies had really started to see
that shift UM and have that shift internally that I
(08:36):
think something like Chief could really come to be UM.
It's interesting though, of like, yes, that kind of wave
has allowed for something like Chief to start, But I
actually think you mean you reference the pandemic. There's you know,
the the impact that that had for us as a
business of We were a fairly in person model where
(08:58):
you know, we one of our core services is what
we call actually core. It's at this core group model
that meets on a monthly basis. There's an executive coach
in the room, you can work through your greatest personal
and professional challenges. That was all happening in person, and
with the pandemic everything had to shift over to virtual.
(09:19):
So we had our own kind of UM pivots that
we had to make as a business model. But I
also think the shifts that happened over the last few
years UM that created even greater need for CHIEF. Now,
women were not just you know, trying to UM balance
(09:39):
the typical work life balance where at least you had
a school system that you could tap into uh to
help UM and and have your kids in school while
you're trying to go to work. Now you were taking
on that extra bird in yourself and UM, it's just
been amazing to see how how much of the last
(10:02):
few years has really impacted women in the workplace. You know,
the latest Mackenzie study showed that, you know, for every
woman that is being promoted to a director too are
dropping out of the workforce. It's amazing how much the
last two years has really impacted the progress that we've
had here. And it's going to take over a hundred
(10:23):
years before women get to equity in leadership. Tell me
a little bit about yourself. You've founded a company that's unique. UM,
you have senior executive leadership positions in other startups. You
were started off an investment banking earlier on, and then
(10:43):
you decided to take a plan to do something completely different.
It was a risk. What makes you a risk taka?
I don't know that I've ever really defined myself as
a risk taker. I like it. I'm going to go
with that, y. I actually think you know so so
(11:04):
often you hear the stories of entrepreneurs where they talk about, yeah,
I was going to be an entrepreneur from day one
and UM, and I think it was very much the
opposite for me. UM. There's a lot of entrepreneurship in
my family, probably most notably. You know, my grandparents on
my mom's side had a travel agency that they started
(11:26):
in ran and you think about a travel agency, those
are some hard times over the last several years. UM.
And so it was never something that you know, I
looked at and said, oh gosh, that's the dream. UM.
And therefore I started my career very much in big
companies UM, and thought that was the way to go.
(11:49):
And UM, I think it really wasn't until a good
friend of mine had gone to a startup UM and
they were looking for a position UM to be filled,
and he was like, you should just come in and
talk to them. And this was Mark Glorie and Vinny Berrara,
who were running Quincy. At the time, it was just
diapers dot com and they were looking to launch soap
(12:11):
dot com. And I went in and met with them
and just got captivated by their their vision, by their energy.
And as soon as I made that shift into startups,
I knew it was the right place for me. I
am somebody who's all or nothing UM in the way
that I operate, and so uh, it was just this
(12:34):
place that was you were focused on the most important things.
It was like a place of UM, where like that
last twenty percent that in big companies you could spend
years focused on UM. That just wasn't the speed with
which I wanted to operate and was was good at operating,
(12:57):
And I think that kind of pulled me into this
place of startups. And then I knew for myself that
I would never really be happy unless I had given
it a full go UM and being an entrepreneur myself.
And it wasn't until the idea of Chief came around
that I that that I found something that I knew
(13:19):
that I could dedicate my life too. And I think
it's really important when you are UM it's an entrepreneur,
that you truly have passion for what it is that
you are building because you just dedicate so much of
your life and your heart and your mind to it.
Tell me a little bit about how Chief works. You
talked about the core, which is this group of ten
(13:41):
women who meet once a month with an executive coach.
What did these women get out of these sessions? Yeah,
I mean I do think that part of the feeling
of loneliness, of being the only person UM that is
like you in a room is that it's really hard
(14:01):
to have confidential conversations about the things that are UM
that you're struggling with UM. And I think for a
lot of people it is not a you know, gendered
list of challenges that they're working through. It is the
classic challenges that come with leadership UM and just being
(14:22):
able to have a group of people that you can
really work through that with. It is all of the
UM challenges that come with managing people and there are many,
and especially in an environment like today that every few
months there is a massive shift, merging shift of that
(14:45):
you have to navigate a business and a team through UM,
and the pace of change that is in business right
now is just higher than it's ever been. And being
able to have a group of trusted people that you
can have a confidential conversation with UM, it's really invaluable
in moments like this. Chief is all about cultivating leadership.
(15:10):
Tell me about your own leadership style and what is
the one quality you most respect and admire in the leader? Yeah, UM,
I think that everybody needs to find their own you know,
authentic leadership style. And UM, I think there's a lot
of times that there's the very charismatic leader who can um,
(15:35):
you know, uh stand in front of the crowd and
motivate them and inspire them. UM. I don't think that
is my leadership style. I hope I can be inspired,
I think, but I actually think I am much more
of the leader who really anchors in like just trust
and reliability, inconsistency um and that you know, I think
(16:01):
what I really bring to the team. UM. Cantion Alt
who is on our board, talks all the time about
like the role of a leader is to define reality
and inspire hope. Like that is like the role of
a leader, UM. And I think in order to do that,
you have to really be anchored in trust with your
(16:23):
team that like what you were saying is both is
smart and logical, is authentic and true um and that
you can really be depended on to help them navigate
through again a business environment that is changing on a
really regular basis. UM. So for me, I think the
(16:46):
like foundation of any leader has to like truly be
anchored in trust. Without that, no amount of um showmanship
is going to going to overcome it. But it's hard
to build trust, isn't it. I mean that that is
the goal. What does the leader need to do, UM
(17:07):
to build trust? How do you create an atmosphere of trust? Yeah? UM?
I actually I always think of Francis Fry, who is
a Harvard Business School professor. She actually has like a
full formula for trust UM that UM. You know, Francis
had worked with a number of companies as they were
(17:29):
going through you know, major cultural changes that need to happen.
She joined Uber when they were going through UM all
of their transitions, as as as Travis was also leaving
and trying to like how do you build the culture
of trust in places like that? UM? And for her
actually like boiled down to three elements UM, which is
(17:53):
logic of you know, you have to make sure that
you are a leader that people understand why you're making
the decisions that you are making. They believe that they
are the right decisions. You can communicate what those UM,
why these are the important decisions. The second piece of
it is empathy that people feel like you have their
best interests at heart, that you know, UM, that you
(18:17):
are an advocate for them. UH. And the third is
authenticity that people truly believe that what you say and
what you do matches what you believe UM and I
do believe that, you know, all three of those are
really important elements. I I kind of think there's a
fourth that I that I tend to think is missing
(18:39):
from that, which is that idea of just consistency and
reliability that like they have that the leader has the
grit that will like get you through UM hard times
and good times. And every company is going to go
through hard times. I think we've all seen over the
(19:00):
last few years, whether it's the pandemic, whether it's the
macro environment that we're facing right now. But I also
feel like these are huge opportunities UM. I think these
are opporsied moments where leaders are truly defined, where brands
are truly defined, Like what you do during the hard
times is actually what defines you as a company and
(19:21):
as a leader. And I also think that there are
huge opportunities to learn because I don't think I don't
think you can learn anything through success. I think it
is actually really hard to figure out what is the
driver for your success. There's so such an ability to
like miss attribute what success is really being driven by.
(19:45):
UM and it's really only when you fail that you
have this opportunity to say, like, Okay, that didn't work,
Therefore we can find the thing that does work. UM.
And So I think it's a really important time as
as every company right now is really facing those headwinds
to both learn as a leader and learn as a
(20:06):
company in a really important way. So can you give
me an example of a time you've learned through failure? Yeah,
I mean I think that, UM, there is uh quite
a lot of things that have continued to shift for
for Chief over a period of time. And UM, you know,
(20:28):
I think for for us UM, there is such a
UM really rich, amazing community that is a part of
Chief that are almost co creating so much of what
Chief is UM. You know, our members are are just
(20:50):
amazing at the leaders that they have become, uh and
are becoming, and just have such enthusiasm for helping each
other out. UM. And I think our biggest failures have
been when we have not created the right environment for
them to be able to create within the within the
structure of Chief. You know, we have members who are
(21:13):
leading groups of UM around social impact. We have leaders
within Chief who are helping each other find boards and
in many ways there's this this tension that we always
feel of like, well, should we be running all of
that or how much should the community be doing? In
(21:34):
any time that we have stepped too far towards you know,
UM us controlling versus allowing the community to create with
us has always been a huge learning for us UM,
and I think it's what makes Chief really special is
how much every UM member of our community just really
(21:56):
is inspired by this mission and wants to support each other.
You know, Caroline, when I get together with some girlfriends
who who work, the conversation invariably comes down to what
I suspect sometimes happens that your core group a CHIEF.
You know, you talk about the work life balance, You
talk about how much to lean in, how much is
(22:19):
of that is practical and not? So I have to
ask you. You know, there's always various schools of thought
when it comes to women in the workforce. Those who
believe in the fact that you have to lean in
to get ahead, those who say, no, no, you can't
have it all. Where do you sit M I actually
(22:40):
believe UM. I think the idea of ken women have
it all is it's kind of a trap of making
women believe that they should have it all. It's kind
of trapping them to believe that they need to do
it all. Yeah. And I think that the you know,
(23:02):
the idea that women so often are taking the unpaid
labor of the households, of the corporation, of all of
those things and kind of masking it under the idea
of like you can have it all, just lean in
and and and do these things. UM. It's furthering that
UM idea of of women taking all of that unpaid
(23:25):
labor on themselves. UM. And I think it's really important
that uh change happens across so many different dimensions, UM
that you know, from a policy perspective, whether it's you know,
paid leave that needs to be you know universal for
us UM in the US, whether it's policies at companies
(23:47):
that helped to really acknowledge some of the UM extra
work that comes from unpaid labor in the workforce, UM.
In the home where you know, it would be great
if school started to call fathers as much as they
called mothers. That'd be amazing stuff. And I think it's
(24:08):
so important to have those shifts because when you say,
like it would be great for women to have it all.
Oftentimes it means they're just taking on more and more
of the unpaid burden. UM, and I think there needs
to be a shift towards instead of women trying to
have it all, actually women distributing it more to other people.
(24:29):
I couldn't agree with you more. Carolyn, who has been
the greatest influence on your life? Mm hmmm. I think
one of the reasons that, you know, I was really
inspired to do something like chief UM. You know my family.
I'm the youngest of three girls, so I have two
(24:50):
older sisters UM, and I do think that being able
to see them as they have gone on their journeys
and the women that they have been come in, the
professional successes that they have had, UM was really an
inspiration for me. And they continue to be the people
that I call UM. You know, my sister is the
(25:11):
chief people officer at Harry's. She's often a very first
call for me when there are things that I'm going through, UM,
and being able to have that network has been invaluable
for me as I've not only seen what was possible,
but to then really have that support network so I'm
(25:33):
going through it. UM. It's partly what made me want
to build something like chief to really do that at
such a larger scale. And so for me, it's always
been my family that has been kind of the rock
on which I've been able to, you know, take some
of this risk. Now that I have officially, you know,
(25:54):
embraced my risk taker, good you should. So I'm one
of three daughters as well, except I'm the I'm the
middle little daughter. Your parents obviously have raised three extremely
driven girls. What was your childhood like? What would the
atmosphere like at home? Mm hmm, yeah. I mean I
(26:16):
grew up in a in a really small town in
upstate New York. We actually had like one traffic light. Actually,
we didn't traffic light until I left. Now we have
one traffic light. Um, so super small, small town. How
many how many people did you have in this town? Um?
(26:37):
I don't know what the total town was, but my
graduating class of public school was forty people. That's so small. Yeah,
very small. Yeah, and I think that my parents, Um,
you know, it was a great place to grow up,
you know, I think it actually had a great school system.
It was right outside of Eaca, New York, so who
(26:57):
had the universities right there. So it was a great environment.
To grow up in. But I think one of the
things that my parents really did was they let us
just experiment and try in all things. You know. My
my mom was really big into music and so I
played um piano and saxophone growing up. My dad obviously
(27:20):
loved sports. We would every weekend be on the road
for a travel team. And I think for for them,
I think they just wanted to continue to expand um
our world views of you know what, UM things we
can achieve, an interest we can pursue, knowing that we
(27:40):
were growing up in in you know, a smaller town. UM.
But probably the most important thing that they did, you know,
I go back to what I talked about it like
the things that I really value in a leader is
that reliability and consistency is like that is my parents
to a t. You know, I think about UM. You know,
(28:02):
for me, I I was an athlete growing up, and UM,
I remember one time after a track practice, I was
like I had been trying to do high jump. This
is a really random story, but trying to do high jump,
and UM, I kept knocking the bar because I was
like scared of of falling on it, and my dad
(28:24):
seem to pick me up and we stayed behind and
he spent you know, an hour with me just like
going through it again and again, so that you know,
I got over kind of that fear of landing on
the bar UM. And that's the environment that I grew
up in of of having such a supportive environment around
me that like really consistently showed up and put in
(28:47):
the time with us to help us achieve our dreams.
CHIEF is expanding. I know you're launching in the UK
in three mm hmm. How's that going? And where are
you going to next? Yeah? Well, I mean I think
that what you referenced at the beginning of this is
that what's amazing is that there has been just such
(29:10):
interest in joining the CHIEF community within the US where
we just launched nationally at the beginning of two and
internationally and that's what's really driving this waitlist is there's
a lot of people in locations where we're not yet UM.
And as we were thinking about UM building, the most
(29:33):
UH the network are the most powerful women in business.
How could you not be in the UK and London
UM as such a powerful hub of business UM and
so we're really excited to launch their We officially launched
at the beginning of this year. UM and it's been
(29:53):
just kind of amazing to see that community come to light.
And that is our ambition is to be you know,
the network of the most powerful women of business UM.
And to us that means in all of the places
where you know, businesses are the centers and hubs. So
(30:14):
and Caroline, this podcast is called out of Office. What's
your favorite thing to do when you're not in the office? UM.
So I actually my daily routine, UM is well, when
I'm allowed, when I'm able to UM, I actually really
love to get out and go on a bike ride
(30:34):
every single day. UM. And it is actually like quasi
active and quasi meditative because a podcast, as I'm writing,
um and, it is this moment that like gives me.
It's always a business podcast, so it gives me like
inspiration as a leader and as a you know, for
(30:56):
the business at the same time that you know you're
getting the endorphins running um. And it is by far
one of the most sacred times of my day is
being able to have those moments to go and and
and ride and be inspired and have a little bit
of me time exactly. Caroline, thank you so much for
(31:16):
chatting with me today. Thank you. I've really enjoyed the
conversation that was Caroline Childers, co founder of Chief, and
I hope you enjoyed our chat. I find it so
interesting to hear different views and whether women can have
it all, should have it all, or need to have
it all? And I agree with Caroline it's a real trap, right.
(31:38):
I don't know if anyone really needs to have it all.
So that's out of office for this week. You can
find more episodes than Apple Podcasts, Spotify, bloombug dot com,
and of course, the bloom Bug Terminal. This episode was
produced by Yang Yang. I'm Alika Kapoor. Stay well and
as always, thank you for listening.
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