Ep. 8 – The "Board Ready" Myth: How Jocelyn Mangan is Changing the World, One Boardroom at a Time
“How do I become board-ready?”
We’ve heard that for too long — mostly from women. And, more often than not, it’s simply not true.
In this episode, Jocelyn Mangan, CEO and founder of Him for Her, dispels the notion that there are not enough women leaders to fill the boardroom — the pipeline is there. It’s just a network problem. She provides guidance for men and women working to diversify boardrooms everywhere.
Read Board Experience is Helping More Women Get CEO Jobs on the COMPOSURE Blog ➞
In this inspiring conversation, Jocelyn and Kate Purmal dig deep, getting real about the inner workings of the boardroom:
Boards are built by private networks, filled with men. Getting women into those networks, where they can shine, is the first step.
Homogenous boards have always been “easier” to manage. But diverse boards yield more innovation. The truth is simple: Diversity is good for business.
The onus of becoming a great board member should not fall on the woman or the person of color or the “only” in the room. Everyone needs to learn how to harness the voices of the board.
Come for the wisdom imparted by these executive women, but stick around for the musings on falling in love with problems, maintaining your impatience, and learning how to dream.
Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for clarity.
Drew Tweedy
Hey and welcome to the show. I'm your host Drew Tweedy and this is the Composure Podcast. Today we're joined by a very special guest, Jocelyn Mangan. Jocelyn is the CEO and founder of Him For Her social impact venture aimed at accelerating diversity on corporate boards. She has over two decades of technology experience in which she has built some of the most iconic mobile apps and software products around the world, including Citysearch, Ticketmaster, Open Table, and Snag a Job. Jocelyn currently serves on the boards of Papa John's international ChowNow and Wag, and she's a part time moderator for the Netflix Leadership Program. Jocelyn was honored as a member of the 2016 Class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute, was a global ambassador for the Vital Voices Global Partnership, and was named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business and 2015. I could keep going, but I think the point I'm trying to make is pretty clear. Jocelyn is brilliant, she's highly accomplished, and she's also a person of incredible integrity. The work she does focuses directly on making the business world a more equitable, diverse and representative place. And she has this really clear, really beautiful vision for how all of that will lead to a better society for us all. In short, we're just super lucky to have Jocelyn on the show. And I can't wait to see where our conversation leads. So Jocelyn, welcome to the Composure Podcast.
Jocelyn Mangan
I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Drew Tweedy
I want to start off with sort of a high level set of questions for both of you. Kate, I know, I've heard you talk about this idea that women tend to take a more circuitous non-traditional path throughout their careers. And Jocelyn, I know that you've actually had that experience yourself. Can you tell us a little bit about your own professional journey, as well as why you think these non-traditional paths are actually an advantage for women leaders?
Jocelyn Mangan
I think it starts with where I'm from. I was born in New Orleans, raised in Texas, and culturally, career was not surrounding me as I was growing up. I think that's maybe the first step and the circuitous path. I also went to a liberal arts college. I was an English major. And that's a very broad application to the world, which maybe was another step towards that. But really, it was following college when I tried to apply that major to the world and couldn't see the clear step. You know, most people, most of my peers were going to graduate school. And I ended up taking what is now referred to as a gap year back when I did it, it was, "You're crazy. Did you really just waste all that time in college tuition to go wait tables and teach tennis?" But that's what I did. And I think it was really the start to process, "Where was I going to go?" And, you know, I really wasn't interested in graduate school. I took three different graduate school exams and never went. But that was partly because my career just took me. And I'd say, when I first applied for a job, it was a huge disappointment. I didn't get the job I wanted. I applied for a job in the admissions office at Vanderbilt. It was going to be an admissions counselor role. I interviewed for three days and came in second. My first taste of "It's not easy, actually, to get a job you really want." Especially when, as a career counselor. So rightly pointed out, my only experience on my resume was, a camp counselor, a tennis teacher, and waiting tables. All of which are great jobs, by the way.
Drew Tweedy
Teaching tennis sounds pretty good.
Jocelyn Mangan
Yeah, I was teaching little kids. So let's be clear. I'm no pro. They were under five. I think it was from there that I learned that it was not going to get handed to me. And in some ways, because it wasn't clear what it was I was going for it, it was easy for me to reach for things. And so I ended up taking a job that would pay a salary that would pay my rent. It was in a space I wasn't interested in, but it was with people I enjoyed working with. I will say that was a first key learning is working with people you enjoy is really what it's about. There's more to it than that. But if that's not there, it's a really pretty miserable existence. But the first kind of courageous step I took was when my career counselor called me one day. I was living in Nashville, Tennessee and said, "You've got to come talk to this company. It's the coolest thing I've ever seen." The company was Citysearch, and this is back when the internet was new. And I have to say it was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. I went and interviewed in someone's apartment. They were on laptop computers, they were talking about disrupting the print media. It was unprecedented, right? And I ended up getting a job there, which started my career in technology. And ironically, the job was as a writer, so I was actually using my English major. And I was a restaurant writer for Citysearch, back in '95. My parents thought I was crazy. My dad asked me how the company made money. I couldn't answer the question. During the interview, they told me about stock options, I had no idea what they were, or if they would pay my rent. They don't unless you go public and do well. So I learned a lot then. But you know, that was actually a pretty courageous step to go work for this thing that nobody knew what it was, and nobody could really understand. And even when I explained my job, no one really understood what it was. But I had a gut feeling that this was something exciting, and took that risk. I continue to take risks with them. But they also continue to take risks with me. They moved me to Los Angeles, for a job I interviewed for and a week after I landed, the job description completely changed. I was supposed to be on the road all the time. Turns out, they doubled the amount of cities we needed to launch and we had to do them all from Los Angeles. It was also a lesson and just when you think you know what your job is, it can change and you're not in control of it. And I wish someone would given me the advice that I heard recently, which is "Fall in love with the problem, not the company". Because companies change companies go under, jobs get eradicated, jobs get created, and so much of that's out of your control. But if you're working on a problem you believe in, that's something that you can carry with you from company to company. It turns out that I stayed at that company for nine years. I ended up at 28 years old getting invited into the boardroom to pitch an idea to Barry Diller, which sent me to London, and I had the good fortune of living in London for four and a half years. I will talk about a moment of composure. Somehow the founder of Ticketmaster, his dream was to do the Olympics, and learned about this little team in London who had done a successful job with the Commonwealth Games. And it turns out, he flew over and took us to Athens to pitch for the Athens Olympics, and we won. I'll never forget the call I got from the CEO of Ticketmaster, which was basically a pretty brutal call. He said it's a good thing that you won, but you better not screw this up. This is someone who's now a dear friend and supporter of me in our organization.
Drew Tweedy
He was so reassuring, right from the start.
Jocelyn Mangan
It was a tough phone call. And I just remember thinking, what did I get myself into? Like, how am I going to pull this off? We've never done the Olympics, we've never done an international website. You actually can't screw it up, because then everybody writes about how the tickets of the Olympics get screwed up. It was actually a kick in the butt. I was like, I'm not gonna screw it up - challenge accepted. I remember hanging up the phone, having a good solid cry, and then kind of going for it.
Kate Purmal
Yeah. Can I just go back for a moment? Because you went right by this little moment, which was presenting to Barry Diller in the boardroom. This is one of the things we hear so often with the people we work with, which is those moments, those high pressure moments where you're playing the boardroom, or you're presenting to an executive team, or you're giving a big presentation to partners and customers or your industry. Those are those high pressure moments when the worst moments around imposter syndrome can come out. Talk to me about that moment of presenting and leading up to it. And afterwards, how did you go in there? I'm presuming it went well, obviously. But how did you prep for that? How did you manage that? The reactivity and challenge of being self-conscious about your ability to do that.
Jocelyn Mangan
I will say my youth benefited me. I was 28. I don't think I realized what a big deal a boardroom was. I don't think I realized who Barry Diller really was. And I was really passionate about the idea we had. I also don't think I realized what a big deal it was that our CEO advocated for us to go and pitch this idea. And the idea was essentially we wanted to combine Citysearch and Ticketmaster, these two businesses that have gone public together, into a single product and launch it in Europe. And what's so interesting is I do remember being absolutely nerve racked in the meeting. I remember the tension in the room. I remember how quiet it was. I remember lots of quiet moments where you'll start talking to fill in the space. But it was my first introduction to the boardroom. I'd say I was really nervous. I didn't know if it had gone well. And what's funny is since then I've heard a similar story about Barry Diller from a woman who walked into a boardroom to present a strategy. And he said, "Why don't you become the CEO and launch that strategy?" So, you know, while Barry Diller probably wouldn't remember me, there's something about that empowerment that can happen in that room, which is what has partially inspired me to do the work I do today, which is that room can be game-changing. For me, it was. For me, it was life-changing. You know, a girl from Texas living in London for four and a half years, my eyes couldn't have been more opened. So I would say the key thing that kept me going in that moment, was my conviction around the idea, my passion around the idea that must have come across, because it was just an idea.
Kate Purmal
I love that. What an amazing lesson to have that idea turn into, "Why don't you run it, right?" So in your work with Him for Her, the organization you founded, you work with women who are ready to be in the boardroom, who should have probably been in the boardroom already, given their skills and capabilities, but who often don't know that. They don't feel that they don't have the experience, they don't have the confidence. There's a gap there between really how capable they are and how they feel about their capabilities. Talk about that, because that's what you know, fits in this bucket of imposter syndrome. And what you need to overcome to be able to be have composure and confidence in such a setting.
Jocelyn Mangan
Yeah, there's so much out there about being board ready, and what does it mean to be board ready, and I think it actually does quite a disservice to women. You know the statistic that women apply for jobs when they feel 100% qualified for that job. Whereas men will apply when they feel 50% or 60% qualified. Well, imagine if you're a woman who's never been to a board meeting, which is many women. If you're working at a large company, you're working at Google or HP, you're not necessarily going to your board meetings. It's just not accessible to all of the executive levels of the company. So if you've never even been in the boardroom, or you've never presented, how would these women necessarily think they're qualified if that statistic is true? That's one issue. I think the other is, what does it even mean to be qualified? We do a session called demystifying the boardroom to do exactly that. Because most of our time is not spent getting women ready for the boardroom, it is demystifying the fact that they're already ready and actually spending our time less focused on that and more focused on finding them the right opportunities. We actually work mostly on their visibility, which is one of the challenges of the ecosystem, because it's so dominated by word of mouth.
Kate Purmal
How you do that? I mean, we work with high potential women in large corporations and the corporation has an intention to get them promoted. And part of that is getting a sponsor and a mentor. And there's a lot of fear or worry about how to be in that relationship and dynamic. So when you're talking about visibility, you're talking about exposing these women to high-level, probably mostly men, and really expanding their network, their visibility outside of their immediate network, which takes courage, it takes confidence. So how do you do that? How do you help bridge that gap?
Jocelyn Mangan
So we do in a few ways. When I was researching the boardroom, I interviewed 90 men to learn more about how they think. I learned one thing, which is that they all wanted to help and didn't know how. But the second thing I learned was when I asked them how they found their last board member, I got a personal network story. Lots of flavors of that. Some was, it was a private dinner. It was a ski weekend. It was this side meeting at Davos. Whatever it was, it was a small setting that was very curated. So we recreated that. We basically have what we call executive roundtables, they're very small. They're 16 to 20 people, we just invite different people. So we equally invite men and women and so we've created an authentic, off-the-record, organic environment for executives to come together. I think we've made it authentic. We've made it approachable, and there's no commitment. It's not after you leave this conversation, you get a board offer. Or after you leave this event you have to make an offer to someone. It's just a conversation, it's just an opening to a conversation with different people that you wouldn't have met otherwise. That's one key thing that we do. And people walk away from those saying, "Wow, what an incredible group. I wouldn't have met those people otherwise, right?" There's a high level of curation that goes into those and there's a frequency. We've done over 100 of those in three years. But the other thing we do is we use data. Board roles, as you well know, boards are not teams. Boards are ecosystems, they're ecosystems that thrive on individuals representing their individual set of competencies in a collective that are better as a company, that's what a board is. So when we hear of someone looking for a board opening, they're usually pretty specific about what they're looking for. We tend to, in our network of women, those women are categorized across six dimensions of competencies. So we're highly data driven, and who we're introducing the who, when it comes to board opening. And that targeted, curated approach means that there's a higher likelihood that something might turn out from those introductions.
Drew Tweedy
You find that being really hyper focused and targeted with putting the right women in the right room, with the right men, who are in charge of all of these different boards. Do you think that helps dispel this notion that women are less "board ready" than men? On the aggregate?
Jocelyn Mangan
Yes our inbox is filled with amazing quotes of gratitude, of amazement, of wow. We just prove every day there's no pipeline issue. It's a network gap, and it's reiterated every single hour of the day that we work, because these board member seekers are meeting people that they're like, "Wow, this is amazing. They're highly qualified and I wouldn't have known that they existed just because they're not in my network."
Kate Purmal
And then once a woman you place or that gets placed on a board gets into a board role for the first time. I know from my own experience, I was really fortunate to have been introduced to my last board role through your organization. I remember it was in a board role that was in a different industry. I was, of course, the only woman on the board. It was in an area that I didn't have strong expertise. I have more expertise in technology. This was commercial insurance brokerage. I didn't really have either the broader financial services expertise or insurance expertise. That's not why they hired me. But going into a boardroom, I remember it being pretty intimidating. So talk to me about how you work with the women that you place on boards or what kinds of things that you encourage them to do to get comfortable in that new environment.
Jocelyn Mangan
So we actually started a second company around this concept called Illumyn, which was formed because in those executive roundtable conversations, these 100 conversations, one of the questions that we asked over time to hundreds of executives, is who's been your most valuable board member and why? And what we heard back were 10 qualities. So even though these are off-the-record, one weekend, I sat down with the transcripts and read through all of them, and wrote down the 10 things that were reiterated time and time again. And no surprise, they're more EQ than IQ. We heard them and we witnessed how people learn them at dinners. The board dinner before the board meeting, things that would take time. And we were like, "How do we shortcut this information for these new board members, so that it doesn't take them eight years to learn the same things that it took these executives eight years to learn?". So we actually built a learning series around these 10 qualities. We are just going through our first cohort of first-time, independent directors. Now that said, we also don't believe that the onus of being great at a board should fall to the woman, to the person of color, or to the only in the room. It's an ecosystem so everybody needs to learn how to harness the voices of the boardroom. It makes me think of something that one of our hosts said, which is, he used to have a non-diverse board. He said it was actually easier, but the company was worse off. And when the board got more diverse, the board was actually harder but the company got better. So I think it goes to show that diverse opinions and hard conversations actually are not super easy. But they end up with better outcomes, as we all know. We're really early in our work with Illumyn. But our goal is to try to harness the knowledge of these wise board members, and wise boardrooms that have taken decades to learn these things, to accumulate that knowledge and share it, not just with these first-time independents, not just with the CEOs, but with the full boards. But it's a real issue. My first set of feedback I got on one of my boards is, we miss your voice, we wish you would talk more. Which, those of you who know me very well, that's not feedback I often get. So, there is something about the environment of the boardroom coupled by being the only, which can make it harder so we're aiming to provide some insight that helps those people walking into the boardroom.
Kate Purmal
I would love to share my experience here, because I actually stepped on to an amazing board. The two other independents are men that are very senior in the banking and financial services industry. They had been on this board for many years, six or eight years each. And I was the new kid on the block, if you will, and the technologist, not the Financial Services expert. And what they did, they did two things that made a huge difference for me, it was extraordinary. Number one, when a question would be put out to the board, they would often say I'm curious to hear what Kate has to say. So they would invite me to speak first, which was amazing. Then other thing they would do is after the board meeting, they would call me and give me feedback about what they really appreciated about my contribution. And, also offer suggestions about that trickiness, about how hands-on to be versus you know, what I think you say, "nose in fingers out" or something like that.
Jocelyn Mangan
Yeah, the signal-to-noise ratio.
Kate Purmal
Yeah. So they were really helpful in giving feedback in that way. And also telling me about how the board works, because each board is its own organism, right? They all function slightly differently. I had been on startup boards where they want you to be really hands-on. And this was a very different scenario. I'm sure public company boards and larger corporate boards, they want you to be more hands-off.
Jocelyn Mangan
Yeah, I think that's such a powerful exercise. It's happened to me a few times where at the end of the board meeting, the Board Chair will ask to hear from every board member. Because what you'll find is, if that doesn't happen, it's usually a few voices that speak.
Drew Tweedy
Which is definitely the case outside of boards too.
Kate Purmal
Yeah, we have a practice that we use, an inclusion practice. I'm teaching a class at the University of Michigan right now and we're using it in our debriefing to teach the students. When you want to foster contribution, you can pose a question and go around the room and ask each person to give one answer, even if there might be multiple answers right down to six layers of x. You ask each person around the room to give one answer, and you just circle around the room. And then you keep going around until everybody's given their answers. If you don't do that, what tends to happen, obviously, is one person will give five answers. And then there's nothing new to contribute elsewhere, that you don't get to invite that contribution.
Jocelyn Mangan
Well, and you find, too, that people have different styles of communication. One of the things that the moderators of AspenOUT used to talk about is they try to get the talkers to listen and the listeners to talk. And that's actually a great guidance for a group conversation.
Kate Purmal
I love that. Jocelyn talk to me about the men that are either the CEOs running the board or the men that you're bringing into this network. What do these discussions do? And how do those men show up in ways that make a difference for the women in the room to be able to recognize themselves as actually being board ready? This is part of what you're doing. You're unlocking the awareness of these women, and you're doing it by putting them in these situations. So talk a little more about that. What goes on there?
Jocelyn Mangan
Yeah, so one, it's highly curated with not just gender, but with roles. So we bring to the conversations, women who want to sit on boards, CEOs, investors, and board members. If you think about that, that represents people looking for board members and people who want to serve on boards. But we bring them together under the guise of we're all peers having a conversation about business and leadership and boards. So what actually ends up happening is you almost feel like you've been invited to this, you know, private conversation. We always have an iconic host, whether it's Stacy Brown-Philpot, or Reid Hoffman, or Jeff Wiener, or Danny Meyer. But those hosts are not there to dominate the conversation. I think one of the key things about the way we bring people together is we actually value everyone's voice, we actually open up these conversations, and do exactly what you said, Kate. We get everybody to answer the same question one time, so that everyone's voice is heard at least once before we then open up the conversation. The topics are varying, it's a very dynamic time in the world, which everybody knows and that means it's a very dynamic time in business. Lately we were talking about return to work a lot. Right now, we're talking about talent and people, which is really the heart of every conversation right now. It actually is just the biggest opportunity / challenge / never been seen or done before the time we're living in right now. I think one of the key factors in how we bring people together is that we bring them together as equals.
Drew Tweedy
I want to dig into that part. Because I think it's a really interesting opportunity to hear from your expertise and hear from what you're seeing at the highest levels of business and how it impacts everything below that. I'll put it to you this way. What is the future here that we're looking at, if we continue to diversify the highest levels of business and continue to be willing to engage in those difficult conversations with that more diverse group? What's the business world going to look like after we've made that change at the top?
Kate Purmal
It's going to change our future and I'll tell you why. Our future education, our future data privacy, our future climate, our future health care, our future consumer products; they're being built right now. And most of them, quite frankly, are being built in the private company space, because at least in the United States, public companies are less than 1% of our companies. And in those private companies, the bulk of investors are male, the bulk of CEOs are male and the bulk of board members are male. So all of that innovation is being built in this moment, without the benefit, at large, of what we're talking about. So when we catch up on all those areas, by the way, I'm working on one part, which is the board equally needs work and investment, equally needs work and leadership, equally CEO and C-level, all of those things get better. They benefit the population more, they benefit more of the population. They are built for a more inclusive planet, of people at large. And so it's really profound the impact that it has, and we see it in micro movements, as a woman heads a board, as the CEO takes in that woman, as that woman brings on the second woman. Now that company starts to change its strategic direction. The employees, by the way, see that their board is not all men, they want to work more. Their products are now drawing in more consumers they were leaving out. So there's a definitely a concentric circle of benefit. And you can see how with every person you add, that each of those circles benefits. And so it's broad and wide and profound. We talk about it as systemic innovation, because we need to maintain a level of impatience. But also understand we're changing a large historical construct, a system, so we won't solve this in Q3 of this year. We have to have a long-term view but with a really healthy dose of impatience.
Drew Tweedy
I love that. Maintaining impatience because it's so fleeting, usually.
Kate Purmal
Jocelyn, tell me, what do you hear from the more traditional board members, board chairs, CEOs, about how they're impacted by having a more diverse board?
Jocelyn Mangan
All of them without a doubt talk about how the conversations are better and different. All of them give really tangible examples of a board member who came to talk to their employees. And not only did the board member talk about different things, the employees asked different questions to that board member because of who that board member was. So there's really, universally a wow, better company, better conversation, better outcome.
Kate Purmal
And how have you seen? I know there are mandates in the state of California with regard to the number of females on boards, I believe, for both public and privately held companies. Just public?
Jocelyn Mangan
Public companies headquartered in California.
Kate Purmal
So how are you seeing that as well? I mean, there's always a concern, when mandates come in, that there may be some sort of backlash or a sense of, a lack of deserving this or whatever. So what have you seen with regard to that? Is that something that you support? How is it working?
Jocelyn Mangan
Here's how I see it. There's no pipeline issue for qualified women, for any board opening in any industry at any time. I don't care what the company is, the role or the description, so that I know firmly and I have a network of women to prove that, for any board opening at any time. In terms of mandates in California, I mean, I specifically speak of California, because I live here, I think it's the center of innovation. And I applaud this state for saying if we're going to headquarter, some of the world's best companies, we're going to ensure that we're doing every single thing to instill innovation. And going back to my original point, if our innovation is being built for all these important topics, that we all are going to live by our education, our climate, everything that controls our well being, I would much rather those products and companies have a diverse board, have a diverse leadership team, be serving a broader population. And so I think less about the mandate, and I think more about the intention behind it. And it is no surprise to me that California would be someone you'd be paying attention to that if they want to headquarter innovation.
Kate Purmal
And I think this key point that you're making is that board diversity yields greater innovation, greater diversity of innovation, and products and services. So I think that's actually.
Jocelyn Mangan
There's so many things it does. It's funny, we actually keep a record of articles about the benefits of for diversity, and I just went into our table, and there's 100 line items. There's 100 different articles. Yours is one of them Kate, on the one about women who are board members are more likely to become CEOs, there's a great articles. I'll put a little plug in for that, in Harvard Business Review, great study. But there's so many studies, right, so that's just one: if you're on a board, you're more likely to be a CEO. You know, boards with more women do more for the climate. There's so many examples of the benefits of that, that we have 100 articles just in our purview, and there's probably hundreds more. So there's no doubt that it's better on many different lenses.
Kate Purmal
Let's go back to courage, I think that would be a nice way to begin to wrap this up. I look at you, personally, and I'm super inspired by you. And I really mean this sincerely, I'm inspired by you. And I'm in awe of you, because of the courage that you demonstrate, in that you have created this organization out of nothing. You have built it with some of the most iconic leaders in the industry, who you've gotten to agree to participate in these dinners, in this whole new concept that—and these are busy people. I mean, it's non-trivial to get, you know, a major technology or CEO of a major company to show up at a dinner, this is non-trivial. You have managed to fund this thing. And so I just want to hear from you about how you found the courage to do that. What was the scariest part of all that? And how have you found the courage to do that and persevere and make it successful like you have?
Jocelyn Mangan
Thank you Kate, for saying that. It has been scary many times. I started this company as a project. And the whole time, I was also interviewing for CEO roles. And I have two kids, and they're still young and we still live in California and it's very expensive. I remember, it's when I graduated from the fellowship I'm a part of at the Aspen Institute, the Henry Crown fellowship, which tasks its fellows with starting ventures they think will change the world, and it was on that graduation that I just said, "You know what, screw it. I'm going to go try this thing full time. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but I'll never know until I try." And it was terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying. It's terrifying to watch your friends taking these big jobs that by the way, you know, they seem secure. They're actually not, but they really seem secure and there's big paychecks and that feels secure. And you know what kind of mother, you being at 50. Being an entrepreneur, you have no fundraising experience. I remember a piece of advice I got, which is keep your eye on your own yoga mat. Ask Tonya Hench from the Aspen fellowship. That helped a lot, because as soon as you look at someone else's yoga mat, guess what? They can do downward dog a lot better than you can. But it's so true. The other thing too, this is gonna sound potentially cheesy, hopefully not. But over time, I've realized that this is the purpose. This is my purpose. I wake up every day and I don't want to do anything else. I want to do this. I believe in this. I believe in our team. I believe in our purpose. We are making progress. Are we making progress because of that? I don't know. Is there a timing aspect that's helping us? 100%. But that matters, right? If you wake up everyday, and you're working on something that you just really believe in fundamentally, to your core, you find courage. I mean, when the pandemic hit we were an all in-person business. We were going to run out of money. We could be here on this podcast, or not, and it was. It was heroes like Brad Feld, who said, here's a massive donation to keep your work alive. While you figure out how to reinvent what you're going to do. It was my two co-founders, who you know, Ann and Fiona, who helped me think outside of the box. It's my board member, Mike Xenakis, that said, "Why can't you do a dinner virtually?" So I'd love to just take credit for all of it, but I can't because there's people who fed me strong advice, who picked me up when I felt down, who when I emailed on a Monday, and said, "I don't know what I'm doing." They would stare me in the face and kind of reorient me to, "Yes, you do. And here's, you know, here's what you need to do." I will never forget our board, one board meeting sent me like a spa package and said, "Take a breath."
Kate Purmal
That's wonderful. I also remember, Jocelyn, you and I've done some work together around vision, and envisioning. And I think we've done that twice together. And that comes at sort of a pivotal moment—three times together. I just want to have you talk about why vision is important. Why doing envisioning in the way we do, where we actually really sort of move out of the fear and the lower level emotions and move into the higher good and the the collective consciousness and try to take things forward and imagine what's possible. Talk about that a little bit, because I think it is an important way to gain confidence in your path and where you're going.
Jocelyn Mangan
Yeah, and I'm going to put a plug here. Those vision sessions fundamentally changed my mentality. So credit to you and that process, because I feel like I can speak for myself and maybe others will relate. The micro of life is the loudest voice. But the macro of what's possible is what's actually vision. And no one will know what this means. But I keep a sticky note on my computer that says, "500s Look up". If you want to know what that means, do a vision session with Kate. And because when I'm down in the weeds, it pulls me back to the place I know I need to head and that is the inspirational place. And that's the world of possibility. And if we don't live in the world of possibility, we can not make major leaps. The problem we're trying to solve in Him for Her is a major leap. It's not a micro issue. It's a macro issue. And so I don't know if we're all born with vision and life takes away from us. I don't know what happens. But as we become adults, it's way easier to think about what you can't do. It's way easier to go unload the dishwasher than to dream. And I find for me, I had to put rigor around it. And I'll never forget you telling me about your research and how vision can be taught. And I think that was the other key learning for me, which is I kind of read and saw the books about the visionaries like well, it must be nice to be born that person or that person. Again, trying to keep my eye on my own yoga mat. But you can be taught vision and I think if you're leading a movement, leading an effort, leading a company, leading anything, you've got to have vision because I don't know what else keeps you going or allows you to make major leaps and bounds. But I know for me, like I actually call you. It's around like every one-and-a-half to two years. It's to say, "Okay, it's time." I actually print out all of the results of those and I reread them from time to time. I will sit in a space of quiet. And I will actually reread each of the sessions. And what's really incredible is to look at the progress between each one. And knowing that it was the vision that took me to the next step.
Kate Purmal
Well, thank you for that. And I, I just want to also reiterate on or sort of expand on that. I had Dave Evans, the CEO of Fictive, it's a very successful company, speaking at the University of Michigan. I know we love Dave.
Jocelyn Mangan
Love Dave.
Kate Purmal
Talking about, as the CEO of a startup, a very successful startup that's going towards IPO. Every time you're in the planning process on an annual or longer basis, you can't plan for a hockey stick based on the past history, it doesn't work. And yet, that's what we do. We live our life iteratively. We say, "Oh, I was able to do that so I think this year, I could do this." You know, it's all iterative. And what's interesting about vision, vision work, operating or taking advantage of stepping into visionary mindset as you're planning and then looking back, is so many of the things that are on your vision did not seem possible at the time you envision them, right? And then they happen rather effortlessly. In retrospect, right? So it's a very interesting dynamic, it's almost like it's a nonlinear process. And all we can do from a planning perspective, is plan in a linear way. But that doesn't take into account that the things that drop in and causes us to, you know, jump and leap forward in ways that are nonlinear.
Jocelyn Mangan
Yeah. And you know, what's interesting about that is I've always hated planning processes. I've always hated budgeting. Because they've always felt so micro. It's trying to predict the weather a year from now, right. And the pandemic kind of ripped it up a bit. We're still back to it. If you're on any boards, quarterly planning, budget approval, fourth quarter. I feel for the boards and I feel for the CEOs, because you got to do it. At least in today's business world, that's how it works. But you're right, I think it limits possibility. I really do, and I can say that. I remember you and I having a vision exercise and you were like, it was right when the pandemic struck, and I was just, I had been contemplating fundraising, and no one had fundraised during a pandemic. There's no history, there's no one I could call, "How do you do this?" And you were like, it's not related. I know, it's real. I know, it's terrible. It's not related. It's not, you know, you got to separate and I was just like, how do you, you know? And then I look back, and I'm like, it was separate. It wasn't related.
Kate Purmal
The pandemic, and fundraising, we're not really
Jocelyn Mangan
Kind of like your work sits above the pandemic. you have to address the pandemic, you you know, it's gonna be a thing. But like, you got to keep up here. And I was so in this. I mean, we all were, by the way.
Kate Purmal
You know, you're talking just as sort of a closing drill, you can close after this. But I keep hearing from you this passion, how important that it has been to keep you going. And I'm going to state it a little differently. I agree with you, there's passion there. But you're also operating in a higher good. You're operating for a higher purpose. You have a very powerful intention around the goodness that this foundational work you're doing will bring to the world. So your passion is not just related to what you're doing everyday. It's actually related to the vision you have for a future in which the fundamental systems are redesigned and restructured. And that's what I find incredibly inspiring, because as you say, you have to remain impatient and patient at the same time. That's a paradox that I don't even know, we could have a whole podcast about that. But anyway, I just want to thank you so much for the work that you do and for holding that torch there and not giving up and persevering, and it's making an impact. Thank you.
Jocelyn Mangan
Thank you, and thanks for allowing me the space to talk about the work and putting it out there.
Drew Tweedy
Yeah, Jocelyn. I think that that confluence of passion, opportunity, courage, and your vision that you have for this higher good and this future world that is more equitable and more fair and more representative, I think it's a really, it's been a really beautiful conversation that we've had. But before we say goodbye, could you tell our listeners a little bit about how they can learn more about your work and maybe even support it?
Kate Purmal
Sure. So, we have a brand new website. Yay. It's himforher.org. And it does a, I think a really good job explaining our work and what we do. And the best ways to help our work are to refer women who are board ready and seeking board opportunities, to refer board openings, either you have or you hear about, or you turn down, to us. We will provide a list of referrals for free, typically in a week or less. And then obviously, we're a nonprofit. So anyone who feels compelled to make donations to our work, we're always willing to accept those to help fuel our operations.
Drew Tweedy
Awesome.
Jocelyn Mangan
Thanks for asking.
Drew Tweedy
Of course, and thank you again so much for volunteering your time here today.
