 Hello everyone, thanks so much for joining us today. My name is Allison Medina. I am a consumer and generational strategist, I guess you could call me at EY. I've just recently joined the EY family after spending the last two decades, yes, 20 years as a journalist and content guru, I guess you could call me, and I'm just now reframing my focus on Gen Z, which is quite convenient because I happen to have two of them living in my house. So today we're going to talk about what Gen Z is, what Gen Z means, and how it's impacting pretty much everything businesses need to be considering in the future. I'm going to drop video and share my screen, I'll be advancing the slide today, and my colleague here, Sarah, with J.A., I'd love for you to introduce yourself to everyone in the room. Hello everyone, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, no matter where you are in the world. I'm Sarah Rapp, I'm the senior manager of alumni marketing campaigns at J.A. Worldwide. You're going to learn a bit more about J.A. Worldwide, but also I'm very excited to talk about Gen Z. I don't have Gen Z in my house. I'm not Gen Z, almost, very close to Gen Z, but our alumni community of J.A. students around the world are mainly Gen Z, and we did a great research and a great survey in collaboration with EY, and I'm very thrilled to share some of the outcomes, but also share some of my own journey as a former J.A. participant in how this shaped the way of thinking, and also for our alumni, so I'm very excited. Back over to you, Allison. Thank you, thank you. So here's what we want to talk about today. A lot of times you hear the word future, and it feels like something that's very far away, something we have time to still prepare for. I like to frame the future as what's coming next, because it's inevitable, and we're finding the future is happening more quickly and more quickly. There's an acceleration that's been happening that's a very difficult pill for companies to digest these days. So in the work that we do, we turn our lens to the youth of America, because they are the drivers of change. You can look at the youth today, and you can see the indicators and the influences that are happening now that are going to dramatically change how we think about next in the coming years. Within any generation that you're talking about, the youth within our societies have always been the drivers of change. Whether it's music, whether we're talking about fashion, social, cultural, or the adoption and the use of new technologies, it's always been the youth that have propelled us forward and taught us all to dream big, to propel change for societies around us. Here's the problem, though. So many companies today, when they talk about the youth, they're still talking about millennials. And I think most CEOs today would be surprised to discover that the oldest of the millennials turned 40 this year. They're not exactly driving societal changes the way I think most businesses still think that they are. That's where Gen Z comes in. There may be as many millennials driving minivans as those driving change for the future of society as we know it. So who exactly is Gen Z? And just to qualify how we're going to run the session today, I'm going to start with kind of an overview of Gen Z as a subsect of the population. And then I'm going to toss it over to Sarah to really dive into how this can fit into social entrepreneurship and here at SoCAP, all the new things that you guys are trying to learn as you dive in and out of these sessions. But who exactly is Gen Z today? Why are they so drastically different than the millennials before them and literally every generation that preceded them before that? First off, let's take a look at how Gen Z is formally defined, at least from an EY perspective in the research that we're doing. So Gen Z were born between 1997 and 2007. So today, they're roughly 14 to 24 years old. This totals over 46 million Americans, which is about 14% of the population. But keep in mind, this is just a formal definition that looks at Gen Z as basically early teens to early 20s. And that's just a 10-year generation, duration right now, unlike some others who run 15 to 20 years in total. But if we look at the youth that's coming behind Gen Z, this younger sect behind them, now we're talking about almost 30% of the US population. This whole contingent of digital natives is already having a tremendous impact on society. What they do and how they think, more importantly, is going to dramatically reshape our institutions as we know it. And in fact, they very much already are and have. Now, Sarah is a very global person. Every time I've had a meeting with her, she's been in a different time zone. And I think on a different continent, Sarah, I'm pretty sure. But if we look from a global perspective at Gen Z, the numbers are even more staggering. From a global perspective, if you add Gen Z and the youth that follow them, we're now talking about more than 40% of the world's population. If they aren't already your customers or your employees, they're very soon going to be. Now, the green bar you see at the right that's ambiguously labeled next is marked that way intentionally. Those kids 13 and under hold a lot of weight for the future. Half of those kids could very well follow current Gen Z ideologies and join them in their thinking and their beliefs. Or the other half may begin a new trend line entirely and start many generations within it. The truth is we don't know yet what's going to become of that next group. We really don't start to measure attitudes, behaviors and values until they take shape and are expressed, which typically happens in the teen years. So today, Gen Z qualifies as 14 to 24 year olds. And yes, they're radically different than millennials. Let's take a look at why. Well, first of all, Gen Z is bringing change because they are the most diverse generation yet as measured on nearly every demographic scale you can measure. For example, in the US, 50% of today's youth consider themselves to be multiracial. That's three times the number of the general population. And only 48% of them consider themselves to be fully heterosexual. Let me repeat that. Only 48% of Gen Z consider themselves to be fully heterosexual. That means for the first time ever, the majority of a generation are identifying as not completely heterosexual. Even politically, we saw a huge jump in those who qualify themselves as moderates politically versus liberal or conservative. Now personally, I think that during the pandemic they looked up and they saw a bunch of crazy conservatives over here doing crazy things. And they looked this way and saw a bunch of crazy liberals doing crazy liberal things and they just have had enough of it. They're over it. They want to do it their way, a new way, and they're paving the path to do that. But beyond demographics, there's also a lot of psychographic diversity in attitudes, beliefs, and values within this generation. In fact, some of their attitudes and behaviors will continue to blur what we now consider demographic lines as they reject our traditional categorizations for things such as race, ethnicity, sex, and gender. Gender to this generation is subjective and fluid. This level of diversity can mean that it's hard to generalize about this generation. It would be a huge mistake to lump them all in one bucket. We can't make the same mistake we did with millennials, viewing them all as the same. Because looking at Gen Z as a whole is not enough to truly understand them. Especially given the complexities and rapid change that companies and businesses are seeing today. So at EY, we understand that Gen Z is not a monolith. Based on our research, we have identified five segments within Gen Z that we think clearly articulate the diversity within this up-and-coming group. So we first unveiled these in early 2020 and then just before COVID hit. And now have gone back and re-surveyed so that we can see the difference. So the first stressed, they're driven by the fear of not being good enough. They became even more stressed post-pandemic and anxiety is a huge concern for this group and I'll touch on that a bit later. Our second segment we call authentic activists. They are motivated by the obligation to save the world and the fear of what will happen if they don't. The next group is secluded perfectionists who are focused on loving what they do and being the best. Not necessarily for the money or the accolades, but because they just want to be the best at whatever their trade is. Whether it's graphic design or video gaming, etc. Our next group is the big dreamers. This contingent expects to do well and make money, but doesn't necessarily have the work ethic to put in the effort. So they're high on dreams and low on motivation. And then finally carefree constituents. These guys are the definition of go with the flow. And while they may not drive change as we're talking about earlier, they'll be the ones to adopt it into the mainstream. Now, these first three groups, if you add them together, represent more than three quarters of the Gen Z population. And if they're going to get grouped into a bucket when you're talking about Gen Z as a whole, these are the ones you're likely going to hear about most. Big dreamers are still a fairly sizable group, whereas there are far fewer carefree constituents. This is actually very interesting. This group dropped the most during COVID. Carefree constituents was at about 16% in early 2020 and dropped all the way down to 5%. Most of them went over to authentic activists and a few to secluded perfectionists. So that's where we've seen the numbers round out since the pandemic began. But really understanding these segments are how we start to dive in and really understand this generation. Okay, that's great. Great introduction, Allison. So what? Why does this matter? Why does Gen Z matter? Why do we need to be paying attention to these kids and the impact that they're going to have? Well, I think first we should start off and qualify by defining what a generation even is. We see a generation as a group of people that have a kinship created through shared events that impacted or changed the society they grew up in. So these events are usually a combination of social, economic, political, or technological disruptions. And for those in their formative years, as Gen Z still is, these societal changes set the stage for a common set of attitudes and expectations for life. They define how we're supposed to behave in the world or our intuitive understanding of how things should work. This is defined by our upbringing and the events that formulate that for us. Gen Z has seen more change in their brief years than most generations see in a lifetime. Not just life events, but real actionable societal change. Now I don't show this graphic to in any way claim that Gen Z have had more world events happen in their time than boomers, Gen X, millennials, or any other generation have had. But they have instant unfettered access to all of those events. And a deep dive look at all of those events at a pace and acceleration that most other generations can't comprehend. They've been able to learn it faster because of this. Just to qualify how much change it has had on their life and how they live their life. In the US alone, the oldest of them was two years old on Columbine. School has never been a safe haven for these kids. It's always been a place of metal detectors and lockdown drills. They had just started kindergarten on 9-11. They have grown up in a society normalized against the threat of terrorism. And before they could even get out of grammar school, they had seen the collapse of global financial markets, bringing the housing bust and the biggest recession our lifetime has known. And let's not forget the legalization of same sex marriage, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the swearing in of the first female person of color in the United States, in the White House. Not only did they witness this abundance of change, they digested it faster and more completely than past generations. Because Gen Z has grown up with the world at their fingertips. It's one of the defining characteristics of this digital native generation. Tapping, swiping, texting, talking to their technology all comes completely naturally to them. The oldest were only 10 years old and the youngest weren't even born when the first iPhone was released. This literally brought a global brain to their fingertips, giving them instant access to a world of information. But here's where the biggest differentiation between Gen Z and millennials comes to the forefront. With millennials, their parents could monitor and filter the day's news and events before it reached their kids. They could just turn off the TV or unplug the computer, which was probably in the kitchen or family room, shared by all, somewhere where parents could monitor all of the internet activity. But Gen Z has always had their own access and front row seat to the turbulence that became the new norm for us all. It's overwhelming to them to be able to sit. Inconceivable to past generation, so many companies are struggling to keep up pace. Let me just give you a quick real life example for context. So we gave my daughter an iPhone when she turned 10 years old. I know, probably a little young, but peer pressure. When we gave her the iPhone, it just had the factory grade apps installed on it. Handed her the phone, let her run with it. A few weeks later, I look at the phone. There are 37 new apps downloaded onto this phone, none of which I have ever heard of. So here's me, crazy mom in my bedroom in the middle of the night, googling these apps, trying to see if they're safe for my child, having no idea what I've gotten myself into. One thing I've learned as a Gen X parent of two Gen Zs, you can't keep up. And this is very similar to the paralysis that most businesses are feeling these days. The acceleration of their learning and their ability to adapt is more than we're prepared for. Each generation's relationship with technology is shaped by their experience with it during their youth. So given this, you would assume that Gen Z would be the most grateful for technology, that they would believe technology makes their life easier than previous generations, right? Actually, the opposite. For Gen Z, technology is not innovative at all. Technology is only an innovation if you remember life without it. For them, technology is air. It is their lifeblood. There has never been a time when their use of it wasn't intuitively ingrained into all aspects of their lives. They don't know how to function without it. To Gen Z, an internet outage or loss of cell service is the equivalent to us of losing electricity or running water. They aren't even conscious that they're using technology. To them, it's just a base necessity of their existence, of their everyday being. This intuitive inclination to digital is changing how the world will work, how the world currently works. Businesses must embrace Gen Z's need for ease, simplicity, and most importantly, speed. They are said to have a seven second attention span. And this is down from millennials who've had eight seconds of an attention span. They also have a huge BS meter. They can very quickly tell whether something is fake, a hassle, or a complete waste of their time. Gen Z will expect everything in their life to be instantly accessible. And the result is that Gen Z's expectations outpace the reality happening around them. Alison, this is me. Sorry, real quick. Come on in. I think your slides just stopped working. I'm sure you can't see it because obviously you are sharing screens. So I just want to make sure that people can see your beautiful sides. Hang on, let's try to reload them real quick. How's that? Nope, unfortunately, they're still not there. Let's try this again. Thank you for telling me. I couldn't see you either. I think I have it. There we go. Yep, they're back. Yes, perfect. It's talking about technology, right? Here we go again. I know. But Gen Z would already have bailed on me. All right, so this mindset of constant information coming all the time does not come without its price, of course. So in our pre-pandemic study, mental health was already a huge concern for Gen Z, with nearly a third claiming they feel very or extremely worried most of the time. In our follow-up study post-pandemic, or still in pandemic, post-COVID starting, that number was up to 42% saying that they usually or always felt anxious or depressed during COVID-19. We're quickly reaching crisis level with Gen Z from a mental health standpoint. And that is across all five of the segments that I outlined earlier. Gen Z's anxiety has gone up 15 percentage points in two years, and COVID is not the only cause. This is a generation that grew up with constant headlines of economic insecurity. They're worried about not having enough money. This has made them more financially conservative. And as a generation, they're savers. 63% saying they are already saving money for the future. The pandemic, of course, has only intensified this. Almost 30% have either lost their job or had a family member lose their job because of COVID. This is formulating in their brain of how they think about what tomorrow looks like. But despite this, make it decrease, follow and have shifted on fame or chasing wealth. Gen Z wants to make a difference in the world. Even more than that, they want to enjoy the work that they do. These are already high values for them before COVID hit. And these numbers have only increased since the pandemic. What does that mean for success to this generation in the future? They're not chasing fame and wealth. They're chasing a different kind of life than possibly generations before. The pandemic also showed an increase in entrepreneurial interest among Gen Z. 45% saying they are very or extremely likely to start their own business. Now, 44% also say they are more likely to be interested in entrepreneurship now than pre-COVID. It's a little bit too early to predict why this increased, but there are several possible reasons. First, I would say starting or owning your own business could be viewed as more secure given their exposure to the record-setting job losses seen during the pandemic. Or, of course, it could also be because of the control it gives them to align their work with their personal values and that internal drive to want to save the world. It's important to note, though, that although entrepreneurism is on the rise, it's not equally distributed across gender. Female respondents were actually much less likely than male respondents to say they're interested in entrepreneurship, which was interesting to us as well. Overall, Gen Z is going to simply expect that companies are working to create a better world for them. They're a bit untrusting of the institutions that have been left to them, and they're going to expect companies and businesses to have a sense of purpose and a broader commitment to social issues. They will judge companies based on their values and they'll use that judgment to drive their employment and their buying decisions. One thing is definitely clear about Gen Z. They are defining their own path. They're not waiting for us. We have to adapt to them and not expect them to adapt to us. I am going to now turn the presentation over to Sarah so she can tell us how we can think about doing that. Sarah? Wow, thank you so much, Alison. For everyone, I'm sure you have a million questions. Please drop them in the chat or in the Q&A section. We will come to that afterwards. I'll make sure to be as fast as possible and give you all the great information to make sure that we have enough time for a great Q&A. Thank you so much, Alison, for this incredible overview on how Gen Z looks like. And even though I'm millennial, I feel very much I have a Gen Z heart because most of the boxes you just mentioned and everything, this is really, really dear to my heart, especially the global workforce and making the world a better place and not just saying it, but actually going for it. So guys, bear with me. Alison is going to share a screen. So sometimes I'm going to say next slide, like I do right now. And next slide, please, Alison. I hope that's okay for everyone. So we at JA, we partnered with EY to do a survey with a entrepreneurial cohort, how we call them. I'll tell you a second what that is, but first let me share with you what JA is. So JA also called Junior Achievement or Young Enterprise or various names across the world. We are one of the largest youth serving NGOs and we are preparing young people for employment and entrepreneurship. This is where the entrepreneurship cohort comes in. JA is existing for more than a hundred years. We actually celebrated our 100th anniversary in 2019, right before the pandemic and it all started out of the US. Right now we are in more than a hundred countries across the world and every single year we have more than 10 million students in all various programs. One of our biggest programs where actually I also participated back when I was in school, so that's now probably 12 years ago, is called the JA Company Program. And what it does is it gives you as a student, I'm talking from my own perspective, the chance to actually create your own startup within school. So you have this hands-on learning, it's a very sustainable way of learning because you learn how to do finance sheets, you learn how to do marketing, you actually have to create a product or offer a service and then sell it. So you do the whole cycle. So all of our alumni and the students who go through the programs, they have this entrepreneurial skills already because they went through it. And what we did with the survey is actually using our alumni, well, we didn't use them, but we asked them in the Gen Z generation exactly the questions which Allison mentioned, but some more about the entrepreneurial thing. So I'm gonna share some results with you from the survey now, but obviously keeping in mind that it was this JA Group and all of them went through a JA program, which means entrepreneurship and building a company is not a new thing for them. Next slide please. We're talking about the survey. Next slide please. And we, as I mentioned, we did a survey together with EY. It was in 2020, so middle of the pandemic, and we had nearly 6,000 respondents in the Gen Z generation. Obviously all our JA alumni from all across the world. So Allison was mentioning a lot of stats from the US, and this survey intentionally took it to a global level because we wanted to find out, okay, how does it look when the demographics are different, when people have different values, different backgrounds, and also totally in the Gen Z thing where the race and everything is so culturally mixed across the world. And we had participants from 17 countries. Some of them obviously in some countries it was bigger in some countries it was lower, you can see on the slide here which countries were involved in the survey. And obviously, if you're interested in reading the full survey and the full outcome, we're gonna link it in the end and we're happy to share it afterwards so you can take a deep dive. Next slide please. We had a lot of outcomes in the survey, as you can imagine, it was a very robust survey, and we are so grateful for every single person who participated. And what we did to make it much easier to digest and to have a great summary, which is easy to understand for everyone around the world, especially the education sector and the business sector, we clustered it into 10 top findings. Next slide please. Given our time today, we're obviously not gonna get into every single one of them. I just wanted to show them to you so you can read through and I'm gonna focus on four. Two in section one, which is attributes and aspirations of entrepreneurial Gen Z cohort. And in the second one on how leaders among the Gen Z generation see education and the future of work. Next slide please. Can you go one back please? Perfect, thank you. So we're focusing on these four, which you see highlighted in yellow. Number one is Gen Z, our overwhelmingly optimistic about 2030. Number two is the entrepreneurial ambition abound with the yearning for original thought. The next one is extremely positive about globalization, automation, and new work norms. And last but not least, we're focusing on the educational and future focused skills that are more important than traditional school subjects. Next slide please. On this slide, you can see that this is our first finding from the survey and the first summary. What you can see here is super interesting. This is also, this very surprised us because as you can see 55% of Gen Z responded that they are feeling kind of optimistic but not that much about 2025. So that was in five years because we did the survey in 2020. However, 82% feels super optimistic about 2030. So what this tells us is obviously that they are very realistic that within the next five years, but also the next 10 years, a lot of challenges will arise. What Alison mentioned on her slide that there's a lot going on, 24-7 access to everything. So they're very realistic that, okay, it's gonna be tough. It's not gonna be easy. But what they're also very realistic about is, hey, if we work hard and if we actually do it, if we push through the next 10 years, everything is gonna be in a much better state. On one hand, we also saw that obviously the average age of the participants in the survey was 17 years old. So within five years, they might not be in a quote secure space where they have their job, where they are settled, but they are rather in like university and they don't know what's going on probably with their life. But 10 years, so from 17 to 27, that made them probably feel much more secure on, okay, within 10 years, we can make it. Things will look more optimistic and we will probably have a job and also have maybe also our own business to really solve the world's biggest problems. Next slide, please. This is our second finding. Just as a quick reminder that all the participants in this survey were JA alum. So all of them went through the entrepreneurial spirit and the entrepreneurial knowledge in school. So what you can see is Alison shared that 45% overall of the entire Gen Z population are likely to start their own business. What you can see here is in its significant increase to 65% that they are confident that they want and will run their own business within the next 10 years. This is a very, very interesting finding here and also when we did the research, I mean for us within the JA community, we have so many alumni who up to see afterwards start their own business, who take the knowledge they've learned in school and actually put it into real life. However, in the cohort, like in all the Gen Z generation that is not the most common practice. What they also said, what's very important for them is that not only when they're running their own business but when they are employed, this is where the business world comes in, that they would love to have a job where they can have their original thought and their own ideas into this job. So they're less likely to work on one specific topic and someone tells them exactly what to do. However, they would love to actually bring in their own thought, their own ideas to really create something new. This is really interesting because actually my job at JA Worldwide, I started four years ago, but I've been with the organization as a set 12 years and also been volunteering is exactly that because my job is I'm overseeing all the alumni networks across the world. We have approximately 100 million living alumni on this planet and every single year, 10 million join this great community. My job is to bring them back. Most of them are Gen Z obviously because they're going through it right now to bring them back and to really help them create their businesses, create their leadership skills and for them to have a community of like-minded people. And my job is exactly that to create this community of these people. So I have all the ideas I can bring in into my job and I'm also on my own running my own business. So that's why I said, I feel like I'm Gen Z at heart and not a millennial. Next slide please. Talking about this, this is outcome six. And as a reminder, this is in the section where we talked about the leaders among Gen Z. And so they are extremely positive about globalization, automation and new work norms. What we saw in other studies is that other generations like millennials and the generations before that they were a bit more, I don't want to say afraid but more, they shied away from like this whole globalization, automation, new things change because that meant in the past, like it wasn't as easy. And as Allison mentioned, so many things are changing so rapidly for Gen Z. So they're actually very excited about this and especially excited about going global and working, no matter where the people are in the world, working remote, going to like out there and bring in all these cultural aspects, the automation and the new work norms into their normal life. What they're also looking for is especially like mentorship also from professionals and role models. This brings back the whole concept of the hands on learning and no matter where they are in their life. Next slide please. And last but not least for today's focus is outcome number seven, which is totally education on future focus skills. What's very important for us at J.A. Wiltlite but also for you guys to mention here that this is not about, we need to change the entire education system, the teachers are not doing a great job, not at all. This outcome is actually to support the teachers because we do love schools and teachers, they're doing such an incredible job on the ground, it's more to advance and to also give the teachers the tools to help the Gen Z generation in school to learn the skills they need when they come out of school, right? So what we saw in the survey is that again, this hands on learning is so important for Gen Z because they wanna be prepared after they finish school for whatever challenges are coming their way. They would love to have more role models, more professionals in school, more learning from what is actually happening right now, in the world and obviously more technology, more focusing on subjects which will prepare them for the future. We also did an overview on the school subject ranking. So for example, the first one they loved the most was the environmental literacy. This was ranked as number one with 77% that really Gen Z, they really wanna learn more about career development that was actually number two and the environmental literacy. And also one third of all of them, they want to have financial literacy, global citizenship, digital marketing and also entrepreneurship included into their school curriculum. So that being said, that was a lot, a lot, a lot of information in a very short amount of time. And given that we only have eight minutes left, I wanna make sure to open up the stage bring Alison back and get all your questions in and thank you so much for being here today and listening to all of us. I'm back. Welcome back. Thank you. Hi, Alison. Hello, I apologize when I'm sharing the screen, it takes over. So I lost control a bit there, but fascinating stuff that you've got there, Sarah. I'm so enthralled with the idea that yearning for original thought, this is not a generation of followers. They are a generation of doers and thinkers and they're very pragmatic. And I think it's absolutely fascinating. All right, again, we can type any questions into the chat or Q&A and we will try to keep up, but I see you guys have been busy over here while we've been presenting. Totally. So Alison, actually, let's give them one more minute to ask the question. I have a question for you because our content is so related but yet so different. So what was the most surprising thing for you when you saw the survey, which was with the more entrepreneurial cohort of Gen Zs in comparison to the overall Gen Z generation? I mean, it makes sense. Everything that you said completely lines up with what we're finding as an overarching generation, but if you have already taken the initiative to join JA and to go through your program, you're already a doer and you're ready to make a difference in the world. So I think coming into this Gen Z research for me, I think the future of work has a lot of changes ahead. Entrepreneurialism is not just necessarily I want to start my own business and carry the weight of all of that. I believe that Gen Z is going to want entrepreneurial thinking and entrepreneurial work styles in any job that they have and corporations are gonna have to keep that in as a consideration. If you think about hybrid work models working from home, working digitally, this is gonna be an expectation of Gen Z not because of COVID but because they're so naturally in tune with digital anyway, they're gonna be big on teaming and working when they want to work, not necessarily. I mean, the nine to five might be over for the global workforce that's coming, right? And they're gonna wanna work when they wanna work and they're gonna wanna be valued for their productivity, not necessarily that they stared at a computer for eight hours a day when you said it was time for them to stare at a computer. So I think that freedom to be original and be collaborative that I think Gen Z naturally is inclined to, I think we're gonna see even more of that in the future. I'm sure, I'm sure. I just saw a question from Jay. Thank you so much, Jay, for asking the question. Alison, I'm happy to start with the question then feel free to add any thoughts you have and any like findings. So the question is, what are Gen Z most confused about regarding financial literacy? Great question. So what we see also from me working with a lot of Gen Z especially me again talking from the entrepreneurial cohort so that is not representative of all Gen Z around the world is that most of them are confused about, okay, where do I put my money, right? It's their mindset is already on like, hey, yes, I want to save the money. I want to invest the money. And I really don't just wanna spend all the money because that's not a sustainable way. But I think the most confusion is around, okay, what is a very sustainable thing to put it in like, do I invest in this? Do I put it here? Do I just put it on the bank account? And then this is where financial literacy is so important to actually teach them great ways on how to invest the money which makes a sustainable world at the end of the day and not only helps them up to see to like hope survive how they, you know, how they live their life but Alison, feel free to add any more thoughts there. They're untrusting of institutionalized anything. So we're telling them, go invest your money, go do this, go be safe. They are going to do the alternate path. This is the generation that stopped doing, going to bank tellers and putting their paychecks in and instead doing everything on a mobile app that, you know, in my mindset took me months to feel safe enough to do that. And for them, it was nothing, you know? So they are the companies that can break through the barriers of this is how financial has always been done. And instead say, this is a good plan for you, whether it's insurance, whether it's banking, whether it's all of the above, you know, how are you going to make my life easier? And the companies that figure out to become, figure out how to become a part of their life where they need to have, you know, this financial knowledge versus just selling to them. I think that's the company that's really going to break through and make their way. I mean, so many companies have done it already. And, you know, this is a cohort, this is a generation that has grown up in the world of, you know, Netflix and Uber and all of these companies that made everything so easy for them. So they don't want to trust anything that seems hard or, you know, unnatural to them, not counterintuitive. So I think thinking through how you speak to Gen Z and how you educate them in a way that makes sense to them and makes their life easier will go a long way in the financial world. I'll talk this one to you. I see a question here, Sarah. Debbie, we have a question from Debbie. How does this generation approach thinking about constant change around career paths that this presentation would apply? Ooh, that's a great question. And since my heart is very much into Gen Z, you know, I can also answer that from my own perspective. I think back, obviously with other generations, there was always this sense of like security on like, okay, I'll get this job, it's a secure job, especially me, I'm German, right? I grew up in Germany and not living there anymore. And, you know, as you've mentioned, a very global person now. However, within Germans, like the German culture, it was like, okay, you get this job, it's safe and you're gonna stay there. However, this is obviously not how the world works anymore. Now with the global pandemic, everybody saw, okay, even if you have quote, a secure job, which looks secure to the outside, it is not, right? You know, so many people lost their jobs even though they were considered very secure. So I think, especially talking from my perspective, I just found the piece that I, there's no secure job out there, right? So this whole thing of shifting jobs is not a challenge actually. It's more of like thinking about it as like an inspiration to learn new things, to advance, to like go into places where people are needed and, you know, to acquire new skills. This is me talking from, you know, my own perspective, but I also think that Gen Z, they really love to explore different options, right? So for them going to one study and staying in this one job, might seem like quote, a boring path because it's gonna change anyway, because if you study one thing today, it might not be there tomorrow or like in 10 years, it might not be relevant. I mean, just looking at marketing, for example, right? What you'll learn in university about the traditional marketing methods, you know, very few people are actually printing flyers now and putting them out there. So I don't think there's like a, an actual like anxiety around it. It's more the excitement on new things and new change and like, you know, switching the lens of change as excitement rather than anxiety. I do feel that Gen Z will continue the pace of promiscuity in the career path choice if they find themselves with a company that they do not feel aligned with their values. And I think the difference between Gen Z and Millennial is, whereas Millennial's demanded a lot of their employers, they aspire to work for sustainable companies to build sustainable companies, Gen Z will actually demand change from their employers. They won't just walk away, they will demand that their employers do more toward diversity and inclusion, towards sustainability, climate change, they will be paying attention and companies will be held accountable. I often joke that the next big C-suite job title, we might start coming into play as the chief accountability officer who has to make sure that we are not only saying we're doing all of these initiatives, but actually following through to a degree that it makes an impact or matters for the employees. And I think that's where we're headed in terms of the future of work. Thank you so much Debbie for your question. And I think I got the time wrong. We still have somewhere minutes for a question. I thought we have to end right now, but I think we can stay for a bit longer on. So Alison, do you have any other like thoughts or questions around Gen Z which we didn't mention yet, which would be like, oh man, you know, it didn't fit into the presentation because there are obviously a million things we can talk about. I didn't mention the stat because we had a short time period, but I think it's relevant for all to know that in our survey, 81% said that climate change is a medium to very large issue. So I think underscoring that this generation are vocal, that many of them are activists and that they consider sustainability and climate change as one of their top concerns or worries is something that we all need to be paying attention to. This could very well define their future in all aspects of their life. They're not only going to be looking to work for companies that they feel are fitting those needs, but they will build companies. They will expect companies to be creating things that will help them be more sustainable in their daily life. They will gravitate to companies that allow them to do that, to feel like they're making greener choices. And I think that's something that we have to keep in mind for the future. It no longer will be tolerated to just do the minimum. I think the maximum, the maximum is going to be the expectation moving forward. Totally, we see the exact same thing actually with our JA companies, how we call them. So no matter where around the world, so our students, they also can go to a competition. They're like country competitions and also regional competitions. And what we saw the recent years is that so many of the student companies are focusing on sustainability, not necessarily specifically on like, I have a solution to solve something which is in the very much sustainability area. However, no matter what business they're building, they're always building in a sustainability aspect. So if they're, for example, a great example is one from the Philippines. It was an old girls company. It's one of my favorite examples. And they produced a bag, like a very nice bag. I obviously have one. But what they did is they used old, from the coconut trees, they used pretty much everything from a coconut tree to like build this bag and they made it into a fashion. So this is obviously how they use like, this whole recycling and sustainable things into the entrepreneurship world. This wasn't necessarily a thing which solves the climate change per se, but it obviously helps if everyone thinks in this sustainable way. So I can totally agree with Allison, what you see in the old world, Gen Z generation, this also happens within the J-A community. Thank you, Sarah. I see a question here from J again. How did Gen Z feel about family values and cohesiveness? Do you know what's interesting in our post pandemic update to the survey, we found that Gen Z said their family relationships had gotten stronger during COVID. Everyone was worried that people were gonna go and get divorced and it was gonna be a disaster, but apparently they like each other. We also are doing a year round Gen Z advisory panel where we have 25 Gen Z across all five of the segments and we're just picking their brain on a monthly basis, surveying them, finding out what's hot topics for them and just kind of pulsing what they're talking about and what they're into. And we asked them who they look up to, who their mentors are, and a surprising majority mentioned members of their family versus what we would have thought to be celebrities or YouTubers or other types of influencers, but it's my uncle who started his own business. It's my mother who worked full time throughout the pandemic in a hospital. They're very much aware of their family struggles and looking to create a better future for tomorrow. Side note there, we also found that social media is a very nuanced connection tool for Gen Z. So they actually, the majority of them ranked social media in the middle in terms of positive or negative feelings. They see that there's a negative and a positive to social media and I think it was 74% said they use social media now more just for connecting with family and friends than they do for projecting out self-image. That was the millennials thing, right? They invented the selfie. It was all about, here's my wonderful life. Here's my made up face. Gen Z's all about authenticity and so social media for them is just literally their way of connecting with their loved ones. Awesome. Thank you so much, Jay, for asking so many questions. We're grateful for them. Also, big shout out to Melissa. If you see the chat, she's always dropping in the great surveys, new case studies and also some great content. So thank you so much, Melissa, for giving all this content behind the scenes. And we have another question about NFTs and crypto and how Gen Z feel about it. I'm not sure, Alison, if you have some research done around this topic, we didn't from our perspective with JA, but maybe you did or we're happy to send any follow-ups from any other studies. I don't have specifics. However, we tag words in our panel discussions and blockchain and crypto are two that have come up more than I would have anticipated. Even in the younger sex, they are paying attention to, as I mentioned before, they are the ones to adopt the new technologies. So if anyone's to make these types of technologies take hold, it's going to be Gen Z. Another fascinating learning for us was how many teenagers are dabbling in the stock market today. I mean, they are very pragmatic. We have multiple of our panel tell us that they are either already looking into stock market exchanges or have heard from others. This one guy is the best quote. He was like, I know a guy who made hundreds of dollars on the stock market. Like he had won the lottery, you know? But yeah, financial literacy is something that will be a part of Gen Z's future because as I mentioned before, they're very pragmatic. They are savers. They are conscious that the money might not always be there. They have to work for it. Not necessarily that they are enthralled with wealth. They're needing to be rich and famous, but they do want to ensure their own future financial success. Awesome. Thanks, Alison. More questions coming in. You're very excited about that. So Renee, thank you for asking the question. The question is, is it known how Gen Z is handling the anxiety and stresses? Alison, I would give that over to you again. What's interesting is while Gen Z, in all surveys that I've read across multiple entities, not just EY, Gen Z is more stressed than any other generation currently during COVID and post, but they are also more self-aware of their own stress and anxiety. They talk about it. The young ones talk about it. They are destigmatizing what it is to have mental illness or not feel well or have anxiety or stress, and they are seeking treatment in higher numbers than other generations as well. So this is something that is going to have to become part of the mainstream vernacular, not necessarily something that is hidden or disguised or considered a disability, but something that is as common as asking someone if they're feeling tired, asking them how they're feeling on a stress level from day to day. So companies, businesses, schools, marketing, advertising, it has to just be part of the conversation. Holistic health, not just, I think for millennials, it was very much focused on fitness, nutrition, skincare, self-care, meaning mental health, but mental health is a much deeper dive than that as you know. So it's more about how are we taking care of ourselves? How are we reflecting on the life choices we're making and what's happening? And I think that's going to be a huge push for businesses and of course for the healthcare industry at large. But I'm happy to say they are talking about it. The numbers right now of teens that are checking into ER, having ER visits for mental health related causes is staggering. It's not a number you want to see. So it's very much something that it's going to be, it's a Gen Z issue right now, but it's going to affect all generations if we don't do something about it. Yeah, totally. And just also from the entrepreneurship world over here, what we are seeing within our alumni community, so as we saw in the survey, so many of them are likely to start their own business. And we have got so many businesses right now who are focusing on mental health on this whole like work-life balance, but not as in like, they have great hobbies and a great job and then no mental health in between, but actually really focusing on the mental health aspect. And we also do a lot of events with our alumni and they're always demanding to have like a recharge element in the conference. We're actually starting a global leadership conference, follow-age staff members, where we also incorporated this because we also heard it from the Gen Z generation of our alumni that this is such a really, really important piece. And so I'm sure there was like a lot of entrepreneurship and startup thought behind, how can we make this better, especially also in the digital world, as you mentioned, right? There's good and bad about social media, which Gen Z is realizing probably more than any other generation before. Absolutely, are we okay on time here or do we need to wrap it up? I feel like we're going over. I think we have four more minutes. Ah, perfect, okay, let's see. So we're good to go, yep. Allison has a question here. We spell our names differently, Allison. I apologize. How does Gen Z deal with inequity or lack of resources privileges for themselves since they have such tremendous access to information almost that they are more active than other generations? Better support. Yeah, so here's the thing. We probably don't have to enable Gen Z to take leadership and activist roles because they're going to do it no matter whether we help them or not. I mean, the amount of kid-preneur programs that are developing now where kids take an interest in a cause and they set up their own lemonade stand and that lemonade stand becomes something that travels to multiple cities. And the next thing you know, there's an entire group contingent across the world that is helping raise money for this cause. We're seeing this over and over and over again and it's getting younger and younger and younger. I think though that mentorship is something that Gen Z craves, not necessarily that they want to be told what to do, but they do appreciate guidance when they are passionate about an idea or a cause. So I think that we're going to see that continue in the future, certainly. Your thoughts on that, Sarah? Yes, a thousand percent agree. Actually, this is a fun side note. I started also my own business and company and podcast called How to Be Global which is targeted exactly towards this. I'm like, well, how can we be global? And what we see there is that so many people are speaking up and they want to speak up and they actually do it. However, what they love, and this is what we do at GA, is we're creating this community around them. We're giving them the platform where they can meet the like-minded people. They're doing it themselves. They're speaking up, they're doing it. It's just to facilitate a platform or a community or something where they can find like-minded people to even speak up more and have this powerful force for good, how we call them to really drive the change. I think this is what we and also businesses can do to really give this platform, give the voice to the young ones because they're doing it anyway. And if you open up to that, they're much more drawn to come to work for you and to really be an engaged employee. Alison, you're on mute. Sorry, my dog was barking. How can large companies make way or room for Gen Z and millennial consumers and employees to influence decision making perhaps at a governance level? I think that's an easy, that's an easy ask. You need focus groups. If your CEO needs to be talking to the Gen Z in your company, I mean, you don't assume you know Gen Z. I find that when you ask the C-suite what Gen Z thinks, they start talking about their children and not necessarily about the consumers that are buying from them. They don't think of them and the influence that Gen Z has. That's something that we're really starting to find is that Gen Z and the generation will be within their family. Twasher or anything you're buying for the home, they're the ones that will go find the 20 reviews and the best price for you and bring it back in a spreadsheet and explain to you how to buy it. I mean, we're really seeing the influence go up in terms of how they're impacting decisions that are made in the household, not just necessarily purchases for them, but purchases across the household. The car, the family car, all of these things. And that really culturally shifts as well as we start talking about different demographics. It's higher in some demographics than others. I mean, we're right on top finishing our session. Thank you so much. And sorry if we couldn't answer your question, we will make sure to answer it offline. We'll connect with you, obviously, going to the networking era. Excited to meet all of you. From my side, thank you so much for everyone who've been part of the session here. Feel free to check out not only the survey, we at St. Louis White did with EY, but all the incredible research EY is doing, especially on Gen Z, because it's such an important topic for every single one of you. So, Alison, last words from you. Thank you so much. Don't forget about the future. It's happening right now. We'll see you all soon. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of the conference. Thanks, everyone. Bye.