 First, I say equality is a choice and unconscious bias is an excuse. If you say the word unconscious, you're conscious. Hello, and welcome to Top of Mind. We are here with Shelly Zollis, who is the CEO of the Female Pochette. We're here at the FQ Lounge, Home of Quality, Shelly High, and welcome to Top of Mind. Thank you for being here. Very exciting. What are the things that are most exciting for you, and then also then let's talk about what's a little bit challenging still? You know, I think what's the most exciting is getting all of us to work together. You know, we talk a lot about the power of collaboration, and there are so many companies doing the same thing separately in silos, which is why, in my opinion, we've been going backwards. And the best way to go forward faster, further is together. And if we could share the good, bad, and the ugly, things that work, things that don't work, if we can curate case studies, tools, experts, measurement, that's how we all can impact change. And most importantly, one of the things about equality is we are all uniting now for equality. There's still some challenges in, you know, we've been talking about this for how many years now, and yet you said we're still going backwards. Why do you think that is? Well, we have clear facts. I mean, you look at the McKinsey data and it says it'll take over 202 years to close the wage gap, and over 117 years to realize gender parity in the C-suite. When we look at equality in the world, the World Economic Forum measures 144 countries on gender equality. The United States, three years ago, was 28, last year, 51. So we can keep talking about what we want to do. We can keep saying we're trying. We can keep saying we're shrinking the wage gap, but trying isn't doing. And shrinking isn't closing. And so when you look at equality in the workplace, policies can truly help attract and retain the best talent and help us get women to move past the messy middle or what, you know, middle management, what we call the messy middle. Let's call it low-hanging fruit, where if somebody is a leader or even an individual and they say, I want to just make a difference. I want to do something different today that I didn't do yesterday that's going to help in this cause. What would you suggest? First, I say equality is a choice, and unconscious bias is an excuse. If you say the word unconscious, you're conscious. If you want to be better and you want to create change, then look in the mirror, ask yourself if you are a change agent, if you are a champion, if you are a conscious leader, and if the answer is yes, then do something. You have had phenomenal career success yourself. You were incredibly passionate about all the things that you were doing, especially in the market research space, and then decided at one point in your career, nope, I'm going to do something different and I'm going to focus on equality. Tell me about that pivotal point in your life and a career tip you would give to somebody else. I always follow my heart, and I call them heartbeat moments, and starting the female potion four years ago was not intentional, and it was not in a textbook. It was something that happened by accident, and I always say we went from a moment to a movement, and I was the only female CEO in the top 25 my whole career. I knew I thought differently than the men in business. I was always told that I was wrong or it wasn't the right time, and you wake up one day and you kind of say, but why? That's what I want to do, and so I became the chief troublemaker and decided to break all the rules that made no sense, and just to follow my heart, and my heart, you can always think with your head, those cognitive aha moments, they're rational decisions. You rationalize a decision. Your heartbeat, you have to follow it, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, wherever it's going to go, you're going to go there, and it's really been purpose and passion that has propelled me to keep going, and bringing all of us together. This is not my lounge or yours, it's ours collectively, because while it is important to bring women supporting women together, very important, and we've created a community of over 20,000 women globally in business, now it's time to start activating the solutions for change inside of corporations, rewriting the rules that were written a hundred years ago by men for men. Time to break them, write the new ones so that all of us can thrive and bring our best selves to the table. Yeah, wow, okay, so if you're not inspired now, I don't know what will inspire you, but you've inspired me, and as always you've always inspired me, so thank you so much for joining us today, I appreciate you being here. Thank you for leading the pack, Nadine. Thank you so much for joining us today on Top of Mind.