Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Harvard President Claudine Gay will keep her position after receiving unanimous support from the university’s top board, foreign affairs expert Fiona Hill raises concerns about delayed Ukraine aid, and Signet’s CEO knows you’re going to get engaged before you do. Have a great Wednesday!
– Popping the question. Gina Drosos knows when you’re going to get engaged. She’s the CEO of Signet Jewelers, the $7.8 billion-in-revenue company behind jewelry brands Jared, Kay, and Zales. And when she took over as CEO six years ago, Signet made a pivot into data.
The company started to study couples and what leads them to get engaged. (Engagement rings and wedding bands make up half of its business). It came up with a list of 45 milestones that are part of the path to a proposal. Once a couple completes 25 to 30 of the items on the list, they are statistically significantly more likely to get engaged.
There are the obvious ones, like moving in together or merging finances. But Signet’s data starts earlier in a relationship—from when couples first meet. Going to a sporting event or a concert together—or even a movie—are on the list. (A movie comes first. It’s a “lower cash outlay,” Drosos explains.) Attending a wedding together, meeting friends, meeting family, acquiring a pet together, and taking a trip that’s not for someone else’s wedding are all milestones. There are also some less obvious ones: Paying off a chunk of debt and breaking up and getting back together can be part of the journey to an engagement. These milestones are broken up into phases.
Signet started studying these milestones to support its core business—engagement rings—but has found other uses for the research too. With this information, Signet can advertise not just to couples who search “engagement rings” online, but to couples earlier in their relationships. “If a couple is in stage three, we might be talking to them about birthday gifts,” Drosos says. “If they’re in stage four, we’re talking to them about how much to spend on an engagement ring.”
Before she became the CEO of Signet (and led a turnaround following major sexual harassment scandals under her predecessor), Drosos was a 25-year veteran of Procter & Gamble’s beauty business. That’s where she learned the power of data. “I have a strong belief that using data to make decisions is a way to drive innovation in a company,” she says. At Signet, she built a core data team of about 50 employees and directed hundreds more throughout the company to rely on data in their decision making.
Signet’s research has proven useful this year. When the pandemic hit, the company predicted that the jewelry industry would experience a second recession in about three years. Indeed, that’s what is happening now given the 3.25 years it takes a typical couple to get engaged and the months- or years-long pauses in dating that COVID caused for some people. “People aren’t getting engaged at the rate that they normally would,” Drosos says. This year, about 2.2 million Americans got engaged, compared to 2.8 million in a typical year pre-COVID. Drosos expects that slowdown to resolve in 2024.
December is the company’s biggest time of year for both gifts and engagement rings. The ten days before Christmas are when “most people are buying that one special jewelry gift for their person,” Drosos says.
Signet’s also using its data to convince customers to buy jewelry not just for a proposal. “Is moving in together a good gift-giving occasion?” is a question Drosos says her team considers. “Could we talk about marking the milestone with the gift of jewelry?”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Saved from expulsion. Harvard President Claudine Gay will keep her position despite intense backlash for Congressional testimony in which she failed to state whether calls for Jewish genocide would go against the university's code of conduct. Gay, who received unanimous support from the Harvard's top board on Tuesday, has apologized for her lack of clarity and stated that "those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account." Washington Post
- Russia refocus. Foreign affairs expert and former political advisor Fiona Hill is ringing the alarm on the potentially disastrous foreign policy implications if Russia wins the war in Ukraine, especially as Congressional Republicans stall further funding for Ukraine. Hill says Ukraine's fate depends entirely on the U.S.'s support; failing to provide it would diminish the U.S.'s global standing in favor of Russia and China. Politico
- WFH reversal. Employees at Nationwide, the world's largest credit union, are furious at new CEO Debbie Crosbie for reversing her predecessor's vow of remote work. Though the policy change has riled up the company’s workforce, experts say that Crosbie made necessary changes to broad promises she inherited from a leader who didn't stick around to deal with them. Fortune
- Voice silenced. One of India’s most vocal female MPs was expelled last week for allegations of corruption and bribery that she claims are false. Mahua Moitra was an outspoken critic of India Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose supporters occupy a significant majority of the lower house of parliament where Moitra served. BBC
- Snail's pace parity. The share of women in Germany’s top management positions (28%) has increased only three percentage points in the past 18 years, according to new data from the Institute for Employment Research, with the disparity even worse in the country’s finance and insurance sectors. Managers' ability to work long hours—a challenge for women with caregiving responsibilities—is a deciding factor in who advances, the researchers said. Reuters
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Tripadvisor named Kristen Dalton as president of the Tripadvisor Core business. Lattice appointed Salesforce exec Sarah Franklin as chief executive officer.
ON MY RADAR
Iran president’s wife steps out of the shadows Financial Times
The divorce wave reflects major shifts in how we live Business Insider
How unconscious bias in health care puts pregnant Black women at higher risk New York Times
PARTING WORDS
"I've always said I can't snap back. I can only snap forward. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I put the old version of myself aside, and a new chapter began."
—Actress and Béis founder Shay Mitchell on the pressure to 'bounce back' mentally and physically after having children
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