Pattern

See which workplaces made this year's list.

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Employees say:&nbsp;"I feel high levels of trust from the management team—they know I will get my work done, and I am not micromanaged, which encourages me to be highly dedicated to this company and our team objectives. I want to perform very well for a management team that has confidence in me, and this is a really big aspect of the success of employees at Pattern. The company also has many fun activities such as Lagoon Day, Values Week, and other company events that shows their trust in us and how much we are valued."

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GPTW 2023 Best workplaces in Advertising and Media-Pattern_4

Employees say: 
 
"Fantastic leadership that are completely authentic and true to themselves. A leadership team that believes in hiring the very best people and placing their full trust in those people. High levels of autonomy to get your work done as efficiently as possible and manage your own calendar."

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Get insights into Pattern including business profile, stock information, news, and rankings from Fortune.

Pattern Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Pattern | Fortune

Pattern Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Adam Edmunds, Chief Executive Officer, Entrata   David Wright, Co-founder and CEO, Pattern, Interviewer: Andrew Nusca, FORTUNE

Brainstorm Tech 2024: A New Generation Rises In Silicon Slopes

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Hi guys. How's it going? It's good. I'm still acclimating to the altitude to be perfectly honest with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it only takes like four weeks. You'll be fine. Four weeks. Oh, great. Well, good. Alright, I have 3.5 weeks to go gentlemen. I said a lot of jargon at the top about what it is that you folks do and I would actually like for the benefit of the audience for you to explain your companies. So Dave if you don't mind starting what is an e commerce accelerator for the normals in the audience? Yeah. Thanks for having us on first off. Yeah. So e commerce acceleration, we essentially built the category. We help brands sell their products wherever in the world they want them sold marketplace wise. So if you're a brand sitting in, you know, New Jersey, which I'm flying there on a Redeye tonight to own a big brand in New Jersey. And they've got an Ecom team generally, you know, 10 people or something and they have to tackle global Ecom which would include China. We have a couple 100 people in China. We have people all over the Middle East people all over Europe. And if we can do it at a margin that they can't do it at, there's just no reason why not to use an e Commerce accelerator. And, and so if you're a brand looking to sell your products globally on marketplaces, then that's who you'd partner with as an Ecommerce accelerator. Got it. And then similar view out of property management software. For who? For what? Yeah, we're probably the biggest enterprise software company. No one's ever heard of in here. We're about 20 years old based here in Utah. Um We build, we're a vertical SASS company. We build software for multifamily property management businesses on the enterprise site. So if you have 1000 units or more, you're a target customer for us. About 2500 people. Um About 1000 of those are engineers, uh just crossed 400 million of a RR. Um, the company was bootstrapped for several years, raised some money a few years ago, brought in a few investors. But um yeah, people always, most people have never heard of us. We, we, we, we're kind of the of the radar. All sleeper. Yeah. Yeah, gentlemen. II, I just wanna level set for everybody could, could you please very quickly just explain what your revenue looks like right now and how much money you've raised because it is really extraordinary amounts, Adam if you don't mind. Yeah. Uh so this company raised a million bucks. In 2005. That guy still is on the board owns like 15% of the business. So he's gonna do, ok. He'll be all right. Um, we, and then never raise money again. I came in to the business about 2020 as CEO we raised around in 2021 of five, a little over $500 million a lot of that secondary. Um, we brought in Silver Lake, uh, Dragon Air and then a couple of local Ceos Ryan Smith and Todd Peterson also, uh, he, he helped out with that round. Um And that's what we've raised. The company's always been break even slash profitable. I mean, that's the only way to be, um, bootstrapped for so long. Sure. Sure. And your revenue, did you say revenue? A little over 400 million of A R and like always been profitable? And thank you very much. Yeah, we started in 2013 and, and because my background wasn't in, you know, building a business or finance, I did, we never raised money until 2021. We raised 52 million at that point. We in total, we raised 277 million. We did 1.3 billion in revenue last year. And this year we'll do 1.8 right? So thank you for that. So we're talking about fast growth. A lot of, a lot of heads you both have, uh uh uh on your teams. Tell me a little bit about the environment that we're in. What has been a challenge for you in this economic moment. Uh, what keeps you up at night? Uh, uh, you know, you've raised a ton of money that, that's not free. Tell me about it. Uh, yeah. So for us, you know, we built the apartment industry so they've been facing major headwinds the last 12 to 18 months. Rents have really kind of stabilized, decreased in a lot of markets. You know, these owners are on, you know, underwater in a lot of the loans that they have mortgages that they have on buildings. So, um, luckily we sell to the biggest customers in our space. So they're super acquisitive. Um So that's, that's helpful when they go by other companies, it's just automatic growth that comes to us. But we're, you know, we're starting to see that turn around. I think as the fed starts to drop rates that's gonna make life a little easier for our customers. Um I've found over the last year or so. I think if you're profitable, if you're a big company, I don't know if the funding environment ever went away. People definitely got a little more evaluation conscious, I'd say over the last year or two. But, um, you know, I, I if we wanted to go raise around, I think we'd, we'd still have quite a bit of demand. Um Are you worried about getting over your skis? Given the the environment for your customers. Um We sell to a space that's always going to grow. It never grows super crazy. So getting out over our skis is, is would be pretty difficult to do. This company just will grow at 25 to 30% a year for a long, long time. Um So for us, it's just about, you know, maintaining efficiencies, you know, expanding globally, but being really smart about it is what we think about every day. Yeah. Saying, you know, we, we're lucky because we're in digital, you know, digital commerce. So as people move from brick and mortar, which is probably 78% you know, at least in the US, 78% uh 22% is digital and, but it's growing every year. So we have had slowdowns. I think the consumer, you know, and there's concern there. We don't feel it that much because there's generally as much that moves from brick and mortar into digital. So, you know, I think through the years of almost every tech company in the valley did, you know, layoffs, we managed to avoid that and I don't expect we ever will have one unless we, you know, can't forecast. But even if we get a little over our skis, we sort of the, the tailwinds help us grow out of it. I see. Yeah. Just being in the, in the space we're in now you both have interesting personal journeys as far as how you got to the place that you are now, you have strong feelings about the founder versus Operator debate. First off, I'd like to know where you land on that one since you've done both and why Dave, I think founders and Operators are can be the same. I think Adam and I are probably both more on the, you know, I, I founded the company but I think my natural skill is just running a machine where I think I've probably had the most tension is the investor founder, you know, tension. I think there's a bit there. Um Oh, do go on. Um We've had one great 11, not so great one, but generally it's just hard I think and you can see where they're coming from, but an investor comes in and they're like, we're long term, we're thinking five years from now. But in order to monetize something in five years, they're thinking we need profitability now. So a lot of the changes that we're doing are to set up a cell in 3 to 5 years. And that's a long term view, maybe seven, but mostly founders or deep operators are thinking, you know, 1020 years down the road and that is hard to bridge. And I don't know, you know, and generally, you know, a group of investors are holding the CEO accountable and if he doesn't hit certain numbers, he's going to get fired. So he causes them to do things in the short, him or her to do things in the short run that wouldn't be best for the company. So luckily, you know, me and I, who's our co founder, we own, you know, 60 70% of the company and we have investors, but we largely just say we're just holding the, you know, and there has been a lot of rigorous debate because we run a very slim margin because we have, I feel like it's better for brands and better for a pattern. But oftentimes, you know, so we grew a brand from 8 million to 324 million, for example, across global marketplaces. So our, our investors say things like if you grow a brand from 8 million to 324 you can charge them anything and we charge them, you know, 3%. And, and so that's generally the debate that we get is, but I just think it's better, long term thinking if you look at all of the companies in retail are in those spaces, they win by having the best service at the lowest cost. You do both. I wish I was a founder because then I'd own 60 to 70% of something doing 1.8 billion in revenue. So I started to, they were OK. The first one we sold for 10 million bucks. The second one we sold for 70 million bucks. Founders are psychos though like they care about everything. And they're like founders are psychos, they're psychos in the best way. I've worked with some of the best and I'm just my love language is like a metrics and customer acquisition cost and raising money and board meetings. So um after that, I went to a company called Podium. I was super early. We went from like wonder love languages, board meetings. OK. I'm just asking, this is, this is like coming. All right. No, like so the last company I was in, we went like 1 to 100 million of a RR raised money from like Excel and Google. Just lots of emotions and craziness. But now I'm in this big boring silver Lake private equity world and I kind of like it. There's no emotions, they get caught, they, they say they're financial engineers. That's great because they just, if you can see it in the spreadsheet, it's great. So II I actually wish I was a co founder that owns 60%. I am an operator, a big boring operator and I've just come to accept that. That's what I am and I'm OK with it. I'm gonna get you a mug that says big boring offer. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna come to the audience for questions in just a minute, but I've got one for you. So um you're both actually in Lehigh, is that right? So, um you know, we, we've talked on this very stage before last year about you know, the Silicon slopes environment. Um The pros, the cons, I would love to know from your perspective as operators in this environment, how has being in this region helped your business and how has it held it back? Um I, I'm happy to go first. So I started in 03, my first business and it was hard back then in Utah, like you mentioned, Qualtrics and omniture. This company was bootstrapped plural site. They were bootstrapped because you couldn't raise money here. Um The other thing that was really difficult is you couldn't find execs. Like if you, 10 years ago, if you needed a CFO that had taken a company public that did not exist in Utah, you had to import them from the Bay Area. That's changed quite a bit. What we've always had is really good, go to market talent. We've always had really good engineering talent at, you know, it used to be like 50 to 60% of the cost of the Bay area. It's crept up. We've still maintain that. But what's been nice is we've had enough of these companies that you've mentioned, get at bats in the public markets and big equities and multi billion dollar acquisitions. So the talent pool is really rising. So now I really think it's a huge competitive advantage to be here. We can get the talent, we need the execs, we need, you can raise money from anybody here. Times have changed. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's tough sometimes in Utah and I, and there is a stigma to Utah and some of them are true. You know, I think being, you know, I'm not LDF but the, which is the predominant religion in, in the, in the region. I think there's been a lot of history around that and a lot of it, you know, a fair, you know, assessment of, of, of Utah, maybe some things to look at. But from running a company, the talent is there. And if you love being outside, so the people we bring in, it's like a little bit of a love hate relationship when they come in and they land in Utah, they're like, I love this place and I will never move. That's how I feel about it. But I love to go outside. I love to hike, I love to fish. I love to run. I love to bike and I can get on a biking trail and I can go 20 miles up the canyon and never get off the bike, the trail, right. You know, so that I think it is nearly impossible to find. I don't know any other place where you can go and park and be in the mountains in seven minutes with your car. You know, that's from our, both of our offices largely. So a lot of advantages. But we do have occasionally, you know, the, you know, the person that comes in is like, you have to have a car here. Like I can't walk. No, you cannot, you know, you two miles to probably the closest store from most places, you know, but if you want to park without paying for parking or, you know, and you just drive up to the store, you get out of your car, you walk in, you get like, you know, it's fantastic. So, I think, and the talent is here, I think it has a, you know, people think it's, you know, you maybe need to go outside, but I think not anymore now we still go outside quite a bit for, because you have to be global, I think to win now. So, you know, we have 100 we have more people outside of the US than we do inside. But uh but I think every company has to do that to win now, certainly at the scale that you're facing. All right, let's go to the audience for questions. Any questions for the gentleman here. Any questions? Yes, back here. Please just wait for the mic, your name and your affiliation. Sure. Jason Del Rey from Fortune. Um I have a question for, for David. Um So I've covered Amazon for a long time. Um They have these policies about how they want brands to work with them. Sometimes they enforce them, sometimes they don't, they decide when they want to, that can really up in a business like yours or others in the ecosystem. How do you deal with that? And how do you sort of educate your employees to deal with that? I mean, we've been at it for 11 years so we've dealt with probably every policy change or wind of change that Amazon has done. And of course, we've had our moments where we've woken up and we've thought we're dead. Um But as over time, we've just come to realize if you provide value, you know, we're deep, deeply great at helping a brand on the technology side and have such a great track record. I just got back a stat from Amazon last week. This is from Amazon pattern is beating brands that are non pattern managed on the platform by two X and six X in in the health and personal care space on page views. So that's all just a tech. And so regardless of how Amazon decides to set up, you know, the model one P three P, however, they want you to move the goods and they change that. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day to winning because Amazon is always going to focus on the customer. So as long as a customer gets a great product at a good price and we can help that happen. It's all keyword, keyword phrase based from a machine learning perspective, then you will always have a job and pattern will always exist. The revenue models might change, those have changed over the years. But you know, we've come to care about them less as the years have gone on because, you know, we're on T mall in China, for example, those change all the time. Rakitin in Japan, you know, so it almost, you know, we support 70 marketplaces in 60 countries and they always have some new way of doing something. You almost have brands have to just adapt. Thank you. We've got one more. Yes. Your name and affiliation, please. Yeah. Uh Bank Bar then co founder and CEO of NANA, where we're a health care at home remote diagnostics company. I love the topic on the founder versus operator. I'm a first time founder. Uh but I think my skill set was always an operator beforehand. How do you guys see that skill set from the founder and maybe separately the operator of the blend changing now 2024 onward where a lot of those skill sets from the past are now being automated. They're being augmented or evolving from technology and you may not need those old skill sets like you did in the past. Just curious on your thoughts there if you can answer briefly. Yeah. Um I think it's hard to find someone who could scale founder to operator like a dollar to a billion dollars of revenue. Like Zuckerberg's maybe one of the few who've done it really, really well. It's hard because when you're small and you want to be a psycho and make every decision that those same personality traits as you get bigger will, will push every good executive you have out the door. Um And I don't think that has changed. Um, so I think, I think it's a really hard transition to make for a lot of founders. Um II, I personally don't know a lot of, a lot who have done it. Super Bowl. OK. I'd say that it's almost a misnomer because there is operators. But at the, at the end of the day, the people who operate things really well, companies, they're good at letting go and letting people do it. Because if once you're a founder of, you know, the 1700 people at pattern, no matter how good I am, I'm not running that machine. I might think I'm running the machine, but in reality, I'm not running the machine. And so if you can hire well and treat people well, have a good work life balance, build a machine, build a good culture. You're going to be a great operator. That's almost, I think how you define it. Even if you're not in the details, someone is who's great. Right. Right. Right. Well, gentlemen, I have one last question for you before I let you go. Um Are we expecting, I mean, I know the environment, economic environment is what it is. But are we expecting any uh liquidity events in the near future? Adam? Um We are preparing to be a public company. I think this will be a great public company for a long, long time. Timing is TBD. Yeah, same, same. All right. You heard it here. First, a round of applause. Thank you gentlemen for joining us today.

Quality sleep is critical for both physical and mental health. Tom Hale, CEO of Oura—creator of the eponymous sleep-tracking ring—guides us through the habits and behaviors that factor into getting a good night’s sleep.

5 tips for better sleep hygiene

Health

Tom Hale, CEO of Oura—creator of the eponymous sleep-tracking ring—guides us through the habits and behaviors that factor into getting a good night’s sleep.

Sleep is critical. Imagine if I was able to give you a drug that would improve your mood, increase your energy, make your immune system stronger, reduce your appetite. Have you live longer? Reduce the chances of you getting type two diabetes or heart disease or maybe even Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Would you take that drug? Of course you would, anyone would. Uh And the thing is is that that drug is for free. It's called sleep. And all you need to do is to know how to do it and to practice it intentionally tips for a good night's sleep. One of the classic uh sleep hygiene tips is to sleep in a cooler bedroom. So you might try that out and see if that improves your sleep. If you have a wearable that tracks sleep, you'll have a objective measure to know whether or not the change that you made. The experiment that you ran will affect the outcome of your sleep. Another tactic this is very common obviously is to use white noise. Some people prefer a fan. Some people like a white noise generator or a pink noise generator or a brown noise. There's all these different kinds of noise. You choose what that is that really works for you and you stick with it. Another tactic that people often use for sleep is sleep supplements. Uh Melatonin, it's the chemical that your body releases in order to kind of start everybody off on the process of going into this glorious symphony of sleep. I personally, I like to take LCN nine and magnesium. I take a kind of a sleep cocktail of three or four pills every night and their supplements, they're just compounds that are both relaxing and restful but also are very conducive to staying asleep. So magnesium is, I think a tried and true tactic for many people definitely works for me. Keep your room quiet and dark. It's not always possible. So, you know, sometimes you can isolate your own uh hearing with earplugs or with an eye mask to keep it dark if you can't keep the room itself dark. And then the last one and this is somewhat, I think counterintuitive for people sleep regularity increasingly is demonstrating that it is an important part of quality sleep. Think about the routine you had as maybe as a baby where your sleep and wake cycles were incredibly, you know, regimented and your body knew how to behave around those. And of course, you have your own sleep cycle, it's called your circadian cycle. But if you are regular and you're hitting that sort of window of falling asleep at the right time every night and waking up at the same time, you're actually going to do a great job of convincing your body your body how to sleep more effectively.

Tracee Ellis Ross, Chief Executive Officer, Pattern Beauty 
Interviewer: Emma Hinchliffe, FORTUNE CLOSING RECEPTION 


MPW Next Gen 2023 - Pattern Making

After wrapping up on the show, girlfriends actress Tracy Ellis Ross wrote her first hair care brand pitch in 2008, not long ago, but following several meetings with potential partners and investors, she was met with little interest. She then chose to invest her own funds into working with a chemist and manufacturer who could develop the products. She envisioned ones that focused on curly coy and tight textured hair. And after more than a decade, she took the findings connected with Beach House Group to launch Pattern Beauty to discuss what's next for Pattern Beauty. Please welcome Pattern Beauty's CEO and founder Tracy Ellis Ross and fortune, senior writer, Emma Hinch. Hi. Um Hi, everybody. Tracy. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. We're so excited. So you founded Pattern Beauty based on your experience and to solve the problem that you saw in the beauty industry. What was that problem? It wasn't a problem. It was a gap. Yeah, a big giant gap. I felt like the products that existed for the curly coy and tight texture community were the same products that my mother and my grandmother had had access to that, the shelf space hadn't changed. It was still in the back of the store. And I as a curly coy gal had spent my childhood kind of making sense of my hair and trying to figure out which products existed and dreaming of having the perfect products that actually were effective, were safe for my hair and looked beautiful in my bathroom. And so and so pattern was born. I mean, it's a bit of a longer journey than that. I'm not gonna lie. Um From the moment I wrote my first hair care brand pitch um until we ended up on shelves. It was 11 years. Um It was right when I finished girlfriends and I really set out to create a company that was not just about sales, but really was also about the love of humanity. And so there was a lot involved in that and there were also a lot of nos and there was a lot of, there were a lot of naysayers, but it really was about filling a gap in the market that had existed for a really long time. Yeah, let's talk about that decade long 11 year journey. What happened over those 11 years. How long do you have? Um Well, it started with um I was not from a family of entrepreneurs, so I didn't know. And you know, a lot of people say they say dream big, but they don't talk to you about how you turn that dream into a reality. How do you take an idea out of your head and actually bring it into the world? And so I didn't know how to do that. So what I did was try and use what I access to and the resources that I had, which was really leaning into me as an actor. And so I was just trying to ask everybody, one of the things I had learned before I became an actor when I left college was ask people questions, say thank you, write a thank you, not stay in contact with them and then learn from that and get the new relationships. So I just started asking questions and I got a lot of nos. And the main thing that I was hearing, the main three things I was hearing was why you, you're an actor, what do you know about hair? You should partner with a professional. And the third was why do we need more products on the shelf? And I had all those answers to those questions, but I didn't know how to articulate those answers in a way that people could understand it. So it was why me because like so many others, I had become my own best expert because I was um uh a shopper and a beauty person in an industry that was not catering to the curly and type textured community. Um I didn't want to partner with an expert or a professional because I felt so many, I had become my own best expert in my bathroom because it was an industry that didn't, the beauty industry was not catering to us. And I um and why these products, why did we need more products on the shelf because there weren't products that were actually matching and suiting my hair texture. Um And so the journey began with a lot of, I'll just tell you, I won't tell you all the nos but some of the fun ones, one woman read the hair care brand pitch, who was my manager at the time, obviously, an acting manager doesn't know the beauty industry and she was like, I read it. It's amazing. We should do a line of wigs and I was like, I think you missed the point. Another person was like, I read it. It's amazing. We should do a hair TV show. And I was like, I am asking the wrong people. These people do not know what they're talking about. Um Ended up going through many other journeys um Before I found my operational partners and I call them my operational partners, my business partners. But I say that because I am the majority owner of the company, I have full creative control and the vision is mine. Um But I do not know how to run a beauty business. So I have a lot of business acumen but don't know how to do that. So I found partners before I found my partners, I actually decided that what I needed to do was find a chemist on my own that I had the brand pitch and everything that was in my pitch is actually what was in our launch. Um The skews that we had there were in our launch, which was four conditioners, a hydrating shampoo that was not going to strip your hair. I'm not going to go into detail. We only have a little bit of time. Um But um so I found, I wanted to find a chemist that I could speak to directly, that I really could start to explain because part of what I was finding in the industry was that I could either use formulas that existed or I could sort of give that part over. And the whole point was that the formulas don't exist. And so I needed to actually build the goop from scratch. So I found um a chemist that was in Los Angeles that I could speak to face to face and then um ended up meeting with retail partners with a little bit of group that I had and my brand pitch and ended up with retail partners before I found my business partners. And so 11 years, 75 samples patterns on shows 2019 I, that was a really speedy version. No, we love it. Um You talked about kind of figuring out the best way to articulate the opportunities you saw here we have a lot of founders in the room doing that for their own businesses all the time, figuring out how to pitch to investors. Yes. How did you do that? How did you figure out how to communicate the ideas you had? Um a lot of it came from the nos that I received. So when I would receive a no, I would usually take the hit, I would get very disappointed. Um And I would take the hit and then when I was ready, I would ask myself the question of, did I agree with the no? And what was in the know? So was the no something I agreed with that? Yes, there was no reason for me to create products on the shelves or why you or any of those things or was it that I hadn't articulated what I was? The effectiveness? Was I not effective in articulating what I meant? What that led me to by the time I went to my, the retail partner meetings is I had a hair Bible that really ended up being the road map for what has become pattern. And my vision, I can now articulate that for you guys. And what I would say to other founders and entrepreneurs as they're starting a business is the brand DNA for pattern is based on four things. It's based on number one, not sales, but the love of humanity. And our mission was born out of that. So it's meeting actual, an actual need. It's to exceed the needs of the curly cole texture community. And our content is focused around and centered around the celebration of black beauty. So our mission combined with our promise, the visual language of the brand, which is incredibly important because that's how I think you give evidence to your customer that you love them, believe in them and know who they are. And then the purpose of the brand, which is tied into our mission. And those four things are what to me makes that pattern. And I mean, I can go into detail on all those things. I wouldn't, but I think as a, as a founder, it's incredibly important to name what your promise is. What are you promising your customers and the mission of what exactly you are wanting to give them and what that is and why and then have purpose and combine it to that and then see if you can articulate in language, what you want your brand narrative to look like visually because I think those are the things that are markers and create a continuity of language with your customer. Yeah, thank you. Um I'll come to everyone for questions in a moment. So if you have any, I know I'm so, so it's great. Um You know, celebrity beauty is a crowded space. And even just yesterday, Beyonce hinted that she might be entering in hair category as well. We don't know for sure we don't. But, you know, she might be making salons. Anything is possible. Yeah, it's Beyonce. But how do you stand out and achieve longevity as a brand that's tied to a celebrity? Well, I think the key is that we're not a celebrity brand. Um, I am a CEO and founder and so I can tell you what I think the keys are for a successful brand, which I think is a lot of what I just stated, it's really knowing your customer. I think it's being hands on really being deliberate, specific and intentional about your language and what you're stating. You know, one of the things that is really important to me at pattern is that we name what we want, not what isn't. So we're always leaning towards that and that gives us a road map to where we want to go. I think that knowing the industry is incredibly important in doing your work, I think, you know, the difference to me and a lot of celebrity brands. And I think where that term comes from is yes, there's a celebrity, but often they are not. I'm a majority owner of my company. Um They aren't the founders of the company. Often they join a company that exists. The mission is born out of my experience. It's born out of my own experiential knowledge and like any other founder, it's um I, I am a celebrity but that's not the way I am at pattern, but I will say that I do use the um my notoriety in the industry to continue to open doors. Um And because I know that that gives me a particular kind of seat or access. And so I make sure that the access that I have is used not just for me and opening up the space for others, like maybe even Beyonce, she's like, oh patterns doing well, maybe I should get in that business. Is there an example of the time you've done that successfully that you think that who you are helped pattern grow? I think it's how I helped pattern grow. Yes, but I think it's less about that. It's more that in particular, for example, with my retail partners, there have been moments when I know that I have access to sit at a table with a CEO in a way that perhaps another founder doesn't. And when I do that, I make sure that those conversations are not only centered around pattern, they're centered around creating and expanding the access for all of us and making sure that shelf space is whether it's the pipeline or shelf space or the diversity and equity within the company is, is looked at in a particular way and that I'm willing to have those conversations even if they're uncomfortable and I have quite a few of them. Have you seen change over the past four years? I have, I think the biggest thing that I've seen is a willingness. I think a lot of people don't know what they want to do. But, you know, I have to give a shout out to Mary Dylan, who was the former CEO of, um Ulta and is now at Foot Locker. She was somebody who from the beginning before Pattern launched, I had a very close relationship with her because of all the things that were happening and I picked up the phone and called her with some difficulties that were occurring in terms of the relationship or what whatever was happening. And as a result, she got to have a first, a front seat to me as a founder and a CEO. And she saw in me something that I didn't know existed in terms of being a business person. And she was the one that appointed me as the diversity equity inclusion advisor for ALTA. And because of her, I have had a seat at many tables. I have had access to speaking with other ceos of large companies and really talking about what my personal experience with Pattern has been, but also how the industry has a blind spot and a gap in certain areas and what those gaps are. And sometimes they're as simple as the wash cycle for a black customer is different than another. And so the re upping on supply and how you purchase for regularity is different, many of those different kinds of things and knowing the customers. So those are some of the conversations that have happened around that I had access to because of pattern but have become a larger conversation because it is one of my missions to really change the myth that black hair care is a niche market. I completely disagree. And there's data to support that the black consumer has a spending power of 1.2 trillion at the moment by 2024 it's supposed to be 1.8 trillion and hair products alone is 2.22 point 29 billion. So this is this is a demographic, a vast demographic of people that is underserved and not understood in the right way. And that is my personal experience for pattern. But for any founders that are out there, it's incredibly important for you to really understand the data and merge that with your own experience, merge that with your promise and make sure that you understand the landscape that you're trying to enter so that you can really be informed and effective in getting where you want to go. How much of that market do you think pattern can capture? I hope it captures all of it every single 2.29 billion. And that is with A B. Um Did we have any questions for Tracy? I think one in the back right there. Hi. Hi, my name is Keisha. I'm from Atlanta was gonna say this last night and I'm gonna say it. So I have naturally gray hair. I use your products and if you are interested in a gray haired ambassador for the brand, I'm your girl. I love it just so you know, I also have gray hair. I just color it the curl gel. Oh, really? Your hair looks beautiful. Thank you very much. That was your question. My God. I thought there was going to be an entrepreneurial question. Yeah. One right there, Shay fellow, curly haired girl. Hello, curly. Um I'm curious what's next for pattern? And you know, I think Emma either you or Tracy mentioned salons. Uh I live in New York and you might know that the salon shut down. I didn't know that. And so there's actually very few places in New York that you can go to get your hair cut. Oh, really? I think that's not just New York. Yeah. Yeah. Like even in a city as large and diverse that that market is that under served? So curious if you know, as you think about all the different ways that you could solve our problems, uh meet your needs. I don't think you have problems. We are here to meet your needs and exceed them. You have your problems. Your hair is beautiful. Thank you. Uh Yeah. So just curious to what's next? If that's additional product lines, tools, salons, like where do you see pattern going? Well, I think this is a vast community and there are many, many needs like the one that you mentioned. So I think the sky is the limit in terms of what pattern will continue to offer. There are many things in the pipeline but I will not speak on those. Maybe I should just do a nefarious Instagram post. But, but I do love this idea and I agree with you. It's incredibly difficult. The the hair cut for a curly and my favorite thing is people showing these haircuts online where they got their hair curly. I'm like, oh my God, when you wash your hair, it's gonna be a nightmare. I'm like so frightened for you. It looks good right now and wait till you're in different level of humidity. Oh my God. Um So I agree. There's a lot of needs. There's a lot of spaces. We just launched the blow dryer, which has been extremely successful and was incredibly exciting for me because that was part of my original dream for the brand to create a blow dryer and to reintroduce heat into this community in a way that it's not going to be damaging for the hair. And we created a for the curly coy tight texture community blow dryer. That's not only beautiful but also selling out. Um And I think there's a lot more to explore in all of those areas. Do we have one more back there? I don't think so. Oh, well, maybe. No, no more questions. I see. There's one up front if we can get up here. Um, we might be able to hear you and give you just the, yeah, we have the live stream as well. I'll write that. Hi, Tiana. Curly girl. I see you. Would you mind standing up? You wanna stand up? Oh, sure. So, my, um, my battle is humidity, obviously, but it's also retention. Are you curl, retention, hydration, retention. Yes. Ok. All of the above. Exactly. Um, and sometimes certain um so I'm from Florida. Certain products work for the first day and then they say they don't work. Yeah. Later on one of the things is making sure you're looking for alcohol. You don't, you don't want alcohol in the product. Um because that will happen. One of the things that is at the core of patterns, um philosophy and effectiveness is hydration, hydration, hydration, hydration and, and you want lasting hydration and depending on the porosity of your hair, there will be a difference in how long you maintain that um moisture and hydration in your hair. So um number one, I would say try our product. Number two, you have them. OK, I have them. Yeah. And I would also say don't be afraid of humidity for me, that's how you create volume. And I also think that Frizz is really sexy. I think there's a big myth around Frizz. I have a lot of frizz going on right now. I think it's very sexy. So, um so I think embrace that. But um there is a product that we have that's down the line in the pipeline that will help you um maintain that moisture for more days. Thank you. And thank you. What about growth? Growth? Well, we have in our treatment collection, first of all, oiling your scalp and making sure that your scalp is clean is incredibly important. So you wanna make sure that the, the root of your hair stays clean. So that, that cuticle, the the the hair can follicle, that's what I'm looking for can come out. Um But we have the treatment collection. So there's the transition mask, but also the treatment mask, which it sounds like it looks like you don't do a lot of heat on your hair. So I would say the treatment mask is probably for you and use that for a good 20 minutes before you shampoo, use the hydration shampoo and then maybe the intensive conditioner just saying these are great tips. Thank you. Um We've heard about a couple of people's relationship with their hair. We can end. I'd love to hear about your relationship with your hair, maybe growing up in your career and how a launching pattern has changed it. If at all, I think it's actually deepened my relationship with my hair. I think you could chronicle my journey of self acceptance through my journey with my hair. I had to come to know my hair, um meet my hair where it was and then learn to love it and then how to be with it. And then I realized my hair could honestly do anything. If it was in good condition, I can put heat on it. I can wear it straight. I can wear it slicked back, I can wear it curly. I can do all the different things with my hair. I think what's happened now is there's no such thing as a bad hair day because I have the products that actually work and support my hair. Um I actually have products that can meet me in any bad situation. Like when there's been someone does my hair and there's too much heat on it or whatever that might be. But mostly I think it's that I now have a genuine um loving relationship with my hair that it just, you know, there's never a bad hair day. It just kind of is what it is. That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Nichole Hoskins, Global Head of People, NeuroLeadership Institute
Neela Rajendra, Chief Inclusion Officer, Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Moderator: Holly Ojalvo, Managing Editor, FORTUNE

MPW Next Gen 2023 - State Of The Workforce 

Nichole Hoskins, Global Head of People, NeuroLeadership Institute
Neela Rajendra, Chief Inclusion Officer, Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory

We are going to hear from former I B M, Ceo Jenny Rotti founder, Ceo and Chief investment Officer of a investment management, Kay Wood Only Fan, Ceo Amer Polygon and Pattern Beauty founder and Ceo Tracy Ellis Ross, just to name a few lots more to come. Um Just a very, very quick reminder of our policy. What's said on stage during breakouts is on the record. We do have fortune reporters reporting on these conversations, but whatever is said over one of the breaks on a walk over a drink, um obviously is private unless otherwise agreed upon. Ok, let's get down to business here. According to website layoffs dot F Y I, more than 190,000 tech workers have been laid off in 2023 we are just five months into the year. What does this mean for workplace culture? How are managers supporting teams through all of these uncertainties and scary times? We're thrilled to be joined today by Nila Rajendra, Chief Inclusion Inclusion Officer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Nicole Hoskins Global head of people at the Neuro Leadership Institute. They're going to be interviewed by Fortunes managing editor AVO and we're thrilled to have them start off our day. Good morning. Before we get started. I'm curious about some of you in the audience today. How many of you by a show of hands are actively involved in fostering positive culture as a core part of your job, as part of your job description. It's a lot of people in this room and now I'm curious if we'll have even more people want to ask this question. How many of you do this work organically? Just by gravitating to it. Show of hands that I think that might be all of us to. I don't know if I saw anyone who didn't raise their hand, which is fascinating. So I'm sure you will all have questions for our panelists. So think about those in the back of your mind as we talk and we'll go to audience questions soon. But first, Nicole, I'd love to start with you. Many workers are burned out uncertain, especially in mid layoffs and stressed out the big secret is. So, are managers and leaders? What would you advise your counterparts and other companies to do to foster a positive and trusting work environment, especially amid challenges like layoffs, attrition and slash budgets. Um Thanks for the question. I'm, I'm actually not sure if it's a secret that enough that everybody's feeling a little bit burned out. Um And to that point, I think I would encourage my counterparts to remember how important empathy is um and to be uh leading with empathy thinking about how um teams are feeling stretched. Um How can we be reallocating resources to make sure that they have the support that they need, especially in a time when we are asked to do a little bit more with less, more, do more with less. Um How can we be creative about making sure people have support? Um So that's, that's what I would first recommend. I love that. Yeah, Nela, last year, NASA unveiled a comprehensive D E I plan internal strategy plus a framework for other organizations to use. How have you been executing on this plan at NASA JP L? And what can other organizations learn from what you're doing? Yeah. So uh first of we actually just unveiled it in February. So just a couple of months into the roll out. Um and it's a, a diversity equity inclusion and accessibility plan and that was really intentional. Uh And, you know, the first piece that I would say is really important to making sure that a document like that is a living organism that is adaptable. Um That's not just sitting on a shelf. Um is, you know, there's a lot of ground work that needs to be done in advance of the rollout. So, stakeholder buy in shared visioning, um you know, so making sure all those pieces are in place first, you have the buy in before you roll it out. Second is making it really tangible. So, one of the things that we did at JPL was we created a manager's tool kit that we rolled out at the same time, that was a companion to the strategic plan. And these are evidence based research backed actionable bite size steps that are manageable, that are employable, that align with the strategic plan. What's one example of that? Uh Yeah, so one is um just about uh how do you develop uh a diverse candidate pool? And what are the steps that you need to have to um make sure that you're creating an inclusive and diverse selection panel? Um So it would be one example. Um Another example is around creating cultivating psychological safety. So, um you know, at the top of every meeting, there's really great research from Cathy Phillips around creating, inviting us to be our authentic selves in a way that's inclusive of underrepresented groups. And so being intentional about the questions that you ask to create social connection. Um So, rather than kind of relying on informal dialogue of like, oh, hey, what did everybody do this weekend being a little bit more intentional about the questions that you ask, so that you're inclusive of people who maybe don't feel like they are part of that mainstream culture. That makes so much sense. And that really takes us to the next thing I wanted to ask both of you, which is that there has been a lot of talk about culture and D E I recently. What's something concrete that you've done or seen? This is for both of you that you've done or seen in the past year that actually moved the workplace culture needle and actually made a real difference. Nicole. Uh Yeah, I think um what makes a difference is first establishing sort of a baseline understanding where your organization is um on that the E I journey and not just sort of um introducing interventions or initiatives without understanding exactly where you are, um where there are gap areas and then developing a strategic plan that's going to address those areas. I think that's what's gonna move the needle forward or that's what I've seen, move the needle, um move the needle in what way? Like what's a concrete example of something that's changed? So being able to um embed your commitment to diversity in your systems, your practices, your policies, are we holding people accountable through the way that we evaluate their performance? Are we asking them to demonstrate certain behaviors? And have we explained clearly what those behaviors are? Have we been very um deliberate about explaining how we expect people to behave what our expectations are from an inclusion standpoint? And then um making sure that we're holding people accountable when they don't demonstrate those behaviors. Wow, it is very powerful, Lela Yeah, just to add to that. So we, so in addition to having just rolled out our dia strategic plan. Our new lab director who is the first female lab director for JPL, which is super exciting is about to roll out her strategic initiatives for the next three years. And I'm really excited to say that one of the elements in workforce is the strategic plan for DEA but embedded in that is the requirement of inclusion being a metric for selection, evaluation and advancement of our managers and leaders and holding them accountable and having consequences for not delivering on those on that value is really critical for the consequences. We're still figuring that out. So curious. Yeah, but I think, you know, before, but uh um what when, as we're rolling this out, you know, giving leaders the tools of what, what do we mean by inclusive behaviors, defining that for them being clear about it and then giving them the guidelines, they need to be able to exhibit those behaviors. And then I think the consequence is, you know, it comes down to salary, you know, it, how does it have an impact on your, on your conversation with your manager about your, you know, your, your raise in the next year? Your performance, right? Evaluation, your raise, your raise is lower or what have you, you get a different target. Yeah. Fascinating. OK. Um We already are talking so much um and giving so much substance. I wanted to see if anyone already is ready with a question and if so I'd love to start hearing from the audience. I know it's early, it's the first session of the day and on the main stage. But if people have questions so far for or uh something to add to our Panelist, happy to go to the audience. Wonderful. Hi, Darcy Forrest. Um I'm wondering if you have um if you're building into the culture, just how are you educating on D E I? Uh So I love hearing about it in terms of your performance. But are there programs? How are you just educating the general workforce about D E I and A? That's a great question. Yeah. So prior to me joining JPL, JPL had already had a pretty robust set of trainings that were opt in around bystander training, inclusive leadership and a ally ships, practicing ally ship, which are all really great trainings. Uh What I'm doing as a part of the roll out of strategy is for any we call them division leaders. So division managers who manage, you know, several 100 people and have multiple leaders underneath them, any of them who are raising their hand and saying we want to learn more. We want to really embed this in our work. I'm actually, I'm designing uh essentially a package of learnings for them that's tailored to their organizational need. Given the fact that JPL is so decentralized and has so many different kinds of leaders and people from both business as well as technical. I felt like it was really important to create that sort of customized learning experience. So I'm taking a package of research, insights, making them practical and actionable and tied to the strategic plan. Um and then facilitating dialogues with them um about how do they apply this to their own organizational setting? How big is JP L? Tell everybody about almost 7000 people and how many of those are managers? Roughly about 808 100 That's a lot of people to roll out, right? Learning and make sure people are. But I'm going with the I, uh I have a mentor of mine um in this space and she always says in this work, you have to go where the doors are open. So I'm going first with the people who are raising their hand and saying we want to be first in line for this, let us be your guinea pigs. I love them and then they can help spread and, and exact each other people. Nicole. How about you? Same question. Uh I have the, the benefit of, of working at N L I where we've been able to develop a lot of our own uh you know, IP around um best practices as it relates to um you know, diversity and inclusion. So um we've made that all available to our employees, but in addition to that, we're redesigning our own internal um uh D E I strategy so that we can add some additional resources for them in terms of training as well. And do you have an example of resources or training um in terms of, of, of how we would share those out? Um So training around ally around decision making and mitigating bias in decision making around how to demonstrate inclusive behaviors on a day to day basis, just daily acts of inclusion. Um So we're talking about all those things. I love that. Yeah. So um just to take a little, a little different tack for a moment, representation matters. I'm sure everyone here can agree for both of you. What is a favorite program or event at your organization that has highlighted the contributions by people of an underrepresented demographic go? Um I'm really excited to say that um after uh President Biden, you know, May Juneteenth, a national holiday. JP L took that as a um as a beacon to um institutionalize that it through an event that we launched last year um in partnership with our Black employee resource group. And in our first um inaugural event, you know, we, we brought in um oh L A uh uh an L A restaurateur um who's Black to provide a meal for all of our, we call them communities of inclusion, all of our employee resource groups. Um And then we had an event where we had speakers from the community. We had an artist in residence who did um uh like a living um art installation in on our mall um lab leadership spoke and we closed the event with everyone doing the electric slide, including the director. Um I hope you have a video of this. We do. It was amazing. Um um And that really, actually, and then, you know, um several months later, we even did um when we finally got paid parental leave as part of our benefits package, uh We uh our new lab director um helped us host a dance party on dancing at that is one of my take away from this channel. You can really dance it that a lot of dancing. I love that Nicole. Do you have an example of how you've worked on um elevating under represented groups at your organization? I certainly can't um compete with dancing and, and uh the painting in the mall U F S. Yeah. Um You know, fortunately we have a fairly diverse workforce at N L I. Um and we're always working toward making sure that underrepresented voices are um elevated. And so, um you know, regularly, we invite members of our own team to speak uh during our weekly podcast. And um so we just recently did one that I was a part of on intersectionality and impostor syndrome and that was at the tail end of Women's History Month. And so we, we try to do that on a very regular basis. So I would, I would say that's probably my favorite, but um I'm, we're looking for more opportunities to do more things like that. I love that. Yeah, I just wanted to see if there was another burning question in the audience. I see there are a few hands right here. You just introduce yourself and ask your questions. Good morning. I'm Sherry hick from climate impact partners. One of the things our team is really pushing us to is put our money where our mouth is meaning like what targets are we setting and what are we willing to communicate externally? And I just wondered, how have you thought about that? And I think we all know some of this data is even challenging. How do we think about measuring D E? And I, and I'd love to hear what you're doing and, and where you think the opportunities are for us to lead. Thank you. Um, when you say, uh, measuring targets, you mean in terms of uh, targets for D E I, how are you measuring? Yeah. So I think the, uh, the initial assessment for that is so important, important because, um, you will set your targets based on, um, what's in the organization, right? What voices are currently underrepresented or have you identified where there are areas that, um, there are voices that are missing. And so you'll set your targets against that. Um And then in terms of what you're willing to communicate, being, being prepared to communicate regularly and often about your progress against the E I is going to keep you accountable to making sure that you're working towards those targets. So just, you know, being open about it is going to be part of the, the strategic plan. Yeah, so at JPL, what we did was we first started, we took a hard look at our historical data to really understand where those gaps were and evaluated that against the potential workforce population. So, you know, where is their opportunity, opportunity, where are we missing the mark and then that really guided our both our strategic goals as well as our strategic strategic priorities. So we've been, we're being really laser focused. So we're specifically saying that in the next year, we want to focus on increasing the number of uh increasing the number and retaining, increasing, sorry, increasing our hires and re and tension of Black engineers, uh increasing the number of women in senior technical leadership roles. Um And then additionally, um increasing psychological safety in our teams. So, um so we're, and so we're working on building out those metrics for our leaders and managers so that they can have their own dashboard to really see what their progress is against their peers, love using the data. We have another question here. Hi, I'm Stephanie Lewis. Um from her campus media, I was curious how you think about calling out certain work initiatives, things that you're doing as kind of our D E I work our D E I initiative, you know, this D E I workshop, we're hosting versus feeling like, you know, D E I are core values of us as a company and they're embedded in everything that we do. I think we're kind of trying to figure out at first in the last few years, it was, here's our D E I and here's what we're doing. And now we're starting to feel like if this is our D E I work, is this our non D E I work should just everything have D E I embedded and, and how you strike that balance. Yes. So, so briefly, go ahead. Yes, everything should have the E I embedded, right? It should just be part of the ways of working of the organization. So maybe initially when you're not, when you're just sort of um beginning that D E I journey and you're trying to get people aligned to what your goals are and understanding what the, what the behaviors are that you're expecting. Then you can say this is how we're, we're measuring, this is our D E I strategy. Um But ultimately, you want that to be just woven through all of your ways of working. I think, you know, a final word briefly. Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's about um getting that buy in and commitment from the top. Who, who can say uh unequivocally that this is a, this is a commitment and this is critical to the success of our organization. And then, and that gives you the mandate to really embed the strategy um into the business. Perfect. Thank you so much, both of you for those wonderful insights. There was so much more. I hope we was hoping to get to, but um it was such a rich conversation as it was so. Thank you so much.

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