Name: Synchrony Financial CEO: Want Women CEOs? Develop Female Leaders First
Uploaded: 2018-08-08
Duration: 4 min 45 s
Description: To see change at the top, Margaret Keane says, start lower.

[ MUSIC ] Margaret, you're one of the few female CEOs on the Fortune 500. There are only 24 of you on that list, and you've told me that you feel it is your responsibility to bring more women into leadership positions. How are you going about doing that? I am one that has made it, so I want people in my company, particularly women to feel like they have the ability to achieve So one of the things we've done and worked really hard at is making sure we're developing women throughout the company. We started with our board to make sure we had a really diverse board. And then we have programs that we're working on to develop women mid- level and even entry- level women. To try to get them into a bigger job. So we've had great success. We measure our teams. Around diversity in general, including women, and I can say that last year 60 % of the people who were promoted inside the company were diverse. You have a very inspiring story of how you ended up to be the CEO of Syncriny. Daughter of a New York City cop. First one in your family to go to college. You started working the phones at a call center. And worked your way up to the C suite. How do you use this story to mentor young women, and also men. I think sometimes people feel like you have to grow up and have the certain pedigree to make or be a CEO, and I think what I've been able to tell people my story is a lot around hard work, tenacity And the ability to really break through. And when I do go out, I know that they look at me as a possible role model for them. So I'm pretty clear on telling people you really can aspire on being who you wanna be. It takes our work. You told me that you often were surprised and frustrated when some women were offered a leadership job and then turned it down because they had doubts about their readiness or they were fearful Given this whole # MeToo movement, do you see that there's been a change that's come about that's empowered more women? I still think women are still second guessing themselves. It's something that I think we all have to continue to make sure we're encouraging them to really go that next step. I think the positive of the # MeToo movement is it is giving women voice. I think Women are coming out and speaking more openly. In one way, it's a shame we have to have Me Too, but in a really positive way I think the fact that women are speaking up and speaking out is really, really going to be empowering. We're seeing the rise of these. A so- called activist, CEOs who are speaking up on, you know, gender, racial diversity, immigration, there's a whole slew of politicized issues. How do you feel about getting engaged on some of these issues and do you think that moral leadership is now a job requirement for you as CEO? Well I think, being a thoughtful and caring and respectful leader is something we should all be. I can't fix everything that's happening in the outside world, but I can certainly control what's happening in our company. And the thing that I want to make sure everyone feels is they can be their authentic self They can come to work, they can share where they're going through. And we're gonna be a caring family organization that's gonna nurture our employees to be the best that they possibly can be. So is that why you went to Charlotte at the time when there was that huge debate about the The bathroom law and then the subsequent police shooting. Is that why you went down there? I think the number one thing I wanted to accomplish is to let the employees know I recognize that there are challenges that they're facing. And I think if you look at what Starbucks just did in the videos that they produced, which talked a little bit about what people think about when they walk- who are diverse Who walk out at their house and while they're going in their workplace. And I sent those videos out to my team and I said, we can create the greatest workplace internally, but people are dealing with these issues as a common work, and we can't forget that, and we have to make sure that when they get to our office in our company we're really thinking about the challenges they face outside of the company. Mm- hm, this whole area of CEOs Speaking up or taking a stand on some of these social and political problems is really new. Is there anyone that you see any CEO who you think is a role model, someone that other CEOs can learn from him or her about how to do the right thing? Well, I actually follow Tim Cocker on twitter and I do think and I know he's the speaker tonight. I am a, I think he's a CEO who's really speaking out. I think Starbucks, Howard Schultz what he just did with the challenges that they faced. I think they face right into the challenges and took a really high and important road and opened up a dialogue that I think we all need to continue to have. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Synchrony Financial CEO: Want Women CEOs? Develop Female Leaders First

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To see change at the top, Margaret Keane says, start lower.