132 - Empowering Women in Research with Michelle Andre & Jessica Sage from WIRe

Karen: 00:00:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Greenbook Podcast. It’s Karen Lynch today. I’m so happy to be hosting this episode with actually two women that I am so fond of and have known for some time now. I have both Michelle Andre and Jessica Sage on this call with you today, folks. We’re going to be talking about Women in Research, the WIRe organization, which is an organization that is near and dear to my heart as well. So I’m happy to be giving them a spotlight for a little bit. So, first and foremost, ladies, welcome to the podcast.

Jessica: 00:00:40

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Michelle: 00:00:42

Thanks so much, Karen.

Karen: 00:00:43

It’s our pleasure. I want to make sure that you both introduce yourselves and your roles at WIRe, and then we’ll move into the conversation about WIRe. But Jessica, why don’t you go ahead and get started? Tell our listeners a little bit about you and your role at WIRe.

Jessica: 00:00:56

Yeah, so I’m the marketing director here at WIRe. I think I’m coming up on my seventh or eighth year with WIRe. I mean, even saying the marketing director, we’re such a small team. We all wear a lot of hats. So I get to work with all of our global volunteers when we put together our events around the world. I get to help a little bit with planning our WIRexec events. I get to help support our sponsors and our donors. So it’s just a really fun, varied role with the whole, larger WIRe community.

Karen: 00:01:25

Yeah, yeah. It’s funny, like, as soon as you said your title, I was like, “Oh, is that really your title?”

Jessica: 00:01:29

Yeah [laugh].

Karen: 00:01:30

Because I’m like [laugh]… I’m like, I really think she does—she, like spans, all of the events. But anyway, I’m so glad you’re here, Jessica. And Michelle, it’s funny because I also—you know, a little sidebar. I have a separate relationship with Michelle based on some work we did together at a previous company of mine. But tell them, our listeners, a little bit about yourself and your role here at WIRe.

Michelle: 00:01:50

Sure. I’m Michelle Andre. I’m the managing director at WIRe. I think I’m going into my eighth year, next year of doing this role. But I’ve been involved with WIRe in various capacities for more than 13 years. I always use my daughter’s age to figure out how long.

Karen: 00:02:06

Nice track that. Excellent, excellent [laugh].

Michelle: 00:02:08

Yeah. I have a few programs that I really dear—near and dear to my heart. One of them is our WIRexec program that I just really think is an amazing program. And my favorite, which is kicking off this month for 2025, is our mentoring, our one-to-one mentoring program. That’s something that I love to work on and shepherd. I work closely with our board of directors and our corporate donors. And like Jessica said, we just jump in wherever is needed. There is a lot of things going on all the time, and so we’ve got to, you know, just jump in on all of our different programs and keep things going all over the world.

Karen: 00:02:46

I love it. I love it. So let’s take a step back because I—you know, spoiler alert, audience. We will be talking about some of those programs specifically, and I’m quite familiar with many of them myself, as a member of WIRexec and a WIRe mentor myself. So I’ll be bringing some of that experience to the show too. But let’s just take a step back. I imagine most women in the industry have heard of WIRe, but I was recently talking to a woman who is in the insights industry but had never heard of WIRe before, which is because the way she—you know, or the way she operates, she had not come to an IIEX event, hadn’t been to a Quirks event. So she really didn’t know about WIRe. She wasn’t in that world yet. So there will be listeners who don’t know about the organization. So let’s take a step back. Tell us a little bit about the org, starting with the history and kind of the mission—and either one of you can share.

Michelle: 00:03:35

Yeah, I’ll jump in. WIRe was started—I think we’re 18 years ago this year—down in Los Angeles where our founder, Kristin Luck, was living and working. She was in the market research industry, felt like there wasn’t a support network among women or a growth trajectory for women, and so she organized some informal networking events down in Los Angeles and those just snowballed. And so, shortly after Los Angeles, I believe our next city that we expanded to was New York, then London, then we were—we went down to Australia, and from there we just added a bunch of cities where we have bi-yearly city events. And so that’s how we first started was just with these networking events. And since then, we’ve grown to include a number of different educational and career development programs that we’ll talk about during this call.

Karen: 00:04:31

Yeah. Yeah, very cool. You know, I think it’s interesting, and I’m—one of the things I liked about some of these events. I haven’t gone to, I think, a New York City event before even finding the current events, which are often linked to an industry-wide event. Right? So very often you’ll have one of these events adjacent to or the night before an industry kickoff or whatever. But networking for women isn’t something that women have spent a lot of focus on, kind of historically. So what do you think it is? What was your sort of secret sauce, right, for putting together networking events specifically for women, when there are other networking events out there? Like, just talk to me a little bit about that glow, that mission of bringing people together.

Michelle: 00:05:16

Yeah, I mean, we developed our mission, which is, you know, to arm women with the tools they need to develop professionally and to build connections and to stay inspired in their careers. I think just having that network to bolster you in your career journey—I’m just going to pivot just for a second and talk about some of the research that WIRe does. Every five years, we do a gender and career advancement study about women and other diverse groups in the industry. So the first time we did that was 15 years ago, so not too long after we started. And that kind of showed us that women were entering our field in market research, but then they were kind of hitting middle management and not going any further. And so we had a very male-dominated C suite, but a lot of women starting out in our career. And we’re like, “Hmm… you know, what’s going on here?” And so that’s when we started developing the programming to get over that hump. And I think it just was kind of data that showed us that, you know, women weren’t being supported in the way that they needed in our particular industry, and so we were filling a need that was in our field.

Karen: 00:06:26

That’s awesome. And, you know, it’s so funny, I knew this would happen, ladies, by the way, is that our conversation would just go. Because one of the resources you have is your WIRe Accelerate program. And, you know, having gone through that program myself, there is one point when you get in there and you’re like, “Oh, there’s some serious stuff happening here,” that does happen at that level. Things like, you know, the looking at financial spreadsheets and talking about OKRs and things that do happen at a managerial level that you really have to know if you are going to climb and accelerate your career. So that’s another great resource, by the way, so that particular program. So, you know, let’s get into some more of that because that research is really interesting. But I really want to do—I do want to talk about some of those resources. So you tell me. We can start by talking about, you know, the WIRexec program. We can talk about the mentoring program. We can sidebar into Accelerate because I just brought it up [laugh]. Like, where do you want to begin? I think the resources are fantastic.

Michelle: 00:07:21

I think Accelerate is a good place to start since we’ve already started talking about it. Jessica, if you want to jump in on that.

Jessica: 00:07:27

Yeah. So the WIRe Accelerate program, I think it’s now three years old, and it actually was born out of the WIRexec program. So many of our executive women met at one of our summits and had this conversation around “what do I wish I had known when I first started out my career? Is there some way that I could hand this information down to women that are going through this process in this career journey right now so that they have a little bit of an easier time?” And so we were really able to capture all that wisdom. It’s this really incredible, diverse group of women-instructors, you know, from everywhere, from financial topics to personal development topics to leadership topics. You know, it’s just a really well-rounded program, and it also puts you into contact with other people that are going through the program, so you can still have that networking element as well. But it’s all at your own pace. We really wanted to be thoughtful about the fact that women don’t always have as much bandwidth as some other folks when it comes to being able to invest in their own professional development. And I don’t know, it’s just really taken off. I think we’re over 900 students at this point and probably growing every day. And we added—

Karen: 00:08:45

Yeah.

Jessica: 00:08:45

—in the last year, a mini program that’s accompaniment for folks that are newer in their career, so really early stage.

Karen: 00:08:52

Yeah. Beautiful. You know, and like I said, I appreciated it myself. And, you know, some of it—some of it I, you know, knew and felt like, yes, I have learned this. My careers have been a little bit longer as you [laugh] as you both know. And yet, some of it also felt new to me. So I appreciated that about it, too. You did mention, Jessica, the WIRexec program. And I know that’s, you know, one of the programs that Michelle was saying she has a sweet spot for. So, yeah, let’s talk a little bit about that. Tell us what that is and then what that kind of does for women at that level.

Michelle: 00:09:22

I love this program because any of us who have climbed the corporate ladder, you, like, work all these years to get there, and then you get there and then you’re kind of like, “Oh, I’m like in a silo, and I’ve lost my support network or it’s not as strong as it used to be.” And so I feel like this particular program really fulfills that need of connecting executive women. So in the program, we’ve got corporate senior research executives from the brand side, and then supplier and agency senior vice president, C suite members, business founders. There’s a lot of commonality there, where people can share their challenges from that position in our industry, find solutions together, support each other. One of the great things about the program is we have a summit, kind of a retreat, a leadership summit: one in the US Each year in—usually in May; and one over in Europe each year, usually in October. Our one in Europe is coming up this coming up October in Barcelona. So it’s just a place for two days, two, three days of deep growth, both professionally and personally, for WIRexec members. And then May is coming up here in the US in Charleston. So it’s just a great way for executive women to come together. The cool part about the summits, too, is we have something called the C track for rising stars who are making their way toward the C team or senior roles. And so we have spots set aside for them to come and join us at these events, which is wonderful.

Karen: 00:11:01

Yeah. You know, one of the things that’s cool about the community, the Slack—you know, so there’s a Slack community where WIRexec women meet kind of virtually. Right? And there’s different channels and threads and conversations happening all the time. But one of the things I’ve noticed about it is debunking a myth that women aren’t necessarily supportive of other women in the workplace because it is one of the most supportive places. Like, if somebody wants to share news, there is always celebration for it, or if somebody, you know, shares a need that they have or a request that they have, there’s always somebody who wants to help answer or problem solve. It’s a very supportive place. So women supporting women is something that, I don’t know, maybe—maybe you’ve heard this as well, where women always—don’t always feel supported by other women, but your organization is tackling that. Can you tell me more about that? Have you heard that, seen that, witnessed it yourselves?

Michelle: 00:11:51

I have to dial back a few years to remember that, I think. When I first started getting involved in WIRe 12 or 13 years ago, I remember just being, wow, there’s a lot of competition going on, you know, where women weren’t supporting other women. And I really feel like WIRe has made a difference in that attitude in the industry because, I would say—and it might just be me because I’m so involved with WIRe now, but I don’t see that as much. It has really made, I feel, like an energetic shift in the way that women in market research work together. Maybe it’s just our networking events. Maybe it’s the programming. Maybe it’s just the feeling that you get from actually collaborating instead of being competitive with each other.

Jessica: 00:12:37

Yeah, I would just add to that that WIRe is kind of this great built-in friend group everywhere you go. Every time I go to a conference, there’s a few faces that I just know for—like when I first started with WIRe, I remember that I would go to conferences, and I think even then it was pretty sparse for women. Like, there just really weren’t as many women at the conferences as I see now. And Julie Curd at Intuify, I would see her, and she was just this great beacon of warmth. And she would bring all of these women that were in the WIRe community together. And it just instantly made it feel better and easier to navigate those spaces because everyone was so invested in everyone’s wellbeing and just making sure that they had somewhere to grip onto. I think the thing I always hear is just that I needed that. That’s what I hear when people go to WIRe events.

Karen: 00:13:28

It’s funny because—so, you know, you all have these events before our IIEX event, for instance. You know, the night before our North America IIEX event, there’s a WIRe, you know, a WIRe event. And it is one of my favorite parts of it. Like, even if my team is setting up, I’m always like, all right, friends, I’m going to the WIRe event. And I think what the feeling is, is that—and men come too. You know, I learned that a few years ago at one of the other WIRe events. The feeling, though, of you walk in that room and, you know, everybody there is supportive of you as a woman in the industry and is looking, you know, for you to receive the growth that you work for and deserve. Right? So it’s—you feel the support the second you walk in the door to one of the WIRe events. And I think that’s almost a tangible feeling. And it’s more than just the hugs and the excitement and the, you know, the great conversation and the drinks and the wine. It’s more than all of that. It is a—an energy, I think. Michelle, you use that word. Yeah. Anything else that you think is your secret sauce? Michelle, go ahead.

Michelle: 00:14:28

Well, I just wanted to go back to that. The fact that we are gender agnostic and all—in the Accelerate program, in our events, everything. One of the great things I’ve seen over the years and some of the best conversations I’ve had are with men who are like, “Finally, I have a resource to know how to support women’s careers in my company and how to be an ally,” because that’s not always an easy thing either. And so I think—where were we? Just—oh, yeah, at our last IIEX North America event, I felt like we were 50/50 with men. And they were so excited to be there and be part of our energy and to be able to support the career trajectories of women and the professional development in a way that they may not have known how to do before. And so I really, really like that part about WIRe and how it truly is everybody is welcome.

Karen: 00:15:26

Yeah. And what I would, what I would say, this thought just came to me now when you were talking. If I were mentoring, and we’ll segue into mentoring in a minute, but if I were mentoring a young woman in the industry, I might be like, “Let’s look to the companies that those men work for because, you know, that’s going to be a supportive environment for you as a female employee.” Like, see, see the men in the room. See if they’re hiring, you know, and kind of take a look there because they clearly understand that there’s an equity play here, right, that things are not equal in the workplace, that gender inequality is still a thing, even though we’ve made great strides. And at a lot of organizations, women don’t have those opportunities. So anyway, that would be me stepping on the bandwagon for a moment if I [laugh] if I were mentoring someone. Yeah, go ahead, Jessica.

Jessica: 00:16:09

Yeah, I mean, I would also add that it’s not even just that—that it’s not an equal playing field for women, which is true, but also that women add a lot to business. I think a lot of the men that come to our events recognize that having women on their teams is imperative to their success, as a business, and to actually having a really well rounded, thought leadership team. And that’s, you know, as a woman, really heartening to see that there’s people that see the value of what we bring to the table.

Karen: 00:16:37

Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk a little bit about that mentoring, because I do—it’s you know, it’s a program I’ve been involved in and I know that, you know, Michelle, you were saying that you’re excited about it, but tell us, you know, how the program works and kind of the difference it’s making, and then I can certainly build.

Michelle: 00:16:53

Sure. Yeah. It’s an amazing program. Each year now, I think we’re matching about 250 mentor-mentee pairs all over the world. The application process for mentees opens here at the end of October, as does the onboarding process for new mentors. I will say, just a little plug, that we always have far more mentee applications than we have mentors. So if you do have experience in our industry, men or women, we’re always looking for mentors. So that application will be opening this month too in that onboarding process. So we use Q4 to kind of get ready for 2025. The mentoring program lasts for a calendar year, and mentors and mentees can continue to meet after the calendar year, and I know many do. I know I have a mentor in Chicago that’s been one of my long-term mentors, and she is still in touch with all eight of her mentees, and she actually got them all together when they went out, which is just adorable.

Karen: 00:17:56

Nice. That’s—

Michelle: 00:17:56

But we do have both the in-person mentoring opportunities in major metropolitan areas, where you can actually meet up with your mentee, choose a mentee from that area. And then we also have the virtual mentorships because we have people, mentees, coming in from Africa and the Middle East and all over the place, where there may not be an opportunity to meet up personally. So we do have that virtual mentoring opportunity. What it entails is you, you know, obviously you’re—the mentor and mentee relationship is deciding how much you meet. But we encourage once a month meetings and just keeping things moving forward. And I will say I get such a positive feedback loop, and Karen, you can jump in on that, but from both the mentees and the mentors. Even though it’s a mentoring program, it’s for both sides of the table. Absolutely.

Karen: 00:18:46

I mean it, to me—so the first year I did it, it was a couple of years ago and that mentee that—we met in person, this woman and I, because she was also from Connecticut—from my—not far from me in Connecticut. And her career is radically different this year. I’m—you know, she’s all over social media right now. She’s making such great strides. And one of the things she, you know, she wanted to work on was her, like, confidence in putting herself out there and confidence for speaking up for herself in the workplace. She is a woman of color, and she brought a lot of, kind of—a lot of this self-talk, negative self-talk to her workplace thinking that she wasn’t going to be seen or recognized. And she is almost, I don’t want to say everywhere because certainly my algorithm is biased, but she’s won awards, and she’s given talks, and she’s, you know, putting herself out there in such an amazing way and being warmly received by the community. And we worked on very basic things. You know, we worked on, like, what’s a good tool for her to use to manage her current workload? Or, you know, how does she—what can she say? What’s a pat response when somebody speaks up in a meeting and she has a thought, but she, you know, doesn’t quite know how to get it in there. Like, really basic stuff. And within a few years, her career is taking off. I am not saying that our year together was the single reason. I’m saying that it is so fulfilling to see somebody’s career evolve when you’ve had even a small part of it. It’s really, for the mentor, that is more fulfilling than any other aspect of my work. Also, in trying to give her tools, I did some relearning, right? I’d be like, how did I do that when I was her age? You know, how did I—like, what are some things that I used to do? So you’re doing a lot of personal reflection and even some research. You know, mentors often take it upon themselves to say, “I don’t have an answer for you, but I will research that.” And we take on the work, and then we share what we’ve learned. So we’ve kind of relearned. Like, it is just the most rewarding thing. And my mentor—or my mentee from last year, which was a woman that I only met with virtually, there is nothing like getting an email from her saying, “Hey… can we connect via Zoom again? I’m just missing our conversations.” Like, that is so fulfilling because we don’t even have that mentoring relationship anymore. But she, like your—the other woman that you were talking about, she just wants to stay connected and share with me. It is really a very rewarding thing. So kudos to you, and I’ll be signing up again because I love to do this. And I think that the more women that are at that place in their career when they can give back that way, the better.

Michelle: 00:21:17

Absolutely. Thank you, Karen. That’s awesome.

Karen: 00:21:20

Yeah, of course. Of course. So what else? Let’s see. When we, you know, we’ve talked about—you know, we’ve talked about the events. We’ve talked about the exec. We’ve talked about, you know, mentoring. What else, you know, would you want to add about everything that you’re doing at WIRe?

Michelle: 00:21:35

Well, I think we talked a little bit about the events and kind of how we have city events all over the world. How many cities are we up to now, Jessica?

Jessica: 00:21:42

I think we might be at, like, 41, when—we’ll be at 43 before 2025.

Michelle: 00:21:48

So there’s a lot of ways all over the world to meet in person. And then of course, Karen, you mentioned, too, that we partner with industry organizations and have special events that happened before or during some of the industry conferences. And that gets us kind of a global reach and that more diverse audience. But we also have virtual events. We have a webinar series and different webinars for people to tune in virtually and have that learning experience as well. So events are still a really big piece of WIRe, both virtually and in person.

Karen: 00:22:23

I feel like I heard—and I’m trying to get the statistic right, the actual thing right—a career coach that we had worked with here at Greenbook. She kind of gave us some comp. career coaching a couple of years ago, had said to us, like, women, in general, but people in the workplace should really make sure they dedicate—it might have been, like, 2 hours a week of a 40-hour work week. Like, two hours of your week should really be on your career. Like, you know, earmark two hours every Friday or something like that, or two hours every Thursday night. Like, you should be doing something for your career in your 40-hour work week because that is a part of how you will show up better at work. You will do—be a better professional for your company if you invest in yourself kind of with your time. And those virtual events are a great, great way to do that. Right? It’s a great way to say, you know what, let me start here. I can do this for my career. Or I can meet with a mentor, you know, once a month. That’s easy. Like, find the time that works for you would be the advice I would give. Find the time that works for you, but make it a regular practice to invest in your career in a way like you all offer.

Michelle: 00:23:25

Yeah, that’s great.

Karen: 00:23:26

So talk to us a little bit about—other than, like, volunteering to be a mentor, what are some other ways that people could, you know, get involved or volunteer for your organization? Like, what are the options for people who might be listening and saying, “Yeah, you know what, I’m ready to give back”?

Jessica: 00:23:39

So our events, if you go to our website and you check out the cities where we have events, currently, and you don’t see your city, then you can reach out to me, and we can talk about starting a chapter local to you. You really become a nexus point for your community. You’re going to be connecting so many women locally with opportunities and with each other. You know, we’ve had people running these events for ten plus years because they get so much out of the experience of doing that for their community. And that’s just a really incredible opportunity to do something with us at a higher level. You could also reach out and see if your local chapter needs volunteers. We can always connect you with a local team that might already be established.

Michelle: 00:24:20

We also have the 50/50 initiative, Karen, which I know you know [crosstalk 00:24:24].

Karen: 00:24:24

Yeah [laugh].

Michelle: 00:24:25

So the 50/50 initiative we started a number of years ago because of—we wanted to see equal representation on our conference stages. Greenbook is one of the first that reached that 50/50. And then Karen shares at the IIEX North America reception each year what percentage we’re at, which is always super strong at the Greenbook events. But it’s not just a challenge that we put forward to our industry partners to gain that equity on stage. It's also a way for people who are interested in speaking on various topics to sign up in our database, which various—not just in our industry, but beyond, people will request that database when they’re looking for speakers on a specific topic or to fill a panel or something like that. So that is on our website under the 50/50 initiative. You can go in and sign up in the database with your information and what you’re interested on speaking about, those kinds of things. So that’s another way that you can get involved, not just with WIRe, but beyond in our industry.

Karen: 00:25:30

I think that’s great. I’m glad you brought that up. That is something that was very important to me coming here. Right? So I was—like you and like Kristin, you know, very concerned that there were so many men taking to the stage in an industry that is—you know, I think there’s probably stats, maybe you know them, about how many women are actually in this industry [laugh]. There’s a lot of female worker bees across all of these organizations. And often, that’s because there are males in, you know, in sales departments and business development departments. And a lot of sponsors end up putting those gentlemen on the stage, so there—it’s disproportionate going into it. So organic curation efforts have to be heavily skewed in the other direction to make sure there is balance on the stage. So it’s no small task, but one that’s important to me and that I’ll continue to strive for, and, you know, with the support of the team here at Greenbook, of course. But I think that it’s also—it’s one of those things where it’s all part of a bigger puzzle. Women have a lot of things to overcome to feel confident. You know, I’ve put, in the WIRexec group, for example, if I’m looking for something, and some women are still like, “Gosh, I just, you know—I don’t know if I have any expertise,” or “I don’t know if I have thought leadership,” or “I don’t know if I could comfortably speak.” Like, women have these hurdles to overcome that are all in their minds, on some level. Even though they might be supported, they still have more to overcome. So do you have any kind of experience with that, or is that a part of your accelerate program, like how to get women past the imposter syndrome that they often feel?

Jessica: 00:26:56

I mean, I think that’s infused in pretty much all of our programming [laugh] and even—you know, I can think back to some of our city events. Just having speaking experience can be difficult for women. So then, when you go to apply to maybe be a speaker at a conference, you don’t feel like a strong candidate. So, when we have these city events, occasionally I’ve had cities that will make it a point to hosting events that actually put the women in their community on the stage in a really safe and supportive environment so that they do build that confidence to then go on to larger speaking roles. But I think, also, that’s going to be a huge part of the mentorship program. It’s certainly infused into the accelerate program. I think we’re just—we’re hyper-aware that that’s an issue for women and try to bring that into whatever we do when we can.

Karen: 00:27:43

Yeah. Thank you for doing that. It’s well done. And, you know, just shouting out to any listeners who are feeling that and that this is resonating with. Like, yes, I feel that. Yes, I want to be involved in this. Greenbook also does, at our—certainly our North America event, and at our Europe event, we have a new speakers track. So do not let this be an obstacle. You will be supported by other people who might be taking to the stage for the first time at our event, and you can always reach out to, you know, Greenbook about that. Go ahead, Jessica.

Jessica: 00:28:07

Yeah. I would just add that we just had a great blog from Belinda Brown at Gazelle Global, and she talks about imposter syndrome and taking the stage. And if you’re someone who is interested in combating that, that would be a great piece to check out because she has some really incredible things to say about that.

Karen: 00:28:27

Great. That’s great. Thank you so much for sharing. So let’s kind of—you know, thinking about being mindful of time here, I always tend to go over. So my producer and I have this kind of standing joke where I’m always like, “I promise I’m going to wrap,” and then I don’t because I like talking to people. But what’s next for WIRe? Are there new initiatives that you’re going to be experimenting with or starting out with? You know, what’s exciting you right now that’s on the horizon?

Michelle: 00:28:50

Well, one of the things that I love that we do is research on research. We do, like I had mentioned before, our gender and career advancement study every five years. I think we’ve got a couple more years again before that launches. But we did some—they’re under—and on our website under resources, we did some studies during COVID and how COVID impacted women in the workplace and things like that. And so I really enjoy doing those projects with our donors, supporters in the community. So we have had a couple conversations with a couple donor organizations who are interested in partnering with us on some research and research in 2025. So I’m really hoping that we can make that happen, again, because I think some of the work on that space is really exciting. And, of course, you know, adding new cities is always a great joy. And like Jessica said, she’s—usually we try to only onboard two or three cities a year, but I think she’s onboarding, like, seven this year.

Jessica: 00:29:51

Yeah [laugh].

Karen: 00:29:51

Very nice [laugh].

Michelle: 00:29:51

Because [laugh] we are growing so fast.

Karen: 00:29:54

That’s great.

Michelle: 00:29:55

So that’s great. And then, you know, just continuing to deepen and expand our accelerate program, which is just such a great resource for everyone, I think, is something that we’re looking forward to.

Karen: 00:30:07

Cool. Cool. Anything you’d add to that, Jessica, things that you’re most excited about?

Jessica: 00:30:12

Yeah. It’s just that expanding into new chapters is huge. It’s—my job is so fun because I get to speak to these women leadership teams in all these different cities. And so, when I get to have those conversations where they’re like, “We’re finally bringing WIRe to India.” “We’re finally brining WIRe to Turkey.” It’s so heartening and it’s needed. It’s really needed for those women in those countries where it’s harder to connect if you’re a little bit more spread out, if you’re a little bit further away from some of the major metropolitan areas. It’s just fostering these communities in these little spaces that then expand our network. And, yeah, it’s beautiful.

Michelle: 00:30:49

Oh, and, you know, of course, we’re looking forward to our IIEX North America event in Washington DC.

Karen: 00:30:54

[laugh].

Jessica: 00:30:54

[laugh] Yeah.

Michelle: 00:30:56

It’s more like Jessica and I never miss. Like, we plan our year to go to that. It’s probably one of our biggest events of the year, and it is so—a ton of fun. It has such great energy, and we’re really excited about the new location and the getting to check that out. And so I think we’ve already started thinking about how that’s going to look and…

Karen: 00:31:16

And thinking about that, I just got goosebumps thinking about it. We are excited too, obviously. And, you know, chatter on the ground is really exciting. New speakers are going to take to our stage that have never had an opportunity to speak before, from the DC area, which I’m really excited about. So it’s going to probably deliver on a lot of levels for a lot of people who are excited about. And there is some great places in town where you can have this event too.

Michelle: 00:31:36

Yeah.

Karen: 00:31:36

Like, that’s the other—like, there’s so much to explore. It’s really cool. And sidebar, I know that, you know, lots of people will be looking for hotels. And, you know, DC is—you know, it’s a city with plenty of hotels. But I stayed at one of the greatest Airbnbs in, like, the capital area, Capital Hill, and it was, like, me and, you know, one of my work colleagues, we had, like, the nicest little Airbnb. So, you know, the dates are set. You know when you’re going to be there, people. Like, don’t hold back. Like, go ahead and book your housing now because there are some really, good opportunities to stay in one of those cute DC neighborhoods. So really excited for everybody. Anyway…

Michelle: 00:32:11

Yeah.

Karen: 00:32:12

Thank you. Yeah, and Michelle, we’ll be talking probably some more about what else—if there’s anything else, what the opportunities are for WIRe at this event.

Michelle: 00:32:18

Yeah.

Karen: 00:32:18

So that’s on my list of things to do. So thank you for that plug. Everybody, we will see you at the WIRe event in DC, you know, on—at the end of April. Anything else, ladies, that you wish I had asked that I didn’t ask, before we wrap?

Michelle: 00:32:31

I think we covered a lot of ground.

Karen: 00:32:32

We did.

Michelle: 00:32:33

I would say to anyone who is interested in WIRe, do go to our website. There is a sign-up button on our website. You can sign up and indicate you’re interested in the various programs that we’ve talked about today.

Jessica: 00:32:46

Yeah. And I think there is often this confusion around if we’re a membership organization. Ninety percent of what we do is free, so you can get involved really easily today just by doing what Michelle talked about: going to the website. There is no boundary to entry. Once you’re on that website, you’re pretty much in. You’re already a part of the WIRe community if you’re listening today. Don’t be afraid to show up and meet everybody if you can.

Karen: 00:33:10

That’s fantastic. Thank you both so much for joining us on the show. I’m really happy that we got to speak. It’s actually just a little bit of a light in my day, and I am so glad to start off that way. Thank you both. And I will see you in DC, if not sooner. Thank you to, you know, Natalie, who puts this all together for us. Thank you to our audio editor, Big Bad Audio. And, of course, all of our listeners, thank you for tuning from week to week. It’s a pleasure to do this to you. And check out the [show notes 00:33:37]. You’ll find links to everything we talked about today. Have a good day, everybody.