Lorraine Hariton
President and CEO, Catalyst
When we talk about leadership, it's absolutely critical to lead at the top and be a role model. But also to understand that, if you want to change culture, you've got to do it at every level of the organization.
Summary
In this week’s episode of “Leadership Matters,” Alan is joined by an inspiring executive endeavoring to make the workplace more equitable and accessible for women. Lorraine Hariton is the President and CEO of Catalyst, a leading nonprofit devoted to accelerating progress for women through workplace inclusion. She joined Catalyst in 2018, continuing an impressive career of public and private service devoted to supporting women and girls around the world. Previously, Lorraine served in the State Department, at the New York Academy of Sciences, and as an executive of several technology companies.
In their conversation, Lorraine and Alan cover a wide variety of topics, including her early life and career as a computer scientist, the wide variety of programs and opportunities offered at Catalyst, and how the skills she developed over the course of her lifetime have all come together in her role as CEO of the global nonprofit.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Towards Equity, by Claudia Goldin
Office of Commercial and Business Affairs — U.S. Department of State
Guest Bio
Lorraine Hariton is President and CEO of Catalyst, a global nonprofit working with the world’s most powerful CEOs and leading companies to help build workplaces that work for women.
Catalyst’s vision and mission to accelerate progress for women through workplace inclusion has been a lifelong passion for Lorraine. She is honored to lead the organization and help write the next chapter in its 60-year legacy.
Lorraine brings a diverse and robust background in technology, innovation, and partnership to her role at Catalyst. Her extensive career includes senior-level positions in Silicon Valley and leadership roles across the private, nonprofit, and government sectors. In 2009, President Obama appointed her to the Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the US Department of State. Most recently, Lorraine was Senior Vice President for Global Partnerships at the New York Academy of Sciences.
Lorraine has been involved in women’s advancement leadership initiatives throughout her career. At the New York Academy of Sciences, she created the Global STEM Alliance and its 1000 Girls, 1000 Futures program, a global mentoring initiative to help girls pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).
At the US Department of State, Lorraine established the Global Entrepreneurship Program, the WECREATE program for women entrepreneurs, and the Secretary’s Council on Women’s Leadership. She has served on several boards of organizations committed to advancing women in the workplace, including the UN Women Global Innovation Coalition for Change, the Stanford Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and Watermark.
Lorraine is the proud mother of Glen and Laura and enjoys spending time with her grandchildren. She is also an accomplished triathlete who enjoys cycling, tennis, and all things outdoors. Lorraine holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematical Sciences from Stanford University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School.
Clips from This Episode
On navigating the male-dominated cultures of business and technology
On her time working in Washington and with the Obama administration
Episode Transcription
Alan Fleischmann
My guest today is an inspiring executive striving to make the workplace more accessible and equitable for women.
Lorraine Hariton is the president and CEO of Catalyst, a leading nonprofit devoted to accelerating progress for women through workplace inclusion. In 2018, Lorraine took the reins at Catalyst at an important time the organization's history. With corporate America increasingly focused on gender equality initiatives, leaders are turning to experts like Lorraine for guidance. Lorraine is a leader who's truly worn many hats. Over the years, she has been a CEO, a sales manager, computer scientist, corporate strategist, a public servant, and just about everything in between. She served in the Obama Administration as the Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the US Department of State. More recently, Lorraine was Senior Vice President for Global Partnerships at the New York Academy of Sciences. In both roles, Lorraine spearheaded programming and advocacy efforts to support women and girls around the world. As the Catalyst chief executive, she continues that mission, but even on a larger scale, today and every day.
It's a pleasure to have you on the show, Lorraine. Welcome to “Leadership Matters.” And I'm looking forward to talking about your journey, because you do inspire so many every day. Thank you for joining us.
Lorraine Hariton
Thank you, Alan. Thank you for the opportunity. We met when I was in the Obama Administration and go back quite a number of years. So it's a pleasure to talk with you.
Alan Fleischmann
We do. And I've been really looking forward to having you on the show, so I'm grateful for the time.
Let's talk a little bit of the early life of Lorraine. You grew up on Long Island. You’ve spoken in the past of the strong influence of your mother in particular, who was a very successful clinical psychologist, tell us a little bit about your childhood, your parents, and what life was like in your home.
Lorraine Hariton
You know, I've reflected on this a little bit, because I think of myself as a pragmatic feminist. I wondered, like, where does that come from? I think it comes from a grounding, with the way my mother raised us. All of us are a product of the times that we were born into. Claudia Goldin has a great book that talks about the phases of feminism, and women who were part of the silent generation — which my mother was — if they were college graduates, they often went into teaching jobs. Then when they had children, they left the workplace and they focused on raising their family until their children got into school. And then, they looked for how they were going to enhance their career. In fact, that's exactly how the founder of Catalyst, Felice Schwartz, started Catalyst in 1962, which was to try to expand the opportunities for women, once they had their children, in the workplace.
So my mother — who was highly intelligent, very logical, rational, but also very pragmatic and realizing the norms of the time and how she could be successful — she started out to get her Master's degree in teaching and social work, and then expanded it to a PhD in psychology. She actually did her PhD on women's sexual fantasies during intercourse and ended up on the front page of Psychology Today with a lead article. So I had this role model of a mother, who was very practical, but very intelligent, rational, and balanced career and family at different phases in her life. She created an environment for me to aspire to be successful in career and family, but to understand the balance between all of them.
Another thing that I think has really focused me on pragmatism, in understanding what I can and can't do, is the fact that I had dyslexia. My mother, who was a psychologist, identified that when I was in sixth grade, which was very early on, way before that was really known in the population. She really tried to help me navigate that, while at the same time not feeling like I was diminished or handicapped in any way. It allowed me to sort of focus on what my strengths were, not get too upset about my weaknesses, but built in resiliency, determination, and an understanding of where my where my strengths were, what the path to success would be.
Alan Fleischmann
How many brothers and sisters?
Lorraine Hariton
I have a one brother and one sister. I'm the oldest, but we’re three in three years.
Alan Fleischmann
And your dad? What was he like? What was he up to?
Lorraine Hariton
Well, my dad was an engineer, and highly intelligent as well. But I would say that he was not as much the strength in my family. My mother was definitely the dominant driver, the strength in my family.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. But maybe a little bit from your father, in the sense that you'd like to fix things. Knowing you a little bit, there's an engineer, maybe, who likes to see a problem and solve it, which is what I think of you as well.
Lorraine Hariton
Well, you know, being analytical and driven to focus on solutions, definitely.
Alan Fleischmann
So, you grew up on Long Island and then you went to Stanford University, where you studied math and computer science. What led you to do that? Because one of the things, as father of daughters, is that you really have to push in this system, feel like, to get the system to encourage young women to embrace science and math. My daughters love it now, but it took a lot of me and my wife pushing against the system a little bit. And here you are, you actually found that as the discipline you wanted and went for it. And that must have been quite amazing, actually.
Lorraine Hariton
Well, I'm glad you push your daughters, that's a really good thing. Because there's a lot of cultural barriers to this, especially with young girls. But you know, when I entered the workplace, it was a bit of a different environment. I actually went to Hamilton College — to what was then their sister school, Kirkland College — which was a woman's school. I went there because of my interest in social causes, coming out of the women's movement of the early ’70s. And this was a women's college back when colleges were experimenting: do they go co-ed, do they have a sister college? Eventually, Kirkland integrated into Hamilton.
I originally went there because of my interest in the social causes. I knew I was good in math and science, I took calculus, I took physics. And I had this wonderful calculus professor. I was babysitting for his kids, and he took a real interest in me. He suggested, because I was excellent in it, that I think about computers. We had a winter study, there was no computer science at the time at Hamilton College. But I took a winter study, and I used this teletype terminal to the Rome Air Force Base in Utica, New York, I had to do it on my own. But I fell in love with it. I remember the first game I programmed was a game called Life on this teletype terminal that went 10 characters per second.
So I just decided that this is what I wanted to do, but I knew I had to transfer. So I applied to schools all over the place. One of the places I applied to Stanford, and I got into Stanford. Even at that time, Stanford was known to be really great in computer science. They didn't actually have an undergraduate degree in computer science. It was math, computer sciences, systems and operations research. So I went to Stanford and it changed my life.
But I want to say that in those days, about 25% of the computer science undergraduates were women. And there wasn't the stigma that exists right now for women in computer science. By the way, on that stigma — in India, we don't have that same type of stigma. In China, we don't have that type of stigma. In the United States, when the PC happened in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it went into the boys’ room and they started gaming. It started to be a boys thing to do and the girls started to move away from it.
At the time that I was getting involved in computers, it was data processing, it was academic computing, it was a big data center someplace. There wasn't the stigma. In fact, a lot of the early computing, like in Hidden Figures, had a lot of women in it.
So, we've had a cultural change that we're still working under, and it's really unfortunate that we are still not back to the numbers we had in the in the ’70s and early ’80s for women in computer science.
Alan Fleischmann
And after you graduated there, you spent a little bit of time… was it at American Airlines before you went to IBM? Tell us a little bit about that.
Lorraine Hariton
Yeah. So I got this degree in math sciences and I was actually very involved in operations research. I had the opportunity to be a research assistant for George Dantzig, who was the father of linear programming. I was very interested in operations research. So a woman friends of mine, who worked at American Airlines, who was who was the sister of someone I went to Stanford with, recommended me for this job in the Operations Research Department of American Airlines. I worked there for a year and I did a fuel allocation model, a linear program for them. But in the course of doing that, I realized that it was very solitary. I really had a side of me that was more people oriented, and I wanted something that would be more people oriented. So after a year of doing that, I decided to leverage my background in computer science. IBM was known for sales, so I applied to their sales program and got a job there.
Alan Fleischmann
I imagine the combination between sales and your skills in computer science was interesting as well, because you could talk technology, I guess — talk tech at the time — at the same time selling.
Lorraine Hariton
You know, that has been a strength. Both the sales skills and the technology skills have been strengths of mine that have lasted a lifetime. Even at Catalyst, those skills have been critical to why I got this job and why I've been effective in this job.
My view is to really understand what your passions are, what your strengths are, and leverage them. You build up these skill sets and they are cross functional in different ways. They help you in a variety of things. I've been in a lot of different areas, but the fundamental skill sets that I have are transferable.
Alan Fleischmann
You're listening to “Leadership Matters” on SiriusXM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with the CEO of Catalyst, a good friend, Lorraine Hariton. We're talking about her journey, and that's a journey that has really transcended the private, public, and civil society sectors.
So the skills you needed to be a computer scientist and the sales manager skills as you were just describing, they actually, probably, mattered a lot together. But they probably were very different, and you built, in essence, two muscles. But you were living in both worlds — in a male-dominated world, I imagine, as well — both the sales and the tech side of IBM. I imagine there weren’t that many Lorraines walking the halls.
Lorraine Hariton
Alan, it's very interesting, because, you know, that is true. But I would say, the way I perceived it, I would consider it not what I focused on, not what I actually perceived at the time. And in some ways, it was not true at the time. At American Airlines, I had a woman co-worker with me in the department. When I went to IBM, there were women in leadership at the time, and there were many women in the sales training and the systems engineering programs.
So while I think that, once I went to Silicon Valley, in certain companies there, there's definitely a male-dominated culture. I think in venture capital, it's very male dominated. I've been, in my pragmatic way. able to navigate cultures that could be conducive for women to be successful. And it's something that I tell a lot of women: look at the culture. Look at the leaders. Understand whether you can see yourself in it. Can you be successful in this culture?
It's something that, as we talk to companies in Catalyst, we try to help companies understand how they can change their culture to attract and retain women. It's not about changing the women for the culture, it's about creating a culture that's inclusive. Even in that time in the ’70s and ’80s, as I started navigate the beginning of my career, I was very aware of that.
In fact, when I went to business school — after being at IBM for several years, I went to Harvard Business School —the world opened to go work down in Wall Street. I thought, should I go into consulting? Those were the status jobs coming out of Harvard Business School. But in the end, I decided to go back to IBM. The reason I decided to do that is because there were women like Elena Hancock at the top of IBM. I knew people who had been successful having a career and family, and I wanted a career and family, I knew I could work 45, 50 hours a week at IBM to be successful. I didn't have to work 80 hours a week and then have to commute to Greenwich from Wall Street, which would make it impossible to do.
So I thought ahead about this, and I tried to go in an environment where, well, it may not be the most status thing for the moment, it was something that was going to work for my life, for my priorities.
Alan Fleischmann
You touched on something so important, the power of role models. That you saw someone, as you just said, at IBM that was successful at doing what you wanted to do. And you said, “well, there's a better chance that's going to be good for me there and go back to IBM.” There’s a power there. A lot of what you do is you shine a light on good culture, good successes, and good best practices, so that others can actually follow.
Lorraine Hariton
Absolutely.
Alan Fleischmann
how long were you at IBM?
Lorraine Hariton
Altogether, I was at IBM 15 years. But that included my 18 months at Harvard Business School and being on two coasts, in quite a number of locations. But it was a very good run at IBM. What happened was, I realized along the way that I was not going to be at the top of IBM. For political reasons, and just… One thing I started to realize in my career is that when you work for a company like IBM, they have a career path they've defined for you. That's true in academia, that’s true in a lot of different places, but it may not be the career path that is good for who you are. So then you have to go on a journey to understand where your unique competencies, passion, and skills can really fit and really differentiate.
So that's been a lifelong journey for me. This job at Catalyst — this is *the* job for me. It takes all the things I'm passionate, all the things I'm good at a time when I'm really self-actualized, to really do it. But earlier in my career, when I was going on the IBM career path, going on the Harvard Business School career path — there were these different things that that really were not me. They were what society — or the particular cultural environment of the place I was in — had for me. It was a similar thing when I was in Silicon Valley around the internet bubble. Everyone wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I decided to be an entrepreneurial CEO. That didn’t work out, so I changed direction. But it took many years for me to really understand who I was and where I could really make my most impact.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, I think of you as someone with great purpose. And I imagine, you've had this great career where you've been a CEO before, you've been in the corporate world. You obviously have the degrees, you've served in the government. So I imagine what you're doing now at Catalyst now is that combination, as I said earlier, between public life and public service. In the private world, working with the private sector, but leading an organization that has such an impact on civil society. So I can see why you would love it, because it really does transcend everything, and everything that you've been doing.
Lorraine Hariton
And the interesting thing is, when I finally — and we can skip around to talk a little bit about coming to Catalyst — I had a portfolio career at the time. In fact, after coming out of the Obama administration, I thought I would eventually go back into the Administration, and I was trying to have a portfolio career so I could make sure I helped Hillary on her next run for 2016. But of course, that didn't happen. And I ended up being introduced to this job at Catalyst, where there was this nationwide search. I wasn't really thinking about doing it. But once I got into the mix of talking to the people, it was clear that everything I've done over my lifetime really was what Catalyst needed at that moment in time. Because what they need is different, let's say now, than it was even four years ago when I was there, because it was trying to go through a bit of a reinvention. It needed to have digital transformation, it needed to have major fundraising, it needed corporate, as someone who understood corporate. So you know, sometimes these things just come together.
Alan Fleischmann
But it is amazing, which is why I kind of imagined that, when you saw Catalyst as an opportunity, you probably thought, “well, this is the combination and culmination of all the things that I've worked on in my life.”
But you were president and CEO of Beatnik — was that what it was called? — before, this audio software company.
Lorraine Hariton
Yes. And also another one called Apptera, I was CEO of two software companies. One during the internet bubble, and another a couple years after that. So I had a career about six, seven years when I was an entrepreneurial CEO.
Alan Fleischmann
And were you focusing on women and tech at that point, as well? Did that become a natural part of your leadership?
Lorraine Hariton
Well you know, that that evolved over time. In the early days, I was really focused on my career and my young children. But as my children got older, I started to have more opportunity to do some things in the civil service.
My involvement with women in tech, of course, came out of my personal experience. But it started with my involvement with an organization called the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, which did training for women who wanted to become entrepreneurs. And since I was transitioning from a C-level executive at a public company in Silicon Valley — where I was one of the top women executives in Silicon Valley to being CEO of a startup and was bought in by the investors — I wanted to learn about entrepreneurship. So I took a class with them, which ended up with me eventually going on their advisory board, on their board, and becoming chair of the board. And then also, Stanford putting me on the Clayman Institute for Gender Research.
So I started to build up this involvement, expertise, and network around women. When I decided to leave the entrepreneurial track and I started to move to public service, it also motivated me to want to help Hillary Clinton run for president, because I had in my mind that if we could help her become the most powerful person in the world, that that would really advance this passion that I had developed. But I took all my sales and fundraising skills into it, because that's what I was able to do for her. Which turned out to be very effective, because I became her largest fundraiser in Northern California.
And I also then expanded my network significantly. And that got me knowing a lot of the feminists. Knowing Hillary well, knowing Sheryl Sandberg well. It got me into this network, which also, of course, put me in a better position to be effective at Catalyst.
Alan Fleischmann
Amazing. And then that's when you made the decision — or, I guess, you were given the opportunity — to join the Obama administration, Hillary's State Department.
Lorraine Hariton
Yeah. When I went and started the fundraising for Hillary, it was not with any understanding or intent to do that. Honestly, I had done these two startups they didn't work out so well and I really wanted to pivot. I started to get involved in public service. I was actually involved in this one-year class I had been selected for called the American Leadership Forum, which involves cross-functional leaders across all of Silicon Valley from different walks of life that really wanted to build, to become involved in the community. And we were doing these classes every month. We went up to Sacramento and we met with government officials. There was a panel there that talked about Hillary potentially running for president in 2006.
And that's that sort of took me, just like the computer science thing took me in 1973 when I was at Hamilton College. I decided I really wanted to do this and I thought I could contribute to this. So I really started from scratch, knowing nothing about politics. But I met all the people and I built this whole network, I've changed my life.
So once I got into it I was successful. Of course, she didn't win, but she went to the State Department, it became clear to me. I actually got to know Nancy Pelosi, and they both were trying to support me to go into an administration job. I then decided I was excited about that and I could do that. So I raised my hand and I ended up with this position.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. And were you nervous, excited to move to Washington at the time?
Lorraine Hariton
Well, it came at a good time for me. Because after having done all this fundraising and having had this portfolio job, I was looking to get back into a full-time position. My children were in high school and college at that time, but they were in boarding school. So I had the latitude to do what I wanted to do.
It was actually a funny story. I was about to take this job at this company — I was consulting for them — and I had an appointment with the CEO at three o'clock in the afternoon on a Friday. At one o'clock, I got a call from the personnel office at the State Department, saying that Hillary would like you to do this job. So I was really excited because I really wanted to do this, I thought it would be a great adventure. The job they wanted me to do was right in my sweet spot. So then, two hours later, I walked in to talk with the CEO. And I said to him, “I have this opportunity, I need to go ahead and fly to Washington on Thursday.” And so that's what happened. It was really interesting timing.
Alan Fleischmann
Flowers blooming everywhere. Did you did you enjoy the State Department stint?
Lorraine Hariton
Did I enjoy it? Well, in the course of my life, it was a great adventure, and there were aspects of it that I absolutely loved and cherished. There were other aspects that were challenging. It's a very big bureaucracy — anyone who works in the government will tell you that, especially when you come from being an entrepreneur or the CEO of a company, everyone's got a boss. The President of the United States has lots of bosses, he can tell you. You have to listen to all these people.
So in the State Department, you're always looking up, but you also have a lot of power where you are. I represented the United States all over the world, around diplomatic agendas, on bilateral commissions, with Russia, with Japan.
When I came in, I had this concept of developing entrepreneurship as a diplomatic agenda. I got this idea from a guy who had done a similar program in Italy who was at the Hoover Institute at Stanford. So I had in my mind that that would be my contribution in this office of Commercial and Business Affairs. So I was able to establish that. It actually coincided with an agenda that Obama had around entrepreneurship at the same time. So we established entrepreneurship as a diplomatic agenda. We launched this Global Entrepreneurship Program. We eventually did a women's aspect of it was called the We Create program and it is still an institutionalized a program within the Office of Commercial and Business Affairs at the State Department. We had entrepreneurship missions to countries all around the world. I felt like I really made my mark around entrepreneurship. I brought in some really great people to help me with this, as fellows, who helped me make that happen. So, in addition to the normal agenda of Commercial and Business Affairs, which is interesting and powerful, I was also able to do that.
In government work, it’s important to know what you can influence and what you can't, and to know the difference between the two. It's this pragmatic view; where can you be effective within your own right? And where do you have other things that are broader than yourself that you can have some impact on, but you can't allow yourself to get too frustrated about?
Alan Fleischmann
And that’s the power of your influence externally, because wherever you went, people were listening, watching, hearing you. So you had a great ability to actually send the message along too. But I guess you decided you didn't want to go back into public service when the Biden Administration came in, because it goes back to the dream job that you have now, which is at Catalyst.
So tell us a little bit about that. I know you worked a little bit at the New York Academy of Sciences as the head of Global Partnerships there. And the global STEM Alliance, which you created and is still enduring. It's amazing. I must say, Lorraine — it's amazing how, as you done your journey, as you continue along, it's not like you shed anything. It's kind of like the Pied Piper, you bring it along with you. when you think about the intersection between advocacy, sales, leadership, marketing, and STEM — not an a not a usual combination — you've never really quite shed one for the other, you've kind of brought it with you.
Lorraine Hariton
I guess you could say that. I do think that, when you're at my point in my career, you realize that you have to look back over everything you've done in terms of being able to be effective as a leader in the moment, or if you do board service. You're not just looking at a narrow thread.
So like I said, for the Catalyst job, you know, people are looking for everything that I had learned over a lifetime meshed with what they really needed. Whether it was the fundraising, the corporate enterprise, the experience, the passion that I've demonstrated for women, the ability to understand technological change, the network of influences and the ability to — because we have a board of CEOs of major companies, you have to be able to work with them. So for these types of situations, you bring in a lifetime of experience. So you need to constantly have this learning mindset and bring it along.
Alan Fleischmann
So, tell us how the Catalyst job came to be. And a little bit about Catalyst before you, because I had heard of Catalyst over many years and then when you took the helm, I remember re-looking at it again. Because you were taking it on, I knew it had to be relevant. And I knew you'd make it even more relevant.
Lorraine Hariton
Well, thank you for that. You know, Catalyst is sixty years old, we're celebrating our 60th anniversary this year. Our theme is the Great Reimagining: Equity for Women, Equity for All. And the fact is, what Catalyst is now has evolved a lot from where it was 60 years ago and continues to evolve. Which makes sense, it's an imperative for every organization.
But in terms of what happened to me, after I left the administration in 2014, I had my eyes set on going back and supporting Hillary and spending quite a bit of my time fundraising again, supporting her in that process. So I was not looking to take a major new job coming out of that. I started doing consulting, and I started consulting with the New York Academy of Sciences. And that, that turned into the a large part of what I was doing — not all, because I was also then started spend a lot of time with Hillary — but I was able to focus on something that's really near and dear to me, which is the STEM pipeline and advancing children, especially women, into STEM careers. Of course, that's another part of my personal legacy that I was able to relate to.
So the New York Academy of Sciences had done some really good STEM programming in New York City, but it has a global reputation. And the CEO, Ellis Rubenstein, really wanted to expand that more broadly. So we launched programs using virtual technology to do programming all around the world. So in a sense, it was a little bit ahead of its time. We launched a program, for example, under the global STEM Alliance called 1000 Girls, 1000 Futures. It was a global mentoring program. So you'd have engineers in Houston mentoring kids in Bangladesh. And of course my experience at the State Department and understanding of all that helped me understand how to put that together. But it uses a virtual capability that we all use now on a daily basis in our everyday lives.
Alan Fleischmann
When you came into the Catalyst, was it, was there a mandate to kind of make big changes? I mean, you came in at a pretty extraordinary time.
Lorraine Hariton
I did. It's interesting; it was an extraordinary time then, but it's an even more extraordinary time now, and I couldn't have known that,
So Catalyst had been around at that time for 56 years. And I would say that Catalyst needed some reinvention. So I was brought in to be sort of a disrupter who could work within the context of an existing organization. So I did have a mandate to really set a vision and make some significant changes. And it's great that we did because, you know, Catalyst is such an iconic organization. It has a fabulous brand and a set of global multinationals that support it. And we just really needed to revitalize the organization. I sometimes would allude to it as like a beautiful brownstone in Brooklyn Heights that the old lady hadn’t renovated in 25 years. But all the bones were great. So I had tremendous support from my board to really do what we needed to do to bring Catalyst up to where it had the impact that was possible to have.
So a couple of things that I did. One thing I did when I first got in is I read the book about the first 90 days and getting a quick win. I looked at my fundraising skills, and the CEO of Chevron, Mike Wirth, had interest in this program called MARK: Men Advocating Real Change, which is a program that helps men understand their privilege and their biases and become advocates for women, and everyone in the workplace, for equality. So he had been involved in that program. Before he became the CEO of Chevron, he had been head of ERGs for women, he had really been an advocate. So I went out to Chevron three weeks into the job. We talked, and he ended up making a $5 million commitment, the largest gift ever to Catalyst, to really upscale the MARK program. And from there, we launched a major gifts campaign. Over the course of the last couple of years, a few years since then, we've raised $32 million. And that money allowed us to rebuild the research capability that Catalyst is known for. We also did a three-year strategic plan — which we're now at the end of and we're in the process of doing another three-year strategic plan — to really identify the key pillars we would focus on and what Catalyst was really about.
So I was able to put it on a really clear course that that the board really supported. And we've made a lot of progress. One of the areas I wanted to focus on when I came in was the future of work. Some of that came from my technology background, my work that I had done at the New York Academy of Sciences. I was focused on the future of work. I knew that I knew that there was rapid technological change. I knew that there were changing values. I knew that the Me Too movement was changing the dynamics of the marketplace.
Actually, we had a summit on the future of work in December of 2019. One of the major areas they talked about was flexibility in the time of crisis. And they talked about climate change, they talked about pandemics. And we were all like, “okay, well that happened in 1918, I don’t know about focusing too much on that.” But here we are three months after that, we went into the pandemic. So that was prescient, because we had started this talk about the future of work, on leaning into flexibility, leaning into technological change, into upskilling and reskilling, into the changing values that people have. So we've been able to really develop a future work track that was highly relevant through their pandemic and into current times. Because the pandemic turbocharged all the trends that we had identified in that symposium we had in December of 2019. They are basically the same, but turbocharged by the pandemic.
Alan Fleischmann
And the pandemic, obviously, was a catalyst for so many things. What do you think now? I mean, I think we're coming out of the pandemic. What do you what do you think now is stickiest of the things that you've launched during the pandemic or that you've observed as leader during the pandemic? And what do you think is more fragile, that we need to fight even harder to make sure it isn't lost post pandemic?
Lorraine Hariton
Well you know Alan, there's so much to talk about there. As I mentioned, it is our 60th anniversary, so our theme is the Great Reimagining: Equity for Women, Equity for All. So if you look this through our lens, through advancing women in the workplace, there's been a journey for women's involvement in the workplace. We now have, despite the pandemic, we're back to pretty much full employment. Women are back to the levels of involvement in the workplace, if you look at the statistics. But there’s been a lot of displacement between jobs. For the people who are most affected in the pandemic, this was a recession of service workers, whether it's retail, hospitality, education, health care — frontline workers were more effected. And those were more highly women, and more highly underrepresented minorities. Those jobs are the ones that are shifting the most, and therefore. they need upskilling and reskilling and rethinking.
So there's a real awareness, first of all, that that has happened. There's also become a greater awareness of the unpaid labor that women still are doing. There's awareness in this country of the lack of childcare infrastructure that we're still dealing with. And there's a big leaning into more flexibility around work. Remote work — we talk a lot about that — and certainly, having the flexibility and ability to work at home has always been something that's been really important to enabling women to be effective in the workplace. So now we have this big experiment where people are really looking at that much more seriously. That's a real opportunity for us. We have a big changes in values of people. We call it the great resignation, but really, it's a great relook at what life is all about to us, for everyone. So they're looking at what's important to them. How do they really want to work? Where do they really want to work? What's the balance between work and family? Everyone's looking at that.
So all of this change is a great opportunity. But it also has risks. As was one said sometimes change doesn't happen for decades, and sometimes, decades happen in weeks. And we are in a place where there's a great opportunity for us to make the future we want. Because we're at a titanic shift in the nature of work and the nature how people think about it.
My job at Catalyst is to help create the vision of where we want to be, to take that leap to real equity. So if you look at the women's movement, it's been much more about college-educated women moving up the ranks to be CEO and on boards. But we have to, we want to, look at it from the shop floor to the C-Suites. Want to make sure that there's opportunities for everyone, to make progress. The companies I work for — because we're going through our strategic plan right now, we're going to be focusing on that because they're interested in that too. Because of their interest in equity. We’re in a labor shortage, and they're interested in how they attract and retain everyone. And we all need to lean into more equity, because, you know, the nature of the population is changing, we have to do that.
I have a lot of support and opportunity here in this role to add to, and to work with, these extraordinary companies who are really at the leading edge of practicing and walking the talk and helping everyone along with that.
Alan Fleischmann
Catalyst is, to me, the number-one organization and inspiration in doing what you're doing. And I know the leaders that you have on your board, for example, represent, if not every sector, almost every sector. And in some ways, knowing you, I think you are just getting started even though you've been doing so much already.
But now it’s the 60th anniversary and with that reimagining of what's on the horizon, what, if you had to say, is your biggest priority or priorities? What would they be? And then, knowing that the listeners here are leaders and aspiring leaders, those who affect change and those who want to be more engaged in that change, what would you say to them so that they can be part of this? How would they actually be helpful? What should they focus on? And how should they do it? And so it's a twofold question there: one about what you are imagining in this 60th anniversary moment, but also, what do you want others to do as they say, “I want to sign on to be helpful?”
Lorraine Hariton
Well, first of all, our 60th, the Great Reimagining, is reimagining work. reimagining leadership, reimagining equity, and reimagining accountability. So I think we should think of it through all those different lenses. So reimagining work is to really about taking advantage of this moment where the nature of work is changing, to re-look look at it so it's more equitable, it makes more sense, so that every everyone can thrive. That's the first thing. But in order to do this — and this is something that I'm not sure that everyone really gets — we have to reimagine leadership. We can't just say, “everyone work from home three days a week, but we're not changing our style at all.” If we don't do that, if we don't try to be more empathetic, more humane, more understanding of what people want, we're not going to be successful. You can't just change everything and not change how you lead.
This came out of our future of work track — one of those skills is empathy. How do you lean into empathy? We have workshops, we have knowledge products around empathy. We ran a big campaign for International Women's Day about promoting yourself to Chief Empathy Officer. We're trying to really help people understand the changes they need as leader. When we talk about leadership, it's absolutely critical to lead at the top and be a role model. But also to understand that, if you want to change culture, you've got to do it at every level of the organization. If you want to create an inclusive culture, 45% of that, according to our research, is at the first-line manager level. And it's even more critical if you're in a hybrid environment. The best practices on going hybrid is to really make decisions at the departmental level. Because there are some places in your organization that have to come into work every day and need flexibility in a different way. At Target, they, they gave people flexibility to go to different stores and to manage their schedule more granularly. At other places, it's going to be to let people work at home all the time. At other places, it’s to come in three days a week and collaborative sessions. You have to bring that down to the departmental level to make those decisions effectively. And that means having a better understanding of the needs of your employees and when you bring them together. So you need to bring in these new leadership skills. I think, understanding that cultural changes… And change is the word we're all dealing with, whether it’s technological change or it's cultural change, technological changes are driving the cultural change.
Another thing is really measuring what matters and holding people accountable. If you want to a change in terms of hiring, promoting, and building a culture where everyone has the ability to thrive, you’ve got to measure and hold people accountable for that.
A couple of things for Catalyst itself, I already talked about how we want to go from the shop floor to the C suite. We also in the process of reinventing ourselves internally so that we can really a broader audience. Among our supporters, we have 50% of the Fortune 100. But you get down to the, let's say, above billion-dollar firms — which is still very large — we're at 15%. Companies can join Catalyst and learn — we have a lot of resources to help people on this journey. They can learn from other companies. So, I certainly encourage anyone who's on this call, who is in a position to want to move and make progress, to become part of the Catalyst community. You can go to our website and we can tell you all about that.
Alan Fleischmann
Love it. So they just sign up by just getting on the website and joining? Because you are building a movement, for sure. Tell us a little bit about the board and what the board does with you, because it seems like you've got a very partnership-based board. Board members who actually work with you.
Lorraine Hariton
I have it extraordinary board. Our board chair is Julia Sweet, who's the CEO of Accenture. And before that, it was Marillyn Hewson, who was the CEO of Lockheed Martin. I'm really privileged to work with them, and they're doing it because the highly committed to what we do and what our mission is.
But that's also true of all the members of our board, they're really committed to what we're doing. They walk the talk, they support us, and they really try. I just talked about Mike Wirth and what he did at Chevron. David Taylor at Procter & Gamble — there's so many of them that have been really trying to make progress within their organizations, are really committed to what we do.
So we work very closely on all the different issues that come up. The strategic plan and this focus on the shop floor and C suite came from conversations. We interviewed every one of our board members, we have lots of discussions about this. And when key issues come up, we, we have conversations and really try to work with and learn from each other.
Alan Fleischmann
That's awesome. Tell us a little about the team you have around you?
Lorraine Hariton
Well, the team at Catalyst, the number one thing is they're all very committed to our mission. They come to Catalyst because of their commitment to the mission. Catalyst has always been known — at least for the past 35-40 years — for our research. We have a very strong research team that is really focused on our mission, which is to create environments for workforce inclusion. They're behavioral and social scientists that really work on the environment and come out with research in that area.
We also have relationship managers who work with our 520 corporate supporters and help them on their journey to create workplaces that work for women. And then we have practitioners that help us with workshops. We’re global, we have people on the ground across the United States, Canada, and in Europe. We have partnerships with a similar organizations in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East. So we have global coverage and we can support our multinational companies all around the world.
Alan Fleischmann
Was that always the case that you were global?
Lorraine Hariton
Well, it was not always the case. But in the last 15 years or so, first we expanded to Canada, and then we expanded into Europe, and then we developed these relationships and partnerships around the world.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very exciting. I'm sure that has a major impact. I imagine, just by bringing together the kind of leaders who do. What kind of programming do you do? Do you do convenings and things like that as well? I see you as being great advocates, great conveners and thought leaders? Are you changing that convening now that we're coming out of the pandemic, doing things a little differently? And are there ways for people involved?
Lorraine Hariton
Well, — a broad brush of what we do. We do research and thought leadership, you know that. We also then turn that into learning and knowledge products that are available to our supporters. The research is in front of the firewall. Behind the firewall, we have a whole suite of learning and knowledge products that help companies on their journey, webinars, things like that that help companies make progress. And we also have a suite of fee-for-service workshops and capabilities — like the MARK program, Men Advocating for Real Change — that help educate people and learn how to how to be leaders in this environment.
And then we have a focus on community, we have convenings. Our major convening that we have every year as the Catalyst Awards in New York, where we share best practices on three major award winners of key initiatives that everyone can learn from. This year it was really fantastic. Everyone had a lot to share about measurement and accountability, about the MARK program and how impactful it was. We do a similar event in Canada. We also have various communities. We have an ERG community made up of ERG leaders that meet regularly. We have an expert community. We have a CEO Champions for Change community, which is made up of CEOs who we bring together to share thoughts and practices about the issues of the day. We also aggregate their measurements and we champion what they're doing. We actually have a Measure for Change community which is focused on, how you effectively measure DEI. Learning how to do that, which is complicated.
So we do a lot of convenings and bringing people together to learn from each other, to share best practices, and network.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. And are there other things that you would like to see out there, that could partner with Catalyst? If there's an organization out there, a business out there that is doing interesting things? What would you say? “Come to Catalysts, and if you come to us, this is what we're gonna do?” You add the data, you add the research, you add the ecosystem, you add the verification, the validity, I would imagine, to organizations and businesses that are trying to do the work of creating a more diverse culture, and a more gender-equal culture. Rather than doing that on their own, by coming to Catalyst and working with Catalyst, they can both have that validation, frankly, and that expertise join them.
Lorraine Hariton
Well, any organization that's trying to advance women in the workplace within their population can, and we'd encourage you, to become a catalyst supporter. Then you become part of our network with all the things, you can leverage all the things we've talked about. So that is the big way to get involved with Catalyst.
Catalyst itself is a women's leadership organization that also works with lots of other, similar organizations so that we can on different issues. We're part of this group called the Women's Business collaborative, which is made up of about 70 women's organizations — women in entrepreneurship, women in STEM, you know, different organizations that focus on pay equity, women on boards. Catalyst covers a lot of these areas, but we have a lot of collaborators that we work with to drive the mission more broadly, part of that product ecosystem.
And then, we even partner on research. We work with some academic institutions, with people who have expertise in areas that we don't have. In terms of partnering as part of our supporter community, that's very open. In terms of partnering on specific initiatives, we really look at our strategic plan to understand how that fits into what we're trying to accomplish.
Alan Fleischmann
And back to you personally — in the next decade of your life, what are you thinking about? Besides leading Catalyst, I'm sure, and having the impact that you have. Are there other things, like writing a boo? What are the things you're looking to do? You're an amazing teacher and mentor. I'm just curious if there are other things out there in that in the next decade that you're looking to do?
Lorraine Hariton
Well, you know, Alan, I've been very heads-down focused on Catalyst right now. But I do think that, out of that, there'll be other things that happen.
In addition, I now have three little grandchildren that are four, three, and eight months old. So that's an ambition of mine, to spend as much time as I can with them.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s nice. Where are they located?
Lorraine Hariton
Well, one of them is in Manhattan. The other ones are, right now, in Seattle, but they're moving back to Cambridge. One thing I've learned over time is that if you continue to have energy and passion, you can continue to evolve. I believe that the work I'm doing right now will then foster a new chapter. Sometimes it's surprising — Catalyst was surprising to me, getting involved with Hillary was surprising to me. But you know, I went with the flow some, and I've actually been more successful doing that than staying on the track that IBM had for me, to become a branch manager, then regional manager, whatever was the track at IBM.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, that's a good bit of bit of advice too. What advice would you give? So much of what our listeners like to do is get advice from experienced leaders like you. Are there certain kind of life lessons that you'd want to share them in the last couple minutes of the show, about the kinds of things that you would want people to take into account.
In many ways, what you just said is, don't miss out on the opportunities by overplanning in your own personal life. What you might be planning in your business life, your professional life, that's one thing. But don't overlook the opportunities that you might have before you.
Lorraine Hariton
Yeah, I mean, there's so much there. As they say, opportunities are where preparation… what is this expression? You have to be prepared, but you also have to leave yourself open for serendipity. That that is really what happened with catalyst, what happened with the Hillary thing.
I'd say the common thread is I've been able to align my passions with what I really do well and what I enjoy doing, so that I can make the most impact in in this world. Because we all have our unique skills. Starting with dyslexia, and being a not very good athlete, not even a good student, because of my dyslexia. I had to really start to hone in on what I uniquely had to contribute early on. And I think that served me well, to be focused on that. Not that you can’t have a growth mindset. And I certainly evolved over time, but, but I also think majoring on my majors has been a successful strategy.
Alan Fleischmann
How important have mentors been in your life?
Lorraine Hariton
I've had sponsors that I think have been really important to me. Well, let me clarify mentors versus sponsors. Both are important, but sponsors are people who really help you get to the next situation, as opposed to giving you advice.
Whether it was Catalyst, which actually I got into it through someone who sponsored me into the job, knew the former CEO. Of course, Hillary sponsored me into the job at the State Department. If I go back to various jobs I've had along the line, it's really people who had sponsored me into to these positions.
We have a whole program that catalysts around sponsorship, to help companies set up sponsorship programs, especially for people who aren't necessarily in the networks, where they have the people who are in a position to be sponsors to make that happen.
Alan Fleischmann
It's a good way to distinguish — those who not just give you advice, but actually help you get to the next dream. They kind of walk with you rather than just say, go your own way.
Lorraine Hariton
They're actually in a position to do something for you. They say, mentors talk with you, in front of you. Sponsors talk about you. They advocate for you when you’re not in the room.
Alan Fleischmann
Which is great. Well, you have been such an incredible guest today. You've been an amazing role model to so many men and women, I would argue. Because as you as you open up windows and doors for women, you're opening minds and mindsets for all. Your energy, your passion, your purpose and your impact is really unparalleled.
So, Lorraine, it has been a privilege having you here on “Leadership Matters.” I hope that people will go on the Catalyst website and volunteer. But we're thrilled to have you on SiriusXM on this show, and on leadershipmattersshow.com. And I hope people listen and engage and join you on these very important fights at a really important time. So thank you for joining. You’re good friend, and we'll have you on again, I hope. Thank you.