Reshma Saujani
Founder and CEO, Moms First
When you build organizations for the most vulnerable, everybody wins. So when you implement policies and cultures that support moms, they don't just benefit moms, they benefit the entire organization.
Summary
This week on “Leadership Matters,” Alan was joined by the inspiring Founder and CEO of Moms First (formerly known as the Marshall Plan for Moms), Reshma Saujani. An experienced advocate and champion of women and moms worldwide, Reshma leads an important organization fighting to get mothers across the country affordable child care, paid leave, and equal pay. Reshma is also well-known as the founder of Girls Who Code, an international nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in technology.
From her upbringing as the daughter of Indian-Ugandan immigrants and early life in Chicago, to her early interest in politics, groundbreaking congressional run, and founding of her organizations, Reshma guides Alan through her esteemed career and essential advocacy work. Together, they dive into her extensive writing and recently published fourth book, Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think), and explore the lessons in leadership Reshma has learned over the years.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Guest Bio
Reshma Saujani is a leading activist and the founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms. She has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women and girls’ economic empowerment, working to close the gender gap in the tech sector, and most recently advocating for policies to support moms impacted by the pandemic. Reshma is also the author of the international bestseller Brave, Not Perfect, and her influential TED talk, “Teach girls, bravery not perfection,” has more than five million views globally.Reshma began her career as an attorney and Democratic organizer. In 2010, she surged onto the political scene as the first Indian American woman to run for U.S. Congress. During the race, Reshma visited local schools and saw the gender gap in computing classes firsthand, which led her to start Girls Who Code. She also served as New York City’s Deputy Public Advocate, where she created innovative partnerships to support DREAMers and promote campaign finance reform, among other initiatives.
In her nine-year tenure as the CEO of Girls Who Code, Reshma grew the organization to one of the largest and most prestigious non-profits in the country. Today, Girls Who Code has taught 300,000 girls through direct in-person computer science education programming, and reached 500 million people worldwide through its New York Times-bestselling book series and award-winning campaigns. In 2019, Girls Who Code was awarded Most Innovative Non-Profit by Fast Company.
In response to the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on America’s moms, Reshma launched the Marshall Plan for Moms to advocate for policies that value women’s labor in and out of the home. The movement has framed the national conversation about how we support moms and is backed by A-list celebrities, activists, and business leaders. Reshma has successfully worked with House and Senate leaders to introduce “Marshall Plan for Moms” legislation at the federal level and is continuing to act as an outside agitator to change culture through creative awareness campaigns.
Reshma is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Yale Law School. Her innovative approach to movement building has earned her broad recognition on lists including: Fortune World’s Greatest Leaders; Fortune 40 Under 40; WSJ Magazine Innovator of the Year; Forbes Most Powerful Women Changing the World; and Fast Company 100 Most Creative People, among others. She is the winner of the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education.
Reshma serves on the Board of Overseers for Harvard University and on the Board of Overseers for the International Rescue Committee, which provides aid to refugees and those impacted by humanitarian crises. In addition, she serves on the Board of Trustees of the Economic Club of New York, and as an ex-officio Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Reshma lives in New York City with her husband, Nihal, their sons, Shaan and Sai, and their bulldog, Stanley.
Episode Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
My guest today is a remarkable author, activist and private sector leader who is one of the country's most important voices empowering women and mothers in the workforce. Reshma Saujani is the founder and CEO of Moms First, an advocacy organization fighting to get mothers across the country affordable childcare, paid leave, and equal pay. Formerly known as Marshall Plan for Moms, the organization was founded by Reshma in 2020 to address one of the key barriers to gender equality in the United States. Reshma is also well known as the founder of Girls Who Code, an international nonprofit organization working to close the gap, the gender gap, in technology. Thanks to her work, Girls Who Code has reached hundreds of thousands of girls in all 50 states, Canada and the United Kingdom. Reshma was also a prolific writer and author, having published four books over the last decade. Her latest work titled Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It's Different Than You Think) was released earlier this year to critical acclaim, and has already become a national bestseller. An accomplished public speaker and voice for change, Reshma has spent her entire career building remarkable institutions and fighting for equality on a wide variety of fronts. I'm thrilled to have her join us on Leadership Matters today to discuss her amazing career, her recent writings and our perspectives on leadership. Reshma, welcome to Leadership Matters. It is a pleasure having you here today.
Reshma Saujani
Thank you, Alan, for having me. It's wonderful to be here.
Alan Fleischmann
I screwed up on the book title. So let’s just tell everybody what the latest book's title is.
Reshma Saujani
Oh it's called Pay Up. It's hard, there's so many books.
Alan Fleischmann
Okay, Pay Up it is. Alright, good. I wouldn't want to get that wrong, because I want to be urging people to read your book. Well, I'd love to start a little bit about your family background. Your parents were Indian-Ugandans who were expelled from the country during the dictatorship of Idi Amin. Tell us a little bit about their lives and their journey to the United States.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, so you know my parents, two generations of my family were brought over from India by the British to Uganda to build the railroads from Kampala to Mombasa. And so both my parents were born in Uganda, and then were expelled in 1973 by the dictator, Idi Amin. And so they were lucky because they became two people, refugees, who got status to come to this country. The United States had given out 1,000 visas, and they were two of those that were able to get refugee status to come here. And so, even though they were trained engineers, my father worked as a machinist at a plant, and you know, my mother sold cosmetics. And so, you know, we had the quintessential story of like, in many ways, the American Dream, you know, of working hard. And at that time of assimilating, an emphasis on education. And for me, I think their story of being pushed out of their homeland was very critical for me in deciding what I wanted to do with my life.
Alan Fleischmann
Amazing role models. And do you have brothers or sisters?
Reshma Saujani
I have an older sister who's a doctor.
Alan Fleischmann
And you guys, does everyone live near each other now?
Reshma Saujani
No, my sister lives in Georgia, my parents live in Chicago and I live in New York. But my sister has three kids, so we often try to hang out and see each other. I just took her out for her 50th birthday. I'm seeing my father in a couple of weeks, I have a speech in Chicago. So I see them often.
Alan Fleischmann
That's wonderful. So tell us a little bit of highlights from the educational point of view, because when I think of you, I think of you as being a master of the message as well. I imagine that you had great influences growing up, you know, that somehow you realized that persuasion and messaging mattered as you advocate for things and it's very telling, and I imagine that began in the early years of your growing up.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, I joke that I traded in my pacifier for a bullhorn the minute that I could. Yeah, I led my first march when I was 13. We grew up in a very working class, kind of — there weren't a lot of immigrants there. And so we were kind of bullied growing up. And so I really wanted to educate people about my religion, you know, I'm a Hindu, and about being Indian. And so I gravitated towards public speaking. You know, I gave my first commencement speech in high school. They say that public speaking is the thing that most people are the most afraid of. I don't know. It's the thing that I really loved and I enjoyed and came naturally to me.
I went to the University of Illinois Urbana and majored in speech communications and poli-sci, got my Master's in Public Policy at Harvard and got my J.D. at Yale. So in many ways, I think communications storytelling was always a big part of my education in my academic journey.
Alan Fleischmann
And then, I guess part of your academic journey was you've got an undergraduate degree at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where you studied political science and —
Reshma Saujani
Speech communications, I double majored.
Alan Fleischmann
And you worked as an intern for Bill Clinton's 1996 presidential campaign while you were there?
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, I fell in love. I had an internship in Washington, started working on the presidential campaign, became a White House intern and just fell in love with politics. It was the first like, kind of campaign-campaign that I had ever worked on. But got hooked, you know, very, very early on into politics.
Alan Fleischmann
And you worked on the campaign in Chicago?
Reshma Saujani
I worked on the campaign in D.C., and then in Chicago, and then, you know, on the convention and a whole bunch of sorts of things. And then, you know, that kind of began a career of working on different campaigns and being involved in politics, whether it was knocking on doors, whether it was raising money, whether it was organizing young people. But I was always, you know, again, I've very much gravitated towards, how do you tell a story? How do you have a bigger vision? You know, how do you tell that message?
Alan Fleischmann
And you got involved in politics on the campus as well during college?
Reshma Saujani
Yeah. At that time, Newt Gingrich, you know, there was the Contract with America and I was very involved in fighting against that, pushing for Asian American Studies at the University and pushing for diversity. I mean, in many ways, my life has had a very similar throughline, you know, from the time I was 12 until now.
Alan Fleischmann
That sounds amazing, actually. And then you went to get your Master's in Public Policy from Harvard.
Reshma Saujani
I did. Well, I mean, when I was there, I spent some time in South Africa. It was when Mandela was first coming into power, I did my thesis on apartheid. So I was very, very, very, you know, kind of active in that. And, you know, the Kennedy School of Government was just a really special place, because there are all these people from across the world. I actually, when I started my master's, I wasn't even 21 yet, I was probably one of the youngest people in my class.
But I remember just sitting at the Institute of, you know, the IOP. And you just had all these amazing speakers. I saw John F. Kennedy, Jr. speak there. They're just all these amazing, amazing speakers that would come and tell their story. And again, it continued my love for public service, my desire to create change, you know, and my passion for politics.
Alan Fleischmann
And your passion for education, because you've got a law degree from Yale, you got the masters from the Kennedy School. What made you want to have both? What made you want to pursue two professional degrees?
Reshma Saujani
Well, I always just wanted to go to law school. And I wanted to go to Yale Law School. And I applied several times before I finally got in, but at that point, I wasn't getting in. And I saw a flier for the Kennedy School of Government. And I was like, “This is amazing.” Like, I would love to go get my Master's in Public Policy. And I kind of applied on a whim and I got in. And it was kind of a detour from going to law school because I hadn't gotten into the law school that I wanted to go to yet. My parents were not happy with that, because again, no one for them, you know — as immigrants, you just become an engineer or a doctor or lawyer. You know, they're like, “Masters of Public Policy, what is that?”
So again, I'm a big believer in faith and whatever is meant to happen is meant to happen. But I was meant to kind of get that detour into going to the Kennedy School of Government and being exposed to that for two years, which I think, really again, deepened and solidified my commitment to public service.
Alan Fleischmann
All along, did you have a career objective in mind, and did you know where you wanted to land and that you wanted to build organizations, for example?
Reshma Saujani
I wanted to be a politician. I was obsessed with, I mean, I wanted to be like — I really thought that the way to bring about change, like I was inspired by Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi, like I wanted to solve really big problems. But in my mind back then the way you did that was through running for office. I think I have a different perspective now. But back then that is really what I thought was the path to change. And so that's something, I always thought I wanted to run one day, that was always kind of the plan.
Alan Fleischmann
And you decided you did want to run, right?
Reshma Saujani
Yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you practice law at all?
Reshma Saujani
I did practice. So you know, when I went to Yale Law School I thought I was gonna go work for the NAACP or be a civil rights lawyer or go work in government. And then Bush v. Gore happened and Bush became president, and I didn't feel like working in government at that point. So I thought, and I was at that time also then $300,000 in student loan debt. And so I kind of followed my classmates out to white-shoe law firms, and naively thought that I could pay off my student loans in a year or two. And then I would go surf or run for office. And I just ended up really getting stuck in corporate America.
Alan Fleischmann
At that point, which law firm were you in?
Reshma Saujani
I was at Davis, Polk and Wardwell. And then I was working, then I became a lawyer at a hedge fund, because at that time, everybody was like — it's like how tech was then. Or now, or not really even now, I don't even know where people want to go now. But back then everybody wanted to work at a hedge fund or a private equity fund, or, you know, a venture fund. And so I was a lawyer working at a series of different ones.
Alan Fleischmann
And different kinds of law, or similar to corporate law?
Reshma Saujani
It was the same kind of corporate law, like corporate documents, corporate formation. And that wasn't, you know, let me see… I don’t think I even practiced for — I basically graduated in 2002 and I think I practiced law till maybe ‘09, ‘08 or ’09. And then I ended up running for office in 2010. And I haven't practiced law since.
Alan Fleischmann
So tell us about that. The decision to run, where you ran and who you ran against.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah. Well, I mean, I told you, I always thought that the way — I was always involved in politics and involved in activism. And so I really thought — people would always say, well, we need more young people to run, we need a generational change. And I really believed in that. And there were parts of me that thought I would go back to Chicago and run for office. But, you know, I found myself again, like, I love New York, New York is my home. And you know, what they always say in politics in New York is very hard. It's very hard to run in New York. There's like a lot, you know, there's a kind of institutionalized system of New York politics, that people will kind of run over and over again. It's very hard to break through.
And at that time, though, I remember, you know, in 2008, 2009, there were whispers that my Congresswoman was going to be running for Senate. And so there was gonna be an open seat. And so I started getting excited and thinking about it, and, you know, put my job, put my hat in the race, and then she decides she's not going to retire. I mean, she's not going to run for Senate, that she's going to stay in her congressional seat. So I found myself having to decide whether I was going to challenge you know, at that time, an 18 year incumbent for Congress, and I pretty much didn't know any better. So I did decide to get into that race. I was the first Indian American woman, South Asian American woman to ever run for United States Congress. And at that time, in 2010, you didn't have democratic challengers in primaries, it just — now it's very common. But you know, back then, almost 13 years ago, no one did that. Especially not a no name immigrant, I mean, like women of color. And so it was very, it was incredibly exciting, incredibly naive, but a wonderful experience.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you think you were going to win when you started?
Reshma Saujani
Absolutely. Everyone always thinks, you always think you're gonna win when you run. Because you know, when you meet people, it's like “I'm voting for you. You're amazing. That's great.” And there's just a lot of excitement against, I think, in many ways, just being a disruptor. Even I remember the day on election day, I was sitting on subway stops and people were saying “I voted for you.” I believe it feels like literally everybody voted for you. But when the poll returns came out, I got like less than 19% of the vote. I mean, I got trounced. Clearly, no one voted for me.
Alan Fleischmann
What was your percentage again?
Reshma Saujani
I think I got less than 19% of the vote.
Alan Fleischmann
That's actually pretty good.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, you think so? I mean, I’d agree it's like 1.4 million. I mean, I put a lot of money into it. The thing is, it's really impossible, right? Because you think you can meet every voter, shake every hand, right? But the reality is a lot of people, most people, do not vote, right. And most people will kind of go into the ballot box and just kind of vote for what they know. And so even though you think you're breaking through, it's just your name recognition is just so low. Back then for me, it was so low that I just had no chance.
Alan Fleischmann
When you lost, did you find that your opponent — who were your opponents at that point? And then did they reach out to you to say, “Join me,” or “Get involved with what I'm doing”?
Reshma Saujani
No, nobody called me. In fact, I think I created a sworn enemy in her. For years, I couldn't even get on my community board, because she didn't really want me to. No, you ran against the democratic — I mean, running against the establishment, there's always a price to pay, and a cost to pay. And I probably didn't realize it when I signed up for it. But, I would do it all over again.
No, nobody called me and that was a thing. And that's what inspired me to write my first book, Women Who Don’t Wait In Line. Even though I had lost, I had made a splash. You know, I had raised $1.4 million, which was like the most of any candidate in that cycle. I again, was this young woman of color, the first South Asian American woman to run, I'd gotten people like John Legend and Jack Dorsey to support me. You know, we had run a really spirited campaign. And I think if you talk to some of my supporters then, you know, they're the very ones who are supporting me, you know, who supported me to build Girls Who Code. They're not surprised that I ended up building one of the largest women and girls organizations in the world. They're not surprised that I turned out the way that I turned out, you know, when they met 2010 Reshma. And they were investing in many ways in my future. But I think the establishment didn't — nobody called me and said, “You have potential. Yeah, I mean, you didn't get it this time. But come work for me, come support me, come do this, come to that.” And that was really disheartening.
Alan Fleischmann
The great story that I love is when your rival, your opponent who actually won, picks up the phone and calls you to say, “Why don’t you come work with me?” You know, you hear those stories every once in a while, and it's transformational. Someone who had the insight to realize that what you were saying, what you were fighting for, what you were believing and what you are articulating, mattered. It’s better to have you join forces. But that didn’t happen here.
Reshma Saujani
Did not happen for me.
Alan Fleischmann
You created this incredible community of supporters. I'm sure you even have reunions for your campaign staff, because you built such an incredibly tight team. Even win or lose, they went through a lot together.
Reshma Saujani
Oh yeah, I have some of them still working — two of them still work for me right now.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s great. I mean, there's a runway between the congressional timing of the bid and your race, and then when you got to Girls Who Code. What did you do in between? And how did you pick up and realize that your ideas still mattered?
Reshma Saujani
Well, I did have one person call me and that was then Mayor Bill de Blasio. And he said, “Hey, well, you know, come work for me.” Because I knew then that I didn't want to go back into the private sector, that I really loved my experience on the campaign. And I wanted to do something in public service. I wasn't going to go back. And I didn't have a lot of options, because like I said, my phone was not ringing. I was in debt, I was broke. And I had a pretty big enemy in New York City. So, you know, I get that call from de Blasio, who's, you know, the public advocate of New York City. He’s got a really small office, but it's an opportunity, you know, to come in, and he asked me to come be his deputy. And at the same time, I keep thinking about, “Well, I want to do this, what do I want to build? What are the things that I saw on the campaign trail that I want to create?”
And you know, in 2010, that is when tech was just starting to grow. And, you know, like I said, Jack Dorsey was a good friend of mine. I learned a lot about what he built. We were the first candidate in 2010 to use Square as a device for swiping campaign contributions. So I was, I had like a view, right, of the potential of tech. And I also, you know, as a candidate would end up going into these classrooms, like computer science classrooms that were there and there were just no girls. And because I was a speech comms major, not a computer science major, I was like, “Wait, I don't get it, I don't get it, where are the women, where are the girls?”
And so I kept thinking about those classrooms. And so, you know, in my mornings when I walk to work, or in my lunch breaks or after work, I always have side hustles. I believe that you should always have side hustles and so on. I started thinking about this idea called Girls Who Code about, you know, trying to understand why weren’t there women in tech. Were there ever? What would be an intervention to get them engaged in technology, and what could that look like. And so over the course of two years, while I was a deputy public advocate, I started really building a business plan for this nonprofit for this organization, which was called Girls Who Code, to create the pipeline of talent.
Alan Fleischmann
That's exciting. So you knew what you wanted and you did know that everyone was talking about, if you don't know how to code, you're gonna be out of the economy, you're not gonna have any future. And the fact that there is an absence of young women is pretty devastating, actually.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah. And the thing is that people really kind of get, I mean, I remember Hillary Clinton always tells this story. She says, you know, when you first started building numbers, like, what's she doing? What's coding? Right? It's like, people didn't really, it wasn't big yet. And so it sounded like this cute kind of thing I was doing on the side, but I saw the potential for it, similar to the work that I'm doing now with moms, and I often tell people, but it took me a couple of years to figure it out. And it was like, those years were really fun because I would meet with smart—
Alan Fleischmann
Those were the years where you were a…
Reshma Saujani
You know, I was a deputy public advocate, and I was building Girls Who Code. So I would say, you know, 2010, to like, you know, 2011, 2012, building the idea. And so, you know, when you have an idea for something, I think you treat it in many ways like a research project, or a science project, right?
You're like, okay, you’ve got to talk to experts in the field to understand what the problem is. Research various interventions, figure out if people are gonna give you capital to start it. And that was kind of what I spent a year and a half is really building the scaffolding around what would then be Girls Who Code.
I mean, for example, really thinking about, like, if you want to get millions of girls learning how to code, what's the best kind of intervention? And as I spoke to people I said a lot and at that time, I wasn't a mom. Right? So when I talked to parents, they were like, “You know what, it's really hard to find a summer camp, or find something for my kids to do during the Summer. So if there was like a summer coding program, that would be really cool.” You know what I mean, like, you could get a lot of people interested in that.
And so that's how I came up with the idea of a summer immersion program. And then, you know, this idea of there's a lot of mystery and like, intrigue around tech. So like building that program inside a tech company that a lot of people wanted to go be at, like Google or Facebook back then, and see what it was like. So having the number, you know, 20 is a good number for a cohort when they're trying to learn a new skill set. So there were lots of different pieces I put together in talking to people in ideating about what an intervention could look like.
Alan Fleischmann
And then how did you go about building the organization itself?
Reshma Saujani
Well, I kind of — I didn't think I was building an organization. I think I was building a pilot. So I was like, alright, I'm gonna just do a test run, take 20 girls. I borrowed a friend's conference room. I remember I met a teacher who had a spreadsheet of every single email address to teachers. I mass emailed them to recommend students that they think might be interested in this. You know, like literally hand picked and found 20 Girls, I bought them pizza and I remember giving them 50 bucks the first summer because I was terrified that they would rather be outside instead.
And then you know, have people just volunteer and building what they were going to learn, you know. During that first eight week program, which was just one big experiment, it was an incredible experiment that worked and then after that first Summer I was like, oh, there's something here. Like, we're gonna build an organization.
Alan Fleischmann
And then you realized and you built up pretty quickly once you got it going, or does it just look like it was built quickly?
Reshma Saujani
No, it built quickly. To me, I believe in scale, or like, what's the point? I also think I talked about this like I had a chip on my shoulder, right? I was a failed candidate and I ran again while I was in the first year building Girls Who Code for public advocate. I lost again and so they say this like with athletes that don't get picked for the same reason.
Alan Fleischmann
So you ran for the same seat again?
Reshma Saujani
No, I ran for public advocate. I ran for what Bill de Blasio was. I ran a city wide race, which is even harder. And I got crushed again. But then I've really had a chip on my shoulder and they say this about athletes, you know, who don't get picked for the first round. Because I was so clear, I felt like, “I could do this, people, I can help you. I can serve. I can create good, just give me, you know, just pass me the ball, just give me a shot.” And I just couldn't get my shot in politics.
So, you know, part of what I ran on the second time for public advocate was I wanted to get every New York City public school student to learn computer science. Because back then still, I was like, tech, tech tech. You know, I mean, like, these are the skills of the future. And it was still a little too early, right? And so when I lost, I said, “Fine, forget it. I am going to go build Girls Who Code into the largest organization I've ever seen. And I'm going to teach millions of people to code.”
And I did.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. At some point did the public servant in you that wanted to be in elective office realize that you're making a difference in the organization that you're building? And, in many ways, with even a bigger penetration than you might have if you had actually won either one of those elections?
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, I think that became clear to me a couple years in that I wouldn't trade that for the world. Like there's no way I could have made the same impact as a junior congressperson, I would even argue even as a senator. And I think also, as time went on, the political process has gotten more eroded, more broken, more dysfunctional, right, than like 2010. So it's become less and less of an attract, like, I think, if you want to make change, it's not clear to me today that I would tell a young person to go run for office.
Alan Fleischmann
That's been my epiphany in life, too. When I started, my journey was very much about if you want to be — the ultimate was running for office. And, you know, I think private sector and civil society in general has stepped up in ways. And in the last several years, where there's just been such, you know, difficulty and collaboration on the public sector side, and the urgency of getting things done, has not happened on the policy side without leadership from private, public, or private civil society.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is that we're — I feel like as they come in, once you've proven proof of concept, like for me for Girls Who Code, once we prove, kids should learn how to code and it's a good thing, and they'll create amazing things, then the public education system said, “Okay, let's try to teach more kids.”
They're not there to be the first driver of innovation. And it used to be that they were, right. I mean, you see this on A.I. right now. I would argue government is trying to catch up to the disruption that's already happening. And so, where would you want to sit? You know, if you're someone who knows how to make change, and has a lot of desire to do good, it's, you know, again, I don't want to — who knows, maybe I'll run for office again one day, maybe. But I really have to be convinced that I would do more good there than here.
Alan Fleischmann
So tell us a little bit about what Girls Who Code became, and the reach that it had and continues to have?
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, so you know, like I said, we started in like 2010. And we started with, you know, 20 girls in a conference room. And now we've taught over 500,000 girls in the United States and Canada since we launched, officially launched in 2012. We've got about 115,000 college aged alumni. Over half of our students are from historically underrepresented groups, which are Black, Latino, low income, you know, students from other races and ethnicities that are underrepresented in tech.
Girls who code alumni are earning computer science degrees at seven times the national average. You know, 36% of our alumni have earned a CS related degree compared to 5% of women nationally. So we've made a tremendous amount. I mean, we've like flooded the gates with women that are majoring in computer science. And so, in 2022, there were, you know, 115,000 Girls Who Code alumni who are college age or post college age, which is three times the number of women graduating with CS related degrees in 2019. So we've made a tremendous amount of change.
Alan Fleischmann
That is incredible. And obviously it's not the only organization that you started, you know, the CEO of Moms First you mentioned, and that originally grew out of an op-ed that you wrote during the COVID pandemic.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, you know, during the pandemic, I had no intention of stepping down as CEO of Girls Who Code. Like, this is my baby. And, you know, when the pandemic happened, I was having my second child. And so I found myself homeschooling my five year old, taking care of a newborn, and then, you know, saving Girls Who Code from being shut down. Because, you know, during the pandemic, a lot of women and girls organizations stopped getting the resources that they needed, and you have to remember, Girls Who Code, our programs were in tech companies that were shut down, in after school clubs, 10,000 of them in schools that were no longer open. And in colleges that were no longer open.
So every way that we actually educated our students, every vehicle that we did that through was shut down. And so we had to make a massive pivot from in person to virtual, literally overnight. And so, and as I mentioned, half of the students that we serve are from underrepresented groups, and you know, what I remember, what I saw with so many of them who were on their way to college, is that they couldn't go to college because their mothers were essential workers, nurses, teachers, I mean, you name it. And instead of going to college, they had to stay home and take care of their siblings. And so because daycare centers were shut down, you know, because we live in a country where schools were shut down, because we have a broken structure of care, we were reinforcing this generational cycle of poverty. And it was just a big eye opener for me, right? I could teach millions of girls to code, but if the minute they become mothers, they're pushed back, you know what I mean, out of the workforce, what's the point?
And so I wrote an op-ed saying that we needed a Marshall Plan for Moms, because, again, you know, when we started the pandemic, 51% of the labor force was female. But by the end of like, September of 2020, 11 million women had left the workforce literally overnight, because schools were shut down, daycare centers were shut down, and they had to basically supplement their paid labor for unpaid labor. And it was affecting women, you know what I mean, not men in the same way. And so it was clear that if we had a social safety net, that that wouldn't have happened. And that if we have another pandemic it's gonna happen again.
Alan Fleischmann
And then the whole thing unravels again.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, so you know, Moms First is a national nonprofit that's trying to now transform our workplaces and our government, and we're trying to do two major things. One, get paid leave passed and make childcare affordable. So, you know, we're the only industrialized nation that doesn't have paid leave. 90% of low income women basically go back to work, you know, a handful of days after having a baby. As a nation, we invest in childcare less than anywhere else, like 40% of parents are in debt because of the cost of childcare. And moms now earn 58 cents for every dollar earned by dads, and are doing two thirds of the unpaid labor at home. And so, again, we're still kind of living in this madman era of policies in, you know, in cultures that are like not designed for the reality of which we live in today, which is that 40% of moms are breadwinners.
Alan Fleischmann
That's right. And was it hard? The decision actually, you know, to move away from the organization that you had built, and building which still had a great mission to an organization that — have you stayed affiliated with the one you founded?
Reshma Saujani
Oh, my God, yes, I'm on the board. I spend probably 15% of my time still on it. It's my baby. You know, I think it's very hard to create something and let it go. And to me, what I'm doing now is just an extension of that, like, my life is about creating opportunities for women, for girls, for those that are underserved. And what I'm doing now is just a through line of what I've been doing.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. And so you're actually having the best of both worlds rather than just one.
Reshma Saujani
I don't know. Like, I'll be honest, I mean, this is a conversation about leadership, it is not easy to step away from something that you've built and still be involved, but not so involved that you don't let the next person run it the way that they want to run it. So it is probably one of the hardest things I do, one of the proudest things. I mean, our CEO, Tarika Barrett, was my COO. So you know, I had hand picked her for this role and she is incredible, incredible. And, you know, we worked together for four or five years before that. And she was, you know, in so many ways she's a better CEO than I was, you know. On some aspects, I learned from her, right. She's incredible. She's an incredible leader. She knows how to lead a team and do the systems work. And so we're like, really great partners. Right? And I'm so grateful for that. Because I have — and her respect for me, it just, you know, we did a 10 year anniversary. She literally built an entire board, a conference room in our new office that is named after me, a wall named after me. I mean, like, people don't do that. And so it's like, she just has a lot of respect and love for like, the role that I played, I have a lot of respect and love for her and how she's taking the organization to the next level.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. I love that. And earlier this year, you published your fourth book, Pay Up. Tell us a little bit about the book, it opens up with a with an argument that women can have it all. I mean, you're talking about the struggle here in today's society. Tell us a little bit what that means. Why? And, you know, and why hasn't this issue been addressed? I mean, I feel like in many ways, you're taking on the thing that everyone realizes but doesn't want to speak about.
Reshma Saujani
Well, it's, you know, it's for so long, the framework for women's leadership has been telling women to lean in or get a mentor, tackle imposter syndrome. We've been trying to fix women rather than fixing the system. And so we haven't focused on structural changes, like child care, paid leave or pay equity, that is going to solidify and ensure economic security. So in many ways, this issue has kind of been in the margins, and the pandemic has brought in, and I hope the work that we've done has brought it into the mainstream.
So it's like, it's getting us to realize for so long, if we think we're failing at home, and we're not raising our hand for that promotion, we think, “It's just me, my husband's not doing enough. I'm a bad mom, I can't color code the calendar.” Right? We kept thinking and then during the pandemic, we realized, “Oh, my God, it's not just me, 40 million of us are having the exact same experience.” And we realize, “Oh, this isn't about a personal problem. This is a structural problem.”
And so it's a really big pivot, right. Like, even if you think about what women ERGs do at companies is they're still doing the, “let me teach you how to get a mentor, let me tell you how to raise your hand, let me know…” They're still trying to fix women. Because that's what we've been conditioned to think, that we're the problem. And so it is, really the sea changes. I know, we need to audit our own policies, like, why don't we have pay equity for mothers and fathers who are doing the exact same work? Why don't we have gender neutral paid leave? Why don't we encourage or incentivize the men in our office to be taking paid leave? You know, how do we treat childcare like healthcare when we know that that is the number one variable getting women to work. So it's like, it's really shifting the way that we've been thinking about these things.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, and what reaction are you getting from the book? What are you getting reaction-wise from your op-eds?
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, it's been tremendous. I mean, we have now launched a national business coalition on childcare that’s over 40 companies from Etsy to Patagonia to Bloomberg to Synchrony Financial. You know, huge companies that are like joining us in working to subsidize childcare. We launched last week a first kind of bipartisan caucus on childcare with Nancy Mace and Ro Khanna. We launched a campaign just yesterday, we're now with our community of 750,000 moms encouraging them to reach out to their congressperson to get them to be a part of this caucus. Literally in like, I think less than 24 hours, every single congressperson had been contacted, you know. So we're building this mass movement, you know, I'm leading the first ever Care Council at Davos to start getting, again, leaders to start talking about the commitments that they're going to be making in care.
People always say that “I cannot believe we've only been around for less than two years, because we're making a tremendous amount of progress, and we've really changed the conversation. And so, I'm really proud of our work. It's, you know, we're a grassroots movement of more than, like I said, 750,000 moms and the allies we’re engaged with in the private sector to create workplaces that work. We're organizing moms to advocate for what they need and we're gonna win paid leave and childcare in as many places and spaces by 2027.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. Lower wages, obviously, you know, paid parental leave, these are issues that you've probably dealt with and talked about when you were working on the Clinton campaign actually, you know, mothers in the workforce facing so many big challenges. And obviously, Moms First is overcoming them or working to overcome them, and I hear the optimism in you. But it must get frustrating that these are issues that have been around, that are well articulated. And they've been around for a while.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, it's so much easier to convince people to teach girls to code than to get moms affordable childcare. Which is shocking, right? But you realize that, like my coach told me and that I used to literally, and every night be like, “This is so hard, this is so much harder, you know, what am I doing,” because, you know, I'll be honest, building Girls Who Code nearly killed me. And so I was reluctant to do something, to do it all over again. And at first, I thought it's gonna be easier because I know how to do this. But it's been harder, because it's so much more of a challenging issue. And I don't think I fully appreciated that when I started it.
So now, I've tried to change my language from saying, “This is so hard” to “This is going to happen.” Because I do believe what you put into the universe you will get. And I do believe that I have made so much progress so quickly. Because I've learned, I'm using a similar playbook that I used for Girls Who Code, you know, in terms of how do you message, how do you build a mass movement, how do you get leaders involved and engaged quickly, and how do you use communication as a way to really bring about change? You know, we've raised more money than any other organization in this space in this period of time, philanthropic dollars, but when we do this, it's going to be the proudest moment of my life.
Alan Fleischmann
This again goes back to the person who was driven to public service and elected office. In many ways that's what you're doing now. You're right in the middle of the policy phase, right at the cultural shifts as well, right. You're your role model, you're bringing people in to think differently about a changing mindset. As much as it is about, you know, changing policy.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, because in many ways for Girls Who Code it's like, I was trying to get my students to become activists. And to be social entrepreneurs, you know, in here it's like I'm doing the same thing with moms. We’re getting them to kind of take ownership over their own lives, and to say yes, you can demand change, you deserve better. And this is how you're gonna fight for it. So it again, I think it's all there. It's the same kind of through line.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. Let's talk a little bit about leadership and your view. What role do private sector leaders have to play in empowering working mothers? And how can businesses contribute to the cause of equality? I mean, obviously, some of them take that on as their frontline issue. Others don't. But what would you like to see more from private industry?
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, look, I think that I learned from Girls Who Code that when you build organizations for the most vulnerable, everybody wins. So when you implement policies and cultures that support moms, they don't just benefit moms, but they benefit the entire organization. And so men, people without kids and caregiving responsibilities just have a lot to gain. And there's a huge kind of cultural and generational shift that's happening in the workforce.
I don't know about you, but both my parents worked pretty much at the same company their whole lives. And I remember going with my mom or my dad to work, and their bosses knew my name. They knew my teachers names — it was about family. And then something shifted over the past five to 10 years where work became very transactional. And it wasn't about family or values. And then I think when the pandemic happened, and we had to give people flexibility and control, and you saw kids kind of bombarding zoom screens, and you knew about what the struggles that people were facing, whether it was taking care of elderly parents, or children or pets, we all had a moment to re-center ourselves around our values and our family values.
And that's where I think companies need to be, and I think companies who understand it will economically benefit from it. So if you support a parent with childcare or flexibility, they're not going to leave within the average, which is what, 12 to 18 months, you know what I mean. They're gonna stay longer, and it costs, you know, 20% of a first person salary to replace somebody. It's expensive. And so there's a real economic benefit when you focus on policies and benefits that value not just the employee, but their family.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. You know, from your work with Girls Who Code, mentors play a very big role in every leader's journey. Who've been significant mentors in your own life and your career? And what did they teach you? Tell us a little bit about your mentors.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, Hillary Clinton's been a big mentor of mine, she taught me a lot about failure and about dusting off that pantsuit and keep moving. She taught me about grace. Like, whenever I see her, she'll pull me aside and beg I give her the latest. And so she is trying to teach me the lessons that she learned so that I can get there faster. And the generosity that she has, with her time, is just powerful. And I know very few men and women who really do that. And so she's just remarkable. And look, and I've always had people who just have believed in me, and that's just one of them. I mean, Jack Dorsey is definitely one of those people in my life, where whatever I'm building or creating, he's my first check. He's my first form of support. Same with John Legend. You know, I mean, he's blurbed all my books, shares all my speeches, right? He's just, he's great. And so like, there have been people who have kind of power in their platform, who have used their platform and power to help me do good.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. How did you meet John Legend?
Reshma Saujani
He went to school with my husband.
Alan Fleischmann
That's cool. What does your husband do?
Reshma Saujani
My husband's a venture capitalist.
Alan Fleischmann
That's good to have both in the house.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah. And he is my pump up guy. He's my biggest fan.
Alan Fleischmann
Let's go back to this idea of transitioning, because every CEO — our listenership is, you know, leaders, and aspiring leaders, and CEOs and aspiring CEOs. And I'm struck by the very decision you made to step down as CEO of Girls Who Code. You obviously wrote earlier this year a really beautiful article about burnout and your decision to step down. What advice would you offer to other leaders about, two things: one, how to avoid burnout. If that was an issue that you made, or looking back, we're always wiser than we are during the journey. What are the things you would do differently? And then also about — to leaders — when is it right to think about stepping aside? And then how do you create space for an organization’s next chapter?
Reshma Saujani
I don't think I stepped down because I was burned out.
Alan Fleischmann
You obviously started another organization right away so you couldn’t have been.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, exactly. And I didn't take a sabbatical, which is something I regret. So FYI, anyone who’s listening, definitely take time between the two things. Don't be in such a rush. Maybe, and I kind of didn't have a choice, because this moment was happening.
So look, I think on the burnout piece, I gave everything to Girls Who Code and I gave everything at the expense of myself. I mean, I was literally on two or three planes a week. And then I would redeye it back because I had young children that I wanted to get to school or to do morning routines with. And I didn't realize it, you know, through that I was trying to have a baby, had all these fertility issues. And so I didn't realize until the pandemic when I stopped traveling, my liver failed. You know, I had all these health issues that just happened, because I got to slow down. And then I got to go to a doctor and they're like, “Okay, we have to do some work here.” Because I hadn't been to a doctor in like, 10 years. So I ignored every symptom.
And so that was a big lesson for me. And now as I'm building my second organization, which I told you is much harder than my first, I'm not doing it at the same cost, you know, at the same expense. Like I really limit my travel, you know, I mean, I don't do — I try to be at home with my kids and on my couch, or with my dog. I take time for like, you know, I'm setting the bug with Geetha with, you know, a monk right now. I don't work on the weekends. I just, you know, and I really schedule the time to do the things that I want to do, which for me right now is spending time with my family, my kids, and in bettering myself. I'm on a spiritual journey. And so it's finding time to do — and I would say the third thing is I love tennis, I love to be active. So putting that in, and I didn’t do that at Girls Who Code so I think you have to just be very intentional about it. If that means one piece of advice I can give, is I am ruthless about my schedule. I am constantly editing—
Alan Fleischmann
Tell us a little bit more about the do's and don'ts that you would recommend.
Reshma Saujani
I mean, I think that you have to be ruthless about your schedule, you have to know like, so you don't just wake up and have seven trips in the next month. Like right now today was taking things off that I had to do in November. It's June. Like I that much am in control of like, okay, this is how I want to feel week by week by week by week. And so that does mean that you're going to disappoint people and piss people off. And you’ve got to be okay with that. Like, and realize that there's nothing that's that important.
You know, I just had a situation this past week where I had said yes to commencement speeches at Smith and at Yale Law School, because I couldn't say no. And so I was, you know, I didn't get to fully enjoy either one of them. You know what I mean, because I was, you know, I was hustling through it. And I just, I realized, for me, it's like, I just don't want to live life, like if I’m going to agree and do something or if I’m going to experience something, I want to really experience it and enjoy it, and not be stressed about it. So, and I think for those two I got to kind of do that, because I canceled a bunch of stuff leading up to it, you know what I mean. I planned for knowing that this was going to be like this.
The second thing I would say, about when it's time to step down, is I don't believe anybody should run anything for more than eight years. Like, and I think that the best sign of a leader is someone who actually can transition and give it to someone else, that you've built something that is passable. And so I am — one of the proudest things I am is that I passed my leadership to Tarika. I am now two years out, like, a lot of transitions go very bad, right? There's fights, there's arguments, there's this, there's that. And we're just we didn't have that, but we were very intentional about it. You know, we had a coach that we talked to every other week, you know what I mean, during the transition, and then a year and a half into the transition. Right? We talk to each other once a week. Right?
So I think it's just funny, I had someone recently say to me, who kind of was like, gave me a little bit of advice on like — well it was a little bit like, “Well, are you sure you should have stepped down? You haven't solved the problem fully yet.”
And I think the thing is, is that far too often leaders stay too long, because it becomes their identity. And they're too afraid to do something else. And it would have been so easy for me to be the CEO of Girls Who Code forever. I would have been respected, valued, spoken at whatever I want, you know what I mean, it was great. I had raised $40 million, I put in the bank, you know what I mean, for a rainy day. And now I'm like a startup founder, again, trying to hustle my way for $25,000 checks and like terrified, I'm going to not make payroll. Like why would I do that? Why would you do that to yourself? But that's the point of life, right, is to build new things, solve bigger problems, you know, and to give people the opportunity to run something that you've built.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. I think you know, I'm just wondering, what kind of other questions could we ask? If you were a young you and you were starting out now, would you actually do it differently? Would you recommend something different? Because you've actually been a wonderful role model for so many already. And I'm just, I'm hearing these insights and I love that you actually put a lot of this to paper in your books. Are there certain doctrines you live by or principles you live by that kind of guide you every day that you want to share that would have guided you differently as well?
Reshma Saujani
Well, one of the things, I just gave a Smith commencement speech about this. It's now gotten 4 million views in less than a week. So go tell your viewers to watch it. But I think the thing is, it's about imposter syndrome, right? I think far too often, I thought I didn't belong in a room because I wasn't qualified or prepared enough. And I realized imposter syndrome is really an imposter scheme that we've always been prepared enough, qualified enough, ready enough. And so I wish I knew that earlier. I wish I didn't doubt myself, you know,
Alan Fleischmann
Which is so funny. I consider you not as someone who doubted yourself from the outside looking in because you ran for office. You know, you broke the glass ceiling by being the first in so many ways when you ran and that was daring. And then you started an organization almost right after that when others might have been licking their wounds.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, I think I took bold steps, but I think in the process, I doubted myself. I think, though I will say, though, the minute I ran that congressional race and I lost like that, a lot of that doubting stopped, you know what I mean? I realized that failure doesn't break you, I had a pivot and realized you learn a lot from failure. You know, you watch people like Michael Jordan or Serena Williams, and you see how the ability to be able to fail allows you to be great. And so now it's like I seek out opportunities to try things that don't work out, you know what I mean, and that's so clear to me, that that is such a gift. And that I was wrong for most of my life in avoiding failure, because what I was avoiding was greatness.
Alan Fleischmann
And the ability to know that, why not me?
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
And that's what you're telling yourself today, I imagine.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is, you're right, there is nothing that I don't think that I can't do, or I'm not qualified to do. Right, like I do feel like I have gotten incredible opportunity and access that like, and challenges that like — literally I know how to build organizations, I raised $100 million. You know, I mean, at Girls Who Code, like I've experienced and achieved a lot, that there's really nothing I don't think that I can not do now. And that is a great place to be at, you know, to be able to sit from and recognize.
Alan Fleischmann
Would you recommend all your books, one of your books?
Reshma Saujani
I mean, I would definitely recommend Brave, Not Perfect and Pay Up. They're very different. And I think they have very different kinds of lessons.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. And then is there any book you've read recently that you hold dear or book that you read 20 years ago that you hold dear?
Reshma Saujani
I just recently read fiction, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow which I thought was excellent. So I can't pick between books because I have so many that I love that I just can't pick between them.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. And if there's one message to the men who are listening, you know, about what they should be thinking of, listening toward, fighting for, what would that message be.
Reshma Saujani
I mean, I think the thing is, people always say to me like, what do you do about the men? I'm like, the men are not my problem. 40% of Girls Who Code teachers are men, half my board is men. My first three biggest donors at Moms First were men, right? Men have always been a part of my movement, because I think men want the same things that I want. I think the opportunity for us to figure out how do we utilize men to get us there even faster?
You know, so a great example of this is like I tell men, the work that I'm doing now, I need you to go into your HR and say we need gender neutral paid leave. You know what I mean. We need to be providing childcare, and then I need you to take it. Right. So it's like, we basically need men to use their power to get us to get to change faster.
Alan Fleischmann
And have that be the catalyst for change as well.
Reshma Saujani
Yeah, like I joke like, I'm like Jamie Dimon is on my vision board right now. Because if I can get Jamie Dimon at Sun Valley to talk about the importance of flexibility in remote work, and about the importance of subsidizing child care and how it's an economic issue, everybody's going to follow him.
Alan Fleischmann
That's exactly right. So in other words, make sure that nobody has impostor syndrome. And that everyone has a voice around these issues that we all care about. I'm a dad of daughters, and what are we doing to make sure that tomorrow’s opportunities exist with equality in ways that frankly, they don't today?
Reshma Saujani
Exactly, exactly. You know, we're living in very different times where men are not the problem right now. I think it's about us coming together to get there faster.
Alan Fleischmann
Knowing that the urgency, that these urgencies matter, and that we got to move to solve them yesterday.
Well, you've been listening to leadership matters on Sirius XM, and on leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here and I've enjoyed, as I hope you have, an hour with Reshma Saujani, who's an author and activist, a CEO of multiple organizations actually, and the founder of some really important ones, Girls Who Code and Moms First. It's been a wonderful conversation Reshma. You are truly a role model, because you're open and honest, you share your vulnerability, but you also share your strengths and it's important to hear all of the above.
Reshma Saujani
Thank you so much. It was great talking to you. Have a great day.
Alan Fleischmann
You too, looking forward to more. Thanks so much.
Reshma Saujani
Bye bye.