Breaking Barriers: Retail Women in Tech

S5E4 Breaking Barriers: Retail Women in Tech

[00:00:00] Preview

[00:00:01] Shannon Flanagan: the easiest and the best change management strategy is just talk to your people. Have everybody be engaged. And the last thing I would take away on this one is another simple model. Potential minus interference equals performance.

[00:00:15] Ricardo Belmar: What you really want is people who can adapt to the unknown, And because at the end of the day, what is innovation and transformation, it's taking you from where you're at now to somewhere that you don't necessarily know but might want to get to.

[00:00:28] Casey Golden: A resume is a list of things that I never wanna do again.

[00:00:32] Shannon Flanagan: 70 to 80% of all purchasing decisions are influenced by a woman.

[00:00:37] Let's face it, let alone in the business, we don't see that representation.

[00:00:42] I would love to put out a stretch goal to the industry in one year get to one-to-one personalization so we never have to talk about it again.

[00:00:51] Show Intro

[00:00:51] ​

[00:01:03] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome to Season Five, Episode Four of The Retail Razor Show, the original podcast in the always growing Retail Razor Podcast Network where we cut through the clutter to give you sharp insights on what's happening in retail today and tomorrow. I'm Ricardo Belmar.

[00:01:19] Casey Golden: And I'm Casey Golden. Welcome Retail Razor fans to retail's favorite podcast and the only retail podcast in the Top 10 All-Time Indie Management Podcast Charts on Goodpods where we get real about what's driving the future of retail. It's a show for product junkies, commerce technologists, retail leaders, and everyone else in retail and retail tech alike.

[00:01:44] Ricardo Belmar: So before we talk about today's amazing guest, I just have one important ask for our listeners. If you like this episode, please go into Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods, and give us a five star rating and drop a review, no matter how brief, even if, just to let us know how much you loved it. [00:02:00] Or if you just wanna let us know what you wanna see us talk about next time.

[00:02:03] Either way, it really helps us grow the show and reach more people. And as you'll see for today's episode, reaching and supporting people in retail is one of the most important ways we can improve this industry.

[00:02:15] Casey Golden: I know you said one request, but let's not leave out our YouTube audience. If you're watching us on YouTube and like the show, please hit that subscribe button, smash that bell, if you haven't already, and give us a like, and drop a comment. We want to hear from you.

[00:02:30] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely. Well said Casey. And while we're at it, this is a great time to ask our listeners and viewers to check out the other podcasts in the Retail Razor Podcast Network, including Blade to Greatness for the best leadership skills and career tips you could ever ask for in retail, straight from the best leaders in the business.

[00:02:48] Casey Golden: And then go give Data Blades a listen, where you'll get deep, practical insights into customer experience tactics you can use based on real world research at the [00:03:00]point of sale. If you're a data junkie like me, then you absolutely wanna check out the Data Blades podcast.

[00:03:07] Ricardo Belmar: And now there's our newest show just launched on the podcast network Retail Transformers. If you're a longtime fan of this show, you know just what we're talking about, candid conversations with the people driving real transformation in retail, the change makers, the innovators, and the disruptors, reshaping the industry from the inside out.

[00:03:26] Casey Golden: If you're passionate about innovation, leadership, and the future of commerce, Retail Transformers is the podcast for you.

[00:03:33] Ricardo Belmar: So let's talk about today's guest, who many have described as someone who quite literally bleeds retail from folding jeans on the floor to leading billion dollar business transformations, our amazing guest, Shannon Flanagan has seen it all and done just about all of it too.

[00:03:51] Casey Golden: There's something to be said about being able to fold jeans. She found her calling in retail at just 18, and honestly, thank [00:04:00] goodness she did, or we might have lost her to a courtroom instead. We'll hear more about that later. Shannon's built a career spanning startup scrappiness, fortune 500 scale, global strategy B2B, B2C, and retail tech.

[00:04:15] Ricardo Belmar: She is currently a humanist, retail geek, change agent, and founder of Retail Women in Tech. Definitely something we are going to talk about in detail during our conversation. Amazing work being done there and CEO of Retail Connected. But her superpower? It's really connecting strategy to people via community.

[00:04:34] She's a builder, a coach, and a connector at heart, and she's not just talking about change, she's creating it.

[00:04:40] Casey Golden: Shannon brings a 360 degree view of retail from product creation to customer experience, and one of Shannon's most amazing accomplishments is founding the Retail Women in Tech. A growing community that champions inclusion, mentorship, and modern leadership in our industry, she's showing [00:05:00] retailers how to think differently by empowering the people who have been thinking differently all along.

[00:05:06] Ricardo Belmar: So get ready. This episode's got insight, action, and a whole lot of heart that we think every listener and viewer will be able to use in both your retail business and your career.

[00:05:16] Casey Golden: Let's go straight to our conversation with Shannon Flanagan.

[00:05:26] Welcome Shannon Flanagan

[00:05:26] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome Shannon to the Retail Razor Show. Thanks for joining us.

[00:05:29] Casey Golden: Hi Shannon.

[00:05:30] Shannon Flanagan: Hi there. Two people that I had love at first sight with. I'm excited to be here today.

[00:05:35] Ricardo Belmar: This is exciting.

[00:05:36] Casey Golden: We've been following your work and honestly, your energy is infectious. Before we dive into the really big stuff, let's start at the beginning.

[00:05:44] Ricardo Belmar: Exactly. It's been said that you bleed retail, which I love by the way. 'cause it sounds so incredibly intense and insightful and filled with knowledge all at the same time. And I'll, I'll add, as I've gotten to know you, this just feels so appropriately true. So as [00:06:00] Casey knows, I always love to throw in the odd movie reference, but as they say in the movie, the Princess Bride, let's start at the beginning.

[00:06:06] And, and yeah, Casey is gonna make fun of me later for that. So I'll, I'll pay for it later, but, uh, tell us, exactly, that's why I gotta throw it in.

[00:06:14] Shannon's Retail Journey Begins

[00:06:14] Ricardo Belmar: So start by telling us, your first retail job, like at 18. What about that made you fall in love with retail and, and how did that keep you from going into some other field?

[00:06:24] Shannon Flanagan: I actually have an exact moment that it happened. So I was working in the junior's department at Famous Bar, which is now the equivalent of Macy's. For those of you who know, the junior's department was by far the most intense, and let's call it gross area, but we were merchandising the floor and I was dressing a gooseneck.

[00:06:41] I of all things, if anybody out there, I don't even know if they call 'em that still. And I got bit by a bug and I, you know, from there went into May merchandising and became a merchant and then a buyer, and then realized that I actually have, I'm a consultant at heart, is what I say.

[00:06:59] Consultant at [00:07:00] heart, bleed retail. And it is through the journey. We'll talk a little bit more about it that I realized my why, which was to create the conditions for people to love what they do every day. But thankfully I decided to do so within the industry of retail because I think the next question, or I believe one of the questions you talked about asking me is something like, did you ever think you'd be in retail 20 years later?

[00:07:22] Casey Golden: Exactly,

[00:07:23] Ricardo Belmar: exactly

[00:07:24] Shannon Flanagan: Well, one, you're too kind because it's been way more than 20, 20 years.

[00:07:30] Casey Golden: feel like we just stop at 20,

[00:07:32] Ricardo Belmar: who, who needs to count any further than that?

[00:07:34] Casey Golden: we don't, it doesn't need to go

[00:07:35] any further than

[00:07:36] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah. So you'll see that I say in all of my bios since I've been 18, let people guess. But I actually was a history major when I was in college working at Famous Bar and I was gonna go into law school and I, God, I can't even imagine, like it's contracts and details, something I'm not good and like I was good at.

[00:07:56] And like I said, I feel so lucky that I found the [00:08:00] industry that I did. Can anybody imagine me in financial services? My God. And the reason why I've stayed is because of the passion and the pace and the people. It's an energy that doesn't exist elsewhere and you know it when you meet a fellow retailer.

[00:08:14] So, that is what's kept me going for more than 20 years.

[00:08:19] Casey Golden: I always say that fashion is finance with the prettier facade.

[00:08:25] Shannon Flanagan: Well, thankfully there are other aspects of the industry that I could work in because I suck at finance, but I love fashion.

[00:08:35] Ricardo Belmar: Well, that is a great perspective. I love that. So let's continue down the journey since those beginning, early days. And let's see , you've worked across startups, across Fortune five hundreds, tech companies.

[00:08:47] Insights on Change Management

[00:08:47] Ricardo Belmar: What's something you've learned about change that only comes from seeing it across all those different environments?

[00:08:53] Shannon Flanagan: I mean, the first moment that the concept of change and change management appeared on my radar screen was in [00:09:00] 2002 with one of the largest specialty apparel retailers. I was consulting for them. I ended up going to work for them for many years. Two tours of duty, in fact. And it was the first time that I realized how hard it was for people to change, even if it seemed like there was something being put in front of them that was worth doing. And I, what I realized, and this is still true to this day, in fact, they say that the needle really hasn't moved in terms of the effectiveness of strategic transformations, is that change is a constant. It's not a project. People treat it like comms and, do some training and it just doesn't work that way.

[00:09:37] So that is, you can see that evident. It doesn't matter if you're a startup or a Fortune 500 company. Now, startups just by nature, right, are more agile. They're, they have a fast nature of pace of change. They suck at change management, to be honest, internally where the Fortune 500 companies, like completely over-engineer it. So I'll, I'll

[00:09:57] keep it simple. You guys here, I swear, the easiest [00:10:00] and the best change management strategy is just talk to your people. Have everybody be engaged. And the last thing I would take away on this one is another simple model. Potential minus interference equals performance. So these are my observations and my over 20 years of experience at any size retailer or tech company or consulting firm.

[00:10:21] The Importance of Diverse Perspectives

[00:10:21] Casey Golden: You know, one thing that being on the fashion side of the business and like on that retail side failure equals fired. And we have a culture of that. And in tech it's fail fast

[00:10:32] Shannon Flanagan: Yes.

[00:10:34] Casey Golden: and you get to keep your job like you're celebrated for getting to know really fast and why it doesn't work. Where there's 65,000 people applying for your job every day on the fashion side of the business,

[00:10:45] Shannon Flanagan: Wow.

[00:10:47] Casey Golden: you know, like.

[00:10:49] Shannon Flanagan: I know I'd learned at least one new thing. I'm sure

[00:10:51] Casey Golden: Everybody wants your job,

[00:10:53] Right,

[00:10:53] You're, you're replaceable, you know, there's a fear of change. There's a fear of standing out. [00:11:00] And then there's this, so like, there's a culture cha culture, culture clash right there just in the, the methodologies and framework in which you work

[00:11:09] to change. And then you mentioned agility when you start talked about startups and and that kind of goes into that change.

[00:11:18] And even if it makes sense on the startup side, we are really taught to build the scooter, not the car, but the customer, the brand they want, the car

[00:11:31] they want,

[00:11:32] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:11:32] Casey Golden: not, they don't want the scooter,

[00:11:35] Shannon Flanagan: But you know what, I think something that I might be more interesting, I feel like is that this is anecdotal, right? This is not based on the 20 plus years of experience, is, I'm wondering if I see retailers more accepting of the scooter because of the rapid pace of change in

[00:11:52] technology right now.

[00:11:53] Right? It's moving so fast, you can't get the, the already outta date by the time you build it,

[00:11:58] right, So.

[00:11:59] Ricardo Belmar: [00:12:00] right.

[00:12:01] Casey Golden: percent.

[00:12:02] I'm seeing the shift. The shift is starting to be talked there, but it's been a journey to get to, just being able to have like a meeting of the minds to understand how they work on both sides, to figure out how to get a project approved and through the goalpost.

[00:12:19] Shannon Flanagan: Yes.

[00:12:19] Ricardo Belmar: I, I keep saying ever since the, the pandemic, one of the main retail lessons learned, and I, I've talked to a handful of CIOs about this, where they finally realized that, you know, every project doesn't require six months of planning. In six months of execution, things can actually be done to maybe 80% in six weeks if you really try.

[00:12:39] And I think a lot of retailers learned that in the pandemic where things were so crazy if you couldn't pivot and, and adapt in six weeks, you just weren't doing anything. And that might mean closing. So I, I think that was a, it was a strong lesson to learn and I think that's what's put everyone on that path that says it's okay to iterate.

[00:12:57] It's okay to get 80% done and try it, and [00:13:00] then figure out how to make it better over time instead of waiting till you get a hundred percent and having it take nine

[00:13:05] Shannon Flanagan: and the reality is, guys, the technology is so much easier to use. Like again, let's rewind to the turn of the century, right? What we were asking people to go from excel into something really clunky, you needed to have much more extensive training. And now technology by itself and, and it should be, all technology should be built.

[00:13:23] This is one of my spiels when I was, you know, in tech was it should be as easy to use as your iPhone. And it hasn't been that way, but it's becoming more so, so.

[00:13:33] Casey Golden: it's becoming more so. I'm a big advocate that all tech is consumer tech. Like I am a hundred

[00:13:39] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:40] Casey Golden: B2B interfaces

[00:13:43] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:13:43] Casey Golden: I'm like, you are a consumer. You use it all day

[00:13:46] before and after work in the middle of work.

[00:13:49] Why do we have to work in ugly screens?

[00:13:52] Shannon Flanagan: I'm not

[00:13:56] gonna name any names. But

[00:13:58] Casey Golden: No, not at all.

[00:13:59] Shannon Flanagan: a laundry [00:14:00] list of those we could identify

[00:14:02] Casey Golden: Yes, there's no shortage.

[00:14:04] You know, I just heard somebody was implementing as 400 so.

[00:14:07] Shannon Flanagan: no kidding. That's one of the things I use as an example. No, no, no. You're

[00:14:12] not, you're not.

[00:14:12] Casey Golden: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:13] Shannon Flanagan: no, no.

[00:14:14] no.

[00:14:15] I real, I used to say that the, the only way that thing's gonna die is when all the people who know the software actually die. But now there's a whole it was a new business model, right? A revenue stream somebody could come up with to make sure you still had people who know, know.

[00:14:30] Casey Golden: I think I'll wait on that one. Thank you.

[00:14:33] Ricardo Belmar: that, that, that would be when, that would be when your organization would have like parties celebrating the birthday of one of those systems. And it turns out that, you know, that birthday you were celebrating, the system was older than most of the people in the room.

[00:14:44] Casey Golden: Speaking of people,

[00:14:52] Shannon Flanagan: T.

[00:14:54] Ricardo Belmar: It's all about people.

[00:14:55] Casey Golden: all about people you're a strong advocate for redefining what [00:15:00] the right person looks like for a role.

[00:15:03] Challenges in Hiring for Innovation

[00:15:03] Casey Golden: What do companies get wrong when they're hiring for innovation or transformation?

[00:15:08] Shannon Flanagan: and I, you know, I would say first of all, innovation and transformation should be at the core of everything that we're doing, right? We just talked about rapid pace of change and that change is the constant. And so fixed mindsets don't, don't fit anywhere, right? So, okay, so let's say, of course we all wanna hire growth mindset people, but you know what I've seen, and I know you guys have seen it and been been, you know, I've seen your, your, your colleagues and your friends be trapped by this is we hire like-minded people.

[00:15:39] We hire people who came from the top 10 schools, who came from maybe the same cities who, you know, speak the same languages as we do. We don't celebrate the diversity of just backgrounds.

[00:15:51] And we want people to fit into the mold. Like when people say cultural fit, I think that can be dangerous. Yes, it's important.

[00:15:59] I'm [00:16:00] not de denouncing

[00:16:01] Casey Golden: We all know what cultural fit means.

[00:16:03] Shannon Flanagan: you're like me.

[00:16:04] Casey Golden: They're like me. Yeah. That's what it's

[00:16:07] meant.

[00:16:08] Shannon Flanagan: And I mean, the science guys is out there. I don't know what it is. So, again, don't, don't quote me. I and I didn't get this from ChatGPT, this is tribal knowledge, but it's something like you need five or seven different perspectives to solve a problem effectively.

[00:16:22] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:23] Shannon Flanagan: And one of the companies I worked for that I loved in every conference room, they had a sign, a plaque that said, have you sought a contrasting opinion?

[00:16:32] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm.

[00:16:32] Shannon Flanagan: that's what I think about the right person is it's, it's beyond what you're thinking about today and questioning that. And let's say you guys, DEI, dirty word, whatever, put it aside. " Right" needs to be a much more expansive, "right"? Or inclusive.

[00:16:50] Oh, I just used one of the words, you know what I'm saying?

[00:16:53] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:55] Casey Golden: Well, I mean, you know, when I look at it is I'm so conscious [00:17:00] that I'm not so many people's target market, that my experience only covers A, B, L, and W. I have so many blind spots because my experience is narrowed to a certain area. And so I'm, I'm so conscious of seeking out other people's opinions that ha grown up in different areas went to different schools, come from different backgrounds because it's like, what do you see?

[00:17:31] We're both looking at the same thing, but we see completely different

[00:17:35] things. And I see it as reducing risk.

[00:17:39] reducing so much risk and an opportunity to increase like productivity, because I know that I'm probably not the target demographic for most people's companies. And it is one of those things that I think I want my customer base, I would want my team building to be part of that customer [00:18:00]base, you know? But I, it is one of those interesting things where people are making those hires and you're hiring somebody to do an undefined task almost.

[00:18:15] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:16] Casey Golden: I want you to innovate. I want you to transform that's not fully designed into a checklist of these are the exact things I expect you to do on a day-to-day basis. And so do we find comfort in hiring for these roles? Somebody who we can relate to and feel that culture fit because we don't feel the comfort in the job

[00:18:42] Shannon Flanagan: Well, and I

[00:18:42] Casey Golden: there's so,

[00:18:43] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:18:43] Shannon Flanagan: I think this, this notion of like comfort in jobs is being blown up as well because every job is being so disrupted by by ai. So I don't think there's gonna be the same checklist, right? If I was in creative ops a year ago, my job looks really different than it [00:19:00] does today, right?

[00:19:01] So I think that's when we think about, every candidate should be thinking in an innovative, sort of transformative way. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about this or I will continue to talk about it because it's one of my big topics is our celebration and appreciation for skills that are transferable, right? So that you are bringing diverse points. Right? And, and we'll talk about, you know, my passion retail women in tech here in a few, but partly it was born out of this idea, right? Of how do you bring these different perspectives into solving the complex problems of our of our industry.

[00:19:38] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And

[00:19:38] Casey Golden: I saw, oh, sorry,

[00:19:40] Ricardo Belmar: No, I just gonna add, I mean, I think one of the things that we, so many people miss sometimes on this, when you're, you know, you're looking for a pattern, right? You're looking for like-minded, but at the end of the day , what you really want is people who can adapt to the unknown. And because at the end of the day, what is innovation and transformation, it's taking you from where you're at now to somewhere that you don't [00:20:00] necessarily know but might want to get to.

[00:20:02] And if you only ever have people that share the same viewpoint, you're only gonna make it to that destination if it just so happens that that's the viewpoint that applies. And that's not always true, right? Sometimes you need a different perspective to understand how to get there, and that only happens if you have a mix of viewpoints to help you find what that definition is.

[00:20:21] Shannon Flanagan: Well, I think you nailed it something too, when we're looking at the, I, I hate the phrase, I, I'm sure there's a better one for it, soft skills, but those people who thrive in the uncertainty, right? They love the creation of it. They, they, ambiguity doesn't scare them. That's not where everybody thrives, right?

[00:20:41] But there

[00:20:41] Casey Golden: I love that

[00:20:42] Shannon Flanagan: do. And so yeah, I love that space too. And so when you think about it, right, maybe it's less oh, you, you know, you have 20, 30 years of retail experience, therefore I'm going to hire you. It's rather looking at what's the energy and does that person like to create something out of [00:21:00] nothing, right?

[00:21:00] Or challenge the status quo. And so these are, these are attributes of, of people that don't always pop on a, on a resume either. So it's a different type of questioning. And I think this is key to though. There's, there are new leadership qualities that are emerging that are going to be required and necessary in this day that have not been true before that, I think we'll see more and more that are of this ilk.

[00:21:27] Casey Golden: I just saw I don't know, I think it was like an Instagram post and it says. A resume is a list of things that I never wanna do again.

[00:21:36] Shannon Flanagan: Oh my God. So when you ask me something later, I'm I'm I, I all, I'll fast forward one of them is that I've gone through a journey of, I've known what I've wanted to do for a long time, but it's been a process of what don't I wanna do and what am I no longer willing to deal with or tolerate?

[00:21:55] Ricardo Belmar: Right.

[00:21:55] Shannon Flanagan: So.

[00:21:56] Casey Golden: it's like it goes into that like you're hiring for transformation, [00:22:00]you're hiring for innovation, and a lot of this hiring is looking at if you've done it before, well if I've already done it before for somebody else, we're not really innovating here. It's more about let's talk about what in what I'm interested in, where I see the industry and what's trending, and what technologies are out there that I want to go put my hands on and build with. And where I see the industry going. You can take a look at like my laundry list of like my to done list, but like

[00:22:32] Shannon Flanagan: it done. Brilliant.

[00:22:34] Casey Golden: you can take a look at the to done list, but the most interesting conversation is if I give you a budget and resources and this is our business, what would you wanna do with it?

[00:22:46] Shannon Flanagan: Oh, love it. Oh, that's a great question,

[00:22:48] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:22:50] Casey Golden: With it.

[00:22:50] Um,

[00:22:51] Shannon Flanagan: you get some free insights and advice during that interview process.

[00:22:54] Casey Golden: Right.

[00:22:56] You know, because it's somebody who's gonna be passionate

[00:22:58] Shannon Flanagan: Yep.

[00:22:59] Casey Golden: [00:23:00] is gonna have that energy. And might be a little bit, you know, cray cray off the wall with some like really? That's kind of interesting. You think we could do that in five years? You think we could do that in two years, in six months, really? And I think it would be much more interesting to look at those types of perspectives and hire more on the vision side that can execute. 'Cause it, it's, it's very interesting. Some of the best hires just have different viewpoints like you, like you said. And that kind of brings us, to something you're very passionate about with women comprising nearly 48% of the retail workforce.

[00:23:39] Shannon Flanagan: even heard hire, so this is where it,

[00:23:42] Casey Golden: Yeah.

[00:23:42] I've, I've actually heard hire as well, but I can't verify it at the moment. I couldn't find

[00:23:48] Shannon Flanagan: ChatGPT aren't you supposed to?

[00:23:50] Casey Golden: I know, right. And a mere 12% of CEO roles in, in retail. There's clearly a leadership representation [00:24:00] problem.

[00:24:00] The Birth of Retail Women in Tech (RWIT)

[00:24:00] Casey Golden: The disparity inspired you to establish Retail Women in Tech or RWIT. And you know, this is something very close to me as trying to find a community of like-minded individuals and brain capacity, if you might, if, for lack of a better word, supply chain, brains, retail brain.

[00:24:25] There's just a little, a little different. We work with spiderwebs all day.

[00:24:30] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah. A hundred percent. Well, I think everything that we've been saying up to this point is why Retail Women in Tech was born and exists today. Now, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret that now will be amplified to the entire industry is that it wasn't even my idea. I was doing something with a woman who had just left the business, gone into tech. I had gone from the business into tech and she's I've not met anybody like you. And when we think [00:25:00] about this notion of opening the aperture of what you wanna bring into your org, I was brought into a GM role to help verticalize a platform that had been horizontal and helped bring retail and consumer goods to, to them and to the, their product, to the market. Somebody took a chance on me and I didn't fit in. I mean, I'm an outlier in general, right? I'm pretty, I'm not a square, but I was gonna say I'm a square peg and round hole, but certainly a square if anybody knows me well. But what was really clear is that there was no, we don't have a community that's inclusive of everybody within all of the aspects of our industry. And how do we create these connections such that we can go explore, be innovative, learn more from one another.

[00:25:47] And, you know, you guys look at the conferences, walk the floor at NRF, no offense to NRF tells you why there is a need for us to create a community. And this community is not just women. And it's not just if you're in [00:26:00] tech it's really everyone.

[00:26:01] Because we want to bring together, people so we can make sure that who's sitting at the table better reflects. Casey, you said it 80 said something along the lines and I'm gonna riff on. But I think this stat is pretty well confirmed, but let's go with it. 70 to 80% of all purchasing decisions are influenced by a woman.

[00:26:22] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah,

[00:26:22] Shannon Flanagan: Let's face it, let alone in the business. We don't see that representation.

[00:26:27] God knows what it looks like in tech or in, well, we'll talk VCs, media, et cetera.

[00:26:34] So, um, I rambled. There you have it. I could talk about this topic uninterrupted for an hour, but I'll, I'll let you guys continue with some of your

[00:26:43] Ricardo Belmar: Well, well,

[00:26:43] Shannon Flanagan: We'll illuminate more

[00:26:44] Ricardo Belmar: I, I'd love to narrow on one thing. So, I mean, that's a great picture of why, why you need, why this needs to exist, why, why do it, right. I, I'm curious to know what, what makes you decide at that point? There's, it's one thing to say, boy, there's a need for this, [00:27:00] but then it's another to say, I'm gonna go out and create it and make it happen.

[00:27:04] And not with any what you, the secret you just shared that it was, might not have originally been your idea, but you've gone out and built it.

[00:27:10] Shannon Flanagan: I did.

[00:27:11] Ricardo Belmar: So what really gave you the motivation to actually build it?

[00:27:14] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah. So in, in fairness to, to my own hard work the woman whose idea it was ghosted me from the very beginning. So, um, the idea was with me for a couple of months and then and never have I seen or talked to her since. And that was, that was two years ago, but we relaunched it last year on International Women's Day.

[00:27:34] And that the "why" is that. I've always wanted to create the conditions for people to love what they do every day. And I think by, and let's talk, we mentioned the word spider web career.

[00:27:45] And I am a poster child for, you guys, I started as a merchant. I was gonna be a lawyer, let's not forget about that history.

[00:27:51] Major lawyer, but as a merchant. And then I was a buyer, then a consultant then a change practitioner. I worked the majority of my career. I have to do the [00:28:00] math now. I don't know if it's the case anymore, was working for, you know, some of the biggest retail brands and, and across the globe. And something that happened to me, and this is part of the story, is that I got bored, right?

[00:28:11] Casey? I think you nailed it. Like I was, like, I have been solving the same problems in retail over and over and over again, and I'm,

[00:28:17] Casey Golden: Every season

[00:28:19] Shannon Flanagan: every season. And as folks know, if I ever had to look at a pipeline product to market calendar again and solve Chinese New Year, it would be too soon. Um, and so.

[00:28:30] Casey Golden: I feel, I feel that!

[00:28:32] Shannon Flanagan: That's just one of many examples I can give. So yeah, so I looked at my portfolio of skills and was like, I don't have, I don't have business development and I don't have tech. And somebody within tech took a chance on me and I tried my hand as an account executive now a year into it. I was like, WTF what did I just do to my career? And then I went back into consulting and then guys, I went fully into tech as a GM. And it [00:29:00] was through those experiences that it was like, we don't have, We don't have a community of people who want to do those things or how to do them and how to be supported through this. And now you guys, I'm starting a nonprofit and I'm a writer.

[00:29:15] I'm gonna, i'm writing a book.

[00:29:18] So, I would say that, you know, taking these risk and Casey you said it, and I'm gonna shut up here. What I knew what I wanted and I knew what I didn't want. And in our spotlight series that we do every week, Power of We Wednesdays, do you know, every single interview? And I bet we've done now maybe close to 40 or 50.

[00:29:37] Everyone has had a spider web career and there is this myth around a linear path.

[00:29:43] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah,

[00:29:43] Casey Golden: Yeah.

[00:29:44] I mean, I was also plucked. I was leading an an m and a deal and I was the glue between one. I was hired by both companies to transition and I had to move the entire business off of [00:30:00] all the systems and I ended up getting plucked by one of the people that was running one of the systems that was going to the other system and saying, we wanna take her with us.

[00:30:11] Shannon Flanagan: they took it because they saw who you were, right? They saw. If you'd handed in a resume for that role, what do you think? Would you think you

[00:30:19] Casey Golden: I.

[00:30:19] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah.

[00:30:23] Casey Golden: be in that period where I'm like, I was hired for this, but like I'm spending, you know, fif over 50% of my week with the CEO and the CTO and like drawing up wire frames and user journeys because they need to, we need to customize the tech for this business and we need to migrate. I was able to just kind of go and do it because I understood the business side so well, and I wasn't, and I was technical enough that I knew how to have the conversations and get things done, but it was, I got plucked. Just, you know, and I mean, I, [00:31:00] I'm thankful for that moment. It completely screwed up my resume.

[00:31:05] Shannon Flanagan: Well, but you know, I couldn't have done, if I had not had that WTF year, I couldn't have done the jobs I had done subsequent. I would've been a.

[00:31:15] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:17] Casey Golden: Yeah. So I mean, it is, and it is taking that chance on someone and it's not necessarily, it wasn't a paper route, right? It was a person to person route. Being able to work with somebody, being able to tap into the energy and the talent and the ability to work in that ambiguous environment and just get shit done.

[00:31:38] Right. So I do think it's very important that we mention that because that is the kind of people that I see when I'm part of RWIT, that I'm getting connected to more of these amazing, innovative, energetic people that still love retail and tech 20 years later.

[00:31:58] Shannon Flanagan: For sure. And, and [00:32:00] Casey to, you know, when I thought about it too, like tech companies, they're, they're desperate to bring more people from the people from the business. They also want more women. And you touched on you know, every technology should, can be consumer facing, right?

[00:32:15] Women should be also at the forefront of designing those technologies that just aren't truly customer facing, but also consumer facing that support, the retail operation.

[00:32:25] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:32:26] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah. Yeah. And they have, there's a tech, there's a pipeline problem as well. So that's part of one of the, the big initiatives within RWIT is how do we build tech? How do we build talent so that tech companies can do it? 'cause like we said, 29% in in retail, we don't have the numbers for tech. I actually wanna commission a study next year.

[00:32:47] I got somebody in mind to go, how bad is it? 'Cause I bet it's like 10, right?

[00:32:51] Casey Golden: Yeah, there's a great book out there called Invisible Women, and it's like data bias in a world designed for men. And there's another book that, I [00:33:00] can't remember the exact title, but it goes through almost every innovation and product design on the difference of it would've been been designed differently if a woman would've designed it. If a woman would've designed it, the seat belts would've worked for men and women.

[00:33:19] Shannon Flanagan: Yes. I remember when I found that out, I was like, well, no wonder why it's always been a problem.

[00:33:26] Casey Golden: 60% of us more die in a car accident and we're always putting it over. The average height is five four or five five. But yeah, it's really interesting 'cause it does give like some side-by-side comparisons. Some of it is in architecture as

[00:33:45] well, on like how our homes are designed, where outlets are. And it, something said that like almost every window in a downstairs home would've had storage in a bench near [00:34:00] it

[00:34:00] Shannon Flanagan: Yes.

[00:34:01] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm.

[00:34:01] Casey Golden: versus the way that we have it now. So, there's just a couple really interesting things when it comes to that and I wanna see if we're, if women are running. Let's say 60, let's say 80% of consumer purchases, whether or not it's for men or women, general population. Why, why can't women have the right to build and have the access to build the software that we are gonna use and, and make some of those design changes so that there is that

[00:34:35] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:37] Casey Golden: know?

[00:34:37] Ricardo Belmar: And you, you kind of highlighted it earlier, right? With the numbers you had on that leadership gap, right?

[00:34:42] Addressing the Leadership Gap

[00:34:43] Ricardo Belmar: So, I think if we zero in on that a little bit, the question I have for you Shannon, related to RWIT here, in what do you think causes this disconnect and what can you do to fix it, right?

[00:34:52] Because there is an obvious gap.

[00:34:55] Shannon Flanagan: One, I don't think we've talked about it enough. So I will, and [00:35:00] I'm projecting my own experiences, so Right. I've been in. Retail since I was 18. And now granted I grew up in specialty apparel primarily in department stores. So I'm sure this would've felt different and, you know, maybe groceries or consumer electronics. But I always thought women were really well represented. And I looked at my peers who were in other industries who were dealing with very different experience, having very different experiences than I was having. I dealt with mean girls clubs, but I looked around the table and sometimes thought there's not enough diversity, but on the other side. So I didn't really start to experience what other. Women have in other industries until I went into tech. And that's for a variety of reasons. But nevertheless, one, because I don't really fit retailers, US retail ladies don't conform all that well into the typical tech environment. But I think that there were assumptions and [00:36:00] I think now that there's numbers being revealed and that's why I feel like we need to do even deeper studies around the true representation of women, not just who are working at retailers, but who are working in other, other aspects of our business. So that is, like I said, a priority I hope we're able to, to do next year. But you know, as I came back to the change management thing, guys, I believe in just talking. We're having the conversation now. It starts with awareness.

[00:36:28] And it starts with, again, to use the phrase, opening the aperture of what leadership attributes are going to be needed.

[00:36:37] But even before we get to leaders, we're talking next gen is tech companies think differently. You know, you can train people to do some of these things. You can't train passion. Right? Or you can't change, you can't train some of

[00:36:51] these other softer skills that we've, I think undervalued because they don't show up on our laundry list on our resume.

[00:36:58] Casey Golden: Yeah,

[00:36:59] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.[00:37:00]

[00:37:00] Casey Golden: there's a lot of soft skills, especially in retail, that don't get the attention that they deserve because a lot of times, you know, when you were running retail, you didn't have software. You were, had a very finely tuned like taste. A very good you knew if something was off, you could just feel it in your bones. Everybody knows a dog is a dog is a dog. As soon as you see a dog, you're like, this is not gonna sell. We need to dump it. There is, there's no proof, right? There's no software, there's no data analytics that are telling me this is not gonna sell. So I can definitely

[00:37:43] Shannon Flanagan: Well, and you guys, I think to, to add to that, right? We've, we've been, and I speak about this generically, I'm not gonna pick just on our industry, but the way that we have been succeeding to date is sadly is to conform, which I have had to struggle with my entire [00:38:00] career and really be being that I live a very authentic life. That's been something, the conformity was a struggle for me because I felt at times I needed to or not. And, you know, we all need to edit ourselves, right? But women often compete with one another, and that's heartbreaking to me.

[00:38:18] And it's what I, I feel like the kimonos been opened a little bit more to me on that, on. How much opportunity lies for women's to be, for women to be better advocates and sponsors for, for not just the women underneath of them, but their peers as well.

[00:38:39] The Challenge of Asking for Help

[00:38:39] Casey Golden: Yeah. Being part, part of the startup community,

[00:38:42] Shannon Flanagan: This

[00:38:43] Casey Golden: Learning. Learning how to ask for help was the hardest thing to adapt to and to, to learn how to ask for help because it was something that on the corporate side, I'm gonna go find out all [00:39:00] the answers. I don't need any help. I will be back and solve this without any help. And so that was a big shift. And this having more startup founders around you where we're all learning this, asking for help in this,

[00:39:17] you know, it's a very female community about this, asking for help, stuff I'll ask for money, no problem. I need $3 million. This is how I'm gonna spend it, but I need help spending it never would come out of my mouth.

[00:39:31] Shannon Flanagan: Oh girl, you and I would be, we're, we're, we would be a perfect match, made in heaven,.

[00:39:38] Casey Golden: I like, I'll never ask for help. And so being in these communities and having, I thought it was just a me thing until I started being part of communities like RWIT and these around more like women founders, that it's not a me thing, it's a, we're all kind of working on this [00:40:00]and being able to see like great and getting to getting to meet people who are a step or two steps ahead of you, to be able to kind of like shine the light on your path and have those resources has been instrumental. Regardless if I had gone the startup route, it was, it's, it's changed who I am as a leader and as

[00:40:26] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah.

[00:40:27] Casey Golden: an operator because I don't think I would've learned it had I not gone out into the startup world

[00:40:36] The Harsh Reality for Female Founders

[00:40:36] Shannon Flanagan: Well let's basically, let's talk about though the VC world because obviously I have not had experience yet. 'cause I actually have a tech idea, which never would've thought that. So to anybody who's disrupting the linear path, come follow mine. It's all over this craziness. But I've heard too often, and it almost makes me wanna cry, it is making me tear up [00:41:00] that female founders, it's the, the female VCs and it's the female business leaders who are the hardest on them. What the hell? So let's talk about we've, we were talking about this. This is just something we're both really passionate about.

[00:41:15] Casey Golden: you know we gonna say this out loud, Shannon!.

[00:41:17] Shannon Flanagan: Pardon me?

[00:41:18] Ricardo Belmar: You're definitely going there?

[00:41:20]

[00:41:23] Shannon Flanagan: See what out loud.

[00:41:26] Casey Golden: That it's been the women that have been the roughest on

[00:41:28] Shannon Flanagan: Oh, you didn't know. Oh, my God, yes! Shout that from the rooftops.

[00:41:34] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:41:40] Shannon Flanagan: Uh, so, so I mean, yeah, I mean, you, what's,

[00:41:45] Casey Golden: but you're not wrong.

[00:41:47] Shannon Flanagan: yeah,

[00:41:48] Casey Golden: Completely different, completely different process. In my experience. Completely different pitch process, relationship building process. It's like night and day. I can't even compare [00:42:00] what that initial introduction and call looks like. They're drastically different. drastically different. And, you know, women are receiving, you know, this year we got, or last year was 1.8% of venture funding from the stat I got,

[00:42:18] It's not okay. And even fewer have access to follow on capital that enables that real scale. I know a lot of companies over the last 18 months that couldn't raise a Series A

[00:42:31] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:32] Casey Golden: some of that unfortunately does come from having women in, in investors that came in in that seed, but their funds weren't large enough to write a $10 million check. So it still needs those allies and that partnership across all genders that just see an opportunity to make a lot of money and change a lot of design and increased conversions or, you know, impact business in a [00:43:00] way that hasn't happened yet. Because there is all of these like amazing operators in retail that are also Excel junkies. They are super users of Excel and anything that can be put in an if and then statement can be built in tech and automated. And so being able to take the, a lot of these operators in retail and just set them over here in tech, it's seconds. It was so much easier to learn how to code than it was me spending 25 years in French.

[00:43:35] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah.

[00:43:35] Casey Golden: And where did that come from? It came from Excel formulas.

[00:43:39] Shannon Flanagan: Well, again, Casey, this is why we're, you know, we can maybe be two sides of the same coin. But oh, by the way, I'm gonna do a quick tangent. I, we have these interns and we just told them the other day that you used to not be able to have two people in an Excel document at the same time, and they're always

[00:43:58] Ricardo Belmar: And it blew their minds.

[00:43:59] Shannon Flanagan: yes, [00:44:00] yes. The eyeballs almost popped out, so yeah.

[00:44:07] Casey Golden: Right.

[00:44:08] So Yeah. so we've got, you know, we've got less than 2% of venture going to women. We've got women led VCs raise 3.7 of venture funding, which is definitely an

[00:44:17] increase. And then even women that are co-founders where they have that male technical founder, the, let's just say, I mean, it's stereotypically that's the way it is.

[00:44:32] So let's just say it.

[00:44:33] Their raise is still only 20%

[00:44:35] Shannon Flanagan: Yes.

[00:44:37] Casey Golden: by adding that co-founder. So it's still a discouragement for getting engineers to bootstrap with you for being able to onboard enterprise customers because they fear that you're not going to be in business because of how difficult it is out in the world in the narrative and media.

[00:44:54] I. That only this percentage of women tech founders or [00:45:00] women get funded there. It it, it's generating its own risk

[00:45:04] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah.

[00:45:05] Casey Golden: and kind of multiplying on that risk.

[00:45:08] The Importance of Allies

[00:45:08] Shannon Flanagan: Well, and this is where with RWIT right, it, we are building right? And wanting to right the community for founders. And I think retail is ripe for female for female entrepreneurs and female VCs, et cetera. And retail female VCs. Let me do the, is that two plus two equals four? Help me with my

[00:45:29] Casey Golden: I think that two plus two could equal like 200

[00:45:33] these days. Get the founders and the VCs together. I think you're gonna see a lot more larger multipliers.

[00:45:39] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah. Well, and better product, as we said. And not, because this is never a, you know, women are better, we're different. I use the example of I was just with a lot of friends this weekend and Right. And again, there are spectrums and none of these things are hard and fast observations, but, you know, the way a [00:46:00] mom runs the home and does things with the kids is different than the dads.

[00:46:04] Not one or better, the worse, you know, but, but they are different.

[00:46:07] And so if you think about that in terms of, you know, this, it's software development, right? Or all of these cool new ideas that are out there, God, how many are being suppressed that,

[00:46:18] Casey Golden: like how we shop, how we filter, right? Like it's a ver filters and exclusionary filters are a huge pet peeve of mine.

[00:46:25] I don't need to filter what I want, I just need to filter out what I don't want. That's not something that is nor is, is done in any type of digital or shopping experience or whatnot, except over in my world. But I always like to say we're building, there is like a, a consciousness that that bleeds across all, all women. And that is you can walk into any kitchen that a woman lives in and that you know, which we know, you know what drawer the silverwares [00:47:00] in. Do we not, you don't even have to know them. You don't have to be friends. You don't even have to be in the same country.

[00:47:14] Shannon Flanagan: I knew I was gonna learn a lot today. That was not on my Bingo card.

[00:47:21] Ricardo Belmar: One wasn't

[00:47:21] Casey Golden: That is user experience, right? Like that is, that is core user experience. I can walk into any guy's house and I'm like, why? Where's your silverware? Why are the glasses over here? But it's just something that like has, we do have user, there's a user experience of the way we use things that is natural. And a lot of the software that

[00:47:49] we use on a daily basis to shop and to purchase is not aligned with that. And it's an unnatural experience because it, it really wasn't designed by a woman, for a woman [00:48:00] or tapped into the psychology of that workflow or the business flow because it's also the. All these women were working in the operators. In retail, there is a workflow.

[00:48:16] Shannon Flanagan: Oh yeah. Really?

[00:48:18] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:48:19] Casey Golden: Go figure,

[00:48:19] Shannon Flanagan: Like people forget about this.

[00:48:21] Casey Golden: right? So then we get technology and then it, it's telling us to do things different and we have to try to change. We're expected to change our business on retail to fit this technology that has no idea how we run the business.

[00:48:34] Shannon Flanagan: Well, and that's why this is like a no-brainer to me when it comes to, and I think why our has had. This, you know, it has been and scrappy you know, we're growing up right now, guys. It's gonna be an incredible

[00:48:46] year. It's been an incredible year. It's gonna be an amazing few years ahead and I've got something even more to share there with you, but it is, it's because there is so much untapped opportunity and so much [00:49:00] untapped talent.

[00:49:01] Building a Supportive Community

[00:49:06] Shannon Flanagan: And you know, we really believe that we're doing this through the, we believe in the power of one-to-one connections. And so Casey, I think, you mentioned that you meeting Kim, et cetera, because we do believe that it is through that, that that's how the change is going to actually be made the fastest. And given everything that's going on in our political climate, that path, which was one path of achieving greater representation is no longer one that is gonna have the same legs. So how do you bring, how do we bring tech companies closer to the business and the business closer to tech?

[00:49:33] And then we wanna make sure we're, we're friends of consultants and everybody, right? how do we foster, in the, through the professional development, through the mentorship, through the events that we put together. Because that's how people also get hired. That's how people have, somebody take a chance from them, like you said.

[00:49:54] And so I, I, somebody asked me earlier today what makes us unique or different, and I don't, you [00:50:00] know, I don't, I don't know exactly the answer to that quite yet, but I think it really is this idea of the, the one-to-one and un. Un hinging or unlocking these doors or barriers that have so wrongly existed. And it's not even just between business and tech. It's I, if I'm a planner and I wanna become a merchant, right? That has not been, you know, well accepted. So, I think that those are, those are really important. And, we've talked a little bit about allies here and Ricardo, I would say you, hands down you are a, a great, you're, you're a great I, I don't wanna use poster child 'cause I used that on myself and it was a better analogy.

[00:50:38] But you're a remarkable ally and that's how we also change. And that's why the RWIT platform is inclusive of allies in anything we do.

[00:50:50] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:50:51] Casey Golden: And I think that that makes a a huge difference is because like

[00:50:55] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely.

[00:50:56] Casey Golden: have so many of my mentors and the people [00:51:00] that have lifted me up have been men like Ricardo,

[00:51:04] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah,

[00:51:05] Casey Golden: that like put me up front. I've had somebody pick me up, drop me off at a conference and say, I want you to go and introduce yourself to at least 100 people.

[00:51:15] You're a badass and everybody should know you. I'll pick you up in an hour. Here's my pass.

[00:51:21] Go.

[00:51:22] Shannon Flanagan: experience once. Yeah.

[00:51:23] Casey Golden: my pass. Put me out there and saying I expect you to meet. And I was just like, oh my God.

[00:51:28] Shannon Flanagan: Well, that might have been an unrealistic ask by someone.

[00:51:32] Casey Golden: Well, but it was like forcing somebody, somebody just forcing me to say, you belong. You belong to be in this space. I'm going to drop you off. Here's my pass. Just go. You belong in that room. You should be there. And I think that those allies is one of the biggest thing, is something that makes, sets you apart from a lot of the others.

[00:51:53] And you're getting more momentum and velocity than I've seen in the last 10 years [00:52:00] of creating any type of community group like this. So I just think, you know, credit is due where credit is deserved and it's very exciting to see what you've done in here.

[00:52:12] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. And on that point even too because I think that Casey's example is a really good one. And I think maybe the key part there was that it, it kind of provided that idea that you do actually, there's every reason to belong and you need to recognize that you belong and just go, right.

[00:52:27] I think that was probably the most important part of that experiences when they told you to just go to do it. Don't let anything stop you. But I guess the question I have here on, on allies and allyship for you, Shannon, what, when someone's listening to us talk about this, what, what, what's the one takeaway you want people to really have from that? About being an ally.

[00:52:49] Shannon Flanagan: Well, one thing as I, I realized is that and I continue to do this, so, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put this out to the audience that do we all think that allies equal men? [00:53:00]

[00:53:01] Casey Golden: No.

[00:53:01] Shannon Flanagan: and do we have the opportunity to expand it? I've used the word ally for men and like advocates for women, but one, let, let's let, that's not, neither here nor there for us to solve today, but it's something that's top of mind.

[00:53:13] But that being said, when I think about allyship, it's for both men and women.

[00:53:18] Casey Golden: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:19] Shannon Flanagan: To be mindful, and I can't take credit for that. That's somebody who spoke on our panel that talked about that we can be thoughtful, but it's being mindful and being mindful is being in that moment and what's happening inside the room, but also what's happening outside of the rooms that you're in and the types of conversations and the types of opportunities and how are you, there are times that we're going to have to be proactive and incredibly, you know, kind of over unconsciously bringing people in to the conversation. But when they're not in the room, what's going on there too? And so I, that word mindful in and outside of the [00:54:00] room are the, is the simplest takeaway, but I think probably the most powerful.

[00:54:05] Casey Golden: Speaking of like allies and that mindfulness is there, do you have a specific example or story moment that, that you've had somebody's allyship has changed your trajectory?

[00:54:17] Shannon Flanagan: So candidly, I'm gonna say too many to count. I, uh. many that have inspired me. And so rather than giving a specific example, I'm gonna give you a specific moment where allyship hit me through, like in the middle of the eye, what, or whatever that expression brought me in the eye. I don't know. You get it. Um, go with my visual here is it was at ShopTalk a couple of years ago, and Kimberly Minor, a friend of all of ours was on stage and they were talking about allyship, and she threw out the question like, how many of you have had male allies or more male allies than female allies or advocates? And that's when it hit me.

[00:54:58] I was like, square [00:55:00] between the eyes. I think I got it right.

[00:55:02] Casey Golden: Yeah.

[00:55:02] Shannon Flanagan: That's when I realized, oh my goodness. Even though I've grown up in a, thought I'd grown up with almost, largely female leaders, et cetera. The case was that it's been more often than not. Men. In fact, the majority, large majority. And that's where I thought we need to change that. And that's also at the core of RWIT is like, gosh, we can keep going with allyship, right? We've gone, we've got, we can, obviously, we can get better and better and better there, but we have a opportunity that we're not talking about for women to be better.

[00:55:36] Yeah,

[00:55:37] all allies, let's put it that

[00:55:38] Casey Golden: we're all allies and, and it's men and women. You know, I always say lift the talent regardless.

[00:55:45] Lift the talent.

[00:55:46] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah.

[00:55:47] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:55:48] Shannon Flanagan: Well, and one of the things we're talking about, so we have a mentorship program, but one of the things we wanna expand into next year though, is bringing more men into the mentorship program. And because [00:56:00] conversely, a lot of men talked about how powerful it was for female for to have female mentors

[00:56:04] So again, we've also stuck mentorship into a gender

[00:56:09] Casey Golden: Yeah.

[00:56:10] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:56:11] Shannon Flanagan: make sense either,

[00:56:12] so,

[00:56:13] Casey Golden: Yeah.

[00:56:14] I've heard some stories that I just, I wouldn't have thought of. I haven't had a lot of female bosses in the past, but I've heard some stories about men and they're like, oh my gosh, sign me up. I want, it's been the best part of my career

[00:56:27] because I had clear direction,

[00:56:29] or I knew exactly what I was doing,

[00:56:31] or I got this, or I got that.

[00:56:32] And I was like, oh, my, I've never even thought about it on a role reverse. Right. Frankly, I never thought of it in the first place until it was, you know. , Put directly in my face and I'm like, oh, there's something going on here.

[00:56:45] Shannon Flanagan: I think that's a perfect example. And you guys keep a what do we need to, we need to talk. Because you're like, oh, you had an aha moment. Well, that aha moment, right? You just sparked that. That's made a change in one person's life to another. You know, 'cause one of the things we also talk about [00:57:00] is quality over quantity because that all for any session we ever have, and we're like, if we changed one person's life at that session or at that event or whatever that, that, you know, whatever it was that we did, then that has a ripple effect and that's, that's success for how our operates.

[00:57:20] Casey Golden: That's great. You talk about the mental load. What is this emotional toll on women navigating change in a system that doesn't fully support them at the moment?

[00:57:30] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah. I, me, I mentioned this, I'm gonna come back to it, is this notion of we of conformity,

[00:57:35] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:57:36] Shannon Flanagan: compromise. Competition, right? And, and the, the, the fear of bringing their authentic selves to work. And that's bringing right, the, their whole selves as whomever, right? You know, male mom or not mom, or whatever it is that maybe struggles with their family.

[00:57:57] So I I, I like to believe [00:58:00] that it's changing. I like to believe that COVID helped change that because we all got visibility to the shit in the rest of our lives, just by nature of even the video. And that with more and more working dots in the, the workplace, that that has changed it. But the reality is even though the numbers are much better, and I don't have any in front of me, but then even if they're better, we still are carrying more of the workload at home. And that's where I think it becomes challenging. So even as we make more and more progress in the workplace, we're still carrying more at the at at home. And we're trying to make it all work. And we, our generation Casey, assuming that you've been in retail as long as I have or close to it

[00:58:44] Casey Golden: I have, we're just cutting off 20, right?.

[00:58:47] Ricardo Belmar: That's right.

[00:58:48] That's right.

[00:58:49] Shannon Flanagan: is we were told we could have it all.

[00:58:52] Casey Golden: Yes.

[00:58:53] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:54] Shannon Flanagan: just lean in. Right. I think back of some of the narratives that.

[00:58:57] Casey Golden: I don't wanna do that. All like, where's my [00:59:00] robot? I don't wanna drop my dry cleaner. I want you to come in, go into my closet and get it.

[00:59:09] Ricardo Belmar: Just take care of it.

[00:59:11] Casey Golden: I don't even want to think about it. I just want to enjoy getting dressed in the morning.

[00:59:17] Shannon Flanagan: Well, that will lead me to one of the, the questions you asked me later about what excites me about retail, but that's part of it right there. We don't even have to.

[00:59:30] Ricardo Belmar: Well, that gives you something to, to think about.

[00:59:32] The Future of Retail Women in Tech

[00:59:32] Ricardo Belmar: I wanna hear more about all the different things you're doing with RWIT, that you talked about internships, launching a nonprofit arm to it, and just having a space for career exploration. Right. What's your long-term vision for RWIT right now?

[00:59:47] Shannon Flanagan: It's much bigger. So, the nonprofit that we are getting ready to submit all of our final paperwork for in a couple of weeks is actually gonna be for retail connections.

[00:59:59] 'Cause [01:00:00] I believe that there is a, this opportunity that I was sharing that doesn't just with exist within the space of RWIT, but really how do, we're an inherently social industry, but we don't have a lot of communities and we certainly don't have like this.

[01:00:17] And I know I'm being ambitious here guys, and I don't have my my elevator spiel ready to go here. But ultimately wanna build like the premier hub for retail professionals to be able to connect in an easy way that's relevant to where they are that supports the underrepresented voices.

[01:00:36] Because again, at this notion of connections and community, at the core, the way we're gonna make change is by bringing everyone together across all these different industries. So, and that will be through, you know, obviously collaborations with tech companies and retailers. But I also wanna look at, we don't have communities for sales executives within retail. We don't have communities for [01:01:00] solution architects. Right? On the tech side, we don't have communities for merchants. So, I so the idea is that it'll be a larger platform or an ecosystem that we can better connect with one another through learning and development. One of the words I don't like to use is networking, by the way, it feels very transactional.

[01:01:19] Casey Golden: Does.

[01:01:20] Shannon Flanagan: does. So, so we really, this notion is we really wanna redefine how people do, collaborate and connect and succeed in their career

[01:01:31] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[01:01:32] Casey Golden: great. You know, I've applied a big push on everybody in retail and everybody over in tech, so like like retail tech, they need to be friends. 'cause they don't even work in the same offices and their industries do not get the same events.

[01:01:48] Shannon Flanagan: well, okay. Well let, yeah. Sorry, Casey, let's, let's go back to, and this has not changed dramatically. Is that within the, within a retail or a brand? The business in tech hated each [01:02:00] other.

[01:02:00] Casey Golden: they hate each other and they don't even work in the same state.

[01:02:03] Ricardo Belmar: Right. They're nowhere near each

[01:02:04] Shannon Flanagan: years and,

[01:02:05] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[01:02:05] Shannon Flanagan: you

[01:02:06] Casey Golden: Yeah. They weren't

[01:02:06] Shannon Flanagan: getting a little bit better, let alone a

[01:02:08] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Talk about siloed.

[01:02:09] Shannon Flanagan: company.

[01:02:10] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah,

[01:02:11] Casey Golden: I mean, I think that building that friendship and

[01:02:14] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah,

[01:02:15] Casey Golden: it doesn't, it, it friendship reduces risk.

[01:02:18] Shannon Flanagan: yeah.

[01:02:19] I know you right. And people say, I bought, people buy from people they know. Like my idea is not revolutionary, it's just how do we, how do we manifest, Right?

[01:02:33] The way that, and, and it is manifests the way everyone does business, but in particular in our industry, that is full of so much passion, and the pace of change is so great and that it's all around the people and the consumer, the customer.

[01:02:48] Like, we can do better around how we support one another. Mm-hmm.

[01:02:54] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, so you touched on this earlier and we don't wanna let you slide by without [01:03:00] responding to it. So let's jump a really quick retail tech question for you. So you mentioned that that one point Casey was talking about was what excites you about retail. But there almost has to be like anything that whenever there's something that excites you about retail tech, there's probably gotta be something that also worries you about retail tech

[01:03:18] Shannon Flanagan: Oh, a hundred percent. So let's start with the worry and then I'm gonna end with the excitement

[01:03:22] because we

[01:03:23] Ricardo Belmar: Perfect. Yeah, let's have it.

[01:03:25] Shannon Flanagan: What worries me is women not being in ai.

[01:03:30] Ricardo Belmar: Okay.

[01:03:30] Shannon Flanagan: It sums it all up. We are. I don't think we're probably allowed to cuss. We are effed as a society. If we don't have women in ai, we're only going to propagate more of the biases that already exist. There are so many reasons why I don't have to beat the drum on this one, but that is also one of the passions of RWIT and working like with other organizations, and I don't have the answer, right. But how do we, how do we make sure that there are roles within tech [01:04:00] and within the business because the, the business is ultimately going to be at the hands of, you know, running the ai. So that's my biggest one.

[01:04:08] Ricardo Belmar: Okay.

[01:04:09] Shannon Flanagan: Biggest. It's a, and it's, it's not a worry, it's an actual fear.

[01:04:12] Ricardo Belmar: yeah,

[01:04:13] Casey Golden: I think it's.

[01:04:14] Shannon Flanagan: Yep. All right. So exciting. Excite me. Maybe the holy grail of personalization will be found.

[01:04:22] Ricardo Belmar: Oh,

[01:04:22] Shannon Flanagan: One to one personalization. And then maybe we could stop talking about,

[01:04:26] Casey Golden: I know right.

[01:04:28] Shannon Flanagan: it's an excitement and a.

[01:04:29] Ricardo Belmar: we've all been chasing it for how many years now.

[01:04:31] Shannon Flanagan: If I ever, if I, yes. So it's a, I added a wish there.

[01:04:36] But when I think about it though, from the shopping experience, and we're getting here, but it's, talk about even changing my own pattern. So yes, the world that Casey just described, but you know, I, I heard this story once at Shop Talk years ago. And boy, it really stuck with me that, back in the day we'd go to, we had one way back be way before our time even you'd go, there was one store on Main Street and that's where [01:05:00] you, you picked out the dresses from there, right?

[01:05:02] And then it got more and -more and more and more and more choice. Yeah. Like just, I mean, I only wanna pick from 20, I, you know, now we can spend 10 hours looking for a dress or even more. Right? So when I think about now, I still don't think the technology is there. I have not found it yet to work for me that like, I still feel like I do a better job of searching, than the tech plan, but I think we've been spinning distance that I'm not gonna have to spend so much time page to page to page.

[01:05:33] And that excites me from a customer perspective.

[01:05:35] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I think we're getting better. I think maybe part of the challenge has been that it's, maybe we haven't all wanted to recognize that this is a moving target,

[01:05:42] Shannon Flanagan: well, yeah, no personalization to me, the holy grail is one-to-one. What do you mean by individualized versus personalized? Or is that your distinction?

[01:05:48] Casey Golden: Personalized is what everybody says that they're doing, which is like customer profiles and

[01:05:54] Shannon Flanagan: yeah, no, no.

[01:05:54] yeah, I

[01:05:56] One.

[01:05:57] Ricardo Belmar: Individual personalization.

[01:05:58] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah.

[01:05:58] one to [01:06:00] one. And then we can stop talking about it.

[01:06:03] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. There we go. There we go.

[01:06:06] Shannon Flanagan: That's my prediction. Maybe it's my, I would love to put out a stretch goal to the industry in one year get to one-to-one personalization so we never have to talk about it again.

[01:06:17] Casey Golden: great

[01:06:18] Ricardo Belmar: you go. Heard it here first.

[01:06:22] Final Thoughts and Call to Action

[01:06:22] Casey Golden: for someone listening who wants to join RWIT or support the mission. Where do they start?

[01:06:29] Shannon Flanagan: The easiest place to go is retail women in tech.org, and you'll go there, you'll see a website designed by me. So no judgment. Remember, we're scrappy.

[01:06:40] Um, and just a handful of volunteers who make all this magic happen behind the scenes. But you'll see a Join RWIT button and it'll take you through a process.

[01:06:49] Membership will always be free. We will, we will be built upon a different kind of community model than, than many are modeled after when we do officially go live as a nonprofit.

[01:06:59] [01:07:00] But also follow us on LinkedIn. We do events in a lot of different cities and every month we do really cool session be it on conflict resolution or how to navigate through change or what a career in tech, retail tech looks like. So I, uh, hope you come and join us. Like I said, if I can't say it more, all are welcome. We should probably do a cute play on allies and all, and all that stuff. I'm for the interns.

[01:07:28] Ricardo Belmar: There you go. Is there any one action that anybody listening today that you would suggest is something they can take right now to be part of this change?

[01:07:38] Shannon Flanagan: Reach out to at least one person and tell 'em what they're doing well right now, because we are living in incredibly uncertain times.

[01:07:47] And fear is rampant. Amongst your, your peers the people who work for you on your team and your friends. Shout outs right now, I think are, they're always welcomed.

[01:07:59] More than ever right [01:08:00] now. and a shout out to you two who I just adore.

[01:08:03] Casey Golden: Oh, well right back you

[01:08:05] Ricardo Belmar: back at you

[01:08:05] Shannon Flanagan: So excited we finally made this happen, and I hope we get to do it again.

[01:08:10] Casey Golden: Well, Shannon, thank you for your energy, your vision, and your leadership in the industry. We're so glad that you were able to share your story with us today and shared with us so much today about leadership and what that looks like. Allyship, and most importantly, just Retail Women in Tech.

[01:08:28] Shannon Flanagan: Yeah,

[01:08:29] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[01:08:30] Shannon Flanagan: it was my pleasure and my honor,

[01:08:33] Ricardo Belmar: Well thank you so much Shannon, and for all our listeners, we will of course have all the links to RWIT so you can find it and you won't have to keep hitting that rewind button to know where to go. And of course we'll have some other info on all of the great work that Shannon is doing in the show notes.

[01:08:48] So Casey, I think this episode is a wrap.

[01:08:51] Casey Golden: That's a wrap.

[01:08:53] Show Close

[01:08:59] Casey Golden: If [01:09:00] you enjoyed our show, we have a simple ask for you. Please consider giving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player and like and subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don't miss an episode.

[01:09:18] As always, a huge thank you to our amazing Goodpods listeners for helping us consistently rise to the top three spots in Indie Management and Indie Marketing Podcast Charts with every episode.

[01:09:30] I'm Casey Golden.

[01:09:32] Ricardo Belmar: Please follow us and share your feedback at Retail Razor on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram. And if you want to preview highlights and transcripts from each episode right in your email inbox, please subscribe to our Substack newsletter.

[01:09:46] I'm Ricardo Belmar.

[01:09:47] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[01:09:48] Ricardo Belmar: Until next time, keep cutting through the clutter and stay sharp.

[01:09:52] This is The Retail Razor Show.

[01:09:55]