Shelley E. Kohan (00:05)
Hello everybody, I’m Shelley Cohen and I’m excited today because we have a very special edition of Lead Like Her. We’re actually going to be recapping our first Lead Like Her live event. So for those of you that have missed it, you’ll be able to see why this event was so special. And joining me today, I have Haley Boning, who’s CEO of Storyforge, a company she founded.

and she actually helped create the event bringing Lead Like Her to life, literally. Welcome, Hailey.

Haley Boehning (00:38)
Thank you, it’s great to be here.

Shelley E. Kohan (00:41)
And Joanna Holleran who is the Robin reports social media and event planning guru Among other things you’re also the producer of the lead like her broadcast series So I’m so excited. So let’s jump right in and talk about What was great about the event and why did it matter?

Joanna Hollern (01:01)
Yeah, I’m really excited to be here. It’s fun to be on this side of things. Usually I get to sit in the background and meet all of fabulous guests that come on Lead Like Her. ⁓ But I was really tasked this last year with helping bring the Lead Like Her live event to life. And it was a super fun project to just be a part of. think that it was something that…

I was like passionate about from the jump. was like, this is going to be a great event. go to a lot of events and so finding a way to combine things and change things that I’ve maybe loved or maybe not loved as much at all of the events I’ve been at over the course of, you know, the last five or so years was really fun.

Yeah, we really wanted to be deliberate about the way that the rooms and the tables were positioned. So we knew that we were going to have a mix of students, emerging professionals, executives, ⁓ as well as panelists. ⁓

and you know everything in between. So we really wanted to make sure that we didn’t have all of the students clustered at one table, all of the know executives at the same table because the whole purpose of this event was truly the connections behind it and I think that for us it was really important that we gave people you know literally that seat at the table so that this emerging leader or this student could be sitting next to somebody that’s been doing it for 20-30 years.

and they can learn from each other, right? I think that that’s something that sometimes we slip away from a little bit is that everybody can learn from everybody. And we had a great talk. I’m jumping ahead a little bit on ⁓ generational differences. And I think having that kind of keynote conversation really… ⁓

wrapped our heads around why it was so important to have this intentional diversity at the tables. ⁓ And so, yeah, when creating that, we had some questions that people had to answer before that they registered so that we kind of understood what they wanted to get out of the event. So with that, I was able to sort of match like, okay, know, primarily it was I was seeing students use their like .edu email. So I knew that they were students.

or just depending on kind of the information that they gave in some of those question boxes, I could sort of understand where they might have been at in their career and, you the conversations that they were hoping to have. So I tried to be really intentional about mixing that up. And I think this was Haley’s genius idea, but having everybody move throughout the day is what really made this special because I think that getting to meet that many people and not getting

Shelley E. Kohan (03:32)
Yes.

Joanna Hollern (03:37)
so comfortable at the one table you’re at and meeting those six other people, but really continuing to push those conversations and those connections was something that we were just really deliberate about. And I think that it paid off, but Haley, I’d love to hear kind of your thought process about that too.

Haley Boehning (03:52)
Yeah, I think well first of all, thank you for the opportunity to work on this incredible event I’ve been a fan of lead like her since its beginning Was delighted to be invited by Shelley to be one of the the leaders that was interviewed in the series and so the idea of taking something that was already so meaningful and Bringing it to life in 3d was just really exciting and also working with clients who are willing to experiment and take risks and be bold So those first couple

of

brainstorming sessions that we had as a team.

talking about what Lead Like Her is all about, what the magic is, and what’s been most meaningful for people about the Lead Like Her series. And one of the things that came up over and over again was the honesty, the vulnerability, what it’s really like IRL, and the things that each generation is learning from the other as we try to close this gap for women in retail, being the majority of consumers, the majority of women in the retail workforce,

small minority.

of the leaders in the C-suite. So when we looked at the purpose of Lead Like Her, and we looked at the possibilities that were available to us in doing it as a live in-person event, that’s really where the magic happened. That’s where our creativity was sparked. And we started to have those conversations. know, Joanne, know, and Shelly, we had these conversations about conferences. Okay, well, what are the other live events that we go to? And what do we love about them when we love something about them? And what do we have?

hate about them, what we hate and where’s the hidden meaning sometimes that we have to extract on our own that maybe we could put at the forefront of lead like her. So all of those details that you mentioned, Joanna, the being really intentional, curating those tables the way one might curate a wedding, making sure that you have all the right people for just the best kind of connections and conversation. ⁓ And then that ⁓ brought up the idea of,

Shelley E. Kohan (05:48)
Hahaha!

Joanna Hollern (05:49)
Yeah,

for real. ⁓

Haley Boehning (05:57)
How can we make as many connections possible happen at this event? Well, why not get everybody to get up and move? And I think one of the things that I really, really appreciate it is with each of these crazy wild ideas, there were 75 reasons why it could have gone wrong. There were lots of reasons not to do it, right? It’s complicated. It might not work. But throughout the process, we kept saying, yeah, but what if it works? You know, well, what if, you know, people are getting

for something so dramatically different than what they’ve seen before. ⁓ Which to me is a little bit of the ethos of the Robin Report. Like being willing to ⁓ ask the industry and ask ourselves to take risks and think differently and do things the way they haven’t been done before. So having that brand ethos kind of wrapping around us, I think enabled us to think really differently about the event.

Joanna Hollern (06:52)
Yeah.

Shelley E. Kohan (06:52)
think

one thing I noticed like immediately is that it was not a passive event. People weren’t just coming to an event and I think Haley, I think one thing that really kind of changed the dynamic right off the bat was the connection wall. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about like I don’t know how you came up with that idea but it was an immediate, people were taking action starting right off the bat the second they walked in.

Haley Boehning (07:20)
yeah, so thank you for mentioning the connection wall. There are two people that I really follow when it comes to the best practices in group facilitation.

So I follow Peter Block and Chad Littlefield, and both of them believe that events, live events, should be designed not for consumption, but for participation and connection. so that kind of ethos also was part of it, was one of the principles that we started this event

and then we thought about every single connection point.

with our participants. We stopped calling them audiences and we started calling them guests. And we thought, well, at every single step with our guests, how can we make this not about consumption, but about connection or about participation or about contribution? And so this idea of giving people a space to share with everybody in the room, even if it wasn’t someone that they sat with at their table, what they can offer to this conversation about changing our industry.

what they need from this community that we’re creating this lead like our community and then in the end of the day what they actually commit to do to create change in our industry. That was one of the first ideas that we had and it was so delightful to see the boards both come to life with the incredible designers that we had but also to watch people be drawn to these boards. What are these boards and what are these sticky notes and what are people putting up here? That ⁓ was really fun to see it come to life that way.

you

Joanna Hollern (08:55)
I

think too, Haley, sometimes, especially I feel like emerging leaders and students might be a little afraid to ask for help. But I think when it’s so prompted like that and just so accepted that that’s what we wanted people to do was like, what do you need? Like, what can these other amazing people in the industry help offer you? And ⁓ I think that’s something that had I been to an event like that when I was, you know,

a junior senior in college, I would have found so much value in like the just acceptance of asking for help. And I think that was a definite like differentiator because I don’t think a ton of events are doing that that I’ve seen. And so it was just very, it was, was fascinating and it was great to see that people were so willing to like, you know, give their help as well and leave a sticky note up with their email that was like, Hey, yeah, call me, text me, email me about X, Y, and Z. I just loved that. I think that that was really a standout moment.

Shelley E. Kohan (09:45)
Bye.

Haley Boehning (09:52)
Well, I think that’s one of the other things about this event was when we gather together in small groups as women in retail, these things happen naturally. You know, we feel comfortable to ask for help. We feel comfortable to ask questions. We offer help. We try to make connections for each other to fill those needs and those gaps. And that can be really intimidating when you’re in a room full of a couple hundred people. So I think I also appreciate that we took time to think about people’s different communication styles.

Shelley E. Kohan (09:52)
Yeah, I

Haley Boehning (10:22)
Not everybody in the room is going to be an extrovert and be really happy running up to a stranger and asking for help. So what can we do to facilitate those

Shelley E. Kohan (10:31)
I just

behind the scenes so I know that you say that we would have done that anyway I don’t know if I agree with that because I know Haley you and Joanna behind the scenes you did a lot of pre work behind the scenes and I will tell you people came into the room with a mission to contribute attendees felt welcomed

They felt important and they were eager to participate and they were eager to network. And when you think about that, as Joanna said, students, next gen, young executives, I’m going to say it, sages or legacy people like me who’ve been around for a few decades, all felt that same type of confidence coming into the conference. And I attribute that to all the back planning that you guys did behind the scenes.

Haley Boehning (11:20)
Maybe we could also talk about one other element that we introduced into the design that I think.

I think we knew it was going to be really critical, but I think in hindsight, I can see just how important it was. And that was the role of the table host. ⁓ And this idea that if the people coming are not an audience, because audience says, I’m going to communicate something to you. I have this wisdom that I’m going to drop down from the stage at you, and you better be ready to consume it, right? If we think of people as guests, and we think of ourselves as hosting

for an event where we want connection, ⁓ what’s one of the most important things for a guest to feel? And that is to feel hosted, to feel that there’s someone there who sees them and recognizes them as a guest and is finding ways for them to enter the conversation. So fairly early on we said, ⁓ if we really want conversations and connection to be the main part of this event, we’re going to need people to take that leadership role and demonstrate the kind

of connections that we want to make. And so this idea of having one person at every table that would be trained in facilitation, that would be the kind of person that we knew naturally was going to be a fantastic host, that I think that was a big key that unlocked something special about this event.

Joanna Hollern (12:45)
I couldn’t agree more.

Shelley E. Kohan (12:46)
I don’t know if I’m allowed

to say this.

I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, so I’m gonna say it anyway, but you actually did host training. Host training. And you know, all the hosts, they absolutely took their role very seriously. It wasn’t a facilitator. It was absolutely a host welcoming people. So I thought that was really terrific. And Joanna, I know you actually did some back office stuff behind the scenes, understanding what young leaders want. So can you share a little bit

about kind of those conversations and what you got out of that.

Joanna Hollern (13:22)
Yeah, I was really fortunate, I feel like, to be able to sit down with quite a few people who I knew were planning to attend the event, who are earlier in their career and just like really craving the opportunity to find connection with people in the industry. And I feel like especially, you know, ⁓ other women in the industry, not that there was plenty of amazing men there as well, but just I heard that, you know, a lot, just to hear from women and see themselves.

in some of these very established women. So we did do a focus group and just kind of were able to hear ⁓ really some of the key points and things that ⁓ they wanted. And it like largely came down to just being real and authentic as well as being able to see themselves in these leaders. So we really did, I feel like, challenge then our panelists kind of.

you know, give a photo from their early retail days and, you know, allow themselves to kind of think back and remember of how they started to hopefully influence a little bit of how, you know, maybe they frame the discussion knowing that there’s a lot of students and emerging leaders. ⁓ But I think it was interesting hearing that from them because I do think a lot of times we go to conferences and, you know, a panel will be about

something great, right? And it’ll educate us on a topic, whether it’s AI or technology or whatever it might be, but to really hear and understand these women’s leadership journey and allow, you know, the college students and the emerging leaders to put themselves in their shoes and say, listen, like, they have done this. They were once 19, 20, 21, graduating college and going out into the retail industry. And maybe they’re…

didn’t necessarily start directly in retail, but how did they find that path and how did they get there? So ⁓ I do want to say that I think we had a standout panelist on our first panel that was earlier in her career. And I think that was something that was just so awesome to see. We had Maggie Thomas from the Coles team and she was fantastic, you know, just getting on stage and talking about how, where she’s at now, what her leadership journey looks like to lead herself.

but also how that affects the way that she works with her team. And I think her like famous quote was that, ⁓ retails a team sport. And I’m gonna take that home with me because I think it’s so is, you you have to tap into your network and your people and sometimes you need help and you need to work together and that is really important. So kind of flipping back, I think that, you know, we got some responses from a survey after the event was over and.

I do feel like we fulfilled some of the promises that that focus group brought up of just wanting that real authentic communication and engagement. ⁓ And we’re going to continue to push further into that. And how can we dive deeper and get more people involved, but also continue to provide that experience maybe in different formats if we have to. So I’m very thankful to have sat down and talked to some people that were willing to give us their thoughts and opinions.

Haley Boehning (16:36)
And something I’ve heard from some of the other ⁓ participants who came that day is how wonderful it was to connect with people that they would have no exposure to in their day-to-day lives. ⁓ I think some of the honesty and the truth telling that we saw from the stage, most people aren’t going to find that within the business that they’re working in. ⁓ And they’re not necessarily going to find that if they

Shelley E. Kohan (16:37)
That’s great.

Haley Boehning (17:06)
are just speaking to their peers, because it’s a smaller group. think the diversity of people around the table and the willingness to be really honest. There were a couple of zingers ⁓ of advice from some of our veteran, we’ll say them veteran leaders who were on our panels, giving advice that I’m pretty sure if you asked your HR leaders, they would say, no, no, no, no, no, don’t take that advice. But it was really

Joanna Hollern (17:34)
No.

Haley Boehning (17:36)
honest advice. You know, we had one panelist who said in response to a question about what advice would they give their younger self, she said something to the effect of, be so loyal.

Shelley E. Kohan (17:51)
Yes.

Haley Boehning (17:51)
Sometimes, for

your career, you have to leave the place where you are to be able to advance, to be seen differently, to get an opportunity for a promotion to a different level. That’s not something you’re gonna hear in the company that you are employed by. ⁓ We need to hear that sometimes from the outside. So I appreciated that opportunity that we were giving people to hear voices that they don’t normally have access to.

Joanna Hollern (18:18)
I couldn’t

agree more with that, Haley, and it felt a lot of times, you I was standing in the back of the room helping, you know, make sure AV went off without anything and, you know, running to make sure panelists were mic’d up and stuff, but everything that I was able to really sit and like absorb from the panelists, I felt very much like there’s this whole kind of, I don’t want to say trend right now, but you know, with ⁓ people that create content, the…

more authentic you can be, people are like, oh, I feel like I’m on FaceTime with this person. And a lot of times that’s like a likable quality and content. I felt like in the room and the way it was structured and the way the panelists were talking about these topics that I was almost like sitting down at a meal with them and hearing, you know, their advice and perspective. It wasn’t this like projection of a topic that seemed super rehearsed. And I think that carries through that thread of authenticity and how

you know, just we want to hear the good, bad, and the ugly. You know, people want to learn so that we can continue to make the industry better. But I think that was something that was really special was just the, the like, it felt like an intimate conversation, even though it was a conference.

Haley Boehning (19:32)
Yeah, know, as you’re saying that, ⁓ sorry, Shelley, I’ll… ⁓

Shelley E. Kohan (19:32)
I think that…

Haley Boehning (19:37)
see if this is meaningful, but I think as I was listening to you speak just now, it occurred to me that one of the things that I think was a differentiator for me that day is that everybody was just human. We were human. Like things didn’t go exactly as planned and we pivoted in the moment and sometimes the transitions were messy and nobody had enough time to have conversations that they wanted in all the exercises that we did and that was okay.

Joanna Hollern (19:50)
Mm-hmm.

Haley Boehning (20:07)
something

about, I think, for me, an event that’s willing to be human and to show that we’re human ⁓ that is also maybe a little bit different than the kind of perfectly polished and packaged things that we’re used to used to receiving.

Shelley E. Kohan (20:23)
Yeah, I was just gonna say that ⁓ I think the Lead Like Her broadcast that we’ve been doing for the past happy anniversary, it’s been a year, shockingly, I can’t believe it. ⁓ But those interviews are the same, they’re just, can’t believe how these women are just coming on and being genuine and they’re just, you know.

giving this great advice and telling stories and it’s not the Instagram perfect story because usually all young executives see is the CEO and all the perfect pictures of a female CEO or any CEO and I’m just shocked at how authentic everyone has been on Lead Like Her. So I think that’s great and I also think that, know, this, you know, women supporting women is, it’s not a tagline. It is definitely a behavior and I think Lead Like Her

people are part of this, you know, they want to be part of this change. They’re showing up and they want to make a difference and it’s at every single level of experience.

Haley Boehning (21:26)
And that was something that we heard as well in the focus group that Joanna mentioned. ⁓

that our younger women in retail crave the stories of resilience. They really wanted to hear, tell me when you fell down, tell me when you made the mistake, tell me when you were up against a challenge that seemed insurmountable and how did you get over it? Because I think at that stage of their career, they’re meeting those challenges and they’re making mistakes and they’re falling down and they think, it’s just me, I’m terrible. When in fact, we all go through that process

Shelley E. Kohan (21:59)
Yeah.

Haley Boehning (22:02)
And these women, these incredible women that you’ve had on ⁓ as guests, Shelley, on Lead Like Her and the women that we were able to, ⁓ who were gracious enough to be ⁓ so giving of their time and their insights to join us on stage. think their vulnerability in those stories of challenge and mistakes and ultimately triumph, that’s really going to be helpful for our emerging leaders to hear that kind of story.

Shelley E. Kohan (22:33)
Yeah, I definitely think, you we talked about the generational mix and it’s so important and you know, the students need access, the mid-career professionals need perspective, and the executives need legacy. And so we’re all there for different reasons and even execs that have been around for 20, 30 years, sitting down with a next gen can totally reshape and change your leadership for the next 10 years.

Haley Boehning (23:01)
I think maybe that was something else that ⁓ is somewhat unique about the Lead Like Her concept. You know, a lot of the conferences that we have access to in the retail world are about the business of retail. So it’s NRF and it’s ICSE and it’s all of these places where we go to learn and connect about the business of the business that we’re in. ⁓ And Lead Like Her, yes, people talked about AI and people talked about trends and all of that came up, but it was really about

leadership. It was about leading yourself and leading others and leading change. And the idea for those three topics, those three ⁓ areas of focus for the day, really came from the interviews that you’ve had, Shelly. You know, we went back and looked at all of the transcripts of all of the interviews that you’ve done. And those were the three main threads that came up was that there are these three different levels and they all have to work together in order

for us to change the industry and change the world.

Haley Boehning (00:01)
So Shelly, one of the things that you said to me very early on is that there’s a difference between mentorship and sponsorship. Could you talk about that and how that came to life in the Lead Like Her event?

Shelley E. Kohan (00:18)
know, mentorship is, you know, people want to do mentorship and so that’s kind of like, you know, they want to be participatory in mentorship, but really getting involved is sponsorship, really taking action and doing something with it. And like you said on like the connection wall and even in our round tables that we had our people meeting people, I just kept seeing numbers being passed around.

scanning of phones, linking in with people, that’s action. That’s just not saying, yes, I’ll mentor you and you know, it’s all formal. This is like an action. It’s what people want to actively do to help the next generation.

Haley Boehning (01:00)
Yeah, we had that theory. I think we walked into this with a theory that people wanted connections and that they were looking for mentorship. They were looking for people to connect with in really meaningful ways. And then what we saw demonstrated at the event, as you said, was that happening in real time? And then I think we all wondered, how can we measure this? This was our intent. This was the objective of the event. So Joanna, you put together ⁓ our

our questionnaires and our surveys that went out to all of the participants, all of our guests. Do you want to share what came back?

Joanna Hollern (01:39)
Yeah, for sure. mean, we got some great feedback, which was amazing. So we had everybody rank out of five if they felt like they had meaningful conversations. And we got a 4.74 out of five, which I was like, for a first go around at this, think that’s amazing. You know, I sometimes am one too to not give something a five out of five. So the fact that we’re scoring in that high four point range is great.

The second question was, you know, if they felt like they made new connections, so people that they actually were gonna follow up with and have additional dialogue, and that scored a 4.78 out of five. And then if they felt like the event gave them actionable insights, we scored a 4.7 out of five on that. So really amazing feedback to see that so many people were that engaged and they had things to take away from the event, whether it was.

a new phone number of somebody they could connect with or a topic that resonated with them on a panel. So yeah, I mean, I was very pleased to see that because really our North Star, our guiding light was we wanted people to connect and we wanted that to connect all throughout the day, right? It wasn’t just a morning coffee connection hour. We wanted to see that connection happen until

Shelley E. Kohan (02:38)
Yeah.

Joanna Hollern (02:56)
We all walked out the building that night and our head hit the pillow because we were exhausted from connecting with people all day. So that is something that I was just really happy to see.

Shelley E. Kohan (03:01)
Yeah.

Haley Boehning (03:02)
Yes.

Yeah, think I know I’m not sure if we can talk about these things yet, but I’m really excited about the conversations that we’ve been having about keeping that momentum. You know, we know that the lead like her ⁓ interviews that Shelly is doing are continuing that video series has great momentum and hopefully we’ll have another year, two, three, four years into the future of those those interviews. And and of course, you know, the next lead like her live event will be taking everything that we learned from this event and and bringing it

Shelley E. Kohan (03:18)
one.

Thank

Haley Boehning (03:38)
bringing it back to another audience and potentially another city. But it’s the ability not just to combat that curve of forgetting that we all have after a conference where we leave super inspired and then a month later we can’t remember what we were inspired about or what we were going to do. ⁓ But also because so much of this event was about connections and meaningful conversations, ⁓ the ideas that are coming out about how we keep that community alive in between

in between lead like her interviews that I’m really excited about that.

So at the conclusion of our event, ⁓ the event just didn’t end. It went into two other ⁓ opportunities for people to have connections and to continue to have conversations. Can you talk a little bit about what happened when the ballroom doors opened at the end of our afternoon, Shelly?

Shelley E. Kohan (04:38)
Absolutely,

I’m so excited because I’ve always wanted to play this specific role, which I’ve never played, which is being host to authors. So we had three book signings happening at the same time. We had Melissa Gonzalez, who was talking about her book, Purpose Pivot, and that’s all about taking care of yourself as a leader. And of course,

Her line was out the door. And then we had Rachel Williamson, who was talking about her book, Running Great Stores. Her line was out the door. And I’m just going to say we did have one male. Steve Morris was also doing a book signing on his book, all about real estate, and his line was out the door. So I really felt like.

people walked away with something. They got to connect, not just the connections and the networking and all of that, but they actually, they feel like they got this book. It was signed and it made them feel special. So I thought all the book signings were amazing and it was three completely different topics, which was great. And I actually saw a lot of people at the event going from one line to the next because each of these different subjects

really resonated with them. So it was fantastic, very lively. And of course I was running around, know, do you need water? Do you need pens? Do you, what do you need? Get in line, you know, all of that stuff. So it was, it was a hop in. Let me just say that.

Haley Boehning (06:06)
So I think one of the things that we talked about fairly early on is that as we were looking at these tables of executives and young emerging leaders and people who were vendors and CEOs and for retail businesses or veterans was that the one thing that connected everybody at that table was that they were all human.

Shelley E. Kohan (06:24)
Yeah.

Haley Boehning (06:24)
So,

you know, before we’re vendors and employees and leaders, we’re all humans. And humans are meaning-making and meaning-seeking machines. And I think one of the things that I appreciate about Lead Like Her is that Lead Like Her delivers stories, which is the most important way for humans to make meaning and find meaning is through story. It’s the best communication technology we have. ⁓ And so that day,

⁓ looking back on all the stories that people told and the human way that those stories were told and received and the kind of humanity that we brought into the room. think that’s one of my proudest moments of the day.

Shelley E. Kohan (07:08)
I think my favorite ⁓ my favorite part of course is the constantly talking to people, running into people, having people want to meet me, me wanting to meet other people, ⁓ students, executives, people have been around a long time, new executives, just a lot of ⁓ networking and I really as you know feel passionate about delivering.

you know, that next gen with some authentic leadership advice skills and helping them, you know, have an easier path than some of us had.

Haley Boehning (07:44)
And that conversation came up a lot.

about AI and how is AI changing the industry and changing how we work and actually a lot of positive conversations about the impact that AI can help us have. But it also brought up the conversation of how important it is for us to have these spaces where we can be human and we can do the things that really only humans can do when they’re in a physical space together. That energy, that proximity, creating connections that we just can’t get on LinkedIn.

Shelley E. Kohan (08:05)
Okay.

Haley Boehning (08:17)
get through a screen. We really need to be in a physical space together. that electricity was so wonderful to feel. ⁓ Joanna, tell me about your reflections on the day.

Shelley E. Kohan (08:17)
Right.

Joanna Hollern (08:30)
Yeah,

I mean, I don’t think it gets any more real and human than what we were able to witness. I think that so many factors probably contributed to it, but I do think that there was something so natural about seeing people that maybe have known each other in the industry for a while taking a selfie and then posting it on LinkedIn later because they were so happy to run into so-and-so that they haven’t seen in 10 years, or the people that were our table hosts taking photos with each table that they

you know, were talking to that day, which was just such a like a surreal moment because I’m like, these people met 20 minutes ago and now they have a photo together, you know, like they just really were diving into the nature of what we wanted the day to be. ⁓ But staying human and doing something fun and like enjoying being around other humans. And I think that’s something that you just don’t often get. ⁓ Sometimes people have their guard up more. ⁓ So it was just it was nice to see.

Shelley E. Kohan (09:00)
Okay.

Joanna Hollern (09:29)
a strip away some of that like over like professionalism maybe and just be people and have conversations and take a group picture because you just spent 20 minutes together talking about how you’re gonna lead change in the industry. ⁓ That is super special and I think that that doesn’t get any more human.

Haley Boehning (09:47)
Yeah, and you touched on a really important point, that we should talk about, which is we mentioned earlier that we have table hosts and that the table hosts were there to make people feel welcome and to keep the conversation going. But we also armed those table hosts with question prompts, very specific ways to enter the conversation after each panel.

Joanna Hollern (09:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Haley Boehning (10:10)
So one of the things I think that was different for many conferences is that every single panel we had had an equal, if not longer amount of time for conversation at the table following. So the panelists and what they said was the spark, but the real fire was at the table. And it was fun to look out ⁓ from the stage and see all of these tables around the ballroom and the different qualities of conversation that were happening.

Some tables people were leaning in, you know, and speaking in really ⁓ whispered almost tones of reverence for the conversation that they were having. And some tables, as you said, it looked like a party was happening. It was riotous laughter and conversation. And so we had this, you know, as many different experiences as we have different kind of walks of humanity in the room. And that happened three different times throughout the day with three different groups of people, with our hosts being

Joanna Hollern (10:52)
It did.

Shelley E. Kohan (10:52)
Ha!

Haley Boehning (11:10)
that one through line through the day.

Shelley E. Kohan (11:13)
No, was great. Just a home run. I don’t know how y’all are going to top it. But we will. That’s right.

Joanna Hollern (11:18)
But we will.

Haley Boehning (11:21)
But we

will.

Shelley E. Kohan (11:22)
So one of the things I just we have to look at the data because I’m a data person. So one of the things we have to recognize is that the workforce in retail is 57 % women and wow, that’s amazing. That’s great. OK, however. When women as they go up through the ranks in retail, that number becomes much smaller and when you’re looking at an industry that’s 70 % of the purchasing is done by women. Yet.

by the time women make it up, only 12 % make it to the C-suite. So that’s a huge gap. And so part of Lead Like Her and my passion and my mission has been to, we have to get the next-gen women, young executives, young leaders prepared for being able to rise up in our industry.

Haley Boehning (12:16)
Yeah, one of the things I think that was so exciting for me was seeing the number of men that showed up for Lead Like Her. You know, you might look at Lead Like Her and think, is this only for girls? And in fact, no, we had some incredible men who showed up in the room and were really active participants at these tables in conversation, offering their phone numbers and their advice and their good counsel to our young emerging leaders who were gathered there. I’m hoping that we’ll see that trend continue.

Shelley E. Kohan (12:45)
Definitely,

think men can really help young women because they can give a different perspective on what they’re seeing and their journeys are certainly different. So I think we all can learn from everybody really.

Haley Boehning (12:57)
And I think that’s really at the core of the theory that we had. You know, it can be really, really hard to say, well, I want to change the entire industry. I want to change the world. You know, where do I start? And I think our theory is that industries change one room at a time. And that if we can create that room or those rooms throughout the year, and if we can create the conditions,

Shelley E. Kohan (13:07)
Yeah.

That’s right.

Haley Boehning (13:25)
in which those meaningful conversations and those meaningful connections can happen, then that’s the force multiplier. That’s how we change the industry. One room, one person, one conversation, one connection at a time.