Behind the Brand®

Jeff Adamson [00:00:53]  Welcome to Behind the Brand presented by Neo. We take an inside look at the leaders behind today's most influential brands. I'm your host, Jeff Adamson. As co-founder of Neo Financial and SkipTheDishes, I'm fascinated by what it takes to build great companies. On this podcast, we'll learn from leaders that are reimagining, transforming, and innovating in the financial and retail industries across Canada. Let's get going!

Our guest today is Kathleen Polsinello, Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group, a global consulting firm with offices in over 100 cities around the world.

Heading the Toronto office, Kathleen is a key player in driving growth in the Consumer practice area. With over 15 years of experience, she’s a pro at transforming retail businesses and sits on key leadership teams within the firm. A champion for people development, Kathleen also advocates for diversity and inclusion in her work and community involvement.

Welcome to the show, Kathleen.

Kathleen Polsinello [00:02:04] Thank you. It's so great to be here.

Jeff [00:02:05] I am super excited about this conversation, and I'm gonna start out with a bit of a different question, but what's an interesting fact about you that people may not know?

Kathleen [00:02:13] Probably that I had a semi-decent ski racing career growing up.

Jeff [00:02:19] No way!

Kathleen [00:02:19] Yeah!

Jeff [00:02:20] Out of where? Toronto's not really known for its mountains.

Kathleen [00:02:24] So I grew up in Montreal. My family's all still there, and we used to ski up at Mont-Tremblant. Notwithstanding now having three kids and some pretty serious, you know, responsibilities, I still will launch myself down the hill without fear, dating back to many of those years up on freezing mountaintops doing the same. So, I love to ski. I love to go fast. If it weren't for some smart parents, I think I probably would've given it a go.

Jeff [00:02:50] Yeah. You kind of had this other thing like becoming a superstar at Boston Consulting Group that was a little bit of a pull away from sport, right?

Kathleen [00:02:57] Well, it probably protected my knees at least.

Jeff [00:03:00] I was looking through your resume and you have risen like a rocketship inside of Boston Consulting Group, and I'm curious, you know, what drew you to consulting in the first place and more specifically to BCG?

Kathleen [00:03:13] You know, I think it's a career that many young folks in university don't know about, or don't know much about. And that was certainly me at the time, I was at Queens doing a Commerce degree.

Probably the other fun fact about me is I come from a long lineage of car dealers. So my grandfather started the first GM dealership in Montreal, helped launch the Montreal car show. My father's in the business, my brother's in the business.

And so there was sort of this sense that that was the inevitable path. It was to go home and, and join the family car business.

Jeff [00:03:42] Yeah.

Kathleen [00:03:43] It's a great business actually, and a very, a business that’s changing a lot too. I sort of got this bug around consulting, you know, from peers at school who seemed to think this was just such a great, great career.

And what I learned was you could sort of marry analytics, teamwork, creativity, a challenge, all in a project setting where you got to work with super smart people, motivated people – BCGers and our clients, frankly, on both sides – on really difficult problems that a company was looking for outside help on, in totally different settings and industries.

It's, you know, the career has really lived up to all of that. My first project at BCG, when I joined, was for a North American retailer where we helped sort of restructure the company and I met many people on that project that I still work with today. It gave me that first taste of sort of big team, real impact, wonderful clients who I still know to this day. And seeing it all delivered in a really tangible environment, like in a store where you can see the price changes, you can see the products on the shelf, right. And I loved that and that was sort of what, what started it all.

Jeff [00:04:54] When you think about some of the setbacks that you had along the way, everyone thinks that it was just smooth sailing, you became managing director [and] partner overnight, but like you obviously have had challenges. Like what setbacks really stand out to you?

Kathleen [00:05:06] There's been challenges along the way, Jeff. I would characterize them maybe in three buckets. It's good consulting-speak [Laughs].

The first are very personal, you know, and I'm very open about this actually at work. I lack self-confidence. I have since I was a kid and I really have professionally. It manifests in many ways. You know, being nervous before a speech or a podcast, if you will, but also it can spiral in this context because you're working on really hard problems, typically with really smart people, and you encounter challenges along the way.

The data's tough, the macroeconomic context changes, the impact isn't coming as quickly as you thought. And I have, you know, many times over my career, let that get the best of me. And it's something I'm still working on. You know, I experience a lot in my leadership roles. I second guess decisions and I overthink things, I take things really personally. And, and all of that wraps into sort of this self-confidence challenge that I've really wrestled with. So that's one and that's sort of an evergreen battle.

Two is I'm a mom. I have three young kids. And doing this job as a mom has been a learning challenge and I think one that will continue. They say “little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems,” I think is the expression, right? And right now a lot of my challenges are logistical, who's driving X where? Who's putting Y to bed? And eventually there will be bullies and homework. All kinds of complicated things that won't be about who's driving who, where, but being there, you know, and having the conversations.

And so, you know, probably another evergreen challenge, but I actually find this career to be very flexible for people like me. But it has taken me time to figure that out and to find the right model as a working young mom.

And the third challenge I would say is, whether I wanna be here for the long run and do this forever, and I'm also open about that. I mean, I'm open about all these things. I started this job when I was 21 years old. Is it what I wanna do forever? It has afforded me incredible opportunities, incredible challenges, and it has kept me motivated over the last 15 years.

But you could argue, and not just me, but people like me can have entirely separate careers outside of these ones, given sort of how fast it can move up and the experiences that you get, that's a challenge I keep wrestling with, right. What's gonna keep me here? And, and I'm not suggesting I'm going anywhere right now, but what's gonna keep me here over the long run versus like, do I want something else in my life? Do I wanna do something else with this great life I've been afforded? And, and I think that's, that's the other one that's always in the back of my head.

Jeff [00:07:35] Honestly, it's absolutely incredible that you have achieved what you have in your professional career. And when I was, you know, reading up on you, [I thought] “Oh, there's just no way that she has anything else going on in her life. You know, she's probably just career obsessed and that's how she's been able to, to do what she's done.”

But the fact that you've not just been successful in your career, but you have three children, but you're also actively involved in other things too, you're an advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion as well.

And that's something I want to touch on as well, because I think that for a lot of companies, this is an afterthought. Was some of the challenges that you had personally and professionally part of the reason why you made DE&I a priority in your career?

Kathleen [00:08:15] Jeff, it's a great question, I get asked it a lot. I would say no, I've never, thankfully, experienced a true bias or true challenges as they relate to DE&I. I've always felt super well supported by men and women. I've felt sponsored, mentored. And I have felt that I could achieve as much as I wanted to and that there'd be support for me to do that. I think part of what, and so I feel very lucky in that respect.

I think part of what's drawn me to the topic is a responsibility and an acknowledgement that I know, you know, my experience is probably not the norm. And a responsibility for myself in how I do my work, how I lead, the way I spend my time, to show people that it's possible and to be a role model for making it possible, but also for helping change the constructs in which we live, for it to be more possible for future generations.

And we did some research at BCG Canada a few years ago, just before Covid. It was a survey, it was over 5,000 Canadians that we surveyed. And it wasn't just about gender biases, it spanned, you know, the full spectrum of diverse populations. And one of the things we found that I would say was, probably most impactful to me in how I lead and the things I wanna do at BCG, I wouldn't say we've solved it, was around allyship. And what we found was that having allies at work makes a meaningful difference to individuals in underrepresented communities, and in fact, including women, right. But women, LGBTQ2S+, BIPOC employees who have allies at work are nearly twice less likely to perceive obstacles in their day-to-day working life.

The reality is, when people feel like they're supported, like I've been, they actually feel like they're in a more bias-free environment and they're more likely to stay there, they're more likely to contribute. And I think that's super powerful and I think we have more work to do on allyship because there's a lot of structures and programs and HR work that's being done in this space and that is all table stakes, right? But the concept of actually having people that have your back and creating the forums for that to occur, I don't think we've done enough on and it's something I have a personal passion for.

Jeff [00:10:22] Yeah, and I think I may have read the paper that you had authored that states that I think as a one third of employees from diversity groups face persistent barriers to advancement or retention, recruitment, and even worse than that, that over 50% see bias in their day-to-day experience at work.

How do you have inclusion in the workplace while still recognizing the individual differences that each person has instead of treating people all the same?

Kathleen [00:10:51] Well, I think, you know, one of the greatest examples of that, Jeff, and it's something we try and put into practice, is how you celebrate or even recognize, or even calendarize holidays, right?

Our calendars, our work schedules are almost completely designed around sort of Christian holidays. Let's just be honest, right. And one of the things that we have put in place now for a few years at BCG is actually putting in the calendar the other religions, right. All the Jewish holidays, Ramadan, that's like one, that's easy! That's table stakes, you know, coming back to my table stakes, right?

Jeff [00:11:26] Yeah, it's pretty low hanging fruit.

Kathleen [00:11:27] Sort of to get to your point, right. That's fairness, that's equity. But it's also recognizing different populations. And also, you know, even for something like Ramadan, we had a bunch of our staff in Canada create a video around what it means to celebrate Ramadan and what it means for them in a professional context to observe Ramadan. And that's a great example of also helping educate the rest of us about what that means and, and what it means to be on a team with someone who's going through that. I think that's important.

Jeff [00:11:56] You mentioned something earlier though on allies. What's the action-oriented definition of being an ally at work?

Kathleen [00:12:02] Yeah, and so we actually wrote a subsequent paper on this because I think for many folks, allyship was a private matter. “I am your ally, Jeff,” and “I will support you, Jeff, in making sure that you feel like this community is safe and I will be there to listen to your problems.” Well, actually allyship goes further than that.

In our view, allyship actually means you need to be outspoken and you need to speak up when you see things that are wrong and which has a proactive, not just a reactive element to it. As we sort of have tried to coin the commandments around allyship, we've tried to be really clear that it does mean, you know, this proactive stance and not just being an ear or a private, you know, sort of party to what's going on, but actually making sure that you're speaking up in advance of, and or during, you know, occurrences that shouldn't happen in the workplace.

Jeff [00:12:56] There's gotta be many more benefits about being proactive about this as opposed to reactive. Does that show up in some of the data that you've seen at BCG?

Kathleen [00:13:04] You know what, that's our next frontier, I think, Jeff. You know, with Covid and everything else, the world has significantly changed, I would say, especially for women, but also for many visible minorities in terms of how flexible it is, what it means to work in a virtual context as well. And so our hope is actually to start taking forward some new research now, given the world has changed so much.

We're starting to observe some of these things in our own workplace. Who is more likely to speak up in a virtual context? Who is more likely to be spoken over in a virtual context? The cues that you observe in a live context, not being replicated in that virtual context. And whilst I think, and I'll be, I've always been very clear about this for myself and for others, I think Covid has brought tremendous benefits in terms of flexibility, particularly to a consultant's life.

And I and many others benefited from that. I think that will help, from a diversity, equity, and inclusion perspective, because I can actually lead a more flexible life. There are many other things that have changed for the worse and we wanna observe and understand that.

Jeff [00:14:07] I wanna touch on consumer sentiment, because this is an area that you've spoken about, published extensively about. Is there a particular framework that you use or that BCG uses for studying consumer sentiment? Or is it different for every single different company? Or what are those, kind of, basic principles of looking at sentiment?

Kathleen [00:14:26] At its most basic level, Jeff, there's sentiment and there's behavior, and we do try and look at and distinguish between those things. A great example of this is sustainable and responsible goods, and purchasing. Obviously a real big theme these days, climate, sustainability. Whether or not people will start to put money where their mouth is and actually buy responsibly. What we have seen over the years is a gradual uptick across demographics of folks saying that they will, but not actually purchasing more responsible goods.

Interestingly, in our most recent round of research in the spring of 2022, we are starting to see younger generations who are actually putting their money where their mouth is on this. Not just saying that they will one day buy differently, but actually buying differently. Choosing brands, choosing companies, choosing products that are sustainably sourced.

And that, I think is a great example of how you have to parse apart because it's not good enough anymore to sort of take the “I plan to” response. But actually what we wanna see is the “I am” or “I have changed my behavior”. And so at its most basic level, that's a construct that we try and, you know, decouple and understand, at least track over time.

Jeff [00:15:42] Excuse my knuckle-dragger understanding of the differences between sentiment and behavior. But does sentiment drive behavior?

Kathleen [00:15:49] Yeah, I'd say it's probably more complicated than that, although I'm not sure I can explain why it's more complicated than that. It's probably a leading indicator in most cases.

You know, one of the greatest examples we saw during Covid was, we were pulsing consumers every few months in Canada around sentiment, around behavior. And what we started to see was, as an example, we published this chart where we would show what is the number one reason for which you are selecting a store. And historically the number one reason always that people select a retailer is first location, you gotta put that one out of the way, but location, especially in a habitual buying context. But number two is, price. We'd all expect that, right? So that is the reason.

Well, during Covid, what we started to see was safety rise to the top of that list. That was in the heart of Covid. And then all of a sudden, Jeff, we started to see price come back up, even though we were still in Covid, right? And we were still facing this sort of, this time last year, that new set of lockdowns. By that point, we had reverted back on many of these types of elements around why you select a store, why you select a brand, what are the elements you look for in your purchasing experience to pre-Covid levels, even though we were still in covid.

Jeff [00:16:57] Fatigue, yeah.

Kathleen [00:16:57] And so the reality was it was getting back to normal.

Jeff [00:17:00] I don't wanna leave sustainability, you know, on one hand we're asking consumers to do the right thing for the environment, but on the other hand, we're also asking them to pay more for many of the same things, while we're also seeing, you know, some of the highest inflation in over 40 years.

Who is or should be leading the sustainability transformation? Should it be consumer-led, government-led, retailer-led? Well, what do you observe?

Kathleen [00:17:21] When we speak to a lot of our – this a very big topic for BCG – you know, in terms of like top three things that we're working on globally to help businesses transform, there's obviously digital transformation, you'd expect that. There's people and the labor market disruptions, you'd expect that. Climate and sustainability is the other one, and we're working with a bunch of companies around the world on this topic.

What I'd observe is we absolutely need the right government frameworks in which companies need to operate. Right now, the challenge is we have completely different frameworks being designed around the world. Many of the largest companies that need to operate within these frameworks work across borders, right? And so number one, even in North America, you think about where we are at in the US versus Canada.

Number one thing is we just need to get a more standard set of frameworks, both around pure government regulations, like are we limiting the use of plastics, et cetera. But also financial regulations. What are we gonna force public companies to disclose? Right? And that even that is different, right now? What the SEC is saying is gonna be required in the US versus Canada. So the frameworks we think need to be both clear, but also at least slightly more consistent across borders.

Then I would say companies have a role to play and they have a role to play in an ecosystem. So if I think about retail, which is what I work in, there is what the retailer themself is doing – LED lights in their stores, getting rid of plastic bags, plastic straws, plastic cutlery, foam trays, I could go on, the refrigeration systems, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Everything that they're doing in their own ecosystem, which is primarily their store networks, but there is also what they are imposing upon their supplier partners. And we think that there's much more to do. And I say imposing, I should, I should clarify. I mean more, in a more collaborative sense.

Jeff [00:20:09] I've seen this in the US where there's different regulatory requirements or more stringent requirements on larger companies versus smaller. For a lot of smaller companies, if the framework comes into place and says, all right, small company mom-and-pop operation, you need to go completely green. And they're like, “Well, our prices are already double, triple what it would be at a large supermarket.”

Can you see it coming in in kind of different tiers where larger companies are looked at differently than smaller?

Kathleen [00:20:36] Probably not to be honest, but I think the impetus on the large companies, frankly, is to be proactive, right? I think if anyone's waiting for [the] government to unleash responsible, economical regulations, I think we've lost the plot.

And you see this in Canada with the grocers right now and the supplier code of conduct that they are looking to implement, which is a concept of my years in the UK [and] has existed for many, many years and with teeth. The grocery code of conduct has an adjudicator that can fine retailers for breaking its code of conduct. I mean, we're talking about a whole different construct in a more competitive market.

Canada needs that, and it needs it not just, I think, to protect the supplier-retailer relationship and ultimately consumers, but I think it needs it for issues like this, right? Where, actually, it is beneficial for the retailers in this country who, you're right, hold a lot of power to come together and propose the right frameworks on things that they are more knowledgeable about and should be to the government.

And that's a better use of everyone's resources if the government is having to hire and educate themselves on every industry in this country, including many others, frankly, that are further beyond in terms of, you know, where they need to go on climate, than retail. But if the government has that responsibility, Jeff, I think we have a problem and I think the industry association groups need to be there, helping educate and align their own stakeholders around what the right level is and then I think that'll start the supply chains going, right.

If you think, you know, plastic bags and getting that out, well now we have cloth bags and if the big guys are designing those and purchasing those and creating those then the small retailers benefit from that because there's already, you know, the volume, right? So I think it's gotta be a virtuous cycle in that respect.

Jeff [00:22:18] I think that's a good point. You know, a lot of people [are] asking us about open banking and I, I don't think you ever wanna build a company that's dependent on the government to kind of come in and do something. If it does come in, you know, be prepared, but at the end of the day, it's ‘give the customers what they want’. I think more and more you are seeing people being more outspoken or voting with their dollars.

I wanna touch on loyalty quickly, because this is something that I feel like we touch on a lot. We get a lot of questions about loyalty. When you're advising brands on loyalty, are there first principles that you start with when you're kind of coming into a brand and you kind of want to give them the foundational level? You know, are there just first principles, basic principles that, kind of, every single brand should be thinking about when it comes to customer loyalty?

Kathleen [00:22:59] This is a super hot topic right now, Jeff, in my industry and beyond, and there's probably not a client that we're working with in the world, frankly, where we haven't, you know, supported either the development of loyalty strategy, loyalty programs, an/or personalization data science engines, frankly.

From a first principles perspective, the key in thinking through loyalty programs and, and frankly loyalty program innovation, cause we're beyond the point where it's sort of like startup mode, we're in the point now of sort of the innovation of these programs. And I think first principles are: it's got to enhance a customer's experience because otherwise they're not in, right? The card's out of their wallet, the app's not on their phone. Like it has to be something that enhances their experience with the brand.

Jeff [00:23:43] But what does that mean though? Like, would you consider just points enhancing the experience or does it have to be a functional benefit like free shipping?

Kathleen [00:23:49] No, no! I mean, I think points are part of it, right? So rewards, if you will, is what we would call it. Like, it's about personalization ultimately, right? So if you're a customer today and you aren't getting personalized communications, right? With personalized recommendations, the brand that you are interacting with is behind. They're behind! That's just like fact. Because you and I and most other people, we don't have enough time in our day and we don't have enough mind power in our day to be scrolling through pages and pages of online products or, or even to, to walk through a store, right? And do that and or to pick through promotions, et cetera.

And so what we need, brands need to understand what kind of customer I am, when I shop, how I shop, what I buy. And they need to be delivering to me personalized offers and personalized rewards, right?

And I always use the Starbucks example, which is a great example, which is: in my Starbucks app, if you reward me with a free grande nonfat cappuccino, you've lost the plot. Because I buy one of those every day. You don't need to reward me with that, I'm gonna buy it every single day. But if you add a vanilla bean scone to that order.

Jeff [00:24:54] Now we're talking.

Kathleen [00:24:55] Now we're talking because I've tried that product, “Ooh, so good,” maybe I'll get it next time too, right? And so it's all about understanding those dynamics. And brands that understand that are the ones that are winning, like pure and simple.

Jeff [00:25:07] So first, completely agree, personalization is table stakes now. We'll see how it goes with brands implementing that, because that's, there's a journey to get to that as well that's probably massive.

Kathleen [00:25:15] Yes.

Jeff [00:25:15] What about embedded finance? Like we get asked this a lot as well. What do you see the role of payments, embedded finance, banking-as-a-service in the context of loyalty?

Kathleen [00:25:25] I think it's super important. If I go back to first principles, around, we're all busy, there's too much coming at us. Consolidation of options, choices. Also, security, safety around brands who we interact with, what we do with our phones and where we store our information. The reality is consumers want to do that with the fewest possible options, and to the extent that you can consolidate, and that's why you see these partnerships and coalitions forming.

Even if, for some of our retailers, it's done in-house at, at the very least, they're creating ecosystems and perch. We have this great slide that just shows the ecosystems in Canada. What you realize is there's actually really only like three programs that matter anymore in Canada because it makes sense, right?

You gotta, you're part of one, then you get your gas, you get your retail, you get your bank, you get your cinema, you get, right? And that's what customers want. And banking is at the heart of that. It's really at the heart of that. And frankly, what we've seen a lot in the ecosystem in Canada is that, is the banks be the entry point, right. And be the nucleus to those partnerships. And that's also because it's beneficial to the banks.

Right, if you're a bank, what's the nirvana of data? Well, I get a retailer, I get some form of the customer's experience and then all the data I need to understand consumer sentiment, to understand where the economy's going, to understand inflation, all of that stuff. And so I think we're going to continue to see that consolidation.

Jeff [00:26:46] We've seen an absolute ton of inbound interest on, on the payment side, on non-bank, wanting to become more bank-like, to get access to that data to form their own coalition. It's a super exciting space and I'm really excited about this year, just for some of the announcements we're gonna be making.

I do have tons of other questions on loyalty, but I do want to get into prediction time. I wanna talk about 2023. It's a pretty rough time out there for virtually everyone right now. So if you look at it, just to kind of rattle off some of the things that are occurring, you've got inflation at near 40 year highs, you've got interest rates that are going up, talks of a recession, cost of living crisis, profitability, layoffs. If you are a retailer, what should you be thinking about in prioritizing in 2023 with all these things happening? Like is it supply chain? Is it labor? Is there broad advice that you would give to a retailer thinking about 2023?

Kathleen [00:27:41] Yes. I mean, that's my business, so I hope I have an answer to this question [laughs]. There's four things and the first are going to be consistent and on brand, but they're important and frankly they have been important without the macroeconomic backdrop. But then my next two will be related to that, and they are digital transformation and climate and sustainability.

These are the two biggest thrusts that are going to impact businesses all over the world, and certainly in Canada. And you think about Canada on both dimensions, right? We have a very large country, the economics aren't great, but we have great, great, great schools with great data scientists and a great startup and everything else. We have all of the abilities and the challenge of our geography, and we need to make progress on that front and it's not just about e-commerce, it's about really digitally transforming the business to use data better, to monetize that data and to improve speed and resiliency and everything else. But that's number one. And it's an imperative. Covid made it a bigger imperative, but it's absolutely an imperative and it's not easy.

You know, we have this saying at BCG, 10-20-70, I don’t know if you've ever heard of this.

Jeff [00:28:42] 70% in implementation with it.

Kathleen [00:28:43] Exactly, yeah. 10 percent is the data science, 20 percent is the IT and the data, but 70 percent is the change management. It's humans, right? And humans need to learn to use the data science and…
Kathleen [00:28:54] The processes, the teams.

Kathleen [00:28:55] Exactly. And so digital transformation, sort of a big imperative. Climate [and] sustainability, we've talked about it a ton today, I won't spend a lot of time, but there's no question. And it's not just climate, it's the broader ESG priorities. And we talked about DE&I as well, but the challenge there is [that] most companies, they have a purpose, they have a plan, they have commitments and targets, but now how are they gonna achieve those, right? How are they gonna track against them? Are we actually gonna see meaningful progress and change?

Because a lot of that requires changing your whole underlying business. And there's a lot of businesses out there that have to change, not just the way that they operate and what they track and measure, but actually the products that they sell, so that's two. Then you add the macroeconomic conditions to it all, and I would add two more, which is: there's a cost imperative.

There's not a single company we're talking to right now that isn't talking to us about product costs, labor costs, goods-not-for-retail costs and supply chain costs if they're in that business, right. Fuel, labour, all of it. And there's no question that companies need to do the first two, but also adjust and adapt their cost base.

Jeff [00:29:59] On that note, like if you're on the supply chain side, if you're a supplier with supply chains coming outta China, should you be very quickly looking at diversifying your supply chains, or do you think that those are safe?

Kathleen [00:30:11] It's a bridge too far for me to say you diversify outside of China. What I would say is, and this is my fourth and it's sort of a hot topic at BCG right now, is around building resilience into your supply chain.

So it may be that for your construct and your situation, that the most resilient answer is for you to be out of China. But that's not gonna be the most resilient answer for every company. The key is, and we're also doing this a lot now, we're doing sort of these wargame simulations. Like Covid sort of took us to the edge around like what possibly could go wrong in the world that had never been wargamed before.

And so now you can do these war games and think up these quite extreme scenarios because we've lived it. And we're working through a bunch of companies. Big Canadian companies, wargaming, very different, extreme scenarios. It's gonna happen again, whether we like it or not. I mean, you know, you can hold me to this. We're gonna have another pandemic we're gonna have, we're gonna have more of these occurrences. And so how do you build resilient supply chains? And that might mean you're not fully out of China, but you have an, you know, an option B when you need it and you can click into it easily, et cetera, et cetera. So, it's about resilience.

Jeff [00:31:17] I have so many more questions, but we do need to wrap it up. But before we do, Kathleen, first, I just wanna thank you so much for coming on. This has been amazing. Is there any message you wanna get out to our listeners about yourself, BCG? Just anything in general that you want our listeners to hear?

Kathleen [00:31:32] I have the privilege of working in an industry, I think I'd said at the beginning, Jeff, I get to work on really hard problems with really amazing people. What that affords me the ability to do at this age and stage in my life and career is to be exposed to, you know, some of Canada's top executives. And luckily I've had that chance for several years now, and I don't think there is a time, even since the height of Covid that those executives have been as stressed.

The confluence of everything we've talked about. The pressures of ESG and DE&I and climate, the pressures of digitally transforming their businesses, the cost pressures, the people pressures hybrid and on and on with so much macroeconomic uncertainty. It's super, super, super hard to run a business today, a big business, and I have a lot of empathy. A lot of empathy for those folks for what they're going through in addition to the fact that it's just lonely to be a senior executive with not many places to turn.

And so it's part of what I'm super privileged to be able to do every day. And I don't take it lightly, but I think we often look up and I think the media environment right now too, with inflation, the price of chicken breasts and sort of inflationary pressures, I think at times we're being a bit unfair to what is a very, very difficult job.

Jeff [00:32:52] Well, I'm sure it won't be long before, if you ever decide to leave BCG, that you're one of those executives leading one of these massive companies. So Kathleen, thank you so much. I appreciate you. I'm so grateful for your time and joining us today.

Thank you so much.

Kathleen [00:33:05] Thanks Jeff.

Jeff [00:33:11] Thank you for tuning into Behind the Brand presented by Neo. If you enjoyed today's show and are interested in learning about Neo for Business or our customer products, visit us at neofinancial.com. And don't forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, so you never miss an episode.