Authenticity in Brand Marketing with Wildfang Founder & CEO Emma McIlroy

Get ready to be amazed by the brilliance of a marketing genius!

WIldfang Founder & CEO Emma Mcilroy join Monica and Sejal to share her incredible journey from Cambridge University to establishing Wildfang, a groundbreaking gender-fluid clothing brand. They discuss how her experiences at Nike and Barclays shaped her vision for Wildfang, a company dedicated to inclusivity and sustainability. They also highlight Wildfang’s impressive achievements, including raising over a million dollars for various charities and earning the climate-neutral certification.

In this episode, they delve into the intricacies of brand marketing and examine how brands can genuinely engage with the Queer community beyond one month a year.

The episode ends with an incredible story of joy: a story that earned Emma and everyone who answered her call a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records  and raised over three hundred thousand dollars for the Trevor Project.

Georgianna Moreland - Creator, Executive Producer & Managing Editor;     
Matt Stoker - Editor 

Transcript

Wildfang's Sustainable Business Practices

Emma McIlroy 0:03

It's a 24-7 thing , Monica . It's a consumer group who are affecting a broader zeitgeist that , if we're going to be marketers and consumer brands , we need to deeply understand .

Georgianna Moreland 0:13

Welcome to Masterstroke with Monica Enid and Sejo Petrzak Conversations with founders , ceos and visionary leaders in tech and beyond .

Monica Enand 0:33

Emma is an incredibly impressive person . She's a personal friend of mine , who I'm lucky to say , but she's impressive in so many ways . She graduated Cambridge University with a degree in natural science . She's a marketing genius who has done brand marketing at Nike and Barclays before she started Wildfang . She was named one of Inc's female founder 100 . She was Oregon's Entrepreneur of the Year and Executive of the Year by Portland Business Journal and her TED talk . Sejal , I know you watched her TED talk .

Sejal Pietrzak 1:09

I watched it , you know it has over 100,000 views .

Monica Enand 1:15

It's amazing , it's a must see .

Emma McIlroy 1:16

I'm going to take you everywhere , Monica . You're going to do my introduction everywhere from now on . That's it . You're just coming in my back pocket .

Monica Enand 1:22

I haven't even started telling them about how amazing you are as a lifeguard , as a swimming coach or as a kayaking coach all the things you've done for me .

Emma McIlroy 1:30

You're also . You're very little , so I probably could put you in my back pocket .

Sejal Pietrzak 1:37

Well Emma, Monica , and I believe business is a force for good and you have been an amazing role model for that . So , in addition to being a place where women and non-binary people can come to find amazing gender fluid clothing , wild Fang has raised over a million dollars for charities that focus on racial justice , as well as queer , immigrant and women's rights . It's incredible , emma . So , before we get started learning all about these exciting things you've been doing , talk to us a little bit about Wildfang . And you just received the climate neutral certification , which you know obviously is incredible . Tell us a little bit about that .

Emma McIlroy 2:21

Yeah , that certification is actually pretty tough to get , especially for small businesses like ours . So , when you look at the topic of sustainability , which is a really broad topic and I certainly don't claim to be any kind of guru or expert in that area , but what I do know is it matters to our customers and it matters to our audience and our consumers a lot , and so we obviously have to have to ensure that we're meeting their needs . And so , for a business like ours , the truth is , you know , at the end of the day , we send , sell apparel the truth is there's two ways to do apparel really sustainably One is naked , so don't wear any , and then the other is shop vintage , so don't buy any , right ? So if you're not going to do one of those two things , if you're not going to be naked all the time or you're not just going to wear vintage , then you need a third option .

Emma McIlroy 3:08

And for a business like ours , where we you know I used to be at Nike we don't have an enormous team of scientists and people on the cutting edge , really the best thing you can do is offset your impact and also reduce your impact . Those are kind of the two big focuses . So what you do when you work with the climate neutral team to gain your certification is first , you share all the details of your business and they calculate your impact on the world , your carbon impact on the world and your carbon footprint , and the first thing they help you do is set an annual plan to reduce that impact .

Sejal Pietrzak 3:42

Yeah , it's such an important thing . I mean learning about how much of an impact the fashion industry makes in a negative way to our environment one of the top few industries impacting our environment and it's great to see that you've gotten that climate neutral certification for everything you're doing .

Emma McIlroy 4:02

Yeah , I think we all have a responsibility to leave less of a footprint on this thing . That supports us , right .

Monica Enand 4:07

Absolutely .

Starting and Growing a Mission-Based Business

Monica Enand 4:09

And so tell us about Wildfang . How did you get started with it ? You know you're talking about clearly . You're talking about how you run a business in a way that is in concert with your values . Talk to us about Wildfang and how that works into your life with your values . Talk to us about Wildfang and how that works into your life and your values .

Emma McIlroy 4:29

Well , wildfang is a mission-based company . So , you know , I think actually you and I have had this conversation about I think the phraseology of work-life balance is no longer relevant . I think now we're in the age of work-life integration . I don't think most people want to turn a key and walk away from a thing and pick it up again 12 hours later , right , like I think , especially when you look at Gen Z and millennials , they really want to have their values reflected in all that they do include in their work , right ? So for me , wildfying is really at the core of who I am and I'm at the core of who wildfying is , and I think true for most founders . So , yeah , it's a mission-based business .

Emma McIlroy 5:06

It all started by , uh , walking into the men's department at Urban Outfitters and realizing that all of the really good blazers , uh , for women , were there , the ones with , like , the real pockets that you can fit more than just your fingernails , you know , um , and the real , the real buttons and the great tailoring and the great lining and other silhouettes like button-ups , all that great tailoring that for some reason was reserved for men and hidden from us as women . So it really started by kind of walking through the men's department and being like why are these silhouettes specifically reserved for folks of a certain gender identity ? That doesn't really make sense . Our belief is that when you do that and when you allow people to show up exactly as they want to show up , you release a ton of potential , and you release potential from the human population , and we think that's a good thing for everyone , so important .

Sejal Pietrzak 5:53

So what kinds of challenges did you run into when you were first starting your company Wildfang ?

Emma McIlroy 6:02

I mean , I don't know that the podcast is long enough for that .

Monica Enand 6:05

Well , you started 10 years ago right Over 10 years .

Emma McIlroy 6:09

Yeah , 10 years , 10 years , I'm an old hand , I guess now so , or or a stupid one . Right , depends on how you think about it . Yeah , I mean , look , I think the obvious one is money and funding . I didn't take any money from venture capital . It certainly wasn't some sort of educated choice . That's because most of them embarrassed me and laughed me out of the room . So , you know , I remember going to some of my first . I'm not going to put a name on it because it wouldn't be professional , but I remember going to some of my first venture capital meetings , and I was a kid fresh out of Nike . You can probably tell that I don't .

Emma McIlroy 6:42

I didn't grow up in the US . My alumni , as you mentioned , is Cambridge , it's not here . I didn't have a huge support system or a huge network in the capital , and so I didn't really know what I was doing . And so I showed up with this deck and talked about what my vision was for the brand and for this future for women everywhere , and people would hit me with well , what's your CAC ? What's your CAC lifetime value ratio ? Me with well , what's your CAC ? What's your CAC lifetime value ratio ? What's your first order ? You know economics . What percentage of your business do you think is going to come from outside of the US ?

Emma McIlroy 7:08

And I remember with a pen , this particular partner , a very , very big consumer , consumer , venture capital group in the US . I remember just writing notes and and I remember saying what's lifetime value and what's CAC , how do you spell CAC ? And I think I wrote C-A-C-K , which is pretty funny at the time , right , but I tell you that story because I guess for two reasons . The first is I see a large part of my job in the world , you know , for as long as I'm around , is to change that , and so I try to welcome people into spaces who don't know what all those terms mean , to share with them everything I know . Because the reality is , you know , it's funny you sign NDAs all day long and stuff like that . I mean , unless you're working on some highly patented which obviously , monica , you have a lot of experience with but unless you're working on something highly patented , any idea has been had before . You know it's all about great execution . There's not really anything particularly unique or special that most of us are doing . It's about , about the team , the culture , the execution and the ability to connect those ideas with a consumer .

Emma McIlroy 8:16

The biggest lesson for me in 10 years is stick to your strength and block out the noise , and it's taken me a long time to learn that , and I think many women struggle with whether it's imposter syndrome or just a lack of confidence . You know , I'm a very good brand marketer . That's what I'm world class at . Everything else I'm either not very good at or I'm average at . And so when you are , I think most women are aware of their weaknesses . Most women are aware of where they could do better and have spent their whole life trying to be better . And so when you hear a really great merchandising strategy from another company or how another company is really winning through whitelisting in meta or whatever the functional tactic is , it takes a lot of strength to say that's great for them , I'm so happy for them , that's awesome .

Monica Enand 9:14

Emma , you said what your world-class , your world-class marketing or brand marketing . What is that brand marketing ? Sometimes , for technical people like me , I was like what does that even mean ? And I mean I know what brands are and I know that people marketing . Sometimes , for technical people like me , I was like what does that even mean ? And I I mean I know what brands are and I know that people market , but I and I watch Mad Men but like

Brands, Gender, and Guinness Record

Monica Enand 9:35

, but I don't like .

Monica Enand 9:35

What I realized when I met you 10 years or so ago was it ? You're a visionary about trends that are happening in the world and in people's lives is , I think it's important to people to for people to know . You started this in 2013, . Right , when somebody said non-binary or gender fluid in 2013 , I like I've learned and I hope I think most of the world has learned so much more about gender in the last 10 years , but you were kind of on the forefront of all of that right and understanding .

Monica Enand 10:11

Can you tell us a little bit about that ? Because you know , in Pride Month actually I'm going to compound this question , so then you can answer both , because here I sit in Pride Month and we all see all the logos with rainbows on them , and then we see all the merchandising and people trying to sell . So like I'm trying to understand , like why are brands doing that and how is how is it that what ? Like , what were you seeing and doing with Wild Fang ? That that you feel is kind of different ? I see it as very different . I love that .

Emma McIlroy 10:45

See , that's a classic CEO . Right there , you were like I'm going to ask two questions . You actually asked like six , so you squeezed in the other four for good measure . I'm going to start in order . What does a brand marketer do ? A brand marketer is someone who understands how a consumer understands and can affect how a consumer thinks and feels and believes . That's it . And those things , if you do them correctly , should change buying habits and should change interaction with your product or service . Right , but thinking , feeling , believing and that requires tremendous consumer insight to be able to do that . So you have to spend a lot of time with your consumer . You have to know them intimately , you have to love them . You have to love them because if you you have to love them . You have to love them Because if you love them , then that stuff comes easier . So you know , that's what a brand marketer does . Hopefully , on the other end of it , you create really great content , experiences that connect with your consumer because of how well you know them In terms of you know . It's funny . You mentioned the language .

Emma McIlroy 11:47

When Wildfang started 10 years ago , it didn't look like this . You know what we knew was the space and what we knew , and I really deeply appreciate you saying we were ahead of the curve . I feel like we were ahead of the curve on a number of conversations , but we didn't get them all right . You know . I think that's a really important thing to point out , because being a great brand marketer means you can feel where the zeitgeist is going . It means you can feel how the zeitgeist is going . It means you can feel how the zeitgeist is changing . You can feel , like I said , how they think and feel and believe and what is changing about that . It doesn't mean you get the perfect execution . To get the perfect execution you need a lot of trial and error and you need to be brave , as with anything that you're at the front of right . So I would just caveat it that just because we think we're good at it doesn't mean we've got it right all the time . But the conversation around gender , gender expression , gender identity has changed just . I mean I couldn't have predicted , I knew it was going to change . I didn't know it was going to change at this rate . It's been truly wild and you know Gen Z has really pushed that , you know . But we simply put we celebrate your mask , your fam and everything in between . And when we say mask and fam , it's just a more bite-sized version of masculine and feminine . Those words have baggage .

Emma McIlroy 13:16

The way that we've tried to stay ahead of that conversation curve is listen to the consumer and address their needs as those needs change . So if you're just listening to this and you are a straight-up capitalist who just wants to make money , the audience is growing every year . If we're going to talk about Pride Month , there is a benefit to understanding that consumer group 24-7 . Forget Pride Month , because they are going to have a lot of spend and power and they are going to have a lot of wallet share . But , more importantly , they are shaping how their peers also think , and I think you're seeing that . You're seeing that in sport , you're seeing it in fashion , you're seeing it all over the place , right .

Emma McIlroy 13:53

And so , yes , I'll answer the question about Pride Month . But it's a 24-7 thing , monica . It's a consumer group who are affecting a broader zeitgeist that , if we're going to be marketers and consumer brands , we need to deeply understand . We make sure that diversity shows up in the money that we give back , in the money that we give back , in the models that we use , in the internal candidates that we hire , in our hiring practices . Right Like that's our point of view Now . Does that mean that I want to be the Grinch and say that pride should go away ? Absolutely not . It's super important that we recognize and celebrate that moment , but for us it's a 24-7 practice .

Sejal Pietrzak 14:34

You're a founder , you're a CEO and now you're a Guinness Book of World Record holder . Talk a little bit about how you did that and what inspired you to break the Guinness record for the longest drag show ever .

Emma McIlroy 14:55

What was that and how did all of that work ? Yeah , so that was last year . It was an incredible , incredible effort from my team and from very close friends of the brand Eden , dawn and Poison Waters . And so , really , what happened was some marketing campaigns you like to set in advance and you like to plan for , and those are usually ones with product collaborations and product partnerships , because product takes time to make . But then sometimes you know that you just need to react to what's happening in the world , and that tends to be some of the most powerful zeitgeist marketing that people you know align it aligns well with viral moments or virality , if you want to use that term , but things that catch fire because the audience is thinking and feeling it right .

Emma McIlroy 15:32

At that time , as we progress through 2023 , feeling it right at that time , as we progress through 2023 , it became clear that any LGBTQ legislation was given traction . So , year over year , there were triple the number of pieces of legislation introduced that in some way , shape or form , attacked the queer community . Do I have some level of responsibility to show up when an important chunk of my community is hurting and feeling pain ? Yeah , I think I do , especially if I can be part of a solution to that , and so those are the moments where you have to go back to your brand values . You have to go back to your consumer and decide what's right for you individually to do as a brand , and for us it was right to take a stand . Now . We didn't want to meet hit with hit , and a number of pieces of this legislation were really aggressive and , frankly , I struggled to find any . I read the legislation in detail . I read all of the drag legislation in detail from every state and I struggled to see really what it was that was driving those from a common sense perspective , and so we didn't want to . You know , we had a ton of ideas as a team on how to react to , but anything that was driven by hate got kind of washed away or thrown off the table . We wanted to meet what we saw as hate in the legislation with joy and celebration . Depends on the day that you pick the three of us . We could all technically be at fault on that .

Emma McIlroy 17:08

On that claim Right , because when you talk about cross-dressing in some of that legislation , it means wearing a piece of clothing that is misaligned with your gender identified at birth . I mean , okay , so I was identified at birth female . I mean , it's a pantsuit . Am I crossing boundaries there ? Should I be arrested ? We felt like it was conversation . We wanted to take part and we find this world record . It was 36 hours for the world's longest drag show in history .

Emma McIlroy 17:29

And I phoned my friend , poison waters , um , who is one of the longest serving uh drag hosts in america at darshels in portland . And then I phoned my other friend , uh , eden dawn , who is an amazing event producer and also loves drag , and I said would you all be stupid enough to try to pull off this world record with me ? And you know , I said to poison if , do you think it's even possible to do a drag show for 48 hours ? And poison said , in true poison fashion baby , I could do it by myself in 48 hours . It was just this crazy , crazy intense uh event .

Emma McIlroy 18:06

And then , um , as I started phoning people , uh , who obviously had similar values to us , they stupidly said yes , right . So Cheryl Strayed said yes . John Cameron Mitchell said yes . Punky Jensen from SNL said yes . Cameron Esposito said yes , right . Like everybody we phoned was kind of like . Fred Armisen said yes . Kari Brownstein said yes . Like everybody we phoned was like I'll be involved . How can I help ? Right ? Monica was stupid enough to say yes , I'll do whatever I can to support right . Right Local business got behind it , mcs got behind it , drag queens got behind it and so , yeah , it was 48 hours of nonstop drag .

Emma McIlroy 18:42

So I think I got about two and a half hours sleep over the 48 hours . 600 songs , 60 MCs , 60 plus queens . It was utterly bonkers . We did raise $310,000 for the Trevor Project , which we're super proud of . That's an incredible charity that provides literally life-saving services for the queer community .

Emma McIlroy 19:02

And then , from a business perspective because this is a business podcast we saw our lowest CAC in three years . The sentiment that it created made all of our acquisition channels significantly more productive . We saw our highest press hits in a given month . I think we got 109 press hits in that month and , by the way , press is me at Wildfine in association to all the other stuff I do . We don't have a big fancy agency or anything else . So , yeah , it was just kind of , you know , it was just kind of this wild ride that ended up being really good for us .

Emma McIlroy 19:32

And , and , if you'd asked me , when I pitched my leadership team , I had this idea and I pitched the leadership team and I pitched the company . By the way , my whole company , everybody at Wildfine worked security or ushers or you know . They did all these crazy jobs and stayed up overnight just to pull this thing off on a shoestring budget . You know , I said here's the idea , here's why we should do it . I'm not sure it's the right decision . We could only do it if we all say yes . Everybody , the whole team , said yes , the whole team , including the CFO , including Karen Mollis , the CFO , you know , including the person with the paybook . She said yes , this is the right thing to go and spend $125,000 on , because we believe in our brand and our community , right , and so it was a really beautiful moment for us . I'm super proud of it . But I do think we're in a time and place where consumer brands are going to be forced to decide where they stand on their values .

Monica Enand 20:26

Yeah Well , congratulations to you . What an amazing accomplishment , you and Eden and Poison . What an amazing accomplishment you and Eden and Poison . I have to say it was such a joyful story and a joyful time and everybody who was part of it , I think , took so much joy from it , and I think that's what drag brings a lot of people . It's a form of entertainment that just brings a lot of joy to anybody who's watching or participating .

Emma McIlroy 21:10

What you think . You have it tough in Oregon or California and then you hear some of the conversations of being in the queer community in rural Tennessee . That's like . That's like the real , real right . Like that's when you really start to understand the extent of of the pain in the community . They don't fight battles through here because it's not how they're wired and they don't believe in it , you know . And that's when you really look at consumer brands the most powerful , lasting consumer brands have been built on positivity , um , and so it's a super important part of building a brand right .

Emma McIlroy 21:40

And so that was cool . It's cool to see that in the face of the shit storm that they're like I'm gonna go out there and serve love , I'm gonna go out there and do do me every day , you know , um . So so I think you know , I think that's what you get from the Queens , and they were spectacular . I cannot , for every queen or king who performed for us at that event , I can only say , from the bottom of my heart , thank you . So it's funny because you say my names on it , but like it doesn't feel like my record . Like that record was Portland's , that record was all of those Queens Like that's who made it happen .

Sejal Pietrzak 22:10

It's so interesting . Congratulations I know Monica said it as well . That's a really exciting and memorable you know for the rest of your life and everyone who is involved and everyone who got to be a part of it A memory for forever . If you take the business side of it , you know there is this large audience . What do executives need to know to be able to reach out in the right way to the queer community , to be able to build business with them ? Can you talk a ?

Emma McIlroy 22:47

little bit about that . You know free advice is worth what you paid for it . So let's see how this goes .

Navigating Brand Values and Authenticity

Emma McIlroy 22:52

But I think there's a couple of things . One is who is your audience and who is your community and understanding them really well , and where identity and expression comes into that . So I think that's the first thing , because that'll tell you how important this audience is for your business's success . I think the second thing is going back to your brand values , which should be timeless , which should be true over time . Hopefully , anyone running a major consumer brand or a consumer DTC company has those outlined . And so I think when you start to look at who is your consumer , who are you here to serve , what are you here to do for them and what are your brand values , ie , how are you going to operate and bring that mission to life ? I think that sort of frames up where these conversations fall in terms of importance for you .

Emma McIlroy 23:39

We had two moments last year , one with Anheuser-Busch and one with Target , which I think scared the hell out of every public company CEO in America and it's really unfortunate that , a those happened and B that that was a reaction to it , and I'm not going to go into detail because you can Google it , but both brands saw financial performance and share and execution and they didn't understand their consumer well enough . What you saw as a reaction from the market , particularly in public companies , was everybody ran for the hills in terms of working with the queer community or supporting it , because they didn't know how to do it in the right way . Inverted commas mind people that that could have happened with any community where you didn't do the appropriate amount of insight work , you didn't take time to get to know the community and and you didn't do the correct market and planning . Uh , that resulted in weak execution , right , and so my advice to you would be get to know your consumer , spend time with them . I mean it's so funny because people go out and hire like insight agencies and that's not great and I've led that work . But like I mean you can walk into your store , you can get into your customer service inbox , you can get onto your chat , get on twitter , you can read the comments on your paid ads like it's not very hard to understand what your consumer wants or how they feel outside of just these moments .

Emma McIlroy 24:59

For sure , it's pretty obvious that there are commercial moments in the year that people can capitalize on . I would urge some caution against that . Not that you shouldn't show up in those moments , but Gen Z in particular , and the later millennials , the younger millennials , are demanding a much more authentic approach . They are demanding integrity in their spaces , and so that means you don't just show up for a month a year . You think about who you're hiring and your hiring practices . You think about who's in front of the camera , who's behind the camera , and again , it doesn't need to be perfect , but it does need to acknowledge that the community has value beyond their wallet in one month a year , right , and so that'd be my second thing .

Emma McIlroy 25:46

And then my third thing , which I've touched on , is is imperfection . Please don't be scared of imperfection . You know , monica mentioned language earlier . I've messed up so many times on language . I can't tell you right , but . But the question is are you listening and learning , you know , or are you defensive and close off ? Right , and that's just a question of good marketing . That's got nothing to do with the queer community . That's just a question of , when you mess up , do you own it , do you take accountability for it ? Uh , do you listen and do you try and do it better the next time , like that's it , but I think the fear of perfection leads people to not touch some of these topics at all , and that's terribly sad because the queer community in particular um , I'm white , so I I can't necessarily speak on behalf of some other communities , but the queer community in particular is under immense threat and I think it needs folks to show up particularly allies .

Monica Enand 26:36

I think that's really important advice and I think you know some people could listening , and you know I'm first of all the fear of imperfection . It's real . I mean I understand we all understand Like we all are scared to maybe get it wrong , and we've seen examples of people getting it wrong and really hurting . You know harm coming from that , and so I think that's real . But I don't think it's an optional journey .

Monica Enand 27:00

I think the way you're talking about it is very much if you're a consumer brand , but the truth is , I think it's true for everyone , because we're all going to have employees . I mean , this community is going to impact every aspect of life , and so you're not going to be able to just pull a whatever wool over your head or I don't know what it , stick your head in the sand or something . You can't just say like I'm not going to engage in this . You're going to have to engage in this , and so you're going to have to iterate and get better . All executives , everybody in business and everybody frankly in their personal lives are going to have to do this . So I think the quicker you get started and the quicker you stub your toe and mess up and say gosh , I'm sorry , either help me or let me do my own research to understand . I think everyone has to be on that journey . So , emma , where do we go from here ?

Sejal Pietrzak 27:52

Where do you take Wildfang from here ?

Emma McIlroy 27:55

Brand-led is definitely where our focus is . We are definitely turning down the noise on some of the more traditional paid digital channels . And then on the wholesale front , wholesale really is a marketing channel for us . So it's eyeballs , not to say it doesn't contribute dollars Of course it does , but it's really by reaching a new consumer without , again , those traditional paid channels . So that's kind of where growth is coming from us strategically right now .

Emma McIlroy 28:19

They both also sit in our wheelhouse and they allow us to bring what we're good at to other partners right , which is great sticky product that has low returns , high frequency , high lifetime value , good consumer behind it , and then a differentiated brand that , to what you've both been talking about , is sometimes hard for them to figure out what to do with . So they're like , hey , if I could tap into Wildfang and figure out how to do this stuff , maybe that's helpful for me to grow the overall business . So that's kind of what we're excited about is that brand-led activity and partnerships and then also our wholesale business , which you'll see continue to grow back half of this year and through 25 .

Sejal Pietrzak 28:53

That's really great . Congratulations on everything you've done so far and your success . It's inspiring indeed .

Monica Enand 29:01

Thank you as you are as a human inspiring . I've always been inspired by you since I met you , so which I have known you probably a decade .

Emma McIlroy 29:12

I appreciate that I will go down a stage five rapid with Monica and any day of the week , thank you .

Monica Enand 29:14

As long as you go first . That's what we learned . We kayak , whitewater kayak . I , for my first time , sage I whitewater kayak and you went down stage five rapids in your first time , yeah she did and I didn't go first , not many people know about me but Emma does know is that I never learned how to swim , so I don't know how to swim .

Emma McIlroy 29:35

Oh , my God , no , monica is just fierce , she's just a baller . And I said to her I said do you want me to go first ? She's like no , I got this .

Monica Enand 29:44

I was like her .

Emma McIlroy 29:46

She didn't , she just crushed it . She just went straight through it crushed it . So yeah , that's what it's like to be Monica's friend .

Monica Enand 29:53

She just jumps right in and crushes whatever's in front of her and I say stay behind me and pick me up if I fall , which you volunteered to do . So thank you so much , emma . We are so glad that you were able to take the time to be here . We appreciate you so much to really share your knowledge . You've learned so much in the last 10 years and sharing that knowledge with everybody listening I got so much out of it . So I know other people did .

Emma McIlroy 30:20

Yeah , thanks for having me .

Sejal Pietrzak 30:22

I really appreciate it , totally agree . Thanks , monica , and thanks to our executive producer , georgiana Moreland . And again thank you , emma . And that's a wrap for this episode of Masterstroke .

Georgianna Moreland 30:34

Thank you for listening today . We would love for you to follow and subscribe . Monica and Sejo would love to hear from you . You can text us directly from the link in the show notes of this episode . You can also find us on the LinkedIn page at Masterstroke Podcast with Monica Enid and Sejo Petrozak . Until next time .