Why Bias is a Luxury the Economy Can’t Afford with Katica Roy

Michael welcomes economist, data scientist, and Pipeline CEO Katica Roy to discuss why bias and inequity “sub-optimize” the economy, citing women earning nearly 60% of degrees while being promoted 21% slower and the large GDP and fiscal impacts of pay and opportunity gaps. Roy shares her family’s refugee story and connects equity to economic returns, national debt service, Social Security solvency, and taxpayers subsidizing pay gaps. They examine how policy currently puts the burden on individuals to prove inequity, contrast it with the EU’s upcoming pay transparency rules, and describe Pipeline’s behavioral-economics approach to improving equitable talent decisions. The conversation covers corporate responses to DEI pressure, Target vs. Costco, generational shifts in work expectations, AI-driven layoffs and human-agent collaboration, and closes with Roy’s key takeaways that equity is economic, not zero-sum, and rooted in measurable math.

Timestamps:
00:24  Welcome
01:08  Meet Katica Roy
01:47  Katica Name Moment
02:30  Refugee Roots and Purpose
05:16 Bias Costs the Economy
07:53  Debt and Pay Gap Math
11:57  Policy Fixes and Proof
14:50  Pipeline Behavioral Design
16:59  DEI Backlash and Shareholders
22:10  Breadwinner Moms and Generations
24:23  Gen Z Rethinks College
27:01 Gen X Readiness Gap
28:34  AI Layoffs And Equity
34:39  Gen X Fatigue And Power
36:45  Hope As A Strategy
38:48  Key Equity Takeaways
41:36  Closing

Connect with Katica:
https://www.katicaroy.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katicaroy
https://www.instagram.com/katicaroy/
https://www.facebook.com/officialkaticaroy
https://x.com/katicaroy

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Top Voice Podcast where each week I sit down with leading voices in business, leadership, and transformation to unpack the issues that matter most. Together, we explore fresh insights, bold ideas, and real-world stories from people shaping how we think about change, culture, and what's possible. Hello, and welcome to the Top Voice podcast. I'm super excited for this conversation today to talk about why bias is a luxury the economy can't afford. And we've got no one better here to talk about this with us, uh, Kataka Roy. Kataka, I'm going to introduce you in just a moment. Uh, before I do that, for those of you that are tuning in live, please do let us know where you're tuning in from. We love to take a question or a comment in the chat. It's a great way to expand the conversation. And for those of you listening on your favorite podcast platform, please do be sure to subscribe to the show. It's the best way to support us and what we're doing. Um, Kataka, you're uh, you know, we have so many special guests here. I think you're just a unique individual. So I want to tell everyone a little bit about you. Uh, an award-winning economist, data scientist, and CEO of Pipeline, drawing on over a billion data points. Your work explores the intersection of labor economics, AI, fiscal policy. Your expertise is so highly regarded that you've advised U.S. presidents, Congress, G20 leaders on economic strategy. And you're also a fortune columnist, which is a wonderful, wonderful honor. Welcome to the show, Kataka. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Thank you. By the way, it's Kataka. Okay, with like Nautica, but with a K. We just said this, and I'm I know he wouldn't be the first one who mispronounced us. Kotika.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

I just asked you this, so my apologies. I meant to say Kataka. So there we go. Uh, welcome to the show. It's wonderful to have you. I'm really, really excited for this conversation on on many, many levels. Um before we jump in, it would be great to just hear of your story about your journey a little bit. I read a little bit of your bio, but it would be great to just hear a little bit about your journey in the research that you do, why it matters to you, and and kind of the you know, the the the pursuit of of economic strategy and insights and research that you've been on.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Well, interestingly enough, um, just over a week ago, uh Hungary had a pretty significant election.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Indeed, they did.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Um, and uh Katie Couric Media actually asked me to write about it because I am a Hungarian American. I am a first-generation American and the daughter of an immigrant and a refugee. So I'll I'll tell a little bit about my dad's story because that really is the touchstone for what why I do what I do. And if folks want to read uh that story, I wrote about it for Katie Currick Media, and she actually, it was the second lead story, I believe last Thursday, and it was a must-read. But uh my father was a refugee. Uh, he actually was a POW during uh World War II and uh suffered such great malnutrition that he actually lost all but four of his teeth um when he was 23 years old. And after the fall of the 1956 revolution, which actually Peter Peter or anyone who is Hungarian Bodyard uh talked about um October 23rd, 1956, as one of the uh dates, significant dates in Hungarian history. Uh, my father made the difficult decision to escape. And his decision was difficult not only because he was risking his life, but also the lives of my three eldest sisters who were three, seven, and eight at the time. And with the help of Hungarian uh freedom fighters, they actually walked across a minefield and crossed the border into Austria. And that's actually what would later become the Iron Curtain. And less than two months into their stay in the refugee camp, President Eisenhower sent Air Force One to bring 21 Hungarian refugees to the United States on Christmas Day 1956, and they were on that plane. And so that has a lot to do with why I do what I do, because one person in a position of power who happened to be uh the president of the United States said, not on my watch, this will not happen. Uh, and so um that changed their trajectory and opportunities for my life. And so a lot of my work is about paying that forward.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

What a what a beautiful story and what an incredible story. We we share a slightly similar background in the sense that my grandparents emigrated from Central America after World War II, fleeing the fascist regimes that were starting to form up uh in Central America after the maps were being divided up. So uh not quite as dramatic, but I do I share your appreciation for paying it back and paying it forward for where you came from. So what a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. Let's let's talk about your work. And you've used this phrase, which I think is fantastic, about the current state of the economy, paying for Ferrari engines and driving them in first gear. You've you've researched and and shared some data attributed to you that I think is incredible. You know, women earning 60% of degrees but being promoted 21% slower. Uh, bias is still a thing. And while we've come a long way, there's a long way to go. What does this really mean for the economy? Let's talk at the big level first, because I think that's your the foundation of your work.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I mean, the basics is like we're sub-optimizing our economy. I mean, that's basically it, right? So, and by the way, this morning I just published my new fortune column, which actually has to do with oil and the price of oil and how that cascades through is it's basically a middle class margin call and how it cascades through the economy beyond gas prices. Gas prices are the first to hit, but it it eventually um hits. And uh to your point, um that is uh ultimately about GDP. That's that's eventually what happened. But but if uh what you're talking about in terms of the 60% of uh bachelor's degree or almost 60% um uh bachelor's degree and higher, and then we have this 21% uh uh gap is that we're in we're we are investing in educating women really as the foundation uh for um you know for the labor force, if you will, and then we're suppressing the yield on that investment. And if you think about it, right, I have three degrees, two master's degrees, and I didn't get the women's MBA, right? I got an MBA. And what I mean by that is that I invested the same amount of money in my MBA as my male colleagues, and yet the way our economy is structured, we we are suppressing the yield of the majority of uh um of college graduates. That makes no, it doesn't make any sense in general, uh, because the whole entire reason that we invest in people to have education is so that they can be more productive and that they can earn more money. And when they earn more money, more of that money goes um not only back into the economy in terms of consumer spending, but also in terms of taxes, right? And and and funding the US economy. The issue right now is that our um uh national debt uh just is at 39 trillion. So I wrote an art, the article I wrote, it was at 38 trillion, now it's at 39 trillion, and we had what I call the debt defense crossover earlier this year. And what I what what I meant by that is we're actually paying more to service our debt, which is basically dead money. It goes nowhere, it doesn't invest in anything, there are no returns uh really uh than we are for defense, which is one of the largest expenditures uh at the federal level. And yet what we could be doing, and and we spend about a trillion dollars as of this year servicing that debt. And uh if we were to invest in the full return for women in the labor force um in the United States, it's$3.1 trillion, right? And if you just look at closing the gender pay gap, not even the promotion gap, which is what you mentioned, but the pay gap. So that's$512 billion. Uh, and that's each and every year. That's not a one-time stimulus. And then you connect it to spillover effects, and I'm sure you've got more questions, but we'll one one really clear example uh for anyone who cares about Social Security, the Social Security Trust Fund is slated uh to be out of um to be insolvent in six years. Well, we could close the Social Security savings gap by a third if we close the gender pay gap. That's not even equal opportunity. That's just paying people uh for what uh the jobs that they have now.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:50

And even if you don't care about Social Security, which most people do because we all pay into it if you if you have a paycheck. Uh if you are an American taxpayer, you're actually subsidizing the pay gap because women are more likely to be on social welfare programs. Why? Because they have in the industries where they have the largest gender pay gap, they actually rely on social welfare programs to bridge the difference.

SPEAKER_03 10:16

Yeah. What an what an incredible picture of the the data set and the reality that we're facing. And I think you describe this kind of the law of big numbers and that any one person can't move all of those mountains at once. So let's maybe start peeling them apart one at a time and thinking a little bit about what maybe the average person can do. But before we do that, it's interesting as you describe all of these dynamics, which are influenced by politics and policy and economics and all of these different dimensions. Um how much of that informs this ecosystem versus just straight up uh lack of fairness in decisions and the the old, you know, the word bias in terms of this this dynamic? Because some of these things are are bigger than maybe any individual choice. How does that how do we attribute the where we where we've ended up? Is it all just because of policy and politics? Is it all just about bias? Is there somewhere in between? Is it emerged over time?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Well, I don't think those are binary questions. I don't think it's an either-or. Uh that what we have in our labor force is not, we have a system that is inequitable by default, not equitable by design. And what I mean by that is that you have in our system right now, so we're talking about promotions, like talking about that specifically, you have to choose to be equitable, right? Rather than equity being the default. That is the larger issue. I mean, even if you look at policy-wise, right? So the Equal Pay Act, right? That was signed into law in 1963 by President Kennedy. But by definite, and then uh and then we had the Lily Lebetter Fair Pay Act, which was the first piece of legislation that was signed into law by President Obama, uh, which changed, for people who don't know, it changed the statute of limitations for equal pay from when the pay decision was made to every time the inequitable, every time you receive inequitable pay, the statute of limitation starts over. The reason for that was the recognition that the harm doesn't happen just uh the economic harm doesn't just happen when the decision's made. It's every single inequitable paycheck that compounds over time. In any event, both of those laws are great. However, they both rely, they're neither of them are true equal pay laws. And what I mean by that is that they still rely on the person experiencing inequity to speak up.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Right? I and I know this because I use the Little Better Fair Pay Act to as a breadwinner mom uh to fight for equal pay twice and won. So I not not only do I know this as an expert, I know this from lived experience. And so uh when you do have to do that, two things happen. One, by definition, uh you don't have power, because why would you do that to yourself if you did? And two, you are taking a risk. You are taking a risk with your economic standing by having to speak up to power. So what we need, for instance, from a policy perspective, we can talk about corporations, is a law and the European Union uh has put this into place and it goes into effect in June of this year, June 7th, 2026, where companies have to prove that they're paying people equitably and leveling people equity uh equitably, uh otherwise they pay a fine. And the fine is not just not the pay gap, the fine actually is likely uh for the European Union to be 4% of global revenue. And that the reason why the European Union did that is that if we circle back to the initial question, uh they recognize that uh their citizens are subsidizing the pay gap, right, through their taxes in the EU countries. They're subsidizing those corporations that are not providing equity of opportunity. And so they are shifting the burden of proof where it belongs. So that's both from a policy perspective, we need that, but you know, um like pipeline. One of the reasons uh why we created pipeline was really around a behavioral economics perspective. So if you shift that, so people may have heard this is probably 10 years ago or so now, but there was very there were very low 401k savings rates. And so what companies did was to auto-enroll new employees into 401k savings, and because with the understanding from a behavioral economics perspective that it's harder to unenroll than it is to enroll.

unknown 15:16

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

And by default, uh uh savings rates went up. So that was that that was the idea behind pipeline. So every uh talent decision, so there's five of them, um, internal hiring, pay, performance, potential, and promotion runs through the pipeline platform before a company makes that decision, and then pipeline makes a recommendation. Now, as a manager, you can choose to reject that recommendation, but that's fine. But you might be choosing to be inequitable. And by shifting that uh decision-making model, on average, companies who use pipeline increase equity in their companies by 67% in the first three months on the platform. And that's just not the right thing to do. We actually started with research uh which found that for every 10% increase in intersectional gender equity, so gender plus race and ethnicity and age, there's a 1 to 2% increase in revenue. So this is not just about doing the right thing for your employees, it's actually about maximizing shareholder value, which is the number one responsibility of any CEO.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

Yeah, and having that data, so much of it you talk about behavioral economics, is a feedback loop and it's the power of immediate understanding of returns. And, you know, we value immediate gains more than we do long-term gains. And if I can't see something, a tree falling in the forest, then it doesn't really matter to me, which I think that's really, really fascinating. I I want to extend that into the decision-making and the promotion piece specifically, and maybe take uh an edgy angle on that question. Obviously, in the United States, DEI initiatives were among the first things in the new administration to receive a lot of attention and a lot of pressure. Some companies made choices to remove those programs, other companies took a stand and decided to keep going. I think many companies probably just flew under the radar and decided to not really talk about it, but but move forward. How first of all, how has that pressure influenced the data that you're seeing and real choices and real promotion paths? And for the companies that are maybe pressing on, are is there any change in their behavior? Are they doubling down? Are they staying the course? I'd be interested in that.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

So I think yeah, they're they really sort of fall in three buckets. One is people who scrapped it altogether, a large cohort who just rename it. They just took out all the hot button words, but they're not really doing anything that different than before. And then the folks like Costco is probably the most notable example to take a stand, Target on the other end, right? Who uh scrapped it. Uh so um what's interesting is uh so the last data I have, uh there there were a number of um shareholder uh uh motions presented. I might not get all the terminology correct, but to shareholders uh to scrap DEI programs. And to my knowledge, almost every single one of them failed and failed at 99, 98 percentages. And so this was um about 30 companies. Uh I can send you the link, there's a tracker. There's like 30 companies, multi-trillion in market cap, right? So so uh shareholders recognizing, so this is like Apple, Walmart, shareholders recognizing that uh this is core to their business strategy, and this is not something uh that they will abandon. Uh and um the you know, with the with the recognition that this is really a core business strategy and that they can't alienate. And we can kind of see those results, right? So if you look at Costco versus Target, and what was interesting about Target, and I was actually quoted and interviewed about this, is Target was actually struggling before they rolled back to EI. And what the data shows is that in both an uh economy or a company who is struggling, uh you actually want to double down on inclusion and equity because companies who do that in uh an economic downturn actually see double returns, like their stock price increases versus uh companies who don't, their stock price uh decreases. And that's so for Target, they actually made the decision to roll back DEI at the exact time when they should not have, when they should have actually doubled down. And then we can see the results uh from Costco. But I think more broadly, um, you know, I wrote an article for Harvard Business Review around equity not being a zero-sum game, right? And I think that's really the illusion uh or the fallacy, if you will, that um that what we have is a fixed economic pie, right? There's only so much. And so if you get some, I get less. And that's not the way it works. It's actually better for everyone. So just take the national debt, right? And if we achieved equity in the United States, that's not just good for women, that's good for everyone. And it also happens to be good for uh the 40% of children, 40% of households with children under the age of 18 in the United States who are our future labor force who grow up with breadwinner moms, right? Because we know that the number one factor that impacts children's future economic standing is their parents' economic standing. And increased economic standing is good for all of us, right? That increases consumer spending, it increases tax receipts, all of those things are good for everyone.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Uh yeah, no, and I have a question about that. We just got a question in the in the chat that I want to maybe address since we're on it. So thank you for bringing up Target. Do you think their rollback was based on the emergent political landscape? I guess maybe rather than just a purely a business decision.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

I don't know. I wasn't in the rooms, I can't speak to that. Uh what I can say is what the impact of that was. And based on research, they made that decision based on their What how their business was doing at the exact wrong time.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

Yeah. Yeah. I I want to ask about your comment about particularly breadwinner moms. I I would imagine you know better that the percentage of breadwinner moms in the workforce today is greater than it was 20, 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

How does the I've just done a bunch of research. I'll talk about it in a little bit. And you can see the link behind me around change in working America. And one of the big angles we looked at was the experience of change across generations. How does the generational data around this conversation? And I'm thinking more specifically, you know, we're we're on the Gen X side, so we've sort of grown up through the boom and bust years of very different, very different economic circumstances. And now you've got millennials in Gen Z who are entering in very different economic times. How how does that shift or shape the equity conversation and the data that you're seeing? Does it shape it at all? Are are we seeing different choices for women in different phases of life now than maybe we used to because of it?

SPEAKER_00 23:09

That is an interesting question. But I'll set that one aside and I'll answer it. But uh the generational piece, uh so uh Gen X is like the lost generation.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

I know, nobody cared about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Like we're super tiny, no one really cared uh about us. Uh uh, we um you know it was nice when the millennials came along because they were so big they could actually make and facilitate change, but there was no conversation about equity or inclusion or any of those things when I joined the labor. None.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

None.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

I mean, I I I remember the first time I heard the word mansplaining, I was like, oh, that's what it is. Because I would sit in mostly male uh leaders, you know, people who were more senior to me, mostly men. Uh there were very few women, uh, and they would be explaining something to me, and I would think, why don't they think I know this? Like I graduated some lade. I was like, I get that. I know when I heard that, I was like, oh, that's what's happening. So I think for my generation, there was this, like, I often think about my generation as the the girls in particular who raised the with the idea that like if you work hard and do well in school, you can be anything you want to be, which is totally misleading and a lie. And then we get to the labor force and we're like, what do we do wrong?

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

And then it wasn't until years afterward. And I think the millennials uh probably had a little bit more um understanding of that. They have more breadwinner moms, more of the moms were in the the workforce, there were more education. The Gen Z is, I mean, both my kids are Gen Z. Uh and it's just a very um, you know, I think it's a it's there's a lot of just at least and I won't I won't say this as like a generational researcher, this is an observation as a mom. Where so like I think that's what I see is a lot of skepticism around uh politics and leadership, and really trying to figure out like my son, uh just as one example, he he graduated from high school last year, could have gone to college, did very well in high school, chose not to, uh chose not to right now uh because of artificial intelligence. And his concern was I don't it wasn't so much the money, but he didn't want to spend his time getting a degree if he wasn't sure of the return, obviously he's my kid, on that time to get a degree. So he went and got a union job and he works full-time, and he's like, I'm gonna do this, and then I'll figure out when I'm going to get a college degree later. And I think that's um, I mean, that's very, and he's not the only one. There are a number of kids his age uh who really question that path. That like for my generation was like, that's what you do. You go to college, you try to get into the best college you can, you go to college, you do really well, then you get into, you know, it's like that was the path. And for that generation, they no longer believe that path. And I I think some of that too is the that we've seen, they've seen their parents um have to go through things where that path didn't really always pan out, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:49

Yeah, yeah. I I wanna I wanna dig into that because we're all interested in your view on the AI conversation and how that's influencing this. Before I do that, your comment about the generations. I one of the things that emerged from the research that I just released, and it I did a post on this yesterday, in fact, particularly about Gen X. And and as you mentioned, I'm a Gen X. So these are these are like, you know, I I can tell jokes about us because it's I'm part of the group. We used to be the the cool kids. We grew up very resilient, very independent, very yeah, and what the data shows in the research that I've just done is that Gen X is actually among the least prepared for the changes that are coming. And yet and yet we seem to know that change is really important and that having the ability to be resilient and flexible is essential, and yet it and it's it's a stark difference. 88% of Gen Z are reporting that change, having the ability to change is uh critical. Only 33% reported that they actually are ready for what's coming. I mean, that is a pretty stark cell phone.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

Um and and yet, and so it it's it's interesting to me that this generation that has sort of led the way through a lot of turbulence is now feeling in in with the bow wave of AI coming, that man, I I just want the roadmap. Just show me the instructions, give me the training. I don't know how to navigate. And and so it'd be interesting to kind of compare that with your research over time and just look at how that's gone because, and here's my question we've obviously seen a lot of layoffs. It's I think maybe close to 100,000 just this year alone between Oracle and some of the other ones.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

We're getting pretty layoffs, yeah. Pretty close.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Pretty close to that number. How has just do we know the data gender-wise between male and female, the number of people affected in rough terms?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

I don't well, uh you mean this year or in general.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

I mean kind of the trend of the I would say the AI induced layoffs. Do we know how that's influencing the data?

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Well, we know, so I wrote an article last year for Fortune, a byline toward the end of last year about the AI layoffs, and there were over one point, it was like close to 1.2 million layoffs in 2025.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

And about 150,000 of those could be were directly directly attributable to AI. That doesn't mean the remainder were not. It just means from a research perspective, that's what was directly attributable to AI. And I think one of the most uh significant uh announcements we saw earlier this year, which obviously was covered by Fortune, but when Jack Dorsey uh announced that they were laying off 40% of their labor force, and that was really just the due to AI, and that was just really the beginning. And uh the question that and I I published another byline for fortune early, it was last month, but it was about a chief chief workforce architect or an agentic CHRO that that basically is not like your traditional uh CHRO, but has the responsibility, it is a PL role, right? Because there's a lot of money that's being invested in artificial intelligence. I think it was 700 billion last year, yeah. Uh, and then is responsible for that return, right, on that investment. And most investors are looking for a return in three to six months, and CEOs are saying we don't know when that return is going to happen.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

So you have a big issue now. We've seen a lot of rumblings in the private credit market, and essentially the equivalent of run on a run on a bank, if you will, but in the private credit market, uh, which is concerning because we don't have a lot of transparency around what what those loans are and what the issues are and why investors are. I mean, we can make it up, but we don't have a lot of data around that. And uh so the the idea that I so what I talked about in both of those bylines was this idea that if you just eliminate people because AI can do something, you've essentially eliminated the guardrails.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

You and AI compounds at speed, right? It hard you either hardwire equity or your hard hardwire bias. Right. That now becomes a liability. Uh it uh can reduce your returns. So outside of just having to pay out some sort of settlement, you you now have issues. And so my argument was we need to manage the human agent mesh, like we need to optimize how humans and AI work together. So for instance, we used to talk about people managers. You could be an agent manager, right? You might manage hundreds of so how do you do that?

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

That so uh that that's that's some of and we're really at the beginning of those conversations. I I do uh talk to executive uh retained recruiters, so folks who are placing you know most of the senior talent in organizations. And I've been asking them about this last year, like, are you seeing this? Are you here? And for the most part, no one was hearing too much about it. And just in the last month, corporations are like we that role that I talked about in March of this agency theater, they're looking for that. Now, in terms of layoffs, uh uh we know historically, so I can talk a little bit what happen happened last year in general, but in terms of layoffs, we know historically that women and particularly women of color, black women, are most likely to be impacted by those layoffs. Uh, that has to do with occupational segregation, so essentially being in the roles that are highly um uh subject to automation, right? Uh so we know that's likely to happen. I can talk about more broadly what happened in the labor force uh last year um in terms of layoffs, but that's you know, generally that's what we see. And then it's also very difficult for people to find jobs.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Yeah. Oh, it's that I've I have a number of peers, friends, colleagues that we we even did an episode on this show. The the job market has fundamentally shifted. And and what's interesting about the data that you just cited in terms of women of color, particularly, I mean, all knowledge work is subject to automation now, and so it'll be interesting to see how the data shakes out over time. Certainly the demographics of the workforce will play a role with that, but um and uh we're we're we're getting close to time. I want to kind of get to the no, this is great. Uh Brian, by the way, uh who happens to be my podcast producer, corrected. I said Gen Z when I meant to say Gen X. Yeah, I know you did. I just I was gonna yeah, yeah, Gen Gen X in terms of yeah, Gen X, the 88 versus 33 percent. Yeah, so so yeah, I was uh too many letters going on there all at once. I was talking about myself, our generation. So there we go.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Yeah, I I also I just wonder if Jen Gen Gen X is tired. Yeah, uh, like we survived a lot of things, right? We survived the dot-com crash, we survived the Great Recession, yeah. Uh we that you know, um we're more likely uh to be um in the the Middle East wars, right? The war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan. I mean, I know like my cousin is a fighter pilot, he was one of the first um uh people out uh in Desert Storm, first fighter pilots out. So I I I just wonder if my generation knows they need to do it, but they're just kind of tired. And that's the point of this.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

There's a lot there for sure. I think what's interesting about it is, you know, for our demographic, you know, we still occupy most executive level positions in terms of age range, but just this year, I believe millennials have passed as the largest manager level cohort in the U.S. And so there's an interesting, particularly when it comes to change, you get a lot of dis, you got a you get a lot of executives making decisions about the future of their company. Take a target, for example. But in my world where I help companies change, you get a very narrow segment of the generational population making decisions on behalf of everyone else and suboptimizing that experience in whatever way it might show up. And so you've got a generation that feels kind of stuck or needing more confidence or data, and yet they're the ones making all the decisions. And that's something I've been looking at in my research.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

You mean uh you're talking about millennials?

SPEAKER_03 36:14

I'm talking about Gen X. So Gen X is sort of occupying most executive roles in terms of age range and making a lot of investment strategy uh decisions on behalf of companies, and yet most of the workforce, 60% of it, is below them in terms of age. And so you're you're getting one generation creating experiences for others, uh, and that's not always working out, particularly in my world when it comes to change and how do we drive experience differently.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

I think they need hope.

SPEAKER_03 36:43

That's a good place to be.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

They need a solution. I think they need the belief that things can be different, that this is not. I mean, this this is also why I do I some people I'm not a pessimist. The work that the work that I do is about like here, here's a clear, here's the real issue with this problem, and here's the real solution that we can implement. This is fixable. There's almost everything we are facing right now is fixable. What people need is hope, like the belief that their children will have the opportunity to do better. Like my father, my father came here with not only the optimism that he could do well in the United States of America, he would have yield on his investment, but that his six children would also, they would not only do that, they would it would be better for them. And I think that is the hope that we have lost. Yeah, and we have to that that is the basis of who we are as Americans. It is the great experiment of American democracy, it is that belief that if you work hard, you will you will have yield. And so the question is will you believe that even in the face of difficult circumstances? Because that is when you need it the most.

SPEAKER_03 38:09

Yeah, yeah. That's really, really powerful. And I think to your point about us Gen X folks and really everyone in the last 20 years, but maybe for this cohort, we've been through it all and we've demonstrated the ability to make these shifts happen. And now with AI, where executives are losing their jobs, starting over. I started my company, I was 50 years old. I wrote my first book. Uh, it's possible, there's nothing really unique about your age. If anything, to your point, it should give you confidence that you have the ability to do it. And it reminds me of one of my favorite, I think it's a Japanese proverb, which is if you get knocked down seven times, get up eight. And I think that's exactly what you're describing. So uh Kataka, we we have talked about so much here. You've just shared a wealth of wisdom. Uh, for someone just maybe tuning in or kind of wanting to get the the summary, what are two to three things you want people to take away from this conversation about women and bias in the U.S. economy and where we are and where we're going?

SPEAKER_00 39:10

That equity, I would say the first is that equity is uh not us not only a social justice issue, it's an economic issue. Uh, that equity is not just about women, it's about men, women, non-binary. Like it's this is about improving it for everyone. Uh that would be one. The second is that equity is not just about women. Women are not that one of the fallacies about this is that women are the only, like pay gap would be a perfect example, that they're the only ones that experience inequity and they're not. Men also experience inequity. We just don't talk about it. So, for instance, 48% of working fathers would like to stay home with their children, but they don't because of identity and isolation. Who will I be? Who will I connect with? We have created a very uh it's called like the we've created like a very strict man box, who men can be in our society. We need to fix that. We need to start talking about equity is not just about women, but about everybody experiences it, and that like uh pipeline closed more pay gaps for men than for women.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

So it doesn't just happen to women, but that's the sort of common narrative. Uh I I that that would be the second uh one. And then the third is that it's economic, right? That this is about economics, that this is math. This is just math. This is not about ideology, it's not about politics, this is about math. And do we if we're going to make investments, we should maximize their yield, and that will ultimately make it better for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Yeah, yeah. It's really, really fantastic. And thank you so much for sharing not just the work you do and the important conversation that you're starting, but I think the inspiration behind giving people hope and a belief that we will get through this as well. And and I think you're doing not just incredible analytical and intellectual work, but it's truly a service to all of us in terms of being able to understand the dynamics, the conversation, and the pathways, because that's that's really what we all care about is where do I go next um individually and collectively. Um Kotika, also, as I mentioned to you, we have a closing tradition on this podcast, which is that I stole from another podcast, which is the last guest.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

You borrowed.

SPEAKER_03 41:39

I borrowed. Uh no, I stole it. Yeah, I stole it. I'm I'm keeping it, so I'm not giving it back. Is uh the last guest leaves a question for the next guest. And I just love the way these things um uh work out, particularly how you started the show. So if you could say two or three words to define yourself, what would they be?

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Steady, yeah. Pretty steady, uh, like pretty consistent. Um you know, the other two things I will say is uh excellence. So the two things that I was taught by my parents, I didn't talk about my mom, but she faced similarly difficult circumstances to my father, was to always do your best and to never give up. So I'm you know, a pretty consistent, steady excellence, you know, is a is a big part of what I uh do and I don't give up.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

I love it. I love it. Those are three wonderful things uh to be. So anyone watching who wants to have a successful life, go be those three things. Those are those are wonderful attributes. Um Kotika, where can we find you, follow you for those that are listening? Uh in addition to being on LinkedIn and other places, where can we learn more about your work and follow your work?

SPEAKER_00 43:03

So my website, which is katakaroy.com. Uh that so that's you can learn more about me there. Obviously, my I write for primarily for Fortune and for the World Economic Forum. So you can find a lot of my I've written for Katie Katie Currick Media, MS Now, Fast Company, lots and lots of outlets, but but uh primarily now is Fortune, Katie Currick Media, and World Economic Forum, and then on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

Great. We will put all of those uh show notes in the caption so people can follow you. Uh I know you're prolific, so for those of you that do want to follow you, you're writing on a really consistent basis and really, really inspiring, insightful stuff. Uh, thank you again for your time. Thank you for all of you who tuned in live, for your questions, for your feedback. And again, for those of you listening on your favorite podcast platform, please do subscribe. It's the best way to support the show. Thanks again for coming on with us today. For being a part of the Top Voice podcast. We'll see you all next week.