#118 Supporting Women To Succeed in Today's World

Welcome to the Proteus Leader Show, a podcast for forward-looking leaders driving transformation in their organizations, within their teams, or for themselves. Your host today is a senior leader at Proteus International, a firm that partners with companies around the world to make true transformation easier through change consulting, leadership development, and executive coaching. If you're looking for fresh perspectives and practical insights, can take back to work today, you're in the right place. Enjoy the episode.

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Allison Moore, CEO of Chief, which, if you don't know about it, is a community of ambitious women executives shaping the new era of leadership. I love that line.

Yeah.

And before Allison joined Chief in early 2025, she was the CEO of Comic Relief and previously held executive roles at HBO, Daily Candy, NBCUniversal, SoundCloud, and Condé Nast. And in all of these roles, and I can attest to this, Allison has driven digital innovation, growth, and transformational change. So welcome to the show, Allison. Thank you.

I'm so glad to be in conversation with you yet again, my friend.

Me too. And we are friends. I'm really proud to say that we've been friends. And Elsa has been a client of Proteus for many years. So I'm especially thrilled to have you with us. And also especially thrilled to talk about helping women succeed.

Yes, it's a big topic.

Yes, close to my heart. All right. So let's dive in. So the first thing I want to ask you is, as CEO of Chief, you're working to support women every day. So why do you think now in the world, That's so important.

It's important now in the world, which we'll obviously talk about. And there's some very clear reasons for that. But I've always thought it's important. Even in my own personal journey of being a woman executive that got launched in 1992 at Turner in Atlanta, I have benefited from the support that other women have given me, that men in my sphere have given me. And I knew it was a sustenance for me. So, fast forward to a few years ago, when Chief launched in 2019, I was a founding member, and I was a member of the Chief experience from 2019 to 2022.

Wow.

I was at Comic Relief at that time when I left Chief, and there was some considerations of why I left Chief, but I think that informs my excitement of where there is opportunity, and then also some work to do. So, I landed in February here at the company, and when the founders had decided to transition out, and now they're on the board, which is great, but in lots of conversation with them, there was a reason I joined in '19. Fast forward to my experience now, I think there's something I can bring to this organization and I have a vision around this. And some of it's big and lofty, like shaping a better world for women leaders, which I consider myself part of that crew. Some of it is my daughter who is 20 and thinking about her journey too.

Yeah.

And I'm interested in making sure in today's world, particularly, that I'm doing whatever I can in my small part of my universe to make that path more glideful than Resistance. Women need those spaces. They need spaces of community. Women leaders need those spaces. And I have seen that these spaces of community and trusted circles— and that sounds super soft, but I mean that in a pragmatic business way— trusted circles of where can I ideate and dream and think and support and amplify all the things and unpack and maybe have a bitch session— sorry— about what's happening.

Yes, yes.

All of these spaces have a massive amount of value and impact and give guidance. And that has propelled my career forward. And I see that in Chief. Chief was a piece of that too.

I love how you're framing it. And as you're talking, I'm feeling like support on a whole variety of levels. So there's that practical, other women who have connections or who have experiences that you need to learn from. I can hook you up with this person or you can do this. The kind of practical thing that men have been providing for each other for thousands of years. But then also those levels of like reinforcement intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. We're in this together. What's hard about this? Now I'm mad. Be in here with me.

This is absolutely true. A women's business career journey is a 360 one. And by that I mean all the pieces of a woman's life, right, wrong, or indifferent, are part of the baggage of that journey.

Yeah.

So when you are starting out, and I'm broadly speaking here of course, and you are in your early 30s and then you are thinking about kids, there is a whole thing that happens with your conversation with your own journey. What am I doing? What's the thing? And there's decisions and pauses and, or maybe accelerations, whatever that is. There are a different set of conversations that you have between 45 and 55, to be honest. And there is all kinds of things that happen in life around that time. This is also the time when bookenders happen, right? So you might have kids and you've got parents who are aging. And then where does that fall most directly? It is usually on women. I'm broadly speaking.

Yes.

So, all of this 360, and so, it becomes the fabric of your journey and it informs your journey and is part of the decision-making. It is true that there's a lot of pragmatic— and I love this about Chief— there's a lot of pragmatic conversations. For instance, what are you doing about the tariffs? Okay. What are you doing about the RTO? Have you heard what's happening on the new media merger or Netflix and what's that going to do for your business, whatever that is?

Yeah.

But there's also stuff like, Okay, I'm spinning a lot of plates. Like, where are you getting off the grid and taking some time for yourself? Or, I'm not a meditation person. Everyone keeps telling me I probably should be, but what are your practices for meditating?

All that stuff.

Yeah. All together.

The whole gamut. And well, this is great, 'cause the second question I wanted to ask you, which we're already answering, is what are some of the most critical elements of that support? So you're talking about the kind of practical elements, the emotional and relational elements. Let's talk about it from a kind of organizational point of view. As you look at organizations like Chief or any large organization that has women that they're trying to help make succeed, what do you see as some of the critical elements that organizations can use or can employ to support women's success?

Okay. I feel like organizations could do a better job in acknowledging that women's ambition looks a little bit different.

Ooh.

And so whatever old school or, quote unquote, we've modernized the org structure or the career pathing in the organization, I bet another lens on that would be like, when you think about women and the journey we just talked about and the 360 inputs we just talked about, and when you look at your senior leaders, please do not look at them as like, well, is she going for the next rung of a job? And if she's not, Maybe she's taken herself out of the game.

Right.

I think that's kind of bullshit. Sorry.

Too much listening to me today. I'm sorry.

My mama should not be listening to this podcast. I'll be getting a note later on it. But because I think the recognition that we want to emphasize as a part of Chief, and by the way, because we see it in Chief, not because we're making it up and applying it to Chief, is that women's ambition has evolved. And senior women's ambition has evolved. And even if it took a track at once at some other time, and it really crystallizes as you get to the level of seniority, they're just defining their own paths. And so as—

Yes.

An organization comes in and starts to consider your top-level talent that are your senior-level women that you are looking to retain and infuse with all the investment of the company, think of them and their paths a little bit differently. And so that is a note to like big organizations. And so in that sphere, You are going to have senior leaders who are, like, yes, rising in the C-suite, but maybe taking lateral moves even within that C-suite to think about different areas that they can bring what they do so well at the company. And think about them for that. Because the dexterity of thinking sometimes, I think, in women leaders is actually underrated.

So if an organization is thinking about how to support women to succeed, you're saying that maybe one of the things is to be willing to define success Differently than the traditional ways that you've defined it in your own organization, right?

I have been at big organizations. I've been at small. I've been all over the grid. So often it's just keep on that path. And then again, if you're the EVP of product, you should be the SVP of product, the EVP of product, and then the C— fine. That's great for a lot of people and that's awesome. But consider if you are in this organization and you are building this kind of framework, consider that there might be women who are Cross-platform players.

Yes.

And the dexterity of thinking inherent with, in many ways, because of this 360 juggling that women are doing, I think that there is a skill set there. I think that there is a desire there.

Yeah.

Perhaps ask them the question, what do you do outside of your big job here?

Yeah.

And I bet you'll get a lot of answers. I'm doing some new stuff on the side. I'm investing in something. I'm backing my friend over here. I am counseling A friend on a job, I'm giving back, I'm mentoring, I'm thinking about the next generation. There's all these things that I think women are unlocking, and sometimes within the seat and sometimes outside. But I also want to say that I do think that's in the more organized corporate sphere. And I think there's a different way to think about that today. And I urge companies to do that.

That's great.

I love that. I also urge broadly that There are many women who have pivoted out of companies and are doing the things I just mentioned, building something. They're being invested, they're a portfolio play, whatever that is. Those women, the portfolio of experience has value.

Yes.

These are very talented brains to have in the seat.

So look at them more holistically when you're considering— Yeah.

I mean, this is what the definition of the multi-hyphenate woman is.

I love that.

It's these multiple professional identities, We really see this in Chief. I see it in myself. I see it broadly. We recently did a survey with the Harris Poll, which was interesting to validate what we saw in Chief, to check our own math. I love this stat. 86% of senior leaders that we surveyed said they're more ambitious than they were 5 years ago. Now, senior leaders is probably like 38 to 55. I'm 56. I got to extend past 55. So 55 plus, right? I got to include myself here. More ambitious than they were 5 years ago. And in the 5 years, 83% say they had navigated major transitions. And of the ones like major job transitions, 71% by choice. So that pulls the narrative away. No, they're all getting fired and laid off. And there is stuff happening. I don't wanna underplay that.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's more agency happening than what we talk about.

Oh, I love this. Me too.

All right.

So we always say we're going to end on a practical note.

Fair enough.

Yes. Let's go to the individual. So what can leaders, from your point of view, what are one or two things that leaders in organizations, men and women both, can do right now to help assure that the women who are working for them have the best chance to succeed?

The first thing is support their ability to find community support. Community is a big term.

Yeah.

I have a mama community. I have a parents community. An organization should be helping them find the community to drive outcomes in businesses for objectives, outcomes for themselves, outcomes for the line of business. In my view, it's access to other women to do business with other women and drive ideas with other women because there's just something different that lights up in those spaces.

Yeah.

That part of that Harris poll, majority of women said they accomplished 50% more when surrounded by other women. That's not to the exclusion of men. It gets amplified.

Yes.

And so leaders should encourage women to build more networks, both inside and outside of their organizations. It makes the work better.

Yeah, that's great.

And then I think, as we were mentioning, the second thing would be expand their definition of a successful career path, right? For person X or for group A. Value the nonlinear journeys, the career paths, the lateral moves. They're not deviations.

They're not deviations. That is so important. As you've been talking about this, I think this is what organizations need to do. To succeed and thrive, organizations themselves need to be less linear because that's how everything is evolving. So, rather than thinking of them as deviations, think of them as they could be the scouts for us as an organization, right?

I certainly am not running a massive, huge company, but even as a leader of this company, meaning bigger corporate environment, but when you think about the people that you need in the sook working around The work and the work of today that's so volatile, I want folks that can move vertically, horizontally, or through new ideas. I want flexibility in thinking. I want dexterity and a level of autonomy and agency. And so those qualities are found by folks who have maybe zigged and zagged.

Yeah.

Those qualities are found in folks who regularly seek out communities of conversation to unlock ideas.

Yes.

These 2 things of supporting this women's community for business and then expanding the lens on what's the valuable path for me.

Yeah.

A team that, those are my 2 practical—

Oh man, I love that. Allison, this is so great. I have loved doing this podcast. Could we have another 2 hours to talk? But this is a start and I think it'll be super valuable. And listeners, you can find out more about the work that Allison and her colleagues are doing at Chief. And how to become a member by going to chief.com. Very simple. And to find out how Proteus supports leaders and their teams, you can just go to proteus-international.com. Oh my gosh, thank you so much, Allison.

Thank you. I love being just in conversation always. Clearly, I could have sat here all day, so thank you.

Oh my gosh, thank you. And thank you for listening, everyone. And until next time, here's to creating the life You truly want.

Thanks for listening to the Proteus Leader Show. We hope you're leaving with ideas you can put to use on your team, in your organization, or in your own career. To learn more about how we support true transformation through change consulting, leadership development, and executive coaching, visit us at proteus-international.com. Until next time.