Driving Gender Parity: Caroline Codsi, Founder & Chief Equity Officer, Women in Governance

In this powerful episode of TBCY’s Leaders Who Care series, we welcome Caroline Codsi, Founder & Chief Equity Officer of Women in Governance, for an inspiring conversation hosted by Mark Sadovnick. Caroline shares her remarkable journey from Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War to Paris and eventually Montreal, where she became a leading advocate for women’s leadership, gender equity, and inclusive workplaces. In this conversation, discover how Caroline’s experiences shaped her resilience and leadership philosophy, and how they inspired her to create Women in Governance to address systemic barriers affecting women in the workplace. She discusses the evolution of the organization, the creation of its Parity Certification in collaboration with McKinsey & Company, and why organizations must measure and address gaps in hiring, retention, promotion, and pay equity. Caroline also explores the business case for diversity, the importance of belonging and inclusion, the changing DEI landscape in Canada and the US, and lessons from her global speaking experiences. She opens up about her experience as a single mother, the values she instilled in her children, and the importance of balancing professional ambition with family and purpose. Whether you are passionate about gender equity, leadership, diversity, inclusion, or workplace transformation, this episode offers powerful insights and practical inspiration for creating a more equitable future.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  All right, this could potentially be, with all due respect to my friends in different places around the world, my favorite episode yet because I can say, bienvenue Montréal, comment ça va? Welcome to the Leaders Who Care series.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Bonjour, merci de m'avoir invitée. Thank you for inviting me.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  C'est mon plaisir, je dois pratiquer mon français un petit peu, so. Putaitard, but this one I'll have to go for in English, probably. No, Caroline, do you prefer Caroline or Caroline, or does it depend where?

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Both are fine.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  All right, I'll go with Caroline because it sounds much cooler. So, welcome. I'm excited because I am a fellow Montréaler also, and I always love to talk to people back home, even though they bug me that my French is not good anymore and stuff. But with all the impact you make and all the good work you're doing, that's really what I'm super excited about having you on and sharing with the world here. So the best place to start, though, would be, and I have to tell men this more than women, because when I ask, tell us about yourself, men inevitably say, this is my title and this is my job, and this is what I do. That isn't the question.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  I want to know a little bit about, are you from Montreal originally? A little bit about family, if you feel comfortable talking about siblings and this and that. Maybe something you've never told anybody and you want to reveal it to the world now. That's always kind of fun to do. So I gave you a lot of notice for that one, right? And, but share a little bit about who Caroline is.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Sure, so thanks for the question. I'm going to try to give you the Reader's Digest version of, I was born in Beirut, Lebanon. I lived through the Lebanese civil war, which lasted 15 years. I was age seven when it started and 22 when it ended. It kind of gives you an idea of my age. During that period, eight international moves with my family, so it's been quite complicated. But at age 17, I actually decided to leave Lebanon, stay in Paris. No parents, no money, my parents stayed in Lebanon. It was a very, very difficult period for them to let me go there, especially at such a young age.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  But I think they, you know, they knew deep down that whatever happens in Paris, it's going to be better than staying in Lebanon under the bombs. It was very, very difficult for anybody living in Lebanon because it was a civil war. And that honestly was sort of a leap of faith on behalf of my parents. And I think what they, the service that they did to me by saying, you know, we trust you, we believe, no matter what your circumstances are, you will always succeed. It kind of gave me the strength and this faith in myself. Because, you know, my mother used to tell me from age maybe five, you're a genius. She would always tell me, you're a genius. And you know what?

• 3:15Speaker 01

  I didn't necessarily believe it, but somehow, if they keep repeating it, you kind of want to live up to that tale, right? So I did it, I moved to Paris and no money. I think that was the most striking part is that I had to put myself through school and then university and feed myself and find a shelter. And, you know, in Paris, it's really not easy. Anybody who's ever looked for a place to stay, it's very complicated. But, you know, honestly, if I should summarize, Mark, the woman I am today would never be this woman if I hadn't gone through all of that I went through.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Because people, what people say of me, it's not going to sound very humble, but you know what, it doesn't matter. Let's leave humility aside for two seconds and just be proud of our accomplishments and of who we, you know, what we've done and who we are. As women, many women tend to, you know, downplay who they are because they don't want people to say, well, who does she think she is? Well, you know what, I'm just going to tell you who I think I am. I think I'm a very resilient woman. I'm brave, I'm courageous, I have come out of my comfort zone more times than, you know, I can count. And that has allowed me today to overcome anything that comes my way. I think that has made me a successful businesswoman and entrepreneur.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  And I don't have a recipe for success that I can just, you know, write a book about and sell, although I might try. I think part of it is in my DNA, part of it is what I've experienced and I've gone through. So fast forward to today, so gone back and forth between Paris and Beirut and now Montreal for about 30 years. And when I came here, I really thought, especially coming from Lebanon, that this was a society where I was going to see equality at every level and in every sector. And that's what I was looking for, right? It was this distant dream of the Western world that was so equal and fair to women. Well, surprise, it's not at all, at all.

• 5:26Speaker 00

  Well, that's good because they need help.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Well, exactly. Well, I honestly, when I came into the corporate world in Canada, I elegantly bulldozed my way through the ranks. And my last job, I was Executive Vice President of one of the largest medical expertise firms in Canada. So I didn't quite go through the glass ceiling, but I was as close as it can get. And this is when I founded Women in Governance, celebrating its 15th anniversary this year in 2025. And voila, the rest is history.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Apparently, did you have any siblings?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  So I have a brother who's five years older, who lived here while I, you know, because we came, so to give you the, you know, more detailed version of it, during these 15 years of war, there's four years that we spent in Montreal, between ages 11 and 15. So when I was 15 years old, my parents brought me back to Lebanon, which was a bit of a shock because this is, these are very formative years, right? And I had really become accustomed to the way of life in Canada. And, you know, maybe not a secret to the world because a few people know, but not many people know that I was a punk at the time. My hair was this long, full of colors, I had, you know, 10 earrings.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  And I had to get rid of all that because they were going to kill me over there. So I let my hair grow, I dyed it in only one color. So although, you know, today I'm very much into, you know, big brands and elegance, I was a punk at my teenage years. So that was the rebel in me. So going back to Lebanon was quite a shock.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I bet.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  He stayed here because he was five years older, he was 20, so he never left. He stayed in Canada. But I went to Lebanon again in the war, worst years of the war, and then to Paris and then back to Montreal many years later.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Well, we're super glad you're alive and well, there's no doubt about it. And I think the punk stuff is great, actually. You know, we need, that's when you're supposed to get all that out and enjoy it. And imagination is such a wonderful thing that we don't do enough of these days, not to mention laughter, and bring that to the table. And even in business, what a wonderful thing to have in business.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Creativity, innovation, right?

• 7:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. I remember during COVID, you know, somebody said, and I thought it was brilliant at the time, you know, this is great, a dog can walk into the Zoom or a kid and no one's upset anymore. And we can talk seriously about things, but don't take ourselves so seriously. And, you know, be there. So, you know, I wish I had, I wish I had my usual hair before that I used to color it blue too, but I don't.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Oh, did you now?

• 8:24Speaker 00

  No, I didn't, I'm just kidding. But I had ponytails and stuff too. So tell us, they gave me a headache because, I don't know how you girls do it, but because it's so tight. But anyways, you know what, I love your energy, by the way, it's fantastic. And we need more of that. And one of the things, our firm, Fifth Element, we were founded about six years ago at, launched at the UN headquarters, but we launched on International Women's Day, which is another thing that I was interested about what you did. And one of our key elements were women leadership, women empowerment. And our first event ever was in New Delhi, of all places, for young women entrepreneurs to teach them about entrepreneurship. And we've done stuff with women ever since.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  And my friends kind of make fun of me, I think they're just jealous because, for example, I was just in Davos and I had two tables at a dinner and they were all powerful women that I invited to the tables. And so.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  I got an award in New Delhi in 2018.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  Wow, how did I miss you there?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, amazing. The women are unbelievable over there, what a great culture, I loved it.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  It is, it is, and the food's pretty darn good too, in that respect. Well, tell us a little bit about Women in Governance.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  So Women in Governance, originally, when I decided to found it, my goal was to support the women who wanted to get into leadership roles, who wanted to advance their careers and sit on boards because the statistics were really alarming. In 2010, in Canada, only 12% of board seats were occupied by women, 12%. So for me, these numbers were really shocking because I did not expect that, did not expect that. When I did that research and I thought, huh, okay, by the way, it was the same in the US. So when I saw that, I figured, okay, let me organize events,

• 10:24Speaker 01

  let me organize panel discussions, fireside chats, and let the women see what they, you know, be inspired and want to get on a board and want to get the education. We created a mentor program, we created a governance training program, and all of these were really geared to supporting the women so that they can attain their objectives. After seven years of doing that work, we realized that, okay, hang on, women are doing pretty well. They're 60% of university graduates. They're very ambitious. Actually, there are statistics that say that women have an ambition level that is even higher than men, so it's not true that they don't want those jobs.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  They're just not getting them, but it's not because they don't want them. And um, the reality was with only five percent at the time of female CEOs. By the way, it's not even double digits here in Canada. And it's, you know, Fortune 500 in the U. S. It's, I think, maybe eleven. I don't even think we're at top percent at this point. So these are recent numbers, right? So it's just completely crazy. Um, in terms of boards today, it's maybe a quarter of a board seats are occupied by women. So we have advanced from the twelve percent of twenty ten to quarter. But I, I realized that it wasn't really the women that needed to be fixed.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  But it was the workplace, the workplace culture. It was companies, organizations that had been built by men for men that hadn't evolved their policies, the initiatives, that they, they were still doing the same thing. But all of a sudden, they had an influx of women in the past fifty years. And nothing changed. And they wouldn't understand why women were not advancing at the same uh speed as the men. Well, you know what? There are systemic barriers that need to be taken down. And for that, organizations need to take the time to look at what they've got and what they don't have or they need to get. And so we've built a parity certification.

• 12:35Speaker 01

  The parity certification is like an I S O. We built it with the support of McKinsey and Company. So something ultra robust, ultra credible uh that today more than a hundred and fifty major organizations have done. I mean, these are companies in the, you know, in the pharma, in the telecom, in education, in mining, in engineering. I mean, you name it, we're everywhere. Um, so we launched in twenty seventeen this parity certification. And the goal was so for these organizations to be able to, first of all, do like some sort of an audit, a self audit, really. They answer these questions about eighty questions on what they do to attract and retain and fairly compensate the women. How many women left your company last year? How many women were promoted last year?

• 13:20Speaker 01

  And these were metrics that most did not really look at. So doing that exercise allowed them to, first of all, better understand where the gaps are. If you don't measure the gaps, Mark, you're never going to close them. You're never going to be able to influence them. So doing that work and then giving them a detailed report on where they stand, what they could do better, what they need to stop doing, start doing, et cetera. Benchmarking, uh recommendations, best practices. And they come back year after year and they measure themselves compared to the year before. And we celebrate them at galas in Montreal and in Toronto. And we're very proud of the uh unbelievable companies that have enrolled in this uh, in this um process.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Actually, we're on Zoom. Zoom Video Conference is one of the companies that has uh certified a few years ago.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  Very cool. Zooming all over the place.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  Um, I, I love that. And um, you know, I remember experiences, um, really quick. I remember one in with Deloitte way back when in Montreal. It's a, it's a even much better company now than it was. But really, um, this, um, my, my senior manager, whatever, and it was my boss on a, she had five major clients and I was on, I think, two and a half of them. And um, she got pregnant, long story short, she got pregnant and um, she wanted to come back and she said, how about if I just come back for three clients and you only have to transition two? And the infamous line was, well, we don't do that. You're either in or you're not. And she said, well, this doesn't make sense. I even said, and I was a rebel in my first year even, which was, I had a partner tell

• 15:00Speaker 00

  me I gotta cool it on the sarcasm way back then. But I said, this doesn't even make sense business wise. You're gonna lose her instead, instead of just having to transition two clients, because the other three won't even notice any difference, because she did the same thing with them when she had five working full time. And they said, no, so she left. And then they had to transition five clients to different, and all did that, and cost more and everything. Now they wouldn't do that now.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  That's short, short term uh vision.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  It's stupid, you mean?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  I'm trying to be polite, you know?

• 15:33Speaker 00

  I gotta take visits to Canada more often so I can be, get back to being polite or something. Um, it's, it's also interesting, because I was just up in Toronto with Ernst & Young brought me up there to talk about how their people can truly be leaders who care and, and have their clients act that way too, because it's good for business. And so that's why I love, I love what you're doing. Um, I know you're gonna wanna talk about um, how Canada's holding off becoming a fifty first state or something.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  I'd almost rather go the other way and talk about what we talked about. How can California and Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Maine and New York become part of Canada?

• 16:15Speaker 01

  We would love to have you. We would be a force to reckon with.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  Can you put a proposal on the table?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me work on that. I'm sure we would have a lot of, a lot of support.

• 16:29Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, these are uh, I'm gonna call them interesting times. Um, you know, obviously, and I mean, I'm very vocal on everything that's going on right now on social media, especially on my Facebook, uh, on my public Facebook. And uh, you know, it's funny how sometimes I've got, you know, I, I've, and I've got huge support, people who are following me on, on, uh, on my Facebook, they're for the most part completely on board and they're the ones who would sign off anywhere to, to, to, to join us in Canada and they're completely, you know, appalled at, at what's going on. But I also have some who will say things like, you know, mind your own business. But you know what? Nothing happens in the U. S. That is not our business. I mean, we're neighbors, we're partners.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Um, if, you know, if you've got a cold, we're gonna sneeze. That is, you know, going, that, that's what's gonna happen. So it's important for us to maintain our, our good relationships going. But it's also very more important than ever. I've never seen Canadians becoming so patriotic um as in the past few months, because we feel uh, you know, a little bit under attack. So I think we are showing who we truly are in terms of our values and standing up for our values. And that reassures me a lot, because I know a lot of sister organizations in the U. S. are just disappearing, because, you know, everything that has to do with D I is apparently a bad word now.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Um, but here in Canada, uh, I would say, well, there's a few organizations that, you know, we look at thinking, okay, you were never in it for the right reasons. You were just in it for the show and now you figure, I don't need to do this. But people don't forget, employees don't forget and clients don't forget. And if you look at what happened in the U. S. With Target and Costco, where, you know, Target just went, well, Costco just went, you know, and that is why, is the power of the purse. I mean, you know, people must not forget that women are eighty percent of buying, decision making. For crying out loud, do you want, you know, you want women on your side? You really, really, really do.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Um, so I think what's going on right now is just, I think we went too far on, on, on, on the one hand, and this is the backlash, but it's going to come down. There's no way we're gonna stay in this madness. It, it's not sustainable what's, what's going on right now.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'd like, I'd almost like try to interrupt. There's the good sorry in there. I'm on number two. Um, that, you're right, the pendulum always goes unfortunately extreme and then the pendulum can't just go like this. It doesn't work that way. It has to go all the other way and then goes like that. And I think the conversation should be more about, and I've had a lot of these conversations with women and African Americans and you name it, um, that diversity means great different experiences that you have. It means great different backgrounds and ideas and perspectives and imagination. And to be honest, I always brag about Montreal, at least in my experience, growing up, that there were diversity actually didn't really come up that much.

• 19:42Speaker 00

  It was more of, I'd like to taste all your different food. I'd like to try dancing with that doom dance that you did or whatever. At least this was me growing up, that that was there. And um, and I'm Jewish and we were hanging out with the Greeks and the Lebanese and doing this and that, because it was awesome, basically.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  And that's what should be concentrated on and, and um, I have placed a number of women in positions. Um, in fact, we were fortunate to get the, the search for the CEO of the National Women's History Museum, which we put in there. Some of my friends joke with us, they say, well, they probably thought you looked good in a skirt, that's why they gave you the search, but that wasn't the reason. Um, we're really good at it. Um, but the, the point being, most people wanna be hired or recognized and whatnot for the good stuff they do, the expertise they have.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Of course, nobody wants to talk, to be a token.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Exactly. So I think maybe the conversation has to lend more towards, that's what it's all about, not just worried about the word diversity.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Exactly. But Mark, you said one really important thing, which is.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  Oh, that, oh, that, I just said one important thing?

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Among others? But let me, let me, let me just, um, you know, you use a leverage, that, that one thing that you've said, which is diverse perspectives, right? And what does that mean, diverse perspectives? It's not just for the sake of saying, okay, well, we don't see things eye to eye. It's because when, you know, a Jewish man, a Lebanese woman, we're gonna talk about a problem, we are gonna come up with the best solution, because your brilliance and my brilliance are different and we're very complementary. So together, we'll look at a problem from all facets and I'll go, huh, I didn't see it that way, but that makes sense and you'll do the same. And together we'll come up with the best solution, the most robust decision, the most

• 21:32Speaker 01

  innovative uh solution. And what is that? What is that gonna do for any company? That is going to positively impact your bottom line, because at the end of the day, show me the money. It's all about the, your, you know, your, your financial performance. And you're not gonna get that among people who look like each other. They all think the same, they look the same, they have group think, which is super dangerous. You know, like a bunch of white men in their sixties talking about threats, risks. You can't manage risk if you don't know anything about cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, e-commerce.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Do you have a younger dude or dudette, you know, somebody who's going to come, you know, on the board and tell you about these things, tell you about social media? You don't see the opportunities either. So it's not just gender and origin and religion. It's age, it's, it's so much more. And, um, you know, I just, I just find it sad that what all research has been demonstrating for so many years, uh, which is diversity brings a better financial performance, you know, let's just bring it to this. So what, we don't want to be thriving? We don't want our economy to be thriving? Why?

• 22:48Speaker 00

  And to add to your point, um, are you familiar with blue zones?

• 22:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Blue zones are, um, it was, um, a research done by, um, this fellow named Dan Buettner. And he went to places around the world and found out where people lived the longest and they were the happiest. And identified the traits and whatnot. And it certainly was diet and exercise and things you would expect to be. But it was also community and the thing that fills people's hearts and souls more than anything is belonging. And what is inclusion? If not belonging, I know after a while it went diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Kind of all this, maybe we used too much words or whatever, but, but it is. Yeah, blue zones. It's, it's brilliant. And, um, it is true. And I compare everything to sports because especially hockey.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  And sports is life, basically, I think. And, um, and, you know, teams win championships and people get more excited when they win with a team rather than even if they win with themselves. Parents get more excited when their kids are accomplishing stuff, not just theirs, things like that. It's real. And, you know, um, I saw a movie recently, um, Kevin Costner, he was a baseball pitcher and da, da, da, da. And he ended up with relationship issues, but, um, but he won a big game and then he went back to his hotel room and there was no one to celebrate it with. And because we crave that and, um, it's not rocket science, right?

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  So it's, we, to your point before, maybe we go, we go too far on both sides. And the majority has to stand up and, and, and go for it. Um, um, tell me a little bit, by the way, we say in LA that we need to have the audience, you know, wanting more so we can do a sequel. So we may do a sequel, but.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  Tell me a little bit more about, um, in general, and I'd love to do a sequel about what you speak about out there. Where you speak in different places around the world. I'm interested to hear that.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  I, I, well, you know, I think it's the, um, the era of social media that gives us this door to the world that we would have never been able to access so easily. So, sorry. I've been invited to speak, I mean, literally the four corners of the planet. Um, I spoke in Dubai. I spoke in Bahrain. I spoke in Saudi Arabia. If you want to talk about more, you know, uh, Eastern countries. I've spoken in Russia before all of this madness. I spoke in St. Petersburg at the time that they had the Eurasian Women's Forum. Um, and, uh, anyway, I'm not going to make the list because it's really, really long. I spoke in Japan twice this year.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Once in Tokyo a year ago, in, uh, um, in the summer, well, last summer. And then in April, I spoke in, um, in Osaka. And, you know, these are unbelievable experiences because when you do this, yes, you bring your knowledge and you bring your own expertise and experience in North America. And also I lived in France and I do a lot of work with the French parliament. So I'm very well aware of their different laws, legislation, uh, to support the women. So I speak about that for best practices, uh, around the world. But I also get to learn so many things every time I go. And I'm, sometimes I'm really surprised of, of what I see, you know, I, I, there are societies that are

• 26:19Speaker 01

  not so surprising because Japan is really probably at the bottom of the barrel. But when I went to, uh, to Iceland, oh my goodness, these people, they live it, they breathe it, gender equality is embedded.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  They are number one, they are number one for women, Iceland.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  But it is not just on paper. Mark, you gotta go if you've never been. Uh, and I was talking about blue, they've got the Blue Lagoon, which is like this unbelievable, uh, sort of spa. But it's natural, you know, like it's, it's hot water, but it's from the earth. So it's really, um, it's quite an experience. So that I, is something that I love about my job. It's demanding, it's exhausting because people think, oh, it's so glamorous. Yeah, yeah, it is. But there are times where, you know, my work doesn't stop. I still need to do my work. I have a, you know, a team of 15 people that still goes on. Everybody needs something. Got, you know, 150 clients, we need to respond. So that doesn't stop, but I do it. And I always, when I travel,

• 27:18Speaker 01

  take a couple of days off and to, to discover, uh, where, where I'm at, you know, I would, I.

• 27:23Speaker 00

  Really, that's great. Sorry, there's number four, sorry to interrupt, but years ago, I remember Oprah Winfrey was interviewed and, um, she was, and she was told that, um, everywhere she goes, um, this is when I was a teenager or something, everywhere she goes, she should at least take one day because you think you'll always get back, but you don't know.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  But you don't.

• 27:44Speaker 00

  You can't get back to all these places.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  And I always do that. And my kids are older now. My, uh, son is 28 and my daughter is 30. She's a cybersecurity lawyer, by the way. And he's a real estate investor and developer. Anyway, when I got that award in, uh, New Delhi, it just, it fell on his 21st birthday. So he came along and, uh, while we were there, we, of course, we went to see the Taj Mahal and we did, you know, the whole, uh, triangle. It was just unbelievable. I, I took my daughter to Russia and how lucky was that? I mean, what were the chances that we were going to go to Russia now? Um, so we.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Zero.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Exactly. But I can tell you, Moscow is out of the ordinary for sure, but St. Petersburg is more beautiful than Paris and London combined. You've never seen anything like it. So I'm, I'm glad, you know, I gave my kids this opportunity. Um, because it's, you know, I was a single mom for a good period of their teenage years. Uh, so they have had to be very patient with me because I was working late. I had board meetings, I had galas and, you know, and then they got involved in a lot of the charity work that I was doing. They, they got involved and they, I think that also gave them an edge, an unbelievable edge, because at age 11, they started being, uh, volunteers on, um, you know, the Salvation Army or the Missing Children's Network, et cetera. And so.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  I think here, I think there's.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  I just want to say one, one last thing real quick, Mark, but to all the single moms out there who think that they need to give everything up to stay home with their kids, think again. Because as long as you give all the love to the children, all the right advice and all the right values, I think they would be not at age, you know, five or seven, but, you know, as teenagers, they will be very supportive. They'll be, you know, they'll be admiring your, what you're doing and bring them along. My kids were coming along to all these things. Everybody thought, oh, this is so cool. And, and then everybody knew them and it made their careers that much easier when the time came.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, we had our, I got three boys and we had them, they were going to hockey games when they were in the womb still. And, uh, everything after that. So, yeah, I kinda, I kinda get it. Well, you know, there was a study done that, um, that kids that have working parents are not worse off than, than if the parents stayed home type of thing. Everybody thought that they would be. But if you set the right role modeling and you set the right values and you, the quality time is, is done, it's may even be better because they're seeing so many opportunities. So I'm, I'm with you a hundred percent. Um, mind you, if I would have been married to somebody, I could stay home with the kids and she worked, they made all the money.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  I wouldn't necessarily turn it down either. But, um, so, but, but just kidding. Um, I think we talked about experiences before. That's the best experiences of any where the kids get to see everything that's out there, good, bad and otherwise. So, um, so great role modeling. Um, I'm going to make you promise that we do at least one sequel on this. But I do want to ask you one thing as the last question here. Um, famous last words, last question. Um, with everything that's gone on, let's say last several years in COVID and now and all sorts of stuff. I think I kind of know the answer to this, but what are you most grateful for and what are you most hopeful for?

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Um, what, what does COVID have to do with what I'm grateful for?

• 31:10Speaker 00

  It has nothing to do with COVID. I was saying, we had.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  That year when we have all these things that are happening in our lives. Then just stop for a minute and say what I'm grateful for and what I'm hopeful for.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Um, well, I'm, uh, definitely grateful for the wonderful support that I've always had in my community to succeed. And my community, I'm not talking about the Lebanese community. I'm talking about our society. Um, that I've had unbelievable support that allowed me to do the crazy work that I've been doing at this, you know, I may be the face of, of the organization, but there are amazing, an amazing team behind me, uh, that is cheering me on, that is giving me everything that I need to succeed. Um, and the larger community of clients. So that's what I'm the most grateful for. What I'm the most hopeful for is for our values to remain in the right place. And really, really, really for peace, peace, peace. And we are not going in the right direction in this world.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  So we need to, um, be much more open to have conversations about how we can achieve peace that is going to be in everybody's, uh, you know, best interest. We need to live in a world where we are proud, where our children can be proud. And so there are so many things that are under attack right now. So whether it's, you know, peace in, in various geographies, our climate gets me worried and I, I, you know, I'm really worried for our youth. And they need to be able to bring babies in this world. Um, so we need to keep at it and inclusion, obviously. You know, and doing the right thing and being equitable and not being a bully and all these things that we've taught our kids.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Basic, basic. Can we go back to the basic stuff we taught our kids and just live by those values? Conduct ourselves accordingly.

• 33:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that's brilliant. You know, when, in, when you're playing a sport like a hockey and you're not scoring, you go back to the basics to do it. So, uh, right on. Well, I tell you, I'm grateful to have a new friend. That's pretty cool.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  That is so.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  And that you are a leader who cares. I knew you'd prove it, but I'm also hopeful for the same thing. Um, congrats on, on what you've done with your kids and, and everything. And, uh, and, uh, thanks for being on the series.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Thank you for listening to the brand called You videocast and podcast. A platform that brings you knowledge, experience and wisdom of hundreds of successful individuals from around the world. Do visit our website, www.tbcy.in to watch and listen to the stories of many more individuals. You can also follow us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Just search for the brand called You.