Meg Pierce: Women need to be using this tool, period. Because what we're seeing in the data, and I would love to hear what you have found, is that women are afraid to use AI at work for fear of getting in trouble. Just let that land. I'm afraid that someone is gonna come for me for breaking the rule of using this tool.

Erica Rooney: Welcome to Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors, the podcast where we stop playing small, start calling things out, and actually do something about it. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, executive coach, speaker, and a little bit of a movement maker, and I'm on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there.

Erica Rooney: Y'all, I am here with someone who is deep into women in leadership, pay equity, advancement, all of the things. And I'm gonna kick it off with a little fun fact, and that is that Philadelphia women are more educated than their male counterparts. Oh, I love it. I love it. They are in the workforce in strong numbers, but here's what I don't love: they're still earning less. And in some industries, this is getting worse. It's not getting any better. And today's guest, she has all of those receipts. Y'all, we've got Meghan Pierce, who is the first ever president and CEO of the Forum of Executive Women, a Philadelphia-based organization with more than 600 senior women leaders that has been doing this work since 1977. And she came into this role from the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, before that from a career in policy that took her to New York City Hall and some of the country's most respected law firms. Now, every year the Forum publishes two reports that Philadelphia cannot look away from, one on where women actually sit in the leadership of the region's public companies, and one on the pay gap. We're not talking about the headliner number here. We're talking about the real numbers by industry, by education level, by race, and this is so incredibly important to dissect it this way. Okay, so we're gonna be talking a little bit about Philadelphia, but this plays into the bigger picture because these trends are not unique to Philadelphia. Y'all, Meghan has published a piece in The Philadelphia Citizen called Philadelphia Women Still Underpaid, and it is exactly the kind of conversation that I want to bring to this audience because again, it's not just Philly. So without further ado, Meghan, welcome to the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floor podcast. How are you today?

Meg Pierce: I'm great, Erica. Thank you so much for having me. Really nice to meet you.

Erica Rooney: Oh my gosh, so great to meet you too. I love that you're having this conversation. I love that PHLY is putting these reports together and doing the research behind it. But I wanna kick it off by talking about the pay gap, because I know you had some very specific numbers as it relates to Philly, but what are the trends that you're seeing globally? Is it making any kind of advancements? Are we staying stagnant? What's the deal?

Meg Pierce: So it's true that our report is based on Philadelphia regional data. Unfortunately, we're seeing similar trends nationally, and I don't wanna get too much into the numbers 'cause I know we wanna just talk about what this means and have a real conversation about it. But what we're seeing, at least here in our region, is that women in Philadelphia, the pay gap is getting smaller, which is good news. What we're seeing is that the pay gap is not getting smaller consistent across race or across industry. So white women, the gap is slowly closing. The gap is actually widening for women of color, and depending where you are within specific industries within Philadelphia, the pay gap is also widening. You also mentioned education. So women are, not just in Philadelphia, but across the country, getting more degrees, taking out more student debt to get those higher degrees, and they're not seeing it pay off in their overall income. So what this really says is, yes, we can applaud the advancement women have made overall, but it's not every woman that's doing better, and it's also not consistent across education or industry. And I would love to talk about why that is, 'cause I think that's actually a little

Erica Rooney: That's where I wanted to go. I'm like, “What the hell, girl? Why is this happening?”

Meg Pierce: Yeah. So it's happening for many reasons. The first just being plain old systemic bias. Women are often left out of the things within work, the cultural and structural things like salary negotiation that men have historically been able to maybe have better access to or have more confidence in doing. Also I think women are generally not as compensated fairly when it comes to things like soft skills, when it comes to things like people management, things that women in general are naturally better at. So until we change some of these more structural issues at work, how women are compensated, how bonuses are given out, how performance evaluations are consistently measured, we're not really gonna see those real changes. And I'd love to hear your perspective, Erica, coming from corporate America, like what you saw in this.

Erica Rooney: Ugh, absolutely. It was super frustrating because I was also a chief people officer, so I had all of that access to the pay data, and I would get access very first often to the people who were on the RIF list and things like that, and I would often push back and send it back and say, “Hey, every person on this list is a woman. What's the deal?” Or, “Every person on this list is a person of color or a woman. What's the deal?” And the answers that I would get back were just never satisfying. And then when it comes to the pay, there's a lot of ways that I could attack it, right? Sometimes I would see often that women were underselling themselves, so the men would put forward a higher number when they were applying for the job, and the women would put forward a lower number. And I'm the kind of HR person that if I have a salary band, let's just say it's 100 to 150K, I would have a rubric that would tell me exactly where that person should fall, not what they want, not what they've asked for, but where it would fall. And I would have open and honest conversations. And so if that person came in and they “I want 200K,” I would say, number one, you're out of our budget. And then number two, based off of all your skills and requirements, here's where I'd place you. But there are other people who are like, “Oh, that girl only asked for 80K? Let's offer 75 and see if she takes it.” And that would just infuriate me because that's fine if everybody was asking for the same number, but that's not how it was working. And as soon as you're coming in at that starting pay, it is so hard to make massive improvements in your pay.

Meg Pierce: You're automatically starting off worse off. And that's why I love talking to chief people officers and human resources folks because I think it's not necessarily that there's bad intent or that companies want to pay women less, but they see a cost savings, and that is more important than equity. One of the things I've loved learning about through this role and digging into the data is something called a company's compensation philosophy. What do you as a company believe about money, about what your employees are worth? And I'm so happy you mentioned salary bands because that has been consistently proven to be the best way, or one of the best ways, to ensure that women are paid equally, people of color are paid equally. There's a set amount of budget, and based on your performance review, the skills, and what you're able to achieve over time, you're paid within that band. And another thing I've seen work really well is audits, so annually auditing your pay data by gender and race to make sure that you are in line with the philosophy that you have about pay, and making corrections if necessary. I see a lot of this in government work, so it's very normal for government agencies to have pay bands and ways that you can advance over time. I would love to see that more consistently applied through more companies. I think we'd see a real difference.

Erica Rooney: Well, here's the problem that I see, is that companies will have those pay bands, but then they'll be in a pickle and they'll really need this role filled, and, “Oh, Bob came through and Bob happens to want the 200. Just give it to Bob. We'll take it from somewhere else.” And that's why Sally over here ends up getting the short end of the stick and she only gets 70K.

Meg Pierce: Yep. Or it's

Erica Rooney: for companies where they do the audits, but then they're like, “Oh, it did... Okay, we can't do anything about that 'cause that's gonna affect our bottom line.” And so it's, yes, we need those things, but we actually need them to be held accountable to a standard of doing those things. And I'm not sure how we do that, but

Meg Pierce: It really comes down to leaders and leaders at the top believing in this, and that's why it becomes more of a philosophy. The other area that I see it play out a lot, like the inequity getting wider and wider, is in bonusing. So if you don't have the audacity to ask for a huge number or to say, “I deserve X” at the end of a fiscal year, and I think it's important that we not overly normalize women being bad at negotiation or not confident, 'cause I don't think that's the case either. But bonusing is where a lot of that inequity comes in as well. So perhaps instead of bonusing, using that as an opportunity to correct some inequities. It's challenging, but it's possible, and we've seen companies do it right, so we know it can be done.

Erica Rooney: Yeah. Okay, so I've got a question for you, because a lot of the people who are listening are gonna be like, “that's great. Tell my leader to do those things.” And then they're just waiting, or they just don't even say anything, and they're hoping one day their leaders will catch up and kinda get on the bandwagon here. What can these women do from the jump, who don't have the control over the whole compensation bands or anything like that? Are there individual actions that they can be taking so that they're making sure that they're paid what they're worth?

Meg Pierce: Yes, it is such an important question, because there are things that you can do individually as an employee. The first thing I would say, and it sounds obvious, but it's really advocating for yourself, and advocating for yourself not just to your direct supervisor, but finding a company sponsor within your company that can support your not only advancement within the company, but also your pay. A sponsor is different from a mentor. A sponsor is someone who is saying your name in rooms when you're not already there, and is giving you really tangible advice about how to advance. I recommend finding a sponsor that's not even necessarily within your team, if possible. Maybe someone who works outside of the work stream that you work in, who can give you real advice and maybe advocate for you in a way if your supervisor is not. I think also the salary negotiation at the top of your interview process even is so important. Making sure that you're not coming in lower than you need to at the start. Asking really transparent questions and not being afraid to ask during an interview, “What is the band for this pay or for this job?” Rather than, “Oh, I think I deserve this.” Asking them that tangible question, I think it sets you on a road to success. And what else have you seen, as a people officer?

Erica Rooney: I will say the find your sponsor thing, I love it, but I wanna put a caveat on that, in that sponsors have to find you, right? Because a lot of people say, “Oh, I have a hard time finding a sponsor.” And to be honest, I don't know how you find a sponsor. I think that you have to show up, you have to do damn good work, because sponsors are attaching their name to you,

Meg Pierce: Absolutely

Erica Rooney: and they're not just gonna do it because you've asked for a sponsor, right? Then it's a mentorship kind of thing. A true sponsor who is inviting you into those rooms, like you have to be the person that they want to attach their name to. So what does that mean? In my world, it's find the things that they care about. How do you make their life easier? How do you help them hit their KPIs and their goals? And when I think back on my own career, there is one person who really stands out to me as an amazing sponsor, and he was a sponsor for me because I was doing those things. I didn't go in with a relationship of “Hey, will you invite me into these rooms and lend me some of that umbrella power,” I wish it was that easy, but it does take time sometimes, because you have to prove your worth, and I think it is worth every ounce of proving your worth if you can secure that sponsorship. But I would also say, I don't wanna say... the word job hopping is not the right word, but in order to increase your salary incrementally, you have to leave the company you're at. I don't know any other proven way where you can really break free from that normal 3 to 5% increase. And my own experience was, I 100% exed my salary at one point in time. So I went from making like $100,000 a year to $200,000 a year just because I had the gumption to ask, and it is scary as all get out. But when I tell you when I did that and it worked out for me, it was such a holy you know what moment. And it was like, I am not afraid to ask for anything else ever again because I just got a $100,000 raise.

Meg Pierce: Yep. And listen, companies weigh that. If they're thinking about the cost of losing you, hiring someone else, I tell women all the time, the worst they can say is no. They're not gonna be, obviously there's bad bosses, but angry at you for coming to your supervisor, for example, and saying, with tangible evidence of how you've met your KPIs, how you contribute meaningfully to the team, I would like a merit-based increase, it's in their hands. There's so much power in that, and that's very impressive that you doubled your salary, Erica. I wanna be you

Erica Rooney: too, Meg.

Meg Pierce: That's amazing.

Erica Rooney: I will also say I did a talk on negotiation for a room full of women not too long ago, and when I was doing the research, I found a really interesting stat, and I can't remember where it came from. But one of the fears that a lot of people have is, “if I ask for an increase or if I ask for too much, they're gonna pull the offer, and I need this job.” And I understand that, especially in today's market where, yeah, we need dollars to fund our lives, and it's hard sometimes to get a job if you're unemployed right now. And they found that the actual risk of the job being pulled was, like, 2%. It was so low. They're more likely to say no. Totally fine. But also too, having this conversation with you makes me rethink at another point in my life when I was very junior, I was taking a new role at another company. I had put in my salary, they came back with a decent ask. It wasn't bad, and I just said, “I'd really 5,000 more.” And the recruiter said, “Let me go back and talk, see what I can do.” And then he called me back 15 minutes later, and he was like, “We'll give you 10,000 more if you sign tonight.” And it was like, dang. But that was another proof point for me, that I wasn't asking enough. Because if he could just whip 10,000 out to close the deal. So look for those signals, because they're there, but they're not there if you don't ask. And if he hadn't had that 10,000, he would've said, “No, you can have the five. Sign today.” But,

Meg Pierce: And if you're at the end of a long interview process, you are very likely one or two top candidates, so you have more power towards the end of that process that you should leverage, absolutely. And again, a signing bonus, moving bonus, there's things that you can negotiate as part of onboarding as well.

Erica Rooney: Yeah. Okay. In your work and in all of these studies that you do, 'cause you also have the Women in Leadership Report, what were some of the most shocking findings for you coming out of that one?

Meg Pierce: Sure. So our other annual report is called the Women in Leadership Report. And again, this is specific to Philadelphia, but unfortunately part of wider trends we see nationally. So we look at Philadelphia's top 100 publicly traded companies. We look at women in the C-suite, women as top earners, and women who serve on boards of those companies. And I think the most shocking thing that we see every year is, last year Philadelphia had nine women CEOs out of 100, and that was the most we had ever had. That was a gangbusters year to have nine CEOs out of 100. So

Erica Rooney: even in double digits here

Meg Pierce: No, and if you're looking nationally now, especially in the environment that we're operating, where there's all this pushback against inclusion and diversity programs, and they're cutting women's initiatives, we are gonna see those numbers worsen and worsen over the next couple years, unfortunately. So I know all that to say, I just think it's important to measure these things and to put it out publicly and to not be afraid to say, “this is not where we stand as a region, and women are qualified and capable to lead these top companies, so why are the numbers not reflecting that?”

Erica Rooney: Correct. And I just, while we're chit-chatting over here, I went to my girl Claudette, which is Claude, but I call them all

Meg Pierce: Love it. Love

Erica Rooney: Everybody's a woman, right? And they were saying... 'Cause the stat that was popping into my head, and I don't know if you know it off the top of your head, but there was that one that was floating around that there are more CEOs by the name of John or something like that than there were women CEOs ever. And of course, Claudette spit back out that stat originated from a 2015 New York Times story, and it said that there were four men named John, Robert, Williams, or James for each one woman.

Meg Pierce: Oh my

Erica Rooney: So those were the top four names for one woman, and it says, of course, if you want a current version, and then it went on there. It does say that women outnumbered the Johns in 2018. But it's like, y'all, that is still real pitiful,

Meg Pierce: Johns. Wow. The

Erica Rooney: Real pitiful. That is not a stat to be happy about, okay? So what I wanna know for you is, like, when we see numbers like this, and we publish numbers like this, especially when we're thinking about CEOs, that's really a board decision. How can women as a whole really get into those positions when they're not the ones making the decisions, obviously, and it's these boards, and these boards are typically filled with all those Roberts, Johns, and whoever else?

Meg Pierce: Absolutely. It's such a big question, we would need glasses of wine and probably seven hours to talk through all the reasons why women are not CEOs. But in a nutshell, there's a lot of reasons. One, absolutely just that structural bias that you're talking about. Who's the decision-makers? Who do they think is worthy of those top jobs? And why, that's just baseline what we're dealing with. The other thing that I've really started thinking about and talking about recently is, it's not that women aren't capable, but there's often family, structural, social barriers that also prevent them from rising to the top, reasons that they can't work long hours to prove their worth. For example, we don't have paid family leave in this country. We don't have maternal leave that is equitable. We don't have structures in place for women that need to take care of sick parents, and right now we're hearing a lot about the sandwich generation, women needing to care on both ends of their lives, their parents and their children. And so until we can build fairer structures that allow women to not only be caretakers, or build more equity around caretaking within partnerships, we're not gonna see women having an equal shot at getting to those top roles.

Erica Rooney: No. I talk about that a lot, but what I also add on to that is, like, we aren't doing the men any favors here, because we are not giving men an opportunity to be at home with new babies or adopted babies when they're born, right? We have FMLA, and that typically covers the mother because she's the one who actually

Meg Pierce: Unpaid. Unpaid.

Erica Rooney: It's not even paid. And then when you look at, of course, the stats, and you're thinking about who can afford to take this unpaid leave, it's usually the woman who's paid less. And then the cycle just keeps going. And I actually had a really interesting conversation with another man, and I told him, I said, “Look, we're never gonna have equal opportunities for women until we also give equal opportunities for men when it comes to things like paid family leave.” And I think about my own parental journey, and I've got two small kids, they're 11 and 8, but it's like I stayed home with both kids for about 10 to 12 weeks, right? And I was able to learn them in those 12 weeks. My husband was still working, and so he did not know how to care for them in the same way that I knew how to care for them. And then I went back to work, and do you think anybody stopped to renegotiate the duties?

Meg Pierce: Absolutely nailed it.

Erica Rooney: Absolutely not. And of course, that's on me, y'all, that's an Erica Rooney problem. But I think it's a very natural problem for so many people to have. And so if anyone in legislation and government is listening, like, it's not just about the women, but it's also about the men.

Meg Pierce: It's a family problem, and if supporting families is your goal, this is a key way that you can support families. And I think there's also onus on employers, right? To not penalize people that take even years away from the workforce. We've been talking a lot about that at the forum recently, is, if a woman leaves the workforce for three to five years to support her kids until they can go to school, go to daycare, are they suddenly less qualified? Do they not have the best time management, project management skills you've ever seen from running a household? Does that disqualify them from returning to the workplace? So it's real, and there's so much bias associated with it, and for women, so much guilt, because you just feel like you can't do the right thing whatever you do. Whether it's taking time off to care for your kids, or working through the entire experience of being a young parent

Erica Rooney: Listen, moms be hustling the most, right? I would go to pickup line with my laptop in my car, we get it done

Meg Pierce: that you're on, your camera's off because you have to do pickup, because who's gonna do it if it's not you?

Erica Rooney: You know what? I go full on camera and I'm like, “Hey, we're in the carpool pickup line 'cause this is the reality that we're living in, so you gonna see the seatbelt, and I'm not looking at you, but you can see me.”

Meg Pierce: Yep, and it's 3:30 PM, and that's where I need to be. Sorry.

Erica Rooney: Oh my gosh. Okay, girl, I'm gonna take you on a small left turn, because I just wrote a book and it just came out in June. It's called “The AI Gap,” but it's about women, AI, and the next great leap forward. And just to give you a little synopsis of it, it came to me in this epiphany moment when I was really building and working with AI with a ton of women who are very invested in it. And as we all know, AI has a lot of bias baked in, and that is because it's all on the historical training data, which is what you and I have been talking about, because that's what creates the systemic issues that we have. When it comes to women and AI and the workforce, what kind of trends are you guys seeing, or what are you focusing on?

Meg Pierce: So we, for the last couple of years, have really been full steam ahead.

Meg Pierce: Women need to be using this tool, period. Because what we're seeing in the data, and I would love to hear what you have found, is that women are afraid to use AI at work for fear of getting in trouble. Just let that land. I'm afraid that someone is gonna come for me for breaking the rule of using this tool. So I think even just base level, the usage needs to be increased to make sure that we're not falling behind. So that is shocking to me, that there's still women who aren't using it at work. And then I think where we're seeing it more is more in like entry-level jobs, like the struggle of younger women being able to access and even get into the workforce in the first place because of AI.

Meg Pierce: What are you seeing?

Erica Rooney: Oh my goodness. First things first, the women who are scared to use it for getting in trouble, they're not wrong, right? Data actually shows that men, number one, are more encouraged to experiment with AI in the workplace than women are, which creates a skills gap, right? Because the people who lean in earlier, they get those skills faster, so that's gonna set them ahead. And then the other piece was, is that women were judged more harshly when they did use AI.

Meg Pierce: Ah, so it's not unfounded.

Erica Rooney: Unfounded, that's what I'm saying, it's not crazy. Now, the studies have also shown that women have this ethical concern about it. They feel like they're cheating. They feel like it's not fair, and I have coached hundreds of women, and a lot of them do say that. And so my whole rebuttal to that is “Oh my gosh, I hear you. How did you come, meet me here at this coffee shop? Did you take your horse and buggy or did you drive your car?” And they all giggle and I'm like, “But seriously,” like it is a technological advancement, and quite honestly, it is a general purpose technology at this point, right? Like it is something that, Meghan, when you logged on today, you didn't say, “Hey Erica, I've used electricity. Isn't that cool?” No, girl, we all got it, right? You didn't tell me how proud you were that you used your email today. That's what we do. That is what AI is going to become, and what it's going to be. And so these fears that they have, it's not unfounded. The is it fair piece, or is it ethical piece, like we gotta get over that, because was it ethical to move from a horse and carriage to a car? Yes. And that's what we need to think about. But I think greater, when we look at the greater purpose, we really need to think about how can we get more women's hands into AI, building it and growing it, because when I was writing my book, you talk about only nine CEOs who are women. When I looked at all of the C-level leaders and all of the large AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, at the time I wrote my book, there were zero women in those top channels. And at the very last second, my editor said, “We got one.” And I said, “Okay, make the update.” So there was one female leader, and the problem with that is representation, right? If you're not represented, people don't think like us. People don't understand a woman's life and lived experiences, like we get left out of those builds. And so honestly, Meg, that's my biggest fear, is like we've spent a lot of time today talking about the pay gap and the representation gap, and with this technology, if we don't act now and fast, it's going to just expand all of these gaps.

Meg Pierce: It's such a good point. It's really crazy to think about. And I always think about how women are just naturally more cautious and conscientious leaders, and I would love, I would much prefer to be using a Claude, a Claudette, designed with those real concerns in mind, as we move forward with it.

Erica Rooney: Absolutely. But I encourage you to run this experiment. It's what kind of spurred the whole conversation about the book, and that was with all of these women that I was with, we asked ChatGPT back then, because this was like pre-Claude days, “Based on everything you know about me, generate an image of what you think I look like.”

Meg Pierce: Oh my

Erica Rooney: And the issue with this is that, number one, these were all very highly educated, highly experienced, highly technical women who were deep into AI, using it daily, more intricately than any of us regular laypeople ever could. And they all got back pictures of old, pale, stale white males, every single one of them, with the exception of one. And this one woman, Meg, she finally was able to generate a picture of herself. And, I've got these little pictures on my wall, and if you go to TJ Maxx, they'll say “In this house we live, laugh, love.” She had one of those behind her and it said, “We men belong in the rooms where decisions are made.” And it was quoting Ruth, our girl Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And number one, misquote, she's rolling over in her grave. But that is what is baked into the system. That is what is hard coded in there. And if it comes out like that... And then I did this talk multiple times, even most recently, just a month ago, and people in the audience were like, “Oh, let me

Meg Pierce: Checking it out?

Erica Rooney: And they were still getting images of white men

Meg Pierce: That's so crazy. It's like such a visceral experience. Everybody should do that. I'm gonna try

Erica Rooney: gotta go

Meg Pierce: I'm gonna try after this.

Erica Rooney: and then come back, and you gotta come back and you gotta tell me. Oh my gosh. Okay, Meg, one of the things we talk about on this podcast all the time is what I call Sticky Floors, which are the limiting beliefs, the toxic behaviors that often keep women stuck. We've kinda touched on a couple, like negotiation, we're scared to ask for the money that we think we deserve, we're worried they're gonna say no. There's also things like imposter syndrome, worrying about what other people will think. I'm wondering, with you and your experience and everything that you see, what are those Sticky Floors that are most common?

Meg Pierce: I, the imposter syndrome really lands with me, and I think really because I have generally in my career come from the nonprofit world and policy. And I was very intimidated to move into a leadership role of a company, a nonprofit, a membership organization that supports, for the most part, corporate women and very high-powered executive women. And I was very unsure and intimidated by the opportunity to be their leader, if I didn't necessarily have some of the same experiences that they had in the workforce. But what I have found truly is that no matter the industry, women are incredibly generous and believe in the power of the work that we can do when we come together. And it sounds a little bit cliché, but I think the power of this membership organization is that we can do real incredible things when we move together. So I think about the forum's advocacy agenda, I think about our philanthropy, I think about all the ways that we're making an impact for women in the city. So although I had that major imposter syndrome, I have found that our members just really have lifted me up and elevated me, and I hope the same experience for all women in the workplace. It's really been a joy.

Erica Rooney: Oh my goodness, I love that. And I recently had a podcast guest on here, her name is Siri Zohary, and she said, “I hope everybody experiences imposter syndrome.” She goes, “I really do, because it means that you're about to step into something great.” And I thought that reframe was so powerful, because number one, I've learned that for myself, and it's been able to kinda shift how I move through it, instead of moving through it from a fear-based place. It's almost like from an excitement standpoint.

Meg Pierce: That's a great way to reframe it. And if you can do that and move through that, you can do pretty much anything.

Erica Rooney: You can ask for that 100, 100K raise you want, okay?

Meg Pierce: You can. You can. Nothing is as intimidating as that first jump into something new, but then I think you know you're on the right path

Erica Rooney: Yeah. All right, I wanna ask you, just as we get to the close here, what are some of the exciting things that you guys have coming up for Philly in the next year?

Meg Pierce: Sure. If anyone's in the area, we'd love to see you. We do big, what we call signature events, on all of the issues of the day for women in the workplace. So our leadership breakfast is October 30th in downtown Philadelphia, where we're gonna unveil the 2026 Women in Leadership Report, talk about the data that we're seeing, talk about why it really matters for women to be in the boardroom, for women to be in the C-suite. We also produce annually our pay equity report, so right now that's what I'm doing, I'm taking it on the road, I'm talking about the gender pay gap, I'm having the conversation, and that's something annually you can also look forward to. Both of those reports are available on our website

Erica Rooney: Yes, and we're gonna link those reports too in the show notes because we have those, and I think they're all fascinating. And I encourage everybody, even if you're not in that Philly area, to take a look at it. Also see if your state has these. These are important numbers to know. Like most often we quote the national numbers, and those are the ones that we see, but it's important to see where you're actually living, what's going on in your geography. So I'm so glad that you shared that with us. Now Meghan, last question, best question. When you think about when you first moved into this role to take it on, and you were having kind of those feelings of imposter syndrome, “I haven't been here. How am I gonna lead these women?” What is the one piece of advice that you would have given the Meg from back then?

Meg Pierce: You have everything you need right now.

Erica Rooney: Oh, I love that. You do. You do. And you know what? You gonna get everything that you don't have, because what is meant for you will not miss you, girl

Meg Pierce: Absolutely. You were given this opportunity for a reason, so don't question it, just keep going. And I think the other piece of advice would be, just find your kitchen cabinet, find your people, your leadership team, as soon as possible, to work through those big feelings and those big emotions, and make sure that the fear doesn't overwhelm you and keeps you just on the right path, in a way that can be productive

Erica Rooney: I love it. Meg, thank you so much for coming on the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors podcast. It was such a treat to really dive into these reports. I'm so glad that Philly is doing this good work and that you're leading the charge

Meg Pierce: Thank you, Erica. Really such a treat to meet you. Thank you for the great work that you do. I'm definitely gonna get your book, and I would love to see you on the road, or see you in Philly for our leadership breakfast. Please come as my guest

Erica Rooney: Yeah, I love that girl. Thank you

Erica Rooney: If this episode resonated with you, don't let it stop here. Send it to a woman you care about, a colleague, a friend, someone who's been on your mind while you were listening. These conversations are meant to be shared, and you never know what one small shift can unlock for someone else. And if you haven't already, make sure that you're following the podcast. Leave a rating and write a quick review. It helps more women find this space, and it keeps these conversations going. If you're ready to go deeper, come a little closer. Send me a DM. I'll invite you to sit in on a live Her Collective session as my personal guest. No pressure, no strings attached, but you get to experience it, feel the room, and see what happens when women start moving together. Until next time, y'all, keep going. Keep choosing differently, and let's smash the ceilings and close the gaps.