Ep 37: Shelley Zalis, Rewriting the Rules - Why Access Changes Everything

SHeCOMMERCE

In Episode 37 of SheCommerce, hosts Christina and Jackie welcome Shelley Zalis, founder of the Female Quotient and chief troublemaker, to discuss how access—rather

Key takeaways

• Access is more transformative than equality—true change happens when systems are redesigned for inclusion.
• Influence comes not from followers but from using one's platform to move what was previously stagnant.

Main topics

• Rewriting leadership rules
• Access vs. equality in career advancement

Notable quotes

Shut that bitch up in your head and be you.

Influence is what happens when you use whatever platform you have to move something that wasn't moving before.

Conclusion

Shelley Zalis's message is clear: true transformation begins not with individual self-improvement, but with

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:08) Welcome back to SheCommerce, where power women and real talk collide in the CPG world and where we're building brands, careers, and each other up. I'm Christina. And I'm Jackie. And Christina, today is a big talk. Can you even sit still right now? It's a big, big, it's not like, what's a bigger word than big? It's a colossal Speaker 1 (0:35) word. Humongous. Speaker 3 (0:38) Humongous. Ginormous. You know, there are people you follow because they're smart, they're industry experts, they're inspirational, they're people you admire because they've built something that's extraordinary. And then there are women whose work actually changes the way you think about leadership and about your career and about what's possible. Speaker 1 (1:05) Our guest today has been that for both of us. And honestly, when we started ruminating about SheCommerce and talking about creating a sisterhood where women build brands and careers and each other up. That was definitely her DNA in the idea way before we even realized it. Speaker 3 (1:30) Yeah, absolutely. But before we bring her in, you know what time it is. It's... Speaker 1 (1:43) And this week, the tea has a theme. This isn't celebrity gossip. This is women refusing to accept the rules that they were handed. So we start with a lap song. T spell number one. Paris Hilton from Survivor to System Changer. Wow. Oh, that's a good one. Speaker 3 (2:07) Yeah. So if your brain immediately went to the simple life, tiny dogs, chihuahuas, that's hot. Just stay with us a second because we're going to change your perception. Speaker 3 (2:22) This Paris Hilton story is about what happens when a woman takes one of the most painful chapters of her life and turns that into power. Paris has spent years publicly speaking about the unfortunate abuse that she says she experienced as a teenager inside the residential youth treatment programs, including the Provo Canyon School in Utah. She testified. She went to state legislature. She went to Congress. And she kept showing up. And in December 2024, after years of advocacy from Paris, other survivors and lawmakers helped make the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act into federal law. Speaker 1 (3:11) But this story does not stop with the legislation. This summer, Utah regulators revoked the licenses of both campuses of Provo Canyon School, citing serious health and safety violations. Think about that. Something happened to her as a teenager. For years, she could Speaker 2 (3:39) have put that Speaker 1 (3:39) behind her. Instead, she kept using her voice until people in power were forced to listen. Speaker 3 (3:49) Yeah. Speaker 3 (3:52) And that's the part that really hits home, right? Because influence isn't about having millions of followers. I tell my daughters this every day. Influence is what happens when you use whatever platform you have to move something that wasn't moving before. Speaker 1 (4:12) Exactly. That, that's good trouble. And I think there's something else here for the women listening. Sometimes we think creating change means having a perfect strategy, the perfect title, or the perfect moment. It does not. Sometimes it starts with saying, This happened. It was not okay. And I'm not going to stop talking about it until somebody does something. Speaker 2 (4:46) Yeah. Speaker 3 (4:47) And that's where you go from voice to access to action. So keep those words in mind because we're definitely going to come back to many of them with our fabulous guest. Speaker 1 (5:03) And here's our Darjeeling tea number two, Lee Maison. Five miles, one period, zero shame. Ladies, this is not one about a marathon and a period. So obviously, no, let me start that again. Ladies, this one is about a marathon and a period. So obviously, G-Commerce entered the chat. Speaker 1 (5:38) Of course we have. Speaker 3 (5:39) Chinese elite runner Li Mizhen has been going viral recently after footage resurfaced from the 2024 Hengshu Lake Marathon. Imagine this. She's running a marathon, which is what, 26.4 miles? She's roughly five miles from the finish line. We'll have to convert this for you, Jackie. I know you don't do miles, but she's five miles from the finish line. I mean, nobody in the rest of the world does, but the U.S. So she's roughly five miles from the finish line when her period unexpectedly starts. Not discreetly either. Not at home with sweatpants, you know, Advil and a heating pad. She's literally in the middle of running an elite marathon with cameras all around. Speaker 1 (6:31) And she keeps running. Blood visible down her legs. Five miles. Nine kilometers. Speaker 1 (6:43) She finished it in two hours, 35 minutes and seven seconds because, and I love this. I love this. Stopping would have meant she had to run another marathon to get the qualifying time she needed. And she was like, I don't think so. So basically, period. Noted. Still got a job to do. Speaker 3 (7:10) efficient. I love that. Speaker 1 (7:12) Can Speaker 3 (7:13) we talk about why this became such a massive story? Because like, okay, women menstruate. This happens just like every single month for a good portion of our lives. Yet seeing that visual evidence on an elite athlete was apparently enough to make the internet lose their freaking mind. Speaker 1 (7:37) Exactly. We celebrate athletes vomiting, bleeding from scraped knees. Can I say bleeding? Right? Losing toenails, playing through injuries. That's grit. That's toughness. That's sport. But period blood, suddenly everyone gets uncomfortable. FYI, period blood, that is the lining of your uterus shedding. Speaker 1 (8:05) It's, Speaker 2 (8:06) yeah, Speaker 1 (8:07) it's not a hair follicle falling out. It's the lining of your uterus shedding. month after month. Speaker 3 (8:15) And to me, that discomfort, that's the story. Like, Leigh wasn't running, obviously, she didn't know this was going to happen. She wasn't running to make a feminist statement. She was running a freaking marathon. Her body did something a woman's body is meant to do. And she pushed through it. She kept going. So maybe the conversation isn't, can women perform despite being women? Maybe it's... Why are we still treating the realities of being a woman as an exception we need to hide and not talk about? Speaker 1 (8:50) Yes, at work, in sport, in leadership, pregnancy, periods, menopause, childcare. These are not niche women's issues. They're not outliers. They're human realities experienced by 51 % of the freaking population. Maybe, just maybe, instead of teaching women how to quietly work around them, We should be designing systems that actually account for them. Speaker 3 (9:25) And that's pretty much the perfect segue into today's guest, because if there's one woman who has spent her career looking at the rules that we've inherited and asking, wait a minute, who wrote this rule and who does it work for? And my personal favorite is why the hell can't we change it? It is our guest, Shelley Zalas. Speaker 1 (9:45) There are women who get invited into powerful blues. Shelly Zalas builds new Speaker 2 (9:52) rooms. Speaker 1 (9:53) And then she holds the door open. Shelly is a founder, CEO, and officially, which may be our favorite job title ever, chief troublemaker of the female quotient. She is a trailblazing entrepreneur who disrupted the market research industry long before disruption became a corporate buzzword. She founded OTX, built it into a powerhouse, and sold it to Ipsos. And Speaker 3 (10:17) if that wasn't enough... She co-created Hashtag See Her, challenging how women and girls are represented in media. And after finding herself as the only woman in far too many rooms, she started what became the FQ Lounge, creating spaces at popular conferences and industry events such as CES, Cannes, Davos, the Super Bowl, and beyond, where women didn't have to fight their way into somebody else's network. Today, the female quotient connects a global community of more than 7 million professionals across 30 industries and 100 plus countries. Speaker 1 (10:54) But those accomplishments aren't actually why this conversation means so much to us. Shelley has inspired both of us for years because she doesn't just talk about equality. She challenges the architecture underneath it. Who's in the room? Who has access to the room? Who gets sponsored before they even reach the room? Who designed the goddamn room in the first place? And who decided those rules couldn't change? And her philosophy is beautifully Speaker 3 (11:25) simple, which we love. Make good trouble. Challenge what everyone else has accepted as normal. And stop asking women to fix themselves when sometimes it's the system around us that needs fixing. So today we're talking about the evolution from equality to access, ambition, opportunity, AI, leadership. The rules women are still being asked to play by and the ones the next generation should throw straight in the trash. Speaker 1 (11:52) Shelly, this one is personal for us. You have inspired Christina and me in more ways than you probably realize. So getting to finally have this conversation with you is a genuine full circle moment. Welcome to SheCommerce. We are so, so happy you're here. Speaker 2 (12:08) Wow. You know, I just have tears coming down my eyes. Thank you. That was a beautiful introduction. You know, when I hear, first of all, your voices resonate and are so powerful in a disarming way. You know, it's how change really happens. And listening to all the things you said, I'm like, wow, you know, it really isn't about me. It is about the community that works together. You know, I call it power the pack. It's a woman alone is power collectively with impact. And that's this. whoosh moment. And I just had another whoosh moment because you rallied all of us to, and inspired all of us to want to do more and to not just talk about what needs to change, but to activate those solutions for change. So thank you for such a warm, welcoming, beautiful introduction and for being part of my world and our community. Happy to be here. Speaker 3 (13:09) Thank you. Thank you. We are huge fangirls. I mean, I thought Jackie was going to definitely have a heart attack when we got the response back that you would do the episode. So we really appreciate your time. And yes, in more ways than one, you have inspired what we're trying to build and doing as well. So thank you. But Speaker 2 (13:31) before we jump into all the questions around Speaker 3 (13:35) the chief troublemaker and how you're starting all that good trouble, we... We just want to give you an easy one to start. So what is filling your cup right now, both literally and figuratively? What are you drinking these days? This cup? Speaker 2 (13:49) Yeah, sure. Any cup. Super hot coffee with my powder in it, which is amazing. Believe it or not, it's no sugar vanilla coffee meat powder, which makes my bad coffee delicious. So any coffee. I travel around the globe with it. As a matter of fact. Swell saw me with his bottle. So they sent me every color of customized bottles with my name on it. And then Coffee Mate saw me with my Coffee Mate thing. And so they sent me cases. So that definitely fills my cup everywhere I go. But that's what I drink. What fills my cup every day is my children, my grandchildren. I mean, I just get so much joy from my family that, you know, that always propels me forward in every decision I pretty much make. First of all, you're a grandmother. What? Speaker 3 (14:43) This Speaker 1 (14:44) is just Speaker 2 (14:44) incredible. Speaker 3 (14:45) What do your grandkids call you? Speaker 2 (14:48) Bubby. I love that. Okay. I am a Bubby. You know, I will do anything for those kids. And it's just every day I wake up, I can't wait to talk to them. When I'm traveling, they called me every morning to say hi before they go to school or camp or whatever. You know, it's actually very funny. in Davos a couple of years ago, I was interviewing the CEO of Cisco and we were just about to walk on the stage for a fireside chat and my phone rang. And of course, in Switzerland, it was the afternoon. In Los Angeles, it was the morning and it was one of my grandchildren. It was my grandson calling me. And I said to Chuck, I said, Chuck. I'm so sorry. I just have to take this call. I said, if it was anyone in the world, I wouldn't take it. But if it's a grandchild or someone from my family, I have to take this. Of course you do. So I talked to my grandchild and then we go on the stage and I opened with that story. And Chuck goes on talking about his family and his grandchildren and how he would do the same thing. It was just amazing. Speaker 1 (15:52) That was like. Speaker 3 (15:55) Yeah. Speaker 2 (15:56) Beyond the hug that I gave him, no matter what. That was like a whole new level. Speaker 3 (16:00) That's what makes you so great. And this message that we're all, we're human. And like you bring your whole self to work and it's not just business. We always say it's not just business, it's personal, right? And it's hard to separate. We Speaker 2 (16:11) make it a taboo topic. Like we're not supposed to talk about our children or it's supposed to be there's work. And then there's family. You have an integrated life and it's all part of it. And when I said to him, I'm so sorry, I just have to take this call. He was the first to say I would do the same thing. And so who said that we're not supposed to? It's perception becomes reality, but that's not really the reality. Right. We just think it is for some stupid reason, but it is not in a handbook that says you cannot talk about your children at work or take the phone call. It has to be. Like, there is no textbook that says that. We just think that that's a rule or something. I don't know. Speaker 1 (16:54) Absolutely. I do the same when I'm in meetings. Like, I'm sorry, I need to say goodnight to my kids because, you know, London. So different time zones. And I've had one person go, okay. I'm like, yes, I will say goodnight to my children. Thank you. But when Speaker 2 (17:11) you do that, then others say, oh, that's okay. Yeah. Like someone has to start a new pattern. Speaker 1 (17:17) Absolutely. Speaker 2 (17:18) Feed the charge. Speaker 1 (17:19) Yes. Onward. With that, we're going into part one, which is Chief Troublemaker. Shelley, at Cannes, you had a quote displayed at the FU Lounge, which we loved, that said something which both of us, totally, totally, both of us loved it. And that is, I love trouble. Because trouble means you're starting something. Trouble means you have a plan and you're disrupting the status quo. So let's start there. When did you realize you weren't just... building companies anymore that you were intentionally becoming a troublemaker? Speaker 2 (17:53) You know, I think, you know, it's what she said in the opening. We have to stop fixing the women. We have to fix the system. And it's not that the system was intentionally designed to isolate women or to push women down. It's just that the