HP Inc. (HPQ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and thank you all very much for joining us at Deutsche Bank's ESG conference this year. I'm Christiana Riley, CEO of Deutsche Bank in the Americas. We are absolutely thrilled to be hosting some of the best and brightest minds in the area of sustainability, corporate social responsibility and sustainable investing as part of this conference. And particularly this panel today is designed to help us get better and closer into the detail of what -- of how investors are trying to measure companies on their D&I efforts and trying to measure the positive impact of that D&I effort on return. So as I said, best and brightest minds. I am pleased today to be joined by 3 esteemed guests for this panel. I'd like to introduce them. First, Chris Michel, Head of Diversity Inclusion for Bloomberg Americas. Chris, prior to that prestigious role at Bloomberg, was also the Chief Diversity Officer at Brown Brothers Harriman. Also joined today by Katrina Dudley, who is a portfolio manager at Franklin Templeton and co-author of an upcoming book entitled Undiversified, the great short in -- excuse me, The Big Short In Investment Management (sic) [ The Big Gender Short in Investment Management ] And finally, Lesley Slaton Brown, who is the Chief Diversity Officer at HP, a thought leader and frequent speaker on the topic of diversity and inclusion with a very impressive track record and a long list of accolades about her record of giving back to the community. So thank you very much to the 3 of you for joining us today. And without further ado, I want to jump right into the conversation today.

Katrina, I'm going to toss the first question of today's discussion in your direction. As I said, you are -- you've recently written a book on the subject about the low levels of representation of women in the C-suite and on boards. I want to understand a little bit how you're seeing progress there, to what extent you have seen an increase and where you have seen an increase in female representation. Does that equate to improved performance? And fundamentally, should portfolio managers really care about that as a driver about performance?

Thank you very much for having me on this panel. And it's great to be with some really esteemed colleagues here. First of all, from an ESG point of view, obviously, the trend is towards greater ESG communication by companies and a lot of transparency around ESG. But you need to break it down into various things. First of all, we look at the C-suite. And we not only just look at the C-suite and who's in the C-suite, but we also need to consider the roles that are being given to the people in the C-suite. In our book, one of the things that we talk about is women are typically given the housekeeping roles. And in the C-suite, are they being given the same type of housekeeping roles versus getting the direct operational role that will ultimately lead them into that CEO position? So it's not just looking at gender diversity in the C-suite, it's actually unbundling and looking at it in greater detail. The second element is as we hold executives more accountable for their compensation practices, we also need to look internally at our compensation practices, and I would encourage that there needs to be greater transparency of the compensation of portfolio managers because it's really difficult to have a conversation with the CEO about the lack of pay disparity between him or herself and their lowest paid employee where we've got similar trends within our industry. And then finally, as providers of capital, we have an ability to put our money behind companies that are really focused on ESG, are very much focused on diversity and inclusion, both in their executive ranks, at their Board level and across the entire organization. I don't need to tell you the benefits of diversity and inclusion from both the fairness point of view, better business outcomes. There were a lot of benefits of to doing that. And I think that companies, ultimately, if they have diversity in their ranks, you will see good and better returns for shareholders.

That's very encouraging news. I'm going to turn next to you, Chris. Clearly, this past year, looking back at 2020 and the many challenges that we face, for me amongst the most prominent was the way overdue attention that was ultimately brought to social injustice in this country here in the U.S., and in particular, the injustice perpetrated against the African-American community, in the society at large, but the lens has also turned to all of us here in Corporate America. Do you see the momentum and the scrutiny that's been building as a part -- as a consequence of 2020 and everything we've lived to as a force for sustainable change? What's it going to take for that change to start to take hold in a sustainable way?

Thank you, and thank you for having me here. I'm a bit of a history buff. And so I think back to 1955 and a young man named Emmett Till, whose murder was the catalyst for a significant amount of change, the start really, the kickoff of the civil rights movement here in this country. And I think the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery is really no different. I think that this country has really been awakened over the summer and the fall to the injustices not only faced by black people, but other people of underrepresented groups and what we used to call minority groups. It's really important that the companies -- the many companies that have come out and made these statements and made these commitments and really been out front of answering some of the questions that their black employees and their black customers and clients have had, keep that up, though. And the way they keep that up is by one, listening to -- continuing to listen to those black customers, those black clients, continuing to understand that the market is changing very quickly. When we think about not just in this country, but what the globe is looking like in terms of the demographic changes that are taking place, the economic changes that are taking place, making sure that as we think about investors, I know we've got a lot of investors in the audience, how do we address their desires, their needs. We're being asked these organizations to provide information as to how we are addressing these questions because it's important to the investors. And keeping that in mind, I think we'll keep this conversation going. It's great that the leaders of our organizations have stood up and said that they are making a commitment to the issues we've seen around racial injustice. But it's going to be really important to understand that it has an impact, again, on our organizations, our employees and our clients and our investors. And so keeping that in mind, I think we'll keep this momentum going. It is not a moment. I do think it's a movement. I'm very optimistic about that.

I'm really encouraged to hear you say that, Chris. I'm going to bring Lesley into the conversation and, Lesley, in particular, with your lens on this debate out of the technology industry. The technology industry faces its own unique set of diversity challenges, but is also probably amongst the most outspoken voices for change and operating more at the cutting-edge end of this debate. How do you take that privileged position within the technology industry and bring it externally? Are you talking proactively with investors around the importance of diversity at HP? And do you see investors also as a catalyst for change within your organization or within the industry?

Yes, absolutely, it's a great question. The interesting thing is, yes, first, the short answer is yes, we are speaking with investors and more and more having these conversations. Customers are demanding diversity, and that is they're coming to the table with an understanding of we want to know that the company that we're partnering with and purchasing from is -- it cares about this and is actively investing in anti-racist cultures and giving back to the communities that you live and you work in. And for a company like HP Inc., we create technology for everyone, everywhere. And so diverse, different backgrounds and different experiences bring about different problem-solving skills and bring to bear better solutions as a result of that. So it's very much an opportunity for economically to bring the diversity in. You're building people's households and generational wealth by allowing diverse people to be a part of the tech industry, first and foremost, right? And in addition to that, the innovation that comes along with it because you have diversity at the table. And so -- and then lastly, of course, return for shareholder value. And so all of those things play together. But as I said, customers are demanding, investors are asking. And so we really want to be a great partner and progressive partner in being able to kind of bring really good solutions, ideas, suggestions and, more than that, influence to the table to help solve some of this.

Again, really encouraging perspectives from all 3 of you on this, and I really enjoy the optimism. I'm going to come back to you, Katrina as a portfolio manager and kind of applying that lens on the return opportunities that emerge from a conviction and commitment to diverse and inclusive organizations. Do you see the economic benefits of investing in diversity and inclusion as differing across sectors? Do you see that certain areas of the economy have a greater imperative? How do you take a look at this from a portfolio manager perspective as to where the impact can be greatest?

Well, first of all, as a portfolio manager, diversification is portfolio management 101. So the fact that we don't have diversity within our own ranks is actually going against our own basic principles of how we construct our portfolios. If we take a look, there are a number of things that are going on here. First of all, finance gets a gold medal, and it's not one that we should be proud of. It is we are one of the worst ranked industries from a perception point of view. So we have a perception issue in the financial industry that we need to do away with. And there are multiple different players that can help us do away with it. I always say The Wolf of Wall Street was the worst thing that could have ever happened for finance. In my entire career, the perception of sex, drugs and rock and roll that you see portrayed in that movie is nothing like what we have within investment management and within finance generally. So we need to engage the media to kind of overcome these kind of cultural artifacts. The second thing, as we look at companies and we drill down into different industries, we're looking to understand the diversity statistics that are published, and we're also looking to understand the journey that companies are on. I think it's easy from an ESG point of view to take the high road and only invest in the companies that have got the perfect scores effectively or close to perfect scores. But we see also opportunity to invest in companies that are improving because that can create -- going back to what Lesley said, the improving our outcomes and improving our opportunities for people. So if we can get some of those better those worst-performing companies to the median and above, the social benefits and the social change that we can create as investors through the allocation of our capital and active engagement with management teams on the need to improve on these metrics, I think, can create just as much benefit as only investing in the companies that's kind of at the top tier.

Yes. If...

I was just -- I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, go ahead, Lesley.

Thank you. And I was just going to add to that, too. It's interesting because when you think about the opportunity to just look at numbers, right? The numbers tell you a little bit of the story but the reality is -- and one of the focus is that we have, in our diversity, equity and inclusion space is, how do we begin to look at reinventing the standard for diversity? That is going well beyond just numbers and really looking at -- and to kind of build up what Chris talked about earlier, when we talk about kind of post George Floyd and this moment to a movement, it really is about how do you create stronger structures for all people to come in and be a part of this phenomenal, whether it's finance, whether it's technology, but just to play in the corporate realm because of the economic value that it provides us. You get better homeownership, property, education, health, just wellness, all of those different things. And so it's so important to look beyond just numbers and reporting and look at what kind of infrastructure are companies beginning to build. And then to Katrina's point, being able to move and look at the growth and opportunity. We often say in the DEI realm that diversity is a marathon, that growing the numbers, getting diverse people in are -- that's the marathon. It takes time to build that. But the sprint is the inclusion piece. The sprint is being able to bring -- to break down some of these structures so that people come and have a great sense of belonging and are able to fully contribute, and then they're growing as individuals and the business bottom line is impacted as well in a growth. Sorry, Chris, thank you for allowing me that.

No, no, please. I was just going to say, well, 2 things, really. One, that gold metal that Katrina talked about. I think the silver metal -- the gold metal is finance, the silver metal is probably the tech space and Bloomberg is sitting kind of right between the 2, between finance and tech. But certainly, in the tech industry, we've seen that have its share of issues relative to identifying diversity and really growing diversity throughout its ranks. The other thing I would say in terms of sectors that are doing well in this space, industries that are doing well, consumer packaged goods has always been a place because it's just such a -- they're so close to the consumer that they've always had to respond very quickly and be very much -- and look very much like what their customer population look like. So when you think about what some of the beverage companies have done in this space and other places in consumer packaged goods, they've been often sort of leading the charge to be responsive around diversity. Now some of that has been around compliance. If we think about sort of what happened in the '80s with Coca-Cola and some other organizations, it's been around compliance and not wanting necessarily to stand out for their lack of diversity. But consumer packaged goods, I think, has always been a space that has been pretty good in terms of how they've addressed D&I.

I agree with you, Chris, and I see that in my own interactions with our clients in that sector. I think that's where we all should be looking to organizations that are moving and are faster movers on this. I did want to pose a question to both you, Chris and Lesley, in your roles as diversity officers to get into some of your perspectives on recruitment. And talk specifically around, often, we think about the recruitment pipeline and bringing diversity into our recruitment efforts, be it from a gender perspective, be it from a regional perspective, be it from the perspective of socioeconomic background that that process starts at the graduate placement level, right, so right out of University. But in fact, maybe the conversation needs to start far earlier. And I'd be curious, Lesley, I'll draw you out on this first and then Chris, what could the investor community be doing to be leaning into government policies potentially around this that could maybe accelerate efforts for us to be reaching deeper into communities to promote opportunities? Because, as you say, Lesley, that's a catalyst for economic development for generations and can have a multiplier effect in communities that's incredibly important. So I'll start with you, Lesley. And then Chris, the same to you.

Well, and I think one of the things is a holding private and public sector is [ tollable ] for what we're looking at as the digital kind of digital divide, if you will, right? And so there is -- and we really saw it in 2020 with the quarantine and with COVID in the have and the have not, in technology, in learning and distance learning and all of that. And so I like the idea of really holding companies speak to the fire, organizations speak to the fire of everybody coming in and trying to solve this together because I don't think either 1 company or 1 particular sector can kind of solve the problem. It is a collective impact model, I think, that is needed. And quite honestly, I think as you look at bringing kids through the STEM pipeline, it needs to start much, much earlier than recruiting for a job. And so it is the role that we need to play in -- I liken it to a research that I did years ago around a value chain and looking at and understanding, in fact, how are kids influenced within rural communities and black and brown communities and girls for that matter. What are the influences that they have in order to even get excited about, confident in their math skills, math being the catalyst to STEM, science, technology, engineering, arts, even in mathematics, and really building solutions that help kind of keep them on from cradle to career, right? And so I'll start there and let Chris jump in because I have so -- I have a lot to say about this particular space.

Yes. I would echo that. And I would just say that corporations, companies, industries, I think, more and more, have a real sort of outsized platform right now in pushing for social change. And this -- what you raise is really inherent to social change, right? How do we educate our kids, and how do we provide them with opportunities to live successful lives in whatever field they choose? And so I think corporations can play a huge role in advocating for the strengthening of education, especially from a STEM perspective, as Lesley raised. One of the things that we try to do at -- here in Bloomberg around making those changes, we've got a lot of investments in local schools. We've got a lot of investments in earlier than just college. Obviously, we do the investment at the college level, but we try to jump in really when -- as early as middle school, as we talk about exposing kids, who might not otherwise have that exposure to the STEM disciplines to the sort of work that we do here at Bloomberg. And again, we're lucky at Bloomberg that we have such a breadth of things that we do, that there are a number of interests that can be picked for students in those grades. So it's really important, to the point that was made in the question, that we are addressing these issues well in advance of the university level. We're jumping in really at middle school to have an effect here. And I think other companies are and can do the same.

I think your observation on the role of the private sector here, Chris, is spot on. And we've certainly seen it. We saw Adena Friedman at NASDAQ speaking out and taking initiative. And we've seen quite a number of corporate leaders stepping out of the shadow and taking some bold stances on this. But the ultimate gavel here does come from the public sector. Are diversity mandates coming? I'll ask all 3 of you that question and maybe to share your perspective on the potential effectiveness of diversity mandates. Katrina, do you want to chime in first on that?

We've seen some diversity mandates. We've obviously got the one in California on Board directors. Someone should have whispered into their ear that most companies are actually incorporated in Delaware. So it would be much more effective if that regulation was passed in Delaware. So good intentions, but just the ability to implement, you have seen the impact of quotas in countries particularly in Europe, increasing the representation of women in Boards. But let's talk about some other things because people just talk about having more women in the Board and increasing the diversity of the conversation, something else we also found is that women come to these meetings more prepared than their male counterparts. And interestingly, when you have a more prepared female in the boardroom, the men start reading their Board materials as well. And so actually, there are so many ancillary benefits you can have from increasing the number of women in that boardroom. And obviously, having more informed directors and more informed discussions, for me as a shareholder, it's only a win-win situation there. So I have to say from the use of quotas, if that is one way to achieve these ancillary benefits, we're all in favor of it.

My...

Yes, Lesley, by all means, come on in.

Yes. I was just going to say -- and I like what I see as far as the start. I think that there are some bold moves that are happening. I think more bold moves need to happen. I love the legislation in California for diversity on Boards. Because I think it sets an example, much like even the CROWN Act. The fact that we're just putting some of these in place in 2021, or 2020 in this case, is astounding. And so I think that we have to be really careful because as women -- some of the legislation that we put in place serves to benefit women. But let's be really honest, in a lot of cases, that's white women. And so it leaves open opportunity for where we're trying to really grow, especially within the U.S., around ethnic diversity within your company. And so I think, yes, you're going to see more of that. and I know that we will be a part of that, helping drive some of that, HP and our partnerships, because I think it's extremely important that we look at and go beyond just gender diversity and really dig down to the vast diversity that we're trying to hire for when we think about creating technology for everyone everywhere and making sure good representation is involved in more than anything that we move from being consumers of products to creators, and that's what we're driving for, drive.

Chris, from your perspective, what's the role of regulating this? Or how much needs to come from within the private sector?

Yes. I think the short answer to the original question is, yes, we will see more regulation. Obviously, the new U.S. Presidential administration, I think, really understands kind of the importance of that part of the population or the underrepresented parts of the population to its really being in office, and it's sustaining its success as an administration. The previous administration, maybe not so much. But you will see sort of stepped-up regulation from a government perspective. In the private sector, I do believe also that you're seeing more and more companies commit to achieving targets and goals that are telling their managers, their leaders, "Listen, in order for you to either achieve your compensation goals or for us to achieve our goals as an organization, we need to identify this breadth of diversity." More and more organizations are pushing that. And so I think you'll definitely see that. I wanted to go back to what Lesley just mentioned about that intersectionality. For lack of a better term, the dirty little secret around a lot of the diversity initiatives that have gone on for many years now, diversity has really stopped at gender. And that gender has, to Lesley's point, often meant white women. And there are some reasons, I think we'll go -- that we could talk about for that. But it really ends up needing to address the intersectionality of diversity and not just focus on maybe sort of 1 silo because there really is a much broader picture to look at.

Yes. So it's a very fair observation. I want to come back to the investor lens on this debate. And maybe Lesley, here, again, start with you because I know in your role at HP, you do speak to investors directly about your efforts. What questions do you think investors are not asking about the role of diversity, equity and inclusion in your organization that they probably should be asking in order to get a fair sense of how much of a value driver it could be? And how do you see and how would you grade investors on how well they're making that assessment from the outside in at the moment?

Well, I think -- I love that question because I think that there's a great opportunity for them to dig deeper into, as I said earlier, more than just the numbers, really the construct of the organization. And because I think that that's really the telling factor. It's not just about programs, which are often asked about, data numbers are often asked about. But when you start asking the questions around and understanding is it deep within the infrastructure, is DE&I really embedded into the infrastructure of your company? And then what influence do you have within the ecosystem? So for example, what's the investment you're making with minority-owned media, for example. What are your partnerships? What are your partners, vendors, suppliers? What are their numbers and how are you influencing like what you're doing? And in the case of HP, we had a -- our general counsel put out a 10% holdback to our law firms until they can get the diversity at the highest levels of the company. And so I'd like to call that kind of a multiplier effect. Because when you start looking at that, our CMO and the marketing and communications organizations and making sure that they are the people that are representing your business, your voice, your brand, ensuring that that diversity is there as well. So I think it would be in the best interest of investors to move beyond saying, give us these EEOC reports and start looking at what's the construct of your organization, your Board of Directors, obviously, is very important. But the influence that Board has on setting the vision and accountability is critical. How often are you reporting your data and your performance around DEI or human rights into your organization and up and through to the leadership? Your MBOs, management by objectives. At HP, we have our executive leaders have goals around environment, sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion, governance. And holding them accountable to that is like, what is it looking at? Did you meet those goals, really holding feet to the fire on a lot of those things and start asking those hard questions.

Can I throw out a provocative question, and I'll ask any of the 3 of you to pick it up? How important is the discussion around pay equity and transparency around pay equity?

It is very important. We -- those of us who operate in the U.K. today are mandated to report those numbers. It's very interesting, I had a female employee of Bloomberg reach out to me just literally 2 days ago and asked me about -- she said, "Well, we can find -- I can find the U.K. numbers, but I can't find our U.S. numbers." We're not mandated here to do so yet. My hope is that soon we will be. Because it is important. It's a question that is asked by our employees. It's more data for investors to make informed choices about what organizations are doing in this regard. It's hard, empirical data. And so I think it's a very, very important part of the overall conversation to be able to address issues of pay equity. And Again, intersectionally, right, not just as it pertains to gender, but also as it pertains across the spectrum of dimension of diversity.

Yes. And I agree. I think, well, there's pay equity and pay parity. And I think that investors should be -- if companies are saying that they care about sustainability about diversity and their equity inclusion, then investors should be holding them to accountable in being able to extract what that data looks like. How often are you doing audits on own pay equity or pay parity depending on where you are in the world? I think more progressive companies are, and we just did, in fact, last year, released our first human capital report. And I think you're going to start seeing that -- hopefully, you'll start seeing that trend. But I think investors can help influence that by asking those hard questions of accountability across the board. It's just so important.

I think you need to also, though, understand the data you're pulling because if you're just pulling the data and you show a pay gap that that gap then is just explained away because you don't have enough executives and women and/or minorities in senior leadership positions. You get the data, but you get an excuse with it. So I think that we first need to actually have more women at the top. I mean we do -- we did a lot of research with undergraduates, understanding why they didn't want to go into finance. And I think this applies both in finance, Chris in technology and other organizations, which have very few women or minorities at the top of the organization. And a lot of our undergraduates, either they are coming from a gender lens or coming from an ethnic lens, if they can't see people at the top who look like them, they don't want to come and work for your organization. And so not only do you not get them in the door, you can't then spend the money on retaining them. You can't then promote them, and then we don't get more people of ethnic diversity and of gender diversity at the top of our organizations, and that pay gap is going to continue. So I think that we really need to understand the flywheel and understand how we can kind of take a stick and put it in that flywheel and stop this perpetuating cycle.

Yes, I think...

And Katrina...

I was just going to say, I think the challenge with that, I agree. And the challenge is that you can't wait until you get the numbers that you're seeking. You can't wait until you get women at the top. You can't wait until you get the ethnic diversity mix. You've got it. It's an end and you've got to do it all, kind of, at the same time. So if you start asking the questions, it starts driving the behavior, right, what gets measured, gets done. And so I put those things in place and start driving toward that.

Couldn't agree more.

I was going to ask you, Katrina, if in your research, you've seen particularly prominent positive examples of companies that are doing the right things to propagate that flywheel. I firmly agree with you and we suspect all of us have had that experience of looking up at the top of organizations, not seeing yourself represented, and as talented individuals, we take our talents elsewhere. But do you see organizations that have kind of cracked that nut and found good strategies that you might be able to share a bit here?

So our book focused on investment management and 10% of the portfolio managers are women. The statistic has actually gone down over the past 10 years. So unfortunately, I don't think we can hold investment management to that high hurdle. But look, I work for a company with a female CEO, my coauthor does as well. She works for a firm that's actually majority women-owned. So we are both in very fortunate positions. But there are a ton of suggestions that we put throughout the book. We talk about the recruiting pipeline, how all the different things that you can do in what we call knowledge-based industries. And while we take a gender lens in the book, we actually also do acknowledge that a lot of the trends that we found for gender also apply to other forms of minorities, and we think they can be helpful there. And then we look at the retention statistics, how can a Deutsche Bank, a Bloomberg, a HP, retain more of the women once they successfully get them into the door? Because you need to retain them, as I said, to then promote them. And then finally, back on this data thing, I think we all agree. Chris, you come from a firm that is very data-centric. Obviously, I have my Bloomberg terminal. It's my side pet. And Lesley, obviously, in technology, you have that as well. But one of the things is we should be using our data to better understand if they're not just pay disparities, but there are performance valuation disparities because we know that -- because as you say, we know that men and women are often evaluated very differently. And so we should be looking at the mean and standard deviation of performance reviews and comparing them across minorities as well as with agenda blends as well.

Chris, do you want to comment on that from Bloomberg's perspective?

Yes. I just think that that's spot on, right? You have to be able to use the data to inform you where it is you need to go. I like to say we fish where the fish are, right? That notion of identifying bias in performance evaluation is huge, right? When we talk about the ability for people to be able to move up across levels and organizations, often that is dictated by their performance evaluations, right? If you run a 1 through 5 rating system, and the preponderance of your white male employees get the 1s and 2s and everybody else gets the 3s, 4s and 5s, who's going to get the opportunity to sit on the big project? Who's going to sit on the -- who's going to have the opportunity to be promoted? Who's going to be put into the sponsorship programs? That's going to continue to be your white male. So you have to really go and be clear on what that data looks like. And if you see problems in that data, how do you solution to sort of level the playing field that everybody gets the opportunities. We claim all of us these meritocracies. But often, we know that that is sort of a false term, and that it's one group of folks who tend to get the opportunity. So having that data, utilizing it to drive your initiatives and your programming is paramount.

So I want to work -- coming to the close of what's been a really wonderful discussion round, I've got one final question that I want to pose to all 3 of you. We are coming up on the 1-year anniversary of when the pandemic put most of the United States and, certainly, all of us operating in Corporate America into most unusual circumstances. We all went into lockdown around mid-March last year. It's been a year of many immense challenges. We talked about how the pandemic bled into social injustice and the optimism for that being a catalyst for change. I want to go around the screen and check in with each of you. As you look to the year ahead with optimism for emerging from these pandemic conditions, what gives each of you hope for a different future ahead? Lesley, I'll start with you. What's giving you hope as you look ahead to 2021?

Well, so many things spin in my head with that question. And it's interesting because in the pandemic, we immediately went to short-term mode of, like, making sure everybody is okay and like giving them solutions and helping parents and making sure our working moms have the tools that are needed and people have the resources for just coping and anxiety in all of these different things. And then we stepped back and it was like, whoa, okay, this is going to last a little bit longer than we thought, right? And so we kind of shifted in our programming a little bit. And then George Floyd happened, right? And George Floyd -- Chris is a history buff, who knows that that was not new for us as African-Americans to sit and watch. It was kind of like the icing on the cake. And so the thing that -- and unfortunately but fortunately, kind of energized me around it was seeing other people step into being advocates and allies on our behalf. And so the thing that gives me hope in moving in the future really is around partnership, being able to kind of bridge the gap and the divide that we've seen for so long in racial equality and discrimination and social and all of these different things. My hope is that we can come together. We are coming together within HP to really start solving to the hard problems of breaking down systemic racism and really being bold around the conversations that we need to have. And so I've gotten reenergized around that because I'm seeing really good things happen.

I'm encouraged to hear that. Katrina, can I go next to you? Based on all this body of research that you've done, what's giving you hope for the year ahead that there's opportunity for change?

Well, one thing I do hope is we stop talking about working moms because there are working dads as well, and they have just as much responsibility to help out in the home. And I hope that actually seeing the families together and brought together, and you've been seeing a lot of research being done on the difference in your responsibilities that that fairness starts to come into our home lives. But look, I'm an investor of [ Trueline Truss ] I'm an equity investor and optimist. We are looking for the revenge spin to come back in full force. People want to get out there. Savings rates are high. But more importantly, I think that we want people to look at the issue of diversity. I know we looked at it from very much a bilateral lens. We do see the need for unilateral lens on this in terms of looking at diversity across various things. But I do think that all of these conversations and the preponderance of conversations and the acceleration in the number of conversations about all of these topics is what gives me so much hope for the future. Because if we're talking about it, we're going to have to hold companies accountable for it, and we're all going to have to start acting on it.

Chris, I'll give you the final word and your outlook on, hopefully, some optimism on this topic as well.

Absolutely. I think what we heard from my fellow panelists is I would co-sign on that 100%. I would add 2 things. One, from a strictly humanistic perspective, the ability of the scientific and biohealth community to have developed these vaccines so remarkably quickly. I mean this is a process that in past years has taken 4, 5, 6, 7 years to do effectively. They did it in maybe 400 days. It's remarkable. And so that advance in science, I think it's just something to be a little nerdy about and optimistic. Relative to -- more to the conversation, though, the focus that has been placed on employee well-being and mental health, I think, is going to have really strong impact on organizations. And especially if you think about that intersectionally, right? We have -- we've talked about this, employees who live alone, employees who have kids, employees who are of the groups that have had more disparate effects in terms of health outcomes, those are things that employers are looking at now and have to pay attention to as they think about a diverse workforce. And that focus, I think, is something that will also be sustainable as we consider what the workforce and the organizations and our companies of the future look like.

It's a great insight. Once you've been in everybody's living room for the last 11 months, you really understand the individual and not just the coworker. So thank you all very much for these great insights. This has been a wonderful discussion. I think we've brought a lot of different perspectives to bear and advanced our understanding of how investors should be looking at us in corporations around these issues, how, clearly, there's an interplay between the strength of the commitment to D&I and ultimately, the performance of the corporation. So thank you very much to the 3 of you for being part of this session, and we'll sign off for this afternoon. Thank you all.