MetLife, Inc. (MET) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

And with this in mind, I am honored to introduce our next panelist to keep this conversation going. They are 5 private sector leaders who have been empowering women through their organizations and initiatives and advancing the Webs around the world. Please welcome Michel Hella, CEO of MetLife; Roberto Marches, CEO of Natura; and Sally Gilligan, Chief Information Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of GAAP. Thanks to all of you for being with us today.

I'd like to begin the conversation by asking each of you to tell us why gender equality is important to you, both personally and as a leader? And Michel, if I could start with you, why is it important for you and for MetLife to make this a priority?

Sure. Thank you, Maggie. I think you find that a lot of men who champion ally ship often drove from experiences in their own lives. I grew up in a part of the world where women are fighting for basic rights, let alone equal rights. When it came to my own family's experience, my parents treated my system, my brother and I, equally. They wanted us to pursue the same opportunities, all opportunities that we were interested in pursuing. And my sister has gone on to have a great career in journalism. Shortly after I became CEO of MetLife, she became the first women editor of a major financial publication. And I'm very proud and inspired by her journey, but I also know that if I compare hers to mind, she's had to overcome many obstacles along the way because of her gender. And I have 2 daughters of my own, and I want them to pursue all of their ambitions and dreams. And I think they shouldn't face those same obstacles that my sister faced. So -- and I'm hoping that, that will be the case, if we all commit to gender equality. So this is an area that I'm very passionate about. But I'm also the CEO of MetLife, and I have a fiduciary responsibility to MetLife's stakeholders. And I believe that the business case for gender equality is highly compelling. We're a purpose-driven company. And for us to truly live our purpose we have to be an equitable, inclusive and diverse company. And that's something that we're very committed to. We -- our strategy is anchored in our purpose. And at the core, it's creating this virtuous circle where we deliver for all stakeholders. Our people and communities our customers and our shareholders. And if we think about those stakeholders, starting with our people, investing in our people means promoting gender equality, gender equity in the workplace. If you think about the talent that's out there, a very significant percentage of that talent are women. So being able to attract, to retain, to promote as critical to our success as a company. And if we think our customer base and the importance of our employees, employee base mirroring that customer base in order to meet the expectations of our customers. And again, a big -- high percentage of our customers are women as well. So the case is compelling from that standpoint. And then I think Sandra pointed to it, but there's a lot of research out there that indicates that more diverse companies are also more successful, are more profitable companies. So for all these reasons, we believe that the bottom line here is being promoting gender equity and equality is good for the bottom line as well as it's truly about living off purpose as a company.

Yes. And when you combine that business case and the personal commitment, it can't be more powerful. I can tell you as a business journalist, I'm thrilled to see your sister a val of the FTE more women serving in top leadership positions at media companies. I should certainly be an inspiration to many. As we continue the conversation, I just want to welcome a little bit of technical trouble getting here in, but I'm thrilled to welcome [indiscernible] from CBC Bottling Corp. She is now part of the conversation. Maria, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm just -- we're just going around and just starting off by talking a little bit about why people are so personally committed as well to -- why this is important from a personal position and a leadership position. And I just wanted to continue with Sally. Bouncing off of what Michel said, you certainly have lived the experience of climbing to the very tough in what you sometimes nail dominated physicians, especially as you get to the top of corporations. Why is gender quality so important to you personally and as a leader?

Well, I think that in every company, the strategy to...

Maria, sorry -- let me just interrupt 1 second -- sorry, Maria, I was directing that at Sally, but we will get to you in just a moment.

Okay. Sorry.

It's okay.

Thanks, Maggie, and thank you for the opportunity. I think just to pick up on your question. For me, personally, I've had incredible care opportunity in supply chain and technology. And as you've mentioned, traditionally fields that are very male dominated, particularly at the executive level. But my opportunity came through strong advocacy through my mentors and sponsors. And I really do believe strongly that opening the same opportunity, similar to how Michel spoke earlier to all women and girls, so they can bring their point of view is so important. But to create those opportunities, really require strong advocacy. And as a leader, I believe without that diversity of thought and representation, we're not getting the best answers to the best problems. And I think many of our speakers have spoken to it, if we don't have everyone around the table, we aren't going to get those points of view. And I do believe strongly to support women, you have to support the whole self. And that comes through training, health, safety and community. For that reason, I am executive sponsor of our GAAP women imminent leadership resource group. And I think empowering women in the workplace begins by creating safe environments to mentor, coach and learn, and that's so important to continue the advocacy to let all of us reach our potential.

Absolutely. And having role models in position so that when women can see a path forward is incredibly important. Maria, CBC is the first Guatemalan company to sign the west. Why do you feel so passionately about this work?

I think that for us as a company, it's a really example of how you can align the strategy with the culture. I was saying that the strategy always leads the way, but the only way together, it's the culture. And this is a company that has really in the in a daily basis, the leadership really engaged of trying to make a difference, not only for the employees but also for that community. And starting toward that point, for Osha commitment to guarantee the quality of all the model of Volta reward system that process to engage the team to guarantee that we have the good training plan with a good competencies between all the female and the male that work for the company, it's been quite a journey. So at times, you see your goal, your dream in a really long term. But when you get the chance to put this together in little milestones allows you to be in to guarantee that you are aligning the strategy with the culture and give you the opportunities to all the amazing women that we have in the company.

And Roberto, Natura has everyone's had different journey, but motor has been involved for years. Why is this an issue that you've chosen to chat yet?

First, Maggie, thanks for having me. So first of all, Natura and Co, which is a group of business, all of them were really founded with this notion that business can and should be a force for good, right? So Avon, Natura, the Body Shop in ESOP. And on a personal level, I would say this is very important for me, and I'm very passionate about it. And similar to Michael, I have 3 daughters, 2 of them already in the workforce. What I dream for them is to make sure that they can be very successful in their careers, regardless of the gender and being able to really succeed equally in their decisions, professional decisions, whatever that means for them. And on a professional level, Natur & Co is very lucky to be working not only with 40,000 associates, but we work with almost 6 million consultants and representatives in 100 countries, the best majority of them are women. And really, it's incredible to see the power of transforming society and the work of those consultants and representatives and being able to support them, being able to create the right conditions for them to really be successful as entrepreneurs. So really, it's the core of our business. And as a consequence of that, almost a year ago, we actually launched our 2030 commitment to life, our sustainability agenda. And a key pillar of that talks about defending human rights and being more human kind. And in that particular one, we are very connected to the women empowerment principles. We want to make sure that we establish very clear goals and track the progress of those to make sure that we can really tackle gender inequality. And I'm going to just illustrate 3 of them. We committed ourselves that by 2023, we want to have 50% of women on board and senior leadership positions across our entire group. I'm pleased to say that we are now at 48%. We still have a little bit of work to do, but we're very committed to close that gap in less than 2 years. The other thing is equitable pay, and we committed ourselves to close any gap that we might have in terms of equitable pay also by 2023. Here, we conducted last year a very thorough study, over 35,000 associates in over 70 countries and what we found out is when we have in the same geography, same seniority and same roles, we still have a gap of about 1%, what we call an explainable gap. We are committed to close this gap this year. We're not going to even wait for 2023. And the last goal that we put for ourselves is to make sure that we have living wage are above for everybody by 2023. So we believe companies holding themselves accountable, establishing very clear goals and really tracking the progress and committing to the women empowered principles is a great way for us to make progress in this very important topic.

It certainly is. And perhaps so important now to double down on those commitments, given what we're seeing as we come out of this pandemic. Michel, why is it so important that businesses ensure a gender sensitive response when thinking about community initiatives, advocacy and your own programs as we pull out of this pandemic.

Yes, Mike. Well, the -- we conduct a survey every year where we survey employers and employees in the U.S. to see what are the main trends that are emerging in the workplace. And we're actually releasing the survey today. But the biggest takeaway from our 2020 survey is that the longer the pandemic drags on the worst -- the women and the workplace feel and are doing relative to man. And that's really a telling takeaway. This trend holds across mental, physical and social health as well. I also read an article in the FT last week with very similar conclusions in terms of the fact that working models, in particular, for the brand of the pandemic from a parenting perspective. And that's made balancing parenting and their career is extremely difficult. And that's not too mental stress issues for them as well. And if we think about the web principles, the third principle, in particular, I think is relevant here because it calls on signatories to ensure the health, safety and well-being of workers. And here, we see that women, in particular, are bearing the brunt of the pandemic. So I think there's several things that we can do to -- and we are doing to address this issue. One is, I think, for leaders just to remove the stigma of talking about mental health issues by talking about it by addressing it. Our experience is that this is very important. Also, it's equally important to have wellness programs in place that help alleviate some of these issues by offering support resources to women and men in the organization. And in particular, during the pandemic, it was important to enhance those support tools. By addressing work-life integration and resilience, in particular. We also have women business networks in 30 markets across our businesses globally. And those are basically volunteer networks that are backed by company support and resources. And dispute in pure networking can be very helpful as well from a mentorship perspective, but also in providing indispensable support to address issues such as those that we're seeing emerge during the pandemic. What we also saw during the pandemic is the need for parents to adapt to working from home. And 1 of the sort of simple things that I can mention here that we've trialed and that's proved quite effective, are simply parent coffee charts where a group of parents get together, typically 15 to 20. And you'd be amazed at sort of the power of realizing that some of the same challenges, issue struggles struggled are shared by other parents. And having this type of exchange as well as exchanging ideas on how to deal with these issues has been quite effective. And then last but not least...

Absolutely, Michel, I just want to jump in for a second because that's such an important point, and I think there's some people just being seen and knowing that you are not alone in this has been so important. And Maria, I know that the burden of care has been a focus for you at CBC as well and sort of grappling with the challenge that this is presented families. What are some of the things that you have been doing in order to address this? You're either on mute, Maria or we are having audio issues.

Okay. Now you hear me?

Yes. Go ahead.

Perfect. I was saying that during this pandemic, we knew that 80% of the process that we were leaving was in really psychology context. So we put together a plan to guarantee that our team members could have the opportunity to go with the family and to have all that information that they needed not only to be good at this point of the year of the company, but also to guarantee that the family had tools to be really aware of how they can work ran a as a team. For us, it was really excited to see that when you keep tools, we have a corporate University and with that corporate University, we gave different kind of trainings to guarantee that everybody knew how to perform at this time. To guarantee the productivity for them to feel really safe at home as the company was giving the opportunity to manage the working phase at home we did know how to do that and with the technology and with the training process, we did a great job. Also, for us, it was really important to know that the wellness process in this moment, it's really important. So how to guarantee that we can have 3 main pillars that all that the team could have the opportunity to keep on developing but also to have a really balance between the health that they need emotional and physical. So we put together wellness plan that it's going along all through the system. And also to guarantee that we have 43% of the key decision positions of the company are women how to manage all that management system when you are online, how they can be really aware of how can they work with the families at home with the kids a school the psychological process was really important for us, and it was really successful. And another thing was like the training programs, not only basic on the importance of the skills to doing good job, but we -- the competencies that you need to put together, so everybody can have the same opportunity to the Gulf.

Yes, a broad approach. Sally, we're talking about a lot of the challenges and the difficulties we have to overcome. But it strikes me that as companies are thinking about what this post pandemic new normal, if we can call it that, is going to look like. There's also an opportunity here to put the empowerment principles into actually, perhaps to accelerate some of the things companies were thinking about programs around gender equality. Where has the gap found success in implementing the Webs and making progress on gender equality? And what are you going to be focused on moving forward?

Thanks, Maggie. It's incredibly important that we continue the momentum. And for us, it started with ensuring equal pay for equal work. We were in the first Fortune 500 company to ensure that our data was validated by the third-party that showed that we are paying at all levels of the organization, equal pay for that it will work. In building on that, we employ millions of women in our supply chain. And so we founded our [ Pace ] program, which is a woman's life skill and empowerment program for the women that work in our factories. But I think what is important in terms of building momentum forward is we've chosen to share that program with other organizations under the spirit of the more we partner, the more we amplify the impact. And to date, we've impacted 800,000 women and girls with this program, and that program provides similar to some examples that others have shared, life skills, important child care, support, financial literacy and providing an ability for women and girls to see a better future for themselves. And we've had such incredible impact, not only for the women in the program, but also recognizing the impact on our business and on our suppliers. And they're realizing that when you invest in others, you increase your return and you also decrease the impact that some of the negative impacts on women have on our business environment. But I think what we're most excited about moving forward and building on that strong momentum. We just recently announced a partnership with Empower at work. It's a broad initiative across the industry to create a platform that is really a network and skills to the benefit of women and workers around gender equality. And we just committed for 2025, for 100% of our strategic factories to be participating in empower at work, 100% of our strategic factories to achieve gender parity at the supervisor level, ensuring that women are in leadership positions is an incredibly important step. 100% of what hers are also will be employed through the programs at our strategic factory, and we will also make sure that their voices are heard through gender equitable workplace committees. It's really important to have the feedback loop and 100% of our factories will have prevention and response management systems and trainings in place to address gender based violence. And we do believe that continuing to build on the public and private partnerships with measurable goals and continuing to work through that has had the largest impact and continues to amplify what we can do together.

And that is powerful once you move beyond the walls of your company and start to reach down through that supply chain and through your partnerships. Roberto, I'd like to bring you in because I think this is something that you think about as well with the different companies under your umbrella and the many different women that touch that supply chain. Especially in light of COVID, can you tell us a little bit of more -- Sally just mentioned domestic violence. And your company unveiled a really, I think, innovative program touching on that. And this is a subject that used to be to booker companies. The isolated not along cap pan to shed some light on domestic biles. Can you talk a little bit about that because I think it's really innovative? Yes. No, Maggie, thank you for bringing that up. I mean it is really a very important issue to tackle, right? We heard on the previous panel that 1 of the consequence of the pandemic is that 2/3 of the jobs lost were actually in women, which we all need to think about how to reengage how to reconnect with those women and how to create the right environment for them to actually get back to the workforce. But another consequence of the pandemic is exactly what you mentioned. We've seen and track data showing significant increase in domestic violence. Think about it, unfortunately, with the pandemic and the lockdowns most of those women that were subjected to domestic violence got confined in the environment that was actually the most perverse one for them to deal with that terrible consequence of domestic violence. So on that, we were able, for the first time, together, the 4 business joint forces to create a campaign called isolated alone to really raise awareness and create conditions for those women to reach out and seek help. We're able to really reach over 200 million women through our online channels, and we were able to donate over $2 million between the Avon foundation and a lot of the activities also in Latin America. Through NGOs, through organizations that could really be closer to those women and try to offer some comfort and help when needed. But again, it is a very perverse consequence of this dynamic and something that it is important that everybody is aware and trying to do our part in helping those women that are confined in environment that actually even promote more that kind of violence. So a very important topic. So I think we all need to think about some of the consequences for women in terms of job loss, domestic violence, how we also help them in terms of education and importance of vaccination. So thinking about it in a holistic way, what are the things that we are companies, but most important, as society we can do to really alleviate some of those pressure points that we are seeing as a consequence of the pandemic. Absolutely. And so important to be having those conversations in a venue, in a discussion and a day like this. Michel, top leaders can make commitments, but things only change when we can follow through on the implementation. Right? How is MetLife getting that level of buying? You heard [indiscernible] both talk about that. When we kick things off the top of this hour, how are you getting buy in across your global organization?

Yes, absolutely, Maggie. And one of the things that I'm very pleased and proud of is the fact that when we decided to design the apps, 37 of our general managers from across the world to count the initiative to do so themselves as well. And as just a clear signal of their support and their commitment to gender equality. So this is something that has to be sort of driven from the top of the house. But it's also important to build grassroots support for it as well. And from my experience, the best ideas, frankly, don't come from the top of the house. They come from our teams from encouraging and promoting an open culture where people challenge the status quo. And generate innovative ideas in terms of how we can make progress. And building that Grassroot support is not confined to women only. We have to bring men on board and one of the important aspects here is to make sure that we make the case for why this is important for us critical for us as a company, critical to our success, critical to our future. And making this compelling case as well as helping to identify some of the unconscious biases that exist in an organization can be very helpful in terms of bringing men on board. And last but not least, you have to also put in place the processes that based on the gender gap analysis on the tools provided by the Waps, to make sure that you are making progress. And to hold yourself accountable for that progress by being sort of open, including publicly about your sharing your data and statistics but also your progress as you move along on this journey. So those are some of the things that I think can help an organization make real progress in this area.

Absolutely. And that lays it out so perfectly makes the case to convince people to the right thing to do, give them the framework and the tools to do it and then the transparency and accountability that comes after it. All critical steps in this. Maria, as we look forward, what barriers do you face? I mean you made so much progress and there's so much passion you can see coming through, what are the barriers that you face as you try to continue this conversation? Are they internal or is it rooted more in a broader culture?

We are a company that we have operation importing contents in Latin America. So at the beginning for us to guarantee the equal opportunities all along the organizational structure going all the way through the front line was 1 of the main issues. Because we have a different kind of security issues for the women who can go in the sales area, for example. So that wasn't really obstacle. But at the same time, that was a great opportunity to us because we decided that to allow all the recruitment process all along through the company we decided to go all the way from the doors to the insight. So we started putting together amazing programs to keep opportunities in the supply area, logistics area. And now we are really proud to say that we have amazing general managers. We have amazing public managers and from that -- as I was telling from the door to the inside, we got the opportunity to put together plans to do training programs with women to go to the universalities and to show how amazing its the industry. We are in the food and beverage industry. So we are involving the same way with the sales area. But it's a little bit difficult, but in the manufacturing area and the logistics, we've been making amazing facts. We put together mentoring, and we put together in the corporate university at different kinds of programs to guarantee that our women in the team can have the ability to perform their competencies and 1 thing that we understood is that a lot of the women that works in the company they are married and they have kids. So we put together a program that is called Excellence Academy, and we are giving the opportunity of scholarships for the girls that, not only the sons, but only the girls. And in our contracts in Latin America, you see often that all the education programs in the daily basis of education goes a lot to the little kids to men, but we are putting together scholarships to guarantee that a leadership of the dollars of the employees that work for us can have the same excellent attitude, and they can go all the way and in the school and scholarships and the universities. So I think...

That is wonderful, Maria. That is planting the seed, certainly for the next generation. Sally, as we begin to close out this session, what's your message to other businesses? Why should they adopt the Webs to really increase their focus on gender equality?

Women, for us personally, women make up over 76% of our company, and they predominantly make up our companies. In society at large, they make up well over 50% of the global population. In order to have the representation with everyone's voice and to truly build thriving communities, we have to do it together. And you do it together through building public and private partnership, and it starts as many of our speakers have spoken with to today of giving people opportunity that truly is equal and ensuring it's a holistic approach, a systemic approach that allows them to build the life skills needed to sustain that opportunity. And so as I think about closing out this conversation, and it's been an absolute pleasure to participate with everyone, it's that continued partnership towards the principles and making sure we are using data and measurement to forward all of the intentions behind it so that every woman a girl can have their voice heard.

They should. Roberto?

Yes. And just to build on this last point, which I totally agree. So super important to embrace the principles because they will drive better outcomes. Gender quality and having the right representation will foster better conversations, better outcomes for business and for society as a whole. So I would encourage everybody to make sure that you support that you better understand that and driving transparency, right, not being afraid to disclose when there is gap. Because the other -- in other 2 actually make progress, we've got to track the data, we've got to commit ourselves to goals and objectives in this area. And most important, then to be transparent about it, to talk about it, not to hide it. And accept when there are issues because in most cases, as we also have in our companies, we still have gaps that needs to be addressed, that needs to be corrected. But by talking about by engaging the workforce that's the way I think we're going to make progress. And the last thing that I would say is let's always remain that the health and well-being in women at women, both at home and a work in place is still an issue. And we heard about it, the impact of the pandemic and how we needed to really think holistic about reengaging all those women that lost their jobs thinking about domestic virus and all the other issues that women are facing working from home with their families and how can we really facilitate that transition to this new normal.

Michel, very quickly, we'll let you close it out. That sort of transparency and honestly got shortcome, so important but not always easy.

No. And I think where the principles are -- we found it to be extremely helpful to us. I mean everybody has the right intentions and good intentions here, but it's -- sometimes, it's about where do you start what do you focus on? What are the priorities? And how do you measure progress? And I think some of the principles, the analysis has been extremely helpful in helping us identify those areas that we should focus on and then holding ourselves accountable, being transparent in terms of measuring the progress that we're making. And maybe 1 last thing I would just say, Maggie, just in terms of the impact of the pandemic, one of the big issues that we all have to deal with and to contribute to as to make it easier for women to return to the workplace because the study show that women are lagging men in terms of intent to return to the workplace. So thinking through about creating a more flexible work place, work environment, returnship type programs will be extremely important in making sure that we bring on the back to the workplace as quickly as possible post pandemic.

Absolutely. I'm so disappointed that we're out of time because this is a wonderful discussion, we could keep it going. But thank you to all of our panelists. Thank you for your leadership, your wise insights, and for highlighting some of the really innovative programs that are helping close the gender gap in your organization. Thank you all so much.

Thank you.