Hello Women 2023 - Orange CEO Christel Heydmann and former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns

I'm great, I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I wish I was there but the strike made it very difficult. Sorry.

It's almost two o'clock in the afternoon.

First, I thought about this a lot. I get asked this question a lot, and I have four pieces of advice. I think this applies at any age or any stage in your career or your life. First is don't shy away from science, technology, engineering and math. It doesn't matter where you are in your life or your career, these skills, skill basics in these areas are required for advancement in just about anything. Someone said earlier, I think it was you Crystal, that said you have to be able to use a smartphone. I mean, you literally cannot survive in the world anymore and not be engaged with them. If you're younger, I say don't shy away from it from an educational standpoint. Study it. If you get passionate about it, literally pursue it as a career option for yourself. Number two across the board: speak up. Women often sit quietly even if they know the answer, even if they know better than the men in the room. They sit quietly and don't participate actively and don't take their rightful place in the conversation, in decision making, in the power structures of companies, schools, organizations in general. Speak up. By the way, in order for you to speak up, you absolutely have to know something. So I say read, get involved, get up to speed about what's happening not only in your workplace but in the world. So number one: don't shy away from STEM. Number two: speak up and get involved. Number three: work really hard. This is something that you cannot avoid. Particularly, I hear this a lot: people want to actually be there, wherever there is, but they don't want to put the effort into working really hard to become very good at what they do. And then fourth is reach out and accept input. So reach out if you see things going on in the organizations that you are involved in that you're interested in. If you hear things that are interesting to you, literally raise your hand and try to get involved. Ask about what's happening so that you can actually expand your basis. And when people want to talk to you and give you advice, please listen up. Listen up and take it in. Make sure that you reach out and get involved. And then the final thing is know the facts and data about your organization. I talk to this a lot, particularly in work environments. People often talk about the fact that they are engaged in diversity, gender diversity, they're really passionate about it. And then ask them: so what is the performance of the organization? How many people are, how many women are on your boards of directors? How many women are in your management committees? How many women are running key projects, etc.? What's your promotion rate for women? What's your promotion rate for minorities? So know the data, know what's happening in your organization so you can be well informed and hopefully help them to do better.

If I may add, I'm so happy you brought in this point about joy and happiness. Literally, if this is the foundation for anyone to really progress. If you're in an environment where you are unhappy or not valued, as my husband used to tell me, get another job. That's the best way to do it. So please enjoy.

I think that one of the reasons why I was really excited to come over was to meet you, Crystal, in person because you're so right on all the points that you said. I would just add one more, and that is to say that organizations like the one, organizations and forums like the one that you are sitting in right now, Hello Women, where women come together and literally gain strength from each other, learn from each other, actually show men and the world and other women that there is a powerful force out there that wants to be included. It's really an important thing as well to understand. When I was coming through my career, I remember saying that we had two jobs almost to do: our job and the other was to help push and push and pull women through the organization. It is really important that all that Crystal said is true. You got to work hard, you got to list all that stuff, but also literally these forums are important to continue going to and continue sharing good practices and strength from each other to keep pushing. We're making progress. Think about the fact that Orange has a female CEO. It's amazing, congratulations. But that is just a tip of the iceberg. The fact that she's here is actually amazing as well. The tip of the tip of the iceberg. Keep working together to move forward. I think it'll be slow, not as slow as it was in the past, but if we keep working together we can speed it up a bit.