This summit, as Cindy was talking about, empowering the next generation, creating pathways and environments where women and girls can thrive on the field and far beyond it. Today's conversation, we're so excited about this, brings together two leaders who are not just participating in that future, they are actively designing it. To kick off the summit today, we could not ask for a more meaningful conversation to set the tone on what's going to be an incredible day. It's my honor to welcome Emma Hayes. If you didn't know her, which you all know her, she's the head coach of the women's national team in her first year. In her first year in charge, this is where it gets uncomfortable for Emma because she's got to sit there while I say all these glowing things about her. First year in charge, had a couple games under her belt. Just went to the Olympics, no big deal. Won the whole thing. Won the gold medal. But before joining US soccer, she built one of the most dominant programs in women's football at Chelsea, winning multiple league titles and cups. She is widely recognized for her human-centered leadership approach and is the architect of the Her Lens framework. This is groundbreaking stuff that has not been done before. A model designed to better support women's performance, health, and development in sport. This woman needs no introduction. Please welcome Emma Hayes to the stage.
Guys, it's going to get even better. I'm honored to have the privilege to welcome our next guest, Melinda French Gates. She is a philanthropist. She is a businesswoman. She is a global advocate for women and girls. She founded and leads Pivotal, which is an organization focused on accelerating progress for women and young people through investment, through philanthropy, and through advocacy. Previously, she co-founded and co-chaired the Gates Foundation, helping shape one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world. She is also the author of The Moment of Lift and The Next Day. And she is, everybody, as you know, a Seattle resident. So, welcome to the stage, philanthropist and founder of Pivotal and our moderator, Melinda French Gates.
Well, I am so excited to have this conversation. I think you and I have learned just on this sort of journey to where we are. We both believe in a lot of the same things and you're carrying them out in women's soccer and I'm trying to do that in some other arenas as well. But let's start, Emma, a little bit with your personal history, right? You grew up in London, you played football there, came to coach here in the US in your early 20s. Tell us about that journey and what's been so seminal for you in it.
Well, I think just thinking about growing up in London and growing up with no female role models in sport, maybe Steffi Graf at Wimbledon, she was awesome, but in terms of the world of football, of soccer, it just didn't exist. So, I couldn't even dream about something. I couldn't see it until always when I hear any of the 96 group, the 99 group, I'm like they don't realize the global impact they had, not just on the US, but it was the first time anybody outside of the US could see something and believe that there was an opportunity for women. So I think that shaped me immensely and then getting the chance to live in the US in formative years in my 20s where I could trial, I could fail, I could do all of the things but do it under the guise of Title IX and knowing that I would go whether it be to job interviews and think, you know what, I'm getting the job. And I didn't realize how impactful that was until years later when I went back to England and I was seeing the opposite happening where the system is largely designed to keep women where they are, keep the girls and women's game. So by the time I went back to the UK being shaped by the US, I was like, well, let's turn this system upside down, which you did in England. Without realizing when I came back to the US I'm like, ah, I'm coming home.
Ah, that's lovely. Talk, I want to talk about policy in a minute but before we even get to that because I'm really glad you brought up Title IX. But talk a little bit about the influence of your father.
You know, it's a bit like the guy out back asking me to take my necklace off which my dad gave me. I think you know they were asking her that when they were putting the microphone on and she said, 'No, no, no. I'm not going to take this necklace off. Good on you. Go ahead.' Because from a very early age, he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. And actually sometimes I used to just think, gosh, so much pressure. But he kept saying to me, you're going to be the one to change it. You will reshape the conversation around the women's game. That was before I'd even got into women's football. And he never came off of that. And I remember even sitting in the 2012 Olympics with him, watching the final at Wembley and he said, 'This will be you one day. It will be.' And I was like, 'Well, I don't know, Dad.' You know, like coaching USA in an Olympic gold medal final like that stuff doesn't happen. Well, it did.
It did. He saw something in you as a young woman that you couldn't see inside yourself is what you're saying.
Well, I think especially if I think about now as a leader, well, why didn't I see it? Because I definitely knew I was good enough. But I didn't have a system to support me. So, was it that I didn't have the self-belief? No. I had that, maybe, you know, like many of us do, a little bit of imposter syndrome around those things but I realized whether it went through coach education or playing the game, whatever it was, I had so many miserable experiences and all I kept thinking going through them was, well, this is just the way it is. And longer time went on and I'm sure as a, you know, the older I've got, I think the more comfortable I've got in saying actually that's not good enough and I'm not doing it or why does any female at any level have to experience it this way? And so I think all of those foundational pieces, not just the negative experiences, but positive ones too, I think has put me in a position like we were just discussing backstage where I'm in a position to influence something much bigger and I don't want to waste it.
Well, and you've gotten to a point, we talked about backstage, you've gotten to a point in life, I'm kind of, I'm a decade older than you. Yeah. By a bit. But you get to a point in life where you kind of just like, this is it. I better do what I want to do or it's not going to get done. But also talk about your health journey a little bit and how that influenced you saying, okay, I'm just going to do this.
Yeah. I think that's equally played a massive part. I think having endometriosis, being diagnosed with that around 37, I really wanted to have a baby. I'd tried so many different ways to make that happen and realized I didn't realize at the time the impact endo was having on that and then having multiple surgeries to try and put myself in a position to have a baby and then to have a baby after IVF realizing the impact IVF then has on endometriosis and then learning from there actually endo is an immune-mediated disease. And the impact it has on immune system, nervous system, gut dysbiosis, the hormonal impact because they went to a stage where I had a total hysterectomy at 47 and now I'm without my ovaries, my uterus, my cervix and I say this and realize and kept thinking oh well we bounce back really quickly and the realities and implications of all of those things has I think taught me to be, one, I'm extremely curious anyway but like I have to find the knowledge myself and I have to find it away from traditionalism. And I think the more and more I've gone down that path plus supporting elite athletes to be able to say well actually physiologically anatomically we haven't been developed, you know, the best ways for ourselves. So, one, I'm failing as a practitioner, and two, I've got to utilize my own experiences to try and create the system around our athletes and those that are participating in the game so that they not only have a better experience, they stay in the game because we want to see more Cindies standing at the front, whether they've played the game to go into leadership positions or whomever. I've got Allie Center is here and she just told me this unbelievable story backstage about being through, you know, a female empowered youth program that it's also about how do we develop a next set of leaders. So my health journey has helped shape some part of that and my position is one I take very seriously and I feel very privileged about it. I want to put it to good use.
And I think one of the reasons I wanted you to talk about your health journey, which is very, very difficult and painful, is that so many women go through these things in our medical system around the globe. But let's just talk about US and UK for a minute. And what happens is that women actually, the statistic is women live 25% of their life compared to a man in poorer health than a man does. And we often think, oh well that's because they live longer. It's the end of life. No, no, no. It's in their most productive years. And it's because we have treated as a system a woman's, the man's body as a default and then the woman's body as an afterthought. When in fact there are many conditions that affect women differently than men. So I think we need to talk about women's health more so that we then do the right things, we gain the right knowledge, we make the right investments in research or we won't make progress as a world of really supporting women in health. And I see what you're doing in soccer. It, you know, I've come to learn the last, say, decade that women's sport really pushes society in new ways. And what you are trying to do, what you will do, not trying to do, you will do, and you're very clear about in the next five years is this Her Lens, like really focusing this particular sport around a female-designed plan and I think that will also affect not only other sport but society. Talk about that lens and how you came to it and how you've become so passionate and know this is going to work.
