Category: Strategy Management

A few hours after this newsletter hits your in-box, Apple will host an online product event at which it is widely expected to unveil the 20th iteration of its iconic smartphone.

The tech giant announced the event last week on its website. Apple executives, ever the masters of savvy marketing, won’t reveal what they plan to unveil. But a steady drip of leaks and supplier reports have stoked anticipation among Apple fans and industry analysts.

If the rumor mill is right, Apple will introduce a new generation of iPhones that includes four new versions, with faster processing chips, a boxier design, larger and smaller size options than those offered for the iPhone 11, and jazzy new colors options.

But what’s grabbing the biggest headlines is speculation that the new iPhone will come equipped with 5G—fifth generation wireless technology that, at least in theory, will operate at speeds of ten or … Read the rest

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Reinvention is the holy grail of business, both for tech companies trying to bend the arc of the universe and old-line companies desperately attempting to stave off oblivion. Two long years ago, Fortune hosted a conference in Chicago that spotlighted stories of reinvention, realized and aspirational. Some of the companies featured were unambiguous successes and have become more so since: New York Times Co., Microsoft, Slack. More, in retrospect, were putting on a brave face and have slid further: IBM, Wells Fargo, Ford, AT&T, WW International.

Obstacles aside, reinvention is an imperative, for companies and individuals. The world doesn’t stand still. The pandemic has cruelly made this clearer than ever.

Fortune senior editor Beth Kowitt and I have … Read the rest

“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.” – Amy Cooper 

“I’m a tenant of the building; are you?” – Tom Austin

Amid the unrest, anger, and outrage at the sheer injustice of systemic racism, Amy Cooper and Tom Austin are just two examples of white people using their privilege in an attempt to control Black people who dared to exert personal agency in shared spaces. After being called out publicly, Cooper lost her job, and Austin lost his office lease. 

Why point out these incidents instead of the thousands of other examples? Because while both apologized and stated “I’m not a racist,” they had tremendous influence in the finance industry through their leadership positions. 

There are real questions as to how these implicit biases influenced hiring, advancement, and access to capital at their firms. Their actions in these moments provide a spotlight on how … Read the rest

This year is hard on working women. They’re losing their jobs and leaving the workforce at higher rates than men. Not to mention school closures are disproportionately creating more work for mothers.

So how are women at the top doing? How do they see the pandemic changing their work?

To find out, Fortune surveyed a group of more than 600 women leaders in our Most Powerful Women (MPW) community. In all, we received 112 responses in September. Among those, 88% work on at least one corporate or nonprofit board and 30% are CEOs. 

Among the women executives surveyed by Fortune, 66% say the pandemic is exacerbating gender bias.

The pandemic is resulting in more childcare work for employed parents—and much of that is falling to mothers. But 57% of women leaders told Fortune that their company is not offering additional child-care resources or paid leave. On the flip … Read the rest

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Two women are the finalists to head the World Trade Organization, we get ready to welcome special guests to Fortune’s MPW Next Gen Summit, and Sheryl Sandberg sounds the alarm on the importance of retaining corporate America’s best leaders. Have a restful weekend.

– Senior-level crisis. Earlier this week, the Broadsheet covered the astounding number of women leaving the workforce: 865,000 in September alone.

That crisis is just the tip of the iceberg for corporate America, write Lean In cofounders Sheryl Sandberg and Rachel Thomas in a new op-ed for Fortune. Businesses risk losing their top female leaders—the senior most women at their companies—as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Senior-level women—tough, tested, ambitious leaders—are being pushed to their limits and beyond,” write Sandberg and Thomas. “This is a real problem for companies because these leaders are too important to lose.”

Like many working … Read the rest

This is the web version of The Broadsheet, a daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Two women win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Laurene Powell Jobs exits some media investments, and Sen. Kamala Harris takes part in a historic debate. Have a thoughtful Thursday.

– ‘I’m speaking.’ Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence engaged in the most consequential vice presidential debate in a generation on Wednesday night, given that both are second-in-line to men who will be the oldest president ever elected, no matter which one wins. Plus, it was the first time a Black woman debated a white man in a one-on-one national debate.

There was plenty of distraction from the weight of the contest: The plexiglass, a visual reminder to viewers of the on-going COVID-19 outbreak at the … Read the rest

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Slack’s popular corporate messaging app is getting several new updates to help out the wave of companies frantically shifting to accommodate employees now working from home.

The workplace software company announced the new tools on Wednesday as part of its Frontiers user conference, which like many other recent tech events, is now online due to the impact of COVID-19.

As Slack chief product officer Tamar Yehoshua explained in an earlier interview with Fortune, Slack’s internal research concluded that overall, “people are pretty positive about” working from their homes. 

However, she added, “We are finding that people have an increased feeling of loneliness and isolation,” underscoring the challenges companies face dealing with workers who may be struggling with mental health and grief in the coronavirus pandemic… Read the rest

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Kayleigh McEnany tests positive, all eyes are on the VP debate, and why the WNBA won’t say her name. Have a healthy Tuesday.

– She who must not be named. While most of the U.S.’s attention is, understandably, focused on presidential politics, I was interested to see that the New York Times yesterday ran a pair of stories focused on a certain female member of Congress.

If I were a WNBA player, I wouldn’t get any more specific than that. While I am a fan, I haven’t dribbled a basketball since junior high, so I’ll spell it out: Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

The first NYT story digs into how Loeffler—who is perhaps best known for making some very profitable stock trades soon after senators received a private briefing on COVID-19—went from “from political moderate to ‘more conservative than Attila the Hun.’” It’s an object lesson in … Read the rest

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Amy Coney Barrett’s Rose Garden nomination ceremony is under scrutiny as a source of coronavirus transmission, Megan Thee Stallion brings Breonna Taylor protests to ‘SNL,’ and 865,000 women dropped out of the workforce in September. Have a mindful Monday.

– Workforce dropouts. 865,000.

That’s the number of women who left the workforce in September. The figure is even more sobering when compared to how many men left their jobs last month: 216,000. Put another way, 80% of the 1.1 million workers who dropped out of the workforce last month were women. And another: four times more women than men stopped working or looking for work in September.

The National Women’s Law Center crunched these numbers based on the month’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And it’s easy to speculate about the cause of this gigantic disparity.

“This is the devastating impact of the … Read the rest

As our society continues to face a reckoning on race, companies are being held to a higher standard than ever before. Employees and customers want more than words. They want action. Many Fortune 500 companies are meeting the moment by putting out commitments to change to signal that they are sincere in their support of Black Lives Matter—both in broader society and within their own walls.

But in order to live up to these pledges, leaders can’t keep treating their companies’ diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts as extracurricular activities. Rather, D&I has to be core to the way companies do business and develop talent. This can only be successful with the full support and backing of white men, who still, after all, hold key decision-making power in most organizations.

In Coqual’s recent study, “What Majority Men Really Think About Diversity and Inclusion (and How to Engage Them in It),” we … Read the rest