Paul van Zyl 0:01
Hello and welcome to another episode of Conduit Conversations bringing you pioneers on the cutting edge of social change. I'm Paul van Zyl co-founder of The Conduit, a home for people passionate about positive impact. My guest today is Caroline Casey. Caroline is the businesswoman and activist behind the Valuable 500, the world's largest CEO collective and business movement for disability inclusion. Caroline launched the movement at the World Economic Forum's Davos summit in 2019. And since then, has signed up 500 multinational organisations with a combined revenue of over $8 trillion, employing 20 million people worldwide to radically transform the business system. The membership includes 36 of the footsie 100 companies 46 of the Fortune 528 of the Nikkei, recently appointed President of the International Agency for the prevention of blindness, Caroline also sits on several diversity and inclusion boards, including those of L'Oreal and sky. She has also received an honorary doctorate, as well as multiple awards and accolades for her work as a disability activist. It is so wonderful to have you here today, Caroline,

Caroline Casey 1:18
thank you for having me on. I listened to that, and I'm going, Look, the only thing you need to know about me is I'm a stubborn troublemaker from Ireland, who ain't gonna give up. I listened to that. And I go, that sounds like a lot of success. But there's been a lot of failure to get to here.

Paul van Zyl 1:33
Well, all of those attributes sounds like exactly what you needed in order to get the success and endure or the hard times, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But let's just kick off and ask you what exactly the valuable 500 is, and what's your core mission and purpose.

Caroline Casey 1:50
I think my personal mission is completely weaved into the valuable five hundreds, I do want to be part of creating a world where nobody asks to hide who they are to belong. I think that comes very much from my own core story. And the valuable 500 is really looking at the extraordinary disability inequality crisis that exists in the world that really hasn't had as much visibility or understanding or connection despite the fact that every one of us is going to have a disability, and how I kind of came to becoming part of disability. And where I see the solution is so much part of my story as is most with social activists, actually, the crisis is too big for governments or charities to fix because it is huge. And I am truly believe that business is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. And this crisis needs business to be part of it. Because what business values society will value what business ignores, society will ignore. And disability has been on the sideline of business for so long. When we talk about diversity and inclusion, it has been overlooked, it has been disregarded. It is piecemeal. It's about maybe an individual in the business that is passionate about it. And we wanted to change that. And after 20 years of activism, I was just so deeply frustrated at the lack of success. So the valuable 500 Was that roar from my belly enough like enough excuses. And it was to put it into the hands of the world's most powerful leaders, CEOs. Because what CEOs can do in moments and days, governments can take years to and to create a collective mass and a force that couldn't be ignored. And that was 500. So it was to get 500 CEOs to committed a leadership level, to really take disability into their business, and to break the CEO silence to make the business silence and to look at normalising disability in business as people like customers and suppliers and talents and insight and innovation and to look at the value of us. And when you get a collective mass like that. What could you do with the poor? You know, we've always seen tiny piecemeal moves and celebrations what's done in disability, but it's loads of people doing loads of things in different ways. And so when we built the valuable 500, where we are today is how could we trigger system change, we could trigger it, if we get our 500 companies and all those employees and all their supply chains to do synchronised collective action in one way. That's the whole premise of it.

Paul van Zyl 4:24
So I'm sure you have a bunch of really compelling examples of how businesses that have ignored or sidelined or stigmatised disability, then having embraced disability, and then having seen people with disabilities as assets rather than liabilities. It has been good for business. So tell us a little bit about that because that's obviously the case other than the sheer moral argument. It's also the business case that you make to CEOs that this is not just ethical, it's also good for business.

Caroline Casey 4:57
Well, we do two ways. I always say to I had an heart. It's about the stats, or the data and the stories. I think when we're talking about business and human centred business, you have to put the human in it. I mean, that's what business exists for, right? It's for human beings. So when we approach anybody around disability in business, well, business should reflect the society it operates in, and we use both the human part of it, and then we use the data side of it. So let's just do data very quickly. 1.3 billion people currently live with a disability, I'm one of those. If you put a mum and a dad with that, that's 54% of our global economy. Now what business wants to ignore that they will be absolutely crazy, too. But the other thing that we need to understand is 80% of disabilities acquire between the ages of 18 and 64. So that's the people that are currently working in the business. So what do you do if somebody acquires a disability? But the spending power alone of that is like 13 trillion, and that's conservative, we're talking about one in every four households is connected directly to disability in the family, like how on earth would business ignore that? So there's a huge market and consumer base around that. And the other side of it is you got to look at disability as a point of innovation and insight difference is about differentiation. And what are all of our companies trying to do differentiate. And so we use these kind of really typical overused kind of examples. You know, that text messaging was designed for people who have hearing impairments, but use by everybody. The remote control was designed for blind people to watch TV used by everybody. So we're not talking about niche, we're talking about a mass market through a different experience, and how we're starting to see some of those businesses doing brilliantly. Let's just point to Apple for a minute, whether you like or don't like Steve Jobs, he wanted to create accessible, beautiful products that served everyone. So the core of what Apple does, baked in is inclusive design. So what we're trying to say it's not just about disability, but it's about everybody. And how do we remove the barriers so you can get a greater access to consumer base, you need to serve that consumer race, get the talent to have the lived experience into your business. And that's the circle that moves. So we're coming away from the old ideas of it'll make you look good or disabled people are more loyal, no cut the shit like, honestly, we're advocates, we have to fruit future proof our businesses, and our society, because we're all going to have a disability. I don't mean to be rude, but like, by 20 3070 to 80% of our wealth is going to be held by people over the age of 60. When you get older, well, things don't work so well, right. So it's a complete move away from it, it is a risk. Now for business, not to engage with this community, it is a risk not to have this insight into your business. And when you look at the younger generation and social media, and you think about what the CEOs really care about right now, it's getting that young talent into their business or other consumers. And that young talent, deeply cares about inclusion in its broadest in its broadest understanding. So I think it's a much more nuanced conversation. Now, it's a much more intelligent conversation. It's much more complex. Because you cannot do tick boxing for disability or purple washing or white washing or greenwashing. The, the generations around now are far more informed, and they're far more willing to use their voice to call out. So it's complex, and you need to be on the long journey. But the benefits, the return on investment for the business has proved time and time again, if you want to look at IKEA and some of the work that they have done around democratising their furniture, in some of the campaigns that they have done, if you want to look at some of the simple design features that have gone into how you run a supermarket, how you do your banking, is is delivering to the bottom line.

Paul van Zyl 8:53
So how do you persuade CEOs who understand that arguments? kind of intuitively? Intuitively, you just say it in such a compelling way that it seems obvious, you seem it would seem to be idiotic not to do this, then you start looking at the details and you say, here are the incremental processes or costs or equipment or building design, you know, the list goes on, I'm sure they will regurgitate that out to you of things that they have to fork out for, until they experience the payback and the yield. In a world where things are tight. prices are rising, energy prices are up, everything seems more uncertain. What's your magic trick to get them to make the investment ahead of the return? Or are there some instances where you know you can have something for nothing where you can just do things that aren't very expensive, but that gets you a return straightaway?

Caroline Casey 9:55
Well, let's talk about growth for a second and most of our businesses are really concerned with growth. Aren't we just repeated again? 54% of your global economy, and it's growing when we add in the ageing population? Really? Do I need to keep convincing you? I mean, the point of it is, why are you skewed upon being blind to something that's sitting right underneath your nose is an opportunity. Business people are smart and intelligent, we don't tell business, how to change how they do things. You know, there's the smartest people in their business in their industry, what we're saying is, there's an opportunity here that you should embrace, the early adopters are going to get a better grasp of this faster than anybody. But the point is, you know how to do this. You've done it before, let's look at the environment. 15 years ago, did we think we would have business talking about this? Now, some of them started, because they kind of had to, and they felt kind of guilty. And then they realised Hold on a minute, this is this is I can do business well. And this can be done in a way that benefits the environment and the people around it. When it comes to disability, it's just a case of going, do you want to invest? Or do you want to walk away from the opportunity that exists? How we see it is we will point out to some of the companies who have maybe started it, or who have proven it. But the most important thing, if you won't? Do you know, we'll have to see how what a CEO does. It's like this aha moment, you just go. So tell me about your children. Tell me about your family. Tell me about your sisters and brothers. Tell me about your parents. And we start taking the intellectual piece of disability out and putting it into a life. And when you start appealing to that human being who knows somebody with a disability, because we all do it kind of the pennies kind of drop, because a lot of business people not disability was something governments do and medical doesn't like because it's our understanding of what disability is less than expensive, complex, hard. All of the issues of inclusion, all the issues of humans are complex and difficult and hard. But the one thing that has been good about COVID, there's very few things that have been good about it. What did we see happen in the business system in 17? days? It moved? Why did it move? Because it had to all the things that were talked about by disability and accommodations, oh, it's so expensive. Did we not realise that every single human being that worked in our business, needed accommodations, adjustments, specific things? Yeah, we did. So it's not just such a disability thing anymore. We all have needs. And I think that's what we're pushing back on to business. And I wouldn't want to be CEO at the moment. So any CEO that's listening, I get it, it's really hard. So we've got to help the CEOs go on that journey, not shame them, not bash them over their head and say, You're shitting you're rubbish, we have to try to show them ways in which they can learn and let them understand you don't know how to do disability you never have had to. But you need to start asking questions. How can I and learn from the other things that you've done really well? Are you proud and some of the initiatives of you might have done around gender build on it, ask your people, our business don't know that most likely 12% of their current employees have a lived experience of disability but not speaking about it. So they already have the talent in the business. Go ask them what they would want and what they would do that helps unblock the system in itself.

Paul van Zyl 13:25
Is there a hierarchy with in the disability movement of certain forms of disability that are easier to address? And that CEOs gravitate to? Because they seem both for cosmetic or for operational reasons, easier to deal with? And others which are more thorny and more tricky and more stigmatised. And, and and, and how do you confront that if that is indeed the case.

Caroline Casey 13:56
So you pick on one of my biggest bugbears, though, if I start throwing my arms around the air is hierarchy of exclusion. Firstly, you cannot have ala carte inclusion. You can't have pick and mix, you know, can't say well, I love women, but I don't do the other bits. What about disabled women? And one of the biggest problems is companies have siloed the diversity and inclusion agenda and we did a film called diverse ish, which is that one year I'm going to do mountain peaks the other year I'm going to do gender the next one LGBTQIA and disability always fell in sight. I'm just like, That's ridiculous. Inclusion is either all for everyone or not at all. So let's talk about disability. Thank you for asking that question. So few people ever asked it. Disability is a tweeny word that means so much different experiences. And I have a rare condition called ocular albinism. I can see you from across the table. It's like looking at his zoom screen on Blur if that's The best way to do it after one foot, apparently I are not disabled enough. I'm not really sure what that actually means that I'm not disabled enough disability light. I didn't know it was disability, strong or light or whatever. But that question that you've asked is real, that in our way to try and understand things, we respond to the white cane or to the wheelchair, we think disabilities about putting ramps and buildings, when actually the biggest ramp or the biggest barrier is the six inches between our ears. It's about human beings having different needs. I do think there is this we call it inspiration porn, you know, around disability that we love seeing somebody with either no arms, no legs and running up, you know, Mount Everest or because they're inspiring stories. But this is not that is every single human being knows what it's like to be other to have barriers in front of them. And I think what we're trying to do with the disability conversation is to try to open it up to say, disability, the feeling of exclusion that exists is when somebody doesn't allow you to be seen and be heard, and get into the buildings and to stand for yourself and to self advocate. That's something a lot of us feel. So I do see, it's easier sometimes with the visible disabilities. But actually, let me go back to something 80% of disabilities are invisible. And what I get more and more concerned about is people are staying in the closet, like I did, I stayed in the disability closet when I was 28 years old, for fear that I wouldn't get the same chance as anybody else we currently know with ey 7% of our current C suite have lived experience of disability, four out of five of them are hiding it. The problem is invisible disability. What would it mean, if I told you I have a disability? Would you let me be your leader? What I even had the chance to be that leader? Do you know what footsie 100 companies that tortious media did a piece of research with us? We do not have one person from a C senior leadership position up declaring to have a disability support like that's the problem? What's the problem? You know, and I'm not trying to say disability is more important than anything else. But I think it goes down to a really human need to belong as themselves and trying to belong in a world that's not designed for you, that sees disability as weakness, or less than is very, very difficult.

Paul van Zyl 17:39
You have launched something called the generation valuable programme. And I'd love to hear about it because it seems something that's intriguing. And I'm sure our listeners would like to know more about,

Caroline Casey 17:49
well, you know, we have Gen Z and Gen X and all that. Well, we like to think we're very clever and coming up with Jenvey generation valuable. It's something I've been passionate about for a long time. So listen, we broke the CEO silence. We're getting 500 CEOs to personally be accountable with their signatures and stand over these leadership commitments. Yeah, that's great. But how do we break break the employee silence? How do we get people to speak and own and uncover their disability? How do we get the intelligence that exists in the business and to normalise it? Well, let's go find brilliant talent in our 500 companies. So we're asking each of our 500 companies to identify a person or a potential leader who has a disability in their business, so that we would create a community of 500 young, disabled talented leaders, and to hopefully get them into the C suite seats of tomorrow. But their job not only is to accelerate that roadmap to get into leadership positions, because the shadow and light of leader for sure, right. But the second one is to get to sort of unlock that uncomfortableness to unlock the talent and the intelligence that exists in the business and to help the C suite of today, work out how to do it, not just wait for these guys to get there tomorrow. And if you can imagine you got 500 CEOs and 500 Gen V. How can we how can we not trip switch or catalyse a system change? Because if we do collectively then we have a chance. And once again, not one person, not one, Caroline Casey, or one Microsoft is going to change the world. Not at all. It's going to be 1000s and millions and millions and millions and millions of us doing it. So it's to go from one to many and 500 CEOs today and hopefully 500 CEOs tomorrow.

Paul van Zyl 19:37
Amazing. Sort of another macro question, and it's sort of the dreaded intersectionality word. No,

Caroline Casey 19:45
it's not. It's not a dreaded question. Go for it. Exactly.

Paul van Zyl 19:49
So it seems to me that when we live in a world of ESG and we start measuring ESG and hold companies accountable for the progress that they make, we're trying to add Vons and put disability on the agenda. But we also tried to win struggles for justice on other fronts on environments on racial justice on good governance. And how have you sought to weave disability into that network in a way that is harmonious with it and augments it rather than seen as a sort of trade off that you have to kind of pick and choose between? Well, I'm going to get to net zero, but I'll put disability, you know, behind me and my priority list, because if I don't do that, I'm not going to get to net zero. How have you sought to sort of stitch these things together?

Caroline Casey 20:37
Well, Paul, Polman is our chairman. And how I got to Paul Polman was a whole story in itself. But I had always wanted Paul to help lead this because I had watched for years what he had done around sustainability. And I watched the beginnings of that. And I guess how I'd seen leaders roll their eyes and go, Well, yeah, really, you know, and they still do, right. But what I loved about what Paul was talking about, and he would say this, too, you cannot have sustainability without inclusion. All of these things are interconnected, right? Planet, people, power governance, business, government, the third sector, everything is all interconnected. And we're fools to believe that we're compartmentalised. Right. So you can't have sustainability without inclusion. And you certainly can't have inclusion without disability, because that is just ridiculous to consider. The ESG model is helpful because we are starting to see the interconnectedness that and looking at this intelligently, it would be easier if we could just go right we'll just do this and take it off. But what we do in E affects what we do in s. And what we do, and G affects what we do in s, the big issue for us now and using the power of the value of 500. I want to make sure D is in the ass. So when we're doing this great reset that we said we'd all do that to the pandemic, are we going to ensure that we come back differently, and we're broader thinking, and back to your point about intersectionality. It's not just intersectionality in how we look at Planet and people and all of that. But it's in human beings. I'm a woman, I have a disability. Apparently, I'm in the ageing population, because I'm over 50. I didn't know that I'm on that now. I'm also not a biological mother. And so certainly, there's a whole load of things. So which bit when I come to business, when I say how can we talk about my gender? Are we talking about my disability, we're talking about my age. So we are much more complex now. And I think it's so good that we're finally having these conversations. We're not one label, we're more multiples of labelled. We're not defined by a moment, by by all the moments of our lives. And even in this moment in business and what we're doing, we've got to look at what interconnects something to something else. And that's going to fail, and it's going to reset and it's going to push. But I think if if we're being really honest with ourselves, we want to do this, we have to be prepared to fail and reset and re pivot and try not become enemies of each other and try not compete in the space. Because we have to work with each other. And at certain times certain issues will probably rise, but they will benefit all it was a really upsetting thing that happened after the murder of George Floyd, I had a journalist asked me and he said, You must be worried that the Black Lives Matter movement is going to overshadow disability. And I was like, How could that be true? What about disabled black lives? I mean, this is rocket science. No, he No. And so this kind of level of that thing that you're speaking about an intersection? And I know it's an overused word, but it's actually a really important word. We're complex, multiple faceted characters, aren't we, in a multifaceted, interconnected world.

Paul van Zyl 23:45
So what I'd love you to do is give us an example or two of programmes that you think forward thinking companies have adopted, you don't have to name names, or you can if you could pick a favourite, I don't mind. But it's something that a company has done that you think perfectly encapsulates what visionary leader CEOs should be doing. If they've drunk your Kool Aid and embraced what you're doing and are trying to make a difference. Give us a few examples. So people can put meat on the bone

Caroline Casey 24:21
for 500 babies and it's like saying it's my favourite child, because that's really, really hard. First thing I'm gonna say the best thing any CEO can do, any leader can do is what Peter Grier, who is the chair of Bloomberg did when we launched the valuable 500 on the main stage of The World Economic Forum, I just want to keep saying that the main stage not the special inspiring stage, but the main stage. He was there with five other CEOs and the issue of disability when he was speaking about what Bloomberg do, and he sat back in his chair and he said, You know, I'm very proud of other programmes we've done, but we haven't done enough and disability, and I don't know how to do it. And that moment If accountability is, the best thing any leader can do is admit that they don't know and they're willing to learn to try. So the best thing a CEO can do is give permission to their people, the best move CEOs have done is ensure that they are supporting an erg group around disability and having executive sponsorship and putting budget behind it, ensuring that disability is in the executive board conversations, making sure there's targets around it, making sure that there's people responsible for so it's given the attention and the resources and the time. So that's a very holistic approach. But I'm going to talk about kind of cool things that make me very happy. As a visually impaired person, I can't deny that I love the work that png are doing around tactile packaging, right. So, with my size, oddly, not only can I not see very well, but I don't have great dexterity, so things like packages, package design is really hard. Now, by the way, I think that's a lot for a lot of people, particularly as you get older, some motif has been leading them around putting a standard together, not just for PNG, this is when it's exciting, but making it for the whole business around packaging, about how can we have tactile packaging, whether it's for shower gel, or for shampoo or whatever, and not only doing for p&g to give them that differentiator, the first early adopter for it, but how can we do it to share amongst all of the industries. So it's kind of competitive collaboration. So I love that one. The second one, I can't tell you who's doing it. But you've got to keep an eye out, there's going to be a massive announcement, on the fifth of January, about a beauty company coming together with a tech company to do inclusive beauty tech. And that to me, is like acknowledging that people who are visually impaired who have tremors in their hands, how do they apply makeup. And when you see giants of tech come with giants of beauty, and the CEOs are supporting that, and supporting the teams for that. And given the freedom that gives me that gives me like shivers up my spine. Because it means it's not a special project in the organisation. Neither is it and p&g. You see it's right to everything they do. Because disability is in every function of the business, as is inclusion and diversity. It's not just beside the DNI personnel and the chief people officer. It's across every single aspect of the business. And those two for me answer to the innovation and to the brand, and to the customer and to the intelligence in the business. And they're very exciting. So, and I would have said before these came along everybody who holds iPhones or iPads, it has often been the chosen brand for people with various disabilities. But once again, that was done not for disability, but for beautiful designs for everyone. Hmm, interesting. That's what you want, right when you design products and services for everyone.

Paul van Zyl 27:59
Amazing. Ross, you a sort of wrap up question around the question of mental health and disability and all the stigmas that are associated with depression, or any of the sort of challenges that so many people in their lives confront, and how you want a good examples or case studies in the D stigmatisation of something which is invisible and pernicious and often associated with just weakness rather than challenge. And I'm sure there are incredible examples where courageous CEOs have come out and spoken about their own personal difficulties where it becomes acceptable in companies to speak about it, but give us examples of how we can deal with what I think is a really hidden and pernicious approach to a particular form of disability.

Caroline Casey 29:01
There are so many answers that but one thing is I'm sitting opposite you a co founder of conduit and you are putting this into your podcast series. It's like an earthing, the invisible. It's breaking the silence and that can be done in so many ways. So you're giving space to this conversation. Remember, I'm only speaking as a person with a visual impairment. I can't speak to everything in everyone but you're opening this conversation up. Thank you and they need to be open because people will go conduit disability that's kinda not who would think that would work. Right? I'm serious. They would. Why would you have that? Well, because I'm guessing a lot of people who are your members have experiences to this conversation, right? So you're not doing just to be worthy. You're doing because you want to do it and it's good, but it's also the right way to do business. The best thing anybody can do is tell their story. And you're hearing my voice shake because one of the things I find is Maya Angelou has a great He's quote, and it was the reason I came out of my own closet. There's no greater agony than an untold story inside you. It's very hard for people to tell their personal story when they can't see themselves there. It's very hard to tell your story about an and we have mental health in our family. And I have to say, making the valuable 500 happen after the death of my father. That was really hard. But I've told that story. And in you telling that story you give permission to other people to what is so phenomenal is when I have met CEOs in their valuable 500. Not only have they started to come out of their disability closet, uncover their story. But the impact that has done not just to their peers, but to their people, is when a leader stands up and tells their story about where they were vulnerable. They give permission for people, because what we're trying to do is create a business culture that is safe. And our business cultures are not safe yet, but they can be. But when you hold a position of privilege and leadership, you've got to lead with your heart from the front. And you've got to lead with your own vulnerability and your own story. Because telling your story. And don't ever underestimate the power of storytelling. And when you back that up with data, then we know that this is nothing that we can ignore anymore. I'm not going to give you names because then that will be me choosing favourite people. But I will say, and they know who they are, I want to acknowledge the extraordinary storytelling of several leaders over the last 18 months, who have told their story who have shocked with the mic on the stage that they weren't intending to say us. And they did. And the difference that that has made. That is the catalyst for change. But just telling a story is not enough. As a leader, you need to tell a story, and then put it into process, the culture, the resources for your people to do this thing. That's what's important. The story followed up by the action to give permission to others. As a

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