Melike Ayan and Rachel Hodgdon live from the Nasdaq Marketsite ESG Event Putting “H” Health and Humanity into ESG.
Hosted by Humanity 2.0 & International WELL Building Institute (IWBI)
In this captivating segment Melike and Rachel break down key topics including:
- Reaching IWBI’s Goals
- Corporate Leadership
- Female Leadership
- Young Generations and Leadership Involvement
FULL COVERAGE
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS: Melike Ayan is the Guest Co-Host at ESG News and Rachel Hodgdon is the President and CEO at IWBI
Melike Ayan, Co Host, ESG News (00:00):
Today, here we are with Mrs. Rachel Hodgdon and she is the President and CEO of IWBI. It’s an honor to meet you in person. Thank you here. See the seal at Bloomberg tower every day I enter in there. Uh, today I’m here with ESG News, but I just wanted to tell you how proud I am to see that more and more in the city in New York, uh, talking about this and the platform that we are here in today for, do you see yourself reaching the goals?
Rachel Hodgdon, President & CEO, IWBI (00:32):
Yes. I mean, I think this is a, a landmark day for us, because I think we’re finally starting to see this dialogue around the imperative for putting the H in ESG really step into the mainstream. Um, but, uh, just like you, it makes me very proud every time I see one of those well plaques on a building, whether a building has been well certified or well, health safety rated, we feel so thrilled that when people walk into their workplace’s they know that their health is being put first and that their employers have prioritized their wellbeing. And in fact, um, I was a couple, uh, months into the pandemic. I was walking down the street with our COO’s daughter, she’s five years old and she stopped in the middle of the street and she said, look, Rachel a well health safety seal. And in that moment, it kind of all like hit me, you know, the enormity of this work and to have organizations like Bloomberg pursuing this roadmap, uh, for health and wellbeing that we’ve worked so hard to create following the evidence based strategies is the ultimate endorsement and a, a major source of pride.
Melike Ayan, Co Host, ESG News (01:43):
So, uh, I love that you said that, do we need more corporate leaders like Bloomberg, like other, uh, huge multinational companies to be able to put the, both the H factor and the I investment factor in it?
Rachel Hodgdon, President & CEO, IWBI (01:58):
Yes. And interestingly enough, I would say that financial institutions are, um, UN UN arguably leading the way on this. Um, you’ll see a well health, safety seal on every Citi bank on every JP Morgan chase. Um, I think that if you’re really watching, um, the linkage between human health, uh, and a business’s bottom line, um, it makes it such an easy choice to make. And so I think that investors have had their eye on those, um, non-financial material factors for quite some time. Um, the rest of us after two plus years of a global pandemic, um, are really waking up to the fact that a business’s number one asset is its people. And the way that a business values its people has had everything to do with whether a business has, uh, simply survived or whether a business has thrived during this chapter.
Melike Ayan, Co Host, ESG News (02:55):
I love how you put it in addition to well relevant to the age factor. I wanna talk about the feminine factor. You’re a female leader of an amazing organization. Do you see more female leader leaders leading and gathering in this platform?
Rachel Hodgdon, President & CEO, IWBI (03:12):
I do. Um, not only am I, uh, a female CEO, but within my organization, the executive team is majority female and the composition of our entire organization is majority female. Um, I, I think that there is something to be said for women being, um, drawn to lead on topics of, of health and wellbeing on topics of the environment and sustainability. We’ve always seen those fields, um, disproportionately, uh, led by women as compared to other sectors or other topics. Um, but what I see that’s even more encouraging and many of the women who are here to speak with us today, embody this is women helping other women, women really believing that it’s our collective responsibility to lift one another up. That there’s enough room at the table for both of us. Um, and that we’ve gotta be the sponsors of one another’s success in order to see true equity in the workplace. And, um, perhaps even more importantly in the C-suite
Melike Ayan, Co Host, ESG News (04:14):
You said it, uh, you said it very well in terms of the collective conversations to turn into collective action. What can be, what can be done more together with ESG with IWBI at the Humanity 2.0 platform?
See Related Article: Mona Naqvi of S&P Global with Rachel Hodgdon of IWBI- Putting “H” Health & Humanity into ESG
Rachel Hodgdon, President & CEO, IWBI (04:30):
Well, the reason why we created the 12 competencies for measuring health and wellbeing for human and social capital was to really guide those collective actions to break it down and make it more simple. What we hear from a lot of organizations when it comes to measuring and reporting on the H is that it’s hard to measure. You know, you think about how straightforward it is to measure tons of G HG emissions versus how, um, foreboding or intimidating it might feel to measure something as potentially amorphous health and wellbeing. And yet what you’ll find within that document is that, um, many of the metrics that we’re citing as things that can be reported on as proxies for health and wellbeing are actually metrics that a business is already tracking things like ambient environmental quality or retention and recruitment employee engagement. Um, these are all generally things that, uh, uh, a, a C-suite has access to, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re using it to really understand whether their people for strategies are being impactful and making linkages between the performance around some of those elements and things like, um, their performance within the great resignation.
Melike Ayan, Co Host, ESG News (05:44):
I love that. And in terms of today’s event, we are at NASDAQ market site. What is the message that you wanna give both to the younger generation to be involved in, and also for the young leaders to be engaged and actively involved in it?
Rachel Hodgdon, President & CEO, IWBI (06:00):
Well, I think that we’re seeing the birth of a new generation of leadership and a new rule set for how we define leadership. Um, it’s about so much more than making a profit, you know, good business, big business is about changing the world. And what we’re seeing is the rise in organizations that straddle purpose with profit that can, um, demonstrate higher returns year over year, but also, um, higher returns on their people. Um, higher rates of retention, um, increased engagement of their employees, um, and generally organizations that believe that, uh, they can, they can do well by doing good.
Melike Ayan, Co Host, ESG News (06:41):
Thank you personally and professionally, I wanna thank you on behalf of ESG News, please keep up the great work. Thank.