Welcome to Episode 59. My guest for this episode is Peg Dougherty Marcus, Co-Founder of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA). Peg is one of the most inspiring women I’ve met in a long time. She started her career in a healthcare communications agency and she was just 23.
In this chat, we talk about why and how she started the HBA in 1977, despite every obstacle and also in a dominating ‘boys club’ culture. She also talks about why women were scared to speak out about harassment at work, and whether she thinks things have changed today. She shares some really practical tips for women’s safety when you’re travelling or maybe entertaining for business. She’s a passionate supporter of women in business, she’s a natural connector, and she champions every woman who works in healthcare.
If you’re working in the area of healthcare, and you’re not a member of the HBA, then you can go to their website and check out all the amazing benefits of joining. It’s HBAnet.org. I hope you find this chat as inspiring as I did because maybe it’s going to inspire you to get involved in a relevant community that already exists for you in your area. You might even think about gathering some of your peers together in the industry and starting your own.
A couple of quick announcements. A quick reminder that my Account Accelerator training programme for agency account managers and directors starts on 10th of May 2022 and it’s filling up quickly. So, if you’d like to join me, you can check out all the details on my website www.accountmanagementskills.com/training. And you can book a quick call with me to check that it’s a good fit for you.
Secondly, my friend Tom Ollerton, owner of the AI-driven agency, Automated Creative, is looking for an account director. So if you fancy working for an AI-driven agency, and you happen to have some media buying experience, please contact Tom Ollerton on LinkedIn.
Transcript:
Jenny 00:01
Today, it’s an absolute privilege to speak to Peg Dougherty Marcus, the co-founder of the HBA, the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association. The HBA was founded in 1977 by Peg and four of her peers. It’s a global nonprofit organisation comprising individuals and organisations from across the healthcare industry. And the latest membership numbers on the HBA global are over 13,000 individual members, 12% of which are outside the US. There are 180 corporate partners representing a collective 250 organisations in more than 50 locations, reaching a community of more than 70,000. Peg, welcome to the show.
Peg 00:48
Thank you for having me. Good morning from Florida.
Jenny 00:52
Welcome, Peggy. Honestly, I’ve been so looking forward to this. Would you mind starting off by just spending a few minutes talking about you, your background and why you started the HBA?
Peg 01:07
I started in the healthcare advertising industry on my actual 23rd birthday in October of 1973. And my agency, unfortunately, went under in May of 1975. And my boss, rest his soul, and I were retained by our client, Astra pharmaceutical products, to go find a new ad agency with their product line. And we wound up at an agency called Lavey/Wolff/Swift on Madison Avenue in New York City. And I started as an account person there with Astra and then due to client conflicts with another advertiser, we resigned the Astra account. Doug went into heading up copywriting and I started the media department. I was the 14th employee of Lavey/Wolff/Swift. And then the joy ride began. And I got to meet Sheila Sinkking, again rest her soul, and Sheila was working for a magazine publisher and called on me and recognised that women did not know each other, the women who were starting to sell ad space, and said I should come with her to meet these other ladies. And Ruth Smith, now MD, Dr. Smith, Ruth was a scientist at Pfizer in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the plant, which was the original site of Charles Pfizer’s chemistry plant and Williamsburg, Brooklyn was also the original home of where Astra came. And that’s why our bagels are so amazing, because the East River had the cleanest water, literally in any part of the United States. I can’t say that now, but it certainly did then. And Ruth saw a job post for a product manager at the headquarters on 42nd Street in New York and she applied for it. Actually, there was another sign that really disturbed her in the cafeteria that said women will be terminated at seven months, she didn’t know what that meant, and went in and asked HR. And they explained to her that pregnant women would be terminated at seven months, due to probably the proximity to whatever they were doing back at that time. She went into New York and interviewed in front of all of these men, who told her that she had all the qualifications to be the product manager for Pfizer , except she didn’t have the balls to be a product manager, that’s the term they used. And Ruth very simply and calmly, she’s the exact opposite of me, said ‘Gentlemen, I do have balls, they’re just anatomically placed elsewhere on my body’. She got the job, and she was the first female ever product manager at a pharmaceutical firm. And Melissa Gryczka was a pharmacist, and she was the first female ever account executive at Medicus advertising. And Diane Anderson, who was also a journal rep for the International Medical News Group, and we sat down, there was a one or two other women that came and went but the five of us realised that no one knew each other. I knew as a media director reaching out to my fellow media directors for fair clients, them calling me back literally didn’t happen. And it was, why? And it was really the fear of losing their jobs, or women weren’t at events that time. The Pharmaceutical Advertising Council (PAC) was a boys gaming club, and golf and they’d have a lunch meeting. Doug took me to one very early on in my career, and they asked him why he’d brought his secretary. You could count the women on one hand and have fingers leftover. So, the opportunity for women to meet women had nothing to do with networking, it never even crossed our paths. It was, we need to meet each other and let us know that these opportunities are coming. We knew it, we could feel it. I was the only woman in management at Lavey and we sat, and we had a couple more lunches and then start to get serious. The rumble was starting, and another chairman of another ad agency had wanted me to join him. I asked him if I could have his conference room. ‘Why?’ I said, ‘I can’t tell you’. And we came up with a date, and a location and a time and we wrote up a flyer and those of you that are listening, a mimeograph machine was the precursor to the copy machine and it was something you typed and you laid it on top of the drum and you rolled off copies and you inked it continuously. My dad worked for a company and dad ran off the flyers for me, and we folded them up into blank number 10 envelopes and Melissa took some and Ruth took some, and I took some and every journal sales rep got a stack of those to drop off wherever they had a call. They would ask the receptionist, female, how many ladies rooms they had, and they were to please post them in those ladies’ rooms. And we got to the agency, and we waited. And we had 108 women show up. Hallways, conference room, standing leaning against the windows with me having a heart attack that someone would go out the window. And it was ok, here we go, and we knew we had unearthed Pandora’s Box. So, I think once that happened, we really knew our jobs were in jeopardy, our reputations were in jeopardy, our careers were in jeopardy. I was the only one of the five at the time that had financial support if I got canned. But my husband, Bob Marcus, did pay the bills for the first three years of our organisation. Bob made sure in checking with New York State Department of Labor that if we didn’t do anything about HBA during ‘office hours’ they could not retaliate. The New York State Department of Labor eventually did come into play when I was threatened.
Jenny 08:11
Why was that a threat, Peg, was it simply because there were no events for women there were they were seeing the secretaries?
08:22
If you saw a female colleague, it was at a sports day. It was an annual event called the PAC Sports Day. The guys were all golfing, a few women would hang by the pool, everybody got showered, dressed and go to this thing. If it was a bad day, weather wise, there were sloppy drunk, out of control human beings. You weren’t paid for; a journal rep took you. So, we didn’t play golf, we didn’t pay for our lunches and, as I told John, I looked ridiculous in plaid pants. The PAC was IT and was it was like, ‘what was this girl’s group?’ That’s how we were referred to. Moving on, it’s six months into it, so we started in 77, we started have monthly meetings in New York. We charged $3.
Jenny 09:28
Can I ask a question before we skip six months? That first meeting 108 women showed up. It was bursting. What did you talk about? Who got up? What did you say? How did you initiate, because there was no agenda? The first lady that got up was Ronnie Hoffman, who stood over six feet tall. And Ronnie was a copywriter originally at Lavey, and then had gone off to join David Frank, Alan Gross and Jane Townsend in their ad agency, she’s no longer with us, unfortunately. And basically, had a ‘voice’. If you think I have a loud one, my God! Basically, Ruth and I got up and just said, we’re here because we want to know each other. We want you to know each other and what do you think? And it didn’t have a name, we didn’t know we were going to be the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association. We just said, write your names down now. No emails. No computers. A lot of mail, lots of stamps and lots of mail. But we really used the journal sales reps as Pony Express. If I needed stuff to get down to Ciba-Geigy, or Sandoz, or SmithKline, or Bristol Myers, whatever it was you handed a pile off to a sales rep. We had over 1100 products at Lavey, so I saw hundreds and hundreds of reps. That seems to me like a pretty innocent purpose. Let’s just know each other. And yet you still felt at the time that this was wrong, that it was going to be frowned on and you could even lose your job.
Peg 11:42
The reps, Sheila and Diane, rest their souls, I think they saw people because they were reps. And Ruth saw reps, I saw reps. But we knew that there were women, we didn’t care if you were a secretary, I didn’t care. It was just, hey, there’s a lot of us out there and we don’t know each other. And for me, it was, why isn’t this media director from this agency calling me back? Why isn’t this media director calling me back? We share a client. I’m not a threat. I remember saying to one of them, I do not want your job. I have this job. But you need to talk to me here. I think it was just fear at first, I really do. I think it was fear. You weren’t going to be recruited in. It was the boys club, no if ands or buts. And the thing that I knew could happen, when I was at Burdick two years before, I had the opportunity to get involved and eventually sit on the board of Advertising Women of New York, which was all consumer, and women who owned their own ad agencies, and Carolyn Wall publisher of New York Magazine, Cathie Black, first female publisher of USA Today. And I was like, wait, why is it okay here, but it’s not over here? And so, I knew it existed, why isn’t it transferring over to this side of the industry? Because of being absorbed by BBDO I would go down to 347 Madison, and there were women just everywhere, running around maniacs. So, I think for me, because I had seen it with AWNY (Advertising Women in New York) that’s who I drew on in our first meetings.
Jenny 13:59
So, project forward, you’ve met that first time 108 women, and then did you say, ok, let’s meet again and did it just slowly grow over time and there was just this continual meeting of the same people and then more people got recruited? How did it evolve?
14:18
I think more photocopies that my dad made and brothers and sisters stuffing envelopes, but I involved everybody. I mean, no one was safe, but it was first getting to the Hotel Roosevelt and even at that time the room rental was $125, that was staggering. So, how are we going to pay for it? Well, we had a bucket like you know, here, throw in whatever you can. And maybe we got 50 maybe we got 75. I’d come home and say I need whatever to pay the bill, so I don’t bounce it. We also wanted to have a bar, but woman didn’t have an expense account. We had no expense account.
Jenny 15:04
Hold on. So, are you saying that in your capacity working on the advertising side, you didn’t have an expense account? And the men did? Wow.
Peg 15:25
I mean, I had a credit card, which Astra had actually got me back at Burdick, but I remember going to lunch, with 10 account guys and clients and we go across the street to this restaurant. And Ron Freddy doesn’t have his wallet. He’s said ‘Peg, can you pick up the tab?’ And I put my credit card down, and the waiter comes over and says ‘Miss Dougherty, your card is perfectly fine’. I said, ‘excuse me, why wouldn’t it be?’ Now again, this was another, embarrass the female. I’ve been with my husband, since I’m 20 and a half, over 50 years. And Bob said, if you ever want to get back at somebody, you do not leave the tip line empty – 000.01.
Jenny 16:31
Go on.
Peg 16:31
So, I left a penny tip. So, as we started to leave the manager who knew us, says ‘Peg, move over’ and the waiter is on my tail. And the manager said, ‘Peg what happened?’ I said, ‘ask him’ and he turned around to the waiter and said, ‘You’re fired.’
Jenny 16:52
Thank goodness. I can’t believe really this day and age that that would actually happen. It seems like there was a bit of resentment. And also, Peg, I just have to point out this thing about not having an expense account, but the other people did. Was the implication that you would never be taking out clients to entertain?
Peg 17:20
As media director, I did not have an expense account. But I wound up because some of my account guys weren’t sober enough to take the client to dinner after they’d come back from their Mad Men lunches, which were four plus hours. So, I did take a male client to dinner, and it turned out very poorly for him.
Jenny 17:50
Please, please tell that story, Peg, please tell us.
Peg 17:53
I went out with the octopus. And another tip, and I still will tell anyone listening to this, if you’re female, do not, repeat, do not go to a restaurant that doesn’t know you. You pick a restaurant where the manager knows you, the maître d knows you, the bartender knows you, the sommelier knows you, do not go to a restaurant with a male under any circumstances, a date anything, it doesn’t matter. You go where they know you. If there’s a problem, they are there to help. So, I took this particular gentleman, I won’t say gentleman, I took this guy to the restaurant, and the hands are all over my leg. And the third time I lifted his hand up on the table, and I explained to him, I picked up the steak knife, which is rather large. And I informed him if he touched me again, I would impale his hand to the table and the three things would occur. If you’re Irish in New York, you’re related to a cop and I said the likelihood of one of my cousin’s walking in here, NYPD is about 100%. Secondly, you’re going to have to explain to your wife while you have a huge hole in hand. And thirdly, you’re going to have to explain to your client why you have a huge hole in your hand. And I slid out of the booth and told the manager to feed him, and I went home. And the next morning, I went into the agency and called all the guys, everybody in the conference room and informed them that no female was to be left alone with this guy. And we started to hear about other episodes about him. And it took us three years before it reached the chairman. Number one, women wouldn’t say anything. They would tell us at an HBA meeting in private, but they would not take it out there for fear of retribution. And it took us three years, I don’t know how it got but we made sure that the chairman heard what was going on and he was fired.
Jenny 19:58
Now again, this is horrendous for any woman to go through. So, I love the way you handled that Peg, let me just put that on record because that is genius. Absolutely genius. But I remember you saying to me that you realised that this was rife, this was happening to many women. And this was the start for you of putting some help, and some support and tips for other women in business. Is that right?
Peg 20:30
I was travelling, I had been travelling so I had the benefit. But now the publications industry exploded. And now you have dozens and dozens and dozens of women travelling for the first time. You have women in very junior account positions, again, travelling. And we really recognised that. There was no Wizard, there was no President’s Club, there were no lounges, there was no ‘click, click’ and your car lights up. And there was no GPS. And so, you’ve gotten off an aircraft and you’re on a bus with a whole bunch of people. And they drop you at the end of a line of 50 cars with one lamp and a blizzard, and you’re supposed to find your vehicle. And then hope you don’t run into Sasquatch standing there, and then try to get out of that parking lot and get to a hotel where you had a truck driver budget to stay in this hotel, trying to eat without getting poisoned or attacked, going back to your room, and then get to the client. And so that’s why we taught aeroplane safety. Do not ever, ever, ever get on – listen to the instructions. Look in front of you, look behind you. I have a friend who did survive the plane that flipped upside down in Iowa. And she was hanging by her seatbelt when the plane broke in two and walked out through the cornfield. So, she knew where she was when she was hanging upside down with a child hanging upside down next to her. So, pay attention people. Always in your profiles for hotels now, don’t go higher than 10 floor because a ladder can’t reach higher than 10 floors. At one point, the majority of people who perished in hotel fires, unfortunately, were on the floor and climbed and tried doors. And the door that opened was housekeeping and they would die in there. Those doors are now locked. So, the first thing I do, I don’t care where I am to stay just bolt the door for a sec go down and count with your hand how many doors to the exit the fire door is. You just want to be safe. And withs airport safety don’t eat at a bar, I don’t care if you are the only one, ask for a table and you don’t want the one by the kitchen door. You want a table, bring a book. Don’t sit there like waiting for somebody to come up and ask you to join him for dinner. Bring a book, bring your work, whatever but do not sit at a bar. Ask for a low floor as close to the elevator. My request is that my room is no more than three rooms off the elevator. So, we just wanted people to be safe, but my consumer ad agency women were teaching this really, they were teaching the same: ladies, this is what you need to do. Then we got into the fun stuff of don’t wear red, don’t do this, don’t do this. Sheila bought a fur coat, and it was $900, and she got it from the famous Fred the Furrier in New York at Alexander’s. And I think it was a dead raccoon. I don’t know what it was. It made her look like a Notre Dame. But, of course, I had to run out and try to buy one of those too. Anyway, she only took it to a client visit and was told by the product manager that he wasn’t giving her any business because she apparently could afford a fur coat and he couldn’t buy one for his wife. So, he wouldn’t give her any business. So, the deal was if you were going to call on this client wear a garbage bag and leave the animal in the trunk. It was protection, protection, protection.
Jenny 24:29
It sounds like very practical advice and a question for you, would you say because obviously you started these safety tips all those years ago, do you believe that as relevant today as they as they were back then?
Peg 24:44
More. You hear more, I hate to use this, the date rape and the physical assaults. I’m not hearing anything of sexual assault from all the chapters I’m speaking. Harassment, yes, but not assault. I think HR departments, I think when HR people found out, they could go to jail for not reporting an incident, that’s when they took it seriously. A very, very close friend of mine was one of the Playboy Bunnies. And she’s part of this A&E TV series right now, and she was sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby. She’s one of those 75 women, and nobody believed her. Nobody believed all of those other women. And now they’ve, of course, let him out of jail where he should rot. So, you know, then many, many people did not report it.
Jenny 26:05
This isn’t a topic that I’ve talked about a lot on this podcast. In fact, I’ve only had one guest Zoe Scaman, and we touched on this. She wrote an article recently and she invited lots of feedback. She was inundated with women writing to her saying this stuff is still happening. And I have my own story and journey. Incidences happening to me, as someone that’s always been a woman in business, and it is astounding. And I actually get very triggered to listen. I noticed on LinkedIn, you are very supportive of other women who are telling their story publicly, because I haven’t shared details of what happened to me publicly yet. Maybe I will. I’ve seen that you are very supportive to women.
Peg 26:53
I was jumped at the agency and from behind, and it was unfortunate because that’s not to say, because of all of my drunken idiots, and my stoned copywriters and our director sitting around just waiting, I would probably get a media sched or a drawing of something, you know, like ‘Peg, it’s going to be five colour, 12 colour, this is going to be 25 pages, 50 pages’, and then have to write or come up with a media schedule. Usually get home around two o’clock in the morning. We’re talking typewriter. Get this thing done, get it over to the printer, and then go home shower, come back to the agency, and climb in a car usually around six o’clock in the morning with hungover, smelly, alcohol permeating and tobacco. We were healthcare agency and they smoked like nothing was wrong. I called the clown car, driving to a client and just wishing I could put the windows down. I was jumped and the guy never know what hit him. I didn’t know I could scream. I didn’t know I could scrape. But I turn around and beat the living bejesus out of him. And he worked for the printing company. I was also robbed at gunpoint with a gun to my head. So, I have been to restaurants in Manhattan. So, you try to harm me, get out of the way. Well, thank goodness, you reacted like that, because I know that you can either go into fight or you can go to freeze mode, can’t you and, thank goodness, you managed to fight him off in that that incident. I say to this day, I’m one of eight kids, five girls and three boys and my father would always say, ‘I’ve got seven and Peggy’. I used to say to him, ‘Dad, I do look like the others’. I mean, we look like cookie cutter for God’s sakes. But we were taught to protect ourselves from day one. We beat the crap out of each other but don’t let somebody else harm one of our brothers and sisters.
Jenny 29:22
Peg, is this something that you feel the most passionate about how women are actually treated sexually, physically, emotionally in business? Is that the thing that gets you most passionate because clearly something was driving you to build this organisation to this big, to have the consistency and the tenacity to keep going. So, what’s driven you?
Peg 29:50
I love people. I love people and I’m a networker. I’m a connector, and I was fortunate in my role and in my job to meet people, and then you had these other ladies that were in every other kind of situation, whether they were an executive assistant, junior, it didn’t matter. I mean, when Ruth and I, Melissa doesn’t come to the WOTYs (HBA’s Woman of The Year awards) she is with Doctors Without Borders, and I would imagine she’s in Ukraine now. She’s been in Haiti for the past two and a half years. We elected Ruth because she was the first female product manager, we thought, okay, let’s start off. And that’s why Karen Katen was our first WOTY, the most senior woman in the industry at that time, and six months in, Ruth calls me and tells me come down to Pfizer, and I go down and she says, ‘I’ve got good news and bad news’. And I always want to hear the bad news first. And she said, ‘I’m leaving Pfizer’, and I said, ‘Oh, my God, where are you going?’ And she said, ‘medical school’. And Ruth was 38 years old. And I said, ‘any particular medical school?’, she said, ‘Jefferson in Philadelphia’, and I said, ‘any particular reason?’ She said, ‘I’m with the first class of women’. So here we go. So, she needed a microscope, and a microscope ran about $500 back then. So, through our new network, we got in touch with Zeiss in Long Island. And they sold us one for about $150 and they inscribed it to her. And HBA gave it to her as a gift. And I think we’ve paid it off now. And Ruth became an Aids specialist in Manhattan when she returned, and she is now, at the age of 75, she is a competitive senior ice skater. So, things we do in our lives. She’s going to need a new knee because she took a really, really bad fall a couple months ago. I became president for three and a half years, finished her term and mine. But what’s amazing for Ruth and me, when we do go, and we go because I want everyone to know our history. Every chapter I’m talking to, no one knows our history and what we did, and the chances we took. Am I the dinosaur or the mother hen? Both. But I am the historian, and I’ve had to get into it with HBA when something is erroneously [mentioned]. We incorporated in 1979 when we started to do structure. We had men from day one as members that couldn’t vote, couldn’t hold office unlike what’s happened recently, because they had expense accounts and they could buy the drinks. I think what was happening is we did a Halloween October 30 event. And we went from Jane Townsend’s townhouse to a famous ballet school, to the CBS recording studio ballroom to, I think our last event was probably about 800 people. You had to wear a costume. So, I went as a syringe, I went as a thermometer, I went as a media insertion order wearing the front and back like a sandwich board. It had the front of the ad and the back (which no one ever bothered to read) the back of the paperwork, the contract. Then my colleague had the cancellation for that media order. And it was THE party. No-one, absolutely no-one missed that party. And then because of PAC, we would tag on to PAC, their event would always be the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and maybe the week before and the Thursday night we would be at the Philadelphia Museum, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people and in Boston and Chicago.
Jenny 35:00
When you tell when you tell this story, Peg, I want to be part of your gang so badly. Because it’s you sound like a group of such ballsy women that were making huge changes. So, tell me, because you said no one knows the stories you share with me some of the big sort of massive challenges you had to continuing the HBA?
Peg 35:23
What you and I talked about was salary. I asked a gentleman friend, a guy friend, who owned a market research firm, as they were all owned by men, if he would help us with a salary survey, and I didn’t want to know your name, I want to know if you worked for the company, the client, the agency, the publication. I want to know hours, what benefits you had 401k, blah, blah, blah. What was your vacation? Was there a bonus, did you have an expense account, and we got back about a 96% response, doing it by mail, where they self-stamped envelopes back to him. Maybe they had to mail them to the women’s homes, not to the workplace. And we made it as simple as just fill in the damn thing and send it back. And Mahesh calculated everything, came back and then I took it to medical marketing and media, I took it to Medical Advertising News, I took it to Pharmaceutical Executive. Pharm Exec had never had a female on the cover ever. I think Karen might have been the first one in the late 90s. And I asked them to publish it and they all said no. And we sat down and said, ‘Dad, we need you’. And I think we sent out, if I say 500 it could be 5000, send them to every corporate HR department and every CEO, putting them on notice. I found out that the guy next to me, not only was making about 40,000, more than me, he was also receiving bribes to the Super Bowl, and to the Derby, and with publications. And he had involved clients in it. And I went batshit because it was my reputation. And I went to the partners, and I told them that I was going to the police. I mean if they didn’t do something I really didn’t care what happened to this guy. I mean, he had to go. But the fact that he had involved a client who was adorable and stupid. And was going along hey, you’ll get invited Super Bowl. The jet, the whole bit, was paid for by a publishing company.
Jenny 38:19
So, this was the era of the boys’ club. And you as women were forming a group together to kind highlight the injustice of what was happening and to support other women in their role, in their business capacity. So, going forward now to the present day, what have you seen have been the biggest changes in the industry for women?
Peg 38:52
The academic level, when Ruth and I go, we make a point of the day before WOTY, Women of the Year, this will be its 32nd where a woman is selected by her peers. And the male mentor is selected by his peers or her peers, and then the Star award and it’s presented in May, and this will be the first in- person since 2019. Last year we had over 7500 attendees virtual from around the world. In person in 2019 we capped at just a hair under 3000 people in the Marriott Hotel. And I don’t think with the guys winning the award, I don’t think originally the guys that won the male mentor award really… the first one or two and then all of a sudden it was, Oh, wow. Oh, wow, this is the award that men in industry now want. It doesn’t matter who gives you recognition, name a building after you, nothing you want the HBA award. And WOTY, it’s extraordinary. Every colour, every race from Iranian to African American to Persian, everything, everything across the board. And it’s quite an exciting. So, when Ruth and I, what happens is the CEOs, the chair emeritus and former presidents, we meet with the rising stars, the Monday before the event. Well, this year will be Tuesday, but always usually was Thursday, and we meet with the ladies. And each of us chair a table and they give me a list of questions. I’m like, I don’t need this, go away. Everybody at this table introduce each other and swap cards because you guys are going to be the first ever group of friends from this, you start here. Then Ruth and I both take our two tables out to dinner Monday night. But there is a cocktail reception. So, at least there’s the first bonding that they’ll never forget. And then and then you go to WOTY. And Ruth takes one end of the stage and I take the other and every female that comes down with her award is greeted and congratulated by either Ruth or myself. And now with the 10 that we know or the 12 we know, they all get hugs. So now the person standing behind is like, what about me? what about me? You know, everybody, I’m a hugger. I’m just a hugger. I know, this COVID was very big. I’m a hugger. So, that’s why I’m saying I’ll stay in touch with them. And one of the young ladies from India is on the front cover of Women in Healthcare in India. And when you open her article, it’s me and Shay??, at WOTY in 20 whatever it is. So, you know you’ve touched somebody… but to go back when Ruth and I see the academic degrees behind their names. I mean, wow, the level of academics, the level of their jobs, not only Rising Stars, and then you get to Luminaries, but it’s Oh my God. And the other thing that fascinates us, of course, is all the corporate sponsor banners. We’re like, who is that what is that what was that? There were 10 pharmaceutical people, ten, by 2000. And now it’s like, what is that?
Jenny 43:14
And the fact that you know that it was Charles Pfizer? I wonder how many people that work for Pfizer understand that it was actually Charles well, maybe they do, but other people know that it was started by Charles Pfizer.
Peg 43:27
He was a German chemist, and that penicillin was invented in Brooklyn by Sir Alexander Fleming, in the Pfizer labs in Brooklyn, saving millions of lives during World War One from the Spanish Influenza. Some really extraordinary people came through Charles Pfizer.
Jenny 43:48
For you and Ruth, you must be so proud of what you’ve both achieved, looking at how they’ve reached the academic heights, looking at all these corporate sponsors, what else still strikes you as so incredible of what it’s turned into today?
Peg 44:10
This is a subject that we’ve talked about. I’m so unbelievably flattered and honoured to be asked to speak to you and everyone else that I’m sorry that we’re still not there. I’m sorry to hear and I’m hearing this, I think you and I talked about, is there’s an expression about sending the elevator down and I do not like that term. Because you say send the elevator and I think ‘dumbwaiter’ for most of your people, you won’t know what that is either, but it was in every restaurant kitchen, and you press the button, and the meal goes up to a banquet floor or whatever. And that’s called a dumbwaiter. I don’t like the elevator. What am I hearing is that a lot of women who have made it are not paying it forward, and it makes me terribly, I mean, I can’t even tell you it makes me so sad, it makes me so angry that you did it, you reached your goal and please stop being you know what whatever they call that one from the Dalmatians, you know, club or whatever Cruella. That’s how some of them are referring to them. And it’s just that’s wrong. Just come on people.
Jenny 45:38
So, what do you want them to do? What should they be doing?
Peg 45:42
Pay it forward, and make sure that the women underneath them have all the opportunities that they did. Be part of the solution and not the problem. Another thing, my husband was in executive recruiting all of his life. I think I shared with you that with all the mergers and acquisitions and everything that is going on, people are losing their jobs. And one of my functions as a meeting planner with the Pfizer group was getting, when Pfizer absorbed Parke Davis, Warner Lambert, all of the various others, and the survivors would have to come to New York and become like, best buds in five days. That was my job. They had to be best buds, showed up Sunday as complete polar opposites and they had to go home like, you know, bosom buddies by Friday. And really what it was is that, because I had come through that, I had absorbed the staff of someone who was terminated. Thank God I wasn’t in the country when I knew they were trying to make the decision about she or me. What I just always say now is if two women are often the same role, all I can suggest and strongly encourage is that, ‘Mary, you go in and you tell them that you think you’re the best candidate, that you have everything they need, however should they have something you are not aware of that you don’t fit the bill, please let me encourage you to take Kathy’. Kathy goes in similar story take, ‘if I’m not the person take Mary’, because HR always has that third person lurking in the background. And HR loves to go and say, yeah, the girls had a cat fight, and bring in the guy. So have each other’s back. Because depending on if it’s its Mary or Susie, or whatever it is, whoever gets it is never going to forget what the other one did for her. I had her back. And so, if there is a promotion, or there is an opportunity to bring that other person on board, there’s no conversation, you had her back. And the last thing I would just say is that if you are at a function, and you see the lone deer in headlights sitting or standing, grab her or him. I do it at WOTY. And I just go crazy when I see some poor girl, woman, lady sitting there, like, come on, come on, come on, here we go. And just thrust them into the biggest crowd. And the last thing I would just say is please, I beg you, please, if you’re going to have an event, a professional event, do not have it in a cougar bar. Do not have it in a restaurant where you have a bachelor party in the room next to you and the wall is going like this. Every one of you has a medical centre with an auditorium. Every one of you has a hospital with an auditorium, their public affairs department and marketing departments would go out of their minds. Okay, they have budgets, they have budgets to do exactly that with juice, coffee, tea, they’ve got a budget, go with there’s parking, safety, and you’re not in a cougar bar. It just blows my mind.
Jenny 49:22
Very practical advice, Peg. If there’s someone listening that’s working in healthcare communications, they might be working for a pharmaceutical company in marketing, they could be in a biotech, they could be in a healthcare communications agency. If someone’s listening, and particularly the women listening who aren’t members of HBA ,at the moment, maybe this is the first introduction to who the HBA are and are obviously keen to accelerate their careers. What advice would you give to them?
Peg 49:57
Well, just to know that when you join HBA you not only join your national or international organisation, that’s what part of the dues is, and then they identify, or you can identify the chapter that you most want to join. You are always welcome at any chapter anytime, anywhere around the world. And if you are a woman of colour woman of STEM, woman of Bio, there’s all of our affinity groups now, which don’t cost any additional monies, but then you can become, whether you’re a hospital administrator or you’re molecular biologists or scientists. We got a place for you. I have a dear friend who is a genius scientist, but she’s also a healthcare marketer. I don’t even know where, where we’re headed, it can only get bigger and more, because women are really enjoying each other. And just look at LinkedIn, which is 10, at least 10 people are changing jobs every day. I think the explosion, and Bob and I were talking about this last night, there are over 7000 rare diseases. And all those poor people were on their NIH here, National Institutes of Health, of which there are nine institutes, there was no money for funding, and so on, so forth. So, they started the Gene Coalition Consortium, and now there’s RARE Acts. And so finally, with Rare Disease Day last month, which never did I think there’d be such a thing. Now you have all the biotherapeutical companies, there’s got to be 40 or 50 of them that are new, each taking on rare disease, but they’re taking on either neuromuscular or they’re taking on oncology, there could be some serious answers to some of these, if not all, and for me, it’s just to see the end of some of these just extraordinary diseases and the opportunities. And anyone who reaches out, I’m working with some people right now on their resumes, I am not a headhunter, but when I get finished with your resume, the person I’m sending it to is the CEO, it’s not going HR, it’s going to the CEO, with my blessing. And so that’s me I’m saying I’m here, I’m alive and well, thank you, God. I hope we don’t have another 40. But that would be my little babies.
Jenny 53:05
I can see how passionate you are about it. And you are you strike me as a mother hen, because you’re still making sure that everyone’s picking everyone up, and that we stick together because that’s certainly what you had to do when you first started out. And I love the spirit, Peg, you absolutely exude positive energy. And I can imagine that being part of the HBA is a tremendous experience, the conferences you have, the affiliate groups you have, and not to mention the networking opportunities and career acceleration for women in business in healthcare. So, this has been a hugely inspiring chat for me. I absolutely am delighted that I’ve met you. And I will be a huge advocate for people that are working in healthcare to join the organisation. Do you have any parting words of advice for any woman?
Peg 53:58
For those that are listening HBA’s international conference, I think I mentioned June 16 to 18 in Brussels. It’s, I think, 1000 registrants. So, if you go on HBAnet.org. We have an office in the Brussels, in The Hague. And that’s our European office. Anybody reach out to me on LinkedIn and if I can help in any way, I hope to get over to Brussels, particularly since we’re 45 years, and I would love to see if I can get my butt over there. That would be great.
Jenny 54:52
I think everybody will as well, Peg. Listen, thank you so much. This has been extraordinary. We will include your links to the website and to your LinkedIn profile on the show notes and thank you so much again.
Peg 55:06
Thank you a million, all the best.
