What'cha Drinkin'? with Karen Morgan
Editor's note: Automated speech-to-text transcription, edited lightly for clarity.
Dan Quirk:
Hi, welcome to another edition of What'cha Drinkin'? from Quirk's Media. I'm Dan Quirk, VP, marketing. Today I'm talking with Karen Morgan, founder of Morgan Search International. If you pay close attention, you might notice that at one point during the interview I spill my drink all over my lap. Hopefully it's not too noticeable as I'm a seasoned professional now. Well, hi there Karen. How are you today?
Karen Morgan:
I'm great, thank you, Dan. I'm in sunny California. How are you?
Dan Quirk:
I'm doing great. It's warm and hot here in Minnesota as well. I got to start out as always, and ask you what you're drinking.
Karen Morgan:
Oh, well, you know me as a Brit, I've got my cup, my afternoon cup of tea and I'm doing it the legitimate way with my pot. So, making a real cup of tea is means boiling water. And look, if you want to skip the pot, you can certainly do it with the tea bags. That's okay. But just, it's got to be boiling water out of the kettle, not microwaved water.
Dan Quirk:
Well, and I know in the United States when we make tea everybody I've talked to from the U.K. says we don't make the water hot enough.
Karen Morgan:
I was horrified, Dan when I moved. I think every Brit just has a meltdown when they first move because when you order a cup of tea, right at a restaurant, you get a teabag and like this look warm cup of water and it, no, that's not tea. Yeah. Got to be boiling. Boiling, right.
Dan Quirk:
That's why we don't drink so much. Yeah. So, what I'm drinking today is a new thing I discovered. Okay. It's PS Blue Ribbon. But what it is, and I don't know if you can see it, it says it's hard coffee and it sounds disgusting. I think it's the PS Blue Ribbon, you think beer and coffee, but actually it's much more like a Starbucks bottled latte. So, it's coffee and chocolate and kind of a milky flavor, but it's 5% alcohol. So, if I were to pour this into a glass and drink it at work or a cup, people would just think I had nice refreshing Starbucks when in fact I'm getting 5% alcohol. So, it's my new favorite. I found you can actually, even if you cover up the label, you can walk around outside and people just assume it's a Starbucks too.
Karen Morgan:
And now that everyone's working at home, no one's going to know the difference, right?
Dan Quirk:
Right, exactly. You get your coffee fix and you start having happy hour a little early. Well, I wanted to start out by asking you, since you work in the executive recruiting area, one of the things that we see year after year on our annual compensation survey is that women make up the majority on every single job title that we have until you get to the very senior level, the CEO, the SVPs and all of a sudden women are no longer represented. And as part of that, we also see across all job titles that women are paid less than men in these areas. So, I’m just curious, how do we fix that?
Karen Morgan:
Yeah, great question. I think there has been a lot of progress. I think one of the big things that has happened over the last decade in particular is that women have started to realize that, okay, if we're going to move forward, we need to support each other. I think perhaps 20 years ago if a woman was in a position, a senior leadership position, she wasn't necessarily looking to bring other women along because it was such a big deal that she got there in the first place. I mean, of course there were exceptions, but it wasn't always this mentoring and bringing people along. I think that's really, really changed.
For instance, why Women in Research that Kristen Luck started has been a great move forward to that. I think just generally it's got to come from within. And also, other women have to see women in those leadership positions. But look, to be frank, there is still a bit of a boys network and it used to be all boys network and now it's a little bit new boys network in the sort of, particularly the sort of tech side. So, I think it's really about continuing to beat that drum and trying to push that within your, if you are in a leadership position, try and bring other women along with you.
Dan Quirk:
Well, I think similarly and you're a Brit, although you live in California, when we do events, I notice there's a lot more diversity at our London event than there actually is in our Brooklyn, New York, event. And that's always surprised me. I mean, we market our event to our entire list. And so, if I assume that it's equally represented of the New York area, it says to me that there isn't very much diversity, at least in the United States in the research industry. I know we're two white people, so it seems weird that we're talking about diversity and how we could solve this. But the truth is, if it is mostly white people in positions of power within the industry how do we change that as well? How do we make sure that we're representing the full spectrum of citizens in the United States?
Karen Morgan:
Yeah, I mean obviously a very, very important issue right now. I mean it's always an important issue, but it's been highlighted and I think hopefully there's some real momentum behind it where things can change. I think one is seeing people of color in leadership positions, and I was looking, there are only five CEOs, African American CEOs in Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. and it's actually gone down. There were seven now there are only five. I think there's been a drive for this for a long time, actually. I mean, we've been talking about recruiting. Certainly, ever since I've been in recruiting companies have asked, particularly client side, Fortune 500 companies have asked specifically to try and help recruit minorities, particularly African Americans. But to your point, it's a bit of a catch-22 because the market research industry is very white. And so, it's actually quite hard to fulfill that requirement.
And then I think one of the big things is that there may be the initiative and sort of the intent, but there's no sort of, there are no metrics. So, people are not told, okay, you need to, so no one's really been fully accountable. And perhaps also it's not coming from the top. I think it has to come from the top and be just a very clear initiative and you've got to get buy-in from everyone. And then also I think if you look at the MMR programs, there are, first of all, there aren't that many to begin with. There are a few more these days, but I think starting there would be a great place.
Dan Quirk:
It does seem to me that we're going to, as an industry, have to make a concerted effort on both of these issues. And maybe it's something whether it's we get CEOs together to talk about how we do this. And maybe it is a matter of setting a goal. Even if you don't meet the goal, at least having a goal is something we can reach for. So hopefully this conversation will spur that. But to keep things moving and change subjects going a little bit lighter I'm going to randomly draw out a question out of our box here.
Karen Morgan:
Okey dokey.
Dan Quirk:
And my question for you is during this pandemic how have you been keeping yourself busy? What hobbies do you have?
Karen Morgan:
Well, apart from drinking vast quantities of wine at night well, I am a bit of a fashionista which some people in the industry know. And about five years ago, I had actually never touched a sewing machine in my life. And I got really hooked on Project Runway, which is, for the people who don't know, a reality show where they bring young, well not young design, all sorts of designers, and they throw crazy challenges. I got really hooked on that and I just wanted to start sewing. And so, I did that and I thought I would have more time and be cranking out all sorts of things. I'm sorry to say that I haven't, but I have picked up some old knitting projects that that's quite a good outlet in the evening.
Dan Quirk:
So, is the outfit you have on now one that you made then?
Karen Morgan:
I did make this, yes. I don’t know how much I can move around with the background.
Dan Quirk:
Very nice. Well, it has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today, learning a little bit about your fashion and also hearing about the things you think we need to do to break the glass ceiling for women and also get more diversity within the industry. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us and sharing what you're drinking and we'll talk to you soon.
Karen Morgan:
All right. Cheers.
Dan Quirk:
Thank you.