Global Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future Faith Taylor, Global Sustainability & ESG Officer at Kyndryl

Simon Mainwaring:
We live at a truly unique moment in human history, at an intersection where the climate emergency is increasingly defining our lives, while technology and, more specifically, AI is unlocking potential positive impact on a scale never seen before. What does the future hold for us and our children? How will technology help us show up more responsibly to people and the planet?

What does that look like in practical terms so that our individual efforts compound in ways that will course correct our future? The stakes couldn’t be higher. Let’s dig in and find out. From We First and Goal17Media, welcome to Lead With We. I’m Simon Mainwaring, and each week I talk with purposeful business and thought leaders about the revolutionary mindsets and methods you can use to build your bottom line and a better future for all of us.

Today I’m joined by Faith Taylor, Global Sustainability and ESG Officer at Kyndryl, the world’s largest provider of IT infrastructure services, serving thousands of enterprise customers in more than 60 countries, with a goal of power and human progress through strong purpose-driven practices that deliver value reliably and consistently to employees, customers, stakeholders, and communities.

We’ll discuss how IT infrastructure and AI can address your sustainability ambitions in ways that will serve your business and how the power of collaboration and the ripple effect it creates can assure we address the climate crisis in time for all of our futures. Faith, welcome to Lead With We.

Faith Taylor:
Thanks for having me.

Simon Mainwaring:
Now, Faith, I’ve got to ask you first, Kyndryl is probably one of the most important influential, impactful companies in the world, but many may not know about it. In fact, it’s the world’s largest IT infrastructure services provider. Help us understand what Kyndryl is and also explain what an IT infrastructure services provider is and does.

Faith Taylor:
Sure. We spun off from IBM in November ’21, which is interesting. We have approximately $18 billion in sales and over 80,000 people. In doing that, of course, we are an IT infrastructure company where we have over 240 data centers in over 60 countries.

And then we have what we call business practices, everything from migrating companies to the cloud, to 5G network, to digitizing the workplace, to also providing cybersecurity and resiliency and AI analytics. We’re not only the largest IT infrastructure company in the world, but we provide IT services at scale. We have have thousands of customers and over 70% of the Fortune 100.

Simon Mainwaring:
Wow, that’s amazing. I mean, those services, obviously the cloud we all know about. It’s in the vernacular these days of business so clearly, and we all know that all of our data’s being uploaded and it’s been serviced by the centers. The advisory service or managed services that you provide, what does that involve? What does Kyndryl do there?

Faith Taylor:
In terms of managed services, we help our customers in terms of optimizing or modernizing their infrastructure. Infrastructure can be everything from a data center to your manufacturing processes to even certain areas of your business, whether it is how you’re communicating, how you’re transporting. In that managed services, we offer those types of offerings, and I talked about the business practices, according to what you need. What’s great about us is that we work with a variety of leaders in the industry to offer solutions.

As a managed service, we may work with Google or AWS or even Microsoft to help you migrate to the cloud, or we may leverage Intel in terms of optimizing and modernizing your technology in your data centers. As a managed service, we work with partners to develop solutions that are customized for our clients.

Simon Mainwaring:
As one of the largest companies in the world yourselves, but then working with so many of the largest companies in the world, there’s a huge opportunity to be exceptionally responsible yourself, but also through the power of data in the cloud to help so many other companies be more responsible to our future. It’s fascinating to dig into this with you. And before we do that, I want to ask a question, because at We First, we do a lot of naming projects and things like that for companies. What does Kyndryl mean? K-Y-N-D-R-Y-L. It’s fascinating when I was starting to dig into it, Kyndryl.

Faith Taylor:
Well, kin is all about kinship, right? And that’s all around partnerships. Dryl is the tentacles and how we work across industries and can scale. When you put Kyndryl together, you get an IT infrastructure company that is leveraging our networks and being able to scale. It’s based around our values and the values in terms of valuing our people and in terms of valuing all of what it means to Kyndryl. We actually use the word red and what that stands for. We are Kyndryl Red, and that stands for being restless, devoted, and empathetic.

Simon Mainwaring:
Oh, right, fantastic. I mean, the values are such a powerful way of codifying how you think and behave inside a company. Sometimes people think these are just brand terms that are nice to have, but not must haves, but they’re so critical to any business. I was fascinated by your journey to Kyndryl. I mean, your leadership roles in sustainability at Wyndham, and then at Tesla, and now at Kyndryl.

What started this journey? I think for me it was like 15 years ago and recognizing with the global economic meltdown that things were not okay and that we needed to show up differently through the lens of business and our role in the world. Where did it start with you?

Faith Taylor:
Well, I grew up in Seattle-Tacoma area, have a love for the environment, used to go camping. But what really started it was that when I was at Wyndham, I oversaw new business development and was developing the new brand, Wyndham Hotels. I worked with the architect Michael Graves to develop this new prototype. When we did that, we noticed that the lifestyle of health and sustainability was a huge growing segment.

When we developed the new hotel prototypes, whether it was the bedroom concept, when you walk into the lobby, the food that we’re offering, we were adding in these sustainable elements, making it green. What was interesting is that during that time, the film came out, Inconvenient Truth from Al Gore. My son, mom and dad came home one day and said, “You have to go see this movie.” Now, at that time, he was very young and I was like, what is he talking about? But we went that weekend and saw it.

When I saw it, it clicked, because it said climate change is going to be a strategic issue around the world. When I saw what was happening with the product hotel that I was developing, I understood that at that time, which was almost 20 years ago, that this was going to be very important to our company. When we developed that prototype, it actually did very well. We had a 200% increase in sales associated with that.

I had a chance to talk with our chairman, who was very happy with the prototype that we developed and the concept, and I had a chance to tell him, “You need to go see this movie.” He was like, “What? Go see that movie?” I said, “This is going to be strategic for the company.” I said, “It’s going to be so important that you’re going to need a focus in this area.”

The funny thing is that he came back to me about two months later and said, “Why don’t you start that? No money, with your existing position.” I said, you know what? I took the challenge, and a year later I came back to him with the strategic plan and started it.

Simon Mainwaring:
Two things I take away from that. One, everyone can make a difference. Your son made a difference simply by being better informed in and around the issue, and who would’ve thought it would’ve triggered a career change for you. And then secondly, the knock-on effect of that in terms of your boss, you transforming your own role. Anyone listening to this, whether you’re a C-suite executive or whether you’re a founder or an entrepreneur, there is no small impact.

If it affects you and you affect others, you have no idea of the ripple effect of that. I know the built environment, construction and manufacturing, is one of those areas that has so much room to grow. I know that one of your heroes is Ray Anderson. What did you take away from Ray’s work and the leadership example of Interface? What would you share about that?

Faith Taylor:
Oh my gosh. It was humbling to meet him, number one, because he’s a carpet manufacturer. In the hotel industry, we’re spending billions of dollars, and you can imagine just putting in carpet. He had sustainable carpet. I said, you know what? I was working on the supply chain. We wanted to involve and purchase that type of a product. I actually had a chance to go to Georgia and go to his manufacturing facility to see it. When I was there and I met him and we went to the coffee shop, he talked to me about the concept, and this was back in the 2008 of Mission Zero.

Mission Zero. I was like, what are you talking about? He said, “My company, I want to leave for my children and grandchildren a company that is Mission Zero, where everything we take out, we replace.” He went on that journey and explained to me where they’re getting their carpet from recycled content, where they were recycling 100%, where they were using renewable energy to actually manufacture. He talked me through it. That actually inspired me to say, at that time it was like, oh, we’re going to be only 10% down.

I went back and said, “We can be at least 50% down.” The leadership in my prior company was like, “You’re crazy, Faith. We’re not going to get to Mission Zero.” I said, “Okay, well, let’s go for that 50% goal,” and we did. We got just about at 48% before I had to leave. But to me, that was vision and vision is leadership in this space.

Simon Mainwaring:
Absolutely. I really see that analogy of a wave playing out more clearly today than ever it. If you’re at the front of the wave and you have that vision and you’re being your own council and steward of how you’re showing up, you’re going to get pushed further forward. But the longer you leave it, the greater the risk that you’re going to slide off the back. I have to ask you, speaking of leading companies, I mean, you then went on to Tesla. It’s this iconic mercurial company.

You were leading ESG there. As I recall, the original mission for the company was to enable sustainable mass transportation. What was that experience like? I mean, very few people have that leadership role inside such an extraordinary company in terms of the impact it’s had.

Faith Taylor:
It is an extraordinary company and there are some incredible people there who are very passionate, and that’s why they’re there because of that mission. The opportunity was actually to help them, to be honest with you, start to understand what their scopes were. They had developed a product, but there’s a lot of frameworks and systems that we use to track, measure, and report. That was part of that process when I was there working with them and the board to actually define that.

The other key area was around doing a materiality assessment, understanding what were the most material things for the company. It was already part of the culture, but to actually do a survey and actually understand what those strategic priorities are is critical. I helped with that process, and I was most proud that we signed up for the Science Based Targets Initiative, which is now the industry defacto of how you measure whether you are getting to net zero or not. It was a journey and working with the team was incredible and my focus was primarily environmental while I was there.

Simon Mainwaring:
You know what I take away from both those different chapters in your journey is, one, whatever your industry, it is a platform for impact. With Wyndham, it was building out Wyndham Hotels. It doesn’t matter what the tool of your trade is, you can have an impact through that lens. And then secondly, through Tesla, that you need the data and more so the Science Based Targets to not only demonstrate your impact, but hold yourself accountable as we answer the mandate of our future, which is to show up differently.

I mean, I can see the throughline then through to where you are now because you’re at the world’s largest IT infrastructure company, and with that comes a lot of responsibility, both in terms of how you show up, but also how you empower others to be sustainable. What are some of the programs that you’re doing at Kyndryl itself to manage your own footprint or carbon neutrality?

Faith Taylor:
Well, we have absolutely focused on four key strategic areas. Of course, to me that first area is all about climate change and walking the talk. Within the first year, we actually developed our carbon baseline globally. We established what that baseline is and we set targets. We’ve already come out with being 100% down in our carbon emissions, greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and 50% down by 2030. And we’ve signed up for the Science Based Targets Initiative. That’s the first 18 months, demonstrating walking the talk.

What we’re continuing to do is build our practice in sustainability, and that is leveraging what I talked about, all of those great business practices that we have today, whether it’s greening your data centers, whether it is leveraging, digitizing the workspace, whether it is migrating to the cloud. Because of our footprint, we can scale environmental sustainable solutions. That’s critical right now when you think about climate change, it’s a global issue. You have to partner and collaborate at a different level to implement impact that’s going to make a difference.

That’s why I came here, I’ll be honest with you, because to be able to work on this platform with so many strategic partners across the world, we’re going to have to do this quickly, we’re going to have to do it together, and that’s the only way you’re going to get it done. I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to do that as we’re working through and adapting to climate change.

Simon Mainwaring:
I think it’s so powerful what you said, and I want everyone to really hear that. I mean, given the timelines we’re working against, how they’re contracting towards us, these issues are getting worse out in our future and hurtling back towards us in the present, we need greater speed and scale. I mean, that’s why the podcast is called Lead With We. It’s about how do we create those synergies and compounding effect so that we can meet these challenges with equal force.

I want to ask you, as a spinoff from IBM, as a NewCo effectively, you had to stand up a sustainability practice. You already had this large presence of a business, but there’s many listeners here today trying to rise to this challenge and develop a practice. What would your advice be if you were effectively a NewCo and you want to stand up a practice, maybe three steps on the way to get it done?

Faith Taylor:
Number one, get the data, and number two, leverage the systems and people that you have, but supplement with external resources and consultants that you know. And to be able to do this in this short period of time, we have an incredible team. I’ve learned for many years of doing this, it’s not the level you’re at, it’s the impact you can make.

We had a cross-functional team, which we had to develop immediately, and brought this cross-functional team from real estate, facilities, legal, finance, procurement operations together to say, “Okay, let’s get the data. Let’s figure out how this data is important to us in terms of getting to that footprint.” That’s step one. Having that cross-functional team supplemented with some key experts, and these were not big, huge firms.

They were boutique firms who I’ve known for years who know how to do this work. They’ve worked across many industries, and there’s certain best practices that you can use when you actually develop your footprint. I know of some of these things, whether it’s the 80/20 rule. Always applies in data. 20% of your data is actually impacting 80% of let’s say your carbon.

Those basics are developing the typology or taking the business model that exists and making sure to include that as part of your development of your carbon abatement model and including your growth strategies and including the procurement that you’re actually doing, and then actually forecasting and having a level of confidence associated with that forecast. That’s the financial piece of this.

It’s not only getting the data, but being able to understand how you customize it to your business. And that was some of the things that we did very quickly as a team, but it included some very passionate people, very smart people coming together and pulling that together so that we could as a company establish what we believe to be industry standards that we should be measuring ourself against.

Simon Mainwaring:
That idea of measuring yourself by your own standards and setting those standards is so important. I mean, I think technology companies, IT companies have an outsized role in our lives now. I mean, we are so dependent on them in so many ways through the lens of our personal lives and businesses. How do you see them showing up in really transformative ways to address a climate emergency? Is it AI? Is it the efficiencies of energy management and waste management and supply chain management? Where do you see their greatest impact?

Faith Taylor:
To me, technology is already integrated into how we work, live, and play. But when you look at it, you have to leverage technology so that you can, number one, get to the data. When you look at processes, business processes, how do you get to that data efficiently, effectively, and making sure that it is accurate? That’s where technology, software systems, AI analytics, blockchain technology, IoT, is all helping in that area. Once you get the data, you need to have the intelligence to be able to say, “Where are those points where we can reduce effectively?”

It’s not all technology. Some of it is absolutely behavioral. You have to know how we’re using the technology, when you can turn it off. When people are not in the room, just turn off the lights. When production or manufacturing is at peak loads and maybe you don’t run that load during the day when it’s most expensive and is using more energy, maybe you do it at night. This is where it can help you with processes. And then it’s actually different types of technology that you can use to actually report, record, and then actually understand what’s working and what’s not.

I’m very much simplifying this, but in my mind, technology is the enabler. They’re saying green technology is expected to grow to $75 billion by 2030, and that’s everything from consulting services, managed services, to the technology. I haven’t even talked about clean energy, renewable sources. It’s transforming how we work, live, and play today. I’m very hopeful that this is also the solution for climate change, but the challenge also is around how much the technology uses in terms of energy as well.

Simon Mainwaring:
I mean, we’re on the hook for the energy use ourselves. It can be so determinative in terms of the impact on the climate crisis, that’s that double-edged sword. At the same time, we’ve got headwinds against all of these good efforts. I think just after a year after the company started, I think Kyndryl announced its net zero commitment, but at the same time we hear people saying 2030, 2040, 2050, it’s not soon enough, or those who are just so skeptical around ESG and climate or impact targets more broadly.

As someone at your leadership level inside such a large and influential company, where do you see this moment in time around that debate, around net zero and ESG more broadly, and how do you navigate all the dialogue that’s out there?

Faith Taylor:
I stick with values first and impact. What are we trying to do? We’re trying to give people access to clean energy, access to fresh water, have a means to have livable wages and economic development. To me, there’s just fundamental things that we’re trying to do with this business transformation. I’m not focused on it being called ESG. I’m focused on what is the value and impact we’re delivering to society.

When you focus there, then you focus on the solutions and instead of focusing on, is it actually going to make us less profitable? When you really do the research, and I’m all for the research and looking at the data, you will see that actually has a positive impact. To me, do the research yourself, but look at what we’re fundamentally trying to do.

Simon Mainwaring:
I agree. I mean, I think ESG is top of mind these days. It’s symptomatic of this issue that sometimes these terms take on a life of their own and you almost become beholden to these terms. You judge yourself by your relationship to those terms as opposed to, what on earth are we trying to do? It’s step back and say, what difference are we trying to make and what is our industry and specifically your company uniquely qualified to do? How are you going to measure that with Science Based Targets?

Whatever your industry or business more broadly is putting labels on things doesn’t matter, and I think sometimes we lose the ability to be clear-eyed about those priorities. I couldn’t agree more. You said that your big ambition, I was reading, was that human progress should be inclusive, and it should provide for sustainable growth. What is the broader ambition of what you see the role of business and someone like Kyndryl, what can they play?

Faith Taylor:
I’m excited by what business can do because you can see business scale solutions. When I was in the hospitality industry, I worked with all of the major hospitality leaders to develop solutions in the industry, sustainable solutions. To me, each industry has to do that, whether you’re in technology, whether you’re in car manufacturing, whether you are in the hospitality industry. Scale solutions for that industry, that’s critical. As we look at this journey that we’re on together, I truly believe that we are learning how to decouple carbon from growth.

You can still grow if you’re recycling all of the materials. If you just really look at a lifecycle analysis around the industries and how we’re actually delivering growth, you could still do that, but you have to re-engineer processes. And that’s the transformation we’re going through. That’s literally why you see renewable energy growing at exponential rates now, why you see certain technological solutions being implemented across different industries. Because basically you’re transforming how we are actually obtaining energy, manufacturing.

It’s happening all at the same time. And that’s not easy. Let me just be real about that. That’s not easy when you go through that.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right. Sure, sure. Absolutely. I mean, it’s not easy especially when one of the most effective tools in your toolbox perhaps might be AI right now and to some degree like blockchain through the lens of cryptocurrencies or even robotics. There’s all the dialogue around it’s going to take our jobs and all the things that you see in the headlines these days.

Yet at the same time, I know that you’ve just announced Kyndryl Bridge, which is all about the seamless integration of AI to really increase the operational efficiency to deliver on business outcomes and so on. How do you craft the right narrative or dialogue around the role of something like AI, and then help us understand what role it can play. For example, measuring a company’s carbon footprint, for example.

Faith Taylor:
To me, AI is here. We have to make it responsible, and we have to be accountable. This is with any technology. Even with social media, we’ve seen the negative impact, but you have to be accountable and responsible, and there has to be some type of guardrails around that. Now, I’m not going to sit here and say what those should be, but you do need that as you roll it out. AI used in sustainability can be very effective. It can tell you in terms of manufacturing how to be more efficient, how to reduce your consumption or the energy that you’re using.

AI can help you with re-engineering processes and how you can actually do things on a quicker scale in terms of when we look at renewable energy and we’re trying to do this on a global basis, well, how would you do that? Maybe more AI driven because it has to be more microgrids given that we have to adapt to climate change. Those are some of the ways that it can enable us in terms of the solutions. But I’m going to be very real, you need to have responsibility and accountability of how we’re using it, and that is still in development.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right, right. Yeah, it is definitely a work in progress. I mean, if you try and keep up with… You can always measure the proliferation of AI through the conferences and blogs and all the things that are appearing everywhere. To get specific, are there any particular initiatives that you might point to that Kyndryl has been a part of, pointing back to this idea of the power partnership and so on with some of your customers, and maybe even some lessons or challenges that you’ve experienced on the way?

Faith Taylor:
We are part of Bridge, the integrated platform, which utilizes AI. We have a carbon assessment tool and sustainability tool as part of that, and it was critical to be part of that because that’s a way that we are meeting our customers and enabling solutions. That’s one area. The other area is around cloud migration and how we’ve been working with Microsoft and AWS to actually implement cloud migration solutions. One of the challenges is that not everyone wants to go 100% to the cloud.

It’s a journey because of concerns around resiliency and cybersecurity, particularly in the finance industry. It is where the customer sits and what is their tolerance for risk, but also managing what they need to get done in terms of their business. It’s all what I would say along the journey of providing solutions for our customers. What’s been very interesting is that because we work with so many industries and different customers, to me the most interesting part is how do we collaborate on these solutions that scale?

I’m excited by some of the partnerships that we have in terms of being able to develop solutions that can scale, whether it’s with Intel or some newer, smaller companies called Texture that allows you to actually measure the footprint using different technologies. We’re looking at not only what I call younger companies, but established companies in terms of rolling out solutions. But that takes time. You need to have proof of concepts. You don’t just go out there and say, “Oh, we have the solution.”

You need to say, “Okay, this is where it was before we implemented this solution, and this is where you’re at after. Yes, you did reduce your carbon. You did improve your profitability.” You need to prove the concept out, and that takes time.

Simon Mainwaring:
Help us understand, whether you’re a high growth company or one of the largest companies in the world, whatever your industry, how do you throttle between the demands at the present and the expectations from all stakeholders, not just consumers and customers or the media, but investors and employees between operating your business, making a profit with all the uncertainty and headwinds out there, and then also the expectations of how quickly technology is transforming our future and how to integrate that, and at the same time, you’ve got to develop proof of concept?

Just as a human being, flesh wear, sitting there in charge of a company, how do you manage that in your head? What’s the mindset?

Faith Taylor:
Well, I meditate.

Simon Mainwaring:
As do I. God knows we need to these days.

Faith Taylor:
You got to stay balanced.

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah.

Faith Taylor:
Yes. There are ongoing demands. What I look at it is, I call it crawl, walk, run, one step forward. To me, our first step forward was establishing what I call our baseline and walking the talk. As we’re developing the solutions and meeting customers’ demands, we’ve always been building with the end in mind. I understand that as we’re developing this program, what is the end requirements by shareholders, by investors, by regulators?

And as we’ve been building this program, I’m looking at that and saying, that’s where we’re going. As we develop the program, we communicate, honestly communicate where we’re at. What I found over the years is that if you say, this is where we’re at, we’re not there yet, we’re only in year two, this is where we’re going, and you credibly show progress, then they’ll come with you. You don’t have to do absolutely everything today. You have a roadmap. You have a vision, and you execute quarter by quarter, and you make the progress.

Sometimes things are on track, sometimes things are not on track, but you try to what I call the 80/20 rule. I’m always thinking of that even with our goals. Really focusing on that 20% that’s delivering the 80%, but also making sure that we’re going to meet that roadmap at the end of the day.

Simon Mainwaring:
Inherent in all of this is the tension in and around the concept of growth. We used to think that the planet had infinite resources, that we could go up and to the right in terms of growth forever, and we now know that is not the case. How do we decouple, for example, carbon from growth? How do we have a responsible mindset so that we are sustainable and we have our ESG commitments at the same time as we deliver on shareholder expectations? How do you navigate that tension?

Faith Taylor:
I think you look at your business model and understand what levers you can pull at what time, and you look at the resources and you say, “What resources can we use today versus those that we can use tomorrow?” You’re looking at resources, you’re looking at what levers you can pull, whether it’s your business model efficiency, renewable energy, behavioral changes through education training. You look across and start to say, “How can I help us as we’re growing to also meet our objectives?”

It’s a balance. It’s a balance. Sometimes you will do more this year and next year you’ll do more of another tactic or strategy. I’m not going into the base because it really is different. It’s customized by company. But when you’re on this journey of decoupling yourself from growth, you have to look at the sources of how you’re getting your energy, how you’re getting your materials, where you fundamentally can change in terms of your procurement strategies.

What I see is that the companies that are on this journey are going to their own suppliers and saying, “You have to do this well,” and there becomes this ripple effect. I’m seeing this across the world. Those companies that have said, “I’m committed to net zero,” they go to their supply chain and say, “What’s your commitment to net zero?” They go to their supply chain. I’m seeing this ripple effect of changing the business model. And that’s one ripple effect. The other ripple effect is regulatory.

In Europe, they have what they call the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive that requires company to report on this and where you are in this net zero journey. That’s regulatory. And then, of course, you have your investors who are saying, “We’re tracking companies that do this well. What are you doing and demonstrating that you have and are going to meet your net zero commitment?” I see when I talked about the market transforming, it’s happening.

Simon Mainwaring:
I love that, because I mean, whether it’s your son to you or whether it’s Kyndryl to its customers or whether it’s CSRD in Europe and its effect from a regulatory point of view, any one company or a corporate officer’s efforts are exponential through the power of this ripple effect. Rather than sit there and wring our hands and we look at the headlines every day, we’ve got to recognize that the small actions we make have outsized impact. If we allow that to be the case.

You’ve had a unique position in these three major companies over the last several years. If you project out to the future, what is it going to look like for someone leading a company of any size really? I mean, will it look like suppliers upstream, customers and consumers downstream? We’ll all be on the hook, as you said. They’re all going to be asked to show up differently. We’re going to have AI and the cloud really informing the choices we make.

What will the experience of trying to nurture the physical world on the strength of the intangible world of the cloud and AI, what is that going to look like in terms of how we’re existing in the world, how business is going to show up?

Faith Taylor:
Well, that’s where when I talk to students, I’m excited for them because my job didn’t exist. When I created my job, the jobs that they’re going to have, they don’t exist, whether it’s AI, new green hydrogen jobs. I mean, there’s just so many opportunities for them in terms of this whole space, because this is where the market is going. To me, when I look at this and I say that’s a huge opportunity. At the end of the day, my biggest concern, I’m going to be honest with you, is that we have the capabilities today. I don’t know if you know the book, The Big Drawdown, where it talks…

Simon Mainwaring:
Yeah, absolutely. Yes.

Faith Taylor:
That we already have the technology to solve for climate change. We don’t need to get more new technology to help us get there. My biggest concern, I’ll be honest, is how are we going to adapt to climate change as we’re implementing these solutions.

Simon Mainwaring:
Right, right, right. It’s just how are we going to course correct our lives as we implement this technology.

Faith Taylor:
We’re already being challenged by it, right? Whether you are having flooding, whether you’re having wildfires in Canada, the temperatures right now in Arizona, in Europe, I mean, it’s just like we are living through this and adapting. If we continue on this path of adapting at the same time that we have to mitigate and solve for climate change, it just makes it more complex.

It’s going to put major strain on resources, on our people, most importantly. We’re going to be impacted, but then also, how do you have sustainable business models as you go through this? I’m actually like, how are we going to manage that? How do we prioritize our resources because we have to do both.

Simon Mainwaring:
I think that’s really important. It’s a point of view I haven’t heard before in and around the context of sustainability, this need to adapt at the same time that we mitigate and the tensions that will create. It’s very optimistic, but at the same time, in terms of process, it’s difficult. On the strength of that, what would your advice be for sustainability teams of any size?

Because as you say, the market is headed this way. The mandate for all of us on the planet is headed this way. There you are in a sustainability team trying to lead the charge and you have those tensions you mentioned. If you are advising other teams out there right now, what might be a couple of things you’d ask them to keep in mind.

Faith Taylor:
Resiliency and business continuity I just think is critical as you’re developing this business model to talk about that, your enterprise risk management. But more than doing that assessment, how do you have business continuity? Do you have backup systems? What would you do if… I love the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures because it’s actually asking you to identify climate risk, both physical and transitional risk, and how you’ll manage that.

Really being thoughtful of how you do that, and then being able to also think about the people in your organization and what would you do if this actually happened. I’ve been having these interesting conversations around this and the challenges in certain parts of the world, if you have businesses globally, certain parts of the world are even more negatively impacted than we are, right?

Simon Mainwaring:
Sure.

Faith Taylor:
Because we have more infrastructure and resources than other parts of the world, and where your assets are located. It really is, as you’re looking at this entire strategy, you’re also thinking about that. I’m like, how much more can you add to your plate?

Simon Mainwaring:
Right, right. There’s no shortage of opportunities, shall we say. I’ve got to say, as a father of two daughters, my last question would be, what would your advice be to young women aspiring entrepreneurs, female C-suite executives? You’re in this perfect position in terms of sustainability leadership at such an impactful company when the stakes are so high. What would your advice be to other women leaders?

Faith Taylor:
It’s so funny, because I’ve met a lot of young women over the years who have helped and are now in positions at private equity firms, are now in positions at major investors who oversee impact funds, others who are the chief sustainability officer of Orlando. I say pay it forward, number one. We need as many people in this space as possible. I’m all for men and women in this space. Women especially, I believe that you need that balanced leadership of having women and men together.

I would not be here if I did not have male mentors, but having women and men leading this space is very important. If you look at the pandemic, the women leaders all performed better than the male leaders in certain countries around the pandemic. Women’s leadership is valued and needed and know that. The other thing I say for young women who are considering a career, don’t think that it’s only this career. Be flexible. Look at opportunities that you don’t think exist. Create your own position.

Or if you don’t like what you’re doing, change. It’s okay. Last, ask. I actually asked for this position. I actually said, “This is what I would like to do,” and I was given no resources. But then I went back and asked again and I said, “I want resources now.” I asked again, “And I need people now.” And I asked again. What happened though, it became, like you said, one little person in an organization where then at the end of the day, Wyndham became the world leader in sustainability after 10 years.

But that’s asking and not being afraid to ask. What I find a lot of times is that when you don’t ask, you don’t get anything. It doesn’t hurt to ask, because even if they say no, well, you’re just where you were before.

Simon Mainwaring:
You’re no worse off. One of the piece of advice I give-

Faith Taylor:
You’re no worse off.

Simon Mainwaring:
-my daughters is never say no to somebody else. Ask the question.

Faith Taylor:
Oh, I love that. Never say no.

Simon Mainwaring:
To somebody else, than just not even ask the question for fear that they’re going to say no. I’ve got to say, Faith, firstly, thank you for listening to your son. Thank you for reinventing your own job. Thank you for proving out the viability and business case at Wyndham, and then bringing it out to Tesla, and now to Kyndryl. Just thank you for all Kyndryl is doing with all of your customers.

We are all in the best sense beholden to IT and the cloud and AI moving forward. But if we do that with integrity and accountability, as you say, it can be an incredibly powerful force for good. Thank you so much for the insights today. Fascinating.

Faith Taylor:
Thank you for having me. I’m humbled on this journey. I’m asking as many people join, do what you can in your sphere of influence because everything does count and we’re in this together. We only have one planet. Do what you can really. It’s really so important and it’s humbling. What we’re going through now to me is very humbling because of the climate change and the impacts.

Simon Mainwaring:
I couldn’t agree more. Thank you so much, Faith. Thank you for your time.

Faith Taylor:
Thank you.

Simon Mainwaring:
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Lead With We, and you can always find out more information about today’s guest in the show notes of each episode. Our show is made possible by a partnership between We First, a strategic consultancy driving growth and impact for purpose-led brands, and Goal17Media, that’s building greater awareness of and financing for purpose-led companies.

Make sure you follow Lead With We on Apple, Google, or Spotify and do share it with your friends and colleagues. If you’d like to dive even deeper into the world of purposeful business, check out my new book and Wall Street Journal bestseller Lead With We, which is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google Books. See you on the next episode. And until then, let’s all Lead With We.