Red Shoe Tuesday

Founder and CEO of the Red Shoe Movement (www.RedShoeMovement.com,   www.RedShoeMovement.es) a leadership development company powered by a global community of women and men allies who support each other for career success. 

A renowned international speaker, and corporate consultant Mariela’s clients include Microsoft, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Honeywell, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and many others. She presents regularly at professional conferences, associations and universities such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, among many others.

A best seller author, her award-wining books include Find Your Inner Red Shoes, The Latino Advantage in the Workplace, Latinos in College: Your Guide to Success, and many others. She has received the “Visionary of the Year Award” by Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce along with Proclamations by NY State Senate and NY Governor for her leadership. In 2015 she’s on Time Inc.’s People en Español magazine “25 Most Powerful Women” list. 

For years companies have tried to reach gender equality at work and the needle moves a few inches forward and several back. We propose an entirely new approach. By using a visual reminder weekly, we keep the engagement and enthusiasm alive inviting everyone to the table to come up with ways to de-bias our organizations and to design for equality. We are proposing the expansion of #RedShoeTuesday in order to reach a tipping point beyond which it becomes unfathomable to continue having the current level of inequality at leadership levels. 

The results of a society where men and women make equal pay for equal work, where leadership and power are shared have been widely researched. Besides being the moral thing to do, it promotes economic growth, community well-being, it increases levels of businesses ROE/ROI, and it reduces company risks among other benefits.    

No country in the world has resolved their gender gap 100%. The gap between the percentage of women in the world and their share of positions of leadership is abysmal. 

The most common situation observed in large companies is the slimming percentage of women at the highest levels of the organization. In 2020 only 7.4% of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are women. Women hold only 26.5 percent of executive, senior-level and management positions in S&P 500 companies. Women make up 47% of all employed adults in the U.S., but as of 2015, they hold only 25% of computing roles. Of the 25% of women working in tech, Asian women make up just 5% of that number, while black and Hispanic women accounted for 3% and 1%, respectively. 

There are many factors that influence the current state of affairs from open discrimination to fewer girls entering STEM fields, from the double burden women face (full time work and full time taking care of household and family) to the demands of being on 24/7 when they tend to be the primary caretaker. Although many of these issues have been addressed in the last few years, little progress has been made.

The #RedShoeTuesday initiative has been running uninterruptedly for 8 years. It's the day where people go to work (or show up on their screens #RedShoeTuesdayAtHome since COVID-19) with red shoes, socks, ties and other accessories as a visual reminder to keep up the conversation about gender equality. 

It's backed up by the 7 RSM Principles https://redshoemovement.com/ca.... The ever increasing number of people within an organization that take part of the initiative creates momentum, and enthusiasm. It's a non-confrontational way to bring all voices to the table. People feel they are part of something bigger than themselves and their own place of work by being part of the social media conversation. Participants gain exposure and visibility as inclusion champions inside and outside their workplaces. It contributes to an organic, measurable, cultural change that has a domino effect for organizations and the communities they serve.

As a company, the Red Shoe Movement serves professional women with a multicultural background who are interested in moving to the next level in their careers. Our leadership programs (where we teach soft skills to women and help organization remove biases) serve people in North America, Latin America, Central America, Europe, Middle East and North Africa. 

The #RedShoeTuesday campaign works globally as anyone can join from wherever they are. It has the virtue of attracting male champions to join us, which is the key to level the playing field for everyone.

We do work specifically with clients of our leadership programs to help them "officially" establish the #RedShoeTuesday initiative in their workplaces and thus benefit the most from it. 

The #RedShoeTuesday is a cultural awareness campaign to help people talk about how level the playing field for everyone. 

It's an invitation to hear different viewpoints and come up with real solutions. It's a non-confrontational way to discuss an issue that tends to make men uncomfortable. It removes the narrative of  "women against men" and fosters a conversation that is fun, where we get to enjoy fashion, and take great pictures, while we walk the talk together. 

The sense of humor and high levels of enthusiasm that the initiative elicits are a big part of its success. 

I come from many years of working towards advancing Latino college education in the U.S. Their graduation rates haven't moved for decades. When I started working with women's issues, I realized that the percentage of women in leadership was another statistic that hadn't moved in decades. I started researching issues that had seemed intractable and that were resolved with a simple idea. (Back in 2012, we didn't have Uber or Apps that quickly resolve long-term problems.) 

But I found out how deaths by Malaria had been thwarted with the use of insecticide-spread mosquito nets, and how large numbers of hospital deaths were avoided by the use of a checklist. And I decided that I would set up one day a week where everyone would think about gender equality in a way that invited action. My company was already called Red Shoe Movement. That's when #RedShoeTuesday was born. 

I'm an immigrant from Argentina where I grew up in a very macho household where women were encouraged to study but little guidance was given around what because we were expected to get married and have children.  I came to the U.S. having just graduated college with almost no network here. Very early on, women helped me navigate the system and became my mentors and sponsors.

As soon as I started consulting inside American corporations, I heard the stories of many, many women, particularly women of color, who were having issues growing in their careers. Some of these issues where institutional, others, had to do with women lacking certain skills and the right networks. I realized we needed to have a separate conversation with women and created my company and its iconic campaign. I built all we do on two pillars: Mutual Mentoring and Self Leadership and have taught thousands of women how to manage their own careers and how to engage male allies to help them grow.  And in the process, we created a strong community that is constantly supporting each other's careers.

I've been running this company and the #RedShoeTuesday campaign for over 8 years. I'm a well-known thought leader, who inspires the best in others. I develop and/or supervise all the leadership programs we offer at the Red Shoe Movement and the communication campaigns we've been carrying out over the years. Three years ago, for International Women's Day, we launched "Ring the Bell on the 7 Seas" a Gender Equality initiative that echoes the UN's "Ring the bell for gender equality" that the UN implements with stock exchanges around the world. From the beginning our initiative became one of the top contributors to the social media conversation on IWD.

As a result of COVID-19 we just launched "Inclusion is not on pause" another communication campaign to make sure we don't take our eyes off the ball and lose all the progress we've made over the last few years in terms of gender inclusion as a result of the pandemic.

And I'm the one behind our partnerships with other organizations and companies that help our mission.

I wouldn't say we had one particular obstacle. We've had several people co-opt our initiative for their own private benefit without consulting with us even when their goals or their cause didn't align with what we do. We contacted them, had a conversation about their mission and ours and when the synergy was not there, we kindly explained that they couldn't continue to use our campaign. 

One particular Latina empowerment platform started using as a slogan: "Women should not buy shoes, they should buy buildings," as a way to bring us down. We started a social media campaign tagging them using: "Women can buy shoes and buildings. Together we go farther, faster." They eventually dropped their tagline.

We constantly face similar situations with large corporations such as Walmart which has been carrying out #RedShoeTuesday without using our hashtag but using our concept, tagging us, referring to us, quoting me, etc. without our consent. It took us four years to bring them to the table to talk about officially partnering with us and we did this by supporting what they were doing the best way we could, engaging different leaders, creating mutually beneficial opportunities. 

In 2018 our Red Shoe Movement Awards Ceremony was hosted by Warner Media at the CNN Center in NYC. They took place the evening of the worst snow storm in November in the history of NY. 

At the last minute, awardees called to say they were stuck in traffic (there were multiple car crashes in highways and taxis couldn't circulate either) or couldn't make it. Our EMCEE, an award-winning journalist, called to say he was feeling sick and might not make it. Everything pointed to a disaster. 

I quickly called another journalist to be on standby in case our EMCEE didn't show, we shuffled the seats in the auditorium so awardees who were already with us would come up on stage first, leaving empty seats for late comers. We changed the script on the go to accommodate all changes and engaged the public in what was happening so we could all laugh about it instead of me being frantic. In the end, the EMCEE showed up and we only lost two awardees who never made it. I had a great time and was able to avert what could have been a total meltdown while guiding my team forward. 

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#RedShoeTuesday is a complete different approach to reaching gender equality than what has been tried before. (Diversity and Inclusion training, gender training, quotas, policy changes, leadership training for female talent, etc.)

It comes at the issue from a fresh, engaging perspective where people are invited to take action with simple steps they can own. Just wearing red shoes/socks/ties/accessories on Tuesdays calls attention to the topic and opens doors to a conversation where everyone brings their point of view. It's collaborative, crosses borders of all kinds, and includes everybody.The 7 Red Shoe Movement principles provide a framework that has proven to change organizational cultures.

My philosophy is based on the concept of Tipping Point as introduced by Malcolm Gladwell in his eponymous book and on tipping point leadership developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. It focuses the energy on transforming the people that have a disproportionate influence on performance and thus outcomes.

When we get the connectors in an organization to start #RedShoeTuesday, even if they are not at the highest levels of the company, their ability to engage others sets off the momentum the movement needs. These people receive a lot of visibility and recognition for taking the initiative and are rewarded appropriately. In turn, this inspires others to follow suit and start their own group of #RedShoeTuesday at their own departments, businesses or their own organizations. It creates a snowball effect inside and outside the company that attracts interest from partners, distributors, clients, and so on. 

As the movement expands and grows, more communities have a way to start gender equality conversations that lead to change. Whether it begins at the public or private sectors, because of how these two mutually influence each other, it results in benefits for society as a whole. 

I divide the number of people we work with in two: 

1) Those we serve with out Red Shoe Movement leadership programs. Year-long subscriptions that our client companies pay for their talent Estimates: 

Currently: 1500

One Year: 2500

Five Years: 7000

2) People participating in #RedShoeTuesday worldwide- An estimate. As this is an initiative anyone can join for free (except our clients who carry it out through the organization and companies that pay a licensing fee to join us). Estimates:

Currently: 500,000

One Year: 3 Million

Five Years: 10-20 Million

My goal is for the #RedShoeTuesday campaign to reach a tipping point where so many people know about it and practice it that it becomes impossible to keep up the low level of gender inclusion at the highest levels of decision making we see today. My goal is that in 5-10 years, we've been able to level the playing field and that it's as common to see a women as it is to see men in senior executive positions.

In order for us to take this initiative to the next level, we need money to create an App that will connect people seamlessly in a mutually empowering community, offer them digital assets as well as relevant content to carry out the initiative effectively at their locations. 

We need funds to publicize the campaign so that more people find out   about the initiativeand and join. 

To develop the App we will partner with a tech company or with women's who code organizations. 

To publicize the campaign we will partner with thought leaders, influencers and celebrities aligned with our cause.

We will develop a social media campaign with key influencers and a traditional media campaign to appear in relevant outlets.

WIN, an organization focused on Women's Negotiation Skills based in Columbia University. We help promote each other's events and support each other's communities.

Fairygodboss, an online platform that connects women to great companies for women to work. We support each other's event's and communities.

Vital Voices, We Connect International, we provide free programming to their members.

Hispanic Employee Resource Groups at several companies such as Prudential and Toyota, we provide free training to their members to carry out our Mutual Mentoring Circles

The Red Shoe Movement works with large corporations to provide leadership training to women and to train men on how to be effective male champions. We offer many scholarships to women who can't afford the program, to those who lost their jobs or are in transition to come back to the workplace.

Our mutual mentoring and self-leadership methodology foster sustainability in the organization as we teach people to rely on themselves, their teams and the talent within their companies to move forward in their careers. We build internal capacity and help individuals support each other's career trajectories.This way, they are not constantly dependent on external consultants and programs to grow.  

80% of our programming has been delivered virtually for the past 8 years both in English and Spanish. Our live events are an option for our clients but never needed to carry out our training. We have maximum effectiveness with our clients with minimum environmental impact. In this sense, the ability to expand our footprint is endless.

The results we get tell the story: 80% of the people who go through our year-long training say they are ready to move to the next level of their careers.

We are currently financially sound. We support #RedShoeTuesday with the company's regular income from the leadership programs and marketing communications campaigns we sell to our clients. We will continue to funnel funding from our regular stream of income to the #RedShoeTuesday campaign. 

Our revenue source comes from our clients. I don't feel comfortable revealing  monetary amounts that will be displayed publicly. I can share this information privately if we go forward with the award.

We would appreciate receiving the Elevate Award and any other grant that would provide us with a substantial amount to expand the #RedShoeTuesday campaign and accelerate its impact. In this sense, we would be grateful for $1,000.000 dollars.

Our operating budget for 2020 should be around $100,000.

The Elevate Prize can help us accelerate the time table of the #RedShoeTuesday campaign to create a tipping point after which it becomes unfathomable to see the level of gender disparities at leadership levels in organizations around the world. Particularly at a time when as a result of COVID-19 we may end up seeing a reverse of the progress on gender inclusion, it's critical that we do something to solve this ancient problem once and for all. The entirely different approach of this campaign can help us achieve that.

The Prize will help us disseminate an initiative that has already proven successful to level the playing field for 100% of the talent in the organizations where it's been implemented.  

We need funding to create a substantial media campaign to give visibility to the #RedShoeTuesday initiative; to hire a PR team to help us nail down the campaign and get us media interviews in key channels; to support Facebook and Instagram ads; to partner with celebrities and influencers, etc. We need an increased level of exposure for this initiative to move to the next level and be able to promote a tipping point. 

We'd like to have media partnerships with media networks such as NPR, Time Magazine, CNN, international media conglomerates that can help us promote the initiative globally. Podcasts such as: How I built this; Marketplace and Freakonomics. With organizations such as UN Women, Lean In, the World Bank, Catalyst. With tech companies that can help us develop the App.