CAPA Live December 2021_Interview with SkyTeam CEO on Diversity

Transcript

Michael:

Welcome to the December edition of CAPA Live. We are absolutely delighted to be here for the last session of the year, and we are honoured to have with us Kristin Colvile, the managing director and chief executive officer of SkyTeam. Kristin, welcome.

Kristin Colvile:

Thank you, Michael. It's great to be here.

Michael:

We're really appreciative of you making time in December when everyone's trying to get things done before breaking for the holidays, to come and talk to us about what's going on in this very important topic of gender diversity.

Michael:

I was in attendance in that AGM in Boston, saw you deliver the keynote from IATA's standpoint on this incredibly important topic. We at Korn Ferry have been very focused on it. In fact, we did a study about two years ago, called soaring through the glass ceiling on this specific topic.

Michael:

I will bring out some of the lessons learned from that and see about how they relate to your own perspective. But before we get to that, just tell us a little bit what you're seeing from your patch at SkyTeam, relative to the return of international travel? Are things going the right or wrong direction, and particularly with the new variant out there, Kristin?

Kristin Colvile:

Depends on the day, right? Michael. Look, it's difficult for any of us right now to predict when we can expect a full recovery of travel. What we can predict is that it's going to be choppy, it's going to likely vary by region, but we seem to face different challenges, which we're getting better and better at overcoming.

Kristin Colvile:

What we're seeing is that governments have access to nowadays a lot more testing and a lot more technology. There is reason to be optimistic. We're seeing less of these draconian border closures. Yes, there is still some out there. There is still a reaction to the Omicron variant, but we tend to see less of what we experienced last year. That is reason to be optimistic

Michael:

Learning to live with it and manage it sounds like the headline.

Kristin Colvile:

We are more and more having to learn to live with it. If you look at the numbers of what travel and tourism contributes to the global economy, we can't afford to keep our industry as locked up as it has been in the past. I see that being recognised in many different countries now.

Michael:

Absolutely. Kudos for all you guys have done and good luck going forward. Let's get to the topic at hand, which is gender diversity, a critically important one for the industry. The industry's been the target of a lot of criticism for the number of senior women.

Michael:

If I'm not mistaken, there's never actually been a U.S. major airline led by a woman. IATA pictures show very few women in the top seats, although that's hopefully changing for the better.

Michael:

I believe you're the first female leader of a global airline alliance, and be interested in your views, having progressed to that seat, Kristin. What's it like serving as a woman and leading a membership base, that's largely men? How have you found that experience?

Kristin Colvile:

Yes, I believe I am the first female leader of a global alliance and proud of that fact. I am fortunate in that the SkyTeam global alliance, there are 90 members in the alliance. And for some periods, we've had three female CEOs in our board.

Kristin Colvile:

Anne Rigail who I believe you know, and Maria Hidalgo, the CEO of Air Europa was a board member for the majority of my tenure. We had a CEO from Taron who was a female for some time. We've got up to 25% of the board being female, if you count myself.

Michael:

That's probably a record among alliance [crosstalk 00:04:40].

Kristin Colvile:

Sorry, 20%. That's a good number, right?

Michael:

That's a good number, yeah.

Kristin Colvile:

Obviously that's not reflective of the industry where 3% of CEOs are female across the industry, but it is improving. Certainly from a SkyTeam perspective, I've been very fortunate. I have a board, every one of SkyTeam CEOs, is supportive both on a personal and professional level. They are all supporting our efforts around promoting diversity at an industry level.

Michael:

Tell us about that Kristin, we know that IATA and you kindly spoke to these at the AGM is advancing certain initiatives, the recognition and awards that it does in support of gender diversity.

Michael:

Clearly, I certainly view the membership particularly carriers like Air France, Delta, KLM of SkyTeam very progressive. You look at some of the actions that Ben Smith took when he first arrived and Anne's promotion and her role, et cetera. But is SkyTeam itself doing anything on the gender diversity front? Or do you guys largely leave that up to the individual members?

Kristin Colvile:

Absolutely not. This actually started right before the crisis, but it went on the back burner for it for a short while. We worked with all of our members to get every SkyTeam airline to sign up for IATA's 25 by 2025 initiative.

Kristin Colvile:

That is the industry programme that asks airlines to increase their leadership by 25% in terms of gender diversity, or achieve 25% of their leadership team being female. Now they've had reasonable sign up for that, but we wanted to really get behind this as an alliance.

Kristin Colvile:

I spoke to every CEO individually. Again, this is just the example of the tremendous support that I've received around this topic. I will share with you that some of the conversations I had with the CEOs, will be some of the most memorable of my career, that the support [crosstalk 00:07:02].

Michael:

In what ways Kristin? What happened?

Kristin Colvile:

Let me give you an example and I shared this at IATA, the CEO of Saudia Airlines, Captain Koshy. He said to me "Kristin, I am so behind this, I am changing this, I am building diversity at Saudia Airlines, I want to be the change."

Kristin Colvile:

Those are his words. It was the same thing with all of the CEOs. They wanted to share with me the actions that they were taking. What I find particularly encouraging and it goes to your remarks the chat that we had earlier, that some of the largest CEOs and what they're doing.

Kristin Colvile:

This is not just about ticking the box and meeting numbers or a quota. This is about ensuring that their cultural fabric of the organization's supports diversity. That's what we need to see as an industry. Don't just tick the box. We have to see that cultural shift, where diversity is endemic across the industry. That's how we're going to attract more females.

Michael:

Let's talk about that specifically. The study that we did soaring through the glass ceiling suggested that,

it was a combination what we call structural and behavioural actions that really were together, having an impact on gender diversity.

Michael:

A structural action with things like mandating a diverse slate. It's something you can actually programme into the day to day activities of an organisation. Whenever you have a promotional opportunity, you mandate a diverse slate.

Michael:

A behavioural action is really what leaders do and cultural norms, and the softer things or the messages that are communicated, et cetera. We're clearly seeing action on the former on the structural side, how are you seeing action on the ladder? What is it that the CEOs are doing differently to change that cultural context that you're talking about?

Kristin Colvile:

It's an excellent question, it's the key question that we need to address as an industry. What we're seeing is that CEOs, they are walking the talk. And it needs to come from the top. They are actively addressing diversity at all levels in the organisation.

Kristin Colvile:

That may be increasing female leaders in the C-suite, increasing female leaders in senior management positions, addressing through training, through development programmes, unconscious biases, particularly at the hiring manager level.

Kristin Colvile:

Because unless we change that mindset, you're not going to break through those glass ceilings, or get enough diversity into your pipelines. They're cascading the need for diversity at all levels of the organisation. That's what's going to make a difference.

Michael:

What do you think has been the impact of COVID on the gender diversity agenda within the airlines, Kristin? There's two schools of thought around this, one is you got a bunch of early retirements happening, people saying okay I'm done. I'm going to take the early exit and those are largely men. That creates promotional opportunities for women inside the enterprise.

Michael:

On the other hand, there's some people that say hey, you know what? One of the first casualties of a crisis is things like gender diversity, like sustainability.

Michael:

It falls to the background and in fact, some people say it's been that COVID crisis has been harder on women, where they've actually maybe had to take care of a lot of things more on the home front with kids not attending school and the like. It's been doubling up the challenge. What have you seen that way within your membership, or industry overall?

Kristin Colvile:

If I recall going into this crisis, IATA set out and this was in Seoul in 2019 in the AGM, set out three priorities prior to the crisis. One of which was improving gender diversity, sustainability and infrastructure. Crisis happened and there's no doubt, where airlines were bare bone survival mode, gender diversity was not front, left and centre.

Kristin Colvile:

As we've come out of the crisis, it's absolutely gone back to those priorities in 2019. If anything, to exactly your point as we've seen a lot of organisational shifts, it's an opportunity for those candidate slates to then be much more diverse.

Kristin Colvile:

Giving women more opportunity to increase, to move up the ranks, to enter the aviation industry. Yes, we may have taken one step back, but I believe it's two steps forward in terms of diversity. Certainly sustainability, there's no question that, that is apparent. Really second only to survival and safety.

Michael:

You must see that in spades being based in Europe of course Kristin, in your situation, right?

Kristin Colvile:

Exactly. Yes.

Michael:

There have been several CEO appointments or presidential appointments of women of late in the industry. You think about Lynne Embleton at Aer Lingus, Christine Ourmieres at TAP.

Kristin Colvile:

TAP.

Michael:

Joanna Geraghty as president and maybe heir apparent at JetBlue. I think we're seeing some light at the end of the tunnel here, but I've been in this industry long enough to know that we've had flashes of sunshine like this, and then things go back and it's not sustained.

Michael:

How confident are you that this is real change? That maybe the broader wave that's going on in business and industry is going to also impact the airlines in a positive way?

Kristin Colvile:

I firmly believe this is all positive. There is great change happening in this industry. I certainly don't believe it's a flash in the plan, and that's evidenced by things like the IATA 25 and 2025 initiative that's structural.

Kristin Colvile:

There's a wow wave of airlines signing up for that. We should really be looking at who hasn't signed up for that, not who has because we've got the majority of airlines now. You see these shifts with more diversity in airline leadership teams.

Kristin Colvile:

That in itself is going to make a difference, because now we have female leaders that are showing us a path, they're showing us it can be done. We're not alone anymore. We're not isolated on our own. All of that is the start of the train if you like.

Kristin Colvile:

It's going to increase the desire for women who are coming out of university, or coming out of STEM subjects to turn their attention to the airline industry. That is good for everybody. I am 100% confident.

Michael:

You're confident. Good to hear. Let's turn that into a little bit your own story and your own actions Kristin. One of the things we find assuring is that when we are getting more women, is that women in the business go I can get there too.

Michael:

But also that those women are taking actions themselves to improve the set of women in the industry. Talk a little bit about what actions or positions you are taking as a leader of someone of significant influence, to enhance the situation for women in the business?

Kristin Colvile:

Michael, I believe that every female leader, particularly in more public global roles it is incumbent on us. It is our duty to support this industry to be champions of gender diversity. I believe I should be just like other leaders in similar positions.

Kristin Colvile:

We should be doing everything we can to promote diversity. Certainly wherever I have the opportunity, thank you for giving me this voice, it is to encourage airlines to support a greater focus on gender diversity.

Kristin Colvile:

At SkyTeam, we are putting in place a leadership development programme, a female leadership development programme. We're calling it RISE. Here we are taking a high potential female leader from every one of our 19 airlines, bringing them together on a one year programme, which every month will have a development initiative. Whether that's learning how to [crosstalk 00:15:53].

Michael:

They're not leaving their airlines though, they're staying within their airlines but participating in this?

Kristin Colvile:

They're staying within the airlines in this programme. We will bring people together either virtually or in person, depending on the curriculum. They will hear from our CEOs, they will hear from female leaders, they will have specific developments that we're investing in so that we create this next pool.

Kristin Colvile:

We help our airlines build diversity within their organisations. These women have their own network, which they can lean on and use in their career development as well. We're super excited.

Kristin Colvile:

It was supposed to start this year and we're pushing it now to the beginning of next year. And its sponsored by Anne Rigail of Air France and James Wang, the President of China Eastern Investment Company. That's great to have that level of executive support.

Michael:

And that's a SkyTeam initiative then?

Kristin Colvile:

That's a SkyTeam initiative.

Michael:

Super great to see Kristin.

Kristin Colvile:

It's about taking action. We can't just sign up for these initiatives. We have to do something ourselves.

Michael:

Kristin, let's turn this to your story. You obviously have hit the pinnacle in terms of being a CEO today. I'm sure there's more to come in your career, but talk a little bit about the enablers of your career?

Michael:

I ask you this, because what we find is as women like you, who've been successful talk about some of those stories, other women can learn from those stories and say this is what I need to do, or here's how I should think about my career, et cetera. What have been some of the key enablers that have helped you get to where you are today?

Kristin Colvile:

If I look at myself and we were talking a little bit about this earlier. Maybe I'm being a little bit controversial here, but we have to have more faith in ourselves.

Kristin Colvile:

We really need to take a couple of courage sometimes as women. There's all those of research that point to women not taking senior positions or not progressing in their career, because they don't believe they're 100 capable, guilty.

Michael:

Oh, really? Tell us what happened?

Kristin Colvile:

I've been nervous about taking new positions. I'm terrified sometimes. I can't do that. I'm not 100% ready. I can't do this piece. I can't do that piece. Research shows that, that's generally how we react. This is men who feel more confident that they can learn on the job, I know 50, 60% and I'm generalising here.

Kristin Colvile:

I know 50, 60% I'll learn the rest on the job. We as women have to be more like that and have to take a leap of faith and know that there's a support group around us now, that will help us get and acquire the knowledge whilst we're in that role.

Michael:

Did you feel any hesitancy around that when asked to take your current role?

Kristin Colvile:

For sure.

Michael:

Presumably you felt you had the encouragement support from the board to do it, so you took the plunge?

Kristin Colvile:

Exactly. I took the plunge and I know myself. This is why women are valuable in some respects and it's also what can hold us back. Because we don't necessarily generally have as much confidence as our male counterparts, we can overcompensate for that with over preparing.

Kristin Colvile:

I know I will spend evenings, I will research, I will read, I will study whatever it is I need to do, to acquire that confidence. But that in some ways can make females very strong employees, because we do, do that.

Michael:

Role models have been brought up as a key enabler. Have there been any in your life, male or female that have helped you get to where you're at Kristin and who were they?

Kristin Colvile:

Yeah, both. There's no question that we need mentors, we need sponsors. I've been very fortunate to have had both male and female throughout my career, that have really helped me advance, develop me and show me the way.

Kristin Colvile:

Again, I said this in IATA, I wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for Ed Bastian and the leadership team at Delta. There's a great example of weaving diversity into the fabric of Delta Airlines. They're pushing people like me, females like me out there, they're pushing us into roles that can make a difference and be role models.

Kristin Colvile:

Yes, I've been supported thankfully throughout my career and we need that. We need mentors. We need advocates to be in the halls and the rooms where those decisions are made, and that we have somebody who's speaking out for us and being our advocate. It's incredibly important.

Michael:

Sorry, go ahead Kristin.

Kristin Colvile:

Sorry, Michael. The other game changer for me personally in my career, and I want to get this out there because I encourage others. I helped form the first female network at Delta Airlines. We call it, she leads. That was transformational.

Kristin Colvile:

No longer was I the only one, you suddenly have peers around you who lift you up, who support you, who help one another succeed. That to me was game changing.

Michael:

Is that something you initiated, or were you suggested to do that? Or how did that come about Kristin?

Kristin Colvile:

It came from a number of different places at the same time, but it was actually proposed to me. I want you to get involved and address this. That came from a male leader at Delta Airlines.

Michael:

We found that many successful women are where they're at, because they also had to overcome a significant amount of adversity along the way. Someone said no, or didn't create the opportunity and built that conviction to go out and be successful and overcome those challenges. Have you faced anything like that along the way that you can relate to aspiring women in the industry?

Kristin Colvile:

I'm declaring my age here, but I was raised in the seventies and eighties. I can tell you that early on in my career as a marketing executive, I was told to wear skirts.

Michael:

My have we come a long way since.

Kristin Colvile:

My have we come a long way. I have three children, one of which is a daughter. I know I am absolutely 100% sure she is not going to be asked to wear skirts in her career, but that's what we have faced. My peer group have faced that in their careers.

Kristin Colvile:

I think what has been particularly challenging for many of us, and unfortunately is not very rarely the case today, and that is being the only female in rooms and with men.

Kristin Colvile:

That shouldn't be a circumstance that holds us back. But sometimes it hits you and it's a cultural guttural response to that, that its hard to deal with. Should I be here? Have I earned the right? I wasn't brought up to be in this position. I was brought up that we look up to men that they make the decisions. There's all of that and you have to push that down. You have to push it away. This is where courage comes in and overcome that.

Michael:

If you were to pass a message or two to aspiring women, aspiring female leaders, the next Kristin Colvile out there, what would you tell them? From leveraging the benefit of your experience to date, what advice and counsel would you give to aspiring women in this industry Kristin?

Kristin Colvile:

Join this industry. I love this industry. It's pioneering, it's innovative, it's complex, it's exciting. First of all, join this industry. That's a message that we have to get out, particularly where we're facing labour constrained markets.

Kristin Colvile:

Then I'd say, spread your wings. Don't be afraid, go and work in the operation, go and get as much range of experience that you can, because that will improve your confidence. That will enable you to overcome this need to be 100% perfect for a role before you take it. Just spread your wings.

Michael:

If you were to talk to women in markets that are maybe a little less ready for this. You mentioned the 19 members, I'm sure you related the story from the chief executive at Saudia. Not every place is like the United States, where these programmes are operative. There's a huge amount of support for them, et cetera.

Michael:

Turning to the women in more developing or challenged markets, where maybe they're a little behind on this, what advice would you have for them in that regard, where it's not so easy to do what you're saying?

Kristin Colvile:

I would offer them similar advice. But what I'm excited about is the RISE SkyTeam female leadership development programme, where we will bring female leaders from each airline together, where they can learn and share experiences with female leaders from other airlines.

Kristin Colvile:

For airlines that are perhaps less developed, or have less structural programmes that are in place in other countries, they can learn from that. Take that back to their leaders and influence change that way. I'm excited where this goes.

Michael:

Kristin you're feeling confident about the impact of these actions then?

Kristin Colvile:

Yes.

Michael:

Kristin, if you were to be able to wave your magic wand and change one thing about the airline industry that would allow it to attract and retain more women, what would it be? If overnight, you could change one thing about the airline industry, what would it be?

Kristin Colvile:

There's quite a bit. It would be centred on because I firmly believe this to increase the number of females in leadership positions. The airline industry compared to many other industries, has a very low percentage of females in particularly the CEO level.

Kristin Colvile:

I'm talking about on a global basis, there's less than 5% of female airline pilots and less than 2% of captains are females. There's very low percentages. The more that we do to increase female representation at those levels, the more we are going to see that wave of interest in the aviation industry.

Michael:

It's funny. It sounds it's a relatively simple thing. I remember going back, we did an interview with at the time, the CEO of Avianca was a gentleman called Hernan Rincom. He had come in from Microsoft, which was very progressive had a lot of women in senior roles.

Michael:

He inherited leadership team was pretty much all men at Avianca in Latin America imagine. He changed it to be 50, 50 in terms of his direct reports and he did it within a year.

Michael:

I said, "Hernan how did you go about doing that? That must have been overly complicated." He goes "No, I just did it. I just appointed the women and we did it." Sometimes a bold action like that can send you huge messages, right?

Kristin Colvile:

Exactly. Exactly. It can be done. We've seen airlines who have that. You look at Air France and they have nine females on their board.

Michael:

It's remarkable. It's good to see.

Kristin Colvile:

It can be done. But there are really encouraging signs. Korean Airlines, 35% of their management are now females.

Michael:

Which one is that?

Kristin Colvile:

Korean Airlines.

Michael:

Korean Airlines. We did find in the study, that one of the singularly most impactful measures is literally just that, the number of women in senior leadership roles. If you can actually make the pivot on that, you're halfway there.

Michael:

All these other actions are helpful, but that thing because you can also do all the other things. And if you don't have that impact, then people start to question and doubt the validity or sincerity of something.

Kristin Colvile:

Exactly. And then they come they don't find a female friendly environment, they face bias and they leave.

Michael:

And they leave.

Kristin Colvile:

We've seen research where there is a high number of females who want to leave because they are not finding female friendly environments. But having more senior leaders being females will change that.

Michael:

I'm going to ask you one more question to prognosticate a little bit back to your Homeland in the U.S. I'd love to ask this question relative to gender diversity, which is we've never had a female president of the United States and we've never had a female major airline CEO in the United States, which will happen first.

Kristin Colvile:

First of all, the U.S. is not my homeland.

Michael:

I understand, but relative to the carrier you came.

Kristin Colvile:

I'm British and we have had a female prime minister.

Michael:

You have.

Kristin Colvile:

I think you'll see both. I'm confident you'll see both.

Michael:

Diplomatic answer. Kristin, we're we're up against the clock. It's clear that very wise decision on the part of the board of SkyTeam to put you in charge. You're doing a great job for the alliance, but also advancing the cause of women in the industry. It's clear that you are a valued a member of that sorority that's driving change in the industry. Thank you for all that you're doing.

Kristin Colvile:

[inaudible 00:30:44] Michael.

Michael:

Thank you for taking the time on CAPA Live today with us. We wish you a great holiday season and a terrific 2022 to SkyTeam.

Kristin Colvile:

Likewise, Michael. Thank you for the opportunity.

Michael:

Of course.

Kristin Colvile:

Take care. Bye.

Michael:

Take care.

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