"USA is a country of a lot of opportunity, but it requires a lot of unity and mobilization.”
Juliet Scott-Croxford currently serves as CEO for the media brand Worth, responsible for leading its transformation from a print magazine to a content platform that focuses on ‘Worth beyond Wealth.’
Building around a mission that a person’s worth is more than a person’s financial wealth offered a compelling approach for a media company. All media has been in the process of handling the rapid shift from print to digital. This digital advertising space poses a whole new set of challenges. All of the challenges were made even more complicated by the pandemic that eliminated an important live event revenue vertical. “We flipped into more of a mindset of experimentation rather than being paralyzed by it.”
The pandemic necessitated outside-of-the-box thinking that has benefitted the company. This includes building out the Women in Worth audience with a subscription model and finding new ways to connect.
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SPEAKER
Juliet Scott-Croxford
Chief Executive Officer
Worth Media
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darsie: (00:07)
Hello everyone and welcome back to SALT Talks. My name is John Darsie, I'm the Managing Director of SALT, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance, technology, and public policy. SALT Talks are a digital interview series that we started in 2020 with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And our goal on these SALT Talks is the same as our goal at our SALT Conference Series which is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts as well as provide a platform for big ideas that we think are shaping the future. And we're very excited today to welcome Juliet Scott-Croxford to SALT Talks. Juliet currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer for media brand, Worth, responsible for leading its transformation from print magazine to a content platform that focuses on worth beyond wealth and inspires and informs an affluent, influential and successful community of individuals to be their best selves.
John Darsie: (01:05)
Juliet began her career as a management consultant, learning to code at IBM Consulting Services, before focusing on business strategy and organizational change, working with clients to solve complex business problems across a variety of sectors through the use of technology. Her experience in this area took her to a role at Boxwood, which is now part of KPMG, where she worked as a senior consultant in strategy and business change with a focus on the media and technology sector. After working as a consultant with Guardian News & Media on its print to digital strategy, in 2012 she was confirmed in a permanent role to lead strategy and operations for the Guardian Media Group’s commercial division based in London. Juliet joined the Guardian’s executive committee in 2015 and, as Chief Delivery Officer, was responsible for the strategic implementation of the global three year turnaround plan and subsequent transformation and growth for the Guardian’s US operation, relocating to New York in 2016.
John Darsie: (02:08)
Hosting today's talk is Anthony Scaramucci, the Founder and Managing Partner of Sky Bridge Capital, a global alternative investment firm. Anthony is also the Chairman of SALT, and with that I'll turn it over to Anthony for the interview.
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:21)
Well, thank you John, and Juliet, what an introduction that was, right? That was pretty good. Did your mom write that? Did John read it the way your mom wrote it, because I thought it was a fabulous introduction.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (02:32)
I know. It's a bit long isn't it? Thank you John for doing that.
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:35)
No, I like it. I want people to know...
John Darsie: (02:37)
She's done a lot of stuff, Anthony. She's very decorated.
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:39)
I want people to know how accomplished she is and what a visionary she is, it's a good backdrop for the foundational aspects of the interview. But before we get into the where you are now at Worth and what you're doing what your vision is I want you to talk a little bit more about your past. What can we learn about you Juliet that we wouldn't find on a Wikipedia page or something that John didn't describe to our listeners?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (03:07)
Well, I guess professionally, I had the nickname Velvet Hammer. That was that was one that hasn't been out there before but that was one of my nicknames in my previous company.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:22)
And this is because you have a wonderful way of smacking people around? Or what is it?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (03:28)
I think it was a good way of graceful change.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:33)
Graceful change. Yes. It's an elegant way that you...
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (03:37)
Or put it this way. Get shit done but do it in a way that brings people along with you.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:43)
So you're better at firing people than George Clooney was in that movie where he traveled around the earth firing people. Is that what you're saying?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (03:49)
It wasn't just firing people, it's bringing people along on the journey that you need to take them on.
Anthony Scaramucci: (03:57)
Okay, so I've been fired more than once in my life. Well, one time I got fired from the White House. You may not have known that, I mean, that was sort of a private firing, it wasn't really that substantially publicized. And then I got fired 30 years ago, February 1, 1991, so it'll be my 30th anniversary being fired from Goldman Sachs. I was 27 years old, it was brutal firing. Then ridiculously, I got rehired in the Goldman Sachs, separate story. So go ahead, I want you to fire me, go ahead. Give me the Velvet Hammer, go ahead, I'm sitting here. Let's see if you can do it, let's see if you can do it in a more nice way than John Kelly did when I was in the White House, so go ahead, Hi Juliet.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (04:38)
Hi Anthony, I'm not firing you on on our live broadcast.
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:43)
You're not firing, okay so that's why you're the Velvet Hammer. See that? You're going to for the more subtle approach is that correct?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (04:49)
Yeah exactly. But it's more in reference to I think being able to set a goal and bring people along on that journey and take a business on that journey I think, that that was more the reference to it. But yeah, it's not necessarily firing people. And then another thing that I should mention is in like eight to nine weeks, I'm having a baby, which not many people know about because we're suddenly in this virtual world and unless you say something, you don't know. And we haven't got a name yet so maybe you can help me with that.
Anthony Scaramucci: (05:25)
Well, I mean I guessed appropriately and correctly that you're having a boy so I'm hoping that Anthony is at the top of the list but I mean we could work on that.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (05:36)
Maybe The Mooch.
Anthony Scaramucci: (05:36)
Could you imagine calling The Mooch Scott-Croxford, I know that would really go over.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (05:40)
Bit of a mouthful.
Anthony Scaramucci: (05:40)
Well, exactly that would go over well in the Scott-Crochett. Okay, so let's switch gears abruptly to Worth magazine and congratulations on baby number two, god bless you, and obviously we're here at Sky we're huge fans of yours and your family, we're wishing you nothing but great health and success.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (05:59)
Thank you.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:00)
But let's talk about Worth because you have this storied career, you have an eye for things, everything that you've touched frankly has been transformed. You joined Worth because you saw something, you've gotten this thing that you've seen in your vision has been interrupted by the pandemic, so you're an entrepreneur. No whining, you're adapting and pivoting. So tell us that narrative, tell us why you joined Worth, what you saw, what you see now, and where are things going?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (06:28)
Yeah, and I think that there was a few things that I saw and the first one obviously being our Chairman and Investor Jim McCann, who you know.
Anthony Scaramucci: (06:37)
Yes.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (06:37)
He is a visionary and has an incredible story, and I know he's been on these talks prior to that so I mean for me, that was clearly an attraction in that you work for people that you think you can learn and develop from. And so Jim was one of those people. Coupled with I think the brand name Worth, that really intrigued me just in terms of what's the meaning and what's the meaning of Worth beyond your financial worth, which I thought was quite relevant in the society that we live in today, just thinking about your social and human and political capital as well as your human capital, as well as your financial capital. And then the other thing is I like a challenge so I think I saw a brand that had potential. I quite like a turnaround project or something that I can kind of see, "Okay, here are the challenges, I've got some kind of understanding of where the media industry is heading and [crosstalk 00:07:45].
Anthony Scaramucci: (07:44)
Not to interrupt but let's discuss the challenges openly because I think many people in media have similar challenges so here are the challenges, what are the challenges, Juliet?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (07:54)
I mean challenge number one was consumers changing their habits when it comes to consumption of media and consumption of reading. So you probably, well, maybe you're a bad example, but a lot of people stopped reading newspapers on a daily basis and they were using their iPhones or their iPads or their mobile devices to consume content. So that was one kind of change that that media industries had to get to grips with. The other was the impact on the advertising industry. So the value of advertising in print was much higher than in digital. Then when you shift to digital there was then a massive introduction of the tech platforms, Google, Facebook, they started hoovering up all the ad dollars so 99 cents in every dollar goes to the big tech platform, so the other media entities are sort of scrambling around for the rest.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (08:52)
And then a lot of media industries particularly legacy ones had a massively high cost base so they were sort of under challenge around their products, they were under challenge around how they were making their revenue and they were also challenged by the size of their cost space which is obviously kind of built up. So anyone going through a transformation had to kind of think about all of those three things I think.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:14)
Okay, so to some people, some of that stuff frankly is insurmountable. You correctly assess me for being the dinosaur that I actually am so I read everything in hard print and I like to see where the editors put things in the newspapers, I'm always buying the Fred Flintstone newspaper as opposed to looking at it on the tablet. So an insurmountable challenge. I'm sorry, you're going to say something.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (09:38)
I didn't put you in that category because you're a dinosaur, you're a media junkie I think. And so you love consuming content right?
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:48)
Look at the velvetness of this, that's very good. That's like a way of velvetizing something, right?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (09:49)
Yes, exactly.
Anthony Scaramucci: (09:54)
Yeah, that's very well said. And I'll take it as a compliment even though I know that I'm a dinosaur, and I'm also male, pale, and stale which I want to talk to you about in a second but let's go to these challenges. So how do you overcome these challenges? And again, some may see them as insurmountable in the media industry. You don't. Why not?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (10:23)
I think... Look, I love change and I thrive on that. I think a big part of them not being insurmountable is the way you lead and the way you set your culture and approach to change. So I think the media companies that have adapted really well are the ones that have stayed nimble. A lot of them have shrunk, which unfortunately has had impacts. But I think a lot of people have recognized, you could no longer set a three or five or five year financial plan. It's like, "Okay, let's be clear on where we want to get to in the next three years but actually let's break that down and think about what we're going to do quarter by quarter and then the outcomes that we're seeing helping us get to our overarching goal."
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (11:08)
So a lot of it I think was about mindset and mentality and culture and approach to some of these things, which isn't too dissimilar to how an entrepreneur or a startup would approach something where you need to have that mindset of being a bit more scrappy, a bit more bootstrapped, but also the clarity and I think probably the conviction to say ,and the ambition of, "Right, this is what we're going to achieve and this is where we're going to go." But also be prepared to make difficult decisions along the way, which unfortunately is attacking yout cost base as well.
Anthony Scaramucci: (11:41)
Okay, and so you're doing that successfully, you got off to a strong start, then you got hit with the pandemic. And so how have you adapted and pivoted during the time of COVID-19.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (11:56)
Yeah. I mean, it's been really, really tough. Like a lot of businesses, we transitioned from magazine to multi-channel platform, one of our highest growing channels was the live event space. And obviously sort of come February, March last year we had to flip everything we were doing to our digital platform. Thankfully, we had invested and built up a digital platform and we'd seen strong growth in our digital platform, so we like over 130,000 monthly unique visitors which has grown significantly. And we knew that through this time, we still wanted to deepen the engagement and the relationship that we had with our community and grow it. So we were like, "Okay. Well, let's move all of our programming online and then let's really rethink the content that we're publishing so that it connects with the community that we are engaging," and that's what we did.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (12:55)
Some things worked, some things didn't. We're definitely going into this year being a bit more pointed and focused on the things that we want to continue. But we essentially just picked up our live event program and flipped that to our online channel. And then at the same time, launched a couple of new revenue streams so our women and work membership was one, we also done this books deal with a book publisher recognizing that a lot of our community want to publish their work. So we just sort of kind of I would say flipped into more of a mindset of experimentation, rather than be paralyzed by it, and I think that was probably one of the the sort of benefits of navigating through it.
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:41)
And I think the point of everything, and correct me if I'm wrong though, is that the challenges have also presented opportunities for you because you probably are now thinking way more outside your comfort zone and the box, so to speak, than you were prior, right?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (13:58)
Totally.
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:58)
So give us one example where you say. "Okay. Well, I wouldn't have thought of that but for COVID-19 and it is leading me into a very positive revenue area."
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (14:09)
Yeah. I mean, I think the Women in Worth initiative and platform is a great example of that. We had quite an established engaged community already. We were thinking about subscription but it flipped us into a membership model much quicker than we would have done otherwise. It's also afforded us to, I think, connect and build a network with people we wouldn't have necessarily reached before. And you may find the same, I think a lot of people are at home and are available, so being able to reach out to certain speakers and writers has been great. The book piece was interesting because we basically started a book club online which was like, there's a load of people publishing their work but they're not being able to do the touring that they would have been able to do when you launch a book. So we we were like, "Well, we'll create something for you," and out of that came this strategic partnership that we've done with forefront books who distribute through Simon Schuster, to enable people that want to be an author and publish their work to do it on our platform so we can market it for them and they can also get all of the distribution and all of that at the same time. So there's some stuff like that which is like, that wouldn't have come had we been continuing the way we were.
Anthony Scaramucci: (15:26)
Okay. Well, I have a great book that I'm going to be writing and publishing, How to Beat Up on Blonde Millennial Co-hosts, and so I'm going to publish that through you guys, okay? I've been working on the manuscript every day.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (15:38)
I'm going to follow you up with you after this [inaudible 00:15:41].
Anthony Scaramucci: (15:40)
I'll follow up because it's going to be a good revenue source for you and I. I want to go to this statement that you made on a business leaders podcast and you made a point about transitioning Worth from pale, male, and stale. Now there's one thing I can say about Jim McCann, who I've known for 30 years, okay, he is pale, male, and stale, I'm just going to be honest with you, okay? But so am I, okay, so it's like a black pot calling a black kettle, black. So what did you mean by that and how are you increasing diversity engagement in addition to the power forward conference?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (16:17)
So I meant by that the magazine because essentially, the core product was a magazine. And the diversity of our writers and our content and sort of what we stood for, it was quite stale. It didn't necessarily appeal to a cross-section of what I would term a successful influential audience. So one of the sort of early things that I recognized was actually the importance of expanding the breadth of what we cover, but also diversifying our audience. And in order to do that, we established the Women and Worth community, so that was all around how do we activate and accelerate progress for women and minorities, whether it's access to the board, access to capital, access to investment, equity, and pay, equal opportunities. And men are important in that conversation, so that that's the other thing I want to say was this isn't like a men aren't... We need advocates and we need more than allies in this conversation and this is more than it's not just the right thing to do.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (17:40)
We know that it's better for the bottom line, we know diversity greater diversity of thought, greater diversity at the board level drives to better outcomes. So really that is the intention, and then unfortunately the impact on women over the past 12 months and the number of women leaving the workforce has been devastating. So it was really a recognition of, here is a print product, we need to diversify how we're reaching our audience but we also need to diversify our audience at the same time, and the way to do that is through, who is in our team, who is writing our content, and who is speaking on our platform.
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:21)
And that's been successful. I mean, I think it has. I mean, I get your email traffic, I get the availability of your presentations but also the content that you're producing. And so now, let me just fast forward, a little bit of a hypothetical question. We're out of the pandemic and it's a year or two from now and you're setting your goals, where is Worth and what is Worth doing?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (18:49)
I'd like to think... The other thing I just want to add to that male, pale, stale comment is the need for brands, including ourselves, to emulate your target audience. And if we're trying to connect with a successful, socially conscious, affluent audience, actually if you look at the demographic in the US, that's changing significantly. So really, it's a, if you're trying to reach this audience, then you need to emulate that yourself so that's kind of the key thing. Fast forward a few years from now, I mean I think, really we're striving to be a global media, an event and content platform that has an incredibly engaged audience focused on the key topics that we speak to around Worth beyond wealth. And I think there's a lot of opportunity to diversify and build out new franchises. I think the entrepreneur and founder space is very interesting and and really sort of thinking about the wealth transition in this country over the next three, five, 10 years. So that, for me, is exciting.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (20:02)
I think we should explore e-commerce opportunities, I think we should explore physical products as well as content and events. And I also think just kind of thinking about where does the event industry go from here is also another interesting one I think it will move to a hybrid model, I'm not convinced it will go back to where we were. So I think the use of technology with physical and how does that mesh together I think is a very interesting space to be in.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:37)
You are from the United Kingdom.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (20:41)
Yes.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:42)
And how long have you lived in the United States?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (20:46)
It will be five years in August.
Anthony Scaramucci: (20:49)
Okay. And so the first... I mean you visited the United States, I'm making assumptions now forgive me. I'm assuming you visited the United States prior to that but that was the first time you became a resident of the US. Is that fair to say?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (21:02)
Yeah. My grandfather was American so I visited a lot as a kid. And then my role at the Guardian I had a global role so I came over to New York a lot on business and then I came over an assignment in August of 2016 and then have lived here ever since.
Anthony Scaramucci: (21:21)
Okay. So I want to ask a question about your observation of the United States over the last five years is what?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (21:36)
It's interesting because I've just lived through the last four years of the Trump Administration. I think it's a it's a country of opportunity but I think it's also a country that requires a lot of unity and I think now is the time to mobilize as a nation and not as separate parties around some real systemic issues. I think that there's a slight identity crisis that the nation has gone through, but I also think it's an incredible country that offers a lot of opportunity, which is one of the reasons why I'm here.
Anthony Scaramucci: (22:24)
Tell me about this identity crisis, if you don't mind. So what is the identity crisis?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (22:31)
I think the interesting thing that we've seen over the past year, take the first week of this year for example and what happened in the Capitol. There was a lot of people that said, "This is not the America we know." And then there's a lot of conversations I was having in the background which is like actually it is, this is the America we know and we have to acknowledge that, and we have to recognize that, and we have to see that in order to get to some of the core systemic issues that still manifest and have built themselves up over many years here, and the racial inequities included, in order to move forward. And I think there are... I mean COVID has obviously demonstrated the wealth disparities in this country. The leadership obviously has been incredibly challenged and so I think there's just like a number of things that have come together in one go that I think for a lot of people are sort of doing quite a lot of soul searching and looking at, "Okay, who are we, what do we stand for, and what should we be going forward?" That's a jumbled response but I just think there's so many things.
Anthony Scaramucci: (23:55)
I think it's well said because I obviously lived here for 57 years, less my half a year in London. I would say that my identity crisis that I see is this is America that's transforming and there's a group of White Americans, if I'm going to be very candid, that don't really like the transformation and have decided that they are going to have this expiation of their discontent with that transformation to be expressed in the ways that they're expressing it. That could either be in social media, that could be in protest movements, that could be in, frankly, an insurrection in the nation's capital. But, by and large, the country is moving towards trying to fix racial inequities that started several hundred years ago, and what you find in a country like this is that, any time that black and brown people are advancing, there's some type of explosion in White America, and so that's just the fact. So I don't know how we're going to put that down over long periods of time but we sort of need to if we're all going to go forward together and see each other as equals.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:06)
We'll have to see if we can we can do that Juliet, but I'm super thrilled to have you here in the country and uh doing all these great entrepreneurial things that you're doing. And I was just kidding about beating up on blonde millennials because I actually need the blonde millennial for ratings, you know what I mean, so we're not going to write that book that I was just teasing about.
John Darsie: (25:25)
I already already submitted the hr complaint Anthony so you're not going wiggle out of that one.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:30)
Well Juliet, I'm sure you'll be amused by this and horrified by this but I'll just let you know in front of our SALT Cast viewers that I am the Head of HR at Sky Bridge, okay? I am the head of union capital.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (25:43)
That doesn't surprise me, Anthony. [inaudible 00:25:44] scary.
Anthony Scaramucci: (25:44)
Of course. So if there's a complaint or there's an issue or there's a slight born from political incorrectness, the complaints have to come to me, so look at that already in my inbox from the blonde millennial as a complaint that he was harassed here on the SALT Talk, it's horrifying. But with that, I want to transition over to John Darsie because in order to keep our ratings going, we have to have these young fresh faces and so John you have the floor, okay? I'm sure I missed important things that need to be talked about so I'm going to pass it over to you now.
John Darsie: (26:21)
All right, fantastic, I appreciate it. I'm contractually obligated to get at least one third of the air time on every episode so thank you for meeting my contract Anthony, I appreciate that.
Anthony Scaramucci: (26:30)
He was asking he was asking for two-thirds Juliet, you know how these millennials are, okay? But I pushed back hard. Go ahead Darsie.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (26:39)
And you got the mic.
John Darsie: (26:40)
Absolutely. Well, we love working with you guys at Worth and I know we collaborated a lot on the 2019 SALT Conference and look forward to collaborating on future events once those become possible again, hopefully in the latter part of 2021, we have some announcements coming out on hopefully our event schedule for the second half of the year. Just wanted to start off on that note, and as a thought leadership brand that's in some ways similar to Worth, we've wrestled with the same issues and one question I have for you is, how are you planning... I know you've made a transition you helped with the Guardian's transition to a more digital first operation and you're helping Worth with that transition as well. But how do you continue to stay sort of at the forefront of innovation with platforms like TikTok and other ultra short form content? What we think of as short form now, which might have been Facebook and Instagram, a few years ago, now is condensed into 30 seconds. We had two of the top TikTok personalities on SALT Talks a couple days ago, Josh Richards and Griffin Johnson. How do you continue to stay at the forefront of that and communicate with a younger audience in a way that's native to them?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (27:47)
Yeah, it's a really good question. I think there's a sort of higher order question which is, our partners and brands, how do you create experiences for brands that are valuable in an online world? And then coupled with, where is your community or where is your target audience and how are you going to reach them? We're not currently on TikTok but I would say I think it's a misnomer that it's all Gen Z's actually there's a lot of... I actually think it's an incredibly influential platform and I have a good friend that works there. We are on other social channels and we do really look at the analytics of where our community comes from, how do they find our content, and what do they read, and what do they then click through to?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (28:41)
And it's all of those insights that help inform for us, "Okay, what content do we produce next? Where should we find more of our audience and how do we reach and engage them in a bigger way?" So I think it's difficult if your business model is solely reliant on those platforms. But if they are helping you find your audience then I think you should totally go with it. I mean, I'm just generally interested in tech platforms anyway so I would just sort of be on them and thinking about them in that way.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (29:20)
I think the other interesting thing John is the... What's the notion of social interactions in a digital format? So not just kind of Zoom, but how do you really do business development, how do you really network and build relationships? And there's some interesting new platforms that we've sort of played around with. One is Sophya, which is, the founders have developed this through Harvard innovation Lab. And it's a really interesting platform to go in and it's based on proximity so you walk up to someone in a room or in a virtual bar and then you come on and you start talking to each other and then you move away and they go away and you meet someone else. So I just think that whole 3D world of not only... I think we're all missing face-to-face connections but how do you create those in an online world is quite interesting.
John Darsie: (30:12)
Yeah. I want to continue to talk about that because I'm interested in a lot of the same things, and as event organizers, I think we think about these things on a professional level as well. There's a platform Clubhouse for example that just got another big round of funding from Andreessen Horowitz, which again, they're trying to reimagine social interaction in a digital world, and media in a world where people are craving some level of social interaction without being able to physically meet. Have you studied Clubhouse and what do you make of that model of sort of drop in podcasts and conversations in a topical format?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (30:46)
Yeah. I'm on it and I know a couple of the investors fairly well. I think it's really interesting, I think it's an interesting model. I mean, right now it's audio only, right? So I think it'd be interesting to see where they go on the video side of things. It's very much community driven but it's also kind of I think very much born out of Silicon Valley as well so you kind of get a certain group of people in a certain conversation. But I think it's an interesting innovation and I think the growth of that community is impressive in the last 12 months. I think it's just understanding, I mean, I'm not sure what the revenue model is yet for them because there's no advertising, there's no subscription. I imagine, they'll go down a subscription route I think. But yeah, I mean, I've been on a couple of the conversations. I think for me, it's like that all of these platforms are vying for your time and we're all quite time poor, and I think also there's a huge fatigue as well, right? I mean if you're on Zoom all day and then you're going on Clubhouse in the evening, I mean, I don't necessarily have the time or the energy to do that all day, every day.
John Darsie: (32:06)
Yeah. We felt that. As we explored our sort of virtual event calendar for 2020, we started just thinking about if we were in the shoes of members of our community, what do they have time for and what do they really want? There's so many webinars and virtual events that are out there. So we tried to come up with a list of SALT Talks that really cut to the heart of certain issues and weren't just a a time suck on people. I think it's hard in a digital format to get people to tune into a three-day conference from nine to five, the way they would engage at SALT Conference in the traditional sense in a way. But how do you foster those social connections and interactions? Jim McCann, your chairman, who's spoken on SALT Talks and been to our assault conferences, he talked about how there's just this innate human need for those social interactions and connections and so how do you think, you talked about the hybrid event format sort of taking over post COVID where you have in-person gatherings that are also informed by the digital piece, what do you think those hybrid events will look like in a way that'll be able to engage people that aren't there in person?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (33:18)
I think there'll be a lot more intimacy. I personally can see you know when physical events come back, I can't quite see the massive large conferences in the way that we've had them before, so I think the hybrid is a combination of more internet connections with your sort of most loyal community and people and then overlay that with some of the stuff that we've been doing virtually but also build on it. I think what's interesting is how you swap business cards and really that that bit when you go to a conference and you come back with a stack of business cards and it's like what's the equivalent of that? But I mean, I think people are going to be really hungry for personal connection but I think it's going to take a while to kind of bounce back to the way that it was. And I don't necessarily think it's going to be at the scale that we saw. And I also just think on things like travel, I think we're going to see personal travel and family travel come back much quicker than business travel, personally. I just think we've sort of demonstrated to an extent that we can be productive and do a lot of things at home.
John Darsie: (34:35)
Yeah and you took a whole generation of people... I mean, at Sky Bridge, we did some teleconferencing and video conferencing but it wasn't a core part of our business operations and now you have an entire workforce that's extremely literate on teleconferencing and being able to foster those connections without having to jump on a plane. But we definitely agree that there's huge pent-up demand for that in-person interaction. I think almost there was too many conferences pre-COVID, we started the SALT Conference, Anthony did, I wasn't at Sky Bridge at the time, in 2009, and there was at that time post-crisis there was a dearth of conferences but you've seen just an explosion in events and I think this COVID period sort of cleansed that overpopulation of events and people are going to be sort of wanting to get back in the groove now that we haven't had those interpersonal interactions.
Anthony Scaramucci: (35:22)
If John was around, Juliet, he would have started the Pepper Conference. You see that? Maybe we need to have some SALT and Pepper to make it more diverse.
John Darsie: (35:30)
We need a little spice, Anthony.
Anthony Scaramucci: (35:31)
We're working, maybe we'll have the Cayenne Pepper Conference, you never know. Okay, keep going John. You're doing a good job John, keep going.
John Darsie: (35:37)
Thank you I appreciate it, HR Director. So in terms of the audience for Worth, you guys serve a very affluent audience. I know that traditionally, your core demographic at Worth. What have you noticed about what that demographic of people is looking for today whether it be in terms of lifestyle, whether it be in terms of solutions to meet their financial needs, what has the COVID-19 pandemic done for general preferences and values among ultra high net worth individuals?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (36:08)
Yeah. I think even pre-COVID, we recognized that our audience had a hunger for not only sort of nice things to buy and how to spend their wealth, but it was about the higher order impact they could have on the community and on the world around them and their values. So we'd already... and that sort of reflected in our mission of Worth beyond wealth. So even pre-COVID, we recognize actually we're not trying to just reach a wealthy audience but a wealthy audience that's in tune with how to lead and live a life with purpose and how to use their wealth and success in positive ways and for the greater good. So that was kind of our thesis and then within that, we know that things like health and innovation and well-being and mental health are really important for this audience. Certainly over the last 12 months, we saw a very clear shift around giving strategies and the way that donors and philanthropists thought about giving during this time and I think we saw many philanthropists come together to help their community directly and that realized that sort of expertise resided in their own communities.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (37:47)
And some of the previous things as a foundation or as a philanthropist that they've sort of set their sights on very quickly shifted to meeting the immediate needs and services that arise through the pandemic. So I think there was a definite shift in terms of things like giving and the sort of philanthropic strategies that they would they were taking and also seeing a mindset shift in that in terms of well, is it going to the places that really need it. But then that said, on the flip side, we know luxury and nice things are still important so we also recognize things like how you travel now, it might be how you travel sustainably, and what you buy and things that you have in your home are all still really relevant. So I think we sort of tried to sort of really sort of broaden their content strategy to cover obviously things like wealth creation and business innovation but then impact philanthropy, health and some of these higher order questions as well as well, how do you live your best life and how do you enjoy your best life?
John Darsie: (39:00)
Yeah. It's very well said. The World Economic Forum is calling it the great reset and that's not just in terms of the way we think about investing but also the way we think about our lives in general, so I think it's very well said. Juliet, thanks so much for joining us.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (39:13)
And they're so intertwined, John.
John Darsie: (39:15)
Say it again?
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (39:15)
Sorry, I was just going to say, they're so intertwined as well. There was a day when we used to talk about your business and your personal life and it's just like well that's one thing.
John Darsie: (39:25)
Well, that's definitely out the window now as we try to find a room in our house. I have young kids as well trying to find a room in our house where they're not going to break in during our Zoom sessions. So definitely no separating the two at this point. Anthony had an infamous appearance on, what was it, MSNBC Anthony...
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (39:40)
I saw.
John Darsie: (39:40)
... where his his uh handsome son, James, came in and bashed over the Santa Claus. Anthony, you're muted by the way. He came in and bashed over his Santa Claus.
Anthony Scaramucci: (39:50)
He did that, he muted me. He karate chopped everything.
John Darsie: (39:53)
I saw it.
Anthony Scaramucci: (39:55)
Then he told me I shouldn't be working on a Saturday. He told me to stop working as he was pulling me out of the seat. So what are you going to do? It happens but here's the thing, you have a brilliant vision for your business and you don't need to hear compliments from us but I'm going to just say something to you that I enjoy about your personality is you're willing to embrace change and also the itinerant risks that come with change, and I think that is super important for the young people that listen in on these SALT Talks that if you really want to advance, you've got to take the risk, the rocket has to misfire or explode as it's leaving the launch pad and then you got to go back to the drawing bed and make it better. And I think you've demonstrated that throughout your whole career so I'm really looking forward to the next iteration of Worth and I'm also looking forward to Worth's involvement in SALT.
Anthony Scaramucci: (40:53)
And I'm going to make a suggestion, okay, and I would love to have you host a few of these things and you'll probably have to bring along the sidekick John Darsie but we would love to have you host a few SALT talks and we can come up with a guest curation list that suits you. And perhaps it could be some of these power forward people. Just throwing that out there.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (41:16)
I'd love to. I think it's a great idea. I love working with you guys it's always an absolute pleasure to chat to you both. So I've got a couple of follow-ups now, I've got that and the book.
Anthony Scaramucci: (41:28)
Yeah. I think the book could sell though but by the way, you know what I mean, because there's a lot of hostility for middle-aged men towards Millennials, and I think-
John Darsie: (41:37)
Juliet, we could also use an HR Director if you guys have outsourced HR or anything like that at Worth, we could use that as well.
Anthony Scaramucci: (41:45)
Something to think about, Juliet. See that, these are brand new business lines for Worth Magazine. Thank you so much again for being such a great partner and thank you for joining us on SALT.
Juliet Scott-Croxford: (41:59)
Thank you. Likewise thanks guys, see you soon.
John Darsie: (41:59)
And thank you everyone for joining today's SALT Talk with Juliet Scott-Croxford of Worth. Just a reminder if you missed any part of this episode or any of our previous episodes that you want to watch, you can access our entire archive of SALT Talks at SALT.org/talks/archive and you can sign up to watch all of our upcoming talks live at SALT.org/talks. Please follow us on social media. We're on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and we stream some of these episodes on those social media outlets so if you forget to tune in to our Youtube channel when each episode goes live, you can potentially watch them on those outlets so please follow us there.
John Darsie: (42:38)
Please tell your friends about SALT Talks, we love growing our community. The pandemic has given us a chance to reach an entirely new audience by having a digital series like SALT Talks as we've been gratified by that and look forward to continuing to build our community. And on behalf of the entire SALT team this is John Darsie signing off for today. We'll see you back here again tomorrow on SALT Talks