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Women are still underrepresented in leadership roles. Executive Sally Susman hopes to change that.

Women are still underrepresented in leadership roles. Executive Sally Susman hopes to change that.

Pfizer

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Pfizer

Women make up 50.8 percent of the population in the U.S. and earn more than 57 percent of undergraduate degrees and 59 percent of master's degrees. Yet they make up only a small percentage of CEOs at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies, according to research from the Harvard Business Review.

While it's clear women have the skills needed to be effective leaders, there's a lack of opportunity available. A 2018 report called Women in the Workplace found that only 38 percent of companies set targets for gender representation.

Seeing women in leadership positions is not only important for representation, but it also helps inspire other women. Eighty-six percent of U.S. women report that seeing other women in leadership positions breaks down the barrier to imagining themselves in those positions, according to a KPMG Women's Leadership Study.

One such leader paving the way for women is Sally Susman, Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Pfizer. Susman, whose experience spans over three decades, previously held top roles at Estée Lauder and American Express. She also held appointed positions in the Clinton and Obama Administrations and serves as co-chair of the board of the International Rescue Committee and on the board of WPP plc, an advertising and marketing company based in the U.K.


Susman's experience puts her in the position to inspire future leaders and help them reach their goals. To do so, she partnered with Upworthy to share what she calls "Simple Truths," or advice she's learned throughout her 30-plus years in business and politics, to help others succeed.

Over the years, Susman learned that people matter most. She said one of her proudest accomplishments has been building a "fantastic team" of "talented, dedicated, and purpose-driven people" at Pfizer.

Susman also shared the importance of resilience, a trait she considers to be ageless.

She stressed seizing the opportunities that come from a new beginning.

Her last piece of advice: know what works best for you.

As a business leader, engaged citizen, and influencer, Susman is passionate about supporting women at all levels of their career. She can be found on LinkedIn where she frequently shares stories, advice and inspiration.

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Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

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Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

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Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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