Welcome back to Curious Monica, where we
learn how to thrive in different jobs. And oh how nice it is to be
back in the studios with you. Thanks for your patience as we took a break in
May due to our busy projects at InnovatorsBox. But now I’m back and with more new stories just
in time for you to step into your summer plans. You’ll be adding us to your listening list
as you map out your summer schedules right? Well, today I’m excited to invite
you all to dive into a field that we hear abo
ut often in the news - politics. Honestly, tell me your thoughts. When you think of someone working in politics,
what’s the first word that comes to mind? Powerful? Hypocritical? Passionate? Good
speakers? For me, one thing that came up was that this was a job for men. This inaccurate
depiction of the field was understandable as the only exposure I had of people in
politics was what I saw on TV - men arguing, speaking, doing speeches, and
saying what the new policies were. And that’s what I
grew up hearing both
in South Korea and in the United States. I didn’t know how diverse the field was, nor how
many females were already paving the way until I first interned at Capitol Hill during my high
school program at Madeira School in Falls Church, Virginia. As I walked through those corridors I
noticed how people who work in politics were doing so much more fun, impactful, and busywork, as
compared to what I saw on TV as a young girl. It certainly still piqued
my curiosity of wond
ering why women are still a minority, and what
it really means to succeed in politics. I understand that there are lots of people out
there who want government to be as limited as possible, but I believe that government
could be the Foundation and should be the foundation that creates a strong community. And when you are surrounded by a strong
community, you will become a stronger person. There's tons of research around that. So those are the things that drive me As a woman running for offic
e. I wouldn't stay only in the state of
Georgia, but any public office not only in the U.S. But around the world. There is such a heightened
level of violence and assaults against women in public office. Cyberbullying is tremendous. Just look at, you know, like
Twitter interactions of really well known women politicians, you
know, from our own all the way to those overseas. I mean the amount of vitriol and
assault that they gain on the cyberspace is unprecedented. Hi, Welcome to Curious Mon
ica by InnovatorsBox
where we study how different people thrive at different jobs. I’m your host, Monica Kang,
and today I’m excited to dive into politics. How do you build a career in politics?
What does it mean to work there? Ok, so we can’t answer all the questions, but I
do feel there is something powerful we can learn by taking a closer look into two
people who are playing a key role in Atlanta, Georgia. One is helping other women
get into office, and one is running for office. As alw
ays, I’m curious to learn, unlearn and
understand. And the first question I wonder is, do people start in politics because
they know they will love it? For Nicole Horn, the answer was yes. I've
loved politics since I was 16. So I've been one of those people
who watched Meet the Press every Sunday it was, you know heartbroken when Tim Russert
past and became a little bit more involved in local politics
through Atlanta public schools. When your children's, when your children
go to public sch
ool you have to get involved. Nicole Horn wears many hats and has had many jobs
before running for Labor Commissioner in 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. From waitressing at Waffle
House to TV reporting to owning her own business and serving as a corporate executive, she had
constantly thought about what it means to balance a budget for a business, and looking out for
her people. As a mother who wanted to shape what her kids would experience in the future, stepping
back into politics was a key way
to serve. But to understand Nicole’s passion for politics, we have to start with how she became an
entrepreneur. She came to understand her passions for having a voice and being a go-getter because
of how she felt as a TV reporter who had opinions that differed from how current affairs were
moving during the presidency of George W. Bush. I realized that I had an opinion about what he was doing and the
direction he was going and I didn't feel like I could, I didn't
feel like I could stay un
biased. So I was engaged at the time and I
called my husband my fiance and I said John I'm going to get out of local news. I mean to do documentaries and
his response was, how much does that pay exactly? So we made this deal. He had just started, he had just transitioned
his company to begin working with universities and we made this deal
that I would come and work with him. This was very early in his company. It was 2002 and we, we, we blew up together. We, what I'm really great
at is buil
ding relationships and sales. And what he was really
good at was more of the back of the house. So it's like a restaurant. I was the front of the house. He was the back of the house
and I got so much pleasure and enjoyment out of creating strategy,
creating new products that once I got my fingers into it, I
just, I didn't want to let go. The joy of not wanting to let go certainly
lingered as she and her husband continued to serve many customers and communities for 16
years until they sold
their company in 2018. And as she continued to witness how her community was
empowered, she realized she had to get involved. The challenge about Atlanta public
schools, which is the challenge we face in Atlanta and Georgia and
more broadly is that there's a big difference between the haves and have nots. So trying to have a voice and advocating for my elementary school as
the PTO president, but also recognizing that my advocacy
that you have to walk the line between because
unfortunately,
the pie is pretty solid, it's not something you can grow easily. So figuring out how can you create a
win-win situation with, especially with kids who have so much less than our kids
do, and getting involved in that and advocating for things like pushing
more money down to the schools and out of central administration. And that got me going and
then Trump won and that really was a kick in the pants to get
much, much, much more involved. I started an indivisible fifth
group, our own indivi
sible group to start sending regular emails,
having activities, just advocating for change and advocating against
some of the goals that president Trump had, which I just didn't agree with. So it's been a lot of just
local civic involvement that has led to more of a push against what
was going on the last four years and when we sold the company, I said,
okay, well it's time to throw my hat into the ring. She isn’t the only one who felt that way about
the past four years. The Trump Administ
ration’s leadership style has put all stakeholders
on edge, both Democrats and Republicans. While we will not discuss details in respect to
being a nonpartisan podcast, in the context of our conversation of building a career in politics you
can see why it’s so crucial that you reflect upon why you care about what you advocate for and what
party you are with. The two parties don’t always have to be against one another but knowing
what you care about, believe in, and what you want to advocate
for helps you understand
how you might contribute to public service. In Nicole's case, she realized why she wanted
to run for Atlanta's Labor Commissioner in 2022. So I asked her. Why. Why this role and what
does it mean to be a Labor Commissioner? Monica? That's a great and completely relevant question. So I am lucky enough where I live, I have two amazing representatives for
the statehouse and the state Senate who are phenomenal women who contribute a lot. So there was no way on earth tha
t
I was going to run against them. I value their voice. Senator Elena Parent and representative Bee Nguyen there are people who their local now, but I hope there will be national
names sometime in the future. So I'm super lucky that way. I didn't want to run for the Atlanta
school board, had no interest in that. So I started thinking
about my job and my company. So as I was guiding universities and choosing what programs to launch, what
programs to market what people needed. I spent a lot o
f time in the Department
of Labor data, so I'm constantly watching what occupations are growing,
what industries are shrinking. What's the hot job now? Most states, the Department
of Labor manages that labor data as well as workforce investment
money and that's money that goes towards training. If you lose a job. That's not the case in Georgia
and Georgia, it's labor data and unemployment and paying unemployment benefits. Georgia in Georgia, that's been a huge problem right now the Departme
nt of Labor leader is actually
being sued because there's a backlog between Fifty and sixty thousand people. And if you are living paycheck
to paycheck, people aren't able to pay their rent. They're not able to put food on the table. They're not able to pay for
heat as the weather changes. So as I learned more, I just, the drive to make change grabbed me for those of
your listeners or viewers who are into technology to give a
little bit of a back end. Georgia's Department of Labor unemploym
ent
system is run on a programming language called COBOL. COBOL was built in 1959. Universities stopped teaching it in
the 80s and it's typically run on a mainframe. So that's part of why our unemployment system isn't working well. It's because it's on ancient
technology and it's just, there's not any excuse. Mark Butler, who is the current
Labour Commissioner, took office in 2011 and he's had plenty of time to change it. So it's time. And that's, that's one of my priorities. Along with ther
e's ways that
some states actually help you use your unemployment money to start
a company, which is fantastic. And in Georgia were lucky enough to
have tons of nonprofits and agencies and other government agencies that an effective
labor department should be working shoulder to shoulder with to strengthen labor in Georgia. In other words, being a Labor Commissioner
means that you are ensuring that all workers are treated fairly under the law, and are
overseeing the administration of state
laws relating to labor and the workforce. It’s a
state-level position in all 50 states in America, and a role that I could easily see
Nicole in based on her journey. She has seen the gaps firsthand
between those who have and haven’t. Speaking of which, Jane Kim Coleseus
is another person who got into politics because she saw a gap in the
workplace that needed to be addressed. Yes. Hi, So happy to be here. Thank you, Monica, for having me. I'm Jane and I am a gender equality
specialists th
at works in traditionally male dominated industries. I've been in the nuclear industry,
foreign policy, national and international security and now in state politics. Today she is also the Executive Director of
Her Term, a Georgia-based initiative created to recruit progressive women to run for public
office at the state level. But like Nicole, to understand her passion for gender equality and
politics, we have to look at her whole journey to see how she got there. Jane, did you know you’d
be who you are today when you started your career? Okay. Well that's everybody has their own story, right? The origin, the O.G. Story. Just to answer the latter part of your question, it was definitely not something
that I thought I would be involved in when I was you know studying or
you know growing up, what would you like to be?
It was never, it was never a question for me,
but how did you get into this? So, you know, back in the
days like after I graduated college we had the United State
s had a recession and there was a lot of hiring
freezes because I always wanted to work in government, I always wanted to serve
the United States, and when when the government had the hiring freeze, I thought well you know I yeah maybe
this is an opportunity for me to do something totally different, just kind of
enjoy my time because I was in my early twenties, no-obligation so I could
just you know pack my bags and go, so I decided to go to South Korea which is where my relatives live and
that's also
where my family is from and you know just do like random gigs what I
did a lot of kind of like teaching English and translating and just you know,
working for law firms or universities, just did a lot of kind of English to
Korean Korean to english kind of work. So was it agreed to have that freedom. And during that time I got involved
with the nuclear industry and became a field officer for
a nonprofit that's based in Vienna Austria and that kind of led
one thing to another ju
st did my job really well and they like me. So they invited me over to Vienna to
work in their headquarters which then led me to like a bigger U.N. Agency, you know that works on a similar
that works on the same industry basically. This is around the time I
met Jane in Vienna in 2012. I was a grad school intern at the UNVIE
Office, the U.S. Department of State’s Vienna office that oversaw work with the
IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency. A mutual friend introduced us saying we might
find common interests. And we sure did as we lamented over our Viennese coffee at how this
industry we loved lacked diversity. Over the years Jane turned this awareness into a question she
could take action on - where can I bring change? My role really was a lot of my role
was around communication, it was around building partnerships, it was
around just kind of telling the story of why we need to do what we needed to do. So I was then responsible
for the gender equality of portfolio for th
is bigger U.N. Agency. And so that kind of led one thing to another. After that I got really connected with a
lot of people who are also working in different industries but tackling
the same kind of questions. So I kind of pivoted into consulting for a while. And then that also then led me to also
working in politics as well when we when it comes so that we could talk
about gender representation. A windy road indeed but a
purposeful one along each moment. Tell me a bit more about gender equ
ality.
Why is it important and why should we care? How can we break this down for someone
who has never thought of it before? That's that's something I can
you know put it in a show for you. But I think I'd like to
think about it this way. So when you are executing
a decision whether that's launching a product, delivering
a program, whichever industry or area you are in, you should
always be thinking about the user experience, the beneficiary of
that certain products or policy or whateve
r that you are pushing out. And so the question is if you as the maker for the body is not representative of those who will be receiving your
products, how successful can it be? And I think that is what really, I
think about all the time when I look at, for instance, in politics, you know,
it's all about legislating policies that make lives better. So who is, who is being, who
is recipient of these policies? Who's benefiting? Is everybody benefiting or suggested selective
crew, you know, an
d if and you understand that?
Okay, well then who's making the laws
and why is it made that way? And because there is not a very diverse
group of people making the law, how does that relate to the impact
down the road to those who are supposed to receive these benefits. And a lot of times, you know, so
many people get unaccounted for and I think that's for me, that's what
kind of gender equality or any kind of equity or equality is. Is that do you have a representative
body that is making
representative decisions. Repeat that last part - do you have a
representative body making representative decisions? Representation matters. How can you
design something for someone when you don’t have a team member who understands or speaks for
that voice? This is why in the past episodes we spoke about the importance of intentionally--
designing diversity and inclusion in your product development, workplace design, leadership, and
also in how your state leadership is formed. Jane, why did
you know being a gender equality
expert was what you wanted to do? Especially as someone who has had other diverse careers? Great question. I would say two things have merged
together to make that happen is first of all I just kind of fell into the role
and like my early career and I stuck with it quite frank quite honestly. There was an opportunity, I
took it and I did well in it. So you know, and I, and I realized that
there's a lot more opportunity to do more. So that was one aspect, yo
u know, just
kind of going with the flow in a sense. And the second thing is when I was
in college for my undergrad, so I have a degree, a bachelor in both
anthropology and history and then a master's in data analytics. But during my undergrad, my
favorite course um was cultural anthropology led by Professor George's Mentore. And to this day it has literally
just kind of I would say impacted me in a way how I look at how things are made. And you know, one thing that he always
said was alwa
ys think about who is left out of the story when it comes to,
you know, like building something or even as something as simple as seat belts. You know, you think about seatbelts, it's like, oh yeah, that's you always have
to think about who is being left out when we talk about seatbelts. So it's kind of a really
weird way to think about it. But really it talks about how
we take things for granted and with that, what are we not thinking about? And that's also the same as gender
equality when
it comes to representation, whether that is leadership
positions in the workforce or even in the user the user experience
slash beneficiaries who is being left out. You know, and I think that has always been
kind of an interesting critical thinking point for me. And so when that and you know, just kind
of like going into gender equality as an early-career position and just kind of
staying there because it worked well. Just kind of when that matches
together, that's how I am here today. Al
ways ask who is left out of the picture. Wow. We will be surprised who shows up upon
reflecting. Jane’s journey reminded me how important it is that we remember how we got
to where we are. Now, as the ED at Her Term, she is not only helping more female candidates
get the support they need to run for office, but also providing the courage, confidence, and
resources to help people learn how to run for office in her current state of Georgia. And while
there has been growth, challenges still ex
ist. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what I'm
more excited about is that women, especially women of color, are finally being
recognized for all the hard work that they have been doing for decades. What we have seen in terms
of the organizing as well as the election results in Georgia
just didn't happen overnight. There's a spirit of organizing here in Georgia as well as kind of one of the
cradles of the civil rights movement as well. And you know, oftentimes It
was mostly communities of color, w
oman of color also as well, who
are, you know, having to bear the brunt of all these things. Really pushing to make changes. So that's just kind of really coming to
the forefront here now and in 2020 and beyond. And I'm really excited that
has been nationally recognized and that means much more opportunity
to highlight all of these behind the scenes, under the rock kind of work that has
been doing and you know, especially the women of color finally gaining the
recognition that they so dese
rve. Having said that, you know, as a
woman running for office, I wouldn't say only in the state of Georgia, but
any public office, not only in the U.S. But around the world, there
is such a heightened level of violence and assaults against
women in public office. Cyberbullying is tremendous. Just look at, you know, like
Twitter interactions of really well known women politicians from
our own all the way to those overseas. I mean, the amount of vitriol
and felt that they gain on the cyber
space is unprecedented. And a lot of times those things happen
just for the fact that they were born as a woman. And during the 2020 elections
time, I have worked with over 30 candidates, woman candidates here in the state
of Georgia, running for different positions at the state legislator level. And the amount of hate that they
receive just unfounded, you know, it's just like they could be just walking
down the grocery store and somebody would just come up and just yell at them just for th
em just because they are running for office and because they feel like they can
do it because she's a woman, they're not running for some sort of glory or for some sort of a title there
actually really wanting to make real changes, you know, and they're
sacrificing also in all their safety and their family's safety as
well to make better change. And so I think that's what really worries
me is that craftsman and assault based on an individual sex when they are running
for public office, it'
s not going down and we need to we need to protect them. This is the reason why when I
asked Nicole what is important. She speaks about bravery as a skill set to
thrive in politics, or really any career. Be brave, be brave, be willing to be wrong, you don't want to live your life asking what if you don't want to live your life, second-guessing yourself. So I think I need to tie be brave with be brave and live by your values. So tying those two things together ensures that you won't live life a
sking what if and if you're leading with your values,
you know that your bravery is going to result in hopefully some
positive impact, whether it be small or significant. Those pushes in the right direction, improve the world. Bravery indeed. When you know your why,
what you stand for, and are determined to not let challenges stop you, opportunities
are everywhere. Jane also shared some tough love but truthful reminders about where
to focus - self-care and self-development. Yeah, is really
just
have a very frank expectation of the challenges and the opportunities
I think, you know, and really, yeah, there's not a lot of place
for ego, this is this is really an uphill battle and people will say and do really terrible and mean things, not because of
who you are, what your values are, what your upbringings are, but simply because
of the fact that you are a woman. And I think that's really hard to take on,
especially for a lot of these candidates who are really accomplished in t
heir careers, you
know, and perhaps the negative feedback they had were like quarrels with colleagues during
the meeting or perhaps something negative in the performance management review or something, you
know, and to kind of just suddenly be kind of faced with this like
unfiltered hate, you know, it really takes a lot is really hard, so you
need to really have a strong conviction about who you are self-love for yourself. And also the knowledge that these comments or or behaviors is not re
ally reflecting
who you are as a person, right? It's reflecting the other person who's speaking
those things were saying those things and I think being able to kind of have
that understanding, I think that's really important. Important reminders. The social media and
internet world has made it hard to know what is private or public- but that doesn’t
mean what you read online defines you. That’s true no matter where you work, and
especially in a public role like politics. Still, what I was
empowered to learn from both
Nicole and Jane is that you have the power to lead the narrative and change you want to see.
Run for office, build expertise, speak up, and write and live your truth. You never know who else
you could empower and what ripple effect of change this may lead to. Thank you both again for
sharing your stories and doing what you do. Speaking of stories, ever curious about what
it’s like to be an author? How do they decide what to write about and why do they write?
As
a fellow author, I was eager to learn what motivated my author friends but also learn
what helped them be the author they are. Some even full-time. Curious to learn more?
Join me at our next Curious Monica episode. Hi, I'm Sam an audio engineer at InnovatorsBox
and I hope you're enjoying Curious Monica. Creativity is something I've loved about
all of my career's, whether it's been designing interactive games to help preschoolers
coloring through play or by creatively fielding questions fro
m high schoolers
on Saturday morning detention. This show is brought together by
our awesome podcast team producer Serin Oh, audio engineers Sam Lehmert
and Ravi Lad, website designer Aakriti Pandey, graphic designer Monica
Escobar, and Luke Helder on music. And of course, this show is hosted and directed
by the curious woman herself, Monica Kang founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox to continue the curiosity and creativity of
the workplace visit us at innovatorsbox.com Also, don't forget to su
bscribe,
leave a review, and share. Would love to hear what you're curious about and
what mysteries Monica can uncover in our next episodes. We'll see you next week. This is your host, Monica Kang at
InnovatorsBox. I’ll see you again soon!
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