Recording in progress.
Oh hello, Caitlin, We're back to the old zoom. I see.
You know, I wish we were in the same room. I wish I were in Australia as much grief as I've given Australia through the years, because it is snowy here and it is the opposite of tennis weather.
Yes, it is definitely an indoor weather in New York right now. It's lots of snow. Although I'm a little bummed because it's been a while since I've seen snow in New York. Got a little bit of a smattering one day and i remember looking outside and thinking, oh snow. But now I'm in real hot weather in Australia. Although the weather down here right now has been amazing, so I'm loving it.
Tell me what you've been up to in Australia.
Family, seeing friends, and it's been really nice. My brother was over from New Zealand. He brought his three kids and so it was nice to see them and just you know, having a good time in Sydney. Now I'm back on the road. I'm in Adelaide, current Plaire coaching Alan Perez. She won her first round yesterday, so I'm back on the I'm on the I feel like a mouse. I'm back on the treadmill of the tennis life.
You're back on the bag. How does it appear to be back coaching.
Back on the bag. Yeah, it's nice. Actually, you know, you know me, I can't help myself.
Yeah, you're a doer, you're action oriented.
You got to get in there.
Yeah, I like to help. It's been great. You know, Ellen's very talented player, and been nice to sort of get on the court with her and impartant some of my wisdom and now that I'm ured, so so it's been nice. Yeah, it's good to see everybody, you know, bumped into all the players, and you know, seeing everybody is always a nice thing at the start of the year for everybody here.
Yeah, And it seems like with the storylines coming out of a couple of places around the world, but mostly Australia and the last week, like you know, there's no rest, but there's also no break.
So no rest, no break. I did you know, read a few things recently. It was an article in the New York Times, I Matt Fiderman about you know, this sort of sort of the dysfunction of tennis and we'll be like, hello, We've been telling you for a while. This is not news, but but it is interesting to
see all the goings on. And there are discussions that I hear with players about various things even this week, you know, about prize money and equality and all the sort of things and what the things they're fighting for. So the start of the year year, New year always brings everybody together, and then you know, the fractions start throughout the years, throughout the year about who wants what and what wants who.
Yeah, I don't even know if I want to bring up the most recent and controversy about some division the WTA seems to be having with one of its own players. This Elena Rabakiana situation is bananas. You and I have texted a little bit about it last week, Like holy moley. It is separation between her and the coach, the appointment of a new coach, the announcement that the old coach will be coming to Australia anyway, and then the WTA
saying this coach has been banned. It does seem that the WTA an organization who has not been spared from our considerable amounts of criticism. I think is on the right side of this thing, and kudos to them to try to take what I understand to be a lot of evidence and material and turn it into something productive, which is safeguarding a player, which is how I understand it. It would be great if somebody from the WTA came out and sort of spoke to it and said, Hey, this.
Is what's going on.
This is why we do what we do, this is what the you know, process looks like. This is what our point of view for this player but all the other players is about. Again, we don't have that, but we do seem to have them exercising a little muscle in trying to keep this Vukov coach at least away from the player. But it seems like the player might want them to be there, or so we think.
Listen, here's the thing that I see in this situation. I love how sometimes I get onto social media and you get people writing on social media, how can they do this? It's her decision. It's like, no, no, no, no, it is not necessarily just her decision. If the WTSA feels like and clearly they have evidence, they're not just gonna whim oh on a whim just be like, yeah, your banned. They have obviously done years, okay of investigation
into this man's behavior. They've obviously interviewed many, many, many people, not just one or two. Like I get dragged into this because of course we talked about him years ago on the pod. I never said anything that was controversial. I gave my view about what I saw. This was years ago, and.
Yeah, you said what you saw, which is a very different.
I said what I saw, okay, Yes, then making assumption, trying to just assuming because the guy gestures and carries on the way he does in the players box. This is the things I see as a human being. What I saw, so clearly, that's my interpretation of him years ago. So clearly through the years. I was not on tour in you know, two years ago, I had my Amazon work. I wasn't traveling. So clearly through the years, it is not just my observation of him that the WTA have documented.
They have seen his behavior for many, many years. Obviously, who knows what's going on with the family. Maybe the family don't want him around as well. Maybe the family are trying to, you know, excavate him from her life as well. Clearly she is struggling with this relationship with him, whatever that may be, and you know, wanting to bring him back. I can tell you right now, Goran's not going to stand for it. Goren's not going to be
around somebody who's going to be absolutely not. If you want to be in a dysfunctional relationship, that's up on you. But for someone like Gorn, he's not going to stick around for that. And the WTA are putting their foot down. They have had there's been silent bands or bands of other people over the last couple of years that we haven't necessarily known about in the public. But the WTA have put their foot down and said, this is not behavior.
It is allowed on our tour. It's just like the NBA or the NFL certain criteria that you have to adhere to to be able to play on our tour or to be able to coach on our tour. And if there is a pattern that has been happening for years that the WTA has documented, that's why they've banned him. This is not just on a whim like, oh, we don't lie like him. He's attitude towards her. It's not good in the stance. No, no, no, this is an ongoing, consistent behavior.
And the WTA, you know, is not exactly out in front on a lot of things that I wish they would be out in front on. So I think for me, the feeling is if they are putting their foot down. And to be to be clear, I'm rooting for the WTA. I'm a fan of many people who work at the WTA. We are all better if the WTA succeeds or somebody who's running Women's Tender succeeds. So it's not it's not set out of a desire to poke, but rather to
sort of like encourage good stuff. And this is something I saw that I will want to encourage, which is when you create an environment that feels unsafe for your players because you allow something like a person who's disruptive, who seems and also has been.
Documented in many instances.
And I'm not speaking about this case in particular, but the kinds of things that would lead to a band are so frequent, severe and documented that it it is I have to imagine truly they had probably no other choice.
And again we'll see how this plays out, but in my view, not only does it send a message to the actual individuals involved, but also hopefully it sends a message to anyone else who's probably in a similar situation who maybe it's more behind closed doors, you know, to say like, hey, this needs to be a safe space for us, but also for everyone to feel like, you know,
we're we're it's a work environment. And if you see somebody losing their mind, whether or not there's other stuff that's going on that we don't know about.
That alone is like, hey, this is not a safe.
Work environment for people. And as for her, I'm rooting for her. We're all rooting for her. Whatever's going on is obviously very complicated, and I think as we've seen in a lot of cases where something's clearly going on that has much complexity. Sure, and also like people who are in pretty rough situations, oftentimes it's the hardest for them to navigate that. You know, in a lot of cases,
these are very young women. Sometimes these are their romantic partners, sometimes these are their parents, sometimes these are people who've been close to them since they.
Were very young kids.
And you know, it's I want to applaud the WTA for taking what I see is a pretty big bold step to put their foot down and so you know, I know that you and I both as well as Peco and everybody else that we know, are role rooting for Elena Rabakin on this situation, just personally, but also just in general. I want to you know, I want my tennis players to have. There's enough stress just making sure that you.
Play well on the court and your body stays healthy.
You know, God knows what other kind of stuff they have to deal with, and getting into any kind of a really situations that's unhealthy for them is not something that anybody should have to deal with.
No, and honestly, you know, we are all rooting for her. We want the best for her, There's no question about that, and that's what everybody wants. But the WTA also has to take in consideration sponsors, what does this look like, What does this person look like in our surroundings. This
is not a good look. We can't have people yelling and screaming at players, you know, and you know, and just frankly, you know, even for me over the last week being here in Adelaide and hearing this news, the amount of players that come up to me and be like, oh my god, you should hear the way he talks about her. You should hear the way he speaks about her, just to other friends, just to other coaches. So that in and of itself, like the behavior and the way
he speaks about her is not okay. And that's what other players here and other coaches tell me. Yeah, so there's a long list of people that could say things about this guy. And so, you know, I feel terrible for her because she's clearly put into this quandary of a disastrous you know, you know, human relationship, and now it's on a big, big world scale that she's going to be asked about at nauseum over the next month. And it's a shame because she's a great, great, great girl.
She's a great player. We saw this match with Eager San Tech the other day was unreal at United Cup. Like I tweeted out, God, I hope we get a match like that at the Ustrain and Open. I hope we see them play each other again. I hope we get to see Eager and Coco again. I mean, we saw a great match with Coco. You know. The tennis in and of itself this week, particularly in the Night Cup, was awesome.
And yeah, we want to be talking about the tennis. We want to be talking I want.
To be talking about the tennis. How I want to be talking about Rebark. You know, how how well she's played, how good she looks, how great it is to have Gorian in her camp. So that's what I want to talk about with Elena. But unfortunately, this is going to be a nightmare Toss. Australia have said no to him as well, but he can also get a ticket and come in and watch. He won't be allowed to sit
in the box. So this is just going to be an ongoing unfortunately, an ongoing situation for Rebuccian until she decides to kick this guy to the curb or I don't know what's going to happen.
Yeah, well we'll be watching that.
But yes, let's talk about the tennis, because the un coup was unreal. I mean, obviously there were some great results going on around the world. It was really cool to see Kenny Shikory back. He made the finals of Hong Kong. He just like forty rankings just overnight, basically by making a final.
Can we talk about the fact that the best stories really of the week were all the losers of the tournament, like true Miss Cory, like Riley o'pelker. How great to see him back and playing well and not you know finally, I mean, I honestly I saw him a couple of years ago. He played We played in this like pro am thing in the Hampton's and we flew out on you know, playing were playing together and we got to
really spend some time together. And this is when he was literally sort of not even close to coming back with the wrist, And I said, what do you think? And he said, I don't know, Dubsy, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to play it again. You know. So for me to like actually see him get to a final and beat someone like Novak Djokovic on the way, like that story is.
Unreal, so unreal, what a great way.
Obviously, obviously all the matches back to back to back were accumulative and hurt him in the end, just like the other runner up, Naomi Osaka, so you know who had to default in the final. So the accumulation of matches obviously got to both of those two particular players. But it's nice to see them both, you know, have that opportunity to win a tournament. But for the big story for me was Riley. Just to see him back and playing tennis at a high level was great to see.
Yeah, he's right back in there, which was amazing. It does seem that even though Riley did retire in that first set, he looked you know, I know he had a little back scare, so that's not nothing, but it doesn't mean But no, Naomi, I read was an abdominal tear.
Oh really, I.
Thought it seems way worse.
I she left the court in tears, which made me feel like, oh, this might be worse than right least. But you know, obviously we want everybody healthy and feeling good. And when you take a significant amount of time offer in Nami's case, you know, obviously totally understandable, but you know it takes a while.
It takes us all.
I know that you're trying to find out if it was a back or a stomach. But so I'll go in here. If it is her stomach and she has strained it or torn it, it doesn't surprise me because if you have done that prior and then you play a lot of matches, particularly in the start of the year.
And this happened to me because I tore my stomach muscle early in my career and always the first little tournament of the first tournament of the year, you always have scar tissue in that area, and so it's amazing how it comes back to bite you literally in the ass with your stomach. So you've always got to really take care of it. You always got to, you know, literally rub out that scar tissue every single time you go and play, especially when you come back early part
of the year. So that's unfortunate, and it's something you can play on, but it's you can't really serve.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, everywhere I'm seeing has been reported that it's an abdominal injury, but.
Yeah, okay, well, if it's an abdominal, if it's a it's a slight niggle like tear, like minor tear, you can actually play with it. Hopefully the next like four or five days, which you'll have off before this strain open, it will settle down. She'll still hit, but she won't hit any serves whatsoever, and so it's possible to come back from that. So so hopefully you know this, just this this week alone, she'll be able to repair that
stomach muscle. She won't be able to hit any serves, but listen, your serve comes back quickly.
Yeah, yeah, she does have a week. But overall, what a great week of stories. And that's before we even talk about the United Cup.
Yeah, the great individual stories. And throw it to Kim Berrell, who the little Aussie butler who got through to the quarterfinals, had a match point to get to the semifinals of her home tournament in the goal cut in Brisbane. So that was a really lovely story someone who's dealt with a lot of injuries herself throughout throughout her career. Carolina Mukhova played really well at the United Cup as well. You know, had some good wins there, particularly against Paulini.
I bumped into Jasmine here and she said, oh, Mohivas, she always plays so good against me. But you know, just some really good storylines. But but the MVP of the United Cup, Coca oh Man, putting her hand up as one of the favorites. Of course, Saberlenca wins Brisbane, so you know, those two players absolutely going to the strain and open as I would say equal favorites. Slight edge to Sabolenca because she's won the tournament in Melbourne
now twice. Feels good in Melbourne, clearly playing well in Brisbane. So all the losers of the tournaments last week were really the storyline in a lot of ways. You know, we talk about Kane Kory, you talk about the youngest sister Kuda Matova, you talk about name Misaka, and you talk about Raleo o Perklart. Those were really the stories,
even though the players that won well done. But you know, Towson's been around a long time and it's good to see her, you know, get a win under her belt because she's had huge potential hits the ball great, but a little bit mentally not so great on the on the court, a little bit of a bad attitude sometimes. So nice to see her get through and win the tournament. But she obviously had default technically in the final, and
you know that's the way it goes. But for me, going back to United Cup, Coco is just looking unbelievable, fourhands, not missing, serving well, not double folding up a storm and her match against Eger, I mean, she outlasted Eager. Her fitness is through the roof and if anyone follows Coco on Instagram, and she kind of posted a lot of some of her training schedule in the off season. Look out, it is paying off. Unbelievable.
I love that this is the second time in a row that she's been eager. I thought that was a mountain that it would take her years to climb after seeing all of those French Open results, and it seems like she's she's on her way to leveling the playing field. I mean, she doesn't have obviously as many French Opens or Slam's period as Eager, but I like what I'm seeing, and she put America a pretty considerably talented American team.
Taylor Fritz also played great. Listen.
Coco just really to me, got it done, and I love, love, love what I saw.
In her match against Ega. I'm so excited for Coco. You're totally right.
I was kind of a I love I love Coco offcourt, but on court, I've been a little bit of a Cocoa doubter to be candid, and I'm I'm happy to be around m h.
H. Listen, if she hasn't missed her forehand, which she's not doing anymore, there's no where to go on the tennis court against Cocoa golf, there's nowhere to go. She runs every single ball down. She is the best athlete. We saw the two best athletes going at it against each other with Eager and Coco, and the difference is the Coco. She just gets that loop on the forehand. Now, I think you know, Eager's trying to mix up the
speed on her forehand and on her ground stroke. She's trying to get some high balls in there, which is very good for her to do. She needs to change the pace, particularly against someone like a like a like a Coco, or like anybody really. But the fact that Coco doesn't miss now she's willing to move forward a little bit more than Eager. Eager has to be more
comfortable coming into the net. But against someone like Coco, when she runs the ball down, she can hear the winner past you because her speed is able to get off over to a ball that a lot of girls are struggling and maybe just hitting with one hand on the back end. Coco is getting over there and hitting it with two hands, and she's passing you. So if you're not a great mover into the net and able to understand how to move at the net, you are going to be in trouble against her. But ah man
like I'm I'm into it. See Rebekner, Eager, Coco and Sabalanca in the semi finals at this straight and open and those four going at it. Great, But we all still still have some great players that I are knocking on the door. Where it be Mira Andriva, whether it be Jesse Kapagoula, whether it be these players that we know that can do well in slams Now, I'm pumped for the Eulzi Open because they're all playing well.
I agree, I'm totally pumped everybody's playing well.
I was really I was really excited to see Taylor Fritz play super well.
Uh you know, I I find.
One thing I want to ask you about before we get to our dues and don'ts and set up this week's incredible interview. But to me, if you want to touch on it, should we briefly mention mister Nick curious getting after man. He will not let this YOUIX Center thing die with the.
With they won't let the Exenter thing die, and he won't let even Igachionteks die like.
Now, he's just going after doping accusations against both of them and putting like you know, a needle in the comments of Cruz Hewett, Lton Hewitt's son who hit with Theannick Center, who was like, ah, bro, I mean maybe he could like always say that he's joking, which is like such a cop out, and that he's going after It's.
Like when you're drunk. That's when you drunk boyfriend or girlfriend you know, says stuff to you the night before when they're like wasted and then they wake up and I was drunk, and it's like, uh, usually what happens when you have alcohol is the truth serum and the ship out of your mouth is exactly what you want to say to me, except you don't have a filter. And so the problem with Nick is he has no filter at all.
It's just this is a good seg.
Here's the thing, the problem and the issue is the system. Okay, it is the way, but.
Nick's not going after the system.
He's just being a but he won.
Find something else to troll about.
I mean to me, it's not it's not even like you and I can have a grown up conversation about how transparency and rules and applicability. And then if we get somebody like Peco on the show who's like thoroughly researched the ins and outs of you know, the water statutes. We can actually have a substantive conversation about, you know,
the facts. But that's a good faith conversation about something presuming good faith on the part of almost everyone involved, which is I think probably the case here in both cases, and even if it's not, we should still have an adult conversation. And then there's doing whatever he's doing, which is like taking easy shots because he's bored or doesn't is just I.
Am going after Cruiz Hewitt, the hitting with the world number one, who is coached by the guy who coached your dad. In lighton Hewitt, Darren Caylee was essentially one of the biggest and most important people in Leighton Hewitt's early life as a tennis player, including and helping him get to number one, So they have a special relationship. They're both from Adelaide, Australia, where I am right now, so there's both South Australian guys. They clearly have a
very unique and special relationship. And Cruse Hewett has got a qualifying wild card in the Australian Open, so what better preparation to play with the defending champion who is going to teach you so much about how to be a better tennis player on the court, why wouldn't you hit with him? And clearly Darren said, hey, does Cruise want to hit with Yannick on senate court? Oh? Oh my god. Of course Layton's going to say yes to that.
That is an opportunity that any kid would it, would want to give the guy shit on social media and go after him. It's not a joke. If you want to joke about it, then you call his dad or you call him because I'm pretty sure you have either of their numbers, and you give him shit. You don't give him shit on a public forum. That's embarrassing to him, Like it's just he just doesn't know how to stop and learn to be an adult in these situations and
to go after Ega. When Boston Fashion, I think put a photo up or I don't know if it was Bush, Yeah it was Bush, and it was a photo of Or with a rolling garr not.
Saying she does her you know, she does her prep, she does her homework. And then I mean and then he said he, yeah, what else is she doing? And it's like, dude, Also, I asked you going into this next year to put uh, you know, some dues and don'ts, some ins and outs because I want us to. You know, it's easy to get like riled up about something that the curious does in the internet. That's net that's stupid, because that's the whole point of it and that's why
he's doing it. But I asked you to make a list just because I feel like, you know, we can make some generalizations here and uh, for me, it's less about him and I don't want to give him any more attention. But like, to me, out is clowning on social media and in is to talk ley you're actiate to the talking or don't like show up to play be fit or don't. But like, we don't need another commentator. We don't need any more, like clowns, we don't.
Need any more.
Like uh, position people have positions of power being you know, kicking down. Kicking down is out if you're gonna keep.
Kicking that's the thing. Yeah, I agree. You know, the outs for me are going on social media and putting stuff like this out. And also if you're gonna go on social media, like just think about what you're putting out there. You know, you're sitting behind a keyboard. There's people that get affected by this stuff, you know, I just I keep thinking, I don't we don't know the truth, right, we we don't know the truth. It's not like I'm going and trailing behind Yannick Center every day of my
life and not going behind Egistrion Tech every day. I'm not going behind Simona Hallup every day of my life. Like, we don't know the truth. So you can have an opinion, but you don't know the truth. So the fact that you are so adamant. Now, let's go back to the Vukid situation. Right, I saw with my own eyes, Okay, with my own eyes his behavior. I can make a comment on what I saw. I don't know for a fact if Ynix Inner doped. I don't know for a fact if Yanix Inner did not dope. I don't know
if Egos Jantek did not dope. But my assumptions are of what I read from the reports that these people researched it. They did their research, and this is the conclusion they came to, and that's what I'm going to talk about. So they have been found innocent. That's it. Let's move on.
Yeah, So I'm just said to see what he's going to do with his racket this year, and I'm not that interested to see what he's going to do with his keyboard. All Right, we have an incredible interview to get to today. You had the chance when you were in Malaga, Spain to sit down with Corey march Cisoto. And Corey is the chief marketing officer at ELF Cosmetics. Elf is the embodiment of something I want to see more of in in my in list in twenty twenty
five is supporting tennis and supporting women's sports. And ELF has put their money literally where their mouth is in terms of sponsorship of women's sports across the board, not only tennis, but basketball, soccer.
They've been doing it.
They've been walking in the walk and talking the talk, which is what you guys talk about. Just give us a little color about this conversation. How it came to be you ran into her in Malaga. She was obviously there sponsoring the billage and king Kup and supporting on behalf of ELF Cosmetics. What's the context for this conversation? And I can't imagine you would disagree that we need to spend more money on tennis and more money in
women's sports. But that's my in for what I want to see more brands doing like ELF has been doing with what their support for women's sports.
Yeah, I think that's what it comes down to. You know, I was over at Billy Jean King Cup and there've been some great sponsors through the years with Tannis, but and I just think ELF is the as you said, it's the embodiment of equality really, whether it be on their boards with you know, their their so many women that are part of their company, whether it be all in their c suites, it's it's dominated by women. And you might say, well, it's a it's a company, that's
a it's a cosmetic company. Of course they're going to have a lot of women. No, that's not the case. You can look at a lot of other cosmetic companies or you know, you know creams and you know beauty products and all this sort of stuff. They're dominated by men in the C suites. That's not the case with ELF. And so as you said, they put their money where
their mouth is. They have a great relationship with Billy Jean, and they went to Billy Jean, they said, who's the embodiment of what we want to embody as company inequality, and that's Billy Jing King. So they talked to Billy and Billy said, look, would your sponsor be one of our sponsors of the Billy Jean King Cup. They're not the only sponsor Billy Jean King Cup, but Elfe is a huge sponsor now and the Billy jan King Cup
hopefully is going to grow and grow and grow. With the amount of money that they're now offering to the players to go and play is extraordinary. I was talking about it, yes the other day actually with Sam Stows about how much money now is on offer for the Billy Jing King Cup. It's crazy. And so yeah, they're just a wonderful sponsor and it's interesting to hear her story and also how this relationship with Billy Jean and
the Billy Jean King Cup came about. Well, if you were also may I add, and also may I add a huge sponsor with iHeart the Women's Sports Network. They are the biggest sponsor for them, and so that's another reason, because that's obviously the platform that you and I are on.
Amazing, all right, thanks for the background. I think that's a pretty good end list for twenty twenty four twenty twenty five. Why don't we check in as the Australian Open is getting underway in one short week to talk about some previews, who's looking good, who's in fine form? And where we can hear you on our TVs here in the US.
Yes, and when we do our next podcast, we will all already be a day in to the Australian Open, so we are fully, fully pumped for it. I'm going to ask you before we leave, your favorites to win the Australian Open.
Oh boy, I hate doing this. I think I hate it. It's still not the point for me. I hope somebody weird like Beya hadaj maaya.
Okay, that's not going to happen.
Well, not with that attitude. I hope she doesn't listen.
All right, So I mean my pick is probably Arena Savolenka, I don't know. I mean, of course, and Taylor Fritz, the same people I picked for the US Open front and I came within two sets of being right.
All right, I'm gonna pick Yannick Senna, and I'm going to go not because it's not on limb anymore. I'm gonna say that I think Cocoa can win this strain open. Well.
I hope that if.
I hear it's faster in Melbourne that it was in Sydney, so that will help Arena if it's a bit quicker. But let's let's let's just go. I'm gonna go Coco. It's I do slightly think that sable Anka might be the one, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say Coco might.
Get it if I am right and bear har Dodge Mayo wins, I'll.
Cook you dinner for a week. No and your family.
No, no, no, no, I don't want that.
Oh that's not allowed.
Okay, let's I'll think of something good.
But uh, I'm bring a back of towel from the strain and open. How about that? All right?
Bring me back a towel from the Australian Open.
Tower goes in, a tower goes out.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to figure out which of my towels from pas renee Bets are going out?
All right?
Enjoy this or interview with Coury Matrisoto.
Thank you so much for listening to the show.
We're so excited to be back in twenty twenty five and Renee Happy Australian Open Eve.
Thanks Mite Doak soon all right, bye listening, Bye the month.
March is so then, got it good?
All Right, Hi everybody, welcome to the Renee Subcenters podcast. I have an interesting guest today, somebody that you probably didn't expect to hear from. Corey March is so so. Corey, first of all, thanks for joining me today. We are in Mulliga, Spain. First of all, thank you for providing me to be over.
Here, because this is beautiful.
We are over here for the Billy Jean king Cup, something that is near and dear to my heart. I'm actually the longest serving Australian member of the Billy Jean
King Cup for Australia, so it's nice to be back here. Sadly, the Austrains lost yesterday, but we're here to talk not only about Billy Jean King Cup and the importance of it, but also ELF Cosmetics, which you are the CMO of, and also I am on iHeartRadio, which is the women's sports network, which is also a huge You are a huge reason why we're on that with ELF.
So Corey, first of all, thanks for joining me.
Thank you for having me.
You started by saying, I'm an interesting guest. I don't know that I've ever been introduced as an interesting guest, So tell me why interesting was your word choice.
You're an introducing guest on the tennis podcast that I do because normally I interview obviously tennis players or you know, I talk a lot of random stuff about tennis, and being here at the Billy Jean Kincup, we wanted to make sure that your voice was heard, particularly this week. The importance of sponsorship in tennis for me is We've had some great sponsors in women's tennis through the years.
I don't need to go back to some of them.
Someone them were a little controversial, some provided smoking for people.
But I think with ELF now.
Doing what they're doing in women's tennis and women's sports overall is just tremendous.
Clearly because of the reasons why.
I want to know before we talk about this week your story a little bit. What is your background? What made you get into it? Because it always fascinates me how people end up where they are. Me clearly grew up wanting to be a tennis player, But what about you?
I think when we look back at our lives and we reflect on all of the bright stars in this guy that come together to make a constellation.
You actually see a rich tapestry.
It's never one thing that makes something true, series of things that leads to these eventual moments. And I think we all send out unique frequencies that overtime attract things into our particular orbit. So sitting yesterday with Billy Jean watching the tennis tennis match last night, she asked me about my feelings on tennis, and I instantly went back to being a child, which I never thought about, which I never thought about having anything to do with why we're here.
But I grew up.
Watching Billy Jean, King, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert and Yvon Lendel and Boris Becker and all of these things because my parents the only sport they actually cared about was tennis.
Wow.
So it was kind of this full circle moment for me last night, which had nothing to do with how we ended up here.
But then you think about it and you say.
Well, maybe it did somehow. So if I connect the dots to the story of where I'm standing right now with the championing of equality and the work and energy that we put to putting underrepresentation in the highest seats of power. It really stems from the fact that growing up I didn't see people who look like me, neither in my family nor in my broader circle. And I never really understood why men had all the power and
women were just supposed to obey them. So for me, the path out of that was get an education, get a corporate job, become a business person, and change the world.
And that was just like that.
It was that simple for me because whatever I saw it was do the exact opposite and.
You'll get an opposite result.
And early on in my career I was always the only woman in the room. As I got higher and higher on the ladder, I realized how few women were actually in those positions. So for me it was how do I get as high as I can, as fast as I can, so I can change this. And when I got to l five and a half years ago, it was pretty extraordinary because the first my first meeting was a board meeting, and I remember looking around the room and saying, Wow, this is different. More than half
this room is women. So there's a real magic here. And I have found a kindred spirit in Terangamine, who's our CEO, who cares about putting women and diversity in the highest seats of power? So how do we use this platform we created, this democratization of access not only to the best of beauty, but to the highest seats of power, and take it steps further.
And those steps further for us have.
Been in gaming, in leveling the playing field in sports, and in many places we haven't even figured out yet as we ask ourselves, where are they? Where are the underrepresented? And how do we go find them and use our platform to rise them up.
So sitting next to Billy watching a tennis match is an experience in and of itself. I have done it many times, and Billy couches from the sidelines some of the interesting conversation.
Yeah, that's why you're laughing.
You're like, uh, yeah, that's exactly what I experienced yesterday.
But what was it like for you?
You know?
Is one of the questions I wanted to ask you what you would tell your twenty year old self. I love asking that question. Would you have told your twenty year old self?
Yeah, in twenty years time or plus, you're going to be sitting next to Billy Jean King discussing equality, diversity, your company's her vision.
Still she doesn't stop.
First of all, I've never met anyone her age, or maybe there is a few I did bump into and had the joy of having dinner in a group setting with Hillary Clinton not too long ago, and I thought, wow, you know, they just don't stop people like this. So how much is someone like sitting next to her watching a tennis match? How much of a full circle moment did you sort of sit there going I can't believe this. Actually you're kind of a big deal as well in your industry.
So was you.
But it's almost that moment where you like, I feel like I'm twelve again.
She says pressure is a privilege.
I am definitely in a position of privilege, and I felt that lad night, very honored, very privileged, And even when I think about this week. This morning, I was listening to the podcast of Alicia Keys and Jayshetty and alisiha Keys is a business partner of mine, and I'm.
Like, WHOA, how did that happen?
How did one of my idols at you know, nineteen twenty years old become a business partner. Christian Amanpur is here on Wednesday, and I'm going to be on the stage with her at the Women in Power Summit, and I feel like I'm going to pass out before that moment happens.
Christian Oh, I'm the same with her.
Obsessed absolute hero, and last night I'm sitting with Billy Jin King.
So I think what I appreciate.
Is I'm so grateful.
I don't see any.
Of this as a given. I see all of this as an absolute privilege. And I wake up every morning and say to myself, I am so grateful that I get to be in this place. I'm so grateful that I get to be surrounded by these people. I'm so grateful that I get to learn from their greatness and some of their fairy dust will be sprinkled on me so that I can.
Carry their torch forward.
And when I think about Billy Jean King and the impact she's had on me since we met probably about two years ago now, so many of the stories I tell come from the roots of things that she said to me. And I'll give you a perfect example, because it just I could cry every time I think about it, and it resonates so deeply. She said, I've been fighting for women's equality for seventy years.
Yeah, seventy years.
It makes you feel lazy, right, You're like, yep, I can still do this. You got to get up every day, particularly now with some of the world environment what we're dealing with. Yes, with our eye rolls that we gave to one another. Just then, don't worry.
We talk about it.
Well.
My usual podcast partner refuses to talk anything politics because she said does she loses sleep over it. But those are things that I'm sure now you're also thinking about, like in the bigger context, and someone like Billy, you like, seventy years, I've got a lot of work still today.
We have a lot of work to do.
And even though it's been seventy years for her, she's said she will continue to fight the good fight until her last breath.
To your earlier.
Point, she's not done yet. She's got a lot more work to do and she's doing it. This woman works harder than anybody I know at eighty one years old.
The part though, that she said to me that really gave me pause and I reflect on it almost every day, is she finally feels we're at the precipice of a sea change because for seventy years, she felt that it was all about women as a charity, and even if she got the investment, even if she got people to move money across the line, it was for charitable reasons. And she said, now she finally feels like women are an investment. And that's where ELF is standing. We believe
women are an investment. We believe in championing the underdog. We believe in democratizing access. These are things that are really meaningful to us. And when you put out those signals, when you say to the world and you send out a frequency that says we are about democratizing access. We are a symbol of the overlooked. We are a champion of the underdog. That signal starts penetrating. And then you
get people like Billy Jean King into your circle. And it's just been really extraordinary for us because she's like rocket fuel. She gives us the gas and the inspiration and the motivation to keep flying.
Yeah, I mean, trust me, I get it.
I think I was still playing well teen tennis at the time, which, of course Billy founded based on equality based on women's singles, women's doubles, men's doubles, men's singles, mixed doubles all.
Being the same.
They meant the same, And it was such a beautiful concept that she came up with so long ago, And I think about that all the time when it comes to Billy. But so, why then Elf, which is, you know, a tremendous cosmetics line. You guys are killing it in the industry, growing expondential. Congratulations on that.
But why sports? Why women's sports?
I mean, I think I could probably answer that already without asking you. But and then why tennis? Why the Billy Jean King Cup? How did that come about?
I know you've had the relationship with Billy for a couple of years, but how did all this conceptionally come about for you?
For you guys, it's a journey. Yeah, And if you asked me five years ago if we'd be hanging out in Malago with Billy Jan King at the BJK Cup, I would have been like, you're insane. Well, but if you follow the journey, it actually makes perfect sense. So if you go back twenty years to the beginning of ELF, the genesis of the company was to democratize.
Access to the best of beauty.
Why couldn't people have high quality cosmetics? At an affordable price.
Yep, so thank you. Yes.
So our founders set out to change that and they did. Since the last ten years, we've actually broadened the idea of democratization of access. So the democrat democratization of access that we felt really strongly about was to the highest seats of power, to the c suite, to the board
of directors. So when we realize that we are one of one out of four one hundred publicly traded companies in the United States, one of one, say that again, Yeah, we are one of one out of four one hundred publicly traded companies in the United States that as a board of directors that is seventy eight percent women and forty four percent diverse.
One of one.
Now, the first thing you do when you hear that is you take a victory lot.
Whoa, Yeah, we're one, and then.
You do sixty seconds later you're like, you're pissed. Whoa wha, whoa one? How is there only one out of foury one hundred. So when we knew those stats, we decided we needed to change the board game. So we went out on this mission to change the board game. And the first part of changing the board game is to shock people into awareness. So we asked ourselves who could be the spokesperson for us to shock people into awareness about the lack of equality, and that was Billy Joking.
And when I met Billy to talk about this endeavor and would she come with us on this journey and whatd she helped us change the board game? She looked at me and she goes, do you realize that ninety six percent of C suite executives.
All played sports?
I'm like, I had no idea, but now it's all starting to make sense. So when you start that journey and she served facts. Our campaign together with Billy was her serving facts to let people know that only twenty seven percent of board members are women, and yet women are fifty percent of the workforce. And yet get this, boards that have gender diversity are twenty seven percent higher and performance, yeah, so why are there not more women
or you know, more gender diversity. So all the stats prove out, but nobody seems to be making the change.
Have you had conversations?
I want to know if people have contacted you from other companies, other women from other companies, whether it be on boards, whether it be in C suites, But it'd be just you know, everyday worker at a company has approached you, emailed, you, texted, you found a way to get in touch with you and being like, how.
Do I A work for ELF or B?
How do I That's the first question I would ask is how can I come and work for you guys?
But also.
Have people actually come to you and say how do you do this? Like what's the what is the blueprint? What's supply book for us to do this? Have you had men do that?
So we didn't actually know the answer that question ourselves, so we found it. So when we embarked on this change the Board Game initiative, the first thing was know your elfing numbers. As I like to say, yeah, what are we actually talking about? So, yes, we're one of one. There's got to be more data points here for us to be able to carry this torch and get other
people to come along the journey. So we entered thirty six thousand board members into a database so that we could slice and dice the data to figure out how to come up with the right messaging. Thirty six thousand board members, we found out that there are more men named Richard, rich or Dick than there are entire groups of underrepresented people.
This was the greatest campaign I've ever seen go ahead.
So we came out with a campaign called so Many Dicks, so Few of everyone Else. We not only came out with the campaign and put it out with a major roar, we put it on Wall Street in the oculus, where two hundred and fifty thousand people come through every day on their way to the New York's oct Change. So, to answer your question, that's when the phone started ringing. That's when people started asking questions saying whoa. First of all, I had no idea. Second of all, how can I
get involved? Third of all, how can I serve on a board? So we then took the next step and we partnered with the NACD, which is the National Association of Corporate Directors, and they have a program that's called Accelerate. And the Accelerate program gets people bored ready because board seats don't just open up on a regular basis.
They're pretty tight.
It's kind of like the Supreme Court.
So you have to be bored ready. Yeah.
So what we what we were able to do is start by sponsoring twenty candidates, women and diverse individuals that we are sponsoring for board readiness, so that was one step. Then the NACD turns out does a conference every year for fifteen hundred people who come and either they want to serve on boards, or they are serving on boards, or they're influential and serving on boards. And we did a keynote there and the first question people were asking when they saw.
ELF is why is ELF here?
And then they heard our story and they asked, how can I get involved?
So it's funny that there's such a I also believe in sort of common things that happen for a reason. And people that listen to my podcasts and they have thankfully thank you for listening to lease. But I have a lot of listeners that have listened for years and they come up to me and I had a hashtag.
I came up with a story because my partner that I do my podcast with, Caitlin Thompson, was a college tennis player and she told the story about her coach day when she came and she had awful cramps and she came and it's just like tearing you know, a quad or rolling over your ankle or having a shoulder injury. You have terrible period pain that is part of life as a woman. And her coach at the time was a guy, and she said, listen, you should drop me down to like five or six in the team because
she played two or three. And he said why and she said, oh, I've got the worst cramps. I feel terrible, and he said gross. And so we came up with the terminology.
Hashtag dick kicks, because I said, men don't realize every month that we have to deal with us, and it's terrible.
And I had very bad period pain.
I one time had to pull out of the Olympics because I was literally on the four throwing up and had to go to hospital. And so I said, for men to understand this, we get to kick them in the deck every month. So then they understand that that kick is coming every month and they just have to take it.
And I said, so we want a hashtag dick kicks.
And so for me, that's it's just funny that you know, poor old Dick, you know he's in Richard's getting a hard time, but it is it's making people understand, as particularly men, this is.
What we deal with.
This is what women deal with on board, This is what women deal with in business. This is what women deal with when they have to play a professional tennis match that sometimes you know, Wimbledon had to change its underwear policies because it's all white, right, and we had to explain to them it's really hard for women to wear all white sometimes during their period. So they finally Wimbledon changed the rule to have underwear that was colored.
And so it's having women like yourself or companies like l or even like my little podcast, to make men realize that.
It's there's stuff out there that's difficult.
For women and they don't even think about it.
So I think that was a great ad that you did. That was amazing.
I think that what we learned from that is most people didn't know. So do your ap point, do they think about it?
Do they understand? And one of.
Our goals with boards of directors is almost like you wouldn't buy a cereal without turning it over on its side and looking at the ingredient label. You should don't. You should not be buying a product without asking questions about who are the people behind this product, what are their values? And what I love about gen Z and even jen Alpha is they are asking those questions. They are voting with their wallet.
They do want to know.
And we had gotten some signals from our community when we do our earnings calls, which we do every quarter, we realized that people were popping in and asking questions about earnings on our social channels and we were like, wait a minute, gen Z is watching our earnings.
That's fascinating.
Then we put out it's fascinating right. Then we put out an impact report, which usually is built for ratings and reviewers, esg and things of that nature, and we started getting questions in from that realize that we're underestimating our community. They do want to know this stuff. They do appreciate that we put women in diversity in the highest seats of power.
They do care about the values. They do care about.
The things that move beyond and transcend a product transaction.
So that gave us the.
Confidence to put marketing dollars behind a campaign called so Many Dicks and put it out across every single one of our platforms. Ninety nine percent positive sentiment, ninety nine. We had people coming into our common pool saying I'm a dick and I approve of this message. The number of men, especially internationally, I did a talk earlier this year in London and the uproar from the men was extraordinary.
They all came to see me after and like, how do we get involved, how do we help you change the game?
How do we bring this to the UK?
So I think a lot of times it's just having the curve bridge to start and then coalitions.
Start to form.
I think he's having the courage to start and actually introspectively looking inside of what's important. But also I mean as a business it makes sense. And you know, beauty products are bought by women mostly, you know, and so I think that's just a no brainer in so many ways. But like you said earlier about investing in women is now starting to rather be a charity, it's actually an investment. We're seeing that so much with the NWSL, the WNBA,
with tennis. Through tennis has been We've been very lucky in a lot of ways because we've had a lot of equality through the Grand Slams for a number of years. But there's so much opportunity, especially for tennis worldwide. So as a business person, as somebody looks at this as a not only is somebody who's a woman who wants a quality, diversity all the things that else stands for. But what is it about women's sports that you now see as a CMO of a company?
What do you see with women's sports? And what would you what do you tell it?
Do you want to go almost keep it like a secret, like we're the ones benefiting for this, not you or are you saying would you say to other companies you're you're starting at a company. It's almost like starting at a startup company that you know is going to be successful. It's like women's sports is that like get in now? Like you know, if someone said to me ten fifteen years ago, have you heard of this company called Uber? Like you're going to get in someone car randomly?
You know what I mean?
It's like things that people don't look for in the future. What would you tell a company? What would you tell another CMO about women's sports in general? And the experience of working with people like Billy and.
Alana doupe that.
So we just came out with a campaign called doup that because we believe the things we're doing are worth duping.
And that's our board of directors that's.
Championing equality and inclusivity, that's choosing the right ingredients inside your products. That's standing for the things your community cares. That's you know, getting behind women in sports. We put our blueprint out there for everybody to follow, because if everybody did what we were doing, the world would be a much better place. And as it relates to women in sports, if you think about what I said about democratizing access to the boardroom, that's not the only place
we democratize access. Even before that, we went into gaming because we knew that seventy seven percent of women were reporting being bullied in the space and we didn't like that at all, and we said, well, what can we do about that? So we created a channel called elfeu, which is a safe space for predominantly women and underrepresented groups.
The LGBTQ community, for example, was really important because women and underrepresented groups were actually coming into the platform with aliases, so people didn't know they were women, and we.
Said, elf that, elf that.
So the LFU channel was built for you to come as you are and we want to celebrate you in your infinite greatness. So that was our actual first step into gaming, which we do believe is a sport.
So we're in the gaming world. We're partnering with these incredible gamers.
We're understanding that we're actually making a very big difference in people's lives. So then you say, well, how do I cast a bigger net? Where are the other places that I could show up? And for us, the Indy five hundred was one of the first places.
That we went into the ELF car.
We had the elf.
Car with Catherine leg and when you think about it, it just makes perfect sense.
You've got the biggest spectator sport in the world.
Three hundred and fifty thousand people show up every year at the Indy five hundred. Fifty percent of that audience as women. Nobody's talking to them. There is no company that is inviting you to celebrate your femininity if you're a female driver. And guess what, there's only one and that's Catherine Leg. So we came in to support the only female driver in the race, but not only support the only female driver the race, support the entire audience
is there that's never been spoken to before. So after the ND five hundred, which was very emotional for us because we realized what it meant to serve the underserved, then we said, well where else can we be So when we were doing this partnership with Billy Jean. She was talking about the Professional Women's Hockey League and how nobody cares about these poor girls who were playing hockey
and how important it was for them. So we said, okay, we'll partner with you on this, and once again we saw the raw emotion people had to be sponsored by a company like ELF. So then we took our partnership a step further and that's how we ended up here. So again you just see this beautiful tapestry that comes together as you build these moments, and each moment gives us the signal that says, keep going, press further, there's more to be done here. The emotional connection with our
brand has transcended everything we could have ever imagined. ELF has almost become an ideology.
It is.
It is a stamp of the underrepresented. It is a symbol of the overlooked, and that has unbelievable power that we I don't think realized how much power we actually have.
It's funny you say that.
You know, I go back to the sponsorships, for example, in women's tennis, and you know, Virginia Slams obviously is one of the most well known it really helped start the Women's Tennis Association.
So our you know, our.
Reverence for that company is different to it's a spoken company, right. It was more like they supported us. They were like they got it, they wanted to help.
Clearly that was.
Selling something that was not conducive to playing sports. But they are an incredible company because they got behind women's
women's tennis. And I think, you know, for those of us at a certain age range like myself, you know, Billy obviously, Chrissy Abott, Martina, it's like you you form a bond with companies like that because and a lot of actually a lot of the women that were there are a lot of people that work there were women, and I just feel it's important for companies and for sports when you get a sponsorship from a company that
really believes in you. And also, I don't know, I don't know how to describe it other than like a perfect partnership like for me, Elf Cosmetics in Women's Sports Network at iHeart too.
You know what you're.
Doing in in you know, the racing industry, what you're doing with now getting involved in tennis like that is a I feel like that's a partnership that a lot of other companies should concentrate on is really you know, so many companies just throw money, as you know, so well throw money because they're like, Okay, it's an opportunity for us to be in this space, but they don't really invest in it with the right, right like reasons. And I feel with women's tennis, I think that's an opportunity.
Like Logic is the main sponsor of the WJN.
I was just thinking, you know, when got my mamogram like a couple of weeks ago, and here I am getting my boobs smashed in there and I see ho Logic like everywhere, and I was thinking, that's a synergy that works, right, that's a synergy that we should embrace.
It's the same with Elf.
It's like that's a company that we should or women in every sport, in anything should embrace that company, like buy ELF products because they're supporting women's sports, they're supporting all the right things. So I'm like, what would you say to a CMO in that regard, like sponsor things and put your money behind something that really means something to you, that actually it feels good to you.
It all has to start inside your organization. So I wouldn't tell a CMO anything. I'll show you the blueprint and you can take pieces do that, and you can take pieces and parts that are right for your company. But the first thing is it has to ring true inside the walls of your organization. If it doesn't ring true inside the walls of your organization, it is going to fall flat on the outside.
And I think that's why a lot of them do.
And when you think about the power that ELF has when we show up for the BJK Cup, look at how many of us are here. From iHeart, from ELF. We're bringing tons of press. We're making this a massive moment, like we did at the Indie, like we did at all the sports.
It's because we care, deep, deep.
In our right here.
We have an allergy to a logo slab. You will never find ELF just putting their logo on something.
We come.
We come full throttle, full heart, all the way in head, heart and soul. Right The head is the data says we should be here because there's an opportunity. The heart says we deeply care about this, and the soul is the kindred spiritism with people like Billy Jean King and Alana and others that we work with in the field. So the the thing that the cmos have to do is think about what is true to the company that they represent, what is true inside those four walls, and
how do you then radiate that on the outside. Inside our company, we truly believe in every single thing that we stand for, from our CEO, our board of directors, all the way through all the walls of our organization. So all we're doing is turning that inside out. And that's why it rings true. That's why it's authentic. That's why when Elf shows up, people know that we're wearing our hearts on our sleeves.
Yeah.
Well, I'm a big believer in being authentic and I have passion tattooed on my arm. So I feel like that's what people need to have authenticity with their sponsorship, passion for it, which you do. Last question, how's your tennis game?
My tennis game is terrible, really terrible. It's absolutely terrible. You know, I am not getting on the court with you anytime soon.
Well, I was thinking, but Billy's a good teacher. She loves to still hit the ball around.
She taught me so much.
Sitting next to her last night to your point about her coaching from the sideline, I had anxiety.
While she was talking during the serve. I'm like, Billy, quiet.
I'm gonna easy to be quiet.
You're giving me anxiety.
It's impossible, absolutely impossible.
Alana always says, you know, Billy and I would We shared a house at Wimbledon, which we often, you know, did for a couple of years, and we were watching the Women's World Cup soccer and Billy and I screaming at the television, Billy screaming ideas for the coaches, and Alana just sitting there just going, oh my god, you two are impossible. She's like, there are two people in the world, those that say, you know, three thousand words a day and those say fifty thousand, and that's you
and Billy Jean. So I get Billy a big time. But we thank Billy Jean for all the work that she's done through the years. I mean, her passion, her authenticity for the right thing, for equality. She's my shero, She's she's my north star. I call her whenever there's anything controversial in my life. I call Billy and I go, what would you do here? It's kind of like, you know, instead of what would Jesus do? What would Billy do?
You do?
So that's my mantra.
But Corey, thank you, thank you to elf thank you to the sponsorship not only the women's Sports network on iHeart, but of course for the you know, the money that you're putting now into billaging Kin Cup, into women's tennis. We hope we can keep bringing you into women's tennis. And there are a couple of other cmos from other companies that I know women and they make such a
difference in the world. And you know, going back to tennis, what would you tell your twenty year old self and what would you tell a twenty.
Year old live your bold truth?
There you go and shine up for wideage and I'll elfing believe that.
All right, Coli, thanks so much for Johnny. Today we're going to go watsin tennis late.
We are thank you for having me