Change is hard.
A few years ago Wall Street made a statement with this photo.
They told the world and the free markets it's time we change. The statue was symbolic. It created a ruckus. It sent the message that we are ready to embrace the reality that a gender-balanced workforce is necessary to drive better outcomes. Pink Petro was born for the energy transition.
In energy, we know that gender is driving great outcomes, as I wrote in Barron's earlier this year. In fact, if we want a better environment, diversity of all forms is necessary, as I argued to Scientific American, too.
But it's not enough.
As an entrepreneur, it's never enough. I have always had a profound appreciation for looking to the future and re-imagining our industry, and what that means is also thinking about how our community and our company will evolve.
Several weeks ago I felt compelled to ask our followers a simple question. Do we rebrand? Does Pink Petro go away? Do we expand Experience Energy? I received all kinds of feedback.
The crowd answered: Pink Petro extends beyond gender
As I had hoped, many of you see beyond the pink. So here's the outcome. Pink Petro and Experience Energy are both here to stay. The words "Pink" and "Petro" mean various things to many of you. I knew the concept that I developed on a cocktail napkin seven years ago on a flight between London and Houston would always need to evolve. I chose Pink Petro because I wanted us to stand out, to be different, to transform thinking beyond the traditional boundaries. Difference pushes the world forward.
But we all know we're in a transition. This transformation goes beyond gender, generations, nationalities, religion, sexual preference, and energy forms. It goes beyond industries and political affiliations. It gets back to us as humans in our rawest form. We need everyone at this table. Pink, blue, black, brown, white, and all of the colors of the rainbow.
Humanity was built by Energy 1.0 with wood, coal, oil and gas. Fossil fuels are the reason we are all here today. But we know that too much of anything can harm us and our climate is changing. The world is on an unsustainable path and this is creating a cultural and business upheaval unlike we've ever seen. In what's been noted as a crisis, I see opportunity. As man and womankind are capable of so much progress, I am convinced we are capable of solving this challenge. We must lower our emissions, transition to newer forms while increasing the demand to bring nations out of poverty. And the industry to lead us should be the industry that started this.
I'm beyond grateful this seedling -- a concept that came from a fire in my belly continues to thrive despite price crashes, ongoing social and economic challenges, and polarisation in our world. We've not just brought together the fossil fuel industry but we have also begun to bridge the gap across the entire industry with our Community Council and Energy Workforce of the Future initiative.
The Unconference for the Energy Transition: Energy 2.0
Running a startup and growing a business amidst a changing world is quite a marathon and set of sprints. It's been a rollercoaster of ups and downs. In 2020, on March 10th in Houston online and in Denver, we are proud to begin to celebrate five years of tremendous growth and with that will come our greatest unconference yet. We'll extend that celebration on March 24th to London.
Mark your calendars and share the date. While HERWorld served its purpose, to drive more female voices into the energy conversation, we decided to disrupt ourselves and identify with something all-inclusive. In our ongoing desire to drive inclusion, we are transforming our own experience. Energy 2.0 reflects where we all have a seat at this table. And our theme for this year's unconference is Equality, Environment, and the New Economy and it is timely. We'll continue to be the "unconference" where unconventional ideas, people and differences are celebrated. Because it's through difference that the world moves forward.
Lastly, we'll be doing our part to reduce our carbon footprint across all of the things we do. In the coming days, you'll hear more about that and our desire to drive sustainability into everything we do.
The late Steve Jobs once said, "Go make a dent in the universe." Thanks to each of you for making one in mine. To our joint success,
