Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

Learn more about the community development work Holly oversees for Amazon at https://bit.ly/Amazon-Community.

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here. 

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI, or check out the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/44buVz8. The audiobook version is now available at  https://amzn.to/4dTCleZ.

Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

• Building Communities within Your Business (Alice Yoo LeClair)
• Inside Amazon’s Big Bets: Leading on Climate and Delivery (Kara Hurst & Sarah Mathew)
• Four Key Lessons on Trust & Safety (Catherine Teitelbaum, Amazon’s Head of Family Trust)

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Holly Sullivan is Vice President of Worldwide Economic Development at Amazon, where she leads global economic development strategy and investment initiatives focused on job creation, workforce development, and community impact. During her tenure, she spearheaded Amazon’s search for its second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, led development of the company’s Nashville operations hub, and helped drive expansion across North America’s technology footprint. Prior to joining Amazon, Holly served as President and CEO of the Montgomery Business Development Corporation in Maryland. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Tennessee and is widely recognized for her work at the intersection of economic growth, community development, and corporate investment.

Transcript
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Maureen: [00:00:00] Welcome to Innovating Leadership: Co-creating Our Future. I’m Maureen Metcalf, CEO and founder of the Innovative Leadership Institute. Today’s conversation sits at the intersection of economic impact, investment, and leadership responsibility in the United States. 

Our guest today is Holly Sullivan, vice president of worldwide economic development policy at Amazon. Holly, welcome. Let’s start with your role, VP of Worldwide Economic Development Policy at Amazon. Will you tell us a little bit about what that is?  

Holly: Absolutely. Anytime we’re looking at making that investment decision, obviously we wanna understand, where is that day one talent? 

Where can we build those longer term talent pipelines? But it’s also about the community, ’cause it’s our employees that’ll be working at that facility, whether it be a large corporate office, a fulfillment center, part of our drone program. And so we really try to understand what the drivers of that community are so we [00:01:00] can be that good community partner. 

And that’s my role: helping decide where we wanna put those facilities, and then working with the state and local and countries on those investments.  

Maureen: The scale of Amazon’s investment is striking. Over $340 billion in ’25 alone. When you step back from the numbers, what leadership decisions matter most in ensuring that investments of this magnitude create long-term economic value for communities around the country and around the world? 

Holly: At the company, we have a set of leadership principles, and we truly use those to help guide our decisions about, you know, what that investment is. And a couple kind of come to mind. Think big. We’re always thinking big and thinking strategically. How can we have a positive impact on our customer? 

How can we have that positive impact on our company? And how can we have that positive impact on the community? And we start tying all three of those together. That’s when you can take risk. And we do [00:02:00] take risk, and we have to move fast in order to make sure we can serve that customer. Our fulfillment network is a great example. 

A lot of your listeners probably get their products, order from Amazon, and how fast can I get it to my home or business? One of the things that we found over the last few years is we could serve those metro customers oftentimes within hours. You can get that product Amazon.com and order your paper clips, and they’re to your office in no time. 

But our rural customer wasn’t having the same experience as that urban or suburban customer. So one of the things that we did is work backwards from that problem and solve it with that $4 billion investment over the next couple of years for 200 rural delivery facilities, that we can increase those shipping speeds by 50%. 

And then you think about that’s the investment, but it’s also: how do we enter that locality? How do we work with that community, and who are we gonna hire? And that all comes from really earning trust and being transparent and listening to communities. Where’s the best real estate site? How can [00:03:00] we be that good corporate neighbor? 

What chambers of commerce can we join? How can we be better engaged? Are there food insecurity in that community? And we have all of this at scale to be able to solve and be that partner.  

Maureen: You do a lot in the space of food insecurity. 

Holly: We do. We do. We have several different kinda philanthropic arms, so to speak. We have Amazon in the community, and then we also have a full community engagement team. We partner with them because we’re often the first team that has that relationship as we’re going into communities talking about that investment and talking about hiring locals to that facility, again, whatever facility it might be. 

And you learn a lot when you just ask the question, ” What’s happening in your community?” Taking the Uber from the airport to that location, talking to your Uber and Lyft drivers about, ” Where do you live? Where are your kids in school? Why do you like living here?” And that knowledge, along with the policymakers and those local stakeholders, really help inform of how you can be that good corporate partner. 

So food insecurity, affordable [00:04:00] housing, or disaster relief, we have several different stools that we can pull from to make sure we’re being that good community partner.  

Maureen: That’s something certainly that I’ve learned in doing the Amazon interview series that people don’t always see. 

My neighborhood, I see Amazon trucks all day long. But we don’t recognize disaster relief; that often Amazon is present before FEMA because of your fulfillment centers in these locations. 

Holly: I’ll tell you actually a personal story. I’m from Nashville, Tennessee, and downtown Nashville was struck with tornadoes that, you know, went right through the core of downtown Nashville and then, followed Interstate 40 outside of Nashville: one of the longest tornadoes to stay on the ground. 

I called the mayor as soon as I knew it happened. I said, “How can we help? What can we do?” And he said, “You know, we’re still trying to figure it out.” And I was like, “Well, I’m on a plane. I’ll be there in a few hours.” And he said, “Can you meet me at this community center? We’re [00:05:00] setting up a community, for this one neighborhood that was hit really hard inside of a church.” 

And I said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” And when I arrived, we just started talking, and he said, ” Power lines are down. We can’t even get our smaller Amazon trucks into these centers.” So he quickly, at scale, put together 13 different — whether it be a church or, in one case it was somebody’s garage — of neighbors to help. 

And what we were able to do is go to each of these community centers, understand, ’cause one might need formula, the other needed tarps, one might need bottled water. How can we get those essential needs? And we were able to do all that within a matter of hours. And so it’s because we had the supplies ready. 

We also learned from that. One of the things we learned is we need to be able to mobilize even faster, so we invested in a disaster relief hub that’s sitting outside of Atlanta, Georgia, so we can deploy those essential items literally within hours. And if we know it’s coming, such as a [00:06:00] hurricane, we can pre-mobilize our teams and have those supplies sitting at the ready and work with Red Cross, FEMA, emergency management on the ground. 

Maureen: It really brings to mind the mix of local community health and the importance of large global companies working together to support community health.  

Holly: One of our newer leadership principles is that success and scale bring broad responsibility. So I’ll go back to the numbers: $340 billion investment last year. 

That’s a significant number. What does it mean when Amazon actually comes to town? And I think that’s the bigger story here. It’s not only the jobs, it’s also the wages we pay our employees. It’s the day one benefits. 

It’s also our career choice program, which we offer prepaid tuition to our hourly employees of a career of their choice. So whether that be in nursing or a CDL license, or an electrician, we really wanna partner with that community so [00:07:00] those individuals that work with us and for us can have that career pathway. 

And I think about that. You know, I was in public economic development before I came to Amazon, and one of the things that was always near and dear to me is: local politics can be arduous at times, but I always knew when I went to bed at night, “You know what? I’m gonna get up and do it again because I can provide a mom, a dad, a sibling (Mm-hmm) a job in their community. So I wanna keep doing that work. When I came to Amazon, I was like, “I’m going to private sector. Am I still gonna be able to have that impact?” And the answer is yes. I can just have it at a greater scale now. 

Maureen: Which  

Holly: Has to be incredibly rewarding for you. It is. It is. You know, and I’ve just celebrated my 10 years at the company and I still have that North Star, and my team still have that North Star of like: we wanna do good in the communities where we work and where we live, because our employees are gonna live in that community. 

And so we need to be good stewards of that [00:08:00] community.  

Maureen: Let’s go back to the numbers a bit. Amazon today supports 2 million American jobs. And a remarkable share of recent growth has been in small towns and rural communities, as we’re talking about. So from a leadership perspective, what does it take to invest responsibly in communities that are often overlooked? There’s the balance of often community pride, and yet they may not have access to some of the things that you and I have access to.  

Holly: Absolutely. When I think about those numbers, some of those are, are direct jobs and others are indirect jobs, whether it be in hospitality, construction, the service industry. 

But over the last five years, two out of every five jobs we’ve created have been in communities of 50,000 people or less. And so those are your smaller communities. And- I recently went to a town in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, [00:09:00] and talking to these communities about our rural delivery network, ’cause these are oftentimes sort of our last mile delivery. 

And then we also have our data center. We just made a couple big announcements across the country in those too. And talking to whether it be the local economic developers or the local mayor or, or a local council person,” We wanna bring this project here, but it’s not just about that there’s jobs. So that employee’s gonna have kids in this school. Tell me about the schools here. Tell me about the infrastructure here. These are our sustainability initiatives. How can we help you be a more sustainable, resilient community? And sometimes that takes different forms. 

We have different programs. I mentioned our career choice program. We also have our AWS Amazon Web Services, skills centers. And so it might be really focusing on some more of that technical education or STEM education in K through 12, just to make sure that the young people coming up in that community have the same opportunities as their father and mother do today. 

Maureen: Yeah, I think you support Junior Achievement in [00:10:00] our local community. We do.  

Holly: Yes. And Boys & Girls Club is another big one for us. We have, relationships in most major metros with Boys & Girls Club, Junior Achievement, Scouting of America. 

So a lot of those programs that build those kind of core skills for young people, we wanna  

Maureen: be a part of that. So now let’s shift to workforce investment. So you’ve invested over a billion dollars to raise wages and reduce healthcare costs, with average total comp now exceeding $30 an hour for frontline employees. 

So what does this level of workforce investment say about leadership priorities today? I am aware, even in Columbus, we have a fair amount of the community that’s living at fairly low wages. This now creates opportunities for kids straight out of school without a college education to have living wages and healthcare.  

Holly: At the end of the day, I think for any company, it’s about the people, [00:11:00] and it has to be about the people. 

And so ensuring we can have that competitive wage, our average starting wage is $23 an hour. Again, day one benefits. The same benefits that I have, all full-time employees have at the company. But it’s also about teaching them those skills for that career pathway. We have our Career Choice program, but we also have internal programs at the company. 

So if there is somebody that wants to have a career in finance, we have a pathway where they can continue their education and their skill set inside Amazon while continuing to earn that hourly wage. But we also recently did a study with Oxford Economics that I thought was just interesting. 

Five years after Amazon opens a fulfillment center, we have data that shows there’s more businesses opened, unemployment falls, over twelve thousand additional jobs are created in the community, and Medicaid costs are lowered in that community. So that ripple impact of those jobs, whether it be two hundred [00:12:00] jobs or a thousand jobs, is very real once we do come to town and make that investment.  

Maureen: That seems significant ’cause you talked about a lot of these communities have 50,000 or fewer people. 

Holly: Yes. Yes. When I was on the public side of economic development, most economic development professionals do this, is you want an economic impact study. Um, so as you’re recruiting companies, talking to companies, what does that mean?  

Maureen: And even stretching into the sustainability space, what you’re doing with the electric vehicles and other initiatives that we may not think about when we see all the vans driving through our neighborhood: many of them are electric vehicles. 

There are some things that could be, from an energy perspective, incredibly significant, and from a healthcare perspective, also significant.  

Holly: I think at the end of the day, Maureen, it’s a partnership. 

It’s a partnership with the community. It’s a partnership with the utility companies because, you [00:13:00] know, there are areas of the country that we need to be thinking about: how can we be good stewards of water? How can we be good stewards of power? We obviously are investing heavily in data centers, and we’re doing those partnerships with the utility companies to make sure that the residential payer is not paying for our data center infrastructure. 

Our investment has to be seen as a partnership because we need to be held accountable and so is the community because again, it’s our employees  

Maureen: living in that community. 

That’s something that people also don’t think about with the data centers, that you have significant recycling programs for water, as an example. 

Holly: And data centers are so much more sophisticated than they were 20 years ago that you don’t have the same water requirements that you did 20 years ago for the cooling either. 

So technology has continued to outpace some of the built environment, and we’re gonna continue to be part of that innovation and investing in those resources too. We wanna be a leader in that [00:14:00] technology.  

Maureen: Is there one of those investments that is nearest and dearest to your heart? 

Holly: Yes. I led the search for our second headquarters, located in Arlington, Virginia. Very proud of that. A part of that process, we also located a 5,000-purpose corporate office in Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville is my hometown, and at the time, it was the largest announcement ever in the state of Tennessee. 

So being able to go home and announce that Amazon was coming to town, um, … This is a funny story. My mom still lives in Nashville, and she knew I was working this project, but she didn’t know what it was ’cause I had to keep it confidential, and she’d always try and trip me up on like, “It’s storming where I am. How’s your weather?” And the night before I was- we were announcing Nashville, I flew to Nashville, and there was a crazy thunderstorm. She was telling me about it in actually my hotel room. The power kept going out. But I [00:15:00] couldn’t tell her I was there. So we did the big announcement, and of course, my first phone call as soon as I walked off the podium was to my mom. 

She literally was crying ’cause she was like, “I just heard the announcement, and I’m so proud of you.” It makes me even a little teary-eyed thinking about it. But I think being able to have that impact not only in my home state, but thinking about how we can have that impact in communities across the globe. I think Leo is something I’m also very proud of. 

But being able to support broadband internet to rural communities so small businesses, so educators can have that access in the most rural parts of this country: that is going to completely be a game changer for the global economy.  

Maureen: Yeah. Think about the haves and have-not divide based on broadband. 

And children in some communities don’t have the same opportunities.  

Holly: They don’t, and that’s a problem we wanna solve, and we have the scale and the innovation to solve it.  

Maureen: Let’s [00:16:00] now move to leading in complexity and uncertainty. When leaders are responsible for decisions that impact literally millions of jobs, billions of dollars, and entire regions the pressure is real. 

I, I trust that you feel it every day. What personal leadership disciplines help you lead effectively with this level of complexity?  

Holly: I often, when out having a coffee or cocktails with friends who are like, “Are you just stressed all the time?” And the answer is no. Because, A, I’m surrounded by incredibly smart people, and there’s a team of us making these decisions; when I think about it, it’s hearing the different perspectives from team members as we’re all kind of making this decision. And if you’re not seeking that advisement from different thoughts and different perspectives and different backgrounds, how can you truly make that important decision [00:17:00] that will have that impact and that ripple impact? 

These are long-term investments for us. Um, but I also have another saying that if we’re gonna fail, like fail really fast so you can learn from that, and then probably the second time around you’re gonna be much more successful because you had that failure. You’re just better informed. 

Maureen: So that’s the two-way door idea that I fail, I can undo some things. I assume those are the things you fail fast. Things you can’t undo, you don’t fail.  

Holly: You try your best not to. There’s really very few one-way door decisions. 

Most decisions are two-way doors. They come with risk. They may come with cost. But if we continue to make sure we’re innovating for our customers, we should take that risk.  

Maureen: I talk often about leaders needing to have the mind of a scientist. So I have a hypothesis. I can do reasonable tests. I take risks within the prescribed parameters. I learn. I go forward. [00:18:00] Typically, I learn from every experiment. Some I wouldn’t wanna publish in a blog, but I do  

Holly: learn from them. Absolutely. Well, you might n-need a job here at Amazon. 

I think we got a spot for you. You sound like a, a cultural fit.  

Maureen: I may be a cultural fit. Let’s jump into governance, trust, and leadership accountability. So what does strong leadership accountability look like when economic impact and trust are on the line? We live in an era where people can tweet or whatever and say pretty much whatever they want, and truth isn’t necessarily a requirement for opinions.  

Holly: I think a couple things. 

One is you should listen to your critics. I think it’s important to listen to critics. There’s a perspective there. There’s context there. And if you’re not listening to your critics and, you know, even me being just, being vocally self-critical of when I make a mistake or like, gosh I probably could have made a different decision or a [00:19:00] faster decision. 

So I think that’s important. And then I think this kind of goes hand in hand with it, but you have to offer transparency. A lot of what I do is highly confidential, so I can only offer so much transparency, and what I know today is very possibly gonna change tomorrow. So it’s managing expectations while offering the most amount of transparency I can have with a policymaker, with a stakeholder, with my internal teams as we’re making these decisions. 

And then you start earning trust because you are listening. You are making different decisions based upon “I might have a little bit more information in two days.” But we also have a kind of a philosophy here: if you have more than 50% of the information, you probably should have already made that decision. 

And that again, like, goes to moving fast. A lot of it’s judgment, and you gotta be right. And it doesn’t mean that I’m right a lot. It means that collectively we have to be right.  

Maureen: I [00:20:00] appreciate the distinction between appropriate transparency. We often hold up authenticity and transparency as the thing. 

In a large corporate context, you can’t share everything. Uh, your story about not being able to even tell your mom that you were announcing a facility in Nashville because the implications of that coming out too early would be career-ending potentially for you. 

Holly: The mom is a great example, but why even put her in that position? It’s not information that she needs, and so why would I even put her in that position where she can’t tell her sister that information, because, you know, they’re, they’re having coffee that day. 

So I think it’s also as we’re building these relationships, you have to earn that trust. But some of that trust is also protecting things that we don’t know yet and telling the story as much of the information as I can tell you at this time, and also being honest and saying, “I don’t have all of it. We’re building this plane as we’re [00:21:00] flying it,” so to speak. “And so when I get more information, I can share that information, but I don’t have it all yet.”  

Maureen: The other thing that stood out is if you’ve got more than 50% of the information, you should have made the decisions. Decision velocity is one of the things we work on, and helping people get comfortable with what information they need to make a decision, the consequences, because inappropriate pace has a cost, too fast. And I’m watching a client, inappropriate too slow has significant costs as well. And to your earlier point, judgment, it sits in the middle, and the distinction between really good executives and really bad executives, often comes down to judgment.  

Holly: Uh, concur. And being able, I think, to work in that ambiguous environment really sets leaders apart. 

Sometimes I think it’s something you can coach and, I’m constantly communicating to my team and teams I work with on [00:22:00] when you’re helping guide that decision, just sit down and ask yourself, “Am I gonna have more information tomorrow or next week that would inform this decision to make it a different way or go to a different location?” 

The answer is probably not. So go ahead and make it. That way, again, you’ll either fail fast or we can innovate for our customers quicker  

Maureen: You know, the other piece of that is sense making and how do you make sense of the information you do have? You’ve talked about pulling people together, hearing specifically different points of view, and how does that help you make sense of the information differently than you would have solo? 

Holly: It’s also pulling together different people from different teams because, you know, you’re gonna have technical people. Your lawyers are gonna tell you one thing. Your public relations team is gonna tell you something different. But for me, I always say, 

“How is this going to benefit our customer, and how is this gonna benefit the [00:23:00] community, and what are the opportunities and risk with each of those? So let’s solve for the challenges, and let’s create more of the opportunities.” And break it down more simplistic, and then you kinda can get to your answer and whatever decision you need to make pretty fast.  

Maureen: The other thing you’ve talked about also is long term and short term, that often what seems like a good idea quickly doesn’t age well.  

Holly: Yes. 

Yes. We used to have a phone, the Fire Phone. It was not a superb product, and so we no longer have a Fire Phone. We’ve made many different decisions, even within our fulfillment network. Our last mile is very visible because people see the trucks coming down their residential street. We don’t always get it right there either, but we’re able to learn from that and make the different decisions, and I think that’s also what has led us to the importance of that last mile delivery experience with our customers, making sure that we’re [00:24:00] consistent, we can scale it, and the reliability. 

Our customers want that reliability, and that’s why they’ll choose us again and again.  

Maureen: And yet that’s balanced with partnering with small businesses who know the community, but you may not know their reliability going in because no one says, “I’m unreliable. Pick me.”  

Holly: You’re right. So that’s our hub delivery program where we partner with a local florist in a community, and it’s a great way to supplement our delivery routes while also you know, they’re making some extra money. 

And we haven’t always gotten those right. But we can continue to work with those partners on giving them feedback. Feedback is a gift. Some people take it well. Some people don’t take it so well. But when you’re in a partnership and when you’re in business together, it’s important to give each other that feedback, and they also can give us feedback about how we can be a better partner to them. 

And so it’s that two-way feedback that I think is important, and the hub delivery program … It’s iterative right now, but we’re [00:25:00] looking at scaling it significantly.  

Maureen: Feedback is crucial, both sides, because they’re a different entity than people who are employees of Amazon. 

Holly: Exactly. We work a lot with our small businesses ’cause 60% of our online sales are those small and medium-sized businesses, but we don’t always know the community, and we might not have been in the community for 20 years such as a local florist shop. So how can we be that better partner, and what are the best routes? 

“Oh, we probably don’t need to go down Smith Road because the shoulders aren’t wide enough. Oh, well, it’s not what’s showing up in our Google Maps.” So there’s all sorts of two-way learning. Sometimes it’s very simplistic, but again, it’s very meaningful to our customers and the communities where we operate. 

Maureen: I walk my dog every day. Almost every day someone stops me trying to figure out how to get someplace. So I get the Google Maps doesn’t necessarily help my local Amazon drivers.  

Holly: Yes. And when you get to the rural areas, it is much worse. And we do have our own mapping system. 

But I don’t know. [00:26:00] Again, I just go back. That local feedback,  

Maureen: it’s just such a great gift. So in the spirit of innovating leadership and co-creating the future, which one leadership choice do you believe senior leaders and boards should make in the next 30 days? 

Holly: One of the things that I think has been, extremely kind of change to Amazon is our community engagement program, whether it be with our affordable housing, which is a $3.2 billion affordable housing fund, our disaster relief, and then that kind of hyper-local community engagement. 

I wish that all companies would think about how they wanna be the best corporate citizen in whatever community they operate. You know, Amazon’s continuing to double down on that and what’s important, but I’d like a call to action for all companies to think about it. Even small businesses and small companies joining and supporting that Junior Little League, you know, a few hundred dollar check is so meaningful to that community. 

So [00:27:00] get involved in your community and take action and implementation and be that good corporate citizen.  

Maureen: You and I were talking about our university board work, and that we both personally give to higher education, because we value what we gained, and we wanna make sure the next generation gets similar advantages  

Holly: And sometimes the time is more important than the money. There are financial resources that, community colleges, K through 12, even our local PTAs, they need the financial resources. 

But having that time commitment I think is so invaluable, whether it be mentoring or reading to a kindergarten class. Uh, and I, I’m a big believer in mentoring young people, and I’ve done it at the university level, at the community college level, and at the high school level. And maybe it’s also hearing from women that have worked really hard, and I’m went to University of Tennessee and did my master’s at University of Tennessee, [00:28:00] and how do you open those doors, but how do you make those decisions and work your way up that career ladder successfully while also continuing to build bridges? 

One of my big philosophies at the company and externally is always build your bench. It’s good to have people that you can trust inside your community and then external to your day-to-day work. That’s another call to action, is encouraging all leaders to build their bench with their community. 

Maureen: What advice would you give young women? You talk about mentoring women, looking at moving into a role like yours. I assume you got there by both hard work, being super smart, but also that people gave you a hand up when you needed it. 

Holly: Yes, and I, I’m gonna give very specific advice. I think one is build that bench. Ask for help. Ask for feedback. And it’s amazing how those doors start opening for you. You do have to work hard, and you have [00:29:00] to earn that trust. The other thing is, I think that a lot of women have it in their head they have to have this work-life balance. 

I don’t believe there is balance. I think that you have to create your own harmony. If you choose to get married, and if you choose to create a family or have a significant other, and it has to be a true partnership inside your home also. Do I miss school plays and sporting events? I absolutely do, but it’s a constant prioritization of sometimes work’s a priority, sometimes family’s a priority, and guess what? 

Sometimes I’m even the priority.  

Maureen: Given what you do and the amount of judgment you need, I assume that you have some kind of routine for fitness and recharge. What does that look like?  

Holly: I’m glad you asked, because I have not for years. I was trying to go into the gym at least twice a week and realized, honestly, it’s hard for me to fit into my schedule. 

So I’m doing remote training sessions, 30 minutes three times a [00:30:00] week. And then I think the best thing you can do is get a chocolate lab puppy, which I did- … which forces you to walk several miles a day. It might be at 6:00 AM, it might be at 9:00 PM, but it gets you out of the house and, and gets the fresh air and gets my joints moving. 

Maureen: I have a pit bull, and when I got her, I was single, and I was maniacal about 10,000 steps a day, which usually finished up between 11:30 and at midnight at night, ’cause I’d, you know, wrap up work and realize I haven’t gotten my steps. And I had a small dog, which was of no help walking at 11:30 at night in a ravine that’s not very populated. 

So the pit bull felt much safer, still feel much safer walking her, and she sounds like Chewbacca when she hasn’t been walked. So she yeah, morning and evening she goes. Any dog,  

Holly: I think, will hold you accountable to getting that fresh air, and if I had to tell my [00:31:00] younger self, I would say prioritize that fitness program and that fresh air more so than you did ’cause I think it’s important. 

Maureen: Yeah, I would probably say the same thing, ’cause I went through decades of not. It’s hard to catch up. It is hard  

Holly: to catch up. It is hard to catch up at my age.  

Maureen: I’m working on it, though. I’m determined. I’m probably slightly older, and I’m trying to recover from 20 years of less fitness than I wished  

Holly: Yeah I understand. 

But it’s never too late to start. I I have an 11-year-old daughter, and she wanted to get into tennis, and I was like, “Okay, I’ve never had a tennis lesson in my entire life.” So at 51, I took my first tennis lesson.  

Maureen: Congratulations.  

Holly: Thanks. Th- thank- I’m not good, but I enjoy it. Does she care? 

She does not. She loves  

Maureen: it. So we go out there and hit balls, and so it’s fun. That’s the thing that makes our hearts happy, and our hearts make the rest of us healthy.  

Holly: 100%, and I think, again,  

Maureen: healthy mind, healthy heart, that’ll make you successful in anything you do. [00:32:00] That’s a great way to wrap. Holly, thank you for what you do for Amazon, what you do for women, what you do for your daughter. 

It’s been a delight to talk to you.  

Holly: Well, thank you. Thanks for giving me the space to do it.  

Maureen: And to our listeners, I hope that you are able to follow Holly’s guidance and find a way to give back, whatever that looks like, large or small. And your leadership matters. All of us right now pulling together to make a positive impact on our world leaves us better off.