Meet Meggie Palmer, CEO & Founder of PepTalkHer
After spending 11 years working as a journalist, Meggie Palmer took the leap to put her own experiences with pay inequity into action. The Australian entrepreneur, based in New York, set her sights on creating a resource for all women to leverage negotiation skills and share career advice. We caught up with Palmer to learn more about how her app, PepTalkHer, works and why it’s become so successful.
During Palmer’s early career days as a journalist and international news correspondent, she experienced pay inequity firsthand.
Says Palmer, “I found out – by accident – that I was getting paid less than my male colleague. [It] frankly pissed me off. This totally opened my eyes to the pay discrimination women face in the workplace. I wanted to change that so others didn’t have to go through what I went through.”
Palmer, who initially thought it was a genuine error, says she thought it was a mistake but instead was told, “‘If you don’t like it, you can quit or take us to court.’ I had some savings, I backed myself to get another job, but I felt responsible to say something and not just walk away and pretend that it didn’t happen.
I was like, ‘What if this happened to someone who had a family to support? Or what if this happened to someone who’s pregnant, who couldn’t quit?’ I felt obligated to say something because of the privilege [I had] to be able to take on that conversation.”
And so, PepTalkHer was born.
But before it was the app that we know today, it was just an idea – a passion project Meggie found herself personally vested in. She considered other options: “You can do coaching, and that’s great and supports people one-on-one. But when I was a journalist covering tech companies, [I saw] the ability to make an impact on a larger scale.”
Palmer took her idea through an accelerator program in Sydney that helped validate it. During this program, she met an investor who wasn’t convinced by what she was doing.
“One of the investors was a white, middle-class [man] who was like, ‘I just don’t understand the problem.’ And I said, ‘I’m trying to solve the problem of the gender pay gap’ and he still didn’t get it. That was the whole point.”
Currently, the World Economic Forum and the United Nations estimate that globally, women earn anywhere between 23 - 37 percent less than men. These numbers can become even more disparate depending on where you live and when you take race into account. At the current rate, it would take more than 100 years to close the gap. While that may seem bleak, apps like PepTalkHer aim to close that gap much sooner.
The PepTalkHer app works by collecting all of your wins by giving you a space to record your success, feedback, data, etc. If you’re not sure where to start, the app makes it easy by giving you prompts in the form of four templates; sales, leadership, personal wins, and culture. Then, when you need them most (like performance review time), PepTalkHer feeds them back to you as a reminder. The psychology behind the app is based on the nudge theory – that small, incremental changes in your mindset can lead to awesome outcomes.
Palmer, who initially thought it was a genuine error, says she thought it was a mistake but instead was told, “‘If you don’t like it, you can quit or take us to court.’ I had some savings, I backed myself to get another job, but I felt responsible to say something and not just walk away and pretend that it didn’t happen.
I was like, ‘What if this happened to someone who had a family to support? Or what if this happened to someone who’s pregnant, who couldn’t quit?’ I felt obligated to say something because of the privilege [I had] to be able to take on that conversation.”
And so, PepTalkHer was born.
But before it was the app that we know today, it was just an idea – a passion project Meggie found herself personally vested in. She considered other options: “You can do coaching, and that’s great and supports people one-on-one. But when I was a journalist covering tech companies, [I saw] the ability to make an impact on a larger scale.”
Palmer took her idea through an accelerator program in Sydney that helped validate it. During this program, she met an investor who wasn’t convinced by what she was doing.
“One of the investors was a white, middle-class [man] who was like, ‘I just don’t understand the problem.’ And I said, ‘I’m trying to solve the problem of the gender pay gap’ and he still didn’t get it. That was the whole point.”
Currently, the World Economic Forum and the United Nations estimate that globally, women earn anywhere between 23 - 37 percent less than men. These numbers can become even more disparate depending on where you live and when you take race into account. At the current rate, it would take more than 100 years to close the gap. While that may seem bleak, apps like PepTalkHer aim to close that gap much sooner.
The PepTalkHer app works by collecting all of your wins by giving you a space to record your success, feedback, data, etc. If you’re not sure where to start, the app makes it easy by giving you prompts in the form of four templates; sales, leadership, personal wins, and culture. Then, when you need them most (like performance review time), PepTalkHer feeds them back to you as a reminder. The psychology behind the app is based on the nudge theory – that small, incremental changes in your mindset can lead to awesome outcomes.
“A pep talk from someone when you need it most can truly change the course of your career. It did for me on multiple occasions,” says Palmer. “I’m excited that the PepTalkHer App is now replicating that experience for thousands of women (and men, too!) all around the world.
Palmer’s advice for women in the workforce: be sure to ask for salary negotiations and make sure you have support around you. “It’s really powerful, because then you get a sense of what other people are being paid. Particularly if you identify as female or a person of color, make sure you’re talking to your colleagues about how much they’re making.”
Another great resource that Palmer recommends is the book Ask For More by Alex Carter and The Memo by Minda Harts.
In order to reach pay equity, Palmer says there’s a heap of things that have to happen. “We need governmental policy change. We need businesses to create change in policy and then also, I think, at the grassroots, there’s change that we [as individuals] need to create, too.”
Check out PepTalkHer and other Women’s Equality Day content below.
Palmer’s advice for women in the workforce: be sure to ask for salary negotiations and make sure you have support around you. “It’s really powerful, because then you get a sense of what other people are being paid. Particularly if you identify as female or a person of color, make sure you’re talking to your colleagues about how much they’re making.”
Another great resource that Palmer recommends is the book Ask For More by Alex Carter and The Memo by Minda Harts.
In order to reach pay equity, Palmer says there’s a heap of things that have to happen. “We need governmental policy change. We need businesses to create change in policy and then also, I think, at the grassroots, there’s change that we [as individuals] need to create, too.”
Check out PepTalkHer and other Women’s Equality Day content below.
Meggie's career reads
