Half (51%) of the executive positions (vice president and above) in the U.S. are women. Globally, it’s 48%. Women also make up nearly half of the board and 50% of CEO Tony Capuano’s direct reports.
“It’s not just about the representation of those people in the senior leadership roles; it is also how do they help you navigate getting there,” says Frid Edmond, senior vice president of customer engagement at Marriott and incoming executive sponsor of the Women’s Associate Resource Group (ARG).
That’s why career development conversations play such a crucial role. At Marriott, leaders are expected to regularly talk to their direct reports, as part of their annual performance review cycle, about their career aspirations and how they can achieve their goals. Within these conversations, a subtle shift has been a game-changer — what Edmond describes as a move from mentorship to “career acceleration.”
Before, mentors would keep an eye out for opportunities, and if the stars aligned, they were expected to help associates take the next step in their careers. Leaders have a new expectation: “Tell us what you want, and we are holding ourselves accountable to helping you to get there.”
This shift can be seen in examples from Edmond’s own career, including one indelible career conversation with a supervisor five years ago.
“I was required to come up with three roles that I could see myself in within the next three to five years,” she says. “There was never a promise that these roles would come into play, but it was the art of possibilities, for me, where I saw myself.”
It’s an exercise she now repeats with her own direct reports, and a key ingredient in Marriott’s culture of access to opportunity. “We are required at every single level within our organization to ensure that we are developing the leaders of the future,” she says.
As a result, associates at Marriott are having a much better experience than those at a typical U.S. company.
Associate resource groups
The Women’s ARG at Marriot, which is open to all associates, supports its 5,500 members by offering mentorship and educational support around topics from financial wellness to executive presence, and mock job interview practice. The group also works collaboratively with other resource groups in the organization, highlighting support for all associates, including military veterans, neurodivergent employees, and working parents.
Allies in the group play an important role in mentorship and sponsorship, Edmond says.
“The majority of my mentors have been men, if I’m totally honest,” she shared. But they were invested in her growth and had the authority in key moments to help guide her. What happened when she made her first presentation to the board? “Our chief legal counsel member, as well as our chief communications and PR lead, sat across from me during the board presentation and gave me simple eye cues,” she says.
Just having their presence was a big vote of confidence, Edmond adds. “I can’t tell you what that means to me to know that these two individuals were that invested in my first time presenting to the board to make sure that I was set up for success.”
Tips for building better workplaces in 2025
For organizations that want to be more like Marriott, Edmond offers a few pointers.
Invest in associates at every level of the organization
How you invest in associates at lower levels of the org chart eventually impacts results at the top. Edmond, for example, started as an hourly employee and over a 22-year career has held seven different roles in the company.
“You don’t just jump from an hourly employee to an SVP,” she says. Inclusion requires a system of support across every level in the organization.
Make time for development conversations all year round.
Candid development conversations won’t happen if you only discuss them as an afterthought or in response to an annual employee engagement survey. Your approach to development has to be continuous and thoughtful, Edmond says.
Celebrate everyday accomplishments, including failure.
Growth for all associates requires the permission to try new things, take on stretch assignments and sometimes fail. “When we fail, we celebrate that, too,” Edmond says.
Send a clear signal on inclusion from top leaders.
“Tony was asked some really tough questions at the beginning of the year,” Edmond says. “We were waiting to see how he responded — and he responded the way that we needed.”
The message has empowered Marriott associates to continue to engage. “We start from a place of welcoming all,” Edmond says. “No matter what is going on in the environment, we are always going to welcome all.”
Ted Kitterman is a content manager for Great Place To Work®.
SpaceX is preparing to sell insider shares in a transaction that would value Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite maker at as much as $800 billion, people familiar with the matter said, reclaiming the title of the world’s most valuable private company.
The details, discussed by SpaceX’s board of directors on Thursday at its Starbase hub in Texas, could change based on interest from insider sellers and buyers or other factors, said some of the people, who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public. SpaceX is also exploring a possible initial public offering as soon as late next year, one of the people said.
Another person briefed on the matter said that the price under discussion for the sale of some employees and investors’ shares is higher than $400 apiece, which would value SpaceX at between $750 billion and $800 billion. The company wouldn’t raise any funds though this planned sale, though a successful offering at such levels would catapult it past the record of $500 billion valuation achieved by OpenAI in October.
Elon Musk on Saturday denied that SpaceX is raising money at a $800 billion valuation without addressing Bloomberg’s reporting on the planned offering of insiders’ shares.
“SpaceX has been cash flow positive for many years and does periodic stock buybacks twice a year to provide liquidity for employees and investors,” Musk said in a post on his social media platform X.
The share sale price under discussion would be a substantial increase from the $212 a share set in July, when the company raised money and sold shares at a valuation of $400 billion. The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times earlier reported the $800 billion valuation target.
News of SpaceX’s valuation sent shares of EchoStar Corp., a satellite TV and wireless company, up as much as 18%. Last month, EchoStar had agreed to sell spectrum licenses to SpaceX for $2.6 billion, adding to an earlier agreement to sell about $17 billion in wireless spectrum to Musk’s company.
The world’s most prolific rocket launcher, SpaceX dominates the space industry with its Falcon 9 rocket that lifts satellites and people to orbit.
SpaceX is also the industry leader in providing internet services from low-Earth orbit through Starlink, a system of more than 9,000 satellites that is far ahead of competitors including Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Leo.
Elite Group
SpaceX is among an elite group of companies that have the ability to raise funds at $100 billion-plus valuations while delaying or denying they have any plan to go public.
An IPO of the company at an $800 billion value would vault SpaceX into another rarefied group — the 20 largest public companies, a few notches below Musk’s Tesla Inc.
If SpaceX sold 5% of the company at that valuation, it would have to sell $40 billion of stock — making it the biggest IPO of all time, well above Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion listing in 2019. The firm sold just 1.5% of the company in that offering, a much smaller slice than the majority of publicly traded firms make available.
A listing would also subject SpaceX to the volatility of being a public company, versus private firms whose valuations are closely guarded secrets. Space and defense company IPOs have had a mixed reception in 2025. Karman Holdings Inc.’s stock has nearly tripled since its debut, while Firefly Aerospace Inc. and Voyager Technologies Inc. have plunged by double-digit percentages since their debuts.
SpaceX executives have repeatedly floated the idea of spinning off SpaceX’s Starlink business into a separate, publicly traded company — a concept President Gwynne Shotwell first suggested in 2020.
However, Musk cast doubt on the prospect publicly over the years and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen said in 2024 that a Starlink IPO would be something that would take place more likely “in the years to come.”
The Information, citing people familiar with the discussions, separately reported on Friday that SpaceX has told investors and financial institution representatives that it’s aiming for an IPO of the entire company in the second half of next year.
A so-called tender or secondary offering, through which employees and some early shareholders can sell shares, provides investors in closely held companies such as SpaceX a way to generate liquidity.
SpaceX is working to develop its new Starship vehicle, advertised as the most powerful rocket ever developed to loft huge numbers of Starlink satellites as well as carry cargo and people to moon and, eventually, Mars.
The National Park Service will offer free admission to U.S. residents on President Donald Trump’s birthday next year — which also happens to be Flag Day — but is eliminating the benefit for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth.
The new list of free admission days for Americans is the latest example of the Trump administration downplaying America’s civil rights history while also promoting the president’s image, name and legacy.
Last year, the list of free days included Martin Luther King Jr Day and Juneteenth — which is June 19 — but not June 14, Trump’s birthday.
The new free-admission policy takes effect Jan. 1 and was one of several changes announced by the Park Service late last month, including higher admission fees for international visitors.
The other days of free park admission in 2026 are Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Constitution Day, Veterans Day, President Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday (Oct. 27) and the anniversary of the creation of the Park Service (Aug. 25).
Eliminating Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, which commemorates the day in 1865 when the last enslaved Americans were emancipated, removes two of the nation’s most prominent civil rights holidays.
Some civil rights leaders voiced opposition to the change after news about it began spreading over the weekend.
“The raw & rank racism here stinks to high heaven,” Harvard Kennedy School professor Cornell William Brooks, a former president of the NAACP, wrote on social media about the new policy.
Kristen Brengel, a spokesperson for the National Parks Conservation Association, said that while presidential administrations have tweaked the free days in the past, the elimination of Martin Luther King Jr. Day is particularly concerning. For one, the day has become a popular day of service for community groups that use the free day to perform volunteer projects at parks.
That will now be much more expensive, said Brengel, whose organization is a nonprofit that advocates for the park system.
“Not only does it recognize an American hero, it’s also a day when people go into parks to clean them up,” Brengel said. “Martin Luther King Jr. deserves a day of recognition … For some reason, Black history has repeatedly been targeted by this administration, and it shouldn’t be.”
Some Democratic lawmakers also weighed in to object to the new policy.
“The President didn’t just add his own birthday to the list, he removed both of these holidays that mark Black Americans’ struggle for civil rights and freedom,” said Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. “Our country deserves better.”
A spokesperson for the National Park Service did not immediately respond to questions on Saturday seeking information about the reasons behind the changes.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon called out slow bureaucracy in Europe in a warning that a “weak” continent poses a major economic risk to the US.
“Europe has a real problem,” Dimon said Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum. “They do some wonderful things on their safety nets. But they’ve driven business out, they’ve driven investment out, they’ve driven innovation out. It’s kind of coming back.”
While he praised some European leaders who he said were aware of the issues, he cautioned politics is “really hard.”
Dimon, leader of the biggest US bank, has long said that the risk of a fragmented Europe is among the major challenges facing the world. In his letter to shareholders released earlier this year, he said that Europe has “some serious issues to fix.”
On Saturday, he praised the creation of the euro and Europe’s push for peace. But he warned that a reduction in military efforts and challenges trying to reach agreement within the European Union are threatening the continent.
“If they fragment, then you can say that America first will not be around anymore,” Dimon said. “It will hurt us more than anybody else because they are a major ally in every single way, including common values, which are really important.”
He said the US should help.
“We need a long-term strategy to help them become strong,” Dimon said. “A weak Europe is bad for us.”
The administration of President Donald Trump issued a new national security strategy that directed US interests toward the Western Hemisphere and protection of the homeland while dismissing Europe as a continent headed toward “civilizational erasure.”
JPMorgan has been ramping up its push to spur more investments in the national defense sector. In October, the bank announced that it would funnel $1.5 trillion into industries that bolster US economic security and resiliency over the next 10 years — as much as $500 billion more than what it would’ve provided anyway.
Dimon said in the statement that it’s “painfully clear that the United States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing.”
Investment banker Jay Horine oversees the effort, which Dimon called “100% commercial.” It will focus on four areas: supply chain and advanced manufacturing; defense and aerospace; energy independence and resilience; and frontier and strategic technologies.
The bank will also invest as much as $10 billion of its own capital to help certain companies expand, innovate or accelerate strategic manufacturing.
Separately on Saturday, Dimon praised Trump for finding ways to roll back bureaucracy in the government.
“There is no question that this administration is trying to bring an axe to some of the bureaucracy that held back America,” Dimon said. “That is a good thing and we can do it and still keep the world safe, for safe food and safe banks and all the stuff like that.”
Politics8 years ago