Ep. 1767 Queena Wong | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences working in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Hello. This is Cynthia Chaplin, and today I am thrilled to welcome Queena Wong to voices. Queen is an Australian living in England, and she is a very prominent wine collector and the founder of curious Bimes. Which is a wonderful supportive community of wine industry women that cultivates connectivity and female visibility through inclusive events and member related newsletters and pioneering educational support. So all of the things that I feel are super important in our industry. She was named connector of the year in twenty twenty three's code, hospitality, women of the year awards, and one of the one hundred most influential people in drinks by drinks retailing. So thank you so much for making time today, Queena. I've been looking forward to talking to you for ages. Hi, Cynthia, and thank you for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure. You've been in the wine sector for over fifteen years out. And I know you started out small, and you've been collecting wine, fine wine in particular for almost twenty years. But you've recently described yourself as someone who appeared out of nowhere from family life, which I love. That's kind of my background. And you took several years to find a space where you weren't patronized or dismissed. So let's talk about how you got into the wine world and what you discovered upon your arrival there. I take it. You weren't initially warmly welcomed into the world of wine in London. Well, when I started getting into wine, I didn't set out that I wanted to go into wine as all people. You have to get brought in by someone who shows you the light that wine is a an amazing thing that you want to know more about. And I got inspired after a at a lunch at a, this this amazing place, it's not there anymore. It was a it's a Michelin starred restaurant behind harrods. And, I went there for lunch and, in a staycation, and the sommelier there was another Australian. And was a very formal restaurant. They were in their penguin suits because they're blackened ties, black, you know, black bow tie. And, I just remember getting there. And he had offered us a glass of champagne, and I said, sure. We'll have a glass of champagne, and then When he turned up to Paul the glass of champagne, he put in very formal service, narrow probably I was mid twenties at this age, and I he put his thumb into the dimple of the champagne bottle and put his other arm behind his back. And the the key point here is the arm he put behind his back actually was in a cast and was broken. And as a young uncouth Australian who knew nothing about fine dining more service, I just loved And I thought he was trying to hide his broken arm. And I said, you put it behind your back, but I can still see it and now it's broken. And we just he just burst out laughing. And I just it got funny. He said, this is just how we're supposed to pour it, and it was just the star of an amazing lunch where there was a lot of banter, and I enjoyed myself so much. And this guy I'm still a friend with, and he shifted from being a sommelier to then going working in the trade. His name is Matt wilking. He owns a company called h two van. And he started he said, why don't you come into my tasting? You know, you seem to, you know, like, what you like your wine. And I said, oh, no. I just buy from the supermarket. You know, I'm quite happy with my pinot grigio. Your typical supermarket shopper. And he said, no. No. No. No. No. We're we're gonna we're gonna show you a different path. And I was like, oh, okay. I'll come just for you. And over that year, I attended probably three or four of his tastings in that first year. And he showed me a new way. He said, come early, and I'll show you how to taste wine. And I got there. I was early. And it was just there was no one else there. And he said, right. You know, no. This is this is a wine, and you've gotta think about your colors. And he was talk talking to me about visualizing, is this red or is this black? And I no one had ever showed me this way of visualizing and just, you know, enjoying a wine. And do you like it? It was just it was fantastic. And he got me very confident in knowing about what I liked about my palette and and not to worry about anybody else is saying because it was such an individual consumer product. And, you know, with that with that sort of teaching, one to one teaching over a few of those tastings that we did over the year, my foundations were very, very strong, and I got to really understand wine from my own palette. And, you know, years later, I think it was ten years later, I found out he's actually a master sommelier. He's an MS. And so if I was to really reflect my education was from was one to one dealings with an MS, and it was just well, it couldn't have been any stronger than that, but he made it so big as sommelier. They have this amazing communication skill to make the consumer always feel comfortable. And that wine is something to be enjoyed. And it was just in that first ten years, was also the period where I was starting to have my children. And, you know, I was doing that with purchases at home, and he would talk to me over the phone. There was a lot of hand holding And that is the only reason I would say he's solely responsible for for me still standing here and being prominent in the wine world is that I had such strong foundations in my wine knowledge to give me confidence that I knew what I liked, and I knew what I tasted, and I I didn't really care what other people were saying. And that is a very difficult skill to have I think for a woman to have confidence when you're always surrounded by people, if you don't know what you're talking about or you're not exposed to it enough, it's very difficult to then really believe in yourself in what, you know, what you're tasting. So that was my entry road into wine. And because he went into the match at Saturday, that was where I started to buy wine, but the poor guy suffered through long conversations as my friend of Should I buy two bottles of this, or should I buy three? I think it was kinda low as buying mixed cases, a wine of very low, you know, low, you know, low value. And, but his perseverance then led me into understanding about buying a case of wine. And it's like, why would I buy twelve bottles of the same wine? How boring is that? And he goes, you buy it, you age it, you hold on to it. For a couple of years, you've got to trust me. And then when you bring the case out, you taste one and see what it's like. And then you taste another one six months later, and it tastes different. And so he was the one that again Han held me, not only into tasting one, but into collect wine, and what the amazing thing called time does to a case as you go through a journey of exploring the first bottle, to the last bottle. And, you know, never looked back since, but but having that hand holding and that confidence then elevated the amount of spend I was putting per bottle on a wall. So, actually, he did went out to be in the end, and I ended up spending quite spending them with quite a lot of money with them, and I still do. And, but in no uncertain terms, it was a very much a friend that brought me into into wine. Well, he sounds like not just a friend, but also, you know, kind of the, you know, the Yoda of wine, you know, really an exceptional and sympathetic, empathetic teacher as well. And I think that makes people feel so comfortable no matter what you're learning, you know, in this case, wine. If you have a teacher who's listening to you and and helping you in a way that's personal, I think there's nothing better than that. So he sounds like an amazing person. And, you know, in all these years, you've you have become a fine wine collector, and you've also become a real champion for women in the wine industry, you know, helping people to achieve qualifications and creating a very die first community, lots of mutually supportive wine women. And you said that you saw a clear gender bias against women in the wine industry. You know, what did you see? How did that lead you to create curious fines, which is what we're gonna talk about ultimately. So how did you make the move from, you know, being Matt's acolyte to getting all the way to curious fines? So after when when I had, I've got three children and in in there as an Australian, there there is no family network as such here. So family life was it was my full time job. And then, of course, you know, I'm babysitting in the evening. So my wine journey continued because I was at home and and Matt was allowing me to come to the trade tastings during the daytime, which as the private customer, I shouldn't have been. But when the kids got old enough where I could start getting out a little bit more, I joined sixty seven Palmau. And it was there. I said, where did all the women go? I turned up and and it was paused. They had tried to, you know, I I I do right from the early days. I mean, what was that? Eight, nine years ago, I had to kinda remember how one sixty seven opened. But I remember having the discussions with lovely Grand Ashton and the team there. And they said, we don't want this to be another man's club, we wanna make an effort to make sure that there are more women in the club. And, but I think the, you know, the the difficulty that they have, and especially in the UK, we have is that there is gender bias in who actually does play in fine wine as a consumer. So the the pool of people they have is already gender biased, and that started me to go I need this is where this is my purpose. You know, I'd come out. I used to work in finance and been at home, and I was looking for my, you know, what was my niche going to be. And it was like, This is my niche. I'm actually quite unique because I'm a woman who collects fine wine, and just was very blind to it because I'd spent so much time at home until I came out onto the the scene as such. And this is the way kind of, like, you know, I peered out of nowhere, but, you know, I'd always been buying been buying it for a long time. It's just that I hadn't been doing it socially. So I think it's just the the com the collectors that were in London doing things. Hadn't really, seen me much before. And it was and much of my buying was done through Matt. And then, you know, I came out. I started buying another with other merchants, and, you know, sixty seven introduced me to a lot of people. The bias then pushed me to find female friendship, which I found in the trade. So everyone likes to have a tribe, and no one really likes to be in a gender biased space, it takes a while for you to get comfortable with it. And because it was a little bit of a shock to me, I found a company with women in the trade. And, originally, I said, we need to create more women that that deal with fine wine. And that was how curious finds started. And this was probably back in twenty, twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. I was running on the house to work with that for a few years, and COVID came along and disrupted all of the events that I was doing. And there was a great clarity moment through in COVID that I realized that my angle in the gender biospace in wine was was right, but there wasn't a lot I could do about it. As as a woman who, although, is a role model, that that needed more time money and manpower behind investing into changing the consumer side, and that switched it over to the industry side because that too is still gender biased, but I had a lot more traction there, which I found with the very first event that I ran for the industry, for women in the industry. When COVID, when we came out. So and it I I I just told my girlfriends. I said, come in and get you get your girlfriends from the trade to come in, and I've found a venue, and you're all just gonna pay a little bit of money at the door, and the venue is just gonna take take the cash at the door and and happy days, and it literally sold out and had this wait list. You know, when I started with, like, maybe a dozen names that I started with and told them, like, we're having a girls gig. And it was like, oh, okay. Maybe it's just the COVID effect. I did another one, and then I did another one. And within, like, five months, I had a had a mailing list of three hundred and fifty women. And it was just, it it was astounding. And I had hit on something that was clearly missing and needed. And that's where it really took off because at those gatherings where we gathered and we were comfortable and you know, we could share good stories and bad stories where I was discovering fantastic things that women had gotten a promotion, you know, lovely Alice K from Layan Wheeler, She got the promotion to be the head of private client sales at lay in Willow. And I thought, that's just astounding. I mean, private client is the most gender based, buyer space. Let so to be led by a woman is just astounding news, and I wanted to tell everybody about it. So it started then the emails I I I had from the the mailing list, and these member led newsletters, which was news that was being discovered from these gatherings that I put together. But then I just said, well, why don't you tell me more if you've got this stuff to tell? Tell me what it is that I'll add it to the newsletter and this newsletter, which is led by the people within the community of curious fines. Is still going, and it goes out weekly, and there's always something. Someone's written a new article. Someone's put on a new education program. Someone's won an award. Let's encourage you to apply for competitions. And it's just the most uplifting email and every week I get women contributing to this to this newsletter. And it's not branded in any way. It's an it's an e literally an email from my inbox. It's as simple as simple as that. It's women reaching out to each other. You know, it's a safe space because it's a it's a female database, and they they ask for help from each other as well, which is incredible, and they get responses. It is so interesting how putting women together in wine in a place where there aren't men in the room really changes the chemistry. I I judge for a wine competition called Feminlies in Paris, and it is all female judges. And the atmosphere and the electricity and the camaraderie, is completely different than any other competition that I judge at. And they have grown the competition to the point where they now include a lunch in the middle of the day. So there's morning tasting and judging sessions, and then afternoon. But in the middle, they have a lunch where everyone sits at round tables. You sit with whomever you want. All the bottles that have been tasted in the morning are out on a long, long, long table. And if you've kept you know, notes on things that you wanna revisit. You bring the bottle over. You start talking about it with the women at your table. It's the most comfortable place and a place where I have learned more, I think, than most other places where I've actually studied wine. So I completely understand what you're saying. Women the power of women in a space where they feel safe and comfortable is unstoppable. So what you're doing is amazing, and it's working. As you said, it's growing and growing, just in a few years, but I wanna ask your opinion, you know, you you mentioned the gender bias across our wine industry. And, you know, of course, lack of equity for women is not particular to wine industry, but having alcohol involved in our work adds another element, you know, safety issues for women and wine. Again, equity, as you said, private clients aren't always that open to having women lead their purchasing decisions. How do you think the companies, you know, the major companies in our industry should be addressing these issues and making career advancement and, you know, career safety more viable for women and wine? It's interesting. The word safety, I think conjures up lots of things. So the first aspect of safety, obviously, I think, is, around sexual harassment, there's physical safety of women that work around alcohol. And, you know, often you get the fact that you, I did a survey last year, the UK Women wine survey, which we can go back to, but the top issue that came out of that was that, three courts of the women had said that sexism and harassment is the biggest issue that needs to be addressed within the wine industry. And There is not enough done to protect women in around alcohol, whether you are a sommelier working on the floor in hospitality or whether you are a private client being asked to take out your private male private client for dinner It can be very tricky. And I think, you know, many women and in the survey, it did come through had said that they were told, oh, it's just the alcohol. But frankly, I don't think that's an excuse for, people to behaving inappropriately. And the protection mechanisms, if they're in place, it was had had said women had said, if if you do work for a company and you've got protection measures there, do you think they work? And actually, half of them well, actually, eighty percent of them said that it does work if you if we have, you know, in our company. So it's a matter of just how do we make this more widespread? How do we protect women from harassment? And it might be even just micro aggression harassment. How do we stop them? And how do we how do we bring the awareness of of what that actually looks like and how it feels to be on the receiving end of comments. Then there's also the safety of job. So, of course, one of the big issues that women have, is, and you know, as someone who took a a big break in working myself. So how do you make sure that women can stay on track with their job if they've had a career break because of family. And when I say family is broader, it could be your parents. You could be in a caring responsibility for ill parents or even ill relatives. So if you have any extra loads in your personal life, it's not just children. How do you make sure that you're kept on track with your career when you do have to take time off? And when you have times in your life where you are engaged and busy where, you know, there are there are days you need to take off, to his parents or deal with, deal with things. And I think that that there could be better policies in place when those times happen to make sure that you are kept in touch what we call these keeping in touch days, and it's not unusual. But again, it's about rolling it out further into, especially to the small, the SMEs, small medium enterprises. And also to self employed, they are they completed nearly twenty percent of my a fifth of my survey And it came across very strong that they are very unprotected within the wine industry. And again, it's not particularly the wine industry, but, you know, these are things to consider. So there there are two aspects to to safety and safeguarding. It's a safeguarding of your yourself as a person regarding harassment and sexism, but also it's the safeguarding of your job, returning to work and making sure that that things are in place to keep you on track and that you're not left out of the loop. So there are simple things that come. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp. For fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond, meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now back to the show. I think you make two really two really good points there. If we're ever going to have equity for women in our industry, both of those things are equally important. As you said, some sort of job security, taking into account the the many faceted roles that, you know, a lot of working women play, not just in our industry, but certainly in our industry, which involves a lot of nights and long hours and travel, and then as as well the the personal safety. I think equity won't be achieved until we can get some of these organizations to really understand, not, is sort of, you know, put a little rubber stamp on, okay, we've checked into safety, and here's our policy, but actually to really understand what safety means three sixty, in terms of women achieving equity in the industry. So I like the points that you've made there. They're they're both so important. And you've actually opened the door for my next question because another thing that's very important in our industry is education. And, you know, whether we like it or not having certifications, does lead to career advancement, especially for women who have to prove their value in our industry more often than men. I hope that would change in the future, but at the moment, it's true. And so I know, along with your newsletter, you've also pioneered several educational support programs to support women who want to achieve these kinds of certifications, including master wine, master sommelier, WSET, and all sorts of other things. So let's talk about this for a minute because this plays into the question of of job advancement, job security, and and being safe in our industry. What what are you doing at curious fines to support female learning within our industry? I have, actually, this is probably the it it started off being just one, master wine boot camp that I was doing, and it was so successful. And I I I learned a lot from just kind of diving in without preplanning too much. But what actually is required, for, you know, to help increase pass rate. And one of the things about education for women and supporting their education. It's not only it helps with, roots to more senior roles leadership. So in the survey leadership is the second biggest item that was most important that women want addressed and, that's not enough women in leadership. And so the education support program is to support qualifications at a higher level because I think there is enough women, who feel comfortable to attain their w set one, w set two, w set three. But I support women trying to attain their w set diploma. Which is the next level. That's, you know, that takes a couple of years to set and has six modules through the exams. And it's quite expensive. It's extensive. You know, it's a commitment, and it's expensive. And then I support the master of wine students, candidates. And I also support master sommelier candidates and the Court of master sommelier advanced students. So the They all intermingle at some point. There are two aspects to qualifications. Firstly, identification in blind tasting for both down down through the quartermaster Smelleier root and down through the sort of the MW or W Set diploma route, both those routes. You have the actual theory side of things, and then you also have blind taste and part things. So for the, you know, after much consultation, Both the MW and the MS programs, the hardest bit to pass, for many is the blind testing. So that is where I spend a lot of my funding gratefully from the Sherry Bassay Foundation. Also, this year, the Moa Tennessee wine estates have been very generous in supporting these and employing tutors to guide me. And the support for the MW, we do It's about learning, how to actually answer the question. So apart from identifying the wine, you still lee I I liken it to long division mass when I was I remember teaching my children. It's like, you must do all of the workings because even if you get the answer wrong, if you're workings, they can see you've got every line there in your long division. You get marks along the way. And if you make a mistake somewhere along the line, you don't get deducted so much. So I find with the master of wine, it's very simple. You you also need to show your workings. How did you come to this conclusion? And learning what they need to have in their answers to get the marks to pass. So there are two aspects. And similarly, for the master sommelier, you know, it is very much about time pressured because it's a verbal exam, time pressured blind testing exam. So there is identification, but also the verbalization, what they need to hit for their marks to actually verb done verbally. So there's a lot of, tutor sessions, which I put on for my award recipients to get this education about what they need to do to actually get the marks to pass. Then on top of that, we have the blind tasting tuition, which I put on, and I have four amazing Marquesas Milliers who, you know, songs are my background, but I can tell you in no uncertain terms, I do feel because of their exposure to wine on the floor as part of their job every day, their palettes are fine tuned. And it's like taking a pitchfork and, you know, ringing it and holding it to your jaw. You know, it's like, you know, just it's a it is it is just they're incredible with it. And so they are the best to actually give the notes verbally in teaching and intuition about identification. So I have four sessions with master songs who will be guiding a group of Wset diploma and CMS advanced students in the actual identification part of the program. Then the other thing I have so it's quite complicated. The other thing I have is support in the theory side of the diploma because Anne Macau, fantastic Anne has developed a program which supports specifically the d three module, which is actually nicknamed the beast because it's probably as big as all other five components put together. And, it is, I think, the immense quantity of theory that actually makes theory part of the diploma harder to pass than the the tasting. So it's a little bit converse to the M W and and MS And so, the awards put time into, we nominate a couple of people to, to attend her courses. And then stepping back one more, I tick it all off. With in a couple of weeks, we'll be kicking off with a, a interactive zoom, which is a learning how to learn live zoom with an education specialist So what I've done, I've gone and found someone whose specialty is learning about how to retain information. There is a vast quantity of information that you need to learn for these exams. And reading your notes over and over again doesn't necessarily give you the most efficient way of retaining that information. Absolutely not. Yes. Having taken many of these exams myself, you sometimes need, something that ignites you in a different way. Yeah. So he will be talking about how the brain works and to understand how the brain works and, you know, what you need to do to retain the information in a more efficient time manner. So we'll be doing that and getting them hopefully to all re look at how they're studying and apply that over the next, you know, however many months they've got their studies before their exams. So it was a really it's a very big picture support of the theory in that sense. And it was I felt the best way rather than looking at there there are plenty of suppliers that teach you how the content of wine But I think the what I what I wanted to do was to show people the sort of efficacy of learning because one of the things with women apart from getting education to be opening the daughter leadership opportunities It's about trying to give them equity, this concept of equity, which is putting resources where they might need more support than someone else. So, you know, versus equality, which is everyone gets the same support. And so the equity here is giving women the opportunity to get their qualifications before they become they come into caring responsibilities, whether it's children, parents, or you know, whatever. And also to give support, if they have caring responsibilities, though in no uncertain terms, what we're trying to do is to level the playing field in knowing that that women as a whole, at the moment bear more of that kind of community, social responsibility regarding those caring aspects. And, and that's how I see it. So there is a couple of you know, ways I look at why I put this education support probe complicated is not complicated. It just is depending on what you're setting. There are just many, many avenues to that. I think it's thorough, obviously multi layered. I can see why you were named connector of the year. You're actually connecting the people who have the skills with the people who need the skills in a way that, you know, you can seize that exchange of information and and learning happen in a really positive way, and you can measure the success by the credentials that women are gaining after they do your boot camps and your sessions. So connector of the year clearly was what you needed to be awarded. And I know that curious binds is doing a lot of mentoring, putting women with other women who can help them move forward in whatever way they're looking to do. So you've clearly got this three hundred and sixty degree view of what is needed, to advance people. So I I wanna ask you one thing because you've said that sometimes people mistake you as an aggressive feminist due to your efforts to navigate these sort of choppy waters of gender equity. Do do you think it's fair to perceive you that way? How do you respond when people jump to these kinds of conclusions? You know, you live in London. We we said before, you know, so many men's clubs around, and their members are not branded as chauvinists. So it's really kind of crazy that working to support women in wine has seen you you know, get labeled in this way that seems incorrect. So how do you address that when people sort of make that kind of a statement? Well, it's kind of their issue, not mine. I'm quite reasonable. I might be assertive and very good at holding my boundaries. But I think I think the issue is it just boils down to current society stereotypes, I mean, women you know, previously, you know, we were with empathy, with gentle, we're nurturing, and men were the ones that were assertive, confident, and decisive, and especially when you're in a leadership role. And with curious bones, as the leader of curious fines, I think generally people are still getting used to the concept of women as leaders. And again, historically, since, you know, time began, men will always the the main leaders or the leaders and, you know, have been for ages. So now we have women coming into leadership roles, and it's just a period of adjustment, really, that needs to be happening. And I think when you're a woman who starts to show what had traditionally stereotyped male characteristics of leadership, confidence, assertiveness, decisiveness, When we show those things, it gets misinterpreted as being aggressive because they're not used to seeing a woman exhibit those sorts of communication, styles. And, you know, I think there just is a little bit of education that's required. I'm definitely not assert aggressive. I am assertive. I definitely do you know, do push forwards, but it's always very reasonably, and there's nothing with the wrong with having a lovely open discussion about lots of things and challenging and holding mirrors up. And it makes people uncomfortable. So When you hold a mirror up to an industry, which perhaps it is a beautiful industry, but it it becomes a little bit defensive. And I would say in defense of the industry and those who are being defensive, is no one really it's not like they intended it to be a gender biased environment. This was nothing intentional, and no one is to blame, especially in the UK being the oldest, wine industry in the world. You know, we didn't have our own wine, so we had to build trade. And it is it was a a space that was done by the men because men did the business men you know, men did the trading Of course. Women had no financial, you know, any background of financial ability. They didn't have their own finances. Men controlled all the finances. So it had to be that way. Absolutely. Mended the business, and that's what society was back then. So what we have now in modern time in twenty twenty four is a legacy of history. And that's why it is quite strong and ingrained within the UK cake because it's been going the longest. So if you start with an all male environment, it's very hard to suddenly switch that over. And, so, you know, but again, this is not something that just the wine industry. This is all industries are looking at this and how do we open the doors and how do we then not only open the doors, how do we then raise the women up to the next level, to leadership positions. And, you know, it's just It's aggressive. I think, you know, some will ask, do some people feel a little bit threatened? No one really likes the status quo to change. No one likes change. You know? Especially if you're the person benefiting from the status quo, you don't want it to change. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But it's not, you know, more more funds and more effort does need to provide this concept of equity. So people are gonna have to work harder. To create those opportunities and to create the parts for promotion. And so, you know, I can imagine people saying, why do we need to? And that's something that needs to be, addressed And you've gone from a male industry in finance into a male dominated industry in wine. You know, I don't think it will stay this way in either industry. My oldest daughter is in finance now. I'm in wine. But Italy is very similar to England in the wine industry in that men have run it for for centuries. So it's difficult to, as you say, open that door and keep it open and encourage people to be brave and encourage men in the industry to be welcoming and supportive and to really understand what the challenges are. So it's still January. We've got a few more days left, and I'm gonna ask what your resolutions are for twenty twenty four. You know, what do you want to achieve this year for yourself and for curious minds. I wanna hear. So at the end of twenty twenty three, I had the momentum from the survey, what I had done, I just sort of because it ties into my resolution to twenty twenty four. And I managed to, through my connections and and being extremely reasonable. Everything I say is very reasonable. And I had managed to actually get assertive top industry players into a room to discuss the results of the survey and say, okay. Like, this is not this is robust data now. We had the backing of fantastic proof insight who who backed the survey. So there was very and there was enough having built the communities to such a size. It is now nearly coming up to a thousand women. There are enough participants to make it representative of the population. And so the question is, This is a picture of what women are saying in the industry. What are you gonna do about it? Because it's not very nice. You know, ninety two percent of women still feel male dominated culture, forty four percent of women say they have thought about leaving the industry in the last five years. That's nearly half want to leave. And you never know in five years, they might leave. So they need to actually look at retention. So I know we talked about protecting women, we talked about promoting women, but actually we need to retain the ones that we've already got before they leave. And my resolution for twenty twenty four is to continue to push the industry As I can, to set up the frameworks it needs to to start working out something which is industry wide but industry led. It cannot be done by Queen along with curious fines. Nor any other external diversity entity. It has to be embraced and put into the core gut of the industry itself. And so I have already been speaking with the trade association WSTT and our main, charity, which is the drinks trust. And we are looking to work with them to set up a new project, which will address the issues out of the survey. So this is twenty twenty four. If I can get that up and going and getting especially the protection element, out of necessity dealt with that I would be so happy So, you know, I'm really looking at trying to at least knock knock down one of those pillars, out of the survey, which we see the protection element of the of the survey. And then hopefully start putting in groundwork for the other bits, which is how do we get policies broadcast across the industry to retain women, you know, given flexible working, give them, you know, better opportunities to return to work. And look after them, you know, when they've been in caring responsibilities. You know, so it'll be and roots to mentoring, you know, roots into leadership and things like that. So that's twenty twenty four. I've only got a very small goal, which is, you know, to try and get the whole industry shifting and move. I was gonna say that's a pretty lofty goal for you have eleven months, get your get your trainers on. This is gonna be, but well, I think you are in a position to do that. I think you see the industry in a very specific way. You are coming at it from, you know, initially an outsider's perspective, so you still have that edge to how you view it. You haven't been in it all your life. It's going to be people like you, women like you, and men like you who take a better look at our industry and not only see where we can improve. But as you say, not not just rubber stamp it, but get it into the actual ethos and anima and spirit of the industry. So it just becomes a part of it, and and it's not something that we have to keep addressing over and over. So I wish you all the very best of luck. It's going to be a difficult road, but I think you have got, you know, definitely the nows to do it. So I'm hoping we can have this conversation again next year and see what you've accomplished. I can't wait for that. Honestly, it's, I I'm really looking forward to it. And in the meantime, you know, we're just continuing to strengthen and giving women confidence and making them feel like they're not alone. I mean, the community and these weekly newsletters just keeps touch with them to say you're part of something bigger, you're not by yourself. And, you know, it's it's incredible, just to see women coming up and being more visible, you know, the panel discussions and just putting them on spotlights, say, look at these amazing women. They're just, when we we don't want them to be hidden anymore, they're doing incredible things. And there are women in senior roles, and they're actually helping as much they can. So Absolutely. Absolutely. And I hope everyone's who listening will take a look at curious fines and get involved if they can because this is what we need to spearhead real change in our streets. I thank you so so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. My pleasure, Cynthia, and thank you for giving me a platform to share the story. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in the world, and the only one with a daily show. Tune in every day and discover all our different shows. 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