Founder Friday with Jillian Climie & Sophie Warwick of The Thoughtful Co.
Founded by Jillian Climie and Sophie Warwick, The Thoughtful Co. supports women in negotiating their compensation and advises employers on improving gender equity in the workplace. Through their expertise guiding women in compensation and contract negotiations, they boast a track record of clients achieving an average +25% increase in compensation packages. With a client base spanning Canada, the U.S., and the UK, including notable companies like Uber and Goldman Sachs, Jillian and Sophie specialize in coaching, contract reviews, financial modeling, advising employers on building more inclusive workplaces for women, and provide workshops on high impact topics that help women succeed in the workplace.
We caught up with Jillian and Sophie to hear what’s new for The Thoughtful Co., what’s coming up next, insights into what’s happening in the industry, and advice they would give to their past selves and up-and-coming women founders.
What’s New
Jillian and Sophie are thrilled to have recently celebrated two years of The Thoughtful Co. in operation. Having come a long way from their inception, they’ve hit many milestones to toast to along the way.
Launching strong and profitable since month one, they are now working with clients across Canada, the U.S., and the UK. In 2023, they partnered with the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge to deliver impactful content on negotiation and advocating for yourself to their students.
As The Thoughtful Co. has evolved, Jillian and Sophie have expanded their compensation negotiation services to support women at all levels—from new university grads to C-Suite executives. The ability to directly impact women's careers and earning power at various levels has been beyond joyful for them as it has also been helping to achieve their mission of enabling recognition, opportunity, and influence for women.
Jillian and Sophie are proud to see their clients successfully negotiate from notable companies, such as Uber, Goldman Sachs, Indigo, Wealthsimple, Deloitte, Mastercard, Shopify, and JP Morgan.
Further to their development, they have focused their consulting to support employers largely in engineering, construction, and technology, where they have achieved huge growth in this space. From helping an international engineering firm implement a sponsorship program to advising a project delivery team on the successful implementation of an equity, diversity, and inclusion assessment criteria in an RFP of a multi-billion dollar public project, they have left lasting impact across a number of sectors.
The Thoughtful Co.’s client list continues to grow, including Syncra Construction, Metro Vancouver, Thurber Engineering, Article Furniture, QuadReal, Matson, Associated Engineering, and 1Password.
Doubled with that impressive list of clients are all of the places Jillian and Sophie have visited to deliver high-impact workshops helping women succeed in the workplace. With more and more organizations keen to gather in person in 2023, they have travelled in Cincinnati, Edmonton, the Yukon, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Victoria, and many more cities.
The duo can’t express more how much they’ve loved the opportunity to connect with more workshop attendees live and are excited to continue doing so in 2024—starting with Silicon Valley.
What’s Next
Understanding the challenges of finding robust market data, Jillian and Sophie are excited to have built a comprehensive database of accurate and current compensation data. Going beyond salary, the database includes everything from stock options to work-from-home flexibility.
When “asked” to put a specific number forward, it can feel like a black box in negotiations. Passionate to change that and help their clients feel confident in their compensation, Jillian and Sophie are excited to continue growing their market data to include more data points from more industries and regions.
Additionally, The Thoughtful Co. has launched new workshops to support women in rising to senior levels in organizations. Two they are especially thrilled to facilitate include Mentorship with Purpose: Empowering Growth Together and Powerfully Negotiating Your Value.
What’s Going On in the Industry
With a mission to enable recognition, opportunity, and influence for women in the workplace, there are always major opportunities and moving pieces for Jillian and Sophie to track.
A couple to particularly flag and take note of:
Pay Equity. We are moving in a positive direction with more Canadian provinces introducing pay transparency legislation in an effort to close the gender pay gap. British Columbia released new legislation in November 2023 that requires all new job postings to include a pay range, and Ontario has proposed new pay transparency legislation as part of Bill 149.
These changes are so important for closing the gender pay gap. They allow candidates to have more insight into expected compensation and, in some cases, also require companies to report on their pay equity. We’re not in a place yet where we have great pay equity, or equity within the workplace, but The Thoughtful Co. is excited to see positive changes happening.
Equity in Hiring. There’s been a lot of controversy building in the U.S. with new legislation on affirmative action in recruiting for academic centers. These changes are also making waves in recruiting practices in industry.
Jillian and Sophie wanted to take a moment to remember that affirmative action doesn’t need to mean selecting an individual for a role based on their identity. Instead, it can be practices implemented to reduce bias in the decision making process that empower more equitable decision making.
For example, when we consider opportunities to increase representation of women in male-dominated industries, it can mean:
A minimum number of interviewers who identify as women
A minimum number of candidates interviewed who identify as women
A minimum number of women’s names put forward for a promotion
These practices don’t define who is ultimately selected for the opportunity but instead reduces the risk of bias and groupthink impacting decision making and increases our ability to make equitable hiring decisions. It’s paramount to keep positive momentum on these practices.
Advice to Your Past Self & Other Women Founders
“Celebrate the wins, both big and small,” Jillian and Sophie say. “Entrepreneurship inevitably has its ups and downs, and you have to enjoy the journey.”
With every milestone, there is often another one coming around the corner, and it’s easy to lose sight of each success and focus instead on the next push coming down the road.
Last year, the duo introduced a “win from last week” to kick-off their weekly meetings. Some weeks, the wins are big and exciting, and others are small victories. Either way, the exercise allows them to focus on the positives and be present in the entrepreneurial journey.
Also, consistency is key. Showing up every day and putting in the work—no matter what that week or month looks like—is such an important step toward success.
The51 is proud to partner with the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) in telling founder stories to accelerate the representation of women within Canada’s innovation economy.