How News Corp Thrives In A World of AI: Ruth Allen, Global CHRO

0:00Josh Bersin: Thank you for joining in today. I have a very extraordinarily interesting podcast we're going to do today with Ruth Allen, who's the global CHRO, I think that's your title, Ruth, correct me, for News Corp. And I don't think most of you have any idea what a powerful, interesting company this is. I certainly didn't until I really got to know the company. So Ruth, why don't you get started and just introduce yourself a little bit about your background and your role at the company, and then we'll talk more about the business and HR. Sure thing. And Josh, great to see you again, and thanks so much for having me along, and it's always great to have an opportunity to talk about our company.

0:37So yeah, look, we're a company with a long history and tradition in journalism. We see ourselves as the custodian of an extraordinary profession, but we kind of do things beyond just journalism these days. So we really are in three key segments. So we're in digital real estate services as well. We've got a couple of businesses, REA Group for the Aussies who might be listening will know it as realestate.com.au. We also have realtor.com over here in the US. Book publishing, so we own HarperCollins and Dow Jones as well, the home of the Wall Street Journal, as well as other astonishingly good brands.

1:11And we have our news media businesses as well. So News Corp Australia with over 180 mastheads there. We also have News UK, so amazing titles in the world, like the Times of London and The Sun. And also we have the New York Post and also are freshly launched a few months ago, really, the California Post as part of that as well. And so we have a remarkable company and we have an incredibly diverse portfolio, which is great because it enables us to have a lot of flexibility. But look at our heart. We're a storytelling company. We believe in our social purpose in the world and our mission around informing and enlightening the world through great storytelling and telling the world what's happening.

1:48I've been in the company since 2018. I started as the chief people officer for the Aussie business and a little over four years I've been in the global CHRO role here based in New York City. My kind of education background, I'm actually not a trained HR person. I'm a psychologist by trade, so I have three degrees in psych, a bit of a clinical bent there for a while, and then off into organizational psych. So that's...

2:14Josh Bersin: I think psychology is probably the best domain to come from, to be in HR, to be honest. Sure, sure. I've learned a lot about it. So let's talk a little bit about the company, and then I want to talk about HR and AI and other things. So I've spent a lot of time digging into all the things you guys do, and obviously I'm a subscriber and actually a lot of your things. As I was listening to the big story, it's a highly decentralized organization. And we'll talk about what this means relative to AI. But what does decentralized mean? What does News Corp corporate mean versus these brands and businesses?

2:50Yeah, I would say a good way to answer that question, I think, is a lot through a lens of culture, which gives you a sense of how we operate and run our company. So I think one of the distinct skill sets that we have across this business is our ability to know where to be different and also where to be the same. And where do we coalesce around synergies, which makes the strength of our kind of full global reach and breadth of our network of businesses where the sum can really serve one part of the business. So we have a great, I think, expertise at knowing when you differentiate and let a business unit do something that's uniquely specific for their particular audience or customer base, but where also we do things together and leverage the strength and the breadth of our business.

3:35I think one way to look at that is to say there are a few cultural tenets that persist and are incredibly strong, no matter if you are in, you know, Austin in Texas in realtor or you're in London. The first thing would be, you know, in all of our employee sentiment kind of work that we do shows up these three key areas. The first is that our purpose and our social purpose in the world and what we do is what attracts and retains people here incredibly strongly. So, you know, often they're kind of 85th percentile and above in some of these cases where people join us for wanting to make a difference in the world, contributing to finding the stories and the facts and the news that's occurring around the world and telling the world what's going on and enlightening and inspiring people.

4:14And so that is strong no matter where you are and which I always find incredibly interesting. The second one would be clarity of role and how people's individual roles contribute to that is extraordinarily high. And again, it doesn't matter what business that you're in. And the third would be our people leaders are incredibly unique and unbelievably strong. And so no matter where you are, that's the kind of connected experience that you would have. But our social purpose in the world, our mission is what connects us all together. From there, though, quite simply, investigative journalists at the Wall Street Journal and an acquisitions editor at HarperCollins all require vastly different environments to thrive specifically in their area.

4:54And so the people strategies that we have, there are some that are universal and some which are incredibly tailored to their business unit and are remarkable chief people offices inside each of their business units have great people strategies to ensure that their employees and businesses thrive. And look, you know, the results are in. Like you can see our ability to lean in and lean out from the centre and in our business units, the strength of our culture there. You can see it in our work of stronger journalism, bolder storytelling and better products and content. And I think as the media landscape is kind of rapidly evolving, we continue to kind of meet the moment.

5:31And look, you look at our last earnings call and our fabulous CEO, Robert Thompson, in a report at our 12th consecutive quarter of profitability growth on a continuing operations basis. So look, at the end of the day, we succeed because the work itself makes a difference. Our people feel connected to that social purpose and that's what brings them to the door and keeps them here.

5:50Josh Bersin: It is an amazing story. I think people listening to the podcast, you should just look up the financial results of News Corp. It's an exceptionally successful company in these many different areas. Getting back to the idea of management and leadership. So if people management is a core, which I'm sure it is, how do you create a people management strategy that's consistent but independent? Because you mentioned that it's also unique to each business. They're obviously very different. Yeah, there's a number of ways in which we go about it. And I think, look, in the last 18 months, we have tripled our investment in leadership capability development in a variety of ways.

6:24And that's been, that investment has been consistent across all of our areas of our business. You know, and we're really seeing that come through, as I said, in our results just there and some of our employee sentiment work. But, you know, because I think we're finding that consistently, you know, our chief people officers will come together and discuss what are the kind of skills that are needed for leaders now. And I think like all leadership skills are kind of useful, right? But some are a bit more in the foreground now than in the background. And so, you know, we've had some consistency across some of that.

6:51A lot of this kind of human-centered leadership and leading with curiosity and listening and empathy at times of rapid disruption with AI, I think are a little bit more in the foreground. And so, there's consistent needs across our businesses and where there is consistent needs, we will service them and leverage the investments across each of those businesses. So, it's a remarkable competitive advantage for us, I would say.

7:11Josh Bersin: I go back to my early days as an analyst, the old GE Crotonville idea that all these businesses are going to have the same leadership fundamentals. Is it that kind of a strategy or facilitating innovation in the different business areas and sharing? Yeah, definitely the latter. I think one of our strengths is we don't force anything to be the same anywhere in a lot of ways around, say, leadership development would be in that example. What we do is we have an ability to know what to leverage because you run the risk if you force things to average stuff out and then you create something which doesn't actually end up meeting anyone's needs because you're wanting after some utopia of consistency when I actually think the value is your ability to navigate between understanding what is relevant and required for a particular ultimately your end audience that you're going for your customer base and to then have a great network internally where you leverage the right things in service of your your business area and I think that's that's a strength that we really have.

8:07One of the other key things we do really kind of from the centre as well, working across the business units, is global mobility. And look, really, we're at a, we've got this talent ecosystem where we can more seamlessly pick up one leader from one great part of the business and put them where the opportunity might be in another. And our internal promotion rate of our most senior levels in the organisation really surpasses most global benchmarks. Like I I think all of our senior leaders have benefited from mobility across a brand, a role, geography. And it's kind of that organizational agility we're really proud of.

8:40Josh Bersin: I'll tell you that getting to know the company as I have and working with Kelly too, there's an ambition. There's a creative aspect that I pick up. There's a lot of honoring of the past and the role and the mission that you're in. And very keen awareness of this huge disruption of AI. I mean, I don't think you guys are asleep at the switch in any way. And you may be in the most disrupted industry of all, except maybe for a software company. I was listening to the quarterly number. Your CEO is just a fascinating guy to listen to. I was just really getting a kick out of it. I'd love to talk to him sometime.

9:15Josh Bersin: But they talk about you being an AI input company, which obviously has to do with the content that you generate and then your relationships with Meta and OpenAI and others. Yeah. Tell everybody a little bit about that, and then we'll talk more about AI in general throughout the company. I'd love to. Look, I mean, yeah, we see ourselves in this AI world as an inputs company. So what does that really mean? You know, for us, editorial is an essential input in a world where AI depends really on high-quality, real-time, trusted content, right? So we really offer this critical combination of real-time reporting.

9:51So, you know, we have journalists all around the world, you know, 24-7 out there, news gathering, getting stories, reporting to the world about what is going on. And so that real-time reporting, our proprietary data as well, and also this kind of, you know, we have the humans in the loop actually looking at all this news gathering material and constantly validating. And, you know, editorial processes are incredibly robust. And so it's just like AI models can't produce meaningful outputs without real-time news data and information, basically. So I think the technology is going to continue to evolve and perhaps even between companies it's it doesn't even become that competitive i don't know let's see what happens but what what we absolutely are certain of is the quality of content in those ai models is vital to keep them relevant and so it you know sure it's another monetization strategy of our content but it's one where we are absolutely primed to play and we are um and as as we've publicly said you know we are in in a lot of partnerships with particular AI companies, you know, who are willing to license our content and principled partners who really appreciate the critical role of our news and the data that it plays in training those AI models.

11:01So we've got an incredible opportunity and we're partnering with a lot of companies and we just see that news and information has never been more vital in the world of AI.

11:12Josh Bersin: Yeah. Well, you know, Ruth, I agree with you because I'm basically in the same similar type of business you guys are. In fact, what I see as sort of a long-term perspective here is that the technology actually is much more of a commodity than the information. Right now, at this moment in time, the tech and the hardware looks like a huge thing, but those AI models are worthless without recent, modern, up-to-date, accurate information. So, I think you're proving that in your financials with the growth rate that you guys have. So if I think about, I spent some time with the BBC last year. If I think about the journalism and the news part of the business, the human capital behaviors and needs of a journalist, and then you have the publishing side and the real estate and all that.

11:59How do you attract and engage and retain and excite and, you know, that part of the workforce?

12:06Josh Bersin: And then the journalist part, the publishing or the TV part too. Is there a secret sauce to hiring and developing and managing news broadcasting? Because so many news companies are just folding. They're just getting crushed. Yeah. I wouldn't want to comment on our competitors. What I would say is our results stamp themselves as being reported in our earnings. And I think one of the things that is our strength is the quality of our journalism and the quality of our people and our brands. Someone might argue that the Wall Street Journal is one of the most important publications on the planet. And so I feel amongst our other extraordinary mastheads, I should say.

12:47But there's something about, I think, the quality of our brands, the quality of our mastheads, which attracts great people and great journalists. journalists and we're ones who are incredibly, we encourage curiosity and creativity. And I think that's why we are having such success in an AI world and that's internally as well, which I'm happy to talk to you about how we're going with that. But I think our social purpose, I guess our standards, our discipline really honours. And as I said, we're custodians of that profession and it's the way in which you respect journalism that I think makes people want to join us and stay.

13:21And that, you know, as I said, that spans across all of our other types of businesses as well. But it's kind of the leadership approach and how we run a business with a lot of accountability on our leaders. And, you know, that comes from Robert and, you know, and encouragement from our board. And I think that's why we have been so successful. Yeah.

13:41Josh Bersin: So, okay. I went to the Wall Street Journal a couple, I don't know, a month or two ago and I visited there and the energy level in that place is unbelievable. I mean, it's just, you can see it, you can feel it. So if I think about all of these businesses in the three major areas have heads of HR and they all have HR technologies and they all have payroll and they all have hiring and they all have training and they all have leadership, et cetera. What do you share? How do you coordinate or support these different functional areas of HR or are they entirely independent? Sure. We've got a lot of things that we kind of run globally, centrally if you like and we also like i said before it's the right amount of knowing what needs to be run at a local level and knowing what can be scaled and run from a from a global perspective as well so and and sometimes it's it's a combination of both and ultimately it's there in service of our mission our purpose our business strategy for each of those for those are you trying to build a common hr tech platform or you know yes so we have one so so we there are two key technologies we have.

14:44So we have Workday and we've been progressively over the last few years moving more and more of our business units on Workday and pretty much everyone's on it now, bar a couple. And we also have ServiceNow as our front door into HR, which we affectionately called SOFI. And we've made some significant investments there with AI in relation to the HR part of ServiceNow and Now Assist. So we're an early adopter to Now Assist and now we've got the agentic AI agent coming into that front door, which we call SOFI, which has been a really interesting journey, I would say. You know, one of the key things we did from a HR point of view is not start with the technology.

15:19What we did was we did kind of, for want of a better word, a diagnostic, if you like, across all of our areas, different HR teams to look at, really looking for the friction points and looking for, well, where are the areas that we have a variety of roles, any of our HR roles, because it's kind of across all of them, whether you're in benefits or, you know, learning or a business partner or ops, payroll, you know, there's a lot of work that can be either automated, eliminated, or put AI on. I don't think there's these very independent roles where you can just take one out completely. There are some, but it's much more nuanced than that as people in HR know.

15:56And so what we found from there was it's kind of establishing where we can continue to take, eliminate the work, put AI on it. And ultimately, what's the employee experience here is that -

16:07Josh Bersin: What have you found are some of the big ROI positives so far? Yeah. Well, I think the key thing is how fast can your employee get the answer that they wanted back to their day job? That's ultimately what you're looking for. It's can I get this done in the fastest way, the most comprehensive answer without having to go to five different systems, without having to talk to a human, without having to put a soapy ticket in. And yeah, we're seeing those results already and we're finding it to be a good experience. I would say that being a bit of an early adopter with Now Assist, thank you ServiceNow, I'm very happy.

16:42However, these things take time to develop and the promise is there, but you have to put a lot of work in. It does take a lot of time to train these things, but you get there in the end. But I would say to anyone who's embarking on it, just don't underestimate how much work it will take from your teams, from your tech teams and your HR teams to train this thing. But I would encourage you to do it. So, you know, we're continuing to invest in AI in relation to all of, you know, whether it be Workday or ServiceNow. And they're the two platforms we're going for. There are others around it. You know, we're big fans of Galileo, I would say.

17:16Josh Bersin: Yeah, and I think we're doing Galileo on ServiceNow, actually, is where we're going to run it. Yeah, yeah. So, look, that's what we've done from a broader employee population point of view. Look, we've done, I think, two really key things around AI. The first thing was not starting necessarily with tools, but starting with mindset. So making sure that we are leading in a way in which is encouraging experimentation, which is absolutely core and part of our DNA anyway. Like, you know, journalists are naturally sceptical folk and we pay them to be. And so, but they're deeply curious. And even if you're in payroll here or you're in safety and security, whatever it might be, it's kind of asking questions, being curious, having spirited debate.

18:04It's just part of our culture. So what we wanted is cultivate that and attach that kind of DNA towards the AI landscape. So we did a couple of key things. One was we really spent a lot of time with our leaders, as I said before, really tripling in that investment. so that in this uncertain, disrupted world of AI that we had leaders capable of kind of being the container for some of that, you know, those dilemmas and trying to understand and helping people navigate, how do I feel about this? What happens to my job? All that stuff. And to still encourage, meet that with curiosity and experimentation and encourage experimentation.

18:39So we kind of were using those very natural traits of ours towards the AI agenda. The second thing we did in addition to helping our leaders learn how to steward this culture is train a lot of people. So half to three quarters of our entire employee population have been trained in AI in some way. And some of that is, you know, generic how to use Gemini. And, you know, interestingly, we find through, again, our employee sentiment kind of work that where we've trained people, their confidence and optimism in AI is quite high. In fact, I was kind of, I was kind of a bit surprised how much it worked, if I'm honest.

19:18And people are kind of really encouraged by it. And so the next thing would be, we've also then gone to very bespoke training, like, you know, in newsrooms, specifically on a particular tool in relation to your role. You know, there's been incredibly specific training and we're just going to keep going with it. We're finding that that combination is really working that, you know, when people have a leader who can listen to them and really kind of approach them with empathy and curiosity. and secondly if people actually know how to use these things they'll have a go and then it's it's like anything it's you know you you start to experiment you get some confidence with it it starts to make a difference in your role and a way and away you go from there so internally you know i feel like you know our culture is very healthy in relation to ai adoption right now

20:03Josh Bersin: your psychology background comes out very strong in your perception you know i've seen exactly the same thing. And by the way, Gemini, that's the platform you're using as an agent? Some, yes. It's actually an amazingly good thought partner. I debate things with Gemini all the time. I don't debate things with Claude. It's actually a good debating tool. But I would agree with you that once people become familiar with the technology, all of a sudden they realize that it's an empowering tool. It's not a job elimination tool in any way, and your confidence level goes way up. Yeah. So rather than journalists sitting around thinking AI is going to eliminate their job, it sounds like you have a culture really of let's use this, let's harness it, let's empower ourselves with it, which is, you know, fantastic.

20:52So in the in the AI area, is this a SWAT team approach?

20:57Josh Bersin: Does each business unit have their own AI leader? How do you scale this? Yeah, we've got to, again, like describing how our culture works a lot too is, again, in your business units, you can have the autonomy needed to experiment, to come up with new things, even build new AI agents. And then we'll leverage those across business units as well. So something that could be built in News UK will be leveraged in News Corp Australia. And that's kind of just part of how we work. There's a lot of collaboration and people know what other business units are doing. Yeah, definitely. But there's also then we have a lot of oversight around, you know, we have steering committees and things like that that actually look and evaluate a tool.

21:37It's not just carte blanche. You know, we make sure that we have great governance over all of this.

21:41Josh Bersin: What's been your experience with early career hiring and early career development? because there's a lot of agony and angst in the press, which your reporters cover, on the frustrations and perhaps high unemployment level of people coming out of college right now, fears of AI, CEOs pretending like they don't need young people anymore or at least saying things like that. What's been your experience with early career? Look, I'm not sure that's necessarily been our experience. I mean, we have, if I just think about early pipeline talent, we have an incredibly robust and internship program, which we run a couple of times a year, we are very open-eyed to let's bring the freshest talent we can in.

22:21Let's see what we can learn from them. And let's see what are the new ways in which the prisms they look at the world through, what can they tell us about what we do? So again, I think that's part of our DNA being deeply curious that we're very open-minded around all of that. And we bring people in our doors, the people who are barely even out of college yet. And so I think

22:42Josh Bersin: It's still a good career. Yeah, I think so. I think the other thing is, you know, the people coming through, the younger generations of I can, or the earlier people in their earlier career, I think they're actually going to have, you know, the extraordinary adoption of AI. They're going to be natural natives with it all. And I think it's like other parts of technology that we've seen come through in the generations. They will be teaching the more advanced career people on this is how you utilize it. You need both. And I think it's this kind of idea, almost like the dichotomy of how we are today versus the young pups coming in and that can't work.

23:18Well, I just totally disagree. And I think if you find a way, and I think I wouldn't be worried about an early career, I think, you know, if I'm sorry, early stages of my career. I would say something which sometimes isn't popular is, you know, I do really believe in people coming into offices and being part of an ecosystem. And I think, you know, being in part of a newsroom is a great example when you can see, you know, the thriving nature and watching all of the different experience levels there and people more senior in their career and younger in their career. And that combination of, you know, people coming together and creating something, I think is remarkable.

23:54And I was at the hairdresser the other day and I heard someone who was getting their hair done was talking about how their son was just doing an internship at the Wall Street Journal. And I was like, oh, right, I was just listening. And they're saying, yeah, you know, what they're saying is really critical is making sure that they're coming together. It's so foundational in their career to learn these new things and seeing people face to face. And, you know, I think that's really important. I don't think human beings have changed that we need connection and we need to experience communicating with one another in our full texture to really grow and thrive and learn.

24:26So, yeah, I think that's really needed.

24:29Josh Bersin: Right. Well, I couldn't agree more. So one more bigger question that might be sort of a lesson for people. So you have this very historic, powerful, successful global company, three major business areas, but a whole bunch of sort of smaller businesses within it. And then you have this global role. What have you learned about that? And maybe there's some lessons from News Corp in general. Yeah, look, I would say, you know, first of all, my portfolio too is, for example, in this role. I've got HR, sure, and the usual suspects of what that all entails. But in addition to that run safety and security globally, and I think people thinking about our risk profile, you know, is a lot, has a lot more inherent risk than people realise.

25:10So if you look at, you know, from a land transport point of view, in terms of delivering papers and books around the world, imagine that every day, you know, in terms of people are running away from bushfires and floods, our journalists are running into it, you know, as we're covering war zones. So, you know, we run a 24-7 global security operations centre, making sure we know where our journalists and our people are at all times. So there's a lot of that inherent risk and complexity that sits in my role. Also, I run global property across News Corp as well as ESG and philanthropy. So not just a straight-laced HR role.

25:43And one of the things we've done is we've replicated that structure

25:46Josh Bersin: across the chief people offices in our business units. But I'd say also my role, one of the key things I think is I'm reflective of the view of Robert and our board is that this global CHRO role is a named executive officer role, so an executive officer of the company. And I think that just reflects the belief around the value of people, of human capital, if you like, across News Corp, which not all listed companies have. The CHRO is an executive officer role, and I think that's reflective of our belief around the vital role our people play. But I would say, once again, there are things that I would say coming into the role, you know, some of the things I would reflect on.

26:26I think there's always the learning, the skill of the right amount of leaning in and leaning out, because ultimately, you know, I'm the person accountable to our CEO and the board for all human capital matters. That's my job. And so, but it's knowing, trusting and verifying in with your particular chief people offices and your business units, but then also holding direct accountability for a lot of things yourself. So it's a combination of both. I like to think it's a very exciting dynamic role. And, you know, I've lived a business unit CHRO role. I came from that before this role. And I always kind of say that this role is the one where it's, you get all the spicy issues.

27:04So it's when it needs to get escalated or something's a bit more dramatic or something, you know, you get all those, you don't get the mundane, boring things. I think I get the best things. And so I absolutely love it. I feel incredibly privileged to have the job I have.

27:18Josh Bersin: I'll ask you sort of a softball question, but I'd just love to hear your answer. There are people who think HR will go away because of AI, and there'll be far fewer people in HR, and there'll be just all sorts of bots doing everything. As a psychologist in a global CHRO, what's your reaction to that? I think we are in a profound moment where our skills have never been more relevant. And I mean, I know that might sound like, of course, you're going to say that, but let me tell you why. I think AI coming in, you know, it's disruption, sure. Yeah, but I think one of the critical skills that HR people have is our ability to navigate and guide organisations through change.

27:57And this is just another change. And our skill sets are deep and rich in this area. And so I think it is the time for HR communities to shine. And, you know, I feel that we have an abundance of skill, an abundance of perspective and a leadership potential to help guide organisations through this AI age in a way which you can really thrive. If we tap into the skill sets that we have and apply them in this context in a way where you're deeply listening, highly empathetic, unbelievably commercial and understanding precisely what your strategy is and where you're making and losing money in this AI age and how you get after it, then I think our skill sets have never been more relevant.

28:37That's what I'd say.

28:38Josh Bersin: I could not agree more. Thank you so much. Not that I'm the expert, but I feel exactly the same way. Yeah. Well, Ruth, thank you for your time. This has just been so interesting. I think everybody in the world has some relationship with you guys as a company. I probably have dozens and dozens of them. So it really makes me excited to hear more about what's going on under the covers. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And we will talk again soon. All right. Thanks so much.