Daily coverage of FCIF: Highlights from day 2 at the Fast Company Innovation Festival

The 2024 Fast Company Innovation Festival continued on Tuesday with many sessions and deals covering a wide range of topics. The event even served as an opportunity to share some news—City of Hope announced a historic $150 million gift from the Stephenson family to support pancreatic cancer research.

But for many festival goers, the second day of the program was an opportunity to learn and laugh, while connecting with other attendees.

Below are Tuesday’s highlights:

‘We’re all crazy’

Although Ryan Reynolds has become a household name with memorable roles in both movies and TV series, he also relishes the opportunity to go off-script and deviate from the “concrete, fixed set,” whenever possible.

Likewise, the actor has found creativity to be important in the business empire he is building, which includes TV and film production, marketing and advertising, sports, mobile networking, spirits, and more.

Reynolds shared how she remembers feeling “so invested” in the multi-layered, humorous Match.com ad that she was on her hands and knees to light it up. (Eventually it was.) But he also warned festival-goers that failure is inevitable. “We’re all crazy,” he laughed.

As long as creativity is part of the mix, however, that can produce success. Reynolds shared the company’s “north star” for Wrexham AFC, his fellow Welsh association football club: “Bringing people together in smart, fun, and unexpected ways—which leads to a lot of exciting opportunities on the go. with joy.”

‘Change is indeed possible’

During a protest several years ago, David Hogg said he asked Dolores Huerta, an American labor leader and civil rights activist, what was the most important thing people could do to create change. “He said, ‘You have to make people believe that change is possible,'” Hogg said Tuesday during a panel discussion about Gen Z politics.

Hogg, founder and president of Leaders We Deserve, came to light after the 2018 shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School, where he was a student. He helped launch the March for Our Lives, a nonprofit lobbying for gun control legislation.

While young people may be intimidated by the amount of apathy or lack of progress, Hogg reiterated how important it is to believe that change is possible.

“The biggest obstacle for us to end gun violence in the United States of America is not whether or not it is possible,” he said. “The biggest challenge is that if we don’t believe it’s possible, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

‘Leadership comes in all forms’

Speaking of politics, Vice President Kamala Harris has become the face of a broader reexamination of who can be the leader, according to Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants. During a wide-ranging discussion Tuesday, Nelson spoke about the intersection of politics and labor rights, and the importance of seeking different types of leaders.

“One of the reasons why we think we don’t have all the leaders we need at this time is because we have allowed our biases to put us at the top of who can really be a leader,” said Nelson. “We realize that we will be stronger if we look at leaders who come in all kinds of different packages, with all kinds of different experiences and all kinds of different identities.”

Discussion for women over 50

Quartet Retail Group, the retail entertainment company that owns QVC and HSN, among other brands, has “planted a flag” for women over 50, David Rawlinson II, the company’s president and CEO, shared Tuesday.

Earlier this year, the company announced its first-ever Quintessential 50—a group of 50-plus women including Martha Stewart, Patti LaBelle, Christina Applegate, Queen Latifah, and more.

Why should you follow this population? “We think of it as a stage of life, and we think it’s a stage of life that deserves to be celebrated,” Rawlinson said.

Expect to hear more from these women in the future, predicted actress Busy Phillips, host of “Busy This Week” on the QVC+ streaming network. She noted that women are aging differently now—and credited Naomi Watts and Gwyneth Paltrow, among others, with bringing different kinds of conversations about menopause and women’s health.

“That conversation is going to grow over the next few years and I totally applaud them for taking that stance,” he said.