Female Founders: Salwa Khan of Cubbiekit On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a…

Female Founders: Salwa Khan of Cubbiekit On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Grit — You will be told your idea has been done before. You will be told you’re not differentiated enough. You will be told ‘no’ repeatedly. You will receive customer complaints, social media comments that will feel so personal. You will make mistakes that feel like the end of the world. You will need grit to pick yourself back up and continue forward.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Salwa Khan.

Salwa Khan is the Founder and CEO of Cubbiekit, a sustainable baby basics subscription that aims to make modern parenting easier while giving back and minimizing waste. A highly analytical and strategic professional with a passion for problem solving, it’s no surprise Khan pursued a solution to the many stressors of new parents. Her passion for giving back and minimizing waste is what drives her mission for Cubbiekit, with a goal to extend the life of each garment, diverting as much clothing from landfills as possible. With a background in corporate finance and busy mom of two, she’s also heavily involved with the Young Women’s Alliance of Austin and Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I’ve followed an established playbook since starting my career and fully intended on seeing it through. I started in accounting, became a CPA, worked in corporate for 8 years in various finance roles and never foresaw myself becoming an entrepreneur. I’m an introvert (hence the accounting) and always saw myself just advancing in corporate finance — I was good at it. As I started working my way up and had my first pregnancy, I imagined that things would get easier as my career progressed. It didn’t. Balancing work, home and family life is not a joke. There was a never-ending to-do list and I was constantly prioritizing my work list while creating a backlog of all the things I had to do at home “when I had time.” When I was pregnant for the second time (I had my son during the beginning of the pandemic), I was still working full-time with both my kids at home without childcare, my husband was the breadwinner of the family, and I realized just how much I had been putting off. I was very frustrated with the amount of time I spent shopping for the kids, how much “stuff” I had accumulated for them. I really wanted to take ownership over my time again. After maternity leave I started working on Cubbiekit as a solution to a simple, but very frustrating problem and I never looked back.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

I wish I had a specific interesting story. The truth is I’m an introvert and avoid “interesting” scenarios driven by social anxiety. However, I have found that in doing so I’ve been cold emailing notable retail and ecommerce industry leaders to make connections, seek advice, and learn. Because of this, I’ve been able to have zoom calls with really prominent founders and thought leaders, just from a simple cold-email or Linkedin invitation. It’s interesting how real founders are willing to share their experiences and pay it forward, you just have to ask.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Mistakes don’t feel funny when you’re in the thick of it as a first-time founder. I am a perfectionist to a fault, so when I make an error, I over-analyze every single thing that led me to that mistake. In hindsight, it never seems as bad as it actually is, and you are your harshest critic. I believe you absolutely learn from your mistakes, but I don’t think I’m at the point yet where I can laugh about them!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I worked at Kendra Scott, a jewelry company based out of Austin, Texas, for 4 years before I started my company Cubbiekit. There, we referred to ourselves as the KS Family (#ksfam), and it really was. It was a place where there was an open-door policy at all levels. The network and relationships I built from the c-suite down to the associate level have helped me tremendously, and I know that I can always find someone through that network for mentorship and guidance. It’s hard to list out individuals, otherwise I might have the whole company roster here!

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

There’s a mismatch between the sources of funds and the uses of funds. What I mean by that is that typically when women stumble upon a problem and look to start a company, they’re solving a problem that is typically for women. Investors, i.e. the sources of funds, are typically men, and they’re not in the target audience for female-founded companies. They don’t understand the need for the woman’s solution to the problem she’s facing. Therefore, it’s unrelatable to them and they’re less inclined to invest early on in the business without demonstrated traction. The indicator for them to invest is revenue, which is a pretty challenging bar to overcome if you’re strapped for cash and on a very limited budget (let’s not even go into systemic gender pay inequity) and probably a detractor for women wanting to take the plunge into entrepreneurship.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

I believe that until there is more female representation on the investing side or more men willing to take risks on women with potential and not demonstrated performance, there will continue to be a challenge for women to start and scale businesses.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

Gender parity. I started my business to encourage gender parity in everyday household chores and remove the burden off of what is primarily the mothers’ endless list of invisible chores. As a female founder and mother of a boy and a girl myself, I want to normalize guiltless working parenthood and to have both of them grow up and view a world where their options are limitless. The more women that start companies, the less stigmatized it will be for men to take more ownership of the household, the more children will see what equitable parenting looks like, and the higher likelihood to lead to gender progress in future generations.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

It’s not glamorous, especially when you’re just starting out. I’ve always worked in very traditional corporate roles where I’m at a desk, working in Excel and responding to emails, in a very nice office, with a company-given laptop, the supply closet is stocked, there’s toner in the printer, and you can message all different groups for tickets/support, and there’s generally training for tools and systems. When you’re a founder, you’re on your own. There is no one explaining how an order management system works, or something as simple as how to properly do an exchange for a customer in the system. There isn’t anyone breaking down and clearing boxes from your warehouse. It’s a very humbling experience, but I think media has glamorized what founders do.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

I believe it’s a nice thing to say that “anyone can be a founder” with the right attitude, grit and motivation, but I believe that comes from a place of privilege. You certainly do need to possess those characteristics and a risk-taking mentality, but by not acknowledging other, more pragmatic reasons holding individuals back from entrepreneurship would be unfair. For instance, I gave up a very stable job in corporate finance with upward mobility to start my company with some savings already in the bank to get started. I have some sense of financial stability (though it’s not the same as before) because I am fortunate to be in a dual-income household where I can take a salary cut and still have my family supported. These factors led me to be able to take this risk. This is not the case for everyone, even if they had the right attitude, motivation and business idea. I think we need to acknowledge this more when we look at diversity statistics in entrepreneurship because there will always be some hidden entrepreneurs out there that will always have a “regular job” as a result of this.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

  1. Grit — You will be told your idea has been done before. You will be told you’re not differentiated enough. You will be told ‘no’ repeatedly. You will receive customer complaints, social media comments that will feel so personal. You will make mistakes that feel like the end of the world. You will need grit to pick yourself back up and continue forward.
  2. Humbleness — There will be a lot of unglamorous work that needs to get done. It’s humbling when you’re in a meeting with a venture capitalist and the next minute your tearing down boxes to drop off at the recycling center or counting inventory at 5am prior to a launch.
  3. Support — Imposter syndrome is a real thing. As a mom starting a business, you can get easily type-casted as mompreneur hobbyist, solving a juvenile problem. It is something that can really warp your sense of confidence. Without my support system of family, friends, former colleagues, mentors and advisors reminding me that I’m well equipped to do this business, something I’m passionate about, I would have given up a long time ago.
  4. Willingness to Learn — You will do things you have been trained to do, things that you might not want to do, and things you have absolutely no clue how to even start. You have to be willing to unlearn things that you’ve been trained to do to creatively solve problems. You have to be willing to learn things that were never in your wheelhouse when you have resource constraints. You have to be willing to learn everything about your business inside and out to grow and scale.
  5. Passion — If you don’t love your business or believe in your mission enough, you will not make it far. There will be so many obstacles and punches thrown at your face. If you don’t have passion for your business and remember the “why” behind why you started in the first place, you will not find it in you to pick yourself up and continue forward.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

When I became a parent, I felt very alone. I experienced post-partum depression and had a difficult transition into parenthood even with a support system and a healthy baby. I couldn’t imagine what that must be like for parents that don’t have a support system and are struggling with balancing it all while raising little babies. Cubbiekit was born in an effort to eliminate the invisible chores of motherhood, take shopping off busy parents’ to-do lists, and help families in need. We work with various community organizations that support new parents, such as Partners in Parenting, Texas Women and Infant Center, and The Cloth Option. When we give back to the community and support parents, we feel successful and is the “why” behind everything we do.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Redefining classic gender-defined parental roles and eliminating stigma around stay-at-home fathers. Fathers are becoming increasingly more involved in managing the home and raising children, yet a study by Pew Research cited that only 8% of the public believes that children are better off with their fathers at home. If a father is choosing to be home, there is no reason why we shouldn’t be supportive. Creating gender equity in the family is not only better for children and individual relationships, but it relieves the stresses of raising a baby through conscious partnership. We should be encouraging this!

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Kirsten Green from Forerunner Ventures. It’s not a secret that she’s a pioneer in identifying and investing in modern consumer brands.

Maxine Bedat, Founder of the New Standard Institute. I recently read her book Unraveled, which documents the lifecycle of our clothes along the global supply chain. It is something that I previously researched and observed first-hand at sorting facilities (i.e what happens to your clothes after you drop it off in a bin) when starting Cubbiekit, but the way she narrates the story is so eloquent and really creates the sense of urgency to reevaluate our current toxic relationship with fast fashion and general consumption of “stuff we don’t need”.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.


Female Founders: Salwa Khan of Cubbiekit On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Ximena Aleman of Prometeo On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a…

Female Founders: Ximena Aleman of Prometeo On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Women are culturally conditioned to take care of others, and we learn to perceive our value as society perceives it, but when you become an entrepreneur it’s important to understand your own value. In order to do that, you must create your own set of values and live by them, vigorously, and remember to keep taking care of yourself at all times.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ximena Aleman.

Ximena Aleman is Co- founder and Chief Business Developer Officer of Prometeo. She has an extensive background in B2B sales and more than 5 years of experience in the fintech industry in Latin America. Before becoming an entrepreneur, she advised companies in Communications and Marketing Strategy, was Digital Publishing Director at EME, a content creative hub for newspapers across Latam, and worked in the leading media in Uruguay and Marketing Head at Dentons Uruguay.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

In my third year at the School of Economics in the Universidad de Montevideo, I switched my major from Economics to Communications and Marketing. After graduating, I was lucky enough to gain early working experience with some of the most important media outlets in Uruguay, before I ended up building a digital content hub inside a publishing house. Before discovering fintech, I served as the Head of Marketing for the Uruguay office of global law firm Dentons Cardenas & Cardenas, and also worked as an advisor to companies who needed help shaping their communication and marketing strategies.

Later, while completing my MBA with a specialization in Business Technology, I met the group of friends with whom I would found my first fintech startup. The year was 2015, and our product at the time was a payment wallet. Back in those days, we had heard about the Open Banking trend happening in fintech in Europe — especially in London — but we continued on with our project while keeping a close eye on developments in the fintech world. After a couple of years, we decided to pivot and take advantage of the new open banking trends and the technology we had built previously, and that’s how Prometeo started developing APIs. We worked hard to grow our network while continuously developing our tech, and are the largest Open Banking platform in Latin America. I’m proud to say that today we provide a single point of access to banking information, transactions, and payments across multiple financial institutions to people who live in the region. We currently support fifty data, transaction, and payment APIs in 33 financial institutions across nine Central and South American Countries.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Founding co-found a company makes you see the world differently, especially the region you were raised in. The Latam market is unique because it spans a huge amount of territory but, unlike a territory like EMEA, all the countries in Central and South America speak one of two major languages (Spanish and Portuguese) and all reside across about the same number of timezones as the US. So you have all these people doing business in more-or-less the same language, with similar but different and unique cultures and histories, all more-or-less during the same business hours. So Uruguay and Costa Rica can do business in the same language the same way Miami and San Francisco can, however the two cultures have their own unique business climate and way of doing things. Each country in Latam is as vastly different culturally, and in terms of how they do business, as they are in terms of their geography. It’s really interesting how there are so many similarities but so many differences. That said, I consider myself not only an Uruguayan entrepreneur but a Latam one. Through Prometeo’s process of scaling things up to accommodate new APIs and the latest tech, I have been able to see how people do business in places like Peru, Panama, Mexico, and Colombia. What I’ve noticed is that people living in these different places all have a quite definitive but unique understanding of how their own financial services ecosystems should operate. They understand the limitations of their financial services networks, and see where things could be improved to better accommodate their business community’s entrepreneurial ecosystems. The word “Latam” has taken on a completely different significance for me since I’ve started on this journey.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I wouldn’t have been able to build Prometeo without my co-founders — Rodrigo and Eduardo have helped me improve myself in ways I could never have imagined. They have supported my growth and I have supported theirs. This has allowed us — as a team — to surpass our personal limitations and achieve not only personal success, but success as a startup as well.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

When we talk about things that hold back women from founding companies, we can talk about cultural reasons, structural reasons, and personal reasons. In recent years, I have focused my attention on structural and personal reasons. On the structural side, there simply seems to be a lack of funding for women.

Women found around 28% of fintechs, but women-founded startups raised a meager 1% of total investments made across the fintech sector over the course of the past 10 years. Similarly, the proportion of male and female founders among the community is disproportionate compared to the proportion of funds received by male investors versus female investors. One third of founders are female but 99% of funding goes to male founders? There’s something wrong with that. Also, the average deal size for female-founded or female co-founded companies is less than half that of startups founded by a man or co-founded by men. Companies founded by women or co-founded by women are simply more likely to get less investment than those founded solely by men, and that is something that needs to be addressed.

On the personal side of things — women face a lot of pressure when they try to be entrpetenueal and start a company. It sounds like it might not matter, but understanding and practicing ways to destress and stay focused in a highly competitive and traditionally male-dominated sector is extremely important if you’re a woman founder. You can say that about anyone, but it’s especially important if you’re a woman, given the pressure we face outside of the workplace in addition to all the pressures you face when trying to scale an international financial services business.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Female and Latin American entrepreneurs are often called “Overlooked Entrepreneurs” so for Latam women trying to start a business, it’s key to emphasize the importance of emotional skills in the professional working world — it’s not just about being emotionally resilient.

You have to focus on yourself and on your abilities to overcome the obstacles laid out ahead of you. You have to find your inner strength and learn to draw upon that. What you inevitably create is what will provide you with the strength and the energy that you need to keep going, so just build what you can, and learn to relish your achievements as you accomplish things and pass milestones.

Women are culturally conditioned to take care of others, and we learn to perceive our value as society perceives it, but when you become an entrepreneur it’s important to understand your own value. In order to do that, you must create your own set of values and live by them, vigorously, and remember to keep taking care of yourself at all times.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

I think as founders we are constantly reshaping the world, and that’s why it’s particularly necessary for women to become entrepreneurs. If women want to see a world that better understands the value of women and women’s perspective, we need to see more women-led companies. That means we need more young women and girls to strive for entrepreneurship.

The good news to me is that I feel like this is happening right now. We’re starting to see more women founders enter into the fintech space, and I think that’s good because it helps propagate new perspectives and ideas. Business can’t run without new perspectives and competition thrives on new ideas, so this is inevitable when you’re talking about a sector experiencing growth.

I always stress that the financial world as we know it was built by men, and we are used to managing our financial activities and viewing our relationship with money from a male perspective. So now with this potential that fintech has the ability to serve everyone financially, I think that it’s very important that women entrepreneurs start to create products and services that can integrate the female perspective, or that can attend to females as a customer segment in a way that simply works better than the way things have been done for years. Only by adding in new perspectives can you build a world that is ultimately more inclusive for everyone.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

There’s this business myth that you should have a tech background if you want to be a tech entrepreneur and this isn’t really true. Right now there is a disparate number of men compared to women studying engineering in universities, so that could be one reason why there are more male tech entrepreneurs, but I also think that tech companies are culpable for why there are more male-dominated tech startups than female ones.

The best way to break this up is for companies to form their business plan, marketing goals, and overall strategy around the idea that they need to attract people from diverse backgrounds in order to build a strong enterprise. And I think this is a very important thing to talk about, because it will encourage many women with non-technical backgrounds to jump into the tech space.

The next big business myth I want to dispel is about how difficult it is to have a balanced life when you are an entrepreneur. True, as an entrepreneur you face uncertainty after uncertainty as you navigate to goals you have to dream up and set for yourself, and that is perhaps harder to deal with than when you have an ordinary nine-to-five, but at the same time being able to manage your schedule, and prioritize things as you want to prioritize them helps you to create your ideal work life balance. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard, but finding that balance is doable. It harms neither your family, nor your ability to create a successful company when you prioritize time to both — on the contrary, both come to compliment the other.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

I think we all experience moments in our lives where we know the decision we choose to make will carry us towards one direction or the other and that’s sometimes how people become founders, so I wouldn’t say that there is one particular trait that will make you more or less likely to accept the challenge if the circumstances are right.

From my experience, and from talking with other entrepreneurs, I’ve come to believe that there are certain skills and characteristics that founders always have in common. Curiosity, for instance. Entrepreneurs are quite curious people; they are always thinking about how they can improve something. They like to figure out what can be done to make something better or easier or more efficient.

Additionally, there’s always this ‘inner call to action’ that founders feel drives them forward. We are action-driven decision-makers. Another characteristic I think all entrepreneurs share might be referred to how we as a group perceive uncertainty and risks. This is key, if you feel risk averse, or if you normally shy away from uncertainty, it becomes really hard to become an entrepreneur because being a founder means not knowing exactly what you’re doing, but still having to make decisions.

And this is why having co-founders is extremely beneficial. Sometimes not every entrepreneur on your team will have the same curiosity, or can manage uncertainty in the same way. Some may be better at executing on tough decisions. But having a team allows you to translate each of your individual strengths into actionable ideas, directions, and goals that you can use to measure growth and scale up your vision into that next stage of growth.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Three Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?”

Everyone is different, so I will point out the three things that helped me to create my own success.

The first one is emotional or inner skills: self-esteem, self-care, and self-awareness. This is key because if you’re able to take care of yourself, value yourself properly and understand your own thoughts and behavior it helps you understand other’s thoughts and behaviors, it help you to don’t get carried by the value that others place on you, but stay focused in the value that you perceive yourself, and then take care of yourself according to that. For me that’s core and that’s really important and I always try to work on it.

The second thing is communication skills. I think it’s very important to be able to communicate what you want, what you want to become, where you want to get to. Not only as an entrepreneur or as a founder but as a human being. So being able to articulate complex thoughts and also being able to express them and attract people toward those goals, that’s a strong component of leadership

The third thing is a strong family foundation. When I’m referring to this I’m talking about choosing a partner that can understand your professional goals and help you pursue them and push you to your better version.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

As our company grows I try to share that growth with other entrepreneurs. I always make sure to take time to mentor entrepreneurs into building a better and stronger community of entrepreneurs.

I’m especially interested in female funders and also in funders from small countries like Uruguay, Ecuador, Paraguay and Bolivia, and I try to mentor them to help them to create global companies from their countries.

Sharing my experience and the journey that we have built in Prometeo can help other entrepreneurs to avoid mistakes that we made, grow faster, better and stronger.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would like to inspire a community of people that can foster financial wellbeing amongst women. As a society we have built a financial structure that is mainly dominated by men and for a long time women have been financially harmed and this is something that extends to women no matter what their culture, country or financial situation is.

It would be great to be able to join forces between different initiatives to address this particular problem that our society has, of course you have to approach this problem with a segmented strategy.

We should understand that as a society we have been unable to provide the financial resources and tools to help half of the population to prosper. I would love to be part of a community that can look at this problem in the long term and create actions to promote financial inclusion and wellbeing among women from different cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, and different financial situations.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I’m a huge fan of inspiring stories particularly. I’m very fond of every self-made so I would love to have lunch, coffee or breakfast with any woman that can share her story and perspectives. In particular, I’m a big fan of Meghan Markle.

Meghan has been able to overcome stereotypes in a world where it is extremely difficult to take a step back and not be part of the narrative of the person you are supposed to be a component of. She has been able to speak up and tell the world her story, share her perspective, and surround herself with people that help support her. She’s managed to create a community of women that share her values and a platform from where she can help create a better future.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.


Female Founders: Ximena Aleman of Prometeo On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Sheila Talton of Grey Matter Analytics On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and…

Female Founders: Sheila Talton of Grey Matter Analytics On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Vision, creativity, risk tolerance, and the ability to shift from tactical to strategic focus are four traits founders need. A fifth one is understanding what leadership really is. A lot of people think leadership means you get to tell people what they need to do. I believe that, especially in a small company, you need to hire people who are capable. Your leadership comes in when they have obstacles to getting their jobs done. Your job as the entrepreneur and leader is to move those obstacles, not to tell them how to do their job.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sheila Talton.

Sheila Talton is President and CEO of Gray Matter Analytics, which she founded in 2013. Prior to launching Gray Matter, Sheila was the VP/Globalization Officer for Cisco Systems in China and South America, President of EDS’ Business Processing Information Services and a Senior Managing Partner at Ernst & Young/Cap Gemini.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I’ve been in technology for my entire career. I ran a large organization in the Midwest for Ernst and Young’s critical technologies practice. I’ve also run global services for EDS and Cisco Systems. In those various roles, I had responsibility for all verticals — manufacturing, financial services, consumer products and healthcare.

I got bit by the data bug early in my career. I had been with a software company that built the early iterations of relational databases, which are the underpinnings of data and analytics. When I got bit by that data bug, I started doing some analysis and research on the industries that are totally dependent on data but have not taken advantage of how data could really help them improve performance and grow revenue; healthcare came to the top. Healthcare has been quick to adopt technology on the clinical side but has not been quick to adopt technology on the operations and financial side of the business. So that’s how I got to where I am, and so far, it has been proven that my analysis and research were correct.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

It’s more of an observation. We’ve talked to hundreds of health systems, as well as hundreds of health plans, and one thing that has been become very evident to me is that it’s quite difficult for health systems to understand their true costs. I have not run into any health system that does cost accounting, which is something most manufacturers and retailers do. So, the journey to value-based care has been long because health systems aren’t used to being paid a certain amount regardless of costs.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of the mistakes I don’t find humorous, but for the first four years I was running Gray Matter we were consulting totally around data, rather than targeting one vertical. Originally, we were going to focus on two verticals — healthcare and financial services, which also is data-driven — but it became apparent to me within about the second year of operations that there was so much work to be done in healthcare, while financial services companies had so much money, they would be able to buy their way to the solutions they needed. So, in the second year we abandoned financial services, and that was a good decision.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’ve been in this business for more than 35 years, and in that time, there have been many people that have helped me along the way, including professors in college who led me down the path of technology, coworkers, and external mentors who have helped me think through my career journey and supported me when I made choices. One gentleman who I worked for at Ernst & Young, Mike Green, shared some advice that I’ve always tried to live by: “Seek first to understand before being understood.” And the reason why that has been so critical Is that listening is a skill many of us don’t develop because we like to talk. I have tried to incorporate that advice into everything I’ve done, including managing people. That’s because in trying to understand what motivates your team, you really do have to understand what motivates employees personally to best support them in their success.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this Crunchbase report, only about 20 percent of newly funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

That’s a very broad question and there’s no single answer because there are some unique factors based on industry. I’ll stick to healthcare technology, which has always been dominated at the senior ranks by men. Not that men were more qualified, it’s just that men were the ones making decisions from the board level to the CEOs to their direct reports. But most financiers — meaning venture capitalists — want to fund people who have held senior roles inside healthcare technology companies, and those happen to be men. Whereas many women have had mid-level roles in healthcare and are just as capable as men, but they might not have been the SVP of product or the SVP of global sales.

What are some of the things that could be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help more women found companies?

I’ll start first with commercial business. For a long time, there’s been a “focus” on supporting women businesses and minority-led businesses, yet when organizations are looking to procure services they’re not particularly looking and holding accountable their senior managers for how much of their dollars are actually being spent with suppliers that are women-run companies or companies run by people of color. Getting serious about enforcing equitable procurement policies would be very helpful in changing that.

On the government side, when you look at access to capital — and I don’t mean $500,000 because when you start talking about capital as it relates to women and people of color, the numbers shrink fast as far as the amounts — successful technology companies across the country, and in particular in Silicon Valley, have raised tens of millions of dollars. And they’ve all made mistakes along the way, but they have the financial agility to be able to recover from those mistakes and continue to grow.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder, but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

The corporate route is still very hard for women and people of color. You probably can count the number of women CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies on two hands. And if you’re talking about the Fortune 500, you can definitely count them on one hand. So that corporate slog of getting to the senior ranks is still very difficult because women don’t have the support and the mentors inside those corporations. So that’s one reason.

Another reason — and this is not so much about being an entrepreneur as it is being in a smaller entrepreneurial company — is that when you’re working at a smaller entrepreneurial company, even if you’re not the founder, you learn a lot because you get to see how the sausage is made. Your vision and your exposure are much broader than being inside of a company of 50,000 people where you have a very small role to play, and even if it’s an important role you don’t learn as quickly and get the breadth of responsibility that you would get in a smaller company.

I also contend that not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur. But to my previous point, some people are really good at supporting entrepreneurs.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

That’s a really good question. I think people believe that they can learn to be an entrepreneur.

And I think there are some aspects of being an entrepreneur you can’t learn. Certainly, many people have the innate vision to be able to see different applications to a problem that might be unique because that’s how they see the problem.

But not everyone has the tolerance for risk, and being an entrepreneur is very high risk. Data shows that half of all startups fail within five years, regardless of funding, so risk tolerance is innate in some people. To be able to not only have a good idea or good way of applying a solution to a business problem, but also have the capacity to tolerate risk and uncertainty is something that not everyone has.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need to Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

First, I wouldn’t suggest that there are different qualities for a woman founder than there are for male founders. But I think that one of the necessary qualities is to be a visionary, to be able to see things in a different way over the long term than other people. I’ve always had that skill. Entrepreneurs are able to look at a business problem or raw technology and ask, “Now, where would be the right application for this technology?”

So, there’s a level of creativity and vision that is really important for an entrepreneur to have.

When you ask about a story, that is how and why Gray Matter exists today. I was in the data space many years ago. It was broadly around a technology for relational databases. But when I looked at founding the company, I started thinking about data in ways that it could be applied from a business perspective.

So, visionary creativity is really important. The other thing that is important, which I mentioned earlier, is risk tolerance. When you’re an entrepreneur, there are things that will happen — and it doesn’t matter how smart you are — that will shake you. It could be a key employee resigning, or the technology fails a test, or you lose a major customer. Those are all things that you have to get used to and figure out how to recover and recover quickly.

Also, when you’re an entrepreneur, in the course of an hour you’re tactical, you’re strategic you’re back to being tactical, you’re back to being strategic — so that ability to shift from tactical to strategic is really important. I’ll give you an example. The strategic part is deciding what new products to build and which markets to target. Then, in the next hour, I’ve got to start looking at this week’s accounts payables to make sure we’re managing cash appropriately so we can continue to fund our existence. A lot of people struggle with the tactical-to-strategic switch, not only in the course of an hour, but even in the course of a day or a week.

So, vision, creativity, risk tolerance, and the ability to shift from tactical to strategic focus are four traits founders need.

A fifth one is understanding what leadership really is. A lot of people think leadership means you get to tell people what they need to do. I believe that, especially in a small company, you need to hire people who are capable. Your leadership comes in when they have obstacles to getting their jobs done. Your job as the entrepreneur and leader is to move those obstacles, not to tell them how to do their job.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I try to do that every day. I am involved in a number of nonprofits and at my church as well. One of the places that I go to church is in a community on the west side of Chicago that has been struggling for a long time. I purposely go to church there — and I also teach Sunday school — because I think it’s important for young kids to see successful people in their community. I try to make myself available and to provide exposure for younger people so they can see someone in technology who has been successful. I volunteer at a women’s shelter that provides temporary housing to homeless women with children. The shelter also provides transportation so those kids can continue going to their own schools. That’s really important to me. Finally, I support a program at the Shakespeare theatre in Chicago where we teach Chicago public school teachers how to teach Shakespeare. Many of the public schools in Chicago have cut their arts budget significantly and we support those schools by allowing the students to put on abbreviated Shakespeare plays at the theater. And then we do what we call Shakespeare in the Park, where we take the plays out to the neighborhoods, so again there’s exposure to the arts.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

That would be a movement to make sure that everyone has equal opportunities, starting with education. Education really is the beginning of exposure and enabling people to understand what their possibilities are. It doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone needs to go to college, but they need to have a good foundation from K through 12 so they have the option of college or vocational schools. I cannot stress how important it is for everyone to get a good public school education.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the U.S. with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Michelle Obama. I think her journey is very similar to mine and I have admired how she’s transformed and transitioned and publicly embraced her roles as a mother and wife.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.


Female Founders: Sheila Talton of Grey Matter Analytics On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Stephanie Scheller of Grow Disrupt On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and…

Female Founders: Stephanie Scheller of Grow Disrupt On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

I think women founders need a drive that goes beyond money. At some point, the business is going to be doing well enough that comfort and finances isn’t going to be a motivator any longer. At this point, it’s easy to reach a point of settling for the comfortable instead of continuing to strive. For some businesses, that works just fine. As a female founder in today’s age, we are breaking glass ceilings and establishing exactly what women are capable of in business. I don’t think it’s fair for those who come behind us to settle for an OK business. We need to set the example of what it means to be a founder and business owner. That means establishing a strong, healthy, consistently growing business that is a valuable member of it’s community! Someone who is only driven by financial freedom isn’t going to achieve that.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stephanie Scheller, the Impact Authority.

Stephanie is the founder of Grow Disrupt has studied the practical application of psychology for more than a decade in sales, marketing, and people management. In 2014, she built her business from scratch to replace her full-time income in under five months and is now an award-winning entrepreneur and the producer of internationally renowned events like The Grow Retreat. Using the violin to tap into the human subconscious, Stephanie makes complex concepts easy to understand and implement to create impactful marketing for small businesses.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

It’s kind of funny how life works out isn’t it? I went to school to study Equine Business & Facility Management. I was going to be a barn manager and work with horses. Then I graduated and realized that I couldn’t make enough money to both pay off my student loans and feed myself. Based on one class I took in Junior year, I went into Plan B: Marketing!

I went to work for a major corporation in San Antonio TX, first selling then managing marketing campaigns for small businesses for three years before the company I worked for began to have financial issues, and their response was to come up with a series of excuses for why they shouldn’t have to pay our commissions. After nine-months of that, I was over it. The door that opened at the time was to start a sales training company. Since I was a top performing sales rep for the company I worked for before, it made sense and I started the company in May 2014. By the end of August, I had made more money part time than full-time at my corporate job, so I walked away to be a full-time sales trainer.

By the end of 2015, I was in a bit of a fix! I’d built the largest, most-active sales training practice in central Texas, but I was realizing that I didn’t want to be a sales trainer for the rest of my life. While I enjoyed it and was good at it, I was more passionate about working with small businesses to create growth overall.

In 2016, we made the switch to hosting full-scale educational events. We sent the theme, booked the speakers, found the venues, hired caterers, and sold tickets to the first Grow Retreat which took place in January 2017 and the metamorphosis began.

I’d love to say I never looked back, but there were plenty of times when building the event company (which, by the way, event companies are insanely difficult to make profitable!) that I looked back at how much easier things were when I was just doing sales training and wondered if I should go back. Now that we’re past the hump, I can confidently say I’m glad we never did!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

I think one of the most interesting Aha moments I had in leading my company was realizing that I was a TERRIBLE boss! As some background, I hired my sister to craft my social media content for me in 2017 and, next to me, she’s the member of the team with the most longevity!

I remember one weekend when I was frustrated over my sister missing a deadline and venting about it to my husband and he looked me in the eye and asked me if I would be as upset about this if another member of the team had done it.

My answer, in an attempt to justify my anger, was that I would certainly be as upset with another member of the team because integrity means doing what you say you’ll do when you say you’ll do it. If she was having trouble with the deadlines, she needed to ask for help and, I added, I was only holding her to the same standard that I held myself!

I remember my husband giving me a raised-brow look as he waited for me to realize that I was being substantially less forgiving for my sister’s mistakes than I would be for anyone else on the team. She had alerted me that she was going to be late. That was all I asked for anyone else. I was so anxious to avoid falling into the category I’d seen so many clients in, where employed family members took advantage of the company to perform subpar work and never got called on the carpet that, instead, I was brutal on my sister. The worst moment was when I realized that I truly was being just as hard on her as I was being on myself.

That I would never treat anyone else like I treated myself, and by extension, my sister. It was the start of a long process to revise my leadership style on myself first so I could be a better leader to the whole company.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Oh man! Our very first big-time event, the 2017 Grow Retreat was a bit of a disaster, especially compared to the level of production we put on now! That first Grow Retreat was DIY in the extreme…and not in the sense of “We’ll design the branding in house” but in the sense of, I was sitting at my computer using extremely subpar design experience to build a logo in (Don’t laugh too hard…) Microsoft Powerpoint. This was before Canva had come along with their logo builders and Powerpoint was the best option I could think of and I didn’t trust myself to communicate it to my team, or my team to try and do anything on their own. It was absolutely hideous!! I designed the notepads. I designed the logo. I booked the room and caterer.

If I hadn’t had some intervention leading up to the event, I would have been the opening keynote, the MC, the person running registration, and we would have literally just handed everyone a bundle of papers without anything to put them in. At the very least, I listened enough to get folders designed with our logo, and bring in an MC as well as an extra staff member.

I still ran the majority of the event and frankly, everything was cobbled together. The room was WAY too small. The videographer brought WAY too much equipment and an already small room was then crowded with lights that made it uncomfortably warm and created MAJOR tripping obstacles. One of our attendees was apparently dealing with a cold and hadn’t slept well, on top of stuffed up lungs and she fell asleep, snoring so loudly everyone in the room knew what was happening.

And we topped it off by losing nearly $5k on an event that only cost $11k to produce (To put that in perspective, the 2020 Grow Retreat cost $112k to produce and the money was substantially better spent!).

I mean, on the one-hand, at least I GOT the event out there! I didn’t sit and wait around and never get started. But man! That very first major event was…kind of a catastrophe in my 20–20 hind sight. I wouldn’t do an event of that caliber again! But it is kind of funny looking back now I suppose!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There have been so many people I could focus on here…but one that comes to mind in a big way is an author/speaker by the name of Mike Michalowicz. I met Mike back in 2018 when my Mom recruited him to come on our podcast as a guest. I was blown away by his concepts on how to manage your money to create profit and loved it. More than that, I realized what a big deal this guy was, and was blown away at how approachable and kind he was. When I reached out to his agent to discuss bringing him in to speak at our next Grow Retreat, I was crushed to find out that there was no way we could afford him and other speakers, especially not with the terms he was used to commanding.

And somewhere in those conversations, he saw something special in me. He and his agent bent over backwards to work with me. Him being willing to come to our event also did something I never expected: it elevated the entire brand. Mike is an incredible human. A brilliant entrepreneur and author. An insanely amazing professional speaker who performs above and beyond and he attracts a sphere of awesome people. Not only did we have a caliber of speakers willing to work with us because of Mike that I may not have been able to tap without him, but his appearance as a speaker also sold more tickets than any speaker I’d ever worked with.

He sent me videos of encouragement and excitement, and his willingness to work with me really elevated the entire event and brand in a way I don’t even know if he still understands. We’ve worked with him for two additional events now and I’ll continue supporting everything he does and look forward to bringing him back for more events down the road. Not just because he’s brilliant and his approaches to each aspect of entrepreneurship that he writes about are easy to understand, internalize & apply, but because I can never thank him enough for reaching out and helping me get on my feet to reach the level we are at today with our events.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

I think this stems from two directions.

Unfortunately, there still seems to be a pretty prevalent perspective that women aren’t quite as adept at running a company as men. The belief I’ve seen is that we’ll get distracted, prioritize family over the business, and run the business based on emotion over logic. Want to know the problem here?

Some of those aren’t actually problems! A business owner who knows how to balance personal and professional lives will cultivate a team of people who are more motivated, efficient, effective and creative in running the business and will maximize payroll spending. A business owner who can account for the impact of emotion and logic will have a more adept hand at creating marketing that resonates and getting buy-in from the team on the direction of the future of the company. Business is no longer about just working crazy long hours and operating fully on logic. Women are designed to be successful business owners! We just aren’t given enough credence. And the BS about us getting distracted? I mean…what successful entrepreneur isn’t slightly neurodivergent in this arena? We have to be able to balance multiple areas of focus constantly.

But when the purse strings at the investment firms are held by men who have constantly been exposed to these perspectives as negative, the investments dry up for female-founded companies.

Secondary, there’s a “finite pie” perspective that gets perpetuated among business in general and so where women SHOULD be hyper supportive of each other in business, we are sometimes too inclined to offer or expect discounts among the female-entrepreneur realm, or fail to support each other in the maximum possible manner because we don’t want to risk damaging our chance at success.

Articles like this help a LOT! First with exposing the infinite possibility for women in business, and second for helping us all realize that business is not a zero-sum game and if you get more, that means I get less. We can all succeed and support each other!

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Well! As mentioned before, article series like this are fantastic. They spread awareness of the inherent talents that women bring to the table that help us thrive as business owners. They provide that extra bounce in our step as women for realizing that there are others out there like us! I was also recently invited to participate in a book that focused on Successful Women In Business. Generating more media about the female entrepreneurs and founders that are thriving in business helps mitigate the centuries of misunderstandings of how the female tendencies apply in the business world.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

Years ago, when I left my corporate job, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t work anywhere that made me come home in tears as frequently as that job did. I worked extremely late nights to finish projects on-time for my bosses only to find my ideas and projects being presented to corporate as my (male) boss’s original idea. I remember stressing to an insane degree to hit quotas because I was the youngest on the team, and also female which meant I had to prove myself every single week.

I also remember starting to see how many major corporations treat their team members like trash, and thinking that it didn’t make sense.

When I got free and I started running my own business and discovered the idea of the Energy Advantage (Basically, trimming all the stuff from your plate that sucks away your energy and finding someone else, who loves doing that, to do it instead), I realized I could never go back.

Corporate environments shouldn’t be soul-sucking traps. No one deserves to work a job they hate for a boss who makes them miserable.

I believe that establishing more women-led businesses while only accelerate the trend of establishing company cultures that make our employees lives better for being employed by us.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

There’s a myth that you’re not successful unless you’re funded, acquired, or topping certain revenue levels and driving sexy cars and living in mansions. The thing is, we all know that half of these people showing off their rolex and BMW can barely make the payments for their personal expenses, and I’ve learned that the same thing is happening in so many businesses across the country. I’ve worked with clients running multi-million dollar businesses who are one misstep away from having the close the doors because they have no cash, credit is leveraged beyond belief, and if their client doesn’t pay on time, they can’t pay their vendor and then can’t keep going. More than once.

For years as I was growing my business, I was so incredibly disappointed that we didn’t top the $1M revenue mark within the first year or two. Even as I surpassed milestone after milestone, I felt like I was a failure as a founder and a business owner because we hadn’t lived up to the crazy growth stories of the technology world. Then I realized that, despite having a fraction of the revenue of some of my clients, we had more profit than they did. Not just percentage, but actual dollar amounts. It shook me to realize that revenue numbers, acquisitions, funding, etc, are usually vanity numbers. When I’m generating two and three times as much profit as a $15M company, my business is much more stable.

No, instead of chasing vanity numbers, I have been focused on crafting a solidly run business with a diverse client base (i.e. doesn’t rely on one or two major customers to pay all the bills), true profit margins, and a company culture of engaged, excited team members. I’m happier, and the business is growing faster, and healthier, than before when I chased revenue!

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

I definitely don’t think everyone is inherently cut out to be a founder.

That’s not to say that only a select few CAN be founders. I’ve learned not to underestimate people. When there is a strong enough drive and passion for the mission of the business, anyone can push through the discomfort that might come from not having the traits I’m about to list. Sometimes, they can actually perform better because they are working strategically to get back to that comfort zone and establish the business faster to get themselves there.

That said!

I’ve found that those who thrive as a founder also thrive in challenging situations. Not just deal with them, but actually get juiced up and thrilled from dealing with problems and solving them. Daily.

Although multi-tasking itself is a lie and there’s no such thing as the ability to actually do two tasks well simultaneously, founders do tend to have a quicker capacity for task switching.

Successful founders also either build or have a strong reserve for self control. Not only in the sense of putting off instant gratification for the reward tomorrow, but also in the sense of being able to control and manager their time.

I find that most successful founders are also engaging, emotionally mature individuals. They bring together a team of people to work and bring out the best in those individuals.

Lastly, founders have to have risk tolerance! Even if they have support platforms in place, like external funding for personal expenses, founders have to be able to calculate and be willing to take the risks necessary to grow their business. To look at the market around them, realize that there’s going to be a greater need and risk investing funds that may not come back if they misjudge or things change. And they have to be able to do this without beating themselves up or freezing or panicking!

In my opinion, individuals who value comfort, stability and consistency over the mission of their business should probably seek employment with someone who will value them and hold a culture that they thrive in. Sometimes I find that people want to be a business owner or founder just to get away from a bad work culture or bad boss. That’s rarely strong enough to motivate them to continue once they are clear from that culture!

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?”

Fantastic!

  1. So first, as a female founder, it’s key that we are careful about who we allow into our friend circle. I realized in high school that it was a crucial enough piece to success that I focused my first book completely on the power your friends have over your life. I wrote most Friend Power in high school, then finished it and published it after I got into the right friend circles to pave the way after I graduated college. The wrong people in your circle can quickly pull you down. Even minor comments can seem innocent but drag us down and just because someone was part of getting you to where you are doesn’t mean they are part of your future! I will never forget the first time I realized that in my business. I’d been part of this one group of entrepreneurs since I started my business. It was as close to a mastermind as I’d ever experienced at the time and for a while, it was incredibly helpful. I was so grateful for how much they opened my eyes to pieces of business I hadn’t know about. After a couple of years, as my business was undergoing extreme metamorphosis, I remember pulling up to our weekly meeting one day and realizing that I was dreading walking inside. I didn’t want to meet with the members individually and I didn’t want to participate in the weekly meeting. After some soul-searching, I realized that many members of the group were completely content with the status quo. They were not actively working to grow their businesses, and the fact that I was made some of them uncomfortable. A couple members actively worked to box me in. It was tough to make the decision to cut ties, but I realized quickly that if I wanted to keep growing in the direction we were heading, it was time to cull my friend circle and replace them with others who support that growth!
  2. Secondly, I think women founders need a drive that goes beyond money. At some point, the business is going to be doing well enough that comfort and finances isn’t going to be a motivator any longer. At this point, it’s easy to reach a point of settling for the comfortable instead of continuing to strive. For some businesses, that works just fine. As a female founder in today’s age, we are breaking glass ceilings and establishing exactly what women are capable of in business. I don’t think it’s fair for those who come behind us to settle for an OK business. We need to set the example of what it means to be a founder and business owner. That means establishing a strong, healthy, consistently growing business that is a valuable member of it’s community! Someone who is only driven by financial freedom isn’t going to achieve that. I remember the day I started to realize that financial drive wasn’t enough. I’d always been driven to be a business owner since my parents raised us on the Rich Dad Poor Dad books. When I had the opportunity to start that sales training business, I was ecstatic. But as I reached a level where my bills were paid consistently and I was doing well financially, I quickly realized that it wasn’t the business I wanted. I wanted to be making an impact for small businesses across the globe. I watched my parents struggling to build their business through out high school and college. I saw the challenges small business owners faced. I’d, without realizing it at the time, established the largest and most active sales training practice in Central Texas in less than two years and I was finding myself less motivated to get into the office daily even sell tickets to our events. It took some soul searching to discover that I needed to shift the entire business model. Since making the choice to shift into designing and producing large-scale educational events for entrepreneurs, there have many moments I’ve lifted my head to look around and think about how how much easier things would be if I’d stayed as a sales trainer and business coach. And I’d be so much less fulfilled!
  3. Third, any founder that wants to succeed needs a commitment to constant personal growth. I think women are held up to a higher standard because we are setting the stage and expectations for what we can accomplish in business, so it becomes even more crucial that we are committed to that constant growth. But beyond just a commitment, we have to have a plan for how to keep that personal growth continuing. Human psychology seeks the status quo. It’s safer and less likely to result in catastrophe. We will instinctively work to maintain a level balance because new can be scary! So when we get busy, the first thing to slide off our plate is personal growth. I don’t think I would have believed how impactful it can be until I started running these educational events. Then I had to show up for them consistently because it was my business but I underestimated how much it would change me. The growth that has happened out of it has been incredible. In one of the most tangible examples, I keep rigorous journals. Daily journals. Travel journals. Personal journals. CEO Journals. I have four or five journals going at any time with various themes and it’s really intriguing to me, every time I fill a journal to look back at the initial entries versus the final entries. Because I’m filling multiple journals at once, it can take years to finish a journal. Recently, I finished the travel journal I started in 2015 and I was absolutely staggered to read back through the initial entries. I filled pages and pages obsessing over how to increase revenue and all the ways I felt I was failing. I remember the despair I felt writing those journals. The angst and overwhelming emotion threatening to sink me constantly. The things I obsessed over and focused on felt so small compared to what I focus on now. The ways I obsessed over things and let them fill my mind and my body with anxiety blows me away. The fact that I can put out six fires the day before an event without breaking a sweat, and focus more on the finer details of these events and how to maximize our impact, both through the events, but also through our marketing and in the community without letting them take over my mind or rob me of my joy is remarkable to see!
  4. Along the same lines of personal growth, I believe that all entrepreneurs must become students of marketing. My whole life was drastically easier when I finally embracing being a marketer, not just an event producer (the days of “build it and they will come” are LONG over!). Additionally, as a woman founder, we aren’t cut any slack just because we’re women. We are expected to keep up with the competition and the competition has a fanatical approach to marketing. They often have deeper pockets, since few female founded firms receive financial backing, and they tend to receive more media attention (partially because there’s more of them than there are of you!) and we have to thoroughly understand marketing to get the attention we are due. In 2019, I read a book called Find Your Yellow Tux by a guy named Jesse Cole. It broke me and put me back together. I started to realize that marketing was not just having a great website and a few Facebook ads. Marketing was about getting attention. And that also meant doing things that other people weren’t willing to do to get the attention that they weren’t getting. To be a little crazy and wildly committed to communicating my marketing message to the greater marketplace. And it meant dedicating time to designing marketing that would get attention. It meant putting out marketing that we thought was going to get a lot of attention, and that failed miserably, but at least we learned. It meant bringing on more team members with higher level marketing skills. It meant recognizing that I didn’t have to be the best at ever aspect of marketing for my business either. In the book, Jesse exhorted us to “find your yellow tux” — the thing that you do that is so wildly outlandish that people can’t help but stare. Jesse wears a banana yellow tux to all the baseball games that his team plays, and they do crazy fun stuff (Like having a golf caddy escort the batter out to the pitching plate and offer a couple of golf clubs before finally pulling out a bat!). And it’s paying out. Jesse and the Savannah Banana’s are receiving national media attention with a $0 marketing budget. Because he’s made himself a student of marketing and is willing to step beyond the norm and do something a little wild and crazy, like wear a yellow tuxedo to a baseball game!
  5. Lastly, I think female founders must have a keen mind for numbers and finance. Managing finances well is incredibly importantly, partially because there’s less money being thrown at us, but also because it’s an incredible asset to be able to manage money well. There’s actually a phenomenon called Over Capitalization that happens when a firm receives so much money that they end up squandering it on risks that aren’t well thought out and expenses that won’t actually help move the business forward. As women, we rarely have to deal with this, but we do have to manage our margins carefully. I mentioned Mike earlier because his book Profit First absolutely changed how I managed finances for the business and personally. The year I met Mike, I booked him to come speak at the Grow Retreat the following year, and started trying to implement his Profit First concepts with some minor success. At the end of August that year I sat down and added up all my financial commitments and all the scheduled revenue and my stomach fell out. It was nearly midnight by the time I finished adding everything up. The house was dark around me, the only light was my desk light and I remember sitting there, just fighting to breath and looking at the sticky note in front of me: $112,000. I had to generate an extra $112k in revenue on top of the money that was already scheduled to come in over the next four months to pay all the bills that were about to hit for the upcoming retreat. I had one other moment in my career when I thought I was having a heart attack because my heart was beating so hard and my chest hurt so bad. Our best revenue month, up till that point, was around $28k. It was a HUGE gap to fill. I sat there, realizing that one day, I would look back on that day and smile with compassion, and just wanting to cry. I committed that I would do things different from here on out. And fortunately, I did. Every quote that goes out now has to be run up against the Profit First process. We use the bank accounts that Mike recommends. I track things rigorously. On the last day of every month I sit down with my CMO (myself) and evaluate all the financials. Plan for taxes, and distributions, expenses, budgeting, etc. And I revel every time I have a month with five figures in profit, and treasure looking forward to the day I’ll have a month with six figures of actual cash-in-the-bank net profit!

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

It sounds strange, but I’m so extremely proud of the company culture we’ve built and knowing that my team members are stronger, better, happier people for being part of my company. I’ve worked in toxic work cultures and I’ve seen my husband working in a toxic work culture. When I got out of my toxic culture, I was able to better support him and when he got out of his, he was able to better support me. We are both happier working in work environments that we enjoy being a part of, and it allows us to be better individuals. It thrills me to know that I can make that kind of impact on my team members and their families too. A few years back, one of my team members, after a few years working for me, had realized that the relationship she was in was unhealthy and damaging and was able to be strong enough to walk away and work on herself. Another team member recently was in a position where she can support her spouse while he goes and establishes himself in a new industry and for a company that makes him substantially happier because she is doing well financially and strong enough emotionally to be there for him.

Beyond my team, I also realized in 2020 that we had a unique set of skills and connections that we could use to support the struggling small business community. We already had the skillsets onboard and payroll was payroll regardless, so I brought the team together and called in every favor I had in the speaking industry to put on a free virtual event at the same caliber that would typically command a $3–5k ticket! At that point, I started to realize just how much good we could do for the community. We put on another series of free events in the spring of 2021 and established the Impact Awards (complete with cash prizes for the recipients) this fall, and we’re just getting started with the good stuff we’re bringing to the small business community!

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would encourage us all to recognize that we have control over our personal choices. We don’t have control over what happens around us. But we do have control over how we choose to respond. We have control over whether we choose to let life happen to us, or to make life happen around us.

When I learned to own this, my life drastically changed. I went from never finishing anything, including business plans & ideas, to running a highly successful business in an industry that is brutally difficult to establish profit margins in, impacting thousands of lives, and actually being happy!

It’s important to remember that happiness is also a choice. If you need to get some help for your mental health to be able to make that choice, do it. But life is far too short to live unhappy.

Craft a life you love!

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Honestly, I am so blessed that I’ve gotten to connect with so many of the prominent people I look up to through bringing them in to speak at our events….there are a few people I’d LOVE to get to know better though so I’ll take advantage of this interview to call them out!

I’ve emailed back and forth with Seth Godin a few times, attempting to bring him in for some of our events, and just have the utmost respect for that man! He’s beyond brilliant. His book, The Dip, saved my sanity. All Marketer’s Tell Stories completely shifted my perspective on marketing and Purple Cow was the book I had to read in college that established marketing as the direction I wanted to go with my life and resulted in me being where I am today.

Donald Miller is another person I would be blown away to sit down and chat with. His perspective on marketing is just brilliant. He completely changed how I look at crafting marketing messaging and gave me the ability to verbalize stuff I’d known intuitively, but didn’t know how to say. I recommend his book to everyone right next to Seth’s books and Mike Michalowicz’s Profit First!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.


Female Founders: Stephanie Scheller of Grow Disrupt On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lessons from a Thriving Power Couple, With The Yoga Couple Mat & Ash

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Each individual needs to do their own Inner Work. Inner Work is all about self-reflecting instead of projecting, which is why Inner Work is essential in a relationship because all fights start with blame. Each time we are pulled out of peace, we must turn our gaze away from the scenario and instead look within ourselves with curious eyes. Whatever the initial fall from peace may have been triggered by, we must move our attention away from the circumstance and become more interested in why we are even bothered in the first place. Essentially everything that irritates us about our partners is an opportunity to learn something about ourselves.

As a part of our series about lessons from Thriving Power Couples, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mat & Ash.

Mat & Ash are best known as The Yoga Couple to their 500K+ online community. The influential couple is internationally recognized for their holistic healing work, authentic yoga teachings, and as the creators of The Inner Work method. Their work empowers people to self-heal through alternative healing practices such as transpersonal psychology, chakra balancing, science of mind, and yoga philosophy.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you two to your respective career paths?

I (Mat) had a very religious upbringing and started using pornography, alcohol, and marijuana at the age of fifteen in a rebellion against the shame and guilt I felt was projected onto me. This experimentation with porn and substance abuse developed into a 15-year addiction cycle which I finally broke free after getting married and committing to do ‘The Inner Work’ within my marriage. I really resonate with the archetype of the Wounded Healer and believe that from our suffering can emerge our greatest gifts to humanity. I think this is why I became fascinated with healing my own body, mind, heart, and soul. I was on a quest to not only help myself get out of this toxic cycle, but I wanted to help others. After exploring both naturopathic medicine in graduate school and a master’s program in Jungian therapy, it became clear to me that my dharma (purpose) wasn’t in the conventional system. I started to see that the spiritual aspects of the human experience were being excluded from my education and when I found my teacher, Dr. David R. Hawkins M.D. PhD., who focused on human consciousness in the healing arts, I knew I had found my path. When I met my wife Ash, who had a decade-long history studying Eastern wisdom traditions and yoga, it became obvious to both of us that there were many parallels between authentic yoga and the mind-body connection. So we became The Yoga Couple and set out on a mission to help people self-heal utilizing both Western psychology and Eastern philosophy.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you two got married?

We were cast for a reality TV show together on Paramount Network, Battle of The Fittest Couples! We lived in a house with 11 other couples and competed for $100,000. It was a wild experience to go through together as the show was designed to test our physical abilities as a pair in gruesome competitions. But that wasn’t the most interesting part. What really challenged us was that we were filmed 24/7 for 28 days straight on top of the stress from the competition, and we had to live in a house with our direct competition. It pushed us to our limits not only physically but mentally and emotionally. The experience of going on reality TV together gave us a very strong testimony of the power of meditation and mindfulness. We don’t think we would have survived that experience as individuals or as a couple if we didn’t have the ability to still our minds amongst that chaos of it all.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

At the beginning of our journey, we observed how social media worked, and we thought that to be successful, we needed to post things that looked like other people in our niche. Being that our handle is The Yoga Couple, we spent about two years taking ridiculous Instagram photos of us doing handstands and all kinds of crazy yoga poses to promote ourselves. The type of yoga we teach is spiritual, psychological, and focused on Inner Work. Doing handstands on Instagram was diluting the power of our message. It’s funny because, looking back, we both hated doing it. We would be fighting and arguing throughout these Instagram photoshoots and then post these perfect, exotic pictures. It was inauthentic, and we are both happy we can look back and laugh at ourselves.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We teach people to self-heal using the best of Western psychology and Eastern wisdom traditions. This inspires people to reclaim their power and sovereignty over their health, mental wellbeing, emotional intelligence, and spiritual destiny. We teach people to self-heal using the best of Western psychology and Eastern wisdom traditions. This inspires people to reclaim their power and sovereignty over their health, mental wellbeing, emotional intelligence, and spiritual destiny. A common experience we get to witness is that many of our clients and students have been going to conventional therapy or doctors for years and don’t feel like anything is changing. However, after learning how to look within themselves to heal and do their inner work, many experience complete transformations within their careers, relationships, health, and overall satisfaction with life soon after! It is always such an awe-inspiring thing to witness!

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes! We are writing our second book: The Inner Work Rituals; 15 Routine Recipes To Help You Self-Heal Your Body, Mind, Heart & Soul (set to publish on 2/22/22). The book is a follow-up to our first and best-selling book, The Inner Work, and will be designed similar to a cookbook, but rather than food recipes, it will have spiritual self-help recipes for healing different aspects of ourselves.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?

Inspire them through your own example and passion for the mission of the company. As humans, we are most motivated when we believe in the work we are doing and have a personal connection to it. As a CEO or founder leading their team, it will always create an atmosphere for thriving when there is an authentic “why” behind it all. And most importantly, that the CEO/founder is a genuine embodiment of that “why.”

How do you define “Leadership”?

Leadership to us means demonstrating vulnerability. It’s not teaching others what they “should” be doing or pretending like we’ve got it all figured out. Instead, it’s about revealing our own shadows, mistakes, and shortcomings with fearless transparency and authenticity. When we take off our mask of perfection and share the truth about our personal challenges, we open the door for others to be radically honest with themselves too. Leadership takes courage, and there is nothing more courageous than bolding owning the parts of yourself that you want to hide or cover up.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

We wouldn’t be where we are today without our teachers. In the yoga tradition, there is a deep reverence and respect for honoring your teacher and their lineage. In fact, the term “guru” got appropriated from the yoga tradition. It actually doesn’t mean expert. Its original use meant “remover of darkness” because our teachers help us to transcend our own ignorance by holding up a mirror for us. They reflect back to us the parts of ourselves we aren’t being honest about, and that pure reflection motivates us to take action and change. So for us, our gurus are not just our respected teachers, but our guru is also all the people in our lives that have held up a mirror for us in the form of challenge or conflict. We have a saying in yoga, “Jai Guru Deva,” or in other words, “We bow to those who have come to remove our ignorance.” In this sense, we also owe our success to our greatest mistakes, setbacks, and seeming roadblocks along the way. Everything we thought was a failure was actually only helping us to learn and grow. As our guru, Paramahansa Yogananda, said, “Your trials did not come to punish you, but to awaken you.”

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

10% of our profits are donated to the Self-Realization Fellowship, which helps make authentic yoga available and accessible to all. From a yogic perspective, the greatest goodness we can render humanity is our own healing and Self-realization. By helping people to self-heal, we are healing the world, one person at a time. Just like an ocean tide rising, healed people take others with them. As each individual does The Inner Work, they heal not only themselves but their family, ancestors, and future generations.

What are the “5 Things You Need To Thrive As A Couple”? Please share a story or example for each.

  1. Each individual needs to do their own Inner Work. Inner Work is all about self-reflecting instead of projecting, which is why Inner Work is essential in a relationship because all fights start with blame. Each time we are pulled out of peace, we must turn our gaze away from the scenario and instead look within ourselves with curious eyes. Whatever the initial fall from peace may have been triggered by, we must move our attention away from the circumstance and become more interested in why we are even bothered in the first place. Essentially everything that irritates us about our partners is an opportunity to learn something about ourselves.
  2. Each individual needs to understand the other person’s trauma and unhealed wounds. Most of the things we fight about on the surface, i.e., feeling jealous, unheard, or unappreciated, can be connected back to a past unhealed wound, usually from our childhood. When we take the time to learn about our partner’s unhealed wounds, we stop taking things personally and be can be a supporting role in their healing journey rather than becoming enemies.
  3. A shared desire for self-improvement. This is because, inevitably, life changes us over time, so we have to remain adaptable and open to evolution, or else the relationship will grow apart. However, if we commit to self-improvement from the beginning as the foundation of the relationship, we will not only survive the test of time, but we thrive and welcome change.
  4. Know both of your communication styles and work on compassionate-assertive communication. There are four main communication styles, passive, passive-aggressive, aggressive, and assertive. With passive communication, other rights and needs take precedence over ours. With passive-aggressive communication, we are self-denying at first but self-enhancing at the expense of others later and subtly make clear that our needs are more important. With aggressive communication, we are inappropriately honest and self-enhancing at the expense of others or, in other words, “I win you lose.” However, if both partners can use assertive communication, then both partners’ rights and needs are valued and honored. With assertive communication, we achieve “win-win” scenarios.
  5. You need to have a non-negotiable list. Often in business, we sit down to write out our roles, expectations, and strategies for disagreements. With relationships, this totally gets overlooked. We ask potential partners what they like to do for fun or what’s their favorite band, but we often fall short of getting clear about deeper, fundamental aspects of life. In Mat’s holistic counseling program, we often have couples write out what we call a non-negotiable list. This list can cover different aspects of a shared life, including finances, living location, roles, and spiritual or religious beliefs. These non-negotiables are things that we feel strongly about and usually have expectations connected to them. These expectations need to be communicated so that both parties can agree and avoid hidden resentment building over time. Once a non-negotiable list is made, both parties can share their list and either agree to the terms or honestly reflect on the sacrifices they would be making in the partnership. This is a healthy activity to revisit annually to keep the relationship healthy.

You are people of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

We strongly believe that there could be no greater movement than everyone in the world doing their own Inner Work. The next stage of human evolution will not be biological but an evolution of consciousness.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Bondage is of the mind. Freedom too is of the mind.”- Ramakrishna

This quote inspired us to realize that every obstacle we encounter is not coming from outside but from inside ourselves due to our perception and that we have the power to choose our perspective at all times. That perspective will either reap joy or pain, but ultimately, our perspective creates such consequences, not the subject of our attention. Therefore, it is never what we are complaining about, but that we are complaining at all, which is the cause of our suffering.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Tony Robbins would be an interesting person to get to meet with since we share many of the same views on healing, personal transformation, and the power of the mind. We even quote him in our book.

How can our readers follow your work online?

We are on Tiktok and Instagram @theyogacouple and our website is theyogacouple.com

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.


Lessons from a Thriving Power Couple, With The Yoga Couple Mat & Ash was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Sheri Mullen of GSK On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Create your future. What do you want to do? Create a role. There are many times when I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I made my own proposal to evolve my position in some way. Don’t wait for someone else do it. You must believe it before you can achieve it.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sheri Mullen, Senior Vice President, Specialty Business Unit, US Pharma.

Since 2018, Sheri has built and led GSK’s U.S. Specialty Pharmaceuticals business. She is responsible for leading, developing and managing the strategic and financial performance of the commercial organization. Currently, the team is made up of more than 500 professionals accountable for commercializing BENLYSTA, the first biologic approved for lupus in more than 50 years and NUCALA, the first biologic approved for severe eosinophilic asthma. A dedicated professional with more than 30 years’ experience, Sheri has held various roles with increasing responsibility in sales, marketing, and operations. She also serves as a Global Executive Sponsor of the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI), an award-winning professional group committed to accelerating gender parity and to helping GSK be a modern employer.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

My first job out of school was as a marketing trainee for a paper manufacturer. They sent me to Wisconsin for a training program to learn about the manufacturing and commercialization processes before I moved back to New York City. I met my husband, Kevin, who worked for the same company. I remember we were looking at jobs in the newspaper and Kevin said, “What about healthcare?” I answered the ad, and it changed my life.

My grandmother had passed away from ovarian cancer and had a very difficult time in chemo. Some of her sisters had breast cancer. That family history really drove me to specialty medicines, specifically oncology at the time — a very challenging, complex business. But I saw it as a chance to make an impact on people’s lives. I knew the potential from watching my grandmother’s difficult losing battle. That personal connection really animated me and is a big reason I’ve been with GSK for more than 30 years and in specialty medicines for 20.

In my current role, I lead GSK’s work to help U.S. patients living with complex specialty diseases. I am incredibly proud that we brought the first lupus breakthrough in more than 50 years to market in 2011. I came over from oncology to lead the immunology team and start a new business with this very complex disease where there’s been such a void for so long. We created a medicine that’s demonstrating its ability to improve outcomes for patients who experience significant morbidity, are at risk of developing long-term organ damage and face higher rates of mortality.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

For starters, I feel the weight and privilege of having a senior leadership position in an industry that’s working around the clock to help patients navigate the most disruptive public health challenge in a century. COVID-19 may be driving the headlines right now, but the pandemic hasn’t stopped thousands of other diseases from ruining and shortening lives.

In GSK’s specialty division, we have a special purpose: to help people living with complex diseases live their best day every day. Lupus is an incredibly complex autoimmune condition affecting five million people worldwide. We call it a “snowflake” disease because every case is unique, making it hard to diagnose and even harder to treat. Your immune system essentially turns on itself. This can lead to debilitating flare-ups, intense pain, organ damage and problems in the joints, skin, kidneys, brain, heart and lungs.

For decades, lupus outwitted some of the world’s most brilliant scientists. As a result, our industry had precious little to offer these patients to improve their quality of life. GSK refused to quit, persevering scientifically against long odds and an uncertain ROI. We invested enormous amounts of time and money to create a treatment for this vexing condition. We followed the science and took a long-term risk that others would not. As a result, we produced the first lupus breakthrough in half a century, backed by eight separate clinical trials demonstrating how our therapy can protect vital organs and help lupus patients live their best lives.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh, and I didn’t have a lot of cultural awareness until I went to college. For my very first job out of school, I was flown to New York for my final interview. I had hardly ever been on an airplane before this. I had just gotten to the city, and. the secretaries at the company told me that if I had some time, I should visit the big Macy’s on 34th Street, so I did. When I returned, I told them that I didn’t realize there were so many Amish people in New York. They started laughing. Of course, they were part of the city’s Hasidic Jewish population! I felt like such a country bumpkin, but I got the job. I took something from it, though, as I moved to different parts of the country and learned to understand my customers and cultural differences and how that informs people’s approach to medical care.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I’ve had a lot of incredible mentors, but one who really impacted my career was Bill, who taught me women can have it all or, as I like to say, having pieces of it all at different moments in time. I was offered a job as a field leader in oncology covering 10 states across the Midwest. But I had two children under the age of 3. I just didn’t know if I could manage it all. He connected me with another lady who had four children under the age of 10 and had done the job. I was like, if she can do it… so I took that leap. Bill taught me not to limit myself — to be fearless. That job started my career in specialty medicine that has spanned two decades.

More importantly, I understood we can all play a role and, over the years, I started to work on supporting others in their careers, especially women. The Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) is a voluntary employee resource group within GSK, which began with a desire to help women connect, engage and develop professionally at GSK. I’ve been involved with it since the 1990s, when it was just an informal network. I was later involved in its formalization and, in 2011, became one of two executive sponsors. In this role, I’ve contributed to growing membership from hundreds to over 4,200 today, to its global growth and now to increasing male participation because a gender-balanced organization improves business performance.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

I think it comes down to intention and impact. Telling people you want them to do things differently always encounters some level of resistance, so I think it’s really important to get teams to buy in by showing them the “why” and “how.” You will find more disruption in biopharma than perhaps any other industry because the essence of our enterprise is innovation — to create something new that no one has ever done before.

The mapping of the human genome was a game changer. We’ve learned more about human DNA in the last 20 years than we had in the previous 200 combined. At its best, positive disruption in biopharma requires us to use new technological tools and forge new partnerships to leverage the enormous amount of data we’ve collected in order to make “living” biologic medicines. Part of my job is to educate the health system that a new age of medicine is coming, and we need to be as innovative as the scientists to make sure doctors know about these new treatments and patients can access them.

Bad disruption is when companies put short-term profits over long-term patient care. This happens less frequently than some of the media coverage suggests, but a few bad actors really can harm trust in our entire industry. It’s more important than ever that we have that public confidence during the pandemic when trust in our vaccines and therapeutics has major consequences for public health. In my view, the biopharma industry has a financial and moral obligation to collaborate with other key players in our ecosystem — doctors, insurance companies, investors, regulators and patient advocacy groups. It’s about following the science and putting patients first. That’s the sustainable economic model. Our industry’s mission is to heal people.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey?

  • Be genuine. Know who you are. Don’t try to be someone that you aren’t. Show people you care. Work hard, be kind, be yourself.
  • Be enthusiastic. You can’t achieve your full potential if you’re not passionate or enthusiastic about it.
  • Create your future. What do you want to do? Create a role. There are many times when I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I made my own proposal to evolve my position in some way. Don’t wait for someone else do it. You must believe it before you can achieve it.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

At GSK, we talk about being ambitious for patients. And that means that we’re committed to truly changing treatment paradigms, bringing innovation to the market that can really transform the lives of patients. We brought families the first lupus breakthrough in more than 50 years in 2011. We have drugs in our pipeline that could become the first functional cure for hepatitis, a first in the management of pruritus for patients with cholestatic liver disease, potentially the first to market with a new class of drugs — the first of which could help patients with anemia due to chronic kidney disease.

GSK Specialty is also focused on saving lives and preventing the hospitalization of people who contract COVID-19. In May, the FDA granted emergency use authorization of a new monoclonal antibody treatment we commercialized in partnership with Vir Biotechnology for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in high-risk teenagers and adults. Our Phase 3 clinical study showed 85-percent reduction in the risk of hospitalization or death for participants who received the treatment early. The data showed the medicine has efficacy against all known coronavirus variants, including Delta.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

I consider myself blessed to work for a company where diversity is truly embraced and celebrated, women’s health is a core scientific priority and our board and C-suite walk the walk when it comes to giving brilliant, fearless women opportunities to lead. Since 2017, GSK has been led by one such woman, Emma Walmsley, who is a rare female CEO leading a major biopharma company. We’ve set a company goal to have at least 45 percent of our senior roles globally filled by women by the end of 2025.

As I mentioned, the WLI is a catalyst for change but, unfortunately, GSK is an outlier. Industrywide, we haven’t done nearly enough to give women the kind of leadership roles that would give them the latitude to disrupt and innovate. The most comprehensive survey to date found that more than half of biotechnology companies in Europe and the United States don’t have a single female board member; nine in 10 directors are men. At the staff leadership level, the numbers aren’t much better. Women hold only hold about 20 percent of management roles.

The case for increasing gender diversity is especially powerful in our innovation-driven industry. Our mandate is to relentlessly innovate or go out of business. Diverse teams see through a wider lens, think more creatively, make more informed decisions and better reflect the patient populations who use our products. Women now compromise a majority of the new hires in our highly skilled workforce, but many are being passed over for promotions. You might say these archaic approaches to talent development are in desperate need of disruption.

For drug companies, our mandate is to relentlessly innovate or perish. We can’t afford to squander the opportunity before us to create more leadership roles for women.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

A book called Corporate Athlete: How to Achieve Maximal Performance in Business and Life by James Groppel. Growing up, I was one of three girls and my father was a coach. We were athletes growing up. In business, many of the same principles lead to success — be energized, manage your energy versus simply managing your time. It starts with aligning to a spiritual connection or a sense of purpose/mission, then investing to be mentally prepared, emotionally connected and physically able. There were so many principles for growth in that book.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would love to inspire a movement where everyone can talk openly about their health without fear of judgment or negative consequences. That’s never been more important than during a pandemic that has revealed millions of Americans living with untreated illnesses that put them at greater risk of severe COVID-19 complications. In many cases, these health challenges stem from socioeconomic realities. Lupus, for instance, affects many women of color. Too many are afraid to reach out and talk openly about what’s happening with their bodies. We need to destigmatize these conversations.

Too often, lupus patients apologize for what they can’t do because of the disease. We are trying to change the inner dialogue so that patients will speak up more, because every symptom counts. They shouldn’t have to apologize for what they are experiencing, and they need to be comfortable enough to share their experiences with their healthcare providers.

As long as I get to start a movement here, I want to make sure that patients from all walks of life are helping to lead it. We still see far too many racial disparities in how patients access care. We see reluctance to participate in clinical trials, to try new treatments or to fully let down their guard and be open and honest with healthcare providers. The movement I’d like to lead would acknowledge historical legacies of mistrust so every patient feels they can talk about their health, and public and private institutions would then come together to ensure that a person’s economic position has no bearing on their access to scientific breakthroughs.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Will Rogers: “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

The comfort zone is a place where nothing ever grows. I tell young people to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, It’s okay to jump in without knowing everything. You’ll figure it out. If you’re complacent, unenergized and not pushing yourself to grow, you’re going to get flattened.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!


Female Disruptors: Sheri Mullen of GSK On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Bianca de la Garza On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman…

Female Founders: Bianca de la Garza On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Know your why — It is absolutely essential you fully know why you are doing what you are doing. Be it writing a book, launching a brand, shooting a documentary and so on. When things get hard you will need to come back to why you began down this road and what is driving you. Without that clarity it’s easy to get off track and discouraged.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bianca de la Garza.

Bianca is an EMMY nominated, award-winning journalist and the first woman in late night television. A mom and proud Latina, de la Garza’s magazine column and podcast ‘Walking in Heels’ serves up real world advice for females. She is also a wellness and fitness coach. You can read her latest work on biancadelagarza.com

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Thank you for having me here. I’ve had a few paths over the years, First off I’ve always been a curious person so it makes sense that I move across industries and try new things as my interests are varied. The curiosity that fuels me originally led me to journalism. The idea of meeting different people and telling their stories really excited me. My mom worked for an airline, flying to places was her job. As a result, I’ve always felt the world was a small place. Just hop a plane and you could be in a new country, immersed in a new culture. My dad came to the states as a young boy from Mexico and before that, my ancestors were in Spain. I believe embracing different cultures is in my DNA. I consider myself a storyteller and for more than twenty five years it was a privilege to cover some of the biggest world events and present them on-air for stations across the U.S. At those front lines of major news events I was able to give voices to people who were experiencing them first-hand. Quickly deciphering information then turning it around in a clear and concise manner for a 24 hour news cycle was my life for a very long time. After choosing to widen my producing expertise I launched a late night talk show that aired in twenty million U.S. homes and even beat Saturday Night Live on occasion. I founded a beauty line whose ethos was on inner beauty. That was counterculture to the traditional marketing but it was important to me as a mom and woman. My vegan skincare products were a way to spark a discussion on what I felt was an unhealthy narrative for women today. Many women constantly feeling pressure to live up to society’s unattainable beauty standards. As a mom I feel strongly that young girls are nurtured and supported to love who they are and celebrate their expressions of their unique selves.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Until you start your own venture you don’t truly know how far you can go in life or the endless possibilities that exist. The most interesting story for me is always being in a constant growing stage. When you start operating in different industries and exit a well-defined corporate position you begin to gain knowledge about the world and yourself that you would have never gotten just staying in a 9 to 5 role. It fundamentally changes your outlook and that is, I believe, the most rewarding part of being your own boss. It is a roller coaster ride that forces you to grow in many ways which is both scary and exhilarating.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I don’t think I found it funny at the time but when I look back and recall moving from a role of journalist to overnight wearing every hat of a nationally syndicated tv production — I was in effect the studio head for my company. Overseeing everything from advertising to to publicity to content, to day to day management of staff. At the time raising a young daughter and the sole caregiver for my elderly mom left zero hours to do anything but sleep then work. The lesson I learned was to cultivate a trusted team around you that has your back. This can be a friend or a relative not necessarily employees or staff. We all need a life line when things get too much. I didn’t have that and, in retrospect, it’s funny to think I never planned for that- as if I was a robot. I smart enough now to know i’m only human doing my very best. I welcome help when it’s offered.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

You are right we all need help and I have always made sure to offer advice or assist when asked by someone who is just starting out. I’ll never forget my first boss Don Decker who hired me right out of college to report for him in Albany, New York. I graduated Emerson College and days later was on-air working for him. Don took a chance on me, giving me my first big break in my tv career. He was a television pioneer and had put the first woman sport’s reporter in a men’s locker room, created medical reporting by putting doctors on as news contributors and just ahead of his time. I am forever grateful I got to know him and work for him.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

Firstly we can not underestimate the effect the pandemic and global shutdown has and is having. When you see successful companies closing or filing for bankruptcy it gives people pause about launching their venture now. Beyond economic uncertainly, I think there are always more road blocks for women in general to follow the path of an entrepreneur. Many women are taking care of their children and sometimes parents onto of working a day job. This lack of time and funds often holds them back. It’s widely known VC funding to women has traditionally scarce. So, couple all these factors together and its clear why there is less of an impetus for females to become founders. However I believe now, more than ever, our world is seeking females to step into leadership roles. Around the globe we are witnessing a pivotal moment where women are being propelled to positions of more influence. We must seize this opportunity and time to push forward a females so we can pave the way not just for our benefit but future generations of women also.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Women definitely need to be helping each other out now. We can’t wait for the government or society to enact change. So if you have had some success pay it forward. Create a way to help assist other women to get where they are going. Hiring qualified females or creating internships are meaningful steps that business owners can make. It’s vital woman get involved in groups or organizations where they can tap into knowledge that will put them at the forefront of where changes and opportunities are being created. This can be done by researching professional groups that are making headway in your field or even an opposite field that complements yours. As a classically trained journalist I am always of the belief knowledge is power.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

Women by nature are nurturing. That trait means we are able to create cultures in a workplace that foster real collaboration and allow employees to feel free and safe to try new things. Also, female founders know they are already a minority so we will work even harder to succeed. The relentless quest to win can be our secret sauce ladies. Often we don’t want to let our children or families down so we will do what it takes to get to the finish line. I think our propensity to persevere is winning trait that will not only get women into the C-Suite but keep us there.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

The myth that if you have an idea you have a product. An idea needs a lot more than funding and a press release to become something tangible and generate revenue. There are so many factors in business that come up that can stop the progress, some expected and some unexpected. There is always that unknown you face when bringing something to market so the founder can believe in their mission and thru no fault their own fail. It’s really critical to understand that and not let it deter you.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

You have to be ok with some level of risk, be able to tolerate uncertainty and prepared to fail. Sounds strange as you want to succeed but you must realize that with an startup it can be a long road where what looks like overnight success is a 20 year effort. I would never deter someone from going after their passion but I would caution you should understand what it will mean if you go down the path. Traits I have found to be common in the founder world are people who look for solutions in every turn. A willingness to work 24–7 is key because everything falls on you. You must have the energy to get up everyday and push forward to make things happen. A “regular job” could suit someone who wants structure and stability. I don’t think theres is anything wrong with that choice either. We all get to be the architect of our life so knowing what you want and doing what makes you happy is nothing to be ashamed of.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

1) Know your why

It is absolutely essential you fully know why you are doing what you are doing. Be it writing a book, launching a brand, shooting a documentary and so on. When things get hard you will need to come back to why you began down this road and what is driving you. Without that clarity it’s easy to get off track and discouraged.

2) Tenacity

There is a high probability to succeed you will be calling a lot of people, knocking on a lot of doors, pitching a lot of investors, finding solutions to complex problems and relying on your intuition on how to proceed. Tenacity will keep you going even when adversity strikes. I liken this to ‘not taking no’ for an answer. When I was a reporter I was told by a boss don’t come back without the story. I kept on until I got what I needed to tell all sides and the same applies in business. The work is constant for those at the top and those building to get there. Don’t forget when you get to the top you’re also working to stay there.

3) The right female network

My dear friend and Author J. Kelly Hoey who is a networking expert shared this wisdom with me. Her research finds successful woman have a core group of females who are like-minded but not necessarily in their same industry to rely on. This means having people from different circles and on even opposite paths be a call away when you get stuck. You want to avoid getting advice from the same people who are asking you for advice. There needs to be some fresh information flow to allow new ideas to flourish. I’ve taken her advice and it works.

4) Prioritizing health

You can not neglect your health and be a good leader. You have to rest so you can recharge and be ready to handle the company you are building. This means prioritizing diet, exercise and keeping your yearly check up’s. Running yourself into the ground will doom your dream. Better to keep up a pace that allows you to perform at your optimum. Know your body and listen to it. This is a non-negotiable and anyone at the top of their game knows it. For my health I never skimp on sleep and am vigilant on eating well and taking supplements. It’s not about looking good it about feeling good and that will take care of the rest. Yes some days we all fake it till we make it with less sleep than we wanted or a hectic call before our big presentation but overall you need to be making daily choices that lead to long-term health. I talk a lot about this on my website , social channels to share what I do.

5) Thick-Skin

Not everyone will be your fan or champion. You can’t take anything personal. Success can actually breed contempt. I hate that ugly truth as I’ve always been an optimist and look for the good in people. The reality is there is something about putting yourself out there that also puts a target on your back. The titans in industry forge on and don’t allow the detractors to effect their goals. They have a thick skin, tenacity, good close circle, feel healthy and balanced and know their why.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

During my decades in journalism I’ve tried to give a voice to those who haven’t had one. From putting the spotlight on a subject that enacts change or highlighting abuse or corruption that puts it to an end.

I think those who have a platform where they can reach many should be compelled to use it for the greater good. This could mean starting a conversation about a topic that is close to your heart or including new voices to include in meaningful dialogue.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I’ve thought a lot about what influence means in a culture where influence is revered and monetized. I think, if I could start a movement, it would be about looking inward rather than outward. I’m more enriched when I’m connecting with one person to change the way that they feel about themselves as women, parents or entrepreneurs. I think that’s what our culture is craving.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would love to highlight someone perhaps you don’t know and I don’t either but, I’d like to meet her. The founder of ‘No More Tears’ charity Somy Aly is working to stop human trafficking. Since starting No More Tears in 2007 they have provided resources for housing, legal counsel, therapy and medical support more than 30,000 women, children and men. It’s a 100% volunteer-run organization and no one, not even Somy, takes a salary. I have just recently learned of her tremendous work and would love your readers to know of her.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.


Female Founders: Bianca de la Garza On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Channing Muller of DCM Communications On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and…

Female Founders: Channing Muller of DCM Communications On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Trust in your gut. I’m not talking about making decisions based on how you feel about a situation at a moment in time. Rather making decisions that you feel so strongly are the right ones, even if it’s not apparent on the outside or logically to anyone else. If you KNOW truly in your gut it’s the right decision, then you will succeed.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Channing Muller of DCM Communications.

Channing is an award winning marketing & public relations consultant and coach at DCM Communications. She works with event professionals and business owners to increase their brand awareness and scale their businesses with refined marketing and sales strategies developed through one-on-one and group coaching, customized marketing programs and public relations.

Channing has more than 20 years of experience in the communications industry serving in top roles within marketing, magazine & web editorial, advertising, and business development.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Absolutely! The best career advice I received as a child came from my dad who said: Figure out what you are good at and what you like, then put them together. That is how I found myself focusing on a career in journalism to start. I liked seeing my rather unusual name in print, vain but accurate, and I had a knack for writing.

Fast forward to high school I started working at the school paper, became editor and then decided Journalism, print specifically, would definitely be my focus in college. During those four years I worked at any outlet I could! A newspaper let me write a regular column, a magazine gave me the opportunity to do feature interviews, and yet another magazine had me building a standing for the editor and mailing out new print editions to VIPs. (Can’t win them all!) The work varied but I remained in the environments I wanted to be in.

At the same time I decided to round out my communications work experience and get internships doing anything in the arena I could do even if I didn’t love it. That served me well because after I graduated and worked a few years in journalism, including making my way to editor many years before I thought I ever would, which meant I needed to figure out my next step. I fell back to that experience in college and started to pursue jobs in any area of communications where I thought myself capable of the work. Maybe I would fall in love with it, maybe I would just grow my skill set. Either way it would be a win-win.

Sure enough, a few years of advertising, project management, marketing and sales training later I combined all of that corporate experience into the agency I have now: DCM Communications.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

He will probably be surprised to hear this, but the most impactful person in my career has definitely been a former editor, Chad Kaydo, from my days at BizBash — the largest trade publication in the event industry. Oh man did he seem to know exactly how to make me cry. HA! I say that with a bit of humor now. It was never his intention but happened more times than I care to admit when I got one of my stories back for edits. I would submit stories and reports, confident that I had nailed the edits he provided last time, and sure enough it would come back to me with SO many comments and questions written in all caps — and red all caps at that!

I would go back to the drawing board, reference my notes and try to address all of his questions in my next draft. Oh, and did I mention this would all be on a deadline of a few hours? Yeah, nothing like pressure to make the hands type faster and the brain work in overdrive. For months I felt like I could never get it right. Ev-ery-thing came back with edits.

Until one day, I submitted a story and next thing I knew it had been published to the website. No edits! Sure, the copy editor probably had a field day with it, but the content and the story arch had been on point.

While I did not love seeing my stories torn apart with red and questions in all caps and numerous revisions needed, I fully believe I am the writer I am today because of him. Chad taught me how to become a writer. He didn’t just make the edits and have me review and hopefully learn how he did it. He challenged me to become a better writer because, I assume, he knew I had it in me.

Funny enough, I have used his same approach to editing with all of my clients that I am teaching to become better writers. The lessons learned made me a better writer, but they also made me a better teacher, manager and coach. Now, I don’t just have a method that works — and numerous bylines to my name to back it up — I also know what it’s like to be the one receiving those edits so I can be a more empathetic instructor and editor.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

I think there are a few things:

  1. There is still so much archaic societal pressure for women to be the one to raise the family that the idea of doing that AND starting/growing a business can be daunting, not to mention a financial risk when there are more mouths to feed.
  2. Even without the societal pressure, it’s still women who are responsible for actually bringing the babies into the world and many of us want to! It’s very comforting to know that you’re getting a steady paycheck, healthcare, maternity leave (even if it’s too short in my mind), and a job to come back to after having a baby. None of those things are guaranteed with entrepreneurship. In all honesty, that’s one of my concerns about entrepreneurship as well. I thoroughly love my job, but I have yet to create a maternity leave policy (and bank account to fund it) for DCM Communications. Building up enough savings and recurring revenue to sustain me and keep my contractors working during that time while continuing to keep an active brand presence is a beast of a goal.
  3. Imposter syndrome. I’m sure there are men who suffer from this as well, but on the whole it’s more of my female clients who worry, “What if no one buys from me?” “What if I’m not good enough?” “How can I justify charging that much?” Even if someone’s business idea is exactly the same as what they are being paid to do for someone else, those fears still creep in when it’s time to take the leap to entrepreneurship. Those feelings are imposter syndrome at work and it’s a killer to the mindset you really need to be a successful entrepreneur.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Oh absolutely! To start with, leave a woman’s choice on how she wants to create a family and the shape of what that family looks like (adoption, surrogacy, spouse only and no kids, etc) to that woman alone. Period full stop. Being a grown adult is hard enough without other people’s opinions on what I should or should not be doing with my uterus.

I have friends who have kids and a career, others who choose raising kids to be their career and still others who have zero desire for children. Each one made her own choice and there should be ZERO shame projected onto any of them.

This means all companies need to have fair leave policies for those who do choose to have children AND a respectful workload for those who do not. Just because one woman decides to have a baby and another does not, shouldn’t mean the one still at work takes over the workload of the mother in addition to her own.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

I think it goes beyond just women and any PERSON who wants to take the ride of entrepreneurship should do just that. Got an idea? Fantastic! Does it solve someone’s problem? Perfect! You’ve got a viable business opportunity.

Our gender shouldn’t determine whether we start a business or remain working for someone else. The viability of our idea, dedication to making it successful, however we determine “success”, and fortitude to handle the rollercoaster of emotions that is entrepreneurship are the only factors that should determine whether someone starts a company.

That being said, one of the most appealing factors of starting my own business is the ability to set my a schedule that would allow me to be intellectually challenged on a daily basis and yet still there for school pickup, soccer games, and other important events in my children’s lives when they eventually come into the picture. I think this desire can easily apply to men (my dad worked from home when I was young and did the school pickups), but it is often categorized as “women’s desires” in our current society.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

The biggest myth I see out there is if a founder is the face of the company, that’s all they do. Press appearances, photo shoots, video shoots, and jetting from one meeting to another to make big sales that their team will execute on while they go about more “face” related activities.

NOT TRUE! Being hte face of a company is just adding another role on top of being CEO/Founder/Visionary, etc. There may be an entire team supporting your efforts and able to execute on the deals you are selling. There also could be just you with or without a great team of contractors. In either case, the founder is ALWAYS working more than you see. They do the public relations elements then spend time creating new ideas, outlining project plans, delegating tasks, and — most importantly — figuring out how to continue to GROW the business.

That is job number one of the founder: how can I continue to grow, or scale, the business. Then going off to do whatever that entails. There may be years where sustaining current business levels is the focus, but growing the business through increasing headcount or revenue is the goal of any company and responsibility of the founder.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

100% not. Harsh answer but it’s true. You have to not only really want it, but you need to have another level of resilience inside you to get through the tough times because let me be very clear: there are ALWAYS tough times even with the best of business ideas.

That is not something everyone is willing to do, and that’s totally ok. Being a founder requires so much grit, self-confidence and adaptability on a daily basis. Those are not muscles everyone wants to flex each day, which is when the safety and consistency of a corporate job — and consistent paycheck in particular — is the way to go.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Grit. Take determination, perseverance and confidence, roll them into one and you’ve got grit. As a founder, you will hit barriers and have to find a way to push through them or climb over them in order to succeed. As a woman founder, you may very well hit even more. ForWhen those times arise, you have to be able to

2. A rational head. I am an emotional person. I know this and I fully embrace it. That being said, I have always been able to see an argument or issue from both sides: the emotional one and the rational one. This has proven infinitely beneficial in business because in that arena, the rational one must win out if you are to survive, let alone thrive. There are times and places for emotions, we are all humans after all, but when it comes to making decisions that affect your livelihood or the ones of others on your team, rationality should win out.

3. Trust in your gut. I’m not talking about making decisions based on how you feel about a situation at a moment in time. Rather making decisions that you feel so strongly are the right ones, even if it’s not apparent on the outside or logically to anyone else. If you KNOW truly in your gut it’s the right decision, then you will succeed.

For instance, when I decided to take DCM full a side-hustle to full time, I had more than one person tell me, “Maybe you should still apply for full time jobs just in case it doesn’t work out. You have a mortgage after all.”

Yes, I had a mortgage. Yes, going balls-to-the-wall on entrepreneurship is a risk and a scary leap to take. However, I knew in my gut this company would be a success and the right path forward for me. I also knew I would do whatever it took to make it so. Not only did I end up outpacing my corporate income with year 1, I am continuing to grow YoY five years later funded 100% on my own. Always trust your gut.

4. A strong backbone to make tough decisions. Following up on that last point, sometimes your gut will tell you to do something really hard like fire a client that will lose you a sizable amount of revenue. Case and point: a new-ish friend of mine referred their company to me as a potential client for branding and website redesign. I talked with the owner and it seemed like a good match so we signed a contract, I sent the invoice and branding commenced.

However, their deposit never seemed to arrive. Red flag #1. I had to send two follow up emails including a late fee addition before I got it with a variety of excuses about why it had been late. I finally sent over the branding proofs with utmost confidence one of the five we created would be a hit. Radio silence for weeks. Red Flag #2. Multiple follow ups again and finally got a short reply with lackluster feedback.

Delays in payment, combined with ignoring my outreach and poor, non-constructive feedback on the branding all told me one thing: this is not my ideal client. I had to fire them. Even though I really wanted the revenue from the website project that would come next, this client ignored me, delayed payment, and had been short with any feedback I managed to get on the design. All of this added up to an utter lack of respect for my business, my time, or my work. Time to move on and let thousands of dollars go. A tough decision to make though the relief I felt after I sent the email and returned the website deposit told me it really had been the right one. AGain, trust that gut.

5. Passion. I am not one to subscribe to the “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life,” mentality. Running this business is work that I love to do, but it is still work. What makes the rough times, design challenges, and worries over money/staffing/leads, etc all manageable is because I am passionate about the work itself.

I love seeing and hearing my clients understand a marketing concept that previously baffled them. I love the Thursdays where I talk to no one and write, design and build an entire website in a single day. I love seeing my clients’ names in print when a pitch gets picked up by a media outlet. Even better: I love the look on their faces when THEY see their name in print knowing I helped get it there.

Seeing my clients in love with their branding and truly feeling confident in their marketing & sales approach, that is what fuels me through any growing pains. I am growing through the pains because I want more time to make an impact in their businesses.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I believe every company, and every person, needs to have their own version of a corporate social responsibility program because at the end of the day, we are all members of the same society and we need to give back to it to make it flourish for all. To me, that is the American Heart Association.

As a two-time heart attack survivor I have dedicated much of my personal time to sharing my story with the hope that hearing it will encourage people to evaluate their own lifestyle and family risk factors and make changes to avoid the experience I had. If it could happen to me with zero risk factors, then it can definitely happen to someone with a family history or poor lifestyle choices.

It’s because of the success of DCM that, in addition to donating my time, I have been able to put my money where my mouth is and help fund the research and awareness work that AHA is doing in my community as well as nationally.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

My movement would be movement itself. I know what it feels for my brain to want to bea active and my body is just not interested in cooperating. Post-heart attacks I couldn’t walk a block without needing to sit down and catch my breath or take a nap to get through the day. My head wanted to do much, but my heart’s complete lack of endurance stopped me.

That is a feeling I never wanted to have again so I take full advantage of what my body can do now that it’s healthy. On those days when I don’t want to go for a run, or train for a race as I am now, I remember what it felt like to want to do those things and be limited by my ability. Every time, it gets me out the door and I tell myself, “You can do this. However long it takes, it takes. Just keep going.

That’s a mindset I’d want everyone to adopt: It doesn’t matter how long it takes you, just keep going and move. In fact, that’s precisely the reason I stopped sharing my pace times on my Instagram account. I never want someone to be intimidated by my pace, or feel they are falling short by carompision so they stop. No no no friend! Just keep going. Slow(er) movement is still movement. It counts!

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

That would most definitely be Brené Brown. Her research and approach to life totally transformed what I prioritize, including whose opinions get to have a place in my head. I fell down a rabbit hole of all things Brené a few years ago on a personal growth journey. I just couldn’t get enough!

And good thing because as I learned more and felt myself growing and evolving as a person, those shifts in mindset easily translated to my business life as well. In fact, one of the most important things I’ve learned in entrepreneurship is how important mindset is to success. The wrong mindset can ruin a business even if you have the most amazing services/products and the right mindset can make the entrepreneurship train a much smoother ride.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.


Female Founders: Channing Muller of DCM Communications On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Samantha Flynn On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman…

Female Founders: Samantha Flynn On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Position Your Process as Your Product: There will be a sea of competition in any industry that you wade into, but no one will approach the work the way that you do. Your unique perspective shapes the way that you approach working with clients to achieve desired results. If you can clearly communicate your process, you’ll be able to find clients that operate in the same manner that you do.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Samantha Flynn, Founder of Junipr Public Relations

Samantha Flynn has nearly 15 years of experience leading strategic and executable public relations initiatives across a variety of verticals including: hospitality, travel and tourism, CPG products, food and beverage, non-profit, automotive, sustainable energy, beauty, corporate social responsibility, cannabis, beer and technology. With experience in leading large teams and working independently, Samantha graduated from the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University with a Master of Science in Public Relations in 2009.

Junipr Public Relations is the culmination of Samantha’s career to date — created with a vision to bring strategic and meaningful support to both brand and agencies — Junipr Public Relations eliminates pain points of the communication process and delivers impactful results to clients that are both well-versed and new to the public relations process.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Public Relations was an industry that I backed to, coincidentally. When I was selecting a major in college, I knew that I wanted to focus on communications but wasn’t exactly sure which avenue of the field I was most interested in. With some great discussions with career counselors and several internships, I made the decision to obtain my advanced degree — a Master of Science in Public Relations from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University — immediately after completing my undergraduate studies.

From there, I moved to Chicago, as it’s a top market for PR and began my journey. Having worked for boutique PR firms, in house with global CPG brands and as the lead of the PR practice in an integrated marketing firm in the city, I was able to work on clients across industries while sharpening my skills and growing my knowledge.

This eventually led me to desiring the challenge of creating an agency — Junipr Public Relations. The firm is the tangible expression of my passionate vision of combining strategic public relations activations with stellar clients to produce meaningful work. We want to do smart work for nice people and we are confident in our ability to serve clients to meet their needs against anyone in the industry.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

The most interesting thing that has happened is that I’ve really developed a better understanding of just how expansive and supportive my network is. It has truly been so rewarding to reconnect with former classmates, colleagues, professors, vendors and employees and stay tuned into the amazing occurrences that are happening every day in the industry. When you are working with in a 9–5 grind, you miss a lot of the development and progressions that are happening in your network.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The funniest mistake for me is thinking that I would be working less as a business owner! I find that I am working about the same — or a little bit more — but it’s so much more rewarding because everything I do is to build my agency’s brand and reputation among clients, vendors and peers. I’ve learned that when I’m working for myself and I’m free to create my vision, it truly doesn’t feel like work but rather an investment in my future and the steps necessary to create the career path and life that I desire.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

It may sound cliché, but my parents have worked to give me every opportunity necessary to be successful in this life, so they are the first ones that I’m grateful to for my success. When it comes to my business in general, I am beyond thankful for every single woman who has encourage me and taken the time out of their schedules and lives to process questions I have, to be a sounding board for big decisions and to celebrate the big wins with me. I have many more close female mentors, colleagues and confidants than ever before and I attribute that to the warrior mentality of being in the trenches together and understanding the overall goal which is to create a better workforce for women.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

To start a business, you must be able to advocate for yourself, your boundaries, your pay and your people and it takes some time to develop your voice and be non-apologetic about running your company the way that you envision.

While workplaces have made some progress in terms of developing equitable opportunities for women, there is still a long way to go when it comes to truly creating the resources and environments for women to succeed. It has been very well-documented that women are paid less than men for the same jobs, are more often passed over for promotions and are met with disdain when discussing career advancement opportunities and raises.

Add in the fact that most women handle the majority of at home responsibilities and there becomes a perfect storm of factors that lead to Imposter Syndrome, which is very well-documented affects women more than men.

Society is still structured in a way that unintentionally discourages strong female leaders — many women in the work force never have the opportunity to engage in conversations about business ownership or assisted with resources to build their own companies. I believe the more that we see successful women founded companies, there will be a rise in the overall collective confidence of women in the workforce to be able to carve out their own paths and experience the freedom of business ownership.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

There are a lot of things that can be done by individuals, society and the government to help women succeed in the workplace and encourage them to overcome the obstacles of business ownership.

On an individual level — Encouragement. Encouragement. Encouragement. There’s a lot of power in the idea that “if you can see her, you can be her”. Many women don’t even know that they could be business owners until someone speaks into their life about the possibilities. Women business owners can share their experiences and collective knowledge with other women, including family members, friends and colleagues. Being open about experiences — the highs and the lows, as well as sharing resources is invaluable.

On a society level — workplaces across the country can be more friendly to women in general. This includes clear criteria for advancement, a willingness to pay equally and a sincere look at the unconscious and conscious biases that exist in the workplace. Too many companies still have all male leadership teams or speak negatively about women that make the same decisions that their male counterparts do when it comes to stewarding their careers.

There can also be a larger celebration of family which includes paid maternity leave (not short-term disability that many workplaces have), nursing mothers’ rooms and schedule flexibility. In the workplace men can take time off without expanding on the “why,” and many use flex time to entertain clients. However, women are often asked to explain why they are taking time off and looked at negatively if the reason is tied to a family obligation. Until the closed-door boys club practices change, it will be an uphill battle for women.

The government can continue to pass impactful Federal policy to enact meaningful change, as well as increase funding opportunities for women-owned businesses. What many people don’t realize is equity in the workplace is still in its infancy. It’s only been since President Clinton’s first term in the early 90s that employers have been required to keep a woman’s job for her during maternity leave. Women have only been able to hold credit cards on their own without a male co-signer since the 70s. To put this in perspective, these milestones have occurred during the lifespan of Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z. However, the current group at the peak of their career right now determining policy is Baby Boomers and older Gen Xers — this is a major disconnect.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

More women should become founders because the more voices to contribute to the collective business and social consciousness the better. Much like in our personal lives, women should not be subject to major decisions that affect their livelihood, earning potential or ability to start a business, without having a seat at the table to advocate for themselves.

You have never seen in the history of the world, a council of women make broad, sweeping policy decisions that affect men. However, you often see councils of men make decisions for women and this inhibits women and women’s interests, whether there is the intention to or not. Because men cannot understand the lived experience of a woman, they will always fail to consider what is most important for progress. The more women that are founders the greater our ability to enact the change we wish to see on a personal, professional and societal level.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

The biggest myth about being a founder is that you must be extremely well funded and have a perfect plan to get started. I had neither of these things when I started Junipr Public Relations but what I did have was faith in myself and a willingness to try.

To be clear, you cannot be cavalier about your finances, and you must have vision and an idea of how you are going to navigate — including resource availability, rates, collateral needs etc. I often say that the flower blooms and bees are attracted to it, not the other way around. Significant funding, resources and opportunities come against what you’ve built — if you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

Tenacity and flexibility are the two most important traits for being a founder. To be a founder, you must be willing to eat rejection for breakfast, because you truly reap what you sow. Every conversation may not result in immediate work but viewing networking as the groundwork for future opportunities is key. You belong in any room that you are in, but you have to be willing to stay persistent in the pursuit of getting in the room and not taking no for an answer.

Flexibility is also essential — because simply put, as a business owner, you don’t know what you don’t know. You must anticipate that there will be challenges and mistakes you didn’t even know to account for, as well as a willingness to pivot if the opportunity arises. My number one perspective I look at when taking short-term work or onboarding is: will this help me achieve my long-term goals? And in the case that it doesn’t, I don’t take the work, even if it pays well. You must be willing to sacrifice the short-term for the long term.

I do not think everyone is cut out to be a founder. Many people like established process and a moderate amount of responsibility. Taking the founder route is challenging because at the end of the day you are the one solely responsible for every aspect of your professional life and truly, it is not for everyone.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

  1. Position Your Process as Your Product: There will be a sea of competition in any industry that you wade into, but no one will approach the work the way that you do. Your unique perspective shapes the way that you approach working with clients to achieve desired results. If you can clearly communicate your process, you’ll be able to find clients that operate in the same manner that you do.
  2. Strong Boundaries: One of the best parts of being a business owner is the ability to control your working experience including your services offered, rates, hours worked, clients and employees. As a business owner, it’s easy to always be working. Sitting down to carve out clear boundaries regarding schedule, finances and work policies is essential. While there may be a rare instance in which you may take a smaller job or work a weekend, if you do not respect your boundaries, no one will. Additionally, respect of your communicated boundaries is a great litmus test when evaluating partners.
  3. Tenacity: Being a founder, you are a jack of all trades — at least at the beginning. This requires a tenacity to lean into the things you don’t know and can learn, as well as the ability to identify resources that can help you in areas that might be too complex. You must be hungry to track down new business and welcome all the rejection that comes. You must be tenacious and wiling to eat rejection for breakfast to be successful. I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to the taste of rejection or a missed opportunity, but I don’t let it break my stride and can quickly apply learnings to navigate for the future.
  4. Use Your Voice: Being a founder — you are your own advocate. Full stop. There is no one else that shares in the responsibility of your business or your livelihood. Therefore, you must be comfortable using your voice to get what you want and deserve. Many times, women apologize for small things that they are not responsible for: a rescheduled meeting, a change in client direction or for following up on the status of a late payment, while they let the major things — rates, responsibilities, and contract terms — slide. You must be able to advocate for yourself not just with clients but with vendors as well. If you aren’t getting the level of service necessary from your accountant, IT rep, production vendor or others, you must be willing to engage in these conversations unapologetically to ensure professional. At the end of the day, you cannot pass off the responsibility of any part of your business to anyone else, so you must be willing and able to use your voice to ensure your business is as you envision it to be.
  5. Confidence: Many women struggle with confidence resulting in a decreased ability to charge their worth, honor their boundaries and displease others. The key to battling imposter syndrome is confidence and the good news is that confidence is something that can be learned and fostered through intention. Simply put, it’s impossible to be a founder of a business and please everyone — if you were able to do that, you would not be running your own business. I am fully aware that I am not always the cheapest and that my work process does not always align with potential clients. I am also aware that because I’m a woman, the work force has much stronger reaction of displeasure when I refuse to roll over and accept work with conditions that are not favorable to me. I’m able to manifest peace in these decisions as I am confident in the future I envision for myself and this confidence is regularly confirmed as I continue to grow my roster of clients that are happy to pay my rate and honor my boundaries. We cannot do our best work if we do not cultivate the best conditions for ourselves. Having confidence to let go what isn’t for you is a game changer.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I choose to work with people — employees, clients and vendors that share my heart for an equitable future and I am not afraid to end a client relationship if this is misaligned. As a founder, sometimes you are caught in determining if the financial component outweighs the misalignment and I have not compromised on my values or ethics in this role.

I donate 10% of my gross profits to various organizations that are close to my heart and further the mission of an equitable future.

I have also carved out time to connect with those at all levels of the entrepreneurial journey to share and absorb wisdom.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would love to inspire a movement that truly advocates for the intersectional concerns of women in the workplace. One woman at the table is not enough and it’s actually a disservice to women, as it positions them as the scape goat and person that is responsible for advocating and educating men which does not put them in a favorable position. I’d love a movement that holds companies accountable and shows true representation at every level, long term without a fear of changing the status quo.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would love to have a conversation with Dana Massie and Tony Khan of All Elite Wrestling. I’ve been following the company since its inception and am so impressed by their ability to truly create a superior product that has everyone excited, while also living out shared values of kindness, diversity, equity and inclusion. Dana has done an amazing job of marketing since before the company even existed and is redefining what the fan experience looks like, while Tony Khan is setting the standard for this generation of employers, rooted in enthusiasm, knowledge and a people-first approach.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.


Female Founders: Samantha Flynn On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Valene McDougall of UpComms PR On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed…

Female Founders: Valene McDougall of UpComms PR On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Develop self-care routines from early on. Our health and wellness are very important to our frame of mind. Forming enjoyable fitness routines like nature walks, hiking, jogging, and cycling are helpful. Reduced stress levels, increased energy, and a general feeling of well-being are just some of the benefits associated with fitness activities.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Valene Mc Dougall.

Valene Mc Dougall is a perceptive and multifaceted communications professional with over eight years’ experience in public relations and video production at academic institutions, government agencies, and private organizations in Trinidad and Tobago and the United States. She is the Founder and Lead PR Consultant at UpComms PR where she aims to help scientists and scientific organizations tell their stories and build pivotal relationships.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I grew up in Trinidad and Tobago in a ‘sciencey’ household in many ways. In fact, my father, now retired, was a science teacher who studied chemistry in the United States, and my mother, a dietetic technician who studied nutrition at the same university which my father attended. I was surrounded by many science books, and I relished science magazines and programs shown on channels like National Geographic, Discovery Channel and PBS. Incidentally, I also loved creative writing. Following my parent’s stead, I soon migrated to the US as well and pursued studies in communications, journalism, and eventually strategic public relations. All that led to a job at the National Science Foundation where my two loves came together.

After many years, I returned to the country of my birth, and began working in several other public relations disciplines. Some more years would go by before I rediscovered my passion for communicating with and for scientists. Overall, my experiences merged to build a public relations entity that could marry my passions as well as allow me the flexibility of work-life balance to benefit my family and further shape my career.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

When I think about some of the scenarios that have led me to where I am, I think about “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” Goldilocks tried three bowls of porridge. The first was too hot; the second was too cold, and the third was just right. In essence, I began my journey with a desire and a general idea to help small businesses communicate better. However, the more I dug into what energized me — what I loved doing, and what came naturally to me — I discovered that my initial direction was either too broad or too bland. With some internal analysis and connecting of dots, I realized my truest desire was much more specific than helping small businesses improve their communications. Instead, I unexpectedly found my niche one that was there all along and it instantly felt “just right.”

For me it was science public relations. I merged an early love of science and writing with experiences in public affairs that I had no idea at the time would lead me to this path.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’m still a newbie founder, but the funniest story so far — and that’s funny as in an epiphany, and not so much “ha-ha” funny, though I can laugh now — has to do with the building process for my website and its content. After doing a lot of research, which involved looking at other websites within the industry, I began by somewhat following the general style of others. However, I soon found I had to be true to my own vibe, my own story, and my own vision. So, my building process redirected with the aim to reflect more of me and the needs of my intended audience. In some ways this is an ongoing task.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There are many people who have helped me along the way from my spouse to my parents, colleagues, friends, leaders …. So many. However, one of my more recent influencers is the coordinator of the Brandprint Summit, Jamila Bannister. She is a mastermind when it comes to personal branding and her creativity led to the putting together of the virtual Brandprint Summit, which I recently attended. It provided much insight for the building of my business, especially because I’m still in the early stages of my entrepreneurial journey. It also provided a platform to meet other founders and to be buoyed by their success stories. In fact, I recommend new founders attend virtual conferences in their various industries and seek to enhance their networks and knowledge.

On a more personal level, I really can’t go further without acknowledging the support of my husband, who has been a voice of encouragement and reassurance throughout my pursuits.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

The first thing that comes to mind, without any scientific analysis, is the whirlwind of change and demands that come with motherhood, parenting, and even marriage. This family narrative carries significant weight. Starting a business may have little appeal to some women, if you consider the risks of leaving a comfortable job with all its perks and security while also being responsible for little ones or others.

Ironically, family changes and demands can also inspire women to step into business ownership. Which is partly the case with me. I had a baby, and I felt compelled to achieve the flexible work schedule that I now needed. I decided to pursue freelancing and eventually build a business.

Perhaps, another palpable reason holding women back from founding companies is the fear of failure. There is a sense of inner doubt, which I attribute to societal and cultural factors. It can stump us if we don’t press through it. My own mantra is “do it anyway.”

Feeding the fear are defeating thoughts like, “What are you doing? People like you don’t do this.” You must constantly shoot these voices down until you arrive and then you can say, “Yes, this is what I am doing. I am filling a need, and there is a place for me. This is it.”

I should add that it’s important to talk to other founders and seek guidance for the way forward.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

A very practical solution may be reliable and flexible childcare and elderly care options. Other steps can include the creation of accessible and versatile financial mechanisms, counseling programs, useful mentor-mentee relationships, accessible professional and business networks, and campaigns to empower women — especially those in minority groups — to think and see themselves as important players and formidable future business founders.

In addition, simple acts of relating to other women founders on social media platforms can be beneficial. This can include joining business groups and participating in live conversations to learn and grow; simply engaging with others who are already running successful businesses, as mentioned before.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

More women should become founders if only to provide mentorship, support, and encouragement for others who may wish to do the same but are afraid or lack the confidence.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

That it’s less time consuming or less stressful than working a regular nine-to-five corporate job. Working for yourself may mean that you work harder and longer. So, selfcare and time management become very important to set up from the start. Some perks are you simply enjoy what you are doing every single day, and you have the flexibility to work outside of conventional hours, while earning income.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

I want to believe anyone can become a successful founder because, if you think about it, we are all in service to each other in some way. With the world of work changing, perhaps more people are finding that they can do much more than they thought they could. However, there are a few known traits that can help an individual become successful: discipline, consistency, organizational skills, tough skin, tenacity, and faith.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

  1. You absolutely need to have faith. I’m not talking about faith to chase a dream spasm or a pipe dream. I’m referring to an internal conviction backed by the belief that what you can’t see right now can and will be.
  2. You also need a filter. When the naysayers and unhelpful critics come along be sure you have a psychological filter. It’s a position that will help you weed out ugly from truth, and not the ugly truth altogether. Filters can also be trusted friends who can help you cope and encourage you to press on.
  3. Speaking of friends, you need a support system. This can be loved ones or a community of like-minded people.
  4. Perseverance is another factor. This is where you get up and finish the race despite trials. You’re aiming to finish well. I’m amazed at the creativity and imaginative solutions we can come up with when we are faced with challenges.
  5. Finally, develop self-care routines from early on. Our health and wellness are very important to our frame of mind. Forming enjoyable fitness routines like nature walks, hiking, jogging, and cycling are helpful. Reduced stress levels, increased energy, and a general feeling of well-being are just some of the benefits associated with fitness activities.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I believe our day-to-day lifestyle and choices impact those we encounter in ways we may not realize, and so success or not I hope my influence is positive and pivotal.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Longer, flexible, and more generous parental leave options for those who need it.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Former first lady Michelle Obama for her leadership, and science writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Yong for his talent and skills in science writing and communications.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.


Female Founders: Valene McDougall of UpComms PR On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.