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Female Founders: Claudia Jones of MORE Latinoámerica on The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Embrace a growth mindset. I wish someone would’ve told me to always believe that it is possible to develop new skills, talents, and gifts over time. What you need is willpower, commitment, and dedication.

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

Claudia Jones is the founder and Presidents of MORE Latinoámerica, a non-profit organization whose objective is to achieve gender equality through training. She is also being honored this year as a Points of Light Inspiration Spotlight for her continued contributions to financial equity.

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 a small city in Mexico and in 2001, I obtained a scholarship with the Global Student Leadership (GSL) program at Manhattanville College, New York which empowered me as a young woman to advocate for gender equity. In 2009, my first marriage fell apart which led to losing my business and my home and I was in a deep depression. However, I decided to take control of my life and pursued another degree. This is why strongly believe that through education and empowering women, we can achieve great things.

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

I live in a small town in Alaska, and I always say that I live at the end of the world. Though it is a beautiful place to live there are few opportunities for growth in our population given that there is only one large university in the area (University of Alaska Anchorage/Mat-Su College). It was difficult to launch a program like GSL in the area, but I wanted to make a difference and find purpose in our community. I knew that I wanted to create a free program online to reach more people. A lot of people told me that this was a dumb idea, and I would not be able to launch a whole non-profit online. They told me that it wasn’t going to work but I followed through with my convictions and after two years of operating online, we are now virtually present in 11 countries including the United States (Spanish-speaking), Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Spain and Venezuela.

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 would say that they were more barriers than mistakes. My first language is Spanish and there was a language barrier when I first moved to America, but I continue to learn English each day. Another barrier when I first launched was having to understand American laws and procedures around launching a non-profit. I had no idea how to legally establish a non-profit organization. The best lesson I learned was to ask for help from my friends, family, and collaborators.

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 were so many people that helped me along the way including Michaela Walsh, Raysa Castillo, and Chase Jones. In 2000, Michaela Walsh started the Global Student Leadership Program that I participated in in 2001 with the main objective of empowering young women around the world. In 2017, Ms. Walsh organized a reunion for past students and invited all the participants from each generation to participate in an event. At this reunion, the GSL-Network was born. The GSL Network is a group of female leaders from countries around the world with the commitment to support each other and to empower other young women leaders. This is also where I reconnected with Raysa Castillo, we founded MORE Latinoamerica as spinoff of the GSL Program and the GSL Network. Chase Jones, my husband, has always supported me through this journey and provided much-needed moral support on difficult days. He made our first website and also helped with unpacking the legal jargon to launch MORE Latinoámerica.

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?

It is difficult to maintain a “balance” between my professional and personal career, but what I’ve learned is that I will always put my family and son first.

I experienced a miscarriage in 2018 and since having my son, I have really focused on cultivating my family. My priority is my son and I think the non-profit would be much bigger if I dedicated more hours each day to MORE, but that’s a part of the balance that you have to achieve as a founder. The advantage I have is that I can delegate within the organization which allows me to prioritize my family. I always want to be present at my son’s classes and events, so I juggle my time. Another example is that I was invited to attend The George H.W. Bush Points of Light Awards Celebration in New York. My biggest concern was not being able to go because I have no one to leave my 6-year-old son with. Fortunately, my husband supported me and said, “Well, the three of us will go to New York together and spend time together as a family.”

I think what gives most women pause from starting their own companies are the responsibilities that we have as women. We are often playing different roles at once such as a mother, wife, daughter, friend as well as professionals.

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 think building sisterhood amongst women should be encouraged more. Networking is important but building a group of women that support you in your personal life is just as important, if not more, than the professional network of women that you build. I have a group of friends I can trust and if I am feeling a bit under the weather, one of them takes care of my son, or provides meals. I do the same when someone finds themselves in a difficult position. That’s why it’s so important for MORE to not only empower women but to create sisterhood through networking.

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 UN United Nations (UN) has 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Number 5 focuses mainly on gender equity. According to the UN, it is proven that women’s empowerment stimulates productivity and economic growth. I believe that if more women were in key positions (business, political, non-profit organizations, etc.), we would have a more egalitarian world. Therefore, that would bring with it a more peaceful and sustainable society.

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

  1. Founders do not have a personal life. I live by the phrase “Work hard, play harder”. It’s a myth that founders cannot have a personal life but I can have a flexible schedule that allows me to focus on both my family and MORE.
  2. Founders take a lot of risks. When we founded MORE Latinoámerica, we did it without capital. To register it legally, we only invested about $300 dollars. The continued funding for the organization has accumulated over time and donated by collaborators and supporters.
  3. Founders generally are only motivated by economic profit. MORE is a non-profit organization and the services we provide are centered around helping others, not profit. I believe that if you do good, money comes one way or another.
  4. Founders have unique and great ideas. MORE Latinoámerica merged two great ideas that already existed for many years: education and the internet. You do not need to be a great innovator, just find a need and solve it. We realized that to achieve gender equity, training was needed. In Latin America, there are few opportunities for women. We decided that our courses would be delivered free of charge and virtually.
  5. Founders must be very young. I founded MORE Latinoámerica in my early 40’s. You can undertake any big adventure in your 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, etc. There really is no age limit to what you can 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?

Regardless of your position in a company, we can all do our part to make this world better. That sense of community is beyond the boundaries of hierarchy. We need more collaboration, more teamwork and more trust among each of us. At MORE Latinoámerica, we are ALL part of the project. Everyone contributes ideas, and pulls from their personal experiences. That’s why I love MORE — there is no organizational chart. MORE has more than 120 collaborators (lawyers, entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers, psychologists, architects, engineers, stay at home moms, etc) around the world and 90% of them are women.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

  1. Embrace a growth mindset. I wish someone would’ve told me to always believe that it is possible to develop new skills, talents, and gifts over time. What you need is willpower, commitment, and dedication.
  2. Find a balance between your professional and personal life. I am passionate about MORE and although I say that it is my other “child” and I am 100% committed, my personal life is more important. As women, it’s important that we don’t forget to prioritize our happiness, family, and friends.
  3. Set short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. Being clear about your goals is key. They must be SMART: S: Specific, M: Measurable A: Achievable R: Relevant and T: Time-bound. As we’re climbing the professional ladder it is easier to remain on track if we focus on the first step and then on to the second and so on until we reach the top.
  4. Always surround yourself with people who share your vision. Your team of collaborators must be as passionate about the work as you are. As you build your team, look for people with the same values and enthusiasm for creating a better world. Teamwork is the key to a growing organization.
  5. Be flexible and resilient. The world is constantly changing at a rapid pace. You have to be willing to pivot and explore new ideas. For my first 20 years as an activist, we were in person and building a community was more accessible and readily available. When MORE was founded, we had to adapt to the limitations of COVID-19 and pivot our strategy virtually.

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

Our mission at MORE is to achieve gender equity through online training. We offer women a variety of programming and topics to choose from including emotional intelligence, nutrition, homeschooling, marketing, leadership, self-esteem, business, assertive communication, social entrepreneurship, ASD, personal finance, empowerment, gender equality, recognizing gender violence, and more. The objective of our programs is to develop women’s potential, self-confidence, leadership skills, and entrepreneurial attitude that will allow them, through various tools, to develop transferable skills and become more capable people with a vision of positive impact on themselves, society and their environment.

What gives me the strength to keep going are the messages MORE receives daily from people who are grateful to receive free, quality education. The common denominator of these messages is that we have changed people’s lives for the better. We’ve heard from a number of people who went through the workshops and internships who said they developed skills that prepared them to face professional challenges from a global perspective, strengthen their self-esteem, understand life from a multicultural and diverse perspective, discover an inner potential in areas they were unaware of, and create a 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 like to continue to grow the MORE Latinoámerica global network and spread the word for our organization so other collaborators who share our same mission and are passionate about the empowerment of women around the world join our efforts. I would also like to grow our philanthropic network in order for MORE to continue growing and providing FREE virtual training programs that are accessible to everyone. The approximate cost for each student to participate in a single masterclass is $10 and the approximate cost of creating a 7-week training class (Diplomado in Spanish) is $100 per student. We want to help as many people as we can to learn more about us, please visit Www.more2020.org.

If you’re interested in donating, you can support our org in the following ways:

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 have always said that “education along with sisterhood are the best tools to increase female leadership.” One of the people who inspires me the most is Malala Yousafzai. Her story encourages me to move forward, I would love to meet her in person.

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

Female Founders: Claudia Jones of MORE Latinoámerica 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.