What does success look like to you? How she hustles’ emily Mills dishes on the unique perspectives of diverse women
Aunique network is trying to help women overcome career challenges and carve out their own path to success.
There’s a huge appetite among diverse women to start businesses,” Mills say, “but even cultural barriers may need to be overcome.”
As the founder and driving force behind How She Hustles, a Toronto-area network that unites 10,000 diverse women through social media channels and in- person events, Emily Mills knows that achieving business success means different things to different women. Cultural background, gender identity, race, faith, roadblocks, triumphs and personal journeys are all part of the experiences that help to form concepts of business success.
“Everyone talks about the barriers to women in advancing to the C-suite, but many of the women who come out to our events tell us they don’t really want those jobs,” she says. “It isn’t that they lack ambition, but they may not aspire to be the leader of a company that has a mandate and an infrastructure that doesn’t necessarily support their passions or reflect the way they want to work.”
In some cases, climbing the corporate ladder can exact too much of a personal price. How She Hustles attendees have described the pressures of their corporate journeys.
“Loneliness can be a problem if, for example, they’re the only woman of colour at that level in an organization,” says Mills. “There’s also a lot of pressure if you’re parachuted into an organization to represent the viewpoint of an entire community and the only person they ask about something like Asian Heritage Month, for example. Companies who want to create a more inclusive C- suite might consider hiring more cohorts to make those positions more appealing for these employees.”
For many women, being part of a large corporation simply isn’t part of their personal DNA. Increasingly, women are more passionate about being their own bosses and carving out a business niche for themselves.
“There’s a huge appetite among diverse women to start businesses,” says Mills. “But even cultural barriers may need to be overcome. If you weren’t raised in a culture that emphasized being your own boss, that journey can be more difficult. As a child of immigrants, my parents encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do, but not everyone experiences that encouragement. In other households, they might tell you the three professions you need to aspire to — doctor, lawyer and engineer.”
Acquiring necessary business skills is a critical component of business success across any demographic group. So is the need for capital to start and expand a business.
“But it’s difficult for women of diverse backgrounds to find out where the supports are,” says Mills. “At a recent panel event, venture capitalists were talking about going to their networks to look for business opportunities. Of course, they have the right to decide that their hardearned money is going into trusted relationships. But these VCS didn’t share my gender, my cultural background or my lived experience as the daughter of immigrants from the Caribbean, and I began to wonder how we might be connected to them or how they would be connected to us. Do we really have any network connections? Whether you’re trying to transform your business through funds or strategic advice or high-level skillsets that can help you to navigate the business world, many of these resources are siloed and we can’t always find a bridge. How She Hustles is trying to build them.”
But diverse women entrepreneurs aren’t simply waiting to take on the business world as it exists. They’re looking to carve out spaces that meet their own ideals of what a successful business is.
That’s one of the focuses of Startup & Slay, a new series of events launched last year by How She Hustles. Speakers often talk about how they achieved business success on their own terms. CIBC, Futurpreneur and Ryerson University are sponsors of the recently launched Startup & Slay digital video series focused on entrepreneurship and the experiences of diverse women entrepreneurs across Canada who are scaling their businesses.
“People talk about startups in terms of artificial intelligence, apps and coding,” says Mills. “There’s nothing wrong with that because technology is fundamental to the success of a business. However, there are many businesses doing innovative things that don’t wind up with an investor offer or growing into a company based in Silicon Valley. Are your business efforts supporting your family, your relatives and your grandparents in another country? These aren’t always the traditional success stories, but we believe they should be recognized and celebrated.”