International Women's Day Wisdom from the Women of Radiate

On this International Women’s Day, let’s focus on how much women have accomplished in the business world. According to the Catalyst Knowledge Center, women make up fully a quarter of executives and senior-level officials in S&P 500 companies. Women-centric investors and accelerators are giving female founders a leg up as they narrow the tech industry’s gender divide. And disruptors like LOLA and Thinx are busting taboos and serving female customers better than ever before.

In honor of the holiday, here are some of the best and most memorable lessons I’ve learned from my conversations with women entrepreneurs and leaders on the Radiate podcast. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed listening to them.

On being paid what you’re worth

I think that one thing that women tend to do more so than men is they doubt themselves. And I think that you really see, especially around pay gap, is women are far less likely to ask for a higher salary or ask for the raise or ask for the promotion. And I think that there is a strong opportunity to believe in yourself, trust that you are amazing at what you do.

And ask for what you think is fair and right...And I say this now as somebody who runs a business, has over a hundred employees. And I see it time and time again with our female employees versus our male employees, I know that when I'm hiring a man, 99% of the time he will negotiate his salary upfront when I make an offer. I cannot say that that's the same percentage for women, it is significantly lower. So I think that we really owe it to ourselves to ask for what we believe that we deserve.

—Daniella Yacobovsky, Co-Founder of BaubleBar

On breaking into a boys’ club

Network, network, network, network...I got my jobs out of college and business school through the college process, through the school process, but everything since then, the board positions I've had, the advisory board position I've had, have been through my network…[Y]our next business opportunity is much more likely to come from a loose connection than a close connection. And for some reason, particularly young women, when I talk about this, say "Well that's cheating. I want to do this on my own, I don't want to do it through my contacts and connections."...I'm like, "Well how do you think the guys are doing it?”

—Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and Co-Founder of Ellevest

On balance

I become really efficient between my hours at work and when I go home, but I feel as though, as a woman, I want to be at the forefront of my career, but also as a mom and as a wife, and there are only so many hours in the day. I feel like there's sometimes a push/pull that I think is more prevalent with women who are entrepreneurs and family-oriented than men.

[But] I consider myself winning right now. I've designed the life that I really want. Would I be happy not having a husband and a family so I could be working 10 times more, which would be the case? No, I would be so miserable, because that doesn't fulfill me, because I know that much about myself is that as much as I would love to one day achieve more and I do, not at the price and of not having a stable home life, and people that love me and that I can love back.

—Farnoosh Torabi, Founder and Host of So Money with Farnoosh Torabi

On the glass ceiling

I was at Avon in the early '90s and there was so much visibility to...women breaking through, or not, the glass ceiling. In that time there were only a [two] women who were CEOs in the Fortune 500. Myself being, eventually, the third. But in those early days, 1997 to the late '90s, there really weren't women in the C-suite, nevermind in the corner office. I had been told that I was the frontrunner for the job. And then the business took a turn and there were some challenges and they decided, Oh, we're going to be more comfortable with someone who's a man, who had been on the board, who had had the job before, so I was passed over for the job. And at that time, several publications…[wrote big articles] about the glass ceiling [being] alive and well, and women [getting] passed over for the job. And as a result of that, because I had a good reputation, I was offered two CEO jobs immediately. 

—Andrea Jung, President and CEO of Grameen America

On the value of diversity

It's not that the women are better, it's that, that diverse workforces work better...And I would particularly say for businesses that are consumer-facing…[W]omen are the end user, the end consumer of the vast majority of the consumer products out there, whether they're online or offline...So if you are trying to sell any product out there, not having women on your team, not having women who are really in a position to be able to speak up and to add to whatever the marketing campaign, product development, whatever it might be, you're missing a huge opportunity.

—Susan Lyne, President and Managing Partner of BBG Ventures

Want more insights from female business leaders and CEOs? Check out this Radiate video featuring Mellody Hobson and Jessica Herrin:

And for even more of the inimitable Jessica Herrin, check out this piece of hers on our Medium page.

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