We Walked In An MBA Women’s Brunch By Accident And Left Hungrier Than Ever
This was originally posted in October 2017 on LinkedIn
Today marks the four-year Friendaversary with an individual that has profoundly been a part of my personal and professional growth. The friend that I seek moral support from and take time to self-reflect with. The gal that I fearlessly dream alongside through the ups and downs, successes and failures — she is Melat.
Melat and I first met when we were VERY awkward and lost high school seniors at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business: Young Executives of Color (YEOC) High School Mentorship Program.
What is YEOC? YEOC is a nine-month college pipeline program hosted by the University of Washington Foster School of Business. The program currently serves 170 high school sophomores, juniors and seniors from 75 schools in the state Washington. Students attend sessions on the UW campus one Saturday every month for college preparation, business lectures, professional development, and powerful mentorship. YEOC is a FREE nine-month program. The only cost to students is transportation to UW Seattle.
Through YEOC we became each others biggest fans and an insatiable fire lit within us to charge forward in the world of business as confident executives of color. We dreamed to graduate with a business degree, change the world, and be established leaders mentoring other students. We made a pact to hold each other accountable on our very last day as YEOC students and we’re doing it ever since… even four years later.
Leah, what have you done? We’re the youngest ones here. Should we stay?
Were the words that Melat said to me as we met this past weekend at the Foster Women’s Brunch. To put things in a better perspective, Melat and I send each other professional development events and leadership opportunities that we can experience and grow together. I found the Women’s Brunch not knowing that it was targeted specifically towards women who were interested on learning about Foster’s MBA Program.
See, we were both undergrad juniors and here before us were women in their late 20’s, early 30’s that were well established leaders in their communities. As we made our way around the room we met women who had senior roles at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, T-Mobile, and Chevron that were looking for career growth. Other women who were wanting to change industries or even leave their current role to start their own company. Through meeting these women, we were quick to say that we were here by accident.
However, there was this magical feeling of being in a room full of diverse women leaders that were looking for their next path to take. So, we decided to stay, and us deciding to stay was one of the most powerful things we could have done.
The brunch kicked off with keynote speaker Connie Bourassa-Shaw who is the Executive Director of the Masters of Science in Entrepreneurship at Foster and was previously the Director of the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship for 20 years. She began to talk about three things that are most important to her:
- I’m good at creating programs that fill a need.
- I absolutely believe in the power of students to get shit done.
- Entrepreneurs see the world in a unique way and that’s our benefit.
She was able to expand on the small margin of women entrepreneurs, and how this is our opportunity as women to build, create, and lead something that can make lives easier. Her main emphasis was that women focus so much on others telling their story, that they lose sight that it is time for others to write about theirs.
If you don’t have a stomach ache, you’re not making a big enough change.
She concluded that we need more women entrepreneurs, we need more women leading in corporate offices, we need more women in VC firms, and we need smarter, kick-ass women leaders.
The brunch continued with current MS of Entrepreneurship student Elaine Siu sharing her 10 year career as an finance lawyer before deciding she was going to start her company getminimal.com, the first ethical beauty e-commerce platform in Hong Kong. Then Dr. Elizabeth Umphress a professor within the Foster School of Business broke down the importance of negotiating as women. Shockingly, 57% of men negotiate their salary, while only 7% of women do. The statistics show that women are afraid to ask due to being perceived as “bossy”, “aggressive”, or even “selfish.” Lastly, Jessica Raash a second-year full-time MBA student in Foster lead a panel of other MBA women to share their reasoning behind pursuing a higher degree. Their common theme behind returning to school was wanting to break out of the mindset of being comfortable and instead take strides upward.
If we left that morning and didn’t stay, we would not have seen that the incredible and more experienced women in the room around us are more like us than we thought. They were trying to discover their next career change, company they’ll create, or industry to lead. We are trying to discover our next internship experience, leadership role, and projects we’ll lead. This was a much-needed reality check as we kick off our junior year. This is a much-needed reality check for all women to ask themselves, “What is next for me?”
I understand throughout our lives as women, we spoke like a girl, ran like a girl, read like a girl, swung like a girl, and led like a girl as if being “like a girl” was nothing to be proud of. It was difficult for us to dream, not because we were incapable of dreaming but we were afraid to. We are surrounded by society’s expectations of what women, can become — we were “try-hards”, “too loud”, “attention seeking”, and “unrealistic”, merely nothing more. While men were, “determined”, “confident”, “leaders”, and “dreamers.”
However, the women that surrounded us that morning made me realize who I am is so much more than I can ever imagine. Our actions, our knowledge, our voice, our dreams, our risks, our failures, and our imperfections matter. They matter because there are still little girls who are told they’re not good enough. There are still millions of young women fighting for the right to receive an education. We are still facing a time where women are advocating for equal pay and maternity leave. A time where women are still expected to withhold a double standard on what we are told to “look” and “act” like. We are at a time where many of us understand that woman rights are human rights, so let us make the changes needed for those words to be true.
As we both walked out of brunch that morning hungrier than ever, we realized it was the very first day of YEOC for the new batch of high school students that will begin their path upwards as young executives of color. I do not believe in the concept of serendipity wholeheartedly, but the timing of what we experienced today was a sign for us to also continue our tracks upwards. No matter what stage of life you are in, we must not forget the importance of that.
Moving forward, we made a new pact to do whatever it takes to speak like a girl, run like a girl, read like a girl, swing like a girl, and lead like a girl… harder, better, faster, and stronger.
