Her CEO Journey™: The Business Finance Podcast for Mission-Driven Women Entrepreneurs

Women of Impact in Business: Highlights From 200 Episodes of Her CEO Journey

• Christina Sjahli • Episode 200

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As a woman entrepreneur, you have the power to lead a profitable business that makes an impact. You'll hone your skills, take action and make authentic decisions that will put you on your own path to success. It may be a difficult journey ahead, but fortunately, the stories of successful women in business can guide your way. Take inspiration from the trailblazers who show you the possibilities of changing the world as a woman business owner. 

Her CEO Journey Podcast tells these stories that inspire people on their own CEO journeys. In this episode, we celebrate 200 episodes of smart tips and exceptional guests on the show. Each episode shows you that it's possible to make a profit and make an impact at the same time. We look back at these interviews that truly inspired listeners and left us with new learnings and hope for a better world built by women in business.

What’s your favourite episode? Join us in celebrating 200 episodes of women empowering women here on Her CEO Journey!

3 reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

  • Remember what it means to grow slowly and build a business in Kresse Wesling’s journey.
  • Help create opportunities and empower other communities as a business owner with Fatima Alvarez
  • Listen again to Masami Sato's journey of helping businesses all around the world make an impact together.

Episode Highlights

  • [00:04] Celebrating 200 Episodes of Her CEO Journey
  • [01:48] Episode Highlight: The Journey of Kresse Wesling 
  • [05:40] Episode Highlight: The Journey of Fatima Alvarez
  • [11:30] Episode Highlight: The Journey of Masami Sato

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Christina Sjahli:

Welcome back to Her CEO Journey. This episode is a special episode because this episode marks the 200th episode of Her CEO Journey Podcast. It is so crazy to think we reached this milestone, and we wouldn't be able to reach this important milestones without your support. We are so grateful for you, our audience, and also our amazing guests. Over the last four years, there has been so much learning and inspiration from our guests. More importantly, they give us hope of all the possibilities to create a better world, a better world that cares for people and the planet, especially a world where we can create more opportunities for women and girls. So to all of those guests that have made us dream about this world, and who are building it: thank you. We invited you to the podcast because you are a trailblazer and you inspire us with your journey. We don't believe there is one unique path to having a successful CEO journey. We believe it is just a series of authentic actions and decisions that will open room to create your own path. With both luck and hard work, you can open more rooms to others. In celebrating the 200 episodes, we are sharing highlights from our most inspiring interviews we have had in this podcast. Let's start with Kresse Wesling. Kresse is the co founder of Elvies & Kresse, a UK certified B Corporation, and one of the companies awarded best for the world by B Lab in the category of workers. What we admire about Elvis & Kresse is their commitment to the mission, which you will hear shortly, they choose to stay true in their values, and focusing on slow growth, versus growing their business fast at the expense of people and the planet. Since 2005, Elvis and Kresse have been rescuing raw materials from the fire hose, transforming them into luxury lifestyle accessories and continue to donate 50% of profits back to charities.

Kresse Wesling:

The reason why I became an entrepreneur was because I wanted to change the world from the time I was five, according to my mother, and I just thought that's me, you know, I want to save the planet. And if I can somehow turn that into a business, then no one can ever stop me. I don't want to make seasonal collections. Why? Why do you need a belt in spring 2014 That you can't wear in winter 2022? I think that's ridiculous. I don't think we need all of this change. And the change is what fuels overconsumption, and the overconsumption is what fuels all the waste. And it's not just wasted materials, it's all of the utilities, it's all of the transport. It was 2009, US Vogue did its first evergreen issue, and we were in it. And we were, you know really celebrated. Overnight that changed everything for us because we went from being thought of as those weird firehose belt people to being a luxury brand that was certainly an environmental pioneer. I think, if your growth is powered by destruction, then you're not a business, you're a villain in a Star Wars movie. And we don't need to have those in real life. We've got enough challenges with climate change and biodiversity loss. We don't need honest to goodness villains, operating within the so called creative industries, and being lauded as successful and wonderful. So I think some things have changed. But I think there's still a revolution ahead. We’ve grown probably slower than we could have done if we had sought external financing. We have never had to sacrifice our values and our principles, we've never been forced to reduce our 50% donation figure because it was just too high. We have never been told to use toxic foods because they were cheaper, or pay our team less because we could get away with it. We have never had to listen to those voices, because those voices were never at the table. They weren't in the room and they have no power over us. That's why we've been allowed to be as wild and free and fun and, and happy in the work that we do. I don't want to move fast and break things, I want to move slow and build things. Now in the UK, we're having a cost of living crisis. So we increase the wages in the UK. And there's been basically constant inflation in Istanbul. And we behave in the same way in Istanbul, when someone says to us, oh, your products are quite expensive. I just say our products cost, what the labor does. I don't think it's appropriate to make an environmental product at the expense of a team who's being underpaid. We try to maintain about two years of working capital, I can only demand my rights if I'm also prepared to live up to my responsibilities. And I don't think you should be able to make money if it's at the expense of the environment or its people. We just want to show that there's another way.

Christina Sjahli:

In December 2002, we had the honor to interview Fatima of Rs. She is the co founder and chief impact Officer of someone somewhere. What is so powerful about someone somewhere is their impactful business model that has empowered the life of woman artisans in Mexico and at the same time. The company is building a sustainable and profitable business, someone somewhere or empowering indigenous communities in Mexico to take control of their income generation and diminish poverty by working hand in hand with them.

Fatima Alvarez:

They were all facing common problems regarding migrations. We saw that it between 80 or 90% of the people that were still living there were women, because most of the men have already migrated into other bigger cities or even into the US. They have this knowledge that has been passed from generation to generation, in which they learn from their grandmothers how to embroider, or how to weave. And they were producing these amazing products, but that were just not adapted to the current fashion, or they didn't have access to the best quality materials. So they struggle a lot with the commercialization of them. So that's why we decided to do something to bring those products to the people that will value them the most, and just make some adjustments in terms of materials and in terms of design, so that they could have more access to income thanks to this work. We started working just with five artisans in Puebla. And then as we started entering some small markets here in Mexico City and some other stores, we were able to invite more and more artisans to join. We designed this model in which what artisans do is what makes more sense for them, what they love the most, what they want to still teach to their children and their grandchildren. And so we created these, pathway model. The young people were growing, just thinking that the only way in which they could be successful was if they got to leave their communities. We wanted to change that narrative. We wanted them to see their mothers being successful by reproducing their traditions by living in their communities, by living in their values and keeping families together. So we decided on this model, in which we divided the path into four main stages from an emerging artisan then passing through developing artisan and then a reinforcement. And then the scalability part. For each one of these pillars. We designed some workshops, some ways to measure that the interventions being done, are being successful, and that they are improving. So it can go from just knowing to how to do one technique with one specific material into learning how to use several materials for doing the same technique, or how to train other people to do them how to make decisions within an organization, how to invite more people to participate, how to invest a percentage of their earnings in having common space so that they can make some meetings and reunions and also do some savings accounts so that they can have an emergency fund if someone in the group needs something. Since the beginning, we have always had it clear that we didn’t want the artisans to be our employees. We have always wanted them to make their own decisions to be able to look for more clients and not just being dependent on Someone Somewhere. So they are organized as cooperatives and the leaders of those cooperatives are people of the communities. We asked the artisans like what is the most impact that they have got by partnering with us. The first thing they said is we have more friends, and having more friends means that normally women were part of the private life of the communities. Before in the communities, it was only the men that had the right to make decisions to participate in things but now these women are recognized as the organization of artisans. Our secret sauce until now, but this change every time, it's trying to partner with people that are aligned with our purpose and our values, and that are willing to take the risks that we are taking.

Christina Sjahli:

Have you heard about B1G1? We had the honor to interview the mind behind this amazing movement. In 2007, a simple idea came to Masami Sato. What if every business could make a difference in their way, just by doing what they normally do? With more than a decade of work, this simple idea has now become a global movement. And Profit Reimagined Inc, the sponsor of Her CEO Journey podcast is proud to be part of this movement. So now let's listen from Masami Sato, what this is all about, and we hope this interview will inspire you to join the movement as well.

Masami Sato:

So I wanted to create a company that provided that food that united and connected to people. So that's why I went into food business. We wanted to B1G1 to be the global initiative to be able to work with any businesses anywhere around the world. And then we looked at the big global map, and Singapore was there. The Singapore government was actually saying they wanted Singapore to become a giving nation. We didn't say, let's start a charity. We said, let's start a business called B1G1. And our entire focus was to add value to businesses, because if businesses wanted to make a difference, but don't know how to do it, there is a value there, if we could make it really easy. There is also a value in you know, helping businesses communicate their sense of mission and purpose with their team members or customers, or being able to monitor and see the growth of their impact that they are creating. Those things can be a business value add on. One thing we wanted to make happen was that when businesses make a difference and give to causes, then we wanted to make sure that 100% of their giving will be used effectively to make those impacts that happen. We were thinking about the model that becomes 100%. If somebody gives like 25 cents to give a meal, can 25 cents actually go to the project to deliver the meal? We came up with a membership model where businesses would go,“Okay, I want to join this movement, the membership fee will be used to grow this movement and build the system or create the processes or resources or collateral.” And then when the businesses then give, then we will make sure 100% will be going to the project designated to project activities. So that was kind of the motto from day one.

Christina Sjahli:

It has been an exciting four years for us at Her CEO Journey podcast and Profit Reimagined Inc, who is the sponsor for this podcast. We love going back in time with this episode, and we couldn't have done it without your support. So from all of us, we just want to say to you, thank you for listening. We will be back with new podcast series after the summer holiday. For the time being let's continue being limitless. As Michelle Obama once said, “There is no limit to what we as women can accomplish.”