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Julia Hartz: CEO of Billion-dollar Company, Eventbrite

April 14, 2017 / lmachad2 / 0 Comments

You have probably used Eventbrite to find local events or maybe you’ve simply heard of the website, but what you might not know is that the co-founders bootstrapped the company in the first two years and never expected it to become the multi-billion dollar company that it is today. Julia Hartz, Co-founder and now CEO of the company, was featured on Forbes’ 40 Under 40 list in 2015. This is the same list that includes people like Taylor Swift, Jessica Alba, John Oliver, and more. The reason why Eventbrite has become so successful is because they solved a problem in a niche market that made the ticketing experience simpler for buyers and sellers.

“Hartz is also a proponent of fostering happiness in the workplace, and Eventbrite has been named one of the best places to work in the Bay Area.”

Source: Mashable

In addition to the usual Silicon Valley company perks, Hartz ensures that she puts people first and encourages learning, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and a gender balance. For example, Britelings host monthly seminars called BriteCamp, where they teach one another how to program or eat a nutritious diet. Since Hartz prefers learning by doing, she must incorporate this in as many aspects of her business as possible. With all these fun events going on at the company, Hartz says her favorite day of the year is their annual talent show. She is also passionate about helping other women succeed and strives to increase women’s presence in the Silicon Valley tech industry.

“The Eventbrite staff is 45% female and the executive staff is 50% female.”

– Hartz

Hartz says this diversity has grown organically and believes that role models are crucial in order to keep attracting a balanced workforce. Not only does she believe in the importance of role models, but she is successfully leading by example by growing an affluent company and inspiring people along the way. When she thinks about how to build a diverse company, she asks herself these questions:

“Where can I find the best talent? How can I create an inclusive environment to make sure we’re not hiring just people that look like ourselves because of network effect, and referrals?”

– Hartz

This is incredibly important for businesses to consider and apply to their hiring process because it is often easier to hire based on referrals and individuals who are similar to the current employees. However, creating a diverse pool of talented people will allow for more differing ideas to be spread that can grow the business in a way that would not have been possible before.

Hartz prides herself on creating and maintaining the company culture, and she should. The team is growing fast and now employs 500 people. With this large of a team, it is difficult to predict what the future holds. However, Hartz started the company by talking to individuals, gathering their input, and making changes, so she will always do her best to put the people in her organization first.

Sources: How I Made It: Eventbrite co-founder Julia Hartz

44 Female Founders Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz: From 4 Years Bootstrapping to a Billion Dollar Company

Julia Hartz: Twitter

Inspiring Women in Tech: Alaina Percival, CEO, Women Who Code

Surprisingly, Alaina Percival, CEO of Women Who Code, did not begin her professional career in the tech industry. Her career actually began in the footwear industry when she worked at Puma running their niche products division. After deciding how important education was to her, she decided to go back to school to earn her MBA at Georgia State University. Then, she worked as a corporate brand manager at a smaller women’s performance shoe company, but later decided that she wanted to live in San Francisco, the major hub of the tech industry.

“It was a struggle because I’d always worked with footwear, but I felt like I needed to switch gears and start over and find my path.”

Taking a risk and changing your career path like Percival did is not easy, and people like her need to be acknowledged more for their bravery and commitment to success in a new field. She started getting involved in the tech industry by joining Women Who Code when it was still in its early phases and she placed herself in positions of leadership after teaching herself how to code. She found that her experience in community development allowed her to successfully organize events and find sponsors, and quickly became passionate about the projects she worked on.

At her day job, she mentions, “I was working with a lot of engineering executives, but fewer than 5 percent of them were women. I saw the experiences and opportunities they had and started bringing those into Women Who Code’s programs. That is where Women Who Code’s mission of inspiring women to excel in their careers was formed and how I knew we could make a difference.”

Percival did not waste any time and within a few months had filed for non-profit status and a trademark. Once she realized how big this organization was becoming, she quit her day job and made Women Who Code the center of her attention.

“The most exciting part is that the Women Who Code leaders whom we are helping empower are women who are dedicated to seeing other women excel. Their influence will impact the industry exponentially,” Percival says.

Percival mentions that she is proud of the influence her organization has had on inspiring women to enter the tech industry, however women are not staying in the industry for long periods of time. She adds that women need to have more mentors in the field so they can develop a sense of belonging and get career planning advise. The goal is not to simply get more women in the tech industry, but to have them stay and become future leaders that are equally represented.

Percival advises everyone to learn at least the basics of coding because it is becoming an integral part of every business. Having these skills will be essential for seeing numbers grow in the amount of women in tech because experience is crucial in the industry.

“Lay out that goal and work toward it; you can always change your mind later,” she says. This is a great piece of advise for young women who are still unsure what they want to do for a career. Percival is a prime example of someone who was not exactly sure what she wanted to do at first, but she made a decision and went for it with hard work, passion, and dedication.

Now, Women Who Code has more than 50,000 members in over 20 countries and has offered over 3,000 free events around the world. The non-profit offers free study groups and career development events, but also provides free and discounted conference tickets and scholarships to its members, totaling $100,000 in 2015.

Percival acknowledged a problem in the tech industry and found a way to help diminish that problem while impacting several lives along the way. She hopes that one day Women Who Code will no longer exist because that means there will be no disparity between men and women in tech and women will be equally represented, especially in positions of leadership.

For more information, visit these articles:

Alaina Percival: Twitter | LinkedIn

Women Who Code: Website | Twitter | Instagram

Anne Hathaway on Paid Family Leave

March 12, 2017 / lmachad2 / 0 Comments

On March 8, 2017, Anne Hathaway, UN Women’s Goodwill Ambassador, gave a remarkable speech calling to action for paid family leave at the UN Observance of International Women’s Day 2017.

Hathaway begins her speech by recalling childhood memories of her father asking her to point out which direction was North, as a symbol of how her father helped develop her sense of direction at an early age, and now she trusts her ability to “navigate space.” The reason why Hathaway includes this story is to highlight the importance fathers have on their children’s lives. She continues by speaking about her new role as a mother and explains her concerns with balancing her career and being a parent. She adds, “American women are currently entitled to 12 weeks unpaid leave. American men are entitled to nothing.” This presents a problem not only because mothers are expected to go back to their normal lives after 3 months of having a child, it also sets up an expectation for women to be the main caregivers of the household.

“If the practical reality of pregnancy is another mouth to feed in your home, and America is a country where most people are living paycheck to paycheck, how does 12 weeks unpaid leave economically work?”

Hathaway makes an important point here, and adds that for most families, it does not work. She explains that 25% of American women go back to work 2 weeks after giving birth because they can’t afford to take any more time than that. And those that can take the full 12 weeks often don’t because it can mean incurring a “motherhood penalty,” which means they will be perceived as less dedicated to their job and will hurt their ability to earn promotions. She then addresses that that in order to liberate women, we have to liberate men.

She highlights that the stereotype for women to take care of the home and family not only discriminates against women, but also undermines men’s ability to connect with the family and society. We know that when parents do not spend enough time with their children, it has significant effect on the children and the family’s life. It’s not about taking time off work, it’s about parents being able to choose their roles and establishing “new positive cycles of behavior.”

Hathaway’s opinion and call to action on paid parental leave is likely one that many Americans share, but don’t feel like they have a voice that is significant enough to make a difference. Luckily, we have leaders like Hathaway to speak on behalf of women and encourage positive changes to be made.

Many know Hathaway as an award-winning actress, but her role as a UN Women’s Goodwill Ambassador has transformed her into an empowering female who advocates for positive change. Her speech focuses on the importance of lightening the burden of mothers and making role parents have in the household more equal and less based on stereotypes. It is important for everyone to share this passion that Hathaway has in order to establish closer bonds within families and eliminate guilt women feel for taking time off work to be a mother. It is also necessary to eliminate the stubborn stereotype that women should be the primary caretaker of the home and allow men to embrace the beauty of fatherhood.

Showtime Sunday: Hidden Figures

February 27, 2017 / lmachad2 / 0 Comments

For our second Showtime Sunday feature, we are highlighting the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. Released on January 6, 2017, the film was number one at the box office during its first two weekends of release and has now grossed over $140 million. The film is based on a true story of three incredibly intelligent African-American women who worked at NASA in the 1950s. These women are Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe).

There is a reason why this film has been nominated for three Oscars, two Golden Globes, and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Additionally, the film still has an approval rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 222 reviews. It is applauded for its intriguing story and phenomenal performances from actresses who bring the tensions of racism to light that have been unknown or forgotten for too long.

In this not-to-be-missed film, Katherine Johnson becomes the first African-American woman in the team to assist the Space Task Group of Al Harrison, surrounded by colleagues who are not particularly thrilled about her arrival. Not to mention, the building she works at has no bathrooms for people of color. After some time, Katherine becomes more acquainted with her colleagues and Harrison decides to abolish bathroom segregation after getting upset with Katherine that she is not at her desk since she has to walk to another building to use the bathroom. Despite this bathroom segregation abolishment, Katherine still faces segregation when she is forced to remove her name from reports that include the equation she creates to solve a complex mathematical equation, leading the space capsule to a safe re-entry.

Meanwhile, Dorothy is dealing with her rejection to be promoted to supervisor by Mrs. Mitchell. Dorothy is particularly upset about this because she has the work and responsibility of a supervisor without the pay and respect of one. Later, when Dorothy finds out that there is an installation of an electronic computer that could replace her co-workers, she goes to the machine and starts it. Nonetheless, she is rebuked by a librarian when she is later found in the white-only section of the library. It is not until Dorothy’s success finding the book FORTRAN that Mrs. Mitchell finally shows some respect for her by addressing her as Mrs. Vaughan.

While Katherine and Dorothy are standing up for their rights, Mary is doing the same by convincing a judge at court to allow her to attend the night classes in an all-white school in order to obtain her engineering degree.

“I plan on being an engineer at NASA, but I can’t do that without taking them classes at that all-white high school, and I can’t change the color of my skin. So I have no choice, but to be the first, which I can’t do without you, sir. Your honor, out of all the cases you gon hear today, which one is gon matter hundred years from now? Which one is gon make you the first?” – Mary Jackson

And these are just some examples of how Katherine, Dorothy and Mary, also known as the “human computers,” used their brilliance, confidence, and poise to cross the lines of gender and race to accomplish something extraordinary for the human race. It is for these reasons that they are known as American heroes.

The only drawback to this film is that we had to wait until 2017 to see it. The story of these real remarkable women and their contribution to NASA was widely unknown, or even forgotten, until this film was released. And we can’t forget about all the other women who have made exceptional contributions to U.S. history and NASA.

Follow these wonderful actresses on Twitter: Taraji P. Henson | Octavia Spencer | Janelle Monáe

Read about Hidden Figures on IMdB

“Openness is our greatest human resource.”

February 11, 2017 / lmachad2 / 0 Comments

What is openness, anyway? According to Rebecca Walker, speaker, writer, blogger and activist, openness is the ability to let go of one’s preexisting ideologies in order to see the world in a new and different light. In her TEDx talk, she says it is about accepting a new reality that is different from the ideas you were raised with. She features this quote on her website and it is apparent that she lives by it every day.

Rebecca Walker, Photo David Fenton, 2003

If anyone knows about openness, it is Rebecca Walker. She identifies herself as Black White and Jewish, which is also the name of her autobiography that was published in 2000. When she was born, she took her father Mel Levanthal’s last name, but decided to change it to her mother’s when she was 15. Her mother, Alice Walker, is an African-American author and her father is a Jewish American lawyer. Her parents divorced when she was a young child, so she spent time alternating between her father’s home in the Bronx in New York City and her mother’s home in San Francisco, California. Every two years, Walker switched between living in a largely Jewish environment to a largely African-American environment, which she describes as being extremely difficult but she also must have learned a lot about accepting different people and their cultures.

Walker learned about feminism at a young age from her mother, a world renowned author who campaigned for women’s rights and set up organizations to aid women. Ironically however, Walker describes she often felt abandoned by own her feminist mother because her priorities were her own work and self-fulfillment. In her Daily Mail article, Walker says, “A good mother is attentive, sets boundaries and makes the world safe for her child. But my mother did none of those things.” Walker’s mother even believed that children enslave their mothers and was not happy when her daughter told her she would have a son.

When Walker got accepted into Yale University, her mother asked why she would want to be educated at a “male bastion.” Luckily, Walker did not let her mother’s opinions stop her from speaking out about her beliefs and fighting for what she knew was right. Her openness and passion for empowering women inspired her to co-found the Third Wave Foundation, a non-profit organization that encourages young women to get involved in activism and leadership roles. Her organization developed a campaign that registered over 20,000 new voters in the U.S. in its first year of existence.

In 1994, Walker was named one of the 50 future leaders in America. And last year, she was chosen as one of BBC’s 100 Women. Walker has written seven books, the most recent being Adé: A Love Story in 2013. She continues to speak about gender roles, identity politics, and stereotypes surrounding feminist beliefs. Her insights are particularly intriguing because she had to formulate her own view of feminism that was different than what her mother taught her as a child. Her ability to take a challenging life experience and turn it into an opportunity to inspire others is one reason why she is being recognized as a noteworthy woman.

Watch her TEDx video.

Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Noteworthy Women

Encouraging and Empowering Remarkable Women