Edition No 106. Something New Inside.
The WIE Suite
A membership community for women leaders and culture creators (we're hiring)
DEAR WOMEN WHO DO
Have you noticed our brand new look?
We are proud to share a refreshed vision of The WIE Suite that we think truly reflects our incredible community. We are the destination for modern leaders who think beyond 'business as usual. And our members are the senior executives and established founders blazing a trail in their industries and bursting with fresh ideas to change the future for the better. That's why our new brand is dynamic, bold and bursting with unapologetic color. One of those colors is blue... find out why below.
This week, we are thrilled to feature fashion activist Bethann Harrison, who personifies the type of woman we want to celebrate in The WIE Suite. As she launches her new movie 'Invisible Beauty' which explores her role as a fashion industry trailblazer who fought for diversity and inclusion, we celebrate her boldness and refusal to accept the status quo. An icon.
WIE SUITE WOMAN
Bethann Hardison on Going After What You Want
Bethann Hardison - former model, advocate, and founder of the modeling and management agency that bears her name - has long been a groundbreaker in the world of fashion.
I didn't want to have a model agency. The last thing I wanted in my life was to have a model agency. I want you to write this down. Not my aspiration. It was everybody else's aspirations, not mine. I was going to Hollywood. I wanted to make movies. I wanted to be in the music business.
MOVE THE NEEDLE
#Reclaim Blue
Did you know that the history of assigning colors by gender is something that’s only happened within the last 100 years? Driven by retailers who wanted to sell more clothes, pink was actually ‘assigned’ to boys and blue to girls around 1918.
And, research shows the impacts of subliminal gender biases: across six experiments, results demonstrated that:
These findings indicate that, despite prohibitions against stereotyping, seemingly innocuous societal practices may continue to promote this mode of thought.
This week we launched a new campaign to bring awareness to the subliminal gender stereotypes that impact girls from an early age. We asked our community to post something blue, and share why blue is also for girls or why they don't conform to society's stereotypes. See more on our Instagram page and learn more from our founder about the shift from pink to blue below...
MASTERCLASS MOMENTS
Lorine Pendleton on Making the Business Case for Diverse Founders
A seasoned early-stage/VC investor, global public speaker, Board Member, business development executive and former attorney with extensive experience in the legal, technology, media and entertainment industries.
Consumer goods is a 6 trillion dollar market if you combine Black and Latinx and a 6 trillion dollar market for Asian Americans. These are massive markets, and in some cases, bigger than countries. So that's a huge opportunity for pharmaceutical companies, entertainment companies. Basically, VCs, by not investing in companies founded by diverse founders, because they're diverse and they bring their experience, and they bring it to the table in a way that maybe a white male founder may not have thought about a problem or solution, is a big problem. VCs are missing out on that market and that opportunity.
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