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Cultural Architect and Equity Strategist and Dr. Kerry Mitchell Brown discusses seeing a power shift towards women in the political and business arenas. Sarah Dusek, Co-Founder of Enygma Ventures, talks about her book Thinking Bigger: A Pitch Deck Formula for Women Who Want to Change the World.
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You may remember back in July, the day that President Joe Biden said he would no longer run for president, some of America's most prominent black women across politics, business and entertainment joined thousands of their peers to galvanize support for Vice President Kamala Harris. They raised one point five million dollars in just three hours.
Check this out.
About forty four thousand black women, including Representative Maxine Waters of California. Other lawmakers including Joyce Beatty and Jasmine Crockett, talked of rallying behind Harris for the US presidential election case against Donald Trump. A president for election against Donald Trump this November. It was an incredible outpouring of a number of people in a very short period of time. I think a lot of people were surprised, but I would guess that our next guest is not so surprised. Doctor Carrie Mitchell Brown is a cultural architect and equity strategy She joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's Studio. Good to see you, doctor, Thanks for joining us today. Before we get to the phenomenon that we see playing out across the country and that you've been studying for years, talk a little bit about what cultural architect and equity strategist means.
First of all, it is a pleasure being here, Thank you so much. A cultural architect and equity strategists, I go into organizations and try to make them better right looking at their culture. So it's not just about changing the people who are sitting at the table. Is changing policies, making sure that people feel like they belong, making sure that everyone's contributions are valued, regardless as to where they work at in the organization, how long that they're being there, and more importantly, that there are high levels of respect.
The reason I brought up what happened on that one day in late July that Sunday is because you argue that there's this emerging power shift to black women and women in general that you've observed.
Yes, there is, it has been for some time, but the world has seen it operationalized. Often in our space as equity practitioners, we hear that you have to give up something in order for other people to have space inclusive leadership looks exactly like what happened there. Joe Biden made an assessment that what's required right now he could not provide in his leadership. So he transferred his leadership to a very capable black woman who has been in the trenches and demonstrated that she has a lived experience to lead in this moment and beyond and that's what is required. And he did that very very well. Were people who supported and rallied behind him, but he did it very well and it came off. It's very powerful and very transformative, and others can take up that practice in moving when their leadership no longer meets the moment.
What is the next phase of this power shift towards women? I guess how do we keep this momentum going because now we do have, you know, a black woman kind of front and center stage. How do we kind of keep that continuing.
Yeah, I mean it is a sign for businesses. It does really highlight that equity is necessary in all of our institutions and all of our workforces. Katanji Jackson Brown. I mean she's at the pinnacle in her career as well. We see Justice Supreme Court, Justice absolutely We saw a lot of that happening when she was finally confirmed. You know as well, it is very very important for these leaders to represent our democracy, to represent and reflect what our country looks like.
You know.
I want to go back to Vice President Kamala Harris because one thing that we've seen her do, or one thing we've seen her not do, is make her racial identity part of her pitch to the American people, which I think is really interesting. She's not making that front center with the campaign. Certainly former President Trump did that about five weeks ago, four or five weeks ago at that event in Chicago. But she has not made that a big part of her campaign.
No, she has not made that a big part of our campaign. And it's not her only identity either. She's American, she's a woman, she is multi racial, and you know she is to represent. When she accepted her nomination speech, she represents all people and she talked about doing that for her entire career of the people, right, and most women who lead organizations, who lead corporations, who lead labor unions, who lead think tanks, they don't lead as I am a black woman president, I'm a black woman leader. We have two women currently who are black that lead Fortune five hundred companies. They don't lead with I am a black woman CEO. No, I am the CEO of the company.
That's a tiny number.
It is so tiny, so tiny.
That is not representative of it is.
Not representative of the US population at all. There is a lot of work that needs to be done there. But my example is still the same that they don't lead with. I am a black woman leader. I am a leader, a proven leader.
So what groups do you target in your work as a cultural architect an equity strategist. Do you kind of focus on people early in their careers and advancing them or is this more kind of targeting people in the mid and more senior levels.
I really work with organizations who are committed to ensuring that they have the right environment for black women to thrive, for everyone to thrive, but particularly for black women to thrive. So if there is an organization who has an experience that they are not able to retain talented black women, well we have a conversation to see what's going wrong. Because it's not the black women who are leaving who are the challenge. What's happening in the environment what's happening in the workplace, what's happening in the cultures, the policies or practices that create the conditions where black women do not want to stay.
What are the challenges that these leaders are coming to you with when they hire you, when they bring you in to do this work. What are the problems they're trying to solve.
The problems that they are trying to solve as they're trying to operationalize their commitments for racial equity, their commitments that they are making for diversity. We all know that companies with diverse teams are thirty five percent more productive in revenue, in impact in the bottom line overall than companies whose teams are not diverse.
Okay, So I want to bring this up because in recent months we've seen Low's, Harley Davidson, Tractor Supply, Dear Brown Foreman all come out and say they're pulling back from pledges to commit to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
There's a real pushback to DEI right now.
There is a tremendous pushback to d Ee and I right now, and one would think where they committed in the first place. After George Floyd twenty twenty, there was a lot of commitments. No company wanted to be on the wrong side of I'm not going to commit to this. We saw a lot of companies pulling back with the Supreme Court rulings coming out of the Fearless Fund and the risk of litigation. We have witnessed some organizations softening their language around their commitments on their website, but continuing to move forward, you know, with their programming. Changing the words and you know, changing the actions. You know, they're two separate things. But yeah, I would question we're they serious about it in the first place?
Ten seconds permanent shift? Is this it? Or these companies circle back in the coming years.
They need to circle back. It's at their own peril if they don't.
All right, Doctor Kerry Mitchell Brown, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for Contect and Equity Strategist joining us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio.
Well, she's a woman of the world, got you knows it?
Well, Women in non binary venture investors of Kandy foothold in the tech industry five years faster than the advocacy group allrais expected. The leaders say, a national backlash to DEI initiatives threatens the progress that has been made. Check out these numbers, Emily, About eighteen percent of decision makers at US adventure capital firms are female. It's double from twenty eighteen when all Rais was founded and set a goal of reaching that number by twenty twenty eight that's according to the group's annual report. It was published just a couple of months ago, back in July. Very curious what Sarah Dusak has to say about all this. She's co founder of Enigma Ventures. She's got a new book just out this week. It's called Thinking Bigger. It's a pitch deck formula for women who want to change the world. Sarah joins us from Cape Town, South Africa. I should note she's a founder who founded the company under Canvas, which was sold for more than one hundred million dollars, and she's also behind the Few and Far collection. Sarah, good to have you with us. How are you.
I'm very well. Thanks for having me.
You know, it's interesting because we spend a lot of time talking about the small portion of VC funding that goes to women and how it hasn't improved that much in recent years. But we are starting to see, at least here in the US. And again important to note this is from a US perspective. You're joining us from Cape Town. It does seem like at least decision making or decision makers have become more representative, at least on a gender level here in the US than some organizations thought they would.
What do you make of then, Yeah, I mean, we have seen the rise, a large rise of female fund managers over the last few years, but still when you look at the size of funds that female fund managers are able to raise, they're still minuscule in comparison with many of their male counterparts. And that's still a problem because obviously the amount of capital that women can deploy, then influence is who is getting that capital, And what we know is that still only two percent of female founders are getting venture capital in the US.
What do you make of that divergence? Is there anything that kind of explains that really large gap between who gets funding and who does it well?
Bench capital historically has been a big boys club, right, so if men are typically doing the investing, then inherently we invest in All of us are prone to invest in things that we like, things that we can understand things that we can connect with. People that we can connect with, we're prone to want to invest in people like us. And so if only men are doing the investing, we're likely to see a lot more men getting investment than women. And largely women have been left behind of the conversation about what it takes to be investable. And if you think historically, you know, it was nineteen eighty eight the women could have a bank clone, a business bank loan. That's first time.
Hold on, hold on, that's not long ago. Wait, that's that is that in the US?
Yes, yes, it was nineteen eighty eight when a woman could have a bank loan for her business in the US that did not have to be countersigned by her partner or husband, a male counterpart of some kind.
Wait, Emily, just go ahead, Emily.
No, I was just saying, that's really surprised.
Hoorified as I am.
We both weren't even alive right too.
It's rude.
I was alive then you were in She always tried.
That's partular history, and that's part of the gap that we've got that you know, there's there's it's been more challenging for women to grow and scale businesses, and largely women have not been in the loop about what investors looks like, and that was part of the reason for writing the book was to demystify the capital stack, demystify what it takes to be investible. Because we also know that only two percent of women ever build businesses that do more than a million dollars in revenue every year. So we've got a chicken and egg scenario there. We don't have enough women at the funding table, which we know is improving slowly, but the amount of access to capital that even those female fund managers have is mini school. But we also know that women are not building the kind of businesses that could be investible. So but of course you need capital to build the kind of business that could be investible. So this vicious circle.
Well, talk about the vicious circle, because in your book, you start out the book by writing about what the heart of the problem is.
What is the heart of the problem.
The heart of the problem is not enough women are building big businesses. Not they're not thinking big enough about building the kind of businesses that could be investable. And we're not understanding what big looks like. And you know from from a venture capital perspective. We're talking about one hundred million big like you know, that's law for thinking about a venture backable business. Could the business that you are building one day, not tomorrow, not not five weeks from now, but one day potentially be worth one hundred million dollars or more. And that's what we've got to sort of help women understand what does that look like? How could you build a business that has that kind of potential and that's not just tech businesses.
Give us your story from early on in your career when it came to your idea with relation to what you did in Montana.
Yeah, my husband and I built a company called under Canvas, which today is still the leading and largest glamping company in the United States. And we did not build a tech company, but we did build a company that became worth well over one hundred million dollars. And when I started my company, I had no idea what venture capital was. I didn't really have a lot of concepts that, you know, if you were going to build a business that maybe you might need some investment, or that you would need investors to come alongside you and build it. And I was very green and very not clear about what that looked like. But I had a business that had the potential to scale, and I could see the reality of what we were building and the demand for what we were creating was there. But I had to learn the hard way about bench capital, raising money, and there were so many things I didn't know, and I thought that was me. I thought I was the only one who didn't know all these things and didn't know the venture speak and didn't know all the acronyms and didn't know the language. But since becoming a VC myself, I now know that most women don't know the language, don't know the acronyms, don't know what investible looks like. And so that was part of the reason for writing this book is how do we demystify it, How do we make it easier for women to build the kind of businesses that are investible, and how do we help women understand this is the scale, this is what it takes, this is what it looks like. Because if you know what the exam questions are, you have a much better chance of passing the test.
You talk about the pitch deck, How important is that stage of the process for you know, a founder kind of starting out, how crucial is it that they get that pitch deck right.
The pitchtacks everything, because it's like your calling card. It's the ten pages of information that give the headlines about your business, and it's the first impression that you will give anyone about your business and about you, especially when you're pitching investors. But the wonderful thing about the pitch deck and working on your pitch deck is that it's not only relevant for going out to raise capital. It's also really relevant for helping you work on your business and helping you think about what are the building blocks of scale. And so the book unpacks the pitch deck to be able to help you write a fantastic pitch deck to go out and raise money, but it's also designed to help you think about what are the fundamentals of scale that will really help me grow and escalate my business.
Well, I love that the book is filled with stories about your own experience as an entrepreneur, and I'm going to ask you to share a few of them. One of them from I Believe back in twenty and ten, and when an event producer called you and your husband to make an order for tents that you didn't necessarily have, but you saw it as an opportunity to sell these tents.
Explain what happened.
Yeah, that was a really pivotal moment in our business journey. We were in the very very early days of the business and we received a call from an event producer that said, I love your tents, I love what you're doing, and I'm doing a music festival in New York and I would love you to provide the tents for the business. And of course we did not have one hundred and fifty tenths, which is what they were asking us for. But it was a moment in time where we knew this was this could be a game changer for us. We have to say yes, and then we have to figure out how on earth we're going to pull that off. And so we said yes. We said, well you can get those tents from us, we will help you put on your music festival, and off we went. But it was a nerve wrecking ride. I was pregnant with my second child at the time, and we asked the producer when when is the actual event? And it was the same week as my ju date with our child, and we kind of my husband and I looked at each other and said well, we still got to do it. We still got to find a way to pull this off and make this happen, and that that contract that we won was a complete game changer for our business.
I want to get right back to Sarah Ducek, co founder of Enigma, a venture. She joins us from Cape Town, South Africa. She's got a new book out. It's called Thinking Bigger, a pitch deck formula for women who want to change the world. She also founded and was CEO of under Canvas, which was sold a few years ago for more than one hundred million dollars. Sarah, I want to start or continue the interview with you by hearing more about your story, because you started your career not as an entrepreneur, but as an aid worker and found yourself after a few years burnt out with that. Tell us a little more about how you started your career.
Yeah. I was always very keen on saving the world, and I really believed I could, And I spent the first eight years of my career, as you said, working for NGOs because I believed that nonprofit vehicles were the only vehicles that could do good. But now I know different, and after eight years of hard grind and not making enough of a dent in any of the problems that we were trying to solve. I went back to the drawing board, burnt out, and thought, there has to be another way. There has to be a different way to solve some of the world's biggest problems. And what I realized was was that the vehicle that is designed to solve problems is actually business. The very heart of doing business is about solving a specific problem for a specific user that has to be sustainable because it has to make money otherwise it's not going to exist very long. So which really really revolutionized my thinking around could business be a vehicle for driving change, solving problems, doing good, moving us forward one step at a time, Which launched my career into business because I realized, well, if I believe that, then I should get in the ring and I should figure out is it possible to do good? Is it possible to use business as a vehicle for moving the world forward?
It seems like you have a really good kind of positive mindset. And even the title of the book Thinking Bigger kind of has to do with this idea that if you put your mind to something, you can achieve it without spoiling the book. I'm wondering, you know, what kind of tactics do you give to aspiring women entrepreneurs about really changing that mindset and pivoting the mindset towards war that is focused on being successful and being confident.
Yeah. One of the things I've realized over the last few years of working directly with female entrepreneurs and understanding myself also was there was two critical components missing for women. Lack of knowledge and therefore we are disempowered about how the capital markets work and how you raise capital and the building blocks of building scale, but also the mindsets that we carry around with ourselves that actually are really huge stumbling blocks, from scarcity to playing it small, to risk aversion. I mean, there are dozens, and so I started to unpack them as I tell my story through the book, because I could see many of them as a reality for myself that were sort of being a glass ceiling for me, and we're hindering my growth and what I was capable of. And as I've worked for other female entrepreneurs, I can see so many of the same mindsets coming to the fore that trip them up. And women typically want to play it safer we typically are a little bit more risk averse, and obviously that's a big generalization, but I started to see some trends and that made me realize those are as big of a problem as lack of knowledge or lack of access to markets, and those we can do something about.
Right.
We might not be able to change the capital markets overnight, but we can change the way we think, we can change the way we approach risk, and we can start to see a lot more clearly some of the things that are getting in our way.
What's the most underrated piece of advice that you would give to female founders?
Trust yourself more. I have never gone wrong when I've bet on myself. And often what we're not seeing is women believing in themselves enough, and we see that by how willing all in they are to be or not. You know, you really have to be all in if you are going to grow and scale a business from zero to one hundred million dollars in value, you have to be all in. There is no two ways about that. And often we see, you know, we're wanting to play it safe, We're wanting to hedge our bets, and really you have to believe in you and often. You know, we go out to raise capital and we expect other people to believe in us, because that's what you're asking people to do when you're asking for their for their investment. But we have to believe in us first. And if you can do that, you are on your way.
Sarah, just in the last couple of minutes we have I want to look forward with you and help us understand what you're working on now few and far. It's not it's it's not an an agency, but it's a luxury experiences company.
Explain what you're doing.
Yeah, I love being an entrepreneur and I love the travel space. So here we are again building another travel clash slash climate company. And what we're trying to do this time is not just build a sustainable business. Under camus is an extraordinary sustainable travel business. Now we're trying to build a regenerative travel business. And the difference is the investment we make in the planet. So the business exists so that we can impact and regenerate, rewild, reforest the planet. So that's the horror of what we're doing. We're taking people on extraordinary carbon negative adventures around the world, taking them to some of the most incredible wilderness destinations. And we're also investing deeply investing in decarbonization by rewilding, restoring thousands and thousands and thousands of hectares currently in Southern Africa that will capture our nemesis carbon and capture it in the soil and play a role in hoping to save our planet.
You're talking about experiences throughout the world, Africa, Europe, South America, North America, Antarctica, everywhere. Really cool stuff. Hey, Sarah, thanks so much for joining us on Bloomberg Business Week. Sarah Ducek is the co founder of Enigma Ventures. Her new book out this week. It's called Thinking Bigger, a pitch deck formula for women who want to change the world. Her new venture Few and Far is up now, and she is the founder and former CEO of Under Canvas, which a few years ago was sold for more than one hundred million dollars
