My Journey
I have spent my entire professional working on making the world a better place for women, and therefore for all human beings in general.
I spent the first two years of my professional career at the European Bank For Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) working on integrating a gender impact into investment projects across a variety of sectors. Those years taught me that nothing in our world was gender neutral and that we needed more programs for women, built by women. But my heart ached to be on the ground and work directly with women.
So that’s exactly what I did. I went out and created my own non-profit, Led By HER which promotes women’s rights and access to entrepreneurship. Led By HER has mobilized the business and startup ecosystem to deliver the first program of its kind, to help women who have suffered from violence rebuild their lives through entrepreneurship. Over the years we have done everything from events, to hackathons and policy work to improve the world for women. Soon after creating Led By HER I yearned to do more for women.
I felt that during my years in the organization I had witnessed numerous issues that I wanted to not only help heal, but actually solve. I did not want to merely address the effects of gender inequality in our society, but instead I wanted to eliminate gender equality entirely.
My journey to doing so has taken me to far away corners of the world (the US, Canada, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, Tajikistan, Russia) to advise institutions, create programs, and raise awareness about gender equality. It has stimulated me to create unique trainings, develop content, contribute to reports, and give conferences.
My years giving conferences gave rise to an important observation, and that was that way too often, when we talk about gender equality there are few to no men in the room. That’s what pushed me to begin directing my work towards engaging men on the subject of gender equality. This journey has led me to interview extraordinary male leaders and CEOs around the world for my podcast on the subject called The Other Half.
