Diversity, Inclusion and Entrepreneurship
Diversity, inclusion and entrepreneurship with Sonya Barlow
💸 Inclusion and diversity are the words on everyone’s lips – but what do they mean in practice? What is quiet quitting? And how can we make more as an employee and an entrepreneur.
On today’s episode, we speak to Sonya Barlow – an award-winning entrepreneur, founder of the Like Minded Females Network, TedX Speaker, LinkedIn Changemaker 2021; Linkedin Top Voice 2022, BBC radio presenter and author. She’s an expert on all things entrepreneurship and inclusion and is passionate about encouraging people to build resilience and confidence. Sonya also opens up about how her background impacted the way she manages her money.
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You can listen (38 min) and subscribe here:
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“When I was working in corporate, which many of us are doing right now, I was so clouded by the workspace that I thought my value was based on my title and how much my management liked me and how I would go up the ranks. And I felt like a complete imposter, so I felt like I was a fraud. ”
imposter syndrome and like minded females
Sonya graduated in 2015 and fell into the world of technology, data analytics, and loved it because that was the future. But she felt like an imposter. She didn't have her community or confidence, and didn't know she was.
Like Minded Females started in 2018 as a brunch club. It was just bringing people together and eventually, people started having really honest conversations about life, money negotiation, careers, community, confidence and everything that young women needed.
When Sonya lost her job, she started to really think about budgeting and finances, and she pushed herself to really put her career into her own hands.
Like Minded Females began to organically grow via webinars and meetings, and eventually larger corporates and brands began reaching out and asking Sonya to work with them.
It became a social enterprise with two sides to the business. They have a consultancy and advisory side where they support businesses and being more diverse and inclusive as well as various careers programmes.
EQUAL ACCESS TO OPPORTUNITIES
Sonya’s purpose is to make sure that everyone can achieve their version of success and helping share resources to everyone, especially to those that might not have the financial means or may have barriers to access.
Innovative companies can increase revenues by 70%, diverse companies by 33%. If your team is diverse, it can increase productivity by more than 40%. It can increase staff retention by 85%.
From a business standpoint, it makes financial sense to make sure that your teams are diverse, that your policies are inclusive and that you are ensuring accessibility throughout. Why? Because you want to ensure that once you've defined your customer base, you understand their problems, that the products and services that you're launching to solve their problems and to commit to their needs.
You now have jobs are asking for masters and PhDs and earned experience versus lived experience. A lot of businesses will do something and think that they've put the plaster on the problem and not go and do the follow up steps to better their inclusion.
the personal money journey
Coming from a humble background from an immigrant family, Sonya feels that she chased money once she graduated.
However, she felt that more money led to more problems - largely because she didn’t have financial literacy to understand the importance of saving and investing.
Realising that making money last long term, rather than the today and now, was a big changing point.
For Sonya, money now means being able to afford that holiday every quarter, being able to have a nice treat in a restaurant, being able to go into a shop and know that, yes, you can purchase it, but you don't need to purchase it knowing that the cost of living is rising.
Money can ensure that there's a roof over the head of those of who you love and that you don't have to worry about.
Contributing financial help to family is important for Sonya, as she feels it is simply doing her part to look after our elders and making sure that we're able to level up in the world, in society, from a very young age.
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You can follow and connect with Sonya at:
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