Silicon Slopes Founder Forum discusses women in business
Cotopaxi CEO Davis Smith speaks during the first Silicon Slopes Founder Forum on Friday, Aug. 18, 2017. Kristy Sevy, left, moderated the discussion that included Chatbooks Chief Marketing Officer Rachel Hofstetter and Mercato Managing Partner Alison Wistner.
Kristy Sevy, left, moderated the Silicon Slopes Founder Forum on Friday, Aug. 18, 2017. Also pictured, Cotopaxi CEO Davis Smith, Chatbooks Chief Marketing Officer Rachel Hofstetter and Mercato Managing Partner Alison Wistner.
The first Silicon Slopes Founder Forum met Friday, Aug. 18, 2017. The group aims to help the business community learn about successful startup strategy, and discuss how to bridge the social gaps founders face, especially women.
The first Silicon Slopes Founder Forum met Friday, Aug. 18, 2017. The group aims to help the business community learn about successful startup strategy, and discuss how to bridge the social gaps founders face, especially women.
Silicon Slopes kicked off its first Founder Forum on Friday with a look at the unique challenges and benefits of female business founders.
The brainchild of Kristy Sevy, co-founder of FuzePlay, said she suggested this regular monthly meeting to Silicon Slopes executives because “founding women didn’t have a place where they felt they belong.” The mission of the group is to bridge social gaps in the Silicon Slopes community. Friday’s panel discussion dealt with the theme, “Bridging Social Gaps: Female Founders.”
Rachel Hofstetter, chief marketing officer of Chatbooks, started the discussion by giving the group a vision of what the Silicon Slopes community could look like — from her early career experiences as a magazine editor.
“Before I moved to Utah, I lived in New York City, and I got to ‘grow up’ professionally in a world that was made up of very successful females,” she said, explaining that every level of the company she worked for there had females. “So I was actually lucky enough that I didn’t know anything different. And I think that’s what we’re all trying to move to in general …. You see everyone being a leader, and it just becomes gender-blind.”
Growing up in that environment, she explained, “you don’t think about it much, you just assume that you can do things because this is what you see all around you.” That environment is not here in Utah, but Hofstetter said she’s passionate about helping it to become so.
So how to create that?
Cotopaxi CEO Davis Smith explained that first, the conversations have to happen, and they need to be initiated more often by men. Mercato Managing Partner Alison Wistner added to that, saying that sometimes those conversations have to be very frank with founders and corporate-level executives.
“We have to persuade founders, or the team, that diversity is a good business decision. That a collection of different voices and different opinions is a good thing,” Wistner said, adding that studies are now showing that diversity actually helps the bottom line. “You need to change people’s minds that you will actually make better decisions as a firm, and you will benefit from better collective decision-making if you have diversity top to bottom in the organization.”
“The more we can make it less about doing the good thing, the feel-good thing, and more about the dollars and cents, it becomes much easier for everyone to get on board,” Hofstetter added. “What we do at Chatbooks about advancing women across all levels of the company, it’s great for individuals, and it’s a great reason to do it — but at the end of the day it makes sense for the profit of our business.”
The panel advocated a shift in thinking — a shift in the way founders and executives recruit, in the way they decide who fits the culture of a company. All the panelists spoke of experiences where they heard an executive say a certain woman wasn’t a “good fit” for a position — and most, if not all, of those were based more on unconscious biases, or personality than on actual skills.
“I see men do this, where they say, ‘I just don’t think she’s a great cultural fit.’ Sometimes you just need to adjust your culture,” Smith said. “Once you start hiring a bunch of women on your team, suddenly the next woman is actually a culture fit, she fits right in.”
Hofstetter added that research has also shown that men judge men on their potential, “what they can do,” while women are judged on what they are already doing. She believes all employees should be judged on what they can do.
“You look at men, and say, ‘Ah, he does this, I bet he can do y.’ And we need to look at women in the exact same way — to look towards the future of what they can do,” she said.
The Founder Forum will held the second to last Friday of every month. The event is free and includes lunch, but spots must be reserved due to the limited seating at the Lehi Silicon Slopes headquarters. Future forums will meet with up-and-coming founders to learn about successful startup strategy, and collaboratively discuss how the Silicon Slopes community can bridge the social gaps founders face, especially women.