EKMH Innovators Interview Series
An interview series spotlighting global tech influencers, disruptors, visionaries, and of course, innovators.
Optimism now! This week’s interview focuses on someone who not only trailblazes, but also advises the next generation of change makers, advocating for entrepreneurship as a way of creating positive transformation in the world. Meet serial entrepreneur and SheEO Founder Vicki Saunders!
SheEO is a radically redesigned ecosystem that supports, finances, and celebrates female innovators. Founded by Vicki Saunders in 2015 in Canada, SheEO’s visionary model emerged as a leading global innovation to support and bring out the best of women by being radically generous to one another based on new values set designed with a feminist lens.
In each year’s cohort, the SheEO model brings together 500 women called “Activators” in each year’s cohort. Each Activator contributes $1100 in CAN, US, NZ and AU, and £850 in the UK, each contribution is viewed as an “Act of Radical Generosity.” SheEO pools the money together and then loans out the funding at zero percent interest to five women-led Ventures which are selected by the Activators. According to SheEO, all Ventures are revenue generating with export potential seeking to create a better world via their business model and/or their product and service. The loans are paid back over the course of five years and then re-loaned to new Ventures, creating a perpetual fund that will be passed on to “our daughters, nieces and granddaughters.”
Everything at SheEO is “on your own terms.” SheEO group photo.
The 500 women Activators in each cohort become the de-facto team of the five selected Ventures bringing their buying power as early customers, their expertise and advice and their vast networks to help grow each of the businesses. Activators include corporate executives, successful entrepreneurs, emerging women leaders, students, mothers, grandmothers and daughters ranging in age from 14 – 94. This diversity of age, stage, culture and experience certainly makes SheEO a highly coveted and unique community. Recent EKMH Innovator interviewee, Lunch with Lucy author and BrainTrust founder Sherry Deutschmann leads initiatives as a Super Activator. At this writing, there are 5,000 Activators and counting who have provided $5M in Activator loans, funding 68 Ventures which tout triple-digit annual revenue growth on average.
To date, thousands of revenue-generating, export-ready, women-led Ventures have applied and to the program and each applicant receives personal feedback on her application and at least one Activator offering support to grow her venture. SheEO’s disruptive model views its platform as pathway to redistribute capital, identify and scale social innovations, bring women together into community in order to embolden women’s collective leadership, and provide a new economic and social model for sustainable communities. Through its Guided Development biweekly coaching program, the Ventures are supported to accelerate their success in an environment of radical generosity, designed by women for women.
As the Founder of SheEO and #radicalgenerosity global initiative, Saunders seeks to radically transform how we support finance and celebrate female entrepreneurs. She has also co-founded and run ventures in Europe, Toronto and Silicon Valley and taken a company public on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Saunders was recently named as one of thirty “World-Changing Women in Conscious Business” by Conscious Company Magazine and one of the 100 most influential leaders of 2015 from “EBW – Empowering A Billion Women.” I had the pleasure to catch up with Saunders to learn more about her views on “radical generosity,” entrepreneurship, investment in women-led ventures, work+life balance in the “new normal,” Activators and much more. Our interview follows.
EKMH: Please discuss how you updated SheEO’s mission for today’s volatile investment environment and tomorrow’s unchartered post-covid economy. How does your focus on “building new models, new mindsets and new solutions for a better world” intersect with enabling radical transformation and empowering global women entrepreneurs?
Vicki Saunders: SheEO was designed for the times in which we are now living. With the unprecedented series of global crises we are facing, every Venture we fund and support is women-led and working on the World’s To Do List, the UN Sustainable Development Goals. From plastic-free innovations to rethinking mobility for an aging population, to clean technology solutions for food security, SheEO Activators (women who activate their networks, buying power, influence and resources) select, support and amplify the work of these incredible Ventures. We have been following this strategy since 2015 and have a portfolio of 68 women-led Ventures who are working on the most critical issues of our time. I can’t imagine investing any money in anything at the moment that isn’t working on our most pressing priorities, globally. We have no time to waste.
SheEO Founder Vicki Saunders speaking to a group of engaging women entrepreneurs.
EKMH: As an advisor to the current and next generation of “bold, gutsy and principled” women change makers and a leading advocate for entrepreneurship, how do you recommend building workplace diversity and successful teams?
Vicki Saunders: Just do it. We need to decondition ourselves from the deeply biased systems in which we live, which is challenging. Many people haven’t been able to see the structural inequities we are surrounded by, and, thankfully, that is changing as we seem to face a daily unveiling of the inequality, the racism and the sexism that is embedded in all of our systems. Our SheEO Ventures are building workplaces that are ‘by design’ family friendly, free of harassment, innovative and full of empathy.
EKMH: How do you address pushback?
Vicki Saunders: We have set our values from the start and everyone needs to agree to our credo before joining the community. We don’t have people in our community who want to uphold our old systems that no longer serve us.
EKMH: What techniques have you adapted in the “new normal” schedule to ensure your and your team’s connectivity and productivity?
Vicki Saunders: Everything at SheEO is “on your own terms.” This means that we recognize that members are unique in their personal circumstances, their needs, in what works for them. We cultivate a mindset and practice of self-management, checking in each day to see how it’s going, evaluating if we need to tweak schedules or meetings based on whatever has changed. We have some moms with young kids whose days can go sideways based on what’s up with the family and we adapt. This is life. It’s complex and always changing.
We have recognized these complexities from the beginning of SheEO, so adapting is not a huge shift. We have also been digitally agile from the beginning with our global community; Zoom was our world before COVID-19. We use the word capacity instead of productivity these days. What capacity do you have today, this week, and we flow with it. Our team is incredibly hard working and we trust one another to set milestones and adapt as needed based on ever-changing circumstances.
EKMH: How have you maintained a healthy work+life balance while working from home?
Vicki Saunders: For me, personally, it’s been a bit of a dream because I used to be on a plane traveling two weeks a month. To be at home in a routine is awesome. For many who have their kids at home, it’s such a challenge. We are deeply aware of individual circumstances and are iterating all the time to make sure we care for one another. It looks like we may be in this suspended state of being for a while, so deep breaths, lots of noticing and iterating.
SheEO masks up! Safely socially distancing while social networking. #SheEOMagic
EKMH: As a founder and innovator, what experiences helped you learn when you prefer working solo versus working with a team?
Vicki Saunders: I have had to do a lot of personal work to realize that one can go so much farther together than alone. I am a student of behavior change, cultural environments, systems change and am always paying attention to what gets in the way of collaboration, what supports it, and how to be in deeper relationship with others. We do a lot of work to understand what motivates people on our team, individually and collectively, how we like to work, what our preferred schedules are, and we communicate a lot using the latest technologies to keep in touch. It’s a muscle to be built and it starts with respect and action, building trust along the way.
EKMH: What personal qualities have enabled you to lead and collaborate effectively?
Vicki Saunders: I am curious about so many things, I love to learn, I embrace the discomfort of transformation, I walk into my fear all the time and I tell myself the truth (well, as much as I can see it in any given interaction).
I have had a personal goal of being a graceful leader for the past 20 years and work on it every day. I’m not always that person, and I don’t beat myself up about it. I keep practicing radical generosity with myself and with others. I have learned that radical generosity is at the core of a joyful, abundant, meaningful life. We have no idea what’s going on with people most of the time, so assume good intentions, step into each moment with a spirit of radical generosity and notice how people react, engage, don’t engage, etc. Everything is feedback. The more you can observe and reflect upon to create a space for people to thrive, the better.
EKMH: As a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, you have spoken regularly at events around the world, including The World Economic Forum in Davos, Women of Influence Series in Canada, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs events and the Tallberg Forum. Please share some tips about how to keep a diverse global audience engaged.
Vicki Saunders: I show up, sense in what the audience is interested, share stories of impact that move me and that’s about it. “When we are moved, we move others”, says my wise Indigenous friend Teara Fraser. Lead with what you love, with what matters to you and share why it does, the engagement follows.
“We are building our network at the speed of trust.” Radical generosity and collaboration at work.
EKMH: The SheEO global initiative seeks to radically transform how we support, finance and celebrate women entrepreneurs and brings together a cohort of 500 women “Activators” who each contribute $1100 as an Act of Radical Generosity. How will you reach your 1 million women Activators and $1B global fund goal by 2026?
Vicki Saunders: We are building our network at the speed of trust. Whenever we get to 1M women is the right time. We aren’t driven by hitting numbers. Our community is driven by transforming selves and systems activating the change agent within all of us. The numbers are a ‘first goal’ that we plan to dramatically outperform over time. We are here, in relationship with one another, co-creating this radically generous community every day. We’ll see where the energy leads us. There is no rush. “Slowly, slowly, softly, softly,” says Felicity Chapman, an Aboriginal Activator from Queensland Australia. We follow the wisdom from the ages on our path to creating a new world.
EKMH: How can both entrepreneurs and investors benefit from mentorships, collaboration and/ or partnerships to promote growth and disruption?
Vicki Saunders: We have been conditioned to think we have to know everything and that we have to do things alone. This is a myth that needs to be released from all of our bodies. We have all that we need when we come together. We learn this every single day at SheEO when we practice the reciprocity of asking and giving. It’s literally #SheEOMagic. On our weekly Activator calls, women are blown away by who shows up in the breakout room, every time, with just what you need.
EKMH: How have you yourself benefited?
Vicki Saunders: I spent a lot of years in scarcity, alone and isolated, thinking that I had to figure out everything myself. The greatest legacy I can leave on this planet is a community full of radically generous women who want to support one another to make it easier, more fun and to support each of us to be dramatically more impactful.
EKMH: And finally, which books, podcasts and/or films do you recommend?
Vicki Saunders: Podcasts: I currently listen to Team Human, Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, and OnBeing with Krista Tippett.
Books: I’ve been a lifelong fan of Dee Hock and Birth of the Chaordic Way. I am currently reading Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta. I read everything by Nora Bateson and her Warm Data work.
I watch a lot of Indigenous, Maori, Aboriginal youtube videos to tap into wisdom from the ages. I have learned a lot from Manfred Max Neef and Vandana Shiva. So many things!!
*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this series are those of the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
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