Woman Power

I am the founder of, Co.OfWomen, a world-class organisation that champions the how-to of success for thousands of women at every stage, from every domain – employed and business owner alike.

I never planned for my entrepreneurial journey to focus on championing women. When I first set out to create a business that could scale beyond me it was it was with all genders in mind.

While I was working through the options for what to do prior to starting, I decided to research the needs of women in business as I was intrigued about what was on offer that may be useful to me. I created a qualitative research project to dig into this and convened groups of business owners in 5 cities around the country. It was obvious that there was nothing of a substantial nature that specifically addressed the needs of women. But having concluded that there likely was a business opportunity I had no compelling passion to apply my time to this. So I decided that I would build a business around what I was becoming very passionate about – the neuroscience of human performance and how that would apply to entrepreneurial endeavour. And so I set off. But the ‘woman’ focus was the ultimate destiny for me and my business it would be three years before the pivot. It was a further year into the journey of focusing exclusively on serving women’s needs that I started to understand what distinguished her success journey and the problem we existed to serve.

That first year moment was the start of an epic journey of discovery of what distinguishes a woman’s success journey, what will best support it and , importantly, the defining of female power and understanding the ways we can harness it to serve us.

One of the things that amazed me for some time was that there was no comparable organisation anywhere in the world to Co.OfWomen. What the world is full of, however, is a lot of events selling inspiration hosted by truly well-meaning folks that present the latest ‘Sally Superstar’ for our inspiration, followed by networking. The problem with this format is that they don’t provide the thing we crave, the knowledge and understanding of how I can become my own superstar. As women continue to attend these events the unintended impact is that confidence is often eroded as we inevitably question whether success is actually for the few.

I did work out the answer to the question of why Co.OfWomen has not, in more than a decade in operation, come across any direct competition (that I genuinely hope exists). You see, our customer is a person so deeply socialised to be invisible to herself – her preference for the needs of others. So, building a business model to serve a customer who, as a consequence of that socialisation, feels uncomfortable asking for what she needs is tricky, to say the least. But this mission took hold of me and with the realisation of what’s at stake, that women are still in this modern era hugely under represented at tables that need their voices heard – huge determination to build a powerfully effective model encompassing gender, performance and commerce that equips and connects women to stand in their power and realise the fulness of their success. It’s something I am immensely proud to lead.

My commitment to playing a part in making a huge difference for women took a quantum leap the moment I realised that empowered women dedicate themselves, and their resources to changing the world. We can’t help it – our drive is that we ALL do well, not just me, and mine. Our power as women is deeply embedded in this drive. When harnessed, it makes us powerful leaders and entrepreneurs.

My Success, My Terms. Hell yes!

xt