Young & Empowered Women — Stylish Storyteller

MEET VERONICA AGUILAR, FOUNDER AND BOARD CHAIR OF YOUNG & EMPOWERED WOMEN, A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION THAT AIMS TO INCREASE MENTORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN.

With a background in education and a passion for increasing equity for women, Veronica Aguilar created Young & Empowered Women to help members to succeed personally and professionally through resources, networking with like-minded women, meetings and an inspiring conference.

STYLISH STORYTELLER: What lead you to create Young and Empowered Women in 2020?

VERONICA AGUILAR: “I would say, back in 2020, this was in the middle of the pandemic, and this was a time when many of mentees that I’ve had throughout my personal life and professional career that I’ve met, were going through a lot of difficult times. Some of my women mentees were needing to switch careers, losing jobs, needed to return back home with their family because of responsibilities, so there were a lot of things that were coming up, that they would reach out to me and want to ask advice or grow their network, so I was doing this a lot one-off in conversations, connecting them to other women in the community who are in industries they may be interested in. I remember there was this one time during summer I was like, ‘why don’t I bring everyone together so they can all learn from each other?’ because they all have their own expertise and their own experiences.

“So I was like ‘let’s just put all 20 of them in a Zoom room and see what happens’ so we had a meeting, I wanted to also inspire the women, so I invited one of my mentors Laura Capello, she’s the President and CEO of Big Brothers, Big Sisters and she was our keynote speaker, and it was such an amazing space, that it was something that was able to set up for our meeting cadence throughout the year for us to meet monthly.

“So in my head, honestly, this was just going to be something that we did in 2020–it was a really difficult time, everyone’s virtual, we wanted to have connections, but then in December when it was our ‘last meeting’ together, there was a group of women that were like ‘Veronica, we still want to keep this going, we still want to keep meeting, how do we do this?’ and at the time I was in business school, I was getting my MBA at ASU and I was in a business planning course and I’m like, ‘Let’s just try to make this a thing, apply to get 501(c)3 status, etc.’ so all spring, I recruited an amazing board of directors, we had an executive committee, did all the paperwork and filed, and got approved the following June was so exciting.

“And at the time we had more members who had reached out who wanted to join, and we started out at 20 and we just hit 103 active members in the organization, which is so exciting.

“So that’s really how it came to be, was something that I personally cared about because I cared so much about my mentees and I know how important it is to have a mentor in your life. I’ve had very strong and powerful female mentors growing up and I wanted to make sure my mentees not only had me, but they had a wide network and they were able to build their social capital as much as possible during that time.”

SS: HOW DID YOUR BACKGROUND INFLUENCE YOU CREATING YOUNG AND EMPOWERED WOMEN?

VA: “With my professional career, I graduated with my business degree in 2012 and joined an organization called Teach for America, where I had the opportunity to teach for two years in a low-income community in Phoenix. And during that time and throughout my whole life, I knew how much I valued education, and so for me, I really wanted to stay within that industry but also make sure that we are solving societal issues within my community.

“So not only do I care deeply that all kids receive an excellent education, which is why I now lead the recruitment team on the west coast for Teach for America, but I also care deeply about empowering all of our women in society to make change and to be able to elevate their voice and be heard. Especially right now, women’s rights is such an issue that for me, it really helped shape my personal values of service and mentorship and leadership that allowed me to go, ‘this is something that I knew that I wanted to do, something I know I needed to do.’ Even from personal experience of being in the workplace and wanting to negotiate your salary or being in a male-dominated industry, I knew this was something that was a huge need not only for myself but also other women and also women of color especially.”

Young & Empowered Women members and Executive Committee members

SS: Can you share an overview of what Young & Empowered does?

VA: “Young & Empowered Women right now, what’s really exciting with our membership base, is over 60 percent of our women identify as first generation college students, which is awesome, and over 67 percent of our women identify as women of color, I think through my personal experience as a Mexican American, through my work with Teach For America, that was something that I knew wanted to be true within the organization.

“So the problem that we wanted to solve is us knowing that there are systemic inequities and barriers for women currently, is making sure women have the ability, if they want to, to compete and succeed in the workforce–so what we do and our mission overall, is we want to make sure that we empower and inspire our women to not only lead the way they want to lead in their personal and professional lives, but also give back through service and mentorship, so we really want to make sure we’re raising awareness on women’s rights, empowerment and equity through our meetings and events.

“We have monthly career development sessions located in different parts of the Valley to really highlight the beauty of Arizona, so for example we have one coming up at the Parson’s Leadership Center, and these meetings encompass female owned businesses, CEOs in various industries that match what our women are interested in. The women will come and speak to our women on a panel or as a keynote and then we lead career development sessions in that same meeting that focus on different topics that include management, personal branding, fundraising, grad school—different skills that the women want to learn more about.

“Then every year annually, we host our large conference called the EmpowHer over summer the same weekend as the date we were founded. The first day is usually for our internal members where we have individuals that come in and focus on personal and professional development, but also health and wellness, really wanting to support the entire woman not just being career focused. And the second day is open to the community, like it was this year, where we had over 100 professional women in attendance, amazing keynote speakers, and we talked about the gender gap and a speed networking session which was super cool.

“It was a great way for our women to connect with other female leaders in the community, we had 13 mentors attend when we did the speed networking session. I’ve gotten follow-ups from women that have interviews with the mentors that they met during that time and many women have reached out and said they wanted to negotiate their salary and they were able to do that this summer; so It’s been really cool to see the follow-up from the conference, not just the two days.”

SS: WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU TO FOSTER YOUNG WOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND INCREASE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL WOMEN REGARDLESS OF RACE ACROSS ALL INDUSTRIES?

VA: “It’s so important for us to have our women be at the leadership tables in the rooms where decisions are being made because once that happens, that’s when systemic change happens.

“So not only do we want to make sure we’re providing the tools and resources for our women to be able to do that, but also for us to find allies within the community–business leaders, community leaders as well to also make the change within their business from hiring, promoting, retaining women of color. It starts with us of course, but we need leaders to also move this needle and once we have equity within gender, that’s when we see businesses and nonprofits and other organizations truly thrive because we get perspectives into the company that help either their clients or who they’re working for.

“So it’s really amazing to have our members receive the tools to be successful not only in the workplace, but also creating that sense of community to make sure that they are supporting each other within the business workplace and with each other to be successful moving forward.”

SS: HOW DO YOU HOPE YOUNG AND EMPOWERED GROWS IN THE FUTURE?

VA: “We want to make sure Young & Empowered Women as an organization continues to grow, we have over 100 active members now, every six months we bring on a new cohort of women. In the past, we kept it around 10-20, now we’re going to have it around 30 each six months, because we think it’s really important for those that are reaching out that want to be involved, they want to have the resources, they want to attend the meetings to personally and professionally grow, we want to make sure they have access to those resources and other place where they may not.

“Our growth plan is continue to bring on 30 members each cohort, we do have our members that after one year become alumni. So they help new Young & Empowered members as mentors and thought partners, a few are on our board of directors board. So we’re continuing to grow but also sustain at the same time, our executive board and board of directors as we continue our meetings, conference, and as we’re hoping to create new community partnerships in the Valley.

“Something that was exciting was at the conference was we hosted an exhibition in the back to have women-owned businesses come and have our members learn about their businesses as well, so we’re trying to build our name, not just to gain more members, but to be part of the community to make sure we have this coalition of women and organizations working towards the mission.”

SS: As a woman founder, what advice do you have for other young women who might be interested in starting their own business/organization?

VA: “Advice that I would give those starting their own businesses is to reach out and find a mentor, finding folks that build your organization's board of directors full of individuals that are diverse not only in background but also industry and experience. It’s really important for you to leverage others to help your organization succeed, especially early on.

“And you are also partnering with other women owned businesses that share the same mission as you. I feel like sometimes, especially in business school, you always think that you’re competing against each other and you’re trying to have that value proposition, of course you are and it’s really important since there’s not that many women owned businesses that we support each other to make sure our businesses grow and our missions grow as well.”