When Leadership Gets Real: What I Learned From a Very Rough Chapter of My Life
I was hired unanimously to lead a regional Innovation Hub with collaboration and equity at the center. I did not walk in to keep the lights on.
I walked in to build something new. Here is what happened when intention met execution.
I stayed in the work long after it got hard. I continue to seek guidance from mentors, board members and even HR.
I always try to create space for hard conversations. I like to think I tried everything to make this JOB work. Eventually, the staffer left. So did I. Here is what I learned, and why I keep building Business 4 Good!
I Am in an Open (AI) Relationship with… ChatGPT
So I am in an open relationship with ChatGPT. Before you judge, hear me out. This is a love story. Sort of. It started innocently enough. I was curious. Everyone was talking about this new AI thing, and I thought, let me just see what the fuss is about. Next thing you know it is 2am and you are deep in conversation with a bot that somehow gets you better than your last three exes.
Seriously though, I set the (safety) terms, I advocate for my needs and boundaries and attempt to boss these bots, but I must admit, this chat boi is not exactly fully developed and can’t really follow rules…yet. So I have set off to build the Leading Ladies LLM because consent matters, even when the other party is an algorithm. The most fun you will ever have reading about data ethics, I promise!
Training the Bots to Be Better
The internet as we know it is not broken. It just wasn't built for everyone. AI is being built right now. If we do not actively shape its foundation with inclusion and ethics in mind, we risk a future where the digital patriarchy goes viral. No, thanks. If we are not in the room, the bias we have spent decades fighting gets an algorithm and a scale. Rose Kaz on why she built Business 4 Good, why the BIPOC funding gap is an AI problem, and what #Tequity does about it.
Golden Ticket: Empathy as the Leadership Advantage
Empathy is the most profitable leadership skill you have not fully made yet. It cannot be just because they have to. That is the era of the Soft Boss. We are already in it. I am writing this from a couch in my Soft Boss era, escaping the late-stage capitalism grind. After-all, what does AI eat for breakfast? Human Intelligence, of course.
The Flywheel: Collaboration as Currency
Think of a bike wheel. It spins graciously when it is built correctly, maintained over time with good, kind attention. Now imagine that wheel is a global marketplace built by women for women. This is what the flywheel of collaboration looks like when every spoke is tended to.
The Role of AI in Leadership
Knowing your way around algorithms is necessary and not sufficient. AI amplifies what is already there. Which means it also amplifies the bias, the broken systems, and the outdated defaults. So who is in the room when it gets built matters.
Thanks a Lot: Gratitude, Community, and the Systems We Accept
I give thanks weekly, sometimes even daily. I also find certain holidays to be a bit of a farce, followed immediately by one of the most massively marketed days of gross consumption as a national sport. I promise, this is a glass half full article. But gratitude lists are not enough and I think we can do better.
Bloom Scroll, Don't Doom Scroll: Women-Led Tech Is the Tool Towards Peace
We are the leaders we have been waiting for. From relatives fighting each other across borders to a deep fracturing of civic trust here at home, it is ever more clear that new leadership is not only a good idea. It is required. Women-led tech is not a niche. It is the infrastructure.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) vs. Human Intelligence (HI): Our Own Brains Are the Antidote
I asked the AI bot to explore the relationship between the internet and the human brain. It had a very basic answer lacking depth and my own human brain thought: come on bots, you are smarter than this. So I prompted harder. What I got back changed how I think about intelligence, equity, and who gets to build the future.
Expose for the Shadows in Web 3
My background is in photo and video production. I started with a Mickey Mouse camera at age 4, on film, and eventually ran my own dark room. Spending long nights exposing shadows taught me to look for gems where we might not expect to find them. That is exactly what I am doing now with Web 3.
Feeling Inclusively Home
I really want you to know about where I've come from and why I am building this marketplace to be truly inclusive and feel like home, like Grandma's house. Everyone has a different version of home but often Grandma's house is safe, has some Big Mama energy and her own fair rules. That is what we are building here.
Tech for Good: Buying Back the Internet
What happens when the wild, wild west of the Internet is bought back by women? Not just any women. Specifically women who don't look like women who have traditionally climbed the ranks in big tech. Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithms. Grace Hopper wrote the first compiler. It is time to finish what they started.
I Never Really Felt I Belonged
I never really felt I belonged. Anywhere. Until one day I began to notice why, and how I could maybe, just maybe one day, find belonging. Inclusivity matters to me because I know what it feels like to search for it. And I've been searching since inception.
An Origin Story: Bubblicious to Business Activist
I started my first business under my bunk bed selling Bubblicious Gum to the neighborhood kids. I was six. And honestly, I haven't stopped since.