In case you missed it, Monday, March 8, 2021 was International Women’s Day. We here at Forge love to celebrate women every day of the year, but we were especially excited to applaud all of the amazing accomplishments of women during our virtual celebration.
We wanted to champion the numerous contributions women, past present, and future made to society, while highlighting some female owned businesses here in Birmingham. We had the unique privilege of hosting a panel of three incredible, hard-working women to share a bit about their lives, experiences, failures, and more.
Our panel, led by Forge’s Founder and CEO, Kim Lee, includes:
Javacia Bower, Founder of See Jane Write
Delphine Carter, Founder & CEO of Boulo Solutions
Mindy Rohr, Director of Marking for Bayer Properties
As a new Intern at Forge, I have never been to our International Women’s Day celebration, so I was excited for this event. I gained a lot of insight and advice from hearing about their experiences, both personal and professional. While Kim and the panelists covered more questions and topics than I included in this blog, I wanted to highlight and recap the ones that I felt are most relatable.
Kim Lee, Founder & CEO of Forge
Choose to Challenge
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day Event was Choose to Challenge, and Kim started of the panel asking these women to discuss a time in their career when they ‘Chose to Challenge.’
Mindy started off the panel strong reminding me and everyone that Choosing to Challenge can be as grand or as simple as we want. However, she explains that while “we can choose to challenge…we also have to choose to hold ourselves accountable.” I think this is such an incredible reminder of how women are challengers, in every sense of the word, who have a powerful force of supporters holding them accountable and cheering them on along the way. Javacia encourages us choose to challenge by taking that leap of faith or that jump and “build[ing] [our] wings on the way down.”
Mindy Rohr, Director of Marketing at Bayer Properties
The panelists offer some advice, from their personal experience, about how to step into the unknown or make a change. Stepping away from security and comfort is never easy, neither is change. However, these women encourage us to take that risk.
Delphine Carter, Founder of Boulo Solutions
Javacia’s advice to us is to try to find the median between those differing passions – as there often is. If, for some reason, these passions do not align, Javacia encourages us to not give up on those passions, even if they become “hobbies.” Delphine reminds us that no decision is permanent and if things don’t work out that’s okay – nothing is set in stone. Mindy wraps up this question encouraging women who want to change up their careers to have conversations, ask questions, and network.
Javacia Harris Bowser, Founder of See Jane Write
These women offer up some reassurance for those busy moms who may be struggling to balance all of the different hats women have the privilege of wearing. Delphine reminds us how important it is for us, as women, to give ourselves grace and put less pressure on ourselves.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s okay! You are not alone, and there are women all around the world feeling the same way as you.
Since I couldn’t include everything that they covered on Monday, I highly encourage you to watch the entire Virtual Celebration with these inspirational women. As a soon to be graduate entering into the work force, I’m honored to learn from these women, and so many like them, so I can step into the workforce more confident and prepared.
If you’re anything like me, you are wanting to hear and learn more from these three women. Well, it is your lucky day because now you can!
In an exclusive podcast, Kim asks the panelist to take a moment to share about their failures and the lessons they’ve learned from them. While I would love to recap all of that here, I would be writing far more than you’d want to read. To hear more about these women’s experiences with failure, head over to the Building Birmingham Together podcast on Spotify and Apple.
We encourage you to choose to challenge yourself by networking and making more connections. Join us for our weekly virtual networking meetings on Tuesdays from 12:00-1:00pm. Find out more about Connect!
To all of the women in our lives. Thank you for everything you do. We, and the world, would not be the same without you.