Empowering Women Archives - Landmark's Team Management & Leadership Program

Ashley Kuich, Team Los Angeles, T1Q3

Interviewed by Pamela Heath (Team LA – T2Q3) on May 12th, 2013

What is the Name of your Game?

The Beauty Conversation.

What is the Possibility of your Game?

Being Authentic, Inspiring and Empowering

Tell Me More About

THE BEAUTY CONVERSATION

The Beauty Conversation is a series of online interviews with women speaking about beauty and about themselves and their own self-worth. These women share their concept and relationship to beauty and allow us (the audience) to listen in as they distinguish their thoughts about what beauty is and whether they accept themselves as beautiful. As long as I can remember, I just had a series of questions that I had in my own head about myself and always wondered if other women had the same questions. Working in the beauty industry I noticed that women are not very happy about their appearance and that even the men are not very happy about their appearance. Women spend a lot of time trying to convince folks that they are beautiful, yet not really truly convinced that they are beautiful. I realized that we can be accepting of ourselves AND of other women by inquiring into what it means to be beautiful. I guess I look at it as something that starts very young. People tell me they were worried about their looks in the fourth grade! I want to give women a chance to hear other women say how they feel about ‘beauty.’ How they have dealt with and actually overcome the conversations regarding beauty over the years. What I intend is that young women can grow up without questioning themselves so much. That they can grow up in a world understanding that beauty looks a lot of different ways. I’m committed to impacting the conversation that women have about beauty.

What was your initiative to start?

There were many things I wanted to accomplish when I started Team but I work in the beauty industry and when I joined Team I saw what my commitment to women really was. Team gave me the access to get clear about what my project or game was and how to go about getting down to it. I have ALWAYS known I wanted to make this difference in life. My resources were exactly the same and everything was in place but my structures became solid on Team. Creating a team and getting started became easy. I have shot a number of interviews already and we are on target to shoot and edit and have these videos available to view. This conversation of beauty will rock our conception of what it beauty really is. It is an intriguing conversation and engaging to watch and participate in. Many of my subjects report that the questions I ask put them in an inquiry where they are able to distinguish what decisions they made in life about whether they are beautiful or not. I am moved to hear the feedback and reaction to The Beauty Conversation and the effect it has not just on the women who are interviewed, but the participants who watch the videos.

When did you start?

It came to me over a year ago. I started the project after I joined the Team Management & Leadership Program. It was just an idea before that. So that would be August 2012.

How did you use what you learned in the Team, Management and Leadership Program to contribute to your life?

I would say team is almost everywhere in my life now. It seems like it is becoming second nature to create teams now. Whether with my friends, family or at work ¬– being the source of teamwork makes life is so much easier. And it’s a lot more fun to play with a team than taking the lone wolf route!

What are your intentions for the future?

The game started as something that I intended would live on the internet. The interviews provide questions that have the participants actually grapple with the conversation of what it is to be beautiful. The project has grown with every person I have shared it with, in ways that I did not foresee. I now have a producer on board who sees the possibility of me traveling the country giving lectures. It is becoming a much bigger project than I ever anticipated. With every step that I take to fulfill on what I started to do, I start to see what is available for women globally. It has turned what was initially a project just for me into a MOVEMENT.

Have You Got Anything Else To Share Regarding The Beauty Conversation?

The flood gates have opened and people have been unbelievably generous and it has been so much fun to be a part of. The sky is the limit and I can’t wait to do more interviews!

Written by Nathan Bennett, Team NY

What happens when you combine the super powers of Wonder Woman with fundraising and the dynamic leadership of Julia Molloy? You get Funderwoman! Funderwoman is Julia Molloy’s brain child and is a possibility that allows women to be successful and creative, while supporting a life they love.

Born in Northern California, Brooklyn-based architect Julia Molloy had a vision to support other talented women around the world in their quest for financial freedom. Having completed school at Barnard and Columbia, Molloy now proudly spreads her talented wings at the Guggenheim where she is currently the Design Associate for the Abu Dhabi project.

Architecture wasn’t Julia’s first passion. Her love for children gave her dreams of becoming a clown doctor. However, after living in Ghana and Italy during college, she decided that impacting the world and making beauty through building structures was the way for her. Julia was on a new path and committed to being an unstoppable force in the architectural design world.

Julia’s expansive knowledge has allowed her to teach Architecture Thesis on the University level for two years. She also credits Landmark Education for contributing to her growth and development. The most influential courses for her have been the Communications courses and coaching in the Self Expression and Leadership Program.

Embracing her love for travel, Julia has worked and studied in Caracas, Vancouver, Shanghai, South Africa, Istanbul, and Thailand/Burma, among other exotic places.

Nathan: How did you select the women in your first class of Funderwoman?

Julia: For Phase 1.0, our goal is to get our feet wet, so to speak, and to build a team and momentum. These women have been chosen for the first phase of campaigning and funding, because the diverse range of creative projects – from the practical – spice rack – to fantastical – twin world documentary (this is the project that the Manhattanite film maker created). It is beyond fascinating and a must see!

Again, the big goal is to create an online micro finance platform for female founded creative projects throughout the world.

Nathan: What calls you to philanthropy?

Julia: As a young business owner of a design firm, XLXS, at age 27, my partner and I did not know how to source and manage money. Yes, we were “successful,” winning international design competitions, building small projects, and exhibiting and publishing our work, but we didn’t know how to earn a living. The first racket was that design school, architecture school in our case, didn’t train us properly for the real world, and then I created the possibility of a different model of working.

I have won over $300,000 of grants and scholarships to fund my creative career, but at the end of the day, the money barely covers the project budgets, and sourcing and income out of this work is near to impossible.

Potentially, the Funderwoman Foundation will sponsor loans for a curated batch of artists each year, so the Funderwoman will not only have the opportunity to develop a creative project, but also a financially sustainable model for her work. She will be able to pay for her own project as well as future projects in her career. The hope is that she will also eventually be able to pay it forward and sponsor future Funderwomen.

I wanted to have a little fun with Julia, so I probed her with a few out of the box questions.

Nathan: If you could choose a celebrity to endorse Funderwoman, who would that person be?

Julia: Linda Carter – I guess. The icon of ‘having it all’ – fulfilling life while impacting the world.

Nathan: So, you get this huge funder and are told you could have your headquarters in ANY building in the United States, where would it be?

Julia: Tough question, most likely, I would want a network of buildings. The dream is to have field partners throughout the world sourcing artists and creative pitch videos predominantly in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Asia, as well as Europe, Australia, and North America – like the Kiva.org model. As far as the headquarters, I would love an old brick warehouse – adaptive re-use on the water for offices, event space for lectures, workshops, business planning and development women creatives. I would 100% like to be a part of the design of this facility.

Nathan: What an even bigger dream of yours? What’s something that you’ve envisioned and would like to see it manifest itself?

Julia: Funny you ask that question. March 13, 2013 is International Woman’s Day, on this day, I would like to have Funderball, which will bring together the foundation sponsors and sponsored, including the most extraordinary women in the world from creative to philanthropic – curators, artists, collectors, filmmakers, etc. The Fundraising Ball would be in the atrium of the Guggenheim. I can see Funderware being sold, Funderwomen rings for gold memberships and so much more. I plan to live and breathe Funderwoman someday, as it is what I am most passionate about.

Nathan Bennett writes under the pen name Nathan Seven Scott and recently published a novel “My Turn.”

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