Ladies Get Paid

Give us the elevator pitch on what you do.

I'm the founder of Ladies Get Paid, an organization that helps women achieve their professional goals and get paid fairly. We speak up about challenges in the workplace, and provide the tools you need to take the next steps in your career. In less than three months, we’ve grown to a thousand women and I couldn’t be more thrilled. It’s time to #fuckthewagegap.

What has been some of the biggest lessons you’ve learnt along the way?

1.Want to expand your network? Stop networking. Instead, when you meet people, ask them how you can help. This part is is crucial: connect them to others. Wharton Professor Adam Grant calls this a five minute favor. It shows goodwill, supports others with minimal commitment from you, and immediately expands your network because guess what? They’ll probably connect you to someone else too.

What have been some of your biggest disasters and how have you learnt from it?

One disaster (or almost disaster) immediately comes to mind. I was creative directing and producing a weeklong interactive art exhibit, essentially building out a massive white space and throwing an 800 person party. We were down to the wire. Only about a month or so out, someone on my team dropped the ball and I was fucked. We were going to fail. After I went home and had a good cry, I opened my laptop and made a giant list of everything I had to do. As overwhelming as it was, it was less scary on paper than in my head. I could do this. I had to do this! I put all that shit into a spreadsheet, prioritized it, figured out who I could lean on to help, and guess what? I pulled it off. Sometimes all you need is a good cry and a well organized spreadsheet.

Any passion projects you would like to share?

I’ve been writing a script, off and on, for about four years now. It’s about my brother who went to an ivy league college and  joined a secret society. He also put on a bulletproof vest every night as an EMT in Bridgeport, CT, one of the most dangerous cities in America. Essentially, he lived a double life. For a while, I thought I had to choose between a life of filmmaking (I started my career in independent film producing) or advertising but then realized that having a side passion fueled my day job. And vice versa.

Now, I’m reconnected with an old writing partner and we’ve written a pilot as well as a short film version. Though our dream is of course to actually make it, I’m just so damn proud of us for even finishing it!