When Brands Girls Love Invite Them Into the Boardroom...Big Things Happen
Today's girls know the brands they love.
They know which companies speak to them, see them and take their values to heart.
So when I founded Être, a mentorship platform designed to bring girls directly into companies and face to face with female leaders, I knew one value had to remain strong:
Girls would drive where we visited and who we met. Every time.
As we approach spring 2025 and Être's 9th birthday in May, we are still listening intently to our girls. Which companies are they clamoring to visit right now?
Here are just a few of the requests we received and the rockstar brands throwing open their doors and saving boardroom seats for girls:
"Can we visit Bubble? We are obsessed. No, seriously OBSESSED."
Yep, we can! With an entire U-14 skincare line designed for the younger set and an energized team of teen ambassadors, Bubble's tagline strikes a chord with tweens and teens: "Today is the first day of the rest of your face." And when two New Jersey middle school Club Être chapters begged for an on-site visit to Bubble's NYC headquarters, Bubble founder and CEO Shai Eisenman responded almost the same day with an enthusiastic yes.
We'll be there in early March to tour their offices, meet their executives and provide an of-the-moment focus group - we cannot wait.
"Would a company host a Women x Girls in Sports event where girls our age could interview the athletes? Would they EVER?"
They absolutely would, and mentors at Morgan Stanley are making it happen. Requested by 13-year-old sports journalist / Être Board member Pepper Persley, and brought forward by new Northwestern grad and D-1 lacrosse star Carleigh Mahoney, athletes and leaders like Sandra L. Richards and Caroline Gundeck will take the stage to answer questions posed by girls.
Who else will be there? Think sports podcasters, coaches, record-breaking athletes and rising stars - stay tuned for the full team roster.
When is this happening? March 7th - one day before International Women's Day. Have a high school or collegiate athlete who wants to join us? DM me here - this is a huddle we can't wait to share.
"Our spring Pinterest boards are seriously everything. Wait - can we visit PINTEREST??"
YES - they're pinterested! With a careful eye on Pinterest Predictions and an unabashed love of sharable trends, Être jumped at the chance to visit Pinterest and the company answered back just as fast. We're headed there in April thanks to Michele C. Lee's team and are eager for not only an inside view of what makes Pinterest one of the most beloved platforms today, but what its like to work there and how career paths take shape.
Does Pinterest have internships? Did today's execs first envision their roles on...well, their Pinterest pages? How does the algorithm work and HOW does the brand stay so all. the. time. relevant? We'll be asking these questions and more exactly in time for Bring Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day 2025. Pin it.
"We've been googling ideas to celebrate Être's bday this year. Then we thought...could we just GO TO GOOGLE?"
When curious girls have questions they head to one site: Google. It's a verb and a doodle, a school resource, a lifeline and, for Être, a pipeline of mentor moments. With execs like Lindsay Leone (Van Houten) featured in The Epic Mentor Guide and our first visit back in 2019, women at Google have inspired and empowered us since our earliest days. And because marking big moments matters - last year the NYSE threw our birthday party on the stock exchange floor - we're honored to plan to turn 9 among the engineers, designers, directors and more who run the show at Google.
What questions might girls have about life at Google? What's one thing no one knows about working at Google? What's your favorite part of the day at Google? What does it take to be an epic Googler? How is the cafeteria this cool? You get the idea. Questions abound, and Google is the trusted place to ask them.
Not all companies have girls' futures in mind and mentors at their backs. But the ones that do - the brands that clearly see their impact on and listen hard to feedback from Gen-Z and Alpha - are the brands where there is natural alignment and affinity. Where do girls want to visit today and work (and lead) tomorrow? The answer lies in the logos of brands opening boardroom door now and saving seats for later.
Here's to an exciting spring - stay tuned for the post-game wrap ups and takeaways!
Looking forward with gratitude,
Illana
ÊXTRAS: Here are 3 past Être visits you'll want to rewatch: that time girls rang the bell at Nasdaq; that time we celebrated girls in STEM at Johnson & Johnson; and that time we raised our hands at the United Nations.
