Entrepreneur Creates Resource for Black Women to Climb the Corporate Ladder
Watchen Nyanue, a Liberian native, is the CEO of I Choose the Ladder. (Picture by Amber Del Rio)
I Choose the Ladder is a career development agency specifically for Black women in corporate America and for corporations who want to attract high-performing Black female talent.
Founder Watchen Nyanue started the company in 2018 as a podcast. The Liberian native realized that she entered the corporate world with a lot of privilege because she had mentors who graced the covers of Forbes and were high-profile professionals. At the time, Nyanue assumed other working Black women had the same opportunities and resources.
“When I realized that wasn’t the case, I wanted to create a space where I can introduce women who look like me in the workforce to similar mentors,” she said. “These mentors can provide advice and tangible things for the women to climb the corporate ladder.”
The company initially catered to Black women consumers and then expanded into corporations that hire Black women to create professional experiences for their Black employees.
“One of the gaps that we have that pertain to success in corporate is access to resources and information that our peers have that we don’t typically have,” Nyanue said.
Nyanue emphasized that there are specific challenges that Black women have that are unique to them. For example, people tend to mentor people who look like them. Studies show that most senior-level women are white, which means these women are mentoring young white women. So the question becomes, why are there fewer Black people or Black women in management and senior-level positions?
“Is it a skills issue? Is it a development issue? Were these women not seen as potential leaders in the organization? Or is there a cap to how far people can go?” Nyanue wondered.
Watchen Nyanue is making power moves at her home office. (Picture by Amber Del Rio)
A lot of Black women leave these companies because the organizations aren’t seeing their potential.
“As spaces become more diversify, there’s a slower process of being inclusive of people, and companies are taking it more seriously for the last 18 months,” she said. “They’re opening their eyes to what their employees are facing.”
Movements like #pullupforchange challenged significant companies and organizations to reveal their Black representations at their corporations and promise to change their tactics. For example, companies like Lush Cosmetics showed that 6% of Black people work at the corporate level, whereas 0% work at a leadership level. After this revelation, the company said that it would commit to 90 days of listening and learning from its employees to see how they can improve. Through this, the company committed to learning more about diversity, equity, and inclusion. I Choose the Ladder assists companies in making these necessary changes. In addition, I Choose the Ladder helps other companies invest more into variety through their workshops and valuable resources.
The majority of the companies who reach out to I Choose the Ladder understand the value of Black women in the workplace. As a result, they usually are finding more ways to benefit them.
“A lot of corporations are trying to figure it out,” Nyaune said. “A lot of the conversations have just started like 12 months ago. They’re like, ‘Dang, why didn’t we realize this sooner?’ and now it’s like, ‘Ok now that we do now, how can we try to accelerate what we’re doing to make everyone feel like they belong in these spaces?’”
Nyanue believes that there is hope that you can find your professional home in a corporation if that’s what you choose.
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