Kefir and The Greatest Untapped Resource
During the height of the Cold War, in 1976 my parents and I immigrated to America from Ukraine. We were just 1 of 48 families to be settled in Chicago that year. My young parents, who spoke no English, had a one year-old and $116 between them. It was a classic immigrant story.
They quickly settled into their new country. A refugee agency set my father, Michael, up with English classes and helped him find a job as an engineer. Meanwhile, my mother Ludmila picked up the language by watching soap operas like General Hospital and Edge of Night.
While my parent’s loved their new country they missed many things of their motherland — especially the food. When my mom recognized her own yearning for her beloved Russian cuisine, combined with the mass exodus of Soviet Jews to the U.S., she found a golden opportunity. At the age of 28 my mother, aka Lucy, opened Chicago’s first Russian delicatessen. She was a natural entrepreneur and leader. That first deli blossomed into five.
She meant business.
In 1985 my parents attended a trade show in Germany. First stop: going to the grocery store and buying three bottles of kefir, a tangy probiotic yogurt-like drink wildly popular throughout Europe. My dad remembered how much he’d loved it when growing up in Ukraine, and he lamented to my mom, “In America, we have everything…but we don’t have kefir.”
My mom, Lucy replied, “You know how to build plants and machinery. I am in the food business. You find a way to make the kefir. I’ll find a way to sell it.”
Six months later, my parents put that idea into action, and Lifeway Foods was incorporated. The company grew faster than any of us could have imagined, and within a few short years, Lifeway became the first Russian immigrant-owned company to go public. What started with a small Midwest deli with one employee has transformed into a workforce of 350+ with revenues of over $110 million. Over the next three years we expect our workforce to increase by an additional 100 people.
It all happened because one woman felt empowered to start her own company.
Today, I’m fortunate to sit at Lifeway’s helm, continuing my mother’s tradition as a woman job creator and business leader. I’m proud that a majority of high-level positions at Lifeway are led by women and many departments are nearly 70 percent female. The theme of female leadership and collaboration is a central focus across our business. From partnerships with maternal health organizations like Every Mother Counts, to our support of Hollaback as they use technology to make the streets safer for women and girls, we actively seek out opportunities to empower women in the U.S. and around the globe. It’s part of what we call #MotherCulture.
Both my own personal experience as well as hard data show the many benefits of hiring and financially empowering women: According to Fortune only 5% of Fortune 1000 companies (51 total) have female CEOs, but those industry leaders generate 7% of the Fortune 1000′s total revenue. Additionally, Fortune 1000 companies with female chiefs outperformed the S&P 500 index over their respective tenures. Booz Allen reports that if women were employed at the same rates as men in the United States, Japan, and Egypt, the GDPs of those countries would increase by 5, 9 and 34 percent, respectively. That’s because companies with meaningful numbers of female managers routinely outperform those that lack a strong female presence and studies confirm a strong correlation between corporate financial performance and gender diversity.
The need for economically empowered women is not just a story in the U.S, it’s the same around the world. Women drive economic development by operating the majority of small businesses and farms in developing countries. They are the key to unlocking jobs at home and abroad from the neighborhoods of Chicago to refugee camps in Uganda and rural villages in Bangladesh.
Wonder how this impacts daily lives? According to McKinsey & Company, “educated, income-earning women are especially powerful catalysts for development because they tend to invest more of their money in their families’ health, education, and well-being than men do.” That is holistic change from the household-level and beyond.
What I have learned from my mother, and the women I have met around the world is that women mean business. When empowered, women recognize opportunities for success and have the drive to see those ideas through. We need to ensure that young women have educational and economic opportunities to succeed. My mother would not have been able to build her business if she did not have a good education and live in an entrepreneurial society that encouraged new ventures — we need that for all women. It not only helps build business but it helps build stronger, healthier and more prosperous families, communities, and countries.
When we collectively realize that women are the greatest untapped resource then all of society will reap the rewards of a healthier and safer world. Here are a few easy ways you can help:
- Invest in a female entrepreneur. Credit is a useful and scarce resource for women entrepreneurs. Make sure women can access credit, from a small $12 micro-loan for a new sewing machine to a mega-seven-figure loan to allow her to start the next big tech company in Silicon Valley. Investing in women brings big returns. Make an investment to change a life at www.kiva.org
- Make your dollars count. Next time you need a new blanket, scarf or gift, shop at Piece & Co.. This online shop has created more than 4,700 job opportunities for female artisans around the world.
- Walk, run, bike with purpose. Download the Charity Mile app to make your next run, walk or bike ride count. Every mile you do unlocks a donation to an organization of your choice. Support women and girls and support Every Mother Counts and Girl Up.
This post originally appeared on Global Accelerator, a United Nations Foundation initiative to highlight the important role entrepreneurs play in solving global challenges.
