Female Disruptors: Lindsey Davis Stover, Shivam Mallick Shah & Alison Kiehl Friedman of 1953 Tequila On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

Shivam: “Bet on yourself.” From the start, we had a vision for the type of company and product we wanted to create, but along the way we got a lot of push-back — that we didn’t know enough and should really rely on the experts, that we weren’t sensitive to local norms, and that — in general — this is not the way things are done. But to us, that was the whole point — we wanted to do things differently. We wanted to learn from others, but we also wanted to stay true to our vision. Learning how to balance conviction with learning and flexibility helped us build 1953. We hit several roadblocks along the way — partnerships that didn’t materialize, tequila that didn’t taste as we had hoped, legal challenges to our trademark, production delays, and the usual growing pains of a start-up — where we had to make tough choices, and each time we decided to bet on ourselves and persist.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, we had the pleasure of interviewing Co-Founders Lindsey Davis Stover, Shivam Mallick Shah & Alison Kiehl Friedman of 1953 Tequila.

Founders and friends Shivam Mallick Shah, Lindsey Davis Stover and Alison Kiehl Friedman came together in search of a consciously crafted, ultra-premium tequila. Together, they sought partners in Mexico who applied the finest craftsmanship utilizing the region’s traditional methods to make a luxurious tequila without additives, and who shared in their commitment to providing opportunities for, and empowering, women. In the process, they created a truly distinctive spirit.

Lindsey Davis Stover is Co-President & Founder of 1953 Tequila. She is a founding principal of strategic consulting firm Edwards, Davis Stover & Associates. A TX native and former AmeriCorps-Vista volunteer, Lindsey developed a STEM program for girls in Houston-area schools. She served as U.S Congressman Chet Edwards’ Chief of Staff changing laws around pay equity for women and better healthcare for veterans. As Senior Advisor (SES) at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs during the Obama Administration, Lindsey led strategic communications and much needed policy changes to recognize and better serve women veterans. In 2017, Lindsey ran for Congress in Northern Virginia. A graduate of Baylor University and Harvard Kennedy School, Lindsey lives in McLean, VA with her husband Jeremey and their two daughters.

Alison Kiehl Friedman is Co-President & Founder of 1953 Tequila. Alison is the former CEO of the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR). She has deep experience in social justice supply chain management; having helped to reform the world’s largest supply chain to better protect workers within it and craft legislation that improved human rights transparency and accountability within a global economy. Alison has led numerous nonprofits, served as a diplomat in the Obama Administration, and recently ran for Congress in Northern Virginia. She is a graduate of Stanford University and completed her MBA at Oxford. Alison lives in Hawaii and California with her husband Mark and her daughter.

Shivam Mallick Shah is CEO & Founder of 1953 Tequila. Shivam founded Summit Advisors, a boutique advisory firm that specializes in strategy and innovation. A former investment banker and McKinsey consultant, Shivam dedicates her business acumen to solving some of the world’s most intractable problems. She has held multiple leadership roles on the start-up teams of two of the world’s largest global philanthropies — the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation- and at an education venture philanthropy fund created by notable Silicon Valley investors. She’s founded and run a PK-12 school, served as a Senior Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and has written and spoken extensively on innovation in the social sector. A graduate of Georgetown University, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Business School, Shivam lives in Washington DC with her husband, Dr. Raj Shah, and their three children.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Lindsey: Alison and I once ran against each other for Congress in Virginia’s 10th district. Through the process, while fierce competitors, we also became really good friends. Alison introduced me to her friend Shivam — they met through their daughters and shared DC friends — and the three of us became a team. Our respective careers have been focused on providing opportunities for others, and in particular women and families. The three of us quickly realized we had a shared set of beliefs — about the power of women to change the world and about how businesses can be successful and still do good in the world.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Alison: That’s a hard question to answer succinctly, because being disruptive is a core part of everything we do. You can see it in our bottle for example, because you may not necessarily know 1953 is tequila, you just know it’s unlike anything you’ve seen before. You also can feel it in the team we’re proud to be a part of; every person who works on 1953, from our farmers to our distiller to the women who bottle it, know they’re a part of something greater than just making the best tasting tequila you’ve ever tried. That’s because we started 1953 on the firm belief that we could change the world and be profitable while doing it. It’s a mission that means that despite 2 years of being told that women weren’t strong enough to farm agave, we stuck with our gut and eventually met with the women farmers to make sure they knew what they were risking, understanding that firsts are often subjects of violence, exclusion, or mockery. When the farmers told us they understood the risks but cared more about what the girls in the local high school would think when they saw that women could do this work too, we knew we’d found our partners. And it’s that mission that carries through all of our operational decision-making. When looking for our partner distillery, we started our contract negotiations with a discussion and set of commitments about how we will run our business with social justice at its core. We laid out everything from worker treatment and profit participation to board composition and our commitments to the broader stakeholder community. We know we have the best tasting tequila and nobody can copy that, but we want other companies to copy our operational practices that recognize the workers and impact companies can make.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Alison: Before we found our partners we toured a distillery that, unbeknownst to us, was importing animals for a “tourism and tequila” experience. They told us that if we contracted with them, people could taste our tequila while petting giraffes from their second story balconies. We broke the land speed record in deciding that Tiger King: Tequila Edition was not where we wanted to go… The truth is we made a lot of mistakes in the beginning in exploring partnerships that, in retrospect, were never going to work, but what saved us was the relationship the three of us have as friends and colleagues. We’ve both laughed and disagreed a lot in this process, but we continue with an abiding faith in and respect for each other and shared commitment to doing what’s right.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Alison: I’m lucky to have grown up with Gloria Steinem and Wilma Mankiller and Dolores Huerta, and to have parents who raised me to understand that the measure of success for me was how I increased opportunities for others who might not otherwise have them. I remember when I was a kid, my mom was driving carpool and we were stuck in a traffic jam and an ambulance was stuck behind us, sirens blaring… My mom put the car in park, got out and directed traffic to create enough room for the ambulance to get through. I was so embarrassed. I wished she would be the type of mom who would just stay in the car like all the others. Now, I reflect and can’t help but notice that I choose people who get out of the car. Whether it’s Shivam and the works she’s done around educational opportunities or Lindsey and all that she’s done for Veterans, or our team in Mexico (all female) and how they’ve transformed how tequila distilleries are run. It’s the women who see something wrong and do what they can to help that inspire how I try to be.

Shivam: As the daughter of immigrants, I credit my parents with teaching me and my siblings the work ethic, courage, and community required to be an entrepreneur, and build my own future. They were not celebrated CEOs — my mom worked on the factory line of a cookie factory and my late dad worked for the federal government — but they never shied away from hard work and they built a community of friends that supported them along the way. Coming to the US with little resource, few connections, and big dreams, they took a huge risk and I think of that on hard days a lot.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Lindsey: I would not say disrupting is always good, or always necessary depending on the system or industry. But for us it feels important in such a male dominated field to create a product that provides opportunities for women. It took us a while to find the right partner. We knew we wanted to have female leadership at every level from the distillery to the farm producing the agave. But, we were determined and prioritized finding the right partner that could not only make a great product, but someone with shared values. We set out to build a company that was founded, farmed, distilled and led by women and that is exactly what we did.

With the team in Mexico, we worked together to begin opening doors for women in, again, a traditionally male-dominated field. Not only could they make an additive free tequila with the flavor profile we were looking for, but they’re a family-owned distillery that has been making tequila for more than 100 years. Even more importantly is the fact that it is now run by the matriarch and her children who are intentional about hiring and promoting women in leadership positions. It’s tangible reminder to other women that there’s a place for them anywhere they want to lead.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Shivam:

1. “Bet on yourself.” From the start, we had a vision for the type of company and product we wanted to create, but along the way we got a lot of push-back — that we didn’t know enough and should really rely on the experts, that we weren’t sensitive to local norms, and that — in general — this is not the way things are done. But to us, that was the whole point — we wanted to do things differently. We wanted to learn from others, but we also wanted to stay true to our vision. Learning how to balance conviction with learning and flexibility helped us build 1953. We hit several roadblocks along the way — partnerships that didn’t materialize, tequila that didn’t taste as we had hoped, legal challenges to our trademark, production delays, and the usual growing pains of a start-up — where we had to make tough choices, and each time we decided to bet on ourselves and persist.
2. “The right partners are worth the wait.” Values alignment is everything. We learned that the hard way when early distillery partnerships we were excited about didn’t come to fruition because we ultimately did not have a shared set of values around how we would work together and make decisions as a company. Without that shared core ethos, we realized that our potential partners were not the right partners for us. Shifting gears meant slowing down our timeline and getting to market later than initially anticipated, but that tradeoff on time has enabled us to create a stronger company and a better product.

Alison:

Be the Buffalo: Indigenous tribes on the plains revere the buffalo because when thunderstorms came, cows would run away from them, whereas buffalos head into them thereby ensuring they pass over them faster. We try to face the tough decisions head on.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Shivam: We are actually just getting started! Our first goal is to build 1953 Tequila into the next breakthrough luxury tequila brand. We think this is the best way to elevate the stories of the women who make this spirit so special, and to honor the many women who take risks to lead and serve in their communities every day.

Our second goal is to show that you can run a successful business and do good in the world. We hope our eventual success will motivate others — in tequila, spirits, and beyond — to run businesses committed to diverse leadership, worker rights, fair wages, and environmental stewardship. This may take us some time, but we know we will get there.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

Shivam: We have all been the only person “like us” at the table, and that feeling can be both empowering and debilitating. In our collective experience, women are too often held to a different standard. For example, words associated with positive attributes in men are seen negatively when associated with women — think brave vs. reckless, assertive vs. demanding, kind vs. passive, leader vs. “not a team player”, friendly vs. unprofessional — the list goes on. Women have to navigate multiple identities and inconsistent expectations to be seen and rewarded.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

Lindsey: While this may sound a bit strange, one of the books that has had a great influence on me is actually a children’s book, What Do You Do With An Idea? by Kobi Yamada. I first discovered it while reading it to my daughter in our local Library. Little did I know, it would become a book that I still read today, 10 years later. It is a beautiful story about the power of an idea and the courage and confidence needed to think big, believe in yourself and in your ability to make your big ideas a reality.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Lindsey: We do not think of ourselves as people with great influence. We set out to build a company that honors our values and elevates women throughout a male-dominated industry. Like the women who own the agave farm we partner with, we hope more women will see themselves breaking norms and setting the curve in whatever industry they pursue. Often women have been told “we can’t do it all or shouldn’t do it all”. Well, sometimes women have to create their own rules and blaze their own trail, but the end result is worth it. The more young girls see women excelling in all industries, hopefully the path for them will be just a little easier one day.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Shivam: “In fog, move forward.” This has been relevant in my life more times than I can count! As someone who has been a part of multiple start-ups and has worked across diverse sectors and communities, I am often in situations where you have to make decisions with limited or conflicting information. In those moments, I remind myself to trust my judgment, to think through second and third order consequences of my choices, and to listen to the folks closest to the problem I aim to solve. And then I move forward!

Alison: “My contribution is bringing my ignorance to every problem.” I had a friend in a senior position at the White House tell me this once when I was doubting myself and my belonging. His belief that he could add the greatest value by asking the basic questions that I feared might be perceived as stupid, made me feel more comfortable doing so. It’s amazing how much better things can work if we don’t assume the way it’s been done is the way it should be.

How can our readers follow you online?

Readers can follow us on Instagram @1953Tequila, and can sign up for product and event updates on our website, www.1953Tequila.com. Perhaps most importantly, readers can try 1953 Tequila by purchasing a bottle (or two!) directly through ReserveBar.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!