Female Founders: Emma Maslen of inspir ’em ltd On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Doug Noll
Work at your Network. Whatever choices you make in your career — corporate career, entrepreneur, academic — opportunities will appear faster if you work your network. A network must be worked to keep it alive. Invest time to get investment back.
As a part of our series about Women Founders, we had the pleasure of interviewing Emma Maslen.
Emma Maslen is a sales leader, consultant, coach and angel investor. She is also CEO and founder of inspir‘em. With over 25 years tech industry experience, the inspir‘em team has a proven track record in helping sales teams and individuals accelerate their careers.
At the age of 20 Emma found a passion for sales and customer success, closing multi-million dollar investment bank deals for the technology sector in the process. Since then, she has led several businesses within the industry, working for companies such as Sun Microsystems, BMC Software and SAP.
In 2018 Emma became an angel investor through Angel Academe. She now also works with start-ups, scale-ups and large enterprises, coaching their teams to higher growth.
Emma’s new book, The Personal Board of You Inc, explains how readers can recruit the best and most applicable personal advisors to accelerate their goals, thus creating the optimal ‘Personal Board.’
A Personal Board is a well-respected group of people built from a person’s network, with whom they have regular contact, and whose advice they will carefully consider (even if they end up not acting on that advice). It emulates a corporate board as a group of key advisors who meet often to make strategic decisions about the recommended next steps for a person or organisation.
The Personal Board of You Inc covers topics such as how to identify each person’s own needs and ambitions, the importance of networking, what makes creating a solid collection of advisors successful and when to consult the board.
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?
At 16 I left school with just GCSEs. I had a couple of roles and then joined Ingram Micro where I met someone who introduced me to an IBM reseller to become one of their sales people. My salary quadrupled overnight.
Without this introduction, I would have missed a vital opportunity in my career — which is the story of my book, The Personal Board of You Inc. That introduction led me to a successful career in technology — working for some large household names.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
For me, being a leader is being the glue for everyone. And the glue takes many forms. Some days you are the communicator, some days just the listener. Being there for your team, for me, was the greatest honour and responsibility of all.
Now I work for myself — I still try to be the glue for people, but outside of an organisation; almost performing a constant support role for those who need it.
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?
I didn’t stay on for A levels as I was very concerned about the financial load on me/ my parents. Because I achieved excellent grades at GCSE I found that in most interviews I was being ‘advised’ by the interviewer to go back to school.
I remember one CEO of an aerospace engineering company who interviewed me for an assistant role at 17 who said — I would be ‘a disappointment’ if I didn’t go back to school and I would not achieve my potential — according to them. I think this just made me more determined to achieve the things I have.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My career took flight when I was nineteen years old and working for Ingram Micro. I met someone from IBM who saw the potential in me, and this led to an introduction to an IBM reseller, Oakbrook, which became my professional family. This family shaped me as a young professional and provided me with an opportunity to flourish in my career.
Their kindness, integrity and generosity became the benchmark for all employers thereafter, setting a truly high bar.
I make an understatement in saying ‘an introduction’ to Oakbrook. I was introduced, advocated for, and coached all the way through to success.
The idea that a person established in their career — would have such faith in a nineteen-year-old, that they would expose their network for no personal gain, provided me with the determination to open my network to anyone who might need it in the future. This was the beginning of the Personal Board idea and 20+ years of finding opportunities for others in my network.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
Let’s be clear here — it’s not the women founders themselves. Seed investment for female founders is typically 2% for the last few years, according to Beauhurst. And for mixed founders, it is about 11%.
As well as this, the majority, but not all of the funding is provided by men in the driving seat.
So we have two issues: first we need to get more women at the table to advocate for women and make the decisions on investment. Second, the questions asked of men vs women are very different for women-founded companies.
Again if you look at Beauhurst’s research, female founders are often asked very different questions in comparison to men, which require very specific answers. For any early stage business, no one can be that specific.
And this is just the bias in investment. What about banking, grants etc.? It is a harder road for women and particularly women of colour.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
Using your network to understand the exam question is the best place to start. Ask people you trust to explain, not just the answers, but why the questions are being asked.
If you can expand your network to access experienced people who know how to access help, support, grants, funding, skills or whatever you need for your business — being prepared will drive a better outcome for sure. This isn’t cheating the system — it’s just good preparation.
From a government perspective, whilst no one wants quotas for any diversity issue — 2% of seed funding going to women demands a quota and a need for change. It’s just nuts. Women need access to growth funds. If we want more unicorns developed by women, we have to give them a chance!
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder, but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Women make great founders, as do men. No one should be restricted in their ambitions by their gender.
As an investor in female founders through the Angel network Angel Academe, I find the women I have invested in to be hugely knowledgeable and coachable, ambitious and fiscally responsible, resilient and empathetic. They have everything they need to be a successful founder.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
The biggest myth for me is that it’s easy. Being a founder, especially in the early days, you have to be Jane of all trades and super resilient to get through the assault course of funding rounds. Whilst valuations and exits can be hugely rewarding — it’s a slog — no doubt, Resilience and hard work are really required to be successful.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
My biggest marker is coachability. No one is an expert in everything. You cannot be a product officer, CFO, head of sales, head of marketing, CEO and customer success executive. The most likely ‘restrictor’ of founders is their inability to see their gaps and lack of coachability. It can also be helpful to hire someone who knows more than they do in a subject.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
1. Work at your Network
Whatever choices you make in your career — corporate career, entrepreneur, academic — opportunities will appear faster if you work your network. A network must be worked to keep it alive. Invest time to get investment back.
2. Give to your network freely
You never know when you might need help and what help that might be. Give freely to your network, sowing the seeds for the days you’ll need them later.
3. Life isn’t a meritocracy
If people don’t know you, what you want and why you are perfect for that thing — you stand no hope of getting it. Tell people about your goals. Share your ‘why’. And then ask people to support you in your quest.
4. Create a Personal Board of Advisors
Don’t just collect advice from the people you have always taken advice from. Seek new opinions, help and guidance. We are three to four connections away from anyone these days — use these hops to make strategic connections who can help you achieve things faster.
5. Enjoy the journey
After the next goal — there will be another goal. Make sure you enjoy the journey to your goals.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Why have I written my book? Why do I want to help? The answers to those questions are simple. I have been both the receiver and the provider of help. While I am grateful for every leg-up I have been given, I get an enormous boost from being the person who helps too. I also feel fulfilled when I see people accomplishing what they have set out to achieve and reaching the goals they have set for themselves.
However, while I will take a call from anybody, there’s only one of me and so many hours in the day, and I realised I would be able to help more people by writing this book. In it, you will find the staple advice I have given over the years, which also helps others recognise what is possible.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
How many people consider themselves to be role models? Well, everyone should.
We all have help, advice and support we can offer to our networks. It’s not just the old or well tenured who can be role models.
I invite everyone I meet to think about how they can inspire another person. I’ve seen some amazing things happen with this idea.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I recently read Matthew Syed’s book, Rebel Ideas and was just enthralled with the Gareth Southgate story of how Gareth has transformed diversity of thinking in the England football team. This is a real example of how to bring in new ideas to accomplish a spectacular transformation.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.
