Power Women: Iman Oubou of SWAAY Media On How To Successfully Navigate Work, Love and Life As A Powerful Woman

An Interview With Ming Zhao

… I want to speak on the one most important thing you need to thrive as a powerful woman, especially in today’s ecosystem; and that’s self-awareness. Poor self-awareness is the reason many of us adopt strategies and make decisions that often hold us back from living a meaningful and successful life. What does it mean to be self-aware? It’s to put in the self-work needed to objectively evaluate your values, emotions, perceptions, strengths, and weaknesses so you can live your life with a sense of authenticity, and assurance.

How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.

As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Iman Oubou.

Iman Oubou is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, published scientist and a former beauty queen. She is the founder and CEO of SWAAY Media, a publishing and thought leadership platform elevating underrepresented voices. Iman is also the author of the forthcoming book “The Glass Ledge: How to Breakthrough Self-Sabotage, Embrace Your Power, and Create Your Success’.

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 childhood “backstory”?

I was born and raised in Morocco until the age of 15 — when my family decided to move to Colorado in the pursuit of the American Dream. At that point I had never really visited the U.S nor spoken English, so as you can imagine it was a pretty tough transition for me, especially as a teenager who had to make peace with leaving life as I knew it behind and moving into a country where I felt like I didn’t belong. It wasn’t long after that move that, at fifteen, I began struggling with depression. I’d been forced to adapt to a new lifestyle. A new culture, a new language, and even a new way of learning. Along with depression in high school, I developed insecurities around my self-image, shame for not speaking perfect English, which instilled what I call the immigrant mentality in my work ethic: work twice as hard to stand out in a worthy and positive light.

I finished high school and received a college scholarship to study bio- chemistry and molecular biology. I hoped to fulfill my childhood dream of curing cancer. (Spoiler Alert: I did not end up curing cancer!) After college, I was selected from seven hundred applicants to intern for one of Munich’s best emerging biotech startups. is was a stepping-stone to an exciting career as a cancer research scientist before I embarked on a completely different path: entrepreneurship.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

After being told early on in my business career that a female voice sometimes does not penetrate the credibility rank like a male voice does; I made it my personal and professional mission to sway that narrative by not only encouraging more women to speak their truths and own their stories, but also creating a safe space and equipping them with the right guidance and mentorship to elevate their voices and amplify their credibility. This is why I created SWAAY: A self-publishing and thought leadership platform that not only provides underrepresented voices with an outlet to share their voices, but also provides them with the editorial and writing support many creators need to continue growing into the thought leaders of tomorrow.

I have taken many turns in my life and my career to get to where I am but ultimately my experiences in STEM, Business and Pageantry provided an extremely important stepping stone in finding my purpose and pursuing my mission of democratizing publishing.

In creating SWAAY, I discovered a lot about the pathway to success through my own struggles. We’ve all heard of the “glass ceiling.” Yet even for those of us who break through the barriers to success, there’s another, bigger danger I personally experience: internalized oppression or as I like to call it,, the glass ledge, which led me to write and publish my first book this year, called The Glass Ledge: How to Breakthrough Self-Sabotage, Embrace Your Power, And Create Your Success. Unlike the act of shattering through glass ceilings, my mission has been to equip women with the tools and information needed to master the balancing act of standing firmly on the glass ledge or gently stepping off it entirely — but what does this mean? My goal with this book is to provide women with the tools to not only ask themselves the difficult, yet necessary, questions in order to call to the surface their self-limiting belief system, but also to regain control of their internal narratives rather than allowing preconceived societal expectations to define their limits.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

While I was claiming my place as a research scientist in the male- dominated health-care sector, my mother was encouraging me to “get more in touch with my feminine side.” So she signed me up for a beauty pageant. I never had imagined myself embarking on that kind of journey, especially not while I was trying to make my mark in STEM. Also I have always been terrified of being on stage, of public speaking, and frankly, I couldn’t handle the thought of putting myself out there for others to deliberately judge.

But as my mom insisted, I agreed to give it a try. To my surprise, I not only fell in love with pageants but also became obsessed with the preparation process. I think it’s because I shifted my focus to the self-development lessons that were there for the taking: poise, communication, confidence, resilience, strength, and courage. To top it off, the unexpectedly supportive pageant community introduced me to a new world in which women encouraged one another to become their best selves.

After several attempts at the Miss Colorado USA pageant, making it as far as a first runner-up, I moved to New York and won the title of Miss New York United States in 2015 on my first attempt. I then went on to place second runner-up at Miss United States 2015 and to serve on the first all-women panel of judges at the 2018 Miss Universe competition in Thailand. I have since judged multiple other state and national pageants, including Miss Teen USA in 2020 and Miss Earth USA in 2022.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Resilience — At any moment, especially when I was struggling to raise capital for my company, I could have chosen to adopt a victim mindset. But I instead chose to be empowered by my challenges and rise because of it.

Confidence- Facing rejection over and over again is bound to happen especially when you’re running a business and challenging the status quo. But being able to walk into a boardroom and continue to pitch, present, and inspire others to see your million- dollar vision is something that has to come from within. Operating from a place of confidence in not only myself but in my mission was a key element.

Self-Awareness- I could’ve ended my “story of success” with SWAAY. But in that journey I was able to take a good look at myself and be okay with changing the way I do things and the way I view certain concepts in order to truly succeed the way I always envisioned. Self-improvement can be difficult but it can be the missing piece to anyone’s success and even happiness.

In my book, The Glass Ledge, I go deeper into the 10 themes many women need to master to create their successes.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. The premise of this series assumes that our society still feels uncomfortable with strong women. Why do you think this is so?

Since this is a series called power women, I am going to take the road less traveled here and say that many of us women still don’t know how to feel about our own power. We want to be equal to men. But when we are granted a bigger challenge, a high-level position, or a prestigious accolade, thanks to pesky norms it sits on us like a tight, itchy shirt, and we may unconsciously take steps to sabotage ourselves. Although women’s oppression is nothing new, we are our own worst enemy when we insist on our own powerlessness.

And I am not the only one to think so. I had a wonderful conversation with my friend Eboni K. Williams, who’s one of the most accomplished powerful women out there, being an attorney, an author, and a member of the Real Housewives of NY cast. She told me “The truth is that a lot of women are still uncomfortable with power. Despite movement and progress, and despite that it’s now cool to say we have power, when I have quiet conversations with other women, when I pull back the layers, there is conflict around notions of femininity and power. Power is equated with masculinity. Work is being done to eradicate the correlation, but it’s still there.”

It’s self-protective to become part of an outraged culture that blames our individual situations on societal injustices. We women need to hold ourselves accountable to succeed despite systemic oppression. We have to stop waiting for permission and for other people to be comfortable.

What should a powerful woman do in a context where she feels that people are uneasy around her?

This is a nuanced question and it really depends on the context. It’s important to remember that It’s not the woman’s fault or responsibility to censor herself so others feel less intimidated and comfortable. The issue lays within those people’s insecurities and I would highly encourage them to dive into a deeper state of reflection to understand ‘why’ they feel uneasy around a strong and powerful woman. Maybe their biases and insecurities need to be checked and they need to realize they have some growth to do. Now from the woman’s perspective, if she’s in a leadership position (in the context of the workplace), she can also play her part as a leader and facilitate conversations with those around her who seem intimidated or uncomfortable. These conversations can serve as an opportunity for her to show some vulnerability and find ways to deeper connect with people in her team to help them relate to her more. I also want to suggest that true power can be held in balance with vulnerability. Most women we admire and respect today — like Malala Yousafzai, Roxane Gay, Simone Biles, and Jacinda Ardern, to name a few — demonstrated power and drew people in by embracing vulnerability. I hope you’ll keep in mind that vulnerability can be powerful too!

What do we need to do as a society to change the unease around powerful women?

If the last decades have been about women naming their rights, the next ones must be about amassing enough power to claim them. Societies need to shift the expectations and attitudes that undergird the resistance to women’s power. These include stereotypes about women’s motives when seeking power, preconceived ideas pegging women as caregivers, and the tolerance of sexual harassment — both a cause and a result of a power imbalance.

In my own experience, I have observed that often women have to endure ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve success that men don’t have to endure. Do you have a story like this from your own experience? Can you share it with us?

When I set out to start my own business, I was mocked and told I was ‘too pretty’ to be a CEO. Unfortunate, but true — I was constantly told that rather than building a company I should instead “use my face” to endorse products or become a beauty influencer. I was constantly undermined and ridiculed. I was described as “just another beauty queen with a PowerPoint and a dream”. Even marketing agencies told me that rather than spending time branding my company, I should focus on branding myself, because people “like seeing pretty girls.”

One particular memory stands out. I was pursuing a prominent venture capitalist for a few months before he finally agreed to meet me for coffee. I had learned about the many great investments he’d made in businesses founded by women and knew of his public support for our community of female founders, so I was psyched for our conversation. At first, our conversation was going smoothly. He asked the right questions and was optimistic about my mission to champion women’s voices through story- telling. But then he addressed my history with beauty pageants, which he found interesting. Shortly after ordering our second cup of coffee, he said:

“I don’t know if you realize that starting a business is hard. Really hard. You would probably make more money quicker if you got involved with beauty brands to inspire women. You know, use your pretty face. It would be such a shame to waste that.”

These experiences have been truly shocking. How could I slip into such preconceived societal expectations? How much of myself must I change or censor to be taken seriously?

While at first, I internalized a lot of these interactions which turned into a toxic and self-sabotaging internal dialogue; I then realized these comments came people’s unconscious bias and it has nothing to do with my own competence or capabilities.

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

While these experiences I described above are deplorable, they don’t compare to the economic burden placed on women: the persistent and widening pay gap, the lack of gender-neutral policies to normalize diverse caregiving roles, the limited access to funding and resources, the fact that choosing to have a family can be of value to men but detrimental to women, and the fact that existing power dynamics normalize sexual harassment and abuse. To be clear, being paid a lower salary isn’t the same as feeling insecure in an outdated pantsuit, but both experiences stem from a power structure that is driven by gender stereotypes that keep men on top.

Let’s now shift our discussion to a slightly different direction. This is a question that nearly everyone with a job has to contend with. Was it difficult to fit your personal and family life into your business and career? For the benefit of our readers, can you articulate precisely what the struggle was?

When the COVID pandemic hit, it forced some of us to slow down and consider how we are living our lives. e constant running around with unnecessary commitments and commutes came to an abrupt halt.

During that time, I decided to commit to less doing and more being. With that new perspective and mindset, I started shifting my attention and focus to the other parts of my life I had neglected in the name of “hard work.” When I turned thirty-one, I consulted a fertility specialist to understand my options. I had my egg count tested and planned for freezing procedures, should they be necessary. I’ve been nervous throughout these processes. Although I may still not be at a point where I can balance work and family, it has been refreshing and helpful to talk so openly about the topic. e traditional silence around it leads many high-achieving women to feel they have to choose between a long-lasting career or children. e discussions have allowed me to clarify my intention, which is to prioritize building my own family regardless of my professional commitments. We each have a finite number of resources to play with. So it’s helpful to figure out how to direct your energy so that the various elements work together in the best possible way. I’ve learned to accept that balance doesn’t really exist and perhaps the appropriate phrase is not “work- life balance” but “work-life integration.” In addition to our careers, there are other areas of life we must attend to, including our health, rest, family, community, and joy. The exact definition of healthy integration depends on the person, but one thing is constant: we need to be continually monitoring the input and output in these areas to assess how well integration is working.

I work in the beauty tech industry, so I am very interested to hear your philosophy or perspective about beauty. In your role as a powerful woman and leader, how much of an emphasis do you place on your appearance? Do you see beauty as something that is superficial, or is it something that has inherent value for a leader in a public context? Can you explain what you mean?

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that if we women want to be self-sufficient and accomplished, we must care about how we present ourselves. And there shouldn’t be any shame or guilt associated with admitting that we want to look and feel good. To be clear, I am not advocating that women pursue plastic surgeries or extreme diets, try to look like other women they deem attractive, or keep up with unrealistic and unhealthy beauty standards. I am also not suggesting that we seek to dress in luxury brands or keep up with fashion trends we can’t a ord. I am simply saying we shouldn’t be afraid to present an authentic image that represents how we want the world to see us. Pageantry taught me that just as we work to develop our professional and technical skills, the visual image we present is also part of our personal brand. Every now and then I stop and ask myself, Is the leader I want to become properly represented in how I show up every day?

One of my favorite role models and journalists, Jessica Bennett said it best: “In this economy, looking good isn’t just vanity, it’s economic survival. Trying to look good because we know it helps us out professionally shouldn’t necessarily be shunned, nor should we be plagued by personal guilt.”

How is this similar or different for men?

We talk a lot about the wage gap but there is another gap for women workers that involves the silent expectation around their appearance — the grooming gap. If you purchase the right clothes, makeup, and haircut, higher wages are more within reach unfortunately. But as we have learned from countless recent campaigns pertaining the ‘pink tax’ grooming costs for women can be extremely expensive, and the grooming gap also results in the loss of 55 minutes each day for the average woman; which can put many of us at a disadvantage.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Powerful Woman?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

Instead of five, I want to speak on the one most important thing you need to thrive as a powerful woman, especially in today’s ecosystem; and that’s self-awareness. Poor self-awareness is the reason many of us adopt strategies and make decisions that often hold us back from living a meaningful and successful life. What does it mean to be self-aware? It’s to put in the self-work needed to objectively evaluate your values, emotions, perceptions, strengths, and weaknesses so you can live your life with a sense of authenticity, and assurance.

As an example, when I first felt passion about the fight for women’s voices and equality, I immediately defaulted as a frustrated and rebellious type of advocate. Because that’s how I truly felt. I thought those emotions would be more effective in driving change, but I learned that an incendiary approach immediately shuts down the conversation. I then worked on channeling my anger into the motivation to educate while also building my influence in this space.

Self-awareness has also provided me with a better sense of accountability which is a very crucial trait for successful leaders. When I originally told the story of my run-ins with the patriarchy to the media, I did so from a place of external blame. It was clear to me that I should have been treated differently and that it was wrong and unfair for my prospective investors to see me as less than. But I also failed to take accountability for underestimating the power of my own worth. If I didn’t see what I was bringing to the table, why should they? Accountability is the obligation to explain, justify, and take responsibility for our beliefs and actions, and if we don’t do this, no one else can take up the mantle for us. It was up to me to speak my truth and press for my value, but every time I was presented with a chance to do so, I fell o the ledge (so to speak!)

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.

At the moment I am truly fascinated by what Melanie Perkins was able to build with her company, Canva and the success she has created for herself as a humble yet powerful woman. Although I have listened to every podcast interview she has done and read every article about her business approach, I can only imagine how sitting down with her would be a life-changing moment for me.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.