"What is true beauty? What do women want?" asked Fradel Barber, CEO of World Financial Group (WFG), and one of the guest speakers at the True Beauty Conference at the Skyline Hotel on Saturday. Headed by Ogo Ekweozor-Holley, founder of the conference and multiple other businesses, such as OGO New York, the True Beauty conference acted as a think-tank of extremely successful professional women sharing professional-world wisdom and plotting the course of the future for career-oriented women all over. One of Barber's clever insights is that women should take the personal responsibility to inform themselves on EVERYTHING in the world of money and what women really want is protection, growth, safety, and tax advantage.
Businesswoman and fashion designer, Ogo Ekweozor-Holley started her fashion label three years ago and was inspired to create corporate beauty for women at affordable prices, something she learned the difficulty of while pursuing her law degree. Ekweozor-Holley believes it is important for women to "bring each other up", as women are being plagued by self-doubt. According to Ekweozor-Holley, women are 15-20% less likely to feel comfortable asking for a raise, despite deserving one. "Now, women are starting to know their power and exercise it, act on it," said Ekweozor-Holley. "Hopefully this understand will spread to women, all women, and they will know they deserved to be paid for what they're worth, not their sex."
The speakers at the conference had insightful points to make regarding how women should view the path to professional success. "if your dream scares the heck out of you, it's the right dream," said Yesenia Morillo-Gual, the first Latina operational risk manager at Citigroup and president and founder of Proud to Be Latina, LLC. Having self-funded a Bachelor's Degree, two Master's Degrees, and "soon-to-be-earned PhD.", Morillo-Gual has achieved success in such a way that would intimidate most, simply because it seems like a tremendous amount of effort. She said she did that because she was following her bliss, and that is what all women need to do to be successful and in a state of expanded happiness, dedicating at least twenty minutes away to their goal. Morillo-Gual shared the acronym B.L.I.S.S. as a reminder of how success and finding happiness should look like, "Build, Love, Invest, Stand and Store."
Kimberly Coleman, award-winning blogger and founder of MomInTheCity.com, made it clear how important establishing an online presence and branding yourself is in business. As a professional blogger, Coleman had quite a few jewels to share, and like Morillo-Gual, she gave the acronym T.R.U.E. to inform the audience, "Targeted Audience, Real Reflection, Unique Discussion, and Exceed Expectations." If you are a blogger, or promoting a business online, know who your audience is. You should have a picture in your mind of what your ideal client looks like, your client avatar. Your online message should reflect the real you and it should be unique to you. You should also go the extra mile regarding your online presence and promotion, and one way Coleman opened the audience to this is the idea of setting yourself up as a journalistic source for journalists and reporters to refer to in their stories.
The "Girl Talk Session" panel consisted of Toni Yuille Williams, exec at Brooklyn Savvy TV, Ogo Ekweozor-Holley, event founder and CEO of OGO New York, Joanne Melillo, President of Melillo International, and Aquila Leon-Soon, CEO of Advance Talent Solutions, and this group was matter-of-fact in terms of what constitutes the state of mind of a healthy businesswoman:
1. "Speak life, and call it into existence."
2. "EDUCATION"
3. "Get past the no's"
4. "Tap into your network"
5. "Budget"
6. "Learn to create a business plan and consistently revisit it"
7. "Power of Resiliency"
8. "Listen to the still, small voice, your intuition"
9. "Be willing to pay the price"
10. "Balance your spiritual nature with business and financial success, along with your family"
The first ever recipient of the True Beauty Legacy Award was Cheryl Wills, anchor of News 1 New York. Cheryl graciously accepted the recognition she received, and imparted to the attendees that it is important that women of color also take care of the men of color who have been given an unfair deal and not enough attention to their issues. She said she has had to give too many reports of a fifteen year old killing another fifteen year old or younger. "Where are their parents, their teachers, their classmates, their friends, anyone who noticed that these kids were on the wrong path?" Wills said with conviction.
Wills also told what turned into one of the most powerful stories of the day, the story of her great-great-grandfather who was a slave who fought in the civil war and her great-great-grandmother. Her grandfather fought bravely in the civil war and her grandmother had filed to receive his pension from the United States government after he died. However, slaves were not taught to read and write, and not given documentation. Wills' great-great-grandparents did not even know when they were born. However, Wills' grandmother asked her former owner to write in her Bible the names and date of birth of each her children. The government was attempting to block her attempts to acquire the pension that was rightfully hers by asking for documents they know she didn't have: a marriage certificate, birth certificates etc. However, when the government asked for documentation saying she had children with the soldier, she showed them her Bible. Cheryl's great-great grandmother fought for her husband's pension as a slave, and won. Wills shared this profound, ancestral story at the True Beauty conference to show the strength that runs through her veins as a proud, successful Black woman and the kind of strength that is in all women.
True Beauty conference sponsored by OGO New York represents the heart of successful women and the future of successful, goal-oriented women freely living their lives. Through fashion, through material acquisition, through relating and connecting other women, and through collectively looking at the world through an informed lens, these women and the women who are achieving measured levels of success are blazing a trail for the future.
