#WomenFounders: In Conversation With Sheena Lindahl

Successful entrepreneur, speaker and author, Sheena Lindahl, co-founder and CEO of Empact, an organization facilitating a culture of entrepreneurship in communities across the world through exposure, celebration and early stage startup support, travelled for one week to Luxembourg on behalf of the United States Embassy to Luxembourg. She delivered a great speech during the first edition of the Women Founders conference and is sharing a few more pieces of advice in this interview.
What is Empact?

Empact’s programs and services focus on facilitating a culture of entrepreneurship in communities around the world through exposure and celebration.

What services do you offer?

Empact celebrates the many faces of young entrepreneurs through its Empact Showcase & Empact100 List and spreads the stories of those entrepreneurs as part of the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour and as independent keynote speakers across the world.

What are your pieces of advice for women who would like to start their own projects/startups?

If you are curious about something; explore it. Learn from the examples around you, but don’t feel pressure to follow a particular path because there are so many paths to success. Don’t get caught up worrying that you are behind, that you aren’t qualified or that you are not enough. No one has the exact same experiences and insights that you have so only you can execute your idea the way you are envisioning.

To you, what does it require compare to men?

It’s always important to make sure you have created your own definition of success and build your idea towards that rather than towards how society or someone else defines success. At the end of the day, only you can evaluate how to build the business that is right for you. If you’ve built your business towards someone else’s definition of success, you will be less likely to succeed and if you do, you may be described as successful but inwardly you will be miserable.

How could we have more women founders and even more women members of boards of companies?

By spreading the stories of the women who are founding and joining boards. The social nature of people means that we are deeply impacted by the examples available to us. The more young women are exposed to role models who are doing these things, the more likely they will be to take an entrepreneurial path themselves. Additionally, more events like the Women Founders event and networking events like that where women can meet other ambitious and entrepreneurially curious women will continue to have an impact. Being an entrepreneur means being willing to take a risk. It is a lot easier to do that when you know you’re not the only one.

3 words to describe your second stay in Luxembourg?

Feeling the momentum!

(Image Credit: Marion Dessard)

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