Feminist Founders: Building Profitable People-First Businesses - Creating Inclusive Cultures with Faith Clarke

Creating Inclusive Cultures with Faith Clarke

Explicit content warning

02/14/24 • 67 min

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Feminist Founders: Building Profitable People-First Businesses

NOTE: Feminist Founders is a listener-funded podcast. To support the mission (and to receive bonus content from this episode), sign up for a Substack subscription at https://feministfounders.substack.com/

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Organizational health and teamwork specialist Faith Clarke (she/her), is committed to helping business leaders cultivate a values-infused, inclusive culture where people feel like they belong, so that they can deliver on their business and social impact promises. Faith is particularly passionate about inclusion for BIPOC and neurodistinct individuals, grounded in her experience as a Caribbean immigrant and as a mother of neurodistinct humans.

Faith’s background in computer engineering, doctoral research and numerous experiences with organizations that care about their social impact curate a high-touch, systematic approach to building strong teams, which has helped her clients improve operations, maximize productivity and double their revenue. Faith is a published researcher, author of the Amazon bestseller, “Parenting like a Ninja,” and host of the Peak Performing Team podcast. She has contributed widely to publications and online shows in the US and UK, and delivers workshops and lectures in a variety of academic and professional settings.

Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Discussed in this episode:

Faith’s relationship with feminism
The differences in racial dynamics in Jamaica vs. the US
Why we must widen the “Circle of Concern” vs. falling into the “us vs. them” trap
Why changing individual behaviors is only 20% of the solution
Watching for triggers and tending to your needs as an activist
Shame and burnout don’t do anything to change systemic problems
What decolonization means, and how it looks in the workplace
How workplace cultures form and how they can change through micro actions
Why top-up revolution works, but top-down leadership is more compassionate and effective
The role that compassion plays in Faith’s decolonization work
How to maintain compassion in challenging conversations
The role of self-care and community support for folks engaged in social change
Faith’s self-care practices
How Faith is challenging capitalist norms in her business

Resources mentioned:

“Parenting like a Ninja” by Faith Clarke
Peak Performing Team podcast
“Caste: The Origins of our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson
The Circle of Human Concern by John Powell from the Othering & Belonging Institute
Faith’s ‘Decolonize Work’ interview series
Jade Connolly Duggan
Kaiser’s Room in NYC

Learn more about accountability coaching with host Becky Mollenkamp at https://beckymollenkamp.com

A full transcript of this interview is available at FeministFoundersPodcast.com

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Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Discussed in this episode:

Faith’s relationship with feminism
The differences in racial dynamics in Jamaica vs. the US
Why we must widen the “Circle of Concern” vs. falling into the “us vs. them” trap
Why changing individual behaviors is only 20% of the solution
Watching for triggers and tending to your needs as an activist
Shame and burnout don’t do anything to change systemic problems
What decolonization means, and how it looks in the workplace
How workplace cultures form and how they can change through micro actions
Why top-up revolution works, but top-down leadership is more compassionate and effective
The role that compassion plays in Faith’s decolonization work
How to maintain compassion in challenging conversations
The role of self-care and community support for folks engaged in social change
Faith’s self-care practices
How Faith is challenging capitalist norms in her business

Resources mentioned:

“Parenting like a Ninja” by Faith Clarke
Peak Performing Team podcast
“Caste: The Origins of our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson
The Circle of Human Concern by John Powell from the Othering & Belonging Institute
Faith’s ‘Decolonize Work’ interview series
Jade Connolly Duggan
Kaiser’s Room in NYC

Learn more about accountability coaching with host Becky Mollenkamp at https://beckymollenkamp.com

A full transcript of this interview is available at FeministFoundersPodcast.com

Previous Episode

Season 2 is coming Feb. 14th!

No more business as usual.

It’s time to do things differently, and make business a catalyst for creating a more equitable world. Feminist Founders podcast is returning for Season 2 on Feb. 14th, and you’re going to *love* what’s in store.

I’m your host, Becky Mollenkamp, and I’m bringing you interviews with business owners and thought leaders who are challenging white supremacist, capitalist patriarchal norms in business.

This season includes incredible leaders like Rebekah Borucki, the founder of Row House Publishing; Jenn Harper, the founder of Cheekbone Beauty; Elisa Camahort Page, founder of BlogHer; bestselling author Geraldine DeRuiter; Dacy Gillespie of Mindful Closet; Anna DeShawn of Queer News; immigration lawyer Bianca Jordan; and many more.

Feminist Founders will challenge your beliefs about how business “should” run, and inspire you to begin making changes—big and small—so your business can be an agent for good.

Next Episode

Advocating for Representation with Jenn Harper

NOTE: Feminist Founders is a listener-funded podcast. To support the mission (and to receive bonus content from this episode), subscribe at https://feministfounders.substack.com/

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Jenn Harper (she/her) is the Founder and CEO of Cheekbone Beauty Cosmetics, Inc.. Cheekbone Beauty is a digital direct-to-consumer brand helping Indigenous youth see themselves in a beauty brand while using the concept of Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) in the brand’s ethos and in developing products. Cheekbone Beauty’s mission is to help every Indigenous youth see and feel their enormous value in the world while creating sustainable cosmetics. Cheekbone Beauty is a B Corp Certified company committed to meeting and exceeding high standards of transparency, employee benefits, and charitable giving not only to staff but to supply chain practices.

During Cheekbone Beauty’s infancy, Jenn endured a heavy personal loss with the suicide of her brother B.J. This loss, though difficult, has remained a driving force behind the desire to see Cheekbone Beauty succeed with its mission, to empower Indigenous youth. In addition to Cheekbone’s mission, she strives to educate as many people as possible about the Residential School System, and the effects it has had on her family and friends through decades of generational trauma. She speaks regularly to university, college and high school students about social entrepreneurship, empathy and the history of her First Nations family.

Discussed in this episode:

How Jenn’s Indigenous roots inform her understanding and practice of feminism
Jenn’s journey away from and back to her Indigenous family
The power of representation for empowering others like you
The role residential schools played in her family’s history and in inspiring her
Why Jenn doesn’t believe in luck, and how sobriety helped her take a big chance on her business
How being naive about the industry was a benefit, and helped Cheekbone Beauty end up in JC Penney and Sephora
The moment that Jenn knew her work around representation was making a difference
How Jenn is integrating her Indigenous roots and commitment to visibility for her people into Cheekbone Beauty
The benefits of B Corp certification
Starting the business with $500, 3 products, and a Shopify website
Securing financing with a values-aligned funder to grow the company
Starting where you are, and growing with an eye toward the values you want to exemplify
What she’d change if she started her business over today
How Cheekbone Beauty is part of her brother’s legacy
The ways she honors her heritage in the names and ingredients of her products
The story behind the name of Cheekbone Beauty