Episode 240: Becoming Better Together: Focus on Female Founders with Andrea Sommer

Disruptive CEO Nation

Andrea Sommer has spread her wings worldwide and is helping female founders crack the code to business success. Hive Founders is a global network supporting female founders in launching, funding, and scaling their businesses. The focus is on providing access to capital and building robust businesses to increase funding success; and the results are amazing. They are moving the needle from averaging funding levels of 2% up to 70% in some instances, proving that the right coaching and knowledge network pays off.

As I always say, Andrea is someone to connect with and follow. Here is some of what we talked about:

-Origins of Hive Founders: The initiative began as a collaborative support group when Andrea and a colleague, struggling with fundraising, realized the lack of representation for women in pitch events. This led to the creation of a network that has since grown to 2000 members globally.

-The Investment Playbook: Hive Founders emphasizes building robust businesses through deep analysis and problem-solving. They support and teach women the fundraising process successfully, tailored to their needs and experiences.

-PR and Personal Brand Management: Fundraising is compared to a performance where founders need to effectively communicate their vision. Andrea stresses the importance of founders being comfortable in the spotlight and authentic in their presentation.

-Diversity of Founders: Hive Founders attracts founders from various industries, promoting diversity of perspectives and ideas. They believe good ideas can come from anywhere and encourage a generalist approach to entrepreneurship.

-Trends and Sustainability: Andrea discusses the growing importance of sustainability in business performance, driven by legislative changes and investor interest. Businesses are focusing on sustainability as a performance improvement strategy.

-Personal Approach and Advice: Andrea shares her personal approach to balancing work, family, and hobbies, emphasizing the importance of making the world better for future generations. She also advises embracing discomfort and viewing anxiety as excitement to seize new opportunities.

Andrea is an entrepreneur, advisor, investor and strategist with global expertise in investment strategy, emerging technology, innovation, and strategic growth initiatives. She’s built four businesses in the technology space, including in analytics & event technology, femtech & wearables and HRtech.

Before her entrepreneurial career, Andrea was Director of Strategic Initiatives Europe at Avanade, a joint venture between Accenture & Microsoft where she focused on growth and optimization projects and M&A. She also consulted for other technology brands including Microsoft in the US, South America and Europe.

Connect with Andrea:

Website: https://www.hivefounders.net/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrealsommer/

Connect with Allison:

Feedspot has named Disruptive CEO Nation as one of the Top 25 CEO Podcasts on the web and it is ranked the number 10 CEO podcast to listen to in 2024! https://podcasts.feedspot.com/ceo_podcasts/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/

Website: https://www.disruptiveceonation.com/

Twitter: @DisruptiveCEO

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