Ceylan Boyce, a remarkable woman, founded the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs and was a Women In Business Network (WIBN) franchisee. She also hosted the She is Awesome Podcast. Besides her professional achievements, Ceylan was a mother, a kick-arse business strategist, a growth coach, and a fierce advocate for gender equality. She cherished her multicultural, multilingual background, as it shaped her belief in the importance of equality and diversity.
Below are highlights of the interview conducted between World’s Leaders and Ceylan Boyce:
Describe your background and what did you do before you started/joined the company?
Born and raised in Turkey by an entrepreneurial family, (no one had a 9-to-5 job in my family), I left my birth country at the age of 17 and lived in the USA, France, and the UK. I studied at the Sorbonne, and after my university career, I started my career in pharmaceutical advertising. I moved to London 12 years ago to take a leadership role in a big healthcare advertising agency, and quickly I decided to make my dreams happen. I opened my first business and operated as a consultant for pharma and healthcare. It was a great success story and grew very quickly. However, the industry standards, people I was working with made me understand that I had fallen out of love with the industry, and I decided to exit my company. I found a pretty ingenious way of doing that and sold my clients to other small agencies. By 2016, I was married, pregnant, with no job, no plans, and no income. It took a lot of effort and soul searching to find my calling.” I don’t like that word. Maybe I should say, the thing that I would do passionately, day in and day out, despite all the difficulties.
Long story short, I graduated from the Cambridge University Coaching Program and gave birth to my daughter four days later.
For a few years I coached business owners without really stepping into proper business ownership, but during that time something interesting happened, which is the answer of the next question.
Tell us about the inception of the company. How did it all start?
In 2019, I was invited by the EU commission to attend a networking event and help them lead some workshops to assess women’s entrepreneurship status in Europe. That research and being with women from many different nations made me understand that there was a big need and that I had the skills, knowledge, and passion to bring a true solution to women entrepreneurs.
I remember going to that event, I quickly put up a holding page under the name of the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs and printed business cards. I think AWE has not even been incorporated yet.
I incorporated AWE right after
After that event, I advised the EU Commission on several projects, and the finding of one big project led by WeGate EU was that women entrepreneurs have four barriers in front of them.
- Lack of funding
- Lack of business acumen
- Lack of role models
- Lack of netwok
I decided that I was going to build a platform to solve these barriers for women microbusiness owners! Which we are doing.
What has made you successful? What do you value?
A lot of things are combined, but there are three major things that we preach, and that’s what we have applied to our company.
- Plan: This is the core of everything we do. As Churchill said, “Plans are nothing, but planning is everything.” The process of Planning and doing it regularly helps you be strategic, make informed decisions, keep your mind and goals clear, and stay focused.
- Connect: It’s a bit cliché, but your network is definitely your network. Who you know and who knows you is the missing puzzle. Working hard behind your computer is just effort for effort, connecting with key stakeholders and building your tribe is the biggest work you can do. I always say to our members, “Network your butt off!”
- Grow: Growth is a mindset, and it is hard. There are many parts to it. Having a purpose, having drive, setting goals, building a team, establishing systems, managing money—you need to apply your growth mindset in every single area. I failed 10,000 times; I can’t even remember how many. I organized events and couldn’t sell one ticket, so I invited people (begged them) to join for free. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on things that didn’t work. but the trick is to be able to get up and do it again. And that is difficult when you are all alone. That’s why we have masterminds and different growth programs.
Which are the major services of the company and how do the company to get ahead in the competition? What value-added services does the company provide?
- Plan: We run planning workshops every quarter for a very small fee so that our members can work on their businesses strategically and regularly.
- Connect: we run monthly networking meetings and odd big events.
- Grow: We have several coaching programs with 1-2-1 or group versions.
We have a very new service that we are piloting soon. I cannot tell much about this, but the idea is to bring women experts and solopreneurs and microbusiness owners in front of big corporations. If you find one company out there that provides such a 360-degree service for women business owners, I would eat my glasses. We are the home of female entrepreneurship.
What are the most important aspects of a company’s culture? What principles do you believe in and how do you build this culture?
Big question, I’ll try my best to answer in a few lines:
Company culture is the cement of the company. It’s ultimately why people come together to work. The most important thing about company culture is that
- It is communicated to everyone in the company.
- It is not top-to-bottom but it is dynamically built around common values.
- It is aligned with the company’s “reason d’etre” and objectives.
One main principle that I believe in is to hire for culture, not for skills. Of course, in some cases, you need to find the skill set to do the job – but ultimately, when you are in between 2 candidates with similar skill sets, prioritize culture.
Weirdly, in small companies, it also means guy feeling.
What is the significance of innovative ideas in the company?
I am not sure. I think innovation is more about your ability to adapt. There are companies where you don’t need to innovate your products, and it can seem “Same old, same old,” but they have to adapt their marketing, their people management, and I guess you need to be innovative to be able to adapt in such a changing world.
Give us your opinion on; do organizations rely heavily on individual heroics or team processes?
It depends on the culture. If you want to win, I think it has to be a balance. You need to cultivate individual differences and welcome individual diversities and ideas, but you also need to nurture the team culture to be able to choose and grow individual ideas.
What are your responsibilities as the Founder & CEO? What is the happiest part of your daily routine?
My main responsibility is to make great decisions with my time, resource allocation, team, money spent, and the next thing that we need to do. I also need to build the reputation of the company and my own authority in the market so that I can bring the company forward, faster.
I am a happy person in general, so I am happy from the moment I wake up, and my work fuels that.
What advice would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?
“You will make humongous mistakes… it’s okay. Own them, learn from them, and move forward.”
