Deena Shakir, a partner at Lux Capital, writes for Forbes to explore how motherhood not only isn’t a hindrance to business acumen and professional productivity—it can promote and enhance the same qualities that help founders and businesses thrive. Shakir delves into the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote about not only balancing her professional and personal lives, but how they fed into and supported each other. “Motherhood” skills—qualities like resolve, navigating obstacles, prioritizing, and balance—all come into play when running a startup. With the pressures of the pandemic and the unequal impact of caregiving on male and female founders highlighting both the need for reform and areas for encouragement for women founders, this “playbook of skills from working mothers” helps support women as full players in the global economy.
By Deena Shakir
When I delivered a term sheet on behalf of Lux Capital last fall to Jasmin Hume, Founder and CEO of Shiru, she was just a few weeks shy of her own important delivery: a baby girl.
As a solo scientific founder fundraising for a seed round at eight months pregnant, she boldly repudiated naysayers. While a number of female founders have documented some of the countless challenges encountered when venture fundraising while pregnant, Dr. Hume’s impending labor instilled in me even more optimism in the prospects of her startup. Her intellect and business acumen were impressive, but I knew that motherhood would amplify her ability to be an effective CEO; she proved me right.
Whereas many of us may have prided ourselves on our work ethic, efficiency and productivity prior to having children, motherhood exponentially expands those capacities to a level heretofore inconceivable. In her “Advice for Living” in The New York Times in 2016, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg attributes her success in law school—where she was one of nine women in a class of 500—to her baby, Jane: “I attended classes and studied diligently until 4 in the afternoon; the next hours were Jane’s time, spent at the park, playing silly games or singing funny songs… After Jane’s bedtime, I returned to the law books with renewed will. Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.”
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Image: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, via Newsweek.com
