Charles Mudd will spend an hour on June 11, 2012 at 3:00pm Central chatting with Elizabeth Dell about the Kickstarter documentary film project She Means Business.
Elizabeth “most recently produced B-GIRL, a narrative feature film about a female breakdancer, which was distributed worldwide and is currently featured on SHOWTIME. She has produced numerous award-winning short films with her director/writer partner (and sister) Emily Dell. Prior to focusing on film producing, she was involved in marketing and consulting around improving health care quality. Elizabeth has an extensive background in science and healthcare with an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Amherst College and a Masters degree in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley.” Elizabeth is the Producer of She Means Business.
In November 2011, Elizabeth met Jacqueline Baptist.
Jacqueline “is an entrepreneur originally from Malaysia who migrated to the United States in late 1980’s. Prior to starting her own business, Jackie worked in the high tech industry for the last eight years focusing on finance and marketing. She began her career in International Banking at the World Bank and has had the privilege to work extensively in the Middle East, East Asia, the Pacific Islands and Europe. The first project she worked on for the World Bank was a project to help young girls in Yemen gain access to education; hence women related issues are near and dear to her heart. She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.” Jacqueline is the Executive Producer of She Means Business.
As the website for She Means Business explains, Elizabeth and Jackie “met as part of Microsoft’s Your Office Your Terms campaign focused on reaching out to women entrepreneurs.” “Jackie was the project manager of the campaign and had the opportunity to travel across the country with Microsoft listening to women entrepreneurs tell their stories.” As she became more involved with this community, she approached Elizabeth about making a documentary about women entrepreneurs.
Since then, She Means Business has obtained over 30 sponsors; more than 12,000 twitter followers; and three significant media sponsors.
With the documentary, Elizabeth, Jackie and She Means Business intends to “show true, honest portrayals of womens’ journeys . . . focus[ing] primarily on three to four young female-driven businesses, following their successes, failures, struggles, concerns, disasters, and miracles. Through the lens of these specific individuals and experiences, with input from policymakers, investors, academics, and more, the documentary will explore key triumphs as well as issues that women entrepreneurs face.”
Recently, She Means Business launched a Kickstarter project and has nearly reached 10% of its goal.
With relatively small numbers of women venturing into technology and computer science, as our guest Theresa Steinbach explained, and the existence of what has been termed the “venture capital glass ceiling,” it becomes imperative to learn about the experiences of women entrepreneurs. She Means Business represents a bold project to give insightful portrayals of women entrepreneurs and their experience.
She Means Business can be followed @SheMeansBusiness on Twitter.
