Analiza: Hi, I'm Analiza Quiroz Wolf, proud Asian American mama of two kiddos. I went from being a burned out mama to being a Boss Mama, being a boss at work, home, and play. I'm on a mission to help more women be Boss Mamas. If you want to thrive at work without sacrificing family or self care, you're in the right place. I'm launching my next cohort of women leaders starting in April. The online course is eight weeks and has helped achieving women get the balance, joy and fulfillment they deserve. Go to analizawolf.com/bossmamas to learn more. Now, let's get into today's show.

Everybody needs a passion. That’s what keeps life interesting. If you live without passion, you can go through life without leaving any footprints.” (Betty White) Do you know what your passion is? Today we are talking with Andrea Silbert, President of the Eos Foundation. Andrea has been a mentor of mine for over 18 years. I was drawn to her because of her mission to support women. When we met, she was the CEO of the Center for Women Enterprise and also the mama of 3 kids. Andrea went to Harvard for both undergrad and business school and had a career in banking, then moved to non-profit. To create change on the policy level, she ran for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. Today, she is the President of the Eos Foundation, where they are doing research on the power gap and glass ceiling that still exists today. Throughout the years, I’ve asked her a lot of advice - on how to choose career paths, how to lead as a woman, and most definitely how to balance work and life.

In Boss Mamas, we talk about the importance of leaning into your own power, believing in yourself, and not letting others hold you back. Andrea is a great example of finding her passion and going for it. She also shares the importance of finding the right partner and that both parties should have a fulfilling career outside of the home.

Andrea, I'd love to start just by talking about your childhood dreams. What did you hope to be when you were a young Andrea?

Andrea: Oh, I grew up I was so fortunate. So my mother and father were both physicians. And you'll be happy as someone who served your country, they were VA physicians. So civil service and service to the country was very important to us. But medicine was also extremely important. And we there were four kids and two boys and two girls, it was an incredibly utilitarian upbringing. So my mother and my father, both physicians for the VA, made the same salary because they're the same GS level. And then all four of us kids were good at math and science. So we were all expected to go into math and science were Jewish, and a lot culturally, you know, everybody, it's a joke, but it's based on something everybody wants their kids to be doctors, right. So my children, my parents really wanted all of us to become doctors. That's what I assumed I would do. My father was incredible. You know, my mom definitely did about 70% of the work at home. But my father was so proud, and she always supported his career. But he didn't have a cook. So if she had late night meetings, he'd ordered pizza, like he did his very best. She did her level best for that era. It was extraordinary. My father was just totally extraordinary. The way he helped my mom out and took responsibility for us and was her biggest fan. So that was a wonderful upbringing. And then I went off to Harvard College and found out my first semester that chemistry was not my thing. I did not want to be a doctor. And my parents were very devastated. So they said, Well, what about law school? I don't know. I don't know. And I got a summer job running a little business for an organization called Harvard student agencies, which was a student run business. It's actually quite, it was $2 million at the time, a whole bunch of little businesses like catering business and advertising business, and also the let's go travel book, which was a big part of the business. So I ran the theater agency, and I told my parents I wanted to go into business. And they said, That's not good. That's not a helping profession. We don't understand why you would want to do that. But eventually, they did support me. And I went after college, I went in 1986. It was sort of the first opening, really, Wall Street for women. You know, there were a few women who poked through before then. But there were quite a number of us and I went with a bunch of my friends. And we all worked at investment banks on Wall Street, and had been admitted to Harvard Business School out of college because I had worked so much at a Harvard student agency. So I had a deferral. And after my two year Analyst Program at Morgan Stanley, I thought, I'm not gonna go back to Wall Street. So I'm not sure if I want to get an MBA? Should I get a law degree? I don't know. I want to be in a helping profession, but I love business and finance. So I took another year off and I spent time in Costa Rica, and I often joke that it was my midlife crisis, like, Oh, I'm 24 years old. I don't know what I want to do with my life. So I threw on a backpack and I moved down there and I found a job working for a business school down there writing case studies about history and industries. And I am a linguist. I love languages. And that was just so important and fun for me. So those were the early days.

Analiza: Oh my gosh, I love that Andrea, especially since you went from being a doctor to going and seeing your love of business and reading business case studies. So bring me to Costa Rica. So you're there. And you are doing the business case studies. What did you experience as this cool 25 year old or 20 year olds, midlife crisis? What did you realize then?

Andrea: Well, so for me, having come from a big family with very involved parents and siblings and cousins. I was frustrated all by myself, and I'm a very independent person. So I found an apartment. I got a buddy, used a car, I traveled around the country, sometimes alone. I was just very brave. I just did what I wanted to do. It was so neat. And it was really more about, you know, now all the college kids are a lot of them take a junior Semester Abroad back then it wasn't very easy to do when I was at Harvard College. And so that's what it was, for me. It was just such an eye opening experience, really about how so many people live in developing countries, you know, without all the great benefits that we had in the US. And I really wanted to continue to work in that area around international economic development.

Analiza: So that sets the path then and you went to Harvard maybe having written some case studies for liberals. Did you know then that you're going to work in some sort of developing or serving lower income families?

Andrea: I don’t know where it would all go, but I knew I wanted to follow my passion. I also am a very committed environmentalist. So I left Costa Rica, I came back and I did my first year at Harvard Business School. And then that first summer, I enrolled at the Kennedy School, so I did a three year degree. So I have two summers. And that first summer, I went and worked for the World Bank. I had a really cool assignment which was actually the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank. And I worked with the IFC, and they gave me a project, which was to send me back to Costa Rica, which I loved to evaluate an eco tourism project deep in the rainforest. And so I went into it, and I did this huge write up about this was a great investment. So this was in 1991, I guess, 1990-1991 ecotourism. Like, nobody knew what it was. And I said, this is a great investment, we should absolutely do it. And they didn't do it. How did they do it? You know, they're large bureaucracies. It really didn't meet their criteria. You know, they're big, big banks. And it was just a tiny little project. And then I became interested in biodiversity, because of that work. And then the next summer, I worked in the Brazilian rainforest, with a bunch of rubber tappers who were harvesting Brazil nuts. They had this factory, and the Brazil nuts can only grow in the rainforest, you can plant them and plant them, they get sick. And so that was way back when they were selling them to Ben and Jerry's for the ice cream. And then when I was in the Brazilian summer, I was in Brazil, what I realized is like, none of the women in this little town had any opportunities, they didn't have jobs, they didn't really have rights. And I just said, Oh, okay, I'm going to focus on the feminization of poverty. And that's what I've been at ever since I did some work also for a group of banks called women's world banking, that we're doing microloans to women entrepreneurs.

Analiza: I'm trying to map your career because I know you're a serial entrepreneur, and just seeing how you shift from these dreams as a child to then leaning into this Costa Rica, then the opportunity coming back again, to Costa Rica doing these environmental programs. How did you lean into that passion? Was it a deliberate search for this type of opportunity that you built a scorecard for? Or did you do it by feel? I'm just trying to figure out, how did the opportunities show up?

Andrea: Yeah, so I'd say I'm a social entrepreneur, right? And I am constantly reading and talking to people, like I talk to people everywhere, like in the supermarket line, I'm like, Oh, that's so interesting. And so I just put all these data points together, and I find an opportunity. And then I trust my sense of smell. And so after working with women's or banking, I said, Oh, this is what I'm meant to do. You know, I'm really meant to help women improve their own economic livelihoods. And this would even help biodiversity because women are just caretakers of the planet, right, and less likely to slash and burn in the rainforest. And all of that sort of thing. And the majority of the world's poor are women and children. So I sort of thought that was like the bubble up issue. So I think that was a moment of, yeah, this is it. This is what I want to do until I don't want to do it. You know, I'm staying really open, but that I've been at that now for many, many years, then I decided to do want to stay overseas in Brazil or somewhere else in Latin America, or did I want to work in the US and I really wanted to come back to the US. So I came back to Boston and decided I wasn't going to do international development work because you really shouldn't be in the country. I think if you're going to do that work, I started a nonprofit for women in Boston, called the Center for Women in enterprise to help them start and grow their own businesses. And that was like my first child. I mean, it still gives me such great joy that I was able to create that organization. And so many people have used the services served on the board donated. I mean, it's just 10s of 1000s of people that have been impacted by the organization. That's terrific.

Analiza: I know, that's one of the reasons Andrea, I really wanted to meet you not because of this business connection, but this social justice and wanting to empower people who already have greatness within them. So I'm curious, because this is something you've said to me before, which is, if I knew what I do now, I'm not sure I would go into all the work that's required to bring us into a moment when you had a tough time.

Andrea: Yeah, well, you know, you're constantly fundraising, which was fine. I said, you know, blowing up a nonprofit was like blowing up a life raft with your mouth, like you knew you could get all the air into it, which is gonna take a really long time, you'd be really tired. But I had a mindset that I was going to do this company, by hook or by crook, if I had no children at the time or wasn't married by sleeping on my parents living room couch. So be it that I just went into with that spirit, what was the most startling for me is that I started and I had a partner, a woman, I had met with a different skill set. And six months into it, she had a very different vision for the organization than I had, and she wasn't interested in working with low income women. And that was foundational to me. So we split. And then a lot of the board members also sort of had a different vision. And so that was the politics of it was the hardest thing I ever got through in the end, you know, my vision survived. And I rebuilt the organization, the governance of the organization. But yeah, you never would believe that somebody you know, like the Harvard Business School degree, who was working for peanuts, and my boards questioning me and basically tried to fire me.

Analiza: Wow. So it's pretty shocking. So when you split with this partner, who you are, you're going to birth this child together? And they say, well, actually, I want something different for the child. What was it like that this thing your birth people were going to take away from you, basically? How did you handle that?

Andrea: It's pretty much as much of a shock as if someone would take your child away. I mean, you fight with everything you have.

Analiza: I can't imagine, yet we have stuff. So you got through that?

Andrea: I rebuilt it. And what I learned is, when you're putting together a board of directors, you have to really trust each especially for startup, you have to really trust each person on that board, to really trust that they're there for the right reasons that they're not, their ego isn't coming first, and that, that they believe in the mission.

Analiza: You rebuild CWE and you run that organization. And I remember getting different articles about you and how successful it was. And I also remember that you decided to run for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, which for me, I was so impressed, because you've always been about service and to put you in the limelight, as a woman and the things that you stood for. I mean, what came over you I think it's amazing. But how did you have the strength to do such a hard thing.

Andrea: Well, so I've been in CWE, I loved it, we grew up quite a bit, we were pretty stable. And I was getting very involved in public policy at the national level, trying to get more resources for women entrepreneurs trying to help. These are women's business centers. They were all over the country trying to get women, business owners, more federal contracts, etc. And I realized that I was really more involved in the policy end, and CWE is direct service so that I should move on and do something else. I also had two children at that point. So I got married, and I had two kids. So when I left CWE in 2004, I had two children, and I was pregnant with my third. So I had three kids within four years of each other. And my now ex-husband had said, you know, if you want to have another child, it's important, you should take time off and I'll work. My husband was more at home than I was. And he said an hour, so I took some time off. But when I had my quiet retirement party from CWE, a lot of people said, oh, go run for office, you should run for office. Well, we'll work on your campaign. I said, I don't have a campaign and they said, we'll get a campaign but we're gonna get paid and one of them said start with Lieutenant Governor, you know, start running as the jobs candidate. That's because we helped create so many jobs through all these businesses. It's CWE. So I did, I ended up running while I was taking time off, which obviously was a huge commitment of time, and I won third place in my race. And back then back then, I think a woman with three young children, I think it was a really a big wall to climb for the public, the public to vote for me. I'm really curious to see what happens with the Bustan mayoral race. I don't know if you know about our race, but we have two women who are running both moms, one of them has very little kids. And so it's we've come you know, nobody's saying oh, she should be at home with her children. But people said that when I ran, oh, she should be at home with her children.

Analiza: That's amazing. We are coming or we're making some strides. I want to come back to you because you're supposed to be resting and you go out and take on an even bigger job, which is running and you're running in front of people, and there's lots of judgment. So can you talk about that? What did people say? I mean, how I'm sure there are some highs, but bring us to a moment when you may even be questioned because how hard it would be to have the courage to keep going.

Andrea: Yeah, I mean, again, it's sort of like, once again, like blowing up the life raft with your mouth, you you're calling all the time, you're raising money. And that gets discouraging after a while, but I did it. There were so many highs, because I had friends from all walks of my life, you know, Republicans, and I ran as a Democrat or Republican friends and other affiliates that we believe in you and they give you that money. And it was, it really was a great process. There wasn't any huge downside. I don't care what other people think of me. So we didn't have internet trolls back then that would have been hard actually, even for me, but when people were negative, I was like, that's about you. Not me.

Analiza: Have you always been like that, Andrea? That's not me. Yeah, I'm pretty thick skinned. Did that come from childhood where you were just born like that?

Andrea: My personality? I'm just sort of like, if you don't like me, not everybody's like me. I hope you'll respect me. But not everybody needs to like me to power scale.

Analiza: So what was it like then you came in third, which is amazing. But how did it feel after a huge run to not win?

Andrea: Well, I'd always wanted to give it a try. And it came in third place for someone who had never run before I had 22% of the votes, which is a lot. I wasn't just single digits. I raised a million dollars in very small donations. The average size was like $200. And I felt like I got like, an extra master's degree. I learned about education. I learned about transportation and housing. I just thought it was terrific. And I was so fortunate that day, after I won third place, that donors of the EOS Foundation, where I now work called and they said we're going to be adding to our foundation. Do you want to run this philanthropy, this family grant philanthropy for us? And that's what I did. So it worked out pretty well. I started to get the job that you would have gotten after you served in office, this would have been the after job. And then I'm super active still in politics, and I am co chair my Congressman's campaign. I'm super, super active. So I help other people.

Analiza: Did you ever consider Andrea to run again for something?

Andrea: Maybe, you know, now my kids are growing up? Who knows when I'll get grandchildren? I don't know, I would want to do that.

Analiza: So let's talk about family because I love the workpiece. But one of the things that drew me to you, Andrea, is I've always asked you about work-life balance, how do you have impact and also be a mom, and I know that you really value your three kids and spending time with them. One of the pieces of advice that I've taken from many years is that you talked about thinking about your partner. So I'd love for you to share with us. What does it mean to think about partnerships?

Andrea: Yeah, I honestly think my marriage didn't work out. My ex husband was supposed to be the at home parent, but it just didn't work out. And he wanted me to be more at home. But then when I said Okay, start working more he didn't. And it was just really complicated. There were all sorts of things that went on. So that didn't work too well. I would also recommend that nobody be 100% at home parent, because I think it's not very willing. I mean, maybe there are a few people who that is enough for them. But I'd recommend everybody have a foot in both, you will both work, paid work, and both work in the home. But probably the best examples. My dad was just, you know, he did his part for my mom. And that's the only way that they could raise four kids. I mean, my mom, when she had maternity leave back in the 60s and early 70s, she got like, two, three weeks off for one kid, four weeks, three weeks. And by the time she had my youngest brother, she had two weeks off and was back at work. So we need more support, of course, but it really is about who you marry, and hopefully picking somebody who is going to see it as a partnership. You know, not a competition, like the competition in my marriage. It was like, oh, it's your turn to pick up the kids after school. You don't want that you want a partnership where you're really saying, Okay, how do we balance this and make it fair? It's not just I did this time you do it next time kind of thing. So you have to really be on the same page.

Analiza: How do you think we can vet for that, Andrea? If you say, look, I met this really nice person. I think that they're the one, how would you say, what questions or what type of mental models could I use to test out whether this person really is about partnership?

Andrea: I think you just have to have a conversation about it. It would be helpful to know how their parents raised them. Did they have a working mom, I think kids who have working moms are probably more open to it. I know at Harvard Business School, like a lot of the men just assumed as soon as they would get married too many times to women who are Harvard Business School or very, they just assumed that the women were going to quit their jobs and raise kids. That was the assumption you're not planning to do that. You know, you really have to have that conversation very early on. I don't think they happen. It's not that they don't happen. But you know, it was just odd that so many people would go to Harvard Business School and then decide to just support their husbands careers, because some of these careers are very demanding. So we have a lot of work to do. It also, you know, isn't fair to men, they shouldn't have to work 24/7 to get ahead.

Analiza: It's interesting how that still hasn't changed. Even with my peers, I have a lot of peers who have just left the workforce, females and to support their husbands who have big long hour jobs. So it's helpful to hear that even at the onset of a relationship, what does a partnership look like where we could both have meaning outside the home? But how can we also have careers that are fulfilling what can look like? So I don't think that that necessarily is happening with ambitious couples. So that's great.

Andrea: Well, I've been talking to a bunch of people, recently, 20 Somethings and parents of 20 Somethings. So let's say oh, yeah, my son is moving. His wife got this great teaching opportunity in Beijing. And he's moving there. Like, imagine a man moving to Beijing to be with his wife. And that's pretty cool. So I've heard a bunch of stories of men moving to be with their girlfriend, let alone fiance. I think it's changing a bit. That makes me happy. But we still have to really work at it. I think it's how we train our boys to understand that just be fair, and it's fun. Be a dad, like go to the soccer games. These things are fun. It's a joy. You only get one crack at it.

Analiza: Let's end with lightning round questions. Ready?

Andrea: Hey, all right.

Analiza: Chocolate or vanilla?

Andrea: Chocolate.

Analiza: Cooking or takeout?

Andrea: Oh, cooking.

Analiza: Climb a mountain or jump from a plane?

Andrea: Climbing a mountain.

Analiza: Have you ever worn socks with sandals?

Andrea: Yes.

Analiza: How would you rate your karaoke skills on a scale of 10 to 10, 10 being Mariah Carey?

Andrea: Two

Analiza: What's a recent book you read?

Andrea: I recently read Hamlet, by Maggie O'Farrell, which was terrific.

Analiza: What's one of your favorite ways to practice self care, reading, and what's a good professional development that you've done?

Andrea: Reading, and I don't read and I don't read, self help books. I just read great literature and novels and things that just work get lost in a character because I also think that being a great manager or leader is just about understanding the human condition. And so I just get absorbed in literature and a novel biography. I enjoy biography, and history.

Analiza: Do you have one of those books that you particularly love that was helpful for leadership?

Andrea: I did really enjoy reading A Biography of Madeleine Albrigh.

Analiza: Great. What's your definition of a Boss Mama?

Andrea: Boss Mama is somebody who just owns her own power, both in the workplace and both at home and isn't afraid to laugh, isn't afraid to make mistakes, isn't afraid to apologize, but will really stand up for herself.

Analiza: What advice would you give your younger self?

Andrea: What would I tell my younger self, though the only regret really that I have is when I went to college I majored in economics. And I wish I had just majored in History or English or something that I was super excited about rather than tried to be practical.

Analiza: And then where can we find you like LinkedIn or?

Andrea: I'm on LinkedIn, and just Andrea Silbert on LinkedIn, Facebook, that's more personal stuff, LinkedIn, my professional stuff, I am on Twitter, but I don't tweet very much. Okay, and visit the women's power gap. That's all the work we're doing that we didn't even talk about the Youth Foundation, but we are the foundation of the philanthropy around. And the big piece of work that we're doing now around gender and racial equity is at the womenspowergap.org.

Analiza: Just give a quick two lines, Andrea about the findings your work is doing about that power gap for?

Andrea: Yeah, so what we're looking at it is different sectors of the economy where women and where people of color are in terms of getting to the very top of that glass ceiling, and what we're finding is that glass ceilings are still really there. So women will get to for instance, in higher education, women at the top universities in aggregate are 40% of provost, but there's still only 20% of presidents. And that's the pool, the provost pool, you know that that should be 40% 40%. So what's going on at that very last step? So that's what we work with. We do a lot of research and conversations around how do we break through that? How do we really talk about systemic bias, about the inability to have our society of our corporations and employers to see that this traditional, typically, white male leadership model is broken, I believe, and it's unsustainable. And I think we need much more diverse leaders who understand well, how do we get the women back into the workforce, and especially treating human resources as very scarce rather than as a commodity.

Analiza: Love that report. Alright, the last question is, do you have a final ask recommendation or any parting thoughts for the audience?

Andrea: I just think you need to own your power. I said that, like, just do your thing. Don't be afraid. But I will say you know, there's been a lot of discussion about Lean In or don't lean in biases real. It really is. You can't just quote lean in because there's data that does say, you know, sometimes women negotiate really hard for salary during a job interview, they don't get it. So you have to be smart. You have to know your audience, but you know, be the lead actor in your own life.

Analiza: Amazing. Thank you so much for our time, Andrea, I really appreciate you.

Andrea: Oh, and I really appreciate you.

Analiza: Thank you so much for carving out time today to hear today's podcast. Three things before you go. First, if you found it helpful, please leave a five star review. Second, please share it with someone else. You can share the link and post on Facebook and say check it out. Lastly, I want to thank you for being a listener and you can go to get a free self care bonus called Juice yuor Joy at analizawolf.com/freebonus. Thank you so much.