What are your plans at Spirit Animal Coffee to support empowering women in the coffee industry?
Great question. And in fact, we are practicing what we preach.
Well, for one, a spoiler alert:
We are just on the verge of starting to source new coffee varieties from a few of the women-only fincas. With our international exposure and direct access to final customers, we’ll help get their amazing coffee the visibility they deserve. And better margins, of course.
Spirit Animal’s business model is a harbinger of what business-as-usual will look like in a few decades.
Teaching young people the nuts and bolts of running an international e-commerce platform is a top priority for our company.
A second initiative revolves around our future generation.
We are developing an apprenticeship agreement with Honduran universities. Working at Spirit Animal will help students learn about inward-oriented jobs, like coffee sourcing. But perhaps more importantly, it will teach them what it means to run an international direct-to-consumer platform.
Our business model is a harbinger of what business-as-usual will be like in a few decades. So learning the nuts and bolts of international logistics, digital marketing, e-commerce, social media, and brand management is a must-have skill set for our future generations.
Finishing off on a personal note: your female role models?
There are two women I aspire to. One is Michelle Obama. The impact she made with her projects around children’s nutrition deserves that much praise precisely because it isn’t easy to carve out your voice when you’re the wife of a world superpower’s president.
The second, most important, is my mother. She inspired me in ways she can’t even imagine. Getting her education in those years, in a predominantly male-oriented field on top of that; building a career, all the while being a caring mother and wife… I am left speechless every time I think of her journey. She’s a true role model because she is proof that when women are given the chance, we don’t have to choose. We can excel both at our work and at being mothers. A successful woman and a good mother are not mutually exclusive terms. And there’s power in knowing that.