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Jeff Crilley welcomes back Linda Fisk, founder and CEO of LeadHership Global, for her second appearance on the show — five years after her first. Linda shares how her organization now connects over 10,000 women leaders across cities like Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Nairobi, New York, Dallas, and Vancouver, offering them strategic 12-month plans, mentorship, and community to break through revenue and opportunity ceilings....
Show Notes
Women own and operate businesses at record rates, yet they receive less than 2% of all available VC funding. Linda Fisk has spent a decade trying to change that math.
Linda is the founder and CEO of LeadHership Global, a community of over 10,000 women leaders spanning Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Nairobi, New York, Dallas, Vancouver, and beyond. She's a two-time TEDx speaker, six-time TV producer, international bestselling author, and a returning guest — her first appearance on the show was five years ago.
In this conversation, Linda and Jeff talk about the persistent funding gap for women-owned businesses, why blind funding systems dramatically improve outcomes for female entrepreneurs, and how LeadHership Global builds 12-month strategic plans around each member's individual definition of success.
Linda also introduces an integration with CurvUp, an AI-powered platform that bundles coaching, investor access, and fractional support into one ecosystem — think LinkedIn meets Upwork meets a VC pitch room.
Linda also introduces an integration with CurvUp, an AI-powered platform that bundles coaching, investor access, and fractional support into one ecosystem — think LinkedIn meets Upwork meets a VC pitch room.
Creators and Guests
What is The Jeff Crilley Show?
Jeff Crilley is a former news reporter, who spent more than 25 years in newsrooms across the country. He’s an Emmy Award winning journalist, who decided to make the jump from news in 2008, when he founded his own PR Firm, Real News Public Relations.
Today, the firm has more than 100 clients, and Jeff continues to tell the stories of interesting people he meets along the way.
These are those stories.
Coming up next on The Jeff Crilley Show, I'm a big fan of that model, lift as you climb, and somebody who shares that same vision is my next guest, Linda Fisk. She is the founder and CEO of Lead Hership Global. Next. Many are predicting that the worst is yet to come, which is unfortunate, said one person here. Until now, they've enjoyed the reputation of being the nation's icebox. Watched a burglar in his home this morning by webcam. As a journalist of over twenty five years, stories are what make my world turn. Reporting live from The Dallas Newsroom tonight, Jeff Crilley, Fox four news. But in 2008, I took the jump from my familiar life and started a PR firm from my home. We're talking about anyone with a camcorder like the one I'm using becomes television network. We started slowly growing the company, and we now have over a 100 clients. And we've branched into the world of live digital broadcasting. I now own eight different TV studios and have a huge team. And the stories that I now get to share are sometimes the most important of my life. Life has a funny way of coming around full circle. This is The Jeff Crilley Show. I'm so excited about this show because this is a reoccurring guest from five years ago. Linda Fisk, I have to get her moisturizer regime because she does not age, she looks exactly the way she did five years ago the last time she was on my show. She's the founder and CEO of Lead Her Ship Global. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you so much, Jeff. And, what high praise to begin with. You. I Okay. Appreciate I could read your bio, but it goes on for days. Among them, two time TEDx speaker, international best selling author, six times over TV producer, podcast host, keynote speaker, board advisor, I mean, you've done it all. Well, I've been very fortunate, let's say that. I've been given a lot of tremendous opportunities and tried to make use of the privileges that have been extended to me. Yes. Let's talk about Leadership Global because that's near and dear to your heart. It is. What is the organization about? So, Leadership Global is really an organization that is built to accelerate the success of women in positions of leadership all over the world. We have women in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Kenya, Africa Mumbai, India and right here in New York, New York Dallas, Texas Vancouver, Canada but the one uniting factor of all of these women is they have positions of leadership whether they are pursuing their own entrepreneurial journey or they serve in the c suite of a larger organization. So, I feel incredibly privileged, very honored to be in community with these 10,000 women in positions of leadership all over the world and my role is to simply give them the tools, the connections, the resources, the stages and the platforms that they need to accelerate their success. Let's talk about the challenges of being a female leader and every study I've ever seen says that female leaders are actually much more effective than a male leader, much better empathy, much better collaboration skills, but there is a little bit of a double standard as you know, where a male boss can be tough and he is seen as a strong boss, but if a female leader led the same way, she's not seen necessarily as the same person. Right, that's right. In fact, what we know from statistics, and this is research that has been validated again and again and again, over and over and over, year after year. Women are not seen at the same measure that their counterparts, male counterparts are in the boardroom, on stages, in media opportunities, even in VC funding. Women are a driving force of the economy and yet they're given less than 2% of the available VC funding to help capitalize their companies to help them grow and scale. And what we really want to do at Leadership Global is give women access to the opportunities, the privileges and benefits that are often afforded to men. We don't have anything against men. We love men. But we do know that women are given less than 2% of available VC funding. Less than 10% of all board advisor roles or board director roles are given to women. Less than 10% of all C suite positions are given to women in Fortune 500 companies and we see the same thing on stages. Less than 10% of all speakers are women. So, what we really want to do is help propel women into positions where they can be seen and heard. Amen. Let's go ahead and pull up your website and if you scroll down the website, tell us like an ideal client or member for your organization. What we find is that most women feel as though they've been able to achieve incredible success but they often feel at some point in their journey that they've hit a ceiling, whether that is a revenue ceiling or a ceiling in terms of opportunities being offered to them or privileges being extended to them. They feel as though they have hit some sort of plateau and it becomes increasingly difficult to go to that next tier, that next level of success. And so, we try to do is begin by listening and really understand how each individual woman, really how they define success, whether that is home life balance, if that is a particular income or revenue level, or if that is a level of impact that they want to see their work create in the world. And then after that listening and really defining what success means, then we start outlining all the roadblocks, all the obstacles, all the places that someone feels stuck, they feel stymied, and we begin putting together a strategic plan, a twelve month strategic plan to help them overcome any obstacles or roadblocks that they could be facing at that time and that means surrounding them with a community that is deeply invested in their success. So this community of other women around them are cheerleaders, sponsors, mentors, coaches, people that can open up doors for them and we are incredibly blessed to be in a community of women that are incredibly generous, very giving. They want to see other women succeed and exactly what you said at the opening, as they climb, they lift others up with them and that is the kind of ethos and the kind of community that we've built. And so, within our organization thrive, not only because of the opportunities that we afford, but because of the community and the sisterhood that has been created within Leadership Global. Let's talk more about that culture that you've created because if a young female leader joins your organization, they instantly have sisters around the globe. That's it. So, what we find is that everyone has a goal, an objective, some sort of vision, mission, purpose for their life that they feel passionately about. But along the way, no matter where you are in the growth and scale trajectory, you're going to hit challenges that you haven't experienced before. That's part of growing, that's part of scaling. At every single level of growth and scale, you're going to hit challenges that you haven't experienced before. But in a community, you'll be surrounded with people that say, I just did that, I was just there, oh, I overcame that ten years ago, oh, let me tell you how I solved that five years ago and so, you get to benefit from the hard won lessons of women who have walked in your shoes and can tell you at a grassroots level, this is what I did that worked. Yes, you have another organization that you're very passionate about, do you want to share? Yes. So, we just announced, I'm super excited about this, an integration with an AI powered ecosystem called CurveUp, and I would ask you to write that down because CurveUp is going to transform the way that entrepreneurs grow and scale their business. Curve Up gives you an AI powered ecosystem of experts, investors, coaches, teachers, trainers that surround you with strategic guidance to help you overcome any challenge or any roadblock that you could need in real time. What we find is that having a community around you is incredibly helpful but having real time advice and guidance, opening up strategic possibilities for you in real time, the moment you need it is absolutely priceless and that's what Curve Up gives you and it's C U R V U P. So, it's Curve Up and it's all about curving someone up the ladder of growth and scale so that they can experience success in a way that they had only dreamed of and what we know is that entrepreneurs around the world, this is not a US statistic, but around the world, most entrepreneurial ventures fail within five years. In fact, over 60% of entrepreneurial ventures fail in the first five years. Why? Oftentimes they don't receive access to funding, they don't have access to the staff that they need, the talent that they need, the guidance that they need, they need an accelerator, they need a coach or they need a trainer or they need fractional support and it's difficult to be able to assimilate all of those resources at the time you need it. So CurveUp gives you instant access to everything you could need as an entrepreneur. It's kind of a mashup between LinkedIn, Upworks, Fiverr and maybe your favorite VC firm that you would have to stand in front of and pitch your business to. Curve Up gives you access to all of those ecosystems in one. Let's talk more about funding and the challenges for female entrepreneurs because it wasn't that long ago, maybe fifty years ago, forty years ago, where if a woman came in for a loan, she would have to get her husband to co sign. That's right. That's absolutely right. Why do you think that is? Well, I can't tell you why that was for centuries and centuries that women didn't have equal access to funding, to loans, to bank accounts. I mean, as you said, women couldn't open up their own bank account without their husband or their father co signing on that bank account or that loan. But what I can tell you is, unfortunately, women still are not represented in equal numbers in terms of funding, whether it's angel investing, bank loans or it's VC funding and if you are a woman owned and operated business, your opportunity to receive VC funding is significantly less than of your male counterpart. As I noted, only 2% of VC funding is allocated to women owned, women operated businesses But I will tell you, the numbers are not that different when it comes to bank loans. In fact, women are given access to funding through loans at a much lower rate than their male counterparts as well. So, what we know is if you can make access to funding blind in terms of gender, if you can create systems where the gender of the owner operator is not seen, not known, if you can make it truly an equal playing field, then women in fact have a much higher likelihood of being funded, much higher likelihood of actually receiving the bank loan And we also know that women are sometimes caught in difficult situations in that being part of the VC ecosystem means networking and networking after work and on the golf course and perhaps in a bar or a restaurant or some sort of location. Well, a lot of women are juggling handling household responsibilities with starting a business and so their nights are not free. They don't have access to the same ecosystems and networking opportunities that men do, typically. And so, again, a platform like CurveUp really levels the playing field because it's not dependent on who you know and networking in the right groups and meeting the right people. It really is a blind system where it's the merit of the business that allows the business to be funded. Linda does a lot of media interviews, I found a clip, let's go ahead and roll this and I'll just let you narrate this. You do have the heart of a teacher, you love to share your knowledge, Yes, don't absolutely and I will say that, you know, again, I've been given incredible opportunities to learn from women who are incredibly inspirational, women who are doing incredible things around the world, really creating social impact movements that are changing entire communities and societies, entire industries and so, you know, being inspired by women like that really has, I think motivated me to share what I've learned and what I know at this juncture of my life. Hopefully it's not over, my learning is not over, but I can share what I know and I've been able to do master classes and workshops and I've been able to do webinars and all kinds of teaching and training at a collegiate level, at a university level and then also through Leadership Global that I have heard from others has been really impactful. And so, that's one of the privileges and benefits, I think, of reaching a certain age and accumulating a certain level of experience is that you get to pass it forward. You get to share it and pass it forward to the next generation. Okay. Linda, what is it like when you see a young female leader, you know, grow her wings? Mean, that feel wonderful to Yes, it's absolutely inspirational and at the same time, I think that a lot of other women would say they feel protective. They feel protective of her, they want to insulate her from maybe some of the experiences that they went through. They really want to shield her from everything from microaggressions to being demeaned or dismissed or being belittled or feeling less than. And so there is this sense of let me tell you what I've learned so you don't make the same mistakes I did but let me also try to insulate you so that you don't go through some of the same hard knocks I did and I will tell you that I think, you know, our society in general is becoming much more aware, much more sensitive, much more aware of gender differences, learning differences, neurodiversity differences, but at the same time, the numbers haven't really changed yet. So, we still have some work to do. Yes. Linda, we have about two minutes left, so look into the camera on the left and maybe challenge that young female leader to come alongside you. Yeah, what I would say is that what I've learned over the past ten years of working with women all over the world is that the one common denominator of many young women is lack of confidence and if you find yourself sometimes shrinking from opportunity because you don't feel ready, you don't feel prepared, you don't feel equipped, what I would say is it's okay. You'll get there, but being in a community of women that can help teach and train and coach and consult with you will help you get there even quicker. So even if you feel like you're not ready, that you're not at the same level of the people around you, that you have so much to learn, so much to be able to gain before you can step into a stage like that, what I would say is the best time to prepare is right now. Beautiful. Great way to end this show, we're gonna also leave you with her website which is leadhershipglobal.com, the great Linda Fisk, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you so much, You bet. That's it for now, we'll see you next time.