Jennifer Green wants to help YOU stand out. And she's got the talent and the know how to help you do just that!
Jennifer is a full service creative providing expertise in branding and web design from concept to production and is committed to helping socially responsible entrepreneurs, professionals and leaders, and progressive feminist political candidates stand out—online and in print.
Women- we have the power to create the working world we want.
And it's not necessarily about shattering glass ceilings. And it might not be about 'leaning in'.
It's about defining ambition... for yourself.
Now that might mean the corner office, and the big salary, and the important title, if that's how you define success.
But it might also mean a self-determined schedule so you can pick your kids up from school, or stay home during the day with babies and toddlers, or keep tabs on your teens while you also find time for your aging parents.
Your ideas of success might include bopping around to different cities or different countries as you pop in and out of remote desks and offices and even apartments around the world.
It might mean dabbling in your art, teaching yoga, and generating income on a project by project basis with your talent for visuals and quick wit on social media.
Your ideas for success might mean time for travel, time for friends, time to read, time to write, and time to keep fit.
You may be a part-time creative, full time parent, loving and committed daughter, with a clean house and a home cooked meal for anyone who arrives.
This may be your vision for ambition. And it's critical that we honor and recognize all of these pursuits as ambitious and worthy of financial viability and financial security.
For too long women have been told that in order to be successful, for their work and their lives to really count, they should want big salaries and big offices. We've been told that we have to 'step away from ambition' to raise kids, and we have been told to accept and expect that 're-entry' after 'time out' from that singular ambition has inevitable and just consequences. In fact, we have entrenched systems that support this inevitability. We have come to accept the story we're being told about what ambition women want.
And it is an acceptance of these systems that promote a one size fits all definition of ambition that indeed preserves this system. We have all become comfortable with it. There are more men named John and James at the helm of Fortune 500 companies than all the women leaders. There's roughly a 20% pay gap between women and men working the same positions with women receiving 80% of what men do. Just under 20% of the US Congress comprises of women.
And yet, we all know many, many women who are doing remarkable things every single day for themselves, their families, their communities, their companies, their organizations and for each other. And they may or may not be running a Fortune 500 company.
Aren't these women also ambitious? Isn't their work also valid and valuable?
We know, that, of course, it is. But if we are to change the tide and create the working world we really want for ourselves, then women must begin to tell new stories of ambition and we must honor and support these stories.
It is the danger of the single story of an ambitious women that limits our potential.
And so let's start to create the working world we want. A working world that honors, celebrates and supports, both socially and economically, the multitude of women's stories of ambition.
The future of work is radically and rapidly changing. There will soon be more independent contractors and freelancers than employees in the workforce. Are you ready for the new normal? Are you aware of how to access the tools and resources that will set you up for success?
Recently, THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ Cofounders, Megan A.C. Boswell and Corinne Neil, caught up with the folks at BUNKER to chat about insurance, the modern independent contractor, and changing workforce trends.
Read more…
Megan and I did not necessarily set out to be entrepreneurs.
Megan build an amazing career in fashion and design, climbed the corporate ladder to executive positions in prestigious organizations, shaped brands that changed an industry, traveled the world, was granted patents, was featured on Oprah, made movies, and even dreamed up experiential cruise ship voyages. She earned a top salary, and was beloved by her staff and colleagues. Her nurturing and generous spirit extended through her leadership where she taught many, especially women, to fully embrace the ampersand and be powerful & feminine, direct & kind, humorous & focused, collaborative & independent.
As life changed, as it’s so apt to do, Megan did too.
Children grew, relocations happened, new interests developed. There was downsizing. And Megan found herself contemplative and eager for a brand new dress to wear, one that could bring her closer to a work-life balance so she could soak up more time with her husband, 3 teenaged children, and her extended family living in different states. She eventually styled her own independent and successful brand strategy and design consultancy business, and after nearly 30 years of leading multimillion dollar projects and being 'traditionally' employed, Megan was now using her talents and skills so she could work when she wanted, how she wanted, and on projects that mattered to her. A flexible schedule with a variety of projects and hand-picked clients suited her as an encore career.
My career story was much more of an 'adapt and go' kind of set-up from the beginning. I loved to teach, I was good at it, and I used it to satisfy my taste for travel, spending the early part of my career in both the Middle East and Europe. When I moved to the US from Canada, I found myself in Austin, TX where I decided to redirect my talents for teaching and writing to an educational publishing company instead of the classroom, and exchange my evenings of grading papers for night classes to earn my massage therapy license - something I’d wanted to do since high school.
But before long, I too, decided to step out of corporate and embark on what I know see as my portfolio career working as an independent: writing, teaching, and educating. Because besides being wearied by the corporate ladder that only one person can climb at a time, there also came pregnancies that were tougher than imagined, relocations, and superhero mom and dad manoeuvres to ensure one of us was always home with our boys - a portfolio career made sense to me. There just wasn’t a name for it then.
Together, Megan and I have a very unique 360 degree view of work. We know both sides of being an independent and working in corporate. We see the possibilities, opportunities, and struggles of both. We know stay-at-home parenting, we know being working mothers. We’ve lived re-entry and are always re-entering so we can routinely adjust the work + life equation. Megan shattered glass ceilings. I stayed off the ladder. We know the merits and downfalls of each.
And we know the world of work is changing. And so do you. You’ve seen the statistics; read the headlines. 70% of us will work freelance in the next 10 years. Lifetime employment is over. The gig economy is the new economy. It’s a Freelance Nation. Our work will come from our alliances, not recruiters, and not employers.
So no, we didn’t necessarily set out to be entrepreneurs.
But after nearly 30 combined years of trying to steady the scales of work-life balance, we’re compelled to be.
We’re turning directly to the problems felt by both the independents and the hiring clients in this gig economy and creating a solution. And it is our combined 360 degree view, and our lifetime of experiences that make us uniquely qualified to take on the challenge. We’ve lived the problems, see a path to a solution, and know it’s time for us to step up and lead a workforce revolution.
Join us on our journey.
Because we know in our core that when women come together, link arms, and lift each other up we have the power to change everything.
