Women in business are usually competitive. Mostly because positions for women get fewer and scarcer as you climb the ladder, and you end up having to beat others if you want to secure your place at the top.
To that end, Isabella Silverio has a different approach to success.
“I think big, I dream big, and I believe women are here to a [big] difference,” she shares. “So instead of trying to find your place in industries that demand us to prove we belong there, why not do everything we can to collaborate, support, empower women so we cultivate the career of our dreams, on our own terms instead?”
At 21, back in 2017, Silverio had the foresight to create the first and only female-focused consulting firm in Florida. Her goal was simple: to circumvent and uncomfortable pressures that women-owned businesses often faced.
Armed with a degree from the University of Florida Warrington College of Business, extensive work in tech startups, and practical business and entrepreneurship experience gained through the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center’s Entrepreneurship and Empowerment in South Africa program in Cape Town, South Africa, she started her consultancy firm.
Starting her business at such a young age lent itself to a sense of confidence that is rare among others in the same field—and refreshing too. It meant she could approach her work with lofty idealism. But her real-world experience in entrepreneurship honed through theoretical training and put into practice as she helped disadvantaged entrepreneurs optimize and scale their business abroad, gave her perspective. She was empowering and optimistic, but she was also cautious and pragmatic. This allowed her to define a hopeful, positive, and practical approach to business that ultimately allowed women to transform ideas into tangible, thriving companies.
While Silverio’s approach to her business is heavily tinged with idealism, one can’t deny that it’s a concept more women should pay attention to today. After all, don’t gender pay gaps in the workforce continue to exist? Doesn’t stigma prevent women from exploring new opportunities in business and entrepreneurship? Doesn’t the world still expect women to be pit against other women to get what they want? Silverio firmly believes that it doesn’t have to be that way.
“On the heels of the world realizing women lifting each other up makes an undeniable impact, we are now more confident to go out of our comfort zones and see what we can achieve professionally, in our own terms.”
And for Silverio, it’s not enough that more women are starting new businesses and venturing into entrepreneurship, she wants to make sure that they’re successful at it as well. To date, she has worked with 206 across fashion, health, wellness, technology, finance, and legal industries–all of which have since established themselves as thriving businesses. The strides that these women have made, the success that they have achieved–these are the kind of stories that serve to inspire other women entrepreneurs on the rise.
“We have an opportunity to be part of a movement that will change the face of entrepreneurship and help it evolve to be an empowering tool that can change lives. The truth is, everyone needs support, mentorship, and empowerment. No one ever said that another woman’s success has to come at the expense of your own. My goal is to remind other women of this fact so that we can make bigger strides as a collective,” she ends.