Diversity Rules Magazine

4 Diversity Rules Magazine October 2018 Diversity Rules Maga- zine welcomes Natasha Stromberg as its Oc- tober feature. Natasha is the woman behind Genderbuzz. Natasha sowed the seeds for the Genderbuzz platform four years ago, when she created a simple slideshow about Global Female Empower- ment on her Apple Mac at home. She was driven by her desire to create a business world where women lead and where women own a greater percentage of global wealth. She also wanted to create a business world which was less environmentally destructive than the one we currently have. She realized that to achieve these goals, she had to create something different, something outside the structures of the established corpo- rate world, so, she leveraged her knowledge and expertise of working in global financial services and in the gender equality arena, and came up with Genderbuzz – an online market- place for female-led businesses. Over the last four years, she has worked tire- lessly giving speeches, interviews, meeting with deci- sion makers and influencers, talking to female entrepre- neurs, corporate policymakers, and politicians to advance gender equality in the workplace and in society at large. She calls herself a Businesswoman, an Activist, a Fearless Leader, and a proud Feminist. JRK: Before we get into the interview can you give readers an idea of who Natasha Stromberg is, where you are from, and all that good introductory stuff? NS: I'm British and grew up in a small village in Der- byshire in the North of England and moved to Lon- don when I graduated from college with a BA Hons in French and German. My very first job was working as a margin clerk in the Back office of Morgan Stanley International Bank. Over the last 20 years I have held various senior jobs in capital markets and Financial Regulation and gained a masters degree in European Political studies. As a nine year old girl, when I was asked in class what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said 'An International Business Woman' and that's what I became. An interesting fact you might like your readers to know is that instead of being Queen on the school carnival float, I dressed up as Margaret atcher, the then U.K Prime Minister. I think I have always thought of myself as a leader and as a Feminist. JRK:You started "Genderbuzz," a plat- form for female empowerment that puts women at its core. Can you tell us about Genderbuzz, and what its pur- pose is? NS: Genderbuzz is basically a search en- gine to find services and products sold by female-led businesses. It's like a mini-Google with gender equality baked into its digital fab- ric. To list on Genderbuzz, your business has to be 50% led and 50% owned by a woman which enables consumers to make a purposeful choice to purchase from a company which they know will contribute to women's wealth and women's leadership in business. It also helps women-led businesses working in typi- cally male dominated industries like plumbing, not to be outnumbered in search engines by the vast number of male-owned services. In my mind, it's the search engine that Google might create if they were creating one in 2018. Customers also have the ability to rate listed services and businesses and become members of a business community for a fee if they want mentoring and discounts on events. JRK: Many would-be entrepreneurs sometimes compromise their feminist values when starting a business. How can a person's values remain intact and yet compete in a business climate that often is not women and minority-owned business friendly? NS: Well firstly, I don't think we can assume that all "Let Women Lead" An Interview With Natasha Stromberg By Jim Koury, Editor/Publisher

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