Professor, alum advocates for closing gender gap in business

Succeeding in the male-dominated business of entrepreneurship does not necessarily require women to have a traditional business education, Jodi Luber, Boston University adjunct professor and co-founder of the website Womensforum.com, said during a master lecture series entitled “Women On Top” Monday.

Hosted by BU College of Communication Graduate Affairs office, the talk recalled Luber’s experience in building and developing Womensforum into a thriving business. Fifteen attendees came to the talk and listened to “how women can navigate and succeed in a male-dominated business arena,” the presentation’s online event page stated.

“Anyone here who’s thinking of launching something and is wondering, ‘How do you create something and differentiate yourself?’ I won’t lie to you, it was very frightening,” Luber said as she shared her initial steps on building her business.

In building Womensforum, Luber, a member of the BU class of 1990, said the main challenge was the lack of resources and the struggle to attract investors during the “dot-com-boom” period when men dominated the landscape of entrepreneurs.

“I wanted to be able to give an inside look on what it was like to start a company back in the mid-‘90s… To take [an Internet company] to Silicon Valley during the early Internet days,” Luber said after the presentation. “Just by working together, to have that collective goal, [Womensforum] was made possible by working together with others.”

Luber said she co-founded Womensforum with partner Mark Kaufman in 1996. According to the website, Womensforum is “a cooperating family of women’s websites who would bring together the collective energy, vision, and talent to compete with and beat, even the largest industry competitors.” The platform provides readers with a variety of information that ranges from parenting to beauty and style.

Luber said she learned about the world of business and management through her experience working at her father’s bagel bakery in Brooklyn, New York.

“I consider myself a very accidental entrepreneur,” Luber said during the presentation. “Every single thing I’ve learned about sustaining business and value, working with customers, I learned from my father.”

Luber advised female students pursuing entrepreneurship to “bring more than just a single skill set” in order to excel in the business and management field and serve in leadership roles.

“[I hope that students do] not think that because they do not have a traditional business background, they will be inhibited to start something,” Luber said after the talk.

Addressing the future, Luber said wage equality is necessary to assure women’s continuous innovation and to sustain opportunities for women to “take the seat they deserve” in the marketplace.

“We’ve got all the talent in the world, all the skills in the world, all the innovators in the world,” she said after the talk. “We are scrappy and multitaskers and creative and innovative.”

Several attendees said the talk encouraged them to look beyond the conventional wisdom of business. Jessie Gant, a second-year graduate student in COM, said the talk encouraged her to look further into the landscape of venture capitalism.

“There’s a lot to learn [from the talk],” Gant said. “[The talk empowered me to] go out of my way, to ask for what I want, especially for funding.”

Alex Nelson, also a second-year graduate student in COM, said Luber’s experience proved the importance of empowering women, and was an inspiration that gave numerous insights.

“It was nice to hear from one of the professors here about their professional experiences,” Nelson said. “It gave some personalization to the road forward.”

Sathvika Ramachandran, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said what Luber talked about was helpful for women looking to go into business, such as herself.

“It was really moving and especially inspiring to hear [her] story of how she was able to build with the trust and passion,” she said. “This definitely gave me a lot of confidence in trying to really achieve my goals.”