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Episode Summary
You’re building a real company. You’ve crossed two million in revenue, you’re growing, and the people you talk to about money are your accountant and the local banker who wants to extend your line of credit. Nobody in your circle has raised venture, sold a company, or run something at the scale you’re trying to reach. That’s the gap Lisa Schiffman set out to close ten years ago when she built EY’s Entrepreneurial Winning Women program. I caught up with Lisa right after the 10-year anniversary event in New York. She walked me through how the program started (a meeting, an idea, a “just do it” from a respected colleague), what the curriculum actually delivers (financing education, executive talent, public profile, peer network), and what the 10-year ripple effect study showed: 35% compound annual growth, 166% average headcount growth, 96% of the women feeling a unique responsibility to support other women. The line that stuck with me was about the conference itself. A complete absence of posturing. Founders connecting at speed because they see themselves in each other, not because they’re comparing scoreboards.
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## Top 10 Takeaways- Third-party validation from a credible source changes what you believe is possible for your company.
- Most founders are working in isolation, without peers who’ve already built what they’re trying to build.
- Your local banker manages your line of credit. They don’t teach you what VC, PE, or angel money costs.
- Being chief of everything is the constraint. At some point, replacing yourself unlocks the next stage of growth.
- Working on the business beats working in it, but you need the seat open to do either.
- Building a public profile turns your expertise into a network multiplier you can’t buy with ad spend.
- The absence of posturing in a room accelerates trust faster than any agenda or icebreaker.
- Founders connect at speed when they see themselves in each other, not when they compare scoreboards.
- Paying it forward is not a tagline. 96% of these founders fund others, mentor, and back the next class.
- The right goal for a support program is to one day make itself unnecessary.
Sound Bites
“Beth Brook Mariac, you know, read the deck, asked me a couple questions, looked up and said just do it. And it was a wonderful endorsement and off we went.” (@TBD) — Lisa Schiffman
“The first word that comes to mind is confidence. And that comes from the endorsement, the validation, you know, from us, from the judges who’ve selected them, and from the community that they’ve now joined.” (@TBD) — Lisa Schiffman
“You largely feel a complete absence of posturing. They don’t spend any time at all trying to figure out whose company is bigger than the other. They just go right to who are you, what are you about, what are you trying to do, and how can I help you.” (@TBD) — Lisa Schiffman
“Someone said to me that it would be great if in another 10 years we wouldn’t need the program. You don’t really want to have to do this forever.” (@TBD) — Lisa Schiffman
“No gender, no ethnicity, no race has a premium on great ideas. We need to be diverse in our thinking and inclusive in our work, and everybody with a great idea and the power and the ambition to pursue it should be given a shot at that.” (@TBD) — Lisa Schiffman
About This Episode
Lisa Schiffman is the founder of EY’s Entrepreneurial Winning Women program and the marketing leader for EY’s Growth Markets practice. Over her 17 years at EY she built the program from a 2008 pilot class into a global network supporting 430 women entrepreneurs across 50 countries. This conversation is Ryan’s recap with Lisa following the program’s 10-year anniversary event in New York, where the two of them dig into the origin story, the actual curriculum, and the findings from the 10-year ripple effect impact study.
Resources Mentioned
- EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women — The program Lisa founded. — ey.com/winningwomen
- EY Entrepreneur of the Year — The 30-year-old recognition program that surfaced the gap Lisa set out to close.
- Beth Brook Mariac — The EY colleague whose “just do it” endorsement launched the program in 2008.
Connections
Concepts referenced:
- The Owner-Operator Trap™ — Lisa names this directly as “chief of everything,” the constraint that limits scale until the operator seat gets filled.
Phase + Module (loose ties):
- Module 7 — Leadership Team — Replacing yourself with an operational leader so the founder can plot the path to growth.
- Module 1 — Ownership Goals — The founder identity work that sits underneath what these women decided to build.