A conversation with Sue Bevan Baggott, the founder and president of Power Within Consulting, LLC. She is passionate about harnessing human connections to drive meaningful leadership, innovation and entrepreneurial success.
Sue Bevan Baggott is an executive coach, angel investor, speaker and board member, who is skilled at uncovering deep human insights and making non-obvious connections that lead to impactful innovations and results.
Sue shared that she is the oldest of three sisters, and grew up in a home that stressed the importance of education. She was always interested in math and science, and initially thought she would study to be a veterinarian or a doctor. Once she was in college, however, she decided to study engineering, which she saw as a path to financial security.
After a summer internship with an oil company, sitting in front of a computer all day running mathematical models, she realized that she needed a career that was more people oriented. After college, Sue joined P&G, a consumer products company, in their beauty care division, and stayed with the Company for over 18 years!
Sue took advantage of a voluntary separation package offer, and a meeting with a former colleague, to dial back her hours and consult part time. This enabled her to spend more time with her young sons, as well as to get involved with some emerging philanthropic endeavors. Through her strategy consulting work, she was introduced to Queen City Angels, an angel investing group, and was shocked to learn that only about 3% of venture capital goes to female founders.
"When I realized the imbalances in the venture world and the fact that that's really holding back innovation for many things that would serve women better and would serve the world better, honestly, I was like, okay, I have to get on the playing field and get more involved in this." Sue Bevan Baggott.
Key Takeaways:
- Understand the activities that give you energy when thinking about the next role you might want to take on. In Sue's case, she enjoyed science and mathematics, but realized she needed to interact with people rather than sitting in front of a computer all day in order to enjoy her job.
- Know the value of persistence. Sue shared how she was determined to be involved with sports when she was in high school, though she suffered from asthma and wasn't a natural athlete. She ultimately ended up playing lacrosse and loving it! Similarly, she applied for an internship with P&G when she was in college and didn't get the position. She reapplied post-college and was hired in P&G's beauty care division, which began her long career with the company.
- Our challenges can be the source of our greatest strengths. Sue shared that when she was young, her mother faced a battle with mental health. Sue believes that this helped her develop sensitivity to other people's emotions. Empathy, Sue says, is her greatest strength.
- Seek out mentors. Sue named, in particular, two female sponsors that helped her career at P&G. Her advice to us: if you don't have this kind of support, seek it out. Sue leveraged the network she had built when deciding whether to take advantage of a severance package and leave P&G. She talked to a former colleague who had started his own consulting business, which helped her make the decision to make a change.
About the guest:
In her career journey from Global Innovation Leader at Procter & Gamble to Founder of Power Within Consulting to “accidental” Angel Investor and Startup Advisor, Sue discovered the power of empathetic human connections to drive more meaningful leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurial success.
Her strategic leadership and innovation expertise helped grow mega-brands from Pantene to Pampers as well as accelerated success for several high-growth startups.
Sue strives to empower positive impact and drive meaningful change in our world through her speaking, workshops, executive advising, angel/impact investing, and board roles - all in collaboration with purpose-driven leaders and organizations.
Linkedin:-https://www.linkedin.com/in/suebaggott1/
Website :- http://www.powerwithinconsulting.com/
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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast does not constitute accounting, legal, tax, investment or financial advice. It’s for informational purposes only. You should seek appropriate professional advice for your specific information.
[00:00:00] Sue Bevan Baggott: When I realized the imbalances in the venture world and the fact that's really holding back innovation. For many things that would serve women better and would serve the world better, honestly, I was like, okay, I have to get on the playing field and get more involved in this.
Welcome to Making Change With Your Money, a podcast that highlights the stories and strategies of women who experienced a big life transition and overcame challenges as they redefined financial success for themselves.
Now here's your host, certified financial planner, Laura Rotter
[00:00:39] Laura Rotter: I am so excited. To have as my guest today, Sue Bevan Baggott. Sue's career journey has taken her from global innovation leader at Proctor and Gamble to founder of Power within consulting to, as she puts it, accidental angel investor and startup advisor.
And Sue Superpower is harnessing human connections to drive more meaningful leadership innovation. An entrepreneurial success. So welcome Sue to the Making Change With Your Money podcast. So happy to have you here.
[00:01:19] Sue Bevan Baggott: Oh, thanks so much, Laura. Thank you for inviting me.
[00:01:22] Laura Rotter: I'm going to start with a question I've been starting all my podcast interviews with, which is, what was money like in your family growing up?
And maybe you could use that, money as a lens as we discuss your journey going forward.
[00:01:39] Sue Bevan Baggott: That's a great question, Laura. Money in our family growing up was not plentiful. We were not poor, but we were definitely on a tight budget. My dad was in banking. My mom had been a teacher, but stayed home and we had, and they had three children in rapid succession after they were married.
So I have, I'm the oldest of three sisters. I have a sister, two years younger and a sister four years. My mom taught us a lot about how to keep to a tight budget. She, including things like, making clothing for us. And, keeping meals like super simple. So again we definitely learned how to be creative and frugal and learning how to save her parents were another role model for that.
So I had grandparents similarly modeling that. I also, I would say a little bit later in life had an experience of an uncle who went bankrupt, which was a very sad situation. And again, I think, imprinted on me that developing financial security was independence and security was a major goal after that.
[00:02:56] Laura Rotter: Thank you. It sounds like. Money was present in your household. You did not take it for granted. I also love that there was a lot of female energy in your home growing up. What was your thoughts about your education, given the frugality? Did you take it for granted? You'd go to college? What was the message when you were growing up?
[00:03:19] Sue Bevan Baggott:
Interesting. There was a big focus on education. Because both of my parents were college graduates and, believed strongly that education was important. And my mother back, my mother's background as a teacher, made her use education as a priority for where we lived. So we lived in a very small home, but we lived in one of the best public school districts.
In a suburb outside of Philadelphia. And so that was very important. So I went to, a, a public school. It's a very large public high school, but the quality of education was really high. And I definitely aspired, to go to college and worked very hard because my feeling was that, that would give me more opportunities as far as education was concern.
I also thought when I was very young that I wanted to be a veterinarian. I found out that getting into veterinary school is harder than getting into med school because there's so few of them. And I found out that let's see. I was lucky to live in a state that had a veterinary school, which gave me some chance.
But if I wanted to do that, I had to get not only exceptional grades, but really. A lot of experience. And so I, one of my early jobs was actually working for a veterinarian. Now, I later learned that I had definitely a very idolized view of what veterinary medicine would be like and switched that. But when I went to college, I decided to study engineering because I was uncertain as to which path I was going to go on.
And I knew from my grand, one of my grandfathers, my father's father, Was an engineer and I knew that engineers had a very good chance of making a good living. So when I was looking for something to do that had that financial security, and I loved science and math, so it wasn't, it was a good fit for me.
It wasn't like I was doing something I didn't love. And you could take I could get a chemical engineering degree with a minor in biology. Take all the prerequisites I would need to go to either veterinary school or medical school. But if I changed my. I'd have a job or be very likely to have a job.
So that, anyhow, so that's what I did. I studied engineering and took all this prerequisites and then ended up deciding during college that I wasn't going to pursue either veterinary medicine or standard medicine. In fact I learned what I, more about what I did not want to do during my early years of working.
For the vet veterinarian, I learned that there's a lot of things about that role that were very routine and ordinary and didn't fit with what I wanted to do. And then my summer between my junior and senior year when I did an engineering internship, I worked for an oil company because that was where I could get a job.
That that I could get to from my home. So I didn't have to live outside the home. And I had been recommended by one of my professors. And it was doing mathematical modeling of a catalytic, cracking unit for, the soil company. And I could do it. I enjoyed the challenge of the programming and the mathematical modeling piece, but my, I was sitting in front of a computer all day.
My favorite part of the role was lunch. That's when I could interact with the other interns. And so that helped me decide that, working for an oil company was definitely not for me and that I needed to do something that was more people oriented. And then ended up interviewing for Proctor and Gamble, a consumer products company.
Which is focused on, improving people's lives through superior products and services, that help them every day. So that was a much better fit.
[00:07:06] Laura Rotter: I love the fact, You said a number of important things there, Sue. First of all, the idea that an internship or trying out jobs during or just after college, Is a way to inform us of what we don't want as much as what we want.
We imagine what a job will need, but until you're actually doing it in the trenches, you have no idea if it really suits you. And also understanding. Who you are and that you are a people person. You want to interact with people, being in front of a computer all day was never going to be satisfying, and that you knew that at a relatively young age.
So congratulations to you. Yeah. Now
[00:07:50] Sue Bevan Baggott: I appreciate it and I used all of those technical skills. In the work I did. So I'm really glad I got that training and that I, in fact, the programming language that I used that summer ended up being the same programming language that I had to use when I was doing, consumer testing and analysis and things like that.
So this great skillset to have just learned, I wanted to apply it in a different way.
[00:08:15] Laura Rotter: I also think it's interesting growing up, as you said, in a household with women that you were so drawn to. Male oriented fields, and I also grew up two girls. And so I saw when I met other families, I didn't have the indoctrination that my role is to clear off the table and set the table, or certainly that was part of my role.
But my sister and I both became professionals and were primary breadwinners of our families for many years. And sometimes I think that may have been because we didn't have brothers where we might have felt there. A sense of a different emphasis on us, Rather than they, do you think of that, that sometimes?
[00:08:56] Sue Bevan Baggott: It's actually interesting because I had a very interesting situation in my family when I was very young around four years old is when my youngest sister was born.
And not long after that was, we had just moved into our new small home. We had been living in a third story apartment. But we were way outgrowing it. So my mom had a friend visiting her and I ended. Small enough home. We were in another rim play. But I ended up overhearing her say to her friend, I'm so sorry, I wasn't able to give Bob the son he wanted.
And I was very confused. I'm like, wait a second. What's wrong with daughters? Why? Why is my father, and my mother unhappy about having a third daughter. Of course, I couldn't really ask any questions about that, but I became determined. And the reason was that my dad's views were a bit more traditional.
He was a big athlete. That's what was one of his focus. So he had been a multi-sport athlete growing up, loved playing sports, loved watching, and in his mind, Boys were athletes. And so if he had a son, then he could teach his son to be an athlete. And my dad loved us very much, so don't get that idea, but it stuck with me.
And so part of me was saying, I can do anything, boys can do. And I, set out to prove that. So in some ways that was maybe a driver to me to prove. Now I had a little bit of a hard time proving I could be an athlete. It took a lot of effort because I was also asthmatic and had a lot of challenges learning to run.
But I did get involved in a variety of different sports, starting with some that didn't require the, quite the endurance and then building up over time. But, I did cheerleading, I did gymnastics, and then ultimately ended up playing lacrosse and loved it. So it was a great, it was great experience.
My dad's views and his love of sports encouraged me to do that, which wasn't quite a fit. So I'm really glad I developed this skills. I learned so much from. The great exercise, great team interaction experiences, all kinds of, persistence. Like it might be the slowest person and eventually, developed the endurance.
So I'm really glad for that. So my dad had this funny lens of what women, with traditional, more traditional roles, but interesting, it was his father. Who was an engineer. My grandfather who encouraged me said Girls could be anything they want to be. And he saw that I liked math and science, and he's be an engineer.
Engineer solved tough, important problems. So yeah, so he really is the one that, encouraged me to pursue that.
[00:11:49] Laura Rotter: Oh, thank you so much for sharing that. So P&G sounds like a company you joined pretty soon after graduating.
[00:11:58] Sue Bevan Baggott: Oh, yeah. Right after. In fact, that was their model at the time.
They do now hire some experienced people, but they predominantly are from within companies so the opportunity to join them was all they did the first time I applied to p and g was for one of their internship. Which I was turned down for. And then I was encouraged by my one of my professors to apply again because they said the internships are different than, the regular ones.
So the actual post college, there's broader, different kinds of opportunities. And just because you didn't get the internship doesn't mean you couldn't be a candidate for a full-time opportunity. So I reapplied and. Did ultimately get hired by P&G in their beauty care division.
It turns out that my decision to combine chemical engineering and biology was a really good fit with this newer kind of emerging business area for them. And so that's how I ended up at P&G.
[00:13:01] Laura Rotter: Can you describe how your roles evolved, because you were there quite a long time and knowing you, your curiosity and your energy, you certainly weren't in the same role for a lot of the time.
And also perhaps how it spoke to your skill of interacting with others.
[00:13:18] Sue Bevan Baggott: I was really fortunate. I had a great training supervisor at P&G. It is, it's so important. And he his expertise was in the consumer or customer understanding area. And so I learned a lot of skills from him about how to do that well.
How to deeply understand the customers that you're serving, what are their needs, and then how do you design products that fulfill those needs. And I started out by doing, bench scale. Work on helping to, create those products. But then I evolved in my particular area of expertise was in, in that role of translating between consumer customer needs and Setting direction for innovation design.
[00:14:09] Laura Rotter: That's so interesting. So you used a word, I'm not familiar with bench scale. What is that?
[00:14:14] Sue Bevan Baggott: Oh, so in the innovation process when you're first starting you don't go all the way to like full scale development of any product or design. You want to learn to create it, but the terms they use nowadays are a lean innovation approach.
We didn't. Language back then, but you're learning how to make things on a very small scale. You're trialing them with consumers or customers, and you're iterating or experimenting until you get that thing that fits, that lights them up, that excites them and delights them.
[00:14:44] Laura Rotter: I love the word innovation.
It's hard for me to imagine that word within a behemoth like Proctor and Gamble. So could you perhaps talk about a day or a product, like what that would be like in terms of. Innovation of, I don't know, did we do hair or?
[00:15:00] Sue Bevan Baggott: Yeah, sure. So I started my career in in beauty care and hair care.
This was back in the, mid to late eighties. And big hair was happening at the time. Some people listening to your podcast may remember that, and people were still starting to. Find the need of using, conditioner in addition to shampoo, to control all that hair. But then they were complaining about having to take two steps because they weren't used to that.
So we identified consumer need for a two in one, combining a complete shampoo and conditioner into a single product. And that sounds really simple, right? But it's not because traditional shampoo ingredients are negatively charged. Traditional conditioning ingredients were positively charged.
If you mix the two together, you basically get. So we had to innovate, to create, identify new combinations that would fully clean and fully condition hair in one step. And so I was part of the consumer side of the team, helping understand what people's needs are and working closely with some other folks on the team who were formulating.
And we developed first products that we proved in the lab, in the, wood, fully clean and fully condition. And so we used lab testing and salon testing where we were washing and conditioning people's hair. So we were all excited. We found some things that worked. It was, a patented new set of ingredients, patented process, all of that.
We were so excited to go to consumer testing. We thought people were going to love this and we. Our first consumer test, the first in-hand test. And so then we had to do this work to understand what happened. So I ended up creating these in shower interviews. Oh my God. Cause we needed, so we had people in bathing suits, of course, but we had them come into our site.
We had shower curtains so we could see and hear and listen to them, describe their experience with the products. And we found out that we. We were off on a couple of areas. We weren't giving them the right in-use experience for how their hair was like lathering and rinsing for them to feel confident and we learned there was a lot of distrust because they tried other products that didn't work well for them.
And so they were skeptical if whether this would actually work for them. So we needed to do some things to, to reassure them. And through some of this work we realized that we not only needed. Tell people that we had a two, one that worked, that we had to prove we had a two and one at worked. And so we developed one of the first large scale sampling programs that had ever been done at Procter and Gamble as a way to the building trust in people to buy a full size bottle.
So we, we learned a ton from that work. And then that platform that we developed was then used to create, not. Better two and ones, but better shampoos and conditioners and, form the basis of a really explosive growth of p and g's hair care business by reapplying it on, brands like it, it was first used for per plus, which isn't around anymore for per plus rec, but later to Tine and then, head and shoulders.
And so that's, a little bit of the story. You have to do trial and. To get to those, those breakthroughs and you have to really not only listen to what people say they want, but you have to dive deeper and understand and really share like life experiences with them so you can understand what they truly need and desire.
[00:18:28] Laura Rotter: Thank you so much for walking me through that because I, now I can understand what it was you did and I also. I love the fact that it does combine your interest in science with nowadays it's with digital products. I always hear the term user experience, but that's exactly what, what you were doing.
So you've got to interact with people, see what makes them tick, what helps them make their decisions. It's fascinating work.
[00:18:56] Sue Bevan Baggott: Yeah, it was really interesting work. And then P&G ‘s innovation. You talked about, what kind of career do you have there? They have a dual ladder. They have one that they call the technical ladder, where people are developing increasing technical expertise in a particular area of focus.
And then they have a management ladder. And I ended up going up the innovation. Management ladder. So that means you're leading new, bigger projects and teaching other people in your organization how to do the, the direct work. So I was able to have a really growthful career at p and g by moving up.
The leadership system, but also moving from, my early experience in hair care. Then p and g bought a cosmetics and fragrances business. It's now been divested, but I got to work on that business and then ultimately the baby care business. And through that I also, I worked in the headquarters in Cincinnati initially, but then I was over in Europe for five years, and then I was in Baltimore for a few years and then eventually back in Cincinnati, so it was A and P&G is a global company, so I had an opportunity to work with global teams very early in my career, which was.
Fabulous too. You had so many people with different backgrounds, experiences, and innovation. You truly, you get to break through innovation by getting people with very different backgrounds and experiences. Together and aligned on, what they need to deliver. And, that's how you get to better, better results.
[00:20:27] Laura Rotter: That is not an easy thing to do, Sue. There are so many cultural differences in how people communicate both verbally as well as non-verbally. So I guess I have two separate questions, but aligned, which is what skills of yours do you think helped you? In those kind of roles. And then what mentors or resources did you have access to help you grow into those roles?
[00:20:56] Sue Bevan Baggott: I think one of the biggest skills for me, which was a surprising skill was empathy. Empathy and engineering don't always go together, but growing up, one of the challenges when I was about 11 years old, my mom had her first emotional break. She was later diagnosed as being bipolar and that was a pretty significant challenge until she was able to, through the help of others, understand what was happening and get the right treatment and all of that.
So that created some a rocky road for my sisters and I growing up, but it made me really want to help my mom in any way. I. As she was going through this battles with her battles with mental illness and so I think I developed a lot of sensitivity to other people's emotional changes and, a lot of desire to serve and help.
I think taking that into my role and needing to understand, people, whether it's the people, the customers we were serving, or whether it was the people on the team that I was leading. I think that empathy was really powerful. Some people think of empathy as a weakness, and I think it was one of my biggest strengths.
[00:22:15] Laura Rotter: Wow, that's that must have been difficult at 11 years old, and it's before discussions about mental health were in the open.
[00:22:25] Sue Bevan Baggott: No, you're right. It was a very difficult thing to talk about outside our family. Fortunately, my parents were wise enough to get me some therapy help when going through that.
Cause I, as the oldest child, a lot of responsibility fell on me overtime, like in high school and college. I had a few close, really close friends that were wonderful support through that and that I could talk to. Nowadays I talk much more openly about it because, I think it's helpful for people to understand, get, they need to understand it better and need to understand how to help the people that they love that might be going through that.
And it's so common. It really is a common, and the pandemic just brought it to a head. People who had never experienced it before had terrifying, debilitating anxiety and all kinds of things. So I think the silver lining is people are now talking. And recognizing that it's a real challenge just as much as physical health challenges.
Our mental health challenges are very real and need support and need to be addressed.
[00:23:31] Laura Rotter: It's so true that we're all benefiting from a more open conversation, whether it's the Naomi Osaka of the world, athletes, others sharing their struggles with mental health, and I'm tearing up because certainly we've all had personal experiences with families and, but now, It's no longer something that's not talked about.
[00:23:55] Sue Bevan Baggott: I agree with you. I am so grateful for those folks who have spoken out. Because it does, it opens up the conversation then that benefits everybody. So the other question you asked me was, did I have mentors and sponsors to help Absolut? Again, very fortunate being in the beauty care, p and g as a whole is a great company for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
So I was lucky as a woman to join that company, but in particular, the beauty care division was one of the younger divisions and had some women already in leadership roles above me. So I had some great, both male and female. Leaders that I worked for, but one of my early bosses actually became the Chief Technology officer for p and g.
The eventually and she Kathy Fish, she was an amazing boss. Had really amazing strengths both on the human side and the technical side. So I learned a tremendous amount from her. And then there was another female sponsor who was like a level above Kathy. Her name was Si, Kuzma, and she was a
Supporter and encourage her through my career, even when I was facing challenges, as I got moved to assignments in Europe, 15 plus years in time she was there to support and encourage and help, help provide support through more, challenging. We all go through career challenges, right?
And she was there to support me through that. And also several, male leaders who were supportive as well. And my advice to women these days is if you don't have those kinds of support, seek them out. We all need them and we all benefit from that.
[00:25:46] Laura Rotter: Yes. And I love the fact that you are breaking the myth that women do not help each other.
Cause there is their mythology out there that women are always competing with each other on some level. So I, it's wonderful to hear that the two names you mentioned Sue, can you share with our listeners what started to change towards the end of your time with P&G that made you ultimately leave?
[00:26:17] Sue Bevan Baggott: This is a great question. I had several wonderful experiences at P&G but around about the early two thousands. P&G has was, making some changes and decided to offer some voluntary separation packages. And at first I wasn't thinking about leaving, but I had done some big personal development in soul searching.
And I was saying the most important thing in my life was my. My kids, my sons were like seven and eight at the time I was considering. And yet I was spending, I was doing a global innovation role. My husband was also in a global role at p and g, so we had a dual career, global roles. And the way I was leveraging my time wasn't lining up with what I said was most important in my life.
And I said maybe. And then I had people. At a level where I was having, I had an organization of 40 ish people at the time, and I was having a lot of people come and say, should I consider these voluntary separations? And I was like, maybe I had in the back of my mind at some point to do something a little more independent and entrepreneurial.
Maybe this was the time to do it. And as I looked a ahead at P&G, I'd had a phenomenal career, was very happy there. The way that things had been evolving at that next level. If I had stayed and gone to that next level, I didn't think were going to be leveraging my strengths. I used to be able to see a next level at P&G, that I felt Would've played to my strengths and the way, but the way they evolved the role was going to be more generalist and administrative at the next level. And I wasn't, it wasn't something I was aspiring to. So when you added all those things up, my husband and I talked about it. If I was ever going to do anything more independent and entrepreneurial at the time, they were offering me a year's salary and all of my options.
And so we did the “If I was ever going to leave, that was the time to consider doing it.” I also did a number of networking discussions, trying to figure out, stay go, and I ended up talking to a former P&G acquaintance of mine and he had started his own consulting business and I went to ask him what was it like to leave P&G, and I left the lunch with a job offer.
So I had a, part-time consulting offer in my back pocket. And that made the decision to go a lot easier. And then I spent, took three months off completely to understand what I wanted to do in the transition time, start my own business then, or join a boutique firm and hold off and start my own business later.
And I decided it was better to take the interim step of taking a flexible part-time and learn my way into starting my own business. And that also opened. A possibility to do other things in my life. I had interest in having a little more time to get involved with my son's school and activities, so I ended up getting involved with the parent association and then getting more involved with some emerging philanthropic endeavors.
I had just joined An organization that you now actually, we learned to also join. I was a founding member of a women's giving circle called Impact 100, which was founded in Cincinnati. And I had started participating that while I was still at P&G. Leaving P&G gave me an opportunity to spend more time doing that.
So I was able to diversify the things that I was doing. Keep working from a professional standpoint. I'm a better mom as a working mom, and so that was. And but then, look at other ways to, having my vision of having an impact, I think up until that point were, work hard and make money and then give it away to charities, organizations doing good work and I hadn't had a lot of, time to devote to that.
So I always gained. But I didn't have a lot of time for volunteering and things. And so this kind of opened my eyes to some different ways of having impact and that was a good, it was a good change for me, and it was a good change for us as a family. And then I put the idea of starting my own business on hold for a little while, but eventually decided to do that once my kids were in college.
[00:30:38] Laura Rotter: What I'm hearing, Sue is that the decision to leave. Was of course, intellectual right, it's the right time, but it was also informed by your values and almost an intuitive sense of what was important to you and what was the right next step. And you didn't just make it rationally. You had conversations.
And I often think that these Kismet opportunities appear when we do allow our inner voice to have a say in what's important to us. And so I love how you combine the two and it sounds like it. You look back and it was exactly the right choice to leave at that time. Did you have any questions at the time?
[00:31:27] Sue Bevan Baggott: It was a big leap, but no, I did, it was a long considered decision and then I announced my decision that I was going. Then the president of the division I worked with called me in a couple months later trying to convince me to stay and do a part-time role there.
And anyhow. So I had a chance to rethink it a couple times, but ultimately, you're right, it felt like the right time and the right alignment. And I knew the most important to thing to me at p and g had been the relationships that I had with people. And I kept up with those relationships.
I had to take a year where I could not work back for P&G, but I ended up doing some consulting work back for them and have done it. Ever since I left, they're not my primary customer by any stretch, but I stayed involved where it made sense and yes, ultimately now I can look back and say it was one of the best decisions that I made at the time.
It was a little scary, but. And I have to say I had a safety net, right? Because my husband was still working for p and g. So it was, I think, relatively easier for us as a dual career family because he could stay and have, the more. Or at least at that time it seemed more secure role that supported our family with benefits and all of that.
And that gave me, he, he gave me a real gift of, okay, yes, you can go off and explore these other opportunities. And we of course renegotiated the roles that we were playing with the family, within the family and things like that. I would be wrong, not.
Mentioned that I had that wonderful support and safety net from him.
[00:33:17] Laura Rotter: Yes, and you said you had a severance package and you were able to exercise your options as someone who took advantage of the severance package and also has a husband in academics. That was an. Adjunct salary when our kids were, being educated and was more expensive.
But certainly I appreciate it so much now and gives me the ability to do, my career journey and my own way. And I want to make sure we mentioned before I hear more about your angel investing. What a wonderful organization Impact 100 is as you are a founding member in Cincinnati, is that right?
[00:33:59] Sue Bevan Baggott: Yeah, I, the original founder, Wendy Husak Steel, her kids were in school with my kids, and that's how I learned about it.
But when I heard this idea of, women coming together with. Collection to pulling their resources to provide larger size grants for nonprofits. I thought, what a creative idea. You collect more money, but you also have the collective wisdom in terms of making the decision about which nonprofits to give that funding to, to make transformational change.
In in your community, and a lot of times these nonprofits have to work as hard to write a grant request for $5,000 as they do for a hundred thousand dollars, which is, for the model for Impact 100 is for every member contributing a thousand dollars. They would give that full. Amount back out to a nonprofit in the form of these transformational a hundred thousand dollars grants.
So loved the model. Got initially involved with helping the mission, vision and values, and ended up on the board the second year and was one of the board presidents over time and then eventually helping other, the model start up in other communities, because I thought it was so powerful.
And really taught me a lot about the nonprofit world by, I said I had always given, but I got to know a lot of the nonprofit leaders in our community, which was phenomenal and amazing work that they were doing. Had an opportunity to meet other. Wonderful values aligned women who were part of it, but from very different backgrounds.
And so when you're coming together and talking about what does impact mean to you and what does our community need as far as impact that were, those were powerful discussions. And I've, created some amazing, 20 plus year friendships now with some of the same women. So that was
[00:35:52] Laura Rotter: Yes, and I would echo that I've been a member, I think this is either my seventh or eighth year.
I did have the opportunity to be treasurer, so on the executive board. And now I'm in the nonprofit advisory committee. And for someone who commuted back and forth into New York City and had very little to do with my local community, it has just been invaluable. Get to know the needs and the organizations that are there to meet those needs.
And so how did that then morph into your accidental angel investor?
[00:36:26] Sue Bevan Baggott: So yeah, there was no, no direct relationship between h and the Angel investing, although it. It did open my eyes to just how challenging it is for these nonprofits to drive change when they really are strapped for financial resources.
So that piece was there. The accidental angel investing came back a different way. I was doing so my innovation, my consultancy focuses on strategy and innovation. I was doing some strategy consulting at the University of Cincinnati, not their main board of trustees, but they had set up. A sideboard around, around innovation and working on better partnerships with both industry and the local community.
One of the board members I worked with was a guy by the name of Tony Shipley. He was an exited software engineer who as a software, sorry, an ex exited c e o at the per software company, and he decided after he, had a successful. Exit that one of his give backs to the community was going to be establishing an angel group.
And so he was one of the community leaders on the board, liked the work that I did from a strategy standpoint and said, Hey, our angel group could use a strategy refresh. And so Queen City Angels became my client. So before meeting Tony, I knew very little about Angel. And my imagined it was, a bunch of very rich people who were just trying to get richer by investing in these startup c.
What I learned by doing the work with them, because of course the very first thing we had to do was stakeholder insight work and understand who was being served, which included, understanding the members and why did they join understanding the startups and what did, how did they feel about working with these angel investors and understanding the local ecosystems supporting startups who were, partners with Queen City Angels and some of their sponsors as.
And so through that work I learned a lot about angel investing and I found out it's not all about the money. Yes, of course they would like to get returns because they'd like to be able to continue to invest, but angel investors work. They're investing their private money. So for those people who aren't, familiar with angel investing you have investing on this stock market, which of course is public company in.
Angel investing comes way earlier in a company's life cycle, at the very early stages where an angel investors are investing their own money in these startups. So it is a high risk, high return asset class, but a lot of risk. So they were doing, if all you want to do is make money, there's a lot easier ways to do it than angel investing.
Honestly you know that from your right. But if you want to give back in terms of helping these startup companies become successful, they need a lot of things. They need capital, but they also need coaching, and they need connections, and they need a lot of things that Angels can out with. So angels were doing it because they loved working with entrepreneurs because, Loved seeing small businesses grow, loved to see, those entrepreneur help those entrepreneurs succeed, grow jobs, grow the, regional local economy.
There's just a lot of benefits of, a win-win when angel investors work alongside startups. So I learned that and became much more interested when I realized the connection between angel investing and community development. But the real reason I decided to do it was the shock I. When I learned that less than 3% of venture capital goes to female founded companies, I was just appalled.
Women represent 50% of the population who could possibly believe they have only 3% of the ideas worth funding. And Tony thought that was crazy too. And when we went through the. Strategy work, and they picked three pillars to focus on. Diversity, equity, inclusion was one of the three pillars this predominantly male group picked to work focus on because they realized we don't have a sufficient representation of women on the investor side.
So we are probably not making the best in decisions. On which companies to invest in. And we are probably not attracting, the, all of the different types of potentially exciting companies that are being founded out there. And so after finishing the strategy work, Tony asked me to join Queen City Angels lead that strategy pillar.
And then he also connected me with a woman named Alicia Rob, who's a, was a senior Kaufman fellow who had done a lot of research around challenges with women's access to capital. Written two books on the subject, and she was starting a pilot fund training women to get involved in angel investing. And after meeting Alicia, I ended up getting involved in that pilot fund and then ultimately getting involved with.
Next Wave Impact Fund, which was not just angel investing, but angel investing in companies with a for-profit companies with a positive mission. So what started with, zero experience in Angel investing in 2015 and not even really understanding it, I ended up deciding to jump in with both feet in 2016, joining both Alicia and Tony's groups.
And I've bid on a tremend. Learning journey ever since.
[00:41:53] Laura Rotter: You get very animated when you discuss it, Sue, so it's clearly something that really speaks to you and what your mission is in the world.
[00:42:01] Sue Bevan Baggott: Yeah, I think part of the reason IED about it is because I felt a little bit like how did I not realize that, that this was happening?
I think for many of us who you certainly with growing up in the financial world, which is very male dominated, you're advocating for women's advancement in the context of existing companies. I. Very much advocating for that in, in large enterprises. And then suddenly I realized yeah, those, there's still opportunities for improvement in those enterprises.
But when I realized the imbalances in the venture world and the fact that's really holding back innovation, For many things that would serve women better and would serve the world better, honestly, I was like, okay, I have to get on the playing field and get more involved in this. So yeah, it has become a passion of mine just to make people more aware because so could many people don't understand that opportunity investing in startups has to make, to drive change.
But, if you go back. So you started talking money and different women have different, like relationships with money, but money is power and power to change. And if women are only using gifting to nonprofits as a way of driving change, it's going to take an awfully long time to create that.
Because even though I think the this figure may be off by a year or so, but I think, there's like about 470 billion of nonprofit giving in the us but that's less than 1% of the value of the US stock market. So if we're putting all the burden of creating positive change on nonprofits, it's unfair.
We need mission driven for-profit companies committed to positive social environmental change. What better way? Yes, put pressure on the existing ones, but what better way than to focus on startup companies that are founded on that basis? With those positive mission are creating positive cultures and getting behind them because a lot of them are built to grow and scale, so they can create a lot of change over the next 10 years if we get behind.
[00:44:23] Laura Rotter: Yes, getting behind startup companies that are looking to make an impact as well as startup companies founded by women or people of color that are looking to make an impact, because as you pointed out, so little of the actual capital is allocated. To those founders that are not white heterosexual men.
[00:44:47] Sue Bevan Baggott: Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, one of the companies that I serve on the board for, it's a male and female co-founder, and they're out to create, more thriving teams, much better workplaces by build with a tech platform that helps build relationships. It's called Cloverleaf.
Their website is cloverleaf.me. And then, there's another organization called Solo Funds, which is a tech platform for driving and community lending. And their founders are out to disrupt payday lending. And to use communities lending to each other as a way of providing access to funding, that is fair and balanced and so there's some really amazing companies that are out there that are creating a lot of positive change.
[00:45:40] Laura Rotter: I will put those websites in the show notes. I think the development of online platforms has really helped to grow this area because, similar to the impact model, though that was for nonprofits, pooling our money to help fund these impact projects is so important.
[00:46:04] Sue Bevan Baggott: Pulling our money and using technology.
As an accelerator and a scaler technology that has the human side. And using that to, to grow and scale impact is exciting.
[00:46:18] Laura Rotter: Thank you. So as we get towards the end of our conversation, Sue, I'm wondering if you could look back and think about how your definition of success and perhaps financial success has shifted over your journey.?
[00:46:33] Sue Bevan Baggott:
That's a great question, Laura. I think very early on my definition of financial success was related to financial independence and financial security. As wanting to not no longer be dependent on my parents and to, to develop my own independence. That was first and foremost early on, and then you know how to use my money and.
Good and positive ways. I did originally have that sort of bifurcated model of earning enough money, build that security, et cetera, and then, give to nonprofits for a long time. I figured the more I earned, the more I could give, and that was a good thing at the time. And then over time I realized, wow, I can also use my time and talents to.
Change. And my definition of success was certainly not about necessarily making more money or getting to that next level, but more about, making a positive, meaningful difference either at work, either in my career work or in my community work. And that definitely has evolved.
And so now I would say that my, I describe my mission as empowering positive. Doing that through innovation and connection. And what that means is I realized that first of all, I as one individual can only make so much difference, but in connection with others and by empowering, mission driven leaders of the future.
That's how I can drive more change. So empowering their success is a way to magnify my impact.
[00:48:25] Laura Rotter: That's so beautiful, Sue. Thank you for sharing that. I have to say I have experienced it. You are giving, you are an amazing connector and I've, I continue to learn from you to try to pick up that skill myself.
And so you all, I've already seen the impact you have just through your personal relationships.
[00:48:50] Sue Bevan Baggott: and I'm really excited that you and I met each other because I love what you're doing. To help women understand the power of their money and how to help them, build their security, but also build their impact through, how they manage their money, how they invest their money, and for them to see new possibilities for how they define their success.
So I love the work that you're doing as well.
[00:49:20] Laura Rotter: Thank you. And thank you so much for being my guest.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sue Bevin Baggott, founder of Power Within Consulting, and I'd like to share with you some of the takeaways that I got from our interview. Firstly, understand the activities that give you. When thinking about the next role you might want to take on, in Sue's case, she enjoyed science and mathematics.
But realized she needed to interact with people and not sit in front of a computer all day in order to enjoy her job. And after her long career with Proctor and Gamble, she then realized her energy was drawn to being an angel investor as a way to drive change. My second takeaway is the value of persistence.
Sue told us how she was determined to be involved with sports when she was in high school. Though frankly she suffered from asthma and wasn't a natural athlete. She ultimately ended up playing lacrosse and loving it. Similarly, she applied for an internship with p and g when she was in college, and she didn't.
She reapplied post-college and was hired in P and G'S beauty care division, and that began a long career with the company. My third takeaway is that our challenges can be the source of our greatest strengths. Sue shared that when she was young, her mother faced a battle with mental health, and Sue believes that this helped her develop sensitivity to other people's emotions.
Empathy, Sue says is her greatest strength. And finally, seek out mentors. Sue named, in particular, two female sponsors that helped her career at p and g. And her advice to us is that if you don't have this kind of support, seek it out. Sue leveraged the network she had built also when deciding whether to take advantage of a severance package and leave.
She talked to a former p and g who had started his own consulting business and that helped her make the decision to start her own. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to subscribe, so you won't miss next week's episode. And if you love the show, a rating and a review would be so greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much.
[00:52:26] Thanks for listening to Making Change with your Money certified financial planner, Laura Rotter specializes in helping people just like you organized,
[00:52:35] clarify and invest their money. In order to support a life of purpose and meaning, go to www.trueabundanceadvisors.com/workbook for a free resource to help you on your journey.
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