FEMFiles: Rachel Rodgers
Image from Women’s Health Magazine, supplied to them by Rachel Rodgers
Truthfully, I don’t know much about Rachel Rodgers personal history. She isn’t, as yet, an uber famous entrepreneur whose whole life story is plastered everywhere on the internet for the world to find. What I do know is that she grew up with very little money in Queens, and at a very young age, she realized she wanted to be a lawyer and be wealthy. She started her career as an Intellectual Property lawyer working in non profits and that during her time as a lawyer, she realized that to make a significant impact, it helps to have significant money. And so her entrepreneurial career was born, and has resulted in a business dedicated to helping women, and particularly Black women and women of color, to scale their businesses and get to the million dollar mark as well. Hello Seven is all about building wealth, accessibly and sustainably, so that hopefully we can start to even the playing field. It’s no secret that women, and particularly Black women and people of color, suffer disproportionately from wage disparity, access to education, access to funding, and therefore, whole communities are stuck in a cycle of diminished wealth. Hello Seven is determined to change that, and Rachel Rodgers is making good on her mission.
Women supporting women is something that is close to my heart and if you know me, it would be no surprise to you that I am ALL ABOUT a woman whose mission it is to uplift other women financially, and give them the tools to create continuous wealth, not just a one time lottery ticket that could be gone again tomorrow. And the fact that she specifically wants to help women from marginalized communities is just one more reason to love what she does, because focusing on women has been shown over and over again to enrich whole families and entire communities. It’s not just the woman that joins her program, We Should All Be Millionaires (also the title of her book which is in my ever growing pile of amazing books waiting to be read), but all those that benefit from each woman’s success - her family, her children, her peers, her employees, and on and on. And though the road to an equitable world is far from near, or that simple either, at the very least putting wealth in the hands of those that will uplift their communities the most will help to tilt the scale to a slightly better world. To that end, aside from the work she does every day with Hello Seven and by simply existing as a role model to other women that it IS possible to be female, Black and wealthy, she created the Anti-Racist Small Business Pledge to help entrepreneurs fight racism and White Supremacy head on. If that isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what is.
Image via Instagram.
FEMFiles is a place where I want to honor the women who are changing the script and giving women greater platforms to be authentic, to be successful, to be wealthy, to be respected, to be themselves without the pressure of societal norms that are antiquated and meant to contain us. And I don’t think you need to be a megastar like Oprah (though she totally falls into this category) to do so. Rachel Rodgers is one such example, and truly, I can’t wait to see her grow in wealth, in influence, and in her ability to uphold and inspire her community.
Information about Rachel was gathered from her website HelloSeven.co, Women’s Health Magazine, and her Instagram account.