Hey Glow Gang!

Here’s to the ones who see things differently.

This week’s newsletter is all about the disruptors doing good. From the ones you know: Michelle Obama and Naomi Osaka. To the ones you need to know: like Ayomi Samaraweera, founder of Canopy - a game-changing community for creators.

Let's get glowing

-Shilpa

P.S. ICYMI, we’re disrupting beauty tech with our new venture: ARtist. Join the waitlist now for launch day access!

News Of The Week

When they go low, we go high 🙌🏽

Entrepreneurship

More disruptors, PLEZ 👏🏽 Michelle Obama is inspiring change in the food industry through PLEZi Nutrition. PLEZi offers healthy drinks and snacks for kids - that promise to be tasty and affordable too.

Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka is taking the media world by storm. She’s just raised $5 million for Hana Kuma, her inclusive-first media company. Get it, girl!

Career and workplace

It’s time to walk the walk 👣 Diversity dishonesty is doing the rounds, sigh. ICYMI, diversity dishonesty is where an organisation says they’re diverse and inclusive, but this doesn’t go beyond some diverse pictures on the website. Diversity dishonesty can cause some serious harm to minority employees in the workplace. Here’s how to figure out if a workplace is for you.

More News Nuggets

Extra Nuggets 👀

• Thread count 🪡 BTS of the 2023 Met Gala Carpet.

• DJ please, pick up your phone 🎧 Missy Elliott is the first female rapper to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

• Get your ARtist on 👩🏽‍🎨 We’re tackling racial bias in tech and beauty with the ARtist app. Join the waitlist for launch day access!

• Alia 🤝 Gucci. Alia Bhatt is Gucci's first Indian global ambassador.

• Making a splash 🧜🏽‍♀️ Halle Bailey’s being praised for her brilliant acting as Ariel, following the Little Mermaid premiere.

• To Mars, and beyond! 👩🏽‍🚀 A new study recommends that a woman is the first person on Mars.

Glowreel Recos

What we’re loving this week, AAPI Heritage Month edition:

Read: The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh. A lighthearted multigenerational novel that follows a Vietnamese family with a curse that follows the women across generations 👀

Make: Spicy ‘Ahi Poke by Relle, a proud Hawaiian 💜

Watch: Never Have I Ever, seasons 1-3. Season 4 drops June 8, so you’ve got 4 weeks to get up to speed with what’s going on in Devi’s life!

Support BIPOC Women Owned Businesses, AAPI Heritage Month Edition

Shop your favourite BIPOC woman founded brands in Glowreel’s Little Purple Book! This week’s recommended product: Beach Please Luminous Tinted Balm in Power Hour by Tower 28

$20 (USD, ships worldwide)

Trailblazing Woman Interview

Ayomi Samaraweera: Disrupting the creator economy for good!

Ayomi Samaraweera is the founder and CEO of Canopy: the dedicated community for social media content creators to be able to crowd source information to help them grow their careers.

The idea for Canopy came to Ayomi after she started building her own following on TikTok and realised there wasn’t a support system in place.

Glowreel caught up with Ayomi to hear more about her journey behind building Canopy - it’s launching this summer and it’s going to be game-changing. Let’s go!

Ayomi! So great to have you here today, and to hear more about your startup: Canopy. Before we get into it, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Hi! A bit of background about me, I was born and bred in London, but now I live in the US.

A bit of a fun fact is I definitely love to move around! I started off my career in the UK in London, was able to work in Europe a bit, and then I moved to the Middle East before I moved over to the US. I was in Boston for two years, and I've been in New York for the last four years.

Love that you’ve been able to work in so many different places. What industry or job were you in that allowed you to do that!?

This honestly feels another lifetime, but I was a management consultant, which is a great place to start your career. And I was at the big four. And one of the reasons I wanted to be at the big four or a large organization was to have the opportunity to work abroad. It was definitely strategic move, I was able to work on projects that had clients that were in different locations, but also to be able to formally transfer.

How did you go from management consultant to where you are now, the founder of a startup?

When COVID hit in 2020 I realized that I didn't want to be on the road anymore. And I didn't want to be a consultant. It was one of those pivotal life moments. We were sent back from our client site in St. Louis back home to New York. It was the first time I hadn't been on the road. I thought, wow, this is actually really nice. I get to spend time in my own apartment and spend time with my husband, and actually live in my apartment! So I left consulting during the pandemic.

From there I moved to TikTok. Honestly, I’d downloaded the app, like everyone did, during the pandemic. I thought the platform was really entertaining and I thought, “wouldn't this be a great company to work at?” Three months later, I cold messaged someone and they were kind enough to refer me and I had a job at TikTok!

I was at TikTok for two years and after I left I created my TikTok account ( @ayomitok ) and I came up with the idea for Canopy through my experience of growing on TikTok.

Let’s talk about Canopy! What is it, how did you come up with the idea for it and what do you want to achieve with it?

Canopy is a dedicated community for social media content creators to be able to crowd source information to help them grow their careers.

Essentially, when I was starting to build my own following on TikTok, I realized it's really hard to become a creator. You can't take a course on how to become a creator. I was learning by trial and error on TikTok. I realized this would be so much easier if I had a bunch of friends who are also creators to be able to ask for help. In the same way that in a traditional career as a consultant, I would have my line manager to turn to, I'd have my peer group to turn to, I would have colleagues to turn to.

As a creator, there's no infrastructure in place. You don't belong to a company. You are a solopreneur, you're a freelancer, you're an individual, you're the head of marketing, you're the person editing the videos, you're doing your distribution, you're doing everything by yourself. It’s a lonely journey and it’s really hard when you don't have anyone to ask the stupid question to or ask any questions to. I felt like I was wasting so much time not knowing what to do and not having anyone to turn to.

I came up with Canopy because I thought how amazing would it be if I could create a community to help creators and to help each other to grow? I was able to accelerate my professional corporate career by having a peer group to turn to. And I love the fact that some of my closest friends are my friends that I made when I was consulting. We always helped each other out. We wanted each other to be successful. I think that will be true in the creator space. I think there's plenty of opportunity to go around.

If creators can share more information ourselves, we can empower one another to make smart decisions, to negotiate harder, to get better opportunities for ourselves and to grow quicker and to scale. So that's why I'm building Canopy.

So exciting! When is Canopy launching?!

Right now you can go to underthecanopy.io to sign up to our waitlist so you can be part of the pilot. We’re currently building out our MVP and our target launch date is this summer (to launch a pilot).

I'm really excited because I can't wait to actually get our app in the hands of creators and to see what creators are talking about, to see the impact it can have.

In meantime, you can follow us on social media. We're at Canopy for Creators on both TikTok and Instagram, where we're sharing more information about the creative and tools and tips to help creators grow and build community.

Final question: what’s your top tip for women on how they can blaze their own trail?

That's a big question because I do think for women and especially for women of colour, it's not a level playing field. I personally haven't felt like it's a level playing field through my career. And I think therefore you have to work almost twice as hard to get the same results. So I have two pieces of advice:

• The first is one of the best pieces of advice I received from one of my mentors at TikTok. He said this to me in all seriousness in a meeting. He said, Ayomi, I need you to walk into every room with the confidence of an average white man. Because right now you're using words like “I hope” or “I think”. That’s not giving me the confidence that I need. If this was anyone else, they would be saying, no, this is the case and this is happening. That’s really stuck with me. Now, everytime I'm presenting, especially in pitch meetings or to other people and stakeholders, I try and bring that level of confidence. Because I think that's really important.

• The other tip is to advocate for yourself. As women of colour, or just women in general, we often shy away from bragging about ourselves. But actually you need to. You are your best advocate. No one else is going to advocate for you in the way that you would. No one else knows you in the way that you know yourself, your skills, your abilities. Speaking up and having the confidence to advocate for yourself and to celebrate your achievements will take you far.

Lioness Thoughts

Nominate A Shoutout

Tell us about someone doing cool shit.

It can be you, your friends or family or someone else you know. Whether you’ve just started a book club, are creating artistic makeup looks for fun, or are doing some research and want to hear from women of colour. We want to share thing cool things you’re doing with a community shoutout!

Please send your nominations to [email protected] or DM us on our socials :)

This week's email was brought to you by Shilpa Bhim, founder of Glowreel. You can see more of her work at www.shilpabhim.com or follow her on Instagram @shilpa.bhim

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