B Corp Leaders Share How Past Money Challenges Inspire Their Current Work
Certified B Corporation HoneyBee, which provides financial wellness services for employers, reached out to members of the B Corp community for their thoughts on the importance of financial knowledge and strength for all workers—and how that drives their professional pursuits.
Lisa Sordilla was a customer of Energage prior to joining as its first human resources director in March of 2017. In her current role as VP of human resources, her personal passions align with Energage’s purpose of making the world a better place to work together.
Sordilla worked hard as a social worker after college but kept needing to take on extra work to pay all of her bills on time. “As a first-generation college student, this wasn’t how I thought things would be after I got that degree,” she says. “I thought things would be easier and my finances would fall into place.”
After a few years and promotions where she still wasn’t able to get ahead, Sordilla decided to try something new. She moved to Japan for a year to teach English. With lower expenses and another part-time job, Sordilla was finally able to pay off her student loan debt. She had to be disciplined because she only got paid once a month.
“I joke now about eating sushi at the beginning of the month and peanut butter at the end,” she says. “And with all the struggles, I wouldn’t trade any of it. It has made me a better person—a better neighbor, friend, relative, mother, HR professional, and leader.”
Anna Colibri founded Colibri Digital Marketing, San Francisco’s first and only full-service digital marketing agency that is B Corp certified. Colibri wanted to be of service to others.
Her financial setback? Taxes. “When my business first became profitable, I was taken by surprise and I ended up having to set up a payment plan with the IRS,” she says, noting that she now sets aside one-third of all revenue for taxes.
Samantha Richardson founded the Ethical Profit Agency because she believes in holding herself and the accounting profession to higher standards.
Richardson told us about a financial setback she faced early on in her business. She’d entered into a partnership that went south, and the person didn’t pay her according to their agreement. She tried to recover the money she was owed but found there was little recourse.
“For the next two years I had to fund my life and business by rotating credit card balances until I could get a consolidation loan” that was co-signed by her partner, she says. “The loan allowed me to pay much lower interest, and I was able to pay it off in two years rather than the five.”
Richardson’s business is doing great and she just published her second book, Ethical Profit, a guide for small businesses to increase profit using sustainable business practices.
B the Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
Mission-Driven Women on Overcoming Financial Setbacks was originally published in B The Change on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
