My name is Estelle Keeber and I am the co-founder of Mums in business Association.
5 years ago I was a single mum to my 2 sons and was finding it hard to secure a job that fitted around my life. After completing 3 years of night school I qualified to teach photography and decide to set up my own business and so Love Photography 13 Weddings was born. It was then that I realised how hard it was to be a mum and a woman in business. After many lengthly discussions my Sister Leona and I decide to reach out and help other women and we created Mums in Business Association. My role as co founder includes content planning, team strategy sessions, speaking at corporate conferences aswell as the day to day running of the business.
Did you ever sit down and plan your career?
If you had told me 5 years ago tis is what I would be doing I would never have believed you. Growing up I never really knew what I wanted to do. When I became self employed I really got a feel for being my own boss. Having time freedom, flexibility and creative control were all great reasons to keep pushing through.
Have you faced any challenges along the way?
Becoming a single parent after spending 10 years with my childrens dad was extremely difficult. At my lowest point I had to rely on foodbanks to feed my self and my children. Its hitting rock bottom that makes you keep fighting for what you want in life every day!
What has been your biggest achievement to date?
I think the whole creation of MIBA and realising how many women we help on a daily basis is a HUGE achievement. Our tribe has grown to over 130k people in just over 2 years…its mind blowing!
Our child friendly networking events are now also in over 130 locations worldwide which means we are able to connect thousands and thousands of women, this just blows our minds and pushes us to reach even more women!
What one thing do you believe has been a major factor in you achieving success?
We are very real and open in everything that we do. As mums and women in business ourselves we truly understand the pressures and struggle and our open approach to this is what we think allows so many other women to relate to us. We listen to our community and create products and trainings to help them in their journey.
How do you feel about mentoring? Have you mentored anyone or are you someone’s mentee?
Mentoring is a great way to grow not only as a person but as a business. We have some great mentors that we are able to reach out to and we also mentor other members of our community to help give back too!
If you could change one thing to accelerate the pace of change for Gender Parity, what would it be?
I think that both men and women need to accept that we all have our own individual strengths and each person will bring something unique. Once we can look at the things we bring to the table rather than the sexual gender we identify as, the quicker we will see change.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self what would it be?
Take very little notice of other peoples opinions as very few really matter in the end.
What is your next challenge and what are you hoping to achieve in the future?
We are very excited to be working alongside Social Media Week and delivering a presentation at their Durban conference. We also have more networking events launch and lots of amazing publishing clients working away in the background…2020 Is going to be incredible!
Moving forward we cannot wait to connect even more women on a global basis. To help them learn, grow and connect!
