[MUSIC] I am because we are.

That's such a powerful philosophy that has stuck with me because without the people, the support, I wouldn't be the person that I am here today.

I spent nearly two decades in corporate America, where I was often the only woman in the room, and I became increasingly aware of the gender norms and systemic barriers that hold girls and women back.

And so in 2014, I founded LiveGirl to pay it forward to the next generation of brave women leaders.

And what we do is we provide, free of charge, leadership, development, mentorship, career readiness and advocacy so that all girls and women have the opportunity to lead.

[MUSIC] We serve girls starting in middle school, where we teach her to lead herself and then through high school, as we teach her to lead others, and finally, in college, as we teach her to lead and the workforce through, SHE WORKS.

Being a part of the SHE WORKS program has helped me navigate professional spaces, confidently, allowed me to build my resumé, which eventually led me to my first full-time job offer after college.

I am very excited because I was, I mean, a lot of the time the conversation was the economy is bad, people are not getting jobs, and especially my generation.

But I just tried my best to just focus on what I can do and the connections I made through the program.

Mentorship through the SHE WORKS program has supported me throughout my internships, my academics and my personal life.

Through providing all young women, especially first generation college students, the opportunities to learn and discover a wide variety of careers that open pathways and open doors for themselves.

Everything ranging from mental health to financial services, where we partner with Stone Point Capital to bring young women into the boardroom so they can have a literal seat at the table and discover new opportunities for themselves.

At Stone Point, we've hosted many office visits for SHE WORKS participants with career panels to really demystify the world of finance.

We've also hired SHE WORKS summer interns in our firm for the past three or four summers, which has been fantastic.

Many of our employees serve as mentors to the SHE WORKS participants throughout the year.

My most valuable experience with the role has been the mentorship available, but also realizing what is doable out there in the world, especially for a young girl like me who is first generation.

My dream really is to mentor other younger people, pour back into those people and those communities that have helped me grow, overall.

My friend who was in my sorority knew that I was having a bit of a challenging time finding an internship and a career path, and she was the same major as me and got her full-time offer and her internship through the LiveGirl program.

So she kind of pointed me in the right direction, and then through that I was able to go through some career readiness training, do networking events, and that was how I landed my internship here at Stone Point.

An exciting aspect of SHE WORKS is that we're not only bringing young women into the room, we're also bringing our career readiness expertise through training and other activities at our partners locations.

This might look like taking a group of college women to Silver Hill Hospital so that they can meet with senior leaders, many who look like themselves so they can explore their passions and discover the opportunities of a career path in mental health and health care.

I think the discussion around mental health is changing, and especially that starts with young folks.

And so to have a room full of SHE WORKS girls visiting the hospital that are all interested in careers in mental health, I think is very empowering.

We have a health care crisis.

We have nurses who are aging and we don't have sufficient number of individuals going into nursing.

And my hope is that when we have a LiveGirl intern, they will be inspired to see how they can really be able to help the community in that capacity.

Investing in one girl is investing in a community, and we see this through SHE WORKS all the time, whether it's the SHE WORKS alumni that comes back to hire more interns for her company, or whether it's the young woman that goes through her leadership training and takes her family to the Capitol to testify for a bill.

LiveGirl gave me the chance to go to the Connecticut State Capitol, where the legislators were willing to hear our voices of all of the young girls who were in the room.

That was a really nice and meaningful opportunity for me because I was in front of legislators and I felt heard and I felt that everything was possible and everything is possible.

We know that the work that we are doing is creating positive change.

Since founding, we've served over 25,000 girls and young women, and we are looking forward to continuing to expand our reach and impact across Connecticut.

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