Dr. Rumeet Billan Incoming CEO Of Women Of Influence Wants You To Stop Using #GirlBoss

Dr. Rumeet Billan has travelled the globe with her international research sharing her expertise on workplace culture and elevating the understanding of emotional intelligence. She’s also a serial entrepreneur who has now added Women of Influence, a world-renowned Canadian organization to her roster. As their incoming CEO, Dr. Billan shares with us her thoughts on being an investor, how to navigate what can be an overwhelming world of serial entrepreneurship, and why the term #GirlBoss needs to be banished.  

As new year preparations begin and you find yourself looking for inspiration for your 2023 vision board, we’ve got you covered: meet Dr. Rumeet Billan.

Dr. Billan has an impressive resume that includes a Ph.D., being an author, she’s the incoming CEO of Women of Influence, and she’s a serial entrepreneur, founding her first company in 2004, Jobs in Education in 2004, which she sold in 2022. Her next company, Viewpoint Leadership Inc., was launched in 2014. This organization provides customized learning and development programs to Executive Leadership teams, they offer courses and workshops, certifications, and curate research projects. For example, one important study that Dr. Billan took point on was concerning ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome.’ According to Tall Poppy, this syndrome “…occurs when people are attacked, resented, disliked, criticized or cut down because of their achievements and/or success. [And her research illustrated] the consequences of this silent systemic syndrome and the impact it has on women in the workplace.” She is also the Chair of the Board of Directors for G(irls) 20.

If that little teaser wasn’t enough, lucky for you, Dr. Billan sat down with me to share the details of her incredible journey and what’s to come. So, strap in friends, it’s about to be an inspirational ride!

The trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship

Dr. Billan, who is a first-generation Canadian of parents who migrated from India, was always encouraged to focus on her education. As a result, she was the first person in her family to obtain her Ph.D., which she completed at the University of Toronto in Higher Education.

Despite all her achievements and recognition as one of Canada’s Top 10 Power Women in 2020, Dr. Billan believes she was an ‘accidental’ entrepreneur.

In fact, she explains that “I became an entrepreneur in my second year of undergrad, which was sparked by a conversation that I had with a friend, and that led to me having my first business. In running Jobs in Education, I realized very quickly that businesses come and go, so that impact side was very important to me.” As such, Jobs in Education began to donate to “build schools, a teacher’s college, supporting scholarships, and libraries around the world.” Following this, while Dr. Billan was working toward her Ph.D., she began “doing keynotes and workshops.”

That said, throughout her journey as an entrepreneur Dr. Billan has learned a lot about what it takes to propel yourself forward: first up, Dr. Billan shares that “there are no shortcuts. You need to be ready to put in the hard work.” As well, it’s important to understand that “one opportunity can lead to another and that can lead to another. Know that your path is not linear – it will not lead from point A to point B, there are detours along the way, but take those detours because they open the door to other possibilities, new ideas, and new ways of viewing things.”

Next, it’s key to maintain your network as the people you may know today may be the individuals you collaborate with in the future when opportunities arise. “And so, I often say, don’t dismiss people. Just get to know people for who they are and see how you can support each other, either now or somewhere down the road.”

On the flip side, entrepreneurship (and life in general) certainly comes with its fair share of hardships, which is important to prepare for. Therefore, when you encounter challenges as an entrepreneur, Dr. Billan provides some solid advice: “don’t take it personally.” She notes that many people “often connect their identity to their business, so if someone is saying ‘no’ or criticizing, we take that at an individual level, rather than as free consulting.”

In addition, Dr. Billan explains that as an entrepreneur, life can get stressful and so it’s important to “establish concrete boundaries for yourself.” For example, set up a specific time to focus on work or ensure you have honest conversations with yourself about what you want (or need) to get done in a day.

Transforming businesses

Dr. Billan’s “…mission is to transform workplace cultures through research, training, and experiences that foster trust, belonging, and resilience.”

To accomplish this, she highlights that “when I talk about transforming workplace cultures, I do that through my research. I’ve now done three studies, my first one being the Tallest Poppy, looking at women’s experiences in the workplace, identifying the issues, and talking about the impact on individual teams, and organizations, and how we can fix it. I did another study just before the pandemic with the Canadian Mental Health Association called the ‘Canadian Happiness at Work Study.’ Earlier this year, I did a survey with Ipsos on workplace belonging. I love collecting data and then telling stories with that information. [Through these studies,] the hope is that we take the data, turn it into stories, those stories help organizations understand their people, and then they can respond in ways that support them.”

That said, transforming a workplace’s culture takes 3-5 years at minimum, according to Dr. Billan. However, to change the culture within a workplace, “we first need to focus on the climate – the day-to-day interactions people have – and at the core of that, what we need is trust and belonging. This can lead to so many other things, like helping with bias awareness, Tall Poppy Syndrome, and more.”

Making #GirlBoss a thing of the past

As if you weren’t already wow-ed by Dr. Billan’s work ethic and achievements, there’s more: “[she] has been named Canada’s Top 10 Power Women in 2020, and was twice named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women’s Executive Network.”

Like many of us though, she’s had her own moments of doubt as to whether she deserves these ‘powerful’ designations. These thoughts led Dr. Billan to think more about “how are people even selected for these lists? Who are we viewing as powerful or, in today’s world, as influencers or influential? How do we define and quantify it, and why? And do we need to shake that up and redefine [what ‘powerful’ is]?”

And so, as she is a researcher, Dr. Billan dug in and unpacked what ‘powerful’ means. She shares that “when we’re powerful, we’re able to. For me, being someone who can influence or be ‘powerful’ has to do with the impact I’m able to make.”

For instance, when it comes to being an investor, Dr. Billan explains that she “removes the word ‘female’ from being an investor. If you have the opportunity to invest, it doesn’t matter how you identify. Make no mistake there has to be profit, but what matters most is the impact.” In fact, at a recent convocation address, Dr. Billan highlighted that “where we choose to invest our time, not spend our time, but invest it is key. When we start looking at the words ‘invest’ and ‘spend,’ whether we’re talking about time or money, that is a huge differentiator. It’s not about spending the money, it’s about considering ‘if I invest here, what’s the return on impact, as well as profit?’”

To that end, when it comes to thinking of yourself as a #GirlBoss, Dr. Billan is not a fan.

In fact, according to Women of Influence, there are powerful individuals who are in leadership roles, business owners, and much more “…who happen to be women. [And it’s important] “…to normalize the perception of women in these roles by focusing on what they do, rather than their gender.”

The truth is, no one is running around calling male leaders #BoyBoss. Instead, male leaders are just viewed as a boss, so why do we have this differentiation for women?

And so, the moral of the story is: a boss is a boss.

Period.

Up Next: Women of Influence

If you don’t know much about Women of Influence, you’ve come to the right place!

Women of Influence has been around for 28 years and have “…been telling the unfiltered success stories of a diverse group of role models. When it is done right, from the podium or the page, these stories not only inspire, educate, and connect — they start to redefine our perceptions of gender roles and abilities. We call this changing the narrative.” To do this, Women of Influence help women to get inspired, connected, informed, and ahead.

Needless to say, Women of Influence is doing crucial work to help uplift females, and they’re going to have a veteran in their midst with ample experience when it comes to transformation: Dr. Rumeet Billan

Dr. Billan will be the owner and CEO of Women of Influence as of December 1, 2022.

Like many of her other ventures, Dr. Billan shares that acquiring and taking over Women of Influence “happened randomly and without intention. I threw out a comment in a meeting that had nothing to do with Women of Influence and it turned into this. Having said that, I had partnered with Women of Influence over the last number of years on our Tallest Poppy research study and during the pandemic on our Executive Leadership Programming. So, I was very familiar with Women of Influence and their team, they were familiar with me, and we supported each other. However, the acquisition opportunity happened accidentally!”

What enticed Dr. Billan to take on this latest challenge though was that “as I’ve been thinking about winding down [my career], I had to think of whether I wanted to take this on because this is big – it’s a machine, they do incredible work and have a phenomenal platform – and the people who are in charge of it need to be hands-on active, present, and take it to the next level. For me, it was considering if I have the capacity as, ironically at the time, I was selling one of my businesses (which also happened accidentally), so I did. And, when I was viewing this opportunity, it was all about impact, and my thoughts were ‘ok, this is the last big career move, we are going to make the biggest impact, and this is the platform to do it.’”

Dr. Billan notes that “impact has always been important to me, and it’s been weaved throughout my career and everything that I do. And this opportunity was the best way to make an impact on a very large scale and platform. That excites me!”

As she prepares for her transition into the role of CEO of Women of Influence, Dr. Billan is already hard at work to help take things to the next level with a rebrand. For instance, “one of the biggest changes is that the brand is called ‘Women of Influence,’ but I identify as a woman, but I also identify as a woman of colour, a first-generation Canadian, a mom, and I can go on and on. And so, I feel that we need to add a “+” beside our name because of intersectionality. We’re going to start off by making sure people feel seen.”

That said, Dr. Billan is convinced that Women of Influence will be there she hangs up her proverbial entrepreneurial gloves. When speaking about what’s next for her, she emphasizes “this is it, I am here, we’re going to go big, and then we’re going to go home.”

While I want to believe her, I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll see Dr. Billan ‘accidentally’ continue to make her impact on the world in some way or another in the years to come. Until then, we here at Anokhi Life congratulate Dr. Billan on this incredible opportunity with Women of Influence and can’t wait to see how she rocks it!

Main Image Photo Credit: www.rumeet.com