News

By Denise Szott

Jul 2, 2021

This roundtable was convened to discuss diversity, equity and inclusion from the perspective of minority women leaders. Shari Dunn was the moderator and panelists included Elizabeth Gomez, Fahti Khosrowshahi and Claudia Yakos. Comcast Business hosted the discussion, with Oregon/Southwest Washington region marketing manager Ashley Powers in attendance.

ELIZABETH GOMEZ: I am the owner of Bridge City Contracting based out of Battle Ground, Washington. We primarily serve the Portland metropolitan area and Southwest Washington.

CLAUDIA YAKOS: I am president and CEO of CIMA Services. We were founded in 2007 and provide language services, including translations and interpretations.

FAHTI KHOSROWSHAHI: I’m the founder and CEO of Ceek Women’s Health. We are a medical device company based in Portland, and we’ve updated the vaginal speculum.

SHARI DUNN: I’m the CEO and principal of ITBOM Consulting. ITBOM does consulting around strategic design and diversity, equity and inclusion. Tell us about your business and what motivated you to start it.

YAKOS: This company was started in 2007. My husband and I were both working for Intel and decided to come to Intel in Oregon. I then chose to stay home and raise my little girl. I saw a need, and the opportunity arose with a publishing company asking us to consider translations of their science textbooks.

We offer services, including translations, software, multimedia localization, website translation, and interpreting. We have an extensive network and manage over 150 different language combinations. Our translators and interpreters provide linguistic services to individuals, organizations, nonprofits and communities, and we help to communicate their message.

KHOSROWSHAHI: I used to work in the corporate world and did management consulting for a big firm. I got married and my husband and I went through three years of infertility treatment. Long story short, I got pregnant and have two children. But one thing that stood out during that time was how backward women’s health was. For some reason, the vaginal speculum was front and center.

We moved here in 2014. After that I wanted to focus on women’s health, so we worked with a team of local designers and engineers to update the speculum, and in the process developed some other simple solutions. So we have three products — the Nella NuSpec Reusable Vaginal Speculum, which won the Time magazine award for one of the best inventions of 2020. We have the Nella VuLight, and Nella VuSleeve. We’re ramping up to commercialize this September.

DUNN: So now we have a theme — two folks who moved here and family changes precipitated issues that were already germinating. Elizabeth, tell us about Bridge City Contracting.

GOMEZ: I’m actually a Portland native. Like Fahti and Claudia, I came from a corporate background. I worked for a very large multinational bank. In 2012, they closed our office and offered me a role in their New York headquarters. I declined. My husband and I moved from Lake Oswego to Vancouver where he has years of construction experience. We were at a transitional point in our lives where we decided, let’s open our own company. So we founded it in 2013 in our garage, and we’ve grown our business from there. We have five employees, over 53 trade partners in the Portland metropolitan area, and offer residential and commercial remodeling and construction services.

DUNN: A lot of times when women are founding or running organizations, we frequently are responding to some very personal need. I felt there was this big missing piece around diversity, equity and inclusion, especially as it relates to women of color, especially Black women. And I remember thinking, well, somebody should do something. And I was like, well, I’m somebody. So here I am.

Given the pandemic, how have your technology needs changed?

GOMEZ: We definitely had to pivot. Now we’re almost running a 100% virtual model. For example, instead of in-home consultations or on-site, we’re doing virtual consultations. We have tools that provide photos, plans, materials and selections all in one place. Clients can log on anywhere at any time and see what’s going on with the project. Now we have systems in place that we’ll keep and move our business forward with them.

KHOSROWSHAHI: I got drawn into it because of my girls moving into remote learning and we had to move into Zoom. When the pandemic hit, a lot of clinics’ volume of patients went down drastically. So unlike normal times where they’re so busy, they couldn’t talk to us, suddenly providers who didn’t normally have the time were curious to learn more about our products.

DUNN: Claudia, what about you?

YAKOS: We had to check our ability to integrate with virtual meeting platforms because our interpretations were always face-to-face. Translation has always been a very mobile technology, but the world went virtual almost overnight. The ability to integrate quickly and adapt to the new technology was of the utmost importance, particularly in the language support. And it’s here to stay. We’ve noticed specifically in our educational division with K-12 schools is that the ability to provide resources to parents in real time, along with translations, was very important. Having us be a partner and walk them through in their language and use these services was something that was very instrumental.

DUNN: At Comcast I’m sure there’s been an explosion of the need for broadband and other access, but there’s another type of support businesses need. What ways can the city or the state help BIPOC business owners thrive?

KHOSROWSHAHI: Ceek was on the fundraising route about two years ago. We applied for the PPP loan. Having a resource that’s easy to access and for companies like ours to know about it is really important. It took a lot of digging to find out what’s available and how we could get it. The first time we applied for the PPP loan through a big bank, we didn’t get it. The second time, we went through a local bank and that worked, but I wish the state made the knowledge easily accessible. I also think providing some tax incentives for businesses to thrive is important. We want to hire people, and we also are at the phase where we’re establishing our business and need a little breathing room until we can get on stable ground and generate solid revenues. It would be great for the states to support us.

GOMEZ: I think that with the rollout of these programs, the communication was very chaotic and unorganized. These federal programs are so big and there are so many moving pieces, nobody really knows what’s going on. I think at the state and city levels, that’s where outreach needs to happen.

I’m a big proponent of professional associations. I’m a member of the Portland metropolitan Hispanic chamber. They were very good about letting us know our options. I’m also a member of the local building industry, and they were involved in making sure we had all the information and were doing webinars with CPAs, bankers and underwriters. So if the city and the states want to help our business community, it’s definitely by getting the communication and information out. I also agree with the tax incentives. We are personally priced out of doing business and having a storefront in downtown Portland. There needs to be a way that businesses of color can also be downtown.

DUNN: Claudia, what advice would you have for a BIPOC woman who is considering starting a business in this area?

YAKOS: Because I’m structured differently, I didn’t qualify for the PPP loans and that was devastating to me as a minority woman of color entrepreneur and small business. Most of the language service companies are structured in a smaller team. And then we work with contractors because it’s project-based need. We’re not at a point where we can have hundreds of employees. That was what the SBA and banks I was working with weren’t aware of; they were just reading the fact that you only qualify if you have employees, but don’t qualify if you have an independent contractor.

I would say, historically, BIPOC entrepreneurs have been underrepresented and underserved. But I feel minority-owned businesses are rapidly growing. I would tell them to choose your business idea, write the business plan, register, leverage all of the minority certifications you have access to because that will open doors to financing your business and using all of those resources. Leverage those women who also can be great mentors.

I would encourage entrepreneurs, women of color to make their dreams a reality. Sometimes fear keeps us frozen. We think of all of the things that could go wrong. Let go of the fear and move forward because everything is ‘figure-outable.’

DUNN: A lot of people don’t have mentors or anybody in their family who was an entrepreneur. Was entrepreneurship something you were exposed to?

KHOSROWSHAHI: Yeah, my father was an entrepreneur. I’m Iranian, and he had a spinning factory in Iran before the revolution. So I had that bug, but working in the corporate world prepared me for it. I’ve learned a lot, but there’s so many times I wish somebody could give me unbiased, fair advice. So I have a network of different people I tap into that I’ve built over the years, but it’s not easy to find.

GOMEZ: My mom, my aunt, my grandma are all businesswomen. My grandma used to have a little antique store at the Portland Saturday Market. I would sit at the counter and watch all the customers and negotiations. And my aunt would import artisan items from Guatemala and sell them. My mom owns a technology business. I was always surrounded by trailblazing women.

But my advice to a BIPOC woman opening a business is have your key people in place, have your systems, CPA, bookkeeper, lawyer, all the things that you don’t think you’re going to need, you’re actually going to need right away. Another great resource is SCORE in Portland through the SBA. They offer free counseling and resources, help you write your business plan, find a location. Volunteers will partner you with someone in your industry. Knowing where to go and then having those systems in place is the most important thing you can do to be successful.

YAKOS: My dad immigrated to the United States from Mexico when he was very young. He worked in the agricultural fields and met my mom on one of his trips to Mexico. So she came to the United States. She was a college graduate in Mexico. But when she immigrated to the United States, her world shifted. She was the first entrepreneur I saw. She would be going to the university and was creative with her side hsutles to contribute to the family. Her family in Mexico were all entrepreneurs. So I grew up with that.

The corporate world also taught me a lot about tenacity and grit. I have had many mentors in my life, but most important was my mom. She was a constant source of support and encouragement.

DUNN: Familial connections is another theme. A lot of people of color often don’t have outside folks who mentor them; they look to family. COVID has had a big impact on communities and especially people for whom English is not their primary language. What was the impact of COVID-19 and how did your business respond?

YAKOS: In the language industry, where I saw the most disruption was health care and education. We still needed to have high-quality communication, but the risk of close interactions made it impossible. So interpretation services that were once in-person had to shift to a virtual setting overnight. These digital tools became the essential part of the language support solutions for us. Over the last year and a half, it’s providing us with valuable insights, and this is the way we’re choosing to do business in the future.

The big impact was on translations. People looked at their budgets, and the uncertainty put many projects on hold. Even though we saw a decrease in our bottom line, we’ve got these wonderful appreciation letters from a lot of our clients and a lot of parents letting us know we made a difference.

DUNN: Fahti, what has been your experience with access to capital?

KHOSROWSHAHI: It’s not easy. I started Ceek by putting in my own money. I am fortunate enough that I could invest in the company myself before I have to raise capital. What I learned, especially in Portland, is the incentive is actually not to invest your own money, because your valuation would be higher. And the VC firms in Portland typically like to invest at a lower threshold.

There are pockets of men and women who invest in women’s health, but it takes time to find them. I think Oregon could do more to support and provide capital for small businesses. We’re way behind California and Washington.

DUNN: You bring up this cultural difference with venture capital here versus other places.

KHOSROWSHAHI: I feel like if the firms here couldn’t invest in us, there would always be an opportunity to build a big referral network. But you’re basically on your own to see who will invest. I encourage other entrepreneurs to not give up. I always say I’m looking forward to getting rejected because you just have to get used to it and build a thick skin. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

DUNN: There are so many crosscurrents – COVID, civil unrest, a spike in prices for building materials. What is the greatest challenge and your outlook going forward?

GOMEZ: Well, 2020 and 2021 have been challenging because of supply delays, tariffs, border closures. When over 90% of our building products are imported, supply costs increased, and the supply chain is jammed. What I used to get done in eight hours, now I put in 15-hour workdays.

But we are definitely hiring. The housing market is strong; the building industry is busy. I’m looking forward to child-care tax credits. I’d like to see a lot of women reenter the workforce because they are greatly missed. I hope we can get more relief for mothers who had to become teachers overnight. I’m also looking forward to expanding our company.

KHOSROWSHAHI: Our customer base is health care providers and our assumption is by September we should see more normalcy, but it’s tied to patient consumer confidence. We’re also hiring with that outlook in mind. We have to build our field force in order to support our launch. So, overall, I would say I have a positive outlook unless something unexpected happens.

YAKOS: We’re always hiring. We are seeking folks who want to make a difference, to help our communities feel they’re not invisible. The larger corporations can help by supporting these small businesses, language companies. We’re taking a closer look at diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s allowed people to understand that a lot of their clients have more support when they’re provided with information in their language. n

Participants

Shari Dunn I CEO & Principal, ITBOM LLC Consulting I Moderator

Shari Dunn is the CEO/ Principal of ITBOM, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in institutional and organizational coaching around equity, leadership, change management, women in leadership, and workforce development. ITBOM consults with companies as diverse as fortune 500’s, State Agencies, and medium to small-sized businesses.

Shari is a former non-profit CEO, attorney, journalist, and foundation funder. Shari was the Co-VP of Power of Attorney Foundation, a sub-grantee of the former Atlantic Philanthropies. She has been quoted in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the Non-Profit Quarterly, and more. She is also an adjunct at the University of Portland in the Pamplin School of Business and serves on the Oregon Talent and Workforce Development Board. Her approach is outside the traditional human resources paradigm and is meant to help institutions with a systemic redesign to bring workplace equity.

Shari has been awarded Executive of the Year and one of the Women of Influence by the Portland Business Journal, amongst many other awards and honors.

Claudia Yakos I President and Founder, Cima Services, Inc.

Claudia Yakos is President and CEO of Cima Services, Inc., a company she founded in 2004. Claudia conceptualized Cima Services, Inc. as a language agency and conduit between Limited English Proficiency residents and the service providers who tend to the needs of this growing population.

Cima Services, Inc. is a full language service provider that offers a wide portfolio of services and delivers leading customized language solutions while adhering to standards surpassing the most stringent within the language services industry relative to quality, certification, ethics and training.

As President and CEO of Cima Services, Claudia oversees the day-to-day operations and is actively involved in guiding the company’s strategic direction. Claudia maintains a strong passion toward creating a performance standard that will lay a foundation for greater appreciation of language services with a vision to help eliminate multicultural communication barriers through innovative language-based solutions, exceptional customer service support and superior linguistic quality.

Elizabeth Gomez I Founder and Project Manager, Bridge City Contracting LLC

In addition to being a licensed Certified Renovator in both Washington and Oregon states, Elizabeth’s background includes developing and communicating corporate organizational goals, change management and relationship-building.

Elizabeth also holds an MBE from the University of Washington’ Foster School of Business, certificates in mediation and public relations, a Bachelor of Arts in Theology from East Coast Christian University and she is a US Small Business Administration Emerging Leaders graduate. In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Elizabeth the President’s Volunteer Service Award.

Elizabeth is a board member of the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber of Oregon and SW Washington, The Building Industry Association of Clark County and The Building Industry Association of Washington. She is on the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Remodelers Board of Trustees, the Chair of the BIA Remodelers of Clark County Association and the Chair of the 2021 Remodeled Homes Tour.

Fahti Khosrowshahi I Founder and CEO, Ceek Women’s Health

Fahti is the Founder and CEO of Ceek Women’s Health. Ceek is a medical device company that has re-invented the vaginal speculum and has developed 2 adjacent products to make the gynecological exam comfortable for women and better for healthcare providers. She has 20-years of experience in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries having worked across companies and disease states both in the US and Europe as a management consultant focused on commercial strategy.

In her tenure she has worked on over 100 brands and supported 55 product launches. However, after going through 3-years of infertility treatment and 7-rounds of IVF she became extremely passionate about women’s health. Realizing the inadequacies in the care women receive, she resigned from her job and started Ceek Women’s Health to bring innovative medical devices to frontline gynecological care — an area neglected for decades. At Ceek, she has been responsible for creating products from concepts, taking products through approval, and commercializing them.