Exclusive: Rise Founder Talks Company’s ‘Seeing is Believing’ Campaign on Women’s Equality Day

Rise is a technology platform that empowers millennial women to own our careers through project-based work. Today (August 26), Rise is launching a campaign called “Seeing is Believing” to challenge companies and organizations to increase the visual representation of women in every field.

Equality cannot be achieved if we cannot see women in positions of power, in the boardroom, on the ballot box, and even in search algorithms. Marian Wright Edelman once said: “You can’t be what you can’t see.” This year is the 99th anniversary since women won the right to vote, before year 100, what can we do to propel women further, faster, on our own terms?

We spoke with Rise founder and CEO who shared her thoughts on the campaign and gender equality.

The Knockturnal: How did you come up with this campaign?

Vivian Chen: The idea for this campaign came about when I Googled terms such as “CEO”, “Startup founder”, and “Entrepreneur”, and saw lots of stodgy, traditional stock images of men in suits and hoodies. There weren’t many photos of people who looked like me or the women that are part of the Rise community: dynamic, ambitious, modern women who called our own shots. Even the few photos of women that did surface, they were in dark suits, with their arms crossed over their chests. In response, we organized a photo shoot in New York City to diversify the visual representation of women in power. The shoot featured women from a range of industries, including technology entrepreneurs, a community activator, a STEM educator, a fashion magazine editor, and more.

The Knockturnal: What are your goals?

Vivian Chen: This campaign was first and foremost a celebration of women. We wanted women to see other women starting businesses, leading an industry, forging a new path, creating opportunities for herself. Visual representation is both a reflection of societal norms, but also a reinforcement of what is normalized in society. How we see people who look like us interacting in the world informs what we view as possible in our personal interactions with the world. We also wanted to increase the quality and quantity of images of modern women at work. We wanted to challenge the male-dominated dark suit and hoodie archetype and show that women can be successful regardless of what we wear.

The Knockturnal: How can people participate?

Vivian Chen: We’d love for people to share our campaign on social media and we also encourage other companies and organizations to launch their own campaigns to increase the visibility of women in every field. Next year, 2020, marks the 100th year since the 19th Amendment was adopted, giving women the right to vote. What can we do leading up to this anniversary to make women seen and supported.

The Knockturnal: Tell us more about Rise.

Vivian Chen: Rise is a flexible work platform for ambitious women. We connect high-caliber women to innovative companies to take on projects that fit her skill set and lifestyle.

The Knockturnal: How did you get your start in this line of work?

Vivian Chen: I actually stumbled upon the world of flexible work by chance. I initially set out to start a completely different company, but quickly ran out of money and had to pursue side consulting projects to keep the business afloat. Within a few months, my clients started referring me to more projects and I had more work than I could handle. The aha moment came when I was offered a position that was five levels above where I was a year ago and I realized that thanks to these side hustles, I had accelerated my career growth. I knew that if I could do it, so could other women; so the idea for Rise was born, to help ambitious women to leapfrog their careers through project-based work, all the while giving her the freedom to work when she wants, how she wants.

The Knockturnal: What’s next for Rise

Vivian Chen: Rise is changing the future of work, not only by providing flexible opportunities but by creating an ecosystem to make flexible work successful and sustainable. We are building an ecosystem to replicate the traditional 9-to-5 benefits such as health insurance and 401K planning. We hope that by providing access to these benefits, more women will be empowered to take charge of their lives and careers.

The Knockturnal: Final thoughts?

Vivian Chen: Marian Wright Edelman once said: “You can’t be what you can’t see.” So let’s show the world what women can be!