About the Author
Patti cultivates homegrown changemakers prepared to step into their power and work with others to create the world they want to live in. Get in touch to find out how you can grow the social changemaker in yourself and those you serve with Blue Roads Changemaker YOU.
My conversation with Sue Bevan Baggott was so empowering! Sue has a wide range of rich experiences from building a safer community for domestic violence survivors and supporting people with mental illness challenges to corporate innovation and angel investing. Sue’s life has helped her recognize the importance of channeling time, talents, and financial resources toward the positive changes she wants to see in her community and the world.
Sue shared her story with us on my weekly show, “On Your Own Terms,” which airs on Win Win Women. I invite you to tune into the conversation via video, podcast, written form, or all three! Regardless of format, I'm sure this discussion with Changemaker Sue Bevan Baggott will inspire you to use your gifts tof create impactful change in your own community. Let me know what you think!
Homegrown Sue
Sue grew up in a Philadelphia suburb. One set of grandparents lived out in the farm country of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and the other lived further south in Virginia Beach. Growing up, Sue’s fondest memories were spent visiting her grandparents. She acknowledges a special relationship with her paternal grandfather because of the way he encouraged and expressed belief in her potential.
I had a very supportive grandfather who said, “Women can do anything.”
He encouraged her to use her gifts to serve others. Sue was an excellent problem solver as a child, taking to math and science naturally. Her grandfather saw this and recommended that she pursue engineering.
He said, “You should be an engineer. Engineers help solve problems and you can make the world a better place.”
So he was one of the reasons why I ended up eventually deciding to study engineering.
Growing up, service to others was a core family value for Sue. Her family channeled their service to others through their faith and church involvement. They were powerful role models for Sue and her two sisters. Then when she was 11 years old, her mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Her mother's illness instilled in her a great empathy and ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
After high school, Sue went to Lehigh University to study chemical engineering and biology. An internship with an oil refinement company quickly revealed her primary interest was in working directly with people to solve problems that made human lives better.
I needed to do something in engineering that actually involved helping people.
Solution-Focused Sue
After completing that internship in the oil industry, Sue took up a job at Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio. During her early years at P&G in Beauty Care, she was pleased to see there were several women in senior leadership positions in the company.
But when she and her husband took new assignments with Procter and Gamble in their European division, Sue realized things were different there.
She found herself in a setting where gender stereotypes were more readily evident. When she attended a training in Switzerland she was shocked to see that, out of all the managers at her level, she was the only woman there.
I get there, it's 35 men and me, and I was just a little shocked.
Sue realized that even in a progressive company like Procter and Gamble, there were still instances of gender inequality. Women in leadership were not treated the same way as men in this new setting.
I had some very interesting questions from some of the men asking me questions like, “Who was cooking for my husband while I was traveling?”
Other issues important to Sue have been informed by difficult situations within her own family. When Sue was pregnant with her second child, she received a harrowing phone call from her sister Sandy. Calling from the police station, Sandy explained that she and her two-year-old daughter had to escape from the house because her husband had attacked her. Sue was able to use her credit card to book a hotel room for her sister and niece so that they could be safe. Her husband had been exhibiting more and more emotionally abusive behavior patterns; trying to isolate, control and cut his wife off from the family. Fortunately for Sandy, she got help from local domestic violence support groups and later moved closer to her parents.
That experience made me realize that these sorts of things can happen to anyone in any situation.
This awareness led Sue to get involved with the work to prevent domestic and gender-based violence in the Cincinnati area. She spent six years on the board of a nonprofit called Women Helping Women.
Today that group has a nationally recognized program sending in trained professionals with police to provide additional services and support in emergencies involving domestic violence called DVERT.
Sue’s Patchwork
When Sue's children were in elementary school, she met another mother with some big ideas about how to create change in their community. By gathering together 100 women from different backgrounds to pitch in $1000 each, the group could collectively invest $100,000 into the community with the money they pooled. Sue became a founding member of that organization called Impact 100. For several years, Sue served on the Impact 100 Board in different leadership positions, including Board President. (It was involvement with Impact 100 that introduced Sue to the Women Helping Women organization mentioned earlier.) Today, there are multiple chapters of Impact 100 all around the world.
From her beginnings in corporate innovation to her philanthropic work, Sue has always maintained her core values in service to others. She learned to channel different perspectives through her vast experiences in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors in ways that benefitted both.
Changemaker Sue
This range of experience across community and corporate work eventually led to an introduction to “angel investing”, a concept that has become an unexpected area of passion for Sue.
I actually joke about being an “accidental angel investor.”
Sue’s journey to becoming an angel investor might not be what you'd expect. While working with a board of trustees to connect corporations with the university, she met community leader Tony Shipley.
I found out that angel investing is actually a lot about economic development.
Sue teamed up with Tony to provide strategic insight for their investment group, Queen City Angels, and their portfolio companies. She learned that angel investing is more than putting money into a company. It also helps greatly to share business expertise to build stronger companies so they have a higher chance of success. Sue found that, as an angel investor, she can direct positive change toward inequalities and other issues she cares about deeply.
Only 2% of all venture capital was going to female-founded companies.
Tony recognized that his angel investor group would not attract as many quality opportunities without diversification of his decision-makers. For this reason, “diversity equity and inclusion” became one of the three key pillars in their revised strategy.
Tony invited me to join and help lead that initiative. As he said, “In the past, I've tried to find ways to have women be interested in this, but I'm not making much progress.”
Tony would eventually introduce Sue to Alicia Rob, a Senior Fellow for the Kaufman Foundation. Through Alicia, Sue learned about a variation on angel investing known as “impact investing”. In this case, impact investors provide capital for specific companies focused on creating the social and environmental changes they are looking for.
Alicia had done a lot of research and written two books around challenges of women's access to capital. She concluded that part of the issue was not having a sufficient number of women on the investor side.
Through her connections with Alicia, Sue became an impact investor at both a regional and international level. The Next Wave Impact fund focused on companies that were founded by women or people of color.
One of the myths that people have is that, if a company is mission driven, they're not going to excel in growth and profits. That is not true.
Sue has learned that the investment of her time and resources pays off in multiple ways. Not only do investors have opportunities to get a financial return on that investment, but the companies can be highly successful precisely because people get great satisfaction from supporting businesses that align with their values. That's a win-win proposition.
I invest my time in future leaders and strategic systemic change. That's how we can strengthen outcomes and impact.
For several years now, Sue’s mission has been consistent.
“My personal mission is around empowering positive impact. I look to do that through innovation and connection because those are two ways I can bring that empowerment to life.”
Like her family taught her, Sue holds on to her roots of service on behalf of others and uses her gifts to help her community.
I highly recommend you reach out to Sue on LinkedIn to access her distinctive expertise as an innovation consultant, speaker and coach/advisor who can help you and your organization achieve meaningful, impactful professional and personal success.
As you can see, Sue's work is impacting Global Goal #5 – Gender Equality and Global Goal #8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth. Can you also see how, through her work with organizations like Women Helping Women, she's also addressing #3 – Good Health and Well-Being while her work as an angel/impact investor progresses Global Goal #16 – Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.
Like me, I'm sure Sue's changemaking work inspires you to do what you can to make the world work better for everyone. Please get in touch with us to join the effort to realize the Global Goals by the year 2030! You can if you take care of your own “being, your doing, your connecting and your reflecting” with intention. That is the power of Changemaker YOU.
Get started today with our CHANGEMAKER YOU course where you can learn more about creating change in your community and beyond!
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Patti cultivates homegrown changemakers prepared to step into their power and work with others to create the world they want to live in. Get in touch to find out how you can grow the social changemaker in yourself and those you serve with Blue Roads Changemaker YOU.
