Feature Image By: Rebecca Minkoff //
Fashion empire builder Rebecca Minkoff is a mother of three who moonlights as an empowerer of women. In addition to her global line of clothing and accessories, she is the co-founder of the Female Founder Collective and podcast host of Superwomen, where she interviews women doing incredible things, bouncing back from failures and lifting other women up.
To say Rebecca has a lot going on is an understatement, but she is very quick to note that she has help in all of these endeavors at work and home. “Being a mother has taught me that I can’t do it all. As a leader, it’s forced me to delegate.”
“I call it the juggle. It’s the constant prioritizing and de-prioritizing of things,” she says.
“My husband and I look over our calendars together every Sunday, dividing our mornings and evenings in an attempt to accommodate it all with the kids, work, working out, etc. Unfortunately, we usually miss date night in this equation, but we try to carve out time to be together—just not as much as we want!”
Despite planning, schedules don’t always fall into place. “During Fashion Week last year, one weekend I had to go to work with my daughter to do a fitting, then back to Brooklyn to catch 10 minutes of my oldest son’s soccer game, then home to nurse the baby. Then I took my daughter and the baby back for more Fashion Week fittings. I spent another two hours at the office trying to keep them both entertained while also trying to be taken seriously during a fitting with a blogger who was going to walk in my show. Sweating.”
In business, Rebecca tries to model a family-friendly culture that isn’t so closely tied to traditional working hours. “We open the office at 10 am on Mondays and close at 3 pm on Fridays. During the summer, you can take five Fridays off in addition to your normal vacation time. And if you work a weekend day, you always get a comp day to make up for it because we know that family time is precious.”
Rebecca sees the dire need for flexibility in the workplace in order for women to succeed professionally, but most businesses are still operating on a schedule that is beyond outdated. She fiercely advocates for more women in leadership, knowing that women leaders are more likely to disrupt outdated systems that often hold mothers back.
“At some point in the future, we need to call it quits on Henry Ford’s work day. We need to create a new schedule for adults.”
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