Transcript- Episode 155: Rebuilding Community After Disaster: What It Means To Create Solutions Rooted In Equity with Lizzy Okoro Davidson, Director of the Pasadena Women’s Business Center at PCC

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:00:00]:
I think that by actually going to this conference, learning about the strategies, learning about this, hearing the stories, seeing the support that you can get, finding, you know, community within the attendees at this conference, it's so, so important. And then you can come and learn about the Women's Business center and learn about how you can really just very quickly, very easily sign up to become the client and become a part of this ecosystem.

Christina Barsi [00:00:29]:
The workforce landscape is rapidly changing and educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce to make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So how do we begin to predict the future?

Salvatrice Cummo [00:00:54]:
Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, Vice President of Economic and Workforce Development at Pasadena City.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:00:59]:
College and host of this podcast.

Christina Barsi [00:01:02]:
And I'm Christina Barsi, producer and co host of this podcast.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:01:06]:
And we are starting the conversation about the Future of Work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals, more internships and pcc. Students in the workforce. We at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they enter. This is a conversation that impacts all of us, you, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole.

Christina Barsi [00:01:40]:
We believe change happens when we work together. And it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barsi.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:01:47]:
And I'm Salvatrice Cummo. And this is the Future of Work.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:01:53]:
Hi, welcome back to the Future of Work podcast. I am your host, Salvatrice Cummo. As you know, we are preparing for our seventh annual Future of Work conference to be held at Pasadena City College in just a few weeks on October 28th. And we're excited to give you a sneak peek into what we'll be discussing on stage with one of our panel speakers today, Lizzy Okoro Davidson, Director of the Women's Business center here at Pasadena City College. Lizzy is an LA based entrepreneur, consultant, speaker and previous guest on this podcast. She founded and Bootstrapped Bunch magazine in 2011 and now leads the Power of Play Children's Museum. Lizzy has over a decade of experience in media consulting and public speaking working with brands like Nike and Adidas. Together we'll be discussing how the Women's Business center is key in supporting local businesses in Los Angeles after the fires and how the Women's Business center is collaborating with community colleges to create solutions that are rooted in equity and economic opportunity.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:03:02]:
I am thrilled to have Lizzy join us on this podcast again. So let's get into it. Welcome, Lizzy.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:03:07]:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be back.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:03:10]:
Thank you. It's been a year since we spoke last, and a lot has has transpired since then. Between then and now, the anniversary and there's been a series of events that has happened. Give us a little bit of insight on what the first year has been like. Successes, challenges, opportunities, all that good stuff.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:03:32]:
Yes, my goodness, it has been a year. So we opened up our doors October 3, 2024, and things were great. They were wonderful. The community was so excited to have the center on campus at Pasadena City College and were just so thrilled about all the opportunities that we were looking at to help build and foster community and entrepreneurship both at the community college and of course, to every entrepreneur in the San Gabriel Valley. And of course, as we all know, the fires happened in January. So very quickly, we immediately went from just being in this hyper optimistic, excited phase of how do we bring these programs to women entrepreneurs? And how do we really help them tackle all of the challenges of what it means to not only be an entrepreneur, but a female founder or a woman in this space. And then it became, how do we just help people recover? And that just became, you know, most or the bulk of the conversation around what types of programming and advice and mentorship that we could provide. So I will say that the challenge was obviously the fire, but it also brought an opportunity for people who literally did not know that we existed or that any sort of program like a women's business center existed.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:04:50]:
They were just so grateful. They were like, you know, unfortunately, they're coming to us under duress and really unfortunate, sad circumstances. But it really created a sense of belonging. You know, people saying that they felt seen and heard and understood as an entrepreneur and as small business owners, because not everybody who comes to us is an entrepreneur. They, some of them maybe purchased a business and so that's how they came to lead their organization. But they were just so excited and so grateful that something like this existed. And they have also been become our champions and our evangelists and have given us the opportunity to be a part of conversations where we weren't able to reach them just through our own efforts alone.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:05:34]:
So, yeah, yeah, it certainly has been quite the run. I mean, the first year, you didn't have a chance to just take A deep breath and it's just. You just hit the ground running. To say that the fires impacted our community is an understatement. Right? It changed everything about our community. And the Women's Business center played a very important role and continues to play an important role at the time when the impacts happened and post and now really focusing our attention on rebuild. So share a little bit about how you partnered with and what it looked like for a women's business center housed within a community college like ours, and how did you partner with PCC to help with the initial assistance to our community? And what are some things that you've been able to do and accomplish within this year and where do you see the efforts kind of going and continuing the support for the rebuild?

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:06:35]:
When people have asked about the relationship between Pasadena City College and the Women's Business center and how we've been able to help the community at large, I feel so grateful, honestly, for so many reasons, but I feel so, so grateful. We are hosted at Pasadena City College. I mean, if you want to talk about a partnership and just the wraparound services, the support that I've received, that other folks who are my counterparts at different centers across California, across the United States, they have a totally different experience than what I have because of the amount of support that I have from the college. And one thing that really resonated with me very on that both you and other members of the executive leadership team all expresses that when you talk about Pasadena State College, you're really talking about a community college. And the community part, it needs to be underscored in bold, all caps, right? It's like, we are here. We are a part of the community. We are for the community. We have to put the community first.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:07:37]:
And immediately from day one, I remember getting on a zoom call with all of management and our president, Dr. Gomez as well, and immediately creating, you know, just even an Excel spreadsheet to help us track and say, like, okay, who can do what? How can we plug in? How can we attract students and community members who need support? How can we understand and get ahead of any requests that our community has and have a better understanding of what they need? And Lizzy, what do our entrepreneurs need? Dawn, who's the director of our Small Business Development center, what are you seeing? And how can we immediately just have ears and eyes on the ground so that we can then create tools and strategies that help our community? So that was one part of it. The second part, of course, was that Pasadena City College, we have two campuses and where my, my Office and center is hosted immediately was offered up as a space for the entire Los Angeles county to every single. Every single organization from Los Angeles county and any sort of auxiliary support service, fema, sba, the Small Business Administration, who are still present to this day on that campus, all came and set up shop so that we could have a disaster recovery zone or location right there, utilizing the space that we have and making sure that the community and all of the people that want to support those who were rebuilding after the fire had exactly what they needed in one central place. So I thought that was just amazing and brilliant. And it really. Having that spotlight on Pasadena City College allowed for the work that we do at the Women's Business center to be seen to a wider audience. And so from that, of course, we had Paris Hilton pick up the phone and say, hey, well, you're literally again with your boots on the ground, eyes and ears to the ground.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:09:32]:
You have a direct path to the community that I'm trying to reach. She has become a philanthropist who's very involved and cares a lot about women across different issue areas. And entrepreneurship is something that's near and dear to her heart because she understands what it takes to build a business and how much support women entrepreneurs need. And so because of that, we were then able. She was like, I want to just, you know, write a check. I want to write a check. You tell me how best we can distribute it. We decided that that support would come in the form of grants.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:10:06]:
Originally, we're going to give 11 small business owners who were impacted by the fires a check for $25,000 each. And 11 is her favorite number. So that was where that number came from. GoFundMe.org heard about what we were doing. They said, okay, we'. And then within 48 hours, we had over 200 small business owners apply. And so less than 48 hours. Less than 48 hours.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:10:31]:
I want to say it was actually 24 hours, honestly, but I think it was like closer to 48. Somewhere between there, it was very quick and obvious that there was a need. And so then they decided, okay, why don't we increase it to a little bit over a million dollars? So I will say that there is a clear through line that because of the support of Pasadena College, because of all of the efforts that Pasadena City College did, to say, hey, we are going to immediately react to the community. We're immediately going to do what we say that we do, which is show up for the community at large. And we are the eyes and ears of the community. And we know best of what they need. Those opportunities have now, you know, come through my door. So, very, very grateful.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:11:18]:
Yes, absolutely. So are we. Yeah, and so are we. Lizzy, we are incredibly grateful for your leadership, your network, your team. So much talent housed at the Women's Business center, starting with you.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:11:31]:
I think so too. I think I have class, team, but thank you for the compliment.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:11:36]:
Of course, of course it starts with you. It really does start with you. You know, we in previous conversations talked about the unique differences that women entrepreneurs face. And specifically you shared a fact that I'm going to read here, is that 42% of all new businesses in the United States are started by women. But women are 20 times, 20 times more likely to be denied a traditional business loan than their male counterparts. So fast forward 2025, right? We opened up in October 2024. We are in October of 2025. All these things that we've been faced with that we've been able to accomplish in this one year, how has that influenced your approach to helping women owned businesses recover after a disaster like this?

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:12:36]:
I can't tell you how much I love this question because I think, you know, when I came into this role, I was very grateful that I had the opportunity to my own right and to really say, okay, well, these are the programs and that I think are important and I'm going to implement a certain vision. And from beginning day one, no matter what happened with the fires or any other curveballs, I said I want to look at what are the opportunities and growth areas and strengths that women entrepreneurs already have and how can we 10x that. And then on the other hand, how do we, you know, address any of those challenges? Yes, and of course, but how do we also say, okay, women, you're maybe leaving money on the table in certain areas or have you thought about going in this direction? How can we introduce, how can we mitigate some of those problems or challenges by actually introducing them to new concepts, new opportunities? And so of course, with the fires happening, the focus just became on, like, how do we get immediate cash to women entrepreneurs, whether it be through disaster recovery, loans or grants. But I also then thought too well, this just, there's no better time than the present to continue that original focus and strategy, which is you should be making money, you know, hand over fist all the time in your business as much as possible. So again, I thought, okay, well, we have an amazing, amazing advisor on staff, Deandra, who is a beauty professional. And women lead in certain industries, health, wellness, beauty, fitness. I think I Probably mentioned that in the last podcast, Childcare. Those are areas where women are already excelling.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:14:22]:
So why don't we help 10x that again? So we started a beauty professionals accelerator called beyond the Chair. And we did four weeks. We had a small cohort, but the feedback that we got was incredible. Over the course of four weeks, they understood marketing, branding, how to really promote their services in unique, creative ways. We brought in three beauty professionals, skincare, hair and makeup, celebrity stylists to sit on a panel and speak to this cohort for two weeks. For two weeks. I'm sorry, for two hours. We couldn't get them to stop talking, like the whole entire cohort, which is.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:15:03]:
So that's good news.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:15:04]:
Yeah. And I mean, these are women. I'm talking about their portfolio and rosters, their Beyonce works with them. You know, they have over a million followers combined on all social platforms. So to be able to bring those people in and have them speak to that cohort was just an amazing, amazing experience. And they're still reaching out, saying, you know, please have this again. We want you to do this again. We want our friends who are in the beauty industry to be able to take advantage.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:15:33]:
So that's one, right? That was one idea is like, let's do this beauty accelerator to help women understand how to really build their business or continue to build their business and be successful. And then we also launched the READYLA accelerator, which is a procurement accelerator. And for anyone who does not know what procurement is, that's totally fair and fine. But essentially, how do you work with the government? How do you sell your services at the state level, local level, city level, federal level? Because that was one of the biggest ways that I found that people are, you know, making huge amounts of money. Right. So let's just say, for example, you have a balloon making company or a balloon arch company that. Where you might provide balloon arches for personal celebrations, birthday parties, et cetera. You can sell that to the government, right? Like, there are opportunities.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:16:26]:
There are so many things that come down the pipeline that so many of our entrepreneurs are not aware of. The thought behind it and why I was so gung ho about making sure that. That we continue on with that programming is we need to diversify revenue streams. We need to help our small business owners understand all of the opportunities there are to make money. We, of course, prioritize letting in any business that was impacted by the fire for that reason, because we were like, you know, we want our small businesses to stay in the San Gabriel Valley. We want them to stay in Pasadena and Altadena. We don't want them to take their business and leave and go anywhere else because it's, it's absolutely crucial to our local economy to have these businesses that were impacted by the fires stay here. So that is what my thinking is, that is what my strategy is.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:17:17]:
And it's always going to be how do we make sure that we're, you know, making 100,000 years and making millionaires and making billionaires contributing back to our.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:17:27]:
Local economy, contributing back into our communities and building a strong local economy.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:17:34]:
Exactly.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:17:35]:
And when one is strong, we help the others become strong. As a collective. As a collective, we have these beautiful stories and beautiful impacts. And I'm going to ask this last question. Okay, so, because when you said the word strategy, it triggered a thought in my mind and I thought, well, what other strategies or initiatives? But you've already mentioned too, you know, so it's probably not a fair question, but is there anything that stands out to you when you're speaking to these entrepreneurs and business owners, you know, post disaster in their efforts? In our community's efforts to rebuild and build resilient companies, is there anything that stands out for you that's been the most impactful and effective strategy or, and, or initiative that you're saying, Salvatore, this is it. This is the golden ticket. Like this is what's going to help our business community become even more resilient than they are now.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:18:37]:
It has honestly been community, literally that has been every single and in person events in particular. Like as soon as we hold anything in person, I mean it's going to come as no surprise or no shocker. We are dying for connection in all areas of our life. It's like everything is digital, everything is online and people are stronger together. And so when we have done things in person, like these accelerators, like workshops we've done in the wake of the fires, we started hosting pop up advising. So we typically do a lot of the one to one advising virtually. And so we were like, okay, well again, boots on the ground, let's go meet our, our small business owners where they are in convenient locations and have our advisors set up shop with a laptop and just be able to talk them through certain processes, answer questions. And you know, some people were in tears with gratitude.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:19:34]:
That's how happy they were. Some of them just wanted to meet other business owners. That was one of our most successful ones, was one where we did, we brought together restaurant owners because if you don't know, Pasadena has some of the best food and most amazing Restaurants and, you know, they. They were definitely impacted by the fires. If their actual establishment wasn't impacted by the fire, they were, you know, a lot of the foot traffic slowed down. So they just want to be able to talk and air some of their grievances and commiserate and express joy and hope with other people who just get it. So that's what I'm seeing, honestly, time and time again is like, there's a request for as many opportunities to meet in person, to just talk and collaborate and to just feel like, you know, entrepreneurship in particular, owning a small business, it can be very, very lonely, very isolating. It's a really difficult thing to take your dream and make it and turn it into a reality.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:20:32]:
And not a lot of people have the desire or gumption, frankly, to create or start or buy a business or to own a business. So it's very lonely, very isolating. And then to go through something like the fires right after going through Covid can just be such a downer. Obviously, you know, it's just a hard, hard thing. So, time, time again. Community, community, community. Finding a community, having opportunities to network, having opportunities to just talk and say, hey, are you going through that? Is that crazy? Am I crazy? Is this great? Is this a good idea? Being able to bounce those ideas off of one another has been invaluable. So in addition to money, of course.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:21:17]:
Absolutely.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:21:18]:
Yeah.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:21:18]:
I think one of the things that has really stuck with me this past year in listening to the stories of the entrepreneurs and business owners have come through the center is that. And again, we're specifically talking about in the wake of the disaster, in the wake of the fires, is that these business owners also operated from their home. A majority of them operated from their homes. And so not only did they lose their home, but they lost their business. So they lost the income coming in. It wasn't like they were driving to a different location and the people they employed. Okay, so. So it's compounded and it's been absolutely beautiful to watch the community come together and bring forth resources, talents, assets, everything to support our community.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:22:10]:
And community colleges, I firmly believe not just because, you know, I'm biased and I lean towards City College. It's our. It's our home. It's our. It's our college, you know, but community colleges play an important role. They play an important role in any disaster recovery, rebuild and resiliency. And, you know, with the Future of Work conference just right around the corner, you'll be there. You're going to talk about more in depth about all of this and I can't wait to hear all about it.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:22:41]:
But for our listener right now, what was one thing that you want the attendee to know about the Women's Business center and how the center impacts their future as an entrepreneur and or business owner?

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:22:55]:
I want them to know that again, they don't have to do it alone. You don't have to do it alone. And you shouldn't do it alone. You should have the understanding that, you know, there's a whole entire plethora of resources that are here for you at no cost, by the way, I always have to say that at no cost. And we say it's no cost and no catch. We are funded by from multiple funding streams and as a result of that, we are able to provide all of these resources one to one mentorship and advising the accelerators, the different types of workshops, webinars, pop up, advising events, etc. We're able to do that and we will not charge anyone for those things. We do believe too that it's just so important that you tap into the resources that are available because as you just said, their success is everybody's success, whether you believe it or not.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:23:52]:
My favorite thing to always share is, you know, when you're thinking about who is supporting the local goal baseball team or the high school booster club is not Google, it is not meta, it is not one of the, it's not Amazon, it's not any of the super big companies typically, it's usually your local small business. So we all work in tandem. We're part of an ecosystem. And I think that by actually going to this conference, learning about the strategies, learning about this, hearing the stories, seeing the support that you can get, finding, you know, community within the attendees at this conference, it's so, so important. And then you can come and learn about the Women's Business center and learn about how you can really just very quickly, very easily sign up to become the client and become a part of this ecosystem.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:24:41]:
So yeah, excellent, Excellent. Again, I look forward to the conversation at the conference. Those who attend the conference and those who are on the panel put so much love and effort into the conversation. And the conference was always designed to formulate solutions to spark ideas. I'm looking forward to the conversation because I think that through this, through this dialogue that we'll shortly have on October 28th here at Pasadena City College in Westerbeck, I think that we're going to uncover some other additional ways in which community colleges play a pivotal role in any kind of post disaster recovery. Again, I might be biased and I might.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:25:28]:
I am. I am. Yeah.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:25:29]:
But Lizzy, you and I both love this, right? Like, we love this work, literally. And we love being part of the community. And we literally love being of service to the community and to our students and our student entrepreneurs and our current business community. And so this conference is really going to bring together all of what we do every single day in under one roof and have some beautiful conversations around it. So, final note, if one of our listeners and or attendees wants to connect with the Women's Business center, what's the best way to do that?

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:26:04]:
You can go to our site, our page, which is now hosted Pasadena Edu. So Pasadena Edu wbc. That's probably the best, best and most comprehensive place. But you can also follow us online on socials. We are on Instagram at Pasadena wbc, so.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:26:23]:
Well, Lizzy, we will see you very, very soon.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:26:26]:
Yes.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:26:27]:
If not sooner. Yes. Than the 28th. I look forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you so much for your time today.

Lizzy Okoro Davidson [00:26:34]:
Thank you. I'm so excited. I can't wait.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:26:36]:
Thanks and listener. We will see you at the conference.

Salvatrice Cummo [00:26:41]:
Thank you for listening to the Future of Work podcast. Make sure you subscribe on your favorite listening platform so you can easily get new episodes every Tuesday. You can reach out to us by clicking on the website link below in the show notes to collaborate, partner or just chat about all things Future of Work. We'd love to connect with you. All of us here at the Future of Work and Pasadena City College wish you safety and wellness.