How Women Founders Can Shine in 2021 and Beyond

by Dr. Cathy Key, President of World Tree USA LLC, an agroforestry company that grows trees for the purpose of carbon drawdown and timber production. Dr. Key oversees the Company’s operations in 5 countries. 

How do women founded companies make their mark in what is still very much a man’s world?

I joined World Tree as Chief Operations Officer in 2015, alongside founder Wendy Burton. Our vision was to transform forestry with a fast-growing tree that we would give to farmers for free, train them to grow, and harvest for profit. It never occurred to us that gender would impact our ability to attract investments and build the business. In retrospect, that was naive. We were disrupting the bluest of blue industries — forestry — with a business model focused on cooperation, sustainability, and profit-sharing. 

Our core mission at World Tree is to “Elevate, Educate, and Innovate for the Planet.” We value people and we value Mother Earth. Our business is designed to address big issues like climate change, poverty, and deforestation. We value our team, our farmers, and our investors as real people and part of our mandate is that our employees love their lives.

Against the odds this year in 2020 World Tree became the highest funded female-founded company on Wefunder. We raised over $2 million and became the third most funded company on the platform ever.

Here are three things I’ve learned on our investment journey.... Read Dr. Cathy compelling article here -  https://greenmoney.com/swing-out-sister-how-women-founders-can-shine-in-2021-and-beyond 

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