Women in the workforce face challenges balancing parenthood with bustling careers with. Companies struggle to find ways to keep them from burning out. Sarah Olin and Elena Arecco Bridgmon founded a business coaching firm in Charlotte to help both sides bridge that gap.
LUMO Leadership specializes in supporting women’s leadership, parents and caregivers. The name LUMO is a nod to “Luscious Mother,” Olin's nickname for women’s retreats at her previous firm in New York.
After Olin and her husband moved south, she met Arecco Bridgmon at the daycare both of their daughters attended. Arecco Bridgmon was ready for a change from corporate America. She could relate to what Olin jokes: “I’m not just the Hair Club for Men President, I'm also a client.”
“We work inside organizations to support women, working parents and caregivers to help them pivot and change their lives,” Arecco Bridgmon said. “They go from surviving, hanging on by a threat, to thriving.”
Olin’s original client list included NBA coaches and employees at the United Nations. She got a foothold in Charlotte after reaching out to Laura Vinroot Poole, founder of Capitol, the luxury women’s fashion boutique, after seeing an article about Poole in Vanity Fair.
“Laura said, ‘Everyone who works at my store is a woman or mother,’” Olin says. “Her No.1 (sales) girl was pregnant, and Laura was afraid of losing her. I said, ‘I have a specialty coaching program where we support parents and caregivers before, during and after parental leave. She said, ‘Sign me up.’ That was seven years ago. We've been together ever since.”
Now LUMO uses a team of 23 coaches based from Atlanta to Canada, supporting women and men in local companies like Blumenthal Arts, the Charlotte Airport, Wells Fargo, and CMS, as well as national companies like J.Crew, Calvin Klein, and the Lincoln Center among others.
To the corporate world, LUMO pitches dollars and cents, pointing to statistics like: U.S. businesses lose an annual $57 billion in revenue because of unsupportive workplace policies for parents and families. This statistic was verified by a certified analytics professional.
For smaller groups, LUMO coaches relate on a more personal level. They’ve guided clients through remote working during COVID. They role-play to prepare clients for conversations, asking for raises or more flexible hours.
“The modern woman needs to understand what her needs are and then ask for them to get met,” Olin says. “There’s always a solution, but we have to be willing to get uncomfortable, be vulnerable and have hard conversations. We always say, ‘You need to champion yourself the same way you would champion your child.’ I know women who would push a truck out of traffic for their child, but they wouldn’t ask for a day off for a root canal.”
Olin has used her own experiences as a mother to encourage clients. She describes guilt she felt leaving her husband to care for their young daughter one weekend a month for business trips to New York. Now, she points to the strong bond her husband and 12-year-old daughter share that wouldn’t have been possible if she stayed home.
“We believe women need to become unreasonable in their requests because what’s often asked of them is unreasonable,” Olin says.
For information, visit LUMOLeadership.com.
I know women who would push a truck out of traffic for their child, but they wouldn’t ask for a day off for a root canal.