Sharmadean Reid

Written By Rebecca

Image source: https://sharmadeanreid.com/

Sharmadean Reid is founder and CEO of The Stack World, a global community of thousands of mission driven women. She quotes that her “life’s work is gender equity” and is a business woman, entrepreneur and speaker who is on an unstoppable journey of impact and achievement. I recently listened to a CNBC interview where Sharmadean shared the mission of her female focused networking business and I was truly inspired. A link to the interview is shared below and I recommend you watch it too! 

I am blown away by Sharmadean’s achievements to date, to name a few she:

  • Founded the globally renowned WAH nails salon which is the brainchild of a vision she had for a place for women to "hang out, form friendships and build communities”

  • Launched Future Girl Corp with Tabitha Goldstaub, a mastermind business bootcamp for women entrepreneurs 

  • Founded an innovative beauty booking platform BeautyStack, alongside Daniel Woodbury in 2017 after she became frustrated by the lack of technological solutions in beauty booking software. BeautyStack secured £4m in a seed round from Index Ventures in May 2019, following its $1m seed round in April 2018 which is remarkable as only 10 Black female founders in the UK received venture capital funding between 2009 to 2019

  • Was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to the nail and beauty industry

  • Received a first-class degree in Communication from Central St Martins  

  • Is the author of New Methods for Women, A Manifesto focused on helping any beauty junkie, female entrepreneur, working mum or hustler to achieve their goals. 

If all that is not impressive enough, I think it’s remarkable that she does not have an engineering or technology background and she did not go to Oxbridge / Russell group (Oxford or Cambridge universities in the UK - the equivalent of Ivy League universities in the US). 

 One thing I know is that remarkable success is not achieved overnight but is the product of consistency, drive and working smart. Sharmadean started WAH (We Ain't Hoes) in 2005 while at university, the magazine focused on changing the perception of women in hip hop. In 2007 Sharmadean was named by the Independent in 2007 as one of the “15 people who will define the future of arts in Britain” and since then she has been on a journey of growth and accomplishment. 

 

Sharmadean credits resilience as being key to her success. “I’ve learned that I am incredibly resilient. If something’s hard, I’ll wake up the next day, and think today is a new day. If there are bumps in the road, it doesn’t stop me, I’m just like, ‘Oh well, I’ll figure this out.’”* 

 

Thank you Sharmadean for being a trail blazer, not only are your own achievements inspiring but also your commitment to empowering and paving the way for the future generation of female leaders and entrepreneurs is so impactful.

We also acknowledge your advocacy for government subsidised childcare being available full-time from age one in the UK. 

 

Take a look at Future Girl Corp http://www.futuregirlcorp.com/ 

Sharmadean’s CNBC interview https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/09/08/why-i-founded-a-female-focused-start-up-a-sharmadean-reid.html

*Source: We are tech women https://wearetechwomen.com/inspirational-woman-sharmadean-reid-mbe-founder-wah-nails-beautystack/ 

Rebecca
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