Community Highlights: Meet Dorothy Enriquez of The Ellevate Collective

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dorothy Enriquez.

Hi Dorothy, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today. 
I’m a third-culture kid by way of Belize, Italy, Japan, and the US. I was born in Napoli, spent my formative years in Okinawa, and moved to Southern California when I was 16. I’m Belizean by heritage and am proud of my Caribbean roots. As a founder and principal consultant of an award-winning leadership firm, having a global lens has been quite helpful. 

I started my career in corporate after obtaining a graduate degree from Cal State Fullerton, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that corporate wasn’t my calling. About 7 years into my career, I’d up and quit to pursue my magazine publication full time. With no backup plan, I might add. Who needs a backup plan when you have God?! I promptly landed back in corporate within 6 months. I cried my eyes out since I had blown through my savings, had given up my apartment and didn’t have a plan. That experience would birth my first book, Be Accountable & Be Fabulous: Growth Looks Good on You Girl. 

I promised myself I’d only stay in corporate for 6 months before attempting to strike out on my own AGAIN. Alas, it would be 5 more years before I would attempt to leave corporate. During that time, I would get married, and my marriage would begin to implode, and I’d find myself pregnant in the midst of the marriage, decaying from the inside out. So, in the spirit of shaking things up and embracing change, my timeline was set to warp speed. I quit my job at the end of April 2018. Had my daughter in May. Filed for divorce in July and went full time on August 27th. Needless to say, I’d blow through my savings within 6 months and find myself on government assistance to make ends meet. I would not get close to my corporate salary until 2020, and in 2021, I would blow my corporate salary out of the water. 

As a single mom, I would build a business, a team of heroes, and a life that I can be proud of while giving my daughter an amazing childhood. 

After being a single mom for over 5 years…6 if you could the pregnancy, building an empire with plans to make my millions, God would see fit to send me my ultimate partner in crime and the love of my life. So, I won’t have to be a single parent anymore and I’ll have someone to witness the ups and downs of life and the pursuit of happiness who makes me feel like the world of possibilities is opening. It’s been quite the journey and, in many ways… it’s just beginning. 

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, it certainly hasn’t been a smooth road. I think the biggest challenge in the early days of being full-time in 2018 was really understanding the sales cycle and making sure I can fill the holes when I’m looking at projections. And it’s not necessarily that it’s hard, it’s more of a learning curve. 

You go from getting a steady paycheck for almost two decades to a 75–90-day sales cycle process, it’s quite a learning curve to say the least. But I continued to learn and make it a priority to get better with my projections with each passing quarter. 

Ultimately, the best way to overcome it to have a cushion especially during the feasting times of entrepreneurship so that when there is famine you don’t freak out and run back to your old life. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business?
The Ellevate Collective is a premier learning and leadership development firm with a focus on the CPG industry. We make leadership accessible, relatable, and transformative. We offer solutions that help your leaders produce more leaders. 

We’re on a mission to increase female representation in the c-suite by 2% in 5 years. 

Here’s the problem: Over 84% of organizations say that leadership development is very important. But only 19% of these same organizations say they are ‘very effective’ at developing leaders. 

1) Women now hold just 25% of the five critical C-suite positions, even though we’re more than half the population. 

2) Even with the anticipated shortfall of leadership in the next 5 years, companies don’t have time to focus on internal development or reserve it for higher-level employees 

3) Only 5% of US Based companies have implemented development at all levels 

The Ellevate Collective solves this problem by providing a solution that: 

1. Allows each employee level to participate in transformational cohort-style workshop experiences with anchoring and sustainability tools that take into account how women ascend into leadership.

2. Offers end-to-end leadership solutions that consider the employee life cycle from emerging leader all the way to the C-suite

3. It delivers custom experiences that consider how adults learn and transform by leveraging data, neuroscience, and the need to belong, connect, and feel safe.

Our clients are corporations and non-profits that want to provide leadership opportunities to their employees. We work with employers that seek to transform how their employees experience the world of work. They want to ignite inclusion, create high achieving, high purpose cultures and cultivate meaning, the highest level of happiness we can achieve. 

The Four Experts and I are accomplished Black women with multiple degrees, certifications, and backgrounds in DEI, Leadership, Neuroscience, and Data Analytics, which help us curate intentional leadership experiences. As a woman, millennial, and person of color, it’s not lost on me that access without support is still oppression. I want people to not just survive corporate but thrive. Leaders aren’t born…they’re cultivated, supported, and developed. 

I am proud to say that we are an award-winning firm on the BBB with an A rating, and I’m a published author, which allows me to continue to establish credibility in the leadership industry. I am proud to have a group of Ellevate Heroes who allow us to make such an impact. In 2023, we trained 2,061 leaders and worked with 18 organizations. We continue to strive to make today’s team member in tomorrow’s leader. 

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Absolutely! I would say for networking…if you’re like me, you don’t enjoy small talk, and you want to get to the good stuff. So, when you go to events, don’t make it rain with business cards. Instead, be strategic. Try to find out who will be there. Who will be on the panel, who will be the special guests, look those individuals up on LinkedIn and make a plan to meet three people who you’ll commit to staying in touch and following up with. Oftentimes, we collect so many business cards, and we never follow up, and we can’t remember half of the people we met. So, identify who you want to connect with and why so you can be intentional in how you grow your network. 

As for mentoring, if you’re a person of color, get a champion or a sponsor. Mentoring programs are typically designed to help us advance. More often than not, the individual who did the mentoring garners the most accolades and exposure. However, informal mentoring can be quite powerful for all of us. The thing to keep in mind is that the individual(s) you choose don’t have to be far advanced or light years ahead of you, but rather, you can pick someone a few steps ahead of where you are, and they’re going in a direction that ignites inspiration or admiration. 

Pricing:

• Be Accountable, Be Fabulous: Growth Looks Good on You Girl! Book $19.99
• The PLUG: How to Become a Remarkable Leader $39.99
• Lead from Every Seat You Sit in Notebook $29.99
• Melanated & Ellevated Woman Notebook $29.99

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theellevatecollective.com
• Instagram: @theellevatecollective
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorothyenriquez
• Other: For Black Women CEOs: https://www.instagram.com/ellevateher/

Image Credits
Claire Gallagher