Smiles and laughter are par for the course when celebrating birthdays. Not big, heaving sobs — the kind Leanne Robers was expelling in front of her worried husband. Her cake remained untouched.
Robers didn’t understand the tears. It was December. Singapore was emerging from the throes of the pandemic, her startup She Loves Tech was finally turning the corner after a torrid year, and she had just finished a celebratory dinner with close friends. “I had no reason to be sad, but I just couldn’t stop crying,” the 38-year-old recalls.
Despite her best efforts, she was suffering from burnout. The year 2020 had been challenging for her and co-founders Virginia Tan and Rhea See. Revenue from corporate sponsors had dried up and they had to move She Loves Tech entirely online. Robers had to pay staff out of her own pocket. In a year, this gargantuan boulder on her petite shoulders finally broke her back.
It took two months to feel like herself again. On some days, she felt normal. On other days, she just could not get out of bed. Robers credits her robust support system — “I have the best husband in the world!” — for pulling her out of her funk.
“As an entrepreneur, everything else comes first. You give and give and give until you have nothing left in your tank. And then, you give some more,” says Robers. The burnout taught her the importance of prioritising her needs. It also convinced her team to diversify their revenue streams to avoid being in such a dire situation again.
Investing In Women
She Loves Tech currently has four verticals. The startup competition — the world’s largest for women in technology — continues to be a non-profit venture. Similar competitions may have joining fees or administrative costs, which prevent founders with tighter purse strings from participating. That’s what Robers wants to prevent. “There are already so many obstacles for women building tech businesses. We wanted to take down as many of these barriers as possible.”
She’s thankful for the unstinting support she has received from corporates such as Microsoft and Asian Development Bank Ventures who believe in her mission.
The second vertical is its annual conference, where the bulk of She Loves Tech’s revenue comes from. The one-day extravaganza has welcomed speakers like Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and media mogul Ariana Huffington in the past.
The third is its education programmes. Robers admits that the team is still working on its monetisation model. “For example, if we price it at $10, that amount is different for someone living in Singapore compared to someone living in a developing country. We are still figuring out a model that works in all the 72 countries that we operate in.”
The final vertical is the one keeping everyone up at night. Currently, they are raising funds for the She Loves Tech Fund, which invests in women-founded tech startups. By next year, the team hopes to raise US$10 million (S$13.9 million). Robers reveals that it has been a slog because of muted sentiments in the venture capital world, but they have already secured some funds that they will deploy before the end of the year.
Funding is the missing piece to the puzzle. Robers wanted a way to track the progress of the startups after they had completed the She Loves Tech competition. Having some skin in the game seemed like the best way to go. “We wanted to put our money where our mouth was, help close the funding gap between men and women, and show the world what an investable woman looks like.”
“Often, large companies are hiring Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) simply to check boxes. Then, all the responsibilities lie on these people. The reality is that everyone should be the chief diversity officer.”
Leanne Robers on the trend of CDOs
All Roads Lead To Rome
Ironically, Robers shunned entrepreneurship for a long time. A real estate and hospitality venture that failed a decade ago because of irreconcilable differences with her co-founder burnt her badly. Then, while studying for her Master’s in leadership and management from 2015 to 2017 at the University of Pennsylvania, her peers kept imploring her to join their teams for different business competitions. Instead of accepting their overtures, she offered to consult for them.
Slowly, thanks to these consulting gigs, her passion for entrepreneurship returned like a moth to a flame. She had always loved business for as long as she can remember. As a kid, she would buy large packets of sweets and repackaged them individually to sell to classmates. She loved the smile on their faces when they ate the candy. Nothing else has given her the same rush as impacting the world and fulfilling her innate desire to make a difference. Robers knows it sounds trite, but every entrepreneur parrots similar motivations.
Money, however, has never been her driving force. Instead, the Japanese concept of ikigai — finding your life’s purpose based on the confluence of what you are good at, what you love, what the world needs, and what makes you money — speaks strongly to her. That and the most important figure in her life.
“My father is a tremendous influence,” she gushes. A psychologist, Harold Robers founded one of the first psychology practices in Singapore, Psycare Consultants, in 1992. It’s still going strong today. “My last name is unique, so I’ve had people come up to me and ask if we’re related. When I say that he’s my father, they describe how his influence has transformed their lives for the better. That touched me so much, I knew I wanted to touch people’s lives in the same way, too.”
In many ways, She Loves Tech is a love letter to her father and his long legacy. The only difference is that Robers wanted to do it at scale. It was too slow for her to handle one person at a time.
Despite its highs, love can be a demanding and unrelenting mistress. Robers has wanted to “give up many times because it’s so hard”. Nevertheless, the universe always somehow sends her a sign when the fire dwindles to a flicker. In 2019, The Obama Foundation, which connects, empowers and inspires regional change-makers, selected her to be an Obama Leader.
Robers confesses, “I had wanted to give up again just then.” Wearied from this “thankless” job, she went to the conference in Kuala Lumpur with one foot out the door. Then, Michelle Obama spoke on stage to her cohort and at that moment, she felt a renewed sense of hope.
“I know she was addressing a group of people, but it felt like she was speaking to me. She said: ‘I know this line of work is tough. I know that you want to give up all the time. But Barack and I see you, this is the reason why we chose you. We see you and the work that you’re doing, and you need to keep going.’”
Even now, she entertains thoughts of throwing in the towel to focus on something else. Then she recalls all the female tech entrepreneurs they’ve helped and the ones who are still struggling. So she puts down her head, and continues grinding away.
“When I look at all the women She Loves Tech has impacted, my heart melts. This is something the world needs. We started it primarily as a passion project because nobody else was doing it, and now it has become so much more,” says Robers.
Culture Of Diversity
It’s more than just the financial impact. The journey towards equality and equity continues unabated, and Robers wants She Loves Tech to continue pushing the envelope. She’s a fan of quotas and affirmative action — “I didn’t used to be for that, but I’ve changed my stance on it due to inherent biases in current structures.” However, she disagrees strongly with the recent trend of hiring chief diversity officers (CDO).
“Often, large companies are hiring CDOs simply to check boxes. Then, all the responsibilities lie on these people. The reality is that everyone should be the chief diversity officer,” she says.
Robers recalls a friend, a high-ranking banking executive, who publicly chastised the former Tokyo Olympics chair Yoshiro Mori on LinkedIn. When asked about having more female representatives on the Tokyo Olympics organising committee, Mori publicly stated that he was worried meetings would drag on for too long because women would vie with each other to see who could speak longer.
“Somebody came up to that banking friend of mine and said, ‘On one hand, you are championing women. But on the other hand, you have never hired a woman in your team’.”
He was dumbstruck. That bias had become a blind spot for him. Even though there was no malice in his actions, he realised he needed to be held accountable for them. So, he brought together a group of men who could call each other out when needed.
Here’s the reality: women control 40 percent of global wealth and influence 80 percent of purchases. Companies that embrace diversity and have gender-balanced teams generate higher returns, according to Bloomberg. The Credit Suisse Research Institute discovered that companies with multiple female board members generate better-than-average ROI and growth compared to those with male-only boards. The Boston Consulting Group concluded that the more diverse a firm is, the higher its revenue from innovation — 45 percent compared to 26 percent in less diverse organisations.
Diversity simply makes business sense and She Loves Tech is definitely reaping the rewards. Robers mentions that 2021’s revenue was four times more than 2019, and projections for this year will be even higher.
It’s a far cry from the days when the struggling entrepreneur had less than $20 in her bank account and couldn’t even afford to buy two meals for herself and her partner from the hawker centre. Well, Robers isn’t crying anymore. She’s having her cake and eating it, too.
Photography: Joel Low
Videography: Belle Chew
Styling: Chia Wei Choong
Hair: Sean Ang, using Shiseido Professional
Makeup: Keith Bryant Lee, using Tom Ford Beauty
Photography Assistant: Eddie Teo
