Zabeen Mirza is a former Wall Street banker, management consultant and mother to three young boys. After going through the experience of three pregnancies while working across three continents and seeing firsthand how little value companies place on working moms, she decided to create jobs.mom, a destination that allows all moms who want to work, to find work. She wants to create space for mothers to find companies that have flexible work policies and are as mom-friendly as possible, while holding organizations who claim to support moms accountable for doing just that. In Mirza’s spare time, she is also pursuing a doctoral degree in innovation engineering. I had the honor of speaking with Mirza in advance of yesterday’s launch to find out the motivation behind her new venture and to figure out how she possibly finds time to parent three children, build a company, work towards her degree and work through a list of 500 companies to track down which of them are actually supporting working moms in a meaningful way.
Zabeen Mirza
Image Arts
Amy Shoenthal: How did you come up with the idea for jobs.mom?
Zabeen Mirza: I was fired when I was six months pregnant with my first child because my company didn’t want to pay for maternity leave. When I was pregnant with my second child they didn’t want to pay me to work remotely. After I came back from maternity leave with my third I was let go because they told me I was too expensive. I never missed a deadline, I made these companies a ton of money. I worked on Wall Street which is unforgiving to women, even moreso for mothers. Compound that with being young, with being a woman of color and let’s be honest, I struggled. Then when I decided to go back to work but not full time, there was nowhere to look. So I thought, what if I could connect all the working mothers who are educated, skilled and experienced with jobs that could actually support them?
It’s not hard to understand why so many women are forced to leave the workplace. I knew there was a need for a platform to connect mothers to opportunities, resources, and employers that were actually supportive.
My company’s vision is to ensure that every mom who wants to work can find a job. Mothers outpace, outperform, are better team players, are better managers and are better at time management. It’s such a missed opportunity for companies to not support working mothers even though they might need a bit more flexibility.
There’s also the burden of childcare which is almost always on moms. You can have the best husband or partner, but it is almost always on us. Women bear this invisible burden. Covid-19 has exposed all of this – and how the entire economy is essentially built on the unpaid labor of women. It has been the unpaid labor of women that has kept society going.
There is a real economic loss when mothers don’t work – $64 billion. When mothers work the economy does better. Covid-19 has disproportionately impacted working mothers, and the economy has taken a hit. Those two things are inherently related.
On a positive note, I think this experience has forced a lot of companies to accept and admit that it’s possible to function with a hybrid working pattern and that stands to benefit moms.
Shoenthal: How are you identifying the companies who value moms, who you want to connect moms with?
Mirza: I printed out a list of Fortune 500 companies and I called every single one of their HR departments. On average, they hung up on me about seven times before I got through and said ‘I can either write about how you’re supporting moms or I can write about the fact that you’re not. So please share with me what it is you’re doing to support mothers. And if you have a plan, how can we help you bring that plan to life?’
It positions us in a way that’s more like advocacy, because we’re putting accountability on them. We’re asking what they’re doing, we’re offering to help. In doing so, we’re forcing them to examine their own processes and policies.
I’m still working through the list of 500 companies, but I’m leaving no stone unturned.
Shoenthal: Ok wow. I need to ask, how are you possibly finding the time to do all of this while raising three young children and pursuing your degree in innovation engineering right now?
Mirza: I’m not going to lie here — I dont sleep, I drink lots of coffee and eat lots of chocolate and yell a lot. Luckily I have professors who are extremely gracious and understanding when I need more time, or more help. I’ve learned to ask for help when I need it. Also, I constantly remind myself this is all temporary. At some point, I will earn my degree and school will be over, the baby will stop being a clingy infant, and the company will grow beyond these initial stressful stages. I just need to keep my eye on the prize.
Shoenthal: Is there anything companies can do if they want to support?
Mirza: We have a job board. We are jobs.mom and our primary goal is to put moms to work. We also want to work at places where we’re not discriminated against because we have to go pump for 20 minutes. It would be nice to not be thrown in a closet somewhere feeling like a fugitive. We feature a different employer every week that showcases programs that are built to support moms, to highlight what mothers can expect at certain companies, details on programs, processes and of course, jobs that are available. How do you support? HIRE MOTHERS. It’s one thing to say you support mothers, it’s another thing to actually do it.
We also have an entire section that features moms looking for work. We have a lot of mothers contributing content — first person accounts from their own experiences. This isn’t a sugar coated, ‘academic in an ivory tower’ situation. This is in the trenches, realistic content that says it is going to suck, people will discriminate against you, and this is how you rise above it. If you have a story that you want to share, share it with us, this platform is for you.
Shoenthal: Who is the ‘we’ that’s helping you build your vision?
Mirza: Just me full time, but also, my husband. He’s my Chief Technical Officer. Everybody else we work with – designers, developers, programmers, some content teams – I’m trying to hire women and moms wherever I can. We have to practice what we preach. There are so many mothers who want to work but in flexible ways which sometimes means contract work.
Shoenthal: You just launched. How has the response been so far? Any early successes or initial learning curves?
Mirza: Every entrepreneur’s fear is that you’ll go live and it’ll just be crickets, but the response has been overwhelming with people calling, texting, emailing, offering help, thanking me for the effort. So it’s humbling but also terrifying because you realize the magnitude of what you’re doing. This is a real need that nobody’s really serving or meeting. That to me has been an immense validation in the blood, sweat and tears that went into building this. That’s what keeps me going through that Fortune 1-500 list.
We have our podcast up, our newsletter is live. My goal, to my detriment, is perfection, and frankly that’s why I’m probably going to die early. My real goal is to make sure that every mother can know that help is here.
Shoenthal: What is the biggest obstacle you’ve faced?
Mirza: The scope. There are so many ways support is lacking. I didn’t know where to begin, how to address the most pressing needs. I needed to drill down to the root of the issue. Moms seeking jobs need to be connected to employers and opportunities that are flexible and accommodating. And moms and pregnant women need to have supportive infrastructures at their jobs once they get them. I need to help moms, but also hold employers accountable.
Shoenthal: What’s your personal motto?
Mirza: Be so good they can’t ignore you.
Shoenthal: What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you?
Mirza: ‘No’ is a complete sentence.
Shoenthal: What advice would you give to others starting their own business or embarking on a new venture?
Mirza: The perfect is the enemy of the good.
