Future Fund Ambassador: Mallory Rowan

Mallory knows what it takes to build a thriving business—three of them, in fact. As a serial entrepreneur, personal development content creator, and business coach, Mallory empowers other entrepreneurs by equipping them with business, finance, and habit tools.

Read on to see the important role business and financial literacy play for existing and future female entrepreneurs.

Q: When did you first become interested in entrepreneurship and why?

A: I didn’t realize I had the entrepreneurial bug even though it was staring me in my face. In high school, I planned my prom and all of the charitable fundraising events and had a blast doing it. I knew I loved marketing and I had always found a deep fascination with business, so I started working in corporate marketing early during my university years. I transitioned to startups in a chase for more autonomy, a faster pace, and peers closer in age. While it was giving me a lot of the excitement and adventure I needed, I realized I was holding onto founder-level anxiety without any of the founder-level rewards.

Finally, with the encouragement of one of my university class projects, I found entrepreneurship. It was always there waiting for me, and I think I knew that entrepreneurship was the key to the kind of life I wanted: one where I didn’t have to abide by rules that existed despite feeling arbitrary, one where I could decide how I spent all of my time on this earth, and one where I felt like I had a world of opportunities at my fingertips.

Q: Did you have a foundation of financial and business literacy going into your first venture?

A: Barely. I always had an intuitive sense when it came to business and more specifically, marketing. For my partner and I, it was about learning as we go. “Entrepreneurship is about jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down,” is one of the quotes I stand by.

When we started our first business, we became obsessed with levelling up our financial literacy through books, peers, meeting with subject matter experts and mentorship.

Q: How important was it to gain this knowledge for you to be successful and confident as an entrepreneur?

A: This information is everything. That’s why I’m so passionate about sharing it and opening doors for other entrepreneurs to follow after me.

My partner and I had limited exposure to business and entrepreneurship growing up, but we’ve realized how much knowledge really is power. The more we learn, the more we’re able to come up with creative solutions that propel us forward.

The knowledge gives you the tools to succeed, but the confidence comes from going for it and experiencing it firsthand.

Q: Only 18% of Canadian businesses are majority-owned by women. What barriers are you most commonly helping your aspiring female entrepreneur clients overcome?

A: I think as women we are incredible at critical thinking, but it can also mean we spend a lot of time in our heads. We want a perfect plan, a perfect execution, and a perfect timeline, so it’s a real challenge when entrepreneurship asks us to let go of those things.

Many of my clients come to me when they are on the brink of burnout or recognizing things need to change. Unfortunately, this often is because they want to show up more for the people in their lives: their kids, their future kids, their clients, or their family. Helping women see they are enough of a reason on their own to have a thriving business and a healthy mental & physical state is essential to what I do.

Q: If you could give your 14-year-old self three pieces of advice, what would they be?

A: 1. There is no one single passion you are supposed to find.
I think we get told a lot that there’s “our thing” waiting for us, and for some people, they really do find that thing that they are passionate about for their entire life. For others, we need to give ourselves room to let our passions and purpose adapt, evolve, and change as we grow. For me, I’ve always felt lacking and like I was running out of time to find “my thing”, until I let go and realized how beautiful it is to allow for the adventure of not having a single mission.

2. You have time.
Oof..I feel this one still to this day.
It’s so easy to feel like we’re running out of time, but you’ll realize what you can truly accomplish in a short period of time. I think about how many two or five-year periods of my life have felt like entire lifespans, and it now gets me excited about what my life could look like five years from now. You don’t have to know what it will be, you just have to know you have so much time to get where you’re meant to go.

3. Get in the rooms.
Be your own nepo baby. For me, I’ve leveraged social media to connect with individuals I would have never otherwise had the opportunity to meet. I’ve landed opportunities that were beyond what I could imagine. Just because you don’t grow up around wealth, business, or personal development, doesn’t mean you can’t seek it out and create your own opportunities. Know you belong, and get in the rooms.

Follow along with Mallory on social media at @malloryrowan and learn more about her programs and coaching services here.

Images by: Jen Bernard Photography

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