Meet Emilie Aries of Bossed Up in Chaffee Park

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emilie Aries.

Emilie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
After bouncing back from my own bout of burnout early on in my career, I’ve committed to helping other women avoid the same fate. I launched my training organization, Bossed Up, back in 2013 with the mission of helping women craft happy, healthy, and sustainable careers. We take a results-oriented, research-driven approach to helping women advocate for what they want out of work and life.

Nearly a decade ago, I burnt out before the age of 25, working in what was arguably my dream job. I was the youngest State Director in the nation serving on behalf of newly-elected President Barack Obama and helping everyday citizens grow their power through community organizing, make their voices heard in Washington, and advocate on behalf of the people and policies they believed in. During that same time, however, I lost touch with my own sense of power and agency. I was working all the time, often the only time I spent on “fun” was at networking happy hours and political fundraisers. I felt stuck in a toxic relationship and had completely lost any semblance of a health and wellness regimen in my life post college.

Three years in, the work that once got me fired up and ready to go, left me daydreaming about escapist fantasies. I knew then that the way I was working wasn’t going to work for the long-term and that began my exploration into finding a way to pursue a high-ambition career without martyring myself along the way.

Two rocky years later, I’d applied all the research I uncovered in the world of cognitive science, behavioral psychology, and feminist political theory and found myself with a completely new outlook on work and life. I felt a deep need to share what I’d learned about pursuing the path towards sustainable success with everyone and anyone who’d listen. Now I work each and every day to arm individuals with the advocacy skills to get what we want out of work and support workplaces in retaining and developing women.

Has it been a smooth road?
There have been many challenging moments, but one that comes to mind is when I parted ways with my co-founder just three months after starting Bossed Up. I bought her out and found myself with little to no financial cushion, requiring me to go back to work full-time and pursue Bossed Up on the side for the next two years before quitting my job again. My entrepreneurial venture has been full of fits and starts, but it feels good knowing I didn’t compromise on my vision: to provide accessible services to middle class women like me who are looking for practical tools and training and a supportive community to help achieve their own form of sustainable success.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Bossed Up story. Tell us more about the business.
The women who come through my doors at Bossed Up – whether at our signature weekend-long program, Bossed Up Bootcamp, or when I speak at companies and conferences – leave with new tools and tactics to immediately advocate for the careers and lives they want. I’m always striving to transform the latest research findings into instantly-applicable strategies for women who want to work smarter, not harder. I love hearing from past program participants who successfully advocate for raises, promotions, career pivots, and who leverage their renewed sense of power and agency into crafting the careers and lives they truly want.

With my newly-released book, Bossed Up: A Grown Woman’s Guide to Getting Your Sh*t Together, out in the world, I’m excited to be teaming up with companies who want to support the women on their teams by organizing book clubs and corresponding trainings to help provide substantive leadership development support. It’s an exciting next step in how we’re partnering with organizations who believe in arming women with the tools and tactics we need to succeed over the long-term.

There are many wonderful organizations striving to empower women at work. Here at Bossed Up, we’re committed to taking a holistic approach; one that acknowledges work, love, and wellness are all critical factors for creating a sustainable life.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Nowadays I’m noticing more and more workplaces struggling to retain top talent when it comes to first-time millennial managers in particular. A decade after the Great Recession, my generation has yet to financially recover. We’re worse-off than any other living generation, and in such a high-employment climate, more of us are demanding to be paid competitively or leaving to pursue offers elsewhere. We’ve got more student debt to pay off than many prior generations can even fathom, which has delayed more traditional markers of adulthood like starting families or purchasing a home. Through supporting organizations with diversity and inclusion efforts when it comes to women in majority-male industries (primarily tech, finance, and the law), I’ve seen that competitive pay is top of mind for millennials in particular – not because of gender or race, but because of the financial game of catch-up the generation as a whole is playing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bossedup.org
• Email: info@bossedup.org
• Instagram: @bosseduporg
• Facebook: facebook.com/bosseduporg
• Twitter: twitter.com/bosseduporg
• Other: www.emiliearies.com

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