Women RISE

Entrepreneurship with Purpose: A Conversation with Cytandra Hoover, Founder of B3C Global

• Claire Molinard • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Cytandra Hoover is a consultant who revolutionizes risk management at the nexus of impact, inclusion, and profit. 

A decade ago, she made a significant decision to transition from the realm of international development to the private sector. Her goal was to gain a deep understanding of how private sector models work in order to develop and further businesses at the intersection of impact, inclusion, and profit. With the goal of achieving both sustainability and profitability, she now applies these models to drive social and environmental impact globally. 

In our conversation, we delve into Cytandra's formative years, as she shares her unique journey,  globe-trotting from her youngest age alongside her tropical botanist father. 

Cytandra reveals how she was able to navigate the complex corporate world without compromising her authentic self, wearing her anthropologist hat, being a single mother, and using her superpower of curiosity.

As we explore the importance of maintaining vulnerability and compassion as leaders and activists seeking to promote more justice, equity, and kindness in the workplace, her deep care for the world and her infectious positivity radiate from our discussion. 

Visit Cytandra's full professional profile here


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Claire Molinard:

Hello and welcome to Women Rise, a podcast about women changemakers that explores the emergence of a new leadership paradigm, which calls us to lead from within. I'm your host, claire Molinares, and I live and work on the island of Corsica, in the south of France. I'm a holistic coach and therapist. I teach and facilitate developmental programs for conscious women changemakers, helping them move from depleted and disconnected to resourced and interconnected. Every week, I meet with other women leaders and we explore the inner game of leadership and how, in this times of emergency, we are being called to our unique self-emergence to co-create a world that works for everyone. Hello and welcome to Women Rise. I'm so excited today to meet with Sitandra Hoover. Sitandra lives in the greater Chicago area. She is a global social impact and insurance consultant and the founder and CEO of B3C Global. She's also a proud single mother. Sitandra, I am so happy to welcome you here on Women Rise.

Cytandra Hoover:

Welcome. Thank you so much, claire.

Claire Molinard:

Yeah, I recall our conversation recently and I'd like for you to start with sharing about your atypical background, giving us a little bit of a taste of what was it to grow up in so many countries and cultures.

Cytandra Hoover:

Absolutely. I was very fortunate and very lucky in privilege. My father was a tropical botanist and so I grew up from infancy experiencing my father traveling all over the world, and so ever since I was four months old I have been traveling with him on those journeys. So to numerous countries around the world, to very remote villages and communities and countries you know halfway around the globe, and that really informed in me and made a significant impression, not only the appreciation and the value of diverse cultures and languages and experiences and ways of living, but it also really honed in on me what poverty looks like and the challenges that come with poverty. And so seeing that from such a young age really informed upon me my own personal desire to dedicate my life and my time to alleviating that and doing what I can do from the position that I sit in to be able to reduce that suffering and bring some stability to communities and challenge.

Claire Molinard:

Yes that's beautiful. That experience was really impactful, and so tell me about your journey. How did that desire to alleviate suffering express itself through your journey, your professional journey?

Cytandra Hoover:

Yeah, absolutely so. I actually been an entrepreneur pretty much all my life. I was actually thinking about it the other day and the first business I created was when I was 12 years old and so, with my father as an entrepreneur, that definitely formed and just became kind of part of the reality in our household, and my sister's an entrepreneur, and so it's just kind of the theme that we all live. But you're absolutely right, I mean I remember from the youngest of ages of not only having this extreme passion and burning desire to travel the world, and I remember and I was actually I wrote a chapter in a book for another woman earlier this year called Strong, about this sense of watching my father travel around the world and being gone for sometimes upwards of six months at a time, and rather than feeling the sense of my father is leaving and I miss him, it was much more about like when can I join him and why can't I go on the trip? And so when I was very, very young I went numerous times and traveled with him and my mom.

Cytandra Hoover:

But then there was a period of time around my adolescence, middle school years, tween age where I didn't travel as much and it really was just this burning desire of when can I get onto the plane and when can I go, and so it also coming through that not only was this real desire to figure out what can I do, how can I do it, how can I make a difference, how can I use my voice to help to alleviate poverty and suffering, but it also was really honed in within my own community and I felt this real commitment to become a foster parent.

Cytandra Hoover:

And so I have had this desire to become a foster parent ever since I was, I don't know, 10, 11, 12 years old, which I did achieve, and I got my foster parent certification a few years back but also just other areas, right, how do I work with marginalized or low income populations, immigrant populations in my own community? And that's what I have always done, and so you know, whether it was when I was still in high school and working as a translator for you know, recent, recently arrived Latin American immigrants or volunteering in different arenas and providing medical attention to victims of hurricanes, or to activities that I do now and helping to connect the school that my son goes to with a very low income, high rate of homelessness in our city school in Chicago, and so it really is this theme that's not just about my day job and what I get paid to do, but it really is at the essence and the core of how I live my life and how I bring people with me in the journey.

Claire Molinard:

Beautiful and, situndra, you also had a few years working in corporate America, right? How did that match with your values and freedom?

Cytandra Hoover:

Yes, absolutely so. Part of my background is as an anthropologist and so, living in so many countries, I wear my anthropologist hat, as I am learning how to absorb the countries, the communities, the languages, rather than from a judgmental perspective, but really being able to observe it and appreciate it. And so, after spending about a decade working in the international development arena with USAID, the US State Department and the UN, the Red Cross, I left and decided to go pursue my MBA, specifically because I had seen how much money was being channeled into sustainability and social impact projects, but not necessarily from the perspective of long terms, the sustainability of poverty relief, and so I really wanted to figure out how and what role does the private sector play in that arena? Right, how can we develop for-profit models that focus on poverty alleviation and job creation? And so that's when I pursued my MBA in entrepreneurship at Babson College. And then I decided and then naturally the path from there was to then go and work in corporate to really understand how to run a business, how to run and manage PNLs and departments when the focus really is on revenue generation, expense management. And yes, it's a very good point that you bring up. It is definitely not my innate self. I am definitely not, by nature, a corporate individual, but I loved it.

Cytandra Hoover:

It was such an incredible experience the people that I met and really kind of wearing that anthropology hat, of walking in and thinking, okay, this is like a new country, right?

Cytandra Hoover:

How do I learn and absorb?

Cytandra Hoover:

There's different language and acronyms, and ways of speaking and ways of engaging and how meetings are run and how decisions are made and what information and materials.

Cytandra Hoover:

I mean all the way from simple things. Like in most places of corporate that I worked, it was very much of a PowerPoint-driven reality, whereas in the NGO and international development space it's word documents. There was just a whole list, and so it really was like entering a new country and so bringing that perspective of you know, okay, I want to absorb it all, I want to learn it all, and it definitely took a while to adjust and to learn because it was so different and actually put a post out on LinkedIn not too long ago about the attire right and wearing suits, which was also so very foreign to my reality of working in disaster zones and conflict areas, of you know, literally being in the middle of streets of Yemen when you know Al Qaeda are coming through and so a very, very different reality, but it's such a period of time that I'm so appreciative of and the learning and the experiences that I was able to bring and now hopefully, you know, contribute into social impact and financial inclusion.

Claire Molinard:

I love that you brought curiosity and openness, which is the best way to enter any new country, to learn any new language, and I can't help but think that in front of you. Typically you wouldn't find as much agility and curiosity in that world, and so you make it sound very beautiful and easy. But I'm sure it wasn't that easy every day, just because the corporate world is just not as flexible and there is a lot of rigidity. So how did you navigate the everyday rigidity of the bureaucracy? For example, what human skills were you able to draw from?

Cytandra Hoover:

Yeah, that's a great point and you're absolutely correct. Right, I think I painted it with a very rosy picture, but it was. I mean, there were parts that really were fantastic and amazing, that I absolutely loved and I would absolutely repeat, and then there were parts that were not, and I think that's what the challenge really was is figuring out, you know, how do I navigate this arena that also is so different from really my innate sense of being, and how do I maintain who I really am at the core and what my passions and experiences are with a world that does not traditionally resonate with that, and it's a great question. I wish I had a perfect answer for it. I think it definitely pushed my boundaries of patience a lot more than I had previously needed to deploy.

Cytandra Hoover:

Spending a lot more time in the thought process and the alignment of people in the storytelling and the justification of why certain investments or changes needed to be done was very different from the world that I came from, where the outcomes and the deliverables were very clear.

Cytandra Hoover:

You know, if it was a Haiti earthquake, right, it was very clear what we needed to do. You need to provide water. You need to provide shelter right. You need to deploy resources right. It's very, very clear and it's incredibly fast paced, with constant pivots on sometimes a daily basis, and you're just always living on your toes, not quite sure what the next day is going to bring, but knowing what the end goal looks like. And I found in corporate, you know it was very different. Right, it was not fast paced like that and decision making took a lot longer and who you needed to engage and how you engage them and what information you needed to provide. And you know, telling the same story in 15 different ways to 20 different people, you know, really tested my own personal boundaries of patience, like I said, of storytelling.

Claire Molinard:

It feels to me that you have to withdraw your passion and maybe to re-channel it in a different way. My sense is that you wouldn't just cut your passion, but there was a way in which you had to adapt, and I work with women who work in large organizations and I've helped them channel that passion and not cut it off, because what happens often is that we withdraw and we hide and we have two personalities, one at work and one at home, and that doesn't work very well after some time. And so I'm interested in knowing how did you channel that passion and how did you not hide?

Cytandra Hoover:

Yeah, there are a few different ways. First of all, I don't think that there's a one size fits all. I think it depends a lot on the individual. I think it depends on what you feel comfortable with. I also think there are big differences whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, so I can share what I did.

Cytandra Hoover:

I think that there's actually a term I coined years ago when I was still working at Liberty Mutual. They invited me to be part of a panel for women leaders in Boston. As I was there talking to these women of the reality and actually these same questions that you're asking me right now, I coined on the spot this idea of situational confidence. What that meant to me was that you're always bringing who you are in your true, authentic self. You just might express it in different ways. When I have a conversation with you or social impact leaders, I might bring out different parts of who I am and how I talk about it and terminology that I use or examples that I include. But if I'm sitting in a boardroom or talking to corporate executives, I still can bring out who I am, but I'm going to need to pivot which pieces that I bring out and how I engage To me. I think that's really important. I don't think it is. Again, this is my own personal experience but for me, if I entirely leave behind who I am and pretend like I'm an actor playing a different role, that is going to be exhausting and very difficult and obviously it's not going to feel natural. And so I think it's a lot about and you mentioned it earlier on right it's about listening and learning, and so I think a big part of it is knowing who your audience is and being able to play to who you are and your strengths, but bringing them out in different ways. And so to me, that was really critical and being able to still be my true self, but I might need to tailor it or adapt it. But I would also be completely lying if I did not say that it was super easy or that my true, 100% self is always there, and it's true. It's not.

Cytandra Hoover:

And it was very difficult to go from a lifetime of social impact, surrounded and involved in disaster response and conflict management, living and working in war zones and natural disasters around the globe, to going and sitting in a corporate office. That was incredibly difficult and to not be surrounded by people who thought and felt the same way that I did, who didn't have those same motivations and passions and it's not a judgment, it was just that's just a reality. And so that was very difficult, and so I really tried to think of other ways in which I could live those experiences and live those passions, whether it was trying to take on different projects. So at the time when I was at Liberty, for example, they were thinking about how can we tap into the Hispanic market differently, and so I got involved in a little bit of that. We went through a time period when I worked at Liberty and Amtrust through major catastrophes, and so I volunteered to be part of the catastrophe response team Just a bunch of different areas.

Cytandra Hoover:

But I also knew from the very beginning, when I left international development, got my MBA, my goal was to enter corporate for a finite period of time, and so I always knew that it was to be a learning experience, to then leave again and to be able to bring all of the experiences together to do good. And so I think that was also important, and if you feel a passion for something and you feel like what you do in your day job is not aligning with who you are, to me that's really important. Right Is to know that there are alternatives that are available and set yourself with some timelines so that you know that this is not in perpetuity. But really, how much can I get out of the experience right now? How much can I contribute back, but knowing that there is, that there's a timeline?

Claire Molinard:

Right, and that's what you did. Right. You left the corporate and now you're bridging social impact and for profit. Yes, together and and again. Your capacity to navigate different cultures really helped you there. You were able to really live this experience as if you were living in a different culture. Yes, it is, and that's what it is, and that's what it is exactly Amazing.

Cytandra Hoover:

And I think the word you used was curiosity, and I think, just in general, curiosity rather than judgment is such an entry way to any new experience. Yes, and so keeping an open mind and being inquisitive is asking lots of questions and seeking to understand. To me, is what is so much fun, right, and how much you can learn by just being curious. And I mean, for me, I feel like it comes naturally, not necessarily to all, but I think that is also what's so important, and it's very easy to enter situations with our lens, with our cultural lens and our experience lens and our identities. But trying to kind of put that aside and that's where my anthropology comes on right Is like setting all of that aside and walking in with a totally clean slate and just saying I want to learn, I want to understand.

Claire Molinard:

That's so fundamental to any experience right To enter in that way, and curiosity keeps you alive, it keeps you engaged with the present and obviously it creates a whole different relationship, and I'm sure that this was also felt and appreciated in your environment. The world is becoming such a scene of catastrophes cascading onto each other, and my sense is that there is a need for more curiosity, more openness, more compassion, more empathy, more of what's usually called feminine qualities, and so what is your vision for the role of women in having a greater social impact for the future?

Cytandra Hoover:

Yeah, I think that's a really great point. One of the areas I think is really important is I frequently see comments and positions about the future as a woman's world and women's empowerment, and while I can understand some of that, I really truly believe that we need to work together. It's not one or the other, it's not a black or white, and, being the single mother of a boy, I'm also very attuned to the perceptions and the reactions and the reality by pushing so much of that very feminist approach and how that has very negative consequences, and so I really truly believe that it's about working together. I think women have very unique in general right, and we can't generalize, but maybe we can't stereotype, I should say but in general, women do bring qualities that tend to be what we would call softer skills, and that has extreme and important value on bringing people together and understanding and bringing in different perspectives.

Cytandra Hoover:

And I think the more women who are willing to be vulnerable and take the risk and not feel that we have to be perfect or to have the realization that our perspective matters and our opinion matters and be able to speak up, is really critical and I've been writing about that quite a bit recently the sense of vulnerability, and I don't know if it was my own childhood or just the world in general, but I always had a very difficult time portraying the vulnerable sides of myself, the more humane sides, and it was much more about I need to show that it's perfect, right, everything I produce and what I do, it has to be perfect.

Cytandra Hoover:

I can't show any gaps or any weaknesses. Well, there's a whole bunch of reality and stories and other pieces behind that, but I think the more that we're able to show that we are human and to bring those perspectives forward in an engaging way are really what helped to drive the conversation and if we can be more open about that, we can bring more people onto the journey, men and women across the board and across ages and generations and countries and cultures, and that's where we really can move the needle. I think, just in general and having worked in conflict for so long, whenever you take a very hard line stance and again back to those points of curiosity and listening if you take a very hard line stance, it's very easy for anyone of a different perspective to fully reject what you're saying, and so I think entering environments with the sense of humanness and vulnerability, I think really is the role that we can play.

Claire Molinard:

Yeah, and that applies to men too. I mean, I think it's important also in this conversation to distinguish that soft qualities, what's called feminine intelligence, is something that is accessible to men and women, and so when we say we need more feminine in leadership, we don't necessarily mean we need more women.

Claire Molinard:

We need more soft qualities in leadership from both men and women. Women will also need some strong masculine healthy capacity in leadership, and that is really what's going to move the needle to bring more healthy qualities in both sides, from both men and women. I mean, here in Utah, I hear a lot of masculine healthy capacity year. Leadership is very engaged and sounds very focused and directional, which are great masculine qualities which we need in leadership, Right? So it's beyond the gender conversation. It's really about qualities of being and, yes, in conventional leadership in our corporate worlds, not just in America but also in Europe, there is a need for soft qualities for community building, for more compassion, more empathy, and that is definitely something that we are leaning towards and trying to bring more of.

Cytandra Hoover:

Absolutely, you're absolutely correct and I think those qualities that you just said of compassion and empathy right. Those are not specific to one particular type of person, but it is very difficult to bring those in a professional environment.

Claire Molinard:

Because of the vulnerability, as you mentioned earlier, and we have not been trained or encouraged to be vulnerable. On the contrary, been encouraged not to be vulnerable as if it was a great skill not to be vulnerable.

Cytandra Hoover:

And I think what's really fascinating right and it kind of goes to that conversation of understanding and knowing your audience is that if you flip the challenge or flip the situation around and rather than thinking about it as we need to bring these qualities because this is just the right thing to do, especially here in the United States, which is a very capitalistic society, if you turn it around from a business perspective, there are financial returns that are gained by bringing empathy and compassion into the workplace Across the board, whether that's on employee retention, whether it's from a hiring perspective, whether it's from a decision-making perspective, but it's also from a customer experience and product perspective. You can actually sell more products by bringing compassion and empathy into the workplace. That, to me, is so fascinating. It really is both sides of the coin. It's not an either or we need it because people are tired of having to be actors, we're tired of having to be very rigid types of people in different environments Absolutely.

Claire Molinard:

If we follow that conversation, health-wise it's advantageous to bring those qualities to be vulnerable, to be compassionate, to be empathic. It's much better for your health than being rigid and being closed up and depressed into a workplace. It is a win-win in all sides.

Cytandra Hoover:

It really is Again here in the United States. We, the United States, spends more on healthcare per individual than any other country in the world, but have a lower life expectancy in relation to our other peers and higher income countries. You're exactly right. If we start to bring these characteristics of compassion and empathy into our daily life, how would that also impact physical and mental health and bring down the cost of healthcare?

Claire Molinard:

Then it brings us to education. It's systemic. It's not just one area, it's all areas. How do we bring those qualities back into the system so that it can work for everyone? It's really how do we bring that system back to its original design? There is a sense that there is a healthy way to do this. There is a better way to do this that brings us to a different world. How do we all sign up for that?

Cytandra Hoover:

I think that's so interesting. I think that the original design was flawed to begin with or was reflective of the time and the period. I think it's really about a new business model. I really think it's about a new way of living. I think it's fascinating. We were really in the midst and I won't go too nerdy on all of this. But the era in which we live in is called the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene that means the people at the center of it. Well, what does that really mean? You can be very scientific and academic, but to me, it's really about putting its human-centered design Really. It's about putting people at the center of what we're doing, both positively and negatively. The impact we're having on our environment is significant, but when you put people back into the middle because we're the ones that are also making the decisions that also means that you can drive really positive outcomes.

Claire Molinard:

Exactly.

Cytandra Hoover:

It's fascinating.

Claire Molinard:

It's fascinating. It also means that we have the obligation to take care of the planet, because we are at the center now.

Cytandra Hoover:

Yeah, the planet and each other.

Claire Molinard:

And each other, which goes together, yes, yeah. So we live in incredibly complex and perilous times and, at the same time, there is so much potential for shifting, for actually creating an incredibly thriving world that works for everyone. I'm going back to this expression because it feels like it's at the tip of our fingers how do we shift the direction?

Cytandra Hoover:

Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's very easy to look at the world today and be discouraged and overwhelmed on so many different levels. But I also think, while all of that is true, I think it is also such an incredible opportunity for individuals to make such a difference, and it starts within ourselves. It starts with our own willingness to be human, to be vulnerable, compassion and empathy and listening and engagement, and how small changes by each one of us really have impactful, cumulative good or taking action within our own communities. And so I think it really is just that willingness to step outside of our norm and try something different.

Claire Molinard:

Exactly, and everyone can be an actor in the change. Everyone can have a part. No one is too small. It's a choice of every day to decide that you can have an impact at your level, wherever you are. You can decide to be curious or you can decide to be close. You can decide to be overwhelmed by the crisis everywhere, and there's good reason to be overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed very often and I have to choose again and again and remember that I do have an impact. I can change the way it affects me and I can let myself feel the pain and the despair and the overwhelm and move through it, not get completely overcome by it.

Cytandra Hoover:

Absolutely, and I think that's a critical piece too, right Is it's easy to become paralyzed when you see everything that's happening, and so I think it's really helpful at least to start out, you know, to pick, you know the one area or the two areas that are of most interest and passion, and hone in on those, because otherwise, right and I find myself doing this all the time right, there's so many different topics that I'm passionate about, right, but I can't possibly move the needle in all of them, and so you know it's you know what areas can I do right and how do I focus on those. And then, once you become, you know, greta Thornberg and you know all other.

Cytandra Hoover:

Michelle Obama right, you can take some others on.

Claire Molinard:

Exactly, and there's always a way in which you're you know something that you're good at or that touches you deeply and meet some need that's just around the corner from you, and also in another aspect of that, and I don't know if you can speak to, it is community. I think it's so important that we find our people, and in today's world we can find our people even if they're on the other side of the world. I mean, I found you on LinkedIn.

Cytandra Hoover:

Yeah, yeah Wild.

Claire Molinard:

We reconnected all over the world today, and that's one of the beauties of technology. Yeah, Absolutely.

Cytandra Hoover:

Oh, it's such a fantastic point and it's actually something, you know, that I've thought about and struggled a lot with in my life. When community really is in my perspective you know, it's what you define it to be, and I don't think there there is one version of what community is, and to me, community really also is very much of belonging. It's not only what you exert to find a place of belonging in community, but it's also that side of assimilation, of a community's willingness, you know, and availability to bring you in to a community. And, as you said, I've lived in 20 different countries. I've lived in so many, you know, numerous places across the United States, and so trying to find a sense of community you know, regardless of where I am, is sometimes easy and sometimes incredibly difficult, and so I think that there's absolutely importance to finding your community and your people, regardless of where they are in the world.

Cytandra Hoover:

I also think it's really important to find those people that you can meet up with in person, and with the digital age that we're in and COVID, right Like, where we couldn't get together, I think it really created this chasm, right it like how do we socialize?

Cytandra Hoover:

Right Like, how are we human beings and interact with each other. And I really think you know community can go all the way back to you know friends that you've had, you know, throughout your lifetime, right, and I have communities all over the world. But I think it really comes down to, especially in new communities, it's that sense of curiosity and I think it's that sense of what is. You know, what is important to you, right, and how much are you willing to adapt yourself or adjust or not show who you fully are, depending on what the community is, and it's not an easy question, but whether it's a new place that you have moved to or a new job that you have or a new country that you're in, it's a challenge, right, and trying to find your people, no matter where you are. You know it's exciting and it can be scary, but I think that sense of curiosity, of really trying to learn, as long as you're not for going, your real core morals and values and principles.

Claire Molinard:

Yeah, and what I'm also sensing into. We're so individualized in this particular era, right, we're so lonely, and that's not a human way to be. We're not designed for. We're designed to be together, and so, remembering that this is the first step, right, and where we're talking about vulnerability, to be in community is to be vulnerable.

Cytandra Hoover:

Yes, yes. And to be able to bring your whole self means you have to be vulnerable.

Claire Molinard:

Yeah, and it feels so much better to be vulnerable than to have it all together, which we don't. None of us has it all together.

Cytandra Hoover:

No, no, I think it's the biggest lie. Yeah, it's so. It's so interesting, though, too right, because if you go on social media, it tends what you tend to see is the best of everything, and so it's also very easy to treat right and to live in this fictitional world like, well, everybody else is doing so well, why am I not? And those are snippets in time, right, that's not the whole picture and all these fantastic stories of people being on Zoom and it's all so clean on what you can see in the camera, but you know, there's kids, toys and stacks of paper and baskets of laundry lying all over the place, and so I really think it is about this realization that none of us have it all together right, that everybody is just trying to do their best and, you know, having that compassion, that empathy, that understanding that we're all really going through it at the same time and we're all better off and support each other.

Claire Molinard:

Cytandra, thank you so much for your willingness to dive into this conversation with me. I just really appreciated the way that we mentored from talking about traveling the world and being a world citizen to landing in corporate America and bringing your compassion, your passion, your empathy into the corporate world and finally touching on the need to be vulnerable in community and in our workplace. Such a beautiful ride. I'm grateful and I wish you all the best to you, to your son, and thank you for the beautiful work you do in the world.

Cytandra Hoover:

This has just been so fantastic and I love the conversation and the ideas that you brought up, and I think that's what the world really needs. And thank you so much for reaching out.

Claire Molinard:

You're so welcome. Thanks again and see you soon on the Woman Rise podcast.