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Selena Stallworth is the senior counsel and Tahirah Smith is the associate managing counsel for Travelers Indemnity Co. Both women attended the 2023 Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit and spoke with rolling out about what it means to be a woman of power.
What does it mean to you to be a woman of power?
Tahirah Smith: It means investing and building others up, while in the process also fulfilling what you need to better yourself.
Selena Stallworth: I don’t know if I’ve reached my full power yet. I recently changed careers after doing the same job for 11 years. And I positioned myself to be able to not just advance my career, but try to mentor and shepherd other folks and younger generations. So I feel like I’m in this a little bit, a little bit of a different position.
TS: And I would think that even though she’s in the process of becoming what she wants to be, she’s very powerful. Because on her journey, she’s impacting all those around her.
Why is mentorship important?
SS: I have some women mentors that I depend on for advice, but what we’ve learned is that mentorship is good. But you also need a sponsor. Sponsorship is the person who’s in the room that can make the decisions and advocate for you. It’s invaluable to have people on your side [who are] fighting for you.
TS: Mentorship is very important so that you can have a confidant, someone you can trust personally and professionally. Learn that mentorship does not necessarily need to be someone in the organization, just someone that can give good advice. But to further that along, we know that sponsorship is what’s critical because we need to be spoken about in rooms that we’re not in.
How can we support Black women?
SS: We support Black women by listening and trying to understand the challenges that Black women face. Black women go through a very unique set of challenges that not all ethnic races and all people do. I think it looks like having conversations, being open and listening to Black women’s concerns, and providing support and sponsorship.
TS: What we need is essentially just to be seen, heard, acknowledged and celebrated. I think there are a lot of expectations like we’re the strong ones, we’re magic, and we’re the hard workers. But we have to be afforded the opportunities because of our hard work so that we can get in those rooms and become sponsors. We’re not asking for favors, we’re asking that there’s an acknowledgment of the effort of work that we put in.