Tyra Banks Talks Empowerment at Tech Startup Conference

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Tyra Banks, an executive education graduate of Harvard Business School (HBS), spoke on the theme of female empowerment in the tech startup world at a conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal in California this week.

‘Being Fierce: Empowering Female Entrepreneurs’ was the title of the talk, in conversation with the Wall Street Journal’s global technology editor, given by the supermodel turned media mogul as creator and executive producer of long-running reality TV show, America's Next Top Model.

And empower she did, by wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘I’m an entrepreneur, b***h’ and reportedly telling her audience of tech startup founders that “every woman needs ‘f-you’ money to be able to do things independently.” Aside from the calls to arms, Tyra Banks eloquently discussed her belief in “leaving something before it left me”, or ‘pivoting’ as she termed it. In business, she explained, this means getting out when you sense something has already peaked and before the public gets wind that something is no longer ‘hot’. Incidentally, news broke last week that America's Next Top Model is to end in December.

Executive education graduate of HBS sought startup ‘tools’

Tyra Banks is the CEO of the company that bears her name, which is behind Tyra Beauty, a cosmetics line that utilizes new technology. It was in 2012 that she graduated from the Owner/President Management Program (OPM) that is available from Harvard Business School’s executive education arm. At the time of her enrollment, the school said her celebrity status was a first for the program, but since then it has also attracted record producer and songwriter, Swizz Beatz.

The HBS executive education program itself is taught in three-week sessions spread over three years and is aimed at company leaders with annual sales totaling at least US$10 million. Certainly, the program is no cheap option in the executive education domain. The price of the next available session costs US$40,500, meaning that over three years it has the potential to cost upwards of US$120,000 in its entirety.

Tyra Banks has previously explained her decision to attend Harvard Business School by saying “In order for my company to grow and be the best, and to reach these women, and to serve them, I needed the best.”

However, in an interview with Allure earlier this month she revealed that she had more specific goals in mind: “A lot of people were wondering why I went to Harvard Business School, and I couldn’t say why. I was like, 'I’m just trying to be a better businesswoman.’ Actually, I went because I was going to start this cosmetics business and wanted to make sure I had all the tools in order to create it, launch it, build it, lead it, grow it.”

Thus far, Banks has self-funded her new enterprise, but at this week’s tech startup conference she admitted that this was not sustainable in the long run and that she would be on the lookout for investment in the next year.   

The conference, WSJDLive, brought in a number of influential startup CEOs and founders to discuss trends and opportunities in the sector. Among other speakers in attendance at the three-day event were Tim Cook, Apple CEO and MBA alumnus of Duke Fuqua; Sony CEO and president, Kazuo (Kaz) Hirai; Zappos CEO,  Tony Hsieh; and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty. Pop star, will.i.am, himself a tech startup founder with i.am.plus, was also in attendance as one of the judges for a startup competition that was won by a new healthcare enterprise.