Alpa Shah, the founder has already broken various barriers to become the CEO of 1st American Systems and Services. She graduated as a Chemical Engineer from Georgia Institute of Technology and later completed an Executive MBA program from Purdue University.
Women’s Empowerment has been near and dear to her heart. Leaving the workforce to start a family when remote work opportunities did not exist is her inspirations to start ToEW. She faced adversities trying to re-enter the workforce with an outdated degree so wants to help women who want to return to workforce.
She recognizes that economic empowerment can fuel the success of a woman and her family. While she was able to flourish overcoming the struggles of work life balance, she believes that women need skills and support to break the cycle to get ahead. They need basic financial literacy to make informed decisions. Lack of access to resources keeps them from success and improvements in their quality of life, and hopes that ToEW will train women, employ them and empower them to thrive.
A Program Manager with 14+ years of professional experience in Higher Education & IT industries Ammara’s resolve to help women took root way before she even realized it. Growing up under the watchful eye of a distinguished humanitarian mother who is known for her work on women and children’s rights and a father who cultivated her passion for education and career Ammara started helping women at a very young age of 18.
Challenges presented while achieving a master’s degree and a dream job pale in comparison to managing work life balance of becoming a mom.
She hopes that To Empower Women will support women and provide a platform for women to get resources to have an “Improved quality of life ” and access to comradeship from others in the same situation.
Sarika Garg, CFO at To Empower Women, completed her degree in Life & Home Sciences but her dream to be financially independent woman compelled her to enroll in a rigorous graduate program for STEM & Engineering at Central Michigan University (CMU) while raising a 2-year daughter. She undertook double the workload of classes to achieve master’s degree in Computer Science in a shorter time. She completed two other STEM certificates to differentiate herself and landed her first corporate job at a Federal Government contracting company as a software engineer.
This dream job came with its own challenges, two hours commute each way in the era when telecommuting options were not available, working at it was unsustainable. Her persistence would not stop her from pursuing her dream of financial freedom and eventually she succeeded in building a career as a software professional.
Financial literacy was a topic farthest from her mind when Sonali completed her education in fashion design and graduated top of her class. She gave up her internship working with a leading designer and a rising career in the fashion industry to pursue the American Dream and moved to USA. Her desire to be present in her children’s life, led her to seek out remote work opportunities in the financial sector.
Having worked in the investment industry for over 12 years she has seen that women have lower financial literacy levels than men. Women require these skills to manage their personal and household finances as well as to develop and manage entrepreneurial endeavors. Understanding the benefits of remote work and Financial literacy herself she is excited to be part of the mission of “To Empower Women”.
Monali Desai has over 25 years of experience in technology and operations within the telecom, health care and legal industries but the path to success was bumpy along the way. Her degree from University of South Gujarat where she majored in Computer Science.
Monali is motivated, determined and constantly improving herself and the world around her. She is passionate about empowering women and credits her mom as her role model. Indira, her mom grew up in rural India. Although Indira herself was not allowed to get higher education, she made sure her three daughters had a good education. Education they received as children has been the cornerstone for Monali and her sisters to have a better life. Monali strongly believes women’s education directly increases and improves the quality of life for the whole family and that It Is time to unleash the potential in women.
