3 minute read
Flower Mound Women in Business
Flower Mound is home to many women entrepreneurs who are proud of what they do and believe in helping one another grow. They live by a motto - When women empower women, they are stronger together! That’s why many young ladies are gracefully adopting entrepreneurship as a career choice. Leading the mission is Flower Mound Women in
Business (FMWIB), a platform that has united diverse women in the community. Women with various backgrounds ranging from fitness gyms, restaurateurs, bakeries, flower shops, teachers, boutiques, finance, doctors, direct sales, lawyers, real estate, and everything in between. Christi Beca, a successful realtor by profession, is the woman behind FMWIB. A few years back, when she was looking for a group to join that connected likeminded women business owners to network and support each other, she couldn’t exactly find one. That’s when FMWIB was born in 2015. Six years later, the platform is thriving. The organization has recently received its
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“OUR FOCUS 501c3 nonprofit status and is committed to giving back to IS TO EMPOWER the community.
WOMEN TO “Started with just over 30 people in the networking
LIVE THEIR group meeting once a month to now approaching 4,000
BEST LIVES.” members, growing daily and the impact on the local community has been amazing,” Beca said. “Our focus is to empower women to live their best lives.” FMWIB has women entrepreneurs of all ages who regularly meet, brainstorm, problem-solve, and network in an uplifting
and supportive environment with other like-minded women looking to achieve high levels of success without judgment or competition.
“We even have a few teen bosses in our group. It’s such an inspiration to see the younger generation running their small businesses,” Beca remarked.
As a leader, Beca takes pride in seeing so many successful women encouraging other women and genuinely rooting for others to succeed. They meet every two weeks, i.e., on the 1st and 3rd Thursday at CLINK Wine Bar + Bites. The team has excellent partnerships with other nonprofit organizations and other groups, including the men’s group.
“It’s important to understand that race, gender, religion, background, etc., should never affect your desire to help your community,” said Beca, who has been living in Flower Mound for 20 years now.
The nonprofit has been doing a lot of community events. They run Flower Mound’s largest Holiday Spectacular event with free visits with Santa to benefit the Toys 4 Tots program. They donated Fletcher’s Corny Dogs to Texas Presbyterian Hospital during Nurses Week amidst the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Recently, along with donations from several local restaurants, they donated meals to the entire Flower Mound Police Department to show their community appreciation and support to the men and women in blue. With COVID, small business owners have had to pivot and adapt their businesses more than ever. That’s where the FMWIB group has been doing its best to promote local businesses.
“The sense of pride and support we get from our local community is what makes me happy,” said Beca, who comes from a line of entrepreneurs and real estate professionals. She’s a third-generation Realtor. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BBA in Marketing and Finance.
For a woman aspiring to build a successful career, establishing a business on her own is no easy walk. Being a CEO and a mother to two kids, Christi had her own set of challenges.
“I think as a woman, you have to have grit and toughness about you to be taken seriously at times. I also think society expects women to be able to do-itall between work and family life,” she expressed. “I feel it’s an unhealthy and unrealistic expectation put on women to be the best at everything: be the best CEO, the perfect mother, the best wife, etc., and if you’re not succeeding at one, then you’re failing.”
She further said that all the roles women play in the family and professional setup are essential. However, practicing self-care should be on the top. She believes that women have to get better at saying no to things that don’t suit them. And being the leader of an empowered network of women in the town, Beca continuously strives to help ladies be the best version of themselves so that they can better take care of their family and profession.
