Susan Pilato of Mantra Inspired Furniture: Why We Need More Women Founders & Here Is What We Are Doing To Make That Happen
Provide adequate childcare. Most mothers with kids younger than 18 work. The Labor Department put working moms’ 2022 workforce participation rate at 71.2 percent.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Susan Pilato.
Susan Pilato has been in the design industry for over 30 years and is currently the Founder and CEO of Mantra Inspired Furniture, a commercial furniture manufacturing and design company headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia. In 2018, when Susan’s firm PC&A Business Environments faced a supplier closure, Susan leveraged her connections in the Amish artisan community to launch Mantra Inspired Furniture, drawing inspiration from her father’s guiding principles. Susan’s embodiment of these values like enthusiasm, moderation, and resilience drives Mantra IF’s disruption in the industry, offering quality solid wood furniture while championing sustainability and educating designers.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
After earning my Bachelor of Science in Interior Design from Virginia Tech and a couple of years experience at an A&D firm and a commercial furniture dealership, I began my own company with a fellow interior designer. sThis was something I needed to do in order to bring my personal values to work. I do recognize that choice was a huge privilege.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
After three decades, I have many stories. But the times that I have been underestimated and used that to my advantage inspire me the most. Working in a male dominated construction industry has illustrated that there is a big need in having more women project leaders. Most of the times that I walk onto a job site, the immediate assumption is that I do not understand the built environment. What they don’t know is that I have always taken an interest in how things are made or done and when they try to push back on our designs I push back with knowledge and facts of why it can be done. The contractors do not like this as they want to take the easier or faster way, which most of the time is not the best direction for our client’s design. Thankfully, the CEO of this particular client has supported me and has had to intervene at times to make them do what is right for the design. He knows that I will fight to the end to advocate for his designs.
Also — due to this experience and realizing there are extreme small numbers of women owners or leaders in the commercial furniture industry, we started Mantra Inspired Furniture. What initially inspired us to start Mantra was the lack of true clarity of sustainable truth in the materials that make furniture, but what also inspires us is that we represent women leadership, and it is our hope many other women will follow.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
That would be a story about not securing a chair to the bed of a truck on a major expressway, but honestly, I’m not sure there’s a single mistake. Mistakes are how you evolve. We tell our team all the time, especially the younger ones, you’re going to mess up. You’re going to fail. In fact, if you don’t mess up, I’m going to be concerned, because that means you’re not growing.’ However, repeating the same mistake equals lack of growth or interest. My business partner Donna and I have failed in so many crazy ways. But we’re still standing strong.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My father. He taught me that beyond anything else, strong principles will guide you toward a balanced life. However, I would remiss not to mention my husband, Vince and my business partner, Donna, without whom I could not have achieved successes due to their unwavering belief in me.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Oh, there are so many authors who have made big impacts on me — Anita Rodderick, Michelle Obama, Maya Angelou and several others. Right now, I’m doing a type of “book club” with our company with the book “Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things,” by Adam Grant. He focuses on how all of us have “hidden potential” and I believe this resonates much with women as they have so much hidden potential to lead.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?
Mantra Inspired Furniture is named for eight mantras that my father passed down to me: 1) Do it now. 2) Be cheerful and optimistic. 3) Say something nice to everyone you meet. 4) Enthusiasm. 5) Organization and appearance. 6) Moderation. 7) Drive carefully. 8) Keep on trying.
We have led our company by these principles, and they have served us well!
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Specifically, I’m a founding member of the Reddix Rules Fund, which supports BIPOC women entrepreneurs, and I’m involved with Give Back 2 Da Block, a nonprofit for violence interruption in Portsmouth, Virginia. But overall, I work at being an ally to my peers from underrepresented backgrounds. That’s because, as a woman I can recognize the impact of bigotry, and as a white community and business leader, I have the privilege of a seat at the table where I can do something about it.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
Limited access to funding is a big problem. But gender bias (which I’ve experienced firsthand) also plays a role.
Can you share with our readers what you are doing to help empower women to become founders?
Growing the number of women entrepreneurs is precisely why I’m working with Dr. Reddix and Envision Lead Grow that uses entrepreneurial principles to empower young women to reach for their dreams and lead the next generation to their dreams.
This might be intuitive to you but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
The more women founders we have, the more diverse companies will become. Diversity has been linked so much to race only, but if a truly diverse company has diversity of generations, experience levels, gender, color, and all of that, you’re going to realize better returns.
Can you please share 5 things that can be done or should be done to help empower more women to become founders?
1. Increase funding for women startups.
2. Women leaders need to mentor other women to reach leadership positions that will allow them to become influencers in their communities and businesses.
3. Put more women on boards. Boards impact decisions at the community level, where businesses need support.
4. Eradicate racism. Black women are launching businesses at a faster clip than any other group, including white men. But unlike them, 61% of black women self-fund their businesses, regardless of their household income, according to Harvard Business Review (HBR). A main reason for that may be because they have the least access to capital, according to Goldman Sachs.
5. Provide adequate childcare. Most mothers with kids younger than 18 work. The Labor Department put working moms’ 2022 workforce participation rate at 71.2 percent.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Because America is experiencing a backlash against women and diversity, I am on mission to interrupt the trend of white privilege in my own industry of design. My dream is to get an authentic conversation among whites, BIPOC, and LGBTQ people to help white people let go of their fear of facing the reality of our unfair advantages of our skin color. It’s 2024 and its long overdue for us to act as a true community of individuals regardless of who and what we were born into.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I’d love to sit down with the singer P!nk. I admire her fearlessness in speaking her mind no matter what others think, and standing up for what is right. I wonder what we could accomplish in waking up our fellow white people together?
How can our readers further follow your work online?
mantrainspiredfurniture.com and pcanda.com
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Susan Pilato of Mantra Inspired Furniture: Why We Need More Women Founders & Here Is What We Are… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.