[Management] Interview with Alumna Lee Hye-rin, Deputy CEO of Growing Mom
- Date2020.05.08
- 5848
Today, we have an interview with alumna Lee Hye-rin (graduating class of 2010, Korean Language & Literature major) who is Deputy CEO of Growing Mom, a startup company that operates on-line childcare counseling and analysis services.
Q. Hello. Could you give us a brief introduction about yourself?
Hello. I am Lee Hye-rin who graduated from the Department of Korean Language & Literature at Ewha Womans University, and currently runs a start-up business while raising a child. Growing Mom is a company that provides childcare counseling and analysis services via on-line. It is a company co-founded with my partner to provide an untact childcare counseling service, and I am currently on the position of a deputy CEO.
Q. Why did you start on-line platform startup that offers childcare analysis and counseling?
I worked for a securities company before giving birth, which was under large-scale restructuring at that time. It was the moment that I had serious doubt about whether I could continue my career in this industry. Family is a precious and integral part of my life, which made me consider a new job in life because I thought it would be hard to work and raise a child at the same time. Fifty days after giving birth, I went to Ewha’s Graduate School of Education, majoring in Educational Psychology. As taking graduate courses, I thought about ways to combine what I was studying with my experience in the stock industry, which is a business planning. I saw that there was a lack of technical approach to counseling, and thought I could create the interface with higher accessibility. By the time, the current CEO of Growing Mom had similar concerns as I had. I hope everyone to get counseling easily and conveniently. I hope counselors can do their work in a digital environment. These are the two reasons why I established the company.
I've seen a lot of women taking a career break after having children, including myself. I thought, “Is there any workplace where I can work while raising a child? Shall I make one?” – which is another reason for me starting the company. Nine out of 12 in-house counselors as well as all 25 freelancers have children, all of whom have experienced career breaks before. The idea of creating a model company which can grow balancing work and childcare becomes the fundamental reason for me to start the business.
Q. What is the difference between your previous career in the securities company and your current work as Deputy CEO of Growing Mom?
Although the latter one is very arduous, it is what I like to do and cut out for me. And compared to my previous career, my current job has many advantages. First, I feel happy to discover the growth of the people I work with. Unlike the time I was an employee, now I'm in a position to motivate my team to develop. Seeing people grow up with my own eyes, I try to find ways to help them. The second point is that I can create a service and hear the customer's requirements directly. In fact, Business to Consumer (B2C) is the type of sales model which is very hard to run. But there are also other aspects that motivate me a lot. Providing consumers with my service and hearing from them that they are grateful for my help make me really happy. The last change I like to mention is that I start to see a bigger picture. In the past, doing an assigned job well is all I have to do, but now I should be good at assigning works to people, which allows me to see the big picture. It's a big challenge as I have to consider the overall aspect of the company ranging from marketing to development, but at the same time, it is a very interesting task to do.
Q. I believe you've had a lot of concerns over the balance between childcare and your career. Compared to then and now, is there any change in your values regarding childcare and work?
I think that childcare values of mine have become a little stronger as I operate Growing Mom. Before Growing Mom, I thought, "Being a good mother is important even if I have to grind my body and soul to become one.” However, while running Growing Mom, I came to realize that children’s happiness depends on their parents’ shape of life, their happiness. Regardless of whether their mother have a job or not, children will have fun watching their mother being happy either at home or at work.
I came to think that balancing my life with parenting is more important than being a mother who overdoes myself to become an icon of sacrifice demanded by society. In fact, this is the biggest part of the education that we provide to parents. We teach parents how to muster up their spirits. If you let go of the burden of parenting, you can look at yourself. I start to think that it's better to live without losing who I am, and to raise my child in my own way.
Q. What kind of company do you want Growing Mom to be for mothers, by extension, for women?
I want it to be a good company to work whether you raise a child or not. What I've been thinking about lately is that I wouldn’t have given up my career if only one of my female colleagues told me, "Hey, don't quit your job," before I left. Back then, there was no one to trust and follow. Everyone said that it was a painful road to take, that I had better quit the company. But after leaving the company and starting my business, I come to think my life would have been better if I had a good community where I could meet good persons like my current female colleagues and coworkers in Growing Mom before I got married. One of my favorite words is "All women follow the trail of footprints of other women trailblazers.” I heartily agree with that. I want Growing Mom to be that trailblazer to women.
Q. What do you think the Ewha DNA is?
Fairness. I think Ewha DNA is “power to think fairly.” I really enjoyed my days at Ewha Womans University. I am still very fond of the memory at Ewha. If my daughter wants to and if she can, I want her to go to Ewha. Because when I was in school, I felt I was treated very equally and with fairness. I think that fairness is a big asset that I gained in my 20s, an important period of my life. I think my days at Ewha was the fairest moment of my life when I could exist as who I am without restrictions such as gender expectations and cages that I unconsciously locked myself in.
But the world doesn't work that way. Women keep hitting the glass ceiling when they come out into the world. They find themselves in an unfair situation. I think that Ewha graduates have the power to fight for fairness in society. Talking to alumnae and students from Ewha, you will find out they are very sensible and rational. They are sharper, more objective, and more acute rather than being paternalistic. I think they develop such an attitude from the competition and evaluation held in a fair environment that they experienced at Ewha. Furthermore, Ewhaians are very rational people. Ewha’s alumnae I met so far are the more reasonable, honest, warm-hearted, and fairer than anyone else. I think that's the most brilliant part of all.