Meet the founder of Thriving Elements
Janet T. Phan is the founder and Executive Director of Thriving Elements, a nonprofit dedicated to creating access and opportunities for underserved, underrepresented girls with long-term, 1:1 mentorship in STEM fields. Janet’s vision is to develop and empower young women in STEM to make a sustainable impact and inspire the next generation of women leaders. She is a Senior Technical Product Manager for Amazon's Project Kuiper and the author of Boldly You: A Story about Discovering What You’re Capable of When You Show Up for Yourself.
What inspired you to launch your business/nonprofit and what is the end goal?
About 8 years ago, I was in a role leading global tech programs at PwC where I traveled the world. I worked with people from so many different cultures which led me to spend a lot of time in airports and airplanes, thinking about how lucky I was given how I grew up. I mean, I worked at KFC serving fried chicken for 7.5 years (during high school and college) and at one point, lived out of my car. Now I was sitting in business class on flights, fine dining, and meeting incredible people around the world. In addition to this, from my experience working in tech, the one thing that really stuck out to me was that oftentimes I was the only female at the table. This led me to research overall female representation within the STEM field. What I’ve discovered is that women are grossly underrepresented in key leadership and managerial positions within the industry - not only in the U.S. but also worldwide.
While I continue to pursue my career development, one of the things that has remained steadfast in my life are the amazing mentors I’ve had along the way. Through this, my nonprofit, Thriving Elements was born.
My dream is to build and sustain a program that replicates the quality mentoring I received in my life and scale it to as many underserved, underrepresented young women as possible. Sometimes it takes just that one moment or that one person to help someone see what they are capable of and go beyond their potential.
The vision of Thriving Elements is to develop and empower young women in STEM to make a sustainable impact in their communities and inspire the next generation of women leaders. We achieve this through our mission of creating access and opportunities for underserved, underrepresented girls in STEM through mentoring. The end goal is to bridge the gender disparity in STEM fields around the world, and until the pendulum has swung the other way, we will continue to exist.
How did you conquer those moments of doubt that so often affect entrepreneurs or stop many with great ideas – what pushes you through?
There are several things that push me through but two that stand out - passion for impact and being biased for action. Passion for impact means working to solve a problem that is bigger than myself. In this case, creating access for girls who grew up similar to me. I know how hard it is. I want to make the path easier for the next generation while exposing them to fields that can get them and their family out of poverty. When I graduated college and started my career in IT, I was making more than my parents combined. Everyday when I’m in a room or on a call with all men, I’m reminded of how important it is to bridge the gender disparity in STEM fields. Technology needs diversity and people of all backgrounds in order to be successful and to ensure we’ve taken into as much consideration as possible when designing a product or service.
Being biased for action means that when I’m not sure if something will work, I try it anyway. I do this by looking at the goal that needs to be achieved, break it down into smaller pieces, and start attacking the next step. Despite what’s going on in my personal or professional life, having the passion for impact gives me the motivation and endurance to continually take action. Even if it’s carving out 15-30 minutes in the morning, at lunch, or in the evening to handle a task, it gets things moving forward.
What are your thoughts on failure?
Since I started working at KFC and Bank of America trying to upsell two corn-on-a-cob for a dollar or a credit card, I realized that failure and rejection must be encountered regularly in order to build resilience. Through this, I learned that one in every 10 people I asked if they wanted something extra with their order or something extra added onto their bank account, I would get - on average - one yes. This meant the more rejections I got, the higher the likelihood of a yes. This got me comfortable with putting myself in a vulnerable and uncomfortable position to try something new or to ask for what I want. Being biased for action comes with failure. I know that somewhere along the way I’m going to fail or find that I could’ve done something better. I also know that learning from failure is better than not ever finding out the lesson at all. This also applies when I want to ask for something. I ask for it despite the potential of being rejected. This is why I think of “NO” as “New Opportunity.”
With all the success stories around entrepreneurship and how innovative people have to be to take the leap. How do you think you’ve innovated your sector and why?
Being involved with many mentoring programs during college and professionally, I wanted to make sure that Thriving Elements’ mentoring program made a long-term sustainable impact for mentors and mentees. High school programs last for only one year or only through the end of high school, which means those who need help the most to navigate their college years are no longer with their mentor. Additionally, most professional mentoring programs I’ve been involved in only last anywhere from one quarter to one year.
Thriving Elements is innovative when it comes to mentoring programs because of the following:
Our core competency is mentoring and leader development. For all other areas such as scholarships, internships, robotics programs, etc we partner with such organizations to create access and opportunities. We’re not here to replicate what other organizations are doing.
It’s long-term (5+ years depending on when the student joined the program during high school)
Rigorous selection process focusing on mentees who demonstrate curiosity, self-motivation, and a strong desire to take advantage of access and opportunities provided by the program (We are not a babysitters club to make sure students get their work done)
Equally rigorous selection process for mentors who demonstrate their passion to help one mentee over a long period of time. We take time to understand their story and why they want to be a mentor. We do not take those who just happen to have time right now and would like to give back.
Upon selection, we take mentees and mentors through an involved matching process, putting it on the mentees to set up 20 minute information sessions with 3-5 suggested potential mentors where they provide feedback to the Thriving Elements program team. Mentors also provide their feedback. We take mentor and mentee feedback and make the best possible match. This empowers mentors and mentees to have input into who they will be matched with.
We rely on our STEM mentor to expose mentees to various areas or deep dive into specific areas of STEM while the program focuses on leadership development though our quarterly leadership team building events:
How does technological advancement speak to the strategic direction of your business/nonprofit?
In order for Thriving Elements to scale globally and maintain the quality of mentor and mentee relationships, technological advancements such as process automation, machine learning, and access to reliable broadband are critical. In order to maximize the benefits of our donors’ dollars, we constantly need to find ways to do more with less while maintaining a high level of quality and integrity in everything we do.
This means automating processes including automating how decisions are repeatedly made. For example, Thriving Elements has a rigorous selection process to become a mentor and a mentee. Candidates are determined based on a set of criteria as shared above. We have developed algorithms that provide input into the selection and matching process. As we gather more data we plan to use sentiment analysis as part of the input based on application, interview, and information session feedback where we can potentially teach the system to provide the best mentor-mentee match.
What impact would you like to have on women around the world through your business?
I would like to see underrepresented, underserved girls not only thrive in STEM roles globally, but also find themselves in leadership positions that best serve them. Through sharing my story in my book, Boldy You, it’s my goal to help these girls discover what they’re capable of when they show up for themselves - especially through challenging situations.
What are your thoughts on ‘no sleep’ culture as an entrepreneur?
I had to work hard to get where I am today. There's no doubt about that. My parents were refugees from Vietnam, I worked 10+ hour shifts at fast food joints to pay the bills. I lived paycheck to paycheck. Was there little sleep? Yes. There is definitely a certain hustle needed in the entrepreneurial world and especially in the early days. If you’re a woman, particularly a BIPOC woman, the odds are stacked against you. So yes, you’ll have to hustle and work hard. But if I could become a global technology consultant, published author and travel the world with those odds stacked against me, others can, too. More than forgoing sleep, I think entrepreneurs can benefit from sharing their goals with people they trust and leverage their network. I’ve found that when I share my goals with people, it often leads to a connection they have with someone or an organization that can open a door and help me advance.
What routines have you got in place to ensure that you don’t ignore your mental health?
It’s the combination of different things: physical fitness, nutrition, being surrounded by good and influential people, and working on passion projects. Combined, these things give me the balance for good mental health. Additionally, investing time in my personal projects is extremely important. My nonprofit, Thriving Elements, and my book, inspire me outside of work. However, since my work contributes to getting underserved and unserved communities around the world affordable access to reliable broadband, I go to sleep looking forward to waking up so I can serve Amazon Kuiper’s mission everyday.
What would be your top three tips to fellow entrepreneurs to look after their mental health?
Going to the gym 5-6 times a week! On the days I’m not at the gym (i.e. running, swimming, lifting weights,), I am usually doing hot yoga, hiking, snowboarding, stand-up paddle boarding or some kind of surfing.
Keeping a pretty healthy diet! I eat healthily about 80% of the time. That means no junk food, lots of fruits and vegetables and lots of proteins. Since 2019, I’ve veered away from consuming too much meat. In addition to contributing to the reduction in carbon emissions, I noticed that the reduction of meat gives me a lot of energy. However, I still love meat! I love a good steak and I love a juicy burger. But about 80% of the time, I ensure pretty good balanced nutrition. And a lot of kale 😃.
I have a core group of strong girlfriends who keep me grounded, challenge my thinking often and inspire me in their own way. The core of who they are is two things: they all have really big hearts, so they are very selfless, and they’re very highly motivated.
Where do you draw your inspiration from to continue pursuing and innovating in the tech space?
Access to reliable broadband worldwide is critical because in order to achieve my nonprofit’s mission of serving young women in underserved, underrepresented communities, we need to get to places where the internet connection quality is poor or doesn’t exist at all. Almost all of our operations and communications are online and currently there’s a barrier to entry if a student does not have access to the internet in order to apply to be a STEM mentee. This is why, in addition to being the founder and executive director of Thriving Elements, I proudly work for Amazon’s Project Kuiper to launch low earth orbit satellites to provide fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world.
Why do you think now is the right time for the world to begin exploring and adopting technology that aids sustainability?
There has never been a better time to be proactive when it comes to technology in aiding sustainability. If organizations exist to make a positive impact on how we live and the way we live, then technology helps in achieving our goals better and quicker through more efficient processes, innovation, and environmental sustainability. Technology enables scalability, thus, making an impact for more people around the world. While there hasn’t yet been a global standard or process for measuring carbon emissions so there can be visibility and transparency around our carbon footprint, I believe with technology and diversity from our researchers, we can find a way. This is why it’s important to scale the impact Thriving Elements is making because our future relies on the next generation of people from diverse backgrounds in STEM.
