Meet Thamina
Entrepreneur, Intersectional Feminist, Personal Finance Expert, Podcast Host, Founder of Femme Hive
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I grew up in a non-traditional, privileged household in Germany with reverse gender roles. My grandmother was a successful pediatrician while my late grandfather - who was able to work remotely from home - was first watching my mom and aunt, and later on me and my little brother. My parents dressed me in gender-neutral clothes and one of the earliest childhood memories I have is my dad telling me that women are smarter than men. Being raised in a rather progressive environment, I used to be a bit of a tomboy who preferred LEGO over Barbies, pirate over princess birthday parties, and above all, watching sports. To me, that was normal.
After turning down a tempting offer to study abroad at Harvard University, I decided to attend a different Top 10 College, Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, instead, which is where I found my feminist voice. Through my Political Science and Public Policy coursework, I was exposed to the field of Gender Studies for the first time. Finally, I started to realize how lucky I was for having grown up in a progressive environment where I didn't feel disadvantaged by virtue of my gender (and race!). The more I learned, the angrier I got and the more motivated I was to raise awareness and promote change. I launched a successful social media campaign to challenge gender stereotypes and wrote my honors thesis on a gender-related topic. When I moved to Dublin, Ireland to join LinkedIn's competitive Business Leadership Program in 2018, I immediately became a member of Women@LinkedIn, one of the company's Employee Resource Groups. Only a few months later I was appointed LinkedIn's youngest and most junior Women@LinkedIn co-lead globally where I frequently collaborated with senior leadership, organized our International Women's Day celebrations, and led career development programs for our female coworkers. Even though I was very successful in my day job at LinkedIn where I had won several awards and gotten promoted twice in less than two years, I still felt frequently overwhelmed, anxious, and lost as a young female professional navigating the post-graduation world. In May 2020, amidst our global pandemic, I took my gender equality advocacy work a step further by founding Femme Hive to empower Millennial and Gen Z women to become more confident about successfully navigating their careers and personal finances. Working at LinkedIn - a company that has completely disrupted the talent attraction space - I learned a lot about talent management and professional development. Combined with my passion for gender equality, my mission in life is to help build a world where women and other minorities can have access to equal opportunity. |