Did you know a girl’s confidence can drop by 20% between the ages of 13 and 18? After talking to Illana Raia, founder and CEO of Être, I can’t stop thinking about how we can change that. What she’s building with Être isn’t just about mentorship; it’s about rewriting the script before girls start doubting themselves. She’s putting them in boardrooms, letting them ask bold, unfiltered questions about pay, power, and leadership—and companies are listening. It reminded me that if we want to close the confidence and compensation gaps later, we need to start by showing girls they belong in the room now. That’s how we build the next generation of fearless women.
Key Takeaways:
- Learn why confidence starts in middle school, not the workplace.
- Reasons it's never too early to start being who you want to be.
- Why seeing a woman lead makes leadership feel possible.
- Discover how the confidence gap becomes the compensation gap if we ignore it.
- How girls ask better questions when we let them in the room.
Learn More About Illana Raia & Être:
Websites: https://www.illanaraia.com/ & https://www.etregirls.com/
Follow the Hello Sunshine Teen Advisory Board: https://hello-sunshine.com/teen/
LinkedIn:@illana-raia & @être-girls
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Facebook: @Etregirls
Read The Epic Mentor Guide and Être: Girls, Who Do You Want To Be?
About Our Guest
Named one of the first 250 entrepreneurs on the Forbes Next 1000 List, an Inc. 500 Female Founder, and recognized twice by Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, Illana Raia is the founder and CEO of Être - a mentorship platform for girls. Believing that mentors matter as early as middle school, Illana brings girls directly into companies they choose to meet female leaders face to face. Être's national research on The Current State of Girls' Confidence (2022, 2024) has been featured by Forbes, CBS News, Yahoo Finance, NASDAQ, and more.
Illana is Chair of the International Space Station U.S. National Lab Education & Workforce Subcommittee, serves on the National Girls’ Collaborative Project Champions Board, and was recently appointed to the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine Board of Governors. Illana contributes to the Forbes Business Council, has authored 60+ articles for HuffPost, Ms. Magazine, and Thrive Global, and her award-winning book Être: Girls, Who Do You Want To Be? was released on Day of the Girl 2019. Her second best-selling book, The Epic Mentor Guide, arrived during Women’s History Month 2022
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