WomLEAD Magazine Third Anniversary Celebration

It’s our three-year anniversary!

After three years of publishing the WomLEAD magazine, it feels like I’ve been doing this for a lifetime, while at the same time wondering “where did the time go?”

It’s been three year full of excitement, highs and lows, long workdays and sleepless nights, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. This past year has taught me so many lessons, and one that really stands out is just how important it is for us women to support each other. We tend to forget how important it is to collaborate, and often
mistakenly believing that collaboration has no value. However, being a part of a community can help you grow and take your business to the next level.

The WomLEAD magazine is different things to different people; it is where they read stories about women, it is a neat site full of leadership and business articles, a form to send things to, or a Business Talk section of voices and words. And that’s great, that’s what we strive for, the successful presentation of everyone’s hard work, of a streamlined creative process that produces results.

But to me, as the Founder, this magazine and collaboration happens largely in the interstices, the times between each finished edition, during the all-hours communication with my team. During those times, there’s the work coming in my inbox that gets passed around for edits, there’s the back and forth with the contributors, the tips and suggestions, the word-of-mouth, the real-life events, the following up on leads of opportunities, the stories and interviews.

As I revisit the very first issue of the magazine, I find it fitting to remember that all this started in 2017 from the desire to help women grow together and stronger. We’ve come a long way, but I’d like to think that we still carry the seed of that initial idea in most of the things we do, in how we have created this space for the voices of all women, in how we have created ways for women to support each other. Have we been open and honest? Have we kept away from being trite? We hope so, and we certainly will keep trying.

So, this editor’s note isn’t meant to be a retrospective. Instead, my purpose is to continue to collaborate with women and grow even stronger together.

We’ve got thirty seven issue under our belt, we’ve met and spoken to so many new and interesting women, we’ve explored a lot of themes and different mediums of expression, all thanks to our awesome contributors, supporters, and team. So, what’s next for WomLEAD?

New shifts and changes are occurring next year, new goals and ideas, and better ways to work with our writers and contributors, and with our editors as well. We’re taking into account the suggestions we’ve received from our readers and people we’ve worked with regarding themes, conversations, and the support for contributors. WomLEAD itself has grown much bigger compared to the little idea that I had back in November 2017.

I invite you to celebrate the magazine’s anniversary with us. May this issue inform, empower, and inspire you to collaborate with other women. From the very bottom of my heart, I thank you for being a dedicated reader. These three years would not have been possible without you. I am also incredibly grateful to the entire WomELLE team, who work tirelessly to bring you this publication. I’m truly excited about the future of the magazine, and I believe the best is yet to come.

Here’s to many more years supporting women together!

Cheers,

Naghilia Desravines
Editor-in-Chief