We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sharon Hurley Hall. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sharon below.

Alright, Sharon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

I’ve had regular jobs, and I’m definitely happier now. But that’s not a surprise, because before joining Lea Jovy as co-founder of Mission Equality, I ran my own freelance business for more than a decade and a half. Sure, when businesses are new there’s uncertainty with income but we’ve done well so far, with mission-aligned clients who value our work. In addition, I’ve never worked anywhere as great as the workplace we’ve created by focusing on our values of trust, freedom, transparency and more. It’s a workplace where I know I’m valued, and that’s priceless!

Sharon, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Mission Equality is a small, high-impact global team, with real world experience of building businesses founded upon diversity of all kinds and creating equality for all. We use our own company as a model for ‘doing things differently’ with a progressive approach to achieving our mission and paving a path to equality.

The world needs leaders who will create a more equitable and equal world. We believe everyone can be a leader – of themselves and others – and that the leadership of and for the future needs to come from a paradigm of
trust and freedom, not power and control. Paving the path to equality is a process and our goal is to lay the foundations for others to walk along and improve, as needed.

At Mission Equality, we work with values- and mission-aligned organisations, supporting the people within them to hone the skills needed to create workplaces that operate from a foundation of equality. By inviting
more of these organisations to form collectives – Equality Alliances – and with the growth of each collective and the impact they have, we aim to establish a viable alternative to capitalism, that we call Equalism.

Very few of us (if any) have lived experiences of equality or a clear vision of what it looks like; nor how we can even begin to achieve it. And we’re not taught the skills we need to create it. Our Equaliversity bridges this gap. It is a virtual university – accessible from anywhere with an internet connection – designed specifically for organisations to equip their people with the skills needed to develop and nurture a culture and a workforce with equality at the core. Our product roadmap includes a full suite of progressive education programmes to facilitate the unlearning and relearning and upskilling necessary to lead to, build for and thrive in equality.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

My co-founder and I have known each other for more than 15 years. We first met when we were both writing for the same publication and have been in each other’s lives ever since. She was an early pioneer of the digital nomad movement & the founder of the world-renowned blog, Location Independent, and has helped thousands of people create the freedom to work from anywhere. I collaborated on that blog, and we’ve worked together on various projects over the years. We reconnected again in 2020, when we worked together at a startup founded on principles of anti-racism and equality. When that ended, we knew we wanted to build on that to create true equality at every level within Mission Equality.

Have you ever had to pivot?

My current work is a major example of a career pivot. Prior to 2020, I was a freelance writer, mostly covering digital marketing. After George Floyd was murdered, I felt I had to start speaking out about racism, which led to changing my key topics in my professional career, to launching an anti-racism newsletter, to publishing a book about racism, and to reconnecting with Lea which ultimately resulted in joining her as co-founder of Mission Equality. I’m definitely happy with all those pivots, as I now feel I’m doing the work I’m meant to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://missionequality.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missionequalitydotcom/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/missionequalitydotcom
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/sharonhh
• Other: https://equaliversity.com https://sharonhh.com