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

Hi Syama, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump into the story of starting your own firm – what should we know?

The first company I started was Scaling Retail (2012). I was coming out of a successful corporate career where I had a chance to see how some of the best brands in the world (Gucci, Barney’s New York, Macy’s) ran their operations. I had known that I wanted to open up a practice in 2009, but I felt I needed some time to hone it on what I wanted to do and how I would do it. I took three years (2009-2012) to do just that. My first email out was to 50 friends letting them know I was starting a practice while working a corporate job, and thats how it all kicked off! When I officially started the company I had made the transition from New York to Los Angeles and found that being in a new environment allowed me to really focus on the business. No friends? No social life? No problem, I was building something.

Syama, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I currently serve as the Co-CEO of Sona Technologies, a music-tech company revolutionizing the creator economy through smart contracts. I met the founders in the Spring of 2022 and knew there was something powerful and deeply aligned with their vision and future for the world and mine. I was looking for a synthesis of my political, spiritual, and intellectual ideologies to create a world in which we were all self-actualized. Sona solves this, by creating an infrastructure that allows artists to do what they love, and own what they do. Implementing smart contracts and a new marketplace model coupled with a free music streaming listener experience and a Universal Basic Income approach for artists, I knew they were onto something big, and I wanted to be a part of it.

I started supporting the founders with the tools and suite of knowledge I had amassed from working with startups for the past 10 years. As a career CEO, I would get brought into startups to help with people management, business strategy, P&L management, operational strategy, and mindset. After speaking with the founders I knew I wanted to be a steward in getting the business to launch and scale.

At Sona, I work closely with our leadership team in developing critical skills in self-examination and developing their direct reports and teams. Building department structure with emotional vulnerability allows for our healthy organization to breathe and move at a rapid pace with minimal friction. I manage the inner workings of our magic, unseen, but largely felt, helping to keep us grounded, and feeling secure as we are building a world-changing product.

So what happened to Scaling Retail? After 10 years and many awards in the areas of entrepreneurship and thought leadership, including WWD Top Women in Business, I’ve scaled back my operations. I currently work selectively with early founders in shaping their businesses through weekend strategy intensives, only offering 10 weekends a year to work with me.

Additionally, you can find me evangelizing more female investors, encouraging wealth-building for women, and speaking across stages internationally.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I grew up thinking I had to act like a man to be successful in business. This was engrained by my mother, a shrewd businesswoman. I believed I had to leave my emotions at the door and only operate from a position of logic. This skill was very helpful in getting things done, but difficult in managing people. I developed an attitude of “if I want to get it right I have to do it myself” and that often would leave me working late nights, and weekends, and sacrificing myself.

Unlearning this took time, and a major life event, my divorce. I learned that I did in fact need people, that my employees would be there to pick up the pieces when I couldn’t, and that working in a team environment with brilliant people would help me more than working in an environment where I thought I was the smartest.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I’ve been largely impacted by books that have balanced me. Books that aren’t there to point out the obvious, like “you need to be a charismatic leader to retain employees” but ones that have encouraged me to think about my purpose and how that gets reflected in my work and the teams I lead.

I believe that alignment with intellectual, philosophical, and emotional ideologies is what makes the right fit at a company and that is what I seek to hire and how I like to train young leaders. Books that have awakened that inside of me include, Untethered Soul- by Michael Singer, The Astonishing Power of Emotions- by Abraham Hicks, and Mindset- by Carol Dweck.

In the past, I believed that business books were roadmaps, and I would consume them wanting to “be” like the authors and their more obvious successes. These days, that’s changed. I know look at building knowledge through communities and experience sharing with other brilliant, intellectually curious, and heart-centered people. It just so happens many of them are entrepreneurs and leaders I get to learn from.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.syamameagher.com
• Instagram: syama.co
• Linkedin: syamameagher
• Twitter: syamameagher