Our Vision
ZÉLIE is an independent organisation dedicated to women's economic empowerment and women of impact worldwide, starting with Europe. It puts the questions of aspiring women of impact to the women who have built businesses and led change.
Why ZÉLIE
We often measure businesses, impact work and books in numbers: revenue, growth, reach, sales. Yet each one is made by people, and shaped by the people around them. ZÉLIE is about humanism in all of it: the histories, relationships and choices behind the work, and the people who shaped the outcomes along the way.
Aspiring women rarely hear how those choices were made, by the women who made them. Formal education seldom introduces these women, so what they know stays with them. ZÉLIE makes them easier to find, and puts aspiring women’s questions to them directly.
Nobody empowers anyone else. A woman works at it herself, over time, the way you work at love. What ZÉLIE can do is improve the conditions around her and show what is possible, so more women do more.
What we do
ZÉLIE sits down with women innovators, women in social impact, authors, entrepreneurs and business owners, both aspiring and experienced. The conversations follow questions from aspiring women of impact.
Each woman is asked about her day, her first customers or funders, what she learned and from whom, who she looked up to, where she spends money and where she holds back, and what she would tell the next woman. She can skip any question, and “pass” is a full answer. She reads her article before it is published.
A title like entrepreneur or author is only the cover. We also ask what was around her: the programme, the teacher, the family, the person who appeared at the right moment. That makes her path something others can follow, not something out of reach.
Across 100 conversations, aspiring and experienced women learn from each other. Together they build more than individual profiles: a body of knowledge that any woman can draw on, and the start of an online & in-person community, and co-created events.
What we are not
ZÉLIE is not motivational media. It does not tidy a complicated story into advice, and a woman’s account is welcome as she tells it, whether mixed, contradictory or unfinished.
It is not a founder directory. ZÉLIE features a small number of women with care. It does not list or rank businesses, and does not choose by turnover, investment or press coverage.
It is not a trend publication. Labels and fashions come and go, and ZÉLIE does not pick a side. It asks what is right for each woman.
Adela
Adela founded ZÉLIE out of an interest in how people and business shape each other. She has worked and researched where women build, lead and invest, in New Zealand and Belgium, and is studying for the Erasmus Mundus master’s in Impact Entrepreneurship.
Get in touch
If you run a business or lead something and would like to be part of ZÉLIE, take part. For everything else, please write to adela@zeliewomen.com.