Rihanna
Entrepreneurship is still very much “a man’s world,” Rihanna observed, but she’s never not up for “a challenge.”
“Overcoming stereotypes as a woman in the entrepreneurship industry, it’s an industry that’s usually looked at as a man’s industry… a man’s world. So you have to work twice as hard to prove yourself,” the pop star said in a video message shown at the recent Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship.
“I love competing with men,” Rihanna said. “I love that challenge, I enjoy and thrive on it.”
The Barbadian singer recently made history by becoming the first woman and person of color to have her own fashion brand, Fenty, under LVMH—the renowned luxury goods group that houses Dior, Louis Vuitton and Givenchy.
Rihanna also has a successful cosmetics brand, Fenty Beauty, and a lingerie line, Savage x Fenty.
Rihanna pointed out that the odds are stacked against women wanting to put up their own business.
“I believe that females have a lot of disadvantages when it comes to starting a career … because a lot of times, people see it as a man’s world and a lot of times it’s dependent upon a man to even let you into that,” the singer pointed out.
But the strength of a woman, she stressed, lies in her “power to overcome anything.”
“We have been doing this since the beginning of time to multitask and overcome challenges,” Rihanna said.—ALLAN POLICARPIO