Lynn Loaker

💫 ABOUT: After 40 years of practicing law and seven years as the Partner-in-Charge of Davis Wright Tremaine’s New York office, Lynn Loacker retired from the law to focus exclusively on her lifelong work of advancing the careers of women. Lynn now works to expand the impact and reach of Project W, which she founded in 2015 with a vision of helping women entrepreneurs build the next generation of great companies. Project W has grown to a network of over 3,000 female founders, female fund managers and angel investors, women business executives, and a host of male allies. Project W runs several accelerator programs for female founders, brings together women fund managers to share deal flow and amplify their impact, runs peer communities for women with common professional interests, and is proud to partner with many like-minded organizations. Lynn complements her work through Project W by actively investing in female founded companies and women-led venture funds.

An avid patron of the arts, Lynn is committed to the advancement of women in our cultural life. For the past few years, she has underwritten work by women composers and her quarterly salon, Women + Art, is a gathering place for women from all artistic disciplines and women exploring the convergence of art and technology.

🎁 GIVE: My time, connections, and support.
I’m delighted to:

• Meet with any founder who is a member of The Fourth Effect to learn about her business, provide feedback, and explore opportunities. 

• Introduce investors in The Fourth Effect community to great companies led by inspiring founders. 

• Invite founders and investors in The Fourth Effect community to the many events we host. (Send me your email address and I’ll add you to our mailing list.) 

• Share the opportunity to apply to our accelerator programs with founders in The Fourth Effect community. Two applications are open now:

  • * Emerging Food Brands Lab for food and beverage brands – application closes on March 22 - https://dwtevents.com/emergingfoodbrands/

  • * Women Entrepreneurs Boot Camp | Health Tech for companies building solutions for the healthcare market – application closes May 6 -- https://dwtevents.com/web2024/

🙏 GET:

• Connections with investors and founders who share the Project W mission.

• Experts in sales and product development and engineers who are willing to share their expertise and experience with high potential but under resourced women founders.
  

🔖 FAVORITE QUOTE: “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in high heels.”

- It’s not clear to whom this quote should be attributed although it has been iterated on many occasions, most famously by Governor Ann Richards. The quote is a vivid metaphor for the gender equity gap. But it also speaks to how women rise to the challenge with skill, determination, and incredible grace. A good reminder to all of us. Women do it differently, and we do it just as well if not better.

📢 NEWS: I am deeply honored to have recently been appointed an honorary Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to diversity in business in the United States and UK. But that work is certainly not mine alone. That is the work of the countless investors, allies, and mentors in the Project W community who give so generously of their time, talent, and expertise. Through collective action we can make a difference.

✨ DREAM INTRO: Unfortunately, you can’t make this introduction. The person I would have loved to have met is Fannie Lou Hamer, who passed away in 1977. One of 20 children of sharecroppers, Fanny Lou had to drop out of school at the age of 12 to work, she picked cotton while living with polio, and she was subjected to forced sterilization as an adult.

Despite impossible disadvantages – or perhaps because of them – Fannie Lou became a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and was recognized as a great orator (despite her lack of formal education). Probably most famous for her “Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired” speech, Fanny Lou played a key role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Fanny Lou’s story is an example of an ordinary woman who did the extraordinary.

💪 MOTIVATION: What became Project W was inspired by my frustration at the lack of gender parity in the legal profession and by the paucity of women executives in my own client base. Serving on the Board of the New York Tech Alliance from 2014 to 2018, I also observed that women scientists and technologists were building brilliant solutions but that they often lacked the business expertise and experience to commercialize their solutions and to effectively convey their value proposition. Too many talented women who could really make change in the world were not getting the resources and the recognition they deserved. And I was appalled by the inequitable lack of funds deployed to invest in women.

In 2016, with the help of over a dozen angel investors, a sales expert, and a communications coach, I organized the first Women Entrepreneurs Boot Camp (WEB), a daylong program designed to provide resources and make connections for women entrepreneurs. WEB became an annual program and a key component of the broader and multi-faceted initiative subsequently branded as Project W.