Meet IAW members in Featured Members, a weekly column where members highlight their careers and businesses. Today, the spotlight is on Elite Member Jessica Rosen who has found that running her own business satisfies her need to be creative and constantly growing. VIP, Elite and Preferred Members: to be featured in Member Spotlight, contact us at featuredwomen@napw.com.
IAW: What advice would you give to your younger self?
Rosen: I would say, “Jess, it’s not necessary to be busy all the time and try to do everything yourself. It’s actually detrimental to your ability to be creative, think clearly, and listen to your gut intuitions.” Taking breaks and not overloading your plate is really important to keep in mind as you move through each stage of your career and life.
IAW: Describe yourself in three words:
Rosen: driven, introspective, inquisitive
IAW: Who is your role model and inspiration?
Rosen: Marie Forleo. She’s built her business to fit her values and her lifestyle. She also really cares about helping others live a better life.
IAW: What is your profession? Why did you choose it?
Rosen: When I started my first career working as an architectural intern at a large firm, I quickly realized that I could make more money working for myself than I ever could as an architect. I also didn’t see the “working for myself” involving architecture at all. Nine months after starting as an intern I quit and took 2 months off. I was burnt out from college, grad school, and going to a job I hated every day for 9 months. I also didn’t know what I wanted to do now that I knew architecture, something I spent the last 6 years focused on, was not in the cards for me.
After I got my fill of sleeping, hanging out, and not being productive or creative I started freelancing as a graphic designer, which quickly landed me a job designing men’s clothing, something that was surprisingly similar to architecture. But, once the learning curve wore off and my job became repetitive I quickly lost interest. I lasted for about a year and a half at that job.
Then my father, an entrepreneur his entire life, offered me an opportunity to come work with him on 2 of his businesses. I jumped at the chance, and just like that I was working on systemizing 2 of his businesses. But, once again as soon as the learning curve was over I became bored.
Around the same time I was dealing with the loss of my paternal grandmother, Nani. She went from seemingly healthy to terminally ill in just 1 month and passed 4 months from the day of her cancer diagnosis. I was very hands on while she was living with my father and going through chemo. I took on the role of cooking for her so I had to do a lot of research on what was healthy so she could be strong enough to continue with chemo. After she passed away, I started actually processing what we as a family had just been through, and it scared the hell out of me. Every one of my grandparents died from one cancer or another, but never as quickly as Nani did.
In my research to find healthy foods for Nani, I found a few key books that I found the time to read after she had died. They were all focused on the concept that you can heal yourself with a plant-based diet. I dove into learning as much as I could which soon lead me to enroll and complete a certification course at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
Around the same time my father wanted to start a new business and asked me if I was interested in being his partner. We talked about a few different ideas, Raw Generation being one of them, and I quickly decided that a juice company was the only one of the ideas that I cared about and thought I could really sink my teeth into.
In January of 2012 we started developing Raw Generation. We split the company in half. I was focused on marketing and finding out how to sell our product, and my father was focused on getting the juice made and out the door. Our roles suited or skill sets perfectly, and I am happy to say almost 5 years later that I am still actively engaged with growing our company.
As it turns out, running a business, where there’s an endless list of things to learn and develop, is the right fit for my need to be creative and constantly growing (personally and professionally).
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