Prancing Ponies founder Chanterria McGilbra is the first African American women to purchase a Ferrari in Northern California. Passionate about Ferraris and racing, McGilbra is using the Ferrari as the Prancing Ponies symbol of women empowerment, as exemplified in first all-female Ferrari rallies she’s hosted in the US and Europe since 2016.
The Prancing Ponies Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit focused on increasing girls' self-esteem and self-confidence through international travel and cultural immersion. The Prancing Ponies Foundation sends college bound girls abroad for seven weeks of cultural immersion and leadership training. The goal is to teach the girls how to lead themselves before they become leaders to others.
How has your life experience made you the leader you are today? I was fortunate to have parents that told me that I could do anything. Luckily, I was naïve enough to believe them. My father provided me an incredible work ethic. He would always say ‘never sit around and watch other people make millions of dollars on TV’. My mother believed in the experiential path to life. My mother would say ‘learn what the teacher knows’ and ‘go out and do something, don’t just sit around’. The combination of my parents perspective provided me space to develop a lot of self-esteem and confidence which gave me the courage to take risks. A lot of risks retrospectively, which I believe is the foundation of all great leaders.
How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at Prancing Ponies? In college as I read cast studies of many corporations worldwide, I quickly realized that there are those with vision and there are those who execute. Occasionally, there are those who can do both. By the time I graduated with my bachelor degree in Sociology and CIS, I knew I was both. As soon as my feet crossed the threshold of the first Fortune 100 company I worked for (I worked at 3), my career advanced quickly – primarily because I worked hard but was not a worker bee. I always sought out opportunities to improve process and the environment I worked. This perspective combined with my international education and work experience provided me a solid foundation as the first employee of a Biotech company. I did everything, most of which I’d never done before. That didn’t intimidate me because my previous life experience taught me that I could teach myself to do anything – like when I taught myself 3 different programming languages in college. As the company grew, I noticed there were a lot of women who were hired but none were on the Board. When I reflected on who made the most impactful decisions for the company it was clear there was no female perspective or Leadership represented. I was challenged by what I witnessed not only at this company but every company I’d ever worked and knew I had to do something about it – but I wasn’t sure what could be done. I was able to help build a company from someone else’s dream and knew it was possible for a dream to succeed. I also knew that if I could work that hard to manifest someone else’s dream, that there was no limit to how hard I would be willing to work to manifest my own dream.
What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Prancing Ponies? I get to wake up everyday and live my life’s purpose. There is nothing more gratifying than this. Even the challenges are gratifying because I see them as opportunities to learn to do something better or understand something more clear. When working with American teenagers abroad, the biggest challenge is the vast difference between the maturity levels of European youth and American youth. European youth are seen as adults at 16 which is supported by all institutions and parenting styles. American youth are not seen as adults until they are 21 – huge difference. It has been a painful lesson for everyone involved in the Foundation. It’s a real learning opportunity for both the Academy students and administration. The entire focus of Prancing Ponies is ‘Creating Women Leaders One Girl at a Time’ so the highlight of my tenure is my first Leadership-Abroad Academy currently in Paris. Seeing the lives of these girls change in such a profound way while living and working abroad is definitely the most rewarding aspect of Prancing Ponies. We know that they will return home different in a positive way. Through international travel and cultural immersion, we are developing self-confidence and self-esteem in these young girls so that they become leaders. I assume the next highlight will be to see them take on Leadership roles at their universities and later in their chosen careers.
What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry? My path to Prancing Ponies took me an entire life time thus far. The ideas to create the Leadership-Abroad Academy and its fundraisers; the First All-Female Ferrari Rally and the First All Woman Car Show did not happen overnight. It was an iterative process that started when I became an Aunt at 12 years old to my niece Sandrena. She began to walk very early and my mother saw this and said ‘don’t let her walk before she crawls’ and I remember thinking ‘if she’s ready to walk, let her walk’ – I saw that she was already being held back at 6 months old. The challenge is that our greatest source of knowledge is our intuition (Sandrena’s said ‘today we will walk’) and it is often silenced at a very young age by well-meaning Parents which result in obedient kids but kids that lack critical thinking and decision making skills because their best source of knowledge (their intuition) is silenced.
My intuition moved me to Monaco to get my MBA, no one understood why. My intuition also said buy a Ferrari, no one (including me) understood why but both of those decisions resulted in the life I live today.
My advice is to take lots of smart/informed risks and listen to your intuition more than anything and anyone else – it won’t be easy in a world where everyone wants to see numbers and factual proof of why a decision is being made but stay true to who you are and what you know. If you manage to do this, you will consistently move toward your life’s greatest purpose and live the life of your dreams. I promise.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career to date? Put one foot in front of the other….no matter what just stay in the game. No matter how hard the challenges are, how difficult it is to get out of bed that morning, make that phone call or type that email, just keep moving forward – because no matter how slow or fast, if you keep moving you will reach your destination. It took me 6 years to complete my undergrad degree. It took me 10 years to go back to school and get my MBA. It took me 10 years from my MBA to retire send my first Leadership-Abroad Academy cohort to Paris. You will reach your destination, just keep moving forward.
How do you maintain a work/life balance? First of all my work is mylLife so it makes finding a balance difficult…very difficult. I try to keep a regular workout schedule and eat ‘energy giving foods’. This helps me manage stress and stay calm when faced with challenges. My spiritual practice is the most important aspect of life balance for me. It also helps me keep perspective such as not ever feeling the need to rush decisions. My go to phrase is before making a difficult decision is ‘let me sleep on that’. I also, calendar everything and work on one project at a time. If ideas or other things come up, I write them down and go back to my project. I find that I get a greater sense of accomplishment when I can move on from a project than let it linger in many different phases or pieces as I call it.
What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace? I can’t believe I have to say this today, but women always work collaboratively. Most men do not. When speaking at a meeting, women will give someone credit for an idea and statement for example “Sarah said XYZ yesterday and I think it’s a great idea or we should evaluate the feasibility of this idea…”. Men just repeat the idea as if it’s their own….sometimes right after you state it, using the exact words you used and will look at you like ‘I won’. The more I’ve learned to value myself the better I’ve been able to manage this situation. My favorite and most effective way of handling this is to repeat the statement right after him but precede it with ‘thanks for your agreement and support John, as I stated earlier (repeat my idea)….. and if agreed, we should take the following steps to implement or it would bring XYZ value, etc.”. Doing this is risky, but it is extremely effective in terms of getting the credit for my ideas – which BTW I should not have to deal with today. It’s so Neanderthal.
How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life? I’ve had several mentors at different times in my life. They were incredibly valuable to me during my undergrad studies. My first was Dr. Harold Campbell. When I took a year off to follow my dream of becoming a dancer, he told me he would call me in one year to start school – and he did. Coming from a family that had not completed their degrees, he saw to it that I completed my degree. His best advice was ‘don’t stop….even if you have to take 1 class a quarter…DO NOT STOP UNTIL YOU’RE FINISHED. And I finished….as the first person in my family to get a college degree. I worked 3 jobs to put myself through college and I worked for Eric – Mr. Brains himself (Ph.D in statistics). He was also an incredible mentor for what would later become my tech career, teaching me how to program or better, teaching me to teach myself how to program. He would say I need a tool to do this. Here’s the book, go figure it out. Everyone in the office thought we were always arguing…it was just the way we talked to each other as we debated programming language or which codes would accomplish our goal. Margaret was my spiritual mentor. She urged me to find my freedom…to break the chains I thought were holding me back by facing every belief or perception I had about why I couldn’t do something.
Unfortunately, I think they were preparing me for the fact that it would be extremely difficult to find a mentor in corporate America. Luckily they provided me such a strong foundation that I managed to do well without one, but I wish I did have a mentor – I probably would not have made so many mistakes, but then again I did learn from them.
My fourth grade teacher Mrs. Handy. She was the first woman I ever saw wear a pants suit. She was also the first person to read to me and see my potential as an individual which is difficult when raised with an identical twin. She saw that 4th grade was not advanced enough for me and recommended I be skipped 2 grades. When my Mother said no, it was Mrs. Handy who fought to get a private tutor for me in class to make sure I was always challenged and learned at a rate best for me. I owe my very well dressed presence to her, my love of reading, and self confidence which opened a host of doors for me as an accelerated child learner.
Which other female leaders do you admire and why? Oprah…she has been someone I’ve admired since I was a little girl. She was the first example of ‘any’ woman becoming as loved and successful as she has in my life. She showed me that really ‘anything’ is possible. She also provided an incredible example to me of what to do when you become successful – You give back! It also helps that we have the same birthday and a strong trait of most Aquarians is to literally want to ‘Save the World’. It’s no surprise that I created a Foundation to help young girls just as Oprah has…it actually makes perfect sense. The other is Michelle Obama. It was the first time I was able to witness a woman make a successful career change in such a public way…a career that was created when she chose to follow her husband’s career to the White House giving up her own career in healthcare Leadership. Her career success is the purest example of what one of my Prancing Leaders Ugochi Egonu says ‘Say Yes, Then Finesse’. That is Michelle’s White House career summed up beautifully.
What do you want Prancing Ponies to accomplish in the next year? As our first cohort enters the universities of NYU, Wellesley, Howard, and USC this fall we will continue to fundraise to setup infrastructure and hire administrative support to mentor the girls not just through their educational and professional careers but also their lives. As Pony Sisters they are with us for life and we are committed to do whatever it takes to support their futures as Women Leaders. It is why we exist. We also want to create additional methods to support our Pony Sisters like bi-annual conferences for current and future Prancing Leaders, online workshops, and expanding our reach internationally. The goal for the Prancing Ponies Foundation Leadership-Abroad Academy 2018 - Italy is to send 4 Italian girls to San Francisco and 6 American girls to Italy next year. Sounds like a lot I know, but so was creating the Prancing Ponies Foundation, Rally, and Car Show in 1 year. We are Women Leaders….We Can Do Anything!