The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Not So Innocent

This isn’t the story about the quarter of a million embezzlement that almost destroyed my business in 2023; it isn’t about who was responsible or about all the creative ways institutions failed to prevent, detect, or react to it. No, I’m telling a different story.

What came after was a whole other basket of BS. I hit every metric, set record revenue, had “perfect payment” status since that fated date in 2023. I was talked down to, treated like a suspect, and that was after the numbers and reporting were in my favor for months, even years—but there was always another hoop, reason, “concern,” or “policy” to rationalize the additional scrutiny.  I have never heard of a male owner (and I know a lot, considering what I do and where I spend my time) having to report quarterly for over 18 months on a small, very small LOC. 

This is the system women-owned small businesses are forced to navigate; surveillance passed off as due diligence, numbers presented like gospel by professionals who mislabel your office as apartments and can’t be bothered to update an appraisal from before you even owned the building (or even visit your building). 

I raised my concerns months ago to a senior executive, and I got “he’s only trying to help,” “he’s on your team.”

At what point do you ask yourself if this would be the same course of action for a male customer? I was treated as the difficult one for asking to be treated with the respect and fairness 19 years of business ownership (and success) has earned me. 

It’s not that we can’t prove ourselves; it’s that we have to keep proving ourselves in the face of lazy analysis and systemic bias, under the spotlight of “support.” This is what keeps women from scaling; it’s what wears us down.