Jess W.
CEO at Winns Media & Ari Rose
Women Empowerment
Education: DePaul University
Kansas City, MO, USA
Biography
Jess Winns, author, entrepreneur, speaker and mother of four, was born and raised in the city of Chicago. She overcame adversity from a young age, growing up in a poor, single-parent household and becoming a mother at 19 while attending DePaul University. She founded the non-profit Empowering Youth Through Travel, providing overseas experiences for inner-city youth, and launched Ari Rose, a successful organic body care company. Jess also holds certifications as a Holistic Health Practitioner, Functional Nutrition Counselor, and Transformational Leadership Coach. She is passionate about empowering women to see past their limitations in order to discover their greatest potential, and create the life they desire.
Passion
Entrepreneurship has always put a smile on my face. As an only child growing up, I was extremely creative. Using that same process of ideation and creation to start a business is one of my favorite things. It’s still fascinating to me that you can actually take an idea, and birth an actual entity that takes on a life of its own. As a women and mother, I benefited from pursuing entrepreneurship. Despite the challenges presented, it allowed me to be present for my children in ways I’d only ever dreamed possible.
Featured Video
I am willing to travel
Up to 100 miles
When it comes to payments
Everything is negotiable
Topics
Best Story
Pregnant at 19, I made the bold choice to keep my unborn child. I was told not to move forward with my pregnancy, and those closest to me doubted my ability to graduate from college. It was as though life would end for me now that I was having a child.
If this was not challenging enough to navigate, I gave birth to my daughter without her biological father present. After bringing her home from the hospital, I called to inform him of her arrival. It was at that time that he told me not to call him again. When I asked if he wanted to be a part of his daughter’s life, he replied with a flat out, “no.”
At that moment I held my newborn baby and sobbed deeply. My sadness was not from rejection, but the knowing that I’d repeated the same cycle of single-motherhood I grew up in. That my daughter would be raised without her father, just like me. I couldn’t bear the thought of having done that to her.
In that moment, I had a choice. Either to spiral deeper into my victimhood. “How could he do this to me— to us?” Or, I could be 100% responsible for the choices I’d made leading up to that very moment.
I chose 100% responsibility for my life. I knew, intuitively, that would be the only way to move forward. If I created my life experiences up until that point, I could create something different. Something amazing, for myself and my daughter.