This International Women’s Day, let us celebrate our most inspiring direct sellers, our biggest role models, and the cornerstone of our vision – QNET Women. With the help of our #1 QNET Woman, QNET CEO Malou Caluza, we have come closer to our grand vision of being a gender-equal direct selling company that challenges stereotypes, creates better structural support for our women, provides more work opportunities, and celebrates QNET women in every facet of our work. Both individually, and as a company, we are with this year’s International Women’s Day theme of #EachForEqual.
The Effect Of Women On The Economy
It goes without saying that women are crucial players in a healthy and thriving economy. According to a McKinsey study titled “Women Matter”, being a more gender-equal company will help add USD 12 trillion to global GDP by 2025.
Direct Selling And Women
While most corporates remain unequal, direct selling can boast of the strength of a woman with a whopping 74% being female. Being a flexible option where you get to work on your own terms, it creates the perfect space for women from all communities and backgrounds to claim control over their own lives and finances by participating in direct selling. QNET continues to be a platform where women can take charge and turn their lives around.
Our Inspiring QNET Women
Here is a tribute to some of our brilliant QNET Women who help us keep fighting the keep inspiring us by their example.
QNET CEO Malou Caluza
Our beloved CEO Malou Caluza wears many hats – she is not only QNET’s first female CEO, she is also direct selling veteran, a loving mother, a wonderful wife, and a mentor and role model to all of us. Having started at QNET in customer service, she moved up the ranks over the years. She has seen QNET from being a single product company to what it is now 22 years later. Her draw to QNET was on how people-focussed it was, and that being her deepest passion, it quickly became a dream company for her. As CEO, and a cancer survivor, she is a living example to people that no obstacle is big enough when it comes to following your dreams. She continues to hold QNET up as a direct selling company that gives everyone a chance at success, especially women.
V Partner Donna Marie Imson-Lecaroz
One of the pioneers who started The V, V Partner Donna Imson-Lecaroz is a keen entrepreneur, philanthropist, manager, inspirational speaker, intrepid travel, and loving mother. Throughout the years, she has played so many roles and touched so many hearts, and has kept going non-stop. She is definitely one of the pillars of direct selling in QNET and is the epitome of servant-leadership. Even after her retirement as a director of The V, she continues to help QNET and the Founders with providing opportunities for budding women entrepreneurs worldwide.
V Partner V Padma
The QNET business was a way for V Partner V Padma to rise out of a financial crisis that included a lot of stress and sleepless nights. This mother of two worked as a small shop owner in India, and at that time, had already given up on her dreams, focussing on providing the day-to-day instead. However, once she put her head down and worked hard in QNET, she reaped the benefits of financial independence for herself and her family. Her hard work and dedication places her among the most loyal of QNET distributors. She believes that her success was due to commitment, a never-give-up attitude, being a friend and role model to her downlines, and her decision to practise what she preaches.
V Partner Kavita Sugandh
Looking to take her entrepreneurial skills to the next level, V Partner Kavita Sugandh decided to join QNET. Having worked from a young age, Kavita was looking for a way to be a leader, have a team, and find success through hard work. In QNET, she did all of those things, multiple times over. She put her heart and soul into being an achiever and taking her team along with her – whatever the rejections and setbacks. V Partner Kavita always put one foot in front of the other. She believes that in QNET, you can stand at the top, shoulder-to-shoulder with a man without any setback, a place where success is genderless.
V Partner Sharfun Shaikh
Since 2009 when V Partner Sharfun Shaikh started her QNET journey, there has been no looking back. She learnt to overcome her insecurities, discovered who she was, and became that person wholly and authentically. V Partner Sharfun believes that a strong woman not only works for her financial growth but also seeks to grow mentally and emotionally. She continues to be supported by QNET, and mentored by our family of QNET VIPs to be the role model that she is to all QNET IRs, especially women.
Associate V Partner Kalaiarasi Manikam
Hailing from a small town in Malaysia, Associate V Partner Kalairasi Manikam, or Kalai as she is fondly called, grew up believing that men were far more capable than women and made better leaders. She also found her life as an electrical consultant really unfulfilling. Over her years at QNET, though, she has risen to come out of the shadows where she was hiding, and become the awe-inspiring leader that she is today. She believes that direct selling is an equal opportunity business, and is the best thing that can happen to anyone. She loves reading, painting, travelling, writing, and sharing her experience with anyone who will benefit from it.
QNET Women: “You Are Limitless!” says AVP Kalai
Associate V Partner Shipra
Before QNET, Associate V Partner Shipra was one half of a couple that lived a routine-filled and hectic life with no time for dreams. She worked six days a week and used the other day for chores and housekeeping, leaving no time for anything else. However, that all changed when she joined QNET and discovered a flexible lifestyle without compromising on life’s comforts or the opportunity to spend quality time with her kids. She finds success by focussing on her personal growth, and on constantly sharing best practices with her uplines and her team. She believes that you have to trust each other and believe in yourself to find success.
V Council Member Saly Fofana
From being on the cusp of a degree in Law, V Council Member Saly Fofana took the leap of faith and joined QNET when she found there was something missing in the original path laid out for her. She soon discovered a passion for entrepreneurship and running her own business. As one of the foremost leaders of QNET in Africa, V Council Member Saly has a dream that every household in Africa will have at least one QNET product, and works diligently towards it every single day. She is seen as a fantastic partner, associate, adviser, mentor, and friend by people around her.
V Council Member Ainash Zhumadilova
From being an accountant at the start of her career to now being an extremely successful QNET distributor, Ainash Zhumadilova has done it all. She is one of the big leaders and role models of QNET in Kazakhstan, and strives every day to achieve success by taking it one step at a time, instead of adopting shortcuts. She believes that direct selling is a business where women are treated just the same as men, and therefore success is solely based on one’s own efforts.
Zhanat Orazakhmetova
Swapping her life in the civil service for one in direct selling, Zhanat Orazakhmetova has made great strides in our Kazakhstan community, being living proof that success is all a matter of taking a chance despite your fear and roadblocks. Eight years ago, when she just started QNET, she remembered her hands trembling when she was writing about her dreams. Now, she’s seeing her dreams come true one at a time. Her strength comes from being in a strong team of like-minded IRs who all have each other’s backs and best interests at heart.
Today, QNET boasts of more than 160,000 women entrepreneurs who continue to overcome personal setbacks and various odds to scale the heights of success. They work hard, inspire others to take charge of their lives and serve as a role model to thousands of women around the world. They are at the heart of the QNET business. And we are proud to call them family. Happy Women’s Day, you rockstars!
