For Women Who Are Unapologetically Ambitious and Fiercely Informed

Last week I got real with you - more personal than usual. Thank you for the messages, the check-ins, and the love. My daughter is on the mend, and your support meant everything. As women, and especially as a single mother, I’m constantly reminded that we don’t do this alone. We can’t. The systems around us aren’t built to carry us, which means we must support each other. And when we do? It changes everything. This is why my conversation on the pod with Kari Chaudhry feels so important right now. Whether we’re talking about health, business, or money the common thread is this: too often, women navigate systems not designed for them, ask the wrong people for answers, and try to figure things out in isolation. Kari is building something different. Listen up!

With Love & Lady Business,
JJ

In today’s edition:
 — Kari Chaudhry: Building an Empire on Your Own Terms
— We’ve Been Asking the Wrong People for Money
— Stop Waiting to Be “Ready”

Kari Chaudhry: Building an Empire on Your Own Terms

If you’ve ever wondered why some women get funded and others don’t this episode is for you. Kari Chaudhry is an investor, strategist, and founder of Kari C. Advisory and the APEX Global Forum, where she works directly with founders, family offices, and global networks to structure deals, unlock capital, and build scalable businesses.
In other words, she sits on the side of the table most women are trying to get to. And she’s telling you exactly how it works.

In this episode, we get into:
— What investor readiness actually looks like and why most women aren’t getting funded
— How to position your business so capital actually flows to you
— The difference between being “a good business” and being fundable
— Why your brand is leverage and how to use it before you walk into any room
— Why we’ve been asking the wrong people for money and who to ask instead

If you’re building, raising, or thinking about money—this is one to listen to.
🎧Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

We’ve Been Asking the Wrong People for Money

Here's something Kari said that I so agree with and have been shouting for years: we've been conditioned to treat venture capital as the definition of "real" funding. And for most women-led businesses, that framing is costing us everything.
The data is brutal. Women receive a fraction of VC dollars. The rooms are wrong. The networks are wrong. The metrics they're optimizing for often don't match what we're building. And yet we keep walking into those rooms, perfecting our pitch decks, and wondering why we keep hearing no.
Kari runs a family office. And the first thing she'll tell you is: we are not VCs, and we don't think like VCs. That distinction matters more than most women founders realize — because it changes everything about who you should be pitching.

Let's start with the data, because the numbers are damning:

That 2% number has barely moved in a decade. And here's why: the VC model was built to fund a very specific kind of company — hypergrowth, winner-take-all, exits in 7–10 years. If your business doesn't fit that template, you're not a bad investment. You're just pitching the wrong room.

So what makes family offices different?
Family offices manage wealth for ultra-high-net-worth families — and unlike institutional VCs, they're often run by or for people who have actually built businesses themselves. They are operators first. That changes how they evaluate you, what they care about, and how they show up as partners.

Family offices also have something VCs rarely offer: real operating experience. When a family office partner sits across from you, there's a good chance they've run a P&L, managed a team, navigated a downturn. They're not just evaluating your deck — they're recognizing themselves in your story. That is a fundamentally different conversation.
How do you find them?

This is the hard part: family offices don't advertise. They don't have "apply here" buttons. You get in through relationships — which means your network, your advisors, your community, and yes, rooms like the APEX Global Forum that Kari built specifically to connect operators with aligned capital.
The pitch is also different. Family offices don't want to see your hockey stick slide first. They want to understand your business model, your values, your team, and your vision for what you're building over the long term. Lead with that.

Real talk: 
Stop auditioning for gatekeepers who weren't built to fund you. There is more capital available to women entrepreneurs right now than at any point in history — it's just not sitting where we've been trained to look.

This doesn't mean VC is always wrong for you. It means it shouldn't be your default — or your only option. The women who are winning the money game right now are the ones who've stopped treating VC as the only definition of legitimate funding.

Stop Waiting to Be “Ready”

One of the things Kari and I kept circling back to is how often women wait. We wait until we're more experienced, more credentialed, more prepared. We wait until conditions are perfect. We wait until someone gives us permission.

Here's the truth: the women who are winning right now — raising money, landing the deal, getting the seat — are not the most qualified. They're the most prepared to be seen. That's a different skill. It's a skill you can build. And it starts with deciding you're done waiting.

This week: identify one thing you've been "getting ready" to do. Then do it. Imperfectly. Out loud. Now.

Hi, I’m JJ

Since starting the Justice Dept, we have increased women's wealth by over $100MM in just over 5 years. Want to know what inspires me to do this work, other than making women money? My clients' surprised reaction when we manage to get them much better terms for themselves and their companies, whether via talent agreements, employment, severance, partnerships, asset sales or investments. They often admit that they never thought they could get that result. Not even hoped. This blows my mind. As we know at The Justice Dept. you are all worth everything you ask for and more. Reach out and we’ll show you how!
x TJD