Updated: February 21, 2022
shop Talk
Q&A: Bird & Bear owner pivoted from the corporate world to collective
Erin Reardon Defoyd, Owner The Bird & Bear Collective, in Holliston
By Sarah Connell Sanders
Erin Reardon Defoyd is the owner and operator of The Bird & Bear Collective, two workspaces in Medway and Holliston. The Medway outpost is a rustic New England barn, ideal for conferences, photoshoots, and events. By contrast, Bird & Bear’s downtown headquarters in Holliston functions as a cozy nest or den, where community members can gather for meetings, workshops, pop-ups, and productivity power hours. As a small business owner, Defoyd has forged her own path, leveraging powerful insights gleaned from more than a decade of corporate experience.
Have you always been interested in launching your own business?
I graduated college in 2002, which meant the fall of my senior year was 9/11. I use that for context because it changed my education trajectory and my career path. I was at Brandeis, and I planned to go to law school immediately after graduation. When the whole world got flipped upside down, I decided not to pursue law school right away. I wanted to go out and get some real world experience. For the next 15 years, I worked for professional services firm Marsh McLennan, first with Putnam Investments and then with Mercer. I started in a marketing assistant and business development role to gain some international and corporate experience.
What was your corporate trajectory?
I pretty much never had a job in my 15 years at Mercer that existed previously. Every job I worked was a role created for me. If we were going to launch an initiative to engage new customers, clients, or internal stakeholders, I was involved. I organized a lot of conferences, team building efforts, and large sales meetings.
During that time, I became a mom. I became very curious about what it meant to actually accelerate my career while being available for my kids. In 2008, the women's movement resulted in a conference boom. We started organizing women’s conferences in Boston and New York, and then we expanded to 60 chapters across the globe. In 2014, what began as a little effort to focus on gender equality, accelerating careers, work-life balance, and pay equity, broke off as an external brand called When Women Thrive. It was founded based on a piece of global research looking at the barriers to progression for women in the workplace. Eventually, When Women Thrive became my full-time job.
What made you decide to pivot from the corporate world and finally start your own business?
I decided to leave in 2018 as When Women Thrive became more and more commercialized. It felt like more of a marketing play. We had a brand backed by research and a team of passionate doers leading the charge, but we lacked authentic leaders at the top who were truly looking to break down barriers. Diversity and inclusion was a term being used to drive stock prices. I decided I really wanted to find a way to hold space for actual inclusion. It was starting to happen in our own backyard here on our farm.
How did you turn your backyard into a community space?
I married my high school sweetheart, and we had three kids. We bought a home in Medway with a barn. I'm telling you, this backyard barn is magic. We sacrificed square footage in the house for the barn because we knew we could truly open the doors and invite people into the barn from our family and our community as a gathering space.
We wanted to channel a country mindset and a rustic aesthetic. We told people, “When your kids leave the barn, they're probably gonna be a little filthy.” It’s a place where we very organically began smashing new groups together. In 2019, we formalized The Bird & Bear Collective as a place to nest, rest, explore, and soar. That's what I get to do every day.
I see you have expanded to two locations. What’s the space in downtown Holliston like?
Yes, a year ago we opened the doors at a new location. It's a space where we invite people in to exercise creativity, wellness, and leadership. If you need a workspace for workshops, pop-up events, or conversations, The Bird & Bear Collective provides that.
This interview was conducted and edited for length and clarity by WBJ contributor Sarah Connell Sanders.
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