S O C I A L R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y
Growing Gender Diversity
When our founder, Karen decided to start making rum, she knew the industry would be male dominated. Even with realistic expectations, some of what she found surprised and disheartened her. She had to fight to be taken seriously for her first decade in business. And women business owners continue to have difficulty accessing venture capital funds, bank financing, and other resources. Never one to back down, she set out to change that reality and create opportunity for women in distilling and the world of rum.
40% OF ENTREPRENEURS IN AMERICA ARE WOMEN
97.2% OF VENTURE CAPITAL GOES TO MEN
Creating gender diversity and a safe work enviroment.
The fact that female business owners receive less than 3% of venture capital in the US is stark enough on its own. But as Karen has observed, there are other forces at play that make the alcohol beverage industry a challenge for women.
For starters, they often have no generational mentorship, meaning their fathers and the generation before them rarely groomed them to be business owners.
Women in all positions also experience micro-aggressions in the workplace (often daily): being mistaken for someone with no clout, having to prove themselves before being taken seriously, and having to justify decisions more often than men.
Women in the industry also deal with inappropriate conduct from patrons and sexual harassment.
According to Toast author Cailey Lindberg, employee turnover in the restaurant industry hit a five-year high of 75% in 2018. Many of those are women looking for safer, more supportive workplace cultures.
From the beginning, Karen has been determined to keep these factors from stalling her own progress or the growth of Montanya Distillers. And she’s been committed to creating safe workplaces for women and opportunity across the industry.
150
FEMALE BARTENDERS IN THE U.S.
CRICA 1900
1970s
THE SUPREME COURT BAN WAS FINALLY CHALLENGED
87 Cents
WHAT WOMEN EARN FOR EVERY DOLLAR A MAN EARNS
1948
A SUPREME COURT RULING BANNED FEMALE BARTENDERS
60%
FEMALE MAKEUP OF U.S. BAR FORCE IN 2015
36.4%
GREATER RETURN IN FEMALE-LED COMPANIES
Statistics courtesy Toast. For a look at gender diversity at Montanya, see our 2020 Impact Report.
Empowering Women at Work
The Montanya staff is 82% female, and management is 100% female.
We have or have had women in every role in the business: President and CEO, Distilling, Marketing and Communications, Bartending, Serving—you name it, a woman has done it.
For Montanya, it’s important to empower women across all types of positions so our staff can grow their careers—and their lives—as they choose.
Creating a safe work environment has been equally important. We have a robust and enforceable policy on both sexual harassment and grievance reporting.
EVOLVING THE INDUSTRY
Women of the Vine & Spirits
In March of 2018, 60 women gathered at the American Distilling Institute annual conference.
It was an unprecedented moment, giving new female distillers access to industry veterans—who also happened to be women. They could talk distilling, fermentation, business and brand building, and even safety and compliance.
They met under the auspices of the Women’s Distillery Guild, of which Karen was a founding member and later led.
The group has since joined forces with the Women of the Vine & Spirits, recognizing strength in numbers.
Montanya Distillers is a proud corporate member of the group, which is dedicated to pushing the alcohol beverage industry to help all succeed.
